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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/19181-8.txt b/19181-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f8d7b91 --- /dev/null +++ b/19181-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2501 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 439, 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: Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 439 + Volume 17, New Series, May 29, 1852 + +Author: Various + +Editor: Robert Chambers and William Chambers + +Release Date: September 5, 2006 [EBook #19181] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EDINBURGH JOURNAL *** + + + + +Produced by Malcolm Farmer, Richard J. Shiffer and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. + + + + + + + + + + CHAMBERS' EDINBURGH JOURNAL + + CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, EDITORS OF 'CHAMBERS'S + INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE,' 'CHAMBERS'S EDUCATIONAL COURSE,' &c. + + + No. 439. NEW SERIES. SATURDAY, MAY 29, 1852. PRICE 1-1/2_d._ + + + + +THEREFORE AND BECAUSE. + + +A distinguished general-officer being appointed to a command in which +he would be called on to discharge judicial as well as military +duties, expressed to Lord Mansfield his apprehensions, that he would +execute his office but ill in the former respect, and that his +inexperience and ignorance of technical jurisprudence would prove a +serious impediment to his efficient administration of justice. 'Make +your mind perfectly easy,' said the great judge; 'trust to your native +good sense in forming your opinions, but beware of attempting to state +the grounds of your judgments. The judgment will probably be +right--the argument infallibly wrong.' + +This is a common case, especially with practical men, who rarely have +either leisure or inclination to recall the workings of their own +minds, or observe the intellectual process by which they have been +conducted to any conclusion. By what they are prone to consider as a +kind of instinct--if by chance they are philosophers, and delight in +what old Wilson, the essayist, calls 'inkhorn terms,' they designate +it 'intuition'--they arrive at a truth, but have no recollection +whatever of the road they travelled to reach it, and are able neither +to retrace their own steps nor indicate to another the way they came. +The poet, in describing and contrasting the intellectual +characteristics of the two sexes, attributes to the softer something +of this instinct as a distinguishing mental peculiarity, and seems to +consider it as somewhat analogous in its constitution to those animal +senses by means of which the mind becomes cognisant of external +objects, of their existence, their qualities, and their relations. In +his view, the reasoning process is vitally and essentially distinct, +as it is exercised by men and by women-- + + 'Her rapid mind decides while his debates; + She _feels_ a truth which he but calculates.' + +And certainly this is a very pretty, very poetical, and very +convenient way of accounting for a phenomenon that, if examined with +common care, suggests a solution more accurate and complete, if not +exactly so complimentary. In sober truth, a positive incapacity +clearly to point out the precise manner in which a conviction has been +formed, is one of the commonest of logical deficiencies, and no more +to be ascribed exclusively to the softer sex, than it is an attribute +of intellectual excellency in either. + +When, in Euripides's beautiful play, the untranslatable _Hippolylus_, +Phædra's nurse is made to conclude that certain men she refers to +cannot be otherwise than lax in their morals, _because_ they have +finished the roofs of their houses in a very imperfect manner, her +reasoning is inconsequential enough; but not more so than that of the +renowned French chancellor, Michael L'Hôpital, who, when employed in +negotiating a treaty between Charles IX. and our Elizabeth, insisted +on the well-known line of the Latin poet-- + + 'Et penitus toto divisos orbe Britannos,' + +as a _reason_ that Calais should not be returned to the English. The +connection between the premises and the conclusion was not more real +in one case than in the other. A learned member of the medical +profession, in an elaborate work on the climate and the people of +Malta, enjoins on the invalid a participation in the amusements of +cheerful society; and the propriety of his injunction few will be +disposed to dispute: they may well, however, marvel at the _reason_ he +assigns for such sensible advice--that, so far as invalids are +concerned, society has a direct tendency to promote cutaneous +perspiration! + +Cardinal de Retz severely reprehends the historians of his time for +their pedantic affectation of explaining and accounting for every +event they record--the motives that actuated this statesman, the +reasons which prompted that policy, the wherefore it was this +enterprise miscarried, or that undertaking brought to a successful +issue. It would not be difficult to furnish a lengthy catalogue of the +blunders historical writers have perpetrated through their overweening +addiction to this folly. Let two instances here suffice: When the +Roman Church, about the middle of the eleventh century, was +endeavouring to insure the celibacy of its priesthood, the married +clergy, who braved its censures and contemned its authority, became +known as _Nicolaites_; which name, grave writers assure us, was given +them in consequence of the active share Pope Nicholas II. had taken in +punishing their contumacy and effecting their suppression. The notion +that any sect or class of religionists should have borrowed its name +from that of its most zealous opponent and indefatigable persecutor, +is worthy only of those critics, so severely reprehended by +Quintilian, who professed to discover the etymon of the Latin word +_lucus_, a grove, in the substantive _lux_, light; and vindicated the +derivation on the ground, that in groves darkness usually prevailed. +The familiar expression of _lucus à non lucendo_, owes its birth to +this striking manifestation of critical sagacity. + +Again: a certain portion of the eastern and southern coast of England +was, in early times, denominated 'the Saxon Shore'--Littus +Saxonicum--and was, during the days of Roman supremacy, under the +government of a military court enjoying the appellative of _Comes +Littoris Saxonici_. Acute historical critics inform us, that this +tract was so denominated in consequence of its being open to the +aggressions of the Saxons; that, in short, it received its name from +its occasional invaders, and not from its permanent inhabitants. The +absurdity of this explanation is the greater, inasmuch as, on the +other side of the Channel, there was a large district bearing +precisely the same name, and settled entirely by adventurers, Saxon in +birth or by descent. This, one would have thought, would have +suggested to our English antiquaries a more probable explanation of +the name than that they adopted. The people of Genoa have, or had, in +speaking, a peculiar way of clipping or cutting short their syllables. +Their Italian has never been considered pure. You must not go to +maritime towns for purity of language, especially to such as have been +long and extensively engaged in commercial pursuits. Labat, however, +gives a special and peculiar reason for the fashion of mutilated +speech in which, he declares, the Genoese indulge, telling us they +call their superb city _Gena_, and not _Genoa_. He refers their +'chopping' pronunciation to their habitual economy--an economy +distinctly traceable to their mercantile habits. 'Telle est leur +économie,' he says, 'ils rognent tout jusqu'aux paroles.' + +The old English law-writer, Bracton, desiring to account for the +ancient doctrine of English law, that inheritances shall lineally +descend, and never lineally ascend, finds a reason in the fact, that a +bowl being trundled, runs down a hill and never up a hill; and +Littleton, the first great writer on English real property-law, traces +the origin of the phrase 'hotchpot'--a familiar legal term--to the +archaic denomination of a pudding, in our English tongue. 'It +seemeth,'he says, 'that this word, hotchpot, is in English a pudding; +for in this pudding is not commonly put one thing alone, and +_therefore_ it behoveth, in this case, to put the lands given in +frank-marriage,' &c. Erasmus used to say of lawyers, that of ignorant +people, they were the most learned. Questionless they are not always +sound logicians. When the clown in Hamlet disserts so learnedly on +'crowner's quest-law,' he is only parodying, and that closely, a +scarcely less ludicrous judgment which had actually been pronounced, +not long before, in the Court of Queen's Bench. Dr Clarke, the +traveller, tells an amusing story to the purpose. According to him, +the Turkish lawyers recognise as an offence what they style 'homicide +by an intermediate cause'--an instance of which offence our traveller +details in these words: 'A young man, desperately in love with a girl +of Stanchio--the ancient Cos, the birthplace of Hippocrates +and Apelles, the lovely isle renowned for its lettuces and +turpentine--eagerly sought to marry her. But his proposals were +rejected. In consequence, he destroyed himself by poison. The Turkish +police arrested the father of the obdurate fairy, and tried him for +culpable homicide. "If the accused," they argued, with becoming +gravity, "had not had a daughter, the deceased would not have fallen +in love; consequently, he would not have been disappointed; +consequently, he would not have died: but he (the accused) had a +daughter, and the deceased had fallen in love," &c. &c. Upon all these +counts he was called upon to pay the price of the young man's life; +and this, being eighty piastres, was accordingly exacted.' When the +amiable and gentle John Evelyn was in the Netherlands, a woman was +pointed out to him who had had twenty-five husbands, and was then a +widow; 'yet it could not be proved,' he says, that 'she had made any +of her husbands away, though the suspicion had brought her several +times to trouble.' However, the Dutch logicians made no difficulty of +the matter; and arguing, from the number of the woman's husbands, that +she could not be wholly innocent of their death, prohibited her from +marrying again--which, her addiction to matrimony being considered, +was perhaps, of all the 'troubles' she had undergone, by no means the +least. + +The logical faculty, which not only consists with the poetical, but is +invariably and necessarily associated with it, whenever the latter +exists in an advanced stage of development, is in no writer more +conspicuous as an intellectual characteristic than in Schiller. In +this respect he is not excelled even by Wordsworth himself; but Homer +sometimes snoozes, and Schiller's reasoning is not always +consequential: as, for instance, when he denies two compositions of +Ovid--the _Tristia_ and _Ex Ponto_--to be genuine poetry, on the +ground that they were the results not of inspiration, but of +necessity; just as if poetry were not a thing to be judged of by +itself; and as if one could not determine whether it were present or +absent in a composition, without knowing to what influences the author +was subjected at the time the composition was produced! + +Rousseau, in one of his moods of bilious cynicism, falls foul of human +reason altogether. No man despised it more in action; no one could +more consistently decry it in speculation. In his opinion, the +exercise of the reasoning powers is absolutely sinful--_l'homme qui +raisonne est l'homme qui péche_. Franklin, on the other hand, in a +familiar tone of playful banter, vindicates its utility, alleging that +it is mightily 'convenient to be a rational animal, who knows how to +find or invent a plausible pretext for whatever it has an inclination +to do.' Examples of this convenience abound. The Barbary Jews were +rich and industrious, and, accordingly, their wealth provoke the +cupidity of the indolent and avaricious Mussulmans. These latter, +whenever a long drought had destroyed vegetation, and the strenuous +prayers offered up in the mosques had proved unavailing for its +removal, were accustomed to argue--and a mighty convenient argument it +was--that it was the foul breath of the Jews that had offended Heaven, +and rendered the pious petitions of the faithful of none effect. The +remedy for the drought, then, who could doubt? The true believers +drove the Jews out of their cities, and quietly confiscated their +goods. Dryden, anxious to congratulate Charles II. on his 'happy +restoration,' amidst a thousand fulsome compliments--all tending to +shew that that prince was the author of blessings, not only to his own +kingdoms, but to universal humanity--declares, that it was to Charles, +and to him only, Spain was indebted for her magnificent colonial +possessions in either hemisphere. Addressing the sovereign, his words +are-- + + 'Spain to your gift _alone_ her Indies owes, + _For what the powerful takes not, he bestows_.' + +A convenient fashion of reasoning truly: as convenient every whit as +that of Daniel Burgess, a witty Presbyterian minister, devoted to the +House of Brunswick and the principles of the Revolution, who was wont +to affirm, as the reason the descendants of Jacob were called +Israelites, and did not receive the original name of their progenitor, +that Heaven was unwilling they should bear a name in every way so +odious as that of Jacobites. + +Once more: it appears from Dr Tschudi's valuable and interesting work +on South America, that in Peru rice is cheap, and servants both lazy +and dirty. Now, the servants in Lima have a theory about rice. They +consider it possesses certain qualities antagonistic to water, so +that, after eating, to touch water would be seriously injurious to +health; and thus does their frequent consumption of rice supply them +with a most convenient reason or excuse for their habitual abstinence +from an operation they detest--that of washing their hands. + +Verily, they are mighty fine and convenient words, THEREFORE and +BECAUSE. + + + + +DAVID'S LAST PICTURE. + + +The whole population of the good city of Brussels was in a state of +excitement. Talma, the great French tragedian, was that evening to +close his engagement by appearing in his favourite character of +Leonidas; and from an early hour in the morning, the doors of the +theatre were beset with waiting crowds, extending to the very end of +the large square in which it stood. It was evident that the building, +spacious as it was, could not contain one-half of the eager expectants +already assembled, and yet every moment brought a fresh accession to +the number destined to be disappointed. The hero of this ovation, and +the object of all this unusual excitement to the worthy and naturally +phlegmatic beer-drinkers of old Brabant, was standing near a window in +the White Cross Hotel, engaged most prosaically in shaving himself; +and, from time to time, casting on the crowd, to which he was the +magnet of attraction, the careless glance of a monarch become from +habit almost insensible to the loyal enthusiasm of his subjects. + +'So he will not come?' said the tragedian to an old friend who was +with him. 'He is a cynical old fool; and yet, I assure you, my dear M. +Lesec, that I had _Leonidas_ got up expressly for him, thinking to +tickle his old republican fancies, for to my mind it is as stupid a +play as _Germanicus_, though I contrive to produce an effect with some +of its high-sounding patriotic passages; and I thought the worthy +David would have recognised his own picture vivified. But he will not +come: he positively refused, you tell me. I might have known it. Age, +exile, the memory of the past--all this has cut him up terribly: he is +the David of the Consulate no longer.' + +'I am just come from him,' answered Collector Lesec: 'he received me +almost as Hermione receives Orestes in the fourth act of _Andromache_. +To say the least of it, he was somewhat tart. "I never go to the +theatre," he answered abruptly. "Tell my friend Talma, that I thank +him for his kindness; but I always go to bed at nine. I should be very +glad if he would come, before he left Brussels, and have a tankard and +a smoke with me."' + +'I see,' said Talma with a half-ironical smile, 'he is turned quite +Flemish. Poor fellow! to what has he come?--to smoking tobacco, and +losing all faith in art. Persecution does more harm than the +guillotine,' added the tragedian in a tone of bitterness. 'There is a +living death. David's exile has deprived us of many a _chef-d'oeuvre_. +I can forgive the Restoration for surrounding itself with nobodies, +but it need not banish our men of talent: they are not to be found +now-a-days in every corner. But enough. Another word, and we should be +talking politics.' + +Leonidas finished shaving like any other man; and then turned suddenly +to his friend: 'I bet you ten napoleons,' said he, 'that David would +have come to the play had I gone myself to him with the invitation! I +intended it, but I had not time; these rehearsals kill me--I might as +well be a galley-slave. However, I have about three-quarters of an +hour to myself now, and I will go beard the old Roman in his +stronghold. What say you to going with me?' + +It would have been difficult to name a place to which M. Lesec would +not have gone, to have the honour of being seen arm-in-arm with the +great Talma; and in another half hour they were on their way across +the Place de la Monnaie into the Rue Pierre Plate. + +'Now for a storm!' said Lesec. 'We are in for it: so be prepared. I +leave it all on your shoulders, noble sir, for I must keep clear of +him.' + +'Is he, then, so entirely changed?' exclaimed Talma, quickening his +pace. 'Poor exile! unhappy genius! torn from thy native soil, to +languish and die!' + +The visitors soon reached the large, though somewhat dilapidated +mansion of the celebrated artist; and after they had been reconnoitred +through a small grating by an old female servant, they were ushered +into a rather gloomy apartment, presenting a singular discrepancy +between its antique decorations and modern furniture. + +The illustrious exile came out of an adjoining apartment in his +dressing-gown, and advanced towards them with a quick yet almost +majestic step, though his form was slightly bent, apparently by age. +To Talma's great surprise, David received him most cordially, even +throwing away his usually inseparable companion, a long pipe, to grasp +both his hands. 'Welcome, welcome, my old friend!' he said; 'you could +not have come at a better time. I have not for many a day felt so +happy, and the sight of you is a great addition.' And the old painter +kept rubbing his hands, a token with him of exuberant satisfaction. + +Talma looked at Lesec as much as to say: 'The devil is not quite so +black as he is painted;' while the worthy collector only shrugged his +shoulders, and lifted his eyebrows in pantomimic expression of his +inability to comprehend such a sudden change in the atmosphere. + +'You must promise to come and dine with me to-morrow,' continued the +painter, accompanying his invitation with a smile, or rather a grin, +for David's face was very much disfigured by a wen on his cheek, which +also, by causing a twitching of the jaw, rendered his articulation +indistinct. + +'To my great regret, I am obliged to decline your invitation, my dear +friend,' said Talma. 'This is my last night here, and I must set off +for Paris to-morrow.' + +'Set off to-morrow!' + +'Positively. Michelet and Dumas have the whole management on their +shoulders, and are pressing my return; and Lemercier is only waiting +for me to read to us a sort of _Richard the Third_.' + +'Nevertheless, you dine with me to-morrow. One day longer will not +matter to them, and is a great matter to me. I suspect Lemercier's +_Richard the Third_ is cold enough to keep a little longer. I am to +have my friend Girodet with me; so dine with us you must. It will make +me grow young again, man, and bring back the happy meetings at +Moliker's, near the gate of the Louvre.' + +The illustrious exile accompanied this sentence with another of his +grim smiles. The actor was deeply moved by it, for in that bitter +smile he read how the artist pined for his country. 'I will stay with +you, I will stay with you, dear David!' now eagerly cried Talma. 'For +your sake, I will desert my post, and steal a holiday from my Paris +friends; but it can only be on condition that you, too, will make a +little sacrifice for me, and come this evening to see me in Leonidas.' + +'Well, I don't care if I do,' answered the painter, whom the sight of +one friend, and the expectation of seeing another, had made quite a +different being from the David of the morning. 'Here goes for +Leonidas; but, remember, I give you fair warning--I shall go to sleep. +I have scarcely ever been in a theatre that I did not take a sound +nap.' + +'But when Talma plays, plaudits will keep you awake, M. David,' said +the courtly M. Lesec; and this seasonable compliment obtained for him +a smile, and an invitation for the next day, so flattering to his +vanity that, even at the risk of compromising himself with the Prince +of Orange, he unhesitatingly accepted. + +That evening, between six and seven o'clock, the old French painter, +a Baron of the Empire, entered the theatre in full dress, and with a +new red ribbon in his button-hole; but, as if shrinking from notice, +he took his seat at the back of the stage-box, reserved for him by his +friend Talma, with M. Lesec by his side, prouder, more elated, +more frizzled and befrilled, than if he had been appointed +first-commissioner of finance. But notwithstanding all the care of the +modest artist to preserve his incognito, it was soon whispered through +the theatre that he was one of the audience; and it was not long +before he was pointed out, when instantly the whole house stood up +respectfully, and repeated cheers echoed from pit to vaulted roof. The +prince himself was among the first to offer this tribute to the +illustrious exile, who, confused, agitated, and scarcely able to +restrain his tears, bowed to the audience rather awkwardly, as he +whispered to M. Lesec: 'So, then, I am still remembered. I thought no +one at Brussels cared whether I was dead or alive.' + +Soon Talma appeared as Leonidas; and in his turn engrossed every eye, +every thought of that vast assembly. A triple round of applause hailed +every speech uttered by the generous Spartan. The painter of the +Sabines, of Brutus, of the Horatii, of the Coronation, seemed to heed +neither the noisy acclamations nor the deep silence that succeeded +each other. Mute, motionless, transfixed, he heard not the plaudits: +it was not Talma he saw, not Talma he was listening to. He was at +Thermopylæ by the side of Leonidas himself; ready to die with him and +his three hundred heroes. Never had he been so deeply moved. He had +talked of sleep, but he was as much alive, as eager, as animated, as +if he were an actual sharer in the heroic devotedness that was the +subject of the drama. For some moments after the curtain fell, he +seemed equally absorbed; it was not till he was out of the theatre, +and in the street, that he recovered sufficiently to speak; and then +it was only to repeat every five minutes: 'What a noble talent it is! +What a power he has had over me!' + +A night of tranquil sleep, and dreams of bright happy days, closed an +evening of such agreeable excitement to the poor exile; and so +cheering was its effect upon him, that he was up the next morning +before day, and his old servant, to her surprise, saw her usually +gloomy and taciturn master looking almost gay while charging her to +have breakfast ready, and to be sure that dinner was in every way +befitting the honoured guests he expected. + +'And are you going out, sir, and so early?' exclaimed the old woman; +now, for the first time, perceiving that her master had his hat on and +his cane in his hand. + +'Yes, Dame Rebecca,' answered David, as he gained the outer gate. 'I +have grown a great boy, and may be trusted to go alone.' + +'But it is scarcely daylight yet. None of the shops are open.' + +'I do not want to make any purchases.' + +'Then, where in the world can you be going, sir, at this hour?' + +'_Sacre bleu!_' returned the painter, losing all patience: 'could you +not guess, you old fool, that I am going as far as the Flanders-gate +to meet my old friend Girodet?' + +'O that, indeed! But are you sure he will come that way? And did he +tell you the exact time?' + +'What matter, you old torment? Suppose I have to wait a few minutes +for him, I can walk up and down, and it will be exercise for me, +which, you know, Dr Fanchet has desired me to take. Go along in, and +don't let the dinner be spoiled.' And the old man went on his way with +an almost elastic step. Once more was he young, gay, happy. Was he not +soon to see the friend dearer to him than all the world? But his +eagerness had made him anticipate by two hours the usual time for the +arrival of the diligence, and he was not made aware of his +miscalculation till after he had been a good while pacing up and down +the suburb leading to the Flanders-gate. The constant companion alike +of his studio and his exile, his pipe, he had left behind him, +forgotten in his hurry; so that he had no resource but to continue his +solitary walk, the current of his happy thoughts flowing on, +meanwhile, uninterrupted, save by an occasional greeting from +labourers going to their work, or the countrywomen hastening, as much +as their Flemish _embonpoint_ would allow, to the city markets. When +sauntering about alone, especially when waiting, we, like children, +make the most of everything that can while away the time, or give even +the semblance of being occupied: a flower-pot in a window, a parrot in +a cage, nay, even an insect flying past, is an absolute gain to us. +David felt it quite a fortunate chance when he suddenly caught sight +of a sign-painter carrying on his work in the open air. Though +evidently more of a whitewasher than a painter, yet, from the top of +his ladder, he was flourishing his brush in a masterly style, and at +times pausing and contemplating his work with as much complacency as +Gros could have done his wonderful cupola of Sainte-Geneviève. + +The painter of Napoleon passed the self-satisfied dauber twice, not +without some admiring glances at the way in which he was plastering +the background of his landscape with indigo, by way of making a sky. +At top of the sign, now nearly finished, was traced, in large +characters, 'Break of Day;' a precaution as indispensable to point out +the artist's design, as the inscription, 'Dutch and Flemish Beer,' was +to announce the articles dealt in by the owner of the house upon which +this masterpiece was to figure. + +'Here's a pretty fellow!' said the artist to himself; 'with as much +knowledge of perspective as a carthorse; and yet, I doubt not, +thinking himself a second Rubens. He brushes away as if he were +polishing a pair of boots. And what matter? Why should he not enjoy +himself in his own way?' But when he passed the ladder for the third +time, and saw a fresh layer of indigo putting over the first, his +patience could hold out no longer, and he exclaimed, without stopping +or even looking at the offender: 'There is too much blue!' + +'Eh! Do you want anything, sir?' said the sign-painter; but he who had +ventured the criticism was already at a distance. + +Again, David passed by. Another glance at the 'Break of Day,' and +another exclamation: 'Too much blue, you blockhead!' The insulted +plasterer turned round to reconnoitre the speaker, and as if +concluding, from his appearance, that he could be no very great +connoisseur, he quietly set to work again, shrugging his shoulders in +wonder how it could possibly be any business of his whether the sky +was red, green, or blue. For the fourth time the unknown lounger +repeated his unwelcome criticism: 'Too much blue!' + +The Brussels Wouvermans coloured, but said, in the subdued tone of a +man wishing to conceal anger he cannot help feeling: 'The gentleman +may not be aware that I am painting a sky.' By this time he had come +down from the ladder, and was standing surveying his work with one eye +closed, and at the proper distance from it to judge of its effect; and +his look of evident exultation shewed that nothing could be more +ill-timed than any depreciation of his labours. + +'It is because I suppose you do want to paint a sky, that for that +very reason I wished to give you this little piece of advice, and to +tell you that there is too much blue in it.' + +'And pray, Mr Amateur, when was there ever a sky seen without blue?' + +'I am no amateur; but I tell you once more, that there is too much +blue. And now do as you like; and if you do not think you have enough, +you can put more.' + +'This is entirely too bad!' cried the now exasperated sign-painter. +'You are an old fool, and know nothing of painting. I should like to +see you make a sky without blue.' + +'I do not say I am a good hand at a sky; but if I did set about it, +there should be no blue.' + +'A pretty job it would be!' + +'It would look like something, at all events.' + +'That is as much as to say mine is like nothing at all.' + +'No indeed, for it is very like a dish of spinach, and very like a +vile daub, or like anything else you please.' + +'A dish of spinach! a vile daub!' cried the artist of Brabant in a +rage. 'I, the pupil of Ruysdael--I, fourth cousin to Gerard Dow! and +you pretend to know more of my art than I do--an art I have practised +with such credit at Antwerp, Louvain, and Liege! A dish of spinach, +indeed!' And by this time the fury of the insulted painter had +increased to such a degree, that he seized David by the arm, and +shaking him violently, added: 'Do you know, you old dotard, that my +character has been long established? I have a red horse at Mechlin, a +stag at Namur, and a Charlemagne at Aix-la-Chapelle, that no one has +ever seen without admiring!' + +'This is beyond all patience,' said David; and suddenly extricating +himself from the man's grasp, and snatching his palette from him, he +was up the ladder in an instant, shouting: 'Wait awhile, and you shall +have yourself to admire, with your fool's pate and your ass's ears!' + +'Stop, stop, you villain!' roared the luckless artist, pale with +consternation. 'My splendid sign! A painting worth thirty-five francs! +I am ruined and undone!' And he continued shaking the ladder, and +pouring out a torrent of abuse upon David, who, caring neither for the +reproaches of his victim, nor for the crowd that the sudden clamour +had attracted, went on pitilessly effacing the 'Break of Day,' and +mingling in one confused mass sky and sun, and trees and figures; or +what was intended, at least, to represent them. And now--not less +rapid in creating than in destroying--and with the lightest possible +touch of his brush, the new sign-painter sketched and finished, with +magic rapidity, a sky with the gray tints of early dawn, and a group +of three men, glass in hand, watching the rising sun; one of these +figures being a striking likeness of the whitewasher, shewn at once by +his bushy eyebrows and snub-nose. + +The crowd, that had at first shewn every inclination to take the part +of their countryman against a stranger unfairly interfering with him, +now stood quietly watching the outlines as they shone through the +first layers of colour, and shouts of applause burst from them as the +figures grew beneath the creative hand of the artist. The +tavern-keeper himself now swelled the number of admirers, having come +out to ascertain the cause of the tumult; and even the fourth-cousin +of Gerard Dow felt his fury fast changing into admiration. + +'I see it all now,' he said to those nearest him in the crowd. 'He is +a French or Dutch sign-painter, one of ourselves, and he only wanted +to have a joke against me. It is but fair to own that he has the real +knack, and paints even better than I do.' + +The artist to whom this equivocal compliment was paid, was now coming +down from the ladder amid the cheers of the spectators, when a new +admirer was added to them in the person of a man who, mounted on a +fine English horse, seemed inclined to ride over the crowd in his +eagerness to get a good view of the painting. + +'That picture is mine!' he exclaimed; 'I will have it. I will buy it, +even if I have to cover it with guineas!' + +'What do you mean?' asked the tavern-keeper. + +'I mean, that I will give any price you choose to name for that sign,' +answered the stranger. + +'The picture is not to be sold, young man; I could not think of +parting with it,' said the whitewasher with as much paternal pride as +if it had been indeed his workmanship. + +'Certainly not,' said the vender of beer; 'for it has been already +sold, and partly paid for in advance. The picture is mine; and, though +not very anxious to dispose of it, yet, perhaps, we may come to some +understanding, and make a bargain.' + +'Not so fast,' said the dauber; 'the sign belongs to me, and my +brother-artist was only kindly giving me a helping-hand. It is my +lawful property; and if this gentleman wants to buy it, he must deal +with me for it.' + +'I tell you,' replied the tavern-keeper, 'that the "Break of Day" is +my property, as sure as it is now hanging in front of my house.' + +The dispute was waxing louder and louder, when David broke in: 'And am +I to go for nothing in the matter? Methinks I might be allowed a voice +in it.' + +'And a good right you have, brother,' said the sign-painter; 'and I am +sure you and I shall have no difference about it. But the open street +is no place for all this. We had better go into the house, and settle +the matter over a pot of beer.' + +David, wishing to escape the continually increasing crowd, consented +to the adjournment, which, however, had no effect upon the disputants, +and the contest waged more fiercely than ever; nor did the +Englishman's reiterated offers to give for the picture its weight in +gold tend to allay it. + +'But what will you say, if I won't let it be sold?' cried David, at +length losing all patience. + +'Ah, good sir,' said the tavern-keeper, 'you would not deprive a poor, +struggling man like me of this opening for getting a little ready +money to enable me to lay in a stock of beer. As for that +sign-painter, he is a drunken sot, who has left himself without as +much as a stiver to give his daughter, who ought to have been married +a year ago.' + +'Do not believe him, sir,' cried David's brother-artist. 'Every one +knows there is not a fonder father in the whole town; and more shame +to me if I were not, for never was there such a good daughter as my +dear, pretty Lizette. I have no money to give her, to be sure, but she +is betrothed to an honest fellow, who is glad to get her, poor as she +is. He is a young Frenchman, a cabinet-maker, and no better workman in +the whole city; and they are to be married whenever he has anything +saved.' + +'A good child, and a good workman, and only waiting for wherewithal to +live! This alters the matter entirely,' said David; 'and the young +couple shall have the picture. We leave it to this gentleman's +liberality to name the price he is willing to give for it.' + +'Illustrious artist,' said the Englishman, 'I rejoice in the decision +you have come to: Solomon himself could not have given a wiser one. As +for me, I have already offered a hundred guineas for the sign as it +stands; but I will give two hundred, if you will consent to inscribe +on it the two words "Pierre David."' + +The name was no sooner pronounced, than a cry of astonishment and +delight burst from all present; and the poor sign-painter, with tears +in his eyes, implored pardon for all his rudeness and presumption, and +poured out grateful thanks for the Master's kind intentions in favour +of the young couple. + +By this time the news had reached the crowd without, and was received +with repeated shouts, and cries of 'Long live David!' 'Long live the +prince of artists!' But the cheers became almost deafening, when the +pretty Lizette, having heard the wonderful story of a sign having been +painted that was to hasten her marriage, and give her a dowry of 200 +guineas, made her appearance, and, without a moment's hesitation, +threw her arms about the neck of her benefactor, who returned her +caresses most cordially; declaring that, all things considered, he did +not know any one who had a better right to a kiss from the bride. + +At this instant Talma, followed by Girodet and the collector, +hurriedly entered the tavern. Not finding David at his house, and +being told of his having left home very early, they became uneasy lest +some accident had befallen him, and set off in search of him. + +'Thank Heaven, we have found him!' said Girodet. + +'And very well employed, too, I declare,' cried Talma. 'If I could be +sure of meeting such a kind welcome from a pretty girl, I should not +mind getting up early myself!' + +'Bravo, bravo, my old friend!' said Girodet, as, after a warm embrace +from him, he turned to examine the picture: 'I never expected to hear +of your changing your style, and turning Flemish sign-painter. But it +is no shame for David to end as Rembrandt began.' + + + + +ADMIRAL BLAKE.[1] + + +A good biography is ever welcome; and if it be the biography of a good +and a great man, the cordiality of the _bienvenu_ is doubled. Mr +Prescott remarks,[2] that there is no kind of writing, having truth +and instruction for its main object, which, on the whole, is so +interesting and popular as biography: its superiority, in this point +of view, to history, consisting in the fact, that the latter has to +deal with masses--with nations, which, like corporate societies, seem +to have no soul, and whose chequered vicissitudes may be contemplated +rather with curiosity for the lessons they convey, than with personal +sympathy. Among contemporary biographers, Mr Hepworth Dixon has +already established for himself a name of some distinction by his +popular lives of William Penn and John Howard; nor will his credit +suffer a decline in the instance of the memoir now before us--that of +the gallant and single-minded patriot, Robert Blake. Of this fine old +English worthy, republican as he was, the Tory Hume freely affirms, +that never man, so zealous for a faction, was so much respected and +even esteemed by his opponents. 'Disinterested, generous, liberal; +ambitious only of true glory, dreadful only to his avowed enemies; he +forms one of the most perfect characters of the age, and the +least stained with those errors and vices which were then so +predominant.'[3] Yet hitherto the records of this remarkable man have +been scanty in matter, and scattered in form--the most notable being +Dr Johnson's sketch in the _Gentleman's Magazine_, and another in the +_Encyclopædia Britannica_. Mr Dixon has consulted several scarce +works, of genuine though obsolete authority, and a large mass of +original documents and family papers, in preparing the present able +and attractive memoir; not omitting a careful examination of the +squibs, satires, and broadsides of that time, in his endeavour to +trace, in forgotten nooks and corners, the anecdotes and details +requisite, as he says, to complete a character thus far chiefly known +by a few heroic outlines. We propose taking a brief survey of his +life-history of the great admiral and general at sea--the 'Puritan +Sea-King,' as Mr Dixon more characteristically than accurately calls +his hero. A sea-king he was, every inch of him; but to dub him +Puritan, is like giving up to party what was meant for British +mankind. To many, the term suggests primarily a habit of speaking +through the nose; and Blake had thundered commands through too many a +piping gale and battle blast for _that_. + +Robert Blake was born at Bridgewater, in August 1599. His father, +Humphrey Blake, was a merchant trading with Spain--a man whose temper +seems to have been too sanguine and adventurous for the ordinary +action of trade, finally involving him in difficulties which clouded +his latter days, and left his family in straitened circumstances: his +name, however, was held in general respect; and we find that he lived +in one of the best houses in Bridgewater, and twice filled the chair +of its chief magistrate. The perils to which mercantile enterprise was +then liable--the chance escapes and valorous deeds which the +successful adventurer had to tell his friends and children on the dark +winter nights--doubtless formed a part of the food on which the +imagination of young Blake, 'silent and thoughtful from his +childhood,' was fed in the 'old house at home.' At the Bridgewater +grammar-school, Robert received his early education, making tolerable +acquaintance with Latin and Greek, and acquiring a strong bias towards +a literary life. This _penchant_ was confirmed by his subsequent +career at Oxford, where he matriculated at sixteen, and where he +strove hard but fruitlessly for scholarships and fellowships at +different colleges. His failure to obtain a Merton fellowship has been +attributed to a crotchet of the warden's, Sir Henry Savile, in favour +of tall men: 'The young Somersetshire student, thick-set, fair +complexioned, and only five feet six, fell below his standard of manly +beauty;' and thus the Cavalier warden, in denying this aspirant the +means of cultivating literature on a little university oatmeal, was +turning back on the world one who was fated to become a republican +power of the age. This shining light, instead of comfortably and +obscurely merging in a petty constellation of Alma Mater, was to +become a bright particular star, and dwell apart. The avowed +liberalism of Robert may, however, have done more in reality to shock +Sir Henry, than his inability to add a cubit to his stature. It is +pleasant to know, that the 'admiral and general at sea' never outgrew +a tenderness for literature--his first-love, despite the rebuff of his +advances. Even in the busiest turmoil of a life teeming with accidents +by flood and field, he made it a point of pride not to forget his +favourite classics. Nor was it till after nine years' experience of +college-life, and when his father was no longer able to manage his +_res angusta vitæ_, that Robert finally abandoned his long-cherished +plans, and retired with a sigh and last adieu from the banks of the +Isis. + +When he returned to Bridgewater, in time to close his father's eyes, +and superintend the arrangements of the family, he was already +remarkable for that 'iron will, that grave demeanour, that free and +dauntless spirit,' which so distinguished his after-course. His tastes +were simple, his manners somewhat bluntly austere; a refined dignity +of countenance, and a picturesque vigour of conversation, invested him +with a social interest, to which his indignant invectives against +court corruptions gave distinctive character. To the Short Parliament +he was sent as member for his native town; and in 1645, was returned +by Taunton to the Long Parliament. At the dissolution of the former, +which he regarded as a signal for action, he began to prepare arms +against the king; his being one of the first troops in the field, and +engaged in almost every action of importance in the western counties. +His superiority to the men about him lay in the 'marvellous fertility, +energy, and comprehensiveness of his military genius.' Prince Rupert +alone, in the Royalist camp, could rival him as a 'partisan soldier.' +His first distinguished exploit was his defence of Prior's Hill fort, +at the siege of Bristol--which contrasts so remarkably with the +pusillanimity of his chief, Colonel Fiennes. Next comes his yet more +brilliant defence of Lyme--then a little fishing-town, with some 900 +inhabitants, of which the defences were a dry ditch, a few +hastily-formed earth-works, and three small batteries, but which the +Cavalier host of Prince Maurice, trying storm, stratagem, blockade, +day after day, and week after week, failed to reduce or dishearten. +'At Oxford, where Charles then was, the affair was an inexplicable +marvel and mystery: every hour the court expected to hear that the +"little vile fishing-town," as Clarendon contemptuously calls it, had +fallen, and that Maurice had marched away to enterprises of greater +moment; but every post brought word to the wondering council, that +Colonel Blake still held out, and that his spirited defence was +rousing and rallying the dispersed adherents of Parliament in those +parts.' After the siege was raised, the Royalists found that more men +of gentle blood had fallen under Blake's fire at Lyme, than in all the +other sieges and skirmishes in the western counties since the opening +of the war. The details of the siege are given with graphic effect by +Mr Dixon, and are only surpassed in interest by those connected with +Blake's subsequent and yet more celebrated defence of Taunton, to +which the third chapter of this biography is devoted. + +The hero's fame had become a spell in the west: it was seen that he +rivalled Rupert in rapid and brilliant execution, and excelled him in +the caution and sagacity of his plans. He took Taunton--a place so +important at that juncture, as standing on and controlling the great +western highway--in July 1644, within a week of Cromwell's defeat of +Rupert at Marston Moor. All the vigour of the Royalists was brought +to bear on the captured town; Blake's defence of which is +justly characterised as abounding with deeds of individual +heroism--exhibiting in its master-mind a rare combination of civil and +military genius. The spectacle of an unwalled town, in an inland +district, with no single advantage of site, surrounded by powerful +castles and garrisons, and invested by an enemy brave, watchful, +numerous, and well provided with artillery, successfully resisting +storm, strait, and blockade for several months, thus paralysing the +king's power, and affording Cromwell time to remodel the army, +naturally arrested the attention of military writers at that time; and +French authors of this class bestowed on Taunton the name of the +modern Saguntum. The rage of the Royalists at this prolonged +resistance was extreme. Reckoning from the date when Blake first +seized the town, to that of Goring's final retreat, the defence lasted +exactly a year, and under circumstances of almost overwhelming +difficulty to the besieged party, who, in addition to the fatigue of +nightly watches, and the destruction of daily conflicts, suffered from +terrible scarcity of provisions. 