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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54,
+No. 334, August 1843, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: April 13, 2008 [EBook #25065]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Brendan OConnor, Jonathan Ingram, Josephine
+Paolucci and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net. (This file was produced from images
+generously made available by The Internet Library of Early
+Journals.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+BLACKWOOD'S
+
+EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
+
+No. CCCXXXIV AUGUST, 1843. VOL. LIV.
+
+
+
+
+FORMS AND BALLADS OF SCHILLER. BY SIR EDWARD LYTTON BULWER.
+
+PART THE LAST.
+
+
+We here close our attempts to convey to the English reader some notion,
+however inadequate, of the genius and mind of Schiller. It is in these
+Poems, rather, perhaps, than in his Dramas and Prose works, that the
+upright earnestness of the mind, and the rich variety of the genius, are
+best displayed. Here, certainly, can best be seen that peculiar union of
+intellect and imagination which Mr Carlyle has so well distinguished as
+Schiller's characteristic attribute, and in which it would be difficult
+to name the modern poet by whom he is surpassed; and here the variety of
+the genius is least restrained and limited by the earnestness of the
+mind. For Schiller's variety is not that of Shakspeare, a creative and
+universal spirit, passing with the breath of life into characters the
+most diverse, and unidentified with the creations its invisible agency
+invokes. But it is the variety of one in whom the consciousness of his
+own existence is never laid aside; shown not so much in baring the minds
+and hearts of others, as in developing the progress and the struggles of
+his own, in the infinite gradations of joy and of sorrow, of exquisite
+feeling and solemn thought. Hence, in the drama, arise his faults and
+deficiencies; in his characters, he himself speaks. They are gigantic
+images of his own moods at different epochs of his life--impassioned
+with Moor--philosophizing with Posa--stately, tranquil, and sad, with
+Wallenstein. But as, in his dramas, this intense perception of
+self--this earnest, haunting consciousness--this feeling of genius as a
+burden, and of life as a religion--interferes with true dramatic
+versatility; so, on the contrary, these qualities give variety in his
+poems to the expositions of a mind always varying, always
+growing--always eager to think, and sensitive to feel. And his art loved
+to luxuriate in all that copious fertility of materials which the
+industry of a scholar submitted to the mastery of a poet; to turn to
+divine song whatever had charmed the study or aroused the thought:
+philosophy, history, the dogma, or the legend, all repose in the memory
+to bloom in the verse. The surface of knowledge apparent in his poems is
+immense; and this alone suffices to secure variety in thought. But the
+aspiring and ardent nature of his intellect made him love to attempt
+also constant experiments in the theme and in the style. The romantic
+ballad, the classical tale, the lyric, the didactic, the
+epigrammatic--the wealth of his music comprehended every note, the
+boldness of his temper adventured every hazard. Yet still, (as in our
+Byron, in our Goldsmith, and as, perhaps, in every mind tenacious of its
+impressions,) some favourite ideas take possession of him so forcibly,
+as to be frequently repeated as important truths. The sacred and
+majestic office of the poet--the beauty of ideal life, (in which the
+author of the "_Robbers_" and "_William Tell_" deemed, at last, that the
+only liberty was to be found)--the worship of Virtue and the Beautiful,
+for their own sake, and without hope of reward;--these, and many ideas
+minor to, and proceeding from them, revisit us in a thousand tones of
+eloquent and haunting music.
+
+Reluctantly we tear ourselves from a task which has indeed been a labour
+of love. Many poets may inspire as high an admiration as Schiller; few
+so tender a personal affection. Even in his doubts and his errors, we
+have that interest in his struggles which arises from the conviction of
+his sound heart and his manly nature. Wrestling at one time with bitter
+poverty, at one with unhappy passion--lonely in his habits, prematurely
+broken in his health, his later wisdom dispelling his early dreams of
+Utopian liberty--still, throughout all, his bravery never fails him, his
+gentleness is never soured; his philanthropy changes its form, but it is
+never chilled. Even when he wanders into error, it is from his search
+for truth. That _humanity_ which the French writers of the last century
+sought to preach, Schiller took from the scoffing wit of Voltaire, and
+the unhealthy enthusiasm of Rousseau, to invest it with the thoughtful
+sweetness and the robust vigour of his own great soul. And we believe
+that no one can depart from the attentive study of that divine bequest
+he has left the world, without a more serious respect for virtue, and a
+more genial affection for mankind.
+
+    E. LYTTON BULWER.
+
+
+SECOND PERIOD.
+
+The Poems included in the Second Period of Schiller's literary career
+are few, but remarkable for their beauty, and deeply interesting from
+the struggling and anxious state of mind which some of them depict. It
+was, both to his taste and to his thought, a period of visible
+transition. He had survived the wild and irregular power which stamps,
+with fierce and somewhat sensual characters, the productions of his
+youth; but he had not attained that serene repose of strength--that
+calm, bespeaking depth and fulness, which is found in the best writings
+of his maturer years. In point of style, the Poems in this division have
+more facility and sweetness than those that precede them, and perhaps
+more evident vigour, more popular _verve_ and _gusto_, than some that
+follow: in point of thought, they mark that era through which few men of
+inquisitive and adventurous genius--of sanguine and impassioned
+temperament--and of education chiefly self-formed, undisciplined, and
+imperfect, have failed to pass--the era of doubt and gloom, of
+self-conflict, and of self-torture.--In the "_Robbers_," and much of the
+poetry written in the same period of Schiller's life, there is a bold
+and wild imagination, which attacks rather than questions--innovates
+rather than examines--seizes upon subjects of vast social import, that
+float on the surface of opinion, and assails them with a blind and
+half-savage rudeness, according as they offend the enthusiasm of
+unreasoning youth. But now this eager and ardent mind had paused to
+contemplate; its studies were turned to philosophy and history--a more
+practical knowledge of life (though in this last, Schiller, like most
+German authors, was ever more or less deficient in variety and range)
+had begun to soften the stern and fiery spirit which had hitherto
+sported with the dangerous elements of social revolution. And while this
+change was working, before its feverish agitation subsided into that
+Kantism which is the antipodes of scepticism, it was natural that, to
+the energy which had asserted, denounced, and dogmatized, should succeed
+the reaction of despondency and distrust. Vehement indignation at "the
+solemn plausibilities" of the world pervades the "_Robbers_." In "_Don
+Carlos_," (commenced in this period, though published much later,) the
+passion is no longer vehement indignation, but mournful sorrow--not
+indignation that hypocrisy reigns, but sorrow that honesty cannot
+triumph--not indignation that formal vice usurps the high places of the
+world, but sorrow that, in the world, warm and generous virtue glows,
+and feels, and suffers--without reward. So, in the poems of this period,
+are two that made a considerable sensation at their first
+appearance--"_The Conflict_," published originally under the title of
+"_The Freethinking of Passion_," and "_Resignation_." They present a
+melancholy view of the moral struggles in the heart of a noble and
+virtuous man. From the first of these poems, Schiller, happily and
+wisely, at a later period of his life, struck the passages most
+calculated to offend. What hand would dare restore them? The few stanzas
+that remain still suggest the outline of dark and painful thoughts,
+which is filled up in the more elaborate, and, in many respects, most
+exquisite, poem of "_Resignation_." Virtue exacting all sacrifices, and
+giving no reward--Belief which denies enjoyment, and has no bliss save
+its own illusions; such is the sombre lesson of the melancholy poet--the
+more impressive because _so far_ it is truth--deep and everlasting
+truth--but only, to a Christian, a part of truth. Resignation, so sad if
+not looking beyond the earth, becomes joy, when assured and confident of
+heaven. Another poem in this intermediate collection was no less
+subjected to severe animadversion, but with infinitely less justice. We
+mean "_The Gods of Greece_." This lament for the beautiful old
+mythology, is but the lament of a poet for the ancient founts of poetry;
+and few, now-a-days, can be literal enough to suppose it seriously
+intended to set up Paganism, to the disparagement of Christianity. But
+the fact is, that Schiller's mind was so essentially religious, that we
+feel more angry, when he whom we would gladly hail as our light and
+guide, only darkens us or misleads, than we should, with a less grave
+and reverent genius. Yet a period--a transition state--of doubt and
+despondency is perhaps common to men in proportion to their natural
+dispositions to faith and veneration. With them, it comes from keen
+sympathy with undeserved sufferings--from wrath at wickedness
+triumphant--from too intense a brooding over the great mysteries
+involved in the government of the world. Scepticism of this nature can
+but little injure the frivolous, and will be charitably regarded by the
+wise. Schiller's mind soon outgrew the state which, to the mind of a
+poet, above all men, is most ungenial, but the sadness which the
+struggle bequeathed, seems to have wrought a complete revolution in all
+his preconceived opinions. The wild creator of the "_Robbers_," drunk
+with liberty, and audacious against all restraint, becomes the champion
+of "Holy Order,"--the denouncer of the French republic--the extoller of
+an Ideal Life, which should entirely separate Genius the Restless from
+Society the Settled. And as his impetuous and stormy vigour matured into
+the lucent and tranquil art of "_Der Spaziergang_," "_Wallenstein_," and
+"_Die Braut von Messina_," so his philosophy threw itself into calm
+respect for all that custom sanctioned, and convention hallowed.
+
+But even during the painful transition, of which, in his minor poems,
+glimpses alone are visible, Scepticism, with Schiller, never insults the
+devoted, or mocks the earnest mind. It may have sadness--but never
+scorn. It is the question of a traveller who has lost his way in the
+great wilderness, but who mourns with his fellow-seekers, and has no
+bitter laughter for their wanderings from the goal. This division
+begins, indeed, with a Hymn which atones for whatever pains us in the
+two whose strain and spirit so gloomily contrast it, viz. the matchless
+and immortal "_Hymn to Joy_"--a poem steeped in the very essence of
+all-loving and all-aiding, Christianity--breathing the enthusiasm of
+devout yet gladsome adoration, and ranking amongst the most glorious
+bursts of worship which grateful Genius ever rendered to the benign
+Creator.
+
+And it is peculiarly noticeable, that, whatever Schiller's state of mind
+upon theological subjects at the time that this hymn was composed, and
+though all doctrinal stamp and mark be carefully absent from it, it is
+yet a poem that never could have been written but in a Christian age, in
+a Christian land--but by a man whose whole soul and heart had been at
+one time (nay, _was_ at the very moment of composition) inspired and
+suffused with that firm belief in God's goodness and His justice--that
+full assurance of rewards beyond the grave--that exulting and seraphic
+cheerfulness which associates joy with the Creator--and that animated
+affection for the Brotherhood of Mankind, which Christianity--and
+Christianity alone, in its pure, orthodox, gospel form, needing no aid
+from schoolman or philosopher--taught and teaches. Would, for objects
+higher than the praise which the ingenuity of labour desires and strives
+for--would that some faint traces of the splendour which invests the
+original, could attend the passage of thoughts so noble and so tender,
+from the verse of a poet to the rhyme of a translator!
+
+
+HYMN TO JOY.
+
+    Spark from the fire that Gods have fed--
+      JOY--thou Elysian Child divine,
+    Fire-drunk, our airy footsteps tread,
+      O Holy One! thy holy shrine.
+    The heart that Custom from the other
+      Divides, thy charms again unite,
+    And man in man but hails a brother,
+      Wherever rest thy wings of light.
+
+    _Chorus_--Embrace ye millions--let this kiss,
+                      Brothers, embrace the earth below!
+                   You starry worlds that shine on this,
+                      One common Father know!
+
+    He who this lot from fate can grasp--
+      Of one true friend the friend to be,--
+    He who one faithful maid can clasp,
+      Shall hold with us his jubilee;
+    Yes, each who but one single heart
+      In all the earth can claim his own!--
+    Let him who cannot, stand apart,
+      And weep beyond the pale, alone!
+
+    _Chorus_--Homage to holy Sympathy,
+                     Ye dwellers in our mighty ring;
+                   Up to yon Star-pavilions--she
+                     Leads to the Unknown King!
+
+    All being drinks the mother-dew
+      Of joy from Nature's holy bosom;
+    And Vice and Worth her steps pursue--
+      We trace them by the blossom.
+    Hers Love's sweet kiss--the grape's rich treasure,
+      That cheers Life on to Death's abode;
+    Joy in each link--the worm has pleasure,
+      The Cherub has the smile of God!
+
+    _Chorus_--Why bow ye down--why down--ye millions?
+                     O World, thy Maker's throne to see,
+                   Look upward-search the Star-pavilions:
+                     _There_ must His mansion be!
+
+    Joy is the mainspring in the whole
+      Of endless Nature's calm rotation;
+    Joy moves the dazzling wheels that roll
+      In the great Timepiece of Creation;
+    Joy breathes on buds, and flowers they are;
+      Joy beckons--suns come forth from heaven;
+    Joy rolls the spheres in realms afar,
+      Ne'er to thy glass, dim Wisdom, given!
+
+    _Chorus_--Joyous as Suns careering gay
+                     Along their royal paths on high,
+                   March, Brothers, march our dauntless way,
+                     As Chiefs to Victory!
+
+    Joy, from Truth's pure and lambent fires,
+      Smiles out upon the ardent seeker;
+    Joy leads to Virtue Man's desires,
+      And cheers as Suffering's step grows weaker.
+    High from the sunny slopes of Faith,
+      The gales her waving banners buoy;
+    And through the shattered vaults of Death,
+      Springs to the choral Angels-Joy!
+
+    _Chorus_--Bear this life, millions, bravely bear--
+                     Bear this life for the Better One!
+                   See ye the Stars?--a life is there,
+                     Where the reward is won.
+
+    Man never can the gods requite;
+      How fair alike to gods to be!
+    Where want and woe shall melt in light
+      That plays round Bliss eternally!
+    Revenge and Hatred both forgot;
+      No foe, the deadliest, unforgiven;
+    With smiles that tears can neighbour not;
+      No path can lead Regret to Heaven!
+
+    _Chorus_--Let all the world be peace and love--
+                     Cancel thy debt-book with thy brother;
+                   For God shall judge of _us_ above,
+                     As we shall judge each other!
+
+    Joy sparkles to us from the bowl--
+      Behold the juice whose golden colour
+    To meekness melts the savage soul,
+      And gives Despair a Hero's valour.
+    Up, brothers!--Lo, we crown the cup!
+      Lo, the wine flashes to the brim!
+    Let the bright Fount spring heavenward!--Up!
+      To THE GOOD SPIRIT this glass!--To HIM!
+
+    _Chorus_--Praised by the ever-whirling ring
+                     Of Stars, and tuneful Seraphim--
+                   To THE GOOD SPIRIT--the Father-King
+                     In Heaven!--This glass to Him!
+
+    Strong-hearted Hope to Sorrow's sloth;
+      Swift aid to guiltless Woe;
+    Eternity to plighted Troth;
+      Truth just to Friend and Foe;
+    Proud men before the throne to stand;
+      (These things are worth the dying!)
+    Good fortune to the Honest, and
+      Confusion to the Lying!
+
+    _Chorus_--Draw closer in the holy ring,
+                     Sworn by the wine-cup's golden river--
+                   Sworn by the Stars, and by their King,
+                     To keep our vow for ever!
+
+
+THE INVINCIBLE ARMADA.
+
+    She comes, she comes--the Burthen of the Deeps!
+      Beneath her wails the Universal Sea!
+    With clanking chains and a new God, she sweeps,
+      And with a thousand thunders, unto thee!
+    The ocean-castles and the floating hosts--
+      Ne'er on their like, look'd the wild waters!--Well
+    May man the monster name "Invincible."
+    O'er shudd'ring waves she gathers to thy coasts!
+      The horror that she spreads can claim
+      Just title to her haughty name.
+        The trembling Neptune quails
+    Under the silent and majestic forms;
+    The Doom of Worlds in those dark sails;--
+      Near and more near they sweep! and slumber all the Storms
+
+      Before thee the array,
+    Blest island, Empress of the Sea!
+    The sea-born squadrons threaten thee,
+      And thy great heart, BRITANNIA!
+    Woe to thy people, of their freedom proud--
+    She rests, a thunder heavy in its cloud!
+    Who, to thy hand the orb and sceptre gave,
+      That thou should'st be the sovereign of the nations?
+    To tyrant kings thou wert thyself the slave,
+      Till Freedom dug from Law its deep foundations;
+    The mighty CHART thy citizens made kings,
+      And kings to citizens sublimely bow'd!
+    And thou thyself, upon thy realm of water,
+    Hast thou not render'd millions up to slaughter,
+      When thy ships brought upon their sailing wings
+        The sceptre--and the shroud?
+    What should'st thou thank?--Blush, Earth, to hear and feel:
+    What should'st thou thank?--Thy genius and thy steel.
+    Behold the hidden and the giant fires!
+      Behold thy glory trembling to its fall!
+    Thy coming doom the round earth shall appall,
+    And all the hearts of freemen beat for thee,
+    And all free souls their fate in shine foresee--
+      _Theirs_ is _thy_ glory's fall!
+    One look below the Almighty gave,
+    Where stream'd the lion-flags of thy proud foe;
+    And near and wider yawn'd the horrent grave.
+    "And who," saith HE, "shall lay mine England low--
+    The stem that blooms with hero-deeds--
+    The rock when man from wrong a refuge needs--
+    The stronghold where the tyrant comes in vain?
+    Who shall bid England vanish from the main?
+    Ne'er be this only Eden freedom knew,
+    Man's stout defence from Power, to Fate consign'd."
+    God the Almighty blew,
+    And the Armada went to every wind!
+
+
+THE CONFLICT.
+
+    No! I this conflict longer will not wage,
+      The conflict Duty claims--the giant task;--
+    Thy spells, O Virtue, never can assuage
+      The heart's wild fire--this offering do not ask!
+
+    True, I have sworn--a solemn vow have sworn,
+      That I myself will curb the self within;
+    Yet take thy wreath, no more it shall be worn--
+      Take back thy wreath, and leave me free to sin.
+
+    Rent be the contract I with thee once made;--
+      She loves me, loves me--forfeit be thy crown!
+    Blest he who, lull'd in rapture's dreamy shade,
+      Glides, as I glide, the deep fall gladly down.
+
+    She sees the worm that my youth's bloom decays,
+      She sees my springtime wasted as it flees;
+    And, marv'ling at the rigour that gainsays
+      The heart's sweet impulse, my reward decrees.
+
+    Distrust this angel purity, fair soul!
+      It is to guilt thy pity armeth me;
+    Could Being lavish its unmeasured whole,
+      It ne'er could give a gift to rival _Thee!_
+
+    Thee--the dear guilt I ever seek to shun,
+      O tyranny of fate, O wild desires!
+    My virtue's only crown can but be won
+      In that last breath--when virtue's self expires!
+
+
+RESIGNATION.
+
+    And I, too, was amidst Arcadia born,
+        And Nature seem'd to woo me;
+    And to my cradle such sweet joys were sworn:
+    And I, too, was amidst Arcadia born,
+        Yet the short spring gave only tears unto me!
+    Life but one blooming holiday can keep--
+        For me the bloom is fled;
+    The silent Genius of the Darker Sleep
+    Turns down my torch--and weep, my brethren, weep--
+        Weep, for the light is dead!
+    Upon thy bridge the shadows round me press,
+        O dread Eternity!
+    And I have known no moment that can bless;--
+    Take back this letter meant for Happiness--
+        The seal's unbrokenen--see!
+    Before thee, Judge, whose eyes the dark-spun veil
+        Conceals, my murmur came;
+    On this our orb a glad belief prevails,
+    That, thine the earthly sceptre and the scales,
+        REQUITER is thy name.
+
+    Terrors, they say, thou cost for Vice prepare,
+        And joys the good shall know;
+    Thou canst the crooked heart unmask and bare;
+    Thou canst the riddle of our fate declare,
+        And keep account with Woe.
+    With thee a home smiles for the exiled one--
+        There ends the thorny strife.
+    Unto my side a godlike vision won,
+    Called TRUTH, (few know her, and the many shun,)
+        And check'd the reins of life.
+    "I will repay thee in a holier land--
+        Give thou to me thy youth;
+    All I can grant thee lies in this command."
+    I heard, and, trusting in a holier land,
+        Gave my young joys to Truth.
+
+    "Give me thy Laura--give me her whom Love
+        To thy heart's core endears;
+    The usurer, Bliss, pays every grief--_above_!"
+    I tore the fond shape from the bleeding love,
+        And gave--albeit with tears!
+    "What bond can bind the Dead to life once more?
+        Poor fool," (the scoffer cries;)
+    "Gull'd by the despot's hireling lie, with lore
+    That gives for Truth a shadow;--life is o'er
+        When the delusion dies!"
+    "Tremblest thou," hiss'd the serpent-herd in scorn,
+        "Before the vain deceit?
+    Made holy but by custom, stale and worn,
+    The phantom Gods, of craft and folly born--
+      The sick world's solemn cheat?
+    What is this Future underneath the stone?
+      But for the veil that hides, revered alone;
+    The giant shadow of our Terror, thrown
+      On Conscience' troubled glass--
+    Life's lying likeness--in the dreary shroud
+      Of the cold sepulchre--
+    Embalm'd by Hope--Time's mummy--which the proud
+    Delirium, driv'ling through thy reason's cloud,
+      Calls '_Immortality!_'
+    Giv'st thou for hope (corruption proves its lie)
+      Sure joy that most delights us?
+    Six thousand years has Death reign'd tranquilly!--
+    Nor one corpse come to whisper those who die,
+      What _after_ death requites us!"
+    Along Time's shores I saw the Seasons fly;
+      Nature herself, interr'd
+    Among her blooms, lay dead; to those who die
+    There came no corpse to whisper Hope! Still I
+      Clung to the Godlike Word.
+    Judge!--All my joys to thee did I resign,
+      All that did most delight ne;
+    And now I kneel--man's scorn I scorn'd--thy shrine
+    Have I adored--Thee only held divine--
+      Requiter, now requite me!
+    "For all my sons an equal love I know,
+      And equal each condition,"
+    Answer'd an unseen Genius--"See below,
+    Two flowers, for all who rightly seek them, blow--
+      The HOPE and the FRUITION.
+    He who has pluck'd the one, resign'd must see
+      The sister's forfeit bloom:
+    Let Unbelief enjoy--Belief must be
+    All to the chooser;--the world's history
+      Is the world's judgment doom.
+    Thou hast had HOPE--in thy belief thy prize--
+      Thy bliss was centred in it:
+    Eternity itself--(Go ask the Wise!)
+    Never to him who forfeits, resupplies
+      The sum struck from the Minute!"
+
+
+THE GODS OF GREECE.
+
+    1.
+
+      Ye in the age gone by,
+    Who ruled the world--a world how lovely then!--
+    And guided still the steps of happy men
+      In the light leading strings of careless joy!
+    Ah, flourish'd them your service of delight!
+    How different, oh, how different, in the day
+    When thy sweet fanes with many a wreath were bright,
+      O Venus Amathusia!
+
+    2.
+
+    Then, through a veil of dreams
+      Woven by Song, Truth's youthful beauty glow'd,
+    And life's redundant and rejoicing streams
+      Gave to the soulless, soul--where'er they flow'd.
+    Man gifted Nature with divinity
+      To lift and link her to the breast of Love;
+    All things betray'd to the initiate eye
+      The track of gods above!
+
+    3.
+
+    Where lifeless--fix'd afar,
+      A flaming ball to our dull sense is given,
+    Phoebus Apollo, in his golden car,
+      In silent glory swept the fields of heaven!
+    On yonder hill the Oread was adored,
+      In yonder tree the Dryad held her home;
+    And from her Urn the gentle Naiad pour'd
+      The wavelet's silver foam.
+
+    4.
+
+    Yon bay, chaste Daphn� wreathed,
+      Yon stone was mournful Niobe's mute cell,
+    Low through yon sedges pastoral Syrinx breathed,
+      And through those groves wail'd the sweet Philomel;
+    The tears of Ceres swell'd in yonder rill--
+      Tears shed for Proserpine to Hades borne;
+    And, for her lost Adonis, yonder hill
+      Heard Cytherea mourn!--
+
+    5.
+
+    Heaven's shapes were charm'd unto
+      The mortal race of old Deucalion;
+    Pyrrha's fair daughter, humanly to woo,
+      Came down, in shepherd-guise, Latona's son.
+    Between men, heroes, Gods, harmonious then
+      Love wove sweet links and sympathies divine;
+    Blest Amathusia, heroes, Gods, and men,
+      Equals before thy shrine!
+
+    6.
+
+    Not to that culture gay,
+      Stern self-denial, or sharp penance wan!
+    Well might each heart be happy in that day--
+      For Gods, the Happy Ones, were kin to Man!
+    The Beautiful alone, the Holy there!
+      No pleasure shamed the Gods of that young race;
+    So that the chaste Camoen� favouring were,
+      And the subduing Grace!
+
+    7.
+
+    A palace every shrine;
+      Your very sports heroic;--Yours the crown
+    Of contests hallow'd to a power divine,
+      As rush'd the chariots thund'ring to renown.
+    Fair round the altar where the incense breathed,
+      Moved your melodious dance inspired; and fair
+    Above victorious brows, the garland wreathed
+      Sweet leaves round odorous hair!
+
+    8.
+
+    The lively Thyrsus-swinger,
+      And the wild car the exulting Panthers bore,
+    Announced the Presence of the Rapture-Bringer--
+      Bounded the Satyr and blithe Fawn before;
+    And M�nads, as the frenzy stung the soul,
+      Hymn'd, in their madding dance, the glorious wine--
+    As ever beckon'd to the lusty bowl
+      The ruddy Host divine!
+
+    9.
+
+    Before the bed of death
+      No ghastly spectre stood--but from the porch
+    Of life, the lip--one kiss inhaled the breath,
+      And the mute graceful Genius lower'd a torch.
+    The judgment-balance of the Realms below,
+      A judge, himself of mortal lineage, held;
+    The very Furies at the Thracian's woe,
+      Were moved and music-spell'd.
+
+    10.
+
+    In the Elysian grove
+      The shades renew'd the pleasures life held dear:
+    The faithful spouse rejoin'd remember'd love,
+      And rush'd along the meads the charioteer;
+    There Linus pour'd the old accustom'd strain;
+      Admetus there Alcestes still could greet; his
+    Friend there once more Orestes could regain,
+      His arrows--Philoctetes!
+
+    11.
+
+    More glorious then the meeds
+      That in their strife with labour nerved the brave,
+    To the great doer of renown�d deeds,
+      The Hebe and the Heaven the Thunderer gave.
+    To him the rescued Rescuer of the dead,
+      Bow'd down the silent and Immortal Host;
+    And the Twin Stars their guiding lustre shed,
+      On the bark tempest-tost!
+
+    12.
+
+    Art thou, fair world, no more?
+      Return, thou virgin-bloom on Nature's face;
+    Ah, only on the Minstrel's magic shore,
+      Can we the footstep of sweet Fable trace!
+    The meadows mourn for the old hallowing life;
+      Vainly we search the earth of gods bereft;
+    Where once the warm and living shapes were rife,
+      Shadows alone are left!
+
+    13.
+
+    Cold, from the North, has gone
+      Over the Flowers the Blast that kill'd their May;
+    And, to enrich the worship of the ONE,
+      A Universe of Gods must pass away!
+    Mourning, I search on yonder starry steeps,
+      But thee no more, Selene, there I see!
+    And through the woods I call, and o'er the deeps,
+      And--Echo answers me!
+
+    14.
+
+    Deaf to the joys she gives--
+      Blind to the pomp of which she is possest--
+    Unconscious of the spiritual Power that lives
+      Around, and rules her--by our bliss unblest--
+    Dull to the Art that colours or creates,
+      Like the dead timepiece, Godless NATURE creeps
+    Her plodding round, and, by the leaden weights,
+      The slavish motion keeps.
+
+    15.
+
+    To-morrow to receive
+      New life, she digs her proper grave to-day;
+    And icy moons, with weary sameness, weave
+      From their own light their fullness and decay:
+    Home to the Poet's land the Gods are flown;
+      Light use in _them_ that later world discerns,
+    Which, the diviner leading-strings outgrown,
+      On its own axle turns.
+
+    16.
+
+    Home!--and with them are gone
+      The hues they gazed on, and the tones they heard,
+    Life's beauty and life's melodies--alone
+      Broods o'er the desolate void the lifeless Word!
+    Yet rescued from Time's deluge, still they throng,
+      Unseen, the Pindus they were wont to cherish,
+    Ah--that which gains immortal life in song
+      To mortal life must perish!
+
+We subjoin a few poems, belonging to the third period, which were
+omitted in our former selections from that division.
+
+
+THE MEETING.
+
+    1.
+
+    I see her still, with many a fair one nigh,
+      Of every fair the stateliest shape appear:
+    Like a lone son she shone upon my eye--
+      I stood afar, and durst not venture near.
+    Seized, as her presence brighten'd round me, by
+      The trembling passion of voluptuous fear,
+    Yet, swift, as borne upon some hurrying wing,
+    The impulse snatch'd me, and I struck the string!
+
+    2.
+
+    What then I felt--what sung--my memory hence
+      From that wild moment would in vain invoke--
+    It was the life of some discover'd sense
+      That in the heart's divine emotion spoke;
+    Long years imprison'd, and escaping thence
+      From every chain, the SOUL enchanted broke,
+    And found a music in its own deep core,
+    Its holiest, deepest deep, unguess'd before.
+
+    3.
+
+    Like melody long hush'd, and lost in space,
+      Back to its home the breathing spirit came:
+    I look'd, and saw upon that angel face
+      The fair love circled with the modest shame;
+    I heard (and heaven descended on the place)
+      Low-whisper'd words a charm�d truth proclaim--
+    Save in thy choral hymns, O spirit-shore,
+    Ne'er may I hear such thrilling sweetness more!
+
+    4.
+
+    "I know the worth within the heart which sighs,
+      Yet shuns, the modest sorrow to declare;
+    And what rude Fortune niggardly denies,
+      Love to the noble can with love repair.
+    The lowly have the loftiest destinies;
+      Love only culls the flower that love should wear;
+    And ne'er in vain for love's rich gifts, shill yearn
+    The heart that feels their wealth--and can return!"
+
+
+TO EMMA.
+
+    1.
+
+    Amidst the cloud-grey deeps afar
+      The Bliss departed lies;
+    How linger on one lonely star
+      The loving wistful eyes!
+    Alas--a star in truth--the light
+    Shines but a signal of the night!
+
+    2.
+
+    If lock'd within the icy chill
+      Of the long sleep, thou wert--
+    My faithful grief could find thee still
+      A life within my heart;--
+    But, oh, the worse despair to see
+    Thee live to earth, and die to me!
+
+    3.
+
+    Can those sweet longing hopes, which make
+      Love's essence, thus decay?
+    Can that be love which doth forsake?--
+      _That_ love--which fades away?
+    That earthly gifts are brief, I knew--
+    Is that all heaven-born mortal too?
+
+
+TO A YOUNG FRIEND DEVOTING HIMSELF TO PHILOSOPHY.
+
+    Severe the proof the Grecian youth was doom'd to undergo,
+    Before he might what lurks beneath the Eleusinia know--
+    Art _thou_ prepared and ripe, the shrine--that inner shrine--to win,
+    Where Pallas guards from vulgar eyes the mystic prize within?
+    Know'st thou what bars thy way? how dear the bargain thou dost make,
+    When but to buy uncertain good, sure good thou dost forsake?
+    Feel'st thou sufficient strength to brave the deadliest human fray--
+    When Heart from Reason--Sense from Thought, shall rend themselves away?
+    Sufficient valour, war with Doubt, the Hydra-shape, to wage;
+    And that worst Foe within thyself with manly soul engage?
+    With eyes that keep their heavenly health--the innocence of youth
+    To guard from every falsehood, fair beneath the mask of Truth?
+    Fly, if thou can'st not trust thy heart to guide thee on the way--
+    Oh, fly the charm�d margin ere th' abyss engulf its prey.
+    Round many a step that seeks the light, the shades of midnight close;
+    But in the glimmering twilight, see--how safely Childhood goes!
+
+
+THE PUPPET-SHOW OF LIFE.
+
+(_Das Spiel des Lebens._)
+
+A PARAPHRASE.
+
+A _literal_ version of this pretty little poem, which possibly may have
+been suggested by some charming passages in Wilhelm Meister, would,
+perhaps, be incompatible with the spirit which constitutes its chief
+merit. And perhaps, therefore, the original may be more faithfully
+rendered (like many of the Odes of Horace) by paraphrase than
+translation.
+
+    Ho--ho--my puppet-show!
+    Ladies and gentlemen, see my show!
+    Life and the world--look here, in troth,
+    Though but _in parvo_, I promise ye both!
+    The world and life--in my box are they;
+    But keep at a distance, good folks, I pray!
+    Lit is each lamp, from the stage to the porch,
+    With Venus's naphtha, from Cupid's torch;
+    Never a moment, if rules can tempt ye,
+    Never a moment my scene is empty!
+    Here is the babe in his loading-strings--
+      Here is the boy at play;
+    Here is the passionate youth with wings,
+      Like a bird's on a stormy day,
+    To and fro, waving here and there,
+    Down to the earth and aloft through the air!
+    Now see the man, as for combat, enter--
+    Where is the peril he fears to adventure?
+      See how the puppets speed on to the race,}
+    Each his own fortune pursues in the chase; }
+    How many the rivals, how narrow the space! }
+    But, hurry and scurry, O mettlesome game!
+    The cars roll in thunder, the wheels rush in flame.
+    How the brave dart onward, and pant and glow!
+    How the craven behind them come creeping slow--
+    Ha! ha! see how Pride gets a terrible fall!
+    See how Prudence, or Cunning, out-races them all!
+    See how at the goal, with her smiling eyes,
+    Ever waits Woman to give the prize!
+
+
+THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE NEW CENTURY.
+
+    Where can Peace find a refuge?--whither, say,
+      Can Freedom turn?--lo, friend, before our view
+    The CENTURY rends itself in storm away,
+      And, red with slaughter, dawns on earth the New.
+    The girdle of the lands is loosen'd;--hurl'd
+      To dust the forms old Custom deem'd divine,--
+    Safe from War's fury not the watery world;--
+      Safe not the Nile-God nor the antique Rhine.
+    Two mighty nations make the world their field,
+      Deaming the world is for their heirloom given--
+    Against the freedom of all lands they wield
+      This--Neptune's trident; that--the Thund'rer's levin.
+    Gold to their scales each region must afford;
+      And, as fierce Brennus in Gaul's early tale,
+    The Frank casts in the iron of his sword,
+      To poise the balance, where the right may fail--
+    Like some huge Polypus, with arms that roam
+      Outstretch'd for prey--the Briton spreads his reign;
+    And, as the Ocean were his household home,
+      Locks up the chambers of the liberal main.
+    Where on the Pole scarce gleams the faintest star,
+      Onward his restless course unbounded flies;
+    Tracks every isle and every coast afar,
+      And undiscover'd leaves but--Paradise!
+    Alas, in vain on earth's wide chart, I ween,
+      Thou seek'st that holy realm beneath the sky--
+    Where Freedom dwells in gardens ever green--
+      And blooms the Youth of fair Humanity!
+    O'er shores where sail ne'er rustled to the wind,
+      O'er the vast universe, may rove thy ken;
+    But in the universe thou canst not find
+      A space sufficing for ten happy men!
+    In the heart's holy stillness only beams
+      The shrine of refuge from life's stormy throng;
+    Freedom is only in the land of Dreams;
+      And only blooms the Beautiful in Song!
+
+
+THE MINSTRELS OF OLD.
+
+    Where now the minstrel of the large renown,
+      Rapturing with living words the heark'ning throng?
+    Charming the Man to heaven, and earthward down
+      Charming the God?--who wing'd the soul with song?
+    Yet lives the minstrel, not the deeds--the lyre
+      Of old demands ears that of old believed it--
+    Bards of bless'd time--how flew your living fire
+      From lip to lip! how race from race received it!
+    As if a God, men hallow'd with devotion--
+      What Genius, speaking, shaping, wrought below,
+    The glow of song inflamed the ear's emotion,
+      The ear's emotion gave the song the glow;
+    Each nurturing each--back on his soul--its tone
+      Whole nations echoed with a rapture-peal;
+    Then all around the heavenly splendour shone
+     Which now the heart, and scarce the heart can feel.
+
+
+FAREWELL TO THE READER.
+
+    The Muse is silent; with a virgin cheek,
+      Bow'd with the blush of shame, she ventures near--
+    She waits the judgment that thy lips may speak,
+      And feels the def'rence, but disowns the fear.
+    Such praise as Virtue gives, 'tis hers to seek--
+      Bright Truth, not tinsel Folly to revere;
+    He only for her wreath the flowers should cull
+    Whose heart, with hers, beats for the Beautiful.
+
+    Nor longer yet these days of mine would live,
+      Than to one genial heart, not idly stealing,
+    There some sweet dreams and fancies fair to give,
+      Some hallowing whispers of a loftier feeling.
+    Not for the far posterity they strive,
+      Doom'd with the time, its impulse but revealing,
+    Born to record the Moment's smile or sigh,
+    And with the light dance of the Hours to fly.
+
+    Spring wakes--and life, in all its youngest hues,
+      Shoots through the mellowing meads delightedly;
+    Air the fresh herbage scents with nectar-dews;
+      Livelier the choral music fills the sky;
+    Youth grows more young, and Age its youth renews,
+      In that field-banquet of the ear and eye;
+    Spring flies--lo, seeds where once the flowers have blush'd
+    And the last bloom's gone, and the last muse hush'd.
+
+
+
+
+A READING PARTY IN THE LONG VACATION.
+
+
+Every one who knows Oxford, and a good many besides, must have heard of
+certain periodical migrations of the younger members of that learned
+university into distant and retired parts of her Majesty's dominions,
+which (on the _"lucus � non lucendo"_ principle) are called and known by
+the name of Reading Parties. Some half dozen under-graduates, in peril
+of the coming examination, form themselves into a joint-stock cramming
+company; take L.30 or L.40 shares in a private tutor; pitch their camp
+in some Dan or Beersheba which has a reputation for dulness; and, like
+other joint-stock companies, humbug the public, and sometimes
+themselves, into the belief that they are "doing business." For these
+classical bubbles, the long vacation is the usual season, and Wales one
+of the favourite localities; and certainly, putting "Reading" out of the
+question, three fine summer months might be worse spent, than in
+climbing the mountains, and whipping the trout-streams, of that romantic
+land. Many a quiet sea-side town, or picturesque fishing-village, might
+be mentioned, which owes no little of its summer gayety, and perhaps
+something of its prosperity, to the annual visit of "the Oxonians:" many
+a fair girl has been indebted for the most piquant flirtation of the
+season to the "gens togata," who were reading at the little
+watering-place to which fate and papa had carried her for the race-week,
+or the hunt ball: and whatever the effect of these voluntary
+rustications upon the class lists in Oxford, they certainly have
+procured for the parties occasionally a very high "provincial
+celebrity." I know that when we beat our retreat from summer quarters at
+Glyndewi in 18--, the sighs of our late partners were positively
+heart-rending, and the blank faces of the deserted billiard-marker and
+solitary livery-stable 'groom' haunt me to this day.
+
+I had been endeavouring by hard reading, for the last three months, to
+work up the arrears of three years of college idleness, when my evil
+genius himself, in the likeness of George Gordon of Trinity, persuaded
+me to put the finishing touch to my education, by joining a party who
+were going down to Glyndewi in ----shire, "really to read." In an
+unguarded moment, I consented; packed up books enough to last me for
+five years, reading at the rate of twenty-four hours per day, wrote to
+the governor announcing my virtuous intention, and was formally
+introduced to the Rev. Mr Hanmer, Gordon's tutor, as one of his "cubs"
+for the long vacation.
+
+Six of us there were to be; a very mixed party, and not well mixed--a
+social chaos. We had an exquisite from St Mary Hall, a pea-coated
+Brazenose boatman, a philosophical water-drinker and union-debater from
+Balliol, and a two bottle man from Christ Church. When we first met, it
+was like oil and water; it seemed as if we might be churned together for
+a century, and never coalesce: but in time, like punch-making, it turned
+out that the very heterogeneousness of the ingredients was the zest of
+the compound.
+
+I had never heard of such a place as Glyndewi, nor had I an idea how to
+get there. Gordon and Hanmer were gone already; so I packed myself on
+the top of the Shrewsbury mail, as the direct communication between
+Oxford and North Wales, and there became acquainted with No. 2 of my
+fellows in transportation; (for, except Gordon and myself, we were all
+utter strangers to each other.) "I say, Hawkins; let's feel those
+ribbons a bit, will you?" quoth the occupant of the box-seat to our
+respectable Jehu. "Can't indeed, sir, with these hosses; it's as much as
+ever I can do to hold this here near leader." This was satisfactory;
+risking one's neck in a tandem was all very well--a part of the regular
+course of an Oxford education; but amateur drivers of stage coaches I
+had always a prejudice against: let gentlemen keep their own
+four-in-hands, and upset themselves and families, as they have an
+undeniable right to do--but not the public. I looked at the first
+speaker: at his pea-jacket, that is, which was all I could see of him:
+Oxford decidedly. His cigar was Oxford too, by the villanous smell of
+it. He took the coachman's implied distrust of his professional
+experience good-humouredly enough, proffered him his cigar-case, and
+entered into a discussion on the near-leader's moral and physical
+qualities. "I'll trouble you for a light, if you please," said I; he
+turned round, we stuck the ends of our cigars together, and puffed into
+each other's faces for about a minute, (my cigars were damp-ish,) as
+grave as North American Indians. "Thank you," said I, as the interesting
+ceremony was concluded, and our acquaintance begun. We got into
+conversation, when it appeared that he, too, was bound for the
+undiscovered shores of Glyndewi, and that we were therefore likely to be
+companions for the next three months. He was an off-hand, good-humoured
+fellow; drank brandy and water, treated the coachman, and professed an
+acquaintance with bar-maids in general, and pretty ones in particular,
+on our line of road. He was going up for a class, he supposed, he said;
+the governor had taken a "second below the line" himself, and insisted
+upon his emulating the paternal distinction; d----d nonsense, he said,
+in his opinion; except that the governor had a couple of harriers with
+Greek names, he did not see that his classics were of any use to him:
+and no doubt but that Hylax and Phryne would run just as well if they
+had been called Stormer and Merry Lass. However, he must rub up all his
+old Eton books this 'long,' and get old Hanmer to lay it on thick. Such
+was Mr Branling of Brazenose.
+
+At Shrewsbury, we were saluted with the intelligence, "Coach dines here,
+gentlemen." We found a couple of fowls that the coach might probably
+have dined upon, and digested with other articles--in the hind boot; to
+human stomachs they seemed impracticable. We employed the allotted ten
+minutes upon a leg of mutton, and ascended again to our stations on the
+roof: and here was an addition to our party. Externally, it consisted of
+a mackintosh and a fur cap: in the very short interval between the
+turned-down flap of the one and the turned-up collar of the other, were
+a pair of grey-glass spectacles, and part of a nose. So far we had no
+very sufficient premises from which to draw conclusions, whether or not
+he were "one of us." But there were internal evidences; an odour of
+Bouquet de Roi or some such villanous compound nearly overpowering the
+fragrance of some genuine weed which I had supplied my pea-coated friend
+with in the place of his Oxford "Havannahs"--a short cough occasionally,
+as though the smoke of the said weed were not altogether "the perfume of
+the lip he loved;"--and a resolute taciturnity. What was he? It is a
+lamentable fact that an Oxford under-graduate does not invariably look
+the gentleman. He vibrates between the fashionable assurance of a London
+swindler, and the modest diffidence of an overgrown schoolboy. There is
+usually a degree of unfinishedness about him. He seems to be assuming a
+character unlike the glorious Burschenschaf of Germany, he has no
+character of his own. However, for want of more profitable occupation,
+we set to work in earnest to discover who our fellow traveller really
+was: and by a series of somewhat American conversational enquiries, we
+at last fished out that he was going into ----shire like ourselves--nay,
+in answer to a direct question on the subject, that he hopes to meet
+Hanmer of Trinity at Glyndewi. But no further information could we get:
+our new friend was reserved. Mr Branling and I had commenced intimacy
+already. "My name is Branling of Brazenose;" "and mine Hawthorne of
+----;" was our concise introduction. But our companion was the pink of
+Oxford correctness on this point. He thanked the porter for putting his
+luggage up called me "Sir" till he found I was an Oxford man; and had we
+travelled for a month together, would rather have requested the coachman
+to introduce us, than be guilty of any such barbarism as to introduce
+himself. So by degrees our intimacy, instead of warming, waxed cold. As
+night drew on, and the fire of cigars from Branling, self, and coachman,
+became more deadly, the fur cap was drawn still closer over the ears,
+the mackintosh crept up higher, and we lost sight of all but the outline
+of the spectacles.
+
+The abominable twitter of the sparrows in the hedgerows gave notice of
+the break of day--to travellers the most dismal of all hours, in my
+opinion--when I awoke from the comfortable nap into which I had fallen
+since the last change of horses. For some time we alternately dozed,
+tumbled against each other, begged pardon, and awoke; till at last the
+sun broke out gloriously as we drove into the cheerful little town of
+B----.
+
+A good breakfast set us all to rights, and made even our friend in the
+mackintosh talkative. He came out most in the character of tea-maker:
+(an office, by the way, which he filled to the general satisfaction of
+his constituents during our stay in North Wales.) We found out that he
+was a St Mary Hall man, with a duplicate name: Mr Sydney Dawson, as the
+cards on his multifarious luggage set forth: that he was an aspirant for
+"any thing he could get" in the way of honours: (humble aspiration as it
+seemed, it was not destined to be gratified, for he got nothing.) He
+thought he might find some shooting and fishing in Wales, so had brought
+with him a gun-case and a setter; though his pretensions to
+sportsmanship proved to be rather of the cockney order. For three months
+he was the happily unconscious butt of our party, and yet never but once
+was our good-humour seriously interrupted.
+
+From B---- to Glyndewi we had been told we must make our way as we
+could: and a council of war, which included boots and the waiter, ended
+in the arrival of the owner of one of the herring-boats, of which there
+were several under "the terrace." "Was you wish to go to Glyndewi,
+gentlemen? I shall take you so quick as any way; she is capital wind,
+and you shall have fine sail." A man who could speak such undeniable
+English was in himself a treasure; for an ineffectual attempt at a
+bargain for some lobsters (even with a "Welsh interpreter" in our hands)
+had warned us that there were in this Christian country unknown tongues
+which would have puzzled even the Rev. Edward Irving. So the bargain was
+struck: in half-an-hour ourselves and traps were alongside the boat: and
+after waiting ten minutes for the embarkation of Mr Sydney Dawson and
+his dog Sholto, who seemed to have an abhorrence of sea-voyages,
+Branling at last hauled in the latter in the last agonies of
+strangulation, and his master having tumbled in over him, to the
+detriment of a pair of clean whites and a cerulean waistcoat, we--_i.e._
+the rest of us--set sail for Glyndewi in high spirits.
+
+Our boatmen were intelligent fellows, and very anxious to display their
+little stock of English. They knew Mr Hanmer well, they said--he had
+been at Glyndewi the summer before; he was "nice free gentleman;" and
+they guessed immediately the object of our pilgrimage: Glyndewi was
+"very much for learning;" did not gentlemen from Oxford College, and
+gentlemen from Cambridge College, all come there? We warned him not on
+any account to couple us in his mind with "Cambridge gentlemen:" we were
+quite a distinct species, we assured him. (They had beaten us that year
+in the eight-oar match on the Thames.) But there seemed no sufficient
+reason for disabusing their minds of the notion, that this influx of
+students was owing to something classical in the air of Glyndewi:
+indeed, supposing this theory to be wrong, it was no easy matter to
+substitute a sounder one. In what did the superiority of Mrs Jenkins's
+smoky parlour at Glyndewi consist, for the purposes of reading for a
+degree, compared with my pleasant rooms looking into ---- Gardens at
+Oxford, or the governor's snug library at home? It is an abstruse
+question. Parents and guardians, indeed, whose part upon the stage of
+life, as upon the theatrical stage, consists principally in submitting
+to be more or less humbugged, attribute surprising effects to a fancied
+absence of all amusements, with a mill-horse round of Greek, Latin, and
+logic, early rising, and walks in the country with a pocket Horace. From
+my own experience of reading parties, I should select as their peculiar
+characteristics, a tendency to hats and caps of such remarkable shapes,
+as, if once sported in the college quadrangle, would be the subject of a
+common-room _instanter_; and, among some individuals (whom we may call
+the peripatetic philosophers of the party) a predilection for seedy
+shooting-coats and short pipes, with which they perambulate the
+neighbourhood to the marvel of the aboriginal inhabitants; while those
+whom we may class with the stoics, display a preference for
+dressing-gowns and meerschaums, and confine themselves principally to
+the doorways and open windows of their respective lodgings. How far
+these "helps to knowledge"--for which Oxford certainly does not afford
+equal facilities--conduce to the required first or second class, is a
+question I do not feel competent to decide; but _if_ reading-parties
+_do_ succeed, the secret of their success may at least as probably lie
+in these hitherto unregarded phenomena.
+
+Five hours of a fair wind brought us to Glyndewi. Here we found Hanmer
+and Gordon, who had taken a house for the party, and seemed already
+domesticated. I cannot say that we were royally lodged; the rooms were
+low, and the terms high; but as no one thought of taking lodgings at
+Glyndewi in the winter, and the rats consequently lived in them
+rent-free for six months, it was but fair somebody should pay: and we
+did. "Attendance" we had into the bargain. Now, attendance at a
+lodging-house has been defined to be, the privilege of ringing your bell
+as often as you please, provided you do not expect any one to answer it.
+But the bell-ropes in Mrs. Jenkins's parlours being only ornamental
+appendages, our privilege was confined to calling upon the landing-place
+for a red-headed female, who, when she did come, which was seldom, was
+terrible to look upon, and could only be conversed with by pantomime.
+
+To do Mrs. Jenkins and "Gwenny" justice, they were scrupulously clean in
+every thing but their own persons, which, the latter's especially,
+seemed to have monopolised the dirt of the whole establishment. College
+bedrooms are not luxurious affairs, so we were not inclined to be
+captious on that head; and we slept soundly, and awoke with a
+determination to make out first voyage of discovery in a charitable
+spirit.
+
+The result of our morning's stroll was the unanimous conclusion, that
+Glyndewi was a rising place. It did not seem inclined to rise at all at
+once though; but in patches here and there, with a quarter of a mile or
+so between, like what we read of the great sea-serpent. (I fear this
+individual is no more; this matter-of-fact age has been the death of
+him.) There were two long streets--one parallel to the quay, (or, as the
+more refined called it, "the terrace,") and the other at right angles to
+it. The first was Herring Street--the second Goose Street. At least such
+were the ancient names, which I give for the benefit of antiquarian
+readers. Since the then Princess Victoria visited B----, the loyalty of
+the Glyndewi people had changed "Herring" into "Victoria;" and her royal
+consort has since had the equivocal compliment paid him of transmuting
+"Goose Street" into "Albert Buildings." I trust it will not be
+considered disloyal to say, that the original sponsors--the geese and
+the herrings--seen to me to have been somewhat hardly used; having done
+more for their namesakes, than, as far as I can learn, their royal
+successors even promised.
+
+Glyndewi was rising, however, in more respects than in the matter of
+taste in nomenclature. Tall houses, all front and windows, were stuck up
+here and there; sometimes with a low fisherman's cottage between then,
+whose sinking roof and bulging walls looked as if, like the frog in the
+fable, it had burst in the vain attempt to rival its majestic neighbour.
+At one end stood a large hotel with a small business, and an empty
+billiard-room: at the other, a wall some six inches high marked the spot
+where subscription-rooms were to be built for the accommodation of
+visitors and the public generally, as set forth in the prospectus, as
+soon as the visitors and the public chose to find the money. Nearly the
+whole of the village was the property of a gentleman who had built the
+hotel and billiard-room, and run up a few lodging-houses on a
+speculation, which seemed at best a doubtful one, of making it in time a
+fashionable watering-place.
+
+Glyndewi had been recommended to us as a quiet place. It was
+quiet--horribly quiet. Not the quiet of green fields and deep woods, the
+charm of country life; but the quiet of a teetotal supper-party, or a
+college in vacation. "Just the place for reading: no gayety--no
+temptations." So I had written to tell the governor, in the ardour of my
+setting forth as one of a "reading-party:" alas! it was a fatal mistake.
+Had it been an ordinarily cheerful place, I think one or two of us could
+and should have read there; as it was, our whole wits were set to work
+to enliven its dulness. It took us as long to invent an amusement, as
+would have sufficed elsewhere for getting tired of half a dozen
+different dissipations. The very reason which made us fix upon it as a
+place to read in, proved in our case the source of unmitigated idleness.
+"No temptations" indeed! there were no temptations--the only temptation
+I felt there was to hang or drown myself, and there was not a tree six
+feet high within as many miles, and the Dewi was a river "darkly,
+deeply, beautifully"--muddy; it would have been smothering rather. We
+should not have staid to the end of the first month, had it not been for
+very shame; but to run away from a reading-party would have been a joke
+against us for ever. So from the time we got up in the morning, until we
+climbed Mrs Jenkins's domestic treadmill again at night, the one
+question was, what should we do with ourselves? Walk? there were the
+A---- and B---- roads--three miles of sand and dust either way. Before
+us was the bay--behind the ----shire mountains, up which one might walk
+some sixteen miles, (in the month of July,) and yet the same view from
+each successive point you reached: viz., a hill before you, which you
+thought must be the top at last, and Glyndewi--of which we knew the
+number of houses, and the number of windows in each--behind. Ride then?
+the two hacks kept by mine host of the Mynysnewydd Arms, deserve a
+history to themselves. Rossinante would have been ashamed to be seen
+grazing in the same field with such caricatures of his race. There was a
+board upon a house a few doors off, announcing that "pleasure and other
+boats" were to be let on hire. All the boats that we were acquainted
+with must have been the "other" ones--for they smelled of herrings,
+sailed at about the pace of a couple of freshmen in a "two--oar," and
+gave very pretty exercise--to those who were fond of it--in baling. As
+for reading, we were like the performers at a travelling theatre--always
+"going to begin."
+
+Branling, indeed, did once shut himself up in his bedroom, as we
+afterwards ascertained, with a box of cigars and a black and tan
+terrier, and read for three weeks on end in the peculiar atmosphere thus
+created. Willingham of Christ Church, and myself, had what was called
+the dining-room in common, and proceeded so far on the third day after
+our arrival, as to lay out a very imposing spread of books upon all the
+tables; and there it remained in evidence of our good intentions, until
+the first time we were called upon to do the honours of an extempore
+luncheon. Unfortunately, from the very first, Willingham and myself were
+set down by Hanmer as the idle men of the party; the sort of prophetical
+discrimination, which tutors at Oxford are very much in the habit of
+priding themselves upon, tends, like other prophecies, to work its own
+fulfilment. Did a civil Welshman favour us with a call? "Show him in to
+Mr Hawthorne and Mr Willingham; I dare say they are not very
+busy"--quoth our _Jupiter tonans_ from on high in the dining-room, where
+he held his court; and accordingly in he came. We had Stilton and
+bottled porter in charge for these occasions from the common stock; but
+the honours of all these visits were exclusively our own, as far as
+houseroom went. In dropped the rest of the party, one by one. Hanmer
+himself pitched the Ethics into a corner to make room, as he said, for
+substantials, the froth of bottled Guiness damped the eloquence of
+Cicero, and Branling having twisted up my analysis of the last-read
+chapter into a light for his cigar, there was an end of our morning's
+work. How could we read? That was what we always said, and there was
+some truth in it.
+
+Mr Branling's reading fit was soon over too; and having cursed the
+natives for barbarians, because there was not a pack of harriers within
+ten miles, which confirmed him in the opinion he had always expressed of
+their utter want of civilization, (for, as he justly remarked, not one
+in a dozen could even speak decent English,) he waited impatiently for
+September, when he had got leave from some Mr Williams or Jones, I never
+remembered which, to shoot over a considerable range about Glyndewi.
+
+But with the 20th of August, a change came over the spirit of our dream.
+Hitherto we had seen little of any of the neighbouring families,
+excepting that of a Captain George Phillips, who, living only three
+miles off, on the bank of the river, and having three sons and two
+daughters, and keeping a pretty yacht, had given us a dinner party or
+two, and a pleasant day's sail. Capital fellows were the young
+Phillipses: Nature's gentlemen; unsophisticated, hearty Welshmen; lads
+from sixteen to twenty. Down they used to come, in a most dangerous
+little craft of their own, which went by the name of the "Coroner's
+Inquest," to smoke cigars, (against which the Captain had published an
+interdict at home,) and question us about Oxford larks, and tell us in
+return stories of wild-fowl shooting, otter hunting, and salmon fishing,
+in all which they were proficient.
+
+Our establishment was not an imposing one, but of them we made no
+strangers. Once they came, I remember, self-invited to dinner, in a most
+unfortunate state of our larder. The weekly half sheep had not arrived
+from B----; to get any thing in Glyndewi, beyond the native luxuries of
+bacon and herrings, was hopeless; and our dinner happened to be a leash
+of fowls, of which we had just purchased a live supply. Mrs Glasse would
+have been in despair; we took it coolly; to the three boiled fowls at
+top, we added three roast ditto at bottom, and by unanimous consent of
+both guests and entertainers, a more excellent dinner was never put on
+table.
+
+But the 20th of August! the day of the Glyndewi regatta! _that_ must
+have a chapter to itself.
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+When a dull place like Glyndewi does undertake to be gay, it seldom does
+things by halves. Ordinary doses of excitement fail to meet the urgency
+of the case. It was the fashion, it appeared, for all the country
+families of any pretensions to _ton_, and not a few of the idlers from
+the neighbouring watering-places, to be at Glyndewi for the race-week.
+And as far as the programme of amusements went, certainly the committee
+(consisting of the resident surgeon, the non-resident proprietor of the
+"hotel," &c., and a retired major in the H.E.I.C.'s service, called by
+his familiars by the endearing name of "Tiger Jones") had made a
+spirited attempt to meet the demand. A public breakfast, and a regatta,
+and a ball--a "Full Dress and Fancy Ball," the advertisement said, on
+the 20th a Horse-Race; and an Ordinary on the 21st; a Cricket Match, if
+possible, and any extra fun which the Visitors' own genius might strike
+out on the following days.
+
+The little bay of Glyndewi was not a bad place for a boat-race on a
+small scale. The "terrace" commanded the whole of it; there were plenty
+of herring-boats, about equally matched in sailing deficiencies, ready
+and willing to "run"--_i.e._ creep--for the prizes; and an honourable
+member of the Yacht Club, who for some years past, for reasons which it
+was said his creditors could explain, had found it more convenient to
+keep his season at B---- than at Cowes, always paid the stewards the
+compliment of carrying off the "Ladies' Challenge Cup."
+
+The two or three years' experience which the Glyndewi people had lately
+gained of the nature and habits of "the Oxonians," made them an article
+in great demand on these occasions. Mammas and daughters agreed in
+looking upon us as undeniable partners in the ballroom, while the
+sporting men booked us as safe for getting up a creditable four-oar,
+with a strong probability of finding a light weight willing to risk his
+neck and reputation at a hurdle-race. Certain it is, that from the time
+the races began to be seriously talked about, we began to feel ourselves
+invested with additional importance. "Tiger Jones" (who occupied a snug
+little box about a mile out of Glyndewi, where he lived upon cheroots
+and brandy and water) called, was exceedingly polite, apologized for not
+inviting us to dinner--a thing he declared impossible in his
+quarters--hoped we would call some day and take a lunch with him, spoke
+with rapture of the capital crew which "the gentlemen who were studying
+here last summer" had made up, and which ran away from all competitors,
+and expressed a fervent hope that we should do likewise.
+
+The sporting surgeon (of course he had called upon us long ago)
+redoubled his attentions, begged that if any of us were cricketers we
+would endeavour to aid him in getting up a "Glyndewi eleven" against the
+"Strangers," and fixed himself upon me as an invaluable acquisition,
+when he found I had actually once played in a match against Marylebone.
+(I did not tell him that the total score of my innings was "_one_.")
+Would I, then, at once take the drilling of as many recruits as he could
+get together? And would Mr Willingham and Mr Gordon, who "used to play
+at school," get up their practice again? (It wanted about a fortnight to
+the races.) The result of this, and sundry other interviews, was, that
+Branling at length found a vent for the _vis inerti�_ in putting us all,
+with the exception of Mr Sydney Dawson, whom he declared to be so stiff
+in the back that he had no hope of him, into training for a four-oar;
+and the surgeon and myself set off in his gig for B----, to purchase
+materials for cricket.
+
+It is true, that our respected tutor did look more than usually grave,
+and shook his head with a meaning almost as voluminous as Lord
+Burleigh's, when informed of our new line of study. Rowing he declared
+to be a most absurd expenditure of time and strength; he never could see
+the fun of men breaking bloodvessels, and getting plucked for their
+degree, for the honour of "the Trinity Boat." But the cricket touched
+him on the raw. He was an old Etonian, and had in his time been a good
+player; and was now as active as any stout gentleman of
+seven-and-thirty, who had been twelve years a steady admirer of bursary
+dinners and common-room port. So, after some decent scruples on his
+part, and some well-timed compliments touching his physical abilities on
+ours, (he was much vainer of the muscle of his arm than of his high
+reputation as a scholar,) we succeeded in drawing from him a sort of
+promise, that if we were so foolish as to get up a match, he would try
+whether he had forgot all about bowling.
+
+For the next fortnight, therefore, we had occupation enough cut out for
+us. Branling was unmerciful in his practice on the river; and
+considering that two of us had never pulled an oar but in the slowest of
+"Torpids," we improved surprisingly under his tuition. The cricket, too,
+was quite a new era in our existence. Davson (we told him that the
+"Sydney" must be kept for Sundays) was a perfect fund of amusement in
+his zealous practice. He knew as much about the matter as a cow might,
+and was rather less active. But if perseverance could have made a
+cricketer, he would have turned out a first-rate one. Not content with
+two or three hours of it every fine evening, when we all sallied down to
+the marsh, followed by every idler in Glyndewi, he used to disappear
+occasionally in the mornings, and for some days puzzled us as to where
+and how he disposed of himself. We had engaged, in our corporate
+capacity, the services of a most original retainer, who cleaned boots,
+fetched the beer, eat the cold mutton, and made himself otherwise useful
+when required. He was amphibious in his habits, having been a
+herring-fisher the best part of his life; but being a martyr to the
+rheumatism, which occasionally screwed him up into indescribable forms,
+had betaken himself to earning a precarious subsistence as he could on
+shore. It was not often that we required his services between breakfast
+and luncheon, but one morning, after having dispatched Gwenny in all
+directions to hunt for Bill Thomas in vain, we at last elicited from her
+that "may-be she was gone with Mr Dawson." Then it came out, to our
+infinite amusement, that Dawson was in the habit, occasionally, of
+impressing our factotum Bill to carry bat, stumps, and ball down to the
+marsh, and there commencing private practice on his own account.
+
+Mr Sydney Dawson and Bill Thomas--the sublime and the
+ridiculous--amalgamating at cricket, was far too good a joke to lose; so
+we got Hanmer to cut his lecture short, and come down with us to the
+scene of action. From the cover of a sandbank, we had a view of all that
+was going on in the plain below. There was our friend at the wicket,
+with his coat off, and the grey spectacles on, in an attitude which it
+must have taken him some study to accomplish, and Bill, with the ball in
+his hand, vociferating "Plaiy." A ragged urchin behind the wicket,
+attempting to bag the balls as Dawson missed them in what had once been
+a hat, and Sholto looking on with an air of mystification, completed the
+picture.
+
+"That's too slow," said Sydney, as Bill, after some awful contortions,
+at length delivered himself of what he called "a cast." "_Diawl!_" said
+Bill, _sotto voce_, as he again got possession of the ball. "That's too
+high," was the complaint, as with an extraordinary kind of jerk, it
+flew some yards over the batsman's head, and took what remained of the
+crown out of the little lazzaroni's hat behind. "_Diawl!_" quoth Bill
+again, apologetically, "She got too much way on her that time." Bill was
+generally pretty wide of his mark, and great appeared to be the
+satisfaction of all parties when Dawson contrived to make a hit, and
+Sholto and the boy set off after the ball, while the striker leaned with
+elegant _nonchalance_ upon his bat, and Bill mopped his face, and gave
+vent to a complimentary varety of "Diawl." It was really a pity to
+interrupt the performance; but we did at last. Bill looked rather
+ashamed of his share in the business when he saw "Mishtar," as he called
+Hanmer; but Dawson's self-complacency and good-humour carried him
+through every thing. "By Jove," said Willingham to him, "no wonder you
+improve in your style of play; Bill has no bad notion of bowling, has
+he?" "Why, no; he does very well for practice; and he is to have
+half-a-crown if he gets me out." "Bowl at his legs, Bill," said
+Willingham aside, "he's out, you know, if you hit them." "Nay," said
+Bill, with a desponding shake of the head, "She squat'n hard on the knee
+now just, and made'n proper savage, but I wasn't get nothing for that."
+
+Positively we did more in the way of reading after the boating and the
+cricket began, than while we continued in a state of vagrant idleness,
+without a fixed amusement of any kind. In the first place, it was
+necessary to conciliate Hanmer by some show of industry in the morning,
+in order to keep him in good humour for the cricket in the evening; for
+he was decidedly the main hope of our having any thing like a decent
+eleven. Secondly, the Phillipses took to dining early at home, and
+coming to practice with us in the evening, instead of dropping down the
+river every breezy morning, and either idling in our rooms, or beguiling
+us out mackerel-fishing or flapper-shooting in their boat. And thirdly,
+it became absolutely necessary that we should do something, if class
+lists and examiners had any real existence, and were not mere bugbears
+invented by "alma mater" to instil a wholesome terror into her unruly
+progeny. Really, when one compared our actual progress with the Augean
+labour which was to be gone through, it required a large amount of faith
+to believe that we were all "going up for honours in October."
+
+We spent a very pleasant morning at Llyn-eiros, the den of "Tiger
+Jones." He obtained this somewhat appalling soubriquet from a habit of
+spinning yarns, more marvellous than his unwarlike neighbours were
+accustomed to, of the dangers encountered in his Indian sports; and one
+in particular, of an extraordinary combat between his "chokedar" and a
+tiger--whether the gist of the story lay in the tiger's eating the
+chokedar, or the chokedar eating the tiger, I am not sure--I rather
+think the latter. However, in Wales one is always glad to have some
+distinguishing appellation to prefix to the name of Jones. If a man's
+godfathers and godmothers have the forethought to christen him
+"Mountstewart Jones," or "Fitzhardinge Jones," (I knew such instances of
+cognominal anticlimax,) then it was all very well--no mistake about the
+individuality of such fortunate people. But "Tom Joneses" and "Bob
+Joneses" were no individuals at all. They were classes, and large
+classes; and had to be again distinguished into "Little Bob Joneses" and
+"Long Bob Joneses." Or if there happened to be nothing sufficiently
+characteristic in the personal appearance of the rival Joneses, then was
+he fortunate who had no less complimentary additions to his style and
+title than what might be derived from the name of his location, or the
+nature of his engagements. These honours were often hereditary--nay,
+sometimes descended in the female line. We hear occasionally, in
+England, of "Mrs Doctor Smith," and "Mrs Major Brown;" and absurd as it
+is, one does comprehend by intuition that it was the gentleman and not
+the lady who was the ten-year man at Cambridge, or the commandant of the
+Boggleton yeomanry; but few besides a Welshman would have learned,
+without a smile, that "Mrs Jones the officer" was the relict of the late
+tide-waiter at Glyndewi, or that the quiet, modest little daughter of
+the town-clerk of B---- was known to her intimates as "Miss Jones the
+lawyer." Luckily our friend the Tiger was a bachelor; it would have
+been alarming to a nervous stranger at the Glyndewi ball, upon enquiring
+the name of the young lady with red hair and cat's eyes, to have been
+introduced incontinently to "Miss Jones the tiger."
+
+The Tiger himself was a well-disposed animal; somewhat given to solitary
+prowling, like his namesakes in a state of nature, but of most
+untiger-like and facetious humour. He generally marched into Glyndewi
+after an early breakfast, and from that time until he returned to his
+"mutton" at five, might be seen majestically stalking up and down the
+extreme edge of the terrace, looking at the fishing-boats, and
+shaking--_not_ his tail, for, as all stout gentlemen seem to think it
+their duty to do by the sea-side, he wore a round jacket. From the time
+that we began our new pursuits, he took to us amazingly--called us his
+"dear lads"--offered bets to any amount that we should beat the
+B----Cutter Club, and protested that he never saw finer bowling at
+Lord's than Hanmer's.
+
+Branling was in delight. He had found a man who would smoke with him all
+day, (report said, indeed, that the Tiger regularly went to sleep with a
+cheroot in his mouth,) and he had the superintending of "the boat,"
+which was his thought from morning to night. A light gig, that had once
+belonged to the custom-house, was polished and painted under his special
+directions, (often did we sigh for one of King's worst "fours!") and the
+fishermen marvelled at such precocious nautical talent.
+
+None of these, however--great events as they were in our hitherto
+monotonous sojourn--were the "crowning mercy" of the Glyndewi regatta.
+Hitherto the sunshine of bright eyes, and the breath of balmy lips, had
+been almost as much unknown to us as if we had been still within the
+monastic walls of Oxford. We had dined in a body at our friend the
+surgeon's: he was a bachelor. We had been invited by two's and three's
+at a time to a Welsh squire's in the neighbourhood, who had two maiden
+sisters, and a fat, good-humoured wife. Captain Phillips had given us a
+spread more than once at Craig-y-gerron, and, of course, some of us (I
+was not so fortunate) had handed in the Misses Phillips to dinner; but
+the greater part of the time from six till eleven (at which hour Hanmer
+always ordered out our "_trap_") was too pleasantly occupied in
+discussing the captain's port and claret, and laughing at his jokes, to
+induce us to give much time or attention to the ladies in the
+drawing-room. If some of my fair readers exclaim against this stoic (or
+rather epicurean) indifference, it may gratify their injured vanity to
+know, that in the sequel some of us paid for it.
+
+The Phillipses came down in full force, the day before the regatta; they
+were engaged to lunch with us, and, as it was the first time that the
+ladies of the party had honoured us with a visit, we spared no pains to
+make our entertainment somewhat more _recherch�_ than was our wont. It
+was then that I first discovered that Clara Phillips was beautiful. I am
+not going to describe her now; I never could have described her. All I
+knew, and all I remember, was, that for a long time afterwards I formed
+my standard of what a woman ought to be, by unconscious comparison with
+what she was. What colour her eyes were, was a question among us at the
+time. Willingham swore they were grey; Dawson insisted that they were
+hazel; Branling, to whom they referred the point, was inclined to think
+there was, "something green" in them. But that they were eyes of no
+common expression, all of us were agreed. I think at least half the
+party were more than half in love with her when that race-week was over.
+In one sense it was not her fault if we were; for a girl more thoroughly
+free from every species of coquetry, and with less of that pitiful
+ambition of making conquests, which is the curse of half the sex, it was
+impossible to meet with. But she was to blame for it too, in another
+way; for to know her, and not love her, would have been a reproach to
+any man. Lively and good-humoured, with an unaffected buoyancy of
+spirits, interesting herself in all that passed around her, and
+unconscious of the interest she herself excited, no wonder that she
+seemed to us like an angel sent to cheer us in our house of bondage. Of
+her own family she was deservedly the darling; even Dick Phillips, whom
+three successive tutors had given up in despair, became the most docile
+of pupils under his sister Clara; accustomed early to join her brothers
+in all out-door sports, she was an excellent horsewoman, a fearless
+sailor, and an untiring explorer of mountains and waterfalls, without
+losing her naturally feminine character, or becoming in any degree a
+hoyden or a romp. She sang the sweet national airs of Wales with a voice
+whose richness of tone was only second to its power of expression. She
+did every thing with the air of one who, while delighting others, is
+conscious only of delighting herself; and never seeking admiration,
+received it as gracefully as it was ungrudgingly bestowed.
+
+If there is one form of taking exercise which I really hate, it is what
+people call dancing. I am passionately fond of music; but why people
+should conceive it necessary to shuffle about in all varieties of
+awkwardness, in order to enjoy it to their satisfaction, has been, is,
+and probably will ever be, beyond my comprehension. It is all very well
+for young ladies on the look-out for husbands to affect a fondness for
+dancing: in the first place, some women dance gracefully, and even
+elegantly, and show themselves off undoubtedly to advantage; (if any
+exhibition on a woman's part be an advantage;) then it gives an excuse
+for whispering, and squeezing of hands, and stealing flowers, and a
+thousand nameless skirmishings preparatory to what they are endeavouring
+to bring about--an engagement; but for a man to be fond of shuffling and
+twirling himself out of the dignity of step which nature gave
+him--picking his way through a quadrille, like a goose upon hot bricks,
+or gyrating like a bad tee-totum in what English fashionables are
+pleased to term a "valse," I never see a man thus occupied, without a
+fervent desire to kick him. "What a Goth!" I hear a fair reader of
+eighteen, prettily ejaculate--"thank Heaven, that all men have not such
+barbarous ideas! Why, I would go fifty miles to a good ball!" Be not
+alarmed, my dear young lady; give me but a moment to thank Providence,
+in my turn, that you are neither my sister nor my daughter, and will
+promise you, that you shall never be my wife.
+
+On the Saturday night then, I made Gordon and Willingham both very
+cross, and caught Sydney Dawson's eye looking over his spectacles with
+supreme contempt, when I declared my decided intention of staying at
+home the night of the ball. Even the Reverend Robert Hanmer, who was
+going himself, was annoyed when Gordon told him of what he called my
+wilfulness, having a notion that it was decidedly disrespectful in any
+of us, either to go when he did _not_, or to decline going, when he
+_did_.
+
+On the Tuesday morning, I sent to B---- for white kids. Gordon looked
+astonished, Hanmer was glad that I had "taken his advice," and
+Willingham laughed outright; he had overheard Clara Phillips ask me to
+dance with her. Men _are_ like green gooseberries--very green ones;
+women _do_ make fools of them, and a comparatively small proportion of
+sugar, in the shape of flattery, is sufficient.
+
+Two days before the regatta, there marched into Mrs Jenkins's open
+doorway, a bewildered looking gentleman, shaking off the dust from his
+feet in testimony of having had a long walk, and enquiring for Hanmer.
+Gwenny, with her natural grace, trotted up stairs before him, put her
+head in at the "drawing-room" door, (she seemed always conscious that
+the less one saw of her person the better,) and having announced
+briefly, but emphatically, "a gentlemans," retreated. Hanmer had puzzled
+himself and me, by an attempt to explain a passage which Aristotle, of
+course, would have put in plainer language, if he had known what he
+meant himself--but modern philosophers are kind enough to help him out
+occasionally--when the entrance of the gentleman in dust cut the Gordian
+knot, and saved the Stagyrite from the disgrace of having a pretty bit
+of esoteric abstruseness translated into common sense.
+
+(What a blessing would it be for Dr ----, and Professor ----, if they
+might be allowed to mystify their readers in Greek! though, to do them
+justice, they have turned the Queen's English to good account for that
+purpose, and have produced passages which first-class men, at an
+Athenian University, might possibly construe, but which the whole board
+of sophists might be defied to explain.)
+
+The _deus ex machin�_--the gentleman on, or rather off the tramp--who
+arrived thus opportunely, was no less a person than the Reverend George
+Plympton, Fellow of Oriel, &c. &c. &c. He was an intimate friend of our
+worthy tutor's; if the friendship between Oxford dons can be called
+intimacy. They compared the merits of their respective college cooks
+three or four times a term, and contended for the superior vintage of
+the common-room port. They played whist together; walked arm-in-arm
+round Christchurch meadow; and knew the names of all the old incumbents
+in each other's college-list, and the value of the respective livings.
+Mr Plympton and a friend had been making a walking tour of North Wales;
+that is, they walked about five miles, stared at a mountain, or a fall,
+or an old castle, as per guide-book, and then coached it to the next
+point, when the said book set down that "the Black Dog was an excellent
+inn," or that "travellers would find every accommodation at Mrs Price's
+of the Wynnstay Arms." Knowing that Hanmer was to be found at Glyndewi,
+Mr Plympton left his friend at B----, where the salmon was
+unexceptionable, and had completed the most arduous day's walk in his
+journal, nearly thirteen miles, in a state of dust and heat far from
+agreeable to a stoutish gentleman of forty, who usually looked as spruce
+as if he came out of a band-box. Hanmer and he seemed really glad to see
+each other. On those "oxless" shores, where, as Byron says, "beef was
+rare," though
+
+    "Goat's flesh there was, no doubt, and kid, and mutton,"
+
+the tender reminiscences of far-off Gaude days and Bursary dinners, that
+must have arisen in the hearts of each, were enough to make their
+meeting almost an affecting one. Hanmer must have blushed, I think,
+though far from his wont, when he asked Mr Plympton if he could feed
+with us at four upon--hashed mutton! (We consumed nearly a sheep per
+week, and exhausted our stock of culinary ideas, as well as our
+landlady's patience, in trying to vary the forms in which it was to
+appear; not having taken the precaution, as some Cambridge men did at
+B----s one vacation, to bespeak a French cook at a rather higher salary
+than the mathematical tutor's.[A]) Probably, however, Mr Plympton's
+unusual walk made him more anxious about the quantity than the quality
+of his diet, for he not only attacked the mutton like an Etonian, but
+announced his intention of staying with us over the ball, if a bed was
+to be had, and sending to B---- for his decorations. He was introduced
+in due form to the Phillipses the next day, and in the number and
+elegance of his bows, almost eclipsed Mr Sydney Dawson, whom Clara never
+ceased to recommend to her brothers as an example of politeness.
+
+Bright dawned the morning of the 20th of August, the first of the "three
+glorious days" of Glyndewi. As people came to these races really for
+amusement, the breakfast was fixed for the very unfashionable hour of
+ten, in order not to interfere with the main business of the day--the
+regatta. Before half-past, the tables at the Mynysnewydd Arms were
+filled with what the _----shire Herald_ termed "a galaxy of beauty and
+fashion." But every one seemed well aware, that there were far more
+substantial attractions present, meant to fill not the tables only, but
+the guests. The breakfast was by no means a matter of form. People had
+evidently come with more serious intentions, than merely to display new
+bonnets, and trifle with grapes and peaches. Sea-air gives a whet to
+even a lady's appetite, and if the performances that morning were any
+criterion of the effects of that of Glyndewi, the new Poor Law
+Commissioners, in forming their scale of allowances, must really have
+reported it a "special case." The fair Cambrians, in short, played very
+respectable knives and forks--made no bones--or rather nothing but
+bones--of the chickens, and ate kippered salmon like Catholics. You
+caught a bright eye gazing in your direction with evident
+interest--"Would you have the kindness to cut that pasty before you for
+a lady?" You almost overheard a tender whisper from the gentleman
+opposite to the pretty girl beside him. She blushes and gently
+remonstrates. Again his lip almost touches her cheek in earnest
+persuasion--yes! she is consenting--to another _little_ slice of ham! As
+for the jolly Welsh squires themselves, and their strapping
+heirs-apparent, (you remember that six-foot-four man surely, number six
+of the Jesus boat)--now that the ladies have really done, and the
+waiters have brought in the relays of brandered chickens and
+fresh-caught salmon, which mine host, who has had some experience of his
+customers, has most liberally provided--they set to work in earnest.
+They have been only politely trifling hitherto with the wing of a fowl
+or so, to keep the ladies' company. But now, as old Captain Phillips, at
+the head of the table, cuts a slice and a joke alternately, and the
+Tiger at the bottom begins to let out his carnivorous propensities, one
+gets to have an idea what breakfast means. "Let me advise you, my dear
+Mr Dawson--as a friend--you'll excuse an old stager--if you have no
+particular wish to starve yourself--you've had nothing yet but two cups
+of tea--to help yourself, and let your neighbours do the same. You may
+keep on cutting Vauxhall shavings for those three young Lloyds till
+Michaelmas; pass the ham down to them, and hand me those devilled
+kidneys."
+
+"Tea? no; thank you; I took a cup yesterday, and haven't been myself
+since. Waiter! don't you see this tankard's empty?"
+
+"Consume you, Dick Phillips! I left two birds in that pie five minutes
+back, and you've cleared it out!"
+
+"Diawl, John Jones, I was a fool to look into a tankard after you!"
+
+Every thing has an end, and so the breakfast had at last; and we
+followed the ladies to the terrace to watch the sailing for the ladies'
+challenge cup. By the help of a glass we could see three yachts, with
+about half-a-mile between each, endeavouring to get round a small boat
+with a man and a flag in it, which, as the wind was about the worst they
+could have had for the purpose, seemed no easy matter. There was no
+great interest in straining one's eyes after them, so I found out the
+Phillipses, and having told Dawson, who was escorting Clara, that Hanmer
+was looking for him to make out the list of "the eleven," I was very
+sorry indeed when the sound of a gun announced that the Hon. H.
+Chouser's Firefly had won the cup, and that the other two yachts might
+be expected in the course of half-an-hour. Nobody waited for them, of
+course. The herring boats, after a considerable deal of what I concluded
+from the emphasis to be swearing in Welch, in which, however, Captain
+Phillips, who was umpire, seemed to have decidedly the advantage in
+variety of terms and power of voice, were pronounced "ready," and
+started by gunfire accordingly. A rare start they made of it. The great
+ambition of every man among them seemed to be to prevent the boats next
+in the line from starting at all. It was a general fouling match, and
+the jabbering was terrific. At last, the two outside boats, having the
+advantage of a clear berth on one side, got away, and made a pretty race
+of it, followed by such of the rest as could by degrees extricate
+themselves from the m�l�e.
+
+But now was to come our turn. Laden with all manner of good wishes, we
+hoisted a bit of dark-blue silk for the honour of Oxford, and spurted
+under the terrace to our starting-place. The only boat entered against
+us was the Dolphin, containing three stout gentlemen and a thin one,
+members of the B---- Cutter Club, who evidently looked upon pulling as
+no joke. Branling gave us a steady stroke, and Cotton of Balliol steered
+us admirably; the rest did as well as they could. The old boys had a
+very pretty boat--ours was a tub--but we beat them. They gave us a
+stern-chase for the first hundred yards, for I cut a crab at starting;
+but we had plenty of pluck, and came in winners by a length. Of course
+we were the favourites--the "Dolphins" were all but one married--and
+hearty were the congratulations with which we were greeted on landing.
+Clara Phillips' eyes had a most dangerous light in them, as she shook
+hands with our noble captain, who was in a terrible hurry, however, to
+get away, and hunting every where for "that d----d Dawson," who had
+promised to have Bill Thomas in readiness with "the lush." So I was
+compelled to stay with her and give an account of the race, which she
+perfectly understood, and be soundly scolded by the prettiest lips in
+the world for my awkwardness, which she declared she never could have
+forgiven if it had lost the race.
+
+"You will come to the ball, then, Mr Hawthorne?"
+
+"Am I not to dance with you?"
+
+"Yes, if you behave well, and don't tease Mr Sydney Dawson: he is a
+great favourite of mine, and took great care of me this morning at
+breakfast."
+
+"Well, then, for your sake, Miss Phillips, I will be particularly civil
+to him; but I assure you, Dawson is like the fox that took a pride in
+being hunted; he considers our persecution of him as the strongest
+evidence of his own superiority; and if you seriously undertake to
+patronize him he will become positively unbearable."
+
+The regatta over, we retired to make a hurried dinner, and to dress for
+the ball. This, with some of our party, was a serious business.
+Willingham and Dawson were going in fancy dresses. The former was an
+admirable personification of Dick Turpin, standing upwards of six feet,
+and broadly built, and becoming his picturesque costume as if it were
+his everyday suit, he strutted before Mrs Jenkins's best glass, which
+Hanmer charitably gave up for his accommodation, with a pardonable
+vanity. Dawson had got a lancer's uniform from his London tailor; but
+how to get into it was a puzzle; it was delightful to see his attempts
+to unravel the gorgeous mysteries which were occupying every available
+spot in his dingy bedroom. The shako was the main stumbling-block. Being
+unfortunately rather small, it was no easy matter to keep it on his head
+at all; and how to dispose of the cap-lines was beyond our united
+wisdom. "Go without it, man," said Branling: "people don't want hats in
+a ballroom. You can never dance with that thing on your head."
+
+"Oh, but the head-dress is always worn at a fancy-ball, you know, and I
+can take it off if I like to dance."
+
+At last, the idea struck us of employing the five or six yards of gold
+cord that had so puzzled us, in securing shako and plume in a
+perpendicular position. This at length accomplished, by dint of keeping
+himself scrupulously upright, Mr Sydney Dawson majestically walked down
+stairs.
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+Now, there happened to be at that time residing in Glyndewi an old lady,
+"of the name and cousinage" of Phillips, who, though an old maid, was
+one of those unhappily rare individuals who do not think it necessary to
+rail against those amusements which they are no longer in a situation to
+enjoy. She was neither as young, nor as rich, nor as light-hearted, as
+she had been; but it was difficult to imagine that she could ever have
+been more truly cheerful and happy than she seemed now. So, instead of
+cutting short every sally of youthful spirits, and every dream of
+youthful happiness, by sagacious hints of cares and troubles to come,
+she rather lent her aid to further every innocent enjoyment among her
+younger friends; feeling, as she said, that the only pity was, that
+young hearts grew old so soon. The consequence was, that instead of
+exacting a forced deference from her many nephews and nieces, (so are
+first cousins' children called in Wales,) she was really loved and
+esteemed by them all, and while she never wished to deprive them of an
+hour's enjoyment, they would willingly give up a pleasant party at any
+time to spend an evening with the old lady, and enliven her solitude
+with the sounds she best loved--the music of youthful voices.
+
+All among her acquaintance, therefore, who were going to the ball in
+fancy costume, had promised to call upon her, whether in or out of their
+way, to "show themselves," willing to make her a partaker, as far as
+they could, of the amusement of the evening. Captain Phillips had asked
+us if we would oblige him, and gratify a kind old woman, by allowing him
+to introduce us in our fancy dresses. I had none, and therefore did not
+form part of the exhibition; but Dick Turpin and the cornet of lancers,
+with Branling in a full hunting costume, (which always formed part of
+his travelling baggage,) walked some fifty yards to the old lady's
+lodgings. Mr Plympton, always polite, accepted Captain Phillips's
+invitation to be introduced at the same time. Now Mr Plympton, as was
+before recorded, was a remarkably dapper personage; wore hair powder, a
+formidably tall and stiff white "choker," and upon all occasions of
+ceremony, black shorts and silks, with gold buckles. Remarkably upright
+and somewhat pompous in his gait, and abominating the free-and-easy
+manners of the modern school, his bow would have graced the court of
+Versailles, and his step was a subdued minuet. Equipped with somewhat
+more than his wonted care, the rev. junior bursar of Oriel was
+introduced into Mrs Phillips's little drawing-room, accompanying, and
+strongly contrasting with, three gentlemen in scarlet and gold.
+Hurriedly did the good old lady seize her spectacles, and rising to
+receive her guests with a delighted curtsy, scan curiously for a few
+moments Turpin's athletic proportions, and the fox-hunter's
+close-fitting leathers and tops. As for Dawson, he stood like the
+clear-complexioned and magnificently-whiskered officer, who silently
+invites the stranger to enter the doors of Madame Tussaud's wax
+exhibition; not daring to bow for fear of losing his beloved shako, but
+turning his head from side to side as slowly, and far less naturally,
+than the waxen gentleman aforementioned. All, in their several ways,
+were worthy of admiration, and all did she seem to admire; but it was
+when her eye rested at last on the less showy, but equally
+characteristic figure in black, who stood bowing his acknowledgments of
+the honour of the interview, with an _empressement_ which fully made up
+for Dawson's forced _hauteur_--that her whole countenance glistened with
+intense appreciation of the joke, and the very spectacles danced with
+glee. Again did she make the stranger her most gracious curtsy; again
+did Mr Plympton, as strongly as a bow could do it, declare how entirely
+he was at her service: he essayed to speak, but before a word escaped
+his lips, the old lady fairly burst out into a hearty laugh, clapped her
+hands, and shouted to his astonished ears, "Capital, capital! do it
+again! oh, do it again!" For a moment the consternation depicted upon Mr
+Plympton's countenance at this remarkable reception, extended to the
+whole of his companions; but the extraordinary sounds which proceeded
+from Captain Phillips, in the vain attempt to stifle the laugh that was
+nearly choking him, were too much for the gravity of even the
+polite Mr Dawson; and it was amidst the violent application of
+pocket-handkerchiefs in all possible ways, that the captain stepped
+forward with the somewhat tardy announcement, "My dear aunt, allow me to
+present the Rev. Mr Plympton, Fellow and Tutor of Oriel College." This
+was accompanied by a wink and an attempt at a frown, intended to convey
+the strongest reprobation of the old lady's proceedings; but which, upon
+the features of the good captain, whose risible muscles were still
+rebellious, had any thing but a serious effect. "Indeed!" said she,
+curtsying yet more profoundly in return for another bow. "How do you do,
+sir? Oh, he is beautiful, isn't he?" half-aside to Willingham, who was
+swallowing as much as he could of the butt of his whip. Poor Mr Plympton
+looked aghast at the compliment. Branling fairly turned his back, and
+burst from the room, nearly upsetting Hanmer and myself; who, having
+waited below some time for our party to join us, had made our way
+upstairs to ascertain the cause of the unusual noises which reached us
+from the open door of the drawing-room. Dawson was shaking with reckless
+disregard of the safety of his head-dress, and the captain in an agony
+between his natural relish for a joke and his real good breeding. "Aunt
+Martha, this is a clergyman, a friend of Mr Hanmer's, who is on a visit
+here, and whom I introduce to you, because I know you will like him." Mr
+Plympton commenced a fresh series of bows, in which there was, perhaps,
+less gallantry and more dignity than usual, looking all the time as
+comfortable as a gentleman might do who was debating with himself
+whether the probabilities, as regarded the old lady's next movements,
+lay on the side of kissing or scratching. Mrs Martha Phillips herself
+commenced an incoherent apology about "expecting to see four young
+gentlemen in fancy dresses;" and Hanmer and the captain tried all they
+could to laugh off a _contretemps_, which to explain was impossible.
+What the old lady took Mr Plympton for, and what Mr Plympton thought of
+her, were questions which, so far as I know, no one ventured to ask. He
+left Glyndewi the next morning, but the joke, after furnishing us with a
+never-failing fund of ludicrous reminiscence for the rest of our stay,
+followed him to the Oriel common-room, and was an era in the dulness of
+that respectable symposium.
+
+Dancing had begun in good earnest when we arrived at the ballroom. There
+was the usual motley assemblage of costumes of all nations under the
+sun, and some which the sun, when he put down the impudence of the
+wax-lights upon his return the next morning, must have marvelled to
+behold. Childish as it may be called, a fancy ball is certainly, for the
+first half-hour at all events, an amusing scene. Willingham and myself
+stood a little inside the doorway for some moments, he enjoying the
+admiring glances which his tine figure and picturesque costume were well
+calculated to call forth, and I vainly endeavouring to make out Clara's
+figure amidst the gay dresses, and well-grown proportions, of the pretty
+Cambrians who flitted past. Sounds of expostulation and entreaty,
+mingled with a laugh which we knew to be Branling's, in the passage
+outside, disturbed both our meditations, and at last induced me to turn
+my eyes unwillingly to the open door. Branling was leaning against it in
+a fit of uncontrollable mirth, and beckoned us earnestly to join him.
+Outside stood Dawson, stamping with vexation, and endeavouring to undo
+the complex machinery which had hitherto secured his shako in an erect
+position. He was in the unfortunate predicament of Dr S----'s
+candelabrum, which, presented to him as a testimony of respect from his
+grateful pupils, was found by many feet too large to be introduced into
+any room in the Dr's comparatively humble habitation, and stood for some
+time in the manufacturer's show-room in testimony of the fact, that
+public acknowledgments of merit are _sometimes_ made on too large a
+scale. Architects who give measurements for ordinary doorways, do not
+contemplate such emergencies as testimonial candelabrums or irremoveable
+caps and plumes: and the door of the Glyndewi ballroom had no notion of
+accommodating a lancer in full dress who could not even be civil enough
+to take off his hat. So there stood our friend, impatient to display his
+uniform, and unwilling to lessen the effect of his first appearance by
+doffing so important a part of his costume: to get through the door, in
+the rigid inflexibility of head and neck which he had hitherto
+maintained, was a manifest impossibility: Branling had suggested his
+staying outside, and he would undertake to bring people to look at him:
+but Dawson, for some unaccountable reason, was usually suspicious of
+advice from that quarter; so he "stooped to conquer" and lost all. The
+shako tumbled from its precarious perch, and hung ignobly suspended by
+the cap-lines. A lancer with a pair of grey spectacles, and a shako
+hanging round his neck, would have been a very fancy dress indeed: so he
+was endeavouring, at the risk of choking himself, to disentangle, by
+main force, the complication of knots which we had woven with some dim
+hope of the result. In vain did we exhort him to take it patiently, and
+remind him how preposterous it was to expect, that what had taken our
+united ingenuity half an hour to arrange "to please him," could be
+undone in a minute. "Cut the cursed things, can't you?" implored he. No
+one had a knife. "I do believe Branling, you are tying that knot
+tighter: I had much rather not have your assistance." Branling protested
+his innocence. At last we did release him, and he entered the room with
+a look most appropriately crest-fallen, shako in hard, solacing himself
+by displaying its glories as well as could be effected by judicious
+changes of its position.
+
+I soon found Clara, looking more radiantly beautiful than ever I had
+seen her, in a sweet dress of Stuart tartan. I had to make my apologies,
+which were most sincerely penitent ones, for not being in time to claim
+my privilege of dancing the first quadrille with her. She smiled at my
+evident earnestness, and good-humouredly added, that the next would be a
+much more pleasant dance, as the room was now beginning to fill. It was
+a pleasant dance as she said: and the waltz that followed still more
+delightful: and then Clara, with a blush and a laugh, declined my
+pressing entreaties until after supper at all events. I refused her
+good-natured offer of an introduction to "that pretty girl in blue" or
+any other among the stars of the night: and sat down, or leant against
+the wall, almost unconsciously watching her light step, and sternly
+resisting all attempts on the part of my acquaintances to persuade me
+to dance again. Of course all the dancing characters among our party
+were Clara's partners in succession; and both Gordon and Dawson, who
+came to ask what had put me into the sulks, were loud in their encomiums
+on her beauty and fascination; even Branling, no very devoted admirer of
+the sex, (he saw too much of them, he said, having four presentable
+sisters,) allowed that she was "the right sort of girl;" but it was not
+until I saw her stand up with Willingham, and marked his evident
+admiration of her, and heard the remarks freely made around me, that
+they were the handsomest couple in the room, that I felt a twinge of
+what I would hardly allow to myself was jealousy: when, however, after
+the dance, they passed me in laughing conversation, evidently in high
+good humour with each other, and too much occupied to notice any one
+else, I began to wonder I had never before found out what a conceited
+puppy Willingham was, and set down poor Clara as an arrant flirt. But I
+was in a variable mood, it seemed, and a feather--or, what some may say
+is even lighter, a woman's word--was enough to turn me. So when I found
+myself, by some irresistible attraction, drawn next to her again at
+supper, and heard her sweet voice, and saw what I interpreted into a
+smile of welcome, as she made room for me beside her, I forgave her all
+past offences, and was perfectly happy for the next hour: nay, even
+condescended to challenge Willingham to a glass of _soi-disant_
+champagne. The Tiger, who was, according to annual custom, displaying
+the tarnished uniform of the 3d Madras N. I., and illustrating his
+tremendous stories of the siege of Overabad, or some such place, by
+attacks on all the edibles in his neighbourhood, gave me a look of
+intelligence as he requested I would "do him the honour," and shook his
+whiskers with some meaning which I did not think it necessary to enquire
+into. What was it to him if I chose to confine my attentions to my
+undoubtedly pretty neighbour? No one could dispute my taste, at all
+events; for Clara Phillips was a universal favourite, though I had
+remarked that none of the numerous "eligible young men" in the room
+appeared about her in the character of a dangler. She was engaged to
+Willingham for the waltz next after supper, and I felt queerish again,
+till she willingly agreed to dance the next set with me, on condition
+that I would oblige her so far as to ask a friend of hers to be my
+partner in the mean time. "She is a very nice girl, Mr. Hawthorne,
+though, perhaps, not one of the _belles_ of the room, and has danced but
+twice this evening, and it will be so kind in you to ask her--only don't
+do it upon my introduction, but let Major Jones introduce you as if at
+your own request." Let no one say that vanity, jealousy, and all those
+pretty arts by which woman wrongs her better nature, are the rank growth
+necessarily engendered by the vitiated air of a ballroom; rooted on the
+same soil, warmed by the same sunshine, fed by the same shower, one
+plant shall bear the antidote and one the poison: one kind and gentle
+nature shall find exercise for all its sweetest qualities in those very
+scenes which, in another, shall foster nothing but heartless coquetry or
+unfeminine display. Never did Clara seem so lovely in mind and person as
+when she drew upon her own attractions to give pleasure to her less
+gifted friend; and I suppose, I must have thrown into the tone of my
+reply something of what I felt; for she blushed, uttered a hasty "I
+thank you," and told Willingham it was time to take their places. I
+sought and obtained the introduction, and endeavoured, for Clara's sake,
+to be an agreeable partner to the quiet little girl beside me. One
+subject of conversation, at all events, we hit upon, where we seemed
+both at home; and if I felt some hesitation in saying all I thought of
+Clara, my companion had none, but told me how much every body loved her,
+and how much she deserved to be loved. It was really so much easier to
+draw my fair partner out on this point than any other that I excused
+myself for being so eager a listener; and, when we parted, to show my
+gratitude in what I conceived the most agreeable way, I begged
+permission to introduce Mr. Sydney Dawson, and thus provided her with
+what, I dare say, she considered a most enviable partner. I had told
+Dawson she was a very clever girl; (he was fond of what he called
+"talented women," and had a delusive notion that he was himself a
+genius:) he had the impertinence to tell me afterwards he found her
+rather stupid; I ought, perhaps, to have given him the key-note. During
+the dance which followed, I remember I was silent and _distrait_; and
+when it was over, and Clara told me she was positively engaged for more
+sets than she should dance again, I left the ballroom, and wandered
+feverishly along the quay to our lodgings. I remember persuading myself,
+by a syllogistic process, that I was not in love, and dreaming that I
+was anxiously reading the class-list, in which it seemed unaccountable
+that my name should be omitted, till I discovered, on a second perusal,
+that just about the centre of the first class, where "Hawthorne,
+Franciscus, e. Coll--" ought to have come in, stood in large type the
+name of "CLARA PHILLIPS."
+
+The races, which occupied the morning of the next day, were as stupid as
+country races usually are, except that the Welshmen had rather more
+noise about it. The guttural shouts and yells from the throats of
+tenants and other dependents, as the "mishtur's" horse won or lost, and
+the extraordinary terms in which they endeavoured to encourage the
+riders, were amusing even to a stranger, though one lost the point of
+the various sallies which kept the course in one continued roar. As to
+the running, every body--that is, all the sporting world--knew perfectly
+well, long before the horses started, which was to win; that appearing
+to be the result of some private arrangement between the parties
+interested, while the "racing" was for the benefit of the strangers and
+the ladies. Those of the latter who had fathers, or brothers, or, above
+all, lovers, among the knowing ones, won divers pairs of gloves on the
+occasion, while those who were not so fortunate, lost them.
+
+I fancied that Clara was not in her usual spirits on the race-course,
+and she pleaded a headach as an excuse to her sister for ordering the
+carriage to drive home long before the "sport" was over. If I had
+thought the said sport stupid before, it did not improve in attraction
+after her departure; and, when the jumping in sacks, and climbing up
+poles, and other callisthenic exercises began, feeling a growing disgust
+for "things in general," I resisted the invitation of a mamma and three
+daughters, to join themselves and Mr Dawson in masticating some
+sandwiches which looked very much like "relics of joy" from last night's
+supper, and sauntered home, and sat an hour over a cigar and a chapter
+of ethics. As the clock struck five, remembering that the Ordinary hour
+was six, I called at the Phillips' lodgings to enquire for Clara. She
+was out walking with her sister; so I returned to dress in a placid
+frame of mind, confident that I should meet her at dinner.
+
+For it was an Ordinary for ladies as well as gentlemen. A jovial Welsh
+baronet sat at the head of the table, with the two ladies of highest
+"consideration"--the county member's wife and the would-have-been
+member's daughter--on his right and left; nobody thought of politics at
+the Glyndewi regatta. Clara was there; but she was escorted into the
+room by some odious man, who, in virtue of having been made high-sheriff
+by mistake, sat next Miss Anti-reform on the chairman's left. The
+natives were civil enough to marshal us pretty high up by right of
+strangership, but still I was barely near enough to drink wine with her.
+
+If a man wants a good dinner, a hearty laugh, an opportunity of singing
+songs and speech-making, and can put up with indifferent wine, let him
+go to the race Ordinary at Glyndewi next year, if it still be among the
+things which time has spared. There was nothing like stiffness or
+formality: people came there for amusement, and they knew that the only
+way to get it was to make it for themselves. There seemed to be fun
+enough for half-a-dozen of the common run of such dinners, even while
+the ladies remained. It was, as Hanmer called it, an _extra_-ordinary.
+But it was when the ladies had retired, and Hanmer and a few of the
+"steady ones" had followed them, and those who remained closed up around
+the chairman, and cigars and genuine whisky began to supersede the
+questionable port and sherry, and the "Vice" requested permission to
+call on a gentleman for a song, that we began to fancy ourselves within
+the walls of some hitherto unknown college, where the "levelling system"
+had mixed up fellows and under-graduates in one common supper-party, and
+the portly principal himself rejoiced in the office of "arbiter
+bibendi." Shall I confess it? I forgot even Clara in the uproarious
+mirth that followed. Two of the young Phillipses were admirable singers,
+and drew forth the hearty applause of the whole company. We got Dawson
+to make a speech, in which he waxed poetical touching the "flowers of
+Cambria," and drew down thunders of applause by a Latin quotation, which
+every one took that means of showing that they understood. I obtained
+almost unconsciously an immortal reputation by a species of flattery to
+which the Welsh are most open. I had learnt, after no little
+application, a Welsh toast--a happy specimen of the language; it was but
+three words, but they were truly cabalistic. No sooner had I, after a
+"neat and appropriate" preface, uttered my triple Shibboleth, (it ended
+in _rag_, and signified "Wales, Welshmen, and Welshwomen,") than the
+whole party rose, and cheered at me till I felt positively modest. My
+pronunciation, I believe, was perfect, (a woman's lips and an angel's
+voice had taught it to me:) and it was indeed the Open Sesame to their
+hearts and feelings. I became at once the intimate friend of all who
+could get near enough to offer me their houses, their horses, their
+dogs--I have no doubt, had I given a hint at the moment, I might have
+had any one of their daughters. "Would I come and pay a visit at
+Abergwrnant before I left the neighbourhood? Only twenty-five miles, and
+a coach from B----!" "Would I, before the shooting began, come to
+Craig-y-bwldrwn, and stay over the first fortnight in September?" I
+could have quartered myself, and two or three friends, in a dozen places
+for a month at a time. And, let me do justice to the warm hospitality of
+North Wales--these invitations were renewed in the morning: and were I
+ever to visit those shores again, I should have no fear of their having
+been yet forgotten.
+
+Captain Phillips had told us, that when we left the table, "the girls"
+would have some coffee for us, if not too late; and Willingham and
+myself, having taken a turn or two in the moonlight to get rid of the
+excitement of the evening, bent our steps in that direction. There were
+about as many persons assembled as the little drawing-room would hold,
+and Clara, having forgotten her headach, and looking as lovely as ever,
+was seated at a wretched piano, endeavouring to accompany herself in her
+favourite songs. Willingham and myself stood by, and our repeated
+requests for some of those melodies which, unknown to us before, we had
+learnt from her singing to admire beyond all the fashionable trash of
+the day, were gratified with untiring good-nature. Somehow I thought
+that she avoided my eye, and answered my remarks with less than her
+usual archness and vivacity. I could bear it on this evening less than
+ever; a hair will turn the scale, and I had just been, half ludicrously,
+half seriously, affected by Welsh nationality. One cannot help warming
+towards a community which are so warm-hearted among themselves. Visions
+of I know not what--love and a living, Clara and a cottage--were
+floating dreamlike before my eyes, and I felt as if borne along by a
+current whose direction might be dangerous, but which it was misery to
+resist. Willingham had turned away a minute to hunt for some missing
+book, which contained one of his favourites; and, leaning over her with
+my finger pointing to the words which she had just been singing, I said
+something about there being always a fear in happiness such as I had
+lately been enjoying, lest it might not last. For a moment she met my
+earnest look, and coloured violently; and then fixing her eyes on the
+music before her, she said quickly, "Mr Hawthorne, I thought you had a
+higher opinion of me than to make me pretty speeches; I have a great
+dislike to them." I began to protest warmly against any intention of
+mere compliment, when the return of Willingham with his song prevented
+any renewal of the subject. I was annoyed and silent, and detected a
+tremor in her voice while she sang the words, and saw her cheek paler
+than usual. The instant the song was over, she complained with a smile
+of being tired, and without a look at either of us, joined a party who
+were noisily recounting the events of the race-course. Nor could I again
+that evening obtain a moment's conversation with her. She spoke to me,
+indeed, and very kindly; but once only did I catch her eye, when I was
+speaking to some one else--the glance was rapidly withdrawn, but it
+seemed rather sorrowful than cold.
+
+I was busy with Hanmer the next morning before breakfast, when Dick
+Phillips made his appearance, and informed us that the "strangers" had
+made up an eleven for the cricket match, and that we were to play at
+ten. He was a sort of live circular, dispatched to get all parties in
+readiness.
+
+"Oh! I have something for you from Clara," said he to me, as he was
+leaving; "the words of a song she promised you, I believe."
+
+I opened the sealed envelope, saw that it was not a song, and left
+Hanmer somewhat abruptly. When I was alone, I read the following:--
+
+"DEAR MR HAWTHORNE,--Possibly you may have been told that I have, before
+now, done things which people call strange--that is, contrary to some
+arbitrary notions which are to supersede our natural sense of right and
+wrong. But never, until now, did I follow the dictates of my own
+feelings in opposition to conventional rules, with the painful
+uncertainty as to the propriety of such a course, which I now feel. And
+if I had less confidence than I have in your honour and your kindness,
+or less esteem for your character, or less anxiety for your happiness, I
+would not write to you now. But I feel, that if you are what I wish to
+believe you, it is right that you should be at once undeceived as to my
+position. Others should have done it, perhaps--it would have spared me
+much. Whether your attentions to me are in sport or earnest, they must
+cease. I have no right to listen to such words as yours last night--my
+heart and hand are engaged to one, who deserves better from me than the
+levity which alone could have placed me in the position from which I
+thus painfully extricate myself. For any fault on my part, I thus make
+bitter atonement. I wish you health and happiness, and now let this save
+us both from further misunderstanding.
+
+    "C."
+
+Again and again did I read these words. Not one woman in a hundred would
+have ventured on such a step. And for what? to save me from the
+mortification of a rejection? It could be nothing else. How easy for a
+man of heartless gallantry to have written a cool note in reply,
+disclaiming "any aspiration after the honour implied," and placing the
+warm-hearted writer in the predicament of having declined attentions
+never meant to be serious! But I felt how kindly, how gently, I had been
+treated--the worst of it was, I loved her better than ever. I wrote some
+incoherent words in reply, sufficiently expressive of my bitter
+disappointment, and my admiration of her conduct; and then I felt "that
+my occupation was gone." She whom I had so loved to look upon, I
+trembled now to see. I had no mind to break my heart; but I felt that
+time and change were necessary to prevent it. Above all, Glyndewi was no
+place for me to forget _her_ in.
+
+In the midst of my painful reflections on all the happy hours of the
+past week, Gordon and Willingham broke in upon me with high matter for
+consultation relative to the match, In vain did I plead sudden illness,
+and inability to play: they declared it would knock the whole thing on
+the head, for Hanmer would be sure to turn sulky, and there was an end
+of the eleven; and they looked so really chagrined at my continued
+refusals, that at length I conquered my selfishness, (I had had a lesson
+in that,) and, though really feeling indisposed for any exertion, went
+down with them to the ground. I was in momentary dread of seeing Clara
+arrive, (for all the world was to be there,) and felt nervous and
+low-spirited. The strangers' eleven was a better one than we expected,
+and they put our men out pretty fast. Hanmer got most unfortunately run
+out after a splendid hit, and begged me to go in and "do something." I
+took my place mechanically, and lost my wicket to the first ball. We
+made a wretched score, and the strangers went in exultingly. In spite of
+Hanmer's steady bowling, they got runs pretty fast; and an easy catch
+came into my hands just as Clara appeared on the ground, and I lost all
+consciousness of what I was about. Again the same opportunity offered,
+and again my eyes were wandering among the tents. Hanmer got annoyed,
+and said something not over civil: I vas vexed myself that my
+carelessness should be the cause of disappointment twice, and yet more
+than half-inclined to quarrel with Branling, whom I overheard muttering
+about my "cursed awkwardness." We were left in a fearful minority at the
+close of the first innings, when we retired to dinner. The Glyndewi
+party and their friends were evidently disappointed. I tried to avoid
+Clara; but could not keep far from her. At last she came up with one of
+her brothers, spoke and shook hands with me, said that her brother had
+told her I was not well, and that she feared I ought not to have played
+at all. "I wish you could have beat them, Mr Hawthorne--I had bet that
+you would; perhaps you will feel better after dinner, those kind of
+headachs soon wear off," she added with a smile and a kind look, which I
+understood as she meant it. I walked into the tent where we were to
+dine: I sat next a little man on the opposite side, an Englishman, one
+of their best players, as active as a monkey, who had caught out three
+of our men in succession. He talked big about his play, criticised
+Willingham's batting, which was really pretty, and ended by discussing
+Clara Phillips, who was, he said, "a demned fine girl, but too much of
+her." I disliked his flippancy before, but now my disgust to him was
+insuperable. I asked the odds against us, and took them freely. There
+was champagne before me, and I drank it in tumblers. I did what even in
+my under-graduate days was rarely my habit--I drank till I was
+considerably excited. Hanmer saw it, and got the match resumed at once
+to save me, as he afterwards said, "from making a fool of myself." I
+insisted, in spite of his advice "to cool myself," upon going in first.
+My flippant acquaintance of the dinner-table stood _point_, and I knew,
+if I could but see the ball, and not see more than one, that I could
+occasionally "hit square" to some purpose. I had the luck to catch the
+first ball just on the rise, and it caught my friend _point_ off his
+legs as if he had been shot. He limped off the ground, and we were
+troubled with him no more. I hit as I never did before, or shall again.
+At first I played wild; but as I got cool, and my sight became steady, I
+felt quite at home. The bowlers got tired, and Dick Phillips, who had no
+science, but the strength of a unicorn, was in with me half-an-hour,
+slashing in all directions. It short, the tide turned, and the match
+ended in our favour.
+
+I was quite sober, and free from all excitement, when I joined Clara,
+for the last time after the game was over. "I am so glad you played so
+well," said she, "if you are but as successful at Oxford as you have
+been at the boat-race and the cricket, you will have no reason to be
+disappointed. Your career here has been one course of victory." "Not
+altogether, Miss Phillips: the prize I shall leave behind me when I quit
+Glyndewi to-morrow, is worth more than all that I can gain." "Mr
+Hawthorne," said she kindly, "one victory is in your own power, and you
+will soon gain it, and be happy--the victory over yourself."
+
+I made some excuse to Hanmer about letters from home, to account for my
+sudden departure. How the party got on after I left them, and what was
+the final result of our "reading," is no part of my tale; but I fear the
+reader will search the class-lists of 18-- in vain for the names of Mr
+Hanmer's pupils.
+
+HAWTHORNE.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote A: Fact.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTERS OF TURKISH HISTORY.
+
+No. X.
+
+
+THE SECOND SIEGE OF VIENNA.
+
+The Ottoman empire, exhausted by its strenuous and long-continued
+efforts in the death-struggle of Candia, had need of peace and repose to
+recruit its resources; but the calm was not of long duration. A fresh
+complication of interests was now arising in the north, which, by
+involving the Porte in the stormy politics of Poland and Russia, led to
+consequences little foreseen at the time, and which, even at the present
+day are far from having reached their final accomplishment. Since the
+ill-judged and unfortunate invasion by Sultan Osman II., in 1620 the
+good understanding between Poland and the Porte had continued
+undisturbed, save by the occasional inroads of the Crim Tartars on the
+one side, and the Cossacks of the Dniepr on the other, which neither
+government was able entirely to restrain. But the oppression to which
+the Polish nobles attempted to subject their Cossack _allies_, whom they
+pretended to regard as serfs and vassals, was intolerable to these
+freeborn sons of the steppe; and an universal revolt at length broke
+out, which was the beginning of the evil days of Poland. For nearly
+twenty years, under the feeble rule of John Casimer, the country was
+desolated with sanguinary civil wars; the Czar Alexis Mikhailowitz,
+eager to regain the rich provinces lost by Russia during the reign of
+his father, at length appeared in the field as the protector of the
+Cossacks; and, in 1656, the greater part of their body, with the Ataman
+Bogdan Khmielni�ki at their head, formally transferred their allegiance
+to the Russian sceptre. This fatal blow, which in effect turned the
+balance of power, so long fluctuating between Poland and Russia, in
+favour of the latter, failed, however, to teach moderation to the Polish
+aristocracy; and the remainder of the Cossacks, who still continued in
+their ancient seats under the Ataman Doroszenko, finding themselves
+menaced by a fresh attack, embraced the resolution of "placing
+themselves under the shadow of the horsetails," by becoming the
+voluntary vassals of the Porte, of which they had so long been the
+inveterate enemies. In spite of the violent reclamations of the Polish
+envoy Wizo�ki, the offer was at once accepted, and a mace and kaftan of
+honour sent to the ataman as ensigns of investiture, while the Poles
+were warned to desist from hostilities against the subjects of the
+sultan. The refusal to accede to this requisition produced an instant
+declaration of war, addressed in an autograph letter from Kiuprili to
+the grand chancellor of Poland, and followed up, in the spring of 1672,
+by the march of an army of 100,000 men for Podolia. The sultan himself
+took the field for the first time, attended by Kiuprili and the other
+vizirs of the divan, and carrying with him his court and harem, and the
+whole host, after a march of four months from Adrianople, crossed the
+Dniester in the first days of August.
+
+The distracted state of Poland, where the helpless Michael Coribut
+Wie�nowi�ki bore but the empty title of king, precluded the possibility
+of even an attempt at resistance, and the grand marshal of the kingdom,
+the heroic John Sobieski, who, with only 6000 men, had held his ground
+against the Cossacks, Turks, and Tartars, through the preceding winter,
+was compelled to withdraw from Podolia. The whole province was speedily
+overrun; the fortresses of Kaminiec and Leopol were yielded almost
+without defence; and the king, terrified at the progress of the
+invaders, sued for peace, which was signed September 18, 1672, in the
+Turkish camp at Buczacz. Kaminiec, Podolia, and the Cossack territory,
+were by this act ceded to the Porte, besides an annual tribute from
+Poland of 220,000 ducats; and Mohammed, having caused proclamation to be
+made by the criers that "pardon for his offences had been granted to
+the rebel _kral_ of the _Leh_,"[B] (Poles,) returned in triumph to
+Adrianople, leaving his army in winter quarters on the Danube.
+
+The Diet, however, indignantly refused either to ratify the treaty or
+pay the tribute; and hostilities were resumed the next year with
+increased inveteracy on both sides. The sultan accompanied his army only
+to the Danube, where he remained engrossed with the pleasures of the
+chase at Babataghi; while Sobieski, who had accommodated for the time
+his differences with his colleague and rival Pa�, hetman of Lithuania,
+and was at the head of 50,000 men, boldly anticipated the tardy
+movements of the Turks, who were advancing in several separate _corps
+d'arm�e_, by crossing the Dniester early in October. He was forthwith
+joined by Stephen, waiwode of Moldavia, with great part of the Moldavian
+and Wallachian troops, who unexpectedly deserted the standards of the
+crescent; and, after several partial encounters, a general engagement
+took place, November 11, 1673, between the Polish army and the advanced
+divisions of the Ottomans under the serasker Hussein, pasha of
+Silistria, who lay in an intrenched camp on the heights near Choczim. A
+heavy fall of snow during the night, combined with a piercing north wind
+had benumbed the frames of the Janissaries, accustomed to the genial
+warmth of a southern climate; and the enthusiastic valour of the Poles,
+stimulated by the exhortations and example of their chief, made their
+onset irresistible. The Turkish army was almost annihilated: 25,000 men,
+with numerous begs and pashas, remained on the field of battle, or
+perished in the Dniester from the breaking of the bridge: all their
+cannon and standards became trophies to the victors: and the green
+banner of the serasker was sent to Rome by Sobieski, in the belief that
+it was the _Sandjak-shereef_, or sacred standard of the Prophet--the
+oriflamme of the Ottoman empire. Never had a defeat nearly so
+disastrous, with the single exception of that of St. Gotthard, ten years
+before, befallen the Turkish arms in Europe; and the other corps, under
+the command of the grand-vizir and of his brother-in-law, Kaplan-pasha
+of Aleppo, which were marching to the support of Hussein, fell back in
+dismay to their former, ground on the right bank of the Danube. The
+Poles, however, made no further use of their triumph than to ravage
+Moldavia, and the death of the king, on the same day with the victory at
+Choczim, recalled Sobieski to Warsaw, in order to become a candidate for
+the vacant crown. On his election by the Diet, in May 1674, he made
+overtures for peace to the Porte, but they were rejected, and the
+contest continued during several years, without any notable achievement
+on either side, the war being unpopular with the Turkish soldiery; while
+the civil dissensions of his kingdom, with his consequent inferiority of
+numbers, kept Sobieski generally on the defensive. In his intrenched
+camp at Zurawno, with only 15,000 men, he had for twenty days kept at
+bay 100,000 Turks under the serasker Ibrahim, surnamed Sha�tan or _the
+devil_, when both sides, weary of the fruitless struggle, agreed upon a
+conference, and peace was signed October 27, 1676. The humiliating
+demand of tribute was no longer insisted upon; but Kaminiec, Podolia,
+and great part of the Ukraine, were left in possession of the Turks,
+whose stubborn perseverance thus succeeded, as on many occasions, in
+gaining nearly every object for which the war had been undertaken.
+
+Before the news, however, of the pacification with Poland had reached
+Constantinople, Ahmed-Kiuprili had closed his glorious career. He had
+long suffered from dropsy, the same disease which had proved fatal to
+his father, and the effects of which were in his case, aggravated by too
+free an indulgence in wine, to which, after his return from Candia, he
+is said to have become greatly addicted. He had accompanied the sultan,
+who had for many years remained absent from his capital, on a visit,
+during the summer months, to Constantinople, but, on the return to
+Adrianople, he was compelled, by increasing sickness, to halt on the
+banks of the Erkench, between Chorlu and Demotika, where he breathed
+his last in a _chitlik_, or farm-house, called Kara-Bovir, October 30,
+at the age of forty-seven, after having administered the affairs of the
+empire for a few days more than fifteen years. His corpse was carried
+back to Constantinople, and laid without pomp in the mausoleum erected
+by his father, amid the lamentations of the people, rarely poured forth
+over the tomb of a deceased grand vizir. The character of this great
+minister has been made the theme of unmeasured panegyrics by the Turkish
+historians; and Von Hammer-Purgstall (in his _History of the Ottoman
+Empire_) has given us a long and elaborate parallel between the life and
+deeds of Ahmed Kiuprili and of the celebrated vizir of Soliman the
+Magnificent and his two successors, Mohammed-Pasha Sokolli; but we
+prefer to quote the impartial and unadorned portrait drawn by his
+contemporary Rycaut:--"He was, in person, (for I have seen him often,
+and knew him well,) of a middle stature, of a black beard, and brown
+complexion;[C] something short-sighted, which caused him to knit his
+brows, and pore very intently when any strange person entered the
+presence; he was inclining to be fat, and grew corpulent towards his
+latter days. If we consider his age when he first took upon him this
+important charge, the enemies his father had created him, the
+contentions he had with the Valideh-sultana or queen-mother, and the
+arts he had used to reconcile the affections of these great personages,
+and conserve himself in the unalterable esteem of his sovereign to the
+last hour of his death, there is none but must judge him to have
+deserved the character of a most prudent and politic person. If we
+consider how few were put to death, and what inconsiderable mutinies or
+rebellions happened in any part of the empire during his government, it
+will afford us a clear evidence and proof of his greatness and
+moderation beyond the example of former times: for certainly he was not
+a person who delighted in blood, and in that respect far different from
+the temper of his father; he was generous, and free from avarice--a rare
+virtue in a Turk! He was educated in the law, and therefore greatly
+addicted to all the formalities of it, and in the administration of
+justice very punctual and severe: and as to his behaviour towards the
+neighbouring princes, there may, I believe, be fewer examples of his
+breach of faith, than what his predecessors have given in a shorter time
+of rule. In his wars abroad he was successful, having upon every
+expedition enlarged the bounds of the empire: he overcame Neuhausel,
+with a considerable part of Hungary, he concluded the long war with
+Venice by an entire and total subjugation of the Island of Candia,
+having subdued that impregnable fortress, which by the rest of the world
+was considered invincible; and he won Kemenitz (Kaminiec,) the key of
+Poland, where the Turks had been frequently baffled, and laid Ukraine to
+the empire. If we measure his triumphs, rather than count his years,
+though he might seem to have lived but little to his prince and people,
+yet certainly to himself he could not die more seasonably, nor in a
+greater height and eminency of glory."
+
+The deceased vizir left no children: and the sultan is said to have
+offered the seals, in the first instance, as if the office had become in
+fact hereditary in the family, to Mustapha, another son of
+Mohammed-Kiuprili, a man of retired and studious habits, who had the
+philosophy to decline the onerous dignity.[D] However this may have
+been, (for the story appears to rest on somewhat doubtful authority,)
+within seven days of the death of Ahmed, the vizirat had been conferred
+on Kara-Mustapha Pasha, who then held the office of kaimakam, and had
+for several years been distinguished by the special favour and
+confidence of the sultan. The new minister was connected by the ties
+both of marriage and adoption with the house of Kiuprili. His father
+Oroudj, a spahi, holding land at Merzifoun, (a town and district in
+Anatolia contiguous to Kiupri,) had fallen at the siege of Bagdad, under
+Sultan Mourad-Ghazi in 1638: and the orphan had been educated in the
+household of Mohammed-Kiuprili as the companion and adopted brother of
+his son Ahmed, one of whose sisters he in due time received in marriage.
+The elevation of his patron to the highest dignity of the empire, of
+course opened to Kara-Mustapha the road to fortune and preferment--from
+his first post of deputy to the _meer-akhor_, or master of the horse, he
+was promoted to the rank of pasha of two tails--and after holding the
+governments successively of Silistria and Diarbekr was nominated
+capitan-pasha in 1662 by his brother-in-law Ahmed; but exchanged that
+appointment in the following year for the office of kaimakam, in which
+capacity he was left in charge of the capital on the departure of the
+vizir to the army in Hungary. His duties in this situation, as
+lieutenant of the grand-vizir during his absence, gave him constant
+access to the presence of the sultan: and being (as he is described by
+the contemporary writer above quoted) "a wise and experienced person, of
+a smooth behaviour, and a great courtier," he so well improved the
+opportunities thus afforded him, as to obtain a place in the monarch's
+favour second only to that of Kiuprili himself. This excessive
+partiality was, however, scarcely justified by the good qualities of the
+favourite; for though the abilities of Kara-Mustapha were above
+mediocrity, his avarice was so extreme as to lay him open to the
+suspicion of corruption: and his sanguinary cruelty, when holding a
+command in Poland in the campaign of 1674, drew down on him the severe
+reprobation of his illustrious brother in-law. The predilection of the
+sultan for his society continued, however, unabated:--and during the
+visit of the court to Constantinople in 1675, he was still further
+exalted by becoming, at least in name, son-in-law to his sovereign,
+being affianced to the Sultana Khadidjeh, then only three years old. The
+f�tes of the betrothal, which were celebrated at the same time as those
+for the circumcision of the heir-apparent, (afterwards Mustapha II.,)
+were unrivalled for splendour in a reign distinguished for
+magnificence:--and on the death of Ahmed-Kiuprili in the following year,
+this fortunate adventurer found little difficulty in stepping, as we
+have seen, into the vacated place.
+
+The first cares of the new vizir were on the side of the newly acquired
+frontier in the Ukraine; for, though all claim to that part of the
+Cossack territory had been expressly resigned by Poland at the treaty of
+Durawno, the Czar of Muscovy had never ceased to assert his pretensions
+to the whole Ukraine, in virtue of the convention of 1656 with
+Khmielni�ki; and during the Polish campaign of 1674, his troops on the
+border, under a general named Romanodoffski, had several times come into
+collision with the Turks--an era deserving notice as the first hostile
+encounter between these two great antagonist powers. The defection of
+Doroszenko, who had gone over to the Russians at the end of 1676, and
+surrendered to them the important fortress of Czehryn, the capital and
+key of the Ukraine, and the repulse of the serasker Ibrahim before its
+walls in the following year, showed the necessity of vigorous measures:
+and, in 1678, the grand vizir in person appeared at the head of a
+formidable force in the Ukraine, bringing with him George Khmielni�ki,
+son of the former ataman, who had long been confined as a state prisoner
+in the Seven Towers, but was now released to counteract, by his
+hereditary influence with the Cossacks, the adverse agency of
+Doroszenko. Czehryn, after a close investment of a month, was carried by
+storm, the garrison put to the sword, and the fortifications razed. But
+though the war was continued through another campaign, it was obviously
+not the interest of the Divan to prolong this remote and unprofitable
+contest at a juncture when the state of parties in Hungary bid fair to
+present such an opportunity as had never before occurred, for
+definitively establishing the supremacy of the Porte over the whole of
+that kingdom. Negotiations were accordingly opened on the Dniepr between
+the Muscovite leaders and the Khan Mourad-Gherni; and a peace was signed
+at Radzin, Feb. 12, 1681, by which the frontiers on both sides were left
+unaltered, while the Porte expressly renounced all claim to Kiow and
+the Russian Ukraine, which had been in the possession of the Czar since
+1656. The ratification of the treaty was brought to Constantinople in
+the following September by an envoy, whose gifts of costly arctic furs,
+and ivory from the tusks of the walrus, might have unfolded to the Turks
+the wide extent of the northern realms ruled by the monarch whom they
+even yet regarded only as a tributary of their own vassal the Khan of
+the Tartars, and scarcely deigned to admit on equal terms to diplomatic
+intercourse.
+
+Though the truce for twenty years, concluded between the Porte and the
+Empire after the defeat of Ahmed-Kiuprili at St Gotthard in 1564, had
+not yet expired by nearly three years, the political aspect of Hungary
+left little doubt that the resumption of hostilities would not be so
+long delayed. To understand more clearly the extraordinary complication
+of interests of which this country was now the scene, it will, however,
+be necessary to take a retrospective glance at its history during the
+seventeenth century, after the treaty of Komorn with the Porte, in 1606,
+had terminated for the time the warfare of which it had almost
+constantly been the theatre since the occupation of Buda by Soliman the
+Magnificent in 1541, ad had, in some measure, defined the boundaries of
+the two great powers between which it was divided. The Emperors of the
+House of Hapsburg, indeed, styled themselves Kings of Hungary, and Diets
+were held in their name at Presburg; but the territory actually under
+their sway amounted to less than a third of the ancient kingdom,
+comprehending only the northern and western districts; while all the
+central portion of Hungary Proper, as far as Agria on the north, and the
+Raab and the Balaton Lake on the west, was united to the Ottoman Empire,
+and formed the pashaliks of Buda and Temeswar, which were regularly
+divided into sandjaks and districts, with their due quota of spahis and
+timariots, who had been drawn from the Moslem provinces of Turkey, and
+held grants of land by tenure of military service. The principality of
+Transylvania, (called _Erdel_ by the Turks,) which had been erected by
+Soliman in favour of the son of John Zapolya, comprehended nearly
+one-fourth of Hungary, and (though its suzeraint� was claimed by Austria
+in virtue of a reversionary settlement executed by that prince shortly
+before his death,) was generally, in effect, dependent on, and tributary
+to the Porte, from which its princes, elected by the Diet at
+Klaucenburg, received confirmation and investiture, like the waiwodes of
+the neighbouring provinces of Moldavia and Wallachia. During the
+interval between the death of John Sigismond Zapolya in 1571, and the
+election of Michael Abaffi in 1661, not fewer than thirteen princes,
+besides nearly as many ephemeral pretenders, had occupied the throne;
+and, though at one time the family of Batthori, and, subsequently, that
+of Racoczy, established a kind of hereditary claim to election, their
+tenure was always precarious; and, on more than one occasion, the prince
+was imposed on the states by the Turks or Austrians, without even the
+shadow of constitutional forms.
+
+This modified independence of Transylvania, however, often gave its
+princes great political importance, during the endless troubles of
+Hungary, as the assertors of civil and religions liberty against the
+tyranny and bad faith of the Austrian cabinet; which, with unaccountable
+infatuation, instead of striving to attach to its rule, by conciliation
+and good government, the remnant of the kingdom still subject to its
+sceptre, bent all its efforts to destroy the ancient privileges of the
+Magyars, and to make the crown formally, as it already was in fact,
+hereditary in the imperial family. The extirpation of Protestantism was
+another favourite object of Austrian policy: and the cruelties
+perpetrated with this view by George Basta and the other imperial
+generals at the beginning of the century was such, that a general rising
+took place under Stephen Boczkai, then waiwode of Transylvania,
+Wallachia, and Moldavia, who extorted from the Emperor Rodolph, in 1607,
+the famous _pacification of Vienna_, which was guaranteed by the Porte,
+and which secured to the Hungarians full liberty of conscience, as well
+as the enjoyment of all their ancient rights. This agreement was soon
+violated; but the Protestants again found a protector in a Transylvanian
+prince, the celebrated Bethlen-Gabor;[E] who, assuming the royal title,
+occupied Presburg and Neuhausel in 1619, formed an alliance with the
+Bohemian revolters under Count Thurn, and was narrowly prevented from
+forming a junction with them under the walls of Vienna, which, if
+effected, would probably have overthrown the dynasty of Hapsburg. He is
+said to have entertained the design of uniting all Hungary east of the
+Theiss, with Transylvania and Wallachia, into a modern _kingdom of
+Dacia_, leaving the west to the Turks as a barrier against Austrian
+aggression--but his want of children left his schemes of aggrandizement
+without a motive, and at his death in 1630 they all fell to the ground.
+The Thirty Years' War procured the Hungarian subjects of Austria a
+temporary respite; but Leopold, who was elected king in 1655, and
+succeeded his father Ferdinand in the empire three years later,
+stimulated by the triumph of his predecessor over the liberties of
+Bohemia, resumed with fresh zeal the crusade against the privileges of
+the Magyars. Not only was the persecution of the Protestants
+recommenced, but the excesses of the ill-paid and licentious German
+mercenaries, who were quartered on the country in defiance of the
+constitution after the twenty years' truce, under the pretence of
+guarding against any fresh attack from the Turks, were carried to such a
+height that disaffection became universal even among those who had
+hitherto constantly adhered to the Austrian interest, so that (in the
+words of a writer[F] of the time,) "they began to contrast their own
+condition with that of the Transylvanians, who are not forced to take
+the turban but live quietly under the protection of the Turk--while we
+(as they say) are exposed to the caprices of a prince under the absolute
+dominion of the Jesuits, a far worse sort of people than the Dervishes!"
+As early as 1667, a secret communication had been made to the Porte
+through the envoy of Abaffi; but Kiuprili, who was then on the point of
+departure for Candia, and was unwilling to risk a fresh rupture with the
+empire in his absence, gave little encouragement either to these
+overtures, or to the more advantageous propositions received in 1670
+from Peter Zriny, Ban of Croatia, and previously a famous
+partisan-leader against the Moslems; in which the malecontents offered,
+as the price of Ottoman aid and protection, to cede to the sultan all
+the fortified towns which should be taken by his arms, and to pay an
+annual tribute of 30,000 ducats. The conspiracy had, however, become
+known at Vienna; and instant measures were taken for seizing Zriny and
+his Croatian confederates, Nadasti, Tattenbach, and Christopher
+Frangipani, who were all executed in the course of the following year.
+The Emperor, now considering Hungary as a conquered country, formally
+abolished the dignity of Palatine, and nominated Gaspar Von Ampringham,
+grand master of the Teutonic knights, to be viceroy of the kingdom;
+while the Protestants were persecuted with unheard-of rigour, and many
+of their ministers imprisoned in the fortresses, or sent in chains to
+the galleys at Naples.
+
+The confederates of Upper Hungary had been better on their guard: and on
+the news of the fate of Zriny and his associates, they forthwith
+assembled in arms at Kaschau or Cassovia, and electing Francis Racoczy,
+son of the late prince of Transylvania, and son-in-law of Zriny, as
+their leader, bade defiance to the Emperor. The civil war continued
+several years without decisive success on either side; till on the
+death, in 1676, of Racoczy, (who had previously abandoned the popular
+cause,) the famous Emeric Tekoeli, then only twenty years of age, was
+chosen general. He was the hereditary enemy of the Austrians; his father
+Stephen, Count of Kersmark, having been besieged in his castle by the
+Imperialists at the time of his death; and while he pressed the Germans
+in the field with such vigour as to deprive them of nearly all the
+fortified places they still held in Upper Hungary, the negotiation with
+the Porte for aid was renewed, and being backed by the diplomatic
+influence of France, then at war with the empire, was more favourably
+received by Kara-Mustapha than the former advances of the malcontents
+had been by his predecessor. The war with Russia, however, prevented the
+Turks for the present from interfering with effect, but Abaffi was
+authorized to support the insurgents in the mean time, while Leopold,
+fearing the total loss of Hungary, summoned a diet at Oedenburg (in
+1681) for the redress of grievances, in which most of the ancient
+privileges of the kingdom were restored, full liberty of conscience
+promised to the Lutherans and Calvinists, and Paul Esterhazy named
+Palatine. But these concessions, wrung only by hard necessity from the
+Cabinet of Vienna, came now too late. Tekoeli replied to the amnesty
+proclaimed by the Emperor, by the publication of a counter-manifesto, in
+which were set forth a hundred grievances of the Hungarians; and, having
+obtained a great accession of strength by his marriage (June 1682) to
+Helen Zriny, the widow of Racoczy, whereby he gained all the adherents
+of those two powerful houses, he summoned a rival diet at Cassovia,
+where he openly assumed the title of sovereign prince of Upper Hungary,
+exercising the prerogatives of royalty, and striking money in his own
+name, which bore his effigy on the obverse, and on the reverse the motto
+inscribed on his standards--"Pro Deo, Patria, et Libertate."
+
+Though Tekoeli professed to act by the authority of the Porte, from
+which he had received a firman of investiture with the usual ensigns of
+sovereignty, no formal declaration of war had yet been issued from
+Constantinople; and many of the Ulemah protested against such a measure,
+at least till the twenty years' truce, concluded in 1664, should have
+expired. The aid openly afforded, however, to Tekoeli by Abaffi and the
+pasha of Buda, as well as the constant march of large bodies of troops
+to the Danube, afforded sufficient indication that an attack would not
+be long delayed; and Leopold, disquieted at the prospect of having at
+once to contend against his own revolted subjects, and the mighty force
+of the Ottoman empire, sent Count Caprara on a mission to
+Constantinople, in the hope of averting the storm; while, at the same
+time, he made overtures for an alliance with Poland, still smarting
+under her losses in the late Turkish war. The mission of Caprara led to
+no result, from the exorbitant demands made by the Ottoman ministers on
+behalf both of the Porte and its Hungarian allies, which amounted to
+little less than a total cession of the country, and a few days after
+the arrival of the ambassador, the despatch of the firman to Tekoeli,
+and the display of the imperial horsetails in the plain of Daood-Pasha,
+showed that the resolution of the Divan was fixed for war. The
+negotiation with Poland presented almost equal difficulties, from the
+rooted jealousy entertained by the Poles of the ambition of Austria, and
+the opposition of the French envoy, De Vitry, who even carried his
+intrigues so far as to embark in a plot for the death or dethronement of
+the king, and the substitution of the grand marshal Iablonowski. The
+firmness of Sobieski, however, whom no minor considerations could blind
+to the importance of saving Austria and Hungary from the grasp of the
+Osmanli, overcame all these machinations; and the ratification of the
+diet was eventually given to a league, offensive and defensive, with
+Austria, on March 31, 1683--the same day on which the vast host of the
+Ottomans broke up from its cantonments about Adrianople, and directed
+its march towards the Danube.
+
+The sons of Naodasti and Zriny, who had been executed ten years before,
+were retained as hostages, under the name of chamberlains, in the
+imperial household; and it fell to the lot of the former to announce to
+Leopold, that the legions of the crescent were pouring down on Hungary.
+The cheek of the Emperor blanched at the tidings; for well did he know
+that, till the arrival of the Poles, his disposable force amounted to
+scarce 35,000 men, under Duke Charles of Lorraine, who could barely make
+head against Abaffi and Tekoeli, while so high were the hopes of the
+Magyars raised of a speedy and final deliverance from Austrian tyranny,
+that a plot is even said to have been laid between Zriny and his sister,
+now the wife of Tekoeli, for seizing the person of Leopold in the palace
+of Vienna, and giving him up to the Tartars, who had already commenced
+their ravages on the frontiers. The sultan meanwhile--the cumbrous
+luxury of whose harem and equipages had retarded the march of the
+army--had halted at Belgrade, after holding a grand review of his
+forces, and placing the standard of the Prophet in the hands of the
+vizier, in token of the full powers entrusted to him for the conduct of
+the campaign. On the 10th of June, Tekoeli, who had crossed the Danube
+to welcome his potent auxiliaries, was received at Essek with royal
+magnificence by Kara-Mustapha, who imitated, in the ceremonial observed
+on this occasion, the pomp of the reception of John Zapolya by Soliman,
+on his march against Vienna in 1529; but after receiving personal
+investiture of the royal dignity conferred on him by the sultan, he
+returned rapidly to Cassovia, where he had fixed his headquarters. The
+khan of the Tartars had already arrived at Stuhlweissenburg, and was
+speedily joined by the vizir and the main Turkish army, which, passing
+the Danube to the number of 140,000 men, swept like a torrent over the
+rich plains of Lower Hungary: the towns, abandoned by the panic-stricken
+German garrisons, every where opening their gates to the partisans of
+Zriny and Tekoeli, in the hope of escaping the fate of Veszprim, which
+had been sacked by the janissaries for attempting resistance. The march
+was pressed with unexampled rapidity, till on the 28th the whole army
+was mustered under the walls of Gran; and the vizir, summoning to his
+tent the khan and the principal pashas, announced that his orders were
+to make himself master of Vienna.
+
+The veneration with which the Turks have always regarded the memory of
+the greatest of their sultans, has led them not only to shrink with
+superstitious awe from attempting any enterprise in which he failed, but
+even to attach a prophetic importance to his recorded sayings. A promise
+attributed to him, that "an Ottoman army should never pass the Raab,"
+had been recalled at the time of the signal defeat experienced by
+Ahmed-Kiuprili on that river, and his memorable repulse before Vienna
+had been ever held as a warning, that the Ottoman arms were destined
+never to prevail against the ramparts of the _Kizil-Alma_. These
+considerations, however, had little weight with Kara-Mustapha; bridges,
+hastily thrown over the ill-omened stream, afforded a passage to the
+army, (July 8,) and the march was again directed without stop or stay on
+Vienna. A body of Hungarians in the pay of the emperor, under Budiani,
+passed over to the ranks of their insurgent countrymen on the first
+appearance of the standards of Tekoeli; and the Duke of Lorraine, who
+had withdrawn his infantry to the island of Schutt and the other bank of
+the Danube, was worsted in a cavalry fight at Petronel by the Tartars,
+whose flying squadrons were already seen from the walls of Vienna.
+Proclamation had been made, forbidding the citizens to _speak of the
+present state of affairs!_--but the emperor and court, who had
+confidently reckoned on the invaders being delayed by the sieges of Raab
+and Komorn, no sooner learned that they had passed those fortresses
+unheeded, and were rapidly approaching the capital, than, seized with a
+panic-terror, they fled from the devoted city, on the same day with the
+combat at Petronel, (July 7,) in such dismayed haste, that the empress
+was forced to lodge one night under a tree in the open air; nor did they
+deem themselves in safety from the terrible pursuit of the Tartars, till
+they reached Lintz, on the furthest western verge of the hereditary
+states. The Austrian towns along the Danube were overwhelmed by the
+advancing tide of Turks, or ravaged by the Hungarian followers of
+Tekoeli, who vied with their Moslem allies in animosity against the
+Germans; and the light troops and Tartars, overspreading the country,
+pushed their predatory excursions so far up the river, as even to alarm
+the imperial fugitives at Lintz, who consulted their safety by a second
+flight to Passau. The three great abbeys of Lilienfeldt, M�lk, and
+Klosterneuburg, were preserved from these desultory marauders by the
+strength of their walls, and the valour of their monastic inmates, who
+took arms in defence of their cloisters; but the open country was laid
+waste with the same ferocity as in the invasion by Soliman, and many
+thousands of the country people were dragged as slaves into the Turkish
+camp. The regular columns of the janissaries and feudatory troops,
+meanwhile, continuing their advance, appeared on the morning of the 14th
+under the walls of Vienna; the posts of the different corps were
+assigned on the same day, and in the course of the following night,
+ground was broken for the trenches on three sides of the city.
+
+The ancient ramparts of Vienna, which had withstood the assault of the
+great Soliman, had been replaced, not long after the former siege, by
+fortifications better adapted for modern warfare; but during the long
+interval of security, the extensive suburbs, with the villas and gardens
+of the nobles and opulent citizens, had been suffered to encroach on the
+glacis and encumber the approaches; and the ruins of these luxurious
+abodes, imperfectly destroyed in the panic arising from the unexpected
+celerity of the enemy's movements, were calculated at once to impede the
+fire from the walls, and to afford shelter and lodgement to the
+besiegers. Such preparations for defence, however, as the time allowed
+of, had been hastily made by the governor, Rudiger Count Stahrenberg, a
+descendant of the stout baron who, in the former siege, had repulsed the
+Tartars in the defiles near Enns, and an artillery officer of proved
+skill and valour. Most of the gates had been walled up, platforms and
+covered ways constructed, and the students of the university, with such
+of the citizens as were able and willing to bear arms, were organized
+into companies in aid of the regular troops, whose number did not exceed
+14,000. But the flower of the Austrian nobility, with many gallant
+volunteers, not only from Germany, but from other parts of Christendom,
+were within the walls, and animated by their example the spirits of the
+defenders, whose only hope of relief lay apparently in the distant and
+uncertain succours of Poland. The Duke of Lorraine, with his cavalry,
+had still hoped to maintain himself in the Prater and the Leopoldstadt,
+(which were on an island separated from the city by a narrow arm of the
+river,) and thus to keep up the communication with the north bank:--but
+an overwhelming body of Turkish horse, (among whom were conspicuous the
+Arab chargers and gorgeous equipments of a troop of Egyptian Mamlukes, a
+force rarely seen in the Ottoman armies,) was directed against him on
+the 17th, and after a desperate conflict, he was driven across the main
+stream with the loss of 500 men, and with difficulty secured himself
+from pursuit by breaking the bridge. The suburb of Leopold, in itself a
+second city, was given up to the flames; and the Turks, erecting two
+batteries on the bank opposite Vienna, completed the investment on the
+only side which had hitherto remained open. Kara-Mustapha, in the
+confidence of anticipated triumph, now summoned Stahrenberg to
+surrender, by throwing a cartel into the city, wrapped up in linen and
+fastened to an arrow: and no answer being returned, the fire of the
+batteries on the Leopold island opened on the town; and in less than a
+week ten others were completed and mounted with cannon on the landward
+side.
+
+The main point of attack, in the former siege under Soliman, had been
+the gate of Carinthia, (K�rnther-Thor,) and the adjoining bastions; but
+the weight of the Turkish fire on the land side was now directed
+principally against the Castle-Gate, (Burg-Thor,) lying to the left of
+the former, and against the curtain between the Castle bastion and that
+of L�bel; and on the river side from the batteries of the Leopold island
+against the Rothenthurm or Red Tower, at the point where the
+fortifications abut on the stream of the Danube. The tent of the vizir
+was pitched opposite the Burg-Thor, in the midst of the janissaries and
+Roumeliote troops, while the feudatories of Anatolia and Syria, under
+their pashas, were posted right and left of this central point, and the
+encampments of the various divisions stretched far round the city in a
+semi-circle many miles in extent, touching the Danube at its two extreme
+points of Ebersdorff below Vienna, and Nussdorff in the higher part of
+the stream, where a bridge thrown over the narrow channel formed a
+communication between the outposts on the mainland, and those on the
+Leopold island. The charge of this bridge was assigned to the Moldavian
+and Wallachian contingents, under the command of Scherban, waiwode of
+the latter province, and one of the most remarkable adventurers of the
+age. Born of a noble Wallachian family, which claimed descent from the
+ancient imperial house of Cantacuzene, he had earned from the Turks, not
+less by the reckless bravery he had displayed under the standard of the
+crescent in the wars of Poland, than by the consummate address with
+which he had steered his way through the tortuous intrigues of the
+Fanar, the sobriquet of Sha�tan Ogblu, _son of Satan_--nor was he
+unknown as a gay and gallant visitor to the more polished and voluptuous
+courts of the west. In his elevation to the throne of his native
+country, he was said to have been materially assisted by the criminal
+favour of the consort of his predecessor, the Princess Ducas:--but in
+the camp before Vienna he assumed the guise of extraordinary piety--a
+lofty cross was erected before his tent, where the rights of the Greek
+Church were daily celebrated with extraordinary pomp, and the priests of
+that communion offered up prayers for the success of the Ottoman arms
+against the schismatics of the Western Church![G]
+
+On the 23d of July, two mines were fired under the counterscarp of the
+L�bel bastion, and though from the want of skill in the Turkish
+engineers, they did little damage, the alarm caused among the garrison,
+who called to mind the formidable use made of this species of approach
+in the siege of Candia, was such, that Stahrenberg issued orders that
+one person should be constantly on the watch in each house, to prevent
+the Turks from making their way into the city by these subterraneous
+passages. No more than forty mines, however, were sprung during the
+whole siege, and their effect, from the industry with which they were
+countermined by the garrison, was far less destructive than at
+Candia:--but the fire from the batteries continued without cessation,
+till the counterscarp and ravelin between the two bastions were reduced
+to a heap of ruins, and the covered approaches of the Turks, in spite of
+the constant sorties of the besieged, were pushed so close to the outer
+works that the defenders could reach the pioneers employed on the
+galleries by thrusting at them through the palisades with the long
+German pikes, the efficiency of which had been so severely experienced
+in the former siege. The first assault on the ravelin was made July
+25--but the explosion of a mine at the instant threw the attacking
+column into disorder, and they were repulsed after a severe conflict, in
+which Stahrenberg himself was wounded. The attack was not repeated in
+force till the night of Aug. 3, when the troops of the pasha of
+Temeswar, and a select body of janissaries under their _houlkiaya_ or
+lieutenant-general, rushed with such fury upon the ruined rampart, that
+though four times driven back, they at last succeeded in effecting a
+lodgement in the ravelin, and threw up parapets to screen themselves
+from the fire of the walls. The city, meanwhile, was repeatedly set on
+fire by bombs thrown from the Turkish batteries; and during the
+confusion arising from one of these partial conflagrations, a fresh mine
+was run under the angle of the court bastion, and sprung with such
+effect as to cause a practicable breach. The quantity of powder,
+however, had been so greatly over calculated that great part recoiled
+among the Turks and the garrison, by a well-timed sortie, did great
+damage to the enemy's works. Before the breach, however, could be
+repaired, the janissaries, recovering from their panic, again assailed
+it, and, after a desperate struggle, established themselves in the ditch
+and front of the bastion, while the defenders endeavoured, by changing
+the direction of their guns, to enfilade the ground thus won by the
+enemy, so as to prevent their penetrating into the interior, which now
+lay open to them.
+
+Great had been the panic throughout Europe at the advance of the Turks
+into Austria, and their appearance before Vienna. The infidel host was
+magnified, by the exaggerations of popular terror, to the number of
+100,000 horse and 600,000 foot! And it was doubted whether, after
+destroying the power of the House of Hapsburg, the vizir would march to
+the Rhine, and annihilate the remaining strength of Christendom by the
+overthrow of Louis XIV., or would cross the Alps to fulfil the famous
+threat of Bayezid I., by stabbing his horse before the high altar of St
+Peter's. Even among those better qualified to take a calm view of the
+state of affairs, little hope was entertained that Vienna could hold out
+till the armies of Poland and the empire could be collected in
+sufficient force for its relief, if the Turks continued to press the
+siege with that vigour and stubborn perseverance, the combination of
+which in the attack of fortified places had hitherto been one of their
+most remarkable military characteristics. But Kara-Mustapha, deficient
+alike in martial experience and personal courage, was little qualified
+either to stimulate the fanatic ardour of the Ottomans or to guide it to
+victory. While within the wide enclosure of his own tents, carefully
+pitched beyond the range of cannon-shot from the ramparts, he maintained
+a household and harem of such luxurious magnificence as none of the
+sultans had ever carried with them into the field, the rations of the
+soldiers were reduced, on the pretext that the supplies expected from
+Hungary had been intercepted by the garrisons of Raab and the other
+towns on the Danube, which still held out for the emperor; and so little
+did he care to disguise his apprehensions for his own safety, that he
+visited the lines only in a litter rendered musket-proof by plates and
+lattices of iron! Whether he entertained the wild design, as asserted by
+Cantemir, (whose authority, as that of a contemporary, may in this case
+perhaps deserve some credit,) of throwing off his allegiance to the
+sultan, and erecting an independent _Western Empire_ of the Ottomans in
+Austria and Hungary, or whether he was simply instigated by his avarice
+to preserve the imagined treasures of the capital of the German C�sars
+from the pillage which must follow from its being taken by storm--he no
+sooner saw the imperial city apparently within his grasp, than he
+restrained, instead of encouraging, the spirit of the troops,
+endeavouring rather to wear out the garrison by an endless succession of
+petty alarms, than to carry the place at once by assault. The murmurs of
+the soldiers, who even refused to remain in the trenches, were with
+difficulty quieted by the exhortations of Wani-Effendi, a celebrated
+Moslem divine, who had accompanied the army in order to share in the
+merit of the _holy war_--while the remonstrances of the pashas and
+generals were silenced by the exhibition of the sultan's
+_khatt-shereef_, which conferred on the vizir plenary powers for the
+conduct of the war.
+
+While Kara Mustapha thus lay inactive in his lines before Vienna,
+Tekoeli, who had been detached with his Hungarian followers and an
+auxiliary Turkish corps to reduce the castle of Presburg, which held out
+after the surrender of the town, had been defeated by the Duke of
+Lorraine, aided by a body of Polish cavalry under Lubomirski, the
+forerunners of the army now assembling at Cracow. All the European
+princes, meanwhile, with the exception of Louis XIV., who, even in the
+danger of their common faith, forgot not his hostility to the house of
+Hapsburg, vied with each other in forwarding the equipment of the host
+which was to save the bulwark of Christendom. The cardinals at Rome sold
+their plate to supply funds for the German levies; Cardinal Barberini
+alone contributed 20,000 florins, and the Pope was profuse in his
+indulgences to those who joined the new crusade. The emperor, meanwhile,
+from his retreat at Passau, was abject in his entreaties to Sobieski for
+speedy succour, offering to cede to him his rights upon Hungary if he
+could preserve his Austrian capital; but the zeal of the Polish hero
+needed no stimulus. Though so disabled by the gout as to be unable to
+mount his horse without help, he was indefatigable in his exertions to
+hasten the march of his troops, to whom he gave the rendezvous, "Under
+the counterscarp at Vienna." On his march into Germany, he was every
+where received as a deliverer; the Jesuits of Olmutz erected, at his
+entrance into the town, a triumphal arch, with the inscription,
+"Salvatorem expectamus;" and all hailed, as a sure omen of victory, the
+presence of the champion whose very name had become a byword of terror
+among the Turks. The beleaguered garrison was, meanwhile, cheered by
+frequent messages promising speedy relief from the Duke of Lorraine,
+whose emissaries, selected for their knowledge of the Turkish language,
+contrived to pass and re-pass securely; but an epidemic disease, in
+addition to the sword and the bombardment, was rapidly thinning their
+numbers; and Callonitz, bishop of Neustadt, who, in his younger days,
+had gained distinction against the Turks in Candia, now acquired a
+holier fame by his pious care of the sick and wounded, who crowded the
+hospitals and houses. The siege had been languidly carried on during the
+greater part of August, but at the end of the month fresh symptoms of
+activity were observed in the Ottoman lines; several mines were sprung
+on the 27th and 28th, and the fire from the batteries was so warmly kept
+up, that on the 29th the garrison, conjecturing that the anniversary of
+the battle of Mohacz had been chosen for the general assault, stood to
+their arms in anxious suspense. But the day passed over without any
+alarm, and it was not till September 4, that, having blown up great part
+of the right face of the court bastion by a powerful mine, 5000 of the
+_�lite_ of the janissaries sprang, sword in hand, with loud shouts and
+the clangour of martial music, into the breach thus made, and forcing
+their way, with the fanatic valour which had in their best days
+characterized the sons of Hadji-Bektash, into the interior of the
+bastion, planted their _bairahs_, or pennons, on the ruined ramparts.
+Stahrenberg himself, with his officers and guards, was fortunately going
+the rounds at the menaced point at the moment of the explosion and
+assault, but the Osmanlis held firm the ground they had gained; and
+Stahrenberg, seeing the enemy thus fairly established within the
+defences, directed barriers to be constructed and trenches sunk at the
+head of the streets nearest the breach, while thirty rockets, fired in
+the night from the steeple of St Stephen's Domkirch, announced the
+extremity of their distress to their approaching friends; and all eyes
+were turned to the rocky heights of the Kahlenberg, which bounded the
+prospect to the west, in hope of descrying the standards of the
+Christian army.
+
+It was at Tuln, six leagues above Vienna, that Sobieski received, the
+day after this assault, a despatch from Stahrenberg, containing only the
+words--"There is no time to be lost!" On the 6th the Poles passed the
+river by the bridge of Tuln, and the king, amazed at the supineness of
+the vizir in suffering this movement to be effected without molestation,
+exclaimed, "Against such a general the victory is already gained!"--and
+advanced as to an assured triumph. Though far inferior in numbers to the
+Turks, who, after all their losses by the sword and desertion, still
+mustered 120,000 effective men, when passed in review on the 8th by the
+vizir, it was in truth a gallant army which Sobieski now saw united
+under his command. The Imperialists, under the Duke of Lorraine, were
+not more than 20,000; but the Saxons and Bavarians, led by their
+respective electors, and the contingents of the lesser states of the
+empire, with the fiery hussars and cuirassiers of Poland, formed an
+aggregate of 65,000 men, more than half of whom were cavalry; while in
+the ranks were found, besides the German chivalry who fought for their
+fatherland, many noble volunteers, who had hastened from Spain and Italy
+to share in the glories anticipated under the leadership of Sobieski.
+Among these illustrious auxiliaries was a young hero, who had escaped
+from France in defiance of the mandate of Louis XIV., to flesh his
+maiden sword in view of the Polish king, and who at a later period,
+under the well-known name of Prince Eugene, himself earned deathless
+fame by his achievements against those redoubted enemies, whose first
+great overthrow he was destined to witness.
+
+On the evening of the 10th the two armies were separated only by the
+ridge of the Kahlenberg, and the thick forests covering its sides; and a
+still more urgent message arrived from the governor, who intimated that
+he had little chance of repelling another assault. "On the same night,
+however," (says the diary of a Dutch officer in the garrison,) "we saw
+on the hills many fires, and rockets thrown up, as signals of our
+approaching succours, which we joyfully answered in like manner ... and
+next day the Turks were moving, and their cavalry riding about in
+confusion, till about four P.M. we saw several of their regiments
+drawing off towards the hills, and those in Leopoldstadt marching over
+the bridge." The knowledge, indeed, that the terrible Sobieski was at
+the head of the Christian army, had spread such a panic among the
+Osmanli, that several thousands left the camp the same night; but
+Kara-Mustapha, though urged by all his officers to march with his whole
+force to meet the coming storm, contented himself with sending 10,000
+men, under Kara-Ibrahim, pasha of Buda, to watch the Poles, while the
+rest were kept in their lines before the city, which was cannonaded with
+redoubled fury throughout the 11th and the night following. The summits
+of the Kahlenberg glittered with the arms of the confederates, who
+bivouacked there during the night, being unable to pitch their tents
+from the violence of the wind, which Sobieski, in one of his letters to
+his queen, (his "charmante et bien aim�e Mariette,") says, was
+attributed by the soldiers to the incantations of the vizir, "who is
+known to be a great magician." From the top of the Leopoldsberg, the
+king and the Duke of Lorraine reconnoitred the Turkish camp, which lay
+in all its wide extent before them, from the opposite skirts of the
+Wienerberg almost to the foot of the ridge on which they stood, with the
+lofty pavilions and scarlet screens of the vizir's quarters conspicuous
+in the midst, while the incessant roar of the artillery rose from the
+midst of the smoke which enveloped the city.
+
+At five in the morning of the 12th, the sound of musketry was heard from
+the thickets and wooded ravines at the foot of the Kahlenberg, where the
+Saxons were already engaged with the Turkish division under
+Ibrahim-Pasha; and the king, having heard mass on the Leopoldsberg from
+his chaplain Aviano, mounted his favourite sorrel charger, and, preceded
+by his son James, whom he had just dubbed a knight in front of the army,
+and by his esquire bearing his shield and banner, led the Poles, who
+held the right of the allied line, down the slopes of the mountain. The
+left wing, which lay nearest the river, was commanded by the Duke of
+Lorraine, and the columns in the centre were under the orders of the two
+electors, and the Dukes of Saxe-Lauenburg and Eisenach. By eight A.M.
+the action had become warm along the skirts of the Kahlenberg--the
+Turks, who were principally horse, dismounting to fight on foot behind
+hastily-constructed abattis of trees and earth, as the nature of the
+ground was unfavourable to cavalry, and keeping up a heavy fire on the
+enemy while they were entangled in the ravines. The ardour of the
+Christians, however, speedily overcame these obstacles; and by ten A.M.,
+their van was debouching from the defiles into the plain with loud
+shouts of battle; and the Turks, though from time to time receiving
+reinforcements from the camp, were gradually obliged to give ground. The
+vizir, meanwhile, remaining immovable in his tent, directed a fresh
+cannonade to be directed against the city, under cover of which a
+general assault was to be made; but the long files of camels laden with
+the spoils of Austria, which were sent off in haste on the road to
+Hungary, revealed his secret disquietude--and the troops in the
+trenches, effectually disheartened by the delay and privations of the
+siege, showed little inclination again to advance against the shattered
+bastions. The towers and steeples of Vienna were thronged with anxious
+spectators, who with throbbing hearts watched the advance of their
+deliverers, who pressed on at all points, "making the Turks give way"
+(says the diary above quoted) "whenever they came to a shock." The
+villages of Nussdorff and Heiligenstadt on the Danube, where several
+_odas_ of janissaries, with heavy cannon, were posted, checked for some
+time the progress of the Austrians on the left; the Duc de Croye, a
+gallant French volunteer, fell in leading the attack, but a body of
+Polish cuirassiers were at last sent to their aid, who, levelling their
+lances, and dashing with loud shouts against the flank of the Turkish
+batteries, carried the position, and put the defenders to the sword. It
+was not so much a battle, as a series of desperate but irregular
+skirmishes scattered over wide extent of ground--the Turkish troops (who
+were almost all cavalry, as most of the regulars and artillery were
+still in the camp) gradually receding before the heavy advancing columns
+of the Christians. By four P.M. they were driven so close to their
+intrenchments, that Sobieski could descry the vizir, seated in a small
+crimson tent, and tranquilly drinking coffee with his two sons. At this
+moment, a torrent of the wild cavalry of the Tartars, headed by the khan
+in person, poured forth from the Moslem lines, and thundered upon the
+right of the Poles, only to recoil in disorder before the lances of
+Iablonowski and the Lithuanians, who pushed in pursuit close to a deep
+ravine, which covered the redoubts of the Turks. But the khan had
+recognized in the m�l�e the well-known figure of Sobieski, whose
+personal presence had been as yet uncertain. "By Allah!" said he to the
+vizir on his return from his unsuccessful charge, "the heavens have
+fallen upon us; for the ill-omened _kral_ of the _Leh_ (Poles) of a
+truth is with the infidels!"
+
+The Turks were now every where driven within their lines, and the battle
+appeared over for the day; but the Poles, with cries of triumph,
+demanded to be led to the attack of the camp, and Sobieski exclaiming,
+"Not unto us, O Lord, but to thy name be the praise!" directed the
+assault. In a moment the Polish chivalry spurred up the steep side of
+the ravine in the teeth of the Turkish artillery--a redoubt in the
+centre of the lines was stormed through the gorge by Maligny,
+brother-in-law of the king--the Pashas of Aleppo and Silistria, whose
+prowess sustained the fainting courage of their troops, were slain in
+the front of the battle--and, after a conflict of less than an hour, the
+whole vast array of the Osmanlis, pierced through the centre by the
+onset of the Polish lances, gave way in hopeless, irremediable
+confusion, and, abandoning their camp, artillery, and baggage, fled in
+wild confusion on the road to Hungary. By 6 P.M. the Polish King reached
+the tent of the vizir; but Kara-Mustapha had not awaited the arrival of
+the victor. In an agony of despair at the mighty ruin which he now saw
+to be inevitable, he gave the barbarous order (which was but partially
+executed) for the massacre of the women of his harem, to prevent
+their falling into the hands of the enemy; and, seizing the
+Sandjak-shereef,[H] mounted an Arabian camel of surpassing swiftness,
+and accompanied, or perhaps preceded, the flight of his army. Such was
+the panic haste of the rout, that, before sunset the next day, the whole
+host swept past the walls of Raab, the garrison of which thus gained the
+first tidings of the catastrophe--nor have the crimson banners of the
+crescent been ever again seen on the soil of Germany.
+
+From the desultory character of the action, in which little use was made
+of artillery, and the headlong dismay in which the Turks at last took to
+flight, not more than 10,000 of their number, according to the most
+probable accounts, fell in the battle; of the allies, scarcely 3000 were
+killed or wounded. Three hundred pieces of cannon of various calibres,
+many of them taken in former wars by the Turks, and still bearing the
+arms of Poland or the empire--a countless quantity of arms, ammunition,
+and warlike implements of all kinds--were found in the abandoned
+intrenchments; and the abundance of cattle, with the amply stored
+magazines of provisions, afforded instant relief to the famine from
+which the citizens had been for some time suffering.
+
+Surrounded by a vast crowd, who hailed him with enthusiastic
+acclamations as their deliverer, and thronged each other with a zeal
+approaching adoration, to kiss his hand or his stirrup, Sobieski entered
+Vienna through the breach on the morning of September 13, in company
+with the Duke of Lorraine and the electoral Prince of Bavaria, and with
+the horsetails found before the tent of the vizir borne in triumph
+before him; and having met and saluted Stahrenberg, repaired with him to
+a chapel in the church of the Augustin friars, to return thanks for the
+victory. As he entered the church, a priest cried aloud in an ecstacy of
+fervour--"There was a man sent from God whose name was John," and this
+text, which in past ages had been applied to the Hungarian paladin, John
+Hunyades, was again employed by the preachers throughout Europe, in
+celebration of the new champion of Christendom, John Sobieski. Far
+different to the entry of the Polish king was the return of the Emperor
+Leopold to his rescued capital. He had quitted it as a fugitive, amid
+the execrations of the people, who accused him of having drawn on them
+the storm of invasion, without providing means to ward off the
+destruction which threatened them; and having descended the Danube in a
+boat, he re-entered the city on the 14th in the guise of a penitent,
+proceeding on foot, with a taper in his hand, to the cathedral of St
+Stephen, where he knelt before the high altar in acknowledgement of his
+deliverance. But neither from his misfortunes, nor from his returning
+prosperity, had Leopold learned the lesson of gratitude or humility. He
+even attempted at first to evade an interview with Sobieski, on the
+ground that an elective king had never been received on terms of
+equality by an emperor of Germany: and, when this unworthy plea was
+overruled by the honest indignation of the Duke of Lorraine, the meeting
+of the two monarchs was formal and embarrassed: and Sobieski, disgusted
+at the meanness and arrogance of the prince who owed to him the
+preservation of his capital and throne, hastily cut short the
+conference, by deputing to his chancellor Zaluski the task of showing to
+Leopold the troops who had saved his empire; and departed on the 17th
+with his noble colleague in arms, the Duke of Lorraine, to follow up
+their triumphs by attacking the Turks in Hungary.
+
+The battle of Vienna effectually broke the spell of the Ottoman military
+ascendancy, which for near three centuries had held Europe in awe;--and
+though the energies of the empire, and the efficacy of its institutions,
+had long been gradually decaying, it was this great blow which first
+revealed the secret of its impaired strength. The treaty of Zurawno with
+Poland in 1676, had raised the Ottoman dominions to the highest point of
+territorial extent which they ever attained. From the time of the
+reunion of the empire, after the confusion following the defeat of
+Bayezid I. by Timour, every reign had seen its boundaries enlarged by
+successive acquisitions; and if we except the voluntary abandonment, in
+1636, of the remote and unprofitable province of Yemen, the horsetails
+had never receded from any territory on which they had been planted in
+token of permanent occupation. Besides the vast territories which were
+under the immediate rule of pashas sent from the Porte, and which the
+land and capitation taxes (_ssalyaneh_ and _kharatch_,) the khan of the
+Krim Tartars, the otaman of the Cossacks, the vassal princes of
+Transylvania, Moldavia, and Wallachia, the hereditary chiefs of the
+Circassian and Koordish tribes, and the rulers of the Barbary regencies,
+were all "under the shadow of the imperial horsetails," and paid tribute
+and allegiance to the sultan, who might boast, with no less justice than
+did the monarchs of the Seljookian Turks of old, that a crowd of princes
+arose from the dust of his footsteps. During the reign of Mohammed IV.,
+the last relics of Venetian rule in the Levant had been extirpated by
+the conquest of Candia; the frontiers in Hungary and Transylvania had
+been strengthened by the acquisition of the important fortresses of
+Grosswardein and Neuhausel, with the territory attached to them; while
+Poland had been deprived of the province through which she had access to
+the undefended points of the Ottoman frontier, and the Cossacks, from
+restless and intractable enemies, had been converted into friends and
+auxiliaries. In the domestic administration, also, the wisdom and
+clemency of Ahmed-Kiuprili, supported by a corresponding disposition on
+the part of the sultan, who was naturally averse to measures of
+severity, had introduced a spirit of moderation and equity unknown in
+the Ottoman annals. Such was the condition of the foreign relations and
+internal government of the Turkish empire at the juncture immediately
+preceding the death of Ahmed-Kiuprili, whose life closed (as mentioned
+above) within a few days of the conclusion of the peace of Zurawno:--and
+the coincidence of this highest point of territorial aggrandizement and
+domestic prosperity, with the last days of the great minister who had so
+principal a share in producing them, would almost justify the
+superstitious belief, that the star of the Kiuprilis was in sooth the
+protecting talisman of the Ottoman state, and inseparably connected with
+its welfare and splendour.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote B: The Poles were sometimes called _Lechi_, from Lech, the
+name of one of their ancient kings.]
+
+[Footnote C: Von Hammer describes him, without quoting his authority, as
+of lofty stature, and extremely fair complexion; but Rycaut's personal
+acquaintance insures his correctness.]
+
+[Footnote D: He subsequently became grand-vizir, and was killed at the
+battle of Salankaman in 1691.]
+
+[Footnote E: This name in western parlance would be Gabriel de Bethlen;
+in Hungary, the Christian _follows_ the surname.]
+
+[Footnote F: The anonymous biographer of Tekoeli, believed to be M.
+Leclerc.]
+
+[Footnote G: After the defeat of the Turks, Scherban Cantacuzene opened
+a correspondence with the Emperor and the King of Poland, setting forth
+his hereditary claim to the imperial crown of Constantinople in the
+event of their expulsion from Europe! but his intrigues became known to
+the Ottoman ministry, and he is supposed to have been taken off by
+poison.]
+
+[Footnote H: A _crimson_ banner was again sent to Rome as the
+Sandjak-shereef, as the green one of Hussein had been after the victory
+of Choczim.]
+
+
+
+
+EXHIBITIONS
+
+
+British art is in a transition state. Remembering many a year past our
+Academy Exhibitions, and the general, the family resemblance the works
+bore to each other, the little variety either in style or execution; and
+of later years noticing the gradual change, the adoption of a new class
+of subjects, and more varied styles; we are yet struck with the manifest
+difference between the present and any other we ever remember to have
+seen. There is, in fact, more originality. There are, indeed, mannerists
+enough; and we mean not here to use the word in its reprehensive sense
+but they stand more alone. There are far fewer imitators--some, of
+course, there must be, but they are chiefly in those classes where
+imitation is less easily avoided. Common-place subjects will ever be
+treated in a common-place manner, and resemble each other. Few venture
+now to follow even erratic genius in its wild vagaries. Turner has no
+rivals in the "dissolving view" style. By those who look to one or two
+favourite masters, who have hitherto given the character to our
+exhibitions, perhaps some disappointment may be felt. Edwin Landseer has
+but two pictures--Sir Augustus Calleott not one; and herein is a great
+loss, speaking not with reference to his very late pictures, his English
+landscape, or even his Italian views, but in vivid recollection of his
+fascinating river views, with their busy boats, under illuminating
+skies, such as, alas! he has ceased to paint.
+
+With regard to landscape, we progress slowly. Yet we fancy we can
+perceive indications there, that are of a better promise; although of
+the higher class of landscape there is not one this year. The promise is
+in the pencil of Creswick. He labours to unite great finish, too minute
+finish, with breadth and boldness of effect. His is unquestionably a new
+style; his subjects are all pleasing, bordering on the poetical; we only
+question if his aim at minute finishing does not challenge a scrutiny
+into the accuracy and infinite variety of the detail of nature, that few
+pictures ought to require, and his certainly do not satisfy the demand.
+For, after all, there is a great sameness, where there ought to be
+variety, particularly in his foliage: it is safer, by a greater
+generality, to leave much to the imagination. We do not, however, mean
+to quarrel with this his peculiar style, nor to limit its power. There
+is something yet not achieved.
+
+Mr Maclise has likewise originated a new style, and if not altogether a
+new class of subjects, one so richly, so luxuriantly treated as to be
+fairly considered new. He has given to humour a gentle satire, and more
+especially to works of creative fancy an historical importance; for
+herein he is essentially different from all other painters of this
+class, that none of his pieces, we might almost say none of his figures,
+are, or pretend to be, real life. If it be said that they are
+theatrical, we know not but that the term expresses their merit; for as
+Sir Joshua has well observed, there must be in the theatrical a certain
+ideal--which is, nevertheless, the higher representative of nature. Mr
+Maclise has adopted the elaborate finish and lavish ornament, but with
+so much breadth, and powerful execution, that the display scarcely
+offends--and he generally seeks subjects that will bear it. As a fault
+it was conspicuous in his Lady Macbeth: the strong emotions of that
+banquet-scene are of too hurrying, too absorbent a nature, to admit
+either the conspicuous multiplicity of parts, or the excess of ornament
+which that work exhibited. It was the very perfection of the "Sleeping
+Beauty," and singularly enough, begat a repose; for the mind was
+fascinated into the notion of the long sleep, by the very leisure
+required and taken to examine the all-quiescent detail.
+
+May we not call the style of Mr Redgrave original? perhaps more so in
+his execution than his subject. He has appropriated the elegant
+familiar. Many are the painters we might name under whose hands the arts
+are advancing; those we have named, however, appear to us to be more or
+less the chief originators of new styles. Nor does it follow from this
+that their pictures are always the best in any exhibition, though they
+may be generally found so to be. If we are to congratulate the world of
+art on the particular advancement of this year, we shall certainly limit
+our praise to one picture, because it is the picture of the year; and it
+is a wondrous improvement upon all our former historical attempts.
+Whoever has visited the Exhibition will at once know that we allude to
+Mr Poole's "Plague of London." There has not been so powerful a picture
+painted in this country since the best days of Sir Joshua Reynolds. For
+its power we compare it with the "Ugolino" of the President, and we do
+so the more readily as both pictures are now publicly exhibited. Unlike
+as they are, unquestionably, in many respects, and painted indeed on
+opposite principles, regarding the mechanical methods and colour; yet
+for power, for pathos, they come into competition. The subject chosen by
+Mr Poole was one of much more difficulty, more complication: he has had,
+therefore, much more to do, much more to overcome; and he has succeeded.
+Both, possibly, to a certain extent, were imitators, yet both possessing
+a genius that made the works their own creations. Sir Joshua saw
+Rembrandt in every motion of his hand; and Mr Poole was not unconscious
+of Nicolo Poussin in the design and execution of his "Plague." This is
+not said to the disparagement of either painter; on the contrary, we
+should augur ill of that man's genius who would be more ambitious to be
+thought original in all things than of painting a good picture. Great
+minds will be above this little ambition. Raffaelle borrowed without
+scruple from those things that were done well before him, a whole
+figure, and even a group; yet the result was ever a work that none could
+ever suspect to be by any hand but Raffaelle's. In saying that Mr Poole
+has seen Nicolo Poussin, we do not mean to insinuate more than that
+fact: others may say more; and, depreciating a work of surprising power,
+and that, too, coming from an artist who has hitherto exhibited nothing
+to be compared with it, will add that he has stolen it from Nicolo
+Poussin. This we boldly deny. The works of Nicolo Poussin of similar
+subjects are well known, and wonderful works they are; we need mention
+but two--the one in the National Gallery, the "Plague of Ashdod," and
+that in the collection of P.S. Miles, Esq., and exhibited last year at
+the British Institution, and which is engraved in Forster's work. We do
+not believe that one group or single figure in Mr Poole's picture can be
+shown in these or any others of Poussin. And in the conception there is
+a striking difference. Mr Poole's subject, though we have called it the
+"Plague of London," is not, strictly speaking, the awfulness and the
+disgust of that dire malady, but the insanity of the fanatic Solomon
+Eagle, taking a divine, an almost Pythean impress from its connexion
+with that woful and appalling mystery. This being his subject, he has
+judiciously omitted much of that dreadfully disgusting detail, which
+_his_ subject compelled Poussin to force upon the spectator. There is,
+therefore, in Mr Poole's picture more to excite our wonder and pity than
+disgust; nay, there is even room for the exhibition of tender,
+sensitive, apprehensive, scarcely suffering beauty, and set off by
+contrasts not too strong; so that nothing impedes the mind in, or draws
+it off from, the contemplation of the madman--here more than madman, the
+maniac made inspired by the belief of the spectator in denunciations
+which appear verifying themselves visibly before him. It is this feeling
+which makes the crazed one grand, heroic, and which constitutes this
+picture an historical work of a high class. It is far more than a
+collection of incidents in a plague; it is the making the plague itself
+but an accessory. The theme is of the madness that spreads its
+bewilderment on all around, as its own of right, as cause and effect--a
+bewilderment that works beyond the frame, and will not let the beholder
+question its fanatic power. We will endeavour to describe the picture,
+but first, take the subject from the catalogue:--"Solomon Eagle
+exhorting the People to Repentance, during the Plague of the Year 1665.
+P. F. Poole.--'I suppose the world has heard of the famous Solomon
+Eagle, an enthusiast; he, though not infected at all, but in his head,
+went about denouncing of judgment upon the city in a frightful manner,
+sometimes quite naked and with a pan of burning charcoal on his
+head.'--See DE FOE'S _Narrative of the Plague in London_." The scene is
+supposed to be in that part of London termed "Alsatia," so well
+described by Sir Walter Scott--the refuge of the destitute and criminal.
+Here are groups of the infected, the dying, the callous, the
+despairing--a miserable languor pervades them all. The young--the
+aged--the innocent--the profligate. One sedate and lovely female is
+seeking consolation from the sacred book, beside whom sits her father--a
+grand figure, in whose countenance is a fixed intensity of worldly care,
+that alone seems to keep life within his listless body, next him is a
+young mother, with her dying child, and close behind him a maiden,
+hiding her face, whose eye alone is seen, distended and in vacant gaze.
+We feel that this is a family group, perhaps the broken remnant of a
+family, awaiting utter desolation. Behind the group are two very
+striking figures--a man bewildered, and more than infected, escaping
+from the house, within the doorway of which we see, written in red
+characters, "Lord have mercy upon us," and the cross; the nurse is
+endeavouring to detain him. Nothing can be finer than the action and
+expression in both figures--the horror of the nurse, and fever energy of
+the escaped, in whose countenance, never to be forgotten, is the
+personification of plague-madness. It is recorded that such a one did so
+escape, swam across the Thames, and recovered. Beyond these are
+revellers, a dissolute band, card-playing. In the midst of the game one
+is smitten with the plague, and is falling back--one starts with horror
+at the sudden seizure--a stupid, drunken indifference marks the
+others--they had been waiting for a feast, which one is bringing in, who
+stands just above the falling figure, who will never partake of it.
+Quite in the background, and behind a low wall, are conveyers of the
+dead, carrying along a body. This describes the left of the picture. To
+the right, and near the middle, is a dying boy, leaning upon a man, who
+is suddenly roused, and rising to hear the denunciations of Solomon
+Eagle. At his back are two lovely female figures, sisters we should
+suppose, the younger one dying, supported by the sister's knee, who sits
+with crossed hands, as if in almost hopeless prayer. Beyond is a
+wretched man, with his head resting upon his hand, in a fixed state of
+stupid indifference; above whom are several figures, mostly of the lower
+grade, in the various stages of infection or recovery. They are sitting
+before the window of a house, through the panes of which we see
+indistinctly one raving, while from the same house a dead body is being
+let down from above, and in the background are the dead-cart and the
+carriers. At the feet of the figures by the house lie others, in all the
+langour of disease and feverish watchfulness. Among these persons are
+various shades of character, apparently all from nature, each one,
+artistically speaking, representing a class, and yet with such a stamp
+of individual nature, that we are satisfied they must have been taken
+from life. In this respect they resemble Raffaelle's beggars at the
+"Beautiful Gate," in their admirable generality an individuality. Two
+are very striking--an odd, stiff-looking old man, with a beard, whose
+marked profile is of the old cheat; he is observing the escape of the
+man on the opposite side of the picture, and the woman at his side,
+whose face is turned upwards, one-half an idiot, and all-wicked. We
+cannot help thinking that we have seen these two characters. It is,
+perhaps, the skill of the painter that has so represented the class that
+we have the conviction of the individuals. So far the scene is prepared
+for the principal _dramatis person�_; and so far we have only the
+calamity of the Plague, not in its scenes of turbulence, but kept down
+under an awful and quiet expectation of doom; so that, were the two
+principal figures obliterated, we should say the scene is yet but a
+preparation, awaiting the master figures to mark its true impression and
+feeling, constituting the subject of the picture. These principal
+figures are Solomon Eagle and his attendant; they are placed judiciously
+in the centre of the picture, in no part intercepted. Solomon Eagle
+hurries into the picture with a book in one hand, the other raised, as
+pointing to the heavens, from whence come the denunciations he
+pronounces: on his head is a pan of burning charcoal. He is naked,
+excepting his waist. His very attitude is insane--we need not look at
+his face to see that; the fore-finger, starting off from the others, is
+of mad action, and similar is the energy of the projected foot. The
+attitude is of one with a fixed purpose, one under an imaginary divine
+commission; it is of entire faith and firmness; and never was such
+insanity more finely conceived in a countenance. The man is all crazed,
+and grand, awfully grand, in his craziness. He throws around him an
+infection of craziness, as does the atmosphere of plague. There is a
+peculiar look in the eye, which shows the most consummate skill of the
+painter. The finger starts up as with an electric power, as if it could
+draw down the vengeance which it communicates. We mentioned the
+attendant figure--not that he is conscious of her presence. She is
+mysterious, veiled, a masked mystery--a walking tale of plague, woe, and
+desolation--a wandering, lonely, decayed gentlewoman: we read her
+history in her look, and in her walk. Her relations have all been
+smitten, swept away by the pestilence; her mind is made callous by utter
+misery; she wanders about careless, without any motive; a childish
+curiosity may be her pleasure, any incident to divert thoughts that make
+her sensible of her own bereavement. She stops to listen to the
+denunciations of the crazed prophet, and herself partakes, though
+callously, of his insanity--half believes, but scarcely feels. The sky
+is lurid, pestilential; it touches with plague what it illuminates. Such
+is the picture in its design. The colouring is quite in accordance with
+the purpose, and completes the sentiment; there is much of a green tone,
+yet under great variety. There is very great knowledge shown in it of
+artistical design, and the art of disposing lines; the groups, kept
+sufficiently distinct, yet have connecting links with each other; and
+there are general lines that bring all within the compass of one
+subject. Now, what, after all, is the impression on the mind of the
+spectator? for it is not enough to paint plague or madness: unless our
+human sympathy be touched, we turn away in disgust. Yet upon this
+picture we look with pleasure. Many whom we have heard say they could
+not bear to look at it, we found again and again standing before it:
+some we questioned; and at last they acknowledged pleasure. So are we
+moved at tragedy: human sympathies are moved--the great natural source
+of all our pleasures: pity and tenderness, and a sense of the awfulness
+of a great mystery, are upon us; and though pleased be too light a word,
+yet we are pleased; and where we are so pleased, we are made better. We
+feel the good flowing in upon us; and were not the busy scene of the
+multitudes in an exhibition, and the general glare, distracting, and
+discordant to the feeling such a picture is calculated to convey, we
+could enter calmly and deeply into its enjoyment. We have given, at much
+length, a description of the picture, because we think it a work of more
+importance than any that has, we would say ever, been exhibited upon the
+Academy walls--one of more decided commanding genius. There are faults
+in it doubtless, some of drawing, but not of much importance. We look to
+the mind in it--to its real greatness of manner, and we believe it to be
+a work of which the nation may be proud; and were we to look for a
+parallel, we must go to some of the best works of the best painters of
+the best ages. We were surprised to find that so small a sum as L 400
+was set upon the picture--and more so that it was not sold. We regret
+that there is no power in the directors of our National Gallery to buy
+occasionally a modern production. Is there, in that gallery, one work of
+a British painter in any way equal to it?
