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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58,
+No. 362, December 1845, 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 58, No. 362, December 1845
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: October 10, 2010 [EBook #33938]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Brendan OConnor, Erica Hills, Jonathan Ingram
+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.)
+
+
+
+
+
+TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:  A few obvious misprints have been corrected, but
+in general the originally erratic spelling, punctuation and typesetting
+conventions have been retained. Accents in foreign-language poetry and
+phrases, particularly the Greek, are inconsistent in the original, and
+have not been standardised.
+
+
+BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
+
+No. CCCLXII. DECEMBER, 1845. VOL. LVIII.
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+  MARLBOROUGH No. II.,                       649
+
+  THE STUDENT OF SALAMANCA Part II.,         673
+
+  WHITE'S THREE YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE,     688
+
+  THE MOUNTAIN AND THE CLOUD,                704
+
+  THE SECOND PANDORA,                        711
+
+  THE REIGN OF GEORGE THE THIRD,             713
+
+  A FEW PASSAGES CONCERNING OMENS, DREAMS, APPEARANCES, &C.,  735
+
+  A MOTHER TO HER FORSAKEN CHILD,            752
+
+  SUMMER NOONTIDE,                          _ib._
+
+  TO CLARA,                                  753
+
+  SECLUSION,                                _ib._
+
+  THE LAST HOURS OF A REIGN. Part I.,        754
+
+  THE SCOTTISH HARVEST,                      769
+
+
+
+
+EDINBURGH:
+
+WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, 45, GEORGE STREET;
+
+AND 37, PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON.
+
+_To whom all Communications (post paid) must be addressed._
+
+SOLD BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM.
+
+
+PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE AND HUGHES, EDINBURGH.
+
+
+
+
+MARLBOROUGH. No. II.[1]
+
+
+It might have been expected, that after the march into Bavaria had
+demonstrated the military genius of the Duke of Marlborough, and the
+battle of Blenheim had in so decisive a manner broken the enemy's
+power, the principal direction of military affairs would have been
+entrusted to that consummate commander; and that the Allied cabinets,
+without presuming to interfere in the management of the campaigns,
+would have turned all their efforts to place at his disposal forces
+adequate to carry into execution the mighty designs which he
+meditated, and had shown himself so well qualified to carry into
+execution. It was quite the reverse. The Allied cabinets did nothing.
+They did worse than nothing--they interfered only to do mischief.
+Their principal object after this appeared to be to cramp the efforts
+of this great general, to overrule his bold designs, to tie down his
+aspiring genius. Each looked only to his own separate objects, and
+nothing could make them see that they were to be gained only by
+promoting the general objects of the alliance. Relieved from the
+danger of instant subjugation by the victory of Blenheim, and the
+retreat of the French army across the Rhine, the German powers
+relapsed into their usual state of supineness, lukewarmness, and
+indifference. No efforts of Marlborough could induce the Dutch either
+to enlarge their contingent, or even render that already in the field
+fit for active service. The English force was not half of what the
+national strength was capable of sending forth. Parliament would not
+hear of any thing like an adequate expenditure. Thus the golden
+opportunity, never likely to be regained, of profiting by the
+consternation of the enemy after the battle of Blenheim, and their
+weakness after forty thousand of their best troops had been lost to
+their armies, was allowed to pass away; and the war was permitted to
+dwindle into one of posts and sieges, when, by a vigorous effort, it
+might have been concluded in the next campaign.[2]
+
+It was not thus with the French. The same cause which had loosened
+the efforts of the confederates, had inspired unwonted vigour into
+their councils. The Rhine was crossed by the Allies; the French armies
+had been hurled with disgrace out of Germany; the territory of the
+Grand Monarque was threatened both from the side of Alsace and
+Flanders; and a formidable insurrection in the Cevennes both
+distracted the force and threatened the peace of the kingdom. But
+against all these evils Louis made head. Never had the superior vigour
+and perseverance of a monarchy over that of a confederacy been more
+clearly evinced. Marshal Villars had been employed in the close of the
+preceding year to appease the insurrection in the Cevennes, and his
+measures were at once so vigorous and conciliatory, that before the
+end of the following winter the disturbances were entirely appeased.
+In consequence of this, the forces employed in that quarter became
+disposable; and by this means, and the immense efforts made by the
+government over the whole kingdom, the armies on the frontier were so
+considerably augmented, that Villeroi and the Elector of Bavaria took
+the field in the Low Countries at the head of seventy-five thousand
+men, while Marshal Marsin on the Upper Rhine, covered Alsace with
+thirty thousand. Those armies were much larger than any which the
+Allies could bring against them; for although it had been calculated
+that Marlborough was to be at the head of ninety thousand men on the
+Moselle on the 1st May, yet such had been the dilatory conduct of the
+States-general and the German princes, that in the beginning of June
+there were scarcely thirty thousand men collected round his standards;
+and in Flanders and on the Upper Rhine the enemy's relative
+superiority was still greater.
+
+The plan of the campaign of 1705, based on the supposition that these
+great forces were to be at his disposal, concerted between him and
+Prince Eugene, was in the highest degree bold and decisive. It was
+fixed that, early in spring, ninety thousand men should be assembled
+in the country between the Moselle and the Saar, and, after
+establishing their magazines and base of operations at Treves and
+Traerbach, they should penetrate, in two columns into Lorraine; that
+the column under Marlborough in person should advance along the course
+of Moselle, and the other, under the Margrave of Baden, by the valley
+of the Saar, and that Saar-Louis should be invested before the French
+army had time to take the field. In this way the whole fortresses of
+Flanders would be avoided, and the war, carried into the enemy's
+territory, would assail France on the side where her iron barrier was
+most easily pierced through. But the slowness of the Dutch, and
+backwardness of the Germans, rendered this well-conceived plan
+abortive, and doomed the English general, for the whole of a campaign
+which promised such important advantages, to little else but
+difficulty, delay, and vexation. Marlborough's enthusiasm, great as it
+was, nearly sank under the repeated disappointments which he
+experienced at this juncture; and, guarded as he was, it exhaled in
+several bitter complaints in his confidential correspondence.[3] But,
+like a true patriot and man of perseverance, he did not give way to
+despair when he found nearly all that had been promised him awanting;
+but perceiving the greater designs impracticable, from the want of all
+the means by which they could be carried into execution, prepared to
+make the most of the diminutive force which alone was at his disposal.
+
+At length, some of the German reinforcements having arrived,
+Marlborough, in the beginning of June, though still greatly inferior
+to the enemy, commenced operations. Such was the terror inspired by
+his name, and the tried valour of the English troops, that Villars
+remained on the defensive, and soon retreated. Without firing a shot,
+he evacuated a strong woody country which he occupied, and retired to
+a strong defensive position, extending from Haute Sirk on the right,
+to the Nivelles on the left, and communicating in the rear with
+Luxembourg, Thionville, and Saar-Louis. This position was so strong,
+that it was hopeless to attempt to force it without heavy cannon; and
+Marlborough's had not yet arrived, from the failure of the German
+princes to furnish the draught-horses they had promised. For nine
+weary days he remained in front of the French position, counting the
+hours till the guns and reinforcements came up; but such was the
+tardiness of the German powers, and the universal inefficiency of the
+inferior princes and potentates, that they never made their
+appearance. The English general was still anxiously awaiting the
+promised supplies, when intelligence arrived from the right of so
+alarming a character as at once changed the theatre of operations, and
+fixed him for the remainder of the campaign in the plains of Flanders.
+
+It was the rapid progress which Marshal Villeroi and the Elector of
+Bavaria, at the head of seventy-five thousand men, were making in the
+heart of Flanders, which rendered this change necessary. General
+Overkirk was there entrusted with the army intended to cover Holland;
+but it was greatly inferior to the enemy in point of numerical amount,
+and still more so in the quality and composition of the troops of
+which it was composed. Aware of his superiority, and of the timid
+character of the government which was principally interested in that
+army, Villeroi pushed his advantages to the utmost. He advanced boldly
+upon the Meuse, carried by assault the fortress of Huys, and, marching
+upon Liege, occupied the town without much resistance, and laid siege
+to the citadel. Overkirk, in his lines before Maestricht, was unable
+even to keep the field. The utmost alarm seized upon the United
+Provinces. They already in imagination saw Louis XIV. a second time at
+the gates of Amsterdam. Courier after courier was dispatched to
+Marlborough, soliciting relief in the most urgent terms; and it was
+hinted, that if effectual protection were not immediately given,
+Holland would be under the necessity of negotiating for a separate
+peace. There was not a moment to be lost: the Dutch were now as hard
+pressed as the Austrians had been in the preceding year, and in
+greater alarm than the Emperor was before the battle of Blenheim. A
+cross march like that into Bavaria could alone reinstate affairs.
+Without a moment's hesitation, Marlborough took his determination.
+
+On the 17th June, without communicating his designs to any one, or
+even without saying a word of the alarming intelligence he had
+received, he ordered the whole army to be under arms at midnight, and
+setting out shortly after, he marched, without intermission, eighteen
+miles to the rear. Having thus gained a march upon the enemy, so as to
+avoid the risk of being pursued or harassed in his retreat, he left
+General D'Aubach with eleven battalions and twelve squadrons to cover
+the important magazines at Treves and Saarbruck; and himself, with the
+remainder of the army, about thirty thousand strong, marched rapidly
+in the direction of Maestricht. He was in hopes of being able, like
+the Consul Nero, in the memorable cross march from Apulia to the
+Metaurus in Roman story, to attack the enemy with his own army united
+to that of Overkirk, before he was aware of his approach; but in this
+he was disappointed. Villeroi got notice of his movement, and
+instantly raising the siege of the citadel of Liege, withdrew, though
+still superior in number to the united forces of the enemy, within the
+shelter of the lines he had prepared and fortified with great care on
+the Meuse. Marlborough instantly attacked and carried Huys on the 11th
+July. But the satisfaction derived from having thus arrested the
+progress of the enemy in Flanders, and wrested from him the only
+conquest of the campaign, soon received a bitter alloy. Like Napoleon
+in his later years, the successes he gained in person were almost
+always overbalanced by the disasters sustained through the blunders or
+treachery of his lieutenants. Hardly had Huys opened its gates, when
+advices were received that D'Aubach, instead of obeying his orders,
+and defending the magazines at Treves and Saarbruck to the last
+extremity, had fled on the first appearance of a weak French
+detachment, and burned the whole stores which it had cost so much time
+and money to collect. This was a severe blow to Marlborough, for it at
+once rendered impracticable the offensive movement into Lorraine, on
+which his heart was so set, and from which he had anticipated such
+important results. It was no longer possible to carry the war into the
+enemy's territory, or turn, by an irruption into Lorraine, the whole
+fortresses of the enemy in Flanders. The tardiness of the German
+powers in the first instance, the terrors of the Dutch, and misconduct
+of D'Aubach in the last, had caused that ably conceived design
+entirely to miscarry. Great was the mortification of the English
+general at this signal disappointment of his most warmly cherished
+hopes; it even went so far that he had thoughts of resigning his
+command.[4] But instead of abandoning himself to despair, he set
+about, like the King of Prussia in after times, the preparation of a
+stroke which should reinstate his affairs by the terror with which it
+inspired the enemy, and the demonstration of inexhaustible resources
+it afforded in himself.
+
+The position occupied by the Elector of Bavaria and Marshal Villeroi
+was so strong that it was regarded as impregnable, and in truth it was
+so to a front attack. With its right resting on Marche aux Dames on
+the Meuse, it stretched through Leau to the strong and important
+fortress of Antwerp. This line was long, and of course liable to be
+broken through at points; but such was the skill with which every
+vulnerable point had been strengthened and fortified by the French
+engineers, that it was no easy matter to say where an impression could
+be made. Wherever a marsh or a stream intervened, the most skilful use
+had been made of it; while forts and redoubts, plentifully mounted
+with heavy cannon, both commanded all the approaches to the lines, and
+formed so many _points d'appui_ to its defenders in case of disaster.
+Such a position, defended by seventy thousand men, directed by able
+generals, might well be deemed impregnable. But Marlborough, with an
+inferior force, resolved to attempt it. In doing so, however, he had
+difficulties more formidable to overcome than even the resistance of
+the enemy in front; the timidity of the authorities at the Hague, the
+nervousness and responsibility of the Dutch generals, were more to be
+dreaded than Villeroi's redoubts. It required all the consummate
+address of the English general, aided by the able co-operation of
+General Overkirk, to get liberty from the Dutch authorities to engage
+in any offensive undertaking. At length, however, after infinite
+difficulty, a council of war, at headquarters, agreed to support any
+undertaking which might be deemed advisable; and Marlborough instantly
+set about putting his design in execution.
+
+The better to conceal the real point of attack, he gave out that a
+march to the Moselle was to be immediately undertaken; and to give a
+colour to the report, the corps which had been employed in the siege
+of Huys was not brought forward to the front. At the same time
+Overkirk was detached to the Allied left towards Bourdine, and
+Marlborough followed with a considerable force, ostensibly to support
+him. So completely was Villeroi imposed upon, that he drew large
+reinforcements from the centre to his extreme right; and soon forty
+thousand men were grouped round the sources of the Little Gheet on his
+extreme right. By this means the centre was seriously weakened; and
+Marlborough instantly assembled, with every imaginable precaution to
+avoid discovery, all his disposable forces to attack the weakened part
+of the lines. The corps hitherto stationed on the Meuse was silently
+brought up to the front; Marlborough put himself at the head of his
+own English and German troops, whom he had carried with him from the
+Moselle; and at eight at night, on the 17th July, the whole began to
+march, all profoundly ignorant of the service on which they were to be
+engaged. Each trooper was ordered to carry a truss of hay at his
+saddle-bow, as if a long march was in contemplation. At the same
+instant on which the columns under Marlborough's orders commenced
+their march, Overkirk repassed the Mehaigne on the left, and, hid by
+darkness, fell into the general line of the advance of the Allied
+troops.
+
+No fascines or gabions had been brought along to pass the ditch, for
+fear of exciting alarm in the lines. The trusses of hay alone were
+trusted to for that purpose, which would be equally effectual, and
+less likely to awaken suspicion. At four in the morning, the heads of
+the columns, wholly unperceived, were in front of the French works,
+and, covered by a thick fog, traversed the morass, passed the Gheet
+despite its steep banks, carried the castle of Wange, and, rushing
+forward with a swift pace, crossed the ditch on the trusses of hay,
+and, in three weighty columns, scaled the rampart, and broke into the
+enemy's works. Hitherto entire success had attended this admirably
+planned attack; but the alarm was now given; a fresh corps of fifteen
+thousand men, under M. D'Allegré, hastily assembled, and a heavy fire
+was opened upon the Allies, now distinctly visible in the morning
+light, from a commanding battery. Upon this, Marlborough put himself
+at the head of Lumley's English horse, and, charging vigorously,
+succeeded, though not till he had sustained one repulse, in breaking
+through the line thus hastily formed. In this charge the Duke narrowly
+escaped with his life, in a personal conflict with a Bavarian officer.
+The Allies now crowded in, in great numbers, and the French,
+panic-struck, fled on all sides, abandoning the whole centre of their
+intrenchments to the bold assailants. Villeroi, who had become aware,
+from the retreat of Overkirk in his front, that some attack was in
+contemplation, but ignorant where the tempest was to fall, remained
+all night under arms. At length, attracted by the heavy fire, he
+approached the scene of action in the centre, only in time to see that
+the position was broken through, and the lines no longer tenable. He
+drew off his whole troops accordingly, and took up a new position,
+nearly at right angles to the former, stretching from Elixheim towards
+Tirlemont. It was part of the design of the Duke to have intercepted
+the line of retreat of the French, and prevented them from reaching
+the Dyle, to which they were tending; but such was the obstinacy and
+slowness of the Dutch generals, that nothing could persuade them to
+make any further exertion, and, in defiance of the orders and
+remonstrances alike of Marlborough and Overkirk, they pitched their
+tents, and refused to take any part in the pursuit. The consequence
+was, that Villeroi collected his scattered forces, crossed the Dyle in
+haste, and took up new ground, about eighteen miles in the rear, with
+his left sheltered by the cannon of Louvain. But, though the
+disobedience and obstinacy of the Dutch thus intercepted Marlborough
+in the career of victory, and rendered his success much less complete
+than it otherwise would have been, yet had a mighty blow been struck,
+reflecting the highest credit on the skill and resolution of the
+English general. The famous lines, on which the French had been
+labouring for months, had been broken through and carried, during a
+nocturnal conflict of a few hours; they had lost all their redoubts
+and ten pieces of cannon, with which they were armed; M. D'Allegré,
+with twelve hundred prisoners, had been taken; and the army which
+lately besieged Liege and threatened Maestricht, was now driven back,
+defeated and discouraged, to seek refuge under the cannon of Louvain.
+
+Overkirk, who had so ably co-operated with Marlborough in this
+glorious victory, had the magnanimity as well as candour, in his
+despatch to the States-general, to ascribe the success which had been
+gained entirely to the skill and courage of the English general.[5]
+But the Dutch generals, who had interrupted his career of success, had
+the malignity to charge the consequences of their misconduct on his
+head, and even carried their effrontery so far as to accuse him of
+supineness in not following up his success, and cutting off the
+enemy's retreat to the Dyle, when it was themselves who had refused to
+obey his orders to do so. Rains of extraordinary severity fell from
+the 19th to the 23d July, which rendered all offensive operations
+impracticable, and gave Villeroi time, of which he ably availed
+himself, to strengthen his position behind the Dyle to such a degree,
+as to render it no longer assailable with any prospect of success. The
+precious moment, when the enemy might have been driven from it in the
+first tumult of success, had been lost.
+
+The subsequent success in the Flemish campaign by no means
+corresponded to its brilliant commencement. The jealousy of the Dutch
+ruined every thing. This gave rise to recriminations and jealousies,
+which rendered it impracticable even for the great abilities and
+consummate address of Marlborough to effect any thing of importance
+with the heterogeneous array, with the nominal command of which he was
+invested. The English general dispatched his adjutant-general, Baron
+Hompesch, to represent to the States-general the impossibility of
+going on longer with such a divided responsibility; but, though they
+listened to his representations, nothing could induce them to put
+their troops under the direct orders of the commander-in-chief. They
+still had "field deputies," as they were called who were invested with
+the entire direction of the Dutch troops; and as they were civilians,
+wholly unacquainted with military affairs, they had recourse on every
+occasion to the very fractious generals who already had done so much
+mischief to the common cause. In vain Marlborough repeatedly
+endeavoured, as he himself said, "to cheat them into victory," by
+getting their consent to measures, of which they did not see the
+bearing, calculated to achieve that object; their timid, jealous
+spirit interposed on every occasion to mar important operations, and
+the corps they commanded was too considerable to admit of their being
+undertaken without their co-operation. After nine days' watching the
+enemy across the Dyle, Marlborough proposed to cross the river near
+Louvain, and attack the enemy; the Dutch Deputies interposed their
+negative, to Marlborough's infinite mortification, as, in his own
+words, "it spoiled the whole campaign."[6]
+
+Worn out with these long delays, Marlborough at length resolved at all
+hazards to pass the river, trusting that the Dutch, when they saw the
+conflict once seriously engaged, would not desert him. But in this he
+was mistaken. The Dutch not only failed to execute the part assigned
+them in the combined enterprise, but sent information of his designs
+to the enemy. The consequence was, Villeroi was on his guard. All the
+Duke's demonstrations could not draw his attention from his left,
+where the real attack was intended; but nevertheless the Duke pushed
+on the English and Germans under his orders, who forced the passage in
+the most gallant style. But when the Duke ordered the Dutch generals
+to support the attack of the Duke of Wirtemberg, who had crossed the
+river, and established himself in force on the opposite bank, they
+refused to move their men. The consequence was that this attack, as
+well planned and likely to succeed as the famous forcing of the lines
+a fortnight before, proved abortive; and Marlborough, burning with
+indignation, was obliged to recall his troops when on the high-road to
+victory, and when the river had been crossed, before they had
+sustained a loss of a hundred men. So general was the indignation at
+this shameful return on the part of the Dutch generals to Marlborough
+for all the services he had rendered to their country, that it drew
+forth the strongest expressions from one of his ablest, but most
+determined opponents, Lord Bolingbroke, who wrote to him at this
+juncture:--"It was very melancholy to find the malice of Slangenberg,
+the fears of Dopf, and the ignorance of the deputies, to mention no
+more, prevail so to disappoint your Grace, to their prejudice as well
+as ours. We hope the Dutch have agreed to what your Grace desires of
+them, without which the war becomes a jest to our enemies, _and can
+end in nothing but an ill peace, which is certain ruin to us_."[7]
+
+Still the English general was not discouraged. His public spirit and
+patriotism prevailed over his just private resentment. Finding it
+impossible to prevail on the Dutch deputies, who, in every sense, were
+so many viceroys over him, to agree to any attempt to force the
+passage of the Dyle, he resolved to turn it. For this purpose the army
+was put in motion on the 14th August; and, defiling to his left, he
+directed it in three columns towards the sources of the Dyle. The
+march was rapid, as the Duke had information that strong
+reinforcements, detached from the army at Alsace, would join Villeroi
+on the 18th. They soon came to ground subsequently immortalized in
+English story. On the 16th they reached Genappe, where, on 17th June
+1815, the Life-guards under Lord Anglesea defeated the French lancers;
+on the day following, the enemy retired into the forest of Soignies,
+still covering Brussels, and the Allied headquarters were moved to
+Braine la Leude. On the 17th August, a skirmish took place on the
+plain in front of WATERLOO; and the alarm being given, the Duke
+hastened to the spot, and rode over the field where Wellington and
+Napoleon contended a hundred and ten years afterwards. The French
+upon this retired into the forest of Soignies, and rested at Waterloo
+for the night.
+
+The slightest glance at the map must be sufficient to show, that by
+this cross march to Genappe and Waterloo, Marlborough had gained an
+immense advantage over the enemy. _He had interposed between them and
+France._ He had relinquished for the time, it is true, his own base of
+operations, and was out of communication with his magazines; but he
+had provided for this by taking six days' provisions for the army with
+him; and he could now force the French to fight or abandon Brussels,
+and retire towards Antwerp--the Allies being between them and France.
+Still clinging to their fortified lines on the Dyle, and desirous of
+covering Brussels, they had only occupied the wood of Soignies with
+their right wing; while the Allies occupied all the open country from
+Genappe to Frischermont and Braine la Leude, with their advanced posts
+up to La Haye Sainte and Mount St John. The Allies now occupied the
+ground, afterwards covered by Napoleon's army: the forest of Soignies
+and approaches to Brussels were guarded by the French. Incalculable
+were the results of a victory gained in such a position: it was by
+success gained over an army of half the size, that Napoleon
+established his power in so surprising a manner at Marengo. Impressed
+with such ideas, Marlborough, on the 18th August, anxiously
+reconnoitred the ground; and finding the front practicable for the
+passage of troops, moved up his men in three columns to the attack.
+The artillery was sent to Wavre; the Allied columns traversed at right
+angles the line of march by which Blucher advanced to the support of
+Wellington on the 18th June 1815.
+
+Had Marlborough's orders been executed, it is probable he would have
+gained a victory, which, from the relative position of the two armies,
+could not have been but decisive; and possibly the 18th August 1705,
+might have become as celebrated in history as the 18th June 1815.
+Overkirk, to whom he showed the ground at Over-Ische which he had
+destined for an attack, perfectly concurred in the expedience of it,
+and orders were given to bring the artillery forward to commence a
+cannonade. By the malice or negligence of Slangenberg, who had again
+violated his express instructions, and permitted the baggage to
+intermingle with the artillery-train, the guns had not arrived, and
+some hours were lost before they could be pushed up. At length, at
+noon, the guns were brought forward, and the troops being in line,
+Marlborough rode along the front to give his last orders. The English
+and Germans were in the highest spirits, anticipating certain victory
+from the relative position of the armies; the French fighting with
+their faces to Paris, the Allies with theirs to Brussels. But again
+the Dutch deputies and generals interposed, alleging that the enemy
+was too strongly posted to be attacked with any prospect of success.
+"Gentlemen," said Marlborough to the circle of generals which
+surrounded him, "I have reconnoitred the ground, and made dispositions
+for an attack. I am convinced that conscientiously, and as men of
+honour, we cannot now retire without an action. Should we neglect this
+opportunity, we must be responsible before God and man. You see the
+confusion which pervades the ranks of the enemy, and their
+embarrassment at our manoeuvres. I leave you to judge whether we
+should attack to-day, or wait till to-morrow. It is indeed late; but
+you must consider, that by throwing up intrenchments during the night,
+the enemy will render their position far more difficult to force."
+"Murder and massacre," replied Slangenberg. Marlborough, upon this,
+offered him two English for every Dutch battalion; but this too the
+Dutchman refused, on the plea that he did not understand English. Upon
+this the Duke offered to give him German regiments; but this too was
+declined, upon the pretence that the attack would be too hazardous.
+Marlborough, upon this, turned to the deputies and said--"I disdain to
+send troops to dangers which I will not myself encounter. I will lead
+them where the peril is most imminent. I adjure you, gentlemen! for
+the love of God and your country, do not let us neglect so favourable
+an opportunity." But it was all in vain; and instead of acting, the
+Dutch deputies and generals spent three hours in debating, until night
+came on and it was too late to attempt any thing. Such was
+Marlborough's chagrin at this disappointment, that he said, on
+retiring from the field, "I am at this moment _ten years_ older than I
+was four days ago."
+
+Next day, as Marlborough had foreseen, the enemy had strengthened
+their position with field-works; so that it was utterly hopeless to
+get the Dutch to agree to an attack which _then_ would indeed have
+been hazardous, though it was not so the evening before. The case was
+now irremediable. The six days' bread he had taken with him was on the
+point of being exhausted, and a protracted campaign without
+communication with his magazines was impracticable. With a heavy
+heart, therefore, Marlborough remeasured his steps to the ground he
+had left in front of the Dyle, and gave orders for destroying the
+lines of Leau, which he had carried with so much ability. His vexation
+was increased afterwards, by finding that the consternation of the
+French had been such on the 18th August, when he was so urgent to
+attack them, that they intended only to have made a show of
+resistance, in order to gain time for their baggage and heavy guns to
+retire to Brussels. To all appearance Marlborough, if he had not been
+so shamefully thwarted, would have illustrated the forest of Soignies
+by a victory as decisive as that of Blenheim, and realized the
+triumphant entrance to Brussels which Napoleon anticipated from his
+attack on Wellington on the same ground a hundred years afterwards.
+
+Nothing further, of any moment, was done in this campaign, except the
+capture of Leau and levelling of the enemy's lines on the Gheet.
+Marlborough wrote a formal letter to the States, in which he regretted
+the opportunity which had been lost, which M. Overkirk had coincided
+with him in thinking promised a great and glorious victory; and he
+added, "my heart is so full that I cannot forbear representing to your
+High Mightinesses on this occasion, that I find my authority here to
+be much less than when I had the honour to command your troops in
+Germany."[8] The Dutch generals sent in their counter-memorial to
+their government, which contains a curious picture of their idea of
+the subordination and direction of an army, and furnishes a key to the
+jealousy which had proved so fatal to the common cause. They
+complained that the Duke of Marlborough, "without holding a council of
+war, made two or three marches _for the execution of some design
+formed by his Grace_; and we cannot conceal from your High
+Mightinesses that all the generals of our army think it very strange
+_that they should not have the least notice of the said marches_."[9]
+It has been already mentioned that Marlborough, like every other good
+general, kept his designs to himself, from the impossibility of
+otherwise keeping them from the enemy; and that he had the additional
+motive, in the case of the Dutch deputies and generals, of being
+desirous "to cheat them into victory."
+
+Chagrined by disappointment, and fully convinced, as Wellington was
+after his campaign with Cuesta and the Spaniards at Talavera, that it
+was in vain to attempt any thing further with such impediments, on the
+part of the Allies, thrown in his way, Marlborough retired, in the
+beginning of September, to Tirlemont, the mineral waters of which had
+been recommended to him; and, in the end of October, the troops on
+both sides went into winter quarters. His vexation with the Dutch at
+this period strongly appeared in his private letters to his intimate
+friends;[10] but, though he exerted himself to the utmost during the
+suspension of operations in the field, both by memorials to his own
+government, and representations to the Dutch rulers, to get the
+direction of the army put upon a better footing, yet he had
+magnanimity and patriotism enough to sacrifice his private feelings to
+the public good. Instead of striving, therefore, to inflame the
+resentment of the English cabinet at the conduct of the Dutch
+generals, he strove only to moderate it; and prevailed on them to
+suspend the sending of a formal remonstrance, which they had prepared,
+to the States-general, till the effect of his own private
+representation in that quarter was first ascertained. The result
+proved that he had judged wisely; his disinterested conduct met with
+the deserved reward. The Patriotic party, both in England and at the
+Hague, was strongly roused in his favour; the factious accusations of
+the English Tories, like those of the Whigs a century after against
+Wellington, were silenced; the States-general were compelled by the
+public indignation to withdraw from their commands the generals who
+had thwarted his measures; and, without risking the union of the two
+powers, the factious, selfish men who had endangered the object of
+their alliance, were for ever deprived of the means of doing mischief.
+
+But while the danger was thus abated in one quarter, it only became
+more serious in another. The Dutch had been protected, and hindered
+from breaking off from the alliance, only by endangering the fidelity
+of the Austrians; and it had now become indispensable, at all hazards,
+to do something to appease their jealousies. The Imperial cabinet, in
+addition to the war in Italy, on the Upper Rhine, and in the Low
+Countries, was now involved in serious hostilities in Hungary; and
+felt the difficulty, or rather impossibility, of maintaining the
+contest at once in so many different quarters. The cross march of
+Marlborough from the Moselle to Flanders, however loudly called for by
+the danger and necessities of the States, had been viewed with a
+jealous eye by the Emperor, as tending to lead the war away from the
+side of Lorraine, with which the German interests were wound up; and
+the instances were loud and frequent, that, now that the interests of
+the Dutch were sufficiently provided for, he should return with the
+English contingent to that, the proper theatre of offensive
+operations. But Marlborough's experience had taught him, that as
+little reliance was to be placed on the co-operation of the Margrave
+of Baden, and the lesser German powers, as on that of the Dutch; and
+he felt that it was altogether in vain to attempt another campaign
+either in Germany or Flanders, unless some more effectual measures
+were taken to appease the jealousies, and secure the co-operation of
+this discordant alliance, than had hitherto been done. With this view,
+after having arranged matters to his satisfaction at the Hague, when
+Slangenberg was removed from the command, he repaired to Vienna in
+November, and thence soon after to Berlin.
+
+Marlborough's extraordinary address and powers of persuasion did not
+desert him on this critical occasion. Never was more strongly
+exemplified the truth of Chesterfield's remark, that manner had as
+much weight as matter in procuring him success; and that he was
+elevated to greatness as much on the wings of the Graces as by the
+strength of Minerva. Great as were the difficulties which attended the
+holding together the grand alliance, they all yielded to the magic of
+his name and the fascination of his manner. At Bernsberg he succeeded
+in obtaining from the Elector a promise for the increase of his
+contingent, and leave for it to be sent into Italy, where its
+co-operation was required; at Frankfort he overcame, by persuasion and
+address, the difficulties of the Margrave of Baden; and at Vienna he
+was magnificently received, and soon obtained unbounded credit with
+the Emperor. He was raised to the rank of prince of the empire, with
+the most flattering assurances of esteem; and fêted by the nobles, who
+vied with each other in demonstrations of respect to the illustrious
+conqueror of Blenheim. During his short sojourn of a fortnight there,
+he succeeded in allaying the suspicions and quieting the apprehensions
+of the Emperor, which no other man could have done; and, having
+arranged the plan of the next campaign, and raised, on his own credit,
+a loan of 100,000 crowns for the imperial court from the bankers, as
+well as promised one of L.250,000 more, which he afterwards obtained
+in London, he set out for Berlin, where his presence was not less
+necessary to stimulate the exertions and appease the complaints of the
+King of Prussia. He arrived there on the 30th November, and on the
+same evening had an audience of the King, to whose strange and
+capricious temper he so completely accommodated himself, that he
+allayed all his discontents, and brought him over completely to his
+views. He prevailed on him to renew the treaty for the furnishing of
+eight thousand men to aid the common cause, and to repair the chasms
+occasioned by the campaign in their ranks, as well as revoke the
+orders which had been issued for their return from Italy, where their
+removal would have proved of essential detriment. This concession, in
+the words of the prime minister who announced it, was granted "as a
+mark of respect to the Queen, and of particular friendship to the
+Duke." From Berlin he went, loaded with honours and presents, to
+Hanover, where jealousies of a different kind, but not less dangerous,
+had arisen in consequence of the apprehensions there entertained, that
+the Whigs were endeavouring to thwart the eventual succession of the
+House of Hanover to the throne of England. Marlborough's address,
+however, here also succeeded in overcoming all difficulties; and,
+after a sojourn of only a few days, he departed in the highest favour
+both with the Elector and his mother. From thence he hastened to the
+Hague, where he remained a fortnight, and succeeded in a great degree
+in removing those difficulties, and smoothing down those jealousies,
+which had proved so injurious to the common cause in the preceding
+campaign. He prevailed on the Dutch to reject separate offers of
+accommodation, which had been made to them by the French government.
+Having thus put all things on as favourable a footing as could be
+hoped for on the Continent, he embarked for England in the beginning
+of January 1705--having overcome greater difficulties, and obtained
+greater advantages, in the course of this winter campaign, with his
+divided allies, than he ever did during a summer campaign with the
+enemy.
+
+Every one, how cursorily soever he may be acquainted with Wellington's
+campaigns, must be struck with the great similarity between the
+difficulties which thus beset the Duke of Marlborough, in the earlier
+periods of his career, and those which at a subsequent period so long
+hampered the genius and thwarted the efforts of England's greatest
+general. Slangenberg's jealousy as an exact counterpart of that of
+Cuesta at Talavera; the timidity of the Dutch authorities was
+precisely similar to that of the Portuguese regency; the difficulty of
+appeasing the jealousy of Austria and Prussia, identical with that
+which so often compelled Wellington to hurry from the field to Lisbon
+and Cadiz. Such is the selfishness of human nature that it seems
+impossible to get men, actuated by different interests, to concur in
+any measures for the general good but under the pressure of immediate
+danger, so threatening as to be obvious to every understanding, or by
+the influence of ability and address of the very highest order. It is
+this which in every age has caused the weakness of the best-cemented
+confederacies, and so often enabled single powers, not possessing a
+fourth part of their material resources, to triumph over them. And it
+is in the power of overcoming these difficulties, and allaying those
+jealousies, that one of the most important qualities of the general of
+an alliance is to be found.
+
+Marlborough sailed for the Continent, to take the command of the
+armies in the Low Countries, on the 20th April 1706. His design was to
+have transferred the seat of war into Italy, as affairs had become so
+unpromising in that quarter as to be well-nigh desperate. The
+Imperialists had been surprised by the French general, Vendôme, in
+their quarters near Como, and driven into the mountains behind that
+town with the loss of three thousand men; so that all hold of the
+plain of Lombardy was lost. The Duke of Savoy was even threatened with
+a siege in his capital of Turin. The Margrave of Baden was displaying
+his usual fractious and impracticable disposition on the Upper Rhine:
+it seemed, in Marlborough's words, "as if he had no other object in
+view but to cover his own capital and residence." In Flanders, the
+habitual procrastination and tardiness of the Dutch had so thrown back
+the preparations, that it was impossible to begin the campaign so
+early as he had intended; and the jealousies of the cabinets of Berlin
+and Copenhagen had again revived to such a degree, that no aid was to
+be expected either from the Prussian or Danish contingents. It was
+chiefly to get beyond the reach of such troublesome and inconstant
+neighbours, that Marlborough was so desirous of transferring the seat
+of war to Italy, where he would have been beyond their reach. But all
+his efforts failed in inducing the States-general to allow any part of
+their troops to be employed to the south of the Alps; nor, indeed,
+could it reasonably have been expected that they would consent to
+hazard their forces, in an expedition not immediately connected with
+their interests, to so distant a quarter. The umbrage of the Elector
+of Hanover at the conduct of Queen Anne, had become so excessive, that
+he positively refused to let his contingent march. The Danes and
+Hessians excused themselves on various pretences from moving their
+troops to the south; and the Emperor, instead of contributing any
+thing to the war in Flanders, was urgent that succour should be sent,
+and that the English general should, in person, take the command on
+the Moselle. Marlborough was thus reduced to the English troops, and
+those in the pay of Holland; but they amounted to nearly sixty
+thousand men; and, on the 19th May, he set out from the Hague to take
+the command of this force, which lay in front of the old French
+frontier on the river Dyle. Marshal Villeroi had there collected
+sixty-two thousand men; so that the two armies, in point of numerical
+strength, were very nearly equal.
+
+The English general had established a secret correspondence with one
+Pasquini, an inhabitant of Namur, through whose agency, and that of
+some other citizens of the town who were inclined to the Imperial
+interest, he hoped to be able to make himself master of that important
+fortress. To facilitate that attempt, and have troops at hand ready to
+take advantage of any opening that might be afforded them in that
+quarter, he moved towards Tirlemont, directing his march by the
+sources of the Little Gheet. Determined to cover Namur, and knowing
+that the Hanoverians and Hessians were absent, Villeroi marched out of
+his lines, in order to stop the advance of the Allies, and give battle
+in the open field. On the 20th May, the English and Dutch forces
+effected their junction at Bitsia; and on the day following the Danish
+contingent arrived, Marlborough having by great exertions persuaded
+them to come up from the Rhine, upon receiving a guarantee for their
+pay from the Dutch government. This raised his force to seventy-three
+battalions and one hundred and twenty-four squadrons. The French had
+seventy-four battalions and one hundred and twenty-eight squadrons;
+but they had a much greater advantage in the homogeneous quality of
+their troops, who were all of one country; while the forces of the
+confederates were drawn from three different nations, speaking
+different languages, and many of whom had never acted in the field
+together. Cadogan, with six hundred horse, formed the vanguard of
+Marlborough's army; and at daybreak on the 22d, he beheld the enemy's
+army grouped in dense masses in the strong camp of Mont St André. As
+their position stretched directly across the allied line of march, a
+battle was unavoidable; and Marlborough no sooner was informed of it,
+than with a joyous heart he prepared for the conflict.
+
+The ground occupied by the enemy, and which has become so famous by
+the battle of RAMILIES which followed, was on the summit of an
+elevated plateau forming the highest ground in Brabant, immediately
+above the two sources of the Little Gheet. The plateau above them is
+varied by gentle undulations, interspersed with garden grounds, and
+dotted with coppice woods. From it the two Gheets, the Mehaigne and
+the Dyle, take their source, and flow in different directions, so that
+it is the most elevated ground in the whole country. The descents from
+the summit of the plateau to the Great Gheet are steep and abrupt; but
+the other rivers rise in marshes and mosses, which are very wet, and
+in some places impassable. Marlborough was well aware of the strength
+of the position on the summit of this eminence, and he had used all
+the dispatch in his power to reach it before the enemy; but Villeroi
+had less ground to go over, and had his troops in battle array on the
+summit before the English appeared in sight. The position which they
+occupied ran along the front of a curve facing inwards, and
+overhanging the sources of the Little Gheet. Their troops extended
+along the crest of the ridge above the marshes, having the village of
+Autre Eglise in its front on the extreme left, the villages of Offuz
+and Ramilies in its front, and its extreme right on the high grounds
+which overhung the course of the Mehaigne, and the old _chaussée_ of
+Brunehand which ran near and parallel to its banks. Their right
+stretched to the Mehaigne, on which it rested, and the village of
+Tavieres on its banks was strongly occupied by foot-soldiers. The
+French foot were drawn up in two lines, with the villages in their
+front strongly occupied by infantry. In Ramilies alone twenty
+battalions were posted. The great bulk of their horse was arranged
+also in two lines on the right, across the chaussée of Brunehand, by
+which part of the Allied column was to advance. On the highest point
+of the ridge occupied by the French, and in the rear of their extreme
+right, commanding the whole field of battle, behind the mass of
+cavalry, was the tomb or barrow of Ottomond, a German hero of renown
+in ancient days, which it was evident would become the subject of a
+desperate strife between the contending parties in the conflict which
+was approaching.
+
+Marlborough no sooner came in sight of the enemy's position than he
+formed his own plan of attack. His troops were divided into ten
+columns; the cavalry being into two lines on each wing, the infantry
+in six columns in the centre. He at once saw that the French right,
+surmounted by the lofty plateau on which the tomb of Ottomond was
+placed, was the key of the position, and against that he resolved to
+direct the weight of his onset; but the better to conceal his real
+design, he determined to make a vehement false attack on the village
+of Autre Eglise and the French left. The nature of the ground occupied
+by the allies and enemy respectively, favoured this design; for the
+French were posted round the circumference of a segment, while the
+allies occupied the centre and chord, so that they could move with
+greater rapidity than their opponents from one part of the field to
+another. Marlborough's stratagem was entirely successful. He formed,
+in the first instance, with some ostentation, a weighty column of
+attack opposite to the French left, menacing the village of Autre
+Eglise. No sooner did Villeroi perceive this than he drew a
+considerable body of infantry from his centre behind Offuz, and
+marched them with the utmost expedition to reinforce the threatened
+point on his left. When Marlborough saw this cross-movement fairly
+commenced, skilfully availing himself of a rising ground on which the
+front of his column of attack on his right was placed, he directed the
+second line and columns in support when the front had reached the edge
+of the plateau, where they obstructed the view of those behind them,
+to halt in a hollow where they could not be seen, and immediately
+after, still concealed from the enemy's sight, to defile rapidly to
+the left till they came into the rear of the left centre. The Danish
+horse, twenty squadrons strong, under the Duke of Wirtemberg, were at
+the same time placed in a third line behind the cavalry of the left
+wing, so as to bring the weight of his horse as well as foot into that
+quarter.
+
+At half past twelve the cannonade began on both sides, and that of the
+French played heavily on the columns of the confederates advancing to
+the attack. The Allied right wing directed against Autre Eglise,
+steadily advanced up the slopes from the banks of the Little Gheet to
+the edge of the plateau; but there they halted, deployed into line,
+and opened their fire in such a position as to conceal entirely the
+transfer of the infantry and cavalry in their rear to the Allied left.
+No sooner had they reached it, than the attack began in real earnest,
+and with a preponderating force in that direction. Colonel
+Wertonville, with four Dutch battalions, advanced against Tavieres,
+while twelve battalions in columns of companies, supported by a strong
+reserve, began the attack on Ramilies in the left centre. The
+vehemence of this assault soon convinced Villeroi that the real attack
+of the Allies was in that quarter; but he had no reserve of foot to
+support the troops in the villages, every disposable man having been
+sent off to the left in the direction of Autre Eglise. In this
+dilemma, he hastily ordered fourteen squadrons of horse to dismount,
+and, supported by two Swiss battalions, moved them up to the support
+of the troops in Tavieres. Before they could arrive, however, the
+Dutch battalions had with great gallantry carried that village; and
+Marlborough, directing the Danish horse, under the brave Duke of
+Wirtemberg, against the flank of the dismounted dragoons, as they were
+in column and marching up, speedily cut them in pieces, and hurled
+back the Swiss in confusion on the French horse, who were advancing to
+their support.
+
+Following up his success, Overkirk next charged the first line of
+advancing French cavalry with the first line of the Allied horse, and
+such was the vigour of his onset, that the enemy were broken and
+thrown back. But the second line of French and Bavarian horse soon
+came up, and assailing Overkirk's men when they were disordered by
+success, and little expecting another struggle, overthrew them without
+difficulty, drove them back in great confusion, and almost entirely
+restored the battle in that quarter. The danger was imminent that the
+victorious French horse, having cleared the open ground of their
+opponents, would wheel about and attack in rear the twelve battalions
+who were warmly engaged with the attack on Ramilies. Marlborough
+instantly saw the danger, and putting himself at the head of seventeen
+squadrons at hand, himself led them on to stop the progress of the
+victorious horse; while, at the same time, he sent orders for every
+disposable sabre to come up from his right with the utmost expedition.
+The moment was critical, and nothing but the admirable intrepidity and
+presence of mind of the English general retrieved the Allied affairs.
+Leading on the reserve of the Allied horse with his wonted gallantry,
+under a dreadful fire from the French batteries on the heights behind
+Ramilies, he was recognised by some French troopers, with whom he had
+formerly served in the time of Charles II., who made a sudden rush at
+him. They had well-nigh made him prisoner, for they succeeded in
+surrounding the Duke before his men could come up to the rescue, and
+he only extricated himself from the throng of assailants by fighting
+his way out, like the knights of old, sword in hand. He next tried to
+leap a ditch, but his horse fell in the attempt; and when mounting
+another horse, given him by his aide-de-camp Captain Molesworth,
+Colonel Bingfield, his equery, who held the stirrup, had his head
+carried off by a cannon ball. The imminent danger of their beloved
+general, however, revived the spirit of his troops, whom the dreadful
+severity of the cannonade had, during the scuffle, thrown into
+disorder; and, re-forming with great celerity, they again returned
+with desperate resolution to the charge.
+
+At this critical moment, when nothing was as yet decided, the twenty
+fresh squadrons whom Marlborough had so opportunely called up from the
+Allied right, were seen galloping at full speed, but still in regular
+order, on the plain behind this desperate conflict. Halting directly
+in rear of the spot where the horse on both sides were so vehemently
+engaged, they wheeled into line, and advanced, in close order and
+admirable array, to the support of the Duke. Encouraged by this
+powerful reinforcement, the whole Allied cavalry re-formed, and
+crowded forward in three lines, with loud shouts, to the attack of the
+now intimidated and disheartened French. They no longer withstood the
+onset, but, turning their horses' heads, fled with precipitation. The
+low grounds between Ramilies and the old chaussée were quickly passed,
+and the victorious horse, pressing up the slope on the opposite side,
+erelong reached the summit of the plateau. The tomb of Ottomond, its
+highest point, and visible from the whole field of battle, was soon
+seen resplendent with sabres and cuirasses, amidst a throng of horse;
+and deafening shouts, heard over the whole extent of both armies,
+announced that the crowning point and key of the whole position was
+carried.
+
+But Villeroi was an able and determined general, and his soldiers
+fought with the inherent bravery of the French nation. The contest,
+thus virtually decided, was not yet over. A fierce fight was raging
+around Ramilies, where the garrison of twenty French battalions
+opposed a stout resistance to Schultz's grenadiers. By degrees,
+however, the latter gained ground; two Swiss battalions, which had
+long and resolutely held their ground, were at length forced back into
+the village, and some of the nearest houses fell into the hands of the
+Allies. Upon this the whole rushed forward, and drove the enemy in a
+mass out of it towards the high grounds in their rear. The Marquis
+Maffei, however, rallied two regiments of Cologne guards, in a hollow
+way leading up from the village to the plateau, and opposed so
+vigorous a resistance that he not only checked the pursuit but
+regained part of the village. But Marlborough, whose eye was every
+where, no sooner saw this than he ordered up twenty battalions in
+reserve behind the centre, and they speedily cleared the village; and
+Maffei, with his gallant troops, being charged in flank by the
+victorious horse at the very time that he was driven out of the
+village by the infantry, was made prisoner, and almost all his men
+taken or destroyed.
+
+The victory was now decided on the British left and centre, where
+alone the real attack had been made. But so vehement had been the
+onset, so desperate the passage of arms which had taken place, that
+though the battle had lasted little more than three hours, the victors
+were nearly in as great disorder as the vanquished. Horse, foot, and
+artillery, were blended together in wild confusion; especially between
+Ramilies and the Mehaigne, and thence up to the tomb of Ottomond, in
+consequence of the various charges of all arms which had so rapidly
+succeeded each other on the same narrow space. Marlborough, seeing
+this, halted his troops, before hazarding any thing further, on the
+ground where they stood, which, in the left and centre, was where the
+enemy had been at the commencement of the action. Villeroi skilfully
+availed himself of this breathing-time to endeavour to re-form his
+broken troops, and take up a new line from Geest-a-Gerompont, on his
+right, through Offuz to Autre Eglise, still held by its original
+garrison, on his left. But in making the retrograde movement so as to
+get his men into this oblique position, he was even more impeded and
+thrown into disorder by the baggage waggons and dismounted guns on the
+heights, than the Allies had been in the plain below. Marlborough
+seeing this, resolved to give the enemy no time to rally, but again
+sounding the charge, ordered infantry and cavalry to advance. A strong
+column passed the morass in which the Little Gheet takes its rise,
+directing their steps towards Offuz; but the enemy, panic-struck as at
+Waterloo, by the general advance of the victors, gave way on all
+sides. Offuz was abandoned without firing a shot; the cavalry pursued
+with headlong fury, and soon the plateau of Mont St André was covered
+with a mass of fugitives. The troops in observation on the right,
+seeing the victory gained on the left and centre, of their own accord
+joined in the pursuit, and soon made themselves masters of Autre
+Eglise and the heights behind it. The Spanish and Bavarian
+horse-guards made a gallant attempt to stem the flood of disaster, but
+without attaining their object; it only led to their own destruction.
+Charged by General Wood and Colonel Wyndham at the head of the English
+horse-guards, they were cut to pieces. The rout now became universal,
+and all resistance ceased. In frightful confusion, a disorganized mass
+of horse and foot, abandoning their guns, streamed over the plateau,
+poured headlong down the banks of the Great Gheet, on the other side,
+and fled towards Louvain, which they reached in the most dreadful
+disorder at two o'clock in the morning. The British horse, under Lord
+Orkney, did not draw bridle from the pursuit till they reached the
+neighbourhood of that fortress; having, besides fighting the battle,
+marched full five-and-twenty miles that day. Marlborough halted for
+the night, and established headquarters at Mildert, thirteen miles
+from the field of battle, and five from Louvain.
+
+The trophies of the battle of Ramilies were immense; but they were
+even exceeded by its results. The loss of the French in killed and
+wounded was 7000 men, and, in addition to that, 6000 prisoners were
+taken. With the desertion in the days after the battle, they were
+weakened by full 15,000 men. They lost fifty-two guns, their whole
+baggage and pontoon train, all their caissons, and eighty standards
+wrested from them in fair fight. Among the prisoners were the Princes
+de Soubise and Rohan, and a son of Marshal Tallard. The victors lost
+1066 killed, and 2567 wounded, in all, 3633. The great and unusual
+proportion of killed to the wounded, shows how desperate and hand to
+hand, as in ancient battles, the fighting had been. Overkirk nobly
+supported the Duke in this action, and not only repeatedly charged at
+the head of his horse, but continued on horseback in the pursuit till
+one in the morning, when he narrowly escaped death from a Bavarian
+officer whom he had made prisoner, and given back his sword, saying,
+"You are a gentleman, and may keep it." The base wretch no sooner got
+it into his hand than he made a lounge at the Dutch general, but
+fortunately missed his blow, and was immediately cut down for his
+treachery by Overkirk's orderly.
+
+The immediate result of this splendid victory, was the acquisition of
+nearly all Austrian Flanders--Brussels, Louvain, Mechlin, Alort,
+Luise, and nearly all the great towns of Brabant, opened their gates
+immediately after. Ghent and Bruges speedily followed the example; and
+Daun and Oudenarde also soon declared for the Austrian cause. Of all
+the towns in Flanders, Antwerp, Ostend, Nieuport, and Dunkirk alone
+held out for the French; and to their reduction the Duke immediately
+turned his attention. The public transports in Holland knew no bounds;
+they much exceeded what had been felt for the victory of Blenheim, for
+that only saved Germany, but this delivered themselves. The wretched
+jealousy which had so long thwarted the Duke, as it does every other
+really great man, was fairly overpowered in "the electric shock of a
+nation's gratitude." In England, the rejoicings were equally
+enthusiastic, and a solemn thanksgiving, at which the Queen attended
+in person at St Paul's, gave a willing vent to the general
+thankfulness. "Faction and the French," as Bolingbroke expressed
+it,[11] were all that Marlborough had to fear, and he had fairly
+conquered both. But the snake was scotched, not killed, and he
+replenished his venom, and prepared future stings even during the roar
+of triumphant cannon, and the festive blaze of rejoicing cities.[12]
+
+The French army, after this terrible defeat, retired in the deepest
+dejection towards French Flanders, leaving garrisons in the principal
+fortresses which still held out for them. Marlborough made his
+triumphant entry into Brussels in great pomp on the 28th May, amidst
+the acclamations of the inhabitants. The Three Estates of Brabant
+assembled there, acknowledged Charles III. for their sovereign, and
+received, in return, a guarantee from the English government and the
+States-general, that the _joyeuse entrée_, the Magna Charta of
+Flanders, should be faithfully observed. "Every where, says
+Marlborough, the joy was great at being delivered from the insolence
+and exactions of the French." The victory of Ramilies produced no less
+effect on the northern courts, where jealousies and lukewarmness had
+hitherto proved so pernicious to the common cause. The King of
+Prussia, who had hitherto kept aloof, and suspended the march of his
+troops, now on the mediation of Marlborough became reconciled to the
+Emperor and the States-general; and the Elector of Hanover, forgetting
+his apprehensions about the English succession, was among the foremost
+to offer his congratulations, and make a tender of his forces to the
+now triumphant cause. It is seldom that the prosperous want friends.
+
+The Dutch were clear, after the submission of Brabant, to levy
+contributions in it as a conquered country, to relieve themselves of
+part of the expenses of the war; and Godolphin, actuated by the same
+short-sighted views, was eager to replenish the English exchequer from
+the same source. But Marlborough, like Wellington in after days, had
+magnanimity and wisdom enough to see the folly, as well as injustice,
+of thus alienating infant allies at the moment of their conversion,
+and he combated the project so successfully, that it was
+abandoned.[13] At the same time, he preserved the strictest discipline
+on the part of his troops, and took every imaginable precaution to
+secure the affections and allay the apprehensions of the inhabitants
+of the ceded provinces. The good effects of this wise and conciliatory
+policy were soon apparent. Without firing a shot, the Allies gained
+greater advantages during the remainder of the campaign, than they
+could have done by a series of bloody sieges, and the sacrifice of
+thirty thousand men. Nor was it less advantageous to the English
+general than to the common cause; for it delivered him, for that
+season at least, from the thraldom of a council of war, the invariable
+resource of a weak, and bane of a lofty mind.[14]
+
+The Estates of Brabant, assembled at Brussels, sent injunctions to
+the governor of Antwerp, Ghent, and all the other fortresses within
+their territories, to declare for Charles III., and admit these
+troops. The effects of this, coupled with the discipline preserved by
+the Allied troops, and the protection from contributions, was
+incredible. No sooner were the orders from the States at Brussels
+received at Antwerp, than a schism broke out between the French
+regiments in the garrison and the Walloon guards, the latter declaring
+for Charles III. The approach of Marlborough's army, and the
+intelligence of the submission of the other cities of Brabant, brought
+matters to a crisis; and after some altercation, it was agreed that
+the French troops should march out with the honours of war, and be
+escorted to Bouchain, within the frontier of their own country. On the
+6th June this magnificent fortress, which it had cost the Prince of
+Parma so vast an expenditure of blood and treasure to reduce, and
+which Napoleon said was itself worth a kingdom, was gained without
+firing a shot. Oudenarde, which had been in vain besieged in the last
+war by William III. at the head of sixty thousand men, at the same
+time followed the example; and Ghent and Bruges opened their gates.
+Flanders, bristling with fortresses, and the possession of which in
+the early part of the war had been of such signal service to the
+French, was, with the exception of Ostend, Dunkirk, and two or three
+smaller places, entirely gained by the consternation produced by a
+single battle. Well might Marlborough say, "the consequences of our
+victory are almost incredible. A whole country, with so many strong
+places, delivered up without the least resistance, shows, not only the
+great loss they must have sustained, but likewise the terror and
+consternation they are in."[15]
+
+At this period, Marlborough hoped the war would be speedily brought to
+a close, and that a glorious peace would reward his own and his
+country's efforts. His thoughts reverted constantly, as his private
+correspondence shows, to home, quiet, and domestic happiness. To the
+Duchess he wrote at this period--"You are very kind in desiring I
+would not expose myself. Be assured, I love you so well, and am so
+desirous of ending my days quietly with you, that I shall not venture
+myself but when it is absolutely necessary; and I am sure you are so
+kind to me, and wish so well to the common cause, that you had rather
+see me dead than not do my duty. I am persuaded that this campaign
+will bring in a good peace; and I beg of you to do all that you can,
+that the house of Woodstock may be carried up as much as possible,
+that I may have the prospect of living in it."[16]--But these
+anticipations were not destined to be realized; and before he retired
+into the vale of years, the hero was destined to drain to the dregs
+the cup of envy, jealousy, and ingratitude.
+
+His first step of importance, after consolidating the important
+conquests he had made, and averting the cupidity of the Dutch, which,
+by levying contributions on their inhabitants, threatened to endanger
+them before they were well secured, was to undertake the siege of
+Ostend, the most considerable place in Flanders, which still held out
+for the French interest. This place, celebrated for its great
+strength, and the long siege of three years which it had withstood
+against the Spanish under Spinola, was expected to make a very
+protracted resistance; but such was the terror now inspired by
+Marlborough's name, that it was reduced much sooner than had been
+anticipated. Every preparation had been made for a protracted
+resistance. A fleet of nine ships of the line lay off the harbour, and
+a formidable besieging train was brought up from Antwerp and Brussels.
+Trenches were opened on the 28th June; the counterscarp was blown in
+on the 6th July; and the day following, the besieged, after a
+fruitless sally, capitulated, and the Flemish part of the garrison
+entered the service of the Allies. The garrison was still five
+thousand strong, when it surrendered; two ships of the line were
+taken in the harbour; and the total loss of the besiegers was only
+five hundred men.
+
+Menin was next besieged, but it made a more protracted resistance. Its
+great strength was derived from the means which the governor of the
+fortress possessed of flooding at will the immense low plains in which
+it is situated. Its fortifications had always been considered as one
+of the masterpieces of Vauban; the garrison was ample; and the
+governor a man of resolution, who was encouraged to make a vigorous
+resistance, by the assurances of succour which he had received from
+the French government. In effect, Louis XIV. had made the greatest
+efforts to repair the consequences of the disaster at Ramilies.
+Marshal Marsin had been detached from the Rhine with eighteen
+battalions and fourteen squadrons; and, in addition to that, thirty
+battalions and forty squadrons were marching from Alsace. These great
+reinforcements, with the addition of nine battalions which were in the
+lines on the Dyle when the battle of Ramilies was fought, would, when
+all assembled, have raised the French army to one hundred and ten
+battalions, and one hundred and forty squadrons--or above one hundred
+thousand men; whereas Marlborough, after employing thirty-two
+battalions in the siege, could only spare for the covering army about
+seventy-two battalions and eighty squadrons. The numerical
+superiority, therefore, was very great on the side of the enemy,
+especially when the Allies were divided by the necessity of carrying
+on the siege; and Villeroi, who had lost the confidence of his men,
+had been replaced by the Duke de Vendôme, one of the best generals in
+the French service, illustrated by his recent victory over the
+Imperialists in Italy. He loudly gave out that he would raise the
+siege, and approached the covering army closely, as if with that
+design. But Marlborough persevered in his design; for, to use his own
+words, "The Elector of Bavaria says, he is promised a hundred and ten
+battalions, and they are certainly stronger in horse than we. But even
+if they had greater numbers, I neither think it is their interest nor
+their inclination to venture a battle; for our men are in heart, and
+theirs are cowed."[17]
+
+Considerable difficulties were experienced in the first instance in
+getting up the siege equipage, in consequence of the inundations which
+were let loose; but a drought having set in, when the blockade began,
+in the beginning of August, these obstacles were erelong overcome, and
+on the 9th August the besiegers' fire began, while Marlborough took
+post at Helchin to cover the siege. On the 18th, the fire of the
+breaching batteries had been so effectual, that it was deemed
+practicable to make an assault on the covered way. As a determined
+resistance was anticipated, the Duke repaired to the spot to
+superintend the attack. At seven in the evening, the signal was given
+by the explosion of two mines, and the troops, the English in front,
+rushed to the assault. They soon cut down the palisades, and, throwing
+their grenades before them, erelong got into the covered way; but
+there they were exposed to a dreadful fire from two ravelins which
+enfiladed it. For two hours they bore it without flinching, labouring
+hard to erect barricades, so as to get under cover; which was at
+length done, but not before fourteen hundred of the brave assailants
+had been struck down. This success, though thus dearly purchased, was
+however decisive. The establishment of the besiegers in this important
+lodgement, in the heart as it were of their works, so distressed the
+enemy, that on the 22d they hoisted the white flag, and capitulated,
+still 4300 strong, on the following day. The reduction of this strong
+and celebrated fortress gave the most unbounded satisfaction to the
+Allies, as it not only materially strengthened the barrier against
+France; but having taken place in presence of the Duke de Vendôme and
+his powerful army, drawn together with such diligence to raise the
+siege, it afforded the strongest proof of the superiority they had now
+acquired over their enemy in the field.[18]
+
+Upon the fall of Menin, Vendôme collected his troops, and occupied a
+position behind the Lys and the Dyle, in order to cover Lille, against
+which he supposed the intentions of Marlborough were directed. But he
+had another object in view, and immediately sat down before
+Dendermonde, still keeping post with his covering army at Helchin,
+which barred the access to that fortress. Being situated on the banks
+of the Scheldt, it was so completely within the power of the governor
+to hinder the approaches of the besiegers, by letting out the waters,
+that the King of France said, on hearing they had commenced its
+siege--"They must have an army of ducks to take it." An extraordinary
+drought at this period, however, which lasted seven weeks, had so
+lowered the Scheldt and canals, that the approaches were pushed with
+great celerity, and on the 5th September the garrison surrendered at
+discretion. Marlborough wrote to Godolphin on this occasion--"The
+taking of Dendermonde, making the garrison prisoners of war, was more
+than could have been expected; but I saw they were in a consternation.
+That place could never have been taken but by the hand of God, which
+gave us seven weeks without rain. The rain began the day after we had
+taken possession, and continued without intermission for the three
+next days."[19]
+
+Ath was the next object of attack. This small but strong fortress is
+of great importance, as lying on the direct road from Mons to Brussels
+by Halle; and, in consequence of that circumstance, it was rendered a
+fortress of the first order, when the barrier of strongholds, insanely
+demolished by Joseph II. before the war of the Revolution, was
+restored by the Allies, under the direction of Wellington, after its
+termination. Marlborough entrusted the direction of the attack to
+Overkirk, while he himself occupied, with the covering army, the
+position of Leuze. Vendôme's army was so much discouraged that he did
+not venture to disturb the operations; but retiring behind the
+Scheldt, between Condé and Montagne, contented himself with throwing
+strong garrisons into Mons and Charleroi, which he apprehended would
+be the next object of attack. The operations of the besiegers against
+Ath were pushed with great vigour; and on the 4th October the
+garrison, eight hundred strong, all that remained out of two thousand
+who manned the works when the siege began, surrendered prisoners of
+war. Marlborough was very urgent after this success to undertake the
+siege of Mons, which would have completed the conquest of Brabant and
+Flanders; but he could not persuade the Dutch authorities to furnish
+him with the requisite stores to undertake it.[20] After a parade of
+his army in the open field near Cambron, in the hope of drawing
+Vendôme, who boasted of having one hundred and forty battalions and
+one hundred and eighty squadrons at his command, to a battle, in which
+he was disappointed, he resigned the command to Overkirk, put the army
+into winter quarters, and hastened to Brussels, to commence his
+arduous duties of stilling the jealousies and holding together the
+discordant powers of the alliance.[21]
+
+Marlborough was received in the most splendid manner, and with
+unbounded demonstrations of joy, at Brussels, not only by the
+inconstant populace, but by the deputies of the Three Estates of
+Brabant, which were there assembled in regular and permanent
+sovereignty. Well might they lavish their demonstrations of respect
+and gratitude on the English general; for never in modern times had
+more important or glorious events signalized a successful campaign. In
+five months the power of France had been so completely broken, and the
+towering temper of its inhabitants so lowered, that their best
+general, at the head of above a hundred thousand men, did not venture
+to measure swords with the Allies, not more than two-thirds of their
+numerical strength in the field. By the effects of a single victory,
+the whole of Brabant and Flanders, studded with the strongest
+fortresses in Europe, each of which, in former wars, had required
+months--some, years--for their reduction, had been gained to the
+Allied arms. Between those taken on the field of Ramilies, and
+subsequently in the besieged fortresses, above twenty thousand men had
+been made prisoners, and twice that number lost to the enemy by the
+sword, sickness, and desertion; and France now made head against the
+Allies in Flanders only by drawing together their forces from all
+other quarters, and starving the war in Italy and on the Rhine, as
+well as straining every nerve in the interior. This state of almost
+frenzied exertion could not last. Already the effects of Marlborough's
+triumph at the commencement of the campaign had appeared, in the total
+defeat of the French in their lines before Turin, by Prince Eugene, on
+the 18th September, and their expulsion from Italy. It was the
+reinforcements procured for him, and withheld from his opponents, by
+Marlborough, which obtained for him this glorious victory, at which
+the English general, with the generosity of true greatness, rejoiced
+even more sincerely than he had done in any triumphs of his own;[22]
+while Eugene, with equal greatness of mind, was the first to ascribe
+his success mainly to the succours sent him by the Duke of
+Marlborough.[23]
+
+But all men are not Marlboroughs or Eugenes: the really great alone
+can witness success without envy, or achieve it without selfishness.
+In the base herd of ignoble men who profited by the efforts of these
+great leaders, the malignant passions were rapidly gaining strength by
+the very magnitude of their triumphs. The removal of danger was
+producing its usual effect, among the Allies, of reviving jealousy.
+Conquest was spreading its invariable discord in the cupidity to share
+its fruits. These divisions had early appeared after the battle of
+Ramilies, when the Emperor Joseph, as a natural mark of gratitude to
+the general who had delivered his people from their oppressors, as
+well as from a regard to his own interests, appointed Marlborough to
+the general command as viceroy of the Netherlands. The English general
+was highly gratified by this mark of confidence and gratitude; and the
+appointment was cordially approved of by Queen Anne and the English
+cabinet, who without hesitation authorized Marlborough to accept the
+proffered dignity. But the Dutch, who had already begun to conceive
+projects of ambition by an accession of territory to themselves on the
+side of Flanders, evinced such umbrage at this appointment, as tending
+to throw the administration of the Netherlands entirely into the hands
+of the English and Austrians, that Marlborough had the magnanimity to
+solicit permission to decline an honour which threatened to breed
+disunion in the alliance.[24] This conduct was as disinterested as it
+was patriotic; for the appointments of the government, thus declined
+from a desire for the public good, were no less than sixty thousand
+pounds a-year.
+
+Although, however, Marlborough thus renounced this splendid
+appointment, yet the court of Vienna were not equally tractable, and
+evinced the utmost jealousy at the no longer disguised desire of the
+Dutch to gain an accession of territory, and the barrier of which they
+were so passionately desirous, at the expense of the Austrian
+Netherlands. The project also got wind, and the inhabitants of
+Brabant, whom difference of religion and old-established national
+rivalry had long alienated from the Dutch, were so much alarmed at the
+prospect of being transferred to their hated neighbours, that it at
+once cooled their ardour in the cause of the alliance, and went far to
+sow the seeds of irrepressible dissension among them. The Emperor,
+therefore, again pressed the appointment on Marlborough; but from the
+same lofty motives he continued to decline, professing a willingness,
+at the same time, to give the Emperor every aid privately in the new
+government which was in his power; so that the Emperor was obliged to
+give a reluctant consent. Notwithstanding this refusal, the jealousy
+of the Dutch was such, that on the revival of a report that the
+government had been again confirmed to the Duke of Marlborough, they
+were thrown into such a ferment, that in the public congress the
+Pensionary could not avoid exclaiming in the presence of the English
+ambassador, "Mon Dieu! est-il possible qu'on voudrait faire ce pas
+sans notre participation?"[25]
+
+The French government were soon informed of this jealousy, and of the
+open desire of the Dutch for an accession of territory on the side of
+Flanders, at the expense of Austria; and they took advantage of it,
+early in the summer of 1706, to open a secret negotiation with the
+States-general for the conclusion of a separate peace with that
+republic. The basis of this accommodation was to be a renunciation by
+the Duke of Anjou of his claim to the crown of Spain, upon receiving
+an equivalent in Italy: he offered to recognize Anne as Queen of
+England, and professed the utmost readiness to secure for the Dutch,
+_at the expense of Austria_, that barrier in the Netherlands, to which
+he conceived them to be so well entitled. These proposals elated the
+Dutch government to such a degree, that they began to take a high
+hand, and assume a dictatorial tone at the Hague: and it was the
+secret belief that they would, if matters came to extremities, be
+supported by France in this exorbitant demand for a slice of Austria,
+that made them resist so strenuously the government of the Low
+Countries being placed in such firm and vigorous hands as those of
+Marlborough. Matters had come to such a pass in October and November
+1706, that Godolphin regarded affairs as desperate, and thought the
+alliance was on the point of being dissolved.[26] Thus was
+Marlborough's usual winter campaign with the confederates rendered
+more difficult on this than it had been on any preceding occasion; for
+he had now to contend with the consequences of his own success, and
+allay the jealousies and stifle the cupidity which had sprung up, out
+of the prospect of the magnificent spoil which he himself had laid at
+the feet of the Allies.
+
+But in this dangerous crisis, Marlborough's great diplomatic ability,
+consummate address, and thorough devotion to the common good, stood
+him in as good stead as his military talents had done him in the
+preceding campaign with Villeroi and Vendôme. In the beginning of
+November, he repaired to the Hague, and though he found the Dutch in
+the first instance so extravagant in their ideas of the barrier they
+were to obtain, that he despaired of effecting any settlement of the
+differences between them and the Emperor;[27] yet he at length
+succeeded, though with very great difficulty, in appeasing, for the
+time, the jealousies between them and the cabinet of Vienna, and
+obtaining a public renewal of the alliance for the prosecution of the
+war. The publication of this treaty diffused the utmost satisfaction
+among the ministers of the Allied powers assembled at the Hague; and
+this was further increased by the breaking off, at the same time, of a
+negotiation which had pended for some months between Marlborough and
+the Elector of Bavaria, for a separate treaty with that prince, who
+had become disgusted with the French alliance. But all Marlborough's
+efforts failed to make any adjustment of the disputed matter of the
+barrier, on which the Dutch were so obstinately set; and finding them
+equally unreasonable and intractable on that subject, he deemed
+himself fortunate when he obtained the adjourning of the question, by
+the consent of all concerned, till the conclusion of a general peace.
+
+After the adjustment of this delicate and perilous negotiation,
+Marlborough returned to England, where he was received with transports
+of exultation by all classes of the people. He was conducted in one of
+the royal carriages, amidst a splendid procession of all the nobility
+of the kingdom, to Temple Bar, where he was received by the city
+authorities, by whom he was feasted in the most magnificent manner at
+Vintners' Hall. Thanks were voted to him by both Houses of Parliament;
+and when he took his seat in the House of Peers, the Lord Keeper
+addressed him in these just and appropriate terms--"What your Grace
+has performed in this last campaign has far exceeded all hopes, even
+of such as were most affectionate and partial to their country's
+interest and glory. The advantages you have gained against the enemy
+are of such a nature, so conspicuous in themselves, so undoubtedly
+owing to your courage and conduct, so sensibly and universally
+beneficial to the whole confederacy, that to attempt to adorn them
+with the colouring of words would be vain and inexcusable. Therefore I
+decline it, the rather because I should certainly offend that great
+modesty which alone can and does add lustre to your actions, and which
+in your Grace's example has successfully withstood as great trials, as
+that virtue has met with in any instance whatsoever." The House of
+Commons passed a similar resolution; and the better to testify the
+national gratitude, an annuity of £5000 a-year, charged upon the
+Post-Office, was settled upon the Duke and Duchess, and their
+descendants male or female; and the dukedom, which stood limited to
+heirs-male, was extended also to heirs-female, "in order," as it was
+finely expressed, "that England might never be without a title which
+might recall the remembrance of so much glory."
+
+So much glory, however, produced its usual effect in engendering
+jealousy in little minds. The Whigs had grown spiteful against that
+illustrious pillar of their party; they were tired of hearing him
+called the just. Both Godolphin and Marlborough became the objects of
+excessive jealousy to their own party; and this, combined with the
+rancour of the Tories, who could never forgive his desertion of his
+early patron the Duke of York, had well-nigh proved fatal to him when
+at the very zenith of his usefulness and popularity. Intrigue was rife
+at St James's. Parties were strangely intermixed and disjointed. Some
+of the moderate Tories were in power; many covetous Whigs were out of
+it. Neither party stood on great public principle, a sure sign of
+instability in the national councils, and ultimate neglect of the
+national interests. Harley's intrigues had become serious; the prime
+minister, Godolphin, had threatened to resign. In this alarming
+juncture of domestic affairs, the presence of Marlborough produced its
+usual pacifying and benign influence. In a long interview which he had
+with the Queen on his first private audience, he settled all
+differences; Godolphin was persuaded to withdraw his resignation; the
+cabinet was re-constructed on a new and harmonious basis, Harley and
+Bolingbroke being the only Tories of any note who remained in power;
+and this new peril to the prosecution of the war, and the cause of
+European independence, was removed.
+
+Marlborough's services to England and the cause of European
+independence in this campaign, recall one mournful feeling to the
+British annalist. All that he had won for his country--all that
+Wellington, with still greater difficulty, and amidst yet brighter
+glories, regained for it, has been lost. It has been lost, too, not by
+the enemies of the nation, but by itself; not by an opposite faction,
+but by the very party over whom his own great exploits had shed such
+imperishable lustre. Antwerp, the first-fruits of Ramilies--Antwerp,
+the last reward of Waterloo--Antwerp, to hold which against England
+Napoleon lost his crown, has been abandoned to France! An English
+fleet has combined with a French army to wrest from Holland the
+barrier of Dutch independence, and the key to the Low Countries. The
+barrier so passionately sought by the Dutch has been wrested from
+them, and wrested from them by British hands; a revolutionary power
+has been placed on the throne of Belgium; Flanders, instead of the
+outwork of Europe against France, has become the outwork of France
+against Europe. The tricolor flag waves in sight of Bergen-op-Zoom;
+within a month after the first European war, the whole coast from
+Bayonne to the Texel will be arrayed against Britain! The Whigs of
+1832 have undone all that the Whigs of 1706 had done--all that the
+glories of 1815 had secured. Such is the way in which nations are
+ruined by the blindness of faction.
+
+[Footnote 1: Continued from No. I., in July 1845, Vol. lviii. p. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 2: "C'est le retard de toutes les troupes Allemandes qui
+dérange nos affaires. Je ne saurais vous expliquer la situation où
+nous sommes qu'en vous envoyant les deux lettres ci jointes,--l'une
+que je viens de recevoir du Prince de Bade, et l'autre la réponse que
+je lui fais. En vérité notre état est plus à plaindre que vous ne
+croyez; mais je vous prie que cela n'aille pas outre. _Nous perdons la
+plus belle occasion du monde--manque des troupes qui devaient être ici
+il y a deja longtemps._ Pour le reste de l'artillerie Hollandaise, et
+les provisions qui peuvent arriver de Mayence, vous les arrêterez,
+s'il vous plait, pour quelques jours, jusqu'à ce que je vous en
+écrive."--_Marlborough à M. Pesters; Trêves, 31 Mai 1705. Despatches_,
+II. 60-1.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Even so late as the 8th June, Marlborough wrote.--"J'ai
+d'abord pris poste dans ce camp, où je me trouve à portée
+d'entreprendre la siège de Saar-Louis, si les troupes qui devaient
+avoir été ici il y a quelques jours m'avaient joint. Cependant je n'ai
+pas jusqu'ici un seul homme qui ne soit à la solde d'Angleterre ou de
+la Hollande. Les troupes de Bade ne peuvent arriver avant le 21 au
+plutôt; quelques-uns des Prussiens sont encore plus en arrière; et
+pour les trois mille chevaux que les princes voisins devaient nous
+fournir pour méner l'artillerie et les munitions, et sans quoi il nous
+sera impossible d'agir, je n'en ai aucune nouvelle, nonobstant toutes
+mes instances. J'ai grand peur même qu'il n'y ait, à l'heure même que
+je vous écris celle-ci, des regulations en chemin de la Haye qui
+détruiront entièrement tous nos projets de ce côté. Cette situation me
+donne tant d'inquiétude que je ne saurais me dispenser de vous prier
+d'en vouloir part à sa Majesté Impériale."--_Marlborough au Comte de
+Wroteslau; Elft, 8 Juin 1705. Despatches_, II. 85.]
+
+[Footnote 4: "Par ces contretemps tous nos projets de ce côté-ci sont
+évanouis, au moins pour le present; et j'espère que V.A. me fera la
+justice de croire que j'ai fait tout ce qui a dependu de moi pour les
+faire réussir. Si je pouvais avoir l'honneur d'entretenir V.A. pour
+une seule heure, je lui dirai bien des choses, par où elle verrait
+combien je suis à plaindre. J'avais 94 escadrons et 72 bataillons,
+tous à la solde de l'Angleterre et de la Hollande; de sorte que, si
+l'on m'avait secondé nous aurions une des plus glorieuses campagnes
+qu'on pouvait souhaiter. Après un tel traitment, V.A., je suis sûr, ne
+m'aurait pas blâmé si j'avais pris la résolution _de ne jamais plus
+servir_, comme je ne ferai pas aussi, je vous assure, après cette
+campagne, à moins que de pouvoir prendre des mésures avec l'empereur
+sur lesquelles je pourrais entièrement me fier."--_Marlborough à
+Eugène, 21 Juin 1705. Despatches_, II. 124.]
+
+[Footnote 5: "It is a justice I owe to the Duke of Marlborough to
+state, that the whole honour of the enterprise, executed with so much
+skill and courage, is entirely due to him."--_Overkirk to
+States-general, 19th July 1705. Coxe_, II. 151.]
+
+[Footnote 6: "On Wednesday, it was unanimously resolved we should pass
+the Dyle, but that afternoon there fell so much rain as rendered it
+impracticable; but the fair weather this morning made me determine to
+attempt it. Upon this the deputies held a council with all the
+generals of Overkirk's army, who have unanimously retracted their
+opinions, and declared the passage of the river too dangerous, which
+resolution, in my opinion, _will ruin the whole campaign_. They have,
+at the same time, proposed to me to attack the French on their left;
+but I know they will let that fall also, as soon as they see the
+ground. It is very mortifying to meet more obstruction from friends
+than from enemies; but that is now the case with me; yet I dare not
+show my resentment for fear of alarming the Dutch."--_Marlborough to
+Godolphin, 29th July 1705. Coxe_, II. 158.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Bolingbroke to Marlborough, August 18, 1705. _Coxe_, II.
+160.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Marlborough to the States, Wavre, 19th August 1705.
+_Desp._ II. 224.]
+
+[Footnote 9: Dutch Generals' Mem. _Coxe_, II. 174.]
+
+[Footnote 10: "Several prisoners whom we have taken, as well as the
+deserters, assure us, that they should have made no other defence but
+such as might have given them time to draw off their army to Brussels,
+where their baggage was already gone. By this you may imagine how I am
+vexed, seeing very plainly I am joined with people who will never do
+any thing."--_Marlborough to Godolphin, August 24 1705._
+
+"M. Overkirk et moi avons d'abord été reconnaitre les postes que nous
+voulions attaquer, et l'armée étant rangée en bataille sur le midi,
+nous avions tout d'esperer, avec la benediction du ciel, vu notre
+supériorité, et la bonté des troupes, une heuruse journée; mais MM.
+les deputés de l'état ayant voulu consulter leurs généraux, et les
+trouvant de differentes sentiments d'avec M. Overkirk et moi, ils
+n'ont pas voulu passer outre. De sorte que tout notre dessein, après
+l'avoir méné jusque là, a échoué, et nous avons rebroussé chemin pour
+aller commencer la démolition des Lignes, et prendre Leau. Vous pouvez
+bien croire, Monsieur, que je suis au désespoir d'être obligé
+d'essuyer encore ce contretemps; mais je vois bien qu'il ne faut pas
+plus songer à agir offensivement avec ces messieurs, puisqu' ils ne
+veulent rien risquer quand même ils ont tout l'advantage de leur
+côté."--_Marlborough au Comte de Wartenberg, Wavre, 20 Août 1705.
+Despatches_, II. 226.]
+
+[Footnote 11: "This vast addition of renown which your Grace has
+acquired, and the wonderful preservation of your life, are subjects
+upon which I can never express a thousandth part of what I feel.
+_France and faction are the only enemies England has to fear_, and
+your Grace will conquer both; at least, while you beat the French, you
+give a strength to the Government which the other dares not contend
+with."--_Bolingbroke to Marlborough, May 28, 1706. Coxe_, II. 358.]
+
+[Footnote 12: "I shall attend the Queen at the thanksgiving on
+Thursday next: I assure you I shall do it, from every vein within me,
+having scarce any thing else to support either my head or heart. The
+_animosity and inveteracy one has to struggle against is
+unimaginable_, not to mention the difficulty of obtaining things to be
+done that are reasonable, or of satisfying people with reason when
+they are done."--_Godolphin to Marlborough, May 24, 1706._]
+
+[Footnote 13: Duke of Marlborough to Mr Secretary Harley, June 14,
+1706.]
+
+[Footnote 14: "The consequences of this battle are likely to be
+greater than that of Blenheim; for we have now the whole summer before
+us, and, with the blessing of God, I will make the best use of it.
+_For as I have had no council of war before this battle, so I hope to
+have none during the whole campaign_; and I think we may make such
+work of it as may give the Queen the glory of making a safe and
+honourable peace, for the blessing of God is certainly with
+us."--_Marlborough to Lord Godolphin, May 27, 1706. Coxe, II. 365._]
+
+[Footnote 15: Marlborough to Mr Secretary Harley, 3d June 1706. _Desp.
+II._ 554.]
+
+[Footnote 16: Marlborough to Duchess of Marlborough, May 31, 1706.]
+
+[Footnote 17: Marlborough to Secretary Harley, Helchin, 9th August
+1706. _Desp._ III. 69.]
+
+[Footnote 18: Marlborough to Duke of Savoy, Helchin, 25th August 1706.
+_Desp._ III. 101.]
+
+[Footnote 19: Marlborough to Godolphin, September 4, 1706. _Coxe_,
+III. 10.]
+
+[Footnote 20: "If the Dutch can furnish ammunition for the siege of
+Mons, we shall undertake it; for if the weather continues fair, we
+shall have it much cheaper this year than the next, when they have had
+time to recruit their army. The taking of that town would be a very
+great advantage to us for the opening of next campaign, which we must
+make if we would bring France to such a peace as will give us quiet
+hereafter."--_Marlborough to Godolphin, October 14, 1706. Coxe_, III.
+14.]
+
+[Footnote 21: "M. de Vendôme tells his officers he has one hundred and
+forty battalions and one hundred and eighty squadrons, and that, if my
+Lord Marlborough gives him an opportunity, he will pay him a visit
+before this campaign ends. I believe he has neither will nor power to
+do it, which we shall see quickly, for we are now camped in so open a
+country that if he marches to us we cannot refuse fighting."--_Marlborough
+to Lord Godolphin, October 14, 1706. Ibid._]
+
+[Footnote 22: "I have now received confirmation of the success in
+Italy, from the Duke of Savoy and Prince Eugene, and it is impossible
+for me to express the joy it has given me; _for I not only esteem, but
+really love, that Prince_. This glorious action must bring France so
+low, that if our friends can be persuaded to carry on the war one year
+longer with vigour, we could not fail, with God's blessing, to have
+such a peace as would give us quiet in our days. But the Dutch are at
+this time unaccountable."--_Marlborough to the Duchess, Sept. 26,
+1706. Coxe_, III. 20, 21.]
+
+[Footnote 23: "Your highness, I am sure, will rejoice at the signal
+advantage which the arms of his Imperial Majesty and the Allies have
+gained. _You have had so great a hand in it, by the succours you have
+procured_, that you must permit me to thank you again."--_Eugene to
+Marlborough, 20th Sept. 1706. Coxe_, III. 20.]
+
+[Footnote 24: "This appointment by the Emperor has given some
+uneasiness in Holland, by thinking that the Emperor has a mind to put
+the power in this country into the Queen's hands, in order that they
+may have nothing to do with it. If I should find the same thing by the
+Pensionary, and that nothing can cure this jealousy but my desiring to
+be excused from accepting this commission, I hope the Queen will allow
+of it; for the advantage and honour I have by this commission is _very
+insignificant in comparison of the fatal consequences that might be if
+it should cause a jealousy between the two nations_. And though the
+appointments of this government are sixty thousand pounds a-year, I
+shall with pleasure excuse myself, since I am convinced it is for her
+service, if the States should not make it their request, which they
+are very far from doing."--_Marlborough to Godolphin, July 1 and 8,
+1706. Coxe_, III. 391, 393.]
+
+[Footnote 25: Mr Stepney to Duke of Marlborough, _Hague, Jan. 4, 1707.
+Coxe_, II. 407.]
+
+[Footnote 26: "Lord Somers has shown me a long letter which he has had
+from the Pensionary, very intent _upon settling the barrier_. The
+inclinations of the Dutch are so violent and plain, that I am of
+opinion nothing will be able to prevent their taking effect but our
+being as plain with them upon the same subject, and threatening to
+publish to the whole world the terms for which they solicit."--_Lord
+Godolphin to Marlborough_, Oct. 24, 1706. Coxe, III. 74.]
+
+[Footnote 27: "My inclinations will lead me to stay as little as
+possible at the Hague, though the Pensionary tells me I must stay to
+finish the succession treaty and their barrier, which, should I stay
+the whole winter, I am very confident would not be brought to
+perfection. For they are of so many minds, and are all so very
+extravagant about their barrier, that I despair of doing any thing
+good till they are more reasonable, which they will not be till they
+see that they have it not in their power to dispose of the whole Low
+Countries at their will and pleasure, in which the French flatter
+them."--_Marlborough to Godolphin, Oct. 29, 1706. Coxe_, III. 79.]
+
+
+
+
+THE STUDENT OF SALAMANCA.
+
+PART II.
+
+   "Por estas montañas,
+    Facciosos siguiendo,
+    Vamos defendiendo
+    La Constitucion."
+
+             _Himno de Navarra._
+
+
+Rarely had the alameda of the picturesque old town of Logroño
+presented a gayer or more brilliant appearance than on a certain July
+evening of the year 1834. The day had been sultry in the extreme, and
+the sun was touching the horizon before the fair Riojanas ventured to
+quit their artificially darkened rooms, and the cool shelter of their
+well-screened _miradores_, for the customary promenade. It was
+pleasant, certainly, in those sombre apartments, and beneath those
+thick awnings, which excluded each ray of sun, although they did not
+prevent what little breeze there was from circulating freely between
+the heavy stone balustrades or quaintly moulded iron-work of the
+spacious balconies, rustling the leaves and blossoms of the
+orange-trees, and wafting their fragrance to the languid beauties who
+sat dozing, chatting, or love-making within. But if the _farniente_
+and languor induced by the almost tropical heat, were so agreeable as
+to tempt to their longer indulgence, on the other hand the _paseo_,
+that indispensable termination to a Spaniard's day, had, upon the
+evening in question, peculiar attractions for the inhabitants of
+Logroño, and especially for their fairer portion. Within the preceding
+three days, a body of troops, in number nearly twenty thousand men, a
+large portion of them the pick and flower of the Spanish army, had
+been concentrated at Logroño, whence, under the command of Rodil--a
+general of high reputation--they were to advance into Navarre, and
+exterminate the daring rebels, who, for some months past, had
+disturbed the peace of Spain. All had been noise and movement in the
+town during those three days; every stable full of horses, every house
+crowded with soldiers; artillery and baggage-waggons encumbering the
+squares and suburbs; the streets resounding with the harsh clang of
+trumpets and monotonous beat of drums; muleteers loading and unloading
+their beasts; commissaries bustling about for rations; beplumed and
+embroidered staff-officers galloping to and fro with orders; the clash
+of arms and tramp of horses in the barrack-yards; the clatter of
+wine-cups, joyous song, and merry tinkle of the guitar, from the
+various wine-houses in which the light-hearted soldiery were snatching
+a moment of enjoyment in the intervals of duty;--such were a few of
+the sights and sounds which for the time animated and gave importance
+to the usually quiet town of Logroño. Towards evening, the throng and
+bustle within the town diminished, and were transferred to the
+pleasant walks around it, and especially to the shady and
+flower-bordered avenues of the alameda. Thither repaired the proud and
+graceful beauties of Castile and Navarre, their raven locks but
+partially veiled by the fascinating mantilla, their dark and lustrous
+eyes flashing coquettish glances upon the gay officers who accompanied
+or hovered around them. Every variety of uniform was there to be seen;
+all was blaze, and glitter, and brilliancy; the smart trappings of
+these fresh troops had not yet been tattered and tarnished amidst the
+hardships of mountain warfare. The showy hussar, the elegant lancer,
+the helmeted dragoon, aides-de-camp with their cocked-hats and blue
+sashes, crossed and mingled in the crowd that filled the alameda, at
+either end of which a band of music was playing the beautiful and
+spirit-stirring national airs of Spain. On the one hand arose the
+dingy masses of the houses of Logroño, speckled with the lights that
+issued from their open casements, their outline distinctly defined
+against the rapidly darkening sky; on the other side was a wide
+extent of corn-field, intersected and varied by rows and clusters of
+trees, amongst the branches of which, and over the waving surface of
+the corn, innumerable fire-flies darted and sparkled. Here, a group of
+soldiers and country girls danced a bolero to the music of a guitar
+and tambourine; there, another party was collected round an Andalusian
+ballad-singer, of whose patriotic ditties "_la Libertad_" and "_la
+inocente Isabel_" were the usual themes. In a third place, a few
+inveterate gamblers--as what Spanish soldiers are not?--had stretched
+themselves upon the grass in a circle, and by the flickering light of
+a broken lantern, or of a candle stuck in the earth, were playing a
+game at cards for their day's pay, or for any thing else they might
+chance to possess. On all sides, ragged, bare-footed boys ran about,
+carrying pieces of lighted rope in their hands, the end of which they
+occasionally dashed against the ground, causing a shower of sparks to
+fly out, whilst they recommended themselves to the custom of the
+cigar-smokers by loud cries of "_Fuego! Buen fuego! Quien quiere
+fuego?_"
+
+At few of the young officers, who, on the evening referred to, paraded
+the alameda of Logroño, was the artillery of eyes and fan more
+frequently levelled by the love-breathing beauties there assembled,
+than at Luis Herrera, who, in the uniform of the cavalry regiment to
+which he now belonged, was present upon the paseo. But for him fans
+waved and bright eyes sparkled in vain. He was deeply engaged in
+conversation with Mariano Torres, who, having recently obtained a
+commission in the same corps with his friend, had arrived that evening
+to join it. The two young men had parted soon after the death of Don
+Manuel Herrera, and had not met since. One of Mariano's first
+questions concerned the Villabuenas.
+
+"The count went to France some months ago, I believe," replied Luis,
+dryly.
+
+"Yes," said Torres, "so I heard, and took his daughter with him. But I
+thought it probable that he might have returned in the train of his
+self-styled sovereign. He is capable of any folly, I should imagine,
+since he was mad enough to sacrifice his fine fortune and position in
+the country by joining in this absurd rebellion. You of course know
+that he has been declared a traitor, and that his estates have been
+confiscated?"
+
+Luis nodded assent.
+
+"Well, in some respects the count's losses may prove a gain to you,"
+continued Torres, pursuing the train of his own thoughts, and not
+observing that the subject he had started was a painful one to his
+friend. "When we have put an end to the war, in a month or two at
+furthest, you can go to France, and obtain his consent to your
+marriage with his daughter. In the present state of his fortunes he
+will hardly refuse it; and you may then return to Spain, and make
+interest for your father-in-law's pardon."
+
+"I am by no means certain," said Herrera, "that the war will be over
+so soon as you imagine. But you will oblige me, Mariano, by not
+speaking of this again. My engagement with Rita is long at an end, and
+not likely ever to be renewed. It was a dream, a vision of happiness
+not destined to be realized, and I endeavour to forget it. I myself
+put an end to it; and not under present circumstances, perhaps under
+none, should I think myself justified in seeking its renewal. Let us
+talk of something else--of the future if you will, but not of the
+past."
+
+The hours passed by Luis beside Don Manuel's death-bed, had witnessed
+a violent revolution in his feelings and character. Devotedly attached
+to his father, who had been the sole friend, almost the only
+companion, of his boyhood, the fiercer passions of Herrera's nature
+were awakened into sudden and violent action by his untimely fate. A
+burning desire of revenge on the unscrupulous faction to which the
+persecution, exile, and cruel death of Don Manuel were to be
+attributed, took possession of him; and in order to gratify this
+desire, and at the same time to fulfil the solemn pledge he had given
+to his dying parent, he felt himself at the moment capable of
+sacrificing even his love for Rita. No sooner was the mournful
+ceremony of the interment over, than he wrote to Villabuena, informing
+him, in a few stern words, how those who professed like him to be the
+defenders of religion and legitimacy, had enacted the part of
+assassins and incendiaries, and shed his father's blood upon his own
+threshold. This communication he considered to be, without further
+comment, a sufficient reply to the proposition made to him by the
+count a few days previously. At the same time--and this was by far the
+most difficult part of his self-imposed task--he addressed a letter to
+Rita, releasing her from her engagement. He felt, he told her, that,
+by so doing, he renounced all his fondest hopes; but were he to act
+otherwise, and at once violate his oath, and forego his revenge, he
+should despise himself, and deserve her contempt. He implored her to
+forget their ill-fated attachment, for his own misery would be
+endurable only when he knew that he had not compromised her happiness.
+
+Scarcely had he dispatched these letters, written under a state of
+excitement almost amounting to frenzy, when Herrera, in pursuance of a
+previously formed plan, and as if to stifle the regrets which a forced
+and painful determination occasioned him, hastened to join as a
+volunteer the nearest Christino column. It was one commanded by
+General Lorenzo, then operating against Santos Ladron and the
+Navarrese Carlists. In several skirmishes Herrera signalized himself
+by the intrepidity and fury with which he fought. Ladron was taken and
+shot, and Lorenzo marched to form the advanced guard of a strong
+division which, under the command of Sarsfield, was rapidly nearing
+the scene of the insurrection. On the mere approach of the Christino
+army, the battalions of Castilian Realistas, which formed, numerically
+speaking, an important part of the forces then under arms for Don
+Carlos, disbanded themselves and fled to their homes. Sarsfield
+continued his movement northwards, took possession, after trifling
+resistance, of Logroño, Vittoria, Bilboa, and other towns occupied by
+the Carlists; and, after a few insignificant skirmishes, succeeded in
+dispersing and disarming the whole of the insurgents in the three
+Basque provinces. A handful of badly armed and undisciplined Navarrese
+peasants were all that now kept the field for Charles V., and of the
+rapid capture or destruction of these, the sanguine Christinos
+entertained no doubt. The principal strength of the Carlists was
+broken; their arms were taken away; the majority of the officers who
+had joined, and of the men of note and influence in the country who
+had declared for them, had been compelled to cross the Pyrenees. But
+the tenacious courage and hardihood of the Navarrese insurgents, and
+the military skill of the man who commanded them, baffled the
+unceasing pursuit kept up by the Queen's generals. During the whole of
+the winter the Carlists lived like wolves in the mountains, surrounded
+by ice and snow, cheerfully supporting the most incredible hardships
+and privations. Nay, even under such disadvantageous circumstances,
+their numbers increased, and their discipline improved; and when the
+spring came they presented the appearance, not of a band of robbers,
+as their opponents had hitherto designated them, but of a body of
+regular troops, hardy and well organized, devoted to their general,
+and enthusiastic for the cause they defended. Their rapid movements,
+their bravery and success in several well-contested skirmishes, some
+of which almost deserved the name of regular actions, the surprise of
+various Christino posts and convoys, the consistency, in short, which
+the war was taking, began seriously to alarm the Queen's government;
+and the formidable preparations made by the latter for a campaign
+against the Carlists, were a tacit acknowledgment that Spain was in a
+state of civil war.
+
+In the wild and beautiful valley of the Lower Amezcoa, in the
+_merindad_ or district of Estella, a large body of Christino troops
+was assembled on the fifteenth day after Rodil's entrance into
+Navarre. The numerous forces which that general found under his
+command, after uniting the troops he had brought with him with those
+already in the province, had enabled him to adopt a system of
+occupation, the most effectual, it was believed, for putting an end to
+the war. In pursuance of this plan, he established military lines of
+communication between the different towns of Navarre and Alava,
+garrisoned and fortified the principal villages, and having in this
+manner disseminated a considerable portion of his army through the
+insurgent districts, he commenced, with a column of ten thousand men
+that remained at his disposal, a movement through the mountainous
+regions, to which, upon his approach, the Carlists had retired. His
+object was the double one of attacking and destroying their army, and,
+if possible, of seizing the person of Don Carlos, who but a few days
+previously had arrived in Spain. The heat of the weather was
+remarkable, even for that usually sultry season; the troops had had a
+long and fatiguing march over the rugged sierra of Urbasa; and Rodil,
+either with a view of giving them rest, or with some intention of
+garrisoning the villages scattered about the valley, which had
+hitherto been one of the chief haunts of the Carlists, had come to a
+halt in the Lower Amezcoa.
+
+It was two in the afternoon, and, notwithstanding the presence of so
+large a body of men, all was stillness and repose in the valley. The
+troops had arrived that morning, and after taking up their cantonments
+in the various villages and hamlets, had sought refuge from the
+overpowering heat. In the houses, the shutters of which were carefully
+closed to exclude the importunate sunbeams, in the barns and stables,
+under the shadow cast by balconies or projecting eaves, and along the
+banks of the stream which traverses the valley, and is noted in the
+surrounding country for the crystal clearness and extreme coldness of
+its waters, the soldiers were lying, their uniforms unbuttoned, the
+stiff leathern stock thrown aside, enjoying the mid-day slumber, which
+the temperature and their recent fatigue rendered doubly acceptable.
+Here and there, at a short distance from the villages, and further
+off, near the different roads and passes that give access to the
+valley through or over the gigantic mountain-wall by which it is
+encircled, the sun flashed upon the polished bayonets and
+musket-barrels of the pickets. The men were lying beside their piled
+arms, or had crept under some neighbouring bush to indulge in the
+universal _siesta_; and even the sentries seemed almost to sleep as
+they paced lazily up and down, or stood leaning upon their muskets,
+keeping but a drowsy watch and careless look-out for an enemy whose
+proximity was neither to be anticipated nor dreaded by a force so
+superior to any which he could get together.
+
+Such was the scene that presented itself to one who, having approached
+the valley from the south, and ascended the mountains that bound it on
+that side, now contemplated from their summit the inactivity of its
+occupants. He was a man of the middle height, but appearing rather
+shorter, from a slight stoop in the shoulders; his age was between
+forty and fifty years, his aspect grave and thoughtful. His features
+were regular, his eyes clear and penetrating, a strong dark mustache
+covered his upper lip and joined his whisker, which was allowed to
+extend but little below the ear. His dress consisted of a plain blue
+frock, girt at the waist by a belt of black leather, to which a sabre
+was suspended, and his head was covered with a _boina_, or flat cap,
+of the description commonly worn in the neighbourhood of the Pyrenees,
+woven in one piece of fine scarlet wool, and decorated with a _borla_,
+or tassel of gold cord, spreading like a star over the crown of the
+head. In his hand he held a telescope, which he rested on the top of a
+fragment of rock, and through which he attentively noted what passed
+in the valley below. The case of the field-glass was slung across his
+body by a strap, and, upon inspection, a name would have been found
+stamped upon its leathern surface. It was that of Tomas
+Zumalacarregui.
+
+A short distance in rear of the Carlist leader, and so posted as not
+to be visible from the valley, stood a little group of officers, and
+persons in civilian garb, and a few orderlies, one of whom held the
+general's horse. Behind, a battalion of infantry was drawn up--fine,
+muscular, active fellows, inured to every hardship, and as indifferent
+to the scorching heat to which they were now exposed, as they had been
+to the bitter cold in the mountains amongst which they had passed the
+preceding winter. Their appearance was not very uniform in its
+details; short jackets, loose trousers, and sandals, composed the
+dress of most of them--one well adapted to long marches and active
+movements--and they all wore caps similar to those of the officers,
+but of a blue colour, and coarser material. A second battalion of
+these hardy guerillas was advancing with light and elastic step up the
+rugged and difficult path; and this was followed by two others, which,
+as fast as they arrived, were formed up by their officers in the best
+manner that the uneven nature of the ground would admit. Half a dozen
+mules, laden with ammunition, brought up the rear. When the four
+battalions, consisting together of nearly three thousand men, were
+assembled on the summit of the mountain, the arms were piled, and the
+soldiers allowed to sit down or repose themselves as they chose from
+the fatigues of their long and wearisome ascent, and of a march that
+had lasted from early dawn.
+
+The mountain upon which these troops were now stationed was less
+precipitous upon its inner side than most of those that surrounded the
+valley. It shelved gradually downwards, broken here and there by
+ravines, its partially wooded slopes forming a succession of terraces,
+which extended right and left for a distance of more than a mile. At
+the foot of these slopes, and immediately below the spot occupied by
+the Carlists, a low hill ran off at right angles from the higher
+range, projecting into the valley as a promontory does into the sea.
+With the exception of the side furthest from the mountains, which
+consisted of pasture land, the base and skirts of this hill were
+covered with oak and chestnut, and upon the clearing on its summit
+stood a shepherd's hut, whence was commanded a view of a considerable
+extent of the face of the sierra, as well as of the entrance of a
+neighbouring pass that led out of the valley in the direction of
+Estella. At this hut a Christino picket was stationed, to which, when
+the Carlist chief had completed his general survey of the valley, his
+attention became more particularly directed. The outpost consisted of
+about thirty men, little, brown-complexioned, monkey-faced creatures
+from the southern provinces, who, sunk in fancied security and in the
+indolence natural to them, were neglecting their duty to an extent
+which might seriously have compromised the safety of the Christino
+army, had it depended upon their vigilance. The majority of them were
+lying asleep in and around the picket-house, which was situated on one
+side of the platform, within fifty yards of the trees. Of the three
+sentinels, one had seated himself on a stone, with his musket between
+his knees, and, having unbuttoned the loose grey coat that hung like a
+sack about his wizened carcass, was busily engaged in seeking, between
+his shirt and his skin, for certain companions whom he had perhaps
+picked up in his quarters of the previous night, and by whose presence
+about his person he seemed to be but moderately gratified. One of the
+other two sentries had wandered away from the post assigned to him,
+and approached his remaining comrade, with the charitable view of
+dividing with him a small quantity of tobacco, which the two were now
+deliberately manufacturing into paper cigars, beguiling the time as
+they did so by sundry guardroom jokes and witticisms.
+
+An almost imperceptible smile of contempt curled the lip of
+Zumalacarregui as he observed the unmilitary negligence apparent in
+the advanced post of the Christinos. It was exchanged for a proud and
+well-pleased glance when he turned round and saw his gallant Navarrese
+awaiting in eager suspense a signal to advance upon the enemy, whom
+they knew to be close at hand. Zumalacarregui walked towards the
+nearest battalion, and on his approach the men darted from their
+various sitting and reclining postures, and stood ready to seize their
+muskets, and fall into their places. Their chief nodded his
+approbation of their alacrity, but intimated to them, by a motion of
+his hand, that the time for action was not yet come.
+
+"_Paciencia, muchachos!_" said he. "Patience, you will not have long
+to wait. Refresh yourselves, men, whilst the time is given you.
+Captain Landa!" cried he, raising his voice.
+
+The officer commanding the light company of the battalion stepped
+forward, and, halting at a short distance from his general, stood
+motionless, with his hand to his cap, awaiting orders.
+
+"Come with me, Landa," said Zumalacarregui; and, taking the officer's
+arm, he led him to the spot whence he had been observing the valley,
+and pointed to the Christino picket.
+
+"Take your company," said he, "and fetch me those sleepy fellows here;
+without firing a shot if it be possible."
+
+The officer returned to his men, and, forming them up with all speed,
+marched them off at a rapid pace. When they had disappeared amongst
+the rocks, Zumalacarregui turned to the chief of his staff.
+
+"Colonel Gomez," said he, "take the third and fourth battalions, and
+move them half a mile to our left, keeping them well out of sight. We
+are not strong enough to attack in the plain, but we shall perhaps get
+our friends to meet us in the mountain."
+
+Gomez--a tall, portly man, of inexpressive countenance, and whose
+accent, when he spoke, betrayed the Andalusian--proceeded to execute
+the orders he had received, and Zumalacarregui once more resumed his
+post of observation.
+
+The carelessness of the Christino picket, and the practice which the
+Carlists had already had in a warfare of stratagem and surprise,
+enabled the company of light infantry to execute, with great facility,
+the instructions they had received. The young ensign who commanded the
+outpost was walking listlessly along the edge of the wood, cursing the
+wearisome duty entrusted to him, and referring to his watch to see how
+far still the hour of relief was off, when he was suddenly struck to
+the ground by a blow from a musket-butt, and before he could attempt
+to rise, the point of a bayonet was at his throat. At the same instant
+three score long-legged Navarrese dashed from under cover of the wood,
+bayoneted the sentinels, surrounded the picket-house, and made
+prisoners of the picket. The surprise was complete; not a shot had
+been fired, and all had passed with so little noise that it appeared
+probable the _coup-de-main_ would only become known to the Christinos
+when the time arrived for relieving the outposts.
+
+A trifling oversight, however, on the part of the Carlists, caused
+things to pass differently. A soldier belonging to the picket, and who
+was sleeping amongst the long grass, just within the wood, had escaped
+all notice. The noise of the scuffle awoke him; but on perceiving how
+matters stood, he prudently remained in his hiding-place till the
+Carlists, having collected the arms and ammunition of their prisoners,
+began to reascend the mountain. At a distance of three hundred yards
+he fired at them, and then scampered off in the contrary direction.
+His bullet took no effect, and the retreating guerillas, seeing how
+great a start he had, allowed him to escape unpursued. But the report
+of his musket spread the alarm. The pickets right and left of the one
+that had been surprised, saw the Carlists winding their way up the
+mountain; the vedettes fired, and the drums beat to arms. The alarm
+spread rapidly from one end of the valley to the other, and every part
+of it was in an instant swarming with men. Dragoons saddled and
+artillery harnessed; infantry formed up by battalions and brigades;
+generals and aides-de-camp dashed about hurrying the movements of the
+troops, and asking the whereabouts of the enemy. This information they
+soon obtained. No sooner was the alarm given, than Zumalacarregui,
+relying upon the tried courage of his soldiers, and on the advantage
+of his position, which must render the enemy's cavalry useless, and
+greatly diminish the effect of the artillery, put himself at the head
+of his two battalions, and rapidly descended the mountain, dispatching
+an officer after Gomez with orders for a similar movement on his part.
+Before the Carlists reached the plain, the Christinos quartered in the
+nearest village advanced to meet them, and a smart skirmish began.
+
+Distributed along the clifts and terraces of the mountain, kneeling
+amongst the bushes and sheltered behind the trees that grew at its
+base, the Carlists kept up a steady fire, which was warmly replied to
+by their antagonists. In the most exposed situations, the Carlist
+officers of all ranks, from the ensign to the general, showed
+themselves, encouraging their men, urging them to take good aim, and
+not to fire till they could distinguish the faces of their enemies,
+themselves sometimes taking up a dead man's musket and sending a few
+well-directed shots amongst the Christinos. Here a man was seen
+binding the sash, which forms part of the dress of every Navarrese
+peasant, over a wound that was not of sufficient importance to send
+him to the rear; in another place a guerilla replenished his scanty
+stock of ammunition from the cartridge-belt of a fallen comrade, and
+sprang forward, to meet perhaps, the next moment, a similar fate. On
+the side of the Christinos there was less appearance of enthusiasm and
+ardour for the fight; but their numbers were far superior, and each
+moment increased, and some light guns and howitzers that had been
+brought up began to scatter shot and shell amongst the Carlists,
+although the manner in which the latter were sheltered amongst wood
+and rock, prevented those missiles from doing them very material
+injury. The fight was hottest around the hill on which the picket had
+been stationed, now the most advanced point of the Carlist line. It
+was held by a battalion, which, dispersed amongst the trees that
+fringed its sides, opposed a fierce resistance to the assaults of the
+Christinos. At last the latter, weary of the protracted skirmishing,
+by which they lost many men, but were unable to obtain any material
+advantage, sent forward two battalions of the royal guards to take the
+hill at the point of the bayonet. With their bugles playing a lively
+march, these troops, the finest infantry in the Spanish army, advanced
+in admirable order, and without firing a shot, to perform the duty
+assigned to them. On their approach the Carlists retreated from the
+sides of the hill, and assembled in the wood on its summit, at the
+foot of the higher mountains. One battalion of the guards ascended the
+hill in line, and advanced along the open ground, whilst the other
+marched round the skirt of the eminence to take the Carlists in flank.
+The Navarrese reserved their fire till they saw the former battalion
+within fifty yards of them, and then poured in a deadly volley. The
+ranks of the Christinos were thinned, but they closed them again, and,
+with levelled bayonets and quickened step, advanced to clear the wood,
+little expecting that the newly-raised troops opposed to them would
+venture to meet them at close quarters. The event, however, proved
+that they had undervalued their antagonists. Emerging from their
+shelter, the Carlists brought their bayonets to the charge, and, with
+a ringing shout of "_Viva Carlos Quinto!_" rushed upon their foe. A
+griding clash of steel and a shrill cry of agony bore witness to the
+fury of the encounter. The loss on both sides was severe, but the
+advantage remained with the Carlists. The guards, unprepared for so
+obstinate a resistance, were borne back several paces, and thrown into
+some confusion. But the victors had no time to follow up their
+advantage, for the other Christino battalion had entered the wood, and
+was advancing rapidly upon their flank. Hastily collecting their
+wounded, the Carlists retired, still fighting, to the higher ground in
+their rear. At the same moment Zumalacarregui, observing a body of
+fresh troops making a movement upon his right, as if with the
+intention of outflanking him, ordered the retreat to be sounded, and
+the Carlist line retired slowly up the mountains. Some of Rodil's
+battalions followed, and the skirmishing was kept up with more or less
+spirit till an end was put to it by the arrival of night.
+
+From the commencement of the fight, several squadrons of the Queen's
+cavalry had remained drawn up near a village in which they had their
+quarters, at about a mile from the left of the Carlists. A short
+distance in front of the line, a number of officers had collected
+together, and were observing the progress of the combat, in which the
+impracticability of the ground for horsemen prevented them from taking
+a share. There was considerable grumbling, especially amongst the
+juniors, at the inactivity to which they found themselves condemned.
+
+"If this is the kind of fighting we are always to have," said a young
+cornet sulkily, "they might as well have left us in our garrisons. We
+were a deuced deal more comfortable, and quite as useful, in our snug
+quarters at Valladolid. The faction, it is well known, have no
+cavalry, and you will not catch their infernal guerillas coming down
+into the plain to be sabred at leisure."
+
+"No," said another subaltern, "but they are forming cavalry, it is
+said. Besides, we may catch their infantry napping some day, as they
+did our picket just now."
+
+"Pshaw!" replied the first speaker. "Before that time comes every
+horse in the brigade will be lame or sore-backed, and we ourselves
+shall be converted into infantry men. All respect for lance and
+sabre--but curse me if I would not rather turn foot-soldier at once,
+than have to crawl over these mountains as we have done for the last
+fortnight, dragging our horses after us by the bridle. For six hours
+yesterday did I flounder over ground that was never meant to be trod
+by any but bears or izards, breaking my spurs and shins, whilst my
+poor nag here was rubbing the skin off his legs against rocks and
+tree-stumps. When I entered the cavalry I expected my horse would
+carry me; but if this goes on, it is much more likely I shall have to
+carry him."
+
+"A nice set of fellows you are," said an old grey-mustached captain,
+"to be grumbling before you have been a month in the field. Wait a
+bit, my boys, till your own flesh and your horses' have been taken
+down by hard marching and short commons, and until, if you mount a
+hill, you are obliged to hold on by the mane, lest the saddle should
+slip back over the lean ribs of your charger. The marches you have as
+yet seen are but child's play to what you _will_ see before the
+campaign is over."
+
+"Then hang me if I don't join the footpads," returned the dissatisfied
+cornet. "At any rate one would have a little fighting then--a chance
+of a broken head or t'other epaulet; and that is better than carrying
+a sabre one never has to draw. Why, the very mules cannot keep their
+footing amongst these mountains. Ask our quartermaster, whom I saw
+yesterday craning over the edge of a precipice, and watching two of
+his beasts of burden which were going down hill a deal quicker than
+they had come up--their legs in the air, and the sacks of corn upon
+their backs hastening their descent to some ravine or other, where the
+crows no doubt at the present moment are picking their bones. You
+should have heard old Skinflint swear. I thought he would have thrown
+the muleteer after the mules. And they call this a country for
+cavalry!"
+
+"I certainly fear," said Herrera, who had been listening to the
+colloquy, "that as long as the war is confined to these provinces,
+cavalry will not be very often wanted."
+
+"And if they were not here, they would be wanted immediately," said a
+field-officer, who was observing the skirmish through a telescope.
+"Besides, you young gentlemen have less cause for discontent than any
+body else. There may be no opportunity for brilliant charges, but
+there is always work for a subaltern's party, in the way of cutting
+off detachments, or some such _coup-de-main_. I see a group of fellows
+yonder who will get themselves into trouble if they do not take care."
+
+All eyes and glasses turned towards the direction in which the major
+was looking. It was the hottest moment of the fight; by their
+impetuosity and courage the Carlists were keeping at bay the superior
+numbers of their antagonists; and on their extreme left, a small party
+of horsemen, consisting of four or five officers and a dozen lancers,
+had ventured to advance a short distance into the plain. They had
+halted at the edge of a _manzanal_, or cider orchard; and although
+some way in advance of their own line, they were at a considerable
+distance from any Christino troops; whilst a tolerably good path,
+which led up the least precipitous part of the mountains in their
+rear, seemed to ensure them an easy retreat whenever it might become
+necessary. So confident were they of their safety, that the officers
+had dismounted, and were observing the Christino reserves, and the
+various bodies of infantry which were advancing from the more distant
+cantonments. At this moment the officer commanding the cavalry rode up
+to the spot where Herrera and his comrades were assembled.
+
+"Major Gonzalez," said he, "send half a troop to cut off those
+gentlemen who are reconnoitring. Let the party file off to the rear,
+or their intention will be perceived."
+
+The subalterns belonging to the squadron under command of Gonzalez,
+pressed round him, eager to be chosen for the duty that was to vary
+the monotony and inaction of which they had so recently been
+complaining.
+
+"Herrera," said the major, "you have most practice in this sort of
+thing. Take thirty men and march them back into the village, out on
+the other side, and round that rising ground upon our right. There is
+plenty of cover, and if you make the most of it, the game cannot
+escape. And, a hint to you--your fellows generally grind their sabres
+pretty sharp, I know, and you are not fond of encumbering yourself
+with prisoners; but yonder party, judging from their appearance, may
+be men of note amongst the rebels, worth more alive than dead. Bring
+them in with whole skins if you can. As to the fellows with the red
+and white lance-flags, I leave them entirely at your discretion."
+
+"I shall observe your orders, major," replied Herrera, whose eyes
+sparkled at the prospect of a brush with the enemy. "Sergeant
+Velasquez, tell off thirty men from the left of the troop."
+
+The non-commissioned officer, who was introduced to the reader at the
+commencement of this narrative, and who now found himself, in
+consequence of a change of regiment, in the same squadron as Herrera,
+obeyed the order he had received, and the party marched leisurely into
+the village. No sooner, however, had they entered the narrow street,
+and were concealed from the view of those whom they intended to
+surprise, than their pace was altered to a brisk trot, which became a
+hand-gallop when they got into the fields beyond the rising ground
+referred to by the major. They then struck into a hollow road,
+sheltered by bush-crowned banks, and finally reached the long narrow
+strip of apple-orchard, at the further angle of which the group of
+Carlists was posted. Skirting the plantation on the reverse side to
+the enemy, they arrived at its extremity, and wheeling to the left,
+cantered on in line, their sabre scabbards hooked up to their belts to
+diminish the clatter, the noise of their horses' feet inaudible upon
+the grass and fern over which they rode. "Charge!" shouted Herrera, as
+they reached the second angle of the orchard; and with a loud hurra
+and brandished sabres, the dragoons dashed down upon the little party
+of Carlists, now within a hundred paces of them. The dismounted
+officers hurried to their horses, and the lancers hastily faced about
+to resist the charge; but before they could complete the movement,
+they were sabred and ridden over. Herrera, mindful of the orders he
+had received, hurried to protect the officers from a similar fate. One
+of the latter, who had his back turned to Herrera, and who, although
+he wore a sword by his side, was dressed in plain clothes, was in the
+very act of getting into the saddle, when a dragoon aimed a furious
+cut at his head. Herrera was in time to parry the blow, and as he did
+so, the person whose life he had saved, turned round and disclosed the
+well-known features of the Conde de Villabuena.
+
+"Señor Conde!" exclaimed the astonished Luis, "I am grieved"----
+
+"It is unnecessary, sir," said the count, coldly. "You are obeying
+orders, I presume, and doing what you consider your duty. Am I to be
+shot here, or taken to your chief?"
+
+"It is much against my will," answered Herrera, "that I constrain you
+in any way. I am compelled to conduct you to General Rodil."
+
+The count made no reply, but, turning his horse's head in the
+direction of the Christino camp, rode moodily onwards, followed,
+rather then accompanied, by his captor. A Carlist officer and three
+members of the rebel junta were the other prisoners. The lancers had
+all been cut to pieces.
+
+The position in which Herrera now found himself was in the highest
+degree embarrassing and painful. Old affection and friendship were
+revived by the sight of the count; and, had he obeyed his first
+impulse, he would frankly have expressed his sorrow at the chance
+which had thrown Villabuena into the hands of his foes, and have said
+what he could to console him under his misfortune. But the count's
+manner was so haughty and repulsive, and he so studiously avoided
+recognising in Luis any thing more than an opponent and a captor, that
+the words of kindness froze upon the young man's tongue, and during
+the few minutes that were required to rejoin the regiment, the silence
+remained unbroken. On reaching the spot where the cavalry was still
+halted, the detachment was received with loud congratulations on the
+successful issue of the expedition.
+
+"Cleverly managed, Señor Herrera!" said the colonel; "and the
+prisoners are of importance. Take them yourself to the general."
+
+In obedience to this order, Herrera moved off to the part of the field
+in which Rodil, surrounded by a numerous and brilliant staff, had
+taken his post.
+
+"Ha!" said the general, when the young officer had made his report,
+his quick eye glancing at the prisoners, some of whom were known to
+him by sight. "Ha! you have done well, sir, and your conduct shall be
+favourably reported at Madrid. The Marquis of Torralva and Count
+Villabuena--an important capture this. Your name, sir--and yours, and
+yours?" said he sharply to the other prisoners.
+
+The answers visibly increased his satisfaction. They were all men well
+known as zealous and influential partizans of the Pretender. Rodil
+paused an instant, and then turned to one of his aides-de-camp.
+
+"A priest and a firing party," said he. "You have half an hour to
+prepare for death," he added, addressing the prisoners. "Rebels taken
+with arms in their hands can expect no greater favour."
+
+Herrera felt a cold chill come over him as he heard this order given
+for the instant execution of a man whom he had so long regarded as his
+friend and benefactor. Forgetting, in the agitation of the moment, his
+own subordinate position, and the impropriety of his interference, he
+was about to address the general, and petition for the life of
+Villabuena, when he was saved from the commission of a breach of
+discipline by the interposition of a third party. A young man in the
+uniform of a general officer, of sallow complexion and handsome
+countenance, who was stationed upon Rodil's right hand, moved his
+horse nearer to that of the general, and spoke a few words to him in a
+low tone of voice. Rodil seemed to listen with attention, and to
+reflect a moment before replying.
+
+"You are right, Cordova," said he; "they may be worth keeping as
+hostages; and I will delay their death till I can communicate with her
+Majesty's government. Let them be strictly guarded, and sent to-morrow
+to Pampeluna under good escort. Your name, sir?" said he, turning to
+Herrera.
+
+Herrera told his name and regiment.
+
+"Luis Herrera," repeated Rodil; "I have heard it before, as that of a
+brave and promising officer. Well, sir, since you have taken these
+prisoners, you shall keep them. Yourself and a detachment of your
+squadron will form part of their escort to Pampeluna."
+
+The flattering words of his general went but a short way towards
+reconciling Luis to the unpleasant task of escorting his former friend
+to a captivity which would in all probability find its termination in
+a violent death. With a heavy heart he saw Villabuena and the other
+prisoners led off to the house that was to serve as their place of
+confinement for the night; and still more painful were his feelings,
+when he thought of Rita's grief on receiving intelligence of her
+father's peril, perhaps of his execution. In order to alleviate to the
+utmost of his power the present position of the count, he recommended
+him to the care of the officer placed on guard over him, who promised
+to allow his prisoner every indulgence consistent with his safe
+keeping. And although the escort duty assigned to him was in some
+respects so unpleasant to fulfil, Herrera became almost reconciled to
+it by the reflection, that he might be able to spare Villabuena much
+of the hardship and rough treatment to which his captivity exposed
+him.