'Not a day passed without a fire; +sometimes eight or ten houses were burning at the same moment; and in +the midst of all the fear, horror, and confusion incident to such +disasters, Blake and his little garrison had to meet the +storming-parties of an enemy brave, exasperated, and ten times their +own strength. But every inch of ground was gallantly defended. A broad +belt of ruined cottages and gardens was gradually formed between the +besiegers and the besieged; and on the heaps of broken walls and burnt +rafters, the obstinate contest was renewed from day to day.' At last +relief arrived from London; and Goring, in savage dudgeon, beat a +retreat, notwithstanding the wild oath he had registered, either to +reduce that haughty town, or to lay his bones in its trenches. + +Blake was now the observed of all observers; but, unlike most of his +compeers, he abstained from using his advantages for purposes of +selfish or personal aggrandisement. He kept aloof from the 'centre of +intrigues,' and remained at his post, 'doing his duty humbly and +faithfully at a distance from Westminster; while other men, with less +than half his claims, were asking and obtaining the highest honours +and rewards from a grateful and lavish country.' Nor, indeed, did he +at any time side with the ultras of his party, but loudly disapproved +of the policy of the regicides. This, coupled with his influence, so +greatly deserved and so deservedly great, made him an object of +jealousy with Cromwell and his party; and it was owing, perhaps, to +their anxiety to keep him removed from the home-sphere of action, that +the hero of Taunton was now appointed to the chief naval command. + +Hitherto, and for years afterwards, no state, ancient or modern, as +Macaulay points out, had made a separation between the military and +the naval service. Cimon and Lysander, Pompey and Agrippa, had fought +by sea as well as by land: at Flodden, the right wing of the English +was led by her admiral, and the French admiral led the Huguenots at +Jarnac, &c. Accordingly, Blake was summoned from his pacific +government at Taunton, to assume the post of 'General and Admiral at +Sea;' a title afterwards changed to 'General of the Fleet.' Two others +were associated with him in the command; but Blake seems at _least_ to +have been recognised as _primus inter pares_. The navy system was in +deplorable need of reform; and a reformer it found in Robert Blake, +from the very day he became an admiral. His care for the well-being of +his men made him an object of their almost adoring attachment. From +first to last, he stood alone as England's model-seaman. 'Envy, +hatred, and jealousy dogged the steps of every other officer in the +fleet; but of him, both then and afterwards, every man spoke well.' +The 'tremendous powers' intrusted to him by the Council of State, he +exercised with off-handed and masterly success--startling politicians +and officials of the _ancien régime_ by his bold and open tactics, and +his contempt for tortuous bypaths in diplomacy. His wondrous exploits +were performed with extreme poverty of means. He was the first to +repudiate and disprove the supposed fundamental maxim in marine +warfare, that no ship could attack a castle, or other strong +fortification, with any hope of success. The early part of his naval +career was occupied in opposing and defeating the piratical +performances of Prince Rupert, which then constituted the support of +the exiled Stuarts, and which Mr Dixon refuses to interpret in such +mild colours as Warburton and others. Blake's utmost vigilance and +activity were required to put down this extraordinary system of +freebooting; and by the time that he had successively overcome Rupert, +and the minor but stubborn adventurers, Grenville and Carteret, he was +in request to conduct the formidable war with Holland, and to cope +with such veterans as Tromp, De Witt, De Ruyter, &c. Of the various +encounters in which he thus signalised himself, his biographer gives +most spirited descriptions, such as their length alone deters us from +quoting. On one occasion only did Blake suffer a defeat; and this one +is easily explained by--first, Tromp's overwhelming superiority of +force; secondly, the extreme deficiency of men in the English fleet; +and thirdly, the cowardice or disaffection of several of Blake's +captains at a critical moment in the battle. Notwithstanding this +disaster, not a whisper was heard against the admiral either in the +Council of State or in the city; his offer to resign was flatteringly +rejected; and he soon found, that the 'misfortune which might have +ruined another man, had given him strength and influence in the +country.' This disaster, in fact, gave him power to effect reforms in +the service, and to root out abuses which had defied all his efforts +in the day of his success. He followed it up by the great battle of +Portland, and other triumphant engagements. + +Then came his sweeping _tours de force_ in the Mediterranean; in six +months he established himself, as Mr Dixon says, as a power in that +great midland sea, from which his countrymen had been politically +excluded since the age of the Crusades--teaching nations, to which +England's very name was a strange sound, to respect its honours and +its rights; chastising the pirates of Barbary with unprecedented +severity; making Italy's petty princes feel the power of the northern +Protestants; causing the pope himself to tremble on his seven hills; +and startling the council-chambers of Venice and Constantinople with +the distant echoes of our guns. And be it remembered, that England had +then no Malta, Corfu, and Gibraltar as the bases of naval operations +in the Mediterranean: on the contrary, Blake found that in almost +every gulf and island of that sea--in Malta, Venice, Genoa, Leghorn, +Algiers, Tunis, and Marseilles--there existed a rival and an enemy; +nor were there more than three or four harbours in which he could +obtain even bread for love or money. + +After this memorable cruise, he had to conduct the Spanish war--a +business quite to his mind; for though his highest renown had been +gained in his conflicts with the Dutch, he had secretly disliked such +encounters between two Protestant states; whereas, in the +case of Popish Spain, his soul leaped at the anticipation of +battle--sympathising as he did with the Puritan conviction, that Spain +was the devil's stronghold in Europe. At this period, Blake was +suffering from illness, and was sadly crippled in his naval +equipments, having to complain constantly of the neglect at home to +remedy the exigencies of the service. 'Our ships,' he writes, +'extremely foul, winter drawing on, our victuals expiring, all stores +failing, our men falling sick through the badness of drink, and eating +their victuals boiled in salt water for two months' space' (1655.) His +own constitution was thoroughly undermined. For nearly a year, remarks +his biographer, 'he had never quitted the "foul and defective" +flag-ship. Want of exercise and sweet food, beer, wine, water, bread, +and vegetables, had helped to develop scurvy and dropsy; and his +sufferings from these diseases were now acute and continuous.' But his +services were indispensable, and Blake was not the man to shrink from +dying in harness. His sun set gloriously at Santa Cruz--that +miraculous and unparalleled action, as Clarendon calls it, which +excited such grateful enthusiasm at home. At home! words of +fascination to the maimed and enfeebled veteran,[4] who now turned his +thoughts so anxiously towards the green hills of his native land. +Cromwell's letter of thanks, the plaudits of parliament, and the +jewelled ring sent to him by his loving countrymen, reached him while +homeward bound. But he was not again to tread the shores he had +defended so well. + +As the ships rolled through the Bay of Biscay, his sickness increased, +and affectionate adherents saw with dismay that he was drawing near to +the gates of the grave. 'Some gleams of the old spirit broke forth as +they approached the latitude of England. He inquired often and +anxiously if the white cliffs were yet in sight. He longed to behold +once more the swelling downs, the free cities, the goodly churches of +his native land.... At last, the Lizard was announced. Shortly +afterwards, the bold cliffs and bare hills of Cornwall loomed out +grandly in the distance. But it was too late for the dying hero. He +had sent for the captains and other great officers of his fleet, to +bid them farewell; and while they were yet in his cabin, the +undulating hills of Devonshire, glowing with the tints of early +autumn, came full in view.... But the eyes which had so yearned to +behold this scene once more were at that very instant closing in +death. Foremost of the victorious squadron, the _St George_ rode with +its precious burden into the Sound; and just as it came into full view +of the eager thousands crowding the beach, the pier-heads, the walls +of the citadel, &c. ready to catch the first glimpse of the hero of +Santa Cruz, and salute him with a true English welcome--he, in his +silent cabin, in the midst of his lion-hearted comrades, now sobbing +like little children, yielded up his soul to God.' + +The corpse was embalmed, and conveyed to Greenwich, where it lay in +state for some days. On the 4th of September 1657, the Thames bore a +solemn funeral procession, which moved slowly, amid salvos of +artillery, to Westminster, where a new vault had been prepared in the +noble abbey. The tears of a nation made it hallowed ground. A prince, +of whom the epigram declares that, if he never said a foolish thing, +he never did a wise one--saw fit to disturb the hero's grave, drag out +the embalmed body, and cast it into a pit in the abbey-yard. One of +Charles Stuart's most witless performances! For Blake is not to be +confounded--though the Merry Monarch thought otherwise--with the +Iretons and Bradshaws who were similarly exhumed. The admiral was a +moderate in the closest, a patriot in the widest sense. + +In the chivalric disposition of the man, there was true affinity to +the best qualities of the Cavalier, mingled sometimes with a certain +grim humour, all his own. Many are the illustrations we might adduce +of this high-minded and generous temperament. For instance: meeting a +French frigate of forty guns in the Straits, and signaling for the +captain to come on board his flag-ship, the latter, considering the +visit one of friendship and ceremony, there being no _declared_ war +between the two nations--though the French conduct at Toulon had +determined England on measures of retaliation--readily complied with +Blake's summons; but was astounded, on entering the admiral's cabin, +at being told he was a prisoner, and requested to give up his sword. +No! was the surprised but resolute Frenchman's reply. Blake felt that +an advantage had been gained by a misconception, and scorning to make +a brave officer its victim, he told his guest he might go back to his +ship, if he wished, and fight it out as long as he was able. The +captain, we are told, thanked him for his handsome offer, and retired. +After two hours' hard fighting, he struck his flag; like a true French +knight, he made a low bow, kissed his sword affectionately, and +delivered it to his conqueror. Again: when Blake captured the Dutch +herring-fleet off Bochness, consisting of 600 boats, instead of +destroying or appropriating them, he merely took a tithe of the whole +freight, in merciful consideration towards the poor families whose +entire capital and means of life it constituted. This 'characteristic +act of clemency' was censured by many as Quixotic, and worse. But, as +Mr Dixon happily says: 'Blake took no trouble to justify his noble +instincts against such critics. His was indeed a happy fate: the only +fault ever advanced by friend or foe against his public life, was an +excess of generosity towards his vanquished enemies!' His sense of the +comic is amusingly evidenced by the story of his _ruse_ during a +dearth in the same siege. Tradition reports, that only one animal, a +hog, was left alive in the town, and that more than half starved. In +the afternoon, Blake, feeling that in their depression a laugh would +do the defenders as much good as a dinner, had the hog carried to all +the posts and whipped, so that its screams, heard in many places, +might make the enemy suppose that fresh supplies had somehow been +obtained. According to his biographer, never man had finer sense of +sarcasm, or used that weapon with greater effect--loving to find +expression for its scorn and merriment in the satires of Horace and +Juvenal; and thus in some degree relieving the stern fervour of +Puritan piety with the more easy graces of ancient scholarship. + +The moral aspects of his character appear in this memoir in an +admirable light. If he did not stand so high as some others in public +notoriety, it was mainly because, to stand higher than he did, he must +plant his feet on a _bad_ eminence. His patriotism was as pure as +Cromwell's was selfish. Mr Dixon alludes to the strong points of +contrast, as well as of resemblance, between the two men. Both, he +says, were sincerely religious, undauntedly brave, fertile in +expedients, irresistible in action. Born in the same year, they began +and almost closed their lives at the same time. Both were country +gentlemen of moderate fortune; both were of middle age when the +revolution came. Without previous knowledge or professional training, +both attained to the highest honours of the respective services. But +there the parallel ends. Anxious only for the glory and interest of +his country, Blake took little or no care of his personal +aggrandisement. His contempt for money, his impatience with the mere +vanities of power, were supreme. Bribery he abhorred in all its +shapes. He was frank and open to a fault; his heart was ever in his +hand, and his mind ever on his lips. His honesty, modesty, generosity, +sincerity, and magnanimity, were unimpeached. Cromwell's inferior +moral qualities made him distrust the great seaman; yet now and then, +as in the case of the street tumult at Malaga, he was fain to express +his admiration of Robert Blake. The latter was wholly unversed in the +science of nepotism, and 'happy family' compacts; for although +desirous of aiding his relatives, he was jealous of the least offence +on their part, and never overlooked it. Several instances of this +disposition are on record. When his brother Samuel, in rash zeal for +the Commonwealth, ventured to exceed his duty, and was killed in a +fray which ensued, Blake was terribly shocked, but only said: 'Sam had +no business there.' Afterwards, however, he shut himself up in his +room, and bewailed his loss in the words of Scripture: 'Died Abner as +a fool dieth!' His brother Benjamin, again, to whom he was strongly +attached, falling under suspicion of neglect of duty, was instantly +broken, and sent on shore. 'This rigid measure of justice against his +own flesh and blood, silenced every complaint, and the service gained +immeasurably in spirit, discipline, and confidence.' Yet more touching +was the great admiral's inexorable treatment of his favourite brother +Humphrey, who, in a moment of extreme agitation, had failed in his +duty. The captains went to Blake in a body, and argued that Humphrey's +fault was a neglect rather than a breach of orders, and suggested his +being sent away to England till it was forgotten. But Blake was +outwardly unmoved, though inwardly his bowels did yearn over his +brother, and sternly said: 'If none of you will accuse him, I must be +his accuser.' Humphrey was dismissed from the service. It is affecting +to know how painfully Blake missed his familiar presence during his +sick and lonely passage homewards, when the hand of death was upon +that noble heart. To Humphrey he bequeathed the greater part of his +property. + +In the rare intervals of private life which he enjoyed on shore, Blake +also compels our sincere regard. When released for awhile from +political and professional duties, he loved to run down to Bridgewater +for a few days or weeks, and, as his biographer says, with his chosen +books, and one or two devout and abstemious friends, to indulge in all +the luxuries of seclusion. 'He was by nature self-absorbed and +taciturn. His morning was usually occupied with a long walk, during +which he appeared to his simple neighbours to be lost in profound +thought, as if working out in his own mind the details of one of his +great battles, or busy with some abstruse point of Puritan theology. +If accompanied by one of his brothers, or by some other intimate +friend, he was still for the most part silent. Always good-humoured, +and enjoying sarcasm when of a grave, high class, he yet never talked +from the loquacious instinct, or encouraged others so to employ their +time and talents in his presence. Even his lively and rattling brother +Humphrey, his almost constant companion when on shore, caught, from +long habit, the great man's contemplative and self-communing gait and +manner; and when his friends rallied him on the subject in +after-years, he used to say, that he had caught the trick of silence +while walking by the admiral's side in his long morning musings on +Knoll Hill. A plain dinner satisfied his wants. Religious +conversation, reading, and the details of business, generally filled +up the evening until supper-time; after family prayers--always +pronounced by the general himself--he would invariably call for his +cup of sack and a dry crust of bread, and while he drank two or three +horns of Canary, would smile and chat in his own dry manner with his +friends and domestics, asking minute questions about their neighbours +and acquaintance; or when scholars or clergymen shared his simple +repast, affecting a droll anxiety--rich and pleasant in the conqueror +of Tromp--to prove, by the aptness and abundance of his quotations, +that, in becoming an admiral, he had not forfeited his claim to be +considered a good classic.' + +The care and interest with which he looked to the well-being of his +humblest followers, made him eminently popular in the fleet. He was +always ready to hear complaints and to rectify grievances. When +wounded at the battle of Portland, and exhorted to go on shore for +repose and proper medical treatment, he refused to seek for himself +the relief which he had put in the way of his meanest comrade. Even at +the early period of his cruise against the Cavalier corsairs of +Kinsale, such was Blake's popularity, that numbers of men were +continually joining him from the enemy's fleet, although he offered +them less pay, and none of that licence which they had enjoyed under +Prince Rupert's flag. They gloried in following a leader _sans peur et +sans reproche_--one with whose renown the whole country speedily +rang--the renown of a man who had revived the traditional glories of +the English navy, and proved that its meteor flag could 'yet terrific +burn.' + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] _Robert Blake: Admiral and General at Sea._ By Hepworth Dixon. +London: Chapman and Hall. 1852. + +[2] _Biographical and Critical Miscellanies._ + +[3] _History of Great Britain_, c. lxi. + +[4] He had been lamed for life, by a wound in the thigh, at the battle +of Portland, 1653. + + + + +SUMMER LODGINGS. + + +In the dominions of the Czar, the backs of the serfs suffer a weekly +titillation as insufferable, although not so deadly, as the less +frequent knout. When it comes to Wednesday, they begin to imagine that +they are not exactly comfortable; on Thursday, the natural moisture of +their skin seems fast drying up, and they are in an incipient fit of +the fidgets; on Friday, the epidermis cracks all over, or +makes-believe to do so; and on Saturday, the whole population, with a +shout of impatient joy, rush to the bath-house of the village, like a +herd of bullocks in the dog-days to the river, and boil themselves in +steam. When thoroughly done, they come out, beautifully plumped, as +the cooks say, and feeling fresh and vigorous, and as fit as ever they +were in their lives to encounter a new week of serfdom. + +An annual process analogous to this takes place in our own country. In +spring, we begin to look wistfully at the garden, to watch the opening +of the lettuces, and count the colours of the pansies. As the season +advances, we wander into the fields, examine curiously the thin grass, +and turn an admiring eye towards the green hills in the distance. As +May breaks upon us in sunlight, though the east wind is still chill, +we half persuade ourselves that this really _is_ the season of love +and sentiment; and when the month ripens into June, when the grass +beneath our feet actually deserves the name of a carpet, when the +trees are rich and umbrageous, when the birds are in full song, and +the roses in full blow--then the hitherto indefinite longing of our +heart acquires strength and purpose. The dry streets look unnatural; +the formal lines of houses offend the taste; the air is close and hot; +the younger children look pale, and their elder sisters languish. The +month is at length out, and we wonder how we have survived it. The +thing can no longer be borne: the town looks and breathes like a +pest-house; while hill-sides glimmer in our waking dreams, broad seas +stretch away till they are lost in the golden light-- + + 'And dying winds and waters near + Make music to the lonely ear:' + +still worse--everybody that is anybody is off to the country and the +sea, and we rush madly after. + +But the country? Where is the country? That is the puzzle. In our +youth, we knew many a quiet village, many a fine beach, many a +sheltered bay, where one might wander, or swim, or muse, or rusticate +in any way he chose. The village has grown into a town; the beach is +lined with villas; the bay swarms with vessels, and its shores with +population. Every eligible spot on the coast becomes the resort of +country-goers, till it is no longer the country. All local advantages +are taken advantage of, till they disappear. The citizen, charmed with +the countryness of the spot, builds his box by the water-side; the +speculator runs up lines of houses; a handsome inn rises in the midst; +and benevolent individuals hasten to the new centre of attraction, +loaded with every kind of commodity men stand in need of, and are +likely to buy. Here, in Scotland, on the Clyde, which is the grand +sanatorium of the east as well as the west country, this process of +change is remarkable. The once wildly beautiful shores, wherever there +is not a town or a village, are dotted with trim white villas, +glimmering here and there among the trees. The angles of the lochs, +where these diverge from the parent stream, are covered with houses. +The Gair Loch, which we remember as one of the sweetest mysteries of a +mountain lake whose banks ever echoed to the songs of poetry and love, +is a snug suburban retreat. The entrance of the Holy Loch, and of the +dark and awful Loch Long, are fortified against the spirit of nature +by groups of streets. At the heretofore quiet village of Dunoon, +slumbering at the foot of its almost obliterated castle, you might +lose yourself in the wilderness of new habitations. Gourock, on the +opposite side, where in our boyhood the fairies disported round the +Kempuck Stane, is a bustling town, with a suburb stretching along the +Clyde, nearly as long as the long town of Kirkaldy, on the Forth; and +at Largs, the barrows of the ancient Danes have become the cellars of +the sons of little men, who confine spirits in them, as the prophet +Solomon used to do, with a sealed cork. The once solitary island of +Cumbrae is the town of Milport; the hoary ruins of Rothsay Castle are +almost buried in a congeries of seaport streets and lanes; and, +smoking, sputtering, and flapping their water-wings, scores of +steamers ply in endless succession among these and a multitude of +other places of renown. + +All this, we may be told, is as it should be; a house is better than a +hut, and the conveniences of civilised life better than roughing it in +the desert: but we will not be comforted. Roughing it! that is just +what the smoke-dried citizen wants occasionally, to prevent his blood +from stagnating, and keep his faculties in working order. Physically, +at least, we are not half the men we were when we used to rumble, and +sometimes tumble, in stage-coaches, exposed to all the excitement and +adventures of a journey; or to get as sick as forty dogs, tossing +about whole days and nights in a sailing vessel. Then, when we landed, +how delightful were the miseries of a cottage; the makeshifts, the +squeezing, the dirt, the hunger--that veal-pie was _always_ left +behind!--the hunting of the neighbourhood for eggs for the children, +the compulsory abstinence for three days out of four from +butcher-meat, and the helpless dependence upon the chapter of +accidents for everything else! + +Now, we get into a railway carriage, or the cabin of a steamer, and +after taking a book or a nap for an hour or two, raise our heads, and +find ourselves, somehow or other, fifty miles off--in the country. The +country is a genteel house in a genteel street, or a nice villa in a +row of nice villas, where we are surrounded with all the conveniences +we enjoy at home. The very society is the same; for our friends, +Thomson and Smith, and the whole of that set, have brought their +families to the same place for summer lodgings--it is so agreeable to +be among one's acquaintances. Then we begin to enjoy ourselves: we +have conversation-parties, and dancing-parties, and balls, all the +same as at home. We enjoy our newspaper, as usual, in our comfortable +reading-room. In the morning, we take a stroll or a dip, or drink +water at the Wells, which, although undoubtedly nasty, is undeniably +wholesome. Then there is a steamer in sight, and we all hasten to the +pier, to ascertain if we know anybody on board. Then we dine early, +for one _must_ dine early in the country. Then we take a nap; then +another stroll; then there is another steamer to watch; then we drink +tea; then to the pier again. This time, the vessel's head is pointed +homewards; and as she breaks away from the land, we follow her with +our eyes till she is swallowed up in the distance. Then we turn away +with a sigh; go back to our lodgings; lounge into bed; and fall asleep +in the midst of the delightful sensation of having nothing to do, and +being in the country. + +All this _is_ delightful, no doubt; every bit as good as being at +home. Our aim, in fact, is to carry home with us--to feel as if we had +never left No. 24. The closer the resemblance between our country +lodgings and our town-house, the better we are off; for we then get +what we have come for--change of air--without any sacrifice of +comfort. + +But we doubt whether 'change of air' has so limited a meaning. +Hygienically speaking, it includes, we suspect, change of habits, +change of diet, change of company, change of thought. The miseries of +the old country lodgings were better for the health than the comforts +of the new. The very grumbling they gave rise to was a wholesome +exercise. The short allowance was worth a whole pharmacopoeia. The +ravenous appetite that fastened upon things common and unclean was a +glorious symptom. We came back strengthened in mind as well as body. +Our country sojourn had the effect of foreign travel in opening the +heart and expanding the intellect; it smoothed away prejudices and +upset conventionalities; and the ruddy glow of our sunburnt cheeks was +the external token of the healthy natural tone of the feelings within. +No; this passion for comfort and gentility in the wilderness, is a bad +sign of the generation: it bespeaks effeminacy of character, and a +vanity which, however graceful it may be thought in the town, shews +mean and ridiculous among the hills, and woods, and waters of the +country. + +Among our neighbours on the continent, the summer move is not so +universal as with us. In Paris, for instance, everything is considered +the country that is outside the barriers; and in the fine season, +every bourgeois family is outside the barriers at least once a +week--eating, drinking, dancing, and singing. Then there are the walks +in the Bois de Boulogne, and the picnics at St Cloud, and the +excursions to Versailles: wherever there is green turf and shady +trees, you hear the sounds of mirth and music rising in the clearest, +brightest atmosphere in the world. Thus a sojourn out of town is not a +necessity. They take change of air by instalments, and pass the summer +in a state of chronic excitement. + +In other parts of the world, the move is as entire as with us; and in +at least one instance, all classes of the population desert the cities +at the same time, and flock to the same sea-side. To be sure, this +sea-side is somewhat extensive, and there need be no more crowding +than is social and comfortable. An amusing account of the migration, +and of the summer lodgings of Central America is given in Mr Squier's +_Nicaragua_, recently published. The state of Nicaragua occupies that +part of the Isthmus lying between the lake of the same name and the +Pacific, the distance between being in some places only about fifteen +miles. In this narrow tract there are several large towns, such as +Grenada and Leon, which, in spite of the breath of the two oceans, get +smoke-dried by the time the dry season advances into March. Then comes +on the 'Paseo al mar,' or bathing-season, when a great portion of the +population, taken not merely from the upper classes, but from the +bourgeoisie and Indian peasantry, rush down to the shores of the +Pacific. 'At that time,' says Mr Squier, 'a general movement of carts +and servants takes place in the direction of the sea, and the +government despatches an officer and a guard, to superintend the +pitching of the annual camp upon the beach, or rather upon the +forest-covered sand-ridge which fringes the shore. Each family builds +a temporary cane-hut, lightly thatched with palm-leaves, and floored +with petates or mats. The whole is wickered together with vines, or +woven together basketwise, and partitioned in the same way, by means +of coloured curtains of cotton cloth. This constitutes the penetralia, +and is sacred to the _bello sexo_ and the babies. The more luxurious +ladies bring down their neatly-curtained beds, and make no mean show +of elegance in the interior arrangements of their impromptu dwellings. +Outside, and something after the fashion of their permanent +residences, is a kind of broad and open shed, which bears a very +distant relation to the corridor. Here hammocks are swung, the +families dine, the ladies receive visitors, and the men sleep.... The +establishments here described pertain only to the wealthier visitors, +the representatives of the upper classes. There is every intermediate +variety, down to those of the _mozo_ and his wife, who spread their +blankets at the foot of a tree, and weave a little bower of branches +above them--an affair of ten or a dozen minutes. And there are yet +others who disdain even this exertion, and nestle in the dry sand.' + +This kind of gipsying expedition to the sea in summer would hardly +suit the form of European, or at least British civilisation; but we do +not see why, in the one continent more than in the other, one's +country lodgings should be required to resemble a town-house. In the +Clyde, which we have mentioned as a resort for summer loiterers, there +is one exceptional place--the island of Arran. Here the Marquis of +Douglas has determined, with much good taste, that his property shall +not be vulgarised by the new style of country lodgings, and so far +from feuing the ground, he will not permit even a pier to be built for +the accommodation of visitors. The village, accordingly, is simply a +line of thatched cottages, which, in the fine season, are filled to +overflowing. A few houses of more pretension stand on the other side +of the bay; but, in general, no one sets his foot in Brodick who has +not made up his mind to rough it pretty much in the fashion of the +last generation. Sometimes, on the occasion of a holiday in Glasgow, +which is six hours' steaming distant, the village is flooded with a +moving population that can neither find house-room on the island nor +means of quitting it the same day. Then comes a scene of something +more than Mexican roughness. Shawls, cloaks, plaids, are the only +substitute for tents, and a bush or a tree the only shelter from the +summer wind. Such wandering companies are rarely short of provisions, +for they have a wholesome dread of Highland hunger; and hearty is the +feast and loud the merriment, as they sit thus, houseless and homeless +outcasts of the Clyde. The night comes on, neither dark nor +unpleasantly cold, and the trooping stars assemble in the heavens, and +look down on the slumbrous waters, as bright and new as they were seen +of old from the hill-tops of Chaldea. Higher swell the hearts of the +spectators for a time, till, yielding to the influence of the hour, +lower and lower sink their pulses of emotion, like the tide of the +lately panting deep. Their voices fall; their words are few and +whispered, then heard no more; the lights of the village disappear one +by one; the last door is heard to shut; there is silence on the earth. + +We never heard of anybody being the worse of this adventure, although +it is a kind of roughing we would not positively recommend to Miss +Laura Matilda, or any of her fair sisters. We would give _them_ a +thatched roof over their heads, a weather-tight room for their +slumbers, and a substantial wall between them and the couple of cows +that yield their warm milk in the morning. We would afford them a +homely sitting-room, with no temptation to keep them within doors for +a single moment, except during their brief and humble meals. We would +plant their tabernacle in some lonely place on a hillside, or on the +shores of a romantic loch, an hour's smart walk from any society they +are accustomed to at home. We would have them make acquaintances of +the said two cows; of both the dogs, even the surly one, which cannot +for some time understand who or what they are, or what business they +have there; of the hens, that present them with newly-laid eggs to +breakfast; of the five or six sheep, to whom they are evidently +objects of curiosity and admiration; of that sociable goat, which +accompanies the sheep to the hill like one of themselves; and more +especially of the little boy, who is proud of being called the herd; +and of the cotter and his old mother, and his wife and two young +daughters. We would insist upon their feeling a kindly interest in +these new friends, one and all; on their taking leave of them +individually when coming away; and on their carrying home with them an +impression which would sometimes, in the crowded street, or the hot +room, well suddenly up in their hearts like a fresh stream, or pass +across their cheeks like a breath of mountain air. + +Depend upon it, we lose much humanising feeling, much true refinement, +much of the poetry of life, in parting with the roughness of our +Summer Lodgings. + + + + +PAPER-MONEY AND BANKING IN CHINA. + + +The origin or prototype of so many of our European arts and customs +has been found in the 'central flowery land,' that it is not +surprising to hear of the Chinese having begun to use paper-money as +currency in the second century preceding the Christian era. At that +time, the coinage of the Celestials was of a more bulky and ponderous +nature than it is at the present day; and we may easily believe that a +people so cunning and ingenious, would contrive not a few schemes to +avoid the burden of carrying it about; as the man did, who scratched +the figure of an ox on a piece of leather, and went from door to door +with that until he had found a customer, leaving the animal, meantime, +at home in the stall. There was a deficiency, too, in the ways and +means of the government: money was never plentiful enough in the +imperial coffers. At last, to get out of the difficulty, it was +determined to try the effect of a paper-currency, and an issue was +made of assignats or treasury-warrants, which, being based on the +credit of the highest authorities, were regarded as secure; which +fact, with their facility of transfer, soon brought them into +circulation. Of course, a good deal of legislation was expended on the +measure, before it could be got to work satisfactorily, and it +underwent many fluctuations in its progress towards permanence. The +intestine wars to which China was exposed at that period, by +overturning dynasty after dynasty, led one government to disavow the +obligations of its predecessor, and the natural consequences of bad +faith followed. After circulating with more or less success for five +hundred years, the government paper-money disappeared. + +This happened under the Ming dynasty: the Manchus, who succeeded, +gave themselves no trouble to restore the paper-currency; on which the +trading portion of the community took the matter into their own hands, +and by the time that their Tatar conquerors were quietly settled in +their usurped authority, the merchants had revived the use of paper. +They were too sensible of its great utility not to make the attempt; +and since that time, they have gone on without any aid from the state, +developing their plans as experience suggested, and so cautiously as +to insure success. This result is, however, far below what has been +obtained by Europeans. In comparison with ours, the banking-system of +China is in a very primitive condition; theirs is extremely limited in +its application, each city restricting itself to its own method; and +while the means of intercommunication are imperfect, there is little +prospect of improvement. + +One example may be taken as an illustration of the whole; and we avail +ourselves of a communication made by Mr Parkes to the Royal Asiatic +Society on the paper-currency of Fuhchowfoo, for the substance of the +present article. As in other places, the system was started in the +city of Fuhchow by private individuals, who began by circulating among +each other notes payable on demand. As the convenience of such a +medium became apparent, the circulation was extended, and ultimately +offices were opened for the special purpose of issuing notes; but as +the only guarantee for their security was the character of those who +put them forth, the circulation remained comparatively trifling, until +their credit was recognised and established. Not till the first +quarter of the present century did the use of paper become extensive +or permanent; and now, everybody in Fuhchowfoo prefers notes to coin. + +As no licence is required, any one may commence the banking business, +and at first considerable mischief resulted from this liberty. +Speculators who forced their notes largely into circulation, not +unfrequently met with a reverse, with the usual consequences of +distress and embarrassment to their connection. Although this for a +time brought paper into disfavour, it has now recovered, and the great +competition is found to have the effect of mitigating the evils of +failure. Where so many are concerned, individual suffering must be +comparatively slight. The banks, moreover, are not banks of deposit; +the proprietors prefer not to receive deposits, so that private +parties run no risk of a great and sudden loss, beyond that of such +notes as they may hold at the time of a stoppage. On the other hand, +the usefulness of a bank is limited by this arrangement; there can be +no paying of cheques; but very few of the banking establishments can +transact business beyond the city or the department in which they may +be located, and seldom or never beyond the limits of the province. +Hence the convenience and safety of making payments at places remote +from each other, through the medium of a banker, is almost unknown in +China. + +Within certain limits, the large bankers undertake mercantile +exchanges; they also refine the sycee, or silver, for the receivers of +taxes. The government will take no silver under a standard quality; +the collector delivers his sycee to the banker, who weighs, refines, +and casts it into ingots, for a consideration, giving a receipt, which +is handed to the treasurer of the department, who calls for the amount +when required. + +The small banks transact their business on an extremely petty scale. +On first starting in business, their notes are seldom in circulation +above a few hours, and they have always to be watchful to avoid a +'run.' It is among this class that failures most frequently occur, the +time of the crash being the end of the year, owing to the demand for +specie which then arises. As a precautionary measure, some of them +mostly circulate the notes of the large banks, which do not return to +them as their own would. Their own are sure to come back once at least +in the twenty-four hours, as the large banks make a rule of sending +all petty bank-notes to their issuers every day, and exchanging them +for specie or larger notes. The petty establishments resort to various +expedients for the sake of profit; one is, to locate themselves in a +good situation: if far from a large bank, they charge a higher rate of +discount on notes presented for payment, than is charged by their more +powerful competitor; and the people who live in the neighbourhood +submit to this charge, rather than take the trouble of going to the +large bank. On the contrary, if the great and the small are near +together, the latter charge lower, and make their profit by placing +base coin among the strings of copper _cash_ which they pay to their +customers in exchange for notes. The inferior cash is manufactured for +the purpose, in the same way as Birmingham halfpence used to be for +distribution by the keepers of toll-gates. + +'Such petty chicanery is not viewed, as with us, in the light of an +offence, since, from the exceeding low value of the Chinese +cash--twenty-seven being only equivalent to a penny--those must be bad +indeed which will not pass current with the rest; and, accordingly, +the inferior sorts, when used in moderation, are accepted along with +the better in all the ordinary transactions of life. The profits of +these establishments must, therefore, be but slender--proportioned, +however, to the extent of their dealings; and some of the smallest +firms may not make more than half a dollar in the course of a day.' + +'The banking establishments in the city and suburbs of Fuhchow,' says +Mr Parkes, 'may be enumerated by hundreds. Most of them are naturally +very insignificant, and the circulation of their notes exceedingly +limited. Many of the outside notes will not pass current inside; and +are only convertible at the place of issue. Such branches as these +must be entirely superfluous, and might seriously inconvenience or +trammel the transactions of the higher ones; but, in order to guard +against encroachment from this direction, and as a self-protective +measure, several of the leading banks of known stability co-operate +with each other to keep up the value of their notes; and thus, by +holding a strong check on the issues of those minor parties, +effectually continue to regulate the whole system. There are thirty of +these establishments inside and outside the city, all reported to be +possessed of capital to the amount of from 500,000 to upwards of +1,000,000 dollars. + +'These latter establishments command the utmost confidence, and their +notes pass current everywhere and with everybody. They contribute +mutual support by constantly exchanging and continually cashing each +other's notes, which they severally seem to value as highly as their +own particular issues. This reciprocal and implicit trust must add +greatly to their solidity, and tend to prevent the possibility of +failure. The chief banker gained his high reputation by a voluntary +subscription, about thirty years ago, of no less than 100,000 dollars +to the government toward the repairs of the city walls and other +public works, for which he was rewarded with honorary official +insignia, and the extensive patronage or business of all the +authorities. These large banks are complete rulers of the +money-market; they regulate the rates of exchange, which are +incessantly fluctuating, and are known to alter several times in the +course of the day. The arrival or withdrawal from the place of specie +to the amount of a few thousands, has an immediate effect in either +raising or lowering the exchange. The bankers are kept most accurately +informed on the subject by some twenty men in their general employ, +whose sole business it is to be in constant attendance in the market, +and to acquaint the banks with everything that is going on, when they, +guided by the transactions of the day, determine and fix upon, between +themselves, the various prices of notes, sycee, and dollars. Their +unanimity on those points is very remarkable; and they are all deeply +impressed with the salutary conviction, that their chief strength +consists in the degree of mutual harmony that they preserve, and the +confidence they place in one another. These reporters are also very +useful to new arrivals, in affording them guidance on matters of +exchange, or in introducing them to the best bankers; and the +allowances that the stranger makes to them for their assistance, and +the banker for procuring him custom, constitute the gains of their +calling. They have also to report the prices of silver every morning +at the Magistracy, which, from its daily increasing value, has become +an object of especial attention.' Twenty years ago, much discontent +was expressed that silver, which had been worth 1000 cash per ounce, +rose to 1500; now it is over 2000, owing to the continuous drain of +the metal from the country. + +Still, with all this, failures are rare. The petty banks are most +liable to this reverse; and on such occasions, they generally contrive +to arrange the matter quietly among themselves; but the whole property +or lands belonging to the defaulters may be seized and sold to satisfy +the claims of the creditors: the dividend is usually from 10s. to 12s. +in the pound. Wilful fraud is seldom practised; the heaviest instance +known, was for 70,000 dollars; from the year 1843 to 1848, there were +but four bankruptcies, and three of these were for less than 6000 +dollars. The defaulters frequently escape punishment owing to the high +cost of prosecution. The large banks are safe; but at times, from +false or malicious reports, are exposed to a sudden 'run;' a great +crowd besets the doors when least expected, and numbers of vagabonds +seize the opportunity for mischief and plunder. These outbreaks grew +to such a pitch, that the magistrates now, whenever possible, hasten +to the threatened establishment, to repress violence by their presence +and authority. The rush, however, is so sudden, that before they can +arrive on the spot, the mob has improved its opportunity for +destruction, and disappeared. + +Forgery is not often attempted, probably because it does not pay, +owing to the fact of its being extremely difficult to circulate any +but notes of small value. The penalty for this offence is +transportation to a distance of three thousand _le_--about a thousand +miles; or imprisonment