+
+There are only two pictures by Mr Maclise--they sustain his reputation.
+
+"The Actress's reception of the Author."--"He advanced into the room
+trembling and confused, and let his gloves and cloak fall, which having
+taken up, he approached my mistress, and presented to her a paper with
+more respect than that of a counsellor when he delivers a petition to a
+judge, saying, "Be so good, madam, as to accept of this part, which I
+take the liberty to offer." She received it in a cold and disdainful
+manner, with out even deigning to answer his compliments.'-_Gil Blas_,
+c. xi."
+
+The picture here is the luxuriantly beautiful and insolent prima-donna;
+we could wish that much of the picture, many of the "figures to let,"
+were away. There is a continuous flowing of graceful lines, in this one
+figure, with much breadth, that give it a largeness of style, extremely
+powerful. She luxuriates in pride, insolence, and beauty. The expression
+is perfect; nor is it confined to her face--it is in every limb and
+feature. The poor despised author bows low and submissive--and is even
+looked at contemptuously by a pet dressed monkey, pampered, and eating
+fruit: a good satire; the fruit to the unworthy--the brute before the
+genius. There is the usual display, the usual elaborate finish; but it
+is perhaps a little harder, with more sudden transitions from brown to
+white than commonly to be found in Mr Maclise's works.
+
+"Waterfall at St. Nighton's, Kieve, near Tintagel, Cornwall." A lovely
+girl crossing the rocky bed of a stream--attended by a dog, who is
+leaping from stone to stone. The action of the dog, his care in the act
+of springing, is admirable, and shows that Mr Maclise can paint all
+objects well. This is of the high pastoral: the lonely seclusion of the
+passage between rocks, the scene of the "Waterfall," is a most judicious
+background to the figure, which is large. It is most sweetly painted.
+
+We are glad to see Mr Ward, R. A., again in the Exhibition. His
+"Virgil's Bulls," is a subject poetically conceived. The whole landscape
+is in sympathy, waking, watchful sympathy, with the bulls in their
+conflict. Not a tree, nor a hill, nor a cloud in the sky but looks on as
+a spectator. All is in keeping. There is no violence in the colour,
+nothing to distract the attention from the noble animals--all is quiet,
+passive and observant. A less poetical mind would have given a bright
+blue, clear sky, and sparkling sunny grass; one more daring than
+judicious, might have placed the creatures in a turbulent scene of storm
+and uprooted ground; Mr Ward has given all the action to the
+combatants--you shall see nothing but them, and all nature shall be
+looking on as in a theatre of her own making. The subject is no less
+grand on the canvas than in the lines of the poet.
+
+We had fully intended to have omitted any mention of Mr Turner's strange
+productions; but we hear that a work has appeared, exalting him above
+all landscape painters that ever existed, by a graduate of the
+University of Oxford. Believing, then, that his style is altogether
+fallacious, and the extravagant praise mischievous, because none can
+deny him some fascinations of genius, which mislead, we think it right
+to comment upon his this year's works. Their subjects are taken from
+abstracts from a MS. poem, of which Mr Turner is, we presume, himself
+the author; for though somewhat more distinct and intelligible than his
+paint, they are obscure enough, and by their feet are as much out of the
+perspective of verse, as his objects are of that of lines. "The opening
+of the Wallhalla," is by far the best, indeed it has its beauties;
+distances are happily given: most absurd are the figures, and the
+inconceivable foreground. The catalogue announcement of No. 129 startled
+us. We expected to see "Bright Phoebus" himself poetically personating
+a doge, or a midshipman; for it points to the "Sun of Venice going to
+Sea." His "Shade and Darkness; or, the Evening of the Deluge," is the
+strangest of things--the first question we ask is, which is the shade
+and which the darkness? After the strictest scrutiny, we learn from this
+bit of pictorial history, that on the eve of the mighty Deluge, a
+Newfoundland dog was chained to a post, lest he should swim to the ark;
+that a pig had been drinking a bottle of wine--an anachronism, for
+certainly "as drunk as David's sow," was an after-invention: that men,
+women, and children, (such we suppose they are meant to be) slept a
+purple sleep, with most gigantic arms round little bodies; that there
+was fire that did not burn, and water that would nearly obliterate, but
+not drown. But more wonderful still is the information we pick up, or
+pick out bit by bit, as strange things glimmer into shape. "Light and
+Colour, (Goethe's Theory)--The Morning after the Deluge--Moses writing
+the book of Genesis." Such is the unexpected announcement of the
+catalogue. But further to account for so remarkable a jumble as we are
+to behold, Mr Turner adds the following verses:--
+
+    "The ark stood firm on Ararat: th' returning sun
+    Exhaled earth's humid bubbles, and, emulous of light,
+    Reflected her lost forms, each in prismatic guise,
+    Hope's harbinger, ephemeral as the summer fly,
+    Which rises, flits, expands, and dies."
+
+    _Fallacies of Hope, MS._
+
+This is unquestionably one of the "Fallacies of Hope"--for it is quite
+hopeless to make out, the sun smoking his cigar of colour, and exhaling
+earth's humid bubbles; yet we do see a great number of "bubble" heads,
+scratchy things, in red wigs, rolling and floating out of nothing into
+nothing. There must indeed have been very wondrous giants in those days;
+for here is an enormous leg, far beyond the "ex pede Herculem," rising
+up some leagues off far bigger than whole figures close at hand. But we
+learn the wonderful fact, that the morning after the Deluge, Moses,
+sitting upon nothing, possibly the sky, wrote the book of Genesis with a
+Perryian pen, and on Bath-post, and that he was so seen by Mr Turner in
+his own peculiar perspective-defying telescope--for so "_sedet,
+eternumque sedebit_," in the year 1843. We know that in this account of
+it we a little jumble past, present, and future; but so we the better
+describe the picture; for when the Deluge went, Chaos came. That we may
+the more easily recognize the historian, a serpent is dropping from him,
+hieroglyphically. Can Mr Turner be serious? or is he trying how far he
+may perpetrate absurdities, and get the world to believe them beauties,
+or that his practice is according to any "theory of colour!" His
+conceptions are such as would be dreams of gallipots of colours, were
+they endued with life, and the power of dreaming prodigies.
+
+There is unquestionably an impetus given to historical talent--and there
+is good proof that such talent is not wanting in this year's Exhibition;
+Mr Patten has chosen a very grand subject from the Inferno of Dante.
+"Dante, accompanied by Virgil in his descent to the Inferno, recognizes
+his three countrymen, Rusticucci, Aldobrandi, and Guidoguerra"--_Divina
+Commedia, Inferno._ The subject is finely conceived by Mr Patten. Virgil
+and Dante stand upon the edge of the fiery surge; they are noble and
+solemn figures. There is an abyss of flames below, that sends upward its
+whirling and tormenting storm, driven round and round, by which are seen
+the three countrymen. They are well grouped, and show the whirling
+motion of the fiery tempest; we should have preferred them more
+foreshortened, and such we think was the vision in Dante's mind's
+eye--for he says--
+
+    "Thus each one, as he wheel'd, his countenance
+    At me directed, _so that opposite
+    The neck moved ever to the twinkling feet_."
+
+There is great art in placing the large limb of one of the figures
+immediately over the fiercest centre of fire--it gives interminable
+space to the fiery sea--an this part of the picture is very daringly and
+awfully coloured. We rather object to the equal largeness and importance
+of all the figures; and perhaps the bodies are too smooth, showing too
+little of the punishment of flame--they are too quiescent. Dante says,
+"Ah me, what wounds I marked upon their limbs!" And Rusticucci, who
+addresses Dante, thus describes their bodies:
+
+    "'If woe of this unsound and dreary waste,'
+    Thus one began, 'added to our sad cheer
+    _Thus peel'd_ with flame.'"
+
+The persons of such sufferers should be Michael Angelesque--punishment
+and suffering should be equally _large_. We venture to suggest this
+criticism to Mr Patten, because the subject is grand, and there is so
+much good in his manner of treating it, that he will do well to paint
+another picture of it.
+
+Mr Etty has no less than seven pictures. His "In the Greenwood Shade" is
+by far the best. Cupid and sleeping nymphs--the rich and lucid colours,
+softly losing themselves in shade, and here and there playfully
+recovered, very much remind us of Correggio. We should more applaud Mr
+Etty for his general colouring, than for his flesh tints; nor have his
+figures in general the soft and luxuriant roundness which grace and
+beauty should have--the faces, too, have often too much purple shadow.
+We have before remarked that, painting too closely from the model, he
+exhibits Graces that have worn stays. And surely he often mistakenly
+enlarges the loveliest portion of the female form--the bosom--whose
+beauty is in its undefined commencement, its gentle and innocent and
+modest growth. How happily is this hit off by Dryden in his description
+of Iphigenia sleeping, to the gaze of the clown Cymon:--
+
+"As yet their places were but signified." While so many pictures of
+acknowledged merit are rejected for lack of room, it is scarcely fair,
+perhaps, for one artist to exhibit so many. Mr. Eastlake has, however,
+been too liberal to others in his forbearing modesty; we could wish he
+had not confined himself to one. He might offer the lioness's answer,
+were not his picture one most tenderly expressive of all gentleness. It
+is an old subject, but treated in no respect after the old manner. The
+boy is faint and weary, on the ground. Hagar, with a countenance of
+sweet anxiety, is giving the water, with a care, and with a view to the
+safety of the draught. There is a dead, dry, burnt palm-tree lying on
+the ground, poetically descriptive. The expression of both figures is
+perfect, and they are most sweetly, tenderly painted. If we might make
+any objection, it would be that the subject is not quite poetically
+treated as to colour. It may be, and we have no doubt it is, most true
+to nature in one sense. We can believe that such a country would have
+such a sky, and such appearance in foreground and distance; but that
+very truth creates to our mind's eye an anachronism--it brings down the
+tale of antiquity to very modernism--it robs it of its antique hue--it
+shows it too commonly, too familiarly. As _we read it_, we do not so see
+it; we are not so matter-of-fact. There is an ideal colouring that
+belongs to sentiment--our minds always adopt it. We have not as yet
+correctly worked out that theory, and therefore it is not enough in our
+practice. More particularly in this subject do we require something
+ideal in the manner, for few are equally true in the characters as in
+the external scene. Here, certainly, neither Hagar nor Ishmael are of
+their nation and country. It is too lovely a picture to wish touched.
+The remarks we venture upon may be applied to most modern pictures of
+ancient subjects, and may be worth consideration. There are two other
+pictures, very beautiful pictures, too, in the Exhibition, which have,
+we think, this defect--"Jephtha's Daughter, the last Day of Mourning. H.
+O. Neil;" and "Naomi and her Daughter-in-law. E. N. Eddis." The first,
+Jephtha's Daughter and her attendant maidens is a group of very lovely
+figures, extremely graceful, all breathing an air of purity; it is
+loveliness in many forms; for its conception as to chiaroscuro and
+colour, is most skilfully managed; but it has this present day's
+reality, and we only force ourselves to believe it Jephtha's Daughter.
+Exquisitely beautiful, too, is the affectionate, the very loving, Ruth.
+Orpah, too, is sweet, but the difference is well expressed--"Orpah
+kissed her mother-in-law, _but_ Ruth clave unto her." There is an
+unaffected simplicity about these figures that is quite charming, a
+simplicity of _manner_ well according with the simplicity of character;
+but has not the picture in colouring too much of this day's familiar
+air? In historical design both these pictures are a decided advance in
+art. We are giving promise.
+
+We could wish that Mr. Martin would not ruin his greatness by his
+littlenesses. There is often a large conception, that we overlook to
+examine interminable minuti� of parts, and mostly parts repeated; his
+figures are always injurious. His "Canute the Great rebuking his
+Courtiers" would have been a fine picture had he contented himself with
+the real subject--the sea. It is, indeed, crude in colour, and the
+coldness to the right ill agrees with the red heat on the left; but
+still, in chiaroscuro, it would have been a fine picture, if completed
+according to his first intention, but Canute and his courtiers spoil it.
+In the first place, they make, by their position and ease, the awful
+overwhelming sea safe. It is, as Longinus remarks, the plank that takes
+away the danger and the poetry; and such an assemblage of courtiers put
+the times of Canute quite out of our heads--a collection from a book of
+fashions--Ladies' Magazines--in their velvet gauze and tiffany, in
+colours that put the sun to shame, and make him blush less red; and the
+little, minute work about the pebbly shore creates a weariness, for they
+tempt us to count the sands. All this arises from a mistaken view of the
+sublime, that we have before noticed in Mr. Martin. It is very strange
+that an artist of his undoubted genius should err in a matter so
+essential to the greatness at which he aims.
+
+Would that we could say a word in of Mr Haydon's one historical
+picture, "The Heroine of Saragossa." She is most unheroic certainly,
+stretching across the centre of the picture with a most uncomfortable
+stride, with what a foot! and a toe that looks for amputation--a torch
+suspended out of her hand, held by nothing--not like "another Helen," to
+"fire another Troy," but purposing to fire off a huge cannon, without a
+chance of success; for not only do not her fingers hold the torch, but
+her face is averted from the piece of ordnance, and her feet are taking
+her away from it. She is splendidly dressed in red, and without shoes or
+stockings--a great mistake, for such a foot might have been well hid.
+She is the very worst historical figure we have ever seen in a picture
+of any pretensions; there is another figure that only attempts to hold a
+pistol. The whole is a most unfortunate display of the vulgar
+historical. The unfortunate woman has two heads of hair, and both look
+borrowed for the occasion. How very strange it is that an artist who
+could paint the very respectable picture of the "Raising of Lazarus,"
+now at the Pantheon, should not himself be sensible of the glaring
+faults of such a picture as this; and we may add, the large one
+exhibited last year. Mr Haydon understands art, lectures upon it, and
+is, we believe, enthusiastic in his profession. Does he bring his own
+works to the test of the principles he lays down? The misconception of
+men of talent with regard to their own works is an unexplained
+phenomenon.
+
+Edwin Landseer, R. A., exhibits but two pictures, both excellent. Of the
+two, we prefer the smaller, "Two horses drinking"--nature itself. Lord
+Kames, in his Elements of Criticism, remarks, that the fore-horse of a
+team always has his ears forward, on the alert, while the rest mostly,
+throw theirs back. This watchfulness Landseer has observed in the eye of
+the animal; the eye of the one, protected by the horse nearest to the
+spectator, has a quiet, unobserving look; the eye of the other is
+evidently on the watch. A cunning magpie is looking into a bone. The
+picture is beautifully coloured.
+
+Mr Redgrave's three pictures are exquisitely beautiful, and in his own
+truly English style. "The Fortune Hunter,"
+
+    "Neglects a love on pure affection built,
+    For vain indifference if but double-gilt."
+
+A screen separates the deserted one from the courting pair. The contrast
+in expression of the two fair ones is as good as can be. The "vain
+indifference" is not as many, treating this subject, have made her,
+deformed, old, and ugly, for that would have removed our pity from the
+suffering one, showing the man to be altogether worthless, and the loss
+an escape; on the contrary she is of a face and person to be admired;
+but she looks vain and void of affection. We like not so well his "Going
+to Service;" but his "Poor Teacher," is most charming; it is a most
+pathetic tale, though it be one figure only, but that how sweet! A
+lovely girl in mourning is sitting in deep thought waiting for her
+scholars; on the table is her humble fare, and of that she takes little
+heed. She is thinking of her bereavement, perhaps a father, a mother, a
+sister--perhaps she is altogether a bereaved one--a tear is on her
+cheek. These are the subjects, when so well painted; that make us love
+innocence and tenderness, the loveliness of duty, and, therefore, they
+make us better. The habitual sight might rob a villain of his evil
+thoughts--such human loveliness is the nearest to angelic--indeed it is
+more, for we must not forget the exceeding greatness, loveliness, of
+which human nature is capable. Divine love has given it a power to be
+far above every other nature, and that divine love has touched the
+heart, and speaks in the countenance of the "Poor Teacher."
+
+Mr Creswick has this year rectified the fault of the last. His greens
+were thought somewhat too crude and too monotonous. "In culpam ducet
+culp� fuga"--the old foot-road is scarcely green enough. All Mr
+Creswick's pictures have in them a sentiment--nature with him is
+sentient and suggestive. The very stillness--the silence, the quiet of
+the old foot-road is the contemplative of many a little history of them
+whose feet have trod it: such is the character of "The Terrace." But the
+most strikingly beautiful is "Welsh Glen"--
+
+    "The meeting cliffs each deep-sunk glen divides,
+    The woods wild scatter'd clothe their ample sides."
+
+What sketcher has not frequently come upon a scene like this, and, with
+a delight not unmixed with awe, hoped to realize it--and how many have
+failed! How often have we looked down upon the quiet and not shapeless
+rocky ledges just rising above and out of the dark still water; while
+beyond them, and low in the transparent pool, are stones rich of hue,
+and dimly seen, and beyond them the dark deep water spreads, reflecting
+partially the hues of the cliffs above--and watched the slender boughs,
+how they shoot out from rocky crevices, and above them branches from
+many a tree-top high up, hanging over; while we look up under the green
+arched boughs, and their fan-spreading leafage--every tree, every leaf
+communing, and all bending down to one object, worshipping as it were
+the deep pool's mystery! Here is the natural Gothic of Pan's temple--and
+out from the deep pass, golden and like a painted window of the sylvan
+aisle, glows the sun-touched wood, illuminated in all its wondrous
+tracery. In such a scene--where "Contemplation has her fill"--the
+perfect truth of this highly finished picture is sure to renew the
+feeling first enjoyed--enjoyed in solitude: it should have no figure but
+ourselves, for we are in it--and it has none. The colouring and
+execution are most true to nature; if we would wish any thing altered,
+it would be the sky, which is a little too light for the deep solemnity
+of all below it. Exquisitely beautiful as are these scenes from Mr
+Creswick's pencil, we doubt if he has reached or knows his own power. He
+has yet to add to this style the largeness of nature. We should venture
+to recommend to his reading, again and again, those parts of Sir
+Joshua's Discourses which treat of the large generality of nature.
+
+Stanfield is, as usual, remarkably clear, more characteristic of
+himself, his manner, than of the places of his subjects--ever the same
+coloured lights and shadows. His compositions are well made up, there is
+seldom a line to offend. In "Mazorbo and Torcello, Gulf of Venice,"
+however, the right-hand corner is extra-parochial to the scene--is
+unbalanced, and injures the composition. The scenes, as views, are very
+sweet, and have more repose than he usually throws into his pieces. This
+sameness of colouring, and scenical arrangement and effect, are no less
+conspicuous in the works of Mr Roberts, most of which are, however, very
+beautiful. Very striking is the view of "Ruins on the Island of Philoe,
+Nubia." It is not the worse for the absence of the general polish. We
+seem to be on the spot--the effect is so simple, the art is unobserved.
+We have to wonder at departed glory, at hidden history, and we do
+wonder. Why is it that Mr Danby, whose pictures of the "Sixth Seal," and
+the "Deluge," none that have seen them can forget, exhibits but one
+piece, and that, though very beautiful, not from the boldness of his
+genius? It is a quiet evening scene--the sun setting red towards the
+horizon, the sky having much of nature's green tints, her most peaceful
+hues, some cattle are standing in the river--the left is filled up with
+trees, which, beautiful in form, want transparency. There is a heaviness
+in that part too powerful; it attracts, and therefore disturbs the
+repose. Mr Lee has not very much varied his subjects or manner this
+year. His scenes are evidently from nature--great parts appear to have
+been painted out of doors, being fresh and true. Not altogether liking
+some of his subjects, we cannot but admire the skill in their treatment,
+the warm glow in the colouring, and true character of some of his woods
+running off in perspective are most pleasing. He does not aim at
+sentiment. He often reminds us of Gainsborough's best manner; but he is
+superior to him always, in subject, in composition, and in variety. He
+has great skill in the transparency and clearness of his tones. We think
+his pictures would be vastly improved if painted in a lower key. His
+"Scenery near Crediton, Devonshire," is remarkably good; perhaps the sky
+and distance is a little out of harmony with the rest. There are three
+pictures by Mr M�ller, two very effective--"Prayers in the Desert"--but
+we are more struck with his "Arabs seeking a Treasure." The sepulchral
+interior is solemnly deep; the dim obscure, through which are yet seen
+the gigantic sculptured heads that seem the presiding guardians; the
+light and shade is very fine, as is the colour; the blue sky, seen from
+within, wonderfully assists the colour of the interior. There is great
+grandeur in the scene, and it is finely treated. His other picture, No.
+1 in the Exhibition, is so very badly placed over the door, that we do
+not pretend to judge of it, because, Mr M�ller being a good colourist,
+we do not recognise him in what we can see of this "Mill Scene on the
+Dolgarley."
+
+Mr Collins has improved greatly upon his last year's exhibition. "A
+Sultry Day," though at Naples, and a "Windy Day," in Sussex are not the
+most pleasant things to feel or to think of. Mr Collins has succeeded in
+conveying the disagreeableness of the "windy day," and it is the more
+disagreeable for reminding us of Morland: luckily he has not succeeded
+in conveying the sultriness. On the contrary, to us, No. 217 breathes of
+freshness and coolness. It is a very sweet picture; water, boats, and
+shore, beautifully painted. It is well that Mr Kennedy has but one
+picture--"Italy"--for he paints by the acre. It is a great mistake--and,
+while so many pictures of merit are rejected for want of room, some
+injustice in his doing so. Nor does his subject, which is meagre enough,
+gain any thing by its size. There is merit in the grouping--not a little
+affectation in the poor colouring and general effect. Surely he might
+have made a much prettier small picture of a subject that has no
+pretensions to be large. Were "Italy" like that, we should totally
+differ with him, and not subscribe to his quotation--
+
+        "I must say
+    That Italy's a pleasant place to me."
+
+There is a very good picture by J. R. Herbert, A., if it were not for
+its too great or too common naturalness. The subject is the interview
+with the woman of Samaria. There is good expression, simplicity of
+design, but violence of colour. The subject demands a simplicity of
+colouring. Surely in such a scriptural subject, the annunciation, "I
+that speak unto thee am He," should alone be in the mind; but here the
+accessories are as conspicuous as the figures. Yet it is a picture of
+great merit.
+
+There are two pictures of historical subjects, (not in the artistical
+sense so treated,) which attract great attention. "The Queen receiving
+the Sacrament," by Leslie; and "Waterloo," by Sir W. Allan, R.A. We are
+aware of the great value of this manner of pageant painting; it is
+perhaps worth while to sacrifice much of art to portraiture in this
+case. Viewing the necessity and the difficulty, we cannot but
+congratulate Mr Leslie--notwithstanding the peculiarity of the dresses,
+and the quantity of white to be introduced, this is by no means an
+unpleasantly coloured picture. There is much richness, in fact; and the
+artist has, with very great skill, avoided a gaudy effect. So the Battle
+of Waterloo must derive its great value from the truth of the portraits.
+It is any thing, however, but an heroic representation of a battle.
+Perhaps the object of the painter was confined to the facts of a
+military description, of positions of brigades and battalions--to our
+unmilitary eyes, there is wanting the vivid action, the energy, the
+mighty conflict--possibly only the ideal of a battle---which may, after
+all, be in appearance a much more tame sort of thing than we imagine.
+There is a necessity, for historical value, to see too much. There is Mr
+Ward's "Fight of the Bulls:" the whole earth echoes the boundary and the
+conflict; it is one great scene of energy. But the great fight of men
+conveys none of this feeling. It is not imposing in effect--it looks
+indeed rather dingy, the sky and distance cold, and not remarkably well
+painted--a battle should have more vigorous handling, something of the
+fury of the fight. If, however, it be matter-of-fact truth; that in such
+a subject is all important, and should be painted. A battle, any battle,
+may be another thing.--"Sir Joshua Reynolds and his Friends" is an
+excellent subject, if all the portraits are from authentic pictures; at
+a future day it will be of great value, although it is not very
+agreeable as a picture.
+
+Either the portraits have less effect than they usually have, or there
+are fewer of them this year. We must give the palm to Mr Grant. He
+combines many excellences--perfect truth, unaffected simplicity, and
+most judicious and ever-harmonious colouring. It may not perhaps be far
+wrong to say, that he is the very best portrait-painter this country has
+known since Vandyck; certainly he appreciates, and has often deeply
+studied, that great painter. We have long considered Mr Grant's female
+portraits by far the best--the present exhibition raises him as a
+general portrait-painter. The perfect unaffected ease of his attitudes
+is a very great thing. Here are three pictures in a line, portraits, the
+_sitters_ all _seated_--and yet how striking it is, that there is only
+one that sits--Mr Grant's "Lord Wharncliffe." How sweet and natural, how
+beautiful as a picture, are "The Sisters!" The conventional style of
+portrait is undoubtedly good, and founded on good sense--but genius will
+seize an opportunity, and be original--such is the character of Mr
+Grant's portrait of "Lord Charles Scott, youngest son of the Duke and
+Duchess of Buccleuch." The boy stands like a boy, every limb belongs to
+him; he is all life--the flesh tints in the face are as perfect as can
+be. The attitude, the dress, so admirably managed. It has all the
+breadth, and power, too, of Velasquez, with all modern clearness. And
+what a charmingly coloured picture is the portrait of "Lady Margaret
+Littleton!" And close at hand, right glad were we to see the noble
+portrait of the "Professor of Moral Philosophy, Edinburgh," the [Greek:
+autos echeinos], by R. S. Lauder, an artist whose works we think have
+not always been done justice to in the Academy--yet how seldom do we see
+pictures of such power as his "Trial," from the "Heart of Mid-Lothian,"
+and his "Ravensworth!" There is another portrait painter that is very
+original--Linnell; and such is he, in the "Portraits of the Three eldest
+Children of Robert Clutterbuck, Esq." There are so many smooth and soft
+pictures at the exhibitions which we must look at very near, that the
+habit is acquired of seeing all in that manner. To those who should so
+see this of Mr Linnell, it will appear odd, sketchy, unfinished--recede,
+and it is of very great power, and comes out wonderfully with all the
+truth of nature. It is an out-of-door scene. The children in most
+natural positions, and separate from the background, which is quite true
+in effect, with surprising force. It is very well coloured, and the
+manner, though not so at first, at length pleases. We like to see much
+done with little effort, as soon as the eye has recovered from the
+examination of laboured work.--How many works of great merit that we
+should wish to mention! and perhaps we ought to notice some of demerit;
+but we must forbear; the bad and the good must repose together--if there
+_can_ be repose in an exhibition room. Why has not Mr Uwins painted
+another "Fioretta," worth all the crude, blue, red and yellow
+processions he ever painted? And why--but we will ask no questions but
+of the "Hanging Committee:" why do they offend the eyes of spectators,
+and vex the hearts of exhibitors, by hanging little pictures out of
+sight? It is insulting to the public and the artists. Surely, if the
+works be not fit to be seen, boldly and honestly reject them. It is an
+injury to misplace them. Many of the pictures so placed, are evidently
+intended to be seen near the eye. You do not want to _furnish_ the walls
+with pictures. If so, do advertise that you will sacrifice some of your
+own to that purpose. You may find a sufficient number of "Amateurs"
+ready to immolate their reputation for art, of little value; but you
+should consider with what an aching heart the poor painter sees the
+labour of many a day, and many a cherished hope, as soon as the Academy
+opens, raised to its position of noted contempt. Nor should you have a
+"Condemned Cell"--such is the octagon-room termed. You render men
+unhappy--and superciliously seem to think, you pay them by a privilege
+of admission. Admission to what?--to see your well-placed merits, and
+their own disgraced position. We are happy to see an appeal to you on
+this subject in the _Artist's Magazine_, and eloquently written--and
+with good sense, as are all the notices in that work. That or some other
+should be enlarged to meet the requirements of art. Now we are indeed
+making hotbeds for the growth of artists. They will be thick as peas,
+and not so palatable--youths of large hope and little promise--some
+aiming beyond their reach, others striving and straining at a low
+Art-Union prize. Patronage can never keep pace with this "painting for
+the million system." The world will be inundated with mediocrity. This
+fever of art will terminate in a painting-plague. What is to become of
+the artists? Where will you colonize?
+
+Now let us purpose a plan. Let the members of the Academy come to this
+resolution that instead of exhibiting some 1300 pictures annually, they
+will not admit into their rooms more than the 300--and so cut off the
+1000--that the said 300 shall all have good places, and shall be the
+choicest works of British talent. Let them signify to the public that
+they will show no favour, and that they will be responsible for the
+merit of the works they mean to invite the public to see. They need not
+doubt the effect. Great will be the benefit to art, artists, and to
+patrons of art.
+
+
+SUFFOLK STREET GALLERY--SOCIETY OF BRITISH ARTISTS.
+
+This twentieth exhibition opens, according to the catalogue, under the
+auspices of Marcus Tullius Cicero; but why or wherefore the world who
+read the quotation mottoes of catalogues, must ever be at a loss to
+discover. "I think," said the wordy Roman, "that no one will ever become
+a highly distinguished orator, unless he shall have obtained a knowledge
+of all great things and arts." Therefore, you, the British public, are
+requested to walk in and see the show. We wish this motto affectation
+were put an end to--the Royal Academy are sadly puzzled year after year
+to hit upon a piece of Latin that will do, and their labour in that line
+is often in vain. And certainly this intimation from Suffolk Street,
+which might be very useful to a young barrister preparing for the
+circuit, is now to the "matter in hand" _nihil ad rem_. But have not we
+heard that motto before? We believe it was the last year's, and is we
+suppose to become an annual repetition _in secula seculorum_. The
+exhibition is, however, very respectable; we fear it is not so well
+attended as it deserves to be. The fact is, that the Academy, with its
+innumerable works, becomes, before it is half gone through, a very
+tiresome affair. What with straining at raw crude colours, and pictures
+out of sight, the public, who feel they must go there, have had enough
+of work for weary eyes; and imagining the other gallery to be inferior,
+go not to it. Yet, after a little rest, they would, we are sure, feel
+gratified in Suffolk Street. If there are but half-a-dozen good
+pictures, they are worth going to see, and certainly this exhibition has
+its very fair proportion of works of merit, and interest. Nor is there
+any lack of variety. We have only to make remarks upon a very few, not
+at all wishing to have it believed that we have selected either the best
+or the worst. There is novelty in some of Mr Woolmer's pictures. He
+seems, however, undetermined as to style; for his pictures are here very
+unequal. In one or two he is imitating Turner, but it is to have
+"confusion worse confounded." And singularly enough, in such imitations,
+his subjects are of repose. "A Scene in the Middle Ages, suggested by a
+visit to Haddon Hall," is very pleasing. The style here is suggestive,
+and judiciously so; he generalizes, and we are pleased to imagine. We
+see elegant figures walking under shade of trees, clear refreshing green
+shade; the composition is graceful, and fit for the speculative or
+enamoured loiterers. Perhaps the foreground is too ambitious--too much
+worked to effect. If this be done for the sake of contrast, it is a
+mistake of the proper effect of, and proper place for, contrast. In such
+a scene of ease and gentleness, all contrast is far better avoided; it
+always has a tendency to make active; and is to be applied in proportion
+to the degree of life and activity that may be desirable. His "Castle of
+Indolence" is much in imitation of Turner. The poet uses a singular
+expression,
+
+    "O'er which were _shadowy_ cast _Elysian gleams_."
+
+What meaneth Thomson? He further calls the hue, "a roseate smile," and
+is reminded of Titian's pencil. By all which hints and expressions we
+conclude that the poet saw this "pleasing land of Drowsyhead" as
+through a coloured glass, subduing all the exciting colours of nature to
+a mellow dreaminess. No strong, no vivid colours are here--all is the
+quiescent modesty, the unobtruding magic of half-tones. What shall we
+say of such a Domain of Indolence being painted without shade or
+shelter; with violent contrasts of dark and light, and of positive
+forcing colouring? All repose is destroyed. Then again we see too much;
+there are too many parts, too many figures, too many occupations:
+indication that the territory was peopled would have been enough; this
+is more like a _f�te champ�tre_. Besides, the scene itself is not one to
+give delight to contemplate; it is not suggestive of pleasant dream, but
+looks out on an ugly, swampy, fog-infected country. The only "Indolence"
+we see has been devoted to the execution, for it is slovenly to a
+degree. We find the same fault, though not to the same extent, with his
+"Scene from Boccaccio." It sadly wants repose, and affects colouring
+which is neither good for itself, nor suitable to the subject. His
+"Subject from Chaucer" has the same defects. Mr Woolmer is decidedly a
+man of ability; but we think he has strange misconceptions with respect
+to colours, their sentimental effect and power.
+
+There is a "Scene from the Arabian Nights," by Mr Jacobi, which, though
+it is an attempt, and by no means an unsuccessful one, at an accidental
+effect of nature, which is generally to be avoided, is extremely
+pleasing. It is a portrait of great loveliness, grace, and beauty--we
+look till we are in the illusion of the Arabian tale--the foot of the
+Beauty is not good in colour or form; and the distance is a little out
+of harmony. There is considerable power; such peculiar light and shade,
+and colouring, offered great difficulty to keep, up the effect
+evenly--and the difficulty has been overcome. Mr Herring greatly keeps
+up the character of this exhibition in his peculiar line. His "Interior
+of a Country Stable" is capitally painted, even to the ducks. The old
+horse has been evidently "a good 'un;" goats, ducks, and white horse
+behind, all good, and should complete the scene--we may have "too much
+for our money." The cows and occupation going on within, in an inner
+stall, are too conspicuous and a picture within a picture, and therefore
+would be better out. His black and roan, in the "Country Bait Stable,"
+are perfect nature. A picture by Mr H. Johnston, "The Empress Theophane,
+begging her husband Leo V. to delay the execution of Michael the
+Physician," is well designed; has a great deal of beauty of design, of
+expression, and of general colour, but not colour of flesh--nor is the
+purple blue of the background good.
+
+We take it for granted that artists are often at a loss for a subject,
+and that they often choose badly we all know; but a worse than that
+chosen by Mr G. Scott, we do not remember ever to have met with. It is
+entitled "Morbid Sympathy," forming two pictures. In the one the
+murderer is coming from the house where he has just committed the
+diabolical act; in the other he is visited. The man is an uninteresting
+villain and his visitors are fools. The object of the painter is
+doubtless a good one; it is to avert that morbid sympathy which has been
+so conspicuously and mischievously felt and affected for the worst, the
+most wicked of mankind. But to do this is the province of the press, not
+the pencil. It is a mistake of the whole purpose of art. It will not
+deter murderers, who look not at pictures; and if they were to look at
+these, would not be converted by any thing the pictures have to
+show--nor will it keep back one fool, madman, or sentimental hypocrite
+from making a disgraceful exhibition. We are not sorry to notice this
+failure of Mr Scott's, because we would call the attention of artists in
+general to "subject." Let a painter ask himself before he takes his
+brush in hand, why--for what purpose, with what object do I choose this
+scene or this incident? Can the moral or the sentiment it conveys be
+told by design and colour?--and if so, are such moral and such sentiment
+worth the "doing." Will it please, or will it disgust? We mean not to
+use the word "please" in its lowest common sense, but in that which
+expresses the gratification we are known to feel even when our quiescent
+happiness is disturbed. In that sense we know even tragedies are
+pleasing. We may, however, paint a martyr on his gridiron, and paint
+that which is only disgusting; the firmness, the devotion through faith
+of the martyr, are of the noblest heroism. If to represent that be the
+sole object, and it succeeds, such a work would rank with tragedy, and
+please.
+
+
+PAINTING IN WATER COLOURS.
+
+We have visited the two societies of painters in water colours. In these
+there are two antagonist principles in full practice--while some are
+endeavoring to imitate, and indeed to go beyond the power of oil
+colours, others are going back as much as may be to the white paper
+system; imitating in fact the imitation which painters in oil have taken
+up from the painters in water colour. We must, of course, expect from
+this no little extravagance both ways--and we are not disappointed in
+the expectation. We will first notice the elder institution. In this,
+certainly, there are fewer examples of the power of colour system--but
+not a few in the weaker system. We noticed last year that Mr Copley
+Fielding was making great advances in it. His practised and skilful hand
+causes that style to have many admirers. Poor John Varley--we look with
+interest at his last work. His early ones were full of genius. He was an
+enthusiast in art. There is very great beauty in his "View on the
+Croydon Canal previous to the making the rail-road." An admirable
+composition--the woods and water are very fine. There are some very good
+drawings by D. Cox, which will greatly please all who like to see much
+told with little labour. Prout fully sustains his reputation. Amidst
+much detail he is always broad and large. There is a most true effect of
+haze in Copley Fielding's fine drawing of "Folkstone Cliff." There is an
+affected absence of effect in his "Arundel Castle"--the blues and
+yellows are not in harmony--and all has an uncomfortable, unsubstantial
+look. Eliza Sharpe's "Little Dunce" is a delightful drawing. It is only
+the old dame that can ever be angry with a little dunce--and she puts on
+more than half her anger; and this is a glorious little dunce, that we
+would not see good for the world--the triumph of nature over tuition.
+This charming little creature has been happy her own way, has been
+wandering in her own "castle of indolence," and perhaps, too,
+philosophizing thus--Well, I have been naughty, but happier still than
+if I had been good. So is the goodness we force upon children often
+against nature--we love to see nature superior. Eliza Sharpe must have
+been of the same way of thinking, and it is archly expressed. Her Una
+and the lion is large and free--the face of Una nor quite the thing. We
+have a "Castle of Indolence" by Mr Finch, gay with "all the finches of
+the grove," but the country does not look indolent, nor the country for
+indolence. Hunt's boys, clever as ever. The sleeping boy, with his large
+shadow on the wall, is most successful. The companion, the boy awake, is
+a little of the caricature. His "Pet," a boy holding up a pig, natural
+as it is, is nevertheless disgusting; for such a toy will ever be the
+biggest beast of the two. Mr Hills has several excellent drawings of
+deer; but there is one, so perfect that it is quite poetical--a few
+deer, in their own wild haunt, heathery brown, and almost treeless, the
+few spots of stunted trees serving to mark the spot, separating it from
+similar, and making it the home. It is furthest from the haunts of man.
+It looks silence. The animals are quite nature, exquisitely grouped. The
+quiet colouring, unobtrusive, could not be more nicely conceived--it is
+the long Sabbath quiet of an unworking world. The picture is well
+executed. It is one that makes a lasting impression.
+
+Mr Oakley's "Shrimper," a boy sitting on a rock, reminds us of some of
+Murillo's boys; it is as good in effect, and better in expression, than
+most of the Spaniard's. "After the second Battle of Newbury," by
+Cattermole, is a well-imagined scene, but is defective in that in which
+we should have supposed the artist would not have failed. It is not
+moonlight. "Tuning," by J. W. Wright, is a good proof that blue, as
+Gainsborough likewise proved, is not necessarily cold. His "Confession,"
+with the two graceful figures, is very sweet. "The Gap of Dunloe," W.
+A. Nesfield--has fine folding forms--the distance and rainbow
+beautiful--it is, however, somewhat hurt by crude colour, and too much
+cut up foreground. The Vicar and his family supply work to many an
+artist of our day. Mr Taylor's is very good--Moses pulling the reluctant
+horse, is a good incident. We do not quite recognize Mrs Primrose, and
+could wish the daughter had more beauty. We never could very much admire
+Mr Richter's coarse vulgarities--and they are of gross feeling, and we
+think, caricatures without much humour; but his sentimentalities are
+worse. His "Sisters," a scene from the novel of "The Trustee," is but a
+miserable attempt at the pathetic. Mr Gastineau's "Bellagio" is a
+beautiful drawing, has great breadth and truth; but the water is
+certainly too blue.
+
+
+EXHIBITION OF NEW SOCIETY IN WATER COLOURS.
+
+Generally speaking, this Society is mostly ambitious of carrying water
+colour to its greatest possible depth and power, and certainly, in this
+respect, the attainment is wondrous. In design, and other character,
+this society more than keeps its ground. We remember last year noticing
+Miss Setchell's little picture, as one of the best of the year; we have
+still a perfect recollection of the most lovely pathetic expression of
+the poor girl. We were greatly disappointed that no work of Miss
+Setchell adorns the walls. There is a picture, however, which, if it did
+not move us equally, at once arrested our attention, and again and again
+did we return to it. The character of it is not certainly moving, as
+Miss Setchell's, it is altogether of a different cast--it is one for
+thought and manly contemplation. The subject is "Cromwell and Ireton
+intercepting a letter of Charles the First," by L. Haghe. Cromwell is
+standing reading a letter--Ireton adjusting the saddle in the recess of
+a window, near which Cromwell stands, is a table with a flagon, the
+scene is an inn in Holborn. The attitude of Cromwell is dignified ease
+and resolution. In his fine countenance we read the full history of the
+"coming events"--we see all there, that we have learned from history.
+The very curtains and stick seem to the imagination's eye convertible
+into canopy and sceptre. There is great forbearance in the painting--we
+mean that there is just enough, and no more, of water-colours' ambition.
+More depth would have injured the effect. It is a very striking picture;
+well finished, and with a breadth suited to the historical importance of
+the history. Mr Warren's "Christ's Sermon" is of the ambitious school.
+If we contrast the quiet, solemnly quiet, tone of that sermon of
+beatitudes, with the coloured character of the picture, we must condemn
+the inappropriate style. We should say it is immodestly painted; the
+picture and not the subject, obtrudes. The head of Christ is weak. It is
+a picture nevertheless of great ability, but with a gorgeous colouring
+ill suited to the subject. But we must speak with unqualified admiration
+of a little picture by Mr Warren--the "Ave Maria." It is a lady kneeling
+before a picture of a saint in a chapel. The depth and power is very
+surprising, and much reminds of Rembrandt, with the exception of the
+picture of the saint, which struck us at first as too light by a great
+deal, so much so that we noted it down as a glaring defect, but
+returning to the picture, we looked, not only till we were reconciled,
+but to an admiration of what we had considered a fault. It is the poetry
+of the subject. We see not the face of the petitioning figure, we only
+feel that she is there, and devoutly petitioning, and the brightness of
+the patron saint, with its simple open character of face and figure,
+comes out as a miraculous manifestation. We must not mistake--the "Ave
+Maria" does not mean that it is to the Virgin the petitioner prays; it
+is to a male saint.
+
+Mr E. Corbould still is in the full ambition of water colour power.
+"Jesus at the House of Simon the Pharisee," is an example of the
+inappropriateness of this manner to solemn sacred subjects. The Mary is
+very good--not so the principal figure, it has a weak expression: some
+parts of this picture are too sketchy for others. His "Woman of Samaria"
+is a much better picture, has great breadth and grace. It is rather
+slight. His "Flower of the Fisher's Hut" is very pretty--a lady in
+masquerade. Absolon's "Uncle Toby" is well told, and with the author's
+na�vet�. Mr Topham's farewell scene from the "Deserted Village," is, we
+think, too strong of the mock-pathetic--a scene of praying and babying.
+
+There are many pictures we would wish to notice, but we must forbear: we
+cannot, however, omit the mention of a sea-piece, which we thought very
+fine, with a watery sky; a good design,--"North Sunderland Fishermen
+rendering assistance after a Squall."
+
+
+THE BRITISH INSTITUTION.
+
+Having recently given some account of Sir Joshua, his Discourses, his
+genius, and his influence upon the arts in this country, we visited this
+gallery, where as many as sixty of his works are exhibited, with no
+little interest. The North Room is occupied by them alone. Have we
+reason to think our estimate of Sir Joshua Reynolds, as a painter, not
+borne out by this exhibition? By no means. Our first impression from the
+whole collection, not seeing any particular picture, is of colour. And
+here Sir Joshua appears _inventive_; for though he not unfrequently
+imitated Rembrandt, there is, on the whole, a style that is far from
+Rembrandt, and is not like any other old master; yet we believe, for it
+was the character of his mind so to do, that he always had some great
+master in view in all he did. But he combined. Hence there is no little
+novelty in his style, and not seldom some inconsistencies--a mixture of
+care and delicacy, with great apparent slovenliness. We say apparent,
+for we are persuaded Sir Joshua never worked without real care and
+forethought; and that his apparent slovenliness was a purpose, and a
+long studied acquirement. He ever had in view the maxim--_Ars est celare
+artem_; but he did not always succeed, for he shows too evidently the
+art with which he concealed what first his art had effected. Looking
+carefully at these pictures, we see intention every where: there is no
+actual random work. We believe him to have finished much more than has
+been supposed; that there is, in reality, careful drawing and colouring,
+at least in many of his pictures, _under_ that large and general
+scumbling and glazing, to which, for the sake of making a whole, he
+sacrificed the minor beauties. And we believe that many of those
+beauties were not lost when the works were fresh from his easel, but
+that they lave been obscured since by the nature of the medium and the
+materials he used. That these were bad we cannot doubt, for we plainly
+see that some of these pictures, his most laboured for effect, are not
+only most wofully cracked, (yet that is not the word, for it expresses
+not the gummy separation of part from part,) but that transparency has
+been lost, and the once-brilliant pigments become a _caput mortuum_.
+Hence there is very great _heaviness_ pervading his pictures; so that
+even in colouring there is a want of freshness. A deep asphaltum has
+overpowered lightness and delicacy, and has itself become obscure. Sir
+Joshua did not leave his pictures in this state. It is as if one should
+admire, in the clear brown bed of a mountain river, luminous objects,
+stone or leaf, pebble or weed, most delicately uncertain in the magic of
+the waving glaze; and suddenly there should come over the fascination an
+earthy muddying inundation. In estimating Sir Joshua's mind, we must, in
+imagination, remove much that his hand has done. Nor was Sir Joshua,
+perhaps, always true to his subject in his intention of general
+colouring. His "Robinettas," and portraits, or ideals of children, are
+not improved by that deep asphaltum colouring, so unsuitable to the
+freshness, and may we not add, purity of childhood. And there appears,
+at least now in their present state, that there is too universal a use
+of the brown and other warm colours; Rembrandt invariably inserted among
+them cool and deep grays, very seldom blue, which, as too active a
+colour, is apt to destroy repose, the intended effect of deep colouring.
+Titian uses it for the sake of its activity, as in the Bacchus and
+Ariadne and how subdued is that blue! but even in such pictures there
+are the intermediate grays, both warm and cold, that the transition from
+warm to cold be not too sudden. We cannot say that Sir Joshua Reynolds
+did not introduce these qualifying grays, because the browns have so
+evidently become more intense, that they may have changed them to their
+own hue.
+
+There are some pictures here which have either lost their glaze by
+cleaning, or never had it, and these have a freshness, and touch too,
+which others want; such is the case with "Lady Cockburn and her Three
+Sons"--a very fine picture, beautifully coloured, and well grouped, very
+like nature, and certainly in a manner of Vandyck. We remember, too, his
+"Kitty Fisher," and regret the practice which, with the view of giving
+tone, often took away real colour, and a great deal of the delicacy of
+nature. The very natural portrait of "Madame Schindelin," quite in
+another manner from any usual with Sir Joshua, shows that he was less
+indebted to his after theory of colouring than people in general have
+imagined. The most forcible picture among them is the "Ugolino." It is
+well known that the head of Ugolino was a study, and not designed for
+Ugolino, but that the story was adopted to suit it; yet it has been
+thought to want the dignity of that character. Ugolino had been a man in
+power; there is not much mark in the picture of his nobility. It has
+been said, too, that the addition of his sons is no improvement in the
+picture. We think otherwise: they are well grouped; by their various
+attitudes they give the greater desperate fixedness to Ugolino, and they
+do tell the story well, and are good in themselves. The power of the
+picture is very great, and it is not overpowered by glazing. On the
+whole, we think it his most vigorous work, and one upon which his fame
+as a painter may fairly rest. We have a word to say with respect to Sir
+Joshua's pictures of children. That he fully admired Correggio, we
+cannot doubt--his children have all human sweetness, tenderness, and
+affection; but it was the archness of children that mostly delighted our
+painter--their play, their frolic, their fun. In this, though in the
+main successful, he was apt to border upon the caricature; we often
+observe a cat-like expression. "The Strawberry Girl" has perhaps the
+most intense, and at the same time human look. It is deeply sentient or
+deeply feeling. The "Cardinal Beaufort" disappoints; so large a space of
+canvass uncouthly filled up, rather injures the intended expression in
+the cardinal. Has the demon been painted out, or has that part of the
+picture changed, and become obscure? But we will not notice particular
+pictures; having thus spoken so much of the general effect, we should
+only have to repeat what we have already said.
+
+The Middle Room is a collection of old masters of many schools, and
+valuable indeed are most of these works of art. There is a small
+landscape by Rembrandt, "A Road leading to a Village with a Mill,"
+wonderfully fine. It is the perfect poetry of colour. The manner and
+colouring give a sentiment to this most simple subject. It is a village
+church, with trees around it. This is the subject--the church and
+trees--all else belongs to that--we see dimly through the leafage--we
+read, through the gloom and the glimmer, the village histories. The
+repose of the dead--the piety of the living--all that is necessary for
+the village home, is introduced--but not conspicuously--and nothing
+more; here is a house, a farm-house, and a mill--a village stream, over
+which, but barely seen, is a wooden bridge--the clouds are closing
+round, and such clouds as "drop fatness," making the shelter the
+greater--a figure or two in the road. There is great simplicity in the
+chiaroscuros, and the paint is of the most brilliant gem-like richness,
+into which you look, for it is not flimsy and thin, but substance
+transparent--so that it lets in your imagination into the very depth of
+its mystery. No painter ever understood the poetry of colour as did
+Rembrandt. He made that his subject, whatever were the forms and
+figures. We have made notes of every picture, but have no room, and must
+be content with selecting a very few. Here are two fine sea-pieces by
+Vandervelde and Backhuysen. We notice them together for their unlikeness
+to each other. In the latter, "A Breeze, with the Prince of Orange's
+Yacht," there is a fine free fling of the waves, but lacking the
+precision of Vandervelde. There are two vessels, of nearly equal
+magnitude, and not together so as to make one. We are at a loss,
+therefore, which to look at. It is an offence in composition, and one
+which is never made by Vandervelde--often by Backhuysen; and not
+unfrequently are his vessels too large or too small for the skies and
+water. "The Breeze, with Man-of-War," by Vandervelde, is, in its
+composition, perfect. It is the Man-of-War; there is nothing to compete
+with it--the gallant vessel cares not for the winds or waves--she
+commands them. It is wondrously painted, and as fresh as from the easel.
+Here are three pictures by Paul Potter--the larger one, "Landscape, with
+Cattle and Figures," how unlike the others! "Cattle in a Storm," is a
+large picture in little. The wind blows, and the bull roars. It is very
+fine, and quite luminous. The other, "Landscape, with Horses and
+Figures," looks, at first view, not quite as it should; but, on
+examining it, there are parts most exquisitely beautiful--the white
+horse coming out of the stable is perfect, and, like the Daguerreotype
+portraits, the more you look with a good magnifying-glass, the more
+truth you see. There is no picture in this room that excites so much
+attention as the "View of Dort from the River."--Cuyp. It is certainly
+very splendid. It is a sunny effect; the town is low--some warm trees
+just across the river, near which, half-way in the stream, is a barge,
+the edges gilded by the sun--further off is a large vessel, whose sides
+are illuminated--above all is a thunder-cloud, very effectively painted.
+The picture has been divided, and rejoined, and is very well done. It
+would perhaps be better if it were cut off a little beyond the large
+vessel, as the opposite sides are not quite in harmony, one part being
+cold, the other extremely warm. There is a companion by Cuyp, which has
+been engraved for Forster's work, "A River Scene--Fishing under the
+Ice." It is very fine: if not quite so luminous as the former, it is in
+better tone altogether. We must move on to--
+
+
+THE SOUTH ROOM
+
+With the exception of two pictures of the modern German school, this
+room contains the works of English artists not living. Only one of the
+German school is a picture of any pretension, "Christ blessing the
+Little Children"--Professor Hesse. The reputation of this painter led us
+to expect something better. We must consider it apart from its German
+peculiarities, and with respect to what it gains or loses by them. As a
+design, the story is well and simply told. As a composition, it is a
+little too formal, lacking that easy flowing of lines into each other,
+which, though eschewed by the new school, is nevertheless a beauty. The
+expression in the heads is good generally, not so in the principal
+figure. There is throughout a character of purity and tenderness--it is
+a great point to attain this. But none of this character is assisted by
+the colouring, or the chiaroscuro. The colouring, though it has a gold
+background, is not rich, for the gold is pale, even to a straw colour,
+and the pattern on it rather gives it a straw texture. We presume it is
+meant to represent the dry Byzantine style of colouring, purposely
+avoiding the richer colours; as power is lost, by this adoption, it is
+impossible to give either the tones or colours of nature--there is no
+transparency. To preserve this old simplicity, softening and blending
+shadows are avoided, by which a positive unnaturalness offends the eye;
+hence the hands and feet not only look hard, but clumsy--they may not
+be, but they look, ill drawn. The figures, indeed, look like pasteboard
+figures stuck on; there is a leaden hue pervading all the flesh tints.
+It fails, too, in simplicity and antique air, which we suppose to be the
+objects of the school. For there is too much of art in the composition
+for the former, too little quaintness for the latter; and indeed its
+perfect newness of somewhat raw paint prevents the mind from going back
+to ancient time; and that failure makes the picture as a whole, a
+pretension. It does not, then, appear to gain what that old style is
+intended to bestow--and it loses nearly all the advantages of the
+after-improvements of art--of its extended means. It rejects the power
+of giving more intensity to feeling, of adding the grace of nature, the
+truth and variety of more perfect colouring, by the opaque and the
+transparent, and does not in any other way attain any thing which could
+not have been more perfectly attained without the sacrifice. The
+collection of the British school contains good and bad--few of the best
+of each master. West's best picture is among them, his "Death Of
+Wolfe"--everyone knows the print; the picture is good in colour and
+firmly painted, and contrasts with some others where we see the
+miserable effect of the megillups and varnishes which our painters were
+wont to mix with their colours. We should have been glad to have seen
+better specimens of Fuseli's genius--we suppose we must say that he had
+genius. The best piece of painting of his hand in the room is the boy in
+Harlowe's picture of the "Kemble Family;" a picture of considerable
+artistic merit, but ruined by the coarse vulgarity of a caricature of
+Mrs Siddons. How unlike the Lady Macbeth! The corpulent velvet dark mass
+and obtruding figure is most unpleasant. It is much to be regretted Mr.
+Harlowe did not redesign that principal figure. There are several
+landscapes of Gainsborough's, and one portrait--the latter excellent,
+the former poor. There is much vigour of colouring and handling in the
+"Horses at a Fountain;" but as usual, it is a poor composition, and of
+parts that ill agree. The mass of rock and foliage are quite out of
+character with the bit of tame village scene, and the hideous figures.
+Here, too, his "Girl and Pigs," for which he asked sixty guineas, and
+Sir Joshua gave him a hundred. We do not think the President had a
+bargain. There is not one of Wilson's best in this collection. The
+"Celadon and Amelia" is dingy, and poor in all respects. It verifies as
+it illustrates; for Thomson says,
+
+    "But who _can paint_ the lover as he stood?"
+
+Very coarse is Opie's "Venus and Adonis." He had not grace for such a
+subject--nor for "Lavinia." We should have been glad to have seen some
+of his works where the subjects and handling agree. We are sorry to see
+Hogarth's "March to Finchley" so injured by some ignorant cleaner. His
+"Taste in High Life" is the perfection of caricature. We have not the
+slightest idea what Constable meant when he painted the "Opening of
+Waterloo Bridge." The poor "_Silver_ Thames" is converted into a smear
+of white lead and black. "Charles the First demanding the Five Members,"
+surprised us by its power--its effect is good. Here is no slovenly
+painting, so common in Mr. Copley's day--the general colour too is good;
+and the painting of individual heads is much after the manner of
+Vandyck. There are some pictures on the walls which might have been
+judiciously omitted in an exhibition which must be considered as
+characteristic of English talent.
+
+As the British Gallery is for a considerable period devoted to works of
+English art, and as so many other exhibitions offer them in such
+profusion, we would suggest that it would be more beneficial to art, and
+to the success and improvement of British painters, if the original
+intention of the governors of the institution were adhered to, of
+exhibiting annually the choicest works of the old schools.
+
+
+
+
+MARSTON, OR, THE MEMOIRS OF A STATESMAN.
+
+PART III.
+
+    "Have I not in my time heard lions roar?
+    Have I not heard the sea, puft up with wind,
+    Rage like an angry boar chafed with sweat?
+    Have I not heard great ordnance in the field,
+    And heaven's artillery thunder in the skies?
+    Have I not in the pitched battle heard
+    Loud 'larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets clang?"
+
+    SHAKSPEARE.
+
+
+The meeting was a singular and a melancholy one. The news from France
+had become hourly more fearful. Every packet brought accounts of new
+outrages. Paris was already in the power of the populace. The struggle
+continued, however hopelessly, in the provinces, just enough to swell
+the losses of noble life, and the conflagrations of noble property. To
+these wounds of feeling had now to be added sufferings of a still more
+pressing nature; their remittances had begun to fail. The property which
+they had left in the hands of their Parisian bankers had either become
+valueless by the issue of assignats, which no one would take, or
+confiscated in the general plunder of the banks, whose principals had
+been thrown into prison, on _suspicion_ of being worth robbing. All was
+bankruptcy.
+
+The duchess made a slight attempt, evidently a painful one, to explain
+to us, as strangers, the purpose of their unusual meeting. It was
+simply, that "the emigrant noblesse, who had already experienced so much
+heroic hospitality from their English friends, thought that the time was
+come when they ought to be burdens on them no longer. The letters from
+France are dreadful," said she, "and it will be our duty to show, that
+as we have enjoyed prosperity, we can submit to suffering. We must
+prepare to earn our bread by those accomplishments which we acquired in
+happier times, and, as we once supposed, for happier times."
+
+A general sigh seemed to break from every heart, and Mariamne hung on
+the hand of the duchess, and grew pale. There was a silence for a while;
+at length she resumed--"We must not return to our own country, at least
+until this horrid struggle is at an end; for we should only embarrass
+those who have sent us to the protection of this generous land, and for
+whose sake we live. Yet, we only do honour to them by avoiding to eat
+the bread of dependence, while we can labour for ourselves." Those
+words, few as they were, were uttered with many a pause, and in the low
+tone of a true mourner. She then called a beautiful girl towards her.
+The girl rose, hesitated, and sank again. "Clotilde, my love, here are
+none but friends; we must forget every thing but patience and our
+country." As she spoke, the duchess took her contribution from her hand;
+it was a drawing of some size, and of singular elegance--an Arcadian
+festival. It was sent round the room with universal admiration; and the
+ice thus once broken, a succession of proficients followed, bringing the
+produce of their talents; some, miniatures--some, sketches of French and
+Swiss scenery--some, illustrations of Racine and the French theatre;
+and, of course, many with embroidery, and the graceful works of the
+needle. Strangers are too apt to conceive that Paris is France and that
+the frivolity of life in the capital was always its model in the
+provinces. I here saw evidence to the contrary, and was not a little
+surprised to see performances so seldom to be found among the French
+arts, as admirable oil-paintings, carvings in ivory, marble busts, and
+bas-reliefs, casts of antique vases and groups, and even models of the
+chief temples and palaces of antiquity. The leisure of the chateau was
+often vividly, and even vigorously employed; and while the youths of the
+great families were solely directed to military prospects, the females
+often acquired solid and grave accomplishments. In short, we had among
+us as many artificers, not a few of them delicate and lovely, as could
+have furnished a Tower of Babel, if not built it; but _our_ fabric
+would have had one exception, it would have had no "confusion of
+tongues;" for tongues there were none to be heard among us--all was
+silence, but when some work of striking beauty, and this was not
+unfrequently the case, was handed round with a murmur of applause.
+
+The harp and piano were then brought forward and this was the most
+trying part of all--not from any want of skill in the performers, for
+the majority were perfect on both instruments, but from the nature of
+the performances themselves. France is not renowned for native music,
+but neither Italian genius, nor German science, has produced more
+exquisite little snatches of melody than are to be found in some of the
+nooks and corners of the provinces. Paris is, like other capitals, an
+epitome of the world; but Languedoc, the wild country of Auvergne, the
+Vosges mountains, the hidden and quiet vales of Normandy, and even the
+melancholy sands of the Breton, have airs of singular and characteristic
+sweetness. Gretry and Rousseau were but their copyists. Sorrow,
+solitude, and love, are every where, and their inspiration is worth all
+the orchestras in the globe.
+
+Those simple airs were more congenial to the depressed spirits of the
+whole assemblage than the most showy bravuras; and, sung by those
+handsome creatures--for beauty adds a charm to everything--retained me
+spell-bound. But, on the performers, and their circle of hearers, the
+effect was indescribable. All the world knows, that there is nothing
+which revives memories like music. Those were the airs which they had
+heard and sung from their infancy; the airs of their early
+companionships, hopes, and perhaps loves; sung in their gardens, their
+palaces, at their parents' knees, by the cradles of their children, at
+their firesides, every where combining with the heart. Sung now in their
+exile, they brought back to each heart some recollection of the happiest
+scenes and fondest ties of its existence. No power of poetry, nor even
+of the pencil, could have brought the past so deeply, so touchingly,
+with such living sensibility, before them. _There_ at least, was no
+acting, no display, no feigned feeling--their country, their friends,
+the perils of husband and brother in the field, the anguish, almost the
+agony, of woman's affection--and what can equal that affection?--was in
+the gestures and countenances of all before me. Some wept silently and
+abundantly; some buried their faces on their knees, and by the heaving
+of their bosoms alone, showed how they felt; some sat with their large
+eyes fixed on heaven, and their lips moving as in silent prayer; some
+almost knelt, with hands clasped and eyes bent down, in palpable
+supplication. Stranger as I was to them and theirs, it was painful even
+to me. I felt myself doubly an intruder, and was thinking how I might
+best glide away, when I saw Mariamne, in an attempt like my own, to
+move, suddenly fall at the feet of the duchess. She had fainted. I
+carried her into the open air, where she soon recovered. "Do you wish to
+return, Mariamne?" said I. She looked at me with amazement. "Return! It
+would kill me. Let us go home." I placed her on her horse, and we moved
+quietly and sadly away.
+
+"That was a strange scene," said I, after a long interval of silence.
+
+"Very," was the laconic reply.
+
+"I am afraid it distressed you," I observed.
+
+"I would not have seen it for any consideration, if I could have known
+what it was;" she answered with a new gush of tears. "Yet what must my
+feelings be to theirs? They lose every thing."
+
+"But they bear the loss nobly. Still they have not lost all, when they
+can excite such sympathy in the mind of England. They have found at
+least an asylum; but what was the object of this singular meeting?"
+
+"Oh, who can tell what they are dreaming of in their distraction?" she
+said with a deep sigh. "It was probably to turn their talents to some
+account; to send their works to London, and live by them--poor things,
+how little they know of London!--or, perhaps, to try their chance as
+teachers, and break their hearts in the trial. Revolutions are terrible
+things!" We lapsed into silence again.
+
+"I pity most the more advanced in life," I resumed. "They have been so
+long accustomed to all the splendours of Paris, that living here must be
+felt with incurable humiliation. The young are more elastic, and bear
+misfortune by the mere spirit of youth; and the lovely find friends
+every where. Did you observe the noble air, the almost heroine look, of
+that incomparable girl who first showed her drawing?" Mariamne shot a
+quick glance at me.
+
+"You have quite forgotten her name, I suppose?" said she, with a
+scrutinizing look.
+
+"Not wholly. I think the duchess called her Clotilde."
+
+"I shall set you at ease, sir, upon that point," said she smartly. "But
+of one thing I can assure you, and it is, that she is engaged to be
+married to her second cousin, the Marquis de Montrecour. So, you see, it
+is scarcely worth your while to enquire any thing more of her name, as
+she is about to change it so soon--but it is De Tourville, a descendant
+of the renowned admiral, who lost a renowned French fleet a hundred
+years ago, an event not unusual in French history. You observe, Mr
+Marston, I give you most willingly all the information in my power."
+
+I have never presumed to have a master key to female hearts; but there
+was something half contemptuous, half piqued, in my fair companion's
+tone, and a rapid interchange of red and pale in her cheeks, which set
+me musing. She touched her horse with her fairy whip, and cantered a few
+paces before me. I followed, as became a faithful squire. She suddenly
+reined up, and said, in the voice of one determined that I should feel
+the full point of the sting--"Oh, I had forgot. I beg a thousand
+pardons. Yesterday the Marquis arrived in London. His proposal reached
+Madame la Comtesse this morning, the young lady's mother--your
+_heroine_, I think you called her. The _trousseau_ will probably be sent
+down from London in a week, unless she shall go to town to choose it,
+which is the more likely event, as among French ladies the trousseau is
+generally a more important matter than the gentleman; and then, I
+presume, you will be relieved from all _anxiety_ upon the subject."
+
+I was all astonishment. The language would have been an impertinence in
+any one else; yet, in the pretty and piquant Mariamne, it was simply
+coquettish. At any other time or place I might have felt offended; but I
+was now embarrassed, wordless, and plunged in problems. Why should I be
+concerned in this news? What was the opinion of this butterfly to me?
+yet its sarcasm stung me: what was Clotilde to me? yet I involuntary
+wished the Marquis de Montrecour at the bottom of the Channel; or what
+knew I of French tastes, or cared about trousseaux? yet, at that moment,
+I peevishly determined to take no more rambles in the direction of the
+Emigrant cottages, and to return to town at once, and see what sort of
+absurdity a French marriage present looked at my first step in Bond
+Street.
+
+But this was destined to be a day of adventures. I had led her a circuit
+through the Downs, in the hope of reviving her by the fresh air before
+we reached the villa; and we were moving slowly along over the velvet
+turf, and enjoying that most animating of all the breaths of sky or
+earth--the sea-breeze; when Mariamne's steed--one of the most highly
+_man�ged_, and most beautiful of animals, began to show signs of
+restlessness, pricked up his ears, stopped suddenly, and began to snuff
+the gale with an inflated nostril. As if the animal had communicated its
+opinions to its fellow, both our horses set off at a smart trot, the
+trot became a canter, the canter a gallop. Mariamne was a capital
+horsewoman and the exercise put her in spirits again. After a quarter of
+an hour of this volunteer gallop, from the top of one of the Downs we
+saw the cause--the Sussex hunt, ranging the valley at our feet. Our
+horses were now irrestrainable, and both rushed down the hill together.
+The peril of such a descent instantly caught all eyes. A broad and high
+fence surrounded the foot of the hill, and, wildly as we flew down, saw
+that the whole hunt had stopped in evident alarm. In another moment we
+had reached the fence. Mariamne's horse, making a desperate spring, flew
+over it. Mine failed, and threw me into the middle of the hedge. I was
+stunned, the sight left my eyes; and, when I opened them again, a man of
+peculiarly striking countenance, and stately figure, was raising me from
+the ground, while an attendant was pouring brandy down my throat. My
+first thought was of my unfortunate companion. "Where is the lady? Is
+she safe? What has become of her?" were my first exclamations. "Are you
+much hurt," enquired the stranger. "No, no," I cried; "where is the
+lady?" "I hope by this time safe," said he; "some gentlemen of the party
+have followed her: her horse has run away with her; but they will
+doubtless overtake her in a few minutes." He ascended a small rising
+ground close to us, and stood gazing in the distance. "No, they are
+following her still. She keeps her seat. They are now taking a short cut
+to intercept her. They are close up.--No, that mad animal of a horse has
+thrown them all out again, he springs over every thing; yet she still
+holds on. What a capital horsewoman!" While he uttered those broken
+exclamations I rolled on the ground in torture. At length, after a
+pause, I heard him say, in a shuddering voice, "All's over! that way
+leads direct to the cliff."
+
+At the words, though dizzy with pain, and scarcely able to see, I seized
+the bridle of the groom's horse, who had alighted to assist me; without
+a word sprang on his back, and dashing in the spur was gone like an
+arrow. The whole group soon followed.
+
+From the first rising ground, I saw the frightful chase continued.
+Mariamne's hat had fallen off, and her hair and habit were flying in the
+wind. She was bending to the neck of her steed, whom the pursuit of the
+hunt, and the sight of their red coats, had evidently frightened. He was
+darting, rather than galloping along, by wild bounds, evidently growing
+feeble, but still distancing his pursuers. Half dead with pain and
+terror, I could scarcely hold the bridle, and was soon overtaken by the
+stranger. "Sir," said he, "you are exhausted, and will never be able to
+overtake the unfortunate lady in that direction. I know the
+country--follow me." Unable to answer, I followed; with my ears ringing
+with a thousand sounds, and my thoughts all confusion--I was awoke from
+this half stupor by a tremendous outcry.
+
+On the brow of the hill before me, were the dozen jaded riders, forced
+to draw rein by the steepness of the declivity, and all pointing with
+vehement gestures below. In the next instant, through the ravine at its
+foot, and within a hundred yards of the cliff, came Marianne, still
+clinging to the horse, and flying like the wind. The look which she cast
+upon me, as she shot by, haunted me for years after, whenever an image
+of terror rose in my dreams. Her eyes were starting from their sockets,
+her lips gasping wide, her visage ghastliness itself. Another moment,
+and all must be over; for at the end of the valley was the cliff, a
+hundred and fifty feet high. I rushed after her. The sight of the sea
+had struck her at once. She uttered a scream, and fell with her forehead
+on the horse's neck. Even that movement probably checked him, for he
+reared, and before his feet touched the ground again I was close to him;
+with a frantic effort I caught his bridle, and swept his head round.
+Mariamne fell, voiceless, sightless, and breathless, into my arms. The
+spot where she was saved was within a single bound of the precipice.
+
+The hunters now came round us, and all was congratulation. Our escape
+was pronounced to be "miraculous;" I was complimented on all kinds of
+heroism; and the stranger, evidently the chief personage of the circle,
+after giving the glance of a connoisseur at poor Mariamne's still
+pallid, yet expressive, countenance, thanked me, "for having allowed him
+to breathe at last, which he had not done, he believed, for some
+minutes, through terror." Nothing could exceed the graceful interest
+which he expressed in my companion's safety. His grooms were sent to
+look for assistance in all quarters, and it was not until a carriage had
+arrived from the next village, and he had seen Mariamne placed in it,
+that he could be persuaded to take his leave. Even in after life, when I
+saw him in the midst of the splendour of the world, himself its ruling
+star, and heard him so often quoted as
+
+    "The glass of fashion, and the mould of form,"
+
+I thought that he never deserved the title more than when I saw him
+perform the duties of simple good-nature to two unknown individuals on a
+wild heath on the Sussex shore That stranger was the Prince of Wales!
+
+This adventure, by all the laws of romance, should have made me fall in
+love with Mariamne, or Mariamne fall in love with me. But reality has
+laws of a different kind, and the good fortune of being just in time to
+save a lady's life, whether on horseback or on foot, whether in lake or
+river, whatever it might be in any other ages, is not necessarily a
+pledge of eternal constancy in our times. That she was grateful, I fully
+believe, for her nature was innocent and kind; but confession was out of
+the question, for neither during our rapid drive home, nor for some days
+after, was she capable of uttering one word. Alarm had reduced her to a
+state of exhaustion next to death. Her slight frame had been so shaken
+that she was as helpless as a child; and almost the only sin of
+consciousness which she gave, was her shrinking from the sight of the
+sea whenever she was led towards the window, and her hiding her head in
+her shawl at every sound of the surge.
+
+It may be true, that if the choice depended on her father I should have
+been the possessor of her fair hand, and the heir to his half million,
+and equally true, that the event might have saved me a million of
+troubles. Even at this hour, I sometimes cannot help thinking how total
+a change must have been given to my anxious career--how many desperate
+struggles I should have escaped, if I had thus found my path covered,
+like an eastern potentate's, with cloth of gold! From my first step, how
+many privations, nay pangs, would have been utterly unknown to me in
+climbing up the steeps of life, if I had been lifted on the broad and
+easy pinions of opulence; how little I should have suffered from that
+reptilism which lurks in every thicket of public life, and every where
+with a sting; if I had gone through existence, like another Rasselas in
+his valley of imperishable summer, guarded from all the inclemencies of
+fortune, and surrounded with all the enjoyments of man!
+
+And yet, who can tell that the very ease of such a destiny might not
+have wearied my heart, enervated my mind, and rendered me at once
+burdensome to myself and useless to the world? Is it not hunger that
+gives the true zest to the banquet, however exquisite, and labour that
+gives the true charm to the couch, however embroidered? Is not the
+noblest enjoyment of the noblest mind to be found it the consciousness
+that we have done something in our generation; that we have contributed
+a stone to the pyramid of the national renown, that our lips have
+swelled the echoes of imperial glory? What can reconcile the man of
+powerful intellect to the consciousness that he has passed through life
+a cipher, and left nothing behind him but a tomb?
+
+I had now to undergo the temper of Mordecai. The sight of a post-chaise
+flying along the shore, with one of the royal grooms as outrider, had
+brought him and all the inmates of the villa to the door. From our
+furious haste it was evident to them all that some extraordinary
+circumstance had caused the long delay of their young mistress. From the
+entrance of the avenue I saw Mordecai standing, straight and silent as
+one of the pillars of his gate, with his arms folded, and his eye
+lowering under his huge brow, like one prepared for calamity. But when
+the carriage drove up to the door, and I raised his helpless and
+ashy-coloured daughter in my arms, he gazed for an instant on her, and
+with a howl like that of a wild animal pierced by bullet or steel, fell
+on his face on the ground. He evidently thought that she was dead.
+
+Even when she opened her feeble eyelids, smiled, and took his hand, he
+could scarcely be persuaded that she was still alive. He raved, he tore
+his hair, he vowed deathless vengeance, and the vengeance of all his
+race, against the murderer of his child, "his beloved, the child of his
+soul, the last scion of his name, his angel Mariamne." Rage and tears
+followed each other in all the tempest of oriental fury. No explanation
+of mine would be listened to for a moment, and I at length gave up the
+attempt. The grooms had given the outline of the story; and Mordecai
+charged me with all kinds of rashness and folly. At one time rushing
+forward to the couch where she lay, faintly attempting to soothe him, he
+would fling himself on his knees beside her, kiss her forehead, and
+upbraid himself for all his fancied harshness to her in the course of
+his life. Then suddenly starting on his feet, with the spring of a
+tiger, he would bound towards me, his powerful features distended with
+rage, his deep eye flashing, and his bony hand clenched as if it grasped
+a dagger, cursing the hour "when I had first set my foot under his
+unhappy roof," or cast my "evil eye upon the only child of the undone
+Mordecai." Ever in all the scene, the thought struck me, of what would
+be the effect of a hundred thousand such men, sweeping with scymetar and
+lance over the fields of Palestine? The servants fled in terror, or
+lurked in different directions until the storm should be gone down. At
+length Mariamne, dreading an actual collision between us, rose with an
+effort, tottered across the room, and threw her arms around her father's
+neck. The old man was conquered at once; his countenance grew calm; he
+sat down upon the floor, and with his daughter hiding her face in his
+bosom, wept silently and long. When I saw him thus quieted, I left them
+together, and retired to my chamber, determined to leave the discovery
+of his error to his returning judgment; and reinforced in my intention
+to depart for London even at the earliest dawn.
+
+I employed myself for a while in packing up my few equipments for the
+journey, but this was soon done, and the question was, how to get rid of
+the remainder of the evening. I was resolved to meet Mordecai no more;
+and the servant who announced that dinner was ready, was sent back with
+an answer, that a violent headach prevented my leaving my room. The
+headach was true; and I had a reluctance equally true to see the "human
+face divine" for that evening at least. There was one exception to that
+reluctance, for thoughts had begun to awake in me, from which I shrank
+with something little short of terror. There was one "human face divine"
+which I would have made a pilgrimage round the world to see--but it was
+not under the roof of Mordecai. It was in one of the little cottages on
+which I was then looking from my window, and yet which seemed placed by
+circumstances at an immeasurable distance from me. It was the
+countenance of a stranger--one with whom I had never exchanged a word,
+who was probably ignorant of my existence, whom I might never see again,
+and yet whom I had felt to be my fate. Such are the fantasies, the
+caprices of that most fantastic of things--the the unfledged mind. But I
+have not taken up my pen to write either the triflings or the
+tendernesses of the heart. I leave to others the _beau id�al_ of life.
+Mine has been the practical, and it has been stern and struggling. I
+have often been astonished at the softness in which other minds seem to
+have passed their day; the ripened pasture and clustering vineyards--the
+mental Arcadia--in which they describe themselves as having loitered
+from year to year. Can I have faith in this perpetual Claude Lorraine
+pencil--this undying verdure of the soil--this gold and purple suffusion
+of the sky--those pomps of the palace and the temple, with their
+pageants and nymphs, giving life to the landscape, while mine was a
+continual encounter with difficulty--a continual summons to
+self-control? My march was like that of the climber up the side of �tna,
+every step through ruins, the vestiges of former conflagration--the
+ground I trode, rocks that had once been flame--every advance a new
+trial of my feelings or my fortitude--every stage of the ascent leading
+me, like the traveller, into a higher region of sand or ashes, until, at
+the highest, I stood in a circle of eternal frost, and with all the rich
+and human landscape below fading away in distance, or covered with
+clouds, looked down only on a gulf of fire.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As I sat at my window, gazing vaguely on the sea, then unruffled by a
+breath, and realizing all the images of evening serenity, a flight of
+curlews shot screaming by, and awoke me from my reverie. I took my gun,
+and followed them along the shore. My sportsmanship was never of the
+most zealous order, and my success on this occasion did not add much to
+the mortality of the curlews. But the fresh air revived me, I felt my
+elasticity of foot and frame return, and I followed for some miles along
+the windings of the shore. At last I had reached the pool where they,
+probably more aware of the weather than I was, seemed intending to take
+up their quarters for the night. I took my ground, and was preparing to
+attack them with both barrels; when a gust that swept with sudden
+violence between the hills nearly blew me down, and scattered all my
+prey, screaming and startled, on the wing far into the interior. I had
+now leisure to look to myself. The sea was rolling in huge billows to
+the shore. The sun had sunk as suddenly as if it had been drowned. The
+hills were visible but for a moment, gleamed ghastly in the last light,
+and were then covered with mist. One of those storms common in Autumn,
+and which brings all the violence of winter into the midst of the
+loveliest season of the year, had come on, and I was now to find shelter
+where I could in the wilderness.
+
+I was vigorous and hardy, but my situation began to be sufficiently
+embarrassing; for I was at least half-a-dozen miles from home; and the
+fog, which wrapped every thing, soon rendered the whole face of the
+country one cloud. To move a single step now was hazardous. I could
+judge even of my nearness to the ocean only by its roar. The rain soon
+added to my perplexities, for it began to descend less in showers than
+in sheets. I tried the shelter of the solitary thicket in these wilds,
+but was quickly driven from my position. I next tried the hollow of a
+sand-hill, but there again I was beaten by the enemy; and before I had
+screened myself from the gust a quarter of an hour, a low rumbling
+sound, and the fall of pieces of the hill above, awoke me to the chance
+of being buried alive. I now disclaimed all shelter, and painfully
+gained the open country, with no other guide than my ear, which told me
+that I was leaving the sea further and further behind, but hearing the
+rush of many a rivulet turned into a river before me, and in no slight
+peril of finishing my history in the bed of some pool, or being swept on
+the surface of some overcharged ditch, to find my bed in the sea after
+all.
+
+All vexations seem trifling when they are once over; but, for full two
+hours of this pelted pilgrimage, I felt sensations which might have
+cured me of solitary sporting for the rest of my existence.
+
+At the end of those hours, which appeared to me ten times the length, I
+heard the barking of a dog, the usual announcement of peasant life; and
+rejoicing in it, as one of the most welcome of all possible sounds, I
+worked, felt, and waded, my way to the door of a building, at which,
+without ceremony, I asked for entrance. My application was for some time
+unanswered but I heard a rustling within which made me repeat my request
+in various ways. After trying my eloquence in vain, I offered a guinea
+for a bed. A window was now opened above, and showed a pair of heads,
+which in their night-gear strongly reminded me of the grandmother wolf
+in Little Red Riding hood--myself, of course, being the innocent victim.
+I now doubled my offer, my whole purse amounting to no more; and was let
+in.
+
+My hosts were two, an old woman hideous with age and ferocity of
+feature, but the other a young one, with a handsome but bold countenance
+whose bronze had been borrowed as much from free living as from the sea
+breeze. The house was furnished in the parti-coloured style, which,
+showed me at once that it belonged to something above the peasant. The
+women at first were rather reluctant to enter into any conversation; but
+when, to make my reception welcome, I paid the two guineas down on the
+table, their hearts became thawed at once, and their tongues flowed. My
+wet clothes were exchanged for the fisherman's wardrobe, and a tolerable
+supper was put on the table. Some luxuries which I might not have found
+under roofs of more pretension, were produced one after the other; and I
+thus had Hamburg hung beef, Westphalia ham, and even St Petersburg
+caviare; preserved pine apple formed my desert, and a capital glass of
+claret "for the gentleman," of which the ladies, however, professed
+themselves incapable of discovering the merit, was followed by an
+equally capital bottle of brandy, which they evidently understood much
+better.
+
+In the midst of our festivity, the dog sprang to the door, and a sound
+like that of a horn or conch shell, was heard through the roar of the
+gale. The women started from their seats in evident consternation, swept
+away the remnants of the supper, and conveyed me into an adjoining
+closet; where they begged of me to keep close, not to speak a syllable,
+let what would happen, and, as I valued my life and theirs, not to
+mention thereafter whatever I might see or hear. It was now plain that I
+was in the house of smugglers; and as those were notoriously people not
+to be trifled with, I made my promises of non-intervention with perfect
+sincerity.
+
+I was scarcely in my nook when the party arrived. They were evidently
+six or seven--their conversation was the common bluster and
+boisterousness of their trade--and between their demands for supper,
+their coarse jokes, and their curses at the lubberliness or loitering of
+their associates from the other side of the Channel, (for, with all
+their accompliceship, they had the true John Bull contempt for the
+seamanship of Monsieur,) they kept the house in an uproar. They expected
+a cargo from Calais that right, and the idea of losing so favourable an
+opportunity as the tempest offered, rendered them especially indignant.
+Scouts were sent out from tine to time to look for signals, but nothing
+appeared. At length the brandy was beginning to take effect on their
+brains, and their rough jokes arose into quarrel. A charge of treachery
+produced the drawing of cutlasses, and I heard them slashing at each
+other; but the right Nantz which had inflamed the quarrel rendered it
+harmless, until one lost his balance, rolled headlong against my door,
+and burst it in. There stood I, visible to all, and the sight produced a
+yell, in which the epithets of "spy, exciseman, custom-house shark," and
+a whole vocabulary of others, all equally remote from panegyric, were
+showered upon me. I should have been cut down by some of the blades
+which flashed before me, but that I had taken the precaution of carrying
+my gun to my closet, and was evidently determined to fight it out. This
+produced a parley; when I told my tale, and as it was corroborated by
+the women, who came forward trembling at the sight of their savage
+masters, and who spoke with the sincerity of fear; it saved me further
+encounter, and I was merely enjoined to pledge myself, that I should not
+betray them.
+
+The compromise was scarcely brought to a conclusion when the discharge
+of a pistol was heard outside; and as this was the signal, the whole
+party-prepared to leave the house. I now expected to be left to such
+slumbers as I could find in the midst of rocking roofs, and rattling
+doors and windows. But this was not to be. After a short consultation at
+the door, one of them returned, and desired me to throw on a fisherman's
+dreadnought which was smoking beside the fire; and follow him. Against
+this, however, I vehemently protested.
+
+"Why, lookye, sir," said the fellow, smoothing his tone into something
+like civility, "there is no use in that thing there against about fifty
+of us; but you must come along."
+
+I asked him, could he suppose, that I was any thing like a spy, or that,
+if I gave my word, I should not keep it?
+
+"No," said the fellow. "I believe you to be a gentleman; but what a
+story shall we have for the captain if we tell him that we left a
+stranger behind us--and, begging your pardon, sir, we know more about
+you than what the women here told us--and that after he heard all our
+plans for the night's work, we left him to go off to the custom-house,
+with his story for the surveyor."
+
+This seemed rational enough, but I still held my garrison. The fellow's
+face flushed, and, with something of an oath, he went to the door, gave
+a whistle, and returned next minute with a dozen powerful fellows, all
+armed. Contest was now useless, and I agreed to go with them until they
+met the "captain," who was then to settle the question of my liberty,
+The women curtseyed me to the door, as if they rather regretted the loss
+of their companion, and were at least not much pleased by being cut off
+from further inroads on a purse which had begun by paying so handsomely,
+not knowing, that it was utterly stript; and we marched to the point of
+waiting for the bark from Calais.
+
+The storm had actually increased in violence, and the howling of the
+wind, and thunder of the billows on the shore, were tremendous. Not a
+word was spoken, and if it had been, the roar would have prevented it
+from being heard, the night was pitch dark, and the winding paths along
+which we rather slid than walked, would not have been easy to find
+during the day. But custom is every thing: my party strode along with
+the security of perfect knowledge. The country, too, seemed alive round
+us. The cottages, it is true, were all silent and shut up, as we hurried
+through; but many a light we saw from the lowly cottage, and many a
+whistle we heard over the wild heath. Cows' horns were also in evident
+requisition for trumpets, and in the intervals of the gusts I could
+often hear the creaking of cart-wheels in the distance. It is to be
+remembered that this was notoriously _the_ smuggling country of England,
+that those were the famous times of smuggling, and that the money made
+by evading the king's customs often amounted to a moderate fortune in
+the course of a simple speculation.
+
+The whole country apparently had two existences, a day and a night
+one--a day and a night population--the clown and his tillage in the
+light, the smuggler and his trade in the dark; yet the same peasant
+frequently exhibiting a versatility for which John Bull seldom gets
+credit.--The man of the plough-tail and the spade, drudging and dull
+through one half of his being; the same man, after an hour or two of
+sleep, springing from his bed at midnight, handling the sail and helm,
+baffling his Majesty's cruisers at sea, and making a _m�l�e_ with the
+officers of the customs on shore--active, quick, and bold, a first-rate
+seaman, brave as a lion, fleet as a hare, and generally having the best
+of it in the exercise of both qualities.
+
+Our numbers had evidently grown as we advanced, and at length a whistle
+brought us to a dead stand. One of the party now touched my sleeve, and
+said,--"Sir, you must follow me." The cliff was so near, that thoughts
+not much to the credit of my companions came into my head. I drew back.
+The man observed it, and said, "The captain must see you, sir. If we
+wanted to do you any mischief, an ounce of lead might have settled the
+business an hour ago. But if we are free-traders, we are not
+bloodhounds. You may trust _me_; I served on board Rodney's ship."
+
+Of course this was an appeal to my new friend's honour, which could not
+be refused without hurting his etiquette most grievously, and I
+followed. After two or three windings through an excavation in the
+cliff, we came in front of a blazing fire, screened from external eyes
+by a pile of ship timbers. Before the fire was a table with bottles, and
+at it a man busily writing. On raising his eyes the recognition was
+instant and mutual. I saw at once, in his strong features, my companion
+on the roof of the Royal Sussex stage, whose disappearance had been the
+subject of so much enquiry. He palpably knew a good deal more of me than
+I did of him, and, after a moment's embarrassment, and the thrusting of
+papers and pistols into the drawer of a table, he asked me to sit down;
+hurried to the mouth of the cavern, heard the story of my capture from
+the sailor, and returned, with his forehead rather smoothed.
+
+"I am sorry, sir," said he, "that the absurdity of my people has given
+you a walk at this time of night; but they are rough fellows, and their
+orders are to be on the _qui vive_."
+
+My answer was, "That I had been treated civilly; and, as circumstances
+had brought it about, I did not so much dislike the adventure after
+all."
+
+"Well spoken, young gentleman," was his reply. "Circumstances rule every
+thing in this world, and one thing I shall tell you; you might be in
+worse hands, even in this country, than in ours. Pray," added he, with a
+peculiar look, "how did you leave my friend Mordecai?"
+
+I laughed, and he followed my example. Tossing off a glass of wine and
+filling out a bumper for me--
+
+"Well, then," said he, "suppose we drink the Jew's health. I gave you a
+rather strange character of him, I think. I called him the perfection of
+a rogue; true enough; but still I make a difference between a man who
+volunteers roguery; and a man on whom it is thrust by the world.
+Circumstances, you see, are my reason for every thing. Make a hard
+bargain with Mordecai, and ten to one but you are caught in his trap.
+Throw yourself on his mercy; and if the whim takes him, I have known him
+as generous as any other."
+
+I replied, that his generosity or craft were now matters of very little
+importance to me, for I had determined to return to London by day-break.
+He expressed surprise, asked whether I was insensible to the charms of
+the fair Mariamne, and recommend my trying to make an impression there,
+if desired to have as much stock as would purchase the next loan. Our
+further conversation was interrupted by the sound of a gun from seaward,
+and we went out together.
+
+The sight was now awful; the tide had risen, and the storm was at its
+height. We could scarcely keep our feet, except by clinging to the
+rocks. The bursts of wind came almost with the force of cannon shot, and
+the men, who now seemed to amount to several hundreds, were seen by the
+glare of the lightnings grasping each other in groups along the shore
+and the hills, the only mode in which they could save themselves from
+being swept away like chaff. The rain had now ceased its continual pour,
+but it burst in sharp, short showers, that smote us with the keenness of
+hail. The sea, to the horizon, was white with its own dashings, and
+every mountain surge that swept to the shore was edged with light--the
+whole, one magnificent sheet of phosphor and foam. Yet, awful as all
+was, all was so exciting that I actually enjoyed the scene. But the
+excitement grew stronger still, when the sudden report of two guns from
+seaward, the signal for the approach of the lugger, followed almost
+immediately by a broadside, told us that we were likely to see an action
+before her arrival. As she rose rapidly upon the horizon, her signals
+showed that she was chased by a Government cruiser, and one of double
+her size. Of the superior weight of metal in the pursuer we saw
+sufficient proofs in the unremitting fire. Except by superior
+manoeuvering there was clearly no chance for the lugger. But in the
+mean time all that could be done on shore was done. A huge fire sprang
+up instantly on the cliff, muskets were discharged, and shouts were
+given, to show that her friends were on the alert. The captain's
+countenance fell, and as he strode backwards and forwards along the
+shore, I could hear his wrath in continued grumblings.
+
+"Fool and brute!" he cried, "this all comes of his being unable to hold
+his tongue. He has clearly blabbed, otherwise we should not have had any
+thing better than a row-boat in our wake. He will be captured to a
+certainty. Well, he will find the comfort of being a cabin-boy or a
+foremast-man on board the fleet for the rest of his days. I would not
+trust him with a Thames lighter, if ever he gets on shore again."
+
+The cannonade began now to be returned by the lugger, and the captain's
+spirits revived. Coming up to me, he said, wiping the thick perspiration
+from his brow, "This, sir, is a bad night's job, I am afraid; but if the
+fellow in command of that lugger had only sea room, I doubt whether he
+would not give the revenue craft enough to do yet. If he would but stand
+off and try a fair run for it, but in this bay, in this beggarly nook,
+where a man cannot steer without rubbing his elbows upon either shore,
+he gives his seamanship no chance."
+
+He now stood with his teeth firm set, and his night-glass to his eye,
+bluff against the storm. A broadside came rolling along.
+
+"By Jove! one would think that he had heard me," he exclaimed. "Well
+done, Dick Longyarn! The Shark has got that in his teeth. He is leading
+the cruiser a dance. What sort of report will the revenue gentleman have
+to make to my Lords Commissioners to-morrow or the next day, I should
+wish to know?"
+
+The crowd on shore followed the Manoeuvres with not less interest.
+Every glass was at the eye; and I constantly heard their grumblings and
+disapprovals, as some luckless turn of the helm exposed the lugger to
+the cruiser's fire. "She will be raked; she will lose her masts," was
+the general groan. As they neared the shore, the effect of every shot
+was visible. "There goes the mainsail all to ribands; the yards are shot
+in the slings." Then public opinion would change. "Fine fellow that! The
+Shark's main-top shakes like a whip." In this way all went on for nearly
+an hour, which, however, I scarcely felt to be more than a few minutes.
+"The skipper in command of that boat," said the captain at my side, "is
+one of the best seamen on the coast, as bold as a bull, and will fight
+any thing; but he is as leaky as a sieve; and when the wine gets into
+him, in a tavern at Calais or Dunkirk, if he had the secrets of the
+Privy Council, they would all be at the mercy of the first scoundrel who
+takes a bottle with him."
+
+"But he fights his vessel well," I observed.
+
+"So he does," was the reply; "but if he should have that lugger captured
+before a keg touches the sand, and if the whole goes into the
+custom-house before it reaches the cellars of the owners, it will be all
+his fault."
+
+They were at length so near us that we could easily see the splinters
+flying from the sides of both, and the havoc made among the rigging was
+fearful; yet, except for the anxiety, nothing could be more beautiful
+than the manoeuvres of both. The doublings of the hare before the
+greyhound, the flight of the pigeon before the hawk, all the common
+images of pursuit and evasion were trifling to the doublings and
+turnings, the attempts to make fight, and the escape at the moment when
+capture seemed inevitable. The cruiser was gallantly commanded, and her
+masterly management upon a lee shore, often forced involuntary
+admiration even from the captain.
+
+"A clever lad that revenue man, I must own," said he, "it is well worth
+his while, for if he catch that lugger he will have laid hold of twenty
+thousand pounds' worth of as hard-earned money as ever crossed the
+Channel. I myself have a thousand in silk on board."
+
+"Then all is not brandy that she brings over?"
+
+"Brandy!" said the captain, with a bitter smile. "They would be welcome
+to all the brandy she carries to-night, or to double the freight, if
+that were all. She has a cargo of French silks, French claret, ay, and
+French gold, that she must fight for while she has a stick standing."
+
+At this moment, the sky, dark as it was before, grew tenfold darker, and
+a cloud, that gave me the exact image of a huge black velvet pall,
+suddenly dropped down and completely covered both vessels; no firing was
+heard for a time, even the yell of the gust had sunk; nothing was heard
+but the billow, as it groaned along the hollow shore. The same thought
+occurred to us both at once. "Those brave boys are all in their coffin
+together," slowly murmured my companion. There was neither shout nor
+even word among the crowd; while every eye and ear was strained, and the
+men began to run along the water's edge to find a fragment of the
+wrecks, or assist some struggler for life in the surge. But the cloud,
+which absolutely lay upon the water, suddenly burst open, with a roar of
+thunder, as if split from top to bottom by the bolt, and both were seen.
+A sheet of lightning, which, instead of the momentary flash, hung
+quivering from the zenith, showed both vessels with a lurid distinctness
+infinitely clearer than day. Every remaining shroud and rope, every
+wound of mast or yard, every shot-hole, nay, every rib and streak of the
+hulls, was as distinctly visible as if they had been illuminated from
+within. But their decks, as the heave of the surge threw them towards
+us, showed a fearful spectacle. The dying and the dead, flung along the
+gangways, the wounded clinging to the gun carriages or masts, a few
+still loading the guns, which neither had now hands enough to
+manoeuvre; yet both ships still flying on, shattered and torn, and
+looking, in the wild light, like two gigantic skeletons.
+
+The lugger now fired a rocket, and sent up a striped flag, the signal of
+distress. A cry for "The boats!" was echoed along the shore, and eight
+or ten were speedily started from their hiding places and dragged down
+the shingle. Stout hearts and strong hands were in them without loss of
+time, and they dashed into the storm. But their efforts were wholly
+useless. No strength of oars could stand against such a gale. Some were
+swamped at once, the men hardly escaping with their lives. The rest were
+tossed like dust upon the wind, and dashed high on shore. All was
+hopeless. Another rocket went up, and by its ghastly blaze I caught a
+glimpse of the captain. He had been either forced from his hold on the
+rocks by the wind, or fallen through exhaustion. His bronzed face was
+was now as pale as the sand on which he lay; he was the very image of
+despair. Thinking that he had fainted, and fearing that, in this
+helpless state, he might be swept away by the next surge--for the spray
+was now bursting over us at every swell--I laid hold of his hand to drag
+him higher up the cliff after me. As if the grasp had given him a
+renewed life, he sprang on his feet, and saying, in a distracted tone,
+which I alone could hear, "Better be drowned than ruined!" he cried out
+with the voice of a maniac, "Boys, sink or swim, here I go! Five guineas
+for every man who gets on board." Tearing off his heavy coat, he rushed
+forward at the words, and plunged headlong into the billow. There was a
+general rush after him; some were thrown back on the sand, but about
+half the number were enabled to reach the lugger. We quickly saw the
+effect of even this reinforcement. At the very point of time when the
+cruiser was about to lay her on board, she came sharply round by the
+head, and discharged her broadside within pistol-shot. I could see the
+remaining mast of the cruiser stagger; it made two or three heaves, like
+a drunkard trying to recover his steps, then came a crash, and it went
+over the side. The vessel recoiled, and being now evidently unable to
+steer, the storm had her at its mercy; and the last we saw of her was a
+hull, rolling and staggering away down the Channel, firing guns of
+distress, and going headforemost toward the Bay of Biscay.
+
+Need I say in what triumph the lugger was hauled up the sand, or how
+her bold commander and hardy crew were received? But while a carouse was
+preparing for them--and, it must be owned that if sailing and fighting
+were claims, they had earned their suppers--the business portion of the
+firm was in full activity. From the waggon down to the wheelbarrow,
+every country means of carriage was in motion without delay. I had been
+hitherto by no means aware of what Johnson would probably have called
+"the vehicular opulence" of the Sussex shore. Nor had I ever a more
+striking illustration of the proverbial lightness of the work of many
+hands; a process, which in his solemn lips would probably have been,
+"Sir, congregated thousands laugh at individual difficulty; delay
+vanishes before united labour; and time is an element of toil no more."
+
+The clearance of the cargo would have put all the machinery of a royal
+dockyard to shame. As for the activity of the custom-house, it would
+have been the movement of a tortoise, to the rapidity of whatever is
+most rapid in unpacking or pilfering. But pilfering here we had none; we
+were all "men of honour;" and, undoubtedly, if any propensity to mistake
+the _tuum_ for the _meum_ had been exhibited, there were among us
+sufficient of the stamp of my old friend "who had served with Rodney,"
+to have flung the culprit where men pilfer no more; whatever may be done
+by porpoises.
+
+But as I had no wish to be a party to what, with all its gaiety and
+gallantry, I felt to be a rough infraction of the law; I now begged
+permission to make my way homewards. It was given at once, with even
+some expressions of gratitude for my having, as it was termed, stood by
+them to the last; and a guide was ordered for me as an additional
+civility. "You will have five miles to walk," said the captain, as he
+shook hands with me; "but Grapnel here will take you the shortest way
+and it will be light in an hour. You need say nothing of this business
+to Mordecai, who makes a point of being deaf and dumb when ever it suits
+him; though, between ourselves."--The captain's prudence here checked
+his overflow of confidence. "I merely mean to say, that if you drink any
+particularly fine claret, in a day or two, at his table, you will have
+to thank the lugger, La Belle Jeannette, for it. _Au revoir_."
+
+My guide and I pushed on into the darkness. He was a bluff, open-hearted
+fellow, with all the smuggler's hatred of the magistracy, and taking
+great delight in telling how often they failed in their attempts to stop
+the "free trade," which he clearly regarded as the only trade worthy of
+a man. His account of the feats of his comrades; their escapes from the
+claws of the customs; their facetious tricks on the too vigilant among
+the magistrates; and the real luxury in which, with all their life of
+hardship, they found opportunities of indulging, would have edified a
+modern tour writer, and possibly relieved even the dreariness of a
+county historian. Among other matters too, he let out, that he paid me a
+prodigious compliment in accompanying me, as this night's smuggling was
+one of the grand exploits of the year; and casting a "longing, lingering
+look, behind," where a distant glimmer marked the scene of operations,
+he evidently halted between the two opinions, whether to go on, or
+return. "What a glorious night!" he exclaimed, as he turned his bald
+forehead to a sky black as Erebus, and roaring with whirlwind. "Talk of
+sunshine, or moonshine, compared with that!" Another burst of rain, or
+flash of lightning, would evidently have rendered the scene too
+captivating. Both came, and I must have lost my guide, when he stopped
+short, and in a half whisper, asked me, "whether I heard anything?"
+Before I could return a word, he had flung himself on the ground, with
+his ear to the sward, and after a moment's listening, said, "here they
+come!"
+
+"Who come? There is neither sight nor sound between us and Brighton. Are
+you thinking of the custom-house officers?"
+
+The look which I had the benefit of seeing by a blue blaze from the
+zenith, and the tone of infinite scorn, in which he slowly repeated the
+words, "custom-house officers," were incomparable. "Afraid of _them_!"
+said he, as he rose from the wet heather, "as much afraid as the cat is
+of the mice. No, those are the dragoons from Lewes."
+
+"Well, what have we to care about them?"
+
+"Care?" said he, with a mixture of frown and grin. "Only that you are
+the captain's friend, and I daresay, are going at this time of night to
+do a job for him in Brighton yourself--I should think, young gentleman,
+you were only laughing at Sam Grapnel. Better not! Why, you see, though
+the fellows with their pens behind their ears are no more than
+six-watered gin to us, the dragoons are another sort of thing. I must go
+back. So, young gentleman, I wish you a very good night."
+
+The oddity of the wish in the midst of this elemental uproar, made me
+laugh, shivering as I was. Yet, to be left to find my own way at such a
+time, was startling. I offered him money.
+
+"At another opportunity, sir," said he, rather pacified by the offer.
+"But, if they come upon the captain unawares, they will find every thing
+ready to their hands; all at sixes and sevens just now. It will take an
+hour or two before he can clear the cargo off the ground; and there goes
+the whole speculation. Don't you hear them? You have only to drop your
+ear to the ground, to know the whole affair. A lubber deserted from us a
+week ago, and no doubt he has laid the information."
+
+I lay down, and clearly enough heard the trampling of horses, and in
+considerable numbers. My own situation was now somewhat embarrassing.
+They were evidently coming up in our direction; and, to be found past
+midnight, armed, (for my gun had been restored to me,) in company with
+an unquestionable smuggler, must have made appearances tell strongly
+against me. But my companion's mind was made up with the promptitude of
+a life which has no time to waste on thinking.
+
+"I must go back this moment, or all our comrades will be taken in the
+fact. And, take my advice, you had better do the same; for go I will.
+The captain shan't have it to say that I let him be caught without
+warning."
+
+I still hesitated, and he still urged.
+
+"You can do no better, sir; for if you stand here five minutes longer,
+you will either be taken, or you will lose the number of your mess, by a
+carbine slug, or the slash of a sabre; while, if you turn back, you will
+have ten times the chance of escape along the shore."
+
+I could now distinctly hear the clatter of hoofs, and the jingling of
+bridles. There was no time to deliberate; I certainly felt no
+inclination to be the means of the captain's ruin or death, and I
+followed my guide, who set off with the swiftness of a deer.
+
+We soon reached the shore, where our intelligence struck considerable
+alarm. "I thought that it would be so," said the captain; "I had notice
+from a friend in the customs itself, that a spy was at work, and it was
+to this that we owed the chase of the lugger. For the revenue officers I
+care not a straw, but the dragoons are to be avoided when we can. We may
+fight upon occasion, it is true, but we choose our time for it. We have
+now only to get out of the way; and clever as they are, they may find us
+not so easily laid hold of."
+
+Turning to me, he said, "I am sorry, Mr Marston, that you have been
+brought into all this bustle; but time and chance happen to us all. At
+all events, it will show you something of life, which you would scarcely
+have seen in the Jew's villa, though he, too, could show you a good
+deal. We shall see each other again, but let this night be forgotten,
+and now, good by once more." Then turning to my guide, he said, "This
+young gentleman must be seen safe along the cliff; stay with him until
+he sends you back again.
+
+"Come, lads, all hands to work!" he now shouted to a group who stood at
+a little distance; "are the tar-barrels ready?" "Ay, ay," was the
+answer. They trundled three or four barrels along the shore, dragged
+them up the face of the cliff, and I had scarcely left them a hundred
+yards behind, when they were in a blaze. The trampling of the dragoons
+was now heard coming on at full speed.
+
+"There," said Grapnel, "I'll engage that he tricks them at last; while
+they are moving up to the fire, the cargo is moving up to the store. He
+will leave half a dozen kegs for them to make prize of, while he is
+carrying away clear and clean as much silk as would make gowns for all
+the corporation of London, and as much claret as would give the gout
+to"----the gust choked the remainder of the comparison.
+
+He had probably been accustomed to performances of this order, for his
+conjecture was exactly verified. From the spot where we stood, to get,
+as he called it, a last peep at "the free-traders bamboozling the
+dragoons," we could see cavalry rushing up to the blaze, evidently sure
+of having made a capture. A few carts in the ravine below next caught
+their eye. Another beacon on another hill soon threw up its flame, and a
+party galloped off to examine the new phenomenon. Two or thee more
+blazed in succession, and increased their perplexity.
+
+"I must have one shot at them before I go," said Grapnel, "if I die for
+it;" and, before I could utter a word to prevent him, he discharged his
+pistol. This was an unlucky shot, as it drew the attention of a party of
+dragoons, whom we had not before seen, in the hollow beneath. After
+returning a shot or two, they darted down upon the rear of the last
+convoy, which was silently moving under the shadow of the cliffs, with
+the captain and some of its stoutest followers at its head. The business
+now began to be serious. The captain and his men, determined not to lose
+their venture, made a bold resistance. The dragoons came riding in from
+all quarters, but the ground was unfavourable for them, hemmed in as it
+was on all sides by the sea, and on the other by the cliff, besides the
+encumbrance of the carts and waggons, behind which the cutlasses of the
+smugglers were fully a match for the sabre.
+
+If I could have thought of any thing but the hazard of those unfortunate
+fellows, the scene from the spot where I stood was sufficiently
+striking. The blaze from the tar-barrels showed a long extent of the
+Downs, with the troops scattered and galloping among them on all sides.
+Long ridges of light were thrown over the waters, while, immediately
+below me, the flashes of the smugglers' muskets and the soldiers'
+pistols were incessant. It was a battle on a minor scale.
+
+But it is dangerous to be in the way of bullets even as an amateur; for,
+as I stood gazing down, I felt a sudden stroke like a shock of
+electricity. I staggered, and was on the point of rolling over the
+cliff, when Grapnel darted towards me. I just felt myself grasped by
+him, and lost all recollection.
+
+On recovering my senses again, I was in Mordecai's villa, where I had
+been brought by some fishermen on the morning of the skirmish; and who,
+asking no questions, and being asked none, had deposited me, bandaged
+and bruised as I was, at the door of the villa. If I was not sensible of
+this service, it was, at least, a vast relief to the Jew, who had begun
+to think that his violence had urged me on some desperate course. As
+hasty in his repentance as in his wrath, he had no sooner become
+rational enough to hear his daughter's story, than he was eager to make
+me the _amende_ by all the means in his power. Perhaps he would have
+even lent me money, if I had met him in the penitential mood; but I was
+not to be found. The sight of my corded trunk convinced him that I had
+taken mortal offence, and he grew more uneasy still. As the night fell,
+a general enquiry was made amongst the fisherman's cabins; and as, on
+those occasions, no one ever desires to send away the enquirer without
+giving himself, at least, credit for an answer, every one gave an answer
+according to his fashion. Some thought that they had seen me in a skiff
+on the shore; where I was, of course, blown out to sea, and, by that
+time, probably carried to the chops of the Channel. Others were sure,
+that they had seen me on the outside of the London mail--an equally
+embarrassing conjecture; for it happened that the horses, startled by
+the lightening, had dashed the carriage to pieces a few miles off.
+Mordecai's own conception was, that the extravagance of his rage had
+driven me to the extravagance of despair; and that I was by this time
+making my bed below the surges which roared and thundered through the
+dusk; and some scraps of verse which had been found in my
+apartment--"Sonnets to an eyebrow," and reveries on subjects of which my
+host had as much knowledge as his own ledger, were set down by him for
+palpable proofs of that frenzy to which he assigned my demise. Thus, his
+night was a disturbed one, passed alternately in watching over his
+daughter's feeble signs of recovery, and hurrying to the window at every
+sound of every footstep which seemed to give a hope of my return. The
+sight of me in the morning, laid at his hall door, relieved his heart of
+a burden; and, though the silence and rapid retreat of my bearers gave
+him but too much the suspicion that I had somehow or other been
+involved in the desperate business of the last twelve hours; of whose
+particulars he had, by some means or other, become already acquainted;
+he determined to watch over, and, if need be, protect me, until I could
+leave his house in safety.
+
+My recovery was slow. A ball had struck me on the forehead; and, though
+it had luckily glanced off, it had produced a contusion which long
+threatened dangerous consequences. For a month, I remained nearly
+insensible. At length I began to move, health returned, the sea-breeze
+gave me new sensations of life; and, but for one circumstance, I should
+have felt all the enjoyment of that most delightful of all
+contrasts--between the languor of a sick bed, and the renewed pouring of
+vitality through the frame.
+
+On my first awaking, I found an accumulation of letters on my table.
+Some were the mere common-places of correspondence; some were from
+sporting friends in the neighbourhood of the castle, detailing with due
+exactness the achievements of their dogs and horses; three were from the
+Horse Guards at successive intervals of a week--the first announcing
+that my commission in the Guards had received the signatures of the
+proper authorities; the second, giving me a peremptory order to join
+immediately; and the third, formally announcing, that, as I had neither
+joined, nor assigned any reason for my absence, my commission had been
+cancelled!
+
+This was an unexpected blow, and, in my state of weakness might have
+been a fatal one, but for my having found, at the bottom of the heap, a
+letter in the handwriting of Vincent. This excellent man, as if he had
+anticipated my vexations, wrote in a style singularly adapted to meet
+them at the moment. After slight and almost gay remarks on country
+occurrences, and some queries relative to my ideas of London; he touched
+on the difficulties which beset the commencement of every career, and
+the supreme necessity of patience, and a determination to be cheerful
+under all.
+
+"One rule is absolutely essential," wrote he, "never to mourn over the
+past, or mope over the future. 'Sufficient unto the day is the evil
+thereof,' is a maxim of incomparable wisdom. Never think of the failures
+of yesterday, but to avoid them to-morrow, and never speculate on the
+failures of to-morrow, but to remember that you have outlived the
+failures of to-day. The French philosophers are now preaching around the
+world, that knowledge is power, and so it is, but only as gunpowder is
+power; a dangerous invention which blew up the inventor. It requires to
+be wisely managed. English experience will tell you, more to the
+purpose, that 'perseverance is power;' for with it, all things can be
+done, without it nothing. I remember, in the history of Tamerlane, an
+incident which, to me, has always had the force of an apothegm.
+
+"In early life, and when reduced to the utmost distress, defeated in
+battle, and without a follower, he one day threw himself into the ruins
+of a Tartar caravansera, where he resolved to give up all further
+effort, and die. As he lay on the ground, sunk in despair, his eye was
+caught by the attempts of an ant to drag a grain of corn up to its nest
+in the wall. The load was too great for it, and the ant and the grain
+fell to the ground together. The trial was renewed, and both fell again.
+It was renewed ninety and nine times, and on the hundredth it succeeded,
+and the grain was carried into the nest. The thought instantly struck
+the prostrate chieftain, 'Shall an insect struggle ninety and nine times
+until it succeeds, while I, a man, and the descendant of heroes, give up
+all hope after a single battle?' He sprang from the ground, and found a
+troop of his followers outside, who had been looking for him through the
+wilderness. Scimitar in hand, he threw himself on his pursuers, swelled
+his troop into an army, his army into myriads, and finished by being the
+terror of Europe, the conqueror of Asia, and the wonder of the world."
+The letter finished with general enquiries into the things of the day,
+and all good wishes for my career.
+
+It is astonishing what an effect is sometimes produced by advice, given
+at the exact moment when we want it. This letter was the "word in
+season" of which the "wisest of men" speaks; and I felt all its
+influence in my rescue from despondency. Its simplicity reached my heart
+more than the most laboured language, and its manliness seemed a direct
+summons to whatever was manly in my nature. I determined thenceforth, to
+try fortune to the utmost, to task my powers to the last, to regard
+difficulties as only the exercise that was intended to give me strength,
+and to render every success only a step to success higher still. That
+letter had pushed me another stage towards manhood.
+
+With the Horse Guards' papers in my hand, and the letter of my old
+friend placed in a kind of boyish romance, in my bosom, I went to meet
+Mordecai and his daughter. The Jew shook his bushy brows over the
+rescript which seemed to put a perpetual extinguisher on my military
+hopes. But Mariamne was the gayest of the gay, on what she termed my
+"fortunate ill-fortune." She had now completely recovered; said she
+remembered nothing of her accident but "the heroism," as she expressed
+it, "on my part which had saved her to thank me;" and between her
+gratitude and her vivacity, might have given a spectator the idea that
+M. Lafontaine was rapidly losing ground with that creature of open lips
+and incessant smiles. Her harp was brought, she was an accomplished
+performer, and she surprised me by the taste and tenderness with which
+she sung a succession of native melodies, collected in her rambles from
+Hungary to the Hartz; and from the Mediterranean to the Alps and
+Pyrenees. One air struck me as so beautiful that I still remember the
+words. They were Garcilasso's:--
+
+    "De las casualidades
+    Y las quimeras,
+      Nacen felicidades
+      Que no se esperano.
+    Siempre se adviente
+    Que donde esta la vida,
+      Se halla la muerte."
+
+Then with that quick turn of thought which forms so touching a feature
+of the love-poetry of Spain--
+
+    "Tus ojos a mis ojos,
+    Miran atentos,
+    Y callando se dicen
+      Sus sentimientos.
+    Cosa es bien rara,
+    Que sin hablar se entienden
+      Nuestras dos almas."
+
+The Spaniard, in his own language, is inimitable. I cannot come nearer
+the soft Southern than these ballad lines--
+
+    "Alas,--how sweet, yet strange!
+       Joy in the lap of woe!
+    Love, all a change!
+      Like roses laid on snow,
+    Nipt by the cruel wind;
+    Love, all unkind!
+
+    "Yet, close those eyes of thine,
+      Else, though no accents fall,
+    These stealing tears from mine
+      Will tell thee all!
+    Strange, that what lips deny,
+    Is spoken by the telltale eye."
+
+Whether the little seguidilla meant any thing in the lips of the
+songstress, I do not presume to say. But the hearts of women, perhaps I
+should say of all pretty women, expect admiration as naturally as an
+idol receives incense; and as a part of the incense now and then
+descends upon the worshippers themselves, the sentiment becomes in some
+degree mutual. However, with all my perceptions alive to her merits, and
+she had many; the cause of my gallant French friend was perfectly safe
+in my hands. I never had much vanity in these matters, and even if I
+had, the impression already made by another had made me impregnable, for
+the time, to the whole artillery of eyes.
+
+Yet the evening which I thus spent, gave me the first genuine idea of
+domestic happiness which I had ever received. I had certainly seen but
+little of it at home. There all was either crowds, or solitude; the
+effort to seem delighted, or palpable discontent; extravagant festivity,
+or bitterness and frowns. My haughty father was scarcely approachable,
+unless when some lucky job shed a few drops of honey into his natural
+gall; and my gentle mother habitually took refuge in her chamber, with a
+feebleness of mind which only embittered her vexations. In short, the
+"family fireside" had become with me a name for every thing dull and
+discomforting; and a _t�te-�-t�te_ little less than an absolute terror.
+
+But in this apartment I saw how perfectly possible it might be to make
+one's way through life, even with so small a share of that world as the
+woman before me. I had now spent some hours without a care, without a
+wish, or even a thought beyond the room in which we sat. My imagination
+had not flagged, no sense of weariness had touched me, our conversation
+had never wanted a topic; yet the Jew was one certainly of no peculiar
+charm of manner, though a man of an originally vigorous mind, and well
+acquainted with general life; and even his daughter was too foreign and
+fantastic to realize my _beau id�al_. Still with the one being of my
+choice, I felt that it would be possible to be happy on a desert island.
+
+Our supper was as animated as our evening. My remarks on the passing
+world--a world of which I then knew not much more than the astronomer
+does of the inhabitants of the moon, by inspecting it
+
+        "With his glazed optic tube,
+    At midnight from the top of Fesol�,
+    Or in Val d'Arno, to descry new seas,
+    Rivers, and mountains on her spotty globe"--
+
+were received with an acquiescence, which showed that I had already
+gained some ground, even in the rough, though undoubtedly subtle and
+powerful mind of the Jew: as for Mariamne, she was all delight, and
+until she took her leave of us for the night, all smiles.
+
+As she closed the door Mordecai laid his muscular hand on my shoulder.
+"A word with you, Mr Marston; you have rendered me the highest of
+services in saving that girl from a dreadful death. You have been of use
+to me in other matters also, unconsciously I aver--but we shall talk of
+that another time. To come to the point at once. If you can make
+yourself my daughter's choice, for I shall never control her, I shall
+not throw any obstacles in the way. What say you?"
+
+I never felt more difficulty in an answer. My voice actually died within
+my lips. I experienced a feverish sensation which must have mounted to
+my face, and given me the look of a clown or a criminal, if the Jew had
+but looked at me: but he was waiting my reply with his eyes fixed on the
+ground. But the hesitation was soon over; I was almost pledged to
+Lafontaine, as a man of honour; I knew that Mariamne, however she might
+play the coquette for the day, was already bound in heart to the gallant
+Frenchman; and if neither impediment had existed, there was a chain,
+cold as ice, but strong as adamant--a chain of which she who had bound
+it was altogether ignorant, but which I had neither the power nor the
+will to sever. Still it was not for me to divulge Mariamne's secret, and
+I could not even touch upon my own. I escaped from the dilemma under
+cover of another reason, and also a true one.
+
+Thanking him for his kindness and candour, I observed, "that I was
+nothing and had nothing, that to offer myself to the acceptance of one
+entitled to wed so opulently as his daughter, would be to pain my
+feelings, and place me in a humiliating point of view, in the presence
+of one whose respect I ought to deserve." Our conversation extended far
+into the night; and I freely entered into the disappointment which I had
+sustained in the unfortunate loss of my commission. I added, that I was
+determined not to lead a life of idleness, even if I had possessed the
+means; and that as the army was the profession which gave the fairest
+prospect of being known to the world, I must pursue it if possible.
+
+The idea was fully approved of by my energetic hearer. "Right!" said he.
+"It is exactly the thing which I should have expected from you. You have
+been ill-treated, I own, but there is no use in kicking at power, unless
+you can kick it before you. The machinery of government is too huge for
+any one of us to resist, and unless we run along with it, our only
+wisdom is, to get out of its way. But you shall have a commission, ay,
+even if it cost a thousand guineas. Never refuse; I am not in the habit
+of throwing away my money; but you saved Mariamne's life, and I would
+not have lost my child for all the bullion in the Bank of England, or on
+the globe."
+
+I was surprised by this burst of generosity, but it was real; and the
+Jew, as if to put his sincerity beyond all doubt, had torn a leaf out of
+his pocket-book, and was writing an order for the sum on his banker: he
+laid it on the table. I returned it to him at once, perhaps not less to
+his surprise than his offer had been to mine. But I reminded him, that I
+had still a balance at my banker's; and I told him besides that I had
+made up my mind to enter the regiment from which I had been so
+unceremoniously dismissed, or none. He stared. "If," said I, "I shall
+not be commissioned in the Coldstream, it will be utterly beyond my
+power to persuade even my own relatives, much less the world, that I
+have not been dismissed for some act of impropriety. Or, if men will not
+hazard saying this to my face, they will only be more likely to say it
+where I cannot defend myself."
+
+"True!" said Mordecai, as if the opinion had cast a new light on him.
+"Perfectly to the point. This is a world of scandal; and, like the
+wolves, the whole pack fall on the wounded. You must recover your
+commission in the Coldstream; or be ready to tell your story every day
+of your life, and be only half believed after all. Yes, you must enter
+that very corps, or be sneered at as long as you live; and if you have a
+heart to be stung, it will be stung. Our people know that well."
+
+"I should give my last shilling to be carrying its colours at this
+moment," said I, "but unfortunately money is useless there. The Guards
+are the favourite of royalty, and their commissions naturally go to men
+of rank and fortune."
+
+"We must go to town and see what is to be done. When will you be ready?"
+asked my host.
+
+"To-night--this moment--if possible, I should set out."
+
+"No, no, Mr Marston, my movements cannot be quite so expeditious. I must
+wait for my London letters in the morning. On their arrival we may
+start, and, by taking four horses, reach town before the Horse Guards
+closes for the day."
+
+At breakfast next morning Mariamne was not to be seen: she excused
+herself by a violent headach; and by the countenance of her Abigail,
+generally a tolerable reflexion of the temper of the female authority of
+a house, it was evident that I had fallen into disfavour. But how was
+this to be accounted for? Mordecai, from the lateness of the hour at
+which we parted, could not have seen her; even if she should condescend
+to take my matrimonial chillness as an offence. But the mystery was
+soon, cleared by her answer to the note which contained my farewell. It
+was simply the enclosure of a few hapless lines of verse, in which the
+name of Clotilde occurred, and which had been found in the clearance of
+my chamber preparatory to my journey. This was decisive. Mariamne was a
+sovereign, who, choose as she might her prime minister, would not suffer
+her royal attendance to be diminished by the loss of a single slave. I
+petitioned for a parting word, it was declined; and I had only to regret
+my poetic error, or my still greater error in not keeping my raptures
+under lock and key.
+
+As the carriage drew up to the door, Mordecai casually asked me "have
+you left your card at the Steyne?"
+
+"No," was the reply. "Was it necessary?"
+
+"Absolutely so; the prince has sent frequently to enquire for you during
+your illness, and of course your leaving the neighbourhood without
+acknowledging the honour would be impossible."
+
+"Then let us drive there at once," said I.
+
+On reaching the prince's cottage--for cottage it was, and nothing
+more--the gentleman in waiting who received my card, told me that his
+Royal highness had desired that whenever I called he should be apprized
+of my coming, "as he wished to hear the history of the accident from
+myself." The prince's fondness for hearing every thing out of the common
+course, was well known; and I had only to obey. I had the honour of an
+introduction accordingly; was received with all the customary graces of
+his manner, and even with what attracts still more--with kindness. He
+enquired into the circumstances, and was evidently taking an interest in
+such parts of the narrative as I chose to give, when he was interrupted
+by the arrival of a courier from London. The letters happened to be of
+importance, and must be answered immediately. "But," said he, with his
+irresistible smile, "I must not lose your story; we dine at seven. You
+will probably meet some whom you would be gratified by seeing.
+Adieu--remember, seven."
+
+This was equivalent to a command, and there was no resource, but to
+defer my journey for twelve hours more. Mordecai was not unwilling to
+exchange a dreary drive in which he had no immediate concern, for the
+comforts of his own home; or perhaps the honour among his neighbours of
+having for an inmate a guest of the heir-apparent, qualified the delay.
+Mariamne at our approach fled from the drawing-room like a frightened
+doe. And at the appointed hour I was at the pretty trellised porch of
+the prince's residence.
+
+
+
+
+THE DEVIL'S FRILLS.
+
+A DUTCH ILLUSTRATION OF THE WATER CURE.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+A stranger who visits Haarlem is not a little astonished to see, hung
+out from various houses, little frames coquettishly ornamented with
+squares of the finest lace. His curiosity will lead him to ask the
+reason of so strange a proceeding. But, however he may push his
+questions--however persevering he may be in getting at the bottom of the
+mystery--if he examine and cross-examine fifty different persons, he
+will get no other answer than--
+
+"These are the devil's frills."
+
+The frills of the devil! Horrible! What possible connexion can there be
+between those beautiful Valenciennes, those splendid Mechlins, those
+exquisite Brussels points, and his cloven-footed majesty? Is Haarlem a
+city of idolaters? Are all these gossamer oblations an offering to
+Beelzebub?
+
+And are we to believe, in spite of well-authenticated tale and history,
+that instead of horns and claws, the gentleman in black sports frills
+and ruffles, as if he were a young dandy in Bond Street?
+
+"These are the devil's frills."
+
+It is my own private opinion that these mystic words contain some
+prodigiously recondite meaning; or, perhaps, arise from one of those
+awful incidents, of which Hoffman encountered so many among the
+ghost-seeing, all-believing Germans. But don't take it on my simple
+assertion, but judge for yourself. I shall tell you, word for word, the
+story as it was told to me, and as it is believed by multitudes of
+people, who believe nothing else, in the good town of Haarlem.
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+Yes,--one other thing everybody in Haarlem believes--and that is, that
+Guttenberg, and Werner, and Faust, in pretending that they were the
+discoverers of the art of printing, were egregious specimens of the art
+of lying; for that that noble discovery was made by no human being save
+and except an illustrious citizen of Haarlem, and an undeniable proof of
+it exists in the fact, that his statue is still to be seen in front of
+the great church. He rejoiced, while living, in the name of Laurentius
+Castero; and, however much you may be surprised at the claims advanced
+in his favour, you are hereby strictly cautioned to offer no
+contradiction to the boastings of his overjoyed compatriots--they are
+prouder of his glory than of their beer. But his merits did not stop
+short at casting types. In addition to his enormous learning and
+profound information, he possessed an almost miraculous mastery of the
+fiddle. He was a Dutch Paganini, and drew such notes from his
+instrument, that the burgomaster, in smoking his pipe and listening to
+the sounds, thought it had a close resemblance to the music of the
+spheres.
+
+There was only one man in all Haarlem, in all Holland, who did not yield
+the palm at fiddle-playing to Castero. That one man was no other than
+Frederick Katwingen, the son of a rich brewer, whom his admirers--more
+numerous than those of his rival--had called the Dutch Orpheus.
+
+If the laurels of Miltiades disturbed the sleep of Themistocles; if the
+exploits of Macedonia's madman interfered with the comfort of Julius
+C�sar, the glory of Katwingen would not let Castero get a wink of sleep.
+
+What! a man of genius--a philosopher like the _doctus_ Laurentius, not
+be contented with his fame as discoverer of the art of printing; but to
+leave his manuscripts, and pica, and pie, to strive for a contemptible
+triumph, to look with an eye of envy on a competitor for the applauses
+of a music room! Alas! too true. Who is the man, let me ask you, who can
+put bounds to his pretensions? Who is the man that does not feel as if
+the praises of his neighbour were an injury to himself? And if I must
+speak the whole truth, I am bound to confess that these jealous
+sentiments were equally entertained by both the musicians. Yes,--if
+Castero would acknowledge no master, Frederick could not bear that any
+one should consider himself his rival, and insisted at any rate in
+treating with him on equal terms. Laurentius, therefore, and the son of
+the brewer were declared enemies; and the inhabitants of Haarlem were
+divided into two parties, each ruled over with unlimited power by the
+fiddlestick of its chief.
+
+It was announced one morning that the Stadtholder would pass through the
+town in the course of the day. The burgomaster determine to receive the
+illustrious personage in proper style, and ordered the two rivals to
+hold themselves in readiness. Here, then, was a contest worthy of them
+an opportunity of bringing the great question to issue of which of them
+played the first fiddle in Holland--perhaps in Europe. It fell to
+Frederick's chance to perform first--in itself a sort of triumph over
+Laurentius. The Stadtholder entered by the Amsterdam road, attended by
+his suite--they passed along the street, and stopped under a triumphal
+arch which had been hastily prepared. The burgomaster made a speech very
+much like the speeches of burgomasters before and since on similar
+tremendous occasions; and Frederick finally advanced and made his salaam
+to the chief magistrate of the United Provinces. The performer knew that
+the Stadtholder was a judge of music, and this gave him courage to do
+his best. He began without more ado, and every thing went on at first as
+he could wish; fountains of harmony gushed out from under his bow. There
+seemed a soul at the end of each of his fingers, and the countenance of
+the chief magistrate showed how enchanted he was with his powers. His
+triumph was on the point of being complete; a few more bars of a
+movement composed for the occasion--a few magnificent flourishes to show
+his mastery of the instrument, and Castero will be driven to despair by
+the superiority of his rival;--but crash! crash!--at the very moment
+when his melody is steeping the senses of the Stadtholder in Elysium, a
+string breaks with hideous sound, and the whole effect of his
+composition is destroyed. A smile jumped instantaneously to the
+protruding lip of the learned Laurentius, and mocked his mishap: the son
+of the brewer observed the impertinent smile, and anger gave him
+courage--the broken string is instantly replaced. The artist rushes full
+speed into the allegretto--and under the pressure of his hands, burning
+with rage and genius, the chord breaks again! The fiddle must be
+bewitched--Frederick became deadly pale--he trembled from head to
+foot--he was nearly wild.
+
+But the piece he had composed was admirable; he knew it--for in a moment
+of inspiration he had breathed it into existence from the recesses of
+his soul. And was he doomed never to play this cherished work to the
+governor of his country?--An approving motion from that august
+individual encouraged him to proceed, and he fitted a string for the
+third time.
+
+Alas, alas! the result is the same--the chord is too much tightened, and
+breaks in the middle of a note! Humbled and ashamed, Frederick gives up
+his allegretto. He retires, abashed and heartbroken, and Castero takes
+his place. Mixed up in the crowd, his eyes swam in tears of rage and
+disappointment when the frantic applauses of the assemblage--to whom the
+Stadtholder had set the example--announced to him the triumph of his
+rival. He is vanquished--vanquished without having had the power to
+fight--oh, grief! oh, shame! oh, despair!
+
+His friends tried in vain to console him in promising him a brilliant
+revenge. The son of the brever believed himself eternally disgraced. He
+rushed into his room, double locked the door and would see nobody. He
+required solitude--but the wo of the _artiste_ had not yet reached its
+height. He must drink the cup of humiliation to the dregs. Suddenly
+innumerable voices penetrated the thick walls of the brewery, and
+reached the chamber of the defeated candidate. Those voices--Frederick
+recognized them too well--were those of the faction which acknowledged
+Castero for their chief. A triumphal march, performed by twenty
+instruments, in honour of his rival, succeeded in overturning the reason
+of the unhappy youth. His fiddle was before him on the table--that
+fiddle which had disappointed his hopes. Exasperated, out of his senses,
+the brewer's son seized the instrument--a moment he held it aloft at the
+corner of the chimney, and yielding to the rage that gnawed his soul, he
+dashed it into a thousand pieces. Faults, like misfortunes, never come
+single. "Blood calls for blood," says Machiavel--"ruin for ruin."--By
+that fatal tendency of the human mind never to stop when once we have
+gone wrong, but to go on from bad to worse, instead of blushing at our
+folly--Frederick, after that act of vandalism, dashed like a madman out
+of the brewery. The sight of his instrument in a thousand fragments had
+completed the business--life was a torment to him. He hurried towards
+the lake of Haarlem, determined to seek in its gloomy depths a refuge
+from disgrace.--Poor Frederick!
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+After a quarter of an hour's run across the fields, he arrived at last
+at the side of the lake, with the sounds of his rival's triumphal march
+for ever sounding in his ears. The evening breeze, the air from the sea,
+"the wandering harmonies of earth and sky," were all unable to bring
+rest to the perturbed spirit of the musician. He was no longer conscious
+of the sinful act he was about to commit. He shut his eyes--he was just
+going to throw himself into the water when he felt a hand laid upon his
+left shoulder. Frederick turned quickly round. He saw at his side a tall
+man wrapped up in large cloak--in spite of the hot weather--which hid
+every part of him but his face. His expression was hard, almost
+repulsive. His eyes shot sinister glances on the youth from beneath the
+thick eyebrows that overshadowed them. The brewer's son, who had been on
+the point of facing death without a tremour, grew pale and trembled. He
+wished to fly, but an irresistible power nailed him to the spot. He was
+fascinated by the look of the Unknown.
+
+"Madman!" said the stranger in a hollow voice--"madman who cannot resist
+the first impulse of anger and false shame!"
+
+"Leave me," answered Frederick in his turn; "I am disgraced, and have no
+resource but to die."
+
+"The triumph of Castero, then--the triumph he owes to luck--has cowed
+you so that you are afraid to challenge him to another trial?"--rejoined
+the stranger in an angry tone.
+
+"Every thing is lost," said Frederick, "don't you hear those sounds?" he
+added, holding his hands out towards the city--"my courage cannot bear
+up against such mockery--_v� victis_!--my doom is sealed."
+
+"But you do not yet know the full extent of your rival's victory. There
+is a young girl who was to have been your wife--a girl who loves you--"
+
+"Ma�na!"--cried Frederick, to whom these words restored his
+recollection.
+
+"Yes, Ma�na, the daughter of Jansen Pyl, the burgomaster of Haarlem.
+Well, encouraged by his success, Castero went to the house, and demanded
+the hand of her you love."
+
+"What?--what do I hear?"--said Frederick, and looked once more towards
+the lake.
+
+"The burgomaster never liked you very well, as you are aware. In
+consenting to receive you as his son-in-law, he yielded more to the
+wishes of his daughter, to her prayers and tears, than to his preference
+of you over the other adorers of the Beauty of Haarlem. Castero's fame
+had long predisposed him in his favour; and the triumph he obtained
+to-day has entirely won the old man's heart."
+
+"He has promised her?" enquired Frederick in a voice almost inaudible
+from anxiety.
+
+"To-morrow he will decide between you. You are ignorant of the
+arrangement entered into; and, yielding to a cowardly impulse, you give
+up the happiness of your life at the moment it is in your grasp. Listen.
+The Stadtholder, who did not intend to remain at Haarlem, has accepted
+the invitation of the burgomaster, and will not leave the city till
+to-morrow afternoon. That illustrious personage has expressed a wish to
+hear again the two performers who pleased him so much, and his patronage
+is promised to the successful candidate in the next trial. He is a
+judge of music--he perceived the fineness of your touch, and saw that it
+was a mere accident which was the cause of your failure. Do you
+understand me now? Ma�na will be the wife of the prot�g� of the
+Stadtholder--and you give up your affianced bride if you refuse to
+measure your strength once more against Castero."
+
+The explanation brought tears into Frederick's eyes. In his agony as a
+musician he had forgotten the object of his love--the fair young girl
+whose heart was all his own. Absorbed in the one bitter thought of his
+defeat--of the disgrace he had endured--he had never cast a recollection
+on the being who, next to his art, was dearer to him than all the world.
+The fair maid of Haarlem occupied but the second place in the musician's
+heart; but not less true is it, that to kiss off a tear from the white
+eyelid of the beautiful Ma�na, he would have sacrificed his life. And
+now to hear that she was about to be carried off by his rival--by
+Castero--that Castero whom he hated so much--that Ma�na was to be the
+prize of the conqueror! His courage revived. Hope played once more round
+his heart--he felt conscious of his superiority; but--oh misery!--his
+fiddle--his Straduarius, which could alone insure his victory--it was
+lying in a million pieces on his floor!
+
+The Unknown divined what was passing in his mind; a smile of strange
+meaning stole to his lip. He went close up to Frederick, whose agitated
+features betrayed the struggle that was going on within. "Ma�na will be
+the reward of the prot�g� of the Stadtholder, and Castero will be the
+happy man if you do not contest the prize," he whispered in poor
+Frederick's ear.
+
+"Alas! my fate is settled--I have no arms to fight with," he answered in
+a broken voice.
+
+"Does your soul pant for glory?" enquired the stranger.
+
+"More than for life--more than for love--more than for--"
+
+"Go on."
+
+"More than for my eternal salvation!" exclaimed the youth in his
+despair.
+
+A slight tremour went through the stranger as he heard these words.
+
+"Glory!" he cried, fixing his sparkling eyes on the young man's face
+"glory, the passion of noble souls--of exalted natures--of superior
+beings!--Go home to your room, you will find your fiddle restored," he
+added in a softer tone.
+
+"My fiddle?" repeated Frederick.
+
+"The fiddle of which the wreck bestrewed your chamber when you left it,"
+replied the stranger.
+
+"But who are you?" said Frederick amazed. "You who know what passes in
+my heart--you whose glances chill me with horror--you, who promise me a
+miracle which only omnipotence can accomplish. Who are you?"
+
+"Your master," answered the man in the mantle, in an altered voice.
+"Recollect the words you used a minute or two ago, 'Glory is dearer to
+me than life--than love--than eternal salvation!' That is quite enough
+for me; and we must understand each other. Adieu. Your favourite
+instrument is again whole and entire, and sweeter toned than ever. You
+will find it on the table in your room. Castero, your rival, will be
+vanquished in this second trial, and Ma�na will be yours--for you are
+the prot�g� of a greater than the Stadtholder. Adieu--we shall meet
+again." On finishing this speech the Unknown advanced to the lake.
+Immediately the waves bubbled up, and rose in vast billows; and opening
+with dreadful noise, exposed an unfathomable abyss. At the same moment
+thunder growled in the sky, the moon hid herself behind a veil of
+clouds, and the brewer's son, half choked with the smell of brimstone,
+fell insensible on the ground.
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+When Frederick came to his senses he found himself in his chamber,
+seated on the same sofa of Utrecht brocade which he had watered with his
+tears two hours before. On the table before him lay the fiddle which he
+had dashed to atoms against the corner of the chimney. On seeing the
+object of his affection, the enraptured musician, the rival of Castero,
+rushed towards it with a cry of joyful surprise. He took the instrument
+in his hands--he devoured it with his eyes, and then, at the summit of
+his felicity, he clasped it to his bosom. The instrument was perfectly
+uninjured, without even a mark of the absurd injustice of its owner. Not
+a crack, not a fissure, only the two gracefully shaped � � to give vent
+to the double stream of sound. But is he not the victim of some
+trick--has no other fiddle been substituted for the broken Straduarius?
+No!--'tis his own well-known fiddle, outside and in--the same delicate
+proportions, the same elegant neck, and the same swelling rotundity of
+contour that might have made it a model for the Praxiteles of violins.
+He placed the instrument against his shoulder and seized the bow. But
+all of a sudden he paused--a cold perspiration bedewed his face--his
+limbs could scarcely support him. What if the proof deceives him. What
+if--; but incertitude was intolerable, and he passed the bow over the
+strings. Oh blessedness! Frederick recognized the unequalled tones of
+his instrument--he recognized its voice, so clear, so melting, and yet
+so thrilling and profound,
+
+      "The charm is done,
+    Life to the dead returns at last,
+    And to the corpse a soul has past."
+
+Now, then, with his fiddle once more restored to him, with love in his
+heart, and hatred also lending its invigorating energies, he felt that
+the future was still before him, and that Castero should pay dearly for
+his triumph of the former day.
+
+When these transports had a little subsided, Frederick could reflect on
+the causes which gave this new turn to his thoughts. The defeat he had
+sustained--his insane anger against his Straduarius--his attempt at
+suicide--his meeting with the stranger, and his extraordinary
+disappearance amidst the waves of the lake.
+
+But, with the exception of the first of these incidents, had any of them
+really happened? He could not believe it. Was it not rather the sport of
+a deceitful dream? His fiddle--he held it in his hands--he never _could_
+have broken it. In fact, the beginning of it all was his despair at
+being beaten, and he was indebted to his excited imagination for the
+rest--the suicide, the lake, and the mysterious Unknown.
+
+"That must be it," he cried at last, delighted at finding a solution to
+the mystery, and walking joyously up and down his chamber. "I have had a
+horrible dream--a dream with my eyes open; that is all."
+
+Two gentle taps at the door made him start; but the visitor was only one
+of the brewery boys, who gave him a letter from the burgomaster.
+
+"Yoran, did you see me go out about two hours ago?" asked Frederick
+anxiously.
+
+"No, meinheer," said the boy.
+
+"And you did not see me come in?"
+
+"No, meinheer."
+
+"That's all right," said the youth, signing for Yoran to retire. "Now,
+then," he said, "there can be no doubt whatever that it was all a
+dream." Opening the burgomaster's letter, he ran through it in haste.
+The first magistrate of Haarlem informed Frederick Katwingen that he had
+an important communication to make to him, and requested him to come to
+his house.
+
+The musician again placed his lips on his instrument, and again pressed
+it gratefully to his heart; and then placed it with the utmost care
+within its beautiful case, which he covered with a rich cloth. Locking
+the case, and looking at it as a mother might look at the cradle of her
+new-born baby, he betook himself to the mansion of Jansen Pyl.
+
+That stately gentleman was luxuriously reposing in an immense armchair,
+covered with Hungary leather. His two elbows rested on the arms and
+enabled him to support in his hands the largest, the reddest, the
+fattest face that had ever ornamented the configuration of a Dutch
+functionary before. Mr Jansen Pyl wore at that moment the radiant look
+of satisfaction which only a magistrate can assume who feels conscious
+that he is in the full sunshine of the approbation of his sovereign. His
+whole manner betrayed it--the smile upon his lip, the fidgety motion of
+his feet, and the look which he darted from time to time around the
+room, as if to satisfy himself that his happiness was "not a sham but a
+reality." But his happiness seemed far from contagious. On his right
+hand there was a lovely creature, seated on a footstool, who did not
+partake his enjoyment. There was something so sweet and so harmonious in
+her expression, that you felt sure at once she was as good as she was
+beautiful. There was poetry also in her dejected attitude, and in the
+long lashes that shadowed her blue eyes; nor was the charm diminished by
+the marble neck bent lowly down, and covered with long flowing locks of
+the richest brown. And the poetry was, perhaps, increased by the
+contrast offered by the sorrowing countenance of the girl to the radiant
+visage of the plethoric individual in the chair. Whilst the ambitious
+thoughts of the burgomaster rose to the regions inhabited by the
+Stadtholder, the poor girl's miserable reflections returned upon
+herself. Her eyes were dimmed with tears. It was easy to see that that
+had long been their occupation, and that some secret sorrow preyed upon
+the repose of the fair maid of Haarlem.
+
+It was Ma�na, the betrothed of Frederick. On the left of the
+burgomaster, negligently leaning on the back of the magistrate's chair,
+was a man still young in years, but so wrinkled and careworn, from study
+or bad health, that he might have passed for old. The man's expression
+was cold and severe; his look proud and fiery; his language rough and
+harsh. On analysing his features you could easily make out that he had
+prodigious powers of mind, a character imperious and jealous, and such
+indomitable pride that he might do a mischief to any rival who might be
+bold enough to cross his path.
+
+Now, we are aware of one at least who ran the risk; for the man was
+Laurentius Castero. Frederick Katwingen started back on entering the
+burgomaster's room. His eye encountered the glance of Castero, and in
+the look then interchanged, they felt that they were enemies between
+whom no reconciliation could take place. From Laurentius, Frederick
+turned his eye to Ma�na. The sorrowful attitude of the maiden would have
+revealed to him all that had happened, if the self-satisfied look of his
+rival had left any thing to be learned. The conqueror brow-beat the
+vanquished.
+
+"Mr Katwingen," said the burgomaster, deliberately weighing every word,
+"you are aware of the high compliment paid by the Stadtholder to our
+city."
+
+"My dream comes true," thought Frederick as he bowed affirmatively to
+the magistrate's enquiry.
+
+"And you are also aware," pursued the burgomaster, "of the Stadtholder's
+wishes as far as you are personally concerned?"
+
+Frederick bowed again.
+
+"Thanks to my humble supplications," continued Jansen Pyl, raising his
+enormous head with an air of dignity, "our gracious governor has
+condescended to honour our good town with his august presence for
+twenty-four hours longer. But what ought to fill you with eternal
+gratitude is this: that he has determined to hear you a second time when
+he returns to-morrow from inspecting the works at Shravnag. I hope you
+will redouble your efforts, and do all you can to please your
+illustrious auditor; and, if any thing is required to stimulate your
+ambition, and add to your endeavours to excel, I will add this--the hand
+of Ma�na will be bestowed on the conqueror at this second trial."
+
+"But, father!----" said the maiden.
+
+"It is all settled," interrupted the burgomaster, looking astonished at
+the girl's audacity; "you are the reward I offer to the prot�g� of the
+Stadtholder. You hear what I say, gentlemen?" he added, turning to the
+rivals.
+
+"I shall certainly not miss the appointment," said Castero, throwing
+back his head proudly. "If to-morrow is not as glorious to me as to-day
+has been, I will break my violin, and never touch a bow again as long as
+I live."
+
+"As for me," said Frederick, "if I do not make up for the check I
+unluckily met to-day by a glorious victory, I swear I will renounce the
+flattering name my countrymen have given me, and will hide my shame in
+some foreign land. The Orpheus of his country must have no rival of his
+fame."
+
+"To-morrow, then," said the burgomaster.
+
+"To-morrow!" repeated the rivals, casting on each other looks of proud
+defiance.
+
+"To-morrow!" whispered Ma�na and buried her face in her hands.
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+I shall not attempt to describe the strange sensations of Frederick on
+returning from the burgomaster's house It will have been seen from the
+glimpses we have had of him already, that he was of a quick and
+sensitive disposition, and that the chance of defeat in the approaching
+struggle would sting him into madness. He pictured to himself the
+ferocious joy of Castero on being declared the victor--the agony of
+Ma�na--the misery of his own degradation; and there is no doubt if the
+mysterious Unknown, whose appearance he now felt certain was nothing but
+a dream, had visited him in _propri� person�_, that he would have
+accepted his terms--his soul for triumph over his enemy, for the
+possession of the girl he loved.
+
+The morrow rose clear and cloudless. At the appointed hour Frederick
+took his violin, and prepared to set out. But just when he was opening
+the door, the man in the mantle--the same he had seen the day
+before--stood before him.
+
+"You did not expect to see me," said the Unknown, following Frederick to
+the end of the room, where he had retreated. "I told you, nevertheless,
+that we should meet again," he added, placing himself face to face with
+the son of the brewer.
+
+"Then it was no dream," murmured the youth, who appeared to have lost
+all his resolution.
+
+"Certainly not," returned the stranger, looking sarcastically at
+Frederick from head to foot. "I promised you yesterday, on the banks of
+the lake, that you would find your fiddle unharmed, and that I would
+enable you to conquer your rival. But I don't feel that I am bound to do
+any thing of the kind for nothing; generosity was never my forte, and I
+have lived long enough among the burghers of Holland to insist on being
+well paid for every thing I do."
+
+"Who are you, then; and what is it you want?" enquired the Dutch
+Orpheus, in an agitated voice.
+
+"Who am I!" answered the man in the mantle, with all the muscles of his
+face in violent convulsions--"Who am I!--I thought I had told you
+yesterday when you asked me--I am your master. What do I want? I will
+tell you. But why do you tremble so? you were bold enough when we met. I
+saw the thought in your heart--if Satan should rise before me, and
+promise me victory over my rival at the price of my soul, I would agree
+to the condition!"
+
+"Satan!--you are Satan!" shrieked Frederick, and closed his eyes in
+horror.
+
+"Didn't you find me out on the side of the lake, when you told me you
+would exchange your salvation for years of love and glory. Yes, I am
+that King of Darkness--_your_ master! and that of a great part of
+mankind. But, come; the hour is at hand--the Burgomaster and the
+Stadtholder await us. Do you accept the offer I make you?"
+
+After a minute's hesitation, during which his features betrayed the
+force of the internal contest, the musician made his choice. He had not
+power to speak, but he raised his hand, and was on the point of making
+the cross upon his forehead, to guard him from the tempter, when Satan
+perceived his intention, and seized his arm.
+
+"Think a little before you discard me entirely," he said, raising again
+in the soul of the musician all the clouds of pride and ambition that
+had given him power over it at first; "look into the box where your
+violin is laid, and decide for the last time."
+
+Frederick obeyed his tempter, and opened the case, but uttered a cry of
+desperation when he saw his Straduarius in the same state of utter ruin
+to which he had reduced it before. The neck separated from the body;
+both faces shivered to fragments--the ebony rests, the gold-headed
+stops, the bridge, the sides--all a confused mass of wreck and
+destruction.
+
+"Frederick! Frederick!" cried a voice from the brewery--it was his
+father's.
+
+"Frederick! Frederick!" repeated a hundred voices under the
+windows--"Come down, come down, the Stadtholder is impatient! Castero
+swears you are afraid to face him."
+
+They were his friends who were urging him to make haste.
+
+"Well?" enquired Satan.
+
+"I accept the bargain. I give you my soul!" said Frederick, while his
+cheek grew pale, and his eye flashed.
+
+"_Your_ soul!" replied Satan, with a shrug of infinite disdain. "Do you
+think I would have hindered you from jumping into the lake, if I had
+wished to get it? Do you think that suicides are not mine already?--mine
+by their own act, without the formality of a bargain?--_Your_ soul!"
+repeated the Prince of Darkness, with a sneer; "I don't want it, I
+assure you: at least not to-day--I feel sure of it whenever I require
+it!"
+
+"My soul, then, belongs to you--my fate is settled beforehand?" enquired
+Frederick.
+
+"You are an _artiste_," answered Satan, with a chuckling laugh, "and
+therefore are vain, jealous, proud, and full of envy, hatred, malice,
+and all uncharitableness. You perceive I shall lose nothing by waiting.
+No, no; 'tis not your own soul I want--but that of your first-born, that
+you must make over to me this hour!"
+
+"What do you want me to do!"
+
+"Here is the deed," said Satan, pulling a parchment from under his
+cloak, on which strange characters were drawn, and letters in an unknown
+language. "In putting your name to this, you bind and oblige yourself to
+let me know when Ma�na is about to become a mother; and before the
+baptismal water shall touch the infant's brow, you shall hang from the
+window a piece of lace which shall have been worn by Ma�na at her
+wedding. One of my satellites will be on the watch; he will come and
+tell me when the signal is made and--the rest is my own affair! You will
+find this agreement in your fiddle-case."
+
+"Frederick! Frederick! be quick be quick!" again shouted the father.
+
+"Frederick! Frederick! Castero is boasting about your absence!" cried
+the chorus of impatient friends.
+
+"I agree!" cried the _artiste_, and affixed his name. While he was
+signing, the stranger muttered some words of mysterious sound, of which
+he did not know the meaning; and immediately the pieces of the broken
+instrument united themselves--rests, bridge, stops, faces, and sides,
+all took their proper places, and the soul of the noble violin
+re-entered its musical prison, at the moment when that of the future
+baby of Ma�na was sold to the enemy of mankind!
+
+"Now, then," said Satan, as he sank beneath the floor, "go where glory
+waits thee."
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+What need is there to tell the success of Frederick Katwingen--how he
+triumphed over Castero, captivated the Stadtholder, and was the pride of
+his native town? The Stadtholder attached him to his person, settled a
+pension on him of fifteen thousand florins, and treated him as the most
+cherished of his friends. The burgomaster was delighted to gain so
+illustrious a son-in-law, and hurried forward the marriage with all his
+might. On the day of the wedding, when Frederick was leading the bride
+to church, at the moment when the party was crossing the market-place, a
+voice whispered in his ear--"A piece of the lace she will wear at the
+ball this evening." Frederick recognised the voice, though no one else
+heard it. He turned, but saw nobody. After the ceremony, the burgomaster
+handed the contract to the bridegroom, to which the Stadtholder had
+affixed his signature. A present of a hundred thousand florins from the
+governor of the United Provinces, proved the sincerity of that
+illustrious personage's friendship, and that his favour had by no means
+fallen off. The burgomaster was emulous of so much generosity, and
+introduced a clause in the contract, settling his whole fortune on his
+son-in-law, in case of Ma�na's death.
+
+Behold, then, the _artiste_ praised--f�ted--and happy. Possessed of the
+wife he loved--rich--honoured--what more had he to hope than that those
+advantages should be continued him? Castero was true to his
+word--reduced his violin to powder, acknowledged Frederick's
+superiority, and betook himself to higher pursuits, which ended in the
+great discovery of printing.
+
+The Dutch Orpheus is freed from the annoyance of a rival. He reigns by
+the divine right of his violin, the undisturbed monarch of his native
+plains. His name is pronounced with enthusiasm from one flat end of
+Holland to the other. In the splendour of his triumphal condition, he
+has forgotten his compact with Beelzebub; but Ma�na reminded him of it
+one day, when she told him he was about to become a father.
+
+A father!--ha!--Frederick! That word which brings such rapture to the
+newly married couple--which presents such radiant visions of the
+future--that word freezes the heart of the _artiste_ and stops the blood
+in his veins.
+
+It is only now when Ma�na is so happy that he knows the enormity of his
+fault.
+
+He is about to be a father--and he--beforehand--basely, cowardly--has
+sold the soul of his son who is yet unborn--before it can shake off the
+taint of original sin. Shame! shame! on the proud in heart who has
+yielded to the voice of the tempter--to the wretch who, for a little
+miserable glory, has shut the gates of mercy on his own child--shame!
+shame!
+
+If Satan would consent to an exchange--if--but no--'tis impossible. The
+"archangel fallen" had explained himself too clearly--no hope! no hope!
+From that hour there was no rest, no happiness for the prot�g� of the
+Stadtholder--sleep fled from his eyelids, he was pursued by perpetual
+remorse, and in the agonies of his heart deserted the nuptial bed: while
+light dreams settled on Ma�na's spirit, and wove bright chaplets for the
+future, he wandered into the midnight fields--across the canals--any
+where, in short, where he fancied he could procure forgetfulness; but
+solitude made him only feel his misery the more. How often he thought of
+going to the gloomy lake where he had first encountered the Unknown! How
+often he determined to complete the resolution he had formed on the day
+of Castero's triumph! But Satan had said to him, "The suicide is
+condemned--irrevocably condemned;" and the condemnation of which _he_
+would be sure, would not bring a ransom for his first-born.
+
+The fatal time draws on--in a few minutes more Ma�na will be a mother.
+Frederick, by some invisible impulse, has chosen from among the laces of
+his wife a rich Mechlin, which she wore round her neck on her
+wedding-day. It is now to be the diabolic standard, and he goes with it
+towards the door of his house, pensive and sad. When he got to the
+threshold he stopped--he raised his eyes to heaven, and from his heart
+and from his lips, there gushed out prayers, warm, deep, sincere--the
+first for many years. A ray of light has rushed into his soul. He
+uttered a cry of joy, he dashed across the street into the neighbouring
+church; he dipped the lace into the basin of consecrated water, and
+returned immediately to hang it at the door of his apartment.
+
+At that moment Ma�na gave birth to a son, and Satan rushed impatiently
+to claim his expected prey. But the tempter was unprepared for the trap
+that was laid for him. On placing his foot on the first step of the
+stair, he found himself pushed back by a superior power. The Mechlin,
+dripping with holy water, had amazing effect. It was guardian of the
+house and protected the entrance against the fallen angel. Satan strove
+again and again; but was always repulsed. There rises now an
+impenetrable barrier between him and the innocent being he had destined
+for his victim. Forced by the pious stratagem of Frederick Katwingen to
+give up his purpose, he roamed all night round the house like a roaring
+lion, bellowing in a most awful manner.
+
+In the morning, when they wrapt up the babe in the precious lace to
+carry him to be baptized, they perceived that it had been torn in
+several places. The holes showed the determination with which Satan had
+tried to force a passage. The enemy of mankind had not retreated without
+leaving the mark of his talons on the lace.
+
+On coming back from church, Frederick ran to his fiddle; and found in a
+corner of the case the deed of compact he had signed. With what joy he
+tossed it into the fire, and heard it go crackling up the chimney!
+
+All was over now; Satan was completely floored. He confessed, by giving
+up the contract, that he had no further right on the soul of the newly
+born, when once it had been purified by the waters of baptism. The
+father had recovered the soul which the musician had bartered away!
+Since that time, whenever a young woman in Haarlem is about to become a
+mother, the husband never fails to hang at the door the richest pieces
+of lace he can find in her trousseau. That standard bids defiance to the
+evil one, and recalls the noble victory won over the prince of darkness
+by Frederick Katwingen, surnamed the Dutch Orpheus. And that is the
+reason that, in passing through Haarlem, the visitor sees little frames
+suspended from certain houses, ornamented with squares of Mechlin, or
+Valenciennes, or Brussels point. And that is the reason that, when he
+asks an explanation of the singular custom, he gets only the one short,
+unvarying answer--"These are the Devil's Frills!"
+
+
+
+
+ADVENTURES IN LOUISIANA.
+
+PART II.
+
+
+THE BLOCKHOUSE.
+
+Supper over, and clenched by a pull at Nathan's whisky flask, we
+prepared for departure. The Americans threw the choicest parts of the
+buck over their shoulders, and the old squatter again taking the lead,
+we resumed our march. The way led us first across a prairie, then
+through a wood, which was succeeded by a sort of thicket, upon the
+branches and thorny shrubs of which we left numerous fragments of our
+dress. We had walked several miles almost in silence, when Nathan
+suddenly made a pause, and let the but-end of his rifle fall heavily on
+the ground. I took the opportunity to ask him where we were.
+
+"In Louisiana," replied he, "between the Red River, the Gulf of Mexico,
+and the Mississippi; on French ground, and yet in a country where French
+power is worth little. Do you see that?" added he suddenly, seizing my
+arm, and pulling me a few paces aside, while he pointed to a dark
+object, that at the distance and in the moonlight, had the appearance of
+an earthen wall. "Do you know what that is?" repeated the squatter.
+
+"An Indian grave, perhaps," replied I.
+
+"A grave it is," was the answer; "but not of the Redskins. As brave a
+backwoodsman as ever crossed the Mississippi lies buried there. You are
+not altogether wrong, though. I believe it was once an Indian mound."
+
+While he spoke we were walking on, and I now distinguished a hillock or
+mound of earth, with nearly perpendicular sides, on which was erected a
+blockhouse, formed of unhewn cypress trunks, of a solidity and thickness
+upon which four-and-twenty pounders would have had some difficulty in
+making an impression. Its roof rose about ten feet above a palisade
+enclosing the building, and consisting of stout saplings sharpened at
+the top, and stuck in the ground at a very short distance from each
+other, being moreover strengthened and bound together with wattles and
+branches. The building had evidently been constructed more for a refuge
+and place of defence than an habitual residence.
+
+A ladder was now lowered, by which we ascended to the top of the mound.
+There was a small door in the palisades, which Nathan opened and passed
+through, we following.
+
+The blockhouse was of equal length and breadth, about forty feet square.
+On entering it we found nothing but the bare walls, with the exception
+of a wide chimney of sun-baked brick, and in one corner a large wooden
+slab partly imbedded in the ground.
+
+"Don't tread upon that board," said the old man solemnly, as we
+approached the slab to examine it; "it is holy ground."
+
+"How holy ground?"
+
+"There lies under it as brave a fellow as ever handled axe or rifle. He
+it was built this blockhouse, and christened it the Bloody
+Blockhouse--and bloody it proved to be to him. But you shall hear more
+of it if you like. You shall hear how six American rifles were too many
+for ninety French and Spanish muskets."
+
+Carleton and I shook our heads incredulously. The Yankee took us both by
+the arm, led us out of the blockhouse, and through the stockade to a
+grassy projection of the hillock.
+
+"Ninety French and Spanish muskets," repeated he in a firm voice, and
+weighing on each word. "Opposed to them were Asa Nolins, with his three
+brothers, his brother-in-law, a cousin, and their wives. He fell like a
+brave American as he was, but not alone, for the dead bodies of thirty
+foes were lying round the blockhouse when he died. They are buried
+there," added he, pointing to a row of cotton-trees a short distance
+off, that in the pale moonlight might have been taken for the spectres
+of the departed; "under those cotton-trees they fell, and there they are
+buried."
+
+The old squatter remained for a short space in his favourite attitude,
+his hands crossed on his rifle, and his chin resting on them. He seemed
+to be calling together the recollections of a time long gone by. We did
+not care to interrupt him. The stillness of the night, the light of the
+moon and stars, that gave the prairie lying before us the appearance of
+a silvery sea, the sombre forest on either side of the blockhouse, of
+which the edges only were lighted up by the moonbeams, the vague
+allusions our guide had made to some fearful scene of strife and
+slaughter that had been enacted in this now peaceful glade--all these
+circumstances combined, worked upon our imaginations, and we felt
+unwilling to break the stillness which added to the impressive beauty of
+the forest scene.
+
+"Did you ever float down the Mississippi?" asked Nathan abruptly. As he
+spoke he sat down upon the bank, and made sign to us to sit beside him.
+
+"Did you ever float down the Mississippi?"
+
+"No; we came up it from New Orleans hither."
+
+"That is nothing; the stream is not half so dangerous there as above
+Natchez." _We_ came down, six men, four women, and twice as many
+children, all the way from the mouths of the Ohio to the Red River; and
+bad work we had of it, in a crazy old boat, to pass the rapids and avoid
+the sand-banks, and snakes, and sawyers, and whatever the devil they
+call them, that are met with. I calculate we weren't sorry when we left
+the river and took to dry land again. The first thing we did was to make
+a wigwam, Injun fashion, with branches of trees. This was to shelter the
+women and children. Two men remained to protect them, and the other four
+divided into two parties, and set off, one south and t'other west, to
+look for a good place for a settlement. I and Righteous, one of Asa's
+brothers, took the southerly track.
+
+It was no pleasuring party that journey, but a right-down hard and
+dangerous expedition, through cypress swamps, where snapping turtles
+were plenty as mosquitoes, and at every step the congo and mocassin
+snakes twisted themselves round our ankles. We persevered, however. We
+had a few handfuls of corn in our hunting-pouches, and our calabashes
+well filled with whisky. With that and our rifles we did not want for
+provender.
+
+At length, on the fourth day, we came to an upland, or rolling prairie
+as we call it, from the top of which we had a view that made our hearts
+leap for joy. A lovely strip of land lay before us, bounded at the
+further end by a forest of evergreen oaks, honey locusts, and catalpas.
+Towards the north was a good ten mile of prairie; on the right hand a
+wood of cotton-trees, and on the left the forest in which you now are.
+We decided at once that we should find no better place than this to fix
+ourselves; and we went back to tell Asa and the others of our discovery,
+and to show them the way to it. Asa and one of his brothers returned
+with us, bringing part of our traps. They were as pleased with the place
+as we were, and we went back again to fetch the rest. But it was no easy
+matter to bring our plunder and the women and children through the
+forests and swamps. We had to cut paths through the thickets, and to
+make bridges and rafts to cross the creeks and marshes. After ten days'
+labour, however, and with the help of our axes, we were at our journey's
+end.
+
+We began directly clearing and cutting down trees, and in three weeks we
+had built a loghouse, and were able to lie down to rest without fear of
+being disturbed by the wolves or catamounts. We built two more houses,
+so as to have one for each two families and then set to work to clear
+the land. We had soon shaped out a couple of fields, a ten-acre one for
+maize, and another half the size for tobacco. These we began to dig and
+hoe; but the ground was hard, and though we all worked like slaves, we
+saw there was nothing to be made of it without ploughing. A ploughshare
+we had, and a plough was easily made--but horses were wanting: so Asa
+and I took fifty dollars, which was all the money we had amongst us, and
+set out to explore the country forty miles round, and endeavour to meet
+with somebody who would sell us a couple of horses, and two or three
+cows. Not a clearing or settlement did we find, however, and at last we
+returned discouraged, and again began digging. On the very first day
+after our return, as we were toiling away in the field, a trampling of
+horses was heard, and four men mounted, and followed by a couple of
+wolf-hounds, came cantering over the prairie. It struck us that this
+would be a famous chance for buying a pair of horses, and Asa went to
+meet them, and invited them to alight and refresh themselves. At the
+same time we took our rifles, which were always lying beside us when we
+worked in the fields, and advanced towards the strangers. But when they
+saw our guns, they put spurs to their horses and rode off to a greater
+distance. Asa called out to them not to fear, for our rifles were to use
+against bears and wolves and Redskins, and not against Christian men.
+Upon this, down they came again; we brought out a calabash of real
+Monongahela; and after they had taken a dram, they got off their horses,
+and came in and ate some venison, which the women set before them. They
+were Creoles, half Spanish, half French, with a streak of the Injun; and
+they spoke a sort of gibberish not easy to understand. But Asa, who had
+served in Lafayette's division in the time of the war, knew French well;
+and when they had eaten and drunk, he began to make a bargain with them
+for two of their horses.
+
+It was easy to see they were not the sort of men with whom decent folk
+could trade. First they would, then they wouldn't: which horses did we
+want, and what would we give. We offered them thirty-five dollars for
+their two best horses--and a heavy price it was, for at that time money
+was scarce in the settlements. They wanted forty, but at last took the
+thirty-five; and after getting three parts drunk upon taffia, which they
+asked for to wet the bargain as they said, they mounted two upon each of
+the remaining horses and rode away.
+
+We now got on famously with our fields, and soon sowed fifteen acres of
+maize and tobacco, and then began clearing another ten-acre field. We
+were one day hard at work at this, when one of my boys came running to
+us, crying out, "Father! Father! The Redskins!" We snatched up our
+rifles and hastened to the top of the little rising ground on which our
+houses were built, and thence we saw, not Injuns, but fourteen or
+fifteen Creoles, galloping towards our clearing, halloing and huzzaing
+like mad. When they were within fifty yards of us, Asa stepped forward
+to meet them. As soon as they saw him one of them called out, "There is
+the thief! There is the man who stole my brown horse!" Asa made no
+answer to this, but waited till they came nearer, when one of them rode
+up to him and asked who was the chief in the settlement. "There is no
+chief here," answered Asa; "we are all equals and free citizens."
+
+"You have stolen a horse from our friend Monsieur Croupier," replied the
+other. "You must give it up."
+
+"Is that all?" said Asa quietly.
+
+"No: you must show us by what right you hunt on this territory."
+
+"Yes," cried half a dozen others, "we'll have no strangers on our
+hunting-grounds; the bears and caguars are getting scarcer than ever,
+and as for buffaloes, they are clean exterminated." And all the time
+they were talking, they kept leaping and galloping about like madmen.
+
+"The sooner the bears and caguars are killed the better," said Asa. "The
+land is not for dumb brutes, but for men."
+
+The Creoles, however, persisted that we had no right to hunt where we
+were, and swore we should go away. Then Asa asked them what right they
+had to send us away. This seemed to embarrass them, and they muttered
+and talked together; so that it was easy to see there was no magistrate
+or person in authority amongst them, but that they were a party of
+fellows who had come in hopes to frighten us. At last they said they
+should inform the governor, and the commandant at Natchitoches, and the
+Lord knows who besides, that we had come and squatted ourselves down
+here, and built houses, and cleared fields, and all without right or
+permission; and that then we might look out. So Asa began to lose
+patience, and told them they might all go to the devil, and that, if
+they were not off soon, he should be apt to hasten their movements.
+
+"I must have my horse back," screamed the Creole whom they called
+Croupier.
+
+"You shall," replied Asa, "both of them, if you return the
+five-and-thirty dollars."
+
+"It was only fifteen dollars," cried the lying Creole.
+
+Upon this Asa called to us, and we stepped out from amongst the
+cotton-trees, behind which we had been standing all the while; and when
+the Creoles saw us, each with his rifle on his arm, they seemed rather
+confused, and drew back a little.
+
+"Here are my comrades," said Asa, "who will all bear witness, that the
+horses were sold at the prices of twenty dollars for the one and
+fifteen for the other. And if any one says the contrary, he says that
+which is not true."
+
+"_Larifari!_" roared Croupier. "You shan't stop here to call us liars,
+and spoil our hunting-ground, and build houses on our land. His
+excellency the governor shall be told of it, and the commandant at
+Natchitoches, and you shall be driven away." And the other Creoles, who,
+while Asa was speaking, appeared to be getting more quiet and
+reasonable, now became madder than ever, and shrieked, and swore, and
+galloped backwards and forwards, brandishing their fowling-pieces like
+wild Injuns, and screaming out that we should leave the country, the
+game wasn't too plenty for them, and suchlike. At length Asa and the
+rest of us got angry, and called out to them to take themselves off or
+they would be sorry for it; and when they saw us bringing our rifles to
+our shoulders, they put spurs to their horses, and galloped away to a
+distance of some five hundred yards. There they halted, and set up such
+a screeching as almost deafened us, fired off some of their old rusty
+guns, and then rode away. We all laughed at their bragging and
+cowardice, except Asa, who looked thoughtful.
+
+"I fear some harm will come of this," said he. "Those fellows will go
+talking about us in their own country; and if it gets to the ears of the
+governors or commanding-officers that we have settled down on their
+territory, they will be sending troops to dislodge us."
+
+Asa's words made us reflect, and we held counsel together as to what was
+best to be done. I proposed that we should build a blockhouse on the
+Indian mound to defend ourselves in if we were attacked.
+
+"Yes," said Asa; but we are only six, and they may send hundreds against
+us.
+
+"Very true," said I; "but if we have a strong blockhouse on the top of
+the mound, that is as good as sixty, and we could hold out against a
+hundred Spanish musketeers. And it's my notion, that if we give up such
+a handsome bit of ground as we have cleared here without firing a shot,
+we deserve to have our rifles broken before our faces."
+
+Asa, however, did not seem altogether satisfied. It was easy to see he
+was thinking of the women and children. Then said Asa's wife, Rachel, "I
+calculate," said she, "that Nathan, although he is my brother, and I
+oughtn't to say it, has spoke like the son of his father, who would have
+let himself be scalped ten times over before he would have given up such
+an almighty beautiful piece of land. And what's more, Asa, I for one
+won't go back up the omnipotent dirty Mississippi; and that's a fact."
+
+"But if a hundred Spanish soldiers come," said Asa, "and I reckon they
+will come?"
+
+"Build the blockhouse, man, to defend yourselves; and when our people up
+at Salt River and Cumberland hear that the Spaniards are quarreling with
+us, I guess they won't keep their hands crossed before them."
+
+So, seeing us all, even the women, so determined, Asa gave in to our way
+of thinking, and the very same day we began the blockhouse you see
+before you. The walls were all of young cypress-trees, and we would fain
+have roofed it with the same wood; but the smallest of the cypresses
+were five or six feet thick, and it was no easy matter to split them. So
+we were obliged to use fir, which, when it is dried by a few days' sun,
+burns like tinder. But we little thought when we did so, what sorrow
+those cursed fir planks would bring us.
+
+When all was ready, well and solidly nailed and hammered together, we
+made a chimney, so that the women might cook if necessary, and then laid
+in a good store of hams and dried bear's flesh, filled the meal and
+whisky tubs, and the water-casks, and brought our plough and what we had
+most valuable into the blockhouse. We then planted the palisades,
+securing them strongly in the ground, and to each other, so that it
+might not be easy to tear them up. We left, as you see, a space of five
+yards between the stockade and the house, so that we might have room to
+move about in. It would be necessary for an enemy to take the palisades
+before he could do any injury to the house itself, and we reckoned that
+with six good rifles in such hands as ours, it would require a pretty
+many Spanish musketeers to drive us from our outer defences.
+
+In six weeks all was ready; all our tools and rations, except what we
+wanted for daily use, carried into the fort, and we stood contemplating
+the work of our hands with much satisfaction. Asa was the only one who
+seemed cast down.
+
+"I've a notion," said he, "this blockhouse will be a bloody one before
+long; and what's more, I guess it will be the blood of one of us that'll
+redden it. I've a sort of feelin' of it, and of who it'll be."
+
+"Pho! Asa, what notions be these! Keep a light heart, man."
+
+And Asa seemed to cheer up again, and the next day we returned to
+working in the fields; but as we were not using the horses, one of us
+went every morning to patrol ten or twelve miles backwards and forwards,
+just for precaution's sake. At night two of us kept watch, relieving one
+another, and patrolling about the neighbourhood of our clearing.
+
+One morning we were working in the bush and circling trees, when
+Righteous rode up full gallop.
+
+"They're coming!" cried he; "a hundred of them at least."
+
+"Are they far off?" said Asa, quite quietly, and as if he had been
+talking of a herd of deer.
+
+"They are coming over the prairie. In less than half an hour they will
+be here."
+
+"How are they marching? With van and rear guard? In what order?"
+
+"No order at all, but all of a heap together."
+
+"Good!" said Asa; "they can know little about bush-fighting or
+soldiering of any kind. Now then, the women into the blockhouse."
+
+Righteous galloped up to our fort, to be there first in case the enemy
+should find it out. The women soon followed, carrying what they could
+with them. When we were all in the blockhouse, we pulled up the ladder,
+made the gate fast, and there we were.
+
+We felt strange at first when we found ourselves shut up inside the
+palisades, and only able to look out through the slits we had left for
+our rifles. We weren't used to be confined in a place, and it made us
+right-down wolfish. There we remained, however, as still as mice. Scarce
+a whisper was to be heard. Rachel tore up old shirts and greased them,
+for wadding for the guns; we changed our flints, and fixed every thing
+about the rifles properly, while the women sharpened our knives and axes
+all in silence.
+
+Nearly an hour had passed in this way when we heard a shouting and
+screaming, and a few musket-shots; and we saw through our loopholes some
+Spanish soldiers running backwards and forwards on the crest of the
+slope on which our houses stood. Suddenly a great pillar of smoke arose,
+then a second, then a third.
+
+"God be good to us!" cried Rachel, "they are burning our houses." We
+were all trembling and quite pale with rage. Harkye, stranger, when men
+have been slaving and sweating for four or five months to build houses
+for their wives and for the poor worms of children, and then a parcel of
+devils from hell come and burn them down like maize-stalks in a
+stubble-field, it is no wonder that their teeth should grind together,
+and their fists clench of themselves. So it was with us; but we said
+nothing, for our rage would not let us speak. But presently as we
+strained our eyes through the loopholes, the Spaniards showed themselves
+at the opening of the forest yonder, coming towards the blockhouse. We
+tried to count them, but at first it was impossible, for they came on in
+a crowd without any order. They thought lightly enough of those they
+were seeking, or they would have been more prudent. However, when they
+came within five hundred paces, they formed ranks, and we were able to
+count them. There were eighty-two foot soldiers with muskets and
+carbines, and three officers on horseback, with drawn swords in their
+hands. The latter dismounted, and their example was followed by seven
+other horsemen, amongst whom we recognised three of the rascally Creoles
+who had brought all this trouble upon us. He they called Croupier was
+among them. The other four were also Creoles, Acadians or Canadians, a
+race whom we had already met with on the Upper Mississippi, fine
+hunters, but wild, drunken, debauched barbarians.
+
+The Acadians were coming on in front, and they set up a whoop when they
+saw the blockhouse and stockade; but finding that we were prepared to
+receive them, they retreated upon the main body. We saw them speaking to
+the officers as if advising them; but the latter shook their heads, and
+the soldiers continued moving on. They were in uniforms of all colours,
+blue, white, and brown, but each man dirtier than his neighbour. They
+marched in good order, nevertheless, the captain and officers coming on
+in front, and the Acadians keeping on the flanks. The latter, however,
+edged gradually off towards the cotton-trees, and presently disappeared
+amongst them.
+
+"Those are the first men to frick off," said Asa, when he saw this
+manoeuvre of the Creoles. "They have steady hands and sharp eyes; but
+if we once get rid of them we need not mind the others."
+
+The Spaniards were now within an hundred yards of us.
+
+"Shall I let fly at the thieving incendiaries?" said Righteous.
+
+"God forbid!" replied Asa. "We will defend ourselves like men; but let
+us wait till we are attacked, and the blood that is shed will lie at the
+door of the aggressors."
+
+The Spaniards now saw plainly that they would have to take the stockade
+before they could get at us, and the officers seemed consulting
+together.
+
+"Halt!" cried Asa, suddenly.
+
+"Messieurs les Americains," said the captain, looking up at our
+loopholes.
+
+"What's your pleasure?" demanded Asa.
+
+Upon this the captain stuck a dirty pocket-handkerchief upon the point
+of his sword, and laughing with his officers, moved some twenty paces
+forward, followed by the troops. Thereupon Asa again shouted to him to
+halt.
+
+"This is not according to the customs of war," said he. "The flag of
+truce may advance, but if it is accompanied, we fire."
+
+It was evident that the Spaniards never dreamed of our attempting to
+resist them; for there they stood in line before us, and, if we had
+fired, every shot must have told. The Acadians, who kept themselves all
+this time snug behind the cotton-trees, called more than once to the
+captain to withdraw his men into the wood; but he only shook his head
+contemptuously. When, however, he heard Asa threaten to fire, he looked
+puzzled, and as if he thought it just possible we might do as we said.
+He ordered his men to halt, and called out to us not to fire till he had
+explained what they cane for.
+
+"Then cut it short," cried Asa sternly. "You'd have done better to
+explain before you burned down our houses, like a pack of Mohawks on the
+war path."
+
+As he spoke, three bullets whistled from the edge of the forest, and
+struck the stockades within a few inches of the loophole at which he
+stood. They were fired by the Creoles, who, although they could not
+possibly distinguish Asa, had probably seen his rifle barrel or one of
+his buttons glitter through the opening. As soon as they had fired, they
+sprang behind their trees again, craning their heads forward to hear if
+there was a groan or a cry. They'd have done better to have kept quiet;
+for Righteous and I caught a sight of them, and let fly at the same
+moment. Two of them fell and rolled from behind the trees, and we saw
+that they were the Creole called Croupier, and another of our
+horse-dealing friends.
+
+When the Spanish officer heard the shots, he ran back to his men, and
+shouted out "Forward! To the assault!" They came on like mad a distance
+of thirty paces, and then, as if they thought we were wild-geese to be
+frightened by their noise, they fired a volley against the blockhouse.
+
+"Now then!" cried Asa, "are you loaded, Nathan and Righteous? I take the
+captain--you, Nathan, the lieutenant--Righteous, the third
+officer--James, the sergeant. Mark your men, and waste no powder."
+
+The Spaniards were still some sixty yards off, but we were sure of our
+mark at a hundred and sixty, and that if they had been squirrels instead
+of men. We fired: the captain and lieutenant, the third officer, two
+sergeants, and another man writhed for an instant upon the grass. The
+next moment they stretched themselves out--dead.
+
+All was now confusion among the musketeers, who ran in every direction.
+Most of them took to the wood, but about a dozen remained and lifted up
+their officers to see if there was any spark of life left in them.
+
+"Load again, quick!" said Asa in a low voice. We did so, and six more
+Spaniards tumbled over. Those who still kept their legs now ran off as
+if the soles of their shoes had been of red-hot iron.
+
+We set to work to pick out our touchholes and clean our rifles, knowing
+that we might not have time later, and that a single miss-fire might
+cost us all our lives. We then loaded, and began to calculate what the
+Spaniards would do next. It is true they had lost their officers; but
+there were five Acadians with them, and those were the men we had most
+cause to fear. Meantime the vultures and turkey-buzzards had already
+begun to assemble, and presently hundreds of them were circling and
+hovering over the carcasses, which they as yet, however, feared to
+touch.
+
+Just then Righteous, who had the sharpest eye amongst us all, pointed to
+the corner of the wood, yonder where it joins the brushwood thicket. I
+made a sign to Asa, and we all looked and saw there was something
+creeping and moving through the underwood. Presently we distinguished
+two Acadians heading a score of Spaniards, and endeavouring, under cover
+of the bushes, to steal across the open ground to the east side of the
+forest.
+
+"The Acadians for you, Nathan and Righteous, the Spaniards for us," said
+Asa. The next moment two Acadians and four Spaniards lay bleeding in the
+brushwood. But the bullets were scarce out of our rifles when a third
+Acadian, whom we had not seen, started up. "Now's the time," shouted he,
+"before they have loaded again. Follow me! we will have their blockhouse
+yet." And he sprang across followed by the Spaniards. We gnashed our
+teeth with rage at not having seen the Acadian.
+
+There were still three of these fellows alive, who had now taken command
+of the Spaniards. Although we had shot a score of our enemies, those who
+remained were more than ten to one of us, and we were even worse off
+than at first, for then they were all together, and now we had them on
+each side of us. But we did not let ourselves be discouraged, although
+we could not help feeling that the odds against us were fearfully great.
+
+We now had to keep a sharp look-out; for if one of us showed himself at
+a loophole, a dozen bullets rattled about his ears. There were many
+shot-holes through the palisades, which were covered with white streaks
+where the splinters had been torn off by the lead. The musketeers had
+spread themselves all along the edge of the forest, and had learned by
+experience to keep close to their cover. We now and then got a shot at
+them and killed four or five, but it was slow work, and the time seemed
+very long.
+
+Suddenly the Spaniards set up a loud shout. At first we could not make
+out what was the matter, but presently we heard a hissing and crackling
+on the roof of the blockhouse. They had wrapped tow round their
+cartridges, and one of the shots had set light to the fir-boards. Just
+as we found it out, they gave three more hurras, and we saw the dry
+planks beginning to flame, and the fire to spread.
+
+"We must put that out and at once," said Asa, "if we don't wish to be
+roasted alive. Some one must get up the chimney with a bucket of water.
+I'll go myself."
+
+"Let me go, Asa," said Righteous.
+
+"You stop here. It don't matter who goes. The thing will be done in a
+minute."
+
+He put a chair on a table and got upon it, and then seizing a bar which
+was fixed across the chimney to hang hams upon, he drew himself up by
+his arms, and Rachel handed him a pail of water. All this time the flame
+was burning brighter, and the Spaniards getting louder in their
+rejoicing and hurras. Asa stood upon the bar, and raising the pail above
+his head, poured the water out of the chimney upon the roof.
+
+"More to the left, Asa," said Righteous; "the fire is strongest more to
+the left."
+
+"Tarnation seize it!" cried Asa, "I can't see. Hand me up another
+pailful."
+
+We did so; and when he had got it, he put his head out at the top of the
+chimney to see where the fire was, and threw the water over the exact
+spot. But at the very moment that he did so the report of a dozen
+muskets was heard.
+
+"Ha!" cried Asa in an altered voice, "I have it." And the hams and
+bucket came tumbling down the chimney, and Asa after them all covered
+with blood.