+
+The first grey light of morning had scarcely appeared in the Lower
+Amezcoa, stealing over the mountain-tops, and indistinctly shadowing
+forth the objects in the plain, when the stillness that had reigned in
+the valley since the conclusion of the preceding day's skirmish, was
+broken by the loud and joyous clang of the reveillé. At various points
+of the Christino cantonments, the brazen instruments of the cavalry,
+and the more numerous, but perhaps less martially sounding, bands of
+the infantry regiments, were rousing the drowsy soldiers from their
+slumbers, and awakening the surrounding echoes by the wild melody of
+Riego's hymn. Gradually the sky grew brighter, the last lingering
+stars disappeared, the summits of the western mountains were
+illuminated with a golden flush, and the banks and billows of white
+mist that rested on the meadows, and hung upon the hillsides, began to
+melt away and disappear at the approach of the sun's rays. In the
+fields and on the roads near the different villages, the troops were
+seen assembling, the men silent and heavy-eyed, but refreshed and
+invigorated by the night's repose, the horses champing their bits, and
+neighing with impatience. Trains of mules, laden with sacks of corn
+and rations, that from their weight might be deemed sufficient load
+for as many dromedaries, issued from barn and stable, expending their
+superfluous strength and spirit by kicking and biting viciously at
+each other, and were ranged in rear of the troops, where also carts
+and litters, containing wounded men, awaited the order for departure.
+The sergeant-majors called the roll of their troops and companies;
+whilst the men, leaning upon their muskets, or sitting at ease in
+their saddles, munched fragments of the brown ration bread, smoked the
+cigarette, or received from the hands of the tawny-visaged sutlers and
+_cantinieras_, who walked up and down the ranks, an antidote to the
+effects of the cool morning air, in the shape of a glass of
+_aguardiente_. When all preparations were completed, and the time
+necessary for the forming up of so numerous a body of men had elapsed,
+the order to march was given, and the troops moved off in a southerly
+direction.
+
+Whilst this general movement took place, a detachment, consisting of
+four companies of infantry, and fifty dragoons, separated itself from
+the main body, and took the road to Pampeluna, whither it was to
+escort Count Villabuena and his fellow captives. The country to the
+north-east of the Amezcoa, through which they would have to pass, was
+known to be free from Carlists, with the exception of unimportant
+parties of armed peasants; Rodil himself had gone in pursuit of
+Zumalacarregui, who had retired in the same direction whence he had
+approached the valley; and therefore this escort, although so few in
+number, was deemed amply sufficient to convey the prisoners in all
+safety to their destination, to which one long day's march would bring
+them. The detachment was commanded by a major of infantry--a young man
+who had acquired what military experience he possessed in the ease and
+sloth of a garrison life, during which, however, thanks to certain
+influential recommendations, he had found promotion come so quickly
+that he had not the same reason with many of his comrades to be
+satisfied with the more active and dangerous service to which he had
+recently been called. Inwardly congratulating himself on the change
+which his present duty ensured him from the hardships of bivouacs and
+bad quarters to at least a day or two's enjoyment of the fleshpots of
+Pampeluna, he rode gaily along at the head of the escort, chatting and
+laughing with his second in command. Behind him came Herrera and his
+dragoons, and in rear of them the prisoners, on either side of whom
+marched foot-soldiers with fixed bayonets. The body of infantry
+brought up the rear. Strict orders had been given against conversing
+with the captives; and Herrera was compelled, therefore, to abandon
+the intention he had formed of endeavouring to break down the barrier
+of cold reserve within which Count Villabuena had fenced himself, and
+of offering such assistance and comfort as it was in his power to
+give. He was forced to be contented with keeping near the prisoners,
+in order to protect them from any abuse or ill-treatment on the part
+of the soldiery.
+
+For some hours the march continued without incident or novelty to vary
+its monotony. There was no high-road in the direction the escort was
+taking; the way, which was shown them by a peasant, led through
+country lanes, over hills, and across fields, as nearly in a straight
+line as the rugged and mountainous nature of the country would allow.
+Towards noon, the heat, endurable enough during the first hours of the
+morning, became excessive. The musket barrels and sabre scabbards
+almost burned the fingers that touched them; the coats of the horses
+were caked with sweat and dust; and the men went panting along,
+looking out eagerly, but in vain, for some roadside fountain or
+streamlet, at which to quench the thirst that parched their mouths.
+They had reached a beaten road, which, although rough and neglected,
+yet afforded a better footing than they had hitherto had, when such
+means of refreshment at last presented themselves. It was near the
+entrance of a sort of defile formed by two irregular lines of low
+hills, closing in the road, which was fringed with patches of trees
+and brushwood, and with huge masses of rock that seemed to have been
+placed there by the hands of the Titans, or to have rolled thither
+during some mighty convulsion of nature from the distant ranges of
+mountains. At a short distance from this pass, there bubbled forth
+from under a moss-grown block of granite a clear and sparkling
+rivulet, which, overflowing the margin of the basin it had formed for
+itself, rippled across the road, and entered the opposite fields. Here
+a five minutes' halt was called, the men were allowed to quit their
+ranks, and in an instant they were kneeling by scores along the side
+of the little stream, collecting the water in canteens and
+foraging-caps, and washing their hands and faces in the pure element.
+The much-needed refreshment taken, the march was resumed.
+
+Notwithstanding that the pass through which the prisoners and their
+escort were now advancing was nearly a mile in length, and in many
+places admirably adapted for a surprise, the officer in command,
+either through ignorance or over-confidence, neglected the usual
+precaution of sending scouts along the hills that on either side
+commanded the road. This negligence struck Herrera, who knew by
+experience, that, with such active and wily foes as the Carlists, no
+precaution could be dispensed with, however superfluous it might seem.
+Scarcely had the troops entered the defile when he suggested to the
+major the propriety of sending out skirmishers to beat the thickets
+and guard against an ambuscade.
+
+"Quite unnecessary, sir," was the reply. "There is no rebel force in
+this part of the country that would venture to come within a league of
+us."
+
+"So we are told," said Herrera; "but I have had occasion to see that
+one must not always rely on such assurances."
+
+"I shall do so, nevertheless, in this instance," said the major. "We
+have a long march before us, and if I fag the men by sending them
+clambering over hills and rocks, I shall lose half of them by
+straggling, and perhaps not reach Pampeluna to-night."
+
+"If you will allow me," said Herrera, "I will send a few of my
+dragoons to do the duty. They will hardly be so effective as infantry
+for such a service, but it will be better than leaving our flanks
+entirely unguarded."
+
+"I have already told you, sir," replied the major testily, "that I
+consider such precaution overstrained and unnecessary. I believe,
+Lieutenant Herrera, that it is I who command this detachment."
+
+Thus rebuked, Herrera desisted from his remonstrances, and fell back
+into his place. The march continued in all security through the wild
+and dangerous defile; the men, refreshed by their momentary halt,
+tramping briskly along, chattering, smoking, and singing snatches of
+soldier's songs. It appeared as if the negligence of the major was
+likely to be justified, as far as it could be, by the result; for they
+were now within two hundred yards of the extremity of the pass, and in
+view of the open country. The defile was each moment widening, and
+the space between the road and the hills was filled up with a wood of
+young beech and oak. Herrera himself, who had each moment been
+expecting to receive a volley from some ambushed foe, was beginning to
+think the danger over, when a man dressed in red uniform, with a
+scarlet cap upon his head, and mounted on a white horse, suddenly
+appeared at the end of the pass, and tossing his lance, which he
+carried at the trail, into his bridle hand, put a trumpet that was
+slung round his neck, to his mouth, and blew a loud and startling
+blast. The signal, for such it was, did not long remain unanswered. A
+hoarse wild shout issued from the wood on either side of the road, and
+a volley of musketry resounded through the pass. In an instant the
+hills were alive with Carlist soldiers, some reloading the muskets
+they had just fired, others taking aim at the Christinos, or fixing
+their bayonets in preparation for a closer encounter. Another minute
+had scarcely elapsed, when a strong squadron of cavalry, which the
+trumpeter had preceded, dashed out of the fields at the extremity of
+the pass, formed column upon the road, and levelling their long light
+lances, advanced, led on by Zumalacarregui himself, to charge the
+astonished Christinos.
+
+Extreme was the confusion into which the escort was thrown by this
+attack, so totally unexpected by every body but Herrera. All was
+bewilderment and terror; the men stood staring at each other, or at
+their dead and wounded comrades, without even thinking of defending
+themselves. This state of stupefaction lasted, however, but a second;
+and then the soldiers, without waiting for orders, turned back to
+back, and facing the points where the Carlists had stationed
+themselves, returned their fire with all the vigour and promptness
+which desperation could give. The major--a really brave man, but quite
+unequal to an emergency of this nature--knew not what orders to give,
+or how to extricate himself and his men from the scrape into which his
+own headstrong imprudence had brought them. Foreseeing no possibility
+of escape from an enemy who, in numbers and advantage of position, so
+far overmatched him, his next thought regarded the prisoners, and he
+galloped hastily back to where they stood. The Carlists had probably
+received orders concerning them; for neither they nor their immediate
+escort had suffered injury from the volley that had played such havoc
+with the main body of the detachment.
+
+"Fire on the prisoners!" shouted the major.
+
+The guard round Villabuena and his fellow-captives stared at their
+officer without obeying. Some of them were reloading, and the others
+apparently did not comprehend the strange order.
+
+"Fire, I say!" repeated the commandant. "By the holy cross! if we are
+to leave our bones here, theirs shall whiten beside them."
+
+More than one musket was already turned in the direction of the doomed
+captives, when Herrera, who, at the moment that he was about to lead
+his dragoons to the encounter of the Carlist cavalry, just then
+appearing on the road, had overheard the furious exclamation of his
+superior, came galloping back to the rescue.
+
+"Stop!" shouted he, striking up the muzzles of the muskets. "You have
+no warrant for such cruelty."
+
+"Traitor!" screamed the major, almost breathless with rage, and
+raising his sword to make a cut at Herrera. Before, however, he could
+give force to the blow, his eyes rolled frightfully, his feet left the
+stirrups, and, dropping his weapon, he fell headlong into the dust. A
+Carlist bullet had pierced his heart.
+
+"Fire at your foes, and not at defenceless prisoners," said Herrera
+sternly to the dismayed soldiers. "Remember that your lives shall
+answer for those of these men."
+
+And again placing himself at the head of the cavalry, he led them to
+meet Zumalacarregui and his lancers, who were already charging down
+upon them.
+
+But the few seconds that had been occupied in saving Villabuena and
+his companions from the slaughter, had made all the difference in the
+chances of success. Could Herrera have charged, as he had been about
+to do, before the Carlists formed up and advanced, he might, in all
+probability, owing to the greater skill of his men in the use of
+their weapons, and to the superiority of their horses, have broken and
+sabred his opponents, and opened the road for the Christino infantry.
+Once in the plain, where the dragoons could act with advantage, the
+Carlists might have been kept at bay, and a retreat effected. Now,
+however, the state of affairs was very different. The lancers, with
+Zumalacarregui and several of his staff charging at their head like
+mere subalterns, came thundering along the road, and before Herrera
+could get his dragoons into full career, the shock took place. In an
+instant the way was blocked up with a confused mass of men and horses.
+The rear files of the contending cavalry, unable immediately to check
+their speed, pushed forward those in front, or forced them off the
+road upon the strip of broken ground and brushwood on either side;
+friends and foes were mingled together, cutting, thrusting, swearing,
+and shouting. But the dragoons, besides encountering the lances of the
+hostile cavalry, suffered terribly from the fire of the foot-soldiers,
+who came down to the side of the road, blazing at them from within a
+few paces, and even thrusting them off their horses with the bayonet.
+In so confused a struggle, and against such odds, the superior
+discipline and skill of the Christinos was of small avail. Herrera,
+who, at the first moment of the encounter, had crossed swords with
+Zumalacarregui himself, but who the next instant had been separated
+from him by the mêlée, fought like a lion, till his right arm was
+disabled by a lance-thrust. The soldier who had wounded him was about
+to repeat the blow, when a Carlist officer interfered to save him. He
+was made prisoner, and his men, discouraged by his loss, and reduced
+already to little more than a third of their original numbers, threw
+down their arms and asked for quarter. Their example was immediately
+followed by those of the infantry who had escaped alive from the
+murderous volleys of their opponents.
+
+Of all those who took part in this bloody conflict, not one bore
+himself more gallantly, or did more execution amongst the enemy, than
+our old acquaintance, Sergeant Velasquez. When the charge had taken
+place, and the desperate fight above described commenced, he backed
+his horse off the narrow road upon which the combatants were cooped
+up, into a sort of nook formed by a bank and some trees. In this
+advantageous position, his rear and flanks protected, he kept off all
+who attacked him, replying with laugh and jeer to the furious oaths
+and imprecations of his baffled antagonists. His fierce and determined
+aspect, and still more the long and powerful sweep of his broad sabre,
+struck terror into his assailants, who found their best aimed blows
+and most furious assaults repelled, and returned with fatal effect by
+the practised arm of the dragoon. At the moment that Herrera was
+wounded, and the fight brought to a close, the mass of combatants had
+pressed further forward into the defile, and only three or four of the
+rearmost of the Carlists occupied the portion of the pass between
+Velasquez and the open country. Just then a shout in his rear, and a
+bullet that pierced his shako, warned the sergeant that the infantry
+were upon him; and at the same moment he saw his comrades desist from
+their defence. Setting spurs to his charger, he made the animal bound
+forward upon the road, clove the shoulder of the nearest lancer, rode
+over another, and passing unhurt through the rain of bullets that
+whistled around him, galloped out of the defile.
+
+But, although unwounded, Velasquez was not unpursued. A dozen lancers
+spurred their horses after him; and although more than half of these,
+seeing that they had no chance of overtaking the well-mounted
+fugitive, soon pulled up and retraced their steps, three or four still
+persevered in the chase. Fortunate was it for the sergeant that the
+good horse which he had lost at the venta near Tudela, had been
+replaced by one of equal speed and mettle. With unabated swiftness he
+scoured along the road through the whirlwind of dust raised by his
+charger's feet, until the Carlists, seeing the distance between them
+and the object of their pursuit rapidly increasing, gradually
+abandoned the race. One man alone continued stanch, and seemed not
+unlikely to overtake the dragoon. This was no other than the
+sergeant's former opponent in the ball-court, Paco the muleteer, now
+converted into a Carlist lancer, and who, his sharp-rowelled spurs
+goring his horse's sides, his lance in his hand, his body bent forward
+as though he would fain have outstripped in his eagerness the speed of
+the animal he bestrode, dashed onward with headlong and reckless
+violence. His lean and raw-boned but swift and vigorous horse,
+scarcely felt the light weight of its rider; whilst Velasquez'
+charger, in addition to the solid bulk of the dragoon, was encumbered
+with a well-filled valise and heavy trappings. The distance between
+pursued and pursuer was rapidly diminishing; and the sergeant, hearing
+the clatter of hoofs each moment drawing nearer, looked over his
+shoulder to see by how many of his enemies he was so obstinately
+followed. Paco immediately recognised him, and with a shout of
+exultation again drove the rowels into his horse's belly.
+
+"_Halto! traidor! infame!_" yelled the ex-muleteer. "Stop, coward, and
+meet your death like a man!"
+
+His invitation was not long disregarded. Velasquez, having ascertained
+that he had but a single pursuer, and that pursuer a man to whom he
+owed a grudge and was by no means sorry to give a lesson, pulled up
+his horse and confronted Paco, who, nothing daunted, came tearing
+along, waving his lance above his head like a mad Cossack, and
+shouting imprecations and defiance. As he came up, Velasquez, who had
+steadily awaited his charge, parried the furious thrust that was aimed
+at him, and at the same time, by a movement of leg and rein which he
+had often practised in the _manège_, caused his horse to bound aside.
+Unable immediately to check his steed, Paco passed onwards; but as he
+did so, Velasquez dealt him a back-handed blow of his sabre, and the
+unlucky Carlist fell bleeding and senseless from the saddle. His
+horse, terrified at its rider's fall, galloped wildly across the
+country.
+
+"That makes the half-dozen," said the sergeant coolly, as he looked
+down on his prostrate foe; "if every one of us had done as much, the
+day's work would have been better."
+
+And sheathing his sabre, he resumed, but at a more moderate pace, the
+flight which had for a moment been interrupted.
+
+
+
+
+WHITE'S THREE YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE.
+
+
+The title of "_Domestic_ Manners of the Turks,"[28] given to the
+volumes before us, can scarcely be considered as a correct
+designation; since it is not in the privacy of their own families, in
+their harems and among their children, (scenes in which it would
+indeed be rash to challenge comparison with the eloquent author of the
+_Spirit of the East_,) that Mr White has depicted the Turks of the
+present day: but rather in the places "where men most do
+congregate"--in the _bezestans_ and _tcharshys_ or markets, commonly
+called bazars:[29] in the exercise of the various trades and callings,
+and the intercourse of professional and commercial relations. The work
+is rather a treatise on the corporate bodies and municipal
+institutions of Constantinople--a subject hitherto almost untouched by
+European writers, and in the investigation of which Mr White has
+diligently availed himself of the opportunities afforded him by the
+liberal spirit which the events of late years have fostered among the
+Turks. The results of these researches are now laid before us, in a
+form which, though perhaps not the most popular which might have been
+adopted, is not ill calculated to embrace the vast variety of subjects
+included in the range of the author's observations. Taking the
+bezestans and markets--the focus of business and commerce to which the
+various classes of the Stamboul population converge--as the
+ground-work of his lucubrations, Mr White proceeds to enumerate in
+detail the various trades and handicrafts carried on within the
+precincts of these great national marts, the articles therein sold,
+and the guilds or incorporated companies, to many of which extensive
+privileges have been granted by the sultans for their services to the
+state. These topics are diversified by numerous digressions on
+politics, religion, criminal law, the imperial harem, the language of
+flowers--in short, _de omnibus rebus et quibusdam aliis_--in the
+course of which Mr White gives his readers the benefit of all the
+miscellaneous information which has fallen in his way during his three
+years' residence among the Osmanlis. Of a work so diffuse in its
+nature, it is impossible to give more than an outline; and
+accordingly, omitting all mention of those subjects which have been
+rendered tolerably familiar to European readers by the narratives of
+former travellers, we shall select from these "orient pearls," strung
+most literally "at random," such topics as possess most novelty, or on
+which Mr White has imparted some novel information.
+
+The space of ground occupied by the two great bezestans--the jewel or
+arms' bezestan, and the silk bezestan--with the surrounding
+_tcharshys_, and other buildings appropriated to trade, forms an
+irregular quadrangle of about three hundred and fifty square yards, to
+the north of the Mosque of Sultan Bajazet, and west of that of
+Noor-Osmanya. "The bezestans originally consisted of isolated
+buildings, each with four gates opening nearly to the cardinal points,
+which were, and still are, designated after the trades carried on in
+booths around or beneath their respective porches. By degrees new
+shops, alleys, and enclosures clustered around the original depots,
+until the whole were enclosed within walls, arched, roofed, and
+provided with lock-up gates and posterns, of which there are twelve
+large and about twenty small. They were then subjected to the same
+syndical laws that regulate the police and administration of the
+parent buildings." They are opened soon after dawn, and closed at
+afternoon prayer; and the same regulations are observed at the _Missr
+Tcharshy_, or Egyptian drug-market, hereafter to be noticed. The
+jewel bezestan alone shuts at mid-day--the former occupants having
+been principally janissaries, who held it beneath their dignity to
+keep their shops open all day; on Fridays they are closed; and, during
+Ramazan, are open only from mid-day to afternoon prayer. The silk
+bezestan, being tenanted only by Armenians, is closed on Sundays, and
+the saints' days of their calendar, amounting to nearly a fourth of
+the year. "With the exception of the two bezestans, the bazars are not
+surmounted by domes, the distinctive ornament of almost all public
+edifices; ... so that the whole surface, when seen from the Serasker's
+Tower, presents a vast area of tiles, without any architectural
+relief, and exhibits a monotonous vacuum in the midst of the
+surrounding noble mosques and lofty khans."
+
+The Jewel or Arms' Bezestan (Djevahir or Silah-Bezestany) is the
+oldest of these establishments, dating from the time of the conquest
+by Mahommed II.; but, having been repeatedly destroyed by fire, the
+present edifice of stone was constructed in 1708. It is a lofty oblong
+quadrangular building, with fifteen cupolas and four arched gates--the
+booksellers', the goldsmiths', the mercers', and the beltmakers'. The
+interior consists of a broad alley, intersected by four transverse
+alleys with double rows of shops, where the dealers, who are all
+Moslems, sit on platforms raised about three feet and a half from the
+pavement. They constitute a guild among themselves, presided over by a
+sheikh, with a deputy and six elders; and are so highly esteemed for
+their probity, that valuable deposits are frequently left in their
+charge by persons going on pilgrimage or to distant countries; but
+this privilege has lately been interfered with by government, which
+has claimed, in failure of heirs, the reversions which formerly fell
+to the guild. "It would be an endless task to describe the articles
+exposed to sale in Djevahir-Bezestany, which, from jewels being rarely
+sold there at present, might be more appropriately called the bezestan
+of antiquities." The principal objects of attraction, especially to
+foreigners, are the arms, to which Mr White accordingly confines his
+remarks: but the once famed Damascus sabres (called _Sham_ or Syrian)
+are now held as inferior to those of Khorassan and Persia, (_Taban_ or
+polished,) unless anterior to the destruction of the old manufactory
+by Timour in 1400; and those of this ancient fabric are now of extreme
+rarity and value. "A full-sized Khorassan, or ancient Damascus sabre,
+should measure about thirty-five inches from guard to point; the back
+should be free from flaws, the watering even and distinct throughout
+the whole length: the colour a bluish grey. A perfect sabre should
+possess what the Turks call the Kirk Merdevend, (forty gradations:)
+that is, the blade should consist of forty compartments of watered
+circles, diminishing in diameter as they reach the point. A tolerable
+_taban_ of this kind, with plain scabbard and horn handle, is not
+easily purchased for less than 2000 piastres; some fetch as much as
+5000, and when recognised as extraordinary, there is no limit to the
+price. Damascus sabres made prior to 1600 are seldom seen, but modern
+blades of less pure temper and lighter colour are common. Their form
+is nearly similar to the Khorassan; but the latter, when of
+extraordinary temper, will cut through the former like a knife through
+a bean-stalk." The shorter swords of bright steel called _pala_,
+watered not in circles, but in waving lines, are mostly from the
+manufactory established at Stamboul by Mahommed II. soon after the
+conquest, and which maintained its celebrity up to the time of Mourad
+IV., the last sultan who headed his armies in person:--"After his
+death, the fashion of wearing Khorassan and old Syrian blades was
+revived: and the Stamboul manufactory was gradually neglected."
+
+It is needless to follow Mr White through his dissertations on
+handjars, yataghans, and other Oriental varieties of cold steel; but
+passing through the booksellers' (Sahhaf) gate of the bezestan, we
+find ourselves in the Paternoster Row of Stamboul--a short space
+exclusively inhabited by the trade from which the gate derives its
+name. The booksellers' guild consists of about forty members, presided
+over by a sheikh and a council of elders; and is conducted on
+principles as rigidly exclusive as those of some corporations nearer
+home, it being almost impossible for any one to purchase the good-will
+of a shop, unless connected by blood with some of the fraternity: but
+Mr White's account of "the trade," and of the bearded Murrays and
+Colburns by whom it is carried on, is far from favourable. Competition
+being excluded by this monopoly, the prices demanded are so
+exorbitant, "that it is common to say of a close-fisted dealer, 'he is
+worse than a sahhaf.' The booksellers' stalls are the meanest in
+appearance in all the bazars; and the effendy, who lord it over the
+literary treasures, are the least prepossessing, and by no means the
+most obliging, of the crafts within this vast emporium." There are
+some exceptions, however, to this sweeping censure. Suleiman Effendi,
+father of the imperial historiographer, Sheikh-Zadeh Assad Effendi, is
+celebrated as a philologist; and Hadji-Effendi, though blind, "appears
+as expert in discovering the merits of a MS. or printed work as the
+most eagle-eyed of his contemporaries, and is moreover full of
+literary and scientific information." Catalogues are unknown, and the
+price even of printed books, after they have passed out of the hands
+of the editor, is perfectly arbitrary; but the commonest printed books
+are double the relative rate in Europe. The value of MSS. of course
+depends on their rarity and beauty of transcription; a finely
+illuminated Koran cannot be procured for less than 5000 or 6000
+piastres, and those written by celebrated caligraphers fetch from
+25,000 to even 50,000. Mr White estimates the average number of
+volumes on a stall at about 700, or less than 30,000 in the whole
+bazar; but among these are frequently found works of great rarity in
+the "three languages," (Arabic, Persian, and Turkish.) Of those most
+in request, a catalogue is given, comprising the usual range of
+Oriental literature.
+
+There are about forty public libraries in Constantinople, but many of
+these are within the principal mosques, and therefore not easily
+accessible to Europeans. They are all endowed with ample funds for
+their maintenance and the salaries of their librarians, who frequently
+add considerably to their emoluments by transcribing MSS:--"but it
+does not appear that these funds are employed in adding to these
+collections; so that in point of numbers they remain nearly as when
+first founded." Each library has not only a simple nomenclature, but a
+_catalogue raisonnée_ containing a summary of each work; and the
+books, most of which are transcribed on vellum or highly glazed paper,
+are bound in the manner of a tuck pocket-book, in dark morocco or
+calf, with the titles written on the outside of the margin, and are
+laid on their sides on the shelves. The floors are covered with mats,
+and on one or more sides are low divans for the use of the students,
+who leave their slippers at the door; a narrow desk in front of the
+divans supports the volumes in use. Neither fire, candle, nor smoking,
+is permitted; and the libraries in general are open daily, except on
+Friday, and during Ramazan and the two Beirams, from about 9 A.M. to
+afternoon prayer; those present at the time of mid-day prayer, quit
+their studies and perform their devotions in common.
+
+Many of the most valuable and costly of the illuminated MSS. are in
+the two libraries of the seraglio, the larger of which, containing at
+present 4400 volumes, is the most extensive collection of books in
+Constantinople: but they can scarcely be reckoned among the public
+libraries, as admission to them is obtained with difficulty, and only
+by special permission, even by Moslems. Besides the MSS. in the great
+seraglio library, among the most valuable of which is a magnificent
+copy of the Arabic poem of Antar, and another of the Gulistan, the
+great moral poem of Saadi, there is a canvass genealogical tree,
+containing portraits of all the sovereigns of the house of Osman, from
+originals preserved in the sultan's private library. Next in
+importance is the library of the mosque of Aya Sofia (St Sophia,)
+founded by Mohammed the Conqueror, which is rich in valuable MSS. and
+contains a Koran said to have been written by the hand of the Khalif
+Ali, the son-in-law of the Prophet: another attributed to the same
+source, as well as one ascribed to the Khalif Omar, are in the library
+of Osman III., attached to the beautiful mosque of Noor-Osmanya. But
+the most interesting of the public libraries, though the number of its
+volumes does not exceed sixteen hundred, is that of the grand-vizir
+Raghib Pasha, a celebrated patron of learning in the middle of the
+last century. It stands in an enclosed court, which also contains a
+free school, fountains, and the monuments of the founder and his
+family. The library itself is a lofty square chamber, with a central
+dome and four semi-domes, supported by marble columns, and round the
+apartment "runs a complete and most correct version of the celebrated
+Boorda of the poet Keab," (a poem composed in honour of Mohammed by an
+Arab contemporary,) "in gold letters, fourteen inches long, on a green
+ground, forming an original and brilliant embellishment." Its contents
+include some of the richest and rarest specimens of Persian and Arabic
+caligraphy; and the founder's note-book, with a copy of his divan,
+(poetical works,) is also exhibited: "the former proves that he was
+not unaccomplished as a draughtsman and architect.... There is a
+lightness and elegance in this building which renders it superior to
+all others: but he survived its foundation only three years. His
+remains are deposited in the north-east angle of the court, on an
+elevated terrace, beneath open marble canopy, protected by a wirework
+trellis. This, with the roses and myrtles, and the figs, vines,
+pomegranates, and cypresses, that cast their shade around, gives it
+the appearance of a noble aviary, more than that of a repository for
+the dead: and the doves that nestle in the overhanging branches, and
+fill the air with their querulous notes, add to the delusion."
+
+The total number of volumes in all the public libraries is believed
+not to exceed 75,000, of which at least a fourth are duplicates; "it
+must be remembered, however, that, with a few modern exceptions, the
+whole are MSS. admirably transcribed, elaborately embellished: and
+thus, taking one volume with another, the sums paid for each work far
+exceed the average price of rare printed editions in Europe." Besides
+these stores of Oriental lore, the library of the medical academy
+established by Mahmood II. in the palace of Galata Serai, contains
+several hundred volumes of the best French medical works, which the
+professors are allowed to carry to their own apartments--a privilege
+not allowed in any other library. The art of printing was first
+introduced in 1726, by a Hungarian renegade named Ibrahim, (known as
+_Basmadji_, or the printer,) who was patronised by the Sultan Achmet
+III;--but the establishment languished after his death; and though
+revived in 1784 by Sultan Abdoul Hamid, it was only after the
+destruction of the janissaries, the enemies of every innovation, that
+the press began to exhibit any thing like activity. At present there
+are four imperial printing establishments; and the types, which were
+formerly cast in Venice, being now manufactured in Stamboul, a marked
+improvement has taken place in the character. Though the Koran, and
+all religious and doctrinal works, are still transcribed exclusively
+by hand, the art of printing is regarded with great jealousy by the
+booksellers, who hold that "presses are made from the calcined wood of
+Al-Zacum, the dread tree of the lowest pit; while transcribers have
+their seats near the gate of the seventh heaven." The newspaper press
+of Stamboul is still in its infancy--for though the _Takwim_, or
+_Moniteur Ottoman_, established in 1831 by Mahmood II. as an official
+gazette, was conducted with considerable ability by the original
+editor, M. Blaque, and his successor M. Francesschi, the sudden death
+of both these gentlemen, within a short period of each other, awakened
+strong suspicions of foul play; and the French translation, published
+for European circulation, has since sunk into a mere transcript of the
+Turkish original, which consists of little but official announcements.
+Several attempts made, by Mr Churchill and others, to establish a
+non-official paper for the advocacy of Turkish interests, have been
+smothered after a brief existence, by the jealousy of Russia and
+France: "the result is, that the _Moniteur_ is a dull court-circular,
+and the Smyrna journals, abandoned to chance communications, are
+neither prompt nor exact in circulating or detailing events."[30]
+
+The spread of literary cultivation among the Turks of the present day,
+and the European education which many of the rising generation have
+received, has naturally led to a taste for European literature; and
+many possess libraries stored not only with the lore of the East, but
+with the choicest treasures of the French and English classics. Ali
+Effendi, late ambassador from the Porte to the court of St James's, is
+well known to have collected a most extensive and valuable library
+during his residence in the regions of the West; and Mr White
+enumerates several young Osmanlis distinguished for their
+accomplishments in the literature and science of the Franks. Emin
+Pasha, the director of the Imperial Military Academy, and Bekir Pasha,
+late superintendent of the small-arm manufactory at Dolma-Baktchi,
+were both educated in England, the latter at Woolwich and the former
+at Cambridge, where he gained a prize for his mathematical
+attainments. Fouad Effendi, son of the celebrated poet Izzet-Mollah,
+and himself a poet of no small note, "possesses a choice library of
+some 2000 volumes, in French, English, and Italian;" and Derwish
+Effendi, professor of natural history in the academy of Galata Serai,
+"has studied in France and England, and is not less esteemed for his
+knowledge than for his modesty." But foremost among this _Tugenbund_,
+the future hopes of Turkey, stands one whose name has already appeared
+in the pages of _Maga_, (Sept. 1841, p. 304,) Achmet Wekif Effendi,
+now third dragoman to the Porte, and son of Rouh-ed-deen Effendi, late
+Secretary of Legation at Vienna, whom Mr White pronounces, with
+justice, "one of the most rising and enlightened young men of the
+Turkish empire. His knowledge of the French language is perfect, and
+he adds to this an intimate acquaintance with the literature of that
+country and of England." While men like these (and we could add other
+names to those enumerated by Mr White, from our personal knowledge)
+are in training for the future administration of the empire, there is
+yet hope of the regeneration of the Osmanli nation.
+
+In no country is primary instruction more general than in Turkey. Each
+of the smaller mosques has attached to it an elementary school,
+superintended by the imam, where the children of the lower classes are
+taught to read and write, and to repeat the Koran by heart; while
+those intended for the liberal professions undergo a long and
+laborious course of study at the medressehs or colleges of the great
+mosques, some of which are intended to train youth in general
+literature, or qualify them for government employments, while others
+are devoted to the study of theology and jurisprudence. Mr White
+states the number of students in Stamboul, in 1843, at not less than
+5000, all of whom were lodged, instructed, and furnished with one meal
+a-day, at the expense of the _wakoof_ or foundation, (a term which we
+shall hereafter more fully explain,) all their other expenses being at
+their own charge; but "the sallow complexions and exhausted appearance
+of these young men indicate intense labour, or most limited commons."
+
+After thus successfully vindicating the Turks from the charge so often
+brought against them by travellers who have only spent a few weeks at
+Pera, of ignorance and indifference to knowledge, Mr White thus sums
+up the general question of education. "For ten men that _can_ read
+among Perotes and Fanariotes, there are an equal number that _do_ read
+at Constantinople; and, taking the mass of the better classes
+indiscriminately, it will be found also that there are more libraries
+of useful books in Turkish houses than in those of Greeks and
+Armenians." And though "the number of Turkish ladies that can read is
+much less than those of Pera and the Fanar, those who can read among
+the former never open a bad book; while among the latter there is
+scarcely one that ever reads a good work, unless it be the catechism
+or breviary on certain forced occasions. And while neither Greek nor
+Armenian women occupy themselves with literature, Constantinople can
+boast of more than one female author. Among the most celebrated of
+these is Laila Khanum, niece to the above-mentioned Izzet-Mollah. Her
+poems are principally satirical, and she is held in great dread by her
+sex, who tremble at her cutting pen. Her _divan_ (collection of poems)
+has been printed, and amounts to three volumes. Laila Khanum is also
+famed for her songs, which are set to music, and highly popular.
+Hassena Khanum, wife of the Hakim Bashy, (chief physician,) is
+likewise renowned for the purity and elegance of her style as a
+letter-writer, which entitles her to the appellation of the Turkish
+Sevigné."
+
+But we must again diverge, in following Mr White's desultory steps,
+from the Turkish fair ones--whom he has so satisfactorily cleared from
+Lord Byron's imputation, that
+
+   "They cannot read, and so don't lisp in criticism;
+    Nor write, and so they don't affect the muse--"
+
+to his dissertation on the _wakoofs_ above referred to;--a word
+implying a deposit or mortgage, and used to designate a species of
+tenure under which the greater part of the landed property throughout
+the empire is held, and the nature of which is but imperfectly
+understood in Europe. These institutions have existed from the
+earliest period of Islam; but nowhere to so great an extent as in the
+Ottoman empire; where they were divided by Soliman the Magnificent
+into three classes, all alike held sacred, and exempt from
+confiscation either by the sovereign or courts of law. The first class
+comprises the lands or funds absolutely bequeathed to the mosques
+either by founders or subsequent benefactors, the revenues of which
+are employed in the payment of the imams, khatibs, and other ministers
+of religion attached to their service, and to the gratuitous
+maintenance of the colleges and hospitals dependent on them; and which
+are in all cases amply sufficient for these purposes. "No demands in
+the shape of tithes, collections, or entrance-money, are ever made:
+the doors of all temples are open to the public without distinction:"
+and although the imam usually receives a fee for marriages,
+name-givings, circumcisions, and funerals, no demand can be legally
+made. The author proceeds to enumerate the endowments in 1842, as
+nearly as they could be ascertained, of the seventeen mosques in the
+capital entitled to rank as imperial foundations--the richest being
+that of Aya-Sofia, amounting to 1,500,000 piastres annually, while the
+others vary from 710,000 to 100,000 piastres. The ecclesiastical staff
+of an imperial mosque comprehends in general from thirty to forty
+persons--the sheikh, who preaches after mid-day prayer on Friday, and
+who is a member of the superior ecclesiastical synod, with rank and
+privileges nearly similar to those of our bishops:--two or more
+khatibs, who recite the khotbah, or prayer for the Prophet and
+sultan:--four imams, who alternately read prayers:--twelve to twenty
+muezzins, who call to prayers from the minarets:--with fifteen to
+twenty subordinate functionaries. The finances of each of the mosques
+are regulated by a _nazir_ (inspector) and _mutawelly_, (accountant,)
+who are bound by law to render half-yearly statements; and these
+offices, lucrative from the opportunities they afford for
+malversation, are usually held for life by the holders for the time
+being of high official stations, or sometimes by the heirs of the
+founders, who thus secure their lands from forfeiture or confiscation;
+or by persons to whom they have been bequeathed, with power to
+nominate their successors. The annual revenues of the imperial mosques
+being triple their expenditure, the wakoof fund has been often
+encroached upon by the Sultan, nominally as a loan under the warrant
+of the minister of finance, who checks the accounts of the imperial
+nazir; and by these not unfrequent inroads, as well as by the
+peculations of the superintendents, the accumulations, though great,
+are not so enormous as they would otherwise become.
+
+The second class comprises the funds devoted to the maintenance of
+public baths, libraries, fountains, alms-houses, and of useful and
+charitable institutions in general. They are frequently charged with
+annuities to the representatives of the founder; and in all
+foundations for gratuitous education, or distribution of alms or food,
+founders' kin have the preference. They are all registered in the
+treasury; but the foundation is invalidated if the property assigned
+for its support be encumbered by mortgages or other obligations:--nor
+can any one labouring under an incurable disease convert freehold
+property into wakoof except as a testator, in which case the
+inalienable rights of the heirs to two-thirds of the property are
+secured:--a third part only, according to law, being otherwise
+disposable by will. The third class of wakoofs (called _ady_ or
+customary, the others being termed _shary_ or legal, as sanctioned by
+religious law) are considered as secular foundations, consisting of
+lands purchased by the religious wakoofs from their accumulations, on
+reversion at the death of the assigner, or failure of his direct
+heirs, for an inconsiderable portion of their value, leaving to the
+vendors in the interim the full enjoyment of the property, which is
+frequently continued to their nephews and brothers on the same terms.
+"At first this plan was not considered lucrative for the wakoofs: but
+when the system was widely extended, the multitude of assignments,
+which fell in every year from death and default of issue, soon crowned
+the speculation with success, in a country where the tenure of life is
+eminently uncertain, not only from the caprices of sultans, but from
+the constant ravages of plague.... The advantages to sellers were
+equally great. They secured themselves from confiscation, and their
+heirs from spoliation at their demise. They were enabled to raise
+money to the value of a sixth or eighth of their capital, on payment
+of a trifling interest, and yet retained the full enjoyment of the
+whole for themselves and immediate issue. By founding these wakoofs,
+sellers are also enabled to check the extravagance of their children,
+who can neither mortgage nor alienate the property--a practice nearly
+as common in Turkey as in other countries."
+
+Not less than three-fourths of the buildings and cultivated lands
+throughout the empire, according to the author, and even the imperial
+domains, are held under one or other of these wakoof tenures, which
+thus represent the great landed interests of the country. Formerly,
+the domains belonging to the mosques in each pashalik were let on
+annual leases (as the public revenues are still farmed) to _multezim_
+or contractors, generally the pashas of the provinces: but the system
+of subletting and dilapidation to which this course of short leases
+gave rise, was so ruinous to the agricultural population and the
+property of the wakoofs, that a thorough reform was introduced in the
+reign of Abdoul-Hamid, the father of Mahmood II. The lands were now
+let on life tenancies, (_malikania_,) on the same system of beneficial
+leases and large fines on renewals which prevails with respect to the
+property of collegiate and other corporate bodies in England; which
+has greatly improved their condition, as it is no longer the interest
+of the lessee to rack the peasantry, or damage the property, for the
+sake of present advantage. "More than one monarch has entertained
+projects of dispossessing the mosques of these privileges, and of
+placing the wakoofya under the exclusive superintendence of
+government. Sultan Mahmood II. seriously contemplated carrying this
+plan into effect, and probably would have done so, had his life been
+spared. The government in this case would have paid the salaries of
+all sheikhs, priests, and persons attached to the sacred edifices,
+together with all repairs and expenses of their dependent
+institutions, and would have converted the surplus to state purposes.
+Various plans were suggested to Mahmood's predecessors; but during the
+existence of the janissaries, no one dared to interfere with
+institutions whence the Oolema, (men of law and religion,) intimately
+connected with the janissaries, derived invariable profit."
+
+Returning at length from this long digression to the jewel bezestan,
+and passing from the south-eastern, or mercers' gate, "through lines
+of shops stored with a variety of ready-made articles required by
+ladies," we reach the Silk Bezestan, (Sandal Bezestany,) which, like
+the other, has four arched gates named after different trades, and is
+surmounted by twenty domes, four in a line. Though occupied solely by
+Armenians, and regulated by a committee of six Armenian elders, it is
+directed by a Turkish kehaya or president, with his deputy, whose duty
+it is to superintend the police and collect the government dues. The
+scene presented by the interior presents a striking contrast to the
+other, and (we regret to say) not at all to the advantage of the
+Christians. "The building is gloomy and badly lighted, and appears not
+to have been white-washed or cleansed since the first construction;
+and while a stranger may repeatedly enter the jewel bezestan, and its
+tenants, though they see him gazing with covetous eyes on some
+antiquated object, will scarcely condescend to say 'Né istersiniz?'
+(what want you?) ... the clamours of the Armenians to attract
+purchasers are only to be surpassed by their want of honesty.
+Strangers may often pay too much to Turkish shopkeepers, but they will
+receive fair weight to a hair: whereas they will be subject not only
+to overcharge, but to short quantity, at the hands of the Armeninians
+and their more profligate imitators, the Greek dealers." The original
+silk manufactories were established before the conquest of
+Constantinople at the old capital of Broussa, whence most of the raw
+material is still derived, the abundance of mulberry trees in its
+neighbourhood being favourable to the nurture of the silkworm; little
+Broussa silk is, however, now sold in the sandal bezestany, the
+manufacture being principally carried on along the shores of the
+Bosphorus. "But within the last ten years, and especially since the
+conclusion of commercial treaties with the Porte, the silk trade in
+home-made articles has decreased 50 per cent. A large supply of common
+imitation goods is now received from England, France, and Italy, and
+the richer articles, principally manufactured at Lyons, have
+completely superseded those formerly received from Broussa, or
+fabricated at Scutari and Constantinople."
+
+The trade in furs, as well as that in silk, is entirely in the hands
+of the Armenians, but has greatly fallen off since the European dress,
+now worn by the court and the official personages, replaced the old
+Turkish costume. In former times, the quality of the fur worn by
+different ranks, and at different seasons of the year, was a matter of
+strict etiquette, regulated by the example of the sultan, who, on a
+day previously fixed by the imperial astrologer, repaired in state to
+the mosque arrayed in furs, varying from the squirrel or red fox,
+assumed at the beginning of autumn, to the samoor or sable worn during
+the depth of winter; while all ranks of persons in office changed
+their furs, on the same day with the monarch, for those appropriated
+to their respective grades. The most costly were those of the black
+fox and sable, the former of which was restricted, unless by special
+permission, to the use of royalty: while sable was reserved for vizirs
+and pashas of the highest rank. The price of these furs, indeed,
+placed them beyond the reach of ordinary purchasers, 15,000 or 20,000
+piastres being no unusual price for a sable lined pelisse, while black
+fox cost twice as much. In the present day the _kurk_ or pelisse is
+never worn by civil or military functionaries, except in private: but
+it still continues in general use among the sheikhs and men of the
+law, "who may be seen mounted on fat ambling galloways, with richly
+embroidered saddle-cloths and embossed bridles, attired in kurks faced
+with sables, in all the pomp of ancient times." The kurk is, moreover,
+in harem etiquette, the recognised symbol of matronly rank:--and its
+assumption by a Circassian is a significant intimation to the other
+inmates of the position she has assumed as the favourite of their
+master. The same rule extends to the imperial palace, where the
+elevation of a fair slave to the rank of _kadinn_ (the title given to
+the partners of the sultan) is announced to her, by her receiving a
+pelisse lined with sables from the _ket-khoda_ or mistress of the
+palace, the principal of the seven great female officers to whom is
+entrusted the management of all matters connected with the harem. The
+imperial favourites are limited by law to seven, but this number is
+seldom complete; the present sultan has hitherto raised only five to
+this rank, one of whom died of consumption in 1842. These ladies are
+now always Circassian slaves, and though never manumitted, have each
+their separate establishments, suites of apartments, and female slaves
+acting as ladies of honour, &c. Their slipper, or (as we should call
+it) pin money, is about 25,000 piastres (£240) monthly--their other
+expenses being defrayed by the sultan's treasurer. Mr White enters
+into considerable detail on the interior arrangements of the seraglio,
+the private life of the sultan, &c.; but as it does not appear from
+what sources his information is derived, we shall maintain an Oriental
+reserve on these subjects.
+
+The slave-markets and condition of slaves in the East is treated at
+considerable length: but as the erroneous notions formerly entertained
+have been in a great measure dispelled by more correct views obtained
+by modern travellers, it is sufficient to observe, that "the laws and
+customs relative to the treatment of slaves in Turkey divest their
+condition of its worst features, and place the slave nearly on a level
+with the free servitor: nay, in many instances the condition of the
+slave, especially of white slaves, is superior to the other; as the
+path of honour and fortune is more accessible to the dependent and
+protected slave than to the independent man of lower degree." It is
+well known that many of those holding the highest dignities of the
+state--Halil Pasha, brother-in-law of the Sultan--Khosref, who for
+many years virtually ruled the empire, with numberless others, were
+originally slaves: and in all cases the liberation of male slaves,
+after seven or nine years' servitude, is ordained by _adet_ or custom,
+which, in Turkey, is stronger than law. This rule is rarely
+infringed:--and excepting the slaves of men in the middle ranks of
+life, who frequently adopt their master's trade, and are employed by
+him as workmen, they in most cases become domestic servants, or enter
+the army, as holding out the greatest prospect of honour and
+promotion. The condition of white female slaves is even more
+favourable. In point of dress and equipment, they are on a par with
+their mistresses, the menial offices in all great harems being
+performed by negresses;--and frequent instances occur, where parents
+prefer slaves educated in their own families to free women as wives
+for their sons:--the only distinction being in the title of _kadinn_,
+which may be considered equivalent to _madame_, and which is always
+borne by these emancipated slaves, instead of _khanum_, (or _lady_,)
+used by women of free birth. Female slaves are rarely sold or parted
+with, except for extreme misconduct; and though it is customary for
+their masters, in the event of their becoming mothers, to enfranchise
+and marry them, "the facility of divorce is such, that women, if
+mothers, prefer remaining slaves to being legally married: as they are
+aware that custom prevents their being sold when in the former
+condition: whereas their having a family is no bar to divorce when
+married."
+
+The guilds, or corporations of the different trades and professions,
+to which allusion has more than once been made, and which constitute
+what may be called the municipality of Constantinople, were formerly
+mustered and paraded through the city, on every occasion when the
+Sandjak-Shereef (or holy banner of Mahommed) was taken from the
+seraglio to accompany the army. This gathering, the object of which
+was to ascertain the number of men who could be levied in case of
+extremity for the defence of the capital, was first ordained by Mourad
+IV.,[31] before his march against Bagdad in 1638; when, according to
+Evliya Effendi, 200,000 men fit to bear arms passed in review--and the
+last muster was in the reign of Mustapha III., at the commencement of
+the disastrous war with Russia in 1769. Its subsequent discontinuance
+is said to have been owing to an insult then offered by the guild of
+_emirs_ (or descendants of the Prophet) to the Austrian Internuncio,
+who was detected in witnessing incognito the procession of the
+Sandjak-Shereef, deemed too sacred for the eyes of an infidel--and a
+tumult ensued, in which many Christians were maltreated and murdered,
+and which had nearly led to a rupture with the court of Vienna. On
+this occasion the number of guilds was forty-six, subdivided into 554
+minor sections; and, excepting the disappearance of those more
+immediately connected with the janissaries, it is probable that little
+or no change has since taken place. These guilds included not only the
+handicraft and other trades, but the physicians and other learned
+professions, and even the _Oolemah_ and imams, and others connected
+with the mosques. Each marched with its own badges and ensigns, headed
+by its own officers, of whom there were seven of the first grade, with
+their deputies and subordinates, all elected by the crafts, and
+entrusted with the control of its affairs, subject to the approbation
+of a council of delegates: while the property of these corporations is
+invariably secured by being made _wakoof_, the nature of which has
+been already explained. The shoemakers', saddlers', and tanners'
+guilds are among the strongest in point of numbers, and from them were
+drawn the _élite_ of the janissaries stationed in the capital, after
+the cruel system of seizing Christian children for recruits had been
+discontinued; the tailors are also a numerous and resolute craft,
+generally well affected to government, to which they rendered
+important services in the overthrow of the janissaries in 1826, when
+the Sandjak-Shereef[32] was displayed in pursuance of the _Fethwa_ of
+the mufti excommunicating the sons of Hadji-Bektash, and the guilds
+mustered in arms by thousands for the support of the Sheikh al Islam
+and the Commander of the Faithful.
+
+Among these fraternities, one of the most numerous is that of the
+_kayikjees_ or boatmen, of whom there are not fewer than 19,000,
+mostly Turks, in the city and its suburbs; while 5000 more, nearly all
+of whom are Greeks, are found in the villages of the Bosphorus. They
+are all registered in the books of the _kayikjee-bashi_, or chief of
+the boatmen, paying each eight piastres monthly (or twice as much if
+unmarried) for their _teskera_ or license: and cannot remove from the
+stations assigned them without giving notice. The skill and activity
+of these men, in the management of their light and apparently fragile
+skiffs, has been celebrated by almost every tourist who has floated on
+the waters of the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus: and not less precise
+is the accuracy with which is adjusted the number of oars to be
+employed by the members of the European _corps diplomatique_, and the
+great officers of the Porte, according to their relative ranks; the
+smallest infringement of which would be regarded as an unpardonable
+breach of etiquette. The oars and mouldings are painted of the
+national colours, with the hulls white or black; the latter colour is
+usually affected by the Turkish grandees, with the exception of the
+capitan-pasha, who is alone privileged to use a green boat.
+Ambassadors-extraordinary are entitled to ten oars; and the same
+number is assigned to the grand-vizir, the mufti, and ministers
+holding the rank of _mushir_, or marshal, the highest degree in the
+new scale of Ottoman precedence. Pashas of the second rank, the
+_cazi-askers_ or grand judges of Anatolia and Roumelia, with other
+functionaries of equivalent grade, are allowed eight oars, the number
+employed by the Austrian Internuncio, and by ministers-plenipotentiary;
+while three or five pair of sculls are allotted to _chargés
+d'affaires_, and the heads of different departments at the Porte. The
+procession of the sultan, when he proceeds to the mosque by water,
+consists of six kayiks, the largest of which is seventy-eight feet in
+length, and pulled by twenty-four rowers--under the old _régime_ the
+crew was taken from the bostandjis, whose chief, the bostandji-bashi,
+held the helm; but since the abolition of that corps, they have been
+chosen, without distinction of creed, from the common boatmen. The
+imperial barge is distinguished, independent of its superior size, by
+the gold-embroidered canopy of crimson silk, surmounted by crescents
+at the stern; it is painted white within and without, with rich gilt
+mouldings, under which runs a broad external green border, ornamented
+with gilded arabesques. The oars are painted white, with gold scrolls;
+the stern is adorned with massive gilt carvings; and the long
+projecting prow with a richly-gilded ornament, representing a
+palm-branch curling upwards. Behind this flutters a gilded falcon, the
+emblem of the house of Osman. The carvings and ornaments of these
+boats are elaborately finished, and exquisitely light and graceful.
+These embellishments, combined with the loose white dresses,
+blue-tasselled red caps, and muscular forms of the boatmen, as they
+rise from their seats, vigorously plunge their oars into the dark blue
+waters, and propel the kayiks with racehorse speed, give to these
+splendid vessels an air of majesty and brilliancy, not less
+characteristic than original and imposing.
+
+Many instances have occurred, in which men have risen from the class
+of boatmen to stations of high honour and dignity; the most recent
+instance of which was in the case of the arch-traitor Achmet Fevzy
+Pasha, who, in 1839, betrayed the Ottoman fleet under his command into
+the hands of Mohammed Ali--a deed of unparalleled perfidy, for which
+he righteously received a traitor's reward, perishing in January 1843
+(as was generally believed) by poison administered by the orders of
+the Egyptian Viceroy. The kayikjees, as a class, are generally
+considered, in point of personal advantages, the finest body of men in
+the empire; and share with the _sakkas_, or water-carriers--another
+numerous and powerful guild, equally remarkable with the kayikjees for
+their symmetry and athletic proportions--the dangerous reputation of
+being distinguished favourites of the fair sex--doubly dangerous in a
+country where, in such cases, "the cord or scimitar is the doom of the
+stronger sex--the deep sea-bed that of the weaker. Money will
+counterbalance all crimes in Turkey save female frailty. For this
+neither religious law nor social customs admit atonement. Tears,
+beauty, youth, gold--untold gold--are of no avail. The fish of the
+Bosphorus and Propontis could disclose fearful secrets, even in our
+days:"--and as a natural transition, apparently, from cause to effect,
+Mr White proceeds, in the next chapter, to give an account of the
+Balyk-Bazary, the Billingsgate of Stamboul. But we shall not follow
+him through his enumeration of such a carte as throws the glories of a
+Blackwall dinner into dim eclipse, and which no other waters of Europe
+could probably rival:--since, in Mr White's usual course of digression
+upon digression, the mention of the Fishmarket Gate, the usual place
+of executions, leads him off again at a tangent to the consideration
+of the criminal law, and its present administration in the Ottoman
+Empire.
+
+There is no change among those wrought since the introduction of the
+new system, more calculated forcibly to impress those who had known
+Constantinople in former years, than the almost total cessation of
+those public executions, the sanguinary frequency of which formed so
+obtrusive and revolting a feature under the old _régime_. Since the
+fate of the unfortunate Pertef Pasha in 1837, no one has suffered
+death for political offences:--and the abolition by Sultan Mahmoud,
+immediately after the destruction of the janissaries, of the
+_Moukhallafat Kalemy_, or Court of Confiscations, put an end to the
+atrocious system which had for centuries made wealth a sufficient
+pretext for the murder of its possessors. In all cases of banishment
+or condemnation to death, however arbitrary, confiscation of property
+inevitably followed: but the wealthy Armenians and Greeks were usually
+selected as the victims of these ruthless deeds of despotism and
+rapacity; numerous records of which may be seen in the Christian
+burying-grounds, where the rudely-carved figure of a headless trunk,
+or a hanging man, indicates the fate of the sufferer. But the humane
+and politic act of Mahmoud, which rendered riches no longer a crime,
+has produced its natural effects in the impulse which has been given
+to commercial activity and public confidence by the security thus
+afforded to life and property. "The government finds the Armenians
+willing to advance money in case of need; and there is scarcely a
+pasha of rank who has not recourse to their assistance, which is the
+more readily afforded, as the Armenians are aware that their debtors'
+lives and property, as well as their own, are secure, and that they
+shall not endure extreme persecution in the event of suing those on
+whom they have claims."
+
+In criminal cases, the administration of justice by the Moslem law
+appears at all times to have been tempered by lenity; and the extreme
+repugnance of the present sultan to sign death-warrants, even in cases
+which in this country would be considered as amounting to wilful
+murder, has rendered capital punishments extremely rare: while the
+horrible death by impalement, and the amputation of the hand for
+theft, have fallen into complete disuse. Offences are tried, in the
+first instance, in the court of the Cazi-asker or grand judge of
+Roumelia or Anatolia, according as the crime has been committed in
+Europe or Asia: from this tribunal an appeal lies to the Supreme
+Council of justice, the decisions of which require to be further
+ratified by the Mufti. The _procès-verbal_ of two of the cases above
+referred to, is given at length; in one of which the murderer escaped
+condign punishment only because the extreme youth of the only
+eye-witness, a slave, nine years old, prevented his testimony from
+being received otherwise than as _circumstantial_ evidence:--in the
+other, "it being essential to make a lasting and impressive public
+example, it was resolved that the criminals should not be put to
+death, but condemned to such ignominious public chastisement as might
+serve during many years as a warning to others." The sentence in the
+former case was ten, and in the latter, seven years' public labour in
+heavy irons--a punishment of extreme severity, frequently terminating
+in the death of the convict. Nafiz Bey, the principal offender in the
+second of the above cases, did not survive his sentence more than
+twenty months. "On examining a multitude of condemnations for crimes
+of magnitude, the maximum average, when death was not awarded, was
+seven years' hard labour in chains, and fine, for which the convict is
+subsequently imprisoned as a simple debtor till the sum is paid. The
+average punishment for theft, robbery, assault, and slightly wounding,
+is three years' hard labour, with costs and damages. These sentences
+(of which several examples are given) were referred, according to
+established forms, from the local tribunals to the supreme council:
+and before being carried into effect, were legalized by a _fethwa_
+(decree) of the Sheikh-Islam, (Mufti,) and after that by the sultan's
+warrant; a process affording a triple advantage to the accused, each
+reference serving as an appeal."
+
+The exclusive jurisdiction over the subjects of their own nation,
+exercised by the legations of the different European powers in virtue
+of capitulations with the Porte, was doubtless at one time necessary
+for the protection of foreigners from the arbitrary proceedings of
+Turkish despotism; it has, however, given rise to great abuses, and at
+the present day its practical effect is only to secure impunity to
+crime, by impeding the course of justice. The system in all the
+legations is extremely defective; "but in none is it more flagrantly
+vicious and ineffective than in that of Great Britain." This is a
+grave charge; but only too fully borne out by the facts adduced. Not
+fewer than three thousand British subjects are now domiciled in and
+about the Turkish capital, chiefly vagabonds and desperadoes, driven
+by the rigour of English law from Malta and the Ionian Isles:--and
+half the outrages in Stamboul "are committed by or charged to the
+Queen's adopted subjects, who, well knowing that eventual impunity is
+their privilege, are not restrained by fear of retribution." All the
+zeal and energy of our consul-general, Mr Cartwright, (in whom are
+vested the judicial functions exercised by chancellors of other
+legations,) are paralysed by the necessity of adhering to the forms of
+British law, the execution of which is practically impossible. "In a
+case of murder or felony, for instance,--a case which often occurs--a
+_pro formâ_ verdict of guilty is returned; but what follows? The
+ambassador has no power to order the law to be carried into effect:
+nothing remains, therefore, but to send the accused, with the
+depositions, to Malta or England. But the Maltese courts declare
+themselves incompetent, and either liberate or send back the prisoner;
+and English tribunals do not adjudicate on documentary evidence. The
+consequence is, that unless witnesses proceed to England, criminals
+must be liberated at Pera, or sent to be liberated at home, for want
+of legal testimony. They have then their action at law against the
+consul-general for illegal arrest." It appears scarcely credible that
+a state of things, so calculated to degrade the British national
+character in the eyes of the representatives of the other European
+powers, should ever have been suffered to exist, and still more that
+it should have remained so long unheeded. A bill was indeed carried
+through Parliament in 1835, in consequence of the urgent reclamations
+of Lord Ponsonby and Mr Cartwright, for empowering the Crown to remedy
+the evil; but though the subject was again pressed by Sir Stratford
+Canning in 1842, it still remains a dead letter. Mr White has done
+good service in placing this plain and undeniable statement of facts
+before the public eye; and we trust that the next session of
+Parliament will not pass over without our seeing the point brought
+forward by Mr D'Israeli, Mr Monckton Milnes, or some other of those
+members of the legislature whose personal knowledge of the East
+qualifies them to undertake it. "One plan ought to be adopted
+forthwith, that of investing the consul-general with such full powers
+as are granted to London police magistrates, or, if possible, to any
+magistrates at quarter-sessions. He would then be able to dispose of a
+multitude of minor correctional cases, which now pass unpunished, to
+the constant scandal of all other nations. The delegated power might
+be arbitrary, and inconsistent with our constitutional habits, but the
+evil requires extrajudicial measures."
+
+In pursuing Mr White's devious course through the various marts of
+Constantinople, we have not yet brought our readers to the Missr
+Tcharshy, or Egyptian market, probably the most diversified and purely
+Oriental scene to be seen in Constantinople, and a representation of
+which forms the frontispiece to one of the volumes. The building, the
+entrance to which is between the Fishmarket Gate and the beautiful
+mosque of the Valida, (built by the mother of Mohammed IV.,) consists
+of an arcade lighted from the roof, like those of our own capital, 140
+yards long, and 20 wide, filled on each side with shops, not separated
+from each other by partitions, so as to impede the view; the tenants
+of which are all Osmanlis, and dealers exclusively in perfumes,
+spices, &c., imported chiefly through Egypt from India, Arabia, &c.
+Here may be found "the Persian atar-gul's perfume," sandalwood, and
+odoriferous woods of all kinds from the lands of the East; opium for
+the _Teryakis_, a race whose numbers are happily now daily decreasing;
+ambergris for pastilles; "cinnamon and ginger, nutmegs and cloves;"
+the pink henna powder brought from Mekka by the pilgrims for tinging
+ladies' fingers, though these "rosy-fingered Auroras" (as Mr W. kindly
+warns the poetasters of Franguestan) are now only to be found among
+slaves and the lower orders, the custom being now utterly exploded
+among dames of high degree: "add to the above, spices, roots,
+dyewoods, and minerals, and colours of every denomination, and an
+idea may be formed of the contents of this neatly-arranged and
+picturesque bazar. Its magnitude, its abundance and variety of goods,
+the order that reigns on every side, and the respectability of the
+dealers, render it one of the most original and interesting sights of
+the city; it serves to refresh the senses and to dispel the
+unfavourable impressions caused on first landing."
+
+In the foregoing remarks and extracts, it has been our aim rather to
+give a condensed view of the information to be derived from the
+volumes before us, on topics of interest, than to attempt any thing
+like a general abstract of a work so multifarious in its nature, and
+so broken into detail, as to render the ordinary rules of criticism as
+inapplicable to it as they would be to an encylopædia. In point of
+arrangement, indeed, the latter would have the advantage; for a total
+absence of _lucidus ordo_ pervades Mr White's pages, to a degree
+scarcely to be excused even by the very miscellaneous nature of the
+subject. Thus, while constant reference is made, from the first, to
+the bezestans, the names of their different gates, &c., no description
+of these edifices occurs till the middle of the second volume, where
+it is introduced apropos to nothing, between the public libraries and
+the fur-market. The chapter headed "Capital Punishments," (iv. vol.
+1.) is principally devoted to political disquisitions, with an episode
+on lunatic asylums and the medical academy of Galata Serai, while only
+a few pages are occupied by the subject implied in the title; which is
+treated at greater length, and illustrated by the _procès-verbaux_ of
+several criminal trials, at the end of the second volume, where it is
+brought in as a digression from the slavery laws, on the point of the
+admissibility of a slave's evidence! But without following Mr White
+further through the slipper-market, the poultry-market, the
+coffee-shops, and tobacco-shops, the fruit and flower market, the
+Ozoon Tcharshy or long market, devoted to the sale of articles of
+dress and household furniture, _cum multis aliis_; it will suffice to
+say that there is no article whatever, either of luxury or use, sold
+in Constantinople, from diamonds to old clothes, of which some
+account, with the locality in which it is procurable, is not to be
+found in some part or other of his volumes. We have, besides,
+disquisitions on statistics and military matters; aqueducts and baths,
+marriages and funerals, farriery and cookery, &c. &c.--in fact on
+every imaginable subject, except the price of railway shares, which
+are as yet to the Turks a pleasure to come. It would be unpardonable
+to omit mentioning, however, for the benefit of gourmands, that for
+the savoury viands called kabobs, and other Stamboul delicacies, the
+shop of the worthy Hadji Mustapha, on the south side of the street
+called Divan-Yolly, stands unequaled; while horticulturists and
+poetasters should be informed, that in spite of Lord Byron's fragrant
+descriptions of "the gardens of Gul in their bloom," the finer
+European roses do not sympathize with the climate. Lady Ponsonby's
+attempts to introduce the moss-rose at Therapia failed; and the only
+place where they have succeeded is the garden of Count Stürmer, the
+Austrian Internuncio, whose palace is, in more respects than one,
+according to Mr White, the Gulistan of Stamboul society.
+
+But we cannot take leave of this part of the subject without
+remarking, that while all praise is due to Mr White's accuracy in
+describing the scenes and subjects on which he speaks from personal
+knowledge, his acquaintance with past Turkish history appears to be by
+no means on a par with the insight he has succeeded in acquiring into
+the usages and manners of the Turks of the present day. The
+innumerable anecdotes interspersed through his pages, and which often
+mar rather than aid the effect of the more solid matter, are
+frequently both improbable and pointless; and the lapses which here
+and there occur in matters of historical fact, are almost
+incomprehensible. Thus we are told (i. 179,) that the favour enjoyed
+(until recently) by Riza Pasha, was owing to his having rescued the
+present sultan, when a child, from a reservoir in the Imperial Gardens
+of Beglerbey, into which he had been hurled by his father in a fit of
+brutal fury--an act wholly alien to the character of Mahmoud, but
+which (as Mr W. observes,) "will not appear improbable to those
+acquainted with Oriental history"--since it is found related, in all
+its circumstances, in Rycaut's history of the reign of Ibrahim, whose
+infant son, afterwards Mohammed IV., nearly perished in this manner by
+his hands, and retained through life the scar of a wound on the face,
+received in the fall. This palpable anachronism is balanced in the
+next page by a version of the latter incident, in which Mohammed's
+wound is said to have been inflicted by the dagger of his intoxicated
+father, irritated by a rebuke from the prince (who, be it remarked,
+was only seven years old at Ibrahim's death, some years later) on his
+unseemly exhibition of himself as a dancer. As a further instance of
+paternal barbarity in the Osmanli sultans, it is related how Selim I.
+was bastinadoed by command of his father, Bajazet II., for misconduct
+in the government of Bagdad! with the marvellous addition, (worthy of
+Ovid's _Metamorphoses_,) that from the sticks used for his punishment,
+and planted by his sorrowing tutor, sprung the grove of Tchibookly,
+opposite Yenikouy! History will show that Selim and Bajazet never met
+after the accession of the latter, except when the rebellious son met
+the father in arms at Tchourlou; and it is well known that Bagdad did
+not become part of the Ottoman empire till the reign of Soliman the
+Magnificent the son of Selim. The mention of the City of the Khalifs,
+indeed, seems destined to lead Mr White into error; for in another
+story, the circumstances of which differ in every point from the same
+incident as related by Oriental historians, we find the Ommiyade
+Khalif, Yezid III., who died A.D. 723, (twenty-seven years before the
+accession of the Abbasides, and forty before the foundation of
+Bagdad,) spoken of as an Abbaside khalif of Bagdad! Again, we find in
+the list of geographical writers, (ii. 172,) "Ebul Feredj, Prince of
+Hama, 1331"--thus confounding the monk Gregory Abulpharagius with the
+Arabic Livy, Abulfeda, a prince of the line of Saladin! This last
+error, indeed, can scarcely be more than a slip of the pen. But
+instances of this kind might be multiplied; and it would be well if
+such passages, with numerous idle legends (such as the patronage of
+black bears by the Abbasides, and brown bears by the Ommiyades,) be
+omitted in any future edition.
+
+We have reserved for the conclusion of our notice, the consideration
+of Mr White's observations on the late _constitution_ (as it has been
+called) of Gul-khana, a visionary scheme concocted by Reshid Pasha,
+under French influence, by which it was proposed to secure equal
+rights to all the component parts of the heterogeneous mass which
+constitutes the population of the Ottoman empire. The author's remarks
+on this well-meant, but crude and impracticable _coup-d'état_, evince
+a clear perception of the domestic interests and relative political
+position of Turkey, which lead us to hope that he will erelong turn
+his attention on a more extended scale, to the important subject of
+Ottoman politics. For the present, we must content ourselves with
+laying before our readers, in an abridged form, the clear and
+comprehensive views here laid down, on a question involving the future
+interests of Europe, and of no European power more than of Great Britain.
+
+"The population of the Turkish empire consists of several distinct
+races, utterly opposed to each other in religion, habits, descent,
+objects, and in every moral and even physical characteristic. The
+Turkomans, Kurds, Arabs, Egyptians, Druses, Maronites, Albanians,
+Bosnians, Bulgarians, Greeks, Jews, and Armenians, are so many
+distinct nations, inhabiting the same or contiguous soils, without
+having intermixed in the slightest degree from their earliest
+conquest, and without having a single object in common. Over these
+dissentient populations stands the pure Ottoman race, the paramount
+nation, charged with maintaining the equilibrium between all, and with
+neutralizing the ascendancy of one faction by the aid of others. Were
+this control not to exist--were the Turks, who represent their
+ancestors, the conquerors of the land, to be reduced to a level with
+those now beneath them, or were the preponderating influence of the
+former to be destroyed by the elevation and equalization of the
+latter, perpetual revolts and civil wars could not fail to ensue. The
+dependent populations, now constituting so large a portion of the
+empire, would continue the struggle until one of them obtained the
+supremacy at present exercised by the Turkish race, or until the
+territory were divided among themselves, or parcelled out by foreign
+powers. In this last hypothesis will be found the whole secret of the
+ardent sympathy evinced by most foreigners, especially by the press of
+France, for the subjugated races.
+
+"Many benevolent men argue, that the surest means of tranquillizing
+the tributaries of the Porte, and attaching them to the government, is
+by raising them in the social scale, and by granting to all the same
+rights and immunities as are enjoyed by their rulers. But it has been
+repeatedly proved, that concessions do but lead to fresh demands, and
+that partial enfranchisement conducts to total emancipation. 'And why
+should they not?' is often asked. To this may be replied, that the
+possession of the Bosphorus and Dardanelles by any other power, or
+fraction of power, than the Porte, would be a source of interminable
+discord to Europe, and irreparable detriment to England. It would not
+only affect our commerce, and undermine our political influence
+throughout the East, but would add enormously to our naval
+expenditure, by requiring an augmentation of our maritime force
+equivalent to that now remaining neuter in the Golden Horn. Treaties,
+it is said, might be concluded, exacting maritime restrictions. But
+what are treaties in the face of events? Whoever possesses the
+Bosphorus, Propontis, and Archipelago, _must_ become a maritime nation
+in spite of treaties. Whoever possesses Constantinople _must_ become a
+great manufacturing and exporting nation, in defiance of competition.
+In less than half a century, the romantic villas and tapering
+cypresses that now fringe the blue Bosphorus, would be replaced by
+factories and steam-chimneys--every one of which would be a deadly
+rival to a similar establishment in Great Britain. I argue as an
+Englishman, whose duty it is to consider the material interests of his
+country, now and hereafter, and not to occupy himself with the
+theories of political philanthropists.
+
+"According to the levelling system, recommended as the basis of
+reforms, all classes would eventually be assimilated--the desert Arabs
+to the laborious Maronites, the intractable Arnoots to the industrious
+Bulgarians, the thrifty Armenians to the restless and ambitious
+Greeks, and the humble and parsimonious Jews to the haughty and lavish
+Osmanlis. Thus, contiguous populations, which now keep each other in
+check, because their interests are divergent and their jealousies
+inveterate, would find their interests assimilated; and in the event
+of opposition to government, the Porte, in lieu of being able to
+overcome one sect through the rivalry of another, would find them all
+united against the dominant power. The Ottoman government should
+therefore avoid establishing any community of rights or interests
+among the races subjected to its rule. Each of these races ought to be
+governed according to its own usages and individual creed; there
+should be uniformity in the principles of administration, but
+diversity in the application. The Ottoman tenure cannot be maintained
+but by decided and peremptory superiority. Adhesion on the part of the
+subjugated is impossible; connexion is all that can be expected; and
+to preserve this connexion, the supremacy of conquest must not be
+relaxed. The Porte cannot expect attachment; it must consequently
+enforce submission. When this absolutism ceases to exist, the power
+will pass into other hands; and where is the politician that can
+calculate the results of the transfer? One issue may be safely
+predicted--England must lose, but cannot gain by the change. With the
+increasing embarrassments to commerce and industry, which continental
+states are raising against Britain, it is essential that we should not
+allow a false cry of philanthropy to throw us off our guard in the
+Levant. France in Africa, and Russia on the Danube, are intent on the
+same object. Their battle-cries are civilization and religion; their
+pretext the improvement of the Christian populations. But who is there
+that has studied the recent policy of the one, and the undeviating
+system of the other, since the days of Catherine, that can question
+for a moment the purport of both? _And yet England and Austria have
+acted recently as if France were sincere, and Russia disinterested._"
+
+[Footnote 28: _Three Years in Constantinople; or, Domestic Manners of
+the Turks in 1844._ By CHARLES WHITE, ESQ.]
+
+[Footnote 29: The root of bezestan and bazar is _bez_, cloth;--of
+tcharshy, _tchar_, four, meaning a square.]
+
+[Footnote 30: A catalogue of works printed from the establishment of
+the press in 1726 to 1820, is given in the notes to Book 65 of Von
+Hammer Purgstall's Ottoman History.]
+
+[Footnote 31: Mr White erroneously calls him Mourad III., and places
+the expedition against Bagdad in 1834.]
+
+[Footnote 32: Mr White here introduces a digression on the other
+relics of the Prophet, the Moslem festivals, &c., his account of which
+presents little novelty; but he falls into the general error of
+describing the Mahmil, borne by the holy camel in the pilgrim caravan,
+as containing the brocade covering of the Kaaba, when it is in fact
+merely an emblem of the presence of the monarch, like an empty
+carriage sent in a procession.--(See _Lane's Modern Egyptians_, ii. p.
+204, 8vo. ed.) It is indeed sufficiently obvious, that a box six feet
+high and two in diameter, could not contain a piece of brocade
+sufficient to surround a building described by Burckhardt as eighteen
+paces long, fourteen broad, and from thirty-five to forty feet high.]
+
+
+
+
+THE MOUNTAIN AND THE CLOUD.
+
+(A REMINISCENCE OF SWITZERLAND)
+
+
+The cloud is to the mountain what motion is to the sea; it gives to it
+an infinite variety of expression--gives it a life--gives it joy and
+sufferance, alternate calm, and terror, and anger. Without the cloud,
+the mountain would still be sublime, but monotonous; it would have but
+a picture-like existence.
+
+How thoroughly they understand and sympathize with each other--these
+glorious playmates, these immortal brethren! Sometimes the cloud lies
+supported in the hollow of the hill, as if out of love it feigned
+weariness, and needed to be upheld. At other times the whole hill
+stands enveloped in the cloud that has expanded to embrace and to
+conceal it. No jealousy here. Each lives its own grand life under the
+equal eye of heaven.
+
+As you approach the mountains, it seems that the clouds begin already
+to arrange themselves in bolder and more fantastic shapes. They have a
+fellowship here. They built their mountains upon mountains--their
+mountains which are as light as air--huge structures built at the
+giddy suggestion of the passing breeze. Theirs is the wild liberty of
+endless change, by which they compensate themselves for their thin and
+fleeting existence, and seem to mock the stationary forms of their
+stable brethren fast rooted to the earth. And how genially does the
+sun pour his beam upon these twin grandeurs! For a moment they are
+assimilated; his ray has permeated, has etherealized the solid
+mountain, has fixed and defined the floating vapour. What now is the
+one but a stationary cloud? what is the other but a risen
+hill?--poised not in the air but in the flood of light.
+
+I am never weary of watching the play of these giant children of the
+earth. Sometimes a soft white cloud, so pure, so bright, sleeps,
+amidst open sunshine, nestled like an infant in the bosom of a green
+mountain. Sometimes the rising upcurling vapour will linger Just above
+the summit, and seem for a while an incense exhaling from this vast
+censer. Sometimes it will descend, and _drape_ the whole side of the
+hill as with a transparent veil. I have seen it sweep between me and
+the mountain like a sheeted ghost, tall as the mountain, till the
+strong daylight dissolved its thin substance, and it rose again in
+flakes to decorate the blue heavens. But oh, glorious above all! when
+on some brightest of days, the whole mass of whitest clouds gathers
+midway upon the snow-topped mountain. How magnificent then is that
+bright eminence seen above the cloud! How it seems rising upwards--how
+it seems borne aloft by those innumerable wings--by those enormous
+pinions which I see stretching from the cloudy mass! What an ascension
+have we here!--what a transfiguration! O Raphael! I will not disparage
+thy name nor thy art, but thy angels bearing on their wings the
+brightening saint to Heaven--what are they to the picture here?
+
+Look! there--fairly in the sky--where we should see but the pure
+ether--above the clouds which themselves are sailing high in serenest
+air--yes, there, in the blue and giddy expanse, stands the solid
+mountain, glittering like a diamond. O God! the bewildered reason pent
+up in cities, toils much to prove and penetrate thy being and thy
+nature--toils much in vain. Here, I reason not--I see. The Great King
+lives--lo there is his throne.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+To him who quits the plain for the mountain, how the character of the
+cloud alters. That which seemed to belong exclusively to the sky, has
+been drawn down and belongs as plainly to the earth. Mount some noble
+eminence and look down--you will see the clouds lying _on_ and _about_
+the landscape, as if they had fallen on it. You are on the steadfast
+earth, and they are underneath you. You look down perhaps on the lake,
+and there is a solitary cloud lying settled on it; when the rest of
+the fleecy drove had risen from their couch, this idle sleeper had
+been left dreaming there.
+
+Or stay below, and see the sun rise in the valley. When all is warm
+and clear upon the heights, and the tops of the hills are fervid with
+the beams of heaven, there still lies a cold white mass of cloud about
+your feet. It is not yet morning in the valley. There the cloud has
+been slumbering all night--there it found its home. It also will by
+and by receive the beam, and then it will arise, enveloping the hill
+as it ascends; the hill will have a second dawn; the cloud will assume
+its proud station in the sky; but it will return again to the valley
+at night.
+
+I am sailing on the lake of Brienz on a day golden with sunbeams. The
+high ridge of its rocky castellated hills is distinct as light can
+make it. Yet half-way up, amidst the pine forests, there lies upon the
+rich verdure a huge motionless cloud. What does it there? Its place
+was surely in the sky. But no; it belongs, like ourselves, to the
+earth.
+
+Is nature gaily mocking us, when upon her impregnable hills she builds
+these _castles in the air_? But, good heavens! what a military aspect
+all on a sudden does this mountain-side put on. Mark that innumerable
+host of pine-trees. What regiments of them are marching up the hill in
+the hot sun, as if to storm those rocky forts above! What serried
+ranks! and yet there are some stragglers--some that have hastened on
+in front, some that have lingered in the rear. Look at that tall
+gigantic pine breasting the hill alone, like an old grenadier. How
+upright against the steep declivity! while his lengthened shadow is
+thrown headlong back behind him down the precipice. I should be giddy
+to see such a shadow of my own. I should doubt if it would consent to
+be drawn up by the heels to the summit of the mountain--whether it
+would not rather drag me down with it into the abyss.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I have seen hills on which lay the clear unclouded sky, making them
+blue as itself. I have gazed on those beautiful far-receding
+valleys--as the valley of the Rhone--when they have appeared to
+collect and retain the azure ether. They were full of Heaven. Angels
+might breathe that air. And yet I better love the interchange, the
+wild combination of cloud and mountain. Not cloud that intercepts the
+sun, but that reflects its brilliancy, and brightens round the hills.
+It is but a gorgeous drapery that the sky lets fall on the broad
+Herculean shoulders of the mountain. No, it should not intercept the
+beams of the great luminary; for the mountain loves the light. I have
+observed that the twilight, so grateful to the plain, is mortal to the
+mountain. It craves light--it lifts up its great chalice for
+light--this great flower is the first to close, to fade, at the
+withdrawal of the sun. It stretches up to heaven seeking light; it
+cannot have too much--under the strongest beam it never droops--its
+brow is never dazzled.
+
+But then these clouds, you will tell me, that hover about the
+mountain, all wing, all plumage, with just so much of substance for
+light to live in them--these very clouds can descend, and thicken, and
+blacken, and cover all things with an inexpressible gloom. True, and
+the mountain, or what is seen of it, becomes now the very image of a
+great and unfathomable sorrow. And only the great can express a great
+sadness. This aspect of nature shall never by me be forgotten; nor
+will I ever shrink from encountering it. If you would know the gloom
+of heart which nature can betray, as well as the glory it can
+manifest, you must visit the mountains. For days together, clouds,
+huge, dense, unwieldy, lie heavily upon the hills--which stand, how
+mute, how mournful!--as if they, too, knew of death. And look at the
+little lake at their feet. What now is its tranquillity when not a
+single sunbeam plays upon it? Better the earth opened and received it,
+and hid for ever its leaden despondency. And now there comes the
+paroxysm of terror and despair; deep thunders are heard, and a madness
+flashes forth in the vivid lightning. There is desperation amongst the
+elements. But the elements, like the heart of man, must rage in
+vain--must learn the universal lesson of submission. With them, as
+with humanity, despair brings back tranquillity. And now the driving
+cloud reveals again the glittering summits of the mountains, and light
+falls in laughter on the beaming lake.
+
+How like to a ruined Heaven is this earth! Nay, is it not more
+beautiful for being a ruin?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Who can speak of lakes and not think of thee, beautiful Leman? How
+calm! how exquisitely blue! Let me call it a liquid sky that is spread
+here beneath us. And note how, where the boat presses, or the oar
+strikes, it yields ever a still more exquisite hue--akin to the
+violet, which gives to the rude pressure a redoubled fragrance--akin
+to the gentlest of womankind, whose love plays sweetest round the
+strokes of calamity.
+
+Oh, there is a woman's heart in thy waters, beautiful Leman!
+
+I have seen thee in all thy moods, in all thy humours. I have watched
+thee in profoundest calm; and suddenly, with little note of
+preparation, seen thee lash thy blue waves into a tempest. How
+beautiful in their anger were those azure waves crested with their
+white foam! And at other times, when all has been a sad unjoyous calm,
+I have seen, without being able to trace whence the light had broken,
+a soft expanse of brightness steal tremulous over the marble waters. A
+smile that seemed to speak of sweet caprice--that seemed to say that
+half its anger had been feint.
+
+Yes, verily there is a woman's heart in thy waters, beautiful Leman!
+
+I lie rocking in a boat midway between Vevay and Lausanne. On the
+opposite coast are the low purple hills _couching_ beside the lake.
+But there, to the left, what an ethereal structure of cloud and snowy
+mountain is revealed to me! What a creation of that spirit of beauty
+which works its marvels in the unconscious earth! The Alps here, while
+they retain all the aërial effect gathered from distance, yet seem to
+arise from the very margin of the lake. The whole scene is so
+ethereal, you fear to look aside, lest when you look again it may have
+vanished like a vision of the clouds.
+
+And why should these little boats, with their tall triangular sails,
+which glide so gracefully over the water, be forgotten? The sail,
+though an artifice of man, is almost always in harmony with nature.
+Nature has adopted it--has lent it some of her own wild
+privileges--her own bold and varied contrasts of light and shade. The
+surface of the water is perhaps dark and overclouded; the little
+upright sail is the only thing that has caught the light, and it
+glitters there like a moving star. Or the water is all one dazzling
+sheet of silver, tremulous with the vivid sunbeam, and now the little
+sail is black as night, and steals with bewitching contrast over that
+sparkling surface.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But we fly again to the mountain. Tourists are too apt to speak of the
+waterfall as something independent, something to be visited as a
+separate curiosity. There may be some such. But in general, the
+waterfall should be understood as part of the mountain--as the great
+fountain which adorns the architecture of its rocks, and the gardens
+of its pine forests. It belongs to the mountain. Pass through the
+valley, and look up; you see here and there thin stripes of glittering
+white, noiseless, motionless. They are waterfalls, which, if you
+approach them, will din you with their roar, and which are dashing
+headlong down, covered with tossing spray. Or ascend the face of the
+mountain, and again look around and above you. From all sides the
+waterfalls are rushing. They bear you down. You are giddy with their
+reckless speed. How they make the rock live! What a stormy vitality
+have they diffused around them! You might as well separate a river
+from its banks as a waterfall from its mountain.
+
+And yet there is one which I could look at for hours together, merely
+watching its own graceful movements. Let me sit again in imagination
+in the valley of Lauterbrunnen, under the fall of the Staubbach. Most
+graceful and ladylike of descents! It does not fall; but over the
+rock, and along the face of the precipice, developes some lovely form
+that nature had at heart;--diffuses itself in down-pointing pinnacles
+of liquid vapour, fretted with the finest spray. The laws of gravity
+have nothing to do with its movements. It is not hurled down; it does
+not leap, plunging madly into the abyss; it thinks only of beauty as
+it sinks. No noise, no shock, no rude concussion. Where it should dash
+against the projecting rock, lo! its series of out-shooting pinnacles
+is complete, and the vanishing point just kisses the granite. It
+disappoints the harsh obstruction by its exquisite grace and most
+beautiful levity, and springs a second time from the rock without
+trace of ever having encountered it.
+
+The whole side of the mountain is here barren granite. It glides like
+a spirit down the adverse and severe declivity. It is like Christ in
+this world. The famous fall of the Griesbach, near the lake of Brienz,
+thunders through the most luxuriant foliage; the Staubbach meets the
+bare rock with touches of love, and a movement all grace, and a voice
+full of reconcilement.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mont Blanc! Mont Blanc! I have not scaled thy heights so boldly or so
+far as others have, but I will yield to none in worship of thee and
+thy neighbour mountains. Some complain that the valley of Chamouni is
+barren; they are barren souls that so complain. True, it has not the
+rich pastures that lie bordering on the snow in the Oberland. But
+neither does it need them. Look _down_ the valley from the pass of the
+Col de Balme, and see summit beyond summit; or ascend the lateral
+heights of La Flegère, and see the Alps stretched out in a line before
+you, and say if any thing be wanting. Here is the sculpture of
+landscape. Stretched yourself upon the bare open rock, you see the
+great hills built up before you, from their green base to their snowy
+summits, with rock, and glacier, and pine forests. You see how the
+Great Architect has wrought.
+
+And for softer beauty, has not the eye been feasted even to
+excess--till you cried "hold--enough!" till you craved repose from
+excitement--along the whole route, from Lausanne to this spot? What
+perfect combinations of beauty and sublimity--of grandeur of outline
+with richness of colouring--have you not been travelling through!
+
+It seems a fanciful illustration, and yet it has more than once
+occurred to me, when comparing the scenery of the Oberland with that
+of the valley of Chamouni and its neighbourhood; the one resembles the
+first work--be it picture or poem--of a great genius; the other, the
+second. On his first performance, the artist lavishes beauties of
+every description; he crowds it with charms; all the stores of his
+imagination are at once unfolded, and he must find a place for all. In
+the second, which is more calm and mature, the style is broader, the
+disposition of materials more skilful: the artist, master of his
+inspiration, no longer suffers one beauty to crowd upon another, finds
+for all not only place, but place sufficient; and, above all, no
+longer fears being simple or even austere. I dare not say that the
+Oberland has a fault in its composition--so charming, so magnificent
+have I found it; but let me mark the broad masterly style of this
+Alpine region. As you journey from Villeneuve, with what a gentle,
+bland magnificence does the valley expand before you! The hills and
+rocks, as they increase in altitude, still fall back, and reveal in
+the centre the towering _Dent du Midi_, glittering with its eternal
+snows. The whole way to Martigny you see sublimity without admixture
+of terror; it is beauty elevated into grandeur, without losing its
+amenity. And then, if you cross by the Col de Balme, leaving the
+valley of the Rhone as you ascend, and descending upon the valley of
+Chamouni, where the Alps curve before you in most perfect
+grouping--tell me if it is possible for the heart of man to desire
+more. Nay, is not the heart utterly exhausted by this series of scenic
+raptures?
+
+For ever be remembered that magnificent pass of the Col de Balme! If I
+have a white day in my calendar, it is the day I spent in thy defiles.
+Deliberately I assert that life has nothing comparable to the delight
+of traversing alone, borne leisurely on the back of one's mule, a
+mountain-pass such as this. Those who have stouter limbs may prefer to
+use them; give me for my instrument of progression the legs of the
+patient and sure-footed mule. They are better legs, at all events,
+than mine. I am seated on his back, the bridle lies knotted upon his
+neck--the cares of the way are all his--the toil and the anxiety of
+it; the scene is all mine, and I am all in it. I am seated there, all
+eye, all thought, gazing, musing; yet not without just sufficient
+occupation to keep it still a luxury--this leisure to contemplate. The
+mule takes care of himself, and, in so doing, of you too; yet not so
+entirely but that you must look a little after yourself. That he by no
+means has your safety for his primary object is evident from this,
+that, in turning sharp corners or traversing narrow paths, he never
+calculates whether there is sufficient room for any other legs than
+his own--takes no thought of yours. To keep your knees, in such
+places, from collision with huge boulders, or shattered stumps of
+trees, must be your own care; to say nothing of the occasional
+application of whip or stick, and a _very_ strong pull at his mouth to
+raise his head from the grass which he has leisurely begun to crop.
+Seated thus upon your mule, given up to the scene, with something
+still of active life going on about you, with full liberty to pause
+and gaze, and dismount when you will, and at no time proceeding at a
+railroad speed, I do say--unless you are seated by your own
+incomparable Juliet, who has for the first time breathed that she
+loves you--I do say that you are in the most enviable position that
+the wide world affords. As for me, I have spent some days, some weeks,
+in this fashion amongst the mountains; they are the only days of my
+life I would wish to live over again. But mind, if you would really
+enjoy all this, go alone--a silent guide before or behind you. No
+friends, no companion, no gossip. You will find gossip enough in your
+inn, if you want it. If your guide thinks it is his duty to talk, to
+explain, to tell you the foolish names of things that need no
+name--make belief that you understand him not--that his language, be
+it French or German, is to you utterly incomprehensible.
+
+I would not paint it all _couleur de rose_. The sun is not always
+shining.
+
+There is tempest and foul weather, fatigue and cold, and abundant
+moisture to be occasionally encountered. There is something to endure.
+But if you prayed to Heaven for perpetual fair weather, and your
+prayer were granted, it would be the most unfortunate petition you
+could put up. Why, there are some of the sublimest aspects, the
+noblest moods and tempers of the great scene, which you would utterly
+forfeit by this miserable immunity. He who loves the mountain, will
+love it in the tempest as well as in the sunshine. To be enveloped in
+driving mist or cloud that obscures every thing from view--to be made
+aware of the neighbouring precipice only by the sound of the torrent
+that rushes unseen beneath you--how low down you can only guess--this,
+too, has its excitement. Besides, while you are in this total blank,
+the wind will suddenly drive the whole mass of cloud and thick vapour
+from the scene around you, and leave the most glorious spectacle for
+some moments exposed to view. Nothing can exceed these moments of
+sudden and partial revelation. The glittering summits of the mountains
+appear as by enchantment where there had long been nothing but dense
+dark vapour. And how beautiful the wild disorder of the clouds, whose
+array has been broken up, and who are seen flying, huddled together in
+tumultuous retreat! But the veering wind rallies them again, and again
+they sweep back over the vast expanse, and hill and valley, earth and
+sky, are obliterated in a second.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He who would ponder what _man_ is, should journey amongst the
+mountains. What _men_ are, is best learnt in the city.
+
+How, to a museful spirit, the heart and soul of man is reflected in
+the shows of nature! I cannot see this torrent battling for ever along
+its rocky path, and not animate it with human passions, and torture it
+with a human fate. Can it have so much turmoil and restlessness, and
+not be allied to humanity?
+
+But all are not images of violence or lessons of despondency. Mark the
+Yungfrau, how she lifts her slight and virgin snows fearlessly to the
+blazing sun! She is so high, she feels no _reflected heat_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+How well the simple architecture of the low-roofed buildings of
+Switzerland accords with its magnificent scenery! What were lofty
+steeples beside Mont Blanc, or turreted castles beside her pinnacles
+of granite? Elsewhere, in the level plain, I love the cathedral. I had
+lately stood enraptured in the choir of that of Cologne, gazing up at
+those tall windows which spring where other loftiest buildings
+terminate--windows so high that God only can look in upon the
+worshipper.
+
+But here--what need of the stately edifice, when there is a church
+whose buttresses are mountains, whose roof and towers are above the
+clouds, verily in the heavens? What need of artificial reminiscences
+of the Great King, here where he has built for himself? The plain, it
+is _man's_ nature--given to man's wants; there stands his corn, there
+flow his milk and honey. But the mountain, it is God's nature--his
+stationary tabernacle--reserved for the eye only of man and the
+communing of his spirit. If meant to subserve the wants of his earthly
+nature, meant still more expressly to kindle other wants. Do they not
+indeed lead to Heaven, these mountains? At least I know they lead
+beyond this earth.
+
+There is a little church stands in the valley of Chamouni. It was
+open, as is customary in Catholic countries, to receive the visits and
+the prayers of the faithful; but there was no service, no priest, nor
+indeed a single person in the building. It was evening--and a solitary
+lamp hung suspended from the ceiling, just before the altar. Allured
+by the mysterious appearance of this lamp burning in solitude, I
+entered, and remained in it some time, making out, in the dim light,
+the wondrous figures of virgins and saints generally found in such
+edifices. When I emerged from the church, there stood Mont Blanc
+before me, reflecting the last tints of the setting sun. I am
+habitually tolerant of Catholic devices and ceremonies; but at this
+moment how inexpressibly strange, how very little, how poor,
+contemptible, and like an infant's toy, seemed all the implements of
+worship I had just left!
+
+And yet the tall, simple, wooden cross that stands in the open air on
+the platform before the church, this was well. This was a symbol that
+might well stand, even in the presence of Mont Blanc. Symbol of
+suffering and of love, where is it out of place? On no spot on earth,
+on no spot where a human heart is beating.
+
+Mont Blanc and this wooden cross, are they not the two greatest
+symbols that the world can show? They are wisely placed opposite each
+other.
+
+I have alluded to the sunset seen in this valley. All travellers love
+to talk a little of their own experience, their good or their ill
+fortune. The first evening I entered Chamouni, the clouds had gathered
+on the summits of the mountains, and a view of Mont Blanc was thought
+hopeless. Nevertheless I sallied forth, and planted myself in the
+valley, with a singular confidence in the goodness of nature towards
+one who was the humblest but one of the sincerest of her votaries. My
+confidence was rewarded. The clouds dispersed, and the roseate sunset
+on the mountain was seen to perfection. I had not yet learned to
+distinguish that summit which, in an especial manner, bears the name
+of Mont Blanc. There is a modesty in its greatness. It makes no
+ostentatious claim to be the highest in the range, and is content if
+for a time you give the glory of pre-eminence to others. But it
+reserves a convincing proof of its own superiority. I had been looking
+elsewhere, and in a wrong direction, for Mont Blanc, when I found that
+all the summits had sunk, like the clouds when day deserts them, into
+a cold dead white--all but one point, that still glowed with the
+radiance of the sun when all beside had lost it. There was the royal
+mountain.
+
+What a cold, corpse-like hue it is which the snow-mountain assumes
+just after the sun has quitted it. There is a short interval then,
+when it seems the very image of death. But the moon rises, or the
+stars take up their place, and the mountain resumes its beauty and its
+life. Beauty is always life. Under the star-light how ethereal does it
+look!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the landscapes of other countries, the house--the habitation of
+man--be it farm-house or cottage--gathers, so to speak, some of the
+country about itself--makes itself the centre of some circle, however
+small. Not so in Switzerland. The hooded chalet, which even in summer
+speaks so plainly of winter, and stands ever prepared with its low
+drooping roof to shelter its eyes and ears from the snow and the
+wind--these dot the landscape most charmingly, but yet are lost in it;
+they form no group, no central point in the scene. I am thinking more
+particularly of the chalets in the Oberland. There is no path
+apparently between one and the other; the beautiful green verdure lies
+untrodden around them. One would say, the inhabitants found their way
+to them like birds to their nests. And like enough to nests they are,
+both in the elevation at which they are sometimes perched, and in the
+manner of their distribution over the scene.
+
+However they got there, people at all events are living in them, and
+the farm and the dairy are carried up into I know not what altitudes.
+Those beautiful little tame cattle, with their short horns, and long
+ears, and mouse-coloured skin, with all the agility of a goat, and all
+the gentleness of domesticity--you meet them feeding in places where
+your mule looks thoughtfully to his footing. And then follows perhaps
+a peasant girl in her picturesque cloak made of the undressed fur of
+the goat and her round hat of thickly plaited straw, calling after
+them in that high sing-song note, which forms the basis of what is
+called Swiss music. This cry heard in the mountains is delightful, the
+voice is sustained and yet varied--being varied, it can be sustained
+the longer--and the high note pierces far into the distance. As a real
+cry of the peasant it is delightful to hear; it is appropriate to the
+purpose and the place. But defend my ears against that imitation of it
+introduced by young ladies into the Swiss songs. Swiss music in an
+English drawing-room--may I escape the infliction! but the Swiss
+peasant chanting across the mountain defiles--may I often again halt
+to listen to it!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But from the mountain and the cloud we must now depart. We must wend
+towards the plain. One very simple and consolatory thought strikes
+me--though we must leave the glory of the mountain, we at least take
+the sun with us. And the cloud too, you will add. Alas! something too
+much of that.
+
+But no murmurs. We islanders, who can see the sun set on the broad
+ocean--had we nothing else to boast of--can never feel deserted of
+nature. We have our portion of her excellent gifts. I know not yet how
+an Italian sky, so famed for its deep and constant azure, may affect
+me, but I know that we have our gorgeous melancholy sunsets, to which
+our island tempers become singularly attuned. The cathedral
+splendours--the dim religious light of our vesper skies--I doubt if I
+would exchange them for the unmitigated glories of a southern clime.
+
+
+
+
+THE SECOND PANDORA.
+
+
+      Methought Prometheus, from his rock unbound,
+    Had with the Gods again acceptance found.
+    Once more he seem'd his wond'rous task to ply,
+    While all Olympus stood admiring by.
+    To high designs his heart and hands aspire,
+    To quicken earthly dust with heavenly fire,
+    Won by no fraud, but lent by liberal love,
+    To raise weak mortals to the realms above;
+    For the bright flame remembers, even on earth,
+    And pants to reach, the region of its birth.
+      A female form was now the artist's care;
+    Faultless in shape, and exquisitely fair.
+    Of more than Parian purity, the clay
+    Had all been leaven'd with the ethereal ray.
+    Deep in the heart the kindling spark began,
+    And far diffused through every fibre ran;
+    The eyes reveal'd it, and the blooming skin
+    Glow'd with the lovely light that shone within.
+      The applauding Gods confess'd the matchless sight;
+    The first Pandora was not half so bright;
+    That beauteous mischief, formed at Jove's command,
+    A curse to men, by Mulciber's own hand;
+    Whose eager haste the fatal jar to know,
+    Fill'd the wide world with all but hopeless woe.
+    But dawn of better days arose, when He,
+    The patient Hero, set Prometheus free,
+    Alcides, to whose toils the joy was given
+    To conquer Hell and climb the heights of Heaven.
+      In the fair work that now the master wrought,
+    The first-fruits of his liberty were brought;
+    The Gods receive her as a pledge of peace,
+    And heap their gifts and happiest auspices.
+      Minerva to the virgin first imparts
+    Her skill in woman's works and household arts;
+    The needle's use, the robe's embroider'd bloom,
+    And all the varied labours of the loom.
+    Calm fortitude she gave, and courage strong,
+    To cope with ill and triumph over wrong;
+    Ingenuous prudence, with prophetic sight,
+    And clear instinctive wisdom, ever right.
+      Diana brought the maid her modest mien,
+    Her love of fountains and the sylvan scene;
+    The Hours and Seasons lent each varying ray
+    That gilds the rolling year or changing day.
+    The cunning skill of Hermes nicely hung,
+    With subtle blandishments, her sliding tongue,
+    And train'd her eyes to stolen glances sweet,
+    And all the wiles of innocent deceit.
+    Phoebus attuned her ear to love the lyre,
+    And warm'd her fancy with poetic fire.
+    Nor this alone; but shared his healing art,
+    And robb'd his son of all the gentler part;
+    Taught her with soothing touch and silent tread
+    To hover lightly round the sick one's bed,
+    And promised oft to show, when medicines fail,
+    A woman's watchful tenderness prevail.
+      Next Venus and the Graces largely shed
+    A shower of fascinations on her head.
+    Each line, each look, was brighten'd and refined,
+    Each outward act, each movement of the mind,
+    Till all her charms confess the soft control,
+    And blend at once in one harmonious whole.
+      But still the Eternal Sire apart remain'd,
+    And Juno's bounty was not yet obtained.
+    The voice of Heaven's High Queen then fill'd the ear,
+    "A wife and mother, let the Nymph appear."
+    The mystic change like quick enchantment shows--
+    The slender lily blooms a blushing rose.
+    Three gentle children now, by just degrees,
+    Are ranged in budding beauty round her knees:
+    Still to her lips their looks attentive turn,
+    And drink instruction from its purest urn,
+    While o'er their eyes soft memories seem to play,
+    That paint a friend or father far away.
+    A richer charm her ripen'd form displays,
+    A halo round her shines with holier rays;
+    And if at times, a shade of pensive grace
+    Pass like a cloud across her earnest face,
+    Yet faithful tokens the glad truth impart,
+    That deeper happiness pervades her heart.
+      Jove latest spoke: "One boon remains," he said,
+    And bent serenely his ambrosial head;
+    "The last, best boon, which I alone bestow;"
+    Then bade the waters of Affliction flow.
+    The golden dream was dimm'd; a darken'd room
+    Scarce show'd where dire disease had shed its gloom.
+    A little child in death extended lay,
+    Still round her linger'd the departing ray.
+    Another pallid face appear'd, where Life
+    With its fell foe maintain'd a doubtful strife.
+    Long was the contest; changeful hopes and fears
+    Now sunk the Mother's soul, now dried her tears.
+    At last a steady line of dawning light
+    Show'd that her son was saved, and banish'd night.
+    Though sad her heart, of one fair pledge bereft,
+    She sees and owns the bounties Heaven hath left.
+    In natural drops her anguish finds relief,
+    And leaves the Matron beautified by grief;
+    While consolation, beaming from above,
+    Fills her with new-felt gratitude and love.
+      O happy He! before whose waking eyes,
+    So bright a vision may resplendent rise--
+    The New PANDORA, by the Gods designed,
+    Not now the bane, but blessing of Mankind!
+
+
+
+
+THE REIGN OF GEORGE THE THIRD.[33]
+
+
+It is scarcely theoretical to say, that every century has a character
+of its own. The human mind is essentially progressive in Europe. The
+accumulations of past knowledge, experience, and impulse, are
+perpetually preparing changes on the face of society; and we may
+fairly regard every hundred years as the period maturing those changes
+into visible form. Thus, the fifteenth century was the age of
+discovery in the arts, in the powers of nature, and in the great
+provinces of the globe: the sixteenth exhibited the general mind under
+the impressions of religion--the Reformation, the German wars for
+liberty and faith, and the struggles of Protestantism in France. The
+seventeenth was the brilliant period of scientific advance, of
+continental literature, and of courtly pomp and power. The eighteenth
+was the period of politics; every court of Europe was engaged in the
+game of political rivalry; the European balance became the test, the
+labour, and the triumph of statesmanship. The negotiator was then the
+great instrument of public action. Diplomacy assumed a shape, and
+Europe was governed by despatches. The genius of Frederick the Second
+restored war to its early rank among the elements of national life;
+but brilliant as his wars were, they were subservient to the leading
+feature of the age. They were fought, not, like the battles of the old
+conquerors, for fame, but for influence--not to leave the king without
+an enemy, but to leave his ambassadors without an opponent--less to
+gain triumphs, than to ensure treaties: they all began and ended in
+diplomacy!
+
+It is remarkable, that this process was exhibited in Europe alone. In
+the East, comprehending two-thirds of human kind, no change was made
+since the conquests of Mahomet. That vast convulsion, in which the
+nervousness of frenzy had given the effeminate spirit of the Oriental
+the strength of the soldier and the ambition of universal conqueror,
+had no sooner wrought its purpose than it passed away, leaving the
+general mind still more exhausted than before. The Saracen warrior
+sank into the peasant, and the Arab was again lost in his sands; the
+Turk alone survived, exhibiting splendour without wealth, and pride
+without power--a decaying image of Despotism, which nothing but the
+jealousy of the European saved from falling under the first assault.
+Such is the repressive strength of evil government; progress, the most
+salient principle of our nature, dies before it. And man, of all
+beings the most eager for acquirement, and the most restless under all
+monotony of time, place, and position, becomes like the dog or the
+mule, and generation after generation lives and dies with no more
+consciousness of the capacities of his existence, than the root which
+the animal devours, or the tree under which it was born.
+
+In England, the eighteenth century was wholly political. It was a
+continual struggle through all the difficulties belonging to a free
+constitution, exposed to the full discussion of an intellectual
+people. Without adopting the offensive prejudice, which places the
+individual ability of the Englishmen in the first rank; or without
+doubting that nature has distributed nearly an equal share of personal
+ability among all European nations; we may, not unjustly, place the
+national mind of England in the very highest rank of general
+capacity--if that is the most intellectual nation, by which the public
+intellect is most constantly employed, in which all the great
+questions of society are most habitually referred to the decision of
+the intellect, and in which that decision is the most irresistible in
+its effects, no nation of Europe can stand upon equal ground with the
+English. For, in what other nation is the public intellect in such
+unwearied exercise, in such continual demand, and in such unanswerable
+power?
+
+In what other nation of the world (excepting, within those few years,
+France; and that most imperfectly) has public opinion ever been
+appealed to? But, in England, to what else is there any appeal? Or,
+does not the foreign mind bear some resemblance to the foreign
+landscape--exhibiting barren though noble elevations, spots of
+singular though obscure beauty among its recesses, and even in its
+wildest scenes a capacity of culture?--while, in the mind of England,
+like its landscape, that culture has already laid its hand upon the
+soil; has crowned the hill with verdure, and clothed the vale with
+fertility; has run its ploughshare along the mountain side, and led
+the stream from its brow; has sought out every finer secret of the
+scene, and given the last richness of cultivation to the whole.
+
+From the beginning of the reign of Anne, all was a contest of leading
+statesmen at the head of parties. Those contests exhibit great mental
+power, singular system, and extraordinary knowledge of the art of
+making vast bodies of men minister to the personal objects of avarice
+and ambition. But they do no honour to the moral dignity of England.
+All revolutions are hazardous to principle. A succession of
+revolutions have always extinguished even the pretence to principle.
+The French Revolution is not the only one which made a race of
+_girouettes_. The political life of England, from the death of Anne to
+the reign of George the Third, was a perpetual turning of the
+weathercock. Whig and Tory were the names of distinction. But their
+subordinates were of as many varieties of feature as the cargo of a
+slave-ship; the hue might be the same, but the jargon was that of
+Babel. It was perhaps fortunate for the imperial power of England,
+that while she was thus humiliating the national morality, which is
+the life-blood of nations; her reckless and perpetual enemy beyond the
+Channel had lost all means of being her antagonist. The French sceptre
+had fallen into the hands of a prince, who had come to the throne a
+debauchee; and to whom the throne seemed only a scene for the larger
+display of his vices. The profligacy of Louis-Quatorze had been
+palliated by his passion for splendour, among a dissolute people who
+loved splendour much, and hated profligacy little. But the vices of
+Louis the Fifteenth were marked by a grossness which degraded them in
+the eye even of popular indulgence, and prepared the nation for the
+overthrow of the monarchy. In this period, religion, the great
+purifier of national council, maintained but a struggling existence.
+The Puritanism of the preceding century had crushed the Church of
+England; and the restoration of the monarchy had given the people a
+saturnalia. Religion had been confounded with hypocrisy, until the
+people had equally confounded freedom with infidelity. The heads of
+the church, chosen by freethinking administrations, were chosen more
+for the suppleness than for the strength of their principles; and
+while the people were thus taught to regard churchmen as tools, and
+the ministers to use them as dependents, the cause of truth sank
+between both. The Scriptures are the life of religion. It can no more
+subsist in health without them, than the human frame can subsist
+without food; it may have the dreams of the enthusiast, or the frenzy
+of the monk; but, for all the substantial and safe purposes of the
+human heart, its life is gone for ever. It has been justly remarked,
+that the theological works of that day, including the sermons, might,
+in general, have been written if Christianity had never existed. The
+sermons were chiefly essays, of the dreariest kind on the most
+commonplace topics of morals. The habit of reading these discourses
+from the pulpit, a habit so fatal to all impression, speedily rendered
+the preachers as indifferent as their auditory; and if we were to name
+the period when religion had most fallen into decay in the public
+mind, we should pronounce it the half century which preceded the reign
+of George the Third.
+
+On the subject of pulpit eloquence there are some remarks in one of
+the reviews of the late Sydney Smith, expressed with all the
+shrewdness, divested of the levity of that writer, who had keenly
+observed the popular sources of failure.
+
+"The great object of modern sermons is, to hazard nothing. Their
+characteristic is decent debility; which alike guards their authors
+from ludicrous errors, and precludes them from striking beauties. Yet
+it is curious to consider, how a body of men so well educated as the
+English clergy, can distinguish themselves so little in a species of
+composition, to which it is their peculiar duty, as well as their
+ordinary habit, to attend. To solve this difficulty, it should be
+remembered that the eloquence of the bar and of the senate force
+themselves into notice, power, and wealth." He then slightly guards
+against the conception, that eloquence should be the sole source of
+preferment; or even "a common cause of preferment." But he strongly,
+and with great appearance of truth, attributes the want of public
+effect to the want of those means by which that effect is secured in
+every other instance.
+
+"Pulpit discourses have insensibly dwindled from speaking into
+reading; a practice of itself sufficient to stifle every germ of
+eloquence. It is only by the fresh feelings of the heart that mankind
+can be very powerfully affected. What can be more unfortunate, than an
+orator delivering stale indignation, and fervour of a week old;
+turning over whole pages of violent passions, written out in German
+text; reading the tropes and metaphors into which he is hurried by the
+ardour of his mind; and so affected, at a preconcerted line and page,
+that he is unable to proceed any further?"
+
+This criticism was perfectly true of sermons forty years ago, when it
+was written. Times are changed since, and changed for the better. The
+pulpit is no longer ashamed of the doctrines of Christianity, as too
+harsh for the ears of a classic audience, or too familiar for the ears
+of the people. Still there are no rewards in the Church, for that
+great faculty, or rather that great combination of faculties, which
+commands all the honours of the senate and the bar. A clerical
+Demosthenes might find his triumph in the shillings of a charity
+sermon, but he must never hope for a Stall.
+
+We now revert to the curious, inquisitive, and gossiping historian of
+the time. Walpole, fond of French manners, delighting in the easy
+sarcasm, and almost saucy levity, of French "Memoirs," and adopting,
+in all its extent, the confession, (then so fashionable on the
+Continent,) that the perfection of writing was to be formed in their
+lively _persiflage_, evidently modelled his "History" on the style of
+the Sevignés and St Simons. But he was altogether their superior. If
+he had been a chamberlain in the court of Louis XV., he might have
+been as frivolously witty, and as laughingly sarcastic, as any
+Frenchman who ever sat at the feet of a court mistress, or whoever
+looked for fame among the sallies of a _petit souper_. But England was
+an atmosphere which compelled him to a manlier course. The storms of
+party were not to be stemmed by a wing of gossamer. The writer had
+bold facts, strong principles, and the struggles of powerful minds to
+deal with, and their study gave him a strength not his own.
+
+Walpole was fond of having a hero. In private life, George Selwyn was
+his Admirable Crichton; in public, Charles Townshend. Charles was
+unquestionably a man of wit. Yet his wit rather consisted in dexterity
+of language than in brilliancy of conception. He was also eloquent in
+Parliament; though his charm evidently consisted more in happiness of
+phrase, than in richness, variety, or vigour, of thought. On the
+whole, he seems to have been made to amuse rather than to impress, and
+to give a high conception of his general faculties than to produce
+either conviction by his argument, or respect by the solid qualities
+of his genius. Still, he must have been an extraordinary man. Walpole
+describes his conduct and powers, as exhibited on one of those days of
+sharp debate which preceded the tremendous discussions of the American
+war. The subject was a bill for regulating the dividends of the East
+India Company--the topic was extremely trite, and apparently trifling.
+But any perch will answer for the flight of such bird. "It was on
+that day," says Walpole, "and on that occasion, that Charles Townshend
+displayed, in a latitude beyond belief, the amazing powers of his
+capacity, and the no less amazing incongruities of his character."
+Early in the day he had opened the business, by taking on himself the
+examination of the Company's conduct, had made a calm speech on the
+subject, and even went so far as to say, "that he hoped he had atoned
+for the inconsiderateness of his past life, by the care which he had
+taken of that business." He then went home to dinner. In his absence a
+motion was made, which Conway, the secretary of state, not choosing to
+support alone, it being virtually Townshend's own measure besides,
+sent to hurry him back to the House. "He returned about eight in the
+evening, half drunk with champagne," as Walpole says, (which, however,
+was subsequently denied,) and more intoxicated with spirits. He then
+instantly rose to speak, without giving himself time to learn any
+thing, except that the motion had given alarm. He began by vowing that
+he had not been consulted on the motion--a declaration which
+astonished every body, there being twelve persons round him at the
+moment, who had been in consultation with him that very morning, and
+with his assistance had drawn up the motion on his own table, and who
+were petrified at his unparalleled effrontery. But before he sat down,
+he had poured forth, as Walpole says, "a torrent of wit, humour,
+knowledge, absurdity, vanity, and fiction, heightened by all the
+graces of comedy, the happiness of quotation, and the buffoonery of
+farce. To the purpose of the question he said not a syllable. It was a
+descant on the times, a picture of parties, of their leaders, their
+hopes, and effects. It was an encomium and a satire on himself; and
+when he painted the pretensions of birth, riches, connexions, favours,
+titles, while he effected to praise Lord Rockingham and that faction,
+he yet insinuated that nothing but parts like his own were qualified
+to preside. And while he less covertly arraigned the wild incapacity
+of Lord Chatham, he excited such murmurs of wonder, admiration,
+applause, laughter, pity, and scorn, that nothing was so true as the
+sentence with which he concluded--when, speaking of government, he
+said, that it had become what he himself had often been called--the
+weathercock."
+
+Walpole exceeds even his usual measure of admiration, in speaking of
+this masterly piece of extravagance. "Such was the wit, abundance, and
+impropriety of this speech," says he, "that for some days men could
+talk or enquire of nothing else. 'Did you hear Charles Townshend's
+champagne speech,' was the universal question. The bacchanalian
+enthusiasm of Pindar flowed in torrents less rapid and less eloquent,
+and inspired less delight, than Townshend's imagery, which conveyed
+meaning in every sentence. It was Garrick acting extempore scenes of
+Congreve." He went to supper with Walpole at Conway's afterwards,
+where, the flood of his gaiety not being exhausted, he kept the table
+in a roar till two in the morning. A part of this entertainment,
+however, must have found his auditory in a condition as unfit for
+criticism as himself. Claret till "two in the morning," might easily
+disqualify a convivial circle from the exercise of too delicate a
+perception. And a part of Townshend's facetiousness on that occasion
+consisted in mimicking his own wife, and a woman of rank with whom he
+fancied himself in love. He at last gave up from mere bodily
+lassitude. Walpole happily enough illustrates those talents and their
+abuse by an allusion to those eastern tales, in which a benevolent
+genius endows a being with supernatural excellence on some points,
+while a malignant genius counteracts the gift by some qualification
+which perpetually baffles and perverts it. The story, however, of
+Charles Townshend's tipsiness is thus contradicted by a graver
+authority, Sir George Colebrook, in his Memoirs.
+
+"Mr Townshend loved good living, but had not a strong stomach. He
+committed therefore frequent excesses, considering his constitution;
+which would not have been intemperance in another. He was supposed,
+for instance, to have made a speech in the heat of wine, when that was
+really not the case. It was a speech in which he treated with great
+levity, but with wonderful art, the characters of the Duke of Grafton
+and Lord Shelburne, whom, though his colleagues in office, he
+entertained a sovereign contempt for, and heartily wished to get rid
+of. He had a black riband over one of his eyes that day, having
+tumbled out of bed, probably in a fit of epilepsy; and this added to
+the impression made on his auditors that he was tipsy. Whereas, it was
+a speech he had meditated a great while upon, and it was only by
+accident that it found utterance that day. I write with certainty,
+because Sir George Yonge and I were the only persons who dined with
+him, and we had but one bottle of champagne after dinner; General
+Conway having repeatedly sent messengers to press his return to the
+House."
+
+This brings the miracle down to the human standard, yet that standard
+was high, and the man who could excite this admiration, in a House
+which contained so great a number of eminent speakers, and which could
+charm the caustic spirit of Walpole into the acknowledgment that his
+speech "was the most singular pleasure of the kind he had ever
+tasted," must have been an extraordinary performance, even if his
+instrument was not of the highest tone of oratory. A note from the
+Duke of Grafton's manuscript memoirs also contradicts, on Townshend's
+own authority, his opinion of the "wild incapacity of Lord Chatham."
+The note says:--
+
+    "On the night preceding Lord Chatham's first journey to Bath, Mr
+    Charles Townshend was for the first time summoned to the Cabinet.
+    The business was on a general view and statement of the actual
+    situation and interests of the various powers in Europe. Lord
+    Chatham had taken the lead in this consideration in so masterly a
+    manner, as to raise the admiration and desire of us all to
+    co-operate with him in forwarding his views. Mr Townshend was
+    particularly astonished, and owned to me, as I was carrying him in
+    my carriage home, that Lord Chatham had just shown to us what
+    inferior animals we were, and that as much as he had seen of him
+    before, he did not conceive till that night his superiority to be
+    so transcendant."
+
+Walpole writes with habitual bitterness of the great Lord Chatham. The
+recollection of his early opposition to Sir Robert Walpole, seems to
+have made him an unfaithful historian, wherever this extraordinary
+man's name comes within his page; but at the period of those
+discussions, it seems not improbable that the vigour of Chatham's
+understanding had in some degree given way to the tortures of his
+disease. He had suffered from gout at an early period of life; and as
+this is a disease remarkably affected by the mind, the perpetual
+disturbances of a public life seem to have given it a mastery over the
+whole frame of the great minister. Walpole talks in unjustifiable
+language of his "haughty sterility of talents." But there seems to be
+more truth in his account of the caprices of this powerful
+understanding in his retirement. Walpole calls it the "reality of Lord
+Chatham's madness." Still, we cannot see much in those instances,
+beyond the temper naturally resulting from an agonizing disease. When
+the Pynsent estate fell to him, he removed to it, and sold his house
+and grounds at Hayes--"a place on which he had wasted prodigious sums,
+and which yet retained small traces of expense, great part having been
+consumed in purchasing contiguous tenements, to free himself from all
+neighbourhood. Much had gone in doing and undoing, and not a little in
+planting by torchlight, as his peremptory and impatient habits could
+brook no delay. Nor were those the sole circumstances which marked his
+caprice. His children he could not bear under the same roof, nor
+communications from room to room, nor whatever he thought promoted
+noise. A winding passage between his house and children was built with
+the same view. When, at the beginning of his second administration, he
+fixed at North End by Hampstead, he took four or five houses
+successively, as fast as Mr Dingley his landlord went into them,
+still, as he said, to ward off the houses of the neighbourhood."
+
+Walpole relates another anecdote equally inconclusive. At Pynsent, a
+bleak hill bounded his view. He ordered his gardener to have it
+planted with evergreens. The man asked "with what sorts." He replied,
+"With cedars and cypresses." "Bless me, my lord," replied the
+gardener, "all the nurseries in this county would not furnish a
+hundredth part." "No matter, send for them from London: and they were
+brought by land carriage." Certainly, there was not much in this
+beyond the natural desire of every improver to shut out a disagreeable
+object, by putting an agreeable one in its place. His general object
+was the natural one of preventing all noise--a point of importance
+with every sufferer under a wakeful and miserable disease. His
+appetite was delicate and fanciful, and a succession of chickens were
+kept boiling and roasting at every hour, to be ready whenever he
+should call. He at length grew weary of his residence and, after
+selling Hayes, took a longing to return there. After considerable
+negotiation with Mr Thomas Walpole the purchaser, he obtained it
+again, and we hear no more of his madness.