or flogging, according to circumstances. We +question if such an instance as the following ever occurred out of +China:--'A forger of some notoriety having been several times +prosecuted by the bankers, and with but little success, for he still +continued to carry on his malpractices, they conferred together, and +agreed _to take him into their pay_, making him responsible for any +future frauds of the kind. He continues to receive a stipend from them +at the present time, and is one of their most effective safeguards +against further imposition, as it devolves upon him to detect and +apprehend any other offender.' + +Most of the bank-notes are printed from copperplates, but some of the +petty dealers still use wooden blocks. They are longer and narrower +than ours, and have a handsomely engraved border, within which are +paragraphs laudatory of the ability or reputation of the firm. The +notes are of three kinds: for cash, dollars, and sycee. The first are +from 400 cash (1s. 3d. sterling), to hundreds of thousands, and are +largely circulated in all the smaller business transactions. The +dollar-notes, varying from a unit to 500, and, in some instances, to +1000, circulate among the merchants, their value continually +fluctuating with that of the price of the silver which they represent. +The sycee-notes are from one to several hundred _taels_ (ounces), and +are chiefly confined to the government offices, to avoid the trouble +and inconvenience of making payments in silver by weight. Whatever be +the value or denomination of the notes, the holder is at liberty to +demand payment of the whole whenever he pleases, and receives it +without abatement, as the banker makes his profit at the time of their +issue. When notes are lost, payment is stopped, as here, and they are +speedily traced, as it is the practice not to take notes of a high +value--say, 100 dollars--without first inquiring at the bank as to +their genuineness. But no indemnification is made for notes lost or +destroyed by accident. Promissory-notes are the chief medium of +interchange among merchants, who take ten days' grace on all bills, +except those on which is written the word 'immediate.' + +The rates of interest are, on lands and houses, from 10 to 15 per +cent.; on government deposits, which the people are made to take at +times against their will, 8 per cent.; on insurance of ships and +cargoes, owing to the risk from storms and pirates, from 20 to 30 per +cent.; on pawnbrokers' loans, 2 per cent. per month, or 20 per cent. +per annum. Five days' grace is allowed on pledges; and if goods be not +redeemed within three years, they are made over to the old clothes' +shops at a settled premium of 20 per cent. on the amount lent on them. +Pawnbrokers' establishments are numerous, and are frequented by all +classes, who pawn without scruple anything they may possess. The +banks, we are informed, 'keep up an intimate connection with the +pawnbrokers, who make and receive all their payments in notes for +copper cash, and will not take sycee, dollars, or dollar-notes--the +former, lest they should prove counterfeit, and the latter, on account +of the fluctuating value. They are very particular in passing the +bank-notes, and will accept only those of the large banks. A notice is +hung up in each shop, specifying what notes pass current with them; +and when the people go to redeem the articles they have pledged, as +they can present only those notes in payment, they have often to +repair previously to the bank where they are issued, to purchase them, +and, being at a premium, the banker thus gains his discount upon them. +Of such importance is this considered, that, without the support of +the pawnbrokers' connection, the business of a banker will always be +limited. Indeed, many of the banks keep pawnbrokers' shops also; and +the chief banker at Fuhchow is known to have opened no less than five +of these establishments. This is on account of the high interest paid +on pawnbrokers' loans.' + + + + +THINGS TALKED OF IN LONDON. + +_May, 1852._ + + +As May of last year was made memorable by the opening of the Great +Exhibition, so will the present month become famous for the pulling +down of the Crystal Palace. Parliament has decreed it, and there is an +end of the matter. If the people by and by find reason to complain of +the proceeding, they will have no one to blame but themselves; +because, had they spoken out as only a whole nation can speak, the +decision of the legislature would have been on the other side of the +question. We are promised, however, that it shall be re-erected on +some other site, and herein must solace ourselves for disappointment +at the removal, while waiting for the National Exhibition to be opened +at Cork, or that of the Arts and Manufactures of the Indian Empire +promised by the Society of Arts. Besides this, the present May will be +noteworthy in the annals of ocean steam-navigation: the steamers to +Australia are to commence their trips, as also those to Brazil and +Valparaiso. Who would have dreamed, twenty years ago, that the +redoubtable Cape Horn would, before a quarter century had expired, be +rounded by a steamer from an English port? Captain Denham is about to +sail in the _Herald_, to survey the islands of the great ocean, one +object being to find the best route and coaling-stations among the +islands for steamers from the Isthmus to Sydney. The vessel will carry +an interpreter, a supply of English seeds and plants, and a number of +articles, to serve as presents for the natives. Should this survey be +successful, and the United States' expedition to Japan produce the +effect anticipated, the vast solitudes of the Pacific will be erelong +continually echoing with the beat of paddle-wheels and the roar of +steam. Rapid intercommunication will bring about changes, whereat +politicians and ethnologists shall wonder. The Chinese still keep +pouring into California by shiploads of 200 or 300 at a time, where +they will perhaps learn that a year of Anglo-Saxondom is 'worth cycle +of Cathay.' We may regard as evidence of progress, that Loo-choo has +been visited by Captain Shadwell of the _Sphynx_; he was received with +great favour, and conducted to the royal city of Shooi, three miles +inland. Readers of Captain Basil Hall's pleasant account of the same +island will remember, that he was jealously forbidden to approach the +interior. Do the Loo-chooans want to conciliate an ally? If, as is +said, Japan is to become to the Americans what India is to us, we +shall have them for neighbours in the east, as we now have them in the +west. It will be an interesting event should England, America, and +Russia some day meet on the Asiatic continent. + +One good effect of railways, as you know, has been to cheapen coal, +and excite activity in heretofore dormant mining districts--results +which tell upon the trade in sea-borne coals. To meet this emergency, +a scheme is on foot for sending coal from the Tyne to the Thames in +steam-colliers, which, by their short and regular passages, shall +compete successfully with the railways. The experiment is well worth +trying, and ought to pay, if properly managed: meantime, our railways +will extend their ramifications. Looking for a moment at what is doing +in other parts of the world, it appears that there are at present 2000 +miles of railway in France, besides as much more which is to be +completed in four years. Portugal is only just beginning to think of +iron routes: a few wakeful people are trying to impress that backward +land with a sense of the advantages of rapid locomotion; and it is +shewn that, by a simple system of railways, Lisbon would be placed at +sixteen hours' distance from Madrid, forty-three from Paris, +fifty-three from Brussels, and fifty-seven from London. Would it not +be a comfort to be able to run away from the north-east monsoon, which +has so long afflicted us, to the orange groves on the banks of the +Tagus, in about two days and a half? A telegraph is about to +be carried from the Austrian States over the Splugen into +Switzerland--the Alps, it would appear, being no bar to the +thought-flasher. There is a project, too, for a regular and universal +dispatch of telegraph messages from all parts of the world. A mail and +telegraph route from the Mississippi across to San Francisco is talked +about. The proposer considers that post-houses might be erected at +every twenty miles across the American continent, in which companies +of twenty men of the United States' army might be stationed, to +protect and facilitate the intercommunication; news would then find +its way across in six or seven days. Should this scheme fail to be +realised, the Americans may content themselves with having nearly +11,000 miles of railway already open, and another 11,000 in progress. + +A beginning is made towards the abolition of the duty on foreign books +imported. Government have consented that certain learned societies, +and a number of scientific individuals, shall receive, duty free, such +scientific publications as may be sent to them from abroad. +Considering that the whole amount realised by the present customs' +charge is only L.8000, it is easy to believe that the authorities will +shortly have to abolish it altogether. Another question in which books +are concerned, is the dispute that has been going on for some time +among the fraternity of booksellers, as to whether a retailer shall be +allowed to sell books for any price he pleases, or not. Whether +'free-trade' or 'monopoly' is to prevail, will depend on the decision +of the arbitrators who have been chosen. Leaving out all the rest of +the kingdom, there are nearly 1000 booksellers in London; so the +subject is an important one. This number affords a notable datum for +comparison with other countries. In Germany, the number of booksellers +is 2651, of which 2200 are retailers, 400 publishers only, while 451 +combine the two. They are distributed--36 in Frankfort, 56 in +Stuttgart, 52 in Vienna, 129 in Berlin, 145 in Leipsic. The figures +are suggestive. Another fact may be instanced: in 1851 the number of +visits to the British Museum for reading was 78,419--giving an average +of 269 per day, the room having been open during 292 days. The number +of books consulted was 424,851, or 1455 daily. This is an agreeable +view of what one part of society is doing; but there is a reverse to +the picture, as shewn in a recently published parliamentary report, +from which it appears that in 1849 the juvenile offenders in England +numbered 6849--in Wales, 73--of whom 167 were transported; in 1850, +the numbers were respectively 6988, 82, 184, shewing an increase under +each head. Of the whole number in confinement last November, 169 were +under thirteen years of age, and 568 under sixteen: 205 had been in +prison once before, 90 twice, 49 three times, 85 four times and +upwards; 329 had lost one parent, 103 both parents; 327 could not +read, and 554 had not been brought up to any settled employment. These +facts may be taken as demonstrative of the necessity for multiplying +reformatory agricultural schools, such as have been established in +various parts of the continent with the happiest effects. + +Among the prizes just announced by the French Académie, is one for +'the best work on the state of pauperism in France, and the means of +remedying it,' to be adjudged in 1853. It is greatly to be wished that +some gifted mind would arise capable of taking a proper survey of so +grave a question, and bringing it to a practical and satisfactory +solution. Some people are beginning to ask, whether it would not be +better, with the proceeds of poor-rates, to send paupers to colonies +which are scant of labourers, rather than to expend the money in +keeping them at home. The Académie of Literature, too, has offered a +prize for an essay on the parliamentary eloquence of England--a +significant fact in a country where the legislature is not permitted +to be eloquent, and where forty-nine provincial papers have died since +the 2d of December. Coming again to science: the judicial _savants_ +have awarded a medal to Mr Hind for his discovery of some two or three +of the minor planets--an acknowledgment of merit which will not fail +of good results in more ways than one. + +Various scientific matters, which are deserving of a passing notice, +have come before the same learned body. Matteucci, who has been +steadily pursuing his electro-chemical labours, now states that with +certain liquids and a single metal he can form a pile, the +electro-magnetic and electro-chemical effects of which are much +greater than those obtained with the old piles of Volta and Wollaston, +and come nearer to those of the batteries of Bunsen and Grove. As yet, +he withholds the particulars, but they will shortly be forthcoming. M. +Dureau de la Malle, in remarks on the breeding of fish, a subject +which has of late occupied much attention in France, says, that he has +now discovered the reason 'why domestic servants in Holland and +Scotland, when taking a situation, stipulate that they shall not be +made to eat salmon more than three times a week;' it is, the insipid +taste of young salmon. It is safe to say, that however much M. de la +Malle may know about fish, he knows but little of the habits of the +countries to which he refers. M. Yvart mentions a fact that may be +useful to graziers--the breed of cattle has been improved in France by +the introduction of the Durham bull; but, as experience has shewn, it +is at the expense of certain qualities deemed essential on the other +side of the Channel. Here, we require meat as speedily as possible in +young animals for consumption in our great towns; there, the great +rural population use milk largely, and keep the animals longer before +they are killed. The quantity of milk, it appears, is materially +reduced in the Durham breed, and on this account M. Yvart suggests, +that it should not be too much encouraged. Then there is something +about dogs by Messrs Gruby and Delafond, who shew that the worms which +have long been known to exist in the larger blood-vessels of certain +dogs, are the parents of the almost innumerable _filaria_ or +microscopic worms, found circulating also in the veins. The number +generally in one dog is estimated at 52,000, though at times it is +more than 200,000; and being smaller than the blood-globules, the +creatures penetrate the minutest blood-vessels. They are met with on +the average in one dog in twenty-five, though most frequent in the +adult and old, and without distinction of sex or race. The examination +of the phenomenon is to be continued, with a view to ascertain whether +dogs infested with these blood-worms are subject to any peculiar +disease. + +More interesting is the account of a successful case of transfusion of +blood in the human subject, performed in presence of the ablest +surgeons of Paris. A woman was taken to the Hôtel Dieu reduced by +hemorrhage to the last stage of weakness, unable to speak, to open her +eyes, or to draw back her tongue when put out. The basilic vein was +opened, and the point of a syringe, warmed to the proper temperature, +was introduced, charged with blood drawn from the same vein in the arm +of one of the assistants. The quantity, 180 grammes, was injected in +2-1/2 minutes, after which the wound was dressed, and the patient +placed in a comfortable position. Gradually, the beatings of the pulse +rose from 130 to 138, and became firmer; the action of the heart +increased in energy; the eyes opened with a look of intelligence; and +the tongue could be advanced and withdrawn with facility, and regained +its redness. On the following day, there was a little delirium, after +which the pulse fell to 90, the signs of vitality acquired strength, +and at the end of a week the woman left the hospital restored to +health. Cases of successful transfusion are so rare, that it is not +surprising the one here recorded should have excited attention among +our physiologists. + +People inclined to corpulence may profit by M. Dancel's observations +on the development of fat. He says, that some of his patients, whose +obesity was a constant inconvenience and cause of disease, 'lost very +notably of their _embonpoint_ by a change in their alimentary +regimen--abstaining almost entirely from vegetables, feculent +substances, diminishing their quantity of drink, and increasing, when +necessary, their portion of meat.' On another, subject, M. Guérin +Méneville believes he has found a new cochineal insect (_Coccus fabæ_) +on the common bean, which grows wild in the south of France, and in +such abundance, that a considerable quantity may be collected in a +short time. The yield of colouring matter is of such amount, that a +project is talked of for cultivating the plant extensively. + +A communication has been made to the Geological Society at Paris by M. +de Hauslab, on a subject which has from time to time occupied the +thoughts of those who study the _physique_ of the planet on which we +live--namely, the origin of the present state of our globe, and its +crystal-like cleavage. After a few preliminary remarks about +mountains, rocks, dikes and their line of direction, he shews that the +globe presents the form approximately of a great octahedron +(eight-sided figure); and further, that the three axial planes which +such a form necessitates, may be described by existing circles round +the earth: the first being Himalaya and Chimborazo; starting from Cape +Finisterre, passing to India, Borneo, the eastern range of Australia, +New Zealand, across to South America, Caracas, the Azores, and so +round to Finisterre. The second runs in the opposite direction; +includes the Andes, Rocky Mountains, crosses Behring's Strait to +Siberia, thence to the Altaï, Hindostan, Madagascar, Cape Colony, and +ending again at the Andes of Brazil. The third, which cuts the two +former at right angles, proceeds from the Alps, traverses the +Mediterranean by Corsica and Sardinia to the mountains of Fezzan, +through Central Africa to the Cape, on to Kerguelen's Land, Blue +Mountains of Australia, Spitzbergen, Scandinavia, and completing +itself in the Alps, from whence it started. These circles shew the +limits of the faces of the huge crystal, and may be divided into +others, comprising forty-eight in the whole. The views thus set forth +exhibit much ingenuity; and when we consider that metals crystallise +in various forms, and native iron in the octahedral, there is much to +be said in their favour. + +We shall probably not be long before hearing of another gold field, +for Dr Barth writes from the interior of Africa, that grains of the +precious metal have been found in two rivers which flow into Lake +Tchad, and that the mountains in the neighbourhood abound with it. +Should the first discovery be verified by further explorations, gold +will be more abundant than it now promises to be, and Africa perhaps +the richest source of supply. Apropos of this continent, a French +traveller is about to prove from the results of a journey from the +Cape towards the equator, that the Carthaginian discoveries had been +pushed much further towards the south than is commonly supposed. + +Agassiz, who, as you know, has become a citizen of the United States, +has had the Cuvierian prize awarded to him for his great work on +fossil fishes--an honour approved by every lover of science. This +distinguished writer says, in his latest publications on fossil +zoology, that the number of fossil fishes distributed over the globe +is more than 25,000 species; of mammifera, over 3000; reptiles, over +4000; shells, more than 40,000; numbers which greatly exceed all +former calculation. Of other American items, there is one worthy the +notice of apiarians: some emigrants who sailed from Boston wished to +convey a hive of bees to the Sandwich Islands, where the industrious +insects have not as yet been introduced; all went well until the +vessel reached the tropics, and there the heat was so great as to melt +the wax of the combs, and consequently to destroy the bees. + +Lieutenant Hunt, of the American Coast Survey, states that +copper-plate engravings may be copied on stone; specimens are to +appear in the forthcoming report. To quote his description: 'A +copper-plate being duly engraved, it is inked, and an impression taken +on transfer-paper. A good paper, which wetting does not expand, is +needed, and a fatty coating is used in the process. The transfer-paper +impression is laid on the smooth stone, and run through a press. It is +then wetted, heated, and stripped off from the stone, leaving the ink +and fat on its face. The heated fat is softly brushed away, leaving +only the ink-lines. From this reversed impression on the stone, the +printing is performed just as in ordinary lithography. A good transfer +produces from 3000 to 5000 copies. Thus prints from a single +copper-plate can be infinitely multiplied, the printing being, +moreover, much cheaper than copper-plate.' + + + + +IN EXPECTATION OF DEATH.--CONSTANTIA. + + + When I was young, my lover stole + One of my ringlets fair: + I wept--'Ah no! Those always part, + Who having once changed heart for heart, + Change also locks of hair. + + 'And wonder-opened eyes have seen + The spirits of the dead, + Gather like motes in silent bands + Round hair once reft by tender hands + From some now shrouded head. + + 'If'---- Here he closed my quivering mouth, + And where the curl had lain, + Laid payment rich for what he stole:-- + Could I to one hour crush life's whole, + I'd live that hour again! + + My golden curls are silvering o'er-- + Who heeds? The seas roll wide; + When one I know their bounds shall pass, + There'll be no tresses--save long grass-- + For _his_ hands to divide; + + While I shall lie, low, deep, a-cold, + And never hear him tread: + Whether he weep, or sigh, or moan, + I shall be passive as a stone, + He living, and I--dead! + + And then he will rise up and go, + With slow steps, looking back, + Still--going: leaving me to keep + My frozen and eternal sleep, + Beneath the earth so black. + + Pale brow--oft leant against his brow: + Dear hand--where his lips lay; + Dim eyes, that knew not they were fair, + Till his praise made them half they were-- + Must all these pass away? + + Must nought of mine be left for him + Save the poor curl he stole? + Round which this wildly-loving _me_ + Will float unseen continually, + A disembodied soul. + + A soul! Glad thought--that lightning-like + Leaps from this cloud of doom: + If, living, all its load of clay + Keeps not my spirit from him away, + Thou canst not, cruel tomb! + + The moment that these earth-chains burst, + Like an enfranchised dove, + O'er seas and lands to him I fly, + Whom only, whether I live or die, + I loved, love, and shall love. + + I'll wreathe around him--he shall breathe + My life instead of air; + In glowing sunbeams o'er his head + My visionary hands I'll spread, + And kiss his forehead fair. + + I'll stand, an angel bold and strong, + Between his soul and sin; + If Grief lie stone-like on his heart, + I'll beat its marble doors apart, + To let Peace enter in. + + He never more shall part from me, + Nor I from him abide; + Let these poor limbs in earth find rest! + I'll live like Love within his breast, + Rejoicing that I died. + + + + +WATER. + + +Some four-fifths of the weight of the human body are nothing but +water. The blood is just a solution of the body in a vast excess of +water--as saliva, mucus, milk, gall, urine, sweat, and tears are the +local and partial infusions effected by that liquid. All the soft +solid parts of the frame may be considered as ever temporary +precipitates or crystallisations (to use the word but loosely) from +the blood, that mother-liquor of the whole body; always being +precipitated or suffered to become solid, and always being +redissolved, the forms remaining, but the matter never the same for +more than a moment, so that the flesh is only a vanishing solid, as +fluent as the blood itself. It has also to be observed, that every +part of the body, melting again into the river of life continually as +it does, is also kept perpetually drenched in blood by means of the +blood-vessels, and more than nine-tenths of that wonderful current is +pure water. Water plays as great a part, indeed, in the economy of +that little world, the body of man, as it still more evidently does in +the phenomenal life of the world at large. Three-fourths of the +surface of the earth is ocean; the dry ground is dotted with lakes, +its mountain-crests are covered with snow and ice, its surface is +irrigated by rivers and streams, its edges are eaten by the sea; and +aqueous vapour is unceasingly ascending from the ocean and inland +surfaces through the yielding air, only to descend in portions and at +intervals in dews and rains, hails and snows. Water is not only the +basis of the juices of all the plants and animals in the world; it is +the very blood of nature, as is well known to all the terrestrial +sciences; and old Thales, the earliest of European speculators, +pronounced it the mother-liquid of the universe. In the later systems +of the Greeks, indeed, it was reduced to the inferior dignity of being +only one of the four parental natures--fire, air, earth, and water; +but water was the highest--[Greek: udôr men ariston]--in +rank.--_Westminster Review_. + + + + +LOTTERY OF DEATH. + + +The Polish and German peasantry have given the authorities at Posen +considerable trouble by their inquiries respecting a 'Rothschild's +Lottery.' They have been led to believe, that the 'great Rothschild' +has been sentenced to be beheaded; but that he has been allowed to +procure a substitute, if he can, by lottery! For this purpose, a sum +of many millions is devoted, all the tickets to be prizes of 3000 +thalers each, except one; that fatal number is a blank; and whoever +draws it, is to be decapitated instead of the celebrated banker! +Notwithstanding the risk, the applicants for shares have been +numerous. [There is nothing surprising in the number of applications +for these shares. Every man who enters the army in wartime, takes out +a ticket in a similar lottery. In China, human life is of still less +account; for there it is easy for a condemned criminal, whose escape +the authorities are willing to connive at, to obtain a substitute, +who, for a sum of money, suffers death in his stead.] + + + + +A MAN FOR THE WORLD. + + +A successful merchant in New Zealand, a Scotchman, commenced business +with the following characteristic entry on the first page of his +ledger:--'Commenced business this day--with no money--little +credit--and L.70 in debt. Faint heart never won fair lady. Set a stout +heart to a stay (steep) brae. God save the Queen!' + + + * * * * * + + +_Just Published_, _Price 6d. Paper Cover_, + +CHAMBERS'S POCKET MISCELLANY: forming a LITERARY COMPANION for the +RAILWAY, the FIRESIDE, or the BUSH. + +VOLUME VI. + +To be continued in Monthly Volumes. + + * * * * * + +Printed and Published by W. and R. CHAMBERS, High Street, Edinburgh. +Also sold by W. S. ORR, Amen Corner, London; D. N. CHAMBERS, 55 West +Nile Street, Glasgow; and J. M'GLASHAN, 50 Upper Sackville Street, +Dublin.--Advertisements for Monthly Parts are requested to be sent to +MAXWELL & Co., 31 Nicholas Lane, Lombard Street, London, to whom all +applications respecting their insertion must be made. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 439, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EDINBURGH JOURNAL *** + +***** This file should be named 19181-8.txt or 19181-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/1/8/19181/ + +Produced by Malcolm Farmer, Richard J. 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May 29, 1852 + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + /*<![CDATA[*/ + + <!-- + body {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; + max-width: 40em;} + p {text-align: justify;} + p.center {text-align: center;} + p.right {text-align: right;} + blockquote {text-align: justify; font-size: 0.9em;} + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 {text-align: center;} + pre {font-size: 0.8em;} + .returnTOC {text-align: right; font-size: 70%;} + hr {text-align: center; width: 50%;} + html>body hr {margin-right: 25%; margin-left: 25%; width: 50%;} + hr.full {width: 100%;} + html>body hr.full {margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 0%; width: 100%;} + hr.short {text-align: center; width: 20%;} + html>body hr.short {margin-right: 40%; margin-left: 40%; width: 20%;} + .sc {font-variant: small-caps;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + .lowercase {text-transform: lowercase;} + sup {vertical-align: 0.25em;} + .note {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + span.pagenum {position: absolute; left: 1%; right: 91%; font-size: 8pt;} + .footnote {font-size: 0.9em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + .fnanchor {font-size: smaller; text-decoration: none; + vertical-align: 0.25em;} + .contents + {margin-left:30%; margin-right:10%; margin-bottom: 1em; text-align: left;} + .poem + {margin-left:20%; margin-right:10%; margin-bottom: 1em; text-align: left;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem span.i0 {display: block; margin-left: 0em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i1 {display: block; margin-left: 1em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + // --> + /*]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +Project Gutenberg's Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 439, 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: Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 439 + Volume 17, New Series, May 29, 1852 + +Author: Various + +Editor: Robert Chambers and William Chambers + +Release Date: September 5, 2006 [EBook #19181] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EDINBURGH JOURNAL *** + + + + +Produced by Malcolm Farmer, Richard J. Shiffer and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<h1>CHAMBERS' EDINBURGH JOURNAL</h1> + +<h2><a name="Contents" id="Contents">CONTENTS</a></h2> + +<div class="contents"> + +<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. --> +<p> +<a href="#THEREFORE_AND_BECAUSE"><b>THEREFORE AND BECAUSE.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#DAVIDS_LAST_PICTURE"><b>DAVID'S LAST PICTURE.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#ADMIRAL_BLAKE1"><b>ADMIRAL BLAKE.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#SUMMER_LODGINGS"><b>SUMMER LODGINGS.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#PAPER-MONEY_AND_BANKING_IN_CHINA"><b>PAPER-MONEY AND BANKING IN CHINA.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#THINGS_TALKED_OF_IN_LONDON"><b>THINGS TALKED OF IN LONDON.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#IN_EXPECTATION_OF_DEATH_CONSTANTIA"><b>IN EXPECTATION OF DEATH.—CONSTANTIA.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#WATER"><b>WATER.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#LOTTERY_OF_DEATH"><b>LOTTERY OF DEATH.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#A_MAN_FOR_THE_WORLD"><b>A MAN FOR THE WORLD.</b></a><br /> +</p> +<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. --> +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[pg 337]</a></span></p> + +<img src="images/banner.png" + width="100%" + alt="Banner: Chambers' Edinburgh Journal" /> + +<h4>CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, EDITORS OF 'CHAMBERS'S +INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE,' 'CHAMBERS'S EDUCATIONAL COURSE,' &c.</h4> + +<hr class="full" /> + +<table width="100%" + summary="Volume, Date and Price"> +<tr> +<td align="left"><b><span class="sc">No.</span> 439. <span class="sc">New Series.</span></b></td> +<td align="left"><b>SATURDAY, MAY 29, 1852.</b></td> +<td align="right"><b><span class="sc">Price</span> 1½<i>d</i>.</b></td> +</tr> +</table> + +<hr class="full" /> + + +<h2><a name="THEREFORE_AND_BECAUSE" id="THEREFORE_AND_BECAUSE"></a>THEREFORE AND BECAUSE.</h2> + +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of + Contents</a></p> + +<p>A distinguished general-officer being appointed to a command in which +he would be called on to discharge judicial as well as military +duties, expressed to Lord Mansfield his apprehensions, that he would +execute his office but ill in the former respect, and that his +inexperience and ignorance of technical jurisprudence would prove a +serious impediment to his efficient administration of justice. 'Make +your mind perfectly easy,' said the great judge; 'trust to your native +good sense in forming your opinions, but beware of attempting to state +the grounds of your judgments. The judgment will probably be +right—the argument infallibly wrong.'</p> + +<p>This is a common case, especially with practical men, who rarely have +either leisure or inclination to recall the workings of their own +minds, or observe the intellectual process by which they have been +conducted to any conclusion. By what they are prone to consider as a +kind of instinct—if by chance they are philosophers, and delight in +what old Wilson, the essayist, calls 'inkhorn terms,' they designate +it 'intuition'—they arrive at a truth, but have no recollection +whatever of the road they travelled to reach it, and are able neither +to retrace their own steps nor indicate to another the way they came. +The poet, in describing and contrasting the intellectual +characteristics of the two sexes, attributes to the softer something +of this instinct as a distinguishing mental peculiarity, and seems to +consider it as somewhat analogous in its constitution to those animal +senses by means of which the mind becomes cognisant of external +objects, of their existence, their qualities, and their relations. In +his view, the reasoning process is vitally and essentially distinct, +as it is exercised by men and by women—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Her rapid mind decides while his debates;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">She <i>feels</i> a truth which he but calculates.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>And certainly this is a very pretty, very poetical, and very +convenient way of accounting for a phenomenon that, if examined with +common care, suggests a solution more accurate and complete, if not +exactly so complimentary. In sober truth, a positive incapacity +clearly to point out the precise manner in which a conviction has been +formed, is one of the commonest of logical deficiencies, and no more +to be ascribed exclusively to the softer sex, than it is an attribute +of intellectual excellency in either.</p> + +<p>When, in Euripides's beautiful play, the untranslatable <i>Hippolylus</i>, +Phædra's nurse is made to conclude that certain men she refers to +cannot be otherwise than lax in their morals, <i>because</i> they have +finished the roofs of their houses in a very imperfect manner, her +reasoning is inconsequential enough; but not more so than that of the +renowned French chancellor, Michael L'Hôpital, who, when employed in +negotiating a treaty between Charles IX. and our Elizabeth, insisted +on the well-known line of the Latin poet—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Et penitus toto divisos orbe Britannos,'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>as a <i>reason</i> that Calais should not be returned to the English. The +connection between the premises and the conclusion was not more real +in one case than in the other. A learned member of the medical +profession, in an elaborate work on the climate and the people of +Malta, enjoins on the invalid a participation in the amusements of +cheerful society; and the propriety of his injunction few will be +disposed to dispute: they may well, however, marvel at the <i>reason</i> he +assigns for such sensible advice—that, so far as invalids are +concerned, society has a direct tendency to promote cutaneous +perspiration!</p> + +<p>Cardinal de Retz severely reprehends the historians of his time for +their pedantic affectation of explaining and accounting for every +event they record—the motives that actuated this statesman, the +reasons which prompted that policy, the wherefore it was this +enterprise miscarried, or that undertaking brought to a successful +issue. It would not be difficult to furnish a lengthy catalogue of the +blunders historical writers have perpetrated through their overweening +addiction to this folly. Let two instances here suffice: When the +Roman Church, about the middle of the eleventh century, was +endeavouring to insure the celibacy of its priesthood, the married +clergy, who braved its censures and contemned its authority, became +known as <i>Nicolaites</i>; which name, grave writers assure us, was given +them in consequence of the active share Pope Nicholas II. had taken in +punishing their contumacy and effecting their suppression. The notion +that any sect or class of religionists should have borrowed its name +from that of its most zealous opponent and indefatigable persecutor, +is worthy only of those critics, so severely reprehended by +Quintilian, who professed to discover the etymon of the Latin word +<i>lucus</i>, a grove, in the substantive <i>lux</i>, light; and vindicated the +derivation on the ground, that in groves darkness usually prevailed. +The familiar expression of <i>lucus à non lucendo</i>, owes its birth to +this striking manifestation of critical sagacity.</p> + +<p>Again: a certain portion of the eastern and southern coast of England +was, in early times, denominated 'the Saxon Shore'—Littus +Saxonicum—and was, during the days of Roman supremacy, under the +government of a military court enjoying the appellative of <i>Comes +Littoris Saxonici</i>. Acute historical critics inform us, that this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[pg 338]</a></span> +tract was so denominated in consequence of its being open to the +aggressions of the Saxons; that, in short, it received its name from +its occasional invaders, and not from its permanent inhabitants. The +absurdity of this explanation is the greater, inasmuch as, on the +other side of the Channel, there was a large district bearing +precisely the same name, and settled entirely by adventurers, Saxon in +birth or by descent. This, one would have thought, would have +suggested to our English antiquaries a more probable explanation of +the name than that they adopted. The people of Genoa have, or had, in +speaking, a peculiar way of clipping or cutting short their syllables. +Their Italian has never been considered pure. You must not go to +maritime towns for purity of language, especially to such as have been +long and extensively engaged in commercial pursuits. Labat, however, +gives a special and peculiar reason for the fashion of mutilated +speech in which, he declares, the Genoese indulge, telling us they +call their superb city <i>Gena</i>, and not <i>Genoa</i>. He refers their +'chopping' pronunciation to their habitual economy—an economy +distinctly traceable to their mercantile habits. 'Telle est leur +économie,' he says, 'ils rognent tout jusqu'aux paroles.'</p> + +<p>The old English law-writer, Bracton, desiring to account for the +ancient doctrine of English law, that inheritances shall lineally +descend, and never lineally ascend, finds a reason in the fact, that a +bowl being trundled, runs down a hill and never up a hill; and +Littleton, the first great writer on English real property-law, traces +the origin of the phrase 'hotchpot'—a familiar legal term—to the +archaic denomination of a pudding, in our English tongue. 'It +seemeth,'he says, 'that this word, hotchpot, is in English a pudding; +for in this pudding is not commonly put one thing alone, and +<i>therefore</i> it behoveth, in this case, to put the lands given in +frank-marriage,' &c. Erasmus used to say of lawyers, that of ignorant +people, they were the most learned. Questionless they are not always +sound logicians. When the clown in Hamlet disserts so learnedly on +'crowner's quest-law,' he is only parodying, and that closely, a +scarcely less ludicrous judgment which had actually been pronounced, +not long before, in the Court of Queen's Bench. Dr Clarke, the +traveller, tells an amusing story to the purpose. According to him, +the Turkish lawyers recognise as an offence what they style 'homicide +by an intermediate cause'—an instance of which offence our traveller +details in these words: 'A young man, desperately in love with a girl +of Stanchio—the ancient Cos, the birthplace of Hippocrates and +Apelles, the lovely isle renowned for its lettuces and +turpentine—eagerly sought to marry her. But his proposals were +rejected. In consequence, he destroyed himself by poison. The Turkish +police arrested the father of the obdurate fairy, and tried him for +culpable homicide. "If the accused," they argued, with becoming +gravity, "had not had a daughter, the deceased would not have fallen +in love; consequently, he would not have been disappointed; +consequently, he would not have died: but he (the accused) had a +daughter, and the deceased had fallen in love," &c. &c. Upon all these +counts he was called upon to pay the price of the young man's life; +and this, being eighty piastres, was accordingly exacted.' When the +amiable and gentle John Evelyn was in the Netherlands, a woman was +pointed out to him who had had twenty-five husbands, and was then a +widow; 'yet it could not be proved,' he says, that 'she had made any +of her husbands away, though the suspicion had brought her several +times to trouble.' However, the Dutch logicians made no difficulty of +the matter; and arguing, from the number of the woman's husbands, that +she could not be wholly innocent of their death, prohibited her from +marrying again—which, her addiction to matrimony being considered, +was perhaps, of all the 'troubles' she had undergone, by no means the +least.</p> + +<p>The logical faculty, which not only consists with the poetical, but is +invariably and necessarily associated with it, whenever the latter +exists in an advanced stage of development, is in no writer more +conspicuous as an intellectual characteristic than in Schiller. In +this respect he is not excelled even by Wordsworth himself; but Homer +sometimes snoozes, and Schiller's reasoning is not always +consequential: as, for instance, when he denies two compositions of +Ovid—the <i>Tristia</i> and <i>Ex Ponto</i>—to be genuine poetry, on the +ground that they were the results not of inspiration, but of +necessity; just as if poetry were not a thing to be judged of by +itself; and as if one could not determine whether it were present or +absent in a composition, without knowing to what influences the author +was subjected at the time the composition was produced!</p> + +<p>Rousseau, in one of his moods of bilious cynicism, falls foul of human +reason altogether. No man despised it more in action; no one could +more consistently decry it in speculation. In his opinion, the +exercise of the reasoning powers is absolutely sinful—<i>l'homme qui +raisonne est l'homme qui péche</i>. Franklin, on the other hand, in a +familiar tone of playful banter, vindicates its utility, alleging that +it is mightily 'convenient to be a rational animal, who knows how to +find or invent a plausible pretext for whatever it has an inclination +to do.' Examples of this convenience abound. The Barbary Jews were +rich and industrious, and, accordingly, their wealth provoke the +cupidity of the indolent and avaricious Mussulmans. These latter, +whenever a long drought had destroyed vegetation, and the strenuous +prayers offered up in the mosques had proved unavailing for its +removal, were accustomed to argue—and a mighty convenient argument it +was—that it was the foul breath of the Jews that had offended Heaven, +and rendered the pious petitions of the faithful of none effect. The +remedy for the drought, then, who could doubt? The true believers +drove the Jews out of their cities, and quietly confiscated their +goods. Dryden, anxious to congratulate Charles II. on his 'happy +restoration,' amidst a thousand fulsome compliments—all tending to +shew that that prince was the author of blessings, not only to his own +kingdoms, but to universal humanity—declares, that it was to Charles, +and to him only, Spain was indebted for her magnificent colonial +possessions in either hemisphere. Addressing the sovereign, his words +are—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Spain to your gift <i>alone</i> her Indies owes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>For what the powerful takes not, he bestows</i>.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>A convenient fashion of reasoning truly: as convenient every whit as +that of Daniel Burgess, a witty Presbyterian minister, devoted to the +House of Brunswick and the principles of the Revolution, who was wont +to affirm, as the reason the descendants of Jacob were called +Israelites, and did not receive the original name of their progenitor, +that Heaven was unwilling they should bear a name in every way so +odious as that of Jacobites.</p> + +<p>Once more: it appears from Dr Tschudi's valuable and interesting work +on South America, that in Peru rice is cheap, and servants both lazy +and dirty. Now, the servants in Lima have a theory about rice. They +consider it possesses certain qualities antagonistic to water, so +that, after eating, to touch water would be seriously injurious to +health; and thus does their frequent consumption of rice supply them +with a most<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[pg 339]</a></span> convenient reason or excuse for their habitual abstinence +from an operation they detest—that of washing their hands.</p> + +<p>Verily, they are mighty fine and convenient words, <span class="smcap">therefore</span> and +<span class="smcap">because</span>.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="DAVIDS_LAST_PICTURE" id="DAVIDS_LAST_PICTURE"></a>DAVID'S LAST PICTURE.</h2> + +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of + Contents</a></p> + +<p>The whole population of the good city of Brussels was in a state of +excitement. Talma, the great French tragedian, was that evening to +close his engagement by appearing in his favourite character of +Leonidas; and from an early hour in the morning, the doors of the +theatre were beset with waiting crowds, extending to the very end of +the large square in which it stood. It was evident that the building, +spacious as it was, could not contain one-half of the eager expectants +already assembled, and yet every moment brought a fresh accession to +the number destined to be disappointed. The hero of this ovation, and +the object of all this unusual excitement to the worthy and naturally +phlegmatic beer-drinkers of old Brabant, was standing near a window in +the White Cross Hotel, engaged most prosaically in shaving himself; +and, from time to time, casting on the crowd, to which he was the +magnet of attraction, the careless glance of a monarch become from +habit almost insensible to the loyal enthusiasm of his subjects.