+
+"In God's name, man, are you hurt?" cried Rachel.
+
+"Hush! wife," replied Asa; "keep quiet. I have enough for the rest of my
+life, which will not be long: but never mind, lads; defend yourselves
+well, and don't fire two at the same man. Save your lead, for you will
+want it all. Promise me that."
+
+"Asa! my beloved Asa!" shrieked Rachel; "if you die, I shall die too."
+
+"Silence! foolish woman; and our child, and the one yet unborn! Hark! I
+hear the Spaniards! Defend yourselves, and, Nathan, be a father to my
+children."
+
+I had barely time to press his hand and make him the promise he wished.
+The Spaniards, who had doubtless guessed our loss, rushed like mad
+wolves up to the mound, twenty on one side, and upwards of thirty on the
+other.
+
+"Steady!" cried I. "Righteous, here with me; and you, Rachel, show
+yourself worthy to be Hiram Strong's daughter, and Asa's wife; load this
+rifle for me while I fire my own."
+
+"O God! O God!" cried Rachel, "the hellhounds have murdered my Asa!"
+
+She clasped her husband's body in her arms, and there was no getting her
+away. I felt sad enough myself, but there was scanty time for grieving;
+for a party of Spaniards, headed by one of the Acadians, was close up to
+the mound on the side which I was defending. I shot the Acadian; but
+another, the sixth, and last but one, took his place. "Rachel!" cried I,
+"the rifle, for God's sake, the rifle! a single bullet may save all our
+lives."
+
+But no Rachel came, and the Acadian and Spaniards, who, from the
+cessation of our fire, guessed that we were either unloaded, or had
+expended our ammunition, now sprang forward, and by climbing, and
+scrambling, and getting on one another's shoulders, managed to scale the
+side of the mound, almost perpendicular as you see it is. And in a
+minute the Acadian and half a dozen Spaniards, with axes, were chopping
+away at the palisades, and severing the wattles which bound them
+together. To give the devil his due, if there had been only three like
+that Acadian, it would have been all up with us. He handled his axe like
+a real backwoodsman; but the Spaniards wanted either the skill or the
+strength of arm, and they made little impression. There were only
+Righteous and myself to oppose them; for, on the other side, a dozen
+more soldiers, with the seventh of those cursed Acadians, were attacking
+the stockade.
+
+Righteous shot down one of the Spaniards; but just as he had done so the
+Acadian tore up a palisade by the roots, (how he did it I know not to
+this hour, there must have been a stump remaining on it,) held it with
+the wattles and branches hanging round it like a shield before him,
+guarding off a blow I aimed at him, then hurled it against me with such
+force that I staggered backwards, and he sprang past me. I thought it
+was all over with us. It is true that Righteous, with the butt of his
+rifle, split the skull of the first Spaniard who entered, and drove his
+hunting-knife into the next; but the Acadian alone was man enough to
+give us abundant occupation, now he had got in our rear. Just then there
+was a crack of a rifle, the Acadian gave a leap into the air and fell
+dead, and at the same moment my son Godsend, a boy of ten years old,
+sprang forward, Asa's rifle in his hand still smoking from muzzle and
+touchhole. The glorious boy had loaded the piece when he saw that Rachel
+did not do it, and in the very nick of time had shot the Acadian through
+the heart. This brought me to myself again, and with axe in one hand and
+knife in the other, I rushed in among the Spaniards, hacking and hewing
+right and left. It was a real butchery, which lasted a good quarter of
+an hour; but then the Spaniards got sick of it, and would have done so
+sooner had they known that their leader was shot. At last they jumped
+off the mound and ran away, such of them as could. Righteous and I put
+the palisade in its place again, securing it as well as we could, and
+then, telling my boy to keep watch, ran over to the other side, where a
+desperate fight was going on.
+
+"Three of our party, assisted by the women, were defending the stockade
+against a score of Spaniards, who kept poking their bayonets between the
+palisades, till all our people were wounded and bleeding. But Rachel had
+now recovered from her first grief at her husband's death, or rather it
+had turned to a feeling of revenge, and there she was, like a raging
+tigress, seizing the bayonets as they were thrust through the stockade,
+and wrenching them off the muskets, and sometimes pulling the muskets
+themselves out of the soldiers' hands. But all this struggling had
+loosened the palisades, and there were one or two openings in them
+through which the thin-bodied Spaniards, pushed on by their comrades,
+were able to pass. Just as we came up, two of these copper-coloured
+Dons had squeezed themselves through, without their muskets, but with
+their short sabres in their hands. They are active dangerous fellows
+those Spaniards in a hand-to-hand tussle. One of them sprang at me, and
+if it had not been for my hunting-knife, I was done for, for I had no
+room to swing my axe; but as he came on I hit him a blow with my fist,
+which knocked him down, and then ran my knife into him, and jumping over
+his body snatched a musket out of Rachel's hand, and began laying about
+me with the but-end of it. I was sorry not to have my rifle, which was
+handier than those heavy Spanish muskets. The women were now in the
+way--we hadn't room for so many--so I called out to them to get into the
+blockhouse and load the rifles. There was still another Acadian alive,
+and I knew that the fight wouldn't end till he was done for. But while
+we were fighting, Godsend and the women loaded the rifles, and brought
+them out, and firing through the stockade, killed three or four, and, as
+luck would have it, the Acadian was amongst them. So when the Spaniards,
+who are just like hounds, and only come on if led and encouraged, saw
+that their leader had fallen, they sprang off the mound, with a 'Carajo!
+Malditos!' and ran away as if a shell had burst amongst them."
+
+The old squatter paused and drew a deep breath. He had forgotten his
+usual drawl and deliberation, and had become animated and eager while
+describing the stirring incidents in which he had borne so active a
+part. When he had taken breath, he continued.
+
+"I couldn't say how long the fight lasted; it seemed short, we were so
+busy, and yet long, deadly long. It is no joke to have to defend one's
+life, and the lives of those one loves best, against fourscore
+bloodthirsty Spaniards, and that with only half a dozen rifles for arms,
+and a few palisades for shelter. When it was over we were so dog-tired
+that we fell down where we were, like overdriven oxen, and without
+minding the blood which lay like water on the ground. Seven Spaniards
+and two Acadians were lying dead within the stockade. We ourselves were
+all wounded and hacked about, some with knife-stabs and sabre-cuts,
+others with musket-shots; ugly wounds enough, some of them, but none
+mortal. If the Spaniards had returned to the attack they would have made
+short work of us; for as soon as we left off fighting and our blood
+cooled, we became stiff and helpless. But now came the women with rags
+and bandages, and washed our wounds and bound them up, and we dragged
+ourselves into the blockhouse, and lay down upon our mattresses of dry
+leaves. And Godsend loaded the rifles and a dozen Spanish muskets that
+were lying about, to be in readiness for another attack, and the women
+kept watch while we slept. But the Spaniards had had enough, and we saw
+no more of them. Only the next morning, when Jonas went down the ladder
+to reconnoitre, he found thirty dead and several others dying, and a few
+wounded, who begged hard for a drink of water, for that their comrades
+had deserted them. We got them up into the blockhouse, and had their
+wounds dressed, and after a time they were cured and left us."
+
+"And were you never after attacked again?" said I. "I wonder at your
+courage in remaining here after becoming aware of the dangers you were
+exposed to."
+
+"We reckoned we had more right than ever to the land after all the blood
+it had cost us, and then the news of the fight had got carried into the
+settlements, and up as far as Salt River; and some of our friends and
+kinsfolk came down to join us, and there were soon enough of us not to
+care for twice as many Spaniards as we had beaten off before."
+
+While he was speaking the old squatter descended the ladder, and led us
+out of the forest and over the ridge of a low hill, on the side of which
+stood a dozen loghouses, which cast their black shadows on the moonlit
+slope. We found a rough but kind welcome--few words, but plenty of good
+cheer--and we made acquaintance with the heroes and heroines of the
+blockhouse siege, and with their sons and daughters, buxom strapping
+damsels and fine manly lads, Yankees though they were. I have often
+enjoyed a softer bed, but never a sounder sleep than that night.
+
+The next day our horses were brought round from the swamp, and we took
+our departure; but as hardships, however painful to endure, are pleasant
+to look back upon, so have I often thought with pleasure of our
+adventures in the prairies, and recurred with the strongest interest to
+old Nathan's thrilling narrative of the Bloody Blockhouse.
+
+
+
+
+COMMERCIAL POLICY--EUROPE
+
+
+The land absolutely groans under over-material-production of every sort
+and degree, as on all hands is now acknowledged. The foundations of
+Manchester tremble under the ponderous piles of Cobden's calicoes, in
+Cobden's warerooms, ever, like the liver of Prometheus, undiminished,
+though daily devoured by the vulture of consumption. The sight of the
+Pelion upon Ossa, accumulated masses of pig upon bar iron, immovable as
+the cloud-capped Waen and Dowlais of Merthyr Tydvil themselves, should
+almost generate burning fever, intense enough, among the unfortunate
+though too sanguine producers, to smelt all the ironstone in the bowels
+of South Wales, without the aid of furnace or hot blast. Broad cloths,
+though encumbering cloth halls, are ceasing all over the earth--so say,
+at least, the Leeds anti-corn-law sages. Loads of linens, as Marshall
+proclaims, are sinking his mammoth mills; not to lengthen the lamentable
+list with the sorrows of silks, of cutlery, crockery, and all other
+commodities, the created or impelled of the mighty steam power that by
+turns prospers and prostrates us. As the crowning point, the monster
+grievance of all, comes the cramming over-production of food,
+farinaceous and animal, under which the overfed stomach of the country
+is afflicted with nightmare, as we learn on the unimpeachable authority
+of that wisest and most infallible of all one-idea'd nostrummongers, the
+immortal Cobden himself.[I]
+
+Vast and overwhelming, however, as the ills which follow in the train of
+over producing power, in the world material and manufacturing, they sink
+into utter insignificance--for magnitude, they are as Highgate Hill to
+sky-enveloped Chimborazo of eternal snow--in comparison with that
+crowding crush, that prodigious overflow, of charlatanic genius, in the
+world physical and spiritual, which blocks up every highway and byway,
+swarms in every circle, roars in every market-place, or thunders in each
+senate of the realm. There is not one ill which flesh is heir to, which
+this race original cannot kill or cure. Whilst bleeding the patient to
+death, Sangrado like, and sacking the fees, they will greet him right
+courteously with _Viva V. milanos_--live a thousand years, and not one
+less of the allotted number. Whilst drenching the body politic with
+Reform purge, or, with slashing tomahawk, inflicting Repeal gashes, they
+bid the prostrate and panting state subject rejoice over the wondrous
+dispatch with which its parts can be dismembered, the arithmetical
+accuracy with which its financial plethora can be depleted. Eccentric in
+its motions and universal in its aspirations, for the genius of this age
+no conception is too mean, no subject too intricate, no enterprise too
+rash, no object too sacred. It will condescend with equal readiness upon
+torturing a pauper, fleecing the farmer, robbing a church, or
+undertaking "the command of the Channel fleet at a moment's notice."
+With Mr Secretary Chadwick, schooled in police courts, it will
+metamorphose workhouse asylums for the destitute into parish prisons,
+with "locks, bolts, and bars," for the safe keeping of unfortunate
+outcasts found guilty of the felony of pauperism. With Dr Kay
+Shuttleworth and the privy council, when the masses want bread, it will
+invite to the "whistle belly" feast of roaring in _andante_, or
+dissolving in _piano_, in full choral concert mobs at Exeter Hall; it
+will induct into the new gipsy jargon scheme of education at Norwood,
+where the scholar is introduced to the process of analysation before he
+has learned to read and almost to articulate; or the miserables
+initiated into the elements of the linear, the curve, and the
+perspective in drawing, whose eyeballs are glaring in quest of the
+perspective of a loaf. Oh! genius profound, and forecasting of privy
+council philanthropy and utilitarian wisdom; more exquisite of
+refinement than Nero, who only fiddled when Rome was blazing and
+wretches roasting, thou, with the wizen wand of Cockney Hullah charmed
+with Wilhem's incantations, canst teach piping voices how to stay
+craving stomachs; how Kay upon Jacotot may analytically demonstrate that
+fast and feasting are both but synonymes of one common termination, the
+difference squared by time alone, and meaning ten or threescore and ten
+as the case may be. Misery is but a mockery of language after all; for
+have I not heard it rampant with lungs, and hoarse with disciplined
+harmony in Exeter Hall, as Hullah cut capers with his tiny truncheon,
+with Royalty itself, heroic field-marshals, and grave ministers of
+state, in seeming ecstasy at the sleight of hand? Just as I have heard
+and seen in the _barracones_ of Bozal negroes for sale, when, at the
+crack of the black negro-driver's whip, and not unfrequent application
+of the lash, the flagging gang of exhausted slavery has ever and again
+set up that chant of revelry, run mad, and danced that dance of
+desperation, which was to persuade the atrocious dealers in human flesh
+how sound of wind and limb they were, and the bystanders how happy.
+
+Think not that charlatanic genius rests content with triumphs even so
+transcendent as these. It disports itself also in "self-supporting"
+colonization; it runs riot in the ruin of "penny-postage;" it would be
+gloriously self-suicidal in abolition of corn-laws and free trade. Nay,
+as--
+
+    "Great genius to great madness is allied."
+
+the genius of these days looks even to St Luke's, like Oxford, as a
+berth in _dernier ressort_, where a sinecurist may enjoy bed and board
+at the cost of the state, and as a fair _honorario_ for the trouble of
+concocting a new scheme for raising the wind, or getting a living. The
+time may come, and sooth to say, seems drawing near, when Gibbon
+Wakefield, seated on the woolsack, shall be charged specially with the
+guardianship of all the fair wards in Chancery. Wo to infant heiress
+kidnappers, when a chancellor, more experienced than Rhadamanthus, more
+sanguineous than Draco, shall have the care of the innocent fold, and
+come to deal with abduction! In womanly lore, his practice and
+experience are undoubted; for has he not had the active superintendence,
+and the arduous task, of transportation of all the womankind, virgin,
+and matronly as well, exported to New Zealand on account, with other
+goods and chattels, of that moral corporation, the New Zealand trading
+and emigration company, which so liberally salaries him with L.600 per
+annum for the use of his "principle?" Again, who so fitted as the
+renowned Rowland Hill, the very prig pragmatic of pretension, for the
+post of Chancellor of the Exchequer, or First Lord of the Treasury if
+you will? A man who could contrive a scheme for annihilating some two
+millions of post-office revenue at one stroke, must be qualified beyond
+all other pretenders for dealing with a bankrupt treasury; for upon the
+homoeopathic principle, the physic which kills is that alone which
+should cure. The scientific discovery, indeed, is not of the modern date
+exactly which is assumed; for the poet of ancient Greece, his "eyes in a
+fine frenzy rolling," must have had homoeopathy in view when he sang--
+
+    "So Telephus, renown'd of yore, can tell
+    How cured the fatal spear by which he fell."
+
+The disinterestedness of Rowland (not he of Roncesvalles, nor even of
+the honest Macassar oil) need not be doubted, because he claims a large
+reward for a penny-post scheme, ruinous as it is, utterly unavailable
+and impracticable, even if as excellent as notoriously prejudicial, but
+for the really ingenious discovery of the pre-paying stamp system, by a
+party preferring no title to remuneration, and through which alone,
+unfortunately, the pretentious project could be practically placed in
+operation.
+
+Dismissing minor worthies, such as Benjamin Hawes, junior, of the
+Commission of Fine Arts, selected probably and appropriately from the
+consideration that home-produced _savonnerie_ may lead to clean ideas of
+taste, and who, in his own interest, would be a capital Commissioner of
+Excise; and Bowring, so well qualified to be chairman of a general board
+of Commissioner Tourists, from his multifarious practice--come we at
+last to Cobden, of corn and colonial fame, fiercely struggling with
+gaunt O'Connell himself for stentorian supremacy--
+
+    "Lingu� centum sunt, oraque centum,
+    Ferrea vox."
+
+Cobden and the colonies! The conjunction is euphoniously alliterative at
+least, if not a consistent consequence; yet who more fit to perform at
+the funeral as the undertaker who alone has got the hearse and mules all
+ready for the job? Cobden, who has denounced--more still, has passed
+sentence upon--the colonies, should be the executioner. All hail,
+therefore, to the Right Hon. Alderman Richard Cobden, M.P., Secretary of
+State for the Colonial Department--worthy compeer of the Cabinet, where
+sit Lord Chancellor Gibbon Wakefield, and First Lord of the Treasury
+Rowland Hill! Rare will be the labours of the trio; the
+"self-supporting" supported on either hand by a destroying angel.
+
+In the prospective cabinet of _Charlatanerie_, composed _inter aliis_,
+moreover, in addition to the Haweses, the Bowrings, the Brights, the R.
+R. R. (why does not the man write the names out in full, as Raving,
+Roaring, Rory) O'Moores, there is, however, already a "split;" the
+members are each and all at sixes and sevens, for as each has his own
+sovereign conceit, so each would rule sovereign over the rest, and bear
+no rival near the throne. All would be kings, but not in turn. That
+powerful and sarcastic writer, Paul Louis Courier, depicts the same
+regiphobia as raging among the Parisian _Charlatanerie_ of his day; and
+with an anxious care for his own reputation and respectability, thus
+purges himself from contact or connexion with it:--"_Ce qui me distingue
+de mes contemporains et fait de moi un homme rare dans le si�cle o� nous
+vivons, c'est que je ne veux pas �tre roi, et que j'�vite soigneusement
+tout ce qui pourrait me mener l�._" Chadwick and Cobden are agreed upon
+pauperizing the whole kingdom; but the former insists upon keeping the
+paupers in bastiles, whilst the latter requires them in cotton
+manufactories; both are agreed upon the propriety of reducing the
+labouring classes to diet less of quantity and coarser of quality, by
+which the rates of wages are, and are to be, ground down: but Chadwick
+naturally insists, that to new poor-laws the post of honour should be
+assigned in the work of desolation; whilst Cobden, though acknowledging
+their efficient co-operation as a means to an end, and their priority as
+first in the field, fiercely contends for the greater aristocratical
+pretensions and more thoroughgoing operation of corn-law abolition. The
+Wakefield "self-supporting" colonial specific comes into collision,
+moreover, with Cobden's "perish all colonies." Kay Shuttleworth vaunts
+the superiority above all of his analytical schemes for training little
+children at Norwood to construe, for after age,--
+
+    "The days that we went gipsying a long time ago;"
+
+whilst Hullah simpers forth, in softest accents of Cockaigne, the
+superlative claim of choral shows in Exeter Hall--
+
+    "That roar again, it had a dying fall.
+    Oh! it came o'er my ear like the rude north,
+    That bursts upon a bank of violets."
+
+Bowring and Hume did, certes, pull together once in the matter of Greek
+scrip; but, _Arcades ambo_ no longer, the worthy doctor turned
+anti-slavery monger, whilst Joseph, more honest in the main, cares not
+two straws whether his sugar be slave-grown or free, excepting as to the
+greater cheapness of the one or the other. So also with Hawes, never yet
+pardoned by the financiering economist of "cheese parings and candle
+ends" for the splendid Thames tunnel job, and �200,000 of the public
+money at one fell swoop. These people range under the generic head
+_Charlatanerie_, as of the distinct species classified as _farceurs_
+according to the French nomenclature. For other species, and diversities
+of species, of a lower scale, but of capacity to ascend into the higher
+order with time and opportunity, the daily papers may be usefully
+consulted under the headings devoted to the "pill" specific
+line--_pildoras para en contrar perros_, as the Spanish _saynete_ has
+it.
+
+Happily the country need never despair of salvation, even should the
+cabinet prospective of _farceurs_ fall to pieces, for there yet remain
+two species of a genus taking higher rank in the social system; species
+that really have a root, a name, and pretensions hereditary or
+legitimately acquired. These each affect philosophy, and represent it
+too; they of the caste hereditary in _grande tenue,_ they of the new men
+with much pompous parade of words, and all the Delphic mystics of the
+schools. They are none of your journeymen--your everyday spouters--in
+the Commons or common places. They exhibit only on state occasions,
+after solemn midnight preparation made; their intended movements are
+duly heralded beforehand; their approach announced with a flourish of
+trumpets. They carry on a vast wordy traffic in "great principles;" they
+condescend upon nothing less than the overthrow or manufacture of
+"constitutions"--in talk. The big swagger about "great principles"
+eventuates, however, in denouncing by speech from the throne repeal as
+high treason, and O'Connell the repealer as a traitor to the state; and
+next, with cap in hand, and most mendicant meanness, supplicating the
+said traitor--denounced--repealing O'Connell, to deign acceptance of one
+of the highest offices in the realm. Their practice in the
+"constitution" line consists in annihilating rotten borough A because it
+is Tory; in conserving rotten borough B because it is Whig. The grand
+characteristic of each species is--_vox et preterea nihil._ Need I
+further proclaim them and their titles? In the order of Parisian
+organization they stand as _faiseurs_ and _phraseurs._ You can make no
+mistake about the personality ranged under each banner; they are as
+perfectly distinguishable each from the other, though even knit in close
+and indissoluble alliance, as Grand Crosses of the Bath from Knights of
+the Garter. At the head of the _faiseurs_ you have Lord John Russell,
+Lord Viscount Palmerston, and Lord Viscount Howick. You have only to see
+them rise in the House of Commons--Lord John, to wit--
+
+    "Pride in his port, defiance in his eye"--
+
+to be led into the belief that
+
+    --"Now is the day
+    Big with the fate of Cato and of Rome."
+
+The physical swell of conscious consequence--the eye-distended "wide
+awake" insinuation of the inconceivable, unutterable things--the grand
+sentiments about to be outpoured--hold you in silent wonderment and
+expectation. You conceive nothing less, than either that the world is
+about to come to an end, or the _millennium_ declared to be the "order
+of the day." You imagine that the orator will lose self and party
+in his country. Nothing of all this follows, however. You
+have some common-places, perhaps common truisms, some undefined,
+mean-all-or-nothing, declamation about "constitution" and "principles,"
+by way of exordium; for the rest, Rome is sunk as if it existed not,
+down to the peroration it is all about Cato himself, and his little Whig
+party about him.
+
+    --"Parturiunt montes,
+    Nascitur ridiculus mus."
+
+Chief of the _phraseurs_ stand Mr Babington Macaulay and Mr Lalor Shiel,
+the peculiarity of whose craft--a profitable craft of late
+years--consists in furbishing up old ideas into new and euphonious forms
+of speech. Of the one it may be said, that
+
+    --"He could not ope
+    His mouth, but out there flew a trope."
+
+The other more finished leader of the class mystifies you with
+metaphysics, half conned and unmastered by himself--more anxious still
+to make his points than to please his party; and, of the two, would
+rather sink his country than his climax. He is a rhetorician, a dealer
+in set phraseology, an ingenious gatherer and polisher of "other men's
+stuff." Of the _faiseurs,_ may be repeated what Marshal Marmont, in his
+_Voyage en Hongrie, en Transylvanie,_ &c., says of the _faiseurs_ of
+Paris--"_Subjugu�s par le gout et cette manie d'uniformit� absolue, qui
+est la maladie de l'�poque, et qui resulte de principes abstraits, dont
+l'application est presque toujours funeste aux peuples qui l'�prouvent,
+ils ignoraient combien il est dans la nature des choses et dans le bien
+des nations de modifier l'organization sociale suivant le temps, les
+lieux, suivant le plus on moins grana degr� de civilization, et d'apr�s
+mille circonstances, qui ne peuvent �tre pr�vues d'avance, mais que le
+legislateur capable apprecie au moment o� il est app�l� � fonder la
+soci�t�."_ On the cession of the Illyrian provinces, by Austria, after
+the battle of Wagram, the _faiseurs_, or abstract principle men, of
+Paris, were prompt with their plans, not for "constitutions"--Bonaparte
+had put an end to that branch of their _m�tier_--but for reorganizing
+the laws, administration, &c., of Transylvania _de fond en comble_,
+without knowing any thing of the people or country, without having seen
+either the one or the other. Marmont, appointed governor of the ceded
+provinces, who had studied on the spot the institutions established by
+Austria, found these so perfect and well adapted to the genius and
+inclination of the population, and the purposes of government, that he
+opposed the _faiseurs_ with success, and, by his representations,
+induced Bonaparte to confirm and act upon what existed.
+
+This immense agglomeration, this monstrous over-production of the tribes
+of _farceurs_, _faiseurs_, and _phraseurs_ is a misfortune of the first
+magnitude--a pest worse than that of the locusts which lay waste the
+land of Egypt, as here the substance of the people is devoured.
+Conflagrations may, and do, occasionally diminish the number of
+cotton-mills, and lighten the warehoused accumulation of cottons, or
+other inert matter; but no lucky plague, pestilence, or cholera, comes
+to thin the crowded phalanx, and rid this empire of some portion of the
+interminable brood of mongers of all shapes and sizes. As Horace says--
+
+    "'Tis hard, but patience must endure
+    And bear the woes it cannot cure."
+
+And now, leaving this discursive preliminary sketch, the length of which
+was unpremeditated, of the leading influences which are fast hurrying to
+social disorganization, it is time that once more we stand face to face
+with the one disorganizing doctrine of _one-sided free trade_; with the
+banner on which the _phraseurs_ and _farceurs_ have inscribed the
+cabalistic devices, in flaming characters--"Leave the imports alone, the
+exports will take care of themselves;" and, "A fixed duty is a fixed
+injustice." One might be tempted to believe the first borrowed from the
+armorial bearings of Lord Huntingtower's "bill" friends, whose motto is,
+or should be--"Leave the fools alone, and the knaves will take care of
+themselves;" the second is clearly no better than a petty-larceny
+paraphrase of Newgate felony, in whose code of duties it stands decreed,
+from all time, that "a fixed law is a fixed despotism."
+
+The history of industry and commerce in every country, from the most
+ancient down to modern times, gives the lie to these pertly pretending
+truisms; for there is scarcely one branch of manufacture to be named
+which does not owe its rise, progress, and perfection, to the protective
+or financial, or both combined, control exercised over imports. If we
+look at home only, where, we ask, would the woollen manufacture be now,
+but for the early laws restrictive of the importation of foreign
+woollens, nay more, restrictive of the export of British fleeces with
+which the manufactories of Belgium were alimented? Where the cotton
+trade, even with all Arkwright and Crompton's inventions of mule and
+throstle frames, and the steam-engine wonders of Watt, but for the
+importation tax of 87 per cent with which the cotton manufactures of
+India were weighted and finally crushed? Where the British iron mines
+and the iron trade, now so pre-eminent over all the world, but for the
+heavy import duties with which the iron of Swedish, Russian, or other
+foreign origin was loaded? And so also, may it be asked, in respect to
+almost all industry and production. If, as contended, the woollen,
+cotton, and iron industries would not only have been created, but much
+more largely have flourished, without the aids and appliances of
+friendly tariffs, the one-sided free traders are, at least, bound to
+something more potential than mere assertion and idle declamation in
+support of the vague allegation. They have the evidence of facts patent
+and abundant to confront and gainsay them; they shall have more; but is
+there to be no reciprocation of facts counter? Is the evidence and the
+argument to remain all on one side, and on the other nothing but wordy
+nothingness--
+
+          "Dat inania verba,
+    Dat sine mente sonum."
+
+Where are the unknown lands of factories and furnaces, of puddling and
+power looms, of steam-engines and blowing machines, all self-created and
+"self-supporting," scorning the crutches of patronage, and high-mounted
+on the stilts of free, or one-sided free trade? Either they exist in the
+shape of matter tangible and substantial; or they exist not except as
+_chateaux en Espagne_ are dreamt of, or as bubbles blown and chased by
+idle urchins--modern philosophers in petticoats. This bubble-blowing has
+been, indeed, converted into something of a mine of industry of late
+years, most successfully _exploit�_ by all the _chevaliers d'industrie_
+of the race of _farceurs_ before referred to. Let us not forget,
+however, that one of the most indefatigable of the class, after various
+and many voyages by sea, and travels by land, in quest of the
+picturesque in political economy, did, indeed--or says so, and has
+compiled a book to prove it--light on this long-sought, never-before
+discovered land, in whose Arcadian bowers sits enthroned the very genius
+of trade, free and unfettered as the eagle in his eyry on the crowning
+crest of St Gotthard. Would you know this thrice-blest region--"Go climb
+the Alps," as the Roman satirist bids--it is Switzerland snugly
+ensconced in their bosom.
+
+Nevertheless, before the title of Switzerland Felix be fully conceded,
+the legitimacy of its derivation remains to be investigated. The
+concession can only be registered upon three conditions fulfilled. It
+must be shown, _firstly_, that manufacturing industry was not fostered
+in its early stages by the governing power; _secondly_, that if it had
+attained a large development unprotected, the proportions of such
+development shall have been at the least equal, as upon the theory of
+free trade they should be superior, to the ratio of progression
+manifested in other countries where protection has been the ruling
+principle; _thirdly_, that free trade was not a necessity imposed by
+circumstances and position, not the result of a barter of value for
+value, but of free and spontaneous choice, and as the result of the
+profound conviction of the superior excellency and adaptability of the
+abstract principle. We shall deal briefly with the subject, because it
+has been discussed more at length heretofore in those special articles
+in which we have treated of the rise and progress of the cotton
+manufacture in this and other countries. In regard to the first
+condition, it was established on a former occasion, that the ruling
+powers of one or more of the Cantons, did advance large capitals, and
+offered more, in order to encourage and assist in the establishment of
+cotton-spinning mills, with machinery of the most perfect construction,
+under the superintendence, and with a share in the profits, of persons
+duly skilled from England. Happily, one of the individuals to whom such
+offers (on the basis of a �100,000 capital) were made, and by whom
+declined, then and subsequently one of the largest exporting merchants
+of Lancashire to Switzerland, and the Continent generally, still lives,
+and we have had the statement confirmed by himself within the last two
+or three years. This was somewhere between 1795 and 1800, further our
+memory does not serve for the precise date at present, nor is it
+indispensable. A manufacture thus, as may be said, artificially created
+and bolstered up, we do not say unwisely, does not assuredly answer the
+first condition required. With respect to the measure of the
+manufacturing development, the data are unfortunately wanting for
+precise verification; for Switzerland possesses no returns of foreign
+trade at all, nor can any satisfactory approximation be arrived at from
+inspection of the official tables of the foreign and transit commerce
+now before us of Holland, Belgium, and France, through which all the
+transmarine intercourse of Switzerland must necessarily pass. The
+exports and imports of Holland, by the Rhine, are not so classed as to
+show what proportion appertains to Germany and what to Switzerland, as
+both stand under the one head of Germany and the Rhine. In the Belgian
+tables, Switzerland does not enter at all until 1841, therefore they can
+afford no materials for the comparison with former years. From the
+French tables, more scientifically constructed, correct information may
+be gathered, so far as the commerce with and through France. But we are
+wanting nearly altogether in materials for estimating the land traffic
+of Switzerland with Germany and Italy. Taking the French tables alone,
+it may be collected, however, that the commerce of Switzerland has been
+considerably on the increase with and through France. In the cotton
+trade, for example, the imports of raw cotton in transit through Havre,
+for Switzerland, had already augmented from 2,973,159 kilogrammes in
+1830, to 6,446,703 kilogrammes in 1836; and again, from the latter term,
+to 104,842 metrical quintals in 1840, which declined to 77,534 in 1841.
+Our returns do not enable us to state with exactitude whether the whole,
+or what portion, of the transit of cotton for the two latter years was
+destined for Switzerland, because our French tables do not, as up to
+1836, embrace the details of the separate transit trade to each country,
+but only the total quantities. The increase of imports by way of France
+must not, however, be taken to all the extent as an absolute increase,
+nor can we conclude, with any assurance, that it was an increase upon
+the whole. For, in consequence of some important reductions in the dues
+agreed to by France in order to favour and attract the entire transit
+trade of Switzerland through its territory, the cottons formerly passed
+to Switzerland through Rotterdam and Antwerp by the Rhine, have been
+sent by way of Havre. Thus, on consulting Mr Porter's Tables of Trade,
+we find that the twenty-one millions of lbs. of cotton re-exported to
+Holland and Belgium in 1837, had decreased, in 1840, to little more than
+twelve millions. What proportion of the twenty-one millions was destined
+for Switzerland, there are no means of ascertaining, except from the
+returns in detail of the Rhine navigation, the existence of which, in
+any available shape, may be doubted. Assuming that the whole of the
+cotton passing in transit through France was for Switzerland, we find a
+quantity equal to about seventeen millions of pounds, in 1841, as
+required for the supply of the cotton manufacture; or say, on a rough
+average of 1840 and 1841, nineteen and a half millions of pounds. Now,
+considering that the cotton manufacture has been established in
+Switzerland above a century, these figures certainly demonstrate any
+thing but an extraordinary rate of progress. The cotton manufacture of
+Russia does not number half the years of existence, and yet the average
+consumption of raw cotton, in 1840 and 1841, was nearly thirteen
+millions of pounds, and of cotton yarn, rendered into cotton,[J] about
+twenty-three millions more. It must be noted, moreover, that whereas
+subsequently to the inventions of Arkwright and Crompton, Switzerland
+drew nearly the whole of her yarns for making into cloths from England,
+not possessing herself any spinning machinery until the commencement of
+the present century, and then but to a trivial extent, with scarcely any
+augmentation of importance, until some years after the general peace of
+1815; yet that, within the last twenty years, the use of machinery has
+been extensively introduced, cotton factories have spread on all sides,
+for working which water-power in abundance afforded every facility, so
+that she now spins nearly all the yarns necessary for her fabrics, and
+imports from England but a very slender quantity of the higher counts
+still required for her finest muslins. Those imports do not perhaps
+exceed, if they reach to, one million pounds per annum. Of many
+merchants in Manchester, thirty or forty years ago, extensively engaged
+in furnishing that supply, but one or two at present are to be found. It
+remains, therefore, doubtful whether there has been any material
+progress in the cotton manufactures of Switzerland, so far as the
+quantities of fabrics produced, and the weight of cotton consumed, for
+many years past. Through the commercial arrangements before referred to,
+her special trade with France in all commodities has been on the
+increase; but, as the usual result of the commercial treaties of France,
+all to the advantage of France. Thus, for 1841, the imports (special
+trade of internal consumption) of France from Switzerland are stated at
+twenty-two millions of francs only, whilst the exports of France to
+Switzerland amounted to thirty-nine millions. This, be it observed, is
+the result of _one-sided free trade_, which opens its gates to all,
+whilst partially favoured only in return, when at all. Switzerland, for
+example, is free to the import of French cottons; France hermetically
+sealed against those of Switzerland. The general trade, that is,
+inclusive of transit and special, had also materially improved; the
+aggregate imports representing eighty-three millions of imports into,
+against eighty-nine millions of exports from Switzerland; or that the
+general trade with France had rather more than doubled since 1832,
+imports and exports together. The transit portion of this general trade,
+representing all the transmarine movement of Switzerland, is that
+rather, it may be said, carried on with the United States Spanish
+America, Brazil, &c., in which the greatest improvement of her foreign
+trade had taken place. She has, on the contrary, very largely lost
+ground in Germany, where she enjoyed marts for her manufactures, before
+the establishment of the Commercial Union, of an extensive and
+profitable description, from the advantages of her geographical
+position; and it is probable, that from the same cause she will have
+lost no inconsiderable portion of the share her merchants had in the
+supply of Turkey, Persia, and other countries on the shores of the
+Mediterranean and the Black Sea. With Holland and Belgium, her
+commercial relations would seem to have been sensibly on the decline, so
+far as the returns, available and comparative, enable us to form an
+opinion. Upon a balance, therefore, of increase, upon one side, and
+decrease on the other, there is reasonable ground to question any
+progress in Switzerland, at all commensurate with the general
+accelerated movement in manufactures and commerce of other industrial
+countries about her, and beyond the seas; in exemplification of which,
+we have on other occasions presented, as we shall continue to present,
+evidence which may not be questioned.
+
+Therefore, it results, that the second condition in proof of the
+superiority of the free, or one-sided free trade principle, as
+represented in Switzerland, the embodied _beau id�al_ of the theory, is
+not fulfilled. It were easy, indeed, to show the absurdity of a
+pretension to the rigorous reign of a principle, in a country where,
+though the federal government levies are merely nominal duties on
+imported commodities, for other than which it is and must ever be
+powerless, whatever the will, yet in the separate cantons or chief towns
+with barriers, scarcely any article enters and escapes without payment
+of an octroi impost, equal to a moderate state duty on importation at
+the ports or frontiers of other states. What would be said in this
+country, if wool, cotton, or any commodity entering free, or at merely
+nominal rates, at London or Liverpool, were to be taxed on arrival at
+Leeds or Manchester, for purposes of local revenue or local protection?
+
+We may afford to dismiss the third condition in the smallest space. Free
+trade in Switzerland, such as it is, is not an affair of principle, of
+conviction, therefore of choice, as ridiculously pretended, but a
+necessity arising out of her geographical position. On all sides she is
+surrounded _enclav�e_, amidst states which hold the gates of ingress and
+egress. Close the Rhine and the Seine against her, and she must
+surrender commercially at discretion, as she politically does, to such
+terms as may be dictated. A heavy _p�age_ upon river or land transit,
+ruins her manufactories, her industry, root and branch. She is too happy
+only, therefore, to be tolerated with a passage to the sea, on the hard
+terms of surrendering the just rights of her own industry to the free
+invasion of foreign competing products; she makes, _ex necessitate_, the
+sacrifice of a large portion, in order to save the remainder. Would you
+have the commentary? Read it in the miserable fare, the low wages, the
+toil unremitting and uncompensated, of the operative masses; in the
+depressed rate of profits, the strict, painful, but indispensable
+frugality of master manufacturers and capitalists, when perchance
+capitalists may be found, of Switzerland surnamed Felix, over-borne by
+foreign competition, as depicted in the Report of that romance writer,
+Mr John Bowring himself, who, of all men, in his own particular case,
+would be the last to advocate short commons, shabby salaries, or petty
+profits. Switzerland, therefore, answers none of the conditions required
+for the demonstration of the free trade theory upon the greatest profit,
+or even upon the greatest happiness principle, the _verba ardentia_ of
+anti-corn-law declaimers, and utilitarian poetasters, notwithstanding.
+But if the case of the free and one-sided trade theory breaks down in
+its one only deceptive personification, the proofs are strong and
+abundant in behalf the cause of the legitimate principle of protection
+to industry, or of the reciprocity principle well understood, which
+involves essentially the principle of protection. Let us discursively
+range over Europe, in further addition to the evidence, which, in
+respect of Russia, has already been assigned; and, as with regard to
+Spain, and Russia as well, we shall not hesitate to signalize the abuse
+of a righteous principle, where in practice it degenerates into the
+Japanese barbarism of almost absolute prohibition and isolation. A
+comparison betwixt Switzerland and Japan, two nearly stationary states,
+where all around is in progress in the industrial sense, ruled upon
+economical principles so opposite and conflicting, would be a labour
+both amusing and profitable; but unfortunately the adequate materials
+are wanting in the one case as in the other; state-books of account and
+custom-house returns, are as rare and unheard of in Nangasaki as in
+Helvetia. Fiscal exactions, however, are not unknown in either, the
+difference being, that the despotic majesty of Japan undertakes them
+upon his own account, whilst the people of the Alps, as intractable,
+with better right, impose and levy for their own use and behoof. Withal,
+to the one-idea'd philosophy of your absolute theory, systematic,
+uniformity men of the present day, it should seem an extraordinary
+paradox, putting all speculation to rout, that despotic Japan should be
+as prosperous, more powerful, more free from intestine convulsion,
+although more ancient of standing, therefore to be presumed enjoying at
+least as much happiness as free and unfettered Switzerland, rioting
+betimes in all the freaks of liberty and revolution.
+
+We do not propose to extend our enquiries into the history of industrial
+progress in other lands further on the present occasion, than to such
+external demonstrations, as measured by imports and exports, as may with
+most convenient brevity and fidelity answer the purpose in view. The
+possession of authentic documents in ample degree, expository of the
+past and present conditions of social and material interests in almost
+all the civilized states of the world, would enable us to follow out, in
+minute detail, the rise, the career, the vicissitudes of each; but
+although, on future and suitable occasions, we may be induced to resume
+and pursue the task already commenced in former numbers, it is not
+necessary now, and would far outstrip any possible space at our
+disposal. Commencing with Austria, it may be shown, that even with an
+ill-considered economical _r�gime_ of, until of late years, general
+prohibitions and restrictions, with the incessant and ill-judged policy
+of forcing manufacturing industry, for the hasty development of which
+the natural foundations were not previously laid, whilst neglecting the
+cultivation and encouragement of those varied agricultural and mining
+treasures, with which, through the length and breadth of her territory,
+she is so abundantly stored, the advance of Austria, commercial and
+manufacturing, need not assuredly fear comparison with that of
+free-trading Switzerland. The following are the returns of the foreign
+trade of the Austrian empire, excepting for Hungary and Transylvania,
+which will be found hereafter for the years cited. Other documents are
+in our possession, bringing the information down to 1840, but as not
+entirely complete in respect of a portion of the traffic by the land
+frontiers, whilst in results they differ little from the last year of
+the table here given, it is not worth while to make the addition.
+
+                   Imports.                 Exports.          Total.
+1829 By sea & land 95,321,861 florins.   107,254,048     202,575,909
+1830      ...      99,545,289    ...     110,587,974     210,133 263
+1831      ...      94,116,471    ...      98,937,022     193,053,493
+1832      ...     107,825,991    ...     115,007,352     222,833,343
+1833      ...     106,270,012    ...     116,624,202     222,894,214
+1834      ...     107,781,409    ...     111,092,942     218,874,351
+1835      ...     121,482,876    ...     115,217,804     236,700,680
+1836      ...     130,865,339    ...     122,284,173     253,149,512
+1837      ...     120,897,761    ...     119,721,758     240,619,519
+1838      ...     127,445,295    ...     134,908,064     262,353,359
+
+The florin is equal to 2s. 0d. 4-10 sterling. The increase under the
+head of importations within the ten years was equal, therefore, to
+nearly 33 per cent, and on exportations about 24 per cent. Amongst the
+imports may be remarked raw cotton to the value of about L.1,273,000;
+among the exports, raw silk, for about L.2,400,000; linens, for about
+L.770,000; woollens, for L.2,268,000; glass and earthen-ware, L.584,000;
+round numbers all. A mean value, imports and exports together, from 1835
+to 1838 inclusive, of about twenty-five millions sterling annually, does
+not certainly represent a commercial movement so large as might be
+expected in an empire of the territorial extent, numerous population,
+and rich natural products of Austria. But, as appears, its progression
+is onwards; and seeing that, in 1836, she entered on the laudable
+undertaking of revising and reforming her prohibitory and restrictive
+system; that, in 1838, another not inconsiderable step in advance was
+taken by further relaxations of the tariff; and that she is at the
+present moment occupied with, and may shortly announce, fiscal
+improvements and tariff reductions of a more wisely liberal spirit
+still, it is not to be doubted that, with the accompanying extension of
+agricultural and mining industry, Austria is destined to take a much
+higher rank in the commercial world than she has yet attained.
+
+The values of the external relations of Hungary and Transylvania with
+foreign nations direct, are of little importance. The bulk of the
+traffic with them doubtless passes through the Austrian dominions,
+properly so called. Thus their joint foreign traffic direct, was in--
+
+    1830, no more than 14,000,000 florins
+    1834, decreased to 11,511,000   ...
+    1837,      ...     12,616,000   ...
+
+The imports, only once, in 1836, surpassed those of 1830, within the
+eight years. The foreign exports were, in
+
+    1830, to the amount of         ...        9,574,800 florins.
+    1837, the yearly amount had increased to 11,213,400   ...
+
+But the commercial relations of Hungary and Transylvania, with the other
+provinces of the Austrian monarchy, were, on the contrary,
+satisfactorily extending. The returns before us, never before published
+here, it is believed, do not date further back than 1835, and exhibit
+the following results:--
+
+                                  Florins.                     Florins.
+    1835, Imports from Austria,  79,678,051    Exports to,    46,408,290
+    1836,          ...           96,057,019       ...         53,876,115
+    1837,          ...           90,404,555       ...         47,878,424
+    1838,          ...          101,396,470       ...         61,684,111
+
+The value of manufactured cottons alone, imported from the other
+Austrian provinces, amounted, in 1838, to the almost incredible sum of
+sixty-four millions of florins, or say not far short of six and a half
+millions sterling; of woollens, the import was nearly to the value of
+eighteen millions of florins. It is difficult to conceive that such a
+mass of cottons could be destined for internal consumption alone; and
+therefore the suggestion naturally occurs, that a considerable portion
+at least must pass only in transit to the ports for re-exportation to
+the coasts of the Black Sea and the Levant; but on reference to the
+exports, we find cottons entered only for 31,296 florins. The
+proportions in which the different leading articles of importation and
+exportation enter into the total amounts of each may be thus stated:--
+
+                   Imports
+    Cottons for                62 per cent.
+    Woollens,                  17    ...
+    Linen and hempen fabrics,  4�7   ...
+    Silks,                     1�7
+
+                    Exports
+    Wool for                   45.6 per cent.
+    Grains and fruits,         19     ...
+    Cattle,                    12     ...
+    Various raw products,     5�7     ...
+
+The great bulk of this commerce with Hungary and Transylvania is carried
+on with the three great provinces of the empire--Lower Austria, which
+alone absorbs about two-thirds of the total; Moravia and Austrian
+Silesia, one-fourth; and Gallicia and Austrian Poland, the imports from
+whence represent above one-tenth, and the exports to which form
+one-twentieth of the whole.
+
+Such has been the progress of the Austrian empire even under the
+unwisely strained _r�gime_ of prohibition and restriction. The absolute
+theory men will not gain much certainly by its comparison with the free
+trading elysium of Switzerland, although the most favourable for the
+latter which could well be selected, inasmuch as representing a
+principle carried to a prejudicial extreme.
+
+We have not, however, done with our absolutists of the one-sided
+free-trade theory yet. We must traverse Belgium with them, but at
+railway speed; Belgium, of commercial system less restricted than
+Austria, yet more exclusive than England, where, however, some approach
+towards the _juste milieu_ of the equitable principles of reciprocity,
+may be observed in progress. How then has she fared in the general
+_m�l�e_ of industrial strife, and what are her prospects for the future
+in despite of her stubborn resistance to the new lights? Let the figures
+which follow answer for her. The imports and exports by land and sea,
+were in--
+
+                    Imports.                 Exports.
+    1834, for    192,909,426 francs.      135,790,426 francs.
+    1838, ...    238,052,659   ...        193,579,520   ...
+    1842, ...    288,387,663   ...        201,970,588   ...
+
+For commerce special, that is, of internal production and consumption
+alone, the returns show, in--
+
+
+                    Imports.                 Exports.
+    1834, for    182,057,851 francs.      118,540,917 francs.
+    1838, ...    201,204,381   ...        156,851,054   ...
+    1842, ...    234,247,281   ...        142,069,162   ...
+
+The commerce general comprises as well the imports and exports of the
+special commerce as the transit and deliveries in entrepot of foreign
+merchandise. From 1834 to 1842 the increase of imports and exports,
+combined under the special head, was equal to more than three millions
+sterling. Under the general head, the increase was nearly equal to six
+and a half millions sterling. The comparatively large and
+disadvantageous inequality betwixt the exports and imports, under both
+heads, results mainly from the loss of those markets in the Dutch
+colonies, and in Holland also, of which, during her connexion with
+Holland and under the rule of the same sovereign, Belgium was almost
+exclusively in possession. The formation of the German Commercial Union
+cannot have failed also to damage her intercourse with Germany, to the
+markets of which her contiguity afforded so easy and advantageous an
+access.
+
+It was our intention to have reviewed at some length the progress of the
+German Customs Confederation since its complete formation, with some
+inconsiderable accessions subsequently in 1834; but space forbids. In
+brief, but conclusive, evidence of that progress under the rule of
+protection, we may afford, however, to cite the following returns of
+revenue accruing under the poundage system, representing, of course, the
+growing quantities imported. The alternate years only are given, to
+avoid the needless multiplication of figures:--
+
+              Gross sum.                Net sum.
+    1834,    14,382,066 Thalers.      12,020,340 Thalers.
+    1836,    18,192,313   ...         15,509,758   ...
+    1838,    20,110,404   ...         17,801,113   ...
+    1840,    21,293,232   ...         19,019,738   ...
+    1842,    23,394,831   ...         21,059,441   ...
+
+    The Prussian thaler is 2s. 10-3/4d. sterling.
+
+Year by year the rise has been uninterrupted; and with the growth of
+imported commodities thus represented by the revenue, have indigenous
+products multiplied, and native manufactures flourished and extended
+more rapidly and widely still.
+
+In a review of protected nations it is impossible that France should be
+lost sight of. More rigorously protective than Belgium, prohibitive even
+in some essential parts of her system, whilst stimulating by bounties in
+others, the results of a policy so artificial and complicated can hardly
+fail to confound your dabblers in first principles and rigid uniformity.
+In the sense economical France has not hesitated to violate outrageously
+all these first principles, all that perfect theory, in the worship and
+application of which, politically and socially, her philosophers were
+wont to run raging mad, and her legislators, like frantic bacchanals,
+were in such sanguinary "haste to destroy." Singular as it may seem, and
+audaciously heretical as the consummation in defiance of the order
+inevitable of first causes and consequences invariable, the comparative
+freedom of commercial principles in the old _r�gime_ of France allied
+with political despotism, was, however, ruthlessly condemned to the
+guillotine, along with the head of the Capets, never to be replaced by
+the ferocious spirit of democracy, revelling in the realization of all
+other visionary abstractions of perfect liberty, equality, levelling of
+distinctions and monopolies. With the reign of the rights of man was
+established, in the body politic, that of prohibition and restriction
+over the body industrial--gradually sobered down, as we find it now, to
+a system singularly made up of prohibition, restriction, protective, and
+stimulant, since the last great revolution of July. It is in vain to
+deny that, under the reign of that system, France has prospered and
+progressed beyond all former example; that whether freer Switzerland may
+have stood still or not, France, at least, has never retrograded one
+step, nor ceased to advance for one year, as thus may be concisely
+exemplified in the citation of three terms of her commercial career,
+faithfully indicative of the annual consecutive movement of the whole
+series:--
+
+           Imports.--General Commerce,        Exports.
+    1831        512,825,551 francs,         618,169,911
+    1836        905,575,359   ...           961,284,756
+    1841      1,122,000,000   ...         1,065,000,000
+
+Thus the imports in ten years had more than doubled, whilst the exports
+had advanced 400 millions in official value; say upwards of twenty
+millions sterling per annum for imports, and sixteen millions for
+exports. The special commerce of France, representing exports of
+indigenous and manufactured products, and imports for consumption, and,
+therefore, significative of the march of domestic industry, presents the
+following movement:--
+
+            Imports.--Special Commerce.       Exports.
+    1831             374,188,000            455,574,000
+    1836             504,391,000            628,957,000
+    1841             805,000,000            761,000,000
+
+The imports, therefore, for consumption, that is, duty paid upon and
+consumed, had multiplied twofold in the ten years; and the exports of
+the products of the soil and manufactures, at the rate of 300 millions
+of francs or twelve millions sterling.
+
+Thus flourish, wherever we turn our eyes, the interests of industry,
+where defended and encouraged by that protection to which so righteously
+entitled at home. The abolition of all protection, in the economical
+sense, would be policy just as sane as, politically, to dismantle the
+royal navy, start the guns overboard, and leave the hulls of the
+men-of-war to sink or swim, in harbour or out, as they might. Conscious
+of the inherent rottenness or insanity of such a destructive principle
+of action, its advocates would now persuade us, that, although inimical
+to protective imposts, they are by no means averse from the imposition
+of such fiscal burdens as might be necessary for raising the amount of
+revenue required for State exigencies. The difference between one sort
+of impost and the other, would seem little more than a change of name--a
+flimsy juggle of words--"a rose by any other name would smell as sweet;"
+and, to the consumer, it matters little whether the tax he pay is levied
+for protection or finance, the sum being equal. It is, and it has been
+objected against various protective duties, that, as revenue, they are
+little productive; but, in fact, they were not originally or generally
+laid on with a view to revenue direct, but with the intent of protecting
+those growing or established interests, which are productive of revenue
+indirectly, by enabling protected producers to consume largely of taxed
+commodities, or to contribute, by direct taxation, their quota towards
+general revenue. If, by reciprocal agreement and stipulations with
+foreign states which are, or might become, consumers of the products of
+national industry, equitable equivalents can be found for the sacrifice
+of a certain amount of home protection, that may be a question deserving
+of consideration; but a very different question from the one-sided
+suicidal abolition of all protection. It may pass under review
+hereafter. In the mean time, let us hope that neither Government nor
+Legislature will be insidiously betrayed, or openly bullied, into any
+unsafe tampering with, or rash experiments upon, a sound and rational
+principle.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote I: See _Morning Chronicle's_ report of an anti-corn-law farce
+called by himself at Uxbridge or Aylesbury, or elsewhere, which is not
+important, as the fact is vouched for. In answer to a query from a
+worthy farmer, "to what cause he attributed the present depressed state
+of agriculture?" Cobden unhesitatingly replied, "to over-production."
+Cross-questioning of this kind would speedily prove the emptiness and
+ignorance of the man.]
+
+[Footnote J: _Vide_ Blackwood, 1843.]
+
+
+
+
+JOLLY FATHER JOE
+
+A TALE FROM "THE GOLDEN LEGEND," IN HONOUR OF THE B.V.M., TO BE READ
+ESPECIALLY ON THE 15TH OF AUGUST, BEING THE FESTIVAL OF HER ASSUMPTION.
+
+
+    In olden times, when monks and friars, and priests of all degrees,
+    About the land were cluster'd thick as swarms of summer bees,
+    And, like the bees on sunny days, were wont abroad to roam,
+    To gather, as they went along, sweet provender for home,
+
+    Bright blazed the abbey's kitchen fire, the larder well was stored,
+    And merrily the beards wagg'd round the refectorial board.
+    What layman dare declare that they led not a life divine,
+    Who sat in state to dine off plate, and quaff the rosy wine?
+
+    Good men, and true as bricks were they, to every Church decree;
+    Because as kings were called "The State,"[K] they said "the Church are we;"
+    And then all men believed "The Church" could pardon every sin;
+    And foul as was the outward stain, wash white the soul within.
+
+    No marvel that they prosper'd so, for then, as in our times,
+    Sins ever were most plentiful--their traffic was in crimes;
+    And as each man who pardon sought, became the Church's debtor,
+    Each wicked deed their store would feed, the worse it was the better.
+
+
+    For they'd a regular tariff, as we've Sir Robert Peel's,
+    Stating so much for him who "lies, swears, murders, stabs, or steals;"
+    And p'rhaps a thousand items more, as "not attending mass,"
+    "Ogling the girls," "neglecting shrift," and others we'll let pass.
+
+    However, all a duty paid for priestly absolution,
+    According to the culprit's sex, rank, purse, or constitution.
+    Such was the pleasant state of things, some centuries ago,
+    With holy men throughout the land and jolly Father Joe.
+
+    "A round, fat, oily man of God," as ever sang a psalm,
+    Or closed a penitential fee devoutly in his palm,
+    Was Father Joe; and he also, when psalms and prayers were done,
+    In festive scene, with smile serene, aye cheerfully made one.
+
+    Fond of a jest, he'd do his best good-humour to provoke,
+    Fill up his glass, extol some lass, and crack some convent joke;
+    Nor heed the frown or looks cast down of atrabilious friars,
+    Till his gills grew red, and his laughing head look'd a rose amid the briers.
+
+    Right well he knew each roast and stew, and chose the choicest dishes,
+    And the bill of fare, as well as prayer, with its venison, game, and fishes;
+    Were he living now he might, I vow, with his culinary knowledge,
+    Have writ a book, or been a cook, or fellow of a college.
+
+    In those old days the wealthy knew such qualities to prize,
+    And our good priest much favour found in lords' and ladies' eyes;
+    For seldom in their ancient halls a sumptuous feast was dressing,
+    But Father Joe that way would go thereon to "ask a blessing."
+
+    When lords and ladies bade their guests to castles, halls, and towers,
+    Though every thing beside was good they seldom kept good hours;
+    Course after course slow marshall'd in with dignity and state,
+    Their prime repasts were apt to last sometimes till rather late.
+
+    And Father Joe esteem'd it rude to break a party up,
+    Indeed, it was his usual plan, where'er he dined to sup;
+    And then to take what modern rakes sometimes "a nightcap" call--
+    That is, a friendly parting glass, a sort of "over-all."
+
+    He used to say it kept at bay the night-air, cold, and damp,
+    And cheer'd him on his journey home as though it were a lamp;
+    Nought cared he then how black the clouds might gather overhead,
+    His heart felt brave as he humm'd a stave and boldly onward sped.
+
+    So Father Joe his course pursued--a pleasant mode of living;
+    Alternately at prayers and feasts--now taking, now forgiving;
+    But dark or light, by day or night, the great thing to be said is,
+    Where'er he went he ne'er forgot due homage to the ladies.
+
+    By this it is not meant that he knelt down to living beauty--
+    A deed forbidden and eschew'd by priests who mind their duty;
+    His were not walking, breathing belles, to monkish rules contrary,
+    But images of wood and wax, dress'd like the Virgin Mary.
+
+    He seldom pass'd by one of these without a genuflexion,
+    Beseeching that she'd condescend to grant him her protection;
+    Or if in too much haste to pray, he always bow'd politely
+    Before her shrine, as heretics to damsels fair and sprightly.
+
+    But such a holy, jolly man could scarce escape the eye
+    Of Satan, who, if all be true that legends testify,
+    Was then allow'd great liberty, and took, of course, much more,
+    Playing his pranks among all ranks, till he was "quite a bore."
+
+    Go where one might, some ugly sprite of his long-tail'd police
+    Was ever on the dodge to break, instead of keep, the peace;
+    And he himself at times appears to have appear'd where he,
+    By rules canonical forbid, no business had to be.
+
+    Much he alarm'd the laity, while reverend men of grace,
+    Like Father Joe, we're told, might snap their fingers in his face,
+    Or order him to take a dip all in the sea so red;
+    Wherefore, when holy men he saw, he turn'd about and fled.
+
+    Yet not the less watch'd he their steps, but set his imps to mark
+    The paths they trode, in hopes to catch them stumbling in the dark;
+    And one dark night--ah me! it is a grievous tale to tell--
+    In coming home past twelve o'clock, our jolly father fell.
+
+    He fell--and fell into a stream that ran both deep and strong;
+    No pain felt he, but seem'd to be as borne in sleep along;
+    His head contused, or else confused, allow'd him not to swim,
+    And Satan swore, with joyous roar, "At least, I'm sure of him!"
+
+    Crowding along the river's banks, his imps all eager ran,
+    Each striving to be first to catch the fallen holy man;
+    And when at length they fish'd him up, and laid him on the ground,
+    'Twas plain an inquest's verdict must have been brought in "found drown'd."
+
+    But twelve grave men were not there then, the case was graver far;
+    An evil set, as black as jet, all gabble, grin, and jar,
+    Claim'd Father Joe as lawful prize, and Satan said, "No doubt!
+    Angels and saints abandon him, or they'd have pulled him out:
+
+    "So bear him off!" But as he spake a sudden gleam of light
+    Broke forth, nor ceased, but still increased, till all around was bright;
+    And then appear'd what most he fear'd, in white and wing'd array,
+    A company of angels come to take from him his prey.
+
+    "We claim all holy men," said one who seem'd to be their chief;
+    "I don't dispute that," Satan cried; "but really, to be brief,
+    This friar or monk died reeling drunk, without or shrift or prayer;
+    So yours can't be, but comes to me. I only want what's fair."
+
+    The bright one look'd, of course, surprised, and then observed, that he
+    Could not conceive nor yet believe that such a thing could be;
+    So Satan call'd his witnesses, who swore through thick and thin,
+    That Father Joe couldn't stand or go before he tumbled in.
+
+    Now though the angel knew that imps were never over nice
+    In swearing at their master's call to prop each foul device,
+    He felt perplex'd, because the case look'd really rather shady,
+    And so declared, "I daren't decide till I consult Our Lady."
+
+    While thus he spake, a sudden quake ran through the dingy crowd,
+    And, as in votive paintings seen, encircled by a cloud,
+    With 'broider'd coat and lace-frill'd throat, and jewels rich and rare,
+    The Virgin Queen, with smiles serene, came sailing through the air.
+
+    The angels with an "Ave!" hail'd the lady to the place,
+    The impish band, each with his hand conceal'd his ugly face,
+    And Satan stared as though ensnared, but speedily regain'd
+    His wonted air of confidence, and still his claim maintain'd.
+
+    Said he, "I'm sure your ladyship could never stoop to own
+    Acquaintance with a libertine, to drunkenness so prone;
+    A gormandizer too you see, as full as any sack,"
+    And here he gave poor Joe a kick, and turn'd him on his back.
+
+    The lady started with surprise, and cried, "That face I know:
+    Oh yes! 'Tis he! I plainly see! Dear jolly Father Joe!
+    I do not say but perhaps he may, be somewhat over fat,
+    But there's no rule why sage or fool should go to you for that.
+
+    "His appetite was always good, a fact that makes it clear
+    He was no heavy-headed sot, be-stupefied with beer,
+    Nor spoil'd his dinners with hot lunch, but kept his palate clean,
+    And sat down cheerfully to dine--and that's no sin, I ween.
+
+    "And as for drink, I really think a man who weighs twelve score,
+    May be allow'd an extra pint, or p'rhaps a bottle more,
+    Than folks who're slim, or gaunt and grim, like some that I could name,
+    Who, when in company, are wish'd safe back to whence they came."
+
+    Here the black prince was seen to wince, the lady waved her hand,
+    And then resumed, "But now I'll speak of what I understand
+    A trifle better than you all--I mean of what is due
+    To ladies from all gentlemen. Of course I don't mean you.
+
+    "I mean all those whom folks suppose, or who themselves believe,
+    To be entitled to the name, (although I oft perceive
+    That many are mistaken quite,) should keep on the alert
+    In ladies' company, lest they our tender feelings hurt.
+
+    "A word or look that men may brook, may give a lady pain,
+    Wherefore from all that's coarse and rude, real gentlemen refrain;
+    Their manners gentle as their name, when they a lady greet,
+    A pleasant thing enough it is such gentlemen to meet.
+
+    "And such a man was Father Joe. He never pass'd me by
+    In disrespectful haste, although there might be no one nigh;
+    Nor duck'd his head, or look'd askance, like some rude people now,
+    Who seem to chuckle as they pass, to cheat one of a bow."
+
+    "But may it please your ladyship!" exclaimed the dusky wight,
+    "A man may be a precious rogue, though perfectly polite."
+    "I don't know that," the lady said, "but grant that now and then
+    Some fellows may appear polite who really are rude men,
+
+    "'Tis not the simple smirk or bow that makes the gentleman,
+    But constant care to please the fair in every way he can;
+    And this good father never miss'd whene'er my shrine he pass'd,
+    To kneel or bow, extremely low, up to the very last.
+
+    "Therefore I don't, because I won't, believe a word you say
+    Against him in his present plight, which, happen how it may,
+    Was doubtless accidental quite--at all events my will
+    Must be obey'd, and I command, you'll let him lie there still."
+
+    The dark one scowl'd and mutter'd low, about "a losing game,"
+    And being "done clean out of one," "done brown," and "burning shame,"
+    Then hung his head, and slank away, and all his dirty crew
+    Dispersed themselves about the land fresh mischief to pursue.
+
+    The lady then, in accents kind, accosted Jolly Joe,
+    "They're gone! You're safe! Come! Rouse yourself! You are not dead, I know;
+    But in a swoon that very soon away like dreams will pass,
+    Much sooner than the cold you'll catch by sleeping on the grass.
+
+    "Go quickly home and get to bed--don't stop to thank me now,
+    But come to-morrow to my shrine and make a solemn vow,
+    That when for friends or fellowship henceforth abroad you roam,
+    You'll never take a drop more wine than you can carry home."
+
+    She spake and vanish'd, and again the night was dark and drear;
+    Joe gave a grunt and shook himself, then shook again with fear,
+    For though his body lay inert, to all appearance dead,
+    It seems his mind was quite awake to what pass'd overhead.
+
+    Such near escape from such a scrape was certainly enough
+    To shake the stoutest nerves, and his were not by nature tough;
+    He got upon his legs, and then went down upon his knees,
+    Gave thanks, and said, "Dear Lady, pray do with me what you please."
+
+    Then up he rose and shook his clothes, and dripping by the way,
+    Straight homeward sped, and went to bed, where long he sleepless lay;
+    But natheless at the peep of dawn rose up again alert,
+    And as beseem'd a penitent put on a hairy shirt.
+
+    With humble air he then repair'd unto the Lady's shrine,
+    And took the vow, as she advised, concerning taking wine;
+    And thenceforth, as the legend runs, was never after found
+    In such a plight as on the night when he was nearly drown'd.
+
+    Here ends the tale. May it prevail this moral to impress
+    On good men all, who're apt to fall at times into excess,
+    To seek the ladies' company when sins or wine entice,
+    And strive not only for their smiles, but follow their advice.
+
+    Now prosper long our lovely Queen, and Albert whom she loves;
+    And may they, though at eagles' height, live lovingly as doves,
+    From youthful prime till father Time may change their locks to gray,
+    While all their Royal progeny "love, honour, and obey!"
+
+    May peace long smile on Britain's isle! may Blackwood's Magazine,
+    If possible, be better still than it hath ever been;
+    May every thing that's good increase, and what to goodness tends;
+    And may the writer always have the ladies for his friends!
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote K: "L'Etat. C'est moi!" Quoth some French Roi; but which of
+the "most Christian" set it was, I do not now recollect, and being from
+home at this present writing, have no means of reference.]
+
+
+
+
+THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN.
+
+BY ELIZABETH B. BARRET.
+
+
+    Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers!
+      Ere the sorrow comes with years?
+    They are leaning their young heads against their mothers,
+      And _that_ cannot stop their tears.
+    The young lambs are bleating in the meadows,
+    The young birds are chirping in the nest,
+    The young fawns are playing with the shadows,
+    The young flowers are blowing from the west;
+    But the young young children, O my brothers!
+      They are weeping bitterly!
+    They are weeping in the playtime of the others--
+      In the country of the free.
+
+    Do you question the young children in the sorrow,
+      Why their tears are falling so?
+    The old man may weep for his to-morrow
+      Which is lost in long ago.
+    The old tree is leafless in the forest--
+    The old year is ending in the frost;
+    The old wound, if stricken, is the sorest--
+    The old hope is hardest to be lost!
+    But the young young children, O my brothers!
+      Do ye ask them why they stand
+    Weeping sore before the bosoms of their mothers,
+      In our happy fatherland?
+
+    They look up with their pale and sunken faces,
+      And their looks are sad to see;
+    For the man's grief untimely draws and presses
+      Down the cheeks of infancy.
+    "Your old earth," they say, "is very dreary--
+    Our young feet," they say, "are very weak!
+    Few paces have we taken, yet are weary--
+    Our grave-rest is very far to seek!
+    Ask the old why they weep, and not the children;
+      For the outside earth is cold--
+    And we young ones stand without, in our bewild'ring,
+      And the graves are for the old.
+
+    "True," say the young children, "it may happen
+      That we die before our time!
+    Little Alice died last year--the grave is shapen
+      Like a snowball, in the rime.
+    We look'd into the pit prepared to take her--
+    Was no room for any work in the close clay!
+    From the sleep wherein she lieth none will wake her,
+    Crying--'Get up, little Alice, it is day!'
+    If you listen by that grave in sun and shower,
+    With your ear down, little Alice never cries;
+    Could we see her face, be sure we should not know her,
+    For the new smile which has grown within her eyes.
+    For merry go her moments, lull'd and still'd in
+      The shroud, by the kirk-chime!
+    It is good when it happens," say the children,
+      "That we die before our time!"
+
+    Alas, the young children! they are seeking
+      Death in life, as best to have!
+    They are binding up their hearts away from breaking,
+      With a cerement from the grave.
+    Go out, children, from the mine and from the city--
+    Sing out, children, as the little thrushes do!
+    Pluck your handfuls of the meadow cowslips pretty--
+    Laugh aloud to feel your fingers let them through!
+    But the children say--"Are cowslips of the meadows
+      Like the weeds anear the mine?[L]
+    Leave us quiet in the dark of our coal-shadows,
+      From your pleasures fair and fine.
+
+    "For oh!" say the children, "we are weary--
+      And we cannot run or leap:
+    If we cared for any meadows, it were merely
+      To drop down in them and sleep.
+    Our knees tremble sorely in the stooping--
+    We fall upon our face, trying to go;
+    And underneath our heavy eyelids drooping,
+    The reddest flower would look as pale as snow.
+    For, all day, we drag our burden tiring,
+      Through the coal-dark underground--
+    Or, all day, we drive the wheels of iron
+      In the factories, round and round.
+
+    "All day long, the wheels are droning, turning--
+      Their wind comes in our faces!
+    Till our hearts turn, and our heads with pulses burning,
+      And the walls turn in their places!
+    Turns the sky in the high window blank and reeling--
+    Turns the long light that droppeth down the wall--
+    Turn the black flies that crawl along the ceiling--
+    All are turning all the day, and we with all!
+    All day long, the iron wheels are droning--
+      And sometimes we could pray--
+    'O ye wheels' (breaking off in a mad moaning)
+      Stop! be silent for to-day!'"
+
+    Ay! be silent! let them hear each other breathing,
+      For a moment, mouth to mouth;
+    Let them touch each other's hands, in a fresh wreathing
+      Of their tender human youth;
+    Let them feel that this cold metallic motion
+    Is not all the life God giveth them to use;
+    Let them prove their inward souls against the notion
+    That they live in you, or under you, O wheels!
+    Still, all day, the iron wheels go onward,
+      As if Fate in each were stark!
+    And the children's souls, which God is calling sunward,
+      Spin on blindly in the dark.
+
+
+    Now, tell the weary children, O my brothers!
+      That they look to Him, and pray
+    For the blessed One, who blesseth all the others,
+      To bless _them_ another day.
+    They answer, "Who is God that he should hear us,
+    While this rushing of the iron wheels is stirr'd?
+    When we sob aloud, the human creatures near us
+    Pass unhearing--at least, answer not a word;
+    And _we_ hear not (for the wheels in their resounding)
+      Strangers speaking at the door.
+    Is it likely God, with angels singing round him,
+      Hears our weeping any more?
+
+    "Two words, indeed, of praying we remember;
+      And, at midnight's hour of harm,
+    _Our Father_, looking upward in the chamber,
+      We say softly for a charm.[M]
+    We say no other words except _our Father!_
+    And we think that, in some pause of angels' song,
+    He may pluck them with the silence sweet to gather,
+    And hold both within his right hand, which is strong.
+    _Our Father!_ If he heard us, he would surely
+      (For they call him good and mild)
+    Answer--smiling down the steep world very purely--
+      'Come and rest with me, my child.'
+
+    "But no," say the children, weeping faster;
+      "He is silent as a stone,
+    And they tell us, of his image is the master
+      Who commands us to work on.
+    Go to!" say the children; "up in heaven,
+    Dark, wheel-like, turning clouds are all we find!
+    Do not mock us! we are atheists in our grieving--
+    We look up for HIM--but tears have made us blind."
+    Do ye hear the children weeping and disproving,
+      O my brothers, what ye teach?
+    For God's possible is taught by his world's loving--
+      And the children doubt of each!
+
+    And well may the children weep before ye--
+      They are weary ere they run!
+    They have never seen the sunshine, nor the glory
+      Which is brighter than the sun!
+    They know the grief of men, but not the wisdom--
+    They sink in the despair, with hope at calm--
+    Are slaves, without the liberty in christdom--
+    Are martyrs by the pang without the palm!
+    Are worn as if with age; yet unretrievingly
+      No joy of memory keep--
+    Are orphans of the earthly love and heavenly--
+      Let them weep--let them weep!
+
+    They look up with their pale and sunken faces,
+      And their look is dread to see;
+    For you think you see their angels in their places,
+      With eyes meant for Deity.
+    "How long," they say, "how long, O cruel nation!
+    Will you stand, to move the world, on a child's heart,
+    Trample down with a mail'd heel its palpitation,
+    And tread onward to your throne amid the mart?
+    Our blood splashes upward, O our tyrants!
+      And your purple shows your path--
+    But the child's sob curseth deeper in the silence,
+      Than the strong man in his wrath!"
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote L: A commissioner mentions the fact of weeds being thus
+confounded with the idea of flowers.]
+
+[Footnote M: The report of the commissioners represents instances of
+children, whose religious devotion is confined to the repetition of the
+two first words of the Lord's Prayer.]
+
+
+
+
+LETTER TO CHRISTOPHER NORTH, ESQ.
+
+
+RESPECTED CHRISTOPHER,
+
+As an appendage to the "_Whippiad_," so happily rescued from the fate
+designed for it by its author, to be embalmed in the never-dying pages
+of Maga, the following _jeu d'esprit_, connected with its hero, may not
+be unacceptable, especially as both productions were generally
+attributed to the same pen. A note on the line--
+
+    "And cuckoo mingle with the thoughts of Bell,"
+
+towards the end of the first canto, alludes to "a young lady of singular
+elegance and personal accomplishments," to whom Dr Toe's attentions were
+supposed not to have been unacceptable. This elegant and accomplished
+young lady, however, (a certain Miss Bell H----,) is said to have
+eventually jilted the Doctor, and married her footman; a circumstance
+which gave rise to the following stanzas:--
+
+    'Twixt footman John and Dr Toe
+      A rivalship befell,
+    Which of the two should be the Beau
+      To bear away the _Belle_!
+
+    The Footman won the Lady's heart,
+      And who can blame her?--No man.
+    The _whole_ prevail'd against the _part:_
+      'Twas _Foot_-man _versus Toe_-man.
+
+By the way, Christopher, your compositor has "misused the queen's press
+most damnably" in the quotation from Coriolanus prefixed to the second
+canto, where he converts the "Great _Toe_ of the Assembly" into its
+"Great _Foe_." Rap his knuckles with your crutch, old Gentleman; and
+tell him, too, that the "Shawstone's party" he speaks of was a very
+jolly _symposium_, given by a very hearty fellow of the name of
+"Rawstorne," whose _cognomen_ stands _sic in orig._
+
+    Thine ever.
+
+    My dear Christopher,
+
+    ERIGENA.
+
+    BRAZENOSE QUAD., _July_ 15, 1843.
+
+
+
+
+THE REPEAL AGITATION.
+
+
+No popularity does, or can exist which is not liable to collapses.
+Two-fold infirmity, alike for him who judges, and for him who suffers
+judgment, will not allow it to be otherwise. Sir Robert Peel, a minister
+more popular by his tenure of office than any whom this generation will
+perhaps again behold, has not been able to escape that ordinary trial of
+human prosperity. Suddenly a great cloud of public danger has gathered
+around him: upon every path there were seen to lie secret snares: no
+wisdom could make an election amongst them absolutely safe: he made that
+election which comparison of the cases and private information seemed to
+warrant: and immediately, of his own supporters many are offended. We
+believe it to be a truth, one amongst those new truths whose aspiring
+heads are even now rising above our horizon, that the office of first
+minister, either for France or England, is becoming rapidly more trying
+by the quality of its duties. We talk of energy: we invoke the memories
+of Pitt and of Chatham: "oh, for one hour," we exclaim, of those great
+_executive_ statesmen--who "trampled upon impossibilities," or glorified
+themselves in a "vigour beyond the law!" Looking backwards, we are
+right: in our gratitude we do not err. But those times are past. For Sir
+Robert Peel no similar course is open. Changes in the temper of the age,
+changes in the constitution of public bodies, absolute revolutions in
+the _kind_ of responsibilities by which a minister is now fettered,
+forbid us to imagine that any raptures of national sympathy will ever
+crowd forward to the support of extreme or summary measures, such as
+once might have been boldly employed. That style of aspiring action
+presumes some approach to unity in public opinion. But such unity we
+shall hardly witness again, were a hostile invader even landed on our
+shores.
+
+Meantime it will add weight to any thing we can offer in behalf of the
+Irish policy now formally avowed by Government, if we acknowledge
+ingenuously that for some weeks we ourselves shared in the doubts upon
+its wisdom, not timidly expressed by weighty Conservatives. We believe
+it, indeed, natural and honourable that the first movement of feeling
+upon cases such as those now proceeding in Ireland, should be one of
+mere summary indignation. Not that scurrility and the basest of
+personalities from Mr O'Connell are either novelties, or difficult to
+bear. To hear an old man, a man whose own approach to the period of
+physical decay, is the one great hope and consolation of all good
+subjects in Ireland, scoffing at grey hairs in the Duke of
+Wellington--calling, and permitting his creatures to call, by the name
+of "vagabonds" or "miscreants," the most eminent leaders of a sister
+nation, who are also the chosen servants of that mistress whom he
+professes to honour: this might have been shocking in any man who had
+not long since squandered his own ability to shock. As it is, these
+things move only laughter or silent disgust, according to the temper of
+readers. And we are sure that not merely the priests, or men of
+education amongst Mr O'Connell's followers, but even the peasantry, must
+in their hearts perceive how indispensable is a _general_ habit of
+self-restraint and abstinence from abusive language to the effect of any
+individual insult These were _not_ the causes of public indignation. Not
+what Mr O'Connell said, but what he did, kindled the general wrath. To
+see him marching and countermarching armies, to find him bandying
+menaces with the Government of this great nation, and proclaiming
+(openly or covertly) that he would not be the party to strike the first
+blow, but that assuredly he would strike the second--thinking it little
+to speak as a traitor, unless also he spoke as an European potentate;
+this was the spectacle before which the self-control of so many melted
+away, and which raised the clamour for vindictive justice. It quickened
+the irritation to know, that hostile foreigners were looking on with
+deep interest, and every where misinterpreting the true readings of the
+case. Weeks passed before we could thoroughly reconcile our own feelings
+to the passive toleration, or apparent apathy, of the Government. Our
+sense of prudence took the alarm, not less than our feelings. And
+finally, if both could have acquiesced, our sense of consistency was
+revolted by what met the public eye; since, if the weak were to be
+punished, why should the strong be connived at? Magistrates, to the
+amount of three score, had been dismissed for giving their countenance
+to the Repeal meetings; and yet the meetings themselves, which had
+furnished the very principle of the reproach, and the ground of
+punishment, were neither dispersed nor denounced.
+
+Rarely, however, in politics, has any man final occasion to repent of
+forbearance. There may be a tempest of provocation towards the policy of
+rigour; that policy may justify itself to the moral sense of men; modes
+even of prudence may be won over to sanction it; and yet, after all the
+largest spirit of civil prudence, such as all of us would approve in any
+historical case removed from the passions of the times, will suggest a
+much nobler promise of success through a steady adherence to the
+counsels of peace, than any which could attend the most efficient
+prosecution of a hostile intervention. The exceeding weight of the
+crisis has forced us into a closer comparison than usual of the
+consequences probably awaiting either course. Usually in such cases, we
+are content to abide the solutions of time; the rapid motion of events
+settling but too hastily all doubts, and dispensing with the trouble of
+investigation. Here, however, the coincidence of feelings, heavily
+mortified on our own part, with the serious remonstrances in the way of
+argument from journals friendly to Sir Robert Peel's government, would
+not suffer us to rest in the uneasy condition of dissatisfied suspense.
+We found ourselves almost coerced into pursuing the two rival policies,
+down to their separate issues; and the result has satisfied ourselves,
+that the minister is right. We shall make an effort for bringing over
+the reader to our own convictions. Sir Robert, we shall endeavour to
+show, has _not_ been deficient in proper energy; his forbearance, where
+it has been most conspicuous, is either absolute--in which case it will
+be found to justify itself, even at present, to the considerate--or it
+is but provisional, and waiting for contingencies--in which case it will
+soon unmask itself more terrifically than either friend or enemy,
+perhaps, anticipates.
+
+The Minster's defence is best pursued through the turns of his own
+admirable speech in the recent debates on the grievances of Ireland.
+But, previously, let us weigh for a moment Mr O'Connell's present
+position, and the chances that seem likely to have attended any attempt
+to deal with him by blank resistance. It had been always understood, by
+watchful politicians, that the Repeal agitation slumbered only until the
+reinstalment of a Conservative administration. The Whigs were
+notoriously in collusion at all times, more or less openly, with this
+"foul conspiracy:"[N] a crime which, in them, was trebly scandalous; for
+they it was, in times past, who had denounced the conspiracy to the
+nation as ruinous; in _that_ they were right: but they also it was, who
+had pointed out the leading conspirator as an individual to national
+indignation in a royal speech; and in _that_ they degraded, without a
+precedent, the majesty of that high state-document. Descending thus
+abjectly, as regarded the traitor, the Whigs were not unwilling to
+benefit by the treason. They did so. They adulterated with treason
+during their term of power: the compact being, that Mr O'Connell should
+guide for the Government their exercise of Irish patronage so long as he
+guaranteed to them an immunity from the distraction of Irish
+insubordination. When the Tories succeeded to power, this
+armistice--this treasonable capitulation with treason--of necessity fell
+to the ground; and once again Mr O'Connell prepared for war. _Cessante
+mercede cessat opera_. How he has conducted this war of late, we all
+know. And such being the brief history of its origin, embittered to him
+by the silent expression of defiance, unavoidably couched in any
+withdrawal of the guilty commerce, we all guess in what spirit he will
+wish to conduct it for the future. But _there_ presents itself the
+question of his ability--of his possible resources--for persevering in
+his one mode of hostility. He would continue his array of mobs, but
+_can_ he? We believe not. Already the hours of his sorceries are
+numbered: and now he stands in the situation of an officer on some
+forlorn outpost, before a superior enemy, and finding himself reduced to
+half a dozen rounds of ammunition. In such a situation, whatever
+countenance he may put on of alacrity and confidence, however rapidly he
+may affect to sustain his fire in the hope of duping his antagonist into
+a retreat, he cannot surmount or much delay the catastrophe which faces
+him. More and more reluctantly Mr O'Connell will tell off the few
+lingering counters on his beadroll: but at length comes the last; after
+which he is left absolutely without resources for keeping the agitation
+alive, or producing any effect whatever.
+
+Many fancy _not_. They suppose it possible that these parades or
+field-days may be repeated. But let us consider. Already it impresses a
+character of childishness on these gatherings of peasants; and it is a
+feeling which begins to resound throughout Ireland, that there is
+absolutely no business to be transacted--not even any forms to be gone
+through--and, therefore, no rational object by which such parades can be
+redeemed from mockery. Were there a petition to be subscribed, a vote to
+be taken, or any ostensible business to furnish an excuse for the
+meeting--once, but once only, in each district, it might avail. As it
+is, we have the old nursery case before us--
+
+    "The king of France march'd up the hill,
+    With twenty thousand men,"
+
+followed by his most Christian majesty's successful countermarch. The
+very children in the streets would follow them with hootings, if these
+fooleries were reiterated. But, if that attempt were made, and in some
+instances should even succeed, so much the worse for the interests of
+Repeal. The effect would be fatal. No device could be found more
+excellent for killing the enthusiasm which has called out such
+assemblies, than the evidence thus forced upon the general mind--that
+they were inoperative, and without object, either confessed or
+concealed. Hitherto the toil and exhaustion of the day had been
+supported, doubtless, under a belief that a muster of insurrectionary
+forces was desired, with a view to some decisive course of action, when
+all should be found prepared. The cautionary order issued for total
+abstinence from violence had been looked upon, of course, as a momentary
+or _interim_ restraint. But if once it were understood that this order
+was absolute, or of indefinite application, the chill to the national
+confidence would be that of death. For we are not to suppose that the
+faith and love of the peasantry _can_ have been given, either personally
+to Mr O'Connell, or to Repeal, as a cause for itself. Both these names
+represent, indirectly, weightier and dearer objects, which are supposed
+to stand behind: even Repeal is not valued as an end--but simply as a
+means to something beyond. But let that idea once give way, let the
+present hope languish, let it be thrown back to a period distant or
+unassigned--and the ruin of the cause is sealed. The rural population of
+Ireland has, it is true, been manoeuvred and exhibited merely as a
+threatening show to England; but, assuredly, on that same day when the
+Irish peasants, either from their own sagacity, or from newspapers,
+discover that they have been used as a property by Mr O'Connell, for
+purposes in which their own interest is hard to be deciphered,
+indifference and torpor will succeed. For this once, the nationality of
+Ireland has been too frantically stimulated for the toleration of new
+delays. Mr O'Connell is at last the martyr of his own success. Should
+the priestly order refuse to advance further on a road nominally
+national, but from which, at any moment, the leader may turn off, by
+secret compromise, into a by-road, leading only to family objects,
+universal mutiny must _now_ follow. The general will of the priesthood
+has thus far quelled and overruled the individual will; but that
+indignant recusants amongst that order _are_ muttering and brooding we
+know, as well from the necessities of human nature, as from actual
+letters already beginning to appear in the journals. Under all these
+circumstances, a crisis is to be dreaded by the central body of
+Repealers, which body is doubtless exceedingly small. And what will
+hasten this crisis is the inevitable result from a fact noticed as yet
+only for ostentation. It is this. The weekly contributions in money, and
+their sudden overflow, have occasioned some comments in the House of
+Lords; on the one side with a view to the dishonesty apparent in the
+management of this money, and to the dark purposes which it may be
+supposed to mask--on the other, with a view to the increasing heartiness
+in the service, which it seems to express. It is, however, a much more
+reasonable comment upon this momentary increase, so _occasional_ and
+timed to meet the sudden resurrection of energy in the general movement,
+that the money has flowed so freely altogether under that sane
+persuasion which also has drawn the peasantry to the meetings--viz. the
+fixed anticipation of an immediate explosion. Multitudes in the belief,
+suddenly awakened and propagated through Ireland--that now at length,
+all further excuses laid aside, the one great national enterprize, so
+long nursed in darkness, had ripened for execution, and would at last
+begin to move--have exerted themselves to do what, under other
+circumstances, they would not have done. Even simple delay would now
+irritate these men beyond control. They will call for an account. This
+will be refused, and cannot _but_ be refused. The particular feeling of
+these men, that they have been hoaxed and swindled, concurring with the
+popular rage on finding that this storm also, like all before it, is to
+blow over--if there be faith in human nature, will do more to shake the
+Repeal speculation than any possible course of direct English
+resistance. All frauds would be forgiven in an hour of plausible
+success, or even in a moment of undeniable preparation. But
+disappointment coming in the rear of extravagant hopes will be fatal,
+and strike a frost to the heart of the conspiracy. For it cannot be
+doubted that none of these extra services, whether in money or personal
+attendance, would have been rendered without express assurances from
+high quarters, and not _merely_ from fond imaginations founded on
+appearances, that the pretended regeneration for Ireland was at land.
+
+Now let us see how these natural sequences, from the very nature of the
+showy demonstrations recently organized, and from the very promises by
+which they must have been echoed, will operate in relation to the
+measures of the Government; either those which have been adopted, or
+those which have been declined. Had the resolution (a fatal resolution,
+as we _now_ think) been adopted in the cabinet to disperse the meetings
+by force, blood would have flowed; and a plea, though fraudulent in
+virtue, would have been established for O'Connell--such as we may
+suppose to be built upon a fact so liable to perversion. His hands would
+have been prodigiously strengthened. The bloodshed would have been kept
+before the eyes of the people for ever, and would have taken innumerable
+forms. But the worst, ultimately the ruinous, operation of this official
+intervention would have lain in the plenary excuse from his engagements
+furnished to Mr O'Connell, and in the natural solution of all those
+embarrassments which for himself he _cannot_ solve. At present he is at
+his wits' end to devise any probable scheme for tranquillizing the
+universal disappointment, for facing the relapse from infinite
+excitement, and for propitiating the particular fury of those who will
+now hold themselves to have been defrauded of their money. Leave this
+tempest to itself, and it will go near to overwhelm the man: or if the
+local separation of the parties most injured should be so managed as to
+intercept that result, assuredly it will overwhelm the cause. In the
+estimate, therefore, of O'Connell, we may rely upon it--that a battalion
+of foot, or a squadron of horse, appearing in aid of the police to clear
+the ground at Mallow or at Donnybrook, would have seemed the least
+questionable godsend that has ever illuminated his experience. "O
+_jubilate_ for a providential deliverance!" that would have been his
+cry. "Henceforward be all my difficulties on the heads of my opponents!"
+But at least, it is argued, the _fact_ would have been against him; the
+dispersion would have disarmed him, whatever colouring he might have
+caused it to bear. Not at all. We doubt if one meeting the less would
+have been held. Ready at all times for such emergencies, the leader
+would not suffer himself to be found without every conceivable legal
+quillet, sharpened and retouched, against the official orders. He would
+have had an interview with the authorities: he would have shown a flaw
+in the wording of the instructions: he would have rebaptized his
+assembly, and, where no business goes on, any name will answer: he would
+have called his mob "a tea-party," or "an agricultural association;" the
+sole real object concerned, which is the exhibition of vast numbers
+trained and amenable to instant restraint, would have proceeded under
+new names. This would no longer have languished when Government had
+supplied the failing impulse: and in the mean time to have urged that,
+merely by its numbers, combined with its perilous tendencies, the
+gathering was unlawful--would have availed nothing: for the law
+authorities in parliament, right or wrong, have affected doubts upon
+that doctrine; and, when parliament will not eventually support him, it
+matters little that a minister of these days would, for the moment,
+assume the responsibility of a strong measure. Or, if parliament were to
+legislate anew for this special case, the Repealer would then split his
+large mobs into many small ones: he would lecture, he would preach, he
+would sing, in default of other excuses for meeting. No law, he would
+observe coolly to the magistrate, against innumerable prayer-meetings or
+infinite concerts. The items would still be reported to one central
+office: the _facit_ would be the same; and it would tell for the same
+cause.
+
+Thus it appears that no fact would have resulted against the Repealers,
+had the Government taken a severe course. Still, may it not be said that
+a _fact_, and a strong one, survives on the other side, viz. against the
+Government, under this forbearing course which they really have taken?
+What fact? Is it the organization of all Ireland? Doubtless that bears
+an ominous sound: but it must be considered--that if the leader cannot
+wield this vast organization for any purposes of his own, and plainly he
+cannot so long as he acquires no fresh impulses or openings to action
+from the indiscretion of his opponents, but on the contrary must be
+ruined--cause and leader, party and partisan chief, by the very 'lock'
+(or as in America is said, the 'fix') into which he has brought himself,
+by the pledge which he cannot redeem--far less can that organization be
+used by others or for any other purpose. It is an organization not
+secret; not bound by oaths; loose and careless in its cohesion; not
+being good for its proper object, it is good for no other, and we hear
+of no one attribute by which it threatens the public peace beyond its
+numerical extent.
+
+But is _that_ true? Is it numerically so potent as it is represented? We
+hardly need to say, that the exaggerations upon this point have been too
+monstrous to call for any pointed exposures. With respect to one of the
+southern meetings--that at Cork, we believe--by way of applying some
+scale or measurement to the exaggerations, we may mention that a
+military man, actually measured the ground after the retirement of the
+crowd. He ascertained that the ground could barely accommodate
+twenty-five thousand men standing in regimental order. What was the
+report of the newspaper? Four to five hundred thousand, as usual.
+Indeed, we may complain of our English Conservative Journals as, in this
+point, faithfully reflecting the wildest statements of the Repeal
+organs. So much strength was apparently given, for the moment, to the
+Repeal interest by these outrageous fictions, that we, for our own
+parts, (whilst hesitating as to other points of the Government policy,)
+did not scruple to tax the Home Minister and the Queen's Lieutenant with
+some neglect of duty[O] in not sending experienced officers of the army
+to reconnoitre the meetings in every instance, and authentically to make
+returns of the numbers present. Since reading the minister's speech,
+however, we are disposed to think that this neglect was not altogether
+without design. It appears that Sir Robert relies in part upon these
+frightful falsehoods for effecting a national service by rousing the
+fears of the Roman Catholic landholders. In this there is no false
+refinement; for, having very early done all the mischief they could as
+incendiary proclamations of power to the working classes, the
+exaggerations are now, probably, operating with even more effect in an
+opposite direction upon the great body of the Catholic gentry. Cordially
+to unite this body with the government of Ireland would, by much,
+overbalance the fickle support of the peasantry, given for the moment to
+the cause of disaffection. That disaffection, under its present form, is
+already, perhaps, on the point of unlocking its union. It _cannot_ be
+permanent as an organization; for, without hope, no combination can
+sustain itself, and a disaffection, founded purely upon _social_ causes,
+can be healed by no Government whatever. But if the Catholic gentry,
+treated as they now are with fraternal equality, should heartily
+coalesce with the party promoting a closer _British_ connexion, that
+would be a permanent gain.
+
+The Irish policy, therefore, the immediate facts of the policy, pursued
+by the Government, if we distinguish it from the general theory and
+principles of their policy as laid down in the speech of the Premier,
+has not been what it is said to have been. Summing up the heads, let us
+say that we are _not_ resigned negligently to the perils of civil war;
+those perils, though as great as Mr O'Connell could make them, are not
+by any means as great as Mr O'Connell describes them; the popular arrays
+are ridiculously below the amounts reported to us: in some instances
+they have been multiplied by 20, probably in all by 15; the rumour and
+the terror of these arrays have operated both ways; _for_ us more
+permanently than against us. Lastly, it is not true that the Government
+has proceeded only by negative steps; the army has been increased in
+Ireland, the garrisons have been better arranged; military stations have
+been strengthened, and seditious magistrates have been dismissed.
+
+Upon this last point, one word: we have seen nothing more grossly
+factious in the conduct of the Whigs, than the assertion, that these
+magistrates ought _not_ to have been dismissed. Well might the
+Chancellor say, that the discussion had been conducted by petty
+lawyerlike quibbles. The case stands thus: there are two principles
+concerned in the tenure of the magistrate's office--theoretic
+amenability to the letter of the law, and practical serviceableness for
+his duties. Either furnishes a ground of dismissal. To be scandalously
+indecorous, to be a patron of gambling in public places, would offer no
+_legal_ objection to a magistrate; but he would be dismissed as a person
+unsuitable by his habits to the gravity of the commission. If you hire a
+watchman to protect your premises, and you discharge him upon the ground
+that he has been found drinking with reputed burglars, no man will hold
+the watchman to have been hardly used, because the burglars had not been
+convicted judicially. That allegation amounts to this: that he has not
+committed any offence known to the laws. What will you reply? "I know
+it," you say: "I grant it; and therefore I charge you with no offence.
+But I dismiss you on a principle of expedience. You have violated no
+law; but you have shown yourself to be a man disqualified for the very
+urgent duties of the post--much more disqualified than you would have
+been by sickness, blindness, or any other physical infirmity."
+
+Mr O'Connell now threatens to pursue his career, by repeating that same
+absurd misdemeanour of summoning a mock parliament, which, some twenty
+and odd years ago, a Staffordshire baronet expiated by the penalties of
+fine and imprisonment. At that crisis we shall see the tranquil minister
+unmask his artillery. But could it be reasonable to look for a faithful
+discharge of painful duties, arising in these later stages of the Repeal
+cause (and duties applying probably to the cases of gentlemen,
+neighbours, fellow partisans,) from one who had already promoted that
+cause, in its previous stages, to the extent of sedition and
+conspiracy? He who has already signalized to the nation his readiness
+to co-operate in so open a mischief as dismemberment of the empire,
+wherefore should he shrink from violating an obscure rule of the common
+law, or a black letter statute?
+
+But enough of the policy which _has_ been pursued. _That_, by its nature
+is limited, and of necessity, in many points of recent application, is a
+policy of watching and negation. Now, let us turn to the general policy,
+as it is reviewed in the very comprehensive speech of the Prime
+Minister. This applies equally to the past and the future. The French
+journals, and in particular the _D�bats_, complain that it is crowded
+with details. How should this be otherwise? Can there be an answer given
+to charges whose vice is their vagueness, otherwise than by
+_circumstantial_ exposures of their falsehood? Ireland, for instance,
+has been unfairly treated as to taxes, partition of indulgences,
+pecuniary advances. That is the charge. Can it be met with another
+answer than by absolute arithmetic, tax-office proofs, or returns from
+the Exchequer? "But in these a foreigner takes no interest." Doubtless!
+and _that_ should be an argument with the foreigner for his declining to
+judge upon the question. Want of understanding is not at all a worse
+disqualification for acting as a judge than want of interest in the
+subject. We mention this pointedly; because it is not to foreigners
+chiefly that this maxim applies: a profound injustice continually
+operates in this way amongst the parliamentary foes of Government. Often
+in private life we witness the unprincipled case--that, upon suspecting
+a man's vindication to be established by any investigation, men will
+decline to look into it, as really possessing too little interest for
+themselves; though these same people had not found any want of interest
+in the allegations--nay, had mastered all the details--so long as the
+charges pointed to some disgraceful issue, and the verdict threatened to
+be unfavourable. An instance of this baseness, truly shocking to the
+moral sense, is found in the ridiculous charge against the ministers,
+founded upon the mail-coach contract. This was not at all too petty to
+be pressed with rancour. However, it was answered. The answer, on the
+principle of the case, and coupled with the illustrations from parallel
+cases, is decisive. And then the taunt is--"But why fasten upon charges
+so minute and frivolous?" Minute and frivolous, we grant; but not so in
+that degree which prevented you gentlemen in opposition from dwelling on
+then with genial spite, as being odious in proportion to their
+pettiness. "You, you, it was," says Sir Robert, "that pressed the case!"
+Certainly: and they it was who would never have withdrawn the case had
+they not found it untenable. It is thus easy for two men to concert a
+collusive attack which shall succeed either way, and be dishonest both
+ways. "Do you," says the one, "_try on_ this particular case for
+harassing the minister. If it tells, if it sticks, then we both pitch
+into him. If it fails, then rise I and say:--'How shameful in an
+official person to throw dust in the eyes of the House by detaining it
+upon a miserable trifle, whilst the criminal gravities of his conduct
+are skulking in the rear under this artifice for misleading the public
+attention!'"
+
+With this prefatory explanation, called for, perhaps, by the unequal
+importance of the points reviewed, we shall now rehearse the heads of
+this speech. It is a speech that, by anticipation, we may call
+memorable, looking before and after; good, as a history for half a
+century gone by since our union with Ireland; good, we venture to hope,
+as a rule and as a prophecy for the spirit of our whole future connexion
+with that important island. We shall move rapidly; for our rehearsal
+will best attain the object we have in view by its brevity and
+condensation.
+
+I.--Mr Roebuck had insisted that Ireland was made the victim of our
+English parsimony; not once and away, but systematically. This happens
+to be a charge peculiarly irritating to all parties--to the authors of
+the parsimony, and to its objects. And, says Sir Robert, I am told to
+avoid it as secondary; but observe, it is quite substantial enough, as
+others say, to justify "an impeachment." This is the honourable
+barrister's word; and a "soft" impeachment it will turn out.
+
+_a._ By the Act of Union, it was provided that, in voting the civil
+estimates for Ireland, whatever sum it should appear that Ireland had
+averaged for six years before the Union, in her own votes for a
+particular purpose, annually that same sum should be voted for a period
+prescribed by the United Parliament. The purpose was, internal
+improvement in Ireland, and any national uses, whether pious or
+charitable. What, then, had been the extent of the Irish vote? We
+neglect small fractions, and state that it had averaged seventy-three
+thousand a year. For the first twenty years, therefore, the obligation
+upon the Imperial Parliament had been, to vote twenty times that sum, or
+L. 1,460,000. This was the contract. What was the performance? Five
+millions, three hundred and forty-eight thousand pounds, or three and a
+half times the amount of the promise.
+
+_b._ Another extraordinary vote in the Irish Parliament, previous to the
+Union, had been upon the miscellaneous estimates. This vote, when
+averaged on the same principle, had produced annually one hundred and
+twenty-eight thousand pounds. To the same sum the United Parliament
+stood pledged for the first period of twenty-eight years succeeding the
+Union. The reader will see at once that the result ought to have been
+little more than three and a half millions. That was the debt. What was
+the payment? Something beyond five millions.
+
+_c._ Upon another comparison, viz. between Scotland and Ireland, as to
+another class of _extras_ and contingencies, it turns out--that, during
+the last period of seven years, to Scotland had been voted six hundred
+and sixty thousand pounds, to Ireland two million, two hundred, and
+sixty thousand; to Scotland, that is, less than _one_ hundred thousand
+_per annum_; to Ireland, more than _three_ hundred thousand.
+
+In the same category stands the relative taxation. Ireland was to pay
+two-seventeenths of the whole imperial burden. That was the bargain,
+which we are not called on to reopen. But, as _extras_, as a liberal
+_bonus_ upon this bargain, Ireland has been excused from paying for
+windows--for assessed taxes--for soap. At this moment, in addition to
+these liberal discounts, she has no _national_ share, _as_ Ireland,[P]
+in the Income Tax: and she may be said, in one sense, to receive her
+letters gratuitously, for the postage yields nothing to Government, all
+being absorbed by the Irish post office. It is little, after this, to
+start possibilities of unequal contribution as regards the indirect
+taxation: this could not be separately apportioned to the three great
+limbs of the empire without disturbing the great currents of commerce.
+It is enough that by exemptions upon the direct taxes, so far as
+concerns three of them--window, assessed, and income--Ireland receives a
+large indemnity.
+
+
+II. Connected with the last head is the reproach made to Great Britain
+upon the subject of railway encouragement. What encouragement? By money?
+Yes, says Lord John Russell, whose experience in office (as one of a
+cabinet plagued in the way that all cabinets are by projectors and
+scheming capitalists) ought to have taught him better. Have we given any
+money to our own railways? No: but England is rich. True: and Ireland is
+not suffered to be _so_ rich as she might be by her Irish "friends." But
+rich or not rich, is no question here. If schemes of profit are not
+profitable in this country, we do not encourage them. If they _are_
+profitable, they want no encouragement. Still, it is said, might it not
+be prudent to feed the railroads in Ireland, not with any view to the
+scheme for itself but considered as a means of development for the
+circumjacent country? No, replies Sir Robert, that is an error: railways
+may benefit _by_ the country: but the country through which they race,
+is rarely affected by _them_ more than the atmosphere aloft by the
+balloons. The great towns on the route, or at the extremities, doubtless
+benefit; but in too small a degree, unless they are manufacturing towns,
+to warrant the least thoughtful of ministers in assisting them. However,
+to make a beginning, and as a topic to be borne in mind, how much would
+be wanted? A matter of _ten millions_, says Lord John. _Olli
+subridens_, replies the minister, "What! only that?" But, returning to
+business, he reminds the house--that, even for so small a sum as ten
+millions sterling, the nation would perhaps expect security. Who is to
+give it? Are the counties traversed to be assessed? But they will disown
+the benefit arising. And, says Sir Robert, take a miniature case--a sum
+little more than one-tenth of ten millions was advanced by this country
+on account of the Irish work-houses, and for a time there was some
+advantage gained to the industry of the land. But that soon passed away,
+and then two evils arose at once. The money was to be repaid, and the
+employment was at an end. But this latter evil was worse than it seemed,
+for it did not act as a simple privation of so much good; the _extra_
+stimulation of the national industry, as invariably happens, and as at
+this moment we see in England upon the cessation of a ten years' demand
+for iron, on account of our own railways, brought about a corresponding,
+exhaustion for the new Poor Law, tending violently to civil tumults. The
+repayment of that advance will yet cost Ireland many a groan.
+
+III. If Ireland, then, is not ill-treated as to her taxation, or her
+public improvements, is it true that she is ill-treated in the persons
+of her children? That also has been said; but Sir Robert disperses that
+fancy by facts which are as conclusive as they are really little needed
+at this day. Sculptors had been appointed by members of the cabinet,
+police commissioners, &c.; and, as will easily be believed, with no
+question ever mooted as to their birth, whether English, Scotch, or
+Irish. Subsequently, however, it had turned out as a blind fact, which
+is useful in showing the entire indifference to such a point in the
+minds of public men, that the larger proportion of successful candidates
+were Irish. This was an accident certainly, but an accident
+irreconcilable with the least shadow of prejudice pointing in that
+direction.
+
+IV. Of social grievances, grievances connected with the state of
+society, there are but too many in Ireland: relations between landlord
+and tenant for instance; but these are so little caused or aggravated by
+Parliament, that they cannot even be lightened by Parliament. What
+little is possible, however, says Sir Robert, we will attempt. The
+elective franchise is another case; yet, if that is now too much
+narrowed, why is it so? Let Ireland thank herself, and the growing
+indisposition amongst Irish landlords to grant leases. Might we not,
+then, transfer to Ireland our English franchise? But _that_, applied to
+Irish institutions and arrangements, would narrow the electoral basis
+still further than it is narrowed. Not, therefore, _against_ the Irish,
+but in their behalf, we withhold our own unsuitable privileges. It is a
+separate question, besides, whether the _moral_ civilization of Ireland
+is equal to the exercise of our English franchise. Education of the
+people again, if there is an obstacle at this time to its movement in
+Ireland, where does it originate? We all know the great schism upon that
+subject existing amongst the Irish Protestants, and how embarrassing the
+Government has found that fend--how intractable and embittered, for the
+very reason that it rested upon no personal jealousies which might have
+relaxed or been overruled, but (for one side at least) upon deep
+conscientious scruples. Reverence those scruples we must; but still the
+Irish are not entitled to charge upon ministers a public evil of their
+own creation. In all these calamities, or others of the same nature,
+oppressing the state of society in Ireland, and derived as an
+inheritance from ancient times, the blame too notoriously, in no part of
+it, rests with the English ministers; and the proof is evident in this
+fact--that, except by one monstrous anti-social proposal from a very few
+of the opposition members, as a remedy for the land-occupancy
+complaints--a proposal strongly disavowed by the leaders of the party,
+no _practical_ flaw was detected, either of omission or commission, as
+affecting the ministerial policy. The objections were pure generalities;
+and even Lord John Russell, who adopted the usual complaint against the
+minister, that he brought forward no definite plan, and whose own field
+of choice was therefore left all the wider, offered nothing more
+specific than the following mysterious suggestion, which is probably a
+Theban hieroglyphic--that, like as the "celebrated" Cromwell, in times
+past, did appoint Sir Matthew Hale to the presiding seat on the bench
+of justice, even so ought Sir Robert Peel to----. But there the
+revelation ceased. What are we to suppose the suppressed _apodosis_ of
+the proposition? Was it to disarm Mr O'Connell, by making him an
+archbishop? Little propensity have we to treat a great national crisis
+with levity; but surely every man is entitled to feel indignant, that
+when the burden of attack upon Government, is for their silence with
+regard to specific measures, (which, to be effectual, must often be
+secret,) those who have the good fortune to be under no such restraints
+of secrecy, find themselves able to suggest absolutely nothing. National
+resources were not locked up in the treasury--the particular choice may
+be secret, but the resources themselves lie open to the whole world--to
+us, to Lord John Russell, who have no power, quite as much as to Sir
+Robert Peel, who wields the thunder. And we cannot but remind the
+reader, that one reason, beyond the policy of concealment, which made it
+hard for Government to offer suggestions absolutely new, was the simple
+fact, that such as were fit to be published they had already _acted_ on.
+The remodeling of arrangements for the army, the bill for intercepting
+the means of arming a rebel force, and the suppression of
+insurrectionary magistrates--these three measures were clearly the first
+steps to be taken. One only of the three is still lingering; whom, have
+we to thank for _that_? A ministry to which the Duke of Wellington
+belongs, is not likely to talk first and act afterwards. By the time it
+became necessary to talk, their work, _for the present_, had been done.
+But some few significant words there were from leaders in both Houses,
+which convince us, that, upon any important _change_ of movements on the
+part of the Repealers, the silent menaces of Government will begin to
+speak in a tone such as no man can misunderstand.
+
+V. _Patronage_.--Has that great instrument of government been abused by
+Sir Robert Peel in the management of Ireland? This question might have
+arranged itself under either of the two first heads; but we choose to
+bring it forward in an insulated form. For we believe that no
+administration of any day has ever made the avowal, or had it in their
+power to make the avowal, which Sir Robert Peel made to the House of
+Commons in the speech we are now reviewing. He read two separate
+extracts from his own official instructions to Lord De Grey, which
+actually announced his resolution (unfettered by the slightest reserve)
+to renounce the entire church patronage of Ireland as an instrument of
+administration. The Lord-Lieutenant was authorized to dispense this
+patronage with one solitary view to merit, professional merit, and the
+highest interests of Ireland. So noble an act as this, and one so
+unprecedented in its nobility, needs no praise of ours. It speaks for
+itself. And it would be injurious to spend words in emblazonry of _that_
+which, by a spontaneous movement, _both_ sides of the House received
+with volleying cheers. That kind of applause is as rare and as
+significant as the act itself.
+
+VI. and VII. Finally, however, all other questions connected with this
+great crisis, sink in importance by the side of the one great interest
+at stake upon the Union--is _that_ to be maintained? And, as the Union
+could not possibly survive the destruction of the Protestant
+Establishment, is _that_ to be protected? Are we to receive, at the
+hands of traitors, a new model for our glorious empire? and, without
+condescending to pause for one instant in discussing consequences, are
+we to drink of this cup of indignity--that the constitution and
+settlement of our state, which one hundred and fifty five years ago
+required the deliberations of two ancient nations, England and Scotland,
+collected in their representatives, to effect, now at this day are to be
+put into the furnace anew by obscure conspirators, and traitors long
+since due to the gallows. Say not, with Sir James Graham, "that this
+all-conquering England would perish by the consequences." If that were
+endured, already she _has_ perished: and the glory of Israel has
+departed. The mere possibility that, by a knot of conspirators, our arch
+of empire could be dismembered, that by a bare shout of treason it could
+be thrown down for ever like the battlements of Jericho at the blast of
+trumpets, would proclaim, as in that Judean tragedy, that we stood
+under a curse of wrath divine. The dismemberment itself would be less
+fatal than the ignominy of its mode. Better to court the hostility of
+foreign nations, better to lay open our realms to a free movement of
+that wrath against us which is so deeply founded in their envy, than to
+perish by the hands of poltroons, of thieves, of conspirators. But this
+fate is not ours. Many times our Government have repeated that
+assurance. But, as in the expressions of our affection to the Sovereign,
+this assurance is rightly renewed from time to time, and occasions are
+sought for renewing it, let the ministers be assured--that, on this
+point, we are all sound at heart. All of us are with them from shore to
+shore. In this island there will be no faltering. It is shocking,
+undoubtedly: it is awful, and _at such a moment_, to hear three lords of
+old official standing--Lords Palmerston, Howick, and John Russell,
+taking occasion to propound ridiculous and senseless modifications of a
+plan essentially rebellious, the plan of partial confiscation, or of
+partial degradation, for the Protestant Church. Patience hardly can keep
+pace with the deliberate consideration of the contradictions which would
+follow--whether from tampering with the Church, or with the political
+settlement of our nations. Sir R. Peel has traced both. From the one
+case _must_ follow an independent army, for Ireland an independent
+government, an independent war as often as the popular will should speak
+loudly. From a participation of Protestant property, or Protestant
+dignities with the Roman Catholics, would follow instantly the transfer
+of Protestant churches, already few enough, the translation of Popish
+priests (that is, of selected traitors) to our senate. The very hint is
+a monument to the disgrace of these noble lords; fatal to all pretences
+of _earnest_ patriotism; but still in _them_ accounted for, and perhaps
+a little palliated, by the known necessities of party. As respects the
+_general_ mind, there is no such imbecility abroad; no such disposition
+to traffic or go halves, temporize or capitulate with treason. One only
+error is prevalent: it has been noticed by Sir R. Peel, who indeed
+overlooked nothing; but it may be well to put the refutation into
+another form. The caballing for dissolution of the Union, why should
+that be treasonable? Is the Act of Union more than an Act of Parliament?
+Is not every act of Parliament open to objection, petition, annulment?
+No. It is dismemberment, says Sir Robert Peel, of the state. We add
+this--How, and in virtue of what law, does the house of Brunswick reign?
+By the Act of Settlement--an act of Parliament--an act about a hundred
+and fifty years old. That is but an act of Parliament. Is it open, then,
+to any of us, or all of us, to call a meeting for rescinding the Act of
+Settlement? But all will now advance to a rapid consummation; Mr
+O'Connell pursues only his old movement--then he is lost by the decay of
+the enthusiasm. He adopts a new one--that which he has obscurely
+announced. Then we are as sure as we are of day and night, of _his_
+treason, as of British power to crush it, that the suspended
+thunderbolt, now raised aloft by the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert
+Peel, will put an end to him for ever.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote N: We use the words of the Chancellor; words, therefore,
+technically legal, in the debate of July, on Lord Clanricarde's motion
+for a vote of censure upon Sir E. Sugden.]
+
+[Footnote O: A more striking neglect is chargeable upon _some_
+administration in suffering the Repealers quietly to receive military
+training. We no more understand how this seditious act could have been
+overlooked at the time, than we understand the process by which modest
+assemblies of Orangemen have come to be viewed as illegal, pending a
+state of law, which, upon the whole, justifies the much larger
+assemblies of "foul conspirators."]
+
+[Footnote P: People in Ireland, under various heads, as officers of the
+different services, &c., pay, but not in quality of Irishmen, when by
+accident they are such.]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume
+54, No. 334, August 1843, by Various
+
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54,
+No. 334, August 1843, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: April 13, 2008 [EBook #25065]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Brendan OConnor, Jonathan Ingram, Josephine
+Paolucci and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net. (This file was produced from images
+generously made available by The Internet Library of Early
+Journals.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<h1>BLACKWOOD'S</h1>
+
+<h1>EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.</h1>
+
+<h3>No. CCCXXXIV AUGUST, 1843. VOL. LIV.</h3>
+
+<p class="notes">Transcriber's Note: Minor typos have been corrected and footnotes moved
+to the end of the article. Table of contents has been created for the HTML version.</p>
+
+<h2>Contents</h2>
+<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. -->
+<p>
+<a href="#FORMS_AND_BALLADS_OF_SCHILLER_BY_SIR_EDWARD_LYTTON_BULWER"><b>FORMS AND BALLADS OF SCHILLER. BY SIR EDWARD LYTTON BULWER.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#A_READING_PARTY_IN_THE_LONG_VACATION"><b>A READING PARTY IN THE LONG VACATION.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTERS_OF_TURKISH_HISTORY"><b>CHAPTERS OF TURKISH HISTORY.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#EXHIBITIONS"><b>EXHIBITIONS</b></a><br />
+<a href="#MARSTON_OR_THE_MEMOIRS_OF_A_STATESMAN"><b>MARSTON, OR, THE MEMOIRS OF A STATESMAN.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#THE_DEVILS_FRILLS"><b>THE DEVIL'S FRILLS.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#ADVENTURES_IN_LOUISIANA"><b>ADVENTURES IN LOUISIANA.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#COMMERCIAL_POLICY_EUROPE"><b>COMMERCIAL POLICY&mdash;EUROPE</b></a><br />
+<a href="#JOLLY_FATHER_JOE"><b>JOLLY FATHER JOE</b></a><br />
+<a href="#THE_CRY_OF_THE_CHILDREN"><b>THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#LETTER_TO_CHRISTOPHER_NORTH_ESQ"><b>LETTER TO CHRISTOPHER NORTH, ESQ.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#THE_REPEAL_AGITATION"><b>THE REPEAL AGITATION.</b></a><br />
+</p>
+<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. -->
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h2><a name="FORMS_AND_BALLADS_OF_SCHILLER_BY_SIR_EDWARD_LYTTON_BULWER" id="FORMS_AND_BALLADS_OF_SCHILLER_BY_SIR_EDWARD_LYTTON_BULWER"></a>FORMS AND BALLADS OF SCHILLER. BY SIR EDWARD LYTTON BULWER.</h2>
+
+<h4>PART THE LAST.</h4>
+
+
+<p>We here close our attempts to convey to the English reader some notion,
+however inadequate, of the genius and mind of Schiller. It is in these
+Poems, rather, perhaps, than in his Dramas and Prose works, that the
+upright earnestness of the mind, and the rich variety of the genius, are
+best displayed. Here, certainly, can best be seen that peculiar union of
+intellect and imagination which Mr Carlyle has so well distinguished as
+Schiller's characteristic attribute, and in which it would be difficult
+to name the modern poet by whom he is surpassed; and here the variety of
+the genius is least restrained and limited by the earnestness of the
+mind. For Schiller's variety is not that of Shakspeare, a creative and
+universal spirit, passing with the breath of life into characters the
+most diverse, and unidentified with the creations its invisible agency
+invokes. But it is the variety of one in whom the consciousness of his
+own existence is never laid aside; shown not so much in baring the minds
+and hearts of others, as in developing the progress and the struggles of
+his own, in the infinite gradations of joy and of sorrow, of exquisite
+feeling and solemn thought. Hence, in the drama, arise his faults and
+deficiencies; in his characters, he himself speaks. They are gigantic
+images of his own moods at different epochs of his life&mdash;impassioned
+with Moor&mdash;philosophizing with Posa&mdash;stately, tranquil, and sad, with
+Wallenstein. But as, in his dramas, this intense perception of
+self&mdash;this earnest, haunting consciousness&mdash;this feeling of genius as a
+burden, and of life as a religion&mdash;interferes with true dramatic
+versatility; so, on the contrary, these qualities give variety in his
+poems to the expositions of a mind always varying, always
+growing&mdash;always eager to think, and sensitive to feel. And his art loved
+to luxuriate in all that copious fertility of materials which the
+industry of a scholar submitted to the mastery of a poet; to turn to
+divine song whatever had charmed the study or aroused the thought:
+philosophy, history, the dogma, or the legend, all repose in the memory
+to bloom in the verse. The surface of knowledge apparent in his poems is
+immense; and this alone suffices to secure variety in thought. But the
+aspiring and ardent nature of his intellect made him love to attempt
+also constant experiments in the theme and in the style. The romantic
+ballad, the classical tale, the lyric, the didactic, the
+epigrammatic&mdash;the wealth of his music comprehended every note, the
+boldness of his temper adventured every hazard. Yet still, (as in our
+Byron, in our Goldsmith, and as, perhaps, in every mind tenacious of its
+impressions,) some favourite ideas take possession of him so forcibly,
+as to be frequently repeated as important truths. The sacred and
+majestic office of the poet&mdash;the beauty of ideal life, (in which the
+author of the "<i>Robbers</i>" and "<i>William Tell</i>" deemed, at last, that the
+only liberty was to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> found)&mdash;the worship of Virtue and the Beautiful,
+for their own sake, and without hope of reward;&mdash;these, and many ideas
+minor to, and proceeding from them, revisit us in a thousand tones of
+eloquent and haunting music.</p>
+
+<p>Reluctantly we tear ourselves from a task which has indeed been a labour
+of love. Many poets may inspire as high an admiration as Schiller; few
+so tender a personal affection. Even in his doubts and his errors, we
+have that interest in his struggles which arises from the conviction of
+his sound heart and his manly nature. Wrestling at one time with bitter
+poverty, at one with unhappy passion&mdash;lonely in his habits, prematurely
+broken in his health, his later wisdom dispelling his early dreams of
+Utopian liberty&mdash;still, throughout all, his bravery never fails him, his
+gentleness is never soured; his philanthropy changes its form, but it is
+never chilled. Even when he wanders into error, it is from his search
+for truth. That <i>humanity</i> which the French writers of the last century
+sought to preach, Schiller took from the scoffing wit of Voltaire, and
+the unhealthy enthusiasm of Rousseau, to invest it with the thoughtful
+sweetness and the robust vigour of his own great soul. And we believe
+that no one can depart from the attentive study of that divine bequest
+he has left the world, without a more serious respect for virtue, and a
+more genial affection for mankind.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">E. Lytton Bulwer.</span></p>
+
+
+<h3>SECOND PERIOD.</h3>
+
+<p>The Poems included in the Second Period of Schiller's literary career
+are few, but remarkable for their beauty, and deeply interesting from
+the struggling and anxious state of mind which some of them depict. It
+was, both to his taste and to his thought, a period of visible
+transition. He had survived the wild and irregular power which stamps,
+with fierce and somewhat sensual characters, the productions of his
+youth; but he had not attained that serene repose of strength&mdash;that
+calm, bespeaking depth and fulness, which is found in the best writings
+of his maturer years. In point of style, the Poems in this division have
+more facility and sweetness than those that precede them, and perhaps
+more evident vigour, more popular <i>verve</i> and <i>gusto</i>, than some that
+follow: in point of thought, they mark that era through which few men of
+inquisitive and adventurous genius&mdash;of sanguine and impassioned
+temperament&mdash;and of education chiefly self-formed, undisciplined, and
+imperfect, have failed to pass&mdash;the era of doubt and gloom, of
+self-conflict, and of self-torture.&mdash;In the "<i>Robbers</i>," and much of the
+poetry written in the same period of Schiller's life, there is a bold
+and wild imagination, which attacks rather than questions&mdash;innovates
+rather than examines&mdash;seizes upon subjects of vast social import, that
+float on the surface of opinion, and assails them with a blind and
+half-savage rudeness, according as they offend the enthusiasm of
+unreasoning youth. But now this eager and ardent mind had paused to
+contemplate; its studies were turned to philosophy and history&mdash;a more
+practical knowledge of life (though in this last, Schiller, like most
+German authors, was ever more or less deficient in variety and range)
+had begun to soften the stern and fiery spirit which had hitherto
+sported with the dangerous elements of social revolution. And while this
+change was working, before its feverish agitation subsided into that
+Kantism which is the antipodes of scepticism, it was natural that, to
+the energy which had asserted, denounced, and dogmatized, should succeed
+the reaction of despondency and distrust. Vehement indignation at "the
+solemn plausibilities" of the world pervades the "<i>Robbers</i>." In "<i>Don
+Carlos</i>," (commenced in this period, though published much later,) the
+passion is no longer vehement indignation, but mournful sorrow&mdash;not
+indignation that hypocrisy reigns, but sorrow that honesty cannot
+triumph&mdash;not indignation that formal vice usurps the high places of the
+world, but sorrow that, in the world, warm and generous virtue glows,
+and feels, and suffers&mdash;without reward. So, in the poems of this period,
+are two that made a considerable sensation at their first
+appearance&mdash;"<i>The Conflict</i>," published originally under the title of
+"<i>The Freethinking of Passion</i>," and "<i>Resignation</i>." They present<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> a
+melancholy view of the moral struggles in the heart of a noble and
+virtuous man. From the first of these poems, Schiller, happily and
+wisely, at a later period of his life, struck the passages most
+calculated to offend. What hand would dare restore them? The few stanzas
+that remain still suggest the outline of dark and painful thoughts,
+which is filled up in the more elaborate, and, in many respects, most
+exquisite, poem of "<i>Resignation</i>." Virtue exacting all sacrifices, and
+giving no reward&mdash;Belief which denies enjoyment, and has no bliss save
+its own illusions; such is the sombre lesson of the melancholy poet&mdash;the
+more impressive because <i>so far</i> it is truth&mdash;deep and everlasting
+truth&mdash;but only, to a Christian, a part of truth. Resignation, so sad if
+not looking beyond the earth, becomes joy, when assured and confident of
+heaven. Another poem in this intermediate collection was no less
+subjected to severe animadversion, but with infinitely less justice. We
+mean "<i>The Gods of Greece</i>." This lament for the beautiful old
+mythology, is but the lament of a poet for the ancient founts of poetry;
+and few, now-a-days, can be literal enough to suppose it seriously
+intended to set up Paganism, to the disparagement of Christianity. But
+the fact is, that Schiller's mind was so essentially religious, that we
+feel more angry, when he whom we would gladly hail as our light and
+guide, only darkens us or misleads, than we should, with a less grave
+and reverent genius. Yet a period&mdash;a transition state&mdash;of doubt and
+despondency is perhaps common to men in proportion to their natural
+dispositions to faith and veneration. With them, it comes from keen
+sympathy with undeserved sufferings&mdash;from wrath at wickedness
+triumphant&mdash;from too intense a brooding over the great mysteries
+involved in the government of the world. Scepticism of this nature can
+but little injure the frivolous, and will be charitably regarded by the
+wise. Schiller's mind soon outgrew the state which, to the mind of a
+poet, above all men, is most ungenial, but the sadness which the
+struggle bequeathed, seems to have wrought a complete revolution in all
+his preconceived opinions. The wild creator of the "<i>Robbers</i>," drunk
+with liberty, and audacious against all restraint, becomes the champion
+of "Holy Order,"&mdash;the denouncer of the French republic&mdash;the extoller of
+an Ideal Life, which should entirely separate Genius the Restless from
+Society the Settled. And as his impetuous and stormy vigour matured into
+the lucent and tranquil art of "<i>Der Spaziergang</i>," "<i>Wallenstein</i>," and
+"<i>Die Braut von Messina</i>," so his philosophy threw itself into calm
+respect for all that custom sanctioned, and convention hallowed.</p>
+
+<p>But even during the painful transition, of which, in his minor poems,
+glimpses alone are visible, Scepticism, with Schiller, never insults the
+devoted, or mocks the earnest mind. It may have sadness&mdash;but never
+scorn. It is the question of a traveller who has lost his way in the
+great wilderness, but who mourns with his fellow-seekers, and has no
+bitter laughter for their wanderings from the goal. This division
+begins, indeed, with a Hymn which atones for whatever pains us in the
+two whose strain and spirit so gloomily contrast it, viz. the matchless
+and immortal "<i>Hymn to Joy</i>"&mdash;a poem steeped in the very essence of
+all-loving and all-aiding, Christianity&mdash;breathing the enthusiasm of
+devout yet gladsome adoration, and ranking amongst the most glorious
+bursts of worship which grateful Genius ever rendered to the benign
+Creator.</p>
+
+<p>And it is peculiarly noticeable, that, whatever Schiller's state of mind
+upon theological subjects at the time that this hymn was composed, and
+though all doctrinal stamp and mark be carefully absent from it, it is
+yet a poem that never could have been written but in a Christian age, in
+a Christian land&mdash;but by a man whose whole soul and heart had been at
+one time (nay, <i>was</i> at the very moment of composition) inspired and
+suffused with that firm belief in God's goodness and His justice&mdash;that
+full assurance of rewards beyond the grave&mdash;that exulting and seraphic
+cheerfulness which associates joy with the Creator&mdash;and that animated
+affection for the Brotherhood of Mankind, which Christianity&mdash;and
+Christianity alone, in its pure, orthodox, gospel form, needing no aid
+from schoolman or philosopher&mdash;taught and teaches. Would, for objects
+higher than the praise which the ingenuity of labour desires and strives
+for&mdash;would that some faint traces of the splendour which invests the
+original, could attend the passage of thoughts so noble and so tender,
+from the verse of a poet to the rhyme of a translator!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h4><span class="smcap">Hymn To Joy.</span></h4>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Spark from the fire that Gods have fed&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2"><span class="smcap">Joy</span>&mdash;thou Elysian Child divine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fire-drunk, our airy footsteps tread,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">O Holy One! thy holy shrine.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The heart that Custom from the other<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Divides, thy charms again unite,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And man in man but hails a brother,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Wherever rest thy wings of light.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>Chorus</i>&mdash;Embrace ye millions&mdash;let this kiss,<br /></span>
+<span class="i18">Brothers, embrace the earth below!<br /></span>
+<span class="i15">You starry worlds that shine on this,<br /></span>
+<span class="i18">One common Father know!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">He who this lot from fate can grasp&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Of one true friend the friend to be,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He who one faithful maid can clasp,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Shall hold with us his jubilee;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yes, each who but one single heart<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In all the earth can claim his own!&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Let him who cannot, stand apart,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And weep beyond the pale, alone!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>Chorus</i>&mdash;Homage to holy Sympathy,<br /></span>
+<span class="i17">Ye dwellers in our mighty ring;<br /></span>
+<span class="i15">Up to yon Star-pavilions&mdash;she<br /></span>
+<span class="i17">Leads to the Unknown King!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">All being drinks the mother-dew<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Of joy from Nature's holy bosom;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Vice and Worth her steps pursue&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">We trace them by the blossom.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hers Love's sweet kiss&mdash;the grape's rich treasure,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That cheers Life on to Death's abode;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Joy in each link&mdash;the worm has pleasure,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The Cherub has the smile of God!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>Chorus</i>&mdash;Why bow ye down&mdash;why down&mdash;ye millions?<br /></span>
+<span class="i17">O World, thy Maker's throne to see,<br /></span>
+<span class="i15">Look upward-search the Star-pavilions:<br /></span>
+<span class="i17"><i>There</i> must His mansion be!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Joy is the mainspring in the whole<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Of endless Nature's calm rotation;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Joy moves the dazzling wheels that roll<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In the great Timepiece of Creation;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Joy breathes on buds, and flowers they are;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Joy beckons&mdash;suns come forth from heaven;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Joy rolls the spheres in realms afar,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Ne'er to thy glass, dim Wisdom, given!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>Chorus</i>&mdash;Joyous as Suns careering gay<br /></span>
+<span class="i17">Along their royal paths on high,<br /></span>
+<span class="i15">March, Brothers, march our dauntless way,<br /></span>
+<span class="i17">As Chiefs to Victory!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Joy, from Truth's pure and lambent fires,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Smiles out upon the ardent seeker;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Joy leads to Virtue Man's desires,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And cheers as Suffering's step grows weaker.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">High from the sunny slopes of Faith,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The gales her waving banners buoy;<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">And through the shattered vaults of Death,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Springs to the choral Angels-Joy!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>Chorus</i>&mdash;Bear this life, millions, bravely bear&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i17">Bear this life for the Better One!<br /></span>
+<span class="i15">See ye the Stars?&mdash;a life is there,<br /></span>
+<span class="i17">Where the reward is won.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Man never can the gods requite;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">How fair alike to gods to be!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where want and woe shall melt in light<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That plays round Bliss eternally!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Revenge and Hatred both forgot;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">No foe, the deadliest, unforgiven;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With smiles that tears can neighbour not;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">No path can lead Regret to Heaven!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>Chorus</i>&mdash;Let all the world be peace and love&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i17">Cancel thy debt-book with thy brother;<br /></span>
+<span class="i15">For God shall judge of <i>us</i> above,<br /></span>
+<span class="i17">As we shall judge each other!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Joy sparkles to us from the bowl&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Behold the juice whose golden colour<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To meekness melts the savage soul,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And gives Despair a Hero's valour.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Up, brothers!&mdash;Lo, we crown the cup!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Lo, the wine flashes to the brim!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Let the bright Fount spring heavenward!&mdash;Up!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To <span class="smcap">The Good Spirit</span> this glass!&mdash;To <span class="smcap">Him</span>!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>Chorus</i>&mdash;Praised by the ever-whirling ring<br /></span>
+<span class="i17">Of Stars, and tuneful Seraphim&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i15">To <span class="smcap">The Good Spirit</span>&mdash;the Father-King<br /></span>
+<span class="i17">In Heaven!&mdash;This glass to Him!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Strong-hearted Hope to Sorrow's sloth;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Swift aid to guiltless Woe;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Eternity to plighted Troth;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Truth just to Friend and Foe;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Proud men before the throne to stand;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">(These things are worth the dying!)<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Good fortune to the Honest, and<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Confusion to the Lying!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>Chorus</i>&mdash;Draw closer in the holy ring,<br /></span>
+<span class="i17">Sworn by the wine-cup's golden river&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i15">Sworn by the Stars, and by their King,<br /></span>
+<span class="i17">To keep our vow for ever!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<h4><span class="smcap">The Invincible Armada.</span></h4>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">She comes, she comes&mdash;the Burthen of the Deeps!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Beneath her wails the Universal Sea!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With clanking chains and a new God, she sweeps,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And with a thousand thunders, unto thee!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The ocean-castles and the floating hosts&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Ne'er on their like, look'd the wild waters!&mdash;Well<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">May man the monster name "Invincible."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">O'er shudd'ring waves she gathers to thy coasts!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The horror that she spreads can claim<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Just title to her haughty name.<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">The trembling Neptune quails<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Under the silent and majestic forms;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Doom of Worlds in those dark sails;&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Near and more near they sweep! and slumber all the Storms<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">Before thee the array,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Blest island, Empress of the Sea!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The sea-born squadrons threaten thee,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And thy great heart, <span class="smcap">Britannia</span>!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Woe to thy people, of their freedom proud&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She rests, a thunder heavy in its cloud!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who, to thy hand the orb and sceptre gave,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That thou should'st be the sovereign of the nations?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To tyrant kings thou wert thyself the slave,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Till Freedom dug from Law its deep foundations;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The mighty CHART thy citizens made kings,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And kings to citizens sublimely bow'd!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And thou thyself, upon thy realm of water,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hast thou not render'd millions up to slaughter,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">When thy ships brought upon their sailing wings<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">The sceptre&mdash;and the shroud?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What should'st thou thank?&mdash;Blush, Earth, to hear and feel:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What should'st thou thank?&mdash;Thy genius and thy steel.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Behold the hidden and the giant fires!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Behold thy glory trembling to its fall!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thy coming doom the round earth shall appall,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And all the hearts of freemen beat for thee,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And all free souls their fate in shine foresee&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2"><i>Theirs</i> is <i>thy</i> glory's fall!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">One look below the Almighty gave,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where stream'd the lion-flags of thy proud foe;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And near and wider yawn'd the horrent grave.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"And who," saith HE, "shall lay mine England low&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The stem that blooms with hero-deeds&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The rock when man from wrong a refuge needs&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The stronghold where the tyrant comes in vain?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who shall bid England vanish from the main?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ne'er be this only Eden freedom knew,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Man's stout defence from Power, to Fate consign'd."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">God the Almighty blew,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the Armada went to every wind!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<h4><span class="smcap">The Conflict.</span></h4>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">No! I this conflict longer will not wage,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The conflict Duty claims&mdash;the giant task;&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thy spells, O Virtue, never can assuage<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The heart's wild fire&mdash;this offering do not ask!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">True, I have sworn&mdash;a solemn vow have sworn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That I myself will curb the self within;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet take thy wreath, no more it shall be worn&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Take back thy wreath, and leave me free to sin.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Rent be the contract I with thee once made;&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">She loves me, loves me&mdash;forfeit be thy crown!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Blest he who, lull'd in rapture's dreamy shade,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Glides, as I glide, the deep fall gladly down.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">She sees the worm that my youth's bloom decays,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">She sees my springtime wasted as it flees;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And, marv'ling at the rigour that gainsays<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The heart's sweet impulse, my reward decrees.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Distrust this angel purity, fair soul!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">It is to guilt thy pity armeth me;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Could Being lavish its unmeasured whole,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">It ne'er could give a gift to rival <i>Thee!</i><br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Thee&mdash;the dear guilt I ever seek to shun,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">O tyranny of fate, O wild desires!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My virtue's only crown can but be won<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In that last breath&mdash;when virtue's self expires!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<h4><span class="smcap">Resignation.</span></h4>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And I, too, was amidst Arcadia born,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And Nature seem'd to woo me;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And to my cradle such sweet joys were sworn:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And I, too, was amidst Arcadia born,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Yet the short spring gave only tears unto me!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Life but one blooming holiday can keep&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">For me the bloom is fled;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The silent Genius of the Darker Sleep<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Turns down my torch&mdash;and weep, my brethren, weep&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Weep, for the light is dead!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Upon thy bridge the shadows round me press,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">O dread Eternity!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And I have known no moment that can bless;&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Take back this letter meant for Happiness&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">The seal's unbrokenen&mdash;see!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Before thee, Judge, whose eyes the dark-spun veil<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Conceals, my murmur came;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On this our orb a glad belief prevails,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That, thine the earthly sceptre and the scales,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4"><span class="smcap">Requiter</span> is thy name.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Terrors, they say, thou cost for Vice prepare,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And joys the good shall know;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thou canst the crooked heart unmask and bare;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thou canst the riddle of our fate declare,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And keep account with Woe.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With thee a home smiles for the exiled one&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">There ends the thorny strife.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Unto my side a godlike vision won,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Called <span class="smcap">Truth</span>, (few know her, and the many shun,)<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And check'd the reins of life.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"I will repay thee in a holier land&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Give thou to me thy youth;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All I can grant thee lies in this command."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I heard, and, trusting in a holier land,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Gave my young joys to Truth.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Give me thy Laura&mdash;give me her whom Love<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">To thy heart's core endears;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The usurer, Bliss, pays every grief&mdash;<i>above</i>!"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I tore the fond shape from the bleeding love,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And gave&mdash;albeit with tears!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"What bond can bind the Dead to life once more?<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Poor fool," (the scoffer cries;)<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Gull'd by the despot's hireling lie, with lore<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That gives for Truth a shadow;&mdash;life is o'er<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">When the delusion dies!"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Tremblest thou," hiss'd the serpent-herd in scorn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">"Before the vain deceit?<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Made holy but by custom, stale and worn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The phantom Gods, of craft and folly born&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The sick world's solemn cheat?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What is this Future underneath the stone?<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But for the veil that hides, revered alone;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The giant shadow of our Terror, thrown<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">On Conscience' troubled glass&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Life's lying likeness&mdash;in the dreary shroud<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Of the cold sepulchre&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Embalm'd by Hope&mdash;Time's mummy&mdash;which the proud<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Delirium, driv'ling through thy reason's cloud,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Calls '<i>Immortality!</i>'<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Giv'st thou for hope (corruption proves its lie)<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Sure joy that most delights us?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Six thousand years has Death reign'd tranquilly!&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor one corpse come to whisper those who die,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">What <i>after</i> death requites us!"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Along Time's shores I saw the Seasons fly;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Nature herself, interr'd<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Among her blooms, lay dead; to those who die<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There came no corpse to whisper Hope! Still I<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Clung to the Godlike Word.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Judge!&mdash;All my joys to thee did I resign,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">All that did most delight ne;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And now I kneel&mdash;man's scorn I scorn'd&mdash;thy shrine<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Have I adored&mdash;Thee only held divine&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Requiter, now requite me!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"For all my sons an equal love I know,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And equal each condition,"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Answer'd an unseen Genius&mdash;"See below,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Two flowers, for all who rightly seek them, blow&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The <span class="smcap">Hope</span> and the <span class="smcap">Fruition</span>.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He who has pluck'd the one, resign'd must see<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The sister's forfeit bloom:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Let Unbelief enjoy&mdash;Belief must be<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All to the chooser;&mdash;the world's history<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Is the world's judgment doom.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thou hast had <span class="smcap">Hope</span>&mdash;in thy belief thy prize&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Thy bliss was centred in it:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Eternity itself&mdash;(Go ask the Wise!)<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Never to him who forfeits, resupplies<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The sum struck from the Minute!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<h4><span class="smcap">The Gods Of Greece.</span></h4>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i10">1.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">Ye in the age gone by,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who ruled the world&mdash;a world how lovely then!&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And guided still the steps of happy men<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In the light leading strings of careless joy!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ah, flourish'd them your service of delight!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How different, oh, how different, in the day<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When thy sweet fanes with many a wreath were bright,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">O Venus Amathusia!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i10">2.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Then, through a veil of dreams<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Woven by Song, Truth's youthful beauty glow'd,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And life's redundant and rejoicing streams<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Gave to the soulless, soul&mdash;where'er they flow'd.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Man gifted Nature with divinity<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To lift and link her to the breast of Love;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All things betray'd to the initiate eye<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The track of gods above!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i10">3.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Where lifeless&mdash;fix'd afar,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A flaming ball to our dull sense is given,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ph&oelig;bus Apollo, in his golden car,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In silent glory swept the fields of heaven!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On yonder hill the Oread was adored,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In yonder tree the Dryad held her home;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And from her Urn the gentle Naiad pour'd<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The wavelet's silver foam.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i10">4.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Yon bay, chaste Daphn&egrave; wreathed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Yon stone was mournful Niobe's mute cell,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Low through yon sedges pastoral Syrinx breathed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And through those groves wail'd the sweet Philomel;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The tears of Ceres swell'd in yonder rill&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Tears shed for Proserpine to Hades borne;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And, for her lost Adonis, yonder hill<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Heard Cytherea mourn!&mdash;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i10">5.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Heaven's shapes were charm'd unto<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The mortal race of old Deucalion;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pyrrha's fair daughter, humanly to woo,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Came down, in shepherd-guise, Latona's son.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Between men, heroes, Gods, harmonious then<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Love wove sweet links and sympathies divine;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Blest Amathusia, heroes, Gods, and men,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Equals before thy shrine!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i10">6.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Not to that culture gay,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Stern self-denial, or sharp penance wan!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Well might each heart be happy in that day&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">For Gods, the Happy Ones, were kin to Man!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Beautiful alone, the Holy there!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">No pleasure shamed the Gods of that young race;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So that the chaste Cam&oelig;n&aelig; favouring were,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And the subduing Grace!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i10">7.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">A palace every shrine;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Your very sports heroic;&mdash;Yours the crown<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of contests hallow'd to a power divine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">As rush'd the chariots thund'ring to renown.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fair round the altar where the incense breathed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Moved your melodious dance inspired; and fair<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Above victorious brows, the garland wreathed<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Sweet leaves round odorous hair!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i10">8.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The lively Thyrsus-swinger,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And the wild car the exulting Panthers bore,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Announced the Presence of the Rapture-Bringer&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Bounded the Satyr and blithe Fawn before;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And M&aelig;nads, as the frenzy stung the soul,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Hymn'd, in their madding dance, the glorious wine&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As ever beckon'd to the lusty bowl<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The ruddy Host divine!<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i10">9.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Before the bed of death<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">No ghastly spectre stood&mdash;but from the porch<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of life, the lip&mdash;one kiss inhaled the breath,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And the mute graceful Genius lower'd a torch.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The judgment-balance of the Realms below,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A judge, himself of mortal lineage, held;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The very Furies at the Thracian's woe,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Were moved and music-spell'd.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i10">10.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">In the Elysian grove<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The shades renew'd the pleasures life held dear:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The faithful spouse rejoin'd remember'd love,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And rush'd along the meads the charioteer;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There Linus pour'd the old accustom'd strain;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Admetus there Alcestes still could greet; his<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Friend there once more Orestes could regain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">His arrows&mdash;Philoctetes!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i10">11.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">More glorious then the meeds<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That in their strife with labour nerved the brave,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To the great doer of renown&egrave;d deeds,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The Hebe and the Heaven the Thunderer gave.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To him the rescued Rescuer of the dead,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Bow'd down the silent and Immortal Host;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the Twin Stars their guiding lustre shed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">On the bark tempest-tost!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i10">12.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Art thou, fair world, no more?<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Return, thou virgin-bloom on Nature's face;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ah, only on the Minstrel's magic shore,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Can we the footstep of sweet Fable trace!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The meadows mourn for the old hallowing life;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Vainly we search the earth of gods bereft;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where once the warm and living shapes were rife,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Shadows alone are left!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i10">13.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Cold, from the North, has gone<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Over the Flowers the Blast that kill'd their May;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And, to enrich the worship of the <span class="smcap">One</span>,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A Universe of Gods must pass away!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Mourning, I search on yonder starry steeps,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But thee no more, Selene, there I see!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And through the woods I call, and o'er the deeps,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And&mdash;Echo answers me!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i10">14.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Deaf to the joys she gives&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Blind to the pomp of which she is possest&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Unconscious of the spiritual Power that lives<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Around, and rules her&mdash;by our bliss unblest&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dull to the Art that colours or creates,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Like the dead timepiece, Godless <span class="smcap">Nature</span> creeps<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her plodding round, and, by the leaden weights,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The slavish motion keeps.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i10">15.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">To-morrow to receive<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">New life, she digs her proper grave to-day;<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">And icy moons, with weary sameness, weave<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">From their own light their fullness and decay:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Home to the Poet's land the Gods are flown;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Light use in <i>them</i> that later world discerns,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which, the diviner leading-strings outgrown,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">On its own axle turns.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i10">16.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Home!&mdash;and with them are gone<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The hues they gazed on, and the tones they heard,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Life's beauty and life's melodies&mdash;alone<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Broods o'er the desolate void the lifeless Word!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet rescued from Time's deluge, still they throng,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Unseen, the Pindus they were wont to cherish,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ah&mdash;that which gains immortal life in song<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To mortal life must perish!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>We subjoin a few poems, belonging to the third period, which were
+omitted in our former selections from that division.</p>
+
+
+<h4><span class="smcap">The Meeting.</span></h4>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i10">1.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I see her still, with many a fair one nigh,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Of every fair the stateliest shape appear:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like a lone son she shone upon my eye&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">I stood afar, and durst not venture near.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Seized, as her presence brighten'd round me, by<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The trembling passion of voluptuous fear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet, swift, as borne upon some hurrying wing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The impulse snatch'd me, and I struck the string!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i10">2.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">What then I felt&mdash;what sung&mdash;my memory hence<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">From that wild moment would in vain invoke&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It was the life of some discover'd sense<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That in the heart's divine emotion spoke;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Long years imprison'd, and escaping thence<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">From every chain, the SOUL enchanted broke,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And found a music in its own deep core,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Its holiest, deepest deep, unguess'd before.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i10">3.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Like melody long hush'd, and lost in space,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Back to its home the breathing spirit came:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I look'd, and saw upon that angel face<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The fair love circled with the modest shame;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I heard (and heaven descended on the place)<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Low-whisper'd words a charm&egrave;d truth proclaim&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Save in thy choral hymns, O spirit-shore,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ne'er may I hear such thrilling sweetness more!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i10">4.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"I know the worth within the heart which sighs,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Yet shuns, the modest sorrow to declare;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And what rude Fortune niggardly denies,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Love to the noble can with love repair.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The lowly have the loftiest destinies;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Love only culls the flower that love should wear;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And ne'er in vain for love's rich gifts, shill yearn<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The heart that feels their wealth&mdash;and can return!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span></p>
+<h4><span class="smcap">To Emma.</span></h4>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i10">1.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Amidst the cloud-grey deeps afar<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The Bliss departed lies;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How linger on one lonely star<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The loving wistful eyes!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Alas&mdash;a star in truth&mdash;the light<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shines but a signal of the night!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i10">2.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">If lock'd within the icy chill<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Of the long sleep, thou wert&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My faithful grief could find thee still<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A life within my heart;&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But, oh, the worse despair to see<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thee live to earth, and die to me!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i10">3.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Can those sweet longing hopes, which make<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Love's essence, thus decay?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Can that be love which doth forsake?&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2"><i>That</i> love&mdash;which fades away?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That earthly gifts are brief, I knew&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is that all heaven-born mortal too?<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<h4><span class="smcap">To A Young Friend Devoting Himself To Philosophy.</span></h4>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Severe the proof the Grecian youth was doom'd to undergo,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Before he might what lurks beneath the Eleusinia know&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Art <i>thou</i> prepared and ripe, the shrine&mdash;that inner shrine&mdash;to win,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where Pallas guards from vulgar eyes the mystic prize within?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Know'st thou what bars thy way? how dear the bargain thou dost make,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When but to buy uncertain good, sure good thou dost forsake?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Feel'st thou sufficient strength to brave the deadliest human fray&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When Heart from Reason&mdash;Sense from Thought, shall rend themselves away?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sufficient valour, war with Doubt, the Hydra-shape, to wage;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And that worst Foe within thyself with manly soul engage?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With eyes that keep their heavenly health&mdash;the innocence of youth<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To guard from every falsehood, fair beneath the mask of Truth?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fly, if thou can'st not trust thy heart to guide thee on the way&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oh, fly the charm&egrave;d margin ere th' abyss engulf its prey.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Round many a step that seeks the light, the shades of midnight close;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But in the glimmering twilight, see&mdash;how safely Childhood goes!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<h4><span class="smcap">The Puppet-show Of Life.</span></h4>
+
+<h4>(<i>Das Spiel des Lebens.</i>)</h4>
+
+<h5><span class="smcap">A Paraphrase.</span></h5>
+
+<p>A <i>literal</i> version of this pretty little poem, which possibly may have
+been suggested by some charming passages in Wilhelm Meister, would,
+perhaps, be incompatible with the spirit which constitutes its chief
+merit. And perhaps, therefore, the original may be more faithfully
+rendered (like many of the Odes of Horace) by paraphrase than
+translation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Ho&mdash;ho&mdash;my puppet-show!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ladies and gentlemen, see my show!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Life and the world&mdash;look here, in troth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Though but <i>in parvo</i>, I promise ye both!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The world and life&mdash;in my box are they;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But keep at a distance, good folks, I pray!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lit is each lamp, from the stage to the porch,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With Venus's naphtha, from Cupid's torch;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Never a moment, if rules can tempt ye,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Never a moment my scene is empty!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Here is the babe in his loading-strings&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Here is the boy at play;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Here is the passionate youth with wings,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Like a bird's on a stormy day,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To and fro, waving here and there,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Down to the earth and aloft through the air!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Now see the man, as for combat, enter&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where is the peril he fears to adventure?<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">See how the puppets speed on to the race,}<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Each his own fortune pursues in the chase; }<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How many the rivals, how narrow the space! }<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But, hurry and scurry, O mettlesome game!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The cars roll in thunder, the wheels rush in flame.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How the brave dart onward, and pant and glow!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How the craven behind them come creeping slow&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ha! ha! see how Pride gets a terrible fall!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">See how Prudence, or Cunning, out-races them all!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">See how at the goal, with her smiling eyes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ever waits Woman to give the prize!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<h4><span class="smcap">The Commencement Of The New Century.</span></h4>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Where can Peace find a refuge?&mdash;whither, say,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Can Freedom turn?&mdash;lo, friend, before our view<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The <span class="smcap">Century</span> rends itself in storm away,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And, red with slaughter, dawns on earth the New.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The girdle of the lands is loosen'd;&mdash;hurl'd<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To dust the forms old Custom deem'd divine,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Safe from War's fury not the watery world;&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Safe not the Nile-God nor the antique Rhine.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Two mighty nations make the world their field,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Deaming the world is for their heirloom given&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Against the freedom of all lands they wield<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">This&mdash;Neptune's trident; that&mdash;the Thund'rer's levin.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Gold to their scales each region must afford;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And, as fierce Brennus in Gaul's early tale,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Frank casts in the iron of his sword,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To poise the balance, where the right may fail&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like some huge Polypus, with arms that roam<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Outstretch'd for prey&mdash;the Briton spreads his reign;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And, as the Ocean were his household home,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Locks up the chambers of the liberal main.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where on the Pole scarce gleams the faintest star,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Onward his restless course unbounded flies;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tracks every isle and every coast afar,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And undiscover'd leaves but&mdash;Paradise!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Alas, in vain on earth's wide chart, I ween,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Thou seek'st that holy realm beneath the sky&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where Freedom dwells in gardens ever green&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And blooms the Youth of fair Humanity!<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">O'er shores where sail ne'er rustled to the wind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">O'er the vast universe, may rove thy ken;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But in the universe thou canst not find<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A space sufficing for ten happy men!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In the heart's holy stillness only beams<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The shrine of refuge from life's stormy throng;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Freedom is only in the land of Dreams;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And only blooms the Beautiful in Song!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<h4><span class="smcap">The Minstrels Of Old.</span></h4>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Where now the minstrel of the large renown,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Rapturing with living words the heark'ning throng?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Charming the Man to heaven, and earthward down<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Charming the God?&mdash;who wing'd the soul with song?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet lives the minstrel, not the deeds&mdash;the lyre<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Of old demands ears that of old believed it&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bards of bless'd time&mdash;how flew your living fire<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">From lip to lip! how race from race received it!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As if a God, men hallow'd with devotion&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">What Genius, speaking, shaping, wrought below,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The glow of song inflamed the ear's emotion,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The ear's emotion gave the song the glow;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Each nurturing each&mdash;back on his soul&mdash;its tone<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Whole nations echoed with a rapture-peal;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then all around the heavenly splendour shone<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Which now the heart, and scarce the heart can feel.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<h4><span class="smcap">Farewell To The Reader.</span></h4>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The Muse is silent; with a virgin cheek,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Bow'd with the blush of shame, she ventures near&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She waits the judgment that thy lips may speak,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And feels the def'rence, but disowns the fear.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Such praise as Virtue gives, 'tis hers to seek&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Bright Truth, not tinsel Folly to revere;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He only for her wreath the flowers should cull<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whose heart, with hers, beats for the Beautiful.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Nor longer yet these days of mine would live,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Than to one genial heart, not idly stealing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There some sweet dreams and fancies fair to give,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Some hallowing whispers of a loftier feeling.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Not for the far posterity they strive,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Doom'd with the time, its impulse but revealing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Born to record the Moment's smile or sigh,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And with the light dance of the Hours to fly.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Spring wakes&mdash;and life, in all its youngest hues,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Shoots through the mellowing meads delightedly;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Air the fresh herbage scents with nectar-dews;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Livelier the choral music fills the sky;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Youth grows more young, and Age its youth renews,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In that field-banquet of the ear and eye;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Spring flies&mdash;lo, seeds where once the flowers have blush'd<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the last bloom's gone, and the last muse hush'd.<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span></div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="A_READING_PARTY_IN_THE_LONG_VACATION" id="A_READING_PARTY_IN_THE_LONG_VACATION"></a>A READING PARTY IN THE LONG VACATION.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Every one who knows Oxford, and a good many besides, must have heard of
+certain periodical migrations of the younger members of that learned
+university into distant and retired parts of her Majesty's dominions,
+which (on the <i>"lucus &agrave; non lucendo"</i> principle) are called and known by
+the name of Reading Parties. Some half dozen under-graduates, in peril
+of the coming examination, form themselves into a joint-stock cramming
+company; take L.30 or L.40 shares in a private tutor; pitch their camp
+in some Dan or Beersheba which has a reputation for dulness; and, like
+other joint-stock companies, humbug the public, and sometimes
+themselves, into the belief that they are "doing business." For these
+classical bubbles, the long vacation is the usual season, and Wales one
+of the favourite localities; and certainly, putting "Reading" out of the
+question, three fine summer months might be worse spent, than in
+climbing the mountains, and whipping the trout-streams, of that romantic
+land. Many a quiet sea-side town, or picturesque fishing-village, might
+be mentioned, which owes no little of its summer gayety, and perhaps
+something of its prosperity, to the annual visit of "the Oxonians:" many
+a fair girl has been indebted for the most piquant flirtation of the
+season to the "gens togata," who were reading at the little
+watering-place to which fate and papa had carried her for the race-week,
+or the hunt ball: and whatever the effect of these voluntary
+rustications upon the class lists in Oxford, they certainly have
+procured for the parties occasionally a very high "provincial
+celebrity." I know that when we beat our retreat from summer quarters at
+Glyndewi in 18&mdash;, the sighs of our late partners were positively
+heart-rending, and the blank faces of the deserted billiard-marker and
+solitary livery-stable 'groom' haunt me to this day.</p>
+
+<p>I had been endeavouring by hard reading, for the last three months, to
+work up the arrears of three years of college idleness, when my evil
+genius himself, in the likeness of George Gordon of Trinity, persuaded
+me to put the finishing touch to my education, by joining a party who
+were going down to Glyndewi in &mdash;&mdash;shire, "really to read." In an
+unguarded moment, I consented; packed up books enough to last me for
+five years, reading at the rate of twenty-four hours per day, wrote to
+the governor announcing my virtuous intention, and was formally
+introduced to the Rev. Mr Hanmer, Gordon's tutor, as one of his "cubs"
+for the long vacation.</p>
+
+<p>Six of us there were to be; a very mixed party, and not well mixed&mdash;a
+social chaos. We had an exquisite from St Mary Hall, a pea-coated
+Brazenose boatman, a philosophical water-drinker and union-debater from
+Balliol, and a two bottle man from Christ Church. When we first met, it
+was like oil and water; it seemed as if we might be churned together for
+a century, and never coalesce: but in time, like punch-making, it turned
+out that the very heterogeneousness of the ingredients was the zest of
+the compound.</p>
+
+<p>I had never heard of such a place as Glyndewi, nor had I an idea how to
+get there. Gordon and Hanmer were gone already; so I packed myself on
+the top of the Shrewsbury mail, as the direct communication between
+Oxford and North Wales, and there became acquainted with No. 2 of my
+fellows in transportation; (for, except Gordon and myself, we were all
+utter strangers to each other.) "I say, Hawkins; let's feel those
+ribbons a bit, will you?" quoth the occupant of the box-seat to our
+respectable Jehu. "Can't indeed, sir, with these hosses; it's as much as
+ever I can do to hold this here near leader." This was satisfactory;
+risking one's neck in a tandem was all very well&mdash;a part of the regular
+course of an Oxford education; but amateur drivers of stage coaches I
+had always a prejudice against: let gentlemen keep their own
+four-in-hands, and upset themselves and families, as they have an
+undeniable right to do&mdash;but not the public. I looked at the first
+speaker: at his pea-jacket, that is, which was all I could see of him:
+Oxford decidedly. His cigar was Oxford too, by the villanous<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> smell of
+it. He took the coachman's implied distrust of his professional
+experience good-humouredly enough, proffered him his cigar-case, and
+entered into a discussion on the near-leader's moral and physical
+qualities. "I'll trouble you for a light, if you please," said I; he
+turned round, we stuck the ends of our cigars together, and puffed into
+each other's faces for about a minute, (my cigars were damp-ish,) as
+grave as North American Indians. "Thank you," said I, as the interesting
+ceremony was concluded, and our acquaintance begun. We got into
+conversation, when it appeared that he, too, was bound for the
+undiscovered shores of Glyndewi, and that we were therefore likely to be
+companions for the next three months. He was an off-hand, good-humoured
+fellow; drank brandy and water, treated the coachman, and professed an
+acquaintance with bar-maids in general, and pretty ones in particular,
+on our line of road. He was going up for a class, he supposed, he said;
+the governor had taken a "second below the line" himself, and insisted
+upon his emulating the paternal distinction; d&mdash;&mdash;d nonsense, he said,
+in his opinion; except that the governor had a couple of harriers with
+Greek names, he did not see that his classics were of any use to him:
+and no doubt but that Hylax and Phryne would run just as well if they
+had been called Stormer and Merry Lass. However, he must rub up all his
+old Eton books this 'long,' and get old Hanmer to lay it on thick. Such
+was Mr Branling of Brazenose.</p>
+
+<p>At Shrewsbury, we were saluted with the intelligence, "Coach dines here,
+gentlemen." We found a couple of fowls that the coach might probably
+have dined upon, and digested with other articles&mdash;in the hind boot; to
+human stomachs they seemed impracticable. We employed the allotted ten
+minutes upon a leg of mutton, and ascended again to our stations on the
+roof: and here was an addition to our party. Externally, it consisted of
+a mackintosh and a fur cap: in the very short interval between the
+turned-down flap of the one and the turned-up collar of the other, were
+a pair of grey-glass spectacles, and part of a nose. So far we had no
+very sufficient premises from which to draw conclusions, whether or not
+he were "one of us." But there were internal evidences; an odour of
+Bouquet de Roi or some such villanous compound nearly overpowering the
+fragrance of some genuine weed which I had supplied my pea-coated friend
+with in the place of his Oxford "Havannahs"&mdash;a short cough occasionally,
+as though the smoke of the said weed were not altogether "the perfume of
+the lip he loved;"&mdash;and a resolute taciturnity. What was he? It is a
+lamentable fact that an Oxford under-graduate does not invariably look
+the gentleman. He vibrates between the fashionable assurance of a London
+swindler, and the modest diffidence of an overgrown schoolboy. There is
+usually a degree of unfinishedness about him. He seems to be assuming a
+character unlike the glorious Burschenschaf of Germany, he has no
+character of his own. However, for want of more profitable occupation,
+we set to work in earnest to discover who our fellow traveller really
+was: and by a series of somewhat American conversational enquiries, we
+at last fished out that he was going into &mdash;&mdash;shire like ourselves&mdash;nay,
+in answer to a direct question on the subject, that he hopes to meet
+Hanmer of Trinity at Glyndewi. But no further information could we get:
+our new friend was reserved. Mr Branling and I had commenced intimacy
+already. "My name is Branling of Brazenose;" "and mine Hawthorne of
+----;" was our concise introduction. But our companion was the pink of
+Oxford correctness on this point. He thanked the porter for putting his
+luggage up called me "Sir" till he found I was an Oxford man; and had we
+travelled for a month together, would rather have requested the coachman
+to introduce us, than be guilty of any such barbarism as to introduce
+himself. So by degrees our intimacy, instead of warming, waxed cold. As
+night drew on, and the fire of cigars from Branling, self, and coachman,
+became more deadly, the fur cap was drawn still closer over the ears,
+the mackintosh crept up higher, and we lost sight of all but the outline
+of the spectacles.</p>
+
+<p>The abominable twitter of the sparrows in the hedgerows gave notice of
+the break of day&mdash;to travellers the most dismal of all hours, in my
+opinion&mdash;when I awoke from the comfortable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> nap into which I had fallen
+since the last change of horses. For some time we alternately dozed,
+tumbled against each other, begged pardon, and awoke; till at last the
+sun broke out gloriously as we drove into the cheerful little town of
+B&mdash;&mdash;.</p>
+
+<p>A good breakfast set us all to rights, and made even our friend in the
+mackintosh talkative. He came out most in the character of tea-maker:
+(an office, by the way, which he filled to the general satisfaction of
+his constituents during our stay in North Wales.) We found out that he
+was a St Mary Hall man, with a duplicate name: Mr Sydney Dawson, as the
+cards on his multifarious luggage set forth: that he was an aspirant for
+"any thing he could get" in the way of honours: (humble aspiration as it
+seemed, it was not destined to be gratified, for he got nothing.) He
+thought he might find some shooting and fishing in Wales, so had brought
+with him a gun-case and a setter; though his pretensions to
+sportsmanship proved to be rather of the cockney order. For three months
+he was the happily unconscious butt of our party, and yet never but once
+was our good-humour seriously interrupted.</p>
+
+<p>From B&mdash;&mdash; to Glyndewi we had been told we must make our way as we
+could: and a council of war, which included boots and the waiter, ended
+in the arrival of the owner of one of the herring-boats, of which there
+were several under "the terrace." "Was you wish to go to Glyndewi,
+gentlemen? I shall take you so quick as any way; she is capital wind,
+and you shall have fine sail." A man who could speak such undeniable
+English was in himself a treasure; for an ineffectual attempt at a
+bargain for some lobsters (even with a "Welsh interpreter" in our hands)
+had warned us that there were in this Christian country unknown tongues
+which would have puzzled even the Rev. Edward Irving. So the bargain was
+struck: in half-an-hour ourselves and traps were alongside the boat: and
+after waiting ten minutes for the embarkation of Mr Sydney Dawson and
+his dog Sholto, who seemed to have an abhorrence of sea-voyages,
+Branling at last hauled in the latter in the last agonies of
+strangulation, and his master having tumbled in over him, to the
+detriment of a pair of clean whites and a cerulean waistcoat, we&mdash;<i>i.e.</i>
+the rest of us&mdash;set sail for Glyndewi in high spirits.</p>
+
+<p>Our boatmen were intelligent fellows, and very anxious to display their
+little stock of English. They knew Mr Hanmer well, they said&mdash;he had
+been at Glyndewi the summer before; he was "nice free gentleman;" and
+they guessed immediately the object of our pilgrimage: Glyndewi was
+"very much for learning;" did not gentlemen from Oxford College, and
+gentlemen from Cambridge College, all come there? We warned him not on
+any account to couple us in his mind with "Cambridge gentlemen:" we were
+quite a distinct species, we assured him. (They had beaten us that year
+in the eight-oar match on the Thames.) But there seemed no sufficient
+reason for disabusing their minds of the notion, that this influx of
+students was owing to something classical in the air of Glyndewi:
+indeed, supposing this theory to be wrong, it was no easy matter to
+substitute a sounder one. In what did the superiority of Mrs Jenkins's
+smoky parlour at Glyndewi consist, for the purposes of reading for a
+degree, compared with my pleasant rooms looking into &mdash;&mdash; Gardens at
+Oxford, or the governor's snug library at home? It is an abstruse
+question. Parents and guardians, indeed, whose part upon the stage of
+life, as upon the theatrical stage, consists principally in submitting
+to be more or less humbugged, attribute surprising effects to a fancied
+absence of all amusements, with a mill-horse round of Greek, Latin, and
+logic, early rising, and walks in the country with a pocket Horace. From
+my own experience of reading parties, I should select as their peculiar
+characteristics, a tendency to hats and caps of such remarkable shapes,
+as, if once sported in the college quadrangle, would be the subject of a
+common-room <i>instanter</i>; and, among some individuals (whom we may call
+the peripatetic philosophers of the party) a predilection for seedy
+shooting-coats and short pipes, with which they perambulate the
+neighbourhood to the marvel of the aboriginal inhabitants; while those
+whom we may class with the stoics, display a preference for
+dressing-gowns and meerschaums, and confine themselves principally to
+the doorways and open<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> windows of their respective lodgings. How far
+these "helps to knowledge"&mdash;for which Oxford certainly does not afford
+equal facilities&mdash;conduce to the required first or second class, is a
+question I do not feel competent to decide; but <i>if</i> reading-parties
+<i>do</i> succeed, the secret of their success may at least as probably lie
+in these hitherto unregarded phenomena.</p>
+
+<p>Five hours of a fair wind brought us to Glyndewi. Here we found Hanmer
+and Gordon, who had taken a house for the party, and seemed already
+domesticated. I cannot say that we were royally lodged; the rooms were
+low, and the terms high; but as no one thought of taking lodgings at
+Glyndewi in the winter, and the rats consequently lived in them
+rent-free for six months, it was but fair somebody should pay: and we
+did. "Attendance" we had into the bargain. Now, attendance at a
+lodging-house has been defined to be, the privilege of ringing your bell
+as often as you please, provided you do not expect any one to answer it.
+But the bell-ropes in Mrs. Jenkins's parlours being only ornamental
+appendages, our privilege was confined to calling upon the landing-place
+for a red-headed female, who, when she did come, which was seldom, was
+terrible to look upon, and could only be conversed with by pantomime.</p>
+
+<p>To do Mrs. Jenkins and "Gwenny" justice, they were scrupulously clean in
+every thing but their own persons, which, the latter's especially,
+seemed to have monopolised the dirt of the whole establishment. College
+bedrooms are not luxurious affairs, so we were not inclined to be
+captious on that head; and we slept soundly, and awoke with a
+determination to make out first voyage of discovery in a charitable
+spirit.</p>
+
+<p>The result of our morning's stroll was the unanimous conclusion, that
+Glyndewi was a rising place. It did not seem inclined to rise at all at
+once though; but in patches here and there, with a quarter of a mile or
+so between, like what we read of the great sea-serpent. (I fear this
+individual is no more; this matter-of-fact age has been the death of
+him.) There were two long streets&mdash;one parallel to the quay, (or, as the
+more refined called it, "the terrace,") and the other at right angles to
+it. The first was Herring Street&mdash;the second Goose Street. At least such
+were the ancient names, which I give for the benefit of antiquarian
+readers. Since the then Princess Victoria visited B&mdash;&mdash;, the loyalty of
+the Glyndewi people had changed "Herring" into "Victoria;" and her royal
+consort has since had the equivocal compliment paid him of transmuting
+"Goose Street" into "Albert Buildings." I trust it will not be
+considered disloyal to say, that the original sponsors&mdash;the geese and
+the herrings&mdash;seen to me to have been somewhat hardly used; having done
+more for their namesakes, than, as far as I can learn, their royal
+successors even promised.</p>
+
+<p>Glyndewi was rising, however, in more respects than in the matter of
+taste in nomenclature. Tall houses, all front and windows, were stuck up
+here and there; sometimes with a low fisherman's cottage between then,
+whose sinking roof and bulging walls looked as if, like the frog in the
+fable, it had burst in the vain attempt to rival its majestic neighbour.
+At one end stood a large hotel with a small business, and an empty
+billiard-room: at the other, a wall some six inches high marked the spot
+where subscription-rooms were to be built for the accommodation of
+visitors and the public generally, as set forth in the prospectus, as
+soon as the visitors and the public chose to find the money. Nearly the
+whole of the village was the property of a gentleman who had built the
+hotel and billiard-room, and run up a few lodging-houses on a
+speculation, which seemed at best a doubtful one, of making it in time a
+fashionable watering-place.</p>
+
+<p>Glyndewi had been recommended to us as a quiet place. It was
+quiet&mdash;horribly quiet. Not the quiet of green fields and deep woods, the
+charm of country life; but the quiet of a teetotal supper-party, or a
+college in vacation. "Just the place for reading: no gayety&mdash;no
+temptations." So I had written to tell the governor, in the ardour of my
+setting forth as one of a "reading-party:" alas! it was a fatal mistake.
+Had it been an ordinarily cheerful place, I think one or two of us could
+and should have read there; as it was, our whole wits were set to work
+to enliven its dulness. It took us as long to invent an amusement, as
+would have sufficed elsewhere for getting tired of half a dozen
+different dissipations. The very reason<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> which made us fix upon it as a
+place to read in, proved in our case the source of unmitigated idleness.
+"No temptations" indeed! there were no temptations&mdash;the only temptation
+I felt there was to hang or drown myself, and there was not a tree six
+feet high within as many miles, and the Dewi was a river "darkly,
+deeply, beautifully"&mdash;muddy; it would have been smothering rather. We
+should not have staid to the end of the first month, had it not been for
+very shame; but to run away from a reading-party would have been a joke
+against us for ever. So from the time we got up in the morning, until we
+climbed Mrs Jenkins's domestic treadmill again at night, the one
+question was, what should we do with ourselves? Walk? there were the
+A&mdash;&mdash; and B&mdash;&mdash; roads&mdash;three miles of sand and dust either way. Before
+us was the bay&mdash;behind the &mdash;&mdash;shire mountains, up which one might walk
+some sixteen miles, (in the month of July,) and yet the same view from
+each successive point you reached: viz., a hill before you, which you
+thought must be the top at last, and Glyndewi&mdash;of which we knew the
+number of houses, and the number of windows in each&mdash;behind. Ride then?
+the two hacks kept by mine host of the Mynysnewydd Arms, deserve a
+history to themselves. Rossinante would have been ashamed to be seen
+grazing in the same field with such caricatures of his race. There was a
+board upon a house a few doors off, announcing that "pleasure and other
+boats" were to be let on hire. All the boats that we were acquainted
+with must have been the "other" ones&mdash;for they smelled of herrings,
+sailed at about the pace of a couple of freshmen in a "two&mdash;oar," and
+gave very pretty exercise&mdash;to those who were fond of it&mdash;in baling. As
+for reading, we were like the performers at a travelling theatre&mdash;always
+"going to begin."</p>
+
+<p>Branling, indeed, did once shut himself up in his bedroom, as we
+afterwards ascertained, with a box of cigars and a black and tan
+terrier, and read for three weeks on end in the peculiar atmosphere thus
+created. Willingham of Christ Church, and myself, had what was called
+the dining-room in common, and proceeded so far on the third day after
+our arrival, as to lay out a very imposing spread of books upon all the
+tables; and there it remained in evidence of our good intentions, until
+the first time we were called upon to do the honours of an extempore
+luncheon. Unfortunately, from the very first, Willingham and myself were
+set down by Hanmer as the idle men of the party; the sort of prophetical
+discrimination, which tutors at Oxford are very much in the habit of
+priding themselves upon, tends, like other prophecies, to work its own
+fulfilment. Did a civil Welshman favour us with a call? "Show him in to
+Mr Hawthorne and Mr Willingham; I dare say they are not very
+busy"&mdash;quoth our <i>Jupiter tonans</i> from on high in the dining-room, where
+he held his court; and accordingly in he came. We had Stilton and
+bottled porter in charge for these occasions from the common stock; but
+the honours of all these visits were exclusively our own, as far as
+houseroom went. In dropped the rest of the party, one by one. Hanmer
+himself pitched the Ethics into a corner to make room, as he said, for
+substantials, the froth of bottled Guiness damped the eloquence of
+Cicero, and Branling having twisted up my analysis of the last-read
+chapter into a light for his cigar, there was an end of our morning's
+work. How could we read? That was what we always said, and there was
+some truth in it.</p>
+
+<p>Mr Branling's reading fit was soon over too; and having cursed the
+natives for barbarians, because there was not a pack of harriers within
+ten miles, which confirmed him in the opinion he had always expressed of
+their utter want of civilization, (for, as he justly remarked, not one
+in a dozen could even speak decent English,) he waited impatiently for
+September, when he had got leave from some Mr Williams or Jones, I never
+remembered which, to shoot over a considerable range about Glyndewi.</p>
+
+<p>But with the 20th of August, a change came over the spirit of our dream.
+Hitherto we had seen little of any of the neighbouring families,
+excepting that of a Captain George Phillips, who, living only three
+miles off, on the bank of the river, and having three sons and two
+daughters, and keeping a pretty yacht, had given us a dinner party or
+two, and a pleasant day's sail. Capital fellows were the young
+Phillipses: Nature's gentlemen; unsophisticated,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> hearty Welshmen; lads
+from sixteen to twenty. Down they used to come, in a most dangerous
+little craft of their own, which went by the name of the "Coroner's
+Inquest," to smoke cigars, (against which the Captain had published an
+interdict at home,) and question us about Oxford larks, and tell us in
+return stories of wild-fowl shooting, otter hunting, and salmon fishing,
+in all which they were proficient.</p>
+
+<p>Our establishment was not an imposing one, but of them we made no
+strangers. Once they came, I remember, self-invited to dinner, in a most
+unfortunate state of our larder. The weekly half sheep had not arrived
+from B&mdash;&mdash;; to get any thing in Glyndewi, beyond the native luxuries of
+bacon and herrings, was hopeless; and our dinner happened to be a leash
+of fowls, of which we had just purchased a live supply. Mrs Glasse would
+have been in despair; we took it coolly; to the three boiled fowls at
+top, we added three roast ditto at bottom, and by unanimous consent of
+both guests and entertainers, a more excellent dinner was never put on
+table.</p>
+
+<p>But the 20th of August! the day of the Glyndewi regatta! <i>that</i> must
+have a chapter to itself.</p>
+
+
+<h4>CHAPTER II.</h4>
+
+<p>When a dull place like Glyndewi does undertake to be gay, it seldom does
+things by halves. Ordinary doses of excitement fail to meet the urgency
+of the case. It was the fashion, it appeared, for all the country
+families of any pretensions to <i>ton</i>, and not a few of the idlers from
+the neighbouring watering-places, to be at Glyndewi for the race-week.
+And as far as the programme of amusements went, certainly the committee
+(consisting of the resident surgeon, the non-resident proprietor of the
+"hotel," &amp;c., and a retired major in the H.E.I.C.'s service, called by
+his familiars by the endearing name of "Tiger Jones") had made a
+spirited attempt to meet the demand. A public breakfast, and a regatta,
+and a ball&mdash;a "Full Dress and Fancy Ball," the advertisement said, on
+the 20th a Horse-Race; and an Ordinary on the 21st; a Cricket Match, if
+possible, and any extra fun which the Visitors' own genius might strike
+out on the following days.</p>
+
+<p>The little bay of Glyndewi was not a bad place for a boat-race on a
+small scale. The "terrace" commanded the whole of it; there were plenty
+of herring-boats, about equally matched in sailing deficiencies, ready
+and willing to "run"&mdash;<i>i.e.</i> creep&mdash;for the prizes; and an honourable
+member of the Yacht Club, who for some years past, for reasons which it
+was said his creditors could explain, had found it more convenient to
+keep his season at B&mdash;&mdash; than at Cowes, always paid the stewards the
+compliment of carrying off the "Ladies' Challenge Cup."</p>
+
+<p>The two or three years' experience which the Glyndewi people had lately
+gained of the nature and habits of "the Oxonians," made them an article
+in great demand on these occasions. Mammas and daughters agreed in
+looking upon us as undeniable partners in the ballroom, while the
+sporting men booked us as safe for getting up a creditable four-oar,
+with a strong probability of finding a light weight willing to risk his
+neck and reputation at a hurdle-race. Certain it is, that from the time
+the races began to be seriously talked about, we began to feel ourselves
+invested with additional importance. "Tiger Jones" (who occupied a snug
+little box about a mile out of Glyndewi, where he lived upon cheroots
+and brandy and water) called, was exceedingly polite, apologized for not
+inviting us to dinner&mdash;a thing he declared impossible in his
+quarters&mdash;hoped we would call some day and take a lunch with him, spoke
+with rapture of the capital crew which "the gentlemen who were studying
+here last summer" had made up, and which ran away from all competitors,
+and expressed a fervent hope that we should do likewise.</p>
+
+<p>The sporting surgeon (of course he had called upon us long ago)
+redoubled his attentions, begged that if any of us were cricketers we
+would endeavour to aid him in getting up a "Glyndewi eleven" against the
+"Strangers," and fixed himself upon me as an invaluable acquisition,
+when he found I had actually once played in a match against Marylebone.
+(I did not tell him that the total score of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> my innings was "<i>one</i>.")
+Would I, then, at once take the drilling of as many recruits as he could
+get together? And would Mr Willingham and Mr Gordon, who "used to play
+at school," get up their practice again? (It wanted about a fortnight to
+the races.) The result of this, and sundry other interviews, was, that
+Branling at length found a vent for the <i>vis inerti&aelig;</i> in putting us all,
+with the exception of Mr Sydney Dawson, whom he declared to be so stiff
+in the back that he had no hope of him, into training for a four-oar;
+and the surgeon and myself set off in his gig for B&mdash;&mdash;, to purchase
+materials for cricket.</p>
+
+<p>It is true, that our respected tutor did look more than usually grave,
+and shook his head with a meaning almost as voluminous as Lord
+Burleigh's, when informed of our new line of study. Rowing he declared
+to be a most absurd expenditure of time and strength; he never could see
+the fun of men breaking bloodvessels, and getting plucked for their
+degree, for the honour of "the Trinity Boat." But the cricket touched
+him on the raw. He was an old Etonian, and had in his time been a good
+player; and was now as active as any stout gentleman of
+seven-and-thirty, who had been twelve years a steady admirer of bursary
+dinners and common-room port. So, after some decent scruples on his
+part, and some well-timed compliments touching his physical abilities on
+ours, (he was much vainer of the muscle of his arm than of his high
+reputation as a scholar,) we succeeded in drawing from him a sort of
+promise, that if we were so foolish as to get up a match, he would try
+whether he had forgot all about bowling.</p>
+
+<p>For the next fortnight, therefore, we had occupation enough cut out for
+us. Branling was unmerciful in his practice on the river; and
+considering that two of us had never pulled an oar but in the slowest of
+"Torpids," we improved surprisingly under his tuition. The cricket, too,
+was quite a new era in our existence. Davson (we told him that the
+"Sydney" must be kept for Sundays) was a perfect fund of amusement in
+his zealous practice. He knew as much about the matter as a cow might,
+and was rather less active. But if perseverance could have made a
+cricketer, he would have turned out a first-rate one. Not content with
+two or three hours of it every fine evening, when we all sallied down to
+the marsh, followed by every idler in Glyndewi, he used to disappear
+occasionally in the mornings, and for some days puzzled us as to where
+and how he disposed of himself. We had engaged, in our corporate
+capacity, the services of a most original retainer, who cleaned boots,
+fetched the beer, eat the cold mutton, and made himself otherwise useful
+when required. He was amphibious in his habits, having been a
+herring-fisher the best part of his life; but being a martyr to the
+rheumatism, which occasionally screwed him up into indescribable forms,
+had betaken himself to earning a precarious subsistence as he could on
+shore. It was not often that we required his services between breakfast
+and luncheon, but one morning, after having dispatched Gwenny in all
+directions to hunt for Bill Thomas in vain, we at last elicited from her
+that "may-be she was gone with Mr Dawson." Then it came out, to our
+infinite amusement, that Dawson was in the habit, occasionally, of
+impressing our factotum Bill to carry bat, stumps, and ball down to the
+marsh, and there commencing private practice on his own account.</p>
+
+<p>Mr Sydney Dawson and Bill Thomas&mdash;the sublime and the
+ridiculous&mdash;amalgamating at cricket, was far too good a joke to lose; so
+we got Hanmer to cut his lecture short, and come down with us to the
+scene of action. From the cover of a sandbank, we had a view of all that
+was going on in the plain below. There was our friend at the wicket,
+with his coat off, and the grey spectacles on, in an attitude which it
+must have taken him some study to accomplish, and Bill, with the ball in
+his hand, vociferating "Plaiy." A ragged urchin behind the wicket,
+attempting to bag the balls as Dawson missed them in what had once been
+a hat, and Sholto looking on with an air of mystification, completed the
+picture.</p>
+
+<p>"That's too slow," said Sydney, as Bill, after some awful contortions,
+at length delivered himself of what he called "a cast." "<i>Diawl!</i>" said
+Bill, <i>sotto voce</i>, as he again got possession of the ball. "That's too
+high," was the complaint, as with an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> extraordinary kind of jerk, it
+flew some yards over the batsman's head, and took what remained of the
+crown out of the little lazzaroni's hat behind. "<i>Diawl!</i>" quoth Bill
+again, apologetically, "She got too much way on her that time." Bill was
+generally pretty wide of his mark, and great appeared to be the
+satisfaction of all parties when Dawson contrived to make a hit, and
+Sholto and the boy set off after the ball, while the striker leaned with
+elegant <i>nonchalance</i> upon his bat, and Bill mopped his face, and gave
+vent to a complimentary varety of "Diawl." It was really a pity to
+interrupt the performance; but we did at last. Bill looked rather
+ashamed of his share in the business when he saw "Mishtar," as he called
+Hanmer; but Dawson's self-complacency and good-humour carried him
+through every thing. "By Jove," said Willingham to him, "no wonder you
+improve in your style of play; Bill has no bad notion of bowling, has
+he?" "Why, no; he does very well for practice; and he is to have
+half-a-crown if he gets me out." "Bowl at his legs, Bill," said
+Willingham aside, "he's out, you know, if you hit them." "Nay," said
+Bill, with a desponding shake of the head, "She squat'n hard on the knee
+now just, and made 'n proper savage, but I wasn't get nothing for that."</p>
+
+<p>Positively we did more in the way of reading after the boating and the
+cricket began, than while we continued in a state of vagrant idleness,
+without a fixed amusement of any kind. In the first place, it was
+necessary to conciliate Hanmer by some show of industry in the morning,
+in order to keep him in good humour for the cricket in the evening; for
+he was decidedly the main hope of our having any thing like a decent
+eleven. Secondly, the Phillipses took to dining early at home, and
+coming to practice with us in the evening, instead of dropping down the
+river every breezy morning, and either idling in our rooms, or beguiling
+us out mackerel-fishing or flapper-shooting in their boat. And thirdly,
+it became absolutely necessary that we should do something, if class
+lists and examiners had any real existence, and were not mere bugbears
+invented by "alma mater" to instil a wholesome terror into her unruly
+progeny. Really, when one compared our actual progress with the Augean
+labour which was to be gone through, it required a large amount of faith
+to believe that we were all "going up for honours in October."</p>
+
+<p>We spent a very pleasant morning at Llyn-eiros, the den of "Tiger
+Jones." He obtained this somewhat appalling soubriquet from a habit of
+spinning yarns, more marvellous than his unwarlike neighbours were
+accustomed to, of the dangers encountered in his Indian sports; and one
+in particular, of an extraordinary combat between his "chokedar" and a
+tiger&mdash;whether the gist of the story lay in the tiger's eating the
+chokedar, or the chokedar eating the tiger, I am not sure&mdash;I rather
+think the latter. However, in Wales one is always glad to have some
+distinguishing appellation to prefix to the name of Jones. If a man's
+godfathers and godmothers have the forethought to christen him
+"Mountstewart Jones," or "Fitzhardinge Jones," (I knew such instances of
+cognominal anticlimax,) then it was all very well&mdash;no mistake about the
+individuality of such fortunate people. But "Tom Joneses" and "Bob
+Joneses" were no individuals at all. They were classes, and large
+classes; and had to be again distinguished into "Little Bob Joneses" and
+"Long Bob Joneses." Or if there happened to be nothing sufficiently
+characteristic in the personal appearance of the rival Joneses, then was
+he fortunate who had no less complimentary additions to his style and
+title than what might be derived from the name of his location, or the
+nature of his engagements. These honours were often hereditary&mdash;nay,
+sometimes descended in the female line. We hear occasionally, in
+England, of "Mrs Doctor Smith," and "Mrs Major Brown;" and absurd as it
+is, one does comprehend by intuition that it was the gentleman and not
+the lady who was the ten-year man at Cambridge, or the commandant of the
+Boggleton yeomanry; but few besides a Welshman would have learned,
+without a smile, that "Mrs Jones the officer" was the relict of the late
+tide-waiter at Glyndewi, or that the quiet, modest little daughter of
+the town-clerk of B&mdash;&mdash; was known to her intimates as "Miss Jones the
+lawyer." Luckily our friend the Tiger was a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> bachelor; it would have
+been alarming to a nervous stranger at the Glyndewi ball, upon enquiring
+the name of the young lady with red hair and cat's eyes, to have been
+introduced incontinently to "Miss Jones the tiger."</p>
+
+<p>The Tiger himself was a well-disposed animal; somewhat given to solitary
+prowling, like his namesakes in a state of nature, but of most
+untiger-like and facetious humour. He generally marched into Glyndewi
+after an early breakfast, and from that time until he returned to his
+"mutton" at five, might be seen majestically stalking up and down the
+extreme edge of the terrace, looking at the fishing-boats, and
+shaking&mdash;<i>not</i> his tail, for, as all stout gentlemen seem to think it
+their duty to do by the sea-side, he wore a round jacket. From the time
+that we began our new pursuits, he took to us amazingly&mdash;called us his
+"dear lads"&mdash;offered bets to any amount that we should beat the
+B&mdash;&mdash;Cutter Club, and protested that he never saw finer bowling at
+Lord's than Hanmer's.</p>
+
+<p>Branling was in delight. He had found a man who would smoke with him all
+day, (report said, indeed, that the Tiger regularly went to sleep with a
+cheroot in his mouth,) and he had the superintending of "the boat,"
+which was his thought from morning to night. A light gig, that had once
+belonged to the custom-house, was polished and painted under his special
+directions, (often did we sigh for one of King's worst "fours!") and the
+fishermen marvelled at such precocious nautical talent.</p>
+
+<p>None of these, however&mdash;great events as they were in our hitherto
+monotonous sojourn&mdash;were the "crowning mercy" of the Glyndewi regatta.