+
+The session was one of continual intrigues, constant exhibitions of
+subtlety amongst the leaders of the party, which at this distance of
+time are only ridiculous, and intricate discussions, which are now
+among the lumber of debate. Townshend, if he gained nothing else,
+gained the freedom of the city for his conduct on the East India and
+Dividend bills, for which, as Walpole says, "he deserved nothing but
+censure." A contemptuous epigram appeared on the occasion by "somebody
+a little more sagacious"--that "somebody" probably being Walpole
+himself:
+
+   "The joke of Townshend's box is little known,
+    Great judgment in the thing the cits have shown;
+    The compliment was an expedient clever,
+    To rid them of the like expense for ever.
+    Of so burlesque a choice the example sure
+    For city boxes must all longing cure,
+    The honor'd Ostracism at Athens fell,
+    Soon as Hyperbolus had got the shell."
+
+It is scarcely possible to think that an epigram of this heavy order
+could have been praised by Walpole, if his criticism had not been
+tempered by the tenderness of paternity.
+
+We then have a character of a man embalmed in the contempt poured upon
+him by Junius--the Duke of Grafton. Though less bitter, it is equally
+scornful. "Hitherto," says Walpole, "he had passed for a man of much
+obstinacy and firmness, of strict honour, devoid of ambition, and,
+though reserved, more diffident than designing. He retained so much of
+this character, as to justify those who had mistaken the rest. If he
+precipitated himself into the most sudden and inextricable
+contradictions, at least he pursued the object of the moment with
+inflexible ardour. If he abandoned himself to total negligence of
+business, in pursuit of his sports and pleasures, the love of power
+never quitted him; and, when his will was disputed, no man was more
+imperiously arbitrary. If his designs were not deeply laid, at least
+they were conducted in profound silence. He rarely pardoned those who
+did not guess his inclination. It was necessary to guess, so rare was
+any instance of his unbosoming himself to either friends or
+confidants. Why his honour had been so highly rated I can less
+account, except that he had advertised it, and that obstinate young
+men are apt to have high notions, before they have practised the
+world, and essayed their own virtue."
+
+At length, after a vast variety of intrigues, which threw the public
+life of those days into the most contemptible point of view, the King
+being made virtually a cipher, while the families of the Hertfords,
+Buckinghams, and Rockinghams trafficked the high offices of state as
+children would barter toys; an administration was tardily formed.
+Walpole, who seemed to take a sort of _dilettante_ pleasure in
+constructing those intrigues, and making himself wretched at their
+failure, while nobody suffered him to take advantage of their success;
+now gave himself a holiday, and went to relax in Paris for six
+weeks--his relaxation consisting of gossip amongst the literary ladies
+of the capital. During his absence an event happened which, though it
+did not break up the ministry, yet must have had considerable effect
+in its influence on the House of Commons. This was the death of the
+celebrated Charles Townshend, on the 4th of September 1767, in the
+forty-second year of his age. The cause of his death was a neglected
+fever; if even this did not arise from his carelessness of health, and
+those habits which, if not amounting to intemperance, were certainly
+trespasses on his constitution. Walpole speaks of him with continual
+admiration of his genius, and continual contempt of his principles. He
+also thinks, that he had arrived at his highest fame, or, in his
+peculiar phrase, "that his genius could have received no accession of
+brightness, while his faults only promised multiplication." Walpole,
+with no pretence to rival, probably envied this singular personage;
+for, whenever he begins by panegyric, he uniformly ends with a sting.
+One of the Notes gives an extract on Sir George Colebrook's Memoirs,
+which perhaps places his faculties in a more favourable point of view
+than the high-coloured eulogium of Burke, or the polished insinuations
+of Walpole. Sir George tells us, that Townshend's object was to be
+prime minister, and that he would doubtless have attained that object
+had he lived to see the Duke of Grafton's resignation. Lord North
+succeeded him as chancellor of the exchequer, and Townshend would
+evidently have preceded _him_ as prime minister. "As a private man,
+his friends were used to say, that they should not see his like again.
+Though they were often the butts of his wit, they always returned to
+his company with fresh delight, which they would not have done had
+there been either malice or rancour in what he said. He loved society,
+and in his choice of friends preferred those over whom he had a
+decided superiority of talent. He was satisfied when he had put the
+table in a roar, and he did not like to see it done by another. When
+Garrick and Foote were present, he took the lead, and hardly allowed
+them an opportunity of showing their talents for mimicry, because he
+could excel them in their own art. He shone particularly in taking off
+the principal members of the House of Commons. Among the few whom he
+feared was Mr Selwyn, and at a dinner at Lord Gower's they had a trial
+of skill, in which Mr Selwyn prevailed. When the company broke up, Mr
+Townshend, to show that he had no animosity, carried him in his
+carriage to White's; and, as they parted, Selwyn could not help
+saying--'Remember, this is the first set-down you have given me
+to-day.'"
+
+As Townshend lived at a considerable expense, and had little paternal
+fortune, he speculated occasionally in both the French and English
+funds. One of the incidents related by Sir George, and without a
+syllable of censure too, throws on him an imputation of trickery
+which, in our later day, would utterly destroy any public man. "When
+he was chancellor of the exchequer, he came in his nightgown to a
+dinner given by the Duke of Grafton to several of the principal men of
+the city to settle the loan. After dinner, when the terms were
+settled, and every body present wished to introduce some friend on the
+list of subscribers, he pretended to cast up the sums already
+admitted, said the loan was full, huddled up his papers, got into a
+chair, and returned home, reserving to himself by this manoeuvre a
+large share of the loan." An act of this kind exhibits the honesty of
+the last age in a very equivocal point of view. If proud of nothing
+else, we may be proud of the public sense of responsibility; in our
+day, it may be presumed that such an act would be impossible, for it
+would inevitably involve the ruin of the perpetrator, followed by the
+ruin of any ministry which would dare to defend him.
+
+At this period died a brother of the king, Edward Duke of York, a man
+devoted to pleasure, headstrong in his temper, and ignorant in his
+conceptions. "Immoderate travelling, followed by immoderate balls and
+entertainments," had long kept his blood in a peculiar state of
+accessibility to disease. He died of a putrid fever. Walpole makes a
+panegyric on the Duke of Gloucester, his brother; of which a part may
+be supposed due to the Duke's marriage with Lady Waldegrave, a
+marriage which provoked the indignation of the King, and which once
+threatened political evils of a formidable nature. Henry, the Duke of
+Cumberland, was also an unfortunate specimen of the blood royal. He is
+described as having the babbling loquacity of the Duke of York,
+without his talents; as at once arrogant and low; presuming on his
+rank as a prince, and degrading himself by an association with low
+company. Still, we are to remember Walpole's propensity to sarcasm,
+the enjoyment which he seems to have felt in shooting his brilliant
+missiles at all ranks superior to his own; and his especial hostility
+to George the Third, one of the honestest monarchs that ever sat upon
+a throne.
+
+In those days the composition of ministries depended altogether upon
+the high families.--The peerage settled every thing amongst
+themselves. A few of their dependents were occasionally taken into
+office; but all the great places were distributed among a little
+clique, who thus constituted themselves the real masters of the
+empire. Walpole's work has its value, in letting us into the secrets
+of a conclave, which at once shows us the singular emptiness of its
+constituent parts, and the equally singular authority with which they
+seem to have disposed of both the king and the people. We give a scene
+from the _Historian_, which would make an admirable fragment of the
+_Rehearsal_, and which wanted only the genius of Sheridan to be an
+admirable pendant to Mr Puff's play in the _Critic_. "On the 20th a
+meeting was held at the Duke of Newcastle's, of Lord Rockingham, the
+Duke of Richmond, and of Dowdeswell, with Newcastle himself on one
+part, and of the Duke of Bedford, Lord Weymouth, and Rigby on the
+other. The Duke of Bedford had powers from Grenville to act for him;
+but did not seem to like Lord Buckingham's taking on himself to name
+to places. On the latter's asking what friends they wished to prefer,
+Rigby said, with his cavalier bluntness--Take the _Court Calendar_ and
+give them one, two, three thousand pounds a-year! Bedford
+observed--They had said nothing on measures. Mr Grenville would insist
+on the sovereignty of this country over America being asserted. Lord
+Rockingham replied--He would never allow it to be a question whether
+he had given up this country--he never had. The Duke insisted on a
+declaration. The Duke of Richmond said--We may as well demand one from
+you, that you will never disturb that country again. Neither would
+yield. However, though they could not agree on measures; as the
+distribution of place was more the object of their thoughts and of
+their meeting, they reverted to that topic. Lord Rockingham named Mr
+Conway. Bedford started; said he had no notion of Conway; had thought
+he was to return to the military line. The Duke of Richmond said it
+was true, Mr Conway did not desire a civil place; did not know whether
+he would be persuaded to accept one; but they were so bound to him for
+his resignation, and thought him so able, they must insist. The Duke
+of Bedford said--Conway was an officer _sans tache_, but not a
+minister _sans tache_. Rigby said--Not one of the present cabinet
+should be saved. Dowdeswell asked--'What! not one?' 'No.' 'What! not
+Charles Townshend.' 'Oh!' said Rigby, 'that is different. Besides, he
+has been in opposition.' 'So has Conway,' said Dowdeswell. 'He has
+voted twice against the court, Townshend but once.' 'But,' said Rigby,
+'Conway is Bute's man.' 'Pray,' said Dowdeswell, 'is not Charles
+Townshend Bute's?' 'Ah! but Conway is governed by his brother
+Hertford, who is Bute's.' 'But Lady Ailesbury is a Scotchwoman.' 'So
+is Lady Dalkeith.' Those ladies had been widows and were now married,
+(the former to Conway, the latter to Townshend.) From this dialogue
+the assembly fell to wrangling, and broke up quarrelling. So high did
+the heats go, that the Conways ran about the town publishing the issue
+of the conference, and taxing the Bedfords with treachery."
+
+Notwithstanding this collision, at once so significant, and so
+trifling--at once a burlesque on the gravity of public affairs, and a
+satire on the selfishness of public men--on the same evening, the Duke
+of Bedford sent to desire another interview, to which Lord Rockingham
+yielded, but the Duke of Bedford refused to be present. So much,
+however, were the minds on both sides ulcerated by former and recent
+disputes, and so incompatible were their views, that the second
+meeting broke up in a final quarrel, and Lord Rockingham released the
+other party from all their engagements. The Duke of Bedford desired
+they might still continue friends, or at least to agree to oppose
+together. Lord Rockingham said no, "they were broken for ever."
+
+It was at this meeting that the Duke of Newcastle appeared for the
+last time in a political light. Age and feebleness had at length worn
+out that busy passion for intrigue, which power had not been able to
+satiate, nor disgrace correct. He languished above a year longer, but
+was heard of no more on the scene of affairs. (He died in November 1768.)
+
+A remarkable circumstance in all those arrangements is, that we hear
+nothing of either the king or the people. The king is of course
+applied to to sign and seal, but simply as a head clerk. The people
+are occasionally mentioned at the end of every seven years; but in the
+interim all was settled in the parlours of the peerage! The scene
+which we have just given was absolutely puerile, if it were not
+scandalous; and, without laying ourselves open to the charge of
+superstition on such subjects, we might almost regard the preservation
+of the empire as directly miraculous, while power was in the hands of
+such men as the Butes and Newcastles, the Bedfords and Rockinghams, of
+the last century. It is not even difficult to trace to this
+intolerable system, alike the foreign calamities and the internal
+convulsions during this period. Whether America could, by any
+possibility of arrangement, have continued a British colony up to the
+present time, may be rationally doubted. A vast country, rapidly
+increasing in wealth and population, would have been an incumbrance,
+rather than an addition, to the power of England. If the patronage of
+her offices continued in the hands of ministers, it must have supplied
+them with the means of buying up every man who was to be bought in
+England. It would have been the largest fund of corruption ever known
+in the world. Or, if the connexion continued, with the population of
+America doubling in every five-and-twenty years, the question must in
+time have arisen, whether England or America ought to be the true seat
+of government. The probable consequence, however, would have been
+separation; and as this could scarcely be effected by amicable means,
+the result might have been a war of a much more extensive, wasteful,
+and formidable nature, than that which divided the two countries
+sixty-five years ago.
+
+But all the blunders of the American war, nay the war itself, may be
+still almost directly traceable to the arrogance of the oligarchy. Too
+much accustomed to regard government as a natural appendage to their
+birth, they utterly forgot the true element of national power--the
+force of public opinion. Inflated with a sense of their personal
+superiority, they looked with easy indifference or studied contempt on
+every thing that was said or done by men whose genealogy was not
+registered in the red book. Of America--a nation of Englishmen--and of
+its proceedings, they talked, as a Russian lord might talk of his
+serfs. Some of them thought, that a Stamp act would frighten the
+sturdy free-holders of the Western World into submission! others
+talked of reducing them to obedience by laying a tax on their tea!
+others prescribed a regimen of writs and constables! evidently
+regarding the American farmers as they regarded the poachers and
+paupers on their own demesnes. All this arose from stupendous
+ignorance; but it was ignorance engendered by pride, by exclusiveness
+of rank, and by the arrogance of _caste_. So excessive was this
+exclusiveness, that Burke, though the most extraordinary man of his
+time, and one of the most memorable of any time, could never obtain a
+seat in the cabinet; where such triflers as Newcastle, such figures of
+patrician pedantry as Buckingham, such shallow intriguers as the
+Bedfords, and such notorious characters as the Sandwiches, played with
+power, like children with the cups and balls of their nursery. Lord
+North, with all his wit, his industry, and his eloquence, owed his
+admission into the cabinet, to his being the son of the Earl of
+Guilford. Charles Fox, though marked by nature, from his first
+entrance into public life, for the highest eminence of the senate,
+would never have been received into the government _class_, but for
+his casual connexion with the House of Richmond. Thus, they knew
+nothing of the real powers of that infinite multitude, which, however
+below the peerage, forms the country. They thought that a few frowns
+from Downing Street could extinguish the resistance of millions, three
+thousand miles off, with muskets in their hands, inflamed by a sense
+of wrong, whether fancied or true, and insensible to the gatherings of
+a brow however coroneted and antique.
+
+This haughty exclusiveness equally accounts for the contests with
+Wilkes. They felt themselves affronted, much more than resisted; they
+were much more stung by the defiance of a private individual to
+themselves, than they were urged to the collision by any conceivable
+sense of hazard to the Monarchy. No man, out of bedlam, could
+conceive, that Wilkes had either the power or the intention to subvert
+the state. But Mr Wilkes, an obscure man, whose name was not known to
+the calendar of the government fabricators, had actually dared to call
+their privilege of power into question; had defied them in the courts
+of law; had rebuked them in the senate; had shaken their influence in
+the elections; and had, in fact, compelled them to know, what they
+were so reluctant to learn, that they were but human beings after all!
+The acquisition of this knowledge cost them half a dozen years of
+convulsions, the most ruinous to themselves, and the most hazardous to
+the constitution. Wilkes' profligacy alone, perhaps, saved the
+constitution from a shock, which might have changed the whole system
+of the empire. If he had not been sunk by his personal character, at
+the first moment when the populace grew cool, he might have availed
+himself of the temper of the times to commit mischiefs the most
+irreparable. If his personal character had been as free from public
+offence as his spirit was daring, he might have led the people much
+further than the government ever had the foresight to contemplate. The
+conduct of the successive cabinets had covered the King with
+unpopularity, not the less fierce, that it was wholly undeserved.
+Junius, the ablest political writer that England has ever seen, or
+probably ever will see, in the art of assailing a ministry, had
+pilloried every leading man of his time except Chatham, in the
+imperishable virulence of his page. The popular mind was furious with
+indignation at the conduct of all cabinets; in despair of all
+improvement in the system; irritated by the rash severity which
+alternated with the equally rash pusillanimity of ministers; and
+beginning to regard government less as a protection, than as an
+encroachment on the natural privileges of a nation of freemen.
+
+They soon had a growing temptation before them in the successful
+revolt of America.
+
+We do not now enter into that question; it is too long past. But we
+shall never allude to it without paying that homage to truth, which
+pronounces, that the American revolt was a rebellion, wholly
+unjustifiable by the provocation; utterly rejecting all explanation,
+or atonement for casual injuries; and made in the spirit of a
+determination to throw off the allegiance to the mother country. But,
+if Wilkes could have sustained his opposition but a few years longer,
+and with any character but one so shattered as his own, he might have
+carried it on through life, and even bequeathed it as a legacy to his
+party; until the French Revolution had joined flame to flame across
+the Channel, and England had rivalled even the frenzy of France in the
+rapidity and ruin of her Reform.
+
+Fortunately, the empire was rescued from this most fatal of all
+catastrophes. A great English minister appeared, on whom were to
+devolve the defence of England and the restoration of Europe. The
+sagacity of Pitt saw where the evil lay; his intrepidity instantly
+struck at its source, and his unrivalled ability completed the saving
+operation. He broke down the cabinet monopoly. No man less humiliated
+himself to the populace, but no man better understood the people. No
+man paid more practical respect to the peerage, but no man more
+thoroughly extinguished their exclusive possession of power. He formed
+his cabinet from men of all ranks, in the peerage and out of the
+peerage. The great peers chiefly went over to the opposition. He
+resisted them there, with as much daring, and with as successful a
+result, as he had expelled them from the stronghold of government. He
+made new peers. He left his haughty antagonists to graze on the barren
+field of opposition for successive years; and finally saw almost the
+whole herd come over for shelter to the ministerial fold.
+
+At this period a remarkable man was brought into public life--the
+celebrated Dunning, appointed solicitor-general. Walpole calls this
+"an extraordinary promotion," as Dunning was connected with Lord
+Shelburne. It was like every thing else, obviously an intrigue; and
+Dunning would have lost the appointment, but for his remarkable
+reputation in the courts; Wedderburne being the man of the Bedfords.
+Walpole's opinion of Dunning in the House, shows, how much even the
+highest abilities may be influenced by circumstances. He says, "that
+Dunning immediately and utterly lost character as a speaker, although
+he had acquired the very highest distinctions as a pleader;" so
+different, says he, is the oratory of the bar and of parliament.
+Mansfield and Camden retained an equal rank in both. Wedderburne was
+most successful in the House. Norton had at first disappointed the
+expectations that were conceived of him when he came into parliament;
+yet his strong sense, that glowed through all the coarseness of his
+language and brutality of his manner, recovered his weight, and he was
+much distinguished. While Sir Dudley Ryder, attorney-general in the
+preceding reign, the soundest lawyer, and Charles Yorke, one of the
+most distinguished pleaders, soon talked themselves out of all
+consideration in parliament; the former by laying too great a stress
+on every part of his diffusive knowledge, and the latter by the
+sterility of his intelligence.
+
+An intelligent Note, however, vindicates the reputation of Dunning. It
+is observed, that Dunning's having been counsel for Wilkes, and the
+intimate of Lord Shelburne, it could not be expected that he should
+take a prominent part in any of the debates which were so largely
+occupied with Wilkes' misdemeanours. Lord North, too, was hostile to
+Dunning. Under such conditions it was impossible that any man should
+exhibit his powers to advantage; but at a later period, when he had
+got rid of those trammels, his singular abilities vindicated
+themselves. He became one of the leaders of the opposition, even when
+that honour was to be shared with Burke. We have heard, that such was
+the pungency of Dunning's expressions, and the happy dexterity of his
+conceptions, that when he spoke, (his voice being feeble, and unable
+to make itself heard at any great distance,) the members used to
+throng around the bench on which he spoke. Wraxall panegyrizes him,
+and yet with a tautology of terms, which must have been the very
+reverse of Dunning's style. Thus, he tells us that when Dunning spoke,
+"every murmur was hushed, and every ear attentive," two sentences
+which amount to the same thing. Hannah More is also introduced as one
+of the panegyrists; for poor Hannah seems to have been one of the most
+bustling persons possible; to have run every where, and to have given
+_her_ opinion of every body, however much above her comprehension. She
+was one of the spectators on the Duchess of Kingston's trial, (a most
+extraordinary scene for the choice of such a purist;) but Hannah was
+not at that time quite so sublime as she became afterwards. Hannah
+describes Dunning's manner as "insufferably bad, coughing and spitting
+at every word; but his sense and expression pointed to the last
+degree." But the character which the annotator gives as a model of
+panegyric, pleases us least of all. It is by Sir William Jones, and
+consists of one long antithesis. It is a studied toil of language,
+expressing ideas, a commonplace succession, substituting words for
+thoughts, and at once leaving the ear palled, and the understanding
+dissatisfied. What, for instance, could be made of such a passage as
+this? Sir William is speaking of Dunning's wit. "This," says he,
+"relieved the weary, calmed the resentful, and animated the drowsy.
+This drew smiles even from such as were _the object of it, and
+scattered flowers over a desert_, and, like _sunbeams sparkling on a
+lake_, gave spirit and vivacity to the dullest and least interesting
+cause." And this mangling of metaphor is to teach us the qualities of
+a profound and practical mind. What follows, is the perfection of
+see-saw. "He was endued with an intellect sedate yet penetrating,
+clear yet profound, subtle yet strong. His knowledge, too, was equal
+to his imagination, and his memory to his knowledge." He might have
+equally added, that the capacity of his boots was equal to the size of
+his legs, and the length of his purse to the extent of his generosity.
+This reminds us of one of Sydney Smith's burlesques on the balancing
+of epithets by that most pedantic of pedants, the late Dr
+Parr--"profundity without obscurity, perspicuity without prolixity,
+ornament without glare, terseness without barrenness, penetration
+without subtlety, comprehensiveness without digression, and a great
+number of other things without a great number of other things."
+
+Little tricks, or rather large ones, now and then diversify the
+narrative. On the same day that Conway resigned the seals, Lord
+Weymouth was declared secretary of state. At the same time, Lord
+Hilsborough kissed hands for the American department, but nominally
+retaining the post-office, the salary of which he paid to Lord
+Sandwich, _till the elections should be over_; there being so strict a
+disqualifying clause in the bill for prohibiting the postmasters for
+interfering in elections, which Sandwich _was determined to do_ to the
+utmost, that he did not dare to accept the office in his own name,
+_till he had incurred the guilt_. Another trick of a very
+dishonourable nature, though ultimately defeated, may supply a moral
+for our share-trafficking days in high quarters. Lord Bottetort, one
+of the bedchamber, and a kind of second-hand favourite, had engaged in
+an adventure with a company of copper-workers at Warmley. They broke,
+and his lordship, in order to cover his estate from the creditors,
+begged a privy seal to incorporate the company, by which means private
+estates would not be answerable. The king ignorantly granted the
+request; but Lord Chatham, aware of the deception, refused to affix
+the seal to the patent, pleading that he was not able. Lord Bottetort,
+outrageous at the disappointment, threatened to petition the lords to
+remove Lord Chatham, on the ground of inability. The annotator justly
+observes, that the proposal was absolutely monstrous, being nothing
+but a gross fraud on his lordship's creditors. It, however, does not
+seem to have attracted the attention of the attorney-general, or the
+home-office; but, for some cause or other, the patent did not pass,
+the result being, that Lord Bottetort, unable to retrieve his losses,
+obtained the government of Virginia in the following summer, where he
+subsequently died.
+
+A curious instance of parliamentary corruption next attracted the
+notice of the public. It came out, that the city of Oxford had offered
+their representation to two gentlemen, if they would pay £7500 towards
+the debts of the corporation. They refused the bargain, and Oxford
+sold itself to the Duke of Marlborough and Lord Abingdon. The matter
+was brought before the House, and the mayor of Oxford and ten of the
+corporation appeared at the bar, confessing their crime, and asking
+pardon. It ended with committing them to prison for five days. A note
+describes the whole affair as being treated with great ridicule,
+(there being probably not a few who looked upon things of this nature
+as a matter of course;) and the story being, that the aldermen
+completed their bargain with the Duke of Marlborough, during their
+imprisonment in Newgate.
+
+On the 11th of March 1768, the parliament was dissolved. Walpole says,
+"that its only characteristic was servility to the government; while
+our ancestors, we presume, from the shamelessness of its servility,
+might have called it the Impudent Parliament."
+
+After wearying himself in the dusty field of politics, Walpole
+retired, like Homer's gods from Troy, to rest in the more flowery
+region of literature. His habits led him to the enjoyment of bitter
+political poetry, which, in fact, is not poetry at all; while they
+evidently disqualified him from feeling the power and beauty of the
+imaginative, the only poetry that deserves the name. Thus, he
+describes Goldsmith as the "correct author of _The Traveller_," one of
+the most beautiful poems in the language; while he panegyrizes, with a
+whole catalogue of plaudits, Anstey's _Bath Guide_--a very scandalous,
+though undoubtedly a lively and ingenious, caricature of the habits of
+the time. An ultra-heavy poem by Bentley, the son of the critic,
+enjoys a similar panegyric. We give, as an evidence of its dulness, a
+fragment of its praise of Lord Bute:--
+
+   "Oh, if we seize with skill the coming hour,
+    And reinvest us with the robe of power;
+    Rule while we live, let future days transmute
+    To every merit all we've charged on Bute.
+    Let late posterity receive his name,
+    And swell its sails with every breath of fame--
+    Downwards as far as Time shall roll his tide,
+    With ev'ry pendant flying, let it glide."
+
+The rest is equally intolerable.
+
+But Bentley was lucky in his patrons, if not in his poetry; as, in
+addition to a Commissionership of Lotteries, he received a pension for
+the lives of himself and his wife of £500 a-year! Though thus
+undeservedly successful in attracting the notice of the government,
+his more honest efforts failed with the public. He wrote two plays,
+both of which failed. Walpole next describes Robertson the historian
+in these high-coloured terms, "as sagacious and penetrating as
+Tacitus, with a perspicuity of Livy:" qualities which every one else
+knows to be directly the reverse of those which characterize
+Robertson. That very impudent woman, Catharine Macaulay, seems also to
+have been one of the objects of his literary admiration. He describes
+her, as being as partial in the cause of liberty as bigots to the
+church and royalists to tyranny, and as exerting manly strength with
+the gravity of a philosopher.
+
+But Walpole is aways amusing when he gives anecdotes of passing
+things. The famous Brentford election finds in him its most graphic
+historian. The most singular carelessness was exhibited by the
+government on this most perilous occasion--a carelessness obviously
+arising from that contempt which the higher ranks of the nobility in
+those days were weak enough to feel for the opinion of those below
+them. On the very verge of an election, within five miles of London,
+and which must bring to a point all the exasperation of years; Camden,
+the chancellor, went down to Bath, and the Duke of Grafton, the prime
+minister, who was a great horse-racer, drove off to Newmarket.
+Mansfield, whom Walpole seems to have hated, and whom he represents as
+at "once resentful, timorous, and subtle," the three worst qualities
+of the heart, the nerves, and the understanding, pretended that it was
+the office of the chancellor to bring the outlaw (Wilkes) to justice,
+and did nothing. The consequence was, that the multitude were left
+masters of the field.
+
+On the morning of the election; while the irresolution of the court,
+and the negligence of the prime minister, caused a neglect of all
+precautions; the populace took possession of all the turnpikes and
+avenues leading to the hustings by break of day, and would suffer no
+man to pass who did not wear in his hat a blue cockade, with "Wilkes
+and Number 45," on a written paper. Riots took place in the streets,
+and the carriage of Sir William Proctor, the opposing candidate, was
+demolished. The first day's poll for Wilkes was 1200, for Proctor 700,
+for Cooke 300. It must be remembered, that in these times the
+elections were capable of being prolonged from week to week, and that
+the first day was regarded as scarcely more than a formality. At night
+the West-end was in an uproar. It was not safe to pass through
+Piccadilly. Every house was compelled to illuminate; the windows of
+all which did not exhibit lights were broken; the coach-glasses of
+such as did not huzza for "Wilkes and liberty" were broken; and the
+panels of the carriages were scratched with 45! Lord Weymouth, the
+secretary of state, wrote to Justice Fielding for constables. Fielding
+answered, that they were all gone to Brentford. On this, the guards
+were drawn out. The mob then attacked Lord Bute's house and Lord
+Egmont's, but without being able to force an entrance. They compelled
+the Duke of Northumberland to give them liquor to drink Wilkes's
+health. Ladies of rank were taken out of their sedan-chairs, and
+ordered to join the popular cry. The lord-mayor was an anti-Wilkite--the
+mob attacked the Mansion-house, and broke the windows. He ordered out
+the trained bands; they had no effect. Six thousand weavers had risen
+under the Wilkite banner, and defied all resistance. Even some of the
+regimental drummers beat their drums for Wilkes! His force at the
+election was evidently to be resisted no longer. The ministerial
+candidate was beaten, Wilkes threw in his remaining votes for Cooke,
+and they came in together. The election was thus over on the second
+day, but the mob paraded the metropolis at night, insisting on a
+general illumination. The handsome Duchess of Hamilton, one of the
+Gunnings, who had now become quite a Butite, was determined not to
+illuminate. The result was, that the mob grew outrageous, broke down
+the outward gates with iron-crows, tore up the pavement of the street,
+and battered the doors and shutters for three hours; fortunately
+without being able to get in. The Count de Sollein, the Austrian
+ambassador, the most stately and ceremonious of men, was taken out of
+his coach by the mob, who chalked 45 on the sole of his shoe! He
+complained in form of the insult. Walpole says, fairly enough, "it was
+as difficult for the ministers to help laughing as to give him
+redress."
+
+Walpole frequently alludes to the two Gunnings as the two handsomest
+sisters of their time. They were Irish-women, fresh-coloured, lively,
+and well formed, but obviously more indebted to nature than to
+education. Lady Coventry died young, and had the misfortune, even in
+her grave, of being made the subject of an epitaph by Mason, one of
+the most listless and languid poems of an unpoetic time. The Duchess
+of Hamilton survived to a considerable age, and was loaded with
+matrimonial honours. She first married the Duke of Hamilton. On his
+death, she married the Marquis of Lorn, eldest son of the Duke of
+Argyll, whom he succeeded in the title--thus becoming mother of the
+heirs of the two great rival houses of Hamilton and Argyll. While in
+her widowhood, she had been proposed for by the Duke of Bridgewater.
+Lady Coventry seems to have realized Pope's verses of a dying belle--
+
+   "And, Betty, give this cheek a little red,
+    One would not, sure, look ugly when one's dead."
+
+"Till within a few days of her death, she lay on a couch with a
+looking-glass in her hand. When she found her beauty, which she
+idolized, was quite gone, she took to her bed, and would be seen by
+nobody, not even by her nurse, suffering only the light of a lamp in
+her room."
+
+Walpole's description of the ministry adds strikingly to the
+contemptuous feeling, naturally generated by their singular ill
+success. We must also observe, as much to the discredit of the past
+age as to the honour of the present; that the leading men of the day
+exhibited or affected a depravity of morals, which would be the ruin
+of any public character at the present time. Many of the scenes in
+high life would have been fitter for the court of Charles II., and
+many of the actors in those scenes ought to have been cashiered from
+public employment. Personal profligacy seems actually to have been
+regarded as a species of ornamental appendage to public character;
+and, except where its exposure sharpened the sting of an epigram, or
+gave an additional flourish to the periods of a political writer, no
+one seems to have conceived that the grossest offences against
+morality were of the nature of crime. Another scandal seems to have
+been frequent--intemperance in wine. Hard drinking was common in
+England at that period, and was even regarded as the sign of a
+generous spirit; but nearly all the leading politicians who died
+early, are described as owing their deaths to excess. Those are
+fortunate distinctions for the days which have followed; and the
+country may justly congratulate itself on the abandonment of habits,
+which, deeply tending to corrupt private character, render political
+baseness the almost inevitable result among public men.
+
+Walpole promptly declares, that half the success of Wilkes was owing
+to the supineness of the ministers. He might have gone further, and
+fixed his charge on higher grounds. He ought to have said, that the
+whole was owing to the mingled treachery and profligacy which made the
+nation loathe the characters of public parties and public men. Walpole
+says, in support of his assertion--"that Lord Chatham would take no
+part in business; that the Duke of Grafton neglected every thing, and
+whenever pressed to be active threatened to resign; that the
+Chancellor Camden, placed between two such intractable friends, with
+whom he was equally discontented, avoided dipping himself further;
+that Conway, no longer in the Duke's confidence, and more hurt with
+neglect than pleased with power, stood in the same predicament; that
+Lord Gower thought of nothing but ingratiating himself at St James's;
+and though what little business was done was executed by Lord
+Weymouth, it required all Wood's, the secretary's, animosity to
+Wilkes, to stir him up to any activity. Wood even said, "that if the
+King should pardon Wilkes, Lord Weymouth would not sign the pardon."
+The chief magistrate of the city, consulting the chancellor on what he
+should do if Wilkes should stand for the city, and being answered that
+he "must consult the recorder," Harley sharply replied, "I consulted
+your lordship as a minister, I don't want to be told my duty."
+
+Some of the most interesting portions of these volumes are the notes,
+giving brief biographical sketches of the leading men. The politics
+have comparatively passed away, but the characters remain; and no
+slight instruction is still to be derived from the progressive steps
+by which the individuals rose from private life to public distinction.
+The editor, Sir Denis la Marchant, deserves no slight credit for his
+efforts to give authenticity to those notices. He seems to have
+collected his authorities from every available source; and what he has
+compiled with the diligence of an editor, he has expressed with the
+good taste of a gentleman.
+
+The commencement of a parliament is always looked to with curiosity,
+as the debut of new members. All the expectations which have been
+formed by favouritism, family, or faction, are then brought to the
+test. Parliament is an unerring tribunal, and no charlatanry can cheat
+its searching eye. College reputations are extinguished in a moment,
+the common-places of the hustings can avail no more, and the
+pamperings of party only hurry its favourites to more rapid decay.
+
+Mr Phipps, the son of Lord Mulgrave, now commenced his career. By an
+extraordinary taste, though bred a seaman, he was so fond of quoting
+law, that he got the sobriquet of the "marine lawyer." His knowledge
+of the science (as the annotator observes) could not have been very
+deep, for he was then but twenty-two. But he was an evidence of the
+effect of indefatigable exertion. Though a dull debater, he took a
+share in every debate, and he appears to have taken the pains of
+revising his speeches for the press. Yet even under his nursing, they
+exhibit no traces of eloquence. His manner was inanimate, and his
+large and heavy figure gained him the luckless appellation of Ursa
+Major, (to distinguish him from his brother, who was also a member.)
+As if to complete the amount of his deficiencies, his voice was
+particularly inharmonious, or rather it was two distinct voices, the
+one strong and hoarse, the other weak and querulous; both of which he
+frequently used. On this was constructed the waggish story--that one
+night, having fallen into a ditch, and calling out in his shrill
+voice, a countryman was coming up to assist him; when Phipps calling
+out again in his hoarse tone, the man exclaimed--"If there are two of
+you in the ditch, you may help each other out!"
+
+One of his qualities seems to have been a total insensibility to his
+own defects; which therefore suffered him to encounter any man, and
+every man, whatever might be their superiority. Thus, in his early
+day, his dulness constantly encountered Lord North, the most dexterous
+wit of his time. Thus, too, in his maturer age, he constantly thrust
+himself forward to meet the indignant eloquence of Fox; and seems to
+have been equally unconscious that he was ridiculed by the sarcastic
+pleasantry of the one, or blasted by the lofty contempt of the other.
+Yet, such is the value of perseverance, that this man was gradually
+regarded as important in the debates, that he wrought out for himself
+an influence in the House, and obtained finally the office of joint
+paymaster, one of the most lucrative under government, and a British
+peerage. And all this toil was undertaken by a man who had no
+children.
+
+At his death, he was succeeded in his Irish title by his brother
+Henry, who became first lord of the admiralty, and also obtained an
+English peerage. The present Marquis of Normandy is his eldest son.
+
+Parliamentary history sometimes gives valuable lessons, in exhibiting
+the infinite folly of parliamentary prediction. It will scarcely be
+believed in a day like ours, which has seen and survived the French
+Revolution, that the chief theme of the period, and especial terror of
+the opposition, was the conquest of Corsica by the French! Ministers
+seem to have been deterred from a war with the French monarchy, solely
+by the dislocated state of the cabinet; while the opposition declared,
+that the possession of Corsica by the French, would be "the death-blow
+to our influence in the Mediterranean." With Corsica in French hands,
+it was boldly pronounced that "France would receive an accession of
+power which nothing could shake; and they scarcely hesitated to say,
+that upon the independence of Corsica rested not merely the supremacy
+but the safety of England." Yet the French conquered Corsica (at a
+waste of money ten times worth its value to their nation, and at a
+criminal waste of life, both French and Corsican) without producing
+the slightest addition to the power of the monarchy, and with no
+slight disgrace to the honour of its arms. For, the Corsicans, the
+most savage race of the Italian blood, and accustomed to the use of
+weapons from their childhood, fought with the boldness of all men
+fighting for their property, and routed the troops of France in many a
+successive and desperate encounter. Still, the combat was too unequal;
+the whole force of a great monarchy was obviously too strong for the
+hope of successful resistance, and Corsica, after many a severe
+struggle, became a French territory. But, beyond this barren honour
+the war produced no fruit, except a deeper consciousness of the
+unsparing ambition of the monarchy, and of the recklessness with which
+it sacrificed all considerations of humanity and justice, to the
+tinsel of a military name. One fatal gift, however, Corsica made, in
+return to France. From it came, within a few years, the man who sealed
+the banishment of the Bourbons! and, tempting France by the ambition
+of military success, inflicted upon her the heaviest mortality, and
+the deepest shame known in any kingdom, since the fall of the Roman
+empire. Whether this were that direct retribution for innocent blood,
+which Providence has so often inflicted upon guilty nations; or
+whether it were merely one of those extraordinary casualties which
+circumstances make so impressive; there can be no question, that the
+man came from Corsica who inflicted on France the heaviest calamities
+that she had ever known; who, after leading her armies over Europe, to
+conquests which only aroused the hatred of all nations, and after
+wasting the blood of hundreds of thousands of her people in victories
+totally unproductive but of havoc; saw France twice invaded, and
+brought the nation under the ban of the civilized world!
+
+France is at this moment pursuing the same course in Algiers, which
+was the pride of her politicians in Corsica. She is pouring out her
+gigantic force, to overwhelm the resistance of peasants who have no
+defence but their naked bravery. She will probably subdue the
+resistance; for what can be done by a peasantry against the
+disciplined force and vast resources of a great European power,
+applied to this single object of success? But, barbarian as the Moor
+and the Arab are, and comparatively helpless in the struggle, the
+avenger may yet come, to teach the throne of France, that there is a
+power higher than all thrones; a tribunal to which the blood cries out
+of the ground.
+
+The death of Secker, Archbishop of Canterbury, excites a few touches
+of Walpole's sarcastic pen. He says, "that his early life had shown
+his versatility, his latter his ambition. But hypocrisy not being
+parts, he rose in the church without ever making a figure in the
+state." So much for antithesis. There is no reason why a clergyman
+should make a figure in the state under any circumstances; and the
+less figure he made in the state, as it was then constituted, the more
+likely he was to be fitted for the church. But the true censure on
+Secker would have been, that he rose, without making a figure in any
+thing; that he had never produced any work worthy of notice as a
+divine; that he had neither eloquence in the pulpit, nor vigour with
+the pen; that he seems to have been at all times a man of extreme
+mediocrity; that his qualifications with the ministry were, his being
+a neutral on all the great questions of the day; and his merits with
+posterity were, that he possessed power without giving offence. A
+hundred such men might have held the highest positions of the church,
+without producing the slightest effect on the public mind; or might
+have been left in the lowest, without being entitled to accuse the
+injustice of fortune. His successor was Cornwallis, Bishop of
+Lichfield, raised to the primacy by the Duke of Grafton, who, as
+Walpole says, "had a friendship for the bishop's nephew, Earl
+Cornwallis." This seems not altogether the most sufficient reason for
+placing a man at the head of the Church of England, but we must take
+the reason such as we find it. Walpole adds, that the nomination had,
+however, the merit of disappointing a more unsuitable candidate,
+Ternet of London, whom he describes as "the most time-serving of the
+clergy, and sorely chagrined at missing the archiepiscopal mitre."
+
+It was rather unlucky for the public estimate of royalty, that, at
+this moment of popular irritation, the young King of Denmark should
+have arrived in England. He had married the King's youngest sister,
+and making a sort of tour of Europe, he determined to visit the family
+of his wife. His proposal was waived by the King, who excused himself
+by the national confusions. But the young Dane, scarcely more than a
+giddy boy, and singularly self-willed, was not to be repelled; and he
+came. Nothing could be colder than his reception; not a royal
+carriage, not an officer of the court, was sent to meet him. He
+arrived at St James's even in a hired carriage. Neither King nor Queen
+was there. The only mark of attention paid to him was giving him an
+apartment, and supplying him and his suite with a table. Walpole
+observes, that this sullen treatment was as impolitic as it was
+inhospitable; that the Dane was then actually a pensioner of France,
+and, of course, it would have been wise to win him out of its hands.
+But the Danish king seems to have been little better than a fool; and
+between his frolics and his follies, he finally produced a species of
+revolution in his own country. All power fell into the hands of his
+queen, who, though of a bolder nature, seems to have been scarcely
+less frantic than himself. On the visit of her mother, the Princess of
+Wales, to Denmark, the Queen met her, at the head of a regiment,
+dressed in full uniform, and wearing buckskin breeches. She must have
+been an extraordinary figure altogether, for she had grown immensely
+corpulent. Court favouritism was the fashion in Denmark, and the King
+and Queen were equally ruled by favourites. But, in a short period, a
+young physician of the household managed both, obtaining peculiarly
+the confidence of the Queen. Scandal was not idle on this occasion,
+and Germany and England rang with stories of the court of Denmark. The
+physician was soon created a noble, and figured for a while as the
+prime minister, or rather sovereign of the kingdom, by the well-known
+title of Count Struensee. A party was formed against him by the
+Queen-mother, at the head of some of the nobility. The Queen was made
+prisoner, and died in prison. Struensee was tried as traitor, and
+beheaded. The King was finally incapacitated from reigning, and his
+son was raised to the regency. This melancholy transaction formed one
+of the tragedies of Europe; but it had the additional misfortune of
+occurring at a time when royalty had begun to sink under the incessant
+attacks of the revolutionists, and France, the leader of public
+opinion on the Continent, was filled with opinions contemptuous of all
+thrones.
+
+The year 1768 exhibited France in her most humiliating position before
+Europe. The Duc de Choiseul was the minister--a man of wit, elegance,
+and accomplishment; but too frivolous to follow, if he had not been
+too ignorant to discover, the true sources of national greatness. His
+foreign policy was intrigue, and his domestic policy the favouritism
+of the court by administering to its vices. He raised a war between
+the Russians and Turks, and had the mortification of seeing his
+_protégé_ the Turk trampled by the armies of his rival the Czarina.
+Even the Corsicans had degraded the military name of France. But he
+had a new peril at home. Old Marshal Richelieu--who, as Walpole
+sarcastically observes, "had retained none of his faculties, but that
+last talent of a decayed Frenchman, a spirit of back-stairs
+intrigue"--had provided old Louis XV. with a new mistress. Of all the
+persons of this character who had made French royal life scandalous in
+the eyes of Europe, this connexion was the most scandalous. It
+scandalized even France. This mistress was the famous Countess du
+Barri--a wretched creature, originally of the very lowest condition;
+whose vices would have stained the very highest; and who, in the
+convulsions of the reign that followed, was butchered by the
+guillotine.
+
+In November of this year died the Duke of Newcastle, at the age of
+seventy-five. He had been struck with palsy some months before, and
+then for the first time withdrew from public life. Walpole observes,
+that his life had been a proof that, "even in a free country, great
+abilities are not necessary to govern it." Industry, perseverance, and
+intrigue, gave him that duration of power "which shining talents, and
+the favour of the crown, could not secure to Lord Granville, nor the
+first rank in eloquence, or the most brilliant services, to Lord
+Chatham. Rashness overset Lord Granville's parts, and presumptuous
+impracticability Lord Chatham; while adventitious cunning repaired
+Newcastle's folly." Such is the explanation of one of the most curious
+phenomena of the time, by one of its most ingenious lookers-on. But
+the explanation is not sufficient. It is impossible to conceive, how
+mere cunning could have sustained any man for a quarter of a century
+in the highest ministerial rank; while that rank was contested from
+day to day by men of every order of ability. Since the days of
+Bolingbroke, there have been no examples of ministerial talent, equal
+to those exhibited, in both Houses, in the day of the Duke of
+Newcastle. Chatham was as ambitious as any man that ever lived, and
+full of the faculties that make ambition successful. The Butes, the
+Bedfords, the Hollands, the Shelburnes, exhibited every shape and
+shade of cabinet dexterity, of court cabal, of popular influence, and
+of political knowledge and reckless intrigue. Yet the Duke of
+Newcastle, with remarkable personal disadvantages--a ridiculous
+manner, an ungainly address, speech without the slightest pretension
+to eloquence, and the character of extreme ignorance on general
+subjects--preserved his power almost to the extreme verge of life; and
+to the last was regarded as playing a most important part in the
+counsels of the country. Unless we believe in magic, we must believe
+that this man, with all his oddity of manner, possessed some
+remarkable faculty, by which he saw his way clearly through
+difficulties impervious to more showy minds. He must have deeply
+discovered the means of attaching the monarch, of acting upon the
+legislature, and of controlling the captiousness of the people. He
+must have had practical qualities of a remarkable kind; and his is not
+the first instance, in which such qualities, in the struggles of
+government, bear away the prize. Thus, in later times, we have seen
+Lord Liverpool minister for eleven years, and holding power with a
+firm, yet quiet grasp to the last; with the whole strength of Lord
+Grey and the Whigs struggling for it in front, and George Canning, a
+still more dangerous enemy, watching for it in the rear.
+
+In one of the Notes referring to the appointment of Earl Cornwallis to
+the vice-treasuryship of Ireland, the editor makes a remark which
+ought not to pass without strong reprehension. Earl Cornwallis,
+towards the close of the Irish rebellion in 1798, had been made chief
+governor of Ireland, at the head of a large army, for the purpose of
+extinguishing the remnants of the rebellion, and restoring the country
+to the habits of peace. The task was no longer difficult, but he
+performed his part with dignity and moderation. He had been sent
+expressly for the purpose of pacifying the country, an object which
+would have been altogether inconsistent with measures of violence; but
+the editor, in telling us that his conduct exhibited sagacity and
+benevolence, hazards the extraordinary assertion, that "he was one of
+the few statesmen who inculcated the necessity of forbearance and
+concession in the misgoverned country!" Nothing can be more erroneous
+than this statement in point of principle, or more ignorant in point
+of fact. For the last hundred years and upwards, dating from the
+cessation of the war with James II., Ireland had been the object of
+perpetual concessions, and, if misgoverned at all, it has been such by
+the excess of those concessions. It is to be remembered, that in the
+reign of William I. the Roman Catholics were in actual alliance with
+France, and in actual arms against England. They were next beaten in
+the field, and it was the business of the conquerors to prevent their
+taking arms again. From this arose the penal laws. To those laws we
+are not friendly; because we are not friendly to any attempt at the
+suppression even of religious error by the force of the state. It was
+a political blunder, and an offence to Christian principle, at the
+same time; but the Papist is the last man in the world who has a right
+to object to penal laws; for he is the very man who would have enacted
+them himself against the Protestant--who always enacts them where he
+has the power--and, from the spirit of whose laws, the British
+legislature were in fact only borrowing at the moment. Yet from the
+time when James II. and his family began to sink into insignificance,
+the legislature began to relax the penal laws. Within the course of
+half a century, they had wholly disappeared; and thus the editor's
+flippant assertion, that Earl Cornwallis was one of the few statesmen
+who inculcated the necessity of forbearance and concession, exhibits
+nothing but his Whiggish ignorance on the subject. The misgovernment
+of Ireland, if such existed, was to be laid to the charge of neither
+the English minister nor the English people. The editor probably
+forgets, that during that whole period she was governed by her own
+parliament; while her progress during the second half of the 18th
+century was memorably rapid, and prosperous in the highest degree,
+through the bounties, privileges, and encouragements of every kind,
+which were constantly held out to her by the _British_ government. And
+that so early as the year 1780, she was rich enough to raise, equip,
+and support a volunteer army of nearly a hundred thousand men--a
+measure unexampled in Europe, and which would probably task the
+strength of some of the most powerful kingdoms even at this day. And
+all this was previous to the existence of what is called the "patriot
+constitution."
+
+Walpole has the art of painting historic characters to the life; but
+he sadly extinguishes the romance with which our fancy so often
+enrobes them. We have been in the habit of hearing Pascal Paoli, the
+chief of the Corsicans, described as the model of a republican hero;
+and there can be no question, that the early resistance of the
+Corsicans cost the French a serious expenditure of men and money. But
+Walpole charges Paoli with want of military skill, and even with want
+of that personal intrepidity so essential to a national leader. At
+length, Corsican resistance being overpowered by the constant
+accumulation of French force, Paoli gave way, and, as Walpole
+classically observes, "not having fallen like Leonidas, did not
+despair like Cato." Paoli had been so panegyrized by Boswell's work,
+that he was received with almost romantic applause. The Opposition
+adopted him for the sake of popularity, but ministers took him out of
+their hands by a pension of £1000 a-year. "I saw him," says Walpole,
+"soon after his arrival, dangling at court. He was a man of decent
+deportment, and so void of any thing remarkable in his aspect, that,
+being asked if I knew who he was, I judged him a Scotch officer--for
+he was sandy complexioned and in regimentals--who was cautiously
+awaiting the moment of promotion." All this is in Walpole's style of
+fashionable impertinence; but there can be no doubt that Paoli was a
+brave man, and an able commander. He gave the French several severe
+defeats, but the contest was soon too unequal, and Paoli withdrew to
+this country; which was so soon after to be a shelter to the
+aristocracy of the country which had stained his mountains with blood.
+
+By a singular fate, on his return to France in an early period of the
+Revolution, he was received with a sort of national triumph, and
+actually appointed lieutenant-general of Corsica by the nation which
+had driven him into exile. In the war which followed, Paoli, disgusted
+by the tyranny of French republicanism, and alarmed by the violence of
+the native factions, proposed to put his country under the protection
+of the English government. A naval and military force was sent to
+Corsica, and the island was annexed to the British crown. But the
+possession was not maintained with rational vigour. The feeble
+armament was found unequal to resist the popular passion for
+republicanism. And, from this expenditure of troops, and probably
+still more from the discovery that the island would be wholly useless,
+the force was altogether withdrawn. Paoli returned to England, where
+he died, having attained the advanced age of eighty. His red hair and
+sandy complexion are probably fatal to his character as an Italian
+chieftain. But if his locks were not black, his heart was bold; and if
+his lip wanted mustaches, his mind wanted neither sagacity nor
+determination.
+
+Walpole was born for a cynic philosopher. He treats men of all ranks
+with equal scorn. From Wilkes to George III., he brands them all.
+Ministers meet no mercy at his hands. He ranges them, as the Sultan
+used to range heads on the spikes of the seraglio, for marks for his
+arrows. His history is a species of moveable panorama; the scene
+constantly shifting, and every scene a burlesque of the one that went
+before; or perhaps the more faithful similitude would be found in a
+volume of HB.'s ingenious caricatures, where all the likenesses are
+preserved, though perverted, and all the dexterity of an accomplished
+pencil is employed only in making its subjects ridiculous. He thus
+tells us:--"The Duke of Grafton was the fourth prime minister in seven
+years, who fell by his own fault. Lord Bute was seized with a panic,
+and ran away from his own victory. Grenville was undone by his
+insolence, by joining in the insult on the princess, and by his
+persecution of Lord Bute and Mackenzie. Lord Rockingham's incapacity
+overturned _him_; and now the Duke of Grafton destroyed a power which
+it had depended on himself to make as permanent as he could desire."
+But rash and rapid as those changes were, what were the grave
+intrigues of the English cabinet to the _boudoir_ ministries of
+France? Walpole is never so much in his element, as when he is
+sporting in the fussy frivolities of the Faubourg St Germain. He was
+much more a Frenchman than an Englishman; his love of gossip, his
+passion for haunting the society of talkative old women, and his
+delight at finding himself revelling in a region of _petite soupers_,
+court gallantries, and the faded indiscretions of court beauties in
+the wane, would have made him a rival to the courtiers of Louis XIV.
+
+Perhaps, the world never saw, since the days of Sardanapalus, a court
+so corrupt, wealth so profligate, and a state of society so utterly
+contemptuous of even the decent affectation of virtue, as the closing
+years of the reign of Louis XV. A succession of profligate women ruled
+the king, a similar succession ruled the cabinet; lower life was a
+sink of corruption; the whole a romance of the most scandalous order.
+Madame de Pompadour, a woman whose vice had long survived her beauty,
+and who ruled the decrepit heart of a debauched king, had made
+Choiseul minister. Choiseul was the beau-ideal of a French noble of
+the old _régime_. His ambition was boundless, his insolence
+ungoverned, his caprice unrestrained, and his love of pleasure
+predominant even over his love of power. "He was an open enemy, but a
+generous one; and had more pleasure in attaching an enemy, than in
+punishing him. Whether from gaiety or presumption, he was never
+dismayed; his vanity made him always depend on the success of his
+plans, and his spirits made him soon forget the miscarriage of them."
+
+At length appeared on the tapis the memorable Madame du Barri! For
+three months, all the faculties of the court were absorbed in the
+question of her public presentation. Indulgent as the courtiers were
+to the habits of royal life, the notoriety of Madame du Barri's early
+career, startled even their flexible sense of etiquette. The ladies of
+the court, most of whom would have been proud to have taken her place,
+determined "that they would not appear at court if she should be
+received there." The King's daughters (who had borne the ascendant of
+Madame du Pompadour in their mother's life) grew outrageous at the new
+favourite; and the relatives of Choiseul insisted upon it, that he
+should resign rather than consent to the presentation. Choiseul
+resisted, yielded, was insulted for his resistance, and was scoffed at
+for his submission. He finally retired, and was ridiculed for his
+retirement. Du Barri triumphed. Epigrams and _calembours_ blazed
+through Paris. Every one was a wit for the time, and every wit was a
+rebel. The infidel faction looked on at the general dissolution of
+morals with delight, as the omen of general overthrow. The Jesuits
+rejoiced in the hope of getting the old King into their hands, and
+terrifying him, if not into a proselyte, at least into a tool. Even Du
+Barri herself was probably not beyond their hopes; for the established
+career of a King's mistress was, to turn _dévote_ on the decay of her
+personal attractions.
+
+Among Choiseul's intentions was that of making war on England. There
+was not the slightest ground for a war. But it is a part of the
+etiquette of a Frenchman's life, that he must be a warrior, or must
+promote a war, or must dream of a war. M. Guizot is the solitary
+exception in our age, as M. Fleury was the solitary exception in the
+last; but Fleury was an ecclesiastic, and was eighty years old
+besides--two strong disqualifications for a conqueror. But the King
+was then growing old, too; his belligerent propensities were absorbed
+in quarrels with his provincial parliaments; his administrative
+faculties found sufficient employment in managing the morals of his
+mistresses; his private hours were occupied in pelting Du Barri with
+sugar-plums; and thus his days wore away without that supreme glory of
+the old _régime_--a general war in Europe.
+
+The calamities of the French noblesse at the period of the Revolution,
+excited universal regret; and the sight of so many persons, of
+graceful manners and high birth, flung into the very depths of
+destitution in foreign lands, or destroyed by the guillotine at home,
+justified the sympathy of mankind. But, the secret history of that
+noblesse was a fearful stigma, not only on France, but on human
+nature. Vice may have existed to a high degree of criminality in other
+lands; but in no other country of Europe, or the earth, ever was vice
+so public, so ostentatiously forced upon the eyes of man, so
+completely formed into an established and essential portion of
+fashionable and courtly life. It was even the _etiquette_, that the
+King of France should have a _mistress_. She was as much a part of the
+royal establishment as a prime minister was of the royal councils;
+and, as if for the purpose of offering a still more contemptuous
+defiance to the common decencies of life, the etiquette was, that this
+mistress should be a _married woman_! Yet in that country the whole
+ritual of Popery was performed with scrupulous exactness. A vast and
+powerful clergy filled France; and the ceremonials of the national
+religion were performed continually before the court, with the most
+rigid formality. The King had his confessor, and, so far as we can
+discover, the mistress had her confessor too; the nobles attended the
+royal chapel, and also had their confessors. The confessional was
+never without royal and noble solicitors of monthly, or, at the
+furthest, quarterly absolution. Still, from the whole body of
+ecclesiastics, France heard no remonstrance against those public
+abominations. Their sermons, few and feeble, sometimes declaimed on
+the vices of the beggars of Paris, or the riots among the peasantry;
+but no sense of scriptural responsibility, and no natural feeling of
+duty, ever ventured to deprecate the vices of the nobles and the
+scandals of the throne.
+
+We must give but a fragment, from Walpole's _catalogue raisonné_, of
+this Court of Paphos. It had been the King's object to make some women
+of rank introduce Madame du Barri at court; and he had found
+considerable difficulty in this matter, not from her being a woman of
+no character, but on her being a woman of no birth, and whose earlier
+life had been spent in the lowest condition of vice. The King at last
+succeeded--and these are the _chaperons_. "There was Madame de
+l'Hôpital, an ancient mistress of the Prince de Soubize! The Comtesse
+Valentinois, of the highest birth, very rich, but very foolish; and as
+far from a Lucretia as Madame du Barri herself! Madame de Flavacourt
+was another, a suitable companion to both in virtue and understanding.
+She was sister to _three_ of _the King's earliest mistresses_, and had
+aimed at succeeding them! The Maréchale Duchesse de Mirpoix was the
+last, and a very important acquisition." Of her, Walpole simply
+mentions that all her talents were "drowned in such an overwhelming
+passion for play, that though she had long and singular credit with
+the King, she reduced her favour to an endless solicitation for money
+to pay her debts." He adds, in his keen and amusing style--"That, to
+obtain the post of _dame d'honneur_ to the Queen, she had left off
+_red_ (wearing rouge,) and acted _dévotion_; and the very next day was
+seen riding with Madame de Pompadour (the King's mistress) in the
+latter's coach!" The editor settles the question of _her_ morality,
+too.--"She was a woman of extraordinary wit and cleverness, but
+totally _without character_." She had her morals by inheritance; for
+she was the daughter of the _mistress_ of the Duke of Lorraine, who
+married her to Monsieur de Beauvan, a poor noble, and whom the duke
+got made a prince of the empire, by the title of De Craon. Now, all
+those were females of the highest rank in France, ladies of fashion,
+the stars of court life, and the models of national manners. Can we
+wonder at the retribution which cast them out into the highways of
+Europe? Can we wonder at the ruin of the corrupted nobility? Can we
+wonder at the massacre of the worldly church, which stood looking on
+at those vilenesses, and yet never uttered a syllable against them, if
+it did not even share in their excesses? The true cause for
+astonishment is, not in the depth of their fall, but in its delay; not
+in the severity of the national judgment, but in that long-suffering
+which held back the thunderbolt for a hundred years, and even then did
+not extinguish the generation at a blow!
+
+[Footnote 33: _Memoirs of the Reign of King George the Third, by
+Horace Walpole. From the MSS. Edited, with Notes, by_ SIR D. LA
+MARCHANT, BART. London: Bentley.]
+
+
+
+
+A FEW PASSAGES CONCERNING OMENS, DREAMS, APPEARANCES, &c.
+
+IN A LETTER TO EUSEBIUS.
+
+No. II.
+
+
+It is somewhat late, my dear, Eusebius, to refer me to my letter of
+August 1840, and to enquire, in your bantering way, if I have shaken
+hands with a ghost recently, or dreamed a dream worth telling. You
+have evidently been thinking upon this subject ever since I wrote to
+you; and I suspect you are more of a convert than you will admit. You
+only wish to provoke me to further evidence; but I see--through the
+flimsy veil of your seeming denials, and through your put-on
+audacity--the nervous workings of your countenance, when your
+imagination is kindled by the mysterious subject. Your wit and your
+banter are but the whistle of the clown in the dark, to keep down his
+rising fears. However good your story[34] may be, there have been
+dreams even of the numbers of lottery-tickets that have been verified.
+We call things coincidences and chances, because we have no name to
+give them, whereas they are phenomena that want a better settlement.
+You speak, too, of the "doctrine of chances." If chance have a
+doctrine, it is subject to a rule, is under calculation, arithmetic,
+and loses all trace at once of our idea of absolute chance. If there
+be chance, there is also a power over chance. The very hairs of our
+head, which seem to be but a chance-confusion, are yet, we are
+assured, all numbered--and is it less credible that their every
+movement is noted also? One age is the type of another; and every age,
+from the beginning of the world, hath had its own symbols; and not
+poetically only, but literally true is it, that "coming events cast
+their shadows before." If the "vox populi" be the "vox Dei," it has
+pronounced continually, in a space of above five thousand years, that
+there is communication between the material and immaterial worlds. So
+rare are the exceptions, that, speaking of mankind, we may assert that
+there is a universal belief amongst them of that connexion by signs,
+omens, dreams, visions, or ghostly presences. Many professed sceptics,
+who have been sceptics only in the pride of understanding, have in
+secret bowed down to one form or other of the superstition. Take not
+the word in a bad sense. It is at least the germ, the natural germ,
+of religion in the human mind. It is the consciousness of a
+superiority not his own, of some power so immeasurably above man, that
+his mind cannot take it in, but accepts, as inconsiderable glimpses of
+it, the phenomena of nature, and the fears and misgivings of his own
+mind, spreading out from himself into the infinite and invisible. I am
+not certain, Eusebius, if it be not the spiritual part of conscience,
+and is to it what life is to organized matter--the mystery which gives
+it all its motion and beauty.
+
+It is not my intention to repeat the substance of my former letter--I
+therefore pass on. You ask me if the mesmeric phenomena--which you
+ridicule, yet of which I believe you covet a closer investigation--are
+not part and parcel of the same incomprehensible farrago? I cannot
+answer you. It would be easy to do so were I a disciple. If the
+mesmerists _can_ establish _clairvoyance_, it will certainly be upon a
+par with the ancient oracles. But what the philosopher La Place says,
+in his _Essay on Probabilities_, may be worth your consideration--that
+"any case, however apparently incredible, if it is a recurrent case,
+is as much entitled to a fair valuation under the laws of induction,
+as if it had been more probable beforehand." If the mesmerized can
+project, and that apparently without effort, their minds into the
+minds of others--read their thoughts; if they can see and tell what is
+going on hundreds of miles off, on the sea and on distant lands alike;
+if they can at remote distances _influence_ others with a sense of
+their presence--they possess a power so very similar to that ascribed,
+in some extraordinary cases, to persons who, in a dying state, have
+declared that they have been absent and conversed with individuals
+dear to them in distant countries, and whose presence has been
+recognised at those very times by the persons so said to be visited,
+that I do not see how they can be referable to different original
+phenomena. Yet with this fact before them, supposing the facts of
+mesmerism, of the mind's separation from, and independence of its
+organic frame, is it not extraordinary that so many of this new school
+are, or profess themselves by their writings, materialists? I would,
+however, use the argument of mesmerism thus:--Mesmerism, if true,
+confirms the ghost and vision power, though I cannot admit that
+dreams, ghosts, and visions are any confirmation of mesmerism; for if
+mesmerism be a delusion and cheat, it may have arisen from speculating
+upon the other known power--as true miracles have been known to give
+rise to false. In cases of mesmerism, however, this shock is felt--the
+facts, as facts in the ordinary sense, are incredible; but then I see
+persons who have examined the matter very nicely, whom I have known,
+some intimately, for many years, of whose good sense, judgement, and
+_veracity_ I will not allow myself to doubt--indeed to doubt whose
+veracity would be more incredible to me than the mesmeric facts
+themselves. Here is a conflict--a shock. Two contradictory
+impossibilities come together. I do not weigh in the scale at all the
+discovery of some cheats and pretenders; this was from the first to
+have been expected. In truth, the discoveries of trick and collusion
+are, after all, few. Not only has mesmerism been examined into by
+persons I respect, but practised likewise; and by one, a physician,
+whom I have known intimately many years, who, to his own detriment,
+has pursued it, and whom I have ever considered one of the most
+truthful persons living, and incapable of collusion, or knowingly in
+any way deceiving. Now, Eusebius, we cannot go into society, and
+pronounce persons whom we have ever respected all at once to be cheats
+and liars. Yet there may be some among them who will tell you that
+they themselves were entirely sceptical until they tried mesmerism,
+and found they had the power in themselves. We must then, in fairness,
+either acknowledge mesmerism as a power, or believe that these persons
+whom we respect and esteem are practised upon and deluded by others.
+And such would, I confess, be the solution of the difficulty, were it
+not that there are cases where this is next to an impossibility.
+
+But I do not mean now, Eusebius, to discuss mesmerism,[35] further
+than as it does seem "a part and parcel" of that mysterious power
+which has been manifested in omens, dreams, and appearances. I say
+_seem_--for if it be proved altogether false, the other mystery stands
+untouched by the failure--for in fact it was, thousands of years
+before either the discovery or practice--at least as far as we know;
+for some will not quite admit this, but, in their mesmeric dreaming,
+attribute to it the ancient oracles, and other wonders. And there are
+who somewhat inconsistently do this, having ridiculed and contemned as
+utterly false those phenomena, until they have found them hitch on to,
+and give a credit to, their new Mesmeric science.
+
+But to return to the immediate subject. It has been objected against
+dreams, omens, and visions, that they often occur without an object;
+that there is either no consequence, or a very trifling one; the knot
+is not "dignus vindice." Now, I am not at all staggered by this; on
+the contrary, it rather tends to show that there is some _natural_
+link by which the material and immaterial within and without ourselves
+may be connected; and very probably many more intimations of that
+connexion are given than noted. Those of thought, mental suggestions,
+may most commonly escape us. It is thus what we would not do of
+ourselves we may do in spite of ourselves. Nor do we always observe
+closely objects and ends. We might, were we to scrutinize, often find
+the completion of a dream or omen which we had considered a failure,
+because we looked too immediately for its fulfilment. But even where
+there is evidently no purpose attained, there is the less reason to
+suspect fabrication, which would surely commence with an object. Some
+very curious cases are well attested, where the persons under the
+impression act upon the impulse blindly, not knowing why; and
+suddenly, in conclusion, the whole purpose bursts upon their
+understandings. But I think the objection as to purpose is answered by
+one undoubted fact, the dream of Pilate's wife--"Have thou nothing to
+do with that just man; for I have suffered many things this day in a
+dream because of him." There is here no apparent purpose--the warning
+was unheeded. Yet the dream, recorded as it is and where it is, was
+unquestionably a dream upon the event to happen; and is not to be
+considered as a mere coincidence, which would have been unworthy the
+sacred historian, who wrote the account of it under inspiration. And
+this is a strong--the strongest confirmation of the inspiration of
+dreams, or rather, perhaps, of their significance, natural or
+otherwise, and with or without a purpose. So the dream of Cæsar's wife
+did not save Cæsar's life. And what are we to think of the whole
+narrative, beginning with the warning of the Ides of March? Now,
+Joseph's dream and Pharaoh's dream were dreams of purpose; they were
+prophetic, and disclosed to the understanding of Joseph. So that, with
+this authority of Scripture, I do not see how dreams can be set aside
+as of no significance. And we have the like authority for omens, and
+symbols, and visions--so that we must conclude the things themselves
+to be possible; and this many do, yet say that, with other miracles,
+they have long ceased to be.
+
+Then, again, in things that by their agreement, falling in with other
+facts and events, move our wonder, we escape from the difficulty, as
+we imagine, by calling them coincidences; as if we knew what
+coincidences are. I do not believe they are without a purpose, any
+more than that seeming fatality by which little circumstances produce
+great events, and in ordinary life occur frequently to an apparent
+detriment, yet turn out to be the very hinge upon which the fortune
+and happiness of life depend and are established. I remember a
+remarkable instance of this--though it may not strictly belong to
+omens or coincidences; but it shows the purpose of an accident. Many
+years ago, a lady sent her servant--a young man about twenty years of
+age, and a native of that part of the country where his mistress
+resided--to the neighbouring town with a ring which required some
+alteration, to be delivered into the hands of a jeweller. The young
+man went the shortest way, across the fields; and coming to a little
+wooden bridge that crossed a small stream, he leaned against the rail,
+and took the ring out of its case to look at it. While doing so, it
+slipped out of his hand, and fell into the water. In vain he searched
+for it, even till it grew dark. He thought it fell into the hollow of
+a stump of a tree under water; but he could not find it. The time
+taken in the search was so long, that he feared to return and tell his
+story--thinking it incredible, and that he should even be suspected of
+having gone into evil company, and gamed it away or sold it. In this
+fear, he determined never to return--left wages and clothes, and
+fairly ran away. This seemingly great misfortune was the making of
+him. His intermediate history I know not; but this--that after many
+years' absence, either in the East or West Indies, he returned with a
+very considerable fortune. He now wished to clear himself with his old
+mistress; ascertained that she was living, purchased a diamond ring of
+considerable value, which he determined to present in person, and
+clear his character, by telling his tale, which the credit of his
+present condition might testify. He took the coach to the town of ----,
+and from thence set out to walk the distance of a few miles. He found,
+I should tell you, on alighting, a gentleman who resided in the
+neighbourhood, who was bound for the adjacent village. They walked
+together; and, in conversation, this former servant, now a gentleman,
+with graceful manners and agreeable address, communicated the
+circumstance that made him leave the country abruptly, many years
+before. As he was telling this, they came to the very wooden bridge.
+"There," said he--"it was just here that I dropped the ring; and there
+is the very bit of old tree, into a hole of which it fell--just
+there." At the same time, he put down the point of his umbrella into
+the hole of a knot in the tree--and, drawing it up, to the
+astonishment of both, found _the_ very ring on the ferrule of the
+umbrella. I need not tell the rest. But make this reflection--why was
+it that he did not as easily find it immediately after it had fallen
+in? It was an incident like one of those in Parnell's "Hermit," which,
+though a seeming chance, was of purpose, and most important.
+
+Now, here is an extraordinary coincidence between a fact and a dream,
+or a vision, whatever it may be, which yet was of no result--I know it
+to be true. And you know, Eusebius, my excellent, truth-telling,
+worthy Mrs H----, who formerly kept a large school at ----. One morning
+early, the whole house was awakened by the screams of one of the
+pupils. She was in hysterics; and, from time to time, fainting away in
+an agony of distress. She said she had seen her grandfather--that he
+was dead, and they would bury him alive. In due time, the post brought
+a letter--the grandfather _was dead_. Letters were written to the
+friends to announce the dream or vision, and the burial was delayed in
+consequence. Nothing could be more natural than the fear of burying
+him alive in the mind of the young girl, unacquainted with death, and
+averse to persuade herself that the person she had seen could be
+really dead. Now, my dear Eusebius, you know Mrs H----, and cannot
+doubt the fact.
+
+Cases of this kind are so many, and well authenticated, that one knows
+not where to choose.
+
+          ----"Tam multa loquacem
+     Delassare valent Fabium."
+
+I think you knew the worthy and amiable Mr ----, who had the charge of
+the valuable museum at ----. I well remember hearing this narrated of
+him, long _before_ his death. He stated, that one day opening a case,
+he heard a voice issue from it, which said--"In three days you shall
+die." He became ill, and sent for Dr P----, the very celebrated
+physician. It was in vain to reason with him. The third day arrived.
+The kind physician sat with him till the hour was past. He did not
+then die! Did he, however, mistake or miscalculate the meaning of the
+voice? He died _that very day three years_!! Nothing can be more
+authentic than this.
+
+When I was in town in the summer, Eusebius, I spent an agreeable day
+with my friends, the C----s. Now, I do not know a human being more
+incapable of letting an idea, a falsehood of imagination, run away
+with his sober judgment. He has a habit, I should say, more than most
+men, of tying himself down to matters of fact. I copy for you an
+extract from a diary; it was taken down that night. "Mr C---- has just
+told me the following very curious circumstance:--Some years ago, Mrs
+C---- being not in good health, they determined to spend some weeks in
+the country. His father was then in his house. They separated--the
+father, to his own home in the neighbourhood of London, and Mr and Mrs
+C---- to visit the brother of Mrs C----, a clergyman, and resident
+upon his living, in Suffolk. Soon after their arrival, there was a
+large assembly of friends, in consequence of some church business.
+There was church service--in the midst of which Mr C---- suddenly
+felt an irresistible desire to return to his house in town. He knew
+not why. It was in vain he reasoned with himself--go he must, forced
+by an impulse for which he could in no way account. It would distress
+his friends--particularly on such an occasion. He could not help it.
+He communicated his intention to Mrs C----; begged her to tell no one,
+lest he should give trouble by having the carriage;--his resolution
+was instantly taken, to quit the church at once, to walk about six
+miles to meet the coach if possible; if not, determining to walk all
+night, a distance of thirty-two miles. He did quit the church, walked
+the six miles, was in time to take the coach, reached London, and his
+own home. The intelligence he found there was, that his father was
+dangerously ill. He went to him--found him dying--and learned that he
+had told those about him that he knew he should see his son. That wish
+was gratified, which could not have been but for this sudden impulse
+and resolution. His father expired in his arms."
+
+It is curious that his father had told him a dream which he had had
+some years before--that he was in the midst of some convulsion of
+nature, where death was inevitable, and that then the only one of his
+children who came to him was my friend Mr C----, which was thus in
+manner accomplished on the day of his death.
+
+I know not if some persons are naturally more under these and suchlike
+mysterious influences. There was another occurrence which much
+affected Mr C----. He went into Gloucestershire to visit a brother. I
+do not think the brother was ill. All the way that he went in the
+coach, he had, to use his own words, a death-smell which very much
+annoyed him. Leaving the coach, he walked towards his brother's house
+greatly depressed; so much so, that, for a considerable time, he sat
+on a stone by the way, deeply agitated, and could not account for the
+feeling. He arrived in time only to see his brother expire. I do not
+know, Eusebius, how you can wish for better evidence of facts so
+extraordinary. Mr C----'s character is sufficient voucher.
+
+Here is another of these extraordinary coincidences which I have been
+told by my friend Mrs S----, niece to the Rev. W. Carr, whom she has
+very frequently heard narrate the following:--A farmer's wife at
+Bolton Abbey, came to him, the Rev. W. Carr, in great agitation, and
+told him she had passed a dreadful night, having dreamed that she saw
+Mr Richard, (brother to Rev. W. Carr;) that she saw him in great
+distress, struggling in the water, with his portmanteau on his
+shoulders, escaping from a burning ship; and she begged the family to
+write to know if Mr Richard was safe. It was exactly according to the
+dream; he had, at the very time, so escaped from the burning of (I
+believe) the Boyne. How like is this to some of the mesmeric visions!
+I am assured of the truth of the following, by one who knew the
+circumstance. One morning, as Mrs F---- was sitting in her room, a
+person came in and told her he had had a very singular dream; that he
+had been sitting with her sister, Mrs B----k, when some one came into
+the room with distressing intelligence about her husband. Though it
+could not have been there known at the time, Mr B----k had been
+thrown from his horse and killed.
+
+A party of gentlemen had met at Newcastle; the nature of the meeting
+is stated to have been of a profane character. One of them suddenly
+started, and cried, "What's that?"--and saw a coffin. The others saw
+it; and one said--"It is mine: I see myself in it!" In twenty-four
+hours he was a corpse.
+
+I think I mentioned to you, Eusebius, that when I dined with Miss
+A----, in town, she told me a curious story about a black boy. I have
+been since favoured with the particulars, and copy part of the letter;
+weigh it well, and tell me what you think of such coincidences--if you
+are satisfied that there is nothing but chance in the matter.
+
+"Now for the little black boy. In the year 1813, I was at the house of
+Sir J. W. S----th of D---- House, near Bl----d, who then resided in
+Portman Square, and a Mr L----r of Norfolk, a great friend of Sir
+John's, was of the party. On coming into the room, he said--'I have
+just been calling on our old Cambridge friend, H----n, who returned
+the other day from India; and he has been telling me a very curious
+thing which happened in his family. He had to go up the country to a
+very remote part, on some law business, and he left Mrs H----n at
+home, under the protection of her sister and that lady's husband. The
+night after Mr H----n went away, the brother-in-law was awakened by
+the screams of his own wife in her sleep; she had dreamed that a
+little black boy, Mr H----n's servant, who had attended him, was
+murdering him. He woke her, and while he was endeavouring to quiet
+her, and convince her that her fears were the effects of a bad dream,
+produced probably by indigestion, he was roused by the alarming
+shrieks of Mrs H----n, who slept in an adjoining room. On going to
+her, he found her, too, just awakening after a horrid dream--the
+little Indian boy was murdering her husband. He used the same
+arguments with her that he had already found answer in quieting his
+own wife; but, in his own mind, he felt very anxious for tidings from
+Mr H----n. To their great surprise, that gentleman made his
+appearance the next evening, though he had expected to be absent above
+a week. He looked ill and dejected. They anxiously asked him what was
+the matter. Nothing, but that he was angry with himself for acting in
+a weak, foolish manner. He had dreamed that his attendant, the little
+black boy, intended to murder him; and the dream made such an
+impression on his nerves that he could not bear the sight of the boy,
+but dismissed him at once without any explanation. Finding he could
+not go on without an attendant, he had returned home to procure one;
+but as he had no reason whatever to suspect the boy of any ill
+intention, he felt very angry with himself for minding a dream. Dear
+Mrs H----n was much struck with this story; but she used to
+say--unless it were proved that the boy really had the intention of
+murdering his master, the dreams were for nothing.'"
+
+In this instance a murder may have been prevented by these dreams; for
+if merely coincidences, and without an object, the wonder of
+coincidences is great indeed; for it is not one dream, but three, and
+of three persons.
+
+Things apparently of little consequence are yet curious for
+observation. Our friend K----n, and two or three other friends, some
+months ago went on an excursion together. Their first point was Bath,
+where they meant to remain some time. K----n dreamed on Friday they
+were to start on Saturday; that there was a great confusion at the
+railway station; and that there would be no reaching Bath for them.
+They went, however, on Saturday morning, and he told his dream when in
+the carriage. One of the party immediately repeated the old saying--
+
+   "A Friday's dream on Saturday told
+    Will be sure to come true ere the day is old."
+
+There was no accident to the train; but, instead of finding themselves
+at Bath, they found themselves at Bristol--having, in their
+conversation, neglected to notice that they had passed Bath. They were
+put to great inconvenience, and confusion, and difficulty in getting
+their luggage. I know you too well, Eusebius, not to hear, by
+anticipation, your laughter at this trifling affair, and the wit with
+which for a few moments you will throw off your ridicule. You may ask,
+if the shooting of your corns are not as sure and as serious
+prognostications? Be it so; and why not, Eusebius? You can tell by
+them what weather to expect; and, after all, you know little more of
+the material world, less of the immaterial, and nothing of their
+mystical union. Nothing now, past, present, and future, may be but
+terms for we know not what, and cannot comprehend how they can be lost
+in an eternity. There they become submerged. So take the thing
+represented, not the paltry, perhaps ridiculous, one through which it
+is represented. It is the picture, the attitude, the position, the
+undignified familiarity of yourself with the defects of your own
+person, that make the ridiculous; but there is grave philosophy,
+nevertheless, to be drawn from every atom of your own person, if you
+view it aright. I have heard you eloquent against the "hypocrite
+Cicero," as you called him, for his saying, that one Augur meeting
+another could scarcely help laughing. If mankind chose augury as a
+sign, it might have been permitted them to find a sign in it. But this
+is plunging into deeper matter, and one which you will think a
+quagmire, wherein wiser thoughts may flounder and be lost. When the
+officers of Hannibal's army were heard to laugh by the soldiery on the
+morning of the battle of Cannæ, they took it as a good omen. It was
+generally received, and the day was fatal to the Romans. "Possunt quia
+posse videntur," you will say; but whence comes the "videntur?" There,
+Eusebius, you beg the whole question. The wonders and omens, gravely
+related by Livy, at least portray a general feeling--an impression
+before events. In the absence of a better religion, I would not have
+quarrelled with the superstition, and very much join you in your
+condemnation of the passage in Cicero.
+
+The fatal necessity of event upon event, of omen, dream, and vision,
+is the great characteristic of the wondrous Greek drama. So awfully
+portrayed is the _OEdipus_--and with more grand and prophetic
+mystery pervading the _Agamemnon_. Had it not been congenial with
+popular belief, it could never have been so received; nor, indeed,
+could somewhat similar (though degraded from their high authority, as
+standing less alone by their amalgamation with a purer creed)
+characteristics in some of the plays of our own Shakspeare have
+touched the mind to wonderment, had there been no innate feeling to
+which they might, and without effort, unite. The progress, however, of
+the omen and vision, clearer and clearer, pointing to the very deed,
+and even while its enactment has commenced, and that fatality by which
+(prophetic, too) the plainest prophecy is unheeded, contemned, and the
+Prophetess herself doomed, and knowing herself doomed, may be
+considered as an epitome of the Grecian creeds upon the subject. It
+was no vulgar punning spirit that designated the very _name_ of Helen
+as a cursing omen.
+
+   [Greek:
+   "Tis pot' hônomazen hôd
+    Es to pan etêtumôs--
+    Mê tis ontôn ouch orô--
+    Men pronoaisi tou peprômeuou
+    Glôssan en tucha nemôn."]
+
+Helen, the destroyer--yes, that was her significant name. The present
+King of the French was not allowed to assume the title of Valois,
+which was, strictly speaking, his, and instead assumed that of Duc de
+Chartres, on account of an evil omen attached to the former name; and
+that evil omen originating in a curious fact, the seeing of a spectre
+by that German princess who succeeded the poisoned sister of our
+second Charles. But there is nothing in modern history more analogous
+to the fatalities of the Grecian drama than those singular passages
+relating to the death of Henry the Fourth of France. We have the
+gravest authority of the gravest historians, that prophecies,
+warnings, and omens so prepared Henry for his death, that he waited
+for it with a calm resignation, as to an irresistible fatality. "In
+fact," (says an eloquent writer in Maga of April 1840,) "it is to this
+attitude of listening expectation in the king, and breathless waiting
+for the blow, that Schiller alludes in that fine speech of Wallenstein
+to his sister, where he notices the funeral knells that sounded
+continually in Henry's ears; and, above all, his prophetic instinct,
+that caught the sound from a far distance of his murderer's motions,
+that could distinguish, amidst all the tumult of a mighty Capital,
+those stealthy steps."
+
+And does it seem so strange to you, Eusebius, if the ear and the eye,
+those outposts, as it were, of the ever watchful, spiritual, and
+intellectual sentinels within man, convey the secret intelligences
+that most concern him? What is there, Eusebius, so marvellous to your
+conception, if there be sympathy more than electric between those two
+worlds, outer Nature and Man himself? If earth, that with him and for
+him partook of one curse, with all its accompanying chain and
+interchange of elements, be still one with him, in utterance and
+signification, whether of his weal or woe. The sunshine and the gloom
+enter into him, and are his; they reflect his feelings, or rather they
+are his feelings, almost become his flesh--they are his bodily
+sensations. The winds and the waters, in their gentler breathings and
+their sullen roar, are but the music of his mind, echo his joys, his
+passions, or funereally rehearse the dirge of his fate.
+
+Reject not, my Eusebius, any fact, because it seems little and
+trifling; a mite is a wonder in creation, from which deep, hidden
+truths present themselves. It was a heathen thought, an imperfect
+conception of the wide sympathy of all nature, and of that meaning
+which every particle of it can convey, and more significantly as we
+calculate our knowledge;--it was a heathen thought, that the poet
+should lament the unlikeliness of the flowers of the field to man in
+their fall and reappearance. It was not the blessing given to his
+times to see the perfectness of the truth--the "non omnis moriar"
+indicated even in his own lament.[36]
+
+I had written thus far, when our friend H---l---r looked in upon me,
+and enquired what I was about; I told him I was writing to you, and
+the subject of my letter. He is this moment gone, and has left with me
+these two incidents. They came within his own experience. He
+remembers, that when he was a boy, he was in a room with several of
+his brothers, some of whom were unwell, yet not seriously ill. On a
+sudden, there was a great noise, so great, that it could be compared
+to nothing but the firing of a pistol--a pane in the window was
+broken; not, he said, to _pieces_, but literally to a _powder_ of
+glass. All in the house heard it, with the exception of one of his
+brothers, which struck them as very strange. The servants from below,
+and their mother from above, rushed into the room, fearing one of them
+might have been shot. The mother, when she saw how it was, told
+H---l---r that his brother, who did not hear the noise, she knew it well,
+would die. At that same hour next day that brother did die.
+
+The other story is more singular. His family were very intimate with
+another, consisting of father, mother, and an only daughter--a child.
+Of her the father was so fond, that he was never happy but when she
+was with him. It happened that he lost his health, and during his long
+illness, continually prayed that, when he was gone, his child too
+should be shortly taken from this world, and that he might be with her
+in a better. He died--when, a short time after his death, the child,
+who was in perfect health, came rushing into the presence of her
+mother, from a little room which looked out upon a court, but from
+which there was no entrance to the room--she came rushing to her
+mother, calling out--"Oh, papa, papa! I have seen papa in the court,
+and he called me to him. I must go--open the door for me--do, mamma! I
+must go, for he called me." Within twenty-four hours that child was
+dead. Now, said H--l--r, I knew this to be a fact, as well as I ever
+knew any act, for our families were like one family. Sweet image of
+infant and of parental love!--let us excuse the prayer, by that of the
+ancient mother, who, when her sons dragged her chariot to the temple,
+prayed that they might receive from the gods what was best for
+them--and they were found dead in the temple. How beautiful is the
+smile of the sleeping infant! "Holds it not converse with angels?" the
+thought is natural--ministering spirits may be unseen around us, and
+in all space, and love the whispering speech in the ear of sleeping
+innocence; there is visible joy in the face, yet how little can it
+know of pleasurable sensations, communicable through this world's
+objects? How know we but the sense must be deteriorated, to make it
+serviceable for the lower purposes for which in part the child is
+born?--as the air we breathe must have something of poison, or it
+would be too pure for mortal beings. Look down some lengthening valley
+from a height, Eusebius, at the hour of twilight, when all lands,
+their marks and boundaries, grow dim, and only here and there the
+scant light indicates lowly dwellings, shelters of humanity in earth's
+sombre bosom, and mark the vast space of vapour that fills all
+between, and touches all, broods over all--can you think this little
+world of life that you know by having walked its path, and now see so
+indistinguishable, to be the all of existence before you? Lone indeed
+would be the world were there nothing better than ourselves in it. No
+beings to watch for us, to warn us, to defend us from "the Power of
+the Air:" ministering spirits--and why not of the departed?--may be
+there. If there be those that in darkness persuade to evil--and in
+winter nights, the winds that shake the casement seem to denote to the
+guilty conscience the presence of avenging fiends--take we not peace
+and wholesome suggestion from milder influences of air and sunshine?
+Brighter may be, perhaps, the child's vision than ours; as it grows
+for the toil and work for which it is destined, there comes another
+picture of a stern and new reality, and that which brought the smile
+of joy upon the face, is but as a dissolving view; and then he becomes
+fully fitted for humanity, of which he was before but the embryo. And
+even in his progress, if he keep charge of his mind, in purity and in
+love, seem there not ministering spirits, that spread before him, in
+the mirage of the mind, scenes that look like a new creation? and
+pedants, in their kind, call this the poet's fancy, his imagination.
+
+Lately I have spent a month by the sea: the silent rocks seemed
+significant in their overhanging look, and silence, as listening to
+the incessant sea. It would be painful to think every thing insensible
+about us, but ourselves. I wonder not that the rocks, the woods, and
+wilds, were peopled by ancient Mythologists; and with beings, too,
+with whom humanity could sympathize. I would not think that the
+greater part of the earth's islands and continents were given up to
+hearts insensate; that there were nothing better than wildernesses of
+chattering apes--no sounds more rational than
+
+    "The wolf's wild howl on Ulalaski's shore."
+
+I would rather think that there are myriads of beings of higher nature
+than ourselves, whose passage is [Greek: hôste noêma], and whose home
+is ubiquity; and such as these may have their missions to us, and may
+sometimes take the dying breath of father or of brother in far-off
+seas, and instinct with, and maintaining in themselves, made visible,
+that poor remnant of life, stand at a moment at the bedside of beloved
+relatives, even in most distant lands, and give to each a blessed
+interchange and intelligence. In every sense, indeed, we "see but in
+part." In the dulness of the day, we see not a tenth part of the
+living things that people the ground; a gleam of sunshine instantly
+discovers to us in leaf and flower a little world; and could we but
+remove this outward fog, this impure atmosphere of our mortal senses,
+that which may be occasionally granted at dying hour, we might behold
+all space peopled with the glory of created beings. There is a
+beautiful truth of best feeling hidden in the superstition, that at
+one particular moment on Christmas Eve, all the beasts of the field go
+down on their knees amidst the darkness, seen alone by their Creator's
+eye, and by that angelic host that sing again the first divine hymn of
+Palestine.
+
+I do not wonder that sailors are, what we choose to call, more
+superstitious than landsmen; with but a plank between them and
+death--unfathomable seas around them, whose depths are continual
+wonder, from whose unseen treasure-house, the
+
+        ----"billows roll ashore
+     The beryl and the golden ore."
+
+Seas and skies with the great attribute of life, motion--their very
+ship a personification, as it were a living creature--cut off,
+separated as they are for the most part, from cities, and the
+mind-lowering ways of cities, which they see recede from them and melt
+into utter insignificance, leaving for companionship but the winds and
+the waters. Can it be a matter of wonder, if, with warm wishes and
+affections in their breasts, their imaginations shape the clouds and
+mists into being, messengers between them and the world they have all
+but lost? The stars, those "watches of the night," to them are not the
+same, changing yet ever significant. Even the waters about them, which
+by day are apparently without a living thing beyond the life of their
+own motion, in the darkness glittering with animated fire; can we
+wonder, then, if their thoughts rise from these myriad, invisible,
+lucent worms of the sea, to a faith in the more magnificent beings who
+"clothe themselves with light;" and if they believe that such are
+present, unseen, commissioned to guard and guide them in ways perilous
+and obscure? Seamen, accustomed to observe signs in their great
+solitude, unattracted by the innumerable sights and businesses of
+other life, are ever open and ready to receive signs and
+significations even of omen and vision; whereas he that is engaged in
+crowded street and market, heeds no sign, though it were offered, but
+that which his little and engrossing interests make for him; he,
+indeed, may receive "angels' visits unaware." Omens, dreams, and
+visions are to seamen more real, more frequent, as more congenial with
+their wants; and some extraordinary cases have even been registered in
+ships' logs, not resting on the credibility of one but of a crew, and
+such logs, if I mistake not, have been admitted evidence in courts of
+judicature. Am I led away by the subject, Eusebius? You will say I am;
+yet I could go on--the wonder increases--the common earth is not their
+sure grave--
+
+   "Nothing of them that doth fade,
+    But doth suffer a sea-change
+    Into something rich and strange."
+
+But I must not pursue this, lest, in your wit, you find reason to
+compare me to that great philosopher, who gravely asserted that he had
+discovered how to make a mermaid, but abstained from using the
+receipt; and I am quite sure you are not likely to resemble the
+learned Dr Farmer, who folded down the page for future experiment.[37]
+
+It is not very long ago that I was discussing subjects of this kind
+with our acute friend S---- V----. I send you a letter received from
+him, written, I presume, more for you than myself; for I told him I
+was on the point of answering yours, which he read. His attempt to
+account for any of his stories by common coincidences, is rather
+indicative of his naturally inquisitive mind than of his real belief;
+and I suspect he has been led into that train of argument by his
+hostility to mesmerism, which he pronounces to be a cheat from
+beginning to end; and he cannot but see that, granting mesmerism, the
+step in belief beyond is easy. He would, therefore, have no such
+stepping stone; and lest confidence in dreams, omens, &c., should make
+mesmerism more credible, he has been a little disposed to trim his own
+opinions on the subject. You will judge for yourself--here is his
+letter:--
+
+    "My dear --------,--You desire me to give you a written account
+    of the dreams which I related to you when we lately met, and
+    amused ourselves with speculations on these mysterious phenomena.
+
+    "_Dream I._--Mrs X----, when a child, was attached to Captain
+    T----, R.N. She had been brought up from infancy by her uncle and
+    aunt, with whom she resided, and with whom Captain T---- had long
+    been on terms of the most intimate friendship and regard. At the
+    time to which I now refer, Captain T---- commanded a frigate in
+    the West Indies, where he had been stationed for some months;
+    letters had been occasionally received from him; his health had
+    not suffered from the climate, nor had any of his friends in
+    England the least reason to apprehend that a man of his age, good
+    constitution, and temperate habits, by whom also the service in
+    which he was engaged had been eagerly desired, would be likely to
+    suffer from the diseases of these latitudes. One morning Mrs
+    X----, (then Miss X----,) appeared at the breakfast table with an
+    expression of grief on her countenance, that at once induced her
+    uncle and aunt to ask the cause. She said, that she had dreamed
+    that Captain T---- had died of fever in the West Indies, and that
+    the intelligence had been sent in a large letter to her uncle. The
+    young lady's uncle and aunt both represented to her the weakness
+    of yielding to the impression of a dream, and she appeared to
+    acquiesce in the good sense of their remonstrances--when, shortly
+    after, the servant brought in the letter-case from the
+    Post-office, and when her uncle had unlocked it, and was taking
+    out the letters, (there were several,) Miss X---- instantly
+    exclaimed, pointing to one of them--'That's the letter! I saw it
+    in my dream!' It was the letter--a large letter, of an official
+    size, addressed to her uncle, and conveying precisely the event
+    which Miss X---- had announced.
+
+    "_Dream II._--General D----, R.M., was one morning conversing with
+    me on the subject of dreams, and gave me the following
+    relation:--'I had the command of the marines on board a frigate,
+    and in company with another frigate, (giving names and date,) was
+    proceeding to America, when, on joining the breakfast table, I
+    told my brother officers that I had had a very vivid and singular
+    dream. That I had dreamed that the day was calm, as it now was,
+    and bright, but with some haziness in the distance; and that
+    whilst we were at breakfast, as we now are, the master-at-arms
+    came in and announced two sail in the distance. I thought we all
+    immediately ran on deck--saw the two ships--made them out to be
+    French frigates, and immediately gave chase to them. The wind
+    being light, it was long before we could approach the enemy near
+    enough to engage them; and when, in the evening, a distant fire
+    was commenced, a shot from the frigate which we attacked, carried
+    away our foretopmast, and, consequently, we were unable to
+    continue the chase. Our companion, also, had kept up a distant
+    fire with the other French frigate, but in consequence of our
+    damage, shortened sail to keep company with us during the night.
+    On the following morning the French frigates had made their
+    escape--no person had been killed or wounded on board our own
+    ship; but in the morning we were hailed by our companion, and told
+    that she had lost two men. Shortly after, whilst my brother
+    officers were making comments on my dream--and before the
+    breakfast table was cleared, the master-at-arms made his
+    appearance, announcing, to the great surprise of all present, two
+    sail in the distance; (and General D---- assured me that on
+    reaching the deck they appeared to him precisely the same in place
+    and distance as in his dream)--'the chase--the distant action--the
+    loss of the topmast--the escape of the enemy during the night--and
+    the announcement from the companion frigate that she had lost two
+    men--all took place precisely as represented in my dream.' The
+    General had but just concluded his narration, when a coincidence
+    took place, little less extraordinary than that of the dream and
+    its attendant circumstances.--The door opened, and a gentleman
+    rushed into the room with all that eagerness which characterizes
+    the unexpected meeting of warm friends after a long absence--and
+    immediately after the first cordial greetings, General D----
+    said--'My dear F----, it is most singular, that although we have
+    not met during the last fifteen years, and I had not the most
+    distant expectation of seeing or hearing from you, yet you were in
+    my thoughts not five minutes ago--I was relating to my friend my
+    extraordinary dream when on board the ----; you were present, and
+    cannot have forgotten it.' Major F---- replied, that he remembered
+    it most accurately, and, at his friend's request, related it to
+    me, in every particular correspondent with the General's account.
+
+    "What I now relate to you cannot be called a dream, but it bears a
+    close affinity to 'those shadowy tribes of mind' which constitute
+    our sleeping phantasmagoria. Calling one morning on my friend, Mrs
+    D----m, who had for some time resided in my neighbourhood, I
+    found her greatly distressed at the contents of a letter which she
+    had just received. The letter was from her sister, Mrs B----, who
+    was on her return to England, on board the ----, East Indiaman,
+    accompanied by her two youngest children, and their nurse; Mr
+    B----, her husband, remaining in India. One morning, shortly after
+    breakfast, Mrs B---- was sitting in the cabin, with many other
+    passengers present, but not herself at that moment engaged in
+    conversation with them; when she suddenly turned her head, and
+    exclaimed aloud, and with extreme surprise, 'Good God! B----, is
+    that you?' At the same moment the children, who were with their
+    nurse at a distant part of the ship, too far off, it is stated, to
+    have heard their mother's exclamation, both cried out, 'Papa!
+    papa!' Mrs B---- declared, that the moment she spoke, she saw her
+    husband most distinctly, but the vision instantly vanished. All
+    the persons present noted the precise time of this singular
+    occurrence, lat. and long., &c., and Mrs B----'s letter to her
+    sister was written immediately after it; it was forwarded to
+    England by a vessel that was expected to reach home before the
+    East Indiaman, and which did precede her by some weeks. No
+    reasonings that I could offer were sufficient to relieve my
+    friend's mind from the conviction that her sister had lost her
+    husband, and that his decease had been thus mysteriously announced
+    to her, until letters arrived from Mr B----, attesting his perfect
+    health, which he enjoyed for some years after--and I believe he is
+    still living.
+
+    "To arrive at any reasonable conclusion respecting the phenomena
+    of dreams, we require data most difficult to be obtained; we
+    should compare authentic dreams, faithfully related, with their
+    equally well-attested attendant and _precedent_ circumstances. But
+    who can feel certain that he correctly relates even his own dream?
+    I have many times made the attempt, but cannot be perfectly sure
+    that in the act of recording a dream, I have not given more of
+    order to the succession of the events than the dream itself
+    presented. In the case of the first dream, the mere delivery of a
+    letter, there is no succession of events, and therefore no ground
+    to suppose that any invention could have been added to give it
+    form and consistency. The young lady knew that her friend was in
+    the West Indies; she knew, too, the danger of that climate, and
+    had often seen the Admiral, her uncle, receive official letters.
+    Some transient thoughts on these subjects, although too transient
+    to be remembered, unquestionably formed her dream. That the letter
+    really arrived and confirmed the event predicted, can only be
+    referable to those coincidences which are not of very uncommon
+    occurrence in daily life. To similar causes I attribute the second
+    dream; and even its external fulfilment in so many particulars can
+    hardly be deemed more extraordinary than the coincidence of the
+    sudden and wholly unexpected arrival of Major F----, just at the
+    very moment after General D---- had related to me his dream. The
+    third narrative admits of an easy solution. Mrs B---- was not in
+    good health. Thinking of her husband, in a state of reverie, a
+    morbid spectrum might be the result--distinct enough to cause her
+    sudden alarm and exclamation which, if the children heard, (and
+    children distinguish their mother's voice at a considerable
+    distance--the cabin door, too, might have been open, and the
+    children much nearer than they were supposed to have been,) would
+    account at once for their calling out 'Papa! papa!' During our
+    waking hours, we are never conscious of any complete suspension of
+    thought, even for a moment; if fatigued by any long and laborious
+    mental exertion, such as the solution of a complicated
+    mathematical problem, how is the weariness relieved? Not by
+    listless rest like the tired body, but by a change of subject--a
+    change of action--a new train of thoughts and expressions. Are we,
+    then, always dreaming when asleep? We certainly are not conscious
+    that we are; but it may be that in our sleep we do not remember
+    our dreams, and that it is only in imperfect sleep, or in the act
+    of waking, that the memory records them. That dreams occupy an
+    exceedingly short period of time, I know from my own experience;
+    for I once had, when a boy, a very long dream about a bird, which
+    was placed in an insecure place in my bedroom, being attacked by a
+    cat. The fall of the cage on the floor awoke me, and I sprang out
+    of bed in time to save the bird. The dream must, I think, have
+    been suggested by the fall of the cage; and, if so, my seemingly
+    long dream could only have occupied a mere point of time. I have
+    also experienced other instances nearly similar. It seems
+    reasonable, too, to suppose that this is generally the case; for
+    our dreams present themselves to us as pictures, with the subjects
+    of which we are intimately acquainted. I now glance my eye at the
+    fine landscape hanging in my room. You may say of it, as Falstaff
+    said of Prince Henry, 'By the Lord, I know you as well as he that
+    made you.' Well, it is full of subject, full of varied beauty and
+    grand conception--a 'paulo majora' eclogue. When I first saw it, I
+    could barely read it through in an hour. For pictures that are
+    what pictures ought to be, Poems to the eye, demand and repay this
+    investigating attention--those that do not demand and suggest
+    thoughts are not worth a thought; but this picture, now its every
+    part, tint, and sentiment, have long been intimately known to me.
+    I see, at a glance, its entire subject--ay, at a glance, too, see
+    the effect which a casual gleam of light has just thrown over it.
+    Is it not probable, then, that our dreams may be equally
+    suggestive, in as short a space of time? Dreams that have not some
+    connexion, something of a continuity of events, however wild, are
+    not retained by the memory. Most persons would find it much more
+    difficult to learn to repeat the words in a dictionary, than a
+    page of poetry of equal length; and many dreams are probably
+    framed of very unconnected materials. In falling asleep, I have
+    often been conscious of the dissevering of my thoughts--like a
+    regiment dismissed from parade, they seemed to straggle away "in
+    most admired disorder;" but these scattered bands muster together
+    again in our sleep; and, as these have all been levied from the
+    impressions, cogitations, hopes, fears, and affections, of our
+    waking hours, however strangely they may re-combine, if they do
+    combine with sufficient continuity to be remembered, the form
+    presented, however wild, will always be found, on a fair analysis,
+    to be characteristic of the dreamer. They are his own thoughts
+    oddly joined, like freshwater Polyps, which may be divided, and
+    then stuck again together, so as to form chains, or any other
+    strange forms, across the globe of water in which they may be
+    exhibited. In Devonshire, the peasantry have a good term to
+    express that wandering of thought, and imperfect dreaming, which
+    is common in some states of disease.--"Oh, sir, he has been lying
+    pretty still; but he has been _roading_ all night." By this, they
+    mean, that the patient, in imperfect sleep, has been muttering
+    half-connected sentences; and the word, _roading_, is taken from
+    the mode in which they catch woodcocks. At the last gleam of
+    evening, the woodcocks rise from their shelter in the woods, and
+    wind their way to the open vistas, which lead to the adjacent
+    meadows, where they go to feed during the night; and they return
+    to their covert, through the same vistas, with the first beam of
+    morning. At the end of these vistas, which they call 'cock-roads,'
+    the woodcock catchers suspend nets to intercept the birds in their
+    evening and morning flights, and great numbers are taken in this
+    manner; the time when they suspend the nets, is called
+    roading-time; and thus, by applying the term, roading, to
+    disturbed and muttered sleep, they compare the dim, loose thoughts
+    of the half-dreaming patient, to the flight of the woodcocks,
+    wheeling their way through the gloomy and darkling woods. It has
+    been asserted that we never feel _surprise_ in our dreams; and
+    that we do not _reason_ on the subjects which they present to us.
+    This, from my own experience, I know to be a mistake. I once
+    dreamed, whilst residing with a friend in London, that on entering
+    his breakfast-room, the morning was uncommonly dark; but not very
+    much more so than sometimes occurs in a November fog, when, as
+    some one has said, the thick yellow air makes you think you are
+    walking through pease-soup, and the sun, when seen at all, looks
+    like the yolk of a poached egg floating on it. My friend was
+    seated alone by the table, resting his head thoughtfully on his
+    hand, when, looking towards me, with a very serious countenance,
+    he said--'Can you account for this darkness? There is no eclipse
+    stated in the almanack. Some change is taking place in our system.
+    Go to N----, (a philosophical neighbour, who lived within three
+    doors of our house,) and ask if he can explain it.' I certainly
+    felt much surprised at my friend's observations. I went to N----
+    's house--or, rather, I found myself in his room. He was walking
+    up and down the room in evident perplexity; and, turning to me,
+    said, 'This is very extraordinary! A change is taking place in our
+    system!--look at the barometer.'--I looked at the barometer, which
+    appeared to be hanging in its usual place in the room, and saw,
+    with great surprise, that the tube was without quicksilver; it had
+    fallen almost entirely down to the bulb. Certainly in this dream I
+    felt great _surprise_, and that the faculty of reason was not
+    suspended is apparent, nay, perhaps, it was quickened in this
+    instance, for I doubt, if I had really seen the præternatural
+    darkness, whether I should so readily have thought of consulting
+    an almanack, or referring to a barometer; I should certainly have
+    gone to my friend N----, for I was in the frequent habit of
+    appealing to him on any subject of natural philosophy on which I
+    might be desirous to be fully instructed. It is clear that the
+    fabricator of the Ephesian Diana could not pay real adoration to
+    his own work; and as we must be the artificers of our own dreams,
+    and furnish all the materials, it seems difficult to discover by
+    what process the mind can present subjects of surprise to itself;
+    but surprise is that state of mind which occurs when an object or
+    idea is presented to it, which our previous train of thought would
+    not lead us to expect or account for. In dreams the catenation of
+    our ideas is very imperfect and perplexed; and the mind, by
+    forgetting its own faint and confused links of association, may
+    generate subjects of surprise to itself. There are some dreams
+    which we dream over again many times in our lives, but these
+    dreams are generally mere scenes, with little or no action or
+    dialogue. I formerly often dreamed that I was standing on a broad
+    road by the side of a piece of water, (in which geese were
+    swimming,) surrounding the base of a green hill, on the summit of
+    which were the ruins of a castle: the sun shining brightly, and
+    the blue sky throwing out the yellow stone-work of the ruin in
+    strong relief. This dream always gave me an indefinite sense of
+    pleasure. I fancied I had formed it from some picture that I might
+    at some time have casually seen and forgotten; but a few years ago
+    I visited the village in which I was born, and from which I had
+    been removed when about three and a half years old. I found that I
+    well remembered many things which might have engaged the attention
+    of a child. The house in which my parents resided was little
+    changed; and I remembered every room, and the pictures on the
+    Dutch tiles surrounding the fireplace of that which had been our
+    nursery. I pointed out the house where sugar-candy had formerly
+    been sold, and went to the very spot in the churchyard where I had
+    been led, when a child, to call out my name and hear the echo from
+    the tower. I then went by a pathway, through some fields, which
+    led to a neighbouring town. In these fields I recognised a
+    remarkable stone stile, and a bank on which I had gathered
+    daisies; then, extending my route, that I might return to the
+    village by a different course, suddenly the prototype of my often
+    dreamed dream stood before me. The day was bright. There was the
+    blue sky--the green hill--the geese in the surrounding water. 'In
+    every form of the thing _my dream_ made true and good.' The
+    distance of this spot from the house of my birth was rather a long
+    walk for a child so young; and, therefore, I suppose I might only
+    once or twice have seen it, and then only in the summer, or in
+    bright weather. I have said that that dream, whenever it recurred,
+    always impressed me with an indefinite sense of pleasure; was not
+    this feeling an echo, a redolence, of the happy, lively sensations
+    with which, as a child, I had first witnessed the scene? It is
+    singular that, remembering so many objects much less likely to
+    have fixed themselves on the memory, I should have so utterly
+    forgotten, in my waking hours, the real existence of that of which
+    my dream had so faithfully Daguerreotyped; and it is not less
+    remarkable that I have never had the dream since I recognised its
+    original. I think I can account for this, but will not now attempt
+    it, as the length of my epistle may probably have put you in a
+    fair way of having dreams of your own.--Ever faithfully yours.
+
+    "C. S."
+
+This last dream of our friend exhibits one of the phenomena of memory,
+which may not be unconnected with another, curious, and I suppose
+common. Did you never feel a sense of a reduplication of any passing
+occurrence, act, or scene--something which you were saying or doing,
+or in which you were actor or spectator? Did you never, while the
+occurrence was taking place, suddenly feel a consciousness of its
+pre-existence and pre-acting; that the whole had passed before, just
+as it was then passing, even to the details of place, persons, words,
+and circumstances, and this not in events of importance, but mostly in
+those of no importance whatever; as if life and all its phenomena were
+a duplicate in itself, and that that which is acting here, were at the
+same time acting also elsewhere, and the fact were suddenly revealed
+to you? I call this one of the phenomena of memory, because it may
+possibly be accounted for by the repercussion of a nerve, an organ,
+which, like the string of an instrument unequally struck, will double
+the sound. Vibrations of memory--vibrations of imagination are curious
+things upon which to speculate; but not now, Eusebius--you must work
+this out yourself.
+
+What a curious story is that of Pan.[38] "Pan is dead,"--great Pan is
+dead--as told by Plutarch. Was not one commissioned by dream or vision
+to go to a particular place to proclaim it there; and is it not added
+that the cry "great Pan is dead," was re-echoed from shore to shore,
+and that this happened at the time of the ceasing of oracles?
+
+It little matters whether you look to public events or private
+histories--you will see signs and omens, and wondrous visitations,
+prefiguring and accomplishing their purposes; and if occasionally,
+when too they are indisputable, they seem to accomplish no end, it may
+be only a seeming non-accomplishment--but suppose it real, it would
+then the more follow, that they arise necessarily from the nature of
+things, though a nature with which we are not acquainted. There is an
+unaccountable sympathy and connexion between all animated
+nature--perhaps the invisible, as well as the visible. Did you never
+remark, that in a crowded room, if you fix your eyes upon any one
+person, he will be sure soon to look at you? Whence is this more than
+electric power! Wonderful is that of yawning, that it is
+communicable;--it is so common, that the why escapes our observation.
+This attractive power, the fascination of the eye, is still more
+wonderful. Hence, perhaps, the superstition of the "Evil Eye," and the
+vulgarly believed mischief of "being overlooked."
+
+Of private histories--I should like to see the result of a commission
+to collect and enquire into the authenticity of anecdotes bearing upon
+this subject. I will tell you one, which is traditionary in our
+family--of whom one was of the _dramatis personæ_. You know the old
+popular ballad of "Margaret's Ghost"--
+
+  "In glided Margaret's grimly ghost,
+   And stood at William's feet."
+
+You do not know, perhaps that it is founded on truth. William was Lord
+S----, who had jilted Margaret; she died; and after death appeared to
+him--and, it is said, gave him the choice of two things--to die within
+a week, or to vow constancy, never to marry. He gave the solemn
+promise to the ghost. We must transfer the scene to the living world
+of pleasure. Lord S---- is at Bath. He is in the rooms; suddenly he
+starts--is so overcome as to attract general attention--his eyes are
+riveted upon one person, the beautiful Mary T----, whose father
+resided in great style and fashion at Bathford. It was her resemblance
+to Margaret, her astonishing resemblance, that overcame him. He
+thought the ghost had again appeared. He was introduced--and, our
+family tradition says, was for a length of time a daily visitor at
+Bathford, where his habit was, to say little, but to sit opposite to,
+and fix his eyes upon the lovely face of Mary T----. The family not
+liking this, for there was no declaration on his part, removed Mary
+T---- to the house of some relative in London. There Lord S----
+followed her, and pursued his daily habit of profound admiration. At
+length the lady spoke, and asked him his intentions with regard to her
+guest. Lord S---- was in the greatest agitation, rose, burst into
+tears, and left the house. Time passed; and here nothing more is said
+of Mary T----; Lord S---- saw her no more. But of him, it is added,
+that, being persuaded by his family and friends, he consented to
+marry--that the bride and her relatives were at the appointed hour at
+the church--that no bridegroom was there--that messengers sent to
+enquire for him brought back the frightful intelligence, that he was
+no more. He had suddenly expired.
+
+My dear Eusebius, with this story I terminate my long letter. Ruminate
+upon the contents. Revolved in your mind, they will yield a rich
+harvest of thought. I hope to be at the reaping. Ever yours, &c.
+
+[Footnote 34: The story given by Eusebius is very probably of his own
+manufacture. It is this. Some years ago, when all the world were mad
+upon lotteries, the cook of a middle-aged gentleman drew from his
+hands the savings of some years. Her master, curious to know the
+cause, learned that she had repeatedly dreamed that a certain number
+was a great prize, and she had bought it. He called her a fool for her
+pains, and never omitted an occasion to tease her upon the subject.
+One day, however, the master saw in the newspaper, or at his
+bookseller's in the country town, that _the_ number was actually the
+L.20,000 prize. Cook is called up, a palaver ensues--had known each
+other many years, loth to part, &c.--in short, he proposes and is
+accepted, but insists on marriage being celebrated next morning.
+Married they were; and, as the carriage took them from the church they
+enjoy the following dialogue. "Well, Molly--two happy events in one
+day. You have married, I trust, a good husband. You have something
+else--but first let me ask you where you have locked up your
+lottery-ticket." Molly, who thought her master was only bantering her
+again on the old point, cried--"Don't ye say no more about it. I
+thought how it would be, and that I never should hear the end on't, so
+I sold it to the baker of our village for a guinea profit. So you need
+never be angry with me again about that."]
+
+[Footnote 35: Supposing mesmerism true in its facts, one knows not to
+what power to ascribe it--a good or an evil. It is difficult to
+imagine it possible that a good power would allow one human being such
+immense influence over others. All are passive in the hands of the
+mesmeriser. Let us take the case related by Miss Martineau. She
+willed, and the water drunk by the young girl _was_ wine, at another
+time it _was_ porter. These were the effects. Now, supposing Miss M.
+had willed it to be a poison, if her statement is strictly true, the
+girl would have been poisoned. We need no hemlock, if this be so--and
+the agent must be quite beyond the reach of justice. A coroner's
+inquest here would be of little avail.
+
+It is said that most mischievous consequences have resulted from the
+doings of some practitioners--and it must be so, if the means be
+granted; and it is admitted not to be a very rare gift. The last
+mesmeric exhibition I witnessed, was at Dr Elliotson's. It appeared to
+be of so public a nature, that I presume there is no breach of
+confidence in describing what took place. There were three persons
+mesmerised, all from the lower rank of life. The first was put into
+the sleep by, I think, but two passes of the hand, (Lord Morpeth the
+performer.) She was in an easy-chair: all her limbs were rendered
+rigid--and, as I was quite close to her, I can testify that she
+remained above two hours in one position, without moving hand or foot,
+and breathing deeply, as in a profound sleep. Her eyes were closed,
+and she was finally wakened by Dr Elliotson waving his hand at some
+distance from her. As he motioned his hand, I saw her eyelids quiver,
+and at last she awoke, but could not move until the rigidity of her
+limbs was removed by having the hand slightly passed over them. She
+then arose, and walked away, as if unconscious of the state she had
+been in. The two others were as easily transferred to a mesmeric
+state. They conversed, answered questions, showed the usual
+phrenological phenomena, singing, imitating, &c.
+
+But there was one very curious phrenological experiment which deserves
+particular notice. They sat close together. Dr W. E---- touched the
+organ of Acquisitiveness of the one, (we will call her A.) She
+immediately put out her hand, as if to grasp something, and at length
+caught hold of the finger of Dr W. E----; she took off his ring and
+put it in her pocket. Dr W. E---- then touched the organ of Justice of
+the second girl, (B,) and told her that A had stolen his ring. B, or
+Justice, began to lecture upon the wickedness of stealing. A denied
+she had done any such thing, upon which Dr W. E---- remarked, that
+thieving and lying always went together. Then, still keeping his hand
+on Acquisitiveness, he touched also that of Pride; then, as Justice
+continued her lecture, the thief haughtily justified the act, that she
+should steal if she pleased. The mesmeriser then touched also the
+organ of Combativeness, so that three organs were in play. Justice
+still continued her lecture; upon which A, the thief, told her to hold
+her tongue, and not lecture her, and gave her several pretty hard
+slaps with her hand. Dr W. E---- then removed his hands, and
+transferred the operation, making Justice the thief, and the thief
+Justice; when a similar scene took place.
+
+Another curious experiment was, differently affecting the opposite
+organs--so that endearment was shown on one side, and aversion on the
+other, of the same person. One scene was beautiful, for the very
+graceful motion exhibited. One of these young women was attracted to
+Dr Elliotson by his beckoning her to him, while by word he told her
+not to come. Her movements were slow, very graceful, as if moved by
+irresistible power.]
+
+[Footnote 36: You remember the melancholy music of the lines of
+Moschus:--
+
+   [Greek: "Ai Ai tai malachai men epan kata katon olôntai
+    Ê tachlôra selina, to t' euthales oulon anêdon,
+    Ysteron hauzôonti, kai eis etos allo phyonti.
+    Ammes d' hoi megaloi kai karteroi hê sophoi andres,
+    Oppote prôta thanômes, anakosi en chthoni koila
+    Eudames eu mala makron atermona nêgreton hypnon."]
+
+Accept of this attempt:--
+
+    Alas! alas! the mallows, though they wither where they lie,
+    And all the fresh and pleasant herbs within the garden die,
+    Another year they shall appear, and still fresh bloom supply.
+
+    But we, Great men, the strong, the wise, the noble, and the brave,
+    When once we fall into the earth, our nourriture that gave,
+    Long silence keep of endless sleep, within the hollow grave.]
+
+[Footnote 37: _Vide_ an amusing little _jeu-d'esprit--A Descant upon
+Weather-Wisdom--both Witty and Wise._--ANON. Longmans. 1845.]
+
+[Footnote 38: There is an exquisite little poem, taken from this
+passage of Plutarch, at once imaginative and true, for hidden truths
+are embodied in the tangible workings of the poet's imagination, by
+Miss Barrett.]
+
+
+
+
+A MOTHER TO HER FORSAKEN CHILD.
+
+
+    My child--my first-born! Oh, I weep
+      To think of thee--thy bitter lot!
+    The fair fond babe that strives to creep
+      Unto the breast where _thou art not_,
+    Awakes a piercing pang within,
+      And calls to mind thy heavy wrong.
+    Alas! I weep not for my sin--
+      To thy dark lot these tears belong.
+
+    Thy little arms stretch forth in vain
+      To meet a mother's fond embrace;
+    Alas! in weariness or pain,
+      Thou gazest on a hireling's face.
+    I left thee in thy rosy sleep--
+      I dared not then kneel down to bless;
+    Now--now, albeit thou may'st weep,
+      Thou canst not to my bosom press.
+
+    My child! though beauty tint thy cheek,
+      A deeper dye its bloom will claim,
+    When lips all pitiless shall speak
+      Thy mournful legacy of shame.
+    Perchance, when love shall gently steal
+      To thy young breast all pure as snow,
+    This cruel thought shall wreck thy weal,
+      _The mother's guilt doth lurk below_.
+
+    J. D.
+
+
+
+
+SUMMER NOONTIDE.
+
+
+    Unruffled the pure ether shines,
+      O'er the blue flood no vapour sails,
+    Bloom-laden are the clinging vines,
+      All odour-fraught the vales.
+
+    There's not a ripple on the main,
+      There's not a breath to stir the leaves,
+    The sunlight falls upon the plain
+      Beside the silent sheaves.
+
+    The drowsy herd forget to crop,
+      The bee is cradled in the balm:
+    If but one little leaf should drop,
+      'Twould break the sacred calm.
+
+    From the wide sea leaps up no voice,
+      Mute is the forest, mute the rill;
+    Whilst the glad earth sang forth _Rejoice_,
+      God's whisper said--_Be still_.
+
+    Her pulses in a lull of rest,
+      In hush submissive Nature lies,
+    With folded palms upon her breast,
+      Dreaming of yon fair skies.
+
+    J. D.
+
+
+
+
+TO CLARA.
+
+
+    I would not we should meet again--
+      We twain who loved so fond,
+    Although through years and years afar,
+      I wish'd for nought beyond.
+
+    Yet do I love thee none the less;
+      And aye to me it seems,
+    There's not on earth so fair a thing
+      As thou art in my dreams.
+
+    All, all hath darkly changed beside,
+      Grown old, or stern, or chill--
+    All, save one hoarded spring-tide gleam,
+      _Thy smile that haunts me still_!
+
+    My brow is but the register
+      Of youth's and joy's decline;
+    I would not trace such record too
+      Deep graven upon thine.
+
+    I would not _see_ how rudely Time
+      Hath dealt with all thy store
+    Of bloom and promise--'tis enough
+      To know the harvest's o'er.
+
+    I would not that one glance to-day,
+      One glance through clouds and tears,
+    Should mar the image in my soul
+      That love hath shrined for years.
+
+    J. D.
+
+
+
+
+SECLUSION.
+
+
+    The heart in sacred peace may dwell,
+      Apart from convent gloom--
+    To matins and to vespers rise,
+      'Mid nature's song and bloom:
+
+    Or in the busy haunts of life,
+      In gay or restless scene,
+    In sanctuary calm abide,
+      As vestal saint serene.
+
+    It is the pure and holy thought,
+      The spotless veil within,
+    That screens pollution from the breast,
+      And hides a world of sin.
+
+    J. D.
+
+
+
+
+THE LAST HOURS OF A REIGN.
+
+A TALE IN TWO PARTS.--PART I.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+      "Let's see the devil's writ.
+    What have we here?"
+
+         *       *       *       *       *
+
+   "First of the King. What shall of him become?"