</p> + +<p>'So he will not come?' said the tragedian to an old friend who was +with him. 'He is a cynical old fool; and yet, I assure you, my dear M. +Lesec, that I had <i>Leonidas</i> got up expressly for him, thinking to +tickle his old republican fancies, for to my mind it is as stupid a +play as <i>Germanicus</i>, though I contrive to produce an effect with some +of its high-sounding patriotic passages; and I thought the worthy +David would have recognised his own picture vivified. But he will not +come: he positively refused, you tell me. I might have known it. Age, +exile, the memory of the past—all this has cut him up terribly: he is +the David of the Consulate no longer.'</p> + +<p>'I am just come from him,' answered Collector Lesec: 'he received me +almost as Hermione receives Orestes in the fourth act of <i>Andromache</i>. +To say the least of it, he was somewhat tart. "I never go to the +theatre," he answered abruptly. "Tell my friend Talma, that I thank +him for his kindness; but I always go to bed at nine. I should be very +glad if he would come, before he left Brussels, and have a tankard and +a smoke with me."'</p> + +<p>'I see,' said Talma with a half-ironical smile, 'he is turned quite +Flemish. Poor fellow! to what has he come?—to smoking tobacco, and +losing all faith in art. Persecution does more harm than the +guillotine,' added the tragedian in a tone of bitterness. 'There is a +living death. David's exile has deprived us of many a +<i>chef-d'œuvre</i>. I can forgive the Restoration for surrounding +itself with nobodies, but it need not banish our men of talent: they +are not to be found now-a-days in every corner. But enough. Another +word, and we should be talking politics.'</p> + +<p>Leonidas finished shaving like any other man; and then turned suddenly +to his friend: 'I bet you ten napoleons,' said he, 'that David would +have come to the play had I gone myself to him with the invitation! I +intended it, but I had not time; these rehearsals kill me—I might as +well be a galley-slave. However, I have about three-quarters of an +hour to myself now, and I will go beard the old Roman in his +stronghold. What say you to going with me?'</p> + +<p>It would have been difficult to name a place to which M. Lesec would +not have gone, to have the honour of being seen arm-in-arm with the +great Talma; and in another half hour they were on their way across +the Place de la Monnaie into the Rue Pierre Plate.</p> + +<p>'Now for a storm!' said Lesec. 'We are in for it: so be prepared. I +leave it all on your shoulders, noble sir, for I must keep clear of +him.'</p> + +<p>'Is he, then, so entirely changed?' exclaimed Talma, quickening his +pace. 'Poor exile! unhappy genius! torn from thy native soil, to +languish and die!'</p> + +<p>The visitors soon reached the large, though somewhat dilapidated +mansion of the celebrated artist; and after they had been reconnoitred +through a small grating by an old female servant, they were ushered +into a rather gloomy apartment, presenting a singular discrepancy +between its antique decorations and modern furniture.</p> + +<p>The illustrious exile came out of an adjoining apartment in his +dressing-gown, and advanced towards them with a quick yet almost +majestic step, though his form was slightly bent, apparently by age. +To Talma's great surprise, David received him most cordially, even +throwing away his usually inseparable companion, a long pipe, to grasp +both his hands. 'Welcome, welcome, my old friend!' he said; 'you could +not have come at a better time. I have not for many a day felt so +happy, and the sight of you is a great addition.' And the old painter +kept rubbing his hands, a token with him of exuberant satisfaction.</p> + +<p>Talma looked at Lesec as much as to say: 'The devil is not quite so +black as he is painted;' while the worthy collector only shrugged his +shoulders, and lifted his eyebrows in pantomimic expression of his +inability to comprehend such a sudden change in the atmosphere.</p> + +<p>'You must promise to come and dine with me to-morrow,' continued the +painter, accompanying his invitation with a smile, or rather a grin, +for David's face was very much disfigured by a wen on his cheek, which +also, by causing a twitching of the jaw, rendered his articulation +indistinct.</p> + +<p>'To my great regret, I am obliged to decline your invitation, my dear +friend,' said Talma. 'This is my last night here, and I must set off +for Paris to-morrow.'</p> + +<p>'Set off to-morrow!'</p> + +<p>'Positively. Michelet and Dumas have the whole management on their +shoulders, and are pressing my return; and Lemercier is only waiting +for me to read to us a sort of <i>Richard the Third</i>.'</p> + +<p>'Nevertheless, you dine with me to-morrow. One day longer will not +matter to them, and is a great matter to me. I suspect Lemercier's +<i>Richard the Third</i> is cold enough to keep a little longer. I am to +have my friend Girodet with me; so dine with us you must. It will make +me grow young again, man, and bring back the happy meetings at +Moliker's, near the gate of the Louvre.'</p> + +<p>The illustrious exile accompanied this sentence with another of his +grim smiles. The actor was deeply moved by it, for in that bitter +smile he read how the artist pined for his country. 'I will stay with +you, I will stay with you, dear David!' now eagerly cried Talma. 'For +your sake, I will desert my post, and steal a holiday from my Paris +friends; but it can only be on condition that you, too, will make a +little sacrifice for me, and come this evening to see me in Leonidas.'</p> + +<p>'Well, I don't care if I do,' answered the painter, whom the sight of +one friend, and the expectation of seeing another, had made quite a +different being from the David of the morning. 'Here goes for +Leonidas; but, remember, I give you fair warning—I shall go to sleep. +I have scarcely ever been in a theatre that I did not take a sound +nap.'</p> + +<p>'But when Talma plays, plaudits will keep you awake, M. David,' said +the courtly M. Lesec; and this seasonable compliment obtained for him +a smile, and an invitation for the next day, so flattering to his +vanity that, even at the risk of compromising himself with the Prince +of Orange, he unhesitatingly accepted.</p> + +<p>That evening, between six and seven o'clock, the old<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[pg 340]</a></span> French painter, +a Baron of the Empire, entered the theatre in full dress, and with a +new red ribbon in his button-hole; but, as if shrinking from notice, +he took his seat at the back of the stage-box, reserved for him by his +friend Talma, with M. Lesec by his side, prouder, more elated, more +frizzled and befrilled, than if he had been appointed +first-commissioner of finance. But notwithstanding all the care of the +modest artist to preserve his incognito, it was soon whispered through +the theatre that he was one of the audience; and it was not long +before he was pointed out, when instantly the whole house stood up +respectfully, and repeated cheers echoed from pit to vaulted roof. The +prince himself was among the first to offer this tribute to the +illustrious exile, who, confused, agitated, and scarcely able to +restrain his tears, bowed to the audience rather awkwardly, as he +whispered to M. Lesec: 'So, then, I am still remembered. I thought no +one at Brussels cared whether I was dead or alive.'</p> + +<p>Soon Talma appeared as Leonidas; and in his turn engrossed every eye, +every thought of that vast assembly. A triple round of applause hailed +every speech uttered by the generous Spartan. The painter of the +Sabines, of Brutus, of the Horatii, of the Coronation, seemed to heed +neither the noisy acclamations nor the deep silence that succeeded +each other. Mute, motionless, transfixed, he heard not the plaudits: +it was not Talma he saw, not Talma he was listening to. He was at +Thermopylæ by the side of Leonidas himself; ready to die with him and +his three hundred heroes. Never had he been so deeply moved. He had +talked of sleep, but he was as much alive, as eager, as animated, as +if he were an actual sharer in the heroic devotedness that was the +subject of the drama. For some moments after the curtain fell, he +seemed equally absorbed; it was not till he was out of the theatre, +and in the street, that he recovered sufficiently to speak; and then +it was only to repeat every five minutes: 'What a noble talent it is! +What a power he has had over me!'</p> + +<p>A night of tranquil sleep, and dreams of bright happy days, closed an +evening of such agreeable excitement to the poor exile; and so +cheering was its effect upon him, that he was up the next morning +before day, and his old servant, to her surprise, saw her usually +gloomy and taciturn master looking almost gay while charging her to +have breakfast ready, and to be sure that dinner was in every way +befitting the honoured guests he expected.</p> + +<p>'And are you going out, sir, and so early?' exclaimed the old woman; +now, for the first time, perceiving that her master had his hat on and +his cane in his hand.</p> + +<p>'Yes, Dame Rebecca,' answered David, as he gained the outer gate. 'I +have grown a great boy, and may be trusted to go alone.'</p> + +<p>'But it is scarcely daylight yet. None of the shops are open.'</p> + +<p>'I do not want to make any purchases.'</p> + +<p>'Then, where in the world can you be going, sir, at this hour?'</p> + +<p>'<i>Sacre bleu!</i>' returned the painter, losing all patience: 'could you +not guess, you old fool, that I am going as far as the Flanders-gate +to meet my old friend Girodet?'</p> + +<p>'O that, indeed! But are you sure he will come that way? And did he +tell you the exact time?'</p> + +<p>'What matter, you old torment? Suppose I have to wait a few minutes +for him, I can walk up and down, and it will be exercise for me, +which, you know, Dr Fanchet has desired me to take. Go along in, and +don't let the dinner be spoiled.' And the old man went on his way with +an almost elastic step. Once more was he young, gay, happy. Was he not +soon to see the friend dearer to him than all the world? But his +eagerness had made him anticipate by two hours the usual time for the +arrival of the diligence, and he was not made aware of his +miscalculation till after he had been a good while pacing up and down +the suburb leading to the Flanders-gate. The constant companion alike +of his studio and his exile, his pipe, he had left behind him, +forgotten in his hurry; so that he had no resource but to continue his +solitary walk, the current of his happy thoughts flowing on, +meanwhile, uninterrupted, save by an occasional greeting from +labourers going to their work, or the countrywomen hastening, as much +as their Flemish <i>embonpoint</i> would allow, to the city markets. When +sauntering about alone, especially when waiting, we, like children, +make the most of everything that can while away the time, or give even +the semblance of being occupied: a flower-pot in a window, a parrot in +a cage, nay, even an insect flying past, is an absolute gain to us. +David felt it quite a fortunate chance when he suddenly caught sight +of a sign-painter carrying on his work in the open air. Though +evidently more of a whitewasher than a painter, yet, from the top of +his ladder, he was flourishing his brush in a masterly style, and at +times pausing and contemplating his work with as much complacency as +Gros could have done his wonderful cupola of Sainte-Geneviève.</p> + +<p>The painter of Napoleon passed the self-satisfied dauber twice, not +without some admiring glances at the way in which he was plastering +the background of his landscape with indigo, by way of making a sky. +At top of the sign, now nearly finished, was traced, in large +characters, 'Break of Day;' a precaution as indispensable to point out +the artist's design, as the inscription, 'Dutch and Flemish Beer,' was +to announce the articles dealt in by the owner of the house upon which +this masterpiece was to figure.</p> + +<p>'Here's a pretty fellow!' said the artist to himself; 'with as much +knowledge of perspective as a carthorse; and yet, I doubt not, +thinking himself a second Rubens. He brushes away as if he were +polishing a pair of boots. And what matter? Why should he not enjoy +himself in his own way?' But when he passed the ladder for the third +time, and saw a fresh layer of indigo putting over the first, his +patience could hold out no longer, and he exclaimed, without stopping +or even looking at the offender: 'There is too much blue!'</p> + +<p>'Eh! Do you want anything, sir?' said the sign-painter; but he who had +ventured the criticism was already at a distance.</p> + +<p>Again, David passed by. Another glance at the 'Break of Day,' and +another exclamation: 'Too much blue, you blockhead!' The insulted +plasterer turned round to reconnoitre the speaker, and as if +concluding, from his appearance, that he could be no very great +connoisseur, he quietly set to work again, shrugging his shoulders in +wonder how it could possibly be any business of his whether the sky +was red, green, or blue. For the fourth time the unknown lounger +repeated his unwelcome criticism: 'Too much blue!'</p> + +<p>The Brussels Wouvermans coloured, but said, in the subdued tone of a +man wishing to conceal anger he cannot help feeling: 'The gentleman +may not be aware that I am painting a sky.' By this time he had come +down from the ladder, and was standing surveying his work with one eye +closed, and at the proper distance from it to judge of its effect; and +his look of evident exultation shewed that nothing could be more +ill-timed than any depreciation of his labours.</p> + +<p>'It is because I suppose you do want to paint a sky, that for that +very reason I wished to give you this little piece of advice, and to +tell you that there is too much blue in it.'</p> + +<p>'And pray, Mr Amateur, when was there ever a sky seen without blue?'</p> + +<p>'I am no amateur; but I tell you once more, that there is too much +blue. And now do as you like; and if you do not think you have enough, +you can put more.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[pg 341]</a></span></p> + +<p>'This is entirely too bad!' cried the now exasperated sign-painter. +'You are an old fool, and know nothing of painting. I should like to +see you make a sky without blue.'</p> + +<p>'I do not say I am a good hand at a sky; but if I did set about it, +there should be no blue.'</p> + +<p>'A pretty job it would be!'</p> + +<p>'It would look like something, at all events.'</p> + +<p>'That is as much as to say mine is like nothing at all.'</p> + +<p>'No indeed, for it is very like a dish of spinach, and very like a +vile daub, or like anything else you please.'</p> + +<p>'A dish of spinach! a vile daub!' cried the artist of Brabant in a +rage. 'I, the pupil of Ruysdael—I, fourth cousin to Gerard Dow! and +you pretend to know more of my art than I do—an art I have practised +with such credit at Antwerp, Louvain, and Liege! A dish of spinach, +indeed!' And by this time the fury of the insulted painter had +increased to such a degree, that he seized David by the arm, and +shaking him violently, added: 'Do you know, you old dotard, that my +character has been long established? I have a red horse at Mechlin, a +stag at Namur, and a Charlemagne at Aix-la-Chapelle, that no one has +ever seen without admiring!'</p> + +<p>'This is beyond all patience,' said David; and suddenly extricating +himself from the man's grasp, and snatching his palette from him, he +was up the ladder in an instant, shouting: 'Wait awhile, and you shall +have yourself to admire, with your fool's pate and your ass's ears!'</p> + +<p>'Stop, stop, you villain!' roared the luckless artist, pale with +consternation. 'My splendid sign! A painting worth thirty-five francs! +I am ruined and undone!' And he continued shaking the ladder, and +pouring out a torrent of abuse upon David, who, caring neither for the +reproaches of his victim, nor for the crowd that the sudden clamour +had attracted, went on pitilessly effacing the 'Break of Day,' and +mingling in one confused mass sky and sun, and trees and figures; or +what was intended, at least, to represent them. And now—not less +rapid in creating than in destroying—and with the lightest possible +touch of his brush, the new sign-painter sketched and finished, with +magic rapidity, a sky with the gray tints of early dawn, and a group +of three men, glass in hand, watching the rising sun; one of these +figures being a striking likeness of the whitewasher, shewn at once by +his bushy eyebrows and snub-nose.</p> + +<p>The crowd, that had at first shewn every inclination to take the part +of their countryman against a stranger unfairly interfering with him, +now stood quietly watching the outlines as they shone through the +first layers of colour, and shouts of applause burst from them as the +figures grew beneath the creative hand of the artist. The +tavern-keeper himself now swelled the number of admirers, having come +out to ascertain the cause of the tumult; and even the fourth-cousin +of Gerard Dow felt his fury fast changing into admiration.</p> + +<p>'I see it all now,' he said to those nearest him in the crowd. 'He is +a French or Dutch sign-painter, one of ourselves, and he only wanted +to have a joke against me. It is but fair to own that he has the real +knack, and paints even better than I do.'</p> + +<p>The artist to whom this equivocal compliment was paid, was now coming +down from the ladder amid the cheers of the spectators, when a new +admirer was added to them in the person of a man who, mounted on a +fine English horse, seemed inclined to ride over the crowd in his +eagerness to get a good view of the painting.</p> + +<p>'That picture is mine!' he exclaimed; 'I will have it. I will buy it, +even if I have to cover it with guineas!'</p> + +<p>'What do you mean?' asked the tavern-keeper.</p> + +<p>'I mean, that I will give any price you choose to name for that sign,' +answered the stranger.</p> + +<p>'The picture is not to be sold, young man; I could not think of +parting with it,' said the whitewasher with as much paternal pride as +if it had been indeed his workmanship.</p> + +<p>'Certainly not,' said the vender of beer; 'for it has been already +sold, and partly paid for in advance. The picture is mine; and, though +not very anxious to dispose of it, yet, perhaps, we may come to some +understanding, and make a bargain.'</p> + +<p>'Not so fast,' said the dauber; 'the sign belongs to me, and my +brother-artist was only kindly giving me a helping-hand. It is my +lawful property; and if this gentleman wants to buy it, he must deal +with me for it.'</p> + +<p>'I tell you,' replied the tavern-keeper, 'that the "Break of Day" is +my property, as sure as it is now hanging in front of my house.'</p> + +<p>The dispute was waxing louder and louder, when David broke in: 'And am +I to go for nothing in the matter? Methinks I might be allowed a voice +in it.'</p> + +<p>'And a good right you have, brother,' said the sign-painter; 'and I am +sure you and I shall have no difference about it. But the open street +is no place for all this. We had better go into the house, and settle +the matter over a pot of beer.'</p> + +<p>David, wishing to escape the continually increasing crowd, consented +to the adjournment, which, however, had no effect upon the disputants, +and the contest waged more fiercely than ever; nor did the +Englishman's reiterated offers to give for the picture its weight in +gold tend to allay it.</p> + +<p>'But what will you say, if I won't let it be sold?' cried David, at +length losing all patience.</p> + +<p>'Ah, good sir,' said the tavern-keeper, 'you would not deprive a poor, +struggling man like me of this opening for getting a little ready +money to enable me to lay in a stock of beer. As for that +sign-painter, he is a drunken sot, who has left himself without as +much as a stiver to give his daughter, who ought to have been married +a year ago.'</p> + +<p>'Do not believe him, sir,' cried David's brother-artist. 'Every one +knows there is not a fonder father in the whole town; and more shame +to me if I were not, for never was there such a good daughter as my +dear, pretty Lizette. I have no money to give her, to be sure, but she +is betrothed to an honest fellow, who is glad to get her, poor as she +is. He is a young Frenchman, a cabinet-maker, and no better workman in +the whole city; and they are to be married whenever he has anything +saved.'</p> + +<p>'A good child, and a good workman, and only waiting for wherewithal to +live! This alters the matter entirely,' said David; 'and the young +couple shall have the picture. We leave it to this gentleman's +liberality to name the price he is willing to give for it.'</p> + +<p>'Illustrious artist,' said the Englishman, 'I rejoice in the decision +you have come to: Solomon himself could not have given a wiser one. As +for me, I have already offered a hundred guineas for the sign as it +stands; but I will give two hundred, if you will consent to inscribe +on it the two words "Pierre David."'</p> + +<p>The name was no sooner pronounced, than a cry of astonishment and +delight burst from all present; and the poor sign-painter, with tears +in his eyes, implored pardon for all his rudeness and presumption, and +poured out grateful thanks for the Master's kind intentions in favour +of the young couple.</p> + +<p>By this time the news had reached the crowd without, and was received +with repeated shouts, and cries of 'Long live David!' 'Long live the +prince of artists!' But the cheers became almost deafening, when the +pretty Lizette, having heard the wonderful story of a sign having been +painted that was to hasten her marriage, and give her a dowry of 200 +guineas, made her appearance, and, without a moment's hesitation, +threw her arms about the neck of her benefactor, who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[pg 342]</a></span> returned her +caresses most cordially; declaring that, all things considered, he did +not know any one who had a better right to a kiss from the bride.</p> + +<p>At this instant Talma, followed by Girodet and the collector, +hurriedly entered the tavern. Not finding David at his house, and +being told of his having left home very early, they became uneasy lest +some accident had befallen him, and set off in search of him.</p> + +<p>'Thank Heaven, we have found him!' said Girodet.</p> + +<p>'And very well employed, too, I declare,' cried Talma. 'If I could be +sure of meeting such a kind welcome from a pretty girl, I should not +mind getting up early myself!'</p> + +<p>'Bravo, bravo, my old friend!' said Girodet, as, after a warm embrace +from him, he turned to examine the picture: 'I never expected to hear +of your changing your style, and turning Flemish sign-painter. But it +is no shame for David to end as Rembrandt began.'</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="ADMIRAL_BLAKE1" id="ADMIRAL_BLAKE1"></a>ADMIRAL BLAKE.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></h2> + +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of + Contents</a></p> + +<p>A good biography is ever welcome; and if it be the biography of a good +and a great man, the cordiality of the <i>bienvenu</i> is doubled. Mr +Prescott remarks,<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> that there is no kind of writing, having truth +and instruction for its main object, which, on the whole, is so +interesting and popular as biography: its superiority, in this point +of view, to history, consisting in the fact, that the latter has to +deal with masses—with nations, which, like corporate societies, seem +to have no soul, and whose chequered vicissitudes may be contemplated +rather with curiosity for the lessons they convey, than with personal +sympathy. Among contemporary biographers, Mr Hepworth Dixon has +already established for himself a name of some distinction by his +popular lives of William Penn and John Howard; nor will his credit +suffer a decline in the instance of the memoir now before us—that of +the gallant and single-minded patriot, Robert Blake. Of this fine old +English worthy, republican as he was, the Tory Hume freely affirms, +that never man, so zealous for a faction, was so much respected and +even esteemed by his opponents. 'Disinterested, generous, liberal; +ambitious only of true glory, dreadful only to his avowed enemies; he +forms one of the most perfect characters of the age, and the least +stained with those errors and vices which were then so +predominant.'<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> Yet hitherto the records of this remarkable man have +been scanty in matter, and scattered in form—the most notable being +Dr Johnson's sketch in the <i>Gentleman's Magazine</i>, and another in the +<i>Encyclopædia Britannica</i>. Mr Dixon has consulted several scarce +works, of genuine though obsolete authority, and a large mass of +original documents and family papers, in preparing the present able +and attractive memoir; not omitting a careful examination of the +squibs, satires, and broadsides of that time, in his endeavour to +trace, in forgotten nooks and corners, the anecdotes and details +requisite, as he says, to complete a character thus far chiefly known +by a few heroic outlines. We propose taking a brief survey of his +life-history of the great admiral and general at sea—the 'Puritan +Sea-King,' as Mr Dixon more characteristically than accurately calls +his hero. A sea-king he was, every inch of him; but to dub him +Puritan, is like giving up to party what was meant for British +mankind. To many, the term suggests primarily a habit of speaking +through the nose; and Blake had thundered commands through too many a +piping gale and battle blast for <i>that</i>.</p> + +<p>Robert Blake was born at Bridgewater, in August 1599. His father, +Humphrey Blake, was a merchant trading with Spain—a man whose temper +seems to have been too sanguine and adventurous for the ordinary +action of trade, finally involving him in difficulties which clouded +his latter days, and left his family in straitened circumstances: his +name, however, was held in general respect; and we find that he lived +in one of the best houses in Bridgewater, and twice filled the chair +of its chief magistrate. The perils to which mercantile enterprise was +then liable—the chance escapes and valorous deeds which the +successful adventurer had to tell his friends and children on the dark +winter nights—doubtless formed a part of the food on which the +imagination of young Blake, 'silent and thoughtful from his +childhood,' was fed in the 'old house at home.' At the Bridgewater +grammar-school, Robert received his early education, making tolerable +acquaintance with Latin and Greek, and acquiring a strong bias towards +a literary life. This <i>penchant</i> was confirmed by his subsequent +career at Oxford, where he matriculated at sixteen, and where he +strove hard but fruitlessly for scholarships and fellowships at +different colleges. His failure to obtain a Merton fellowship has been +attributed to a crotchet of the warden's, Sir Henry Savile, in favour +of tall men: 'The young Somersetshire student, thick-set, fair +complexioned, and only five feet six, fell below his standard of manly +beauty;' and thus the Cavalier warden, in denying this aspirant the +means of cultivating literature on a little university oatmeal, was +turning back on the world one who was fated to become a republican +power of the age. This shining light, instead of comfortably and +obscurely merging in a petty constellation of Alma Mater, was to +become a bright particular star, and dwell apart. The avowed +liberalism of Robert may, however, have done more in reality to shock +Sir Henry, than his inability to add a cubit to his stature. It is +pleasant to know, that the 'admiral and general at sea' never outgrew +a tenderness for literature—his first-love, despite the rebuff of his +advances. Even in the busiest turmoil of a life teeming with accidents +by flood and field, he made it a point of pride not to forget his +favourite classics. Nor was it till after nine years' experience of +college-life, and when his father was no longer able to manage his +<i>res angusta vitæ</i>, that Robert finally abandoned his long-cherished +plans, and retired with a sigh and last adieu from the banks of the +Isis.</p> + +<p>When he returned to Bridgewater, in time to close his father's eyes, +and superintend the arrangements of the family, he was already +remarkable for that 'iron will, that grave demeanour, that free and +dauntless spirit,' which so distinguished his after-course. His tastes +were simple, his manners somewhat bluntly austere; a refined dignity +of countenance, and a picturesque vigour of conversation, invested him +with a social interest, to which his indignant invectives against +court corruptions gave distinctive character. To the Short Parliament +he was sent as member for his native town; and in 1645, was returned +by Taunton to the Long Parliament. At the dissolution of the former, +which he regarded as a signal for action, he began to prepare arms +against the king; his being one of the first troops in the field, and +engaged in almost every action of importance in the western counties. +His superiority to the men about him lay in the 'marvellous fertility, +energy, and comprehensiveness of his military genius.' Prince Rupert +alone, in the Royalist camp, could rival him as a 'partisan soldier.' +His first distinguished exploit was his defence of Prior's Hill fort, +at the siege of Bristol—which contrasts so remarkably with the +pusillanimity of his chief, Colonel Fiennes. Next comes his yet more +brilliant defence of Lyme—then a little fishing-town, with some 900 +inhabitants, of which the defences were a dry ditch, a few +hastily-formed earth-works, and three small batteries, but which the +Cavalier host of Prince Maurice, trying storm, stratagem, blockade, +day after day, and week<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[pg 343]</a></span> after week, failed to reduce or dishearten. +'At Oxford, where Charles then was, the affair was an inexplicable +marvel and mystery: every hour the court expected to hear that the +"little vile fishing-town," as Clarendon contemptuously calls it, had +fallen, and that Maurice had marched away to enterprises of greater +moment; but every post brought word to the wondering council, that +Colonel Blake still held out, and that his spirited defence was +rousing and rallying the dispersed adherents of Parliament in those +parts.' After the siege was raised, the Royalists found that more men +of gentle blood had fallen under Blake's fire at Lyme, than in all the +other sieges and skirmishes in the western counties since the opening +of the war. The details of the siege are given with graphic effect by +Mr Dixon, and are only surpassed in interest by those connected with +Blake's subsequent and yet more celebrated defence of Taunton, to +which the third chapter of this biography is devoted.</p> + +<p>The hero's fame had become a spell in the west: it was seen that he +rivalled Rupert in rapid and brilliant execution, and excelled him in +the caution and sagacity of his plans. He took Taunton—a place so +important at that juncture, as standing on and controlling the great +western highway—in July 1644, within a week of Cromwell's defeat of +Rupert at Marston Moor. All the vigour of the Royalists was brought to +bear on the captured town; Blake's defence of which is justly +characterised as abounding with deeds of individual +heroism—exhibiting in its master-mind a rare combination of civil and +military genius. The spectacle of an unwalled town, in an inland +district, with no single advantage of site, surrounded by powerful +castles and garrisons, and invested by an enemy brave, watchful, +numerous, and well provided with artillery, successfully resisting +storm, strait, and blockade for several months, thus paralysing the +king's power, and affording Cromwell time to remodel the army, +naturally arrested the attention of military writers at that time; and +French authors of this class bestowed on Taunton the name of the +modern Saguntum. The rage of the Royalists at this prolonged +resistance was extreme. Reckoning from the date when Blake first +seized the town, to that of Goring's final retreat, the defence lasted +exactly a year, and under circumstances of almost overwhelming +difficulty to the besieged party, who, in addition to the fatigue of +nightly watches, and the destruction of daily conflicts, suffered from +terrible scarcity of provisions. 'Not a day passed without a fire; +sometimes eight or ten houses were burning at the same moment; and in +the midst of all the fear, horror, and confusion incident to such +disasters, Blake and his little garrison had to meet the +storming-parties of an enemy brave, exasperated, and ten times their +own strength. But every inch of ground was gallantly defended. A broad +belt of ruined cottages and gardens was gradually formed between the +besiegers and the besieged; and on the heaps of broken walls and burnt +rafters, the obstinate contest was renewed from day to day.' At last +relief arrived from London; and Goring, in savage dudgeon, beat a +retreat, notwithstanding the wild oath he had registered, either to +reduce that haughty town, or to lay his bones in its trenches.</p> + +<p>Blake was now the observed of all observers; but, unlike most of his +compeers, he abstained from using his advantages for purposes of +selfish or personal aggrandisement. He kept aloof from the 'centre of +intrigues,' and remained at his post, 'doing his duty humbly and +faithfully at a distance from Westminster; while other men, with less +than half his claims, were asking and obtaining the highest honours +and rewards from a grateful and lavish country.' Nor, indeed, did he +at any time side with the ultras of his party, but loudly disapproved +of the policy of the regicides. This, coupled with his influence, so +greatly deserved and so deservedly great, made him an object of +jealousy with Cromwell and his party; and it was owing, perhaps, to +their anxiety to keep him removed from the home-sphere of action, that +the hero of Taunton was now appointed to the chief naval command.</p> + +<p>Hitherto, and for years afterwards, no state, ancient or modern, as +Macaulay points out, had made a separation between the military and +the naval service. Cimon and Lysander, Pompey and Agrippa, had fought +by sea as well as by land: at Flodden, the right wing of the English +was led by her admiral, and the French admiral led the Huguenots at +Jarnac, &c. Accordingly, Blake was summoned from his pacific +government at Taunton, to assume the post of 'General and Admiral at +Sea;' a title afterwards changed to 'General of the Fleet.' Two others +were associated with him in the command; but Blake seems at <i>least</i> to +have been recognised as <i>primus inter pares</i>. The navy system was in +deplorable need of reform; and a reformer it found in Robert Blake, +from the very day he became an admiral. His care for the well-being of +his men made him an object of their almost adoring attachment. From +first to last, he stood alone as England's model-seaman. 'Envy, +hatred, and jealousy dogged the steps of every other officer in the +fleet; but of him, both then and afterwards, every man spoke well.' +The 'tremendous powers' intrusted to him by the Council of State, he +exercised with off-handed and masterly success—startling politicians +and officials of the <i>ancien régime</i> by his bold and open tactics, and +his contempt for tortuous bypaths in diplomacy. His wondrous exploits +were performed with extreme poverty of means. He was the first to +repudiate and disprove the supposed fundamental maxim in marine +warfare, that no ship could attack a castle, or other strong +fortification, with any hope of success. The early part of his naval +career was occupied in opposing and defeating the piratical +performances of Prince Rupert, which then constituted the support of +the exiled Stuarts, and which Mr Dixon refuses to interpret in such +mild colours as Warburton and others. Blake's utmost vigilance and +activity were required to put down this extraordinary system of +freebooting; and by the time that he had successively overcome Rupert, +and the minor but stubborn adventurers, Grenville and Carteret, he was +in request to conduct the formidable war with Holland, and to cope +with such veterans as Tromp, De Witt, De Ruyter, &c. Of the various +encounters in which he thus signalised himself, his biographer gives +most spirited descriptions, such as their length alone deters us from +quoting. On one occasion only did Blake suffer a defeat; and this one +is easily explained by—first, Tromp's overwhelming superiority of +force; secondly, the extreme deficiency of men in the English fleet; +and thirdly, the cowardice or disaffection of several of Blake's +captains at a critical moment in the battle. Notwithstanding this +disaster, not a whisper was heard against the admiral either in the +Council of State or in the city; his offer to resign was flatteringly +rejected; and he soon found, that the 'misfortune which might have +ruined another man, had given him strength and influence in the +country.' This disaster, in fact, gave him power to effect reforms in +the service, and to root out abuses which had defied all his efforts +in the day of his success. He followed it up by the great battle of +Portland, and other triumphant engagements.</p> + +<p>Then came his sweeping <i>tours de force</i> in the Mediterranean; in six +months he established himself, as Mr Dixon says, as a power in that +great midland sea, from which his countrymen had been politically +excluded since the age of the Crusades—teaching nations, to which +England's very name was a strange sound, to respect its honours and +its rights; chastising the pirates of Barbary with unprecedented +severity; making Italy's petty princes feel the power of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[pg 344]</a></span> northern +Protestants; causing the pope himself to tremble on his seven hills; +and startling the council-chambers of Venice and Constantinople with +the distant echoes of our guns. And be it remembered, that England had +then no Malta, Corfu, and Gibraltar as the bases of naval operations +in the Mediterranean: on the contrary, Blake found that in almost +every gulf and island of that sea—in Malta, Venice, Genoa, Leghorn, +Algiers, Tunis, and Marseilles—there existed a rival and an enemy; +nor were there more than three or four harbours in which he could +obtain even bread for love or money.</p> + +<p>After this memorable cruise, he had to conduct the Spanish war—a +business quite to his mind; for though his highest renown had been +gained in his conflicts with the Dutch, he had secretly disliked such +encounters between two Protestant states; whereas, in the case of +Popish Spain, his soul leaped at the anticipation of +battle—sympathising as he did with the Puritan conviction, that Spain +was the devil's stronghold in Europe. At this period, Blake was +suffering from illness, and was sadly crippled in his naval +equipments, having to complain constantly of the neglect at home to +remedy the exigencies of the service. 'Our ships,' he writes, +'extremely foul, winter drawing on, our victuals expiring, all stores +failing, our men falling sick through the badness of drink, and eating +their victuals boiled in salt water for two months' space' (1655.) His +own constitution was thoroughly undermined. For nearly a year, remarks +his biographer, 'he had never quitted the "foul and defective" +flag-ship. Want of exercise and sweet food, beer, wine, water, bread, +and vegetables, had helped to develop scurvy and dropsy; and his +sufferings from these diseases were now acute and continuous.' But his +services were indispensable, and Blake was not the man to shrink from +dying in harness. His sun set gloriously at Santa Cruz—that +miraculous and unparalleled action, as Clarendon calls it, which +excited such grateful enthusiasm at home. At home! words of +fascination to the maimed and enfeebled veteran,<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> who now turned his +thoughts so anxiously towards the green hills of his native land. +Cromwell's letter of thanks, the plaudits of parliament, and the +jewelled ring sent to him by his loving countrymen, reached him while +homeward bound. But he was not again to tread the shores he had +defended so well.</p> + +<p>As the ships rolled through the Bay of Biscay, his sickness increased, +and affectionate adherents saw with dismay that he was drawing near to +the gates of the grave. 'Some gleams of the old spirit broke forth as +they approached the latitude of England. He inquired often and +anxiously if the white cliffs were yet in sight. He longed to behold +once more the swelling downs, the free cities, the goodly churches of +his native land.... At last, the Lizard was announced. Shortly +afterwards, the bold cliffs and bare hills of Cornwall loomed out +grandly in the distance. But it was too late for the dying hero. He +had sent for the captains and other great officers of his fleet, to +bid them farewell; and while they were yet in his cabin, the +undulating hills of Devonshire, glowing with the tints of early +autumn, came full in view.... But the eyes which had so yearned to +behold this scene once more were at that very instant closing in +death. Foremost of the victorious squadron, the <i>St George</i> rode with +its precious burden into the Sound; and just as it came into full view +of the eager thousands crowding the beach, the pier-heads, the walls +of the citadel, &c. ready to catch the first glimpse of the hero of +Santa Cruz, and salute him with a true English welcome—he, in his +silent cabin, in the midst of his lion-hearted comrades, now sobbing +like little children, yielded up his soul to God.'</p> + +<p>The corpse was embalmed, and conveyed to Greenwich, where it lay in +state for some days. On the 4th of September 1657, the Thames bore a +solemn funeral procession, which moved slowly, amid salvos of +artillery, to Westminster, where a new vault had been prepared in the +noble abbey. The tears of a nation made it hallowed ground. A prince, +of whom the epigram declares that, if he never said a foolish thing, +he never did a wise one—saw fit to disturb the hero's grave, drag out +the embalmed body, and cast it into a pit in the abbey-yard. One of +Charles Stuart's most witless performances! For Blake is not to be +confounded—though the Merry Monarch thought otherwise—with the +Iretons and Bradshaws who were similarly exhumed. The admiral was a +moderate in the closest, a patriot in the widest sense.</p> + +<p>In the chivalric disposition of the man, there was true affinity to +the best qualities of the Cavalier, mingled sometimes with a certain +grim humour, all his own. Many are the illustrations we might adduce +of this high-minded and generous temperament. For instance: meeting a +French frigate of forty guns in the Straits, and signaling for the +captain to come on board his flag-ship, the latter, considering the +visit one of friendship and ceremony, there being no <i>declared</i> war +between the two nations—though the French conduct at Toulon had +determined England on measures of retaliation—readily complied with +Blake's summons; but was astounded, on entering the admiral's cabin, +at being told he was a prisoner, and requested to give up his sword. +No! was the surprised but resolute Frenchman's reply. Blake felt that +an advantage had been gained by a misconception, and scorning to make +a brave officer its victim, he told his guest he might go back to his +ship, if he wished, and fight it out as long as he was able. The +captain, we are told, thanked him for his handsome offer, and retired. +After two hours' hard fighting, he struck his flag; like a true French +knight, he made a low bow, kissed his sword affectionately, and +delivered it to his conqueror. Again: when Blake captured the Dutch +herring-fleet off Bochness, consisting of 600 boats, instead of +destroying or appropriating them, he merely took a tithe of the whole +freight, in merciful consideration towards the poor families whose +entire capital and means of life it constituted. This 'characteristic +act of clemency' was censured by many as Quixotic, and worse. But, as +Mr Dixon happily says: 'Blake took no trouble to justify his noble +instincts against such critics. His was indeed a happy fate: the only +fault ever advanced by friend or foe against his public life, was an +excess of generosity towards his vanquished enemies!' His sense of the +comic is amusingly evidenced by the story of his <i>ruse</i> during a +dearth in the same siege. Tradition reports, that only one animal, a +hog, was left alive in the town, and that more than half starved. In +the afternoon, Blake, feeling that in their depression a laugh would +do the defenders as much good as a dinner, had the hog carried to all +the posts and whipped, so that its screams, heard in many places, +might make the enemy suppose that fresh supplies had somehow been +obtained. According to his biographer, never man had finer sense of +sarcasm, or used that weapon with greater effect—loving to find +expression for its scorn and merriment in the satires of Horace and +Juvenal; and thus in some degree relieving the stern fervour of +Puritan piety with the more easy graces of ancient scholarship.</p> + +<p>The moral aspects of his character appear in this memoir in an +admirable light. If he did not stand so high as some others in public +notoriety, it was mainly because, to stand higher than he did, he must +plant his feet on a <i>bad</i> eminence. His patriotism was as pure as +Cromwell's was selfish. Mr Dixon alludes to the strong points of +contrast, as well as of resemblance, between the two men. Both, he +says, were sincerely religious, undauntedly brave, fertile in +expedients, irresistible in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[pg 345]</a></span> action. Born in the same year, they began +and almost closed their lives at the same time. Both were country +gentlemen of moderate fortune; both were of middle age when the +revolution came. Without previous knowledge or professional training, +both attained to the highest honours of the respective services. But +there the parallel ends. Anxious only for the glory and interest of +his country, Blake took little or no care of his personal +aggrandisement. His contempt for money, his impatience with the mere +vanities of power, were supreme. Bribery he abhorred in all its +shapes. He was frank and open to a fault; his heart was ever in his +hand, and his mind ever on his lips. His honesty, modesty, generosity, +sincerity, and magnanimity, were unimpeached. Cromwell's inferior +moral qualities made him distrust the great seaman; yet now and then, +as in the case of the street tumult at Malaga, he was fain to express +his admiration of Robert Blake. The latter was wholly unversed in the +science of nepotism, and 'happy family' compacts; for although +desirous of aiding his relatives, he was jealous of the least offence +on their part, and never overlooked it. Several instances of this +disposition are on record. When his brother Samuel, in rash zeal for +the Commonwealth, ventured to exceed his duty, and was killed in a +fray which ensued, Blake was terribly shocked, but only said: 'Sam had +no business there.' Afterwards, however, he shut himself up in his +room, and bewailed his loss in the words of Scripture: 'Died Abner as +a fool dieth!' His brother Benjamin, again, to whom he was strongly +attached, falling under suspicion of neglect of duty, was instantly +broken, and sent on shore. 