+Hitherto the sunshine of bright eyes, and the breath of balmy lips, had
+been almost as much unknown to us as if we had been still within the
+monastic walls of Oxford. We had dined in a body at our friend the
+surgeon's: he was a bachelor. We had been invited by two's and three's
+at a time to a Welsh squire's in the neighbourhood, who had two maiden
+sisters, and a fat, good-humoured wife. Captain Phillips had given us a
+spread more than once at Craig-y-gerron, and, of course, some of us (I
+was not so fortunate) had handed in the Misses Phillips to dinner; but
+the greater part of the time from six till eleven (at which hour Hanmer
+always ordered out our "<i>trap</i>") was too pleasantly occupied in
+discussing the captain's port and claret, and laughing at his jokes, to
+induce us to give much time or attention to the ladies in the
+drawing-room. If some of my fair readers exclaim against this stoic (or
+rather epicurean) indifference, it may gratify their injured vanity to
+know, that in the sequel some of us paid for it.</p>
+
+<p>The Phillipses came down in full force, the day before the regatta; they
+were engaged to lunch with us, and, as it was the first time that the
+ladies of the party had honoured us with a visit, we spared no pains to
+make our entertainment somewhat more <i>recherch&eacute;</i> than was our wont. It
+was then that I first discovered that Clara Phillips was beautiful. I am
+not going to describe her now; I never could have described her. All I
+knew, and all I remember, was, that for a long time afterwards I formed
+my standard of what a woman ought to be, by unconscious comparison with
+what she was. What colour her eyes were, was a question among us at the
+time. Willingham swore they were grey; Dawson insisted that they were
+hazel; Branling, to whom they referred the point, was inclined to think
+there was, "something green" in them. But that they were eyes of no
+common expression, all of us were agreed. I think at least half the
+party were more than half in love with her when that race-week was over.
+In one sense it was not her fault if we were; for a girl more thoroughly
+free from every species of coquetry, and with less of that pitiful
+ambition of making conquests, which is the curse of half the sex, it was
+impossible to meet with. But she was to blame for it too, in another
+way; for to know her, and not love her, would have been a reproach to
+any man. Lively and good-humoured, with an unaffected buoyancy of
+spirits, interesting herself in all that passed around her, and
+unconscious of the interest she herself excited, no wonder that she
+seemed to us like an angel sent to cheer us in our house of bondage. Of
+her own family she was deservedly the darling; even Dick Phillips, whom
+three successive tutors had given up in despair, became the most docile
+of pupils under his sister Clara; accustomed early to join<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> her brothers
+in all out-door sports, she was an excellent horsewoman, a fearless
+sailor, and an untiring explorer of mountains and waterfalls, without
+losing her naturally feminine character, or becoming in any degree a
+hoyden or a romp. She sang the sweet national airs of Wales with a voice
+whose richness of tone was only second to its power of expression. She
+did every thing with the air of one who, while delighting others, is
+conscious only of delighting herself; and never seeking admiration,
+received it as gracefully as it was ungrudgingly bestowed.</p>
+
+<p>If there is one form of taking exercise which I really hate, it is what
+people call dancing. I am passionately fond of music; but why people
+should conceive it necessary to shuffle about in all varieties of
+awkwardness, in order to enjoy it to their satisfaction, has been, is,
+and probably will ever be, beyond my comprehension. It is all very well
+for young ladies on the look-out for husbands to affect a fondness for
+dancing: in the first place, some women dance gracefully, and even
+elegantly, and show themselves off undoubtedly to advantage; (if any
+exhibition on a woman's part be an advantage;) then it gives an excuse
+for whispering, and squeezing of hands, and stealing flowers, and a
+thousand nameless skirmishings preparatory to what they are endeavouring
+to bring about&mdash;an engagement; but for a man to be fond of shuffling and
+twirling himself out of the dignity of step which nature gave
+him&mdash;picking his way through a quadrille, like a goose upon hot bricks,
+or gyrating like a bad tee-totum in what English fashionables are
+pleased to term a "valse," I never see a man thus occupied, without a
+fervent desire to kick him. "What a Goth!" I hear a fair reader of
+eighteen, prettily ejaculate&mdash;"thank Heaven, that all men have not such
+barbarous ideas! Why, I would go fifty miles to a good ball!" Be not
+alarmed, my dear young lady; give me but a moment to thank Providence,
+in my turn, that you are neither my sister nor my daughter, and will
+promise you, that you shall never be my wife.</p>
+
+<p>On the Saturday night then, I made Gordon and Willingham both very
+cross, and caught Sydney Dawson's eye looking over his spectacles with
+supreme contempt, when I declared my decided intention of staying at
+home the night of the ball. Even the Reverend Robert Hanmer, who was
+going himself, was annoyed when Gordon told him of what he called my
+wilfulness, having a notion that it was decidedly disrespectful in any
+of us, either to go when he did <i>not</i>, or to decline going, when he
+<i>did</i>.</p>
+
+<p>On the Tuesday morning, I sent to B&mdash;&mdash; for white kids. Gordon looked
+astonished, Hanmer was glad that I had "taken his advice," and
+Willingham laughed outright; he had overheard Clara Phillips ask me to
+dance with her. Men <i>are</i> like green gooseberries&mdash;very green ones;
+women <i>do</i> make fools of them, and a comparatively small proportion of
+sugar, in the shape of flattery, is sufficient.</p>
+
+<p>Two days before the regatta, there marched into Mrs Jenkins's open
+doorway, a bewildered looking gentleman, shaking off the dust from his
+feet in testimony of having had a long walk, and enquiring for Hanmer.
+Gwenny, with her natural grace, trotted up stairs before him, put her
+head in at the "drawing-room" door, (she seemed always conscious that
+the less one saw of her person the better,) and having announced
+briefly, but emphatically, "a gentlemans," retreated. Hanmer had puzzled
+himself and me, by an attempt to explain a passage which Aristotle, of
+course, would have put in plainer language, if he had known what he
+meant himself&mdash;but modern philosophers are kind enough to help him out
+occasionally&mdash;when the entrance of the gentleman in dust cut the Gordian
+knot, and saved the Stagyrite from the disgrace of having a pretty bit
+of esoteric abstruseness translated into common sense.</p>
+
+<p>(What a blessing would it be for Dr &mdash;&mdash;, and Professor &mdash;&mdash;, if they
+might be allowed to mystify their readers in Greek! though, to do them
+justice, they have turned the Queen's English to good account for that
+purpose, and have produced passages which first-class men, at an
+Athenian University, might possibly construe, but which the whole board
+of sophists might be defied to explain.)</p>
+
+<p>The <i>deus ex machin&acirc;</i>&mdash;the gentleman on, or rather off the tramp&mdash;who
+arrived thus opportunely, was no less a person than the Reverend George<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span>
+Plympton, Fellow of Oriel, &amp;c. &amp;c. &amp;c. He was an intimate friend of our
+worthy tutor's; if the friendship between Oxford dons can be called
+intimacy. They compared the merits of their respective college cooks
+three or four times a term, and contended for the superior vintage of
+the common-room port. They played whist together; walked arm-in-arm
+round Christchurch meadow; and knew the names of all the old incumbents
+in each other's college-list, and the value of the respective livings.
+Mr Plympton and a friend had been making a walking tour of North Wales;
+that is, they walked about five miles, stared at a mountain, or a fall,
+or an old castle, as per guide-book, and then coached it to the next
+point, when the said book set down that "the Black Dog was an excellent
+inn," or that "travellers would find every accommodation at Mrs Price's
+of the Wynnstay Arms." Knowing that Hanmer was to be found at Glyndewi,
+Mr Plympton left his friend at B&mdash;&mdash;, where the salmon was
+unexceptionable, and had completed the most arduous day's walk in his
+journal, nearly thirteen miles, in a state of dust and heat far from
+agreeable to a stoutish gentleman of forty, who usually looked as spruce
+as if he came out of a band-box. Hanmer and he seemed really glad to see
+each other. On those "oxless" shores, where, as Byron says, "beef was
+rare," though</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Goat's flesh there was, no doubt, and kid, and mutton,"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>the tender reminiscences of far-off Gaude days and Bursary dinners, that
+must have arisen in the hearts of each, were enough to make their
+meeting almost an affecting one. Hanmer must have blushed, I think,
+though far from his wont, when he asked Mr Plympton if he could feed
+with us at four upon&mdash;hashed mutton! (We consumed nearly a sheep per
+week, and exhausted our stock of culinary ideas, as well as our
+landlady's patience, in trying to vary the forms in which it was to
+appear; not having taken the precaution, as some Cambridge men did at
+B&mdash;&mdash;s one vacation, to bespeak a French cook at a rather higher salary
+than the mathematical tutor's.<a name="FNanchor_A_1" id="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a>) Probably, however, Mr Plympton's
+unusual walk made him more anxious about the quantity than the quality
+of his diet, for he not only attacked the mutton like an Etonian, but
+announced his intention of staying with us over the ball, if a bed was
+to be had, and sending to B&mdash;&mdash; for his decorations. He was introduced
+in due form to the Phillipses the next day, and in the number and
+elegance of his bows, almost eclipsed Mr Sydney Dawson, whom Clara never
+ceased to recommend to her brothers as an example of politeness.</p>
+
+<p>Bright dawned the morning of the 20th of August, the first of the "three
+glorious days" of Glyndewi. As people came to these races really for
+amusement, the breakfast was fixed for the very unfashionable hour of
+ten, in order not to interfere with the main business of the day&mdash;the
+regatta. Before half-past, the tables at the Mynysnewydd Arms were
+filled with what the <i>&mdash;&mdash;shire Herald</i> termed "a galaxy of beauty and
+fashion." But every one seemed well aware, that there were far more
+substantial attractions present, meant to fill not the tables only, but
+the guests. The breakfast was by no means a matter of form. People had
+evidently come with more serious intentions, than merely to display new
+bonnets, and trifle with grapes and peaches. Sea-air gives a whet to
+even a lady's appetite, and if the performances that morning were any
+criterion of the effects of that of Glyndewi, the new Poor Law
+Commissioners, in forming their scale of allowances, must really have
+reported it a "special case." The fair Cambrians, in short, played very
+respectable knives and forks&mdash;made no bones&mdash;or rather nothing but
+bones&mdash;of the chickens, and ate kippered salmon like Catholics. You
+caught a bright eye gazing in your direction with evident
+interest&mdash;"Would you have the kindness to cut that pasty before you for
+a lady?" You almost overheard a tender whisper from the gentleman
+opposite to the pretty girl beside him. She blushes and gently
+remonstrates. Again his lip almost touches her cheek in earnest
+persuasion&mdash;yes! she is consenting&mdash;to another <i>little</i> slice of ham! As
+for the jolly Welsh squires<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> themselves, and their strapping
+heirs-apparent, (you remember that six-foot-four man surely, number six
+of the Jesus boat)&mdash;now that the ladies have really done, and the
+waiters have brought in the relays of brandered chickens and
+fresh-caught salmon, which mine host, who has had some experience of his
+customers, has most liberally provided&mdash;they set to work in earnest.
+They have been only politely trifling hitherto with the wing of a fowl
+or so, to keep the ladies' company. But now, as old Captain Phillips, at
+the head of the table, cuts a slice and a joke alternately, and the
+Tiger at the bottom begins to let out his carnivorous propensities, one
+gets to have an idea what breakfast means. "Let me advise you, my dear
+Mr Dawson&mdash;as a friend&mdash;you'll excuse an old stager&mdash;if you have no
+particular wish to starve yourself&mdash;you've had nothing yet but two cups
+of tea&mdash;to help yourself, and let your neighbours do the same. You may
+keep on cutting Vauxhall shavings for those three young Lloyds till
+Michaelmas; pass the ham down to them, and hand me those devilled
+kidneys."</p>
+
+<p>"Tea? no; thank you; I took a cup yesterday, and haven't been myself
+since. Waiter! don't you see this tankard's empty?"</p>
+
+<p>"Consume you, Dick Phillips! I left two birds in that pie five minutes
+back, and you've cleared it out!"</p>
+
+<p>"Diawl, John Jones, I was a fool to look into a tankard after you!"</p>
+
+<p>Every thing has an end, and so the breakfast had at last; and we
+followed the ladies to the terrace to watch the sailing for the ladies'
+challenge cup. By the help of a glass we could see three yachts, with
+about half-a-mile between each, endeavouring to get round a small boat
+with a man and a flag in it, which, as the wind was about the worst they
+could have had for the purpose, seemed no easy matter. There was no
+great interest in straining one's eyes after them, so I found out the
+Phillipses, and having told Dawson, who was escorting Clara, that Hanmer
+was looking for him to make out the list of "the eleven," I was very
+sorry indeed when the sound of a gun announced that the Hon. H.
+Chouser's Firefly had won the cup, and that the other two yachts might
+be expected in the course of half-an-hour. Nobody waited for them, of
+course. The herring boats, after a considerable deal of what I concluded
+from the emphasis to be swearing in Welch, in which, however, Captain
+Phillips, who was umpire, seemed to have decidedly the advantage in
+variety of terms and power of voice, were pronounced "ready," and
+started by gunfire accordingly. A rare start they made of it. The great
+ambition of every man among them seemed to be to prevent the boats next
+in the line from starting at all. It was a general fouling match, and
+the jabbering was terrific. At last, the two outside boats, having the
+advantage of a clear berth on one side, got away, and made a pretty race
+of it, followed by such of the rest as could by degrees extricate
+themselves from the m&ecirc;l&eacute;e.</p>
+
+<p>But now was to come our turn. Laden with all manner of good wishes, we
+hoisted a bit of dark-blue silk for the honour of Oxford, and spurted
+under the terrace to our starting-place. The only boat entered against
+us was the Dolphin, containing three stout gentlemen and a thin one,
+members of the B&mdash;&mdash; Cutter Club, who evidently looked upon pulling as
+no joke. Branling gave us a steady stroke, and Cotton of Balliol steered
+us admirably; the rest did as well as they could. The old boys had a
+very pretty boat&mdash;ours was a tub&mdash;but we beat them. They gave us a
+stern-chase for the first hundred yards, for I cut a crab at starting;
+but we had plenty of pluck, and came in winners by a length. Of course
+we were the favourites&mdash;the "Dolphins" were all but one married&mdash;and
+hearty were the congratulations with which we were greeted on landing.
+Clara Phillips' eyes had a most dangerous light in them, as she shook
+hands with our noble captain, who was in a terrible hurry, however, to
+get away, and hunting every where for "that d&mdash;&mdash;d Dawson," who had
+promised to have Bill Thomas in readiness with "the lush." So I was
+compelled to stay with her and give an account of the race, which she
+perfectly understood, and be soundly scolded by the prettiest lips in
+the world for my awkwardness, which she declared she never could have
+forgiven if it had lost the race.</p>
+
+<p>"You will come to the ball, then, Mr Hawthorne?"</p>
+
+<p>"Am I not to dance with you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, if you behave well, and don't<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> tease Mr Sydney Dawson: he is a
+great favourite of mine, and took great care of me this morning at
+breakfast."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, for your sake, Miss Phillips, I will be particularly civil
+to him; but I assure you, Dawson is like the fox that took a pride in
+being hunted; he considers our persecution of him as the strongest
+evidence of his own superiority; and if you seriously undertake to
+patronize him he will become positively unbearable."</p>
+
+<p>The regatta over, we retired to make a hurried dinner, and to dress for
+the ball. This, with some of our party, was a serious business.
+Willingham and Dawson were going in fancy dresses. The former was an
+admirable personification of Dick Turpin, standing upwards of six feet,
+and broadly built, and becoming his picturesque costume as if it were
+his everyday suit, he strutted before Mrs Jenkins's best glass, which
+Hanmer charitably gave up for his accommodation, with a pardonable
+vanity. Dawson had got a lancer's uniform from his London tailor; but
+how to get into it was a puzzle; it was delightful to see his attempts
+to unravel the gorgeous mysteries which were occupying every available
+spot in his dingy bedroom. The shako was the main stumbling-block. Being
+unfortunately rather small, it was no easy matter to keep it on his head
+at all; and how to dispose of the cap-lines was beyond our united
+wisdom. "Go without it, man," said Branling: "people don't want hats in
+a ballroom. You can never dance with that thing on your head."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but the head-dress is always worn at a fancy-ball, you know, and I
+can take it off if I like to dance."</p>
+
+<p>At last, the idea struck us of employing the five or six yards of gold
+cord that had so puzzled us, in securing shako and plume in a
+perpendicular position. This at length accomplished, by dint of keeping
+himself scrupulously upright, Mr Sydney Dawson majestically walked down
+stairs.</p>
+
+
+<h4>CHAPTER III.</h4>
+
+<p>Now, there happened to be at that time residing in Glyndewi an old lady,
+"of the name and cousinage" of Phillips, who, though an old maid, was
+one of those unhappily rare individuals who do not think it necessary to
+rail against those amusements which they are no longer in a situation to
+enjoy. She was neither as young, nor as rich, nor as light-hearted, as
+she had been; but it was difficult to imagine that she could ever have
+been more truly cheerful and happy than she seemed now. So, instead of
+cutting short every sally of youthful spirits, and every dream of
+youthful happiness, by sagacious hints of cares and troubles to come,
+she rather lent her aid to further every innocent enjoyment among her
+younger friends; feeling, as she said, that the only pity was, that
+young hearts grew old so soon. The consequence was, that instead of
+exacting a forced deference from her many nephews and nieces, (so are
+first cousins' children called in Wales,) she was really loved and
+esteemed by them all, and while she never wished to deprive them of an
+hour's enjoyment, they would willingly give up a pleasant party at any
+time to spend an evening with the old lady, and enliven her solitude
+with the sounds she best loved&mdash;the music of youthful voices.</p>
+
+<p>All among her acquaintance, therefore, who were going to the ball in
+fancy costume, had promised to call upon her, whether in or out of their
+way, to "show themselves," willing to make her a partaker, as far as
+they could, of the amusement of the evening. Captain Phillips had asked
+us if we would oblige him, and gratify a kind old woman, by allowing him
+to introduce us in our fancy dresses. I had none, and therefore did not
+form part of the exhibition; but Dick Turpin and the cornet of lancers,
+with Branling in a full hunting costume, (which always formed part of
+his travelling baggage,) walked some fifty yards to the old lady's
+lodgings. Mr Plympton, always polite, accepted Captain Phillips's
+invitation to be introduced at the same time. Now Mr Plympton, as was
+before recorded, was a remarkably dapper personage; wore hair powder, a
+formidably tall and stiff white "choker," and upon all occasions of
+ceremony, black shorts and silks, with gold buckles. Remarkably<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> upright
+and somewhat pompous in his gait, and abominating the free-and-easy
+manners of the modern school, his bow would have graced the court of
+Versailles, and his step was a subdued minuet. Equipped with somewhat
+more than his wonted care, the rev. junior bursar of Oriel was
+introduced into Mrs Phillips's little drawing-room, accompanying, and
+strongly contrasting with, three gentlemen in scarlet and gold.
+Hurriedly did the good old lady seize her spectacles, and rising to
+receive her guests with a delighted curtsy, scan curiously for a few
+moments Turpin's athletic proportions, and the fox-hunter's
+close-fitting leathers and tops. As for Dawson, he stood like the
+clear-complexioned and magnificently-whiskered officer, who silently
+invites the stranger to enter the doors of Madame Tussaud's wax
+exhibition; not daring to bow for fear of losing his beloved shako, but
+turning his head from side to side as slowly, and far less naturally,
+than the waxen gentleman aforementioned. All, in their several ways,
+were worthy of admiration, and all did she seem to admire; but it was
+when her eye rested at last on the less showy, but equally
+characteristic figure in black, who stood bowing his acknowledgments of
+the honour of the interview, with an <i>empressement</i> which fully made up
+for Dawson's forced <i>hauteur</i>&mdash;that her whole countenance glistened with
+intense appreciation of the joke, and the very spectacles danced with
+glee. Again did she make the stranger her most gracious curtsy; again
+did Mr Plympton, as strongly as a bow could do it, declare how entirely
+he was at her service: he essayed to speak, but before a word escaped
+his lips, the old lady fairly burst out into a hearty laugh, clapped her
+hands, and shouted to his astonished ears, "Capital, capital! do it
+again! oh, do it again!" For a moment the consternation depicted upon Mr
+Plympton's countenance at this remarkable reception, extended to the
+whole of his companions; but the extraordinary sounds which proceeded
+from Captain Phillips, in the vain attempt to stifle the laugh that was
+nearly choking him, were too much for the gravity of even the polite Mr
+Dawson; and it was amidst the violent application of
+pocket-handkerchiefs in all possible ways, that the captain stepped
+forward with the somewhat tardy announcement, "My dear aunt, allow me to
+present the Rev. Mr Plympton, Fellow and Tutor of Oriel College." This
+was accompanied by a wink and an attempt at a frown, intended to convey
+the strongest reprobation of the old lady's proceedings; but which, upon
+the features of the good captain, whose risible muscles were still
+rebellious, had any thing but a serious effect. "Indeed!" said she,
+curtsying yet more profoundly in return for another bow. "How do you do,
+sir? Oh, he is beautiful, isn't he?" half-aside to Willingham, who was
+swallowing as much as he could of the butt of his whip. Poor Mr Plympton
+looked aghast at the compliment. Branling fairly turned his back, and
+burst from the room, nearly upsetting Hanmer and myself; who, having
+waited below some time for our party to join us, had made our way
+upstairs to ascertain the cause of the unusual noises which reached us
+from the open door of the drawing-room. Dawson was shaking with reckless
+disregard of the safety of his head-dress, and the captain in an agony
+between his natural relish for a joke and his real good breeding. "Aunt
+Martha, this is a clergyman, a friend of Mr Hanmer's, who is on a visit
+here, and whom I introduce to you, because I know you will like him." Mr
+Plympton commenced a fresh series of bows, in which there was, perhaps,
+less gallantry and more dignity than usual, looking all the time as
+comfortable as a gentleman might do who was debating with himself
+whether the probabilities, as regarded the old lady's next movements,
+lay on the side of kissing or scratching. Mrs Martha Phillips herself
+commenced an incoherent apology about "expecting to see four young
+gentlemen in fancy dresses;" and Hanmer and the captain tried all they
+could to laugh off a <i>contretemps</i>, which to explain was impossible.
+What the old lady took Mr Plympton for, and what Mr Plympton thought of
+her, were questions which, so far as I know, no one ventured to ask. He
+left Glyndewi the next morning, but the joke, after furnishing us with a
+never-failing fund of ludicrous reminiscence for the rest of our stay,
+followed him to the Oriel common-room,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> and was an era in the dulness of
+that respectable symposium.</p>
+
+<p>Dancing had begun in good earnest when we arrived at the ballroom. There
+was the usual motley assemblage of costumes of all nations under the
+sun, and some which the sun, when he put down the impudence of the
+wax-lights upon his return the next morning, must have marvelled to
+behold. Childish as it may be called, a fancy ball is certainly, for the
+first half-hour at all events, an amusing scene. Willingham and myself
+stood a little inside the doorway for some moments, he enjoying the
+admiring glances which his tine figure and picturesque costume were well
+calculated to call forth, and I vainly endeavouring to make out Clara's
+figure amidst the gay dresses, and well-grown proportions, of the pretty
+Cambrians who flitted past. Sounds of expostulation and entreaty,
+mingled with a laugh which we knew to be Branling's, in the passage
+outside, disturbed both our meditations, and at last induced me to turn
+my eyes unwillingly to the open door. Branling was leaning against it in
+a fit of uncontrollable mirth, and beckoned us earnestly to join him.
+Outside stood Dawson, stamping with vexation, and endeavouring to undo
+the complex machinery which had hitherto secured his shako in an erect
+position. He was in the unfortunate predicament of Dr S&mdash;&mdash;'s
+candelabrum, which, presented to him as a testimony of respect from his
+grateful pupils, was found by many feet too large to be introduced into
+any room in the Dr's comparatively humble habitation, and stood for some
+time in the manufacturer's show-room in testimony of the fact, that
+public acknowledgments of merit are <i>sometimes</i> made on too large a
+scale. Architects who give measurements for ordinary doorways, do not
+contemplate such emergencies as testimonial candelabrums or irremoveable
+caps and plumes: and the door of the Glyndewi ballroom had no notion of
+accommodating a lancer in full dress who could not even be civil enough
+to take off his hat. So there stood our friend, impatient to display his
+uniform, and unwilling to lessen the effect of his first appearance by
+doffing so important a part of his costume: to get through the door, in
+the rigid inflexibility of head and neck which he had hitherto
+maintained, was a manifest impossibility: Branling had suggested his
+staying outside, and he would undertake to bring people to look at him:
+but Dawson, for some unaccountable reason, was usually suspicious of
+advice from that quarter; so he "stooped to conquer" and lost all. The
+shako tumbled from its precarious perch, and hung ignobly suspended by
+the cap-lines. A lancer with a pair of grey spectacles, and a shako
+hanging round his neck, would have been a very fancy dress indeed: so he
+was endeavouring, at the risk of choking himself, to disentangle, by
+main force, the complication of knots which we had woven with some dim
+hope of the result. In vain did we exhort him to take it patiently, and
+remind him how preposterous it was to expect, that what had taken our
+united ingenuity half an hour to arrange "to please him," could be
+undone in a minute. "Cut the cursed things, can't you?" implored he. No
+one had a knife. "I do believe Branling, you are tying that knot
+tighter: I had much rather not have your assistance." Branling protested
+his innocence. At last we did release him, and he entered the room with
+a look most appropriately crest-fallen, shako in hard, solacing himself
+by displaying its glories as well as could be effected by judicious
+changes of its position.</p>
+
+<p>I soon found Clara, looking more radiantly beautiful than ever I had
+seen her, in a sweet dress of Stuart tartan. I had to make my apologies,
+which were most sincerely penitent ones, for not being in time to claim
+my privilege of dancing the first quadrille with her. She smiled at my
+evident earnestness, and good-humouredly added, that the next would be a
+much more pleasant dance, as the room was now beginning to fill. It was
+a pleasant dance as she said: and the waltz that followed still more
+delightful: and then Clara, with a blush and a laugh, declined my
+pressing entreaties until after supper at all events. I refused her
+good-natured offer of an introduction to "that pretty girl in blue" or
+any other among the stars of the night: and sat down, or leant against
+the wall, almost unconsciously watching her light step, and sternly
+resisting all attempts on the part of my acquaintances to persuade<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> me
+to dance again. Of course all the dancing characters among our party
+were Clara's partners in succession; and both Gordon and Dawson, who
+came to ask what had put me into the sulks, were loud in their encomiums
+on her beauty and fascination; even Branling, no very devoted admirer of
+the sex, (he saw too much of them, he said, having four presentable
+sisters,) allowed that she was "the right sort of girl;" but it was not
+until I saw her stand up with Willingham, and marked his evident
+admiration of her, and heard the remarks freely made around me, that
+they were the handsomest couple in the room, that I felt a twinge of
+what I would hardly allow to myself was jealousy: when, however, after
+the dance, they passed me in laughing conversation, evidently in high
+good humour with each other, and too much occupied to notice any one
+else, I began to wonder I had never before found out what a conceited
+puppy Willingham was, and set down poor Clara as an arrant flirt. But I
+was in a variable mood, it seemed, and a feather&mdash;or, what some may say
+is even lighter, a woman's word&mdash;was enough to turn me. So when I found
+myself, by some irresistible attraction, drawn next to her again at
+supper, and heard her sweet voice, and saw what I interpreted into a
+smile of welcome, as she made room for me beside her, I forgave her all
+past offences, and was perfectly happy for the next hour: nay, even
+condescended to challenge Willingham to a glass of <i>soi-disant</i>
+champagne. The Tiger, who was, according to annual custom, displaying
+the tarnished uniform of the 3d Madras N. I., and illustrating his
+tremendous stories of the siege of Overabad, or some such place, by
+attacks on all the edibles in his neighbourhood, gave me a look of
+intelligence as he requested I would "do him the honour," and shook his
+whiskers with some meaning which I did not think it necessary to enquire
+into. What was it to him if I chose to confine my attentions to my
+undoubtedly pretty neighbour? No one could dispute my taste, at all
+events; for Clara Phillips was a universal favourite, though I had
+remarked that none of the numerous "eligible young men" in the room
+appeared about her in the character of a dangler. She was engaged to
+Willingham for the waltz next after supper, and I felt queerish again,
+till she willingly agreed to dance the next set with me, on condition
+that I would oblige her so far as to ask a friend of hers to be my
+partner in the mean time. "She is a very nice girl, Mr. Hawthorne,
+though, perhaps, not one of the <i>belles</i> of the room, and has danced but
+twice this evening, and it will be so kind in you to ask her&mdash;only don't
+do it upon my introduction, but let Major Jones introduce you as if at
+your own request." Let no one say that vanity, jealousy, and all those
+pretty arts by which woman wrongs her better nature, are the rank growth
+necessarily engendered by the vitiated air of a ballroom; rooted on the
+same soil, warmed by the same sunshine, fed by the same shower, one
+plant shall bear the antidote and one the poison: one kind and gentle
+nature shall find exercise for all its sweetest qualities in those very
+scenes which, in another, shall foster nothing but heartless coquetry or
+unfeminine display. Never did Clara seem so lovely in mind and person as
+when she drew upon her own attractions to give pleasure to her less
+gifted friend; and I suppose, I must have thrown into the tone of my
+reply something of what I felt; for she blushed, uttered a hasty "I
+thank you," and told Willingham it was time to take their places. I
+sought and obtained the introduction, and endeavoured, for Clara's sake,
+to be an agreeable partner to the quiet little girl beside me. One
+subject of conversation, at all events, we hit upon, where we seemed
+both at home; and if I felt some hesitation in saying all I thought of
+Clara, my companion had none, but told me how much every body loved her,
+and how much she deserved to be loved. It was really so much easier to
+draw my fair partner out on this point than any other that I excused
+myself for being so eager a listener; and, when we parted, to show my
+gratitude in what I conceived the most agreeable way, I begged
+permission to introduce Mr. Sydney Dawson, and thus provided her with
+what, I dare say, she considered a most enviable partner. I had told
+Dawson she was a very clever girl; (he was fond of what he called
+"talented women," and had a delusive notion that he was himself a
+genius:)<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> he had the impertinence to tell me afterwards he found her
+rather stupid; I ought, perhaps, to have given him the key-note. During
+the dance which followed, I remember I was silent and <i>distrait</i>; and
+when it was over, and Clara told me she was positively engaged for more
+sets than she should dance again, I left the ballroom, and wandered
+feverishly along the quay to our lodgings. I remember persuading myself,
+by a syllogistic process, that I was not in love, and dreaming that I
+was anxiously reading the class-list, in which it seemed unaccountable
+that my name should be omitted, till I discovered, on a second perusal,
+that just about the centre of the first class, where "Hawthorne,
+Franciscus, e. Coll&mdash;" ought to have come in, stood in large type the
+name of "<span class="smcap">Clara Phillips</span>."</p>
+
+<p>The races, which occupied the morning of the next day, were as stupid as
+country races usually are, except that the Welshmen had rather more
+noise about it. The guttural shouts and yells from the throats of
+tenants and other dependents, as the "mishtur's" horse won or lost, and
+the extraordinary terms in which they endeavoured to encourage the
+riders, were amusing even to a stranger, though one lost the point of
+the various sallies which kept the course in one continued roar. As to
+the running, every body&mdash;that is, all the sporting world&mdash;knew perfectly
+well, long before the horses started, which was to win; that appearing
+to be the result of some private arrangement between the parties
+interested, while the "racing" was for the benefit of the strangers and
+the ladies. Those of the latter who had fathers, or brothers, or, above
+all, lovers, among the knowing ones, won divers pairs of gloves on the
+occasion, while those who were not so fortunate, lost them.</p>
+
+<p>I fancied that Clara was not in her usual spirits on the race-course,
+and she pleaded a headach as an excuse to her sister for ordering the
+carriage to drive home long before the "sport" was over. If I had
+thought the said sport stupid before, it did not improve in attraction
+after her departure; and, when the jumping in sacks, and climbing up
+poles, and other callisthenic exercises began, feeling a growing disgust
+for "things in general," I resisted the invitation of a mamma and three
+daughters, to join themselves and Mr Dawson in masticating some
+sandwiches which looked very much like "relics of joy" from last night's
+supper, and sauntered home, and sat an hour over a cigar and a chapter
+of ethics. As the clock struck five, remembering that the Ordinary hour
+was six, I called at the Phillips' lodgings to enquire for Clara. She
+was out walking with her sister; so I returned to dress in a placid
+frame of mind, confident that I should meet her at dinner.</p>
+
+<p>For it was an Ordinary for ladies as well as gentlemen. A jovial Welsh
+baronet sat at the head of the table, with the two ladies of highest
+"consideration"&mdash;the county member's wife and the would-have-been
+member's daughter&mdash;on his right and left; nobody thought of politics at
+the Glyndewi regatta. Clara was there; but she was escorted into the
+room by some odious man, who, in virtue of having been made high-sheriff
+by mistake, sat next Miss Anti-reform on the chairman's left. The
+natives were civil enough to marshal us pretty high up by right of
+strangership, but still I was barely near enough to drink wine with her.</p>
+
+<p>If a man wants a good dinner, a hearty laugh, an opportunity of singing
+songs and speech-making, and can put up with indifferent wine, let him
+go to the race Ordinary at Glyndewi next year, if it still be among the
+things which time has spared. There was nothing like stiffness or
+formality: people came there for amusement, and they knew that the only
+way to get it was to make it for themselves. There seemed to be fun
+enough for half-a-dozen of the common run of such dinners, even while
+the ladies remained. It was, as Hanmer called it, an <i>extra</i>-ordinary.
+But it was when the ladies had retired, and Hanmer and a few of the
+"steady ones" had followed them, and those who remained closed up around
+the chairman, and cigars and genuine whisky began to supersede the
+questionable port and sherry, and the "Vice" requested permission to
+call on a gentleman for a song, that we began to fancy ourselves within
+the walls of some hitherto unknown college, where the "levelling system"
+had mixed up fellows and under-graduates in one common supper-party, and
+the portly principal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> himself rejoiced in the office of "arbiter
+bibendi." Shall I confess it? I forgot even Clara in the uproarious
+mirth that followed. Two of the young Phillipses were admirable singers,
+and drew forth the hearty applause of the whole company. We got Dawson
+to make a speech, in which he waxed poetical touching the "flowers of
+Cambria," and drew down thunders of applause by a Latin quotation, which
+every one took that means of showing that they understood. I obtained
+almost unconsciously an immortal reputation by a species of flattery to
+which the Welsh are most open. I had learnt, after no little
+application, a Welsh toast&mdash;a happy specimen of the language; it was but
+three words, but they were truly cabalistic. No sooner had I, after a
+"neat and appropriate" preface, uttered my triple Shibboleth, (it ended
+in <i>rag</i>, and signified "Wales, Welshmen, and Welshwomen,") than the
+whole party rose, and cheered at me till I felt positively modest. My
+pronunciation, I believe, was perfect, (a woman's lips and an angel's
+voice had taught it to me:) and it was indeed the Open Sesame to their
+hearts and feelings. I became at once the intimate friend of all who
+could get near enough to offer me their houses, their horses, their
+dogs&mdash;I have no doubt, had I given a hint at the moment, I might have
+had any one of their daughters. "Would I come and pay a visit at
+Abergwrnant before I left the neighbourhood? Only twenty-five miles, and
+a coach from B&mdash;&mdash;!" "Would I, before the shooting began, come to
+Craig-y-bwldrwn, and stay over the first fortnight in September?" I
+could have quartered myself, and two or three friends, in a dozen places
+for a month at a time. And, let me do justice to the warm hospitality of
+North Wales&mdash;these invitations were renewed in the morning: and were I
+ever to visit those shores again, I should have no fear of their having
+been yet forgotten.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Phillips had told us, that when we left the table, "the girls"
+would have some coffee for us, if not too late; and Willingham and
+myself, having taken a turn or two in the moonlight to get rid of the
+excitement of the evening, bent our steps in that direction. There were
+about as many persons assembled as the little drawing-room would hold,
+and Clara, having forgotten her headach, and looking as lovely as ever,
+was seated at a wretched piano, endeavouring to accompany herself in her
+favourite songs. Willingham and myself stood by, and our repeated
+requests for some of those melodies which, unknown to us before, we had
+learnt from her singing to admire beyond all the fashionable trash of
+the day, were gratified with untiring good-nature. Somehow I thought
+that she avoided my eye, and answered my remarks with less than her
+usual archness and vivacity. I could bear it on this evening less than
+ever; a hair will turn the scale, and I had just been, half ludicrously,
+half seriously, affected by Welsh nationality. One cannot help warming
+towards a community which are so warm-hearted among themselves. Visions
+of I know not what&mdash;love and a living, Clara and a cottage&mdash;were
+floating dreamlike before my eyes, and I felt as if borne along by a
+current whose direction might be dangerous, but which it was misery to
+resist. Willingham had turned away a minute to hunt for some missing
+book, which contained one of his favourites; and, leaning over her with
+my finger pointing to the words which she had just been singing, I said
+something about there being always a fear in happiness such as I had
+lately been enjoying, lest it might not last. For a moment she met my
+earnest look, and coloured violently; and then fixing her eyes on the
+music before her, she said quickly, "Mr Hawthorne, I thought you had a
+higher opinion of me than to make me pretty speeches; I have a great
+dislike to them." I began to protest warmly against any intention of
+mere compliment, when the return of Willingham with his song prevented
+any renewal of the subject. I was annoyed and silent, and detected a
+tremor in her voice while she sang the words, and saw her cheek paler
+than usual. The instant the song was over, she complained with a smile
+of being tired, and without a look at either of us, joined a party who
+were noisily recounting the events of the race-course. Nor could I again
+that evening obtain a moment's conversation with her. She spoke to me,
+indeed, and very kindly; but once only did I catch her eye, when I was
+speaking to some one else&mdash;the glance was rapidly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> withdrawn, but it
+seemed rather sorrowful than cold.</p>
+
+<p>I was busy with Hanmer the next morning before breakfast, when Dick
+Phillips made his appearance, and informed us that the "strangers" had
+made up an eleven for the cricket match, and that we were to play at
+ten. He was a sort of live circular, dispatched to get all parties in
+readiness.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! I have something for you from Clara," said he to me, as he was
+leaving; "the words of a song she promised you, I believe."</p>
+
+<p>I opened the sealed envelope, saw that it was not a song, and left
+Hanmer somewhat abruptly. When I was alone, I read the following:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Dear Mr Hawthorne</span>,&mdash;Possibly you may have been told that I have, before
+now, done things which people call strange&mdash;that is, contrary to some
+arbitrary notions which are to supersede our natural sense of right and
+wrong. But never, until now, did I follow the dictates of my own
+feelings in opposition to conventional rules, with the painful
+uncertainty as to the propriety of such a course, which I now feel. And
+if I had less confidence than I have in your honour and your kindness,
+or less esteem for your character, or less anxiety for your happiness, I
+would not write to you now. But I feel, that if you are what I wish to
+believe you, it is right that you should be at once undeceived as to my
+position. Others should have done it, perhaps&mdash;it would have spared me
+much. Whether your attentions to me are in sport or earnest, they must
+cease. I have no right to listen to such words as yours last night&mdash;my
+heart and hand are engaged to one, who deserves better from me than the
+levity which alone could have placed me in the position from which I
+thus painfully extricate myself. For any fault on my part, I thus make
+bitter atonement. I wish you health and happiness, and now let this save
+us both from further misunderstanding.</p>
+
+
+<p class="right">"C."</p>
+
+
+<p>Again and again did I read these words. Not one woman in a hundred would
+have ventured on such a step. And for what? to save me from the
+mortification of a rejection? It could be nothing else. How easy for a
+man of heartless gallantry to have written a cool note in reply,
+disclaiming "any aspiration after the honour implied," and placing the
+warm-hearted writer in the predicament of having declined attentions
+never meant to be serious! But I felt how kindly, how gently, I had been
+treated&mdash;the worst of it was, I loved her better than ever. I wrote some
+incoherent words in reply, sufficiently expressive of my bitter
+disappointment, and my admiration of her conduct; and then I felt "that
+my occupation was gone." She whom I had so loved to look upon, I
+trembled now to see. I had no mind to break my heart; but I felt that
+time and change were necessary to prevent it. Above all, Glyndewi was no
+place for me to forget <i>her</i> in.</p>
+
+<p>In the midst of my painful reflections on all the happy hours of the
+past week, Gordon and Willingham broke in upon me with high matter for
+consultation relative to the match, In vain did I plead sudden illness,
+and inability to play: they declared it would knock the whole thing on
+the head, for Hanmer would be sure to turn sulky, and there was an end
+of the eleven; and they looked so really chagrined at my continued
+refusals, that at length I conquered my selfishness, (I had had a lesson
+in that,) and, though really feeling indisposed for any exertion, went
+down with them to the ground. I was in momentary dread of seeing Clara
+arrive, (for all the world was to be there,) and felt nervous and
+low-spirited. The strangers' eleven was a better one than we expected,
+and they put our men out pretty fast. Hanmer got most unfortunately run
+out after a splendid hit, and begged me to go in and "do something." I
+took my place mechanically, and lost my wicket to the first ball. We
+made a wretched score, and the strangers went in exultingly. In spite of
+Hanmer's steady bowling, they got runs pretty fast; and an easy catch
+came into my hands just as Clara appeared on the ground, and I lost all
+consciousness of what I was about. Again the same opportunity offered,
+and again my eyes were wandering among the tents. Hanmer got annoyed,
+and said something not over civil: I vas vexed myself that my
+carelessness should be the cause of disappointment twice, and yet more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span>
+than half-inclined to quarrel with Branling, whom I overheard muttering
+about my "cursed awkwardness." We were left in a fearful minority at the
+close of the first innings, when we retired to dinner. The Glyndewi
+party and their friends were evidently disappointed. I tried to avoid
+Clara; but could not keep far from her. At last she came up with one of
+her brothers, spoke and shook hands with me, said that her brother had
+told her I was not well, and that she feared I ought not to have played
+at all. "I wish you could have beat them, Mr Hawthorne&mdash;I had bet that
+you would; perhaps you will feel better after dinner, those kind of
+headachs soon wear off," she added with a smile and a kind look, which I
+understood as she meant it. I walked into the tent where we were to
+dine: I sat next a little man on the opposite side, an Englishman, one
+of their best players, as active as a monkey, who had caught out three
+of our men in succession. He talked big about his play, criticised
+Willingham's batting, which was really pretty, and ended by discussing
+Clara Phillips, who was, he said, "a demned fine girl, but too much of
+her." I disliked his flippancy before, but now my disgust to him was
+insuperable. I asked the odds against us, and took them freely. There
+was champagne before me, and I drank it in tumblers. I did what even in
+my under-graduate days was rarely my habit&mdash;I drank till I was
+considerably excited. Hanmer saw it, and got the match resumed at once
+to save me, as he afterwards said, "from making a fool of myself." I
+insisted, in spite of his advice "to cool myself," upon going in first.
+My flippant acquaintance of the dinner-table stood <i>point</i>, and I knew,
+if I could but see the ball, and not see more than one, that I could
+occasionally "hit square" to some purpose. I had the luck to catch the
+first ball just on the rise, and it caught my friend <i>point</i> off his
+legs as if he had been shot. He limped off the ground, and we were
+troubled with him no more. I hit as I never did before, or shall again.
+At first I played wild; but as I got cool, and my sight became steady, I
+felt quite at home. The bowlers got tired, and Dick Phillips, who had no
+science, but the strength of a unicorn, was in with me half-an-hour,
+slashing in all directions. It short, the tide turned, and the match
+ended in our favour.</p>
+
+<p>I was quite sober, and free from all excitement, when I joined Clara,
+for the last time after the game was over. "I am so glad you played so
+well," said she, "if you are but as successful at Oxford as you have
+been at the boat-race and the cricket, you will have no reason to be
+disappointed. Your career here has been one course of victory." "Not
+altogether, Miss Phillips: the prize I shall leave behind me when I quit
+Glyndewi to-morrow, is worth more than all that I can gain." "Mr
+Hawthorne," said she kindly, "one victory is in your own power, and you
+will soon gain it, and be happy&mdash;the victory over yourself."</p>
+
+<p>I made some excuse to Hanmer about letters from home, to account for my
+sudden departure. How the party got on after I left them, and what was
+the final result of our "reading," is no part of my tale; but I fear the
+reader will search the class-lists of 18&mdash; in vain for the names of Mr
+Hanmer's pupils.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Hawthorne.</span></p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_1" id="Footnote_A_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_1"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> Fact.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTERS_OF_TURKISH_HISTORY" id="CHAPTERS_OF_TURKISH_HISTORY"></a>CHAPTERS OF TURKISH HISTORY.</h2>
+
+<h4>No. X.</h4>
+
+
+<h3>THE SECOND SIEGE OF VIENNA.</h3>
+
+<p>The Ottoman empire, exhausted by its strenuous and long-continued
+efforts in the death-struggle of Candia, had need of peace and repose to
+recruit its resources; but the calm was not of long duration. A fresh
+complication of interests was now arising in the north, which, by
+involving the Porte in the stormy politics of Poland and Russia, led to
+consequences little foreseen at the time, and which, even at the present
+day are far from having reached their final accomplishment. Since the
+ill-judged and unfortunate invasion by Sultan Osman II., in 1620 the
+good understanding between Poland and the Porte had continued
+undisturbed, save by the occasional inroads of the Crim Tartars on the
+one side, and the Cossacks of the Dniepr on the other, which neither
+government was able entirely to restrain. But the oppression to which
+the Polish nobles attempted to subject their Cossack <i>allies</i>, whom they
+pretended to regard as serfs and vassals, was intolerable to these
+freeborn sons of the steppe; and an universal revolt at length broke
+out, which was the beginning of the evil days of Poland. For nearly
+twenty years, under the feeble rule of John Casimer, the country was
+desolated with sanguinary civil wars; the Czar Alexis Mikhailowitz,
+eager to regain the rich provinces lost by Russia during the reign of
+his father, at length appeared in the field as the protector of the
+Cossacks; and, in 1656, the greater part of their body, with the Ataman
+Bogdan Khmielni&ccedil;ki at their head, formally transferred their allegiance
+to the Russian sceptre. This fatal blow, which in effect turned the
+balance of power, so long fluctuating between Poland and Russia, in
+favour of the latter, failed, however, to teach moderation to the Polish
+aristocracy; and the remainder of the Cossacks, who still continued in
+their ancient seats under the Ataman Doroszenko, finding themselves
+menaced by a fresh attack, embraced the resolution of "placing
+themselves under the shadow of the horsetails," by becoming the
+voluntary vassals of the Porte, of which they had so long been the
+inveterate enemies. In spite of the violent reclamations of the Polish
+envoy Wizo&ccedil;ki, the offer was at once accepted, and a mace and kaftan of
+honour sent to the ataman as ensigns of investiture, while the Poles
+were warned to desist from hostilities against the subjects of the
+sultan. The refusal to accede to this requisition produced an instant
+declaration of war, addressed in an autograph letter from Kiuprili to
+the grand chancellor of Poland, and followed up, in the spring of 1672,
+by the march of an army of 100,000 men for Podolia. The sultan himself
+took the field for the first time, attended by Kiuprili and the other
+vizirs of the divan, and carrying with him his court and harem, and the
+whole host, after a march of four months from Adrianople, crossed the
+Dniester in the first days of August.</p>
+
+<p>The distracted state of Poland, where the helpless Michael Coribut
+Wie&ccedil;nowi&ccedil;ki bore but the empty title of king, precluded the possibility
+of even an attempt at resistance, and the grand marshal of the kingdom,
+the heroic John Sobieski, who, with only 6000 men, had held his ground
+against the Cossacks, Turks, and Tartars, through the preceding winter,
+was compelled to withdraw from Podolia. The whole province was speedily
+overrun; the fortresses of Kaminiec and Leopol were yielded almost
+without defence; and the king, terrified at the progress of the
+invaders, sued for peace, which was signed September 18, 1672, in the
+Turkish camp at Buczacz. Kaminiec, Podolia, and the Cossack territory,
+were by this act ceded to the Porte, besides an annual tribute from
+Poland of 220,000 ducats; and Mohammed, having caused proclamation to be
+made by the criers that "pardon for his offences had been granted to
+the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> rebel <i>kral</i> of the <i>Leh</i>,"<a name="FNanchor_B_2" id="FNanchor_B_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_B_2" class="fnanchor">[B]</a> (Poles,) returned in triumph to
+Adrianople, leaving his army in winter quarters on the Danube.</p>
+
+<p>The Diet, however, indignantly refused either to ratify the treaty or
+pay the tribute; and hostilities were resumed the next year with
+increased inveteracy on both sides. The sultan accompanied his army only
+to the Danube, where he remained engrossed with the pleasures of the
+chase at Babataghi; while Sobieski, who had accommodated for the time
+his differences with his colleague and rival Pa&ccedil;, hetman of Lithuania,
+and was at the head of 50,000 men, boldly anticipated the tardy
+movements of the Turks, who were advancing in several separate <i>corps
+d'arm&eacute;e</i>, by crossing the Dniester early in October. He was forthwith
+joined by Stephen, waiwode of Moldavia, with great part of the Moldavian
+and Wallachian troops, who unexpectedly deserted the standards of the
+crescent; and, after several partial encounters, a general engagement
+took place, November 11, 1673, between the Polish army and the advanced
+divisions of the Ottomans under the serasker Hussein, pasha of
+Silistria, who lay in an intrenched camp on the heights near Choczim. A
+heavy fall of snow during the night, combined with a piercing north wind
+had benumbed the frames of the Janissaries, accustomed to the genial
+warmth of a southern climate; and the enthusiastic valour of the Poles,
+stimulated by the exhortations and example of their chief, made their
+onset irresistible. The Turkish army was almost annihilated: 25,000 men,
+with numerous begs and pashas, remained on the field of battle, or
+perished in the Dniester from the breaking of the bridge: all their
+cannon and standards became trophies to the victors: and the green
+banner of the serasker was sent to Rome by Sobieski, in the belief that
+it was the <i>Sandjak-shereef</i>, or sacred standard of the Prophet&mdash;the
+oriflamme of the Ottoman empire. Never had a defeat nearly so
+disastrous, with the single exception of that of St. Gotthard, ten years
+before, befallen the Turkish arms in Europe; and the other corps, under
+the command of the grand-vizir and of his brother-in-law, Kaplan-pasha
+of Aleppo, which were marching to the support of Hussein, fell back in
+dismay to their former, ground on the right bank of the Danube. The
+Poles, however, made no further use of their triumph than to ravage
+Moldavia, and the death of the king, on the same day with the victory at
+Choczim, recalled Sobieski to Warsaw, in order to become a candidate for
+the vacant crown. On his election by the Diet, in May 1674, he made
+overtures for peace to the Porte, but they were rejected, and the
+contest continued during several years, without any notable achievement
+on either side, the war being unpopular with the Turkish soldiery; while
+the civil dissensions of his kingdom, with his consequent inferiority of
+numbers, kept Sobieski generally on the defensive. In his intrenched
+camp at Zurawno, with only 15,000 men, he had for twenty days kept at
+bay 100,000 Turks under the serasker Ibrahim, surnamed Sha&iuml;tan or <i>the
+devil</i>, when both sides, weary of the fruitless struggle, agreed upon a
+conference, and peace was signed October 27, 1676. The humiliating
+demand of tribute was no longer insisted upon; but Kaminiec, Podolia,
+and great part of the Ukraine, were left in possession of the Turks,
+whose stubborn perseverance thus succeeded, as on many occasions, in
+gaining nearly every object for which the war had been undertaken.</p>
+
+<p>Before the news, however, of the pacification with Poland had reached
+Constantinople, Ahmed-Kiuprili had closed his glorious career. He had
+long suffered from dropsy, the same disease which had proved fatal to
+his father, and the effects of which were in his case, aggravated by too
+free an indulgence in wine, to which, after his return from Candia, he
+is said to have become greatly addicted. He had accompanied the sultan,
+who had for many years remained absent from his capital, on a visit,
+during the summer months, to Constantinople, but, on the return to
+Adrianople, he was compelled, by increasing sickness, to halt on the
+banks of the Erkench, between Chorlu<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> and Demotika, where he breathed
+his last in a <i>chitlik</i>, or farm-house, called Kara-Bovir, October 30,
+at the age of forty-seven, after having administered the affairs of the
+empire for a few days more than fifteen years. His corpse was carried
+back to Constantinople, and laid without pomp in the mausoleum erected
+by his father, amid the lamentations of the people, rarely poured forth
+over the tomb of a deceased grand vizir. The character of this great
+minister has been made the theme of unmeasured panegyrics by the Turkish
+historians; and Von Hammer-Purgstall (in his <i>History of the Ottoman
+Empire</i>) has given us a long and elaborate parallel between the life and
+deeds of Ahmed Kiuprili and of the celebrated vizir of Soliman the
+Magnificent and his two successors, Mohammed-Pasha Sokolli; but we
+prefer to quote the impartial and unadorned portrait drawn by his
+contemporary Rycaut:&mdash;"He was, in person, (for I have seen him often,
+and knew him well,) of a middle stature, of a black beard, and brown
+complexion;<a name="FNanchor_C_3" id="FNanchor_C_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_C_3" class="fnanchor">[C]</a> something short-sighted, which caused him to knit his
+brows, and pore very intently when any strange person entered the
+presence; he was inclining to be fat, and grew corpulent towards his
+latter days. If we consider his age when he first took upon him this
+important charge, the enemies his father had created him, the
+contentions he had with the Valideh-sultana or queen-mother, and the
+arts he had used to reconcile the affections of these great personages,
+and conserve himself in the unalterable esteem of his sovereign to the
+last hour of his death, there is none but must judge him to have
+deserved the character of a most prudent and politic person. If we
+consider how few were put to death, and what inconsiderable mutinies or
+rebellions happened in any part of the empire during his government, it
+will afford us a clear evidence and proof of his greatness and
+moderation beyond the example of former times: for certainly he was not
+a person who delighted in blood, and in that respect far different from
+the temper of his father; he was generous, and free from avarice&mdash;a rare
+virtue in a Turk! He was educated in the law, and therefore greatly
+addicted to all the formalities of it, and in the administration of
+justice very punctual and severe: and as to his behaviour towards the
+neighbouring princes, there may, I believe, be fewer examples of his
+breach of faith, than what his predecessors have given in a shorter time
+of rule. In his wars abroad he was successful, having upon every
+expedition enlarged the bounds of the empire: he overcame Neuhausel,
+with a considerable part of Hungary, he concluded the long war with
+Venice by an entire and total subjugation of the Island of Candia,
+having subdued that impregnable fortress, which by the rest of the world
+was considered invincible; and he won Kemenitz (Kaminiec,) the key of
+Poland, where the Turks had been frequently baffled, and laid Ukraine to
+the empire. If we measure his triumphs, rather than count his years,
+though he might seem to have lived but little to his prince and people,
+yet certainly to himself he could not die more seasonably, nor in a
+greater height and eminency of glory."</p>
+
+<p>The deceased vizir left no children: and the sultan is said to have
+offered the seals, in the first instance, as if the office had become in
+fact hereditary in the family, to Mustapha, another son of
+Mohammed-Kiuprili, a man of retired and studious habits, who had the
+philosophy to decline the onerous dignity.<a name="FNanchor_D_4" id="FNanchor_D_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_D_4" class="fnanchor">[D]</a> However this may have
+been, (for the story appears to rest on somewhat doubtful authority,)
+within seven days of the death of Ahmed, the vizirat had been conferred
+on Kara-Mustapha Pasha, who then held the office of kaimakam, and had
+for several years been distinguished by the special favour and
+confidence of the sultan. The new minister was connected by the ties
+both of marriage and adoption with the house of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> Kiuprili. His father
+Oroudj, a spahi, holding land at Merzifoun, (a town and district in
+Anatolia contiguous to Kiupri,) had fallen at the siege of Bagdad, under
+Sultan Mourad-Ghazi in 1638: and the orphan had been educated in the
+household of Mohammed-Kiuprili as the companion and adopted brother of
+his son Ahmed, one of whose sisters he in due time received in marriage.
+The elevation of his patron to the highest dignity of the empire, of
+course opened to Kara-Mustapha the road to fortune and preferment&mdash;from
+his first post of deputy to the <i>meer-akhor</i>, or master of the horse, he
+was promoted to the rank of pasha of two tails&mdash;and after holding the
+governments successively of Silistria and Diarbekr was nominated
+capitan-pasha in 1662 by his brother-in-law Ahmed; but exchanged that
+appointment in the following year for the office of kaimakam, in which
+capacity he was left in charge of the capital on the departure of the
+vizir to the army in Hungary. His duties in this situation, as
+lieutenant of the grand-vizir during his absence, gave him constant
+access to the presence of the sultan: and being (as he is described by
+the contemporary writer above quoted) "a wise and experienced person, of
+a smooth behaviour, and a great courtier," he so well improved the
+opportunities thus afforded him, as to obtain a place in the monarch's
+favour second only to that of Kiuprili himself. This excessive
+partiality was, however, scarcely justified by the good qualities of the
+favourite; for though the abilities of Kara-Mustapha were above
+mediocrity, his avarice was so extreme as to lay him open to the
+suspicion of corruption: and his sanguinary cruelty, when holding a
+command in Poland in the campaign of 1674, drew down on him the severe
+reprobation of his illustrious brother in-law. The predilection of the
+sultan for his society continued, however, unabated:&mdash;and during the
+visit of the court to Constantinople in 1675, he was still further
+exalted by becoming, at least in name, son-in-law to his sovereign,
+being affianced to the Sultana Khadidjeh, then only three years old. The
+f&ecirc;tes of the betrothal, which were celebrated at the same time as those
+for the circumcision of the heir-apparent, (afterwards Mustapha II.,)
+were unrivalled for splendour in a reign distinguished for
+magnificence:&mdash;and on the death of Ahmed-Kiuprili in the following year,
+this fortunate adventurer found little difficulty in stepping, as we
+have seen, into the vacated place.</p>
+
+<p>The first cares of the new vizir were on the side of the newly acquired
+frontier in the Ukraine; for, though all claim to that part of the
+Cossack territory had been expressly resigned by Poland at the treaty of
+Durawno, the Czar of Muscovy had never ceased to assert his pretensions
+to the whole Ukraine, in virtue of the convention of 1656 with
+Khmielni&ccedil;ki; and during the Polish campaign of 1674, his troops on the
+border, under a general named Romanodoffski, had several times come into
+collision with the Turks&mdash;an era deserving notice as the first hostile
+encounter between these two great antagonist powers. The defection of
+Doroszenko, who had gone over to the Russians at the end of 1676, and
+surrendered to them the important fortress of Czehryn, the capital and
+key of the Ukraine, and the repulse of the serasker Ibrahim before its
+walls in the following year, showed the necessity of vigorous measures:
+and, in 1678, the grand vizir in person appeared at the head of a
+formidable force in the Ukraine, bringing with him George Khmielni&ccedil;ki,
+son of the former ataman, who had long been confined as a state prisoner
+in the Seven Towers, but was now released to counteract, by his
+hereditary influence with the Cossacks, the adverse agency of
+Doroszenko. Czehryn, after a close investment of a month, was carried by
+storm, the garrison put to the sword, and the fortifications razed. But
+though the war was continued through another campaign, it was obviously
+not the interest of the Divan to prolong this remote and unprofitable
+contest at a juncture when the state of parties in Hungary bid fair to
+present such an opportunity as had never before occurred, for
+definitively establishing the supremacy of the Porte over the whole of
+that kingdom. Negotiations were accordingly opened on the Dniepr between
+the Muscovite leaders and the Khan Mourad-Gherni; and a peace was signed
+at Radzin, Feb. 12, 1681, by which the frontiers on both sides were left
+unaltered, while the Porte expressly renounced all claim to Kiow<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> and
+the Russian Ukraine, which had been in the possession of the Czar since
+1656. The ratification of the treaty was brought to Constantinople in
+the following September by an envoy, whose gifts of costly arctic furs,
+and ivory from the tusks of the walrus, might have unfolded to the Turks
+the wide extent of the northern realms ruled by the monarch whom they
+even yet regarded only as a tributary of their own vassal the Khan of
+the Tartars, and scarcely deigned to admit on equal terms to diplomatic
+intercourse.</p>
+
+<p>Though the truce for twenty years, concluded between the Porte and the
+Empire after the defeat of Ahmed-Kiuprili at St Gotthard in 1564, had
+not yet expired by nearly three years, the political aspect of Hungary
+left little doubt that the resumption of hostilities would not be so
+long delayed. To understand more clearly the extraordinary complication
+of interests of which this country was now the scene, it will, however,
+be necessary to take a retrospective glance at its history during the
+seventeenth century, after the treaty of Komorn with the Porte, in 1606,
+had terminated for the time the warfare of which it had almost
+constantly been the theatre since the occupation of Buda by Soliman the
+Magnificent in 1541, ad had, in some measure, defined the boundaries of
+the two great powers between which it was divided. The Emperors of the
+House of Hapsburg, indeed, styled themselves Kings of Hungary, and Diets
+were held in their name at Presburg; but the territory actually under
+their sway amounted to less than a third of the ancient kingdom,
+comprehending only the northern and western districts; while all the
+central portion of Hungary Proper, as far as Agria on the north, and the
+Raab and the Balaton Lake on the west, was united to the Ottoman Empire,
+and formed the pashaliks of Buda and Temeswar, which were regularly
+divided into sandjaks and districts, with their due quota of spahis and
+timariots, who had been drawn from the Moslem provinces of Turkey, and
+held grants of land by tenure of military service. The principality of
+Transylvania, (called <i>Erdel</i> by the Turks,) which had been erected by
+Soliman in favour of the son of John Zapolya, comprehended nearly
+one-fourth of Hungary, and (though its suzeraint&eacute; was claimed by Austria
+in virtue of a reversionary settlement executed by that prince shortly
+before his death,) was generally, in effect, dependent on, and tributary
+to the Porte, from which its princes, elected by the Diet at
+Klaucenburg, received confirmation and investiture, like the waiwodes of
+the neighbouring provinces of Moldavia and Wallachia. During the
+interval between the death of John Sigismond Zapolya in 1571, and the
+election of Michael Abaffi in 1661, not fewer than thirteen princes,
+besides nearly as many ephemeral pretenders, had occupied the throne;
+and, though at one time the family of Batthori, and, subsequently, that
+of Racoczy, established a kind of hereditary claim to election, their
+tenure was always precarious; and, on more than one occasion, the prince
+was imposed on the states by the Turks or Austrians, without even the
+shadow of constitutional forms.</p>
+
+<p>This modified independence of Transylvania, however, often gave its
+princes great political importance, during the endless troubles of
+Hungary, as the assertors of civil and religions liberty against the
+tyranny and bad faith of the Austrian cabinet; which, with unaccountable
+infatuation, instead of striving to attach to its rule, by conciliation
+and good government, the remnant of the kingdom still subject to its
+sceptre, bent all its efforts to destroy the ancient privileges of the
+Magyars, and to make the crown formally, as it already was in fact,
+hereditary in the imperial family. The extirpation of Protestantism was
+another favourite object of Austrian policy: and the cruelties
+perpetrated with this view by George Basta and the other imperial
+generals at the beginning of the century was such, that a general rising
+took place under Stephen Boczkai, then waiwode of Transylvania,
+Wallachia, and Moldavia, who extorted from the Emperor Rodolph, in 1607,
+the famous <i>pacification of Vienna</i>, which was guaranteed by the Porte,
+and which secured to the Hungarians full liberty of conscience, as well
+as the enjoyment of all their ancient rights. This agreement was soon
+violated; but the Protestants again found a protector in a Transylvanian
+prince, the celebrated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> Bethlen-Gabor;<a name="FNanchor_E_5" id="FNanchor_E_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_E_5" class="fnanchor">[E]</a> who, assuming the royal title,
+occupied Presburg and Neuhausel in 1619, formed an alliance with the
+Bohemian revolters under Count Thurn, and was narrowly prevented from
+forming a junction with them under the walls of Vienna, which, if
+effected, would probably have overthrown the dynasty of Hapsburg. He is
+said to have entertained the design of uniting all Hungary east of the
+Theiss, with Transylvania and Wallachia, into a modern <i>kingdom of
+Dacia</i>, leaving the west to the Turks as a barrier against Austrian
+aggression&mdash;but his want of children left his schemes of aggrandizement
+without a motive, and at his death in 1630 they all fell to the ground.
+The Thirty Years' War procured the Hungarian subjects of Austria a
+temporary respite; but Leopold, who was elected king in 1655, and
+succeeded his father Ferdinand in the empire three years later,
+stimulated by the triumph of his predecessor over the liberties of
+Bohemia, resumed with fresh zeal the crusade against the privileges of
+the Magyars. Not only was the persecution of the Protestants
+recommenced, but the excesses of the ill-paid and licentious German
+mercenaries, who were quartered on the country in defiance of the
+constitution after the twenty years' truce, under the pretence of
+guarding against any fresh attack from the Turks, were carried to such a
+height that disaffection became universal even among those who had
+hitherto constantly adhered to the Austrian interest, so that (in the
+words of a writer<a name="FNanchor_F_6" id="FNanchor_F_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_F_6" class="fnanchor">[F]</a> of the time,) "they began to contrast their own
+condition with that of the Transylvanians, who are not forced to take
+the turban but live quietly under the protection of the Turk&mdash;while we
+(as they say) are exposed to the caprices of a prince under the absolute
+dominion of the Jesuits, a far worse sort of people than the Dervishes!"
+As early as 1667, a secret communication had been made to the Porte
+through the envoy of Abaffi; but Kiuprili, who was then on the point of
+departure for Candia, and was unwilling to risk a fresh rupture with the
+empire in his absence, gave little encouragement either to these
+overtures, or to the more advantageous propositions received in 1670
+from Peter Zriny, Ban of Croatia, and previously a famous
+partisan-leader against the Moslems; in which the malecontents offered,
+as the price of Ottoman aid and protection, to cede to the sultan all
+the fortified towns which should be taken by his arms, and to pay an
+annual tribute of 30,000 ducats. The conspiracy had, however, become
+known at Vienna; and instant measures were taken for seizing Zriny and
+his Croatian confederates, Nadasti, Tattenbach, and Christopher
+Frangipani, who were all executed in the course of the following year.
+The Emperor, now considering Hungary as a conquered country, formally
+abolished the dignity of Palatine, and nominated Gaspar Von Ampringham,
+grand master of the Teutonic knights, to be viceroy of the kingdom;
+while the Protestants were persecuted with unheard-of rigour, and many
+of their ministers imprisoned in the fortresses, or sent in chains to
+the galleys at Naples.</p>
+
+<p>The confederates of Upper Hungary had been better on their guard: and on
+the news of the fate of Zriny and his associates, they forthwith
+assembled in arms at Kaschau or Cassovia, and electing Francis Racoczy,
+son of the late prince of Transylvania, and son-in-law of Zriny, as
+their leader, bade defiance to the Emperor. The civil war continued
+several years without decisive success on either side; till on the
+death, in 1676, of Racoczy, (who had previously abandoned the popular
+cause,) the famous Emeric Tekoeli, then only twenty years of age, was
+chosen general. He was the hereditary enemy of the Austrians; his father
+Stephen, Count of Kersmark, having been besieged in his castle by the
+Imperialists at the time of his death; and while he pressed the Germans
+in the field with such vigour as to deprive them of nearly all the
+fortified places they still held in Upper Hungary, the negotiation with
+the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> Porte for aid was renewed, and being backed by the diplomatic
+influence of France, then at war with the empire, was more favourably
+received by Kara-Mustapha than the former advances of the malcontents
+had been by his predecessor. The war with Russia, however, prevented the
+Turks for the present from interfering with effect, but Abaffi was
+authorized to support the insurgents in the mean time, while Leopold,
+fearing the total loss of Hungary, summoned a diet at &#338;denburg (in
+1681) for the redress of grievances, in which most of the ancient
+privileges of the kingdom were restored, full liberty of conscience
+promised to the Lutherans and Calvinists, and Paul Esterhazy named
+Palatine. But these concessions, wrung only by hard necessity from the
+Cabinet of Vienna, came now too late. Tekoeli replied to the amnesty
+proclaimed by the Emperor, by the publication of a counter-manifesto, in
+which were set forth a hundred grievances of the Hungarians; and, having
+obtained a great accession of strength by his marriage (June 1682) to
+Helen Zriny, the widow of Racoczy, whereby he gained all the adherents
+of those two powerful houses, he summoned a rival diet at Cassovia,
+where he openly assumed the title of sovereign prince of Upper Hungary,
+exercising the prerogatives of royalty, and striking money in his own
+name, which bore his effigy on the obverse, and on the reverse the motto
+inscribed on his standards&mdash;"Pro Deo, Patria, et Libertate."</p>
+
+<p>Though Tekoeli professed to act by the authority of the Porte, from
+which he had received a firman of investiture with the usual ensigns of
+sovereignty, no formal declaration of war had yet been issued from
+Constantinople; and many of the Ulemah protested against such a measure,
+at least till the twenty years' truce, concluded in 1664, should have
+expired. The aid openly afforded, however, to Tekoeli by Abaffi and the
+pasha of Buda, as well as the constant march of large bodies of troops
+to the Danube, afforded sufficient indication that an attack would not
+be long delayed; and Leopold, disquieted at the prospect of having at
+once to contend against his own revolted subjects, and the mighty force
+of the Ottoman empire, sent Count Caprara on a mission to
+Constantinople, in the hope of averting the storm; while, at the same
+time, he made overtures for an alliance with Poland, still smarting
+under her losses in the late Turkish war. The mission of Caprara led to
+no result, from the exorbitant demands made by the Ottoman ministers on
+behalf both of the Porte and its Hungarian allies, which amounted to
+little less than a total cession of the country, and a few days after
+the arrival of the ambassador, the despatch of the firman to Tekoeli,
+and the display of the imperial horsetails in the plain of Daood-Pasha,
+showed that the resolution of the Divan was fixed for war. The
+negotiation with Poland presented almost equal difficulties, from the
+rooted jealousy entertained by the Poles of the ambition of Austria, and
+the opposition of the French envoy, De Vitry, who even carried his
+intrigues so far as to embark in a plot for the death or dethronement of
+the king, and the substitution of the grand marshal Iablonowski. The
+firmness of Sobieski, however, whom no minor considerations could blind
+to the importance of saving Austria and Hungary from the grasp of the
+Osmanli, overcame all these machinations; and the ratification of the
+diet was eventually given to a league, offensive and defensive, with
+Austria, on March 31, 1683&mdash;the same day on which the vast host of the
+Ottomans broke up from its cantonments about Adrianople, and directed
+its march towards the Danube.</p>
+
+<p>The sons of Naodasti and Zriny, who had been executed ten years before,
+were retained as hostages, under the name of chamberlains, in the
+imperial household; and it fell to the lot of the former to announce to
+Leopold, that the legions of the crescent were pouring down on Hungary.
+The cheek of the Emperor blanched at the tidings; for well did he know
+that, till the arrival of the Poles, his disposable force amounted to
+scarce 35,000 men, under Duke Charles of Lorraine, who could barely make
+head against Abaffi and Tekoeli, while so high were the hopes of the
+Magyars raised of a speedy and final deliverance from Austrian tyranny,
+that a plot is even said to have been laid between Zriny and his sister,
+now the wife of Tekoeli, for seizing the person of Leopold in the palace
+of Vienna,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> and giving him up to the Tartars, who had already commenced
+their ravages on the frontiers. The sultan meanwhile&mdash;the cumbrous
+luxury of whose harem and equipages had retarded the march of the
+army&mdash;had halted at Belgrade, after holding a grand review of his
+forces, and placing the standard of the Prophet in the hands of the
+vizier, in token of the full powers entrusted to him for the conduct of
+the campaign. On the 10th of June, Tekoeli, who had crossed the Danube
+to welcome his potent auxiliaries, was received at Essek with royal
+magnificence by Kara-Mustapha, who imitated, in the ceremonial observed
+on this occasion, the pomp of the reception of John Zapolya by Soliman,
+on his march against Vienna in 1529; but after receiving personal
+investiture of the royal dignity conferred on him by the sultan, he
+returned rapidly to Cassovia, where he had fixed his headquarters. The
+khan of the Tartars had already arrived at Stuhlweissenburg, and was
+speedily joined by the vizir and the main Turkish army, which, passing
+the Danube to the number of 140,000 men, swept like a torrent over the
+rich plains of Lower Hungary: the towns, abandoned by the panic-stricken
+German garrisons, every where opening their gates to the partisans of
+Zriny and Tekoeli, in the hope of escaping the fate of Veszprim, which
+had been sacked by the janissaries for attempting resistance. The march
+was pressed with unexampled rapidity, till on the 28th the whole army
+was mustered under the walls of Gran; and the vizir, summoning to his
+tent the khan and the principal pashas, announced that his orders were
+to make himself master of Vienna.</p>
+
+<p>The veneration with which the Turks have always regarded the memory of
+the greatest of their sultans, has led them not only to shrink with
+superstitious awe from attempting any enterprise in which he failed, but
+even to attach a prophetic importance to his recorded sayings. A promise
+attributed to him, that "an Ottoman army should never pass the Raab,"
+had been recalled at the time of the signal defeat experienced by
+Ahmed-Kiuprili on that river, and his memorable repulse before Vienna
+had been ever held as a warning, that the Ottoman arms were destined
+never to prevail against the ramparts of the <i>Kizil-Alma</i>. These
+considerations, however, had little weight with Kara-Mustapha; bridges,
+hastily thrown over the ill-omened stream, afforded a passage to the
+army, (July 8,) and the march was again directed without stop or stay on
+Vienna. A body of Hungarians in the pay of the emperor, under Budiani,
+passed over to the ranks of their insurgent countrymen on the first
+appearance of the standards of Tekoeli; and the Duke of Lorraine, who
+had withdrawn his infantry to the island of Schutt and the other bank of
+the Danube, was worsted in a cavalry fight at Petronel by the Tartars,
+whose flying squadrons were already seen from the walls of Vienna.
+Proclamation had been made, forbidding the citizens to <i>speak of the
+present state of affairs!</i>&mdash;but the emperor and court, who had
+confidently reckoned on the invaders being delayed by the sieges of Raab
+and Komorn, no sooner learned that they had passed those fortresses
+unheeded, and were rapidly approaching the capital, than, seized with a
+panic-terror, they fled from the devoted city, on the same day with the
+combat at Petronel, (July 7,) in such dismayed haste, that the empress
+was forced to lodge one night under a tree in the open air; nor did they
+deem themselves in safety from the terrible pursuit of the Tartars, till
+they reached Lintz, on the furthest western verge of the hereditary
+states. The Austrian towns along the Danube were overwhelmed by the
+advancing tide of Turks, or ravaged by the Hungarian followers of
+Tekoeli, who vied with their Moslem allies in animosity against the
+Germans; and the light troops and Tartars, overspreading the country,
+pushed their predatory excursions so far up the river, as even to alarm
+the imperial fugitives at Lintz, who consulted their safety by a second
+flight to Passau. The three great abbeys of Lilienfeldt, M&ouml;lk, and
+Klosterneuburg, were preserved from these desultory marauders by the
+strength of their walls, and the valour of their monastic inmates, who
+took arms in defence of their cloisters; but the open country was laid
+waste with the same ferocity as in the invasion by Soliman, and many
+thousands of the country people were dragged<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> as slaves into the Turkish
+camp. The regular columns of the janissaries and feudatory troops,
+meanwhile, continuing their advance, appeared on the morning of the 14th
+under the walls of Vienna; the posts of the different corps were
+assigned on the same day, and in the course of the following night,
+ground was broken for the trenches on three sides of the city.</p>
+
+<p>The ancient ramparts of Vienna, which had withstood the assault of the
+great Soliman, had been replaced, not long after the former siege, by
+fortifications better adapted for modern warfare; but during the long
+interval of security, the extensive suburbs, with the villas and gardens
+of the nobles and opulent citizens, had been suffered to encroach on the
+glacis and encumber the approaches; and the ruins of these luxurious
+abodes, imperfectly destroyed in the panic arising from the unexpected
+celerity of the enemy's movements, were calculated at once to impede the
+fire from the walls, and to afford shelter and lodgement to the
+besiegers. Such preparations for defence, however, as the time allowed
+of, had been hastily made by the governor, Rudiger Count Stahrenberg, a
+descendant of the stout baron who, in the former siege, had repulsed the
+Tartars in the defiles near Enns, and an artillery officer of proved
+skill and valour. Most of the gates had been walled up, platforms and
+covered ways constructed, and the students of the university, with such
+of the citizens as were able and willing to bear arms, were organized
+into companies in aid of the regular troops, whose number did not exceed
+14,000. But the flower of the Austrian nobility, with many gallant
+volunteers, not only from Germany, but from other parts of Christendom,
+were within the walls, and animated by their example the spirits of the
+defenders, whose only hope of relief lay apparently in the distant and
+uncertain succours of Poland. The Duke of Lorraine, with his cavalry,
+had still hoped to maintain himself in the Prater and the Leopoldstadt,
+(which were on an island separated from the city by a narrow arm of the
+river,) and thus to keep up the communication with the north bank:&mdash;but
+an overwhelming body of Turkish horse, (among whom were conspicuous the
+Arab chargers and gorgeous equipments of a troop of Egyptian Mamlukes, a
+force rarely seen in the Ottoman armies,) was directed against him on
+the 17th, and after a desperate conflict, he was driven across the main
+stream with the loss of 500 men, and with difficulty secured himself
+from pursuit by breaking the bridge. The suburb of Leopold, in itself a
+second city, was given up to the flames; and the Turks, erecting two
+batteries on the bank opposite Vienna, completed the investment on the
+only side which had hitherto remained open. Kara-Mustapha, in the
+confidence of anticipated triumph, now summoned Stahrenberg to
+surrender, by throwing a cartel into the city, wrapped up in linen and
+fastened to an arrow: and no answer being returned, the fire of the
+batteries on the Leopold island opened on the town; and in less than a
+week ten others were completed and mounted with cannon on the landward
+side.</p>
+
+<p>The main point of attack, in the former siege under Soliman, had been
+the gate of Carinthia, (K&auml;rnther-Thor,) and the adjoining bastions; but
+the weight of the Turkish fire on the land side was now directed
+principally against the Castle-Gate, (Burg-Thor,) lying to the left of
+the former, and against the curtain between the Castle bastion and that
+of L&ouml;bel; and on the river side from the batteries of the Leopold island
+against the Rothenthurm or Red Tower, at the point where the
+fortifications abut on the stream of the Danube. The tent of the vizir
+was pitched opposite the Burg-Thor, in the midst of the janissaries and
+Roumeliote troops, while the feudatories of Anatolia and Syria, under
+their pashas, were posted right and left of this central point, and the
+encampments of the various divisions stretched far round the city in a
+semi-circle many miles in extent, touching the Danube at its two extreme
+points of Ebersdorff below Vienna, and Nussdorff in the higher part of
+the stream, where a bridge thrown over the narrow channel formed a
+communication between the outposts on the mainland, and those on the
+Leopold island. The charge of this bridge was assigned to the Moldavian
+and Wallachian contingents, under the command of Scherban, waiwode of
+the latter province, and one of the most remarkable adventurers<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> of the
+age. Born of a noble Wallachian family, which claimed descent from the
+ancient imperial house of Cantacuzene, he had earned from the Turks, not
+less by the reckless bravery he had displayed under the standard of the
+crescent in the wars of Poland, than by the consummate address with
+which he had steered his way through the tortuous intrigues of the
+Fanar, the sobriquet of Sha&iuml;tan Ogblu, <i>son of Satan</i>&mdash;nor was he
+unknown as a gay and gallant visitor to the more polished and voluptuous
+courts of the west. In his elevation to the throne of his native
+country, he was said to have been materially assisted by the criminal
+favour of the consort of his predecessor, the Princess Ducas:&mdash;but in
+the camp before Vienna he assumed the guise of extraordinary piety&mdash;a
+lofty cross was erected before his tent, where the rights of the Greek
+Church were daily celebrated with extraordinary pomp, and the priests of
+that communion offered up prayers for the success of the Ottoman arms
+against the schismatics of the Western Church!<a name="FNanchor_G_7" id="FNanchor_G_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_G_7" class="fnanchor">[G]</a></p>
+
+<p>On the 23d of July, two mines were fired under the counterscarp of the
+L&ouml;bel bastion, and though from the want of skill in the Turkish
+engineers, they did little damage, the alarm caused among the garrison,
+who called to mind the formidable use made of this species of approach
+in the siege of Candia, was such, that Stahrenberg issued orders that
+one person should be constantly on the watch in each house, to prevent
+the Turks from making their way into the city by these subterraneous
+passages. No more than forty mines, however, were sprung during the
+whole siege, and their effect, from the industry with which they were
+countermined by the garrison, was far less destructive than at
+Candia:&mdash;but the fire from the batteries continued without cessation,
+till the counterscarp and ravelin between the two bastions were reduced
+to a heap of ruins, and the covered approaches of the Turks, in spite of
+the constant sorties of the besieged, were pushed so close to the outer
+works that the defenders could reach the pioneers employed on the
+galleries by thrusting at them through the palisades with the long
+German pikes, the efficiency of which had been so severely experienced
+in the former siege. The first assault on the ravelin was made July
+25&mdash;but the explosion of a mine at the instant threw the attacking
+column into disorder, and they were repulsed after a severe conflict, in
+which Stahrenberg himself was wounded. The attack was not repeated in
+force till the night of Aug. 3, when the troops of the pasha of
+Temeswar, and a select body of janissaries under their <i>houlkiaya</i> or
+lieutenant-general, rushed with such fury upon the ruined rampart, that
+though four times driven back, they at last succeeded in effecting a
+lodgement in the ravelin, and threw up parapets to screen themselves
+from the fire of the walls. The city, meanwhile, was repeatedly set on
+fire by bombs thrown from the Turkish batteries; and during the
+confusion arising from one of these partial conflagrations, a fresh mine
+was run under the angle of the court bastion, and sprung with such
+effect as to cause a practicable breach. The quantity of powder,
+however, had been so greatly over calculated that great part recoiled
+among the Turks and the garrison, by a well-timed sortie, did great
+damage to the enemy's works. Before the breach, however, could be
+repaired, the janissaries, recovering from their panic, again assailed
+it, and, after a desperate struggle, established themselves in the ditch
+and front of the bastion, while the defenders endeavoured, by changing
+the direction of their guns, to enfilade the ground thus won by the
+enemy, so as to prevent their penetrating into the interior, which now
+lay open to them.</p>
+
+<p>Great had been the panic throughout Europe at the advance of the Turks
+into Austria, and their appearance before Vienna. The infidel host was
+magnified, by the exaggerations<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> of popular terror, to the number of
+100,000 horse and 600,000 foot! And it was doubted whether, after
+destroying the power of the House of Hapsburg, the vizir would march to
+the Rhine, and annihilate the remaining strength of Christendom by the
+overthrow of Louis XIV., or would cross the Alps to fulfil the famous
+threat of Bayezid I., by stabbing his horse before the high altar of St
+Peter's. Even among those better qualified to take a calm view of the
+state of affairs, little hope was entertained that Vienna could hold out
+till the armies of Poland and the empire could be collected in
+sufficient force for its relief, if the Turks continued to press the
+siege with that vigour and stubborn perseverance, the combination of
+which in the attack of fortified places had hitherto been one of their
+most remarkable military characteristics. But Kara-Mustapha, deficient
+alike in martial experience and personal courage, was little qualified
+either to stimulate the fanatic ardour of the Ottomans or to guide it to
+victory. While within the wide enclosure of his own tents, carefully
+pitched beyond the range of cannon-shot from the ramparts, he maintained
+a household and harem of such luxurious magnificence as none of the
+sultans had ever carried with them into the field, the rations of the
+soldiers were reduced, on the pretext that the supplies expected from
+Hungary had been intercepted by the garrisons of Raab and the other
+towns on the Danube, which still held out for the emperor; and so little
+did he care to disguise his apprehensions for his own safety, that he
+visited the lines only in a litter rendered musket-proof by plates and
+lattices of iron! Whether he entertained the wild design, as asserted by
+Cantemir, (whose authority, as that of a contemporary, may in this case
+perhaps deserve some credit,) of throwing off his allegiance to the
+sultan, and erecting an independent <i>Western Empire</i> of the Ottomans in
+Austria and Hungary, or whether he was simply instigated by his avarice
+to preserve the imagined treasures of the capital of the German C&aelig;sars
+from the pillage which must follow from its being taken by storm&mdash;he no
+sooner saw the imperial city apparently within his grasp, than he
+restrained, instead of encouraging, the spirit of the troops,
+endeavouring rather to wear out the garrison by an endless succession of
+petty alarms, than to carry the place at once by assault. The murmurs of
+the soldiers, who even refused to remain in the trenches, were with
+difficulty quieted by the exhortations of Wani-Effendi, a celebrated
+Moslem divine, who had accompanied the army in order to share in the
+merit of the <i>holy war</i>&mdash;while the remonstrances of the pashas and
+generals were silenced by the exhibition of the sultan's
+<i>khatt-shereef</i>, which conferred on the vizir plenary powers for the
+conduct of the war.</p>
+
+<p>While Kara Mustapha thus lay inactive in his lines before Vienna,
+Tekoeli, who had been detached with his Hungarian followers and an
+auxiliary Turkish corps to reduce the castle of Presburg, which held out
+after the surrender of the town, had been defeated by the Duke of
+Lorraine, aided by a body of Polish cavalry under Lubomirski, the
+forerunners of the army now assembling at Cracow. All the European
+princes, meanwhile, with the exception of Louis XIV., who, even in the
+danger of their common faith, forgot not his hostility to the house of
+Hapsburg, vied with each other in forwarding the equipment of the host
+which was to save the bulwark of Christendom. The cardinals at Rome sold
+their plate to supply funds for the German levies; Cardinal Barberini
+alone contributed 20,000 florins, and the Pope was profuse in his
+indulgences to those who joined the new crusade. The emperor, meanwhile,
+from his retreat at Passau, was abject in his entreaties to Sobieski for
+speedy succour, offering to cede to him his rights upon Hungary if he
+could preserve his Austrian capital; but the zeal of the Polish hero
+needed no stimulus. Though so disabled by the gout as to be unable to
+mount his horse without help, he was indefatigable in his exertions to
+hasten the march of his troops, to whom he gave the rendezvous, "Under
+the counterscarp at Vienna." On his march into Germany, he was every
+where received as a deliverer; the Jesuits of Olmutz erected, at his
+entrance into the town, a triumphal arch, with the inscription,
+"Salvatorem expectamus;" and all hailed, as a sure omen of victory, the
+presence of the champion whose very name had become a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> byword of terror
+among the Turks. The beleaguered garrison was, meanwhile, cheered by
+frequent messages promising speedy relief from the Duke of Lorraine,
+whose emissaries, selected for their knowledge of the Turkish language,
+contrived to pass and re-pass securely; but an epidemic disease, in
+addition to the sword and the bombardment, was rapidly thinning their
+numbers; and Callonitz, bishop of Neustadt, who, in his younger days,
+had gained distinction against the Turks in Candia, now acquired a
+holier fame by his pious care of the sick and wounded, who crowded the
+hospitals and houses. The siege had been languidly carried on during the
+greater part of August, but at the end of the month fresh symptoms of
+activity were observed in the Ottoman lines; several mines were sprung
+on the 27th and 28th, and the fire from the batteries was so warmly kept
+up, that on the 29th the garrison, conjecturing that the anniversary of
+the battle of Mohacz had been chosen for the general assault, stood to
+their arms in anxious suspense. But the day passed over without any
+alarm, and it was not till September 4, that, having blown up great part
+of the right face of the court bastion by a powerful mine, 5000 of the
+<i>&eacute;lite</i> of the janissaries sprang, sword in hand, with loud shouts and
+the clangour of martial music, into the breach thus made, and forcing
+their way, with the fanatic valour which had in their best days
+characterized the sons of Hadji-Bektash, into the interior of the
+bastion, planted their <i>bairahs</i>, or pennons, on the ruined ramparts.
+Stahrenberg himself, with his officers and guards, was fortunately going
+the rounds at the menaced point at the moment of the explosion and
+assault, but the Osmanlis held firm the ground they had gained; and
+Stahrenberg, seeing the enemy thus fairly established within the
+defences, directed barriers to be constructed and trenches sunk at the
+head of the streets nearest the breach, while thirty rockets, fired in
+the night from the steeple of St Stephen's Domkirch, announced the
+extremity of their distress to their approaching friends; and all eyes
+were turned to the rocky heights of the Kahlenberg, which bounded the
+prospect to the west, in hope of descrying the standards of the
+Christian army.</p>
+
+<p>It was at Tuln, six leagues above Vienna, that Sobieski received, the
+day after this assault, a despatch from Stahrenberg, containing only the
+words&mdash;"There is no time to be lost!" On the 6th the Poles passed the
+river by the bridge of Tuln, and the king, amazed at the supineness of
+the vizir in suffering this movement to be effected without molestation,
+exclaimed, "Against such a general the victory is already gained!"&mdash;and
+advanced as to an assured triumph. Though far inferior in numbers to the
+Turks, who, after all their losses by the sword and desertion, still
+mustered 120,000 effective men, when passed in review on the 8th by the
+vizir, it was in truth a gallant army which Sobieski now saw united
+under his command. The Imperialists, under the Duke of Lorraine, were
+not more than 20,000; but the Saxons and Bavarians, led by their
+respective electors, and the contingents of the lesser states of the
+empire, with the fiery hussars and cuirassiers of Poland, formed an
+aggregate of 65,000 men, more than half of whom were cavalry; while in
+the ranks were found, besides the German chivalry who fought for their
+fatherland, many noble volunteers, who had hastened from Spain and Italy
+to share in the glories anticipated under the leadership of Sobieski.
+Among these illustrious auxiliaries was a young hero, who had escaped
+from France in defiance of the mandate of Louis XIV., to flesh his
+maiden sword in view of the Polish king, and who at a later period,
+under the well-known name of Prince Eugene, himself earned deathless
+fame by his achievements against those redoubted enemies, whose first
+great overthrow he was destined to witness.</p>
+
+<p>On the evening of the 10th the two armies were separated only by the
+ridge of the Kahlenberg, and the thick forests covering its sides; and a
+still more urgent message arrived from the governor, who intimated that
+he had little chance of repelling another assault. "On the same night,
+however," (says the diary of a Dutch officer in the garrison,) "we saw
+on the hills many fires, and rockets thrown up, as signals of our
+approaching succours, which we joyfully answered in like manner ... and
+next day the Turks were moving, and their cavalry riding about in
+confusion, till<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> about four P.M. we saw several of their regiments
+drawing off towards the hills, and those in Leopoldstadt marching over
+the bridge." The knowledge, indeed, that the terrible Sobieski was at
+the head of the Christian army, had spread such a panic among the
+Osmanli, that several thousands left the camp the same night; but
+Kara-Mustapha, though urged by all his officers to march with his whole
+force to meet the coming storm, contented himself with sending 10,000
+men, under Kara-Ibrahim, pasha of Buda, to watch the Poles, while the
+rest were kept in their lines before the city, which was cannonaded with
+redoubled fury throughout the 11th and the night following. The summits
+of the Kahlenberg glittered with the arms of the confederates, who
+bivouacked there during the night, being unable to pitch their tents
+from the violence of the wind, which Sobieski, in one of his letters to
+his queen, (his "charmante et bien aim&eacute;e Mariette,") says, was
+attributed by the soldiers to the incantations of the vizir, "who is
+known to be a great magician." From the top of the Leopoldsberg, the
+king and the Duke of Lorraine reconnoitred the Turkish camp, which lay
+in all its wide extent before them, from the opposite skirts of the
+Wienerberg almost to the foot of the ridge on which they stood, with the
+lofty pavilions and scarlet screens of the vizir's quarters conspicuous
+in the midst, while the incessant roar of the artillery rose from the
+midst of the smoke which enveloped the city.</p>
+
+<p>At five in the morning of the 12th, the sound of musketry was heard from
+the thickets and wooded ravines at the foot of the Kahlenberg, where the
+Saxons were already engaged with the Turkish division under
+Ibrahim-Pasha; and the king, having heard mass on the Leopoldsberg from
+his chaplain Aviano, mounted his favourite sorrel charger, and, preceded
+by his son James, whom he had just dubbed a knight in front of the army,
+and by his esquire bearing his shield and banner, led the Poles, who
+held the right of the allied line, down the slopes of the mountain. The
+left wing, which lay nearest the river, was commanded by the Duke of
+Lorraine, and the columns in the centre were under the orders of the two
+electors, and the Dukes of Saxe-Lauenburg and Eisenach. By eight <span class="smcap">a.m.</span>
+the action had become warm along the skirts of the Kahlenberg&mdash;the
+Turks, who were principally horse, dismounting to fight on foot behind
+hastily-constructed abattis of trees and earth, as the nature of the
+ground was unfavourable to cavalry, and keeping up a heavy fire on the
+enemy while they were entangled in the ravines. The ardour of the
+Christians, however, speedily overcame these obstacles; and by ten <span class="smcap">a.m.</span>,
+their van was debouching from the defiles into the plain with loud
+shouts of battle; and the Turks, though from time to time receiving
+reinforcements from the camp, were gradually obliged to give ground. The
+vizir, meanwhile, remaining immovable in his tent, directed a fresh
+cannonade to be directed against the city, under cover of which a
+general assault was to be made; but the long files of camels laden with
+the spoils of Austria, which were sent off in haste on the road to
+Hungary, revealed his secret disquietude&mdash;and the troops in the
+trenches, effectually disheartened by the delay and privations of the
+siege, showed little inclination again to advance against the shattered
+bastions. The towers and steeples of Vienna were thronged with anxious
+spectators, who with throbbing hearts watched the advance of their
+deliverers, who pressed on at all points, "making the Turks give way"
+(says the diary above quoted) "whenever they came to a shock." The
+villages of Nussdorff and Heiligenstadt on the Danube, where several
+<i>odas</i> of janissaries, with heavy cannon, were posted, checked for some
+time the progress of the Austrians on the left; the Duc de Croye, a
+gallant French volunteer, fell in leading the attack, but a body of
+Polish cuirassiers were at last sent to their aid, who, levelling their
+lances, and dashing with loud shouts against the flank of the Turkish
+batteries, carried the position, and put the defenders to the sword. It
+was not so much a battle, as a series of desperate but irregular
+skirmishes scattered over wide extent of ground&mdash;the Turkish troops (who
+were almost all cavalry, as most of the regulars and artillery were
+still in the camp) gradually receding before the heavy advancing columns
+of the Christians. By four P.M. they were driven so close to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> their
+intrenchments, that Sobieski could descry the vizir, seated in a small
+crimson tent, and tranquilly drinking coffee with his two sons. At this
+moment, a torrent of the wild cavalry of the Tartars, headed by the khan
+in person, poured forth from the Moslem lines, and thundered upon the
+right of the Poles, only to recoil in disorder before the lances of
+Iablonowski and the Lithuanians, who pushed in pursuit close to a deep
+ravine, which covered the redoubts of the Turks. But the khan had
+recognized in the m&ecirc;l&eacute;e the well-known figure of Sobieski, whose
+personal presence had been as yet uncertain. "By Allah!" said he to the
+vizir on his return from his unsuccessful charge, "the heavens have
+fallen upon us; for the ill-omened <i>kral</i> of the <i>Leh</i> (Poles) of a
+truth is with the infidels!"</p>
+
+<p>The Turks were now every where driven within their lines, and the battle
+appeared over for the day; but the Poles, with cries of triumph,
+demanded to be led to the attack of the camp, and Sobieski exclaiming,
+"Not unto us, O Lord, but to thy name be the praise!" directed the
+assault. In a moment the Polish chivalry spurred up the steep side of
+the ravine in the teeth of the Turkish artillery&mdash;a redoubt in the
+centre of the lines was stormed through the gorge by Maligny,
+brother-in-law of the king&mdash;the Pashas of Aleppo and Silistria, whose
+prowess sustained the fainting courage of their troops, were slain in
+the front of the battle&mdash;and, after a conflict of less than an hour, the
+whole vast array of the Osmanlis, pierced through the centre by the
+onset of the Polish lances, gave way in hopeless, irremediable
+confusion, and, abandoning their camp, artillery, and baggage, fled in
+wild confusion on the road to Hungary. By 6 P.M. the Polish King reached
+the tent of the vizir; but Kara-Mustapha had not awaited the arrival of
+the victor. In an agony of despair at the mighty ruin which he now saw
+to be inevitable, he gave the barbarous order (which was but partially
+executed) for the massacre of the women of his harem, to prevent their
+falling into the hands of the enemy; and, seizing the
+Sandjak-shereef,<a name="FNanchor_H_8" id="FNanchor_H_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_H_8" class="fnanchor">[H]</a> mounted an Arabian camel of surpassing swiftness,
+and accompanied, or perhaps preceded, the flight of his army. Such was
+the panic haste of the rout, that, before sunset the next day, the whole
+host swept past the walls of Raab, the garrison of which thus gained the
+first tidings of the catastrophe&mdash;nor have the crimson banners of the
+crescent been ever again seen on the soil of Germany.</p>
+
+<p>From the desultory character of the action, in which little use was made
+of artillery, and the headlong dismay in which the Turks at last took to
+flight, not more than 10,000 of their number, according to the most
+probable accounts, fell in the battle; of the allies, scarcely 3000 were
+killed or wounded. Three hundred pieces of cannon of various calibres,
+many of them taken in former wars by the Turks, and still bearing the
+arms of Poland or the empire&mdash;a countless quantity of arms, ammunition,
+and warlike implements of all kinds&mdash;were found in the abandoned
+intrenchments; and the abundance of cattle, with the amply stored
+magazines of provisions, afforded instant relief to the famine from
+which the citizens had been for some time suffering.</p>
+
+<p>Surrounded by a vast crowd, who hailed him with enthusiastic
+acclamations as their deliverer, and thronged each other with a zeal
+approaching adoration, to kiss his hand or his stirrup, Sobieski entered
+Vienna through the breach on the morning of September 13, in company
+with the Duke of Lorraine and the electoral Prince of Bavaria, and with
+the horsetails found before the tent of the vizir borne in triumph
+before him; and having met and saluted Stahrenberg, repaired with him to
+a chapel in the church of the Augustin friars, to return thanks for the
+victory. As he entered the church, a priest cried aloud in an ecstacy of
+fervour&mdash;"There was a man sent from God whose name was John," and this
+text, which in past ages had been applied to the Hungarian paladin, John
+Hunyades, was again employed by the preachers throughout Europe, in
+celebration of the new champion of Christendom, John Sobieski. Far
+different to the entry of the Polish king was the return<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> of the Emperor
+Leopold to his rescued capital. He had quitted it as a fugitive, amid
+the execrations of the people, who accused him of having drawn on them
+the storm of invasion, without providing means to ward off the
+destruction which threatened them; and having descended the Danube in a
+boat, he re-entered the city on the 14th in the guise of a penitent,
+proceeding on foot, with a taper in his hand, to the cathedral of St
+Stephen, where he knelt before the high altar in acknowledgement of his
+deliverance. But neither from his misfortunes, nor from his returning
+prosperity, had Leopold learned the lesson of gratitude or humility. He
+even attempted at first to evade an interview with Sobieski, on the
+ground that an elective king had never been received on terms of
+equality by an emperor of Germany: and, when this unworthy plea was
+overruled by the honest indignation of the Duke of Lorraine, the meeting
+of the two monarchs was formal and embarrassed: and Sobieski, disgusted
+at the meanness and arrogance of the prince who owed to him the
+preservation of his capital and throne, hastily cut short the
+conference, by deputing to his chancellor Zaluski the task of showing to
+Leopold the troops who had saved his empire; and departed on the 17th
+with his noble colleague in arms, the Duke of Lorraine, to follow up
+their triumphs by attacking the Turks in Hungary.</p>
+
+<p>The battle of Vienna effectually broke the spell of the Ottoman military
+ascendancy, which for near three centuries had held Europe in awe;&mdash;and
+though the energies of the empire, and the efficacy of its institutions,
+had long been gradually decaying, it was this great blow which first
+revealed the secret of its impaired strength. The treaty of Zurawno with
+Poland in 1676, had raised the Ottoman dominions to the highest point of
+territorial extent which they ever attained. From the time of the
+reunion of the empire, after the confusion following the defeat of
+Bayezid I. by Timour, every reign had seen its boundaries enlarged by
+successive acquisitions; and if we except the voluntary abandonment, in
+1636, of the remote and unprofitable province of Yemen, the horsetails
+had never receded from any territory on which they had been planted in
+token of permanent occupation. Besides the vast territories which were
+under the immediate rule of pashas sent from the Porte, and which the
+land and capitation taxes (<i>ssalyaneh</i> and <i>kharatch</i>,) the khan of the
+Krim Tartars, the otaman of the Cossacks, the vassal princes of
+Transylvania, Moldavia, and Wallachia, the hereditary chiefs of the
+Circassian and Koordish tribes, and the rulers of the Barbary regencies,
+were all "under the shadow of the imperial horsetails," and paid tribute
+and allegiance to the sultan, who might boast, with no less justice than
+did the monarchs of the Seljookian Turks of old, that a crowd of princes
+arose from the dust of his footsteps. During the reign of Mohammed IV.,
+the last relics of Venetian rule in the Levant had been extirpated by
+the conquest of Candia; the frontiers in Hungary and Transylvania had
+been strengthened by the acquisition of the important fortresses of
+Grosswardein and Neuhausel, with the territory attached to them; while
+Poland had been deprived of the province through which she had access to
+the undefended points of the Ottoman frontier, and the Cossacks, from
+restless and intractable enemies, had been converted into friends and
+auxiliaries. In the domestic administration, also, the wisdom and
+clemency of Ahmed-Kiuprili, supported by a corresponding disposition on
+the part of the sultan, who was naturally averse to measures of
+severity, had introduced a spirit of moderation and equity unknown in
+the Ottoman annals. Such was the condition of the foreign relations and
+internal government of the Turkish empire at the juncture immediately
+preceding the death of Ahmed-Kiuprili, whose life closed (as mentioned
+above) within a few days of the conclusion of the peace of Zurawno:&mdash;and
+the coincidence of this highest point of territorial aggrandizement and
+domestic prosperity, with the last days of the great minister who had so
+principal a share in producing them, would almost justify the
+superstitious belief, that the star of the Kiuprilis was in sooth the
+protecting talisman of the Ottoman state, and inseparably connected with
+its welfare and splendour.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_B_2" id="Footnote_B_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_B_2"><span class="label">[B]</span></a> The Poles were sometimes called <i>Lechi</i>, from Lech, the
+name of one of their ancient kings.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_C_3" id="Footnote_C_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_C_3"><span class="label">[C]</span></a> Von Hammer describes him, without quoting his authority, as
+of lofty stature, and extremely fair complexion; but Rycaut's personal
+acquaintance insures his correctness.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_D_4" id="Footnote_D_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_D_4"><span class="label">[D]</span></a> He subsequently became grand-vizir, and was killed at the
+battle of Salankaman in 1691.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_E_5" id="Footnote_E_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_E_5"><span class="label">[E]</span></a> This name in western parlance would be Gabriel de Bethlen;
+in Hungary, the Christian <i>follows</i> the surname.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_F_6" id="Footnote_F_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_F_6"><span class="label">[F]</span></a> The anonymous biographer of Tekoeli, believed to be M.
+Leclerc.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_G_7" id="Footnote_G_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_G_7"><span class="label">[G]</span></a> After the defeat of the Turks, Scherban Cantacuzene opened
+a correspondence with the Emperor and the King of Poland, setting forth
+his hereditary claim to the imperial crown of Constantinople in the
+event of their expulsion from Europe! but his intrigues became known to
+the Ottoman ministry, and he is supposed to have been taken off by
+poison.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_H_8" id="Footnote_H_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_H_8"><span class="label">[H]</span></a> A <i>crimson</i> banner was again sent to Rome as the
+Sandjak-shereef, as the green one of Hussein had been after the victory
+of Choczim.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="EXHIBITIONS" id="EXHIBITIONS"></a>EXHIBITIONS</h2>
+
+
+<p>British art is in a transition state. Remembering many a year past our
+Academy Exhibitions, and the general, the family resemblance the works
+bore to each other, the little variety either in style or execution; and
+of later years noticing the gradual change, the adoption of a new class
+of subjects, and more varied styles; we are yet struck with the manifest
+difference between the present and any other we ever remember to have
+seen. There is, in fact, more originality. There are, indeed, mannerists
+enough; and we mean not here to use the word in its reprehensive sense
+but they stand more alone. There are far fewer imitators&mdash;some, of
+course, there must be, but they are chiefly in those classes where
+imitation is less easily avoided. Common-place subjects will ever be
+treated in a common-place manner, and resemble each other. Few venture
+now to follow even erratic genius in its wild vagaries. Turner has no
+rivals in the "dissolving view" style. By those who look to one or two
+favourite masters, who have hitherto given the character to our
+exhibitions, perhaps some disappointment may be felt. Edwin Landseer has
+but two pictures&mdash;Sir Augustus Calleott not one; and herein is a great
+loss, speaking not with reference to his very late pictures, his English
+landscape, or even his Italian views, but in vivid recollection of his
+fascinating river views, with their busy boats, under illuminating
+skies, such as, alas! he has ceased to paint.</p>
+
+<p>With regard to landscape, we progress slowly. Yet we fancy we can
+perceive indications there, that are of a better promise; although of
+the higher class of landscape there is not one this year. The promise is
+in the pencil of Creswick. He labours to unite great finish, too minute
+finish, with breadth and boldness of effect. His is unquestionably a new
+style; his subjects are all pleasing, bordering on the poetical; we only
+question if his aim at minute finishing does not challenge a scrutiny
+into the accuracy and infinite variety of the detail of nature, that few
+pictures ought to require, and his certainly do not satisfy the demand.
+For, after all, there is a great sameness, where there ought to be
+variety, particularly in his foliage: it is safer, by a greater
+generality, to leave much to the imagination. We do not, however, mean
+to quarrel with this his peculiar style, nor to limit its power. There
+is something yet not achieved.</p>
+
+<p>Mr Maclise has likewise originated a new style, and if not altogether a
+new class of subjects, one so richly, so luxuriantly treated as to be
+fairly considered new. He has given to humour a gentle satire, and more
+especially to works of creative fancy an historical importance; for
+herein he is essentially different from all other painters of this
+class, that none of his pieces, we might almost say none of his figures,
+are, or pretend to be, real life. If it be said that they are
+theatrical, we know not but that the term expresses their merit; for as
+Sir Joshua has well observed, there must be in the theatrical a certain
+ideal&mdash;which is, nevertheless, the higher representative of nature. Mr
+Maclise has adopted the elaborate finish and lavish ornament, but with
+so much breadth, and powerful execution, that the display scarcely
+offends&mdash;and he generally seeks subjects that will bear it. As a fault
+it was conspicuous in his Lady Macbeth: the strong emotions of that
+banquet-scene are of too hurrying, too absorbent a nature, to admit
+either the conspicuous multiplicity of parts, or the excess of ornament
+which that work exhibited. It was the very perfection of the "Sleeping
+Beauty," and singularly enough, begat a repose; for the mind was
+fascinated into the notion of the long sleep, by the very leisure
+required and taken to examine the all-quiescent detail.</p>
+
+<p>May we not call the style of Mr Redgrave original? perhaps more so in
+his execution than his subject. He has appropriated the elegant
+familiar. Many are the painters we might name under whose hands the arts
+are advancing; those we have named, however, appear to us to be more or
+less the chief originators of new styles. Nor does it follow from this
+that their pictures are always the best in any<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> exhibition, though they
+may be generally found so to be. If we are to congratulate the world of
+art on the particular advancement of this year, we shall certainly limit
+our praise to one picture, because it is the picture of the year; and it
+is a wondrous improvement upon all our former historical attempts.
+Whoever has visited the Exhibition will at once know that we allude to
+Mr Poole's "Plague of London." There has not been so powerful a picture
+painted in this country since the best days of Sir Joshua Reynolds. For
+its power we compare it with the "Ugolino" of the President, and we do
+so the more readily as both pictures are now publicly exhibited. Unlike
+as they are, unquestionably, in many respects, and painted indeed on
+opposite principles, regarding the mechanical methods and colour; yet
+for power, for pathos, they come into competition. The subject chosen by
+Mr Poole was one of much more difficulty, more complication: he has had,
+therefore, much more to do, much more to overcome; and he has succeeded.
+Both, possibly, to a certain extent, were imitators, yet both possessing
+a genius that made the works their own creations. Sir Joshua saw
+Rembrandt in every motion of his hand; and Mr Poole was not unconscious
+of Nicolo Poussin in the design and execution of his "Plague." This is
+not said to the disparagement of either painter; on the contrary, we
+should augur ill of that man's genius who would be more ambitious to be
+thought original in all things than of painting a good picture. Great
+minds will be above this little ambition. Raffaelle borrowed without
+scruple from those things that were done well before him, a whole
+figure, and even a group; yet the result was ever a work that none could
+ever suspect to be by any hand but Raffaelle's. In saying that Mr Poole
+has seen Nicolo Poussin, we do not mean to insinuate more than that
+fact: others may say more; and, depreciating a work of surprising power,
+and that, too, coming from an artist who has hitherto exhibited nothing
+to be compared with it, will add that he has stolen it from Nicolo
+Poussin. This we boldly deny. The works of Nicolo Poussin of similar
+subjects are well known, and wonderful works they are; we need mention
+but two&mdash;the one in the National Gallery, the "Plague of Ashdod," and
+that in the collection of P.S. Miles, Esq., and exhibited last year at
+the British Institution, and which is engraved in Forster's work. We do
+not believe that one group or single figure in Mr Poole's picture can be
+shown in these or any others of Poussin. And in the conception there is
+a striking difference. Mr Poole's subject, though we have called it the
+"Plague of London," is not, strictly speaking, the awfulness and the
+disgust of that dire malady, but the insanity of the fanatic Solomon
+Eagle, taking a divine, an almost Pythean impress from its connexion
+with that woful and appalling mystery. This being his subject, he has
+judiciously omitted much of that dreadfully disgusting detail, which
+<i>his</i> subject compelled Poussin to force upon the spectator. There is,
+therefore, in Mr Poole's picture more to excite our wonder and pity than
+disgust; nay, there is even room for the exhibition of tender,
+sensitive, apprehensive, scarcely suffering beauty, and set off by
+contrasts not too strong; so that nothing impedes the mind in, or draws
+it off from, the contemplation of the madman&mdash;here more than madman, the
+maniac made inspired by the belief of the spectator in denunciations
+which appear verifying themselves visibly before him. It is this feeling
+which makes the crazed one grand, heroic, and which constitutes this
+picture an historical work of a high class. It is far more than a
+collection of incidents in a plague; it is the making the plague itself
+but an accessory. The theme is of the madness that spreads its
+bewilderment on all around, as its own of right, as cause and effect&mdash;a
+bewilderment that works beyond the frame, and will not let the beholder
+question its fanatic power. We will endeavour to describe the picture,
+but first, take the subject from the catalogue:&mdash;"Solomon Eagle
+exhorting the People to Repentance, during the Plague of the Year 1665.
+P. F. Poole.&mdash;'I suppose the world has heard of the famous Solomon
+Eagle, an enthusiast; he, though not infected at all, but in his head,
+went about denouncing of judgment upon the city in a frightful manner,
+sometimes quite naked and with a pan of burning charcoal on his
+head.'&mdash;See DE FOE'S <i>Narrative of the Plague in London</i>."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> The scene is
+supposed to be in that part of London termed "Alsatia," so well
+described by Sir Walter Scott&mdash;the refuge of the destitute and criminal.
+Here are groups of the infected, the dying, the callous, the
+despairing&mdash;a miserable languor pervades them all. The young&mdash;the
+aged&mdash;the innocent&mdash;the profligate. One sedate and lovely female is
+seeking consolation from the sacred book, beside whom sits her father&mdash;a
+grand figure, in whose countenance is a fixed intensity of worldly care,
+that alone seems to keep life within his listless body, next him is a
+young mother, with her dying child, and close behind him a maiden,
+hiding her face, whose eye alone is seen, distended and in vacant gaze.
+We feel that this is a family group, perhaps the broken remnant of a
+family, awaiting utter desolation. Behind the group are two very
+striking figures&mdash;a man bewildered, and more than infected, escaping
+from the house, within the doorway of which we see, written in red
+characters, "Lord have mercy upon us," and the cross; the nurse is
+endeavouring to detain him. Nothing can be finer than the action and
+expression in both figures&mdash;the horror of the nurse, and fever energy of
+the escaped, in whose countenance, never to be forgotten, is the
+personification of plague-madness. It is recorded that such a one did so
+escape, swam across the Thames, and recovered. Beyond these are
+revellers, a dissolute band, card-playing. In the midst of the game one
+is smitten with the plague, and is falling back&mdash;one starts with horror
+at the sudden seizure&mdash;a stupid, drunken indifference marks the
+others&mdash;they had been waiting for a feast, which one is bringing in, who
+stands just above the falling figure, who will never partake of it.
+Quite in the background, and behind a low wall, are conveyers of the
+dead, carrying along a body. This describes the left of the picture. To
+the right, and near the middle, is a dying boy, leaning upon a man, who
+is suddenly roused, and rising to hear the denunciations of Solomon
+Eagle. At his back are two lovely female figures, sisters we should
+suppose, the younger one dying, supported by the sister's knee, who sits
+with crossed hands, as if in almost hopeless prayer. Beyond is a
+wretched man, with his head resting upon his hand, in a fixed state of
+stupid indifference; above whom are several figures, mostly of the lower
+grade, in the various stages of infection or recovery. They are sitting
+before the window of a house, through the panes of which we see
+indistinctly one raving, while from the same house a dead body is being
+let down from above, and in the background are the dead-cart and the
+carriers. At the feet of the figures by the house lie others, in all the
+langour of disease and feverish watchfulness. Among these persons are
+various shades of character, apparently all from nature, each one,
+artistically speaking, representing a class, and yet with such a stamp
+of individual nature, that we are satisfied they must have been taken
+from life. In this respect they resemble Raffaelle's beggars at the
+"Beautiful Gate," in their admirable generality an individuality. Two
+are very striking&mdash;an odd, stiff-looking old man, with a beard, whose
+marked profile is of the old cheat; he is observing the escape of the
+man on the opposite side of the picture, and the woman at his side,
+whose face is turned upwards, one-half an idiot, and all-wicked. We
+cannot help thinking that we have seen these two characters. It is,
+perhaps, the skill of the painter that has so represented the class that
+we have the conviction of the individuals. So far the scene is prepared
+for the principal <i>dramatis person&aelig;</i>; and so far we have only the
+calamity of the Plague, not in its scenes of turbulence, but kept down
+under an awful and quiet expectation of doom; so that, were the two
+principal figures obliterated, we should say the scene is yet but a
+preparation, awaiting the master figures to mark its true impression and
+feeling, constituting the subject of the picture. These principal
+figures are Solomon Eagle and his attendant; they are placed judiciously
+in the centre of the picture, in no part intercepted. Solomon Eagle
+hurries into the picture with a book in one hand, the other raised, as
+pointing to the heavens, from whence come the denunciations he
+pronounces: on his head is a pan of burning charcoal. He is naked,
+excepting his waist. His very attitude is insane&mdash;we need not look at
+his face to see that; the fore-finger, starting off from the others,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> is
+of mad action, and similar is the energy of the projected foot. The
+attitude is of one with a fixed purpose, one under an imaginary divine
+commission; it is of entire faith and firmness; and never was such
+insanity more finely conceived in a countenance. The man is all crazed,
+and grand, awfully grand, in his craziness. He throws around him an
+infection of craziness, as does the atmosphere of plague. There is a
+peculiar look in the eye, which shows the most consummate skill of the
+painter. The finger starts up as with an electric power, as if it could
+draw down the vengeance which it communicates. We mentioned the
+attendant figure&mdash;not that he is conscious of her presence. She is
+mysterious, veiled, a masked mystery&mdash;a walking tale of plague, woe, and
+desolation&mdash;a wandering, lonely, decayed gentlewoman: we read her
+history in her look, and in her walk. Her relations have all been
+smitten, swept away by the pestilence; her mind is made callous by utter
+misery; she wanders about careless, without any motive; a childish
+curiosity may be her pleasure, any incident to divert thoughts that make
+her sensible of her own bereavement. She stops to listen to the
+denunciations of the crazed prophet, and herself partakes, though
+callously, of his insanity&mdash;half believes, but scarcely feels. The sky
+is lurid, pestilential; it touches with plague what it illuminates. Such
+is the picture in its design. The colouring is quite in accordance with
+the purpose, and completes the sentiment; there is much of a green tone,
+yet under great variety. There is very great knowledge shown in it of
+artistical design, and the art of disposing lines; the groups, kept
+sufficiently distinct, yet have connecting links with each other; and
+there are general lines that bring all within the compass of one
+subject. Now, what, after all, is the impression on the mind of the
+spectator? for it is not enough to paint plague or madness: unless our
+human sympathy be touched, we turn away in disgust. Yet upon this
+picture we look with pleasure. Many whom we have heard say they could
+not bear to look at it, we found again and again standing before it:
+some we questioned; and at last they acknowledged pleasure. So are we
+moved at tragedy: human sympathies are moved&mdash;the great natural source
+of all our pleasures: pity and tenderness, and a sense of the awfulness
+of a great mystery, are upon us; and though pleased be too light a word,
+yet we are pleased; and where we are so pleased, we are made better. We
+feel the good flowing in upon us; and were not the busy scene of the
+multitudes in an exhibition, and the general glare, distracting, and
+discordant to the feeling such a picture is calculated to convey, we
+could enter calmly and deeply into its enjoyment. We have given, at much
+length, a description of the picture, because we think it a work of more
+importance than any that has, we would say ever, been exhibited upon the
+Academy walls&mdash;one of more decided commanding genius. There are faults
+in it doubtless, some of drawing, but not of much importance. We look to
+the mind in it&mdash;to its real greatness of manner, and we believe it to be
+a work of which the nation may be proud; and were we to look for a
+parallel, we must go to some of the best works of the best painters of
+the best ages. We were surprised to find that so small a sum as L 400
+was set upon the picture&mdash;and more so that it was not sold. We regret
+that there is no power in the directors of our National Gallery to buy
+occasionally a modern production. Is there, in that gallery, one work of
+a British painter in any way equal to it?</p>
+
+<p>There are only two pictures by Mr Maclise&mdash;they sustain his reputation.</p>
+
+<p>"The Actress's reception of the Author."&mdash;"He advanced into the room
+trembling and confused, and let his gloves and cloak fall, which having
+taken up, he approached my mistress, and presented to her a paper with
+more respect than that of a counsellor when he delivers a petition to a
+judge, saying, "Be so good, madam, as to accept of this part, which I
+take the liberty to offer." She received it in a cold and disdainful
+manner, with out even deigning to answer his compliments.'-<i>Gil Blas</i>,
+c. xi."</p>
+
+<p>The picture here is the luxuriantly beautiful and insolent prima-donna;
+we could wish that much of the picture, many of the "figures to let,"
+were away. There is a continuous flowing of graceful lines, in this one
+figure, with much breadth, that give it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> a largeness of style, extremely
+powerful. She luxuriates in pride, insolence, and beauty. The expression
+is perfect; nor is it confined to her face&mdash;it is in every limb and
+feature. The poor despised author bows low and submissive&mdash;and is even
+looked at contemptuously by a pet dressed monkey, pampered, and eating
+fruit: a good satire; the fruit to the unworthy&mdash;the brute before the
+genius. There is the usual display, the usual elaborate finish; but it
+is perhaps a little harder, with more sudden transitions from brown to
+white than commonly to be found in Mr Maclise's works.</p>
+
+<p>"Waterfall at St. Nighton's, Kieve, near Tintagel, Cornwall." A lovely
+girl crossing the rocky bed of a stream&mdash;attended by a dog, who is
+leaping from stone to stone. The action of the dog, his care in the act
+of springing, is admirable, and shows that Mr Maclise can paint all
+objects well. This is of the high pastoral: the lonely seclusion of the
+passage between rocks, the scene of the "Waterfall," is a most judicious
+background to the figure, which is large. It is most sweetly painted.</p>
+
+<p>We are glad to see Mr Ward, R. A., again in the Exhibition. His
+"Virgil's Bulls," is a subject poetically conceived. The whole landscape
+is in sympathy, waking, watchful sympathy, with the bulls in their
+conflict. Not a tree, nor a hill, nor a cloud in the sky but looks on as
+a spectator. All is in keeping. There is no violence in the colour,
+nothing to distract the attention from the noble animals&mdash;all is quiet,
+passive and observant. A less poetical mind would have given a bright
+blue, clear sky, and sparkling sunny grass; one more daring than
+judicious, might have placed the creatures in a turbulent scene of storm
+and uprooted ground; Mr Ward has given all the action to the
+combatants&mdash;you shall see nothing but them, and all nature shall be
+looking on as in a theatre of her own making. The subject is no less
+grand on the canvas than in the lines of the poet.</p>
+
+<p>We had fully intended to have omitted any mention of Mr Turner's strange
+productions; but we hear that a work has appeared, exalting him above
+all landscape painters that ever existed, by a graduate of the
+University of Oxford. Believing, then, that his style is altogether
+fallacious, and the extravagant praise mischievous, because none can
+deny him some fascinations of genius, which mislead, we think it right
+to comment upon his this year's works. Their subjects are taken from
+abstracts from a MS. poem, of which Mr Turner is, we presume, himself
+the author; for though somewhat more distinct and intelligible than his
+paint, they are obscure enough, and by their feet are as much out of the
+perspective of verse, as his objects are of that of lines. "The opening
+of the Wallhalla," is by far the best, indeed it has its beauties;
+distances are happily given: most absurd are the figures, and the
+inconceivable foreground. The catalogue announcement of No. 129 startled
+us. We expected to see "Bright Ph&oelig;bus" himself poetically personating
+a doge, or a midshipman; for it points to the "Sun of Venice going to
+Sea." His "Shade and Darkness; or, the Evening of the Deluge," is the
+strangest of things&mdash;the first question we ask is, which is the shade
+and which the darkness? After the strictest scrutiny, we learn from this
+bit of pictorial history, that on the eve of the mighty Deluge, a
+Newfoundland dog was chained to a post, lest he should swim to the ark;
+that a pig had been drinking a bottle of wine&mdash;an anachronism, for
+certainly "as drunk as David's sow," was an after-invention: that men,
+women, and children, (such we suppose they are meant to be) slept a
+purple sleep, with most gigantic arms round little bodies; that there
+was fire that did not burn, and water that would nearly obliterate, but
+not drown. But more wonderful still is the information we pick up, or
+pick out bit by bit, as strange things glimmer into shape. "Light and
+Colour, (Goethe's Theory)&mdash;The Morning after the Deluge&mdash;Moses writing
+the book of Genesis." Such is the unexpected announcement of the
+catalogue. But further to account for so remarkable a jumble as we are
+to behold, Mr Turner adds the following verses:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"The ark stood firm on Ararat: th' returning sun<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Exhaled earth's humid bubbles, and, emulous of light,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Reflected her lost forms, each in prismatic guise,<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Hope's harbinger, ephemeral as the summer fly,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which rises, flits, expands, and dies."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i10"><i>Fallacies of Hope, MS.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>This is unquestionably one of the "Fallacies of Hope"&mdash;for it is quite
+hopeless to make out, the sun smoking his cigar of colour, and exhaling
+earth's humid bubbles; yet we do see a great number of "bubble" heads,
+scratchy things, in red wigs, rolling and floating out of nothing into
+nothing. There must indeed have been very wondrous giants in those days;
+for here is an enormous leg, far beyond the "ex pede Herculem," rising
+up some leagues off far bigger than whole figures close at hand. But we
+learn the wonderful fact, that the morning after the Deluge, Moses,
+sitting upon nothing, possibly the sky, wrote the book of Genesis with a
+Perryian pen, and on Bath-post, and that he was so seen by Mr Turner in
+his own peculiar perspective-defying telescope&mdash;for so "<i>sedet,
+eternumque sedebit</i>," in the year 1843. We know that in this account of
+it we a little jumble past, present, and future; but so we the better
+describe the picture; for when the Deluge went, Chaos came. That we may
+the more easily recognize the historian, a serpent is dropping from him,
+hieroglyphically. Can Mr Turner be serious? or is he trying how far he
+may perpetrate absurdities, and get the world to believe them beauties,
+or that his practice is according to any "theory of colour!" His
+conceptions are such as would be dreams of gallipots of colours, were
+they endued with life, and the power of dreaming prodigies.</p>
+
+<p>There is unquestionably an impetus given to historical talent&mdash;and there
+is good proof that such talent is not wanting in this year's Exhibition;
+Mr Patten has chosen a very grand subject from the Inferno of Dante.
+"Dante, accompanied by Virgil in his descent to the Inferno, recognizes
+his three countrymen, Rusticucci, Aldobrandi, and Guidoguerra"&mdash;<i>Divina
+Commedia, Inferno.</i> The subject is finely conceived by Mr Patten. Virgil
+and Dante stand upon the edge of the fiery surge; they are noble and
+solemn figures. There is an abyss of flames below, that sends upward its
+whirling and tormenting storm, driven round and round, by which are seen
+the three countrymen. They are well grouped, and show the whirling
+motion of the fiery tempest; we should have preferred them more
+foreshortened, and such we think was the vision in Dante's mind's
+eye&mdash;for he says&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Thus each one, as he wheel'd, his countenance<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">At me directed, <i>so that opposite</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>The neck moved ever to the twinkling feet</i>."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>There is great art in placing the large limb of one of the figures
+immediately over the fiercest centre of fire&mdash;it gives interminable
+space to the fiery sea&mdash;an this part of the picture is very daringly and
+awfully coloured. We rather object to the equal largeness and importance
+of all the figures; and perhaps the bodies are too smooth, showing too
+little of the punishment of flame&mdash;they are too quiescent. Dante says,
+"Ah me, what wounds I marked upon their limbs!" And Rusticucci, who
+addresses Dante, thus describes their bodies:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"'If woe of this unsound and dreary waste,'<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thus one began, 'added to our sad cheer<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Thus peel'd</i> with flame.'"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The persons of such sufferers should be Michael Angelesque&mdash;punishment
+and suffering should be equally <i>large</i>. We venture to suggest this
+criticism to Mr Patten, because the subject is grand, and there is so
+much good in his manner of treating it, that he will do well to paint
+another picture of it.</p>
+
+<p>Mr Etty has no less than seven pictures. His "In the Greenwood Shade" is
+by far the best. Cupid and sleeping nymphs&mdash;the rich and lucid colours,
+softly losing themselves in shade, and here and there playfully
+recovered, very much remind us of Correggio. We should more applaud Mr
+Etty for his general colouring, than for his flesh tints; nor have his
+figures in general the soft and luxuriant roundness which grace and
+beauty should have&mdash;the faces, too, have often too much purple shadow.
+We have before remarked that, painting too closely from the model, he
+exhibits Graces that have worn stays. And surely he often mistakenly
+enlarges the loveliest portion of the female form&mdash;the bosom&mdash;whose
+beauty is in its undefined commencement, its gentle and innocent and
+modest growth. How happily is this hit off by Dryden in his description
+of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> Iphigenia sleeping, to the gaze of the clown Cymon:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"As yet their places were but signified." While so many pictures of
+acknowledged merit are rejected for lack of room, it is scarcely fair,
+perhaps, for one artist to exhibit so many. Mr. Eastlake has, however,
+been too liberal to others in his forbearing modesty; we could wish he
+had not confined himself to one. He might offer the lioness's answer,
+were not his picture one most tenderly expressive of all gentleness. It
+is an old subject, but treated in no respect after the old manner. The
+boy is faint and weary, on the ground. Hagar, with a countenance of
+sweet anxiety, is giving the water, with a care, and with a view to the
+safety of the draught. There is a dead, dry, burnt palm-tree lying on
+the ground, poetically descriptive. The expression of both figures is
+perfect, and they are most sweetly, tenderly painted. If we might make
+any objection, it would be that the subject is not quite poetically
+treated as to colour. It may be, and we have no doubt it is, most true
+to nature in one sense. We can believe that such a country would have
+such a sky, and such appearance in foreground and distance; but that
+very truth creates to our mind's eye an anachronism&mdash;it brings down the
+tale of antiquity to very modernism&mdash;it robs it of its antique hue&mdash;it
+shows it too commonly, too familiarly. As <i>we read it</i>, we do not so see
+it; we are not so matter-of-fact. There is an ideal colouring that
+belongs to sentiment&mdash;our minds always adopt it. We have not as yet
+correctly worked out that theory, and therefore it is not enough in our
+practice. More particularly in this subject do we require something
+ideal in the manner, for few are equally true in the characters as in
+the external scene. Here, certainly, neither Hagar nor Ishmael are of
+their nation and country. It is too lovely a picture to wish touched.
+The remarks we venture upon may be applied to most modern pictures of
+ancient subjects, and may be worth consideration. There are two other
+pictures, very beautiful pictures, too, in the Exhibition, which have,
+we think, this defect&mdash;"Jephtha's Daughter, the last Day of Mourning. H.
+O. Neil;" and "Naomi and her Daughter-in-law. E. N. Eddis." The first,
+Jephtha's Daughter and her attendant maidens is a group of very lovely
+figures, extremely graceful, all breathing an air of purity; it is
+loveliness in many forms; for its conception as to chiaroscuro and
+colour, is most skilfully managed; but it has this present day's
+reality, and we only force ourselves to believe it Jephtha's Daughter.
+Exquisitely beautiful, too, is the affectionate, the very loving, Ruth.
+Orpah, too, is sweet, but the difference is well expressed&mdash;"Orpah
+kissed her mother-in-law, <i>but</i> Ruth clave unto her." There is an
+unaffected simplicity about these figures that is quite charming, a
+simplicity of <i>manner</i> well according with the simplicity of character;
+but has not the picture in colouring too much of this day's familiar
+air? In historical design both these pictures are a decided advance in
+art. We are giving promise.</p>
+
+<p>We could wish that Mr. Martin would not ruin his greatness by his
+littlenesses. There is often a large conception, that we overlook to
+examine interminable minuti&aelig; of parts, and mostly parts repeated; his
+figures are always injurious. His "Canute the Great rebuking his
+Courtiers" would have been a fine picture had he contented himself with
+the real subject&mdash;the sea. It is, indeed, crude in colour, and the
+coldness to the right ill agrees with the red heat on the left; but
+still, in chiaroscuro, it would have been a fine picture, if completed
+according to his first intention, but Canute and his courtiers spoil it.
+In the first place, they make, by their position and ease, the awful
+overwhelming sea safe. It is, as Longinus remarks, the plank that takes
+away the danger and the poetry; and such an assemblage of courtiers put
+the times of Canute quite out of our heads&mdash;a collection from a book of
+fashions&mdash;Ladies' Magazines&mdash;in their velvet gauze and tiffany, in
+colours that put the sun to shame, and make him blush less red; and the
+little, minute work about the pebbly shore creates a weariness, for they
+tempt us to count the sands. All this arises from a mistaken view of the
+sublime, that we have before noticed in Mr. Martin. It is very strange
+that an artist of his undoubted genius should err in a matter so
+essential to the greatness at which he aims.</p>
+
+<p>Would that we could say a word in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> of Mr Haydon's one historical
+picture, "The Heroine of Saragossa." She is most unheroic certainly,
+stretching across the centre of the picture with a most uncomfortable
+stride, with what a foot! and a toe that looks for amputation&mdash;a torch
+suspended out of her hand, held by nothing&mdash;not like "another Helen," to
+"fire another Troy," but purposing to fire off a huge cannon, without a
+chance of success; for not only do not her fingers hold the torch, but
+her face is averted from the piece of ordnance, and her feet are taking
+her away from it. She is splendidly dressed in red, and without shoes or
+stockings&mdash;a great mistake, for such a foot might have been well hid.
+She is the very worst historical figure we have ever seen in a picture
+of any pretensions; there is another figure that only attempts to hold a
+pistol. The whole is a most unfortunate display of the vulgar
+historical. The unfortunate woman has two heads of hair, and both look
+borrowed for the occasion. How very strange it is that an artist who
+could paint the very respectable picture of the "Raising of Lazarus,"
+now at the Pantheon, should not himself be sensible of the glaring
+faults of such a picture as this; and we may add, the large one
+exhibited last year. Mr Haydon understands art, lectures upon it, and
+is, we believe, enthusiastic in his profession. Does he bring his own
+works to the test of the principles he lays down? The misconception of
+men of talent with regard to their own works is an unexplained
+phenomenon.</p>
+
+<p>Edwin Landseer, R. A., exhibits but two pictures, both excellent. Of the
+two, we prefer the smaller, "Two horses drinking"&mdash;nature itself. Lord
+Kames, in his Elements of Criticism, remarks, that the fore-horse of a
+team always has his ears forward, on the alert, while the rest mostly,
+throw theirs back. This watchfulness Landseer has observed in the eye of
+the animal; the eye of the one, protected by the horse nearest to the
+spectator, has a quiet, unobserving look; the eye of the other is
+evidently on the watch. A cunning magpie is looking into a bone. The
+picture is beautifully coloured.</p>
+
+<p>Mr Redgrave's three pictures are exquisitely beautiful, and in his own
+truly English style. "The Fortune Hunter,"</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Neglects a love on pure affection built,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For vain indifference if but double-gilt."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>A screen separates the deserted one from the courting pair. The contrast
+in expression of the two fair ones is as good as can be. The "vain
+indifference" is not as many, treating this subject, have made her,
+deformed, old, and ugly, for that would have removed our pity from the
+suffering one, showing the man to be altogether worthless, and the loss
+an escape; on the contrary she is of a face and person to be admired;
+but she looks vain and void of affection. We like not so well his "Going
+to Service;" but his "Poor Teacher," is most charming; it is a most
+pathetic tale, though it be one figure only, but that how sweet! A
+lovely girl in mourning is sitting in deep thought waiting for her
+scholars; on the table is her humble fare, and of that she takes little
+heed. She is thinking of her bereavement, perhaps a father, a mother, a
+sister&mdash;perhaps she is altogether a bereaved one&mdash;a tear is on her
+cheek. These are the subjects, when so well painted; that make us love
+innocence and tenderness, the loveliness of duty, and, therefore, they
+make us better. The habitual sight might rob a villain of his evil
+thoughts&mdash;such human loveliness is the nearest to angelic&mdash;indeed it is
+more, for we must not forget the exceeding greatness, loveliness, of
+which human nature is capable. Divine love has given it a power to be
+far above every other nature, and that divine love has touched the
+heart, and speaks in the countenance of the "Poor Teacher."</p>
+
+<p>Mr Creswick has this year rectified the fault of the last. His greens
+were thought somewhat too crude and too monotonous. "In culpam ducet
+culp&aelig; fuga"&mdash;the old foot-road is scarcely green enough. All Mr
+Creswick's pictures have in them a sentiment&mdash;nature with him is
+sentient and suggestive. The very stillness&mdash;the silence, the quiet of
+the old foot-road is the contemplative of many a little history of them
+whose feet have trod it: such is the character of "The Terrace." But the
+most strikingly beautiful is "Welsh Glen"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"The meeting cliffs each deep-sunk glen divides,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The woods wild scatter'd clothe their ample sides."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>What sketcher has not frequently come upon a scene like this, and, with
+a delight not unmixed with awe, hoped to realize it&mdash;and how many have
+failed! How often have we looked down upon the quiet and not shapeless
+rocky ledges just rising above and out of the dark still water; while
+beyond them, and low in the transparent pool, are stones rich of hue,
+and dimly seen, and beyond them the dark deep water spreads, reflecting
+partially the hues of the cliffs above&mdash;and watched the slender boughs,
+how they shoot out from rocky crevices, and above them branches from
+many a tree-top high up, hanging over; while we look up under the green
+arched boughs, and their fan-spreading leafage&mdash;every tree, every leaf
+communing, and all bending down to one object, worshipping as it were
+the deep pool's mystery! Here is the natural Gothic of Pan's temple&mdash;and
+out from the deep pass, golden and like a painted window of the sylvan
+aisle, glows the sun-touched wood, illuminated in all its wondrous
+tracery. In such a scene&mdash;where "Contemplation has her fill"&mdash;the
+perfect truth of this highly finished picture is sure to renew the
+feeling first enjoyed&mdash;enjoyed in solitude: it should have no figure but
+ourselves, for we are in it&mdash;and it has none. The colouring and
+execution are most true to nature; if we would wish any thing altered,
+it would be the sky, which is a little too light for the deep solemnity
+of all below it. Exquisitely beautiful as are these scenes from Mr
+Creswick's pencil, we doubt if he has reached or knows his own power. He
+has yet to add to this style the largeness of nature. We should venture
+to recommend to his reading, again and again, those parts of Sir
+Joshua's Discourses which treat of the large generality of nature.</p>
+
+<p>Stanfield is, as usual, remarkably clear, more characteristic of
+himself, his manner, than of the places of his subjects&mdash;ever the same
+coloured lights and shadows. His compositions are well made up, there is
+seldom a line to offend. In "Mazorbo and Torcello, Gulf of Venice,"
+however, the right-hand corner is extra-parochial to the scene&mdash;is
+unbalanced, and injures the composition. The scenes, as views, are very
+sweet, and have more repose than he usually throws into his pieces. This
+sameness of colouring, and scenical arrangement and effect, are no less
+conspicuous in the works of Mr Roberts, most of which are, however, very
+beautiful. Very striking is the view of "Ruins on the Island of Philoe,
+Nubia." It is not the worse for the absence of the general polish. We
+seem to be on the spot&mdash;the effect is so simple, the art is unobserved.
+We have to wonder at departed glory, at hidden history, and we do
+wonder. Why is it that Mr Danby, whose pictures of the "Sixth Seal," and
+the "Deluge," none that have seen them can forget, exhibits but one
+piece, and that, though very beautiful, not from the boldness of his
+genius? It is a quiet evening scene&mdash;the sun setting red towards the
+horizon, the sky having much of nature's green tints, her most peaceful
+hues, some cattle are standing in the river&mdash;the left is filled up with
+trees, which, beautiful in form, want transparency. There is a heaviness
+in that part too powerful; it attracts, and therefore disturbs the
+repose. Mr Lee has not very much varied his subjects or manner this
+year. His scenes are evidently from nature&mdash;great parts appear to have
+been painted out of doors, being fresh and true. Not altogether liking
+some of his subjects, we cannot but admire the skill in their treatment,
+the warm glow in the colouring, and true character of some of his woods
+running off in perspective are most pleasing. He does not aim at
+sentiment. He often reminds us of Gainsborough's best manner; but he is
+superior to him always, in subject, in composition, and in variety. He
+has great skill in the transparency and clearness of his tones. We think
+his pictures would be vastly improved if painted in a lower key. His
+"Scenery near Crediton, Devonshire," is remarkably good; perhaps the sky
+and distance is a little out of harmony with the rest. There are three
+pictures by Mr M&uuml;ller, two very effective&mdash;"Prayers in the Desert"&mdash;but
+we are more struck with his "Arabs seeking a Treasure." The sepulchral
+interior is solemnly deep; the dim<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> obscure, through which are yet seen
+the gigantic sculptured heads that seem the presiding guardians; the
+light and shade is very fine, as is the colour; the blue sky, seen from
+within, wonderfully assists the colour of the interior. There is great
+grandeur in the scene, and it is finely treated. His other picture, No.
+1 in the Exhibition, is so very badly placed over the door, that we do
+not pretend to judge of it, because, Mr M&uuml;ller being a good colourist,
+we do not recognise him in what we can see of this "Mill Scene on the
+Dolgarley."</p>
+
+<p>Mr Collins has improved greatly upon his last year's exhibition. "A
+Sultry Day," though at Naples, and a "Windy Day," in Sussex are not the
+most pleasant things to feel or to think of. Mr Collins has succeeded in
+conveying the disagreeableness of the "windy day," and it is the more
+disagreeable for reminding us of Morland: luckily he has not succeeded
+in conveying the sultriness. On the contrary, to us, No. 217 breathes of
+freshness and coolness. It is a very sweet picture; water, boats, and
+shore, beautifully painted. It is well that Mr Kennedy has but one
+picture&mdash;"Italy"&mdash;for he paints by the acre. It is a great mistake&mdash;and,
+while so many pictures of merit are rejected for want of room, some
+injustice in his doing so. Nor does his subject, which is meagre enough,
+gain any thing by its size. There is merit in the grouping&mdash;not a little
+affectation in the poor colouring and general effect. Surely he might
+have made a much prettier small picture of a subject that has no
+pretensions to be large. Were "Italy" like that, we should totally
+differ with him, and not subscribe to his quotation&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">"I must say<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That Italy's a pleasant place to me."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>There is a very good picture by J. R. Herbert, A., if it were not for
+its too great or too common naturalness. The subject is the interview
+with the woman of Samaria. There is good expression, simplicity of
+design, but violence of colour. The subject demands a simplicity of
+colouring. Surely in such a scriptural subject, the annunciation, "I
+that speak unto thee am He," should alone be in the mind; but here the
+accessories are as conspicuous as the figures. Yet it is a picture of
+great merit.</p>
+
+<p>There are two pictures of historical subjects, (not in the artistical
+sense so treated,) which attract great attention. "The Queen receiving
+the Sacrament," by Leslie; and "Waterloo," by Sir W. Allan, R.A. We are
+aware of the great value of this manner of pageant painting; it is
+perhaps worth while to sacrifice much of art to portraiture in this
+case. Viewing the necessity and the difficulty, we cannot but
+congratulate Mr Leslie&mdash;notwithstanding the peculiarity of the dresses,
+and the quantity of white to be introduced, this is by no means an
+unpleasantly coloured picture. There is much richness, in fact; and the
+artist has, with very great skill, avoided a gaudy effect. So the Battle
+of Waterloo must derive its great value from the truth of the portraits.
+It is any thing, however, but an heroic representation of a battle.
+Perhaps the object of the painter was confined to the facts of a
+military description, of positions of brigades and battalions&mdash;to our
+unmilitary eyes, there is wanting the vivid action, the energy, the
+mighty conflict&mdash;possibly only the ideal of a battle&mdash;-which may, after
+all, be in appearance a much more tame sort of thing than we imagine.
+There is a necessity, for historical value, to see too much. There is Mr
+Ward's "Fight of the Bulls:" the whole earth echoes the boundary and the
+conflict; it is one great scene of energy. But the great fight of men
+conveys none of this feeling. It is not imposing in effect&mdash;it looks
+indeed rather dingy, the sky and distance cold, and not remarkably well
+painted&mdash;a battle should have more vigorous handling, something of the
+fury of the fight. If, however, it be matter-of-fact truth; that in such
+a subject is all important, and should be painted. A battle, any battle,
+may be another thing.&mdash;"Sir Joshua Reynolds and his Friends" is an
+excellent subject, if all the portraits are from authentic pictures; at
+a future day it will be of great value, although it is not very
+agreeable as a picture.</p>
+
+<p>Either the portraits have less effect than they usually have, or there
+are fewer of them this year. We must give the palm to Mr Grant.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> He
+combines many excellences&mdash;perfect truth, unaffected simplicity, and
+most judicious and ever-harmonious colouring. It may not perhaps be far
+wrong to say, that he is the very best portrait-painter this country has
+known since Vandyck; certainly he appreciates, and has often deeply
+studied, that great painter. We have long considered Mr Grant's female
+portraits by far the best&mdash;the present exhibition raises him as a
+general portrait-painter. The perfect unaffected ease of his attitudes
+is a very great thing. Here are three pictures in a line, portraits, the
+<i>sitters</i> all <i>seated</i>&mdash;and yet how striking it is, that there is only
+one that sits&mdash;Mr Grant's "Lord Wharncliffe." How sweet and natural, how
+beautiful as a picture, are "The Sisters!" The conventional style of
+portrait is undoubtedly good, and founded on good sense&mdash;but genius will
+seize an opportunity, and be original&mdash;such is the character of Mr
+Grant's portrait of "Lord Charles Scott, youngest son of the Duke and
+Duchess of Buccleuch." The boy stands like a boy, every limb belongs to
+him; he is all life&mdash;the flesh tints in the face are as perfect as can
+be. The attitude, the dress, so admirably managed. It has all the
+breadth, and power, too, of Velasquez, with all modern clearness. And
+what a charmingly coloured picture is the portrait of "Lady Margaret
+Littleton!" And close at hand, right glad were we to see the noble
+portrait of the "Professor of Moral Philosophy, Edinburgh," the &#945;&#965;&#964;&#959;&#962; &#949;&#967;&#949;&#953;&#957;&#959;&#962;, by R. S. Lauder, an artist whose works we think have
+not always been done justice to in the Academy&mdash;yet how seldom do we see
+pictures of such power as his "Trial," from the "Heart of Mid-Lothian,"
+and his "Ravensworth!" There is another portrait painter that is very
+original&mdash;Linnell; and such is he, in the "Portraits of the Three eldest
+Children of Robert Clutterbuck, Esq." There are so many smooth and soft
+pictures at the exhibitions which we must look at very near, that the
+habit is acquired of seeing all in that manner. To those who should so
+see this of Mr Linnell, it will appear odd, sketchy, unfinished&mdash;recede,
+and it is of very great power, and comes out wonderfully with all the
+truth of nature. It is an out-of-door scene. The children in most
+natural positions, and separate from the background, which is quite true
+in effect, with surprising force. It is very well coloured, and the
+manner, though not so at first, at length pleases. We like to see much
+done with little effort, as soon as the eye has recovered from the
+examination of laboured work.&mdash;How many works of great merit that we
+should wish to mention! and perhaps we ought to notice some of demerit;
+but we must forbear; the bad and the good must repose together&mdash;if there
+<i>can</i> be repose in an exhibition room. Why has not Mr Uwins painted
+another "Fioretta," worth all the crude, blue, red and yellow
+processions he ever painted? And why&mdash;but we will ask no questions but
+of the "Hanging Committee:" why do they offend the eyes of spectators,
+and vex the hearts of exhibitors, by hanging little pictures out of
+sight? It is insulting to the public and the artists. Surely, if the
+works be not fit to be seen, boldly and honestly reject them. It is an
+injury to misplace them. Many of the pictures so placed, are evidently
+intended to be seen near the eye. You do not want to <i>furnish</i> the walls
+with pictures. If so, do advertise that you will sacrifice some of your
+own to that purpose. You may find a sufficient number of "Amateurs"
+ready to immolate their reputation for art, of little value; but you
+should consider with what an aching heart the poor painter sees the
+labour of many a day, and many a cherished hope, as soon as the Academy
+opens, raised to its position of noted contempt. Nor should you have a
+"Condemned Cell"&mdash;such is the octagon-room termed. You render men
+unhappy&mdash;and superciliously seem to think, you pay them by a privilege
+of admission. Admission to what?&mdash;to see your well-placed merits, and
+their own disgraced position. We are happy to see an appeal to you on
+this subject in the <i>Artist's Magazine</i>, and eloquently written&mdash;and
+with good sense, as are all the notices in that work. That or some other
+should be enlarged to meet the requirements of art. Now we are indeed
+making hotbeds for the growth of artists. They will be thick as peas,
+and not so palatable&mdash;youths of large hope and little promise&mdash;some
+aiming beyond their reach, others<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> striving and straining at a low
+Art-Union prize. Patronage can never keep pace with this "painting for
+the million system." The world will be inundated with mediocrity. This
+fever of art will terminate in a painting-plague. What is to become of
+the artists? Where will you colonize?</p>
+
+<p>Now let us purpose a plan. Let the members of the Academy come to this
+resolution that instead of exhibiting some 1300 pictures annually, they
+will not admit into their rooms more than the 300&mdash;and so cut off the
+1000&mdash;that the said 300 shall all have good places, and shall be the
+choicest works of British talent. Let them signify to the public that
+they will show no favour, and that they will be responsible for the
+merit of the works they mean to invite the public to see. They need not
+doubt the effect. Great will be the benefit to art, artists, and to
+patrons of art.</p>
+
+
+<h3>SUFFOLK STREET GALLERY&mdash;SOCIETY OF BRITISH ARTISTS.</h3>
+
+<p>This twentieth exhibition opens, according to the catalogue, under the
+auspices of Marcus Tullius Cicero; but why or wherefore the world who
+read the quotation mottoes of catalogues, must ever be at a loss to
+discover. "I think," said the wordy Roman, "that no one will ever become
+a highly distinguished orator, unless he shall have obtained a knowledge
+of all great things and arts." Therefore, you, the British public, are
+requested to walk in and see the show. We wish this motto affectation
+were put an end to&mdash;the Royal Academy are sadly puzzled year after year
+to hit upon a piece of Latin that will do, and their labour in that line
+is often in vain. And certainly this intimation from Suffolk Street,
+which might be very useful to a young barrister preparing for the
+circuit, is now to the "matter in hand" <i>nihil ad rem</i>. But have not we
+heard that motto before? We believe it was the last year's, and is we
+suppose to become an annual repetition <i>in secula seculorum</i>. The
+exhibition is, however, very respectable; we fear it is not so well
+attended as it deserves to be. The fact is, that the Academy, with its
+innumerable works, becomes, before it is half gone through, a very
+tiresome affair. What with straining at raw crude colours, and pictures
+out of sight, the public, who feel they must go there, have had enough
+of work for weary eyes; and imagining the other gallery to be inferior,
+go not to it. Yet, after a little rest, they would, we are sure, feel
+gratified in Suffolk Street. If there are but half-a-dozen good
+pictures, they are worth going to see, and certainly this exhibition has
+its very fair proportion of works of merit, and interest. Nor is there
+any lack of variety. We have only to make remarks upon a very few, not
+at all wishing to have it believed that we have selected either the best
+or the worst. There is novelty in some of Mr Woolmer's pictures. He
+seems, however, undetermined as to style; for his pictures are here very
+unequal. In one or two he is imitating Turner, but it is to have
+"confusion worse confounded." And singularly enough, in such imitations,
+his subjects are of repose. "A Scene in the Middle Ages, suggested by a
+visit to Haddon Hall," is very pleasing. The style here is suggestive,
+and judiciously so; he generalizes, and we are pleased to imagine. We
+see elegant figures walking under shade of trees, clear refreshing green
+shade; the composition is graceful, and fit for the speculative or
+enamoured loiterers. Perhaps the foreground is too ambitious&mdash;too much
+worked to effect. If this be done for the sake of contrast, it is a
+mistake of the proper effect of, and proper place for, contrast. In such
+a scene of ease and gentleness, all contrast is far better avoided; it
+always has a tendency to make active; and is to be applied in proportion
+to the degree of life and activity that may be desirable. His "Castle of
+Indolence" is much in imitation of Turner. The poet uses a singular
+expression,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"O'er which were <i>shadowy</i> cast <i>Elysian gleams</i>."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>What meaneth Thomson? He further calls the hue, "a roseate smile," and
+is reminded of Titian's pencil. By all which hints and expressions we
+conclude that the poet saw this "pleasing land of Drowsyhead" as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span>
+through a coloured glass, subduing all the exciting colours of nature to
+a mellow dreaminess. No strong, no vivid colours are here&mdash;all is the
+quiescent modesty, the unobtruding magic of half-tones. What shall we
+say of such a Domain of Indolence being painted without shade or
+shelter; with violent contrasts of dark and light, and of positive
+forcing colouring? All repose is destroyed. Then again we see too much;
+there are too many parts, too many figures, too many occupations:
+indication that the territory was peopled would have been enough; this
+is more like a <i>f&ecirc;te champ&ecirc;tre</i>. Besides, the scene itself is not one to
+give delight to contemplate; it is not suggestive of pleasant dream, but
+looks out on an ugly, swampy, fog-infected country. The only "Indolence"
+we see has been devoted to the execution, for it is slovenly to a
+degree. We find the same fault, though not to the same extent, with his
+"Scene from Boccaccio." It sadly wants repose, and affects colouring
+which is neither good for itself, nor suitable to the subject. His
+"Subject from Chaucer" has the same defects. Mr Woolmer is decidedly a
+man of ability; but we think he has strange misconceptions with respect
+to colours, their sentimental effect and power.</p>
+
+<p>There is a "Scene from the Arabian Nights," by Mr Jacobi, which, though
+it is an attempt, and by no means an unsuccessful one, at an accidental
+effect of nature, which is generally to be avoided, is extremely
+pleasing. It is a portrait of great loveliness, grace, and beauty&mdash;we
+look till we are in the illusion of the Arabian tale&mdash;the foot of the
+Beauty is not good in colour or form; and the distance is a little out
+of harmony. There is considerable power; such peculiar light and shade,
+and colouring, offered great difficulty to keep, up the effect
+evenly&mdash;and the difficulty has been overcome. Mr Herring greatly keeps
+up the character of this exhibition in his peculiar line. His "Interior
+of a Country Stable" is capitally painted, even to the ducks. The old
+horse has been evidently "a good 'un;" goats, ducks, and white horse
+behind, all good, and should complete the scene&mdash;we may have "too much
+for our money." The cows and occupation going on within, in an inner
+stall, are too conspicuous and a picture within a picture, and therefore
+would be better out. His black and roan, in the "Country Bait Stable,"
+are perfect nature. A picture by Mr H. Johnston, "The Empress Theophane,
+begging her husband Leo V. to delay the execution of Michael the
+Physician," is well designed; has a great deal of beauty of design, of
+expression, and of general colour, but not colour of flesh&mdash;nor is the
+purple blue of the background good.</p>
+
+<p>We take it for granted that artists are often at a loss for a subject,
+and that they often choose badly we all know; but a worse than that
+chosen by Mr G. Scott, we do not remember ever to have met with. It is
+entitled "Morbid Sympathy," forming two pictures. In the one the
+murderer is coming from the house where he has just committed the
+diabolical act; in the other he is visited. The man is an uninteresting
+villain and his visitors are fools. The object of the painter is
+doubtless a good one; it is to avert that morbid sympathy which has been
+so conspicuously and mischievously felt and affected for the worst, the
+most wicked of mankind. But to do this is the province of the press, not
+the pencil. It is a mistake of the whole purpose of art. It will not
+deter murderers, who look not at pictures; and if they were to look at
+these, would not be converted by any thing the pictures have to
+show&mdash;nor will it keep back one fool, madman, or sentimental hypocrite
+from making a disgraceful exhibition. We are not sorry to notice this
+failure of Mr Scott's, because we would call the attention of artists in
+general to "subject." Let a painter ask himself before he takes his
+brush in hand, why&mdash;for what purpose, with what object do I choose this
+scene or this incident? Can the moral or the sentiment it conveys be
+told by design and colour?&mdash;and if so, are such moral and such sentiment
+worth the "doing." Will it please, or will it disgust? We mean not to
+use the word "please" in its lowest common sense, but in that which
+expresses the gratification we are known to feel even when our quiescent
+happiness is disturbed. In that sense we know even tragedies are
+pleasing. We may, however,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> paint a martyr on his gridiron, and paint
+that which is only disgusting; the firmness, the devotion through faith
+of the martyr, are of the noblest heroism. If to represent that be the
+sole object, and it succeeds, such a work would rank with tragedy, and
+please.</p>
+
+
+<h3>PAINTING IN WATER COLOURS.</h3>
+
+<p>We have visited the two societies of painters in water colours. In these
+there are two antagonist principles in full practice&mdash;while some are
+endeavoring to imitate, and indeed to go beyond the power of oil
+colours, others are going back as much as may be to the white paper
+system; imitating in fact the imitation which painters in oil have taken
+up from the painters in water colour. We must, of course, expect from
+this no little extravagance both ways&mdash;and we are not disappointed in
+the expectation. We will first notice the elder institution. In this,
+certainly, there are fewer examples of the power of colour system&mdash;but
+not a few in the weaker system. We noticed last year that Mr Copley
+Fielding was making great advances in it. His practised and skilful hand
+causes that style to have many admirers. Poor John Varley&mdash;we look with
+interest at his last work. His early ones were full of genius. He was an
+enthusiast in art. There is very great beauty in his "View on the
+Croydon Canal previous to the making the rail-road." An admirable
+composition&mdash;the woods and water are very fine. There are some very good
+drawings by D. Cox, which will greatly please all who like to see much
+told with little labour. Prout fully sustains his reputation. Amidst
+much detail he is always broad and large. There is a most true effect of
+haze in Copley Fielding's fine drawing of "Folkstone Cliff." There is an
+affected absence of effect in his "Arundel Castle"&mdash;the blues and
+yellows are not in harmony&mdash;and all has an uncomfortable, unsubstantial
+look. Eliza Sharpe's "Little Dunce" is a delightful drawing. It is only
+the old dame that can ever be angry with a little dunce&mdash;and she puts on
+more than half her anger; and this is a glorious little dunce, that we
+would not see good for the world&mdash;the triumph of nature over tuition.
+This charming little creature has been happy her own way, has been
+wandering in her own "castle of indolence," and perhaps, too,
+philosophizing thus&mdash;Well, I have been naughty, but happier still than
+if I had been good. So is the goodness we force upon children often
+against nature&mdash;we love to see nature superior. Eliza Sharpe must have
+been of the same way of thinking, and it is archly expressed. Her Una
+and the lion is large and free&mdash;the face of Una nor quite the thing. We
+have a "Castle of Indolence" by Mr Finch, gay with "all the finches of
+the grove," but the country does not look indolent, nor the country for
+indolence. Hunt's boys, clever as ever. The sleeping boy, with his large
+shadow on the wall, is most successful. The companion, the boy awake, is
+a little of the caricature. His "Pet," a boy holding up a pig, natural
+as it is, is nevertheless disgusting; for such a toy will ever be the
+biggest beast of the two. Mr Hills has several excellent drawings of
+deer; but there is one, so perfect that it is quite poetical&mdash;a few
+deer, in their own wild haunt, heathery brown, and almost treeless, the
+few spots of stunted trees serving to mark the spot, separating it from
+similar, and making it the home. It is furthest from the haunts of man.
+It looks silence. The animals are quite nature, exquisitely grouped. The
+quiet colouring, unobtrusive, could not be more nicely conceived&mdash;it is
+the long Sabbath quiet of an unworking world. The picture is well
+executed. It is one that makes a lasting impression.</p>
+
+<p>Mr Oakley's "Shrimper," a boy sitting on a rock, reminds us of some of
+Murillo's boys; it is as good in effect, and better in expression, than
+most of the Spaniard's. "After the second Battle of Newbury," by
+Cattermole, is a well-imagined scene, but is defective in that in which
+we should have supposed the artist would not have failed. It is not
+moonlight. "Tuning," by J. W. Wright, is a good proof that blue, as
+Gainsborough likewise proved, is not necessarily cold. His "Confession,"
+with the two graceful figures, is very sweet. "The Gap of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> Dunloe," W.
+A. Nesfield&mdash;has fine folding forms&mdash;the distance and rainbow
+beautiful&mdash;it is, however, somewhat hurt by crude colour, and too much
+cut up foreground. The Vicar and his family supply work to many an
+artist of our day. Mr Taylor's is very good&mdash;Moses pulling the reluctant
+horse, is a good incident. We do not quite recognize Mrs Primrose, and
+could wish the daughter had more beauty. We never could very much admire
+Mr Richter's coarse vulgarities&mdash;and they are of gross feeling, and we
+think, caricatures without much humour; but his sentimentalities are
+worse. His "Sisters," a scene from the novel of "The Trustee," is but a
+miserable attempt at the pathetic. Mr Gastineau's "Bellagio" is a
+beautiful drawing, has great breadth and truth; but the water is
+certainly too blue.</p>
+
+
+<h3>EXHIBITION OF NEW SOCIETY IN WATER COLOURS.</h3>
+
+<p>Generally speaking, this Society is mostly ambitious of carrying water
+colour to its greatest possible depth and power, and certainly, in this
+respect, the attainment is wondrous. In design, and other character,
+this society more than keeps its ground. We remember last year noticing
+Miss Setchell's little picture, as one of the best of the year; we have
+still a perfect recollection of the most lovely pathetic expression of
+the poor girl. We were greatly disappointed that no work of Miss
+Setchell adorns the walls. There is a picture, however, which, if it did
+not move us equally, at once arrested our attention, and again and again
+did we return to it. The character of it is not certainly moving, as
+Miss Setchell's, it is altogether of a different cast&mdash;it is one for
+thought and manly contemplation. The subject is "Cromwell and Ireton
+intercepting a letter of Charles the First," by L. Haghe. Cromwell is
+standing reading a letter&mdash;Ireton adjusting the saddle in the recess of
+a window, near which Cromwell stands, is a table with a flagon, the
+scene is an inn in Holborn. The attitude of Cromwell is dignified ease
+and resolution. In his fine countenance we read the full history of the
+"coming events"&mdash;we see all there, that we have learned from history.
+The very curtains and stick seem to the imagination's eye convertible
+into canopy and sceptre. There is great forbearance in the painting&mdash;we
+mean that there is just enough, and no more, of water-colours' ambition.
+More depth would have injured the effect. It is a very striking picture;
+well finished, and with a breadth suited to the historical importance of
+the history. Mr Warren's "Christ's Sermon" is of the ambitious school.
+If we contrast the quiet, solemnly quiet, tone of that sermon of
+beatitudes, with the coloured character of the picture, we must condemn
+the inappropriate style. We should say it is immodestly painted; the
+picture and not the subject, obtrudes. The head of Christ is weak. It is
+a picture nevertheless of great ability, but with a gorgeous colouring
+ill suited to the subject. But we must speak with unqualified admiration
+of a little picture by Mr Warren&mdash;the "Ave Maria." It is a lady kneeling
+before a picture of a saint in a chapel. The depth and power is very
+surprising, and much reminds of Rembrandt, with the exception of the
+picture of the saint, which struck us at first as too light by a great
+deal, so much so that we noted it down as a glaring defect, but
+returning to the picture, we looked, not only till we were reconciled,
+but to an admiration of what we had considered a fault. It is the poetry
+of the subject. We see not the face of the petitioning figure, we only
+feel that she is there, and devoutly petitioning, and the brightness of
+the patron saint, with its simple open character of face and figure,
+comes out as a miraculous manifestation. We must not mistake&mdash;the "Ave
+Maria" does not mean that it is to the Virgin the petitioner prays; it
+is to a male saint.</p>
+
+<p>Mr E. Corbould still is in the full ambition of water colour power.
+"Jesus at the House of Simon the Pharisee," is an example of the
+inappropriateness of this manner to solemn sacred subjects. The Mary is
+very good&mdash;not so the principal figure, it has a weak expression: some
+parts of this picture are too sketchy for others. His "Woman of Samaria"
+is a much<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> better picture, has great breadth and grace. It is rather
+slight. His "Flower of the Fisher's Hut" is very pretty&mdash;a lady in
+masquerade. Absolon's "Uncle Toby" is well told, and with the author's
+na&iuml;vet&eacute;. Mr Topham's farewell scene from the "Deserted Village," is, we
+think, too strong of the mock-pathetic&mdash;a scene of praying and babying.</p>
+
+<p>There are many pictures we would wish to notice, but we must forbear: we
+cannot, however, omit the mention of a sea-piece, which we thought very
+fine, with a watery sky; a good design,&mdash;"North Sunderland Fishermen
+rendering assistance after a Squall."</p>
+
+
+<h3>THE BRITISH INSTITUTION.</h3>
+
+<p>Having recently given some account of Sir Joshua, his Discourses, his
+genius, and his influence upon the arts in this country, we visited this
+gallery, where as many as sixty of his works are exhibited, with no
+little interest. The North Room is occupied by them alone. Have we
+reason to think our estimate of Sir Joshua Reynolds, as a painter, not
+borne out by this exhibition? By no means. Our first impression from the
+whole collection, not seeing any particular picture, is of colour. And
+here Sir Joshua appears <i>inventive</i>; for though he not unfrequently
+imitated Rembrandt, there is, on the whole, a style that is far from
+Rembrandt, and is not like any other old master; yet we believe, for it
+was the character of his mind so to do, that he always had some great
+master in view in all he did. But he combined. Hence there is no little
+novelty in his style, and not seldom some inconsistencies&mdash;a mixture of
+care and delicacy, with great apparent slovenliness. We say apparent,
+for we are persuaded Sir Joshua never worked without real care and
+forethought; and that his apparent slovenliness was a purpose, and a
+long studied acquirement. He ever had in view the maxim&mdash;<i>Ars est celare
+artem</i>; but he did not always succeed, for he shows too evidently the
+art with which he concealed what first his art had effected. Looking
+carefully at these pictures, we see intention every where: there is no
+actual random work. We believe him to have finished much more than has
+been supposed; that there is, in reality, careful drawing and colouring,
+at least in many of his pictures, <i>under</i> that large and general
+scumbling and glazing, to which, for the sake of making a whole, he
+sacrificed the minor beauties. And we believe that many of those
+beauties were not lost when the works were fresh from his easel, but
+that they lave been obscured since by the nature of the medium and the
+materials he used. That these were bad we cannot doubt, for we plainly
+see that some of these pictures, his most laboured for effect, are not
+only most wofully cracked, (yet that is not the word, for it expresses
+not the gummy separation of part from part,) but that transparency has
+been lost, and the once-brilliant pigments become a <i>caput mortuum</i>.
+Hence there is very great <i>heaviness</i> pervading his pictures; so that
+even in colouring there is a want of freshness. A deep asphaltum has
+overpowered lightness and delicacy, and has itself become obscure. Sir
+Joshua did not leave his pictures in this state. It is as if one should
+admire, in the clear brown bed of a mountain river, luminous objects,
+stone or leaf, pebble or weed, most delicately uncertain in the magic of
+the waving glaze; and suddenly there should come over the fascination an
+earthy muddying inundation. In estimating Sir Joshua's mind, we must, in
+imagination, remove much that his hand has done. Nor was Sir Joshua,
+perhaps, always true to his subject in his intention of general
+colouring. His "Robinettas," and portraits, or ideals of children, are
+not improved by that deep asphaltum colouring, so unsuitable to the
+freshness, and may we not add, purity of childhood. And there appears,
+at least now in their present state, that there is too universal a use
+of the brown and other warm colours; Rembrandt invariably inserted among
+them cool and deep grays, very seldom blue, which, as too active a
+colour, is apt to destroy repose, the intended effect of deep colouring.
+Titian uses it for the sake of its activity, as in the Bacchus and
+Ariadne and how subdued is that blue! but even in such<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> pictures there
+are the intermediate grays, both warm and cold, that the transition from
+warm to cold be not too sudden. We cannot say that Sir Joshua Reynolds
+did not introduce these qualifying grays, because the browns have so
+evidently become more intense, that they may have changed them to their
+own hue.</p>
+
+<p>There are some pictures here which have either lost their glaze by
+cleaning, or never had it, and these have a freshness, and touch too,
+which others want; such is the case with "Lady Cockburn and her Three
+Sons"&mdash;a very fine picture, beautifully coloured, and well grouped, very
+like nature, and certainly in a manner of Vandyck. We remember, too, his
+"Kitty Fisher," and regret the practice which, with the view of giving
+tone, often took away real colour, and a great deal of the delicacy of
+nature. The very natural portrait of "Madame Schindelin," quite in
+another manner from any usual with Sir Joshua, shows that he was less
+indebted to his after theory of colouring than people in general have
+imagined. The most forcible picture among them is the "Ugolino." It is
+well known that the head of Ugolino was a study, and not designed for
+Ugolino, but that the story was adopted to suit it; yet it has been
+thought to want the dignity of that character. Ugolino had been a man in
+power; there is not much mark in the picture of his nobility. It has
+been said, too, that the addition of his sons is no improvement in the
+picture. We think otherwise: they are well grouped; by their various
+attitudes they give the greater desperate fixedness to Ugolino, and they
+do tell the story well, and are good in themselves. The power of the
+picture is very great, and it is not overpowered by glazing. On the
+whole, we think it his most vigorous work, and one upon which his fame
+as a painter may fairly rest. We have a word to say with respect to Sir
+Joshua's pictures of children. That he fully admired Correggio, we
+cannot doubt&mdash;his children have all human sweetness, tenderness, and
+affection; but it was the archness of children that mostly delighted our
+painter&mdash;their play, their frolic, their fun. In this, though in the
+main successful, he was apt to border upon the caricature; we often
+observe a cat-like expression. "The Strawberry Girl" has perhaps the
+most intense, and at the same time human look. It is deeply sentient or
+deeply feeling. The "Cardinal Beaufort" disappoints; so large a space of
+canvass uncouthly filled up, rather injures the intended expression in
+the cardinal. Has the demon been painted out, or has that part of the
+picture changed, and become obscure? But we will not notice particular
+pictures; having thus spoken so much of the general effect, we should
+only have to repeat what we have already said.</p>
+
+<p>The Middle Room is a collection of old masters of many schools, and
+valuable indeed are most of these works of art. There is a small
+landscape by Rembrandt, "A Road leading to a Village with a Mill,"
+wonderfully fine. It is the perfect poetry of colour. The manner and
+colouring give a sentiment to this most simple subject. It is a village
+church, with trees around it. This is the subject&mdash;the church and
+trees&mdash;all else belongs to that&mdash;we see dimly through the leafage&mdash;we
+read, through the gloom and the glimmer, the village histories. The
+repose of the dead&mdash;the piety of the living&mdash;all that is necessary for
+the village home, is introduced&mdash;but not conspicuously&mdash;and nothing
+more; here is a house, a farm-house, and a mill&mdash;a village stream, over
+which, but barely seen, is a wooden bridge&mdash;the clouds are closing
+round, and such clouds as "drop fatness," making the shelter the
+greater&mdash;a figure or two in the road. There is great simplicity in the
+chiaroscuros, and the paint is of the most brilliant gem-like richness,
+into which you look, for it is not flimsy and thin, but substance
+transparent&mdash;so that it lets in your imagination into the very depth of
+its mystery. No painter ever understood the poetry of colour as did
+Rembrandt. He made that his subject, whatever were the forms and
+figures. We have made notes of every picture, but have no room, and must
+be content with selecting a very few. Here are two fine sea-pieces by
+Vandervelde and Backhuysen. We notice them together for their unlikeness
+to each other. In the latter, "A Breeze, with the Prince of Orange's
+Yacht," there is a fine free fling of the waves, but lacking the
+precision of Vandervelde. There are two vessels, of nearly equal
+magnitude, and not together so as to make one. We are at a loss,
+therefore, which to look at.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> It is an offence in composition, and one
+which is never made by Vandervelde&mdash;often by Backhuysen; and not
+unfrequently are his vessels too large or too small for the skies and
+water. "The Breeze, with Man-of-War," by Vandervelde, is, in its
+composition, perfect. It is the Man-of-War; there is nothing to compete
+with it&mdash;the gallant vessel cares not for the winds or waves&mdash;she
+commands them. It is wondrously painted, and as fresh as from the easel.
+Here are three pictures by Paul Potter&mdash;the larger one, "Landscape, with
+Cattle and Figures," how unlike the others! "Cattle in a Storm," is a
+large picture in little. The wind blows, and the bull roars. It is very
+fine, and quite luminous. The other, "Landscape, with Horses and
+Figures," looks, at first view, not quite as it should; but, on
+examining it, there are parts most exquisitely beautiful&mdash;the white
+horse coming out of the stable is perfect, and, like the Daguerreotype
+portraits, the more you look with a good magnifying-glass, the more
+truth you see. There is no picture in this room that excites so much
+attention as the "View of Dort from the River."&mdash;Cuyp. It is certainly
+very splendid. It is a sunny effect; the town is low&mdash;some warm trees
+just across the river, near which, half-way in the stream, is a barge,
+the edges gilded by the sun&mdash;further off is a large vessel, whose sides
+are illuminated&mdash;above all is a thunder-cloud, very effectively painted.
+The picture has been divided, and rejoined, and is very well done. It
+would perhaps be better if it were cut off a little beyond the large
+vessel, as the opposite sides are not quite in harmony, one part being
+cold, the other extremely warm. There is a companion by Cuyp, which has
+been engraved for Forster's work, "A River Scene&mdash;Fishing under the
+Ice." It is very fine: if not quite so luminous as the former, it is in
+better tone altogether. We must move on to&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<h3>THE SOUTH ROOM</h3>
+
+<p>With the exception of two pictures of the modern German school, this
+room contains the works of English artists not living. Only one of the
+German school is a picture of any pretension, "Christ blessing the
+Little Children"&mdash;Professor Hesse. The reputation of this painter led us
+to expect something better. We must consider it apart from its German
+peculiarities, and with respect to what it gains or loses by them. As a
+design, the story is well and simply told. As a composition, it is a
+little too formal, lacking that easy flowing of lines into each other,
+which, though eschewed by the new school, is nevertheless a beauty. The
+expression in the heads is good generally, not so in the principal
+figure. There is throughout a character of purity and tenderness&mdash;it is
+a great point to attain this. But none of this character is assisted by
+the colouring, or the chiaroscuro. The colouring, though it has a gold
+background, is not rich, for the gold is pale, even to a straw colour,
+and the pattern on it rather gives it a straw texture. We presume it is
+meant to represent the dry Byzantine style of colouring, purposely
+avoiding the richer colours; as power is lost, by this adoption, it is
+impossible to give either the tones or colours of nature&mdash;there is no
+transparency. To preserve this old simplicity, softening and blending
+shadows are avoided, by which a positive unnaturalness offends the eye;
+hence the hands and feet not only look hard, but clumsy&mdash;they may not
+be, but they look, ill drawn. The figures, indeed, look like pasteboard
+figures stuck on; there is a leaden hue pervading all the flesh tints.
+It fails, too, in simplicity and antique air, which we suppose to be the
+objects of the school. For there is too much of art in the composition
+for the former, too little quaintness for the latter; and indeed its
+perfect newness of somewhat raw paint prevents the mind from going back
+to ancient time; and that failure makes the picture as a whole, a
+pretension. It does not, then, appear to gain what that old style is
+intended to bestow&mdash;and it loses nearly all the advantages of the
+after-improvements of art&mdash;of its extended means. It rejects the power
+of giving more intensity to feeling, of adding the grace of nature, the
+truth and variety of more perfect colouring, by the opaque and the
+transparent, and does not in any other way attain any thing which could
+not have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> been more perfectly attained without the sacrifice. The
+collection of the British school contains good and bad&mdash;few of the best
+of each master. West's best picture is among them, his "Death Of
+Wolfe"&mdash;everyone knows the print; the picture is good in colour and
+firmly painted, and contrasts with some others where we see the
+miserable effect of the megillups and varnishes which our painters were
+wont to mix with their colours. We should have been glad to have seen
+better specimens of Fuseli's genius&mdash;we suppose we must say that he had
+genius. The best piece of painting of his hand in the room is the boy in
+Harlowe's picture of the "Kemble Family;" a picture of considerable
+artistic merit, but ruined by the coarse vulgarity of a caricature of
+Mrs Siddons. How unlike the Lady Macbeth! The corpulent velvet dark mass
+and obtruding figure is most unpleasant. It is much to be regretted Mr.
+Harlowe did not redesign that principal figure. There are several
+landscapes of Gainsborough's, and one portrait&mdash;the latter excellent,
+the former poor. There is much vigour of colouring and handling in the
+"Horses at a Fountain;" but as usual, it is a poor composition, and of
+parts that ill agree. The mass of rock and foliage are quite out of
+character with the bit of tame village scene, and the hideous figures.
+Here, too, his "Girl and Pigs," for which he asked sixty guineas, and
+Sir Joshua gave him a hundred. We do not think the President had a
+bargain. There is not one of Wilson's best in this collection. The
+"Celadon and Amelia" is dingy, and poor in all respects. It verifies as
+it illustrates; for Thomson says,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"But who <i>can paint</i> the lover as he stood?"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Very coarse is Opie's "Venus and Adonis." He had not grace for such a
+subject&mdash;nor for "Lavinia." We should have been glad to have seen some
+of his works where the subjects and handling agree. We are sorry to see
+Hogarth's "March to Finchley" so injured by some ignorant cleaner. His
+"Taste in High Life" is the perfection of caricature. We have not the
+slightest idea what Constable meant when he painted the "Opening of
+Waterloo Bridge." The poor "<i>Silver</i> Thames" is converted into a smear
+of white lead and black. "Charles the First demanding the Five Members,"
+surprised us by its power&mdash;its effect is good. Here is no slovenly
+painting, so common in Mr. Copley's day&mdash;the general colour too is good;
+and the painting of individual heads is much after the manner of
+Vandyck. There are some pictures on the walls which might have been
+judiciously omitted in an exhibition which must be considered as
+characteristic of English talent.</p>
+
+<p>As the British Gallery is for a considerable period devoted to works of
+English art, and as so many other exhibitions offer them in such
+profusion, we would suggest that it would be more beneficial to art, and
+to the success and improvement of British painters, if the original
+intention of the governors of the institution were adhered to, of
+exhibiting annually the choicest works of the old schools.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="MARSTON_OR_THE_MEMOIRS_OF_A_STATESMAN" id="MARSTON_OR_THE_MEMOIRS_OF_A_STATESMAN"></a>MARSTON, OR, THE MEMOIRS OF A STATESMAN.</h2>
+
+<h3>PART III.</h3>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Have I not in my time heard lions roar?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Have I not heard the sea, puft up with wind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rage like an angry boar chafed with sweat?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Have I not heard great ordnance in the field,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And heaven's artillery thunder in the skies?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Have I not in the pitched battle heard<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Loud 'larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets clang?"<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i10"><span class="smcap">Shakspeare.</span><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<p>The meeting was a singular and a melancholy one. The news from France
+had become hourly more fearful. Every packet brought accounts of new
+outrages. Paris was already in the power of the populace. The struggle
+continued, however hopelessly, in the provinces, just enough to swell
+the losses of noble life, and the conflagrations of noble property. To
+these wounds of feeling had now to be added sufferings of a still more
+pressing nature; their remittances had begun to fail. The property which
+they had left in the hands of their Parisian bankers had either become
+valueless by the issue of assignats, which no one would take, or
+confiscated in the general plunder of the banks, whose principals had
+been thrown into prison, on <i>suspicion</i> of being worth robbing. All was
+bankruptcy.</p>
+
+<p>The duchess made a slight attempt, evidently a painful one, to explain
+to us, as strangers, the purpose of their unusual meeting. It was
+simply, that "the emigrant noblesse, who had already experienced so much
+heroic hospitality from their English friends, thought that the time was
+come when they ought to be burdens on them no longer. The letters from
+France are dreadful," said she, "and it will be our duty to show, that
+as we have enjoyed prosperity, we can submit to suffering. We must
+prepare to earn our bread by those accomplishments which we acquired in
+happier times, and, as we once supposed, for happier times."</p>
+
+<p>A general sigh seemed to break from every heart, and Mariamne hung on
+the hand of the duchess, and grew pale. There was a silence for a while;
+at length she resumed&mdash;"We must not return to our own country, at least
+until this horrid struggle is at an end; for we should only embarrass
+those who have sent us to the protection of this generous land, and for
+whose sake we live. Yet, we only do honour to them by avoiding to eat
+the bread of dependence, while we can labour for ourselves." Those
+words, few as they were, were uttered with many a pause, and in the low
+tone of a true mourner. She then called a beautiful girl towards her.