+                                         SHAKSPEARE.
+
+   "A pretty plot, well chosen to build upon."
+                                             IDEM.
+
+
+It was in the month of May 1574, and in the city of Paris, that, at an
+hour of the night which in these days might be considered somewhat
+early, but which at that period was already late, two personages were
+seated in a gloomy room, belonging to a small and ancient hotel, at no
+great distance from the old palace of the Louvre, with which it was
+supposed to communicate by courts and passages little known and seldom
+used.
+
+One of these personages was a woman of middle age, whose form,
+although full, was peculiarly well made, and whose delicate but well
+fleshed hands were of striking beauty. The fair face was full and fat,
+but very pale; the eyes were fine and dark, and the whole expression
+of her physiognomy was in general calm, almost to mildness. But yet
+there lurked a haughty air on that pale brow; and at times a look of
+searching inquisitiveness, amounting almost to cunning, shot from
+those dark eyes. Her ample dress was entirely black, and unrelieved by
+any of the embroidery or ornament so much lavished upon the dress of
+the higher classes at that time; a pair of long white ruffles turned
+back upon the sleeve, and a large standing collar of spotless purity,
+alone gave light to the dark picture of her form. Upon her head she
+wore a sort of skull-cap of black velvet, descending with a sharp peak
+upon her forehead--the cowl-like air of which might almost have given
+her the appearance of the superior of some monastic community, had not
+the cold imperious physiognomy of the abbess been modified by a
+frequent bland smile, which showed her power of assuming the arts of
+seduction at will, and her practice of courts. She leaned her arms
+upon the table, whilst she studied with evident curiosity every
+movement of her companion, who was engaged in poring, by the light of
+a lamp, over a variety of strange manuscripts, all covered with the
+figures, cyphers, and hieroglyphics used in cabalistic calculations.
+
+This other personage was a man, whose appearance of age seemed to be
+more studied than real. His grey hair, contrary to the custom of the
+times, fell in thick locks upon his shoulders; and a white beard swept
+his dark velvet robe, which was fashioned to bestow upon him an air of
+priestly dignity; but his face was florid, and full of vigour, and the
+few wrinkles were furrowed only upon his brow.
+
+Around the room, the dark old panels of which, unrelieved by pictures
+and hangings, rendered it gloomy and severe, were scattered books and
+instruments, such as were used by the astronomers, or rather
+astrologers, of the day, and a variety of other objects of a bizarre
+and mysterious form, which, as the light of the lamp flickered feebly
+upon them, might have been taken, in their dark nooks, for the
+crouching forms of familiar imps, attendant upon a sorcerer. After
+some study of his manuscripts, the old man shook his head, and,
+rising, walked to the window, which stood open upon a heavy stone
+balcony. The night was bright and calm; not a cloud, not a vapour
+dimmed the glitter of the countless myriads of stars in the firmament;
+and the moon poured down a flood of light upon the roofs of the
+surrounding houses, and on the dark towers of the not far distant
+Louvre, which seemed quietly sleeping in the mild night-air, whilst
+within were fermenting passions, many and dark, like the troubled
+dreams of the apparently tranquil sleeper. As the old man stepped upon
+the balcony, he turned up his head with an assumed air of inspiration
+to the sky, and considered the stars long and in silence. The female
+had also risen and followed him to the window; but she remained
+cautiously in the shadow of the interior of the room, whence she
+watched with increasing interest the face of the astrologer. Again,
+after this study of the stars, the old man returned to his table, and
+began to trace new figures in various corners of the patterned
+horoscopes, and make new calculations. The female stood before him,
+resting her hands upon the table, awaiting with patience the result of
+these mysteries of the cabala.
+
+"Each new experience verifies the former," said the astrologer,
+raising up his head at last. "The truth cannot be concealed from your
+majesty. His hours are numbered--he cannot live long."
+
+"And it is of a surety _he_, of whom the stars thus speak?" enquired
+the female thus addressed, without emotion.
+
+"The horoscopes all clash and cross each other in many lines,"
+answered the astrologer: "but they are not confounded with his. The
+horoscope of near and inevitable death is that of your son Charles,
+the King."
+
+"I know that he must die," said the Queen-mother coldly, sitting down.
+
+The astrologer raised for an instant his deep-set, but piercing grey
+eyes, to the pale, passionless face of the Queen, as if he could have
+read the thoughts passing within. There was almost a sneer upon his
+lip, as though he would have said, that perhaps none knew it better;
+but that expression flickered only, like a passing flash of faint
+summer lightning, and he quickly resumed--
+
+"But about this point of death are centred many confused and jarring
+lines in an inextricable web; and bright as they look to vulgar eyes,
+yon stars in the heavens shine with a lurid light to those who know to
+look upon them with the eyes of science; and upon their path is a dim
+trail of blood--troubled and harassed shall be _the last hours of this
+reign_."
+
+"But what shall be the issue, Ruggieri?" said the Queen eagerly.
+"Since Charles must die, I must resign myself to the will of destiny,"
+she added, with an air of pious humility; and then, as if throwing
+aside a mask which she thought needless before the astrologer, she
+continued with a bitterness which amounted almost to passion in one
+externally so cold--"Since Charles must die, he can be spared. He has
+thrown off my maternal authority; and with the obstinacy of suspicion,
+he has thwarted all my efforts to resume that power which he has
+wrested from me, and which his weak hands wield so ill. He has been
+taught to look upon me with mistrust; in vain I have combated this
+influence, and if it grow upon him, mistrust will ripen into hate. He
+regrets that great master-stroke of policy, which, by destroying all
+those cursed Huguenots, delivered us at one blow from our most deadly
+enemies. He has spoken of it with horror. He has dared to blame me. He
+has taken Henry of Navarre, the recusant Huguenot, the false wavering
+Catholic, to his counsels lately. He is my son no longer, since he no
+longer acknowledges his mother's will: and he can be spared! But when
+he is gone, what shall be the issue, Ruggieri? how stand the other
+horoscopes?"
+
+"The stars of the two Henrys rise together in the heavens" replied the
+Queen's astrologer and confidant. "Before them stands a house of
+double glory, which promises a double crown; but the order of the
+heavens is not such that I can read as yet, which of the two shall
+first enter it, or enter it alone."
+
+"A double crown!" said the Queen musingly. "Henry of Anjou, my son, is
+king of Poland, and on his brother's death is rightful king of France.
+Yes, and he _shall_ be king of France, and wear its crown. Henry never
+thwarted his mother's will, he was ever pliant as a reed to do her
+bidding; and when he is king, Catherine of Medicis may again resume
+the reins of power. You had predicted that he would soon return to
+France; and I promised him he should return, when unwillingly he
+accepted that barbarian crown, which Charles' selfish policy forced
+upon him, in order to rid himself of a brother whom he hated as a
+rival--hated because I loved him. Yes, he shall return to resume his
+rightful crown--a double crown! But Henry of Navarre also wears a
+crown, although it be a barren one--although the kingdom of Navarre
+bestow upon him a mere empty title. Shall it be his--the double crown?
+Oh! no! no! The stars cannot surely say it. Should all my sons die
+childless, it is his by right. But they shall not die to leave _him_
+their heir. No! sooner shall the last means be applied, and the
+detested son perish, as did his hated mother, by one of those
+incomprehensible diseases for which medicine has no cure. A double
+crown! Shall his be the crown of France also? Never! Ah! little did I
+think, Ruggieri, when I bestowed upon him my daughter Margaret's hand,
+and thus lured him and his abhorred party to the court to finish them
+with one blow, that Margaret of Valois would become a traitress to her
+own mother, and protect a husband whom she accepted so unwillingly!
+But Margaret is ambitious for her husband, although she loves him not,
+although she loves another: the two would wish to thwart her brothers
+of their birthright, that she might wear their crown on her own brow.
+Through her intervention, Henry of Navarre has escaped me. He has
+outlived the massacre of that night of triumph, when all his party
+perished; and now Charles loves him, and calls him 'upright, honest
+Henry,' and if I contend not with all the last remnants of my broken
+power, my foolish son, upon his death-bed, may place the regency in
+his hands, and deprive his scorned and ill-used mother of her rights.
+The regency! Ah! lies there the double crown? Ah! Ruggieri, Ruggieri,
+why can you only tell me thus far and no further?"
+
+"Madam," replied the wary astrologer, "the stars run in their slow
+unerring course. We cannot compel their path; we can only read their
+dictates."
+
+Catherine de Medicis rose and approached the window, through which she
+contemplated the face of the bright heavens.
+
+"Mysterious orbs of light," she said, stretching forth her arms--"ye
+who rule our destinies, roll on, roll on, and tarry not. Accomplish
+your great task of fate; but be it quickly, that I may know what
+awaits me in that secret scroll spread out above on which ye write the
+future. Let me learn the good, that I may be prepared to greet it--the
+ill, that I may know how to parry it."
+
+Strange was the compound of that credulous mind, which, whilst it
+sought in the stars the announcement of an inevitable fate, hoped to
+find in its own resources the means of avoiding it--which, whilst it
+listened to their supposed dictates as a slave, strove to command them
+as a mistress.
+
+"And the fourth horoscope that I have bid you draw?" said the Queen,
+returning to the astrologer. "How stands it?"
+
+"The star of your youngest son, the Duke of Alençon, is towering also
+to its culminating point," replied the old man, looking over the
+papers before him. "But it is nebulous and dim, and shines only by a
+borrowed light--that of another star which rises with it to the
+zenith. They both pursue the same path; and if the star of Alençon
+reach that house of glory to which it tends, that other star will
+shine with such a lustre as shall dim all other lights, however bright
+and glorious they now may be."
+
+"Ha! is it so?" said Catherine thoughtfully. "Alençon conspires also
+to catch the tottering crown which falls from the dying head of
+Charles. But he is too weak and wavering to pursue a steady purpose.
+He is led, Ruggieri--he is led. He is taught to believe that since his
+elder brother has chosen the crown of Poland, it is his to claim the
+throne which death will soon leave vacant. But he wants firmness of
+will--it is another that guides his feeble hand. That star which
+aspires to follow in the track of Alençon--I know it well, Ruggieri.
+It is that of the ambitious favourite of my youngest son, of Philip de
+la Mole. It is he who pushes him on. It is he who would see his master
+on the throne, in order to throne it in his place. He has that
+influence over Alençon which the mother possesses no longer; and were
+Alençon king, it would be Philip de la Mole who would rule the
+destinies of France, not Catherine de Medicis. Beneath that exterior
+of thoughtless levity, lie a bold spirit and an ardent ambition. He is
+an enemy not to be despised; and he shall be provided for. Alençon
+protects him--my foolish Margaret loves him--but there are still means
+to be employed which may curdle love to hate, and poison the secret
+cup of sympathy. They shall be employed. Ha! Alençon would be king,
+and Philip de la Mole would lord it over the spirits of the house of
+Medicis. But they must be bold indeed who would contend with
+Catherine. Pursue, Ruggieri, pursue. This star, which way does it
+tend?"
+
+"It aspires to the zenith, madam," replied the astrologer. "But, as I
+have said, upon the track there is a trail of blood."
+
+Catherine smiled.
+
+"My youngest son has already been here to consult you; I think you
+told me?" she said, with an enquiring look to the astrologer.
+
+"Among others, who have come disguised and masked, to seek to read
+their destinies in the skies, I have thought to recognise Monseigneur
+the Duke of Alençon," replied Ruggieri. "He was accompanied by a tall
+young man, of gay exterior and proud bearing."
+
+"It is the very man!" exclaimed the Queen. "And do they come again?"
+
+"I left their horoscope undetermined," replied the astrologer, "and
+they must come to seek an answer to my researches in the stars."
+
+"Let the stars lie, Ruggieri--do you hear?" pursued Catherine.
+"Whatever the stars may say, you must promise them every success in
+whatever enterprise they may undertake. You must excite their highest
+hopes. Push them on in their mad career, that their plans may be
+developed. Catherine will know how to crush them."
+
+"It shall be as your majesty desires," said the astrologer.
+
+As the Queen and the astrologer still conferred, a loud knocking at
+the outer gate caused them to pause. Steps were heard ascending the
+hollow-sounding staircase.
+
+"I will dismiss these importunate visitors," said Ruggieri.
+
+"No," said Catherine, "admit them; and if it be really they you
+expect, leave them alone after a time, and come, by the outer passage,
+to the secret cabinet: there will I be. I may have directions to give;
+and, at all events, the cabinet may prove useful, as it has already
+done."
+
+Impatient knockings now resounded upon the panels of the door, and the
+Queen-mother, hastily snatching up a black velvet mask and a thick
+black veil, which hung upon the back of her high carved chair, flung
+the latter over her head, so as to conceal her features almost as
+entirely as if she had worn the mask. Ruggieri, in the meantime, had
+pushed back a part of the panel of the oak walls, and when Catherine
+had passed through it into a little room beyond, again closed this
+species of secret door, so effectually that it would have been
+impossible to discover any trace of the aperture. The astrologer then
+went to open the outer door. The persons who entered, were two men
+whose faces were concealed with black velvet masks, commonly worn at
+the period both by men and women, as well for the purpose of disguise,
+as for that of preserving the complexion; their bearing, as well as
+their style of dress, proclaimed them to be young and of courtly
+habits.
+
+The first who entered was of small stature, and utterly wanting in
+dignity of movement; and, although precedence into the room seemed to
+have been given him by a sort of deference, he turned back again to
+look at his companion, with an evident hesitation of purpose, before
+he advanced fully into the apartment. The young man who followed him
+was of tall stature, and of manly but graceful bearing. His step was
+firm, and his head was carried high; whilst the small velvet cap
+placed jauntily on one side upon his head, the light brown curling
+hair of which was boldly pushed back from the broad forehead and
+temples, according to the fashion of the times, seemed disposed as if
+purposely to give evidence of a certain gaiety, almost recklessness,
+of character. The astrologer, after giving them admittance, returned
+to his table, and sitting down, demanded what might be their bidding
+at that hour of the night! At his words the smaller, but apparently
+the more important of the two personages, made a sign to his companion
+to speak; and the latter, advancing boldly to the table, demanded of
+the old man whether he did not know him.
+
+"Whether I know you or know you not, matters but little," replied the
+astrologer; "although few things can be concealed before the eye of
+science."
+
+At these words the smaller young man shuffled uneasily with his feet,
+and plucked at the cloak of his companion. Ruggieri continued--"But I
+will not seek to pierce the mystery of a disguise which can have no
+control over the ways of destiny. Whether I know you or not, I
+recognise you well. Already have you been here to enquire into the
+dark secrets of the future. I told you then, that we must wait to
+judge the movements of the stars. Would you know further now?"
+
+"That is the purpose of our coming," said the latter of the two young
+men, to whom the office of spokesman had been given. "We have come,
+although at this late hour of the night, because the matter presses on
+which we would know our fate."
+
+"Yes, the matter presses," replied the astrologer; "for I have read
+the stars, and I have calculated the chances of your destinies."
+
+The smaller personage pressed forward at these words, as if full of
+eager curiosity. The other maintained the same easy bearing that
+seemed his usual habit.
+
+The astrologer turned over a variety of mysterious papers, as if
+searching among them for the ciphers that he needed; then, consulting
+the pages of a book, he again traced several figures upon a parchment;
+and at length, after the seeming calculation of some minutes, he
+raised his head, and addressing himself to the smaller man, said--
+
+"You have an enterprise in hand, young man, upon which not only your
+own destinies and those of your companion, but of many thousands of
+your fellow creatures depend! Your enterprise is grand, your destiny
+is noble."
+
+The young men turned to look at each other; and he, who had as yet not
+broken silence, said, with an eager palpitating curiosity, although
+the tones of his voice were ill assured--
+
+"And what say the stars? Will it succeed?"
+
+"Go on, and prosper!" replied the astrologer. "A noble course lies
+before you. Go on, and success the most brilliant and the most prompt
+attends you."
+
+"Ha! there is, after all, some truth in your astrology, I am inclined
+to think!" said the first speaker gaily.
+
+"Why have you doubted, young man?" pursued the astrologer severely.
+"The stars err not--cannot err."
+
+"Pardon me, father," said the young man with his usual careless air.
+"I will doubt no further. And we shall succeed?"
+
+"Beyond your utmost hopes. Upon your brow, young man," continued the
+astrologer, addressing again the smaller person, "descends a circlet
+of glory, the brilliancy of which shall dazzle every eye. But stay,
+all is not yet done. The stars thus declare the will of destiny; but
+yet, in these inscrutable mysteries of fate, it is man's own will that
+must direct the course of events--it is his own hand must strike the
+blow. Fatality and human will are bound together as incomprehensibly
+as soul and body. You must still lend your hand to secure the
+accomplishment of your own destiny. But our mighty science shall
+procure for you so powerful a charm, that no earthly power can resist
+its influence. Stay, I will return shortly." So saying, Ruggieri rose
+and left the room by the door through which the young men had entered.
+
+"What does he mean?" said the shorter of the young men.
+
+"What matter, Monseigneur!" replied the other. "Does he not promise us
+unbounded success? I little thought myself, when I accompanied you
+hither, that my belief in this astrology would grow up so rapidly.
+Long live the dark science, and the black old gentleman who professes
+it, when they lighten our path so brilliantly!"
+
+"Let us breathe a little at our ease, until he returns," said he who
+appeared the more important personage of the two; and throwing himself
+into a chair, and removing his mask, he discovered the pale face of a
+young man, who might have been said to possess some beauty, in spite
+of the irregularity of his features, had not the expression of that
+face been marred by a pinched and peevish look of weakness and
+indecision.
+
+His companion followed his example in removing his mask, and the face
+thus revealed formed a striking contrast to that of the other young
+man. His complexion was of a clear pale brown, relieved by a flush of
+animated colour; his brow was fair and noble; his features were finely
+but not too strongly chiselled. A small dark mustache curled boldly
+upwards above a beautifully traced and smiling mouth, the character of
+which was at once resolute and gay, and strangely at variance with the
+expression of the dark grey eyes, which was more that of tenderness
+and melancholy. He remained standing before the other personage, with
+one hand on his hip, in an attitude at once full of ease and
+deference.
+
+"Did I not right, then, to counsel you as I have done in this matter,
+my lord duke," he said to the other young man, "since the astrologer,
+in whom you have all confidence, promises us so unbounded a success:
+and you give full credence to the announcement of the stars?"
+
+"Yes--yes, Philip," answered the Duke, reclining back in his chair,
+and rubbing his hands with a sort of internal satisfaction.
+
+"Then let us act at once," continued the young man called Philip. "The
+King cannot live many days--perhaps not many hours. There is no time
+to be lost. Henry of Anjou, your elder brother, is far away; the crown
+of Poland weighs upon his brow. You are present. The troops have been
+taught to love you. The Huguenot party have confidence in you. The
+pretensions of Henry of Navarre to the regency must give way before
+yours. All parties will combine to look upon you as the heir of
+Charles; and now the very heavens, the very stars above, seem to
+conspire to make you that which I would you should be. Your fortune,
+then, is in your own hands."
+
+"Yes. So it is!" replied the Duke.
+
+"Assemble, then, all those attached to your service or your person!"
+
+"I will."
+
+"Let your intention be known among the guards."
+
+"It shall."
+
+"As soon as the King shall have ceased to breathe, seize upon all the
+gates of the Louvre."
+
+"Yes," continued the Duke, although his voice, so eager the moment
+before, seemed to tremble at the thought of so much decision of
+action.
+
+"Declare yourself the Master of the kingdom in full parliament."
+
+"Yes," again replied the young Duke, more weakly. "But"----
+
+"But what--Monseigneur!" exclaimed his companion.
+
+"But," continued the Duke again, with hesitation, "if Henry, my
+brother, should return--if he should come to claim his crown. You may
+be sure that our mother, who cares for him alone, will have already
+sent off messengers to advertise him of Charles's danger, and bid him
+come!"
+
+"I know she has," replied Philip coolly. "But I have already taken
+upon myself, without Monseigneur's instructions, for which I could not
+wait, to send off a sure agent to intercept her courier, to detain him
+at any price, to destroy his despatches."
+
+"Philip! what have you done?" exclaimed the young Duke, in evident
+alarm. "Intercept my mother's courier! Dare to disobey my mother! My
+Mother! You do not know her then."
+
+"Not know her?" answered his companion. "Who in this troubled land of
+France does not know Catherine of Medicis, her artful wiles, her
+deadly traits of vengeance? Shake not your head, Monseigneur! You know
+her too. But, Charles no more, you will have the crown upon your
+brow--it will be yours to give orders: those who will dare to disobey
+you will be your rebel subjects. Act, then, as king. If she resist,
+give orders for her arrest!"
+
+"Arrest my Mother! Who would dare to do it?" said the Duke with agitation.
+
+"I."
+
+"Oh, no--no--La Mole! Never would I take upon myself"----
+
+"Take upon yourself to be a King, if you would be one," said the
+Duke's confidant, with energy.
+
+"We will speak more of this," hastily interposed the wavering Duke.
+"Hush! some one comes. It is this Ruggieri!"
+
+In truth the astrologer re-entered the room. In his hand he bore a
+small object wrapped in a white cloth, which he laid down upon the
+table; and then, turning to the young men, who had hastily reassumed
+their masks before he appeared, and who now stood before him, he
+said--
+
+"The sole great charm that can complete the will of destiny, and
+assure the success of your great enterprise, lies there before you.
+Have you no enemy whose death you most earnestly desire, to forward
+that intent?"
+
+The young men looked at each other; but they both answered, after the
+hesitation of a moment--
+
+"None!"
+
+"None, upon whose death depends that turn in the wheel of fate that
+should place you on its summit?"
+
+Both the young men were silent.
+
+"At all events," continued the cunning astrologer, "your destiny
+depends upon the action of your own hands. This action we must symbol
+forth in mystery, in order that your destiny be accomplished.
+Here--take this instrument," he pursued, producing a long gold pin of
+curious workmanship, which at need might have done the task of a
+dagger, "and pierce the white cloth that lies before you on the
+table."
+
+The Duke drew back, and refused the instrument thus offered to him.
+
+"Do I not tell you that the accomplishment of your brilliant destiny
+depends upon this act?" resumed Ruggieri.
+
+"I know not what this incantation may be," said the timid Duke. "Take
+it, Philip."
+
+But La Mole, little as he was inclined to the superstitious credulity
+of the times, seemed not more disposed than his master to lend his
+hand to an act which had the appearance of being connected with the
+rites of sorcery, and he also refused. On the reiterated assurances of
+the astrologer, however, that upon that harmless blow hung the
+accomplishment of their enterprise, and at the command of the Duke, he
+took the instrument into his hand, and approached it over the cloth.
+Again, however, he would have hesitated, and would have withdrawn; but
+the astrologer seized his hand before he was aware, and, giving it a
+sharp direction downwards, caused him to plunge the instrument into
+the object beneath the cloth. La Mole shuddered as he felt it
+penetrate into a soft substance, that, small as it was, gave him the
+idea of a human body; and that shudder ran through his whole frame as
+a presentiment of evil.
+
+"It is done," said the astrologer. "Go! and let the work of fate be
+accomplished."
+
+The pale foreheads of both the young men, visible above their masks,
+showed that they felt they had been led further in the work of
+witchcraft than was their intention; but they did not expostulate. It
+was the Duke who now first rallied, and throwing down a heavy purse of
+coin on the table before the astrologer, he called to his companion to
+follow him.
+
+Scarcely had the young men left the apartment, when the pannel by
+which Catherine of Medicis had disappeared, again opened, and she
+entered the room. Her face was pale, cold, and calm as usual.
+
+"You heard them, Ruggieri!" she said, with her customary bland smile.
+"Alençon would be king, and that ambitious fool drives him to snatch
+his brother's crown. The Queen-mother is to be arrested, and
+imprisoned as a rebel to her usurping son. A notable scheme, forsooth!
+Her courier to recall Henry of Anjou from Poland has been intercepted
+also! But that mischance must be remedied immediately. Ay! and
+avenged. Biragne shall have instant orders. With this proof in my
+possession, the life of that La Mole is mine," continued she, tearing
+in twain the white linen cloth, and displaying beneath it a small wax
+figure, bearing the semblance of a king, with a crown upon its head,
+in which the gold pin was still left sticking, by the manner in which
+this operation was performed. "Little treasure of vengeance, thou art
+mine! Ruggieri, man, that plot was acted to the life. Verily, verily,
+you were right. Charles dies; and troubled and harassed will be the
+_last hours of his reign_."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+   "There is so hot a summer in my bosom,
+    That all my bowels crumble up to dust;
+    I am a scribbled form, drawn with a pen
+    Upon a parchment; and against this fire
+    Do I shrink up."
+                                       SHAKSPEARE.
+
+   "Ambition is a great man's madness,
+    That is not kept in chains and close-pent rooms
+    But in fair lightsome lodgings, and is girt
+    With the wild noise of prattling visitants,
+    Which makes it lunatic beyond all cure."
+                                          WEBSTER.
+
+
+In a room belonging to the lower apartments of the old palace of the
+Louvre, reclined, in one of the large but incommodious chairs of the
+time, a young man, whose pale, haggard face, and prematurely furrowed
+brow, betrayed deep suffering both from moral and physical causes. The
+thick lids of his heavy dark eyes closed over them with languor, as if
+he no longer possessed the force to open them; whilst his pale thin
+lips were distorted as if with pain. His whole air bore the stamp of
+exhaustion of mind and body.
+
+The dress of this personage was dark and of an extreme plainness and
+simplicity, in times when the fashion of attire demanded so much
+display--it bore somewhat the appearance of a hunting costume. The
+room, on the contrary, betrayed a strange mixture of great richness
+and luxury with much confusion and disorder. The hangings of the doors
+were of the finest stuffs, and embroidered with gold and jewellery;
+tapestry of price covered the walls. A raised curtain of heavy and
+costly tissue discovered a small oratory, in which were visible a
+crucifix and other religious ornaments of great value. But in the
+midst of this display of wealth and greatness, were to be seen the
+most incongruous objects. Beneath a bench in a corner of the room was
+littered straw, on which lay several young puppies; in other choice
+nooks slept two or three great hounds. Hunting horns were hung against
+the tapestry, or lay scattered on the floor; an arquebuss rested
+against the oratory door-stall--the instrument of death beside the
+retreat of religious aspiration. Upon a standing desk, in the middle
+of the room, lay a book, the coloured designs of which showed that it
+treated of the "noble science of venerye," whilst around its pages
+hung the beads of a chaplet. Against the wall of the room opposite the
+reclining young man, stood one of the heavy chests used at that period
+for seats, as much as depositories of clothes and other objects; but
+the occupant of this seat was a strange one. It was a large ape, the
+light brown colour of whose hair bordered so much upon the green as to
+give the animal, in certain lights, a perfectly verdant aspect. It sat
+"moping and mowing" in sulky loneliness, as if its grimaces were
+intended to caricature the expression of pain which crossed the young
+man's face--a strange distorted mirror of that suffering form.
+
+After a time the young man moved uneasily, as if he had in vain sought
+in sleep some repose from the torment of mind and body, and snapped
+his fingers. His hounds came obedient to his call; but, after patting
+them for a moment on the head, he again drove them from him with all
+the pettish ill-temper of ennui, and rose, feebly and with difficulty,
+from his chair. He moved languidly to the open book, looked at it for
+a moment, then shook his head and turned away. Again he took up one of
+the hunting horns and applied it to his lips; but the breath which he
+could fetch from his chest produced no sound but a sort of low
+melancholy whine from the instrument; and he flung it down. Then
+dealing a blow at the head of the grinning ape, who first dived to
+avoid it, and then snapped at its master's fingers, he returned
+wearily to his chair, and sunk into it with a deep groan, which told
+of many things--regret--bitter ennui--physical pain and mental
+anguish. The tears rose for a moment to his heavy languid eyes, but he
+checked their influence with a sneer of his thin upper-lip; then
+calling "Congo," to his ape, he made the animal approach and took it
+on his knees; and the two--the man and the beast--grinned at each
+other in bitter mockery.
+
+In this occupation of the most grotesque despair, the young man was
+disturbed by another personage, who, raising the tapestry over a
+concealed door, entered silently and unannounced.
+
+"My Mother!" murmured the sufferer, in a tone of impatience, as he
+became aware of the presence of this person; and turning away his
+head, he began to occupy himself in caressing his ape.
+
+"How goes it with you, Charles? Do you feel stronger now?" said the
+mother, in a soft voice of the fondest cajolery, as she advanced with
+noiseless, gliding steps.
+
+The son gave no reply, and continued to play with the animal upon his
+knee, whilst a dark frown knitted his brow.
+
+"What say the doctors to your state to-day, my son?" resumed the
+female soothingly. As she approached still nearer, the ape, with a
+movement of that instinctive hate often observable in animals towards
+persons who do not like them, sprang at her with a savage grin, that
+displayed its sharp teeth, and would have bitten her hand had she not
+started back in haste. Her cold physiognomy expressed, however,
+neither anger nor alarm, as she quietly remarked to her son--
+
+"Remove that horrid animal, Charles: see how savage he is?"
+
+"And why should I remove Congo, mother?" rejoined Charles, with a
+sneer upon his lip; "he is the only friend you have left me."
+
+"Sickness makes you forgetful and unjust, my son," replied the Mother.
+
+"Yes, the only friend you have left me," pursued the son bitterly,
+"except my poor dogs. Have you not so acted in my name, that you have
+left me not one kindred soul to love me; that in the whole wide
+kingdom of France, there remains not a voice, much less a heart, to
+bless its miserable king?"
+
+"If you say that you have no friends," responded the Queen-mother,
+"you may speak more truly than you would. For they are but false
+friends; and real enemies, who have instilled into your mind the evil
+thoughts of a mother, who has worked only for your glory and your
+good."
+
+"No, not one," continued the young King, unheeding her, but dismissing
+at the same time the ape from his knee with a blow that sent him
+screaming and mouthing to his accustomed seat upon the chest. "Not
+one! Where is Perotte, my poor old nurse? She loved me--she was a real
+mother to me. She! And where is she now? Did not that deed of horror,
+to which you counselled me, to which you urged me almost by
+force--that order, which, on the fatal night of St Bartholomew, gave
+signal for the massacre of all her co-religionists, drive her from my
+side? Did she not curse me--me, who at your instigation caused the
+blood of her friends and kindred to be shed--and leave me, her
+nursling, her boy, her Charlot, whom she loved till then, with that
+curse upon her lips? And do they not say that her horror of him who
+has sucked her milk, and lain upon her bosom, and of his damning deed,
+has frenzied her brain, and rendered her witless? Poor woman!" And the
+miserable King buried his haggard face between his hands.
+
+"She was a wretched Huguenot, and no fitting companion and confidant
+for a Catholic and a king," said the Queen, in a tone of mildness,
+which contrasted strangely with the harshness of her words. "You
+should return thanks to all the blessed Saints, that she has willingly
+renounced that influence about your person, which could tend only to
+endanger the salvation of your soul."
+
+"My soul! Ay! who has destroyed it?" muttered Charles in a hollow
+tone.
+
+The Queen-mother remained silent, but an unusual fire, in which
+trouble was mixed with scorn and anger, shot from her eyes.
+
+"And have you not contrived to keep Henry of Navarre, my honest Henry,
+from my presence?" pursued the young King, after a pause, lifting up
+his heavy head from between his hands. "He was the only being you had
+left me still to love me; for my brothers hate me, both Anjou and
+Alençon--both wish me dead, and would wear my crown. And who was it,
+and for her own purposes, curdled the blood of the Valois in their
+veins until it rankled into a poison that might have befitted the
+Atrides of the tragedies of old? Henry of Navarre was the only
+creature that loved me still, and your policy and intrigues, madam,
+keep him from me, and so watch and harass his very steps in my own
+palace of the Louvre, where he is my guest, that never can I see him
+alone, or speak to him in confidence. He, too, deserts and neglects me
+now; and I am alone--alone, madam, with courtiers and creatures, who
+hate me too, it may be--alone, as a wretched orphan beggar by the
+way-side."
+
+"My policy, as well as what you choose to call my intrigues, my son,"
+rejoined the Queen, "have ever been directed to your interests and
+welfare. You are aware that Henry of Navarre has conspired against the
+peace of our realm, against your crown, may-be against your life.
+Would you condemn that care which would prevent the renewal of such
+misdeeds, when your own sister--when his wife--leagues herself in
+secret with your enemies!"
+
+"Ay! Margaret too!" muttered Charles with bitterness. "Was the list of
+the Atrides not yet complete?"
+
+"The dictates of my love and affection, of my solicitude for my son,
+and for his weal--such have been the main-springs of my intrigues,"
+pursued the mother in a cajoling tone.
+
+"The intrigues of the house of Medicis!" murmured the King, with a
+mocking laugh.
+
+"What would you have me to do more, my son?" continued the
+Queen-mother.
+
+"Nothing," replied Charles, "nothing but leave me--leave me, as others
+have done, to die alone!"
+
+"My son, I will leave you shortly, and if it so please our Blessed
+Virgin, to a little repose, and a better frame of mind," said
+Catherine of Medicis. "But I came to speak to you of matters of
+weight, and of such deep importance that they brook no delay."
+
+"I am unfitted for all matters of state--my head is weary, my limbs
+ache, my heart burns with a torturing fire--I cannot listen to you
+now, madam," pursued the King languidly; and then, seeing that his
+mother still stood motionless by his side, he added with more
+energy--"Am I then no more a king, madam, that, at my own command, I
+cannot even be left to _die_ in peace?"
+
+"It is of your health, your safety, your life, that I would speak,"
+continued Catherine of Medicis, unmoved. "The physicians have sought
+in vain to discover the real sources of the cruel malady that devours
+you; but there is no reason to doubt of your recovery, when the cause
+shall be known and removed."
+
+"And you, madam, should know, it would appear, better than my
+physicians the hidden origin of my sufferings!" said Charles, in a
+tone in which might be remarked traces of the bitterest irony. "Is it
+not so?" and he looked upon his mother with a deadly look of suspicion
+and mistrust.
+
+The Queen-mother started slightly at these words; but, after a moment,
+she answered in her usual bland tone of voice--
+
+"It is my solicitude upon this subject that now brings me hither."
+
+"I thank you for your solicitude," replied the King, with the same
+marked manner; "and so, doubtless, does my brother Anjou: you love him
+well, madam, and he is the successor of his childish brother."
+
+In spite of the command over herself habitually exercised by Catherine
+of Medicis, her pale brow grew paler still, and she slightly
+compressed her lips, to prevent their quivering, upon hearing the
+horrible insinuation conveyed in these words. The suspicions
+prevalent at the time, that the Queen-mother had employed the aid of a
+slow poison to rid herself of a son who resisted her authority, in
+order to make room upon the throne for another whom she loved, had
+reached her ears, and, guilty or guiltless, she could not but perceive
+that her own son himself was not devoid of these suspicions. After the
+struggle of a moment with herself, however, during which the drops of
+perspiration stood upon her pale temples, she resumed----
+
+"I love my children all; and I would save your life, Charles. My
+ever-watchful affection for you, my son, has discovered the existence
+of a hellish plot against your life."
+
+"More plots, more blood!--what next, madam?" interrupted, with a
+groan, the unhappy King.
+
+"What the art of the physician could not discover," pursued his
+mother, "I have discovered. The strange nature of this unknown
+malady--these pains, this sleeplessness, this agony of mind and body,
+without a cause, excited my suspicions; and now I have the proofs in
+my own hands. My son, my poor son! you have been the victim of the
+foulest witchcraft and sorcery of your enemies."
+
+"Enemies abroad! enemies at home!" cried Charles, turning himself
+uneasily in his chair. "Did I not say so, madam?"
+
+"But the vile sorcerer has been discovered by the blessed intervention
+of the saints," continued Catherine; "and let him be once seized,
+tried, and executed for his abominable crime, your torments, my son,
+will cease for ever. You will live to be well, strong, happy."
+
+"Happy!" echoed the young King with bitterness; "happy! no, there the
+sorcery has gone too far for remedy." He then added after a pause,
+"And what is this plot? who is this sorcerer of whom you speak?"
+
+"Trouble not yourself with these details, my son; they are but of
+minor import," replied Catherine. "You are weak and exhausted. The
+horrid tale would too much move your mind. Leave every thing in my
+hands, and I will rid you of your enemies."
+
+"No, no. There has been enough of ill," resumed her son. "That he
+should be left in peace is all the miserable King now needs."
+
+"But your life, my son. The safety of the realm depends upon the
+extermination of the works of the powers of darkness. Would you, a
+Catholic Prince, allow the evil-doer of the works of Satan to roam
+about at will, and injure others as he would have destroyed his king?"
+pursued the Queen-mother.
+
+"Well, we will speak more of this at another opportunity. Leave me
+now, madam, for I am very weak both in mind and body; and I thank you
+for your zeal and care."
+
+"My son, I cannot leave you," persisted Catherine, "until you shall
+have signed this paper." She produced from the species of reticule
+suspended at her side a parchment already covered with writing. "It
+confers upon me full power to treat in this affair, and bring the
+offender to condign punishment. You shall have no trouble in this
+matter; and through your mother's care, your enemies shall be purged
+from the earth, and you yourself once more free, and strong and able
+shortly to resume the helm of state, to mount your horse, to cheer on
+your hounds. Come, my son, sign this paper."
+
+"Leave me--leave me in peace," again answered Charles. "I am sick at
+heart, and I would do no ill even to my bitterest enemy, be he only an
+obscure sorcerer, who has combined with the prince of darkness himself
+to work my death."
+
+"My son--it cannot be," said Catherine, perseveringly--for she was
+aware that by persisting alone could she weary her son to do at last
+her will. "Sign this order for prosecuting immediately the trial of
+the sorcerer. It is a duty you owe to your country, for which you
+should live, as much as to yourself. Come!" and, taking him by the
+arm, she attempted to raise him from his chair.
+
+"Must I ever be thus tormented, even in my hours of suffering?" said
+the King with impatience. "Well, be it so, madam. Work your will, and
+leave me to my repose."
+
+He rose wearily from his chair, and going to a table on which were
+placed materials for writing, hastily signed the paper laid before him
+by his mother; and then, fetching a deep respiration of relief, like
+a school-boy after the performance of some painful task, he flung
+himself on to the chest beside the ape, and, turning his back to his
+mother, began to make his peace with the sulky animal.
+
+Catherine of Medicis permitted a cold smile of satisfaction to wander
+over her face; and after greeting again her son, who paid her no more
+heed than might be expressed by an impatient shrug of the shoulders,
+indicative of his desire to be left in peace, again lifted the
+hangings, and passed through the concealed door. The suffering King,
+whose days of life were already numbered, and fast approaching their
+utmost span, although his years were still so few, remained again
+alone with his agony and his ennui.
+
+Behind the door by which the Queen-mother had left her son's apartment
+was a narrow stone corridor, communicating with a small winding
+staircase, by which she mounted to her own suite of rooms upon the
+first floor; but, when she had gained the summit, avoiding the secret
+entrance opening into her own chamber, she proceeded along one of the
+many hidden passages by which she was accustomed to gain not only
+those wings of the palace inhabited by her different children, but
+almost every other part of the building, unseen and unannounced.
+Stopping at last before a narrow door, forming a part of the
+stone-work of the corridor, she pulled it towards her, and again
+lifting up a tapestry hanging, entered, silently and stealthily, a
+small room, which appeared a sort of inner cabinet to a larger
+apartment. She was about to pass through it, when some papers
+scattered upon a table caught her eye, and moving towards them with
+her usual cat-like step, she began turning them over with the
+noiseless adroitness of one accustomed to such an employment.
+Presently, however, she threw them down, as if she had not found in
+them, at once, what she sought, or was fearful of betraying her
+presence to the persons whose voices might be heard murmuring in the
+adjoining room; and, advancing with inaudible tread, she paused to
+listen for a minute. The persons, however, spoke low; and finding that
+her _espionage_ profited nothing to her, the royal spy passed on and
+entered the apartment.
+
+In a chair, turning his back to her, sat a young man at a table, upon
+which papers and maps were mixed with jewellery, articles of dress,
+feathers and laces. A pair of newly-fashioned large gilt spurs lay
+upon a manuscript which appeared to contain a list of names; a naked
+rapier, the hilt of which was of curious device and workmanship, was
+carelessly thrust through a paper covered with notes of music. The
+whole formed a strange mixture, indicative at once of pre-occupation
+and listless _insouciance_, of grave employment and utter frivolity.
+Before this seated personage stood another, who appeared to be
+speaking to him earnestly and in low tones. At the sight of Catherine,
+as she advanced, however, the latter person exclaimed quickly,
+
+"My lord duke, her majesty the Queen-mother!"
+
+The other person rose hastily, and in some alarm, from his chair;
+whilst his companion took this opportunity to increase the confusion
+upon the table, by pushing one or two other papers beneath some of the
+articles of amusement or dress.
+
+Without any appearance of remarking the embarrassment that was
+pictured upon the young man's face, Catherine advanced to accept his
+troubled greeting with a mild smile of tenderness, and said--
+
+"Alençon, my son, I have a few matters of private business, upon which
+I would confer with you--and alone."
+
+The increasing embarrassment upon the face of the young Duke must have
+been visible to any eye but that which did not choose to see it. After
+a moment's hesitation, however, in which the habit of obeying
+implicitly his mother's authority seemed to subdue his desire to avoid
+a conference with her, he turned and said unwillingly to his
+companion,
+
+"Leave us, La Mole."
+
+The Duke's favourite cast a glance of encouragement and caution upon
+his master; and bowing to the Queen-mother, who returned his homage
+with her kindest and most re-assuring smile of courtesy and
+benevolence, and an affable wave of the hand, he left the apartment.
+
+Catherine took the seat from which her son had risen; and leaving him
+standing before her in an attitude which ill-repressed trouble
+combined with natural awkwardness of manner to render peculiarly
+ungainly, she seemed to study for a time, and with satisfaction, his
+confusion and constraint. But then, begging him to be seated near her,
+she commenced speaking to him of various matters, of his own pleasures
+and amusements, of the newest dress, of the fêtes interrupted by the
+King's illness, of the effect which this illness, and the supposed
+danger of Charles, had produced upon the jarring parties in the state;
+of the audacity of the Huguenots, who now first began, since the
+massacre of St Bartholomew's day, again to raise their heads, and
+cause fresh disquietude to the government. And thus proceeding step by
+step to the point at which she desired to arrive, the wily
+Queen-mother resembled the cat, which creeps slowly onwards, until it
+springs at last with one bound upon its victim.
+
+"Alas!" she said, with an air of profound sorrow, "so quickly do
+treachery and ingratitude grow up around us, that we no longer can
+discern who are our friends and who our enemies. We bestow favours;
+but it is as if we gave food to the dog, who bites our fingers as he
+takes it. We cherish a friend; and it is an adder we nurse in our
+bosoms. That young man who left us but just now, the Count La Mole--he
+cannot hear us surely;"--the Duke of Alençon assured her, with
+ill-concealed agitation, that his favourite was out of ear-shot--"that
+young man--La Mole!--you love him well, I know, my son; and you know
+not that it is a traitor you have taken to your heart."
+
+"La Mole--a traitor! how? impossible!" stammered the young Duke.
+
+"Your generous and candid heart comprehends not treachery in those it
+loves," pursued his mother; "but I have, unhappily, the proofs in my
+own power. Philip de la Mole conspires against your brother's crown."
+
+The Duke of Alençon grew deadly pale; and he seemed to support himself
+with difficulty; but he stammered with faltering tongue,
+
+"Conspires? how? for whom? Surely, madam, you are most grossly
+misinformed?"
+
+"Unhappily, my son," pursued Catherine--"and my heart bleeds to say
+it--I have it no longer in my power to doubt."
+
+"Madam, it is false," stammered again the young Duke, rising hastily
+from his chair, with an air of assurance which he did not feel. "This
+is some calumny."
+
+"Sit down, my son, and listen to me for a while," said the
+Queen-mother with a bland, quiet smile. "I speak not unadvisedly. Be
+not so moved."
+
+Alençon again sat down unwillingly, subdued by the calm superiority of
+his mother's manner.
+
+"You think this Philip de la Mole," she continued, "attached solely to
+your interests, for you have showered upon him many and great favours;
+and your unsuspecting nature has been deceived. Listen to me, I pray
+you. Should our poor Henry never return from Poland, it would be yours
+to mount the throne of France upon the death of Charles. Nay, look not
+so uneasy. Such a thought, if it had crossed your mind, is an honest
+and a just one. How should I blame it? And now, how acts this Philip
+de la Mole--this man whom you have advanced, protected, loved almost
+as a brother? Regardless of all truth or honour, regardless of his
+master's fortunes, he conspires with friends and enemies, with
+Catholic and Huguenot, to place Henry of Navarre upon the throne!"
+
+"La Mole conspires for Henry of Navarre! Impossible!" cried the Duke.
+
+"Alas! my son, it is too truly as I say," pursued the Queen-mother;
+"the discoveries that have been made reveal most clearly the whole
+base scheme. Know you not that this upstart courtier has dared to love
+your sister Margaret, and that the foolish woman returns his
+presumptuous passion? It is she who has connived with her ambitious
+lover to see a real crown encircle her own brow. She has encouraged
+Philip de la Mole to conspire with her husband of Navarre, to grasp
+the throne of France upon the death of Charles. You are ignorant of
+this, my son; your honourable mind can entertain no such baseness. I
+am well aware that, had you been capable of harbouring a thought of
+treachery towards your elder brother--and I well know that you are
+not--believe me, the wily Philip de la Mole had rendered you his dupe,
+and blinded you to the true end of his artful and black designs."
+
+"Philip a traitor!" exclaimed the young Duke aghast.
+
+"A traitor to his king, his country, and to you, my son--to you, who
+have loved him but too well," repeated the Queen-mother.
+
+"And it was for this purpose that he"--commenced the weak Duke of
+Alençon. But then, checking the words he was about to utter, he added,
+clenching his hands together--"Oh! double, double traitor!"
+
+"I knew that you would receive the revelation of this truth with
+horror," pursued Catherine. "It is the attribute of your generous
+nature so to do; and I would have spared you the bitter pang of
+knowing that you have lavished so much affection upon a villain. But
+as orders will be immediately given for his arrest, it was necessary
+you should know his crime, and make no opposition to the seizure of
+one dependent so closely upon your person."
+
+More, much more, did the artful Queen-mother say to turn her weak and
+credulous son to her will, and when she had convinced him of the
+certain treachery of his favourite, she rose to leave him, with the
+words--
+
+"The guards will be here anon. Avoid him until then. Leave your
+apartment; speak to him not; or, if he cross your path, smile on him
+kindly, thus--and let him never read upon your face the thought that
+lurks within, 'Thou art a traitor.'"
+
+Alençon promised obedience to his mother's injunctions.
+
+"I have cut off thy right hand, my foolish son," muttered Catherine to
+herself as she departed by the secret door. "Thou art too powerless to
+act alone, and I fear thee now no longer. Margaret must still be dealt
+with; and thou, Henry of Navarre, if thou aspirest to the regency, the
+struggle is between thee and Catherine. Then will be seen whose star
+shines with the brightest lustre!"
+
+When Philip de la Mole returned to his master's presence, he found the
+Duke pacing up and down the chamber in evident agitation; and the only
+reply given to his words was a smile of so false and constrained a
+nature, that it almost resembled a grin of mockery.
+
+The Duke of Alençon was as incapable of continued dissimulation, as he
+was incapable of firmness of purpose; and when La Mole again
+approached him, he frowned sulkily, and, turning his back upon his
+favourite, was about to quit the room.
+
+"Shall I accompany my lord duke?" said La Mole, with his usual
+careless demeanour, although he saw the storm gathering, and guessed
+immediately from what quarter the wind had blown, but not the awful
+violence of the hurricane.
+
+"No--I want no traitors to dog my footsteps," replied Alençon, unable
+any longer to restrain himself, in spite of his mother's instructions.
+
+"There are no traitors here," replied his favourite proudly. "I could
+have judged, my lord, that the Queen-mother had been with you, had I
+not seen her enter your apartment. Yes--there has been treachery on
+foot, it seems, but not where you would say. Speak boldly, my lord,
+and truly. Of what does she accuse me?"
+
+"Traitor! double traitor!" exclaimed the Duke, bursting into a fit of
+childish wrath, "who hast led me on with false pretences of a
+Crown--who hast made _me_--thy master and thy prince--the dupe of thy
+base stratagems; who hast blinded me, and gulled me, whilst thy real
+design was the interest of another!"
+
+"Proceed, my lord duke," said La Mole calmly. "Of what other does my
+lord duke speak?"
+
+"Of Henry of Navarre, for whom you have conspired at Margaret's
+instigation," replied Alençon, walking uneasily up and down the room,
+and not venturing to look upon his accused favourite, as if he
+himself had been the criminal, and not the accuser.
+
+"Ah! thither flies the bolt, does it?" said La Mole, with score. "But
+it strikes not, my lord. If I may claim your lordship's attention to
+these papers for a short space of time, I should need no other answer
+to this strange accusation, so strangely thrown out against me." And
+he produced from his person several documents concealed about it, and
+laid them before the Duke, who had now again thrown himself into his
+chair. "This letter from Condé--this from La Brèche--these from others
+of the Protestant party. Cast your eyes over them? Of whom do they
+speak? Is it of Henry of Navarre? Or is it of the Duke of Alençon?
+Whom do they look to as their chief and future King?"
+
+"Philip, forgive me--I have wronged you," said the vacillating Duke,
+as he turned over these documents from members of the conspiracy that
+had been formed in his own favour. "But, gracious Virgin!--I now
+remember my mother knows all--she is fearfully incensed against you.
+She spoke of your arrest."
+
+"Already!" exclaimed La Mole. "Then it is time to act! I would not
+that it had been so soon. But Charles is suffering--he can no longer
+wield the sceptre. Call out the guard at once. Summon your fiends.
+Seize on the Louvre."
+
+"No--no--it is too late," replied the Duke; "my mother knows all, I
+tell you. No matter whether for me or for another, but you have dared
+to attack the rights of my brother of Anjou--and that is a crime she
+never will forgive."
+
+"Then act at once," continued his favourite, with energy. "We have
+bold hearts and ready arms. Before to-night the Regency shall be
+yours; at Charles's death the Crown."
+
+"No, no--La Mole--impossible--I cannot--will not," said Alençon in
+despair.
+
+"Monseigneur!" cried La Mole, with a scorn he could not suppress.
+
+"You must fly, Philip--you must fly!" resumed his master.
+
+"No--since you will not act, I will remain and meet my fate!"
+
+"Fly, fly, I tell you! You would compromise me, were you to remain,"
+repeated the Duke. "Every moment endangers our safety."
+
+"If such be your command," replied La Mole coldly, "rather than
+sacrifice a little of your honour, I will fly."
+
+"They will be here shortly," continued Alençon hurriedly. "Here, take
+this cloak--this jewelled hat. They are well known to be mine. Wrap
+the cloak about you. Disguise your height--your gait. They will take
+you for me. The corridors are obscure--you may cross the outer court
+undiscovered--and once in safety, you will join our friends.
+Away--away!"
+
+La Mole obeyed his master's bidding, but without the least appearance
+of haste or fear.
+
+"And I would have made that man a king!" he murmured to himself, as,
+dressed in the Duke's cloak and hat, he plunged into the tortuous and
+gloomy corridors of the Louvre. "That man a king! Ambition made me
+mad. Ay! worse than mad--a fool!"
+
+The Duke of Alençon watched anxiously from his window, which dominated
+the outer court of the Louvre, for the appearance of that form,
+enveloped in his cloak; and when he saw La Mole pass unchallenged the
+gate leading without, he turned away from the window with an
+exclamation of satisfaction.
+
+A minute afterwards the agents of the Queen-mother entered his
+apartment.
+
+
+
+
+THE SCOTTISH HARVEST.
+
+
+The approach of winter is always a serious time. When the fields are
+cleared, and the produce of our harvest has been gathered into the
+yard and the barn, we begin to hold a general count and reckoning with
+the earth, and to calculate what amount of augmented riches we have
+drawn from the bosom of the soil. When the investigation proves
+satisfactory, the result is but slightly recorded. Our ancestors, with
+just piety and gratitude, were accustomed to set apart whole days for
+thanksgiving to the Almighty Being who had blessed the labours of the
+year; we--to our shame be it said--have departed from the reverent
+usage. We take a good season as if it were no more than our appointed
+due--a bad one comes upon us with all the terrors of a panic.
+
+But there are seasons frequently occurring which vary between the one
+and the other extreme; and these are they which give rise to the most
+discussion. It is unfortunately the tactics, if not the interest, of
+one great party in the nation, to magnify every season of scarcity
+into a famine for the purpose of promoting their own cherished
+theories. A bad August and an indifferent September are subjects of
+intense interest to your thorough-paced corn-law repealer; not that we
+believe the man has an absolute abstract joy in the prospect of coming
+scarcity--we acquit him of that--but he sees, or thinks he sees, a
+combination of events which, erelong, must realize his darling theory,
+and his sagacity, as a speculative politician, is at stake. Therefore,
+he is always ready, upon the slightest apprehension of failure, to
+demand, with most turbulent threat, the immediate opening of the
+ports, in the hope that, once opened, they may never be closed again.
+
+Our original intention was not to discuss the corn-law question in the
+present article. We took up the pen for the simple purpose of showing
+that, so far as Scotland is concerned, a most unnecessary alarm has
+been raised with regard to the produce of the harvest; and we have not
+the slightest doubt that the same exaggeration has been extended to
+the sister country. Of course, if we can prove this, it will follow as
+a matter of deduction, that no especial necessity exists for opening
+the ports at present; and we shall further strengthen our position by
+reference to the prices of bonded grain. We shall not, however,
+conclude, without a word or two regarding the mischievous theories
+which, if put into execution, would place this country at the mercy of
+a foreign power; and we entreat the attention of our readers the more,
+because already our prospective position has become the subject of
+intense interest on the Continent.
+
+It is a question of such immense importance, that we have thought it
+our duty to consult with one of the best-informed persons on the
+subject of practical agriculture in Scotland, or, indeed, in the
+United Kingdom. Our authority for the following facts, as to the
+results of the harvest in the North, is Mr Stephens, the author of
+_The Book of the Farm_. His opinions, and the results of his
+observation, have kindly been communicated to us in letters, written
+during the first fortnight in November; and we do not think that we
+can confer upon the public a greater service than by laying extracts
+from these before them. They may tend, if duly weighed and considered,
+to relieve the apprehensions of those who have taken alarm at the very
+commencement of the cry. Our conviction is, that the alarm is not only
+premature but unreasonable, and that the grain-produce of this year is
+rather above than below the ordinary average. We shall consider the
+potato question separately: in the meantime let us hear Mr Stephens
+on the subject of the quantity of the harvest.
+
+
+QUANTITY OF GRAIN-CROP.
+
+"I am quite satisfied in my own mind, from observation and
+information, that a greater quantity of grain convertible into bread
+has been derived from this harvest than from the last. Both oats and
+barley are a heavy crop; indeed oats are the bulkiest crop I ever
+remember to have seen in the higher districts of this country. The
+straw is not only long, but is strong in the reed, and thick in the
+ground; and notwithstanding all the rain, both barley and oats were
+much less laid than might have been expected. In regard to wheat, all
+the good soils have yielded well--the inferior but indifferently.
+There is a much greater diversity in the wheat than in barley and
+oats. The straw of wheat is long, and it is also strong; but still it
+was more laid than either oats or barley, and wherever it was laid the
+crop will be very deficient. As to the colour of all sorts of grain,
+it is much brighter than the farmers had anticipated, and there is no
+sprouted grain this year.
+
+Let me relate a few instances of be yield of the crop. I must premise
+that the results I am about to give are derived from the best
+cultivated districts, and that no returns of yield have yet been had
+from the upper and later districts. At the same time I have no reason
+to suppose that these, when received, will prove in any way
+contradictory. In East Lothian two fields of wheat have been tried, in
+not the best soil; and the one has yielded 4-1/2, and the other very
+nearly 5 quarters, per Scotch acre. Before being cut, the first one
+was estimated at 2-1/2, and the second at 4-1/2 quarters. The grain in
+both cases is good.
+
+In Mid-Lothian, one farmer assures himself, from trials, that he will
+reap 8 quarters of wheat per Scotch acre of good quality. And another
+says, that, altogether, he never had so great a crop since he was a
+farmer.
+
+In West Lothian, two farmers have thrashed some wheat, and the yield
+is 8 quarters per Scotch acre, of good quality.
+
+In the best district of Roxburghshire the wheat will yield well; while
+a large field of wheat, in Berwickshire, that was early laid on
+account of the weakness of the straw, which was too much forced by the
+high condition of the soil, will scarcely pay the cost of reaping.
+This, however, is but a single isolated instance, for a farmer in the
+same county has put in 73 ordinary-sized stacks, whereas his usual
+number is about 60.
+
+In the east of Forfarshire, the harvest is represented to me as being
+glorious; while in the west, there has not been a better crop of every
+thing for many years. The accounts from Northumberland, from two or
+three of my friends who farm there extensively, confirm the preceding
+statements, in regard to the bulk and general yield of the corn crop.
+
+I may also mention, that the samples of wheat, and oats, and barley,
+presented at the Highland and Agricultural Society's Show at Dumfries,
+along with the grain in the straw, were really admirable.
+
+With all these attestations from so many parts of the country, that
+are known to be good corn districts, I cannot doubt that the crop is a
+good one on good soils."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+So much for the quantity, which, after all, is the main consideration.
+The above account certainly gives no indications of famine, or even
+scarcity. It contains the general character of the weight of the
+harvest in the principal corn-growing districts of Scotland, and we
+have no reason whatever to suppose that worse fortune has attended the
+results of the husbandry in England. The next consideration is the
+
+
+QUALITY OF THE CROP
+
+"Not the entire crop, but most of it, is inferior in quality to that
+of last year. The barley and oats are both plump and heavy, but there
+is a slight roughness about them; and yet the weights in some cases of
+both are extraordinary. Potato oats were shown at Dumfries 48lb per
+bushel--3lb above the ordinary weight. Barley has been presented in
+the Edinburgh market every week as heavy as 56lb per quarter--about
+3lb more than the ordinary weight. All the samples of wheat I have
+seen in Leith in the hands of an eminent corn-merchant, weighed from
+60lb to 63lb per bushel, and it has been as high as 66lb in the
+Edinburgh market. I also saw samples of Essex wheat above 60lb, as
+well as good wheat from Lincolnshire.
+
+Now such weights could not be indicated by grain at the end of a wet
+harvest, unless it were of good quality.
+
+The quality is much diversified, especially in wheat; some of it not
+weighing above 48lb per bushel. The winnowings from all the grains
+will be proportionally large; although, in the case of barley and
+oats, had every pickle attained maturity, the crop would probably have
+exceeded the extraordinary one of 1815. But though heavy winnowings
+entail decided loss to the farmer, yet human beings will not be the
+greatest sufferers by them; the loss will chiefly fall on the poor
+work-horses, as they will be made to eat the light instead of the good
+corn, which latter will be reserved for human food. The light oats
+will no doubt be given to horses in larger quantities than good corn,
+and the light barley will be boiled for them in mashes probably every
+night.
+
+The beans are a heavy crop in _straw_ every where; and bean-straw,
+when well won, is as good for horses in winter as hay; while in
+certain districts, such as on the Border, the beans will also be good.
+
+With all these facts before me, I cannot make myself believe that we
+are to experience any thing approaching to the privation of famine, so
+far as the grain crop is concerned."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Our practical experience in these matters is so limited, that we feel
+diffident in adding any thing to these remarks of Mr Stephens. We may,
+however, be permitted to express a doubt whether the average quality
+of the crop has yet been satisfactorily ascertained. It is well known
+that the farmer rarely brings his best wheat into the earliest market,
+because it is his interest to thrash out that part of the crop which
+may have sustained a partial damage, as soon as possible; and in these
+circumstances it usually follows, that the worst wheat is first
+exposed for sale. In like manner he wishes to dispose of his inferior
+barley first. In regard to oats, the inferior portions find
+consumption at home by the horses. In ordinary seasons, any wheat or
+barley that may have shown symptoms of heating in the stacks are first
+presented at market; but in this season, when there is no heated
+grain--thanks to the low temperature and the precautions used in
+stacking--the high prices have tempted the farmers to thrash both
+wheat and barley earlier than usual, in order to meet the demands for
+rent and wages at Martinmas--a term which, owing to the lateness of
+the season, followed close on the termination of the harvest. This
+peculiarity of the season may, perhaps, account for the large supplies
+of wheat presented for some weeks past at Mark Lane--to the extent, we
+understand, of from 30,000 to 40,000 quarters more than last year at
+the same period. It is more than probable that the largest proportion
+of the land in fallow has been sown with old wheat, as it was early
+ascertained that the harvest would be unusually late. There is always
+more bare fallow in England than in Scotland, and the old wheat having
+been thus disposed of, the earlier portion of the new grain was
+brought to market, and not appropriated for its usual purpose. We
+must, however, conclude, that the crop--at all events the wheat--is
+inferior to that of former years. This has generally been attributed
+to the wetness of the season, in which view our correspondent does not
+altogether concur; and we are glad to observe that on one important
+matter--namely, the fitness of this year's grain for seed--his
+opinions are decidedly favourable.
+
+
+CAUSE OF INFERIOR QUALITY OF WHEAT.
+
+"I am of opinion, that the inferiority of the wheat in poor lands,
+both as regards quantity and quality, has not arisen from the wetness
+of the season, but from the _very low degree of temperature_ which
+prevailed at the blooming season in the end of June, and which
+prevented the pollen coming to maturity, and therefore interfered with
+the proper fecundation of the plant. I observed that, during all that
+time, the rain did not fall in so large quantities as afterwards, but
+the thermometer averaged so low as from 48° to 52°, even during the
+day, and there was a sad want of sunshine. And it is an ascertained
+fact, that wheat will _not fecundate at all_ in a temperature which
+does not exceed 45°, accompanied with a gloomy atmosphere. This theory
+of the influence of a low temperature also accounts for the quantity
+of _light_ wheat this year; for the side of the ear that was exposed
+to the cold breeze which blew constantly from the north-east during
+the period of blooming, would experience a more chilly atmosphere than
+the other side, which was comparatively sheltered, and therefore its
+fecundation would be most interfered with.
+
+I may mention a peculiar characteristic of this year, if we take into
+consideration the wetness of the season; which is, that scarcely a
+sprouted ear of corn is to be found any where, notwithstanding that
+the crop was laid in many instances. This immunity from an evil which
+never fails to render grain, so affected, useless for human food, has
+no doubt been secured by the _low temperature of the season_. It was
+an observed fact, that immediately after the falls of rain, whether
+great or moderate, a firm, drying, cool breeze always sprang up, which
+quickly dried the standing and won the cut corn at the same time; and
+the consequence has been, that the entire crop has been secured in the
+stack-yard in a safe state. All the kinds of grain, therefore, may be
+regarded as being in a _sound_ state; and, on that account, even the
+lighter grains will be quite fit for seed next year."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The point on which the nation at large is principally interested, is,
+of course, the price of bread. It is quite evident that the cost of
+manufactured flour ought, in all cases, to remain in just proportion
+with the value of the raw material. Unfortunately that proportion is
+not always maintained. The baker is a middleman between the farmer and
+the public, between the producing and the consuming classes. Amongst
+those who follow that very necessary trade, there exists a combination
+which is not regulated by law; and the consequence is, that, whenever
+a scarcity is threatened, the bakers raise the price of the loaf at
+pleasure, and on no fixed principle corresponding with the price of
+corn. Few persons are aware at what rate the quartern loaf _ought to
+be sold_ when wheat is respectively at 50s., 60s., or 70s. per
+quarter: they are, however, painfully sensitive when they are
+subjected to an arbitrary rise of bread and their natural conclusion
+is, that they are taxed on account of the dearness of the grain. The
+number of those who buy grain or who study its fluctuations, is very
+small; but every one uses bread, and the monthly account of the baker
+is a sure memento of its price. Let us see how the middle functionary
+has behaved.
+
+
+WHY IS BREAD SO DEAR?
+
+"The price of bread is very high already, and is not likely to fall;
+and the reason a baker would assign for this is the high price of
+wheat--a very plausible reason, and to which most people would too
+good-naturedly assent; but examine the particulars of the case, and
+the reason adduced will be found based on a fallacy. During all the
+last year, the aggregate average price of wheat never exceeded 56s. a
+quarter, and in that time the price of the 4lb loaf was 5-1/2d.; at
+least I paid no more for it with ready money. The highest mark that
+wheat has yet attained in this market, is 88s. per quarter, and it is
+notorious that this market has, for the present year, been the dearest
+throughout the kingdom. As 10s. a quarter makes a difference of 1d. in
+the 4lb loaf, the loaf, according to this scale--which, be it
+remarked, is of the bakers' own selection--should be at 8-1/2d. when
+the wheat is at 88s. Can you, nevertheless, believe that, _whilst the
+present price of bread_ is 8-1/2d. _the loaf_ is made wholly of wheat
+which cost the bakers 88s. the quarter? The bakers tell you they
+always buy the best wheat, and yet, though they are the largest buyers
+in the wheat market, the aggregate average of the kingdom did not
+exceed 58s. 6d. on the 8th November. The truth is, the bakers are
+trying to make the most they can; and they are not to blame, provided
+their gains were not imputed to the farmers. But we all know, that
+when bread gets inordinately high in price, clamour is raised against
+_dear wheat_--that is, against the farmer--and this again is made the
+pretext for _a free trade in corn_; whilst the _high price secured to
+the baker by the privilege of his trade_ is left unblamed and
+unscathed."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Had the Court of Session thought proper to retain in observance the
+powers to which it succeeded after the abolition of the Privy Council,
+and which for some time it executed, we certainly should have applied
+to their Lordships for an Act of Sederunt to regulate the proceedings
+of Master Bakers. But, as centralisation has not even spared us an
+humble Secretary, we must leave our complaint for consideration in a
+higher quarter. Our correspondent, however, is rather too charitable
+in assuming that the bakers are not to blame. We cannot, for the life
+of us, understand why they are permitted to augment the price of
+bread, the great commodity of life, at this enormous ratio, in
+consequence of the rise of corn. Surely some enactment should be
+framed, by which the price of the loaf should be kept in strict
+correspondence with the average price of grain, and some salutary
+check put upon a monopoly, which, we are convinced, has often afforded
+a false argument against the agricultural interests of the country.
+
+Such we believe to be the true state of the grain crop throughout the
+kingdom generally. How, from such a state of things, any valid
+argument can be raised for opening the ports at this time, we are
+totally at a loss to conceive. The only serious feature connected with
+the present harvest, is the partial failure of the potato crop, to
+which we shall presently refer. But, so far as regards corn, we
+maintain that there is no real ground for alarm; and further, there is
+this important consideration connected with the late harvest, which
+should not be ungratefully disregarded, that two months of the grain
+season have already passed, and the new crop remains comparatively
+untouched, so that it will have to supply only ten months' consumption
+instead of twelve: and should the next harvest be an early one, which
+we have reason to expect after this late one, the time bearing on the
+present crop will be still more shortened. Nor should the fact be
+overlooked, that two months' consumption is equal to 2,000,000
+quarters of wheat--an amount which would form a very considerable item
+in a crop which had proved to be actually deficient.
+
+But as there has been a movement already in some parts of Scotland,
+though solely from professed repealers, towards memorialising
+government for open ports on the ground of special necessity, we shall
+consider that question for a little; and, in doing so, shall blend the
+observations of our able correspondent with our own.
+
+Such a step, we think, at the present moment, would be attended with
+mischief in more ways than one. There can be no pretext of a famine at
+present, immediately after harvest; and the natural course of events
+in operation is this, that the dear prices are inducing a stream of
+corn from every producing quarter towards Britain. In such
+circumstances, if you raise a cry of famine, and suspend the
+corn-laws, that stream of supply will at once be stopped. The
+importers will naturally suspend their trade, because they will then
+speculate, not on the rate of the import duty, which will be
+absolutely abolished by the suspension, but on the rise of price in
+the market of this country. They will therefore, as a matter of
+course--gain being their only object--withhold their supplies, until
+the prices shall have, through panic, attained a famine price here;
+and then they will realize their profit when they conceive they can
+gain no more. In the course of things at present, the price of fine
+wheat is so high, that a handsome surplus would remain to foreigners,
+though they paid the import duty. Remove that duty, and the foreigner
+will immediately add its amount to the price of his own wheat. The
+price of wheat would then be as high to the consumer as when the duty
+remained to be paid; while the amount of duty would go into the
+pockets of the foreigner, instead of into our own exchequer. At
+present, the finest foreign wheat is 62s. in bond--remove the present
+duty of 14s., and that wheat will freely give _in the market_ 80s. the
+quarter.
+
+It is, therefore, clear that such an expedient as that of suspending
+the corn-laws merely to include the bonded wheat to be entered for
+home consumption, would, in no degree, benefit the consumer. The
+quantity of wheat at present in bond does not exceed half-a-million of
+quarters--the greatest part of which did not cost the importer 30s.
+per quarter. At least we can vouch for this, that early last summer,
+when the crop looked luxuriant, 5000 quarters of wheat in bond were
+actually offered in the Edinburgh market for 26s., and were sold for
+that sum, and allowed to remain in bond. It still remains in bond, and
+could now realise 62s. Here, then, is a realisable profit of 36s. per
+quarter, and yet the holder will not take it, in the expectation of a
+higher.
+
+We cannot think that Sir Robert Peel would sanction a measure so
+clearly and palpably unwise, for the sake of liberating only half a
+million quarters of wheat, which is the calculated consumption of a
+fortnight. But the late frequent meetings of the Privy Council have
+afforded an admirable opportunity for the alarmists to declaim upon
+coming famine. Matters, they say, must be looking serious indeed, when
+both Cabinet and Council are repeatedly called together; and they jump
+at the conclusion, that suspension of the corn-law is the active
+subject of debate. We pretend to no special knowledge of what is
+passing behind the political curtain; but a far more rational
+conjecture as to the nature of those deliberations may be found in the
+state of the potato crop, and the question, whether any succedaneum
+can be found for it. Perhaps it would be advisable to allow Indian
+corn, or maize, to come in duty-free; if not as food for people, it
+would feed horses, pigs, or poultry, and would make a diversion in
+favour of the consumption of corn to a certain extent; and such a
+relaxation could be made without interfering with the _corn_-laws, for
+maize is not regarded as corn, but stands in the same position as rice
+and millet. We might try this experiment with the maize, as the Dutch
+have already forestalled the rice market.
+
+If the state of the harvest is such as we conscientiously believe it
+to be, there can be no special reason--but rather, as we have shown,
+the reverse--for suspending the action of the corn-laws at this
+particular juncture. If the enactment of that measure was founded on
+the principle of affording protection to the farmer, why interfere
+with these laws at a time when any apprehension of a famine is
+entirely visionary? And since there is a large quantity of food in the
+country, the present prices are certainly not attributable to a
+deficiency in the crop, and are, after all, little more than
+remunerative to the farmers who are raisers of corn alone. The present
+rents could not possibly be paid from the profits of the growth of
+corn. It is the high price of live stock which keeps up the value of
+the land. The aggregate average price of wheat throughout the kingdom
+is only 58s. 6d., upon which no rational argument can be founded for
+the suspension of the laws of the country. Besides the working of the
+corn-laws will in its natural course effect all that is desirable; at
+any rate it does not prevent the introduction of foreign grain into
+the market. The present state of the grain-market presents an apparent
+anomaly--that is, it affords a high and a low price for the same
+commodity, namely wheat; but this difference is no more than might
+have been anticipated from the peculiar condition of the wheat crop,
+which yields good and inferior samples at the same time. It can be no
+matter of surprise that fine wheat should realise good prices, or that
+inferior wheat should only draw low prices. The high price will
+remunerate those who have the good fortune to reap a crop of wheat of
+good quality, and the low prices of the inferior wheat will have the
+effect of keeping the aggregate average price at a medium figure, and,
+by maintaining a high duty, will prevent the influx of inferior grain
+to compete with our own inferior grain in the home market. The law
+thus really affords protection to those who are in need of it--namely,
+to such farmers as have reaped an inferior crop of wheat; while those
+foreigners who have fine wheat in bond, or a surplus which they may
+send to this country, can afford to pay a high duty on receiving a
+high price for their superior article. Taking such a state of things
+into consideration, we cannot conceive a measure more wise in its
+operation, inasmuch as it accommodates itself to the peculiar
+circumstances of the times, than the present form of the corn-law.
+
+Were that law allowed to operate as the legislature intended, it would
+bring grain into this country whenever a supply was actually
+necessary; but we cannot shut our eyes to the mischievous effects
+which unfounded rumours of its suspension have already produced in the
+foreign market. Owing to these reports, propagated by the newspapers,
+the holders of wheat abroad have raised the price to 56s. a quarter,
+free on board; and as the same rumours have advanced the freight to
+6s. a quarter, wheat cannot _now_ be landed here in bond under 66s.
+The suspension of the corn-law would tend to confirm the panic abroad,
+and would therefore increase the difficulties of our corn-merchants,
+in making purchases of wheat for this market. It seems to us very
+strange that sensible men of business should be so credulous as to
+believe every idle rumour that is broached in the newspapers, so
+evidently for party purposes; for the current report of the immediate
+suspension of the corn-law originated in the papers avowedly inimical
+to the Ministry. The character of the League is well known. That body
+has never permitted truth to be an obstacle in the way of its
+attempts.
+
+So much for corn and the corn-laws. But there is a more serious
+question beyond this, and that is the state of the potatoes. If we are
+to believe the journals, more especially those which are attached to
+the cause of the League, the affection has spread, and is spreading to
+a most disastrous extent. Supposing these accounts to be true, we say,
+advisedly, that it will be impossible to find a substitute for the
+potato among the vegetable productions of the world; for neither wheat
+nor maize can be used, like it, with the simplest culinary
+preparation. There can be no doubt that in some places this affection
+is very prevalent, and that a considerable part of the crop in certain
+soils has been rendered unfit for ordinary domestic use. It is
+understood that the Lord-Advocate of Scotland has issued a circular to
+the parish clergymen throughout the kingdom, requesting answers to
+certain queries on this important subject. The information thus
+obtained will no doubt be classified, so that the government will
+immediately arrive at a true estimate of the extent of damage
+incurred.
+
+In the mean time we have caused enquiry to be made for ourselves, and
+the result, in so far as regards Scotland, is much more favourable
+than we had expected, considering the extent of the first alarm. We
+have seen accounts _from every quarter of the kingdom_, and the
+following report may therefore be relied on as strictly consistent
+with fact.
+
+It appears, on investigation, that no traces whatever of the complaint
+have yet been found in the northern half of Scotland. The crop in the
+upper parts of Forfarshire and Perthshire is quite untainted, and so
+across the island. When we consider what a vast stretch of country
+extends to the north of Montrose, the point beyond which, as our
+informants say, this singular affection has not penetrated, we shall
+have great reason to be thankful for such a providential immunity. Our
+chief anxiety, when we first heard of the probable failure, was for
+the Highlands, where potato plant furnishes so common and so necessary
+an article of food. We know by former experience what bitter privation
+is felt during a bad season in the far glens and lonely western
+islands; and most rejoiced are we to find, that for this winter there
+is little likelihood of a repetition of the same calamity.
+Argyleshire, however, except in its northern parishes has not escaped
+so well. We have reason to believe that the potatoes in that district
+have suffered very materially, but to what extent is not yet
+accurately ascertained.
+
+In the Lowlands the accounts are more conflicting; but it is
+remarkable that almost every farmer confesses now, that his first
+apprehensions were greatly worse than the reality. On examination, it
+turns out that many fields which were considered so tainted as to be
+useless, are very slightly affected: it is thus apparent that undue
+precipitation has been used in pronouncing upon the general character
+of the crop from a few isolated samples. Some districts appear to have
+escaped altogether; and from a considerable number we have seen
+reports of a decided abatement in the disease.
+
+In short, keeping in view all the information we have been able to
+collect, the following seems to be the true state of the case:--The
+crop throughout Scotland has been a very large one, but one-half of it
+is affected to a greater or less degree. About a fourth or a fifth of
+this half crop is so slightly damaged, that the unusual amount of
+produce will more than compensate the injury. The remainder is
+certainly worse. Of this, however, a considerable proportion has been
+converted into starch--an expedient which was early recommended in
+many quarters, wisely adopted by the prudent, and may yet be
+extensively increased. An affected potato, unless its juices were
+thoroughly fermented, and decomposition commenced, will yield quite as
+good starch as the healthy root, and all this may be considered as
+saved. Potato starch or farina, when mixed with flour, makes a
+wholesome and palatable bread. In some districts the doubtful potatoes
+are given to the cattle in quantities, and are considered excellent
+feeding. This also is a material saving.
+
+The spread of the complaint, or rather the appearance of its worst
+symptoms, seems to depend very much on the mode of management adopted
+after the potatoes are raised. A friend of ours in Mid-Lothian, who
+has paid much attention to agriculture, has saved nearly the whole of
+his crop, by careful attention to the dryness of the roots when
+heaped, by keeping these heaps small and frequently turned, and, above
+all, by judicious ventilation _through them_. A neighbouring farmer,
+who had an immense crop, but who did not avail him of any of these
+precautions, has suffered most severely.
+
+One letter which we have received is of great importance, as it
+details the means by which an affected crop has been preserved. We
+think it our duty to make the following extract, premising that the
+writer is an eminent practical farmer in the south of Scotland:--"I
+had this year a large crop of potatoes, but my fields, like those of
+my neighbours, did not escape the epidemic. On its first appearance, I
+directed my serious attention to the means of preserving the crop.
+Though inclined to impute the complaint to a deeper cause than the
+wetness of the season, I conceived that damp would, as a matter of
+course, increase any tendency to decay, and I took my measures
+accordingly. Having raised my potatoes, I caused all the sound ones,
+which seemed free from spot and blemish, to be carefully picked by the
+hand; and, having selected a dry situation in an adjoining field, I
+desired them to be heaped there in quantities, none of which exceeded
+a couple of bolls. The method of pitting them was this:--On a dry
+foundation we placed a layer of potatoes, which we covered with sandy
+mould, though I don't doubt straw would do as well; above that,
+another layer, also covered; and so on, keeping the potatoes as
+separate from each other as possible. We then thatched and covered
+them over as usual with straw, leaving ventilators on the top. I have
+had them opened since, and there is no trace whatever of any decay,
+which I attribute to the above precautions, as others in the
+neighbourhood, whose potatoes grew in exactly similar soil, have lost
+great part of their crop by heaping them in huge masses. Ventilation,
+you may depend upon it, is a great preservative. I have, I think,
+arrested the complaint even in affected potatoes, by laying them out
+(not heaping them) on a dry floor, in a covered place where there is a
+strong current of air. They are not spoiling _now_; and when the
+unsound parts are cut out, we find them quite wholesome and fit for
+use. I am of opinion, therefore, that by using due caution, the
+progress of the complaint, so far as it has gone, may in most cases be
+effectually checked."
+
+We are, therefore, almost certain, that when the damaged portion is
+deducted from the whole amount of the crop, there still remains an
+ample store of good potatoes for the consumption of the whole
+population--that is, if the potatoes were distributed equally through
+the markets. This, however, cannot be done, and, therefore, there are
+some places where this vegetable will be dear and scarce. The farmer
+who has a large crop of sound potatoes, and who does not reside in an
+exporting part of the country, will naturally enough use his
+superfluity for his cattle; and this cannot be prevented. We hope,
+however, that the habitual thrift of our countrymen will cause them to
+abstain, as much as possible, from wasting their extra stock in this
+manner, more especially as there is abundance of other kinds of
+fodder. They will command a high price as an esculent, and perhaps a
+higher, if they are preserved for the purposes of seed. Exportation
+also should be carried on cautiously; but we repeat, that the general
+tenor of our information is so far satisfactory, that it exhibits
+nothing more than a partial affection of the crop in the southern
+districts, and the majority of those are compensated by a good
+provision of corn.
+
+In addition to these statistics, obtained from many and various
+sources, we have been favoured with the opinion of Mr Stephens, which
+we now subjoin:--
+
+
+THE POTATO ROT.
+
+"This affection I do not regard as a disease--but simply as a
+rottenness in the tuber, superinduced by the combination of a low
+temperature with excessive moisture, during the growing season of that
+sort of root, when it is most liable to be affected on account of its
+succulent texture.[39] A friend informs me that he remembers the same
+kind of rottenness seizing the potato crop of the country in the late
+and wet season of 1799; and, as a consequence, the seed potato for the
+following crop fetched as high a price as 26s. the boll of 5 cwt.[40]
+I am inclined to believe, however, that the effects of this rot are
+much exaggerated. It is, in the first place, said to be poisonous; and
+yet pigs, to my certain knowledge, have been fed on spoiled potatoes
+alone, on purpose, with impunity. There is little outcry made against
+rot in the dry soils of Perthshire and Forfarshire, and these are the
+two most extensive districts from which potatoes are shipped for
+London. There are farmers in various parts of the country who warrant
+the soundness of the potatoes they supply their customers. The
+accounts of the potato crop from the Highland districts are most
+favourable. I believe the fact will turn out to be this, that, like
+corn, the potatoes will not only be a good, but a great crop, in all
+the _true potato soils_--that is, in deep dry soils on a dry subsoil,
+whether naturally so, or made so by draining--and that in all the
+heavy soils, whether rich or poor, they are rotting.
+
+A short time will put an end to all conjecture on the state of the
+potato crop, and afford us facts upon which we shall be able to reason
+and judge aright."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As the question of seed is always a most important one, whenever a new
+disease or partial affection of so staple a product is discovered, it
+may not be useless to note down Mr Stephens' ideas, in regard to the
+supposed destruction of the vegetative principle in part of the
+affected crop--
+
+
+SEED POTATOES.
+
+"I would feel no apprehension in employing such affected potatoes for
+seed, next spring, as shall be preserved till that time; because I
+believe it to be the case that the low temperature enfeebled the
+vegetative powers of the plant so much as to disable it from throwing
+off the large quantity of moisture that was presented to it; and I
+therefore conclude that any rot superinduced by such causes cannot
+possess a character which is hereditary. There seems no reason,
+therefore, why the complaint should be propagated in future, in
+circumstances favourable to vegetation; and this opinion is the more
+likely to be true, that it is not inconsistent with the idea of the
+disease of former years having arisen from a degenerate state of the
+potato plant, since low temperature and excessive moisture were more
+likely to affect a plant in a state of degeneracy than when its
+vitality remains unimpaired.
+
+There is no doubt that this affection of the potato is general, and it
+is quite possible that it may yet spread. This, however, is a question
+which cannot yet be solved, and certainly, so far as we know, the
+Highlands, and the Orkney and Shetland Isles, have hitherto escaped.
+The portion of the crop as yet actually rendered unfit for human food,
+does not perhaps exceed one-fourth in parts of the country whence
+potatoes are exported; and could the affection be stopped from
+spreading further than this, there would still be a sufficiency of
+potatoes for the consumption of _human beings_, as the crop is
+acknowledged to be a large one in the best districts. Much, however,
+depends upon our ability to arrest the affection, or its cessation
+from other causes.
+
+It is known that rotten potatoes, like rotten turnips, when left in
+heaps in contact with sound ones, will cause the latter to rot. Aware
+of this fact, farmers have, this last year, caused the potatoes in the
+heaps, as soon as the lifting of the crop was over, to be individually
+examined, and placed the sound ones in narrow, low pits, mixed with
+some desiccating substance, and covered with straw and earth. When the
+pits were opened for examination, the rot was found to have spread
+very much, in consequence of the dampness and heat which was so
+diffused throughout the pits. This is an effect that might have been
+anticipated. Had the precaution been used of taking up the crop in
+small quantities at a time, or of spreading the potatoes on the ground
+when the weather was fair, or in sheds when wet--and of allowing them
+to be exposed to the air until they had became tolerably firm and dry;
+and had the sound potatoes been then selected by hand, piled together,
+and afterwards put into smaller pits, it is probable that a much less
+proportion of any crop that was taken up would have been lost. Such a
+plan, no doubt, would have caused a protracted potato harvest, but the
+loss of time at that period, in performing the necessary work of
+selection, is a small consideration compared with an extensive injury
+to the crop. It is no doubt desirable to have the potato land ploughed
+for wheat as soon as possible after the potatoes have been removed;
+but there is no more urgency in ploughing potato than in ploughing
+turnip land for wheat; and, at any rate, it is better to delay the
+ploughing of the potato land for a few days, than run the risk of
+losing a whole crop of so excellent an esculent.
+
+I may here mention an experiment in regard to the potato, which shows
+that a larger crop has been received by planting the sets in autumn
+than in spring. Those who have tried this system on a large scale say,
+that the increase is in the ratio of 111 to 80 bolls per acre. If this
+is near the truth, it would indicate, that the sets may safely be
+entrusted to lie in the ground all winter upon the dung; and could we
+be assured of their safety there in all cases, the potatoes of this
+year, selected in the manner above described, might be used as seed
+this winter and preserved as such, in the ground, in a safer state
+than even in the small pits. Such an experiment may be tried this
+winter, in dry weather, without much risk of losing the future crop;
+for if, on examination in spring, it should be found that all the sets
+have rotted in the drills, there would be plenty of time to replant
+the crop, in its proper season, with the sets that had survived till
+that time, by the means of preservation used.
+
+I have heard of farmers in this neighbourhood who are planting their
+potato crop in this favourable weather; and it does seem very probable
+that, as each set is placed at a considerable distance from the other,
+and in circumstances to resist frost--namely, amongst plenty of dung
+and earth--the entire number may escape putrefaction."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+No doubt, if the potato crop shall prove to be very generally
+affected, the price of corn will rise yet farther, and may be for a
+long time maintained. But this is a very different thing from a
+scarcity of that article, which we believe is merely visionary. We
+must be fed with corn if we cannot get the potato in its usual plenty;
+and it is the certainty, or rather the expectation, of this, which has
+raised the price of the former. In the course of last month (October)
+we met with an admirable article on this subject, in the columns of
+_Bell's Weekly Messenger_, which we do not hesitate to adopt, as clear
+in its views, hopeful in its tone, and strictly rational in its
+argument.
+
+
+THE RISING PRICE OF WHEAT AND FLOUR.
+
+"What we predicted in one of our recent papers is daily becoming
+realised to an extent which is now exciting general attention, and,
+with some classes of the people, has already produced great alarm and
+anxiety for the future. We stated at that time, that though the return
+of fine weather, about the middle of last month, had saved the
+harvest, and given us a crop much more than had been anticipated,
+still there were causes in operation which would keep up the prices of
+wheat and flour; and that, at least for many weeks to come wheat would
+not fall in the British Market.
+
+"It should be borne in mind that the getting in of the harvest is very
+closely followed by the wheat seed-time, and that two causes are then
+always operative to maintain and raise the price of wheat. There is,
+first, a large call on the stock in hand for seed wheat; and,
+secondly, the farmers are too busy to carry their corn into market,
+and accordingly the market is ill supplied. A third cause is also in
+operation to produce the same effect--that of an unreasonable alarm
+always resulting from an ill-supplied market.
+
+"It would seem astonishing and even incredible to men who argue only
+theoretically, that though year after year the same uniform causes
+operate, and produce exactly the same effects, yet that this aspect of
+the market should continue to delude and mislead the public mind, but
+so it is in the corn-market, and with the British public in general;
+for though they see through a long succession of years that wheat and
+flour invariably rise in the market immediately after harvest and
+during seed-time, and though they ought to understand that this rise
+is produced by the quantity required for seed, and by the busy
+occupation of the farmers, they still perversely attribute it to
+another cause, existing only in their own apprehensions, namely, that
+the recent harvest has been deficient, and that the market is ill
+supplied because there is an insufficient stock with which to supply
+it.
+
+"As it is the inflexible rule of our paper to apply itself on the
+instant to correct all popular errors and to dissipate all
+unreasonable panics, we feel ourselves called upon to say, that the
+present rise in the price of corn results only from the very serious
+failure of the potato crop in many of our own counties, and still more
+materially in Belgium and other foreign kingdoms. From the mere
+circumstance of their numbers only, to say nothing of their habits and
+necessities, an immense quantity of this food is required for the
+sustenance of many millions of the community; and when the crop fails
+to such an extensive degree as it has done in the present case, this
+vast numerical proportion of every state must necessarily be chiefly
+maintained from the stock of corn. If the potato crop fail at home,
+the poor are directly thrown upon the corn-market, and the price of
+corn must necessarily rise in proportion to the increased demand.
+Where the potato crop has failed abroad, the supply of foreign corn
+must necessarily be directed to that quarter, and therefore less corn
+will be imported into the British market.
+
+"Now, it is the expectation of this result, which, together with the
+wheat seed-time and the full occupation of the farmers, is producing
+the present rise in the British corn-market, and these causes will
+probably continue to operate for some time longer.
+
+"In some parts of the country, such as our northern and eastern
+counties, we understand the current judgment to be, that though the
+harvest has produced more bushels than in an average year, the weight
+per bushel is less than last year, and that the deficiency of the
+quality brings the produce down in such districts to less than an
+average crop. But if we set against this the happier result of the
+wheat harvest in our southern and western counties, we must still
+retain our former opinion, that there is at least no present ground
+for any thing like a panic, either amongst the public in general or
+amongst the farmers themselves. The public as yet have no cause to
+dread any thing like that very serious scarcity which some of our
+papers have announced, and the farmers themselves have no cause to
+apprehend such a sudden and extraordinary state of the market, as
+would involve them in the general suffering of the community."
+
+We shall now close our remarks on the subject of the Scottish Harvest.
+In thus limiting our remarks to the harvest in Scotland, we have been
+actuated by no narrow spirit of nationality, but have judged it right,
+in treating a subject of such importance, to confine ourselves to that
+portion of the United Kingdom in which we possessed means of obtaining
+information which positively could be relied upon. Indeed, were it not
+for the paramount importance of the question, which will soon be
+founded on as a topic for political discussion, we should hardly have
+addressed ourselves to the task. But we have noticed, with great
+disgust, the efforts of the League to influence, at this particular
+crisis, the public mind, by gross misrepresentations of our position
+and prospects; and, being convinced that a more dangerous and
+designing faction never yet thrust themselves into public notice, we
+have thought it right, in the first instance, to collect and to
+classify our facts. This done, we have yet a word or two in store for
+the members of the mountebank coalition.
+
+No evil is unmixed with good. The murmurs of the alarmists at home,
+unfounded as we believe them to be, have brought out, more clearly
+than we could have hoped for, the state of foreign feeling with regard
+to British enterprise, and the prospects of future supply upon which
+this country must depend, should the sliding-scale be abrogated and
+all import duties abolished. The most infatuated Leaguer will hardly
+deny, that if the corn-law had ceased to exist three years ago, and a
+great part of our poorer soils had in consequence been removed from
+tillage, our present position with regard to food must have been
+infinitely worse. In fact, we should then have presented the unhappy
+spectacle of a great industrial community incapable of rearing food
+for its population at home, and solely dependent for a supply on
+foreign states; and that, too, in a year when the harvests throughout
+Europe, and even in America, have suffered. And here, by the way,
+before going further, let us remark, that the advocates of the League
+never seem to have contemplated, at all events they have never
+grappled with, the notorious fact, that the effects of most
+unpropitious seasons are felt far beyond the confines of the British
+isles. This year, indeed, we were the last to suffer; and the memory
+of the youngest of us, who has attained the age of reason, will
+furnish him with examples of far severer seasons than that which has
+just gone by. What, then, is to be done, should the proportion of the
+land in tillage be reduced below the mark which, in an average year,
+could supply our population with food--if, at the same time, a famine
+were to occur abroad, and deprive the continental agriculturists of
+their surplus store of corn? The answer is a short one--_Our people
+must necessarily_ STARVE. The manufacturers would be the first to feel
+the appalling misery of their situation, and the men whom they would
+have to thank for the severest and most lingering death, are the
+chosen apostles of the League!
+
+Is this an overdrawn picture? Let us see. France at this moment is
+convinced that we are on the verge of a state of famine. Almost all
+the French journalists, believing what they probably wish for, and
+misled by the repealing howl, and faint-hearted predictions of the
+coward, assume that our home stock of provision is not sufficient to
+last us for the ensuing winter. That is just the situation to which we
+should be reduced _every_ year, if Messrs Cobden, Bright, and Company
+had their will. What, then, says our neighbour, and now most
+magnanimous ally? Is he willing--for they allege they have a
+superfluity--to supply us in this time of hypothetical distress--to
+act the part of the good Samaritan, and pour, not wine and oil, but
+corn into our wounds? Is he about to take the noblest revenge upon a
+former adversary, by showing himself, in the moment of need, a
+benefactor instead of a foe? Oh, my Lord Ashley! you and others, whose
+spirit is more timid than becomes your blood, had better look, ere you
+give up the mainstay of your country's prosperity--ere you surrender
+the cause of the agriculturist--to the _animus_ that is now manifested
+abroad. We have reason to bless Heaven that it has been thus early
+shown, before, by mean and miserable concession to the clamours of a
+selfish interest, we have placed Britain for the first time absolutely
+at the mercy of a foreign power. Scarce a journal in France that does
+not tell you--loudly--boldly--exultingly--what treatment we may expect
+from their hands. "At last," they say, "we have got this perfidious
+Albion in our power. Nature has done for us, in her cycle, what for
+centuries the force of our arms and concentrated rancour could not
+achieve. The English newspapers in every column teem with the tidings
+of failure. The crop of corn is bad beyond any former experience. It
+cannot suffice to feed one half of the population. The potato crop
+also, which is the sole subsistence of Ireland, is thoroughly ruined.
+Scarce a minute fraction of it can be used for the purposes of human
+food. The British Cabinet are earnestly deliberating on the propriety
+of opening the ports. The public, almost to a man, are demanding the
+adoption of that measure--and doubtless erelong they will be opened.
+
+"What, then, are we to do? Are we to be guilty of the egregious folly
+of supplying our huge and overgrown rival, at the moment when we have
+the opportunity to strike a blow at the very centre of her system, and
+that without having recourse to the slightest belligerent measures?
+Are we, at the commencement of her impending misery, to reciprocate
+with England--that England which arrested us in the midst of our
+career of conquest, swept our navies from the seas, baffled our
+bravest armies, and led away our Emperor captive? The man who can
+entertain such an idea--be he who he may--is a traitor to the honour
+of his country. Let England open her ports if she will, and as she
+must, but let us at the self-same moment be prepared to CLOSE our own.
+Let not one grain of corn, if possible, be exported from France. We
+have plenty, and to spare. Our hardy peasantry can pass the winter in
+comfort; whilst, on the opposite side of the Channel, we shall have
+the satisfaction of beholding our haughty enemy convulsed, and
+wallowing like a stranded Leviathan on the shore! We pity the brave
+Irish, but we shall not help them. To do so would be, in fact, to
+exonerate Britain of her greatest and primary burden."
+
+This is the language which the French journalists are using at the
+present moment. Let no Englishman delude himself into the belief that
+it does not express the true sentiments of the nation. We know
+something of the men whose vocation it is to compound these patriotic
+articles. They are fostered under the pernicious system which converts
+the penny-a-liner into that anomalous hybrid, a Peer of France--which
+make it almost a necessary qualification to become a statesman, that
+the aspirant has been a successful scribbler in the public journals.
+And this, forsooth, they call the genuine aristocracy of talent! Their
+whole aim is to be popular, even at the expense of truth. They are
+pandars to the weakness of a nation for their own individual
+advancement. They have no stake in the country save the grey
+goose-quill they dishonour; and yet they affect to lead the opinions
+of the people, and--to the discredit of the French intellect be it
+recorded--they do in a great measure lead them. In short, it is a
+ruffian press, and we know well by what means France has been
+ruffianized. The war party--as it calls itself--is strong, and has
+been reared up by the unremitting exertions of these felons of
+society, who, for the sake of a cheer to tickle their own despicable
+vanity, would not hesitate for a moment, if they had the power, to
+wrap Europe again in the flames of universal war. Such will,
+doubtless, one day be the result of this unbridled license. The demon
+is not yet exorcised from France, and the horrors of the Revolution
+may be acted over again, with such additional refinements of brutality
+as foregone experience shall suggest. Meantime, we say to our own
+domestic shrinkers--Is this a season, when such a spirit is abroad, to
+make ourselves dependent for subsistence--which is life--upon the
+chance of a foreign supply?
+
+Yes, gentlemen journalists of France--whether you be peers or not--you
+have spoken out a little too early. The blindest of us now can see you
+in your genuine character and colours. But rest satisfied; the day of
+retribution, as you impiously dare to term it, has not yet arrived.
+Britain does not want your corn, and not for it will she abandon an
+iota of her system.
+
+There can be no doubt, that the news of a famine here would be
+received in France with more joy than the tidings of a second Marengo.
+The mere expectation of it has already intoxicated the press; and,
+accordingly, they have begun to speculate upon the probable conduct of
+other foreign powers, in the event of our ports being opened. Belgium,
+they are delighted to find, is in so bad a situation, in so far as
+regards its crop, that the august King Leopold has thought proper to
+issue a public declaration, that his own royal mouth shall for the
+next year remain innocent of the flavour of a single potato. This
+looks well. Belgium, it is hoped, is not overabundant in wheat; but,
+even if she were, Belgium owes much to France, and--a meaning asterisk
+covers and conveys the remaining part of the inuendo. Swampy Holland,
+they say, can do Britain no good--nay, have not the cautious Dutch
+been beforehand with Britain, and forestalled, by previous purchase,
+the calculated supply of rice? Well done, Batavian merchant! In this
+instance, at least, you are playing the game for France.
+
+Then they have high hopes from the ZOLLVEREIN. That combination has
+evidently to dread the rivalry of British manufacture, and its
+managers are too shrewd to lose this glorious opportunity of
+barricado. There are, therefore, hopes that Germany, utterly
+forgetting the days of subsidies, will shut her ports for export, and
+also prevent the descent of Polish corn. If not, winter is near at
+hand, and the mouths of the rivers may be frozen before a supply can
+be sent to the starving British. Another delightful prospect for young
+and regenerated France!
+
+Also, mysterious rumours are afloat with regard to the policy of the
+Autocrat. It is said, he too is going to shut up--whether from hatred
+to Britain, or paternal anxiety for the welfare of his subjects, does
+not appear. Yet there is not a Parisian scribe of them all but derives
+his information direct from the secret cabinet of Nicholas. Then there
+is America--have we not rumours of war there? How much depends upon
+the result of the speech which President Polk shall deliver! _He_
+knows well by this time that England is threatened with famine--and
+will he be fool enough to submit to a compromise, when by simple
+embargo he might enforce his country's claims? So that altogether, in
+the opinion of the French, we are like to have the worst of it, and
+may be sheerly starved into any kind of submission.
+
+No thanks to Cobden and Co. that this is not our case at present. The
+abolition of the corn-duty would be immediately followed by the
+abandonment of a large part of the soil now under tillage. Every year
+we should learn to depend more and more upon foreign supply, and give
+up a further portion of our own agricultural toil. Place us in that
+position, and let a bad season, which shall affect not only us, but
+the Continent, come round, and the dreams of France will be realized.
+Gentlemen of England--you that are wavering from your former
+faith--will you refuse the lesson afforded you, by this premature
+exultation on the part of our dangerous neighbour? Do you not see what
+weight France evidently attaches to the repeal of our protection
+duties--how anxiously she is watching--how earnestly she is praying
+for it? If you will not believe your friends, will you not take
+warning from an enemy? Would you hold it chivalry, if you saw an
+antagonist before you armed at all points, and confident of further
+assistance, to throw away your defensive armour, and leave yourselves
+exposed to his attacks? And yet, is not this precisely what will be
+done if you abandon the principles of protection?
+
+Are you afraid of that word, PROTECTION? Shame upon you, if you are!
+No doubt it has been most scandalously misrepresented by the
+cotton-mongering orators, but it is a great word, and a wise word, if
+truly and thoroughly understood. It does not mean that corn shall be
+grown in this country for _your_ benefit or that of any exclusive
+class--were it so, protection would be a wrong--but it means, that at
+all times there shall be maintained in the country an amount of food,
+reared within itself, sufficient for the sustenance of the nation, in
+case that war, or some other external cause, should shut up all other
+sources. And this, which is in fact protection for the nation--a just
+and wise security against famine, in which the poor and the rich are
+equally interested--is perverted by the chimney-stalk proprietors into
+a positive national grievance. Why, the question lies in a nutshell.
+Corn will not be grown in this country unless you give it an adequate
+market. Admit foreign corn, and you not only put a stop to
+agricultural improvement in reclaiming waste land, by means of which
+production may be carried to an indefinite degree, but you also throw
+a vast quantity of the land at present productive out of bearing.
+Suppose, then, that next year, all protection being abolished, the
+quantity of grain raised in the country is but equal to half the
+demand of the population; foreign corn, of course, must come in to
+supply the deficiency. We shall not enlarge upon the first argument
+which must occur to every thinking person--the argument being, that in
+such a state of things, the foreigner, whoever he may be, with whom we
+are dealing, has it in his power to demand and exact any price he
+pleases for his corn. What say the Cobdenites in answer to this? "Oh,
+then, we shall charge the foreigner a corresponding price for our
+cottons and our calicoes!" No, gentlemen--that will not do. We have no
+doubt this idea _has_ entered into your calculations, and that you
+hope, through a scarcity of home-grown corn, to realize an augmented
+profit on your produce--in short, to be the only gainers in a time of
+general distress. But there is a flaw in your reasoning, too palpable
+to be overlooked. The foreigner _can do without calico_, but the
+British nation CANNOT _do without bread_. The wants of the stomach are
+paramount--nothing can enter into competition with them. The German,
+Pole, or Frenchman, may, for a season, wear a ragged coat, or an
+inferior shirt, or even dispense with the latter garment, if it so
+pleases him; and yet suffer comparatively nothing. But what are our
+population to do, if bread is not procurable except at the enormous
+prices which, when you abolish protection, you entitle the foreigner
+to charge? Have you the heart to respond, in the only imaginable
+answer--it is a mere monosyllable--STARVE?
+
+But suppose that, for the first two years or so, we went on
+swimmingly--that there were good and plentiful seasons abroad, and
+that corn flowed into our market abundantly from all quarters of the
+world. Suppose that bread became cheaper than we ever knew it before,
+that our manufactures were readily and greedily taken, and that we had
+realised the manufacturing Eden, which the disciples of Devil's-dust
+have predicted, as the immediate consequence of our abandoning all
+manner of restrictions. How will this state of unbounded prosperity
+affect the land? For every five shillings of fall in the price of the
+quarter of wheat, fresh districts will be abandoned by the plough. The
+farmer will be unable to work them at a profit, and so he will cease
+to grow grain. He may put steers upon them; or they may be covered
+with little fancy villas, or Owenite parallelograms, to suit the taste
+of the modern philosopher, and accomodate the additional population
+who are to assist in the prospective crops of calico. The cheaper corn
+then is, the smaller will become our home-producing surface. The
+chaw-bacon will be driven to the railroads, where there is already a
+tolerable demand for him. The flail will be silent in the barn, and
+the song of the reaper in the fields.
+
+Let us suppose this to last for a few years, during which Lord John
+Russell--the Whigs having, in the meantime, got rid of all graduating
+scruples and come back to power--has taken an opportunity of enriching
+the peerage by elevating the redoubted Cobden to its ranks. But a
+change suddenly passes across the spirit of our dream. At once, and
+like a thunderbolt--without warning or presage--comes a famine or a
+war. We care not which of them is taken as an illustration. Both are
+calamities, unfortunately, well known in this country; and we hardly
+can expect that many years shall pass over our heads without the
+occurrence of one or other of them. Let us take the evil of man's
+creating--war. The Channel is filled with French shipping, and all
+along the coast, from Cape Ushant to Elsinore, the ports are rigidly
+shut. Mean time American cruisers are scouring the Atlantic, chasing
+our merchantmen, and embarassing communication with the colonies.
+Also, there is war in the Mediterranean. We have fifty, nay, a hundred
+points to watch with our vessels--a hundred isolated interests to
+maintain, and these demand an immense and yet a divided force. Convoys
+cannot be spared without loss of territory, and then--what becomes of
+us at home?
+
+Most miserable is the prospect; and yet it does appear, if we are mad
+enough to abandon protection, perfectly inevitable. With but a portion
+of our land in tillage--an augmented population--no stored corn--no
+means of recalling for two years at the soonest, even if we could
+spare seed, and that is questionable, the dormant energies of the
+earth!--Can you fancy, my Lord Ashley, or you, converted Mr Escott,
+what Britain would be then? We will tell you. Not perhaps a prey--for
+we will not even imagine such degradation--but a bargainer and
+compounder with an inferior power or powers, whom she might have
+bearded for centuries with impunity, had not some selfish traitors
+been wicked enough to demand, and some infatuated statesmen foolish
+enough to grant, the abrogation of that protection which is her
+sole security for pre-eminence. What are all the cotton bales of
+Manchester in comparison with such considerations as these? O
+Devil's-dust--Devil's-dust! Have we really declined so far, that _you_
+are to be the Sinon to bring us to this sorry pass? Is the poisoned
+breath of the casuist to destroy the prosperity of those--
+
+   "Quos neque Tydides, nec Larissæus Achilles,
+    Non anni domuere decem, non mille carinæ!"
+
+It may be so--for a small shard-beetle can upset a massive
+candle-stick; and it will be so assuredly, if the protective principle
+is abandoned. The first duty of a nation is to rear food for its
+inhabitants from the bosom of its own soil, and woe must follow if it
+relies for daily sustenance upon another. We can now form a fair
+estimate of the probable continuance of the supply, from the premature
+exultation exhibited in the foreign journals, and we shall be worse
+than fools if we do not avail ourselves of the lesson.
+
+[Footnote 39: "Not that I think there was more rain in the _earlier
+part of summer_ than the potato crop could absorb, for it is known to
+require a large supply of moisture in its growing state, in order to
+acquire a full development of all its parts. It was observable,
+however, that the rain increased as the season advanced, and after the
+potato plant had reached its full development. It is, therefore,
+probable that the increased moisture, which was not then wanted by the
+plant, would become excessive; and this moisture, along with the low
+temperature, may have produced such chemical change in the sap as to
+facilitate the putrefaction of the entire plant. As to the theories
+with respect to the presence of a fungus, or of insects, in the plant,
+I consider these as a mere exponent of the tendency to a state of
+putrefaction; such being the usual accompaniments of all vegetable and
+animal decay."]
+
+[Footnote 40: "I remember the wet seasons of 1816 and 1817. There was
+then no rot in the potato; but, during the whole of those rainy
+seasons, we had not the _continued cold_ weather which we have this
+year experienced."]
+
+
+
+
+INDEX TO VOL. LVIII.
+
+
+  Account of a Visit to the Volcano of Kirauea, in the Island of
+    Owhyhee, 591.
+
+  Agriculture round Lucca, 619.
+
+  Alas, for her! from the Russian of Púshkin, 141.
+
+  Alpine scenery, sketches of, 704.
+
+  American war, causes which fostered the, 721.
+
+  Andes, description of the, 555.
+
+  André Chenier, from the Russian of Púshkin, 154.
+
+  Anti-corn-law League, strictures on the, 780.
+
+  Apparitions, &c., letter to Eusebius on, 735.
+
+  Armfelt, Count, 59.
+
+  Arndt, notices of, 332, 333.
+
+  Art, causes of the absence of taste for, 414.
+
+  Avernus, lake, 489.
+
+
+  Bacon, political essays of, 389.
+
+  Baiæ, 488.
+
+  Barclay de Tolly, from the Russian of Púshkin, 40.
+
+  Baron von Stein, 328.
+
+  Barri, Madame du, 730, 733.
+
+  Bazars of Constantinople, the, 688.
+
+  Beaumont, Sir George, 258, 262.
+
+  Bell's Messenger, extract from, on the prices of grain, 779.
+
+  Betterton's version of Chaucer, remarks on, 114.
+
+  Bettina, sketch of the life, &c., of, 357.
+
+  Biographical sketch of Frank Abney Hastings, 496.
+
+  Black Shawl, the, from Púshkin, 37.
+
+  Blanc, Mont, on the scenery of, 707.
+
+  Blenheim, battle of, 18.
+
+  Boas, Edward, sketches of Sweden, &c. by, 56.
+
+  Bossuet's Universal History, characteristics of, 390.
+
+  Bottetort, Lord, anecdote of, 724.
+
+  Bowles, W. L., on the Dunciad, 251.
+
+  Boyhood, a reminiscence of, by Delta, 408.
+
+  Brabant, conquest of, by Marlborough, 665.
+
+  Bread, causes of the present dearness of, 772.
+
+  Bremer, Miss, the Swedish novelist, 62.
+
+  Brentford election, the, 725.
+
+  Brienz, scenery of the lake of, 705.
+
+  British critics, North's specimens of the,
+    --No. VI.--Supplement to Dryden on Chaucer, 114.
+    --No. VI.--MacFlecnoe and the Dunciad, 229.
+    --No. VIII.--Supplement to the same, 366.
+
+  Bulwer's Last of the Barons, remarks on, 350, 353.
+
+  Burtin on Pictures, review of, 413.
+
+
+  Capital punishment, on, 131.
+
+  Carlist war, sketches of the, 210.
+
+  Caserta, palace of, 491.
+    --silk manufactory, 492.
+
+  Caucasus, the, from the Russian of Púshkin, 34.
+
+  Celibacy of the clergy, effects of the, in France, 187.
+
+  Chamouni, valley of, 707.
+
+  Chatham, Lord, 717.
+
+  Chaucer, Dryden on, 114.
+
+  Chimborazo, ascent of, by Humboldt, 547.
+
+  Choiseul, the Duc de, 730, 732.
+
+  Churchill, critique on, 372.
+
+  Churchill, see Marlborough.
+
+  Clairvoyance, remarks on, 736.
+
+  Clarke, Dr, extracts from, 555.
+
+  Clarke's Life of James II., notice of, 4.
+
+  Cloud, the, and the Mountain, a reminiscence of Switzerland, 704.
+
+  Clytha house, &c., 477.
+
+  Col de Balme, pass of the, 707.
+
+  Colebrook, Sir George, extracts from the memoirs of, 716, 719.
+
+  Colour in painting, remarks on, 419.
+
+  Confessions of an English opium-eater, sequel to the, Part II., 43.
+
+  Constable the painter, sketch of the life, &c., of, 257.
+
+  Constantinople, Three Years in, 688.
+
+  Convicts at Norfolk Island, management, &c. of, 138.
+
+  Cooper, characteristics of, as a novelist, 355.
+
+  Copenhagen, description of, 68.
+
+  Corali, by J. D., 495.
+
+  Corn-laws, proposed suspension of the, 773.
+    --effects of the abolition of, 780.
+
+  Cornwallis, Earl, administration of Ireland by, 731.
+
+  Corporations of Constantinople, the, 696.
+
+  Corsica, conquest of, by the French, 728.
+
+  Coventry, Lady, 726.
+
+  Coxe's Life of Marlborough, notice of, 3.
+
+
+  Dalarna or Dalecarlia, sketches of, 64.
+
+  D'Alembert, character of Montesquieu by, 395.
+
+  Dalin, Olof von, 62.
+
+  Danes, national character of the, 69.
+
+  David the Telynwr; or, the Daughter's trial--a tale of Wales,
+    by Joseph Downs, 96.
+
+  Days of the Fronde, the, 596.
+
+  Dearness of bread, causes of the present, 772.
+
+  De Burtin on pictures, 413.
+
+  Delta, a reminiscence of boyhood by, 408.
+
+  Dendermonde, capture of, by Marlborough, 668.
+
+  Despatches of the Duke of Marlborough, review of,
+    --No. I. 1.
+    --No. II. 649.
+
+  Domestic manners of the Turks, the, 688.
+
+  Downes, Joseph--David the Telynwr, a tale of Wales, by, 96.
+
+  Drama, state of the, 178.
+
+  Dreams, &c., letter to Eusebius on, 735.
+
+  Drinking, prevalence of, in the 19th century, 726.
+
+  Dryden on Chaucer, 114.
+    --his MacFlecnoe, 232, 366.
+
+  Dumas' Margaret of Valois, extracts from, 312.
+    --extracts from his Days of the Fronde, 596.
+
+  Dunciad, the, critique on, 234, 366.
+
+  Dunning the solicitor-general, character of, 722.
+
+  Dutch school of painting, the, 426.
+
+  Dutem's life of Marlborough, notice of, 3.
+
+
+  Echo, from the Russian of Púshkin, 145.
+
+  Education, state of, in Turkey, 692.
+    --remarks on the system of, at the English Universities, 542.
+
+  Edward, Duke of York, character of, 719.
+
+  Egyptian market at Constantinople, the, 700.
+
+  English landscape painting, on, 257.
+
+  English Opium-eater, a sequel to the confessions of the, Part II. 43.
+
+  Epitaphs in Wales, 484.
+
+  Esprit des Lois of Montesquieu, the, 392.
+    --its characteristics, 397.
+
+  Eugene, Prince, 14, 669.
+
+  Eusebius, letter to, on omens, dreams, appearances, &c., 735.
+
+
+  Failure of the potato crop, extent, &c. of the, 775.
+
+  Feast of Peter the First, the, from Púshkin, 142.
+
+  Fersen, Count, murder of, 61.
+
+  Few passages concerning omens, dreams, appearances, &c., in a letter
+    to Eusebius, 735.
+
+  Few words for Bettina, a, 357.
+
+  Fisher, Archdeacon, 260.
+
+  Flemish school of painting, the, 426.
+
+  Flour, on the rising price of, 779.
+
+  Flygare, Emily, the Swedish novelist, 62.
+
+  France under Louis XIV., 12.
+    --prevalent feeling in, towards England, 781.
+
+  French school of painting, the, 427.
+    --Noblesse, character of the, 733.
+
+
+  Garden of the Villa Reale, the, 486.
+
+  General, the, from the Russian of Púshkin, 41.
+
+  German school of painting, the, 427.
+
+  Gleig's life of Marlborough, notice of, 4.
+
+  Glenmutchkin railway, the
+    --How we got it up, and how we got out of it, 453.
+
+  Gloucester the Duke of, character of, 719.
+
+  Goethe and Bettina, the correspondence of, 358.
+
+  Goethe's Torquato Tasso, translations from, 87.
+
+  Gotha canal, the, 68.
+
+  Grafton, the Duke of, Walpole's character of, 718.
+
+  Grain crop, quantity, &c., of the, in Scotland, 769.
+    --and its quality, 770.
+
+  Grandeur et décadence des Romains, Montesquieu's, characteristics,
+    &c. of, 391, 401.
+
+  Grand general junction and indefinite extension railway rhapsody, 614.
+
+  Greek Revolution, sketches of the, 496.
+
+  Griesbach, fall of the, 707.
+
+  Guamos of South America, the, 554.
+
+  Guilds of Constantinople, the, 696.
+
+  Gunning, the Misses, 726.
+
+  Gustavus Vasa, notices of, 66.
+
+
+  Hahn-Hahn, the Countess, 71.
+
+  Hakem the slave, a tale extracted from the history of Poland.
+    --Chapter I., 560.
+    --Chap. II., 561.
+    --Chap. III., 563.
+    --Chap. IV., 565.
+    --Chap. V., 567.
+
+  Hamilton, the Duchess of, 726.
+
+  Handel, character of the music of, 573.
+
+  Harvest, the Scottish, 769.
+    --quantity of the grain crop, ib.
+    --and its quality, 770.
+    --cause of the inferiority of the wheat, 771.
+    --and of the dearness of bread, 772.
+    --state of the potato crop, 775.
+    --potatoes for seed, 778.
+    --rising price of wheat and flour, 780.
+    --affords no argument for abolition of the corn-laws, 781.
+
+  Hastings, Frank Abney, biographical sketch of, 496.
+
+  Haydn, character of, 573.
+
+  Heber, Bishop, description of the Himalayas by, 557.
+
+  Hemp, culture of, in Italy, 620.
+
+  Hints for doctors, 630.
+
+  Historical romance, the, 341.
+
+  Hogarth, Churchill's epistle to, criticised, 377.
+
+  Holme's Life of Mozart, review of, 572.
+
+  Horace Leicester, a sketch, 197.
+
+  Hornes' Chaucer Modernized, remarks on, 115.
+
+  House-hunting in Wales, 74.
+    --a sequel to, 474.
+
+  How we got up the Glenmutchkin railway, and how we got out of it, 453.
+
+  Humboldt, 541.
+    --character of his mind, 545.
+    --his early life, 546.
+    --sketch of his travels, 547.
+    --list of his works, 548.
+    --extracts from these, 549.
+
+
+  I have outlived the hopes that charmed me, from Púshkin, 149.
+
+  Ida, Countess Hahn-Hahn, 71.
+
+  Imprisonment as a punishment, 131.
+
+  Improvisatore, the, 626.
+
+  Inferior quality of wheat, cause of the, 771.
+
+  Insects common at Lucca, 623.
+
+  Italian school of painting, the, 425.
+
+  Italy, sketches of Lucca, 617.
+    --agriculture round Lucca, 619.
+    --sagena, 620.
+    --lupins, ib.
+    --hemp, ib.
+    --trees, 622.
+    --oaks, ib.
+    --insects, 623.
+    --ants, 624.
+    --shooting fish, 625.
+    --owls, 626.
+    --the improvisatore, ib.
+    --tables-d'hôtes, Mr Snapley, 628.
+    --hints for doctors, 630.
+    --private music-party, 631.
+
+
+  J. D., a meditation by, 494.
+    --on the old year, 495.
+    --Corali, ib.
+    --a mother to her deserted child, 752.
+    --summer noontide, ib.
+    --to Clara, 753.
+    --seclusion, ib.
+
+  James II., notices of, 7.
+
+  James's Philip Augustus, remarks on, 353.
+
+  Jesuitism in France, 185.
+    --sources of its power, 186.
+
+  Jones, Sir William, character of Dunning, by, 723.
+
+  Johnson on the Dunciad, 236.
+
+
+  Kames, Lord, on the Dunciad, 253.
+
+  Kavanagh's Science of Languages, review of, 467.
+
+  Kirauca, account of a visit to the volcano of, 591.
+
+  Knorring, the Baroness, 62.
+
+
+  Land, tenure of, in Turkey, 693.
+
+  Landscape painting in England, 257.
+
+  Languages, Kavanagh's Science of, reviewed, 467.
+
+  Last hours of a reign, a tale in two parts.
+    --Part I., Chapter 1, 754.
+    --Chapter 2, 761.
+
+  Law, administration of, in Turkey, 699.
+
+  Law studies, Warren's Introduction to, reviewed, 300.
+
+  Lay of Starkàther, the, 571.
+
+  Lay of the wise Olég, the, from the Russian of Púshkin, 146.
+
+  Ledyard's Life of Marlborough, notice of, 3.
+
+  Leman, lake, scenery of, 706.
+
+  Leslie's Life of John Constable, review of, 257.
+
+  Letter from London, by a railway witness, 173.
+
+  Letter to Eusebius, on omens, dreams, appearances, &c., 735.
+
+  Lettres Persanes of Montesquieu, the, 391.
+
+  Libraries at Constantinople, the, 690.
+
+  Lipscomb's version of Chaucer, remarks on, 114.
+
+  Llanos of South America, the, 551.
+
+  Llansaintfraed lodge and church, 476.
+
+  Llantony abbey, 485.
+
+  Llanvair Kilgiden church, &c., 483.
+
+  London, letter from, by a railway witness, 173.
+
+  Louis XIV., notices of, 6, 12.
+
+  Louis XV., character, &c., of, 714, 730, 733.
+
+  Lowell, J. Russell, remarks on his strictures on Pope, 368.
+
+  Lucca, sketches of; 617.
+    --agriculture round, 619.
+
+  Lucrine lake, the, 489.
+
+  Lupins, culture of, in Italy, 620.
+
+
+  MacFlecnoe and the Dunciad, 229.
+    --a supplement to, 366.
+
+  Machiavel as a historian, 389.
+
+  Maconochie, Captain, on the management of transported criminals,
+    review of, 129.
+
+  Madonna, the, from Púshkin, 152.
+
+  Maeler, lake, 58.
+
+  Mahmood the Ghaznavide, by B. Simmons, 266.
+
+  Mahon's England, remarks on, 2.
+
+  Manner and Matter, a tale, Chapter I., 431.
+    --Chapter II., 435.
+
+  Manzoni's Promessi Sposi, remarks on, 356.
+
+  Margaret of Valois, from the French of Dumas, 312.
+
+  Marlborough, No. I, 1.
+    --Various lives of him, 3.
+    --His parentage and early career, 5.
+    --Is created Lord Churchill, 7.
+    --His conduct at the Revolution, 8.
+    --Further honours conferred on him, 9.
+    --His disgrace in 1691, and mystery attending it, ib.
+    --Is restored to favour, 10.
+    --Appointed commander in the Netherlands, 11.
+    --His first successes, 14.
+    --Defeats the French at Blenheim, 19.
+    --His subsequent campaign, and causes which thwarted his success, 27.
+        No. II., 649.
+    --Plans for the campaign of 1705, 650.
+    --Marches into Flanders, 652.
+    --Defeats Villeroi, 653.