'This rigid measure of justice against his +own flesh and blood, silenced every complaint, and the service gained +immeasurably in spirit, discipline, and confidence.' Yet more touching +was the great admiral's inexorable treatment of his favourite brother +Humphrey, who, in a moment of extreme agitation, had failed in his +duty. The captains went to Blake in a body, and argued that Humphrey's +fault was a neglect rather than a breach of orders, and suggested his +being sent away to England till it was forgotten. But Blake was +outwardly unmoved, though inwardly his bowels did yearn over his +brother, and sternly said: 'If none of you will accuse him, I must be +his accuser.' Humphrey was dismissed from the service. It is affecting +to know how painfully Blake missed his familiar presence during his +sick and lonely passage homewards, when the hand of death was upon +that noble heart. To Humphrey he bequeathed the greater part of his +property.</p> + +<p>In the rare intervals of private life which he enjoyed on shore, Blake +also compels our sincere regard. When released for awhile from +political and professional duties, he loved to run down to Bridgewater +for a few days or weeks, and, as his biographer says, with his chosen +books, and one or two devout and abstemious friends, to indulge in all +the luxuries of seclusion. 'He was by nature self-absorbed and +taciturn. His morning was usually occupied with a long walk, during +which he appeared to his simple neighbours to be lost in profound +thought, as if working out in his own mind the details of one of his +great battles, or busy with some abstruse point of Puritan theology. +If accompanied by one of his brothers, or by some other intimate +friend, he was still for the most part silent. Always good-humoured, +and enjoying sarcasm when of a grave, high class, he yet never talked +from the loquacious instinct, or encouraged others so to employ their +time and talents in his presence. Even his lively and rattling brother +Humphrey, his almost constant companion when on shore, caught, from +long habit, the great man's contemplative and self-communing gait and +manner; and when his friends rallied him on the subject in +after-years, he used to say, that he had caught the trick of silence +while walking by the admiral's side in his long morning musings on +Knoll Hill. A plain dinner satisfied his wants. Religious +conversation, reading, and the details of business, generally filled +up the evening until supper-time; after family prayers—always +pronounced by the general himself—he would invariably call for his +cup of sack and a dry crust of bread, and while he drank two or three +horns of Canary, would smile and chat in his own dry manner with his +friends and domestics, asking minute questions about their neighbours +and acquaintance; or when scholars or clergymen shared his simple +repast, affecting a droll anxiety—rich and pleasant in the conqueror +of Tromp—to prove, by the aptness and abundance of his quotations, +that, in becoming an admiral, he had not forfeited his claim to be +considered a good classic.'</p> + +<p>The care and interest with which he looked to the well-being of his +humblest followers, made him eminently popular in the fleet. He was +always ready to hear complaints and to rectify grievances. When +wounded at the battle of Portland, and exhorted to go on shore for +repose and proper medical treatment, he refused to seek for himself +the relief which he had put in the way of his meanest comrade. Even at +the early period of his cruise against the Cavalier corsairs of +Kinsale, such was Blake's popularity, that numbers of men were +continually joining him from the enemy's fleet, although he offered +them less pay, and none of that licence which they had enjoyed under +Prince Rupert's flag. They gloried in following a leader <i>sans peur et +sans reproche</i>—one with whose renown the whole country speedily +rang—the renown of a man who had revived the traditional glories of +the English navy, and proved that its meteor flag could 'yet terrific +burn.'</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> <i>Robert Blake: Admiral and General at Sea.</i> By Hepworth +Dixon. London: Chapman and Hall. 1852.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> <i>Biographical and Critical Miscellanies.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> <i>History of Great Britain</i>, c. lxi.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> He had been lamed for life, by a wound in the thigh, at +the battle of Portland, 1653.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="SUMMER_LODGINGS" id="SUMMER_LODGINGS"></a>SUMMER LODGINGS.</h2> + +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of + Contents</a></p> + +<p>In the dominions of the Czar, the backs of the serfs suffer a weekly +titillation as insufferable, although not so deadly, as the less +frequent knout. When it comes to Wednesday, they begin to imagine that +they are not exactly comfortable; on Thursday, the natural moisture of +their skin seems fast drying up, and they are in an incipient fit of +the fidgets; on Friday, the epidermis cracks all over, or +makes-believe to do so; and on Saturday, the whole population, with a +shout of impatient joy, rush to the bath-house of the village, like a +herd of bullocks in the dog-days to the river, and boil themselves in +steam. When thoroughly done, they come out, beautifully plumped, as +the cooks say, and feeling fresh and vigorous, and as fit as ever they +were in their lives to encounter a new week of serfdom.</p> + +<p>An annual process analogous to this takes place in our own country. In +spring, we begin to look wistfully at the garden, to watch the opening +of the lettuces, and count the colours of the pansies. As the season +advances, we wander into the fields, examine curiously the thin grass, +and turn an admiring eye towards the green hills in the distance. As +May breaks upon us in sunlight, though the east wind is still chill, +we half persuade ourselves that this really <i>is</i> the season of love +and sentiment; and when the month ripens into June, when the grass +beneath our feet actually deserves the name of a carpet, when the +trees are rich and umbrageous, when the birds are in full song, and +the roses in full blow—then the hitherto indefinite longing of our +heart acquires strength and purpose. The dry streets look unnatural; +the formal lines of houses offend the taste; the air is close and hot; +the younger children look pale, and their elder sisters languish. The +month is at length out, and we wonder how we have survived it. The +thing can no longer be borne: the town looks and breathes like a +pest-house; while<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[pg 346]</a></span> hill-sides glimmer in our waking dreams, broad seas +stretch away till they are lost in the golden light—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'And dying winds and waters near<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Make music to the lonely ear:'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>still worse—everybody that is anybody is off to the country and the +sea, and we rush madly after.</p> + +<p>But the country? Where is the country? That is the puzzle. In our +youth, we knew many a quiet village, many a fine beach, many a +sheltered bay, where one might wander, or swim, or muse, or rusticate +in any way he chose. The village has grown into a town; the beach is +lined with villas; the bay swarms with vessels, and its shores with +population. Every eligible spot on the coast becomes the resort of +country-goers, till it is no longer the country. All local advantages +are taken advantage of, till they disappear. The citizen, charmed with +the countryness of the spot, builds his box by the water-side; the +speculator runs up lines of houses; a handsome inn rises in the midst; +and benevolent individuals hasten to the new centre of attraction, +loaded with every kind of commodity men stand in need of, and are +likely to buy. Here, in Scotland, on the Clyde, which is the grand +sanatorium of the east as well as the west country, this process of +change is remarkable. The once wildly beautiful shores, wherever there +is not a town or a village, are dotted with trim white villas, +glimmering here and there among the trees. The angles of the lochs, +where these diverge from the parent stream, are covered with houses. +The Gair Loch, which we remember as one of the sweetest mysteries of a +mountain lake whose banks ever echoed to the songs of poetry and love, +is a snug suburban retreat. The entrance of the Holy Loch, and of the +dark and awful Loch Long, are fortified against the spirit of nature +by groups of streets. At the heretofore quiet village of Dunoon, +slumbering at the foot of its almost obliterated castle, you might +lose yourself in the wilderness of new habitations. Gourock, on the +opposite side, where in our boyhood the fairies disported round the +Kempuck Stane, is a bustling town, with a suburb stretching along the +Clyde, nearly as long as the long town of Kirkaldy, on the Forth; and +at Largs, the barrows of the ancient Danes have become the cellars of +the sons of little men, who confine spirits in them, as the prophet +Solomon used to do, with a sealed cork. The once solitary island of +Cumbrae is the town of Milport; the hoary ruins of Rothsay Castle are +almost buried in a congeries of seaport streets and lanes; and, +smoking, sputtering, and flapping their water-wings, scores of +steamers ply in endless succession among these and a multitude of +other places of renown.</p> + +<p>All this, we may be told, is as it should be; a house is better than a +hut, and the conveniences of civilised life better than roughing it in +the desert: but we will not be comforted. Roughing it! that is just +what the smoke-dried citizen wants occasionally, to prevent his blood +from stagnating, and keep his faculties in working order. Physically, +at least, we are not half the men we were when we used to rumble, and +sometimes tumble, in stage-coaches, exposed to all the excitement and +adventures of a journey; or to get as sick as forty dogs, tossing +about whole days and nights in a sailing vessel. Then, when we landed, +how delightful were the miseries of a cottage; the makeshifts, the +squeezing, the dirt, the hunger—that veal-pie was <i>always</i> left +behind!—the hunting of the neighbourhood for eggs for the children, +the compulsory abstinence for three days out of four from +butcher-meat, and the helpless dependence upon the chapter of +accidents for everything else!</p> + +<p>Now, we get into a railway carriage, or the cabin of a steamer, and +after taking a book or a nap for an hour or two, raise our heads, and +find ourselves, somehow or other, fifty miles off—in the country. The +country is a genteel house in a genteel street, or a nice villa in a +row of nice villas, where we are surrounded with all the conveniences +we enjoy at home. The very society is the same; for our friends, +Thomson and Smith, and the whole of that set, have brought their +families to the same place for summer lodgings—it is so agreeable to +be among one's acquaintances. Then we begin to enjoy ourselves: we +have conversation-parties, and dancing-parties, and balls, all the +same as at home. We enjoy our newspaper, as usual, in our comfortable +reading-room. In the morning, we take a stroll or a dip, or drink +water at the Wells, which, although undoubtedly nasty, is undeniably +wholesome. Then there is a steamer in sight, and we all hasten to the +pier, to ascertain if we know anybody on board. Then we dine early, +for one <i>must</i> dine early in the country. Then we take a nap; then +another stroll; then there is another steamer to watch; then we drink +tea; then to the pier again. This time, the vessel's head is pointed +homewards; and as she breaks away from the land, we follow her with +our eyes till she is swallowed up in the distance. Then we turn away +with a sigh; go back to our lodgings; lounge into bed; and fall asleep +in the midst of the delightful sensation of having nothing to do, and +being in the country.</p> + +<p>All this <i>is</i> delightful, no doubt; every bit as good as being at +home. Our aim, in fact, is to carry home with us—to feel as if we had +never left No. 24. The closer the resemblance between our country +lodgings and our town-house, the better we are off; for we then get +what we have come for—change of air—without any sacrifice of +comfort.</p> + +<p>But we doubt whether 'change of air' has so limited a meaning. +Hygienically speaking, it includes, we suspect, change of habits, +change of diet, change of company, change of thought. The miseries of +the old country lodgings were better for the health than the comforts +of the new. The very grumbling they gave rise to was a wholesome +exercise. The short allowance was worth a whole pharmacopœia. The +ravenous appetite that fastened upon things common and unclean was a +glorious symptom. We came back strengthened in mind as well as body. +Our country sojourn had the effect of foreign travel in opening the +heart and expanding the intellect; it smoothed away prejudices and +upset conventionalities; and the ruddy glow of our sunburnt cheeks was +the external token of the healthy natural tone of the feelings within. +No; this passion for comfort and gentility in the wilderness, is a bad +sign of the generation: it bespeaks effeminacy of character, and a +vanity which, however graceful it may be thought in the town, shews +mean and ridiculous among the hills, and woods, and waters of the +country.</p> + +<p>Among our neighbours on the continent, the summer move is not so +universal as with us. In Paris, for instance, everything is considered +the country that is outside the barriers; and in the fine season, +every bourgeois family is outside the barriers at least once a +week—eating, drinking, dancing, and singing. Then there are the walks +in the Bois de Boulogne, and the picnics at St Cloud, and the +excursions to Versailles: wherever there is green turf and shady +trees, you hear the sounds of mirth and music rising in the clearest, +brightest atmosphere in the world. Thus a sojourn out of town is not a +necessity. They take change of air by instalments, and pass the summer +in a state of chronic excitement.</p> + +<p>In other parts of the world, the move is as entire as with us; and in +at least one instance, all classes of the population desert the cities +at the same time, and flock to the same sea-side. To be sure, this +sea-side is somewhat extensive, and there need be no more crowding +than is social and comfortable. An amusing account of the migration, +and of the summer lodgings of Central America is given in Mr Squier's +<i>Nicaragua</i>, recently<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[pg 347]</a></span> published. The state of Nicaragua occupies that +part of the Isthmus lying between the lake of the same name and the +Pacific, the distance between being in some places only about fifteen +miles. In this narrow tract there are several large towns, such as +Grenada and Leon, which, in spite of the breath of the two oceans, get +smoke-dried by the time the dry season advances into March. Then comes +on the 'Paseo al mar,' or bathing-season, when a great portion of the +population, taken not merely from the upper classes, but from the +bourgeoisie and Indian peasantry, rush down to the shores of the +Pacific. 'At that time,' says Mr Squier, 'a general movement of carts +and servants takes place in the direction of the sea, and the +government despatches an officer and a guard, to superintend the +pitching of the annual camp upon the beach, or rather upon the +forest-covered sand-ridge which fringes the shore. Each family builds +a temporary cane-hut, lightly thatched with palm-leaves, and floored +with petates or mats. The whole is wickered together with vines, or +woven together basketwise, and partitioned in the same way, by means +of coloured curtains of cotton cloth. This constitutes the penetralia, +and is sacred to the <i>bello sexo</i> and the babies. The more luxurious +ladies bring down their neatly-curtained beds, and make no mean show +of elegance in the interior arrangements of their impromptu dwellings. +Outside, and something after the fashion of their permanent +residences, is a kind of broad and open shed, which bears a very +distant relation to the corridor. Here hammocks are swung, the +families dine, the ladies receive visitors, and the men sleep.... The +establishments here described pertain only to the wealthier visitors, +the representatives of the upper classes. There is every intermediate +variety, down to those of the <i>mozo</i> and his wife, who spread their +blankets at the foot of a tree, and weave a little bower of branches +above them—an affair of ten or a dozen minutes. And there are yet +others who disdain even this exertion, and nestle in the dry sand.'</p> + +<p>This kind of gipsying expedition to the sea in summer would hardly +suit the form of European, or at least British civilisation; but we do +not see why, in the one continent more than in the other, one's +country lodgings should be required to resemble a town-house. In the +Clyde, which we have mentioned as a resort for summer loiterers, there +is one exceptional place—the island of Arran. Here the Marquis of +Douglas has determined, with much good taste, that his property shall +not be vulgarised by the new style of country lodgings, and so far +from feuing the ground, he will not permit even a pier to be built for +the accommodation of visitors. The village, accordingly, is simply a +line of thatched cottages, which, in the fine season, are filled to +overflowing. A few houses of more pretension stand on the other side +of the bay; but, in general, no one sets his foot in Brodick who has +not made up his mind to rough it pretty much in the fashion of the +last generation. Sometimes, on the occasion of a holiday in Glasgow, +which is six hours' steaming distant, the village is flooded with a +moving population that can neither find house-room on the island nor +means of quitting it the same day. Then comes a scene of something +more than Mexican roughness. Shawls, cloaks, plaids, are the only +substitute for tents, and a bush or a tree the only shelter from the +summer wind. Such wandering companies are rarely short of provisions, +for they have a wholesome dread of Highland hunger; and hearty is the +feast and loud the merriment, as they sit thus, houseless and homeless +outcasts of the Clyde. The night comes on, neither dark nor +unpleasantly cold, and the trooping stars assemble in the heavens, and +look down on the slumbrous waters, as bright and new as they were seen +of old from the hill-tops of Chaldea. Higher swell the hearts of the +spectators for a time, till, yielding to the influence of the hour, +lower and lower sink their pulses of emotion, like the tide of the +lately panting deep. Their voices fall; their words are few and +whispered, then heard no more; the lights of the village disappear one +by one; the last door is heard to shut; there is silence on the earth.</p> + +<p>We never heard of anybody being the worse of this adventure, although +it is a kind of roughing we would not positively recommend to Miss +Laura Matilda, or any of her fair sisters. We would give <i>them</i> a +thatched roof over their heads, a weather-tight room for their +slumbers, and a substantial wall between them and the couple of cows +that yield their warm milk in the morning. We would afford them a +homely sitting-room, with no temptation to keep them within doors for +a single moment, except during their brief and humble meals. We would +plant their tabernacle in some lonely place on a hillside, or on the +shores of a romantic loch, an hour's smart walk from any society they +are accustomed to at home. We would have them make acquaintances of +the said two cows; of both the dogs, even the surly one, which cannot +for some time understand who or what they are, or what business they +have there; of the hens, that present them with newly-laid eggs to +breakfast; of the five or six sheep, to whom they are evidently +objects of curiosity and admiration; of that sociable goat, which +accompanies the sheep to the hill like one of themselves; and more +especially of the little boy, who is proud of being called the herd; +and of the cotter and his old mother, and his wife and two young +daughters. We would insist upon their feeling a kindly interest in +these new friends, one and all; on their taking leave of them +individually when coming away; and on their carrying home with them an +impression which would sometimes, in the crowded street, or the hot +room, well suddenly up in their hearts like a fresh stream, or pass +across their cheeks like a breath of mountain air.</p> + +<p>Depend upon it, we lose much humanising feeling, much true refinement, +much of the poetry of life, in parting with the roughness of our +Summer Lodgings.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="PAPER-MONEY_AND_BANKING_IN_CHINA" id="PAPER-MONEY_AND_BANKING_IN_CHINA"></a>PAPER-MONEY AND BANKING IN CHINA.</h2> + +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of + Contents</a></p> + +<p>The origin or prototype of so many of our European arts and customs +has been found in the 'central flowery land,' that it is not +surprising to hear of the Chinese having begun to use paper-money as +currency in the second century preceding the Christian era. At that +time, the coinage of the Celestials was of a more bulky and ponderous +nature than it is at the present day; and we may easily believe that a +people so cunning and ingenious, would contrive not a few schemes to +avoid the burden of carrying it about; as the man did, who scratched +the figure of an ox on a piece of leather, and went from door to door +with that until he had found a customer, leaving the animal, meantime, +at home in the stall. There was a deficiency, too, in the ways and +means of the government: money was never plentiful enough in the +imperial coffers. At last, to get out of the difficulty, it was +determined to try the effect of a paper-currency, and an issue was +made of assignats or treasury-warrants, which, being based on the +credit of the highest authorities, were regarded as secure; which +fact, with their facility of transfer, soon brought them into +circulation. Of course, a good deal of legislation was expended on the +measure, before it could be got to work satisfactorily, and it +underwent many fluctuations in its progress towards permanence. The +intestine wars to which China was exposed at that period, by +overturning dynasty after dynasty, led one government to disavow the +obligations of its predecessor, and the natural consequences of bad +faith followed. After circulating with more or less success for five +hundred years, the government paper-money disappeared.</p> + +<p>This happened under the Ming dynasty: the Manchus,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[pg 348]</a></span> who succeeded, +gave themselves no trouble to restore the paper-currency; on which the +trading portion of the community took the matter into their own hands, +and by the time that their Tatar conquerors were quietly settled in +their usurped authority, the merchants had revived the use of paper. +They were too sensible of its great utility not to make the attempt; +and since that time, they have gone on without any aid from the state, +developing their plans as experience suggested, and so cautiously as +to insure success. This result is, however, far below what has been +obtained by Europeans. In comparison with ours, the banking-system of +China is in a very primitive condition; theirs is extremely limited in +its application, each city restricting itself to its own method; and +while the means of intercommunication are imperfect, there is little +prospect of improvement.</p> + +<p>One example may be taken as an illustration of the whole; and we avail +ourselves of a communication made by Mr Parkes to the Royal Asiatic +Society on the paper-currency of Fuhchowfoo, for the substance of the +present article. As in other places, the system was started in the +city of Fuhchow by private individuals, who began by circulating among +each other notes payable on demand. As the convenience of such a +medium became apparent, the circulation was extended, and ultimately +offices were opened for the special purpose of issuing notes; but as +the only guarantee for their security was the character of those who +put them forth, the circulation remained comparatively trifling, until +their credit was recognised and established. Not till the first +quarter of the present century did the use of paper become extensive +or permanent; and now, everybody in Fuhchowfoo prefers notes to coin.</p> + +<p>As no licence is required, any one may commence the banking business, +and at first considerable mischief resulted from this liberty. +Speculators who forced their notes largely into circulation, not +unfrequently met with a reverse, with the usual consequences of +distress and embarrassment to their connection. Although this for a +time brought paper into disfavour, it has now recovered, and the great +competition is found to have the effect of mitigating the evils of +failure. Where so many are concerned, individual suffering must be +comparatively slight. The banks, moreover, are not banks of deposit; +the proprietors prefer not to receive deposits, so that private +parties run no risk of a great and sudden loss, beyond that of such +notes as they may hold at the time of a stoppage. On the other hand, +the usefulness of a bank is limited by this arrangement; there can be +no paying of cheques; but very few of the banking establishments can +transact business beyond the city or the department in which they may +be located, and seldom or never beyond the limits of the province. +Hence the convenience and safety of making payments at places remote +from each other, through the medium of a banker, is almost unknown in +China.</p> + +<p>Within certain limits, the large bankers undertake mercantile +exchanges; they also refine the sycee, or silver, for the receivers of +taxes. The government will take no silver under a standard quality; +the collector delivers his sycee to the banker, who weighs, refines, +and casts it into ingots, for a consideration, giving a receipt, which +is handed to the treasurer of the department, who calls for the amount +when required.</p> + +<p>The small banks transact their business on an extremely petty scale. +On first starting in business, their notes are seldom in circulation +above a few hours, and they have always to be watchful to avoid a +'run.' It is among this class that failures most frequently occur, the +time of the crash being the end of the year, owing to the demand for +specie which then arises. As a precautionary measure, some of them +mostly circulate the notes of the large banks, which do not return to +them as their own would. Their own are sure to come back once at least +in the twenty-four hours, as the large banks make a rule of sending +all petty bank-notes to their issuers every day, and exchanging them +for specie or larger notes. The petty establishments resort to various +expedients for the sake of profit; one is, to locate themselves in a +good situation: if far from a large bank, they charge a higher rate of +discount on notes presented for payment, than is charged by their more +powerful competitor; and the people who live in the neighbourhood +submit to this charge, rather than take the trouble of going to the +large bank. On the contrary, if the great and the small are near +together, the latter charge lower, and make their profit by placing +base coin among the strings of copper <i>cash</i> which they pay to their +customers in exchange for notes. The inferior cash is manufactured for +the purpose, in the same way as Birmingham halfpence used to be for +distribution by the keepers of toll-gates.</p> + +<p>'Such petty chicanery is not viewed, as with us, in the light of an +offence, since, from the exceeding low value of the Chinese +cash—twenty-seven being only equivalent to a penny—those must be bad +indeed which will not pass current with the rest; and, accordingly, +the inferior sorts, when used in moderation, are accepted along with +the better in all the ordinary transactions of life. The profits of +these establishments must, therefore, be but slender—proportioned, +however, to the extent of their dealings; and some of the smallest +firms may not make more than half a dollar in the course of a day.'</p> + +<p>'The banking establishments in the city and suburbs of Fuhchow,' says +Mr Parkes, 'may be enumerated by hundreds. Most of them are naturally +very insignificant, and the circulation of their notes exceedingly +limited. Many of the outside notes will not pass current inside; and +are only convertible at the place of issue. Such branches as these +must be entirely superfluous, and might seriously inconvenience or +trammel the transactions of the higher ones; but, in order to guard +against encroachment from this direction, and as a self-protective +measure, several of the leading banks of known stability co-operate +with each other to keep up the value of their notes; and thus, by +holding a strong check on the issues of those minor parties, +effectually continue to regulate the whole system. There are thirty of +these establishments inside and outside the city, all reported to be +possessed of capital to the amount of from 500,000 to upwards of +1,000,000 dollars.</p> + +<p>'These latter establishments command the utmost confidence, and their +notes pass current everywhere and with everybody. They contribute +mutual support by constantly exchanging and continually cashing each +other's notes, which they severally seem to value as highly as their +own particular issues. This reciprocal and implicit trust must add +greatly to their solidity, and tend to prevent the possibility of +failure. The chief banker gained his high reputation by a voluntary +subscription, about thirty years ago, of no less than 100,000 dollars +to the government toward the repairs of the city walls and other +public works, for which he was rewarded with honorary official +insignia, and the extensive patronage or business of all the +authorities. These large banks are complete rulers of the +money-market; they regulate the rates of exchange, which are +incessantly fluctuating, and are known to alter several times in the +course of the day. The arrival or withdrawal from the place of specie +to the amount of a few thousands, has an immediate effect in either +raising or lowering the exchange. The bankers are kept most accurately +informed on the subject by some twenty men in their general employ, +whose sole business it is to be in constant attendance in the market, +and to acquaint the banks with everything that is going on, when they, +guided by the transactions of the day, determine and fix upon, between +themselves, the various prices of notes, sycee, and dollars. Their +unanimity on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[pg 349]</a></span> those points is very remarkable; and they are all deeply +impressed with the salutary conviction, that their chief strength +consists in the degree of mutual harmony that they preserve, and the +confidence they place in one another. These reporters are also very +useful to new arrivals, in affording them guidance on matters of +exchange, or in introducing them to the best bankers; and the +allowances that the stranger makes to them for their assistance, and +the banker for procuring him custom, constitute the gains of their +calling. They have also to report the prices of silver every morning +at the Magistracy, which, from its daily increasing value, has become +an object of especial attention.' Twenty years ago, much discontent +was expressed that silver, which had been worth 1000 cash per ounce, +rose to 1500; now it is over 2000, owing to the continuous drain of +the metal from the country.</p> + +<p>Still, with all this, failures are rare. The petty banks are most +liable to this reverse; and on such occasions, they generally contrive +to arrange the matter quietly among themselves; but the whole property +or lands belonging to the defaulters may be seized and sold to satisfy +the claims of the creditors: the dividend is usually from 10s. to 12s. +in the pound. Wilful fraud is seldom practised; the heaviest instance +known, was for 70,000 dollars; from the year 1843 to 1848, there were +but four bankruptcies, and three of these were for less than 6000 +dollars. The defaulters frequently escape punishment owing to the high +cost of prosecution. The large banks are safe; but at times, from +false or malicious reports, are exposed to a sudden 'run;' a great +crowd besets the doors when least expected, and numbers of vagabonds +seize the opportunity for mischief and plunder. These outbreaks grew +to such a pitch, that the magistrates now, whenever possible, hasten +to the threatened establishment, to repress violence by their presence +and authority. The rush, however, is so sudden, that before they can +arrive on the spot, the mob has improved its opportunity for +destruction, and disappeared.</p> + +<p>Forgery is not often attempted, probably because it does not pay, +owing to the fact of its being extremely difficult to circulate any +but notes of small value. The penalty for this offence is +transportation to a distance of three thousand <i>le</i>—about a thousand +miles; or imprisonment or flogging, according to circumstances. We +question if such an instance as the following ever occurred out of +China:—'A forger of some notoriety having been several times +prosecuted by the bankers, and with but little success, for he still +continued to carry on his malpractices, they conferred together, and +agreed <i>to take him into their pay</i>, making him responsible for any +future frauds of the kind. He continues to receive a stipend from them +at the present time, and is one of their most effective safeguards +against further imposition, as it devolves upon him to detect and +apprehend any other offender.'</p> + +<p>Most of the bank-notes are printed from copperplates, but some of the +petty dealers still use wooden blocks. They are longer and narrower +than ours, and have a handsomely engraved border, within which are +paragraphs laudatory of the ability or reputation of the firm. The +notes are of three kinds: for cash, dollars, and sycee. The first are +from 400 cash (1s. 3d. sterling), to hundreds of thousands, and are +largely circulated in all the smaller business transactions. The +dollar-notes, varying from a unit to 500, and, in some instances, to +1000, circulate among the merchants, their value continually +fluctuating with that of the price of the silver which they represent. +The sycee-notes are from one to several hundred <i>taels</i> (ounces), and +are chiefly confined to the government offices, to avoid the trouble +and inconvenience of making payments in silver by weight. Whatever be +the value or denomination of the notes, the holder is at liberty to +demand payment of the whole whenever he pleases, and receives it +without abatement, as the banker makes his profit at the time of their +issue. When notes are lost, payment is stopped, as here, and they are +speedily traced, as it is the practice not to take notes of a high +value—say, 100 dollars—without first inquiring at the bank as to +their genuineness. But no indemnification is made for notes lost or +destroyed by accident. Promissory-notes are the chief medium of +interchange among merchants, who take ten days' grace on all bills, +except those on which is written the word 'immediate.'</p> + +<p>The rates of interest are, on lands and houses, from 10 to 15 per +cent.; on government deposits, which the people are made to take at +times against their will, 8 per cent.; on insurance of ships and +cargoes, owing to the risk from storms and pirates, from 20 to 30 per +cent.; on pawnbrokers' loans, 2 per cent. per month, or 20 per cent. +per annum. Five days' grace is allowed on pledges; and if goods be not +redeemed within three years, they are made over to the old clothes' +shops at a settled premium of 20 per cent. on the amount lent on them. +Pawnbrokers' establishments are numerous, and are frequented by all +classes, who pawn without scruple anything they may possess. The +banks, we are informed, 'keep up an intimate connection with the +pawnbrokers, who make and receive all their payments in notes for +copper cash, and will not take sycee, dollars, or dollar-notes—the +former, lest they should prove counterfeit, and the latter, on account +of the fluctuating value. They are very particular in passing the +bank-notes, and will accept only those of the large banks. A notice is +hung up in each shop, specifying what notes pass current with them; +and when the people go to redeem the articles they have pledged, as +they can present only those notes in payment, they have often to +repair previously to the bank where they are issued, to purchase them, +and, being at a premium, the banker thus gains his discount upon them. +Of such importance is this considered, that, without the support of +the pawnbrokers' connection, the business of a banker will always be +limited. Indeed, many of the banks keep pawnbrokers' shops also; and +the chief banker at Fuhchow is known to have opened no less than five +of these establishments. This is on account of the high interest paid +on pawnbrokers' loans.'</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="THINGS_TALKED_OF_IN_LONDON" id="THINGS_TALKED_OF_IN_LONDON"></a>THINGS TALKED OF IN LONDON.</h2> + +<p class="right"><i>May, 1852.</i></p> + +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of + Contents</a></p> + +<p>As May of last year was made memorable by the opening of the Great +Exhibition, so will the present month become famous for the pulling +down of the Crystal Palace. Parliament has decreed it, and there is an +end of the matter. If the people by and by find reason to complain of +the proceeding, they will have no one to blame but themselves; +because, had they spoken out as only a whole nation can speak, the +decision of the legislature would have been on the other side of the +question. We are promised, however, that it shall be re-erected on +some other site, and herein must solace ourselves for disappointment +at the removal, while waiting for the National Exhibition to be opened +at Cork, or that of the Arts and Manufactures of the Indian Empire +promised by the Society of Arts. Besides this, the present May will be +noteworthy in the annals of ocean steam-navigation: the steamers to +Australia are to commence their trips, as also those to Brazil and +Valparaiso. Who would have dreamed, twenty years ago, that the +redoubtable Cape Horn would, before a quarter century had expired, be +rounded by a steamer from an English port? Captain Denham is about to +sail in the <i>Herald</i>, to survey the islands of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[pg 350]</a></span> the great ocean, one +object being to find the best route and coaling-stations among the +islands for steamers from the Isthmus to Sydney. The vessel will carry +an interpreter, a supply of English seeds and plants, and a number of +articles, to serve as presents for the natives. Should this survey be +successful, and the United States' expedition to Japan produce the +effect anticipated, the vast solitudes of the Pacific will be erelong +continually echoing with the beat of paddle-wheels and the roar of +steam. Rapid intercommunication will bring about changes, whereat +politicians and ethnologists shall wonder. The Chinese still keep +pouring into California by shiploads of 200 or 300 at a time, where +they will perhaps learn that a year of Anglo-Saxondom is 'worth cycle +of Cathay.' We may regard as evidence of progress, that Loo-choo has +been visited by Captain Shadwell of the <i>Sphynx</i>; he was received with +great favour, and conducted to the royal city of Shooi, three miles +inland. Readers of Captain Basil Hall's pleasant account of the same +island will remember, that he was jealously forbidden to approach the +interior. Do the Loo-chooans want to conciliate an ally? If, as is +said, Japan is to become to the Americans what India is to us, we +shall have them for neighbours in the east, as we now have them in the +west. It will be an interesting event should England, America, and +Russia some day meet on the Asiatic continent.</p> + +<p>One good effect of railways, as you know, has been to cheapen coal, +and excite activity in heretofore dormant mining districts—results +which tell upon the trade in sea-borne coals. To meet this emergency, +a scheme is on foot for sending coal from the Tyne to the Thames in +steam-colliers, which, by their short and regular passages, shall +compete successfully with the railways. The experiment is well worth +trying, and ought to pay, if properly managed: meantime, our railways +will extend their ramifications. Looking for a moment at what is doing +in other parts of the world, it appears that there are at present 2000 +miles of railway in France, besides as much more which is to be +completed in four years. Portugal is only just beginning to think of +iron routes: a few wakeful people are trying to impress that backward +land with a sense of the advantages of rapid locomotion; and it is +shewn that, by a simple system of railways, Lisbon would be placed at +sixteen hours' distance from Madrid, forty-three from Paris, +fifty-three from Brussels, and fifty-seven from London. Would it not +be a comfort to be able to run away from the north-east monsoon, which +has so long afflicted us, to the orange groves on the banks of the +Tagus, in about two days and a half? A telegraph is about to be +carried from the Austrian States over the Splugen into +Switzerland—the Alps, it would appear, being no bar to the +thought-flasher. There is a project, too, for a regular and universal +dispatch of telegraph messages from all parts of the world. A mail and +telegraph route from the Mississippi across to San Francisco is talked +about. The proposer considers that post-houses might be erected at +every twenty miles across the American continent, in which companies +of twenty men of the United States' army might be stationed, to +protect and facilitate the intercommunication; news would then find +its way across in six or seven days. Should this scheme fail to be +realised, the Americans may content themselves with having nearly +11,000 miles of railway already open, and another 11,000 in progress.</p> + +<p>A beginning is made towards the abolition of the duty on foreign books +imported. Government have consented that certain learned societies, +and a number of scientific individuals, shall receive, duty free, such +scientific publications as may be sent to them from abroad. +Considering that the whole amount realised by the present customs' +charge is only L.8000, it is easy to believe that the authorities will +shortly have to abolish it altogether. Another question in which books +are concerned, is the dispute that has been going on for some time +among the fraternity of booksellers, as to whether a retailer shall be +allowed to sell books for any price he pleases, or not. Whether +'free-trade' or 'monopoly' is to prevail, will depend on the decision +of the arbitrators who have been chosen. Leaving out all the rest of +the kingdom, there are nearly 1000 booksellers in London; so the +subject is an important one. This number affords a notable datum for +comparison with other countries. In Germany, the number of booksellers +is 2651, of which 2200 are retailers, 400 publishers only, while 451 +combine the two. They are distributed—36 in Frankfort, 56 in +Stuttgart, 52 in Vienna, 129 in Berlin, 145 in Leipsic. The figures +are suggestive. Another fact may be instanced: in 1851 the number of +visits to the British Museum for reading was 78,419—giving an average +of 269 per day, the room having been open during 292 days. The number +of books consulted was 424,851, or 1455 daily. This is an agreeable +view of what one part of society is doing; but there is a reverse to +the picture, as shewn in a recently published parliamentary report, +from which it appears that in 1849 the juvenile offenders in England +numbered 6849—in Wales, 73—of whom 167 were transported; in 1850, +the numbers were respectively 6988, 82, 184, shewing an increase under +each head. Of the whole number in confinement last November, 169 were +under thirteen years of age, and 568 under sixteen: 205 had been in +prison once before, 90 twice, 49 three times, 85 four times and +upwards; 329 had lost one parent, 103 both parents; 327 could not +read, and 554 had not been brought up to any settled employment. These +facts may be taken as demonstrative of the necessity for multiplying +reformatory agricultural schools, such as have been established in +various parts of the continent with the happiest effects.</p> + +<p>Among the prizes just announced by the French Académie, is one for +'the best work on the state of pauperism in France, and the means of +remedying it,' to be adjudged in 1853. It is greatly to be wished that +some gifted mind would arise capable of taking a proper survey of so +grave a question, and bringing it to a practical and satisfactory +solution. Some people are beginning to ask, whether it would not be +better, with the proceeds of poor-rates, to send paupers to colonies +which are scant of labourers, rather than to expend the money in +keeping them at home. The Académie of Literature, too, has offered a +prize for an essay on the parliamentary eloquence of England—a +significant fact in a country where the legislature is not permitted +to be eloquent, and where forty-nine provincial papers have died since +the 2d of December. Coming again to science: the judicial <i>savants</i> +have awarded a medal to Mr Hind for his discovery of some two or three +of the minor planets—an acknowledgment of merit which will not fail +of good results in more ways than one.