+The girl rose, hesitated, and sank again. "Clotilde, my love, here are
+none but friends; we must forget every thing but patience and our
+country." As she spoke, the duchess took her contribution from her hand;
+it was a drawing of some size, and of singular elegance&mdash;an Arcadian
+festival. It was sent round the room with universal admiration; and the
+ice thus once broken, a succession of proficients followed, bringing the
+produce of their talents; some, miniatures&mdash;some, sketches of French and
+Swiss scenery&mdash;some, illustrations of Racine and the French theatre;
+and, of course, many with embroidery, and the graceful works of the
+needle. Strangers are too apt to conceive that Paris is France and that
+the frivolity of life in the capital was always its model in the
+provinces. I here saw evidence to the contrary, and was not a little
+surprised to see performances so seldom to be found among the French
+arts, as admirable oil-paintings, carvings in ivory, marble busts, and
+bas-reliefs, casts of antique vases and groups, and even models of the
+chief temples and palaces of antiquity. The leisure of the chateau was
+often vividly, and even vigorously employed; and while the youths of the
+great families were solely directed to military prospects, the females
+often acquired solid and grave accomplishments. In short, we had among
+us as many artificers, not a few of them delicate and lovely, as could
+have furnished a Tower of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> Babel, if not built it; but <i>our</i> fabric
+would have had one exception, it would have had no "confusion of
+tongues;" for tongues there were none to be heard among us&mdash;all was
+silence, but when some work of striking beauty, and this was not
+unfrequently the case, was handed round with a murmur of applause.</p>
+
+<p>The harp and piano were then brought forward and this was the most
+trying part of all&mdash;not from any want of skill in the performers, for
+the majority were perfect on both instruments, but from the nature of
+the performances themselves. France is not renowned for native music,
+but neither Italian genius, nor German science, has produced more
+exquisite little snatches of melody than are to be found in some of the
+nooks and corners of the provinces. Paris is, like other capitals, an
+epitome of the world; but Languedoc, the wild country of Auvergne, the
+Vosges mountains, the hidden and quiet vales of Normandy, and even the
+melancholy sands of the Breton, have airs of singular and characteristic
+sweetness. Gretry and Rousseau were but their copyists. Sorrow,
+solitude, and love, are every where, and their inspiration is worth all
+the orchestras in the globe.</p>
+
+<p>Those simple airs were more congenial to the depressed spirits of the
+whole assemblage than the most showy bravuras; and, sung by those
+handsome creatures&mdash;for beauty adds a charm to everything&mdash;retained me
+spell-bound. But, on the performers, and their circle of hearers, the
+effect was indescribable. All the world knows, that there is nothing
+which revives memories like music. Those were the airs which they had
+heard and sung from their infancy; the airs of their early
+companionships, hopes, and perhaps loves; sung in their gardens, their
+palaces, at their parents' knees, by the cradles of their children, at
+their firesides, every where combining with the heart. Sung now in their
+exile, they brought back to each heart some recollection of the happiest
+scenes and fondest ties of its existence. No power of poetry, nor even
+of the pencil, could have brought the past so deeply, so touchingly,
+with such living sensibility, before them. <i>There</i> at least, was no
+acting, no display, no feigned feeling&mdash;their country, their friends,
+the perils of husband and brother in the field, the anguish, almost the
+agony, of woman's affection&mdash;and what can equal that affection?&mdash;was in
+the gestures and countenances of all before me. Some wept silently and
+abundantly; some buried their faces on their knees, and by the heaving
+of their bosoms alone, showed how they felt; some sat with their large
+eyes fixed on heaven, and their lips moving as in silent prayer; some
+almost knelt, with hands clasped and eyes bent down, in palpable
+supplication. Stranger as I was to them and theirs, it was painful even
+to me. I felt myself doubly an intruder, and was thinking how I might
+best glide away, when I saw Mariamne, in an attempt like my own, to
+move, suddenly fall at the feet of the duchess. She had fainted. I
+carried her into the open air, where she soon recovered. "Do you wish to
+return, Mariamne?" said I. She looked at me with amazement. "Return! It
+would kill me. Let us go home." I placed her on her horse, and we moved
+quietly and sadly away.</p>
+
+<p>"That was a strange scene," said I, after a long interval of silence.</p>
+
+<p>"Very," was the laconic reply.</p>
+
+<p>"I am afraid it distressed you," I observed.</p>
+
+<p>"I would not have seen it for any consideration, if I could have known
+what it was;" she answered with a new gush of tears. "Yet what must my
+feelings be to theirs? They lose every thing."</p>
+
+<p>"But they bear the loss nobly. Still they have not lost all, when they
+can excite such sympathy in the mind of England. They have found at
+least an asylum; but what was the object of this singular meeting?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, who can tell what they are dreaming of in their distraction?" she
+said with a deep sigh. "It was probably to turn their talents to some
+account; to send their works to London, and live by them&mdash;poor things,
+how little they know of London!&mdash;or, perhaps, to try their chance as
+teachers, and break their hearts in the trial. Revolutions are terrible
+things!" We lapsed into silence again.</p>
+
+<p>"I pity most the more advanced in life," I resumed. "They have been so
+long accustomed to all the splendours of Paris, that living here must be
+felt with incurable humiliation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> The young are more elastic, and bear
+misfortune by the mere spirit of youth; and the lovely find friends
+every where. Did you observe the noble air, the almost heroine look, of
+that incomparable girl who first showed her drawing?" Mariamne shot a
+quick glance at me.</p>
+
+<p>"You have quite forgotten her name, I suppose?" said she, with a
+scrutinizing look.</p>
+
+<p>"Not wholly. I think the duchess called her Clotilde."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall set you at ease, sir, upon that point," said she smartly. "But
+of one thing I can assure you, and it is, that she is engaged to be
+married to her second cousin, the Marquis de Montrecour. So, you see, it
+is scarcely worth your while to enquire any thing more of her name, as
+she is about to change it so soon&mdash;but it is De Tourville, a descendant
+of the renowned admiral, who lost a renowned French fleet a hundred
+years ago, an event not unusual in French history. You observe, Mr
+Marston, I give you most willingly all the information in my power."</p>
+
+<p>I have never presumed to have a master key to female hearts; but there
+was something half contemptuous, half piqued, in my fair companion's
+tone, and a rapid interchange of red and pale in her cheeks, which set
+me musing. She touched her horse with her fairy whip, and cantered a few
+paces before me. I followed, as became a faithful squire. She suddenly
+reined up, and said, in the voice of one determined that I should feel
+the full point of the sting&mdash;"Oh, I had forgot. I beg a thousand
+pardons. Yesterday the Marquis arrived in London. His proposal reached
+Madame la Comtesse this morning, the young lady's mother&mdash;your
+<i>heroine</i>, I think you called her. The <i>trousseau</i> will probably be sent
+down from London in a week, unless she shall go to town to choose it,
+which is the more likely event, as among French ladies the trousseau is
+generally a more important matter than the gentleman; and then, I
+presume, you will be relieved from all <i>anxiety</i> upon the subject."</p>
+
+<p>I was all astonishment. The language would have been an impertinence in
+any one else; yet, in the pretty and piquant Mariamne, it was simply
+coquettish. At any other time or place I might have felt offended; but I
+was now embarrassed, wordless, and plunged in problems. Why should I be
+concerned in this news? What was the opinion of this butterfly to me?
+yet its sarcasm stung me: what was Clotilde to me? yet I involuntary
+wished the Marquis de Montrecour at the bottom of the Channel; or what
+knew I of French tastes, or cared about trousseaux? yet, at that moment,
+I peevishly determined to take no more rambles in the direction of the
+Emigrant cottages, and to return to town at once, and see what sort of
+absurdity a French marriage present looked at my first step in Bond
+Street.</p>
+
+<p>But this was destined to be a day of adventures. I had led her a circuit
+through the Downs, in the hope of reviving her by the fresh air before
+we reached the villa; and we were moving slowly along over the velvet
+turf, and enjoying that most animating of all the breaths of sky or
+earth&mdash;the sea-breeze; when Mariamne's steed&mdash;one of the most highly
+<i>man&egrave;ged</i>, and most beautiful of animals, began to show signs of
+restlessness, pricked up his ears, stopped suddenly, and began to snuff
+the gale with an inflated nostril. As if the animal had communicated its
+opinions to its fellow, both our horses set off at a smart trot, the
+trot became a canter, the canter a gallop. Mariamne was a capital
+horsewoman and the exercise put her in spirits again. After a quarter of
+an hour of this volunteer gallop, from the top of one of the Downs we
+saw the cause&mdash;the Sussex hunt, ranging the valley at our feet. Our
+horses were now irrestrainable, and both rushed down the hill together.
+The peril of such a descent instantly caught all eyes. A broad and high
+fence surrounded the foot of the hill, and, wildly as we flew down, saw
+that the whole hunt had stopped in evident alarm. In another moment we
+had reached the fence. Mariamne's horse, making a desperate spring, flew
+over it. Mine failed, and threw me into the middle of the hedge. I was
+stunned, the sight left my eyes; and, when I opened them again, a man of
+peculiarly striking countenance, and stately figure, was raising me from
+the ground, while an attendant was pouring brandy down my throat. My
+first thought was of my unfortunate companion. "Where is the lady? Is
+she safe? What has<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> become of her?" were my first exclamations. "Are you
+much hurt," enquired the stranger. "No, no," I cried; "where is the
+lady?" "I hope by this time safe," said he; "some gentlemen of the party
+have followed her: her horse has run away with her; but they will
+doubtless overtake her in a few minutes." He ascended a small rising
+ground close to us, and stood gazing in the distance. "No, they are
+following her still. She keeps her seat. They are now taking a short cut
+to intercept her. They are close up.&mdash;No, that mad animal of a horse has
+thrown them all out again, he springs over every thing; yet she still
+holds on. What a capital horsewoman!" While he uttered those broken
+exclamations I rolled on the ground in torture. At length, after a
+pause, I heard him say, in a shuddering voice, "All's over! that way
+leads direct to the cliff."</p>
+
+<p>At the words, though dizzy with pain, and scarcely able to see, I seized
+the bridle of the groom's horse, who had alighted to assist me; without
+a word sprang on his back, and dashing in the spur was gone like an
+arrow. The whole group soon followed.</p>
+
+<p>From the first rising ground, I saw the frightful chase continued.
+Mariamne's hat had fallen off, and her hair and habit were flying in the
+wind. She was bending to the neck of her steed, whom the pursuit of the
+hunt, and the sight of their red coats, had evidently frightened. He was
+darting, rather than galloping along, by wild bounds, evidently growing
+feeble, but still distancing his pursuers. Half dead with pain and
+terror, I could scarcely hold the bridle, and was soon overtaken by the
+stranger. "Sir," said he, "you are exhausted, and will never be able to
+overtake the unfortunate lady in that direction. I know the
+country&mdash;follow me." Unable to answer, I followed; with my ears ringing
+with a thousand sounds, and my thoughts all confusion&mdash;I was awoke from
+this half stupor by a tremendous outcry.</p>
+
+<p>On the brow of the hill before me, were the dozen jaded riders, forced
+to draw rein by the steepness of the declivity, and all pointing with
+vehement gestures below. In the next instant, through the ravine at its
+foot, and within a hundred yards of the cliff, came Marianne, still
+clinging to the horse, and flying like the wind. The look which she cast
+upon me, as she shot by, haunted me for years after, whenever an image
+of terror rose in my dreams. Her eyes were starting from their sockets,
+her lips gasping wide, her visage ghastliness itself. Another moment,
+and all must be over; for at the end of the valley was the cliff, a
+hundred and fifty feet high. I rushed after her. The sight of the sea
+had struck her at once. She uttered a scream, and fell with her forehead
+on the horse's neck. Even that movement probably checked him, for he
+reared, and before his feet touched the ground again I was close to him;
+with a frantic effort I caught his bridle, and swept his head round.
+Mariamne fell, voiceless, sightless, and breathless, into my arms. The
+spot where she was saved was within a single bound of the precipice.</p>
+
+<p>The hunters now came round us, and all was congratulation. Our escape
+was pronounced to be "miraculous;" I was complimented on all kinds of
+heroism; and the stranger, evidently the chief personage of the circle,
+after giving the glance of a connoisseur at poor Mariamne's still
+pallid, yet expressive, countenance, thanked me, "for having allowed him
+to breathe at last, which he had not done, he believed, for some
+minutes, through terror." Nothing could exceed the graceful interest
+which he expressed in my companion's safety. His grooms were sent to
+look for assistance in all quarters, and it was not until a carriage had
+arrived from the next village, and he had seen Mariamne placed in it,
+that he could be persuaded to take his leave. Even in after life, when I
+saw him in the midst of the splendour of the world, himself its ruling
+star, and heard him so often quoted as</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"The glass of fashion, and the mould of form,"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>I thought that he never deserved the title more than when I saw him
+perform the duties of simple good-nature to two unknown individuals on a
+wild heath on the Sussex shore That stranger was the Prince of Wales!</p>
+
+<p>This adventure, by all the laws of romance, should have made me fall in
+love with Mariamne, or Mariamne fall<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> in love with me. But reality has
+laws of a different kind, and the good fortune of being just in time to
+save a lady's life, whether on horseback or on foot, whether in lake or
+river, whatever it might be in any other ages, is not necessarily a
+pledge of eternal constancy in our times. That she was grateful, I fully
+believe, for her nature was innocent and kind; but confession was out of
+the question, for neither during our rapid drive home, nor for some days
+after, was she capable of uttering one word. Alarm had reduced her to a
+state of exhaustion next to death. Her slight frame had been so shaken
+that she was as helpless as a child; and almost the only sin of
+consciousness which she gave, was her shrinking from the sight of the
+sea whenever she was led towards the window, and her hiding her head in
+her shawl at every sound of the surge.</p>
+
+<p>It may be true, that if the choice depended on her father I should have
+been the possessor of her fair hand, and the heir to his half million,
+and equally true, that the event might have saved me a million of
+troubles. Even at this hour, I sometimes cannot help thinking how total
+a change must have been given to my anxious career&mdash;how many desperate
+struggles I should have escaped, if I had thus found my path covered,
+like an eastern potentate's, with cloth of gold! From my first step, how
+many privations, nay pangs, would have been utterly unknown to me in
+climbing up the steeps of life, if I had been lifted on the broad and
+easy pinions of opulence; how little I should have suffered from that
+reptilism which lurks in every thicket of public life, and every where
+with a sting; if I had gone through existence, like another Rasselas in
+his valley of imperishable summer, guarded from all the inclemencies of
+fortune, and surrounded with all the enjoyments of man!</p>
+
+<p>And yet, who can tell that the very ease of such a destiny might not
+have wearied my heart, enervated my mind, and rendered me at once
+burdensome to myself and useless to the world? Is it not hunger that
+gives the true zest to the banquet, however exquisite, and labour that
+gives the true charm to the couch, however embroidered? Is not the
+noblest enjoyment of the noblest mind to be found it the consciousness
+that we have done something in our generation; that we have contributed
+a stone to the pyramid of the national renown, that our lips have
+swelled the echoes of imperial glory? What can reconcile the man of
+powerful intellect to the consciousness that he has passed through life
+a cipher, and left nothing behind him but a tomb?</p>
+
+<p>I had now to undergo the temper of Mordecai. The sight of a post-chaise
+flying along the shore, with one of the royal grooms as outrider, had
+brought him and all the inmates of the villa to the door. From our
+furious haste it was evident to them all that some extraordinary
+circumstance had caused the long delay of their young mistress. From the
+entrance of the avenue I saw Mordecai standing, straight and silent as
+one of the pillars of his gate, with his arms folded, and his eye
+lowering under his huge brow, like one prepared for calamity. But when
+the carriage drove up to the door, and I raised his helpless and
+ashy-coloured daughter in my arms, he gazed for an instant on her, and
+with a howl like that of a wild animal pierced by bullet or steel, fell
+on his face on the ground. He evidently thought that she was dead.</p>
+
+<p>Even when she opened her feeble eyelids, smiled, and took his hand, he
+could scarcely be persuaded that she was still alive. He raved, he tore
+his hair, he vowed deathless vengeance, and the vengeance of all his
+race, against the murderer of his child, "his beloved, the child of his
+soul, the last scion of his name, his angel Mariamne." Rage and tears
+followed each other in all the tempest of oriental fury. No explanation
+of mine would be listened to for a moment, and I at length gave up the
+attempt. The grooms had given the outline of the story; and Mordecai
+charged me with all kinds of rashness and folly. At one time rushing
+forward to the couch where she lay, faintly attempting to soothe him, he
+would fling himself on his knees beside her, kiss her forehead, and
+upbraid himself for all his fancied harshness to her in the course of
+his life. Then suddenly starting on his feet, with the spring of a
+tiger, he would bound towards me, his powerful features distended with
+rage, his deep eye flashing, and his bony hand clenched as if it grasped
+a dagger, cursing the hour "when I had first set my foot under his
+unhappy roof," or cast my "evil eye upon the only<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> child of the undone
+Mordecai." Ever in all the scene, the thought struck me, of what would
+be the effect of a hundred thousand such men, sweeping with scymetar and
+lance over the fields of Palestine? The servants fled in terror, or
+lurked in different directions until the storm should be gone down. At
+length Mariamne, dreading an actual collision between us, rose with an
+effort, tottered across the room, and threw her arms around her father's
+neck. The old man was conquered at once; his countenance grew calm; he
+sat down upon the floor, and with his daughter hiding her face in his
+bosom, wept silently and long. When I saw him thus quieted, I left them
+together, and retired to my chamber, determined to leave the discovery
+of his error to his returning judgment; and reinforced in my intention
+to depart for London even at the earliest dawn.</p>
+
+<p>I employed myself for a while in packing up my few equipments for the
+journey, but this was soon done, and the question was, how to get rid of
+the remainder of the evening. I was resolved to meet Mordecai no more;
+and the servant who announced that dinner was ready, was sent back with
+an answer, that a violent headach prevented my leaving my room. The
+headach was true; and I had a reluctance equally true to see the "human
+face divine" for that evening at least. There was one exception to that
+reluctance, for thoughts had begun to awake in me, from which I shrank
+with something little short of terror. There was one "human face divine"
+which I would have made a pilgrimage round the world to see&mdash;but it was
+not under the roof of Mordecai. It was in one of the little cottages on
+which I was then looking from my window, and yet which seemed placed by
+circumstances at an immeasurable distance from me. It was the
+countenance of a stranger&mdash;one with whom I had never exchanged a word,
+who was probably ignorant of my existence, whom I might never see again,
+and yet whom I had felt to be my fate. Such are the fantasies, the
+caprices of that most fantastic of things&mdash;the the unfledged mind. But I
+have not taken up my pen to write either the triflings or the
+tendernesses of the heart. I leave to others the <i>beau id&eacute;al</i> of life.
+Mine has been the practical, and it has been stern and struggling. I
+have often been astonished at the softness in which other minds seem to
+have passed their day; the ripened pasture and clustering vineyards&mdash;the
+mental Arcadia&mdash;in which they describe themselves as having loitered
+from year to year. Can I have faith in this perpetual Claude Lorraine
+pencil&mdash;this undying verdure of the soil&mdash;this gold and purple suffusion
+of the sky&mdash;those pomps of the palace and the temple, with their
+pageants and nymphs, giving life to the landscape, while mine was a
+continual encounter with difficulty&mdash;a continual summons to
+self-control? My march was like that of the climber up the side of &AElig;tna,
+every step through ruins, the vestiges of former conflagration&mdash;the
+ground I trode, rocks that had once been flame&mdash;every advance a new
+trial of my feelings or my fortitude&mdash;every stage of the ascent leading
+me, like the traveller, into a higher region of sand or ashes, until, at
+the highest, I stood in a circle of eternal frost, and with all the rich
+and human landscape below fading away in distance, or covered with
+clouds, looked down only on a gulf of fire.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>As I sat at my window, gazing vaguely on the sea, then unruffled by a
+breath, and realizing all the images of evening serenity, a flight of
+curlews shot screaming by, and awoke me from my reverie. I took my gun,
+and followed them along the shore. My sportsmanship was never of the
+most zealous order, and my success on this occasion did not add much to
+the mortality of the curlews. But the fresh air revived me, I felt my
+elasticity of foot and frame return, and I followed for some miles along
+the windings of the shore. At last I had reached the pool where they,
+probably more aware of the weather than I was, seemed intending to take
+up their quarters for the night. I took my ground, and was preparing to
+attack them with both barrels; when a gust that swept with sudden
+violence between the hills nearly blew me down, and scattered all my
+prey, screaming and startled, on the wing far into the interior. I had
+now leisure to look to myself. The sea was rolling in huge billows to
+the shore. The sun had sunk as suddenly as if it had been drowned. The
+hills were visible but for a moment, gleamed ghastly in the last<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> light,
+and were then covered with mist. One of those storms common in Autumn,
+and which brings all the violence of winter into the midst of the
+loveliest season of the year, had come on, and I was now to find shelter
+where I could in the wilderness.</p>
+
+<p>I was vigorous and hardy, but my situation began to be sufficiently
+embarrassing; for I was at least half-a-dozen miles from home; and the
+fog, which wrapped every thing, soon rendered the whole face of the
+country one cloud. To move a single step now was hazardous. I could
+judge even of my nearness to the ocean only by its roar. The rain soon
+added to my perplexities, for it began to descend less in showers than
+in sheets. I tried the shelter of the solitary thicket in these wilds,
+but was quickly driven from my position. I next tried the hollow of a
+sand-hill, but there again I was beaten by the enemy; and before I had
+screened myself from the gust a quarter of an hour, a low rumbling
+sound, and the fall of pieces of the hill above, awoke me to the chance
+of being buried alive. I now disclaimed all shelter, and painfully
+gained the open country, with no other guide than my ear, which told me
+that I was leaving the sea further and further behind, but hearing the
+rush of many a rivulet turned into a river before me, and in no slight
+peril of finishing my history in the bed of some pool, or being swept on
+the surface of some overcharged ditch, to find my bed in the sea after
+all.</p>
+
+<p>All vexations seem trifling when they are once over; but, for full two
+hours of this pelted pilgrimage, I felt sensations which might have
+cured me of solitary sporting for the rest of my existence.</p>
+
+<p>At the end of those hours, which appeared to me ten times the length, I
+heard the barking of a dog, the usual announcement of peasant life; and
+rejoicing in it, as one of the most welcome of all possible sounds, I
+worked, felt, and waded, my way to the door of a building, at which,
+without ceremony, I asked for entrance. My application was for some time
+unanswered but I heard a rustling within which made me repeat my request
+in various ways. After trying my eloquence in vain, I offered a guinea
+for a bed. A window was now opened above, and showed a pair of heads,
+which in their night-gear strongly reminded me of the grandmother wolf
+in Little Red Riding hood&mdash;myself, of course, being the innocent victim.
+I now doubled my offer, my whole purse amounting to no more; and was let
+in.</p>
+
+<p>My hosts were two, an old woman hideous with age and ferocity of
+feature, but the other a young one, with a handsome but bold countenance
+whose bronze had been borrowed as much from free living as from the sea
+breeze. The house was furnished in the parti-coloured style, which,
+showed me at once that it belonged to something above the peasant. The
+women at first were rather reluctant to enter into any conversation; but
+when, to make my reception welcome, I paid the two guineas down on the
+table, their hearts became thawed at once, and their tongues flowed. My
+wet clothes were exchanged for the fisherman's wardrobe, and a tolerable
+supper was put on the table. Some luxuries which I might not have found
+under roofs of more pretension, were produced one after the other; and I
+thus had Hamburg hung beef, Westphalia ham, and even St Petersburg
+caviare; preserved pine apple formed my desert, and a capital glass of
+claret "for the gentleman," of which the ladies, however, professed
+themselves incapable of discovering the merit, was followed by an
+equally capital bottle of brandy, which they evidently understood much
+better.</p>
+
+<p>In the midst of our festivity, the dog sprang to the door, and a sound
+like that of a horn or conch shell, was heard through the roar of the
+gale. The women started from their seats in evident consternation, swept
+away the remnants of the supper, and conveyed me into an adjoining
+closet; where they begged of me to keep close, not to speak a syllable,
+let what would happen, and, as I valued my life and theirs, not to
+mention thereafter whatever I might see or hear. It was now plain that I
+was in the house of smugglers; and as those were notoriously people not
+to be trifled with, I made my promises of non-intervention with perfect
+sincerity.</p>
+
+<p>I was scarcely in my nook when the party arrived. They were evidently
+six or seven&mdash;their conversation was the common bluster and
+boisterousness of their trade&mdash;and between their demands for supper,
+their coarse jokes, and their curses at the lubberliness or loitering of
+their associates from the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> other side of the Channel, (for, with all
+their accompliceship, they had the true John Bull contempt for the
+seamanship of Monsieur,) they kept the house in an uproar. They expected
+a cargo from Calais that right, and the idea of losing so favourable an
+opportunity as the tempest offered, rendered them especially indignant.
+Scouts were sent out from tine to time to look for signals, but nothing
+appeared. At length the brandy was beginning to take effect on their
+brains, and their rough jokes arose into quarrel. A charge of treachery
+produced the drawing of cutlasses, and I heard them slashing at each
+other; but the right Nantz which had inflamed the quarrel rendered it
+harmless, until one lost his balance, rolled headlong against my door,
+and burst it in. There stood I, visible to all, and the sight produced a
+yell, in which the epithets of "spy, exciseman, custom-house shark," and
+a whole vocabulary of others, all equally remote from panegyric, were
+showered upon me. I should have been cut down by some of the blades
+which flashed before me, but that I had taken the precaution of carrying
+my gun to my closet, and was evidently determined to fight it out. This
+produced a parley; when I told my tale, and as it was corroborated by
+the women, who came forward trembling at the sight of their savage
+masters, and who spoke with the sincerity of fear; it saved me further
+encounter, and I was merely enjoined to pledge myself, that I should not
+betray them.</p>
+
+<p>The compromise was scarcely brought to a conclusion when the discharge
+of a pistol was heard outside; and as this was the signal, the whole
+party-prepared to leave the house. I now expected to be left to such
+slumbers as I could find in the midst of rocking roofs, and rattling
+doors and windows. But this was not to be. After a short consultation at
+the door, one of them returned, and desired me to throw on a fisherman's
+dreadnought which was smoking beside the fire; and follow him. Against
+this, however, I vehemently protested.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, lookye, sir," said the fellow, smoothing his tone into something
+like civility, "there is no use in that thing there against about fifty
+of us; but you must come along."</p>
+
+<p>I asked him, could he suppose, that I was any thing like a spy, or that,
+if I gave my word, I should not keep it?</p>
+
+<p>"No," said the fellow. "I believe you to be a gentleman; but what a
+story shall we have for the captain if we tell him that we left a
+stranger behind us&mdash;and, begging your pardon, sir, we know more about
+you than what the women here told us&mdash;and that after he heard all our
+plans for the night's work, we left him to go off to the custom-house,
+with his story for the surveyor."</p>
+
+<p>This seemed rational enough, but I still held my garrison. The fellow's
+face flushed, and, with something of an oath, he went to the door, gave
+a whistle, and returned next minute with a dozen powerful fellows, all
+armed. Contest was now useless, and I agreed to go with them until they
+met the "captain," who was then to settle the question of my liberty,
+The women curtseyed me to the door, as if they rather regretted the loss
+of their companion, and were at least not much pleased by being cut off
+from further inroads on a purse which had begun by paying so handsomely,
+not knowing, that it was utterly stript; and we marched to the point of
+waiting for the bark from Calais.</p>
+
+<p>The storm had actually increased in violence, and the howling of the
+wind, and thunder of the billows on the shore, were tremendous. Not a
+word was spoken, and if it had been, the roar would have prevented it
+from being heard, the night was pitch dark, and the winding paths along
+which we rather slid than walked, would not have been easy to find
+during the day. But custom is every thing: my party strode along with
+the security of perfect knowledge. The country, too, seemed alive round
+us. The cottages, it is true, were all silent and shut up, as we hurried
+through; but many a light we saw from the lowly cottage, and many a
+whistle we heard over the wild heath. Cows' horns were also in evident
+requisition for trumpets, and in the intervals of the gusts I could
+often hear the creaking of cart-wheels in the distance. It is to be
+remembered that this was notoriously <i>the</i> smuggling country of England,
+that those were the famous times of smuggling, and that the money made
+by evading the king's customs often amounted to a moderate fortune in
+the course of a simple speculation.</p>
+
+<p>The whole country apparently had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> two existences, a day and a night
+one&mdash;a day and a night population&mdash;the clown and his tillage in the
+light, the smuggler and his trade in the dark; yet the same peasant
+frequently exhibiting a versatility for which John Bull seldom gets
+credit.&mdash;The man of the plough-tail and the spade, drudging and dull
+through one half of his being; the same man, after an hour or two of
+sleep, springing from his bed at midnight, handling the sail and helm,
+baffling his Majesty's cruisers at sea, and making a <i>m&ecirc;l&eacute;e</i> with the
+officers of the customs on shore&mdash;active, quick, and bold, a first-rate
+seaman, brave as a lion, fleet as a hare, and generally having the best
+of it in the exercise of both qualities.</p>
+
+<p>Our numbers had evidently grown as we advanced, and at length a whistle
+brought us to a dead stand. One of the party now touched my sleeve, and
+said,&mdash;"Sir, you must follow me." The cliff was so near, that thoughts
+not much to the credit of my companions came into my head. I drew back.
+The man observed it, and said, "The captain must see you, sir. If we
+wanted to do you any mischief, an ounce of lead might have settled the
+business an hour ago. But if we are free-traders, we are not
+bloodhounds. You may trust <i>me</i>; I served on board Rodney's ship."</p>
+
+<p>Of course this was an appeal to my new friend's honour, which could not
+be refused without hurting his etiquette most grievously, and I
+followed. After two or three windings through an excavation in the
+cliff, we came in front of a blazing fire, screened from external eyes
+by a pile of ship timbers. Before the fire was a table with bottles, and
+at it a man busily writing. On raising his eyes the recognition was
+instant and mutual. I saw at once, in his strong features, my companion
+on the roof of the Royal Sussex stage, whose disappearance had been the
+subject of so much enquiry. He palpably knew a good deal more of me than
+I did of him, and, after a moment's embarrassment, and the thrusting of
+papers and pistols into the drawer of a table, he asked me to sit down;
+hurried to the mouth of the cavern, heard the story of my capture from
+the sailor, and returned, with his forehead rather smoothed.</p>
+
+<p>"I am sorry, sir," said he, "that the absurdity of my people has given
+you a walk at this time of night; but they are rough fellows, and their
+orders are to be on the <i>qui vive</i>."</p>
+
+<p>My answer was, "That I had been treated civilly; and, as circumstances
+had brought it about, I did not so much dislike the adventure after
+all."</p>
+
+<p>"Well spoken, young gentleman," was his reply. "Circumstances rule every
+thing in this world, and one thing I shall tell you; you might be in
+worse hands, even in this country, than in ours. Pray," added he, with a
+peculiar look, "how did you leave my friend Mordecai?"</p>
+
+<p>I laughed, and he followed my example. Tossing off a glass of wine and
+filling out a bumper for me&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then," said he, "suppose we drink the Jew's health. I gave you a
+rather strange character of him, I think. I called him the perfection of
+a rogue; true enough; but still I make a difference between a man who
+volunteers roguery; and a man on whom it is thrust by the world.
+Circumstances, you see, are my reason for every thing. Make a hard
+bargain with Mordecai, and ten to one but you are caught in his trap.
+Throw yourself on his mercy; and if the whim takes him, I have known him
+as generous as any other."</p>
+
+<p>I replied, that his generosity or craft were now matters of very little
+importance to me, for I had determined to return to London by day-break.
+He expressed surprise, asked whether I was insensible to the charms of
+the fair Mariamne, and recommend my trying to make an impression there,
+if desired to have as much stock as would purchase the next loan. Our
+further conversation was interrupted by the sound of a gun from seaward,
+and we went out together.</p>
+
+<p>The sight was now awful; the tide had risen, and the storm was at its
+height. We could scarcely keep our feet, except by clinging to the
+rocks. The bursts of wind came almost with the force of cannon shot, and
+the men, who now seemed to amount to several hundreds, were seen by the
+glare of the lightnings grasping each other in groups along the shore
+and the hills, the only mode in which they could save themselves from
+being swept away like chaff. The rain had now ceased its continual pour,
+but it burst in sharp, short showers, that smote us with the keenness of
+hail. The sea, to the horizon, was white with its own dashings, and
+every mountain<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> surge that swept to the shore was edged with light&mdash;the
+whole, one magnificent sheet of phosphor and foam. Yet, awful as all
+was, all was so exciting that I actually enjoyed the scene. But the
+excitement grew stronger still, when the sudden report of two guns from
+seaward, the signal for the approach of the lugger, followed almost
+immediately by a broadside, told us that we were likely to see an action
+before her arrival. As she rose rapidly upon the horizon, her signals
+showed that she was chased by a Government cruiser, and one of double
+her size. Of the superior weight of metal in the pursuer we saw
+sufficient proofs in the unremitting fire. Except by superior
+man&oelig;uvering there was clearly no chance for the lugger. But in the
+mean time all that could be done on shore was done. A huge fire sprang
+up instantly on the cliff, muskets were discharged, and shouts were
+given, to show that her friends were on the alert. The captain's
+countenance fell, and as he strode backwards and forwards along the
+shore, I could hear his wrath in continued grumblings.</p>
+
+<p>"Fool and brute!" he cried, "this all comes of his being unable to hold
+his tongue. He has clearly blabbed, otherwise we should not have had any
+thing better than a row-boat in our wake. He will be captured to a
+certainty. Well, he will find the comfort of being a cabin-boy or a
+foremast-man on board the fleet for the rest of his days. I would not
+trust him with a Thames lighter, if ever he gets on shore again.'</p>
+
+<p>The cannonade began now to be returned by the lugger, and the captain's
+spirits revived. Coming up to me, he said, wiping the thick perspiration
+from his brow, "This, sir, is a bad night's job, I am afraid; but if the
+fellow in command of that lugger had only sea room, I doubt whether he
+would not give the revenue craft enough to do yet. If he would but stand
+off and try a fair run for it, but in this bay, in this beggarly nook,
+where a man cannot steer without rubbing his elbows upon either shore,
+he gives his seamanship no chance."</p>
+
+<p>He now stood with his teeth firm set, and his night-glass to his eye,
+bluff against the storm. A broadside came rolling along.</p>
+
+<p>"By Jove! one would think that he had heard me," he exclaimed. "Well
+done, Dick Longyarn! The Shark has got that in his teeth. He is leading
+the cruiser a dance. What sort of report will the revenue gentleman have
+to make to my Lords Commissioners to-morrow or the next day, I should
+wish to know?"</p>
+
+<p>The crowd on shore followed the Man&oelig;uvres with not less interest.
+Every glass was at the eye; and I constantly heard their grumblings and
+disapprovals, as some luckless turn of the helm exposed the lugger to
+the cruiser's fire. "She will be raked; she will lose her masts," was
+the general groan. As they neared the shore, the effect of every shot
+was visible. "There goes the mainsail all to ribands; the yards are shot
+in the slings." Then public opinion would change. "Fine fellow that! The
+Shark's main-top shakes like a whip." In this way all went on for nearly
+an hour, which, however, I scarcely felt to be more than a few minutes.
+"The skipper in command of that boat," said the captain at my side, "is
+one of the best seamen on the coast, as bold as a bull, and will fight
+any thing; but he is as leaky as a sieve; and when the wine gets into
+him, in a tavern at Calais or Dunkirk, if he had the secrets of the
+Privy Council, they would all be at the mercy of the first scoundrel who
+takes a bottle with him."</p>
+
+<p>"But he fights his vessel well," I observed.</p>
+
+<p>"So he does," was the reply; "but if he should have that lugger captured
+before a keg touches the sand, and if the whole goes into the
+custom-house before it reaches the cellars of the owners, it will be all
+his fault."</p>
+
+<p>They were at length so near us that we could easily see the splinters
+flying from the sides of both, and the havoc made among the rigging was
+fearful; yet, except for the anxiety, nothing could be more beautiful
+than the man&oelig;uvres of both. The doublings of the hare before the
+greyhound, the flight of the pigeon before the hawk, all the common
+images of pursuit and evasion were trifling to the doublings and
+turnings, the attempts to make fight, and the escape at the moment when
+capture seemed inevitable. The cruiser was gallantly commanded, and her
+masterly management upon a lee shore, often forced involuntary
+admiration even from the captain.</p>
+
+<p>"A clever lad that revenue man, I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> must own," said he, "it is well worth
+his while, for if he catch that lugger he will have laid hold of twenty
+thousand pounds' worth of as hard-earned money as ever crossed the
+Channel. I myself have a thousand in silk on board."</p>
+
+<p>"Then all is not brandy that she brings over?"</p>
+
+<p>"Brandy!" said the captain, with a bitter smile. "They would be welcome
+to all the brandy she carries to-night, or to double the freight, if
+that were all. She has a cargo of French silks, French claret, ay, and
+French gold, that she must fight for while she has a stick standing."</p>
+
+<p>At this moment, the sky, dark as it was before, grew tenfold darker, and
+a cloud, that gave me the exact image of a huge black velvet pall,
+suddenly dropped down and completely covered both vessels; no firing was
+heard for a time, even the yell of the gust had sunk; nothing was heard
+but the billow, as it groaned along the hollow shore. The same thought
+occurred to us both at once. "Those brave boys are all in their coffin
+together," slowly murmured my companion. There was neither shout nor
+even word among the crowd; while every eye and ear was strained, and the
+men began to run along the water's edge to find a fragment of the
+wrecks, or assist some struggler for life in the surge. But the cloud,
+which absolutely lay upon the water, suddenly burst open, with a roar of
+thunder, as if split from top to bottom by the bolt, and both were seen.
+A sheet of lightning, which, instead of the momentary flash, hung
+quivering from the zenith, showed both vessels with a lurid distinctness
+infinitely clearer than day. Every remaining shroud and rope, every
+wound of mast or yard, every shot-hole, nay, every rib and streak of the
+hulls, was as distinctly visible as if they had been illuminated from
+within. But their decks, as the heave of the surge threw them towards
+us, showed a fearful spectacle. The dying and the dead, flung along the
+gangways, the wounded clinging to the gun carriages or masts, a few
+still loading the guns, which neither had now hands enough to
+man&oelig;uvre; yet both ships still flying on, shattered and torn, and
+looking, in the wild light, like two gigantic skeletons.</p>
+
+<p>The lugger now fired a rocket, and sent up a striped flag, the signal of
+distress. A cry for "The boats!" was echoed along the shore, and eight
+or ten were speedily started from their hiding places and dragged down
+the shingle. Stout hearts and strong hands were in them without loss of
+time, and they dashed into the storm. But their efforts were wholly
+useless. No strength of oars could stand against such a gale. Some were
+swamped at once, the men hardly escaping with their lives. The rest were
+tossed like dust upon the wind, and dashed high on shore. All was
+hopeless. Another rocket went up, and by its ghastly blaze I caught a
+glimpse of the captain. He had been either forced from his hold on the
+rocks by the wind, or fallen through exhaustion. His bronzed face was
+was now as pale as the sand on which he lay; he was the very image of
+despair. Thinking that he had fainted, and fearing that, in this
+helpless state, he might be swept away by the next surge&mdash;for the spray
+was now bursting over us at every swell&mdash;I laid hold of his hand to drag
+him higher up the cliff after me. As if the grasp had given him a
+renewed life, he sprang on his feet, and saying, in a distracted tone,
+which I alone could hear, "Better be drowned than ruined!" he cried out
+with the voice of a maniac, "Boys, sink or swim, here I go! Five guineas
+for every man who gets on board." Tearing off his heavy coat, he rushed
+forward at the words, and plunged headlong into the billow. There was a
+general rush after him; some were thrown back on the sand, but about
+half the number were enabled to reach the lugger. We quickly saw the
+effect of even this reinforcement. At the very point of time when the
+cruiser was about to lay her on board, she came sharply round by the
+head, and discharged her broadside within pistol-shot. I could see the
+remaining mast of the cruiser stagger; it made two or three heaves, like
+a drunkard trying to recover his steps, then came a crash, and it went
+over the side. The vessel recoiled, and being now evidently unable to
+steer, the storm had her at its mercy; and the last we saw of her was a
+hull, rolling and staggering away down the Channel, firing guns of
+distress, and going headforemost toward the Bay of Biscay.</p>
+
+<p>Need I say in what triumph the lugger was hauled up the sand, or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> how
+her bold commander and hardy crew were received? But while a carouse was
+preparing for them&mdash;and, it must be owned that if sailing and fighting
+were claims, they had earned their suppers&mdash;the business portion of the
+firm was in full activity. From the waggon down to the wheelbarrow,
+every country means of carriage was in motion without delay. I had been
+hitherto by no means aware of what Johnson would probably have called
+"the vehicular opulence" of the Sussex shore. Nor had I ever a more
+striking illustration of the proverbial lightness of the work of many
+hands; a process, which in his solemn lips would probably have been,
+"Sir, congregated thousands laugh at individual difficulty; delay
+vanishes before united labour; and time is an element of toil no more."</p>
+
+<p>The clearance of the cargo would have put all the machinery of a royal
+dockyard to shame. As for the activity of the custom-house, it would
+have been the movement of a tortoise, to the rapidity of whatever is
+most rapid in unpacking or pilfering. But pilfering here we had none; we
+were all "men of honour;" and, undoubtedly, if any propensity to mistake
+the <i>tuum</i> for the <i>meum</i> had been exhibited, there were among us
+sufficient of the stamp of my old friend "who had served with Rodney,"
+to have flung the culprit where men pilfer no more; whatever may be done
+by porpoises.</p>
+
+<p>But as I had no wish to be a party to what, with all its gaiety and
+gallantry, I felt to be a rough infraction of the law; I now begged
+permission to make my way homewards. It was given at once, with even
+some expressions of gratitude for my having, as it was termed, stood by
+them to the last; and a guide was ordered for me as an additional
+civility. "You will have five miles to walk," said the captain, as he
+shook hands with me; "but Grapnel here will take you the shortest way
+and it will be light in an hour. You need say nothing of this business
+to Mordecai, who makes a point of being deaf and dumb when ever it suits
+him; though, between ourselves."&mdash;The captain's prudence here checked
+his overflow of confidence. "I merely mean to say, that if you drink any
+particularly fine claret, in a day or two, at his table, you will have
+to thank the lugger, La Belle Jeannette, for it. <i>Au revoir</i>."</p>
+
+<p>My guide and I pushed on into the darkness. He was a bluff, open-hearted
+fellow, with all the smuggler's hatred of the magistracy, and taking
+great delight in telling how often they failed in their attempts to stop
+the "free trade," which he clearly regarded as the only trade worthy of
+a man. His account of the feats of his comrades; their escapes from the
+claws of the customs; their facetious tricks on the too vigilant among
+the magistrates; and the real luxury in which, with all their life of
+hardship, they found opportunities of indulging, would have edified a
+modern tour writer, and possibly relieved even the dreariness of a
+county historian. Among other matters too, he let out, that he paid me a
+prodigious compliment in accompanying me, as this night's smuggling was
+one of the grand exploits of the year; and casting a "longing, lingering
+look, behind," where a distant glimmer marked the scene of operations,
+he evidently halted between the two opinions, whether to go on, or
+return. "What a glorious night!" he exclaimed, as he turned his bald
+forehead to a sky black as Erebus, and roaring with whirlwind. "Talk of
+sunshine, or moonshine, compared with that!" Another burst of rain, or
+flash of lightning, would evidently have rendered the scene too
+captivating. Both came, and I must have lost my guide, when he stopped
+short, and in a half whisper, asked me, "whether I heard anything?"
+Before I could return a word, he had flung himself on the ground, with
+his ear to the sward, and after a moment's listening, said, "here they
+come!"</p>
+
+<p>"Who come? There is neither sight nor sound between us and Brighton. Are
+you thinking of the custom-house officers?"</p>
+
+<p>The look which I had the benefit of seeing by a blue blaze from the
+zenith, and the tone of infinite scorn, in which he slowly repeated the
+words, "custom-house officers," were incomparable. "Afraid of <i>them</i>!"
+said he, as he rose from the wet heather, "as much afraid as the cat is
+of the mice. No, those are the dragoons from Lewes."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what have we to care about them?"</p>
+
+<p>"Care?" said he, with a mixture of frown and grin. "Only that you are
+the captain's friend, and I daresay,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> are going at this time of night to
+do a job for him in Brighton yourself&mdash;I should think, young gentleman,
+you were only laughing at Sam Grapnel. Better not! Why, you see, though
+the fellows with their pens behind their ears are no more than
+six-watered gin to us, the dragoons are another sort of thing. I must go
+back. So, young gentleman, I wish you a very good night."</p>
+
+<p>The oddity of the wish in the midst of this elemental uproar, made me
+laugh, shivering as I was. Yet, to be left to find my own way at such a
+time, was startling. I offered him money.</p>
+
+<p>"At another opportunity, sir," said he, rather pacified by the offer.
+"But, if they come upon the captain unawares, they will find every thing
+ready to their hands; all at sixes and sevens just now. It will take an
+hour or two before he can clear the cargo off the ground; and there goes
+the whole speculation. Don't you hear them? You have only to drop your
+ear to the ground, to know the whole affair. A lubber deserted from us a
+week ago, and no doubt he has laid the information."</p>
+
+<p>I lay down, and clearly enough heard the trampling of horses, and in
+considerable numbers. My own situation was now somewhat embarrassing.
+They were evidently coming up in our direction; and, to be found past
+midnight, armed, (for my gun had been restored to me,) in company with
+an unquestionable smuggler, must have made appearances tell strongly
+against me. But my companion's mind was made up with the promptitude of
+a life which has no time to waste on thinking.</p>
+
+<p>"I must go back this moment, or all our comrades will be taken in the
+fact. And, take my advice, you had better do the same; for go I will.
+The captain shan't have it to say that I let him be caught without
+warning."</p>
+
+<p>I still hesitated, and he still urged.</p>
+
+<p>"You can do no better, sir; for if you stand here five minutes longer,
+you will either be taken, or you will lose the number of your mess, by a
+carbine slug, or the slash of a sabre; while, if you turn back, you will
+have ten times the chance of escape along the shore."</p>
+
+<p>I could now distinctly hear the clatter of hoofs, and the jingling of
+bridles. There was no time to deliberate; I certainly felt no
+inclination to be the means of the captain's ruin or death, and I
+followed my guide, who set off with the swiftness of a deer.</p>
+
+<p>We soon reached the shore, where our intelligence struck considerable
+alarm. "I thought that it would be so," said the captain; "I had notice
+from a friend in the customs itself, that a spy was at work, and it was
+to this that we owed the chase of the lugger. For the revenue officers I
+care not a straw, but the dragoons are to be avoided when we can. We may
+fight upon occasion, it is true, but we choose our time for it. We have
+now only to get out of the way; and clever as they are, they may find us
+not so easily laid hold of."</p>
+
+<p>Turning to me, he said, "I am sorry, Mr Marston, that you have been
+brought into all this bustle; but time and chance happen to us all. At
+all events, it will show you something of life, which you would scarcely
+have seen in the Jew's villa, though he, too, could show you a good
+deal. We shall see each other again, but let this night be forgotten,
+and now, good by once more." Then turning to my guide, he said, "This
+young gentleman must be seen safe along the cliff; stay with him until
+he sends you back again.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, lads, all hands to work!" he now shouted to a group who stood at
+a little distance; "are the tar-barrels ready?" "Ay, ay," was the
+answer. They trundled three or four barrels along the shore, dragged
+them up the face of the cliff, and I had scarcely left them a hundred
+yards behind, when they were in a blaze. The trampling of the dragoons
+was now heard coming on at full speed.</p>
+
+<p>"There," said Grapnel, "I'll engage that he tricks them at last; while
+they are moving up to the fire, the cargo is moving up to the store. He
+will leave half a dozen kegs for them to make prize of, while he is
+carrying away clear and clean as much silk as would make gowns for all
+the corporation of London, and as much claret as would give the gout
+to"&mdash;&mdash;the gust choked the remainder of the comparison.</p>
+
+<p>He had probably been accustomed to performances of this order, for his
+conjecture was exactly verified. From the spot where we stood, to get,
+as he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> called it, a last peep at "the free-traders bamboozling the
+dragoons," we could see cavalry rushing up to the blaze, evidently sure
+of having made a capture. A few carts in the ravine below next caught
+their eye. Another beacon on another hill soon threw up its flame, and a
+party galloped off to examine the new phenomenon. Two or thee more
+blazed in succession, and increased their perplexity.</p>
+
+<p>"I must have one shot at them before I go," said Grapnel, "if I die for
+it;" and, before I could utter a word to prevent him, he discharged his
+pistol. This was an unlucky shot, as it drew the attention of a party of
+dragoons, whom we had not before seen, in the hollow beneath. After
+returning a shot or two, they darted down upon the rear of the last
+convoy, which was silently moving under the shadow of the cliffs, with
+the captain and some of its stoutest followers at its head. The business
+now began to be serious. The captain and his men, determined not to lose
+their venture, made a bold resistance. The dragoons came riding in from
+all quarters, but the ground was unfavourable for them, hemmed in as it
+was on all sides by the sea, and on the other by the cliff, besides the
+encumbrance of the carts and waggons, behind which the cutlasses of the
+smugglers were fully a match for the sabre.</p>
+
+<p>If I could have thought of any thing but the hazard of those unfortunate
+fellows, the scene from the spot where I stood was sufficiently
+striking. The blaze from the tar-barrels showed a long extent of the
+Downs, with the troops scattered and galloping among them on all sides.
+Long ridges of light were thrown over the waters, while, immediately
+below me, the flashes of the smugglers' muskets and the soldiers'
+pistols were incessant. It was a battle on a minor scale.</p>
+
+<p>But it is dangerous to be in the way of bullets even as an amateur; for,
+as I stood gazing down, I felt a sudden stroke like a shock of
+electricity. I staggered, and was on the point of rolling over the
+cliff, when Grapnel darted towards me. I just felt myself grasped by
+him, and lost all recollection.</p>
+
+<p>On recovering my senses again, I was in Mordecai's villa, where I had
+been brought by some fishermen on the morning of the skirmish; and who,
+asking no questions, and being asked none, had deposited me, bandaged
+and bruised as I was, at the door of the villa. If I was not sensible of
+this service, it was, at least, a vast relief to the Jew, who had begun
+to think that his violence had urged me on some desperate course. As
+hasty in his repentance as in his wrath, he had no sooner become
+rational enough to hear his daughter's story, than he was eager to make
+me the <i>amende</i> by all the means in his power. Perhaps he would have
+even lent me money, if I had met him in the penitential mood; but I was
+not to be found. The sight of my corded trunk convinced him that I had
+taken mortal offence, and he grew more uneasy still. As the night fell,
+a general enquiry was made amongst the fisherman's cabins; and as, on
+those occasions, no one ever desires to send away the enquirer without
+giving himself, at least, credit for an answer, every one gave an answer
+according to his fashion. Some thought that they had seen me in a skiff
+on the shore; where I was, of course, blown out to sea, and, by that
+time, probably carried to the chops of the Channel. Others were sure,
+that they had seen me on the outside of the London mail&mdash;an equally
+embarrassing conjecture; for it happened that the horses, startled by
+the lightening, had dashed the carriage to pieces a few miles off.
+Mordecai's own conception was, that the extravagance of his rage had
+driven me to the extravagance of despair; and that I was by this time
+making my bed below the surges which roared and thundered through the
+dusk; and some scraps of verse which had been found in my
+apartment&mdash;"Sonnets to an eyebrow," and reveries on subjects of which my
+host had as much knowledge as his own ledger, were set down by him for
+palpable proofs of that frenzy to which he assigned my demise. Thus, his
+night was a disturbed one, passed alternately in watching over his
+daughter's feeble signs of recovery, and hurrying to the window at every
+sound of every footstep which seemed to give a hope of my return. The
+sight of me in the morning, laid at his hall door, relieved his heart of
+a burden; and, though the silence and rapid retreat of my bearers gave
+him but too much the suspicion that I had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> somehow or other been
+involved in the desperate business of the last twelve hours; of whose
+particulars he had, by some means or other, become already acquainted;
+he determined to watch over, and, if need be, protect me, until I could
+leave his house in safety.</p>
+
+<p>My recovery was slow. A ball had struck me on the forehead; and, though
+it had luckily glanced off, it had produced a contusion which long
+threatened dangerous consequences. For a month, I remained nearly
+insensible. At length I began to move, health returned, the sea-breeze
+gave me new sensations of life; and, but for one circumstance, I should
+have felt all the enjoyment of that most delightful of all
+contrasts&mdash;between the languor of a sick bed, and the renewed pouring of
+vitality through the frame.</p>
+
+<p>On my first awaking, I found an accumulation of letters on my table.
+Some were the mere common-places of correspondence; some were from
+sporting friends in the neighbourhood of the castle, detailing with due
+exactness the achievements of their dogs and horses; three were from the
+Horse Guards at successive intervals of a week&mdash;the first announcing
+that my commission in the Guards had received the signatures of the
+proper authorities; the second, giving me a peremptory order to join
+immediately; and the third, formally announcing, that, as I had neither
+joined, nor assigned any reason for my absence, my commission had been
+cancelled!</p>
+
+<p>This was an unexpected blow, and, in my state of weakness might have
+been a fatal one, but for my having found, at the bottom of the heap, a
+letter in the handwriting of Vincent. This excellent man, as if he had
+anticipated my vexations, wrote in a style singularly adapted to meet
+them at the moment. After slight and almost gay remarks on country
+occurrences, and some queries relative to my ideas of London; he touched
+on the difficulties which beset the commencement of every career, and
+the supreme necessity of patience, and a determination to be cheerful
+under all.</p>
+
+<p>"One rule is absolutely essential," wrote he, "never to mourn over the
+past, or mope over the future. 'Sufficient unto the day is the evil
+thereof,' is a maxim of incomparable wisdom. Never think of the failures
+of yesterday, but to avoid them to-morrow, and never speculate on the
+failures of to-morrow, but to remember that you have outlived the
+failures of to-day. The French philosophers are now preaching around the
+world, that knowledge is power, and so it is, but only as gunpowder is
+power; a dangerous invention which blew up the inventor. It requires to
+be wisely managed. English experience will tell you, more to the
+purpose, that 'perseverance is power;' for with it, all things can be
+done, without it nothing. I remember, in the history of Tamerlane, an
+incident which, to me, has always had the force of an apothegm.</p>
+
+<p>"In early life, and when reduced to the utmost distress, defeated in
+battle, and without a follower, he one day threw himself into the ruins
+of a Tartar caravansera, where he resolved to give up all further
+effort, and die. As he lay on the ground, sunk in despair, his eye was
+caught by the attempts of an ant to drag a grain of corn up to its nest
+in the wall. The load was too great for it, and the ant and the grain
+fell to the ground together. The trial was renewed, and both fell again.
+It was renewed ninety and nine times, and on the hundredth it succeeded,
+and the grain was carried into the nest. The thought instantly struck
+the prostrate chieftain, 'Shall an insect struggle ninety and nine times
+until it succeeds, while I, a man, and the descendant of heroes, give up
+all hope after a single battle?' He sprang from the ground, and found a
+troop of his followers outside, who had been looking for him through the
+wilderness. Scimitar in hand, he threw himself on his pursuers, swelled
+his troop into an army, his army into myriads, and finished by being the
+terror of Europe, the conqueror of Asia, and the wonder of the world."
+The letter finished with general enquiries into the things of the day,
+and all good wishes for my career.</p>
+
+<p>It is astonishing what an effect is sometimes produced by advice, given
+at the exact moment when we want it. This letter was the "word in
+season" of which the "wisest of men" speaks; and I felt all its
+influence in my rescue from despondency. Its simplicity reached my heart
+more than the most laboured language, and its manliness seemed a direct
+summons to whatever was manly in my nature. I determined thenceforth, to
+try fortune to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> utmost, to task my powers to the last, to regard
+difficulties as only the exercise that was intended to give me strength,
+and to render every success only a step to success higher still. That
+letter had pushed me another stage towards manhood.</p>
+
+<p>With the Horse Guards' papers in my hand, and the letter of my old
+friend placed in a kind of boyish romance, in my bosom, I went to meet
+Mordecai and his daughter. The Jew shook his bushy brows over the
+rescript which seemed to put a perpetual extinguisher on my military
+hopes. But Mariamne was the gayest of the gay, on what she termed my
+"fortunate ill-fortune." She had now completely recovered; said she
+remembered nothing of her accident but "the heroism," as she expressed
+it, "on my part which had saved her to thank me;" and between her
+gratitude and her vivacity, might have given a spectator the idea that
+M. Lafontaine was rapidly losing ground with that creature of open lips
+and incessant smiles. Her harp was brought, she was an accomplished
+performer, and she surprised me by the taste and tenderness with which
+she sung a succession of native melodies, collected in her rambles from
+Hungary to the Hartz; and from the Mediterranean to the Alps and
+Pyrenees. One air struck me as so beautiful that I still remember the
+words. They were Garcilasso's:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"De las casualidades<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Y las quimeras,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Nacen felicidades<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Que no se esperano.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Siempre se adviente<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Que donde esta la vida,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Se halla la muerte."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Then with that quick turn of thought which forms so touching a feature
+of the love-poetry of Spain&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Tus ojos a mis ojos,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Miran atentos,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Y callando se dicen<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Sus sentimientos.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cosa es bien rara,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Que sin hablar se entienden<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Nuestras dos almas."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The Spaniard, in his own language, is inimitable. I cannot come nearer
+the soft Southern than these ballad lines&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Alas,&mdash;how sweet, yet strange!<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Joy in the lap of woe!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Love, all a change!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Like roses laid on snow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nipt by the cruel wind;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Love, all unkind!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Yet, close those eyes of thine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Else, though no accents fall,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">These stealing tears from mine<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Will tell thee all!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Strange, that what lips deny,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is spoken by the telltale eye."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Whether the little seguidilla meant any thing in the lips of the
+songstress, I do not presume to say. But the hearts of women, perhaps I
+should say of all pretty women, expect admiration as naturally as an
+idol receives incense; and as a part of the incense now and then
+descends upon the worshippers themselves, the sentiment becomes in some
+degree mutual. However, with all my perceptions alive to her merits, and
+she had many; the cause of my gallant French friend was perfectly safe
+in my hands. I never had much vanity in these matters, and even if I
+had, the impression already made by another had made me impregnable, for
+the time, to the whole artillery of eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Yet the evening which I thus spent, gave me the first genuine idea of
+domestic happiness which I had ever received. I had certainly seen but
+little of it at home. There all was either crowds, or solitude; the
+effort to seem delighted, or palpable discontent; extravagant festivity,
+or bitterness and frowns. My haughty father was scarcely approachable,
+unless when some lucky job shed a few drops of honey into his natural
+gall; and my gentle mother habitually took refuge in her chamber, with a
+feebleness of mind which only embittered her vexations. In short, the
+"family fireside" had become with me a name for every thing dull and
+discomforting; and a <i>t&ecirc;te-&agrave;-t&ecirc;te</i> little less than an absolute terror.</p>
+
+<p>But in this apartment I saw how perfectly possible it might be to make
+one's way through life, even with so small a share of that world as the
+woman before me. I had now spent some hours without a care, without a
+wish, or even a thought beyond the room in which we sat. My imagination
+had not flagged, no sense of weariness had touched me, our conversation
+had never wanted a topic; yet the Jew was one certainly of no peculiar
+charm of manner, though a man<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> of an originally vigorous mind, and well
+acquainted with general life; and even his daughter was too foreign and
+fantastic to realize my <i>beau id&eacute;al</i>. Still with the one being of my
+choice, I felt that it would be possible to be happy on a desert island.</p>
+
+<p>Our supper was as animated as our evening. My remarks on the passing
+world&mdash;a world of which I then knew not much more than the astronomer
+does of the inhabitants of the moon, by inspecting it</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">"With his glazed optic tube,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">At midnight from the top of Fesol&eacute;,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or in Val d'Arno, to descry new seas,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rivers, and mountains on her spotty globe"&mdash;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>were received with an acquiescence, which showed that I had already
+gained some ground, even in the rough, though undoubtedly subtle and
+powerful mind of the Jew: as for Mariamne, she was all delight, and
+until she took her leave of us for the night, all smiles.</p>
+
+<p>As she closed the door Mordecai laid his muscular hand on my shoulder.
+"A word with you, Mr Marston; you have rendered me the highest of
+services in saving that girl from a dreadful death. You have been of use
+to me in other matters also, unconsciously I aver&mdash;but we shall talk of
+that another time. To come to the point at once. If you can make
+yourself my daughter's choice, for I shall never control her, I shall
+not throw any obstacles in the way. What say you?"</p>
+
+<p>I never felt more difficulty in an answer. My voice actually died within
+my lips. I experienced a feverish sensation which must have mounted to
+my face, and given me the look of a clown or a criminal, if the Jew had
+but looked at me: but he was waiting my reply with his eyes fixed on the
+ground. But the hesitation was soon over; I was almost pledged to
+Lafontaine, as a man of honour; I knew that Mariamne, however she might
+play the coquette for the day, was already bound in heart to the gallant
+Frenchman; and if neither impediment had existed, there was a chain,
+cold as ice, but strong as adamant&mdash;a chain of which she who had bound
+it was altogether ignorant, but which I had neither the power nor the
+will to sever. Still it was not for me to divulge Mariamne's secret, and
+I could not even touch upon my own. I escaped from the dilemma under
+cover of another reason, and also a true one.</p>
+
+<p>Thanking him for his kindness and candour, I observed, "that I was
+nothing and had nothing, that to offer myself to the acceptance of one
+entitled to wed so opulently as his daughter, would be to pain my
+feelings, and place me in a humiliating point of view, in the presence
+of one whose respect I ought to deserve." Our conversation extended far
+into the night; and I freely entered into the disappointment which I had
+sustained in the unfortunate loss of my commission. I added, that I was
+determined not to lead a life of idleness, even if I had possessed the
+means; and that as the army was the profession which gave the fairest
+prospect of being known to the world, I must pursue it if possible.</p>
+
+<p>The idea was fully approved of by my energetic hearer. "Right!" said he.
+"It is exactly the thing which I should have expected from you. You have
+been ill-treated, I own, but there is no use in kicking at power, unless
+you can kick it before you. The machinery of government is too huge for
+any one of us to resist, and unless we run along with it, our only
+wisdom is, to get out of its way. But you shall have a commission, ay,
+even if it cost a thousand guineas. Never refuse; I am not in the habit
+of throwing away my money; but you saved Mariamne's life, and I would
+not have lost my child for all the bullion in the Bank of England, or on
+the globe."</p>
+
+<p>I was surprised by this burst of generosity, but it was real; and the
+Jew, as if to put his sincerity beyond all doubt, had torn a leaf out of
+his pocket-book, and was writing an order for the sum on his banker: he
+laid it on the table. I returned it to him at once, perhaps not less to
+his surprise than his offer had been to mine. But I reminded him, that I
+had still a balance at my banker's; and I told him besides that I had
+made up my mind to enter the regiment from which I had been so
+unceremoniously dismissed, or none. He stared. "If," said I, "I shall
+not be commissioned in the Coldstream, it will be utterly beyond my
+power to persuade even my own relatives, much less the world, that I
+have not been dismissed for some act of impropriety. Or, if men will not
+hazard saying this to my face, they will only be more likely to say it
+where I cannot defend myself."</p>
+
+<p>"True!" said Mordecai, as if<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> the opinion had cast a new light on him.
+"Perfectly to the point. This is a world of scandal; and, like the
+wolves, the whole pack fall on the wounded. You must recover your
+commission in the Coldstream; or be ready to tell your story every day
+of your life, and be only half believed after all. Yes, you must enter
+that very corps, or be sneered at as long as you live; and if you have a
+heart to be stung, it will be stung. Our people know that well."</p>
+
+<p>"I should give my last shilling to be carrying its colours at this
+moment," said I, "but unfortunately money is useless there. The Guards
+are the favourite of royalty, and their commissions naturally go to men
+of rank and fortune."</p>
+
+<p>"We must go to town and see what is to be done. When will you be ready?"
+asked my host.</p>
+
+<p>"To-night&mdash;this moment&mdash;if possible, I should set out."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, Mr Marston, my movements cannot be quite so expeditious. I must
+wait for my London letters in the morning. On their arrival we may
+start, and, by taking four horses, reach town before the Horse Guards
+closes for the day."</p>
+
+<p>At breakfast next morning Mariamne was not to be seen: she excused
+herself by a violent headach; and by the countenance of her Abigail,
+generally a tolerable reflexion of the temper of the female authority of
+a house, it was evident that I had fallen into disfavour. But how was
+this to be accounted for? Mordecai, from the lateness of the hour at
+which we parted, could not have seen her; even if she should condescend
+to take my matrimonial chillness as an offence. But the mystery was
+soon, cleared by her answer to the note which contained my farewell. It
+was simply the enclosure of a few hapless lines of verse, in which the
+name of Clotilde occurred, and which had been found in the clearance of
+my chamber preparatory to my journey. This was decisive. Mariamne was a
+sovereign, who, choose as she might her prime minister, would not suffer
+her royal attendance to be diminished by the loss of a single slave. I
+petitioned for a parting word, it was declined; and I had only to regret
+my poetic error, or my still greater error in not keeping my raptures
+under lock and key.</p>
+
+<p>As the carriage drew up to the door, Mordecai casually asked me "have
+you left your card at the Steyne?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," was the reply. "Was it necessary?"</p>
+
+<p>"Absolutely so; the prince has sent frequently to enquire for you during
+your illness, and of course your leaving the neighbourhood without
+acknowledging the honour would be impossible."</p>
+
+<p>"Then let us drive there at once," said I.</p>
+
+<p>On reaching the prince's cottage&mdash;for cottage it was, and nothing
+more&mdash;the gentleman in waiting who received my card, told me that his
+Royal highness had desired that whenever I called he should be apprized
+of my coming, "as he wished to hear the history of the accident from
+myself." The prince's fondness for hearing every thing out of the common
+course, was well known; and I had only to obey. I had the honour of an
+introduction accordingly; was received with all the customary graces of
+his manner, and even with what attracts still more&mdash;with kindness. He
+enquired into the circumstances, and was evidently taking an interest in
+such parts of the narrative as I chose to give, when he was interrupted
+by the arrival of a courier from London. The letters happened to be of
+importance, and must be answered immediately. "But," said he, with his
+irresistible smile, "I must not lose your story; we dine at seven. You
+will probably meet some whom you would be gratified by seeing.
+Adieu&mdash;remember, seven."</p>
+
+<p>This was equivalent to a command, and there was no resource, but to
+defer my journey for twelve hours more. Mordecai was not unwilling to
+exchange a dreary drive in which he had no immediate concern, for the
+comforts of his own home; or perhaps the honour among his neighbours of
+having for an inmate a guest of the heir-apparent, qualified the delay.
+Mariamne at our approach fled from the drawing-room like a frightened
+doe. And at the appointed hour I was at the pretty trellised porch of
+the prince's residence.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="THE_DEVILS_FRILLS" id="THE_DEVILS_FRILLS"></a>THE DEVIL'S FRILLS.</h2>
+
+<h3>A DUTCH ILLUSTRATION OF THE WATER CURE.</h3>
+
+
+<h4>CHAPTER I.</h4>
+
+<p>A stranger who visits Haarlem is not a little astonished to see, hung
+out from various houses, little frames coquettishly ornamented with
+squares of the finest lace. His curiosity will lead him to ask the
+reason of so strange a proceeding. But, however he may push his
+questions&mdash;however persevering he may be in getting at the bottom of the
+mystery&mdash;if he examine and cross-examine fifty different persons, he
+will get no other answer than&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"These are the devil's frills."</p>
+
+<p>The frills of the devil! Horrible! What possible connexion can there be
+between those beautiful Valenciennes, those splendid Mechlins, those
+exquisite Brussels points, and his cloven-footed majesty? Is Haarlem a
+city of idolaters? Are all these gossamer oblations an offering to
+Beelzebub?</p>
+
+<p>And are we to believe, in spite of well-authenticated tale and history,
+that instead of horns and claws, the gentleman in black sports frills
+and ruffles, as if he were a young dandy in Bond Street?</p>
+
+<p>"These are the devil's frills."</p>
+
+<p>It is my own private opinion that these mystic words contain some
+prodigiously recondite meaning; or, perhaps, arise from one of those
+awful incidents, of which Hoffman encountered so many among the
+ghost-seeing, all-believing Germans. But don't take it on my simple
+assertion, but judge for yourself. I shall tell you, word for word, the
+story as it was told to me, and as it is believed by multitudes of
+people, who believe nothing else, in the good town of Haarlem.</p>
+
+
+<h4>CHAPTER II.</h4>
+
+<p>Yes,&mdash;one other thing everybody in Haarlem believes&mdash;and that is, that
+Guttenberg, and Werner, and Faust, in pretending that they were the
+discoverers of the art of printing, were egregious specimens of the art
+of lying; for that that noble discovery was made by no human being save
+and except an illustrious citizen of Haarlem, and an undeniable proof of
+it exists in the fact, that his statue is still to be seen in front of
+the great church. He rejoiced, while living, in the name of Laurentius
+Castero; and, however much you may be surprised at the claims advanced
+in his favour, you are hereby strictly cautioned to offer no
+contradiction to the boastings of his overjoyed compatriots&mdash;they are
+prouder of his glory than of their beer. But his merits did not stop
+short at casting types. In addition to his enormous learning and
+profound information, he possessed an almost miraculous mastery of the
+fiddle. He was a Dutch Paganini, and drew such notes from his
+instrument, that the burgomaster, in smoking his pipe and listening to
+the sounds, thought it had a close resemblance to the music of the
+spheres.</p>
+
+<p>There was only one man in all Haarlem, in all Holland, who did not yield
+the palm at fiddle-playing to Castero. That one man was no other than
+Frederick Katwingen, the son of a rich brewer, whom his admirers&mdash;more
+numerous than those of his rival&mdash;had called the Dutch Orpheus.</p>
+
+<p>If the laurels of Miltiades disturbed the sleep of Themistocles; if the
+exploits of Macedonia's madman interfered with the comfort of Julius
+C&aelig;sar, the glory of Katwingen would not let Castero get a wink of sleep.</p>
+
+<p>What! a man of genius&mdash;a philosopher like the <i>doctus</i> Laurentius, not
+be contented with his fame as discoverer of the art of printing; but to
+leave his manuscripts, and pica, and pie, to strive for a contemptible
+triumph, to look with an eye of envy on a competitor for the applauses
+of a music room! Alas! too true. Who is the man, let me ask you, who can
+put bounds to his pretensions? Who is the man that does not feel as if
+the praises of his neighbour were an injury<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> to himself? And if I must
+speak the whole truth, I am bound to confess that these jealous
+sentiments were equally entertained by both the musicians. Yes,&mdash;if
+Castero would acknowledge no master, Frederick could not bear that any
+one should consider himself his rival, and insisted at any rate in
+treating with him on equal terms. Laurentius, therefore, and the son of
+the brewer were declared enemies; and the inhabitants of Haarlem were
+divided into two parties, each ruled over with unlimited power by the
+fiddlestick of its chief.</p>
+
+<p>It was announced one morning that the Stadtholder would pass through the
+town in the course of the day. The burgomaster determine to receive the
+illustrious personage in proper style, and ordered the two rivals to
+hold themselves in readiness. Here, then, was a contest worthy of them
+an opportunity of bringing the great question to issue of which of them
+played the first fiddle in Holland&mdash;perhaps in Europe. It fell to
+Frederick's chance to perform first&mdash;in itself a sort of triumph over
+Laurentius. The Stadtholder entered by the Amsterdam road, attended by
+his suite&mdash;they passed along the street, and stopped under a triumphal
+arch which had been hastily prepared. The burgomaster made a speech very
+much like the speeches of burgomasters before and since on similar
+tremendous occasions; and Frederick finally advanced and made his salaam
+to the chief magistrate of the United Provinces. The performer knew that
+the Stadtholder was a judge of music, and this gave him courage to do
+his best. He began without more ado, and every thing went on at first as
+he could wish; fountains of harmony gushed out from under his bow. There
+seemed a soul at the end of each of his fingers, and the countenance of
+the chief magistrate showed how enchanted he was with his powers. His
+triumph was on the point of being complete; a few more bars of a
+movement composed for the occasion&mdash;a few magnificent flourishes to show
+his mastery of the instrument, and Castero will be driven to despair by
+the superiority of his rival;&mdash;but crash! crash!&mdash;at the very moment
+when his melody is steeping the senses of the Stadtholder in Elysium, a
+string breaks with hideous sound, and the whole effect of his
+composition is destroyed. A smile jumped instantaneously to the
+protruding lip of the learned Laurentius, and mocked his mishap: the son
+of the brewer observed the impertinent smile, and anger gave him
+courage&mdash;the broken string is instantly replaced. The artist rushes full
+speed into the allegretto&mdash;and under the pressure of his hands, burning
+with rage and genius, the chord breaks again! The fiddle must be
+bewitched&mdash;Frederick became deadly pale&mdash;he trembled from head to
+foot&mdash;he was nearly wild.</p>
+
+<p>But the piece he had composed was admirable; he knew it&mdash;for in a moment
+of inspiration he had breathed it into existence from the recesses of
+his soul. And was he doomed never to play this cherished work to the
+governor of his country?&mdash;An approving motion from that august
+individual encouraged him to proceed, and he fitted a string for the
+third time.</p>
+
+<p>Alas, alas! the result is the same&mdash;the chord is too much tightened, and
+breaks in the middle of a note! Humbled and ashamed, Frederick gives up
+his allegretto. He retires, abashed and heartbroken, and Castero takes
+his place. Mixed up in the crowd, his eyes swam in tears of rage and
+disappointment when the frantic applauses of the assemblage&mdash;to whom the
+Stadtholder had set the example&mdash;announced to him the triumph of his
+rival. He is vanquished&mdash;vanquished without having had the power to
+fight&mdash;oh, grief! oh, shame! oh, despair!</p>
+
+<p>His friends tried in vain to console him in promising him a brilliant
+revenge. The son of the brever believed himself eternally disgraced. He
+rushed into his room, double locked the door and would see nobody. He
+required solitude&mdash;but the wo of the <i>artiste</i> had not yet reached its
+height. He must drink the cup of humiliation to the dregs. Suddenly
+innumerable voices penetrated the thick walls of the brewery, and
+reached the chamber of the defeated candidate. Those voices&mdash;Frederick
+recognized them too well&mdash;were those of the faction which acknowledged
+Castero for their chief. A triumphal march, performed by twenty
+instruments, in honour of his rival, succeeded in overturning the reason
+of the unhappy youth. His fiddle was before him on the table&mdash;that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span>
+fiddle which had disappointed his hopes. Exasperated, out of his senses,
+the brewer's son seized the instrument&mdash;a moment he held it aloft at the
+corner of the chimney, and yielding to the rage that gnawed his soul, he
+dashed it into a thousand pieces. Faults, like misfortunes, never come
+single. "Blood calls for blood," says Machiavel&mdash;"ruin for ruin."&mdash;By
+that fatal tendency of the human mind never to stop when once we have
+gone wrong, but to go on from bad to worse, instead of blushing at our
+folly&mdash;Frederick, after that act of vandalism, dashed like a madman out
+of the brewery. The sight of his instrument in a thousand fragments had
+completed the business&mdash;life was a torment to him. He hurried towards
+the lake of Haarlem, determined to seek in its gloomy depths a refuge
+from disgrace.&mdash;Poor Frederick!</p>
+
+
+<h4>CHAPTER III.</h4>
+
+<p>After a quarter of an hour's run across the fields, he arrived at last
+at the side of the lake, with the sounds of his rival's triumphal march
+for ever sounding in his ears. The evening breeze, the air from the sea,
+"the wandering harmonies of earth and sky," were all unable to bring
+rest to the perturbed spirit of the musician. He was no longer conscious
+of the sinful act he was about to commit. He shut his eyes&mdash;he was just
+going to throw himself into the water when he felt a hand laid upon his
+left shoulder. Frederick turned quickly round. He saw at his side a tall
+man wrapped up in large cloak&mdash;in spite of the hot weather&mdash;which hid
+every part of him but his face. His expression was hard, almost
+repulsive. His eyes shot sinister glances on the youth from beneath the
+thick eyebrows that overshadowed them. The brewer's son, who had been on
+the point of facing death without a tremour, grew pale and trembled. He
+wished to fly, but an irresistible power nailed him to the spot. He was
+fascinated by the look of the Unknown.</p>
+
+<p>"Madman!" said the stranger in a hollow voice&mdash;"madman who cannot resist
+the first impulse of anger and false shame!"</p>
+
+<p>"Leave me," answered Frederick in his turn; "I am disgraced, and have no
+resource but to die."</p>
+
+<p>"The triumph of Castero, then&mdash;the triumph he owes to luck&mdash;has cowed
+you so that you are afraid to challenge him to another trial?"&mdash;rejoined
+the stranger in an angry tone.</p>
+
+<p>"Every thing is lost," said Frederick, "don't you hear those sounds?" he
+added, holding his hands out towards the city&mdash;"my courage cannot bear
+up against such mockery&mdash;<i>v&aelig; victis</i>!&mdash;my doom is sealed."</p>
+
+<p>"But you do not yet know the full extent of your rival's victory. There
+is a young girl who was to have been your wife&mdash;a girl who loves you&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Ma&iuml;na!"&mdash;cried Frederick, to whom these words restored his
+recollection.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Ma&iuml;na, the daughter of Jansen Pyl, the burgomaster of Haarlem.
+Well, encouraged by his success, Castero went to the house, and demanded
+the hand of her you love."</p>
+
+<p>"What?&mdash;what do I hear?"&mdash;said Frederick, and looked once more towards
+the lake.</p>
+
+<p>"The burgomaster never liked you very well, as you are aware. In
+consenting to receive you as his son-in-law, he yielded more to the
+wishes of his daughter, to her prayers and tears, than to his preference
+of you over the other adorers of the Beauty of Haarlem. Castero's fame
+had long predisposed him in his favour; and the triumph he obtained
+to-day has entirely won the old man's heart."</p>
+
+<p>"He has promised her?" enquired Frederick in a voice almost inaudible
+from anxiety.</p>
+
+<p>"To-morrow he will decide between you. You are ignorant of the
+arrangement entered into; and, yielding to a cowardly impulse, you give
+up the happiness of your life at the moment it is in your grasp. Listen.
+The Stadtholder, who did not intend to remain at Haarlem, has accepted
+the invitation of the burgomaster, and will not leave the city till
+to-morrow afternoon. That illustrious personage has expressed a wish to
+hear again the two performers who pleased him so much, and his patronage
+is promised to the successful candidate in the next trial.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> He is a
+judge of music&mdash;he perceived the fineness of your touch, and saw that it
+was a mere accident which was the cause of your failure. Do you
+understand me now? Ma&iuml;na will be the wife of the prot&eacute;g&eacute; of the
+Stadtholder&mdash;and you give up your affianced bride if you refuse to
+measure your strength once more against Castero."</p>
+
+<p>The explanation brought tears into Frederick's eyes. In his agony as a
+musician he had forgotten the object of his love&mdash;the fair young girl
+whose heart was all his own. Absorbed in the one bitter thought of his
+defeat&mdash;of the disgrace he had endured&mdash;he had never cast a recollection
+on the being who, next to his art, was dearer to him than all the world.
+The fair maid of Haarlem occupied but the second place in the musician's
+heart; but not less true is it, that to kiss off a tear from the white
+eyelid of the beautiful Ma&iuml;na, he would have sacrificed his life. And
+now to hear that she was about to be carried off by his rival&mdash;by
+Castero&mdash;that Castero whom he hated so much&mdash;that Ma&iuml;na was to be the
+prize of the conqueror! His courage revived. Hope played once more round
+his heart&mdash;he felt conscious of his superiority; but&mdash;oh misery!&mdash;his
+fiddle&mdash;his Straduarius, which could alone insure his victory&mdash;it was
+lying in a million pieces on his floor!</p>
+
+<p>The Unknown divined what was passing in his mind; a smile of strange
+meaning stole to his lip. He went close up to Frederick, whose agitated
+features betrayed the struggle that was going on within. "Ma&iuml;na will be
+the reward of the prot&eacute;g&eacute; of the Stadtholder, and Castero will be the
+happy man if you do not contest the prize," he whispered in poor
+Frederick's ear.</p>
+
+<p>"Alas! my fate is settled&mdash;I have no arms to fight with," he answered in
+a broken voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Does your soul pant for glory?" enquired the stranger.</p>
+
+<p>"More than for life&mdash;more than for love&mdash;more than for&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Go on."</p>
+
+<p>"More than for my eternal salvation!" exclaimed the youth in his
+despair.</p>
+
+<p>A slight tremour went through the stranger as he heard these words.</p>
+
+<p>"Glory!" he cried, fixing his sparkling eyes on the young man's face
+"glory, the passion of noble souls&mdash;of exalted natures&mdash;of superior
+beings!&mdash;Go home to your room, you will find your fiddle restored," he
+added in a softer tone.</p>
+
+<p>"My fiddle?" repeated Frederick.</p>
+
+<p>"The fiddle of which the wreck bestrewed your chamber when you left it,"
+replied the stranger.</p>
+
+<p>"But who are you?" said Frederick amazed. "You who know what passes in
+my heart&mdash;you whose glances chill me with horror&mdash;you, who promise me a
+miracle which only omnipotence can accomplish. Who are you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Your master," answered the man in the mantle, in an altered voice.
+"Recollect the words you used a minute or two ago, 'Glory is dearer to
+me than life&mdash;than love&mdash;than eternal salvation!' That is quite enough
+for me; and we must understand each other. Adieu. Your favourite
+instrument is again whole and entire, and sweeter toned than ever. You
+will find it on the table in your room. Castero, your rival, will be
+vanquished in this second trial, and Ma&iuml;na will be yours&mdash;for you are
+the prot&eacute;g&eacute; of a greater than the Stadtholder. Adieu&mdash;we shall meet
+again." On finishing this speech the Unknown advanced to the lake.
+Immediately the waves bubbled up, and rose in vast billows; and opening
+with dreadful noise, exposed an unfathomable abyss. At the same moment
+thunder growled in the sky, the moon hid herself behind a veil of
+clouds, and the brewer's son, half choked with the smell of brimstone,
+fell insensible on the ground.</p>
+
+
+<h4>CHAPTER IV.</h4>
+
+<p>When Frederick came to his senses he found himself in his chamber,
+seated on the same sofa of Utrecht brocade which he had watered with his
+tears two hours before. On the table before him lay the fiddle which he
+had dashed to atoms against the corner of the chimney. On seeing the
+object of his affection, the enraptured musician, the rival of Castero,
+rushed towards it with a cry of joyful surprise. He took the instrument<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span>
+in his hands&mdash;he devoured it with his eyes, and then, at the summit of
+his felicity, he clasped it to his bosom. The instrument was perfectly
+uninjured, without even a mark of the absurd injustice of its owner. Not
+a crack, not a fissure, only the two gracefully shaped &sect; &sect; to give vent
+to the double stream of sound. But is he not the victim of some
+trick&mdash;has no other fiddle been substituted for the broken Straduarius?
+No!&mdash;'tis his own well-known fiddle, outside and in&mdash;the same delicate
+proportions, the same elegant neck, and the same swelling rotundity of
+contour that might have made it a model for the Praxiteles of violins.
+He placed the instrument against his shoulder and seized the bow. But
+all of a sudden he paused&mdash;a cold perspiration bedewed his face&mdash;his
+limbs could scarcely support him. What if the proof deceives him. What
+if&mdash;; but incertitude was intolerable, and he passed the bow over the
+strings. Oh blessedness! Frederick recognized the unequalled tones of
+his instrument&mdash;he recognized its voice, so clear, so melting, and yet
+so thrilling and profound,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">"The charm is done,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Life to the dead returns at last,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And to the corpse a soul has past."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Now, then, with his fiddle once more restored to him, with love in his
+heart, and hatred also lending its invigorating energies, he felt that
+the future was still before him, and that Castero should pay dearly for
+his triumph of the former day.</p>
+
+<p>When these transports had a little subsided, Frederick could reflect on
+the causes which gave this new turn to his thoughts. The defeat he had
+sustained&mdash;his insane anger against his Straduarius&mdash;his attempt at
+suicide&mdash;his meeting with the stranger, and his extraordinary
+disappearance amidst the waves of the lake.</p>
+
+<p>But, with the exception of the first of these incidents, had any of them
+really happened? He could not believe it. Was it not rather the sport of
+a deceitful dream? His fiddle&mdash;he held it in his hands&mdash;he never <i>could</i>
+have broken it. In fact, the beginning of it all was his despair at
+being beaten, and he was indebted to his excited imagination for the
+rest&mdash;the suicide, the lake, and the mysterious Unknown.</p>
+
+<p>"That must be it," he cried at last, delighted at finding a solution to
+the mystery, and walking joyously up and down his chamber. "I have had a
+horrible dream&mdash;a dream with my eyes open; that is all."</p>
+
+<p>Two gentle taps at the door made him start; but the visitor was only one
+of the brewery boys, who gave him a letter from the burgomaster.</p>
+
+<p>"Yoran, did you see me go out about two hours ago?" asked Frederick
+anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>"No, meinheer," said the boy.</p>
+
+<p>"And you did not see me come in?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, meinheer."</p>
+
+<p>"That's all right," said the youth, signing for Yoran to retire. "Now,
+then," he said, "there can be no doubt whatever that it was all a
+dream." Opening the burgomaster's letter, he ran through it in haste.
+The first magistrate of Haarlem informed Frederick Katwingen that he had
+an important communication to make to him, and requested him to come to
+his house.</p>
+
+<p>The musician again placed his lips on his instrument, and again pressed
+it gratefully to his heart; and then placed it with the utmost care
+within its beautiful case, which he covered with a rich cloth. Locking
+the case, and looking at it as a mother might look at the cradle of her
+new-born baby, he betook himself to the mansion of Jansen Pyl.</p>
+
+<p>That stately gentleman was luxuriously reposing in an immense armchair,
+covered with Hungary leather. His two elbows rested on the arms and
+enabled him to support in his hands the largest, the reddest, the
+fattest face that had ever ornamented the configuration of a Dutch
+functionary before. Mr Jansen Pyl wore at that moment the radiant look
+of satisfaction which only a magistrate can assume who feels conscious
+that he is in the full sunshine of the approbation of his sovereign. His
+whole manner betrayed it&mdash;the smile upon his lip, the fidgety motion of
+his feet, and the look which he darted from time to time around the
+room, as if to satisfy himself that his happiness was "not a sham but a
+reality." But his happiness seemed far from contagious. On his right
+hand there was a lovely creature, seated on a footstool, who did not
+partake his enjoyment. There was something so sweet and so harmonious in
+her expression, that you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> felt sure at once she was as good as she was
+beautiful. There was poetry also in her dejected attitude, and in the
+long lashes that shadowed her blue eyes; nor was the charm diminished by
+the marble neck bent lowly down, and covered with long flowing locks of
+the richest brown. And the poetry was, perhaps, increased by the
+contrast offered by the sorrowing countenance of the girl to the radiant
+visage of the plethoric individual in the chair. Whilst the ambitious
+thoughts of the burgomaster rose to the regions inhabited by the
+Stadtholder, the poor girl's miserable reflections returned upon
+herself. Her eyes were dimmed with tears. It was easy to see that that
+had long been their occupation, and that some secret sorrow preyed upon
+the repose of the fair maid of Haarlem.</p>
+
+<p>It was Ma&iuml;na, the betrothed of Frederick. On the left of the
+burgomaster, negligently leaning on the back of the magistrate's chair,
+was a man still young in years, but so wrinkled and careworn, from study
+or bad health, that he might have passed for old. The man's expression
+was cold and severe; his look proud and fiery; his language rough and
+harsh. On analysing his features you could easily make out that he had
+prodigious powers of mind, a character imperious and jealous, and such
+indomitable pride that he might do a mischief to any rival who might be
+bold enough to cross his path.</p>
+
+<p>Now, we are aware of one at least who ran the risk; for the man was
+Laurentius Castero. Frederick Katwingen started back on entering the
+burgomaster's room. His eye encountered the glance of Castero, and in
+the look then interchanged, they felt that they were enemies between
+whom no reconciliation could take place. From Laurentius, Frederick
+turned his eye to Ma&iuml;na. The sorrowful attitude of the maiden would have
+revealed to him all that had happened, if the self-satisfied look of his
+rival had left any thing to be learned. The conqueror brow-beat the
+vanquished.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr Katwingen," said the burgomaster, deliberately weighing every word,
+"you are aware of the high compliment paid by the Stadtholder to our
+city."</p>
+
+<p>"My dream comes true," thought Frederick as he bowed affirmatively to
+the magistrate's enquiry.</p>
+
+<p>"And you are also aware," pursued the burgomaster, "of the Stadtholder's
+wishes as far as you are personally concerned?"</p>
+
+<p>Frederick bowed again.</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks to my humble supplications," continued Jansen Pyl, raising his
+enormous head with an air of dignity, "our gracious governor has
+condescended to honour our good town with his august presence for
+twenty-four hours longer. But what ought to fill you with eternal
+gratitude is this: that he has determined to hear you a second time when
+he returns to-morrow from inspecting the works at Shravnag. I hope you
+will redouble your efforts, and do all you can to please your
+illustrious auditor; and, if any thing is required to stimulate your
+ambition, and add to your endeavours to excel, I will add this&mdash;the hand
+of Ma&iuml;na will be bestowed on the conqueror at this second trial."</p>
+
+<p>"But, father!&mdash;&mdash;" said the maiden.</p>
+
+<p>"It is all settled," interrupted the burgomaster, looking astonished at
+the girl's audacity; "you are the reward I offer to the prot&eacute;g&eacute; of the
+Stadtholder. You hear what I say, gentlemen?" he added, turning to the
+rivals.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall certainly not miss the appointment," said Castero, throwing
+back his head proudly. "If to-morrow is not as glorious to me as to-day
+has been, I will break my violin, and never touch a bow again as long as
+I live."</p>
+
+<p>"As for me," said Frederick, "if I do not make up for the check I
+unluckily met to-day by a glorious victory, I swear I will renounce the
+flattering name my countrymen have given me, and will hide my shame in
+some foreign land. The Orpheus of his country must have no rival of his
+fame."</p>
+
+<p>"To-morrow, then," said the burgomaster.</p>
+
+<p>"To-morrow!" repeated the rivals, casting on each other looks of proud
+defiance.</p>
+
+<p>"To-morrow!" whispered Ma&iuml;na and buried her face in her hands.</p>
+
+
+<h4>CHAPTER V.</h4>
+
+<p>I shall not attempt to describe the strange sensations of Frederick on
+returning from the burgomaster's house It will have been seen from the
+glimpses<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> we have had of him already, that he was of a quick and
+sensitive disposition, and that the chance of defeat in the approaching
+struggle would sting him into madness. He pictured to himself the
+ferocious joy of Castero on being declared the victor&mdash;the agony of
+Ma&iuml;na&mdash;the misery of his own degradation; and there is no doubt if the
+mysterious Unknown, whose appearance he now felt certain was nothing but
+a dream, had visited him in <i>propri&acirc; person&acirc;</i>, that he would have
+accepted his terms&mdash;his soul for triumph over his enemy, for the
+possession of the girl he loved.</p>
+
+<p>The morrow rose clear and cloudless. At the appointed hour Frederick
+took his violin, and prepared to set out. But just when he was opening
+the door, the man in the mantle&mdash;the same he had seen the day
+before&mdash;stood before him.</p>
+
+<p>"You did not expect to see me," said the Unknown, following Frederick to
+the end of the room, where he had retreated. "I told you, nevertheless,
+that we should meet again," he added, placing himself face to face with
+the son of the brewer.</p>
+
+<p>"Then it was no dream," murmured the youth, who appeared to have lost
+all his resolution.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly not," returned the stranger, looking sarcastically at
+Frederick from head to foot. "I promised you yesterday, on the banks of
+the lake, that you would find your fiddle unharmed, and that I would
+enable you to conquer your rival. But I don't feel that I am bound to do
+any thing of the kind for nothing; generosity was never my forte, and I
+have lived long enough among the burghers of Holland to insist on being
+well paid for every thing I do."</p>
+
+<p>"Who are you, then; and what is it you want?" enquired the Dutch
+Orpheus, in an agitated voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Who am I!" answered the man in the mantle, with all the muscles of his
+face in violent convulsions&mdash;"Who am I!&mdash;I thought I had told you
+yesterday when you asked me&mdash;I am your master. What do I want? I will
+tell you. But why do you tremble so? you were bold enough when we met. I
+saw the thought in your heart&mdash;if Satan should rise before me, and
+promise me victory over my rival at the price of my soul, I would agree
+to the condition!"</p>
+
+<p>"Satan!&mdash;you are Satan!" shrieked Frederick, and closed his eyes in
+horror.</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't you find me out on the side of the lake, when you told me you
+would exchange your salvation for years of love and glory. Yes, I am
+that King of Darkness&mdash;<i>your</i> master! and that of a great part of
+mankind. But, come; the hour is at hand&mdash;the Burgomaster and the
+Stadtholder await us. Do you accept the offer I make you?"</p>
+
+<p>After a minute's hesitation, during which his features betrayed the
+force of the internal contest, the musician made his choice. He had not
+power to speak, but he raised his hand, and was on the point of making
+the cross upon his forehead, to guard him from the tempter, when Satan
+perceived his intention, and seized his arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Think a little before you discard me entirely," he said, raising again
+in the soul of the musician all the clouds of pride and ambition that
+had given him power over it at first; "look into the box where your
+violin is laid, and decide for the last time."</p>
+
+<p>Frederick obeyed his tempter, and opened the case, but uttered a cry of
+desperation when he saw his Straduarius in the same state of utter ruin
+to which he had reduced it before. The neck separated from the body;
+both faces shivered to fragments&mdash;the ebony rests, the gold-headed
+stops, the bridge, the sides&mdash;all a confused mass of wreck and
+destruction.</p>
+
+<p>"Frederick! Frederick!" cried a voice from the brewery&mdash;it was his
+father's.</p>
+
+<p>"Frederick! Frederick!" repeated a hundred voices under the
+windows&mdash;"Come down, come down, the Stadtholder is impatient! Castero
+swears you are afraid to face him."</p>
+
+<p>They were his friends who were urging him to make haste.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" enquired Satan.</p>
+
+<p>"I accept the bargain. I give you my soul!" said Frederick, while his
+cheek grew pale, and his eye flashed.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Your</i> soul!" replied Satan, with a shrug of infinite disdain. "Do you
+think I would have hindered you from jumping into the lake, if I had
+wished to get it? Do you think that suicides are not mine already?&mdash;mine
+by their own act, without the formality of a bargain?&mdash;<i>Your</i> soul!"
+repeated the Prince of Darkness, with a sneer; "I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> don't want it, I
+assure you: at least not to-day&mdash;I feel sure of it whenever I require
+it!"</p>
+
+<p>"My soul, then, belongs to you&mdash;my fate is settled beforehand?" enquired
+Frederick.</p>
+
+<p>"You are an <i>artiste</i>," answered Satan, with a chuckling laugh, "and
+therefore are vain, jealous, proud, and full of envy, hatred, malice,
+and all uncharitableness. You perceive I shall lose nothing by waiting.
+No, no; 'tis not your own soul I want&mdash;but that of your first-born, that
+you must make over to me this hour!"</p>
+
+<p>"What do you want me to do!"</p>
+
+<p>"Here is the deed," said Satan, pulling a parchment from under his
+cloak, on which strange characters were drawn, and letters in an unknown
+language. "In putting your name to this, you bind and oblige yourself to
+let me know when Ma&iuml;na is about to become a mother; and before the
+baptismal water shall touch the infant's brow, you shall hang from the
+window a piece of lace which shall have been worn by Ma&iuml;na at her
+wedding. One of my satellites will be on the watch; he will come and
+tell me when the signal is made and&mdash;the rest is my own affair! You will
+find this agreement in your fiddle-case."</p>
+
+<p>"Frederick! Frederick! be quick be quick!" again shouted the father.</p>
+
+<p>"Frederick! Frederick! Castero is boasting about your absence!" cried
+the chorus of impatient friends.</p>
+
+<p>"I agree!" cried the <i>artiste</i>, and affixed his name. While he was
+signing, the stranger muttered some words of mysterious sound, of which
+he did not know the meaning; and immediately the pieces of the broken
+instrument united themselves&mdash;rests, bridge, stops, faces, and sides,
+all took their proper places, and the soul of the noble violin
+re-entered its musical prison, at the moment when that of the future
+baby of Ma&iuml;na was sold to the enemy of mankind!</p>
+
+<p>"Now, then," said Satan, as he sank beneath the floor, "go where glory
+waits thee."</p>
+
+
+<h4>CHAPTER VI</h4>
+
+<p>What need is there to tell the success of Frederick Katwingen&mdash;how he
+triumphed over Castero, captivated the Stadtholder, and was the pride of
+his native town? The Stadtholder attached him to his person, settled a
+pension on him of fifteen thousand florins, and treated him as the most
+cherished of his friends. The burgomaster was delighted to gain so
+illustrious a son-in-law, and hurried forward the marriage with all his
+might. On the day of the wedding, when Frederick was leading the bride
+to church, at the moment when the party was crossing the market-place, a
+voice whispered in his ear&mdash;"A piece of the lace she will wear at the
+ball this evening." Frederick recognised the voice, though no one else
+heard it. He turned, but saw nobody. After the ceremony, the burgomaster
+handed the contract to the bridegroom, to which the Stadtholder had
+affixed his signature. A present of a hundred thousand florins from the
+governor of the United Provinces, proved the sincerity of that
+illustrious personage's friendship, and that his favour had by no means
+fallen off. The burgomaster was emulous of so much generosity, and
+introduced a clause in the contract, settling his whole fortune on his
+son-in-law, in case of Ma&iuml;na's death.</p>
+
+<p>Behold, then, the <i>artiste</i> praised&mdash;f&ecirc;ted&mdash;and happy. Possessed of the
+wife he loved&mdash;rich&mdash;honoured&mdash;what more had he to hope than that those
+advantages should be continued him? Castero was true to his
+word&mdash;reduced his violin to powder, acknowledged Frederick's
+superiority, and betook himself to higher pursuits, which ended in the
+great discovery of printing.</p>
+
+<p>The Dutch Orpheus is freed from the annoyance of a rival. He reigns by
+the divine right of his violin, the undisturbed monarch of his native
+plains. His name is pronounced with enthusiasm from one flat end of
+Holland to the other. In the splendour of his triumphal condition, he
+has forgotten his compact with Beelzebub; but Ma&iuml;na reminded him of it
+one day, when she told him he was about to become a father.</p>
+
+<p>A father!&mdash;ha!&mdash;Frederick! That word which brings such rapture to the
+newly married couple&mdash;which presents such radiant visions of the
+future&mdash;that word freezes the heart of the <i>artiste</i> and stops the blood
+in his veins.</p>
+
+<p>It is only now when Ma&iuml;na is so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> happy that he knows the enormity of his
+fault.</p>
+
+<p>He is about to be a father&mdash;and he&mdash;beforehand&mdash;basely, cowardly&mdash;has
+sold the soul of his son who is yet unborn&mdash;before it can shake off the
+taint of original sin. Shame! shame! on the proud in heart who has
+yielded to the voice of the tempter&mdash;to the wretch who, for a little
+miserable glory, has shut the gates of mercy on his own child&mdash;shame!
+shame!</p>
+
+<p>If Satan would consent to an exchange&mdash;if&mdash;but no&mdash;'tis impossible. The
+"archangel fallen" had explained himself too clearly&mdash;no hope! no hope!
+From that hour there was no rest, no happiness for the prot&eacute;g&eacute; of the
+Stadtholder&mdash;sleep fled from his eyelids, he was pursued by perpetual
+remorse, and in the agonies of his heart deserted the nuptial bed: while
+light dreams settled on Ma&iuml;na's spirit, and wove bright chaplets for the
+future, he wandered into the midnight fields&mdash;across the canals&mdash;any
+where, in short, where he fancied he could procure forgetfulness; but
+solitude made him only feel his misery the more. How often he thought of
+going to the gloomy lake where he had first encountered the Unknown! How
+often he determined to complete the resolution he had formed on the day
+of Castero's triumph! But Satan had said to him, "The suicide is
+condemned&mdash;irrevocably condemned;" and the condemnation of which <i>he</i>
+would be sure, would not bring a ransom for his first-born.</p>
+
+<p>The fatal time draws on&mdash;in a few minutes more Ma&iuml;na will be a mother.
+Frederick, by some invisible impulse, has chosen from among the laces of
+his wife a rich Mechlin, which she wore round her neck on her
+wedding-day. It is now to be the diabolic standard, and he goes with it
+towards the door of his house, pensive and sad. When he got to the
+threshold he stopped&mdash;he raised his eyes to heaven, and from his heart
+and from his lips, there gushed out prayers, warm, deep, sincere&mdash;the
+first for many years. A ray of light has rushed into his soul. He
+uttered a cry of joy, he dashed across the street into the neighbouring
+church; he dipped the lace into the basin of consecrated water, and
+returned immediately to hang it at the door of his apartment.</p>
+
+<p>At that moment Ma&iuml;na gave birth to a son, and Satan rushed impatiently
+to claim his expected prey. But the tempter was unprepared for the trap
+that was laid for him. On placing his foot on the first step of the
+stair, he found himself pushed back by a superior power. The Mechlin,
+dripping with holy water, had amazing effect. It was guardian of the
+house and protected the entrance against the fallen angel. Satan strove
+again and again; but was always repulsed. There rises now an
+impenetrable barrier between him and the innocent being he had destined
+for his victim. Forced by the pious stratagem of Frederick Katwingen to
+give up his purpose, he roamed all night round the house like a roaring
+lion, bellowing in a most awful manner.</p>
+
+<p>In the morning, when they wrapt up the babe in the precious lace to
+carry him to be baptized, they perceived that it had been torn in
+several places. The holes showed the determination with which Satan had
+tried to force a passage. The enemy of mankind had not retreated without
+leaving the mark of his talons on the lace.</p>
+
+<p>On coming back from church, Frederick ran to his fiddle; and found in a
+corner of the case the deed of compact he had signed. With what joy he
+tossed it into the fire, and heard it go crackling up the chimney!</p>
+
+<p>All was over now; Satan was completely floored. He confessed, by giving
+up the contract, that he had no further right on the soul of the newly
+born, when once it had been purified by the waters of baptism. The
+father had recovered the soul which the musician had bartered away!
+Since that time, whenever a young woman in Haarlem is about to become a
+mother, the husband never fails to hang at the door the richest pieces
+of lace he can find in her trousseau. That standard bids defiance to the
+evil one, and recalls the noble victory won over the prince of darkness
+by Frederick Katwingen, surnamed the Dutch Orpheus. And that is the
+reason that, in passing through Haarlem, the visitor sees little frames
+suspended from certain houses, ornamented with squares of Mechlin, or
+Valenciennes, or Brussels point. And that is the reason that, when he
+asks an explanation of the singular custom, he gets only the one short,
+unvarying answer&mdash;"These are the Devil's Frills!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="ADVENTURES_IN_LOUISIANA" id="ADVENTURES_IN_LOUISIANA"></a>ADVENTURES IN LOUISIANA.</h2>
+
+<h3>PART II.</h3>
+
+
+<h4>THE BLOCKHOUSE.</h4>
+
+<p>Supper over, and clenched by a pull at Nathan's whisky flask, we
+prepared for departure. The Americans threw the choicest parts of the
+buck over their shoulders, and the old squatter again taking the lead,
+we resumed our march. The way led us first across a prairie, then
+through a wood, which was succeeded by a sort of thicket, upon the
+branches and thorny shrubs of which we left numerous fragments of our
+dress. We had walked several miles almost in silence, when Nathan
+suddenly made a pause, and let the but-end of his rifle fall heavily on
+the ground. I took the opportunity to ask him where we were.</p>
+
+<p>"In Louisiana," replied he, "between the Red River, the Gulf of Mexico,
+and the Mississippi; on French ground, and yet in a country where French
+power is worth little. Do you see that?" added he suddenly, seizing my
+arm, and pulling me a few paces aside, while he pointed to a dark
+object, that at the distance and in the moonlight, had the appearance of
+an earthen wall. "Do you know what that is?" repeated the squatter.</p>
+
+<p>"An Indian grave, perhaps," replied I.</p>
+
+<p>"A grave it is," was the answer; "but not of the Redskins. As brave a
+backwoodsman as ever crossed the Mississippi lies buried there. You are
+not altogether wrong, though. I believe it was once an Indian mound."</p>
+
+<p>While he spoke we were walking on, and I now distinguished a hillock or
+mound of earth, with nearly perpendicular sides, on which was erected a
+blockhouse, formed of unhewn cypress trunks, of a solidity and thickness
+upon which four-and-twenty pounders would have had some difficulty in
+making an impression. Its roof rose about ten feet above a palisade
+enclosing the building, and consisting of stout saplings sharpened at
+the top, and stuck in the ground at a very short distance from each
+other, being moreover strengthened and bound together with wattles and
+branches. The building had evidently been constructed more for a refuge
+and place of defence than an habitual residence.</p>
+
+<p>A ladder was now lowered, by which we ascended to the top of the mound.
+There was a small door in the palisades, which Nathan opened and passed
+through, we following.</p>
+
+<p>The blockhouse was of equal length and breadth, about forty feet square.
+On entering it we found nothing but the bare walls, with the exception
+of a wide chimney of sun-baked brick, and in one corner a large wooden
+slab partly imbedded in the ground.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't tread upon that board," said the old man solemnly, as we
+approached the slab to examine it; "it is holy ground."</p>
+
+<p>"How holy ground?"</p>
+
+<p>"There lies under it as brave a fellow as ever handled axe or rifle. He
+it was built this blockhouse, and christened it the Bloody
+Blockhouse&mdash;and bloody it proved to be to him. But you shall hear more
+of it if you like. You shall hear how six American rifles were too many
+for ninety French and Spanish muskets."</p>
+
+<p>Carleton and I shook our heads incredulously. The Yankee took us both by
+the arm, led us out of the blockhouse, and through the stockade to a
+grassy projection of the hillock.</p>
+
+<p>"Ninety French and Spanish muskets," repeated he in a firm voice, and
+weighing on each word. "Opposed to them were Asa Nolins, with his three
+brothers, his brother-in-law, a cousin, and their wives. He fell like a
+brave American as he was, but not alone, for the dead bodies of thirty
+foes were lying round the blockhouse when he died. They are buried
+there," added he, pointing to a row of cotton-trees a short distance
+off, that in the pale moonlight might have been taken for the spectres
+of the departed; "under those cotton-trees they fell, and there they are
+buried."</p>
+
+<p>The old squatter remained for a short space in his favourite attitude,
+his hands crossed on his rifle, and his chin resting on them. He seemed
+to be calling together the recollections of a time long gone by. We did
+not care to interrupt him. The stillness of the night, the light of the
+moon and stars, that gave the prairie lying before us<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> the appearance of
+a silvery sea, the sombre forest on either side of the blockhouse, of
+which the edges only were lighted up by the moonbeams, the vague
+allusions our guide had made to some fearful scene of strife and
+slaughter that had been enacted in this now peaceful glade&mdash;all these
+circumstances combined, worked upon our imaginations, and we felt
+unwilling to break the stillness which added to the impressive beauty of
+the forest scene.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you ever float down the Mississippi?" asked Nathan abruptly. As he
+spoke he sat down upon the bank, and made sign to us to sit beside him.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you ever float down the Mississippi?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; we came up it from New Orleans hither."</p>
+
+<p>"That is nothing; the stream is not half so dangerous there as above
+Natchez." <i>We</i> came down, six men, four women, and twice as many
+children, all the way from the mouths of the Ohio to the Red River; and
+bad work we had of it, in a crazy old boat, to pass the rapids and avoid
+the sand-banks, and snakes, and sawyers, and whatever the devil they
+call them, that are met with. I calculate we weren't sorry when we left
+the river and took to dry land again. The first thing we did was to make
+a wigwam, Injun fashion, with branches of trees. This was to shelter the
+women and children. Two men remained to protect them, and the other four
+divided into two parties, and set off, one south and t'other west, to
+look for a good place for a settlement. I and Righteous, one of Asa's
+brothers, took the southerly track.</p>
+
+<p>It was no pleasuring party that journey, but a right-down hard and
+dangerous expedition, through cypress swamps, where snapping turtles
+were plenty as mosquitoes, and at every step the congo and mocassin
+snakes twisted themselves round our ankles. We persevered, however. We
+had a few handfuls of corn in our hunting-pouches, and our calabashes
+well filled with whisky. With that and our rifles we did not want for
+provender.</p>
+
+<p>At length, on the fourth day, we came to an upland, or rolling prairie
+as we call it, from the top of which we had a view that made our hearts
+leap for joy. A lovely strip of land lay before us, bounded at the
+further end by a forest of evergreen oaks, honey locusts, and catalpas.
+Towards the north was a good ten mile of prairie; on the right hand a
+wood of cotton-trees, and on the left the forest in which you now are.
+We decided at once that we should find no better place than this to fix
+ourselves; and we went back to tell Asa and the others of our discovery,
+and to show them the way to it. Asa and one of his brothers returned
+with us, bringing part of our traps. They were as pleased with the place
+as we were, and we went back again to fetch the rest. But it was no easy
+matter to bring our plunder and the women and children through the
+forests and swamps. We had to cut paths through the thickets, and to
+make bridges and rafts to cross the creeks and marshes. After ten days'
+labour, however, and with the help of our axes, we were at our journey's
+end.</p>
+
+<p>We began directly clearing and cutting down trees, and in three weeks we
+had built a loghouse, and were able to lie down to rest without fear of
+being disturbed by the wolves or catamounts. We built two more houses,
+so as to have one for each two families and then set to work to clear
+the land. We had soon shaped out a couple of fields, a ten-acre one for
+maize, and another half the size for tobacco. These we began to dig and
+hoe; but the ground was hard, and though we all worked like slaves, we
+saw there was nothing to be made of it without ploughing. A ploughshare
+we had, and a plough was easily made&mdash;but horses were wanting: so Asa
+and I took fifty dollars, which was all the money we had amongst us, and
+set out to explore the country forty miles round, and endeavour to meet
+with somebody who would sell us a couple of horses, and two or three
+cows. Not a clearing or settlement did we find, however, and at last we
+returned discouraged, and again began digging. On the very first day
+after our return, as we were toiling away in the field, a trampling of
+horses was heard, and four men mounted, and followed by a couple of
+wolf-hounds, came cantering over the prairie. It struck us that this
+would be a famous chance for buying a pair of horses, and Asa went to
+meet them, and invited them to alight and refresh themselves. At the
+same time we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> took our rifles, which were always lying beside us when we
+worked in the fields, and advanced towards the strangers. But when they
+saw our guns, they put spurs to their horses and rode off to a greater
+distance. Asa called out to them not to fear, for our rifles were to use
+against bears and wolves and Redskins, and not against Christian men.
+Upon this, down they came again; we brought out a calabash of real
+Monongahela; and after they had taken a dram, they got off their horses,
+and came in and ate some venison, which the women set before them. They
+were Creoles, half Spanish, half French, with a streak of the Injun; and
+they spoke a sort of gibberish not easy to understand. But Asa, who had
+served in Lafayette's division in the time of the war, knew French well;
+and when they had eaten and drunk, he began to make a bargain with them
+for two of their horses.</p>
+
+<p>It was easy to see they were not the sort of men with whom decent folk
+could trade. First they would, then they wouldn't: which horses did we
+want, and what would we give. We offered them thirty-five dollars for
+their two best horses&mdash;and a heavy price it was, for at that time money
+was scarce in the settlements. They wanted forty, but at last took the
+thirty-five; and after getting three parts drunk upon taffia, which they
+asked for to wet the bargain as they said, they mounted two upon each of
+the remaining horses and rode away.</p>
+
+<p>We now got on famously with our fields, and soon sowed fifteen acres of
+maize and tobacco, and then began clearing another ten-acre field. We
+were one day hard at work at this, when one of my boys came running to
+us, crying out, "Father! Father! The Redskins!" We snatched up our
+rifles and hastened to the top of the little rising ground on which our
+houses were built, and thence we saw, not Injuns, but fourteen or
+fifteen Creoles, galloping towards our clearing, halloing and huzzaing
+like mad. When they were within fifty yards of us, Asa stepped forward
+to meet them. As soon as they saw him one of them called out, "There is
+the thief! There is the man who stole my brown horse!" Asa made no
+answer to this, but waited till they came nearer, when one of them rode
+up to him and asked who was the chief in the settlement. "There is no
+chief here," answered Asa; "we are all equals and free citizens."</p>
+
+<p>"You have stolen a horse from our friend Monsieur Croupier," replied the
+other. "You must give it up."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that all?" said Asa quietly.</p>
+
+<p>"No: you must show us by what right you hunt on this territory."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," cried half a dozen others, "we'll have no strangers on our
+hunting-grounds; the bears and caguars are getting scarcer than ever,
+and as for buffaloes, they are clean exterminated." And all the time
+they were talking, they kept leaping and galloping about like madmen.</p>
+
+<p>"The sooner the bears and caguars are killed the better," said Asa. "The
+land is not for dumb brutes, but for men."</p>
+
+<p>The Creoles, however, persisted that we had no right to hunt where we
+were, and swore we should go away. Then Asa asked them what right they
+had to send us away. This seemed to embarrass them, and they muttered
+and talked together; so that it was easy to see there was no magistrate
+or person in authority amongst them, but that they were a party of
+fellows who had come in hopes to frighten us. At last they said they
+should inform the governor, and the commandant at Natchitoches, and the
+Lord knows who besides, that we had come and squatted ourselves down
+here, and built houses, and cleared fields, and all without right or
+permission; and that then we might look out. So Asa began to lose
+patience, and told them they might all go to the devil, and that, if
+they were not off soon, he should be apt to hasten their movements.</p>
+
+<p>"I must have my horse back," screamed the Creole whom they called
+Croupier.</p>
+
+<p>"You shall," replied Asa, "both of them, if you return the
+five-and-thirty dollars."</p>
+
+<p>"It was only fifteen dollars," cried the lying Creole.</p>
+
+<p>Upon this Asa called to us, and we stepped out from amongst the
+cotton-trees, behind which we had been standing all the while; and when
+the Creoles saw us, each with his rifle on his arm, they seemed rather
+confused, and drew back a little.</p>
+
+<p>"Here are my comrades," said Asa, "who will all bear witness, that the
+horses were sold at the prices of twenty<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> dollars for the one and
+fifteen for the other. And if any one says the contrary, he says that
+which is not true."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Larifari!</i>" roared Croupier. "You shan't stop here to call us liars,
+and spoil our hunting-ground, and build houses on our land. His
+excellency the governor shall be told of it, and the commandant at
+Natchitoches, and you shall be driven away." And the other Creoles, who,
+while Asa was speaking, appeared to be getting more quiet and
+reasonable, now became madder than ever, and shrieked, and swore, and
+galloped backwards and forwards, brandishing their fowling-pieces like
+wild Injuns, and screaming out that we should leave the country, the
+game wasn't too plenty for them, and suchlike. At length Asa and the
+rest of us got angry, and called out to them to take themselves off or
+they would be sorry for it; and when they saw us bringing our rifles to
+our shoulders, they put spurs to their horses, and galloped away to a
+distance of some five hundred yards. There they halted, and set up such
+a screeching as almost deafened us, fired off some of their old rusty
+guns, and then rode away. We all laughed at their bragging and
+cowardice, except Asa, who looked thoughtful.</p>
+
+<p>"I fear some harm will come of this," said he. "Those fellows will go
+talking about us in their own country; and if it gets to the ears of the
+governors or commanding-officers that we have settled down on their
+territory, they will be sending troops to dislodge us."</p>
+
+<p>Asa's words made us reflect, and we held counsel together as to what was
+best to be done. I proposed that we should build a blockhouse on the
+Indian mound to defend ourselves in if we were attacked.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Asa; but we are only six, and they may send hundreds against
+us.</p>
+
+<p>"Very true," said I; "but if we have a strong blockhouse on the top of
+the mound, that is as good as sixty, and we could hold out against a
+hundred Spanish musketeers. And it's my notion, that if we give up such
+a handsome bit of ground as we have cleared here without firing a shot,
+we deserve to have our rifles broken before our faces."</p>
+
+<p>Asa, however, did not seem altogether satisfied. It was easy to see he
+was thinking of the women and children. Then said Asa's wife, Rachel, "I
+calculate," said she, "that Nathan, although he is my brother, and I
+oughtn't to say it, has spoke like the son of his father, who would have
+let himself be scalped ten times over before he would have given up such
+an almighty beautiful piece of land. And what's more, Asa, I for one
+won't go back up the omnipotent dirty Mississippi; and that's a fact."</p>
+
+<p>"But if a hundred Spanish soldiers come," said Asa, "and I reckon they
+will come?"</p>
+
+<p>"Build the blockhouse, man, to defend yourselves; and when our people up
+at Salt River and Cumberland hear that the Spaniards are quarreling with
+us, I guess they won't keep their hands crossed before them."</p>
+
+<p>So, seeing us all, even the women, so determined, Asa gave in to our way
+of thinking, and the very same day we began the blockhouse you see
+before you. The walls were all of young cypress-trees, and we would fain
+have roofed it with the same wood; but the smallest of the cypresses
+were five or six feet thick, and it was no easy matter to split them. So
+we were obliged to use fir, which, when it is dried by a few days' sun,
+burns like tinder. But we little thought when we did so, what sorrow
+those cursed fir planks would bring us.</p>
+
+<p>When all was ready, well and solidly nailed and hammered together, we
+made a chimney, so that the women might cook if necessary, and then laid
+in a good store of hams and dried bear's flesh, filled the meal and
+whisky tubs, and the water-casks, and brought our plough and what we had
+most valuable into the blockhouse. We then planted the palisades,
+securing them strongly in the ground, and to each other, so that it
+might not be easy to tear them up. We left, as you see, a space of five
+yards between the stockade and the house, so that we might have room to
+move about in. It would be necessary for an enemy to take the palisades
+before he could do any injury to the house itself, and we reckoned that
+with six good rifles in such hands as ours, it would require a pretty
+many Spanish musketeers to drive us from our outer defences.</p>
+
+<p>In six weeks all was ready; all our tools and rations, except what we
+wanted for daily use, carried into the fort,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> and we stood contemplating
+the work of our hands with much satisfaction. Asa was the only one who
+seemed cast down.</p>
+
+<p>"I've a notion," said he, "this blockhouse will be a bloody one before
+long; and what's more, I guess it will be the blood of one of us that'll
+redden it. I've a sort of feelin' of it, and of who it'll be."</p>
+
+<p>"Pho! Asa, what notions be these! Keep a light heart, man."</p>
+
+<p>And Asa seemed to cheer up again, and the next day we returned to
+working in the fields; but as we were not using the horses, one of us
+went every morning to patrol ten or twelve miles backwards and forwards,
+just for precaution's sake. At night two of us kept watch, relieving one
+another, and patrolling about the neighbourhood of our clearing.</p>
+
+<p>One morning we were working in the bush and circling trees, when
+Righteous rode up full gallop.</p>
+
+<p>"They're coming!" cried he; "a hundred of them at least."</p>
+
+<p>"Are they far off?" said Asa, quite quietly, and as if he had been
+talking of a herd of deer.</p>
+
+<p>"They are coming over the prairie. In less than half an hour they will
+be here."</p>
+
+<p>"How are they marching? With van and rear guard? In what order?"</p>
+
+<p>"No order at all, but all of a heap together."</p>
+
+<p>"Good!" said Asa; "they can know little about bush-fighting or
+soldiering of any kind. Now then, the women into the blockhouse."</p>
+
+<p>Righteous galloped up to our fort, to be there first in case the enemy
+should find it out. The women soon followed, carrying what they could
+with them. When we were all in the blockhouse, we pulled up the ladder,
+made the gate fast, and there we were.</p>
+
+<p>We felt strange at first when we found ourselves shut up inside the
+palisades, and only able to look out through the slits we had left for
+our rifles. We weren't used to be confined in a place, and it made us
+right-down wolfish. There we remained, however, as still as mice. Scarce
+a whisper was to be heard. Rachel tore up old shirts and greased them,
+for wadding for the guns; we changed our flints, and fixed every thing
+about the rifles properly, while the women sharpened our knives and axes
+all in silence.</p>
+
+<p>Nearly an hour had passed in this way when we heard a shouting and
+screaming, and a few musket-shots; and we saw through our loopholes some
+Spanish soldiers running backwards and forwards on the crest of the
+slope on which our houses stood. Suddenly a great pillar of smoke arose,
+then a second, then a third.</p>
+
+<p>"God be good to us!" cried Rachel, "they are burning our houses." We
+were all trembling and quite pale with rage. Harkye, stranger, when men
+have been slaving and sweating for four or five months to build houses
+for their wives and for the poor worms of children, and then a parcel of
+devils from hell come and burn them down like maize-stalks in a
+stubble-field, it is no wonder that their teeth should grind together,
+and their fists clench of themselves. So it was with us; but we said
+nothing, for our rage would not let us speak. But presently as we
+strained our eyes through the loopholes, the Spaniards showed themselves
+at the opening of the forest yonder, coming towards the blockhouse. We
+tried to count them, but at first it was impossible, for they came on in
+a crowd without any order. They thought lightly enough of those they
+were seeking, or they would have been more prudent. However, when they
+came within five hundred paces, they formed ranks, and we were able to
+count them. There were eighty-two foot soldiers with muskets and
+carbines, and three officers on horseback, with drawn swords in their
+hands. The latter dismounted, and their example was followed by seven
+other horsemen, amongst whom we recognised three of the rascally Creoles
+who had brought all this trouble upon us. He they called Croupier was
+among them. The other four were also Creoles, Acadians or Canadians, a
+race whom we had already met with on the Upper Mississippi, fine
+hunters, but wild, drunken, debauched barbarians.</p>
+
+<p>The Acadians were coming on in front, and they set up a whoop when they
+saw the blockhouse and stockade; but finding that we were prepared to
+receive them, they retreated upon the main body. We saw them speaking to
+the officers as if advising them; but the latter shook their heads, and
+the soldiers continued moving on. They were in uniforms of all colours,
+blue, white, and brown, but each man dirtier<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> than his neighbour. They
+marched in good order, nevertheless, the captain and officers coming on
+in front, and the Acadians keeping on the flanks. The latter, however,
+edged gradually off towards the cotton-trees, and presently disappeared
+amongst them.</p>
+
+<p>"Those are the first men to frick off," said Asa, when he saw this
+man&oelig;uvre of the Creoles. "They have steady hands and sharp eyes; but
+if we once get rid of them we need not mind the others."</p>
+
+<p>The Spaniards were now within an hundred yards of us.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall I let fly at the thieving incendiaries?" said Righteous.</p>
+
+<p>"God forbid!" replied Asa. "We will defend ourselves like men; but let
+us wait till we are attacked, and the blood that is shed will lie at the
+door of the aggressors."</p>
+
+<p>The Spaniards now saw plainly that they would have to take the stockade
+before they could get at us, and the officers seemed consulting
+together.</p>
+
+<p>"Halt!" cried Asa, suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>"Messieurs les Americains," said the captain, looking up at our
+loopholes.</p>
+
+<p>"What's your pleasure?" demanded Asa.</p>
+
+<p>Upon this the captain stuck a dirty pocket-handkerchief upon the point
+of his sword, and laughing with his officers, moved some twenty paces
+forward, followed by the troops. Thereupon Asa again shouted to him to
+halt.</p>
+
+<p>"This is not according to the customs of war," said he. "The flag of
+truce may advance, but if it is accompanied, we fire."</p>
+
+<p>It was evident that the Spaniards never dreamed of our attempting to
+resist them; for there they stood in line before us, and, if we had
+fired, every shot must have told. The Acadians, who kept themselves all
+this time snug behind the cotton-trees, called more than once to the
+captain to withdraw his men into the wood; but he only shook his head
+contemptuously. When, however, he heard Asa threaten to fire, he looked
+puzzled, and as if he thought it just possible we might do as we said.
+He ordered his men to halt, and called out to us not to fire till he had
+explained what they cane for.</p>
+
+<p>"Then cut it short," cried Asa sternly. "You'd have done better to
+explain before you burned down our houses, like a pack of Mohawks on the
+war path."</p>
+
+<p>As he spoke, three bullets whistled from the edge of the forest, and
+struck the stockades within a few inches of the loophole at which he
+stood. They were fired by the Creoles, who, although they could not
+possibly distinguish Asa, had probably seen his rifle barrel or one of
+his buttons glitter through the opening. As soon as they had fired, they
+sprang behind their trees again, craning their heads forward to hear if
+there was a groan or a cry. They'd have done better to have kept quiet;
+for Righteous and I caught a sight of them, and let fly at the same
+moment. Two of them fell and rolled from behind the trees, and we saw
+that they were the Creole called Croupier, and another of our
+horse-dealing friends.</p>
+
+<p>When the Spanish officer heard the shots, he ran back to his men, and
+shouted out "Forward! To the assault!" They came on like mad a distance
+of thirty paces, and then, as if they thought we were wild-geese to be
+frightened by their noise, they fired a volley against the blockhouse.</p>
+
+<p>"Now then!" cried Asa, "are you loaded, Nathan and Righteous? I take the
+captain&mdash;you, Nathan, the lieutenant&mdash;Righteous, the third
+officer&mdash;James, the sergeant. Mark your men, and waste no powder."</p>
+
+<p>The Spaniards were still some sixty yards off, but we were sure of our
+mark at a hundred and sixty, and that if they had been squirrels instead
+of men. We fired: the captain and lieutenant, the third officer, two
+sergeants, and another man writhed for an instant upon the grass. The
+next moment they stretched themselves out&mdash;dead.</p>
+
+<p>All was now confusion among the musketeers, who ran in every direction.
+Most of them took to the wood, but about a dozen remained and lifted up
+their officers to see if there was any spark of life left in them.</p>
+
+<p>"Load again, quick!" said Asa in a low voice. We did so, and six more
+Spaniards tumbled over. Those who still kept their legs now ran off as
+if the soles of their shoes had been of red-hot iron.</p>
+
+<p>We set to work to pick out our touchholes and clean our rifles, knowing
+that we might not have time later,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> and that a single miss-fire might
+cost us all our lives. We then loaded, and began to calculate what the
+Spaniards would do next. It is true they had lost their officers; but
+there were five Acadians with them, and those were the men we had most
+cause to fear. Meantime the vultures and turkey-buzzards had already
+begun to assemble, and presently hundreds of them were circling and
+hovering over the carcasses, which they as yet, however, feared to
+touch.</p>
+
+<p>Just then Righteous, who had the sharpest eye amongst us all, pointed to
+the corner of the wood, yonder where it joins the brushwood thicket. I
+made a sign to Asa, and we all looked and saw there was something
+creeping and moving through the underwood. Presently we distinguished
+two Acadians heading a score of Spaniards, and endeavouring, under cover
+of the bushes, to steal across the open ground to the east side of the
+forest.</p>
+
+<p>"The Acadians for you, Nathan and Righteous, the Spaniards for us," said
+Asa. The next moment two Acadians and four Spaniards lay bleeding in the
+brushwood. But the bullets were scarce out of our rifles when a third
+Acadian, whom we had not seen, started up. "Now's the time," shouted he,
+"before they have loaded again. Follow me! we will have their blockhouse
+yet." And he sprang across followed by the Spaniards. We gnashed our
+teeth with rage at not having seen the Acadian.</p>
+
+<p>There were still three of these fellows alive, who had now taken command
+of the Spaniards. Although we had shot a score of our enemies, those who
+remained were more than ten to one of us, and we were even worse off
+than at first, for then they were all together, and now we had them on
+each side of us. But we did not let ourselves be discouraged, although
+we could not help feeling that the odds against us were fearfully great.</p>
+
+<p>We now had to keep a sharp look-out; for if one of us showed himself at
+a loophole, a dozen bullets rattled about his ears. There were many
+shot-holes through the palisades, which were covered with white streaks
+where the splinters had been torn off by the lead. The musketeers had
+spread themselves all along the edge of the forest, and had learned by
+experience to keep close to their cover. We now and then got a shot at
+them and killed four or five, but it was slow work, and the time seemed
+very long.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the Spaniards set up a loud shout. At first we could not make
+out what was the matter, but presently we heard a hissing and crackling
+on the roof of the blockhouse. They had wrapped tow round their
+cartridges, and one of the shots had set light to the fir-boards. Just
+as we found it out, they gave three more hurras, and we saw the dry
+planks beginning to flame, and the fire to spread.</p>
+
+<p>"We must put that out and at once," said Asa, "if we don't wish to be
+roasted alive. Some one must get up the chimney with a bucket of water.
+I'll go myself."</p>
+
+<p>"Let me go, Asa," said Righteous.</p>
+
+<p>"You stop here. It don't matter who goes. The thing will be done in a
+minute."</p>
+
+<p>He put a chair on a table and got upon it, and then seizing a bar which
+was fixed across the chimney to hang hams upon, he drew himself up by
+his arms, and Rachel handed him a pail of water. All this time the flame
+was burning brighter, and the Spaniards getting louder in their
+rejoicing and hurras. Asa stood upon the bar, and raising the pail above
+his head, poured the water out of the chimney upon the roof.</p>
+
+<p>"More to the left, Asa," said Righteous; "the fire is strongest more to
+the left."</p>
+
+<p>"Tarnation seize it!" cried Asa, "I can't see. Hand me up another
+pailful."</p>
+
+<p>We did so; and when he had got it, he put his head out at the top of the
+chimney to see where the fire was, and threw the water over the exact
+spot. But at the very moment that he did so the report of a dozen
+muskets was heard.</p>
+
+<p>"Ha!" cried Asa in an altered voice, "I have it." And the hams and
+bucket came tumbling down the chimney, and Asa after them all covered
+with blood.</p>
+
+<p>"In God's name, man, are you hurt?" cried Rachel.</p>
+
+<p>"Hush! wife," replied Asa; "keep quiet. I have enough for the rest of my
+life, which will not be long: but never mind, lads; defend yourselves
+well, and don't fire two at the same<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> man. Save your lead, for you will
+want it all. Promise me that."</p>
+
+<p>"Asa! my beloved Asa!" shrieked Rachel; "if you die, I shall die too."</p>
+
+<p>"Silence! foolish woman; and our child, and the one yet unborn! Hark! I
+hear the Spaniards! Defend yourselves, and, Nathan, be a father to my
+children."</p>
+
+<p>I had barely time to press his hand and make him the promise he wished.
+The Spaniards, who had doubtless guessed our loss, rushed like mad
+wolves up to the mound, twenty on one side, and upwards of thirty on the
+other.</p>
+
+<p>"Steady!" cried I. "Righteous, here with me; and you, Rachel, show
+yourself worthy to be Hiram Strong's daughter, and Asa's wife; load this
+rifle for me while I fire my own."</p>
+
+<p>"O God! O God!" cried Rachel, "the hellhounds have murdered my Asa!"</p>
+
+<p>She clasped her husband's body in her arms, and there was no getting her
+away. I felt sad enough myself, but there was scanty time for grieving;
+for a party of Spaniards, headed by one of the Acadians, was close up to
+the mound on the side which I was defending. I shot the Acadian; but
+another, the sixth, and last but one, took his place. "Rachel!" cried I,
+"the rifle, for God's sake, the rifle! a single bullet may save all our
+lives."</p>
+
+<p>But no Rachel came, and the Acadian and Spaniards, who, from the
+cessation of our fire, guessed that we were either unloaded, or had
+expended our ammunition, now sprang forward, and by climbing, and
+scrambling, and getting on one another's shoulders, managed to scale the
+side of the mound, almost perpendicular as you see it is. And in a
+minute the Acadian and half a dozen Spaniards, with axes, were chopping
+away at the palisades, and severing the wattles which bound them
+together. To give the devil his due, if there had been only three like
+that Acadian, it would have been all up with us. He handled his axe like
+a real backwoodsman; but the Spaniards wanted either the skill or the
+strength of arm, and they made little impression. There were only
+Righteous and myself to oppose them; for, on the other side, a dozen
+more soldiers, with the seventh of those cursed Acadians, were attacking
+the stockade.</p>
+
+<p>Righteous shot down one of the Spaniards; but just as he had done so the
+Acadian tore up a palisade by the roots, (how he did it I know not to
+this hour, there must have been a stump remaining on it,) held it with
+the wattles and branches hanging round it like a shield before him,
+guarding off a blow I aimed at him, then hurled it against me with such
+force that I staggered backwards, and he sprang past me. I thought it
+was all over with us. It is true that Righteous, with the butt of his
+rifle, split the skull of the first Spaniard who entered, and drove his
+hunting-knife into the next; but the Acadian alone was man enough to
+give us abundant occupation, now he had got in our rear. Just then there
+was a crack of a rifle, the Acadian gave a leap into the air and fell
+dead, and at the same moment my son Godsend, a boy of ten years old,
+sprang forward, Asa's rifle in his hand still smoking from muzzle and
+touchhole. The glorious boy had loaded the piece when he saw that Rachel
+did not do it, and in the very nick of time had shot the Acadian through
+the heart. This brought me to myself again, and with axe in one hand and
+knife in the other, I rushed in among the Spaniards, hacking and hewing
+right and left. It was a real butchery, which lasted a good quarter of
+an hour; but then the Spaniards got sick of it, and would have done so
+sooner had they known that their leader was shot. At last they jumped
+off the mound and ran away, such of them as could. Righteous and I put
+the palisade in its place again, securing it as well as we could, and
+then, telling my boy to keep watch, ran over to the other side, where a
+desperate fight was going on.</p>
+
+<p>"Three of our party, assisted by the women, were defending the stockade
+against a score of Spaniards, who kept poking their bayonets between the
+palisades, till all our people were wounded and bleeding. But Rachel had
+now recovered from her first grief at her husband's death, or rather it
+had turned to a feeling of revenge, and there she was, like a raging
+tigress, seizing the bayonets as they were thrust through the stockade,
+and wrenching them off the muskets, and sometimes pulling the muskets
+themselves out of the soldiers' hands. But all this struggling had
+loosened the palisades, and there were one or two openings in them
+through which the thin-bodied Spaniards, pushed on by their comrades,
+were able to pass. Just as we came<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> up, two of these copper-coloured
+Dons had squeezed themselves through, without their muskets, but with
+their short sabres in their hands. They are active dangerous fellows
+those Spaniards in a hand-to-hand tussle. One of them sprang at me, and
+if it had not been for my hunting-knife, I was done for, for I had no
+room to swing my axe; but as he came on I hit him a blow with my fist,
+which knocked him down, and then ran my knife into him, and jumping over
+his body snatched a musket out of Rachel's hand, and began laying about
+me with the but-end of it. I was sorry not to have my rifle, which was
+handier than those heavy Spanish muskets. The women were now in the
+way&mdash;we hadn't room for so many&mdash;so I called out to them to get into the
+blockhouse and load the rifles. There was still another Acadian alive,
+and I knew that the fight wouldn't end till he was done for. But while
+we were fighting, Godsend and the women loaded the rifles, and brought
+them out, and firing through the stockade, killed three or four, and, as
+luck would have it, the Acadian was amongst them. So when the Spaniards,
+who are just like hounds, and only come on if led and encouraged, saw
+that their leader had fallen, they sprang off the mound, with a 'Carajo!
+Malditos!' and ran away as if a shell had burst amongst them."</p>
+
+<p>The old squatter paused and drew a deep breath. He had forgotten his
+usual drawl and deliberation, and had become animated and eager while
+describing the stirring incidents in which he had borne so active a
+part. When he had taken breath, he continued.</p>
+
+<p>"I couldn't say how long the fight lasted; it seemed short, we were so
+busy, and yet long, deadly long. It is no joke to have to defend one's
+life, and the lives of those one loves best, against fourscore
+bloodthirsty Spaniards, and that with only half a dozen rifles for arms,
+and a few palisades for shelter. When it was over we were so dog-tired
+that we fell down where we were, like overdriven oxen, and without
+minding the blood which lay like water on the ground. Seven Spaniards
+and two Acadians were lying dead within the stockade. We ourselves were
+all wounded and hacked about, some with knife-stabs and sabre-cuts,
+others with musket-shots; ugly wounds enough, some of them, but none
+mortal. If the Spaniards had returned to the attack they would have made
+short work of us; for as soon as we left off fighting and our blood
+cooled, we became stiff and helpless. But now came the women with rags
+and bandages, and washed our wounds and bound them up, and we dragged
+ourselves into the blockhouse, and lay down upon our mattresses of dry
+leaves. And Godsend loaded the rifles and a dozen Spanish muskets that
+were lying about, to be in readiness for another attack, and the women
+kept watch while we slept. But the Spaniards had had enough, and we saw
+no more of them. Only the next morning, when Jonas went down the ladder
+to reconnoitre, he found thirty dead and several others dying, and a few
+wounded, who begged hard for a drink of water, for that their comrades
+had deserted them. We got them up into the blockhouse, and had their
+wounds dressed, and after a time they were cured and left us."</p>
+
+<p>"And were you never after attacked again?" said I. "I wonder at your
+courage in remaining here after becoming aware of the dangers you were
+exposed to."</p>
+
+<p>"We reckoned we had more right than ever to the land after all the blood
+it had cost us, and then the news of the fight had got carried into the
+settlements, and up as far as Salt River; and some of our friends and
+kinsfolk came down to join us, and there were soon enough of us not to
+care for twice as many Spaniards as we had beaten off before."</p>
+
+<p>While he was speaking the old squatter descended the ladder, and led us
+out of the forest and over the ridge of a low hill, on the side of which
+stood a dozen loghouses, which cast their black shadows on the moonlit
+slope. We found a rough but kind welcome&mdash;few words, but plenty of good
+cheer&mdash;and we made acquaintance with the heroes and heroines of the
+blockhouse siege, and with their sons and daughters, buxom strapping
+damsels and fine manly lads, Yankees though they were. I have often
+enjoyed a softer bed, but never a sounder sleep than that night.</p>
+
+<p>The next day our horses were brought round from the swamp, and we took
+our departure; but as hardships, however painful to endure, are pleasant
+to look back upon, so have I often thought with pleasure of our
+adventures in the prairies, and recurred with the strongest interest to
+old Nathan's thrilling narrative of the Bloody Blockhouse.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="COMMERCIAL_POLICY_EUROPE" id="COMMERCIAL_POLICY_EUROPE"></a>COMMERCIAL POLICY&mdash;EUROPE</h2>
+
+
+<p>The land absolutely groans under over-material-production of every sort
+and degree, as on all hands is now acknowledged. The foundations of
+Manchester tremble under the ponderous piles of Cobden's calicoes, in
+Cobden's warerooms, ever, like the liver of Prometheus, undiminished,
+though daily devoured by the vulture of consumption. The sight of the
+Pelion upon Ossa, accumulated masses of pig upon bar iron, immovable as
+the cloud-capped Waen and Dowlais of Merthyr Tydvil themselves, should
+almost generate burning fever, intense enough, among the unfortunate
+though too sanguine producers, to smelt all the ironstone in the bowels
+of South Wales, without the aid of furnace or hot blast. Broad cloths,
+though encumbering cloth halls, are ceasing all over the earth&mdash;so say,
+at least, the Leeds anti-corn-law sages. Loads of linens, as Marshall
+proclaims, are sinking his mammoth mills; not to lengthen the lamentable
+list with the sorrows of silks, of cutlery, crockery, and all other
+commodities, the created or impelled of the mighty steam power that by
+turns prospers and prostrates us. As the crowning point, the monster
+grievance of all, comes the cramming over-production of food,
+farinaceous and animal, under which the overfed stomach of the country
+is afflicted with nightmare, as we learn on the unimpeachable authority
+of that wisest and most infallible of all one-idea'd nostrummongers, the
+immortal Cobden himself.<a name="FNanchor_I_9" id="FNanchor_I_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_I_9" class="fnanchor">[I]</a></p>
+
+<p>Vast and overwhelming, however, as the ills which follow in the train of
+over producing power, in the world material and manufacturing, they sink
+into utter insignificance&mdash;for magnitude, they are as Highgate Hill to
+sky-enveloped Chimborazo of eternal snow&mdash;in comparison with that
+crowding crush, that prodigious overflow, of charlatanic genius, in the
+world physical and spiritual, which blocks up every highway and byway,
+swarms in every circle, roars in every market-place, or thunders in each
+senate of the realm. There is not one ill which flesh is heir to, which
+this race original cannot kill or cure. Whilst bleeding the patient to
+death, Sangrado like, and sacking the fees, they will greet him right
+courteously with <i>Viva V. milanos</i>&mdash;live a thousand years, and not one
+less of the allotted number. Whilst drenching the body politic with
+Reform purge, or, with slashing tomahawk, inflicting Repeal gashes, they
+bid the prostrate and panting state subject rejoice over the wondrous
+dispatch with which its parts can be dismembered, the arithmetical
+accuracy with which its financial plethora can be depleted. Eccentric in
+its motions and universal in its aspirations, for the genius of this age
+no conception is too mean, no subject too intricate, no enterprise too
+rash, no object too sacred. It will condescend with equal readiness upon
+torturing a pauper, fleecing the farmer, robbing a church, or
+undertaking "the command of the Channel fleet at a moment's notice."
+With Mr Secretary Chadwick, schooled in police courts, it will
+metamorphose workhouse asylums for the destitute into parish prisons,
+with "locks, bolts, and bars," for the safe keeping of unfortunate
+outcasts found guilty of the felony of pauperism. With Dr Kay
+Shuttleworth and the privy council, when the masses want bread, it will
+invite to the "whistle belly" feast of roaring in <i>andante</i>, or
+dissolving in <i>piano</i>, in full choral concert mobs at Exeter Hall; it
+will induct into the new gipsy jargon scheme of education at Norwood,
+where the scholar is introduced to the process of analysation before he
+has learned to read and almost to articulate;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> or the miserables
+initiated into the elements of the linear, the curve, and the
+perspective in drawing, whose eyeballs are glaring in quest of the
+perspective of a loaf. Oh! genius profound, and forecasting of privy
+council philanthropy and utilitarian wisdom; more exquisite of
+refinement than Nero, who only fiddled when Rome was blazing and
+wretches roasting, thou, with the wizen wand of Cockney Hullah charmed
+with Wilhem's incantations, canst teach piping voices how to stay
+craving stomachs; how Kay upon Jacotot may analytically demonstrate that
+fast and feasting are both but synonymes of one common termination, the
+difference squared by time alone, and meaning ten or threescore and ten
+as the case may be. Misery is but a mockery of language after all; for
+have I not heard it rampant with lungs, and hoarse with disciplined
+harmony in Exeter Hall, as Hullah cut capers with his tiny truncheon,
+with Royalty itself, heroic field-marshals, and grave ministers of
+state, in seeming ecstasy at the sleight of hand? Just as I have heard
+and seen in the <i>barracones</i> of Bozal negroes for sale, when, at the
+crack of the black negro-driver's whip, and not unfrequent application
+of the lash, the flagging gang of exhausted slavery has ever and again
+set up that chant of revelry, run mad, and danced that dance of
+desperation, which was to persuade the atrocious dealers in human flesh
+how sound of wind and limb they were, and the bystanders how happy.</p>
+
+<p>Think not that charlatanic genius rests content with triumphs even so
+transcendent as these. It disports itself also in "self-supporting"
+colonization; it runs riot in the ruin of "penny-postage;" it would be
+gloriously self-suicidal in abolition of corn-laws and free trade. Nay,
+as&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Great genius to great madness is allied."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>the genius of these days looks even to St Luke's, like Oxford, as a
+berth in <i>dernier ressort</i>, where a sinecurist may enjoy bed and board
+at the cost of the state, and as a fair <i>honorario</i> for the trouble of
+concocting a new scheme for raising the wind, or getting a living. The
+time may come, and sooth to say, seems drawing near, when Gibbon
+Wakefield, seated on the woolsack, shall be charged specially with the
+guardianship of all the fair wards in Chancery. Wo to infant heiress
+kidnappers, when a chancellor, more experienced than Rhadamanthus, more
+sanguineous than Draco, shall have the care of the innocent fold, and
+come to deal with abduction! In womanly lore, his practice and
+experience are undoubted; for has he not had the active superintendence,
+and the arduous task, of transportation of all the womankind, virgin,
+and matronly as well, exported to New Zealand on account, with other
+goods and chattels, of that moral corporation, the New Zealand trading
+and emigration company, which so liberally salaries him with L.600 per
+annum for the use of his "principle?" Again, who so fitted as the
+renowned Rowland Hill, the very prig pragmatic of pretension, for the
+post of Chancellor of the Exchequer, or First Lord of the Treasury if
+you will? A man who could contrive a scheme for annihilating some two
+millions of post-office revenue at one stroke, must be qualified beyond
+all other pretenders for dealing with a bankrupt treasury; for upon the
+hom&oelig;opathic principle, the physic which kills is that alone which
+should cure. The scientific discovery, indeed, is not of the modern date
+exactly which is assumed; for the poet of ancient Greece, his "eyes in a
+fine frenzy rolling," must have had hom&oelig;opathy in view when he sang&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"So Telephus, renown'd of yore, can tell<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How cured the fatal spear by which he fell."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The disinterestedness of Rowland (not he of Roncesvalles, nor even of
+the honest Macassar oil) need not be doubted, because he claims a large
+reward for a penny-post scheme, ruinous as it is, utterly unavailable
+and impracticable, even if as excellent as notoriously prejudicial, but
+for the really ingenious discovery of the pre-paying stamp system, by a
+party preferring no title to remuneration, and through which alone,
+unfortunately, the pretentious project could be practically placed in
+operation.</p>
+
+<p>Dismissing minor worthies, such as Benjamin Hawes, junior, of the
+Commission of Fine Arts, selected probably and appropriately from the
+consideration that home-produced <i>savonnerie</i> may lead to clean ideas of
+taste,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> and who, in his own interest, would be a capital Commissioner of
+Excise; and Bowring, so well qualified to be chairman of a general board
+of Commissioner Tourists, from his multifarious practice&mdash;come we at
+last to Cobden, of corn and colonial fame, fiercely struggling with
+gaunt O'Connell himself for stentorian supremacy&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Lingu&aelig; centum sunt, oraque centum,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ferrea vox."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Cobden and the colonies! The conjunction is euphoniously alliterative at
+least, if not a consistent consequence; yet who more fit to perform at
+the funeral as the undertaker who alone has got the hearse and mules all
+ready for the job? Cobden, who has denounced&mdash;more still, has passed
+sentence upon&mdash;the colonies, should be the executioner. All hail,
+therefore, to the Right Hon. Alderman Richard Cobden, M.P., Secretary of
+State for the Colonial Department&mdash;worthy compeer of the Cabinet, where
+sit Lord Chancellor Gibbon Wakefield, and First Lord of the Treasury
+Rowland Hill! Rare will be the labours of the trio; the
+"self-supporting" supported on either hand by a destroying angel.</p>
+
+<p>In the prospective cabinet of <i>Charlatanerie</i>, composed <i>inter aliis</i>,
+moreover, in addition to the Haweses, the Bowrings, the Brights, the R.
+R. R. (why does not the man write the names out in full, as Raving,
+Roaring, Rory) O'Moores, there is, however, already a "split;" the
+members are each and all at sixes and sevens, for as each has his own
+sovereign conceit, so each would rule sovereign over the rest, and bear
+no rival near the throne. All would be kings, but not in turn. That
+powerful and sarcastic writer, Paul Louis Courier, depicts the same
+regiphobia as raging among the Parisian <i>Charlatanerie</i> of his day; and
+with an anxious care for his own reputation and respectability, thus
+purges himself from contact or connexion with it:&mdash;"<i>Ce qui me distingue
+de mes contemporains et fait de moi un homme rare dans le si&egrave;cle o&ugrave; nous
+vivons, c'est que je ne veux pas &ecirc;tre roi, et que j'&eacute;vite soigneusement
+tout ce qui pourrait me mener l&agrave;.</i>" Chadwick and Cobden are agreed upon
+pauperizing the whole kingdom; but the former insists upon keeping the
+paupers in bastiles, whilst the latter requires them in cotton
+manufactories; both are agreed upon the propriety of reducing the
+labouring classes to diet less of quantity and coarser of quality, by
+which the rates of wages are, and are to be, ground down: but Chadwick
+naturally insists, that to new poor-laws the post of honour should be
+assigned in the work of desolation; whilst Cobden, though acknowledging
+their efficient co-operation as a means to an end, and their priority as
+first in the field, fiercely contends for the greater aristocratical
+pretensions and more thoroughgoing operation of corn-law abolition. The
+Wakefield "self-supporting" colonial specific comes into collision,
+moreover, with Cobden's "perish all colonies." Kay Shuttleworth vaunts
+the superiority above all of his analytical schemes for training little
+children at Norwood to construe, for after age,&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"The days that we went gipsying a long time ago;"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>whilst Hullah simpers forth, in softest accents of Cockaigne, the
+superlative claim of choral shows in Exeter Hall&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"That roar again, it had a dying fall.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oh! it came o'er my ear like the rude north,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That bursts upon a bank of violets."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Bowring and Hume did, certes, pull together once in the matter of Greek
+scrip; but, <i>Arcades ambo</i> no longer, the worthy doctor turned
+anti-slavery monger, whilst Joseph, more honest in the main, cares not
+two straws whether his sugar be slave-grown or free, excepting as to the
+greater cheapness of the one or the other. So also with Hawes, never yet
+pardoned by the financiering economist of "cheese parings and candle
+ends" for the splendid Thames tunnel job, and &pound;200,000 of the public
+money at one fell swoop. These people range under the generic head
+<i>Charlatanerie</i>, as of the distinct species classified as <i>farceurs</i>
+according to the French nomenclature. For other species, and diversities
+of species, of a lower scale, but of capacity to ascend into the higher
+order with time and opportunity, the daily papers may be usefully
+consulted under the headings devoted to the "pill" specific
+line&mdash;<i>pildoras para en contrar perros</i>, as the Spanish <i>saynete</i> has
+it.</p>
+
+<p>Happily the country need never despair<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> of salvation, even should the
+cabinet prospective of <i>farceurs</i> fall to pieces, for there yet remain
+two species of a genus taking higher rank in the social system; species
+that really have a root, a name, and pretensions hereditary or
+legitimately acquired. These each affect philosophy, and represent it
+too; they of the caste hereditary in <i>grande tenue,</i> they of the new men
+with much pompous parade of words, and all the Delphic mystics of the
+schools. They are none of your journeymen&mdash;your everyday spouters&mdash;in
+the Commons or common places. They exhibit only on state occasions,
+after solemn midnight preparation made; their intended movements are
+duly heralded beforehand; their approach announced with a flourish of
+trumpets. They carry on a vast wordy traffic in "great principles;" they
+condescend upon nothing less than the overthrow or manufacture of
+"constitutions"&mdash;in talk. The big swagger about "great principles"
+eventuates, however, in denouncing by speech from the throne repeal as
+high treason, and O'Connell the repealer as a traitor to the state; and
+next, with cap in hand, and most mendicant meanness, supplicating the
+said traitor&mdash;denounced&mdash;repealing O'Connell, to deign acceptance of one
+of the highest offices in the realm. Their practice in the
+"constitution" line consists in annihilating rotten borough A because it
+is Tory; in conserving rotten borough B because it is Whig. The grand
+characteristic of each species is&mdash;<i>vox et preterea nihil.</i> Need I
+further proclaim them and their titles? In the order of Parisian
+organization they stand as <i>faiseurs</i> and <i>phraseurs.</i> You can make no
+mistake about the personality ranged under each banner; they are as
+perfectly distinguishable each from the other, though even knit in close
+and indissoluble alliance, as Grand Crosses of the Bath from Knights of
+the Garter. At the head of the <i>faiseurs</i> you have Lord John Russell,
+Lord Viscount Palmerston, and Lord Viscount Howick. You have only to see
+them rise in the House of Commons&mdash;Lord John, to wit&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Pride in his port, defiance in his eye"&mdash;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>to be led into the belief that</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&mdash;"Now is the day<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Big with the fate of Cato and of Rome."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The physical swell of conscious consequence&mdash;the eye-distended "wide
+awake" insinuation of the inconceivable, unutterable things&mdash;the grand
+sentiments about to be outpoured&mdash;hold you in silent wonderment and
+expectation. You conceive nothing less, than either that the world is
+about to come to an end, or the <i>millennium</i> declared to be the "order
+of the day." You imagine that the orator will lose self and party in his
+country. Nothing of all this follows, however. You have some
+common-places, perhaps common truisms, some undefined,
+mean-all-or-nothing, declamation about "constitution" and "principles,"
+by way of exordium; for the rest, Rome is sunk as if it existed not,
+down to the peroration it is all about Cato himself, and his little Whig
+party about him.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&mdash;"Parturiunt montes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nascitur ridiculus mus."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Chief of the <i>phraseurs</i> stand Mr Babington Macaulay and Mr Lalor Shiel,
+the peculiarity of whose craft&mdash;a profitable craft of late
+years&mdash;consists in furbishing up old ideas into new and euphonious forms
+of speech. Of the one it may be said, that</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&mdash;"He could not ope<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His mouth, but out there flew a trope."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The other more finished leader of the class mystifies you with
+metaphysics, half conned and unmastered by himself&mdash;more anxious still
+to make his points than to please his party; and, of the two, would
+rather sink his country than his climax. He is a rhetorician, a dealer
+in set phraseology, an ingenious gatherer and polisher of "other men's
+stuff." Of the <i>faiseurs,</i> may be repeated what Marshal Marmont, in his
+<i>Voyage en Hongrie, en Transylvanie,</i> &amp;c., says of the <i>faiseurs</i> of
+Paris&mdash;"<i>Subjugu&eacute;s par le gout et cette manie d'uniformit&eacute; absolue, qui
+est la maladie de l'&eacute;poque, et qui resulte de principes abstraits, dont
+l'application est presque toujours funeste aux peuples qui l'&eacute;prouvent,
+ils ignoraient combien il est dans la nature des choses et dans le bien
+des nations de modifier l'organization sociale suivant le temps, les
+lieux, suivant le plus on moins grana degr&eacute; de civilization, et d'apr&egrave;s
+mille circonstances, qui ne peuvent &ecirc;tre pr&eacute;vues d'avance, mais que le
+legislateur capable apprecie au moment o&ugrave; il est app&eacute;l&eacute; &agrave; fonder la
+soci&eacute;t&eacute;."</i> On the cession of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> the Illyrian provinces, by Austria, after
+the battle of Wagram, the <i>faiseurs</i>, or abstract principle men, of
+Paris, were prompt with their plans, not for "constitutions"&mdash;Bonaparte
+had put an end to that branch of their <i>m&eacute;tier</i>&mdash;but for reorganizing
+the laws, administration, &amp;c., of Transylvania <i>de fond en comble</i>,
+without knowing any thing of the people or country, without having seen
+either the one or the other. Marmont, appointed governor of the ceded
+provinces, who had studied on the spot the institutions established by
+Austria, found these so perfect and well adapted to the genius and
+inclination of the population, and the purposes of government, that he
+opposed the <i>faiseurs</i> with success, and, by his representations,
+induced Bonaparte to confirm and act upon what existed.</p>
+
+<p>This immense agglomeration, this monstrous over-production of the tribes
+of <i>farceurs</i>, <i>faiseurs</i>, and <i>phraseurs</i> is a misfortune of the first
+magnitude&mdash;a pest worse than that of the locusts which lay waste the
+land of Egypt, as here the substance of the people is devoured.
+Conflagrations may, and do, occasionally diminish the number of
+cotton-mills, and lighten the warehoused accumulation of cottons, or
+other inert matter; but no lucky plague, pestilence, or cholera, comes
+to thin the crowded phalanx, and rid this empire of some portion of the
+interminable brood of mongers of all shapes and sizes. As Horace says&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"'Tis hard, but patience must endure<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And bear the woes it cannot cure."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>And now, leaving this discursive preliminary sketch, the length of which
+was unpremeditated, of the leading influences which are fast hurrying to
+social disorganization, it is time that once more we stand face to face
+with the one disorganizing doctrine of <i>one-sided free trade</i>; with the
+banner on which the <i>phraseurs</i> and <i>farceurs</i> have inscribed the
+cabalistic devices, in flaming characters&mdash;"Leave the imports alone, the
+exports will take care of themselves;" and, "A fixed duty is a fixed
+injustice." One might be tempted to believe the first borrowed from the
+armorial bearings of Lord Huntingtower's "bill" friends, whose motto is,
+or should be&mdash;"Leave the fools alone, and the knaves will take care of
+themselves;" the second is clearly no better than a petty-larceny
+paraphrase of Newgate felony, in whose code of duties it stands decreed,
+from all time, that "a fixed law is a fixed despotism."</p>
+
+<p>The history of industry and commerce in every country, from the most
+ancient down to modern times, gives the lie to these pertly pretending
+truisms; for there is scarcely one branch of manufacture to be named
+which does not owe its rise, progress, and perfection, to the protective
+or financial, or both combined, control exercised over imports. If we
+look at home only, where, we ask, would the woollen manufacture be now,
+but for the early laws restrictive of the importation of foreign
+woollens, nay more, restrictive of the export of British fleeces with
+which the manufactories of Belgium were alimented? Where the cotton
+trade, even with all Arkwright and Crompton's inventions of mule and
+throstle frames, and the steam-engine wonders of Watt, but for the
+importation tax of 87 per cent with which the cotton manufactures of
+India were weighted and finally crushed? Where the British iron mines
+and the iron trade, now so pre-eminent over all the world, but for the
+heavy import duties with which the iron of Swedish, Russian, or other
+foreign origin was loaded? And so also, may it be asked, in respect to
+almost all industry and production. If, as contended, the woollen,
+cotton, and iron industries would not only have been created, but much
+more largely have flourished, without the aids and appliances of
+friendly tariffs, the one-sided free traders are, at least, bound to
+something more potential than mere assertion and idle declamation in
+support of the vague allegation. They have the evidence of facts patent
+and abundant to confront and gainsay them; they shall have more; but is
+there to be no reciprocation of facts counter? Is the evidence and the
+argument to remain all on one side, and on the other nothing but wordy
+nothingness&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i6">"Dat inania verba,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dat sine mente sonum."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Where are the unknown lands of factories and furnaces, of puddling and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span>
+power looms, of steam-engines and blowing machines, all self-created and
+"self-supporting," scorning the crutches of patronage, and high-mounted
+on the stilts of free, or one-sided free trade? Either they exist in the
+shape of matter tangible and substantial; or they exist not except as
+<i>chateaux en Espagne</i> are dreamt of, or as bubbles blown and chased by
+idle urchins&mdash;modern philosophers in petticoats. This bubble-blowing has
+been, indeed, converted into something of a mine of industry of late
+years, most successfully <i>exploit&eacute;</i> by all the <i>chevaliers d'industrie</i>
+of the race of <i>farceurs</i> before referred to. Let us not forget,
+however, that one of the most indefatigable of the class, after various
+and many voyages by sea, and travels by land, in quest of the
+picturesque in political economy, did, indeed&mdash;or says so, and has
+compiled a book to prove it&mdash;light on this long-sought, never-before
+discovered land, in whose Arcadian bowers sits enthroned the very genius
+of trade, free and unfettered as the eagle in his eyry on the crowning
+crest of St Gotthard. Would you know this thrice-blest region&mdash;"Go climb
+the Alps," as the Roman satirist bids&mdash;it is Switzerland snugly
+ensconced in their bosom.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, before the title of Switzerland Felix be fully conceded,
+the legitimacy of its derivation remains to be investigated. The
+concession can only be registered upon three conditions fulfilled. It
+must be shown, <i>firstly</i>, that manufacturing industry was not fostered
+in its early stages by the governing power; <i>secondly</i>, that if it had
+attained a large development unprotected, the proportions of such
+development shall have been at the least equal, as upon the theory of
+free trade they should be superior, to the ratio of progression
+manifested in other countries where protection has been the ruling
+principle; <i>thirdly</i>, that free trade was not a necessity imposed by
+circumstances and position, not the result of a barter of value for
+value, but of free and spontaneous choice, and as the result of the
+profound conviction of the superior excellency and adaptability of the
+abstract principle. We shall deal briefly with the subject, because it
+has been discussed more at length heretofore in those special articles
+in which we have treated of the rise and progress of the cotton
+manufacture in this and other countries. In regard to the first
+condition, it was established on a former occasion, that the ruling
+powers of one or more of the Cantons, did advance large capitals, and
+offered more, in order to encourage and assist in the establishment of
+cotton-spinning mills, with machinery of the most perfect construction,
+under the superintendence, and with a share in the profits, of persons
+duly skilled from England. Happily, one of the individuals to whom such
+offers (on the basis of a &pound;100,000 capital) were made, and by whom
+declined, then and subsequently one of the largest exporting merchants
+of Lancashire to Switzerland, and the Continent generally, still lives,
+and we have had the statement confirmed by himself within the last two
+or three years. This was somewhere between 1795 and 1800, further our
+memory does not serve for the precise date at present, nor is it
+indispensable. A manufacture thus, as may be said, artificially created
+and bolstered up, we do not say unwisely, does not assuredly answer the
+first condition required. With respect to the measure of the
+manufacturing development, the data are unfortunately wanting for
+precise verification; for Switzerland possesses no returns of foreign
+trade at all, nor can any satisfactory approximation be arrived at from
+inspection of the official tables of the foreign and transit commerce
+now before us of Holland, Belgium, and France, through which all the
+transmarine intercourse of Switzerland must necessarily pass. The
+exports and imports of Holland, by the Rhine, are not so classed as to
+show what proportion appertains to Germany and what to Switzerland, as
+both stand under the one head of Germany and the Rhine. In the Belgian
+tables, Switzerland does not enter at all until 1841, therefore they can
+afford no materials for the comparison with former years. From the
+French tables, more scientifically constructed, correct information may
+be gathered, so far as the commerce with and through France. But we are
+wanting nearly altogether in materials for estimating the land traffic
+of Switzerland with Germany and Italy. Taking the French tables alone,
+it may be collected, however, that the commerce of Switzerland has been
+considerably<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> on the increase with and through France. In the cotton
+trade, for example, the imports of raw cotton in transit through Havre,
+for Switzerland, had already augmented from 2,973,159 kilogrammes in
+1830, to 6,446,703 kilogrammes in 1836; and again, from the latter term,
+to 104,842 metrical quintals in 1840, which declined to 77,534 in 1841.
+Our returns do not enable us to state with exactitude whether the whole,
+or what portion, of the transit of cotton for the two latter years was
+destined for Switzerland, because our French tables do not, as up to
+1836, embrace the details of the separate transit trade to each country,
+but only the total quantities. The increase of imports by way of France
+must not, however, be taken to all the extent as an absolute increase,
+nor can we conclude, with any assurance, that it was an increase upon
+the whole. For, in consequence of some important reductions in the dues
+agreed to by France in order to favour and attract the entire transit
+trade of Switzerland through its territory, the cottons formerly passed
+to Switzerland through Rotterdam and Antwerp by the Rhine, have been
+sent by way of Havre. Thus, on consulting Mr Porter's Tables of Trade,
+we find that the twenty-one millions of lbs. of cotton re-exported to
+Holland and Belgium in 1837, had decreased, in 1840, to little more than
+twelve millions. What proportion of the twenty-one millions was destined
+for Switzerland, there are no means of ascertaining, except from the
+returns in detail of the Rhine navigation, the existence of which, in
+any available shape, may be doubted. Assuming that the whole of the
+cotton passing in transit through France was for Switzerland, we find a
+quantity equal to about seventeen millions of pounds, in 1841, as
+required for the supply of the cotton manufacture; or say, on a rough
+average of 1840 and 1841, nineteen and a half millions of pounds. Now,
+considering that the cotton manufacture has been established in
+Switzerland above a century, these figures certainly demonstrate any
+thing but an extraordinary rate of progress. The cotton manufacture of
+Russia does not number half the years of existence, and yet the average
+consumption of raw cotton, in 1840 and 1841, was nearly thirteen
+millions of pounds, and of cotton yarn, rendered into cotton,<a name="FNanchor_J_10" id="FNanchor_J_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_J_10" class="fnanchor">[J]</a> about
+twenty-three millions more. It must be noted, moreover, that whereas
+subsequently to the inventions of Arkwright and Crompton, Switzerland
+drew nearly the whole of her yarns for making into cloths from England,
+not possessing herself any spinning machinery until the commencement of
+the present century, and then but to a trivial extent, with scarcely any
+augmentation of importance, until some years after the general peace of
+1815; yet that, within the last twenty years, the use of machinery has
+been extensively introduced, cotton factories have spread on all sides,
+for working which water-power in abundance afforded every facility, so
+that she now spins nearly all the yarns necessary for her fabrics, and
+imports from England but a very slender quantity of the higher counts
+still required for her finest muslins. Those imports do not perhaps
+exceed, if they reach to, one million pounds per annum. Of many
+merchants in Manchester, thirty or forty years ago, extensively engaged
+in furnishing that supply, but one or two at present are to be found. It
+remains, therefore, doubtful whether there has been any material
+progress in the cotton manufactures of Switzerland, so far as the
+quantities of fabrics produced, and the weight of cotton consumed, for
+many years past. Through the commercial arrangements before referred to,
+her special trade with France in all commodities has been on the
+increase; but, as the usual result of the commercial treaties of France,
+all to the advantage of France. Thus, for 1841, the imports (special
+trade of internal consumption) of France from Switzerland are stated at
+twenty-two millions of francs only, whilst the exports of France to
+Switzerland amounted to thirty-nine millions. This, be it observed, is
+the result of <i>one-sided free trade</i>, which opens its gates to all,
+whilst partially favoured only in return, when at all.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> Switzerland, for
+example, is free to the import of French cottons; France hermetically
+sealed against those of Switzerland. The general trade, that is,
+inclusive of transit and special, had also materially improved; the
+aggregate imports representing eighty-three millions of imports into,
+against eighty-nine millions of exports from Switzerland; or that the
+general trade with France had rather more than doubled since 1832,
+imports and exports together. The transit portion of this general trade,
+representing all the transmarine movement of Switzerland, is that
+rather, it may be said, carried on with the United States Spanish
+America, Brazil, &amp;c., in which the greatest improvement of her foreign
+trade had taken place. She has, on the contrary, very largely lost
+ground in Germany, where she enjoyed marts for her manufactures, before
+the establishment of the Commercial Union, of an extensive and
+profitable description, from the advantages of her geographical
+position; and it is probable, that from the same cause she will have
+lost no inconsiderable portion of the share her merchants had in the
+supply of Turkey, Persia, and other countries on the shores of the
+Mediterranean and the Black Sea. With Holland and Belgium, her
+commercial relations would seem to have been sensibly on the decline, so
+far as the returns, available and comparative, enable us to form an
+opinion. Upon a balance, therefore, of increase, upon one side, and
+decrease on the other, there is reasonable ground to question any
+progress in Switzerland, at all commensurate with the general
+accelerated movement in manufactures and commerce of other industrial
+countries about her, and beyond the seas; in exemplification of which,
+we have on other occasions presented, as we shall continue to present,
+evidence which may not be questioned.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore, it results, that the second condition in proof of the
+superiority of the free, or one-sided free trade principle, as
+represented in Switzerland, the embodied <i>beau id&eacute;al</i> of the theory, is
+not fulfilled. It were easy, indeed, to show the absurdity of a
+pretension to the rigorous reign of a principle, in a country where,
+though the federal government levies are merely nominal duties on
+imported commodities, for other than which it is and must ever be
+powerless, whatever the will, yet in the separate cantons or chief towns
+with barriers, scarcely any article enters and escapes without payment
+of an octroi impost, equal to a moderate state duty on importation at
+the ports or frontiers of other states. What would be said in this
+country, if wool, cotton, or any commodity entering free, or at merely
+nominal rates, at London or Liverpool, were to be taxed on arrival at
+Leeds or Manchester, for purposes of local revenue or local protection?</p>
+
+<p>We may afford to dismiss the third condition in the smallest space. Free
+trade in Switzerland, such as it is, is not an affair of principle, of
+conviction, therefore of choice, as ridiculously pretended, but a
+necessity arising out of her geographical position. On all sides she is
+surrounded <i>enclav&eacute;e</i>, amidst states which hold the gates of ingress and
+egress. Close the Rhine and the Seine against her, and she must
+surrender commercially at discretion, as she politically does, to such
+terms as may be dictated. A heavy <i>p&eacute;age</i> upon river or land transit,
+ruins her manufactories, her industry, root and branch. She is too happy
+only, therefore, to be tolerated with a passage to the sea, on the hard
+terms of surrendering the just rights of her own industry to the free
+invasion of foreign competing products; she makes, <i>ex necessitate</i>, the
+sacrifice of a large portion, in order to save the remainder. Would you
+have the commentary? Read it in the miserable fare, the low wages, the
+toil unremitting and uncompensated, of the operative masses; in the
+depressed rate of profits, the strict, painful, but indispensable
+frugality of master manufacturers and capitalists, when perchance
+capitalists may be found, of Switzerland surnamed Felix, over-borne by
+foreign competition, as depicted in the Report of that romance writer,
+Mr John Bowring himself, who, of all men, in his own particular case,
+would be the last to advocate short commons, shabby salaries, or petty
+profits. Switzerland, therefore, answers none of the conditions required
+for the demonstration of the free trade theory upon the greatest profit,
+or even upon the greatest happiness principle, the <i>verba ardentia</i> of
+anti-corn-law declaimers, and utilitarian poetasters, notwithstanding.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span>
+But if the case of the free and one-sided trade theory breaks down in
+its one only deceptive personification, the proofs are strong and
+abundant in behalf the cause of the legitimate principle of protection
+to industry, or of the reciprocity principle well understood, which
+involves essentially the principle of protection. Let us discursively
+range over Europe, in further addition to the evidence, which, in
+respect of Russia, has already been assigned; and, as with regard to
+Spain, and Russia as well, we shall not hesitate to signalize the abuse
+of a righteous principle, where in practice it degenerates into the
+Japanese barbarism of almost absolute prohibition and isolation. A
+comparison betwixt Switzerland and Japan, two nearly stationary states,
+where all around is in progress in the industrial sense, ruled upon
+economical principles so opposite and conflicting, would be a labour
+both amusing and profitable; but unfortunately the adequate materials
+are wanting in the one case as in the other; state-books of account and
+custom-house returns, are as rare and unheard of in Nangasaki as in
+Helvetia. Fiscal exactions, however, are not unknown in either, the
+difference being, that the despotic majesty of Japan undertakes them
+upon his own account, whilst the people of the Alps, as intractable,
+with better right, impose and levy for their own use and behoof. Withal,
+to the one-idea'd philosophy of your absolute theory, systematic,
+uniformity men of the present day, it should seem an extraordinary
+paradox, putting all speculation to rout, that despotic Japan should be
+as prosperous, more powerful, more free from intestine convulsion,
+although more ancient of standing, therefore to be presumed enjoying at
+least as much happiness as free and unfettered Switzerland, rioting
+betimes in all the freaks of liberty and revolution.</p>
+
+<p>We do not propose to extend our enquiries into the history of industrial
+progress in other lands further on the present occasion, than to such
+external demonstrations, as measured by imports and exports, as may with
+most convenient brevity and fidelity answer the purpose in view. The
+possession of authentic documents in ample degree, expository of the
+past and present conditions of social and material interests in almost
+all the civilized states of the world, would enable us to follow out, in
+minute detail, the rise, the career, the vicissitudes of each; but
+although, on future and suitable occasions, we may be induced to resume
+and pursue the task already commenced in former numbers, it is not
+necessary now, and would far outstrip any possible space at our
+disposal. Commencing with Austria, it may be shown, that even with an
+ill-considered economical <i>r&eacute;gime</i> of, until of late years, general
+prohibitions and restrictions, with the incessant and ill-judged policy
+of forcing manufacturing industry, for the hasty development of which
+the natural foundations were not previously laid, whilst neglecting the
+cultivation and encouragement of those varied agricultural and mining
+treasures, with which, through the length and breadth of her territory,
+she is so abundantly stored, the advance of Austria, commercial and
+manufacturing, need not assuredly fear comparison with that of
+free-trading Switzerland. The following are the returns of the foreign
+trade of the Austrian empire, excepting for Hungary and Transylvania,
+which will be found hereafter for the years cited. Other documents are
+in our possession, bringing the information down to 1840, but as not
+entirely complete in respect of a portion of the traffic by the land
+frontiers, whilst in results they differ little from the last year of
+the table here given, it is not worth while to make the addition.</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="10" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'></td><td colspan="3">Imports.</td><td align='left'>Exports.</td><td align='left'>Total.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1829</td><td align='center'>By sea &amp; land</td><td align='left'>95,321,861</td><td align='center'>florins.</td><td align='left'>107,254,048</td><td align='left'>202,575,909</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1830</td><td align='center'>...</td><td align='left'>99,545,289</td><td align='center'>...</td><td align='left'>110,587,974</td><td align='left'>210,133 263</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1831</td><td align='center'>...</td><td align='left'>94,116,471</td><td align='center'>...</td><td align='left'>98,937,022</td><td align='left'>193,053,493</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1832</td><td align='center'>...</td><td align='left'>107,825,991</td><td align='center'>...</td><td align='left'>115,007,352</td><td align='left'>222,833,343</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1833</td><td align='center'>...</td><td align='left'>106,270,012</td><td align='center'>...</td><td align='left'>116,624,202</td><td align='left'>222,894,214</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1834</td><td align='center'>...</td><td align='left'>107,781,409</td><td align='center'>...</td><td align='left'>111,092,942</td><td align='left'>218,874,351</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1835</td><td align='center'>...</td><td align='left'>121,482,876</td><td align='center'>...</td><td align='left'>115,217,804</td><td align='left'>236,700,680</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1836</td><td align='center'>...</td><td align='left'>130,865,339</td><td align='center'>...</td><td align='left'>122,284,173</td><td align='left'>253,149,512</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1837</td><td align='center'>...</td><td align='left'>120,897,761</td><td align='center'>...</td><td align='left'>119,721,758</td><td align='left'>240,619,519</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1838</td><td align='center'>...</td><td align='left'>127,445,295</td><td align='center'>...</td><td align='left'>134,908,064</td><td align='left'>262,353,359</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The florin is equal to 2s. 0d. 4-10 sterling. The increase under the
+head of importations within the ten years was equal, therefore, to
+nearly 33 per cent, and on exportations about 24 per cent. Amongst the
+imports may be remarked raw cotton to the value of about L.1,273,000;
+among the exports, raw silk, for about L.2,400,000; linens, for about
+L.770,000; woollens, for L.2,268,000; glass and earthen-ware, L.584,000;
+round numbers all. A mean value, imports and exports together, from 1835
+to 1838 inclusive, of about twenty-five millions sterling annually, does
+not certainly represent a commercial movement so large as might be
+expected in an empire of the territorial extent, numerous population,
+and rich natural products of Austria. But, as appears, its progression
+is onwards; and seeing that, in 1836, she entered on the laudable
+undertaking of revising and reforming her prohibitory and restrictive
+system; that, in 1838, another not inconsiderable step in advance was
+taken by further relaxations of the tariff; and that she is at the
+present moment occupied with, and may shortly announce, fiscal
+improvements and tariff reductions of a more wisely liberal spirit
+still, it is not to be doubted that, with the accompanying extension of
+agricultural and mining industry, Austria is destined to take a much
+higher rank in the commercial world than she has yet attained.</p>
+
+<p>The values of the external relations of Hungary and Transylvania with
+foreign nations direct, are of little importance. The bulk of the
+traffic with them doubtless passes through the Austrian dominions,
+properly so called. Thus their joint foreign traffic direct, was in&mdash;</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>1830,</td><td align='center'>no more than</td><td align='left'>14,000,000</td><td align='center'>florins</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1834,</td><td align='center'>decreased to</td><td align='left'>11,511,000</td><td align='center'>...</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1837,</td><td align='center'>...</td><td align='left'>12,616,000</td><td align='center'>...</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>The imports, only once, in 1836, surpassed those of 1830, within the
+eight years. The foreign exports were, in</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>1830, to the amount of</td><td align='center'>...</td><td align='left'>9,574,800</td><td align='left'>florins.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1837, the yearly amount</td><td align='left'>had increased to</td><td align='left'>11,213,400</td><td align='center'>...</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<p>But the commercial relations of Hungary and Transylvania, with the other
+provinces of the Austrian monarchy, were, on the contrary,
+satisfactorily extending. The returns before us, never before published
+here, it is believed, do not date further back than 1835, and exhibit
+the following results:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'></td><td align='left'></td><td align='left'>Florins.</td><td align='left'></td><td align='left'>Florins.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1835,</td><td align='left'>Imports from Austria,</td><td align='left'>79,678,051</td><td align='left'>Exports to,</td><td align='left'>46,408,290</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1836,</td><td align='center'>...</td><td align='left'>96,057,019</td><td align='center'>...</td><td align='left'>53,876,115</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1837,</td><td align='center'>...</td><td align='left'>90,404,555</td><td align='center'>...</td><td align='left'>47,878,424</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1838,</td><td align='center'>...</td><td align='left'>101,396,470</td><td align='center'>...</td><td align='left'>61,684,111</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<p>The value of manufactured cottons alone, imported from the other
+Austrian provinces, amounted, in 1838, to the almost incredible sum of
+sixty-four millions of florins, or say not far short of six and a half
+millions sterling; of woollens, the import was nearly to the value of
+eighteen millions of florins. It is difficult to conceive that such a
+mass of cottons could be destined for internal consumption alone; and
+therefore the suggestion naturally occurs, that a considerable portion
+at least must pass only in transit to the ports for re-exportation to
+the coasts of the Black Sea and the Levant; but on reference to the
+exports, we find cottons entered only for 31,296 florins. The
+proportions in which the different leading articles of importation and
+exportation enter into the total amounts of each may be thus stated:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td colspan="3">Imports</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Cottons for</td><td align='left'>62</td><td align='left'>per cent.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Woollens,</td><td align='left'>17</td><td align='center'>...</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Linen and hempen fabrics,</td><td align='left'>4&ordm;7</td><td align='center'>...</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Silks,</td><td align='left'>1&ordm;7</td><td align='center'>...</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3">Exports</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Wool for</td><td align='left'>45.6</td><td align='left'>per cent.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Grains and fruits,</td><td align='left'>19</td><td align='center'>...</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Cattle,</td><td align='left'>12</td><td align='center'>...</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Various raw products,</td><td align='left'>5&ordm;7</td><td align='center'>...</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The great bulk of this commerce with Hungary and Transylvania is carried
+on with the three great provinces of the empire&mdash;Lower Austria, which
+alone absorbs about two-thirds of the total; Moravia and Austrian
+Silesia, one-fourth; and Gallicia and Austrian Poland, the imports from
+whence represent above one-tenth, and the exports to which form
+one-twentieth of the whole.</p>
+
+<p>Such has been the progress of the Austrian empire even under the
+unwisely strained <i>r&eacute;gime</i> of prohibition and restriction. The absolute
+theory men will not gain much certainly by its comparison with the free
+trading elysium of Switzerland, although the most favourable for the
+latter which could well be selected, inasmuch as representing a
+principle carried to a prejudicial extreme.</p>
+
+<p>We have not, however, done with our absolutists of the one-sided
+free-trade theory yet. We must traverse Belgium with them, but at
+railway speed; Belgium, of commercial system less restricted than
+Austria, yet more exclusive than England, where, however, some approach
+towards the <i>juste milieu</i> of the equitable principles of reciprocity,
+may be observed in progress. How then has she fared in the general
+<i>m&ecirc;l&eacute;e</i> of industrial strife, and what are her prospects for the future
+in despite of her stubborn resistance to the new lights? Let the figures
+which follow answer for her. The imports and exports by land and sea,
+were in&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'></td><td align='left'></td><td align='left'>Imports.</td><td align='left'></td><td align='left'>Exports.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1834,</td><td align='left'>for</td><td align='left'>192,909,426</td><td align='left'>francs.</td><td align='left'>135,790,426</td><td align='left'>francs.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1838,</td><td align='left'>...</td><td align='left'>238,052,659</td><td align='center'>...</td><td align='left'>193,579,520</td><td align='center'>...</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1842,</td><td align='left'>...</td><td align='left'>288,387,663</td><td align='center'>...</td><td align='left'>201,970,588</td><td align='center'>...</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<p>For commerce special, that is, of internal production and consumption
+alone, the returns show, in&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'></td><td align='left'></td><td align='left'>Imports.</td><td align='left'></td><td align='left'>Exports.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1834,</td><td align='left'>for</td><td align='left'>182,057,851</td><td align='left'>francs.</td><td align='left'>118,540,917</td><td align='left'>francs.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1838,</td><td align='left'> ...</td><td align='left'>201,204,381</td><td align='center'>...</td><td align='left'>156,851,054</td><td align='center'>...</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1842,</td><td align='left'> ...</td><td align='left'>234,247,281</td><td align='center'>...</td><td align='left'>142,069,162</td><td align='center'>...</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>The commerce general comprises as well the imports and exports of the
+special commerce as the transit and deliveries in entrepot of foreign
+merchandise. From 1834 to 1842 the increase of imports and exports,
+combined under the special head, was equal to more than three millions
+sterling. Under the general head, the increase was nearly equal to six
+and a half millions sterling. The comparatively large and
+disadvantageous inequality betwixt the exports and imports, under both
+heads, results mainly from the loss of those markets in the Dutch
+colonies, and in Holland also, of which, during her connexion with
+Holland and under the rule of the same sovereign, Belgium was almost
+exclusively in possession. The formation of the German Commercial Union
+cannot have failed also to damage her intercourse with Germany, to the
+markets of which her contiguity afforded so easy and advantageous an
+access.</p>
+
+<p>It was our intention to have reviewed at some length the progress of the
+German Customs Confederation since its complete formation, with some
+inconsiderable accessions subsequently in 1834; but space forbids. In
+brief, but conclusive, evidence of that progress under the rule of
+protection, we may afford, however, to cite the following returns of
+revenue accruing under the poundage system, representing, of course, the
+growing quantities imported. The alternate years only are given, to
+avoid the needless multiplication of figures:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'></td><td align='left'>Gross sum.</td><td align='left'></td><td align='left'>Net sum.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1834,</td><td align='left'>14,382,066</td><td align='left'>Thalers.</td><td align='left'>12,020,340</td><td align='left'>Thalers.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1836,</td><td align='left'>18,192,313</td><td align='center'>...</td><td align='left'>15,509,758</td><td align='center'>...</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1838,</td><td align='left'>20,110,404</td><td align='center'>...</td><td align='left'>17,801,113</td><td align='center'>...</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1840,</td><td align='left'>21,293,232</td><td align='center'>...</td><td align='left'>19,019,738</td><td align='center'>...</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1842,</td><td align='left'>23,394,831</td><td align='center'>...</td><td align='left'>21,059,441</td><td align='center'>...</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>The Prussian thaler is 2s. 10-3/4d. sterling.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Year by year the rise has been uninterrupted; and with the growth of
+imported commodities thus represented by the revenue, have indigenous
+products multiplied, and native manufactures flourished and extended
+more rapidly and widely still.</p>
+
+<p>In a review of protected nations it is impossible that France should be
+lost sight of. More rigorously protective than Belgium, prohibitive even
+in some essential parts of her system, whilst stimulating by bounties in
+others, the results of a policy so artificial and complicated can hardly
+fail to confound your dabblers in first principles and rigid uniformity.