+    --Thwarted by the inactivity of the Dutch, 654.
+    --Victory of Ramilies, 661.
+    --Subsequent operations, 664.
+
+  Marston; or, Memoirs of a Statesman.--Part XVIII., 157.
+    --Part XIX., 272.
+    --Part XX. and last, 439.
+
+  Meditation, a, by J. D., 494.
+
+  Memoirs of a Statesman. _See_ Marston.
+
+  Menin, siege and capture of, by Marlborough, 667.
+
+  Mesmerism, remarks on, 736.
+
+  Metternich, Stein's opinion of, 337.
+
+  Michelet's Priests, Women, and Families, review of, 185.
+
+  Mob, the, from the Russian of Púshkin, 36.
+
+  Modern novels, characteristics of, 342.
+
+  Monmouthshire, scrambles in, 474.
+
+  Mont Blanc, scenery of, 707.
+
+  Montesquieu, 389.
+    --Compared with Tacitus, Machiavel, and Bacon, ib.
+    --Sketch of his early life, 390.
+    --Publication and character of his Lettres Persanes, 391.
+    --Of the Grandeur et Decadence des Romains, ib.
+    --And of the Esprit des Loix, and the defence of it, 392, 393.
+    --His private life and character, and anecdotes of him, 394.
+    --His death, 395.
+    --Unpublished papers left by him, 396.
+    --Characteristics of his works, and extracts from them, 397.
+    --Causes which led to their comparative neglect, 398.
+
+  More, Hannah, anecdotes of, 723.
+
+  Mother, a, to her deserted child, by J. D., 752.
+
+  Motion, from the Russian of Púshkin, 149.
+
+  Mountain and the Cloud, the; a Reminiscence of Switzerland, 704.
+
+  Mozart, 573.
+    --Sketches of his life, 575.
+    --Extracts from his letters, &c., 578.
+    --Characteristics of his music, 590.
+
+  Murillo as a painter, 420.
+
+  Murray, Sir George, the Marlborough Despatches edited by, reviewed
+    --No. I., 1.
+    --No. II., 649.
+
+  My college friends, No. II.--Horace Leicester, 197.
+
+
+  Nantiglo ironworks, 485.
+
+  Naples, see Neapolitan.
+
+  Napoleon, from the Russian of Púshkin, 39.
+
+  National gallery, want of a, in Great Britain, 413.
+
+  Natural history, Waterton's essays on, second series, reviewed, 289.
+
+  Neapolitan sketches.--garden of the Villa Reale, 486.
+    --Servi de Pena, ib.
+    --San Carlo, 487.
+    --Pozzuoli, 488.
+    --Baiæ, ib.
+    --Lucrine and Avernus lakes, 489.
+    --Procida, 490.
+    --palace of Caserta, 491.
+    --silk manufactory, 492.
+    --The snake-tamer, 490.
+
+  Newcastle, Duke of, character of, 730.
+
+  Norfolk Island, management of convicts at, 138.
+
+  North's specimens of the British critics.
+    --No. VI. Supplement to Dryden on Chaucer, 114.
+    --No. VII. MacFlecnoe and the Dunciad, 229.
+    --No. VIII. Supplement to the same, 366.
+
+  Northern lights, 56.
+
+  Nyberg, Fru, a Swedish poetess, 57.
+
+
+  Oaks in Italy, 622.
+
+  Oberland, scenery of the, 707, 710.
+
+  Olég, lay of, from Púshkin, 146.
+
+  Omens, &c., letter to Eusebius on, 735.
+
+  On the Old Year, by J. D., 495.
+
+  Opening the ports, on the, 773.
+
+  Opium-eater, sequel to the Confessions of an, part II., 43.
+
+  Orinoco, description of the rapids of the, 550.
+
+  Oscar, crown-prince of Sweden, 59.
+
+  Ostend, capture of by Marlborough, 666.
+
+  Overkirk, General, notices of, 653, 654, 656, 662, 664.
+
+  Owls in Italy, 626.
+
+
+  Painting and pictures, remarks on, 413.
+    --characteristics of the various schools of, 424.
+
+  Palace of Caserta, the, 491.
+
+  Pampas of South America, the, 550.
+
+  Paoli, the Corsican patriot, 731.
+
+  Phipps, Mr, character, &c., of, 727.
+
+  Pictures, De Burtin on, 413.
+    --choice of subjects for, 417.
+    --colouring, &c., ib.
+
+  Poetry
+    --Specimens of the lyrics of Púshkin, translated by T. B. Shaw.
+    --No. I., 28.
+    --No. II., 140.
+    --Mahmood the Ghaznavide, by B. Simmons, 266.
+    --A reminiscence of boyhood, by Delta, 408.
+    --A meditation, by J. D., 494.
+    --On the old year, by the same, 495.
+    --Corali, by the same, ib.
+    --The lay of Starkàther, 571.
+    --The Grand General Junction and Indefinite Extension
+       Railway rhapsody, 614.
+    --The second Pandora, 711.
+    --A mother to her deserted child, by J. D., 752.
+    --Summer noontide, ib.
+    --to Clara, 753.
+    --seclusion, ib.
+
+  Pompadour, Madame de, 732.
+
+  Pope's version of Chaucer, remarks on, 119.
+    --Dunciad, remarks on, 234.
+    --Strictures on Lowell's criticism of him, 368.
+
+  Potato crop, state of the, throughout Scotland, 776.
+    --saving of them for seed, 780.
+
+  Pozzuoli, 488.
+
+  Presentiment, from the Russian of Púshkin, 152.
+
+  Priests, Women, and Families, review of Michelet's work on, 185.
+
+  Printing establishments in Constantinople, 691.
+
+  Private music-party, a, 631.
+
+  Prophecy of Famine, Churchill's, remarks on, 380.
+
+  Procida, 490.
+
+  Punishment, remarks on, 129.
+    --its objects, ib.
+    --various modes of, 131.
+    --on capital, and a proposed substitute for it, ib.
+
+  Púshkin, the Russian poet. No. II. Specimen of his lyrics, translated
+       by T. B. Shaw. Introductory remarks, 28.
+    --October 19th, 1825, 31.
+    --The Caucasus, 34.
+    --To * * *, 35.
+    --The mob, 36.
+    --The black shawl, 37.
+    --The rose, 38.
+    --Napoleon, 39.
+    --The storm, 40.
+    --The general, 41.
+    --No. III. Introduction, 140.
+    --Alas, for her! 141.
+    --The feast of Peter the First, 142.
+    --Town of starving, town of splendour, 143.
+    --To the sea, 144.
+    --Echo, 145.
+    --The lay of the wise Olég, 146.
+    --Remembrance, 149.
+    --I have outlived the hopes that charmed me, ib.
+    --Motion, ib.
+    --To the slanderers of Russia, 150.
+    --Presentiment, 152.
+    --The Madonna, ib.
+    --André Chenier, 154.
+
+
+  Quietists, effects of the doctrines of the, in France, 190.
+
+
+  Raffaele's Transfiguration, remarks on, 418.
+    --his St Cecilia, 422.
+
+  Ragland Castle, description of, 476.
+
+  Railway rhapsody, the grand general junction and indefinite
+       extension, 614.
+
+  Railway witness in London, letter from a, 173.
+
+  Railways and railway speculation, on, 633.
+
+  Ramilies, battle of, 661.
+
+  Reformation by punishment, on, 129.
+
+  Reign of George III., Walpole's memoirs of the, 713.
+
+  Religion, state of, during the eighteenth century, 714.
+
+  Remembrance, from the Russian of Púshkin, 149.
+
+  Reminiscence of boyhood, a, by Delta, 409.
+
+  Reminiscence of Switzerland, a, 704.
+
+  Reviews.
+    --Despatches of the Duke of Marlborough. No. I., 1.
+    --No. II., 649.
+    --Maconochie and Zschokke on punishment and reformation of
+       criminals, 129.
+    --Michelet's priests, women, and families, 185.
+    --Leslie's life of Constable, the painter, 257.
+    --Waterton's essays on natural history, second series, 289.
+    --Warren's introduction to law studies, 300.
+    --Kavanagh's science of languages, 467.
+    --Holmes' life of Mozart, 572.
+    --White's three years in Constantinople, 688.
+    --Walpole's memoirs of the reign of George III., 713.
+
+  Richelieu, Marshal, 730.
+
+  Ritterhaus at Stockholm, the, 59.
+
+  Romance, the historical, 341.
+
+  Rose, the, from the Russian of Púshkin, 38.
+
+  Russia, to the slanderers of, from Púshkin, 150.
+
+
+  Sagena, culture of, at Lucca, 620.
+
+  Saltza, Count, 68.
+
+  San Carlo, 487.
+
+  Sandwich, Lord, anecdote of, 724.
+
+  Schools of painting, characteristics of the, 424.
+
+  Science of languages, Kavanagh's, review of, 467.
+
+  Scott's historical romances, remarks on, 345.
+
+  Scottish harvest, the, 769.
+    --quantity and quality of the grain crop, ib., 770.
+    --cause of the inferior quality of the wheat, 771.
+    --and of the high price of bread, 772.
+    --state of the potato crop, 775.
+
+  Scrambles in Monmouthshire, a sequel to house-hunting in Wales, 474.
+
+  Sea, to the, from Púshkin, 144.
+
+  Secker, Archbishop, character of, 728.
+
+  Seclusion, by J. D., 752.
+
+  Second Pandora, the, 711.
+
+  Seed potatoes, saving of, 778.
+
+  Servi de Pena, 486.
+
+  Shaw, T. B., specimens of the lyrics of Púshkin, by, 28, 140.
+
+  Shooting fish in Italy, 625.
+
+  Silk manufactory of Caserta, the, 492.
+
+  Simmons, B., Mahmood the Ghaznavide, by, 266.
+
+  Sketches of Italy. Lucca, 617.
+    --agriculture round Lucca, 619.
+    --sagena, 620.
+    --lupines, ib.
+    --hemp, ib.
+    --trees and oaks, 622.
+    --insects, 623.
+    --ants, 624.
+    --shooting fish, 625.
+    --owls, 626.
+    --the improvisatore, ib.
+    --tables-d'hôtes--Mr Snapley, 628.
+    --hints for doctors, 630.
+    --private music-party, 631.
+
+  Smith, Sydney, on modern sermons, 714.
+
+  Smollet's England, remarks on, 2.
+
+  Snake-tamer, the, 493.
+
+  Snapley, Mr, 628.
+
+  Solitary imprisonment, effects of, 139.
+
+  Stampe, the Countess, 69.
+
+  Starkàther, the lay of, 571.
+
+  Staubbach, fall of the, 706.
+
+  Stein, the Baron von, career of, 328.
+
+  Stephens, Mr, letters from, on the results of the harvest, 769.
+
+  Stockholm, description of, 59.
+
+  Storm, the, from Púshkin, 40.
+
+  Stralsund, sketch of, 56.
+
+  Struensee, Count, 729.
+
+  Student of Salamanca, the. Part I., 521.
+    Part II., 673.
+
+  Summer noontide, by J. D., 752.
+
+  Suspiria de profundis; being a sequel to the confessions of an English
+       opium-eater. Part II., 43.
+
+  Swedes, character of the, 69.
+
+  Swift's apology for Queen Anne, &c., notice of, 4.
+
+  Switzerland, a reminiscence of, 704.
+
+
+  Tables-d'hôtes in Italy, 628.
+
+  Tacitus, as a historian, 389.
+
+  Tenure of land, &c. in Turkey, 693.
+
+  Thorwaldsen the sculptor, 69.
+
+  Three years in Constantinople; review of, 688.
+
+  Titian, remarks on the style, &c. of, 420.
+
+  To * * *, from the Russian of Púshkin, 35.
+
+  To Clara, by J. D., 753.
+
+  To the sea, from Púshkin, 144.
+
+  To the slanderers of Russia, from Púshkin, 150.
+
+  Torquato Tasso, Goethe's translations from, 87.
+
+  Townsend, Charles, character of, 715.
+    --his death, 719.
+
+  Transfiguration of Raffaele, remarks on the, 418.
+
+  Trees in Italy, 622.
+
+  Turks, domestic manners of the, 688.
+
+
+  Usk river, scenery of the, 475.
+
+
+  Varnhagen von Ense, sketch of Stein by, 331.
+
+  Villa Reale, garden of the, 486.
+
+  Villars, Marshal, 650, 651.
+
+  Villeroi, Marshal, 651, 652.
+    --his defeat at Ramilies, 661.
+
+  Volcano of Kirauea, account of a visit to the, 591.
+
+  Voltaire's Age of Louis XIV., remarks on, 3.
+
+  Von Stein, sketch of the career and character of, 328.
+
+
+  Wales, sketches of, 74.
+
+  Walpole's memoirs of the reign of George III., review of, 713.
+
+  Warburton on the Dunciad, 253.
+
+  Warren's introduction to law-studies, review of, 300.
+
+  Warton, Dr, on the Dunciad, 251.
+
+  Waterton's second series of essays in natural history, review of, 289.
+
+  Waxholm, fortress of, 58.
+
+  Weymouth, Lord, 727.
+
+  Wheat crop, quantity and quality of the, throughout Scotland, 769, 770.
+    --cause of its inferior quality, 771.
+    --the supply abundant, 773.
+    --on the rising price of, 779.
+
+  Wild animals of South America, the, 553.
+
+  Wilkes, John, notice of, 722, 725.
+
+  William III., notices of, 9.
+    --his death, 11.
+
+  White's three years in Constantinople, review of, 688.
+
+  Wordsworth's modernization of Chaucer, remarks on, 125.
+
+  Wye, scenery of the, 481.
+
+
+  Zschokke's Aehrenlese, review of, 129.
+
+  Zumalacarregui, career of, 210.
+
+
+
+
+_Edinburgh: Printed by Ballantyne & Hughes, Paul's Work._
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume
+58, No. 362, December 1845, by Various
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58,
+No. 362, December 1845, 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 58, No. 362, December 1845
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: October 10, 2010 [EBook #33938]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Brendan OConnor, Erica Hills, Jonathan Ingram
+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>
+
+
+<div class="transnote">
+
+TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: A few obvious misprints have been corrected,
+   but in general the originally erratic spelling, punctuation and
+   typesetting conventions have been retained. Accents in
+   foreign-language poetry and phrases, particularly the Greek, are
+   inconsistent in the original, and have not been standardised.
+ <br />The index is for the whole volume, but only December's articles are linked up.
+</div>
+
+<p><!-- Page 649 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_648" id="Page_648">[Pg 648]</a></span></p>
+<h1>BLACKWOOD'S<br />
+
+EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.</h1>
+
+<h3>
+<span class="rspace">No. CCCLXII.</span>
+<span class="btbb">DECEMBER, 1845.</span>
+<span class="lspace">VOL. LVIII.</span>
+</h3>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS.</h2>
+<div class="center">
+<table summary="Table of contents">
+
+<tr><td class="toc">Marlborough No. II.</td><td class="tocpage"><a href="#MARLBOROUGH_No_II1">649</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">The Student of Salamanca Part II.</td><td class="tocpage"><a href="#THE_STUDENT_OF_SALAMANCA">673</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">White's Three Years in Constantinople.</td><td class="tocpage"><a href="#WHITES_YEARS">688</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="toc">The Mountain and the Cloud.</td><td class="tocpage"><a href="#THE_MOUNTAIN_AND_THE_CLOUD">704</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="toc">The Second Pandora.</td><td class="tocpage"><a href="#THE_SECOND_PANDORA">711</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">The Reign of George the Third.</td><td class="tocpage"><a href="#REIGN_OF_GEORGE_THE_THIRD33">713</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">A Few Passages concerning Omens, Dreams, Appearances, &amp;c.</td><td class="tocpage"><a href="#A_FEW_PASSAGES_CONCERNING_OMENS_DREAMS_APPEARANCES">735</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">A Mother to Her Forsaken Child.</td><td class="tocpage"><a href="#A_MOTHER_TO_HER_FORSAKEN_CHILD">752</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">Summer Noontide.</td><td class="tocpage"><a href="#SUMMER_NOONTIDE">752</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="toc">To Clara.</td><td class="tocpage"><a href="#CLARA">753</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="toc">Seclusion.</td><td class="tocpage"><a href="#SECLUSION">753</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="toc">The Last Hours of a Reign. Part I.</td><td class="tocpage"><a href="#LAST_HOURS_OF_A_REIGN">754</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="toc">The Scottish Harvest.</td><td class="tocpage"><a href="#THE_SCOTTISH_HARVEST">769</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="toc">Index to Vol. LVIII</td><td class="tocpage"><a href="#INDEX_TO_VOL_LVIII">785</a></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>EDINBURGH:</h2>
+
+<h3>WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, 45, GEORGE STREET; <br />
+AND 37, PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON.</h3>
+
+<h5><i>To whom all Communications (post paid) must be addressed.</i></h5>
+
+<h4>SOLD BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM.</h4>
+
+<h4>PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE AND HUGHES, EDINBURGH.</h4>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div class="biggap"><!-- Page 649 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_649" id="Page_649">[Pg 649]</a></span></div>
+<h2><a name="MARLBOROUGH_No_II1" id="MARLBOROUGH_No_II1"></a>MARLBOROUGH. No. II.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></h2>
+
+<p>It might have been expected, that after the march into Bavaria had
+demonstrated the military genius of the Duke of Marlborough, and the
+battle of Blenheim had in so decisive a manner broken the enemy's
+power, the principal direction of military affairs would have been
+entrusted to that consummate commander; and that the Allied cabinets,
+without presuming to interfere in the management of the campaigns,
+would have turned all their efforts to place at his disposal forces
+adequate to carry into execution the mighty designs which he
+meditated, and had shown himself so well qualified to carry into
+execution. It was quite the reverse. The Allied cabinets did nothing.
+They did worse than nothing&mdash;they interfered only to do mischief.
+Their principal object after this appeared to be to cramp the efforts
+of this great general, to overrule his bold designs, to tie down his
+aspiring genius. Each looked only to his own separate objects, and
+nothing could make them see that they were to be gained only by
+promoting the general objects of the alliance. Relieved from the
+danger of instant subjugation by the victory of Blenheim, and the
+retreat of the French army across the Rhine, the German powers
+relapsed into their usual state of supineness, lukewarmness, and
+indifference. No efforts of Marlborough could induce the Dutch either
+to enlarge their contingent, or even render that already in the field
+fit for active service. The English force was not half of what the
+national strength was capable of sending forth. Parliament would not
+hear of any thing like an adequate expenditure. Thus the golden
+opportunity, never likely to be regained, of profiting by the
+consternation of the enemy after the battle of Blenheim, and their
+weakness after forty thousand of their best troops had been lost to
+their armies, was allowed to pass away; and the war was permitted to
+dwindle into one of posts and sieges, when, by a vigorous effort, it
+might have been concluded in the next campaign.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></p>
+
+<p>It was not thus with the French.<!-- Page 650 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_650" id="Page_650">[Pg 650]</a></span> The same cause which had loosened
+the efforts of the confederates, had inspired unwonted vigour into
+their councils. The Rhine was crossed by the Allies; the French armies
+had been hurled with disgrace out of Germany; the territory of the
+Grand Monarque was threatened both from the side of Alsace and
+Flanders; and a formidable insurrection in the Cevennes both
+distracted the force and threatened the peace of the kingdom. But
+against all these evils Louis made head. Never had the superior vigour
+and perseverance of a monarchy over that of a confederacy been more
+clearly evinced. Marshal Villars had been employed in the close of the
+preceding year to appease the insurrection in the Cevennes, and his
+measures were at once so vigorous and conciliatory, that before the
+end of the following winter the disturbances were entirely appeased.
+In consequence of this, the forces employed in that quarter became
+disposable; and by this means, and the immense efforts made by the
+government over the whole kingdom, the armies on the frontier were so
+considerably augmented, that Villeroi and the Elector of Bavaria took
+the field in the Low Countries at the head of seventy-five thousand
+men, while Marshal Marsin on the Upper Rhine, covered Alsace with
+thirty thousand. Those armies were much larger than any which the
+Allies could bring against them; for although it had been calculated
+that Marlborough was to be at the head of ninety thousand men on the
+Moselle on the 1st May, yet such had been the dilatory conduct of the
+States-general and the German princes, that in the beginning of June
+there were scarcely thirty thousand men collected round his standards;
+and in Flanders and on the Upper Rhine the enemy's relative
+superiority was still greater.</p>
+
+<p>The plan of the campaign of 1705, based on the supposition that these
+great forces were to be at his disposal, concerted between him and
+Prince Eugene, was in the highest degree bold and decisive. It was
+fixed that, early in spring, ninety thousand men should be assembled
+in the country between the Moselle and the Saar, and, after
+establishing their magazines and base of operations at Treves and
+Traerbach, they should penetrate, in two columns into Lorraine; that
+the column under Marlborough in person should advance along the course
+of Moselle, and the other, under the Margrave of Baden, by the valley
+of the Saar, and that Saar-Louis should be invested before the French
+army had time to take the field. In this way the whole fortresses of
+Flanders would be avoided, and the war, carried into the enemy's
+territory, would assail France on the side where her iron barrier was
+most easily pierced through. But the slowness of the Dutch, and
+backwardness of the Germans, rendered this well-conceived plan
+abortive, and doomed the English general, for the whole of a campaign
+which promised such important advantages, to little else but
+difficulty, delay, and vexation. Marlborough's enthusiasm, great as it
+was, nearly sank under the repeated disappointments which he
+experienced at this juncture; and, guarded as he was, it exhaled in
+several bitter complaints in his confidential correspondence.<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> But,
+like<!-- Page 651 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_651" id="Page_651">[Pg 651]</a></span> a true patriot and man of perseverance, he did not give way to
+despair when he found nearly all that had been promised him awanting;
+but perceiving the greater designs impracticable, from the want of all
+the means by which they could be carried into execution, prepared to
+make the most of the diminutive force which alone was at his disposal.</p>
+
+<p>At length, some of the German reinforcements having arrived,
+Marlborough, in the beginning of June, though still greatly inferior
+to the enemy, commenced operations. Such was the terror inspired by
+his name, and the tried valour of the English troops, that Villars
+remained on the defensive, and soon retreated. Without firing a shot,
+he evacuated a strong woody country which he occupied, and retired to
+a strong defensive position, extending from Haute Sirk on the right,
+to the Nivelles on the left, and communicating in the rear with
+Luxembourg, Thionville, and Saar-Louis. This position was so strong,
+that it was hopeless to attempt to force it without heavy cannon; and
+Marlborough's had not yet arrived, from the failure of the German
+princes to furnish the draught-horses they had promised. For nine
+weary days he remained in front of the French position, counting the
+hours till the guns and reinforcements came up; but such was the
+tardiness of the German powers, and the universal inefficiency of the
+inferior princes and potentates, that they never made their
+appearance. The English general was still anxiously awaiting the
+promised supplies, when intelligence arrived from the right of so
+alarming a character as at once changed the theatre of operations, and
+fixed him for the remainder of the campaign in the plains of Flanders.</p>
+
+<p>It was the rapid progress which Marshal Villeroi and the Elector of
+Bavaria, at the head of seventy-five thousand men, were making in the
+heart of Flanders, which rendered this change necessary. General
+Overkirk was there entrusted with the army intended to cover Holland;
+but it was greatly inferior to the enemy in point of numerical amount,
+and still more so in the quality and composition of the troops of
+which it was composed. Aware of his superiority, and of the timid
+character of the government which was principally interested in that
+army, Villeroi pushed his advantages to the utmost. He advanced boldly
+upon the Meuse, carried by assault the fortress of Huys, and, marching
+upon Liege, occupied the town without much resistance, and laid siege
+to the citadel. Overkirk, in his lines before Maestricht, was unable
+even to keep the field. The utmost alarm seized upon the United
+Provinces. They already in imagination saw Louis XIV. a second time at
+the gates of Amsterdam. Courier after courier was dispatched to
+Marlborough, soliciting relief in the most urgent terms; and it was
+hinted, that if effectual protection were not immediately given,
+Holland would be under the necessity of negotiating for a separate
+peace. There was not a moment to be lost: the Dutch were now as hard
+pressed as the Austrians had been in the preceding year, and in
+greater alarm than the Emperor was before the battle of Blenheim. A
+cross march like that into Bavaria could alone reinstate affairs.
+Without a moment's hesitation, Marlborough took his determination.</p>
+
+<p>On the 17th June, without communicating his designs to any one, or
+even without saying a word of the alarming intelligence he had
+received, he ordered the whole army to be under arms at midnight, and
+setting out shortly after, he marched, without intermission, eighteen
+miles to the rear. Having thus gained a march upon the enemy, so as to
+avoid the risk of being pursued or harassed in his retreat, he left
+General D'Aubach<!-- Page 652 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_652" id="Page_652">[Pg 652]</a></span> with eleven battalions and twelve squadrons to cover
+the important magazines at Treves and Saarbruck; and himself, with the
+remainder of the army, about thirty thousand strong, marched rapidly
+in the direction of Maestricht. He was in hopes of being able, like
+the Consul Nero, in the memorable cross march from Apulia to the
+Metaurus in Roman story, to attack the enemy with his own army united
+to that of Overkirk, before he was aware of his approach; but in this
+he was disappointed. Villeroi got notice of his movement, and
+instantly raising the siege of the citadel of Liege, withdrew, though
+still superior in number to the united forces of the enemy, within the
+shelter of the lines he had prepared and fortified with great care on
+the Meuse. Marlborough instantly attacked and carried Huys on the 11th
+July. But the satisfaction derived from having thus arrested the
+progress of the enemy in Flanders, and wrested from him the only
+conquest of the campaign, soon received a bitter alloy. Like Napoleon
+in his later years, the successes he gained in person were almost
+always overbalanced by the disasters sustained through the blunders or
+treachery of his lieutenants. Hardly had Huys opened its gates, when
+advices were received that D'Aubach, instead of obeying his orders,
+and defending the magazines at Treves and Saarbruck to the last
+extremity, had fled on the first appearance of a weak French
+detachment, and burned the whole stores which it had cost so much time
+and money to collect. This was a severe blow to Marlborough, for it at
+once rendered impracticable the offensive movement into Lorraine, on
+which his heart was so set, and from which he had anticipated such
+important results. It was no longer possible to carry the war into the
+enemy's territory, or turn, by an irruption into Lorraine, the whole
+fortresses of the enemy in Flanders. The tardiness of the German
+powers in the first instance, the terrors of the Dutch, and misconduct
+of D'Aubach in the last, had caused that ably conceived design
+entirely to miscarry. Great was the mortification of the English
+general at this signal disappointment of his most warmly cherished
+hopes; it even went so far that he had thoughts of resigning his
+command.<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> But instead of abandoning himself to despair, he set
+about, like the King of Prussia in after times, the preparation of a
+stroke which should reinstate his affairs by the terror with which it
+inspired the enemy, and the demonstration of inexhaustible resources
+it afforded in himself.</p>
+
+<p>The position occupied by the Elector of Bavaria and Marshal Villeroi
+was so strong that it was regarded as impregnable, and in truth it was
+so to a front attack. With its right resting on Marche aux Dames on
+the Meuse, it stretched through Leau to the strong and important
+fortress of Antwerp. This line was long, and of course liable to be
+broken through at points; but such was the skill with which every
+vulnerable point had been strengthened and fortified by the French
+engineers, that it was no easy matter to say where an impression could
+be made. Wherever a marsh or a stream intervened, the most skilful use
+had been made of it; while forts and redoubts, plentifully mounted
+with heavy cannon, both commanded all the approaches to the lines, and
+formed so many <i>points<!-- Page 653 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_653" id="Page_653">[Pg 653]</a></span> d'appui</i> to its defenders in case of disaster.
+Such a position, defended by seventy thousand men, directed by able
+generals, might well be deemed impregnable. But Marlborough, with an
+inferior force, resolved to attempt it. In doing so, however, he had
+difficulties more formidable to overcome than even the resistance of
+the enemy in front; the timidity of the authorities at the Hague, the
+nervousness and responsibility of the Dutch generals, were more to be
+dreaded than Villeroi's redoubts. It required all the consummate
+address of the English general, aided by the able co-operation of
+General Overkirk, to get liberty from the Dutch authorities to engage
+in any offensive undertaking. At length, however, after infinite
+difficulty, a council of war, at headquarters, agreed to support any
+undertaking which might be deemed advisable; and Marlborough instantly
+set about putting his design in execution.</p>
+
+<p>The better to conceal the real point of attack, he gave out that a
+march to the Moselle was to be immediately undertaken; and to give a
+colour to the report, the corps which had been employed in the siege
+of Huys was not brought forward to the front. At the same time
+Overkirk was detached to the Allied left towards Bourdine, and
+Marlborough followed with a considerable force, ostensibly to support
+him. So completely was Villeroi imposed upon, that he drew large
+reinforcements from the centre to his extreme right; and soon forty
+thousand men were grouped round the sources of the Little Gheet on his
+extreme right. By this means the centre was seriously weakened; and
+Marlborough instantly assembled, with every imaginable precaution to
+avoid discovery, all his disposable forces to attack the weakened part
+of the lines. The corps hitherto stationed on the Meuse was silently
+brought up to the front; Marlborough put himself at the head of his
+own English and German troops, whom he had carried with him from the
+Moselle; and at eight at night, on the 17th July, the whole began to
+march, all profoundly ignorant of the service on which they were to be
+engaged. Each trooper was ordered to carry a truss of hay at his
+saddle-bow, as if a long march was in contemplation. At the same
+instant on which the columns under Marlborough's orders commenced
+their march, Overkirk repassed the Mehaigne on the left, and, hid by
+darkness, fell into the general line of the advance of the Allied
+troops.</p>
+
+<p>No fascines or gabions had been brought along to pass the ditch, for
+fear of exciting alarm in the lines. The trusses of hay alone were
+trusted to for that purpose, which would be equally effectual, and
+less likely to awaken suspicion. At four in the morning, the heads of
+the columns, wholly unperceived, were in front of the French works,
+and, covered by a thick fog, traversed the morass, passed the Gheet
+despite its steep banks, carried the castle of Wange, and, rushing
+forward with a swift pace, crossed the ditch on the trusses of hay,
+and, in three weighty columns, scaled the rampart, and broke into the
+enemy's works. Hitherto entire success had attended this admirably
+planned attack; but the alarm was now given; a fresh corps of fifteen
+thousand men, under M. D'Allegr&eacute;, hastily assembled, and a heavy fire
+was opened upon the Allies, now distinctly visible in the morning
+light, from a commanding battery. Upon this, Marlborough put himself
+at the head of Lumley's English horse, and, charging vigorously,
+succeeded, though not till he had sustained one repulse, in breaking
+through the line thus hastily formed. In this charge the Duke narrowly
+escaped with his life, in a personal conflict with a Bavarian officer.
+The Allies now crowded in, in great numbers, and the French,
+panic-struck, fled on all sides, abandoning the whole centre of their
+intrenchments to the bold assailants. Villeroi, who had become aware,
+from the retreat of Overkirk in his front, that some attack was in
+contemplation, but ignorant where the tempest was to fall, remained
+all night under arms. At length, attracted by the heavy fire, he
+approached the scene of action in the centre, only in time to see that
+the position was broken through, and the lines no longer tenable. He
+drew off his whole troops accordingly, and took up a new position,
+nearly at right angles to the former, stretching from Elixheim towards
+Tirlemont. It was part of the<!-- Page 654 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_654" id="Page_654">[Pg 654]</a></span> design of the Duke to have intercepted
+the line of retreat of the French, and prevented them from reaching
+the Dyle, to which they were tending; but such was the obstinacy and
+slowness of the Dutch generals, that nothing could persuade them to
+make any further exertion, and, in defiance of the orders and
+remonstrances alike of Marlborough and Overkirk, they pitched their
+tents, and refused to take any part in the pursuit. The consequence
+was, that Villeroi collected his scattered forces, crossed the Dyle in
+haste, and took up new ground, about eighteen miles in the rear, with
+his left sheltered by the cannon of Louvain. But, though the
+disobedience and obstinacy of the Dutch thus intercepted Marlborough
+in the career of victory, and rendered his success much less complete
+than it otherwise would have been, yet had a mighty blow been struck,
+reflecting the highest credit on the skill and resolution of the
+English general. The famous lines, on which the French had been
+labouring for months, had been broken through and carried, during a
+nocturnal conflict of a few hours; they had lost all their redoubts
+and ten pieces of cannon, with which they were armed; M. D'Allegr&eacute;,
+with twelve hundred prisoners, had been taken; and the army which
+lately besieged Liege and threatened Maestricht, was now driven back,
+defeated and discouraged, to seek refuge under the cannon of Louvain.</p>
+
+<p>Overkirk, who had so ably co-operated with Marlborough in this
+glorious victory, had the magnanimity as well as candour, in his
+despatch to the States-general, to ascribe the success which had been
+gained entirely to the skill and courage of the English general.<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a>
+But the Dutch generals, who had interrupted his career of success, had
+the malignity to charge the consequences of their misconduct on his
+head, and even carried their effrontery so far as to accuse him of
+supineness in not following up his success, and cutting off the
+enemy's retreat to the Dyle, when it was themselves who had refused to
+obey his orders to do so. Rains of extraordinary severity fell from
+the 19th to the 23d July, which rendered all offensive operations
+impracticable, and gave Villeroi time, of which he ably availed
+himself, to strengthen his position behind the Dyle to such a degree,
+as to render it no longer assailable with any prospect of success. The
+precious moment, when the enemy might have been driven from it in the
+first tumult of success, had been lost.</p>
+
+<p>The subsequent success in the Flemish campaign by no means
+corresponded to its brilliant commencement. The jealousy of the Dutch
+ruined every thing. This gave rise to recriminations and jealousies,
+which rendered it impracticable even for the great abilities and
+consummate address of Marlborough to effect any thing of importance
+with the heterogeneous array, with the nominal command of which he was
+invested. The English general dispatched his adjutant-general, Baron
+Hompesch, to represent to the States-general the impossibility of
+going on longer with such a divided responsibility; but, though they
+listened to his representations, nothing could induce them to put
+their troops under the direct orders of the commander-in-chief. They
+still had "field deputies," as they were called who were invested with
+the entire direction of the Dutch troops; and as they were civilians,
+wholly unacquainted with military affairs, they had recourse on every
+occasion to the very fractious generals who already had done so much
+mischief to the common cause. In vain Marlborough repeatedly
+endeavoured, as he himself said, "to cheat them into victory," by
+getting their consent to measures, of which they did not see the
+bearing, calculated to achieve that object; their timid, jealous
+spirit interposed on every occasion to mar important operations, and
+the corps they commanded was too considerable to admit of their being
+undertaken without their co-operation. After nine days' watching<!-- Page 655 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_655" id="Page_655">[Pg 655]</a></span> the
+enemy across the Dyle, Marlborough proposed to cross the river near
+Louvain, and attack the enemy; the Dutch Deputies interposed their
+negative, to Marlborough's infinite mortification, as, in his own
+words, "it spoiled the whole campaign."<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></p>
+
+<p>Worn out with these long delays, Marlborough at length resolved at all
+hazards to pass the river, trusting that the Dutch, when they saw the
+conflict once seriously engaged, would not desert him. But in this he
+was mistaken. The Dutch not only failed to execute the part assigned
+them in the combined enterprise, but sent information of his designs
+to the enemy. The consequence was, Villeroi was on his guard. All the
+Duke's demonstrations could not draw his attention from his left,
+where the real attack was intended; but nevertheless the Duke pushed
+on the English and Germans under his orders, who forced the passage in
+the most gallant style. But when the Duke ordered the Dutch generals
+to support the attack of the Duke of Wirtemberg, who had crossed the
+river, and established himself in force on the opposite bank, they
+refused to move their men. The consequence was that this attack, as
+well planned and likely to succeed as the famous forcing of the lines
+a fortnight before, proved abortive; and Marlborough, burning with
+indignation, was obliged to recall his troops when on the high-road to
+victory, and when the river had been crossed, before they had
+sustained a loss of a hundred men. So general was the indignation at
+this shameful return on the part of the Dutch generals to Marlborough
+for all the services he had rendered to their country, that it drew
+forth the strongest expressions from one of his ablest, but most
+determined opponents, Lord Bolingbroke, who wrote to him at this
+juncture:&mdash;"It was very melancholy to find the malice of Slangenberg,
+the fears of Dopf, and the ignorance of the deputies, to mention no
+more, prevail so to disappoint your Grace, to their prejudice as well
+as ours. We hope the Dutch have agreed to what your Grace desires of
+them, without which the war becomes a jest to our enemies, <i>and can
+end in nothing but an ill peace, which is certain ruin to us.</i>"<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a></p>
+
+<p>Still the English general was not discouraged. His public spirit and
+patriotism prevailed over his just private resentment. Finding it
+impossible to prevail on the Dutch deputies, who, in every sense, were
+so many viceroys over him, to agree to any attempt to force the
+passage of the Dyle, he resolved to turn it. For this purpose the army
+was put in motion on the 14th August; and, defiling to his left, he
+directed it in three columns towards the sources of the Dyle. The
+march was rapid, as the Duke had information that strong
+reinforcements, detached from the army at Alsace, would join Villeroi
+on the 18th. They soon came to ground subsequently immortalized in
+English story. On the 16th they reached Genappe, where, on 17th June
+1815, the Life-guards under Lord Anglesea defeated the French lancers;
+on the day following, the enemy retired into the forest of Soignies,
+still covering Brussels, and the Allied headquarters were moved to
+Braine la Leude. On the 17th August, a skirmish took place on the
+plain in front of <span class="smcap">Waterloo</span>; and the alarm being given, the Duke
+hastened to the spot, and rode over the field where Wellington and
+Napoleon<!-- Page 656 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_656" id="Page_656">[Pg 656]</a></span> contended a hundred and ten years afterwards. The French
+upon this retired into the forest of Soignies, and rested at Waterloo
+for the night.</p>
+
+<p>The slightest glance at the map must be sufficient to show, that by
+this cross march to Genappe and Waterloo, Marlborough had gained an
+immense advantage over the enemy. <i>He had interposed between them and
+France.</i> He had relinquished for the time, it is true, his own base of
+operations, and was out of communication with his magazines; but he
+had provided for this by taking six days' provisions for the army with
+him; and he could now force the French to fight or abandon Brussels,
+and retire towards Antwerp&mdash;the Allies being between them and France.
+Still clinging to their fortified lines on the Dyle, and desirous of
+covering Brussels, they had only occupied the wood of Soignies with
+their right wing; while the Allies occupied all the open country from
+Genappe to Frischermont and Braine la Leude, with their advanced posts
+up to La Haye Sainte and Mount St John. The Allies now occupied the
+ground, afterwards covered by Napoleon's army: the forest of Soignies
+and approaches to Brussels were guarded by the French. Incalculable
+were the results of a victory gained in such a position: it was by
+success gained over an army of half the size, that Napoleon
+established his power in so surprising a manner at Marengo. Impressed
+with such ideas, Marlborough, on the 18th August, anxiously
+reconnoitred the ground; and finding the front practicable for the
+passage of troops, moved up his men in three columns to the attack.
+The artillery was sent to Wavre; the Allied columns traversed at right
+angles the line of march by which Blucher advanced to the support of
+Wellington on the 18th June 1815.</p>
+
+<p>Had Marlborough's orders been executed, it is probable he would have
+gained a victory, which, from the relative position of the two armies,
+could not have been but decisive; and possibly the 18th August 1705,
+might have become as celebrated in history as the 18th June 1815.
+Overkirk, to whom he showed the ground at Over-Ische which he had
+destined for an attack, perfectly concurred in the expedience of it,
+and orders were given to bring the artillery forward to commence a
+cannonade. By the malice or negligence of Slangenberg, who had again
+violated his express instructions, and permitted the baggage to
+intermingle with the artillery-train, the guns had not arrived, and
+some hours were lost before they could be pushed up. At length, at
+noon, the guns were brought forward, and the troops being in line,
+Marlborough rode along the front to give his last orders. The English
+and Germans were in the highest spirits, anticipating certain victory
+from the relative position of the armies; the French fighting with
+their faces to Paris, the Allies with theirs to Brussels. But again
+the Dutch deputies and generals interposed, alleging that the enemy
+was too strongly posted to be attacked with any prospect of success.
+"Gentlemen," said Marlborough to the circle of generals which
+surrounded him, "I have reconnoitred the ground, and made dispositions
+for an attack. I am convinced that conscientiously, and as men of
+honour, we cannot now retire without an action. Should we neglect this
+opportunity, we must be responsible before God and man. You see the
+confusion which pervades the ranks of the enemy, and their
+embarrassment at our man&oelig;uvres. I leave you to judge whether we
+should attack to-day, or wait till to-morrow. It is indeed late; but
+you must consider, that by throwing up intrenchments during the night,
+the enemy will render their position far more difficult to force."
+"Murder and massacre," replied Slangenberg. Marlborough, upon this,
+offered him two English for every Dutch battalion; but this too the
+Dutchman refused, on the plea that he did not understand English. Upon
+this the Duke offered to give him German regiments; but this too was
+declined, upon the pretence that the attack would be too hazardous.
+Marlborough, upon this, turned to the deputies and said&mdash;"I disdain to
+send troops to dangers which I will not myself encounter. I will lead
+them where the peril is most imminent. I adjure you, gentlemen! for
+the love of God and your country, do not let us neglect so favourable
+an opportunity." But it was all in vain; and<!-- Page 657 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_657" id="Page_657">[Pg 657]</a></span> instead of acting, the
+Dutch deputies and generals spent three hours in debating, until night
+came on and it was too late to attempt any thing. Such was
+Marlborough's chagrin at this disappointment, that he said, on
+retiring from the field, "I am at this moment <i>ten years</i> older than I
+was four days ago."</p>
+
+<p>Next day, as Marlborough had foreseen, the enemy had strengthened
+their position with field-works; so that it was utterly hopeless to
+get the Dutch to agree to an attack which <i>then</i> would indeed have
+been hazardous, though it was not so the evening before. The case was
+now irremediable. The six days' bread he had taken with him was on the
+point of being exhausted, and a protracted campaign without
+communication with his magazines was impracticable. With a heavy
+heart, therefore, Marlborough remeasured his steps to the ground he
+had left in front of the Dyle, and gave orders for destroying the
+lines of Leau, which he had carried with so much ability. His vexation
+was increased afterwards, by finding that the consternation of the
+French had been such on the 18th August, when he was so urgent to
+attack them, that they intended only to have made a show of
+resistance, in order to gain time for their baggage and heavy guns to
+retire to Brussels. To all appearance Marlborough, if he had not been
+so shamefully thwarted, would have illustrated the forest of Soignies
+by a victory as decisive as that of Blenheim, and realized the
+triumphant entrance to Brussels which Napoleon anticipated from his
+attack on Wellington on the same ground a hundred years afterwards.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing further, of any moment, was done in this campaign, except the
+capture of Leau and levelling of the enemy's lines on the Gheet.
+Marlborough wrote a formal letter to the States, in which he regretted
+the opportunity which had been lost, which M. Overkirk had coincided
+with him in thinking promised a great and glorious victory; and he
+added, "my heart is so full that I cannot forbear representing to your
+High Mightinesses on this occasion, that I find my authority here to
+be much less than when I had the honour to command your troops in
+Germany."<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> The Dutch generals sent in their counter-memorial to
+their government, which contains a curious picture of their idea of
+the subordination and direction of an army, and furnishes a key to the
+jealousy which had proved so fatal to the common cause. They
+complained that the Duke of Marlborough, "without holding a council of
+war, made two or three marches <i>for the execution of some design
+formed by his Grace</i>; and we cannot conceal from your High
+Mightinesses that all the generals of our army think it very strange
+<i>that they should not have the least notice of the said marches</i>."<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a>
+It has been already mentioned that Marlborough, like every other good
+general, kept his designs to himself, from the impossibility of
+otherwise keeping them from the enemy; and that he had the additional
+motive, in the case of the Dutch deputies and generals, of being
+desirous "to cheat them into victory."</p>
+
+<p>Chagrined by disappointment, and fully convinced, as Wellington was
+after his campaign with Cuesta and the Spaniards at Talavera, that it
+was in vain to attempt any thing further with such impediments, on the
+part of the Allies, thrown in his way, Marlborough retired, in the
+beginning of September, to Tirlemont, the mineral waters of which had
+been recommended to him; and, in the end of October, the troops on
+both sides went into winter quarters. His vexation with the Dutch at
+this period strongly appeared in his private letters to his intimate
+friends;<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> but,<!-- Page 658 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_658" id="Page_658">[Pg 658]</a></span> though he exerted himself to the utmost during the
+suspension of operations in the field, both by memorials to his own
+government, and representations to the Dutch rulers, to get the
+direction of the army put upon a better footing, yet he had
+magnanimity and patriotism enough to sacrifice his private feelings to
+the public good. Instead of striving, therefore, to inflame the
+resentment of the English cabinet at the conduct of the Dutch
+generals, he strove only to moderate it; and prevailed on them to
+suspend the sending of a formal remonstrance, which they had prepared,
+to the States-general, till the effect of his own private
+representation in that quarter was first ascertained. The result
+proved that he had judged wisely; his disinterested conduct met with
+the deserved reward. The Patriotic party, both in England and at the
+Hague, was strongly roused in his favour; the factious accusations of
+the English Tories, like those of the Whigs a century after against
+Wellington, were silenced; the States-general were compelled by the
+public indignation to withdraw from their commands the generals who
+had thwarted his measures; and, without risking the union of the two
+powers, the factious, selfish men who had endangered the object of
+their alliance, were for ever deprived of the means of doing mischief.</p>
+
+<p>But while the danger was thus abated in one quarter, it only became
+more serious in another. The Dutch had been protected, and hindered
+from breaking off from the alliance, only by endangering the fidelity
+of the Austrians; and it had now become indispensable, at all hazards,
+to do something to appease their jealousies. The Imperial cabinet, in
+addition to the war in Italy, on the Upper Rhine, and in the Low
+Countries, was now involved in serious hostilities in Hungary; and
+felt the difficulty, or rather impossibility, of maintaining the
+contest at once in so many different quarters. The cross march of
+Marlborough from the Moselle to Flanders, however loudly called for by
+the danger and necessities of the States, had been viewed with a
+jealous eye by the Emperor, as tending to lead the war away from the
+side of Lorraine, with which the German interests were wound up; and
+the instances were loud and frequent, that, now that the interests of
+the Dutch were sufficiently provided for, he should return with the
+English contingent to that, the proper theatre of offensive
+operations. But Marlborough's experience had taught him, that as
+little reliance was to be placed on the co-operation of the Margrave
+of Baden, and the lesser German powers, as on that of the Dutch; and
+he felt that it was altogether in vain to attempt another campaign
+either in Germany or Flanders, unless some more effectual measures
+were taken to appease the jealousies, and secure the co-operation of
+this discordant alliance, than had hitherto been done. With this view,
+after having arranged matters to his satisfaction at the Hague, when
+Slangenberg was removed from the command, he repaired to Vienna in
+November, and thence soon after to Berlin.</p>
+
+<p>Marlborough's extraordinary address<!-- Page 659 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_659" id="Page_659">[Pg 659]</a></span> and powers of persuasion did not
+desert him on this critical occasion. Never was more strongly
+exemplified the truth of Chesterfield's remark, that manner had as
+much weight as matter in procuring him success; and that he was
+elevated to greatness as much on the wings of the Graces as by the
+strength of Minerva. Great as were the difficulties which attended the
+holding together the grand alliance, they all yielded to the magic of
+his name and the fascination of his manner. At Bernsberg he succeeded
+in obtaining from the Elector a promise for the increase of his
+contingent, and leave for it to be sent into Italy, where its
+co-operation was required; at Frankfort he overcame, by persuasion and
+address, the difficulties of the Margrave of Baden; and at Vienna he
+was magnificently received, and soon obtained unbounded credit with
+the Emperor. He was raised to the rank of prince of the empire, with
+the most flattering assurances of esteem; and f&ecirc;ted by the nobles, who
+vied with each other in demonstrations of respect to the illustrious
+conqueror of Blenheim. During his short sojourn of a fortnight there,
+he succeeded in allaying the suspicions and quieting the apprehensions
+of the Emperor, which no other man could have done; and, having
+arranged the plan of the next campaign, and raised, on his own credit,
+a loan of 100,000 crowns for the imperial court from the bankers, as
+well as promised one of L.250,000 more, which he afterwards obtained
+in London, he set out for Berlin, where his presence was not less
+necessary to stimulate the exertions and appease the complaints of the
+King of Prussia. He arrived there on the 30th November, and on the
+same evening had an audience of the King, to whose strange and
+capricious temper he so completely accommodated himself, that he
+allayed all his discontents, and brought him over completely to his
+views. He prevailed on him to renew the treaty for the furnishing of
+eight thousand men to aid the common cause, and to repair the chasms
+occasioned by the campaign in their ranks, as well as revoke the
+orders which had been issued for their return from Italy, where their
+removal would have proved of essential detriment. This concession, in
+the words of the prime minister who announced it, was granted "as a
+mark of respect to the Queen, and of particular friendship to the
+Duke." From Berlin he went, loaded with honours and presents, to
+Hanover, where jealousies of a different kind, but not less dangerous,
+had arisen in consequence of the apprehensions there entertained, that
+the Whigs were endeavouring to thwart the eventual succession of the
+House of Hanover to the throne of England. Marlborough's address,
+however, here also succeeded in overcoming all difficulties; and,
+after a sojourn of only a few days, he departed in the highest favour
+both with the Elector and his mother. From thence he hastened to the
+Hague, where he remained a fortnight, and succeeded in a great degree
+in removing those difficulties, and smoothing down those jealousies,
+which had proved so injurious to the common cause in the preceding
+campaign. He prevailed on the Dutch to reject separate offers of
+accommodation, which had been made to them by the French government.
+Having thus put all things on as favourable a footing as could be
+hoped for on the Continent, he embarked for England in the beginning
+of January 1705&mdash;having overcome greater difficulties, and obtained
+greater advantages, in the course of this winter campaign, with his
+divided allies, than he ever did during a summer campaign with the
+enemy.</p>
+
+<p>Every one, how cursorily soever he may be acquainted with Wellington's
+campaigns, must be struck with the great similarity between the
+difficulties which thus beset the Duke of Marlborough, in the earlier
+periods of his career, and those which at a subsequent period so long
+hampered the genius and thwarted the efforts of England's greatest
+general. Slangenberg's jealousy as an exact counterpart of that of
+Cuesta at Talavera; the timidity of the Dutch authorities was
+precisely similar to that of the Portuguese regency; the difficulty of
+appeasing the jealousy of Austria and Prussia, identical with that
+which so often compelled Wellington to hurry from the field to Lisbon
+and Cadiz. Such is the selfishness of human nature that it seems
+impossible to get<!-- Page 660 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_660" id="Page_660">[Pg 660]</a></span> men, actuated by different interests, to concur in
+any measures for the general good but under the pressure of immediate
+danger, so threatening as to be obvious to every understanding, or by
+the influence of ability and address of the very highest order. It is
+this which in every age has caused the weakness of the best-cemented
+confederacies, and so often enabled single powers, not possessing a
+fourth part of their material resources, to triumph over them. And it
+is in the power of overcoming these difficulties, and allaying those
+jealousies, that one of the most important qualities of the general of
+an alliance is to be found.</p>
+
+<p>Marlborough sailed for the Continent, to take the command of the
+armies in the Low Countries, on the 20th April 1706. His design was to
+have transferred the seat of war into Italy, as affairs had become so
+unpromising in that quarter as to be well-nigh desperate. The
+Imperialists had been surprised by the French general, Vend&ocirc;me, in
+their quarters near Como, and driven into the mountains behind that
+town with the loss of three thousand men; so that all hold of the
+plain of Lombardy was lost. The Duke of Savoy was even threatened with
+a siege in his capital of Turin. The Margrave of Baden was displaying
+his usual fractious and impracticable disposition on the Upper Rhine:
+it seemed, in Marlborough's words, "as if he had no other object in
+view but to cover his own capital and residence." In Flanders, the
+habitual procrastination and tardiness of the Dutch had so thrown back
+the preparations, that it was impossible to begin the campaign so
+early as he had intended; and the jealousies of the cabinets of Berlin
+and Copenhagen had again revived to such a degree, that no aid was to
+be expected either from the Prussian or Danish contingents. It was
+chiefly to get beyond the reach of such troublesome and inconstant
+neighbours, that Marlborough was so desirous of transferring the seat
+of war to Italy, where he would have been beyond their reach. But all
+his efforts failed in inducing the States-general to allow any part of
+their troops to be employed to the south of the Alps; nor, indeed,
+could it reasonably have been expected that they would consent to
+hazard their forces, in an expedition not immediately connected with
+their interests, to so distant a quarter. The umbrage of the Elector
+of Hanover at the conduct of Queen Anne, had become so excessive, that
+he positively refused to let his contingent march. The Danes and
+Hessians excused themselves on various pretences from moving their
+troops to the south; and the Emperor, instead of contributing any
+thing to the war in Flanders, was urgent that succour should be sent,
+and that the English general should, in person, take the command on
+the Moselle. Marlborough was thus reduced to the English troops, and
+those in the pay of Holland; but they amounted to nearly sixty
+thousand men; and, on the 19th May, he set out from the Hague to take
+the command of this force, which lay in front of the old French
+frontier on the river Dyle. Marshal Villeroi had there collected
+sixty-two thousand men; so that the two armies, in point of numerical
+strength, were very nearly equal.</p>
+
+<p>The English general had established a secret correspondence with one
+Pasquini, an inhabitant of Namur, through whose agency, and that of
+some other citizens of the town who were inclined to the Imperial
+interest, he hoped to be able to make himself master of that important
+fortress. To facilitate that attempt, and have troops at hand ready to
+take advantage of any opening that might be afforded them in that
+quarter, he moved towards Tirlemont, directing his march by the
+sources of the Little Gheet. Determined to cover Namur, and knowing
+that the Hanoverians and Hessians were absent, Villeroi marched out of
+his lines, in order to stop the advance of the Allies, and give battle
+in the open field. On the 20th May, the English and Dutch forces
+effected their junction at Bitsia; and on the day following the Danish
+contingent arrived, Marlborough having by great exertions persuaded
+them to come up from the Rhine, upon receiving a guarantee for their
+pay from the Dutch government. This raised his force to seventy-three
+battalions and one hundred and twenty-four squadrons. The French had
+seventy-four battalions and one hundred<!-- Page 661 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_661" id="Page_661">[Pg 661]</a></span> and twenty-eight squadrons;
+but they had a much greater advantage in the homogeneous quality of
+their troops, who were all of one country; while the forces of the
+confederates were drawn from three different nations, speaking
+different languages, and many of whom had never acted in the field
+together. Cadogan, with six hundred horse, formed the vanguard of
+Marlborough's army; and at daybreak on the 22d, he beheld the enemy's
+army grouped in dense masses in the strong camp of Mont St Andr&eacute;. As
+their position stretched directly across the allied line of march, a
+battle was unavoidable; and Marlborough no sooner was informed of it,
+than with a joyous heart he prepared for the conflict.</p>
+
+<p>The ground occupied by the enemy, and which has become so famous by
+the battle of <span class="smcap">Ramilies</span> which followed, was on the summit of an
+elevated plateau forming the highest ground in Brabant, immediately
+above the two sources of the Little Gheet. The plateau above them is
+varied by gentle undulations, interspersed with garden grounds, and
+dotted with coppice woods. From it the two Gheets, the Mehaigne and
+the Dyle, take their source, and flow in different directions, so that
+it is the most elevated ground in the whole country. The descents from
+the summit of the plateau to the Great Gheet are steep and abrupt; but
+the other rivers rise in marshes and mosses, which are very wet, and
+in some places impassable. Marlborough was well aware of the strength
+of the position on the summit of this eminence, and he had used all
+the dispatch in his power to reach it before the enemy; but Villeroi
+had less ground to go over, and had his troops in battle array on the
+summit before the English appeared in sight. The position which they
+occupied ran along the front of a curve facing inwards, and
+overhanging the sources of the Little Gheet. Their troops extended
+along the crest of the ridge above the marshes, having the village of
+Autre Eglise in its front on the extreme left, the villages of Offuz
+and Ramilies in its front, and its extreme right on the high grounds
+which overhung the course of the Mehaigne, and the old <i>chauss&eacute;e</i> of
+Brunehand which ran near and parallel to its banks. Their right
+stretched to the Mehaigne, on which it rested, and the village of
+Tavieres on its banks was strongly occupied by foot-soldiers. The
+French foot were drawn up in two lines, with the villages in their
+front strongly occupied by infantry. In Ramilies alone twenty
+battalions were posted. The great bulk of their horse was arranged
+also in two lines on the right, across the chauss&eacute;e of Brunehand, by
+which part of the Allied column was to advance. On the highest point
+of the ridge occupied by the French, and in the rear of their extreme
+right, commanding the whole field of battle, behind the mass of
+cavalry, was the tomb or barrow of Ottomond, a German hero of renown
+in ancient days, which it was evident would become the subject of a
+desperate strife between the contending parties in the conflict which
+was approaching.</p>
+
+<p>Marlborough no sooner came in sight of the enemy's position than he
+formed his own plan of attack. His troops were divided into ten
+columns; the cavalry being into two lines on each wing, the infantry
+in six columns in the centre. He at once saw that the French right,
+surmounted by the lofty plateau on which the tomb of Ottomond was
+placed, was the key of the position, and against that he resolved to
+direct the weight of his onset; but the better to conceal his real
+design, he determined to make a vehement false attack on the village
+of Autre Eglise and the French left. The nature of the ground occupied
+by the allies and enemy respectively, favoured this design; for the
+French were posted round the circumference of a segment, while the
+allies occupied the centre and chord, so that they could move with
+greater rapidity than their opponents from one part of the field to
+another. Marlborough's stratagem was entirely successful. He formed,
+in the first instance, with some ostentation, a weighty column of
+attack opposite to the French left, menacing the village of Autre
+Eglise. No sooner did Villeroi perceive this than he drew a
+considerable body of infantry from his centre behind Offuz, and
+marched them with the utmost expedition to reinforce the threatened<!-- Page 662 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_662" id="Page_662">[Pg 662]</a></span>
+point on his left. When Marlborough saw this cross-movement fairly
+commenced, skilfully availing himself of a rising ground on which the
+front of his column of attack on his right was placed, he directed the
+second line and columns in support when the front had reached the edge
+of the plateau, where they obstructed the view of those behind them,
+to halt in a hollow where they could not be seen, and immediately
+after, still concealed from the enemy's sight, to defile rapidly to
+the left till they came into the rear of the left centre. The Danish
+horse, twenty squadrons strong, under the Duke of Wirtemberg, were at
+the same time placed in a third line behind the cavalry of the left
+wing, so as to bring the weight of his horse as well as foot into that
+quarter.</p>
+
+<p>At half past twelve the cannonade began on both sides, and that of the
+French played heavily on the columns of the confederates advancing to
+the attack. The Allied right wing directed against Autre Eglise,
+steadily advanced up the slopes from the banks of the Little Gheet to
+the edge of the plateau; but there they halted, deployed into line,
+and opened their fire in such a position as to conceal entirely the
+transfer of the infantry and cavalry in their rear to the Allied left.
+No sooner had they reached it, than the attack began in real earnest,
+and with a preponderating force in that direction. Colonel
+Wertonville, with four Dutch battalions, advanced against Tavieres,
+while twelve battalions in columns of companies, supported by a strong
+reserve, began the attack on Ramilies in the left centre. The
+vehemence of this assault soon convinced Villeroi that the real attack
+of the Allies was in that quarter; but he had no reserve of foot to
+support the troops in the villages, every disposable man having been
+sent off to the left in the direction of Autre Eglise. In this
+dilemma, he hastily ordered fourteen squadrons of horse to dismount,
+and, supported by two Swiss battalions, moved them up to the support
+of the troops in Tavieres. Before they could arrive, however, the
+Dutch battalions had with great gallantry carried that village; and
+Marlborough, directing the Danish horse, under the brave Duke of
+Wirtemberg, against the flank of the dismounted dragoons, as they were
+in column and marching up, speedily cut them in pieces, and hurled
+back the Swiss in confusion on the French horse, who were advancing to
+their support.</p>
+
+<p>Following up his success, Overkirk next charged the first line of
+advancing French cavalry with the first line of the Allied horse, and
+such was the vigour of his onset, that the enemy were broken and
+thrown back. But the second line of French and Bavarian horse soon
+came up, and assailing Overkirk's men when they were disordered by
+success, and little expecting another struggle, overthrew them without
+difficulty, drove them back in great confusion, and almost entirely
+restored the battle in that quarter. The danger was imminent that the
+victorious French horse, having cleared the open ground of their
+opponents, would wheel about and attack in rear the twelve battalions
+who were warmly engaged with the attack on Ramilies. Marlborough
+instantly saw the danger, and putting himself at the head of seventeen
+squadrons at hand, himself led them on to stop the progress of the
+victorious horse; while, at the same time, he sent orders for every
+disposable sabre to come up from his right with the utmost expedition.
+The moment was critical, and nothing but the admirable intrepidity and
+presence of mind of the English general retrieved the Allied affairs.
+Leading on the reserve of the Allied horse with his wonted gallantry,
+under a dreadful fire from the French batteries on the heights behind
+Ramilies, he was recognised by some French troopers, with whom he had
+formerly served in the time of Charles II., who made a sudden rush at
+him. They had well-nigh made him prisoner, for they succeeded in
+surrounding the Duke before his men could come up to the rescue, and
+he only extricated himself from the throng of assailants by fighting
+his way out, like the knights of old, sword in hand. He next tried to
+leap a ditch, but his horse fell in the attempt; and when mounting
+another horse, given him by his aide-de-camp Captain Molesworth,
+Colonel Bingfield, his equery, who held the stirrup, had his head
+carried off by a cannon<!-- Page 663 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_663" id="Page_663">[Pg 663]</a></span> ball. The imminent danger of their beloved
+general, however, revived the spirit of his troops, whom the dreadful
+severity of the cannonade had, during the scuffle, thrown into
+disorder; and, re-forming with great celerity, they again returned
+with desperate resolution to the charge.</p>
+
+<p>At this critical moment, when nothing was as yet decided, the twenty
+fresh squadrons whom Marlborough had so opportunely called up from the
+Allied right, were seen galloping at full speed, but still in regular
+order, on the plain behind this desperate conflict. Halting directly
+in rear of the spot where the horse on both sides were so vehemently
+engaged, they wheeled into line, and advanced, in close order and
+admirable array, to the support of the Duke. Encouraged by this
+powerful reinforcement, the whole Allied cavalry re-formed, and
+crowded forward in three lines, with loud shouts, to the attack of the
+now intimidated and disheartened French. They no longer withstood the
+onset, but, turning their horses' heads, fled with precipitation. The
+low grounds between Ramilies and the old chauss&eacute;e were quickly passed,
+and the victorious horse, pressing up the slope on the opposite side,
+erelong reached the summit of the plateau. The tomb of Ottomond, its
+highest point, and visible from the whole field of battle, was soon
+seen resplendent with sabres and cuirasses, amidst a throng of horse;
+and deafening shouts, heard over the whole extent of both armies,
+announced that the crowning point and key of the whole position was
+carried.</p>
+
+<p>But Villeroi was an able and determined general, and his soldiers
+fought with the inherent bravery of the French nation. The contest,
+thus virtually decided, was not yet over. A fierce fight was raging
+around Ramilies, where the garrison of twenty French battalions
+opposed a stout resistance to Schultz's grenadiers. By degrees,
+however, the latter gained ground; two Swiss battalions, which had
+long and resolutely held their ground, were at length forced back into
+the village, and some of the nearest houses fell into the hands of the
+Allies. Upon this the whole rushed forward, and drove the enemy in a
+mass out of it towards the high grounds in their rear. The Marquis
+Maffei, however, rallied two regiments of Cologne guards, in a hollow
+way leading up from the village to the plateau, and opposed so
+vigorous a resistance that he not only checked the pursuit but
+regained part of the village. But Marlborough, whose eye was every
+where, no sooner saw this than he ordered up twenty battalions in
+reserve behind the centre, and they speedily cleared the village; and
+Maffei, with his gallant troops, being charged in flank by the
+victorious horse at the very time that he was driven out of the
+village by the infantry, was made prisoner, and almost all his men
+taken or destroyed.</p>
+
+<p>The victory was now decided on the British left and centre, where
+alone the real attack had been made. But so vehement had been the
+onset, so desperate the passage of arms which had taken place, that
+though the battle had lasted little more than three hours, the victors
+were nearly in as great disorder as the vanquished. Horse, foot, and
+artillery, were blended together in wild confusion; especially between
+Ramilies and the Mehaigne, and thence up to the tomb of Ottomond, in
+consequence of the various charges of all arms which had so rapidly
+succeeded each other on the same narrow space. Marlborough, seeing
+this, halted his troops, before hazarding any thing further, on the
+ground where they stood, which, in the left and centre, was where the
+enemy had been at the commencement of the action. Villeroi skilfully
+availed himself of this breathing-time to endeavour to re-form his
+broken troops, and take up a new line from Geest-a-Gerompont, on his
+right, through Offuz to Autre Eglise, still held by its original
+garrison, on his left. But in making the retrograde movement so as to
+get his men into this oblique position, he was even more impeded and
+thrown into disorder by the baggage waggons and dismounted guns on the
+heights, than the Allies had been in the plain below. Marlborough
+seeing this, resolved to give the enemy no time to rally, but again
+sounding the charge, ordered infantry and cavalry to advance. A strong
+column passed<!-- Page 664 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_664" id="Page_664">[Pg 664]</a></span> the morass in which the Little Gheet takes its rise,
+directing their steps towards Offuz; but the enemy, panic-struck as at
+Waterloo, by the general advance of the victors, gave way on all
+sides. Offuz was abandoned without firing a shot; the cavalry pursued
+with headlong fury, and soon the plateau of Mont St Andr&eacute; was covered
+with a mass of fugitives. The troops in observation on the right,
+seeing the victory gained on the left and centre, of their own accord
+joined in the pursuit, and soon made themselves masters of Autre
+Eglise and the heights behind it. The Spanish and Bavarian
+horse-guards made a gallant attempt to stem the flood of disaster, but
+without attaining their object; it only led to their own destruction.
+Charged by General Wood and Colonel Wyndham at the head of the English
+horse-guards, they were cut to pieces. The rout now became universal,
+and all resistance ceased. In frightful confusion, a disorganized mass
+of horse and foot, abandoning their guns, streamed over the plateau,
+poured headlong down the banks of the Great Gheet, on the other side,
+and fled towards Louvain, which they reached in the most dreadful
+disorder at two o'clock in the morning. The British horse, under Lord
+Orkney, did not draw bridle from the pursuit till they reached the
+neighbourhood of that fortress; having, besides fighting the battle,
+marched full five-and-twenty miles that day. Marlborough halted for
+the night, and established headquarters at Mildert, thirteen miles
+from the field of battle, and five from Louvain.</p>
+
+<p>The trophies of the battle of Ramilies were immense; but they were
+even exceeded by its results. The loss of the French in killed and
+wounded was 7000 men, and, in addition to that, 6000 prisoners were
+taken. With the desertion in the days after the battle, they were
+weakened by full 15,000 men. They lost fifty-two guns, their whole
+baggage and pontoon train, all their caissons, and eighty standards
+wrested from them in fair fight. Among the prisoners were the Princes
+de Soubise and Rohan, and a son of Marshal Tallard. The victors lost
+1066 killed, and 2567 wounded, in all, 3633. The great and unusual
+proportion of killed to the wounded, shows how desperate and hand to
+hand, as in ancient battles, the fighting had been. Overkirk nobly
+supported the Duke in this action, and not only repeatedly charged at
+the head of his horse, but continued on horseback in the pursuit till
+one in the morning, when he narrowly escaped death from a Bavarian
+officer whom he had made prisoner, and given back his sword, saying,
+"You are a gentleman, and may keep it." The base wretch no sooner got
+it into his hand than he made a lounge at the Dutch general, but
+fortunately missed his blow, and was immediately cut down for his
+treachery by Overkirk's orderly.</p>
+
+<p>The immediate result of this splendid victory, was the acquisition of
+nearly all Austrian Flanders&mdash;Brussels, Louvain, Mechlin, Alort,
+Luise, and nearly all the great towns of Brabant, opened their gates
+immediately after. Ghent and Bruges speedily followed the example; and
+Daun and Oudenarde also soon declared for the Austrian cause. Of all
+the towns in Flanders, Antwerp, Ostend, Nieuport, and Dunkirk alone
+held out for the French; and to their reduction the Duke immediately
+turned his attention. The public transports in Holland knew no bounds;
+they much exceeded what had been felt for the victory of Blenheim, for
+that only saved Germany, but this delivered themselves. The wretched
+jealousy which had so long thwarted the Duke, as it does every other
+really great man, was fairly overpowered in "the electric shock of a
+nation's gratitude." In England, the rejoicings were equally
+enthusiastic, and a solemn thanksgiving, at which the Queen attended
+in person at St Paul's, gave a willing vent to the general
+thankfulness. "Faction and the French," as Bolingbroke expressed
+it, <a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> were all that Marlborough had to fear, and he had fairly
+conquered<!-- Page 665 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_665" id="Page_665">[Pg 665]</a></span> both. But the snake was scotched, not killed, and he
+replenished his venom, and prepared future stings even during the roar
+of triumphant cannon, and the festive blaze of rejoicing cities.<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a></p>
+
+<p>The French army, after this terrible defeat, retired in the deepest
+dejection towards French Flanders, leaving garrisons in the principal
+fortresses which still held out for them. Marlborough made his
+triumphant entry into Brussels in great pomp on the 28th May, amidst
+the acclamations of the inhabitants. The Three Estates of Brabant
+assembled there, acknowledged Charles III. for their sovereign, and
+received, in return, a guarantee from the English government and the
+States-general, that the <i>joyeuse entr&eacute;e</i>, the Magna Charta of
+Flanders, should be faithfully observed. "Every where, says
+Marlborough, the joy was great at being delivered from the insolence
+and exactions of the French." The victory of Ramilies produced no less
+effect on the northern courts, where jealousies and lukewarmness had
+hitherto proved so pernicious to the common cause. The King of
+Prussia, who had hitherto kept aloof, and suspended the march of his
+troops, now on the mediation of Marlborough became reconciled to the
+Emperor and the States-general; and the Elector of Hanover, forgetting
+his apprehensions about the English succession, was among the foremost
+to offer his congratulations, and make a tender of his forces to the
+now triumphant cause. It is seldom that the prosperous want friends.</p>
+
+<p>The Dutch were clear, after the submission of Brabant, to levy
+contributions in it as a conquered country, to relieve themselves of
+part of the expenses of the war; and Godolphin, actuated by the same
+short-sighted views, was eager to replenish the English exchequer from
+the same source. But Marlborough, like Wellington in after days, had
+magnanimity and wisdom enough to see the folly, as well as injustice,
+of thus alienating infant allies at the moment of their conversion,
+and he combated the project so successfully, that it was
+abandoned.<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> At the same time, he preserved the strictest discipline
+on the part of his troops, and took every imaginable precaution to
+secure the affections and allay the apprehensions of the inhabitants
+of the ceded provinces. The good effects of this wise and conciliatory
+policy were soon apparent. Without firing a shot, the Allies gained
+greater advantages during the remainder of the campaign, than they
+could have done by a series of bloody sieges, and the sacrifice of
+thirty thousand men. Nor was it less advantageous to the English
+general than to the common cause; for it delivered him, for that
+season at least, from the thraldom of a council of war, the invariable
+resource of a weak, and bane of a lofty mind.<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a></p>
+
+<p>The Estates of Brabant, assembled at Brussels, sent injunctions to
+the<!-- Page 666 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_666" id="Page_666">[Pg 666]</a></span> governor of Antwerp, Ghent, and all the other fortresses within
+their territories, to declare for Charles III., and admit these
+troops. The effects of this, coupled with the discipline preserved by
+the Allied troops, and the protection from contributions, was
+incredible. No sooner were the orders from the States at Brussels
+received at Antwerp, than a schism broke out between the French
+regiments in the garrison and the Walloon guards, the latter declaring
+for Charles III. The approach of Marlborough's army, and the
+intelligence of the submission of the other cities of Brabant, brought
+matters to a crisis; and after some altercation, it was agreed that
+the French troops should march out with the honours of war, and be
+escorted to Bouchain, within the frontier of their own country. On the
+6th June this magnificent fortress, which it had cost the Prince of
+Parma so vast an expenditure of blood and treasure to reduce, and
+which Napoleon said was itself worth a kingdom, was gained without
+firing a shot. Oudenarde, which had been in vain besieged in the last
+war by William III. at the head of sixty thousand men, at the same
+time followed the example; and Ghent and Bruges opened their gates.
+Flanders, bristling with fortresses, and the possession of which in
+the early part of the war had been of such signal service to the
+French, was, with the exception of Ostend, Dunkirk, and two or three
+smaller places, entirely gained by the consternation produced by a
+single battle. Well might Marlborough say, "the consequences of our
+victory are almost incredible. A whole country, with so many strong
+places, delivered up without the least resistance, shows, not only the
+great loss they must have sustained, but likewise the terror and
+consternation they are in."<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a></p>
+
+<p>At this period, Marlborough hoped the war would be speedily brought to
+a close, and that a glorious peace would reward his own and his
+country's efforts. His thoughts reverted constantly, as his private
+correspondence shows, to home, quiet, and domestic happiness. To the
+Duchess he wrote at this period&mdash;"You are very kind in desiring I
+would not expose myself. Be assured, I love you so well, and am so
+desirous of ending my days quietly with you, that I shall not venture
+myself but when it is absolutely necessary; and I am sure you are so
+kind to me, and wish so well to the common cause, that you had rather
+see me dead than not do my duty. I am persuaded that this campaign
+will bring in a good peace; and I beg of you to do all that you can,
+that the house of Woodstock may be carried up as much as possible,
+that I may have the prospect of living in it."<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a>&mdash;But these
+anticipations were not destined to be realized; and before he retired
+into the vale of years, the hero was destined to drain to the dregs
+the cup of envy, jealousy, and ingratitude.</p>
+
+<p>His first step of importance, after consolidating the important
+conquests he had made, and averting the cupidity of the Dutch, which,
+by levying contributions on their inhabitants, threatened to endanger
+them before they were well secured, was to undertake the siege of
+Ostend, the most considerable place in Flanders, which still held out
+for the French interest. This place, celebrated for its great
+strength, and the long siege of three years which it had withstood
+against the Spanish under Spinola, was expected to make a very
+protracted resistance; but such was the terror now inspired by
+Marlborough's name, that it was reduced much sooner than had been
+anticipated. Every preparation had been made for a protracted
+resistance. A fleet of nine ships of the line lay off the harbour, and
+a formidable besieging train was brought up from Antwerp and Brussels.
+Trenches were opened on the 28th June; the counterscarp was blown in
+on the 6th July; and the day following, the besieged, after a
+fruitless sally, capitulated, and the Flemish part of the garrison
+entered the service of the Allies. The garrison was still five
+thousand strong, when it<!-- Page 667 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_667" id="Page_667">[Pg 667]</a></span> surrendered; two ships of the line were
+taken in the harbour; and the total loss of the besiegers was only
+five hundred men.</p>
+
+<p>Menin was next besieged, but it made a more protracted resistance. Its
+great strength was derived from the means which the governor of the
+fortress possessed of flooding at will the immense low plains in which
+it is situated. Its fortifications had always been considered as one
+of the masterpieces of Vauban; the garrison was ample; and the
+governor a man of resolution, who was encouraged to make a vigorous
+resistance, by the assurances of succour which he had received from
+the French government. In effect, Louis XIV. had made the greatest
+efforts to repair the consequences of the disaster at Ramilies.
+Marshal Marsin had been detached from the Rhine with eighteen
+battalions and fourteen squadrons; and, in addition to that, thirty
+battalions and forty squadrons were marching from Alsace. These great
+reinforcements, with the addition of nine battalions which were in the
+lines on the Dyle when the battle of Ramilies was fought, would, when
+all assembled, have raised the French army to one hundred and ten
+battalions, and one hundred and forty squadrons&mdash;or above one hundred
+thousand men; whereas Marlborough, after employing thirty-two
+battalions in the siege, could only spare for the covering army about
+seventy-two battalions and eighty squadrons. The numerical
+superiority, therefore, was very great on the side of the enemy,
+especially when the Allies were divided by the necessity of carrying
+on the siege; and Villeroi, who had lost the confidence of his men,
+had been replaced by the Duke de Vend&ocirc;me, one of the best generals in
+the French service, illustrated by his recent victory over the
+Imperialists in Italy. He loudly gave out that he would raise the
+siege, and approached the covering army closely, as if with that
+design. But Marlborough persevered in his design; for, to use his own
+words, "The Elector of Bavaria says, he is promised a hundred and ten
+battalions, and they are certainly stronger in horse than we. But even
+if they had greater numbers, I neither think it is their interest nor
+their inclination to venture a battle; for our men are in heart, and
+theirs are cowed."<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a></p>
+
+<p>Considerable difficulties were experienced in the first instance in
+getting up the siege equipage, in consequence of the inundations which
+were let loose; but a drought having set in, when the blockade began,
+in the beginning of August, these obstacles were erelong overcome, and
+on the 9th August the besiegers' fire began, while Marlborough took
+post at Helchin to cover the siege. On the 18th, the fire of the
+breaching batteries had been so effectual, that it was deemed
+practicable to make an assault on the covered way. As a determined
+resistance was anticipated, the Duke repaired to the spot to
+superintend the attack. At seven in the evening, the signal was given
+by the explosion of two mines, and the troops, the English in front,
+rushed to the assault. They soon cut down the palisades, and, throwing
+their grenades before them, erelong got into the covered way; but
+there they were exposed to a dreadful fire from two ravelins which
+enfiladed it. For two hours they bore it without flinching, labouring
+hard to erect barricades, so as to get under cover; which was at
+length done, but not before fourteen hundred of the brave assailants
+had been struck down. This success, though thus dearly purchased, was
+however decisive. The establishment of the besiegers in this important
+lodgement, in the heart as it were of their works, so distressed the
+enemy, that on the 22d they hoisted the white flag, and capitulated,
+still 4300 strong, on the following day. The reduction of this strong
+and celebrated fortress gave the most unbounded satisfaction to the
+Allies, as it not only materially strengthened the barrier against
+France; but having taken place in presence of the Duke de Vend&ocirc;me and
+his powerful army, drawn together with such diligence to raise the
+siege, it afforded the strongest proof of the superiority they had now
+acquired over their enemy in the field.<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a></p>
+
+<p>Upon the fall of Menin, Vend&ocirc;me<!-- Page 668 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_668" id="Page_668">[Pg 668]</a></span> collected his troops, and occupied a
+position behind the Lys and the Dyle, in order to cover Lille, against
+which he supposed the intentions of Marlborough were directed. But he
+had another object in view, and immediately sat down before
+Dendermonde, still keeping post with his covering army at Helchin,
+which barred the access to that fortress. Being situated on the banks
+of the Scheldt, it was so completely within the power of the governor
+to hinder the approaches of the besiegers, by letting out the waters,
+that the King of France said, on hearing they had commenced its
+siege&mdash;"They must have an army of ducks to take it." An extraordinary
+drought at this period, however, which lasted seven weeks, had so
+lowered the Scheldt and canals, that the approaches were pushed with
+great celerity, and on the 5th September the garrison surrendered at
+discretion. Marlborough wrote to Godolphin on this occasion&mdash;"The
+taking of Dendermonde, making the garrison prisoners of war, was more
+than could have been expected; but I saw they were in a consternation.
+That place could never have been taken but by the hand of God, which
+gave us seven weeks without rain. The rain began the day after we had
+taken possession, and continued without intermission for the three
+next days."<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a></p>
+
+<p>Ath was the next object of attack. This small but strong fortress is
+of great importance, as lying on the direct road from Mons to Brussels
+by Halle; and, in consequence of that circumstance, it was rendered a
+fortress of the first order, when the barrier of strongholds, insanely
+demolished by Joseph II. before the war of the Revolution, was
+restored by the Allies, under the direction of Wellington, after its
+termination. Marlborough entrusted the direction of the attack to
+Overkirk, while he himself occupied, with the covering army, the
+position of Leuze. Vend&ocirc;me's army was so much discouraged that he did
+not venture to disturb the operations; but retiring behind the
+Scheldt, between Cond&eacute; and Montagne, contented himself with throwing
+strong garrisons into Mons and Charleroi, which he apprehended would
+be the next object of attack. The operations of the besiegers against
+Ath were pushed with great vigour; and on the 4th October the
+garrison, eight hundred strong, all that remained out of two thousand
+who manned the works when the siege began, surrendered prisoners of
+war. Marlborough was very urgent after this success to undertake the
+siege of Mons, which would have completed the conquest of Brabant and
+Flanders; but he could not persuade the Dutch authorities to furnish
+him with the requisite stores to undertake it.<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> After a parade of
+his army in the open field near Cambron, in the hope of drawing
+Vend&ocirc;me, who boasted of having one hundred and forty battalions and
+one hundred and eighty squadrons at his command, to a battle, in which
+he was disappointed, he resigned the command to Overkirk, put the army
+into winter quarters, and hastened to Brussels, to commence his
+arduous duties of stilling the jealousies and holding together the
+discordant powers of the alliance.<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a></p>
+
+<p>Marlborough was received in the most splendid manner, and with
+unbounded demonstrations of joy, at Brussels, not only by the
+inconstant populace, but by the deputies of the Three Estates<!-- Page 669 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_669" id="Page_669">[Pg 669]</a></span> of
+Brabant, which were there assembled in regular and permanent
+sovereignty. Well might they lavish their demonstrations of respect
+and gratitude on the English general; for never in modern times had
+more important or glorious events signalized a successful campaign. In
+five months the power of France had been so completely broken, and the
+towering temper of its inhabitants so lowered, that their best
+general, at the head of above a hundred thousand men, did not venture
+to measure swords with the Allies, not more than two-thirds of their
+numerical strength in the field. By the effects of a single victory,
+the whole of Brabant and Flanders, studded with the strongest
+fortresses in Europe, each of which, in former wars, had required
+months&mdash;some, years&mdash;for their reduction, had been gained to the
+Allied arms. Between those taken on the field of Ramilies, and
+subsequently in the besieged fortresses, above twenty thousand men had
+been made prisoners, and twice that number lost to the enemy by the
+sword, sickness, and desertion; and France now made head against the
+Allies in Flanders only by drawing together their forces from all
+other quarters, and starving the war in Italy and on the Rhine, as
+well as straining every nerve in the interior. This state of almost
+frenzied exertion could not last. Already the effects of Marlborough's
+triumph at the commencement of the campaign had appeared, in the total
+defeat of the French in their lines before Turin, by Prince Eugene, on
+the 18th September, and their expulsion from Italy. It was the
+reinforcements procured for him, and withheld from his opponents, by
+Marlborough, which obtained for him this glorious victory, at which
+the English general, with the generosity of true greatness, rejoiced
+even more sincerely than he had done in any triumphs of his own;<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a>
+while Eugene, with equal greatness of mind, was the first to ascribe
+his success mainly to the succours sent him by the Duke of
+Marlborough.<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a></p>
+
+<p>But all men are not Marlboroughs or Eugenes: the really great alone
+can witness success without envy, or achieve it without selfishness.
+In the base herd of ignoble men who profited by the efforts of these
+great leaders, the malignant passions were rapidly gaining strength by
+the very magnitude of their triumphs. The removal of danger was
+producing its usual effect, among the Allies, of reviving jealousy.
+Conquest was spreading its invariable discord in the cupidity to share
+its fruits. These divisions had early appeared after the battle of
+Ramilies, when the Emperor Joseph, as a natural mark of gratitude to
+the general who had delivered his people from their oppressors, as
+well as from a regard to his own interests, appointed Marlborough to
+the general command as viceroy of the Netherlands. The English general
+was highly gratified by this mark of confidence and gratitude; and the
+appointment was cordially approved of by Queen Anne and the English
+cabinet, who without hesitation authorized Marlborough to accept the
+proffered dignity. But the Dutch, who had already begun to conceive
+projects of ambition by an accession of territory to themselves on the
+side of Flanders, evinced such umbrage at this appointment, as tending
+to throw the administration of the Netherlands entirely into the hands
+of the English and Austrians, that Marlborough had the magnanimity<!-- Page 670 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_670" id="Page_670">[Pg 670]</a></span> to
+solicit permission to decline an honour which threatened to breed
+disunion in the alliance.<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> This conduct was as disinterested as it
+was patriotic; for the appointments of the government, thus declined
+from a desire for the public good, were no less than sixty thousand
+pounds a-year.</p>
+
+<p>Although, however, Marlborough thus renounced this splendid
+appointment, yet the court of Vienna were not equally tractable, and
+evinced the utmost jealousy at the no longer disguised desire of the
+Dutch to gain an accession of territory, and the barrier of which they
+were so passionately desirous, at the expense of the Austrian
+Netherlands. The project also got wind, and the inhabitants of
+Brabant, whom difference of religion and old-established national
+rivalry had long alienated from the Dutch, were so much alarmed at the
+prospect of being transferred to their hated neighbours, that it at
+once cooled their ardour in the cause of the alliance, and went far to
+sow the seeds of irrepressible dissension among them. The Emperor,
+therefore, again pressed the appointment on Marlborough; but from the
+same lofty motives he continued to decline, professing a willingness,
+at the same time, to give the Emperor every aid privately in the new
+government which was in his power; so that the Emperor was obliged to
+give a reluctant consent. Notwithstanding this refusal, the jealousy
+of the Dutch was such, that on the revival of a report that the
+government had been again confirmed to the Duke of Marlborough, they
+were thrown into such a ferment, that in the public congress the
+Pensionary could not avoid exclaiming in the presence of the English
+ambassador, "Mon Dieu! est-il possible qu'on voudrait faire ce pas
+sans notre participation?"<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a></p>
+
+<p>The French government were soon informed of this jealousy, and of the
+open desire of the Dutch for an accession of territory on the side of
+Flanders, at the expense of Austria; and they took advantage of it,
+early in the summer of 1706, to open a secret negotiation with the
+States-general for the conclusion of a separate peace with that
+republic. The basis of this accommodation was to be a renunciation by
+the Duke of Anjou of his claim to the crown of Spain, upon receiving
+an equivalent in Italy: he offered to recognize Anne as Queen of
+England, and professed the utmost readiness to secure for the Dutch,
+<i>at the expense of Austria</i>, that barrier in the Netherlands, to which
+he conceived them to be so well entitled. These proposals elated the
+Dutch government to such a degree, that they began to take a high
+hand, and assume a dictatorial tone at the Hague: and it was the
+secret belief that they would, if matters came to extremities, be
+supported by France in this exorbitant demand for a slice of Austria,
+that made them resist so strenuously the government of the Low
+Countries being placed in such firm and vigorous hands as those of
+Marlborough. Matters had come to such a pass in October and November
+1706, that Godolphin regarded affairs as desperate, and thought the
+alliance was on the point of being dissolved.<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a><!-- Page 671 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_671" id="Page_671">[Pg 671]</a></span> Thus was
+Marlborough's usual winter campaign with the confederates rendered
+more difficult on this than it had been on any preceding occasion; for
+he had now to contend with the consequences of his own success, and
+allay the jealousies and stifle the cupidity which had sprung up, out
+of the prospect of the magnificent spoil which he himself had laid at
+the feet of the Allies.</p>
+
+<p>But in this dangerous crisis, Marlborough's great diplomatic ability,
+consummate address, and thorough devotion to the common good, stood
+him in as good stead as his military talents had done him in the
+preceding campaign with Villeroi and Vend&ocirc;me. In the beginning of
+November, he repaired to the Hague, and though he found the Dutch in
+the first instance so extravagant in their ideas of the barrier they
+were to obtain, that he despaired of effecting any settlement of the
+differences between them and the Emperor;<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> yet he at length
+succeeded, though with very great difficulty, in appeasing, for the
+time, the jealousies between them and the cabinet of Vienna, and
+obtaining a public renewal of the alliance for the prosecution of the
+war. The publication of this treaty diffused the utmost satisfaction
+among the ministers of the Allied powers assembled at the Hague; and
+this was further increased by the breaking off, at the same time, of a
+negotiation which had pended for some months between Marlborough and
+the Elector of Bavaria, for a separate treaty with that prince, who
+had become disgusted with the French alliance. But all Marlborough's
+efforts failed to make any adjustment of the disputed matter of the
+barrier, on which the Dutch were so obstinately set; and finding them
+equally unreasonable and intractable on that subject, he deemed
+himself fortunate when he obtained the adjourning of the question, by
+the consent of all concerned, till the conclusion of a general peace.</p>
+
+<p>After the adjustment of this delicate and perilous negotiation,
+Marlborough returned to England, where he was received with transports
+of exultation by all classes of the people. He was conducted in one of
+the royal carriages, amidst a splendid procession of all the nobility
+of the kingdom, to Temple Bar, where he was received by the city
+authorities, by whom he was feasted in the most magnificent manner at
+Vintners' Hall. Thanks were voted to him by both Houses of Parliament;
+and when he took his seat in the House of Peers, the Lord Keeper
+addressed him in these just and appropriate terms&mdash;"What your Grace
+has performed in this last campaign has far exceeded all hopes, even
+of such as were most affectionate and partial to their country's
+interest and glory. The advantages you have gained against the enemy
+are of such a nature, so conspicuous in themselves, so undoubtedly
+owing to your courage and conduct, so sensibly and universally
+beneficial to the whole confederacy, that to attempt to adorn them
+with the colouring of words would be vain and inexcusable. Therefore I
+decline it, the rather because I should certainly offend that great
+modesty which alone can and does add lustre to your actions, and which
+in your Grace's example has successfully withstood as great trials, as
+that virtue has met with in any instance whatsoever." The House of
+Commons passed a similar resolution;<!-- Page 672 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_672" id="Page_672">[Pg 672]</a></span> and the better to testify the
+national gratitude, an annuity of &pound;5000 a-year, charged upon the
+Post-Office, was settled upon the Duke and Duchess, and their
+descendants male or female; and the dukedom, which stood limited to
+heirs-male, was extended also to heirs-female, "in order," as it was
+finely expressed, "that England might never be without a title which
+might recall the remembrance of so much glory."</p>
+
+<p>So much glory, however, produced its usual effect in engendering
+jealousy in little minds. The Whigs had grown spiteful against that
+illustrious pillar of their party; they were tired of hearing him
+called the just. Both Godolphin and Marlborough became the objects of
+excessive jealousy to their own party; and this, combined with the
+rancour of the Tories, who could never forgive his desertion of his
+early patron the Duke of York, had well-nigh proved fatal to him when
+at the very zenith of his usefulness and popularity. Intrigue was rife
+at St James's. Parties were strangely intermixed and disjointed. Some
+of the moderate Tories were in power; many covetous Whigs were out of
+it. Neither party stood on great public principle, a sure sign of
+instability in the national councils, and ultimate neglect of the
+national interests. Harley's intrigues had become serious; the prime
+minister, Godolphin, had threatened to resign. In this alarming
+juncture of domestic affairs, the presence of Marlborough produced its
+usual pacifying and benign influence. In a long interview which he had
+with the Queen on his first private audience, he settled all
+differences; Godolphin was persuaded to withdraw his resignation; the
+cabinet was re-constructed on a new and harmonious basis, Harley and
+Bolingbroke being the only Tories of any note who remained in power;
+and this new peril to the prosecution of the war, and the cause of
+European independence, was removed.</p>
+
+<p>Marlborough's services to England and the cause of European
+independence in this campaign, recall one mournful feeling to the
+British annalist. All that he had won for his country&mdash;all that
+Wellington, with still greater difficulty, and amidst yet brighter
+glories, regained for it, has been lost. It has been lost, too, not by
+the enemies of the nation, but by itself; not by an opposite faction,
+but by the very party over whom his own great exploits had shed such
+imperishable lustre. Antwerp, the first-fruits of Ramilies&mdash;Antwerp,
+the last reward of Waterloo&mdash;Antwerp, to hold which against England
+Napoleon lost his crown, has been abandoned to France! An English
+fleet has combined with a French army to wrest from Holland the
+barrier of Dutch independence, and the key to the Low Countries. The
+barrier so passionately sought by the Dutch has been wrested from
+them, and wrested from them by British hands; a revolutionary power
+has been placed on the throne of Belgium; Flanders, instead of the
+outwork of Europe against France, has become the outwork of France
+against Europe. The tricolor flag waves in sight of Bergen-op-Zoom;
+within a month after the first European war, the whole coast from
+Bayonne to the Texel will be arrayed against Britain! The Whigs of
+1832 have undone all that the Whigs of 1706 had done&mdash;all that the
+glories of 1815 had secured. Such is the way in which nations are
+ruined by the blindness of faction.</p>
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES.</h3>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Continued from No. I., in July 1845, Vol. lviii. p. 1.</p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> "C'est le retard de toutes les troupes Allemandes qui
+d&eacute;range nos affaires. Je ne saurais vous expliquer la situation o&ugrave;
+nous sommes qu'en vous envoyant les deux lettres ci jointes,&mdash;l'une
+que je viens de recevoir du Prince de Bade, et l'autre la r&eacute;ponse que
+je lui fais. En v&eacute;rit&eacute; notre &eacute;tat est plus &agrave; plaindre que vous ne
+croyez; mais je vous prie que cela n'aille pas outre. <i>Nous perdons la
+plus belle occasion du monde&mdash;manque des troupes qui devaient &ecirc;tre ici
+il y a deja longtemps</i>. Pour le reste de l'artillerie Hollandaise, et
+les provisions qui peuvent arriver de Mayence, vous les arr&ecirc;terez,
+s'il vous plait, pour quelques jours, jusqu'&agrave; ce que je vous en
+&eacute;crive."&mdash;<i>Marlborough &agrave; M. Pesters; Tr&ecirc;ves, 31 Mai 1705. Despatches</i>,
+II. 60-1.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> Even so late as the 8th June, Marlborough wrote.&mdash;"J'ai
+d'abord pris poste dans ce camp, o&ugrave; je me trouve &agrave; port&eacute;e
+d'entreprendre la si&egrave;ge de Saar-Louis, si les troupes qui devaient
+avoir &eacute;t&eacute; ici il y a quelques jours m'avaient joint. Cependant je n'ai
+pas jusqu'ici un seul homme qui ne soit &agrave; la solde d'Angleterre ou de
+la Hollande. Les troupes de Bade ne peuvent arriver avant le 21 au
+plut&ocirc;t; quelques-uns des Prussiens sont encore plus en arri&egrave;re; et
+pour les trois mille chevaux que les princes voisins devaient nous
+fournir pour m&eacute;ner l'artillerie et les munitions, et sans quoi il nous
+sera impossible d'agir, je n'en ai aucune nouvelle, nonobstant toutes
+mes instances. J'ai grand peur m&ecirc;me qu'il n'y ait, &agrave; l'heure m&ecirc;me que
+je vous &eacute;cris celle-ci, des regulations en chemin de la Haye qui
+d&eacute;truiront enti&egrave;rement tous nos projets de ce c&ocirc;t&eacute;. Cette situation me
+donne tant d'inqui&eacute;tude que je ne saurais me dispenser de vous prier
+d'en vouloir part &agrave; sa Majest&eacute; Imp&eacute;riale."&mdash;<i>Marlborough au Comte de
+Wroteslau; Elft, 8 Juin 1705. Despatches</i>, II. 85.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> "Par ces contretemps tous nos projets de ce c&ocirc;t&eacute;-ci sont
+&eacute;vanouis, au moins pour le present; et j'esp&egrave;re que V.A. me fera la
+justice de croire que j'ai fait tout ce qui a dependu de moi pour les
+faire r&eacute;ussir. Si je pouvais avoir l'honneur d'entretenir V.A. pour
+une seule heure, je lui dirai bien des choses, par o&ugrave; elle verrait
+combien je suis &agrave; plaindre. J'avais 94 escadrons et 72 bataillons,
+tous &agrave; la solde de l'Angleterre et de la Hollande; de sorte que, si
+l'on m'avait second&eacute; nous aurions une des plus glorieuses campagnes
+qu'on pouvait souhaiter. Apr&egrave;s un tel traitment, V.A., je suis s&ucirc;r, ne
+m'aurait pas bl&acirc;m&eacute; si j'avais pris la r&eacute;solution <i>de ne jamais plus
+servir</i>, comme je ne ferai pas aussi, je vous assure, apr&egrave;s cette
+campagne, &agrave; moins que de pouvoir prendre des m&eacute;sures avec l'empereur
+sur lesquelles je pourrais enti&egrave;rement me fier."&mdash;<i>Marlborough &agrave;
+Eug&egrave;ne, 21 Juin 1705. Despatches</i>, II. 124.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> "It is a justice I owe to the Duke of Marlborough to
+state, that the whole honour of the enterprise, executed with so much
+skill and courage, is entirely due to him."&mdash;<i>Overkirk to
+States-general, 19th July 1705. Coxe</i>, II. 151.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> "On Wednesday, it was unanimously resolved we should pass
+the Dyle, but that afternoon there fell so much rain as rendered it
+impracticable; but the fair weather this morning made me determine to
+attempt it. Upon this the deputies held a council with all the
+generals of Overkirk's army, who have unanimously retracted their
+opinions, and declared the passage of the river too dangerous, which
+resolution, in my opinion, <i>will ruin the whole campaign</i>. They have,
+at the same time, proposed to me to attack the French on their left;
+but I know they will let that fall also, as soon as they see the
+ground. It is very mortifying to meet more obstruction from friends
+than from enemies; but that is now the case with me; yet I dare not
+show my resentment for fear of alarming the Dutch."&mdash;<i>Marlborough to
+Godolphin, 29th July 1705. Coxe</i>, II. 158.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> Bolingbroke to Marlborough, August 18, 1705. <i>Coxe</i>, II.
+160.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> Marlborough to the States, Wavre, 19th August 1705.
+<i>Desp</i>. II. 224.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> Dutch Generals' Mem. <i>Coxe</i>, II. 174.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> "Several prisoners whom we have taken, as well as the
+deserters, assure us, that they should have made no other defence but
+such as might have given them time to draw off their army to Brussels,
+where their baggage was already gone. By this you may imagine how I am
+vexed, seeing very plainly I am joined with people who will never do
+any thing."&mdash;<i>Marlborough to Godolphin, August 24 1705</i>.
+</p><p>
+"M. Overkirk et moi avons d'abord &eacute;t&eacute; reconnaitre les postes que nous
+voulions attaquer, et l'arm&eacute;e &eacute;tant rang&eacute;e en bataille sur le midi,
+nous avions tout d'esperer, avec la benediction du ciel, vu notre
+sup&eacute;riorit&eacute;, et la bont&eacute; des troupes, une heuruse journ&eacute;e; mais MM.
+les deput&eacute;s de l'&eacute;tat ayant voulu consulter leurs g&eacute;n&eacute;raux, et les
+trouvant de differentes sentiments d'avec M. Overkirk et moi, ils
+n'ont pas voulu passer outre. De sorte que tout notre dessein, apr&egrave;s
+l'avoir m&eacute;n&eacute; jusque l&agrave;, a &eacute;chou&eacute;, et nous avons rebrouss&eacute; chemin pour
+aller commencer la d&eacute;molition des Lignes, et prendre Leau. Vous pouvez
+bien croire, Monsieur, que je suis au d&eacute;sespoir d'&ecirc;tre oblig&eacute;
+d'essuyer encore ce contretemps; mais je vois bien qu'il ne faut pas
+plus songer &agrave; agir offensivement avec ces messieurs, puisqu' ils ne
+veulent rien risquer quand m&ecirc;me ils ont tout l'advantage de leur
+c&ocirc;t&eacute;."&mdash;<i>Marlborough au Comte de Wartenberg, Wavre, 20 Ao&ucirc;t 1705.
+Despatches</i>, II. 226.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> "This vast addition of renown which your Grace has
+acquired, and the wonderful preservation of your life, are subjects
+upon which I can never express a thousandth part of what I feel.
+<i>France and faction are the only enemies England has to fear</i>, and
+your Grace will conquer both; at least, while you beat the French, you
+give a strength to the Government which the other dares not contend
+with."&mdash;<i>Bolingbroke to Marlborough, May 28, 1706. Coxe</i>, II. 358.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> "I shall attend the Queen at the thanksgiving on
+Thursday next: I assure you I shall do it, from every vein within me,
+having scarce any thing else to support either my head or heart. The
+<i>animosity and inveteracy one has to struggle against is
+unimaginable</i>, not to mention the difficulty of obtaining things to be
+done that are reasonable, or of satisfying people with reason when
+they are done."&mdash;<i>Godolphin to Marlborough, May 24, 1706.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> Duke of Marlborough to Mr Secretary Harley, June 14,
+1706.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> "The consequences of this battle are likely to be
+greater than that of Blenheim; for we have now the whole summer before
+us, and, with the blessing of God, I will make the best use of it.
+<i>For as I have had no council of war before this battle, so I hope to
+have none during the whole campaign;</i> and I think we may make such
+work of it as may give the Queen the glory of making a safe and
+honourable peace, for the blessing of God is certainly with
+us."&mdash;<i>Marlborough to Lord Godolphin, May 27, 1706. Coxe, II. 365.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> Marlborough to Mr Secretary Harley, 3d June 1706. <i>Desp.
+II.</i> 554.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> Marlborough to Duchess of Marlborough, May 31, 1706.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> Marlborough to Secretary Harley, Helchin, 9th August
+1706. <i>Desp</i>. III. 69.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> Marlborough to Duke of Savoy, Helchin, 25th August 1706.
+<i>Desp</i>. III. 101.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> Marlborough to Godolphin, September 4, 1706. <i>Coxe</i>,
+III. 10.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> "If the Dutch can furnish ammunition for the siege of
+Mons, we shall undertake it; for if the weather continues fair, we
+shall have it much cheaper this year than the next, when they have had
+time to recruit their army. The taking of that town would be a very
+great advantage to us for the opening of next campaign, which we must
+make if we would bring France to such a peace as will give us quiet
+hereafter."&mdash;<i>Marlborough to Godolphin, October 14, 1706. Coxe</i>, III.
+14.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> "M. de Vend&ocirc;me tells his officers he has one hundred and
+forty battalions and one hundred and eighty squadrons, and that, if my
+Lord Marlborough gives him an opportunity, he will pay him a visit
+before this campaign ends. I believe he has neither will nor power to
+do it, which we shall see quickly, for we are now camped in so open a
+country that if he marches to us we cannot refuse
+fighting."&mdash;<i>Marlborough to Lord Godolphin, October 14, 1706</i>.
+<i>Ibid.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> "I have now received confirmation of the success in
+Italy, from the Duke of Savoy and Prince Eugene, and it is impossible
+for me to express the joy it has given me; <i>for I not only esteem, but
+really love, that Prince</i>. This glorious action must bring France so
+low, that if our friends can be persuaded to carry on the war one year
+longer with vigour, we could not fail, with God's blessing, to have
+such a peace as would give us quiet in our days. But the Dutch are at
+this time unaccountable."&mdash;<i>Marlborough to the Duchess, Sept. 26,
+1706. Coxe</i>, III. 20, 21.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> "Your highness, I am sure, will rejoice at the signal
+advantage which the arms of his Imperial Majesty and the Allies have
+gained. <i>You have had so great a hand in it, by the succours you have
+procured</i>, that you must permit me to thank you again."&mdash;<i>Eugene to
+Marlborough, 20th Sept. 1706. Coxe</i>, III. 20.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> "This appointment by the Emperor has given some
+uneasiness in Holland, by thinking that the Emperor has a mind to put
+the power in this country into the Queen's hands, in order that they
+may have nothing to do with it. If I should find the same thing by the
+Pensionary, and that nothing can cure this jealousy but my desiring to
+be excused from accepting this commission, I hope the Queen will allow
+of it; for the advantage and honour I have by this commission is <i>very
+insignificant in comparison of the fatal consequences that might be if
+it should cause a jealousy between the two nations</i>. And though the
+appointments of this government are sixty thousand pounds a-year, I
+shall with pleasure excuse myself, since I am convinced it is for her
+service, if the States should not make it their request, which they
+are very far from doing."&mdash;<i>Marlborough to Godolphin, July 1 and 8,
+1706. Coxe</i>, III. 391, 393.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> Mr Stepney to Duke of Marlborough, <i>Hague, Jan. 4, 1707.
+Coxe</i>, II. 407.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> "Lord Somers has shown me a long letter which he has had
+from the Pensionary, very intent <i>upon settling the barrier</i>. The
+inclinations of the Dutch are so violent and plain, that I am of
+opinion nothing will be able to prevent their taking effect but our
+being as plain with them upon the same subject, and threatening to
+publish to the whole world the terms for which they solicit."&mdash;<i>Lord
+Godolphin to Marlborough</i>, Oct. 24, 1706. Coxe, III. 74.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> "My inclinations will lead me to stay as little as
+possible at the Hague, though the Pensionary tells me I must stay to
+finish the succession treaty and their barrier, which, should I stay
+the whole winter, I am very confident would not be brought to
+perfection. For they are of so many minds, and are all so very
+extravagant about their barrier, that I despair of doing any thing
+good till they are more reasonable, which they will not be till they
+see that they have it not in their power to dispose of the whole Low
+Countries at their will and pleasure, in which the French flatter
+them."-<i>Marlborough to Godolphin, Oct. 29, 1706. Coxe</i>, III. 79.</p></div>
+</div>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div class="biggap"><!-- Page 673 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_673" id="Page_673">[Pg 673]</a></span></div>
+<h2><a name="THE_STUDENT_OF_SALAMANCA" id="THE_STUDENT_OF_SALAMANCA"></a>THE STUDENT OF SALAMANCA.</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">Part II</span>.</h3>
+
+<div class="poem center"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">"Por estas monta&ntilde;as,</span><br />
+<span class="i4">Facciosos siguiendo,</span><br />
+<span class="i4">Vamos defendiendo</span><br />
+<span class="i4">La Constitucion."</span><br />
+<br />
+<span class="i6"><i>Himno de Navarra</i>.</span><br />
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Rarely had the alameda of the picturesque old town of Logro&ntilde;o
+presented a gayer or more brilliant appearance than on a certain July
+evening of the year 1834. The day had been sultry in the extreme, and
+the sun was touching the horizon before the fair Riojanas ventured to
+quit their artificially darkened rooms, and the cool shelter of their
+well-screened <i>miradores</i>, for the customary promenade. It was
+pleasant, certainly, in those sombre apartments, and beneath those
+thick awnings, which excluded each ray of sun, although they did not
+prevent what little breeze there was from circulating freely between
+the heavy stone balustrades or quaintly moulded iron-work of the
+spacious balconies, rustling the leaves and blossoms of the
+orange-trees, and wafting their fragrance to the languid beauties who
+sat dozing, chatting, or love-making within. But if the <i>farniente</i>
+and languor induced by the almost tropical heat, were so agreeable as
+to tempt to their longer indulgence, on the other hand the <i>paseo</i>,
+that indispensable termination to a Spaniard's day, had, upon the
+evening in question, peculiar attractions for the inhabitants of
+Logro&ntilde;o, and especially for their fairer portion. Within the preceding
+three days, a body of troops, in number nearly twenty thousand men, a
+large portion of them the pick and flower of the Spanish army, had
+been concentrated at Logro&ntilde;o, whence, under the command of Rodil&mdash;a
+general of high reputation&mdash;they were to advance into Navarre, and
+exterminate the daring rebels, who, for some months past, had
+disturbed the peace of Spain. All had been noise and movement in the
+town during those three days; every stable full of horses, every house
+crowded with soldiers; artillery and baggage-waggons encumbering the
+squares and suburbs; the streets resounding with the harsh clang of
+trumpets and monotonous beat of drums; muleteers loading and unloading
+their beasts; commissaries bustling about for rations; beplumed and
+embroidered staff-officers galloping to and fro with orders; the clash
+of arms and tramp of horses in the barrack-yards; the clatter of
+wine-cups, joyous song, and merry tinkle of the guitar, from the
+various wine-houses in which the light-hearted soldiery were snatching
+a moment of enjoyment in the intervals of duty;&mdash;such were a few of
+the sights and sounds which for the time animated and gave importance
+to the usually quiet town of Logro&ntilde;o. Towards evening, the throng and
+bustle within the town diminished, and were transferred to the
+pleasant walks around it, and especially to the shady and
+flower-bordered avenues of the alameda. Thither repaired the proud and
+graceful beauties of Castile and Navarre, their raven locks but
+partially veiled by the fascinating mantilla, their dark and lustrous
+eyes flashing coquettish glances upon the gay officers who accompanied
+or hovered around them. Every variety of uniform was there to be seen;
+all was blaze, and glitter, and brilliancy; the smart trappings of
+these fresh troops had not yet been tattered and tarnished amidst the
+hardships of mountain warfare. The showy hussar, the elegant lancer,
+the helmeted dragoon, aides-de-camp with their cocked-hats and blue
+sashes, crossed and mingled in the crowd that filled the alameda, at
+either end of which a band of music was playing the beautiful and
+spirit-stirring national airs of Spain. On the one hand arose the
+dingy masses of the houses of Logro&ntilde;o, speckled with the lights that
+issued from their open casements, their outline distinctly defined
+against<!-- Page 674 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_674" id="Page_674">[Pg 674]</a></span> the rapidly darkening sky; on the other side was a wide
+extent of corn-field, intersected and varied by rows and clusters of
+trees, amongst the branches of which, and over the waving surface of
+the corn, innumerable fire-flies darted and sparkled. Here, a group of
+soldiers and country girls danced a bolero to the music of a guitar
+and tambourine; there, another party was collected round an Andalusian
+ballad-singer, of whose patriotic ditties "<i>la Libertad</i>" and "<i>la
+inocente Isabel</i>" were the usual themes. In a third place, a few
+inveterate gamblers&mdash;as what Spanish soldiers are not?&mdash;had stretched
+themselves upon the grass in a circle, and by the flickering light of
+a broken lantern, or of a candle stuck in the earth, were playing a
+game at cards for their day's pay, or for any thing else they might
+chance to possess. On all sides, ragged, bare-footed boys ran about,
+carrying pieces of lighted rope in their hands, the end of which they
+occasionally dashed against the ground, causing a shower of sparks to
+fly out, whilst they recommended themselves to the custom of the
+cigar-smokers by loud cries of "<i>Fuego! Buen fuego! Quien quiere
+fuego?</i>"</p>
+
+<p>At few of the young officers, who, on the evening referred to, paraded
+the alameda of Logro&ntilde;o, was the artillery of eyes and fan more
+frequently levelled by the love-breathing beauties there assembled,
+than at Luis Herrera, who, in the uniform of the cavalry regiment to
+which he now belonged, was present upon the paseo. But for him fans
+waved and bright eyes sparkled in vain. He was deeply engaged in
+conversation with Mariano Torres, who, having recently obtained a
+commission in the same corps with his friend, had arrived that evening
+to join it. The two young men had parted soon after the death of Don
+Manuel Herrera, and had not met since. One of Mariano's first
+questions concerned the Villabuenas.</p>
+
+<p>"The count went to France some months ago, I believe," replied Luis,
+dryly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Torres, "so I heard, and took his daughter with him. But I
+thought it probable that he might have returned in the train of his
+self-styled sovereign. He is capable of any folly, I should imagine,
+since he was mad enough to sacrifice his fine fortune and position in
+the country by joining in this absurd rebellion. You of course know
+that he has been declared a traitor, and that his estates have been
+confiscated?"</p>
+
+<p>Luis nodded assent.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, in some respects the count's losses may prove a gain to you,"
+continued Torres, pursuing the train of his own thoughts, and not
+observing that the subject he had started was a painful one to his
+friend. "When we have put an end to the war, in a month or two at
+furthest, you can go to France, and obtain his consent to your
+marriage with his daughter. In the present state of his fortunes he
+will hardly refuse it; and you may then return to Spain, and make
+interest for your father-in-law's pardon."</p>
+
+<p>"I am by no means certain," said Herrera, "that the war will be over
+so soon as you imagine. But you will oblige me, Mariano, by not
+speaking of this again. My engagement with Rita is long at an end, and
+not likely ever to be renewed. It was a dream, a vision of happiness
+not destined to be realized, and I endeavour to forget it. I myself
+put an end to it; and not under present circumstances, perhaps under
+none, should I think myself justified in seeking its renewal. Let us
+talk of something else&mdash;of the future if you will, but not of the
+past."</p>
+
+<p>The hours passed by Luis beside Don Manuel's death-bed, had witnessed
+a violent revolution in his feelings and character. Devotedly attached
+to his father, who had been the sole friend, almost the only
+companion, of his boyhood, the fiercer passions of Herrera's nature
+were awakened into sudden and violent action by his untimely fate. A
+burning desire of revenge on the unscrupulous faction to which the
+persecution, exile, and cruel death of Don Manuel were to be
+attributed, took possession of him; and in order to gratify this
+desire, and at the same time to fulfil the solemn pledge he had given
+to his dying parent, he felt himself at the moment capable of
+sacrificing even his love for Rita. No sooner was the mournful
+ceremony of the interment over, than he wrote to Villabuena, informing
+him, in a few stern words, how those who professed<!-- Page 675 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_675" id="Page_675">[Pg 675]</a></span> like him to be the
+defenders of religion and legitimacy, had enacted the part of
+assassins and incendiaries, and shed his father's blood upon his own
+threshold. This communication he considered to be, without further
+comment, a sufficient reply to the proposition made to him by the
+count a few days previously. At the same time&mdash;and this was by far the
+most difficult part of his self-imposed task&mdash;he addressed a letter to
+Rita, releasing her from her engagement. He felt, he told her, that,
+by so doing, he renounced all his fondest hopes; but were he to act
+otherwise, and at once violate his oath, and forego his revenge, he
+should despise himself, and deserve her contempt. He implored her to
+forget their ill-fated attachment, for his own misery would be
+endurable only when he knew that he had not compromised her happiness.</p>
+
+<p>Scarcely had he dispatched these letters, written under a state of
+excitement almost amounting to frenzy, when Herrera, in pursuance of a
+previously formed plan, and as if to stifle the regrets which a forced
+and painful determination occasioned him, hastened to join as a
+volunteer the nearest Christino column. It was one commanded by
+General Lorenzo, then operating against Santos Ladron and the
+Navarrese Carlists. In several skirmishes Herrera signalized himself
+by the intrepidity and fury with which he fought. Ladron was taken and
+shot, and Lorenzo marched to form the advanced guard of a strong
+division which, under the command of Sarsfield, was rapidly nearing
+the scene of the insurrection. On the mere approach of the Christino
+army, the battalions of Castilian Realistas, which formed, numerically
+speaking, an important part of the forces then under arms for Don
+Carlos, disbanded themselves and fled to their homes. Sarsfield
+continued his movement northwards, took possession, after trifling
+resistance, of Logro&ntilde;o, Vittoria, Bilboa, and other towns occupied by
+the Carlists; and, after a few insignificant skirmishes, succeeded in
+dispersing and disarming the whole of the insurgents in the three
+Basque provinces. A handful of badly armed and undisciplined Navarrese
+peasants were all that now kept the field for Charles V., and of the
+rapid capture or destruction of these, the sanguine Christinos
+entertained no doubt. The principal strength of the Carlists was
+broken; their arms were taken away; the majority of the officers who
+had joined, and of the men of note and influence in the country who
+had declared for them, had been compelled to cross the Pyrenees. But
+the tenacious courage and hardihood of the Navarrese insurgents, and
+the military skill of the man who commanded them, baffled the
+unceasing pursuit kept up by the Queen's generals. During the whole of
+the winter the Carlists lived like wolves in the mountains, surrounded
+by ice and snow, cheerfully supporting the most incredible hardships
+and privations. Nay, even under such disadvantageous circumstances,
+their numbers increased, and their discipline improved; and when the
+spring came they presented the appearance, not of a band of robbers,
+as their opponents had hitherto designated them, but of a body of
+regular troops, hardy and well organized, devoted to their general,
+and enthusiastic for the cause they defended. Their rapid movements,
+their bravery and success in several well-contested skirmishes, some
+of which almost deserved the name of regular actions, the surprise of
+various Christino posts and convoys, the consistency, in short, which
+the war was taking, began seriously to alarm the Queen's government;
+and the formidable preparations made by the latter for a campaign
+against the Carlists, were a tacit acknowledgment that Spain was in a
+state of civil war.</p>
+
+<p>In the wild and beautiful valley of the Lower Amezcoa, in the
+<i>merindad</i> or district of Estella, a large body of Christino troops
+was assembled on the fifteenth day after Rodil's entrance into
+Navarre. The numerous forces which that general found under his
+command, after uniting the troops he had brought with him with those
+already in the province, had enabled him to adopt a system of
+occupation, the most effectual, it was believed, for putting an end to
+the war. In pursuance of this plan, he established military lines of
+communication between the different towns of Navarre and Alava,
+garrisoned<!-- Page 676 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_676" id="Page_676">[Pg 676]</a></span> and fortified the principal villages, and having in this
+manner disseminated a considerable portion of his army through the
+insurgent districts, he commenced, with a column of ten thousand men
+that remained at his disposal, a movement through the mountainous
+regions, to which, upon his approach, the Carlists had retired. His
+object was the double one of attacking and destroying their army, and,
+if possible, of seizing the person of Don Carlos, who but a few days
+previously had arrived in Spain. The heat of the weather was
+remarkable, even for that usually sultry season; the troops had had a
+long and fatiguing march over the rugged sierra of Urbasa; and Rodil,
+either with a view of giving them rest, or with some intention of
+garrisoning the villages scattered about the valley, which had
+hitherto been one of the chief haunts of the Carlists, had come to a
+halt in the Lower Amezcoa.</p>
+
+<p>It was two in the afternoon, and, notwithstanding the presence of so
+large a body of men, all was stillness and repose in the valley. The
+troops had arrived that morning, and after taking up their cantonments
+in the various villages and hamlets, had sought refuge from the
+overpowering heat. In the houses, the shutters of which were carefully
+closed to exclude the importunate sunbeams, in the barns and stables,
+under the shadow cast by balconies or projecting eaves, and along the
+banks of the stream which traverses the valley, and is noted in the
+surrounding country for the crystal clearness and extreme coldness of
+its waters, the soldiers were lying, their uniforms unbuttoned, the
+stiff leathern stock thrown aside, enjoying the mid-day slumber, which
+the temperature and their recent fatigue rendered doubly acceptable.
+Here and there, at a short distance from the villages, and further
+off, near the different roads and passes that give access to the
+valley through or over the gigantic mountain-wall by which it is
+encircled, the sun flashed upon the polished bayonets and
+musket-barrels of the pickets. The men were lying beside their piled
+arms, or had crept under some neighbouring bush to indulge in the
+universal <i>siesta</i>; and even the sentries seemed almost to sleep as
+they paced lazily up and down, or stood leaning upon their muskets,
+keeping but a drowsy watch and careless look-out for an enemy whose
+proximity was neither to be anticipated nor dreaded by a force so
+superior to any which he could get together.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the scene that presented itself to one who, having approached
+the valley from the south, and ascended the mountains that bound it on
+that side, now contemplated from their summit the inactivity of its
+occupants. He was a man of the middle height, but appearing rather
+shorter, from a slight stoop in the shoulders; his age was between
+forty and fifty years, his aspect grave and thoughtful. His features
+were regular, his eyes clear and penetrating, a strong dark mustache
+covered his upper lip and joined his whisker, which was allowed to
+extend but little below the ear. His dress consisted of a plain blue
+frock, girt at the waist by a belt of black leather, to which a sabre
+was suspended, and his head was covered with a <i>boina</i>, or flat cap,
+of the description commonly worn in the neighbourhood of the Pyrenees,
+woven in one piece of fine scarlet wool, and decorated with a <i>borla</i>,
+or tassel of gold cord, spreading like a star over the crown of the
+head. In his hand he held a telescope, which he rested on the top of a
+fragment of rock, and through which he attentively noted what passed
+in the valley below. The case of the field-glass was slung across his
+body by a strap, and, upon inspection, a name would have been found
+stamped upon its leathern surface. It was that of Tomas
+Zumalacarregui.</p>
+
+<p>A short distance in rear of the Carlist leader, and so posted as not
+to be visible from the valley, stood a little group of officers, and
+persons in civilian garb, and a few orderlies, one of whom held the
+general's horse. Behind, a battalion of infantry was drawn up&mdash;fine,
+muscular, active fellows, inured to every hardship, and as indifferent
+to the scorching heat to which they were now exposed, as they had been
+to the bitter cold in the mountains amongst which they had passed the
+preceding winter. Their appearance was not very uniform in its
+details; short jackets,<!-- Page 677 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_677" id="Page_677">[Pg 677]</a></span> loose trousers, and sandals, composed the
+dress of most of them&mdash;one well adapted to long marches and active
+movements&mdash;and they all wore caps similar to those of the officers,
+but of a blue colour, and coarser material. A second battalion of
+these hardy guerillas was advancing with light and elastic step up the
+rugged and difficult path; and this was followed by two others, which,
+as fast as they arrived, were formed up by their officers in the best
+manner that the uneven nature of the ground would admit. Half a dozen
+mules, laden with ammunition, brought up the rear. When the four
+battalions, consisting together of nearly three thousand men, were
+assembled on the summit of the mountain, the arms were piled, and the
+soldiers allowed to sit down or repose themselves as they chose from
+the fatigues of their long and wearisome ascent, and of a march that
+had lasted from early dawn.</p>
+
+<p>The mountain upon which these troops were now stationed was less
+precipitous upon its inner side than most of those that surrounded the
+valley. It shelved gradually downwards, broken here and there by
+ravines, its partially wooded slopes forming a succession of terraces,
+which extended right and left for a distance of more than a mile. At
+the foot of these slopes, and immediately below the spot occupied by
+the Carlists, a low hill ran off at right angles from the higher
+range, projecting into the valley as a promontory does into the sea.