</p> + +<p>Various scientific matters, which are deserving of a passing notice, +have come before the same learned body. Matteucci, who has been +steadily pursuing his electro-chemical labours, now states that with +certain liquids and a single metal he can form a pile, the +electro-magnetic and electro-chemical effects of which are much +greater than those obtained with the old piles of Volta and Wollaston, +and come nearer to those of the batteries of Bunsen and Grove. As yet, +he withholds the particulars, but they will shortly be forthcoming. M. +Dureau de la Malle, in remarks on the breeding of fish, a subject +which has of late occupied much attention in France, says, that he has +now discovered the reason 'why domestic servants in Holland and +Scotland, when taking a situation, stipulate that they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[pg 351]</a></span> shall not be +made to eat salmon more than three times a week;' it is, the insipid +taste of young salmon. It is safe to say, that however much M. de la +Malle may know about fish, he knows but little of the habits of the +countries to which he refers. M. Yvart mentions a fact that may be +useful to graziers—the breed of cattle has been improved in France by +the introduction of the Durham bull; but, as experience has shewn, it +is at the expense of certain qualities deemed essential on the other +side of the Channel. Here, we require meat as speedily as possible in +young animals for consumption in our great towns; there, the great +rural population use milk largely, and keep the animals longer before +they are killed. The quantity of milk, it appears, is materially +reduced in the Durham breed, and on this account M. Yvart suggests, +that it should not be too much encouraged. Then there is something +about dogs by Messrs Gruby and Delafond, who shew that the worms which +have long been known to exist in the larger blood-vessels of certain +dogs, are the parents of the almost innumerable <i>filaria</i> or +microscopic worms, found circulating also in the veins. The number +generally in one dog is estimated at 52,000, though at times it is +more than 200,000; and being smaller than the blood-globules, the +creatures penetrate the minutest blood-vessels. They are met with on +the average in one dog in twenty-five, though most frequent in the +adult and old, and without distinction of sex or race. The examination +of the phenomenon is to be continued, with a view to ascertain whether +dogs infested with these blood-worms are subject to any peculiar +disease.</p> + +<p>More interesting is the account of a successful case of transfusion of +blood in the human subject, performed in presence of the ablest +surgeons of Paris. A woman was taken to the Hôtel Dieu reduced by +hemorrhage to the last stage of weakness, unable to speak, to open her +eyes, or to draw back her tongue when put out. The basilic vein was +opened, and the point of a syringe, warmed to the proper temperature, +was introduced, charged with blood drawn from the same vein in the arm +of one of the assistants. The quantity, 180 grammes, was injected in +2½ minutes, after which the wound was dressed, and the patient +placed in a comfortable position. Gradually, the beatings of the pulse +rose from 130 to 138, and became firmer; the action of the heart +increased in energy; the eyes opened with a look of intelligence; and +the tongue could be advanced and withdrawn with facility, and regained +its redness. On the following day, there was a little delirium, after +which the pulse fell to 90, the signs of vitality acquired strength, +and at the end of a week the woman left the hospital restored to +health. Cases of successful transfusion are so rare, that it is not +surprising the one here recorded should have excited attention among +our physiologists.</p> + +<p>People inclined to corpulence may profit by M. Dancel's observations +on the development of fat. He says, that some of his patients, whose +obesity was a constant inconvenience and cause of disease, 'lost very +notably of their <i>embonpoint</i> by a change in their alimentary +regimen—abstaining almost entirely from vegetables, feculent +substances, diminishing their quantity of drink, and increasing, when +necessary, their portion of meat.' On another, subject, M. Guérin +Méneville believes he has found a new cochineal insect (<i>Coccus fabæ</i>) +on the common bean, which grows wild in the south of France, and in +such abundance, that a considerable quantity may be collected in a +short time. The yield of colouring matter is of such amount, that a +project is talked of for cultivating the plant extensively.</p> + +<p>A communication has been made to the Geological Society at Paris by M. +de Hauslab, on a subject which has from time to time occupied the +thoughts of those who study the <i>physique</i> of the planet on which we +live—namely, the origin of the present state of our globe, and its +crystal-like cleavage. After a few preliminary remarks about +mountains, rocks, dikes and their line of direction, he shews that the +globe presents the form approximately of a great octahedron +(eight-sided figure); and further, that the three axial planes which +such a form necessitates, may be described by existing circles round +the earth: the first being Himalaya and Chimborazo; starting from Cape +Finisterre, passing to India, Borneo, the eastern range of Australia, +New Zealand, across to South America, Caracas, the Azores, and so +round to Finisterre. The second runs in the opposite direction; +includes the Andes, Rocky Mountains, crosses Behring's Strait to +Siberia, thence to the Altaï, Hindostan, Madagascar, Cape Colony, and +ending again at the Andes of Brazil. The third, which cuts the two +former at right angles, proceeds from the Alps, traverses the +Mediterranean by Corsica and Sardinia to the mountains of Fezzan, +through Central Africa to the Cape, on to Kerguelen's Land, Blue +Mountains of Australia, Spitzbergen, Scandinavia, and completing +itself in the Alps, from whence it started. These circles shew the +limits of the faces of the huge crystal, and may be divided into +others, comprising forty-eight in the whole. The views thus set forth +exhibit much ingenuity; and when we consider that metals crystallise +in various forms, and native iron in the octahedral, there is much to +be said in their favour.</p> + +<p>We shall probably not be long before hearing of another gold field, +for Dr Barth writes from the interior of Africa, that grains of the +precious metal have been found in two rivers which flow into Lake +Tchad, and that the mountains in the neighbourhood abound with it. +Should the first discovery be verified by further explorations, gold +will be more abundant than it now promises to be, and Africa perhaps +the richest source of supply. Apropos of this continent, a French +traveller is about to prove from the results of a journey from the +Cape towards the equator, that the Carthaginian discoveries had been +pushed much further towards the south than is commonly supposed.</p> + +<p>Agassiz, who, as you know, has become a citizen of the United States, +has had the Cuvierian prize awarded to him for his great work on +fossil fishes—an honour approved by every lover of science. This +distinguished writer says, in his latest publications on fossil +zoology, that the number of fossil fishes distributed over the globe +is more than 25,000 species; of mammifera, over 3000; reptiles, over +4000; shells, more than 40,000; numbers which greatly exceed all +former calculation. Of other American items, there is one worthy the +notice of apiarians: some emigrants who sailed from Boston wished to +convey a hive of bees to the Sandwich Islands, where the industrious +insects have not as yet been introduced; all went well until the +vessel reached the tropics, and there the heat was so great as to melt +the wax of the combs, and consequently to destroy the bees.</p> + +<p>Lieutenant Hunt, of the American Coast Survey, states that +copper-plate engravings may be copied on stone; specimens are to +appear in the forthcoming report. To quote his description: 'A +copper-plate being duly engraved, it is inked, and an impression taken +on transfer-paper. A good paper, which wetting does not expand, is +needed, and a fatty coating is used in the process. The transfer-paper +impression is laid on the smooth stone, and run through a press. It is +then wetted, heated, and stripped off from the stone, leaving the ink +and fat on its face. The heated fat is softly brushed away, leaving +only the ink-lines. From this reversed impression on the stone, the +printing is performed just as in ordinary lithography. A good transfer +produces from 3000 to 5000 copies. Thus prints from a single +copper-plate can be infinitely multiplied, the printing being, +moreover, much cheaper than copper-plate.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[pg 352]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="IN_EXPECTATION_OF_DEATH_CONSTANTIA" id="IN_EXPECTATION_OF_DEATH_CONSTANTIA"></a>IN EXPECTATION OF DEATH.—CONSTANTIA.</h2> + +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of + Contents</a></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">When I was young, my lover stole<br /></span> +<span class="i1">One of my ringlets fair:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I wept—'Ah no! Those always part,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who having once changed heart for heart,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Change also locks of hair.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'And wonder-opened eyes have seen<br /></span> +<span class="i1">The spirits of the dead,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Gather like motes in silent bands<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Round hair once reft by tender hands<br /></span> +<span class="i1">From some now shrouded head.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'If'—— Here he closed my quivering mouth,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And where the curl had lain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Laid payment rich for what he stole:—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Could I to one hour crush life's whole,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">I'd live that hour again!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">My golden curls are silvering o'er—<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Who heeds? The seas roll wide;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When one I know their bounds shall pass,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There'll be no tresses—save long grass—<br /></span> +<span class="i1">For <i>his</i> hands to divide;<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">While I shall lie, low, deep, a-cold,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And never hear him tread:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whether he weep, or sigh, or moan,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I shall be passive as a stone,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">He living, and I—dead!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And then he will rise up and go,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">With slow steps, looking back,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Still—going: leaving me to keep<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My frozen and eternal sleep,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Beneath the earth so black.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Pale brow—oft leant against his brow:<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Dear hand—where his lips lay;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dim eyes, that knew not they were fair,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till his praise made them half they were—<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Must all these pass away?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Must nought of mine be left for him<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Save the poor curl he stole?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Round which this wildly-loving <i>me</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Will float unseen continually,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">A disembodied soul.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">A soul! Glad thought—that lightning-like<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Leaps from this cloud of doom:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If, living, all its load of clay<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Keeps not my spirit from him away,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Thou canst not, cruel tomb!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The moment that these earth-chains burst,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Like an enfranchised dove,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O'er seas and lands to him I fly,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whom only, whether I live or die,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">I loved, love, and shall love.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I'll wreathe around him—he shall breathe<br /></span> +<span class="i1">My life instead of air;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In glowing sunbeams o'er his head<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My visionary hands I'll spread,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And kiss his forehead fair.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I'll stand, an angel bold and strong,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Between his soul and sin;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If Grief lie stone-like on his heart,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I'll beat its marble doors apart,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">To let Peace enter in.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">He never more shall part from me,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Nor I from him abide;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Let these poor limbs in earth find rest!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I'll live like Love within his breast,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Rejoicing that I died.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="WATER" id="WATER"></a>WATER.</h2> + +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of + Contents</a></p> + +<p>Some four-fifths of the weight of the human body are nothing but +water. The blood is just a solution of the body in a vast excess of +water—as saliva, mucus, milk, gall, urine, sweat, and tears are the +local and partial infusions effected by that liquid. All the soft +solid parts of the frame may be considered as ever temporary +precipitates or crystallisations (to use the word but loosely) from +the blood, that mother-liquor of the whole body; always being +precipitated or suffered to become solid, and always being +redissolved, the forms remaining, but the matter never the same for +more than a moment, so that the flesh is only a vanishing solid, as +fluent as the blood itself. It has also to be observed, that every +part of the body, melting again into the river of life continually as +it does, is also kept perpetually drenched in blood by means of the +blood-vessels, and more than nine-tenths of that wonderful current is +pure water. Water plays as great a part, indeed, in the economy of +that little world, the body of man, as it still more evidently does in +the phenomenal life of the world at large. Three-fourths of the +surface of the earth is ocean; the dry ground is dotted with lakes, +its mountain-crests are covered with snow and ice, its surface is +irrigated by rivers and streams, its edges are eaten by the sea; and +aqueous vapour is unceasingly ascending from the ocean and inland +surfaces through the yielding air, only to descend in portions and at +intervals in dews and rains, hails and snows. Water is not only the +basis of the juices of all the plants and animals in the world; it is +the very blood of nature, as is well known to all the terrestrial +sciences; and old Thales, the earliest of European speculators, +pronounced it the mother-liquid of the universe. In the later systems +of the Greeks, indeed, it was reduced to the inferior dignity of being +only one of the four parental natures—fire, air, earth, and water; +but water was the highest—ύδωρ μεν αριστον—in +rank.—<i>Westminster Review</i>.</p> + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="LOTTERY_OF_DEATH" id="LOTTERY_OF_DEATH"></a>LOTTERY OF DEATH.</h2> + +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of + Contents</a></p> + +<p>The Polish and German peasantry have given the authorities at Posen +considerable trouble by their inquiries respecting a 'Rothschild's +Lottery.' They have been led to believe, that the 'great Rothschild' +has been sentenced to be beheaded; but that he has been allowed to +procure a substitute, if he can, by lottery! For this purpose, a sum +of many millions is devoted, all the tickets to be prizes of 3000 +thalers each, except one; that fatal number is a blank; and whoever +draws it, is to be decapitated instead of the celebrated banker! +Notwithstanding the risk, the applicants for shares have been +numerous. [There is nothing surprising in the number of applications +for these shares. Every man who enters the army in wartime, takes out +a ticket in a similar lottery. In China, human life is of still less +account; for there it is easy for a condemned criminal, whose escape +the authorities are willing to connive at, to obtain a substitute, +who, for a sum of money, suffers death in his stead.]</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="A_MAN_FOR_THE_WORLD" id="A_MAN_FOR_THE_WORLD"></a>A MAN FOR THE WORLD.</h2> + +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of + Contents</a></p> + +<p>A successful merchant in New Zealand, a Scotchman, commenced business +with the following characteristic entry on the first page of his +ledger:—'Commenced business this day—with no money—little +credit—and L.70 in debt. Faint heart never won fair lady. Set a stout +heart to a stay (steep) brae. God save the Queen!'</p> + +<hr class="full" /> + +<p class="center"><i>Just Published</i>, <i>Price 6d. Paper Cover</i>,</p> + +<p>CHAMBERS'S POCKET MISCELLANY: forming a <span class="smcap">Literary Companion</span> for the +<span class="smcap">Railway</span>, the <span class="smcap">Fireside</span>, or the <span class="smcap">Bush</span>.</p> + +<p class="center">VOLUME VI.</p> + +<p class="center">To be continued in Monthly Volumes.</p> + +<hr class="full" /> + +<p>Printed and Published by W. and R. <span class="smcap">Chambers</span>, High Street, Edinburgh. +Also sold by W. S. <span class="smcap">Orr</span>, Amen Corner, London; D. N. <span class="smcap">Chambers</span>, 55 West +Nile Street, Glasgow; and J. <span class="smcap">M'Glashan</span>, 50 Upper Sackville Street, +Dublin.—Advertisements for Monthly Parts are requested to be sent to +<span class="smcap">Maxwell</span> & Co., 31 Nicholas Lane, Lombard Street, London, to whom all +applications respecting their insertion must be made.</p> + +<hr class="full" /> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 439, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EDINBURGH JOURNAL *** + +***** This file should be named 19181-h.htm or 19181-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/1/8/19181/ + +Produced by Malcolm Farmer, Richard J. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 439 + Volume 17, New Series, May 29, 1852 + +Author: Various + +Editor: Robert Chambers and William Chambers + +Release Date: September 5, 2006 [EBook #19181] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EDINBURGH JOURNAL *** + + + + +Produced by Malcolm Farmer, Richard J. Shiffer and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. + + + + + + + + + + CHAMBERS' EDINBURGH JOURNAL + + CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, EDITORS OF 'CHAMBERS'S + INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE,' 'CHAMBERS'S EDUCATIONAL COURSE,' &c. + + + No. 439. NEW SERIES. SATURDAY, MAY 29, 1852. PRICE 1-1/2_d._ + + + + +THEREFORE AND BECAUSE. + + +A distinguished general-officer being appointed to a command in which +he would be called on to discharge judicial as well as military +duties, expressed to Lord Mansfield his apprehensions, that he would +execute his office but ill in the former respect, and that his +inexperience and ignorance of technical jurisprudence would prove a +serious impediment to his efficient administration of justice. 'Make +your mind perfectly easy,' said the great judge; 'trust to your native +good sense in forming your opinions, but beware of attempting to state +the grounds of your judgments. The judgment will probably be +right--the argument infallibly wrong.' + +This is a common case, especially with practical men, who rarely have +either leisure or inclination to recall the workings of their own +minds, or observe the intellectual process by which they have been +conducted to any conclusion. By what they are prone to consider as a +kind of instinct--if by chance they are philosophers, and delight in +what old Wilson, the essayist, calls 'inkhorn terms,' they designate +it 'intuition'--they arrive at a truth, but have no recollection +whatever of the road they travelled to reach it, and are able neither +to retrace their own steps nor indicate to another the way they came. +The poet, in describing and contrasting the intellectual +characteristics of the two sexes, attributes to the softer something +of this instinct as a distinguishing mental peculiarity, and seems to +consider it as somewhat analogous in its constitution to those animal +senses by means of which the mind becomes cognisant of external +objects, of their existence, their qualities, and their relations. In +his view, the reasoning process is vitally and essentially distinct, +as it is exercised by men and by women-- + + 'Her rapid mind decides while his debates; + She _feels_ a truth which he but calculates.' + +And certainly this is a very pretty, very poetical, and very +convenient way of accounting for a phenomenon that, if examined with +common care, suggests a solution more accurate and complete, if not +exactly so complimentary. In sober truth, a positive incapacity +clearly to point out the precise manner in which a conviction has been +formed, is one of the commonest of logical deficiencies, and no more +to be ascribed exclusively to the softer sex, than it is an attribute +of intellectual excellency in either. + +When, in Euripides's beautiful play, the untranslatable _Hippolylus_, +Phaedra's nurse is made to conclude that certain men she refers to +cannot be otherwise than lax in their morals, _because_ they have +finished the roofs of their houses in a very imperfect manner, her +reasoning is inconsequential enough; but not more so than that of the +renowned French chancellor, Michael L'Hopital, who, when employed in +negotiating a treaty between Charles IX. and our Elizabeth, insisted +on the well-known line of the Latin poet-- + + 'Et penitus toto divisos orbe Britannos,' + +as a _reason_ that Calais should not be returned to the English. The +connection between the premises and the conclusion was not more real +in one case than in the other. A learned member of the medical +profession, in an elaborate work on the climate and the people of +Malta, enjoins on the invalid a participation in the amusements of +cheerful society; and the propriety of his injunction few will be +disposed to dispute: they may well, however, marvel at the _reason_ he +assigns for such sensible advice--that, so far as invalids are +concerned, society has a direct tendency to promote cutaneous +perspiration! + +Cardinal de Retz severely reprehends the historians of his time for +their pedantic affectation of explaining and accounting for every +event they record--the motives that actuated this statesman, the +reasons which prompted that policy, the wherefore it was this +enterprise miscarried, or that undertaking brought to a successful +issue. It would not be difficult to furnish a lengthy catalogue of the +blunders historical writers have perpetrated through their overweening +addiction to this folly. Let two instances here suffice: When the +Roman Church, about the middle of the eleventh century, was +endeavouring to insure the celibacy of its priesthood, the married +clergy, who braved its censures and contemned its authority, became +known as _Nicolaites_; which name, grave writers assure us, was given +them in consequence of the active share Pope Nicholas II. had taken in +punishing their contumacy and effecting their suppression. The notion +that any sect or class of religionists should have borrowed its name +from that of its most zealous opponent and indefatigable persecutor, +is worthy only of those critics, so severely reprehended by +Quintilian, who professed to discover the etymon of the Latin word +_lucus_, a grove, in the substantive _lux_, light; and vindicated the +derivation on the ground, that in groves darkness usually prevailed. +The familiar expression of _lucus a non lucendo_, owes its birth to +this striking manifestation of critical sagacity. + +Again: a certain portion of the eastern and southern coast of England +was, in early times, denominated 'the Saxon Shore'--Littus +Saxonicum--and was, during the days of Roman supremacy, under the +government of a military court enjoying the appellative of _Comes +Littoris Saxonici_. Acute historical critics inform us, that this +tract was so denominated in consequence of its being open to the +aggressions of the Saxons; that, in short, it received its name from +its occasional invaders, and not from its permanent inhabitants. The +absurdity of this explanation is the greater, inasmuch as, on the +other side of the Channel, there was a large district bearing +precisely the same name, and settled entirely by adventurers, Saxon in +birth or by descent. This, one would have thought, would have +suggested to our English antiquaries a more probable explanation of +the name than that they adopted. The people of Genoa have, or had, in +speaking, a peculiar way of clipping or cutting short their syllables. +Their Italian has never been considered pure. You must not go to +maritime towns for purity of language, especially to such as have been +long and extensively engaged in commercial pursuits. Labat, however, +gives a special and peculiar reason for the fashion of mutilated +speech in which, he declares, the Genoese indulge, telling us they +call their superb city _Gena_, and not _Genoa_. He refers their +'chopping' pronunciation to their habitual economy--an economy +distinctly traceable to their mercantile habits. 'Telle est leur +economie,' he says, 'ils rognent tout jusqu'aux paroles.' + +The old English law-writer, Bracton, desiring to account for the +ancient doctrine of English law, that inheritances shall lineally +descend, and never lineally ascend, finds a reason in the fact, that a +bowl being trundled, runs down a hill and never up a hill; and +Littleton, the first great writer on English real property-law, traces +the origin of the phrase 'hotchpot'--a familiar legal term--to the +archaic denomination of a pudding, in our English tongue. 'It +seemeth,'he says, 'that this word, hotchpot, is in English a pudding; +for in this pudding is not commonly put one thing alone, and +_therefore_ it behoveth, in this case, to put the lands given in +frank-marriage,' &c. Erasmus used to say of lawyers, that of ignorant +people, they were the most learned. Questionless they are not always +sound logicians. When the clown in Hamlet disserts so learnedly on +'crowner's quest-law,' he is only parodying, and that closely, a +scarcely less ludicrous judgment which had actually been pronounced, +not long before, in the Court of Queen's Bench. Dr Clarke, the +traveller, tells an amusing story to the purpose. According to him, +the Turkish lawyers recognise as an offence what they style 'homicide +by an intermediate cause'--an instance of which offence our traveller +details in these words: 'A young man, desperately in love with a girl +of Stanchio--the ancient Cos, the birthplace of Hippocrates +and Apelles, the lovely isle renowned for its lettuces and +turpentine--eagerly sought to marry her. But his proposals were +rejected. In consequence, he destroyed himself by poison. The Turkish +police arrested the father of the obdurate fairy, and tried him for +culpable homicide. "If the accused," they argued, with becoming +gravity, "had not had a daughter, the deceased would not have fallen +in love; consequently, he would not have been disappointed; +consequently, he would not have died: but he (the accused) had a +daughter, and the deceased had fallen in love," &c. &c. Upon all these +counts he was called upon to pay the price of the young man's life; +and this, being eighty piastres, was accordingly exacted.' When the +amiable and gentle John Evelyn was in the Netherlands, a woman was +pointed out to him who had had twenty-five husbands, and was then a +widow; 'yet it could not be proved,' he says, that 'she had made any +of her husbands away, though the suspicion had brought her several +times to trouble.' However, the Dutch logicians made no difficulty of +the matter; and arguing, from the number of the woman's husbands, that +she could not be wholly innocent of their death, prohibited her from +marrying again--which, her addiction to matrimony being considered, +was perhaps, of all the 'troubles' she had undergone, by no means the +least. + +The logical faculty, which not only consists with the poetical, but is +invariably and necessarily associated with it, whenever the latter +exists in an advanced stage of development, is in no writer more +conspicuous as an intellectual characteristic than in Schiller. In +this respect he is not excelled even by Wordsworth himself; but Homer +sometimes snoozes, and Schiller's reasoning is not always +consequential: as, for instance, when he denies two compositions of +Ovid--the _Tristia_ and _Ex Ponto_--to be genuine poetry, on the +ground that they were the results not of inspiration, but of +necessity; just as if poetry were not a thing to be judged of by +itself; and as if one could not determine whether it were present or +absent in a composition, without knowing to what influences the author +was subjected at the time the composition was produced! + +Rousseau, in one of his moods of bilious cynicism, falls foul of human +reason altogether. No man despised it more in action; no one could +more consistently decry it in speculation. In his opinion, the +exercise of the reasoning powers is absolutely sinful--_l'homme qui +raisonne est l'homme qui peche_. Franklin, on the other hand, in a +familiar tone of playful banter, vindicates its utility, alleging that +it is mightily 'convenient to be a rational animal, who knows how to +find or invent a plausible pretext for whatever it has an inclination +to do.' Examples of this convenience abound. The Barbary Jews were +rich and industrious, and, accordingly, their wealth provoke the +cupidity of the indolent and avaricious Mussulmans. These latter, +whenever a long drought had destroyed vegetation, and the strenuous +prayers offered up in the mosques had proved unavailing for its +removal, were accustomed to argue--and a mighty convenient argument it +was--that it was the foul breath of the Jews that had offended Heaven, +and rendered the pious petitions of the faithful of none effect. The +remedy for the drought, then, who could doubt? The true believers +drove the Jews out of their cities, and quietly confiscated their +goods. Dryden, anxious to congratulate Charles II. on his 'happy +restoration,' amidst a thousand fulsome compliments--all tending to +shew that that prince was the author of blessings, not only to his own +kingdoms, but to universal humanity--declares, that it was to Charles, +and to him only, Spain was indebted for her magnificent colonial +possessions in either hemisphere. Addressing the sovereign, his words +are-- + + 'Spain to your gift _alone_ her Indies owes, + _For what the powerful takes not, he bestows_.' + +A convenient fashion of reasoning truly: as convenient every whit as +that of Daniel Burgess, a witty Presbyterian minister, devoted to the +House of Brunswick and the principles of the Revolution, who was wont +to affirm, as the reason the descendants of Jacob were called +Israelites, and did not receive the original name of their progenitor, +that Heaven was unwilling they should bear a name in every way so +odious as that of Jacobites. + +Once more: it appears from Dr Tschudi's valuable and interesting work +on South America, that in Peru rice is cheap, and servants both lazy +and dirty. Now, the servants in Lima have a theory about rice. They +consider it possesses certain qualities antagonistic to water, so +that, after eating, to touch water would be seriously injurious to +health; and thus does their frequent consumption of rice supply them +with a most convenient reason or excuse for their habitual abstinence +from an operation they detest--that of washing their hands. + +Verily, they are mighty fine and convenient words, THEREFORE and +BECAUSE. + + + + +DAVID'S LAST PICTURE. + + +The whole population of the good city of Brussels was in a state of +excitement. Talma, the great French tragedian, was that evening to +close his engagement by appearing in his favourite character of +Leonidas; and from an early hour in the morning, the doors of the +theatre were beset with waiting crowds, extending to the very end of +the large square in which it stood. It was evident that the building, +spacious as it was, could not contain one-half of the eager expectants +already assembled, and yet every moment brought a fresh accession to +the number destined to be disappointed. The hero of this ovation, and +the object of all this unusual excitement to the worthy and naturally +phlegmatic beer-drinkers of old Brabant, was standing near a window in +the White Cross Hotel, engaged most prosaically in shaving himself; +and, from time to time, casting on the crowd, to which he was the +magnet of attraction, the careless glance of a monarch become from +habit almost insensible to the loyal enthusiasm of his subjects. + +'So he will not come?' said the tragedian to an old friend who was +with him. 'He is a cynical old fool; and yet, I assure you, my dear M. +Lesec, that I had _Leonidas_ got up expressly for him, thinking to +tickle his old republican fancies, for to my mind it is as stupid a +play as _Germanicus_, though I contrive to produce an effect with some +of its high-sounding patriotic passages; and I thought the worthy +David would have recognised his own picture vivified. But he will not +come: he positively refused, you tell me. I might have known it. Age, +exile, the memory of the past--all this has cut him up terribly: he is +the David of the Consulate no longer.' + +'I am just come from him,' answered Collector Lesec: 'he received me +almost as Hermione receives Orestes in the fourth act of _Andromache_. +To say the least of it, he was somewhat tart. "I never go to the +theatre," he answered abruptly. "Tell my friend Talma, that I thank +him for his kindness; but I always go to bed at nine. I should be very +glad if he would come, before he left Brussels, and have a tankard and +a smoke with me."' + +'I see,' said Talma with a half-ironical smile, 'he is turned quite +Flemish. Poor fellow! to what has he come?--to smoking tobacco, and +losing all faith in art. Persecution does more harm than the +guillotine,' added the tragedian in a tone of bitterness. 'There is a +living death. David's exile has deprived us of many a _chef-d'oeuvre_. +I can forgive the Restoration for surrounding itself with nobodies, +but it need not banish our men of talent: they are not to be found +now-a-days in every corner. But enough. Another word, and we should be +talking politics.' + +Leonidas finished shaving like any other man; and then turned suddenly +to his friend: 'I bet you ten napoleons,' said he, 'that David would +have come to the play had I gone myself to him with the invitation! I +intended it, but I had not time; these rehearsals kill me--I might as +well be a galley-slave. However, I have about three-quarters of an +hour to myself now, and I will go beard the old Roman in his +stronghold. What say you to going with me?' + +It would have been difficult to name a place to which M. Lesec would +not have gone, to have the honour of being seen arm-in-arm with the +great Talma; and in another half hour they were on their way across +the Place de la Monnaie into the Rue Pierre Plate. + +'Now for a storm!' said Lesec. 'We are in for it: so be prepared. I +leave it all on your shoulders, noble sir, for I must keep clear of +him.' + +'Is he, then, so entirely changed?' exclaimed Talma, quickening his +pace. 'Poor exile! unhappy genius! torn from thy native soil, to +languish and die!' + +The visitors soon reached the large, though somewhat dilapidated +mansion of the celebrated artist; and after they had been reconnoitred +through a small grating by an old female servant, they were ushered +into a rather gloomy apartment, presenting a singular discrepancy +between its antique decorations and modern furniture. + +The illustrious exile came out of an adjoining apartment in his +dressing-gown, and advanced towards them with a quick yet almost +majestic step, though his form was slightly bent, apparently by age. +To Talma's great surprise, David received him most cordially, even +throwing away his usually inseparable companion, a long pipe, to grasp +both his hands. 'Welcome, welcome, my old friend!' he said; 'you could +not have come at a better time. I have not for many a day felt so +happy, and the sight of you is a great addition.' And the old painter +kept rubbing his hands, a token with him of exuberant satisfaction. + +Talma looked at Lesec as much as to say: 'The devil is not quite so +black as he is painted;' while the worthy collector only shrugged his +shoulders, and lifted his eyebrows in pantomimic expression of his +inability to comprehend such a sudden change in the atmosphere. + +'You must promise to come and dine with me to-morrow,' continued the +painter, accompanying his invitation with a smile, or rather a grin, +for David's face was very much disfigured by a wen on his cheek, which +also, by causing a twitching of the jaw, rendered his articulation +indistinct. + +'To my great regret, I am obliged to decline your invitation, my dear +friend,' said Talma. 'This is my last night here, and I must set off +for Paris to-morrow.' + +'Set off to-morrow!' + +'Positively. Michelet and Dumas have the whole management on their +shoulders, and are pressing my return; and Lemercier is only waiting +for me to read to us a sort of _Richard the Third_.' + +'Nevertheless, you dine with me to-morrow. One day longer will not +matter to them, and is a great matter to me. I suspect Lemercier's +_Richard the Third_ is cold enough to keep a little longer. I am to +have my friend Girodet with me; so dine with us you must. It will make +me grow young again, man, and bring back the happy meetings at +Moliker's, near the gate of the Louvre.' + +The illustrious exile accompanied this sentence with another of his +grim smiles. The actor was deeply moved by it, for in that bitter +smile he read how the artist pined for his country. 'I will stay with +you, I will stay with you, dear David!' now eagerly cried Talma. 'For +your sake, I will desert my post, and steal a holiday from my Paris +friends; but it can only be on condition that you, too, will make a +little sacrifice for me, and come this evening to see me in Leonidas.' + +'Well, I don't care if I do,' answered the painter, whom the sight of +one friend, and the expectation of seeing another, had made quite a +different being from the David of the morning. 'Here goes for +Leonidas; but, remember, I give you fair warning--I shall go to sleep. +I have scarcely ever been in a theatre that I did not take a sound +nap.' + +'But when Talma plays, plaudits will keep you awake, M. David,' said +the courtly M. Lesec; and this seasonable compliment obtained for him +a smile, and an invitation for the next day, so flattering to his +vanity that, even at the risk of compromising himself with the Prince +of Orange, he unhesitatingly accepted. + +That evening, between six and seven o'clock, the old French painter, +a Baron of the Empire, entered the theatre in full dress, and with a +new red ribbon in his button-hole; but, as if shrinking from notice, +he took his seat at the back of the stage-box, reserved for him by his +friend Talma, with M. Lesec by his side, prouder, more elated, +more frizzled and befrilled, than if he had been appointed +first-commissioner of finance. But notwithstanding all the care of the +modest artist to preserve his incognito, it was soon whispered through +the theatre that he was one of the audience; and it was not long +before he was pointed out, when instantly the whole house stood up +respectfully, and repeated cheers echoed from pit to vaulted roof. The +prince himself was among the first to offer this tribute to the +illustrious exile, who, confused, agitated, and scarcely able to +restrain his tears, bowed to the audience rather awkwardly, as he +whispered to M. Lesec: 'So, then, I am still remembered. I thought no +one at Brussels cared whether I was dead or alive.' + +Soon Talma appeared as Leonidas; and in his turn engrossed every eye, +every thought of that vast assembly. A triple round of applause hailed +every speech uttered by the generous Spartan. The painter of the +Sabines, of Brutus, of the Horatii, of the Coronation, seemed to heed +neither the noisy acclamations nor the deep silence that succeeded +each other. Mute, motionless, transfixed, he heard not the plaudits: +it was not Talma he saw, not Talma he was listening to. He was at +Thermopylae by the side of Leonidas himself; ready to die with him and +his three hundred heroes. Never had he been so deeply moved. He had +talked of sleep, but he was as much alive, as eager, as animated, as +if he were an actual sharer in the heroic devotedness that was the +subject of the drama. For some moments after the curtain fell, he +seemed equally absorbed; it was not till he was out of the theatre, +and in the street, that he recovered sufficiently to speak; and then +it was only to repeat every five minutes: 'What a noble talent it is! +What a power he has had over me!' + +A night of tranquil sleep, and dreams of bright happy days, closed an +evening of such agreeable excitement to the poor exile; and so +cheering was its effect upon him, that he was up the next morning +before day, and his old servant, to her surprise, saw her usually +gloomy and taciturn master looking almost gay while charging her to +have breakfast ready, and to be sure that dinner was in every way +befitting the honoured guests he expected. + +'And are you going out, sir, and so early?' exclaimed the old woman; +now, for the first time, perceiving that her master had his hat on and +his cane in his hand. + +'Yes, Dame Rebecca,' answered David, as he gained the outer gate. 'I +have grown a great boy, and may be trusted to go alone.' + +'But it is scarcely daylight yet. None of the shops are open.' + +'I do not want to make any purchases.' + +'Then, where in the world can you be going, sir, at this hour?' + +'_Sacre bleu!_' returned the painter, losing all patience: 'could you +not guess, you old fool, that I am going as far as the Flanders-gate +to meet my old friend Girodet?' + +'O that, indeed! But are you sure he will come that way? And did he +tell you the exact time?' + +'What matter, you old torment? Suppose I have to wait a few minutes +for him, I can walk up and down, and it will be exercise for me, +which, you know, Dr Fanchet has desired me to take. Go along in, and +don't let the dinner be spoiled.' And the old man went on his way with +an almost elastic step. Once more was he young, gay, happy. Was he not +soon to see the friend dearer to him than all the world? But his +eagerness had made him anticipate by two hours the usual time for the +arrival of the diligence, and he was not made aware of his +miscalculation till after he had been a good while pacing up and down +the suburb leading to the Flanders-gate. The constant companion alike +of his studio and his exile, his pipe, he had left behind him, +forgotten in his hurry; so that he had no resource but to continue his +solitary walk, the current of his happy thoughts flowing on, +meanwhile, uninterrupted, save by an occasional greeting from +labourers going to their work, or the countrywomen hastening, as much +as their Flemish _embonpoint_ would allow, to the city markets. When +sauntering about alone, especially when waiting, we, like children, +make the most of everything that can while away the time, or give even +the semblance of being occupied: a flower-pot in a window, a parrot in +a cage, nay, even an insect flying past, is an absolute gain to us. +David felt it quite a fortunate chance when he suddenly caught sight +of a sign-painter carrying on his work in the open air. Though +evidently more of a whitewasher than a painter, yet, from the top of +his ladder, he was flourishing his brush in a masterly style, and at +times pausing and contemplating his work with as much complacency as +Gros could have done his wonderful cupola of Sainte-Genevieve. + +The painter of Napoleon passed the self-satisfied dauber twice, not +without some admiring glances at the way in which he was plastering +the background of his landscape with indigo, by way of making a sky. +At top of the sign, now nearly finished, was traced, in large +characters, 'Break of Day;' a precaution as indispensable to point out +the artist's design, as the inscription, 'Dutch and Flemish Beer,' was +to announce the articles dealt in by the owner of the house upon which +this masterpiece was to figure. + +'Here's a pretty fellow!' said the artist to himself; 'with as much +knowledge of perspective as a carthorse; and yet, I doubt not, +thinking himself a second Rubens. He brushes away as if he were +polishing a pair of boots. And what matter? Why should he not enjoy +himself in his own way?' But when he passed the ladder for the third +time, and saw a fresh layer of indigo putting over the first, his +patience could hold out no longer, and he exclaimed, without stopping +or even looking at the offender: 'There is too much blue!' + +'Eh! Do you want anything, sir?' said the sign-painter; but he who had +ventured the criticism was already at a distance. + +Again, David passed by. Another glance at the 'Break of Day,' and +another exclamation: 'Too much blue, you blockhead!' The insulted +plasterer turned round to reconnoitre the speaker, and as if +concluding, from his appearance, that he could be no very great +connoisseur, he quietly set to work again, shrugging his shoulders in +wonder how it could possibly be any business of his whether the sky +was red, green, or blue. For the fourth time the unknown lounger +repeated his unwelcome criticism: 'Too much blue!' + +The Brussels Wouvermans coloured, but said, in the subdued tone of a +man wishing to conceal anger he cannot help feeling: 'The gentleman +may not be aware that I am painting a sky.' By this time he had come +down from the ladder, and was standing surveying his work with one eye +closed, and at the proper distance from it to judge of its effect; and +his look of evident exultation shewed that nothing could be more +ill-timed than any depreciation of his labours. + +'It is because I suppose you do want to paint a sky, that for that +very reason I wished to give you this little piece of advice, and to +tell you that there is too much blue in it.' + +'And pray, Mr Amateur, when was there ever a sky seen without blue?' + +'I am no amateur; but I tell you once more, that there is too much +blue. And now do as you like; and if you do not think you have enough, +you can put more.' + +'This is entirely too bad!' cried the now exasperated sign-painter. +'You are an old fool, and know nothing of painting. I should like to +see you make a sky without blue.' + +'I do not say I am a good hand at a sky; but if I did set about it, +there should be no blue.' + +'A pretty job it would be!' + +'It would look like something, at all events.' + +'That is as much as to say mine is like nothing at all.' + +'No indeed, for it is very like a dish of spinach, and very like a +vile daub, or like anything else you please.' + +'A dish of spinach! a vile daub!' cried the artist of Brabant in a +rage. 