+In the sense economical France has not hesitated to violate outrageously
+all these first principles, all that perfect theory, in the worship and
+application of which, politically and socially, her philosophers were
+wont to run raging mad, and her legislators, like frantic bacchanals,
+were in such sanguinary "haste to destroy." Singular as it may seem, and
+audaciously heretical as the consummation in defiance of the order
+inevitable of first causes and consequences invariable, the comparative
+freedom of commercial principles in the old <i>r&eacute;gime</i> of France allied
+with political despotism, was, however, ruthlessly condemned to the
+guillotine, along with the head of the Capets, never to be replaced by
+the ferocious spirit of democracy, revelling in the realization of all
+other visionary abstractions of perfect liberty, equality, levelling of
+distinctions and monopolies. With the reign of the rights of man was
+established, in the body politic, that of prohibition and restriction
+over the body industrial&mdash;gradually sobered down, as we find it now, to
+a system singularly made up of prohibition, restriction, protective, and
+stimulant, since the last great revolution of July. It is in vain to
+deny that, under the reign of that system, France has prospered and
+progressed beyond all former example; that whether freer Switzerland may
+have stood still or not, France, at least, has never retrograded one
+step, nor ceased to advance for one year, as thus may be concisely
+exemplified in the citation of three terms of her commercial career,
+faithfully indicative of the annual consecutive movement of the whole
+series:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td colspan="3">Imports.&mdash;General Commerce,</td><td align='left'>Exports.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1831</td><td align='left'>512,825,551</td><td align='left'>francs,</td><td align='left'>618,169,911</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1836</td><td align='left'>905,575,359</td><td align='center'>...</td><td align='left'>961,284,756</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1841</td><td align='left'>1,122,000,000</td><td align='center'>...</td><td align='left'>1,065,000,000</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>Thus the imports in ten years had more than doubled, whilst the exports
+had advanced 400 millions in official value; say upwards of twenty
+millions sterling per annum for imports, and sixteen millions for
+exports. The special commerce of France, representing exports of
+indigenous and manufactured products, and imports for consumption, and,
+therefore, significative of the march of domestic industry, presents the
+following movement:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td colspan="2">Imports.&mdash;Special Commerce.</td><td align='left'>Exports.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1831</td><td align='left'>374,188,000</td><td align='left'>455,574,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1836</td><td align='left'>504,391,000</td><td align='left'>628,957,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1841</td><td align='left'>805,000,000</td><td align='left'>761,000,000</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>The imports, therefore, for consumption, that is, duty paid upon and
+consumed, had multiplied twofold in the ten years; and the exports of
+the products of the soil and manufactures, at the rate of 300 millions
+of francs or twelve millions sterling.</p>
+
+<p>Thus flourish, wherever we turn our eyes, the interests of industry,
+where defended and encouraged by that protection to which so righteously
+entitled at home. The abolition of all protection, in the economical
+sense, would be policy just as sane as, politically, to dismantle the
+royal navy, start the guns overboard, and leave the hulls of the
+men-of-war to sink or swim, in harbour or out, as they might. Conscious
+of the inherent rottenness or insanity of such a destructive principle
+of action, its advocates would now persuade us, that, although inimical
+to protective imposts, they are by no means averse from the imposition
+of such fiscal burdens as might be necessary for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> raising the amount of
+revenue required for State exigencies. The difference between one sort
+of impost and the other, would seem little more than a change of name&mdash;a
+flimsy juggle of words&mdash;"a rose by any other name would smell as sweet;"
+and, to the consumer, it matters little whether the tax he pay is levied
+for protection or finance, the sum being equal. It is, and it has been
+objected against various protective duties, that, as revenue, they are
+little productive; but, in fact, they were not originally or generally
+laid on with a view to revenue direct, but with the intent of protecting
+those growing or established interests, which are productive of revenue
+indirectly, by enabling protected producers to consume largely of taxed
+commodities, or to contribute, by direct taxation, their quota towards
+general revenue. If, by reciprocal agreement and stipulations with
+foreign states which are, or might become, consumers of the products of
+national industry, equitable equivalents can be found for the sacrifice
+of a certain amount of home protection, that may be a question deserving
+of consideration; but a very different question from the one-sided
+suicidal abolition of all protection. It may pass under review
+hereafter. In the mean time, let us hope that neither Government nor
+Legislature will be insidiously betrayed, or openly bullied, into any
+unsafe tampering with, or rash experiments upon, a sound and rational
+principle.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_I_9" id="Footnote_I_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_I_9"><span class="label">[I]</span></a> See <i>Morning Chronicle's</i> report of an anti-corn-law farce
+called by himself at Uxbridge or Aylesbury, or elsewhere, which is not
+important, as the fact is vouched for. In answer to a query from a
+worthy farmer, "to what cause he attributed the present depressed state
+of agriculture?" Cobden unhesitatingly replied, "to over-production."
+Cross-questioning of this kind would speedily prove the emptiness and
+ignorance of the man.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_J_10" id="Footnote_J_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_J_10"><span class="label">[J]</span></a> <i>Vide</i> Blackwood, 1843.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="JOLLY_FATHER_JOE" id="JOLLY_FATHER_JOE"></a>JOLLY FATHER JOE</h2>
+
+<h3>A TALE FROM "THE GOLDEN LEGEND," IN HONOUR OF THE B.V.M., TO BE READ
+ESPECIALLY ON THE 15TH OF AUGUST, BEING THE FESTIVAL OF HER ASSUMPTION.</h3>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">In olden times, when monks and friars, and priests of all degrees,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">About the land were cluster'd thick as swarms of summer bees,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And, like the bees on sunny days, were wont abroad to roam,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To gather, as they went along, sweet provender for home,<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Bright blazed the abbey's kitchen fire, the larder well was stored,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And merrily the beards wagg'd round the refectorial board.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What layman dare declare that they led not a life divine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who sat in state to dine off plate, and quaff the rosy wine?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Good men, and true as bricks were they, to every Church decree;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Because as kings were called "The State,"<a name="FNanchor_K_11" id="FNanchor_K_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_K_11" class="fnanchor">[K]</a> they said "the Church are we;"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And then all men believed "The Church" could pardon every sin;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And foul as was the outward stain, wash white the soul within.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">No marvel that they prosper'd so, for then, as in our times,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sins ever were most plentiful&mdash;their traffic was in crimes;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And as each man who pardon sought, became the Church's debtor,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Each wicked deed their store would feed, the worse it was the better.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+
+<span class="i0">For they'd a regular tariff, as we've Sir Robert Peel's,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Stating so much for him who "lies, swears, murders, stabs, or steals;"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And p'rhaps a thousand items more, as "not attending mass,"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Ogling the girls," "neglecting shrift," and others we'll let pass.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">However, all a duty paid for priestly absolution,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">According to the culprit's sex, rank, purse, or constitution.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Such was the pleasant state of things, some centuries ago,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With holy men throughout the land and jolly Father Joe.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"A round, fat, oily man of God," as ever sang a psalm,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or closed a penitential fee devoutly in his palm,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was Father Joe; and he also, when psalms and prayers were done,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In festive scene, with smile serene, aye cheerfully made one.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Fond of a jest, he'd do his best good-humour to provoke,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fill up his glass, extol some lass, and crack some convent joke;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor heed the frown or looks cast down of atrabilious friars,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till his gills grew red, and his laughing head look'd a rose amid the briers.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Right well he knew each roast and stew, and chose the choicest dishes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the bill of fare, as well as prayer, with its venison, game, and fishes;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Were he living now he might, I vow, with his culinary knowledge,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Have writ a book, or been a cook, or fellow of a college.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">In those old days the wealthy knew such qualities to prize,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And our good priest much favour found in lords' and ladies' eyes;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For seldom in their ancient halls a sumptuous feast was dressing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But Father Joe that way would go thereon to "ask a blessing."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">When lords and ladies bade their guests to castles, halls, and towers,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Though every thing beside was good they seldom kept good hours;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Course after course slow marshall'd in with dignity and state,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their prime repasts were apt to last sometimes till rather late.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And Father Joe esteem'd it rude to break a party up,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Indeed, it was his usual plan, where'er he dined to sup;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And then to take what modern rakes sometimes "a nightcap" call&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That is, a friendly parting glass, a sort of "over-all."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">He used to say it kept at bay the night-air, cold, and damp,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And cheer'd him on his journey home as though it were a lamp;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nought cared he then how black the clouds might gather overhead,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His heart felt brave as he humm'd a stave and boldly onward sped.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">So Father Joe his course pursued&mdash;a pleasant mode of living;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Alternately at prayers and feasts&mdash;now taking, now forgiving;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But dark or light, by day or night, the great thing to be said is,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where'er he went he ne'er forgot due homage to the ladies.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">By this it is not meant that he knelt down to living beauty&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A deed forbidden and eschew'd by priests who mind their duty;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His were not walking, breathing belles, to monkish rules contrary,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But images of wood and wax, dress'd like the Virgin Mary.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">He seldom pass'd by one of these without a genuflexion,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Beseeching that she'd condescend to grant him her protection;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or if in too much haste to pray, he always bow'd politely<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Before her shrine, as heretics to damsels fair and sprightly.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But such a holy, jolly man could scarce escape the eye<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of Satan, who, if all be true that legends testify,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was then allow'd great liberty, and took, of course, much more,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Playing his pranks among all ranks, till he was "quite a bore."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Go where one might, some ugly sprite of his long-tail'd police<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was ever on the dodge to break, instead of keep, the peace;<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">And he himself at times appears to have appear'd where he,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By rules canonical forbid, no business had to be.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Much he alarm'd the laity, while reverend men of grace,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like Father Joe, we're told, might snap their fingers in his face,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or order him to take a dip all in the sea so red;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wherefore, when holy men he saw, he turn'd about and fled.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Yet not the less watch'd he their steps, but set his imps to mark<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The paths they trode, in hopes to catch them stumbling in the dark;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And one dark night&mdash;ah me! it is a grievous tale to tell&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In coming home past twelve o'clock, our jolly father fell.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">He fell&mdash;and fell into a stream that ran both deep and strong;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No pain felt he, but seem'd to be as borne in sleep along;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His head contused, or else confused, allow'd him not to swim,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Satan swore, with joyous roar, "At least, I'm sure of him!"<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Crowding along the river's banks, his imps all eager ran,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Each striving to be first to catch the fallen holy man;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And when at length they fish'd him up, and laid him on the ground,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">'Twas plain an inquest's verdict must have been brought in "found drown'd."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But twelve grave men were not there then, the case was graver far;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">An evil set, as black as jet, all gabble, grin, and jar,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Claim'd Father Joe as lawful prize, and Satan said, "No doubt!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Angels and saints abandon him, or they'd have pulled him out:<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"So bear him off!" But as he spake a sudden gleam of light<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Broke forth, nor ceased, but still increased, till all around was bright;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And then appear'd what most he fear'd, in white and wing'd array,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A company of angels come to take from him his prey.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"We claim all holy men," said one who seem'd to be their chief;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"I don't dispute that," Satan cried; "but really, to be brief,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">This friar or monk died reeling drunk, without or shrift or prayer;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So yours can't be, but comes to me. I only want what's fair."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The bright one look'd, of course, surprised, and then observed, that he<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Could not conceive nor yet believe that such a thing could be;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So Satan call'd his witnesses, who swore through thick and thin,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That Father Joe couldn't stand or go before he tumbled in.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Now though the angel knew that imps were never over nice<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In swearing at their master's call to prop each foul device,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He felt perplex'd, because the case look'd really rather shady,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And so declared, "I daren't decide till I consult Our Lady."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">While thus he spake, a sudden quake ran through the dingy crowd,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And, as in votive paintings seen, encircled by a cloud,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With 'broider'd coat and lace-frill'd throat, and jewels rich and rare,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Virgin Queen, with smiles serene, came sailing through the air.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The angels with an "Ave!" hail'd the lady to the place,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The impish band, each with his hand conceal'd his ugly face,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Satan stared as though ensnared, but speedily regain'd<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His wonted air of confidence, and still his claim maintain'd.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Said he, "I'm sure your ladyship could never stoop to own<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Acquaintance with a libertine, to drunkenness so prone;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A gormandizer too you see, as full as any sack,"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And here he gave poor Joe a kick, and turn'd him on his back.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The lady started with surprise, and cried, "That face I know:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oh yes! 'Tis he! I plainly see! Dear jolly Father Joe!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I do not say but perhaps he may, be somewhat over fat,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But there's no rule why sage or fool should go to you for that.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"His appetite was always good, a fact that makes it clear<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He was no heavy-headed sot, be-stupefied with beer,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor spoil'd his dinners with hot lunch, but kept his palate clean,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And sat down cheerfully to dine&mdash;and that's no sin, I ween.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"And as for drink, I really think a man who weighs twelve score,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">May be allow'd an extra pint, or p'rhaps a bottle more,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Than folks who're slim, or gaunt and grim, like some that I could name,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who, when in company, are wish'd safe back to whence they came."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Here the black prince was seen to wince, the lady waved her hand,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And then resumed, "But now I'll speak of what I understand<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A trifle better than you all&mdash;I mean of what is due<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To ladies from all gentlemen. Of course I don't mean you.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"I mean all those whom folks suppose, or who themselves believe,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To be entitled to the name, (although I oft perceive<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That many are mistaken quite,) should keep on the alert<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In ladies' company, lest they our tender feelings hurt.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"A word or look that men may brook, may give a lady pain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wherefore from all that's coarse and rude, real gentlemen refrain;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their manners gentle as their name, when they a lady greet,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A pleasant thing enough it is such gentlemen to meet.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"And such a man was Father Joe. He never pass'd me by<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In disrespectful haste, although there might be no one nigh;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor duck'd his head, or look'd askance, like some rude people now,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who seem to chuckle as they pass, to cheat one of a bow."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"But may it please your ladyship!" exclaimed the dusky wight,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"A man may be a precious rogue, though perfectly polite."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"I don't know that," the lady said, "but grant that now and then<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Some fellows may appear polite who really are rude men,<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"'Tis not the simple smirk or bow that makes the gentleman,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But constant care to please the fair in every way he can;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And this good father never miss'd whene'er my shrine he pass'd,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To kneel or bow, extremely low, up to the very last.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Therefore I don't, because I won't, believe a word you say<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Against him in his present plight, which, happen how it may,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was doubtless accidental quite&mdash;at all events my will<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Must be obey'd, and I command, you'll let him lie there still."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The dark one scowl'd and mutter'd low, about "a losing game,"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And being "done clean out of one," "done brown," and "burning shame,"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then hung his head, and slank away, and all his dirty crew<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dispersed themselves about the land fresh mischief to pursue.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The lady then, in accents kind, accosted Jolly Joe,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"They're gone! You're safe! Come! Rouse yourself! You are not dead, I know;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But in a swoon that very soon away like dreams will pass,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Much sooner than the cold you'll catch by sleeping on the grass.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Go quickly home and get to bed&mdash;don't stop to thank me now,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But come to-morrow to my shrine and make a solemn vow,<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">That when for friends or fellowship henceforth abroad you roam,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You'll never take a drop more wine than you can carry home."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">She spake and vanish'd, and again the night was dark and drear;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Joe gave a grunt and shook himself, then shook again with fear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For though his body lay inert, to all appearance dead,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It seems his mind was quite awake to what pass'd overhead.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Such near escape from such a scrape was certainly enough<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To shake the stoutest nerves, and his were not by nature tough;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He got upon his legs, and then went down upon his knees,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Gave thanks, and said, "Dear Lady, pray do with me what you please."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Then up he rose and shook his clothes, and dripping by the way,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Straight homeward sped, and went to bed, where long he sleepless lay;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But natheless at the peep of dawn rose up again alert,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And as beseem'd a penitent put on a hairy shirt.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">With humble air he then repair'd unto the Lady's shrine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And took the vow, as she advised, concerning taking wine;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And thenceforth, as the legend runs, was never after found<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In such a plight as on the night when he was nearly drown'd.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Here ends the tale. May it prevail this moral to impress<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On good men all, who're apt to fall at times into excess,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To seek the ladies' company when sins or wine entice,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And strive not only for their smiles, but follow their advice.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Now prosper long our lovely Queen, and Albert whom she loves;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And may they, though at eagles' height, live lovingly as doves,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From youthful prime till father Time may change their locks to gray,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While all their Royal progeny "love, honour, and obey!"<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">May peace long smile on Britain's isle! may Blackwood's Magazine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If possible, be better still than it hath ever been;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">May every thing that's good increase, and what to goodness tends;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And may the writer always have the ladies for his friends!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_K_11" id="Footnote_K_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_K_11"><span class="label">[K]</span></a> "L'Etat. C'est moi!" Quoth some French Roi; but which of
+the "most Christian" set it was, I do not now recollect, and being from
+home at this present writing, have no means of reference.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="THE_CRY_OF_THE_CHILDREN" id="THE_CRY_OF_THE_CHILDREN"></a>THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY ELIZABETH B. BARRET.</h3>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Ere the sorrow comes with years?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They are leaning their young heads against their mothers,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And <i>that</i> cannot stop their tears.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The young lambs are bleating in the meadows,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The young birds are chirping in the nest,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The young fawns are playing with the shadows,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The young flowers are blowing from the west;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But the young young children, O my brothers!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">They are weeping bitterly!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They are weeping in the playtime of the others&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In the country of the free.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Do you question the young children in the sorrow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Why their tears are falling so?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The old man may weep for his to-morrow<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Which is lost in long ago.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The old tree is leafless in the forest&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The old year is ending in the frost;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The old wound, if stricken, is the sorest&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The old hope is hardest to be lost!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But the young young children, O my brothers!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Do ye ask them why they stand<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Weeping sore before the bosoms of their mothers,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In our happy fatherland?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">They look up with their pale and sunken faces,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And their looks are sad to see;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For the man's grief untimely draws and presses<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Down the cheeks of infancy.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Your old earth," they say, "is very dreary&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Our young feet," they say, "are very weak!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Few paces have we taken, yet are weary&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Our grave-rest is very far to seek!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ask the old why they weep, and not the children;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">For the outside earth is cold&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And we young ones stand without, in our bewild'ring,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And the graves are for the old.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"True," say the young children, "it may happen<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That we die before our time!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Little Alice died last year&mdash;the grave is shapen<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Like a snowball, in the rime.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We look'd into the pit prepared to take her&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was no room for any work in the close clay!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From the sleep wherein she lieth none will wake her,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Crying&mdash;'Get up, little Alice, it is day!'<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If you listen by that grave in sun and shower,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With your ear down, little Alice never cries;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Could we see her face, be sure we should not know her,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For the new smile which has grown within her eyes.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For merry go her moments, lull'd and still'd in<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The shroud, by the kirk-chime!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It is good when it happens," say the children,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">"That we die before our time!"<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Alas, the young children! they are seeking<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Death in life, as best to have!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They are binding up their hearts away from breaking,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With a cerement from the grave.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Go out, children, from the mine and from the city&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sing out, children, as the little thrushes do!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pluck your handfuls of the meadow cowslips pretty&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Laugh aloud to feel your fingers let them through!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But the children say&mdash;"Are cowslips of the meadows<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Like the weeds anear the mine?<a name="FNanchor_L_12" id="FNanchor_L_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_L_12" class="fnanchor">[L]</a><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Leave us quiet in the dark of our coal-shadows,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">From your pleasures fair and fine.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"For oh!" say the children, "we are weary&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And we cannot run or leap:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If we cared for any meadows, it were merely<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To drop down in them and sleep.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Our knees tremble sorely in the stooping&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We fall upon our face, trying to go;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And underneath our heavy eyelids drooping,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The reddest flower would look as pale as snow.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For, all day, we drag our burden tiring,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Through the coal-dark underground&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or, all day, we drive the wheels of iron<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In the factories, round and round.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"All day long, the wheels are droning, turning&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Their wind comes in our faces!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till our hearts turn, and our heads with pulses burning,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And the walls turn in their places!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Turns the sky in the high window blank and reeling&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Turns the long light that droppeth down the wall&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Turn the black flies that crawl along the ceiling&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All are turning all the day, and we with all!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All day long, the iron wheels are droning&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And sometimes we could pray&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">'O ye wheels' (breaking off in a mad moaning)<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Stop! be silent for to-day!'"<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Ay! be silent! let them hear each other breathing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">For a moment, mouth to mouth;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Let them touch each other's hands, in a fresh wreathing<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Of their tender human youth;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Let them feel that this cold metallic motion<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is not all the life God giveth them to use;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Let them prove their inward souls against the notion<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That they live in you, or under you, O wheels!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Still, all day, the iron wheels go onward,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">As if Fate in each were stark!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the children's souls, which God is calling sunward,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Spin on blindly in the dark.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+
+<span class="i0">Now, tell the weary children, O my brothers!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That they look to Him, and pray<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For the blessed One, who blesseth all the others,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To bless <i>them</i> another day.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They answer, "Who is God that he should hear us,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While this rushing of the iron wheels is stirr'd?<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">When we sob aloud, the human creatures near us<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pass unhearing&mdash;at least, answer not a word;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And <i>we</i> hear not (for the wheels in their resounding)<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Strangers speaking at the door.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is it likely God, with angels singing round him,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Hears our weeping any more?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Two words, indeed, of praying we remember;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And, at midnight's hour of harm,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Our Father</i>, looking upward in the chamber,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">We say softly for a charm.<a name="FNanchor_M_13" id="FNanchor_M_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_M_13" class="fnanchor">[M]</a><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We say no other words except <i>our Father!</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And we think that, in some pause of angels' song,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He may pluck them with the silence sweet to gather,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And hold both within his right hand, which is strong.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Our Father!</i> If he heard us, he would surely<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">(For they call him good and mild)<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Answer&mdash;smiling down the steep world very purely&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">'Come and rest with me, my child.'<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+
+<span class="i0">"But no," say the children, weeping faster;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">"He is silent as a stone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And they tell us, of his image is the master<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Who commands us to work on.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Go to!" say the children; "up in heaven,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dark, wheel-like, turning clouds are all we find!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Do not mock us! we are atheists in our grieving&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We look up for HIM&mdash;but tears have made us blind."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Do ye hear the children weeping and disproving,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">O my brothers, what ye teach?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For God's possible is taught by his world's loving&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And the children doubt of each!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And well may the children weep before ye&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">They are weary ere they run!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They have never seen the sunshine, nor the glory<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Which is brighter than the sun!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They know the grief of men, but not the wisdom&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They sink in the despair, with hope at calm&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Are slaves, without the liberty in christdom&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Are martyrs by the pang without the palm!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Are worn as if with age; yet unretrievingly<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">No joy of memory keep&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Are orphans of the earthly love and heavenly&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Let them weep&mdash;let them weep!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">They look up with their pale and sunken faces,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And their look is dread to see;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For you think you see their angels in their places,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With eyes meant for Deity.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"How long," they say, "how long, O cruel nation!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Will you stand, to move the world, on a child's heart,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Trample down with a mail'd heel its palpitation,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And tread onward to your throne amid the mart?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Our blood splashes upward, O our tyrants!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And your purple shows your path&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But the child's sob curseth deeper in the silence,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Than the strong man in his wrath!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_L_12" id="Footnote_L_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_L_12"><span class="label">[L]</span></a> A commissioner mentions the fact of weeds being thus
+confounded with the idea of flowers.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_M_13" id="Footnote_M_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_M_13"><span class="label">[M]</span></a> The report of the commissioners represents instances of
+children, whose religious devotion is confined to the repetition of the
+two first words of the Lord's Prayer.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="LETTER_TO_CHRISTOPHER_NORTH_ESQ" id="LETTER_TO_CHRISTOPHER_NORTH_ESQ"></a>LETTER TO CHRISTOPHER NORTH, ESQ.</h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Respected Christopher,</span></p>
+
+<p>As an appendage to the "<i>Whippiad</i>," so happily rescued from the fate
+designed for it by its author, to be embalmed in the never-dying pages
+of Maga, the following <i>jeu d'esprit</i>, connected with its hero, may not
+be unacceptable, especially as both productions were generally
+attributed to the same pen. A note on the line&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"And cuckoo mingle with the thoughts of Bell,"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>towards the end of the first canto, alludes to "a young lady of singular
+elegance and personal accomplishments," to whom Dr Toe's attentions were
+supposed not to have been unacceptable. This elegant and accomplished
+young lady, however, (a certain Miss Bell H&mdash;&mdash;,) is said to have
+eventually jilted the Doctor, and married her footman; a circumstance
+which gave rise to the following stanzas:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'Twixt footman John and Dr Toe<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A rivalship befell,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which of the two should be the Beau<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To bear away the <i>Belle</i>!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The Footman won the Lady's heart,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And who can blame her?&mdash;No man.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The <i>whole</i> prevail'd against the <i>part:</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i2">'Twas <i>Foot</i>-man <i>versus Toe</i>-man.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>By the way, Christopher, your compositor has "misused the queen's press
+most damnably" in the quotation from Coriolanus prefixed to the second
+canto, where he converts the "Great <i>Toe</i> of the Assembly" into its
+"Great <i>Foe</i>." Rap his knuckles with your crutch, old Gentleman; and
+tell him, too, that the "Shawstone's party" he speaks of was a very
+jolly <i>symposium</i>, given by a very hearty fellow of the name of
+"Rawstorne," whose <i>cognomen</i> stands <i>sic in orig.</i></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i10">Thine ever.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i18">My dear Christopher,<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i30"><span class="smcap">Erigena.</span><br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Brazenose Quad.</span>, <i>July</i> 15, 1843.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="THE_REPEAL_AGITATION" id="THE_REPEAL_AGITATION"></a>THE REPEAL AGITATION.</h2>
+
+
+<p>No popularity does, or can exist which is not liable to collapses.
+Two-fold infirmity, alike for him who judges, and for him who suffers
+judgment, will not allow it to be otherwise. Sir Robert Peel, a minister
+more popular by his tenure of office than any whom this generation will
+perhaps again behold, has not been able to escape that ordinary trial of
+human prosperity. Suddenly a great cloud of public danger has gathered
+around him: upon every path there were seen to lie secret snares: no
+wisdom could make an election amongst them absolutely safe: he made that
+election which comparison of the cases and private information seemed to
+warrant: and immediately, of his own supporters many are offended. We
+believe it to be a truth, one amongst those new truths whose aspiring
+heads are even now rising above our horizon, that the office of first
+minister, either for France or England, is becoming rapidly more trying
+by the quality of its duties. We talk of energy: we invoke the memories
+of Pitt and of Chatham: "oh, for one hour," we exclaim, of those great
+<i>executive</i> statesmen&mdash;who "trampled upon impossibilities," or glorified
+themselves in a "vigour beyond the law!" Looking backwards, we are
+right: in our gratitude we do not err. But those times are past. For Sir
+Robert Peel no similar course is open. Changes in the temper of the age,
+changes in the constitution of public bodies, absolute revolutions in
+the <i>kind</i> of responsibilities by which a minister is now fettered,
+forbid us to imagine that any raptures of national sympathy will ever
+crowd forward to the support of extreme or summary measures, such as
+once might have been boldly employed. That style of aspiring action
+presumes some approach to unity in public opinion. But such unity we
+shall hardly witness again, were a hostile invader even landed on our
+shores.</p>
+
+<p>Meantime it will add weight to any thing we can offer in behalf of the
+Irish policy now formally avowed by Government, if we acknowledge
+ingenuously that for some weeks we ourselves shared in the doubts upon
+its wisdom, not timidly expressed by weighty Conservatives. We believe
+it, indeed, natural and honourable that the first movement of feeling
+upon cases such as those now proceeding in Ireland, should be one of
+mere summary indignation. Not that scurrility and the basest of
+personalities from Mr O'Connell are either novelties, or difficult to
+bear. To hear an old man, a man whose own approach to the period of
+physical decay, is the one great hope and consolation of all good
+subjects in Ireland, scoffing at grey hairs in the Duke of
+Wellington&mdash;calling, and permitting his creatures to call, by the name
+of "vagabonds" or "miscreants," the most eminent leaders of a sister
+nation, who are also the chosen servants of that mistress whom he
+professes to honour: this might have been shocking in any man who had
+not long since squandered his own ability to shock. As it is, these
+things move only laughter or silent disgust, according to the temper of
+readers. And we are sure that not merely the priests, or men of
+education amongst Mr O'Connell's followers, but even the peasantry, must
+in their hearts perceive how indispensable is a <i>general</i> habit of
+self-restraint and abstinence from abusive language to the effect of any
+individual insult These were <i>not</i> the causes of public indignation. Not
+what Mr O'Connell said, but what he did, kindled the general wrath. To
+see him marching and countermarching armies, to find him bandying
+menaces with the Government of this great nation, and proclaiming
+(openly or covertly) that he would not be the party to strike the first
+blow, but that assuredly he would strike the second&mdash;thinking it little
+to speak as a traitor, unless also he spoke as an European potentate;
+this was the spectacle before which the self-control of so many melted
+away, and which raised the clamour for vindictive justice. It quickened
+the irritation to know, that hostile foreigners were looking on with
+deep interest, and every where misinterpreting the true readings of the
+case. Weeks passed before we could thoroughly reconcile our own feelings
+to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> the passive toleration, or apparent apathy, of the Government. Our
+sense of prudence took the alarm, not less than our feelings. And
+finally, if both could have acquiesced, our sense of consistency was
+revolted by what met the public eye; since, if the weak were to be
+punished, why should the strong be connived at? Magistrates, to the
+amount of three score, had been dismissed for giving their countenance
+to the Repeal meetings; and yet the meetings themselves, which had
+furnished the very principle of the reproach, and the ground of
+punishment, were neither dispersed nor denounced.</p>
+
+<p>Rarely, however, in politics, has any man final occasion to repent of
+forbearance. There may be a tempest of provocation towards the policy of
+rigour; that policy may justify itself to the moral sense of men; modes
+even of prudence may be won over to sanction it; and yet, after all the
+largest spirit of civil prudence, such as all of us would approve in any
+historical case removed from the passions of the times, will suggest a
+much nobler promise of success through a steady adherence to the
+counsels of peace, than any which could attend the most efficient
+prosecution of a hostile intervention. The exceeding weight of the
+crisis has forced us into a closer comparison than usual of the
+consequences probably awaiting either course. Usually in such cases, we
+are content to abide the solutions of time; the rapid motion of events
+settling but too hastily all doubts, and dispensing with the trouble of
+investigation. Here, however, the coincidence of feelings, heavily
+mortified on our own part, with the serious remonstrances in the way of
+argument from journals friendly to Sir Robert Peel's government, would
+not suffer us to rest in the uneasy condition of dissatisfied suspense.
+We found ourselves almost coerced into pursuing the two rival policies,
+down to their separate issues; and the result has satisfied ourselves,
+that the minister is right. We shall make an effort for bringing over
+the reader to our own convictions. Sir Robert, we shall endeavour to
+show, has <i>not</i> been deficient in proper energy; his forbearance, where
+it has been most conspicuous, is either absolute&mdash;in which case it will
+be found to justify itself, even at present, to the considerate&mdash;or it
+is but provisional, and waiting for contingencies&mdash;in which case it will
+soon unmask itself more terrifically than either friend or enemy,
+perhaps, anticipates.</p>
+
+<p>The Minster's defence is best pursued through the turns of his own
+admirable speech in the recent debates on the grievances of Ireland.
+But, previously, let us weigh for a moment Mr O'Connell's present
+position, and the chances that seem likely to have attended any attempt
+to deal with him by blank resistance. It had been always understood, by
+watchful politicians, that the Repeal agitation slumbered only until the
+reinstalment of a Conservative administration. The Whigs were
+notoriously in collusion at all times, more or less openly, with this
+"foul conspiracy:"<a name="FNanchor_N_14" id="FNanchor_N_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_N_14" class="fnanchor">[N]</a> a crime which, in them, was trebly scandalous; for
+they it was, in times past, who had denounced the conspiracy to the
+nation as ruinous; in <i>that</i> they were right: but they also it was, who
+had pointed out the leading conspirator as an individual to national
+indignation in a royal speech; and in <i>that</i> they degraded, without a
+precedent, the majesty of that high state-document. Descending thus
+abjectly, as regarded the traitor, the Whigs were not unwilling to
+benefit by the treason. They did so. They adulterated with treason
+during their term of power: the compact being, that Mr O'Connell should
+guide for the Government their exercise of Irish patronage so long as he
+guaranteed to them an immunity from the distraction of Irish
+insubordination. When the Tories succeeded to power, this
+armistice&mdash;this treasonable capitulation with treason&mdash;of necessity fell
+to the ground; and once again Mr O'Connell prepared for war. <i>Cessante
+mercede cessat opera</i>. How he has conducted this war of late, we all
+know. And such being the brief history of its origin, embittered to him
+by the silent expression of defiance,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> unavoidably couched in any
+withdrawal of the guilty commerce, we all guess in what spirit he will
+wish to conduct it for the future. But <i>there</i> presents itself the
+question of his ability&mdash;of his possible resources&mdash;for persevering in
+his one mode of hostility. He would continue his array of mobs, but
+<i>can</i> he? We believe not. Already the hours of his sorceries are
+numbered: and now he stands in the situation of an officer on some
+forlorn outpost, before a superior enemy, and finding himself reduced to
+half a dozen rounds of ammunition. In such a situation, whatever
+countenance he may put on of alacrity and confidence, however rapidly he
+may affect to sustain his fire in the hope of duping his antagonist into
+a retreat, he cannot surmount or much delay the catastrophe which faces
+him. More and more reluctantly Mr O'Connell will tell off the few
+lingering counters on his beadroll: but at length comes the last; after
+which he is left absolutely without resources for keeping the agitation
+alive, or producing any effect whatever.</p>
+
+<p>Many fancy <i>not</i>. They suppose it possible that these parades or
+field-days may be repeated. But let us consider. Already it impresses a
+character of childishness on these gatherings of peasants; and it is a
+feeling which begins to resound throughout Ireland, that there is
+absolutely no business to be transacted&mdash;not even any forms to be gone
+through&mdash;and, therefore, no rational object by which such parades can be
+redeemed from mockery. Were there a petition to be subscribed, a vote to
+be taken, or any ostensible business to furnish an excuse for the
+meeting&mdash;once, but once only, in each district, it might avail. As it
+is, we have the old nursery case before us&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"The king of France march'd up the hill,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With twenty thousand men,"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>followed by his most Christian majesty's successful countermarch. The
+very children in the streets would follow them with hootings, if these
+fooleries were reiterated. But, if that attempt were made, and in some
+instances should even succeed, so much the worse for the interests of
+Repeal. The effect would be fatal. No device could be found more
+excellent for killing the enthusiasm which has called out such
+assemblies, than the evidence thus forced upon the general mind&mdash;that
+they were inoperative, and without object, either confessed or
+concealed. Hitherto the toil and exhaustion of the day had been
+supported, doubtless, under a belief that a muster of insurrectionary
+forces was desired, with a view to some decisive course of action, when
+all should be found prepared. The cautionary order issued for total
+abstinence from violence had been looked upon, of course, as a momentary
+or <i>interim</i> restraint. But if once it were understood that this order
+was absolute, or of indefinite application, the chill to the national
+confidence would be that of death. For we are not to suppose that the
+faith and love of the peasantry <i>can</i> have been given, either personally
+to Mr O'Connell, or to Repeal, as a cause for itself. Both these names
+represent, indirectly, weightier and dearer objects, which are supposed
+to stand behind: even Repeal is not valued as an end&mdash;but simply as a
+means to something beyond. But let that idea once give way, let the
+present hope languish, let it be thrown back to a period distant or
+unassigned&mdash;and the ruin of the cause is sealed. The rural population of
+Ireland has, it is true, been man&oelig;uvred and exhibited merely as a
+threatening show to England; but, assuredly, on that same day when the
+Irish peasants, either from their own sagacity, or from newspapers,
+discover that they have been used as a property by Mr O'Connell, for
+purposes in which their own interest is hard to be deciphered,
+indifference and torpor will succeed. For this once, the nationality of
+Ireland has been too frantically stimulated for the toleration of new
+delays. Mr O'Connell is at last the martyr of his own success. Should
+the priestly order refuse to advance further on a road nominally
+national, but from which, at any moment, the leader may turn off, by
+secret compromise, into a by-road, leading only to family objects,
+universal mutiny must <i>now</i> follow. The general will of the priesthood
+has thus far quelled and overruled the individual will; but that
+indignant recusants amongst that order <i>are</i> muttering and brooding we
+know, as well from the necessities of human nature, as from actual
+letters already beginning to appear in the journals.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> Under all these
+circumstances, a crisis is to be dreaded by the central body of
+Repealers, which body is doubtless exceedingly small. And what will
+hasten this crisis is the inevitable result from a fact noticed as yet
+only for ostentation. It is this. The weekly contributions in money, and
+their sudden overflow, have occasioned some comments in the House of
+Lords; on the one side with a view to the dishonesty apparent in the
+management of this money, and to the dark purposes which it may be
+supposed to mask&mdash;on the other, with a view to the increasing heartiness
+in the service, which it seems to express. It is, however, a much more
+reasonable comment upon this momentary increase, so <i>occasional</i> and
+timed to meet the sudden resurrection of energy in the general movement,
+that the money has flowed so freely altogether under that sane
+persuasion which also has drawn the peasantry to the meetings&mdash;viz. the
+fixed anticipation of an immediate explosion. Multitudes in the belief,
+suddenly awakened and propagated through Ireland&mdash;that now at length,
+all further excuses laid aside, the one great national enterprize, so
+long nursed in darkness, had ripened for execution, and would at last
+begin to move&mdash;have exerted themselves to do what, under other
+circumstances, they would not have done. Even simple delay would now
+irritate these men beyond control. They will call for an account. This
+will be refused, and cannot <i>but</i> be refused. The particular feeling of
+these men, that they have been hoaxed and swindled, concurring with the
+popular rage on finding that this storm also, like all before it, is to
+blow over&mdash;if there be faith in human nature, will do more to shake the
+Repeal speculation than any possible course of direct English
+resistance. All frauds would be forgiven in an hour of plausible
+success, or even in a moment of undeniable preparation. But
+disappointment coming in the rear of extravagant hopes will be fatal,
+and strike a frost to the heart of the conspiracy. For it cannot be
+doubted that none of these extra services, whether in money or personal
+attendance, would have been rendered without express assurances from
+high quarters, and not <i>merely</i> from fond imaginations founded on
+appearances, that the pretended regeneration for Ireland was at land.</p>
+
+<p>Now let us see how these natural sequences, from the very nature of the
+showy demonstrations recently organized, and from the very promises by
+which they must have been echoed, will operate in relation to the
+measures of the Government; either those which have been adopted, or
+those which have been declined. Had the resolution (a fatal resolution,
+as we <i>now</i> think) been adopted in the cabinet to disperse the meetings
+by force, blood would have flowed; and a plea, though fraudulent in
+virtue, would have been established for O'Connell&mdash;such as we may
+suppose to be built upon a fact so liable to perversion. His hands would
+have been prodigiously strengthened. The bloodshed would have been kept
+before the eyes of the people for ever, and would have taken innumerable
+forms. But the worst, ultimately the ruinous, operation of this official
+intervention would have lain in the plenary excuse from his engagements
+furnished to Mr O'Connell, and in the natural solution of all those
+embarrassments which for himself he <i>cannot</i> solve. At present he is at
+his wits' end to devise any probable scheme for tranquillizing the
+universal disappointment, for facing the relapse from infinite
+excitement, and for propitiating the particular fury of those who will
+now hold themselves to have been defrauded of their money. Leave this
+tempest to itself, and it will go near to overwhelm the man: or if the
+local separation of the parties most injured should be so managed as to
+intercept that result, assuredly it will overwhelm the cause. In the
+estimate, therefore, of O'Connell, we may rely upon it&mdash;that a battalion
+of foot, or a squadron of horse, appearing in aid of the police to clear
+the ground at Mallow or at Donnybrook, would have seemed the least
+questionable godsend that has ever illuminated his experience. "O
+<i>jubilate</i> for a providential deliverance!" that would have been his
+cry. "Henceforward be all my difficulties on the heads of my opponents!"
+But at least, it is argued, the <i>fact</i> would have been against him; the
+dispersion would have disarmed him, whatever colouring he might have
+caused it to bear. Not at all.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> We doubt if one meeting the less would
+have been held. Ready at all times for such emergencies, the leader
+would not suffer himself to be found without every conceivable legal
+quillet, sharpened and retouched, against the official orders. He would
+have had an interview with the authorities: he would have shown a flaw
+in the wording of the instructions: he would have rebaptized his
+assembly, and, where no business goes on, any name will answer: he would
+have called his mob "a tea-party," or "an agricultural association;" the
+sole real object concerned, which is the exhibition of vast numbers
+trained and amenable to instant restraint, would have proceeded under
+new names. This would no longer have languished when Government had
+supplied the failing impulse: and in the mean time to have urged that,
+merely by its numbers, combined with its perilous tendencies, the
+gathering was unlawful&mdash;would have availed nothing: for the law
+authorities in parliament, right or wrong, have affected doubts upon
+that doctrine; and, when parliament will not eventually support him, it
+matters little that a minister of these days would, for the moment,
+assume the responsibility of a strong measure. Or, if parliament were to
+legislate anew for this special case, the Repealer would then split his
+large mobs into many small ones: he would lecture, he would preach, he
+would sing, in default of other excuses for meeting. No law, he would
+observe coolly to the magistrate, against innumerable prayer-meetings or
+infinite concerts. The items would still be reported to one central
+office: the <i>facit</i> would be the same; and it would tell for the same
+cause.</p>
+
+<p>Thus it appears that no fact would have resulted against the Repealers,
+had the Government taken a severe course. Still, may it not be said that
+a <i>fact</i>, and a strong one, survives on the other side, viz. against the
+Government, under this forbearing course which they really have taken?
+What fact? Is it the organization of all Ireland? Doubtless that bears
+an ominous sound: but it must be considered&mdash;that if the leader cannot
+wield this vast organization for any purposes of his own, and plainly he
+cannot so long as he acquires no fresh impulses or openings to action
+from the indiscretion of his opponents, but on the contrary must be
+ruined&mdash;cause and leader, party and partisan chief, by the very 'lock'
+(or as in America is said, the 'fix') into which he has brought himself,
+by the pledge which he cannot redeem&mdash;far less can that organization be
+used by others or for any other purpose. It is an organization not
+secret; not bound by oaths; loose and careless in its cohesion; not
+being good for its proper object, it is good for no other, and we hear
+of no one attribute by which it threatens the public peace beyond its
+numerical extent.</p>
+
+<p>But is <i>that</i> true? Is it numerically so potent as it is represented? We
+hardly need to say, that the exaggerations upon this point have been too
+monstrous to call for any pointed exposures. With respect to one of the
+southern meetings&mdash;that at Cork, we believe&mdash;by way of applying some
+scale or measurement to the exaggerations, we may mention that a
+military man, actually measured the ground after the retirement of the
+crowd. He ascertained that the ground could barely accommodate
+twenty-five thousand men standing in regimental order. What was the
+report of the newspaper? Four to five hundred thousand, as usual.
+Indeed, we may complain of our English Conservative Journals as, in this
+point, faithfully reflecting the wildest statements of the Repeal
+organs. So much strength was apparently given, for the moment, to the
+Repeal interest by these outrageous fictions, that we, for our own
+parts, (whilst hesitating as to other points of the Government policy,)
+did not scruple to tax the Home Minister and the Queen's Lieutenant with
+some neglect of duty<a name="FNanchor_O_15" id="FNanchor_O_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_O_15" class="fnanchor">[O]</a> in not sending experienced<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> officers of the army
+to reconnoitre the meetings in every instance, and authentically to make
+returns of the numbers present. Since reading the minister's speech,
+however, we are disposed to think that this neglect was not altogether
+without design. It appears that Sir Robert relies in part upon these
+frightful falsehoods for effecting a national service by rousing the
+fears of the Roman Catholic landholders. In this there is no false
+refinement; for, having very early done all the mischief they could as
+incendiary proclamations of power to the working classes, the
+exaggerations are now, probably, operating with even more effect in an
+opposite direction upon the great body of the Catholic gentry. Cordially
+to unite this body with the government of Ireland would, by much,
+overbalance the fickle support of the peasantry, given for the moment to
+the cause of disaffection. That disaffection, under its present form, is
+already, perhaps, on the point of unlocking its union. It <i>cannot</i> be
+permanent as an organization; for, without hope, no combination can
+sustain itself, and a disaffection, founded purely upon <i>social</i> causes,
+can be healed by no Government whatever. But if the Catholic gentry,
+treated as they now are with fraternal equality, should heartily
+coalesce with the party promoting a closer <i>British</i> connexion, that
+would be a permanent gain.</p>
+
+<p>The Irish policy, therefore, the immediate facts of the policy, pursued
+by the Government, if we distinguish it from the general theory and
+principles of their policy as laid down in the speech of the Premier,
+has not been what it is said to have been. Summing up the heads, let us
+say that we are <i>not</i> resigned negligently to the perils of civil war;
+those perils, though as great as Mr O'Connell could make them, are not
+by any means as great as Mr O'Connell describes them; the popular arrays
+are ridiculously below the amounts reported to us: in some instances
+they have been multiplied by 20, probably in all by 15; the rumour and
+the terror of these arrays have operated both ways; <i>for</i> us more
+permanently than against us. Lastly, it is not true that the Government
+has proceeded only by negative steps; the army has been increased in
+Ireland, the garrisons have been better arranged; military stations have
+been strengthened, and seditious magistrates have been dismissed.</p>
+
+<p>Upon this last point, one word: we have seen nothing more grossly
+factious in the conduct of the Whigs, than the assertion, that these
+magistrates ought <i>not</i> to have been dismissed. Well might the
+Chancellor say, that the discussion had been conducted by petty
+lawyerlike quibbles. The case stands thus: there are two principles
+concerned in the tenure of the magistrate's office&mdash;theoretic
+amenability to the letter of the law, and practical serviceableness for
+his duties. Either furnishes a ground of dismissal. To be scandalously
+indecorous, to be a patron of gambling in public places, would offer no
+<i>legal</i> objection to a magistrate; but he would be dismissed as a person
+unsuitable by his habits to the gravity of the commission. If you hire a
+watchman to protect your premises, and you discharge him upon the ground
+that he has been found drinking with reputed burglars, no man will hold
+the watchman to have been hardly used, because the burglars had not been
+convicted judicially. That allegation amounts to this: that he has not
+committed any offence known to the laws. What will you reply? "I know
+it," you say: "I grant it; and therefore I charge you with no offence.
+But I dismiss you on a principle of expedience. You have violated no
+law; but you have shown yourself to be a man disqualified for the very
+urgent duties of the post&mdash;much more disqualified than you would have
+been by sickness, blindness, or any other physical infirmity."</p>
+
+<p>Mr O'Connell now threatens to pursue his career, by repeating that same
+absurd misdemeanour of summoning a mock parliament, which, some twenty
+and odd years ago, a Staffordshire baronet expiated by the penalties of
+fine and imprisonment. At that crisis we shall see the tranquil minister
+unmask his artillery. But could it be reasonable to look for a faithful
+discharge of painful duties, arising in these later stages of the Repeal
+cause (and duties applying probably to the cases of gentlemen,
+neighbours, fellow partisans,) from one who had already promoted that
+cause, in its previous stages, to the extent of sedition and
+conspiracy?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> He who has already signalized to the nation his readiness
+to co-operate in so open a mischief as dismemberment of the empire,
+wherefore should he shrink from violating an obscure rule of the common
+law, or a black letter statute?</p>
+
+<p>But enough of the policy which <i>has</i> been pursued. <i>That</i>, by its nature
+is limited, and of necessity, in many points of recent application, is a
+policy of watching and negation. Now, let us turn to the general policy,
+as it is reviewed in the very comprehensive speech of the Prime
+Minister. This applies equally to the past and the future. The French
+journals, and in particular the <i>D&eacute;bats</i>, complain that it is crowded
+with details. How should this be otherwise? Can there be an answer given
+to charges whose vice is their vagueness, otherwise than by
+<i>circumstantial</i> exposures of their falsehood? Ireland, for instance,
+has been unfairly treated as to taxes, partition of indulgences,
+pecuniary advances. That is the charge. Can it be met with another
+answer than by absolute arithmetic, tax-office proofs, or returns from
+the Exchequer? "But in these a foreigner takes no interest." Doubtless!
+and <i>that</i> should be an argument with the foreigner for his declining to
+judge upon the question. Want of understanding is not at all a worse
+disqualification for acting as a judge than want of interest in the
+subject. We mention this pointedly; because it is not to foreigners
+chiefly that this maxim applies: a profound injustice continually
+operates in this way amongst the parliamentary foes of Government. Often
+in private life we witness the unprincipled case&mdash;that, upon suspecting
+a man's vindication to be established by any investigation, men will
+decline to look into it, as really possessing too little interest for
+themselves; though these same people had not found any want of interest
+in the allegations&mdash;nay, had mastered all the details&mdash;so long as the
+charges pointed to some disgraceful issue, and the verdict threatened to
+be unfavourable. An instance of this baseness, truly shocking to the
+moral sense, is found in the ridiculous charge against the ministers,
+founded upon the mail-coach contract. This was not at all too petty to
+be pressed with rancour. However, it was answered. The answer, on the
+principle of the case, and coupled with the illustrations from parallel
+cases, is decisive. And then the taunt is&mdash;"But why fasten upon charges
+so minute and frivolous?" Minute and frivolous, we grant; but not so in
+that degree which prevented you gentlemen in opposition from dwelling on
+then with genial spite, as being odious in proportion to their
+pettiness. "You, you, it was," says Sir Robert, "that pressed the case!"
+Certainly: and they it was who would never have withdrawn the case had
+they not found it untenable. It is thus easy for two men to concert a
+collusive attack which shall succeed either way, and be dishonest both
+ways. "Do you," says the one, "<i>try on</i> this particular case for
+harassing the minister. If it tells, if it sticks, then we both pitch
+into him. If it fails, then rise I and say:&mdash;'How shameful in an
+official person to throw dust in the eyes of the House by detaining it
+upon a miserable trifle, whilst the criminal gravities of his conduct
+are skulking in the rear under this artifice for misleading the public
+attention!'"</p>
+
+<p>With this prefatory explanation, called for, perhaps, by the unequal
+importance of the points reviewed, we shall now rehearse the heads of
+this speech. It is a speech that, by anticipation, we may call
+memorable, looking before and after; good, as a history for half a
+century gone by since our union with Ireland; good, we venture to hope,
+as a rule and as a prophecy for the spirit of our whole future connexion
+with that important island. We shall move rapidly; for our rehearsal
+will best attain the object we have in view by its brevity and
+condensation.</p>
+
+<p>I.&mdash;Mr Roebuck had insisted that Ireland was made the victim of our
+English parsimony; not once and away, but systematically. This happens
+to be a charge peculiarly irritating to all parties&mdash;to the authors of
+the parsimony, and to its objects. And, says Sir Robert, I am told to
+avoid it as secondary; but observe, it is quite substantial enough, as
+others say, to justify "an impeachment." This is the honourable
+barrister's word; and a "soft" impeachment it will turn out.</p>
+
+<p><i>a.</i> By the Act of Union, it was provided that, in voting the civil
+estimates<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> for Ireland, whatever sum it should appear that Ireland had
+averaged for six years before the Union, in her own votes for a
+particular purpose, annually that same sum should be voted for a period
+prescribed by the United Parliament. The purpose was, internal
+improvement in Ireland, and any national uses, whether pious or
+charitable. What, then, had been the extent of the Irish vote? We
+neglect small fractions, and state that it had averaged seventy-three
+thousand a year. For the first twenty years, therefore, the obligation
+upon the Imperial Parliament had been, to vote twenty times that sum, or
+L. 1,460,000. This was the contract. What was the performance? Five
+millions, three hundred and forty-eight thousand pounds, or three and a
+half times the amount of the promise.</p>
+
+<p><i>b.</i> Another extraordinary vote in the Irish Parliament, previous to the
+Union, had been upon the miscellaneous estimates. This vote, when
+averaged on the same principle, had produced annually one hundred and
+twenty-eight thousand pounds. To the same sum the United Parliament
+stood pledged for the first period of twenty-eight years succeeding the
+Union. The reader will see at once that the result ought to have been
+little more than three and a half millions. That was the debt. What was
+the payment? Something beyond five millions.</p>
+
+<p><i>c.</i> Upon another comparison, viz. between Scotland and Ireland, as to
+another class of <i>extras</i> and contingencies, it turns out&mdash;that, during
+the last period of seven years, to Scotland had been voted six hundred
+and sixty thousand pounds, to Ireland two million, two hundred, and
+sixty thousand; to Scotland, that is, less than <i>one</i> hundred thousand
+<i>per annum</i>; to Ireland, more than <i>three</i> hundred thousand.</p>
+
+<p>In the same category stands the relative taxation. Ireland was to pay
+two-seventeenths of the whole imperial burden. That was the bargain,
+which we are not called on to reopen. But, as <i>extras</i>, as a liberal
+<i>bonus</i> upon this bargain, Ireland has been excused from paying for
+windows&mdash;for assessed taxes&mdash;for soap. At this moment, in addition to
+these liberal discounts, she has no <i>national</i> share, <i>as</i> Ireland,<a name="FNanchor_P_16" id="FNanchor_P_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_P_16" class="fnanchor">[P]</a>
+in the Income Tax: and she may be said, in one sense, to receive her
+letters gratuitously, for the postage yields nothing to Government, all
+being absorbed by the Irish post office. It is little, after this, to
+start possibilities of unequal contribution as regards the indirect
+taxation: this could not be separately apportioned to the three great
+limbs of the empire without disturbing the great currents of commerce.
+It is enough that by exemptions upon the direct taxes, so far as
+concerns three of them&mdash;window, assessed, and income&mdash;Ireland receives a
+large indemnity.</p>
+
+
+<p>II. Connected with the last head is the reproach made to Great Britain
+upon the subject of railway encouragement. What encouragement? By money?
+Yes, says Lord John Russell, whose experience in office (as one of a
+cabinet plagued in the way that all cabinets are by projectors and
+scheming capitalists) ought to have taught him better. Have we given any
+money to our own railways? No: but England is rich. True: and Ireland is
+not suffered to be <i>so</i> rich as she might be by her Irish "friends." But
+rich or not rich, is no question here. If schemes of profit are not
+profitable in this country, we do not encourage them. If they <i>are</i>
+profitable, they want no encouragement. Still, it is said, might it not
+be prudent to feed the railroads in Ireland, not with any view to the
+scheme for itself but considered as a means of development for the
+circumjacent country? No, replies Sir Robert, that is an error: railways
+may benefit <i>by</i> the country: but the country through which they race,
+is rarely affected by <i>them</i> more than the atmosphere aloft by the
+balloons. The great towns on the route, or at the extremities, doubtless
+benefit; but in too small a degree, unless they are manufacturing towns,
+to warrant the least thoughtful of ministers in assisting them. However,
+to make a beginning, and as a topic to be borne in mind, how much would
+be wanted? A matter of <i>ten millions</i>, says Lord John. <i>Olli
+subridens</i>,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> replies the minister, "What! only that?" But, returning to
+business, he reminds the house&mdash;that, even for so small a sum as ten
+millions sterling, the nation would perhaps expect security. Who is to
+give it? Are the counties traversed to be assessed? But they will disown
+the benefit arising. And, says Sir Robert, take a miniature case&mdash;a sum
+little more than one-tenth of ten millions was advanced by this country
+on account of the Irish work-houses, and for a time there was some
+advantage gained to the industry of the land. But that soon passed away,
+and then two evils arose at once. The money was to be repaid, and the
+employment was at an end. But this latter evil was worse than it seemed,
+for it did not act as a simple privation of so much good; the <i>extra</i>
+stimulation of the national industry, as invariably happens, and as at
+this moment we see in England upon the cessation of a ten years' demand
+for iron, on account of our own railways, brought about a corresponding,
+exhaustion for the new Poor Law, tending violently to civil tumults. The
+repayment of that advance will yet cost Ireland many a groan.</p>
+
+<p>III. If Ireland, then, is not ill-treated as to her taxation, or her
+public improvements, is it true that she is ill-treated in the persons
+of her children? That also has been said; but Sir Robert disperses that
+fancy by facts which are as conclusive as they are really little needed
+at this day. Sculptors had been appointed by members of the cabinet,
+police commissioners, &amp;c.; and, as will easily be believed, with no
+question ever mooted as to their birth, whether English, Scotch, or
+Irish. Subsequently, however, it had turned out as a blind fact, which
+is useful in showing the entire indifference to such a point in the
+minds of public men, that the larger proportion of successful candidates
+were Irish. This was an accident certainly, but an accident
+irreconcilable with the least shadow of prejudice pointing in that
+direction.</p>
+
+<p>IV. Of social grievances, grievances connected with the state of
+society, there are but too many in Ireland: relations between landlord
+and tenant for instance; but these are so little caused or aggravated by
+Parliament, that they cannot even be lightened by Parliament. What
+little is possible, however, says Sir Robert, we will attempt. The
+elective franchise is another case; yet, if that is now too much
+narrowed, why is it so? Let Ireland thank herself, and the growing
+indisposition amongst Irish landlords to grant leases. Might we not,
+then, transfer to Ireland our English franchise? But <i>that</i>, applied to
+Irish institutions and arrangements, would narrow the electoral basis
+still further than it is narrowed. Not, therefore, <i>against</i> the Irish,
+but in their behalf, we withhold our own unsuitable privileges. It is a
+separate question, besides, whether the <i>moral</i> civilization of Ireland
+is equal to the exercise of our English franchise. Education of the
+people again, if there is an obstacle at this time to its movement in
+Ireland, where does it originate? We all know the great schism upon that
+subject existing amongst the Irish Protestants, and how embarrassing the
+Government has found that fend&mdash;how intractable and embittered, for the
+very reason that it rested upon no personal jealousies which might have
+relaxed or been overruled, but (for one side at least) upon deep
+conscientious scruples. Reverence those scruples we must; but still the
+Irish are not entitled to charge upon ministers a public evil of their
+own creation. In all these calamities, or others of the same nature,
+oppressing the state of society in Ireland, and derived as an
+inheritance from ancient times, the blame too notoriously, in no part of
+it, rests with the English ministers; and the proof is evident in this
+fact&mdash;that, except by one monstrous anti-social proposal from a very few
+of the opposition members, as a remedy for the land-occupancy
+complaints&mdash;a proposal strongly disavowed by the leaders of the party,
+no <i>practical</i> flaw was detected, either of omission or commission, as
+affecting the ministerial policy. The objections were pure generalities;
+and even Lord John Russell, who adopted the usual complaint against the
+minister, that he brought forward no definite plan, and whose own field
+of choice was therefore left all the wider, offered nothing more
+specific than the following mysterious suggestion, which is probably a
+Theban hieroglyphic&mdash;that, like as the "celebrated" Cromwell, in times
+past, did<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> appoint Sir Matthew Hale to the presiding seat on the bench
+of justice, even so ought Sir Robert Peel to&mdash;&mdash;. But there the
+revelation ceased. What are we to suppose the suppressed <i>apodosis</i> of
+the proposition? Was it to disarm Mr O'Connell, by making him an
+archbishop? Little propensity have we to treat a great national crisis
+with levity; but surely every man is entitled to feel indignant, that
+when the burden of attack upon Government, is for their silence with
+regard to specific measures, (which, to be effectual, must often be
+secret,) those who have the good fortune to be under no such restraints
+of secrecy, find themselves able to suggest absolutely nothing. National
+resources were not locked up in the treasury&mdash;the particular choice may
+be secret, but the resources themselves lie open to the whole world&mdash;to
+us, to Lord John Russell, who have no power, quite as much as to Sir
+Robert Peel, who wields the thunder. And we cannot but remind the
+reader, that one reason, beyond the policy of concealment, which made it
+hard for Government to offer suggestions absolutely new, was the simple
+fact, that such as were fit to be published they had already <i>acted</i> on.
+The remodeling of arrangements for the army, the bill for intercepting
+the means of arming a rebel force, and the suppression of
+insurrectionary magistrates&mdash;these three measures were clearly the first
+steps to be taken. One only of the three is still lingering; whom, have
+we to thank for <i>that</i>? A ministry to which the Duke of Wellington
+belongs, is not likely to talk first and act afterwards. By the time it
+became necessary to talk, their work, <i>for the present</i>, had been done.
+But some few significant words there were from leaders in both Houses,
+which convince us, that, upon any important <i>change</i> of movements on the
+part of the Repealers, the silent menaces of Government will begin to
+speak in a tone such as no man can misunderstand.</p>
+
+<p>V. <i>Patronage</i>.&mdash;Has that great instrument of government been abused by
+Sir Robert Peel in the management of Ireland? This question might have
+arranged itself under either of the two first heads; but we choose to
+bring it forward in an insulated form. For we believe that no
+administration of any day has ever made the avowal, or had it in their
+power to make the avowal, which Sir Robert Peel made to the House of
+Commons in the speech we are now reviewing. He read two separate
+extracts from his own official instructions to Lord De Grey, which
+actually announced his resolution (unfettered by the slightest reserve)
+to renounce the entire church patronage of Ireland as an instrument of
+administration. The Lord-Lieutenant was authorized to dispense this
+patronage with one solitary view to merit, professional merit, and the
+highest interests of Ireland. So noble an act as this, and one so
+unprecedented in its nobility, needs no praise of ours. It speaks for
+itself. And it would be injurious to spend words in emblazonry of <i>that</i>
+which, by a spontaneous movement, <i>both</i> sides of the House received
+with volleying cheers. That kind of applause is as rare and as
+significant as the act itself.</p>
+
+<p>VI. and VII. Finally, however, all other questions connected with this
+great crisis, sink in importance by the side of the one great interest
+at stake upon the Union&mdash;is <i>that</i> to be maintained? And, as the Union
+could not possibly survive the destruction of the Protestant
+Establishment, is <i>that</i> to be protected? Are we to receive, at the
+hands of traitors, a new model for our glorious empire? and, without
+condescending to pause for one instant in discussing consequences, are
+we to drink of this cup of indignity&mdash;that the constitution and
+settlement of our state, which one hundred and fifty five years ago
+required the deliberations of two ancient nations, England and Scotland,
+collected in their representatives, to effect, now at this day are to be
+put into the furnace anew by obscure conspirators, and traitors long
+since due to the gallows. Say not, with Sir James Graham, "that this
+all-conquering England would perish by the consequences." If that were
+endured, already she <i>has</i> perished: and the glory of Israel has
+departed. The mere possibility that, by a knot of conspirators, our arch
+of empire could be dismembered, that by a bare shout of treason it could
+be thrown down for ever like the battlements of Jericho at the blast of
+trumpets, would proclaim, as in that Judean<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> tragedy, that we stood
+under a curse of wrath divine. The dismemberment itself would be less
+fatal than the ignominy of its mode. Better to court the hostility of
+foreign nations, better to lay open our realms to a free movement of
+that wrath against us which is so deeply founded in their envy, than to
+perish by the hands of poltroons, of thieves, of conspirators. But this
+fate is not ours. Many times our Government have repeated that
+assurance. But, as in the expressions of our affection to the Sovereign,
+this assurance is rightly renewed from time to time, and occasions are
+sought for renewing it, let the ministers be assured&mdash;that, on this
+point, we are all sound at heart. All of us are with them from shore to
+shore. In this island there will be no faltering. It is shocking,
+undoubtedly: it is awful, and <i>at such a moment</i>, to hear three lords of
+old official standing&mdash;Lords Palmerston, Howick, and John Russell,
+taking occasion to propound ridiculous and senseless modifications of a
+plan essentially rebellious, the plan of partial confiscation, or of
+partial degradation, for the Protestant Church. Patience hardly can keep
+pace with the deliberate consideration of the contradictions which would
+follow&mdash;whether from tampering with the Church, or with the political
+settlement of our nations. Sir R. Peel has traced both. From the one
+case <i>must</i> follow an independent army, for Ireland an independent
+government, an independent war as often as the popular will should speak
+loudly. From a participation of Protestant property, or Protestant
+dignities with the Roman Catholics, would follow instantly the transfer
+of Protestant churches, already few enough, the translation of Popish
+priests (that is, of selected traitors) to our senate. The very hint is
+a monument to the disgrace of these noble lords; fatal to all pretences
+of <i>earnest</i> patriotism; but still in <i>them</i> accounted for, and perhaps
+a little palliated, by the known necessities of party. As respects the
+<i>general</i> mind, there is no such imbecility abroad; no such disposition
+to traffic or go halves, temporize or capitulate with treason. One only
+error is prevalent: it has been noticed by Sir R. Peel, who indeed
+overlooked nothing; but it may be well to put the refutation into
+another form. The caballing for dissolution of the Union, why should
+that be treasonable? Is the Act of Union more than an Act of Parliament?
+Is not every act of Parliament open to objection, petition, annulment?
+No. It is dismemberment, says Sir Robert Peel, of the state. We add
+this&mdash;How, and in virtue of what law, does the house of Brunswick reign?
+By the Act of Settlement&mdash;an act of Parliament&mdash;an act about a hundred
+and fifty years old. That is but an act of Parliament. Is it open, then,
+to any of us, or all of us, to call a meeting for rescinding the Act of
+Settlement? But all will now advance to a rapid consummation; Mr
+O'Connell pursues only his old movement&mdash;then he is lost by the decay of
+the enthusiasm. He adopts a new one&mdash;that which he has obscurely
+announced. Then we are as sure as we are of day and night, of <i>his</i>
+treason, as of British power to crush it, that the suspended
+thunderbolt, now raised aloft by the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert
+Peel, will put an end to him for ever.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_N_14" id="Footnote_N_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_N_14"><span class="label">[N]</span></a> We use the words of the Chancellor; words, therefore,
+technically legal, in the debate of July, on Lord Clanricarde's motion
+for a vote of censure upon Sir E. Sugden.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_O_15" id="Footnote_O_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_O_15"><span class="label">[O]</span></a> A more striking neglect is chargeable upon <i>some</i>
+administration in suffering the Repealers quietly to receive military
+training. We no more understand how this seditious act could have been
+overlooked at the time, than we understand the process by which modest
+assemblies of Orangemen have come to be viewed as illegal, pending a
+state of law, which, upon the whole, justifies the much larger
+assemblies of "foul conspirators."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_P_16" id="Footnote_P_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_P_16"><span class="label">[P]</span></a> People in Ireland, under various heads, as officers of the
+different services, &amp;c., pay, but not in quality of Irishmen, when by
+accident they are such.</p></div>
+
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume
+54, No. 334, August 1843, by Various
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54,
+No. 334, August 1843, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: April 13, 2008 [EBook #25065]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Brendan OConnor, Jonathan Ingram, Josephine
+Paolucci and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net. (This file was produced from images
+generously made available by The Internet Library of Early
+Journals.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+BLACKWOOD'S
+
+EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
+
+No. CCCXXXIV AUGUST, 1843. VOL. LIV.
+
+
+
+
+FORMS AND BALLADS OF SCHILLER. BY SIR EDWARD LYTTON BULWER.
+
+PART THE LAST.
+
+
+We here close our attempts to convey to the English reader some notion,
+however inadequate, of the genius and mind of Schiller. It is in these
+Poems, rather, perhaps, than in his Dramas and Prose works, that the
+upright earnestness of the mind, and the rich variety of the genius, are
+best displayed. Here, certainly, can best be seen that peculiar union of
+intellect and imagination which Mr Carlyle has so well distinguished as
+Schiller's characteristic attribute, and in which it would be difficult
+to name the modern poet by whom he is surpassed; and here the variety of
+the genius is least restrained and limited by the earnestness of the
+mind. For Schiller's variety is not that of Shakspeare, a creative and
+universal spirit, passing with the breath of life into characters the
+most diverse, and unidentified with the creations its invisible agency
+invokes. But it is the variety of one in whom the consciousness of his
+own existence is never laid aside; shown not so much in baring the minds
+and hearts of others, as in developing the progress and the struggles of
+his own, in the infinite gradations of joy and of sorrow, of exquisite
+feeling and solemn thought. Hence, in the drama, arise his faults and
+deficiencies; in his characters, he himself speaks. They are gigantic
+images of his own moods at different epochs of his life--impassioned
+with Moor--philosophizing with Posa--stately, tranquil, and sad, with
+Wallenstein. But as, in his dramas, this intense perception of
+self--this earnest, haunting consciousness--this feeling of genius as a
+burden, and of life as a religion--interferes with true dramatic
+versatility; so, on the contrary, these qualities give variety in his
+poems to the expositions of a mind always varying, always
+growing--always eager to think, and sensitive to feel. And his art loved
+to luxuriate in all that copious fertility of materials which the
+industry of a scholar submitted to the mastery of a poet; to turn to
+divine song whatever had charmed the study or aroused the thought:
+philosophy, history, the dogma, or the legend, all repose in the memory
+to bloom in the verse. The surface of knowledge apparent in his poems is
+immense; and this alone suffices to secure variety in thought. But the
+aspiring and ardent nature of his intellect made him love to attempt
+also constant experiments in the theme and in the style. The romantic
+ballad, the classical tale, the lyric, the didactic, the
+epigrammatic--the wealth of his music comprehended every note, the
+boldness of his temper adventured every hazard. Yet still, (as in our
+Byron, in our Goldsmith, and as, perhaps, in every mind tenacious of its
+impressions,) some favourite ideas take possession of him so forcibly,
+as to be frequently repeated as important truths. The sacred and
+majestic office of the poet--the beauty of ideal life, (in which the
+author of the "_Robbers_" and "_William Tell_" deemed, at last, that the
+only liberty was to be found)--the worship of Virtue and the Beautiful,
+for their own sake, and without hope of reward;--these, and many ideas
+minor to, and proceeding from them, revisit us in a thousand tones of
+eloquent and haunting music.
+
+Reluctantly we tear ourselves from a task which has indeed been a labour
+of love. Many poets may inspire as high an admiration as Schiller; few
+so tender a personal affection. Even in his doubts and his errors, we
+have that interest in his struggles which arises from the conviction of
+his sound heart and his manly nature. Wrestling at one time with bitter
+poverty, at one with unhappy passion--lonely in his habits, prematurely
+broken in his health, his later wisdom dispelling his early dreams of
+Utopian liberty--still, throughout all, his bravery never fails him, his
+gentleness is never soured; his philanthropy changes its form, but it is
+never chilled. Even when he wanders into error, it is from his search
+for truth. That _humanity_ which the French writers of the last century
+sought to preach, Schiller took from the scoffing wit of Voltaire, and
+the unhealthy enthusiasm of Rousseau, to invest it with the thoughtful
+sweetness and the robust vigour of his own great soul. And we believe
+that no one can depart from the attentive study of that divine bequest
+he has left the world, without a more serious respect for virtue, and a
+more genial affection for mankind.
+
+    E. LYTTON BULWER.
+
+
+SECOND PERIOD.
+
+The Poems included in the Second Period of Schiller's literary career
+are few, but remarkable for their beauty, and deeply interesting from
+the struggling and anxious state of mind which some of them depict. It
+was, both to his taste and to his thought, a period of visible
+transition. He had survived the wild and irregular power which stamps,
+with fierce and somewhat sensual characters, the productions of his
+youth; but he had not attained that serene repose of strength--that
+calm, bespeaking depth and fulness, which is found in the best writings
+of his maturer years. In point of style, the Poems in this division have
+more facility and sweetness than those that precede them, and perhaps
+more evident vigour, more popular _verve_ and _gusto_, than some that
+follow: in point of thought, they mark that era through which few men of
+inquisitive and adventurous genius--of sanguine and impassioned
+temperament--and of education chiefly self-formed, undisciplined, and
+imperfect, have failed to pass--the era of doubt and gloom, of
+self-conflict, and of self-torture.--In the "_Robbers_," and much of the
+poetry written in the same period of Schiller's life, there is a bold
+and wild imagination, which attacks rather than questions--innovates
+rather than examines--seizes upon subjects of vast social import, that
+float on the surface of opinion, and assails them with a blind and
+half-savage rudeness, according as they offend the enthusiasm of
+unreasoning youth. But now this eager and ardent mind had paused to
+contemplate; its studies were turned to philosophy and history--a more
+practical knowledge of life (though in this last, Schiller, like most
+German authors, was ever more or less deficient in variety and range)
+had begun to soften the stern and fiery spirit which had hitherto
+sported with the dangerous elements of social revolution. And while this
+change was working, before its feverish agitation subsided into that
+Kantism which is the antipodes of scepticism, it was natural that, to
+the energy which had asserted, denounced, and dogmatized, should succeed
+the reaction of despondency and distrust. Vehement indignation at "the
+solemn plausibilities" of the world pervades the "_Robbers_." In "_Don
+Carlos_," (commenced in this period, though published much later,) the
+passion is no longer vehement indignation, but mournful sorrow--not
+indignation that hypocrisy reigns, but sorrow that honesty cannot
+triumph--not indignation that formal vice usurps the high places of the
+world, but sorrow that, in the world, warm and generous virtue glows,
+and feels, and suffers--without reward. So, in the poems of this period,
+are two that made a considerable sensation at their first
+appearance--"_The Conflict_," published originally under the title of
+"_The Freethinking of Passion_," and "_Resignation_." They present a
+melancholy view of the moral struggles in the heart of a noble and
+virtuous man. From the first of these poems, Schiller, happily and
+wisely, at a later period of his life, struck the passages most
+calculated to offend. What hand would dare restore them? The few stanzas
+that remain still suggest the outline of dark and painful thoughts,
+which is filled up in the more elaborate, and, in many respects, most
+exquisite, poem of "_Resignation_." Virtue exacting all sacrifices, and
+giving no reward--Belief which denies enjoyment, and has no bliss save
+its own illusions; such is the sombre lesson of the melancholy poet--the
+more impressive because _so far_ it is truth--deep and everlasting
+truth--but only, to a Christian, a part of truth. Resignation, so sad if
+not looking beyond the earth, becomes joy, when assured and confident of
+heaven. Another poem in this intermediate collection was no less
+subjected to severe animadversion, but with infinitely less justice. We
+mean "_The Gods of Greece_." This lament for the beautiful old
+mythology, is but the lament of a poet for the ancient founts of poetry;
+and few, now-a-days, can be literal enough to suppose it seriously
+intended to set up Paganism, to the disparagement of Christianity. But
+the fact is, that Schiller's mind was so essentially religious, that we
+feel more angry, when he whom we would gladly hail as our light and
+guide, only darkens us or misleads, than we should, with a less grave
+and reverent genius. Yet a period--a transition state--of doubt and
+despondency is perhaps common to men in proportion to their natural
+dispositions to faith and veneration. With them, it comes from keen
+sympathy with undeserved sufferings--from wrath at wickedness
+triumphant--from too intense a brooding over the great mysteries
+involved in the government of the world. Scepticism of this nature can
+but little injure the frivolous, and will be charitably regarded by the
+wise. Schiller's mind soon outgrew the state which, to the mind of a
+poet, above all men, is most ungenial, but the sadness which the
+struggle bequeathed, seems to have wrought a complete revolution in all
+his preconceived opinions. The wild creator of the "_Robbers_," drunk
+with liberty, and audacious against all restraint, becomes the champion
+of "Holy Order,"--the denouncer of the French republic--the extoller of
+an Ideal Life, which should entirely separate Genius the Restless from
+Society the Settled. And as his impetuous and stormy vigour matured into
+the lucent and tranquil art of "_Der Spaziergang_," "_Wallenstein_," and
+"_Die Braut von Messina_," so his philosophy threw itself into calm
+respect for all that custom sanctioned, and convention hallowed.
+
+But even during the painful transition, of which, in his minor poems,
+glimpses alone are visible, Scepticism, with Schiller, never insults the
+devoted, or mocks the earnest mind. It may have sadness--but never
+scorn. It is the question of a traveller who has lost his way in the
+great wilderness, but who mourns with his fellow-seekers, and has no
+bitter laughter for their wanderings from the goal. This division
+begins, indeed, with a Hymn which atones for whatever pains us in the
+two whose strain and spirit so gloomily contrast it, viz. the matchless
+and immortal "_Hymn to Joy_"--a poem steeped in the very essence of
+all-loving and all-aiding, Christianity--breathing the enthusiasm of
+devout yet gladsome adoration, and ranking amongst the most glorious
+bursts of worship which grateful Genius ever rendered to the benign
+Creator.
+
+And it is peculiarly noticeable, that, whatever Schiller's state of mind
+upon theological subjects at the time that this hymn was composed, and
+though all doctrinal stamp and mark be carefully absent from it, it is
+yet a poem that never could have been written but in a Christian age, in
+a Christian land--but by a man whose whole soul and heart had been at
+one time (nay, _was_ at the very moment of composition) inspired and
+suffused with that firm belief in God's goodness and His justice--that
+full assurance of rewards beyond the grave--that exulting and seraphic
+cheerfulness which associates joy with the Creator--and that animated
+affection for the Brotherhood of Mankind, which Christianity--and
+Christianity alone, in its pure, orthodox, gospel form, needing no aid
+from schoolman or philosopher--taught and teaches. Would, for objects
+higher than the praise which the ingenuity of labour desires and strives
+for--would that some faint traces of the splendour which invests the
+original, could attend the passage of thoughts so noble and so tender,
+from the verse of a poet to the rhyme of a translator!
+
+
+HYMN TO JOY.
+
+    Spark from the fire that Gods have fed--
+      JOY--thou Elysian Child divine,
+    Fire-drunk, our airy footsteps tread,
+      O Holy One! thy holy shrine.
+    The heart that Custom from the other
+      Divides, thy charms again unite,
+    And man in man but hails a brother,
+      Wherever rest thy wings of light.
+
+    _Chorus_--Embrace ye millions--let this kiss,
+                      Brothers, embrace the earth below!
+                   You starry worlds that shine on this,
+                      One common Father know!
+
+    He who this lot from fate can grasp--
+      Of one true friend the friend to be,--
+    He who one faithful maid can clasp,
+      Shall hold with us his jubilee;
+    Yes, each who but one single heart
+      In all the earth can claim his own!--
+    Let him who cannot, stand apart,
+      And weep beyond the pale, alone!
+
+    _Chorus_--Homage to holy Sympathy,
+                     Ye dwellers in our mighty ring;
+                   Up to yon Star-pavilions--she
+                     Leads to the Unknown King!
+
+    All being drinks the mother-dew
+      Of joy from Nature's holy bosom;
+    And Vice and Worth her steps pursue--
+      We trace them by the blossom.
+    Hers Love's sweet kiss--the grape's rich treasure,
+      That cheers Life on to Death's abode;
+    Joy in each link--the worm has pleasure,
+      The Cherub has the smile of God!
+
+    _Chorus_--Why bow ye down--why down--ye millions?
+                     O World, thy Maker's throne to see,
+                   Look upward-search the Star-pavilions:
+                     _There_ must His mansion be!
+
+    Joy is the mainspring in the whole
+      Of endless Nature's calm rotation;
+    Joy moves the dazzling wheels that roll
+      In the great Timepiece of Creation;
+    Joy breathes on buds, and flowers they are;
+      Joy beckons--suns come forth from heaven;
+    Joy rolls the spheres in realms afar,
+      Ne'er to thy glass, dim Wisdom, given!
+
+    _Chorus_--Joyous as Suns careering gay
+                     Along their royal paths on high,
+                   March, Brothers, march our dauntless way,
+                     As Chiefs to Victory!
+
+    Joy, from Truth's pure and lambent fires,
+      Smiles out upon the ardent seeker;
+    Joy leads to Virtue Man's desires,
+      And cheers as Suffering's step grows weaker.
+    High from the sunny slopes of Faith,
+      The gales her waving banners buoy;
+    And through the shattered vaults of Death,
+      Springs to the choral Angels-Joy!
+
+    _Chorus_--Bear this life, millions, bravely bear--
+                     Bear this life for the Better One!
+                   See ye the Stars?--a life is there,
+                     Where the reward is won.
+
+    Man never can the gods requite;
+      How fair alike to gods to be!
+    Where want and woe shall melt in light
+      That plays round Bliss eternally!
+    Revenge and Hatred both forgot;
+      No foe, the deadliest, unforgiven;
+    With smiles that tears can neighbour not;
+      No path can lead Regret to Heaven!
+
+    _Chorus_--Let all the world be peace and love--
+                     Cancel thy debt-book with thy brother;
+                   For God shall judge of _us_ above,
+                     As we shall judge each other!
+
+    Joy sparkles to us from the bowl--
+      Behold the juice whose golden colour
+    To meekness melts the savage soul,
+      And gives Despair a Hero's valour.
+    Up, brothers!--Lo, we crown the cup!
+      Lo, the wine flashes to the brim!
+    Let the bright Fount spring heavenward!--Up!
+      To THE GOOD SPIRIT this glass!--To HIM!
+
+    _Chorus_--Praised by the ever-whirling ring
+                     Of Stars, and tuneful Seraphim--
+                   To THE GOOD SPIRIT--the Father-King
+                     In Heaven!--This glass to Him!
+
+    Strong-hearted Hope to Sorrow's sloth;
+      Swift aid to guiltless Woe;
+    Eternity to plighted Troth;
+      Truth just to Friend and Foe;
+    Proud men before the throne to stand;
+      (These things are worth the dying!)
+    Good fortune to the Honest, and
+      Confusion to the Lying!
+
+    _Chorus_--Draw closer in the holy ring,
+                     Sworn by the wine-cup's golden river--
+                   Sworn by the Stars, and by their King,
+                     To keep our vow for ever!
+
+
+THE INVINCIBLE ARMADA.
+
+    She comes, she comes--the Burthen of the Deeps!
+      Beneath her wails the Universal Sea!
+    With clanking chains and a new God, she sweeps,
+      And with a thousand thunders, unto thee!
+    The ocean-castles and the floating hosts--
+      Ne'er on their like, look'd the wild waters!--Well
+    May man the monster name "Invincible."
+    O'er shudd'ring waves she gathers to thy coasts!
+      The horror that she spreads can claim
+      Just title to her haughty name.
+        The trembling Neptune quails
+    Under the silent and majestic forms;
+    The Doom of Worlds in those dark sails;--
+      Near and more near they sweep! and slumber all the Storms
+
+      Before thee the array,
+    Blest island, Empress of the Sea!
+    The sea-born squadrons threaten thee,
+      And thy great heart, BRITANNIA!
+    Woe to thy people, of their freedom proud--
+    She rests, a thunder heavy in its cloud!
+    Who, to thy hand the orb and sceptre gave,
+      That thou should'st be the sovereign of the nations?
+    To tyrant kings thou wert thyself the slave,
+      Till Freedom dug from Law its deep foundations;
+    The mighty CHART thy citizens made kings,
+      And kings to citizens sublimely bow'd!
+    And thou thyself, upon thy realm of water,
+    Hast thou not render'd millions up to slaughter,
+      When thy ships brought upon their sailing wings
+        The sceptre--and the shroud?
+    What should'st thou thank?--Blush, Earth, to hear and feel:
+    What should'st thou thank?--Thy genius and thy steel.
+    Behold the hidden and the giant fires!
+      Behold thy glory trembling to its fall!
+    Thy coming doom the round earth shall appall,
+    And all the hearts of freemen beat for thee,
+    And all free souls their fate in shine foresee--
+      _Theirs_ is _thy_ glory's fall!
+    One look below the Almighty gave,
+    Where stream'd the lion-flags of thy proud foe;
+    And near and wider yawn'd the horrent grave.
+    "And who," saith HE, "shall lay mine England low--
+    The stem that blooms with hero-deeds--
+    The rock when man from wrong a refuge needs--
+    The stronghold where the tyrant comes in vain?
+    Who shall bid England vanish from the main?
+    Ne'er be this only Eden freedom knew,
+    Man's stout defence from Power, to Fate consign'd."
+    God the Almighty blew,
+    And the Armada went to every wind!
+
+
+THE CONFLICT.
+
+    No! I this conflict longer will not wage,
+      The conflict Duty claims--the giant task;--
+    Thy spells, O Virtue, never can assuage
+      The heart's wild fire--this offering do not ask!
+
+    True, I have sworn--a solemn vow have sworn,
+      That I myself will curb the self within;
+    Yet take thy wreath, no more it shall be worn--
+      Take back thy wreath, and leave me free to sin.
+
+    Rent be the contract I with thee once made;--
+      She loves me, loves me--forfeit be thy crown!
+    Blest he who, lull'd in rapture's dreamy shade,
+      Glides, as I glide, the deep fall gladly down.
+
+    She sees the worm that my youth's bloom decays,
+      She sees my springtime wasted as it flees;
+    And, marv'ling at the rigour that gainsays
+      The heart's sweet impulse, my reward decrees.
+
+    Distrust this angel purity, fair soul!
+      It is to guilt thy pity armeth me;
+    Could Being lavish its unmeasured whole,
+      It ne'er could give a gift to rival _Thee!_
+
+    Thee--the dear guilt I ever seek to shun,
+      O tyranny of fate, O wild desires!
+    My virtue's only crown can but be won
+      In that last breath--when virtue's self expires!
+
+
+RESIGNATION.
+
+    And I, too, was amidst Arcadia born,
+        And Nature seem'd to woo me;
+    And to my cradle such sweet joys were sworn:
+    And I, too, was amidst Arcadia born,
+        Yet the short spring gave only tears unto me!
+    Life but one blooming holiday can keep--
+        For me the bloom is fled;
+    The silent Genius of the Darker Sleep
+    Turns down my torch--and weep, my brethren, weep--
+        Weep, for the light is dead!
+    Upon thy bridge the shadows round me press,
+        O dread Eternity!
+    And I have known no moment that can bless;--
+    Take back this letter meant for Happiness--
+        The seal's unbrokenen--see!
+    Before thee, Judge, whose eyes the dark-spun veil
+        Conceals, my murmur came;
+    On this our orb a glad belief prevails,
+    That, thine the earthly sceptre and the scales,
+        REQUITER is thy name.
+
+    Terrors, they say, thou cost for Vice prepare,
+        And joys the good shall know;
+    Thou canst the crooked heart unmask and bare;
+    Thou canst the riddle of our fate declare,
+        And keep account with Woe.
+    With thee a home smiles for the exiled one--
+        There ends the thorny strife.
+    Unto my side a godlike vision won,
+    Called TRUTH, (few know her, and the many shun,)
+        And check'd the reins of life.
+    "I will repay thee in a holier land--
+        Give thou to me thy youth;
+    All I can grant thee lies in this command."
+    I heard, and, trusting in a holier land,
+        Gave my young joys to Truth.
+
+    "Give me thy Laura--give me her whom Love
+        To thy heart's core endears;
+    The usurer, Bliss, pays every grief--_above_!"
+    I tore the fond shape from the bleeding love,
+        And gave--albeit with tears!
+    "What bond can bind the Dead to life once more?
+        Poor fool," (the scoffer cries;)
+    "Gull'd by the despot's hireling lie, with lore
+    That gives for Truth a shadow;--life is o'er
+        When the delusion dies!"
+    "Tremblest thou," hiss'd the serpent-herd in scorn,
+        "Before the vain deceit?
+    Made holy but by custom, stale and worn,
+    The phantom Gods, of craft and folly born--
+      The sick world's solemn cheat?
+    What is this Future underneath the stone?
+      But for the veil that hides, revered alone;
+    The giant shadow of our Terror, thrown
+      On Conscience' troubled glass--
+    Life's lying likeness--in the dreary shroud
+      Of the cold sepulchre--
+    Embalm'd by Hope--Time's mummy--which the proud
+    Delirium, driv'ling through thy reason's cloud,
+      Calls '_Immortality!_'
+    Giv'st thou for hope (corruption proves its lie)
+      Sure joy that most delights us?
+    Six thousand years has Death reign'd tranquilly!--
+    Nor one corpse come to whisper those who die,
+      What _after_ death requites us!"
+    Along Time's shores I saw the Seasons fly;
+      Nature herself, interr'd
+    Among her blooms, lay dead; to those who die
+    There came no corpse to whisper Hope! Still I
+      Clung to the Godlike Word.
+    Judge!--All my joys to thee did I resign,
+      All that did most delight ne;
+    And now I kneel--man's scorn I scorn'd--thy shrine
+    Have I adored--Thee only held divine--
+      Requiter, now requite me!
+    "For all my sons an equal love I know,
+      And equal each condition,"
+    Answer'd an unseen Genius--"See below,
+    Two flowers, for all who rightly seek them, blow--
+      The HOPE and the FRUITION.
+    He who has pluck'd the one, resign'd must see
+      The sister's forfeit bloom:
+    Let Unbelief enjoy--Belief must be
+    All to the chooser;--the world's history
+      Is the world's judgment doom.
+    Thou hast had HOPE--in thy belief thy prize--
+      Thy bliss was centred in it:
+    Eternity itself--(Go ask the Wise!)
+    Never to him who forfeits, resupplies
+      The sum struck from the Minute!"
+
+
+THE GODS OF GREECE.
+
+    1.
+
+      Ye in the age gone by,
+    Who ruled the world--a world how lovely then!--
+    And guided still the steps of happy men
+      In the light leading strings of careless joy!
+    Ah, flourish'd them your service of delight!
+    How different, oh, how different, in the day
+    When thy sweet fanes with many a wreath were bright,
+      O Venus Amathusia!
+
+    2.
+
+    Then, through a veil of dreams
+      Woven by Song, Truth's youthful beauty glow'd,
+    And life's redundant and rejoicing streams
+      Gave to the soulless, soul--where'er they flow'd.
+    Man gifted Nature with divinity
+      To lift and link her to the breast of Love;
+    All things betray'd to the initiate eye
+      The track of gods above!
+
+    3.
+
+    Where lifeless--fix'd afar,
+      A flaming ball to our dull sense is given,
+    Phoebus Apollo, in his golden car,
+      In silent glory swept the fields of heaven!
+    On yonder hill the Oread was adored,
+      In yonder tree the Dryad held her home;
+    And from her Urn the gentle Naiad pour'd
+      The wavelet's silver foam.
+
+    4.
+
+    Yon bay, chaste Daphne wreathed,
+      Yon stone was mournful Niobe's mute cell,
+    Low through yon sedges pastoral Syrinx breathed,
+      And through those groves wail'd the sweet Philomel;
+    The tears of Ceres swell'd in yonder rill--
+      Tears shed for Proserpine to Hades borne;
+    And, for her lost Adonis, yonder hill
+      Heard Cytherea mourn!--
+
+    5.
+
+    Heaven's shapes were charm'd unto
+      The mortal race of old Deucalion;
+    Pyrrha's fair daughter, humanly to woo,
+      Came down, in shepherd-guise, Latona's son.
+    Between men, heroes, Gods, harmonious then
+      Love wove sweet links and sympathies divine;
+    Blest Amathusia, heroes, Gods, and men,
+      Equals before thy shrine!
+
+    6.
+
+    Not to that culture gay,
+      Stern self-denial, or sharp penance wan!
+    Well might each heart be happy in that day--
+      For Gods, the Happy Ones, were kin to Man!
+    The Beautiful alone, the Holy there!
+      No pleasure shamed the Gods of that young race;
+    So that the chaste Camoenae favouring were,
+      And the subduing Grace!
+
+    7.
+
+    A palace every shrine;
+      Your very sports heroic;--Yours the crown
+    Of contests hallow'd to a power divine,
+      As rush'd the chariots thund'ring to renown.
+    Fair round the altar where the incense breathed,
+      Moved your melodious dance inspired; and fair
+    Above victorious brows, the garland wreathed
+      Sweet leaves round odorous hair!
+
+    8.
+
+    The lively Thyrsus-swinger,
+      And the wild car the exulting Panthers bore,
+    Announced the Presence of the Rapture-Bringer--
+      Bounded the Satyr and blithe Fawn before;
+    And Maenads, as the frenzy stung the soul,
+      Hymn'd, in their madding dance, the glorious wine--
+    As ever beckon'd to the lusty bowl
+      The ruddy Host divine!
+
+    9.
+
+    Before the bed of death
+      No ghastly spectre stood--but from the porch
+    Of life, the lip--one kiss inhaled the breath,
+      And the mute graceful Genius lower'd a torch.
+    The judgment-balance of the Realms below,
+      A judge, himself of mortal lineage, held;
+    The very Furies at the Thracian's woe,
+      Were moved and music-spell'd.
+
+    10.
+
+    In the Elysian grove
+      The shades renew'd the pleasures life held dear:
+    The faithful spouse rejoin'd remember'd love,
+      And rush'd along the meads the charioteer;
+    There Linus pour'd the old accustom'd strain;
+      Admetus there Alcestes still could greet; his
+    Friend there once more Orestes could regain,
+      His arrows--Philoctetes!
+
+    11.
+
+    More glorious then the meeds
+      That in their strife with labour nerved the brave,
+    To the great doer of renowned deeds,
+      The Hebe and the Heaven the Thunderer gave.
+    To him the rescued Rescuer of the dead,
+      Bow'd down the silent and Immortal Host;
+    And the Twin Stars their guiding lustre shed,
+      On the bark tempest-tost!
+
+    12.
+
+    Art thou, fair world, no more?
+      Return, thou virgin-bloom on Nature's face;
+    Ah, only on the Minstrel's magic shore,
+      Can we the footstep of sweet Fable trace!
+    The meadows mourn for the old hallowing life;
+      Vainly we search the earth of gods bereft;
+    Where once the warm and living shapes were rife,
+      Shadows alone are left!
+
+    13.
+
+    Cold, from the North, has gone
+      Over the Flowers the Blast that kill'd their May;
+    And, to enrich the worship of the ONE,
+      A Universe of Gods must pass away!
+    Mourning, I search on yonder starry steeps,
+      But thee no more, Selene, there I see!
+    And through the woods I call, and o'er the deeps,
+      And--Echo answers me!
+
+    14.
+
+    Deaf to the joys she gives--
+      Blind to the pomp of which she is possest--
+    Unconscious of the spiritual Power that lives
+      Around, and rules her--by our bliss unblest--
+    Dull to the Art that colours or creates,
+      Like the dead timepiece, Godless NATURE creeps
+    Her plodding round, and, by the leaden weights,
+      The slavish motion keeps.
+
+    15.
+
+    To-morrow to receive
+      New life, she digs her proper grave to-day;
+    And icy moons, with weary sameness, weave
+      From their own light their fullness and decay:
+    Home to the Poet's land the Gods are flown;
+      Light use in _them_ that later world discerns,
+    Which, the diviner leading-strings outgrown,
+      On its own axle turns.
+
+    16.
+
+    Home!--and with them are gone
+      The hues they gazed on, and the tones they heard,
+    Life's beauty and life's melodies--alone
+      Broods o'er the desolate void the lifeless Word!
+    Yet rescued from Time's deluge, still they throng,
+      Unseen, the Pindus they were wont to cherish,
+    Ah--that which gains immortal life in song
+      To mortal life must perish!
+
+We subjoin a few poems, belonging to the third period, which were
+omitted in our former selections from that division.
+
+
+THE MEETING.
+
+    1.
+
+    I see her still, with many a fair one nigh,
+      Of every fair the stateliest shape appear:
+    Like a lone son she shone upon my eye--
+      I stood afar, and durst not venture near.
+    Seized, as her presence brighten'd round me, by
+      The trembling passion of voluptuous fear,
+    Yet, swift, as borne upon some hurrying wing,
+    The impulse snatch'd me, and I struck the string!
+
+    2.
+
+    What then I felt--what sung--my memory hence
+      From that wild moment would in vain invoke--
+    It was the life of some discover'd sense
+      That in the heart's divine emotion spoke;
+    Long years imprison'd, and escaping thence
+      From every chain, the SOUL enchanted broke,
+    And found a music in its own deep core,
+    Its holiest, deepest deep, unguess'd before.
+
+    3.
+
+    Like melody long hush'd, and lost in space,
+      Back to its home the breathing spirit came:
+    I look'd, and saw upon that angel face
+      The fair love circled with the modest shame;
+    I heard (and heaven descended on the place)
+      Low-whisper'd words a charmed truth proclaim--
+    Save in thy choral hymns, O spirit-shore,
+    Ne'er may I hear such thrilling sweetness more!
+
+    4.
+
+    "I know the worth within the heart which sighs,
+      Yet shuns, the modest sorrow to declare;
+    And what rude Fortune niggardly denies,
+      Love to the noble can with love repair.
+    The lowly have the loftiest destinies;
+      Love only culls the flower that love should wear;
+    And ne'er in vain for love's rich gifts, shill yearn
+    The heart that feels their wealth--and can return!"
+
+
+TO EMMA.
+
+    1.
+
+    Amidst the cloud-grey deeps afar
+      The Bliss departed lies;
+    How linger on one lonely star
+      The loving wistful eyes!
+    Alas--a star in truth--the light
+    Shines but a signal of the night!
+
+    2.
+
+    If lock'd within the icy chill
+      Of the long sleep, thou wert--
+    My faithful grief could find thee still
+      A life within my heart;--
+    But, oh, the worse despair to see
+    Thee live to earth, and die to me!
+
+    3.
+
+    Can those sweet longing hopes, which make
+      Love's essence, thus decay?
+    Can that be love which doth forsake?--
+      _That_ love--which fades away?
+    That earthly gifts are brief, I knew--
+    Is that all heaven-born mortal too?
+
+
+TO A YOUNG FRIEND DEVOTING HIMSELF TO PHILOSOPHY.
+
+    Severe the proof the Grecian youth was doom'd to undergo,
+    Before he might what lurks beneath the Eleusinia know--
+    Art _thou_ prepared and ripe, the shrine--that inner shrine--to win,
+    Where Pallas guards from vulgar eyes the mystic prize within?
+    Know'st thou what bars thy way? how dear the bargain thou dost make,
+    When but to buy uncertain good, sure good thou dost forsake?
+    Feel'st thou sufficient strength to brave the deadliest human fray--
+    When Heart from Reason--Sense from Thought, shall rend themselves away?
+    Sufficient valour, war with Doubt, the Hydra-shape, to wage;
+    And that worst Foe within thyself with manly soul engage?
+    With eyes that keep their heavenly health--the innocence of youth
+    To guard from every falsehood, fair beneath the mask of Truth?
+    Fly, if thou can'st not trust thy heart to guide thee on the way--
+    Oh, fly the charmed margin ere th' abyss engulf its prey.
+    Round many a step that seeks the light, the shades of midnight close;
+    But in the glimmering twilight, see--how safely Childhood goes!
+
+
+THE PUPPET-SHOW OF LIFE.
+
+(_Das Spiel des Lebens._)
+
+A PARAPHRASE.
+
+A _literal_ version of this pretty little poem, which possibly may have
+been suggested by some charming passages in Wilhelm Meister, would,
+perhaps, be incompatible with the spirit which constitutes its chief
+merit. And perhaps, therefore, the original may be more faithfully
+rendered (like many of the Odes of Horace) by paraphrase than
+translation.
+
+    Ho--ho--my puppet-show!
+    Ladies and gentlemen, see my show!
+    Life and the world--look here, in troth,
+    Though but _in parvo_, I promise ye both!
+    The world and life--in my box are they;
+    But keep at a distance, good folks, I pray!
+    Lit is each lamp, from the stage to the porch,
+    With Venus's naphtha, from Cupid's torch;
+    Never a moment, if rules can tempt ye,
+    Never a moment my scene is empty!
+    Here is the babe in his loading-strings--
+      Here is the boy at play;
+    Here is the passionate youth with wings,
+      Like a bird's on a stormy day,
+    To and fro, waving here and there,
+    Down to the earth and aloft through the air!
+    Now see the man, as for combat, enter--
+    Where is the peril he fears to adventure?
+      See how the puppets speed on to the race,}
+    Each his own fortune pursues in the chase; }
+    How many the rivals, how narrow the space! }
+    But, hurry and scurry, O mettlesome game!
+    The cars roll in thunder, the wheels rush in flame.
+    How the brave dart onward, and pant and glow!
+    How the craven behind them come creeping slow--
+    Ha! ha! see how Pride gets a terrible fall!
+    See how Prudence, or Cunning, out-races them all!
+    See how at the goal, with her smiling eyes,
+    Ever waits Woman to give the prize!
+
+
+THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE NEW CENTURY.
+
+    Where can Peace find a refuge?--whither, say,
+      Can Freedom turn?--lo, friend, before our view
+    The CENTURY rends itself in storm away,
+      And, red with slaughter, dawns on earth the New.
+    The girdle of the lands is loosen'd;--hurl'd
+      To dust the forms old Custom deem'd divine,--
+    Safe from War's fury not the watery world;--
+      Safe not the Nile-God nor the antique Rhine.
+    Two mighty nations make the world their field,
+      Deaming the world is for their heirloom given--
+    Against the freedom of all lands they wield
+      This--Neptune's trident; that--the Thund'rer's levin.
+    Gold to their scales each region must afford;
+      And, as fierce Brennus in Gaul's early tale,
+    The Frank casts in the iron of his sword,
+      To poise the balance, where the right may fail--
+    Like some huge Polypus, with arms that roam
+      Outstretch'd for prey--the Briton spreads his reign;
+    And, as the Ocean were his household home,
+      Locks up the chambers of the liberal main.
+    Where on the Pole scarce gleams the faintest star,
+      Onward his restless course unbounded flies;
+    Tracks every isle and every coast afar,
+      And undiscover'd leaves but--Paradise!
+    Alas, in vain on earth's wide chart, I ween,
+      Thou seek'st that holy realm beneath the sky--
+    Where Freedom dwells in gardens ever green--
+      And blooms the Youth of fair Humanity!
+    O'er shores where sail ne'er rustled to the wind,
+      O'er the vast universe, may rove thy ken;
+    But in the universe thou canst not find
+      A space sufficing for ten happy men!
+    In the heart's holy stillness only beams
+      The shrine of refuge from life's stormy throng;
+    Freedom is only in the land of Dreams;
+      And only blooms the Beautiful in Song!
+
+
+THE MINSTRELS OF OLD.
+
+    Where now the minstrel of the large renown,
+      Rapturing with living words the heark'ning throng?
+    Charming the Man to heaven, and earthward down
+      Charming the God?--who wing'd the soul with song?
+    Yet lives the minstrel, not the deeds--the lyre
+      Of old demands ears that of old believed it--
+    Bards of bless'd time--how flew your living fire
+      From lip to lip! how race from race received it!
+    As if a God, men hallow'd with devotion--
+      What Genius, speaking, shaping, wrought below,
+    The glow of song inflamed the ear's emotion,
+      The ear's emotion gave the song the glow;
+    Each nurturing each--back on his soul--its tone
+      Whole nations echoed with a rapture-peal;
+    Then all around the heavenly splendour shone
+     Which now the heart, and scarce the heart can feel.
+
+
+FAREWELL TO THE READER.
+
+    The Muse is silent; with a virgin cheek,
+      Bow'd with the blush of shame, she ventures near--
+    She waits the judgment that thy lips may speak,
+      And feels the def'rence, but disowns the fear.
+    Such praise as Virtue gives, 'tis hers to seek--
+      Bright Truth, not tinsel Folly to revere;
+    He only for her wreath the flowers should cull
+    Whose heart, with hers, beats for the Beautiful.
+
+    Nor longer yet these days of mine would live,
+      Than to one genial heart, not idly stealing,
+    There some sweet dreams and fancies fair to give,
+      Some hallowing whispers of a loftier feeling.
+    Not for the far posterity they strive,
+      Doom'd with the time, its impulse but revealing,
+    Born to record the Moment's smile or sigh,
+    And with the light dance of the Hours to fly.
+
+    Spring wakes--and life, in all its youngest hues,
+      Shoots through the mellowing meads delightedly;
+    Air the fresh herbage scents with nectar-dews;
+      Livelier the choral music fills the sky;
+    Youth grows more young, and Age its youth renews,
+      In that field-banquet of the ear and eye;
+    Spring flies--lo, seeds where once the flowers have blush'd
+    And the last bloom's gone, and the last muse hush'd.
+
+
+
+
+A READING PARTY IN THE LONG VACATION.
+
+
+Every one who knows Oxford, and a good many besides, must have heard of
+certain periodical migrations of the younger members of that learned
+university into distant and retired parts of her Majesty's dominions,
+which (on the _"lucus a non lucendo"_ principle) are called and known by
+the name of Reading Parties. Some half dozen under-graduates, in peril
+of the coming examination, form themselves into a joint-stock cramming
+company; take L.30 or L.40 shares in a private tutor; pitch their camp
+in some Dan or Beersheba which has a reputation for dulness; and, like
+other joint-stock companies, humbug the public, and sometimes
+themselves, into the belief that they are "doing business." For these
+classical bubbles, the long vacation is the usual season, and Wales one
+of the favourite localities; and certainly, putting "Reading" out of the
+question, three fine summer months might be worse spent, than in
+climbing the mountains, and whipping the trout-streams, of that romantic
+land. Many a quiet sea-side town, or picturesque fishing-village, might
+be mentioned, which owes no little of its summer gayety, and perhaps
+something of its prosperity, to the annual visit of "the Oxonians:" many
+a fair girl has been indebted for the most piquant flirtation of the
+season to the "gens togata," who were reading at the little
+watering-place to which fate and papa had carried her for the race-week,
+or the hunt ball: and whatever the effect of these voluntary
+rustications upon the class lists in Oxford, they certainly have
+procured for the parties occasionally a very high "provincial
+celebrity." I know that when we beat our retreat from summer quarters at
+Glyndewi in 18--, the sighs of our late partners were positively
+heart-rending, and the blank faces of the deserted billiard-marker and
+solitary livery-stable 'groom' haunt me to this day.
+
+I had been endeavouring by hard reading, for the last three months, to
+work up the arrears of three years of college idleness, when my evil
+genius himself, in the likeness of George Gordon of Trinity, persuaded
+me to put the finishing touch to my education, by joining a party who
+were going down to Glyndewi in ----shire, "really to read." In an
+unguarded moment, I consented; packed up books enough to last me for
+five years, reading at the rate of twenty-four hours per day, wrote to
+the governor announcing my virtuous intention, and was formally
+introduced to the Rev. Mr Hanmer, Gordon's tutor, as one of his "cubs"
+for the long vacation.
+
+Six of us there were to be; a very mixed party, and not well mixed--a
+social chaos. We had an exquisite from St Mary Hall, a pea-coated
+Brazenose boatman, a philosophical water-drinker and union-debater from
+Balliol, and a two bottle man from Christ Church. When we first met, it
+was like oil and water; it seemed as if we might be churned together for
+a century, and never coalesce: but in time, like punch-making, it turned
+out that the very heterogeneousness of the ingredients was the zest of
+the compound.
+
+I had never heard of such a place as Glyndewi, nor had I an idea how to
+get there. Gordon and Hanmer were gone already; so I packed myself on
+the top of the Shrewsbury mail, as the direct communication between
+Oxford and North Wales, and there became acquainted with No. 2 of my
+fellows in transportation; (for, except Gordon and myself, we were all
+utter strangers to each other.) "I say, Hawkins; let's feel those
+ribbons a bit, will you?" quoth the occupant of the box-seat to our
+respectable Jehu. "Can't indeed, sir, with these hosses; it's as much as
+ever I can do to hold this here near leader." This was satisfactory;
+risking one's neck in a tandem was all very well--a part of the regular
+course of an Oxford education; but amateur drivers of stage coaches I
+had always a prejudice against: let gentlemen keep their own
+four-in-hands, and upset themselves and families, as they have an
+undeniable right to do--but not the public. I looked at the first
+speaker: at his pea-jacket, that is, which was all I could see of him:
+Oxford decidedly. His cigar was Oxford too, by the villanous smell of
+it. He took the coachman's implied distrust of his professional
+experience good-humouredly enough, proffered him his cigar-case, and
+entered into a discussion on the near-leader's moral and physical
+qualities. "I'll trouble you for a light, if you please," said I; he
+turned round, we stuck the ends of our cigars together, and puffed into
+each other's faces for about a minute, (my cigars were damp-ish,) as
+grave as North American Indians. "Thank you," said I, as the interesting
+ceremony was concluded, and our acquaintance begun. We got into
+conversation, when it appeared that he, too, was bound for the
+undiscovered shores of Glyndewi, and that we were therefore likely to be
+companions for the next three months. He was an off-hand, good-humoured
+fellow; drank brandy and water, treated the coachman, and professed an
+acquaintance with bar-maids in general, and pretty ones in particular,
+on our line of road. He was going up for a class, he supposed, he said;
+the governor had taken a "second below the line" himself, and insisted
+upon his emulating the paternal distinction; d----d nonsense, he said,
+in his opinion; except that the governor had a couple of harriers with
+Greek names, he did not see that his classics were of any use to him:
+and no doubt but that Hylax and Phryne would run just as well if they
+had been called Stormer and Merry Lass. However, he must rub up all his
+old Eton books this 'long,' and get old Hanmer to lay it on thick. Such
+was Mr Branling of Brazenose.
+
+At Shrewsbury, we were saluted with the intelligence, "Coach dines here,
+gentlemen." We found a couple of fowls that the coach might probably
+have dined upon, and digested with other articles--in the hind boot; to
+human stomachs they seemed impracticable. We employed the allotted ten
+minutes upon a leg of mutton, and ascended again to our stations on the
+roof: and here was an addition to our party. Externally, it consisted of
+a mackintosh and a fur cap: in the very short interval between the
+turned-down flap of the one and the turned-up collar of the other, were
+a pair of grey-glass spectacles, and part of a nose. So far we had no
+very sufficient premises from which to draw conclusions, whether or not
+he were "one of us." But there were internal evidences; an odour of
+Bouquet de Roi or some such villanous compound nearly overpowering the
+fragrance of some genuine weed which I had supplied my pea-coated friend
+with in the place of his Oxford "Havannahs"--a short cough occasionally,
+as though the smoke of the said weed were not altogether "the perfume of
+the lip he loved;"--and a resolute taciturnity. What was he? It is a
+lamentable fact that an Oxford under-graduate does not invariably look
+the gentleman. He vibrates between the fashionable assurance of a London
+swindler, and the modest diffidence of an overgrown schoolboy. There is
+usually a degree of unfinishedness about him. He seems to be assuming a
+character unlike the glorious Burschenschaf of Germany, he has no
+character of his own. However, for want of more profitable occupation,
+we set to work in earnest to discover who our fellow traveller really
+was: and by a series of somewhat American conversational enquiries, we
+at last fished out that he was going into ----shire like ourselves--nay,
+in answer to a direct question on the subject, that he hopes to meet
+Hanmer of Trinity at Glyndewi. But no further information could we get:
+our new friend was reserved. Mr Branling and I had commenced intimacy
+already. "My name is Branling of Brazenose;" "and mine Hawthorne of
+----;" was our concise introduction. But our companion was the pink of
+Oxford correctness on this point. He thanked the porter for putting his
+luggage up called me "Sir" till he found I was an Oxford man; and had we
+travelled for a month together, would rather have requested the coachman
+to introduce us, than be guilty of any such barbarism as to introduce
+himself. So by degrees our intimacy, instead of warming, waxed cold. As
+night drew on, and the fire of cigars from Branling, self, and coachman,
+became more deadly, the fur cap was drawn still closer over the ears,
+the mackintosh crept up higher, and we lost sight of all but the outline
+of the spectacles.
+
+The abominable twitter of the sparrows in the hedgerows gave notice of
+the break of day--to travellers the most dismal of all hours, in my
+opinion--when I awoke from the comfortable nap into which I had fallen
+since the last change of horses. For some time we alternately dozed,
+tumbled against each other, begged pardon, and awoke; till at last the
+sun broke out gloriously as we drove into the cheerful little town of
+B----.
+
+A good breakfast set us all to rights, and made even our friend in the
+mackintosh talkative. He came out most in the character of tea-maker:
+(an office, by the way, which he filled to the general satisfaction of
+his constituents during our stay in North Wales.) We found out that he
+was a St Mary Hall man, with a duplicate name: Mr Sydney Dawson, as the
+cards on his multifarious luggage set forth: that he was an aspirant for
+"any thing he could get" in the way of honours: (humble aspiration as it
+seemed, it was not destined to be gratified, for he got nothing.) He
+thought he might find some shooting and fishing in Wales, so had brought
+with him a gun-case and a setter; though his pretensions to
+sportsmanship proved to be rather of the cockney order. For three months
+he was the happily unconscious butt of our party, and yet never but once
+was our good-humour seriously interrupted.
+
+From B---- to Glyndewi we had been told we must make our way as we
+could: and a council of war, which included boots and the waiter, ended
+in the arrival of the owner of one of the herring-boats, of which there
+were several under "the terrace." "Was you wish to go to Glyndewi,
+gentlemen? I shall take you so quick as any way; she is capital wind,
+and you shall have fine sail." A man who could speak such undeniable
+English was in himself a treasure; for an ineffectual attempt at a
+bargain for some lobsters (even with a "Welsh interpreter" in our hands)
+had warned us that there were in this Christian country unknown tongues
+which would have puzzled even the Rev. Edward Irving. So the bargain was
+struck: in half-an-hour ourselves and traps were alongside the boat: and
+after waiting ten minutes for the embarkation of Mr Sydney Dawson and
+his dog Sholto, who seemed to have an abhorrence of sea-voyages,
+Branling at last hauled in the latter in the last agonies of
+strangulation, and his master having tumbled in over him, to the
+detriment of a pair of clean whites and a cerulean waistcoat, we--_i.e._
+the rest of us--set sail for Glyndewi in high spirits.
+
+Our boatmen were intelligent fellows, and very anxious to display their
+little stock of English. They knew Mr Hanmer well, they said--he had
+been at Glyndewi the summer before; he was "nice free gentleman;" and
+they guessed immediately the object of our pilgrimage: Glyndewi was
+"very much for learning;" did not gentlemen from Oxford College, and
+gentlemen from Cambridge College, all come there? We warned him not on
+any account to couple us in his mind with "Cambridge gentlemen:" we were
+quite a distinct species, we assured him. (They had beaten us that year
+in the eight-oar match on the Thames.) But there seemed no sufficient
+reason for disabusing their minds of the notion, that this influx of
+students was owing to something classical in the air of Glyndewi:
+indeed, supposing this theory to be wrong, it was no easy matter to
+substitute a sounder one. In what did the superiority of Mrs Jenkins's
+smoky parlour at Glyndewi consist, for the purposes of reading for a
+degree, compared with my pleasant rooms looking into ---- Gardens at
+Oxford, or the governor's snug library at home? It is an abstruse
+question. Parents and guardians, indeed, whose part upon the stage of
+life, as upon the theatrical stage, consists principally in submitting
+to be more or less humbugged, attribute surprising effects to a fancied
+absence of all amusements, with a mill-horse round of Greek, Latin, and
+logic, early rising, and walks in the country with a pocket Horace. From
+my own experience of reading parties, I should select as their peculiar
+characteristics, a tendency to hats and caps of such remarkable shapes,
+as, if once sported in the college quadrangle, would be the subject of a
+common-room _instanter_; and, among some individuals (whom we may call
+the peripatetic philosophers of the party) a predilection for seedy
+shooting-coats and short pipes, with which they perambulate the
+neighbourhood to the marvel of the aboriginal inhabitants; while those
+whom we may class with the stoics, display a preference for
+dressing-gowns and meerschaums, and confine themselves principally to
+the doorways and open windows of their respective lodgings. How far
+these "helps to knowledge"--for which Oxford certainly does not afford
+equal facilities--conduce to the required first or second class, is a
+question I do not feel competent to decide; but _if_ reading-parties
+_do_ succeed, the secret of their success may at least as probably lie
+in these hitherto unregarded phenomena.
+
+Five hours of a fair wind brought us to Glyndewi. Here we found Hanmer
+and Gordon, who had taken a house for the party, and seemed already
+domesticated. I cannot say that we were royally lodged; the rooms were
+low, and the terms high; but as no one thought of taking lodgings at
+Glyndewi in the winter, and the rats consequently lived in them
+rent-free for six months, it was but fair somebody should pay: and we
+did. "Attendance" we had into the bargain. Now, attendance at a
+lodging-house has been defined to be, the privilege of ringing your bell
+as often as you please, provided you do not expect any one to answer it.
+But the bell-ropes in Mrs. Jenkins's parlours being only ornamental
+appendages, our privilege was confined to calling upon the landing-place
+for a red-headed female, who, when she did come, which was seldom, was
+terrible to look upon, and could only be conversed with by pantomime.
+
+To do Mrs. Jenkins and "Gwenny" justice, they were scrupulously clean in
+every thing but their own persons, which, the latter's especially,
+seemed to have monopolised the dirt of the whole establishment. College
+bedrooms are not luxurious affairs, so we were not inclined to be
+captious on that head; and we slept soundly, and awoke with a
+determination to make out first voyage of discovery in a charitable
+spirit.
+
+The result of our morning's stroll was the unanimous conclusion, that
+Glyndewi was a rising place. It did not seem inclined to rise at all at
+once though; but in patches here and there, with a quarter of a mile or
+so between, like what we read of the great sea-serpent. (I fear this
+individual is no more; this matter-of-fact age has been the death of
+him.) There were two long streets--one parallel to the quay, (or, as the
+more refined called it, "the terrace,") and the other at right angles to
+it. The first was Herring Street--the second Goose Street. At least such
+were the ancient names, which I give for the benefit of antiquarian
+readers. Since the then Princess Victoria visited B----, the loyalty of
+the Glyndewi people had changed "Herring" into "Victoria;" and her royal
+consort has since had the equivocal compliment paid him of transmuting
+"Goose Street" into "Albert Buildings." I trust it will not be
+considered disloyal to say, that the original sponsors--the geese and
+the herrings--seen to me to have been somewhat hardly used; having done
+more for their namesakes, than, as far as I can learn, their royal
+successors even promised.
+
+Glyndewi was rising, however, in more respects than in the matter of
+taste in nomenclature. Tall houses, all front and windows, were stuck up
+here and there; sometimes with a low fisherman's cottage between then,
+whose sinking roof and bulging walls looked as if, like the frog in the
+fable, it had burst in the vain attempt to rival its majestic neighbour.
+At one end stood a large hotel with a small business, and an empty
+billiard-room: at the other, a wall some six inches high marked the spot
+where subscription-rooms were to be built for the accommodation of
+visitors and the public generally, as set forth in the prospectus, as
+soon as the visitors and the public chose to find the money. Nearly the
+whole of the village was the property of a gentleman who had built the
+hotel and billiard-room, and run up a few lodging-houses on a
+speculation, which seemed at best a doubtful one, of making it in time a
+fashionable watering-place.
+
+Glyndewi had been recommended to us as a quiet place. It was
+quiet--horribly quiet. Not the quiet of green fields and deep woods, the
+charm of country life; but the quiet of a teetotal supper-party, or a
+college in vacation. "Just the place for reading: no gayety--no
+temptations." So I had written to tell the governor, in the ardour of my
+setting forth as one of a "reading-party:" alas! it was a fatal mistake.
+Had it been an ordinarily cheerful place, I think one or two of us could
+and should have read there; as it was, our whole wits were set to work
+to enliven its dulness. It took us as long to invent an amusement, as
+would have sufficed elsewhere for getting tired of half a dozen
+different dissipations. The very reason which made us fix upon it as a
+place to read in, proved in our case the source of unmitigated idleness.
+"No temptations" indeed! there were no temptations--the only temptation
+I felt there was to hang or drown myself, and there was not a tree six
+feet high within as many miles, and the Dewi was a river "darkly,
+deeply, beautifully"--muddy; it would have been smothering rather. We
+should not have staid to the end of the first month, had it not been for
+very shame; but to run away from a reading-party would have been a joke
+against us for ever. So from the time we got up in the morning, until we
+climbed Mrs Jenkins's domestic treadmill again at night, the one
+question was, what should we do with ourselves? Walk? there were the
+A---- and B---- roads--three miles of sand and dust either way. Before
+us was the bay--behind the ----shire mountains, up which one might walk
+some sixteen miles, (in the month of July,) and yet the same view from
+each successive point you reached: viz., a hill before you, which you
+thought must be the top at last, and Glyndewi--of which we knew the
+number of houses, and the number of windows in each--behind. Ride then?
+the two hacks kept by mine host of the Mynysnewydd Arms, deserve a
+history to themselves. Rossinante would have been ashamed to be seen
+grazing in the same field with such caricatures of his race. There was a
+board upon a house a few doors off, announcing that "pleasure and other
+boats" were to be let on hire. All the boats that we were acquainted
+with must have been the "other" ones--for they smelled of herrings,
+sailed at about the pace of a couple of freshmen in a "two--oar," and
+gave very pretty exercise--to those who were fond of it--in baling. As
+for reading, we were like the performers at a travelling theatre--always
+"going to begin."
+
+Branling, indeed, did once shut himself up in his bedroom, as we
+afterwards ascertained, with a box of cigars and a black and tan
+terrier, and read for three weeks on end in the peculiar atmosphere thus
+created. Willingham of Christ Church, and myself, had what was called
+the dining-room in common, and proceeded so far on the third day after
+our arrival, as to lay out a very imposing spread of books upon all the
+tables; and there it remained in evidence of our good intentions, until
+the first time we were called upon to do the honours of an extempore
+luncheon. Unfortunately, from the very first, Willingham and myself were
+set down by Hanmer as the idle men of the party; the sort of prophetical
+discrimination, which tutors at Oxford are very much in the habit of
+priding themselves upon, tends, like other prophecies, to work its own
+fulfilment. Did a civil Welshman favour us with a call? "Show him in to
+Mr Hawthorne and Mr Willingham; I dare say they are not very
+busy"--quoth our _Jupiter tonans_ from on high in the dining-room, where
+he held his court; and accordingly in he came. We had Stilton and
+bottled porter in charge for these occasions from the common stock; but
+the honours of all these visits were exclusively our own, as far as
+houseroom went. In dropped the rest of the party, one by one. Hanmer
+himself pitched the Ethics into a corner to make room, as he said, for
+substantials, the froth of bottled Guiness damped the eloquence of
+Cicero, and Branling having twisted up my analysis of the last-read
+chapter into a light for his cigar, there was an end of our morning's
+work. How could we read? That was what we always said, and there was
+some truth in it.
+
+Mr Branling's reading fit was soon over too; and having cursed the
+natives for barbarians, because there was not a pack of harriers within
+ten miles, which confirmed him in the opinion he had always expressed of
+their utter want of civilization, (for, as he justly remarked, not one
+in a dozen could even speak decent English,) he waited impatiently for
+September, when he had got leave from some Mr Williams or Jones, I never
+remembered which, to shoot over a considerable range about Glyndewi.
+
+But with the 20th of August, a change came over the spirit of our dream.
+Hitherto we had seen little of any of the neighbouring families,
+excepting that of a Captain George Phillips, who, living only three
+miles off, on the bank of the river, and having three sons and two
+daughters, and keeping a pretty yacht, had given us a dinner party or
+two, and a pleasant day's sail. Capital fellows were the young
+Phillipses: Nature's gentlemen; unsophisticated, hearty Welshmen; lads
+from sixteen to twenty. Down they used to come, in a most dangerous
+little craft of their own, which went by the name of the "Coroner's
+Inquest," to smoke cigars, (against which the Captain had published an
+interdict at home,) and question us about Oxford larks, and tell us in
+return stories of wild-fowl shooting, otter hunting, and salmon fishing,
+in all which they were proficient.
+
+Our establishment was not an imposing one, but of them we made no
+strangers. Once they came, I remember, self-invited to dinner, in a most
+unfortunate state of our larder. The weekly half sheep had not arrived
+from B----; to get any thing in Glyndewi, beyond the native luxuries of
+bacon and herrings, was hopeless; and our dinner happened to be a leash
+of fowls, of which we had just purchased a live supply. Mrs Glasse would
+have been in despair; we took it coolly; to the three boiled fowls at
+top, we added three roast ditto at bottom, and by unanimous consent of
+both guests and entertainers, a more excellent dinner was never put on
+table.
+
+But the 20th of August! the day of the Glyndewi regatta! _that_ must
+have a chapter to itself.
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+When a dull place like Glyndewi does undertake to be gay, it seldom does
+things by halves. Ordinary doses of excitement fail to meet the urgency
+of the case. It was the fashion, it appeared, for all the country
+families of any pretensions to _ton_, and not a few of the idlers from
+the neighbouring watering-places, to be at Glyndewi for the race-week.
+And as far as the programme of amusements went, certainly the committee
+(consisting of the resident surgeon, the non-resident proprietor of the
+"hotel," &c., and a retired major in the H.E.I.C.'s service, called by
+his familiars by the endearing name of "Tiger Jones") had made a
+spirited attempt to meet the demand. A public breakfast, and a regatta,
+and a ball--a "Full Dress and Fancy Ball," the advertisement said, on
+the 20th a Horse-Race; and an Ordinary on the 21st; a Cricket Match, if
+possible, and any extra fun which the Visitors' own genius might strike
+out on the following days.
+
+The little bay of Glyndewi was not a bad place for a boat-race on a
+small scale. The "terrace" commanded the whole of it; there were plenty
+of herring-boats, about equally matched in sailing deficiencies, ready
+and willing to "run"--_i.e._ creep--for the prizes; and an honourable
+member of the Yacht Club, who for some years past, for reasons which it
+was said his creditors could explain, had found it more convenient to
+keep his season at B---- than at Cowes, always paid the stewards the
+compliment of carrying off the "Ladies' Challenge Cup."
+
+The two or three years' experience which the Glyndewi people had lately
+gained of the nature and habits of "the Oxonians," made them an article
+in great demand on these occasions. Mammas and daughters agreed in
+looking upon us as undeniable partners in the ballroom, while the
+sporting men booked us as safe for getting up a creditable four-oar,
+with a strong probability of finding a light weight willing to risk his
+neck and reputation at a hurdle-race. Certain it is, that from the time
+the races began to be seriously talked about, we began to feel ourselves
+invested with additional importance. "Tiger Jones" (who occupied a snug
+little box about a mile out of Glyndewi, where he lived upon cheroots
+and brandy and water) called, was exceedingly polite, apologized for not
+inviting us to dinner--a thing he declared impossible in his
+quarters--hoped we would call some day and take a lunch with him, spoke
+with rapture of the capital crew which "the gentlemen who were studying
+here last summer" had made up, and which ran away from all competitors,
+and expressed a fervent hope that we should do likewise.
+
+The sporting surgeon (of course he had called upon us long ago)
+redoubled his attentions, begged that if any of us were cricketers we
+would endeavour to aid him in getting up a "Glyndewi eleven" against the
+"Strangers," and fixed himself upon me as an invaluable acquisition,
+when he found I had actually once played in a match against Marylebone.
+(I did not tell him that the total score of my innings was "_one_.")
+Would I, then, at once take the drilling of as many recruits as he could
+get together? And would Mr Willingham and Mr Gordon, who "used to play
+at school," get up their practice again? (It wanted about a fortnight to
+the races.) The result of this, and sundry other interviews, was, that
+Branling at length found a vent for the _vis inertiae_ in putting us all,
+with the exception of Mr Sydney Dawson, whom he declared to be so stiff
+in the back that he had no hope of him, into training for a four-oar;
+and the surgeon and myself set off in his gig for B----, to purchase
+materials for cricket.
+
+It is true, that our respected tutor did look more than usually grave,
+and shook his head with a meaning almost as voluminous as Lord
+Burleigh's, when informed of our new line of study. Rowing he declared
+to be a most absurd expenditure of time and strength; he never could see
+the fun of men breaking bloodvessels, and getting plucked for their
+degree, for the honour of "the Trinity Boat." But the cricket touched
+him on the raw. He was an old Etonian, and had in his time been a good
+player; and was now as active as any stout gentleman of
+seven-and-thirty, who had been twelve years a steady admirer of bursary
+dinners and common-room port. So, after some decent scruples on his
+part, and some well-timed compliments touching his physical abilities on
+ours, (he was much vainer of the muscle of his arm than of his high
+reputation as a scholar,) we succeeded in drawing from him a sort of
+promise, that if we were so foolish as to get up a match, he would try
+whether he had forgot all about bowling.
+
+For the next fortnight, therefore, we had occupation enough cut out for
+us. Branling was unmerciful in his practice on the river; and
+considering that two of us had never pulled an oar but in the slowest of
+"Torpids," we improved surprisingly under his tuition. The cricket, too,
+was quite a new era in our existence. Davson (we told him that the
+"Sydney" must be kept for Sundays) was a perfect fund of amusement in
+his zealous practice. He knew as much about the matter as a cow might,
+and was rather less active. But if perseverance could have made a
+cricketer, he would have turned out a first-rate one. Not content with
+two or three hours of it every fine evening, when we all sallied down to
+the marsh, followed by every idler in Glyndewi, he used to disappear
+occasionally in the mornings, and for some days puzzled us as to where
+and how he disposed of himself. We had engaged, in our corporate
+capacity, the services of a most original retainer, who cleaned boots,
+fetched the beer, eat the cold mutton, and made himself otherwise useful
+when required. He was amphibious in his habits, having been a
+herring-fisher the best part of his life; but being a martyr to the
+rheumatism, which occasionally screwed him up into indescribable forms,
+had betaken himself to earning a precarious subsistence as he could on
+shore. It was not often that we required his services between breakfast
+and luncheon, but one morning, after having dispatched Gwenny in all
+directions to hunt for Bill Thomas in vain, we at last elicited from her
+that "may-be she was gone with Mr Dawson." Then it came out, to our
+infinite amusement, that Dawson was in the habit, occasionally, of
+impressing our factotum Bill to carry bat, stumps, and ball down to the
+marsh, and there commencing private practice on his own account.
+
+Mr Sydney Dawson and Bill Thomas--the sublime and the
+ridiculous--amalgamating at cricket, was far too good a joke to lose; so
+we got Hanmer to cut his lecture short, and come down with us to the
+scene of action. From the cover of a sandbank, we had a view of all that
+was going on in the plain below. There was our friend at the wicket,
+with his coat off, and the grey spectacles on, in an attitude which it
+must have taken him some study to accomplish, and Bill, with the ball in
+his hand, vociferating "Plaiy." A ragged urchin behind the wicket,
+attempting to bag the balls as Dawson missed them in what had once been
+a hat, and Sholto looking on with an air of mystification, completed the
+picture.
+
+"That's too slow," said Sydney, as Bill, after some awful contortions,
+at length delivered himself of what he called "a cast." "_Diawl!_" said
+Bill, _sotto voce_, as he again got possession of the ball. "That's too
+high," was the complaint, as with an extraordinary kind of jerk, it
+flew some yards over the batsman's head, and took what remained of the
+crown out of the little lazzaroni's hat behind. "_Diawl!_" quoth Bill
+again, apologetically, "She got too much way on her that time." Bill was
+generally pretty wide of his mark, and great appeared to be the
+satisfaction of all parties when Dawson contrived to make a hit, and
+Sholto and the boy set off after the ball, while the striker leaned with
+elegant _nonchalance_ upon his bat, and Bill mopped his face, and gave
+vent to a complimentary varety of "Diawl." It was really a pity to
+interrupt the performance; but we did at last. Bill looked rather
+ashamed of his share in the business when he saw "Mishtar," as he called
+Hanmer; but Dawson's self-complacency and good-humour carried him
+through every thing. "By Jove," said Willingham to him, "no wonder you
+improve in your style of play; Bill has no bad notion of bowling, has
+he?" "Why, no; he does very well for practice; and he is to have
+half-a-crown if he gets me out." "Bowl at his legs, Bill," said
+Willingham aside, "he's out, you know, if you hit them." "Nay," said
+Bill, with a desponding shake of the head, "She squat'n hard on the knee
+now just, and made'n proper savage, but I wasn't get nothing for that."
+
+Positively we did more in the way of reading after the boating and the
+cricket began, than while we continued in a state of vagrant idleness,
+without a fixed amusement of any kind. In the first place, it was
+necessary to conciliate Hanmer by some show of industry in the morning,
+in order to keep him in good humour for the cricket in the evening; for
+he was decidedly the main hope of our having any thing like a decent
+eleven. Secondly, the Phillipses took to dining early at home, and
+coming to practice with us in the evening, instead of dropping down the
+river every breezy morning, and either idling in our rooms, or beguiling
+us out mackerel-fishing or flapper-shooting in their boat. And thirdly,
+it became absolutely necessary that we should do something, if class
+lists and examiners had any real existence, and were not mere bugbears
+invented by "alma mater" to instil a wholesome terror into her unruly
+progeny. Really, when one compared our actual progress with the Augean
+labour which was to be gone through, it required a large amount of faith
+to believe that we were all "going up for honours in October."
+
+We spent a very pleasant morning at Llyn-eiros, the den of "Tiger
+Jones." He obtained this somewhat appalling soubriquet from a habit of
+spinning yarns, more marvellous than his unwarlike neighbours were
+accustomed to, of the dangers encountered in his Indian sports; and one
+in particular, of an extraordinary combat between his "chokedar" and a
+tiger--whether the gist of the story lay in the tiger's eating the
+chokedar, or the chokedar eating the tiger, I am not sure--I rather
+think the latter. However, in Wales one is always glad to have some
+distinguishing appellation to prefix to the name of Jones. If a man's
+godfathers and godmothers have the forethought to christen him
+"Mountstewart Jones," or "Fitzhardinge Jones," (I knew such instances of
+cognominal anticlimax,) then it was all very well--no mistake about the
+individuality of such fortunate people. But "Tom Joneses" and "Bob
+Joneses" were no individuals at all. They were classes, and large
+classes; and had to be again distinguished into "Little Bob Joneses" and
+"Long Bob Joneses." Or if there happened to be nothing sufficiently
+characteristic in the personal appearance of the rival Joneses, then was
+he fortunate who had no less complimentary additions to his style and
+title than what might be derived from the name of his location, or the
+nature of his engagements. These honours were often hereditary--nay,
+sometimes descended in the female line. We hear occasionally, in
+England, of "Mrs Doctor Smith," and "Mrs Major Brown;" and absurd as it
+is, one does comprehend by intuition that it was the gentleman and not
+the lady who was the ten-year man at Cambridge, or the commandant of the
+Boggleton yeomanry; but few besides a Welshman would have learned,
+without a smile, that "Mrs Jones the officer" was the relict of the late
+tide-waiter at Glyndewi, or that the quiet, modest little daughter of
+the town-clerk of B---- was known to her intimates as "Miss Jones the
+lawyer." Luckily our friend the Tiger was a bachelor; it would have
+been alarming to a nervous stranger at the Glyndewi ball, upon enquiring
+the name of the young lady with red hair and cat's eyes, to have been
+introduced incontinently to "Miss Jones the tiger."
+
+The Tiger himself was a well-disposed animal; somewhat given to solitary
+prowling, like his namesakes in a state of nature, but of most
+untiger-like and facetious humour. He generally marched into Glyndewi
+after an early breakfast, and from that time until he returned to his
+"mutton" at five, might be seen majestically stalking up and down the
+extreme edge of the terrace, looking at the fishing-boats, and
+shaking--_not_ his tail, for, as all stout gentlemen seem to think it
+their duty to do by the sea-side, he wore a round jacket. From the time
+that we began our new pursuits, he took to us amazingly--called us his
+"dear lads"--offered bets to any amount that we should beat the
+B----Cutter Club, and protested that he never saw finer bowling at
+Lord's than Hanmer's.
+
+Branling was in delight. He had found a man who would smoke with him all
+day, (report said, indeed, that the Tiger regularly went to sleep with a
+cheroot in his mouth,) and he had the superintending of "the boat,"
+which was his thought from morning to night. A light gig, that had once
+belonged to the custom-house, was polished and painted under his special
+directions, (often did we sigh for one of King's worst "fours!") and the
+fishermen marvelled at such precocious nautical talent.
+
+None of these, however--great events as they were in our hitherto
+monotonous sojourn--were the "crowning mercy" of the Glyndewi regatta.
+Hitherto the sunshine of bright eyes, and the breath of balmy lips, had
+been almost as much unknown to us as if we had been still within the
+monastic walls of Oxford. We had dined in a body at our friend the
+surgeon's: he was a bachelor. We had been invited by two's and three's
+at a time to a Welsh squire's in the neighbourhood, who had two maiden
+sisters, and a fat, good-humoured wife. Captain Phillips had given us a
+spread more than once at Craig-y-gerron, and, of course, some of us (I
+was not so fortunate) had handed in the Misses Phillips to dinner; but
+the greater part of the time from six till eleven (at which hour Hanmer
+always ordered out our "_trap_") was too pleasantly occupied in
+discussing the captain's port and claret, and laughing at his jokes, to
+induce us to give much time or attention to the ladies in the
+drawing-room. If some of my fair readers exclaim against this stoic (or
+rather epicurean) indifference, it may gratify their injured vanity to
+know, that in the sequel some of us paid for it.
+
+The Phillipses came down in full force, the day before the regatta; they
+were engaged to lunch with us, and, as it was the first time that the
+ladies of the party had honoured us with a visit, we spared no pains to
+make our entertainment somewhat more _recherche_ than was our wont. It
+was then that I first discovered that Clara Phillips was beautiful. I am
+not going to describe her now; I never could have described her. All I
+knew, and all I remember, was, that for a long time afterwards I formed
+my standard of what a woman ought to be, by unconscious comparison with
+what she was. What colour her eyes were, was a question among us at the
+time. Willingham swore they were grey; Dawson insisted that they were
+hazel; Branling, to whom they referred the point, was inclined to think
+there was, "something green" in them. But that they were eyes of no
+common expression, all of us were agreed. I think at least half the
+party were more than half in love with her when that race-week was over.
+In one sense it was not her fault if we were; for a girl more thoroughly
+free from every species of coquetry, and with less of that pitiful
+ambition of making conquests, which is the curse of half the sex, it was
+impossible to meet with. But she was to blame for it too, in another
+way; for to know her, and not love her, would have been a reproach to
+any man. Lively and good-humoured, with an unaffected buoyancy of
+spirits, interesting herself in all that passed around her, and
+unconscious of the interest she herself excited, no wonder that she
+seemed to us like an angel sent to cheer us in our house of bondage. Of
+her own family she was deservedly the darling; even Dick Phillips, whom
+three successive tutors had given up in despair, became the most docile
+of pupils under his sister Clara; accustomed early to join her brothers
+in all out-door sports, she was an excellent horsewoman, a fearless
+sailor, and an untiring explorer of mountains and waterfalls, without
+losing her naturally feminine character, or becoming in any degree a
+hoyden or a romp. She sang the sweet national airs of Wales with a voice
+whose richness of tone was only second to its power of expression. She
+did every thing with the air of one who, while delighting others, is
+conscious only of delighting herself; and never seeking admiration,
+received it as gracefully as it was ungrudgingly bestowed.
+
+If there is one form of taking exercise which I really hate, it is what
+people call dancing. I am passionately fond of music; but why people
+should conceive it necessary to shuffle about in all varieties of
+awkwardness, in order to enjoy it to their satisfaction, has been, is,
+and probably will ever be, beyond my comprehension. It is all very well
+for young ladies on the look-out for husbands to affect a fondness for
+dancing: in the first place, some women dance gracefully, and even
+elegantly, and show themselves off undoubtedly to advantage; (if any
+exhibition on a woman's part be an advantage;) then it gives an excuse
+for whispering, and squeezing of hands, and stealing flowers, and a
+thousand nameless skirmishings preparatory to what they are endeavouring
+to bring about--an engagement; but for a man to be fond of shuffling and
+twirling himself out of the dignity of step which nature gave
+him--picking his way through a quadrille, like a goose upon hot bricks,
+or gyrating like a bad tee-totum in what English fashionables are
+pleased to term a "valse," I never see a man thus occupied, without a
+fervent desire to kick him. "What a Goth!" I hear a fair reader of
+eighteen, prettily ejaculate--"thank Heaven, that all men have not such
+barbarous ideas! Why, I would go fifty miles to a good ball!" Be not
+alarmed, my dear young lady; give me but a moment to thank Providence,
+in my turn, that you are neither my sister nor my daughter, and will
+promise you, that you shall never be my wife.
+
+On the Saturday night then, I made Gordon and Willingham both very
+cross, and caught Sydney Dawson's eye looking over his spectacles with
+supreme contempt, when I declared my decided intention of staying at
+home the night of the ball. Even the Reverend Robert Hanmer, who was
+going himself, was annoyed when Gordon told him of what he called my
+wilfulness, having a notion that it was decidedly disrespectful in any
+of us, either to go when he did _not_, or to decline going, when he
+_did_.
+
+On the Tuesday morning, I sent to B---- for white kids. Gordon looked
+astonished, Hanmer was glad that I had "taken his advice," and
+Willingham laughed outright; he had overheard Clara Phillips ask me to
+dance with her. Men _are_ like green gooseberries--very green ones;
+women _do_ make fools of them, and a comparatively small proportion of
+sugar, in the shape of flattery, is sufficient.
+
+Two days before the regatta, there marched into Mrs Jenkins's open
+doorway, a bewildered looking gentleman, shaking off the dust from his
+feet in testimony of having had a long walk, and enquiring for Hanmer.
+Gwenny, with her natural grace, trotted up stairs before him, put her
+head in at the "drawing-room" door, (she seemed always conscious that
+the less one saw of her person the better,) and having announced
+briefly, but emphatically, "a gentlemans," retreated. Hanmer had puzzled
+himself and me, by an attempt to explain a passage which Aristotle, of
+course, would have put in plainer language, if he had known what he
+meant himself--but modern philosophers are kind enough to help him out
+occasionally--when the entrance of the gentleman in dust cut the Gordian
+knot, and saved the Stagyrite from the disgrace of having a pretty bit
+of esoteric abstruseness translated into common sense.
+
+(What a blessing would it be for Dr ----, and Professor ----, if they
+might be allowed to mystify their readers in Greek! though, to do them
+justice, they have turned the Queen's English to good account for that
+purpose, and have produced passages which first-class men, at an
+Athenian University, might possibly construe, but which the whole board
+of sophists might be defied to explain.)
+
+The _deus ex machina_--the gentleman on, or rather off the tramp--who
+arrived thus opportunely, was no less a person than the Reverend George
+Plympton, Fellow of Oriel, &c. &c. &c. He was an intimate friend of our
+worthy tutor's; if the friendship between Oxford dons can be called
+intimacy. They compared the merits of their respective college cooks
+three or four times a term, and contended for the superior vintage of
+the common-room port. They played whist together; walked arm-in-arm
+round Christchurch meadow; and knew the names of all the old incumbents
+in each other's college-list, and the value of the respective livings.
+Mr Plympton and a friend had been making a walking tour of North Wales;
+that is, they walked about five miles, stared at a mountain, or a fall,
+or an old castle, as per guide-book, and then coached it to the next
+point, when the said book set down that "the Black Dog was an excellent
+inn," or that "travellers would find every accommodation at Mrs Price's
+of the Wynnstay Arms." Knowing that Hanmer was to be found at Glyndewi,
+Mr Plympton left his friend at B----, where the salmon was
+unexceptionable, and had completed the most arduous day's walk in his
+journal, nearly thirteen miles, in a state of dust and heat far from
+agreeable to a stoutish gentleman of forty, who usually looked as spruce
+as if he came out of a band-box. Hanmer and he seemed really glad to see
+each other. On those "oxless" shores, where, as Byron says, "beef was
+rare," though
+
+    "Goat's flesh there was, no doubt, and kid, and mutton,"
+
+the tender reminiscences of far-off Gaude days and Bursary dinners, that
+must have arisen in the hearts of each, were enough to make their
+meeting almost an affecting one. Hanmer must have blushed, I think,
+though far from his wont, when he asked Mr Plympton if he could feed
+with us at four upon--hashed mutton! (We consumed nearly a sheep per
+week, and exhausted our stock of culinary ideas, as well as our
+landlady's patience, in trying to vary the forms in which it was to
+appear; not having taken the precaution, as some Cambridge men did at
+B----s one vacation, to bespeak a French cook at a rather higher salary
+than the mathematical tutor's.[A]) Probably, however, Mr Plympton's
+unusual walk made him more anxious about the quantity than the quality
+of his diet, for he not only attacked the mutton like an Etonian, but
+announced his intention of staying with us over the ball, if a bed was
+to be had, and sending to B---- for his decorations. He was introduced
+in due form to the Phillipses the next day, and in the number and
+elegance of his bows, almost eclipsed Mr Sydney Dawson, whom Clara never
+ceased to recommend to her brothers as an example of politeness.
+
+Bright dawned the morning of the 20th of August, the first of the "three
+glorious days" of Glyndewi. As people came to these races really for
+amusement, the breakfast was fixed for the very unfashionable hour of
+ten, in order not to interfere with the main business of the day--the
+regatta. Before half-past, the tables at the Mynysnewydd Arms were
+filled with what the _----shire Herald_ termed "a galaxy of beauty and
+fashion." But every one seemed well aware, that there were far more
+substantial attractions present, meant to fill not the tables only, but
+the guests. The breakfast was by no means a matter of form. People had
+evidently come with more serious intentions, than merely to display new
+bonnets, and trifle with grapes and peaches. Sea-air gives a whet to
+even a lady's appetite, and if the performances that morning were any
+criterion of the effects of that of Glyndewi, the new Poor Law
+Commissioners, in forming their scale of allowances, must really have
+reported it a "special case." The fair Cambrians, in short, played very
+respectable knives and forks--made no bones--or rather nothing but
+bones--of the chickens, and ate kippered salmon like Catholics. You
+caught a bright eye gazing in your direction with evident
+interest--"Would you have the kindness to cut that pasty before you for
+a lady?" You almost overheard a tender whisper from the gentleman
+opposite to the pretty girl beside him. She blushes and gently
+remonstrates. Again his lip almost touches her cheek in earnest
+persuasion--yes! she is consenting--to another _little_ slice of ham! As
+for the jolly Welsh squires themselves, and their strapping
+heirs-apparent, (you remember that six-foot-four man surely, number six
+of the Jesus boat)--now that the ladies have really done, and the
+waiters have brought in the relays of brandered chickens and
+fresh-caught salmon, which mine host, who has had some experience of his
+customers, has most liberally provided--they set to work in earnest.
+They have been only politely trifling hitherto with the wing of a fowl
+or so, to keep the ladies' company. But now, as old Captain Phillips, at
+the head of the table, cuts a slice and a joke alternately, and the
+Tiger at the bottom begins to let out his carnivorous propensities, one
+gets to have an idea what breakfast means. "Let me advise you, my dear
+Mr Dawson--as a friend--you'll excuse an old stager--if you have no
+particular wish to starve yourself--you've had nothing yet but two cups
+of tea--to help yourself, and let your neighbours do the same. You may
+keep on cutting Vauxhall shavings for those three young Lloyds till
+Michaelmas; pass the ham down to them, and hand me those devilled
+kidneys."
+
+"Tea? no; thank you; I took a cup yesterday, and haven't been myself
+since. Waiter! don't you see this tankard's empty?"
+
+"Consume you, Dick Phillips! I left two birds in that pie five minutes
+back, and you've cleared it out!"
+
+"Diawl, John Jones, I was a fool to look into a tankard after you!"
+
+Every thing has an end, and so the breakfast had at last; and we
+followed the ladies to the terrace to watch the sailing for the ladies'
+challenge cup. By the help of a glass we could see three yachts, with
+about half-a-mile between each, endeavouring to get round a small boat
+with a man and a flag in it, which, as the wind was about the worst they
+could have had for the purpose, seemed no easy matter. There was no
+great interest in straining one's eyes after them, so I found out the
+Phillipses, and having told Dawson, who was escorting Clara, that Hanmer
+was looking for him to make out the list of "the eleven," I was very
+sorry indeed when the sound of a gun announced that the Hon. H.
+Chouser's Firefly had won the cup, and that the other two yachts might
+be expected in the course of half-an-hour. Nobody waited for them, of
+course. The herring boats, after a considerable deal of what I concluded
+from the emphasis to be swearing in Welch, in which, however, Captain
+Phillips, who was umpire, seemed to have decidedly the advantage in
+variety of terms and power of voice, were pronounced "ready," and
+started by gunfire accordingly. A rare start they made of it. The great
+ambition of every man among them seemed to be to prevent the boats next
+in the line from starting at all. It was a general fouling match, and
+the jabbering was terrific. At last, the two outside boats, having the
+advantage of a clear berth on one side, got away, and made a pretty race
+of it, followed by such of the rest as could by degrees extricate
+themselves from the melee.
+
+But now was to come our turn. Laden with all manner of good wishes, we
+hoisted a bit of dark-blue silk for the honour of Oxford, and spurted
+under the terrace to our starting-place. The only boat entered against
+us was the Dolphin, containing three stout gentlemen and a thin one,
+members of the B---- Cutter Club, who evidently looked upon pulling as
+no joke. Branling gave us a steady stroke, and Cotton of Balliol steered
+us admirably; the rest did as well as they could. The old boys had a
+very pretty boat--ours was a tub--but we beat them. They gave us a
+stern-chase for the first hundred yards, for I cut a crab at starting;
+but we had plenty of pluck, and came in winners by a length. Of course
+we were the favourites--the "Dolphins" were all but one married--and
+hearty were the congratulations with which we were greeted on landing.
+Clara Phillips' eyes had a most dangerous light in them, as she shook
+hands with our noble captain, who was in a terrible hurry, however, to
+get away, and hunting every where for "that d----d Dawson," who had
+promised to have Bill Thomas in readiness with "the lush." So I was
+compelled to stay with her and give an account of the race, which she
+perfectly understood, and be soundly scolded by the prettiest lips in
+the world for my awkwardness, which she declared she never could have
+forgiven if it had lost the race.
+
+"You will come to the ball, then, Mr Hawthorne?"
+
+"Am I not to dance with you?"
+
+"Yes, if you behave well, and don't tease Mr Sydney Dawson: he is a
+great favourite of mine, and took great care of me this morning at
+breakfast."
+
+"Well, then, for your sake, Miss Phillips, I will be particularly civil
+to him; but I assure you, Dawson is like the fox that took a pride in
+being hunted; he considers our persecution of him as the strongest
+evidence of his own superiority; and if you seriously undertake to
+patronize him he will become positively unbearable."
+
+The regatta over, we retired to make a hurried dinner, and to dress for
+the ball. This, with some of our party, was a serious business.
+Willingham and Dawson were going in fancy dresses. The former was an
+admirable personification of Dick Turpin, standing upwards of six feet,
+and broadly built, and becoming his picturesque costume as if it were
+his everyday suit, he strutted before Mrs Jenkins's best glass, which
+Hanmer charitably gave up for his accommodation, with a pardonable
+vanity. Dawson had got a lancer's uniform from his London tailor; but
+how to get into it was a puzzle; it was delightful to see his attempts
+to unravel the gorgeous mysteries which were occupying every available
+spot in his dingy bedroom. The shako was the main stumbling-block. Being
+unfortunately rather small, it was no easy matter to keep it on his head
+at all; and how to dispose of the cap-lines was beyond our united
+wisdom. "Go without it, man," said Branling: "people don't want hats in
+a ballroom. You can never dance with that thing on your head."
+
+"Oh, but the head-dress is always worn at a fancy-ball, you know, and I
+can take it off if I like to dance."
+
+At last, the idea struck us of employing the five or six yards of gold
+cord that had so puzzled us, in securing shako and plume in a
+perpendicular position. This at length accomplished, by dint of keeping
+himself scrupulously upright, Mr Sydney Dawson majestically walked down
+stairs.
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+Now, there happened to be at that time residing in Glyndewi an old lady,
+"of the name and cousinage" of Phillips, who, though an old maid, was
+one of those unhappily rare individuals who do not think it necessary to
+rail against those amusements which they are no longer in a situation to
+enjoy. She was neither as young, nor as rich, nor as light-hearted, as
+she had been; but it was difficult to imagine that she could ever have
+been more truly cheerful and happy than she seemed now. So, instead of
+cutting short every sally of youthful spirits, and every dream of
+youthful happiness, by sagacious hints of cares and troubles to come,
+she rather lent her aid to further every innocent enjoyment among her
+younger friends; feeling, as she said, that the only pity was, that
+young hearts grew old so soon. The consequence was, that instead of
+exacting a forced deference from her many nephews and nieces, (so are
+first cousins' children called in Wales,) she was really loved and
+esteemed by them all, and while she never wished to deprive them of an
+hour's enjoyment, they would willingly give up a pleasant party at any
+time to spend an evening with the old lady, and enliven her solitude
+with the sounds she best loved--the music of youthful voices.
+
+All among her acquaintance, therefore, who were going to the ball in
+fancy costume, had promised to call upon her, whether in or out of their
+way, to "show themselves," willing to make her a partaker, as far as
+they could, of the amusement of the evening. Captain Phillips had asked
+us if we would oblige him, and gratify a kind old woman, by allowing him
+to introduce us in our fancy dresses. I had none, and therefore did not
+form part of the exhibition; but Dick Turpin and the cornet of lancers,
+with Branling in a full hunting costume, (which always formed part of
+his travelling baggage,) walked some fifty yards to the old lady's
+lodgings. Mr Plympton, always polite, accepted Captain Phillips's
+invitation to be introduced at the same time. Now Mr Plympton, as was
+before recorded, was a remarkably dapper personage; wore hair powder, a
+formidably tall and stiff white "choker," and upon all occasions of
+ceremony, black shorts and silks, with gold buckles. Remarkably upright
+and somewhat pompous in his gait, and abominating the free-and-easy
+manners of the modern school, his bow would have graced the court of
+Versailles, and his step was a subdued minuet. Equipped with somewhat
+more than his wonted care, the rev. junior bursar of Oriel was
+introduced into Mrs Phillips's little drawing-room, accompanying, and
+strongly contrasting with, three gentlemen in scarlet and gold.
+Hurriedly did the good old lady seize her spectacles, and rising to
+receive her guests with a delighted curtsy, scan curiously for a few
+moments Turpin's athletic proportions, and the fox-hunter's
+close-fitting leathers and tops. As for Dawson, he stood like the
+clear-complexioned and magnificently-whiskered officer, who silently
+invites the stranger to enter the doors of Madame Tussaud's wax
+exhibition; not daring to bow for fear of losing his beloved shako, but
+turning his head from side to side as slowly, and far less naturally,
+than the waxen gentleman aforementioned. All, in their several ways,
+were worthy of admiration, and all did she seem to admire; but it was
+when her eye rested at last on the less showy, but equally
+characteristic figure in black, who stood bowing his acknowledgments of
+the honour of the interview, with an _empressement_ which fully made up
+for Dawson's forced _hauteur_--that her whole countenance glistened with
+intense appreciation of the joke, and the very spectacles danced with
+glee. Again did she make the stranger her most gracious curtsy; again
+did Mr Plympton, as strongly as a bow could do it, declare how entirely
+he was at her service: he essayed to speak, but before a word escaped
+his lips, the old lady fairly burst out into a hearty laugh, clapped her
+hands, and shouted to his astonished ears, "Capital, capital! do it
+again! oh, do it again!" For a moment the consternation depicted upon Mr
+Plympton's countenance at this remarkable reception, extended to the
+whole of his companions; but the extraordinary sounds which proceeded
+from Captain Phillips, in the vain attempt to stifle the laugh that was
+nearly choking him, were too much for the gravity of even the
+polite Mr Dawson; and it was amidst the violent application of
+pocket-handkerchiefs in all possible ways, that the captain stepped
+forward with the somewhat tardy announcement, "My dear aunt, allow me to
+present the Rev. Mr Plympton, Fellow and Tutor of Oriel College." This
+was accompanied by a wink and an attempt at a frown, intended to convey
+the strongest reprobation of the old lady's proceedings; but which, upon
+the features of the good captain, whose risible muscles were still
+rebellious, had any thing but a serious effect. "Indeed!" said she,
+curtsying yet more profoundly in return for another bow. "How do you do,
+sir? Oh, he is beautiful, isn't he?" half-aside to Willingham, who was
+swallowing as much as he could of the butt of his whip. Poor Mr Plympton
+looked aghast at the compliment. Branling fairly turned his back, and
+burst from the room, nearly upsetting Hanmer and myself; who, having
+waited below some time for our party to join us, had made our way
+upstairs to ascertain the cause of the unusual noises which reached us
+from the open door of the drawing-room. Dawson was shaking with reckless
+disregard of the safety of his head-dress, and the captain in an agony
+between his natural relish for a joke and his real good breeding. "Aunt
+Martha, this is a clergyman, a friend of Mr Hanmer's, who is on a visit
+here, and whom I introduce to you, because I know you will like him." Mr
+Plympton commenced a fresh series of bows, in which there was, perhaps,
+less gallantry and more dignity than usual, looking all the time as
+comfortable as a gentleman might do who was debating with himself
+whether the probabilities, as regarded the old lady's next movements,
+lay on the side of kissing or scratching. Mrs Martha Phillips herself
+commenced an incoherent apology about "expecting to see four young
+gentlemen in fancy dresses;" and Hanmer and the captain tried all they
+could to laugh off a _contretemps_, which to explain was impossible.
+What the old lady took Mr Plympton for, and what Mr Plympton thought of
+her, were questions which, so far as I know, no one ventured to ask. He
+left Glyndewi the next morning, but the joke, after furnishing us with a
+never-failing fund of ludicrous reminiscence for the rest of our stay,
+followed him to the Oriel common-room, and was an era in the dulness of
+that respectable symposium.
+
+Dancing had begun in good earnest when we arrived at the ballroom. There
+was the usual motley assemblage of costumes of all nations under the
+sun, and some which the sun, when he put down the impudence of the
+wax-lights upon his return the next morning, must have marvelled to
+behold. Childish as it may be called, a fancy ball is certainly, for the
+first half-hour at all events, an amusing scene. Willingham and myself
+stood a little inside the doorway for some moments, he enjoying the
+admiring glances which his tine figure and picturesque costume were well
+calculated to call forth, and I vainly endeavouring to make out Clara's
+figure amidst the gay dresses, and well-grown proportions, of the pretty
+Cambrians who flitted past. Sounds of expostulation and entreaty,
+mingled with a laugh which we knew to be Branling's, in the passage
+outside, disturbed both our meditations, and at last induced me to turn
+my eyes unwillingly to the open door. Branling was leaning against it in
+a fit of uncontrollable mirth, and beckoned us earnestly to join him.
+Outside stood Dawson, stamping with vexation, and endeavouring to undo
+the complex machinery which had hitherto secured his shako in an erect
+position. He was in the unfortunate predicament of Dr S----'s
+candelabrum, which, presented to him as a testimony of respect from his
+grateful pupils, was found by many feet too large to be introduced into
+any room in the Dr's comparatively humble habitation, and stood for some
+time in the manufacturer's show-room in testimony of the fact, that
+public acknowledgments of merit are _sometimes_ made on too large a
+scale. Architects who give measurements for ordinary doorways, do not
+contemplate such emergencies as testimonial candelabrums or irremoveable
+caps and plumes: and the door of the Glyndewi ballroom had no notion of
+accommodating a lancer in full dress who could not even be civil enough
+to take off his hat. So there stood our friend, impatient to display his
+uniform, and unwilling to lessen the effect of his first appearance by
+doffing so important a part of his costume: to get through the door, in
+the rigid inflexibility of head and neck which he had hitherto
+maintained, was a manifest impossibility: Branling had suggested his
+staying outside, and he would undertake to bring people to look at him:
+but Dawson, for some unaccountable reason, was usually suspicious of
+advice from that quarter; so he "stooped to conquer" and lost all. The
+shako tumbled from its precarious perch, and hung ignobly suspended by
+the cap-lines. A lancer with a pair of grey spectacles, and a shako
+hanging round his neck, would have been a very fancy dress indeed: so he
+was endeavouring, at the risk of choking himself, to disentangle, by
+main force, the complication of knots which we had woven with some dim
+hope of the result. In vain did we exhort him to take it patiently, and
+remind him how preposterous it was to expect, that what had taken our
+united ingenuity half an hour to arrange "to please him," could be
+undone in a minute. "Cut the cursed things, can't you?" implored he. No
+one had a knife. "I do believe Branling, you are tying that knot
+tighter: I had much rather not have your assistance." Branling protested
+his innocence. At last we did release him, and he entered the room with
+a look most appropriately crest-fallen, shako in hard, solacing himself
+by displaying its glories as well as could be effected by judicious
+changes of its position.
+
+I soon found Clara, looking more radiantly beautiful than ever I had
+seen her, in a sweet dress of Stuart tartan. I had to make my apologies,
+which were most sincerely penitent ones, for not being in time to claim
+my privilege of dancing the first quadrille with her. She smiled at my
+evident earnestness, and good-humouredly added, that the next would be a
+much more pleasant dance, as the room was now beginning to fill. It was
+a pleasant dance as she said: and the waltz that followed still more
+delightful: and then Clara, with a blush and a laugh, declined my
+pressing entreaties until after supper at all events. I refused her
+good-natured offer of an introduction to "that pretty girl in blue" or
+any other among the stars of the night: and sat down, or leant against
+the wall, almost unconsciously watching her light step, and sternly
+resisting all attempts on the part of my acquaintances to persuade me
+to dance again. Of course all the dancing characters among our party
+were Clara's partners in succession; and both Gordon and Dawson, who
+came to ask what had put me into the sulks, were loud in their encomiums
+on her beauty and fascination; even Branling, no very devoted admirer of
+the sex, (he saw too much of them, he said, having four presentable
+sisters,) allowed that she was "the right sort of girl;" but it was not
+until I saw her stand up with Willingham, and marked his evident
+admiration of her, and heard the remarks freely made around me, that
+they were the handsomest couple in the room, that I felt a twinge of
+what I would hardly allow to myself was jealousy: when, however, after
+the dance, they passed me in laughing conversation, evidently in high
+good humour with each other, and too much occupied to notice any one
+else, I began to wonder I had never before found out what a conceited
+puppy Willingham was, and set down poor Clara as an arrant flirt. But I
+was in a variable mood, it seemed, and a feather--or, what some may say
+is even lighter, a woman's word--was enough to turn me. So when I found
+myself, by some irresistible attraction, drawn next to her again at
+supper, and heard her sweet voice, and saw what I interpreted into a
+smile of welcome, as she made room for me beside her, I forgave her all
+past offences, and was perfectly happy for the next hour: nay, even
+condescended to challenge Willingham to a glass of _soi-disant_
+champagne. The Tiger, who was, according to annual custom, displaying
+the tarnished uniform of the 3d Madras N. I., and illustrating his
+tremendous stories of the siege of Overabad, or some such place, by
+attacks on all the edibles in his neighbourhood, gave me a look of
+intelligence as he requested I would "do him the honour," and shook his
+whiskers with some meaning which I did not think it necessary to enquire
+into. What was it to him if I chose to confine my attentions to my
+undoubtedly pretty neighbour? No one could dispute my taste, at all
+events; for Clara Phillips was a universal favourite, though I had
+remarked that none of the numerous "eligible young men" in the room
+appeared about her in the character of a dangler. She was engaged to
+Willingham for the waltz next after supper, and I felt queerish again,
+till she willingly agreed to dance the next set with me, on condition
+that I would oblige her so far as to ask a friend of hers to be my
+partner in the mean time. "She is a very nice girl, Mr. Hawthorne,
+though, perhaps, not one of the _belles_ of the room, and has danced but
+twice this evening, and it will be so kind in you to ask her--only don't
+do it upon my introduction, but let Major Jones introduce you as if at
+your own request." Let no one say that vanity, jealousy, and all those
+pretty arts by which woman wrongs her better nature, are the rank growth
+necessarily engendered by the vitiated air of a ballroom; rooted on the
+same soil, warmed by the same sunshine, fed by the same shower, one
+plant shall bear the antidote and one the poison: one kind and gentle
+nature shall find exercise for all its sweetest qualities in those very
+scenes which, in another, shall foster nothing but heartless coquetry or
+unfeminine display. Never did Clara seem so lovely in mind and person as
+when she drew upon her own attractions to give pleasure to her less
+gifted friend; and I suppose, I must have thrown into the tone of my
+reply something of what I felt; for she blushed, uttered a hasty "I
+thank you," and told Willingham it was time to take their places. I
+sought and obtained the introduction, and endeavoured, for Clara's sake,
+to be an agreeable partner to the quiet little girl beside me. One
+subject of conversation, at all events, we hit upon, where we seemed
+both at home; and if I felt some hesitation in saying all I thought of
+Clara, my companion had none, but told me how much every body loved her,
+and how much she deserved to be loved. It was really so much easier to
+draw my fair partner out on this point than any other that I excused
+myself for being so eager a listener; and, when we parted, to show my
+gratitude in what I conceived the most agreeable way, I begged
+permission to introduce Mr. Sydney Dawson, and thus provided her with
+what, I dare say, she considered a most enviable partner. I had told
+Dawson she was a very clever girl; (he was fond of what he called
+"talented women," and had a delusive notion that he was himself a
+genius:) he had the impertinence to tell me afterwards he found her
+rather stupid; I ought, perhaps, to have given him the key-note. During
+the dance which followed, I remember I was silent and _distrait_; and
+when it was over, and Clara told me she was positively engaged for more
+sets than she should dance again, I left the ballroom, and wandered
+feverishly along the quay to our lodgings. I remember persuading myself,
+by a syllogistic process, that I was not in love, and dreaming that I
+was anxiously reading the class-list, in which it seemed unaccountable
+that my name should be omitted, till I discovered, on a second perusal,
+that just about the centre of the first class, where "Hawthorne,
+Franciscus, e. Coll--" ought to have come in, stood in large type the
+name of "CLARA PHILLIPS."
+
+The races, which occupied the morning of the next day, were as stupid as
+country races usually are, except that the Welshmen had rather more
+noise about it. The guttural shouts and yells from the throats of
+tenants and other dependents, as the "mishtur's" horse won or lost, and
+the extraordinary terms in which they endeavoured to encourage the
+riders, were amusing even to a stranger, though one lost the point of
+the various sallies which kept the course in one continued roar. As to
+the running, every body--that is, all the sporting world--knew perfectly
+well, long before the horses started, which was to win; that appearing
+to be the result of some private arrangement between the parties
+interested, while the "racing" was for the benefit of the strangers and
+the ladies. Those of the latter who had fathers, or brothers, or, above
+all, lovers, among the knowing ones, won divers pairs of gloves on the
+occasion, while those who were not so fortunate, lost them.
+
+I fancied that Clara was not in her usual spirits on the race-course,
+and she pleaded a headach as an excuse to her sister for ordering the
+carriage to drive home long before the "sport" was over. If I had
+thought the said sport stupid before, it did not improve in attraction
+after her departure; and, when the jumping in sacks, and climbing up
+poles, and other callisthenic exercises began, feeling a growing disgust
+for "things in general," I resisted the invitation of a mamma and three
+daughters, to join themselves and Mr Dawson in masticating some
+sandwiches which looked very much like "relics of joy" from last night's
+supper, and sauntered home, and sat an hour over a cigar and a chapter
+of ethics. As the clock struck five, remembering that the Ordinary hour
+was six, I called at the Phillips' lodgings to enquire for Clara. She
+was out walking with her sister; so I returned to dress in a placid
+frame of mind, confident that I should meet her at dinner.
+
+For it was an Ordinary for ladies as well as gentlemen. A jovial Welsh
+baronet sat at the head of the table, with the two ladies of highest
+"consideration"--the county member's wife and the would-have-been
+member's daughter--on his right and left; nobody thought of politics at
+the Glyndewi regatta. Clara was there; but she was escorted into the
+room by some odious man, who, in virtue of having been made high-sheriff
+by mistake, sat next Miss Anti-reform on the chairman's left. The
+natives were civil enough to marshal us pretty high up by right of
+strangership, but still I was barely near enough to drink wine with her.
+
+If a man wants a good dinner, a hearty laugh, an opportunity of singing
+songs and speech-making, and can put up with indifferent wine, let him
+go to the race Ordinary at Glyndewi next year, if it still be among the
+things which time has spared. There was nothing like stiffness or
+formality: people came there for amusement, and they knew that the only
+way to get it was to make it for themselves. There seemed to be fun
+enough for half-a-dozen of the common run of such dinners, even while
+the ladies remained. It was, as Hanmer called it, an _extra_-ordinary.
+But it was when the ladies had retired, and Hanmer and a few of the
+"steady ones" had followed them, and those who remained closed up around
+the chairman, and cigars and genuine whisky began to supersede the
+questionable port and sherry, and the "Vice" requested permission to
+call on a gentleman for a song, that we began to fancy ourselves within
+the walls of some hitherto unknown college, where the "levelling system"
+had mixed up fellows and under-graduates in one common supper-party, and
+the portly principal himself rejoiced in the office of "arbiter
+bibendi." Shall I confess it? I forgot even Clara in the uproarious
+mirth that followed. Two of the young Phillipses were admirable singers,
+and drew forth the hearty applause of the whole company. We got Dawson
+to make a speech, in which he waxed poetical touching the "flowers of
+Cambria," and drew down thunders of applause by a Latin quotation, which
+every one took that means of showing that they understood. I obtained
+almost unconsciously an immortal reputation by a species of flattery to
+which the Welsh are most open. I had learnt, after no little
+application, a Welsh toast--a happy specimen of the language; it was but
+three words, but they were truly cabalistic. No sooner had I, after a
+"neat and appropriate" preface, uttered my triple Shibboleth, (it ended
+in _rag_, and signified "Wales, Welshmen, and Welshwomen,") than the
+whole party rose, and cheered at me till I felt positively modest. My
+pronunciation, I believe, was perfect, (a woman's lips and an angel's
+voice had taught it to me:) and it was indeed the Open Sesame to their
+hearts and feelings. I became at once the intimate friend of all who
+could get near enough to offer me their houses, their horses, their
+dogs--I have no doubt, had I given a hint at the moment, I might have
+had any one of their daughters. "Would I come and pay a visit at
+Abergwrnant before I left the neighbourhood? Only twenty-five miles, and
+a coach from B----!" "Would I, before the shooting began, come to
+Craig-y-bwldrwn, and stay over the first fortnight in September?" I
+could have quartered myself, and two or three friends, in a dozen places
+for a month at a time. And, let me do justice to the warm hospitality of
+North Wales--these invitations were renewed in the morning: and were I
+ever to visit those shores again, I should have no fear of their having
+been yet forgotten.
+
+Captain Phillips had told us, that when we left the table, "the girls"
+would have some coffee for us, if not too late; and Willingham and
+myself, having taken a turn or two in the moonlight to get rid of the
+excitement of the evening, bent our steps in that direction. There were
+about as many persons assembled as the little drawing-room would hold,
+and Clara, having forgotten her headach, and looking as lovely as ever,
+was seated at a wretched piano, endeavouring to accompany herself in her
+favourite songs. Willingham and myself stood by, and our repeated
+requests for some of those melodies which, unknown to us before, we had
+learnt from her singing to admire beyond all the fashionable trash of
+the day, were gratified with untiring good-nature. Somehow I thought
+that she avoided my eye, and answered my remarks with less than her
+usual archness and vivacity. I could bear it on this evening less than
+ever; a hair will turn the scale, and I had just been, half ludicrously,
+half seriously, affected by Welsh nationality. One cannot help warming
+towards a community which are so warm-hearted among themselves. Visions
+of I know not what--love and a living, Clara and a cottage--were
+floating dreamlike before my eyes, and I felt as if borne along by a
+current whose direction might be dangerous, but which it was misery to
+resist. Willingham had turned away a minute to hunt for some missing
+book, which contained one of his favourites; and, leaning over her with
+my finger pointing to the words which she had just been singing, I said
+something about there being always a fear in happiness such as I had
+lately been enjoying, lest it might not last. For a moment she met my
+earnest look, and coloured violently; and then fixing her eyes on the
+music before her, she said quickly, "Mr Hawthorne, I thought you had a
+higher opinion of me than to make me pretty speeches; I have a great
+dislike to them." I began to protest warmly against any intention of
+mere compliment, when the return of Willingham with his song prevented
+any renewal of the subject. I was annoyed and silent, and detected a
+tremor in her voice while she sang the words, and saw her cheek paler
+than usual. The instant the song was over, she complained with a smile
+of being tired, and without a look at either of us, joined a party who
+were noisily recounting the events of the race-course. Nor could I again
+that evening obtain a moment's conversation with her. She spoke to me,
+indeed, and very kindly; but once only did I catch her eye, when I was
+speaking to some one else--the glance was rapidly withdrawn, but it
+seemed rather sorrowful than cold.
+
+I was busy with Hanmer the next morning before breakfast, when Dick
+Phillips made his appearance, and informed us that the "strangers" had
+made up an eleven for the cricket match, and that we were to play at
+ten. He was a sort of live circular, dispatched to get all parties in
+readiness.
+
+"Oh! I have something for you from Clara," said he to me, as he was
+leaving; "the words of a song she promised you, I believe."
+
+I opened the sealed envelope, saw that it was not a song, and left
+Hanmer somewhat abruptly. When I was alone, I read the following:--
+
+"DEAR MR HAWTHORNE,--Possibly you may have been told that I have, before
+now, done things which people call strange--that is, contrary to some
+arbitrary notions which are to supersede our natural sense of right and
+wrong. But never, until now, did I follow the dictates of my own
+feelings in opposition to conventional rules, with the painful
+uncertainty as to the propriety of such a course, which I now feel. And
+if I had less confidence than I have in your honour and your kindness,
+or less esteem for your character, or less anxiety for your happiness, I
+would not write to you now. But I feel, that if you are what I wish to
+believe you, it is right that you should be at once undeceived as to my
+position. Others should have done it, perhaps--it would have spared me
+much. Whether your attentions to me are in sport or earnest, they must
+cease. I have no right to listen to such words as yours last night--my
+heart and hand are engaged to one, who deserves better from me than the
+levity which alone could have placed me in the position from which I
+thus painfully extricate myself. For any fault on my part, I thus make
+bitter atonement. I wish you health and happiness, and now let this save
+us both from further misunderstanding.
+
+    "C."
+
+Again and again did I read these words. Not one woman in a hundred would
+have ventured on such a step. And for what? to save me from the
+mortification of a rejection? It could be nothing else. How easy for a
+man of heartless gallantry to have written a cool note in reply,
+disclaiming "any aspiration after the honour implied," and placing the
+warm-hearted writer in the predicament of having declined attentions
+never meant to be serious! But I felt how kindly, how gently, I had been
+treated--the worst of it was, I loved her better than ever. I wrote some
+incoherent words in reply, sufficiently expressive of my bitter
+disappointment, and my admiration of her conduct; and then I felt "that
+my occupation was gone." She whom I had so loved to look upon, I
+trembled now to see. I had no mind to break my heart; but I felt that
+time and change were necessary to prevent it. Above all, Glyndewi was no
+place for me to forget _her_ in.
+
+In the midst of my painful reflections on all the happy hours of the
+past week, Gordon and Willingham broke in upon me with high matter for
+consultation relative to the match, In vain did I plead sudden illness,
+and inability to play: they declared it would knock the whole thing on
+the head, for Hanmer would be sure to turn sulky, and there was an end
+of the eleven; and they looked so really chagrined at my continued
+refusals, that at length I conquered my selfishness, (I had had a lesson
+in that,) and, though really feeling indisposed for any exertion, went
+down with them to the ground. I was in momentary dread of seeing Clara
+arrive, (for all the world was to be there,) and felt nervous and
+low-spirited. The strangers' eleven was a better one than we expected,
+and they put our men out pretty fast. Hanmer got most unfortunately run
+out after a splendid hit, and begged me to go in and "do something." I
+took my place mechanically, and lost my wicket to the first ball. We
+made a wretched score, and the strangers went in exultingly. In spite of
+Hanmer's steady bowling, they got runs pretty fast; and an easy catch
+came into my hands just as Clara appeared on the ground, and I lost all
+consciousness of what I was about. Again the same opportunity offered,
+and again my eyes were wandering among the tents. Hanmer got annoyed,
+and said something not over civil: I vas vexed myself that my
+carelessness should be the cause of disappointment twice, and yet more
+than half-inclined to quarrel with Branling, whom I overheard muttering
+about my "cursed awkwardness." We were left in a fearful minority at the
+close of the first innings, when we retired to dinner. The Glyndewi
+party and their friends were evidently disappointed. I tried to avoid
+Clara; but could not keep far from her. At last she came up with one of
+her brothers, spoke and shook hands with me, said that her brother had
+told her I was not well, and that she feared I ought not to have played
+at all. "I wish you could have beat them, Mr Hawthorne--I had bet that
+you would; perhaps you will feel better after dinner, those kind of
+headachs soon wear off," she added with a smile and a kind look, which I
+understood as she meant it. I walked into the tent where we were to
+dine: I sat next a little man on the opposite side, an Englishman, one
+of their best players, as active as a monkey, who had caught out three
+of our men in succession. He talked big about his play, criticised
+Willingham's batting, which was really pretty, and ended by discussing
+Clara Phillips, who was, he said, "a demned fine girl, but too much of
+her." I disliked his flippancy before, but now my disgust to him was
+insuperable. I asked the odds against us, and took them freely. There
+was champagne before me, and I drank it in tumblers. I did what even in
+my under-graduate days was rarely my habit--I drank till I was
+considerably excited. Hanmer saw it, and got the match resumed at once
+to save me, as he afterwards said, "from making a fool of myself." I
+insisted, in spite of his advice "to cool myself," upon going in first.
+My flippant acquaintance of the dinner-table stood _point_, and I knew,
+if I could but see the ball, and not see more than one, that I could
+occasionally "hit square" to some purpose. I had the luck to catch the
+first ball just on the rise, and it caught my friend _point_ off his
+legs as if he had been shot. He limped off the ground, and we were
+troubled with him no more. I hit as I never did before, or shall again.
+At first I played wild; but as I got cool, and my sight became steady, I
+felt quite at home. The bowlers got tired, and Dick Phillips, who had no
+science, but the strength of a unicorn, was in with me half-an-hour,
+slashing in all directions. It short, the tide turned, and the match
+ended in our favour.
+
+I was quite sober, and free from all excitement, when I joined Clara,
+for the last time after the game was over. "I am so glad you played so
+well," said she, "if you are but as successful at Oxford as you have
+been at the boat-race and the cricket, you will have no reason to be
+disappointed. Your career here has been one course of victory." "Not
+altogether, Miss Phillips: the prize I shall leave behind me when I quit
+Glyndewi to-morrow, is worth more than all that I can gain." "Mr
+Hawthorne," said she kindly, "one victory is in your own power, and you
+will soon gain it, and be happy--the victory over yourself."
+
+I made some excuse to Hanmer about letters from home, to account for my
+sudden departure. How the party got on after I left them, and what was
+the final result of our "reading," is no part of my tale; but I fear the
+reader will search the class-lists of 18-- in vain for the names of Mr
+Hanmer's pupils.
+
+HAWTHORNE.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote A: Fact.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTERS OF TURKISH HISTORY.
+
+No. X.
+
+
+THE SECOND SIEGE OF VIENNA.