+With the exception of the side furthest from the mountains, which
+consisted of pasture land, the base and skirts of this hill were
+covered with oak and chestnut, and upon the clearing on its summit
+stood a shepherd's hut, whence was commanded a view of a considerable
+extent of the face of the sierra, as well as of the entrance of a
+neighbouring pass that led out of the valley in the direction of
+Estella. At this hut a Christino picket was stationed, to which, when
+the Carlist chief had completed his general survey of the valley, his
+attention became more particularly directed. The outpost consisted of
+about thirty men, little, brown-complexioned, monkey-faced creatures
+from the southern provinces, who, sunk in fancied security and in the
+indolence natural to them, were neglecting their duty to an extent
+which might seriously have compromised the safety of the Christino
+army, had it depended upon their vigilance. The majority of them were
+lying asleep in and around the picket-house, which was situated on one
+side of the platform, within fifty yards of the trees. Of the three
+sentinels, one had seated himself on a stone, with his musket between
+his knees, and, having unbuttoned the loose grey coat that hung like a
+sack about his wizened carcass, was busily engaged in seeking, between
+his shirt and his skin, for certain companions whom he had perhaps
+picked up in his quarters of the previous night, and by whose presence
+about his person he seemed to be but moderately gratified. One of the
+other two sentries had wandered away from the post assigned to him,
+and approached his remaining comrade, with the charitable view of
+dividing with him a small quantity of tobacco, which the two were now
+deliberately manufacturing into paper cigars, beguiling the time as
+they did so by sundry guardroom jokes and witticisms.</p>
+
+<p>An almost imperceptible smile of contempt curled the lip of
+Zumalacarregui as he observed the unmilitary negligence apparent in
+the advanced post of the Christinos. It was exchanged for a proud and
+well-pleased glance when he turned round and saw his gallant Navarrese
+awaiting in eager suspense a signal to advance upon the enemy, whom
+they knew to be close at hand. Zumalacarregui walked towards the
+nearest battalion, and on his approach the men darted from their
+various sitting and reclining postures, and stood ready to seize their
+muskets, and fall into their places. Their chief nodded his
+approbation of their alacrity, but intimated to them, by a motion of
+his hand, that the time for action was not yet come.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Paciencia, muchachos!</i>" said he. "Patience, you will not have long
+to wait. Refresh yourselves, men, whilst the time is given you.
+Captain Landa!" cried he, raising his voice.</p>
+
+<p>The officer commanding the light<!-- Page 678 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_678" id="Page_678">[Pg 678]</a></span> company of the battalion stepped
+forward, and, halting at a short distance from his general, stood
+motionless, with his hand to his cap, awaiting orders.</p>
+
+<p>"Come with me, Landa," said Zumalacarregui; and, taking the officer's
+arm, he led him to the spot whence he had been observing the valley,
+and pointed to the Christino picket.</p>
+
+<p>"Take your company," said he, "and fetch me those sleepy fellows here;
+without firing a shot if it be possible."</p>
+
+<p>The officer returned to his men, and, forming them up with all speed,
+marched them off at a rapid pace. When they had disappeared amongst
+the rocks, Zumalacarregui turned to the chief of his staff.</p>
+
+<p>"Colonel Gomez," said he, "take the third and fourth battalions, and
+move them half a mile to our left, keeping them well out of sight. We
+are not strong enough to attack in the plain, but we shall perhaps get
+our friends to meet us in the mountain."</p>
+
+<p>Gomez&mdash;a tall, portly man, of inexpressive countenance, and whose
+accent, when he spoke, betrayed the Andalusian&mdash;proceeded to execute
+the orders he had received, and Zumalacarregui once more resumed his
+post of observation.</p>
+
+<p>The carelessness of the Christino picket, and the practice which the
+Carlists had already had in a warfare of stratagem and surprise,
+enabled the company of light infantry to execute, with great facility,
+the instructions they had received. The young ensign who commanded the
+outpost was walking listlessly along the edge of the wood, cursing the
+wearisome duty entrusted to him, and referring to his watch to see how
+far still the hour of relief was off, when he was suddenly struck to
+the ground by a blow from a musket-butt, and before he could attempt
+to rise, the point of a bayonet was at his throat. At the same instant
+three score long-legged Navarrese dashed from under cover of the wood,
+bayoneted the sentinels, surrounded the picket-house, and made
+prisoners of the picket. The surprise was complete; not a shot had
+been fired, and all had passed with so little noise that it appeared
+probable the <i>coup-de-main</i> would only become known to the Christinos
+when the time arrived for relieving the outposts.</p>
+
+<p>A trifling oversight, however, on the part of the Carlists, caused
+things to pass differently. A soldier belonging to the picket, and who
+was sleeping amongst the long grass, just within the wood, had escaped
+all notice. The noise of the scuffle awoke him; but on perceiving how
+matters stood, he prudently remained in his hiding-place till the
+Carlists, having collected the arms and ammunition of their prisoners,
+began to reascend the mountain. At a distance of three hundred yards
+he fired at them, and then scampered off in the contrary direction.
+His bullet took no effect, and the retreating guerillas, seeing how
+great a start he had, allowed him to escape unpursued. But the report
+of his musket spread the alarm. The pickets right and left of the one
+that had been surprised, saw the Carlists winding their way up the
+mountain; the vedettes fired, and the drums beat to arms. The alarm
+spread rapidly from one end of the valley to the other, and every part
+of it was in an instant swarming with men. Dragoons saddled and
+artillery harnessed; infantry formed up by battalions and brigades;
+generals and aides-de-camp dashed about hurrying the movements of the
+troops, and asking the whereabouts of the enemy. This information they
+soon obtained. No sooner was the alarm given, than Zumalacarregui,
+relying upon the tried courage of his soldiers, and on the advantage
+of his position, which must render the enemy's cavalry useless, and
+greatly diminish the effect of the artillery, put himself at the head
+of his two battalions, and rapidly descended the mountain, dispatching
+an officer after Gomez with orders for a similar movement on his part.
+Before the Carlists reached the plain, the Christinos quartered in the
+nearest village advanced to meet them, and a smart skirmish began.</p>
+
+<p>Distributed along the clifts and terraces of the mountain, kneeling
+amongst the bushes and sheltered behind the trees that grew at its
+base, the Carlists kept up a steady fire,<!-- Page 679 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_679" id="Page_679">[Pg 679]</a></span> which was warmly replied to
+by their antagonists. In the most exposed situations, the Carlist
+officers of all ranks, from the ensign to the general, showed
+themselves, encouraging their men, urging them to take good aim, and
+not to fire till they could distinguish the faces of their enemies,
+themselves sometimes taking up a dead man's musket and sending a few
+well-directed shots amongst the Christinos. Here a man was seen
+binding the sash, which forms part of the dress of every Navarrese
+peasant, over a wound that was not of sufficient importance to send
+him to the rear; in another place a guerilla replenished his scanty
+stock of ammunition from the cartridge-belt of a fallen comrade, and
+sprang forward, to meet perhaps, the next moment, a similar fate. On
+the side of the Christinos there was less appearance of enthusiasm and
+ardour for the fight; but their numbers were far superior, and each
+moment increased, and some light guns and howitzers that had been
+brought up began to scatter shot and shell amongst the Carlists,
+although the manner in which the latter were sheltered amongst wood
+and rock, prevented those missiles from doing them very material
+injury. The fight was hottest around the hill on which the picket had
+been stationed, now the most advanced point of the Carlist line. It
+was held by a battalion, which, dispersed amongst the trees that
+fringed its sides, opposed a fierce resistance to the assaults of the
+Christinos. At last the latter, weary of the protracted skirmishing,
+by which they lost many men, but were unable to obtain any material
+advantage, sent forward two battalions of the royal guards to take the
+hill at the point of the bayonet. With their bugles playing a lively
+march, these troops, the finest infantry in the Spanish army, advanced
+in admirable order, and without firing a shot, to perform the duty
+assigned to them. On their approach the Carlists retreated from the
+sides of the hill, and assembled in the wood on its summit, at the
+foot of the higher mountains. One battalion of the guards ascended the
+hill in line, and advanced along the open ground, whilst the other
+marched round the skirt of the eminence to take the Carlists in flank.
+The Navarrese reserved their fire till they saw the former battalion
+within fifty yards of them, and then poured in a deadly volley. The
+ranks of the Christinos were thinned, but they closed them again, and,
+with levelled bayonets and quickened step, advanced to clear the wood,
+little expecting that the newly-raised troops opposed to them would
+venture to meet them at close quarters. The event, however, proved
+that they had undervalued their antagonists. Emerging from their
+shelter, the Carlists brought their bayonets to the charge, and, with
+a ringing shout of "<i>Viva Carlos Quinto!</i>" rushed upon their foe. A
+griding clash of steel and a shrill cry of agony bore witness to the
+fury of the encounter. The loss on both sides was severe, but the
+advantage remained with the Carlists. The guards, unprepared for so
+obstinate a resistance, were borne back several paces, and thrown into
+some confusion. But the victors had no time to follow up their
+advantage, for the other Christino battalion had entered the wood, and
+was advancing rapidly upon their flank. Hastily collecting their
+wounded, the Carlists retired, still fighting, to the higher ground in
+their rear. At the same moment Zumalacarregui, observing a body of
+fresh troops making a movement upon his right, as if with the
+intention of outflanking him, ordered the retreat to be sounded, and
+the Carlist line retired slowly up the mountains. Some of Rodil's
+battalions followed, and the skirmishing was kept up with more or less
+spirit till an end was put to it by the arrival of night.</p>
+
+<p>From the commencement of the fight, several squadrons of the Queen's
+cavalry had remained drawn up near a village in which they had their
+quarters, at about a mile from the left of the Carlists. A short
+distance in front of the line, a number of officers had collected
+together, and were observing the progress of the combat, in which the
+impracticability of the ground for horsemen prevented them from taking
+a share. There was considerable grumbling, especially amongst the
+juniors, at the inactivity to which they found themselves condemned.<!-- Page 680 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_680" id="Page_680">[Pg 680]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"If this is the kind of fighting we are always to have," said a young
+cornet sulkily, "they might as well have left us in our garrisons. We
+were a deuced deal more comfortable, and quite as useful, in our snug
+quarters at Valladolid. The faction, it is well known, have no
+cavalry, and you will not catch their infernal guerillas coming down
+into the plain to be sabred at leisure."</p>
+
+<p>"No," said another subaltern, "but they are forming cavalry, it is
+said. Besides, we may catch their infantry napping some day, as they
+did our picket just now."</p>
+
+<p>"Pshaw!" replied the first speaker. "Before that time comes every
+horse in the brigade will be lame or sore-backed, and we ourselves
+shall be converted into infantry men. All respect for lance and
+sabre&mdash;but curse me if I would not rather turn foot-soldier at once,
+than have to crawl over these mountains as we have done for the last
+fortnight, dragging our horses after us by the bridle. For six hours
+yesterday did I flounder over ground that was never meant to be trod
+by any but bears or izards, breaking my spurs and shins, whilst my
+poor nag here was rubbing the skin off his legs against rocks and
+tree-stumps. When I entered the cavalry I expected my horse would
+carry me; but if this goes on, it is much more likely I shall have to
+carry him."</p>
+
+<p>"A nice set of fellows you are," said an old grey-mustached captain,
+"to be grumbling before you have been a month in the field. Wait a
+bit, my boys, till your own flesh and your horses' have been taken
+down by hard marching and short commons, and until, if you mount a
+hill, you are obliged to hold on by the mane, lest the saddle should
+slip back over the lean ribs of your charger. The marches you have as
+yet seen are but child's play to what you <i>will</i> see before the
+campaign is over."</p>
+
+<p>"Then hang me if I don't join the footpads," returned the dissatisfied
+cornet. "At any rate one would have a little fighting then&mdash;a chance
+of a broken head or t'other epaulet; and that is better than carrying
+a sabre one never has to draw. Why, the very mules cannot keep their
+footing amongst these mountains. Ask our quartermaster, whom I saw
+yesterday craning over the edge of a precipice, and watching two of
+his beasts of burden which were going down hill a deal quicker than
+they had come up&mdash;their legs in the air, and the sacks of corn upon
+their backs hastening their descent to some ravine or other, where the
+crows no doubt at the present moment are picking their bones. You
+should have heard old Skinflint swear. I thought he would have thrown
+the muleteer after the mules. And they call this a country for
+cavalry!"</p>
+
+<p>"I certainly fear," said Herrera, who had been listening to the
+colloquy, "that as long as the war is confined to these provinces,
+cavalry will not be very often wanted."</p>
+
+<p>"And if they were not here, they would be wanted immediately," said a
+field-officer, who was observing the skirmish through a telescope.
+"Besides, you young gentlemen have less cause for discontent than any
+body else. There may be no opportunity for brilliant charges, but
+there is always work for a subaltern's party, in the way of cutting
+off detachments, or some such <i>coup-de-main</i>. I see a group of fellows
+yonder who will get themselves into trouble if they do not take care."</p>
+
+<p>All eyes and glasses turned towards the direction in which the major
+was looking. It was the hottest moment of the fight; by their
+impetuosity and courage the Carlists were keeping at bay the superior
+numbers of their antagonists; and on their extreme left, a small party
+of horsemen, consisting of four or five officers and a dozen lancers,
+had ventured to advance a short distance into the plain. They had
+halted at the edge of a <i>manzanal</i>, or cider orchard; and although
+some way in advance of their own line, they were at a considerable
+distance from any Christino troops; whilst a tolerably good path,
+which led up the least precipitous part of the mountains in their
+rear, seemed to ensure them an easy retreat whenever it might become
+necessary. So confident were they of their safety, that the officers
+had dismounted, and were observing the Christino reserves, and the
+various bodies of infantry which were advancing<!-- Page 681 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_681" id="Page_681">[Pg 681]</a></span> from the more distant
+cantonments. At this moment the officer commanding the cavalry rode up
+to the spot where Herrera and his comrades were assembled.</p>
+
+<p>"Major Gonzalez," said he, "send half a troop to cut off those
+gentlemen who are reconnoitring. Let the party file off to the rear,
+or their intention will be perceived."</p>
+
+<p>The subalterns belonging to the squadron under command of Gonzalez,
+pressed round him, eager to be chosen for the duty that was to vary
+the monotony and inaction of which they had so recently been
+complaining.</p>
+
+<p>"Herrera," said the major, "you have most practice in this sort of
+thing. Take thirty men and march them back into the village, out on
+the other side, and round that rising ground upon our right. There is
+plenty of cover, and if you make the most of it, the game cannot
+escape. And, a hint to you&mdash;your fellows generally grind their sabres
+pretty sharp, I know, and you are not fond of encumbering yourself
+with prisoners; but yonder party, judging from their appearance, may
+be men of note amongst the rebels, worth more alive than dead. Bring
+them in with whole skins if you can. As to the fellows with the red
+and white lance-flags, I leave them entirely at your discretion."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall observe your orders, major," replied Herrera, whose eyes
+sparkled at the prospect of a brush with the enemy. "Sergeant
+Velasquez, tell off thirty men from the left of the troop."</p>
+
+<p>The non-commissioned officer, who was introduced to the reader at the
+commencement of this narrative, and who now found himself, in
+consequence of a change of regiment, in the same squadron as Herrera,
+obeyed the order he had received, and the party marched leisurely into
+the village. No sooner, however, had they entered the narrow street,
+and were concealed from the view of those whom they intended to
+surprise, than their pace was altered to a brisk trot, which became a
+hand-gallop when they got into the fields beyond the rising ground
+referred to by the major. They then struck into a hollow road,
+sheltered by bush-crowned banks, and finally reached the long narrow
+strip of apple-orchard, at the further angle of which the group of
+Carlists was posted. Skirting the plantation on the reverse side to
+the enemy, they arrived at its extremity, and wheeling to the left,
+cantered on in line, their sabre scabbards hooked up to their belts to
+diminish the clatter, the noise of their horses' feet inaudible upon
+the grass and fern over which they rode. "Charge!" shouted Herrera, as
+they reached the second angle of the orchard; and with a loud hurra
+and brandished sabres, the dragoons dashed down upon the little party
+of Carlists, now within a hundred paces of them. The dismounted
+officers hurried to their horses, and the lancers hastily faced about
+to resist the charge; but before they could complete the movement,
+they were sabred and ridden over. Herrera, mindful of the orders he
+had received, hurried to protect the officers from a similar fate. One
+of the latter, who had his back turned to Herrera, and who, although
+he wore a sword by his side, was dressed in plain clothes, was in the
+very act of getting into the saddle, when a dragoon aimed a furious
+cut at his head. Herrera was in time to parry the blow, and as he did
+so, the person whose life he had saved, turned round and disclosed the
+well-known features of the Conde de Villabuena.</p>
+
+<p>"Se&ntilde;or Conde!" exclaimed the astonished Luis, "I am grieved"&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"It is unnecessary, sir," said the count, coldly. "You are obeying
+orders, I presume, and doing what you consider your duty. Am I to be
+shot here, or taken to your chief?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is much against my will," answered Herrera, "that I constrain you
+in any way. I am compelled to conduct you to General Rodil."</p>
+
+<p>The count made no reply, but, turning his horse's head in the
+direction of the Christino camp, rode moodily onwards, followed,
+rather then accompanied, by his captor. A Carlist officer and three
+members of the rebel junta were the other prisoners. The lancers had
+all been cut to pieces.</p>
+
+<p>The position in which Herrera now found himself was in the highest
+degree embarrassing and painful. Old affection and friendship were
+revived<!-- Page 682 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_682" id="Page_682">[Pg 682]</a></span> by the sight of the count; and, had he obeyed his first
+impulse, he would frankly have expressed his sorrow at the chance
+which had thrown Villabuena into the hands of his foes, and have said
+what he could to console him under his misfortune. But the count's
+manner was so haughty and repulsive, and he so studiously avoided
+recognising in Luis any thing more than an opponent and a captor, that
+the words of kindness froze upon the young man's tongue, and during
+the few minutes that were required to rejoin the regiment, the silence
+remained unbroken. On reaching the spot where the cavalry was still
+halted, the detachment was received with loud congratulations on the
+successful issue of the expedition.</p>
+
+<p>"Cleverly managed, Se&ntilde;or Herrera!" said the colonel; "and the
+prisoners are of importance. Take them yourself to the general."</p>
+
+<p>In obedience to this order, Herrera moved off to the part of the field
+in which Rodil, surrounded by a numerous and brilliant staff, had
+taken his post.</p>
+
+<p>"Ha!" said the general, when the young officer had made his report,
+his quick eye glancing at the prisoners, some of whom were known to
+him by sight. "Ha! you have done well, sir, and your conduct shall be
+favourably reported at Madrid. The Marquis of Torralva and Count
+Villabuena&mdash;an important capture this. Your name, sir&mdash;and yours, and
+yours?" said he sharply to the other prisoners.</p>
+
+<p>The answers visibly increased his satisfaction. They were all men well
+known as zealous and influential partizans of the Pretender. Rodil
+paused an instant, and then turned to one of his aides-de-camp.</p>
+
+<p>"A priest and a firing party," said he. "You have half an hour to
+prepare for death," he added, addressing the prisoners. "Rebels taken
+with arms in their hands can expect no greater favour."</p>
+
+<p>Herrera felt a cold chill come over him as he heard this order given
+for the instant execution of a man whom he had so long regarded as his
+friend and benefactor. Forgetting, in the agitation of the moment, his
+own subordinate position, and the impropriety of his interference, he
+was about to address the general, and petition for the life of
+Villabuena, when he was saved from the commission of a breach of
+discipline by the interposition of a third party. A young man in the
+uniform of a general officer, of sallow complexion and handsome
+countenance, who was stationed upon Rodil's right hand, moved his
+horse nearer to that of the general, and spoke a few words to him in a
+low tone of voice. Rodil seemed to listen with attention, and to
+reflect a moment before replying.</p>
+
+<p>"You are right, Cordova," said he; "they may be worth keeping as
+hostages; and I will delay their death till I can communicate with her
+Majesty's government. Let them be strictly guarded, and sent to-morrow
+to Pampeluna under good escort. Your name, sir?" said he, turning to
+Herrera.</p>
+
+<p>Herrera told his name and regiment.</p>
+
+<p>"Luis Herrera," repeated Rodil; "I have heard it before, as that of a
+brave and promising officer. Well, sir, since you have taken these
+prisoners, you shall keep them. Yourself and a detachment of your
+squadron will form part of their escort to Pampeluna."</p>
+
+<p>The flattering words of his general went but a short way towards
+reconciling Luis to the unpleasant task of escorting his former friend
+to a captivity which would in all probability find its termination in
+a violent death. With a heavy heart he saw Villabuena and the other
+prisoners led off to the house that was to serve as their place of
+confinement for the night; and still more painful were his feelings,
+when he thought of Rita's grief on receiving intelligence of her
+father's peril, perhaps of his execution. In order to alleviate to the
+utmost of his power the present position of the count, he recommended
+him to the care of the officer placed on guard over him, who promised
+to allow his prisoner every indulgence consistent with his safe
+keeping. And although the escort duty assigned to him was in some
+respects so unpleasant to fulfil, Herrera became almost reconciled to
+it by the reflection, that he might be able to spare Villabuena much
+of the<!-- Page 683 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_683" id="Page_683">[Pg 683]</a></span> hardship and rough treatment to which his captivity exposed
+him.</p>
+
+<p>The first grey light of morning had scarcely appeared in the Lower
+Amezcoa, stealing over the mountain-tops, and indistinctly shadowing
+forth the objects in the plain, when the stillness that had reigned in
+the valley since the conclusion of the preceding day's skirmish, was
+broken by the loud and joyous clang of the reveill&eacute;. At various points
+of the Christino cantonments, the brazen instruments of the cavalry,
+and the more numerous, but perhaps less martially sounding, bands of
+the infantry regiments, were rousing the drowsy soldiers from their
+slumbers, and awakening the surrounding echoes by the wild melody of
+Riego's hymn. Gradually the sky grew brighter, the last lingering
+stars disappeared, the summits of the western mountains were
+illuminated with a golden flush, and the banks and billows of white
+mist that rested on the meadows, and hung upon the hillsides, began to
+melt away and disappear at the approach of the sun's rays. In the
+fields and on the roads near the different villages, the troops were
+seen assembling, the men silent and heavy-eyed, but refreshed and
+invigorated by the night's repose, the horses champing their bits, and
+neighing with impatience. Trains of mules, laden with sacks of corn
+and rations, that from their weight might be deemed sufficient load
+for as many dromedaries, issued from barn and stable, expending their
+superfluous strength and spirit by kicking and biting viciously at
+each other, and were ranged in rear of the troops, where also carts
+and litters, containing wounded men, awaited the order for departure.
+The sergeant-majors called the roll of their troops and companies;
+whilst the men, leaning upon their muskets, or sitting at ease in
+their saddles, munched fragments of the brown ration bread, smoked the
+cigarette, or received from the hands of the tawny-visaged sutlers and
+<i>cantinieras</i>, who walked up and down the ranks, an antidote to the
+effects of the cool morning air, in the shape of a glass of
+<i>aguardiente</i>. When all preparations were completed, and the time
+necessary for the forming up of so numerous a body of men had elapsed,
+the order to march was given, and the troops moved off in a southerly
+direction.</p>
+
+<p>Whilst this general movement took place, a detachment, consisting of
+four companies of infantry, and fifty dragoons, separated itself from
+the main body, and took the road to Pampeluna, whither it was to
+escort Count Villabuena and his fellow captives. The country to the
+north-east of the Amezcoa, through which they would have to pass, was
+known to be free from Carlists, with the exception of unimportant
+parties of armed peasants; Rodil himself had gone in pursuit of
+Zumalacarregui, who had retired in the same direction whence he had
+approached the valley; and therefore this escort, although so few in
+number, was deemed amply sufficient to convey the prisoners in all
+safety to their destination, to which one long day's march would bring
+them. The detachment was commanded by a major of infantry&mdash;a young man
+who had acquired what military experience he possessed in the ease and
+sloth of a garrison life, during which, however, thanks to certain
+influential recommendations, he had found promotion come so quickly
+that he had not the same reason with many of his comrades to be
+satisfied with the more active and dangerous service to which he had
+recently been called. Inwardly congratulating himself on the change
+which his present duty ensured him from the hardships of bivouacs and
+bad quarters to at least a day or two's enjoyment of the fleshpots of
+Pampeluna, he rode gaily along at the head of the escort, chatting and
+laughing with his second in command. Behind him came Herrera and his
+dragoons, and in rear of them the prisoners, on either side of whom
+marched foot-soldiers with fixed bayonets. The body of infantry
+brought up the rear. Strict orders had been given against conversing
+with the captives; and Herrera was compelled, therefore, to abandon
+the intention he had formed of endeavouring to break down the barrier
+of cold reserve within which Count Villabuena had fenced himself, and
+of offering such assistance and comfort as it was in his power to
+give. He was forced<!-- Page 684 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_684" id="Page_684">[Pg 684]</a></span> to be contented with keeping near the prisoners,
+in order to protect them from any abuse or ill-treatment on the part
+of the soldiery.</p>
+
+<p>For some hours the march continued without incident or novelty to vary
+its monotony. There was no high-road in the direction the escort was
+taking; the way, which was shown them by a peasant, led through
+country lanes, over hills, and across fields, as nearly in a straight
+line as the rugged and mountainous nature of the country would allow.
+Towards noon, the heat, endurable enough during the first hours of the
+morning, became excessive. The musket barrels and sabre scabbards
+almost burned the fingers that touched them; the coats of the horses
+were caked with sweat and dust; and the men went panting along,
+looking out eagerly, but in vain, for some roadside fountain or
+streamlet, at which to quench the thirst that parched their mouths.
+They had reached a beaten road, which, although rough and neglected,
+yet afforded a better footing than they had hitherto had, when such
+means of refreshment at last presented themselves. It was near the
+entrance of a sort of defile formed by two irregular lines of low
+hills, closing in the road, which was fringed with patches of trees
+and brushwood, and with huge masses of rock that seemed to have been
+placed there by the hands of the Titans, or to have rolled thither
+during some mighty convulsion of nature from the distant ranges of
+mountains. At a short distance from this pass, there bubbled forth
+from under a moss-grown block of granite a clear and sparkling
+rivulet, which, overflowing the margin of the basin it had formed for
+itself, rippled across the road, and entered the opposite fields. Here
+a five minutes' halt was called, the men were allowed to quit their
+ranks, and in an instant they were kneeling by scores along the side
+of the little stream, collecting the water in canteens and
+foraging-caps, and washing their hands and faces in the pure element.
+The much-needed refreshment taken, the march was resumed.</p>
+
+<p>Notwithstanding that the pass through which the prisoners and their
+escort were now advancing was nearly a mile in length, and in many
+places admirably adapted for a surprise, the officer in command,
+either through ignorance or over-confidence, neglected the usual
+precaution of sending scouts along the hills that on either side
+commanded the road. This negligence struck Herrera, who knew by
+experience, that, with such active and wily foes as the Carlists, no
+precaution could be dispensed with, however superfluous it might seem.
+Scarcely had the troops entered the defile when he suggested to the
+major the propriety of sending out skirmishers to beat the thickets
+and guard against an ambuscade.</p>
+
+<p>"Quite unnecessary, sir," was the reply. "There is no rebel force in
+this part of the country that would venture to come within a league of
+us."</p>
+
+<p>"So we are told," said Herrera; "but I have had occasion to see that
+one must not always rely on such assurances."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall do so, nevertheless, in this instance," said the major. "We
+have a long march before us, and if I fag the men by sending them
+clambering over hills and rocks, I shall lose half of them by
+straggling, and perhaps not reach Pampeluna to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"If you will allow me," said Herrera, "I will send a few of my
+dragoons to do the duty. They will hardly be so effective as infantry
+for such a service, but it will be better than leaving our flanks
+entirely unguarded."</p>
+
+<p>"I have already told you, sir," replied the major testily, "that I
+consider such precaution overstrained and unnecessary. I believe,
+Lieutenant Herrera, that it is I who command this detachment."</p>
+
+<p>Thus rebuked, Herrera desisted from his remonstrances, and fell back
+into his place. The march continued in all security through the wild
+and dangerous defile; the men, refreshed by their momentary halt,
+tramping briskly along, chattering, smoking, and singing snatches of
+soldier's songs. It appeared as if the negligence of the major was
+likely to be justified, as far as it could be, by the result; for they
+were now within two hundred yards of the extremity of the pass, and in
+view of the open country. The defile<!-- Page 685 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_685" id="Page_685">[Pg 685]</a></span> was each moment widening, and
+the space between the road and the hills was filled up with a wood of
+young beech and oak. Herrera himself, who had each moment been
+expecting to receive a volley from some ambushed foe, was beginning to
+think the danger over, when a man dressed in red uniform, with a
+scarlet cap upon his head, and mounted on a white horse, suddenly
+appeared at the end of the pass, and tossing his lance, which he
+carried at the trail, into his bridle hand, put a trumpet that was
+slung round his neck, to his mouth, and blew a loud and startling
+blast. The signal, for such it was, did not long remain unanswered. A
+hoarse wild shout issued from the wood on either side of the road, and
+a volley of musketry resounded through the pass. In an instant the
+hills were alive with Carlist soldiers, some reloading the muskets
+they had just fired, others taking aim at the Christinos, or fixing
+their bayonets in preparation for a closer encounter. Another minute
+had scarcely elapsed, when a strong squadron of cavalry, which the
+trumpeter had preceded, dashed out of the fields at the extremity of
+the pass, formed column upon the road, and levelling their long light
+lances, advanced, led on by Zumalacarregui himself, to charge the
+astonished Christinos.</p>
+
+<p>Extreme was the confusion into which the escort was thrown by this
+attack, so totally unexpected by every body but Herrera. All was
+bewilderment and terror; the men stood staring at each other, or at
+their dead and wounded comrades, without even thinking of defending
+themselves. This state of stupefaction lasted, however, but a second;
+and then the soldiers, without waiting for orders, turned back to
+back, and facing the points where the Carlists had stationed
+themselves, returned their fire with all the vigour and promptness
+which desperation could give. The major&mdash;a really brave man, but quite
+unequal to an emergency of this nature&mdash;knew not what orders to give,
+or how to extricate himself and his men from the scrape into which his
+own headstrong imprudence had brought them. Foreseeing no possibility
+of escape from an enemy who, in numbers and advantage of position, so
+far overmatched him, his next thought regarded the prisoners, and he
+galloped hastily back to where they stood. The Carlists had probably
+received orders concerning them; for neither they nor their immediate
+escort had suffered injury from the volley that had played such havoc
+with the main body of the detachment.</p>
+
+<p>"Fire on the prisoners!" shouted the major.</p>
+
+<p>The guard round Villabuena and his fellow-captives stared at their
+officer without obeying. Some of them were reloading, and the others
+apparently did not comprehend the strange order.</p>
+
+<p>"Fire, I say!" repeated the commandant. "By the holy cross! if we are
+to leave our bones here, theirs shall whiten beside them."</p>
+
+<p>More than one musket was already turned in the direction of the doomed
+captives, when Herrera, who, at the moment that he was about to lead
+his dragoons to the encounter of the Carlist cavalry, just then
+appearing on the road, had overheard the furious exclamation of his
+superior, came galloping back to the rescue.</p>
+
+<p>"Stop!" shouted he, striking up the muzzles of the muskets. "You have
+no warrant for such cruelty."</p>
+
+<p>"Traitor!" screamed the major, almost breathless with rage, and
+raising his sword to make a cut at Herrera. Before, however, he could
+give force to the blow, his eyes rolled frightfully, his feet left the
+stirrups, and, dropping his weapon, he fell headlong into the dust. A
+Carlist bullet had pierced his heart.</p>
+
+<p>"Fire at your foes, and not at defenceless prisoners," said Herrera
+sternly to the dismayed soldiers. "Remember that your lives shall
+answer for those of these men."</p>
+
+<p>And again placing himself at the head of the cavalry, he led them to
+meet Zumalacarregui and his lancers, who were already charging down
+upon them.</p>
+
+<p>But the few seconds that had been occupied in saving Villabuena and
+his companions from the slaughter, had made all the difference in the
+chances of success. Could Herrera have charged, as he had been about
+to do, before the Carlists formed up and advanced, he might, in all
+probability,<!-- Page 686 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_686" id="Page_686">[Pg 686]</a></span> owing to the greater skill of his men in the use of
+their weapons, and to the superiority of their horses, have broken and
+sabred his opponents, and opened the road for the Christino infantry.
+Once in the plain, where the dragoons could act with advantage, the
+Carlists might have been kept at bay, and a retreat effected. Now,
+however, the state of affairs was very different. The lancers, with
+Zumalacarregui and several of his staff charging at their head like
+mere subalterns, came thundering along the road, and before Herrera
+could get his dragoons into full career, the shock took place. In an
+instant the way was blocked up with a confused mass of men and horses.
+The rear files of the contending cavalry, unable immediately to check
+their speed, pushed forward those in front, or forced them off the
+road upon the strip of broken ground and brushwood on either side;
+friends and foes were mingled together, cutting, thrusting, swearing,
+and shouting. But the dragoons, besides encountering the lances of the
+hostile cavalry, suffered terribly from the fire of the foot-soldiers,
+who came down to the side of the road, blazing at them from within a
+few paces, and even thrusting them off their horses with the bayonet.
+In so confused a struggle, and against such odds, the superior
+discipline and skill of the Christinos was of small avail. Herrera,
+who, at the first moment of the encounter, had crossed swords with
+Zumalacarregui himself, but who the next instant had been separated
+from him by the m&ecirc;l&eacute;e, fought like a lion, till his right arm was
+disabled by a lance-thrust. The soldier who had wounded him was about
+to repeat the blow, when a Carlist officer interfered to save him. He
+was made prisoner, and his men, discouraged by his loss, and reduced
+already to little more than a third of their original numbers, threw
+down their arms and asked for quarter. Their example was immediately
+followed by those of the infantry who had escaped alive from the
+murderous volleys of their opponents.</p>
+
+<p>Of all those who took part in this bloody conflict, not one bore
+himself more gallantly, or did more execution amongst the enemy, than
+our old acquaintance, Sergeant Velasquez. When the charge had taken
+place, and the desperate fight above described commenced, he backed
+his horse off the narrow road upon which the combatants were cooped
+up, into a sort of nook formed by a bank and some trees. In this
+advantageous position, his rear and flanks protected, he kept off all
+who attacked him, replying with laugh and jeer to the furious oaths
+and imprecations of his baffled antagonists. His fierce and determined
+aspect, and still more the long and powerful sweep of his broad sabre,
+struck terror into his assailants, who found their best aimed blows
+and most furious assaults repelled, and returned with fatal effect by
+the practised arm of the dragoon. At the moment that Herrera was
+wounded, and the fight brought to a close, the mass of combatants had
+pressed further forward into the defile, and only three or four of the
+rearmost of the Carlists occupied the portion of the pass between
+Velasquez and the open country. Just then a shout in his rear, and a
+bullet that pierced his shako, warned the sergeant that the infantry
+were upon him; and at the same moment he saw his comrades desist from
+their defence. Setting spurs to his charger, he made the animal bound
+forward upon the road, clove the shoulder of the nearest lancer, rode
+over another, and passing unhurt through the rain of bullets that
+whistled around him, galloped out of the defile.</p>
+
+<p>But, although unwounded, Velasquez was not unpursued. A dozen lancers
+spurred their horses after him; and although more than half of these,
+seeing that they had no chance of overtaking the well-mounted
+fugitive, soon pulled up and retraced their steps, three or four still
+persevered in the chase. Fortunate was it for the sergeant that the
+good horse which he had lost at the venta near Tudela, had been
+replaced by one of equal speed and mettle. With unabated swiftness he
+scoured along the road through the whirlwind of dust raised by his
+charger's feet, until the Carlists, seeing the distance between them
+and the object of their pursuit rapidly increasing, gradually
+abandoned the race. One man alone continued<!-- Page 687 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_687" id="Page_687">[Pg 687]</a></span> stanch, and seemed not
+unlikely to overtake the dragoon. This was no other than the
+sergeant's former opponent in the ball-court, Paco the muleteer, now
+converted into a Carlist lancer, and who, his sharp-rowelled spurs
+goring his horse's sides, his lance in his hand, his body bent forward
+as though he would fain have outstripped in his eagerness the speed of
+the animal he bestrode, dashed onward with headlong and reckless
+violence. His lean and raw-boned but swift and vigorous horse,
+scarcely felt the light weight of its rider; whilst Velasquez'
+charger, in addition to the solid bulk of the dragoon, was encumbered
+with a well-filled valise and heavy trappings. The distance between
+pursued and pursuer was rapidly diminishing; and the sergeant, hearing
+the clatter of hoofs each moment drawing nearer, looked over his
+shoulder to see by how many of his enemies he was so obstinately
+followed. Paco immediately recognised him, and with a shout of
+exultation again drove the rowels into his horse's belly.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Halto! traidor! infame!</i>" yelled the ex-muleteer. "Stop, coward, and
+meet your death like a man!"</p>
+
+<p>His invitation was not long disregarded. Velasquez, having ascertained
+that he had but a single pursuer, and that pursuer a man to whom he
+owed a grudge and was by no means sorry to give a lesson, pulled up
+his horse and confronted Paco, who, nothing daunted, came tearing
+along, waving his lance above his head like a mad Cossack, and
+shouting imprecations and defiance. As he came up, Velasquez, who had
+steadily awaited his charge, parried the furious thrust that was aimed
+at him, and at the same time, by a movement of leg and rein which he
+had often practised in the <i>man&egrave;ge</i>, caused his horse to bound aside.
+Unable immediately to check his steed, Paco passed onwards; but as he
+did so, Velasquez dealt him a back-handed blow of his sabre, and the
+unlucky Carlist fell bleeding and senseless from the saddle. His
+horse, terrified at its rider's fall, galloped wildly across the
+country.</p>
+
+<p>"That makes the half-dozen," said the sergeant coolly, as he looked
+down on his prostrate foe; "if every one of us had done as much, the
+day's work would have been better."</p>
+
+<p>And sheathing his sabre, he resumed, but at a more moderate pace, the
+flight which had for a moment been interrupted.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%" />
+
+<div class="biggap"><!-- Page 688 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_688" id="Page_688">[Pg 688]</a></span></div>
+<h2><a name="WHITES_YEARS" id="WHITES_YEARS"></a>WHITE'S THREE YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE.</h2>
+<div class="gap"/>
+<p>The title of "<i>Domestic</i> Manners of the Turks,"<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> given to the
+volumes before us, can scarcely be considered as a correct
+designation; since it is not in the privacy of their own families, in
+their harems and among their children, (scenes in which it would
+indeed be rash to challenge comparison with the eloquent author of the
+<i>Spirit of the East</i>,) that Mr White has depicted the Turks of the
+present day: but rather in the places "where men most do
+congregate"&mdash;in the <i>bezestans</i> and <i>tcharshys</i> or markets, commonly
+called bazars:<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> in the exercise of the various trades and callings,
+and the intercourse of professional and commercial relations. The work
+is rather a treatise on the corporate bodies and municipal
+institutions of Constantinople&mdash;a subject hitherto almost untouched by
+European writers, and in the investigation of which Mr White has
+diligently availed himself of the opportunities afforded him by the
+liberal spirit which the events of late years have fostered among the
+Turks. The results of these researches are now laid before us, in a
+form which, though perhaps not the most popular which might have been
+adopted, is not ill calculated to embrace the vast variety of subjects
+included in the range of the author's observations. Taking the
+bezestans and markets&mdash;the focus of business and commerce to which the
+various classes of the Stamboul population converge&mdash;as the
+ground-work of his lucubrations, Mr White proceeds to enumerate in
+detail the various trades and handicrafts carried on within the
+precincts of these great national marts, the articles therein sold,
+and the guilds or incorporated companies, to many of which extensive
+privileges have been granted by the sultans for their services to the
+state. These topics are diversified by numerous digressions on
+politics, religion, criminal law, the imperial harem, the language of
+flowers&mdash;in short, <i>de omnibus rebus et quibusdam aliis</i>&mdash;in the
+course of which Mr White gives his readers the benefit of all the
+miscellaneous information which has fallen in his way during his three
+years' residence among the Osmanlis. Of a work so diffuse in its
+nature, it is impossible to give more than an outline; and
+accordingly, omitting all mention of those subjects which have been
+rendered tolerably familiar to European readers by the narratives of
+former travellers, we shall select from these "orient pearls," strung
+most literally "at random," such topics as possess most novelty, or on
+which Mr White has imparted some novel information.</p>
+
+<p>The space of ground occupied by the two great bezestans&mdash;the jewel or
+arms' bezestan, and the silk bezestan&mdash;with the surrounding
+<i>tcharshys</i>, and other buildings appropriated to trade, forms an
+irregular quadrangle of about three hundred and fifty square yards, to
+the north of the Mosque of Sultan Bajazet, and west of that of
+Noor-Osmanya. "The bezestans originally consisted of isolated
+buildings, each with four gates opening nearly to the cardinal points,
+which were, and still are, designated after the trades carried on in
+booths around or beneath their respective porches. By degrees new
+shops, alleys, and enclosures clustered around the original depots,
+until the whole were enclosed within walls, arched, roofed, and
+provided with lock-up gates and posterns, of which there are twelve
+large and about twenty small. They were then subjected to the same
+syndical laws that regulate the police and administration of the
+parent buildings." They are opened soon after dawn, and closed at
+afternoon prayer; and the same regulations are observed at the <i>Missr
+Tcharshy</i>, or Egyptian drug-market,<!-- Page 689 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_689" id="Page_689">[Pg 689]</a></span> hereafter to be noticed. The
+jewel bezestan alone shuts at mid-day&mdash;the former occupants having
+been principally janissaries, who held it beneath their dignity to
+keep their shops open all day; on Fridays they are closed; and, during
+Ramazan, are open only from mid-day to afternoon prayer. The silk
+bezestan, being tenanted only by Armenians, is closed on Sundays, and
+the saints' days of their calendar, amounting to nearly a fourth of
+the year. "With the exception of the two bezestans, the bazars are not
+surmounted by domes, the distinctive ornament of almost all public
+edifices; ... so that the whole surface, when seen from the Serasker's
+Tower, presents a vast area of tiles, without any architectural
+relief, and exhibits a monotonous vacuum in the midst of the
+surrounding noble mosques and lofty khans."</p>
+
+<p>The Jewel or Arms' Bezestan (Djevahir or Silah-Bezestany) is the
+oldest of these establishments, dating from the time of the conquest
+by Mahommed II.; but, having been repeatedly destroyed by fire, the
+present edifice of stone was constructed in 1708. It is a lofty oblong
+quadrangular building, with fifteen cupolas and four arched gates&mdash;the
+booksellers', the goldsmiths', the mercers', and the beltmakers'. The
+interior consists of a broad alley, intersected by four transverse
+alleys with double rows of shops, where the dealers, who are all
+Moslems, sit on platforms raised about three feet and a half from the
+pavement. They constitute a guild among themselves, presided over by a
+sheikh, with a deputy and six elders; and are so highly esteemed for
+their probity, that valuable deposits are frequently left in their
+charge by persons going on pilgrimage or to distant countries; but
+this privilege has lately been interfered with by government, which
+has claimed, in failure of heirs, the reversions which formerly fell
+to the guild. "It would be an endless task to describe the articles
+exposed to sale in Djevahir-Bezestany, which, from jewels being rarely
+sold there at present, might be more appropriately called the bezestan
+of antiquities." The principal objects of attraction, especially to
+foreigners, are the arms, to which Mr White accordingly confines his
+remarks: but the once famed Damascus sabres (called <i>Sham</i> or Syrian)
+are now held as inferior to those of Khorassan and Persia, (<i>Taban</i> or
+polished,) unless anterior to the destruction of the old manufactory
+by Timour in 1400; and those of this ancient fabric are now of extreme
+rarity and value. "A full-sized Khorassan, or ancient Damascus sabre,
+should measure about thirty-five inches from guard to point; the back
+should be free from flaws, the watering even and distinct throughout
+the whole length: the colour a bluish grey. A perfect sabre should
+possess what the Turks call the Kirk Merdevend, (forty gradations:)
+that is, the blade should consist of forty compartments of watered
+circles, diminishing in diameter as they reach the point. A tolerable
+<i>taban</i> of this kind, with plain scabbard and horn handle, is not
+easily purchased for less than 2000 piastres; some fetch as much as
+5000, and when recognised as extraordinary, there is no limit to the
+price. Damascus sabres made prior to 1600 are seldom seen, but modern
+blades of less pure temper and lighter colour are common. Their form
+is nearly similar to the Khorassan; but the latter, when of
+extraordinary temper, will cut through the former like a knife through
+a bean-stalk." The shorter swords of bright steel called <i>pala</i>,
+watered not in circles, but in waving lines, are mostly from the
+manufactory established at Stamboul by Mahommed II. soon after the
+conquest, and which maintained its celebrity up to the time of Mourad
+IV., the last sultan who headed his armies in person:&mdash;"After his
+death, the fashion of wearing Khorassan and old Syrian blades was
+revived: and the Stamboul manufactory was gradually neglected."</p>
+
+<p>It is needless to follow Mr White through his dissertations on
+handjars, yataghans, and other Oriental varieties of cold steel; but
+passing through the booksellers' (Sahhaf) gate of the bezestan, we
+find ourselves in the Paternoster Row of Stamboul&mdash;a short space
+exclusively inhabited by the trade from which the gate derives its
+name. The booksellers' guild consists of about forty members, presided
+over<!-- Page 690 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_690" id="Page_690">[Pg 690]</a></span> by a sheikh and a council of elders; and is conducted on
+principles as rigidly exclusive as those of some corporations nearer
+home, it being almost impossible for any one to purchase the good-will
+of a shop, unless connected by blood with some of the fraternity: but
+Mr White's account of "the trade," and of the bearded Murrays and
+Colburns by whom it is carried on, is far from favourable. Competition
+being excluded by this monopoly, the prices demanded are so
+exorbitant, "that it is common to say of a close-fisted dealer, 'he is
+worse than a sahhaf.' The booksellers' stalls are the meanest in
+appearance in all the bazars; and the effendy, who lord it over the
+literary treasures, are the least prepossessing, and by no means the
+most obliging, of the crafts within this vast emporium." There are
+some exceptions, however, to this sweeping censure. Suleiman Effendi,
+father of the imperial historiographer, Sheikh-Zadeh Assad Effendi, is
+celebrated as a philologist; and Hadji-Effendi, though blind, "appears
+as expert in discovering the merits of a MS. or printed work as the
+most eagle-eyed of his contemporaries, and is moreover full of
+literary and scientific information." Catalogues are unknown, and the
+price even of printed books, after they have passed out of the hands
+of the editor, is perfectly arbitrary; but the commonest printed books
+are double the relative rate in Europe. The value of MSS. of course
+depends on their rarity and beauty of transcription; a finely
+illuminated Koran cannot be procured for less than 5000 or 6000
+piastres, and those written by celebrated caligraphers fetch from
+25,000 to even 50,000. Mr White estimates the average number of
+volumes on a stall at about 700, or less than 30,000 in the whole
+bazar; but among these are frequently found works of great rarity in
+the "three languages," (Arabic, Persian, and Turkish.) Of those most
+in request, a catalogue is given, comprising the usual range of
+Oriental literature.</p>
+
+<p>There are about forty public libraries in Constantinople, but many of
+these are within the principal mosques, and therefore not easily
+accessible to Europeans. They are all endowed with ample funds for
+their maintenance and the salaries of their librarians, who frequently
+add considerably to their emoluments by transcribing MSS:&mdash;"but it
+does not appear that these funds are employed in adding to these
+collections; so that in point of numbers they remain nearly as when
+first founded." Each library has not only a simple nomenclature, but a
+<i>catalogue raisonn&eacute;e</i> containing a summary of each work; and the
+books, most of which are transcribed on vellum or highly glazed paper,
+are bound in the manner of a tuck pocket-book, in dark morocco or
+calf, with the titles written on the outside of the margin, and are
+laid on their sides on the shelves. The floors are covered with mats,
+and on one or more sides are low divans for the use of the students,
+who leave their slippers at the door; a narrow desk in front of the
+divans supports the volumes in use. Neither fire, candle, nor smoking,
+is permitted; and the libraries in general are open daily, except on
+Friday, and during Ramazan and the two Beirams, from about 9 <span class="smcap">a.m.</span> to
+afternoon prayer; those present at the time of mid-day prayer, quit
+their studies and perform their devotions in common.</p>
+
+<p>Many of the most valuable and costly of the illuminated MSS. are in
+the two libraries of the seraglio, the larger of which, containing at
+present 4400 volumes, is the most extensive collection of books in
+Constantinople: but they can scarcely be reckoned among the public
+libraries, as admission to them is obtained with difficulty, and only
+by special permission, even by Moslems. Besides the MSS. in the great
+seraglio library, among the most valuable of which is a magnificent
+copy of the Arabic poem of Antar, and another of the Gulistan, the
+great moral poem of Saadi, there is a canvass genealogical tree,
+containing portraits of all the sovereigns of the house of Osman, from
+originals preserved in the sultan's private library. Next in
+importance is the library of the mosque of Aya Sofia (St Sophia,)
+founded by Mohammed the Conqueror, which is rich in valuable MSS. and
+contains a Koran said to have been written by the hand of the Khalif
+Ali, the son-in-law of the Prophet:<!-- Page 691 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_691" id="Page_691">[Pg 691]</a></span> another attributed to the same
+source, as well as one ascribed to the Khalif Omar, are in the library
+of Osman III., attached to the beautiful mosque of Noor-Osmanya. But
+the most interesting of the public libraries, though the number of its
+volumes does not exceed sixteen hundred, is that of the grand-vizir
+Raghib Pasha, a celebrated patron of learning in the middle of the
+last century. It stands in an enclosed court, which also contains a
+free school, fountains, and the monuments of the founder and his
+family. The library itself is a lofty square chamber, with a central
+dome and four semi-domes, supported by marble columns, and round the
+apartment "runs a complete and most correct version of the celebrated
+Boorda of the poet Keab," (a poem composed in honour of Mohammed by an
+Arab contemporary,) "in gold letters, fourteen inches long, on a green
+ground, forming an original and brilliant embellishment." Its contents
+include some of the richest and rarest specimens of Persian and Arabic
+caligraphy; and the founder's note-book, with a copy of his divan,
+(poetical works,) is also exhibited: "the former proves that he was
+not unaccomplished as a draughtsman and architect.... There is a
+lightness and elegance in this building which renders it superior to
+all others: but he survived its foundation only three years. His
+remains are deposited in the north-east angle of the court, on an
+elevated terrace, beneath open marble canopy, protected by a wirework
+trellis. This, with the roses and myrtles, and the figs, vines,
+pomegranates, and cypresses, that cast their shade around, gives it
+the appearance of a noble aviary, more than that of a repository for
+the dead: and the doves that nestle in the overhanging branches, and
+fill the air with their querulous notes, add to the delusion."</p>
+
+<p>The total number of volumes in all the public libraries is believed
+not to exceed 75,000, of which at least a fourth are duplicates; "it
+must be remembered, however, that, with a few modern exceptions, the
+whole are MSS. admirably transcribed, elaborately embellished: and
+thus, taking one volume with another, the sums paid for each work far
+exceed the average price of rare printed editions in Europe." Besides
+these stores of Oriental lore, the library of the medical academy
+established by Mahmood II. in the palace of Galata Serai, contains
+several hundred volumes of the best French medical works, which the
+professors are allowed to carry to their own apartments&mdash;a privilege
+not allowed in any other library. The art of printing was first
+introduced in 1726, by a Hungarian renegade named Ibrahim, (known as
+<i>Basmadji</i>, or the printer,) who was patronised by the Sultan Achmet
+III;&mdash;but the establishment languished after his death; and though
+revived in 1784 by Sultan Abdoul Hamid, it was only after the
+destruction of the janissaries, the enemies of every innovation, that
+the press began to exhibit any thing like activity. At present there
+are four imperial printing establishments; and the types, which were
+formerly cast in Venice, being now manufactured in Stamboul, a marked
+improvement has taken place in the character. Though the Koran, and
+all religious and doctrinal works, are still transcribed exclusively
+by hand, the art of printing is regarded with great jealousy by the
+booksellers, who hold that "presses are made from the calcined wood of
+Al-Zacum, the dread tree of the lowest pit; while transcribers have
+their seats near the gate of the seventh heaven." The newspaper press
+of Stamboul is still in its infancy&mdash;for though the <i>Takwim</i>, or
+<i>Moniteur Ottoman</i>, established in 1831 by Mahmood II. as an official
+gazette, was conducted with considerable ability by the original
+editor, M. Blaque, and his successor M. Francesschi, the sudden death
+of both these gentlemen, within a short period of each other, awakened
+strong suspicions of foul play; and the French translation, published
+for European circulation, has since sunk into a mere transcript of the
+Turkish original, which consists of little but official announcements.
+Several attempts made, by Mr Churchill and others, to establish a
+non-official paper for the advocacy of Turkish interests, have been
+smothered after a brief existence, by the jealousy of Russia and
+France: "the result is, that the <i>Moniteur</i><!-- Page 692 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_692" id="Page_692">[Pg 692]</a></span> is a dull court-circular,
+and the Smyrna journals, abandoned to chance communications, are
+neither prompt nor exact in circulating or detailing events."<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a></p>
+
+<p>The spread of literary cultivation among the Turks of the present day,
+and the European education which many of the rising generation have
+received, has naturally led to a taste for European literature; and
+many possess libraries stored not only with the lore of the East, but
+with the choicest treasures of the French and English classics. Ali
+Effendi, late ambassador from the Porte to the court of St James's, is
+well known to have collected a most extensive and valuable library
+during his residence in the regions of the West; and Mr White
+enumerates several young Osmanlis distinguished for their
+accomplishments in the literature and science of the Franks. Emin
+Pasha, the director of the Imperial Military Academy, and Bekir Pasha,
+late superintendent of the small-arm manufactory at Dolma-Baktchi,
+were both educated in England, the latter at Woolwich and the former
+at Cambridge, where he gained a prize for his mathematical
+attainments. Fouad Effendi, son of the celebrated poet Izzet-Mollah,
+and himself a poet of no small note, "possesses a choice library of
+some 2000 volumes, in French, English, and Italian;" and Derwish
+Effendi, professor of natural history in the academy of Galata Serai,
+"has studied in France and England, and is not less esteemed for his
+knowledge than for his modesty." But foremost among this <i>Tugenbund</i>,
+the future hopes of Turkey, stands one whose name has already appeared
+in the pages of <i>Maga</i>, (Sept. 1841, p. 304,) Achmet Wekif Effendi,
+now third dragoman to the Porte, and son of Rouh-ed-deen Effendi, late
+Secretary of Legation at Vienna, whom Mr White pronounces, with
+justice, "one of the most rising and enlightened young men of the
+Turkish empire. His knowledge of the French language is perfect, and
+he adds to this an intimate acquaintance with the literature of that
+country and of England." While men like these (and we could add other
+names to those enumerated by Mr White, from our personal knowledge)
+are in training for the future administration of the empire, there is
+yet hope of the regeneration of the Osmanli nation.</p>
+
+<p>In no country is primary instruction more general than in Turkey. Each
+of the smaller mosques has attached to it an elementary school,
+superintended by the imam, where the children of the lower classes are
+taught to read and write, and to repeat the Koran by heart; while
+those intended for the liberal professions undergo a long and
+laborious course of study at the medressehs or colleges of the great
+mosques, some of which are intended to train youth in general
+literature, or qualify them for government employments, while others
+are devoted to the study of theology and jurisprudence. Mr White
+states the number of students in Stamboul, in 1843, at not less than
+5000, all of whom were lodged, instructed, and furnished with one meal
+a-day, at the expense of the <i>wakoof</i> or foundation, (a term which we
+shall hereafter more fully explain,) all their other expenses being at
+their own charge; but "the sallow complexions and exhausted appearance
+of these young men indicate intense labour, or most limited commons."</p>
+
+<p>After thus successfully vindicating the Turks from the charge so often
+brought against them by travellers who have only spent a few weeks at
+Pera, of ignorance and indifference to knowledge, Mr White thus sums
+up the general question of education. "For ten men that <i>can</i> read
+among Perotes and Fanariotes, there are an equal number that <i>do</i> read
+at Constantinople; and, taking the mass of the better classes
+indiscriminately, it will be found also that there are more libraries
+of useful books in Turkish houses than in those of Greeks and
+Armenians." And though "the number of Turkish ladies that can read is
+much<!-- Page 693 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_693" id="Page_693">[Pg 693]</a></span> less than those of Pera and the Fanar, those who can read among
+the former never open a bad book; while among the latter there is
+scarcely one that ever reads a good work, unless it be the catechism
+or breviary on certain forced occasions. And while neither Greek nor
+Armenian women occupy themselves with literature, Constantinople can
+boast of more than one female author. Among the most celebrated of
+these is Laila Khanum, niece to the above-mentioned Izzet-Mollah. Her
+poems are principally satirical, and she is held in great dread by her
+sex, who tremble at her cutting pen. Her <i>divan</i> (collection of poems)
+has been printed, and amounts to three volumes. Laila Khanum is also
+famed for her songs, which are set to music, and highly popular.
+Hassena Khanum, wife of the Hakim Bashy, (chief physician,) is
+likewise renowned for the purity and elegance of her style as a
+letter-writer, which entitles her to the appellation of the Turkish
+Sevign&eacute;."</p>
+
+<p>But we must again diverge, in following Mr White's desultory steps,
+from the Turkish fair ones&mdash;whom he has so satisfactorily cleared from
+Lord Byron's imputation, that</p>
+
+<div class="poem center"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"They cannot read, and so don't lisp in criticism;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Nor write, and so they don't affect the muse&mdash;"</span><br />
+</div></div>
+
+<p>to his dissertation on the <i>wakoofs</i> above referred to;&mdash;a word
+implying a deposit or mortgage, and used to designate a species of
+tenure under which the greater part of the landed property throughout
+the empire is held, and the nature of which is but imperfectly
+understood in Europe. These institutions have existed from the
+earliest period of Islam; but nowhere to so great an extent as in the
+Ottoman empire; where they were divided by Soliman the Magnificent
+into three classes, all alike held sacred, and exempt from
+confiscation either by the sovereign or courts of law. The first class
+comprises the lands or funds absolutely bequeathed to the mosques
+either by founders or subsequent benefactors, the revenues of which
+are employed in the payment of the imams, khatibs, and other ministers
+of religion attached to their service, and to the gratuitous
+maintenance of the colleges and hospitals dependent on them; and which
+are in all cases amply sufficient for these purposes. "No demands in
+the shape of tithes, collections, or entrance-money, are ever made:
+the doors of all temples are open to the public without distinction:"
+and although the imam usually receives a fee for marriages,
+name-givings, circumcisions, and funerals, no demand can be legally
+made. The author proceeds to enumerate the endowments in 1842, as
+nearly as they could be ascertained, of the seventeen mosques in the
+capital entitled to rank as imperial foundations&mdash;the richest being
+that of Aya-Sofia, amounting to 1,500,000 piastres annually, while the
+others vary from 710,000 to 100,000 piastres. The ecclesiastical staff
+of an imperial mosque comprehends in general from thirty to forty
+persons&mdash;the sheikh, who preaches after mid-day prayer on Friday, and
+who is a member of the superior ecclesiastical synod, with rank and
+privileges nearly similar to those of our bishops:&mdash;two or more
+khatibs, who recite the khotbah, or prayer for the Prophet and
+sultan:&mdash;four imams, who alternately read prayers:&mdash;twelve to twenty
+muezzins, who call to prayers from the minarets:&mdash;with fifteen to
+twenty subordinate functionaries. The finances of each of the mosques
+are regulated by a <i>nazir</i> (inspector) and <i>mutawelly</i>, (accountant,)
+who are bound by law to render half-yearly statements; and these
+offices, lucrative from the opportunities they afford for
+malversation, are usually held for life by the holders for the time
+being of high official stations, or sometimes by the heirs of the
+founders, who thus secure their lands from forfeiture or confiscation;
+or by persons to whom they have been bequeathed, with power to
+nominate their successors. The annual revenues of the imperial mosques
+being triple their expenditure, the wakoof fund has been often
+encroached upon by the Sultan, nominally as a loan under the warrant
+of the minister of finance, who checks the accounts of the imperial
+nazir; and by these not unfrequent inroads, as well as by the
+peculations of the superintendents, the accumulations,<!-- Page 694 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_694" id="Page_694">[Pg 694]</a></span> though great,
+are not so enormous as they would otherwise become.</p>
+
+<p>The second class comprises the funds devoted to the maintenance of
+public baths, libraries, fountains, alms-houses, and of useful and
+charitable institutions in general. They are frequently charged with
+annuities to the representatives of the founder; and in all
+foundations for gratuitous education, or distribution of alms or food,
+founders' kin have the preference. They are all registered in the
+treasury; but the foundation is invalidated if the property assigned
+for its support be encumbered by mortgages or other obligations:&mdash;nor
+can any one labouring under an incurable disease convert freehold
+property into wakoof except as a testator, in which case the
+inalienable rights of the heirs to two-thirds of the property are
+secured:&mdash;a third part only, according to law, being otherwise
+disposable by will. The third class of wakoofs (called <i>ady</i> or
+customary, the others being termed <i>shary</i> or legal, as sanctioned by
+religious law) are considered as secular foundations, consisting of
+lands purchased by the religious wakoofs from their accumulations, on
+reversion at the death of the assigner, or failure of his direct
+heirs, for an inconsiderable portion of their value, leaving to the
+vendors in the interim the full enjoyment of the property, which is
+frequently continued to their nephews and brothers on the same terms.
+"At first this plan was not considered lucrative for the wakoofs: but
+when the system was widely extended, the multitude of assignments,
+which fell in every year from death and default of issue, soon crowned
+the speculation with success, in a country where the tenure of life is
+eminently uncertain, not only from the caprices of sultans, but from
+the constant ravages of plague.... The advantages to sellers were
+equally great. They secured themselves from confiscation, and their
+heirs from spoliation at their demise. They were enabled to raise
+money to the value of a sixth or eighth of their capital, on payment
+of a trifling interest, and yet retained the full enjoyment of the
+whole for themselves and immediate issue. By founding these wakoofs,
+sellers are also enabled to check the extravagance of their children,
+who can neither mortgage nor alienate the property&mdash;a practice nearly
+as common in Turkey as in other countries."</p>
+
+<p>Not less than three-fourths of the buildings and cultivated lands
+throughout the empire, according to the author, and even the imperial
+domains, are held under one or other of these wakoof tenures, which
+thus represent the great landed interests of the country. Formerly,
+the domains belonging to the mosques in each pashalik were let on
+annual leases (as the public revenues are still farmed) to <i>multezim</i>
+or contractors, generally the pashas of the provinces: but the system
+of subletting and dilapidation to which this course of short leases
+gave rise, was so ruinous to the agricultural population and the
+property of the wakoofs, that a thorough reform was introduced in the
+reign of Abdoul-Hamid, the father of Mahmood II. The lands were now
+let on life tenancies, (<i>malikania</i>,) on the same system of beneficial
+leases and large fines on renewals which prevails with respect to the
+property of collegiate and other corporate bodies in England; which
+has greatly improved their condition, as it is no longer the interest
+of the lessee to rack the peasantry, or damage the property, for the
+sake of present advantage. "More than one monarch has entertained
+projects of dispossessing the mosques of these privileges, and of
+placing the wakoofya under the exclusive superintendence of
+government. Sultan Mahmood II. seriously contemplated carrying this
+plan into effect, and probably would have done so, had his life been
+spared. The government in this case would have paid the salaries of
+all sheikhs, priests, and persons attached to the sacred edifices,
+together with all repairs and expenses of their dependent
+institutions, and would have converted the surplus to state purposes.
+Various plans were suggested to Mahmood's predecessors; but during the
+existence of the janissaries, no one dared to interfere with
+institutions whence the Oolema, (men of law and religion,) intimately
+connected with the janissaries, derived invariable profit."</p>
+
+<p>Returning at length from this long digression to the jewel bezestan,
+and<!-- Page 695 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_695" id="Page_695">[Pg 695]</a></span> passing from the south-eastern, or mercers' gate, "through lines
+of shops stored with a variety of ready-made articles required by
+ladies," we reach the Silk Bezestan, (Sandal Bezestany,) which, like
+the other, has four arched gates named after different trades, and is
+surmounted by twenty domes, four in a line. Though occupied solely by
+Armenians, and regulated by a committee of six Armenian elders, it is
+directed by a Turkish kehaya or president, with his deputy, whose duty
+it is to superintend the police and collect the government dues. The
+scene presented by the interior presents a striking contrast to the
+other, and (we regret to say) not at all to the advantage of the
+Christians. "The building is gloomy and badly lighted, and appears not
+to have been white-washed or cleansed since the first construction;
+and while a stranger may repeatedly enter the jewel bezestan, and its
+tenants, though they see him gazing with covetous eyes on some
+antiquated object, will scarcely condescend to say 'N&eacute; istersiniz?'
+(what want you?) ... the clamours of the Armenians to attract
+purchasers are only to be surpassed by their want of honesty.
+Strangers may often pay too much to Turkish shopkeepers, but they will
+receive fair weight to a hair: whereas they will be subject not only
+to overcharge, but to short quantity, at the hands of the Armeninians
+and their more profligate imitators, the Greek dealers." The original
+silk manufactories were established before the conquest of
+Constantinople at the old capital of Broussa, whence most of the raw
+material is still derived, the abundance of mulberry trees in its
+neighbourhood being favourable to the nurture of the silkworm; little
+Broussa silk is, however, now sold in the sandal bezestany, the
+manufacture being principally carried on along the shores of the
+Bosphorus. "But within the last ten years, and especially since the
+conclusion of commercial treaties with the Porte, the silk trade in
+home-made articles has decreased 50 per cent. A large supply of common
+imitation goods is now received from England, France, and Italy, and
+the richer articles, principally manufactured at Lyons, have
+completely superseded those formerly received from Broussa, or
+fabricated at Scutari and Constantinople."</p>
+
+<p>The trade in furs, as well as that in silk, is entirely in the hands
+of the Armenians, but has greatly fallen off since the European dress,
+now worn by the court and the official personages, replaced the old
+Turkish costume. In former times, the quality of the fur worn by
+different ranks, and at different seasons of the year, was a matter of
+strict etiquette, regulated by the example of the sultan, who, on a
+day previously fixed by the imperial astrologer, repaired in state to
+the mosque arrayed in furs, varying from the squirrel or red fox,
+assumed at the beginning of autumn, to the samoor or sable worn during
+the depth of winter; while all ranks of persons in office changed
+their furs, on the same day with the monarch, for those appropriated
+to their respective grades. The most costly were those of the black
+fox and sable, the former of which was restricted, unless by special
+permission, to the use of royalty: while sable was reserved for vizirs
+and pashas of the highest rank. The price of these furs, indeed,
+placed them beyond the reach of ordinary purchasers, 15,000 or 20,000
+piastres being no unusual price for a sable lined pelisse, while black
+fox cost twice as much. In the present day the <i>kurk</i> or pelisse is
+never worn by civil or military functionaries, except in private: but
+it still continues in general use among the sheikhs and men of the
+law, "who may be seen mounted on fat ambling galloways, with richly
+embroidered saddle-cloths and embossed bridles, attired in kurks faced
+with sables, in all the pomp of ancient times." The kurk is, moreover,
+in harem etiquette, the recognised symbol of matronly rank:&mdash;and its
+assumption by a Circassian is a significant intimation to the other
+inmates of the position she has assumed as the favourite of their
+master. The same rule extends to the imperial palace, where the
+elevation of a fair slave to the rank of <i>kadinn</i> (the title given to
+the partners of the sultan) is announced to her, by her receiving a
+pelisse lined with sables from the <i>ket-khoda</i> or mistress of the
+palace, the principal of the seven great female<!-- Page 696 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_696" id="Page_696">[Pg 696]</a></span> officers to whom is
+entrusted the management of all matters connected with the harem. The
+imperial favourites are limited by law to seven, but this number is
+seldom complete; the present sultan has hitherto raised only five to
+this rank, one of whom died of consumption in 1842. These ladies are
+now always Circassian slaves, and though never manumitted, have each
+their separate establishments, suites of apartments, and female slaves
+acting as ladies of honour, &amp;c. Their slipper, or (as we should call
+it) pin money, is about 25,000 piastres (&pound;240) monthly&mdash;their other
+expenses being defrayed by the sultan's treasurer. Mr White enters
+into considerable detail on the interior arrangements of the seraglio,
+the private life of the sultan, &amp;c.; but as it does not appear from
+what sources his information is derived, we shall maintain an Oriental
+reserve on these subjects.</p>
+
+<p>The slave-markets and condition of slaves in the East is treated at
+considerable length: but as the erroneous notions formerly entertained
+have been in a great measure dispelled by more correct views obtained
+by modern travellers, it is sufficient to observe, that "the laws and
+customs relative to the treatment of slaves in Turkey divest their
+condition of its worst features, and place the slave nearly on a level
+with the free servitor: nay, in many instances the condition of the
+slave, especially of white slaves, is superior to the other; as the
+path of honour and fortune is more accessible to the dependent and
+protected slave than to the independent man of lower degree." It is
+well known that many of those holding the highest dignities of the
+state&mdash;Halil Pasha, brother-in-law of the Sultan&mdash;Khosref, who for
+many years virtually ruled the empire, with numberless others, were
+originally slaves: and in all cases the liberation of male slaves,
+after seven or nine years' servitude, is ordained by <i>adet</i> or custom,
+which, in Turkey, is stronger than law. This rule is rarely
+infringed:&mdash;and excepting the slaves of men in the middle ranks of
+life, who frequently adopt their master's trade, and are employed by
+him as workmen, they in most cases become domestic servants, or enter
+the army, as holding out the greatest prospect of honour and
+promotion. The condition of white female slaves is even more
+favourable. In point of dress and equipment, they are on a par with
+their mistresses, the menial offices in all great harems being
+performed by negresses;&mdash;and frequent instances occur, where parents
+prefer slaves educated in their own families to free women as wives
+for their sons:&mdash;the only distinction being in the title of <i>kadinn</i>,
+which may be considered equivalent to <i>madame</i>, and which is always
+borne by these emancipated slaves, instead of <i>khanum</i>, (or <i>lady</i>,)
+used by women of free birth. Female slaves are rarely sold or parted
+with, except for extreme misconduct; and though it is customary for
+their masters, in the event of their becoming mothers, to enfranchise
+and marry them, "the facility of divorce is such, that women, if
+mothers, prefer remaining slaves to being legally married: as they are
+aware that custom prevents their being sold when in the former
+condition: whereas their having a family is no bar to divorce when
+married."</p>
+
+<p>The guilds, or corporations of the different trades and professions,
+to which allusion has more than once been made, and which constitute
+what may be called the municipality of Constantinople, were formerly
+mustered and paraded through the city, on every occasion when the
+Sandjak-Shereef (or holy banner of Mahommed) was taken from the
+seraglio to accompany the army. This gathering, the object of which
+was to ascertain the number of men who could be levied in case of
+extremity for the defence of the capital, was first ordained by Mourad
+IV., <a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> before his march against Bagdad in 1638; when, according to
+Evliya Effendi, 200,000 men fit to bear arms passed in review&mdash;and the
+last muster was in the reign of Mustapha III., at the commencement of
+the disastrous war with<!-- Page 697 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_697" id="Page_697">[Pg 697]</a></span> Russia in 1769. Its subsequent discontinuance
+is said to have been owing to an insult then offered by the guild of
+<i>emirs</i> (or descendants of the Prophet) to the Austrian Internuncio,
+who was detected in witnessing incognito the procession of the
+Sandjak-Shereef, deemed too sacred for the eyes of an infidel&mdash;and a
+tumult ensued, in which many Christians were maltreated and murdered,
+and which had nearly led to a rupture with the court of Vienna. On
+this occasion the number of guilds was forty-six, subdivided into 554
+minor sections; and, excepting the disappearance of those more
+immediately connected with the janissaries, it is probable that little
+or no change has since taken place. These guilds included not only the
+handicraft and other trades, but the physicians and other learned
+professions, and even the <i>Oolemah</i> and imams, and others connected
+with the mosques. Each marched with its own badges and ensigns, headed
+by its own officers, of whom there were seven of the first grade, with
+their deputies and subordinates, all elected by the crafts, and
+entrusted with the control of its affairs, subject to the approbation
+of a council of delegates: while the property of these corporations is
+invariably secured by being made <i>wakoof</i>, the nature of which has
+been already explained. The shoemakers', saddlers', and tanners'
+guilds are among the strongest in point of numbers, and from them were
+drawn the <i>&eacute;lite</i> of the janissaries stationed in the capital, after
+the cruel system of seizing Christian children for recruits had been
+discontinued; the tailors are also a numerous and resolute craft,
+generally well affected to government, to which they rendered
+important services in the overthrow of the janissaries in 1826, when
+the Sandjak-Shereef<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> was displayed in pursuance of the <i>Fethwa</i> of
+the mufti excommunicating the sons of Hadji-Bektash, and the guilds
+mustered in arms by thousands for the support of the Sheikh al Islam
+and the Commander of the Faithful.</p>
+
+<p>Among these fraternities, one of the most numerous is that of the
+<i>kayikjees</i> or boatmen, of whom there are not fewer than 19,000,
+mostly Turks, in the city and its suburbs; while 5000 more, nearly all
+of whom are Greeks, are found in the villages of the Bosphorus. They
+are all registered in the books of the <i>kayikjee-bashi</i>, or chief of
+the boatmen, paying each eight piastres monthly (or twice as much if
+unmarried) for their <i>teskera</i> or license: and cannot remove from the
+stations assigned them without giving notice. The skill and activity
+of these men, in the management of their light and apparently fragile
+skiffs, has been celebrated by almost every tourist who has floated on
+the waters of the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus: and not less precise
+is the accuracy with which is adjusted the number of oars to be
+employed by the members of the European <i>corps diplomatique</i>, and the
+great officers of the Porte, according to their relative ranks; the
+smallest infringement of which would be regarded as an unpardonable
+breach of etiquette. The oars and mouldings are painted of the
+national colours, with the hulls white or black; the latter colour is
+usually affected by the Turkish grandees, with the exception of the
+capitan-pasha, who is alone privileged to use a green boat.
+Ambassadors-extraordinary are entitled to ten oars; and the same
+number is assigned to the grand-vizir, the mufti, and ministers
+holding the rank of <i>mushir</i>, or marshal, the highest degree in the
+new scale of<!-- Page 698 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_698" id="Page_698">[Pg 698]</a></span> Ottoman precedence. Pashas of the second rank, the
+<i>cazi-askers</i> or grand judges of Anatolia and Roumelia, with other
+functionaries of equivalent grade, are allowed eight oars, the number
+employed by the Austrian Internuncio, and by
+ministers-plenipotentiary; while three or five pair of sculls are
+allotted to <i>charg&eacute;s d'affaires</i>, and the heads of different
+departments at the Porte. The procession of the sultan, when he
+proceeds to the mosque by water, consists of six kayiks, the largest
+of which is seventy-eight feet in length, and pulled by twenty-four
+rowers&mdash;under the old <i>r&eacute;gime</i> the crew was taken from the bostandjis,
+whose chief, the bostandji-bashi, held the helm; but since the
+abolition of that corps, they have been chosen, without distinction of
+creed, from the common boatmen. The imperial barge is distinguished,
+independent of its superior size, by the gold-embroidered canopy of
+crimson silk, surmounted by crescents at the stern; it is painted
+white within and without, with rich gilt mouldings, under which runs a
+broad external green border, ornamented with gilded arabesques. The
+oars are painted white, with gold scrolls; the stern is adorned with
+massive gilt carvings; and the long projecting prow with a
+richly-gilded ornament, representing a palm-branch curling upwards.
+Behind this flutters a gilded falcon, the emblem of the house of
+Osman. The carvings and ornaments of these boats are elaborately
+finished, and exquisitely light and graceful. These embellishments,
+combined with the loose white dresses, blue-tasselled red caps, and
+muscular forms of the boatmen, as they rise from their seats,
+vigorously plunge their oars into the dark blue waters, and propel the
+kayiks with racehorse speed, give to these splendid vessels an air of
+majesty and brilliancy, not less characteristic than original and
+imposing.</p>
+
+<p>Many instances have occurred, in which men have risen from the class
+of boatmen to stations of high honour and dignity; the most recent
+instance of which was in the case of the arch-traitor Achmet Fevzy
+Pasha, who, in 1839, betrayed the Ottoman fleet under his command into
+the hands of Mohammed Ali&mdash;a deed of unparalleled perfidy, for which
+he righteously received a traitor's reward, perishing in January 1843
+(as was generally believed) by poison administered by the orders of
+the Egyptian Viceroy. The kayikjees, as a class, are generally
+considered, in point of personal advantages, the finest body of men in
+the empire; and share with the <i>sakkas</i>, or water-carriers&mdash;another
+numerous and powerful guild, equally remarkable with the kayikjees for
+their symmetry and athletic proportions&mdash;the dangerous reputation of
+being distinguished favourites of the fair sex&mdash;doubly dangerous in a
+country where, in such cases, "the cord or scimitar is the doom of the
+stronger sex&mdash;the deep sea-bed that of the weaker. Money will
+counterbalance all crimes in Turkey save female frailty. For this
+neither religious law nor social customs admit atonement. Tears,
+beauty, youth, gold&mdash;untold gold&mdash;are of no avail. The fish of the
+Bosphorus and Propontis could disclose fearful secrets, even in our
+days:"&mdash;and as a natural transition, apparently, from cause to effect,
+Mr White proceeds, in the next chapter, to give an account of the
+Balyk-Bazary, the Billingsgate of Stamboul. But we shall not follow
+him through his enumeration of such a carte as throws the glories of a
+Blackwall dinner into dim eclipse, and which no other waters of Europe
+could probably rival:&mdash;since, in Mr White's usual course of digression
+upon digression, the mention of the Fishmarket Gate, the usual place
+of executions, leads him off again at a tangent to the consideration
+of the criminal law, and its present administration in the Ottoman
+Empire.</p>
+
+<p>There is no change among those wrought since the introduction of the
+new system, more calculated forcibly to impress those who had known
+Constantinople in former years, than the almost total cessation of
+those public executions, the sanguinary frequency of which formed so
+obtrusive and revolting a feature under the old <i>r&eacute;gime</i>. Since the
+fate of the unfortunate Pertef Pasha in 1837, no one has suffered
+death for political offences:&mdash;and the abolition by Sultan Mahmoud,
+immediately after the destruction of the janissaries, of the
+<i>Moukhallafat Kalemy</i>, or Court of Confiscations, put an end to the
+atrocious<!-- Page 699 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_699" id="Page_699">[Pg 699]</a></span> system which had for centuries made wealth a sufficient
+pretext for the murder of its possessors. In all cases of banishment
+or condemnation to death, however arbitrary, confiscation of property
+inevitably followed: but the wealthy Armenians and Greeks were usually
+selected as the victims of these ruthless deeds of despotism and
+rapacity; numerous records of which may be seen in the Christian
+burying-grounds, where the rudely-carved figure of a headless trunk,
+or a hanging man, indicates the fate of the sufferer. But the humane
+and politic act of Mahmoud, which rendered riches no longer a crime,
+has produced its natural effects in the impulse which has been given
+to commercial activity and public confidence by the security thus
+afforded to life and property. "The government finds the Armenians
+willing to advance money in case of need; and there is scarcely a
+pasha of rank who has not recourse to their assistance, which is the
+more readily afforded, as the Armenians are aware that their debtors'
+lives and property, as well as their own, are secure, and that they
+shall not endure extreme persecution in the event of suing those on
+whom they have claims."</p>
+
+<p>In criminal cases, the administration of justice by the Moslem law
+appears at all times to have been tempered by lenity; and the extreme
+repugnance of the present sultan to sign death-warrants, even in cases
+which in this country would be considered as amounting to wilful
+murder, has rendered capital punishments extremely rare: while the
+horrible death by impalement, and the amputation of the hand for
+theft, have fallen into complete disuse. Offences are tried, in the
+first instance, in the court of the Cazi-asker or grand judge of
+Roumelia or Anatolia, according as the crime has been committed in
+Europe or Asia: from this tribunal an appeal lies to the Supreme
+Council of justice, the decisions of which require to be further
+ratified by the Mufti. The <i>proc&egrave;s-verbal</i> of two of the cases above
+referred to, is given at length; in one of which the murderer escaped
+condign punishment only because the extreme youth of the only
+eye-witness, a slave, nine years old, prevented his testimony from
+being received otherwise than as <i>circumstantial</i> evidence:&mdash;in the
+other, "it being essential to make a lasting and impressive public
+example, it was resolved that the criminals should not be put to
+death, but condemned to such ignominious public chastisement as might
+serve during many years as a warning to others." The sentence in the
+former case was ten, and in the latter, seven years' public labour in
+heavy irons&mdash;a punishment of extreme severity, frequently terminating
+in the death of the convict. Nafiz Bey, the principal offender in the
+second of the above cases, did not survive his sentence more than
+twenty months. "On examining a multitude of condemnations for crimes
+of magnitude, the maximum average, when death was not awarded, was
+seven years' hard labour in chains, and fine, for which the convict is
+subsequently imprisoned as a simple debtor till the sum is paid. The
+average punishment for theft, robbery, assault, and slightly wounding,
+is three years' hard labour, with costs and damages. These sentences
+(of which several examples are given) were referred, according to
+established forms, from the local tribunals to the supreme council:
+and before being carried into effect, were legalized by a <i>fethwa</i>
+(decree) of the Sheikh-Islam, (Mufti,) and after that by the sultan's
+warrant; a process affording a triple advantage to the accused, each
+reference serving as an appeal."</p>
+
+<p>The exclusive jurisdiction over the subjects of their own nation,
+exercised by the legations of the different European powers in virtue
+of capitulations with the Porte, was doubtless at one time necessary
+for the protection of foreigners from the arbitrary proceedings of
+Turkish despotism; it has, however, given rise to great abuses, and at
+the present day its practical effect is only to secure impunity to
+crime, by impeding the course of justice. The system in all the
+legations is extremely defective; "but in none is it more flagrantly
+vicious and ineffective than in that of Great Britain." This is a
+grave charge; but only too fully borne out by the facts adduced. Not
+fewer than three thousand British subjects are now<!-- Page 700 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_700" id="Page_700">[Pg 700]</a></span> domiciled in and
+about the Turkish capital, chiefly vagabonds and desperadoes, driven
+by the rigour of English law from Malta and the Ionian Isles:&mdash;and
+half the outrages in Stamboul "are committed by or charged to the
+Queen's adopted subjects, who, well knowing that eventual impunity is
+their privilege, are not restrained by fear of retribution." All the
+zeal and energy of our consul-general, Mr Cartwright, (in whom are
+vested the judicial functions exercised by chancellors of other
+legations,) are paralysed by the necessity of adhering to the forms of
+British law, the execution of which is practically impossible. "In a
+case of murder or felony, for instance,&mdash;a case which often occurs&mdash;a
+<i>pro form&acirc;</i> verdict of guilty is returned; but what follows? The
+ambassador has no power to order the law to be carried into effect:
+nothing remains, therefore, but to send the accused, with the
+depositions, to Malta or England. But the Maltese courts declare
+themselves incompetent, and either liberate or send back the prisoner;
+and English tribunals do not adjudicate on documentary evidence. The
+consequence is, that unless witnesses proceed to England, criminals
+must be liberated at Pera, or sent to be liberated at home, for want
+of legal testimony. They have then their action at law against the
+consul-general for illegal arrest." It appears scarcely credible that
+a state of things, so calculated to degrade the British national
+character in the eyes of the representatives of the other European
+powers, should ever have been suffered to exist, and still more that
+it should have remained so long unheeded. A bill was indeed carried
+through Parliament in 1835, in consequence of the urgent reclamations
+of Lord Ponsonby and Mr Cartwright, for empowering the Crown to remedy
+the evil; but though the subject was again pressed by Sir Stratford
+Canning in 1842, it still remains a dead letter. Mr White has done
+good service in placing this plain and undeniable statement of facts
+before the public eye; and we trust that the next session of
+Parliament will not pass over without our seeing the point brought
+forward by Mr D'Israeli, Mr Monckton Milnes, or some other of those
+members of the legislature whose personal knowledge of the East
+qualifies them to undertake it. "One plan ought to be adopted
+forthwith, that of investing the consul-general with such full powers
+as are granted to London police magistrates, or, if possible, to any
+magistrates at quarter-sessions. He would then be able to dispose of a
+multitude of minor correctional cases, which now pass unpunished, to
+the constant scandal of all other nations. The delegated power might
+be arbitrary, and inconsistent with our constitutional habits, but the
+evil requires extrajudicial measures."</p>
+
+<p>In pursuing Mr White's devious course through the various marts of
+Constantinople, we have not yet brought our readers to the Missr
+Tcharshy, or Egyptian market, probably the most diversified and purely
+Oriental scene to be seen in Constantinople, and a representation of
+which forms the frontispiece to one of the volumes. The building, the
+entrance to which is between the Fishmarket Gate and the beautiful
+mosque of the Valida, (built by the mother of Mohammed IV.,) consists
+of an arcade lighted from the roof, like those of our own capital, 140
+yards long, and 20 wide, filled on each side with shops, not separated
+from each other by partitions, so as to impede the view; the tenants
+of which are all Osmanlis, and dealers exclusively in perfumes,
+spices, &amp;c., imported chiefly through Egypt from India, Arabia, &amp;c.
+Here may be found "the Persian atar-gul's perfume," sandalwood, and
+odoriferous woods of all kinds from the lands of the East; opium for
+the <i>Teryakis</i>, a race whose numbers are happily now daily decreasing;
+ambergris for pastilles; "cinnamon and ginger, nutmegs and cloves;"
+the pink henna powder brought from Mekka by the pilgrims for tinging
+ladies' fingers, though these "rosy-fingered Auroras" (as Mr W. kindly
+warns the poetasters of Franguestan) are now only to be found among
+slaves and the lower orders, the custom being now utterly exploded
+among dames of high degree: "add to the above, spices, roots,
+dyewoods, and minerals, and<!-- Page 701 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_701" id="Page_701">[Pg 701]</a></span> colours of every denomination, and an
+idea may be formed of the contents of this neatly-arranged and
+picturesque bazar. Its magnitude, its abundance and variety of goods,
+the order that reigns on every side, and the respectability of the
+dealers, render it one of the most original and interesting sights of
+the city; it serves to refresh the senses and to dispel the
+unfavourable impressions caused on first landing."</p>
+
+<p>In the foregoing remarks and extracts, it has been our aim rather to
+give a condensed view of the information to be derived from the
+volumes before us, on topics of interest, than to attempt any thing
+like a general abstract of a work so multifarious in its nature, and
+so broken into detail, as to render the ordinary rules of criticism as
+inapplicable to it as they would be to an encylop&aelig;dia. In point of
+arrangement, indeed, the latter would have the advantage; for a total
+absence of <i>lucidus ordo</i> pervades Mr White's pages, to a degree
+scarcely to be excused even by the very miscellaneous nature of the
+subject. Thus, while constant reference is made, from the first, to
+the bezestans, the names of their different gates, &amp;c., no description
+of these edifices occurs till the middle of the second volume, where
+it is introduced apropos to nothing, between the public libraries and
+the fur-market. The chapter headed "Capital Punishments," (iv. vol.
+1.) is principally devoted to political disquisitions, with an episode
+on lunatic asylums and the medical academy of Galata Serai, while only
+a few pages are occupied by the subject implied in the title; which is
+treated at greater length, and illustrated by the <i>proc&egrave;s-verbaux</i> of
+several criminal trials, at the end of the second volume, where it is
+brought in as a digression from the slavery laws, on the point of the
+admissibility of a slave's evidence! But without following Mr White
+further through the slipper-market, the poultry-market, the
+coffee-shops, and tobacco-shops, the fruit and flower market, the
+Ozoon Tcharshy or long market, devoted to the sale of articles of
+dress and household furniture, <i>cum multis aliis</i>; it will suffice to
+say that there is no article whatever, either of luxury or use, sold
+in Constantinople, from diamonds to old clothes, of which some
+account, with the locality in which it is procurable, is not to be
+found in some part or other of his volumes. We have, besides,
+disquisitions on statistics and military matters; aqueducts and baths,
+marriages and funerals, farriery and cookery, &amp;c. &amp;c.&mdash;in fact on
+every imaginable subject, except the price of railway shares, which
+are as yet to the Turks a pleasure to come. It would be unpardonable
+to omit mentioning, however, for the benefit of gourmands, that for
+the savoury viands called kabobs, and other Stamboul delicacies, the
+shop of the worthy Hadji Mustapha, on the south side of the street
+called Divan-Yolly, stands unequaled; while horticulturists and
+poetasters should be informed, that in spite of Lord Byron's fragrant
+descriptions of "the gardens of Gul in their bloom," the finer
+European roses do not sympathize with the climate. Lady Ponsonby's
+attempts to introduce the moss-rose at Therapia failed; and the only
+place where they have succeeded is the garden of Count St&uuml;rmer, the
+Austrian Internuncio, whose palace is, in more respects than one,
+according to Mr White, the Gulistan of Stamboul society.</p>
+
+<p>But we cannot take leave of this part of the subject without
+remarking, that while all praise is due to Mr White's accuracy in
+describing the scenes and subjects on which he speaks from personal
+knowledge, his acquaintance with past Turkish history appears to be by
+no means on a par with the insight he has succeeded in acquiring into
+the usages and manners of the Turks of the present day. The
+innumerable anecdotes interspersed through his pages, and which often
+mar rather than aid the effect of the more solid matter, are
+frequently both improbable and pointless; and the lapses which here
+and there occur in matters of historical fact, are almost
+incomprehensible. Thus we are told (i. 179,) that the favour enjoyed
+(until recently) by Riza Pasha, was owing to his having rescued the
+present sultan, when a child, from a reservoir in the Imperial Gardens
+of Beglerbey, into which he had been hurled by his father in a fit of
+brutal fury&mdash;an act wholly alien to the character of Mahmoud, but
+which (as Mr<!-- Page 702 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_702" id="Page_702">[Pg 702]</a></span> W. observes,) "will not appear improbable to those
+acquainted with Oriental history"&mdash;since it is found related, in all
+its circumstances, in Rycaut's history of the reign of Ibrahim, whose
+infant son, afterwards Mohammed IV., nearly perished in this manner by
+his hands, and retained through life the scar of a wound on the face,
+received in the fall. This palpable anachronism is balanced in the
+next page by a version of the latter incident, in which Mohammed's
+wound is said to have been inflicted by the dagger of his intoxicated
+father, irritated by a rebuke from the prince (who, be it remarked,
+was only seven years old at Ibrahim's death, some years later) on his
+unseemly exhibition of himself as a dancer. As a further instance of
+paternal barbarity in the Osmanli sultans, it is related how Selim I.
+was bastinadoed by command of his father, Bajazet II., for misconduct
+in the government of Bagdad! with the marvellous addition, (worthy of
+Ovid's <i>Metamorphoses</i>,) that from the sticks used for his punishment,
+and planted by his sorrowing tutor, sprung the grove of Tchibookly,
+opposite Yenikouy! History will show that Selim and Bajazet never met
+after the accession of the latter, except when the rebellious son met
+the father in arms at Tchourlou; and it is well known that Bagdad did
+not become part of the Ottoman empire till the reign of Soliman the
+Magnificent the son of Selim. The mention of the City of the Khalifs,
+indeed, seems destined to lead Mr White into error; for in another
+story, the circumstances of which differ in every point from the same
+incident as related by Oriental historians, we find the Ommiyade
+Khalif, Yezid III., who died <span class="smcap">A.D.</span> 723, (twenty-seven years before the
+accession of the Abbasides, and forty before the foundation of
+Bagdad,) spoken of as an Abbaside khalif of Bagdad! Again, we find in
+the list of geographical writers, (ii. 172,) "Ebul Feredj, Prince of
+Hama, 1331"&mdash;thus confounding the monk Gregory Abulpharagius with the
+Arabic Livy, Abulfeda, a prince of the line of Saladin! This last
+error, indeed, can scarcely be more than a slip of the pen. But
+instances of this kind might be multiplied; and it would be well if
+such passages, with numerous idle legends (such as the patronage of
+black bears by the Abbasides, and brown bears by the Ommiyades,) be
+omitted in any future edition.</p>
+
+<p>We have reserved for the conclusion of our notice, the consideration
+of Mr White's observations on the late <i>constitution</i> (as it has been
+called) of Gul-khana, a visionary scheme concocted by Reshid Pasha,
+under French influence, by which it was proposed to secure equal
+rights to all the component parts of the heterogeneous mass which
+constitutes the population of the Ottoman empire. The author's remarks
+on this well-meant, but crude and impracticable <i>coup-d'&eacute;tat</i>, evince
+a clear perception of the domestic interests and relative political
+position of Turkey, which lead us to hope that he will erelong turn
+his attention on a more extended scale, to the important subject of
+Ottoman politics. For the present, we must content ourselves with
+laying before our readers, in an abridged form, the clear and
+comprehensive views here laid down, on a question involving the future
+interests of Europe, and of no European power more than of Great
+Britain.</p>
+
+<p>"The population of the Turkish empire consists of several distinct
+races, utterly opposed to each other in religion, habits, descent,
+objects, and in every moral and even physical characteristic. The
+Turkomans, Kurds, Arabs, Egyptians, Druses, Maronites, Albanians,
+Bosnians, Bulgarians, Greeks, Jews, and Armenians, are so many
+distinct nations, inhabiting the same or contiguous soils, without
+having intermixed in the slightest degree from their earliest
+conquest, and without having a single object in common. Over these
+dissentient populations stands the pure Ottoman race, the paramount
+nation, charged with maintaining the equilibrium between all, and with
+neutralizing the ascendancy of one faction by the aid of others. Were
+this control not to exist&mdash;were the Turks, who represent their
+ancestors, the conquerors of the land, to be reduced to a level with
+those now beneath them, or were the preponderating influence of the
+former to be destroyed by the elevation and equalization of the
+latter, perpetual revolts and civil wars could not fail to ensue. The
+dependent<!-- Page 703 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_703" id="Page_703">[Pg 703]</a></span> populations, now constituting so large a portion of the
+empire, would continue the struggle until one of them obtained the
+supremacy at present exercised by the Turkish race, or until the
+territory were divided among themselves, or parcelled out by foreign
+powers. In this last hypothesis will be found the whole secret of the
+ardent sympathy evinced by most foreigners, especially by the press of
+France, for the subjugated races.</p>
+
+<p>"Many benevolent men argue, that the surest means of tranquillizing
+the tributaries of the Porte, and attaching them to the government, is
+by raising them in the social scale, and by granting to all the same
+rights and immunities as are enjoyed by their rulers. But it has been
+repeatedly proved, that concessions do but lead to fresh demands, and
+that partial enfranchisement conducts to total emancipation. 'And why
+should they not?' is often asked. To this may be replied, that the
+possession of the Bosphorus and Dardanelles by any other power, or
+fraction of power, than the Porte, would be a source of interminable
+discord to Europe, and irreparable detriment to England. It would not
+only affect our commerce, and undermine our political influence
+throughout the East, but would add enormously to our naval
+expenditure, by requiring an augmentation of our maritime force
+equivalent to that now remaining neuter in the Golden Horn. Treaties,
+it is said, might be concluded, exacting maritime restrictions. But
+what are treaties in the face of events? Whoever possesses the
+Bosphorus, Propontis, and Archipelago, <i>must</i> become a maritime nation
+in spite of treaties. Whoever possesses Constantinople <i>must</i> become a
+great manufacturing and exporting nation, in defiance of competition.
+In less than half a century, the romantic villas and tapering
+cypresses that now fringe the blue Bosphorus, would be replaced by
+factories and steam-chimneys&mdash;every one of which would be a deadly
+rival to a similar establishment in Great Britain. I argue as an
+Englishman, whose duty it is to consider the material interests of his
+country, now and hereafter, and not to occupy himself with the
+theories of political philanthropists.</p>
+
+<p>"According to the levelling system, recommended as the basis of
+reforms, all classes would eventually be assimilated&mdash;the desert Arabs
+to the laborious Maronites, the intractable Arnoots to the industrious
+Bulgarians, the thrifty Armenians to the restless and ambitious
+Greeks, and the humble and parsimonious Jews to the haughty and lavish
+Osmanlis. Thus, contiguous populations, which now keep each other in
+check, because their interests are divergent and their jealousies
+inveterate, would find their interests assimilated; and in the event
+of opposition to government, the Porte, in lieu of being able to
+overcome one sect through the rivalry of another, would find them all
+united against the dominant power. The Ottoman government should
+therefore avoid establishing any community of rights or interests
+among the races subjected to its rule. Each of these races ought to be
+governed according to its own usages and individual creed; there
+should be uniformity in the principles of administration, but
+diversity in the application. The Ottoman tenure cannot be maintained
+but by decided and peremptory superiority. Adhesion on the part of the
+subjugated is impossible; connexion is all that can be expected; and
+to preserve this connexion, the supremacy of conquest must not be
+relaxed. The Porte cannot expect attachment; it must consequently
+enforce submission. When this absolutism ceases to exist, the power
+will pass into other hands; and where is the politician that can
+calculate the results of the transfer? One issue may be safely
+predicted&mdash;England must lose, but cannot gain by the change. With the
+increasing embarrassments to commerce and industry, which continental
+states are raising against Britain, it is essential that we should not
+allow a false cry of philanthropy to throw us off our guard in the
+Levant. France in Africa, and Russia on the Danube, are intent on the
+same object. Their battle-cries are civilization and religion; their
+pretext the improvement of the Christian populations. But who is there
+that has studied the recent policy of the one, and the undeviating
+system of the other, since the days of Catherine, that can question
+for a moment the purport of both? <i>And yet England and Austria have
+acted recently as if France were sincere, and Russia disinterested.</i>"</p>
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES.</h3>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> <i>Three Years in Constantinople; or, Domestic Manners of
+the Turks in 1844.</i> By <span class="smcap">Charles White, Esq.</span></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> The root of bezestan and bazar is <i>bez</i>, cloth;&mdash;of
+tcharshy, <i>tchar</i>, four, meaning a square.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> A catalogue of works printed from the establishment of
+the press in 1726 to 1820, is given in the notes to Book 65 of Von
+Hammer Purgstall's Ottoman History.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> Mr White erroneously calls him Mourad III., and places
+the expedition against Bagdad in 1834.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> Mr White here introduces a digression on the other
+relics of the Prophet, the Moslem festivals, &amp;c., his account of which
+presents little novelty; but he falls into the general error of
+describing the Mahmil, borne by the holy camel in the pilgrim caravan,
+as containing the brocade covering of the Kaaba, when it is in fact
+merely an emblem of the presence of the monarch, like an empty
+carriage sent in a procession.&mdash;(See <i>Lane's Modern Egyptians</i>, ii. p.
+204, 8vo. ed.) It is indeed sufficiently obvious, that a box six feet
+high and two in diameter, could not contain a piece of brocade
+sufficient to surround a building described by Burckhardt as eighteen
+paces long, fourteen broad, and from thirty-five to forty feet high.</p>
+</div></div>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div class="biggap"><!-- Page 704 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_704" id="Page_704">[Pg 704]</a></span></div>
+
+<h2><a name="THE_MOUNTAIN_AND_THE_CLOUD" id="THE_MOUNTAIN_AND_THE_CLOUD"></a>THE MOUNTAIN AND THE CLOUD.</h2>
+
+<h3>(<span class="smcap">A Reminiscence of Switzerland.</span>)</h3>
+
+<div class="gap"/>
+<p>The cloud is to the mountain what motion is to the sea; it gives to it
+an infinite variety of expression&mdash;gives it a life&mdash;gives it joy and
+sufferance, alternate calm, and terror, and anger. Without the cloud,
+the mountain would still be sublime, but monotonous; it would have but
+a picture-like existence.</p>
+
+<p>How thoroughly they understand and sympathize with each other&mdash;these
+glorious playmates, these immortal brethren! Sometimes the cloud lies
+supported in the hollow of the hill, as if out of love it feigned
+weariness, and needed to be upheld. At other times the whole hill
+stands enveloped in the cloud that has expanded to embrace and to
+conceal it. No jealousy here. Each lives its own grand life under the
+equal eye of heaven.</p>
+
+<p>As you approach the mountains, it seems that the clouds begin already
+to arrange themselves in bolder and more fantastic shapes. They have a
+fellowship here. They built their mountains upon mountains&mdash;their
+mountains which are as light as air&mdash;huge structures built at the
+giddy suggestion of the passing breeze. Theirs is the wild liberty of
+endless change, by which they compensate themselves for their thin and
+fleeting existence, and seem to mock the stationary forms of their
+stable brethren fast rooted to the earth. And how genially does the
+sun pour his beam upon these twin grandeurs! For a moment they are
+assimilated; his ray has permeated, has etherealized the solid
+mountain, has fixed and defined the floating vapour. What now is the
+one but a stationary cloud? what is the other but a risen
+hill?&mdash;poised not in the air but in the flood of light.</p>
+
+<p>I am never weary of watching the play of these giant children of the
+earth. Sometimes a soft white cloud, so pure, so bright, sleeps,
+amidst open sunshine, nestled like an infant in the bosom of a green
+mountain. Sometimes the rising upcurling vapour will linger Just above
+the summit, and seem for a while an incense exhaling from this vast
+censer. Sometimes it will descend, and <i>drape</i> the whole side of the
+hill as with a transparent veil. I have seen it sweep between me and
+the mountain like a sheeted ghost, tall as the mountain, till the
+strong daylight dissolved its thin substance, and it rose again in
+flakes to decorate the blue heavens. But oh, glorious above all! when
+on some brightest of days, the whole mass of whitest clouds gathers
+midway upon the snow-topped mountain. How magnificent then is that
+bright eminence seen above the cloud! How it seems rising upwards&mdash;how
+it seems borne aloft by those innumerable wings&mdash;by those enormous
+pinions which I see stretching from the cloudy mass! What an ascension
+have we here!&mdash;what a transfiguration! O Raphael! I will not disparage
+thy name nor thy art, but thy angels bearing on their wings the
+brightening saint to Heaven&mdash;what are they to the picture here?</p>
+
+<p>Look! there&mdash;fairly in the sky&mdash;where we should see but the pure
+ether&mdash;above the clouds which themselves are sailing high in serenest
+air&mdash;yes, there, in the blue and giddy expanse, stands the solid
+mountain, glittering like a diamond. O God! the bewildered reason pent
+up in cities, toils much to prove and penetrate thy being and thy
+nature&mdash;toils much in vain. Here, I reason not&mdash;I see. The Great King
+lives&mdash;lo there is his throne.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>To him who quits the plain for the mountain, how the character of the
+cloud alters. That which seemed to belong exclusively to the sky, has
+been drawn down and belongs as plainly to the earth. Mount some noble
+eminence and look down&mdash;you will see the clouds lying <i>on</i> and <i>about</i>
+the landscape, as if they had fallen on it. You are on the steadfast
+earth, and they are underneath you. You look down perhaps on the lake,
+and there is a solitary cloud lying settled on it; when the rest of
+the fleecy<!-- Page 705 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_705" id="Page_705">[Pg 705]</a></span> drove had risen from their couch, this idle sleeper had
+been left dreaming there.</p>
+
+<p>Or stay below, and see the sun rise in the valley. When all is warm
+and clear upon the heights, and the tops of the hills are fervid with
+the beams of heaven, there still lies a cold white mass of cloud about
+your feet. It is not yet morning in the valley. There the cloud has
+been slumbering all night&mdash;there it found its home. It also will by
+and by receive the beam, and then it will arise, enveloping the hill
+as it ascends; the hill will have a second dawn; the cloud will assume
+its proud station in the sky; but it will return again to the valley
+at night.</p>
+
+<p>I am sailing on the lake of Brienz on a day golden with sunbeams. The
+high ridge of its rocky castellated hills is distinct as light can
+make it. Yet half-way up, amidst the pine forests, there lies upon the
+rich verdure a huge motionless cloud. What does it there? Its place
+was surely in the sky. But no; it belongs, like ourselves, to the
+earth.</p>
+
+<p>Is nature gaily mocking us, when upon her impregnable hills she builds
+these <i>castles in the air</i>? But, good heavens! what a military aspect
+all on a sudden does this mountain-side put on. Mark that innumerable
+host of pine-trees. What regiments of them are marching up the hill in
+the hot sun, as if to storm those rocky forts above! What serried
+ranks! and yet there are some stragglers&mdash;some that have hastened on
+in front, some that have lingered in the rear. Look at that tall
+gigantic pine breasting the hill alone, like an old grenadier. How
+upright against the steep declivity! while his lengthened shadow is
+thrown headlong back behind him down the precipice. I should be giddy
+to see such a shadow of my own. I should doubt if it would consent to
+be drawn up by the heels to the summit of the mountain&mdash;whether it
+would not rather drag me down with it into the abyss.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>I have seen hills on which lay the clear unclouded sky, making them
+blue as itself. I have gazed on those beautiful far-receding
+valleys&mdash;as the valley of the Rhone&mdash;when they have appeared to
+collect and retain the azure ether. They were full of Heaven. Angels
+might breathe that air. And yet I better love the interchange, the
+wild combination of cloud and mountain. Not cloud that intercepts the
+sun, but that reflects its brilliancy, and brightens round the hills.
+It is but a gorgeous drapery that the sky lets fall on the broad
+Herculean shoulders of the mountain. No, it should not intercept the
+beams of the great luminary; for the mountain loves the light. I have
+observed that the twilight, so grateful to the plain, is mortal to the
+mountain. It craves light&mdash;it lifts up its great chalice for
+light&mdash;this great flower is the first to close, to fade, at the
+withdrawal of the sun. It stretches up to heaven seeking light; it
+cannot have too much&mdash;under the strongest beam it never droops&mdash;its
+brow is never dazzled.</p>
+
+<p>But then these clouds, you will tell me, that hover about the
+mountain, all wing, all plumage, with just so much of substance for
+light to live in them&mdash;these very clouds can descend, and thicken, and
+blacken, and cover all things with an inexpressible gloom. True, and
+the mountain, or what is seen of it, becomes now the very image of a
+great and unfathomable sorrow. And only the great can express a great
+sadness. This aspect of nature shall never by me be forgotten; nor
+will I ever shrink from encountering it. If you would know the gloom
+of heart which nature can betray, as well as the glory it can
+manifest, you must visit the mountains. For days together, clouds,
+huge, dense, unwieldy, lie heavily upon the hills&mdash;which stand, how
+mute, how mournful!&mdash;as if they, too, knew of death. And look at the
+little lake at their feet. What now is its tranquillity when not a
+single sunbeam plays upon it? Better the earth opened and received it,
+and hid for ever its leaden despondency. And now there comes the
+paroxysm of terror and despair; deep thunders are heard, and a madness
+flashes forth in the vivid lightning. There is desperation amongst the
+elements. But the elements, like the heart of man, must rage in
+vain&mdash;must learn the universal lesson of submission. With them, as
+with humanity, despair<!-- Page 706 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_706" id="Page_706">[Pg 706]</a></span> brings back tranquillity. And now the driving
+cloud reveals again the glittering summits of the mountains, and light
+falls in laughter on the beaming lake.</p>
+
+<p>How like to a ruined Heaven is this earth! Nay, is it not more
+beautiful for being a ruin?</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Who can speak of lakes and not think of thee, beautiful Leman? How
+calm! how exquisitely blue! Let me call it a liquid sky that is spread
+here beneath us. And note how, where the boat presses, or the oar
+strikes, it yields ever a still more exquisite hue&mdash;akin to the
+violet, which gives to the rude pressure a redoubled fragrance&mdash;akin
+to the gentlest of womankind, whose love plays sweetest round the
+strokes of calamity.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, there is a woman's heart in thy waters, beautiful Leman!</p>
+
+<p>I have seen thee in all thy moods, in all thy humours. I have watched
+thee in profoundest calm; and suddenly, with little note of
+preparation, seen thee lash thy blue waves into a tempest. How
+beautiful in their anger were those azure waves crested with their
+white foam! And at other times, when all has been a sad unjoyous calm,
+I have seen, without being able to trace whence the light had broken,
+a soft expanse of brightness steal tremulous over the marble waters. A
+smile that seemed to speak of sweet caprice&mdash;that seemed to say that
+half its anger had been feint.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, verily there is a woman's heart in thy waters, beautiful Leman!</p>
+
+<p>I lie rocking in a boat midway between Vevay and Lausanne. On the
+opposite coast are the low purple hills <i>couching</i> beside the lake.
+But there, to the left, what an ethereal structure of cloud and snowy
+mountain is revealed to me! What a creation of that spirit of beauty
+which works its marvels in the unconscious earth! The Alps here, while
+they retain all the a&euml;rial effect gathered from distance, yet seem to
+arise from the very margin of the lake. The whole scene is so
+ethereal, you fear to look aside, lest when you look again it may have
+vanished like a vision of the clouds.</p>
+
+<p>And why should these little boats, with their tall triangular sails,
+which glide so gracefully over the water, be forgotten? The sail,
+though an artifice of man, is almost always in harmony with nature.
+Nature has adopted it&mdash;has lent it some of her own wild
+privileges&mdash;her own bold and varied contrasts of light and shade. The
+surface of the water is perhaps dark and overclouded; the little
+upright sail is the only thing that has caught the light, and it
+glitters there like a moving star. Or the water is all one dazzling
+sheet of silver, tremulous with the vivid sunbeam, and now the little
+sail is black as night, and steals with bewitching contrast over that
+sparkling surface.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>But we fly again to the mountain. Tourists are too apt to speak of the
+waterfall as something independent, something to be visited as a
+separate curiosity. There may be some such. But in general, the
+waterfall should be understood as part of the mountain&mdash;as the great
+fountain which adorns the architecture of its rocks, and the gardens
+of its pine forests. It belongs to the mountain. Pass through the
+valley, and look up; you see here and there thin stripes of glittering
+white, noiseless, motionless. They are waterfalls, which, if you
+approach them, will din you with their roar, and which are dashing
+headlong down, covered with tossing spray. Or ascend the face of the
+mountain, and again look around and above you. From all sides the
+waterfalls are rushing. They bear you down. You are giddy with their
+reckless speed. How they make the rock live! What a stormy vitality
+have they diffused around them! You might as well separate a river
+from its banks as a waterfall from its mountain.</p>
+
+<p>And yet there is one which I could look at for hours together, merely
+watching its own graceful movements. Let me sit again in imagination
+in the valley of Lauterbrunnen, under the fall of the Staubbach. Most
+graceful and ladylike of descents! It does not fall; but over the
+rock, and along the face of the precipice, developes some lovely form
+that nature had at heart;&mdash;diffuses itself in down-pointing pinnacles
+of liquid vapour, fretted with the finest spray. The<!-- Page 707 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_707" id="Page_707">[Pg 707]</a></span> laws of gravity
+have nothing to do with its movements. It is not hurled down; it does
+not leap, plunging madly into the abyss; it thinks only of beauty as
+it sinks. No noise, no shock, no rude concussion. Where it should dash
+against the projecting rock, lo! its series of out-shooting pinnacles
+is complete, and the vanishing point just kisses the granite. It
+disappoints the harsh obstruction by its exquisite grace and most
+beautiful levity, and springs a second time from the rock without
+trace of ever having encountered it.</p>
+
+<p>The whole side of the mountain is here barren granite. It glides like
+a spirit down the adverse and severe declivity. It is like Christ in
+this world. The famous fall of the Griesbach, near the lake of Brienz,
+thunders through the most luxuriant foliage; the Staubbach meets the
+bare rock with touches of love, and a movement all grace, and a voice
+full of reconcilement.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Mont Blanc! Mont Blanc! I have not scaled thy heights so boldly or so
+far as others have, but I will yield to none in worship of thee and
+thy neighbour mountains. Some complain that the valley of Chamouni is
+barren; they are barren souls that so complain. True, it has not the
+rich pastures that lie bordering on the snow in the Oberland. But
+neither does it need them. Look <i>down</i> the valley from the pass of the
+Col de Balme, and see summit beyond summit; or ascend the lateral
+heights of La Fleg&egrave;re, and see the Alps stretched out in a line before
+you, and say if any thing be wanting. Here is the sculpture of
+landscape. Stretched yourself upon the bare open rock, you see the
+great hills built up before you, from their green base to their snowy
+summits, with rock, and glacier, and pine forests. You see how the
+Great Architect has wrought.</p>
+
+<p>And for softer beauty, has not the eye been feasted even to
+excess&mdash;till you cried "hold&mdash;enough!" till you craved repose from
+excitement&mdash;along the whole route, from Lausanne to this spot? What
+perfect combinations of beauty and sublimity&mdash;of grandeur of outline
+with richness of colouring&mdash;have you not been travelling through!</p>
+
+<p>It seems a fanciful illustration, and yet it has more than once
+occurred to me, when comparing the scenery of the Oberland with that
+of the valley of Chamouni and its neighbourhood; the one resembles the
+first work&mdash;be it picture or poem&mdash;of a great genius; the other, the
+second. On his first performance, the artist lavishes beauties of
+every description; he crowds it with charms; all the stores of his
+imagination are at once unfolded, and he must find a place for all. In
+the second, which is more calm and mature, the style is broader, the
+disposition of materials more skilful: the artist, master of his
+inspiration, no longer suffers one beauty to crowd upon another, finds
+for all not only place, but place sufficient; and, above all, no
+longer fears being simple or even austere. I dare not say that the
+Oberland has a fault in its composition&mdash;so charming, so magnificent
+have I found it; but let me mark the broad masterly style of this
+Alpine region. As you journey from Villeneuve, with what a gentle,
+bland magnificence does the valley expand before you! The hills and
+rocks, as they increase in altitude, still fall back, and reveal in
+the centre the towering <i>Dent du Midi</i>, glittering with its eternal
+snows. The whole way to Martigny you see sublimity without admixture
+of terror; it is beauty elevated into grandeur, without losing its
+amenity. And then, if you cross by the Col de Balme, leaving the
+valley of the Rhone as you ascend, and descending upon the valley of
+Chamouni, where the Alps curve before you in most perfect
+grouping&mdash;tell me if it is possible for the heart of man to desire
+more. Nay, is not the heart utterly exhausted by this series of scenic
+raptures?</p>
+
+<p>For ever be remembered that magnificent pass of the Col de Balme! If I
+have a white day in my calendar, it is the day I spent in thy defiles.
+Deliberately I assert that life has nothing comparable to the delight
+of traversing alone, borne leisurely on the back of one's mule, a
+mountain-pass such as this. Those who have stouter limbs may prefer to
+use them; give me for my instrument of progression the legs<!-- Page 708 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_708" id="Page_708">[Pg 708]</a></span> of the
+patient and sure-footed mule. They are better legs, at all events,
+than mine. I am seated on his back, the bridle lies knotted upon his
+neck&mdash;the cares of the way are all his&mdash;the toil and the anxiety of
+it; the scene is all mine, and I am all in it. I am seated there, all
+eye, all thought, gazing, musing; yet not without just sufficient
+occupation to keep it still a luxury&mdash;this leisure to contemplate. The
+mule takes care of himself, and, in so doing, of you too; yet not so
+entirely but that you must look a little after yourself. That he by no
+means has your safety for his primary object is evident from this,
+that, in turning sharp corners or traversing narrow paths, he never
+calculates whether there is sufficient room for any other legs than
+his own&mdash;takes no thought of yours. To keep your knees, in such
+places, from collision with huge boulders, or shattered stumps of
+trees, must be your own care; to say nothing of the occasional
+application of whip or stick, and a <i>very</i> strong pull at his mouth to
+raise his head from the grass which he has leisurely begun to crop.
+Seated thus upon your mule, given up to the scene, with something
+still of active life going on about you, with full liberty to pause
+and gaze, and dismount when you will, and at no time proceeding at a
+railroad speed, I do say&mdash;unless you are seated by your own
+incomparable Juliet, who has for the first time breathed that she
+loves you&mdash;I do say that you are in the most enviable position that
+the wide world affords. As for me, I have spent some days, some weeks,
+in this fashion amongst the mountains; they are the only days of my
+life I would wish to live over again. But mind, if you would really
+enjoy all this, go alone&mdash;a silent guide before or behind you. No
+friends, no companion, no gossip. You will find gossip enough in your
+inn, if you want it. If your guide thinks it is his duty to talk, to
+explain, to tell you the foolish names of things that need no
+name&mdash;make belief that you understand him not&mdash;that his language, be
+it French or German, is to you utterly incomprehensible.</p>
+
+<p>I would not paint it all <i>couleur de rose</i>. The sun is not always
+shining.</p>
+
+<p>There is tempest and foul weather, fatigue and cold, and abundant
+moisture to be occasionally encountered. There is something to endure.
+But if you prayed to Heaven for perpetual fair weather, and your
+prayer were granted, it would be the most unfortunate petition you
+could put up. Why, there are some of the sublimest aspects, the
+noblest moods and tempers of the great scene, which you would utterly
+forfeit by this miserable immunity. He who loves the mountain, will
+love it in the tempest as well as in the sunshine. To be enveloped in
+driving mist or cloud that obscures every thing from view&mdash;to be made
+aware of the neighbouring precipice only by the sound of the torrent
+that rushes unseen beneath you&mdash;how low down you can only guess&mdash;this,
+too, has its excitement. Besides, while you are in this total blank,
+the wind will suddenly drive the whole mass of cloud and thick vapour
+from the scene around you, and leave the most glorious spectacle for
+some moments exposed to view. Nothing can exceed these moments of
+sudden and partial revelation. The glittering summits of the mountains
+appear as by enchantment where there had long been nothing but dense
+dark vapour. And how beautiful the wild disorder of the clouds, whose
+array has been broken up, and who are seen flying, huddled together in
+tumultuous retreat! But the veering wind rallies them again, and again
+they sweep back over the vast expanse, and hill and valley, earth and
+sky, are obliterated in a second.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>He who would ponder what <i>man</i> is, should journey amongst the
+mountains. What <i>men</i> are, is best learnt in the city.</p>
+
+<p>How, to a museful spirit, the heart and soul of man is reflected in
+the shows of nature! I cannot see this torrent battling for ever along
+its rocky path, and not animate it with human passions, and torture it
+with a human fate. Can it have so much turmoil and restlessness, and
+not be allied to humanity?</p>
+
+<p>But all are not images of violence or lessons of despondency. Mark the
+Yungfrau, how she lifts her slight and virgin snows fearlessly to the
+<!-- Page 709 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_709" id="Page_709">[Pg 709]</a></span>
+blazing sun! She is so high, she feels no <i>reflected heat</i>. </p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>How well the simple architecture of the low-roofed buildings of
+Switzerland accords with its magnificent scenery! What were lofty
+steeples beside Mont Blanc, or turreted castles beside her pinnacles
+of granite? Elsewhere, in the level plain, I love the cathedral. I had
+lately stood enraptured in the choir of that of Cologne, gazing up at
+those tall windows which spring where other loftiest buildings
+terminate&mdash;windows so high that God only can look in upon the
+worshipper.</p>
+
+<p>But here&mdash;what need of the stately edifice, when there is a church
+whose buttresses are mountains, whose roof and towers are above the
+clouds, verily in the heavens? What need of artificial reminiscences
+of the Great King, here where he has built for himself? The plain, it
+is <i>man's</i> nature&mdash;given to man's wants; there stands his corn, there
+flow his milk and honey. But the mountain, it is God's nature&mdash;his
+stationary tabernacle&mdash;reserved for the eye only of man and the
+communing of his spirit. If meant to subserve the wants of his earthly
+nature, meant still more expressly to kindle other wants. Do they not
+indeed lead to Heaven, these mountains? At least I know they lead
+beyond this earth.</p>
+
+<p>There is a little church stands in the valley of Chamouni. It was
+open, as is customary in Catholic countries, to receive the visits and
+the prayers of the faithful; but there was no service, no priest, nor
+indeed a single person in the building. It was evening&mdash;and a solitary
+lamp hung suspended from the ceiling, just before the altar. Allured
+by the mysterious appearance of this lamp burning in solitude, I
+entered, and remained in it some time, making out, in the dim light,
+the wondrous figures of virgins and saints generally found in such
+edifices. When I emerged from the church, there stood Mont Blanc
+before me, reflecting the last tints of the setting sun. I am
+habitually tolerant of Catholic devices and ceremonies; but at this
+moment how inexpressibly strange, how very little, how poor,
+contemptible, and like an infant's toy, seemed all the implements of
+worship I had just left!</p>
+
+<p>And yet the tall, simple, wooden cross that stands in the open air on
+the platform before the church, this was well. This was a symbol that
+might well stand, even in the presence of Mont Blanc. Symbol of
+suffering and of love, where is it out of place? On no spot on earth,
+on no spot where a human heart is beating.</p>
+
+<p>Mont Blanc and this wooden cross, are they not the two greatest
+symbols that the world can show? They are wisely placed opposite each
+other.</p>
+
+<p>I have alluded to the sunset seen in this valley. All travellers love
+to talk a little of their own experience, their good or their ill
+fortune. The first evening I entered Chamouni, the clouds had gathered
+on the summits of the mountains, and a view of Mont Blanc was thought
+hopeless. Nevertheless I sallied forth, and planted myself in the
+valley, with a singular confidence in the goodness of nature towards
+one who was the humblest but one of the sincerest of her votaries. My
+confidence was rewarded. The clouds dispersed, and the roseate sunset
+on the mountain was seen to perfection. I had not yet learned to
+distinguish that summit which, in an especial manner, bears the name
+of Mont Blanc. There is a modesty in its greatness. It makes no
+ostentatious claim to be the highest in the range, and is content if
+for a time you give the glory of pre-eminence to others. But it
+reserves a convincing proof of its own superiority. I had been looking
+elsewhere, and in a wrong direction, for Mont Blanc, when I found that
+all the summits had sunk, like the clouds when day deserts them, into
+a cold dead white&mdash;all but one point, that still glowed with the
+radiance of the sun when all beside had lost it. There was the royal
+mountain.</p>
+
+<p>What a cold, corpse-like hue it is which the snow-mountain assumes
+just after the sun has quitted it. There is a short interval then,
+when it seems the very image of death. But the moon rises, or the
+stars take up their place, and the mountain resumes its beauty and its
+life. Beauty is always life. Under the star-light how ethereal does it
+look!</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>In the landscapes of other countries, the house&mdash;the habitation of
+man&mdash;be<!-- Page 710 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_710" id="Page_710">[Pg 710]</a></span> it farm-house or cottage&mdash;gathers, so to speak, some of the
+country about itself&mdash;makes itself the centre of some circle, however
+small. Not so in Switzerland. The hooded chalet, which even in summer
+speaks so plainly of winter, and stands ever prepared with its low
+drooping roof to shelter its eyes and ears from the snow and the
+wind&mdash;these dot the landscape most charmingly, but yet are lost in it;
+they form no group, no central point in the scene. I am thinking more
+particularly of the chalets in the Oberland. There is no path
+apparently between one and the other; the beautiful green verdure lies
+untrodden around them. One would say, the inhabitants found their way
+to them like birds to their nests. And like enough to nests they are,
+both in the elevation at which they are sometimes perched, and in the
+manner of their distribution over the scene.</p>
+
+<p>However they got there, people at all events are living in them, and
+the farm and the dairy are carried up into I know not what altitudes.