'I, the pupil of Ruysdael--I, fourth cousin to Gerard Dow! and +you pretend to know more of my art than I do--an art I have practised +with such credit at Antwerp, Louvain, and Liege! A dish of spinach, +indeed!' And by this time the fury of the insulted painter had +increased to such a degree, that he seized David by the arm, and +shaking him violently, added: 'Do you know, you old dotard, that my +character has been long established? I have a red horse at Mechlin, a +stag at Namur, and a Charlemagne at Aix-la-Chapelle, that no one has +ever seen without admiring!' + +'This is beyond all patience,' said David; and suddenly extricating +himself from the man's grasp, and snatching his palette from him, he +was up the ladder in an instant, shouting: 'Wait awhile, and you shall +have yourself to admire, with your fool's pate and your ass's ears!' + +'Stop, stop, you villain!' roared the luckless artist, pale with +consternation. 'My splendid sign! A painting worth thirty-five francs! +I am ruined and undone!' And he continued shaking the ladder, and +pouring out a torrent of abuse upon David, who, caring neither for the +reproaches of his victim, nor for the crowd that the sudden clamour +had attracted, went on pitilessly effacing the 'Break of Day,' and +mingling in one confused mass sky and sun, and trees and figures; or +what was intended, at least, to represent them. And now--not less +rapid in creating than in destroying--and with the lightest possible +touch of his brush, the new sign-painter sketched and finished, with +magic rapidity, a sky with the gray tints of early dawn, and a group +of three men, glass in hand, watching the rising sun; one of these +figures being a striking likeness of the whitewasher, shewn at once by +his bushy eyebrows and snub-nose. + +The crowd, that had at first shewn every inclination to take the part +of their countryman against a stranger unfairly interfering with him, +now stood quietly watching the outlines as they shone through the +first layers of colour, and shouts of applause burst from them as the +figures grew beneath the creative hand of the artist. The +tavern-keeper himself now swelled the number of admirers, having come +out to ascertain the cause of the tumult; and even the fourth-cousin +of Gerard Dow felt his fury fast changing into admiration. + +'I see it all now,' he said to those nearest him in the crowd. 'He is +a French or Dutch sign-painter, one of ourselves, and he only wanted +to have a joke against me. It is but fair to own that he has the real +knack, and paints even better than I do.' + +The artist to whom this equivocal compliment was paid, was now coming +down from the ladder amid the cheers of the spectators, when a new +admirer was added to them in the person of a man who, mounted on a +fine English horse, seemed inclined to ride over the crowd in his +eagerness to get a good view of the painting. + +'That picture is mine!' he exclaimed; 'I will have it. I will buy it, +even if I have to cover it with guineas!' + +'What do you mean?' asked the tavern-keeper. + +'I mean, that I will give any price you choose to name for that sign,' +answered the stranger. + +'The picture is not to be sold, young man; I could not think of +parting with it,' said the whitewasher with as much paternal pride as +if it had been indeed his workmanship. + +'Certainly not,' said the vender of beer; 'for it has been already +sold, and partly paid for in advance. The picture is mine; and, though +not very anxious to dispose of it, yet, perhaps, we may come to some +understanding, and make a bargain.' + +'Not so fast,' said the dauber; 'the sign belongs to me, and my +brother-artist was only kindly giving me a helping-hand. It is my +lawful property; and if this gentleman wants to buy it, he must deal +with me for it.' + +'I tell you,' replied the tavern-keeper, 'that the "Break of Day" is +my property, as sure as it is now hanging in front of my house.' + +The dispute was waxing louder and louder, when David broke in: 'And am +I to go for nothing in the matter? Methinks I might be allowed a voice +in it.' + +'And a good right you have, brother,' said the sign-painter; 'and I am +sure you and I shall have no difference about it. But the open street +is no place for all this. We had better go into the house, and settle +the matter over a pot of beer.' + +David, wishing to escape the continually increasing crowd, consented +to the adjournment, which, however, had no effect upon the disputants, +and the contest waged more fiercely than ever; nor did the +Englishman's reiterated offers to give for the picture its weight in +gold tend to allay it. + +'But what will you say, if I won't let it be sold?' cried David, at +length losing all patience. + +'Ah, good sir,' said the tavern-keeper, 'you would not deprive a poor, +struggling man like me of this opening for getting a little ready +money to enable me to lay in a stock of beer. As for that +sign-painter, he is a drunken sot, who has left himself without as +much as a stiver to give his daughter, who ought to have been married +a year ago.' + +'Do not believe him, sir,' cried David's brother-artist. 'Every one +knows there is not a fonder father in the whole town; and more shame +to me if I were not, for never was there such a good daughter as my +dear, pretty Lizette. I have no money to give her, to be sure, but she +is betrothed to an honest fellow, who is glad to get her, poor as she +is. He is a young Frenchman, a cabinet-maker, and no better workman in +the whole city; and they are to be married whenever he has anything +saved.' + +'A good child, and a good workman, and only waiting for wherewithal to +live! This alters the matter entirely,' said David; 'and the young +couple shall have the picture. We leave it to this gentleman's +liberality to name the price he is willing to give for it.' + +'Illustrious artist,' said the Englishman, 'I rejoice in the decision +you have come to: Solomon himself could not have given a wiser one. As +for me, I have already offered a hundred guineas for the sign as it +stands; but I will give two hundred, if you will consent to inscribe +on it the two words "Pierre David."' + +The name was no sooner pronounced, than a cry of astonishment and +delight burst from all present; and the poor sign-painter, with tears +in his eyes, implored pardon for all his rudeness and presumption, and +poured out grateful thanks for the Master's kind intentions in favour +of the young couple. + +By this time the news had reached the crowd without, and was received +with repeated shouts, and cries of 'Long live David!' 'Long live the +prince of artists!' But the cheers became almost deafening, when the +pretty Lizette, having heard the wonderful story of a sign having been +painted that was to hasten her marriage, and give her a dowry of 200 +guineas, made her appearance, and, without a moment's hesitation, +threw her arms about the neck of her benefactor, who returned her +caresses most cordially; declaring that, all things considered, he did +not know any one who had a better right to a kiss from the bride. + +At this instant Talma, followed by Girodet and the collector, +hurriedly entered the tavern. Not finding David at his house, and +being told of his having left home very early, they became uneasy lest +some accident had befallen him, and set off in search of him. + +'Thank Heaven, we have found him!' said Girodet. + +'And very well employed, too, I declare,' cried Talma. 'If I could be +sure of meeting such a kind welcome from a pretty girl, I should not +mind getting up early myself!' + +'Bravo, bravo, my old friend!' said Girodet, as, after a warm embrace +from him, he turned to examine the picture: 'I never expected to hear +of your changing your style, and turning Flemish sign-painter. But it +is no shame for David to end as Rembrandt began.' + + + + +ADMIRAL BLAKE.[1] + + +A good biography is ever welcome; and if it be the biography of a good +and a great man, the cordiality of the _bienvenu_ is doubled. Mr +Prescott remarks,[2] that there is no kind of writing, having truth +and instruction for its main object, which, on the whole, is so +interesting and popular as biography: its superiority, in this point +of view, to history, consisting in the fact, that the latter has to +deal with masses--with nations, which, like corporate societies, seem +to have no soul, and whose chequered vicissitudes may be contemplated +rather with curiosity for the lessons they convey, than with personal +sympathy. Among contemporary biographers, Mr Hepworth Dixon has +already established for himself a name of some distinction by his +popular lives of William Penn and John Howard; nor will his credit +suffer a decline in the instance of the memoir now before us--that of +the gallant and single-minded patriot, Robert Blake. Of this fine old +English worthy, republican as he was, the Tory Hume freely affirms, +that never man, so zealous for a faction, was so much respected and +even esteemed by his opponents. 'Disinterested, generous, liberal; +ambitious only of true glory, dreadful only to his avowed enemies; he +forms one of the most perfect characters of the age, and the +least stained with those errors and vices which were then so +predominant.'[3] Yet hitherto the records of this remarkable man have +been scanty in matter, and scattered in form--the most notable being +Dr Johnson's sketch in the _Gentleman's Magazine_, and another in the +_Encyclopaedia Britannica_. Mr Dixon has consulted several scarce +works, of genuine though obsolete authority, and a large mass of +original documents and family papers, in preparing the present able +and attractive memoir; not omitting a careful examination of the +squibs, satires, and broadsides of that time, in his endeavour to +trace, in forgotten nooks and corners, the anecdotes and details +requisite, as he says, to complete a character thus far chiefly known +by a few heroic outlines. We propose taking a brief survey of his +life-history of the great admiral and general at sea--the 'Puritan +Sea-King,' as Mr Dixon more characteristically than accurately calls +his hero. A sea-king he was, every inch of him; but to dub him +Puritan, is like giving up to party what was meant for British +mankind. To many, the term suggests primarily a habit of speaking +through the nose; and Blake had thundered commands through too many a +piping gale and battle blast for _that_. + +Robert Blake was born at Bridgewater, in August 1599. His father, +Humphrey Blake, was a merchant trading with Spain--a man whose temper +seems to have been too sanguine and adventurous for the ordinary +action of trade, finally involving him in difficulties which clouded +his latter days, and left his family in straitened circumstances: his +name, however, was held in general respect; and we find that he lived +in one of the best houses in Bridgewater, and twice filled the chair +of its chief magistrate. The perils to which mercantile enterprise was +then liable--the chance escapes and valorous deeds which the +successful adventurer had to tell his friends and children on the dark +winter nights--doubtless formed a part of the food on which the +imagination of young Blake, 'silent and thoughtful from his +childhood,' was fed in the 'old house at home.' At the Bridgewater +grammar-school, Robert received his early education, making tolerable +acquaintance with Latin and Greek, and acquiring a strong bias towards +a literary life. This _penchant_ was confirmed by his subsequent +career at Oxford, where he matriculated at sixteen, and where he +strove hard but fruitlessly for scholarships and fellowships at +different colleges. His failure to obtain a Merton fellowship has been +attributed to a crotchet of the warden's, Sir Henry Savile, in favour +of tall men: 'The young Somersetshire student, thick-set, fair +complexioned, and only five feet six, fell below his standard of manly +beauty;' and thus the Cavalier warden, in denying this aspirant the +means of cultivating literature on a little university oatmeal, was +turning back on the world one who was fated to become a republican +power of the age. This shining light, instead of comfortably and +obscurely merging in a petty constellation of Alma Mater, was to +become a bright particular star, and dwell apart. The avowed +liberalism of Robert may, however, have done more in reality to shock +Sir Henry, than his inability to add a cubit to his stature. It is +pleasant to know, that the 'admiral and general at sea' never outgrew +a tenderness for literature--his first-love, despite the rebuff of his +advances. Even in the busiest turmoil of a life teeming with accidents +by flood and field, he made it a point of pride not to forget his +favourite classics. Nor was it till after nine years' experience of +college-life, and when his father was no longer able to manage his +_res angusta vitae_, that Robert finally abandoned his long-cherished +plans, and retired with a sigh and last adieu from the banks of the +Isis. + +When he returned to Bridgewater, in time to close his father's eyes, +and superintend the arrangements of the family, he was already +remarkable for that 'iron will, that grave demeanour, that free and +dauntless spirit,' which so distinguished his after-course. His tastes +were simple, his manners somewhat bluntly austere; a refined dignity +of countenance, and a picturesque vigour of conversation, invested him +with a social interest, to which his indignant invectives against +court corruptions gave distinctive character. To the Short Parliament +he was sent as member for his native town; and in 1645, was returned +by Taunton to the Long Parliament. At the dissolution of the former, +which he regarded as a signal for action, he began to prepare arms +against the king; his being one of the first troops in the field, and +engaged in almost every action of importance in the western counties. +His superiority to the men about him lay in the 'marvellous fertility, +energy, and comprehensiveness of his military genius.' Prince Rupert +alone, in the Royalist camp, could rival him as a 'partisan soldier.' +His first distinguished exploit was his defence of Prior's Hill fort, +at the siege of Bristol--which contrasts so remarkably with the +pusillanimity of his chief, Colonel Fiennes. Next comes his yet more +brilliant defence of Lyme--then a little fishing-town, with some 900 +inhabitants, of which the defences were a dry ditch, a few +hastily-formed earth-works, and three small batteries, but which the +Cavalier host of Prince Maurice, trying storm, stratagem, blockade, +day after day, and week after week, failed to reduce or dishearten. +'At Oxford, where Charles then was, the affair was an inexplicable +marvel and mystery: every hour the court expected to hear that the +"little vile fishing-town," as Clarendon contemptuously calls it, had +fallen, and that Maurice had marched away to enterprises of greater +moment; but every post brought word to the wondering council, that +Colonel Blake still held out, and that his spirited defence was +rousing and rallying the dispersed adherents of Parliament in those +parts.' After the siege was raised, the Royalists found that more men +of gentle blood had fallen under Blake's fire at Lyme, than in all the +other sieges and skirmishes in the western counties since the opening +of the war. The details of the siege are given with graphic effect by +Mr Dixon, and are only surpassed in interest by those connected with +Blake's subsequent and yet more celebrated defence of Taunton, to +which the third chapter of this biography is devoted. + +The hero's fame had become a spell in the west: it was seen that he +rivalled Rupert in rapid and brilliant execution, and excelled him in +the caution and sagacity of his plans. He took Taunton--a place so +important at that juncture, as standing on and controlling the great +western highway--in July 1644, within a week of Cromwell's defeat of +Rupert at Marston Moor. All the vigour of the Royalists was brought +to bear on the captured town; Blake's defence of which is +justly characterised as abounding with deeds of individual +heroism--exhibiting in its master-mind a rare combination of civil and +military genius. The spectacle of an unwalled town, in an inland +district, with no single advantage of site, surrounded by powerful +castles and garrisons, and invested by an enemy brave, watchful, +numerous, and well provided with artillery, successfully resisting +storm, strait, and blockade for several months, thus paralysing the +king's power, and affording Cromwell time to remodel the army, +naturally arrested the attention of military writers at that time; and +French authors of this class bestowed on Taunton the name of the +modern Saguntum. The rage of the Royalists at this prolonged +resistance was extreme. Reckoning from the date when Blake first +seized the town, to that of Goring's final retreat, the defence lasted +exactly a year, and under circumstances of almost overwhelming +difficulty to the besieged party, who, in addition to the fatigue of +nightly watches, and the destruction of daily conflicts, suffered from +terrible scarcity of provisions. 'Not a day passed without a fire; +sometimes eight or ten houses were burning at the same moment; and in +the midst of all the fear, horror, and confusion incident to such +disasters, Blake and his little garrison had to meet the +storming-parties of an enemy brave, exasperated, and ten times their +own strength. But every inch of ground was gallantly defended. A broad +belt of ruined cottages and gardens was gradually formed between the +besiegers and the besieged; and on the heaps of broken walls and burnt +rafters, the obstinate contest was renewed from day to day.' At last +relief arrived from London; and Goring, in savage dudgeon, beat a +retreat, notwithstanding the wild oath he had registered, either to +reduce that haughty town, or to lay his bones in its trenches. + +Blake was now the observed of all observers; but, unlike most of his +compeers, he abstained from using his advantages for purposes of +selfish or personal aggrandisement. He kept aloof from the 'centre of +intrigues,' and remained at his post, 'doing his duty humbly and +faithfully at a distance from Westminster; while other men, with less +than half his claims, were asking and obtaining the highest honours +and rewards from a grateful and lavish country.' Nor, indeed, did he +at any time side with the ultras of his party, but loudly disapproved +of the policy of the regicides. This, coupled with his influence, so +greatly deserved and so deservedly great, made him an object of +jealousy with Cromwell and his party; and it was owing, perhaps, to +their anxiety to keep him removed from the home-sphere of action, that +the hero of Taunton was now appointed to the chief naval command. + +Hitherto, and for years afterwards, no state, ancient or modern, as +Macaulay points out, had made a separation between the military and +the naval service. Cimon and Lysander, Pompey and Agrippa, had fought +by sea as well as by land: at Flodden, the right wing of the English +was led by her admiral, and the French admiral led the Huguenots at +Jarnac, &c. Accordingly, Blake was summoned from his pacific +government at Taunton, to assume the post of 'General and Admiral at +Sea;' a title afterwards changed to 'General of the Fleet.' Two others +were associated with him in the command; but Blake seems at _least_ to +have been recognised as _primus inter pares_. The navy system was in +deplorable need of reform; and a reformer it found in Robert Blake, +from the very day he became an admiral. His care for the well-being of +his men made him an object of their almost adoring attachment. From +first to last, he stood alone as England's model-seaman. 'Envy, +hatred, and jealousy dogged the steps of every other officer in the +fleet; but of him, both then and afterwards, every man spoke well.' +The 'tremendous powers' intrusted to him by the Council of State, he +exercised with off-handed and masterly success--startling politicians +and officials of the _ancien regime_ by his bold and open tactics, and +his contempt for tortuous bypaths in diplomacy. His wondrous exploits +were performed with extreme poverty of means. He was the first to +repudiate and disprove the supposed fundamental maxim in marine +warfare, that no ship could attack a castle, or other strong +fortification, with any hope of success. The early part of his naval +career was occupied in opposing and defeating the piratical +performances of Prince Rupert, which then constituted the support of +the exiled Stuarts, and which Mr Dixon refuses to interpret in such +mild colours as Warburton and others. Blake's utmost vigilance and +activity were required to put down this extraordinary system of +freebooting; and by the time that he had successively overcome Rupert, +and the minor but stubborn adventurers, Grenville and Carteret, he was +in request to conduct the formidable war with Holland, and to cope +with such veterans as Tromp, De Witt, De Ruyter, &c. Of the various +encounters in which he thus signalised himself, his biographer gives +most spirited descriptions, such as their length alone deters us from +quoting. On one occasion only did Blake suffer a defeat; and this one +is easily explained by--first, Tromp's overwhelming superiority of +force; secondly, the extreme deficiency of men in the English fleet; +and thirdly, the cowardice or disaffection of several of Blake's +captains at a critical moment in the battle. Notwithstanding this +disaster, not a whisper was heard against the admiral either in the +Council of State or in the city; his offer to resign was flatteringly +rejected; and he soon found, that the 'misfortune which might have +ruined another man, had given him strength and influence in the +country.' This disaster, in fact, gave him power to effect reforms in +the service, and to root out abuses which had defied all his efforts +in the day of his success. He followed it up by the great battle of +Portland, and other triumphant engagements. + +Then came his sweeping _tours de force_ in the Mediterranean; in six +months he established himself, as Mr Dixon says, as a power in that +great midland sea, from which his countrymen had been politically +excluded since the age of the Crusades--teaching nations, to which +England's very name was a strange sound, to respect its honours and +its rights; chastising the pirates of Barbary with unprecedented +severity; making Italy's petty princes feel the power of the northern +Protestants; causing the pope himself to tremble on his seven hills; +and startling the council-chambers of Venice and Constantinople with +the distant echoes of our guns. And be it remembered, that England had +then no Malta, Corfu, and Gibraltar as the bases of naval operations +in the Mediterranean: on the contrary, Blake found that in almost +every gulf and island of that sea--in Malta, Venice, Genoa, Leghorn, +Algiers, Tunis, and Marseilles--there existed a rival and an enemy; +nor were there more than three or four harbours in which he could +obtain even bread for love or money. + +After this memorable cruise, he had to conduct the Spanish war--a +business quite to his mind; for though his highest renown had been +gained in his conflicts with the Dutch, he had secretly disliked such +encounters between two Protestant states; whereas, in the +case of Popish Spain, his soul leaped at the anticipation of +battle--sympathising as he did with the Puritan conviction, that Spain +was the devil's stronghold in Europe. At this period, Blake was +suffering from illness, and was sadly crippled in his naval +equipments, having to complain constantly of the neglect at home to +remedy the exigencies of the service. 'Our ships,' he writes, +'extremely foul, winter drawing on, our victuals expiring, all stores +failing, our men falling sick through the badness of drink, and eating +their victuals boiled in salt water for two months' space' (1655.) His +own constitution was thoroughly undermined. For nearly a year, remarks +his biographer, 'he had never quitted the "foul and defective" +flag-ship. Want of exercise and sweet food, beer, wine, water, bread, +and vegetables, had helped to develop scurvy and dropsy; and his +sufferings from these diseases were now acute and continuous.' But his +services were indispensable, and Blake was not the man to shrink from +dying in harness. His sun set gloriously at Santa Cruz--that +miraculous and unparalleled action, as Clarendon calls it, which +excited such grateful enthusiasm at home. At home! words of +fascination to the maimed and enfeebled veteran,[4] who now turned his +thoughts so anxiously towards the green hills of his native land. +Cromwell's letter of thanks, the plaudits of parliament, and the +jewelled ring sent to him by his loving countrymen, reached him while +homeward bound. But he was not again to tread the shores he had +defended so well. + +As the ships rolled through the Bay of Biscay, his sickness increased, +and affectionate adherents saw with dismay that he was drawing near to +the gates of the grave. 'Some gleams of the old spirit broke forth as +they approached the latitude of England. He inquired often and +anxiously if the white cliffs were yet in sight. He longed to behold +once more the swelling downs, the free cities, the goodly churches of +his native land.... At last, the Lizard was announced. Shortly +afterwards, the bold cliffs and bare hills of Cornwall loomed out +grandly in the distance. But it was too late for the dying hero. He +had sent for the captains and other great officers of his fleet, to +bid them farewell; and while they were yet in his cabin, the +undulating hills of Devonshire, glowing with the tints of early +autumn, came full in view.... But the eyes which had so yearned to +behold this scene once more were at that very instant closing in +death. Foremost of the victorious squadron, the _St George_ rode with +its precious burden into the Sound; and just as it came into full view +of the eager thousands crowding the beach, the pier-heads, the walls +of the citadel, &c. ready to catch the first glimpse of the hero of +Santa Cruz, and salute him with a true English welcome--he, in his +silent cabin, in the midst of his lion-hearted comrades, now sobbing +like little children, yielded up his soul to God.' + +The corpse was embalmed, and conveyed to Greenwich, where it lay in +state for some days. On the 4th of September 1657, the Thames bore a +solemn funeral procession, which moved slowly, amid salvos of +artillery, to Westminster, where a new vault had been prepared in the +noble abbey. The tears of a nation made it hallowed ground. A prince, +of whom the epigram declares that, if he never said a foolish thing, +he never did a wise one--saw fit to disturb the hero's grave, drag out +the embalmed body, and cast it into a pit in the abbey-yard. One of +Charles Stuart's most witless performances! For Blake is not to be +confounded--though the Merry Monarch thought otherwise--with the +Iretons and Bradshaws who were similarly exhumed. The admiral was a +moderate in the closest, a patriot in the widest sense. + +In the chivalric disposition of the man, there was true affinity to +the best qualities of the Cavalier, mingled sometimes with a certain +grim humour, all his own. Many are the illustrations we might adduce +of this high-minded and generous temperament. For instance: meeting a +French frigate of forty guns in the Straits, and signaling for the +captain to come on board his flag-ship, the latter, considering the +visit one of friendship and ceremony, there being no _declared_ war +between the two nations--though the French conduct at Toulon had +determined England on measures of retaliation--readily complied with +Blake's summons; but was astounded, on entering the admiral's cabin, +at being told he was a prisoner, and requested to give up his sword. +No! was the surprised but resolute Frenchman's reply. Blake felt that +an advantage had been gained by a misconception, and scorning to make +a brave officer its victim, he told his guest he might go back to his +ship, if he wished, and fight it out as long as he was able. The +captain, we are told, thanked him for his handsome offer, and retired. +After two hours' hard fighting, he struck his flag; like a true French +knight, he made a low bow, kissed his sword affectionately, and +delivered it to his conqueror. Again: when Blake captured the Dutch +herring-fleet off Bochness, consisting of 600 boats, instead of +destroying or appropriating them, he merely took a tithe of the whole +freight, in merciful consideration towards the poor families whose +entire capital and means of life it constituted. This 'characteristic +act of clemency' was censured by many as Quixotic, and worse. But, as +Mr Dixon happily says: 'Blake took no trouble to justify his noble +instincts against such critics. His was indeed a happy fate: the only +fault ever advanced by friend or foe against his public life, was an +excess of generosity towards his vanquished enemies!' His sense of the +comic is amusingly evidenced by the story of his _ruse_ during a +dearth in the same siege. Tradition reports, that only one animal, a +hog, was left alive in the town, and that more than half starved. In +the afternoon, Blake, feeling that in their depression a laugh would +do the defenders as much good as a dinner, had the hog carried to all +the posts and whipped, so that its screams, heard in many places, +might make the enemy suppose that fresh supplies had somehow been +obtained. According to his biographer, never man had finer sense of +sarcasm, or used that weapon with greater effect--loving to find +expression for its scorn and merriment in the satires of Horace and +Juvenal; and thus in some degree relieving the stern fervour of +Puritan piety with the more easy graces of ancient scholarship. + +The moral aspects of his character appear in this memoir in an +admirable light. If he did not stand so high as some others in public +notoriety, it was mainly because, to stand higher than he did, he must +plant his feet on a _bad_ eminence. His patriotism was as pure as +Cromwell's was selfish. Mr Dixon alludes to the strong points of +contrast, as well as of resemblance, between the two men. Both, he +says, were sincerely religious, undauntedly brave, fertile in +expedients, irresistible in action. Born in the same year, they began +and almost closed their lives at the same time. Both were country +gentlemen of moderate fortune; both were of middle age when the +revolution came. Without previous knowledge or professional training, +both attained to the highest honours of the respective services. But +there the parallel ends. Anxious only for the glory and interest of +his country, Blake took little or no care of his personal +aggrandisement. His contempt for money, his impatience with the mere +vanities of power, were supreme. Bribery he abhorred in all its +shapes. He was frank and open to a fault; his heart was ever in his +hand, and his mind ever on his lips. His honesty, modesty, generosity, +sincerity, and magnanimity, were unimpeached. Cromwell's inferior +moral qualities made him distrust the great seaman; yet now and then, +as in the case of the street tumult at Malaga, he was fain to express +his admiration of Robert Blake. The latter was wholly unversed in the +science of nepotism, and 'happy family' compacts; for although +desirous of aiding his relatives, he was jealous of the least offence +on their part, and never overlooked it. Several instances of this +disposition are on record. When his brother Samuel, in rash zeal for +the Commonwealth, ventured to exceed his duty, and was killed in a +fray which ensued, Blake was terribly shocked, but only said: 'Sam had +no business there.' Afterwards, however, he shut himself up in his +room, and bewailed his loss in the words of Scripture: 'Died Abner as +a fool dieth!' His brother Benjamin, again, to whom he was strongly +attached, falling under suspicion of neglect of duty, was instantly +broken, and sent on shore. 'This rigid measure of justice against his +own flesh and blood, silenced every complaint, and the service gained +immeasurably in spirit, discipline, and confidence.' Yet more touching +was the great admiral's inexorable treatment of his favourite brother +Humphrey, who, in a moment of extreme agitation, had failed in his +duty. The captains went to Blake in a body, and argued that Humphrey's +fault was a neglect rather than a breach of orders, and suggested his +being sent away to England till it was forgotten. But Blake was +outwardly unmoved, though inwardly his bowels did yearn over his +brother, and sternly said: 'If none of you will accuse him, I must be +his accuser.' Humphrey was dismissed from the service. It is affecting +to know how painfully Blake missed his familiar presence during his +sick and lonely passage homewards, when the hand of death was upon +that noble heart. To Humphrey he bequeathed the greater part of his +property. + +In the rare intervals of private life which he enjoyed on shore, Blake +also compels our sincere regard. When released for awhile from +political and professional duties, he loved to run down to Bridgewater +for a few days or weeks, and, as his biographer says, with his chosen +books, and one or two devout and abstemious friends, to indulge in all +the luxuries of seclusion. 'He was by nature self-absorbed and +taciturn. His morning was usually occupied with a long walk, during +which he appeared to his simple neighbours to be lost in profound +thought, as if working out in his own mind the details of one of his +great battles, or busy with some abstruse point of Puritan theology. +If accompanied by one of his brothers, or by some other intimate +friend, he was still for the most part silent. Always good-humoured, +and enjoying sarcasm when of a grave, high class, he yet never talked +from the loquacious instinct, or encouraged others so to employ their +time and talents in his presence. Even his lively and rattling brother +Humphrey, his almost constant companion when on shore, caught, from +long habit, the great man's contemplative and self-communing gait and +manner; and when his friends rallied him on the subject in +after-years, he used to say, that he had caught the trick of silence +while walking by the admiral's side in his long morning musings on +Knoll Hill. A plain dinner satisfied his wants. Religious +conversation, reading, and the details of business, generally filled +up the evening until supper-time; after family prayers--always +pronounced by the general himself--he would invariably call for his +cup of sack and a dry crust of bread, and while he drank two or three +horns of Canary, would smile and chat in his own dry manner with his +friends and domestics, asking minute questions about their neighbours +and acquaintance; or when scholars or clergymen shared his simple +repast, affecting a droll anxiety--rich and pleasant in the conqueror +of Tromp--to prove, by the aptness and abundance of his quotations, +that, in becoming an admiral, he had not forfeited his claim to be +considered a good classic.' + +The care and interest with which he looked to the well-being of his +humblest followers, made him eminently popular in the fleet. He was +always ready to hear complaints and to rectify grievances. When +wounded at the battle of Portland, and exhorted to go on shore for +repose and proper medical treatment, he refused to seek for himself +the relief which he had put in the way of his meanest comrade. Even at +the early period of his cruise against the Cavalier corsairs of +Kinsale, such was Blake's popularity, that numbers of men were +continually joining him from the enemy's fleet, although he offered +them less pay, and none of that licence which they had enjoyed under +Prince Rupert's flag. They gloried in following a leader _sans peur et +sans reproche_--one with whose renown the whole country speedily +rang--the renown of a man who had revived the traditional glories of +the English navy, and proved that its meteor flag could 'yet terrific +burn.' + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] _Robert Blake: Admiral and General at Sea._ By Hepworth Dixon. +London: Chapman and Hall. 1852. + +[2] _Biographical and Critical Miscellanies._ + +[3] _History of Great Britain_, c. lxi. + +[4] He had been lamed for life, by a wound in the thigh, at the battle +of Portland, 1653. + + + + +SUMMER LODGINGS. + + +In the dominions of the Czar, the backs of the serfs suffer a weekly +titillation as insufferable, although not so deadly, as the less +frequent knout. When it comes to Wednesday, they begin to imagine that +they are not exactly comfortable; on Thursday, the natural moisture of +their skin seems fast drying up, and they are in an incipient fit of +the fidgets; on Friday, the epidermis cracks all over, or +makes-believe to do so; and on Saturday, the whole population, with a +shout of impatient joy, rush to the bath-house of the village, like a +herd of bullocks in the dog-days to the river, and boil themselves in +steam. When thoroughly done, they come out, beautifully plumped, as +the cooks say, and feeling fresh and vigorous, and as fit as ever they +were in their lives to encounter a new week of serfdom. + +An annual process analogous to this takes place in our own country. In +spring, we begin to look wistfully at the garden, to watch the opening +of the lettuces, and count the colours of the pansies. As the season +advances, we wander into the fields, examine curiously the thin grass, +and turn an admiring eye towards the green hills in the distance. As +May breaks upon us in sunlight, though the east wind is still chill, +we half persuade ourselves that this really _is_ the season of love +and sentiment; and when the month ripens into June, when the grass +beneath our feet actually deserves the name of a carpet, when the +trees are rich and umbrageous, when the birds are in full song, and +the roses in full blow--then the hitherto indefinite longing of our +heart acquires strength and purpose. The dry streets look unnatural; +the formal lines of houses offend the taste; the air is close and hot; +the younger children look pale, and their elder sisters languish. The +month is at length out, and we wonder how we have survived it. The +thing can no longer be borne: the town looks and breathes like a +pest-house; while hill-sides glimmer in our waking dreams, broad seas +stretch away till they are lost in the golden light-- + + 'And dying winds and waters near + Make music to the lonely ear:' + +still worse--everybody that is anybody is off to the country and the +sea, and we rush madly after. + +But the country? Where is the country? That is the puzzle. In our +youth, we knew many a quiet village, many a fine beach, many a +sheltered bay, where one might wander, or swim, or muse, or rusticate +in any way he chose. The village has grown into a town; the beach is +lined with villas; the bay swarms with vessels, and its shores with +population. Every eligible spot on the coast becomes the resort of +country-goers, till it is no longer the country. All local advantages +are taken advantage of, till they disappear. The citizen, charmed with +the countryness of the spot, builds his box by the water-side; the +speculator runs up lines of houses; a handsome inn rises in the midst; +and benevolent individuals hasten to the new centre of attraction, +loaded with every kind of commodity men stand in need of, and are +likely to buy. Here, in Scotland, on the Clyde, which is the grand +sanatorium of the east as well as the west country, this process of +change is remarkable. The once wildly beautiful shores, wherever there +is not a town or a village, are dotted with trim white villas, +glimmering here and there among the trees. The angles of the lochs, +where these diverge from the parent stream, are covered with houses. +The Gair Loch, which we remember as one of the sweetest mysteries of a +mountain lake whose banks ever echoed to the songs of poetry and love, +is a snug suburban retreat. The entrance of the Holy Loch, and of the +dark and awful Loch Long, are fortified against the spirit of nature +by groups of streets. At the heretofore quiet village of Dunoon, +slumbering at the foot of its almost obliterated castle, you might +lose yourself in the wilderness of new habitations. Gourock, on the +opposite side, where in our boyhood the fairies disported round the +Kempuck Stane, is a bustling town, with a suburb stretching along the +Clyde, nearly as long as the long town of Kirkaldy, on the Forth; and +at Largs, the barrows of the ancient Danes have become the cellars of +the sons of little men, who confine spirits in them, as the prophet +Solomon used to do, with a sealed cork. The once solitary island of +Cumbrae is the town of Milport; the hoary ruins of Rothsay Castle are +almost buried in a congeries of seaport streets and lanes; and, +smoking, sputtering, and flapping their water-wings, scores of +steamers ply in endless succession among these and a multitude of +other places of renown. + +All this, we may be told, is as it should be; a house is better than a +hut, and the conveniences of civilised life better than roughing it in +the desert: but we will not be comforted. Roughing it! that is just +what the smoke-dried citizen wants occasionally, to prevent his blood +from stagnating, and keep his faculties in working order. Physically, +at least, we are not half the men we were when we used to rumble, and +sometimes tumble, in stage-coaches, exposed to all the excitement and +adventures of a journey; or to get as sick as forty dogs, tossing +about whole days and nights in a sailing vessel. Then, when we landed, +how delightful were the miseries of a cottage; the makeshifts, the +squeezing, the dirt, the hunger--that veal-pie was _always_ left +behind!--the hunting of the neighbourhood for eggs for the children, +the compulsory abstinence for three days out of four from +butcher-meat, and the helpless dependence upon the chapter of +accidents for everything else! + +Now, we get into a railway carriage, or the cabin of a steamer, and +after taking a book or a nap for an hour or two, raise our heads, and +find ourselves, somehow or other, fifty miles off--in the country. The +country is a genteel house in a genteel street, or a nice villa in a +row of nice villas, where we are surrounded with all the conveniences +we enjoy at home. The very society is the same; for our friends, +Thomson and Smith, and the whole of that set, have brought their +families to the same place for summer lodgings--it is so agreeable to +be among one's acquaintances. Then we begin to enjoy ourselves: we +have conversation-parties, and dancing-parties, and balls, all the +same as at home. We enjoy our newspaper, as usual, in our comfortable +reading-room. In the morning, we take a stroll or a dip, or drink +water at the Wells, which, although undoubtedly nasty, is undeniably +wholesome. Then there is a steamer in sight, and we all hasten to the +pier, to ascertain if we know anybody on board. Then we dine early, +for one _must_ dine early in the country. Then we take a nap; then +another stroll; then there is another steamer to watch; then we drink +tea; then to the pier again. This time, the vessel's head is pointed +homewards; and as she breaks away from the land, we follow her with +our eyes till she is swallowed up in the distance. Then we turn away +with a sigh; go back to our lodgings; lounge into bed; and fall asleep +in the midst of the delightful sensation of having nothing to do, and +being in the country. + +All this _is_ delightful, no doubt; every bit as good as being at +home. Our aim, in fact, is to carry home with us--to feel as if we had +never left No. 24. The closer the resemblance between our country +lodgings and our town-house, the better we are off; for we then get +what we have come for--change of air--without any sacrifice of +comfort. + +But we doubt whether 'change of air' has so limited a meaning. +Hygienically speaking, it includes, we suspect, change of habits, +change of diet, change of company, change of thought. The miseries of +the old country lodgings were better for the health than the comforts +of the new. The very grumbling they gave rise to was a wholesome +exercise. The short allowance was worth a whole pharmacopoeia. The +ravenous appetite that fastened upon things common and unclean was a +glorious symptom. We came back strengthened in mind as well as body. +Our country sojourn had the effect of foreign travel in opening the +heart and expanding the intellect; it smoothed away prejudices and +upset conventionalities; and the ruddy glow of our sunburnt cheeks was +the external token of the healthy natural tone of the feelings within. +No; this passion for comfort and gentility in the wilderness, is a bad +sign of the generation: it bespeaks effeminacy of character, and a +vanity which, however graceful it may be thought in the town, shews +mean and ridiculous among the hills, and woods, and waters of the +country. + +Among our neighbours on the continent, the summer move is not so +universal as with us. In Paris, for instance, everything is considered +the country that is outside the barriers; and in the fine season, +every bourgeois family is outside the barriers at least once a +week--eating, drinking, dancing, and singing. Then there are the walks +in the Bois de Boulogne, and the picnics at St Cloud, and the +excursions to Versailles: wherever there is green turf and shady +trees, you hear the sounds of mirth and music rising in the clearest, +brightest atmosphere in the world. Thus a sojourn out of town is not a +necessity. They take change of air by instalments, and pass the summer +in a state of chronic excitement. + +In other parts of the world, the move is as entire as with us; and in +at least one instance, all classes of the population desert the cities +at the same time, and flock to the same sea-side. To be sure, this +sea-side is somewhat extensive, and there need be no more crowding +than is social and comfortable. An amusing account of the migration, +and of the summer lodgings of Central America is given in Mr Squier's +_Nicaragua_, recently published. The state of Nicaragua occupies that +part of the Isthmus lying between the lake of the same name and the +Pacific, the distance between being in some places only about fifteen +miles. In this narrow tract there are several large towns, such as +Grenada and Leon, which, in spite of the breath of the two oceans, get +smoke-dried by the time the dry season advances into March. Then comes +on the 'Paseo al mar,' or bathing-season, when a great portion of the +population, taken not merely from the upper classes, but from the +bourgeoisie and Indian peasantry, rush down to the shores of the +Pacific. 