+
+The Ottoman empire, exhausted by its strenuous and long-continued
+efforts in the death-struggle of Candia, had need of peace and repose to
+recruit its resources; but the calm was not of long duration. A fresh
+complication of interests was now arising in the north, which, by
+involving the Porte in the stormy politics of Poland and Russia, led to
+consequences little foreseen at the time, and which, even at the present
+day are far from having reached their final accomplishment. Since the
+ill-judged and unfortunate invasion by Sultan Osman II., in 1620 the
+good understanding between Poland and the Porte had continued
+undisturbed, save by the occasional inroads of the Crim Tartars on the
+one side, and the Cossacks of the Dniepr on the other, which neither
+government was able entirely to restrain. But the oppression to which
+the Polish nobles attempted to subject their Cossack _allies_, whom they
+pretended to regard as serfs and vassals, was intolerable to these
+freeborn sons of the steppe; and an universal revolt at length broke
+out, which was the beginning of the evil days of Poland. For nearly
+twenty years, under the feeble rule of John Casimer, the country was
+desolated with sanguinary civil wars; the Czar Alexis Mikhailowitz,
+eager to regain the rich provinces lost by Russia during the reign of
+his father, at length appeared in the field as the protector of the
+Cossacks; and, in 1656, the greater part of their body, with the Ataman
+Bogdan Khmielnicki at their head, formally transferred their allegiance
+to the Russian sceptre. This fatal blow, which in effect turned the
+balance of power, so long fluctuating between Poland and Russia, in
+favour of the latter, failed, however, to teach moderation to the Polish
+aristocracy; and the remainder of the Cossacks, who still continued in
+their ancient seats under the Ataman Doroszenko, finding themselves
+menaced by a fresh attack, embraced the resolution of "placing
+themselves under the shadow of the horsetails," by becoming the
+voluntary vassals of the Porte, of which they had so long been the
+inveterate enemies. In spite of the violent reclamations of the Polish
+envoy Wizocki, the offer was at once accepted, and a mace and kaftan of
+honour sent to the ataman as ensigns of investiture, while the Poles
+were warned to desist from hostilities against the subjects of the
+sultan. The refusal to accede to this requisition produced an instant
+declaration of war, addressed in an autograph letter from Kiuprili to
+the grand chancellor of Poland, and followed up, in the spring of 1672,
+by the march of an army of 100,000 men for Podolia. The sultan himself
+took the field for the first time, attended by Kiuprili and the other
+vizirs of the divan, and carrying with him his court and harem, and the
+whole host, after a march of four months from Adrianople, crossed the
+Dniester in the first days of August.
+
+The distracted state of Poland, where the helpless Michael Coribut
+Wiecnowicki bore but the empty title of king, precluded the possibility
+of even an attempt at resistance, and the grand marshal of the kingdom,
+the heroic John Sobieski, who, with only 6000 men, had held his ground
+against the Cossacks, Turks, and Tartars, through the preceding winter,
+was compelled to withdraw from Podolia. The whole province was speedily
+overrun; the fortresses of Kaminiec and Leopol were yielded almost
+without defence; and the king, terrified at the progress of the
+invaders, sued for peace, which was signed September 18, 1672, in the
+Turkish camp at Buczacz. Kaminiec, Podolia, and the Cossack territory,
+were by this act ceded to the Porte, besides an annual tribute from
+Poland of 220,000 ducats; and Mohammed, having caused proclamation to be
+made by the criers that "pardon for his offences had been granted to
+the rebel _kral_ of the _Leh_,"[B] (Poles,) returned in triumph to
+Adrianople, leaving his army in winter quarters on the Danube.
+
+The Diet, however, indignantly refused either to ratify the treaty or
+pay the tribute; and hostilities were resumed the next year with
+increased inveteracy on both sides. The sultan accompanied his army only
+to the Danube, where he remained engrossed with the pleasures of the
+chase at Babataghi; while Sobieski, who had accommodated for the time
+his differences with his colleague and rival Pac, hetman of Lithuania,
+and was at the head of 50,000 men, boldly anticipated the tardy
+movements of the Turks, who were advancing in several separate _corps
+d'armee_, by crossing the Dniester early in October. He was forthwith
+joined by Stephen, waiwode of Moldavia, with great part of the Moldavian
+and Wallachian troops, who unexpectedly deserted the standards of the
+crescent; and, after several partial encounters, a general engagement
+took place, November 11, 1673, between the Polish army and the advanced
+divisions of the Ottomans under the serasker Hussein, pasha of
+Silistria, who lay in an intrenched camp on the heights near Choczim. A
+heavy fall of snow during the night, combined with a piercing north wind
+had benumbed the frames of the Janissaries, accustomed to the genial
+warmth of a southern climate; and the enthusiastic valour of the Poles,
+stimulated by the exhortations and example of their chief, made their
+onset irresistible. The Turkish army was almost annihilated: 25,000 men,
+with numerous begs and pashas, remained on the field of battle, or
+perished in the Dniester from the breaking of the bridge: all their
+cannon and standards became trophies to the victors: and the green
+banner of the serasker was sent to Rome by Sobieski, in the belief that
+it was the _Sandjak-shereef_, or sacred standard of the Prophet--the
+oriflamme of the Ottoman empire. Never had a defeat nearly so
+disastrous, with the single exception of that of St. Gotthard, ten years
+before, befallen the Turkish arms in Europe; and the other corps, under
+the command of the grand-vizir and of his brother-in-law, Kaplan-pasha
+of Aleppo, which were marching to the support of Hussein, fell back in
+dismay to their former, ground on the right bank of the Danube. The
+Poles, however, made no further use of their triumph than to ravage
+Moldavia, and the death of the king, on the same day with the victory at
+Choczim, recalled Sobieski to Warsaw, in order to become a candidate for
+the vacant crown. On his election by the Diet, in May 1674, he made
+overtures for peace to the Porte, but they were rejected, and the
+contest continued during several years, without any notable achievement
+on either side, the war being unpopular with the Turkish soldiery; while
+the civil dissensions of his kingdom, with his consequent inferiority of
+numbers, kept Sobieski generally on the defensive. In his intrenched
+camp at Zurawno, with only 15,000 men, he had for twenty days kept at
+bay 100,000 Turks under the serasker Ibrahim, surnamed Shaitan or _the
+devil_, when both sides, weary of the fruitless struggle, agreed upon a
+conference, and peace was signed October 27, 1676. The humiliating
+demand of tribute was no longer insisted upon; but Kaminiec, Podolia,
+and great part of the Ukraine, were left in possession of the Turks,
+whose stubborn perseverance thus succeeded, as on many occasions, in
+gaining nearly every object for which the war had been undertaken.
+
+Before the news, however, of the pacification with Poland had reached
+Constantinople, Ahmed-Kiuprili had closed his glorious career. He had
+long suffered from dropsy, the same disease which had proved fatal to
+his father, and the effects of which were in his case, aggravated by too
+free an indulgence in wine, to which, after his return from Candia, he
+is said to have become greatly addicted. He had accompanied the sultan,
+who had for many years remained absent from his capital, on a visit,
+during the summer months, to Constantinople, but, on the return to
+Adrianople, he was compelled, by increasing sickness, to halt on the
+banks of the Erkench, between Chorlu and Demotika, where he breathed
+his last in a _chitlik_, or farm-house, called Kara-Bovir, October 30,
+at the age of forty-seven, after having administered the affairs of the
+empire for a few days more than fifteen years. His corpse was carried
+back to Constantinople, and laid without pomp in the mausoleum erected
+by his father, amid the lamentations of the people, rarely poured forth
+over the tomb of a deceased grand vizir. The character of this great
+minister has been made the theme of unmeasured panegyrics by the Turkish
+historians; and Von Hammer-Purgstall (in his _History of the Ottoman
+Empire_) has given us a long and elaborate parallel between the life and
+deeds of Ahmed Kiuprili and of the celebrated vizir of Soliman the
+Magnificent and his two successors, Mohammed-Pasha Sokolli; but we
+prefer to quote the impartial and unadorned portrait drawn by his
+contemporary Rycaut:--"He was, in person, (for I have seen him often,
+and knew him well,) of a middle stature, of a black beard, and brown
+complexion;[C] something short-sighted, which caused him to knit his
+brows, and pore very intently when any strange person entered the
+presence; he was inclining to be fat, and grew corpulent towards his
+latter days. If we consider his age when he first took upon him this
+important charge, the enemies his father had created him, the
+contentions he had with the Valideh-sultana or queen-mother, and the
+arts he had used to reconcile the affections of these great personages,
+and conserve himself in the unalterable esteem of his sovereign to the
+last hour of his death, there is none but must judge him to have
+deserved the character of a most prudent and politic person. If we
+consider how few were put to death, and what inconsiderable mutinies or
+rebellions happened in any part of the empire during his government, it
+will afford us a clear evidence and proof of his greatness and
+moderation beyond the example of former times: for certainly he was not
+a person who delighted in blood, and in that respect far different from
+the temper of his father; he was generous, and free from avarice--a rare
+virtue in a Turk! He was educated in the law, and therefore greatly
+addicted to all the formalities of it, and in the administration of
+justice very punctual and severe: and as to his behaviour towards the
+neighbouring princes, there may, I believe, be fewer examples of his
+breach of faith, than what his predecessors have given in a shorter time
+of rule. In his wars abroad he was successful, having upon every
+expedition enlarged the bounds of the empire: he overcame Neuhausel,
+with a considerable part of Hungary, he concluded the long war with
+Venice by an entire and total subjugation of the Island of Candia,
+having subdued that impregnable fortress, which by the rest of the world
+was considered invincible; and he won Kemenitz (Kaminiec,) the key of
+Poland, where the Turks had been frequently baffled, and laid Ukraine to
+the empire. If we measure his triumphs, rather than count his years,
+though he might seem to have lived but little to his prince and people,
+yet certainly to himself he could not die more seasonably, nor in a
+greater height and eminency of glory."
+
+The deceased vizir left no children: and the sultan is said to have
+offered the seals, in the first instance, as if the office had become in
+fact hereditary in the family, to Mustapha, another son of
+Mohammed-Kiuprili, a man of retired and studious habits, who had the
+philosophy to decline the onerous dignity.[D] However this may have
+been, (for the story appears to rest on somewhat doubtful authority,)
+within seven days of the death of Ahmed, the vizirat had been conferred
+on Kara-Mustapha Pasha, who then held the office of kaimakam, and had
+for several years been distinguished by the special favour and
+confidence of the sultan. The new minister was connected by the ties
+both of marriage and adoption with the house of Kiuprili. His father
+Oroudj, a spahi, holding land at Merzifoun, (a town and district in
+Anatolia contiguous to Kiupri,) had fallen at the siege of Bagdad, under
+Sultan Mourad-Ghazi in 1638: and the orphan had been educated in the
+household of Mohammed-Kiuprili as the companion and adopted brother of
+his son Ahmed, one of whose sisters he in due time received in marriage.
+The elevation of his patron to the highest dignity of the empire, of
+course opened to Kara-Mustapha the road to fortune and preferment--from
+his first post of deputy to the _meer-akhor_, or master of the horse, he
+was promoted to the rank of pasha of two tails--and after holding the
+governments successively of Silistria and Diarbekr was nominated
+capitan-pasha in 1662 by his brother-in-law Ahmed; but exchanged that
+appointment in the following year for the office of kaimakam, in which
+capacity he was left in charge of the capital on the departure of the
+vizir to the army in Hungary. His duties in this situation, as
+lieutenant of the grand-vizir during his absence, gave him constant
+access to the presence of the sultan: and being (as he is described by
+the contemporary writer above quoted) "a wise and experienced person, of
+a smooth behaviour, and a great courtier," he so well improved the
+opportunities thus afforded him, as to obtain a place in the monarch's
+favour second only to that of Kiuprili himself. This excessive
+partiality was, however, scarcely justified by the good qualities of the
+favourite; for though the abilities of Kara-Mustapha were above
+mediocrity, his avarice was so extreme as to lay him open to the
+suspicion of corruption: and his sanguinary cruelty, when holding a
+command in Poland in the campaign of 1674, drew down on him the severe
+reprobation of his illustrious brother in-law. The predilection of the
+sultan for his society continued, however, unabated:--and during the
+visit of the court to Constantinople in 1675, he was still further
+exalted by becoming, at least in name, son-in-law to his sovereign,
+being affianced to the Sultana Khadidjeh, then only three years old. The
+fetes of the betrothal, which were celebrated at the same time as those
+for the circumcision of the heir-apparent, (afterwards Mustapha II.,)
+were unrivalled for splendour in a reign distinguished for
+magnificence:--and on the death of Ahmed-Kiuprili in the following year,
+this fortunate adventurer found little difficulty in stepping, as we
+have seen, into the vacated place.
+
+The first cares of the new vizir were on the side of the newly acquired
+frontier in the Ukraine; for, though all claim to that part of the
+Cossack territory had been expressly resigned by Poland at the treaty of
+Durawno, the Czar of Muscovy had never ceased to assert his pretensions
+to the whole Ukraine, in virtue of the convention of 1656 with
+Khmielnicki; and during the Polish campaign of 1674, his troops on the
+border, under a general named Romanodoffski, had several times come into
+collision with the Turks--an era deserving notice as the first hostile
+encounter between these two great antagonist powers. The defection of
+Doroszenko, who had gone over to the Russians at the end of 1676, and
+surrendered to them the important fortress of Czehryn, the capital and
+key of the Ukraine, and the repulse of the serasker Ibrahim before its
+walls in the following year, showed the necessity of vigorous measures:
+and, in 1678, the grand vizir in person appeared at the head of a
+formidable force in the Ukraine, bringing with him George Khmielnicki,
+son of the former ataman, who had long been confined as a state prisoner
+in the Seven Towers, but was now released to counteract, by his
+hereditary influence with the Cossacks, the adverse agency of
+Doroszenko. Czehryn, after a close investment of a month, was carried by
+storm, the garrison put to the sword, and the fortifications razed. But
+though the war was continued through another campaign, it was obviously
+not the interest of the Divan to prolong this remote and unprofitable
+contest at a juncture when the state of parties in Hungary bid fair to
+present such an opportunity as had never before occurred, for
+definitively establishing the supremacy of the Porte over the whole of
+that kingdom. Negotiations were accordingly opened on the Dniepr between
+the Muscovite leaders and the Khan Mourad-Gherni; and a peace was signed
+at Radzin, Feb. 12, 1681, by which the frontiers on both sides were left
+unaltered, while the Porte expressly renounced all claim to Kiow and
+the Russian Ukraine, which had been in the possession of the Czar since
+1656. The ratification of the treaty was brought to Constantinople in
+the following September by an envoy, whose gifts of costly arctic furs,
+and ivory from the tusks of the walrus, might have unfolded to the Turks
+the wide extent of the northern realms ruled by the monarch whom they
+even yet regarded only as a tributary of their own vassal the Khan of
+the Tartars, and scarcely deigned to admit on equal terms to diplomatic
+intercourse.
+
+Though the truce for twenty years, concluded between the Porte and the
+Empire after the defeat of Ahmed-Kiuprili at St Gotthard in 1564, had
+not yet expired by nearly three years, the political aspect of Hungary
+left little doubt that the resumption of hostilities would not be so
+long delayed. To understand more clearly the extraordinary complication
+of interests of which this country was now the scene, it will, however,
+be necessary to take a retrospective glance at its history during the
+seventeenth century, after the treaty of Komorn with the Porte, in 1606,
+had terminated for the time the warfare of which it had almost
+constantly been the theatre since the occupation of Buda by Soliman the
+Magnificent in 1541, ad had, in some measure, defined the boundaries of
+the two great powers between which it was divided. The Emperors of the
+House of Hapsburg, indeed, styled themselves Kings of Hungary, and Diets
+were held in their name at Presburg; but the territory actually under
+their sway amounted to less than a third of the ancient kingdom,
+comprehending only the northern and western districts; while all the
+central portion of Hungary Proper, as far as Agria on the north, and the
+Raab and the Balaton Lake on the west, was united to the Ottoman Empire,
+and formed the pashaliks of Buda and Temeswar, which were regularly
+divided into sandjaks and districts, with their due quota of spahis and
+timariots, who had been drawn from the Moslem provinces of Turkey, and
+held grants of land by tenure of military service. The principality of
+Transylvania, (called _Erdel_ by the Turks,) which had been erected by
+Soliman in favour of the son of John Zapolya, comprehended nearly
+one-fourth of Hungary, and (though its suzerainte was claimed by Austria
+in virtue of a reversionary settlement executed by that prince shortly
+before his death,) was generally, in effect, dependent on, and tributary
+to the Porte, from which its princes, elected by the Diet at
+Klaucenburg, received confirmation and investiture, like the waiwodes of
+the neighbouring provinces of Moldavia and Wallachia. During the
+interval between the death of John Sigismond Zapolya in 1571, and the
+election of Michael Abaffi in 1661, not fewer than thirteen princes,
+besides nearly as many ephemeral pretenders, had occupied the throne;
+and, though at one time the family of Batthori, and, subsequently, that
+of Racoczy, established a kind of hereditary claim to election, their
+tenure was always precarious; and, on more than one occasion, the prince
+was imposed on the states by the Turks or Austrians, without even the
+shadow of constitutional forms.
+
+This modified independence of Transylvania, however, often gave its
+princes great political importance, during the endless troubles of
+Hungary, as the assertors of civil and religions liberty against the
+tyranny and bad faith of the Austrian cabinet; which, with unaccountable
+infatuation, instead of striving to attach to its rule, by conciliation
+and good government, the remnant of the kingdom still subject to its
+sceptre, bent all its efforts to destroy the ancient privileges of the
+Magyars, and to make the crown formally, as it already was in fact,
+hereditary in the imperial family. The extirpation of Protestantism was
+another favourite object of Austrian policy: and the cruelties
+perpetrated with this view by George Basta and the other imperial
+generals at the beginning of the century was such, that a general rising
+took place under Stephen Boczkai, then waiwode of Transylvania,
+Wallachia, and Moldavia, who extorted from the Emperor Rodolph, in 1607,
+the famous _pacification of Vienna_, which was guaranteed by the Porte,
+and which secured to the Hungarians full liberty of conscience, as well
+as the enjoyment of all their ancient rights. This agreement was soon
+violated; but the Protestants again found a protector in a Transylvanian
+prince, the celebrated Bethlen-Gabor;[E] who, assuming the royal title,
+occupied Presburg and Neuhausel in 1619, formed an alliance with the
+Bohemian revolters under Count Thurn, and was narrowly prevented from
+forming a junction with them under the walls of Vienna, which, if
+effected, would probably have overthrown the dynasty of Hapsburg. He is
+said to have entertained the design of uniting all Hungary east of the
+Theiss, with Transylvania and Wallachia, into a modern _kingdom of
+Dacia_, leaving the west to the Turks as a barrier against Austrian
+aggression--but his want of children left his schemes of aggrandizement
+without a motive, and at his death in 1630 they all fell to the ground.
+The Thirty Years' War procured the Hungarian subjects of Austria a
+temporary respite; but Leopold, who was elected king in 1655, and
+succeeded his father Ferdinand in the empire three years later,
+stimulated by the triumph of his predecessor over the liberties of
+Bohemia, resumed with fresh zeal the crusade against the privileges of
+the Magyars. Not only was the persecution of the Protestants
+recommenced, but the excesses of the ill-paid and licentious German
+mercenaries, who were quartered on the country in defiance of the
+constitution after the twenty years' truce, under the pretence of
+guarding against any fresh attack from the Turks, were carried to such a
+height that disaffection became universal even among those who had
+hitherto constantly adhered to the Austrian interest, so that (in the
+words of a writer[F] of the time,) "they began to contrast their own
+condition with that of the Transylvanians, who are not forced to take
+the turban but live quietly under the protection of the Turk--while we
+(as they say) are exposed to the caprices of a prince under the absolute
+dominion of the Jesuits, a far worse sort of people than the Dervishes!"
+As early as 1667, a secret communication had been made to the Porte
+through the envoy of Abaffi; but Kiuprili, who was then on the point of
+departure for Candia, and was unwilling to risk a fresh rupture with the
+empire in his absence, gave little encouragement either to these
+overtures, or to the more advantageous propositions received in 1670
+from Peter Zriny, Ban of Croatia, and previously a famous
+partisan-leader against the Moslems; in which the malecontents offered,
+as the price of Ottoman aid and protection, to cede to the sultan all
+the fortified towns which should be taken by his arms, and to pay an
+annual tribute of 30,000 ducats. The conspiracy had, however, become
+known at Vienna; and instant measures were taken for seizing Zriny and
+his Croatian confederates, Nadasti, Tattenbach, and Christopher
+Frangipani, who were all executed in the course of the following year.
+The Emperor, now considering Hungary as a conquered country, formally
+abolished the dignity of Palatine, and nominated Gaspar Von Ampringham,
+grand master of the Teutonic knights, to be viceroy of the kingdom;
+while the Protestants were persecuted with unheard-of rigour, and many
+of their ministers imprisoned in the fortresses, or sent in chains to
+the galleys at Naples.
+
+The confederates of Upper Hungary had been better on their guard: and on
+the news of the fate of Zriny and his associates, they forthwith
+assembled in arms at Kaschau or Cassovia, and electing Francis Racoczy,
+son of the late prince of Transylvania, and son-in-law of Zriny, as
+their leader, bade defiance to the Emperor. The civil war continued
+several years without decisive success on either side; till on the
+death, in 1676, of Racoczy, (who had previously abandoned the popular
+cause,) the famous Emeric Tekoeli, then only twenty years of age, was
+chosen general. He was the hereditary enemy of the Austrians; his father
+Stephen, Count of Kersmark, having been besieged in his castle by the
+Imperialists at the time of his death; and while he pressed the Germans
+in the field with such vigour as to deprive them of nearly all the
+fortified places they still held in Upper Hungary, the negotiation with
+the Porte for aid was renewed, and being backed by the diplomatic
+influence of France, then at war with the empire, was more favourably
+received by Kara-Mustapha than the former advances of the malcontents
+had been by his predecessor. The war with Russia, however, prevented the
+Turks for the present from interfering with effect, but Abaffi was
+authorized to support the insurgents in the mean time, while Leopold,
+fearing the total loss of Hungary, summoned a diet at Oedenburg (in
+1681) for the redress of grievances, in which most of the ancient
+privileges of the kingdom were restored, full liberty of conscience
+promised to the Lutherans and Calvinists, and Paul Esterhazy named
+Palatine. But these concessions, wrung only by hard necessity from the
+Cabinet of Vienna, came now too late. Tekoeli replied to the amnesty
+proclaimed by the Emperor, by the publication of a counter-manifesto, in
+which were set forth a hundred grievances of the Hungarians; and, having
+obtained a great accession of strength by his marriage (June 1682) to
+Helen Zriny, the widow of Racoczy, whereby he gained all the adherents
+of those two powerful houses, he summoned a rival diet at Cassovia,
+where he openly assumed the title of sovereign prince of Upper Hungary,
+exercising the prerogatives of royalty, and striking money in his own
+name, which bore his effigy on the obverse, and on the reverse the motto
+inscribed on his standards--"Pro Deo, Patria, et Libertate."
+
+Though Tekoeli professed to act by the authority of the Porte, from
+which he had received a firman of investiture with the usual ensigns of
+sovereignty, no formal declaration of war had yet been issued from
+Constantinople; and many of the Ulemah protested against such a measure,
+at least till the twenty years' truce, concluded in 1664, should have
+expired. The aid openly afforded, however, to Tekoeli by Abaffi and the
+pasha of Buda, as well as the constant march of large bodies of troops
+to the Danube, afforded sufficient indication that an attack would not
+be long delayed; and Leopold, disquieted at the prospect of having at
+once to contend against his own revolted subjects, and the mighty force
+of the Ottoman empire, sent Count Caprara on a mission to
+Constantinople, in the hope of averting the storm; while, at the same
+time, he made overtures for an alliance with Poland, still smarting
+under her losses in the late Turkish war. The mission of Caprara led to
+no result, from the exorbitant demands made by the Ottoman ministers on
+behalf both of the Porte and its Hungarian allies, which amounted to
+little less than a total cession of the country, and a few days after
+the arrival of the ambassador, the despatch of the firman to Tekoeli,
+and the display of the imperial horsetails in the plain of Daood-Pasha,
+showed that the resolution of the Divan was fixed for war. The
+negotiation with Poland presented almost equal difficulties, from the
+rooted jealousy entertained by the Poles of the ambition of Austria, and
+the opposition of the French envoy, De Vitry, who even carried his
+intrigues so far as to embark in a plot for the death or dethronement of
+the king, and the substitution of the grand marshal Iablonowski. The
+firmness of Sobieski, however, whom no minor considerations could blind
+to the importance of saving Austria and Hungary from the grasp of the
+Osmanli, overcame all these machinations; and the ratification of the
+diet was eventually given to a league, offensive and defensive, with
+Austria, on March 31, 1683--the same day on which the vast host of the
+Ottomans broke up from its cantonments about Adrianople, and directed
+its march towards the Danube.
+
+The sons of Naodasti and Zriny, who had been executed ten years before,
+were retained as hostages, under the name of chamberlains, in the
+imperial household; and it fell to the lot of the former to announce to
+Leopold, that the legions of the crescent were pouring down on Hungary.
+The cheek of the Emperor blanched at the tidings; for well did he know
+that, till the arrival of the Poles, his disposable force amounted to
+scarce 35,000 men, under Duke Charles of Lorraine, who could barely make
+head against Abaffi and Tekoeli, while so high were the hopes of the
+Magyars raised of a speedy and final deliverance from Austrian tyranny,
+that a plot is even said to have been laid between Zriny and his sister,
+now the wife of Tekoeli, for seizing the person of Leopold in the palace
+of Vienna, and giving him up to the Tartars, who had already commenced
+their ravages on the frontiers. The sultan meanwhile--the cumbrous
+luxury of whose harem and equipages had retarded the march of the
+army--had halted at Belgrade, after holding a grand review of his
+forces, and placing the standard of the Prophet in the hands of the
+vizier, in token of the full powers entrusted to him for the conduct of
+the campaign. On the 10th of June, Tekoeli, who had crossed the Danube
+to welcome his potent auxiliaries, was received at Essek with royal
+magnificence by Kara-Mustapha, who imitated, in the ceremonial observed
+on this occasion, the pomp of the reception of John Zapolya by Soliman,
+on his march against Vienna in 1529; but after receiving personal
+investiture of the royal dignity conferred on him by the sultan, he
+returned rapidly to Cassovia, where he had fixed his headquarters. The
+khan of the Tartars had already arrived at Stuhlweissenburg, and was
+speedily joined by the vizir and the main Turkish army, which, passing
+the Danube to the number of 140,000 men, swept like a torrent over the
+rich plains of Lower Hungary: the towns, abandoned by the panic-stricken
+German garrisons, every where opening their gates to the partisans of
+Zriny and Tekoeli, in the hope of escaping the fate of Veszprim, which
+had been sacked by the janissaries for attempting resistance. The march
+was pressed with unexampled rapidity, till on the 28th the whole army
+was mustered under the walls of Gran; and the vizir, summoning to his
+tent the khan and the principal pashas, announced that his orders were
+to make himself master of Vienna.
+
+The veneration with which the Turks have always regarded the memory of
+the greatest of their sultans, has led them not only to shrink with
+superstitious awe from attempting any enterprise in which he failed, but
+even to attach a prophetic importance to his recorded sayings. A promise
+attributed to him, that "an Ottoman army should never pass the Raab,"
+had been recalled at the time of the signal defeat experienced by
+Ahmed-Kiuprili on that river, and his memorable repulse before Vienna
+had been ever held as a warning, that the Ottoman arms were destined
+never to prevail against the ramparts of the _Kizil-Alma_. These
+considerations, however, had little weight with Kara-Mustapha; bridges,
+hastily thrown over the ill-omened stream, afforded a passage to the
+army, (July 8,) and the march was again directed without stop or stay on
+Vienna. A body of Hungarians in the pay of the emperor, under Budiani,
+passed over to the ranks of their insurgent countrymen on the first
+appearance of the standards of Tekoeli; and the Duke of Lorraine, who
+had withdrawn his infantry to the island of Schutt and the other bank of
+the Danube, was worsted in a cavalry fight at Petronel by the Tartars,
+whose flying squadrons were already seen from the walls of Vienna.
+Proclamation had been made, forbidding the citizens to _speak of the
+present state of affairs!_--but the emperor and court, who had
+confidently reckoned on the invaders being delayed by the sieges of Raab
+and Komorn, no sooner learned that they had passed those fortresses
+unheeded, and were rapidly approaching the capital, than, seized with a
+panic-terror, they fled from the devoted city, on the same day with the
+combat at Petronel, (July 7,) in such dismayed haste, that the empress
+was forced to lodge one night under a tree in the open air; nor did they
+deem themselves in safety from the terrible pursuit of the Tartars, till
+they reached Lintz, on the furthest western verge of the hereditary
+states. The Austrian towns along the Danube were overwhelmed by the
+advancing tide of Turks, or ravaged by the Hungarian followers of
+Tekoeli, who vied with their Moslem allies in animosity against the
+Germans; and the light troops and Tartars, overspreading the country,
+pushed their predatory excursions so far up the river, as even to alarm
+the imperial fugitives at Lintz, who consulted their safety by a second
+flight to Passau. The three great abbeys of Lilienfeldt, Moelk, and
+Klosterneuburg, were preserved from these desultory marauders by the
+strength of their walls, and the valour of their monastic inmates, who
+took arms in defence of their cloisters; but the open country was laid
+waste with the same ferocity as in the invasion by Soliman, and many
+thousands of the country people were dragged as slaves into the Turkish
+camp. The regular columns of the janissaries and feudatory troops,
+meanwhile, continuing their advance, appeared on the morning of the 14th
+under the walls of Vienna; the posts of the different corps were
+assigned on the same day, and in the course of the following night,
+ground was broken for the trenches on three sides of the city.
+
+The ancient ramparts of Vienna, which had withstood the assault of the
+great Soliman, had been replaced, not long after the former siege, by
+fortifications better adapted for modern warfare; but during the long
+interval of security, the extensive suburbs, with the villas and gardens
+of the nobles and opulent citizens, had been suffered to encroach on the
+glacis and encumber the approaches; and the ruins of these luxurious
+abodes, imperfectly destroyed in the panic arising from the unexpected
+celerity of the enemy's movements, were calculated at once to impede the
+fire from the walls, and to afford shelter and lodgement to the
+besiegers. Such preparations for defence, however, as the time allowed
+of, had been hastily made by the governor, Rudiger Count Stahrenberg, a
+descendant of the stout baron who, in the former siege, had repulsed the
+Tartars in the defiles near Enns, and an artillery officer of proved
+skill and valour. Most of the gates had been walled up, platforms and
+covered ways constructed, and the students of the university, with such
+of the citizens as were able and willing to bear arms, were organized
+into companies in aid of the regular troops, whose number did not exceed
+14,000. But the flower of the Austrian nobility, with many gallant
+volunteers, not only from Germany, but from other parts of Christendom,
+were within the walls, and animated by their example the spirits of the
+defenders, whose only hope of relief lay apparently in the distant and
+uncertain succours of Poland. The Duke of Lorraine, with his cavalry,
+had still hoped to maintain himself in the Prater and the Leopoldstadt,
+(which were on an island separated from the city by a narrow arm of the
+river,) and thus to keep up the communication with the north bank:--but
+an overwhelming body of Turkish horse, (among whom were conspicuous the
+Arab chargers and gorgeous equipments of a troop of Egyptian Mamlukes, a
+force rarely seen in the Ottoman armies,) was directed against him on
+the 17th, and after a desperate conflict, he was driven across the main
+stream with the loss of 500 men, and with difficulty secured himself
+from pursuit by breaking the bridge. The suburb of Leopold, in itself a
+second city, was given up to the flames; and the Turks, erecting two
+batteries on the bank opposite Vienna, completed the investment on the
+only side which had hitherto remained open. Kara-Mustapha, in the
+confidence of anticipated triumph, now summoned Stahrenberg to
+surrender, by throwing a cartel into the city, wrapped up in linen and
+fastened to an arrow: and no answer being returned, the fire of the
+batteries on the Leopold island opened on the town; and in less than a
+week ten others were completed and mounted with cannon on the landward
+side.
+
+The main point of attack, in the former siege under Soliman, had been
+the gate of Carinthia, (Kaernther-Thor,) and the adjoining bastions; but
+the weight of the Turkish fire on the land side was now directed
+principally against the Castle-Gate, (Burg-Thor,) lying to the left of
+the former, and against the curtain between the Castle bastion and that
+of Loebel; and on the river side from the batteries of the Leopold island
+against the Rothenthurm or Red Tower, at the point where the
+fortifications abut on the stream of the Danube. The tent of the vizir
+was pitched opposite the Burg-Thor, in the midst of the janissaries and
+Roumeliote troops, while the feudatories of Anatolia and Syria, under
+their pashas, were posted right and left of this central point, and the
+encampments of the various divisions stretched far round the city in a
+semi-circle many miles in extent, touching the Danube at its two extreme
+points of Ebersdorff below Vienna, and Nussdorff in the higher part of
+the stream, where a bridge thrown over the narrow channel formed a
+communication between the outposts on the mainland, and those on the
+Leopold island. The charge of this bridge was assigned to the Moldavian
+and Wallachian contingents, under the command of Scherban, waiwode of
+the latter province, and one of the most remarkable adventurers of the
+age. Born of a noble Wallachian family, which claimed descent from the
+ancient imperial house of Cantacuzene, he had earned from the Turks, not
+less by the reckless bravery he had displayed under the standard of the
+crescent in the wars of Poland, than by the consummate address with
+which he had steered his way through the tortuous intrigues of the
+Fanar, the sobriquet of Shaitan Ogblu, _son of Satan_--nor was he
+unknown as a gay and gallant visitor to the more polished and voluptuous
+courts of the west. In his elevation to the throne of his native
+country, he was said to have been materially assisted by the criminal
+favour of the consort of his predecessor, the Princess Ducas:--but in
+the camp before Vienna he assumed the guise of extraordinary piety--a
+lofty cross was erected before his tent, where the rights of the Greek
+Church were daily celebrated with extraordinary pomp, and the priests of
+that communion offered up prayers for the success of the Ottoman arms
+against the schismatics of the Western Church![G]
+
+On the 23d of July, two mines were fired under the counterscarp of the
+Loebel bastion, and though from the want of skill in the Turkish
+engineers, they did little damage, the alarm caused among the garrison,
+who called to mind the formidable use made of this species of approach
+in the siege of Candia, was such, that Stahrenberg issued orders that
+one person should be constantly on the watch in each house, to prevent
+the Turks from making their way into the city by these subterraneous
+passages. No more than forty mines, however, were sprung during the
+whole siege, and their effect, from the industry with which they were
+countermined by the garrison, was far less destructive than at
+Candia:--but the fire from the batteries continued without cessation,
+till the counterscarp and ravelin between the two bastions were reduced
+to a heap of ruins, and the covered approaches of the Turks, in spite of
+the constant sorties of the besieged, were pushed so close to the outer
+works that the defenders could reach the pioneers employed on the
+galleries by thrusting at them through the palisades with the long
+German pikes, the efficiency of which had been so severely experienced
+in the former siege. The first assault on the ravelin was made July
+25--but the explosion of a mine at the instant threw the attacking
+column into disorder, and they were repulsed after a severe conflict, in
+which Stahrenberg himself was wounded. The attack was not repeated in
+force till the night of Aug. 3, when the troops of the pasha of
+Temeswar, and a select body of janissaries under their _houlkiaya_ or
+lieutenant-general, rushed with such fury upon the ruined rampart, that
+though four times driven back, they at last succeeded in effecting a
+lodgement in the ravelin, and threw up parapets to screen themselves
+from the fire of the walls. The city, meanwhile, was repeatedly set on
+fire by bombs thrown from the Turkish batteries; and during the
+confusion arising from one of these partial conflagrations, a fresh mine
+was run under the angle of the court bastion, and sprung with such
+effect as to cause a practicable breach. The quantity of powder,
+however, had been so greatly over calculated that great part recoiled
+among the Turks and the garrison, by a well-timed sortie, did great
+damage to the enemy's works. Before the breach, however, could be
+repaired, the janissaries, recovering from their panic, again assailed
+it, and, after a desperate struggle, established themselves in the ditch
+and front of the bastion, while the defenders endeavoured, by changing
+the direction of their guns, to enfilade the ground thus won by the
+enemy, so as to prevent their penetrating into the interior, which now
+lay open to them.
+
+Great had been the panic throughout Europe at the advance of the Turks
+into Austria, and their appearance before Vienna. The infidel host was
+magnified, by the exaggerations of popular terror, to the number of
+100,000 horse and 600,000 foot! And it was doubted whether, after
+destroying the power of the House of Hapsburg, the vizir would march to
+the Rhine, and annihilate the remaining strength of Christendom by the
+overthrow of Louis XIV., or would cross the Alps to fulfil the famous
+threat of Bayezid I., by stabbing his horse before the high altar of St
+Peter's. Even among those better qualified to take a calm view of the
+state of affairs, little hope was entertained that Vienna could hold out
+till the armies of Poland and the empire could be collected in
+sufficient force for its relief, if the Turks continued to press the
+siege with that vigour and stubborn perseverance, the combination of
+which in the attack of fortified places had hitherto been one of their
+most remarkable military characteristics. But Kara-Mustapha, deficient
+alike in martial experience and personal courage, was little qualified
+either to stimulate the fanatic ardour of the Ottomans or to guide it to
+victory. While within the wide enclosure of his own tents, carefully
+pitched beyond the range of cannon-shot from the ramparts, he maintained
+a household and harem of such luxurious magnificence as none of the
+sultans had ever carried with them into the field, the rations of the
+soldiers were reduced, on the pretext that the supplies expected from
+Hungary had been intercepted by the garrisons of Raab and the other
+towns on the Danube, which still held out for the emperor; and so little
+did he care to disguise his apprehensions for his own safety, that he
+visited the lines only in a litter rendered musket-proof by plates and
+lattices of iron! Whether he entertained the wild design, as asserted by
+Cantemir, (whose authority, as that of a contemporary, may in this case
+perhaps deserve some credit,) of throwing off his allegiance to the
+sultan, and erecting an independent _Western Empire_ of the Ottomans in
+Austria and Hungary, or whether he was simply instigated by his avarice
+to preserve the imagined treasures of the capital of the German Caesars
+from the pillage which must follow from its being taken by storm--he no
+sooner saw the imperial city apparently within his grasp, than he
+restrained, instead of encouraging, the spirit of the troops,
+endeavouring rather to wear out the garrison by an endless succession of
+petty alarms, than to carry the place at once by assault. The murmurs of
+the soldiers, who even refused to remain in the trenches, were with
+difficulty quieted by the exhortations of Wani-Effendi, a celebrated
+Moslem divine, who had accompanied the army in order to share in the
+merit of the _holy war_--while the remonstrances of the pashas and
+generals were silenced by the exhibition of the sultan's
+_khatt-shereef_, which conferred on the vizir plenary powers for the
+conduct of the war.
+
+While Kara Mustapha thus lay inactive in his lines before Vienna,
+Tekoeli, who had been detached with his Hungarian followers and an
+auxiliary Turkish corps to reduce the castle of Presburg, which held out
+after the surrender of the town, had been defeated by the Duke of
+Lorraine, aided by a body of Polish cavalry under Lubomirski, the
+forerunners of the army now assembling at Cracow. All the European
+princes, meanwhile, with the exception of Louis XIV., who, even in the
+danger of their common faith, forgot not his hostility to the house of
+Hapsburg, vied with each other in forwarding the equipment of the host
+which was to save the bulwark of Christendom. The cardinals at Rome sold
+their plate to supply funds for the German levies; Cardinal Barberini
+alone contributed 20,000 florins, and the Pope was profuse in his
+indulgences to those who joined the new crusade. The emperor, meanwhile,
+from his retreat at Passau, was abject in his entreaties to Sobieski for
+speedy succour, offering to cede to him his rights upon Hungary if he
+could preserve his Austrian capital; but the zeal of the Polish hero
+needed no stimulus. Though so disabled by the gout as to be unable to
+mount his horse without help, he was indefatigable in his exertions to
+hasten the march of his troops, to whom he gave the rendezvous, "Under
+the counterscarp at Vienna." On his march into Germany, he was every
+where received as a deliverer; the Jesuits of Olmutz erected, at his
+entrance into the town, a triumphal arch, with the inscription,
+"Salvatorem expectamus;" and all hailed, as a sure omen of victory, the
+presence of the champion whose very name had become a byword of terror
+among the Turks. The beleaguered garrison was, meanwhile, cheered by
+frequent messages promising speedy relief from the Duke of Lorraine,
+whose emissaries, selected for their knowledge of the Turkish language,
+contrived to pass and re-pass securely; but an epidemic disease, in
+addition to the sword and the bombardment, was rapidly thinning their
+numbers; and Callonitz, bishop of Neustadt, who, in his younger days,
+had gained distinction against the Turks in Candia, now acquired a
+holier fame by his pious care of the sick and wounded, who crowded the
+hospitals and houses. The siege had been languidly carried on during the
+greater part of August, but at the end of the month fresh symptoms of
+activity were observed in the Ottoman lines; several mines were sprung
+on the 27th and 28th, and the fire from the batteries was so warmly kept
+up, that on the 29th the garrison, conjecturing that the anniversary of
+the battle of Mohacz had been chosen for the general assault, stood to
+their arms in anxious suspense. But the day passed over without any
+alarm, and it was not till September 4, that, having blown up great part
+of the right face of the court bastion by a powerful mine, 5000 of the
+_elite_ of the janissaries sprang, sword in hand, with loud shouts and
+the clangour of martial music, into the breach thus made, and forcing
+their way, with the fanatic valour which had in their best days
+characterized the sons of Hadji-Bektash, into the interior of the
+bastion, planted their _bairahs_, or pennons, on the ruined ramparts.
+Stahrenberg himself, with his officers and guards, was fortunately going
+the rounds at the menaced point at the moment of the explosion and
+assault, but the Osmanlis held firm the ground they had gained; and
+Stahrenberg, seeing the enemy thus fairly established within the
+defences, directed barriers to be constructed and trenches sunk at the
+head of the streets nearest the breach, while thirty rockets, fired in
+the night from the steeple of St Stephen's Domkirch, announced the
+extremity of their distress to their approaching friends; and all eyes
+were turned to the rocky heights of the Kahlenberg, which bounded the
+prospect to the west, in hope of descrying the standards of the
+Christian army.
+
+It was at Tuln, six leagues above Vienna, that Sobieski received, the
+day after this assault, a despatch from Stahrenberg, containing only the
+words--"There is no time to be lost!" On the 6th the Poles passed the
+river by the bridge of Tuln, and the king, amazed at the supineness of
+the vizir in suffering this movement to be effected without molestation,
+exclaimed, "Against such a general the victory is already gained!"--and
+advanced as to an assured triumph. Though far inferior in numbers to the
+Turks, who, after all their losses by the sword and desertion, still
+mustered 120,000 effective men, when passed in review on the 8th by the
+vizir, it was in truth a gallant army which Sobieski now saw united
+under his command. The Imperialists, under the Duke of Lorraine, were
+not more than 20,000; but the Saxons and Bavarians, led by their
+respective electors, and the contingents of the lesser states of the
+empire, with the fiery hussars and cuirassiers of Poland, formed an
+aggregate of 65,000 men, more than half of whom were cavalry; while in
+the ranks were found, besides the German chivalry who fought for their
+fatherland, many noble volunteers, who had hastened from Spain and Italy
+to share in the glories anticipated under the leadership of Sobieski.
+Among these illustrious auxiliaries was a young hero, who had escaped
+from France in defiance of the mandate of Louis XIV., to flesh his
+maiden sword in view of the Polish king, and who at a later period,
+under the well-known name of Prince Eugene, himself earned deathless
+fame by his achievements against those redoubted enemies, whose first
+great overthrow he was destined to witness.
+
+On the evening of the 10th the two armies were separated only by the
+ridge of the Kahlenberg, and the thick forests covering its sides; and a
+still more urgent message arrived from the governor, who intimated that
+he had little chance of repelling another assault. "On the same night,
+however," (says the diary of a Dutch officer in the garrison,) "we saw
+on the hills many fires, and rockets thrown up, as signals of our
+approaching succours, which we joyfully answered in like manner ... and
+next day the Turks were moving, and their cavalry riding about in
+confusion, till about four P.M. we saw several of their regiments
+drawing off towards the hills, and those in Leopoldstadt marching over
+the bridge." The knowledge, indeed, that the terrible Sobieski was at
+the head of the Christian army, had spread such a panic among the
+Osmanli, that several thousands left the camp the same night; but
+Kara-Mustapha, though urged by all his officers to march with his whole
+force to meet the coming storm, contented himself with sending 10,000
+men, under Kara-Ibrahim, pasha of Buda, to watch the Poles, while the
+rest were kept in their lines before the city, which was cannonaded with
+redoubled fury throughout the 11th and the night following. The summits
+of the Kahlenberg glittered with the arms of the confederates, who
+bivouacked there during the night, being unable to pitch their tents
+from the violence of the wind, which Sobieski, in one of his letters to
+his queen, (his "charmante et bien aimee Mariette,") says, was
+attributed by the soldiers to the incantations of the vizir, "who is
+known to be a great magician." From the top of the Leopoldsberg, the
+king and the Duke of Lorraine reconnoitred the Turkish camp, which lay
+in all its wide extent before them, from the opposite skirts of the
+Wienerberg almost to the foot of the ridge on which they stood, with the
+lofty pavilions and scarlet screens of the vizir's quarters conspicuous
+in the midst, while the incessant roar of the artillery rose from the
+midst of the smoke which enveloped the city.
+
+At five in the morning of the 12th, the sound of musketry was heard from
+the thickets and wooded ravines at the foot of the Kahlenberg, where the
+Saxons were already engaged with the Turkish division under
+Ibrahim-Pasha; and the king, having heard mass on the Leopoldsberg from
+his chaplain Aviano, mounted his favourite sorrel charger, and, preceded
+by his son James, whom he had just dubbed a knight in front of the army,
+and by his esquire bearing his shield and banner, led the Poles, who
+held the right of the allied line, down the slopes of the mountain. The
+left wing, which lay nearest the river, was commanded by the Duke of
+Lorraine, and the columns in the centre were under the orders of the two
+electors, and the Dukes of Saxe-Lauenburg and Eisenach. By eight A.M.
+the action had become warm along the skirts of the Kahlenberg--the
+Turks, who were principally horse, dismounting to fight on foot behind
+hastily-constructed abattis of trees and earth, as the nature of the
+ground was unfavourable to cavalry, and keeping up a heavy fire on the
+enemy while they were entangled in the ravines. The ardour of the
+Christians, however, speedily overcame these obstacles; and by ten A.M.,
+their van was debouching from the defiles into the plain with loud
+shouts of battle; and the Turks, though from time to time receiving
+reinforcements from the camp, were gradually obliged to give ground. The
+vizir, meanwhile, remaining immovable in his tent, directed a fresh
+cannonade to be directed against the city, under cover of which a
+general assault was to be made; but the long files of camels laden with
+the spoils of Austria, which were sent off in haste on the road to
+Hungary, revealed his secret disquietude--and the troops in the
+trenches, effectually disheartened by the delay and privations of the
+siege, showed little inclination again to advance against the shattered
+bastions. The towers and steeples of Vienna were thronged with anxious
+spectators, who with throbbing hearts watched the advance of their
+deliverers, who pressed on at all points, "making the Turks give way"
+(says the diary above quoted) "whenever they came to a shock." The
+villages of Nussdorff and Heiligenstadt on the Danube, where several
+_odas_ of janissaries, with heavy cannon, were posted, checked for some
+time the progress of the Austrians on the left; the Duc de Croye, a
+gallant French volunteer, fell in leading the attack, but a body of
+Polish cuirassiers were at last sent to their aid, who, levelling their
+lances, and dashing with loud shouts against the flank of the Turkish
+batteries, carried the position, and put the defenders to the sword. It
+was not so much a battle, as a series of desperate but irregular
+skirmishes scattered over wide extent of ground--the Turkish troops (who
+were almost all cavalry, as most of the regulars and artillery were
+still in the camp) gradually receding before the heavy advancing columns
+of the Christians. By four P.M. they were driven so close to their
+intrenchments, that Sobieski could descry the vizir, seated in a small
+crimson tent, and tranquilly drinking coffee with his two sons. At this
+moment, a torrent of the wild cavalry of the Tartars, headed by the khan
+in person, poured forth from the Moslem lines, and thundered upon the
+right of the Poles, only to recoil in disorder before the lances of
+Iablonowski and the Lithuanians, who pushed in pursuit close to a deep
+ravine, which covered the redoubts of the Turks. But the khan had
+recognized in the melee the well-known figure of Sobieski, whose
+personal presence had been as yet uncertain. "By Allah!" said he to the
+vizir on his return from his unsuccessful charge, "the heavens have
+fallen upon us; for the ill-omened _kral_ of the _Leh_ (Poles) of a
+truth is with the infidels!"
+
+The Turks were now every where driven within their lines, and the battle
+appeared over for the day; but the Poles, with cries of triumph,
+demanded to be led to the attack of the camp, and Sobieski exclaiming,
+"Not unto us, O Lord, but to thy name be the praise!" directed the
+assault. In a moment the Polish chivalry spurred up the steep side of
+the ravine in the teeth of the Turkish artillery--a redoubt in the
+centre of the lines was stormed through the gorge by Maligny,
+brother-in-law of the king--the Pashas of Aleppo and Silistria, whose
+prowess sustained the fainting courage of their troops, were slain in
+the front of the battle--and, after a conflict of less than an hour, the
+whole vast array of the Osmanlis, pierced through the centre by the
+onset of the Polish lances, gave way in hopeless, irremediable
+confusion, and, abandoning their camp, artillery, and baggage, fled in
+wild confusion on the road to Hungary. By 6 P.M. the Polish King reached
+the tent of the vizir; but Kara-Mustapha had not awaited the arrival of
+the victor. In an agony of despair at the mighty ruin which he now saw
+to be inevitable, he gave the barbarous order (which was but partially
+executed) for the massacre of the women of his harem, to prevent
+their falling into the hands of the enemy; and, seizing the
+Sandjak-shereef,[H] mounted an Arabian camel of surpassing swiftness,
+and accompanied, or perhaps preceded, the flight of his army. Such was
+the panic haste of the rout, that, before sunset the next day, the whole
+host swept past the walls of Raab, the garrison of which thus gained the
+first tidings of the catastrophe--nor have the crimson banners of the
+crescent been ever again seen on the soil of Germany.
+
+From the desultory character of the action, in which little use was made
+of artillery, and the headlong dismay in which the Turks at last took to
+flight, not more than 10,000 of their number, according to the most
+probable accounts, fell in the battle; of the allies, scarcely 3000 were
+killed or wounded. Three hundred pieces of cannon of various calibres,
+many of them taken in former wars by the Turks, and still bearing the
+arms of Poland or the empire--a countless quantity of arms, ammunition,
+and warlike implements of all kinds--were found in the abandoned
+intrenchments; and the abundance of cattle, with the amply stored
+magazines of provisions, afforded instant relief to the famine from
+which the citizens had been for some time suffering.
+
+Surrounded by a vast crowd, who hailed him with enthusiastic
+acclamations as their deliverer, and thronged each other with a zeal
+approaching adoration, to kiss his hand or his stirrup, Sobieski entered
+Vienna through the breach on the morning of September 13, in company
+with the Duke of Lorraine and the electoral Prince of Bavaria, and with
+the horsetails found before the tent of the vizir borne in triumph
+before him; and having met and saluted Stahrenberg, repaired with him to
+a chapel in the church of the Augustin friars, to return thanks for the
+victory. As he entered the church, a priest cried aloud in an ecstacy of
+fervour--"There was a man sent from God whose name was John," and this
+text, which in past ages had been applied to the Hungarian paladin, John
+Hunyades, was again employed by the preachers throughout Europe, in
+celebration of the new champion of Christendom, John Sobieski. Far
+different to the entry of the Polish king was the return of the Emperor
+Leopold to his rescued capital. He had quitted it as a fugitive, amid
+the execrations of the people, who accused him of having drawn on them
+the storm of invasion, without providing means to ward off the
+destruction which threatened them; and having descended the Danube in a
+boat, he re-entered the city on the 14th in the guise of a penitent,
+proceeding on foot, with a taper in his hand, to the cathedral of St
+Stephen, where he knelt before the high altar in acknowledgement of his
+deliverance. But neither from his misfortunes, nor from his returning
+prosperity, had Leopold learned the lesson of gratitude or humility. He
+even attempted at first to evade an interview with Sobieski, on the
+ground that an elective king had never been received on terms of
+equality by an emperor of Germany: and, when this unworthy plea was
+overruled by the honest indignation of the Duke of Lorraine, the meeting
+of the two monarchs was formal and embarrassed: and Sobieski, disgusted
+at the meanness and arrogance of the prince who owed to him the
+preservation of his capital and throne, hastily cut short the
+conference, by deputing to his chancellor Zaluski the task of showing to
+Leopold the troops who had saved his empire; and departed on the 17th
+with his noble colleague in arms, the Duke of Lorraine, to follow up
+their triumphs by attacking the Turks in Hungary.
+
+The battle of Vienna effectually broke the spell of the Ottoman military
+ascendancy, which for near three centuries had held Europe in awe;--and
+though the energies of the empire, and the efficacy of its institutions,
+had long been gradually decaying, it was this great blow which first
+revealed the secret of its impaired strength. The treaty of Zurawno with
+Poland in 1676, had raised the Ottoman dominions to the highest point of
+territorial extent which they ever attained. From the time of the
+reunion of the empire, after the confusion following the defeat of
+Bayezid I. by Timour, every reign had seen its boundaries enlarged by
+successive acquisitions; and if we except the voluntary abandonment, in
+1636, of the remote and unprofitable province of Yemen, the horsetails
+had never receded from any territory on which they had been planted in
+token of permanent occupation. Besides the vast territories which were
+under the immediate rule of pashas sent from the Porte, and which the
+land and capitation taxes (_ssalyaneh_ and _kharatch_,) the khan of the
+Krim Tartars, the otaman of the Cossacks, the vassal princes of
+Transylvania, Moldavia, and Wallachia, the hereditary chiefs of the
+Circassian and Koordish tribes, and the rulers of the Barbary regencies,
+were all "under the shadow of the imperial horsetails," and paid tribute
+and allegiance to the sultan, who might boast, with no less justice than
+did the monarchs of the Seljookian Turks of old, that a crowd of princes
+arose from the dust of his footsteps. During the reign of Mohammed IV.,
+the last relics of Venetian rule in the Levant had been extirpated by
+the conquest of Candia; the frontiers in Hungary and Transylvania had
+been strengthened by the acquisition of the important fortresses of
+Grosswardein and Neuhausel, with the territory attached to them; while
+Poland had been deprived of the province through which she had access to
+the undefended points of the Ottoman frontier, and the Cossacks, from
+restless and intractable enemies, had been converted into friends and
+auxiliaries. In the domestic administration, also, the wisdom and
+clemency of Ahmed-Kiuprili, supported by a corresponding disposition on
+the part of the sultan, who was naturally averse to measures of
+severity, had introduced a spirit of moderation and equity unknown in
+the Ottoman annals. Such was the condition of the foreign relations and
+internal government of the Turkish empire at the juncture immediately
+preceding the death of Ahmed-Kiuprili, whose life closed (as mentioned
+above) within a few days of the conclusion of the peace of Zurawno:--and
+the coincidence of this highest point of territorial aggrandizement and
+domestic prosperity, with the last days of the great minister who had so
+principal a share in producing them, would almost justify the
+superstitious belief, that the star of the Kiuprilis was in sooth the
+protecting talisman of the Ottoman state, and inseparably connected with
+its welfare and splendour.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote B: The Poles were sometimes called _Lechi_, from Lech, the
+name of one of their ancient kings.]
+
+[Footnote C: Von Hammer describes him, without quoting his authority, as
+of lofty stature, and extremely fair complexion; but Rycaut's personal
+acquaintance insures his correctness.]
+
+[Footnote D: He subsequently became grand-vizir, and was killed at the
+battle of Salankaman in 1691.]
+
+[Footnote E: This name in western parlance would be Gabriel de Bethlen;
+in Hungary, the Christian _follows_ the surname.]
+
+[Footnote F: The anonymous biographer of Tekoeli, believed to be M.
+Leclerc.]
+
+[Footnote G: After the defeat of the Turks, Scherban Cantacuzene opened
+a correspondence with the Emperor and the King of Poland, setting forth
+his hereditary claim to the imperial crown of Constantinople in the
+event of their expulsion from Europe! but his intrigues became known to
+the Ottoman ministry, and he is supposed to have been taken off by
+poison.]
+
+[Footnote H: A _crimson_ banner was again sent to Rome as the
+Sandjak-shereef, as the green one of Hussein had been after the victory
+of Choczim.]
+
+
+
+
+EXHIBITIONS
+
+
+British art is in a transition state. Remembering many a year past our
+Academy Exhibitions, and the general, the family resemblance the works
+bore to each other, the little variety either in style or execution; and
+of later years noticing the gradual change, the adoption of a new class
+of subjects, and more varied styles; we are yet struck with the manifest
+difference between the present and any other we ever remember to have
+seen. There is, in fact, more originality. There are, indeed, mannerists
+enough; and we mean not here to use the word in its reprehensive sense
+but they stand more alone. There are far fewer imitators--some, of
+course, there must be, but they are chiefly in those classes where
+imitation is less easily avoided. Common-place subjects will ever be
+treated in a common-place manner, and resemble each other. Few venture
+now to follow even erratic genius in its wild vagaries. Turner has no
+rivals in the "dissolving view" style. By those who look to one or two
+favourite masters, who have hitherto given the character to our
+exhibitions, perhaps some disappointment may be felt. Edwin Landseer has
+but two pictures--Sir Augustus Calleott not one; and herein is a great
+loss, speaking not with reference to his very late pictures, his English
+landscape, or even his Italian views, but in vivid recollection of his
+fascinating river views, with their busy boats, under illuminating
+skies, such as, alas! he has ceased to paint.
+
+With regard to landscape, we progress slowly. Yet we fancy we can
+perceive indications there, that are of a better promise; although of
+the higher class of landscape there is not one this year. The promise is
+in the pencil of Creswick. He labours to unite great finish, too minute
+finish, with breadth and boldness of effect. His is unquestionably a new
+style; his subjects are all pleasing, bordering on the poetical; we only
+question if his aim at minute finishing does not challenge a scrutiny
+into the accuracy and infinite variety of the detail of nature, that few
+pictures ought to require, and his certainly do not satisfy the demand.
+For, after all, there is a great sameness, where there ought to be
+variety, particularly in his foliage: it is safer, by a greater
+generality, to leave much to the imagination. We do not, however, mean
+to quarrel with this his peculiar style, nor to limit its power. There
+is something yet not achieved.
+
+Mr Maclise has likewise originated a new style, and if not altogether a
+new class of subjects, one so richly, so luxuriantly treated as to be
+fairly considered new. He has given to humour a gentle satire, and more
+especially to works of creative fancy an historical importance; for
+herein he is essentially different from all other painters of this
+class, that none of his pieces, we might almost say none of his figures,
+are, or pretend to be, real life. If it be said that they are
+theatrical, we know not but that the term expresses their merit; for as
+Sir Joshua has well observed, there must be in the theatrical a certain
+ideal--which is, nevertheless, the higher representative of nature. Mr
+Maclise has adopted the elaborate finish and lavish ornament, but with
+so much breadth, and powerful execution, that the display scarcely
+offends--and he generally seeks subjects that will bear it. As a fault
+it was conspicuous in his Lady Macbeth: the strong emotions of that
+banquet-scene are of too hurrying, too absorbent a nature, to admit
+either the conspicuous multiplicity of parts, or the excess of ornament
+which that work exhibited. It was the very perfection of the "Sleeping
+Beauty," and singularly enough, begat a repose; for the mind was
+fascinated into the notion of the long sleep, by the very leisure
+required and taken to examine the all-quiescent detail.
+
+May we not call the style of Mr Redgrave original? perhaps more so in
+his execution than his subject. He has appropriated the elegant
+familiar. Many are the painters we might name under whose hands the arts
+are advancing; those we have named, however, appear to us to be more or
+less the chief originators of new styles. Nor does it follow from this
+that their pictures are always the best in any exhibition, though they
+may be generally found so to be. If we are to congratulate the world of
+art on the particular advancement of this year, we shall certainly limit
+our praise to one picture, because it is the picture of the year; and it
+is a wondrous improvement upon all our former historical attempts.
+Whoever has visited the Exhibition will at once know that we allude to
+Mr Poole's "Plague of London." There has not been so powerful a picture
+painted in this country since the best days of Sir Joshua Reynolds. For
+its power we compare it with the "Ugolino" of the President, and we do
+so the more readily as both pictures are now publicly exhibited. Unlike
+as they are, unquestionably, in many respects, and painted indeed on
+opposite principles, regarding the mechanical methods and colour; yet
+for power, for pathos, they come into competition. The subject chosen by
+Mr Poole was one of much more difficulty, more complication: he has had,
+therefore, much more to do, much more to overcome; and he has succeeded.
+Both, possibly, to a certain extent, were imitators, yet both possessing
+a genius that made the works their own creations. Sir Joshua saw
+Rembrandt in every motion of his hand; and Mr Poole was not unconscious
+of Nicolo Poussin in the design and execution of his "Plague." This is
+not said to the disparagement of either painter; on the contrary, we
+should augur ill of that man's genius who would be more ambitious to be
+thought original in all things than of painting a good picture. Great
+minds will be above this little ambition. Raffaelle borrowed without
+scruple from those things that were done well before him, a whole
+figure, and even a group; yet the result was ever a work that none could
+ever suspect to be by any hand but Raffaelle's. In saying that Mr Poole
+has seen Nicolo Poussin, we do not mean to insinuate more than that
+fact: others may say more; and, depreciating a work of surprising power,
+and that, too, coming from an artist who has hitherto exhibited nothing
+to be compared with it, will add that he has stolen it from Nicolo
+Poussin. This we boldly deny. The works of Nicolo Poussin of similar
+subjects are well known, and wonderful works they are; we need mention
+but two--the one in the National Gallery, the "Plague of Ashdod," and
+that in the collection of P.S. Miles, Esq., and exhibited last year at
+the British Institution, and which is engraved in Forster's work. We do
+not believe that one group or single figure in Mr Poole's picture can be
+shown in these or any others of Poussin. And in the conception there is
+a striking difference. Mr Poole's subject, though we have called it the
+"Plague of London," is not, strictly speaking, the awfulness and the
+disgust of that dire malady, but the insanity of the fanatic Solomon
+Eagle, taking a divine, an almost Pythean impress from its connexion
+with that woful and appalling mystery. This being his subject, he has
+judiciously omitted much of that dreadfully disgusting detail, which
+_his_ subject compelled Poussin to force upon the spectator. There is,
+therefore, in Mr Poole's picture more to excite our wonder and pity than
+disgust; nay, there is even room for the exhibition of tender,
+sensitive, apprehensive, scarcely suffering beauty, and set off by
+contrasts not too strong; so that nothing impedes the mind in, or draws
+it off from, the contemplation of the madman--here more than madman, the
+maniac made inspired by the belief of the spectator in denunciations
+which appear verifying themselves visibly before him. It is this feeling
+which makes the crazed one grand, heroic, and which constitutes this
+picture an historical work of a high class. It is far more than a
+collection of incidents in a plague; it is the making the plague itself
+but an accessory. The theme is of the madness that spreads its
+bewilderment on all around, as its own of right, as cause and effect--a
+bewilderment that works beyond the frame, and will not let the beholder
+question its fanatic power. We will endeavour to describe the picture,
+but first, take the subject from the catalogue:--"Solomon Eagle
+exhorting the People to Repentance, during the Plague of the Year 1665.
+P. F. Poole.--'I suppose the world has heard of the famous Solomon
+Eagle, an enthusiast; he, though not infected at all, but in his head,
+went about denouncing of judgment upon the city in a frightful manner,
+sometimes quite naked and with a pan of burning charcoal on his
+head.'--See DE FOE'S _Narrative of the Plague in London_." The scene is
+supposed to be in that part of London termed "Alsatia," so well
+described by Sir Walter Scott--the refuge of the destitute and criminal.
+Here are groups of the infected, the dying, the callous, the
+despairing--a miserable languor pervades them all. The young--the
+aged--the innocent--the profligate. One sedate and lovely female is
+seeking consolation from the sacred book, beside whom sits her father--a
+grand figure, in whose countenance is a fixed intensity of worldly care,
+that alone seems to keep life within his listless body, next him is a
+young mother, with her dying child, and close behind him a maiden,
+hiding her face, whose eye alone is seen, distended and in vacant gaze.
+We feel that this is a family group, perhaps the broken remnant of a
+family, awaiting utter desolation. Behind the group are two very
+striking figures--a man bewildered, and more than infected, escaping
+from the house, within the doorway of which we see, written in red
+characters, "Lord have mercy upon us," and the cross; the nurse is
+endeavouring to detain him. Nothing can be finer than the action and
+expression in both figures--the horror of the nurse, and fever energy of
+the escaped, in whose countenance, never to be forgotten, is the
+personification of plague-madness. It is recorded that such a one did so
+escape, swam across the Thames, and recovered. Beyond these are
+revellers, a dissolute band, card-playing. In the midst of the game one
+is smitten with the plague, and is falling back--one starts with horror
+at the sudden seizure--a stupid, drunken indifference marks the
+others--they had been waiting for a feast, which one is bringing in, who
+stands just above the falling figure, who will never partake of it.
+Quite in the background, and behind a low wall, are conveyers of the
+dead, carrying along a body. This describes the left of the picture. To
+the right, and near the middle, is a dying boy, leaning upon a man, who
+is suddenly roused, and rising to hear the denunciations of Solomon
+Eagle. At his back are two lovely female figures, sisters we should
+suppose, the younger one dying, supported by the sister's knee, who sits
+with crossed hands, as if in almost hopeless prayer. Beyond is a
+wretched man, with his head resting upon his hand, in a fixed state of
+stupid indifference; above whom are several figures, mostly of the lower
+grade, in the various stages of infection or recovery. They are sitting
+before the window of a house, through the panes of which we see
+indistinctly one raving, while from the same house a dead body is being
+let down from above, and in the background are the dead-cart and the
+carriers. At the feet of the figures by the house lie others, in all the
+langour of disease and feverish watchfulness. Among these persons are
+various shades of character, apparently all from nature, each one,
+artistically speaking, representing a class, and yet with such a stamp
+of individual nature, that we are satisfied they must have been taken
+from life. In this respect they resemble Raffaelle's beggars at the
+"Beautiful Gate," in their admirable generality an individuality. Two
+are very striking--an odd, stiff-looking old man, with a beard, whose
+marked profile is of the old cheat; he is observing the escape of the
+man on the opposite side of the picture, and the woman at his side,
+whose face is turned upwards, one-half an idiot, and all-wicked. We
+cannot help thinking that we have seen these two characters. It is,
+perhaps, the skill of the painter that has so represented the class that
+we have the conviction of the individuals. So far the scene is prepared
+for the principal _dramatis personae_; and so far we have only the
+calamity of the Plague, not in its scenes of turbulence, but kept down
+under an awful and quiet expectation of doom; so that, were the two
+principal figures obliterated, we should say the scene is yet but a
+preparation, awaiting the master figures to mark its true impression and
+feeling, constituting the subject of the picture. These principal
+figures are Solomon Eagle and his attendant; they are placed judiciously
+in the centre of the picture, in no part intercepted. Solomon Eagle
+hurries into the picture with a book in one hand, the other raised, as
+pointing to the heavens, from whence come the denunciations he
+pronounces: on his head is a pan of burning charcoal. He is naked,
+excepting his waist. His very attitude is insane--we need not look at
+his face to see that; the fore-finger, starting off from the others, is
+of mad action, and similar is the energy of the projected foot. The
+attitude is of one with a fixed purpose, one under an imaginary divine
+commission; it is of entire faith and firmness; and never was such
+insanity more finely conceived in a countenance. The man is all crazed,
+and grand, awfully grand, in his craziness. He throws around him an
+infection of craziness, as does the atmosphere of plague. There is a
+peculiar look in the eye, which shows the most consummate skill of the
+painter. The finger starts up as with an electric power, as if it could
+draw down the vengeance which it communicates. We mentioned the
+attendant figure--not that he is conscious of her presence. She is
+mysterious, veiled, a masked mystery--a walking tale of plague, woe, and
+desolation--a wandering, lonely, decayed gentlewoman: we read her
+history in her look, and in her walk. Her relations have all been
+smitten, swept away by the pestilence; her mind is made callous by utter
+misery; she wanders about careless, without any motive; a childish
+curiosity may be her pleasure, any incident to divert thoughts that make
+her sensible of her own bereavement. She stops to listen to the
+denunciations of the crazed prophet, and herself partakes, though
+callously, of his insanity--half believes, but scarcely feels. The sky
+is lurid, pestilential; it touches with plague what it illuminates. Such
+is the picture in its design. The colouring is quite in accordance with
+the purpose, and completes the sentiment; there is much of a green tone,
+yet under great variety. There is very great knowledge shown in it of
+artistical design, and the art of disposing lines; the groups, kept
+sufficiently distinct, yet have connecting links with each other; and
+there are general lines that bring all within the compass of one
+subject. Now, what, after all, is the impression on the mind of the
+spectator? for it is not enough to paint plague or madness: unless our
+human sympathy be touched, we turn away in disgust. Yet upon this
+picture we look with pleasure. Many whom we have heard say they could
+not bear to look at it, we found again and again standing before it:
+some we questioned; and at last they acknowledged pleasure. So are we
+moved at tragedy: human sympathies are moved--the great natural source
+of all our pleasures: pity and tenderness, and a sense of the awfulness
+of a great mystery, are upon us; and though pleased be too light a word,
+yet we are pleased; and where we are so pleased, we are made better. We
+feel the good flowing in upon us; and were not the busy scene of the
+multitudes in an exhibition, and the general glare, distracting, and
+discordant to the feeling such a picture is calculated to convey, we
+could enter calmly and deeply into its enjoyment. We have given, at much
+length, a description of the picture, because we think it a work of more
+importance than any that has, we would say ever, been exhibited upon the
+Academy walls--one of more decided commanding genius. There are faults
+in it doubtless, some of drawing, but not of much importance. We look to
+the mind in it--to its real greatness of manner, and we believe it to be
+a work of which the nation may be proud; and were we to look for a
+parallel, we must go to some of the best works of the best painters of
+the best ages. We were surprised to find that so small a sum as L 400
+was set upon the picture--and more so that it was not sold. We regret
+that there is no power in the directors of our National Gallery to buy
+occasionally a modern production. Is there, in that gallery, one work of
+a British painter in any way equal to it?
+
+There are only two pictures by Mr Maclise--they sustain his reputation.
+
+"The Actress's reception of the Author."--"He advanced into the room
+trembling and confused, and let his gloves and cloak fall, which having
+taken up, he approached my mistress, and presented to her a paper with
+more respect than that of a counsellor when he delivers a petition to a
+judge, saying, "Be so good, madam, as to accept of this part, which I
+take the liberty to offer." She received it in a cold and disdainful
+manner, with out even deigning to answer his compliments.'-_Gil Blas_,
+c. xi."
+
+The picture here is the luxuriantly beautiful and insolent prima-donna;
+we could wish that much of the picture, many of the "figures to let,"
+were away. There is a continuous flowing of graceful lines, in this one
+figure, with much breadth, that give it a largeness of style, extremely
+powerful. She luxuriates in pride, insolence, and beauty. The expression
+is perfect; nor is it confined to her face--it is in every limb and
+feature. The poor despised author bows low and submissive--and is even
+looked at contemptuously by a pet dressed monkey, pampered, and eating
+fruit: a good satire; the fruit to the unworthy--the brute before the
+genius. There is the usual display, the usual elaborate finish; but it
+is perhaps a little harder, with more sudden transitions from brown to
+white than commonly to be found in Mr Maclise's works.
+
+"Waterfall at St. Nighton's, Kieve, near Tintagel, Cornwall." A lovely
+girl crossing the rocky bed of a stream--attended by a dog, who is
+leaping from stone to stone. The action of the dog, his care in the act
+of springing, is admirable, and shows that Mr Maclise can paint all
+objects well. This is of the high pastoral: the lonely seclusion of the
+passage between rocks, the scene of the "Waterfall," is a most judicious
+background to the figure, which is large. It is most sweetly painted.
+
+We are glad to see Mr Ward, R. A., again in the Exhibition. His
+"Virgil's Bulls," is a subject poetically conceived. The whole landscape
+is in sympathy, waking, watchful sympathy, with the bulls in their
+conflict. Not a tree, nor a hill, nor a cloud in the sky but looks on as
+a spectator. All is in keeping. There is no violence in the colour,
+nothing to distract the attention from the noble animals--all is quiet,
+passive and observant. A less poetical mind would have given a bright
+blue, clear sky, and sparkling sunny grass; one more daring than
+judicious, might have placed the creatures in a turbulent scene of storm
+and uprooted ground; Mr Ward has given all the action to the
+combatants--you shall see nothing but them, and all nature shall be
+looking on as in a theatre of her own making. The subject is no less
+grand on the canvas than in the lines of the poet.
+
+We had fully intended to have omitted any mention of Mr Turner's strange
+productions; but we hear that a work has appeared, exalting him above
+all landscape painters that ever existed, by a graduate of the
+University of Oxford. Believing, then, that his style is altogether
+fallacious, and the extravagant praise mischievous, because none can
+deny him some fascinations of genius, which mislead, we think it right
+to comment upon his this year's works. Their subjects are taken from
+abstracts from a MS. poem, of which Mr Turner is, we presume, himself
+the author; for though somewhat more distinct and intelligible than his
+paint, they are obscure enough, and by their feet are as much out of the
+perspective of verse, as his objects are of that of lines. "The opening
+of the Wallhalla," is by far the best, indeed it has its beauties;
+distances are happily given: most absurd are the figures, and the
+inconceivable foreground. The catalogue announcement of No. 129 startled
+us. We expected to see "Bright Phoebus" himself poetically personating
+a doge, or a midshipman; for it points to the "Sun of Venice going to
+Sea." His "Shade and Darkness; or, the Evening of the Deluge," is the
+strangest of things--the first question we ask is, which is the shade
+and which the darkness? After the strictest scrutiny, we learn from this
+bit of pictorial history, that on the eve of the mighty Deluge, a
+Newfoundland dog was chained to a post, lest he should swim to the ark;
+that a pig had been drinking a bottle of wine--an anachronism, for
+certainly "as drunk as David's sow," was an after-invention: that men,
+women, and children, (such we suppose they are meant to be) slept a
+purple sleep, with most gigantic arms round little bodies; that there
+was fire that did not burn, and water that would nearly obliterate, but
+not drown. But more wonderful still is the information we pick up, or
+pick out bit by bit, as strange things glimmer into shape. "Light and
+Colour, (Goethe's Theory)--The Morning after the Deluge--Moses writing
+the book of Genesis." Such is the unexpected announcement of the
+catalogue. But further to account for so remarkable a jumble as we are
+to behold, Mr Turner adds the following verses:--
+
+    "The ark stood firm on Ararat: th' returning sun
+    Exhaled earth's humid bubbles, and, emulous of light,
+    Reflected her lost forms, each in prismatic guise,
+    Hope's harbinger, ephemeral as the summer fly,
+    Which rises, flits, expands, and dies."
+
+    _Fallacies of Hope, MS._
+
+This is unquestionably one of the "Fallacies of Hope"--for it is quite
+hopeless to make out, the sun smoking his cigar of colour, and exhaling
+earth's humid bubbles; yet we do see a great number of "bubble" heads,
+scratchy things, in red wigs, rolling and floating out of nothing into
+nothing. There must indeed have been very wondrous giants in those days;
+for here is an enormous leg, far beyond the "ex pede Herculem," rising
+up some leagues off far bigger than whole figures close at hand. But we
+learn the wonderful fact, that the morning after the Deluge, Moses,
+sitting upon nothing, possibly the sky, wrote the book of Genesis with a
+Perryian pen, and on Bath-post, and that he was so seen by Mr Turner in
+his own peculiar perspective-defying telescope--for so "_sedet,
+eternumque sedebit_," in the year 1843. We know that in this account of
+it we a little jumble past, present, and future; but so we the better
+describe the picture; for when the Deluge went, Chaos came. That we may
+the more easily recognize the historian, a serpent is dropping from him,
+hieroglyphically. Can Mr Turner be serious? or is he trying how far he
+may perpetrate absurdities, and get the world to believe them beauties,
+or that his practice is according to any "theory of colour!" His
+conceptions are such as would be dreams of gallipots of colours, were
+they endued with life, and the power of dreaming prodigies.
+
+There is unquestionably an impetus given to historical talent--and there
+is good proof that such talent is not wanting in this year's Exhibition;
+Mr Patten has chosen a very grand subject from the Inferno of Dante.
+"Dante, accompanied by Virgil in his descent to the Inferno, recognizes
+his three countrymen, Rusticucci, Aldobrandi, and Guidoguerra"--_Divina
+Commedia, Inferno._ The subject is finely conceived by Mr Patten. Virgil
+and Dante stand upon the edge of the fiery surge; they are noble and
+solemn figures. There is an abyss of flames below, that sends upward its
+whirling and tormenting storm, driven round and round, by which are seen
+the three countrymen. They are well grouped, and show the whirling
+motion of the fiery tempest; we should have preferred them more
+foreshortened, and such we think was the vision in Dante's mind's
+eye--for he says--
+
+    "Thus each one, as he wheel'd, his countenance
+    At me directed, _so that opposite
+    The neck moved ever to the twinkling feet_."
+
+There is great art in placing the large limb of one of the figures
+immediately over the fiercest centre of fire--it gives interminable
+space to the fiery sea--an this part of the picture is very daringly and
+awfully coloured. We rather object to the equal largeness and importance
+of all the figures; and perhaps the bodies are too smooth, showing too
+little of the punishment of flame--they are too quiescent. Dante says,
+"Ah me, what wounds I marked upon their limbs!" And Rusticucci, who
+addresses Dante, thus describes their bodies:
+
+    "'If woe of this unsound and dreary waste,'
+    Thus one began, 'added to our sad cheer
+    _Thus peel'd_ with flame.'"
+
+The persons of such sufferers should be Michael Angelesque--punishment
+and suffering should be equally _large_. We venture to suggest this
+criticism to Mr Patten, because the subject is grand, and there is so
+much good in his manner of treating it, that he will do well to paint
+another picture of it.
+
+Mr Etty has no less than seven pictures. His "In the Greenwood Shade" is
+by far the best. Cupid and sleeping nymphs--the rich and lucid colours,
+softly losing themselves in shade, and here and there playfully
+recovered, very much remind us of Correggio. We should more applaud Mr
+Etty for his general colouring, than for his flesh tints; nor have his
+figures in general the soft and luxuriant roundness which grace and
+beauty should have--the faces, too, have often too much purple shadow.
+We have before remarked that, painting too closely from the model, he
+exhibits Graces that have worn stays. And surely he often mistakenly
+enlarges the loveliest portion of the female form--the bosom--whose
+beauty is in its undefined commencement, its gentle and innocent and
+modest growth. How happily is this hit off by Dryden in his description
+of Iphigenia sleeping, to the gaze of the clown Cymon:--
+
+"As yet their places were but signified." While so many pictures of
+acknowledged merit are rejected for lack of room, it is scarcely fair,
+perhaps, for one artist to exhibit so many. Mr. Eastlake has, however,
+been too liberal to others in his forbearing modesty; we could wish he
+had not confined himself to one. He might offer the lioness's answer,
+were not his picture one most tenderly expressive of all gentleness. It
+is an old subject, but treated in no respect after the old manner. The
+boy is faint and weary, on the ground. Hagar, with a countenance of
+sweet anxiety, is giving the water, with a care, and with a view to the
+safety of the draught. There is a dead, dry, burnt palm-tree lying on
+the ground, poetically descriptive. The expression of both figures is
+perfect, and they are most sweetly, tenderly painted. If we might make
+any objection, it would be that the subject is not quite poetically
+treated as to colour. It may be, and we have no doubt it is, most true
+to nature in one sense. We can believe that such a country would have
+such a sky, and such appearance in foreground and distance; but that
+very truth creates to our mind's eye an anachronism--it brings down the
+tale of antiquity to very modernism--it robs it of its antique hue--it
+shows it too commonly, too familiarly. As _we read it_, we do not so see
+it; we are not so matter-of-fact. There is an ideal colouring that
+belongs to sentiment--our minds always adopt it. We have not as yet
+correctly worked out that theory, and therefore it is not enough in our
+practice. More particularly in this subject do we require something
+ideal in the manner, for few are equally true in the characters as in
+the external scene. Here, certainly, neither Hagar nor Ishmael are of
+their nation and country. It is too lovely a picture to wish touched.
+The remarks we venture upon may be applied to most modern pictures of
+ancient subjects, and may be worth consideration. There are two other
+pictures, very beautiful pictures, too, in the Exhibition, which have,
+we think, this defect--"Jephtha's Daughter, the last Day of Mourning. H.
+O. Neil;" and "Naomi and her Daughter-in-law. E. N. Eddis." The first,
+Jephtha's Daughter and her attendant maidens is a group of very lovely
+figures, extremely graceful, all breathing an air of purity; it is
+loveliness in many forms; for its conception as to chiaroscuro and
+colour, is most skilfully managed; but it has this present day's
+reality, and we only force ourselves to believe it Jephtha's Daughter.
+Exquisitely beautiful, too, is the affectionate, the very loving, Ruth.
+Orpah, too, is sweet, but the difference is well expressed--"Orpah
+kissed her mother-in-law, _but_ Ruth clave unto her." There is an
+unaffected simplicity about these figures that is quite charming, a
+simplicity of _manner_ well according with the simplicity of character;
+but has not the picture in colouring too much of this day's familiar
+air? In historical design both these pictures are a decided advance in
+art. We are giving promise.
+
+We could wish that Mr. Martin would not ruin his greatness by his
+littlenesses. There is often a large conception, that we overlook to
+examine interminable minutiae of parts, and mostly parts repeated; his
+figures are always injurious. His "Canute the Great rebuking his
+Courtiers" would have been a fine picture had he contented himself with
+the real subject--the sea. It is, indeed, crude in colour, and the
+coldness to the right ill agrees with the red heat on the left; but
+still, in chiaroscuro, it would have been a fine picture, if completed
+according to his first intention, but Canute and his courtiers spoil it.
+In the first place, they make, by their position and ease, the awful
+overwhelming sea safe. It is, as Longinus remarks, the plank that takes
+away the danger and the poetry; and such an assemblage of courtiers put
+the times of Canute quite out of our heads--a collection from a book of
+fashions--Ladies' Magazines--in their velvet gauze and tiffany, in
+colours that put the sun to shame, and make him blush less red; and the
+little, minute work about the pebbly shore creates a weariness, for they
+tempt us to count the sands. All this arises from a mistaken view of the
+sublime, that we have before noticed in Mr. Martin. It is very strange
+that an artist of his undoubted genius should err in a matter so
+essential to the greatness at which he aims.
+
+Would that we could say a word in of Mr Haydon's one historical
+picture, "The Heroine of Saragossa." She is most unheroic certainly,
+stretching across the centre of the picture with a most uncomfortable
+stride, with what a foot! and a toe that looks for amputation--a torch
+suspended out of her hand, held by nothing--not like "another Helen," to
+"fire another Troy," but purposing to fire off a huge cannon, without a
+chance of success; for not only do not her fingers hold the torch, but
+her face is averted from the piece of ordnance, and her feet are taking
+her away from it. She is splendidly dressed in red, and without shoes or
+stockings--a great mistake, for such a foot might have been well hid.
+She is the very worst historical figure we have ever seen in a picture
+of any pretensions; there is another figure that only attempts to hold a
+pistol. The whole is a most unfortunate display of the vulgar
+historical. The unfortunate woman has two heads of hair, and both look
+borrowed for the occasion. How very strange it is that an artist who
+could paint the very respectable picture of the "Raising of Lazarus,"
+now at the Pantheon, should not himself be sensible of the glaring
+faults of such a picture as this; and we may add, the large one
+exhibited last year. Mr Haydon understands art, lectures upon it, and
+is, we believe, enthusiastic in his profession. Does he bring his own
+works to the test of the principles he lays down? The misconception of
+men of talent with regard to their own works is an unexplained
+phenomenon.
+
+Edwin Landseer, R. A., exhibits but two pictures, both excellent. Of the
+two, we prefer the smaller, "Two horses drinking"--nature itself. Lord
+Kames, in his Elements of Criticism, remarks, that the fore-horse of a
+team always has his ears forward, on the alert, while the rest mostly,
+throw theirs back. This watchfulness Landseer has observed in the eye of
+the animal; the eye of the one, protected by the horse nearest to the
+spectator, has a quiet, unobserving look; the eye of the other is
+evidently on the watch. A cunning magpie is looking into a bone. The
+picture is beautifully coloured.
+
+Mr Redgrave's three pictures are exquisitely beautiful, and in his own
+truly English style. "The Fortune Hunter,"
+
+    "Neglects a love on pure affection built,
+    For vain indifference if but double-gilt."
+
+A screen separates the deserted one from the courting pair. The contrast
+in expression of the two fair ones is as good as can be. The "vain
+indifference" is not as many, treating this subject, have made her,
+deformed, old, and ugly, for that would have removed our pity from the
+suffering one, showing the man to be altogether worthless, and the loss
+an escape; on the contrary she is of a face and person to be admired;
+but she looks vain and void of affection. We like not so well his "Going
+to Service;" but his "Poor Teacher," is most charming; it is a most
+pathetic tale, though it be one figure only, but that how sweet! A
+lovely girl in mourning is sitting in deep thought waiting for her
+scholars; on the table is her humble fare, and of that she takes little
+heed. She is thinking of her bereavement, perhaps a father, a mother, a
+sister--perhaps she is altogether a bereaved one--a tear is on her
+cheek. These are the subjects, when so well painted; that make us love
+innocence and tenderness, the loveliness of duty, and, therefore, they
+make us better. The habitual sight might rob a villain of his evil
+thoughts--such human loveliness is the nearest to angelic--indeed it is
+more, for we must not forget the exceeding greatness, loveliness, of
+which human nature is capable. Divine love has given it a power to be
+far above every other nature, and that divine love has touched the
+heart, and speaks in the countenance of the "Poor Teacher."
+
+Mr Creswick has this year rectified the fault of the last. His greens
+were thought somewhat too crude and too monotonous. "In culpam ducet
+culpae fuga"--the old foot-road is scarcely green enough. All Mr
+Creswick's pictures have in them a sentiment--nature with him is
+sentient and suggestive. The very stillness--the silence, the quiet of
+the old foot-road is the contemplative of many a little history of them
+whose feet have trod it: such is the character of "The Terrace." But the
+most strikingly beautiful is "Welsh Glen"--
+
+    "The meeting cliffs each deep-sunk glen divides,
+    The woods wild scatter'd clothe their ample sides."
+
+What sketcher has not frequently come upon a scene like this, and, with
+a delight not unmixed with awe, hoped to realize it--and how many have
+failed! How often have we looked down upon the quiet and not shapeless
+rocky ledges just rising above and out of the dark still water; while
+beyond them, and low in the transparent pool, are stones rich of hue,
+and dimly seen, and beyond them the dark deep water spreads, reflecting
+partially the hues of the cliffs above--and watched the slender boughs,
+how they shoot out from rocky crevices, and above them branches from
+many a tree-top high up, hanging over; while we look up under the green
+arched boughs, and their fan-spreading leafage--every tree, every leaf
+communing, and all bending down to one object, worshipping as it were
+the deep pool's mystery! Here is the natural Gothic of Pan's temple--and
+out from the deep pass, golden and like a painted window of the sylvan
+aisle, glows the sun-touched wood, illuminated in all its wondrous
+tracery. In such a scene--where "Contemplation has her fill"--the
+perfect truth of this highly finished picture is sure to renew the
+feeling first enjoyed--enjoyed in solitude: it should have no figure but
+ourselves, for we are in it--and it has none. The colouring and
+execution are most true to nature; if we would wish any thing altered,
+it would be the sky, which is a little too light for the deep solemnity
+of all below it. Exquisitely beautiful as are these scenes from Mr
+Creswick's pencil, we doubt if he has reached or knows his own power. He
+has yet to add to this style the largeness of nature. We should venture
+to recommend to his reading, again and again, those parts of Sir
+Joshua's Discourses which treat of the large generality of nature.
+
+Stanfield is, as usual, remarkably clear, more characteristic of
+himself, his manner, than of the places of his subjects--ever the same
+coloured lights and shadows. His compositions are well made up, there is
+seldom a line to offend. In "Mazorbo and Torcello, Gulf of Venice,"
+however, the right-hand corner is extra-parochial to the scene--is
+unbalanced, and injures the composition. The scenes, as views, are very
+sweet, and have more repose than he usually throws into his pieces. This
+sameness of colouring, and scenical arrangement and effect, are no less
+conspicuous in the works of Mr Roberts, most of which are, however, very
+beautiful. Very striking is the view of "Ruins on the Island of Philoe,
+Nubia." It is not the worse for the absence of the general polish. We
+seem to be on the spot--the effect is so simple, the art is unobserved.
+We have to wonder at departed glory, at hidden history, and we do
+wonder. Why is it that Mr Danby, whose pictures of the "Sixth Seal," and
+the "Deluge," none that have seen them can forget, exhibits but one
+piece, and that, though very beautiful, not from the boldness of his
+genius? It is a quiet evening scene--the sun setting red towards the
+horizon, the sky having much of nature's green tints, her most peaceful
+hues, some cattle are standing in the river--the left is filled up with
+trees, which, beautiful in form, want transparency. There is a heaviness
+in that part too powerful; it attracts, and therefore disturbs the
+repose. Mr Lee has not very much varied his subjects or manner this
+year. His scenes are evidently from nature--great parts appear to have
+been painted out of doors, being fresh and true. Not altogether liking
+some of his subjects, we cannot but admire the skill in their treatment,
+the warm glow in the colouring, and true character of some of his woods
+running off in perspective are most pleasing. He does not aim at
+sentiment. He often reminds us of Gainsborough's best manner; but he is
+superior to him always, in subject, in composition, and in variety. He
+has great skill in the transparency and clearness of his tones. We think
+his pictures would be vastly improved if painted in a lower key. His
+"Scenery near Crediton, Devonshire," is remarkably good; perhaps the sky
+and distance is a little out of harmony with the rest. There are three
+pictures by Mr Mueller, two very effective--"Prayers in the Desert"--but
+we are more struck with his "Arabs seeking a Treasure." The sepulchral
+interior is solemnly deep; the dim obscure, through which are yet seen
+the gigantic sculptured heads that seem the presiding guardians; the
+light and shade is very fine, as is the colour; the blue sky, seen from
+within, wonderfully assists the colour of the interior. There is great
+grandeur in the scene, and it is finely treated. His other picture, No.
+1 in the Exhibition, is so very badly placed over the door, that we do
+not pretend to judge of it, because, Mr Mueller being a good colourist,
+we do not recognise him in what we can see of this "Mill Scene on the
+Dolgarley."
+
+Mr Collins has improved greatly upon his last year's exhibition. "A
+Sultry Day," though at Naples, and a "Windy Day," in Sussex are not the
+most pleasant things to feel or to think of. Mr Collins has succeeded in
+conveying the disagreeableness of the "windy day," and it is the more
+disagreeable for reminding us of Morland: luckily he has not succeeded
+in conveying the sultriness. On the contrary, to us, No. 217 breathes of
+freshness and coolness. It is a very sweet picture; water, boats, and
+shore, beautifully painted. It is well that Mr Kennedy has but one
+picture--"Italy"--for he paints by the acre. It is a great mistake--and,
+while so many pictures of merit are rejected for want of room, some
+injustice in his doing so. Nor does his subject, which is meagre enough,
+gain any thing by its size. There is merit in the grouping--not a little
+affectation in the poor colouring and general effect. Surely he might
+have made a much prettier small picture of a subject that has no
+pretensions to be large. Were "Italy" like that, we should totally
+differ with him, and not subscribe to his quotation--
+
+        "I must say
+    That Italy's a pleasant place to me."
+
+There is a very good picture by J. R. Herbert, A., if it were not for
+its too great or too common naturalness. The subject is the interview
+with the woman of Samaria. There is good expression, simplicity of
+design, but violence of colour. The subject demands a simplicity of
+colouring. Surely in such a scriptural subject, the annunciation, "I
+that speak unto thee am He," should alone be in the mind; but here the
+accessories are as conspicuous as the figures. Yet it is a picture of
+great merit.
+
+There are two pictures of historical subjects, (not in the artistical
+sense so treated,) which attract great attention. "The Queen receiving
+the Sacrament," by Leslie; and "Waterloo," by Sir W. Allan, R.A. We are
+aware of the great value of this manner of pageant painting; it is
+perhaps worth while to sacrifice much of art to portraiture in this
+case. Viewing the necessity and the difficulty, we cannot but
+congratulate Mr Leslie--notwithstanding the peculiarity of the dresses,
+and the quantity of white to be introduced, this is by no means an
+unpleasantly coloured picture. There is much richness, in fact; and the
+artist has, with very great skill, avoided a gaudy effect. So the Battle
+of Waterloo must derive its great value from the truth of the portraits.
+It is any thing, however, but an heroic representation of a battle.
+Perhaps the object of the painter was confined to the facts of a
+military description, of positions of brigades and battalions--to our
+unmilitary eyes, there is wanting the vivid action, the energy, the
+mighty conflict--possibly only the ideal of a battle---which may, after
+all, be in appearance a much more tame sort of thing than we imagine.
+There is a necessity, for historical value, to see too much. There is Mr
+Ward's "Fight of the Bulls:" the whole earth echoes the boundary and the
+conflict; it is one great scene of energy. But the great fight of men
+conveys none of this feeling. It is not imposing in effect--it looks
+indeed rather dingy, the sky and distance cold, and not remarkably well
+painted--a battle should have more vigorous handling, something of the
+fury of the fight. If, however, it be matter-of-fact truth; that in such
+a subject is all important, and should be painted. A battle, any battle,
+may be another thing.--"Sir Joshua Reynolds and his Friends" is an
+excellent subject, if all the portraits are from authentic pictures; at
+a future day it will be of great value, although it is not very
+agreeable as a picture.
+
+Either the portraits have less effect than they usually have, or there
+are fewer of them this year. We must give the palm to Mr Grant. He
+combines many excellences--perfect truth, unaffected simplicity, and
+most judicious and ever-harmonious colouring. It may not perhaps be far
+wrong to say, that he is the very best portrait-painter this country has
+known since Vandyck; certainly he appreciates, and has often deeply
+studied, that great painter. We have long considered Mr Grant's female
+portraits by far the best--the present exhibition raises him as a
+general portrait-painter. The perfect unaffected ease of his attitudes
+is a very great thing. Here are three pictures in a line, portraits, the
+_sitters_ all _seated_--and yet how striking it is, that there is only
+one that sits--Mr Grant's "Lord Wharncliffe." How sweet and natural, how
+beautiful as a picture, are "The Sisters!" The conventional style of
+portrait is undoubtedly good, and founded on good sense--but genius will
+seize an opportunity, and be original--such is the character of Mr
+Grant's portrait of "Lord Charles Scott, youngest son of the Duke and
+Duchess of Buccleuch." The boy stands like a boy, every limb belongs to
+him; he is all life--the flesh tints in the face are as perfect as can
+be. The attitude, the dress, so admirably managed. It has all the
+breadth, and power, too, of Velasquez, with all modern clearness. And
+what a charmingly coloured picture is the portrait of "Lady Margaret
+Littleton!" And close at hand, right glad were we to see the noble
+portrait of the "Professor of Moral Philosophy, Edinburgh," the [Greek:
+autos echeinos], by R. S. Lauder, an artist whose works we think have
+not always been done justice to in the Academy--yet how seldom do we see
+pictures of such power as his "Trial," from the "Heart of Mid-Lothian,"
+and his "Ravensworth!" There is another portrait painter that is very
+original--Linnell; and such is he, in the "Portraits of the Three eldest
+Children of Robert Clutterbuck, Esq." There are so many smooth and soft
+pictures at the exhibitions which we must look at very near, that the
+habit is acquired of seeing all in that manner. To those who should so
+see this of Mr Linnell, it will appear odd, sketchy, unfinished--recede,
+and it is of very great power, and comes out wonderfully with all the
+truth of nature. It is an out-of-door scene. The children in most
+natural positions, and separate from the background, which is quite true
+in effect, with surprising force. It is very well coloured, and the
+manner, though not so at first, at length pleases. We like to see much
+done with little effort, as soon as the eye has recovered from the
+examination of laboured work.--How many works of great merit that we
+should wish to mention! and perhaps we ought to notice some of demerit;
+but we must forbear; the bad and the good must repose together--if there
+_can_ be repose in an exhibition room. Why has not Mr Uwins painted
+another "Fioretta," worth all the crude, blue, red and yellow
+processions he ever painted? And why--but we will ask no questions but
+of the "Hanging Committee:" why do they offend the eyes of spectators,
+and vex the hearts of exhibitors, by hanging little pictures out of
+sight? It is insulting to the public and the artists. Surely, if the
+works be not fit to be seen, boldly and honestly reject them. It is an
+injury to misplace them. Many of the pictures so placed, are evidently
+intended to be seen near the eye. You do not want to _furnish_ the walls
+with pictures. If so, do advertise that you will sacrifice some of your
+own to that purpose. You may find a sufficient number of "Amateurs"
+ready to immolate their reputation for art, of little value; but you
+should consider with what an aching heart the poor painter sees the
+labour of many a day, and many a cherished hope, as soon as the Academy
+opens, raised to its position of noted contempt. Nor should you have a
+"Condemned Cell"--such is the octagon-room termed. You render men
+unhappy--and superciliously seem to think, you pay them by a privilege
+of admission. Admission to what?--to see your well-placed merits, and
+their own disgraced position. We are happy to see an appeal to you on
+this subject in the _Artist's Magazine_, and eloquently written--and
+with good sense, as are all the notices in that work. That or some other
+should be enlarged to meet the requirements of art. Now we are indeed
+making hotbeds for the growth of artists. They will be thick as peas,
+and not so palatable--youths of large hope and little promise--some
+aiming beyond their reach, others striving and straining at a low
+Art-Union prize. Patronage can never keep pace with this "painting for
+the million system." The world will be inundated with mediocrity. This
+fever of art will terminate in a painting-plague. What is to become of
+the artists? Where will you colonize?
+
+Now let us purpose a plan. Let the members of the Academy come to this
+resolution that instead of exhibiting some 1300 pictures annually, they
+will not admit into their rooms more than the 300--and so cut off the
+1000--that the said 300 shall all have good places, and shall be the
+choicest works of British talent. Let them signify to the public that
+they will show no favour, and that they will be responsible for the
+merit of the works they mean to invite the public to see. They need not
+doubt the effect. Great will be the benefit to art, artists, and to
+patrons of art.
+
+
+SUFFOLK STREET GALLERY--SOCIETY OF BRITISH ARTISTS.
+
+This twentieth exhibition opens, according to the catalogue, under the
+auspices of Marcus Tullius Cicero; but why or wherefore the world who
+read the quotation mottoes of catalogues, must ever be at a loss to
+discover. "I think," said the wordy Roman, "that no one will ever become
+a highly distinguished orator, unless he shall have obtained a knowledge
+of all great things and arts." Therefore, you, the British public, are
+requested to walk in and see the show. We wish this motto affectation
+were put an end to--the Royal Academy are sadly puzzled year after year
+to hit upon a piece of Latin that will do, and their labour in that line
+is often in vain. And certainly this intimation from Suffolk Street,
+which might be very useful to a young barrister preparing for the
+circuit, is now to the "matter in hand" _nihil ad rem_. But have not we
+heard that motto before? We believe it was the last year's, and is we
+suppose to become an annual repetition _in secula seculorum_. The
+exhibition is, however, very respectable; we fear it is not so well
+attended as it deserves to be. The fact is, that the Academy, with its
+innumerable works, becomes, before it is half gone through, a very
+tiresome affair. What with straining at raw crude colours, and pictures
+out of sight, the public, who feel they must go there, have had enough
+of work for weary eyes; and imagining the other gallery to be inferior,
+go not to it. Yet, after a little rest, they would, we are sure, feel
+gratified in Suffolk Street. If there are but half-a-dozen good
+pictures, they are worth going to see, and certainly this exhibition has
+its very fair proportion of works of merit, and interest. Nor is there
+any lack of variety. We have only to make remarks upon a very few, not
+at all wishing to have it believed that we have selected either the best
+or the worst. There is novelty in some of Mr Woolmer's pictures. He
+seems, however, undetermined as to style; for his pictures are here very
+unequal. In one or two he is imitating Turner, but it is to have
+"confusion worse confounded." And singularly enough, in such imitations,
+his subjects are of repose. "A Scene in the Middle Ages, suggested by a
+visit to Haddon Hall," is very pleasing. The style here is suggestive,
+and judiciously so; he generalizes, and we are pleased to imagine. We
+see elegant figures walking under shade of trees, clear refreshing green
+shade; the composition is graceful, and fit for the speculative or
+enamoured loiterers. Perhaps the foreground is too ambitious--too much
+worked to effect. If this be done for the sake of contrast, it is a
+mistake of the proper effect of, and proper place for, contrast. In such
+a scene of ease and gentleness, all contrast is far better avoided; it
+always has a tendency to make active; and is to be applied in proportion
+to the degree of life and activity that may be desirable. His "Castle of
+Indolence" is much in imitation of Turner. The poet uses a singular
+expression,
+
+    "O'er which were _shadowy_ cast _Elysian gleams_."
+
+What meaneth Thomson? He further calls the hue, "a roseate smile," and
+is reminded of Titian's pencil. By all which hints and expressions we
+conclude that the poet saw this "pleasing land of Drowsyhead" as
+through a coloured glass, subduing all the exciting colours of nature to
+a mellow dreaminess. No strong, no vivid colours are here--all is the
+quiescent modesty, the unobtruding magic of half-tones. What shall we
+say of such a Domain of Indolence being painted without shade or
+shelter; with violent contrasts of dark and light, and of positive
+forcing colouring? All repose is destroyed. Then again we see too much;
+there are too many parts, too many figures, too many occupations:
+indication that the territory was peopled would have been enough; this
+is more like a _fete champetre_. Besides, the scene itself is not one to
+give delight to contemplate; it is not suggestive of pleasant dream, but
+looks out on an ugly, swampy, fog-infected country. The only "Indolence"
+we see has been devoted to the execution, for it is slovenly to a
+degree. We find the same fault, though not to the same extent, with his
+"Scene from Boccaccio." It sadly wants repose, and affects colouring
+which is neither good for itself, nor suitable to the subject. His
+"Subject from Chaucer" has the same defects. Mr Woolmer is decidedly a
+man of ability; but we think he has strange misconceptions with respect
+to colours, their sentimental effect and power.
+
+There is a "Scene from the Arabian Nights," by Mr Jacobi, which, though
+it is an attempt, and by no means an unsuccessful one, at an accidental
+effect of nature, which is generally to be avoided, is extremely
+pleasing. It is a portrait of great loveliness, grace, and beauty--we
+look till we are in the illusion of the Arabian tale--the foot of the
+Beauty is not good in colour or form; and the distance is a little out
+of harmony. There is considerable power; such peculiar light and shade,
+and colouring, offered great difficulty to keep, up the effect
+evenly--and the difficulty has been overcome. Mr Herring greatly keeps
+up the character of this exhibition in his peculiar line. His "Interior
+of a Country Stable" is capitally painted, even to the ducks. The old
+horse has been evidently "a good 'un;" goats, ducks, and white horse
+behind, all good, and should complete the scene--we may have "too much
+for our money." The cows and occupation going on within, in an inner
+stall, are too conspicuous and a picture within a picture, and therefore
+would be better out. His black and roan, in the "Country Bait Stable,"
+are perfect nature. A picture by Mr H. Johnston, "The Empress Theophane,
+begging her husband Leo V. to delay the execution of Michael the
+Physician," is well designed; has a great deal of beauty of design, of
+expression, and of general colour, but not colour of flesh--nor is the
+purple blue of the background good.
+
+We take it for granted that artists are often at a loss for a subject,
+and that they often choose badly we all know; but a worse than that
+chosen by Mr G. Scott, we do not remember ever to have met with. It is
+entitled "Morbid Sympathy," forming two pictures. In the one the
+murderer is coming from the house where he has just committed the
+diabolical act; in the other he is visited. The man is an uninteresting
+villain and his visitors are fools. The object of the painter is
+doubtless a good one; it is to avert that morbid sympathy which has been
+so conspicuously and mischievously felt and affected for the worst, the
+most wicked of mankind. But to do this is the province of the press, not
+the pencil. It is a mistake of the whole purpose of art. It will not
+deter murderers, who look not at pictures; and if they were to look at
+these, would not be converted by any thing the pictures have to
+show--nor will it keep back one fool, madman, or sentimental hypocrite
+from making a disgraceful exhibition. We are not sorry to notice this
+failure of Mr Scott's, because we would call the attention of artists in
+general to "subject." Let a painter ask himself before he takes his
+brush in hand, why--for what purpose, with what object do I choose this
+scene or this incident? Can the moral or the sentiment it conveys be
+told by design and colour?--and if so, are such moral and such sentiment
+worth the "doing." Will it please, or will it disgust? We mean not to
+use the word "please" in its lowest common sense, but in that which
+expresses the gratification we are known to feel even when our quiescent
+happiness is disturbed. In that sense we know even tragedies are
+pleasing. We may, however, paint a martyr on his gridiron, and paint
+that which is only disgusting; the firmness, the devotion through faith
+of the martyr, are of the noblest heroism. If to represent that be the
+sole object, and it succeeds, such a work would rank with tragedy, and
+please.
+
+
+PAINTING IN WATER COLOURS.
+
+We have visited the two societies of painters in water colours. In these
+there are two antagonist principles in full practice--while some are
+endeavoring to imitate, and indeed to go beyond the power of oil
+colours, others are going back as much as may be to the white paper
+system; imitating in fact the imitation which painters in oil have taken
+up from the painters in water colour. We must, of course, expect from
+this no little extravagance both ways--and we are not disappointed in
+the expectation. We will first notice the elder institution. In this,
+certainly, there are fewer examples of the power of colour system--but
+not a few in the weaker system. We noticed last year that Mr Copley
+Fielding was making great advances in it. His practised and skilful hand
+causes that style to have many admirers. Poor John Varley--we look with
+interest at his last work. His early ones were full of genius. He was an
+enthusiast in art. There is very great beauty in his "View on the
+Croydon Canal previous to the making the rail-road." An admirable
+composition--the woods and water are very fine. There are some very good
+drawings by D. Cox, which will greatly please all who like to see much
+told with little labour. Prout fully sustains his reputation. Amidst
+much detail he is always broad and large. There is a most true effect of
+haze in Copley Fielding's fine drawing of "Folkstone Cliff." There is an
+affected absence of effect in his "Arundel Castle"--the blues and
+yellows are not in harmony--and all has an uncomfortable, unsubstantial
+look. Eliza Sharpe's "Little Dunce" is a delightful drawing. It is only
+the old dame that can ever be angry with a little dunce--and she puts on
+more than half her anger; and this is a glorious little dunce, that we
+would not see good for the world--the triumph of nature over tuition.
+This charming little creature has been happy her own way, has been
+wandering in her own "castle of indolence," and perhaps, too,
+philosophizing thus--Well, I have been naughty, but happier still than
+if I had been good. So is the goodness we force upon children often
+against nature--we love to see nature superior. Eliza Sharpe must have
+been of the same way of thinking, and it is archly expressed. Her Una
+and the lion is large and free--the face of Una nor quite the thing. We
+have a "Castle of Indolence" by Mr Finch, gay with "all the finches of
+the grove," but the country does not look indolent, nor the country for
+indolence. Hunt's boys, clever as ever. The sleeping boy, with his large
+shadow on the wall, is most successful. The companion, the boy awake, is
+a little of the caricature. His "Pet," a boy holding up a pig, natural
+as it is, is nevertheless disgusting; for such a toy will ever be the
+biggest beast of the two. Mr Hills has several excellent drawings of
+deer; but there is one, so perfect that it is quite poetical--a few
+deer, in their own wild haunt, heathery brown, and almost treeless, the
+few spots of stunted trees serving to mark the spot, separating it from
+similar, and making it the home. It is furthest from the haunts of man.
+It looks silence. The animals are quite nature, exquisitely grouped. The
+quiet colouring, unobtrusive, could not be more nicely conceived--it is
+the long Sabbath quiet of an unworking world. The picture is well
+executed. It is one that makes a lasting impression.
+
+Mr Oakley's "Shrimper," a boy sitting on a rock, reminds us of some of
+Murillo's boys; it is as good in effect, and better in expression, than
+most of the Spaniard's. "After the second Battle of Newbury," by
+Cattermole, is a well-imagined scene, but is defective in that in which
+we should have supposed the artist would not have failed. It is not
+moonlight. "Tuning," by J. W. Wright, is a good proof that blue, as
+Gainsborough likewise proved, is not necessarily cold. His "Confession,"
+with the two graceful figures, is very sweet. "The Gap of Dunloe," W.
+A. Nesfield--has fine folding forms--the distance and rainbow
+beautiful--it is, however, somewhat hurt by crude colour, and too much
+cut up foreground. The Vicar and his family supply work to many an
+artist of our day. Mr Taylor's is very good--Moses pulling the reluctant
+horse, is a good incident. We do not quite recognize Mrs Primrose, and
+could wish the daughter had more beauty. We never could very much admire
+Mr Richter's coarse vulgarities--and they are of gross feeling, and we
+think, caricatures without much humour; but his sentimentalities are
+worse. His "Sisters," a scene from the novel of "The Trustee," is but a
+miserable attempt at the pathetic. Mr Gastineau's "Bellagio" is a
+beautiful drawing, has great breadth and truth; but the water is
+certainly too blue.
+
+
+EXHIBITION OF NEW SOCIETY IN WATER COLOURS.
+
+Generally speaking, this Society is mostly ambitious of carrying water
+colour to its greatest possible depth and power, and certainly, in this
+respect, the attainment is wondrous. In design, and other character,
+this society more than keeps its ground. We remember last year noticing
+Miss Setchell's little picture, as one of the best of the year; we have
+still a perfect recollection of the most lovely pathetic expression of
+the poor girl. We were greatly disappointed that no work of Miss
+Setchell adorns the walls. There is a picture, however, which, if it did
+not move us equally, at once arrested our attention, and again and again
+did we return to it. The character of it is not certainly moving, as
+Miss Setchell's, it is altogether of a different cast--it is one for
+thought and manly contemplation. The subject is "Cromwell and Ireton
+intercepting a letter of Charles the First," by L. Haghe. Cromwell is
+standing reading a letter--Ireton adjusting the saddle in the recess of
+a window, near which Cromwell stands, is a table with a flagon, the
+scene is an inn in Holborn. The attitude of Cromwell is dignified ease
+and resolution. In his fine countenance we read the full history of the
+"coming events"--we see all there, that we have learned from history.
+The very curtains and stick seem to the imagination's eye convertible
+into canopy and sceptre. There is great forbearance in the painting--we
+mean that there is just enough, and no more, of water-colours' ambition.
+More depth would have injured the effect. It is a very striking picture;
+well finished, and with a breadth suited to the historical importance of
+the history. Mr Warren's "Christ's Sermon" is of the ambitious school.
+If we contrast the quiet, solemnly quiet, tone of that sermon of
+beatitudes, with the coloured character of the picture, we must condemn
+the inappropriate style. We should say it is immodestly painted; the
+picture and not the subject, obtrudes. The head of Christ is weak. It is
+a picture nevertheless of great ability, but with a gorgeous colouring
+ill suited to the subject. But we must speak with unqualified admiration
+of a little picture by Mr Warren--the "Ave Maria." It is a lady kneeling
+before a picture of a saint in a chapel. The depth and power is very
+surprising, and much reminds of Rembrandt, with the exception of the
+picture of the saint, which struck us at first as too light by a great
+deal, so much so that we noted it down as a glaring defect, but
+returning to the picture, we looked, not only till we were reconciled,
+but to an admiration of what we had considered a fault. It is the poetry
+of the subject. We see not the face of the petitioning figure, we only
+feel that she is there, and devoutly petitioning, and the brightness of
+the patron saint, with its simple open character of face and figure,
+comes out as a miraculous manifestation. We must not mistake--the "Ave
+Maria" does not mean that it is to the Virgin the petitioner prays; it
+is to a male saint.
+
+Mr E. Corbould still is in the full ambition of water colour power.
+"Jesus at the House of Simon the Pharisee," is an example of the
+inappropriateness of this manner to solemn sacred subjects. The Mary is
+very good--not so the principal figure, it has a weak expression: some
+parts of this picture are too sketchy for others. His "Woman of Samaria"
+is a much better picture, has great breadth and grace. It is rather
+slight. His "Flower of the Fisher's Hut" is very pretty--a lady in
+masquerade. Absolon's "Uncle Toby" is well told, and with the author's
+naivete. Mr Topham's farewell scene from the "Deserted Village," is, we
+think, too strong of the mock-pathetic--a scene of praying and babying.
+
+There are many pictures we would wish to notice, but we must forbear: we
+cannot, however, omit the mention of a sea-piece, which we thought very
+fine, with a watery sky; a good design,--"North Sunderland Fishermen
+rendering assistance after a Squall."
+
+
+THE BRITISH INSTITUTION.
+
+Having recently given some account of Sir Joshua, his Discourses, his
+genius, and his influence upon the arts in this country, we visited this
+gallery, where as many as sixty of his works are exhibited, with no
+little interest. The North Room is occupied by them alone. Have we
+reason to think our estimate of Sir Joshua Reynolds, as a painter, not
+borne out by this exhibition? By no means. Our first impression from the
+whole collection, not seeing any particular picture, is of colour. And
+here Sir Joshua appears _inventive_; for though he not unfrequently
+imitated Rembrandt, there is, on the whole, a style that is far from
+Rembrandt, and is not like any other old master; yet we believe, for it
+was the character of his mind so to do, that he always had some great
+master in view in all he did. But he combined. Hence there is no little
+novelty in his style, and not seldom some inconsistencies--a mixture of
+care and delicacy, with great apparent slovenliness. We say apparent,
+for we are persuaded Sir Joshua never worked without real care and
+forethought; and that his apparent slovenliness was a purpose, and a
+long studied acquirement. He ever had in view the maxim--_Ars est celare
+artem_; but he did not always succeed, for he shows too evidently the
+art with which he concealed what first his art had effected. Looking
+carefully at these pictures, we see intention every where: there is no
+actual random work. We believe him to have finished much more than has
+been supposed; that there is, in reality, careful drawing and colouring,
+at least in many of his pictures, _under_ that large and general
+scumbling and glazing, to which, for the sake of making a whole, he
+sacrificed the minor beauties. And we believe that many of those
+beauties were not lost when the works were fresh from his easel, but
+that they lave been obscured since by the nature of the medium and the
+materials he used. That these were bad we cannot doubt, for we plainly
+see that some of these pictures, his most laboured for effect, are not
+only most wofully cracked, (yet that is not the word, for it expresses
+not the gummy separation of part from part,) but that transparency has
+been lost, and the once-brilliant pigments become a _caput mortuum_.
+Hence there is very great _heaviness_ pervading his pictures; so that
+even in colouring there is a want of freshness. A deep asphaltum has
+overpowered lightness and delicacy, and has itself become obscure. Sir
+Joshua did not leave his pictures in this state. It is as if one should
+admire, in the clear brown bed of a mountain river, luminous objects,
+stone or leaf, pebble or weed, most delicately uncertain in the magic of
+the waving glaze; and suddenly there should come over the fascination an
+earthy muddying inundation. In estimating Sir Joshua's mind, we must, in
+imagination, remove much that his hand has done. Nor was Sir Joshua,
+perhaps, always true to his subject in his intention of general
+colouring. His "Robinettas," and portraits, or ideals of children, are
+not improved by that deep asphaltum colouring, so unsuitable to the
+freshness, and may we not add, purity of childhood. And there appears,
+at least now in their present state, that there is too universal a use
+of the brown and other warm colours; Rembrandt invariably inserted among
+them cool and deep grays, very seldom blue, which, as too active a
+colour, is apt to destroy repose, the intended effect of deep colouring.
+Titian uses it for the sake of its activity, as in the Bacchus and
+Ariadne and how subdued is that blue! but even in such pictures there
+are the intermediate grays, both warm and cold, that the transition from
+warm to cold be not too sudden. We cannot say that Sir Joshua Reynolds
+did not introduce these qualifying grays, because the browns have so
+evidently become more intense, that they may have changed them to their
+own hue.
+
+There are some pictures here which have either lost their glaze by
+cleaning, or never had it, and these have a freshness, and touch too,
+which others want; such is the case with "Lady Cockburn and her Three
+Sons"--a very fine picture, beautifully coloured, and well grouped, very
+like nature, and certainly in a manner of Vandyck. We remember, too, his
+"Kitty Fisher," and regret the practice which, with the view of giving
+tone, often took away real colour, and a great deal of the delicacy of
+nature. The very natural portrait of "Madame Schindelin," quite in
+another manner from any usual with Sir Joshua, shows that he was less
+indebted to his after theory of colouring than people in general have
+imagined. The most forcible picture among them is the "Ugolino." It is
+well known that the head of Ugolino was a study, and not designed for
+Ugolino, but that the story was adopted to suit it; yet it has been
+thought to want the dignity of that character. Ugolino had been a man in
+power; there is not much mark in the picture of his nobility. It has
+been said, too, that the addition of his sons is no improvement in the
+picture. We think otherwise: they are well grouped; by their various
+attitudes they give the greater desperate fixedness to Ugolino, and they
+do tell the story well, and are good in themselves. The power of the
+picture is very great, and it is not overpowered by glazing. On the
+whole, we think it his most vigorous work, and one upon which his fame
+as a painter may fairly rest. We have a word to say with respect to Sir
+Joshua's pictures of children. That he fully admired Correggio, we
+cannot doubt--his children have all human sweetness, tenderness, and
+affection; but it was the archness of children that mostly delighted our
+painter--their play, their frolic, their fun. In this, though in the
+main successful, he was apt to border upon the caricature; we often
+observe a cat-like expression. "The Strawberry Girl" has perhaps the
+most intense, and at the same time human look. It is deeply sentient or
+deeply feeling. The "Cardinal Beaufort" disappoints; so large a space of
+canvass uncouthly filled up, rather injures the intended expression in
+the cardinal. Has the demon been painted out, or has that part of the
+picture changed, and become obscure? But we will not notice particular
+pictures; having thus spoken so much of the general effect, we should
+only have to repeat what we have already said.
+
+The Middle Room is a collection of old masters of many schools, and
+valuable indeed are most of these works of art. There is a small
+landscape by Rembrandt, "A Road leading to a Village with a Mill,"
+wonderfully fine. It is the perfect poetry of colour. The manner and
+colouring give a sentiment to this most simple subject. It is a village
+church, with trees around it. This is the subject--the church and
+trees--all else belongs to that--we see dimly through the leafage--we
+read, through the gloom and the glimmer, the village histories. The
+repose of the dead--the piety of the living--all that is necessary for
+the village home, is introduced--but not conspicuously--and nothing
+more; here is a house, a farm-house, and a mill--a village stream, over
+which, but barely seen, is a wooden bridge--the clouds are closing
+round, and such clouds as "drop fatness," making the shelter the
+greater--a figure or two in the road. There is great simplicity in the
+chiaroscuros, and the paint is of the most brilliant gem-like richness,
+into which you look, for it is not flimsy and thin, but substance
+transparent--so that it lets in your imagination into the very depth of
+its mystery. No painter ever understood the poetry of colour as did
+Rembrandt. He made that his subject, whatever were the forms and
+figures. We have made notes of every picture, but have no room, and must
+be content with selecting a very few. Here are two fine sea-pieces by
+Vandervelde and Backhuysen. We notice them together for their unlikeness
+to each other. In the latter, "A Breeze, with the Prince of Orange's
+Yacht," there is a fine free fling of the waves, but lacking the
+precision of Vandervelde. There are two vessels, of nearly equal
+magnitude, and not together so as to make one. We are at a loss,
+therefore, which to look at. It is an offence in composition, and one
+which is never made by Vandervelde--often by Backhuysen; and not
+unfrequently are his vessels too large or too small for the skies and
+water. "The Breeze, with Man-of-War," by Vandervelde, is, in its
+composition, perfect. It is the Man-of-War; there is nothing to compete
+with it--the gallant vessel cares not for the winds or waves--she
+commands them. It is wondrously painted, and as fresh as from the easel.
+Here are three pictures by Paul Potter--the larger one, "Landscape, with
+Cattle and Figures," how unlike the others! "Cattle in a Storm," is a
+large picture in little. The wind blows, and the bull roars. It is very
+fine, and quite luminous. The other, "Landscape, with Horses and
+Figures," looks, at first view, not quite as it should; but, on
+examining it, there are parts most exquisitely beautiful--the white
+horse coming out of the stable is perfect, and, like the Daguerreotype
+portraits, the more you look with a good magnifying-glass, the more
+truth you see. There is no picture in this room that excites so much
+attention as the "View of Dort from the River."--Cuyp. It is certainly
+very splendid. It is a sunny effect; the town is low--some warm trees
+just across the river, near which, half-way in the stream, is a barge,
+the edges gilded by the sun--further off is a large vessel, whose sides
+are illuminated--above all is a thunder-cloud, very effectively painted.
+The picture has been divided, and rejoined, and is very well done. It
+would perhaps be better if it were cut off a little beyond the large
+vessel, as the opposite sides are not quite in harmony, one part being
+cold, the other extremely warm. There is a companion by Cuyp, which has
+been engraved for Forster's work, "A River Scene--Fishing under the
+Ice." It is very fine: if not quite so luminous as the former, it is in
+better tone altogether. We must move on to--
+
+
+THE SOUTH ROOM
+
+With the exception of two pictures of the modern German school, this
+room contains the works of English artists not living. Only one of the
+German school is a picture of any pretension, "Christ blessing the
+Little Children"--Professor Hesse. The reputation of this painter led us
+to expect something better. We must consider it apart from its German
+peculiarities, and with respect to what it gains or loses by them. As a
+design, the story is well and simply told. As a composition, it is a
+little too formal, lacking that easy flowing of lines into each other,
+which, though eschewed by the new school, is nevertheless a beauty. The
+expression in the heads is good generally, not so in the principal
+figure. There is throughout a character of purity and tenderness--it is
+a great point to attain this. But none of this character is assisted by
+the colouring, or the chiaroscuro. The colouring, though it has a gold
+background, is not rich, for the gold is pale, even to a straw colour,
+and the pattern on it rather gives it a straw texture. We presume it is
+meant to represent the dry Byzantine style of colouring, purposely
+avoiding the richer colours; as power is lost, by this adoption, it is
+impossible to give either the tones or colours of nature--there is no
+transparency. To preserve this old simplicity, softening and blending
+shadows are avoided, by which a positive unnaturalness offends the eye;
+hence the hands and feet not only look hard, but clumsy--they may not
+be, but they look, ill drawn. The figures, indeed, look like pasteboard
+figures stuck on; there is a leaden hue pervading all the flesh tints.
+It fails, too, in simplicity and antique air, which we suppose to be the
+objects of the school. For there is too much of art in the composition
+for the former, too little quaintness for the latter; and indeed its
+perfect newness of somewhat raw paint prevents the mind from going back
+to ancient time; and that failure makes the picture as a whole, a
+pretension. It does not, then, appear to gain what that old style is
+intended to bestow--and it loses nearly all the advantages of the
+after-improvements of art--of its extended means. It rejects the power
+of giving more intensity to feeling, of adding the grace of nature, the
+truth and variety of more perfect colouring, by the opaque and the
+transparent, and does not in any other way attain any thing which could
+not have been more perfectly attained without the sacrifice. The
+collection of the British school contains good and bad--few of the best
+of each master. West's best picture is among them, his "Death Of
+Wolfe"--everyone knows the print; the picture is good in colour and
+firmly painted, and contrasts with some others where we see the
+miserable effect of the megillups and varnishes which our painters were
+wont to mix with their colours. We should have been glad to have seen
+better specimens of Fuseli's genius--we suppose we must say that he had
+genius. The best piece of painting of his hand in the room is the boy in
+Harlowe's picture of the "Kemble Family;" a picture of considerable
+artistic merit, but ruined by the coarse vulgarity of a caricature of
+Mrs Siddons. How unlike the Lady Macbeth! The corpulent velvet dark mass
+and obtruding figure is most unpleasant. It is much to be regretted Mr.
+Harlowe did not redesign that principal figure. There are several
+landscapes of Gainsborough's, and one portrait--the latter excellent,
+the former poor. There is much vigour of colouring and handling in the
+"Horses at a Fountain;" but as usual, it is a poor composition, and of
+parts that ill agree. The mass of rock and foliage are quite out of
+character with the bit of tame village scene, and the hideous figures.
+Here, too, his "Girl and Pigs," for which he asked sixty guineas, and
+Sir Joshua gave him a hundred. We do not think the President had a
+bargain. There is not one of Wilson's best in this collection. The
+"Celadon and Amelia" is dingy, and poor in all respects. It verifies as
+it illustrates; for Thomson says,
+
+    "But who _can paint_ the lover as he stood?"
+
+Very coarse is Opie's "Venus and Adonis." He had not grace for such a
+subject--nor for "Lavinia." We should have been glad to have seen some
+of his works where the subjects and handling agree. We are sorry to see
+Hogarth's "March to Finchley" so injured by some ignorant cleaner. His
+"Taste in High Life" is the perfection of caricature. We have not the
+slightest idea what Constable meant when he painted the "Opening of
+Waterloo Bridge." The poor "_Silver_ Thames" is converted into a smear
+of white lead and black. "Charles the First demanding the Five Members,"
+surprised us by its power--its effect is good. Here is no slovenly
+painting, so common in Mr. Copley's day--the general colour too is good;
+and the painting of individual heads is much after the manner of
+Vandyck. There are some pictures on the walls which might have been
+judiciously omitted in an exhibition which must be considered as
+characteristic of English talent.
+
+As the British Gallery is for a considerable period devoted to works of
+English art, and as so many other exhibitions offer them in such
+profusion, we would suggest that it would be more beneficial to art, and
+to the success and improvement of British painters, if the original
+intention of the governors of the institution were adhered to, of
+exhibiting annually the choicest works of the old schools.
+
+
+
+
+MARSTON, OR, THE MEMOIRS OF A STATESMAN.
+
+PART III.
+
+    "Have I not in my time heard lions roar?
+    Have I not heard the sea, puft up with wind,
+    Rage like an angry boar chafed with sweat?
+    Have I not heard great ordnance in the field,
+    And heaven's artillery thunder in the skies?
+    Have I not in the pitched battle heard
+    Loud 'larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets clang?"
+
+    SHAKSPEARE.
+
+
+The meeting was a singular and a melancholy one. The news from France
+had become hourly more fearful. Every packet brought accounts of new
+outrages. Paris was already in the power of the populace. The struggle
+continued, however hopelessly, in the provinces, just enough to swell
+the losses of noble life, and the conflagrations of noble property. To
+these wounds of feeling had now to be added sufferings of a still more
+pressing nature; their remittances had begun to fail. The property which
+they had left in the hands of their Parisian bankers had either become
+valueless by the issue of assignats, which no one would take, or
+confiscated in the general plunder of the banks, whose principals had
+been thrown into prison, on _suspicion_ of being worth robbing. All was
+bankruptcy.
+
+The duchess made a slight attempt, evidently a painful one, to explain
+to us, as strangers, the purpose of their unusual meeting. It was
+simply, that "the emigrant noblesse, who had already experienced so much
+heroic hospitality from their English friends, thought that the time was
+come when they ought to be burdens on them no longer. The letters from
+France are dreadful," said she, "and it will be our duty to show, that
+as we have enjoyed prosperity, we can submit to suffering. We must
+prepare to earn our bread by those accomplishments which we acquired in
+happier times, and, as we once supposed, for happier times."
+
+A general sigh seemed to break from every heart, and Mariamne hung on
+the hand of the duchess, and grew pale. There was a silence for a while;
+at length she resumed--"We must not return to our own country, at least
+until this horrid struggle is at an end; for we should only embarrass
+those who have sent us to the protection of this generous land, and for
+whose sake we live. Yet, we only do honour to them by avoiding to eat
+the bread of dependence, while we can labour for ourselves." Those
+words, few as they were, were uttered with many a pause, and in the low
+tone of a true mourner. She then called a beautiful girl towards her.
+The girl rose, hesitated, and sank again. "Clotilde, my love, here are
+none but friends; we must forget every thing but patience and our
+country." As she spoke, the duchess took her contribution from her hand;
+it was a drawing of some size, and of singular elegance--an Arcadian
+festival. It was sent round the room with universal admiration; and the
+ice thus once broken, a succession of proficients followed, bringing the
+produce of their talents; some, miniatures--some, sketches of French and
+Swiss scenery--some, illustrations of Racine and the French theatre;
+and, of course, many with embroidery, and the graceful works of the
+needle. Strangers are too apt to conceive that Paris is France and that
+the frivolity of life in the capital was always its model in the
+provinces. I here saw evidence to the contrary, and was not a little
+surprised to see performances so seldom to be found among the French
+arts, as admirable oil-paintings, carvings in ivory, marble busts, and
+bas-reliefs, casts of antique vases and groups, and even models of the
+chief temples and palaces of antiquity. The leisure of the chateau was
+often vividly, and even vigorously employed; and while the youths of the
+great families were solely directed to military prospects, the females
+often acquired solid and grave accomplishments. In short, we had among
+us as many artificers, not a few of them delicate and lovely, as could
+have furnished a Tower of Babel, if not built it; but _our_ fabric
+would have had one exception, it would have had no "confusion of
+tongues;" for tongues there were none to be heard among us--all was
+silence, but when some work of striking beauty, and this was not
+unfrequently the case, was handed round with a murmur of applause.
+
+The harp and piano were then brought forward and this was the most
+trying part of all--not from any want of skill in the performers, for
+the majority were perfect on both instruments, but from the nature of
+the performances themselves. France is not renowned for native music,
+but neither Italian genius, nor German science, has produced more
+exquisite little snatches of melody than are to be found in some of the
+nooks and corners of the provinces. Paris is, like other capitals, an
+epitome of the world; but Languedoc, the wild country of Auvergne, the
+Vosges mountains, the hidden and quiet vales of Normandy, and even the
+melancholy sands of the Breton, have airs of singular and characteristic
+sweetness. Gretry and Rousseau were but their copyists. Sorrow,
+solitude, and love, are every where, and their inspiration is worth all
+the orchestras in the globe.
+
+Those simple airs were more congenial to the depressed spirits of the
+whole assemblage than the most showy bravuras; and, sung by those
+handsome creatures--for beauty adds a charm to everything--retained me
+spell-bound. But, on the performers, and their circle of hearers, the
+effect was indescribable. All the world knows, that there is nothing
+which revives memories like music. Those were the airs which they had
+heard and sung from their infancy; the airs of their early
+companionships, hopes, and perhaps loves; sung in their gardens, their
+palaces, at their parents' knees, by the cradles of their children, at
+their firesides, every where combining with the heart. Sung now in their
+exile, they brought back to each heart some recollection of the happiest
+scenes and fondest ties of its existence. No power of poetry, nor even
+of the pencil, could have brought the past so deeply, so touchingly,
+with such living sensibility, before them. _There_ at least, was no
+acting, no display, no feigned feeling--their country, their friends,
+the perils of husband and brother in the field, the anguish, almost the
+agony, of woman's affection--and what can equal that affection?--was in
+the gestures and countenances of all before me. Some wept silently and
+abundantly; some buried their faces on their knees, and by the heaving
+of their bosoms alone, showed how they felt; some sat with their large
+eyes fixed on heaven, and their lips moving as in silent prayer; some
+almost knelt, with hands clasped and eyes bent down, in palpable
+supplication. Stranger as I was to them and theirs, it was painful even
+to me. I felt myself doubly an intruder, and was thinking how I might
+best glide away, when I saw Mariamne, in an attempt like my own, to
+move, suddenly fall at the feet of the duchess. She had fainted. I
+carried her into the open air, where she soon recovered. "Do you wish to
+return, Mariamne?" said I. She looked at me with amazement. "Return! It
+would kill me. Let us go home." I placed her on her horse, and we moved
+quietly and sadly away.
+
+"That was a strange scene," said I, after a long interval of silence.
+
+"Very," was the laconic reply.
+
+"I am afraid it distressed you," I observed.
+
+"I would not have seen it for any consideration, if I could have known
+what it was;" she answered with a new gush of tears. "Yet what must my
+feelings be to theirs? They lose every thing."
+
+"But they bear the loss nobly. Still they have not lost all, when they
+can excite such sympathy in the mind of England. They have found at
+least an asylum; but what was the object of this singular meeting?"
+
+"Oh, who can tell what they are dreaming of in their distraction?" she
+said with a deep sigh. "It was probably to turn their talents to some
+account; to send their works to London, and live by them--poor things,
+how little they know of London!--or, perhaps, to try their chance as
+teachers, and break their hearts in the trial. Revolutions are terrible
+things!" We lapsed into silence again.
+
+"I pity most the more advanced in life," I resumed. "They have been so
+long accustomed to all the splendours of Paris, that living here must be
+felt with incurable humiliation. The young are more elastic, and bear
+misfortune by the mere spirit of youth; and the lovely find friends
+every where. Did you observe the noble air, the almost heroine look, of
+that incomparable girl who first showed her drawing?" Mariamne shot a
+quick glance at me.
+
+"You have quite forgotten her name, I suppose?" said she, with a
+scrutinizing look.
+
+"Not wholly. I think the duchess called her Clotilde."
+
+"I shall set you at ease, sir, upon that point," said she smartly. "But
+of one thing I can assure you, and it is, that she is engaged to be
+married to her second cousin, the Marquis de Montrecour. So, you see, it
+is scarcely worth your while to enquire any thing more of her name, as
+she is about to change it so soon--but it is De Tourville, a descendant
+of the renowned admiral, who lost a renowned French fleet a hundred
+years ago, an event not unusual in French history. You observe, Mr
+Marston, I give you most willingly all the information in my power."
+
+I have never presumed to have a master key to female hearts; but there
+was something half contemptuous, half piqued, in my fair companion's
+tone, and a rapid interchange of red and pale in her cheeks, which set
+me musing. She touched her horse with her fairy whip, and cantered a few
+paces before me. I followed, as became a faithful squire. She suddenly
+reined up, and said, in the voice of one determined that I should feel
+the full point of the sting--"Oh, I had forgot. I beg a thousand
+pardons. Yesterday the Marquis arrived in London. His proposal reached
+Madame la Comtesse this morning, the young lady's mother--your
+_heroine_, I think you called her. The _trousseau_ will probably be sent
+down from London in a week, unless she shall go to town to choose it,
+which is the more likely event, as among French ladies the trousseau is
+generally a more important matter than the gentleman; and then, I
+presume, you will be relieved from all _anxiety_ upon the subject."
+
+I was all astonishment. The language would have been an impertinence in
+any one else; yet, in the pretty and piquant Mariamne, it was simply
+coquettish. At any other time or place I might have felt offended; but I
+was now embarrassed, wordless, and plunged in problems. Why should I be
+concerned in this news? What was the opinion of this butterfly to me?
+yet its sarcasm stung me: what was Clotilde to me? yet I involuntary
+wished the Marquis de Montrecour at the bottom of the Channel; or what
+knew I of French tastes, or cared about trousseaux? yet, at that moment,
+I peevishly determined to take no more rambles in the direction of the
+Emigrant cottages, and to return to town at once, and see what sort of
+absurdity a French marriage present looked at my first step in Bond
+Street.
+
+But this was destined to be a day of adventures. I had led her a circuit
+through the Downs, in the hope of reviving her by the fresh air before
+we reached the villa; and we were moving slowly along over the velvet
+turf, and enjoying that most animating of all the breaths of sky or
+earth--the sea-breeze; when Mariamne's steed--one of the most highly
+_maneged_, and most beautiful of animals, began to show signs of
+restlessness, pricked up his ears, stopped suddenly, and began to snuff
+the gale with an inflated nostril. As if the animal had communicated its
+opinions to its fellow, both our horses set off at a smart trot, the
+trot became a canter, the canter a gallop. Mariamne was a capital
+horsewoman and the exercise put her in spirits again. After a quarter of
+an hour of this volunteer gallop, from the top of one of the Downs we
+saw the cause--the Sussex hunt, ranging the valley at our feet. Our
+horses were now irrestrainable, and both rushed down the hill together.
+The peril of such a descent instantly caught all eyes. A broad and high
+fence surrounded the foot of the hill, and, wildly as we flew down, saw
+that the whole hunt had stopped in evident alarm. In another moment we
+had reached the fence. Mariamne's horse, making a desperate spring, flew
+over it. Mine failed, and threw me into the middle of the hedge. I was
+stunned, the sight left my eyes; and, when I opened them again, a man of
+peculiarly striking countenance, and stately figure, was raising me from
+the ground, while an attendant was pouring brandy down my throat. My
+first thought was of my unfortunate companion. "Where is the lady? Is
+she safe? What has become of her?" were my first exclamations. "Are you
+much hurt," enquired the stranger. "No, no," I cried; "where is the
+lady?" "I hope by this time safe," said he; "some gentlemen of the party
+have followed her: her horse has run away with her; but they will
+doubtless overtake her in a few minutes." He ascended a small rising
+ground close to us, and stood gazing in the distance. "No, they are
+following her still. She keeps her seat. They are now taking a short cut
+to intercept her. They are close up.--No, that mad animal of a horse has
+thrown them all out again, he springs over every thing; yet she still
+holds on. What a capital horsewoman!" While he uttered those broken
+exclamations I rolled on the ground in torture. At length, after a
+pause, I heard him say, in a shuddering voice, "All's over! that way
+leads direct to the cliff."
+
+At the words, though dizzy with pain, and scarcely able to see, I seized
+the bridle of the groom's horse, who had alighted to assist me; without
+a word sprang on his back, and dashing in the spur was gone like an
+arrow. The whole group soon followed.
+
+From the first rising ground, I saw the frightful chase continued.
+Mariamne's hat had fallen off, and her hair and habit were flying in the
+wind. She was bending to the neck of her steed, whom the pursuit of the
+hunt, and the sight of their red coats, had evidently frightened. He was
+darting, rather than galloping along, by wild bounds, evidently growing
+feeble, but still distancing his pursuers. Half dead with pain and
+terror, I could scarcely hold the bridle, and was soon overtaken by the
+stranger. "Sir," said he, "you are exhausted, and will never be able to
+overtake the unfortunate lady in that direction. I know the
+country--follow me." Unable to answer, I followed; with my ears ringing
+with a thousand sounds, and my thoughts all confusion--I was awoke from
+this half stupor by a tremendous outcry.
+
+On the brow of the hill before me, were the dozen jaded riders, forced
+to draw rein by the steepness of the declivity, and all pointing with
+vehement gestures below. In the next instant, through the ravine at its
+foot, and within a hundred yards of the cliff, came Marianne, still
+clinging to the horse, and flying like the wind. The look which she cast
+upon me, as she shot by, haunted me for years after, whenever an image
+of terror rose in my dreams. Her eyes were starting from their sockets,
+her lips gasping wide, her visage ghastliness itself. Another moment,
+and all must be over; for at the end of the valley was the cliff, a
+hundred and fifty feet high. I rushed after her. The sight of the sea
+had struck her at once. She uttered a scream, and fell with her forehead
+on the horse's neck. Even that movement probably checked him, for he
+reared, and before his feet touched the ground again I was close to him;
+with a frantic effort I caught his bridle, and swept his head round.
+Mariamne fell, voiceless, sightless, and breathless, into my arms. The
+spot where she was saved was within a single bound of the precipice.
+
+The hunters now came round us, and all was congratulation. Our escape
+was pronounced to be "miraculous;" I was complimented on all kinds of
+heroism; and the stranger, evidently the chief personage of the circle,
+after giving the glance of a connoisseur at poor Mariamne's still
+pallid, yet expressive, countenance, thanked me, "for having allowed him
+to breathe at last, which he had not done, he believed, for some
+minutes, through terror." Nothing could exceed the graceful interest
+which he expressed in my companion's safety. His grooms were sent to
+look for assistance in all quarters, and it was not until a carriage had
+arrived from the next village, and he had seen Mariamne placed in it,
+that he could be persuaded to take his leave. Even in after life, when I
+saw him in the midst of the splendour of the world, himself its ruling
+star, and heard him so often quoted as
+
+    "The glass of fashion, and the mould of form,"
+
+I thought that he never deserved the title more than when I saw him
+perform the duties of simple good-nature to two unknown individuals on a
+wild heath on the Sussex shore That stranger was the Prince of Wales!
+
+This adventure, by all the laws of romance, should have made me fall in
+love with Mariamne, or Mariamne fall in love with me. But reality has
+laws of a different kind, and the good fortune of being just in time to
+save a lady's life, whether on horseback or on foot, whether in lake or
+river, whatever it might be in any other ages, is not necessarily a
+pledge of eternal constancy in our times. That she was grateful, I fully
+believe, for her nature was innocent and kind; but confession was out of
+the question, for neither during our rapid drive home, nor for some days
+after, was she capable of uttering one word. Alarm had reduced her to a
+state of exhaustion next to death. Her slight frame had been so shaken
+that she was as helpless as a child; and almost the only sin of
+consciousness which she gave, was her shrinking from the sight of the
+sea whenever she was led towards the window, and her hiding her head in
+her shawl at every sound of the surge.
+
+It may be true, that if the choice depended on her father I should have
+been the possessor of her fair hand, and the heir to his half million,
+and equally true, that the event might have saved me a million of
+troubles. Even at this hour, I sometimes cannot help thinking how total
+a change must have been given to my anxious career--how many desperate
+struggles I should have escaped, if I had thus found my path covered,
+like an eastern potentate's, with cloth of gold! From my first step, how
+many privations, nay pangs, would have been utterly unknown to me in
+climbing up the steeps of life, if I had been lifted on the broad and
+easy pinions of opulence; how little I should have suffered from that
+reptilism which lurks in every thicket of public life, and every where
+with a sting; if I had gone through existence, like another Rasselas in
+his valley of imperishable summer, guarded from all the inclemencies of
+fortune, and surrounded with all the enjoyments of man!
+
+And yet, who can tell that the very ease of such a destiny might not
+have wearied my heart, enervated my mind, and rendered me at once
+burdensome to myself and useless to the world? Is it not hunger that
+gives the true zest to the banquet, however exquisite, and labour that
+gives the true charm to the couch, however embroidered? Is not the
+noblest enjoyment of the noblest mind to be found it the consciousness
+that we have done something in our generation; that we have contributed
+a stone to the pyramid of the national renown, that our lips have
+swelled the echoes of imperial glory? What can reconcile the man of
+powerful intellect to the consciousness that he has passed through life
+a cipher, and left nothing behind him but a tomb?
+
+I had now to undergo the temper of Mordecai. The sight of a post-chaise
+flying along the shore, with one of the royal grooms as outrider, had
+brought him and all the inmates of the villa to the door. From our
+furious haste it was evident to them all that some extraordinary
+circumstance had caused the long delay of their young mistress. From the
+entrance of the avenue I saw Mordecai standing, straight and silent as
+one of the pillars of his gate, with his arms folded, and his eye
+lowering under his huge brow, like one prepared for calamity. But when
+the carriage drove up to the door, and I raised his helpless and
+ashy-coloured daughter in my arms, he gazed for an instant on her, and
+with a howl like that of a wild animal pierced by bullet or steel, fell
+on his face on the ground. He evidently thought that she was dead.
+
+Even when she opened her feeble eyelids, smiled, and took his hand, he
+could scarcely be persuaded that she was still alive. He raved, he tore
+his hair, he vowed deathless vengeance, and the vengeance of all his
+race, against the murderer of his child, "his beloved, the child of his
+soul, the last scion of his name, his angel Mariamne." Rage and tears
+followed each other in all the tempest of oriental fury. No explanation
+of mine would be listened to for a moment, and I at length gave up the
+attempt. The grooms had given the outline of the story; and Mordecai
+charged me with all kinds of rashness and folly. At one time rushing
+forward to the couch where she lay, faintly attempting to soothe him, he
+would fling himself on his knees beside her, kiss her forehead, and
+upbraid himself for all his fancied harshness to her in the course of
+his life. Then suddenly starting on his feet, with the spring of a
+tiger, he would bound towards me, his powerful features distended with
+rage, his deep eye flashing, and his bony hand clenched as if it grasped
+a dagger, cursing the hour "when I had first set my foot under his
+unhappy roof," or cast my "evil eye upon the only child of the undone
+Mordecai." Ever in all the scene, the thought struck me, of what would
+be the effect of a hundred thousand such men, sweeping with scymetar and
+lance over the fields of Palestine? The servants fled in terror, or
+lurked in different directions until the storm should be gone down. At
+length Mariamne, dreading an actual collision between us, rose with an
+effort, tottered across the room, and threw her arms around her father's
+neck. The old man was conquered at once; his countenance grew calm; he
+sat down upon the floor, and with his daughter hiding her face in his
+bosom, wept silently and long. When I saw him thus quieted, I left them
+together, and retired to my chamber, determined to leave the discovery
+of his error to his returning judgment; and reinforced in my intention
+to depart for London even at the earliest dawn.
+
+I employed myself for a while in packing up my few equipments for the
+journey, but this was soon done, and the question was, how to get rid of
+the remainder of the evening. I was resolved to meet Mordecai no more;
+and the servant who announced that dinner was ready, was sent back with
+an answer, that a violent headach prevented my leaving my room. The
+headach was true; and I had a reluctance equally true to see the "human
+face divine" for that evening at least. There was one exception to that
+reluctance, for thoughts had begun to awake in me, from which I shrank
+with something little short of terror. There was one "human face divine"
+which I would have made a pilgrimage round the world to see--but it was
+not under the roof of Mordecai. It was in one of the little cottages on
+which I was then looking from my window, and yet which seemed placed by
+circumstances at an immeasurable distance from me. It was the
+countenance of a stranger--one with whom I had never exchanged a word,
+who was probably ignorant of my existence, whom I might never see again,
+and yet whom I had felt to be my fate. Such are the fantasies, the
+caprices of that most fantastic of things--the the unfledged mind. But I
+have not taken up my pen to write either the triflings or the
+tendernesses of the heart. I leave to others the _beau ideal_ of life.
+Mine has been the practical, and it has been stern and struggling. I
+have often been astonished at the softness in which other minds seem to
+have passed their day; the ripened pasture and clustering vineyards--the
+mental Arcadia--in which they describe themselves as having loitered
+from year to year. Can I have faith in this perpetual Claude Lorraine
+pencil--this undying verdure of the soil--this gold and purple suffusion
+of the sky--those pomps of the palace and the temple, with their
+pageants and nymphs, giving life to the landscape, while mine was a
+continual encounter with difficulty--a continual summons to
+self-control? My march was like that of the climber up the side of AEtna,
+every step through ruins, the vestiges of former conflagration--the
+ground I trode, rocks that had once been flame--every advance a new
+trial of my feelings or my fortitude--every stage of the ascent leading
+me, like the traveller, into a higher region of sand or ashes, until, at
+the highest, I stood in a circle of eternal frost, and with all the rich
+and human landscape below fading away in distance, or covered with
+clouds, looked down only on a gulf of fire.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As I sat at my window, gazing vaguely on the sea, then unruffled by a
+breath, and realizing all the images of evening serenity, a flight of
+curlews shot screaming by, and awoke me from my reverie. I took my gun,
+and followed them along the shore. My sportsmanship was never of the
+most zealous order, and my success on this occasion did not add much to
+the mortality of the curlews. But the fresh air revived me, I felt my
+elasticity of foot and frame return, and I followed for some miles along
+the windings of the shore. At last I had reached the pool where they,
+probably more aware of the weather than I was, seemed intending to take
+up their quarters for the night. I took my ground, and was preparing to
+attack them with both barrels; when a gust that swept with sudden
+violence between the hills nearly blew me down, and scattered all my
+prey, screaming and startled, on the wing far into the interior. I had
+now leisure to look to myself. The sea was rolling in huge billows to
+the shore. The sun had sunk as suddenly as if it had been drowned. The
+hills were visible but for a moment, gleamed ghastly in the last light,
+and were then covered with mist. One of those storms common in Autumn,
+and which brings all the violence of winter into the midst of the
+loveliest season of the year, had come on, and I was now to find shelter
+where I could in the wilderness.
+
+I was vigorous and hardy, but my situation began to be sufficiently
+embarrassing; for I was at least half-a-dozen miles from home; and the
+fog, which wrapped every thing, soon rendered the whole face of the
+country one cloud. To move a single step now was hazardous. I could
+judge even of my nearness to the ocean only by its roar. The rain soon
+added to my perplexities, for it began to descend less in showers than
+in sheets. I tried the shelter of the solitary thicket in these wilds,
+but was quickly driven from my position. I next tried the hollow of a
+sand-hill, but there again I was beaten by the enemy; and before I had
+screened myself from the gust a quarter of an hour, a low rumbling
+sound, and the fall of pieces of the hill above, awoke me to the chance
+of being buried alive. I now disclaimed all shelter, and painfully
+gained the open country, with no other guide than my ear, which told me
+that I was leaving the sea further and further behind, but hearing the
+rush of many a rivulet turned into a river before me, and in no slight
+peril of finishing my history in the bed of some pool, or being swept on
+the surface of some overcharged ditch, to find my bed in the sea after
+all.
+
+All vexations seem trifling when they are once over; but, for full two
+hours of this pelted pilgrimage, I felt sensations which might have
+cured me of solitary sporting for the rest of my existence.
+
+At the end of those hours, which appeared to me ten times the length, I
+heard the barking of a dog, the usual announcement of peasant life; and
+rejoicing in it, as one of the most welcome of all possible sounds, I
+worked, felt, and waded, my way to the door of a building, at which,
+without ceremony, I asked for entrance. My application was for some time
+unanswered but I heard a rustling within which made me repeat my request
+in various ways. After trying my eloquence in vain, I offered a guinea
+for a bed. A window was now opened above, and showed a pair of heads,
+which in their night-gear strongly reminded me of the grandmother wolf
+in Little Red Riding hood--myself, of course, being the innocent victim.
+I now doubled my offer, my whole purse amounting to no more; and was let
+in.
+
+My hosts were two, an old woman hideous with age and ferocity of
+feature, but the other a young one, with a handsome but bold countenance
+whose bronze had been borrowed as much from free living as from the sea
+breeze. The house was furnished in the parti-coloured style, which,
+showed me at once that it belonged to something above the peasant. The
+women at first were rather reluctant to enter into any conversation; but
+when, to make my reception welcome, I paid the two guineas down on the
+table, their hearts became thawed at once, and their tongues flowed. My
+wet clothes were exchanged for the fisherman's wardrobe, and a tolerable
+supper was put on the table. Some luxuries which I might not have found
+under roofs of more pretension, were produced one after the other; and I
+thus had Hamburg hung beef, Westphalia ham, and even St Petersburg
+caviare; preserved pine apple formed my desert, and a capital glass of
+claret "for the gentleman," of which the ladies, however, professed
+themselves incapable of discovering the merit, was followed by an
+equally capital bottle of brandy, which they evidently understood much
+better.
+
+In the midst of our festivity, the dog sprang to the door, and a sound
+like that of a horn or conch shell, was heard through the roar of the
+gale. The women started from their seats in evident consternation, swept
+away the remnants of the supper, and conveyed me into an adjoining
+closet; where they begged of me to keep close, not to speak a syllable,
+let what would happen, and, as I valued my life and theirs, not to
+mention thereafter whatever I might see or hear. It was now plain that I
+was in the house of smugglers; and as those were notoriously people not
+to be trifled with, I made my promises of non-intervention with perfect
+sincerity.
+
+I was scarcely in my nook when the party arrived. They were evidently
+six or seven--their conversation was the common bluster and
+boisterousness of their trade--and between their demands for supper,
+their coarse jokes, and their curses at the lubberliness or loitering of
+their associates from the other side of the Channel, (for, with all
+their accompliceship, they had the true John Bull contempt for the
+seamanship of Monsieur,) they kept the house in an uproar. They expected
+a cargo from Calais that right, and the idea of losing so favourable an
+opportunity as the tempest offered, rendered them especially indignant.
+Scouts were sent out from tine to time to look for signals, but nothing
+appeared. At length the brandy was beginning to take effect on their
+brains, and their rough jokes arose into quarrel. A charge of treachery
+produced the drawing of cutlasses, and I heard them slashing at each
+other; but the right Nantz which had inflamed the quarrel rendered it
+harmless, until one lost his balance, rolled headlong against my door,
+and burst it in. There stood I, visible to all, and the sight produced a
+yell, in which the epithets of "spy, exciseman, custom-house shark," and
+a whole vocabulary of others, all equally remote from panegyric, were
+showered upon me. I should have been cut down by some of the blades
+which flashed before me, but that I had taken the precaution of carrying
+my gun to my closet, and was evidently determined to fight it out. This
+produced a parley; when I told my tale, and as it was corroborated by
+the women, who came forward trembling at the sight of their savage
+masters, and who spoke with the sincerity of fear; it saved me further
+encounter, and I was merely enjoined to pledge myself, that I should not
+betray them.
+
+The compromise was scarcely brought to a conclusion when the discharge
+of a pistol was heard outside; and as this was the signal, the whole
+party-prepared to leave the house. I now expected to be left to such
+slumbers as I could find in the midst of rocking roofs, and rattling
+doors and windows. But this was not to be. After a short consultation at
+the door, one of them returned, and desired me to throw on a fisherman's
+dreadnought which was smoking beside the fire; and follow him. Against
+this, however, I vehemently protested.
+
+"Why, lookye, sir," said the fellow, smoothing his tone into something
+like civility, "there is no use in that thing there against about fifty
+of us; but you must come along."
+
+I asked him, could he suppose, that I was any thing like a spy, or that,
+if I gave my word, I should not keep it?
+
+"No," said the fellow. "I believe you to be a gentleman; but what a
+story shall we have for the captain if we tell him that we left a
+stranger behind us--and, begging your pardon, sir, we know more about
+you than what the women here told us--and that after he heard all our
+plans for the night's work, we left him to go off to the custom-house,
+with his story for the surveyor."
+
+This seemed rational enough, but I still held my garrison. The fellow's
+face flushed, and, with something of an oath, he went to the door, gave
+a whistle, and returned next minute with a dozen powerful fellows, all
+armed. Contest was now useless, and I agreed to go with them until they
+met the "captain," who was then to settle the question of my liberty,
+The women curtseyed me to the door, as if they rather regretted the loss
+of their companion, and were at least not much pleased by being cut off
+from further inroads on a purse which had begun by paying so handsomely,
+not knowing, that it was utterly stript; and we marched to the point of
+waiting for the bark from Calais.
+
+The storm had actually increased in violence, and the howling of the
+wind, and thunder of the billows on the shore, were tremendous. Not a
+word was spoken, and if it had been, the roar would have prevented it
+from being heard, the night was pitch dark, and the winding paths along
+which we rather slid than walked, would not have been easy to find
+during the day. But custom is every thing: my party strode along with
+the security of perfect knowledge. The country, too, seemed alive round
+us. The cottages, it is true, were all silent and shut up, as we hurried
+through; but many a light we saw from the lowly cottage, and many a
+whistle we heard over the wild heath. Cows' horns were also in evident
+requisition for trumpets, and in the intervals of the gusts I could
+often hear the creaking of cart-wheels in the distance. It is to be
+remembered that this was notoriously _the_ smuggling country of England,
+that those were the famous times of smuggling, and that the money made
+by evading the king's customs often amounted to a moderate fortune in
+the course of a simple speculation.
+
+The whole country apparently had two existences, a day and a night
+one--a day and a night population--the clown and his tillage in the
+light, the smuggler and his trade in the dark; yet the same peasant
+frequently exhibiting a versatility for which John Bull seldom gets
+credit.--The man of the plough-tail and the spade, drudging and dull
+through one half of his being; the same man, after an hour or two of
+sleep, springing from his bed at midnight, handling the sail and helm,
+baffling his Majesty's cruisers at sea, and making a _melee_ with the
+officers of the customs on shore--active, quick, and bold, a first-rate
+seaman, brave as a lion, fleet as a hare, and generally having the best
+of it in the exercise of both qualities.
+
+Our numbers had evidently grown as we advanced, and at length a whistle
+brought us to a dead stand. One of the party now touched my sleeve, and
+said,--"Sir, you must follow me." The cliff was so near, that thoughts
+not much to the credit of my companions came into my head. I drew back.
+The man observed it, and said, "The captain must see you, sir. If we
+wanted to do you any mischief, an ounce of lead might have settled the
+business an hour ago. But if we are free-traders, we are not
+bloodhounds. You may trust _me_; I served on board Rodney's ship."
+
+Of course this was an appeal to my new friend's honour, which could not
+be refused without hurting his etiquette most grievously, and I
+followed. After two or three windings through an excavation in the
+cliff, we came in front of a blazing fire, screened from external eyes
+by a pile of ship timbers. Before the fire was a table with bottles, and
+at it a man busily writing. On raising his eyes the recognition was
+instant and mutual. I saw at once, in his strong features, my companion
+on the roof of the Royal Sussex stage, whose disappearance had been the
+subject of so much enquiry. He palpably knew a good deal more of me than
+I did of him, and, after a moment's embarrassment, and the thrusting of
+papers and pistols into the drawer of a table, he asked me to sit down;
+hurried to the mouth of the cavern, heard the story of my capture from
+the sailor, and returned, with his forehead rather smoothed.
+
+"I am sorry, sir," said he, "that the absurdity of my people has given
+you a walk at this time of night; but they are rough fellows, and their
+orders are to be on the _qui vive_."
+
+My answer was, "That I had been treated civilly; and, as circumstances
+had brought it about, I did not so much dislike the adventure after
+all."
+
+"Well spoken, young gentleman," was his reply. "Circumstances rule every
+thing in this world, and one thing I shall tell you; you might be in
+worse hands, even in this country, than in ours. Pray," added he, with a
+peculiar look, "how did you leave my friend Mordecai?"
+
+I laughed, and he followed my example. Tossing off a glass of wine and
+filling out a bumper for me--
+
+"Well, then," said he, "suppose we drink the Jew's health. I gave you a
+rather strange character of him, I think. I called him the perfection of
+a rogue; true enough; but still I make a difference between a man who
+volunteers roguery; and a man on whom it is thrust by the world.
+Circumstances, you see, are my reason for every thing. Make a hard
+bargain with Mordecai, and ten to one but you are caught in his trap.
+Throw yourself on his mercy; and if the whim takes him, I have known him
+as generous as any other."
+
+I replied, that his generosity or craft were now matters of very little
+importance to me, for I had determined to return to London by day-break.
+He expressed surprise, asked whether I was insensible to the charms of
+the fair Mariamne, and recommend my trying to make an impression there,
+if desired to have as much stock as would purchase the next loan. Our
+further conversation was interrupted by the sound of a gun from seaward,
+and we went out together.
+
+The sight was now awful; the tide had risen, and the storm was at its
+height. We could scarcely keep our feet, except by clinging to the
+rocks. The bursts of wind came almost with the force of cannon shot, and
+the men, who now seemed to amount to several hundreds, were seen by the
+glare of the lightnings grasping each other in groups along the shore
+and the hills, the only mode in which they could save themselves from
+being swept away like chaff. The rain had now ceased its continual pour,
+but it burst in sharp, short showers, that smote us with the keenness of
+hail. The sea, to the horizon, was white with its own dashings, and
+every mountain surge that swept to the shore was edged with light--the
+whole, one magnificent sheet of phosphor and foam. Yet, awful as all
+was, all was so exciting that I actually enjoyed the scene. But the
+excitement grew stronger still, when the sudden report of two guns from
+seaward, the signal for the approach of the lugger, followed almost
+immediately by a broadside, told us that we were likely to see an action
+before her arrival. As she rose rapidly upon the horizon, her signals
+showed that she was chased by a Government cruiser, and one of double
+her size. Of the superior weight of metal in the pursuer we saw
+sufficient proofs in the unremitting fire. Except by superior
+manoeuvering there was clearly no chance for the lugger. But in the
+mean time all that could be done on shore was done. A huge fire sprang
+up instantly on the cliff, muskets were discharged, and shouts were
+given, to show that her friends were on the alert. The captain's
+countenance fell, and as he strode backwards and forwards along the
+shore, I could hear his wrath in continued grumblings.
+
+"Fool and brute!" he cried, "this all comes of his being unable to hold
+his tongue. He has clearly blabbed, otherwise we should not have had any
+thing better than a row-boat in our wake. He will be captured to a
+certainty. Well, he will find the comfort of being a cabin-boy or a
+foremast-man on board the fleet for the rest of his days. I would not
+trust him with a Thames lighter, if ever he gets on shore again."
+
+The cannonade began now to be returned by the lugger, and the captain's
+spirits revived. Coming up to me, he said, wiping the thick perspiration
+from his brow, "This, sir, is a bad night's job, I am afraid; but if the
+fellow in command of that lugger had only sea room, I doubt whether he
+would not give the revenue craft enough to do yet. If he would but stand
+off and try a fair run for it, but in this bay, in this beggarly nook,
+where a man cannot steer without rubbing his elbows upon either shore,
+he gives his seamanship no chance."
+
+He now stood with his teeth firm set, and his night-glass to his eye,
+bluff against the storm. A broadside came rolling along.
+
+"By Jove! one would think that he had heard me," he exclaimed. "Well
+done, Dick Longyarn! The Shark has got that in his teeth. He is leading
+the cruiser a dance. What sort of report will the revenue gentleman have
+to make to my Lords Commissioners to-morrow or the next day, I should
+wish to know?"
+
+The crowd on shore followed the Manoeuvres with not less interest.
+Every glass was at the eye; and I constantly heard their grumblings and
+disapprovals, as some luckless turn of the helm exposed the lugger to
+the cruiser's fire. "She will be raked; she will lose her masts," was
+the general groan. As they neared the shore, the effect of every shot
+was visible. "There goes the mainsail all to ribands; the yards are shot
+in the slings." Then public opinion would change. "Fine fellow that! The
+Shark's main-top shakes like a whip." In this way all went on for nearly
+an hour, which, however, I scarcely felt to be more than a few minutes.
+"The skipper in command of that boat," said the captain at my side, "is
+one of the best seamen on the coast, as bold as a bull, and will fight
+any thing; but he is as leaky as a sieve; and when the wine gets into
+him, in a tavern at Calais or Dunkirk, if he had the secrets of the
+Privy Council, they would all be at the mercy of the first scoundrel who
+takes a bottle with him."
+
+"But he fights his vessel well," I observed.
+
+"So he does," was the reply; "but if he should have that lugger captured
+before a keg touches the sand, and if the whole goes into the
+custom-house before it reaches the cellars of the owners, it will be all
+his fault."
+
+They were at length so near us that we could easily see the splinters
+flying from the sides of both, and the havoc made among the rigging was
+fearful; yet, except for the anxiety, nothing could be more beautiful
+than the manoeuvres of both. The doublings of the hare before the
+greyhound, the flight of the pigeon before the hawk, all the common
+images of pursuit and evasion were trifling to the doublings and
+turnings, the attempts to make fight, and the escape at the moment when
+capture seemed inevitable. The cruiser was gallantly commanded, and her
+masterly management upon a lee shore, often forced involuntary
+admiration even from the captain.
+
+"A clever lad that revenue man, I must own," said he, "it is well worth
+his while, for if he catch that lugger he will have laid hold of twenty
+thousand pounds' worth of as hard-earned money as ever crossed the
+Channel. I myself have a thousand in silk on board."
+
+"Then all is not brandy that she brings over?"
+
+"Brandy!" said the captain, with a bitter smile. "They would be welcome
+to all the brandy she carries to-night, or to double the freight, if
+that were all. She has a cargo of French silks, French claret, ay, and
+French gold, that she must fight for while she has a stick standing."
+
+At this moment, the sky, dark as it was before, grew tenfold darker, and
+a cloud, that gave me the exact image of a huge black velvet pall,
+suddenly dropped down and completely covered both vessels; no firing was
+heard for a time, even the yell of the gust had sunk; nothing was heard
+but the billow, as it groaned along the hollow shore. The same thought
+occurred to us both at once. "Those brave boys are all in their coffin
+together," slowly murmured my companion. There was neither shout nor
+even word among the crowd; while every eye and ear was strained, and the
+men began to run along the water's edge to find a fragment of the
+wrecks, or assist some struggler for life in the surge. But the cloud,
+which absolutely lay upon the water, suddenly burst open, with a roar of
+thunder, as if split from top to bottom by the bolt, and both were seen.
+A sheet of lightning, which, instead of the momentary flash, hung
+quivering from the zenith, showed both vessels with a lurid distinctness
+infinitely clearer than day. Every remaining shroud and rope, every
+wound of mast or yard, every shot-hole, nay, every rib and streak of the
+hulls, was as distinctly visible as if they had been illuminated from
+within. But their decks, as the heave of the surge threw them towards
+us, showed a fearful spectacle. The dying and the dead, flung along the
+gangways, the wounded clinging to the gun carriages or masts, a few
+still loading the guns, which neither had now hands enough to
+manoeuvre; yet both ships still flying on, shattered and torn, and
+looking, in the wild light, like two gigantic skeletons.
+
+The lugger now fired a rocket, and sent up a striped flag, the signal of
+distress. A cry for "The boats!" was echoed along the shore, and eight
+or ten were speedily started from their hiding places and dragged down
+the shingle. Stout hearts and strong hands were in them without loss of
+time, and they dashed into the storm. But their efforts were wholly
+useless. No strength of oars could stand against such a gale. Some were
+swamped at once, the men hardly escaping with their lives. The rest were
+tossed like dust upon the wind, and dashed high on shore. All was
+hopeless. Another rocket went up, and by its ghastly blaze I caught a
+glimpse of the captain. He had been either forced from his hold on the
+rocks by the wind, or fallen through exhaustion. His bronzed face was
+was now as pale as the sand on which he lay; he was the very image of
+despair. Thinking that he had fainted, and fearing that, in this
+helpless state, he might be swept away by the next surge--for the spray
+was now bursting over us at every swell--I laid hold of his hand to drag
+him higher up the cliff after me. As if the grasp had given him a
+renewed life, he sprang on his feet, and saying, in a distracted tone,
+which I alone could hear, "Better be drowned than ruined!" he cried out
+with the voice of a maniac, "Boys, sink or swim, here I go! Five guineas
+for every man who gets on board." Tearing off his heavy coat, he rushed
+forward at the words, and plunged headlong into the billow. There was a
+general rush after him; some were thrown back on the sand, but about
+half the number were enabled to reach the lugger. We quickly saw the
+effect of even this reinforcement. At the very point of time when the
+cruiser was about to lay her on board, she came sharply round by the
+head, and discharged her broadside within pistol-shot. I could see the
+remaining mast of the cruiser stagger; it made two or three heaves, like
+a drunkard trying to recover his steps, then came a crash, and it went
+over the side. The vessel recoiled, and being now evidently unable to
+steer, the storm had her at its mercy; and the last we saw of her was a
+hull, rolling and staggering away down the Channel, firing guns of
+distress, and going headforemost toward the Bay of Biscay.
+
+Need I say in what triumph the lugger was hauled up the sand, or how
+her bold commander and hardy crew were received? But while a carouse was
+preparing for them--and, it must be owned that if sailing and fighting
+were claims, they had earned their suppers--the business portion of the
+firm was in full activity. From the waggon down to the wheelbarrow,
+every country means of carriage was in motion without delay. I had been
+hitherto by no means aware of what Johnson would probably have called
+"the vehicular opulence" of the Sussex shore. Nor had I ever a more
+striking illustration of the proverbial lightness of the work of many
+hands; a process, which in his solemn lips would probably have been,
+"Sir, congregated thousands laugh at individual difficulty; delay
+vanishes before united labour; and time is an element of toil no more."
+
+The clearance of the cargo would have put all the machinery of a royal
+dockyard to shame. As for the activity of the custom-house, it would
+have been the movement of a tortoise, to the rapidity of whatever is
+most rapid in unpacking or pilfering. But pilfering here we had none; we
+were all "men of honour;" and, undoubtedly, if any propensity to mistake
+the _tuum_ for the _meum_ had been exhibited, there were among us
+sufficient of the stamp of my old friend "who had served with Rodney,"
+to have flung the culprit where men pilfer no more; whatever may be done
+by porpoises.
+
+But as I had no wish to be a party to what, with all its gaiety and
+gallantry, I felt to be a rough infraction of the law; I now begged
+permission to make my way homewards. It was given at once, with even
+some expressions of gratitude for my having, as it was termed, stood by
+them to the last; and a guide was ordered for me as an additional
+civility. "You will have five miles to walk," said the captain, as he
+shook hands with me; "but Grapnel here will take you the shortest way
+and it will be light in an hour. You need say nothing of this business
+to Mordecai, who makes a point of being deaf and dumb when ever it suits
+him; though, between ourselves."--The captain's prudence here checked
+his overflow of confidence. "I merely mean to say, that if you drink any
+particularly fine claret, in a day or two, at his table, you will have
+to thank the lugger, La Belle Jeannette, for it. _Au revoir_."
+
+My guide and I pushed on into the darkness. He was a bluff, open-hearted
+fellow, with all the smuggler's hatred of the magistracy, and taking
+great delight in telling how often they failed in their attempts to stop
+the "free trade," which he clearly regarded as the only trade worthy of
+a man. His account of the feats of his comrades; their escapes from the
+claws of the customs; their facetious tricks on the too vigilant among
+the magistrates; and the real luxury in which, with all their life of
+hardship, they found opportunities of indulging, would have edified a
+modern tour writer, and possibly relieved even the dreariness of a
+county historian. Among other matters too, he let out, that he paid me a
+prodigious compliment in accompanying me, as this night's smuggling was
+one of the grand exploits of the year; and casting a "longing, lingering
+look, behind," where a distant glimmer marked the scene of operations,
+he evidently halted between the two opinions, whether to go on, or
+return. "What a glorious night!" he exclaimed, as he turned his bald
+forehead to a sky black as Erebus, and roaring with whirlwind. "Talk of
+sunshine, or moonshine, compared with that!" Another burst of rain, or
+flash of lightning, would evidently have rendered the scene too
+captivating. Both came, and I must have lost my guide, when he stopped
+short, and in a half whisper, asked me, "whether I heard anything?"
+Before I could return a word, he had flung himself on the ground, with
+his ear to the sward, and after a moment's listening, said, "here they
+come!"
+
+"Who come? There is neither sight nor sound between us and Brighton. Are
+you thinking of the custom-house officers?"
+
+The look which I had the benefit of seeing by a blue blaze from the
+zenith, and the tone of infinite scorn, in which he slowly repeated the
+words, "custom-house officers," were incomparable. "Afraid of _them_!"
+said he, as he rose from the wet heather, "as much afraid as the cat is
+of the mice. No, those are the dragoons from Lewes."
+
+"Well, what have we to care about them?"
+
+"Care?" said he, with a mixture of frown and grin. "Only that you are
+the captain's friend, and I daresay, are going at this time of night to
+do a job for him in Brighton yourself--I should think, young gentleman,
+you were only laughing at Sam Grapnel. Better not! Why, you see, though
+the fellows with their pens behind their ears are no more than
+six-watered gin to us, the dragoons are another sort of thing. I must go
+back. So, young gentleman, I wish you a very good night."
+
+The oddity of the wish in the midst of this elemental uproar, made me
+laugh, shivering as I was. Yet, to be left to find my own way at such a
+time, was startling. I offered him money.
+
+"At another opportunity, sir," said he, rather pacified by the offer.
+"But, if they come upon the captain unawares, they will find every thing
+ready to their hands; all at sixes and sevens just now. It will take an
+hour or two before he can clear the cargo off the ground; and there goes
+the whole speculation. Don't you hear them? You have only to drop your
+ear to the ground, to know the whole affair. A lubber deserted from us a
+week ago, and no doubt he has laid the information."
+
+I lay down, and clearly enough heard the trampling of horses, and in
+considerable numbers. My own situation was now somewhat embarrassing.
+They were evidently coming up in our direction; and, to be found past
+midnight, armed, (for my gun had been restored to me,) in company with
+an unquestionable smuggler, must have made appearances tell strongly
+against me. But my companion's mind was made up with the promptitude of
+a life which has no time to waste on thinking.
+
+"I must go back this moment, or all our comrades will be taken in the
+fact. And, take my advice, you had better do the same; for go I will.
+The captain shan't have it to say that I let him be caught without
+warning."
+
+I still hesitated, and he still urged.
+
+"You can do no better, sir; for if you stand here five minutes longer,
+you will either be taken, or you will lose the number of your mess, by a
+carbine slug, or the slash of a sabre; while, if you turn back, you will
+have ten times the chance of escape along the shore."
+
+I could now distinctly hear the clatter of hoofs, and the jingling of
+bridles. There was no time to deliberate; I certainly felt no
+inclination to be the means of the captain's ruin or death, and I
+followed my guide, who set off with the swiftness of a deer.
+
+We soon reached the shore, where our intelligence struck considerable
+alarm. "I thought that it would be so," said the captain; "I had notice
+from a friend in the customs itself, that a spy was at work, and it was
+to this that we owed the chase of the lugger. For the revenue officers I
+care not a straw, but the dragoons are to be avoided when we can. We may
+fight upon occasion, it is true, but we choose our time for it. We have
+now only to get out of the way; and clever as they are, they may find us
+not so easily laid hold of."
+
+Turning to me, he said, "I am sorry, Mr Marston, that you have been
+brought into all this bustle; but time and chance happen to us all. At
+all events, it will show you something of life, which you would scarcely
+have seen in the Jew's villa, though he, too, could show you a good
+deal. We shall see each other again, but let this night be forgotten,
+and now, good by once more." Then turning to my guide, he said, "This
+young gentleman must be seen safe along the cliff; stay with him until
+he sends you back again.
+
+"Come, lads, all hands to work!" he now shouted to a group who stood at
+a little distance; "are the tar-barrels ready?" "Ay, ay," was the
+answer. They trundled three or four barrels along the shore, dragged
+them up the face of the cliff, and I had scarcely left them a hundred
+yards behind, when they were in a blaze. The trampling of the dragoons
+was now heard coming on at full speed.
+
+"There," said Grapnel, "I'll engage that he tricks them at last; while
+they are moving up to the fire, the cargo is moving up to the store. He
+will leave half a dozen kegs for them to make prize of, while he is
+carrying away clear and clean as much silk as would make gowns for all
+the corporation of London, and as much claret as would give the gout
+to"----the gust choked the remainder of the comparison.
+
+He had probably been accustomed to performances of this order, for his
+conjecture was exactly verified. From the spot where we stood, to get,
+as he called it, a last peep at "the free-traders bamboozling the
+dragoons," we could see cavalry rushing up to the blaze, evidently sure
+of having made a capture. A few carts in the ravine below next caught
+their eye. Another beacon on another hill soon threw up its flame, and a
+party galloped off to examine the new phenomenon. Two or thee more
+blazed in succession, and increased their perplexity.
+
+"I must have one shot at them before I go," said Grapnel, "if I die for
+it;" and, before I could utter a word to prevent him, he discharged his
+pistol. This was an unlucky shot, as it drew the attention of a party of
+dragoons, whom we had not before seen, in the hollow beneath. After
+returning a shot or two, they darted down upon the rear of the last
+convoy, which was silently moving under the shadow of the cliffs, with
+the captain and some of its stoutest followers at its head. The business
+now began to be serious. The captain and his men, determined not to lose
+their venture, made a bold resistance. The dragoons came riding in from
+all quarters, but the ground was unfavourable for them, hemmed in as it
+was on all sides by the sea, and on the other by the cliff, besides the
+encumbrance of the carts and waggons, behind which the cutlasses of the
+smugglers were fully a match for the sabre.
+
+If I could have thought of any thing but the hazard of those unfortunate
+fellows, the scene from the spot where I stood was sufficiently
+striking. The blaze from the tar-barrels showed a long extent of the
+Downs, with the troops scattered and galloping among them on all sides.
+Long ridges of light were thrown over the waters, while, immediately
+below me, the flashes of the smugglers' muskets and the soldiers'
+pistols were incessant. It was a battle on a minor scale.
+
+But it is dangerous to be in the way of bullets even as an amateur; for,
+as I stood gazing down, I felt a sudden stroke like a shock of
+electricity. I staggered, and was on the point of rolling over the
+cliff, when Grapnel darted towards me. I just felt myself grasped by
+him, and lost all recollection.
+
+On recovering my senses again, I was in Mordecai's villa, where I had
+been brought by some fishermen on the morning of the skirmish; and who,
+asking no questions, and being asked none, had deposited me, bandaged
+and bruised as I was, at the door of the villa. If I was not sensible of
+this service, it was, at least, a vast relief to the Jew, who had begun
+to think that his violence had urged me on some desperate course. As
+hasty in his repentance as in his wrath, he had no sooner become
+rational enough to hear his daughter's story, than he was eager to make
+me the _amende_ by all the means in his power. Perhaps he would have
+even lent me money, if I had met him in the penitential mood; but I was
+not to be found. The sight of my corded trunk convinced him that I had
+taken mortal offence, and he grew more uneasy still. As the night fell,
+a general enquiry was made amongst the fisherman's cabins; and as, on
+those occasions, no one ever desires to send away the enquirer without
+giving himself, at least, credit for an answer, every one gave an answer
+according to his fashion. Some thought that they had seen me in a skiff
+on the shore; where I was, of course, blown out to sea, and, by that
+time, probably carried to the chops of the Channel. Others were sure,
+that they had seen me on the outside of the London mail--an equally
+embarrassing conjecture; for it happened that the horses, startled by
+the lightening, had dashed the carriage to pieces a few miles off.
+Mordecai's own conception was, that the extravagance of his rage had
+driven me to the extravagance of despair; and that I was by this time
+making my bed below the surges which roared and thundered through the
+dusk; and some scraps of verse which had been found in my
+apartment--"Sonnets to an eyebrow," and reveries on subjects of which my
+host had as much knowledge as his own ledger, were set down by him for
+palpable proofs of that frenzy to which he assigned my demise. Thus, his
+night was a disturbed one, passed alternately in watching over his
+daughter's feeble signs of recovery, and hurrying to the window at every
+sound of every footstep which seemed to give a hope of my return. The
+sight of me in the morning, laid at his hall door, relieved his heart of
+a burden; and, though the silence and rapid retreat of my bearers gave
+him but too much the suspicion that I had somehow or other been
+involved in the desperate business of the last twelve hours; of whose
+particulars he had, by some means or other, become already acquainted;
+he determined to watch over, and, if need be, protect me, until I could
+leave his house in safety.
+
+My recovery was slow. A ball had struck me on the forehead; and, though
+it had luckily glanced off, it had produced a contusion which long
+threatened dangerous consequences. For a month, I remained nearly
+insensible. At length I began to move, health returned, the sea-breeze
+gave me new sensations of life; and, but for one circumstance, I should
+have felt all the enjoyment of that most delightful of all
+contrasts--between the languor of a sick bed, and the renewed pouring of
+vitality through the frame.
+
+On my first awaking, I found an accumulation of letters on my table.
+Some were the mere common-places of correspondence; some were from
+sporting friends in the neighbourhood of the castle, detailing with due
+exactness the achievements of their dogs and horses; three were from the
+Horse Guards at successive intervals of a week--the first announcing
+that my commission in the Guards had received the signatures of the
+proper authorities; the second, giving me a peremptory order to join
+immediately; and the third, formally announcing, that, as I had neither
+joined, nor assigned any reason for my absence, my commission had been
+cancelled!
+
+This was an unexpected blow, and, in my state of weakness might have
+been a fatal one, but for my having found, at the bottom of the heap, a
+letter in the handwriting of Vincent. This excellent man, as if he had
+anticipated my vexations, wrote in a style singularly adapted to meet
+them at the moment. After slight and almost gay remarks on country
+occurrences, and some queries relative to my ideas of London; he touched
+on the difficulties which beset the commencement of every career, and
+the supreme necessity of patience, and a determination to be cheerful
+under all.
+
+"One rule is absolutely essential," wrote he, "never to mourn over the
+past, or mope over the future. 'Sufficient unto the day is the evil
+thereof,' is a maxim of incomparable wisdom. Never think of the failures
+of yesterday, but to avoid them to-morrow, and never speculate on the
+failures of to-morrow, but to remember that you have outlived the
+failures of to-day. The French philosophers are now preaching around the
+world, that knowledge is power, and so it is, but only as gunpowder is
+power; a dangerous invention which blew up the inventor. It requires to
+be wisely managed. English experience will tell you, more to the
+purpose, that 'perseverance is power;' for with it, all things can be
+done, without it nothing. I remember, in the history of Tamerlane, an
+incident which, to me, has always had the force of an apothegm.
+
+"In early life, and when reduced to the utmost distress, defeated in
+battle, and without a follower, he one day threw himself into the ruins
+of a Tartar caravansera, where he resolved to give up all further
+effort, and die. As he lay on the ground, sunk in despair, his eye was
+caught by the attempts of an ant to drag a grain of corn up to its nest
+in the wall. The load was too great for it, and the ant and the grain
+fell to the ground together. The trial was renewed, and both fell again.
+It was renewed ninety and nine times, and on the hundredth it succeeded,
+and the grain was carried into the nest. The thought instantly struck
+the prostrate chieftain, 'Shall an insect struggle ninety and nine times
+until it succeeds, while I, a man, and the descendant of heroes, give up
+all hope after a single battle?' He sprang from the ground, and found a
+troop of his followers outside, who had been looking for him through the
+wilderness. Scimitar in hand, he threw himself on his pursuers, swelled
+his troop into an army, his army into myriads, and finished by being the
+terror of Europe, the conqueror of Asia, and the wonder of the world."
+The letter finished with general enquiries into the things of the day,
+and all good wishes for my career.
+
+It is astonishing what an effect is sometimes produced by advice, given
+at the exact moment when we want it. This letter was the "word in
+season" of which the "wisest of men" speaks; and I felt all its
+influence in my rescue from despondency. Its simplicity reached my heart
+more than the most laboured language, and its manliness seemed a direct
+summons to whatever was manly in my nature. I determined thenceforth, to
+try fortune to the utmost, to task my powers to the last, to regard
+difficulties as only the exercise that was intended to give me strength,
+and to render every success only a step to success higher still. That
+letter had pushed me another stage towards manhood.