+Those beautiful little tame cattle, with their short horns, and long
+ears, and mouse-coloured skin, with all the agility of a goat, and all
+the gentleness of domesticity&mdash;you meet them feeding in places where
+your mule looks thoughtfully to his footing. And then follows perhaps
+a peasant girl in her picturesque cloak made of the undressed fur of
+the goat and her round hat of thickly plaited straw, calling after
+them in that high sing-song note, which forms the basis of what is
+called Swiss music. This cry heard in the mountains is delightful, the
+voice is sustained and yet varied&mdash;being varied, it can be sustained
+the longer&mdash;and the high note pierces far into the distance. As a real
+cry of the peasant it is delightful to hear; it is appropriate to the
+purpose and the place. But defend my ears against that imitation of it
+introduced by young ladies into the Swiss songs. Swiss music in an
+English drawing-room&mdash;may I escape the infliction! but the Swiss
+peasant chanting across the mountain defiles&mdash;may I often again halt
+to listen to it!</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>But from the mountain and the cloud we must now depart. We must wend
+towards the plain. One very simple and consolatory thought strikes
+me&mdash;though we must leave the glory of the mountain, we at least take
+the sun with us. And the cloud too, you will add. Alas! something too
+much of that.</p>
+
+<p>But no murmurs. We islanders, who can see the sun set on the broad
+ocean&mdash;had we nothing else to boast of&mdash;can never feel deserted of
+nature. We have our portion of her excellent gifts. I know not yet how
+an Italian sky, so famed for its deep and constant azure, may affect
+me, but I know that we have our gorgeous melancholy sunsets, to which
+our island tempers become singularly attuned. The cathedral
+splendours&mdash;the dim religious light of our vesper skies&mdash;I doubt if I
+would exchange them for the unmitigated glories of a southern clime.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div class="biggap"><!-- Page 711 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_711" id="Page_711">[Pg 711]</a></span></div>
+<h2><a name="THE_SECOND_PANDORA" id="THE_SECOND_PANDORA"></a>THE SECOND PANDORA.</h2>
+<div class="gap"/>
+<div class="poem center"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">Methought Prometheus, from his rock unbound,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Had with the Gods again acceptance found.</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Once more he seem'd his wond'rous task to ply,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">While all Olympus stood admiring by.</span><br />
+<span class="i0">To high designs his heart and hands aspire,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">To quicken earthly dust with heavenly fire,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Won by no fraud, but lent by liberal love,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">To raise weak mortals to the realms above;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">For the bright flame remembers, even on earth,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">And pants to reach, the region of its birth.</span><br />
+<span class="i2">A female form was now the artist's care;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Faultless in shape, and exquisitely fair.</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Of more than Parian purity, the clay</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Had all been leaven'd with the ethereal ray.</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Deep in the heart the kindling spark began,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">And far diffused through every fibre ran;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">The eyes reveal'd it, and the blooming skin</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Glow'd with the lovely light that shone within.</span><br />
+<span class="i2">The applauding Gods confess'd the matchless sight;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">The first Pandora was not half so bright;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">That beauteous mischief, formed at Jove's command,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">A curse to men, by Mulciber's own hand;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Whose eager haste the fatal jar to know,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Fill'd the wide world with all but hopeless woe.</span><br />
+<span class="i0">But dawn of better days arose, when He,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">The patient Hero, set Prometheus free,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Alcides, to whose toils the joy was given</span><br />
+<span class="i0">To conquer Hell and climb the heights of Heaven.</span><br />
+<span class="i2">In the fair work that now the master wrought,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">The first-fruits of his liberty were brought;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">The Gods receive her as a pledge of peace,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">And heap their gifts and happiest auspices.</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Minerva to the virgin first imparts</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Her skill in woman's works and household arts;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">The needle's use, the robe's embroider'd bloom,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">And all the varied labours of the loom.</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Calm fortitude she gave, and courage strong,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">To cope with ill and triumph over wrong;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Ingenuous prudence, with prophetic sight,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">And clear instinctive wisdom, ever right.</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Diana brought the maid her modest mien,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Her love of fountains and the sylvan scene;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">The Hours and Seasons lent each varying ray</span><br />
+<span class="i0">That gilds the rolling year or changing day.</span><br />
+<span class="i0">The cunning skill of Hermes nicely hung,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">With subtle blandishments, her sliding tongue,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">And train'd her eyes to stolen glances sweet,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">And all the wiles of innocent deceit.</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Ph&oelig;bus attuned her ear to love the lyre,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">And warm'd her fancy with poetic fire.</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Nor this alone; but shared his healing art,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">And robb'd his son of all the gentler part;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Taught her with soothing touch and silent tread</span><br />
+<span class="i0">To hover lightly round the sick one's bed,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">And promised oft to show, when medicines fail,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">A woman's watchful tenderness prevail.</span><br />
+<!-- Page 712 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_712" id="Page_712">[Pg 712]</a></span>
+
+<span class="i2">Next Venus and the Graces largely shed</span>
+<span class="i0">A shower of fascinations on her head.</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Each line, each look, was brighten'd and refined,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Each outward act, each movement of the mind,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Till all her charms confess the soft control,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">And blend at once in one harmonious whole.</span><br />
+<span class="i2">But still the Eternal Sire apart remain'd,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">And Juno's bounty was not yet obtained.</span><br />
+<span class="i0">The voice of Heaven's High Queen then fill'd the ear,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">"A wife and mother, let the Nymph appear."</span><br />
+<span class="i0">The mystic change like quick enchantment shows&mdash;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">The slender lily blooms a blushing rose.</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Three gentle children now, by just degrees,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Are ranged in budding beauty round her knees:</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Still to her lips their looks attentive turn,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">And drink instruction from its purest urn,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">While o'er their eyes soft memories seem to play,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">That paint a friend or father far away.</span><br />
+<span class="i0">A richer charm her ripen'd form displays,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">A halo round her shines with holier rays;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">And if at times, a shade of pensive grace</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Pass like a cloud across her earnest face,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Yet faithful tokens the glad truth impart,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">That deeper happiness pervades her heart.</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Jove latest spoke: "One boon remains," he said,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">And bent serenely his ambrosial head;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">"The last, best boon, which I alone bestow;"</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Then bade the waters of Affliction flow.</span><br />
+<span class="i0">The golden dream was dimm'd; a darken'd room</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Scarce show'd where dire disease had shed its gloom.</span><br />
+<span class="i0">A little child in death extended lay,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Still round her linger'd the departing ray.</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Another pallid face appear'd, where Life</span><br />
+<span class="i0">With its fell foe maintain'd a doubtful strife.</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Long was the contest; changeful hopes and fears</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Now sunk the Mother's soul, now dried her tears.</span><br />
+<span class="i0">At last a steady line of dawning light</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Show'd that her son was saved, and banish'd night.</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Though sad her heart, of one fair pledge bereft,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">She sees and owns the bounties Heaven hath left.</span><br />
+<span class="i0">In natural drops her anguish finds relief,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">And leaves the Matron beautified by grief;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">While consolation, beaming from above,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Fills her with new-felt gratitude and love.</span><br />
+<span class="i2">O happy He! before whose waking eyes,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">So bright a vision may resplendent rise&mdash;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">The New <span class="smcap">Pandora</span>, by the Gods designed,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Not now the bane, but blessing of Mankind!</span><br />
+</div></div>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div class="biggap"><span class='pagenum'><!-- Page 713 --><a name="Page_713" id="Page_713">[Pg 713]</a></span></div>
+<h2><a name="REIGN_OF_GEORGE_THE_THIRD33" id="REIGN_OF_GEORGE_THE_THIRD33"></a>REIGN OF GEORGE THE THIRD.<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a></h2>
+<div class="gap"/>
+<p>It is scarcely theoretical to say, that every century has a character
+of its own. The human mind is essentially progressive in Europe. The
+accumulations of past knowledge, experience, and impulse, are
+perpetually preparing changes on the face of society; and we may
+fairly regard every hundred years as the period maturing those changes
+into visible form. Thus, the fifteenth century was the age of
+discovery in the arts, in the powers of nature, and in the great
+provinces of the globe: the sixteenth exhibited the general mind under
+the impressions of religion&mdash;the Reformation, the German wars for
+liberty and faith, and the struggles of Protestantism in France. The
+seventeenth was the brilliant period of scientific advance, of
+continental literature, and of courtly pomp and power. The eighteenth
+was the period of politics; every court of Europe was engaged in the
+game of political rivalry; the European balance became the test, the
+labour, and the triumph of statesmanship. The negotiator was then the
+great instrument of public action. Diplomacy assumed a shape, and
+Europe was governed by despatches. The genius of Frederick the Second
+restored war to its early rank among the elements of national life;
+but brilliant as his wars were, they were subservient to the leading
+feature of the age. They were fought, not, like the battles of the old
+conquerors, for fame, but for influence&mdash;not to leave the king without
+an enemy, but to leave his ambassadors without an opponent&mdash;less to
+gain triumphs, than to ensure treaties: they all began and ended in
+diplomacy!</p>
+
+<p>It is remarkable, that this process was exhibited in Europe alone. In
+the East, comprehending two-thirds of human kind, no change was made
+since the conquests of Mahomet. That vast convulsion, in which the
+nervousness of frenzy had given the effeminate spirit of the Oriental
+the strength of the soldier and the ambition of universal conqueror,
+had no sooner wrought its purpose than it passed away, leaving the
+general mind still more exhausted than before. The Saracen warrior
+sank into the peasant, and the Arab was again lost in his sands; the
+Turk alone survived, exhibiting splendour without wealth, and pride
+without power&mdash;a decaying image of Despotism, which nothing but the
+jealousy of the European saved from falling under the first assault.
+Such is the repressive strength of evil government; progress, the most
+salient principle of our nature, dies before it. And man, of all
+beings the most eager for acquirement, and the most restless under all
+monotony of time, place, and position, becomes like the dog or the
+mule, and generation after generation lives and dies with no more
+consciousness of the capacities of his existence, than the root which
+the animal devours, or the tree under which it was born.</p>
+
+<p>In England, the eighteenth century was wholly political. It was a
+continual struggle through all the difficulties belonging to a free
+constitution, exposed to the full discussion of an intellectual
+people. Without adopting the offensive prejudice, which places the
+individual ability of the Englishmen in the first rank; or without
+doubting that nature has distributed nearly an equal share of personal
+ability among all European nations; we may, not unjustly, place the
+national mind of England in the very highest rank of general
+capacity&mdash;if that is the most intellectual nation, by which the public
+intellect is most constantly employed, in which all the great
+questions of society are most habitually referred to the decision of
+the intellect, and in which that decision is the most irresistible in
+its effects, no nation of Europe can stand upon equal ground with the
+English.<!-- Page 714 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_714" id="Page_714">[Pg 714]</a></span> For, in what other nation is the public intellect in such
+unwearied exercise, in such continual demand, and in such unanswerable
+power?</p>
+
+<p>In what other nation of the world (excepting, within those few years,
+France; and that most imperfectly) has public opinion ever been
+appealed to? But, in England, to what else is there any appeal? Or,
+does not the foreign mind bear some resemblance to the foreign
+landscape&mdash;exhibiting barren though noble elevations, spots of
+singular though obscure beauty among its recesses, and even in its
+wildest scenes a capacity of culture?&mdash;while, in the mind of England,
+like its landscape, that culture has already laid its hand upon the
+soil; has crowned the hill with verdure, and clothed the vale with
+fertility; has run its ploughshare along the mountain side, and led
+the stream from its brow; has sought out every finer secret of the
+scene, and given the last richness of cultivation to the whole.</p>
+
+<p>From the beginning of the reign of Anne, all was a contest of leading
+statesmen at the head of parties. Those contests exhibit great mental
+power, singular system, and extraordinary knowledge of the art of
+making vast bodies of men minister to the personal objects of avarice
+and ambition. But they do no honour to the moral dignity of England.
+All revolutions are hazardous to principle. A succession of
+revolutions have always extinguished even the pretence to principle.
+The French Revolution is not the only one which made a race of
+<i>girouettes</i>. The political life of England, from the death of Anne to
+the reign of George the Third, was a perpetual turning of the
+weathercock. Whig and Tory were the names of distinction. But their
+subordinates were of as many varieties of feature as the cargo of a
+slave-ship; the hue might be the same, but the jargon was that of
+Babel. It was perhaps fortunate for the imperial power of England,
+that while she was thus humiliating the national morality, which is
+the life-blood of nations; her reckless and perpetual enemy beyond the
+Channel had lost all means of being her antagonist. The French sceptre
+had fallen into the hands of a prince, who had come to the throne a
+debauchee; and to whom the throne seemed only a scene for the larger
+display of his vices. The profligacy of Louis-Quatorze had been
+palliated by his passion for splendour, among a dissolute people who
+loved splendour much, and hated profligacy little. But the vices of
+Louis the Fifteenth were marked by a grossness which degraded them in
+the eye even of popular indulgence, and prepared the nation for the
+overthrow of the monarchy. In this period, religion, the great
+purifier of national council, maintained but a struggling existence.
+The Puritanism of the preceding century had crushed the Church of
+England; and the restoration of the monarchy had given the people a
+saturnalia. Religion had been confounded with hypocrisy, until the
+people had equally confounded freedom with infidelity. The heads of
+the church, chosen by freethinking administrations, were chosen more
+for the suppleness than for the strength of their principles; and
+while the people were thus taught to regard churchmen as tools, and
+the ministers to use them as dependents, the cause of truth sank
+between both. The Scriptures are the life of religion. It can no more
+subsist in health without them, than the human frame can subsist
+without food; it may have the dreams of the enthusiast, or the frenzy
+of the monk; but, for all the substantial and safe purposes of the
+human heart, its life is gone for ever. It has been justly remarked,
+that the theological works of that day, including the sermons, might,
+in general, have been written if Christianity had never existed. The
+sermons were chiefly essays, of the dreariest kind on the most
+commonplace topics of morals. The habit of reading these discourses
+from the pulpit, a habit so fatal to all impression, speedily rendered
+the preachers as indifferent as their auditory; and if we were to name
+the period when religion had most fallen into decay in the public
+mind, we should pronounce it the half century which preceded the reign
+of George the Third.</p>
+
+<p>On the subject of pulpit eloquence there are some remarks in one of
+the reviews of the late Sydney Smith, expressed<!-- Page 715 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_715" id="Page_715">[Pg 715]</a></span> with all the
+shrewdness, divested of the levity of that writer, who had keenly
+observed the popular sources of failure.</p>
+
+<p>"The great object of modern sermons is, to hazard nothing. Their
+characteristic is decent debility; which alike guards their authors
+from ludicrous errors, and precludes them from striking beauties. Yet
+it is curious to consider, how a body of men so well educated as the
+English clergy, can distinguish themselves so little in a species of
+composition, to which it is their peculiar duty, as well as their
+ordinary habit, to attend. To solve this difficulty, it should be
+remembered that the eloquence of the bar and of the senate force
+themselves into notice, power, and wealth." He then slightly guards
+against the conception, that eloquence should be the sole source of
+preferment; or even "a common cause of preferment." But he strongly,
+and with great appearance of truth, attributes the want of public
+effect to the want of those means by which that effect is secured in
+every other instance.</p>
+
+<p>"Pulpit discourses have insensibly dwindled from speaking into
+reading; a practice of itself sufficient to stifle every germ of
+eloquence. It is only by the fresh feelings of the heart that mankind
+can be very powerfully affected. What can be more unfortunate, than an
+orator delivering stale indignation, and fervour of a week old;
+turning over whole pages of violent passions, written out in German
+text; reading the tropes and metaphors into which he is hurried by the
+ardour of his mind; and so affected, at a preconcerted line and page,
+that he is unable to proceed any further?"</p>
+
+<p>This criticism was perfectly true of sermons forty years ago, when it
+was written. Times are changed since, and changed for the better. The
+pulpit is no longer ashamed of the doctrines of Christianity, as too
+harsh for the ears of a classic audience, or too familiar for the ears
+of the people. Still there are no rewards in the Church, for that
+great faculty, or rather that great combination of faculties, which
+commands all the honours of the senate and the bar. A clerical
+Demosthenes might find his triumph in the shillings of a charity
+sermon, but he must never hope for a Stall.</p>
+
+<p>We now revert to the curious, inquisitive, and gossiping historian of
+the time. Walpole, fond of French manners, delighting in the easy
+sarcasm, and almost saucy levity, of French "Memoirs," and adopting,
+in all its extent, the confession, (then so fashionable on the
+Continent,) that the perfection of writing was to be formed in their
+lively <i>persiflage</i>, evidently modelled his "History" on the style of
+the Sevign&eacute;s and St Simons. But he was altogether their superior. If
+he had been a chamberlain in the court of Louis XV., he might have
+been as frivolously witty, and as laughingly sarcastic, as any
+Frenchman who ever sat at the feet of a court mistress, or whoever
+looked for fame among the sallies of a <i>petit souper</i>. But England was
+an atmosphere which compelled him to a manlier course. The storms of
+party were not to be stemmed by a wing of gossamer. The writer had
+bold facts, strong principles, and the struggles of powerful minds to
+deal with, and their study gave him a strength not his own.</p>
+
+<p>Walpole was fond of having a hero. In private life, George Selwyn was
+his Admirable Crichton; in public, Charles Townshend. Charles was
+unquestionably a man of wit. Yet his wit rather consisted in dexterity
+of language than in brilliancy of conception. He was also eloquent in
+Parliament; though his charm evidently consisted more in happiness of
+phrase, than in richness, variety, or vigour, of thought. On the
+whole, he seems to have been made to amuse rather than to impress, and
+to give a high conception of his general faculties than to produce
+either conviction by his argument, or respect by the solid qualities
+of his genius. Still, he must have been an extraordinary man. Walpole
+describes his conduct and powers, as exhibited on one of those days of
+sharp debate which preceded the tremendous discussions of the American
+war. The subject was a bill for regulating the dividends of the East
+India Company&mdash;the topic was extremely trite, and apparently trifling.
+But any perch will answer for the flight of such bird. "It was<!-- Page 716 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_716" id="Page_716">[Pg 716]</a></span> on
+that day," says Walpole, "and on that occasion, that Charles Townshend
+displayed, in a latitude beyond belief, the amazing powers of his
+capacity, and the no less amazing incongruities of his character."
+Early in the day he had opened the business, by taking on himself the
+examination of the Company's conduct, had made a calm speech on the
+subject, and even went so far as to say, "that he hoped he had atoned
+for the inconsiderateness of his past life, by the care which he had
+taken of that business." He then went home to dinner. In his absence a
+motion was made, which Conway, the secretary of state, not choosing to
+support alone, it being virtually Townshend's own measure besides,
+sent to hurry him back to the House. "He returned about eight in the
+evening, half drunk with champagne," as Walpole says, (which, however,
+was subsequently denied,) and more intoxicated with spirits. He then
+instantly rose to speak, without giving himself time to learn any
+thing, except that the motion had given alarm. He began by vowing that
+he had not been consulted on the motion&mdash;a declaration which
+astonished every body, there being twelve persons round him at the
+moment, who had been in consultation with him that very morning, and
+with his assistance had drawn up the motion on his own table, and who
+were petrified at his unparalleled effrontery. But before he sat down,
+he had poured forth, as Walpole says, "a torrent of wit, humour,
+knowledge, absurdity, vanity, and fiction, heightened by all the
+graces of comedy, the happiness of quotation, and the buffoonery of
+farce. To the purpose of the question he said not a syllable. It was a
+descant on the times, a picture of parties, of their leaders, their
+hopes, and effects. It was an encomium and a satire on himself; and
+when he painted the pretensions of birth, riches, connexions, favours,
+titles, while he effected to praise Lord Rockingham and that faction,
+he yet insinuated that nothing but parts like his own were qualified
+to preside. And while he less covertly arraigned the wild incapacity
+of Lord Chatham, he excited such murmurs of wonder, admiration,
+applause, laughter, pity, and scorn, that nothing was so true as the
+sentence with which he concluded&mdash;when, speaking of government, he
+said, that it had become what he himself had often been called&mdash;the
+weathercock."</p>
+
+<p>Walpole exceeds even his usual measure of admiration, in speaking of
+this masterly piece of extravagance. "Such was the wit, abundance, and
+impropriety of this speech," says he, "that for some days men could
+talk or enquire of nothing else. 'Did you hear Charles Townshend's
+champagne speech,' was the universal question. The bacchanalian
+enthusiasm of Pindar flowed in torrents less rapid and less eloquent,
+and inspired less delight, than Townshend's imagery, which conveyed
+meaning in every sentence. It was Garrick acting extempore scenes of
+Congreve." He went to supper with Walpole at Conway's afterwards,
+where, the flood of his gaiety not being exhausted, he kept the table
+in a roar till two in the morning. A part of this entertainment,
+however, must have found his auditory in a condition as unfit for
+criticism as himself. Claret till "two in the morning," might easily
+disqualify a convivial circle from the exercise of too delicate a
+perception. And a part of Townshend's facetiousness on that occasion
+consisted in mimicking his own wife, and a woman of rank with whom he
+fancied himself in love. He at last gave up from mere bodily
+lassitude. Walpole happily enough illustrates those talents and their
+abuse by an allusion to those eastern tales, in which a benevolent
+genius endows a being with supernatural excellence on some points,
+while a malignant genius counteracts the gift by some qualification
+which perpetually baffles and perverts it. The story, however, of
+Charles Townshend's tipsiness is thus contradicted by a graver
+authority, Sir George Colebrook, in his Memoirs.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr Townshend loved good living, but had not a strong stomach. He
+committed therefore frequent excesses, considering his constitution;
+which would not have been intemperance in another. He was supposed,
+for instance, to have made a speech in the heat of wine, when that was
+really not the case. It was a speech in which he treated with great
+levity,<!-- Page 717 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_717" id="Page_717">[Pg 717]</a></span> but with wonderful art, the characters of the Duke of Grafton
+and Lord Shelburne, whom, though his colleagues in office, he
+entertained a sovereign contempt for, and heartily wished to get rid
+of. He had a black riband over one of his eyes that day, having
+tumbled out of bed, probably in a fit of epilepsy; and this added to
+the impression made on his auditors that he was tipsy. Whereas, it was
+a speech he had meditated a great while upon, and it was only by
+accident that it found utterance that day. I write with certainty,
+because Sir George Yonge and I were the only persons who dined with
+him, and we had but one bottle of champagne after dinner; General
+Conway having repeatedly sent messengers to press his return to the
+House."</p>
+
+<p>This brings the miracle down to the human standard, yet that standard
+was high, and the man who could excite this admiration, in a House
+which contained so great a number of eminent speakers, and which could
+charm the caustic spirit of Walpole into the acknowledgment that his
+speech "was the most singular pleasure of the kind he had ever
+tasted," must have been an extraordinary performance, even if his
+instrument was not of the highest tone of oratory. A note from the
+Duke of Grafton's manuscript memoirs also contradicts, on Townshend's
+own authority, his opinion of the "wild incapacity of Lord Chatham."
+The note says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"On the night preceding Lord Chatham's first journey to Bath, Mr
+Charles Townshend was for the first time summoned to the Cabinet.
+The business was on a general view and statement of the actual
+situation and interests of the various powers in Europe. Lord
+Chatham had taken the lead in this consideration in so masterly a
+manner, as to raise the admiration and desire of us all to
+co-operate with him in forwarding his views. Mr Townshend was
+particularly astonished, and owned to me, as I was carrying him in
+my carriage home, that Lord Chatham had just shown to us what
+inferior animals we were, and that as much as he had seen of him
+before, he did not conceive till that night his superiority to be
+so transcendant."</p></div>
+
+<p>Walpole writes with habitual bitterness of the great Lord Chatham. The
+recollection of his early opposition to Sir Robert Walpole, seems to
+have made him an unfaithful historian, wherever this extraordinary
+man's name comes within his page; but at the period of those
+discussions, it seems not improbable that the vigour of Chatham's
+understanding had in some degree given way to the tortures of his
+disease. He had suffered from gout at an early period of life; and as
+this is a disease remarkably affected by the mind, the perpetual
+disturbances of a public life seem to have given it a mastery over the
+whole frame of the great minister. Walpole talks in unjustifiable
+language of his "haughty sterility of talents." But there seems to be
+more truth in his account of the caprices of this powerful
+understanding in his retirement. Walpole calls it the "reality of Lord
+Chatham's madness." Still, we cannot see much in those instances,
+beyond the temper naturally resulting from an agonizing disease. When
+the Pynsent estate fell to him, he removed to it, and sold his house
+and grounds at Hayes&mdash;"a place on which he had wasted prodigious sums,
+and which yet retained small traces of expense, great part having been
+consumed in purchasing contiguous tenements, to free himself from all
+neighbourhood. Much had gone in doing and undoing, and not a little in
+planting by torchlight, as his peremptory and impatient habits could
+brook no delay. Nor were those the sole circumstances which marked his
+caprice. His children he could not bear under the same roof, nor
+communications from room to room, nor whatever he thought promoted
+noise. A winding passage between his house and children was built with
+the same view. When, at the beginning of his second administration, he
+fixed at North End by Hampstead, he took four or five houses
+successively, as fast as Mr Dingley his landlord went into them,
+still, as he said, to ward off the houses of the neighbourhood."</p>
+
+<p>Walpole relates another anecdote equally inconclusive. At Pynsent, a
+bleak hill bounded his view. He ordered his gardener to have it
+planted with evergreens. The man asked "with<!-- Page 718 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_718" id="Page_718">[Pg 718]</a></span> what sorts." He replied,
+"With cedars and cypresses." "Bless me, my lord," replied the
+gardener, "all the nurseries in this county would not furnish a
+hundredth part." "No matter, send for them from London: and they were
+brought by land carriage." Certainly, there was not much in this
+beyond the natural desire of every improver to shut out a disagreeable
+object, by putting an agreeable one in its place. His general object
+was the natural one of preventing all noise&mdash;a point of importance
+with every sufferer under a wakeful and miserable disease. His
+appetite was delicate and fanciful, and a succession of chickens were
+kept boiling and roasting at every hour, to be ready whenever he
+should call. He at length grew weary of his residence and, after
+selling Hayes, took a longing to return there. After considerable
+negotiation with Mr Thomas Walpole the purchaser, he obtained it
+again, and we hear no more of his madness.</p>
+
+<p>The session was one of continual intrigues, constant exhibitions of
+subtlety amongst the leaders of the party, which at this distance of
+time are only ridiculous, and intricate discussions, which are now
+among the lumber of debate. Townshend, if he gained nothing else,
+gained the freedom of the city for his conduct on the East India and
+Dividend bills, for which, as Walpole says, "he deserved nothing but
+censure." A contemptuous epigram appeared on the occasion by "somebody
+a little more sagacious"&mdash;that "somebody" probably being Walpole
+himself:</p>
+
+<div class="poem center"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"The joke of Townshend's box is little known,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Great judgment in the thing the cits have shown;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">The compliment was an expedient clever,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">To rid them of the like expense for ever.</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Of so burlesque a choice the example sure</span><br />
+<span class="i0">For city boxes must all longing cure,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">The honor'd Ostracism at Athens fell,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Soon as Hyperbolus had got the shell."</span><br />
+</div></div>
+
+<p>It is scarcely possible to think that an epigram of this heavy order
+could have been praised by Walpole, if his criticism had not been
+tempered by the tenderness of paternity.</p>
+
+<p>We then have a character of a man embalmed in the contempt poured upon
+him by Junius&mdash;the Duke of Grafton. Though less bitter, it is equally
+scornful. "Hitherto," says Walpole, "he had passed for a man of much
+obstinacy and firmness, of strict honour, devoid of ambition, and,
+though reserved, more diffident than designing. He retained so much of
+this character, as to justify those who had mistaken the rest. If he
+precipitated himself into the most sudden and inextricable
+contradictions, at least he pursued the object of the moment with
+inflexible ardour. If he abandoned himself to total negligence of
+business, in pursuit of his sports and pleasures, the love of power
+never quitted him; and, when his will was disputed, no man was more
+imperiously arbitrary. If his designs were not deeply laid, at least
+they were conducted in profound silence. He rarely pardoned those who
+did not guess his inclination. It was necessary to guess, so rare was
+any instance of his unbosoming himself to either friends or
+confidants. Why his honour had been so highly rated I can less
+account, except that he had advertised it, and that obstinate young
+men are apt to have high notions, before they have practised the
+world, and essayed their own virtue."</p>
+
+<p>At length, after a vast variety of intrigues, which threw the public
+life of those days into the most contemptible point of view, the King
+being made virtually a cipher, while the families of the Hertfords,
+Buckinghams, and Rockinghams trafficked the high offices of state as
+children would barter toys; an administration was tardily formed.
+Walpole, who seemed to take a sort of <i>dilettante</i> pleasure in
+constructing those intrigues, and making himself wretched at their
+failure, while nobody suffered him to take advantage of their success;
+now gave himself a holiday, and went to relax in Paris for six
+weeks&mdash;his relaxation consisting of gossip amongst the literary ladies
+of the capital. During his absence an event happened which, though it
+did not break up the ministry, yet must have had considerable<!-- Page 719 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_719" id="Page_719">[Pg 719]</a></span> effect
+in its influence on the House of Commons. This was the death of the
+celebrated Charles Townshend, on the 4th of September 1767, in the
+forty-second year of his age. The cause of his death was a neglected
+fever; if even this did not arise from his carelessness of health, and
+those habits which, if not amounting to intemperance, were certainly
+trespasses on his constitution. Walpole speaks of him with continual
+admiration of his genius, and continual contempt of his principles. He
+also thinks, that he had arrived at his highest fame, or, in his
+peculiar phrase, "that his genius could have received no accession of
+brightness, while his faults only promised multiplication." Walpole,
+with no pretence to rival, probably envied this singular personage;
+for, whenever he begins by panegyric, he uniformly ends with a sting.
+One of the Notes gives an extract on Sir George Colebrook's Memoirs,
+which perhaps places his faculties in a more favourable point of view
+than the high-coloured eulogium of Burke, or the polished insinuations
+of Walpole. Sir George tells us, that Townshend's object was to be
+prime minister, and that he would doubtless have attained that object
+had he lived to see the Duke of Grafton's resignation. Lord North
+succeeded him as chancellor of the exchequer, and Townshend would
+evidently have preceded <i>him</i> as prime minister. "As a private man,
+his friends were used to say, that they should not see his like again.
+Though they were often the butts of his wit, they always returned to
+his company with fresh delight, which they would not have done had
+there been either malice or rancour in what he said. He loved society,
+and in his choice of friends preferred those over whom he had a
+decided superiority of talent. He was satisfied when he had put the
+table in a roar, and he did not like to see it done by another. When
+Garrick and Foote were present, he took the lead, and hardly allowed
+them an opportunity of showing their talents for mimicry, because he
+could excel them in their own art. He shone particularly in taking off
+the principal members of the House of Commons. Among the few whom he
+feared was Mr Selwyn, and at a dinner at Lord Gower's they had a trial
+of skill, in which Mr Selwyn prevailed. When the company broke up, Mr
+Townshend, to show that he had no animosity, carried him in his
+carriage to White's; and, as they parted, Selwyn could not help
+saying&mdash;'Remember, this is the first set-down you have given me
+to-day.'"</p>
+
+<p>As Townshend lived at a considerable expense, and had little paternal
+fortune, he speculated occasionally in both the French and English
+funds. One of the incidents related by Sir George, and without a
+syllable of censure too, throws on him an imputation of trickery
+which, in our later day, would utterly destroy any public man. "When
+he was chancellor of the exchequer, he came in his nightgown to a
+dinner given by the Duke of Grafton to several of the principal men of
+the city to settle the loan. After dinner, when the terms were
+settled, and every body present wished to introduce some friend on the
+list of subscribers, he pretended to cast up the sums already
+admitted, said the loan was full, huddled up his papers, got into a
+chair, and returned home, reserving to himself by this man&oelig;uvre a
+large share of the loan." An act of this kind exhibits the honesty of
+the last age in a very equivocal point of view. If proud of nothing
+else, we may be proud of the public sense of responsibility; in our
+day, it may be presumed that such an act would be impossible, for it
+would inevitably involve the ruin of the perpetrator, followed by the
+ruin of any ministry which would dare to defend him.</p>
+
+<p>At this period died a brother of the king, Edward Duke of York, a man
+devoted to pleasure, headstrong in his temper, and ignorant in his
+conceptions. "Immoderate travelling, followed by immoderate balls and
+entertainments," had long kept his blood in a peculiar state of
+accessibility to disease. He died of a putrid fever. Walpole makes a
+panegyric on the Duke of Gloucester, his brother; of which a part may
+be supposed due to the Duke's marriage with Lady Waldegrave, a
+marriage which provoked the indignation of the King, and which<!-- Page 720 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_720" id="Page_720">[Pg 720]</a></span> once
+threatened political evils of a formidable nature. Henry, the Duke of
+Cumberland, was also an unfortunate specimen of the blood royal. He is
+described as having the babbling loquacity of the Duke of York,
+without his talents; as at once arrogant and low; presuming on his
+rank as a prince, and degrading himself by an association with low
+company. Still, we are to remember Walpole's propensity to sarcasm,
+the enjoyment which he seems to have felt in shooting his brilliant
+missiles at all ranks superior to his own; and his especial hostility
+to George the Third, one of the honestest monarchs that ever sat upon
+a throne.</p>
+
+<p>In those days the composition of ministries depended altogether upon
+the high families.&mdash;The peerage settled every thing amongst
+themselves. A few of their dependents were occasionally taken into
+office; but all the great places were distributed among a little
+clique, who thus constituted themselves the real masters of the
+empire. Walpole's work has its value, in letting us into the secrets
+of a conclave, which at once shows us the singular emptiness of its
+constituent parts, and the equally singular authority with which they
+seem to have disposed of both the king and the people. We give a scene
+from the <i>Historian</i>, which would make an admirable fragment of the
+<i>Rehearsal</i>, and which wanted only the genius of Sheridan to be an
+admirable pendant to Mr Puff's play in the <i>Critic</i>. "On the 20th a
+meeting was held at the Duke of Newcastle's, of Lord Rockingham, the
+Duke of Richmond, and of Dowdeswell, with Newcastle himself on one
+part, and of the Duke of Bedford, Lord Weymouth, and Rigby on the
+other. The Duke of Bedford had powers from Grenville to act for him;
+but did not seem to like Lord Buckingham's taking on himself to name
+to places. On the latter's asking what friends they wished to prefer,
+Rigby said, with his cavalier bluntness&mdash;Take the <i>Court Calendar</i> and
+give them one, two, three thousand pounds a-year! Bedford
+observed&mdash;They had said nothing on measures. Mr Grenville would insist
+on the sovereignty of this country over America being asserted. Lord
+Rockingham replied&mdash;He would never allow it to be a question whether
+he had given up this country&mdash;he never had. The Duke insisted on a
+declaration. The Duke of Richmond said&mdash;We may as well demand one from
+you, that you will never disturb that country again. Neither would
+yield. However, though they could not agree on measures; as the
+distribution of place was more the object of their thoughts and of
+their meeting, they reverted to that topic. Lord Rockingham named Mr
+Conway. Bedford started; said he had no notion of Conway; had thought
+he was to return to the military line. The Duke of Richmond said it
+was true, Mr Conway did not desire a civil place; did not know whether
+he would be persuaded to accept one; but they were so bound to him for
+his resignation, and thought him so able, they must insist. The Duke
+of Bedford said&mdash;Conway was an officer <i>sans tache</i>, but not a
+minister <i>sans tache</i>. Rigby said&mdash;Not one of the present cabinet
+should be saved. Dowdeswell asked&mdash;'What! not one?' 'No.' 'What! not
+Charles Townshend.' 'Oh!' said Rigby, 'that is different. Besides, he
+has been in opposition.' 'So has Conway,' said Dowdeswell. 'He has
+voted twice against the court, Townshend but once.' 'But,' said Rigby,
+'Conway is Bute's man.' 'Pray,' said Dowdeswell, 'is not Charles
+Townshend Bute's?' 'Ah! but Conway is governed by his brother
+Hertford, who is Bute's.' 'But Lady Ailesbury is a Scotchwoman.' 'So
+is Lady Dalkeith.' Those ladies had been widows and were now married,
+(the former to Conway, the latter to Townshend.) From this dialogue
+the assembly fell to wrangling, and broke up quarrelling. So high did
+the heats go, that the Conways ran about the town publishing the issue
+of the conference, and taxing the Bedfords with treachery."</p>
+
+<p>Notwithstanding this collision, at once so significant, and so
+trifling&mdash;at once a burlesque on the gravity of public affairs, and a
+satire on the selfishness of public men&mdash;on the same evening, the Duke
+of Bedford sent to desire another interview, to which Lord Rockingham
+yielded, but the<!-- Page 721 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_721" id="Page_721">[Pg 721]</a></span> Duke of Bedford refused to be present. So much,
+however, were the minds on both sides ulcerated by former and recent
+disputes, and so incompatible were their views, that the second
+meeting broke up in a final quarrel, and Lord Rockingham released the
+other party from all their engagements. The Duke of Bedford desired
+they might still continue friends, or at least to agree to oppose
+together. Lord Rockingham said no, "they were broken for ever."</p>
+
+<p>It was at this meeting that the Duke of Newcastle appeared for the
+last time in a political light. Age and feebleness had at length worn
+out that busy passion for intrigue, which power had not been able to
+satiate, nor disgrace correct. He languished above a year longer, but
+was heard of no more on the scene of affairs. (He died in November
+1768.)</p>
+
+<p>A remarkable circumstance in all those arrangements is, that we hear
+nothing of either the king or the people. The king is of course
+applied to to sign and seal, but simply as a head clerk. The people
+are occasionally mentioned at the end of every seven years; but in the
+interim all was settled in the parlours of the peerage! The scene
+which we have just given was absolutely puerile, if it were not
+scandalous; and, without laying ourselves open to the charge of
+superstition on such subjects, we might almost regard the preservation
+of the empire as directly miraculous, while power was in the hands of
+such men as the Butes and Newcastles, the Bedfords and Rockinghams, of
+the last century. It is not even difficult to trace to this
+intolerable system, alike the foreign calamities and the internal
+convulsions during this period. Whether America could, by any
+possibility of arrangement, have continued a British colony up to the
+present time, may be rationally doubted. A vast country, rapidly
+increasing in wealth and population, would have been an incumbrance,
+rather than an addition, to the power of England. If the patronage of
+her offices continued in the hands of ministers, it must have supplied
+them with the means of buying up every man who was to be bought in
+England. It would have been the largest fund of corruption ever known
+in the world. Or, if the connexion continued, with the population of
+America doubling in every five-and-twenty years, the question must in
+time have arisen, whether England or America ought to be the true seat
+of government. The probable consequence, however, would have been
+separation; and as this could scarcely be effected by amicable means,
+the result might have been a war of a much more extensive, wasteful,
+and formidable nature, than that which divided the two countries
+sixty-five years ago.</p>
+
+<p>But all the blunders of the American war, nay the war itself, may be
+still almost directly traceable to the arrogance of the oligarchy. Too
+much accustomed to regard government as a natural appendage to their
+birth, they utterly forgot the true element of national power&mdash;the
+force of public opinion. Inflated with a sense of their personal
+superiority, they looked with easy indifference or studied contempt on
+every thing that was said or done by men whose genealogy was not
+registered in the red book. Of America&mdash;a nation of Englishmen&mdash;and of
+its proceedings, they talked, as a Russian lord might talk of his
+serfs. Some of them thought, that a Stamp act would frighten the
+sturdy free-holders of the Western World into submission! others
+talked of reducing them to obedience by laying a tax on their tea!
+others prescribed a regimen of writs and constables! evidently
+regarding the American farmers as they regarded the poachers and
+paupers on their own demesnes. All this arose from stupendous
+ignorance; but it was ignorance engendered by pride, by exclusiveness
+of rank, and by the arrogance of <i>caste</i>. So excessive was this
+exclusiveness, that Burke, though the most extraordinary man of his
+time, and one of the most memorable of any time, could never obtain a
+seat in the cabinet; where such triflers as Newcastle, such figures of
+patrician pedantry as Buckingham, such shallow intriguers as the
+Bedfords, and such notorious characters as the Sandwiches, played with
+power, like children with the cups and balls of their nursery. Lord
+North, with all his<!-- Page 722 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_722" id="Page_722">[Pg 722]</a></span> wit, his industry, and his eloquence, owed his
+admission into the cabinet, to his being the son of the Earl of
+Guilford. Charles Fox, though marked by nature, from his first
+entrance into public life, for the highest eminence of the senate,
+would never have been received into the government <i>class</i>, but for
+his casual connexion with the House of Richmond. Thus, they knew
+nothing of the real powers of that infinite multitude, which, however
+below the peerage, forms the country. They thought that a few frowns
+from Downing Street could extinguish the resistance of millions, three
+thousand miles off, with muskets in their hands, inflamed by a sense
+of wrong, whether fancied or true, and insensible to the gatherings of
+a brow however coroneted and antique.</p>
+
+<p>This haughty exclusiveness equally accounts for the contests with
+Wilkes. They felt themselves affronted, much more than resisted; they
+were much more stung by the defiance of a private individual to
+themselves, than they were urged to the collision by any conceivable
+sense of hazard to the Monarchy. No man, out of bedlam, could
+conceive, that Wilkes had either the power or the intention to subvert
+the state. But Mr Wilkes, an obscure man, whose name was not known to
+the calendar of the government fabricators, had actually dared to call
+their privilege of power into question; had defied them in the courts
+of law; had rebuked them in the senate; had shaken their influence in
+the elections; and had, in fact, compelled them to know, what they
+were so reluctant to learn, that they were but human beings after all!
+The acquisition of this knowledge cost them half a dozen years of
+convulsions, the most ruinous to themselves, and the most hazardous to
+the constitution. Wilkes' profligacy alone, perhaps, saved the
+constitution from a shock, which might have changed the whole system
+of the empire. If he had not been sunk by his personal character, at
+the first moment when the populace grew cool, he might have availed
+himself of the temper of the times to commit mischiefs the most
+irreparable. If his personal character had been as free from public
+offence as his spirit was daring, he might have led the people much
+further than the government ever had the foresight to contemplate. The
+conduct of the successive cabinets had covered the King with
+unpopularity, not the less fierce, that it was wholly undeserved.
+Junius, the ablest political writer that England has ever seen, or
+probably ever will see, in the art of assailing a ministry, had
+pilloried every leading man of his time except Chatham, in the
+imperishable virulence of his page. The popular mind was furious with
+indignation at the conduct of all cabinets; in despair of all
+improvement in the system; irritated by the rash severity which
+alternated with the equally rash pusillanimity of ministers; and
+beginning to regard government less as a protection, than as an
+encroachment on the natural privileges of a nation of freemen.</p>
+
+<p>They soon had a growing temptation before them in the successful
+revolt of America.</p>
+
+<p>We do not now enter into that question; it is too long past. But we
+shall never allude to it without paying that homage to truth, which
+pronounces, that the American revolt was a rebellion, wholly
+unjustifiable by the provocation; utterly rejecting all explanation,
+or atonement for casual injuries; and made in the spirit of a
+determination to throw off the allegiance to the mother country. But,
+if Wilkes could have sustained his opposition but a few years longer,
+and with any character but one so shattered as his own, he might have
+carried it on through life, and even bequeathed it as a legacy to his
+party; until the French Revolution had joined flame to flame across
+the Channel, and England had rivalled even the frenzy of France in the
+rapidity and ruin of her Reform.</p>
+
+<p>Fortunately, the empire was rescued from this most fatal of all
+catastrophes. A great English minister appeared, on whom were to
+devolve the defence of England and the restoration of Europe. The
+sagacity of Pitt saw where the evil lay; his intrepidity instantly
+struck at its source, and his unrivalled ability completed the saving
+operation. He broke down the cabinet monopoly.<!-- Page 723 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_723" id="Page_723">[Pg 723]</a></span> No man less humiliated
+himself to the populace, but no man better understood the people. No
+man paid more practical respect to the peerage, but no man more
+thoroughly extinguished their exclusive possession of power. He formed
+his cabinet from men of all ranks, in the peerage and out of the
+peerage. The great peers chiefly went over to the opposition. He
+resisted them there, with as much daring, and with as successful a
+result, as he had expelled them from the stronghold of government. He
+made new peers. He left his haughty antagonists to graze on the barren
+field of opposition for successive years; and finally saw almost the
+whole herd come over for shelter to the ministerial fold.</p>
+
+<p>At this period a remarkable man was brought into public life&mdash;the
+celebrated Dunning, appointed solicitor-general. Walpole calls this
+"an extraordinary promotion," as Dunning was connected with Lord
+Shelburne. It was like every thing else, obviously an intrigue; and
+Dunning would have lost the appointment, but for his remarkable
+reputation in the courts; Wedderburne being the man of the Bedfords.
+Walpole's opinion of Dunning in the House, shows, how much even the
+highest abilities may be influenced by circumstances. He says, "that
+Dunning immediately and utterly lost character as a speaker, although
+he had acquired the very highest distinctions as a pleader;" so
+different, says he, is the oratory of the bar and of parliament.
+Mansfield and Camden retained an equal rank in both. Wedderburne was
+most successful in the House. Norton had at first disappointed the
+expectations that were conceived of him when he came into parliament;
+yet his strong sense, that glowed through all the coarseness of his
+language and brutality of his manner, recovered his weight, and he was
+much distinguished. While Sir Dudley Ryder, attorney-general in the
+preceding reign, the soundest lawyer, and Charles Yorke, one of the
+most distinguished pleaders, soon talked themselves out of all
+consideration in parliament; the former by laying too great a stress
+on every part of his diffusive knowledge, and the latter by the
+sterility of his intelligence.</p>
+
+<p>An intelligent Note, however, vindicates the reputation of Dunning. It
+is observed, that Dunning's having been counsel for Wilkes, and the
+intimate of Lord Shelburne, it could not be expected that he should
+take a prominent part in any of the debates which were so largely
+occupied with Wilkes' misdemeanours. Lord North, too, was hostile to
+Dunning. Under such conditions it was impossible that any man should
+exhibit his powers to advantage; but at a later period, when he had
+got rid of those trammels, his singular abilities vindicated
+themselves. He became one of the leaders of the opposition, even when
+that honour was to be shared with Burke. We have heard, that such was
+the pungency of Dunning's expressions, and the happy dexterity of his
+conceptions, that when he spoke, (his voice being feeble, and unable
+to make itself heard at any great distance,) the members used to
+throng around the bench on which he spoke. Wraxall panegyrizes him,
+and yet with a tautology of terms, which must have been the very
+reverse of Dunning's style. Thus, he tells us that when Dunning spoke,
+"every murmur was hushed, and every ear attentive," two sentences
+which amount to the same thing. Hannah More is also introduced as one
+of the panegyrists; for poor Hannah seems to have been one of the most
+bustling persons possible; to have run every where, and to have given
+<i>her</i> opinion of every body, however much above her comprehension. She
+was one of the spectators on the Duchess of Kingston's trial, (a most
+extraordinary scene for the choice of such a purist;) but Hannah was
+not at that time quite so sublime as she became afterwards. Hannah
+describes Dunning's manner as "insufferably bad, coughing and spitting
+at every word; but his sense and expression pointed to the last
+degree." But the character which the annotator gives as a model of
+panegyric, pleases us least of all. It is by Sir William Jones, and
+consists of one long antithesis. It is a studied toil of language,
+expressing ideas, a commonplace succession, substituting words for
+thoughts, and at once leaving the ear palled, and the understanding
+dissatisfied. What, for instance, could be made of such a passage as<!-- Page 724 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_724" id="Page_724">[Pg 724]</a></span>
+this? Sir William is speaking of Dunning's wit. "This," says he,
+"relieved the weary, calmed the resentful, and animated the drowsy.
+This drew smiles even from such as were <i>the object of it, and
+scattered flowers over a desert</i>, and, like <i>sunbeams sparkling on a
+lake</i>, gave spirit and vivacity to the dullest and least interesting
+cause." And this mangling of metaphor is to teach us the qualities of
+a profound and practical mind. What follows, is the perfection of
+see-saw. "He was endued with an intellect sedate yet penetrating,
+clear yet profound, subtle yet strong. His knowledge, too, was equal
+to his imagination, and his memory to his knowledge." He might have
+equally added, that the capacity of his boots was equal to the size of
+his legs, and the length of his purse to the extent of his generosity.
+This reminds us of one of Sydney Smith's burlesques on the balancing
+of epithets by that most pedantic of pedants, the late Dr
+Parr&mdash;"profundity without obscurity, perspicuity without prolixity,
+ornament without glare, terseness without barrenness, penetration
+without subtlety, comprehensiveness without digression, and a great
+number of other things without a great number of other things."</p>
+
+<p>Little tricks, or rather large ones, now and then diversify the
+narrative. On the same day that Conway resigned the seals, Lord
+Weymouth was declared secretary of state. At the same time, Lord
+Hilsborough kissed hands for the American department, but nominally
+retaining the post-office, the salary of which he paid to Lord
+Sandwich, <i>till the elections should be over</i>; there being so strict a
+disqualifying clause in the bill for prohibiting the postmasters for
+interfering in elections, which Sandwich <i>was determined to do</i> to the
+utmost, that he did not dare to accept the office in his own name,
+<i>till he had incurred the guilt</i>. Another trick of a very
+dishonourable nature, though ultimately defeated, may supply a moral
+for our share-trafficking days in high quarters. Lord Bottetort, one
+of the bedchamber, and a kind of second-hand favourite, had engaged in
+an adventure with a company of copper-workers at Warmley. They broke,
+and his lordship, in order to cover his estate from the creditors,
+begged a privy seal to incorporate the company, by which means private
+estates would not be answerable. The king ignorantly granted the
+request; but Lord Chatham, aware of the deception, refused to affix
+the seal to the patent, pleading that he was not able. Lord Bottetort,
+outrageous at the disappointment, threatened to petition the lords to
+remove Lord Chatham, on the ground of inability. The annotator justly
+observes, that the proposal was absolutely monstrous, being nothing
+but a gross fraud on his lordship's creditors. It, however, does not
+seem to have attracted the attention of the attorney-general, or the
+home-office; but, for some cause or other, the patent did not pass,
+the result being, that Lord Bottetort, unable to retrieve his losses,
+obtained the government of Virginia in the following summer, where he
+subsequently died.</p>
+
+<p>A curious instance of parliamentary corruption next attracted the
+notice of the public. It came out, that the city of Oxford had offered
+their representation to two gentlemen, if they would pay &pound;7500 towards
+the debts of the corporation. They refused the bargain, and Oxford
+sold itself to the Duke of Marlborough and Lord Abingdon. The matter
+was brought before the House, and the mayor of Oxford and ten of the
+corporation appeared at the bar, confessing their crime, and asking
+pardon. It ended with committing them to prison for five days. A note
+describes the whole affair as being treated with great ridicule,
+(there being probably not a few who looked upon things of this nature
+as a matter of course;) and the story being, that the aldermen
+completed their bargain with the Duke of Marlborough, during their
+imprisonment in Newgate.</p>
+
+<p>On the 11th of March 1768, the parliament was dissolved. Walpole says,
+"that its only characteristic was servility to the government; while
+our ancestors, we presume, from the shamelessness of its servility,
+might have called it the Impudent Parliament."</p>
+
+<p>After wearying himself in the dusty field of politics, Walpole
+retired, like Homer's gods from Troy, to rest in the more flowery
+region of literature. His habits led him to the enjoyment<!-- Page 725 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_725" id="Page_725">[Pg 725]</a></span> of bitter
+political poetry, which, in fact, is not poetry at all; while they
+evidently disqualified him from feeling the power and beauty of the
+imaginative, the only poetry that deserves the name. Thus, he
+describes Goldsmith as the "correct author of <i>The Traveller</i>," one of
+the most beautiful poems in the language; while he panegyrizes, with a
+whole catalogue of plaudits, Anstey's <i>Bath Guide</i>&mdash;a very scandalous,
+though undoubtedly a lively and ingenious, caricature of the habits of
+the time. An ultra-heavy poem by Bentley, the son of the critic,
+enjoys a similar panegyric. We give, as an evidence of its dulness, a
+fragment of its praise of Lord Bute:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem center"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Oh, if we seize with skill the coming hour,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">And reinvest us with the robe of power;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Rule while we live, let future days transmute</span><br />
+<span class="i0">To every merit all we've charged on Bute.</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Let late posterity receive his name,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">And swell its sails with every breath of fame&mdash;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Downwards as far as Time shall roll his tide,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">With ev'ry pendant flying, let it glide."</span><br />
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The rest is equally intolerable.</p>
+
+<p>But Bentley was lucky in his patrons, if not in his poetry; as, in
+addition to a Commissionership of Lotteries, he received a pension for
+the lives of himself and his wife of &pound;500 a-year! Though thus
+undeservedly successful in attracting the notice of the government,
+his more honest efforts failed with the public. He wrote two plays,
+both of which failed. Walpole next describes Robertson the historian
+in these high-coloured terms, "as sagacious and penetrating as
+Tacitus, with a perspicuity of Livy:" qualities which every one else
+knows to be directly the reverse of those which characterize
+Robertson. That very impudent woman, Catharine Macaulay, seems also to
+have been one of the objects of his literary admiration. He describes
+her, as being as partial in the cause of liberty as bigots to the
+church and royalists to tyranny, and as exerting manly strength with
+the gravity of a philosopher.</p>
+
+<p>But Walpole is aways amusing when he gives anecdotes of passing
+things. The famous Brentford election finds in him its most graphic
+historian. The most singular carelessness was exhibited by the
+government on this most perilous occasion&mdash;a carelessness obviously
+arising from that contempt which the higher ranks of the nobility in
+those days were weak enough to feel for the opinion of those below
+them. On the very verge of an election, within five miles of London,
+and which must bring to a point all the exasperation of years; Camden,
+the chancellor, went down to Bath, and the Duke of Grafton, the prime
+minister, who was a great horse-racer, drove off to Newmarket.
+Mansfield, whom Walpole seems to have hated, and whom he represents as
+at "once resentful, timorous, and subtle," the three worst qualities
+of the heart, the nerves, and the understanding, pretended that it was
+the office of the chancellor to bring the outlaw (Wilkes) to justice,
+and did nothing. The consequence was, that the multitude were left
+masters of the field.</p>
+
+<p>On the morning of the election; while the irresolution of the court,
+and the negligence of the prime minister, caused a neglect of all
+precautions; the populace took possession of all the turnpikes and
+avenues leading to the hustings by break of day, and would suffer no
+man to pass who did not wear in his hat a blue cockade, with "Wilkes
+and Number 45," on a written paper. Riots took place in the streets,
+and the carriage of Sir William Proctor, the opposing candidate, was
+demolished. The first day's poll for Wilkes was 1200, for Proctor 700,
+for Cooke 300. It must be remembered, that in these times the
+elections were capable of being prolonged from week to week, and that
+the first day was regarded as scarcely more than a formality. At night
+the West-end was in an uproar. It was not safe to pass through
+Piccadilly. Every house was compelled to illuminate; the windows of
+all which did not exhibit lights were broken; the coach-glasses of
+such as did not huzza for "Wilkes and liberty" were broken; and the
+panels of the carriages were scratched with 45! Lord Weymouth, the
+secretary of state, wrote to Justice Fielding for constables. Fielding
+answered, that they were all gone to Brentford. On this,<!-- Page 726 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_726" id="Page_726">[Pg 726]</a></span> the guards
+were drawn out. The mob then attacked Lord Bute's house and Lord
+Egmont's, but without being able to force an entrance. They compelled
+the Duke of Northumberland to give them liquor to drink Wilkes's
+health. Ladies of rank were taken out of their sedan-chairs, and
+ordered to join the popular cry. The lord-mayor was an
+anti-Wilkite&mdash;the mob attacked the Mansion-house, and broke the
+windows. He ordered out the trained bands; they had no effect. Six
+thousand weavers had risen under the Wilkite banner, and defied all
+resistance. Even some of the regimental drummers beat their drums for
+Wilkes! His force at the election was evidently to be resisted no
+longer. The ministerial candidate was beaten, Wilkes threw in his
+remaining votes for Cooke, and they came in together. The election was
+thus over on the second day, but the mob paraded the metropolis at
+night, insisting on a general illumination. The handsome Duchess of
+Hamilton, one of the Gunnings, who had now become quite a Butite, was
+determined not to illuminate. The result was, that the mob grew
+outrageous, broke down the outward gates with iron-crows, tore up the
+pavement of the street, and battered the doors and shutters for three
+hours; fortunately without being able to get in. The Count de Sollein,
+the Austrian ambassador, the most stately and ceremonious of men, was
+taken out of his coach by the mob, who chalked 45 on the sole of his
+shoe! He complained in form of the insult. Walpole says, fairly
+enough, "it was as difficult for the ministers to help laughing as to
+give him redress."</p>
+
+<p>Walpole frequently alludes to the two Gunnings as the two handsomest
+sisters of their time. They were Irish-women, fresh-coloured, lively,
+and well formed, but obviously more indebted to nature than to
+education. Lady Coventry died young, and had the misfortune, even in
+her grave, of being made the subject of an epitaph by Mason, one of
+the most listless and languid poems of an unpoetic time. The Duchess
+of Hamilton survived to a considerable age, and was loaded with
+matrimonial honours. She first married the Duke of Hamilton. On his
+death, she married the Marquis of Lorn, eldest son of the Duke of
+Argyll, whom he succeeded in the title&mdash;thus becoming mother of the
+heirs of the two great rival houses of Hamilton and Argyll. While in
+her widowhood, she had been proposed for by the Duke of Bridgewater.
+Lady Coventry seems to have realized Pope's verses of a dying belle&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem center"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"And, Betty, give this cheek a little red,</span>
+<span class="i0">One would not, sure, look ugly when one's dead."</span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"Till within a few days of her death, she lay on a couch with a
+looking-glass in her hand. When she found her beauty, which she
+idolized, was quite gone, she took to her bed, and would be seen by
+nobody, not even by her nurse, suffering only the light of a lamp in
+her room."</p>
+
+<p>Walpole's description of the ministry adds strikingly to the
+contemptuous feeling, naturally generated by their singular ill
+success. We must also observe, as much to the discredit of the past
+age as to the honour of the present; that the leading men of the day
+exhibited or affected a depravity of morals, which would be the ruin
+of any public character at the present time. Many of the scenes in
+high life would have been fitter for the court of Charles II., and
+many of the actors in those scenes ought to have been cashiered from
+public employment. Personal profligacy seems actually to have been
+regarded as a species of ornamental appendage to public character;
+and, except where its exposure sharpened the sting of an epigram, or
+gave an additional flourish to the periods of a political writer, no
+one seems to have conceived that the grossest offences against
+morality were of the nature of crime. Another scandal seems to have
+been frequent&mdash;intemperance in wine. Hard drinking was common in
+England at that period, and was even regarded as the sign of a
+generous spirit; but nearly all the leading politicians who died
+early, are described as owing their deaths to excess. Those are
+fortunate distinctions for the days which have followed; and the
+country may justly congratulate itself on the abandonment of habits,
+which, deeply tending to corrupt private character, render<!-- Page 727 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_727" id="Page_727">[Pg 727]</a></span> political
+baseness the almost inevitable result among public men.</p>
+
+<p>Walpole promptly declares, that half the success of Wilkes was owing
+to the supineness of the ministers. He might have gone further, and
+fixed his charge on higher grounds. He ought to have said, that the
+whole was owing to the mingled treachery and profligacy which made the
+nation loathe the characters of public parties and public men. Walpole
+says, in support of his assertion&mdash;"that Lord Chatham would take no
+part in business; that the Duke of Grafton neglected every thing, and
+whenever pressed to be active threatened to resign; that the
+Chancellor Camden, placed between two such intractable friends, with
+whom he was equally discontented, avoided dipping himself further;
+that Conway, no longer in the Duke's confidence, and more hurt with
+neglect than pleased with power, stood in the same predicament; that
+Lord Gower thought of nothing but ingratiating himself at St James's;
+and though what little business was done was executed by Lord
+Weymouth, it required all Wood's, the secretary's, animosity to
+Wilkes, to stir him up to any activity. Wood even said, "that if the
+King should pardon Wilkes, Lord Weymouth would not sign the pardon."
+The chief magistrate of the city, consulting the chancellor on what he
+should do if Wilkes should stand for the city, and being answered that
+he "must consult the recorder," Harley sharply replied, "I consulted
+your lordship as a minister, I don't want to be told my duty."</p>
+
+<p>Some of the most interesting portions of these volumes are the notes,
+giving brief biographical sketches of the leading men. The politics
+have comparatively passed away, but the characters remain; and no
+slight instruction is still to be derived from the progressive steps
+by which the individuals rose from private life to public distinction.
+The editor, Sir Denis la Marchant, deserves no slight credit for his
+efforts to give authenticity to those notices. He seems to have
+collected his authorities from every available source; and what he has
+compiled with the diligence of an editor, he has expressed with the
+good taste of a gentleman.</p>
+
+<p>The commencement of a parliament is always looked to with curiosity,
+as the debut of new members. All the expectations which have been
+formed by favouritism, family, or faction, are then brought to the
+test. Parliament is an unerring tribunal, and no charlatanry can cheat
+its searching eye. College reputations are extinguished in a moment,
+the common-places of the hustings can avail no more, and the
+pamperings of party only hurry its favourites to more rapid decay.</p>
+
+<p>Mr Phipps, the son of Lord Mulgrave, now commenced his career. By an
+extraordinary taste, though bred a seaman, he was so fond of quoting
+law, that he got the sobriquet of the "marine lawyer." His knowledge
+of the science (as the annotator observes) could not have been very
+deep, for he was then but twenty-two. But he was an evidence of the
+effect of indefatigable exertion. Though a dull debater, he took a
+share in every debate, and he appears to have taken the pains of
+revising his speeches for the press. Yet even under his nursing, they
+exhibit no traces of eloquence. His manner was inanimate, and his
+large and heavy figure gained him the luckless appellation of Ursa
+Major, (to distinguish him from his brother, who was also a member.)
+As if to complete the amount of his deficiencies, his voice was
+particularly inharmonious, or rather it was two distinct voices, the
+one strong and hoarse, the other weak and querulous; both of which he
+frequently used. On this was constructed the waggish story&mdash;that one
+night, having fallen into a ditch, and calling out in his shrill
+voice, a countryman was coming up to assist him; when Phipps calling
+out again in his hoarse tone, the man exclaimed&mdash;"If there are two of
+you in the ditch, you may help each other out!"</p>
+
+<p>One of his qualities seems to have been a total insensibility to his
+own defects; which therefore suffered him to encounter any man, and
+every man, whatever might be their superiority. Thus, in his early
+day, his dulness constantly encountered Lord North, the most dexterous
+wit of his time. Thus, too, in his maturer age, he constantly thrust
+himself forward to meet the indignant eloquence of Fox; and seems to
+have been equally unconscious<!-- Page 728 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_728" id="Page_728">[Pg 728]</a></span> that he was ridiculed by the sarcastic
+pleasantry of the one, or blasted by the lofty contempt of the other.
+Yet, such is the value of perseverance, that this man was gradually
+regarded as important in the debates, that he wrought out for himself
+an influence in the House, and obtained finally the office of joint
+paymaster, one of the most lucrative under government, and a British
+peerage. And all this toil was undertaken by a man who had no
+children.</p>
+
+<p>At his death, he was succeeded in his Irish title by his brother
+Henry, who became first lord of the admiralty, and also obtained an
+English peerage. The present Marquis of Normandy is his eldest son.</p>
+
+<p>Parliamentary history sometimes gives valuable lessons, in exhibiting
+the infinite folly of parliamentary prediction. It will scarcely be
+believed in a day like ours, which has seen and survived the French
+Revolution, that the chief theme of the period, and especial terror of
+the opposition, was the conquest of Corsica by the French! Ministers
+seem to have been deterred from a war with the French monarchy, solely
+by the dislocated state of the cabinet; while the opposition declared,
+that the possession of Corsica by the French, would be "the death-blow
+to our influence in the Mediterranean." With Corsica in French hands,
+it was boldly pronounced that "France would receive an accession of
+power which nothing could shake; and they scarcely hesitated to say,
+that upon the independence of Corsica rested not merely the supremacy
+but the safety of England." Yet the French conquered Corsica (at a
+waste of money ten times worth its value to their nation, and at a
+criminal waste of life, both French and Corsican) without producing
+the slightest addition to the power of the monarchy, and with no
+slight disgrace to the honour of its arms. For, the Corsicans, the
+most savage race of the Italian blood, and accustomed to the use of
+weapons from their childhood, fought with the boldness of all men
+fighting for their property, and routed the troops of France in many a
+successive and desperate encounter. Still, the combat was too unequal;
+the whole force of a great monarchy was obviously too strong for the
+hope of successful resistance, and Corsica, after many a severe
+struggle, became a French territory. But, beyond this barren honour
+the war produced no fruit, except a deeper consciousness of the
+unsparing ambition of the monarchy, and of the recklessness with which
+it sacrificed all considerations of humanity and justice, to the
+tinsel of a military name. One fatal gift, however, Corsica made, in
+return to France. From it came, within a few years, the man who sealed
+the banishment of the Bourbons! and, tempting France by the ambition
+of military success, inflicted upon her the heaviest mortality, and
+the deepest shame known in any kingdom, since the fall of the Roman
+empire. Whether this were that direct retribution for innocent blood,
+which Providence has so often inflicted upon guilty nations; or
+whether it were merely one of those extraordinary casualties which
+circumstances make so impressive; there can be no question, that the
+man came from Corsica who inflicted on France the heaviest calamities
+that she had ever known; who, after leading her armies over Europe, to
+conquests which only aroused the hatred of all nations, and after
+wasting the blood of hundreds of thousands of her people in victories
+totally unproductive but of havoc; saw France twice invaded, and
+brought the nation under the ban of the civilized world!</p>
+
+<p>France is at this moment pursuing the same course in Algiers, which
+was the pride of her politicians in Corsica. She is pouring out her
+gigantic force, to overwhelm the resistance of peasants who have no
+defence but their naked bravery. She will probably subdue the
+resistance; for what can be done by a peasantry against the
+disciplined force and vast resources of a great European power,
+applied to this single object of success? But, barbarian as the Moor
+and the Arab are, and comparatively helpless in the struggle, the
+avenger may yet come, to teach the throne of France, that there is a
+power higher than all thrones; a tribunal to which the blood cries out
+of the ground.</p>
+
+<p>The death of Secker, Archbishop of Canterbury, excites a few touches
+of<!-- Page 729 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_729" id="Page_729">[Pg 729]</a></span> Walpole's sarcastic pen. He says, "that his early life had shown
+his versatility, his latter his ambition. But hypocrisy not being
+parts, he rose in the church without ever making a figure in the
+state." So much for antithesis. There is no reason why a clergyman
+should make a figure in the state under any circumstances; and the
+less figure he made in the state, as it was then constituted, the more
+likely he was to be fitted for the church. But the true censure on
+Secker would have been, that he rose, without making a figure in any
+thing; that he had never produced any work worthy of notice as a
+divine; that he had neither eloquence in the pulpit, nor vigour with
+the pen; that he seems to have been at all times a man of extreme
+mediocrity; that his qualifications with the ministry were, his being
+a neutral on all the great questions of the day; and his merits with
+posterity were, that he possessed power without giving offence. A
+hundred such men might have held the highest positions of the church,
+without producing the slightest effect on the public mind; or might
+have been left in the lowest, without being entitled to accuse the
+injustice of fortune. His successor was Cornwallis, Bishop of
+Lichfield, raised to the primacy by the Duke of Grafton, who, as
+Walpole says, "had a friendship for the bishop's nephew, Earl
+Cornwallis." This seems not altogether the most sufficient reason for
+placing a man at the head of the Church of England, but we must take
+the reason such as we find it. Walpole adds, that the nomination had,
+however, the merit of disappointing a more unsuitable candidate,
+Ternet of London, whom he describes as "the most time-serving of the
+clergy, and sorely chagrined at missing the archiepiscopal mitre."</p>
+
+<p>It was rather unlucky for the public estimate of royalty, that, at
+this moment of popular irritation, the young King of Denmark should
+have arrived in England. He had married the King's youngest sister,
+and making a sort of tour of Europe, he determined to visit the family
+of his wife. His proposal was waived by the King, who excused himself
+by the national confusions. But the young Dane, scarcely more than a
+giddy boy, and singularly self-willed, was not to be repelled; and he
+came. Nothing could be colder than his reception; not a royal
+carriage, not an officer of the court, was sent to meet him. He
+arrived at St James's even in a hired carriage. Neither King nor Queen
+was there. The only mark of attention paid to him was giving him an
+apartment, and supplying him and his suite with a table. Walpole
+observes, that this sullen treatment was as impolitic as it was
+inhospitable; that the Dane was then actually a pensioner of France,
+and, of course, it would have been wise to win him out of its hands.
+But the Danish king seems to have been little better than a fool; and
+between his frolics and his follies, he finally produced a species of
+revolution in his own country. All power fell into the hands of his
+queen, who, though of a bolder nature, seems to have been scarcely
+less frantic than himself. On the visit of her mother, the Princess of
+Wales, to Denmark, the Queen met her, at the head of a regiment,
+dressed in full uniform, and wearing buckskin breeches. She must have
+been an extraordinary figure altogether, for she had grown immensely
+corpulent. Court favouritism was the fashion in Denmark, and the King
+and Queen were equally ruled by favourites. But, in a short period, a
+young physician of the household managed both, obtaining peculiarly
+the confidence of the Queen. Scandal was not idle on this occasion,
+and Germany and England rang with stories of the court of Denmark. The
+physician was soon created a noble, and figured for a while as the
+prime minister, or rather sovereign of the kingdom, by the well-known
+title of Count Struensee. A party was formed against him by the
+Queen-mother, at the head of some of the nobility. The Queen was made
+prisoner, and died in prison. Struensee was tried as traitor, and
+beheaded. The King was finally incapacitated from reigning, and his
+son was raised to the regency. This melancholy transaction formed one
+of the tragedies of Europe; but it had the additional misfortune of
+occurring at a time when royalty had begun to sink under the incessant
+attacks of the revolutionists, and France,<!-- Page 730 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_730" id="Page_730">[Pg 730]</a></span> the leader of public
+opinion on the Continent, was filled with opinions contemptuous of all
+thrones.</p>
+
+<p>The year 1768 exhibited France in her most humiliating position before
+Europe. The Duc de Choiseul was the minister&mdash;a man of wit, elegance,
+and accomplishment; but too frivolous to follow, if he had not been
+too ignorant to discover, the true sources of national greatness. His
+foreign policy was intrigue, and his domestic policy the favouritism
+of the court by administering to its vices. He raised a war between
+the Russians and Turks, and had the mortification of seeing his
+<i>prot&eacute;g&eacute;</i> the Turk trampled by the armies of his rival the Czarina.
+Even the Corsicans had degraded the military name of France. But he
+had a new peril at home. Old Marshal Richelieu&mdash;who, as Walpole
+sarcastically observes, "had retained none of his faculties, but that
+last talent of a decayed Frenchman, a spirit of back-stairs
+intrigue"&mdash;had provided old Louis XV. with a new mistress. Of all the
+persons of this character who had made French royal life scandalous in
+the eyes of Europe, this connexion was the most scandalous. It
+scandalized even France. This mistress was the famous Countess du
+Barri&mdash;a wretched creature, originally of the very lowest condition;
+whose vices would have stained the very highest; and who, in the
+convulsions of the reign that followed, was butchered by the
+guillotine.</p>
+
+<p>In November of this year died the Duke of Newcastle, at the age of
+seventy-five. He had been struck with palsy some months before, and
+then for the first time withdrew from public life. Walpole observes,
+that his life had been a proof that, "even in a free country, great
+abilities are not necessary to govern it." Industry, perseverance, and
+intrigue, gave him that duration of power "which shining talents, and
+the favour of the crown, could not secure to Lord Granville, nor the
+first rank in eloquence, or the most brilliant services, to Lord
+Chatham. Rashness overset Lord Granville's parts, and presumptuous
+impracticability Lord Chatham; while adventitious cunning repaired
+Newcastle's folly." Such is the explanation of one of the most curious
+phenomena of the time, by one of its most ingenious lookers-on. But
+the explanation is not sufficient. It is impossible to conceive, how
+mere cunning could have sustained any man for a quarter of a century
+in the highest ministerial rank; while that rank was contested from
+day to day by men of every order of ability. Since the days of
+Bolingbroke, there have been no examples of ministerial talent, equal
+to those exhibited, in both Houses, in the day of the Duke of
+Newcastle. Chatham was as ambitious as any man that ever lived, and
+full of the faculties that make ambition successful. The Butes, the
+Bedfords, the Hollands, the Shelburnes, exhibited every shape and
+shade of cabinet dexterity, of court cabal, of popular influence, and
+of political knowledge and reckless intrigue. Yet the Duke of
+Newcastle, with remarkable personal disadvantages&mdash;a ridiculous
+manner, an ungainly address, speech without the slightest pretension
+to eloquence, and the character of extreme ignorance on general
+subjects&mdash;preserved his power almost to the extreme verge of life; and
+to the last was regarded as playing a most important part in the
+counsels of the country. Unless we believe in magic, we must believe
+that this man, with all his oddity of manner, possessed some
+remarkable faculty, by which he saw his way clearly through
+difficulties impervious to more showy minds. He must have deeply
+discovered the means of attaching the monarch, of acting upon the
+legislature, and of controlling the captiousness of the people. He
+must have had practical qualities of a remarkable kind; and his is not
+the first instance, in which such qualities, in the struggles of
+government, bear away the prize. Thus, in later times, we have seen
+Lord Liverpool minister for eleven years, and holding power with a
+firm, yet quiet grasp to the last; with the whole strength of Lord
+Grey and the Whigs struggling for it in front, and George Canning, a
+still more dangerous enemy, watching for it in the rear.</p>
+
+<p>In one of the Notes referring to the appointment of Earl Cornwallis to
+the vice-treasuryship of Ireland, the<!-- Page 731 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_731" id="Page_731">[Pg 731]</a></span> editor makes a remark which
+ought not to pass without strong reprehension. Earl Cornwallis,
+towards the close of the Irish rebellion in 1798, had been made chief
+governor of Ireland, at the head of a large army, for the purpose of
+extinguishing the remnants of the rebellion, and restoring the country
+to the habits of peace. The task was no longer difficult, but he
+performed his part with dignity and moderation. He had been sent
+expressly for the purpose of pacifying the country, an object which
+would have been altogether inconsistent with measures of violence; but
+the editor, in telling us that his conduct exhibited sagacity and
+benevolence, hazards the extraordinary assertion, that "he was one of
+the few statesmen who inculcated the necessity of forbearance and
+concession in the misgoverned country!" Nothing can be more erroneous
+than this statement in point of principle, or more ignorant in point
+of fact. For the last hundred years and upwards, dating from the
+cessation of the war with James II., Ireland had been the object of
+perpetual concessions, and, if misgoverned at all, it has been such by
+the excess of those concessions. It is to be remembered, that in the
+reign of William I. the Roman Catholics were in actual alliance with
+France, and in actual arms against England. They were next beaten in
+the field, and it was the business of the conquerors to prevent their
+taking arms again. From this arose the penal laws. To those laws we
+are not friendly; because we are not friendly to any attempt at the
+suppression even of religious error by the force of the state. It was
+a political blunder, and an offence to Christian principle, at the
+same time; but the Papist is the last man in the world who has a right
+to object to penal laws; for he is the very man who would have enacted
+them himself against the Protestant&mdash;who always enacts them where he
+has the power&mdash;and, from the spirit of whose laws, the British
+legislature were in fact only borrowing at the moment. Yet from the
+time when James II. and his family began to sink into insignificance,
+the legislature began to relax the penal laws. Within the course of
+half a century, they had wholly disappeared; and thus the editor's
+flippant assertion, that Earl Cornwallis was one of the few statesmen
+who inculcated the necessity of forbearance and concession, exhibits
+nothing but his Whiggish ignorance on the subject. The misgovernment
+of Ireland, if such existed, was to be laid to the charge of neither
+the English minister nor the English people. The editor probably
+forgets, that during that whole period she was governed by her own
+parliament; while her progress during the second half of the 18th
+century was memorably rapid, and prosperous in the highest degree,
+through the bounties, privileges, and encouragements of every kind,
+which were constantly held out to her by the <i>British</i> government. And
+that so early as the year 1780, she was rich enough to raise, equip,
+and support a volunteer army of nearly a hundred thousand men&mdash;a
+measure unexampled in Europe, and which would probably task the
+strength of some of the most powerful kingdoms even at this day. And
+all this was previous to the existence of what is called the "patriot
+constitution."</p>
+
+<p>Walpole has the art of painting historic characters to the life; but
+he sadly extinguishes the romance with which our fancy so often
+enrobes them. We have been in the habit of hearing Pascal Paoli, the
+chief of the Corsicans, described as the model of a republican hero;
+and there can be no question, that the early resistance of the
+Corsicans cost the French a serious expenditure of men and money. But
+Walpole charges Paoli with want of military skill, and even with want
+of that personal intrepidity so essential to a national leader. At
+length, Corsican resistance being overpowered by the constant
+accumulation of French force, Paoli gave way, and, as Walpole
+classically observes, "not having fallen like Leonidas, did not
+despair like Cato." Paoli had been so panegyrized by Boswell's work,
+that he was received with almost romantic applause. The Opposition
+adopted him for the sake of popularity, but ministers took him out of
+their hands by a pension of &pound;1000 a-year. "I saw him," says Walpole,
+"soon after his arrival, dangling at court. He was a man of decent
+deportment, and<!-- Page 732 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_732" id="Page_732">[Pg 732]</a></span> so void of any thing remarkable in his aspect, that,
+being asked if I knew who he was, I judged him a Scotch officer&mdash;for
+he was sandy complexioned and in regimentals&mdash;who was cautiously
+awaiting the moment of promotion." All this is in Walpole's style of
+fashionable impertinence; but there can be no doubt that Paoli was a
+brave man, and an able commander. He gave the French several severe
+defeats, but the contest was soon too unequal, and Paoli withdrew to
+this country; which was so soon after to be a shelter to the
+aristocracy of the country which had stained his mountains with blood.</p>
+
+<p>By a singular fate, on his return to France in an early period of the
+Revolution, he was received with a sort of national triumph, and
+actually appointed lieutenant-general of Corsica by the nation which
+had driven him into exile. In the war which followed, Paoli, disgusted
+by the tyranny of French republicanism, and alarmed by the violence of
+the native factions, proposed to put his country under the protection
+of the English government. A naval and military force was sent to
+Corsica, and the island was annexed to the British crown. But the
+possession was not maintained with rational vigour. The feeble
+armament was found unequal to resist the popular passion for
+republicanism. And, from this expenditure of troops, and probably
+still more from the discovery that the island would be wholly useless,
+the force was altogether withdrawn. Paoli returned to England, where
+he died, having attained the advanced age of eighty. His red hair and
+sandy complexion are probably fatal to his character as an Italian
+chieftain. But if his locks were not black, his heart was bold; and if
+his lip wanted mustaches, his mind wanted neither sagacity nor
+determination.</p>
+
+<p>Walpole was born for a cynic philosopher. He treats men of all ranks
+with equal scorn. From Wilkes to George III., he brands them all.
+Ministers meet no mercy at his hands. He ranges them, as the Sultan
+used to range heads on the spikes of the seraglio, for marks for his
+arrows. His history is a species of moveable panorama; the scene
+constantly shifting, and every scene a burlesque of the one that went
+before; or perhaps the more faithful similitude would be found in a
+volume of HB.'s ingenious caricatures, where all the likenesses are
+preserved, though perverted, and all the dexterity of an accomplished
+pencil is employed only in making its subjects ridiculous. He thus
+tells us:&mdash;"The Duke of Grafton was the fourth prime minister in seven
+years, who fell by his own fault. Lord Bute was seized with a panic,
+and ran away from his own victory. Grenville was undone by his
+insolence, by joining in the insult on the princess, and by his
+persecution of Lord Bute and Mackenzie. Lord Rockingham's incapacity
+overturned <i>him</i>; and now the Duke of Grafton destroyed a power which
+it had depended on himself to make as permanent as he could desire."
+But rash and rapid as those changes were, what were the grave
+intrigues of the English cabinet to the <i>boudoir</i> ministries of
+France? Walpole is never so much in his element, as when he is
+sporting in the fussy frivolities of the Faubourg St Germain. He was
+much more a Frenchman than an Englishman; his love of gossip, his
+passion for haunting the society of talkative old women, and his
+delight at finding himself revelling in a region of <i>petite soupers</i>,
+court gallantries, and the faded indiscretions of court beauties in
+the wane, would have made him a rival to the courtiers of Louis XIV.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps, the world never saw, since the days of Sardanapalus, a court
+so corrupt, wealth so profligate, and a state of society so utterly
+contemptuous of even the decent affectation of virtue, as the closing
+years of the reign of Louis XV. A succession of profligate women ruled
+the king, a similar succession ruled the cabinet; lower life was a
+sink of corruption; the whole a romance of the most scandalous order.
+Madame de Pompadour, a woman whose vice had long survived her beauty,
+and who ruled the decrepit heart of a debauched king, had made
+Choiseul minister. Choiseul was the beau-ideal of a French noble of
+the old <i>r&eacute;gime</i>. His ambition was boundless, his insolence
+ungoverned, his caprice unrestrained, and his love of pleasure<!-- Page 733 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_733" id="Page_733">[Pg 733]</a></span>
+predominant even over his love of power. "He was an open enemy, but a
+generous one; and had more pleasure in attaching an enemy, than in
+punishing him. Whether from gaiety or presumption, he was never
+dismayed; his vanity made him always depend on the success of his
+plans, and his spirits made him soon forget the miscarriage of them."</p>
+
+<p>At length appeared on the tapis the memorable Madame du Barri! For
+three months, all the faculties of the court were absorbed in the
+question of her public presentation. Indulgent as the courtiers were
+to the habits of royal life, the notoriety of Madame du Barri's early
+career, startled even their flexible sense of etiquette. The ladies of
+the court, most of whom would have been proud to have taken her place,
+determined "that they would not appear at court if she should be
+received there." The King's daughters (who had borne the ascendant of
+Madame du Pompadour in their mother's life) grew outrageous at the new
+favourite; and the relatives of Choiseul insisted upon it, that he
+should resign rather than consent to the presentation. Choiseul
+resisted, yielded, was insulted for his resistance, and was scoffed at
+for his submission. He finally retired, and was ridiculed for his
+retirement. Du Barri triumphed. Epigrams and <i>calembours</i> blazed
+through Paris. Every one was a wit for the time, and every wit was a
+rebel. The infidel faction looked on at the general dissolution of
+morals with delight, as the omen of general overthrow. The Jesuits
+rejoiced in the hope of getting the old King into their hands, and
+terrifying him, if not into a proselyte, at least into a tool. Even Du
+Barri herself was probably not beyond their hopes; for the established
+career of a King's mistress was, to turn <i>d&eacute;vote</i> on the decay of her
+personal attractions.</p>
+
+<p>Among Choiseul's intentions was that of making war on England. There
+was not the slightest ground for a war. But it is a part of the
+etiquette of a Frenchman's life, that he must be a warrior, or must
+promote a war, or must dream of a war. M. Guizot is the solitary
+exception in our age, as M. Fleury was the solitary exception in the
+last; but Fleury was an ecclesiastic, and was eighty years old
+besides&mdash;two strong disqualifications for a conqueror. But the King
+was then growing old, too; his belligerent propensities were absorbed
+in quarrels with his provincial parliaments; his administrative
+faculties found sufficient employment in managing the morals of his
+mistresses; his private hours were occupied in pelting Du Barri with
+sugar-plums; and thus his days wore away without that supreme glory of
+the old <i>r&eacute;gime</i>&mdash;a general war in Europe.</p>
+
+<p>The calamities of the French noblesse at the period of the Revolution,
+excited universal regret; and the sight of so many persons, of
+graceful manners and high birth, flung into the very depths of
+destitution in foreign lands, or destroyed by the guillotine at home,
+justified the sympathy of mankind. But, the secret history of that
+noblesse was a fearful stigma, not only on France, but on human
+nature. Vice may have existed to a high degree of criminality in other
+lands; but in no other country of Europe, or the earth, ever was vice
+so public, so ostentatiously forced upon the eyes of man, so
+completely formed into an established and essential portion of
+fashionable and courtly life. It was even the <i>etiquette</i>, that the
+King of France should have a <i>mistress</i>. She was as much a part of the
+royal establishment as a prime minister was of the royal councils;
+and, as if for the purpose of offering a still more contemptuous
+defiance to the common decencies of life, the etiquette was, that this
+mistress should be a <i>married woman</i>! Yet in that country the whole
+ritual of Popery was performed with scrupulous exactness. A vast and
+powerful clergy filled France; and the ceremonials of the national
+religion were performed continually before the court, with the most
+rigid formality. The King had his confessor, and, so far as we can
+discover, the mistress had her confessor too; the nobles attended the
+royal chapel, and also had their confessors. The confessional was
+never without royal and noble solicitors of monthly, or, at the
+furthest, quarterly absolution. Still, from the whole body of
+ecclesiastics, France heard no remonstrance against those public
+abominations. Their sermons,<!-- Page 734 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_734" id="Page_734">[Pg 734]</a></span> few and feeble, sometimes declaimed on
+the vices of the beggars of Paris, or the riots among the peasantry;
+but no sense of scriptural responsibility, and no natural feeling of
+duty, ever ventured to deprecate the vices of the nobles and the
+scandals of the throne.</p>
+
+<p>We must give but a fragment, from Walpole's <i>catalogue raisonn&eacute;</i>, of
+this Court of Paphos. It had been the King's object to make some women
+of rank introduce Madame du Barri at court; and he had found
+considerable difficulty in this matter, not from her being a woman of
+no character, but on her being a woman of no birth, and whose earlier
+life had been spent in the lowest condition of vice. The King at last
+succeeded&mdash;and these are the <i>chaperons</i>. "There was Madame de
+l'H&ocirc;pital, an ancient mistress of the Prince de Soubize! The Comtesse
+Valentinois, of the highest birth, very rich, but very foolish; and as
+far from a Lucretia as Madame du Barri herself! Madame de Flavacourt
+was another, a suitable companion to both in virtue and understanding.
+She was sister to <i>three</i> of <i>the King's earliest mistresses</i>, and had
+aimed at succeeding them! The Mar&eacute;chale Duchesse de Mirpoix was the
+last, and a very important acquisition." Of her, Walpole simply
+mentions that all her talents were "drowned in such an overwhelming
+passion for play, that though she had long and singular credit with
+the King, she reduced her favour to an endless solicitation for money
+to pay her debts." He adds, in his keen and amusing style&mdash;"That, to
+obtain the post of <i>dame d'honneur</i> to the Queen, she had left off
+<i>red</i> (wearing rouge,) and acted <i>d&eacute;votion</i>; and the very next day was
+seen riding with Madame de Pompadour (the King's mistress) in the
+latter's coach!" The editor settles the question of <i>her</i> morality,
+too.&mdash;"She was a woman of extraordinary wit and cleverness, but
+totally <i>without character</i>." She had her morals by inheritance; for
+she was the daughter of the <i>mistress</i> of the Duke of Lorraine, who
+married her to Monsieur de Beauvan, a poor noble, and whom the duke
+got made a prince of the empire, by the title of De Craon. Now, all
+those were females of the highest rank in France, ladies of fashion,
+the stars of court life, and the models of national manners. Can we
+wonder at the retribution which cast them out into the highways of
+Europe? Can we wonder at the ruin of the corrupted nobility? Can we
+wonder at the massacre of the worldly church, which stood looking on
+at those vilenesses, and yet never uttered a syllable against them, if
+it did not even share in their excesses? The true cause for
+astonishment is, not in the depth of their fall, but in its delay; not
+in the severity of the national judgment, but in that long-suffering
+which held back the thunderbolt for a hundred years, and even then did
+not extinguish the generation at a blow!</p>
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTE.</h3>
+<p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> <i>Memoirs of the Reign of King George the Third, by
+Horace Walpole. From the MSS. Edited, with Notes, by</i> <span class="smcap">Sir D. La
+Marchant, Bart.</span> London: Bentley.</p></div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div class="biggap"><!-- Page 735 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_735" id="Page_735">[Pg 735]</a></span></div>
+<h2><a name="A_FEW_PASSAGES_CONCERNING_OMENS_DREAMS_APPEARANCES" id="A_FEW_PASSAGES_CONCERNING_OMENS_DREAMS_APPEARANCES"></a>A FEW PASSAGES CONCERNING OMENS, DREAMS, APPEARANCES, &amp;c.</h2>
+<h3><span class="smcap">In a Letter to Eusebius.</span><br />
+No. II.</h3>
+<div class="gap"/>
+<p>It is somewhat late, my dear, Eusebius, to refer me to my letter of
+August 1840, and to enquire, in your bantering way, if I have shaken
+hands with a ghost recently, or dreamed a dream worth telling. You
+have evidently been thinking upon this subject ever since I wrote to
+you; and I suspect you are more of a convert than you will admit. You
+only wish to provoke me to further evidence; but I see&mdash;through the
+flimsy veil of your seeming denials, and through your put-on
+audacity&mdash;the nervous workings of your countenance, when your
+imagination is kindled by the mysterious subject. Your wit and your
+banter are but the whistle of the clown in the dark, to keep down his
+rising fears. However good your story<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> may be, there have been
+dreams even of the numbers of lottery-tickets that have been verified.
+We call things coincidences and chances, because we have no name to
+give them, whereas they are phenomena that want a better settlement.
+You speak, too, of the "doctrine of chances." If chance have a
+doctrine, it is subject to a rule, is under calculation, arithmetic,
+and loses all trace at once of our idea of absolute chance. If there
+be chance, there is also a power over chance. The very hairs of our
+head, which seem to be but a chance-confusion, are yet, we are
+assured, all numbered&mdash;and is it less credible that their every
+movement is noted also? One age is the type of another; and every age,
+from the beginning of the world, hath had its own symbols; and not
+poetically only, but literally true is it, that "coming events cast
+their shadows before." If the "vox populi" be the "vox Dei," it has
+pronounced continually, in a space of above five thousand years, that
+there is communication between the material and immaterial worlds. So
+rare are the exceptions, that, speaking of mankind, we may assert that
+there is a universal belief amongst them of that connexion by signs,
+omens, dreams, visions, or ghostly presences. Many professed sceptics,
+who have been sceptics only in the pride of understanding, have in
+secret bowed down to one form or other of the superstition. Take not
+the word in a bad sense. It is at least the germ, the<!-- Page 736 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_736" id="Page_736">[Pg 736]</a></span> natural germ,
+of religion in the human mind. It is the consciousness of a
+superiority not his own, of some power so immeasurably above man, that
+his mind cannot take it in, but accepts, as inconsiderable glimpses of
+it, the phenomena of nature, and the fears and misgivings of his own
+mind, spreading out from himself into the infinite and invisible. I am
+not certain, Eusebius, if it be not the spiritual part of conscience,
+and is to it what life is to organized matter&mdash;the mystery which gives
+it all its motion and beauty.</p>
+
+<p>It is not my intention to repeat the substance of my former letter&mdash;I
+therefore pass on. You ask me if the mesmeric phenomena&mdash;which you
+ridicule, yet of which I believe you covet a closer investigation&mdash;are
+not part and parcel of the same incomprehensible farrago? I cannot
+answer you. It would be easy to do so were I a disciple. If the
+mesmerists <i>can</i> establish <i>clairvoyance</i>, it will certainly be upon a
+par with the ancient oracles. But what the philosopher La Place says,
+in his <i>Essay on Probabilities</i>, may be worth your consideration&mdash;that
+"any case, however apparently incredible, if it is a recurrent case,
+is as much entitled to a fair valuation under the laws of induction,
+as if it had been more probable beforehand." If the mesmerized can
+project, and that apparently without effort, their minds into the
+minds of others&mdash;read their thoughts; if they can see and tell what is
+going on hundreds of miles off, on the sea and on distant lands alike;
+if they can at remote distances <i>influence</i> others with a sense of
+their presence&mdash;they possess a power so very similar to that ascribed,
+in some extraordinary cases, to persons who, in a dying state, have
+declared that they have been absent and conversed with individuals
+dear to them in distant countries, and whose presence has been
+recognised at those very times by the persons so said to be visited,
+that I do not see how they can be referable to different original
+phenomena. Yet with this fact before them, supposing the facts of
+mesmerism, of the mind's separation from, and independence of its
+organic frame, is it not extraordinary that so many of this new school
+are, or profess themselves by their writings, materialists? I would,
+however, use the argument of mesmerism thus:&mdash;Mesmerism, if true,
+confirms the ghost and vision power, though I cannot admit that
+dreams, ghosts, and visions are any confirmation of mesmerism; for if
+mesmerism be a delusion and cheat, it may have arisen from speculating
+upon the other known power&mdash;as true miracles have been known to give
+rise to false. In cases of mesmerism, however, this shock is felt&mdash;the
+facts, as facts in the ordinary sense, are incredible; but then I see
+persons who have examined the matter very nicely, whom I have known,
+some intimately, for many years, of whose good sense, judgement, and
+<i>veracity</i> I will not allow myself to doubt&mdash;indeed to doubt whose
+veracity would be more incredible to me than the mesmeric facts
+themselves. Here is a conflict&mdash;a shock. Two contradictory
+impossibilities come together. I do not weigh in the scale at all the
+discovery of some cheats and pretenders; this was from the first to
+have been expected. In truth, the discoveries of trick and collusion
+are, after all, few. Not only has mesmerism been examined into by
+persons I respect, but practised likewise; and by one, a physician,
+whom I have known intimately many years, who, to his own detriment,
+has pursued it, and whom I have ever considered one of the most
+truthful persons living, and incapable of collusion, or knowingly in
+any way deceiving. Now, Eusebius, we cannot go into society, and
+pronounce persons whom we have ever respected all at once to be cheats
+and liars. Yet there may be some among them who will tell you that
+they themselves were entirely sceptical until they tried mesmerism,
+and found they had the power in themselves. We must then, in fairness,
+either acknowledge mesmerism as a power, or believe that these persons
+whom we respect and esteem are practised upon and deluded by others.
+And such would, I confess, be the solution of the difficulty, were it
+not that there are cases where this is next to an impossibility.</p>
+
+<p>But I do not mean now, Eusebius,<!-- Page 737 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_737" id="Page_737">[Pg 737]</a></span> to discuss mesmerism, <a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> further
+than as it does seem "a part and parcel" of that mysterious power
+which has been manifested in omens, dreams, and appearances. I say
+<i>seem</i>&mdash;for if it be proved altogether false, the other mystery stands
+untouched by the failure&mdash;for in fact it was, thousands of years
+before either the discovery or practice&mdash;at least as far as we know;
+for some will not quite admit this, but, in their mesmeric dreaming,
+attribute to it the ancient oracles, and other wonders. And there are
+who somewhat inconsistently do this, having ridiculed and contemned as
+utterly false those phenomena, until they have found them hitch on to,
+and give a credit to, their new Mesmeric science.</p>
+
+<p>But to return to the immediate subject. It has been objected against<!-- Page 738 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_738" id="Page_738">[Pg 738]</a></span>
+dreams, omens, and visions, that they often occur without an object;
+that there is either no consequence, or a very trifling one; the knot
+is not "dignus vindice." Now, I am not at all staggered by this; on
+the contrary, it rather tends to show that there is some <i>natural</i>
+link by which the material and immaterial within and without ourselves
+may be connected; and very probably many more intimations of that
+connexion are given than noted. Those of thought, mental suggestions,
+may most commonly escape us. It is thus what we would not do of
+ourselves we may do in spite of ourselves. Nor do we always observe
+closely objects and ends. We might, were we to scrutinize, often find
+the completion of a dream or omen which we had considered a failure,
+because we looked too immediately for its fulfilment. But even where
+there is evidently no purpose attained, there is the less reason to
+suspect fabrication, which would surely commence with an object. Some
+very curious cases are well attested, where the persons under the
+impression act upon the impulse blindly, not knowing why; and
+suddenly, in conclusion, the whole purpose bursts upon their
+understandings. But I think the objection as to purpose is answered by
+one undoubted fact, the dream of Pilate's wife&mdash;"Have thou nothing to
+do with that just man; for I have suffered many things this day in a
+dream because of him." There is here no apparent purpose&mdash;the warning
+was unheeded. Yet the dream, recorded as it is and where it is, was
+unquestionably a dream upon the event to happen; and is not to be
+considered as a mere coincidence, which would have been unworthy the
+sacred historian, who wrote the account of it under inspiration. And
+this is a strong&mdash;the strongest confirmation of the inspiration of
+dreams, or rather, perhaps, of their significance, natural or
+otherwise, and with or without a purpose. So the dream of C&aelig;sar's wife
+did not save C&aelig;sar's life. And what are we to think of the whole
+narrative, beginning with the warning of the Ides of March? Now,
+Joseph's dream and Pharaoh's dream were dreams of purpose; they were
+prophetic, and disclosed to the understanding of Joseph. So that, with
+this authority of Scripture, I do not see how dreams can be set aside
+as of no significance. And we have the like authority for omens, and
+symbols, and visions&mdash;so that we must conclude the things themselves
+to be possible; and this many do, yet say that, with other miracles,
+they have long ceased to be.</p>
+
+<p>Then, again, in things that by their agreement, falling in with other
+facts and events, move our wonder, we escape from the difficulty, as
+we imagine, by calling them coincidences; as if we knew what
+coincidences are. I do not believe they are without a purpose, any
+more than that seeming fatality by which little circumstances produce
+great events, and in ordinary life occur frequently to an apparent
+detriment, yet turn out to be the very hinge upon which the fortune
+and happiness of life depend and are established. I remember a
+remarkable instance of this&mdash;though it may not strictly belong to
+omens or coincidences; but it shows the purpose of an accident. Many
+years ago, a lady sent her servant&mdash;a young man about twenty years of
+age, and a native of that part of the country where his mistress
+resided&mdash;to the neighbouring town with a ring which required some
+alteration, to be delivered into the hands of a jeweller. The young
+man went the shortest way, across the fields; and coming to a little
+wooden bridge that crossed a small stream, he leaned against the rail,
+and took the ring out of its case to look at it. While doing so, it
+slipped out of his hand, and fell into the water. In vain he searched
+for it, even till it grew dark. He thought it fell into the hollow of
+a stump of a tree under water; but he could not find it. The time
+taken in the search was so long, that he feared to return and tell his
+story&mdash;thinking it incredible, and that he should even be suspected of
+having gone into evil company, and gamed it away or sold it. In this
+fear, he determined never to return&mdash;left wages and clothes, and
+fairly ran away. This seemingly great misfortune was the making of
+him. His intermediate history I know not; but this&mdash;that after many
+years' absence, either in the East or<!-- Page 739 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_739" id="Page_739">[Pg 739]</a></span> West Indies, he returned with a
+very considerable fortune. He now wished to clear himself with his old
+mistress; ascertained that she was living, purchased a diamond ring of
+considerable value, which he determined to present in person, and
+clear his character, by telling his tale, which the credit of his
+present condition might testify. He took the coach to the town of &mdash;&mdash;,
+and from thence set out to walk the distance of a few miles. He found,
+I should tell you, on alighting, a gentleman who resided in the
+neighbourhood, who was bound for the adjacent village. They walked
+together; and, in conversation, this former servant, now a gentleman,
+with graceful manners and agreeable address, communicated the
+circumstance that made him leave the country abruptly, many years
+before. As he was telling this, they came to the very wooden bridge.
+"There," said he&mdash;"it was just here that I dropped the ring; and there
+is the very bit of old tree, into a hole of which it fell&mdash;just
+there." At the same time, he put down the point of his umbrella into
+the hole of a knot in the tree&mdash;and, drawing it up, to the
+astonishment of both, found <i>the</i> very ring on the ferrule of the
+umbrella. I need not tell the rest. But make this reflection&mdash;why was
+it that he did not as easily find it immediately after it had fallen
+in? It was an incident like one of those in Parnell's "Hermit," which,
+though a seeming chance, was of purpose, and most important.</p>
+
+<p>Now, here is an extraordinary coincidence between a fact and a dream,
+or a vision, whatever it may be, which yet was of no result&mdash;I know it
+to be true. And you know, Eusebius, my excellent, truth-telling,
+worthy Mrs H&mdash;&mdash;, who formerly kept a large school at &mdash;&mdash;. One morning
+early, the whole house was awakened by the screams of one of the
+pupils. She was in hysterics; and, from time to time, fainting away in
+an agony of distress. She said she had seen her grandfather&mdash;that he
+was dead, and they would bury him alive. In due time, the post brought
+a letter&mdash;the grandfather <i>was dead</i>. Letters were written to the
+friends to announce the dream or vision, and the burial was delayed in
+consequence. Nothing could be more natural than the fear of burying
+him alive in the mind of the young girl, unacquainted with death, and
+averse to persuade herself that the person she had seen could be
+really dead. Now, my dear Eusebius, you know Mrs H&mdash;&mdash;, and cannot
+doubt the fact.</p>
+
+<p>Cases of this kind are so many, and well authenticated, that one knows
+not where to choose.</p>
+
+<div class="poem center">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">&mdash;&mdash;"Tam multa loquacem</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Delassare valent Fabium."</span><br />
+</div></div>
+
+<p>I think you knew the worthy and amiable Mr &mdash;&mdash;, who had the charge of
+the valuable museum at &mdash;&mdash;. I well remember hearing this narrated of
+him, long <i>before</i> his death. He stated, that one day opening a case,
+he heard a voice issue from it, which said&mdash;"In three days you shall
+die." He became ill, and sent for Dr P&mdash;&mdash;, the very celebrated
+physician. It was in vain to reason with him. The third day arrived.
+The kind physician sat with him till the hour was past. He did not
+then die! Did he, however, mistake or miscalculate the meaning of the
+voice? He died <i>that very day three years!!</i> Nothing can be more
+authentic than this.</p>
+
+<p>When I was in town in the summer, Eusebius, I spent an agreeable day
+with my friends, the C&mdash;&mdash;s. Now, I do not know a human being more
+incapable of letting an idea, a falsehood of imagination, run away
+with his sober judgment. He has a habit, I should say, more than most
+men, of tying himself down to matters of fact. I copy for you an
+extract from a diary; it was taken down that night. "Mr C&mdash;&mdash; has just
+told me the following very curious circumstance:&mdash;Some years ago, Mrs
+C&mdash;&mdash; being not in good health, they determined to spend some weeks in
+the country. His father was then in his house. They separated&mdash;the
+father, to his own home in the neighbourhood of London, and Mr and Mrs
+C&mdash;&mdash; to visit the brother of Mrs C&mdash;&mdash;, a clergyman, and resident
+upon his living, in Suffolk. Soon after their arrival, there was a
+large assembly of friends, in consequence of some church business.
+There was<!-- Page 740 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_740" id="Page_740">[Pg 740]</a></span> church service&mdash;in the midst of which Mr C&mdash;&mdash; suddenly
+felt an irresistible desire to return to his house in town. He knew
+not why. It was in vain he reasoned with himself&mdash;go he must, forced
+by an impulse for which he could in no way account. It would distress
+his friends&mdash;particularly on such an occasion. He could not help it.
+He communicated his intention to Mrs C&mdash;&mdash;; begged her to tell no one,
+lest he should give trouble by having the carriage;&mdash;his resolution
+was instantly taken, to quit the church at once, to walk about six
+miles to meet the coach if possible; if not, determining to walk all
+night, a distance of thirty-two miles. He did quit the church, walked
+the six miles, was in time to take the coach, reached London, and his
+own home. The intelligence he found there was, that his father was
+dangerously ill. He went to him&mdash;found him dying&mdash;and learned that he
+had told those about him that he knew he should see his son. That wish
+was gratified, which could not have been but for this sudden impulse
+and resolution. His father expired in his arms."</p>
+
+<p>It is curious that his father had told him a dream which he had had
+some years before&mdash;that he was in the midst of some convulsion of
+nature, where death was inevitable, and that then the only one of his
+children who came to him was my friend Mr C&mdash;&mdash;, which was thus in
+manner accomplished on the day of his death.</p>
+
+<p>I know not if some persons are naturally more under these and suchlike
+mysterious influences. There was another occurrence which much
+affected Mr C&mdash;&mdash;. He went into Gloucestershire to visit a brother. I
+do not think the brother was ill. All the way that he went in the
+coach, he had, to use his own words, a death-smell which very much
+annoyed him. Leaving the coach, he walked towards his brother's house
+greatly depressed; so much so, that, for a considerable time, he sat
+on a stone by the way, deeply agitated, and could not account for the
+feeling. He arrived in time only to see his brother expire. I do not
+know, Eusebius, how you can wish for better evidence of facts so
+extraordinary. Mr C&mdash;&mdash;'s character is sufficient voucher.</p>
+
+<p>Here is another of these extraordinary coincidences which I have been
+told by my friend Mrs S&mdash;&mdash;, niece to the Rev. W. Carr, whom she has
+very frequently heard narrate the following:&mdash;A farmer's wife at
+Bolton Abbey, came to him, the Rev. W. Carr, in great agitation, and
+told him she had passed a dreadful night, having dreamed that she saw
+Mr Richard, (brother to Rev. W. Carr;) that she saw him in great
+distress, struggling in the water, with his portmanteau on his
+shoulders, escaping from a burning ship; and she begged the family to
+write to know if Mr Richard was safe. It was exactly according to the
+dream; he had, at the very time, so escaped from the burning of (I
+believe) the Boyne. How like is this to some of the mesmeric visions!
+I am assured of the truth of the following, by one who knew the
+circumstance. One morning, as Mrs F&mdash;&mdash; was sitting in her room, a
+person came in and told her he had had a very singular dream; that he
+had been sitting with her sister, Mrs B&mdash;&mdash;k, when some one came into
+the room with distressing intelligence about her husband. Though it
+could not have been there known at the time, Mr B&mdash;&mdash;k had been
+thrown from his horse and killed.</p>
+
+<p>A party of gentlemen had met at Newcastle; the nature of the meeting
+is stated to have been of a profane character. One of them suddenly
+started, and cried, "What's that?"&mdash;and saw a coffin. The others saw
+it; and one said&mdash;"It is mine: I see myself in it!" In twenty-four
+hours he was a corpse.</p>
+
+<p>I think I mentioned to you, Eusebius, that when I dined with Miss
+A&mdash;&mdash;, in town, she told me a curious story about a black boy. I have
+been since favoured with the particulars, and copy part of the letter;
+weigh it well, and tell me what you think of such coincidences&mdash;if you
+are satisfied that there is nothing but chance in the matter.</p>
+
+<p>"Now for the little black boy. In the year 1813, I was at the house of
+Sir J. W. S&mdash;&mdash;th of D&mdash;&mdash; House, near Bl&mdash;&mdash;d, who then resided in
+Portman Square, and a Mr L&mdash;&mdash;r of Norfolk, a great friend of Sir
+John's, was of the party. On coming into<!-- Page 741 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_741" id="Page_741">[Pg 741]</a></span> the room, he said&mdash;'I have
+just been calling on our old Cambridge friend, H&mdash;&mdash;n, who returned
+the other day from India; and he has been telling me a very curious
+thing which happened in his family. He had to go up the country to a
+very remote part, on some law business, and he left Mrs H&mdash;&mdash;n at
+home, under the protection of her sister and that lady's husband. The
+night after Mr H&mdash;&mdash;n went away, the brother-in-law was awakened by
+the screams of his own wife in her sleep; she had dreamed that a
+little black boy, Mr H&mdash;&mdash;n's servant, who had attended him, was
+murdering him. He woke her, and while he was endeavouring to quiet
+her, and convince her that her fears were the effects of a bad dream,
+produced probably by indigestion, he was roused by the alarming
+shrieks of Mrs H&mdash;&mdash;n, who slept in an adjoining room. On going to
+her, he found her, too, just awakening after a horrid dream&mdash;the
+little Indian boy was murdering her husband. He used the same
+arguments with her that he had already found answer in quieting his
+own wife; but, in his own mind, he felt very anxious for tidings from
+Mr H&mdash;&mdash;n. To their great surprise, that gentleman made his
+appearance the next evening, though he had expected to be absent above
+a week. He looked ill and dejected. They anxiously asked him what was
+the matter. Nothing, but that he was angry with himself for acting in
+a weak, foolish manner. He had dreamed that his attendant, the little
+black boy, intended to murder him; and the dream made such an
+impression on his nerves that he could not bear the sight of the boy,
+but dismissed him at once without any explanation. Finding he could
+not go on without an attendant, he had returned home to procure one;
+but as he had no reason whatever to suspect the boy of any ill
+intention, he felt very angry with himself for minding a dream. Dear
+Mrs H&mdash;&mdash;n was much struck with this story; but she used to
+say&mdash;unless it were proved that the boy really had the intention of
+murdering his master, the dreams were for nothing.'"</p>
+
+<p>In this instance a murder may have been prevented by these dreams; for
+if merely coincidences, and without an object, the wonder of
+coincidences is great indeed; for it is not one dream, but three, and
+of three persons.</p>
+
+<p>Things apparently of little consequence are yet curious for
+observation. Our friend K&mdash;&mdash;n, and two or three other friends, some
+months ago went on an excursion together. Their first point was Bath,
+where they meant to remain some time. K&mdash;&mdash;n dreamed on Friday they
+were to start on Saturday; that there was a great confusion at the
+railway station; and that there would be no reaching Bath for them.
+They went, however, on Saturday morning, and he told his dream when in
+the carriage. One of the party immediately repeated the old saying&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem center">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"A Friday's dream on Saturday told</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Will be sure to come true ere the day is old."</span><br />
+</div></div>
+
+<p>There was no accident to the train; but, instead of finding themselves
+at Bath, they found themselves at Bristol&mdash;having, in their
+conversation, neglected to notice that they had passed Bath. They were
+put to great inconvenience, and confusion, and difficulty in getting
+their luggage. I know you too well, Eusebius, not to hear, by
+anticipation, your laughter at this trifling affair, and the wit with
+which for a few moments you will throw off your ridicule. You may ask,
+if the shooting of your corns are not as sure and as serious
+prognostications? Be it so; and why not, Eusebius? You can tell by
+them what weather to expect; and, after all, you know little more of
+the material world, less of the immaterial, and nothing of their
+mystical union. Nothing now, past, present, and future, may be but
+terms for we know not what, and cannot comprehend how they can be lost
+in an eternity. There they become submerged. So take the thing
+represented, not the paltry, perhaps ridiculous, one through which it
+is represented. It is the picture, the attitude, the position, the
+undignified familiarity of yourself with the defects of your own
+person, that make the ridiculous; but there is grave philosophy,
+nevertheless, to be drawn from every atom of your own person, if you
+view it aright. I have heard you eloquent against the "hypocrite<!-- Page 742 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_742" id="Page_742">[Pg 742]</a></span>
+Cicero," as you called him, for his saying, that one Augur meeting
+another could scarcely help laughing. If mankind chose augury as a
+sign, it might have been permitted them to find a sign in it. But this
+is plunging into deeper matter, and one which you will think a
+quagmire, wherein wiser thoughts may flounder and be lost. When the
+officers of Hannibal's army were heard to laugh by the soldiery on the
+morning of the battle of Cann&aelig;, they took it as a good omen. It was
+generally received, and the day was fatal to the Romans. "Possunt quia
+posse videntur," you will say; but whence comes the "videntur?" There,
+Eusebius, you beg the whole question. The wonders and omens, gravely
+related by Livy, at least portray a general feeling&mdash;an impression
+before events. In the absence of a better religion, I would not have
+quarrelled with the superstition, and very much join you in your
+condemnation of the passage in Cicero.</p>
+
+<p>The fatal necessity of event upon event, of omen, dream, and vision,
+is the great characteristic of the wondrous Greek drama. So awfully
+portrayed is the <i>&OElig;dipus</i>&mdash;and with more grand and prophetic
+mystery pervading the <i>Agamemnon</i>. Had it not been congenial with
+popular belief, it could never have been so received; nor, indeed,
+could somewhat similar (though degraded from their high authority, as
+standing less alone by their amalgamation with a purer creed)
+characteristics in some of the plays of our own Shakspeare have
+touched the mind to wonderment, had there been no innate feeling to
+which they might, and without effort, unite. The progress, however, of
+the omen and vision, clearer and clearer, pointing to the very deed,
+and even while its enactment has commenced, and that fatality by which
+(prophetic, too) the plainest prophecy is unheeded, contemned, and the
+Prophetess herself doomed, and knowing herself doomed, may be
+considered as an epitome of the Grecian creeds upon the subject. It
+was no vulgar punning spirit that designated the very <i>name</i> of Helen
+as a cursing omen.</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"&#932;&#953;&#962; &#960;&#959;&#964;&#884; &#8032;&#957;&#8000;&#956;&#945;&#950;&#949;&#957; &#8101;&#948;&#884;</span>
+<span class="i0">"&#917;&#962; &#964;&#959; &#960;&#8118;&#957; &#949;&#964;&#951;&#964;&#965;&#956;&#962;&mdash;&mdash;</span>
+<span class="i0">"&#924;&#942; &#964;&#953;&#962; &#972;&#957;&#964;&#969;&#957; &#959;&#8016;&#967; &#959;&#961;&#969;&mdash;&mdash;</span>
+<span class="i0">"&#924;&#949;&#957; &#960;&#961;&#959;&#957;&#972;&#945;&#953;&#963;&#953; &#964;&#959;&#8166; &#960;&#949;&#960;&#961;&#969;&#956;&#949;&#965;&#972;&#965;</span>
+<span class="i0">"&#915;&#955;&#8182;&#963;&#963;&#945;&#957; &#8050;&#957; &#964;&#8059;&#967;&#963; &#957;&#8051;&#956;&#969;&#957;."</span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Helen, the destroyer&mdash;yes, that was her significant name. The present
+King of the French was not allowed to assume the title of Valois,
+which was, strictly speaking, his, and instead assumed that of Duc de
+Chartres, on account of an evil omen attached to the former name; and
+that evil omen originating in a curious fact, the seeing of a spectre
+by that German princess who succeeded the poisoned sister of our
+second Charles. But there is nothing in modern history more analogous
+to the fatalities of the Grecian drama than those singular passages
+relating to the death of Henry the Fourth of France. We have the
+gravest authority of the gravest historians, that prophecies,
+warnings, and omens so prepared Henry for his death, that he waited
+for it with a calm resignation, as to an irresistible fatality. "In
+fact," (says an eloquent writer in Maga of April 1840,) "it is to this
+attitude of listening expectation in the king, and breathless waiting
+for the blow, that Schiller alludes in that fine speech of Wallenstein
+to his sister, where he notices the funeral knells that sounded
+continually in Henry's ears; and, above all, his prophetic instinct,
+that caught the sound from a far distance of his murderer's motions,
+that could distinguish, amidst all the tumult of a mighty Capital,
+those stealthy steps."</p>
+
+<p>And does it seem so strange to you, Eusebius, if the ear and the eye,
+those outposts, as it were, of the ever watchful, spiritual, and
+intellectual sentinels within man, convey the secret intelligences
+that most concern him? What is there, Eusebius, so marvellous to your
+conception, if there be sympathy more than electric between those two
+worlds, outer Nature and Man himself? If earth, that<!-- Page 743 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_743" id="Page_743">[Pg 743]</a></span> with him and for
+him partook of one curse, with all its accompanying chain and
+interchange of elements, be still one with him, in utterance and
+signification, whether of his weal or woe. The sunshine and the gloom
+enter into him, and are his; they reflect his feelings, or rather they
+are his feelings, almost become his flesh&mdash;they are his bodily
+sensations. The winds and the waters, in their gentler breathings and
+their sullen roar, are but the music of his mind, echo his joys, his
+passions, or funereally rehearse the dirge of his fate.</p>
+
+<p>Reject not, my Eusebius, any fact, because it seems little and
+trifling; a mite is a wonder in creation, from which deep, hidden
+truths present themselves. It was a heathen thought, an imperfect
+conception of the wide sympathy of all nature, and of that meaning
+which every particle of it can convey, and more significantly as we
+calculate our knowledge;&mdash;it was a heathen thought, that the poet
+should lament the unlikeliness of the flowers of the field to man in
+their fall and reappearance. It was not the blessing given to his
+times to see the perfectness of the truth&mdash;the "non omnis moriar"
+indicated even in his own lament.<a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a></p>
+
+<p>I had written thus far, when our friend H&mdash;- l&mdash;- r looked in upon me,
+and enquired what I was about; I told him I was writing to you, and
+the subject of my letter. He is this moment gone, and has left with me
+these two incidents. They came within his own experience. He
+remembers, that when he was a boy, he was in a room with several of
+his brothers, some of whom were unwell, yet not seriously ill. On a
+sudden, there was a great noise, so great, that it could be compared
+to nothing but the firing of a pistol&mdash;a pane in the window was
+broken; not, he said, to <i>pieces</i>, but literally to a <i>powder</i> of
+glass. All in the house heard it, with the exception of one of his
+brothers, which struck them as very strange. The servants from below,
+and their mother from above, rushed into the room, fearing one of them
+might have been shot. The mother, when she saw how it was, told H&mdash;-
+l&mdash;- r that his brother, who did not hear the noise, she knew it well,
+would die. At that same hour next day that brother did die.</p>
+
+<p>The other story is more singular. His family were very intimate with
+another, consisting of father, mother, and an only daughter&mdash;a child.