'At that time,' says Mr Squier, 'a general movement of carts +and servants takes place in the direction of the sea, and the +government despatches an officer and a guard, to superintend the +pitching of the annual camp upon the beach, or rather upon the +forest-covered sand-ridge which fringes the shore. Each family builds +a temporary cane-hut, lightly thatched with palm-leaves, and floored +with petates or mats. The whole is wickered together with vines, or +woven together basketwise, and partitioned in the same way, by means +of coloured curtains of cotton cloth. This constitutes the penetralia, +and is sacred to the _bello sexo_ and the babies. The more luxurious +ladies bring down their neatly-curtained beds, and make no mean show +of elegance in the interior arrangements of their impromptu dwellings. +Outside, and something after the fashion of their permanent +residences, is a kind of broad and open shed, which bears a very +distant relation to the corridor. Here hammocks are swung, the +families dine, the ladies receive visitors, and the men sleep.... The +establishments here described pertain only to the wealthier visitors, +the representatives of the upper classes. There is every intermediate +variety, down to those of the _mozo_ and his wife, who spread their +blankets at the foot of a tree, and weave a little bower of branches +above them--an affair of ten or a dozen minutes. And there are yet +others who disdain even this exertion, and nestle in the dry sand.' + +This kind of gipsying expedition to the sea in summer would hardly +suit the form of European, or at least British civilisation; but we do +not see why, in the one continent more than in the other, one's +country lodgings should be required to resemble a town-house. In the +Clyde, which we have mentioned as a resort for summer loiterers, there +is one exceptional place--the island of Arran. Here the Marquis of +Douglas has determined, with much good taste, that his property shall +not be vulgarised by the new style of country lodgings, and so far +from feuing the ground, he will not permit even a pier to be built for +the accommodation of visitors. The village, accordingly, is simply a +line of thatched cottages, which, in the fine season, are filled to +overflowing. A few houses of more pretension stand on the other side +of the bay; but, in general, no one sets his foot in Brodick who has +not made up his mind to rough it pretty much in the fashion of the +last generation. Sometimes, on the occasion of a holiday in Glasgow, +which is six hours' steaming distant, the village is flooded with a +moving population that can neither find house-room on the island nor +means of quitting it the same day. Then comes a scene of something +more than Mexican roughness. Shawls, cloaks, plaids, are the only +substitute for tents, and a bush or a tree the only shelter from the +summer wind. Such wandering companies are rarely short of provisions, +for they have a wholesome dread of Highland hunger; and hearty is the +feast and loud the merriment, as they sit thus, houseless and homeless +outcasts of the Clyde. The night comes on, neither dark nor +unpleasantly cold, and the trooping stars assemble in the heavens, and +look down on the slumbrous waters, as bright and new as they were seen +of old from the hill-tops of Chaldea. Higher swell the hearts of the +spectators for a time, till, yielding to the influence of the hour, +lower and lower sink their pulses of emotion, like the tide of the +lately panting deep. Their voices fall; their words are few and +whispered, then heard no more; the lights of the village disappear one +by one; the last door is heard to shut; there is silence on the earth. + +We never heard of anybody being the worse of this adventure, although +it is a kind of roughing we would not positively recommend to Miss +Laura Matilda, or any of her fair sisters. We would give _them_ a +thatched roof over their heads, a weather-tight room for their +slumbers, and a substantial wall between them and the couple of cows +that yield their warm milk in the morning. We would afford them a +homely sitting-room, with no temptation to keep them within doors for +a single moment, except during their brief and humble meals. We would +plant their tabernacle in some lonely place on a hillside, or on the +shores of a romantic loch, an hour's smart walk from any society they +are accustomed to at home. We would have them make acquaintances of +the said two cows; of both the dogs, even the surly one, which cannot +for some time understand who or what they are, or what business they +have there; of the hens, that present them with newly-laid eggs to +breakfast; of the five or six sheep, to whom they are evidently +objects of curiosity and admiration; of that sociable goat, which +accompanies the sheep to the hill like one of themselves; and more +especially of the little boy, who is proud of being called the herd; +and of the cotter and his old mother, and his wife and two young +daughters. We would insist upon their feeling a kindly interest in +these new friends, one and all; on their taking leave of them +individually when coming away; and on their carrying home with them an +impression which would sometimes, in the crowded street, or the hot +room, well suddenly up in their hearts like a fresh stream, or pass +across their cheeks like a breath of mountain air. + +Depend upon it, we lose much humanising feeling, much true refinement, +much of the poetry of life, in parting with the roughness of our +Summer Lodgings. + + + + +PAPER-MONEY AND BANKING IN CHINA. + + +The origin or prototype of so many of our European arts and customs +has been found in the 'central flowery land,' that it is not +surprising to hear of the Chinese having begun to use paper-money as +currency in the second century preceding the Christian era. At that +time, the coinage of the Celestials was of a more bulky and ponderous +nature than it is at the present day; and we may easily believe that a +people so cunning and ingenious, would contrive not a few schemes to +avoid the burden of carrying it about; as the man did, who scratched +the figure of an ox on a piece of leather, and went from door to door +with that until he had found a customer, leaving the animal, meantime, +at home in the stall. There was a deficiency, too, in the ways and +means of the government: money was never plentiful enough in the +imperial coffers. At last, to get out of the difficulty, it was +determined to try the effect of a paper-currency, and an issue was +made of assignats or treasury-warrants, which, being based on the +credit of the highest authorities, were regarded as secure; which +fact, with their facility of transfer, soon brought them into +circulation. Of course, a good deal of legislation was expended on the +measure, before it could be got to work satisfactorily, and it +underwent many fluctuations in its progress towards permanence. The +intestine wars to which China was exposed at that period, by +overturning dynasty after dynasty, led one government to disavow the +obligations of its predecessor, and the natural consequences of bad +faith followed. After circulating with more or less success for five +hundred years, the government paper-money disappeared. + +This happened under the Ming dynasty: the Manchus, who succeeded, +gave themselves no trouble to restore the paper-currency; on which the +trading portion of the community took the matter into their own hands, +and by the time that their Tatar conquerors were quietly settled in +their usurped authority, the merchants had revived the use of paper. +They were too sensible of its great utility not to make the attempt; +and since that time, they have gone on without any aid from the state, +developing their plans as experience suggested, and so cautiously as +to insure success. This result is, however, far below what has been +obtained by Europeans. In comparison with ours, the banking-system of +China is in a very primitive condition; theirs is extremely limited in +its application, each city restricting itself to its own method; and +while the means of intercommunication are imperfect, there is little +prospect of improvement. + +One example may be taken as an illustration of the whole; and we avail +ourselves of a communication made by Mr Parkes to the Royal Asiatic +Society on the paper-currency of Fuhchowfoo, for the substance of the +present article. As in other places, the system was started in the +city of Fuhchow by private individuals, who began by circulating among +each other notes payable on demand. As the convenience of such a +medium became apparent, the circulation was extended, and ultimately +offices were opened for the special purpose of issuing notes; but as +the only guarantee for their security was the character of those who +put them forth, the circulation remained comparatively trifling, until +their credit was recognised and established. Not till the first +quarter of the present century did the use of paper become extensive +or permanent; and now, everybody in Fuhchowfoo prefers notes to coin. + +As no licence is required, any one may commence the banking business, +and at first considerable mischief resulted from this liberty. +Speculators who forced their notes largely into circulation, not +unfrequently met with a reverse, with the usual consequences of +distress and embarrassment to their connection. Although this for a +time brought paper into disfavour, it has now recovered, and the great +competition is found to have the effect of mitigating the evils of +failure. Where so many are concerned, individual suffering must be +comparatively slight. The banks, moreover, are not banks of deposit; +the proprietors prefer not to receive deposits, so that private +parties run no risk of a great and sudden loss, beyond that of such +notes as they may hold at the time of a stoppage. On the other hand, +the usefulness of a bank is limited by this arrangement; there can be +no paying of cheques; but very few of the banking establishments can +transact business beyond the city or the department in which they may +be located, and seldom or never beyond the limits of the province. +Hence the convenience and safety of making payments at places remote +from each other, through the medium of a banker, is almost unknown in +China. + +Within certain limits, the large bankers undertake mercantile +exchanges; they also refine the sycee, or silver, for the receivers of +taxes. The government will take no silver under a standard quality; +the collector delivers his sycee to the banker, who weighs, refines, +and casts it into ingots, for a consideration, giving a receipt, which +is handed to the treasurer of the department, who calls for the amount +when required. + +The small banks transact their business on an extremely petty scale. +On first starting in business, their notes are seldom in circulation +above a few hours, and they have always to be watchful to avoid a +'run.' It is among this class that failures most frequently occur, the +time of the crash being the end of the year, owing to the demand for +specie which then arises. As a precautionary measure, some of them +mostly circulate the notes of the large banks, which do not return to +them as their own would. Their own are sure to come back once at least +in the twenty-four hours, as the large banks make a rule of sending +all petty bank-notes to their issuers every day, and exchanging them +for specie or larger notes. The petty establishments resort to various +expedients for the sake of profit; one is, to locate themselves in a +good situation: if far from a large bank, they charge a higher rate of +discount on notes presented for payment, than is charged by their more +powerful competitor; and the people who live in the neighbourhood +submit to this charge, rather than take the trouble of going to the +large bank. On the contrary, if the great and the small are near +together, the latter charge lower, and make their profit by placing +base coin among the strings of copper _cash_ which they pay to their +customers in exchange for notes. The inferior cash is manufactured for +the purpose, in the same way as Birmingham halfpence used to be for +distribution by the keepers of toll-gates. + +'Such petty chicanery is not viewed, as with us, in the light of an +offence, since, from the exceeding low value of the Chinese +cash--twenty-seven being only equivalent to a penny--those must be bad +indeed which will not pass current with the rest; and, accordingly, +the inferior sorts, when used in moderation, are accepted along with +the better in all the ordinary transactions of life. The profits of +these establishments must, therefore, be but slender--proportioned, +however, to the extent of their dealings; and some of the smallest +firms may not make more than half a dollar in the course of a day.' + +'The banking establishments in the city and suburbs of Fuhchow,' says +Mr Parkes, 'may be enumerated by hundreds. Most of them are naturally +very insignificant, and the circulation of their notes exceedingly +limited. Many of the outside notes will not pass current inside; and +are only convertible at the place of issue. Such branches as these +must be entirely superfluous, and might seriously inconvenience or +trammel the transactions of the higher ones; but, in order to guard +against encroachment from this direction, and as a self-protective +measure, several of the leading banks of known stability co-operate +with each other to keep up the value of their notes; and thus, by +holding a strong check on the issues of those minor parties, +effectually continue to regulate the whole system. There are thirty of +these establishments inside and outside the city, all reported to be +possessed of capital to the amount of from 500,000 to upwards of +1,000,000 dollars. + +'These latter establishments command the utmost confidence, and their +notes pass current everywhere and with everybody. They contribute +mutual support by constantly exchanging and continually cashing each +other's notes, which they severally seem to value as highly as their +own particular issues. This reciprocal and implicit trust must add +greatly to their solidity, and tend to prevent the possibility of +failure. The chief banker gained his high reputation by a voluntary +subscription, about thirty years ago, of no less than 100,000 dollars +to the government toward the repairs of the city walls and other +public works, for which he was rewarded with honorary official +insignia, and the extensive patronage or business of all the +authorities. These large banks are complete rulers of the +money-market; they regulate the rates of exchange, which are +incessantly fluctuating, and are known to alter several times in the +course of the day. The arrival or withdrawal from the place of specie +to the amount of a few thousands, has an immediate effect in either +raising or lowering the exchange. The bankers are kept most accurately +informed on the subject by some twenty men in their general employ, +whose sole business it is to be in constant attendance in the market, +and to acquaint the banks with everything that is going on, when they, +guided by the transactions of the day, determine and fix upon, between +themselves, the various prices of notes, sycee, and dollars. Their +unanimity on those points is very remarkable; and they are all deeply +impressed with the salutary conviction, that their chief strength +consists in the degree of mutual harmony that they preserve, and the +confidence they place in one another. These reporters are also very +useful to new arrivals, in affording them guidance on matters of +exchange, or in introducing them to the best bankers; and the +allowances that the stranger makes to them for their assistance, and +the banker for procuring him custom, constitute the gains of their +calling. They have also to report the prices of silver every morning +at the Magistracy, which, from its daily increasing value, has become +an object of especial attention.' Twenty years ago, much discontent +was expressed that silver, which had been worth 1000 cash per ounce, +rose to 1500; now it is over 2000, owing to the continuous drain of +the metal from the country. + +Still, with all this, failures are rare. The petty banks are most +liable to this reverse; and on such occasions, they generally contrive +to arrange the matter quietly among themselves; but the whole property +or lands belonging to the defaulters may be seized and sold to satisfy +the claims of the creditors: the dividend is usually from 10s. to 12s. +in the pound. Wilful fraud is seldom practised; the heaviest instance +known, was for 70,000 dollars; from the year 1843 to 1848, there were +but four bankruptcies, and three of these were for less than 6000 +dollars. The defaulters frequently escape punishment owing to the high +cost of prosecution. The large banks are safe; but at times, from +false or malicious reports, are exposed to a sudden 'run;' a great +crowd besets the doors when least expected, and numbers of vagabonds +seize the opportunity for mischief and plunder. These outbreaks grew +to such a pitch, that the magistrates now, whenever possible, hasten +to the threatened establishment, to repress violence by their presence +and authority. The rush, however, is so sudden, that before they can +arrive on the spot, the mob has improved its opportunity for +destruction, and disappeared. + +Forgery is not often attempted, probably because it does not pay, +owing to the fact of its being extremely difficult to circulate any +but notes of small value. The penalty for this offence is +transportation to a distance of three thousand _le_--about a thousand +miles; or imprisonment or flogging, according to circumstances. We +question if such an instance as the following ever occurred out of +China:--'A forger of some notoriety having been several times +prosecuted by the bankers, and with but little success, for he still +continued to carry on his malpractices, they conferred together, and +agreed _to take him into their pay_, making him responsible for any +future frauds of the kind. He continues to receive a stipend from them +at the present time, and is one of their most effective safeguards +against further imposition, as it devolves upon him to detect and +apprehend any other offender.' + +Most of the bank-notes are printed from copperplates, but some of the +petty dealers still use wooden blocks. They are longer and narrower +than ours, and have a handsomely engraved border, within which are +paragraphs laudatory of the ability or reputation of the firm. The +notes are of three kinds: for cash, dollars, and sycee. The first are +from 400 cash (1s. 3d. sterling), to hundreds of thousands, and are +largely circulated in all the smaller business transactions. The +dollar-notes, varying from a unit to 500, and, in some instances, to +1000, circulate among the merchants, their value continually +fluctuating with that of the price of the silver which they represent. +The sycee-notes are from one to several hundred _taels_ (ounces), and +are chiefly confined to the government offices, to avoid the trouble +and inconvenience of making payments in silver by weight. Whatever be +the value or denomination of the notes, the holder is at liberty to +demand payment of the whole whenever he pleases, and receives it +without abatement, as the banker makes his profit at the time of their +issue. When notes are lost, payment is stopped, as here, and they are +speedily traced, as it is the practice not to take notes of a high +value--say, 100 dollars--without first inquiring at the bank as to +their genuineness. But no indemnification is made for notes lost or +destroyed by accident. Promissory-notes are the chief medium of +interchange among merchants, who take ten days' grace on all bills, +except those on which is written the word 'immediate.' + +The rates of interest are, on lands and houses, from 10 to 15 per +cent.; on government deposits, which the people are made to take at +times against their will, 8 per cent.; on insurance of ships and +cargoes, owing to the risk from storms and pirates, from 20 to 30 per +cent.; on pawnbrokers' loans, 2 per cent. per month, or 20 per cent. +per annum. Five days' grace is allowed on pledges; and if goods be not +redeemed within three years, they are made over to the old clothes' +shops at a settled premium of 20 per cent. on the amount lent on them. +Pawnbrokers' establishments are numerous, and are frequented by all +classes, who pawn without scruple anything they may possess. The +banks, we are informed, 'keep up an intimate connection with the +pawnbrokers, who make and receive all their payments in notes for +copper cash, and will not take sycee, dollars, or dollar-notes--the +former, lest they should prove counterfeit, and the latter, on account +of the fluctuating value. They are very particular in passing the +bank-notes, and will accept only those of the large banks. A notice is +hung up in each shop, specifying what notes pass current with them; +and when the people go to redeem the articles they have pledged, as +they can present only those notes in payment, they have often to +repair previously to the bank where they are issued, to purchase them, +and, being at a premium, the banker thus gains his discount upon them. +Of such importance is this considered, that, without the support of +the pawnbrokers' connection, the business of a banker will always be +limited. Indeed, many of the banks keep pawnbrokers' shops also; and +the chief banker at Fuhchow is known to have opened no less than five +of these establishments. This is on account of the high interest paid +on pawnbrokers' loans.' + + + + +THINGS TALKED OF IN LONDON. + +_May, 1852._ + + +As May of last year was made memorable by the opening of the Great +Exhibition, so will the present month become famous for the pulling +down of the Crystal Palace. Parliament has decreed it, and there is an +end of the matter. If the people by and by find reason to complain of +the proceeding, they will have no one to blame but themselves; +because, had they spoken out as only a whole nation can speak, the +decision of the legislature would have been on the other side of the +question. We are promised, however, that it shall be re-erected on +some other site, and herein must solace ourselves for disappointment +at the removal, while waiting for the National Exhibition to be opened +at Cork, or that of the Arts and Manufactures of the Indian Empire +promised by the Society of Arts. Besides this, the present May will be +noteworthy in the annals of ocean steam-navigation: the steamers to +Australia are to commence their trips, as also those to Brazil and +Valparaiso. Who would have dreamed, twenty years ago, that the +redoubtable Cape Horn would, before a quarter century had expired, be +rounded by a steamer from an English port? Captain Denham is about to +sail in the _Herald_, to survey the islands of the great ocean, one +object being to find the best route and coaling-stations among the +islands for steamers from the Isthmus to Sydney. The vessel will carry +an interpreter, a supply of English seeds and plants, and a number of +articles, to serve as presents for the natives. Should this survey be +successful, and the United States' expedition to Japan produce the +effect anticipated, the vast solitudes of the Pacific will be erelong +continually echoing with the beat of paddle-wheels and the roar of +steam. Rapid intercommunication will bring about changes, whereat +politicians and ethnologists shall wonder. The Chinese still keep +pouring into California by shiploads of 200 or 300 at a time, where +they will perhaps learn that a year of Anglo-Saxondom is 'worth cycle +of Cathay.' We may regard as evidence of progress, that Loo-choo has +been visited by Captain Shadwell of the _Sphynx_; he was received with +great favour, and conducted to the royal city of Shooi, three miles +inland. Readers of Captain Basil Hall's pleasant account of the same +island will remember, that he was jealously forbidden to approach the +interior. Do the Loo-chooans want to conciliate an ally? If, as is +said, Japan is to become to the Americans what India is to us, we +shall have them for neighbours in the east, as we now have them in the +west. It will be an interesting event should England, America, and +Russia some day meet on the Asiatic continent. + +One good effect of railways, as you know, has been to cheapen coal, +and excite activity in heretofore dormant mining districts--results +which tell upon the trade in sea-borne coals. To meet this emergency, +a scheme is on foot for sending coal from the Tyne to the Thames in +steam-colliers, which, by their short and regular passages, shall +compete successfully with the railways. The experiment is well worth +trying, and ought to pay, if properly managed: meantime, our railways +will extend their ramifications. Looking for a moment at what is doing +in other parts of the world, it appears that there are at present 2000 +miles of railway in France, besides as much more which is to be +completed in four years. Portugal is only just beginning to think of +iron routes: a few wakeful people are trying to impress that backward +land with a sense of the advantages of rapid locomotion; and it is +shewn that, by a simple system of railways, Lisbon would be placed at +sixteen hours' distance from Madrid, forty-three from Paris, +fifty-three from Brussels, and fifty-seven from London. Would it not +be a comfort to be able to run away from the north-east monsoon, which +has so long afflicted us, to the orange groves on the banks of the +Tagus, in about two days and a half? A telegraph is about to +be carried from the Austrian States over the Splugen into +Switzerland--the Alps, it would appear, being no bar to the +thought-flasher. There is a project, too, for a regular and universal +dispatch of telegraph messages from all parts of the world. A mail and +telegraph route from the Mississippi across to San Francisco is talked +about. The proposer considers that post-houses might be erected at +every twenty miles across the American continent, in which companies +of twenty men of the United States' army might be stationed, to +protect and facilitate the intercommunication; news would then find +its way across in six or seven days. Should this scheme fail to be +realised, the Americans may content themselves with having nearly +11,000 miles of railway already open, and another 11,000 in progress. + +A beginning is made towards the abolition of the duty on foreign books +imported. Government have consented that certain learned societies, +and a number of scientific individuals, shall receive, duty free, such +scientific publications as may be sent to them from abroad. +Considering that the whole amount realised by the present customs' +charge is only L.8000, it is easy to believe that the authorities will +shortly have to abolish it altogether. Another question in which books +are concerned, is the dispute that has been going on for some time +among the fraternity of booksellers, as to whether a retailer shall be +allowed to sell books for any price he pleases, or not. Whether +'free-trade' or 'monopoly' is to prevail, will depend on the decision +of the arbitrators who have been chosen. Leaving out all the rest of +the kingdom, there are nearly 1000 booksellers in London; so the +subject is an important one. This number affords a notable datum for +comparison with other countries. In Germany, the number of booksellers +is 2651, of which 2200 are retailers, 400 publishers only, while 451 +combine the two. They are distributed--36 in Frankfort, 56 in +Stuttgart, 52 in Vienna, 129 in Berlin, 145 in Leipsic. The figures +are suggestive. Another fact may be instanced: in 1851 the number of +visits to the British Museum for reading was 78,419--giving an average +of 269 per day, the room having been open during 292 days. The number +of books consulted was 424,851, or 1455 daily. This is an agreeable +view of what one part of society is doing; but there is a reverse to +the picture, as shewn in a recently published parliamentary report, +from which it appears that in 1849 the juvenile offenders in England +numbered 6849--in Wales, 73--of whom 167 were transported; in 1850, +the numbers were respectively 6988, 82, 184, shewing an increase under +each head. Of the whole number in confinement last November, 169 were +under thirteen years of age, and 568 under sixteen: 205 had been in +prison once before, 90 twice, 49 three times, 85 four times and +upwards; 329 had lost one parent, 103 both parents; 327 could not +read, and 554 had not been brought up to any settled employment. These +facts may be taken as demonstrative of the necessity for multiplying +reformatory agricultural schools, such as have been established in +various parts of the continent with the happiest effects. + +Among the prizes just announced by the French Academie, is one for +'the best work on the state of pauperism in France, and the means of +remedying it,' to be adjudged in 1853. It is greatly to be wished that +some gifted mind would arise capable of taking a proper survey of so +grave a question, and bringing it to a practical and satisfactory +solution. Some people are beginning to ask, whether it would not be +better, with the proceeds of poor-rates, to send paupers to colonies +which are scant of labourers, rather than to expend the money in +keeping them at home. The Academie of Literature, too, has offered a +prize for an essay on the parliamentary eloquence of England--a +significant fact in a country where the legislature is not permitted +to be eloquent, and where forty-nine provincial papers have died since +the 2d of December. Coming again to science: the judicial _savants_ +have awarded a medal to Mr Hind for his discovery of some two or three +of the minor planets--an acknowledgment of merit which will not fail +of good results in more ways than one. + +Various scientific matters, which are deserving of a passing notice, +have come before the same learned body. Matteucci, who has been +steadily pursuing his electro-chemical labours, now states that with +certain liquids and a single metal he can form a pile, the +electro-magnetic and electro-chemical effects of which are much +greater than those obtained with the old piles of Volta and Wollaston, +and come nearer to those of the batteries of Bunsen and Grove. As yet, +he withholds the particulars, but they will shortly be forthcoming. M. +Dureau de la Malle, in remarks on the breeding of fish, a subject +which has of late occupied much attention in France, says, that he has +now discovered the reason 'why domestic servants in Holland and +Scotland, when taking a situation, stipulate that they shall not be +made to eat salmon more than three times a week;' it is, the insipid +taste of young salmon. It is safe to say, that however much M. de la +Malle may know about fish, he knows but little of the habits of the +countries to which he refers. M. Yvart mentions a fact that may be +useful to graziers--the breed of cattle has been improved in France by +the introduction of the Durham bull; but, as experience has shewn, it +is at the expense of certain qualities deemed essential on the other +side of the Channel. Here, we require meat as speedily as possible in +young animals for consumption in our great towns; there, the great +rural population use milk largely, and keep the animals longer before +they are killed. The quantity of milk, it appears, is materially +reduced in the Durham breed, and on this account M. Yvart suggests, +that it should not be too much encouraged. Then there is something +about dogs by Messrs Gruby and Delafond, who shew that the worms which +have long been known to exist in the larger blood-vessels of certain +dogs, are the parents of the almost innumerable _filaria_ or +microscopic worms, found circulating also in the veins. The number +generally in one dog is estimated at 52,000, though at times it is +more than 200,000; and being smaller than the blood-globules, the +creatures penetrate the minutest blood-vessels. They are met with on +the average in one dog in twenty-five, though most frequent in the +adult and old, and without distinction of sex or race. The examination +of the phenomenon is to be continued, with a view to ascertain whether +dogs infested with these blood-worms are subject to any peculiar +disease. + +More interesting is the account of a successful case of transfusion of +blood in the human subject, performed in presence of the ablest +surgeons of Paris. A woman was taken to the Hotel Dieu reduced by +hemorrhage to the last stage of weakness, unable to speak, to open her +eyes, or to draw back her tongue when put out. The basilic vein was +opened, and the point of a syringe, warmed to the proper temperature, +was introduced, charged with blood drawn from the same vein in the arm +of one of the assistants. The quantity, 180 grammes, was injected in +2-1/2 minutes, after which the wound was dressed, and the patient +placed in a comfortable position. Gradually, the beatings of the pulse +rose from 130 to 138, and became firmer; the action of the heart +increased in energy; the eyes opened with a look of intelligence; and +the tongue could be advanced and withdrawn with facility, and regained +its redness. On the following day, there was a little delirium, after +which the pulse fell to 90, the signs of vitality acquired strength, +and at the end of a week the woman left the hospital restored to +health. Cases of successful transfusion are so rare, that it is not +surprising the one here recorded should have excited attention among +our physiologists. + +People inclined to corpulence may profit by M. Dancel's observations +on the development of fat. He says, that some of his patients, whose +obesity was a constant inconvenience and cause of disease, 'lost very +notably of their _embonpoint_ by a change in their alimentary +regimen--abstaining almost entirely from vegetables, feculent +substances, diminishing their quantity of drink, and increasing, when +necessary, their portion of meat.' On another, subject, M. Guerin +Meneville believes he has found a new cochineal insect (_Coccus fabae_) +on the common bean, which grows wild in the south of France, and in +such abundance, that a considerable quantity may be collected in a +short time. The yield of colouring matter is of such amount, that a +project is talked of for cultivating the plant extensively. + +A communication has been made to the Geological Society at Paris by M. +de Hauslab, on a subject which has from time to time occupied the +thoughts of those who study the _physique_ of the planet on which we +live--namely, the origin of the present state of our globe, and its +crystal-like cleavage. After a few preliminary remarks about +mountains, rocks, dikes and their line of direction, he shews that the +globe presents the form approximately of a great octahedron +(eight-sided figure); and further, that the three axial planes which +such a form necessitates, may be described by existing circles round +the earth: the first being Himalaya and Chimborazo; starting from Cape +Finisterre, passing to India, Borneo, the eastern range of Australia, +New Zealand, across to South America, Caracas, the Azores, and so +round to Finisterre. The second runs in the opposite direction; +includes the Andes, Rocky Mountains, crosses Behring's Strait to +Siberia, thence to the Altai, Hindostan, Madagascar, Cape Colony, and +ending again at the Andes of Brazil. The third, which cuts the two +former at right angles, proceeds from the Alps, traverses the +Mediterranean by Corsica and Sardinia to the mountains of Fezzan, +through Central Africa to the Cape, on to Kerguelen's Land, Blue +Mountains of Australia, Spitzbergen, Scandinavia, and completing +itself in the Alps, from whence it started. These circles shew the +limits of the faces of the huge crystal, and may be divided into +others, comprising forty-eight in the whole. The views thus set forth +exhibit much ingenuity; and when we consider that metals crystallise +in various forms, and native iron in the octahedral, there is much to +be said in their favour. + +We shall probably not be long before hearing of another gold field, +for Dr Barth writes from the interior of Africa, that grains of the +precious metal have been found in two rivers which flow into Lake +Tchad, and that the mountains in the neighbourhood abound with it. +Should the first discovery be verified by further explorations, gold +will be more abundant than it now promises to be, and Africa perhaps +the richest source of supply. Apropos of this continent, a French +traveller is about to prove from the results of a journey from the +Cape towards the equator, that the Carthaginian discoveries had been +pushed much further towards the south than is commonly supposed. + +Agassiz, who, as you know, has become a citizen of the United States, +has had the Cuvierian prize awarded to him for his great work on +fossil fishes--an honour approved by every lover of science. This +distinguished writer says, in his latest publications on fossil +zoology, that the number of fossil fishes distributed over the globe +is more than 25,000 species; of mammifera, over 3000; reptiles, over +4000; shells, more than 40,000; numbers which greatly exceed all +former calculation. Of other American items, there is one worthy the +notice of apiarians: some emigrants who sailed from Boston wished to +convey a hive of bees to the Sandwich Islands, where the industrious +insects have not as yet been introduced; all went well until the +vessel reached the tropics, and there the heat was so great as to melt +the wax of the combs, and consequently to destroy the bees. + +Lieutenant Hunt, of the American Coast Survey, states that +copper-plate engravings may be copied on stone; specimens are to +appear in the forthcoming report. To quote his description: 'A +copper-plate being duly engraved, it is inked, and an impression taken +on transfer-paper. A good paper, which wetting does not expand, is +needed, and a fatty coating is used in the process. The transfer-paper +impression is laid on the smooth stone, and run through a press. It is +then wetted, heated, and stripped off from the stone, leaving the ink +and fat on its face. The heated fat is softly brushed away, leaving +only the ink-lines. From this reversed impression on the stone, the +printing is performed just as in ordinary lithography. A good transfer +produces from 3000 to 5000 copies. Thus prints from a single +copper-plate can be infinitely multiplied, the printing being, +moreover, much cheaper than copper-plate.' + + + + +IN EXPECTATION OF DEATH.--CONSTANTIA. + + + When I was young, my lover stole + One of my ringlets fair: + I wept--'Ah no! Those always part, + Who having once changed heart for heart, + Change also locks of hair. + + 'And wonder-opened eyes have seen + The spirits of the dead, + Gather like motes in silent bands + Round hair once reft by tender hands + From some now shrouded head. + + 'If'---- Here he closed my quivering mouth, + And where the curl had lain, + Laid payment rich for what he stole:-- + Could I to one hour crush life's whole, + I'd live that hour again! + + My golden curls are silvering o'er-- + Who heeds? The seas roll wide; + When one I know their bounds shall pass, + There'll be no tresses--save long grass-- + For _his_ hands to divide; + + While I shall lie, low, deep, a-cold, + And never hear him tread: + Whether he weep, or sigh, or moan, + I shall be passive as a stone, + He living, and I--dead! + + And then he will rise up and go, + With slow steps, looking back, + Still--going: leaving me to keep + My frozen and eternal sleep, + Beneath the earth so black. + + Pale brow--oft leant against his brow: + Dear hand--where his lips lay; + Dim eyes, that knew not they were fair, + Till his praise made them half they were-- + Must all these pass away? + + Must nought of mine be left for him + Save the poor curl he stole? + Round which this wildly-loving _me_ + Will float unseen continually, + A disembodied soul. + + A soul! Glad thought--that lightning-like + Leaps from this cloud of doom: + If, living, all its load of clay + Keeps not my spirit from him away, + Thou canst not, cruel tomb! + + The moment that these earth-chains burst, + Like an enfranchised dove, + O'er seas and lands to him I fly, + Whom only, whether I live or die, + I loved, love, and shall love. + + I'll wreathe around him--he shall breathe + My life instead of air; + In glowing sunbeams o'er his head + My visionary hands I'll spread, + And kiss his forehead fair. + + I'll stand, an angel bold and strong, + Between his soul and sin; + If Grief lie stone-like on his heart, + I'll beat its marble doors apart, + To let Peace enter in. + + He never more shall part from me, + Nor I from him abide; + Let these poor limbs in earth find rest! + I'll live like Love within his breast, + Rejoicing that I died. + + + + +WATER. + + +Some four-fifths of the weight of the human body are nothing but +water. The blood is just a solution of the body in a vast excess of +water--as saliva, mucus, milk, gall, urine, sweat, and tears are the +local and partial infusions effected by that liquid. All the soft +solid parts of the frame may be considered as ever temporary +precipitates or crystallisations (to use the word but loosely) from +the blood, that mother-liquor of the whole body; always being +precipitated or suffered to become solid, and always being +redissolved, the forms remaining, but the matter never the same for +more than a moment, so that the flesh is only a vanishing solid, as +fluent as the blood itself. It has also to be observed, that every +part of the body, melting again into the river of life continually as +it does, is also kept perpetually drenched in blood by means of the +blood-vessels, and more than nine-tenths of that wonderful current is +pure water. Water plays as great a part, indeed, in the economy of +that little world, the body of man, as it still more evidently does in +the phenomenal life of the world at large. Three-fourths of the +surface of the earth is ocean; the dry ground is dotted with lakes, +its mountain-crests are covered with snow and ice, its surface is +irrigated by rivers and streams, its edges are eaten by the sea; and +aqueous vapour is unceasingly ascending from the ocean and inland +surfaces through the yielding air, only to descend in portions and at +intervals in dews and rains, hails and snows. Water is not only the +basis of the juices of all the plants and animals in the world; it is +the very blood of nature, as is well known to all the terrestrial +sciences; and old Thales, the earliest of European speculators, +pronounced it the mother-liquid of the universe. In the later systems +of the Greeks, indeed, it was reduced to the inferior dignity of being +only one of the four parental natures--fire, air, earth, and water; +but water was the highest--[Greek: udor men ariston]--in +rank.--_Westminster Review_. + + + + +LOTTERY OF DEATH. + + +The Polish and German peasantry have given the authorities at Posen +considerable trouble by their inquiries respecting a 'Rothschild's +Lottery.' They have been led to believe, that the 'great Rothschild' +has been sentenced to be beheaded; but that he has been allowed to +procure a substitute, if he can, by lottery! For this purpose, a sum +of many millions is devoted, all the tickets to be prizes of 3000 +thalers each, except one; that fatal number is a blank; and whoever +draws it, is to be decapitated instead of the celebrated banker! +Notwithstanding the risk, the applicants for shares have been +numerous. [There is nothing surprising in the number of applications +for these shares. Every man who enters the army in wartime, takes out +a ticket in a similar lottery. In China, human life is of still less +account; for there it is easy for a condemned criminal, whose escape +the authorities are willing to connive at, to obtain a substitute, +who, for a sum of money, suffers death in his stead.] + + + + +A MAN FOR THE WORLD. + + +A successful merchant in New Zealand, a Scotchman, commenced business +with the following characteristic entry on the first page of his +ledger:--'Commenced business this day--with no money--little +credit--and L.70 in debt. Faint heart never won fair lady. Set a stout +heart to a stay (steep) brae. God save the Queen!' + + + * * * * * + + +_Just Published_, _Price 6d. Paper Cover_, + +CHAMBERS'S POCKET MISCELLANY: forming a LITERARY COMPANION for the +RAILWAY, the FIRESIDE, or the BUSH. + +VOLUME VI. + +To be continued in Monthly Volumes. + + * * * * * + +Printed and Published by W. and R. CHAMBERS, High Street, Edinburgh. +Also sold by W. S. ORR, Amen Corner, London; D. N. CHAMBERS, 55 West +Nile Street, Glasgow; and J. M'GLASHAN, 50 Upper Sackville Street, +Dublin.--Advertisements for Monthly Parts are requested to be sent to +MAXWELL & Co., 31 Nicholas Lane, Lombard Street, London, to whom all +applications respecting their insertion must be made. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 439, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EDINBURGH JOURNAL *** + +***** This file should be named 19181.txt or 19181.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/1/8/19181/ + +Produced by Malcolm Farmer, Richard J. 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