+
+With the Horse Guards' papers in my hand, and the letter of my old
+friend placed in a kind of boyish romance, in my bosom, I went to meet
+Mordecai and his daughter. The Jew shook his bushy brows over the
+rescript which seemed to put a perpetual extinguisher on my military
+hopes. But Mariamne was the gayest of the gay, on what she termed my
+"fortunate ill-fortune." She had now completely recovered; said she
+remembered nothing of her accident but "the heroism," as she expressed
+it, "on my part which had saved her to thank me;" and between her
+gratitude and her vivacity, might have given a spectator the idea that
+M. Lafontaine was rapidly losing ground with that creature of open lips
+and incessant smiles. Her harp was brought, she was an accomplished
+performer, and she surprised me by the taste and tenderness with which
+she sung a succession of native melodies, collected in her rambles from
+Hungary to the Hartz; and from the Mediterranean to the Alps and
+Pyrenees. One air struck me as so beautiful that I still remember the
+words. They were Garcilasso's:--
+
+    "De las casualidades
+    Y las quimeras,
+      Nacen felicidades
+      Que no se esperano.
+    Siempre se adviente
+    Que donde esta la vida,
+      Se halla la muerte."
+
+Then with that quick turn of thought which forms so touching a feature
+of the love-poetry of Spain--
+
+    "Tus ojos a mis ojos,
+    Miran atentos,
+    Y callando se dicen
+      Sus sentimientos.
+    Cosa es bien rara,
+    Que sin hablar se entienden
+      Nuestras dos almas."
+
+The Spaniard, in his own language, is inimitable. I cannot come nearer
+the soft Southern than these ballad lines--
+
+    "Alas,--how sweet, yet strange!
+       Joy in the lap of woe!
+    Love, all a change!
+      Like roses laid on snow,
+    Nipt by the cruel wind;
+    Love, all unkind!
+
+    "Yet, close those eyes of thine,
+      Else, though no accents fall,
+    These stealing tears from mine
+      Will tell thee all!
+    Strange, that what lips deny,
+    Is spoken by the telltale eye."
+
+Whether the little seguidilla meant any thing in the lips of the
+songstress, I do not presume to say. But the hearts of women, perhaps I
+should say of all pretty women, expect admiration as naturally as an
+idol receives incense; and as a part of the incense now and then
+descends upon the worshippers themselves, the sentiment becomes in some
+degree mutual. However, with all my perceptions alive to her merits, and
+she had many; the cause of my gallant French friend was perfectly safe
+in my hands. I never had much vanity in these matters, and even if I
+had, the impression already made by another had made me impregnable, for
+the time, to the whole artillery of eyes.
+
+Yet the evening which I thus spent, gave me the first genuine idea of
+domestic happiness which I had ever received. I had certainly seen but
+little of it at home. There all was either crowds, or solitude; the
+effort to seem delighted, or palpable discontent; extravagant festivity,
+or bitterness and frowns. My haughty father was scarcely approachable,
+unless when some lucky job shed a few drops of honey into his natural
+gall; and my gentle mother habitually took refuge in her chamber, with a
+feebleness of mind which only embittered her vexations. In short, the
+"family fireside" had become with me a name for every thing dull and
+discomforting; and a _tete-a-tete_ little less than an absolute terror.
+
+But in this apartment I saw how perfectly possible it might be to make
+one's way through life, even with so small a share of that world as the
+woman before me. I had now spent some hours without a care, without a
+wish, or even a thought beyond the room in which we sat. My imagination
+had not flagged, no sense of weariness had touched me, our conversation
+had never wanted a topic; yet the Jew was one certainly of no peculiar
+charm of manner, though a man of an originally vigorous mind, and well
+acquainted with general life; and even his daughter was too foreign and
+fantastic to realize my _beau ideal_. Still with the one being of my
+choice, I felt that it would be possible to be happy on a desert island.
+
+Our supper was as animated as our evening. My remarks on the passing
+world--a world of which I then knew not much more than the astronomer
+does of the inhabitants of the moon, by inspecting it
+
+        "With his glazed optic tube,
+    At midnight from the top of Fesole,
+    Or in Val d'Arno, to descry new seas,
+    Rivers, and mountains on her spotty globe"--
+
+were received with an acquiescence, which showed that I had already
+gained some ground, even in the rough, though undoubtedly subtle and
+powerful mind of the Jew: as for Mariamne, she was all delight, and
+until she took her leave of us for the night, all smiles.
+
+As she closed the door Mordecai laid his muscular hand on my shoulder.
+"A word with you, Mr Marston; you have rendered me the highest of
+services in saving that girl from a dreadful death. You have been of use
+to me in other matters also, unconsciously I aver--but we shall talk of
+that another time. To come to the point at once. If you can make
+yourself my daughter's choice, for I shall never control her, I shall
+not throw any obstacles in the way. What say you?"
+
+I never felt more difficulty in an answer. My voice actually died within
+my lips. I experienced a feverish sensation which must have mounted to
+my face, and given me the look of a clown or a criminal, if the Jew had
+but looked at me: but he was waiting my reply with his eyes fixed on the
+ground. But the hesitation was soon over; I was almost pledged to
+Lafontaine, as a man of honour; I knew that Mariamne, however she might
+play the coquette for the day, was already bound in heart to the gallant
+Frenchman; and if neither impediment had existed, there was a chain,
+cold as ice, but strong as adamant--a chain of which she who had bound
+it was altogether ignorant, but which I had neither the power nor the
+will to sever. Still it was not for me to divulge Mariamne's secret, and
+I could not even touch upon my own. I escaped from the dilemma under
+cover of another reason, and also a true one.
+
+Thanking him for his kindness and candour, I observed, "that I was
+nothing and had nothing, that to offer myself to the acceptance of one
+entitled to wed so opulently as his daughter, would be to pain my
+feelings, and place me in a humiliating point of view, in the presence
+of one whose respect I ought to deserve." Our conversation extended far
+into the night; and I freely entered into the disappointment which I had
+sustained in the unfortunate loss of my commission. I added, that I was
+determined not to lead a life of idleness, even if I had possessed the
+means; and that as the army was the profession which gave the fairest
+prospect of being known to the world, I must pursue it if possible.
+
+The idea was fully approved of by my energetic hearer. "Right!" said he.
+"It is exactly the thing which I should have expected from you. You have
+been ill-treated, I own, but there is no use in kicking at power, unless
+you can kick it before you. The machinery of government is too huge for
+any one of us to resist, and unless we run along with it, our only
+wisdom is, to get out of its way. But you shall have a commission, ay,
+even if it cost a thousand guineas. Never refuse; I am not in the habit
+of throwing away my money; but you saved Mariamne's life, and I would
+not have lost my child for all the bullion in the Bank of England, or on
+the globe."
+
+I was surprised by this burst of generosity, but it was real; and the
+Jew, as if to put his sincerity beyond all doubt, had torn a leaf out of
+his pocket-book, and was writing an order for the sum on his banker: he
+laid it on the table. I returned it to him at once, perhaps not less to
+his surprise than his offer had been to mine. But I reminded him, that I
+had still a balance at my banker's; and I told him besides that I had
+made up my mind to enter the regiment from which I had been so
+unceremoniously dismissed, or none. He stared. "If," said I, "I shall
+not be commissioned in the Coldstream, it will be utterly beyond my
+power to persuade even my own relatives, much less the world, that I
+have not been dismissed for some act of impropriety. Or, if men will not
+hazard saying this to my face, they will only be more likely to say it
+where I cannot defend myself."
+
+"True!" said Mordecai, as if the opinion had cast a new light on him.
+"Perfectly to the point. This is a world of scandal; and, like the
+wolves, the whole pack fall on the wounded. You must recover your
+commission in the Coldstream; or be ready to tell your story every day
+of your life, and be only half believed after all. Yes, you must enter
+that very corps, or be sneered at as long as you live; and if you have a
+heart to be stung, it will be stung. Our people know that well."
+
+"I should give my last shilling to be carrying its colours at this
+moment," said I, "but unfortunately money is useless there. The Guards
+are the favourite of royalty, and their commissions naturally go to men
+of rank and fortune."
+
+"We must go to town and see what is to be done. When will you be ready?"
+asked my host.
+
+"To-night--this moment--if possible, I should set out."
+
+"No, no, Mr Marston, my movements cannot be quite so expeditious. I must
+wait for my London letters in the morning. On their arrival we may
+start, and, by taking four horses, reach town before the Horse Guards
+closes for the day."
+
+At breakfast next morning Mariamne was not to be seen: she excused
+herself by a violent headach; and by the countenance of her Abigail,
+generally a tolerable reflexion of the temper of the female authority of
+a house, it was evident that I had fallen into disfavour. But how was
+this to be accounted for? Mordecai, from the lateness of the hour at
+which we parted, could not have seen her; even if she should condescend
+to take my matrimonial chillness as an offence. But the mystery was
+soon, cleared by her answer to the note which contained my farewell. It
+was simply the enclosure of a few hapless lines of verse, in which the
+name of Clotilde occurred, and which had been found in the clearance of
+my chamber preparatory to my journey. This was decisive. Mariamne was a
+sovereign, who, choose as she might her prime minister, would not suffer
+her royal attendance to be diminished by the loss of a single slave. I
+petitioned for a parting word, it was declined; and I had only to regret
+my poetic error, or my still greater error in not keeping my raptures
+under lock and key.
+
+As the carriage drew up to the door, Mordecai casually asked me "have
+you left your card at the Steyne?"
+
+"No," was the reply. "Was it necessary?"
+
+"Absolutely so; the prince has sent frequently to enquire for you during
+your illness, and of course your leaving the neighbourhood without
+acknowledging the honour would be impossible."
+
+"Then let us drive there at once," said I.
+
+On reaching the prince's cottage--for cottage it was, and nothing
+more--the gentleman in waiting who received my card, told me that his
+Royal highness had desired that whenever I called he should be apprized
+of my coming, "as he wished to hear the history of the accident from
+myself." The prince's fondness for hearing every thing out of the common
+course, was well known; and I had only to obey. I had the honour of an
+introduction accordingly; was received with all the customary graces of
+his manner, and even with what attracts still more--with kindness. He
+enquired into the circumstances, and was evidently taking an interest in
+such parts of the narrative as I chose to give, when he was interrupted
+by the arrival of a courier from London. The letters happened to be of
+importance, and must be answered immediately. "But," said he, with his
+irresistible smile, "I must not lose your story; we dine at seven. You
+will probably meet some whom you would be gratified by seeing.
+Adieu--remember, seven."
+
+This was equivalent to a command, and there was no resource, but to
+defer my journey for twelve hours more. Mordecai was not unwilling to
+exchange a dreary drive in which he had no immediate concern, for the
+comforts of his own home; or perhaps the honour among his neighbours of
+having for an inmate a guest of the heir-apparent, qualified the delay.
+Mariamne at our approach fled from the drawing-room like a frightened
+doe. And at the appointed hour I was at the pretty trellised porch of
+the prince's residence.
+
+
+
+
+THE DEVIL'S FRILLS.
+
+A DUTCH ILLUSTRATION OF THE WATER CURE.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+A stranger who visits Haarlem is not a little astonished to see, hung
+out from various houses, little frames coquettishly ornamented with
+squares of the finest lace. His curiosity will lead him to ask the
+reason of so strange a proceeding. But, however he may push his
+questions--however persevering he may be in getting at the bottom of the
+mystery--if he examine and cross-examine fifty different persons, he
+will get no other answer than--
+
+"These are the devil's frills."
+
+The frills of the devil! Horrible! What possible connexion can there be
+between those beautiful Valenciennes, those splendid Mechlins, those
+exquisite Brussels points, and his cloven-footed majesty? Is Haarlem a
+city of idolaters? Are all these gossamer oblations an offering to
+Beelzebub?
+
+And are we to believe, in spite of well-authenticated tale and history,
+that instead of horns and claws, the gentleman in black sports frills
+and ruffles, as if he were a young dandy in Bond Street?
+
+"These are the devil's frills."
+
+It is my own private opinion that these mystic words contain some
+prodigiously recondite meaning; or, perhaps, arise from one of those
+awful incidents, of which Hoffman encountered so many among the
+ghost-seeing, all-believing Germans. But don't take it on my simple
+assertion, but judge for yourself. I shall tell you, word for word, the
+story as it was told to me, and as it is believed by multitudes of
+people, who believe nothing else, in the good town of Haarlem.
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+Yes,--one other thing everybody in Haarlem believes--and that is, that
+Guttenberg, and Werner, and Faust, in pretending that they were the
+discoverers of the art of printing, were egregious specimens of the art
+of lying; for that that noble discovery was made by no human being save
+and except an illustrious citizen of Haarlem, and an undeniable proof of
+it exists in the fact, that his statue is still to be seen in front of
+the great church. He rejoiced, while living, in the name of Laurentius
+Castero; and, however much you may be surprised at the claims advanced
+in his favour, you are hereby strictly cautioned to offer no
+contradiction to the boastings of his overjoyed compatriots--they are
+prouder of his glory than of their beer. But his merits did not stop
+short at casting types. In addition to his enormous learning and
+profound information, he possessed an almost miraculous mastery of the
+fiddle. He was a Dutch Paganini, and drew such notes from his
+instrument, that the burgomaster, in smoking his pipe and listening to
+the sounds, thought it had a close resemblance to the music of the
+spheres.
+
+There was only one man in all Haarlem, in all Holland, who did not yield
+the palm at fiddle-playing to Castero. That one man was no other than
+Frederick Katwingen, the son of a rich brewer, whom his admirers--more
+numerous than those of his rival--had called the Dutch Orpheus.
+
+If the laurels of Miltiades disturbed the sleep of Themistocles; if the
+exploits of Macedonia's madman interfered with the comfort of Julius
+Caesar, the glory of Katwingen would not let Castero get a wink of sleep.
+
+What! a man of genius--a philosopher like the _doctus_ Laurentius, not
+be contented with his fame as discoverer of the art of printing; but to
+leave his manuscripts, and pica, and pie, to strive for a contemptible
+triumph, to look with an eye of envy on a competitor for the applauses
+of a music room! Alas! too true. Who is the man, let me ask you, who can
+put bounds to his pretensions? Who is the man that does not feel as if
+the praises of his neighbour were an injury to himself? And if I must
+speak the whole truth, I am bound to confess that these jealous
+sentiments were equally entertained by both the musicians. Yes,--if
+Castero would acknowledge no master, Frederick could not bear that any
+one should consider himself his rival, and insisted at any rate in
+treating with him on equal terms. Laurentius, therefore, and the son of
+the brewer were declared enemies; and the inhabitants of Haarlem were
+divided into two parties, each ruled over with unlimited power by the
+fiddlestick of its chief.
+
+It was announced one morning that the Stadtholder would pass through the
+town in the course of the day. The burgomaster determine to receive the
+illustrious personage in proper style, and ordered the two rivals to
+hold themselves in readiness. Here, then, was a contest worthy of them
+an opportunity of bringing the great question to issue of which of them
+played the first fiddle in Holland--perhaps in Europe. It fell to
+Frederick's chance to perform first--in itself a sort of triumph over
+Laurentius. The Stadtholder entered by the Amsterdam road, attended by
+his suite--they passed along the street, and stopped under a triumphal
+arch which had been hastily prepared. The burgomaster made a speech very
+much like the speeches of burgomasters before and since on similar
+tremendous occasions; and Frederick finally advanced and made his salaam
+to the chief magistrate of the United Provinces. The performer knew that
+the Stadtholder was a judge of music, and this gave him courage to do
+his best. He began without more ado, and every thing went on at first as
+he could wish; fountains of harmony gushed out from under his bow. There
+seemed a soul at the end of each of his fingers, and the countenance of
+the chief magistrate showed how enchanted he was with his powers. His
+triumph was on the point of being complete; a few more bars of a
+movement composed for the occasion--a few magnificent flourishes to show
+his mastery of the instrument, and Castero will be driven to despair by
+the superiority of his rival;--but crash! crash!--at the very moment
+when his melody is steeping the senses of the Stadtholder in Elysium, a
+string breaks with hideous sound, and the whole effect of his
+composition is destroyed. A smile jumped instantaneously to the
+protruding lip of the learned Laurentius, and mocked his mishap: the son
+of the brewer observed the impertinent smile, and anger gave him
+courage--the broken string is instantly replaced. The artist rushes full
+speed into the allegretto--and under the pressure of his hands, burning
+with rage and genius, the chord breaks again! The fiddle must be
+bewitched--Frederick became deadly pale--he trembled from head to
+foot--he was nearly wild.
+
+But the piece he had composed was admirable; he knew it--for in a moment
+of inspiration he had breathed it into existence from the recesses of
+his soul. And was he doomed never to play this cherished work to the
+governor of his country?--An approving motion from that august
+individual encouraged him to proceed, and he fitted a string for the
+third time.
+
+Alas, alas! the result is the same--the chord is too much tightened, and
+breaks in the middle of a note! Humbled and ashamed, Frederick gives up
+his allegretto. He retires, abashed and heartbroken, and Castero takes
+his place. Mixed up in the crowd, his eyes swam in tears of rage and
+disappointment when the frantic applauses of the assemblage--to whom the
+Stadtholder had set the example--announced to him the triumph of his
+rival. He is vanquished--vanquished without having had the power to
+fight--oh, grief! oh, shame! oh, despair!
+
+His friends tried in vain to console him in promising him a brilliant
+revenge. The son of the brever believed himself eternally disgraced. He
+rushed into his room, double locked the door and would see nobody. He
+required solitude--but the wo of the _artiste_ had not yet reached its
+height. He must drink the cup of humiliation to the dregs. Suddenly
+innumerable voices penetrated the thick walls of the brewery, and
+reached the chamber of the defeated candidate. Those voices--Frederick
+recognized them too well--were those of the faction which acknowledged
+Castero for their chief. A triumphal march, performed by twenty
+instruments, in honour of his rival, succeeded in overturning the reason
+of the unhappy youth. His fiddle was before him on the table--that
+fiddle which had disappointed his hopes. Exasperated, out of his senses,
+the brewer's son seized the instrument--a moment he held it aloft at the
+corner of the chimney, and yielding to the rage that gnawed his soul, he
+dashed it into a thousand pieces. Faults, like misfortunes, never come
+single. "Blood calls for blood," says Machiavel--"ruin for ruin."--By
+that fatal tendency of the human mind never to stop when once we have
+gone wrong, but to go on from bad to worse, instead of blushing at our
+folly--Frederick, after that act of vandalism, dashed like a madman out
+of the brewery. The sight of his instrument in a thousand fragments had
+completed the business--life was a torment to him. He hurried towards
+the lake of Haarlem, determined to seek in its gloomy depths a refuge
+from disgrace.--Poor Frederick!
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+After a quarter of an hour's run across the fields, he arrived at last
+at the side of the lake, with the sounds of his rival's triumphal march
+for ever sounding in his ears. The evening breeze, the air from the sea,
+"the wandering harmonies of earth and sky," were all unable to bring
+rest to the perturbed spirit of the musician. He was no longer conscious
+of the sinful act he was about to commit. He shut his eyes--he was just
+going to throw himself into the water when he felt a hand laid upon his
+left shoulder. Frederick turned quickly round. He saw at his side a tall
+man wrapped up in large cloak--in spite of the hot weather--which hid
+every part of him but his face. His expression was hard, almost
+repulsive. His eyes shot sinister glances on the youth from beneath the
+thick eyebrows that overshadowed them. The brewer's son, who had been on
+the point of facing death without a tremour, grew pale and trembled. He
+wished to fly, but an irresistible power nailed him to the spot. He was
+fascinated by the look of the Unknown.
+
+"Madman!" said the stranger in a hollow voice--"madman who cannot resist
+the first impulse of anger and false shame!"
+
+"Leave me," answered Frederick in his turn; "I am disgraced, and have no
+resource but to die."
+
+"The triumph of Castero, then--the triumph he owes to luck--has cowed
+you so that you are afraid to challenge him to another trial?"--rejoined
+the stranger in an angry tone.
+
+"Every thing is lost," said Frederick, "don't you hear those sounds?" he
+added, holding his hands out towards the city--"my courage cannot bear
+up against such mockery--_vae victis_!--my doom is sealed."
+
+"But you do not yet know the full extent of your rival's victory. There
+is a young girl who was to have been your wife--a girl who loves you--"
+
+"Maina!"--cried Frederick, to whom these words restored his
+recollection.
+
+"Yes, Maina, the daughter of Jansen Pyl, the burgomaster of Haarlem.
+Well, encouraged by his success, Castero went to the house, and demanded
+the hand of her you love."
+
+"What?--what do I hear?"--said Frederick, and looked once more towards
+the lake.
+
+"The burgomaster never liked you very well, as you are aware. In
+consenting to receive you as his son-in-law, he yielded more to the
+wishes of his daughter, to her prayers and tears, than to his preference
+of you over the other adorers of the Beauty of Haarlem. Castero's fame
+had long predisposed him in his favour; and the triumph he obtained
+to-day has entirely won the old man's heart."
+
+"He has promised her?" enquired Frederick in a voice almost inaudible
+from anxiety.
+
+"To-morrow he will decide between you. You are ignorant of the
+arrangement entered into; and, yielding to a cowardly impulse, you give
+up the happiness of your life at the moment it is in your grasp. Listen.
+The Stadtholder, who did not intend to remain at Haarlem, has accepted
+the invitation of the burgomaster, and will not leave the city till
+to-morrow afternoon. That illustrious personage has expressed a wish to
+hear again the two performers who pleased him so much, and his patronage
+is promised to the successful candidate in the next trial. He is a
+judge of music--he perceived the fineness of your touch, and saw that it
+was a mere accident which was the cause of your failure. Do you
+understand me now? Maina will be the wife of the protege of the
+Stadtholder--and you give up your affianced bride if you refuse to
+measure your strength once more against Castero."
+
+The explanation brought tears into Frederick's eyes. In his agony as a
+musician he had forgotten the object of his love--the fair young girl
+whose heart was all his own. Absorbed in the one bitter thought of his
+defeat--of the disgrace he had endured--he had never cast a recollection
+on the being who, next to his art, was dearer to him than all the world.
+The fair maid of Haarlem occupied but the second place in the musician's
+heart; but not less true is it, that to kiss off a tear from the white
+eyelid of the beautiful Maina, he would have sacrificed his life. And
+now to hear that she was about to be carried off by his rival--by
+Castero--that Castero whom he hated so much--that Maina was to be the
+prize of the conqueror! His courage revived. Hope played once more round
+his heart--he felt conscious of his superiority; but--oh misery!--his
+fiddle--his Straduarius, which could alone insure his victory--it was
+lying in a million pieces on his floor!
+
+The Unknown divined what was passing in his mind; a smile of strange
+meaning stole to his lip. He went close up to Frederick, whose agitated
+features betrayed the struggle that was going on within. "Maina will be
+the reward of the protege of the Stadtholder, and Castero will be the
+happy man if you do not contest the prize," he whispered in poor
+Frederick's ear.
+
+"Alas! my fate is settled--I have no arms to fight with," he answered in
+a broken voice.
+
+"Does your soul pant for glory?" enquired the stranger.
+
+"More than for life--more than for love--more than for--"
+
+"Go on."
+
+"More than for my eternal salvation!" exclaimed the youth in his
+despair.
+
+A slight tremour went through the stranger as he heard these words.
+
+"Glory!" he cried, fixing his sparkling eyes on the young man's face
+"glory, the passion of noble souls--of exalted natures--of superior
+beings!--Go home to your room, you will find your fiddle restored," he
+added in a softer tone.
+
+"My fiddle?" repeated Frederick.
+
+"The fiddle of which the wreck bestrewed your chamber when you left it,"
+replied the stranger.
+
+"But who are you?" said Frederick amazed. "You who know what passes in
+my heart--you whose glances chill me with horror--you, who promise me a
+miracle which only omnipotence can accomplish. Who are you?"
+
+"Your master," answered the man in the mantle, in an altered voice.
+"Recollect the words you used a minute or two ago, 'Glory is dearer to
+me than life--than love--than eternal salvation!' That is quite enough
+for me; and we must understand each other. Adieu. Your favourite
+instrument is again whole and entire, and sweeter toned than ever. You
+will find it on the table in your room. Castero, your rival, will be
+vanquished in this second trial, and Maina will be yours--for you are
+the protege of a greater than the Stadtholder. Adieu--we shall meet
+again." On finishing this speech the Unknown advanced to the lake.
+Immediately the waves bubbled up, and rose in vast billows; and opening
+with dreadful noise, exposed an unfathomable abyss. At the same moment
+thunder growled in the sky, the moon hid herself behind a veil of
+clouds, and the brewer's son, half choked with the smell of brimstone,
+fell insensible on the ground.
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+When Frederick came to his senses he found himself in his chamber,
+seated on the same sofa of Utrecht brocade which he had watered with his
+tears two hours before. On the table before him lay the fiddle which he
+had dashed to atoms against the corner of the chimney. On seeing the
+object of his affection, the enraptured musician, the rival of Castero,
+rushed towards it with a cry of joyful surprise. He took the instrument
+in his hands--he devoured it with his eyes, and then, at the summit of
+his felicity, he clasped it to his bosom. The instrument was perfectly
+uninjured, without even a mark of the absurd injustice of its owner. Not
+a crack, not a fissure, only the two gracefully shaped Sec. Sec. to give vent
+to the double stream of sound. But is he not the victim of some
+trick--has no other fiddle been substituted for the broken Straduarius?
+No!--'tis his own well-known fiddle, outside and in--the same delicate
+proportions, the same elegant neck, and the same swelling rotundity of
+contour that might have made it a model for the Praxiteles of violins.
+He placed the instrument against his shoulder and seized the bow. But
+all of a sudden he paused--a cold perspiration bedewed his face--his
+limbs could scarcely support him. What if the proof deceives him. What
+if--; but incertitude was intolerable, and he passed the bow over the
+strings. Oh blessedness! Frederick recognized the unequalled tones of
+his instrument--he recognized its voice, so clear, so melting, and yet
+so thrilling and profound,
+
+      "The charm is done,
+    Life to the dead returns at last,
+    And to the corpse a soul has past."
+
+Now, then, with his fiddle once more restored to him, with love in his
+heart, and hatred also lending its invigorating energies, he felt that
+the future was still before him, and that Castero should pay dearly for
+his triumph of the former day.
+
+When these transports had a little subsided, Frederick could reflect on
+the causes which gave this new turn to his thoughts. The defeat he had
+sustained--his insane anger against his Straduarius--his attempt at
+suicide--his meeting with the stranger, and his extraordinary
+disappearance amidst the waves of the lake.
+
+But, with the exception of the first of these incidents, had any of them
+really happened? He could not believe it. Was it not rather the sport of
+a deceitful dream? His fiddle--he held it in his hands--he never _could_
+have broken it. In fact, the beginning of it all was his despair at
+being beaten, and he was indebted to his excited imagination for the
+rest--the suicide, the lake, and the mysterious Unknown.
+
+"That must be it," he cried at last, delighted at finding a solution to
+the mystery, and walking joyously up and down his chamber. "I have had a
+horrible dream--a dream with my eyes open; that is all."
+
+Two gentle taps at the door made him start; but the visitor was only one
+of the brewery boys, who gave him a letter from the burgomaster.
+
+"Yoran, did you see me go out about two hours ago?" asked Frederick
+anxiously.
+
+"No, meinheer," said the boy.
+
+"And you did not see me come in?"
+
+"No, meinheer."
+
+"That's all right," said the youth, signing for Yoran to retire. "Now,
+then," he said, "there can be no doubt whatever that it was all a
+dream." Opening the burgomaster's letter, he ran through it in haste.
+The first magistrate of Haarlem informed Frederick Katwingen that he had
+an important communication to make to him, and requested him to come to
+his house.
+
+The musician again placed his lips on his instrument, and again pressed
+it gratefully to his heart; and then placed it with the utmost care
+within its beautiful case, which he covered with a rich cloth. Locking
+the case, and looking at it as a mother might look at the cradle of her
+new-born baby, he betook himself to the mansion of Jansen Pyl.
+
+That stately gentleman was luxuriously reposing in an immense armchair,
+covered with Hungary leather. His two elbows rested on the arms and
+enabled him to support in his hands the largest, the reddest, the
+fattest face that had ever ornamented the configuration of a Dutch
+functionary before. Mr Jansen Pyl wore at that moment the radiant look
+of satisfaction which only a magistrate can assume who feels conscious
+that he is in the full sunshine of the approbation of his sovereign. His
+whole manner betrayed it--the smile upon his lip, the fidgety motion of
+his feet, and the look which he darted from time to time around the
+room, as if to satisfy himself that his happiness was "not a sham but a
+reality." But his happiness seemed far from contagious. On his right
+hand there was a lovely creature, seated on a footstool, who did not
+partake his enjoyment. There was something so sweet and so harmonious in
+her expression, that you felt sure at once she was as good as she was
+beautiful. There was poetry also in her dejected attitude, and in the
+long lashes that shadowed her blue eyes; nor was the charm diminished by
+the marble neck bent lowly down, and covered with long flowing locks of
+the richest brown. And the poetry was, perhaps, increased by the
+contrast offered by the sorrowing countenance of the girl to the radiant
+visage of the plethoric individual in the chair. Whilst the ambitious
+thoughts of the burgomaster rose to the regions inhabited by the
+Stadtholder, the poor girl's miserable reflections returned upon
+herself. Her eyes were dimmed with tears. It was easy to see that that
+had long been their occupation, and that some secret sorrow preyed upon
+the repose of the fair maid of Haarlem.
+
+It was Maina, the betrothed of Frederick. On the left of the
+burgomaster, negligently leaning on the back of the magistrate's chair,
+was a man still young in years, but so wrinkled and careworn, from study
+or bad health, that he might have passed for old. The man's expression
+was cold and severe; his look proud and fiery; his language rough and
+harsh. On analysing his features you could easily make out that he had
+prodigious powers of mind, a character imperious and jealous, and such
+indomitable pride that he might do a mischief to any rival who might be
+bold enough to cross his path.
+
+Now, we are aware of one at least who ran the risk; for the man was
+Laurentius Castero. Frederick Katwingen started back on entering the
+burgomaster's room. His eye encountered the glance of Castero, and in
+the look then interchanged, they felt that they were enemies between
+whom no reconciliation could take place. From Laurentius, Frederick
+turned his eye to Maina. The sorrowful attitude of the maiden would have
+revealed to him all that had happened, if the self-satisfied look of his
+rival had left any thing to be learned. The conqueror brow-beat the
+vanquished.
+
+"Mr Katwingen," said the burgomaster, deliberately weighing every word,
+"you are aware of the high compliment paid by the Stadtholder to our
+city."
+
+"My dream comes true," thought Frederick as he bowed affirmatively to
+the magistrate's enquiry.
+
+"And you are also aware," pursued the burgomaster, "of the Stadtholder's
+wishes as far as you are personally concerned?"
+
+Frederick bowed again.
+
+"Thanks to my humble supplications," continued Jansen Pyl, raising his
+enormous head with an air of dignity, "our gracious governor has
+condescended to honour our good town with his august presence for
+twenty-four hours longer. But what ought to fill you with eternal
+gratitude is this: that he has determined to hear you a second time when
+he returns to-morrow from inspecting the works at Shravnag. I hope you
+will redouble your efforts, and do all you can to please your
+illustrious auditor; and, if any thing is required to stimulate your
+ambition, and add to your endeavours to excel, I will add this--the hand
+of Maina will be bestowed on the conqueror at this second trial."
+
+"But, father!----" said the maiden.
+
+"It is all settled," interrupted the burgomaster, looking astonished at
+the girl's audacity; "you are the reward I offer to the protege of the
+Stadtholder. You hear what I say, gentlemen?" he added, turning to the
+rivals.
+
+"I shall certainly not miss the appointment," said Castero, throwing
+back his head proudly. "If to-morrow is not as glorious to me as to-day
+has been, I will break my violin, and never touch a bow again as long as
+I live."
+
+"As for me," said Frederick, "if I do not make up for the check I
+unluckily met to-day by a glorious victory, I swear I will renounce the
+flattering name my countrymen have given me, and will hide my shame in
+some foreign land. The Orpheus of his country must have no rival of his
+fame."
+
+"To-morrow, then," said the burgomaster.
+
+"To-morrow!" repeated the rivals, casting on each other looks of proud
+defiance.
+
+"To-morrow!" whispered Maina and buried her face in her hands.
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+I shall not attempt to describe the strange sensations of Frederick on
+returning from the burgomaster's house It will have been seen from the
+glimpses we have had of him already, that he was of a quick and
+sensitive disposition, and that the chance of defeat in the approaching
+struggle would sting him into madness. He pictured to himself the
+ferocious joy of Castero on being declared the victor--the agony of
+Maina--the misery of his own degradation; and there is no doubt if the
+mysterious Unknown, whose appearance he now felt certain was nothing but
+a dream, had visited him in _propria persona_, that he would have
+accepted his terms--his soul for triumph over his enemy, for the
+possession of the girl he loved.
+
+The morrow rose clear and cloudless. At the appointed hour Frederick
+took his violin, and prepared to set out. But just when he was opening
+the door, the man in the mantle--the same he had seen the day
+before--stood before him.
+
+"You did not expect to see me," said the Unknown, following Frederick to
+the end of the room, where he had retreated. "I told you, nevertheless,
+that we should meet again," he added, placing himself face to face with
+the son of the brewer.
+
+"Then it was no dream," murmured the youth, who appeared to have lost
+all his resolution.
+
+"Certainly not," returned the stranger, looking sarcastically at
+Frederick from head to foot. "I promised you yesterday, on the banks of
+the lake, that you would find your fiddle unharmed, and that I would
+enable you to conquer your rival. But I don't feel that I am bound to do
+any thing of the kind for nothing; generosity was never my forte, and I
+have lived long enough among the burghers of Holland to insist on being
+well paid for every thing I do."
+
+"Who are you, then; and what is it you want?" enquired the Dutch
+Orpheus, in an agitated voice.
+
+"Who am I!" answered the man in the mantle, with all the muscles of his
+face in violent convulsions--"Who am I!--I thought I had told you
+yesterday when you asked me--I am your master. What do I want? I will
+tell you. But why do you tremble so? you were bold enough when we met. I
+saw the thought in your heart--if Satan should rise before me, and
+promise me victory over my rival at the price of my soul, I would agree
+to the condition!"
+
+"Satan!--you are Satan!" shrieked Frederick, and closed his eyes in
+horror.
+
+"Didn't you find me out on the side of the lake, when you told me you
+would exchange your salvation for years of love and glory. Yes, I am
+that King of Darkness--_your_ master! and that of a great part of
+mankind. But, come; the hour is at hand--the Burgomaster and the
+Stadtholder await us. Do you accept the offer I make you?"
+
+After a minute's hesitation, during which his features betrayed the
+force of the internal contest, the musician made his choice. He had not
+power to speak, but he raised his hand, and was on the point of making
+the cross upon his forehead, to guard him from the tempter, when Satan
+perceived his intention, and seized his arm.
+
+"Think a little before you discard me entirely," he said, raising again
+in the soul of the musician all the clouds of pride and ambition that
+had given him power over it at first; "look into the box where your
+violin is laid, and decide for the last time."
+
+Frederick obeyed his tempter, and opened the case, but uttered a cry of
+desperation when he saw his Straduarius in the same state of utter ruin
+to which he had reduced it before. The neck separated from the body;
+both faces shivered to fragments--the ebony rests, the gold-headed
+stops, the bridge, the sides--all a confused mass of wreck and
+destruction.
+
+"Frederick! Frederick!" cried a voice from the brewery--it was his
+father's.
+
+"Frederick! Frederick!" repeated a hundred voices under the
+windows--"Come down, come down, the Stadtholder is impatient! Castero
+swears you are afraid to face him."
+
+They were his friends who were urging him to make haste.
+
+"Well?" enquired Satan.
+
+"I accept the bargain. I give you my soul!" said Frederick, while his
+cheek grew pale, and his eye flashed.
+
+"_Your_ soul!" replied Satan, with a shrug of infinite disdain. "Do you
+think I would have hindered you from jumping into the lake, if I had
+wished to get it? Do you think that suicides are not mine already?--mine
+by their own act, without the formality of a bargain?--_Your_ soul!"
+repeated the Prince of Darkness, with a sneer; "I don't want it, I
+assure you: at least not to-day--I feel sure of it whenever I require
+it!"
+
+"My soul, then, belongs to you--my fate is settled beforehand?" enquired
+Frederick.
+
+"You are an _artiste_," answered Satan, with a chuckling laugh, "and
+therefore are vain, jealous, proud, and full of envy, hatred, malice,
+and all uncharitableness. You perceive I shall lose nothing by waiting.
+No, no; 'tis not your own soul I want--but that of your first-born, that
+you must make over to me this hour!"
+
+"What do you want me to do!"
+
+"Here is the deed," said Satan, pulling a parchment from under his
+cloak, on which strange characters were drawn, and letters in an unknown
+language. "In putting your name to this, you bind and oblige yourself to
+let me know when Maina is about to become a mother; and before the
+baptismal water shall touch the infant's brow, you shall hang from the
+window a piece of lace which shall have been worn by Maina at her
+wedding. One of my satellites will be on the watch; he will come and
+tell me when the signal is made and--the rest is my own affair! You will
+find this agreement in your fiddle-case."
+
+"Frederick! Frederick! be quick be quick!" again shouted the father.
+
+"Frederick! Frederick! Castero is boasting about your absence!" cried
+the chorus of impatient friends.
+
+"I agree!" cried the _artiste_, and affixed his name. While he was
+signing, the stranger muttered some words of mysterious sound, of which
+he did not know the meaning; and immediately the pieces of the broken
+instrument united themselves--rests, bridge, stops, faces, and sides,
+all took their proper places, and the soul of the noble violin
+re-entered its musical prison, at the moment when that of the future
+baby of Maina was sold to the enemy of mankind!
+
+"Now, then," said Satan, as he sank beneath the floor, "go where glory
+waits thee."
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+What need is there to tell the success of Frederick Katwingen--how he
+triumphed over Castero, captivated the Stadtholder, and was the pride of
+his native town? The Stadtholder attached him to his person, settled a
+pension on him of fifteen thousand florins, and treated him as the most
+cherished of his friends. The burgomaster was delighted to gain so
+illustrious a son-in-law, and hurried forward the marriage with all his
+might. On the day of the wedding, when Frederick was leading the bride
+to church, at the moment when the party was crossing the market-place, a
+voice whispered in his ear--"A piece of the lace she will wear at the
+ball this evening." Frederick recognised the voice, though no one else
+heard it. He turned, but saw nobody. After the ceremony, the burgomaster
+handed the contract to the bridegroom, to which the Stadtholder had
+affixed his signature. A present of a hundred thousand florins from the
+governor of the United Provinces, proved the sincerity of that
+illustrious personage's friendship, and that his favour had by no means
+fallen off. The burgomaster was emulous of so much generosity, and
+introduced a clause in the contract, settling his whole fortune on his
+son-in-law, in case of Maina's death.
+
+Behold, then, the _artiste_ praised--feted--and happy. Possessed of the
+wife he loved--rich--honoured--what more had he to hope than that those
+advantages should be continued him? Castero was true to his
+word--reduced his violin to powder, acknowledged Frederick's
+superiority, and betook himself to higher pursuits, which ended in the
+great discovery of printing.
+
+The Dutch Orpheus is freed from the annoyance of a rival. He reigns by
+the divine right of his violin, the undisturbed monarch of his native
+plains. His name is pronounced with enthusiasm from one flat end of
+Holland to the other. In the splendour of his triumphal condition, he
+has forgotten his compact with Beelzebub; but Maina reminded him of it
+one day, when she told him he was about to become a father.
+
+A father!--ha!--Frederick! That word which brings such rapture to the
+newly married couple--which presents such radiant visions of the
+future--that word freezes the heart of the _artiste_ and stops the blood
+in his veins.
+
+It is only now when Maina is so happy that he knows the enormity of his
+fault.
+
+He is about to be a father--and he--beforehand--basely, cowardly--has
+sold the soul of his son who is yet unborn--before it can shake off the
+taint of original sin. Shame! shame! on the proud in heart who has
+yielded to the voice of the tempter--to the wretch who, for a little
+miserable glory, has shut the gates of mercy on his own child--shame!
+shame!
+
+If Satan would consent to an exchange--if--but no--'tis impossible. The
+"archangel fallen" had explained himself too clearly--no hope! no hope!
+From that hour there was no rest, no happiness for the protege of the
+Stadtholder--sleep fled from his eyelids, he was pursued by perpetual
+remorse, and in the agonies of his heart deserted the nuptial bed: while
+light dreams settled on Maina's spirit, and wove bright chaplets for the
+future, he wandered into the midnight fields--across the canals--any
+where, in short, where he fancied he could procure forgetfulness; but
+solitude made him only feel his misery the more. How often he thought of
+going to the gloomy lake where he had first encountered the Unknown! How
+often he determined to complete the resolution he had formed on the day
+of Castero's triumph! But Satan had said to him, "The suicide is
+condemned--irrevocably condemned;" and the condemnation of which _he_
+would be sure, would not bring a ransom for his first-born.
+
+The fatal time draws on--in a few minutes more Maina will be a mother.
+Frederick, by some invisible impulse, has chosen from among the laces of
+his wife a rich Mechlin, which she wore round her neck on her
+wedding-day. It is now to be the diabolic standard, and he goes with it
+towards the door of his house, pensive and sad. When he got to the
+threshold he stopped--he raised his eyes to heaven, and from his heart
+and from his lips, there gushed out prayers, warm, deep, sincere--the
+first for many years. A ray of light has rushed into his soul. He
+uttered a cry of joy, he dashed across the street into the neighbouring
+church; he dipped the lace into the basin of consecrated water, and
+returned immediately to hang it at the door of his apartment.
+
+At that moment Maina gave birth to a son, and Satan rushed impatiently
+to claim his expected prey. But the tempter was unprepared for the trap
+that was laid for him. On placing his foot on the first step of the
+stair, he found himself pushed back by a superior power. The Mechlin,
+dripping with holy water, had amazing effect. It was guardian of the
+house and protected the entrance against the fallen angel. Satan strove
+again and again; but was always repulsed. There rises now an
+impenetrable barrier between him and the innocent being he had destined
+for his victim. Forced by the pious stratagem of Frederick Katwingen to
+give up his purpose, he roamed all night round the house like a roaring
+lion, bellowing in a most awful manner.
+
+In the morning, when they wrapt up the babe in the precious lace to
+carry him to be baptized, they perceived that it had been torn in
+several places. The holes showed the determination with which Satan had
+tried to force a passage. The enemy of mankind had not retreated without
+leaving the mark of his talons on the lace.
+
+On coming back from church, Frederick ran to his fiddle; and found in a
+corner of the case the deed of compact he had signed. With what joy he
+tossed it into the fire, and heard it go crackling up the chimney!
+
+All was over now; Satan was completely floored. He confessed, by giving
+up the contract, that he had no further right on the soul of the newly
+born, when once it had been purified by the waters of baptism. The
+father had recovered the soul which the musician had bartered away!
+Since that time, whenever a young woman in Haarlem is about to become a
+mother, the husband never fails to hang at the door the richest pieces
+of lace he can find in her trousseau. That standard bids defiance to the
+evil one, and recalls the noble victory won over the prince of darkness
+by Frederick Katwingen, surnamed the Dutch Orpheus. And that is the
+reason that, in passing through Haarlem, the visitor sees little frames
+suspended from certain houses, ornamented with squares of Mechlin, or
+Valenciennes, or Brussels point. And that is the reason that, when he
+asks an explanation of the singular custom, he gets only the one short,
+unvarying answer--"These are the Devil's Frills!"
+
+
+
+
+ADVENTURES IN LOUISIANA.
+
+PART II.
+
+
+THE BLOCKHOUSE.
+
+Supper over, and clenched by a pull at Nathan's whisky flask, we
+prepared for departure. The Americans threw the choicest parts of the
+buck over their shoulders, and the old squatter again taking the lead,
+we resumed our march. The way led us first across a prairie, then
+through a wood, which was succeeded by a sort of thicket, upon the
+branches and thorny shrubs of which we left numerous fragments of our
+dress. We had walked several miles almost in silence, when Nathan
+suddenly made a pause, and let the but-end of his rifle fall heavily on
+the ground. I took the opportunity to ask him where we were.
+
+"In Louisiana," replied he, "between the Red River, the Gulf of Mexico,
+and the Mississippi; on French ground, and yet in a country where French
+power is worth little. Do you see that?" added he suddenly, seizing my
+arm, and pulling me a few paces aside, while he pointed to a dark
+object, that at the distance and in the moonlight, had the appearance of
+an earthen wall. "Do you know what that is?" repeated the squatter.
+
+"An Indian grave, perhaps," replied I.
+
+"A grave it is," was the answer; "but not of the Redskins. As brave a
+backwoodsman as ever crossed the Mississippi lies buried there. You are
+not altogether wrong, though. I believe it was once an Indian mound."
+
+While he spoke we were walking on, and I now distinguished a hillock or
+mound of earth, with nearly perpendicular sides, on which was erected a
+blockhouse, formed of unhewn cypress trunks, of a solidity and thickness
+upon which four-and-twenty pounders would have had some difficulty in
+making an impression. Its roof rose about ten feet above a palisade
+enclosing the building, and consisting of stout saplings sharpened at
+the top, and stuck in the ground at a very short distance from each
+other, being moreover strengthened and bound together with wattles and
+branches. The building had evidently been constructed more for a refuge
+and place of defence than an habitual residence.
+
+A ladder was now lowered, by which we ascended to the top of the mound.
+There was a small door in the palisades, which Nathan opened and passed
+through, we following.
+
+The blockhouse was of equal length and breadth, about forty feet square.
+On entering it we found nothing but the bare walls, with the exception
+of a wide chimney of sun-baked brick, and in one corner a large wooden
+slab partly imbedded in the ground.
+
+"Don't tread upon that board," said the old man solemnly, as we
+approached the slab to examine it; "it is holy ground."
+
+"How holy ground?"
+
+"There lies under it as brave a fellow as ever handled axe or rifle. He
+it was built this blockhouse, and christened it the Bloody
+Blockhouse--and bloody it proved to be to him. But you shall hear more
+of it if you like. You shall hear how six American rifles were too many
+for ninety French and Spanish muskets."
+
+Carleton and I shook our heads incredulously. The Yankee took us both by
+the arm, led us out of the blockhouse, and through the stockade to a
+grassy projection of the hillock.
+
+"Ninety French and Spanish muskets," repeated he in a firm voice, and
+weighing on each word. "Opposed to them were Asa Nolins, with his three
+brothers, his brother-in-law, a cousin, and their wives. He fell like a
+brave American as he was, but not alone, for the dead bodies of thirty
+foes were lying round the blockhouse when he died. They are buried
+there," added he, pointing to a row of cotton-trees a short distance
+off, that in the pale moonlight might have been taken for the spectres
+of the departed; "under those cotton-trees they fell, and there they are
+buried."
+
+The old squatter remained for a short space in his favourite attitude,
+his hands crossed on his rifle, and his chin resting on them. He seemed
+to be calling together the recollections of a time long gone by. We did
+not care to interrupt him. The stillness of the night, the light of the
+moon and stars, that gave the prairie lying before us the appearance of
+a silvery sea, the sombre forest on either side of the blockhouse, of
+which the edges only were lighted up by the moonbeams, the vague
+allusions our guide had made to some fearful scene of strife and
+slaughter that had been enacted in this now peaceful glade--all these
+circumstances combined, worked upon our imaginations, and we felt
+unwilling to break the stillness which added to the impressive beauty of
+the forest scene.
+
+"Did you ever float down the Mississippi?" asked Nathan abruptly. As he
+spoke he sat down upon the bank, and made sign to us to sit beside him.
+
+"Did you ever float down the Mississippi?"
+
+"No; we came up it from New Orleans hither."
+
+"That is nothing; the stream is not half so dangerous there as above
+Natchez." _We_ came down, six men, four women, and twice as many
+children, all the way from the mouths of the Ohio to the Red River; and
+bad work we had of it, in a crazy old boat, to pass the rapids and avoid
+the sand-banks, and snakes, and sawyers, and whatever the devil they
+call them, that are met with. I calculate we weren't sorry when we left
+the river and took to dry land again. The first thing we did was to make
+a wigwam, Injun fashion, with branches of trees. This was to shelter the
+women and children. Two men remained to protect them, and the other four
+divided into two parties, and set off, one south and t'other west, to
+look for a good place for a settlement. I and Righteous, one of Asa's
+brothers, took the southerly track.
+
+It was no pleasuring party that journey, but a right-down hard and
+dangerous expedition, through cypress swamps, where snapping turtles
+were plenty as mosquitoes, and at every step the congo and mocassin
+snakes twisted themselves round our ankles. We persevered, however. We
+had a few handfuls of corn in our hunting-pouches, and our calabashes
+well filled with whisky. With that and our rifles we did not want for
+provender.
+
+At length, on the fourth day, we came to an upland, or rolling prairie
+as we call it, from the top of which we had a view that made our hearts
+leap for joy. A lovely strip of land lay before us, bounded at the
+further end by a forest of evergreen oaks, honey locusts, and catalpas.
+Towards the north was a good ten mile of prairie; on the right hand a
+wood of cotton-trees, and on the left the forest in which you now are.
+We decided at once that we should find no better place than this to fix
+ourselves; and we went back to tell Asa and the others of our discovery,
+and to show them the way to it. Asa and one of his brothers returned
+with us, bringing part of our traps. They were as pleased with the place
+as we were, and we went back again to fetch the rest. But it was no easy
+matter to bring our plunder and the women and children through the
+forests and swamps. We had to cut paths through the thickets, and to
+make bridges and rafts to cross the creeks and marshes. After ten days'
+labour, however, and with the help of our axes, we were at our journey's
+end.
+
+We began directly clearing and cutting down trees, and in three weeks we
+had built a loghouse, and were able to lie down to rest without fear of
+being disturbed by the wolves or catamounts. We built two more houses,
+so as to have one for each two families and then set to work to clear
+the land. We had soon shaped out a couple of fields, a ten-acre one for
+maize, and another half the size for tobacco. These we began to dig and
+hoe; but the ground was hard, and though we all worked like slaves, we
+saw there was nothing to be made of it without ploughing. A ploughshare
+we had, and a plough was easily made--but horses were wanting: so Asa
+and I took fifty dollars, which was all the money we had amongst us, and
+set out to explore the country forty miles round, and endeavour to meet
+with somebody who would sell us a couple of horses, and two or three
+cows. Not a clearing or settlement did we find, however, and at last we
+returned discouraged, and again began digging. On the very first day
+after our return, as we were toiling away in the field, a trampling of
+horses was heard, and four men mounted, and followed by a couple of
+wolf-hounds, came cantering over the prairie. It struck us that this
+would be a famous chance for buying a pair of horses, and Asa went to
+meet them, and invited them to alight and refresh themselves. At the
+same time we took our rifles, which were always lying beside us when we
+worked in the fields, and advanced towards the strangers. But when they
+saw our guns, they put spurs to their horses and rode off to a greater
+distance. Asa called out to them not to fear, for our rifles were to use
+against bears and wolves and Redskins, and not against Christian men.
+Upon this, down they came again; we brought out a calabash of real
+Monongahela; and after they had taken a dram, they got off their horses,
+and came in and ate some venison, which the women set before them. They
+were Creoles, half Spanish, half French, with a streak of the Injun; and
+they spoke a sort of gibberish not easy to understand. But Asa, who had
+served in Lafayette's division in the time of the war, knew French well;
+and when they had eaten and drunk, he began to make a bargain with them
+for two of their horses.
+
+It was easy to see they were not the sort of men with whom decent folk
+could trade. First they would, then they wouldn't: which horses did we
+want, and what would we give. We offered them thirty-five dollars for
+their two best horses--and a heavy price it was, for at that time money
+was scarce in the settlements. They wanted forty, but at last took the
+thirty-five; and after getting three parts drunk upon taffia, which they
+asked for to wet the bargain as they said, they mounted two upon each of
+the remaining horses and rode away.
+
+We now got on famously with our fields, and soon sowed fifteen acres of
+maize and tobacco, and then began clearing another ten-acre field. We
+were one day hard at work at this, when one of my boys came running to
+us, crying out, "Father! Father! The Redskins!" We snatched up our
+rifles and hastened to the top of the little rising ground on which our
+houses were built, and thence we saw, not Injuns, but fourteen or
+fifteen Creoles, galloping towards our clearing, halloing and huzzaing
+like mad. When they were within fifty yards of us, Asa stepped forward
+to meet them. As soon as they saw him one of them called out, "There is
+the thief! There is the man who stole my brown horse!" Asa made no
+answer to this, but waited till they came nearer, when one of them rode
+up to him and asked who was the chief in the settlement. "There is no
+chief here," answered Asa; "we are all equals and free citizens."
+
+"You have stolen a horse from our friend Monsieur Croupier," replied the
+other. "You must give it up."
+
+"Is that all?" said Asa quietly.
+
+"No: you must show us by what right you hunt on this territory."
+
+"Yes," cried half a dozen others, "we'll have no strangers on our
+hunting-grounds; the bears and caguars are getting scarcer than ever,
+and as for buffaloes, they are clean exterminated." And all the time
+they were talking, they kept leaping and galloping about like madmen.
+
+"The sooner the bears and caguars are killed the better," said Asa. "The
+land is not for dumb brutes, but for men."
+
+The Creoles, however, persisted that we had no right to hunt where we
+were, and swore we should go away. Then Asa asked them what right they
+had to send us away. This seemed to embarrass them, and they muttered
+and talked together; so that it was easy to see there was no magistrate
+or person in authority amongst them, but that they were a party of
+fellows who had come in hopes to frighten us. At last they said they
+should inform the governor, and the commandant at Natchitoches, and the
+Lord knows who besides, that we had come and squatted ourselves down
+here, and built houses, and cleared fields, and all without right or
+permission; and that then we might look out. So Asa began to lose
+patience, and told them they might all go to the devil, and that, if
+they were not off soon, he should be apt to hasten their movements.
+
+"I must have my horse back," screamed the Creole whom they called
+Croupier.
+
+"You shall," replied Asa, "both of them, if you return the
+five-and-thirty dollars."
+
+"It was only fifteen dollars," cried the lying Creole.
+
+Upon this Asa called to us, and we stepped out from amongst the
+cotton-trees, behind which we had been standing all the while; and when
+the Creoles saw us, each with his rifle on his arm, they seemed rather
+confused, and drew back a little.
+
+"Here are my comrades," said Asa, "who will all bear witness, that the
+horses were sold at the prices of twenty dollars for the one and
+fifteen for the other. And if any one says the contrary, he says that
+which is not true."
+
+"_Larifari!_" roared Croupier. "You shan't stop here to call us liars,
+and spoil our hunting-ground, and build houses on our land. His
+excellency the governor shall be told of it, and the commandant at
+Natchitoches, and you shall be driven away." And the other Creoles, who,
+while Asa was speaking, appeared to be getting more quiet and
+reasonable, now became madder than ever, and shrieked, and swore, and
+galloped backwards and forwards, brandishing their fowling-pieces like
+wild Injuns, and screaming out that we should leave the country, the
+game wasn't too plenty for them, and suchlike. At length Asa and the
+rest of us got angry, and called out to them to take themselves off or
+they would be sorry for it; and when they saw us bringing our rifles to
+our shoulders, they put spurs to their horses, and galloped away to a
+distance of some five hundred yards. There they halted, and set up such
+a screeching as almost deafened us, fired off some of their old rusty
+guns, and then rode away. We all laughed at their bragging and
+cowardice, except Asa, who looked thoughtful.
+
+"I fear some harm will come of this," said he. "Those fellows will go
+talking about us in their own country; and if it gets to the ears of the
+governors or commanding-officers that we have settled down on their
+territory, they will be sending troops to dislodge us."
+
+Asa's words made us reflect, and we held counsel together as to what was
+best to be done. I proposed that we should build a blockhouse on the
+Indian mound to defend ourselves in if we were attacked.
+
+"Yes," said Asa; but we are only six, and they may send hundreds against
+us.
+
+"Very true," said I; "but if we have a strong blockhouse on the top of
+the mound, that is as good as sixty, and we could hold out against a
+hundred Spanish musketeers. And it's my notion, that if we give up such
+a handsome bit of ground as we have cleared here without firing a shot,
+we deserve to have our rifles broken before our faces."
+
+Asa, however, did not seem altogether satisfied. It was easy to see he
+was thinking of the women and children. Then said Asa's wife, Rachel, "I
+calculate," said she, "that Nathan, although he is my brother, and I
+oughtn't to say it, has spoke like the son of his father, who would have
+let himself be scalped ten times over before he would have given up such
+an almighty beautiful piece of land. And what's more, Asa, I for one
+won't go back up the omnipotent dirty Mississippi; and that's a fact."
+
+"But if a hundred Spanish soldiers come," said Asa, "and I reckon they
+will come?"
+
+"Build the blockhouse, man, to defend yourselves; and when our people up
+at Salt River and Cumberland hear that the Spaniards are quarreling with
+us, I guess they won't keep their hands crossed before them."
+
+So, seeing us all, even the women, so determined, Asa gave in to our way
+of thinking, and the very same day we began the blockhouse you see
+before you. The walls were all of young cypress-trees, and we would fain
+have roofed it with the same wood; but the smallest of the cypresses
+were five or six feet thick, and it was no easy matter to split them. So
+we were obliged to use fir, which, when it is dried by a few days' sun,
+burns like tinder. But we little thought when we did so, what sorrow
+those cursed fir planks would bring us.
+
+When all was ready, well and solidly nailed and hammered together, we
+made a chimney, so that the women might cook if necessary, and then laid
+in a good store of hams and dried bear's flesh, filled the meal and
+whisky tubs, and the water-casks, and brought our plough and what we had
+most valuable into the blockhouse. We then planted the palisades,
+securing them strongly in the ground, and to each other, so that it
+might not be easy to tear them up. We left, as you see, a space of five
+yards between the stockade and the house, so that we might have room to
+move about in. It would be necessary for an enemy to take the palisades
+before he could do any injury to the house itself, and we reckoned that
+with six good rifles in such hands as ours, it would require a pretty
+many Spanish musketeers to drive us from our outer defences.
+
+In six weeks all was ready; all our tools and rations, except what we
+wanted for daily use, carried into the fort, and we stood contemplating
+the work of our hands with much satisfaction. Asa was the only one who
+seemed cast down.
+
+"I've a notion," said he, "this blockhouse will be a bloody one before
+long; and what's more, I guess it will be the blood of one of us that'll
+redden it. I've a sort of feelin' of it, and of who it'll be."
+
+"Pho! Asa, what notions be these! Keep a light heart, man."
+
+And Asa seemed to cheer up again, and the next day we returned to
+working in the fields; but as we were not using the horses, one of us
+went every morning to patrol ten or twelve miles backwards and forwards,
+just for precaution's sake. At night two of us kept watch, relieving one
+another, and patrolling about the neighbourhood of our clearing.
+
+One morning we were working in the bush and circling trees, when
+Righteous rode up full gallop.
+
+"They're coming!" cried he; "a hundred of them at least."
+
+"Are they far off?" said Asa, quite quietly, and as if he had been
+talking of a herd of deer.
+
+"They are coming over the prairie. In less than half an hour they will
+be here."
+
+"How are they marching? With van and rear guard? In what order?"
+
+"No order at all, but all of a heap together."
+
+"Good!" said Asa; "they can know little about bush-fighting or
+soldiering of any kind. Now then, the women into the blockhouse."
+
+Righteous galloped up to our fort, to be there first in case the enemy
+should find it out. The women soon followed, carrying what they could
+with them. When we were all in the blockhouse, we pulled up the ladder,
+made the gate fast, and there we were.
+
+We felt strange at first when we found ourselves shut up inside the
+palisades, and only able to look out through the slits we had left for
+our rifles. We weren't used to be confined in a place, and it made us
+right-down wolfish. There we remained, however, as still as mice. Scarce
+a whisper was to be heard. Rachel tore up old shirts and greased them,
+for wadding for the guns; we changed our flints, and fixed every thing
+about the rifles properly, while the women sharpened our knives and axes
+all in silence.
+
+Nearly an hour had passed in this way when we heard a shouting and
+screaming, and a few musket-shots; and we saw through our loopholes some
+Spanish soldiers running backwards and forwards on the crest of the
+slope on which our houses stood. Suddenly a great pillar of smoke arose,
+then a second, then a third.
+
+"God be good to us!" cried Rachel, "they are burning our houses." We
+were all trembling and quite pale with rage. Harkye, stranger, when men
+have been slaving and sweating for four or five months to build houses
+for their wives and for the poor worms of children, and then a parcel of
+devils from hell come and burn them down like maize-stalks in a
+stubble-field, it is no wonder that their teeth should grind together,
+and their fists clench of themselves. So it was with us; but we said
+nothing, for our rage would not let us speak. But presently as we
+strained our eyes through the loopholes, the Spaniards showed themselves
+at the opening of the forest yonder, coming towards the blockhouse. We
+tried to count them, but at first it was impossible, for they came on in
+a crowd without any order. They thought lightly enough of those they
+were seeking, or they would have been more prudent. However, when they
+came within five hundred paces, they formed ranks, and we were able to
+count them. There were eighty-two foot soldiers with muskets and
+carbines, and three officers on horseback, with drawn swords in their
+hands. The latter dismounted, and their example was followed by seven
+other horsemen, amongst whom we recognised three of the rascally Creoles
+who had brought all this trouble upon us. He they called Croupier was
+among them. The other four were also Creoles, Acadians or Canadians, a
+race whom we had already met with on the Upper Mississippi, fine
+hunters, but wild, drunken, debauched barbarians.
+
+The Acadians were coming on in front, and they set up a whoop when they
+saw the blockhouse and stockade; but finding that we were prepared to
+receive them, they retreated upon the main body. We saw them speaking to
+the officers as if advising them; but the latter shook their heads, and
+the soldiers continued moving on. They were in uniforms of all colours,
+blue, white, and brown, but each man dirtier than his neighbour. They
+marched in good order, nevertheless, the captain and officers coming on
+in front, and the Acadians keeping on the flanks. The latter, however,
+edged gradually off towards the cotton-trees, and presently disappeared
+amongst them.
+
+"Those are the first men to frick off," said Asa, when he saw this
+manoeuvre of the Creoles. "They have steady hands and sharp eyes; but
+if we once get rid of them we need not mind the others."
+
+The Spaniards were now within an hundred yards of us.
+
+"Shall I let fly at the thieving incendiaries?" said Righteous.
+
+"God forbid!" replied Asa. "We will defend ourselves like men; but let
+us wait till we are attacked, and the blood that is shed will lie at the
+door of the aggressors."
+
+The Spaniards now saw plainly that they would have to take the stockade
+before they could get at us, and the officers seemed consulting
+together.
+
+"Halt!" cried Asa, suddenly.
+
+"Messieurs les Americains," said the captain, looking up at our
+loopholes.
+
+"What's your pleasure?" demanded Asa.
+
+Upon this the captain stuck a dirty pocket-handkerchief upon the point
+of his sword, and laughing with his officers, moved some twenty paces
+forward, followed by the troops. Thereupon Asa again shouted to him to
+halt.
+
+"This is not according to the customs of war," said he. "The flag of
+truce may advance, but if it is accompanied, we fire."
+
+It was evident that the Spaniards never dreamed of our attempting to
+resist them; for there they stood in line before us, and, if we had
+fired, every shot must have told. The Acadians, who kept themselves all
+this time snug behind the cotton-trees, called more than once to the
+captain to withdraw his men into the wood; but he only shook his head
+contemptuously. When, however, he heard Asa threaten to fire, he looked
+puzzled, and as if he thought it just possible we might do as we said.
+He ordered his men to halt, and called out to us not to fire till he had
+explained what they cane for.
+
+"Then cut it short," cried Asa sternly. "You'd have done better to
+explain before you burned down our houses, like a pack of Mohawks on the
+war path."
+
+As he spoke, three bullets whistled from the edge of the forest, and
+struck the stockades within a few inches of the loophole at which he
+stood. They were fired by the Creoles, who, although they could not
+possibly distinguish Asa, had probably seen his rifle barrel or one of
+his buttons glitter through the opening. As soon as they had fired, they
+sprang behind their trees again, craning their heads forward to hear if
+there was a groan or a cry. They'd have done better to have kept quiet;
+for Righteous and I caught a sight of them, and let fly at the same
+moment. Two of them fell and rolled from behind the trees, and we saw
+that they were the Creole called Croupier, and another of our
+horse-dealing friends.
+
+When the Spanish officer heard the shots, he ran back to his men, and
+shouted out "Forward! To the assault!" They came on like mad a distance
+of thirty paces, and then, as if they thought we were wild-geese to be
+frightened by their noise, they fired a volley against the blockhouse.
+
+"Now then!" cried Asa, "are you loaded, Nathan and Righteous? I take the
+captain--you, Nathan, the lieutenant--Righteous, the third
+officer--James, the sergeant. Mark your men, and waste no powder."
+
+The Spaniards were still some sixty yards off, but we were sure of our
+mark at a hundred and sixty, and that if they had been squirrels instead
+of men. We fired: the captain and lieutenant, the third officer, two
+sergeants, and another man writhed for an instant upon the grass. The
+next moment they stretched themselves out--dead.
+
+All was now confusion among the musketeers, who ran in every direction.
+Most of them took to the wood, but about a dozen remained and lifted up
+their officers to see if there was any spark of life left in them.
+
+"Load again, quick!" said Asa in a low voice. We did so, and six more
+Spaniards tumbled over. Those who still kept their legs now ran off as
+if the soles of their shoes had been of red-hot iron.
+
+We set to work to pick out our touchholes and clean our rifles, knowing
+that we might not have time later, and that a single miss-fire might
+cost us all our lives. We then loaded, and began to calculate what the
+Spaniards would do next. It is true they had lost their officers; but
+there were five Acadians with them, and those were the men we had most
+cause to fear. Meantime the vultures and turkey-buzzards had already
+begun to assemble, and presently hundreds of them were circling and
+hovering over the carcasses, which they as yet, however, feared to
+touch.
+
+Just then Righteous, who had the sharpest eye amongst us all, pointed to
+the corner of the wood, yonder where it joins the brushwood thicket. I
+made a sign to Asa, and we all looked and saw there was something
+creeping and moving through the underwood. Presently we distinguished
+two Acadians heading a score of Spaniards, and endeavouring, under cover
+of the bushes, to steal across the open ground to the east side of the
+forest.
+
+"The Acadians for you, Nathan and Righteous, the Spaniards for us," said
+Asa. The next moment two Acadians and four Spaniards lay bleeding in the
+brushwood. But the bullets were scarce out of our rifles when a third
+Acadian, whom we had not seen, started up. "Now's the time," shouted he,
+"before they have loaded again. Follow me! we will have their blockhouse
+yet." And he sprang across followed by the Spaniards. We gnashed our
+teeth with rage at not having seen the Acadian.
+
+There were still three of these fellows alive, who had now taken command
+of the Spaniards. Although we had shot a score of our enemies, those who
+remained were more than ten to one of us, and we were even worse off
+than at first, for then they were all together, and now we had them on
+each side of us. But we did not let ourselves be discouraged, although
+we could not help feeling that the odds against us were fearfully great.
+
+We now had to keep a sharp look-out; for if one of us showed himself at
+a loophole, a dozen bullets rattled about his ears. There were many
+shot-holes through the palisades, which were covered with white streaks
+where the splinters had been torn off by the lead. The musketeers had
+spread themselves all along the edge of the forest, and had learned by
+experience to keep close to their cover. We now and then got a shot at
+them and killed four or five, but it was slow work, and the time seemed
+very long.
+
+Suddenly the Spaniards set up a loud shout. At first we could not make
+out what was the matter, but presently we heard a hissing and crackling
+on the roof of the blockhouse. They had wrapped tow round their
+cartridges, and one of the shots had set light to the fir-boards. Just
+as we found it out, they gave three more hurras, and we saw the dry
+planks beginning to flame, and the fire to spread.
+
+"We must put that out and at once," said Asa, "if we don't wish to be
+roasted alive. Some one must get up the chimney with a bucket of water.
+I'll go myself."
+
+"Let me go, Asa," said Righteous.
+
+"You stop here. It don't matter who goes. The thing will be done in a
+minute."
+
+He put a chair on a table and got upon it, and then seizing a bar which
+was fixed across the chimney to hang hams upon, he drew himself up by
+his arms, and Rachel handed him a pail of water. All this time the flame
+was burning brighter, and the Spaniards getting louder in their
+rejoicing and hurras. Asa stood upon the bar, and raising the pail above
+his head, poured the water out of the chimney upon the roof.
+
+"More to the left, Asa," said Righteous; "the fire is strongest more to
+the left."
+
+"Tarnation seize it!" cried Asa, "I can't see. Hand me up another
+pailful."
+
+We did so; and when he had got it, he put his head out at the top of the
+chimney to see where the fire was, and threw the water over the exact
+spot. But at the very moment that he did so the report of a dozen
+muskets was heard.
+
+"Ha!" cried Asa in an altered voice, "I have it." And the hams and
+bucket came tumbling down the chimney, and Asa after them all covered
+with blood.
+
+"In God's name, man, are you hurt?" cried Rachel.
+
+"Hush! wife," replied Asa; "keep quiet. I have enough for the rest of my
+life, which will not be long: but never mind, lads; defend yourselves
+well, and don't fire two at the same man. Save your lead, for you will
+want it all. Promise me that."
+
+"Asa! my beloved Asa!" shrieked Rachel; "if you die, I shall die too."
+
+"Silence! foolish woman; and our child, and the one yet unborn! Hark! I
+hear the Spaniards! Defend yourselves, and, Nathan, be a father to my
+children."
+
+I had barely time to press his hand and make him the promise he wished.
+The Spaniards, who had doubtless guessed our loss, rushed like mad
+wolves up to the mound, twenty on one side, and upwards of thirty on the
+other.
+
+"Steady!" cried I. "Righteous, here with me; and you, Rachel, show
+yourself worthy to be Hiram Strong's daughter, and Asa's wife; load this
+rifle for me while I fire my own."
+
+"O God! O God!" cried Rachel, "the hellhounds have murdered my Asa!"
+
+She clasped her husband's body in her arms, and there was no getting her
+away. I felt sad enough myself, but there was scanty time for grieving;
+for a party of Spaniards, headed by one of the Acadians, was close up to
+the mound on the side which I was defending. I shot the Acadian; but
+another, the sixth, and last but one, took his place. "Rachel!" cried I,
+"the rifle, for God's sake, the rifle! a single bullet may save all our
+lives."
+
+But no Rachel came, and the Acadian and Spaniards, who, from the
+cessation of our fire, guessed that we were either unloaded, or had
+expended our ammunition, now sprang forward, and by climbing, and
+scrambling, and getting on one another's shoulders, managed to scale the
+side of the mound, almost perpendicular as you see it is. And in a
+minute the Acadian and half a dozen Spaniards, with axes, were chopping
+away at the palisades, and severing the wattles which bound them
+together. To give the devil his due, if there had been only three like
+that Acadian, it would have been all up with us. He handled his axe like
+a real backwoodsman; but the Spaniards wanted either the skill or the
+strength of arm, and they made little impression. There were only
+Righteous and myself to oppose them; for, on the other side, a dozen
+more soldiers, with the seventh of those cursed Acadians, were attacking
+the stockade.
+
+Righteous shot down one of the Spaniards; but just as he had done so the
+Acadian tore up a palisade by the roots, (how he did it I know not to
+this hour, there must have been a stump remaining on it,) held it with
+the wattles and branches hanging round it like a shield before him,
+guarding off a blow I aimed at him, then hurled it against me with such
+force that I staggered backwards, and he sprang past me. I thought it
+was all over with us. It is true that Righteous, with the butt of his
+rifle, split the skull of the first Spaniard who entered, and drove his
+hunting-knife into the next; but the Acadian alone was man enough to
+give us abundant occupation, now he had got in our rear. Just then there
+was a crack of a rifle, the Acadian gave a leap into the air and fell
+dead, and at the same moment my son Godsend, a boy of ten years old,
+sprang forward, Asa's rifle in his hand still smoking from muzzle and
+touchhole. The glorious boy had loaded the piece when he saw that Rachel
+did not do it, and in the very nick of time had shot the Acadian through
+the heart. This brought me to myself again, and with axe in one hand and
+knife in the other, I rushed in among the Spaniards, hacking and hewing
+right and left. It was a real butchery, which lasted a good quarter of
+an hour; but then the Spaniards got sick of it, and would have done so
+sooner had they known that their leader was shot. At last they jumped
+off the mound and ran away, such of them as could. Righteous and I put
+the palisade in its place again, securing it as well as we could, and
+then, telling my boy to keep watch, ran over to the other side, where a
+desperate fight was going on.
+
+"Three of our party, assisted by the women, were defending the stockade
+against a score of Spaniards, who kept poking their bayonets between the
+palisades, till all our people were wounded and bleeding. But Rachel had
+now recovered from her first grief at her husband's death, or rather it
+had turned to a feeling of revenge, and there she was, like a raging
+tigress, seizing the bayonets as they were thrust through the stockade,
+and wrenching them off the muskets, and sometimes pulling the muskets
+themselves out of the soldiers' hands. But all this struggling had
+loosened the palisades, and there were one or two openings in them
+through which the thin-bodied Spaniards, pushed on by their comrades,
+were able to pass. Just as we came up, two of these copper-coloured
+Dons had squeezed themselves through, without their muskets, but with
+their short sabres in their hands. They are active dangerous fellows
+those Spaniards in a hand-to-hand tussle. One of them sprang at me, and
+if it had not been for my hunting-knife, I was done for, for I had no
+room to swing my axe; but as he came on I hit him a blow with my fist,
+which knocked him down, and then ran my knife into him, and jumping over
+his body snatched a musket out of Rachel's hand, and began laying about
+me with the but-end of it. I was sorry not to have my rifle, which was
+handier than those heavy Spanish muskets. The women were now in the
+way--we hadn't room for so many--so I called out to them to get into the
+blockhouse and load the rifles. There was still another Acadian alive,
+and I knew that the fight wouldn't end till he was done for. But while
+we were fighting, Godsend and the women loaded the rifles, and brought
+them out, and firing through the stockade, killed three or four, and, as
+luck would have it, the Acadian was amongst them. So when the Spaniards,
+who are just like hounds, and only come on if led and encouraged, saw
+that their leader had fallen, they sprang off the mound, with a 'Carajo!
+Malditos!' and ran away as if a shell had burst amongst them."
+
+The old squatter paused and drew a deep breath. He had forgotten his
+usual drawl and deliberation, and had become animated and eager while
+describing the stirring incidents in which he had borne so active a
+part. When he had taken breath, he continued.
+
+"I couldn't say how long the fight lasted; it seemed short, we were so
+busy, and yet long, deadly long. It is no joke to have to defend one's
+life, and the lives of those one loves best, against fourscore
+bloodthirsty Spaniards, and that with only half a dozen rifles for arms,
+and a few palisades for shelter. When it was over we were so dog-tired
+that we fell down where we were, like overdriven oxen, and without
+minding the blood which lay like water on the ground. Seven Spaniards
+and two Acadians were lying dead within the stockade. We ourselves were
+all wounded and hacked about, some with knife-stabs and sabre-cuts,
+others with musket-shots; ugly wounds enough, some of them, but none
+mortal. If the Spaniards had returned to the attack they would have made
+short work of us; for as soon as we left off fighting and our blood
+cooled, we became stiff and helpless. But now came the women with rags
+and bandages, and washed our wounds and bound them up, and we dragged
+ourselves into the blockhouse, and lay down upon our mattresses of dry
+leaves. And Godsend loaded the rifles and a dozen Spanish muskets that
+were lying about, to be in readiness for another attack, and the women
+kept watch while we slept. But the Spaniards had had enough, and we saw
+no more of them. Only the next morning, when Jonas went down the ladder
+to reconnoitre, he found thirty dead and several others dying, and a few
+wounded, who begged hard for a drink of water, for that their comrades
+had deserted them. We got them up into the blockhouse, and had their
+wounds dressed, and after a time they were cured and left us."
+
+"And were you never after attacked again?" said I. "I wonder at your
+courage in remaining here after becoming aware of the dangers you were
+exposed to."
+
+"We reckoned we had more right than ever to the land after all the blood
+it had cost us, and then the news of the fight had got carried into the
+settlements, and up as far as Salt River; and some of our friends and
+kinsfolk came down to join us, and there were soon enough of us not to
+care for twice as many Spaniards as we had beaten off before."
+
+While he was speaking the old squatter descended the ladder, and led us
+out of the forest and over the ridge of a low hill, on the side of which
+stood a dozen loghouses, which cast their black shadows on the moonlit
+slope. We found a rough but kind welcome--few words, but plenty of good
+cheer--and we made acquaintance with the heroes and heroines of the
+blockhouse siege, and with their sons and daughters, buxom strapping
+damsels and fine manly lads, Yankees though they were. I have often
+enjoyed a softer bed, but never a sounder sleep than that night.
+
+The next day our horses were brought round from the swamp, and we took
+our departure; but as hardships, however painful to endure, are pleasant
+to look back upon, so have I often thought with pleasure of our
+adventures in the prairies, and recurred with the strongest interest to
+old Nathan's thrilling narrative of the Bloody Blockhouse.
+
+
+
+
+COMMERCIAL POLICY--EUROPE
+
+
+The land absolutely groans under over-material-production of every sort
+and degree, as on all hands is now acknowledged. The foundations of
+Manchester tremble under the ponderous piles of Cobden's calicoes, in
+Cobden's warerooms, ever, like the liver of Prometheus, undiminished,
+though daily devoured by the vulture of consumption. The sight of the
+Pelion upon Ossa, accumulated masses of pig upon bar iron, immovable as
+the cloud-capped Waen and Dowlais of Merthyr Tydvil themselves, should
+almost generate burning fever, intense enough, among the unfortunate
+though too sanguine producers, to smelt all the ironstone in the bowels
+of South Wales, without the aid of furnace or hot blast. Broad cloths,
+though encumbering cloth halls, are ceasing all over the earth--so say,
+at least, the Leeds anti-corn-law sages. Loads of linens, as Marshall
+proclaims, are sinking his mammoth mills; not to lengthen the lamentable
+list with the sorrows of silks, of cutlery, crockery, and all other
+commodities, the created or impelled of the mighty steam power that by
+turns prospers and prostrates us. As the crowning point, the monster
+grievance of all, comes the cramming over-production of food,
+farinaceous and animal, under which the overfed stomach of the country
+is afflicted with nightmare, as we learn on the unimpeachable authority
+of that wisest and most infallible of all one-idea'd nostrummongers, the
+immortal Cobden himself.[I]
+
+Vast and overwhelming, however, as the ills which follow in the train of
+over producing power, in the world material and manufacturing, they sink
+into utter insignificance--for magnitude, they are as Highgate Hill to
+sky-enveloped Chimborazo of eternal snow--in comparison with that
+crowding crush, that prodigious overflow, of charlatanic genius, in the
+world physical and spiritual, which blocks up every highway and byway,
+swarms in every circle, roars in every market-place, or thunders in each
+senate of the realm. There is not one ill which flesh is heir to, which
+this race original cannot kill or cure. Whilst bleeding the patient to
+death, Sangrado like, and sacking the fees, they will greet him right
+courteously with _Viva V. milanos_--live a thousand years, and not one
+less of the allotted number. Whilst drenching the body politic with
+Reform purge, or, with slashing tomahawk, inflicting Repeal gashes, they
+bid the prostrate and panting state subject rejoice over the wondrous
+dispatch with which its parts can be dismembered, the arithmetical
+accuracy with which its financial plethora can be depleted. Eccentric in
+its motions and universal in its aspirations, for the genius of this age
+no conception is too mean, no subject too intricate, no enterprise too
+rash, no object too sacred. It will condescend with equal readiness upon
+torturing a pauper, fleecing the farmer, robbing a church, or
+undertaking "the command of the Channel fleet at a moment's notice."
+With Mr Secretary Chadwick, schooled in police courts, it will
+metamorphose workhouse asylums for the destitute into parish prisons,
+with "locks, bolts, and bars," for the safe keeping of unfortunate
+outcasts found guilty of the felony of pauperism. With Dr Kay
+Shuttleworth and the privy council, when the masses want bread, it will
+invite to the "whistle belly" feast of roaring in _andante_, or
+dissolving in _piano_, in full choral concert mobs at Exeter Hall; it
+will induct into the new gipsy jargon scheme of education at Norwood,
+where the scholar is introduced to the process of analysation before he
+has learned to read and almost to articulate; or the miserables
+initiated into the elements of the linear, the curve, and the
+perspective in drawing, whose eyeballs are glaring in quest of the
+perspective of a loaf. Oh! genius profound, and forecasting of privy
+council philanthropy and utilitarian wisdom; more exquisite of
+refinement than Nero, who only fiddled when Rome was blazing and
+wretches roasting, thou, with the wizen wand of Cockney Hullah charmed
+with Wilhem's incantations, canst teach piping voices how to stay
+craving stomachs; how Kay upon Jacotot may analytically demonstrate that
+fast and feasting are both but synonymes of one common termination, the
+difference squared by time alone, and meaning ten or threescore and ten
+as the case may be. Misery is but a mockery of language after all; for
+have I not heard it rampant with lungs, and hoarse with disciplined
+harmony in Exeter Hall, as Hullah cut capers with his tiny truncheon,
+with Royalty itself, heroic field-marshals, and grave ministers of
+state, in seeming ecstasy at the sleight of hand? Just as I have heard
+and seen in the _barracones_ of Bozal negroes for sale, when, at the
+crack of the black negro-driver's whip, and not unfrequent application
+of the lash, the flagging gang of exhausted slavery has ever and again
+set up that chant of revelry, run mad, and danced that dance of
+desperation, which was to persuade the atrocious dealers in human flesh
+how sound of wind and limb they were, and the bystanders how happy.
+
+Think not that charlatanic genius rests content with triumphs even so
+transcendent as these. It disports itself also in "self-supporting"
+colonization; it runs riot in the ruin of "penny-postage;" it would be
+gloriously self-suicidal in abolition of corn-laws and free trade. Nay,
+as--
+
+    "Great genius to great madness is allied."
+
+the genius of these days looks even to St Luke's, like Oxford, as a
+berth in _dernier ressort_, where a sinecurist may enjoy bed and board
+at the cost of the state, and as a fair _honorario_ for the trouble of
+concocting a new scheme for raising the wind, or getting a living. The
+time may come, and sooth to say, seems drawing near, when Gibbon
+Wakefield, seated on the woolsack, shall be charged specially with the
+guardianship of all the fair wards in Chancery. Wo to infant heiress
+kidnappers, when a chancellor, more experienced than Rhadamanthus, more
+sanguineous than Draco, shall have the care of the innocent fold, and
+come to deal with abduction! In womanly lore, his practice and
+experience are undoubted; for has he not had the active superintendence,
+and the arduous task, of transportation of all the womankind, virgin,
+and matronly as well, exported to New Zealand on account, with other
+goods and chattels, of that moral corporation, the New Zealand trading
+and emigration company, which so liberally salaries him with L.600 per
+annum for the use of his "principle?" Again, who so fitted as the
+renowned Rowland Hill, the very prig pragmatic of pretension, for the
+post of Chancellor of the Exchequer, or First Lord of the Treasury if
+you will? A man who could contrive a scheme for annihilating some two
+millions of post-office revenue at one stroke, must be qualified beyond
+all other pretenders for dealing with a bankrupt treasury; for upon the
+homoeopathic principle, the physic which kills is that alone which
+should cure. The scientific discovery, indeed, is not of the modern date
+exactly which is assumed; for the poet of ancient Greece, his "eyes in a
+fine frenzy rolling," must have had homoeopathy in view when he sang--
+
+    "So Telephus, renown'd of yore, can tell
+    How cured the fatal spear by which he fell."
+
+The disinterestedness of Rowland (not he of Roncesvalles, nor even of
+the honest Macassar oil) need not be doubted, because he claims a large
+reward for a penny-post scheme, ruinous as it is, utterly unavailable
+and impracticable, even if as excellent as notoriously prejudicial, but
+for the really ingenious discovery of the pre-paying stamp system, by a
+party preferring no title to remuneration, and through which alone,
+unfortunately, the pretentious project could be practically placed in
+operation.
+
+Dismissing minor worthies, such as Benjamin Hawes, junior, of the
+Commission of Fine Arts, selected probably and appropriately from the
+consideration that home-produced _savonnerie_ may lead to clean ideas of
+taste, and who, in his own interest, would be a capital Commissioner of
+Excise; and Bowring, so well qualified to be chairman of a general board
+of Commissioner Tourists, from his multifarious practice--come we at
+last to Cobden, of corn and colonial fame, fiercely struggling with
+gaunt O'Connell himself for stentorian supremacy--
+
+    "Linguae centum sunt, oraque centum,
+    Ferrea vox."
+
+Cobden and the colonies! The conjunction is euphoniously alliterative at
+least, if not a consistent consequence; yet who more fit to perform at
+the funeral as the undertaker who alone has got the hearse and mules all
+ready for the job? Cobden, who has denounced--more still, has passed
+sentence upon--the colonies, should be the executioner. All hail,
+therefore, to the Right Hon. Alderman Richard Cobden, M.P., Secretary of
+State for the Colonial Department--worthy compeer of the Cabinet, where
+sit Lord Chancellor Gibbon Wakefield, and First Lord of the Treasury
+Rowland Hill! Rare will be the labours of the trio; the
+"self-supporting" supported on either hand by a destroying angel.
+
+In the prospective cabinet of _Charlatanerie_, composed _inter aliis_,
+moreover, in addition to the Haweses, the Bowrings, the Brights, the R.
+R. R. (why does not the man write the names out in full, as Raving,
+Roaring, Rory) O'Moores, there is, however, already a "split;" the
+members are each and all at sixes and sevens, for as each has his own
+sovereign conceit, so each would rule sovereign over the rest, and bear
+no rival near the throne. All would be kings, but not in turn. That
+powerful and sarcastic writer, Paul Louis Courier, depicts the same
+regiphobia as raging among the Parisian _Charlatanerie_ of his day; and
+with an anxious care for his own reputation and respectability, thus
+purges himself from contact or connexion with it:--"_Ce qui me distingue
+de mes contemporains et fait de moi un homme rare dans le siecle ou nous
+vivons, c'est que je ne veux pas etre roi, et que j'evite soigneusement
+tout ce qui pourrait me mener la._" Chadwick and Cobden are agreed upon
+pauperizing the whole kingdom; but the former insists upon keeping the
+paupers in bastiles, whilst the latter requires them in cotton
+manufactories; both are agreed upon the propriety of reducing the
+labouring classes to diet less of quantity and coarser of quality, by
+which the rates of wages are, and are to be, ground down: but Chadwick
+naturally insists, that to new poor-laws the post of honour should be
+assigned in the work of desolation; whilst Cobden, though acknowledging
+their efficient co-operation as a means to an end, and their priority as
+first in the field, fiercely contends for the greater aristocratical
+pretensions and more thoroughgoing operation of corn-law abolition. The
+Wakefield "self-supporting" colonial specific comes into collision,
+moreover, with Cobden's "perish all colonies." Kay Shuttleworth vaunts
+the superiority above all of his analytical schemes for training little
+children at Norwood to construe, for after age,--
+
+    "The days that we went gipsying a long time ago;"
+
+whilst Hullah simpers forth, in softest accents of Cockaigne, the
+superlative claim of choral shows in Exeter Hall--
+
+    "That roar again, it had a dying fall.
+    Oh! it came o'er my ear like the rude north,
+    That bursts upon a bank of violets."
+
+Bowring and Hume did, certes, pull together once in the matter of Greek
+scrip; but, _Arcades ambo_ no longer, the worthy doctor turned
+anti-slavery monger, whilst Joseph, more honest in the main, cares not
+two straws whether his sugar be slave-grown or free, excepting as to the
+greater cheapness of the one or the other. So also with Hawes, never yet
+pardoned by the financiering economist of "cheese parings and candle
+ends" for the splendid Thames tunnel job, and L200,000 of the public
+money at one fell swoop. These people range under the generic head
+_Charlatanerie_, as of the distinct species classified as _farceurs_
+according to the French nomenclature. For other species, and diversities
+of species, of a lower scale, but of capacity to ascend into the higher
+order with time and opportunity, the daily papers may be usefully
+consulted under the headings devoted to the "pill" specific
+line--_pildoras para en contrar perros_, as the Spanish _saynete_ has
+it.
+
+Happily the country need never despair of salvation, even should the
+cabinet prospective of _farceurs_ fall to pieces, for there yet remain
+two species of a genus taking higher rank in the social system; species
+that really have a root, a name, and pretensions hereditary or
+legitimately acquired. These each affect philosophy, and represent it
+too; they of the caste hereditary in _grande tenue,_ they of the new men
+with much pompous parade of words, and all the Delphic mystics of the
+schools. They are none of your journeymen--your everyday spouters--in
+the Commons or common places. They exhibit only on state occasions,
+after solemn midnight preparation made; their intended movements are
+duly heralded beforehand; their approach announced with a flourish of
+trumpets. They carry on a vast wordy traffic in "great principles;" they
+condescend upon nothing less than the overthrow or manufacture of
+"constitutions"--in talk. The big swagger about "great principles"
+eventuates, however, in denouncing by speech from the throne repeal as
+high treason, and O'Connell the repealer as a traitor to the state; and
+next, with cap in hand, and most mendicant meanness, supplicating the
+said traitor--denounced--repealing O'Connell, to deign acceptance of one
+of the highest offices in the realm. Their practice in the
+"constitution" line consists in annihilating rotten borough A because it
+is Tory; in conserving rotten borough B because it is Whig. The grand
+characteristic of each species is--_vox et preterea nihil._ Need I
+further proclaim them and their titles? In the order of Parisian
+organization they stand as _faiseurs_ and _phraseurs._ You can make no
+mistake about the personality ranged under each banner; they are as
+perfectly distinguishable each from the other, though even knit in close
+and indissoluble alliance, as Grand Crosses of the Bath from Knights of
+the Garter. At the head of the _faiseurs_ you have Lord John Russell,
+Lord Viscount Palmerston, and Lord Viscount Howick. You have only to see
+them rise in the House of Commons--Lord John, to wit--
+
+    "Pride in his port, defiance in his eye"--
+
+to be led into the belief that
+
+    --"Now is the day
+    Big with the fate of Cato and of Rome."
+
+The physical swell of conscious consequence--the eye-distended "wide
+awake" insinuation of the inconceivable, unutterable things--the grand
+sentiments about to be outpoured--hold you in silent wonderment and
+expectation. You conceive nothing less, than either that the world is
+about to come to an end, or the _millennium_ declared to be the "order
+of the day." You imagine that the orator will lose self and party
+in his country. Nothing of all this follows, however. You
+have some common-places, perhaps common truisms, some undefined,
+mean-all-or-nothing, declamation about "constitution" and "principles,"
+by way of exordium; for the rest, Rome is sunk as if it existed not,
+down to the peroration it is all about Cato himself, and his little Whig
+party about him.
+
+    --"Parturiunt montes,
+    Nascitur ridiculus mus."
+
+Chief of the _phraseurs_ stand Mr Babington Macaulay and Mr Lalor Shiel,
+the peculiarity of whose craft--a profitable craft of late
+years--consists in furbishing up old ideas into new and euphonious forms
+of speech. Of the one it may be said, that
+
+    --"He could not ope
+    His mouth, but out there flew a trope."
+
+The other more finished leader of the class mystifies you with
+metaphysics, half conned and unmastered by himself--more anxious still
+to make his points than to please his party; and, of the two, would
+rather sink his country than his climax. He is a rhetorician, a dealer
+in set phraseology, an ingenious gatherer and polisher of "other men's
+stuff." Of the _faiseurs,_ may be repeated what Marshal Marmont, in his
+_Voyage en Hongrie, en Transylvanie,_ &c., says of the _faiseurs_ of
+Paris--"_Subjugues par le gout et cette manie d'uniformite absolue, qui
+est la maladie de l'epoque, et qui resulte de principes abstraits, dont
+l'application est presque toujours funeste aux peuples qui l'eprouvent,
+ils ignoraient combien il est dans la nature des choses et dans le bien
+des nations de modifier l'organization sociale suivant le temps, les
+lieux, suivant le plus on moins grana degre de civilization, et d'apres
+mille circonstances, qui ne peuvent etre prevues d'avance, mais que le
+legislateur capable apprecie au moment ou il est appele a fonder la
+societe."_ On the cession of the Illyrian provinces, by Austria, after
+the battle of Wagram, the _faiseurs_, or abstract principle men, of
+Paris, were prompt with their plans, not for "constitutions"--Bonaparte
+had put an end to that branch of their _metier_--but for reorganizing
+the laws, administration, &c., of Transylvania _de fond en comble_,
+without knowing any thing of the people or country, without having seen
+either the one or the other. Marmont, appointed governor of the ceded
+provinces, who had studied on the spot the institutions established by
+Austria, found these so perfect and well adapted to the genius and
+inclination of the population, and the purposes of government, that he
+opposed the _faiseurs_ with success, and, by his representations,
+induced Bonaparte to confirm and act upon what existed.
+
+This immense agglomeration, this monstrous over-production of the tribes
+of _farceurs_, _faiseurs_, and _phraseurs_ is a misfortune of the first
+magnitude--a pest worse than that of the locusts which lay waste the
+land of Egypt, as here the substance of the people is devoured.
+Conflagrations may, and do, occasionally diminish the number of
+cotton-mills, and lighten the warehoused accumulation of cottons, or
+other inert matter; but no lucky plague, pestilence, or cholera, comes
+to thin the crowded phalanx, and rid this empire of some portion of the
+interminable brood of mongers of all shapes and sizes. As Horace says--
+
+    "'Tis hard, but patience must endure
+    And bear the woes it cannot cure."
+
+And now, leaving this discursive preliminary sketch, the length of which
+was unpremeditated, of the leading influences which are fast hurrying to
+social disorganization, it is time that once more we stand face to face
+with the one disorganizing doctrine of _one-sided free trade_; with the
+banner on which the _phraseurs_ and _farceurs_ have inscribed the
+cabalistic devices, in flaming characters--"Leave the imports alone, the
+exports will take care of themselves;" and, "A fixed duty is a fixed
+injustice." One might be tempted to believe the first borrowed from the
+armorial bearings of Lord Huntingtower's "bill" friends, whose motto is,
+or should be--"Leave the fools alone, and the knaves will take care of
+themselves;" the second is clearly no better than a petty-larceny
+paraphrase of Newgate felony, in whose code of duties it stands decreed,
+from all time, that "a fixed law is a fixed despotism."
+
+The history of industry and commerce in every country, from the most
+ancient down to modern times, gives the lie to these pertly pretending
+truisms; for there is scarcely one branch of manufacture to be named
+which does not owe its rise, progress, and perfection, to the protective
+or financial, or both combined, control exercised over imports. If we
+look at home only, where, we ask, would the woollen manufacture be now,
+but for the early laws restrictive of the importation of foreign
+woollens, nay more, restrictive of the export of British fleeces with
+which the manufactories of Belgium were alimented? Where the cotton
+trade, even with all Arkwright and Crompton's inventions of mule and
+throstle frames, and the steam-engine wonders of Watt, but for the
+importation tax of 87 per cent with which the cotton manufactures of
+India were weighted and finally crushed? Where the British iron mines
+and the iron trade, now so pre-eminent over all the world, but for the
+heavy import duties with which the iron of Swedish, Russian, or other
+foreign origin was loaded? And so also, may it be asked, in respect to
+almost all industry and production. If, as contended, the woollen,
+cotton, and iron industries would not only have been created, but much
+more largely have flourished, without the aids and appliances of
+friendly tariffs, the one-sided free traders are, at least, bound to
+something more potential than mere assertion and idle declamation in
+support of the vague allegation. They have the evidence of facts patent
+and abundant to confront and gainsay them; they shall have more; but is
+there to be no reciprocation of facts counter? Is the evidence and the
+argument to remain all on one side, and on the other nothing but wordy
+nothingness--
+
+          "Dat inania verba,
+    Dat sine mente sonum."
+
+Where are the unknown lands of factories and furnaces, of puddling and
+power looms, of steam-engines and blowing machines, all self-created and
+"self-supporting," scorning the crutches of patronage, and high-mounted
+on the stilts of free, or one-sided free trade? Either they exist in the
+shape of matter tangible and substantial; or they exist not except as
+_chateaux en Espagne_ are dreamt of, or as bubbles blown and chased by
+idle urchins--modern philosophers in petticoats. This bubble-blowing has
+been, indeed, converted into something of a mine of industry of late
+years, most successfully _exploite_ by all the _chevaliers d'industrie_
+of the race of _farceurs_ before referred to. Let us not forget,
+however, that one of the most indefatigable of the class, after various
+and many voyages by sea, and travels by land, in quest of the
+picturesque in political economy, did, indeed--or says so, and has
+compiled a book to prove it--light on this long-sought, never-before
+discovered land, in whose Arcadian bowers sits enthroned the very genius
+of trade, free and unfettered as the eagle in his eyry on the crowning
+crest of St Gotthard. Would you know this thrice-blest region--"Go climb
+the Alps," as the Roman satirist bids--it is Switzerland snugly
+ensconced in their bosom.
+
+Nevertheless, before the title of Switzerland Felix be fully conceded,
+the legitimacy of its derivation remains to be investigated. The
+concession can only be registered upon three conditions fulfilled. It
+must be shown, _firstly_, that manufacturing industry was not fostered
+in its early stages by the governing power; _secondly_, that if it had
+attained a large development unprotected, the proportions of such
+development shall have been at the least equal, as upon the theory of
+free trade they should be superior, to the ratio of progression
+manifested in other countries where protection has been the ruling
+principle; _thirdly_, that free trade was not a necessity imposed by
+circumstances and position, not the result of a barter of value for
+value, but of free and spontaneous choice, and as the result of the
+profound conviction of the superior excellency and adaptability of the
+abstract principle. We shall deal briefly with the subject, because it
+has been discussed more at length heretofore in those special articles
+in which we have treated of the rise and progress of the cotton
+manufacture in this and other countries. In regard to the first
+condition, it was established on a former occasion, that the ruling
+powers of one or more of the Cantons, did advance large capitals, and
+offered more, in order to encourage and assist in the establishment of
+cotton-spinning mills, with machinery of the most perfect construction,
+under the superintendence, and with a share in the profits, of persons
+duly skilled from England. Happily, one of the individuals to whom such
+offers (on the basis of a L100,000 capital) were made, and by whom
+declined, then and subsequently one of the largest exporting merchants
+of Lancashire to Switzerland, and the Continent generally, still lives,
+and we have had the statement confirmed by himself within the last two
+or three years. This was somewhere between 1795 and 1800, further our
+memory does not serve for the precise date at present, nor is it
+indispensable. A manufacture thus, as may be said, artificially created
+and bolstered up, we do not say unwisely, does not assuredly answer the
+first condition required. With respect to the measure of the
+manufacturing development, the data are unfortunately wanting for
+precise verification; for Switzerland possesses no returns of foreign
+trade at all, nor can any satisfactory approximation be arrived at from
+inspection of the official tables of the foreign and transit commerce
+now before us of Holland, Belgium, and France, through which all the
+transmarine intercourse of Switzerland must necessarily pass. The
+exports and imports of Holland, by the Rhine, are not so classed as to
+show what proportion appertains to Germany and what to Switzerland, as
+both stand under the one head of Germany and the Rhine. In the Belgian
+tables, Switzerland does not enter at all until 1841, therefore they can
+afford no materials for the comparison with former years. From the
+French tables, more scientifically constructed, correct information may
+be gathered, so far as the commerce with and through France. But we are
+wanting nearly altogether in materials for estimating the land traffic
+of Switzerland with Germany and Italy. Taking the French tables alone,
+it may be collected, however, that the commerce of Switzerland has been
+considerably on the increase with and through France. In the cotton
+trade, for example, the imports of raw cotton in transit through Havre,
+for Switzerland, had already augmented from 2,973,159 kilogrammes in
+1830, to 6,446,703 kilogrammes in 1836; and again, from the latter term,
+to 104,842 metrical quintals in 1840, which declined to 77,534 in 1841.
+Our returns do not enable us to state with exactitude whether the whole,
+or what portion, of the transit of cotton for the two latter years was
+destined for Switzerland, because our French tables do not, as up to
+1836, embrace the details of the separate transit trade to each country,
+but only the total quantities. The increase of imports by way of France
+must not, however, be taken to all the extent as an absolute increase,
+nor can we conclude, with any assurance, that it was an increase upon
+the whole. For, in consequence of some important reductions in the dues
+agreed to by France in order to favour and attract the entire transit
+trade of Switzerland through its territory, the cottons formerly passed
+to Switzerland through Rotterdam and Antwerp by the Rhine, have been
+sent by way of Havre. Thus, on consulting Mr Porter's Tables of Trade,
+we find that the twenty-one millions of lbs. of cotton re-exported to
+Holland and Belgium in 1837, had decreased, in 1840, to little more than
+twelve millions. What proportion of the twenty-one millions was destined
+for Switzerland, there are no means of ascertaining, except from the
+returns in detail of the Rhine navigation, the existence of which, in
+any available shape, may be doubted. Assuming that the whole of the
+cotton passing in transit through France was for Switzerland, we find a
+quantity equal to about seventeen millions of pounds, in 1841, as
+required for the supply of the cotton manufacture; or say, on a rough
+average of 1840 and 1841, nineteen and a half millions of pounds. Now,
+considering that the cotton manufacture has been established in
+Switzerland above a century, these figures certainly demonstrate any
+thing but an extraordinary rate of progress. The cotton manufacture of
+Russia does not number half the years of existence, and yet the average
+consumption of raw cotton, in 1840 and 1841, was nearly thirteen
+millions of pounds, and of cotton yarn, rendered into cotton,[J] about
+twenty-three millions more. It must be noted, moreover, that whereas
+subsequently to the inventions of Arkwright and Crompton, Switzerland
+drew nearly the whole of her yarns for making into cloths from England,
+not possessing herself any spinning machinery until the commencement of
+the present century, and then but to a trivial extent, with scarcely any
+augmentation of importance, until some years after the general peace of
+1815; yet that, within the last twenty years, the use of machinery has
+been extensively introduced, cotton factories have spread on all sides,
+for working which water-power in abundance afforded every facility, so
+that she now spins nearly all the yarns necessary for her fabrics, and
+imports from England but a very slender quantity of the higher counts
+still required for her finest muslins. Those imports do not perhaps
+exceed, if they reach to, one million pounds per annum. Of many
+merchants in Manchester, thirty or forty years ago, extensively engaged
+in furnishing that supply, but one or two at present are to be found. It
+remains, therefore, doubtful whether there has been any material
+progress in the cotton manufactures of Switzerland, so far as the
+quantities of fabrics produced, and the weight of cotton consumed, for
+many years past. Through the commercial arrangements before referred to,
+her special trade with France in all commodities has been on the
+increase; but, as the usual result of the commercial treaties of France,
+all to the advantage of France. Thus, for 1841, the imports (special
+trade of internal consumption) of France from Switzerland are stated at
+twenty-two millions of francs only, whilst the exports of France to
+Switzerland amounted to thirty-nine millions. This, be it observed, is
+the result of _one-sided free trade_, which opens its gates to all,
+whilst partially favoured only in return, when at all. Switzerland, for
+example, is free to the import of French cottons; France hermetically
+sealed against those of Switzerland. The general trade, that is,
+inclusive of transit and special, had also materially improved; the
+aggregate imports representing eighty-three millions of imports into,
+against eighty-nine millions of exports from Switzerland; or that the
+general trade with France had rather more than doubled since 1832,
+imports and exports together. The transit portion of this general trade,
+representing all the transmarine movement of Switzerland, is that
+rather, it may be said, carried on with the United States Spanish
+America, Brazil, &c., in which the greatest improvement of her foreign
+trade had taken place. She has, on the contrary, very largely lost
+ground in Germany, where she enjoyed marts for her manufactures, before
+the establishment of the Commercial Union, of an extensive and
+profitable description, from the advantages of her geographical
+position; and it is probable, that from the same cause she will have
+lost no inconsiderable portion of the share her merchants had in the
+supply of Turkey, Persia, and other countries on the shores of the
+Mediterranean and the Black Sea. With Holland and Belgium, her
+commercial relations would seem to have been sensibly on the decline, so
+far as the returns, available and comparative, enable us to form an
+opinion. Upon a balance, therefore, of increase, upon one side, and
+decrease on the other, there is reasonable ground to question any
+progress in Switzerland, at all commensurate with the general
+accelerated movement in manufactures and commerce of other industrial
+countries about her, and beyond the seas; in exemplification of which,
+we have on other occasions presented, as we shall continue to present,
+evidence which may not be questioned.
+
+Therefore, it results, that the second condition in proof of the
+superiority of the free, or one-sided free trade principle, as
+represented in Switzerland, the embodied _beau ideal_ of the theory, is
+not fulfilled. It were easy, indeed, to show the absurdity of a
+pretension to the rigorous reign of a principle, in a country where,
+though the federal government levies are merely nominal duties on
+imported commodities, for other than which it is and must ever be
+powerless, whatever the will, yet in the separate cantons or chief towns
+with barriers, scarcely any article enters and escapes without payment
+of an octroi impost, equal to a moderate state duty on importation at
+the ports or frontiers of other states. What would be said in this
+country, if wool, cotton, or any commodity entering free, or at merely
+nominal rates, at London or Liverpool, were to be taxed on arrival at
+Leeds or Manchester, for purposes of local revenue or local protection?
+
+We may afford to dismiss the third condition in the smallest space. Free
+trade in Switzerland, such as it is, is not an affair of principle, of
+conviction, therefore of choice, as ridiculously pretended, but a
+necessity arising out of her geographical position. On all sides she is
+surrounded _enclavee_, amidst states which hold the gates of ingress and
+egress. Close the Rhine and the Seine against her, and she must
+surrender commercially at discretion, as she politically does, to such
+terms as may be dictated. A heavy _peage_ upon river or land transit,
+ruins her manufactories, her industry, root and branch. She is too happy
+only, therefore, to be tolerated with a passage to the sea, on the hard
+terms of surrendering the just rights of her own industry to the free
+invasion of foreign competing products; she makes, _ex necessitate_, the
+sacrifice of a large portion, in order to save the remainder. Would you
+have the commentary? Read it in the miserable fare, the low wages, the
+toil unremitting and uncompensated, of the operative masses; in the
+depressed rate of profits, the strict, painful, but indispensable
+frugality of master manufacturers and capitalists, when perchance
+capitalists may be found, of Switzerland surnamed Felix, over-borne by
+foreign competition, as depicted in the Report of that romance writer,
+Mr John Bowring himself, who, of all men, in his own particular case,
+would be the last to advocate short commons, shabby salaries, or petty
+profits. Switzerland, therefore, answers none of the conditions required
+for the demonstration of the free trade theory upon the greatest profit,
+or even upon the greatest happiness principle, the _verba ardentia_ of
+anti-corn-law declaimers, and utilitarian poetasters, notwithstanding.
+But if the case of the free and one-sided trade theory breaks down in
+its one only deceptive personification, the proofs are strong and
+abundant in behalf the cause of the legitimate principle of protection
+to industry, or of the reciprocity principle well understood, which
+involves essentially the principle of protection. Let us discursively
+range over Europe, in further addition to the evidence, which, in
+respect of Russia, has already been assigned; and, as with regard to
+Spain, and Russia as well, we shall not hesitate to signalize the abuse
+of a righteous principle, where in practice it degenerates into the
+Japanese barbarism of almost absolute prohibition and isolation. A
+comparison betwixt Switzerland and Japan, two nearly stationary states,
+where all around is in progress in the industrial sense, ruled upon
+economical principles so opposite and conflicting, would be a labour
+both amusing and profitable; but unfortunately the adequate materials
+are wanting in the one case as in the other; state-books of account and
+custom-house returns, are as rare and unheard of in Nangasaki as in
+Helvetia. Fiscal exactions, however, are not unknown in either, the
+difference being, that the despotic majesty of Japan undertakes them
+upon his own account, whilst the people of the Alps, as intractable,
+with better right, impose and levy for their own use and behoof. Withal,
+to the one-idea'd philosophy of your absolute theory, systematic,
+uniformity men of the present day, it should seem an extraordinary
+paradox, putting all speculation to rout, that despotic Japan should be
+as prosperous, more powerful, more free from intestine convulsion,
+although more ancient of standing, therefore to be presumed enjoying at
+least as much happiness as free and unfettered Switzerland, rioting
+betimes in all the freaks of liberty and revolution.
+
+We do not propose to extend our enquiries into the history of industrial
+progress in other lands further on the present occasion, than to such
+external demonstrations, as measured by imports and exports, as may with
+most convenient brevity and fidelity answer the purpose in view. The
+possession of authentic documents in ample degree, expository of the
+past and present conditions of social and material interests in almost
+all the civilized states of the world, would enable us to follow out, in
+minute detail, the rise, the career, the vicissitudes of each; but
+although, on future and suitable occasions, we may be induced to resume
+and pursue the task already commenced in former numbers, it is not
+necessary now, and would far outstrip any possible space at our
+disposal. Commencing with Austria, it may be shown, that even with an
+ill-considered economical _regime_ of, until of late years, general
+prohibitions and restrictions, with the incessant and ill-judged policy
+of forcing manufacturing industry, for the hasty development of which
+the natural foundations were not previously laid, whilst neglecting the
+cultivation and encouragement of those varied agricultural and mining
+treasures, with which, through the length and breadth of her territory,
+she is so abundantly stored, the advance of Austria, commercial and
+manufacturing, need not assuredly fear comparison with that of
+free-trading Switzerland. The following are the returns of the foreign
+trade of the Austrian empire, excepting for Hungary and Transylvania,
+which will be found hereafter for the years cited. Other documents are
+in our possession, bringing the information down to 1840, but as not
+entirely complete in respect of a portion of the traffic by the land
+frontiers, whilst in results they differ little from the last year of
+the table here given, it is not worth while to make the addition.
+
+                   Imports.                 Exports.          Total.
+1829 By sea & land 95,321,861 florins.   107,254,048     202,575,909
+1830      ...      99,545,289    ...     110,587,974     210,133 263
+1831      ...      94,116,471    ...      98,937,022     193,053,493
+1832      ...     107,825,991    ...     115,007,352     222,833,343
+1833      ...     106,270,012    ...     116,624,202     222,894,214
+1834      ...     107,781,409    ...     111,092,942     218,874,351
+1835      ...     121,482,876    ...     115,217,804     236,700,680
+1836      ...     130,865,339    ...     122,284,173     253,149,512
+1837      ...     120,897,761    ...     119,721,758     240,619,519
+1838      ...     127,445,295    ...     134,908,064     262,353,359
+
+The florin is equal to 2s. 0d. 4-10 sterling. The increase under the
+head of importations within the ten years was equal, therefore, to
+nearly 33 per cent, and on exportations about 24 per cent. Amongst the
+imports may be remarked raw cotton to the value of about L.1,273,000;
+among the exports, raw silk, for about L.2,400,000; linens, for about
+L.770,000; woollens, for L.2,268,000; glass and earthen-ware, L.584,000;
+round numbers all. A mean value, imports and exports together, from 1835
+to 1838 inclusive, of about twenty-five millions sterling annually, does
+not certainly represent a commercial movement so large as might be
+expected in an empire of the territorial extent, numerous population,
+and rich natural products of Austria. But, as appears, its progression
+is onwards; and seeing that, in 1836, she entered on the laudable
+undertaking of revising and reforming her prohibitory and restrictive
+system; that, in 1838, another not inconsiderable step in advance was
+taken by further relaxations of the tariff; and that she is at the
+present moment occupied with, and may shortly announce, fiscal
+improvements and tariff reductions of a more wisely liberal spirit
+still, it is not to be doubted that, with the accompanying extension of
+agricultural and mining industry, Austria is destined to take a much
+higher rank in the commercial world than she has yet attained.
+
+The values of the external relations of Hungary and Transylvania with
+foreign nations direct, are of little importance. The bulk of the
+traffic with them doubtless passes through the Austrian dominions,
+properly so called. Thus their joint foreign traffic direct, was in--
+
+    1830, no more than 14,000,000 florins
+    1834, decreased to 11,511,000   ...
+    1837,      ...     12,616,000   ...
+
+The imports, only once, in 1836, surpassed those of 1830, within the
+eight years. The foreign exports were, in
+
+    1830, to the amount of         ...        9,574,800 florins.
+    1837, the yearly amount had increased to 11,213,400   ...
+
+But the commercial relations of Hungary and Transylvania, with the other
+provinces of the Austrian monarchy, were, on the contrary,
+satisfactorily extending. The returns before us, never before published
+here, it is believed, do not date further back than 1835, and exhibit
+the following results:--
+
+                                  Florins.                     Florins.
+    1835, Imports from Austria,  79,678,051    Exports to,    46,408,290
+    1836,          ...           96,057,019       ...         53,876,115
+    1837,          ...           90,404,555       ...         47,878,424
+    1838,          ...          101,396,470       ...         61,684,111
+
+The value of manufactured cottons alone, imported from the other
+Austrian provinces, amounted, in 1838, to the almost incredible sum of
+sixty-four millions of florins, or say not far short of six and a half
+millions sterling; of woollens, the import was nearly to the value of
+eighteen millions of florins. It is difficult to conceive that such a
+mass of cottons could be destined for internal consumption alone; and
+therefore the suggestion naturally occurs, that a considerable portion
+at least must pass only in transit to the ports for re-exportation to
+the coasts of the Black Sea and the Levant; but on reference to the
+exports, we find cottons entered only for 31,296 florins. The
+proportions in which the different leading articles of importation and
+exportation enter into the total amounts of each may be thus stated:--
+
+                   Imports
+    Cottons for                62 per cent.
+    Woollens,                  17    ...
+    Linen and hempen fabrics,  4�7   ...
+    Silks,                     1�7
+
+                    Exports
+    Wool for                   45.6 per cent.
+    Grains and fruits,         19     ...
+    Cattle,                    12     ...
+    Various raw products,     5�7     ...
+
+The great bulk of this commerce with Hungary and Transylvania is carried
+on with the three great provinces of the empire--Lower Austria, which
+alone absorbs about two-thirds of the total; Moravia and Austrian
+Silesia, one-fourth; and Gallicia and Austrian Poland, the imports from
+whence represent above one-tenth, and the exports to which form
+one-twentieth of the whole.
+
+Such has been the progress of the Austrian empire even under the
+unwisely strained _regime_ of prohibition and restriction. The absolute
+theory men will not gain much certainly by its comparison with the free
+trading elysium of Switzerland, although the most favourable for the
+latter which could well be selected, inasmuch as representing a
+principle carried to a prejudicial extreme.
+
+We have not, however, done with our absolutists of the one-sided
+free-trade theory yet. We must traverse Belgium with them, but at
+railway speed; Belgium, of commercial system less restricted than
+Austria, yet more exclusive than England, where, however, some approach
+towards the _juste milieu_ of the equitable principles of reciprocity,
+may be observed in progress. How then has she fared in the general
+_melee_ of industrial strife, and what are her prospects for the future
+in despite of her stubborn resistance to the new lights? Let the figures
+which follow answer for her. The imports and exports by land and sea,
+were in--
+
+                    Imports.                 Exports.
+    1834, for    192,909,426 francs.      135,790,426 francs.
+    1838, ...    238,052,659   ...        193,579,520   ...
+    1842, ...    288,387,663   ...        201,970,588   ...
+
+For commerce special, that is, of internal production and consumption
+alone, the returns show, in--
+
+
+                    Imports.                 Exports.
+    1834, for    182,057,851 francs.      118,540,917 francs.
+    1838, ...    201,204,381   ...        156,851,054   ...
+    1842, ...    234,247,281   ...        142,069,162   ...
+
+The commerce general comprises as well the imports and exports of the
+special commerce as the transit and deliveries in entrepot of foreign
+merchandise. From 1834 to 1842 the increase of imports and exports,
+combined under the special head, was equal to more than three millions
+sterling. Under the general head, the increase was nearly equal to six
+and a half millions sterling. The comparatively large and
+disadvantageous inequality betwixt the exports and imports, under both
+heads, results mainly from the loss of those markets in the Dutch
+colonies, and in Holland also, of which, during her connexion with
+Holland and under the rule of the same sovereign, Belgium was almost
+exclusively in possession. The formation of the German Commercial Union
+cannot have failed also to damage her intercourse with Germany, to the
+markets of which her contiguity afforded so easy and advantageous an
+access.
+
+It was our intention to have reviewed at some length the progress of the
+German Customs Confederation since its complete formation, with some
+inconsiderable accessions subsequently in 1834; but space forbids. In
+brief, but conclusive, evidence of that progress under the rule of
+protection, we may afford, however, to cite the following returns of
+revenue accruing under the poundage system, representing, of course, the
+growing quantities imported. The alternate years only are given, to
+avoid the needless multiplication of figures:--
+
+              Gross sum.                Net sum.
+    1834,    14,382,066 Thalers.      12,020,340 Thalers.
+    1836,    18,192,313   ...         15,509,758   ...
+    1838,    20,110,404   ...         17,801,113   ...
+    1840,    21,293,232   ...         19,019,738   ...
+    1842,    23,394,831   ...         21,059,441   ...
+
+    The Prussian thaler is 2s. 10-3/4d. sterling.
+
+Year by year the rise has been uninterrupted; and with the growth of
+imported commodities thus represented by the revenue, have indigenous
+products multiplied, and native manufactures flourished and extended
+more rapidly and widely still.
+
+In a review of protected nations it is impossible that France should be
+lost sight of. More rigorously protective than Belgium, prohibitive even
+in some essential parts of her system, whilst stimulating by bounties in
+others, the results of a policy so artificial and complicated can hardly
+fail to confound your dabblers in first principles and rigid uniformity.
+In the sense economical France has not hesitated to violate outrageously
+all these first principles, all that perfect theory, in the worship and
+application of which, politically and socially, her philosophers were
+wont to run raging mad, and her legislators, like frantic bacchanals,
+were in such sanguinary "haste to destroy." Singular as it may seem, and
+audaciously heretical as the consummation in defiance of the order
+inevitable of first causes and consequences invariable, the comparative
+freedom of commercial principles in the old _regime_ of France allied
+with political despotism, was, however, ruthlessly condemned to the
+guillotine, along with the head of the Capets, never to be replaced by
+the ferocious spirit of democracy, revelling in the realization of all
+other visionary abstractions of perfect liberty, equality, levelling of
+distinctions and monopolies. With the reign of the rights of man was
+established, in the body politic, that of prohibition and restriction
+over the body industrial--gradually sobered down, as we find it now, to
+a system singularly made up of prohibition, restriction, protective, and
+stimulant, since the last great revolution of July. It is in vain to
+deny that, under the reign of that system, France has prospered and
+progressed beyond all former example; that whether freer Switzerland may
+have stood still or not, France, at least, has never retrograded one
+step, nor ceased to advance for one year, as thus may be concisely
+exemplified in the citation of three terms of her commercial career,
+faithfully indicative of the annual consecutive movement of the whole
+series:--
+
+           Imports.--General Commerce,        Exports.
+    1831        512,825,551 francs,         618,169,911
+    1836        905,575,359   ...           961,284,756
+    1841      1,122,000,000   ...         1,065,000,000
+
+Thus the imports in ten years had more than doubled, whilst the exports
+had advanced 400 millions in official value; say upwards of twenty
+millions sterling per annum for imports, and sixteen millions for
+exports. The special commerce of France, representing exports of
+indigenous and manufactured products, and imports for consumption, and,
+therefore, significative of the march of domestic industry, presents the
+following movement:--
+
+            Imports.--Special Commerce.       Exports.
+    1831             374,188,000            455,574,000
+    1836             504,391,000            628,957,000
+    1841             805,000,000            761,000,000
+
+The imports, therefore, for consumption, that is, duty paid upon and
+consumed, had multiplied twofold in the ten years; and the exports of
+the products of the soil and manufactures, at the rate of 300 millions
+of francs or twelve millions sterling.
+
+Thus flourish, wherever we turn our eyes, the interests of industry,
+where defended and encouraged by that protection to which so righteously
+entitled at home. The abolition of all protection, in the economical
+sense, would be policy just as sane as, politically, to dismantle the
+royal navy, start the guns overboard, and leave the hulls of the
+men-of-war to sink or swim, in harbour or out, as they might. Conscious
+of the inherent rottenness or insanity of such a destructive principle
+of action, its advocates would now persuade us, that, although inimical
+to protective imposts, they are by no means averse from the imposition
+of such fiscal burdens as might be necessary for raising the amount of
+revenue required for State exigencies. The difference between one sort
+of impost and the other, would seem little more than a change of name--a
+flimsy juggle of words--"a rose by any other name would smell as sweet;"
+and, to the consumer, it matters little whether the tax he pay is levied
+for protection or finance, the sum being equal. It is, and it has been
+objected against various protective duties, that, as revenue, they are
+little productive; but, in fact, they were not originally or generally
+laid on with a view to revenue direct, but with the intent of protecting
+those growing or established interests, which are productive of revenue
+indirectly, by enabling protected producers to consume largely of taxed
+commodities, or to contribute, by direct taxation, their quota towards
+general revenue. If, by reciprocal agreement and stipulations with
+foreign states which are, or might become, consumers of the products of
+national industry, equitable equivalents can be found for the sacrifice
+of a certain amount of home protection, that may be a question deserving
+of consideration; but a very different question from the one-sided
+suicidal abolition of all protection. It may pass under review
+hereafter. In the mean time, let us hope that neither Government nor
+Legislature will be insidiously betrayed, or openly bullied, into any
+unsafe tampering with, or rash experiments upon, a sound and rational
+principle.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote I: See _Morning Chronicle's_ report of an anti-corn-law farce
+called by himself at Uxbridge or Aylesbury, or elsewhere, which is not
+important, as the fact is vouched for. In answer to a query from a
+worthy farmer, "to what cause he attributed the present depressed state
+of agriculture?" Cobden unhesitatingly replied, "to over-production."
+Cross-questioning of this kind would speedily prove the emptiness and
+ignorance of the man.]
+
+[Footnote J: _Vide_ Blackwood, 1843.]
+
+
+
+
+JOLLY FATHER JOE
+
+A TALE FROM "THE GOLDEN LEGEND," IN HONOUR OF THE B.V.M., TO BE READ
+ESPECIALLY ON THE 15TH OF AUGUST, BEING THE FESTIVAL OF HER ASSUMPTION.
+
+
+    In olden times, when monks and friars, and priests of all degrees,
+    About the land were cluster'd thick as swarms of summer bees,
+    And, like the bees on sunny days, were wont abroad to roam,
+    To gather, as they went along, sweet provender for home,
+
+    Bright blazed the abbey's kitchen fire, the larder well was stored,
+    And merrily the beards wagg'd round the refectorial board.
+    What layman dare declare that they led not a life divine,
+    Who sat in state to dine off plate, and quaff the rosy wine?
+
+    Good men, and true as bricks were they, to every Church decree;
+    Because as kings were called "The State,"[K] they said "the Church are we;"
+    And then all men believed "The Church" could pardon every sin;
+    And foul as was the outward stain, wash white the soul within.
+
+    No marvel that they prosper'd so, for then, as in our times,
+    Sins ever were most plentiful--their traffic was in crimes;
+    And as each man who pardon sought, became the Church's debtor,
+    Each wicked deed their store would feed, the worse it was the better.
+
+
+    For they'd a regular tariff, as we've Sir Robert Peel's,
+    Stating so much for him who "lies, swears, murders, stabs, or steals;"
+    And p'rhaps a thousand items more, as "not attending mass,"
+    "Ogling the girls," "neglecting shrift," and others we'll let pass.
+
+    However, all a duty paid for priestly absolution,
+    According to the culprit's sex, rank, purse, or constitution.
+    Such was the pleasant state of things, some centuries ago,
+    With holy men throughout the land and jolly Father Joe.
+
+    "A round, fat, oily man of God," as ever sang a psalm,
+    Or closed a penitential fee devoutly in his palm,
+    Was Father Joe; and he also, when psalms and prayers were done,
+    In festive scene, with smile serene, aye cheerfully made one.
+
+    Fond of a jest, he'd do his best good-humour to provoke,
+    Fill up his glass, extol some lass, and crack some convent joke;
+    Nor heed the frown or looks cast down of atrabilious friars,
+    Till his gills grew red, and his laughing head look'd a rose amid the briers.
+
+    Right well he knew each roast and stew, and chose the choicest dishes,
+    And the bill of fare, as well as prayer, with its venison, game, and fishes;
+    Were he living now he might, I vow, with his culinary knowledge,
+    Have writ a book, or been a cook, or fellow of a college.
+
+    In those old days the wealthy knew such qualities to prize,
+    And our good priest much favour found in lords' and ladies' eyes;
+    For seldom in their ancient halls a sumptuous feast was dressing,
+    But Father Joe that way would go thereon to "ask a blessing."
+
+    When lords and ladies bade their guests to castles, halls, and towers,
+    Though every thing beside was good they seldom kept good hours;
+    Course after course slow marshall'd in with dignity and state,
+    Their prime repasts were apt to last sometimes till rather late.
+
+    And Father Joe esteem'd it rude to break a party up,
+    Indeed, it was his usual plan, where'er he dined to sup;
+    And then to take what modern rakes sometimes "a nightcap" call--
+    That is, a friendly parting glass, a sort of "over-all."
+
+    He used to say it kept at bay the night-air, cold, and damp,
+    And cheer'd him on his journey home as though it were a lamp;
+    Nought cared he then how black the clouds might gather overhead,
+    His heart felt brave as he humm'd a stave and boldly onward sped.
+
+    So Father Joe his course pursued--a pleasant mode of living;
+    Alternately at prayers and feasts--now taking, now forgiving;
+    But dark or light, by day or night, the great thing to be said is,
+    Where'er he went he ne'er forgot due homage to the ladies.
+
+    By this it is not meant that he knelt down to living beauty--
+    A deed forbidden and eschew'd by priests who mind their duty;
+    His were not walking, breathing belles, to monkish rules contrary,
+    But images of wood and wax, dress'd like the Virgin Mary.
+
+    He seldom pass'd by one of these without a genuflexion,
+    Beseeching that she'd condescend to grant him her protection;
+    Or if in too much haste to pray, he always bow'd politely
+    Before her shrine, as heretics to damsels fair and sprightly.
+
+    But such a holy, jolly man could scarce escape the eye
+    Of Satan, who, if all be true that legends testify,
+    Was then allow'd great liberty, and took, of course, much more,
+    Playing his pranks among all ranks, till he was "quite a bore."
+
+    Go where one might, some ugly sprite of his long-tail'd police
+    Was ever on the dodge to break, instead of keep, the peace;
+    And he himself at times appears to have appear'd where he,
+    By rules canonical forbid, no business had to be.
+
+    Much he alarm'd the laity, while reverend men of grace,
+    Like Father Joe, we're told, might snap their fingers in his face,
+    Or order him to take a dip all in the sea so red;
+    Wherefore, when holy men he saw, he turn'd about and fled.
+
+    Yet not the less watch'd he their steps, but set his imps to mark
+    The paths they trode, in hopes to catch them stumbling in the dark;
+    And one dark night--ah me! it is a grievous tale to tell--
+    In coming home past twelve o'clock, our jolly father fell.
+
+    He fell--and fell into a stream that ran both deep and strong;
+    No pain felt he, but seem'd to be as borne in sleep along;
+    His head contused, or else confused, allow'd him not to swim,
+    And Satan swore, with joyous roar, "At least, I'm sure of him!"
+
+    Crowding along the river's banks, his imps all eager ran,
+    Each striving to be first to catch the fallen holy man;
+    And when at length they fish'd him up, and laid him on the ground,
+    'Twas plain an inquest's verdict must have been brought in "found drown'd."
+
+    But twelve grave men were not there then, the case was graver far;
+    An evil set, as black as jet, all gabble, grin, and jar,
+    Claim'd Father Joe as lawful prize, and Satan said, "No doubt!
+    Angels and saints abandon him, or they'd have pulled him out:
+
+    "So bear him off!" But as he spake a sudden gleam of light
+    Broke forth, nor ceased, but still increased, till all around was bright;
+    And then appear'd what most he fear'd, in white and wing'd array,
+    A company of angels come to take from him his prey.
+
+    "We claim all holy men," said one who seem'd to be their chief;
+    "I don't dispute that," Satan cried; "but really, to be brief,
+    This friar or monk died reeling drunk, without or shrift or prayer;
+    So yours can't be, but comes to me. I only want what's fair."
+
+    The bright one look'd, of course, surprised, and then observed, that he
+    Could not conceive nor yet believe that such a thing could be;
+    So Satan call'd his witnesses, who swore through thick and thin,
+    That Father Joe couldn't stand or go before he tumbled in.
+
+    Now though the angel knew that imps were never over nice
+    In swearing at their master's call to prop each foul device,
+    He felt perplex'd, because the case look'd really rather shady,
+    And so declared, "I daren't decide till I consult Our Lady."
+
+    While thus he spake, a sudden quake ran through the dingy crowd,
+    And, as in votive paintings seen, encircled by a cloud,
+    With 'broider'd coat and lace-frill'd throat, and jewels rich and rare,
+    The Virgin Queen, with smiles serene, came sailing through the air.
+
+    The angels with an "Ave!" hail'd the lady to the place,
+    The impish band, each with his hand conceal'd his ugly face,
+    And Satan stared as though ensnared, but speedily regain'd
+    His wonted air of confidence, and still his claim maintain'd.
+
+    Said he, "I'm sure your ladyship could never stoop to own
+    Acquaintance with a libertine, to drunkenness so prone;
+    A gormandizer too you see, as full as any sack,"
+    And here he gave poor Joe a kick, and turn'd him on his back.
+
+    The lady started with surprise, and cried, "That face I know:
+    Oh yes! 'Tis he! I plainly see! Dear jolly Father Joe!
+    I do not say but perhaps he may, be somewhat over fat,
+    But there's no rule why sage or fool should go to you for that.
+
+    "His appetite was always good, a fact that makes it clear
+    He was no heavy-headed sot, be-stupefied with beer,
+    Nor spoil'd his dinners with hot lunch, but kept his palate clean,
+    And sat down cheerfully to dine--and that's no sin, I ween.
+
+    "And as for drink, I really think a man who weighs twelve score,
+    May be allow'd an extra pint, or p'rhaps a bottle more,
+    Than folks who're slim, or gaunt and grim, like some that I could name,
+    Who, when in company, are wish'd safe back to whence they came."
+
+    Here the black prince was seen to wince, the lady waved her hand,
+    And then resumed, "But now I'll speak of what I understand
+    A trifle better than you all--I mean of what is due
+    To ladies from all gentlemen. Of course I don't mean you.
+
+    "I mean all those whom folks suppose, or who themselves believe,
+    To be entitled to the name, (although I oft perceive
+    That many are mistaken quite,) should keep on the alert
+    In ladies' company, lest they our tender feelings hurt.
+
+    "A word or look that men may brook, may give a lady pain,
+    Wherefore from all that's coarse and rude, real gentlemen refrain;
+    Their manners gentle as their name, when they a lady greet,
+    A pleasant thing enough it is such gentlemen to meet.
+
+    "And such a man was Father Joe. He never pass'd me by
+    In disrespectful haste, although there might be no one nigh;
+    Nor duck'd his head, or look'd askance, like some rude people now,
+    Who seem to chuckle as they pass, to cheat one of a bow."
+
+    "But may it please your ladyship!" exclaimed the dusky wight,
+    "A man may be a precious rogue, though perfectly polite."
+    "I don't know that," the lady said, "but grant that now and then
+    Some fellows may appear polite who really are rude men,
+
+    "'Tis not the simple smirk or bow that makes the gentleman,
+    But constant care to please the fair in every way he can;
+    And this good father never miss'd whene'er my shrine he pass'd,
+    To kneel or bow, extremely low, up to the very last.
+
+    "Therefore I don't, because I won't, believe a word you say
+    Against him in his present plight, which, happen how it may,
+    Was doubtless accidental quite--at all events my will
+    Must be obey'd, and I command, you'll let him lie there still."
+
+    The dark one scowl'd and mutter'd low, about "a losing game,"
+    And being "done clean out of one," "done brown," and "burning shame,"
+    Then hung his head, and slank away, and all his dirty crew
+    Dispersed themselves about the land fresh mischief to pursue.
+
+    The lady then, in accents kind, accosted Jolly Joe,
+    "They're gone! You're safe! Come! Rouse yourself! You are not dead, I know;
+    But in a swoon that very soon away like dreams will pass,
+    Much sooner than the cold you'll catch by sleeping on the grass.
+
+    "Go quickly home and get to bed--don't stop to thank me now,
+    But come to-morrow to my shrine and make a solemn vow,
+    That when for friends or fellowship henceforth abroad you roam,
+    You'll never take a drop more wine than you can carry home."
+
+    She spake and vanish'd, and again the night was dark and drear;
+    Joe gave a grunt and shook himself, then shook again with fear,
+    For though his body lay inert, to all appearance dead,
+    It seems his mind was quite awake to what pass'd overhead.
+
+    Such near escape from such a scrape was certainly enough
+    To shake the stoutest nerves, and his were not by nature tough;
+    He got upon his legs, and then went down upon his knees,
+    Gave thanks, and said, "Dear Lady, pray do with me what you please."
+
+    Then up he rose and shook his clothes, and dripping by the way,
+    Straight homeward sped, and went to bed, where long he sleepless lay;
+    But natheless at the peep of dawn rose up again alert,
+    And as beseem'd a penitent put on a hairy shirt.
+
+    With humble air he then repair'd unto the Lady's shrine,
+    And took the vow, as she advised, concerning taking wine;
+    And thenceforth, as the legend runs, was never after found
+    In such a plight as on the night when he was nearly drown'd.
+
+    Here ends the tale. May it prevail this moral to impress
+    On good men all, who're apt to fall at times into excess,
+    To seek the ladies' company when sins or wine entice,
+    And strive not only for their smiles, but follow their advice.
+
+    Now prosper long our lovely Queen, and Albert whom she loves;
+    And may they, though at eagles' height, live lovingly as doves,
+    From youthful prime till father Time may change their locks to gray,
+    While all their Royal progeny "love, honour, and obey!"
+
+    May peace long smile on Britain's isle! may Blackwood's Magazine,
+    If possible, be better still than it hath ever been;
+    May every thing that's good increase, and what to goodness tends;
+    And may the writer always have the ladies for his friends!
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote K: "L'Etat. C'est moi!" Quoth some French Roi; but which of
+the "most Christian" set it was, I do not now recollect, and being from
+home at this present writing, have no means of reference.]
+
+
+
+
+THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN.
+
+BY ELIZABETH B. BARRET.
+
+
+    Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers!
+      Ere the sorrow comes with years?
+    They are leaning their young heads against their mothers,
+      And _that_ cannot stop their tears.
+    The young lambs are bleating in the meadows,
+    The young birds are chirping in the nest,
+    The young fawns are playing with the shadows,
+    The young flowers are blowing from the west;
+    But the young young children, O my brothers!
+      They are weeping bitterly!
+    They are weeping in the playtime of the others--
+      In the country of the free.
+
+    Do you question the young children in the sorrow,
+      Why their tears are falling so?
+    The old man may weep for his to-morrow
+      Which is lost in long ago.
+    The old tree is leafless in the forest--
+    The old year is ending in the frost;
+    The old wound, if stricken, is the sorest--
+    The old hope is hardest to be lost!
+    But the young young children, O my brothers!
+      Do ye ask them why they stand
+    Weeping sore before the bosoms of their mothers,
+      In our happy fatherland?
+
+    They look up with their pale and sunken faces,
+      And their looks are sad to see;
+    For the man's grief untimely draws and presses
+      Down the cheeks of infancy.
+    "Your old earth," they say, "is very dreary--
+    Our young feet," they say, "are very weak!
+    Few paces have we taken, yet are weary--
+    Our grave-rest is very far to seek!
+    Ask the old why they weep, and not the children;
+      For the outside earth is cold--
+    And we young ones stand without, in our bewild'ring,
+      And the graves are for the old.
+
+    "True," say the young children, "it may happen
+      That we die before our time!
+    Little Alice died last year--the grave is shapen
+      Like a snowball, in the rime.
+    We look'd into the pit prepared to take her--
+    Was no room for any work in the close clay!
+    From the sleep wherein she lieth none will wake her,
+    Crying--'Get up, little Alice, it is day!'
+    If you listen by that grave in sun and shower,
+    With your ear down, little Alice never cries;
+    Could we see her face, be sure we should not know her,
+    For the new smile which has grown within her eyes.
+    For merry go her moments, lull'd and still'd in
+      The shroud, by the kirk-chime!
+    It is good when it happens," say the children,
+      "That we die before our time!"
+
+    Alas, the young children! they are seeking
+      Death in life, as best to have!
+    They are binding up their hearts away from breaking,
+      With a cerement from the grave.
+    Go out, children, from the mine and from the city--
+    Sing out, children, as the little thrushes do!
+    Pluck your handfuls of the meadow cowslips pretty--
+    Laugh aloud to feel your fingers let them through!
+    But the children say--"Are cowslips of the meadows
+      Like the weeds anear the mine?[L]
+    Leave us quiet in the dark of our coal-shadows,
+      From your pleasures fair and fine.
+
+    "For oh!" say the children, "we are weary--
+      And we cannot run or leap:
+    If we cared for any meadows, it were merely
+      To drop down in them and sleep.
+    Our knees tremble sorely in the stooping--
+    We fall upon our face, trying to go;
+    And underneath our heavy eyelids drooping,
+    The reddest flower would look as pale as snow.
+    For, all day, we drag our burden tiring,
+      Through the coal-dark underground--
+    Or, all day, we drive the wheels of iron
+      In the factories, round and round.
+
+    "All day long, the wheels are droning, turning--
+      Their wind comes in our faces!
+    Till our hearts turn, and our heads with pulses burning,
+      And the walls turn in their places!
+    Turns the sky in the high window blank and reeling--
+    Turns the long light that droppeth down the wall--
+    Turn the black flies that crawl along the ceiling--
+    All are turning all the day, and we with all!
+    All day long, the iron wheels are droning--
+      And sometimes we could pray--
+    'O ye wheels' (breaking off in a mad moaning)
+      Stop! be silent for to-day!'"
+
+    Ay! be silent! let them hear each other breathing,
+      For a moment, mouth to mouth;
+    Let them touch each other's hands, in a fresh wreathing
+      Of their tender human youth;
+    Let them feel that this cold metallic motion
+    Is not all the life God giveth them to use;
+    Let them prove their inward souls against the notion
+    That they live in you, or under you, O wheels!
+    Still, all day, the iron wheels go onward,
+      As if Fate in each were stark!
+    And the children's souls, which God is calling sunward,
+      Spin on blindly in the dark.
+
+
+    Now, tell the weary children, O my brothers!
+      That they look to Him, and pray
+    For the blessed One, who blesseth all the others,
+      To bless _them_ another day.
+    They answer, "Who is God that he should hear us,
+    While this rushing of the iron wheels is stirr'd?
+    When we sob aloud, the human creatures near us
+    Pass unhearing--at least, answer not a word;
+    And _we_ hear not (for the wheels in their resounding)
+      Strangers speaking at the door.
+    Is it likely God, with angels singing round him,
+      Hears our weeping any more?
+
+    "Two words, indeed, of praying we remember;
+      And, at midnight's hour of harm,
+    _Our Father_, looking upward in the chamber,
+      We say softly for a charm.[M]
+    We say no other words except _our Father!_
+    And we think that, in some pause of angels' song,
+    He may pluck them with the silence sweet to gather,
+    And hold both within his right hand, which is strong.
+    _Our Father!_ If he heard us, he would surely
+      (For they call him good and mild)
+    Answer--smiling down the steep world very purely--
+      'Come and rest with me, my child.'
+
+    "But no," say the children, weeping faster;
+      "He is silent as a stone,
+    And they tell us, of his image is the master
+      Who commands us to work on.
+    Go to!" say the children; "up in heaven,
+    Dark, wheel-like, turning clouds are all we find!
+    Do not mock us! we are atheists in our grieving--
+    We look up for HIM--but tears have made us blind."
+    Do ye hear the children weeping and disproving,
+      O my brothers, what ye teach?
+    For God's possible is taught by his world's loving--
+      And the children doubt of each!
+
+    And well may the children weep before ye--
+      They are weary ere they run!
+    They have never seen the sunshine, nor the glory
+      Which is brighter than the sun!
+    They know the grief of men, but not the wisdom--
+    They sink in the despair, with hope at calm--
+    Are slaves, without the liberty in christdom--
+    Are martyrs by the pang without the palm!
+    Are worn as if with age; yet unretrievingly
+      No joy of memory keep--
+    Are orphans of the earthly love and heavenly--
+      Let them weep--let them weep!
+
+    They look up with their pale and sunken faces,
+      And their look is dread to see;
+    For you think you see their angels in their places,
+      With eyes meant for Deity.
+    "How long," they say, "how long, O cruel nation!
+    Will you stand, to move the world, on a child's heart,
+    Trample down with a mail'd heel its palpitation,
+    And tread onward to your throne amid the mart?
+    Our blood splashes upward, O our tyrants!
+      And your purple shows your path--
+    But the child's sob curseth deeper in the silence,
+      Than the strong man in his wrath!"
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote L: A commissioner mentions the fact of weeds being thus
+confounded with the idea of flowers.]
+
+[Footnote M: The report of the commissioners represents instances of
+children, whose religious devotion is confined to the repetition of the
+two first words of the Lord's Prayer.]
+
+
+
+
+LETTER TO CHRISTOPHER NORTH, ESQ.
+
+
+RESPECTED CHRISTOPHER,
+
+As an appendage to the "_Whippiad_," so happily rescued from the fate
+designed for it by its author, to be embalmed in the never-dying pages
+of Maga, the following _jeu d'esprit_, connected with its hero, may not
+be unacceptable, especially as both productions were generally
+attributed to the same pen. A note on the line--
+
+    "And cuckoo mingle with the thoughts of Bell,"
+
+towards the end of the first canto, alludes to "a young lady of singular
+elegance and personal accomplishments," to whom Dr Toe's attentions were
+supposed not to have been unacceptable. This elegant and accomplished
+young lady, however, (a certain Miss Bell H----,) is said to have
+eventually jilted the Doctor, and married her footman; a circumstance
+which gave rise to the following stanzas:--
+
+    'Twixt footman John and Dr Toe
+      A rivalship befell,
+    Which of the two should be the Beau
+      To bear away the _Belle_!
+
+    The Footman won the Lady's heart,
+      And who can blame her?--No man.
+    The _whole_ prevail'd against the _part:_
+      'Twas _Foot_-man _versus Toe_-man.
+
+By the way, Christopher, your compositor has "misused the queen's press
+most damnably" in the quotation from Coriolanus prefixed to the second
+canto, where he converts the "Great _Toe_ of the Assembly" into its
+"Great _Foe_." Rap his knuckles with your crutch, old Gentleman; and
+tell him, too, that the "Shawstone's party" he speaks of was a very
+jolly _symposium_, given by a very hearty fellow of the name of
+"Rawstorne," whose _cognomen_ stands _sic in orig._
+
+    Thine ever.
+
+    My dear Christopher,
+
+    ERIGENA.
+
+    BRAZENOSE QUAD., _July_ 15, 1843.
+
+
+
+
+THE REPEAL AGITATION.
+
+
+No popularity does, or can exist which is not liable to collapses.
+Two-fold infirmity, alike for him who judges, and for him who suffers
+judgment, will not allow it to be otherwise. Sir Robert Peel, a minister
+more popular by his tenure of office than any whom this generation will
+perhaps again behold, has not been able to escape that ordinary trial of
+human prosperity. Suddenly a great cloud of public danger has gathered
+around him: upon every path there were seen to lie secret snares: no
+wisdom could make an election amongst them absolutely safe: he made that
+election which comparison of the cases and private information seemed to
+warrant: and immediately, of his own supporters many are offended. We
+believe it to be a truth, one amongst those new truths whose aspiring
+heads are even now rising above our horizon, that the office of first
+minister, either for France or England, is becoming rapidly more trying
+by the quality of its duties. We talk of energy: we invoke the memories
+of Pitt and of Chatham: "oh, for one hour," we exclaim, of those great
+_executive_ statesmen--who "trampled upon impossibilities," or glorified
+themselves in a "vigour beyond the law!" Looking backwards, we are
+right: in our gratitude we do not err. But those times are past. For Sir
+Robert Peel no similar course is open. Changes in the temper of the age,
+changes in the constitution of public bodies, absolute revolutions in
+the _kind_ of responsibilities by which a minister is now fettered,
+forbid us to imagine that any raptures of national sympathy will ever
+crowd forward to the support of extreme or summary measures, such as
+once might have been boldly employed. That style of aspiring action
+presumes some approach to unity in public opinion. But such unity we
+shall hardly witness again, were a hostile invader even landed on our
+shores.
+
+Meantime it will add weight to any thing we can offer in behalf of the
+Irish policy now formally avowed by Government, if we acknowledge
+ingenuously that for some weeks we ourselves shared in the doubts upon
+its wisdom, not timidly expressed by weighty Conservatives. We believe
+it, indeed, natural and honourable that the first movement of feeling
+upon cases such as those now proceeding in Ireland, should be one of
+mere summary indignation. Not that scurrility and the basest of
+personalities from Mr O'Connell are either novelties, or difficult to
+bear. To hear an old man, a man whose own approach to the period of
+physical decay, is the one great hope and consolation of all good
+subjects in Ireland, scoffing at grey hairs in the Duke of
+Wellington--calling, and permitting his creatures to call, by the name
+of "vagabonds" or "miscreants," the most eminent leaders of a sister
+nation, who are also the chosen servants of that mistress whom he
+professes to honour: this might have been shocking in any man who had
+not long since squandered his own ability to shock. As it is, these
+things move only laughter or silent disgust, according to the temper of
+readers. And we are sure that not merely the priests, or men of
+education amongst Mr O'Connell's followers, but even the peasantry, must
+in their hearts perceive how indispensable is a _general_ habit of
+self-restraint and abstinence from abusive language to the effect of any
+individual insult These were _not_ the causes of public indignation. Not
+what Mr O'Connell said, but what he did, kindled the general wrath. To
+see him marching and countermarching armies, to find him bandying
+menaces with the Government of this great nation, and proclaiming
+(openly or covertly) that he would not be the party to strike the first
+blow, but that assuredly he would strike the second--thinking it little
+to speak as a traitor, unless also he spoke as an European potentate;
+this was the spectacle before which the self-control of so many melted
+away, and which raised the clamour for vindictive justice. It quickened
+the irritation to know, that hostile foreigners were looking on with
+deep interest, and every where misinterpreting the true readings of the
+case. Weeks passed before we could thoroughly reconcile our own feelings
+to the passive toleration, or apparent apathy, of the Government. Our
+sense of prudence took the alarm, not less than our feelings. And
+finally, if both could have acquiesced, our sense of consistency was
+revolted by what met the public eye; since, if the weak were to be
+punished, why should the strong be connived at? Magistrates, to the
+amount of three score, had been dismissed for giving their countenance
+to the Repeal meetings; and yet the meetings themselves, which had
+furnished the very principle of the reproach, and the ground of
+punishment, were neither dispersed nor denounced.
+
+Rarely, however, in politics, has any man final occasion to repent of
+forbearance. There may be a tempest of provocation towards the policy of
+rigour; that policy may justify itself to the moral sense of men; modes
+even of prudence may be won over to sanction it; and yet, after all the
+largest spirit of civil prudence, such as all of us would approve in any
+historical case removed from the passions of the times, will suggest a
+much nobler promise of success through a steady adherence to the
+counsels of peace, than any which could attend the most efficient
+prosecution of a hostile intervention. The exceeding weight of the
+crisis has forced us into a closer comparison than usual of the
+consequences probably awaiting either course. Usually in such cases, we
+are content to abide the solutions of time; the rapid motion of events
+settling but too hastily all doubts, and dispensing with the trouble of
+investigation. Here, however, the coincidence of feelings, heavily
+mortified on our own part, with the serious remonstrances in the way of
+argument from journals friendly to Sir Robert Peel's government, would
+not suffer us to rest in the uneasy condition of dissatisfied suspense.
+We found ourselves almost coerced into pursuing the two rival policies,
+down to their separate issues; and the result has satisfied ourselves,
+that the minister is right. We shall make an effort for bringing over
+the reader to our own convictions. Sir Robert, we shall endeavour to
+show, has _not_ been deficient in proper energy; his forbearance, where
+it has been most conspicuous, is either absolute--in which case it will
+be found to justify itself, even at present, to the considerate--or it
+is but provisional, and waiting for contingencies--in which case it will
+soon unmask itself more terrifically than either friend or enemy,
+perhaps, anticipates.
+
+The Minster's defence is best pursued through the turns of his own
+admirable speech in the recent debates on the grievances of Ireland.
+But, previously, let us weigh for a moment Mr O'Connell's present
+position, and the chances that seem likely to have attended any attempt
+to deal with him by blank resistance. It had been always understood, by
+watchful politicians, that the Repeal agitation slumbered only until the
+reinstalment of a Conservative administration. The Whigs were
+notoriously in collusion at all times, more or less openly, with this
+"foul conspiracy:"[N] a crime which, in them, was trebly scandalous; for
+they it was, in times past, who had denounced the conspiracy to the
+nation as ruinous; in _that_ they were right: but they also it was, who
+had pointed out the leading conspirator as an individual to national
+indignation in a royal speech; and in _that_ they degraded, without a
+precedent, the majesty of that high state-document. Descending thus
+abjectly, as regarded the traitor, the Whigs were not unwilling to
+benefit by the treason. They did so. They adulterated with treason
+during their term of power: the compact being, that Mr O'Connell should
+guide for the Government their exercise of Irish patronage so long as he
+guaranteed to them an immunity from the distraction of Irish
+insubordination. When the Tories succeeded to power, this
+armistice--this treasonable capitulation with treason--of necessity fell
+to the ground; and once again Mr O'Connell prepared for war. _Cessante
+mercede cessat opera_. How he has conducted this war of late, we all
+know. And such being the brief history of its origin, embittered to him
+by the silent expression of defiance, unavoidably couched in any
+withdrawal of the guilty commerce, we all guess in what spirit he will
+wish to conduct it for the future. But _there_ presents itself the
+question of his ability--of his possible resources--for persevering in
+his one mode of hostility. He would continue his array of mobs, but
+_can_ he? We believe not. Already the hours of his sorceries are
+numbered: and now he stands in the situation of an officer on some
+forlorn outpost, before a superior enemy, and finding himself reduced to
+half a dozen rounds of ammunition. In such a situation, whatever
+countenance he may put on of alacrity and confidence, however rapidly he
+may affect to sustain his fire in the hope of duping his antagonist into
+a retreat, he cannot surmount or much delay the catastrophe which faces
+him. More and more reluctantly Mr O'Connell will tell off the few
+lingering counters on his beadroll: but at length comes the last; after
+which he is left absolutely without resources for keeping the agitation
+alive, or producing any effect whatever.
+
+Many fancy _not_. They suppose it possible that these parades or
+field-days may be repeated. But let us consider. Already it impresses a
+character of childishness on these gatherings of peasants; and it is a
+feeling which begins to resound throughout Ireland, that there is
+absolutely no business to be transacted--not even any forms to be gone
+through--and, therefore, no rational object by which such parades can be
+redeemed from mockery. Were there a petition to be subscribed, a vote to
+be taken, or any ostensible business to furnish an excuse for the
+meeting--once, but once only, in each district, it might avail. As it
+is, we have the old nursery case before us--
+
+    "The king of France march'd up the hill,
+    With twenty thousand men,"
+
+followed by his most Christian majesty's successful countermarch. The
+very children in the streets would follow them with hootings, if these
+fooleries were reiterated. But, if that attempt were made, and in some
+instances should even succeed, so much the worse for the interests of
+Repeal. The effect would be fatal. No device could be found more
+excellent for killing the enthusiasm which has called out such
+assemblies, than the evidence thus forced upon the general mind--that
+they were inoperative, and without object, either confessed or
+concealed. Hitherto the toil and exhaustion of the day had been
+supported, doubtless, under a belief that a muster of insurrectionary
+forces was desired, with a view to some decisive course of action, when
+all should be found prepared. The cautionary order issued for total
+abstinence from violence had been looked upon, of course, as a momentary
+or _interim_ restraint. But if once it were understood that this order
+was absolute, or of indefinite application, the chill to the national
+confidence would be that of death. For we are not to suppose that the
+faith and love of the peasantry _can_ have been given, either personally
+to Mr O'Connell, or to Repeal, as a cause for itself. Both these names
+represent, indirectly, weightier and dearer objects, which are supposed
+to stand behind: even Repeal is not valued as an end--but simply as a
+means to something beyond. But let that idea once give way, let the
+present hope languish, let it be thrown back to a period distant or
+unassigned--and the ruin of the cause is sealed. The rural population of
+Ireland has, it is true, been manoeuvred and exhibited merely as a
+threatening show to England; but, assuredly, on that same day when the
+Irish peasants, either from their own sagacity, or from newspapers,
+discover that they have been used as a property by Mr O'Connell, for
+purposes in which their own interest is hard to be deciphered,
+indifference and torpor will succeed. For this once, the nationality of
+Ireland has been too frantically stimulated for the toleration of new
+delays. Mr O'Connell is at last the martyr of his own success. Should
+the priestly order refuse to advance further on a road nominally
+national, but from which, at any moment, the leader may turn off, by
+secret compromise, into a by-road, leading only to family objects,
+universal mutiny must _now_ follow. The general will of the priesthood
+has thus far quelled and overruled the individual will; but that
+indignant recusants amongst that order _are_ muttering and brooding we
+know, as well from the necessities of human nature, as from actual
+letters already beginning to appear in the journals. Under all these
+circumstances, a crisis is to be dreaded by the central body of
+Repealers, which body is doubtless exceedingly small. And what will
+hasten this crisis is the inevitable result from a fact noticed as yet
+only for ostentation. It is this. The weekly contributions in money, and
+their sudden overflow, have occasioned some comments in the House of
+Lords; on the one side with a view to the dishonesty apparent in the
+management of this money, and to the dark purposes which it may be
+supposed to mask--on the other, with a view to the increasing heartiness
+in the service, which it seems to express. It is, however, a much more
+reasonable comment upon this momentary increase, so _occasional_ and
+timed to meet the sudden resurrection of energy in the general movement,
+that the money has flowed so freely altogether under that sane
+persuasion which also has drawn the peasantry to the meetings--viz. the
+fixed anticipation of an immediate explosion. Multitudes in the belief,
+suddenly awakened and propagated through Ireland--that now at length,
+all further excuses laid aside, the one great national enterprize, so
+long nursed in darkness, had ripened for execution, and would at last
+begin to move--have exerted themselves to do what, under other
+circumstances, they would not have done. Even simple delay would now
+irritate these men beyond control. They will call for an account. This
+will be refused, and cannot _but_ be refused. The particular feeling of
+these men, that they have been hoaxed and swindled, concurring with the
+popular rage on finding that this storm also, like all before it, is to
+blow over--if there be faith in human nature, will do more to shake the
+Repeal speculation than any possible course of direct English
+resistance. All frauds would be forgiven in an hour of plausible
+success, or even in a moment of undeniable preparation. But
+disappointment coming in the rear of extravagant hopes will be fatal,
+and strike a frost to the heart of the conspiracy. For it cannot be
+doubted that none of these extra services, whether in money or personal
+attendance, would have been rendered without express assurances from
+high quarters, and not _merely_ from fond imaginations founded on
+appearances, that the pretended regeneration for Ireland was at land.
+
+Now let us see how these natural sequences, from the very nature of the
+showy demonstrations recently organized, and from the very promises by
+which they must have been echoed, will operate in relation to the
+measures of the Government; either those which have been adopted, or
+those which have been declined. Had the resolution (a fatal resolution,
+as we _now_ think) been adopted in the cabinet to disperse the meetings
+by force, blood would have flowed; and a plea, though fraudulent in
+virtue, would have been established for O'Connell--such as we may
+suppose to be built upon a fact so liable to perversion. His hands would
+have been prodigiously strengthened. The bloodshed would have been kept
+before the eyes of the people for ever, and would have taken innumerable
+forms. But the worst, ultimately the ruinous, operation of this official
+intervention would have lain in the plenary excuse from his engagements
+furnished to Mr O'Connell, and in the natural solution of all those
+embarrassments which for himself he _cannot_ solve. At present he is at
+his wits' end to devise any probable scheme for tranquillizing the
+universal disappointment, for facing the relapse from infinite
+excitement, and for propitiating the particular fury of those who will
+now hold themselves to have been defrauded of their money. Leave this
+tempest to itself, and it will go near to overwhelm the man: or if the
+local separation of the parties most injured should be so managed as to
+intercept that result, assuredly it will overwhelm the cause. In the
+estimate, therefore, of O'Connell, we may rely upon it--that a battalion
+of foot, or a squadron of horse, appearing in aid of the police to clear
+the ground at Mallow or at Donnybrook, would have seemed the least
+questionable godsend that has ever illuminated his experience. "O
+_jubilate_ for a providential deliverance!" that would have been his
+cry. "Henceforward be all my difficulties on the heads of my opponents!"
+But at least, it is argued, the _fact_ would have been against him; the
+dispersion would have disarmed him, whatever colouring he might have
+caused it to bear. Not at all. We doubt if one meeting the less would
+have been held. Ready at all times for such emergencies, the leader
+would not suffer himself to be found without every conceivable legal
+quillet, sharpened and retouched, against the official orders. He would
+have had an interview with the authorities: he would have shown a flaw
+in the wording of the instructions: he would have rebaptized his
+assembly, and, where no business goes on, any name will answer: he would
+have called his mob "a tea-party," or "an agricultural association;" the
+sole real object concerned, which is the exhibition of vast numbers
+trained and amenable to instant restraint, would have proceeded under
+new names. This would no longer have languished when Government had
+supplied the failing impulse: and in the mean time to have urged that,
+merely by its numbers, combined with its perilous tendencies, the
+gathering was unlawful--would have availed nothing: for the law
+authorities in parliament, right or wrong, have affected doubts upon
+that doctrine; and, when parliament will not eventually support him, it
+matters little that a minister of these days would, for the moment,
+assume the responsibility of a strong measure. Or, if parliament were to
+legislate anew for this special case, the Repealer would then split his
+large mobs into many small ones: he would lecture, he would preach, he
+would sing, in default of other excuses for meeting. No law, he would
+observe coolly to the magistrate, against innumerable prayer-meetings or
+infinite concerts. The items would still be reported to one central
+office: the _facit_ would be the same; and it would tell for the same
+cause.
+
+Thus it appears that no fact would have resulted against the Repealers,
+had the Government taken a severe course. Still, may it not be said that
+a _fact_, and a strong one, survives on the other side, viz. against the
+Government, under this forbearing course which they really have taken?
+What fact? Is it the organization of all Ireland? Doubtless that bears
+an ominous sound: but it must be considered--that if the leader cannot
+wield this vast organization for any purposes of his own, and plainly he
+cannot so long as he acquires no fresh impulses or openings to action
+from the indiscretion of his opponents, but on the contrary must be
+ruined--cause and leader, party and partisan chief, by the very 'lock'
+(or as in America is said, the 'fix') into which he has brought himself,
+by the pledge which he cannot redeem--far less can that organization be
+used by others or for any other purpose. It is an organization not
+secret; not bound by oaths; loose and careless in its cohesion; not
+being good for its proper object, it is good for no other, and we hear
+of no one attribute by which it threatens the public peace beyond its
+numerical extent.
+
+But is _that_ true? Is it numerically so potent as it is represented? We
+hardly need to say, that the exaggerations upon this point have been too
+monstrous to call for any pointed exposures. With respect to one of the
+southern meetings--that at Cork, we believe--by way of applying some
+scale or measurement to the exaggerations, we may mention that a
+military man, actually measured the ground after the retirement of the
+crowd. He ascertained that the ground could barely accommodate
+twenty-five thousand men standing in regimental order. What was the
+report of the newspaper? Four to five hundred thousand, as usual.
+Indeed, we may complain of our English Conservative Journals as, in this
+point, faithfully reflecting the wildest statements of the Repeal
+organs. So much strength was apparently given, for the moment, to the
+Repeal interest by these outrageous fictions, that we, for our own
+parts, (whilst hesitating as to other points of the Government policy,)
+did not scruple to tax the Home Minister and the Queen's Lieutenant with
+some neglect of duty[O] in not sending experienced officers of the army
+to reconnoitre the meetings in every instance, and authentically to make
+returns of the numbers present. Since reading the minister's speech,
+however, we are disposed to think that this neglect was not altogether
+without design. It appears that Sir Robert relies in part upon these
+frightful falsehoods for effecting a national service by rousing the
+fears of the Roman Catholic landholders. In this there is no false
+refinement; for, having very early done all the mischief they could as
+incendiary proclamations of power to the working classes, the
+exaggerations are now, probably, operating with even more effect in an
+opposite direction upon the great body of the Catholic gentry. Cordially
+to unite this body with the government of Ireland would, by much,
+overbalance the fickle support of the peasantry, given for the moment to
+the cause of disaffection. That disaffection, under its present form, is
+already, perhaps, on the point of unlocking its union. It _cannot_ be
+permanent as an organization; for, without hope, no combination can
+sustain itself, and a disaffection, founded purely upon _social_ causes,
+can be healed by no Government whatever. But if the Catholic gentry,
+treated as they now are with fraternal equality, should heartily
+coalesce with the party promoting a closer _British_ connexion, that
+would be a permanent gain.
+
+The Irish policy, therefore, the immediate facts of the policy, pursued
+by the Government, if we distinguish it from the general theory and
+principles of their policy as laid down in the speech of the Premier,
+has not been what it is said to have been. Summing up the heads, let us
+say that we are _not_ resigned negligently to the perils of civil war;
+those perils, though as great as Mr O'Connell could make them, are not
+by any means as great as Mr O'Connell describes them; the popular arrays
+are ridiculously below the amounts reported to us: in some instances
+they have been multiplied by 20, probably in all by 15; the rumour and
+the terror of these arrays have operated both ways; _for_ us more
+permanently than against us. Lastly, it is not true that the Government
+has proceeded only by negative steps; the army has been increased in
+Ireland, the garrisons have been better arranged; military stations have
+been strengthened, and seditious magistrates have been dismissed.
+
+Upon this last point, one word: we have seen nothing more grossly
+factious in the conduct of the Whigs, than the assertion, that these
+magistrates ought _not_ to have been dismissed. Well might the
+Chancellor say, that the discussion had been conducted by petty
+lawyerlike quibbles. The case stands thus: there are two principles
+concerned in the tenure of the magistrate's office--theoretic
+amenability to the letter of the law, and practical serviceableness for
+his duties. Either furnishes a ground of dismissal. To be scandalously
+indecorous, to be a patron of gambling in public places, would offer no
+_legal_ objection to a magistrate; but he would be dismissed as a person
+unsuitable by his habits to the gravity of the commission. If you hire a
+watchman to protect your premises, and you discharge him upon the ground
+that he has been found drinking with reputed burglars, no man will hold
+the watchman to have been hardly used, because the burglars had not been
+convicted judicially. That allegation amounts to this: that he has not
+committed any offence known to the laws. What will you reply? "I know
+it," you say: "I grant it; and therefore I charge you with no offence.
+But I dismiss you on a principle of expedience. You have violated no
+law; but you have shown yourself to be a man disqualified for the very
+urgent duties of the post--much more disqualified than you would have
+been by sickness, blindness, or any other physical infirmity."
+
+Mr O'Connell now threatens to pursue his career, by repeating that same
+absurd misdemeanour of summoning a mock parliament, which, some twenty
+and odd years ago, a Staffordshire baronet expiated by the penalties of
+fine and imprisonment. At that crisis we shall see the tranquil minister
+unmask his artillery. But could it be reasonable to look for a faithful
+discharge of painful duties, arising in these later stages of the Repeal
+cause (and duties applying probably to the cases of gentlemen,
+neighbours, fellow partisans,) from one who had already promoted that
+cause, in its previous stages, to the extent of sedition and
+conspiracy? He who has already signalized to the nation his readiness
+to co-operate in so open a mischief as dismemberment of the empire,
+wherefore should he shrink from violating an obscure rule of the common
+law, or a black letter statute?
+
+But enough of the policy which _has_ been pursued. _That_, by its nature
+is limited, and of necessity, in many points of recent application, is a
+policy of watching and negation. Now, let us turn to the general policy,
+as it is reviewed in the very comprehensive speech of the Prime
+Minister. This applies equally to the past and the future. The French
+journals, and in particular the _Debats_, complain that it is crowded
+with details. How should this be otherwise? Can there be an answer given
+to charges whose vice is their vagueness, otherwise than by
+_circumstantial_ exposures of their falsehood? Ireland, for instance,
+has been unfairly treated as to taxes, partition of indulgences,
+pecuniary advances. That is the charge. Can it be met with another
+answer than by absolute arithmetic, tax-office proofs, or returns from
+the Exchequer? "But in these a foreigner takes no interest." Doubtless!
+and _that_ should be an argument with the foreigner for his declining to
+judge upon the question. Want of understanding is not at all a worse
+disqualification for acting as a judge than want of interest in the
+subject. We mention this pointedly; because it is not to foreigners
+chiefly that this maxim applies: a profound injustice continually
+operates in this way amongst the parliamentary foes of Government. Often
+in private life we witness the unprincipled case--that, upon suspecting
+a man's vindication to be established by any investigation, men will
+decline to look into it, as really possessing too little interest for
+themselves; though these same people had not found any want of interest
+in the allegations--nay, had mastered all the details--so long as the
+charges pointed to some disgraceful issue, and the verdict threatened to
+be unfavourable. An instance of this baseness, truly shocking to the
+moral sense, is found in the ridiculous charge against the ministers,
+founded upon the mail-coach contract. This was not at all too petty to
+be pressed with rancour. However, it was answered. The answer, on the
+principle of the case, and coupled with the illustrations from parallel
+cases, is decisive. And then the taunt is--"But why fasten upon charges
+so minute and frivolous?" Minute and frivolous, we grant; but not so in
+that degree which prevented you gentlemen in opposition from dwelling on
+then with genial spite, as being odious in proportion to their
+pettiness. "You, you, it was," says Sir Robert, "that pressed the case!"
+Certainly: and they it was who would never have withdrawn the case had
+they not found it untenable. It is thus easy for two men to concert a
+collusive attack which shall succeed either way, and be dishonest both
+ways. "Do you," says the one, "_try on_ this particular case for
+harassing the minister. If it tells, if it sticks, then we both pitch
+into him. If it fails, then rise I and say:--'How shameful in an
+official person to throw dust in the eyes of the House by detaining it
+upon a miserable trifle, whilst the criminal gravities of his conduct
+are skulking in the rear under this artifice for misleading the public
+attention!'"
+
+With this prefatory explanation, called for, perhaps, by the unequal
+importance of the points reviewed, we shall now rehearse the heads of
+this speech. It is a speech that, by anticipation, we may call
+memorable, looking before and after; good, as a history for half a
+century gone by since our union with Ireland; good, we venture to hope,
+as a rule and as a prophecy for the spirit of our whole future connexion
+with that important island. We shall move rapidly; for our rehearsal
+will best attain the object we have in view by its brevity and
+condensation.
+
+I.--Mr Roebuck had insisted that Ireland was made the victim of our
+English parsimony; not once and away, but systematically. This happens
+to be a charge peculiarly irritating to all parties--to the authors of
+the parsimony, and to its objects. And, says Sir Robert, I am told to
+avoid it as secondary; but observe, it is quite substantial enough, as
+others say, to justify "an impeachment." This is the honourable
+barrister's word; and a "soft" impeachment it will turn out.
+
+_a._ By the Act of Union, it was provided that, in voting the civil
+estimates for Ireland, whatever sum it should appear that Ireland had
+averaged for six years before the Union, in her own votes for a
+particular purpose, annually that same sum should be voted for a period
+prescribed by the United Parliament. The purpose was, internal
+improvement in Ireland, and any national uses, whether pious or
+charitable. What, then, had been the extent of the Irish vote? We
+neglect small fractions, and state that it had averaged seventy-three
+thousand a year. For the first twenty years, therefore, the obligation
+upon the Imperial Parliament had been, to vote twenty times that sum, or
+L. 1,460,000. This was the contract. What was the performance? Five
+millions, three hundred and forty-eight thousand pounds, or three and a
+half times the amount of the promise.
+
+_b._ Another extraordinary vote in the Irish Parliament, previous to the
+Union, had been upon the miscellaneous estimates. This vote, when
+averaged on the same principle, had produced annually one hundred and
+twenty-eight thousand pounds. To the same sum the United Parliament
+stood pledged for the first period of twenty-eight years succeeding the
+Union. The reader will see at once that the result ought to have been
+little more than three and a half millions. That was the debt. What was
+the payment? Something beyond five millions.
+
+_c._ Upon another comparison, viz. between Scotland and Ireland, as to
+another class of _extras_ and contingencies, it turns out--that, during
+the last period of seven years, to Scotland had been voted six hundred
+and sixty thousand pounds, to Ireland two million, two hundred, and
+sixty thousand; to Scotland, that is, less than _one_ hundred thousand
+_per annum_; to Ireland, more than _three_ hundred thousand.
+
+In the same category stands the relative taxation. Ireland was to pay
+two-seventeenths of the whole imperial burden. That was the bargain,
+which we are not called on to reopen. But, as _extras_, as a liberal
+_bonus_ upon this bargain, Ireland has been excused from paying for
+windows--for assessed taxes--for soap. At this moment, in addition to
+these liberal discounts, she has no _national_ share, _as_ Ireland,[P]
+in the Income Tax: and she may be said, in one sense, to receive her
+letters gratuitously, for the postage yields nothing to Government, all
+being absorbed by the Irish post office. It is little, after this, to
+start possibilities of unequal contribution as regards the indirect
+taxation: this could not be separately apportioned to the three great
+limbs of the empire without disturbing the great currents of commerce.
+It is enough that by exemptions upon the direct taxes, so far as
+concerns three of them--window, assessed, and income--Ireland receives a
+large indemnity.
+
+
+II. Connected with the last head is the reproach made to Great Britain
+upon the subject of railway encouragement. What encouragement? By money?
+Yes, says Lord John Russell, whose experience in office (as one of a
+cabinet plagued in the way that all cabinets are by projectors and
+scheming capitalists) ought to have taught him better. Have we given any
+money to our own railways? No: but England is rich. True: and Ireland is
+not suffered to be _so_ rich as she might be by her Irish "friends." But
+rich or not rich, is no question here. If schemes of profit are not
+profitable in this country, we do not encourage them. If they _are_
+profitable, they want no encouragement. Still, it is said, might it not
+be prudent to feed the railroads in Ireland, not with any view to the
+scheme for itself but considered as a means of development for the
+circumjacent country? No, replies Sir Robert, that is an error: railways
+may benefit _by_ the country: but the country through which they race,
+is rarely affected by _them_ more than the atmosphere aloft by the
+balloons. The great towns on the route, or at the extremities, doubtless
+benefit; but in too small a degree, unless they are manufacturing towns,
+to warrant the least thoughtful of ministers in assisting them. However,
+to make a beginning, and as a topic to be borne in mind, how much would
+be wanted? A matter of _ten millions_, says Lord John. _Olli
+subridens_, replies the minister, "What! only that?" But, returning to
+business, he reminds the house--that, even for so small a sum as ten
+millions sterling, the nation would perhaps expect security. Who is to
+give it? Are the counties traversed to be assessed? But they will disown
+the benefit arising. And, says Sir Robert, take a miniature case--a sum
+little more than one-tenth of ten millions was advanced by this country
+on account of the Irish work-houses, and for a time there was some
+advantage gained to the industry of the land. But that soon passed away,
+and then two evils arose at once. The money was to be repaid, and the
+employment was at an end. But this latter evil was worse than it seemed,
+for it did not act as a simple privation of so much good; the _extra_
+stimulation of the national industry, as invariably happens, and as at
+this moment we see in England upon the cessation of a ten years' demand
+for iron, on account of our own railways, brought about a corresponding,
+exhaustion for the new Poor Law, tending violently to civil tumults. The
+repayment of that advance will yet cost Ireland many a groan.
+
+III. If Ireland, then, is not ill-treated as to her taxation, or her
+public improvements, is it true that she is ill-treated in the persons
+of her children? That also has been said; but Sir Robert disperses that
+fancy by facts which are as conclusive as they are really little needed
+at this day. Sculptors had been appointed by members of the cabinet,
+police commissioners, &c.; and, as will easily be believed, with no
+question ever mooted as to their birth, whether English, Scotch, or
+Irish. Subsequently, however, it had turned out as a blind fact, which
+is useful in showing the entire indifference to such a point in the
+minds of public men, that the larger proportion of successful candidates
+were Irish. This was an accident certainly, but an accident
+irreconcilable with the least shadow of prejudice pointing in that
+direction.
+
+IV. Of social grievances, grievances connected with the state of
+society, there are but too many in Ireland: relations between landlord
+and tenant for instance; but these are so little caused or aggravated by
+Parliament, that they cannot even be lightened by Parliament. What
+little is possible, however, says Sir Robert, we will attempt. The
+elective franchise is another case; yet, if that is now too much
+narrowed, why is it so? Let Ireland thank herself, and the growing
+indisposition amongst Irish landlords to grant leases. Might we not,
+then, transfer to Ireland our English franchise? But _that_, applied to
+Irish institutions and arrangements, would narrow the electoral basis
+still further than it is narrowed. Not, therefore, _against_ the Irish,
+but in their behalf, we withhold our own unsuitable privileges. It is a
+separate question, besides, whether the _moral_ civilization of Ireland
+is equal to the exercise of our English franchise. Education of the
+people again, if there is an obstacle at this time to its movement in
+Ireland, where does it originate? We all know the great schism upon that
+subject existing amongst the Irish Protestants, and how embarrassing the
+Government has found that fend--how intractable and embittered, for the
+very reason that it rested upon no personal jealousies which might have
+relaxed or been overruled, but (for one side at least) upon deep
+conscientious scruples. Reverence those scruples we must; but still the
+Irish are not entitled to charge upon ministers a public evil of their
+own creation. In all these calamities, or others of the same nature,
+oppressing the state of society in Ireland, and derived as an
+inheritance from ancient times, the blame too notoriously, in no part of
+it, rests with the English ministers; and the proof is evident in this
+fact--that, except by one monstrous anti-social proposal from a very few
+of the opposition members, as a remedy for the land-occupancy
+complaints--a proposal strongly disavowed by the leaders of the party,
+no _practical_ flaw was detected, either of omission or commission, as
+affecting the ministerial policy. The objections were pure generalities;
+and even Lord John Russell, who adopted the usual complaint against the
+minister, that he brought forward no definite plan, and whose own field
+of choice was therefore left all the wider, offered nothing more
+specific than the following mysterious suggestion, which is probably a
+Theban hieroglyphic--that, like as the "celebrated" Cromwell, in times
+past, did appoint Sir Matthew Hale to the presiding seat on the bench
+of justice, even so ought Sir Robert Peel to----. But there the
+revelation ceased. What are we to suppose the suppressed _apodosis_ of
+the proposition? Was it to disarm Mr O'Connell, by making him an
+archbishop? Little propensity have we to treat a great national crisis
+with levity; but surely every man is entitled to feel indignant, that
+when the burden of attack upon Government, is for their silence with
+regard to specific measures, (which, to be effectual, must often be
+secret,) those who have the good fortune to be under no such restraints
+of secrecy, find themselves able to suggest absolutely nothing. National
+resources were not locked up in the treasury--the particular choice may
+be secret, but the resources themselves lie open to the whole world--to
+us, to Lord John Russell, who have no power, quite as much as to Sir
+Robert Peel, who wields the thunder. And we cannot but remind the
+reader, that one reason, beyond the policy of concealment, which made it
+hard for Government to offer suggestions absolutely new, was the simple
+fact, that such as were fit to be published they had already _acted_ on.
+The remodeling of arrangements for the army, the bill for intercepting
+the means of arming a rebel force, and the suppression of
+insurrectionary magistrates--these three measures were clearly the first
+steps to be taken. One only of the three is still lingering; whom, have
+we to thank for _that_? A ministry to which the Duke of Wellington
+belongs, is not likely to talk first and act afterwards. By the time it
+became necessary to talk, their work, _for the present_, had been done.
+But some few significant words there were from leaders in both Houses,
+which convince us, that, upon any important _change_ of movements on the
+part of the Repealers, the silent menaces of Government will begin to
+speak in a tone such as no man can misunderstand.
+
+V. _Patronage_.--Has that great instrument of government been abused by
+Sir Robert Peel in the management of Ireland? This question might have
+arranged itself under either of the two first heads; but we choose to
+bring it forward in an insulated form. For we believe that no
+administration of any day has ever made the avowal, or had it in their
+power to make the avowal, which Sir Robert Peel made to the House of
+Commons in the speech we are now reviewing. He read two separate
+extracts from his own official instructions to Lord De Grey, which
+actually announced his resolution (unfettered by the slightest reserve)
+to renounce the entire church patronage of Ireland as an instrument of
+administration. The Lord-Lieutenant was authorized to dispense this
+patronage with one solitary view to merit, professional merit, and the
+highest interests of Ireland. So noble an act as this, and one so
+unprecedented in its nobility, needs no praise of ours. It speaks for
+itself. And it would be injurious to spend words in emblazonry of _that_
+which, by a spontaneous movement, _both_ sides of the House received
+with volleying cheers. That kind of applause is as rare and as
+significant as the act itself.
+
+VI. and VII. Finally, however, all other questions connected with this
+great crisis, sink in importance by the side of the one great interest
+at stake upon the Union--is _that_ to be maintained? And, as the Union
+could not possibly survive the destruction of the Protestant
+Establishment, is _that_ to be protected? Are we to receive, at the
+hands of traitors, a new model for our glorious empire? and, without
+condescending to pause for one instant in discussing consequences, are
+we to drink of this cup of indignity--that the constitution and
+settlement of our state, which one hundred and fifty five years ago
+required the deliberations of two ancient nations, England and Scotland,
+collected in their representatives, to effect, now at this day are to be
+put into the furnace anew by obscure conspirators, and traitors long
+since due to the gallows. Say not, with Sir James Graham, "that this
+all-conquering England would perish by the consequences." If that were
+endured, already she _has_ perished: and the glory of Israel has
+departed. The mere possibility that, by a knot of conspirators, our arch
+of empire could be dismembered, that by a bare shout of treason it could
+be thrown down for ever like the battlements of Jericho at the blast of
+trumpets, would proclaim, as in that Judean tragedy, that we stood
+under a curse of wrath divine. The dismemberment itself would be less
+fatal than the ignominy of its mode. Better to court the hostility of
+foreign nations, better to lay open our realms to a free movement of
+that wrath against us which is so deeply founded in their envy, than to
+perish by the hands of poltroons, of thieves, of conspirators. But this
+fate is not ours. Many times our Government have repeated that
+assurance. But, as in the expressions of our affection to the Sovereign,
+this assurance is rightly renewed from time to time, and occasions are
+sought for renewing it, let the ministers be assured--that, on this
+point, we are all sound at heart. All of us are with them from shore to
+shore. In this island there will be no faltering. It is shocking,
+undoubtedly: it is awful, and _at such a moment_, to hear three lords of
+old official standing--Lords Palmerston, Howick, and John Russell,
+taking occasion to propound ridiculous and senseless modifications of a
+plan essentially rebellious, the plan of partial confiscation, or of
+partial degradation, for the Protestant Church. Patience hardly can keep
+pace with the deliberate consideration of the contradictions which would
+follow--whether from tampering with the Church, or with the political
+settlement of our nations. Sir R. Peel has traced both. From the one
+case _must_ follow an independent army, for Ireland an independent
+government, an independent war as often as the popular will should speak
+loudly. From a participation of Protestant property, or Protestant
+dignities with the Roman Catholics, would follow instantly the transfer
+of Protestant churches, already few enough, the translation of Popish
+priests (that is, of selected traitors) to our senate. The very hint is
+a monument to the disgrace of these noble lords; fatal to all pretences
+of _earnest_ patriotism; but still in _them_ accounted for, and perhaps
+a little palliated, by the known necessities of party. As respects the
+_general_ mind, there is no such imbecility abroad; no such disposition
+to traffic or go halves, temporize or capitulate with treason. One only
+error is prevalent: it has been noticed by Sir R. Peel, who indeed
+overlooked nothing; but it may be well to put the refutation into
+another form. The caballing for dissolution of the Union, why should
+that be treasonable? Is the Act of Union more than an Act of Parliament?
+Is not every act of Parliament open to objection, petition, annulment?
+No. It is dismemberment, says Sir Robert Peel, of the state. We add
+this--How, and in virtue of what law, does the house of Brunswick reign?
+By the Act of Settlement--an act of Parliament--an act about a hundred
+and fifty years old. That is but an act of Parliament. Is it open, then,
+to any of us, or all of us, to call a meeting for rescinding the Act of
+Settlement? But all will now advance to a rapid consummation; Mr
+O'Connell pursues only his old movement--then he is lost by the decay of
+the enthusiasm. He adopts a new one--that which he has obscurely
+announced. Then we are as sure as we are of day and night, of _his_
+treason, as of British power to crush it, that the suspended
+thunderbolt, now raised aloft by the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert
+Peel, will put an end to him for ever.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote N: We use the words of the Chancellor; words, therefore,
+technically legal, in the debate of July, on Lord Clanricarde's motion
+for a vote of censure upon Sir E. Sugden.]
+
+[Footnote O: A more striking neglect is chargeable upon _some_
+administration in suffering the Repealers quietly to receive military
+training. We no more understand how this seditious act could have been
+overlooked at the time, than we understand the process by which modest
+assemblies of Orangemen have come to be viewed as illegal, pending a
+state of law, which, upon the whole, justifies the much larger
+assemblies of "foul conspirators."]
+
+[Footnote P: People in Ireland, under various heads, as officers of the
+different services, &c., pay, but not in quality of Irishmen, when by
+accident they are such.]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume
+54, No. 334, August 1843, by Various
+
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