+Of her the father was so fond, that he was never happy but when she
+was with him. It happened that he lost his health, and during his long
+illness, continually prayed that, when he was gone, his child too
+should be shortly taken from this world, and that he might be with her
+in a better. He died&mdash;when, a short time after his death, the child,
+who was in perfect health, came rushing into the presence<!-- Page 744 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_744" id="Page_744">[Pg 744]</a></span> of her
+mother, from a little room which looked out upon a court, but from
+which there was no entrance to the room&mdash;she came rushing to her
+mother, calling out&mdash;"Oh, papa, papa! I have seen papa in the court,
+and he called me to him. I must go&mdash;open the door for me&mdash;do, mamma! I
+must go, for he called me." Within twenty-four hours that child was
+dead. Now, said H&mdash;l&mdash;r, I knew this to be a fact, as well as I ever
+knew any act, for our families were like one family. Sweet image of
+infant and of parental love!&mdash;let us excuse the prayer, by that of the
+ancient mother, who, when her sons dragged her chariot to the temple,
+prayed that they might receive from the gods what was best for
+them&mdash;and they were found dead in the temple. How beautiful is the
+smile of the sleeping infant! "Holds it not converse with angels?" the
+thought is natural&mdash;ministering spirits may be unseen around us, and
+in all space, and love the whispering speech in the ear of sleeping
+innocence; there is visible joy in the face, yet how little can it
+know of pleasurable sensations, communicable through this world's
+objects? How know we but the sense must be deteriorated, to make it
+serviceable for the lower purposes for which in part the child is
+born?&mdash;as the air we breathe must have something of poison, or it
+would be too pure for mortal beings. Look down some lengthening valley
+from a height, Eusebius, at the hour of twilight, when all lands,
+their marks and boundaries, grow dim, and only here and there the
+scant light indicates lowly dwellings, shelters of humanity in earth's
+sombre bosom, and mark the vast space of vapour that fills all
+between, and touches all, broods over all&mdash;can you think this little
+world of life that you know by having walked its path, and now see so
+indistinguishable, to be the all of existence before you? Lone indeed
+would be the world were there nothing better than ourselves in it. No
+beings to watch for us, to warn us, to defend us from "the Power of
+the Air:" ministering spirits&mdash;and why not of the departed?&mdash;may be
+there. If there be those that in darkness persuade to evil&mdash;and in
+winter nights, the winds that shake the casement seem to denote to the
+guilty conscience the presence of avenging fiends&mdash;take we not peace
+and wholesome suggestion from milder influences of air and sunshine?
+Brighter may be, perhaps, the child's vision than ours; as it grows
+for the toil and work for which it is destined, there comes another
+picture of a stern and new reality, and that which brought the smile
+of joy upon the face, is but as a dissolving view; and then he becomes
+fully fitted for humanity, of which he was before but the embryo. And
+even in his progress, if he keep charge of his mind, in purity and in
+love, seem there not ministering spirits, that spread before him, in
+the mirage of the mind, scenes that look like a new creation? and
+pedants, in their kind, call this the poet's fancy, his imagination.</p>
+
+<p>Lately I have spent a month by the sea: the silent rocks seemed
+significant in their overhanging look, and silence, as listening to
+the incessant sea. It would be painful to think every thing insensible
+about us, but ourselves. I wonder not that the rocks, the woods, and
+wilds, were peopled by ancient Mythologists; and with beings, too,
+with whom humanity could sympathize. I would not think that the
+greater part of the earth's islands and continents were given up to
+hearts insensate; that there were nothing better than wildernesses of
+chattering apes&mdash;no sounds more rational than</p>
+
+<div class="poem center"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"The wolf's wild howl on Ulalaski's shore."</span><br />
+</div></div>
+
+<p>I would rather think that there are myriads of beings of higher nature
+than ourselves, whose passage is &#8033;&#963;&#964;&#987; &#957;&#959;&#951;&#956;&#945;, and whose home
+is ubiquity; and such as these may have their missions to us, and may
+sometimes take the dying breath of father or of brother in far-off
+seas, and instinct with, and maintaining in themselves, made visible,
+that poor remnant of life, stand at a moment at the bedside of beloved
+relatives, even in most distant lands, and give to each a blessed
+interchange and intelligence. In every sense, indeed, we "see but in
+part." In the dulness of the day, we see not a tenth part of the
+living things that people the ground; a gleam of<!-- Page 745 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_745" id="Page_745">[Pg 745]</a></span> sunshine instantly
+discovers to us in leaf and flower a little world; and could we but
+remove this outward fog, this impure atmosphere of our mortal senses,
+that which may be occasionally granted at dying hour, we might behold
+all space peopled with the glory of created beings. There is a
+beautiful truth of best feeling hidden in the superstition, that at
+one particular moment on Christmas Eve, all the beasts of the field go
+down on their knees amidst the darkness, seen alone by their Creator's
+eye, and by that angelic host that sing again the first divine hymn of
+Palestine.</p>
+
+<p>I do not wonder that sailors are, what we choose to call, more
+superstitious than landsmen; with but a plank between them and
+death&mdash;unfathomable seas around them, whose depths are continual
+wonder, from whose unseen treasure-house, the</p>
+
+<div class="poem center"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">&mdash;&mdash;"billows roll ashore</span><br />
+<span class="i0">The beryl and the golden ore."</span><br />
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Seas and skies with the great attribute of life, motion&mdash;their very
+ship a personification, as it were a living creature&mdash;cut off,
+separated as they are for the most part, from cities, and the
+mind-lowering ways of cities, which they see recede from them and melt
+into utter insignificance, leaving for companionship but the winds and
+the waters. Can it be a matter of wonder, if, with warm wishes and
+affections in their breasts, their imaginations shape the clouds and
+mists into being, messengers between them and the world they have all
+but lost? The stars, those "watches of the night," to them are not the
+same, changing yet ever significant. Even the waters about them, which
+by day are apparently without a living thing beyond the life of their
+own motion, in the darkness glittering with animated fire; can we
+wonder, then, if their thoughts rise from these myriad, invisible,
+lucent worms of the sea, to a faith in the more magnificent beings who
+"clothe themselves with light;" and if they believe that such are
+present, unseen, commissioned to guard and guide them in ways perilous
+and obscure? Seamen, accustomed to observe signs in their great
+solitude, unattracted by the innumerable sights and businesses of
+other life, are ever open and ready to receive signs and
+significations even of omen and vision; whereas he that is engaged in
+crowded street and market, heeds no sign, though it were offered, but
+that which his little and engrossing interests make for him; he,
+indeed, may receive "angels' visits unaware." Omens, dreams, and
+visions are to seamen more real, more frequent, as more congenial with
+their wants; and some extraordinary cases have even been registered in
+ships' logs, not resting on the credibility of one but of a crew, and
+such logs, if I mistake not, have been admitted evidence in courts of
+judicature. Am I led away by the subject, Eusebius? You will say I am;
+yet I could go on&mdash;the wonder increases&mdash;the common earth is not their
+sure grave&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem center"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Nothing of them that doth fade,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">But doth suffer a sea-change</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Into something rich and strange."</span><br />
+</div></div>
+
+<p>But I must not pursue this, lest, in your wit, you find reason to
+compare me to that great philosopher, who gravely asserted that he had
+discovered how to make a mermaid, but abstained from using the
+receipt; and I am quite sure you are not likely to resemble the
+learned Dr Farmer, who folded down the page for future experiment.<a name="FNanchor_37_37" id="FNanchor_37_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a></p>
+
+<p>It is not very long ago that I was discussing subjects of this kind
+with our acute friend S&mdash;&mdash; V&mdash;&mdash;. I send you a letter received from
+him, written, I presume, more for you than myself; for I told him I
+was on the point of answering yours, which he read. His attempt to
+account for any of his stories by common coincidences, is rather
+indicative of his naturally inquisitive mind than of his real belief;
+and I suspect he has been led into that train of argument by his
+hostility to mesmerism, which he pronounces to be a cheat from
+beginning to end; and he cannot but see that, granting mesmerism, the
+step in belief beyond is easy. He would, therefore,<!-- Page 746 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_746" id="Page_746">[Pg 746]</a></span> have no such
+stepping stone; and lest confidence in dreams, omens, &amp;c., should make
+mesmerism more credible, he has been a little disposed to trim his own
+opinions on the subject. You will judge for yourself&mdash;here is his
+letter:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"My dear &mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;,&mdash;&mdash;You desire me to give you a written account
+of the dreams which I related to you when we lately met, and
+amused ourselves with speculations on these mysterious phenomena.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Dream I.</i>&mdash;Mrs X&mdash;&mdash;, when a child, was attached to Captain
+T&mdash;&mdash;, R.N. She had been brought up from infancy by her uncle and
+aunt, with whom she resided, and with whom Captain T&mdash;&mdash; had long
+been on terms of the most intimate friendship and regard. At the
+time to which I now refer, Captain T&mdash;&mdash; commanded a frigate in
+the West Indies, where he had been stationed for some months;
+letters had been occasionally received from him; his health had
+not suffered from the climate, nor had any of his friends in
+England the least reason to apprehend that a man of his age, good
+constitution, and temperate habits, by whom also the service in
+which he was engaged had been eagerly desired, would be likely to
+suffer from the diseases of these latitudes. One morning Mrs
+X&mdash;&mdash;, (then Miss X&mdash;&mdash;,) appeared at the breakfast table with an
+expression of grief on her countenance, that at once induced her
+uncle and aunt to ask the cause. She said, that she had dreamed
+that Captain T&mdash;&mdash; had died of fever in the West Indies, and that
+the intelligence had been sent in a large letter to her uncle. The
+young lady's uncle and aunt both represented to her the weakness
+of yielding to the impression of a dream, and she appeared to
+acquiesce in the good sense of their remonstrances&mdash;when, shortly
+after, the servant brought in the letter-case from the
+Post-office, and when her uncle had unlocked it, and was taking
+out the letters, (there were several,) Miss X&mdash;&mdash; instantly
+exclaimed, pointing to one of them&mdash;'That's the letter! I saw it
+in my dream!' It was the letter&mdash;a large letter, of an official
+size, addressed to her uncle, and conveying precisely the event
+which Miss X&mdash;&mdash; had announced.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Dream II.</i>&mdash;General D&mdash;&mdash;, R.M., was one morning conversing with
+me on the subject of dreams, and gave me the following
+relation:&mdash;'I had the command of the marines on board a frigate,
+and in company with another frigate, (giving names and date,) was
+proceeding to America, when, on joining the breakfast table, I
+told my brother officers that I had had a very vivid and singular
+dream. That I had dreamed that the day was calm, as it now was,
+and bright, but with some haziness in the distance; and that
+whilst we were at breakfast, as we now are, the master-at-arms
+came in and announced two sail in the distance. I thought we all
+immediately ran on deck&mdash;saw the two ships&mdash;made them out to be
+French frigates, and immediately gave chase to them. The wind
+being light, it was long before we could approach the enemy near
+enough to engage them; and when, in the evening, a distant fire
+was commenced, a shot from the frigate which we attacked, carried
+away our foretopmast, and, consequently, we were unable to
+continue the chase. Our companion, also, had kept up a distant
+fire with the other French frigate, but in consequence of our
+damage, shortened sail to keep company with us during the night.
+On the following morning the French frigates had made their
+escape&mdash;no person had been killed or wounded on board our own
+ship; but in the morning we were hailed by our companion, and told
+that she had lost two men. Shortly after, whilst my brother
+officers were making comments on my dream&mdash;and before the
+breakfast table was cleared, the master-at-arms made his
+appearance, announcing, to the great surprise of all present, two
+sail in the distance; (and General D&mdash;&mdash; assured me that on
+reaching the deck they appeared to him precisely the same in place
+and distance as in his dream)&mdash;'the chase&mdash;the distant action&mdash;the
+loss of the topmast&mdash;the escape of the enemy during the night&mdash;and
+the announcement from the companion frigate that she had lost two
+men&mdash;all took place precisely as represented in my dream.' The
+General had but just concluded his narration, when a coincidence
+took place, little less extraordinary than<!-- Page 747 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_747" id="Page_747">[Pg 747]</a></span> that of the dream and
+its attendant circumstances.&mdash;The door opened, and a gentleman
+rushed into the room with all that eagerness which characterizes
+the unexpected meeting of warm friends after a long absence&mdash;and
+immediately after the first cordial greetings, General D&mdash;&mdash;
+said&mdash;'My dear F&mdash;&mdash;, it is most singular, that although we have
+not met during the last fifteen years, and I had not the most
+distant expectation of seeing or hearing from you, yet you were in
+my thoughts not five minutes ago&mdash;I was relating to my friend my
+extraordinary dream when on board the &mdash;&mdash;; you were present, and
+cannot have forgotten it.' Major F&mdash;&mdash; replied, that he remembered
+it most accurately, and, at his friend's request, related it to
+me, in every particular correspondent with the General's account.</p>
+
+<p>"What I now relate to you cannot be called a dream, but it bears a
+close affinity to 'those shadowy tribes of mind' which constitute
+our sleeping phantasmagoria. Calling one morning on my friend, Mrs
+D&mdash;&mdash;m, who had for some time resided in my neighbourhood, I
+found her greatly distressed at the contents of a letter which she
+had just received. The letter was from her sister, Mrs B&mdash;&mdash;, who
+was on her return to England, on board the &mdash;&mdash;, East Indiaman,
+accompanied by her two youngest children, and their nurse; Mr
+B&mdash;&mdash;, her husband, remaining in India. One morning, shortly after
+breakfast, Mrs B&mdash;&mdash; was sitting in the cabin, with many other
+passengers present, but not herself at that moment engaged in
+conversation with them; when she suddenly turned her head, and
+exclaimed aloud, and with extreme surprise, 'Good God! B&mdash;&mdash;, is
+that you?' At the same moment the children, who were with their
+nurse at a distant part of the ship, too far off, it is stated, to
+have heard their mother's exclamation, both cried out, 'Papa!
+papa!' Mrs B&mdash;&mdash; declared, that the moment she spoke, she saw her
+husband most distinctly, but the vision instantly vanished. All
+the persons present noted the precise time of this singular
+occurrence, lat. and long., &amp;c., and Mrs B&mdash;&mdash;'s letter to her
+sister was written immediately after it; it was forwarded to
+England by a vessel that was expected to reach home before the
+East Indiaman, and which did precede her by some weeks. No
+reasonings that I could offer were sufficient to relieve my
+friend's mind from the conviction that her sister had lost her
+husband, and that his decease had been thus mysteriously announced
+to her, until letters arrived from Mr B&mdash;&mdash;, attesting his perfect
+health, which he enjoyed for some years after&mdash;and I believe he is
+still living.</p>
+
+<p>"To arrive at any reasonable conclusion respecting the phenomena
+of dreams, we require data most difficult to be obtained; we
+should compare authentic dreams, faithfully related, with their
+equally well-attested attendant and <i>precedent</i> circumstances. But
+who can feel certain that he correctly relates even his own dream?
+I have many times made the attempt, but cannot be perfectly sure
+that in the act of recording a dream, I have not given more of
+order to the succession of the events than the dream itself
+presented. In the case of the first dream, the mere delivery of a
+letter, there is no succession of events, and therefore no ground
+to suppose that any invention could have been added to give it
+form and consistency. The young lady knew that her friend was in
+the West Indies; she knew, too, the danger of that climate, and
+had often seen the Admiral, her uncle, receive official letters.
+Some transient thoughts on these subjects, although too transient
+to be remembered, unquestionably formed her dream. That the letter
+really arrived and confirmed the event predicted, can only be
+referable to those coincidences which are not of very uncommon
+occurrence in daily life. To similar causes I attribute the second
+dream; and even its external fulfilment in so many particulars can
+hardly be deemed more extraordinary than the coincidence of the
+sudden and wholly unexpected arrival of Major F&mdash;&mdash;, just at the
+very moment after General D&mdash;&mdash; had related to me his dream. The
+third narrative admits of an easy solution. Mrs B&mdash;&mdash; was not in
+good health. Thinking of her husband, in a state of reverie, a
+morbid spectrum might be the result&mdash;distinct enough<!-- Page 748 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_748" id="Page_748">[Pg 748]</a></span> to cause her
+sudden alarm and exclamation which, if the children heard, (and
+children distinguish their mother's voice at a considerable
+distance&mdash;the cabin door, too, might have been open, and the
+children much nearer than they were supposed to have been,) would
+account at once for their calling out 'Papa! papa!' During our
+waking hours, we are never conscious of any complete suspension of
+thought, even for a moment; if fatigued by any long and laborious
+mental exertion, such as the solution of a complicated
+mathematical problem, how is the weariness relieved? Not by
+listless rest like the tired body, but by a change of subject&mdash;a
+change of action&mdash;a new train of thoughts and expressions. Are we,
+then, always dreaming when asleep? We certainly are not conscious
+that we are; but it may be that in our sleep we do not remember
+our dreams, and that it is only in imperfect sleep, or in the act
+of waking, that the memory records them. That dreams occupy an
+exceedingly short period of time, I know from my own experience;
+for I once had, when a boy, a very long dream about a bird, which
+was placed in an insecure place in my bedroom, being attacked by a
+cat. The fall of the cage on the floor awoke me, and I sprang out
+of bed in time to save the bird. The dream must, I think, have
+been suggested by the fall of the cage; and, if so, my seemingly
+long dream could only have occupied a mere point of time. I have
+also experienced other instances nearly similar. It seems
+reasonable, too, to suppose that this is generally the case; for
+our dreams present themselves to us as pictures, with the subjects
+of which we are intimately acquainted. I now glance my eye at the
+fine landscape hanging in my room. You may say of it, as Falstaff
+said of Prince Henry, 'By the Lord, I know you as well as he that
+made you.' Well, it is full of subject, full of varied beauty and
+grand conception&mdash;a 'paulo majora' eclogue. When I first saw it, I
+could barely read it through in an hour. For pictures that are
+what pictures ought to be, Poems to the eye, demand and repay this
+investigating attention&mdash;those that do not demand and suggest
+thoughts are not worth a thought; but this picture, now its every
+part, tint, and sentiment, have long been intimately known to me.
+I see, at a glance, its entire subject&mdash;ay, at a glance, too, see
+the effect which a casual gleam of light has just thrown over it.
+Is it not probable, then, that our dreams may be equally
+suggestive, in as short a space of time? Dreams that have not some
+connexion, something of a continuity of events, however wild, are
+not retained by the memory. Most persons would find it much more
+difficult to learn to repeat the words in a dictionary, than a
+page of poetry of equal length; and many dreams are probably
+framed of very unconnected materials. In falling asleep, I have
+often been conscious of the dissevering of my thoughts&mdash;like a
+regiment dismissed from parade, they seemed to straggle away "in
+most admired disorder;" but these scattered bands muster together
+again in our sleep; and, as these have all been levied from the
+impressions, cogitations, hopes, fears, and affections, of our
+waking hours, however strangely they may re-combine, if they do
+combine with sufficient continuity to be remembered, the form
+presented, however wild, will always be found, on a fair analysis,
+to be characteristic of the dreamer. They are his own thoughts
+oddly joined, like freshwater Polyps, which may be divided, and
+then stuck again together, so as to form chains, or any other
+strange forms, across the globe of water in which they may be
+exhibited. In Devonshire, the peasantry have a good term to
+express that wandering of thought, and imperfect dreaming, which
+is common in some states of disease.&mdash;"Oh, sir, he has been lying
+pretty still; but he has been <i>roading</i> all night." By this, they
+mean, that the patient, in imperfect sleep, has been muttering
+half-connected sentences; and the word, <i>roading</i>, is taken from
+the mode in which they catch woodcocks. At the last gleam of
+evening, the woodcocks rise from their shelter in the woods, and
+wind their way to the open vistas, which lead to the adjacent
+meadows, where they go to feed during the night; and they return
+to their covert, through the same vistas, with the first beam<!-- Page 749 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_749" id="Page_749">[Pg 749]</a></span> of
+morning. At the end of these vistas, which they call 'cock-roads,'
+the woodcock catchers suspend nets to intercept the birds in their
+evening and morning flights, and great numbers are taken in this
+manner; the time when they suspend the nets, is called
+roading-time; and thus, by applying the term, roading, to
+disturbed and muttered sleep, they compare the dim, loose thoughts
+of the half-dreaming patient, to the flight of the woodcocks,
+wheeling their way through the gloomy and darkling woods. It has
+been asserted that we never feel <i>surprise</i> in our dreams; and
+that we do not <i>reason</i> on the subjects which they present to us.
+This, from my own experience, I know to be a mistake. I once
+dreamed, whilst residing with a friend in London, that on entering
+his breakfast-room, the morning was uncommonly dark; but not very
+much more so than sometimes occurs in a November fog, when, as
+some one has said, the thick yellow air makes you think you are
+walking through pease-soup, and the sun, when seen at all, looks
+like the yolk of a poached egg floating on it. My friend was
+seated alone by the table, resting his head thoughtfully on his
+hand, when, looking towards me, with a very serious countenance,
+he said&mdash;'Can you account for this darkness? There is no eclipse
+stated in the almanack. Some change is taking place in our system.
+Go to N&mdash;&mdash;, (a philosophical neighbour, who lived within three
+doors of our house,) and ask if he can explain it.' I certainly
+felt much surprised at my friend's observations. I went to N&mdash;&mdash;
+'s house&mdash;or, rather, I found myself in his room. He was walking
+up and down the room in evident perplexity; and, turning to me,
+said, 'This is very extraordinary! A change is taking place in our
+system!&mdash;look at the barometer.'&mdash;I looked at the barometer, which
+appeared to be hanging in its usual place in the room, and saw,
+with great surprise, that the tube was without quicksilver; it had
+fallen almost entirely down to the bulb. Certainly in this dream I
+felt great <i>surprise</i>, and that the faculty of reason was not
+suspended is apparent, nay, perhaps, it was quickened in this
+instance, for I doubt, if I had really seen the pr&aelig;ternatural
+darkness, whether I should so readily have thought of consulting
+an almanack, or referring to a barometer; I should certainly have
+gone to my friend N&mdash;&mdash;, for I was in the frequent habit of
+appealing to him on any subject of natural philosophy on which I
+might be desirous to be fully instructed. It is clear that the
+fabricator of the Ephesian Diana could not pay real adoration to
+his own work; and as we must be the artificers of our own dreams,
+and furnish all the materials, it seems difficult to discover by
+what process the mind can present subjects of surprise to itself;
+but surprise is that state of mind which occurs when an object or
+idea is presented to it, which our previous train of thought would
+not lead us to expect or account for. In dreams the catenation of
+our ideas is very imperfect and perplexed; and the mind, by
+forgetting its own faint and confused links of association, may
+generate subjects of surprise to itself. There are some dreams
+which we dream over again many times in our lives, but these
+dreams are generally mere scenes, with little or no action or
+dialogue. I formerly often dreamed that I was standing on a broad
+road by the side of a piece of water, (in which geese were
+swimming,) surrounding the base of a green hill, on the summit of
+which were the ruins of a castle: the sun shining brightly, and
+the blue sky throwing out the yellow stone-work of the ruin in
+strong relief. This dream always gave me an indefinite sense of
+pleasure. I fancied I had formed it from some picture that I might
+at some time have casually seen and forgotten; but a few years ago
+I visited the village in which I was born, and from which I had
+been removed when about three and a half years old. I found that I
+well remembered many things which might have engaged the attention
+of a child. The house in which my parents resided was little
+changed; and I remembered every room, and the pictures on the
+Dutch tiles surrounding the fireplace of that which had been<!-- Page 750 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_750" id="Page_750">[Pg 750]</a></span> our
+nursery. I pointed out the house where sugar-candy had formerly
+been sold, and went to the very spot in the churchyard where I had
+been led, when a child, to call out my name and hear the echo from
+the tower. I then went by a pathway, through some fields, which
+led to a neighbouring town. In these fields I recognised a
+remarkable stone stile, and a bank on which I had gathered
+daisies; then, extending my route, that I might return to the
+village by a different course, suddenly the prototype of my often
+dreamed dream stood before me. The day was bright. There was the
+blue sky&mdash;the green hill&mdash;the geese in the surrounding water. 'In
+every form of the thing <i>my dream</i> made true and good.' The
+distance of this spot from the house of my birth was rather a long
+walk for a child so young; and, therefore, I suppose I might only
+once or twice have seen it, and then only in the summer, or in
+bright weather. I have said that that dream, whenever it recurred,
+always impressed me with an indefinite sense of pleasure; was not
+this feeling an echo, a redolence, of the happy, lively sensations
+with which, as a child, I had first witnessed the scene? It is
+singular that, remembering so many objects much less likely to
+have fixed themselves on the memory, I should have so utterly
+forgotten, in my waking hours, the real existence of that of which
+my dream had so faithfully Daguerreotyped; and it is not less
+remarkable that I have never had the dream since I recognised its
+original. I think I can account for this, but will not now attempt
+it, as the length of my epistle may probably have put you in a
+fair way of having dreams of your own.&mdash;Ever faithfully yours.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span style="margin-left: 25em;"> "C. S." </span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+
+<p>This last dream of our friend exhibits one of the phenomena of memory,
+which may not be unconnected with another, curious, and I suppose
+common. Did you never feel a sense of a reduplication of any passing
+occurrence, act, or scene&mdash;something which you were saying or doing,
+or in which you were actor or spectator? Did you never, while the
+occurrence was taking place, suddenly feel a consciousness of its
+pre-existence and pre-acting; that the whole had passed before, just
+as it was then passing, even to the details of place, persons, words,
+and circumstances, and this not in events of importance, but mostly in
+those of no importance whatever; as if life and all its phenomena were
+a duplicate in itself, and that that which is acting here, were at the
+same time acting also elsewhere, and the fact were suddenly revealed
+to you? I call this one of the phenomena of memory, because it may
+possibly be accounted for by the repercussion of a nerve, an organ,
+which, like the string of an instrument unequally struck, will double
+the sound. Vibrations of memory&mdash;vibrations of imagination are curious
+things upon which to speculate; but not now, Eusebius&mdash;you must work
+this out yourself.</p>
+
+<p>What a curious story is that of Pan.<a name="FNanchor_38_38" id="FNanchor_38_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> "Pan is dead,"&mdash;great Pan is
+dead&mdash;as told by Plutarch. Was not one commissioned by dream or vision
+to go to a particular place to proclaim it there; and is it not added
+that the cry "great Pan is dead," was re-echoed from shore to shore,
+and that this happened at the time of the ceasing of oracles?</p>
+
+<p>It little matters whether you look to public events or private
+histories&mdash;you will see signs and omens, and wondrous visitations,
+prefiguring and accomplishing their purposes; and if occasionally,
+when too they are indisputable, they seem to accomplish no end, it may
+be only a seeming non-accomplishment&mdash;but suppose it real, it would
+then the more follow, that they arise necessarily from the nature of
+things, though a nature with which we are not acquainted. There is an
+unaccountable sympathy and<!-- Page 751 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_751" id="Page_751">[Pg 751]</a></span> connexion between all animated
+nature&mdash;perhaps the invisible, as well as the visible. Did you never
+remark, that in a crowded room, if you fix your eyes upon any one
+person, he will be sure soon to look at you? Whence is this more than
+electric power! Wonderful is that of yawning, that it is
+communicable;&mdash;it is so common, that the why escapes our observation.
+This attractive power, the fascination of the eye, is still more
+wonderful. Hence, perhaps, the superstition of the "Evil Eye," and the
+vulgarly believed mischief of "being overlooked."</p>
+
+<p>Of private histories&mdash;I should like to see the result of a commission
+to collect and enquire into the authenticity of anecdotes bearing upon
+this subject. I will tell you one, which is traditionary in our
+family&mdash;of whom one was of the <i>dramatis person&aelig;</i>. You know the old
+popular ballad of "Margaret's Ghost"&mdash;</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"In glided Margaret's grimly ghost,</span><br />
+<span class="i1">And stood at William's feet."</span><br />
+</div></div>
+
+<p>You do not know, perhaps that it is founded on truth. William was Lord
+S&mdash;&mdash;, who had jilted Margaret; she died; and after death appeared to
+him&mdash;and, it is said, gave him the choice of two things&mdash;to die within
+a week, or to vow constancy, never to marry. He gave the solemn
+promise to the ghost. We must transfer the scene to the living world
+of pleasure. Lord S&mdash;&mdash; is at Bath. He is in the rooms; suddenly he
+starts&mdash;is so overcome as to attract general attention&mdash;his eyes are
+riveted upon one person, the beautiful Mary T&mdash;&mdash;, whose father
+resided in great style and fashion at Bathford. It was her resemblance
+to Margaret, her astonishing resemblance, that overcame him. He
+thought the ghost had again appeared. He was introduced&mdash;and, our
+family tradition says, was for a length of time a daily visitor at
+Bathford, where his habit was, to say little, but to sit opposite to,
+and fix his eyes upon the lovely face of Mary T&mdash;&mdash;. The family not
+liking this, for there was no declaration on his part, removed Mary
+T&mdash;&mdash; to the house of some relative in London. There Lord S&mdash;&mdash;
+followed her, and pursued his daily habit of profound admiration. At
+length the lady spoke, and asked him his intentions with regard to her
+guest. Lord S&mdash;&mdash; was in the greatest agitation, rose, burst into
+tears, and left the house. Time passed; and here nothing more is said
+of Mary T&mdash;&mdash;; Lord S&mdash;&mdash; saw her no more. But of him, it is added,
+that, being persuaded by his family and friends, he consented to
+marry&mdash;that the bride and her relatives were at the appointed hour at
+the church&mdash;that no bridegroom was there&mdash;that messengers sent to
+enquire for him brought back the frightful intelligence, that he was
+no more. He had suddenly expired.</p>
+
+<p>My dear Eusebius, with this story I terminate my long letter. Ruminate
+upon the contents. Revolved in your mind, they will yield a rich
+harvest of thought. I hope to be at the reaping. Ever yours, &amp;c.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES.</h3>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> The story given by Eusebius is very probably of his own
+manufacture. It is this. Some years ago, when all the world were mad
+upon lotteries, the cook of a middle-aged gentleman drew from his
+hands the savings of some years. Her master, curious to know the
+cause, learned that she had repeatedly dreamed that a certain number
+was a great prize, and she had bought it. He called her a fool for her
+pains, and never omitted an occasion to tease her upon the subject.
+One day, however, the master saw in the newspaper, or at his
+bookseller's in the country town, that <i>the</i> number was actually the
+L.20,000 prize. Cook is called up, a palaver ensues&mdash;had known each
+other many years, loth to part, &amp;c.&mdash;in short, he proposes and is
+accepted, but insists on marriage being celebrated next morning.
+Married they were; and, as the carriage took them from the church they
+enjoy the following dialogue. "Well, Molly&mdash;two happy events in one
+day. You have married, I trust, a good husband. You have something
+else&mdash;but first let me ask you where you have locked up your
+lottery-ticket." Molly, who thought her master was only bantering her
+again on the old point, cried&mdash;"Don't ye say no more about it. I
+thought how it would be, and that I never should hear the end on't, so
+I sold it to the baker of our village for a guinea profit. So you need
+never be angry with me again about that."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> Supposing mesmerism true in its facts, one knows not to
+what power to ascribe it&mdash;a good or an evil. It is difficult to
+imagine it possible that a good power would allow one human being such
+immense influence over others. All are passive in the hands of the
+mesmeriser. Let us take the case related by Miss Martineau. She
+willed, and the water drunk by the young girl <i>was</i> wine, at another
+time it <i>was</i> porter. These were the effects. Now, supposing Miss M.
+had willed it to be a poison, if her statement is strictly true, the
+girl would have been poisoned. We need no hemlock, if this be so&mdash;and
+the agent must be quite beyond the reach of justice. A coroner's
+inquest here would be of little avail.
+</p><p>
+It is said that most mischievous consequences have resulted from the
+doings of some practitioners&mdash;and it must be so, if the means be
+granted; and it is admitted not to be a very rare gift. The last
+mesmeric exhibition I witnessed, was at Dr Elliotson's. It appeared to
+be of so public a nature, that I presume there is no breach of
+confidence in describing what took place. There were three persons
+mesmerised, all from the lower rank of life. The first was put into
+the sleep by, I think, but two passes of the hand, (Lord Morpeth the
+performer.) She was in an easy-chair: all her limbs were rendered
+rigid&mdash;and, as I was quite close to her, I can testify that she
+remained above two hours in one position, without moving hand or foot,
+and breathing deeply, as in a profound sleep. Her eyes were closed,
+and she was finally wakened by Dr Elliotson waving his hand at some
+distance from her. As he motioned his hand, I saw her eyelids quiver,
+and at last she awoke, but could not move until the rigidity of her
+limbs was removed by having the hand slightly passed over them. She
+then arose, and walked away, as if unconscious of the state she had
+been in. The two others were as easily transferred to a mesmeric
+state. They conversed, answered questions, showed the usual
+phrenological phenomena, singing, imitating, &amp;c.
+</p><p>
+But there was one very curious phrenological experiment which deserves
+particular notice. They sat close together. Dr W. E&mdash;&mdash; touched the
+organ of Acquisitiveness of the one, (we will call her A.) She
+immediately put out her hand, as if to grasp something, and at length
+caught hold of the finger of Dr W. E&mdash;&mdash;; she took off his ring and
+put it in her pocket. Dr W. E&mdash;&mdash; then touched the organ of Justice of
+the second girl, (B,) and told her that A had stolen his ring. B, or
+Justice, began to lecture upon the wickedness of stealing. A denied
+she had done any such thing, upon which Dr W. E&mdash;&mdash; remarked, that
+thieving and lying always went together. Then, still keeping his hand
+on Acquisitiveness, he touched also that of Pride; then, as Justice
+continued her lecture, the thief haughtily justified the act, that she
+should steal if she pleased. The mesmeriser then touched also the
+organ of Combativeness, so that three organs were in play. Justice
+still continued her lecture; upon which A, the thief, told her to hold
+her tongue, and not lecture her, and gave her several pretty hard
+slaps with her hand. Dr W. E&mdash;&mdash; then removed his hands, and
+transferred the operation, making Justice the thief, and the thief
+Justice; when a similar scene took place.
+</p><p>
+Another curious experiment was, differently affecting the opposite
+organs&mdash;so that endearment was shown on one side, and aversion on the
+other, of the same person. One scene was beautiful, for the very
+graceful motion exhibited. One of these young women was attracted to
+Dr Elliotson by his beckoning her to him, while by word he told her
+not to come. Her movements were slow, very graceful, as if moved by
+irresistible power.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a>
+You remember the melancholy music of the lines of
+Moschus:&mdash;</p>
+<div class="poem center"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"&#7946;&#953; &#7946;&#953; &#964;&#945;&#7985; &#956;&#945;&#955;&#945;&#967;&#945;&#953; &#956;&#949;&#957; &#949;&#960;&#945;&#957; &#954;&#945;&#964;&#945;  &#954;&#7939;&#960;&#959;&#957; &#8004;&#955;&#969;&#957;&#964;&#945;&#953; </span><br />
+<span class="i0">"&#7978; &#964;&#945;&#967;&#955;&#969;&#961;&#945; &#963;&#949;&#955;&#953;&#957;&#945;, &#964;&#948; &#964;&#8125; &#941;&#965;&#952;&#945;&#955;&#941;&#962; &#959;&#8022;&#955;&#959;&#957; &#8068;&#957;&#951;&#948;&#959;&#957;,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">"&#933;&#962;&#964;&#949;&#961;&#959;&#957; &#945;&#8023;&#950;&#969;&#8000;&#957;&#964;&#953;,  &#954;&#945;&#953; &#949;&#7940;&#962;  &#7956;&#964;&#959;&#962; &#7940;&#955;&#955; &#966;&#973;&#959;&#957;&#964;&#953;.</span><br />
+<span class="i0">"&#7946;&#956;&#956;&#949;&#962;&#948;&#884; &#972;&#953; &#956;&#949;&#947;&#7936;&#955;&#959;&#953;  &#954;&#945;&#953;  &#954;&#945;&#961;&#964;&#949;&#961;&#959;&#953; &#7969; &#963;&#959;&#966;&#959;&#953; &#7940;&#957;&#948;&#961;&#949;&#962;,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">"&#927;&#960;&#960;&#972;&#964;&#949;  &#960; &#961;&#8182;&#964;&#945; &#952;&#7936;&#957;&#969;&#956;&#949;&#962;, &#7936;&#957;&#7936;&#954;&#959;&#963;&#953; &#7953;&#957;  &#967;&#952;&#959;&#957;&#7985; &#954;&#959;&#7984;&#955;&#945;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">"&#917;&#8018;&#948;&#945;&#956;&#949;&#962; &#949;&#965; &#956;&#940;&#955;&#945; &#956;&#945;&#954;&#961;&#8001;&#957; &#7937;&#964;&#949;&#961;&#956;&#959;&#957;&#945;  &#957;&#951;&#947;&#961;&#949;&#964;&#959;&#957; &#973;&#960;&#957;&#959;&#957;."</span><br />
+</div></div></div>
+
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Accept of this attempt:&mdash;
+
+<div class="poem center"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Alas! alas! the mallows, though they wither where they lie,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">And all the fresh and pleasant herbs within the garden die,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Another year they shall appear, and still fresh bloom supply.</span><br /></div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But we, Great men, the strong, the wise, the noble, and the brave,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">When once we fall into the earth, our nourriture that gave,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Long silence keep of endless sleep, within the hollow grave.</span><br />
+</div></div>
+<div class="gap"/>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_37_37" id="Footnote_37_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> <i>Vide</i> an amusing little <i>jeu-d'esprit&mdash;A Descant upon
+Weather-Wisdom&mdash;both Witty and Wise.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Anon.</span> Longmans. 1845.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_38_38" id="Footnote_38_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a>
+There is an exquisite little poem, taken from this
+passage of Plutarch, at once imaginative and true, for hidden truths
+are embodied in the tangible workings of the poet's imagination, by
+Miss Barrett.</p></div>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;"/>
+<div><!-- Page 752 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_752" id="Page_752">[Pg 752]</a></span></div>
+<h2><a name="A_MOTHER_TO_HER_FORSAKEN_CHILD" id="A_MOTHER_TO_HER_FORSAKEN_CHILD"></a>A MOTHER TO HER FORSAKEN CHILD.</h2>
+
+<div class="poem center"><div class="stanza">
+
+<span class="i0">My child&mdash;my first-born! Oh, I weep</span><br />
+<span class="i2">To think of thee&mdash;thy bitter lot!</span><br />
+<span class="i0">The fair fond babe that strives to creep</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Unto the breast where <i>thou art not</i>,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Awakes a piercing pang within,</span><br />
+<span class="i2">And calls to mind thy heavy wrong.</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Alas! I weep not for my sin&mdash;</span><br />
+<span class="i2">To thy dark lot these tears belong.</span><br />
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Thy little arms stretch forth in vain</span><br />
+<span class="i2">To meet a mother's fond embrace;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Alas! in weariness or pain,</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Thou gazest on a hireling's face.</span><br />
+<span class="i0">I left thee in thy rosy sleep&mdash;</span><br />
+<span class="i2">I dared not then kneel down to bless;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Now&mdash;now, albeit thou may'st weep,</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Thou canst not to my bosom press.</span><br />
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">My child! though beauty tint thy cheek,</span><br />
+<span class="i2">A deeper dye its bloom will claim,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">When lips all pitiless shall speak</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Thy mournful legacy of shame.</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Perchance, when love shall gently steal</span><br />
+<span class="i2">To thy young breast all pure as snow,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">This cruel thought shall wreck thy weal,</span><br />
+<span class="i2"><i>The mother's guilt doth lurk below</i>.</span>
+<span style="margin-left: 10em;">J. D.</span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="SUMMER_NOONTIDE" id="SUMMER_NOONTIDE"></a>SUMMER NOONTIDE.</h2>
+
+<div class="poem center"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Unruffled the pure ether shines,</span><br />
+<span class="i2">O'er the blue flood no vapour sails,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Bloom-laden are the clinging vines,</span><br />
+<span class="i2">All odour-fraught the vales.</span><br />
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">There's not a ripple on the main,</span><br />
+<span class="i2">There's not a breath to stir the leaves,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">The sunlight falls upon the plain</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Beside the silent sheaves.</span><br />
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The drowsy herd forget to crop,</span><br />
+<span class="i2">The bee is cradled in the balm:</span><br />
+<span class="i0">If but one little leaf should drop,</span><br />
+<span class="i2">'Twould break the sacred calm.</span><br />
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">From the wide sea leaps up no voice,</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Mute is the forest, mute the rill;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Whilst the glad earth sang forth <i>Rejoice</i>,</span><br />
+<span class="i2">God's whisper said&mdash;<i>Be still</i>.</span><br />
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Her pulses in a lull of rest,</span><br />
+<span class="i2">In hush submissive Nature lies,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">With folded palms upon her breast,</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Dreaming of yon fair skies.</span><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span style="margin-left: 10em;">J. D.</span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div><!-- Page 753 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_753" id="Page_753">[Pg 753]</a></span></div>
+<h2><a name="CLARA" id="CLARA"></a>CLARA.</h2>
+
+<div class="poem center"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I would not we should meet again&mdash;</span><br />
+<span class="i2">We twain who loved so fond,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Although through years and years afar,</span><br />
+<span class="i2">I wish'd for nought beyond.</span><br />
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Yet do I love thee none the less;</span><br />
+<span class="i2">And aye to me it seems,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">There's not on earth so fair a thing</span><br />
+<span class="i2">As thou art in my dreams.</span><br />
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">All, all hath darkly changed beside,</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Grown old, or stern, or chill&mdash;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">All, save one hoarded spring-tide gleam,</span><br />
+<span class="i2"><i>Thy smile that haunts me still</i>!</span><br />
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">My brow is but the register</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Of youth's and joy's decline;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">I would not trace such record too</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Deep graven upon thine.</span><br />
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I would not <i>see</i> how rudely Time</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Hath dealt with all thy store</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Of bloom and promise&mdash;'tis enough</span><br />
+<span class="i2">To know the harvest's o'er.</span><br />
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I would not that one glance to-day,</span><br />
+<span class="i2">One glance through clouds and tears,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Should mar the image in my soul</span><br />
+<span class="i2">That love hath shrined for years.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 10em;">J. D.</span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="SECLUSION" id="SECLUSION"></a>SECLUSION.</h2>
+
+<div class="poem center"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The heart in sacred peace may dwell,</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Apart from convent gloom&mdash;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">To matins and to vespers rise,</span><br />
+<span class="i2">'Mid nature's song and bloom:</span><br />
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Or in the busy haunts of life,</span><br />
+<span class="i2">In gay or restless scene,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">In sanctuary calm abide,</span><br />
+<span class="i2">As vestal saint serene.</span><br />
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">It is the pure and holy thought,</span><br />
+<span class="i2">The spotless veil within,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">That screens pollution from the breast,</span><br />
+<span class="i2">And hides a world of sin.</span><br />
+
+<span style="margin-left: 10em;">J. D.</span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div class="biggap"><!-- Page 754 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_754" id="Page_754">[Pg 754]</a></span></div>
+<h2><a name="LAST_HOURS_OF_A_REIGN" id="LAST_HOURS_OF_A_REIGN"></a>LAST HOURS OF A REIGN.</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">A Tale in Two Parts.&mdash;Part I.</span></h3>
+<h3><a name="Chapter_I" id="Chapter_I"></a><span class="smcap">Chapter I.</span></h3>
+
+<div class="poem center"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">"Let's see the devil's writ.</span>
+<span class="i2">What have we here?"</span></div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i5"> *       *       *       *       *</span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="poem center"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">"First of the King. What shall of him become?"</span>
+<span style="margin-left: 10em;"><span class="smcap">Shakspeare.</span></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">"A pretty plot, well chosen to build upon."</span>
+<span style="margin-left: 10em;"><span class="smcap">Idem.</span></span>
+</div></div>
+<div class="gap"/>
+<p>It was in the month of May 1574, and in the city of Paris, that, at an
+hour of the night which in these days might be considered somewhat
+early, but which at that period was already late, two personages were
+seated in a gloomy room, belonging to a small and ancient hotel, at no
+great distance from the old palace of the Louvre, with which it was
+supposed to communicate by courts and passages little known and seldom
+used.</p>
+
+<p>One of these personages was a woman of middle age, whose form,
+although full, was peculiarly well made, and whose delicate but well
+fleshed hands were of striking beauty. The fair face was full and fat,
+but very pale; the eyes were fine and dark, and the whole expression
+of her physiognomy was in general calm, almost to mildness. But yet
+there lurked a haughty air on that pale brow; and at times a look of
+searching inquisitiveness, amounting almost to cunning, shot from
+those dark eyes. Her ample dress was entirely black, and unrelieved by
+any of the embroidery or ornament so much lavished upon the dress of
+the higher classes at that time; a pair of long white ruffles turned
+back upon the sleeve, and a large standing collar of spotless purity,
+alone gave light to the dark picture of her form. Upon her head she
+wore a sort of skull-cap of black velvet, descending with a sharp peak
+upon her forehead&mdash;the cowl-like air of which might almost have given
+her the appearance of the superior of some monastic community, had not
+the cold imperious physiognomy of the abbess been modified by a
+frequent bland smile, which showed her power of assuming the arts of
+seduction at will, and her practice of courts. She leaned her arms
+upon the table, whilst she studied with evident curiosity every
+movement of her companion, who was engaged in poring, by the light of
+a lamp, over a variety of strange manuscripts, all covered with the
+figures, cyphers, and hieroglyphics used in cabalistic calculations.</p>
+
+<p>This other personage was a man, whose appearance of age seemed to be
+more studied than real. His grey hair, contrary to the custom of the
+times, fell in thick locks upon his shoulders; and a white beard swept
+his dark velvet robe, which was fashioned to bestow upon him an air of
+priestly dignity; but his face was florid, and full of vigour, and the
+few wrinkles were furrowed only upon his brow.</p>
+
+<p>Around the room, the dark old panels of which, unrelieved by pictures
+and hangings, rendered it gloomy and severe, were scattered books and
+instruments, such as were used by the astronomers, or rather
+astrologers, of the day, and a variety of other objects of a bizarre
+and mysterious form, which, as the light of the lamp flickered feebly
+upon them, might have been taken, in their dark nooks, for the
+crouching forms of familiar imps, attendant upon a sorcerer. After
+some study of his manuscripts, the old man shook his head, and,
+rising, walked to the window, which stood open upon a heavy stone
+balcony. The night was bright and calm; not a cloud, not a vapour
+dimmed the glitter of the countless myriads of stars in the firmament;
+and the moon poured down a flood of light upon the roofs of the
+surrounding houses, and on the dark towers of the not far distant
+Louvre, which seemed quietly sleeping in the mild night-air, whilst
+within were fermenting passions,<!-- Page 755 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_755" id="Page_755">[Pg 755]</a></span> many and dark, like the troubled
+dreams of the apparently tranquil sleeper. As the old man stepped upon
+the balcony, he turned up his head with an assumed air of inspiration
+to the sky, and considered the stars long and in silence. The female
+had also risen and followed him to the window; but she remained
+cautiously in the shadow of the interior of the room, whence she
+watched with increasing interest the face of the astrologer. Again,
+after this study of the stars, the old man returned to his table, and
+began to trace new figures in various corners of the patterned
+horoscopes, and make new calculations. The female stood before him,
+resting her hands upon the table, awaiting with patience the result of
+these mysteries of the cabala.</p>
+
+<p>"Each new experience verifies the former," said the astrologer,
+raising up his head at last. "The truth cannot be concealed from your
+majesty. His hours are numbered&mdash;he cannot live long."</p>
+
+<p>"And it is of a surety <i>he</i>, of whom the stars thus speak?" enquired
+the female thus addressed, without emotion.</p>
+
+<p>"The horoscopes all clash and cross each other in many lines,"
+answered the astrologer: "but they are not confounded with his. The
+horoscope of near and inevitable death is that of your son Charles,
+the King."</p>
+
+<p>"I know that he must die," said the Queen-mother coldly, sitting down.</p>
+
+<p>The astrologer raised for an instant his deep-set, but piercing grey
+eyes, to the pale, passionless face of the Queen, as if he could have
+read the thoughts passing within. There was almost a sneer upon his
+lip, as though he would have said, that perhaps none knew it better;
+but that expression flickered only, like a passing flash of faint
+summer lightning, and he quickly resumed&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"But about this point of death are centred many confused and jarring
+lines in an inextricable web; and bright as they look to vulgar eyes,
+yon stars in the heavens shine with a lurid light to those who know to
+look upon them with the eyes of science; and upon their path is a dim
+trail of blood&mdash;troubled and harassed shall be <i>the last hours of this
+reign</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"But what shall be the issue, Ruggieri?" said the Queen eagerly.
+"Since Charles must die, I must resign myself to the will of destiny,"
+she added, with an air of pious humility; and then, as if throwing
+aside a mask which she thought needless before the astrologer, she
+continued with a bitterness which amounted almost to passion in one
+externally so cold&mdash;"Since Charles must die, he can be spared. He has
+thrown off my maternal authority; and with the obstinacy of suspicion,
+he has thwarted all my efforts to resume that power which he has
+wrested from me, and which his weak hands wield so ill. He has been
+taught to look upon me with mistrust; in vain I have combated this
+influence, and if it grow upon him, mistrust will ripen into hate. He
+regrets that great master-stroke of policy, which, by destroying all
+those cursed Huguenots, delivered us at one blow from our most deadly
+enemies. He has spoken of it with horror. He has dared to blame me. He
+has taken Henry of Navarre, the recusant Huguenot, the false wavering
+Catholic, to his counsels lately. He is my son no longer, since he no
+longer acknowledges his mother's will: and he can be spared! But when
+he is gone, what shall be the issue, Ruggieri? how stand the other
+horoscopes?"</p>
+
+<p>"The stars of the two Henrys rise together in the heavens" replied the
+Queen's astrologer and confidant. "Before them stands a house of
+double glory, which promises a double crown; but the order of the
+heavens is not such that I can read as yet, which of the two shall
+first enter it, or enter it alone."</p>
+
+<p>"A double crown!" said the Queen musingly. "Henry of Anjou, my son, is
+king of Poland, and on his brother's death is rightful king of France.
+Yes, and he <i>shall</i> be king of France, and wear its crown. Henry never
+thwarted his mother's will, he was ever pliant as a reed to do her
+bidding; and when he is king, Catherine of Medicis may again resume
+the reins of power. You had predicted that he would soon return to
+France; and I promised him he should return, when unwillingly he
+accepted that barbarian crown, which Charles' selfish<!-- Page 756 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_756" id="Page_756">[Pg 756]</a></span> policy forced
+upon him, in order to rid himself of a brother whom he hated as a
+rival&mdash;hated because I loved him. Yes, he shall return to resume his
+rightful crown&mdash;a double crown! But Henry of Navarre also wears a
+crown, although it be a barren one&mdash;although the kingdom of Navarre
+bestow upon him a mere empty title. Shall it be his&mdash;the double crown?
+Oh! no! no! The stars cannot surely say it. Should all my sons die
+childless, it is his by right. But they shall not die to leave <i>him</i>
+their heir. No! sooner shall the last means be applied, and the
+detested son perish, as did his hated mother, by one of those
+incomprehensible diseases for which medicine has no cure. A double
+crown! Shall his be the crown of France also? Never! Ah! little did I
+think, Ruggieri, when I bestowed upon him my daughter Margaret's hand,
+and thus lured him and his abhorred party to the court to finish them
+with one blow, that Margaret of Valois would become a traitress to her
+own mother, and protect a husband whom she accepted so unwillingly!
+But Margaret is ambitious for her husband, although she loves him not,
+although she loves another: the two would wish to thwart her brothers
+of their birthright, that she might wear their crown on her own brow.
+Through her intervention, Henry of Navarre has escaped me. He has
+outlived the massacre of that night of triumph, when all his party
+perished; and now Charles loves him, and calls him 'upright, honest
+Henry,' and if I contend not with all the last remnants of my broken
+power, my foolish son, upon his death-bed, may place the regency in
+his hands, and deprive his scorned and ill-used mother of her rights.
+The regency! Ah! lies there the double crown? Ah! Ruggieri, Ruggieri,
+why can you only tell me thus far and no further?"</p>
+
+<p>"Madam," replied the wary astrologer, "the stars run in their slow
+unerring course. We cannot compel their path; we can only read their
+dictates."</p>
+
+<p>Catherine de Medicis rose and approached the window, through which she
+contemplated the face of the bright heavens.</p>
+
+<p>"Mysterious orbs of light," she said, stretching forth her arms&mdash;"ye
+who rule our destinies, roll on, roll on, and tarry not. Accomplish
+your great task of fate; but be it quickly, that I may know what
+awaits me in that secret scroll spread out above on which ye write the
+future. Let me learn the good, that I may be prepared to greet it&mdash;the
+ill, that I may know how to parry it."</p>
+
+<p>Strange was the compound of that credulous mind, which, whilst it
+sought in the stars the announcement of an inevitable fate, hoped to
+find in its own resources the means of avoiding it&mdash;which, whilst it
+listened to their supposed dictates as a slave, strove to command them
+as a mistress.</p>
+
+<p>"And the fourth horoscope that I have bid you draw?" said the Queen,
+returning to the astrologer. "How stands it?"</p>
+
+<p>"The star of your youngest son, the Duke of Alen&ccedil;on, is towering also
+to its culminating point," replied the old man, looking over the
+papers before him. "But it is nebulous and dim, and shines only by a
+borrowed light&mdash;that of another star which rises with it to the
+zenith. They both pursue the same path; and if the star of Alen&ccedil;on
+reach that house of glory to which it tends, that other star will
+shine with such a lustre as shall dim all other lights, however bright
+and glorious they now may be."</p>
+
+<p>"Ha! is it so?" said Catherine thoughtfully. "Alen&ccedil;on conspires also
+to catch the tottering crown which falls from the dying head of
+Charles. But he is too weak and wavering to pursue a steady purpose.
+He is led, Ruggieri&mdash;he is led. He is taught to believe that since his
+elder brother has chosen the crown of Poland, it is his to claim the
+throne which death will soon leave vacant. But he wants firmness of
+will&mdash;it is another that guides his feeble hand. That star which
+aspires to follow in the track of Alen&ccedil;on&mdash;I know it well, Ruggieri.
+It is that of the ambitious favourite of my youngest son, of Philip de
+la Mole. It is he who pushes him on. It is he who would see his master
+on the throne, in order to throne it in his place. He has that
+influence over Alen&ccedil;on which the mother possesses no longer; and were<!-- Page 757 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_757" id="Page_757">[Pg 757]</a></span>
+Alen&ccedil;on king, it would be Philip de la Mole who would rule the
+destinies of France, not Catherine de Medicis. Beneath that exterior
+of thoughtless levity, lie a bold spirit and an ardent ambition. He is
+an enemy not to be despised; and he shall be provided for. Alen&ccedil;on
+protects him&mdash;my foolish Margaret loves him&mdash;but there are still means
+to be employed which may curdle love to hate, and poison the secret
+cup of sympathy. They shall be employed. Ha! Alen&ccedil;on would be king,
+and Philip de la Mole would lord it over the spirits of the house of
+Medicis. But they must be bold indeed who would contend with
+Catherine. Pursue, Ruggieri, pursue. This star, which way does it
+tend?"</p>
+
+<p>"It aspires to the zenith, madam," replied the astrologer. "But, as I
+have said, upon the track there is a trail of blood."</p>
+
+<p>Catherine smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"My youngest son has already been here to consult you; I think you
+told me?" she said, with an enquiring look to the astrologer.</p>
+
+<p>"Among others, who have come disguised and masked, to seek to read
+their destinies in the skies, I have thought to recognise Monseigneur
+the Duke of Alen&ccedil;on," replied Ruggieri. "He was accompanied by a tall
+young man, of gay exterior and proud bearing."</p>
+
+<p>"It is the very man!" exclaimed the Queen. "And do they come again?"</p>
+
+<p>"I left their horoscope undetermined," replied the astrologer, "and
+they must come to seek an answer to my researches in the stars."</p>
+
+<p>"Let the stars lie, Ruggieri&mdash;do you hear?" pursued Catherine.
+"Whatever the stars may say, you must promise them every success in
+whatever enterprise they may undertake. You must excite their highest
+hopes. Push them on in their mad career, that their plans may be
+developed. Catherine will know how to crush them."</p>
+
+<p>"It shall be as your majesty desires," said the astrologer.</p>
+
+<p>As the Queen and the astrologer still conferred, a loud knocking at
+the outer gate caused them to pause. Steps were heard ascending the
+hollow-sounding staircase.</p>
+
+<p>"I will dismiss these importunate visitors," said Ruggieri.</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Catherine, "admit them; and if it be really they you
+expect, leave them alone after a time, and come, by the outer passage,
+to the secret cabinet: there will I be. I may have directions to give;
+and, at all events, the cabinet may prove useful, as it has already
+done."</p>
+
+<p>Impatient knockings now resounded upon the panels of the door, and the
+Queen-mother, hastily snatching up a black velvet mask and a thick
+black veil, which hung upon the back of her high carved chair, flung
+the latter over her head, so as to conceal her features almost as
+entirely as if she had worn the mask. Ruggieri, in the meantime, had
+pushed back a part of the panel of the oak walls, and when Catherine
+had passed through it into a little room beyond, again closed this
+species of secret door, so effectually that it would have been
+impossible to discover any trace of the aperture. The astrologer then
+went to open the outer door. The persons who entered, were two men
+whose faces were concealed with black velvet masks, commonly worn at
+the period both by men and women, as well for the purpose of disguise,
+as for that of preserving the complexion; their bearing, as well as
+their style of dress, proclaimed them to be young and of courtly
+habits.</p>
+
+<p>The first who entered was of small stature, and utterly wanting in
+dignity of movement; and, although precedence into the room seemed to
+have been given him by a sort of deference, he turned back again to
+look at his companion, with an evident hesitation of purpose, before
+he advanced fully into the apartment. The young man who followed him
+was of tall stature, and of manly but graceful bearing. His step was
+firm, and his head was carried high; whilst the small velvet cap
+placed jauntily on one side upon his head, the light brown curling
+hair of which was boldly pushed back from the broad forehead and
+temples, according to the fashion of the times, seemed disposed as if
+purposely to give evidence of a certain gaiety, almost recklessness,
+of character. The astrologer, after giving them admittance, returned
+to his table, and<!-- Page 758 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_758" id="Page_758">[Pg 758]</a></span> sitting down, demanded what might be their bidding
+at that hour of the night! At his words the smaller, but apparently
+the more important of the two personages, made a sign to his companion
+to speak; and the latter, advancing boldly to the table, demanded of
+the old man whether he did not know him.</p>
+
+<p>"Whether I know you or know you not, matters but little," replied the
+astrologer; "although few things can be concealed before the eye of
+science."</p>
+
+<p>At these words the smaller young man shuffled uneasily with his feet,
+and plucked at the cloak of his companion. Ruggieri continued&mdash;"But I
+will not seek to pierce the mystery of a disguise which can have no
+control over the ways of destiny. Whether I know you or not, I
+recognise you well. Already have you been here to enquire into the
+dark secrets of the future. I told you then, that we must wait to
+judge the movements of the stars. Would you know further now?"</p>
+
+<p>"That is the purpose of our coming," said the latter of the two young
+men, to whom the office of spokesman had been given. "We have come,
+although at this late hour of the night, because the matter presses on
+which we would know our fate."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, the matter presses," replied the astrologer; "for I have read
+the stars, and I have calculated the chances of your destinies."</p>
+
+<p>The smaller personage pressed forward at these words, as if full of
+eager curiosity. The other maintained the same easy bearing that
+seemed his usual habit.</p>
+
+<p>The astrologer turned over a variety of mysterious papers, as if
+searching among them for the ciphers that he needed; then, consulting
+the pages of a book, he again traced several figures upon a parchment;
+and at length, after the seeming calculation of some minutes, he
+raised his head, and addressing himself to the smaller man, said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"You have an enterprise in hand, young man, upon which not only your
+own destinies and those of your companion, but of many thousands of
+your fellow creatures depend! Your enterprise is grand, your destiny
+is noble."</p>
+
+<p>The young men turned to look at each other; and he, who had as yet not
+broken silence, said, with an eager palpitating curiosity, although
+the tones of his voice were ill assured&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"And what say the stars? Will it succeed?"</p>
+
+<p>"Go on, and prosper!" replied the astrologer. "A noble course lies
+before you. Go on, and success the most brilliant and the most prompt
+attends you."</p>
+
+<p>"Ha! there is, after all, some truth in your astrology, I am inclined
+to think!" said the first speaker gaily.</p>
+
+<p>"Why have you doubted, young man?" pursued the astrologer severely.
+"The stars err not&mdash;cannot err."</p>
+
+<p>"Pardon me, father," said the young man with his usual careless air.
+"I will doubt no further. And we shall succeed?"</p>
+
+<p>"Beyond your utmost hopes. Upon your brow, young man," continued the
+astrologer, addressing again the smaller person, "descends a circlet
+of glory, the brilliancy of which shall dazzle every eye. But stay,
+all is not yet done. The stars thus declare the will of destiny; but
+yet, in these inscrutable mysteries of fate, it is man's own will that
+must direct the course of events&mdash;it is his own hand must strike the
+blow. Fatality and human will are bound together as incomprehensibly
+as soul and body. You must still lend your hand to secure the
+accomplishment of your own destiny. But our mighty science shall
+procure for you so powerful a charm, that no earthly power can resist
+its influence. Stay, I will return shortly." So saying, Ruggieri rose
+and left the room by the door through which the young men had entered.</p>
+
+<p>"What does he mean?" said the shorter of the young men.</p>
+
+<p>"What matter, Monseigneur!" replied the other. "Does he not promise us
+unbounded success? I little thought myself, when I accompanied you
+hither, that my belief in this astrology would grow up so rapidly.
+Long live the dark science, and the black old gentleman who professes<!-- Page 759 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_759" id="Page_759">[Pg 759]</a></span>
+it, when they lighten our path so brilliantly!"</p>
+
+<p>"Let us breathe a little at our ease, until he returns," said he who
+appeared the more important personage of the two; and throwing himself
+into a chair, and removing his mask, he discovered the pale face of a
+young man, who might have been said to possess some beauty, in spite
+of the irregularity of his features, had not the expression of that
+face been marred by a pinched and peevish look of weakness and
+indecision.</p>
+
+<p>His companion followed his example in removing his mask, and the face
+thus revealed formed a striking contrast to that of the other young
+man. His complexion was of a clear pale brown, relieved by a flush of
+animated colour; his brow was fair and noble; his features were finely
+but not too strongly chiselled. A small dark mustache curled boldly
+upwards above a beautifully traced and smiling mouth, the character of
+which was at once resolute and gay, and strangely at variance with the
+expression of the dark grey eyes, which was more that of tenderness
+and melancholy. He remained standing before the other personage, with
+one hand on his hip, in an attitude at once full of ease and
+deference.</p>
+
+<p>"Did I not right, then, to counsel you as I have done in this matter,
+my lord duke," he said to the other young man, "since the astrologer,
+in whom you have all confidence, promises us so unbounded a success:
+and you give full credence to the announcement of the stars?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;yes, Philip," answered the Duke, reclining back in his chair,
+and rubbing his hands with a sort of internal satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>"Then let us act at once," continued the young man called Philip. "The
+King cannot live many days&mdash;perhaps not many hours. There is no time
+to be lost. Henry of Anjou, your elder brother, is far away; the crown
+of Poland weighs upon his brow. You are present. The troops have been
+taught to love you. The Huguenot party have confidence in you. The
+pretensions of Henry of Navarre to the regency must give way before
+yours. All parties will combine to look upon you as the heir of
+Charles; and now the very heavens, the very stars above, seem to
+conspire to make you that which I would you should be. Your fortune,
+then, is in your own hands."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. So it is!" replied the Duke.</p>
+
+<p>"Assemble, then, all those attached to your service or your person!"</p>
+
+<p>"I will."</p>
+
+<p>"Let your intention be known among the guards."</p>
+
+<p>"It shall."</p>
+
+<p>"As soon as the King shall have ceased to breathe, seize upon all the
+gates of the Louvre."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," continued the Duke, although his voice, so eager the moment
+before, seemed to tremble at the thought of so much decision of
+action.</p>
+
+<p>"Declare yourself the Master of the kingdom in full parliament."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," again replied the young Duke, more weakly. "But"&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"But what&mdash;Monseigneur!" exclaimed his companion.</p>
+
+<p>"But," continued the Duke again, with hesitation, "if Henry, my
+brother, should return&mdash;if he should come to claim his crown. You may
+be sure that our mother, who cares for him alone, will have already
+sent off messengers to advertise him of Charles's danger, and bid him
+come!"</p>
+
+<p>"I know she has," replied Philip coolly. "But I have already taken
+upon myself, without Monseigneur's instructions, for which I could not
+wait, to send off a sure agent to intercept her courier, to detain him
+at any price, to destroy his despatches."</p>
+
+<p>"Philip! what have you done?" exclaimed the young Duke, in evident
+alarm. "Intercept my mother's courier! Dare to disobey my mother! My
+Mother! You do not know her then."</p>
+
+<p>"Not know her?" answered his companion. "Who in this troubled land of
+France does not know Catherine of Medicis, her artful wiles, her
+deadly traits of vengeance? Shake not your head, Monseigneur! You know
+her too. But, Charles no more, you will have the crown upon your
+brow&mdash;it will be yours to give orders: those who will dare to disobey
+you will be your rebel subjects. Act, then, as king. If she resist,
+give orders for her arrest!"<!-- Page 760 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_760" id="Page_760">[Pg 760]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Arrest my Mother! Who would dare to do it?" said the Duke with agitation.</p>
+
+<p>"I."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no&mdash;no&mdash;La Mole! Never would I take upon myself"&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Take upon yourself to be a King, if you would be one," said the
+Duke's confidant, with energy.</p>
+
+<p>"We will speak more of this," hastily interposed the wavering Duke.
+"Hush! some one comes. It is this Ruggieri!"</p>
+
+<p>In truth the astrologer re-entered the room. In his hand he bore a
+small object wrapped in a white cloth, which he laid down upon the
+table; and then, turning to the young men, who had hastily reassumed
+their masks before he appeared, and who now stood before him, he
+said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"The sole great charm that can complete the will of destiny, and
+assure the success of your great enterprise, lies there before you.
+Have you no enemy whose death you most earnestly desire, to forward
+that intent?"</p>
+
+<p>The young men looked at each other; but they both answered, after the
+hesitation of a moment&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"None!"</p>
+
+<p>"None, upon whose death depends that turn in the wheel of fate that
+should place you on its summit?"</p>
+
+<p>Both the young men were silent.</p>
+
+<p>"At all events," continued the cunning astrologer, "your destiny
+depends upon the action of your own hands. This action we must symbol
+forth in mystery, in order that your destiny be accomplished.
+Here&mdash;take this instrument," he pursued, producing a long gold pin of
+curious workmanship, which at need might have done the task of a
+dagger, "and pierce the white cloth that lies before you on the
+table."</p>
+
+<p>The Duke drew back, and refused the instrument thus offered to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Do I not tell you that the accomplishment of your brilliant destiny
+depends upon this act?" resumed Ruggieri.</p>
+
+<p>"I know not what this incantation may be," said the timid Duke. "Take
+it, Philip."</p>
+
+<p>But La Mole, little as he was inclined to the superstitious credulity
+of the times, seemed not more disposed than his master to lend his
+hand to an act which had the appearance of being connected with the
+rites of sorcery, and he also refused. On the reiterated assurances of
+the astrologer, however, that upon that harmless blow hung the
+accomplishment of their enterprise, and at the command of the Duke, he
+took the instrument into his hand, and approached it over the cloth.
+Again, however, he would have hesitated, and would have withdrawn; but
+the astrologer seized his hand before he was aware, and, giving it a
+sharp direction downwards, caused him to plunge the instrument into
+the object beneath the cloth. La Mole shuddered as he felt it
+penetrate into a soft substance, that, small as it was, gave him the
+idea of a human body; and that shudder ran through his whole frame as
+a presentiment of evil.</p>
+
+<p>"It is done," said the astrologer. "Go! and let the work of fate be
+accomplished."</p>
+
+<p>The pale foreheads of both the young men, visible above their masks,
+showed that they felt they had been led further in the work of
+witchcraft than was their intention; but they did not expostulate. It
+was the Duke who now first rallied, and throwing down a heavy purse of
+coin on the table before the astrologer, he called to his companion to
+follow him.</p>
+
+<p>Scarcely had the young men left the apartment, when the pannel by
+which Catherine of Medicis had disappeared, again opened, and she
+entered the room. Her face was pale, cold, and calm as usual.</p>
+
+<p>"You heard them, Ruggieri!" she said, with her customary bland smile.
+"Alen&ccedil;on would be king, and that ambitious fool drives him to snatch
+his brother's crown. The Queen-mother is to be arrested, and
+imprisoned as a rebel to her usurping son. A notable scheme, forsooth!
+Her courier to recall Henry of Anjou from Poland has been intercepted
+also! But that mischance must be remedied immediately. Ay! and
+avenged. Biragne shall have instant orders. With this proof in my
+possession, the life of that La Mole is mine," continued she, tearing
+in twain the white linen cloth, and displaying beneath it a small wax
+figure, bearing the semblance of a king, with a crown upon<!-- Page 761 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_761" id="Page_761">[Pg 761]</a></span> its head,
+in which the gold pin was still left sticking, by the manner in which
+this operation was performed. "Little treasure of vengeance, thou art
+mine! Ruggieri, man, that plot was acted to the life. Verily, verily,
+you were right. Charles dies; and troubled and harassed will be the
+<i>last hours of his reign</i>."</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.</h3>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"There is so hot a summer in my bosom,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">That all my bowels crumble up to dust;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">I am a scribbled form, drawn with a pen</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Upon a parchment; and against this fire</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Do I shrink up."</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 50em;"><span class="smcap">Shakspeare.</span></span><br />
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Ambition is a great man's madness,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">That is not kept in chains and close-pent rooms</span><br />
+<span class="i0">But in fair lightsome lodgings, and is girt</span><br />
+<span class="i0">With the wild noise of prattling visitants,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Which makes it lunatic beyond all cure."</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 50em;"><span class="smcap">Webster.</span></span><br />
+</div></div>
+
+
+<p>In a room belonging to the lower apartments of the old palace of the
+Louvre, reclined, in one of the large but incommodious chairs of the
+time, a young man, whose pale, haggard face, and prematurely furrowed
+brow, betrayed deep suffering both from moral and physical causes. The
+thick lids of his heavy dark eyes closed over them with languor, as if
+he no longer possessed the force to open them; whilst his pale thin
+lips were distorted as if with pain. His whole air bore the stamp of
+exhaustion of mind and body.</p>
+
+<p>The dress of this personage was dark and of an extreme plainness and
+simplicity, in times when the fashion of attire demanded so much
+display&mdash;it bore somewhat the appearance of a hunting costume. The
+room, on the contrary, betrayed a strange mixture of great richness
+and luxury with much confusion and disorder. The hangings of the doors
+were of the finest stuffs, and embroidered with gold and jewellery;
+tapestry of price covered the walls. A raised curtain of heavy and
+costly tissue discovered a small oratory, in which were visible a
+crucifix and other religious ornaments of great value. But in the
+midst of this display of wealth and greatness, were to be seen the
+most incongruous objects. Beneath a bench in a corner of the room was
+littered straw, on which lay several young puppies; in other choice
+nooks slept two or three great hounds. Hunting horns were hung against
+the tapestry, or lay scattered on the floor; an arquebuss rested
+against the oratory door-stall&mdash;the instrument of death beside the
+retreat of religious aspiration. Upon a standing desk, in the middle
+of the room, lay a book, the coloured designs of which showed that it
+treated of the "noble science of venerye," whilst around its pages
+hung the beads of a chaplet. Against the wall of the room opposite the
+reclining young man, stood one of the heavy chests used at that period
+for seats, as much as depositories of clothes and other objects; but
+the occupant of this seat was a strange one. It was a large ape, the
+light brown colour of whose hair bordered so much upon the green as to
+give the animal, in certain lights, a perfectly verdant aspect. It sat
+"moping and mowing" in sulky loneliness, as if its grimaces were
+intended to caricature the expression of pain which crossed the young
+man's face&mdash;a strange distorted mirror of that suffering form.</p>
+
+<p>After a time the young man moved uneasily, as if he had in vain sought
+in sleep some repose from the torment of mind and body, and snapped
+his fingers. His hounds came obedient to his call; but, after patting
+them for a moment on the head, he again drove them from him with all
+the pettish ill-temper of ennui, and rose, feebly and with difficulty,
+from his chair. He moved languidly to the open book, looked at it for
+a moment, then shook his head and turned away. Again he took up one of
+the hunting horns and applied it to his lips; but the breath which he
+could fetch from his chest produced no sound but a<!-- Page 762 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_762" id="Page_762">[Pg 762]</a></span> sort of low
+melancholy whine from the instrument; and he flung it down. Then
+dealing a blow at the head of the grinning ape, who first dived to
+avoid it, and then snapped at its master's fingers, he returned
+wearily to his chair, and sunk into it with a deep groan, which told
+of many things&mdash;regret&mdash;bitter ennui&mdash;physical pain and mental
+anguish. The tears rose for a moment to his heavy languid eyes, but he
+checked their influence with a sneer of his thin upper-lip; then
+calling "Congo," to his ape, he made the animal approach and took it
+on his knees; and the two&mdash;the man and the beast&mdash;grinned at each
+other in bitter mockery.</p>
+
+<p>In this occupation of the most grotesque despair, the young man was
+disturbed by another personage, who, raising the tapestry over a
+concealed door, entered silently and unannounced.</p>
+
+<p>"My Mother!" murmured the sufferer, in a tone of impatience, as he
+became aware of the presence of this person; and turning away his
+head, he began to occupy himself in caressing his ape.</p>
+
+<p>"How goes it with you, Charles? Do you feel stronger now?" said the
+mother, in a soft voice of the fondest cajolery, as she advanced with
+noiseless, gliding steps.</p>
+
+<p>The son gave no reply, and continued to play with the animal upon his
+knee, whilst a dark frown knitted his brow.</p>
+
+<p>"What say the doctors to your state to-day, my son?" resumed the
+female soothingly. As she approached still nearer, the ape, with a
+movement of that instinctive hate often observable in animals towards
+persons who do not like them, sprang at her with a savage grin, that
+displayed its sharp teeth, and would have bitten her hand had she not
+started back in haste. Her cold physiognomy expressed, however,
+neither anger nor alarm, as she quietly remarked to her son&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Remove that horrid animal, Charles: see how savage he is?"</p>
+
+<p>"And why should I remove Congo, mother?" rejoined Charles, with a
+sneer upon his lip; "he is the only friend you have left me."</p>
+
+<p>"Sickness makes you forgetful and unjust, my son," replied the Mother.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, the only friend you have left me," pursued the son bitterly,
+"except my poor dogs. Have you not so acted in my name, that you have
+left me not one kindred soul to love me; that in the whole wide
+kingdom of France, there remains not a voice, much less a heart, to
+bless its miserable king?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you say that you have no friends," responded the Queen-mother,
+"you may speak more truly than you would. For they are but false
+friends; and real enemies, who have instilled into your mind the evil
+thoughts of a mother, who has worked only for your glory and your
+good."</p>
+
+<p>"No, not one," continued the young King, unheeding her, but dismissing
+at the same time the ape from his knee with a blow that sent him
+screaming and mouthing to his accustomed seat upon the chest. "Not
+one! Where is Perotte, my poor old nurse? She loved me&mdash;she was a real
+mother to me. She! And where is she now? Did not that deed of horror,
+to which you counselled me, to which you urged me almost by
+force&mdash;that order, which, on the fatal night of St Bartholomew, gave
+signal for the massacre of all her co-religionists, drive her from my
+side? Did she not curse me&mdash;me, who at your instigation caused the
+blood of her friends and kindred to be shed&mdash;and leave me, her
+nursling, her boy, her Charlot, whom she loved till then, with that
+curse upon her lips? And do they not say that her horror of him who
+has sucked her milk, and lain upon her bosom, and of his damning deed,
+has frenzied her brain, and rendered her witless? Poor woman!" And the
+miserable King buried his haggard face between his hands.</p>
+
+<p>"She was a wretched Huguenot, and no fitting companion and confidant
+for a Catholic and a king," said the Queen, in a tone of mildness,
+which contrasted strangely with the harshness of her words. "You
+should return thanks to all the blessed Saints, that she has willingly
+renounced that influence about your person, which could tend only to
+endanger the salvation of your soul."</p>
+
+<p>"My soul! Ay! who has destroyed<!-- Page 763 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_763" id="Page_763">[Pg 763]</a></span> it?" muttered Charles in a hollow
+tone.</p>
+
+<p>The Queen-mother remained silent, but an unusual fire, in which
+trouble was mixed with scorn and anger, shot from her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"And have you not contrived to keep Henry of Navarre, my honest Henry,
+from my presence?" pursued the young King, after a pause, lifting up
+his heavy head from between his hands. "He was the only being you had
+left me still to love me; for my brothers hate me, both Anjou and
+Alen&ccedil;on&mdash;both wish me dead, and would wear my crown. And who was it,
+and for her own purposes, curdled the blood of the Valois in their
+veins until it rankled into a poison that might have befitted the
+Atrides of the tragedies of old? Henry of Navarre was the only
+creature that loved me still, and your policy and intrigues, madam,
+keep him from me, and so watch and harass his very steps in my own
+palace of the Louvre, where he is my guest, that never can I see him
+alone, or speak to him in confidence. He, too, deserts and neglects me
+now; and I am alone&mdash;alone, madam, with courtiers and creatures, who
+hate me too, it may be&mdash;alone, as a wretched orphan beggar by the
+way-side."</p>
+
+<p>"My policy, as well as what you choose to call my intrigues, my son,"
+rejoined the Queen, "have ever been directed to your interests and
+welfare. You are aware that Henry of Navarre has conspired against the
+peace of our realm, against your crown, may-be against your life.
+Would you condemn that care which would prevent the renewal of such
+misdeeds, when your own sister&mdash;when his wife&mdash;leagues herself in
+secret with your enemies!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay! Margaret too!" muttered Charles with bitterness. "Was the list of
+the Atrides not yet complete?"</p>
+
+<p>"The dictates of my love and affection, of my solicitude for my son,
+and for his weal&mdash;such have been the main-springs of my intrigues,"
+pursued the mother in a cajoling tone.</p>
+
+<p>"The intrigues of the house of Medicis!" murmured the King, with a
+mocking laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"What would you have me to do more, my son?" continued the
+Queen-mother.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing," replied Charles, "nothing but leave me&mdash;leave me, as others
+have done, to die alone!"</p>
+
+<p>"My son, I will leave you shortly, and if it so please our Blessed
+Virgin, to a little repose, and a better frame of mind," said
+Catherine of Medicis. "But I came to speak to you of matters of
+weight, and of such deep importance that they brook no delay."</p>
+
+<p>"I am unfitted for all matters of state&mdash;my head is weary, my limbs
+ache, my heart burns with a torturing fire&mdash;I cannot listen to you
+now, madam," pursued the King languidly; and then, seeing that his
+mother still stood motionless by his side, he added with more
+energy&mdash;"Am I then no more a king, madam, that, at my own command, I
+cannot even be left to <i>die</i> in peace?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is of your health, your safety, your life, that I would speak,"
+continued Catherine of Medicis, unmoved. "The physicians have sought
+in vain to discover the real sources of the cruel malady that devours
+you; but there is no reason to doubt of your recovery, when the cause
+shall be known and removed."</p>
+
+<p>"And you, madam, should know, it would appear, better than my
+physicians the hidden origin of my sufferings!" said Charles, in a
+tone in which might be remarked traces of the bitterest irony. "Is it
+not so?" and he looked upon his mother with a deadly look of suspicion
+and mistrust.</p>
+
+<p>The Queen-mother started slightly at these words; but, after a moment,
+she answered in her usual bland tone of voice&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"It is my solicitude upon this subject that now brings me hither."</p>
+
+<p>"I thank you for your solicitude," replied the King, with the same
+marked manner; "and so, doubtless, does my brother Anjou: you love him
+well, madam, and he is the successor of his childish brother."</p>
+
+<p>In spite of the command over herself habitually exercised by Catherine
+of Medicis, her pale brow grew paler still, and she slightly
+compressed her lips, to prevent their quivering, upon hearing the
+horrible insinuation conveyed<!-- Page 764 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_764" id="Page_764">[Pg 764]</a></span> in these words. The suspicions
+prevalent at the time, that the Queen-mother had employed the aid of a
+slow poison to rid herself of a son who resisted her authority, in
+order to make room upon the throne for another whom she loved, had
+reached her ears, and, guilty or guiltless, she could not but perceive
+that her own son himself was not devoid of these suspicions. After the
+struggle of a moment with herself, however, during which the drops of
+perspiration stood upon her pale temples, she resumed&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I love my children all; and I would save your life, Charles. My
+ever-watchful affection for you, my son, has discovered the existence
+of a hellish plot against your life."</p>
+
+<p>"More plots, more blood!&mdash;what next, madam?" interrupted, with a
+groan, the unhappy King.</p>
+
+<p>"What the art of the physician could not discover," pursued his
+mother, "I have discovered. The strange nature of this unknown
+malady&mdash;these pains, this sleeplessness, this agony of mind and body,
+without a cause, excited my suspicions; and now I have the proofs in
+my own hands. My son, my poor son! you have been the victim of the
+foulest witchcraft and sorcery of your enemies."</p>
+
+<p>"Enemies abroad! enemies at home!" cried Charles, turning himself
+uneasily in his chair. "Did I not say so, madam?"</p>
+
+<p>"But the vile sorcerer has been discovered by the blessed intervention
+of the saints," continued Catherine; "and let him be once seized,
+tried, and executed for his abominable crime, your torments, my son,
+will cease for ever. You will live to be well, strong, happy."</p>
+
+<p>"Happy!" echoed the young King with bitterness; "happy! no, there the
+sorcery has gone too far for remedy." He then added after a pause,
+"And what is this plot? who is this sorcerer of whom you speak?"</p>
+
+<p>"Trouble not yourself with these details, my son; they are but of
+minor import," replied Catherine. "You are weak and exhausted. The
+horrid tale would too much move your mind. Leave every thing in my
+hands, and I will rid you of your enemies."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no. There has been enough of ill," resumed her son. "That he
+should be left in peace is all the miserable King now needs."</p>
+
+<p>"But your life, my son. The safety of the realm depends upon the
+extermination of the works of the powers of darkness. Would you, a
+Catholic Prince, allow the evil-doer of the works of Satan to roam
+about at will, and injure others as he would have destroyed his king?"
+pursued the Queen-mother.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, we will speak more of this at another opportunity. Leave me
+now, madam, for I am very weak both in mind and body; and I thank you
+for your zeal and care."</p>
+
+<p>"My son, I cannot leave you," persisted Catherine, "until you shall
+have signed this paper." She produced from the species of reticule
+suspended at her side a parchment already covered with writing. "It
+confers upon me full power to treat in this affair, and bring the
+offender to condign punishment. You shall have no trouble in this
+matter; and through your mother's care, your enemies shall be purged
+from the earth, and you yourself once more free, and strong and able
+shortly to resume the helm of state, to mount your horse, to cheer on
+your hounds. Come, my son, sign this paper."</p>
+
+<p>"Leave me&mdash;leave me in peace," again answered Charles. "I am sick at
+heart, and I would do no ill even to my bitterest enemy, be he only an
+obscure sorcerer, who has combined with the prince of darkness himself
+to work my death."</p>
+
+<p>"My son&mdash;it cannot be," said Catherine, perseveringly&mdash;for she was
+aware that by persisting alone could she weary her son to do at last
+her will. "Sign this order for prosecuting immediately the trial of
+the sorcerer. It is a duty you owe to your country, for which you
+should live, as much as to yourself. Come!" and, taking him by the
+arm, she attempted to raise him from his chair.</p>
+
+<p>"Must I ever be thus tormented, even in my hours of suffering?" said
+the King with impatience. "Well, be it so, madam. Work your will, and
+leave me to my repose."</p>
+
+<p>He rose wearily from his chair, and going to a table on which were
+placed materials for writing, hastily signed the paper laid before him
+by his<!-- Page 765 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_765" id="Page_765">[Pg 765]</a></span> mother; and then, fetching a deep respiration of relief, like
+a school-boy after the performance of some painful task, he flung
+himself on to the chest beside the ape, and, turning his back to his
+mother, began to make his peace with the sulky animal.</p>
+
+<p>Catherine of Medicis permitted a cold smile of satisfaction to wander
+over her face; and after greeting again her son, who paid her no more
+heed than might be expressed by an impatient shrug of the shoulders,
+indicative of his desire to be left in peace, again lifted the
+hangings, and passed through the concealed door. The suffering King,
+whose days of life were already numbered, and fast approaching their
+utmost span, although his years were still so few, remained again
+alone with his agony and his ennui.</p>
+
+<p>Behind the door by which the Queen-mother had left her son's apartment
+was a narrow stone corridor, communicating with a small winding
+staircase, by which she mounted to her own suite of rooms upon the
+first floor; but, when she had gained the summit, avoiding the secret
+entrance opening into her own chamber, she proceeded along one of the
+many hidden passages by which she was accustomed to gain not only
+those wings of the palace inhabited by her different children, but
+almost every other part of the building, unseen and unannounced.
+Stopping at last before a narrow door, forming a part of the
+stone-work of the corridor, she pulled it towards her, and again
+lifting up a tapestry hanging, entered, silently and stealthily, a
+small room, which appeared a sort of inner cabinet to a larger
+apartment. She was about to pass through it, when some papers
+scattered upon a table caught her eye, and moving towards them with
+her usual cat-like step, she began turning them over with the
+noiseless adroitness of one accustomed to such an employment.
+Presently, however, she threw them down, as if she had not found in
+them, at once, what she sought, or was fearful of betraying her
+presence to the persons whose voices might be heard murmuring in the
+adjoining room; and, advancing with inaudible tread, she paused to
+listen for a minute. The persons, however, spoke low; and finding that
+her <i>espionage</i> profited nothing to her, the royal spy passed on and
+entered the apartment.</p>
+
+<p>In a chair, turning his back to her, sat a young man at a table, upon
+which papers and maps were mixed with jewellery, articles of dress,
+feathers and laces. A pair of newly-fashioned large gilt spurs lay
+upon a manuscript which appeared to contain a list of names; a naked
+rapier, the hilt of which was of curious device and workmanship, was
+carelessly thrust through a paper covered with notes of music. The
+whole formed a strange mixture, indicative at once of pre-occupation
+and listless <i>insouciance</i>, of grave employment and utter frivolity.
+Before this seated personage stood another, who appeared to be
+speaking to him earnestly and in low tones. At the sight of Catherine,
+as she advanced, however, the latter person exclaimed quickly,</p>
+
+<p>"My lord duke, her majesty the Queen-mother!"</p>
+
+<p>The other person rose hastily, and in some alarm, from his chair;
+whilst his companion took this opportunity to increase the confusion
+upon the table, by pushing one or two other papers beneath some of the
+articles of amusement or dress.</p>
+
+<p>Without any appearance of remarking the embarrassment that was
+pictured upon the young man's face, Catherine advanced to accept his
+troubled greeting with a mild smile of tenderness, and said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Alen&ccedil;on, my son, I have a few matters of private business, upon which
+I would confer with you&mdash;and alone."</p>
+
+<p>The increasing embarrassment upon the face of the young Duke must have
+been visible to any eye but that which did not choose to see it. After
+a moment's hesitation, however, in which the habit of obeying
+implicitly his mother's authority seemed to subdue his desire to avoid
+a conference with her, he turned and said unwillingly to his
+companion,</p>
+
+<p>"Leave us, La Mole."</p>
+
+<p>The Duke's favourite cast a glance of encouragement and caution upon
+his master; and bowing to the Queen-mother, who returned his homage
+with her kindest and most re-assuring<!-- Page 766 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_766" id="Page_766">[Pg 766]</a></span> smile of courtesy and
+benevolence, and an affable wave of the hand, he left the apartment.</p>
+
+<p>Catherine took the seat from which her son had risen; and leaving him
+standing before her in an attitude which ill-repressed trouble
+combined with natural awkwardness of manner to render peculiarly
+ungainly, she seemed to study for a time, and with satisfaction, his
+confusion and constraint. But then, begging him to be seated near her,
+she commenced speaking to him of various matters, of his own pleasures
+and amusements, of the newest dress, of the f&ecirc;tes interrupted by the
+King's illness, of the effect which this illness, and the supposed
+danger of Charles, had produced upon the jarring parties in the state;
+of the audacity of the Huguenots, who now first began, since the
+massacre of St Bartholomew's day, again to raise their heads, and
+cause fresh disquietude to the government. And thus proceeding step by
+step to the point at which she desired to arrive, the wily
+Queen-mother resembled the cat, which creeps slowly onwards, until it
+springs at last with one bound upon its victim.</p>
+
+<p>"Alas!" she said, with an air of profound sorrow, "so quickly do
+treachery and ingratitude grow up around us, that we no longer can
+discern who are our friends and who our enemies. We bestow favours;
+but it is as if we gave food to the dog, who bites our fingers as he
+takes it. We cherish a friend; and it is an adder we nurse in our
+bosoms. That young man who left us but just now, the Count La Mole&mdash;he
+cannot hear us surely;"&mdash;the Duke of Alen&ccedil;on assured her, with
+ill-concealed agitation, that his favourite was out of ear-shot&mdash;"that
+young man&mdash;La Mole!&mdash;you love him well, I know, my son; and you know
+not that it is a traitor you have taken to your heart."</p>
+
+<p>"La Mole&mdash;a traitor! how? impossible!" stammered the young Duke.</p>
+
+<p>"Your generous and candid heart comprehends not treachery in those it
+loves," pursued his mother; "but I have, unhappily, the proofs in my
+own power. Philip de la Mole conspires against your brother's crown."</p>
+
+<p>The Duke of Alen&ccedil;on grew deadly pale; and he seemed to support himself
+with difficulty; but he stammered with faltering tongue,</p>
+
+<p>"Conspires? how? for whom? Surely, madam, you are most grossly
+misinformed?"</p>
+
+<p>"Unhappily, my son," pursued Catherine&mdash;"and my heart bleeds to say
+it&mdash;I have it no longer in my power to doubt."</p>
+
+<p>"Madam, it is false," stammered again the young Duke, rising hastily
+from his chair, with an air of assurance which he did not feel. "This
+is some calumny."</p>
+
+<p>"Sit down, my son, and listen to me for a while," said the
+Queen-mother with a bland, quiet smile. "I speak not unadvisedly. Be
+not so moved."</p>
+
+<p>Alen&ccedil;on again sat down unwillingly, subdued by the calm superiority of
+his mother's manner.</p>
+
+<p>"You think this Philip de la Mole," she continued, "attached solely to
+your interests, for you have showered upon him many and great favours;
+and your unsuspecting nature has been deceived. Listen to me, I pray
+you. Should our poor Henry never return from Poland, it would be yours
+to mount the throne of France upon the death of Charles. Nay, look not
+so uneasy. Such a thought, if it had crossed your mind, is an honest
+and a just one. How should I blame it? And now, how acts this Philip
+de la Mole&mdash;this man whom you have advanced, protected, loved almost
+as a brother? Regardless of all truth or honour, regardless of his
+master's fortunes, he conspires with friends and enemies, with
+Catholic and Huguenot, to place Henry of Navarre upon the throne!"</p>
+
+<p>"La Mole conspires for Henry of Navarre! Impossible!" cried the Duke.</p>
+
+<p>"Alas! my son, it is too truly as I say," pursued the Queen-mother;
+"the discoveries that have been made reveal most clearly the whole
+base scheme. Know you not that this upstart courtier has dared to love
+your sister Margaret, and that the foolish woman returns his
+presumptuous passion? It is she who has connived with her ambitious
+lover to see a real crown encircle her own brow. She has<!-- Page 767 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_767" id="Page_767">[Pg 767]</a></span> encouraged
+Philip de la Mole to conspire with her husband of Navarre, to grasp
+the throne of France upon the death of Charles. You are ignorant of
+this, my son; your honourable mind can entertain no such baseness. I
+am well aware that, had you been capable of harbouring a thought of
+treachery towards your elder brother&mdash;and I well know that you are
+not&mdash;believe me, the wily Philip de la Mole had rendered you his dupe,
+and blinded you to the true end of his artful and black designs."</p>
+
+<p>"Philip a traitor!" exclaimed the young Duke aghast.</p>
+
+<p>"A traitor to his king, his country, and to you, my son&mdash;to you, who
+have loved him but too well," repeated the Queen-mother.</p>
+
+<p>"And it was for this purpose that he"&mdash;commenced the weak Duke of
+Alen&ccedil;on. But then, checking the words he was about to utter, he added,
+clenching his hands together&mdash;"Oh! double, double traitor!"</p>
+
+<p>"I knew that you would receive the revelation of this truth with
+horror," pursued Catherine. "It is the attribute of your generous
+nature so to do; and I would have spared you the bitter pang of
+knowing that you have lavished so much affection upon a villain. But
+as orders will be immediately given for his arrest, it was necessary
+you should know his crime, and make no opposition to the seizure of
+one dependent so closely upon your person."</p>
+
+<p>More, much more, did the artful Queen-mother say to turn her weak and
+credulous son to her will, and when she had convinced him of the
+certain treachery of his favourite, she rose to leave him, with the
+words&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"The guards will be here anon. Avoid him until then. Leave your
+apartment; speak to him not; or, if he cross your path, smile on him
+kindly, thus&mdash;and let him never read upon your face the thought that
+lurks within, 'Thou art a traitor.'"</p>
+
+<p>Alen&ccedil;on promised obedience to his mother's injunctions.</p>
+
+<p>"I have cut off thy right hand, my foolish son," muttered Catherine to
+herself as she departed by the secret door. "Thou art too powerless to
+act alone, and I fear thee now no longer. Margaret must still be dealt
+with; and thou, Henry of Navarre, if thou aspirest to the regency, the
+struggle is between thee and Catherine. Then will be seen whose star
+shines with the brightest lustre!"</p>
+
+<p>When Philip de la Mole returned to his master's presence, he found the
+Duke pacing up and down the chamber in evident agitation; and the only
+reply given to his words was a smile of so false and constrained a
+nature, that it almost resembled a grin of mockery.</p>
+
+<p>The Duke of Alen&ccedil;on was as incapable of continued dissimulation, as he
+was incapable of firmness of purpose; and when La Mole again
+approached him, he frowned sulkily, and, turning his back upon his
+favourite, was about to quit the room.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall I accompany my lord duke?" said La Mole, with his usual
+careless demeanour, although he saw the storm gathering, and guessed
+immediately from what quarter the wind had blown, but not the awful
+violence of the hurricane.</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;I want no traitors to dog my footsteps," replied Alen&ccedil;on, unable
+any longer to restrain himself, in spite of his mother's instructions.</p>
+
+<p>"There are no traitors here," replied his favourite proudly. "I could
+have judged, my lord, that the Queen-mother had been with you, had I
+not seen her enter your apartment. Yes&mdash;there has been treachery on
+foot, it seems, but not where you would say. Speak boldly, my lord,
+and truly. Of what does she accuse me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Traitor! double traitor!" exclaimed the Duke, bursting into a fit of
+childish wrath, "who hast led me on with false pretences of a
+Crown&mdash;who hast made <i>me</i>&mdash;thy master and thy prince&mdash;the dupe of thy
+base stratagems; who hast blinded me, and gulled me, whilst thy real
+design was the interest of another!"</p>
+
+<p>"Proceed, my lord duke," said La Mole calmly. "Of what other does my
+lord duke speak?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of Henry of Navarre, for whom you have conspired at Margaret's
+instigation," replied Alen&ccedil;on, walking uneasily up and down the room,
+and not venturing to look upon his accused<!-- Page 768 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_768" id="Page_768">[Pg 768]</a></span> favourite, as if he
+himself had been the criminal, and not the accuser.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! thither flies the bolt, does it?" said La Mole, with score. "But
+it strikes not, my lord. If I may claim your lordship's attention to
+these papers for a short space of time, I should need no other answer
+to this strange accusation, so strangely thrown out against me." And
+he produced from his person several documents concealed about it, and
+laid them before the Duke, who had now again thrown himself into his
+chair. "This letter from Cond&eacute;&mdash;this from La Br&egrave;che&mdash;these from others
+of the Protestant party. Cast your eyes over them? Of whom do they
+speak? Is it of Henry of Navarre? Or is it of the Duke of Alen&ccedil;on?
+Whom do they look to as their chief and future King?"</p>
+
+<p>"Philip, forgive me&mdash;I have wronged you," said the vacillating Duke,
+as he turned over these documents from members of the conspiracy that
+had been formed in his own favour. "But, gracious Virgin!&mdash;I now
+remember my mother knows all&mdash;she is fearfully incensed against you.
+She spoke of your arrest."</p>
+
+<p>"Already!" exclaimed La Mole. "Then it is time to act! I would not
+that it had been so soon. But Charles is suffering&mdash;he can no longer
+wield the sceptre. Call out the guard at once. Summon your fiends.
+Seize on the Louvre."</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;no&mdash;it is too late," replied the Duke; "my mother knows all, I
+tell you. No matter whether for me or for another, but you have dared
+to attack the rights of my brother of Anjou&mdash;and that is a crime she
+never will forgive."</p>
+
+<p>"Then act at once," continued his favourite, with energy. "We have
+bold hearts and ready arms. Before to-night the Regency shall be
+yours; at Charles's death the Crown."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no&mdash;La Mole&mdash;impossible&mdash;I cannot&mdash;will not," said Alen&ccedil;on in
+despair.</p>
+
+<p>"Monseigneur!" cried La Mole, with a scorn he could not suppress.</p>
+
+<p>"You must fly, Philip&mdash;you must fly!" resumed his master.</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;since you will not act, I will remain and meet my fate!"</p>
+
+<p>"Fly, fly, I tell you! You would compromise me, were you to remain,"
+repeated the Duke. "Every moment endangers our safety."</p>
+
+<p>"If such be your command," replied La Mole coldly, "rather than
+sacrifice a little of your honour, I will fly."</p>
+
+<p>"They will be here shortly," continued Alen&ccedil;on hurriedly. "Here, take
+this cloak&mdash;this jewelled hat. They are well known to be mine. Wrap
+the cloak about you. Disguise your height&mdash;your gait. They will take
+you for me. The corridors are obscure&mdash;you may cross the outer court
+undiscovered&mdash;and once in safety, you will join our friends.
+Away&mdash;away!"</p>
+
+<p>La Mole obeyed his master's bidding, but without the least appearance
+of haste or fear.</p>
+
+<p>"And I would have made that man a king!" he murmured to himself, as,
+dressed in the Duke's cloak and hat, he plunged into the tortuous and
+gloomy corridors of the Louvre. "That man a king! Ambition made me
+mad. Ay! worse than mad&mdash;a fool!"</p>
+
+<p>The Duke of Alen&ccedil;on watched anxiously from his window, which dominated
+the outer court of the Louvre, for the appearance of that form,
+enveloped in his cloak; and when he saw La Mole pass unchallenged the
+gate leading without, he turned away from the window with an
+exclamation of satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>A minute afterwards the agents of the Queen-mother entered his
+apartment.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div class="biggap"><!-- Page 769 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_769" id="Page_769">[Pg 769]</a></span></div>
+<h2><a name="THE_SCOTTISH_HARVEST" id="THE_SCOTTISH_HARVEST"></a>THE SCOTTISH HARVEST.</h2>
+
+<p>The approach of winter is always a serious time. When the fields are
+cleared, and the produce of our harvest has been gathered into the
+yard and the barn, we begin to hold a general count and reckoning with
+the earth, and to calculate what amount of augmented riches we have
+drawn from the bosom of the soil. When the investigation proves
+satisfactory, the result is but slightly recorded. Our ancestors, with
+just piety and gratitude, were accustomed to set apart whole days for
+thanksgiving to the Almighty Being who had blessed the labours of the
+year; we&mdash;to our shame be it said&mdash;have departed from the reverent
+usage. We take a good season as if it were no more than our appointed
+due&mdash;a bad one comes upon us with all the terrors of a panic.</p>
+
+<p>But there are seasons frequently occurring which vary between the one
+and the other extreme; and these are they which give rise to the most
+discussion. It is unfortunately the tactics, if not the interest, of
+one great party in the nation, to magnify every season of scarcity
+into a famine for the purpose of promoting their own cherished
+theories. A bad August and an indifferent September are subjects of
+intense interest to your thorough-paced corn-law repealer; not that we
+believe the man has an absolute abstract joy in the prospect of coming
+scarcity&mdash;we acquit him of that&mdash;but he sees, or thinks he sees, a
+combination of events which, erelong, must realize his darling theory,
+and his sagacity, as a speculative politician, is at stake. Therefore,
+he is always ready, upon the slightest apprehension of failure, to
+demand, with most turbulent threat, the immediate opening of the
+ports, in the hope that, once opened, they may never be closed again.</p>
+
+<p>Our original intention was not to discuss the corn-law question in the
+present article. We took up the pen for the simple purpose of showing
+that, so far as Scotland is concerned, a most unnecessary alarm has
+been raised with regard to the produce of the harvest; and we have not
+the slightest doubt that the same exaggeration has been extended to
+the sister country. Of course, if we can prove this, it will follow as
+a matter of deduction, that no especial necessity exists for opening
+the ports at present; and we shall further strengthen our position by
+reference to the prices of bonded grain. We shall not, however,
+conclude, without a word or two regarding the mischievous theories
+which, if put into execution, would place this country at the mercy of
+a foreign power; and we entreat the attention of our readers the more,
+because already our prospective position has become the subject of
+intense interest on the Continent.</p>
+
+<p>It is a question of such immense importance, that we have thought it
+our duty to consult with one of the best-informed persons on the
+subject of practical agriculture in Scotland, or, indeed, in the
+United Kingdom. Our authority for the following facts, as to the
+results of the harvest in the North, is Mr Stephens, the author of
+<i>The Book of the Farm</i>. His opinions, and the results of his
+observation, have kindly been communicated to us in letters, written
+during the first fortnight in November; and we do not think that we
+can confer upon the public a greater service than by laying extracts
+from these before them. They may tend, if duly weighed and considered,
+to relieve the apprehensions of those who have taken alarm at the very
+commencement of the cry. Our conviction is, that the alarm is not only
+premature but unreasonable, and that the grain-produce of this year is
+rather above than below the ordinary average. We shall consider the
+potato question separately: in the meantime let us hear Mr  Stephens
+on the subject of the quantity of the harvest.</p>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">Quantity of Grain-Crop.</span></h3>
+
+<p>"I am quite satisfied in my own mind, from observation and
+information, that a greater quantity of grain convertible into bread
+has<!-- Page 770 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_770" id="Page_770">[Pg 770]</a></span> been derived from this harvest than from the last. Both oats and
+barley are a heavy crop; indeed oats are the bulkiest crop I ever
+remember to have seen in the higher districts of this country. The
+straw is not only long, but is strong in the reed, and thick in the
+ground; and notwithstanding all the rain, both barley and oats were
+much less laid than might have been expected. In regard to wheat, all
+the good soils have yielded well&mdash;the inferior but indifferently.
+There is a much greater diversity in the wheat than in barley and
+oats. The straw of wheat is long, and it is also strong; but still it
+was more laid than either oats or barley, and wherever it was laid the
+crop will be very deficient. As to the colour of all sorts of grain,
+it is much brighter than the farmers had anticipated, and there is no
+sprouted grain this year.</p>
+
+<p>Let me relate a few instances of be yield of the crop. I must premise
+that the results I am about to give are derived from the best
+cultivated districts, and that no returns of yield have yet been had
+from the upper and later districts. At the same time I have no reason
+to suppose that these, when received, will prove in any way
+contradictory. In East Lothian two fields of wheat have been tried, in
+not the best soil; and the one has yielded 4&frac12;, and the other very
+nearly 5 quarters, per Scotch acre. Before being cut, the first one
+was estimated at 2&frac12;, and the second at 4&frac12; quarters. The grain in
+both cases is good.</p>
+
+<p>In Mid-Lothian, one farmer assures himself, from trials, that he will
+reap 8 quarters of wheat per Scotch acre of good quality. And another
+says, that, altogether, he never had so great a crop since he was a
+farmer.</p>
+
+<p>In West Lothian, two farmers have thrashed some wheat, and the yield
+is 8 quarters per Scotch acre, of good quality.</p>
+
+<p>In the best district of Roxburghshire the wheat will yield well; while
+a large field of wheat, in Berwickshire, that was early laid on
+account of the weakness of the straw, which was too much forced by the
+high condition of the soil, will scarcely pay the cost of reaping.
+This, however, is but a single isolated instance, for a farmer in the
+same county has put in 73 ordinary-sized stacks, whereas his usual
+number is about 60.</p>
+
+<p>In the east of Forfarshire, the harvest is represented to me as being
+glorious; while in the west, there has not been a better crop of every
+thing for many years. The accounts from Northumberland, from two or
+three of my friends who farm there extensively, confirm the preceding
+statements, in regard to the bulk and general yield of the corn crop.</p>
+
+<p>I may also mention, that the samples of wheat, and oats, and barley,
+presented at the Highland and Agricultural Society's Show at Dumfries,
+along with the grain in the straw, were really admirable.</p>
+
+<p>With all these attestations from so many parts of the country, that
+are known to be good corn districts, I cannot doubt that the crop is a
+good one on good soils."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>So much for the quantity, which, after all, is the main consideration.
+The above account certainly gives no indications of famine, or even
+scarcity. It contains the general character of the weight of the
+harvest in the principal corn-growing districts of Scotland, and we
+have no reason whatever to suppose that worse fortune has attended the
+results of the husbandry in England. The next consideration is the</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Quality of the Crop.</span></p>
+
+<p>"Not the entire crop, but most of it, is inferior in quality to that
+of last year. The barley and oats are both plump and heavy, but there
+is a slight roughness about them; and yet the weights in some cases of
+both are extraordinary. Potato oats were shown at Dumfries 48lb per
+bushel&mdash;3lb above the ordinary weight. Barley has been presented in
+the Edinburgh market every week as heavy as 56lb per quarter&mdash;about
+3lb more than the ordinary weight. All the samples of wheat I have
+seen<!-- Page 771 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_771" id="Page_771">[Pg 771]</a></span> in Leith in the hands of an eminent corn-merchant, weighed from
+60lb to 63lb per bushel, and it has been as high as 66lb in the
+Edinburgh market. I also saw samples of Essex wheat above 60lb, as
+well as good wheat from Lincolnshire.</p>
+
+<p>Now such weights could not be indicated by grain at the end of a wet
+harvest, unless it were of good quality.</p>
+
+<p>The quality is much diversified, especially in wheat; some of it not
+weighing above 48lb per bushel. The winnowings from all the grains
+will be proportionally large; although, in the case of barley and
+oats, had every pickle attained maturity, the crop would probably have
+exceeded the extraordinary one of 1815. But though heavy winnowings
+entail decided loss to the farmer, yet human beings will not be the
+greatest sufferers by them; the loss will chiefly fall on the poor
+work-horses, as they will be made to eat the light instead of the good
+corn, which latter will be reserved for human food. The light oats
+will no doubt be given to horses in larger quantities than good corn,
+and the light barley will be boiled for them in mashes probably every
+night.</p>
+
+<p>The beans are a heavy crop in <i>straw</i> every where; and bean-straw,
+when well won, is as good for horses in winter as hay; while in
+certain districts, such as on the Border, the beans will also be good.</p>
+
+<p>With all these facts before me, I cannot make myself believe that we
+are to experience any thing approaching to the privation of famine, so
+far as the grain crop is concerned."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Our practical experience in these matters is so limited, that we feel
+diffident in adding any thing to these remarks of Mr Stephens. We may,
+however, be permitted to express a doubt whether the average quality
+of the crop has yet been satisfactorily ascertained. It is well known
+that the farmer rarely brings his best wheat into the earliest market,
+because it is his interest to thrash out that part of the crop which
+may have sustained a partial damage, as soon as possible; and in these
+circumstances it usually follows, that the worst wheat is first
+exposed for sale. In like manner he wishes to dispose of his inferior
+barley first. In regard to oats, the inferior portions find
+consumption at home by the horses. In ordinary seasons, any wheat or
+barley that may have shown symptoms of heating in the stacks are first
+presented at market; but in this season, when there is no heated
+grain&mdash;thanks to the low temperature and the precautions used in
+stacking&mdash;the high prices have tempted the farmers to thrash both
+wheat and barley earlier than usual, in order to meet the demands for
+rent and wages at Martinmas&mdash;a term which, owing to the lateness of
+the season, followed close on the termination of the harvest. This
+peculiarity of the season may, perhaps, account for the large supplies
+of wheat presented for some weeks past at Mark Lane&mdash;to the extent, we
+understand, of from 30,000 to 40,000 quarters more than last year at
+the same period. It is more than probable that the largest proportion
+of the land in fallow has been sown with old wheat, as it was early
+ascertained that the harvest would be unusually late. There is always
+more bare fallow in England than in Scotland, and the old wheat having
+been thus disposed of, the earlier portion of the new grain was
+brought to market, and not appropriated for its usual purpose. We
+must, however, conclude, that the crop&mdash;at all events the wheat&mdash;is
+inferior to that of former years. This has generally been attributed
+to the wetness of the season, in which view our correspondent does not
+altogether concur; and we are glad to observe that on one important
+matter&mdash;namely, the fitness of this year's grain for seed&mdash;his
+opinions are decidedly favourable.</p>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">Cause of Inferior Quality of Wheat.</span></h3>
+
+<p>"I am of opinion, that the inferiority of the wheat in poor lands,
+both as regards quantity and quality, has not arisen from the wetness
+of the season,<!-- Page 772 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_772" id="Page_772">[Pg 772]</a></span> but from the <i>very low degree of temperature</i> which
+prevailed at the blooming season in the end of June, and which
+prevented the pollen coming to maturity, and therefore interfered with
+the proper fecundation of the plant. I observed that, during all that
+time, the rain did not fall in so large quantities as afterwards, but
+the thermometer averaged so low as from 48&deg; to 52&deg;, even during the
+day, and there was a sad want of sunshine. And it is an ascertained
+fact, that wheat will <i>not fecundate at all</i> in a temperature which
+does not exceed 45&deg;, accompanied with a gloomy atmosphere. This theory
+of the influence of a low temperature also accounts for the quantity
+of <i>light</i> wheat this year; for the side of the ear that was exposed
+to the cold breeze which blew constantly from the north-east during
+the period of blooming, would experience a more chilly atmosphere than
+the other side, which was comparatively sheltered, and therefore its
+fecundation would be most interfered with.</p>
+
+<p>I may mention a peculiar characteristic of this year, if we take into
+consideration the wetness of the season; which is, that scarcely a
+sprouted ear of corn is to be found any where, notwithstanding that
+the crop was laid in many instances. This immunity from an evil which
+never fails to render grain, so affected, useless for human food, has
+no doubt been secured by the <i>low temperature of the season</i>. It was
+an observed fact, that immediately after the falls of rain, whether
+great or moderate, a firm, drying, cool breeze always sprang up, which
+quickly dried the standing and won the cut corn at the same time; and
+the consequence has been, that the entire crop has been secured in the
+stack-yard in a safe state. All the kinds of grain, therefore, may be
+regarded as being in a <i>sound</i> state; and, on that account, even the
+lighter grains will be quite fit for seed next year."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The point on which the nation at large is principally interested, is,
+of course, the price of bread. It is quite evident that the cost of
+manufactured flour ought, in all cases, to remain in just proportion
+with the value of the raw material. Unfortunately that proportion is
+not always maintained. The baker is a middleman between the farmer and
+the public, between the producing and the consuming classes. Amongst
+those who follow that very necessary trade, there exists a combination
+which is not regulated by law; and the consequence is, that, whenever
+a scarcity is threatened, the bakers raise the price of the loaf at
+pleasure, and on no fixed principle corresponding with the price of
+corn. Few persons are aware at what rate the quartern loaf <i>ought to
+be sold</i> when wheat is respectively at 50s., 60s., or 70s. per
+quarter: they are, however, painfully sensitive when they are
+subjected to an arbitrary rise of bread and their natural conclusion
+is, that they are taxed on account of the dearness of the grain. The
+number of those who buy grain or who study its fluctuations, is very
+small; but every one uses bread, and the monthly account of the baker
+is a sure memento of its price. Let us see how the middle functionary
+has behaved.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Why is Bread so dear?</span></p>
+
+<p>"The price of bread is very high already, and is not likely to fall;
+and the reason a baker would assign for this is the high price of
+wheat&mdash;a very plausible reason, and to which most people would too
+good-naturedly assent; but examine the particulars of the case, and
+the reason adduced will be found based on a fallacy. During all the
+last year, the aggregate average price of wheat never exceeded 56s. a
+quarter, and in that time the price of the 4lb loaf was 5&frac12;d.; at
+least I paid no more for it with ready money. The highest mark that
+wheat has yet attained in this market, is 88s. per quarter, and it is
+notorious that this market has, for the present year, been the dearest
+throughout the kingdom. As 10s. a quarter makes a difference of 1d. in
+the 4lb loaf, the loaf, according to this scale&mdash;which, be it
+remarked,<!-- Page 773 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_773" id="Page_773">[Pg 773]</a></span> is of the bakers' own selection&mdash;should be at 8&frac12;d. when
+the wheat is at 88s. Can you, nevertheless, believe that, <i>whilst the
+present price of bread</i> is 8&frac12;d. <i>the loaf</i> is made wholly of wheat
+which cost the bakers 88s. the quarter? The bakers tell you they
+always buy the best wheat, and yet, though they are the largest buyers
+in the wheat market, the aggregate average of the kingdom did not
+exceed 58s. 6d. on the 8th November. The truth is, the bakers are
+trying to make the most they can; and they are not to blame, provided
+their gains were not imputed to the farmers. But we all know, that
+when bread gets inordinately high in price, clamour is raised against
+<i>dear wheat</i>&mdash;that is, against the farmer&mdash;and this again is made the
+pretext for <i>a free trade in corn</i>; whilst the <i>high price secured to
+the baker by the privilege of his trade</i> is left unblamed and
+unscathed."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Had the Court of Session thought proper to retain in observance the
+powers to which it succeeded after the abolition of the Privy Council,
+and which for some time it executed, we certainly should have applied
+to their Lordships for an Act of Sederunt to regulate the proceedings
+of Master Bakers. But, as centralisation has not even spared us an
+humble Secretary, we must leave our complaint for consideration in a
+higher quarter. Our correspondent, however, is rather too charitable
+in assuming that the bakers are not to blame. We cannot, for the life
+of us, understand why they are permitted to augment the price of
+bread, the great commodity of life, at this enormous ratio, in
+consequence of the rise of corn. Surely some enactment should be
+framed, by which the price of the loaf should be kept in strict
+correspondence with the average price of grain, and some salutary
+check put upon a monopoly, which, we are convinced, has often afforded
+a false argument against the agricultural interests of the country.</p>
+
+<p>Such we believe to be the true state of the grain crop throughout the
+kingdom generally. How, from such a state of things, any valid
+argument can be raised for opening the ports at this time, we are
+totally at a loss to conceive. The only serious feature connected with
+the present harvest, is the partial failure of the potato crop, to
+which we shall presently refer. But, so far as regards corn, we
+maintain that there is no real ground for alarm; and further, there is
+this important consideration connected with the late harvest, which
+should not be ungratefully disregarded, that two months of the grain
+season have already passed, and the new crop remains comparatively
+untouched, so that it will have to supply only ten months' consumption
+instead of twelve: and should the next harvest be an early one, which
+we have reason to expect after this late one, the time bearing on the
+present crop will be still more shortened. Nor should the fact be
+overlooked, that two months' consumption is equal to 2,000,000
+quarters of wheat&mdash;an amount which would form a very considerable item
+in a crop which had proved to be actually deficient.</p>
+
+<p>But as there has been a movement already in some parts of Scotland,
+though solely from professed repealers, towards memorialising
+government for open ports on the ground of special necessity, we shall
+consider that question for a little; and, in doing so, shall blend the
+observations of our able correspondent with our own.</p>
+
+<p>Such a step, we think, at the present moment, would be attended with
+mischief in more ways than one. There can be no pretext of a famine at
+present, immediately after harvest; and the natural course of events
+in operation is this, that the dear prices are inducing a stream of
+corn from every producing quarter towards Britain. In such
+circumstances, if you raise a cry of famine, and suspend the
+corn-laws, that stream of supply will at once be stopped. The
+importers will naturally suspend their trade, because they will then
+speculate, not on the rate of the import duty, which will be
+absolutely abolished by the suspension, but on the rise of price in
+the market of this country. They will therefore, as a matter of
+course&mdash;gain being their only object&mdash;withhold their supplies, until
+the prices shall have, through panic, attained a famine price here;
+and then they will realize their profit when they conceive they can
+gain no more. In the course of things at present, the price of fine
+wheat is so<!-- Page 774 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_774" id="Page_774">[Pg 774]</a></span> high, that a handsome surplus would remain to foreigners,
+though they paid the import duty. Remove that duty, and the foreigner
+will immediately add its amount to the price of his own wheat. The
+price of wheat would then be as high to the consumer as when the duty
+remained to be paid; while the amount of duty would go into the
+pockets of the foreigner, instead of into our own exchequer. At
+present, the finest foreign wheat is 62s. in bond&mdash;remove the present
+duty of 14s., and that wheat will freely give <i>in the market</i> 80s. the
+quarter.</p>
+
+<p>It is, therefore, clear that such an expedient as that of suspending
+the corn-laws merely to include the bonded wheat to be entered for
+home consumption, would, in no degree, benefit the consumer. The
+quantity of wheat at present in bond does not exceed half-a-million of
+quarters&mdash;the greatest part of which did not cost the importer 30s.
+per quarter. At least we can vouch for this, that early last summer,
+when the crop looked luxuriant, 5000 quarters of wheat in bond were
+actually offered in the Edinburgh market for 26s., and were sold for
+that sum, and allowed to remain in bond. It still remains in bond, and
+could now realise 62s. Here, then, is a realisable profit of 36s. per
+quarter, and yet the holder will not take it, in the expectation of a
+higher.</p>
+
+<p>We cannot think that Sir Robert Peel would sanction a measure so
+clearly and palpably unwise, for the sake of liberating only half a
+million quarters of wheat, which is the calculated consumption of a
+fortnight. But the late frequent meetings of the Privy Council have
+afforded an admirable opportunity for the alarmists to declaim upon
+coming famine. Matters, they say, must be looking serious indeed, when
+both Cabinet and Council are repeatedly called together; and they jump
+at the conclusion, that suspension of the corn-law is the active
+subject of debate. We pretend to no special knowledge of what is
+passing behind the political curtain; but a far more rational
+conjecture as to the nature of those deliberations may be found in the
+state of the potato crop, and the question, whether any succedaneum
+can be found for it. Perhaps it would be advisable to allow Indian
+corn, or maize, to come in duty-free; if not as food for people, it
+would feed horses, pigs, or poultry, and would make a diversion in
+favour of the consumption of corn to a certain extent; and such a
+relaxation could be made without interfering with the <i>corn</i>-laws, for
+maize is not regarded as corn, but stands in the same position as rice
+and millet. We might try this experiment with the maize, as the Dutch
+have already forestalled the rice market.</p>
+
+<p>If the state of the harvest is such as we conscientiously believe it
+to be, there can be no special reason&mdash;but rather, as we have shown,
+the reverse&mdash;for suspending the action of the corn-laws at this
+particular juncture. If the enactment of that measure was founded on
+the principle of affording protection to the farmer, why interfere
+with these laws at a time when any apprehension of a famine is
+entirely visionary? And since there is a large quantity of food in the
+country, the present prices are certainly not attributable to a
+deficiency in the crop, and are, after all, little more than
+remunerative to the farmers who are raisers of corn alone. The present
+rents could not possibly be paid from the profits of the growth of
+corn. It is the high price of live stock which keeps up the value of
+the land. The aggregate average price of wheat throughout the kingdom
+is only 58s. 6d., upon which no rational argument can be founded for
+the suspension of the laws of the country. Besides the working of the
+corn-laws will in its natural course effect all that is desirable; at
+any rate it does not prevent the introduction of foreign grain into
+the market. The present state of the grain-market presents an apparent
+anomaly&mdash;that is, it affords a high and a low price for the same
+commodity, namely wheat; but this difference is no more than might
+have been anticipated from the peculiar condition of the wheat crop,
+which yields good and inferior samples at the same time. It can be no
+matter of surprise that fine wheat should realise good prices, or that
+inferior wheat should only draw low prices. The high price will
+remunerate those who have the good fortune to reap a crop of wheat of
+good quality, and the low prices of<!-- Page 775 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_775" id="Page_775">[Pg 775]</a></span> the inferior wheat will have the
+effect of keeping the aggregate average price at a medium figure, and,
+by maintaining a high duty, will prevent the influx of inferior grain
+to compete with our own inferior grain in the home market. The law
+thus really affords protection to those who are in need of it&mdash;namely,
+to such farmers as have reaped an inferior crop of wheat; while those
+foreigners who have fine wheat in bond, or a surplus which they may
+send to this country, can afford to pay a high duty on receiving a
+high price for their superior article. Taking such a state of things
+into consideration, we cannot conceive a measure more wise in its
+operation, inasmuch as it accommodates itself to the peculiar
+circumstances of the times, than the present form of the corn-law.</p>
+
+<p>Were that law allowed to operate as the legislature intended, it would
+bring grain into this country whenever a supply was actually
+necessary; but we cannot shut our eyes to the mischievous effects
+which unfounded rumours of its suspension have already produced in the
+foreign market. Owing to these reports, propagated by the newspapers,
+the holders of wheat abroad have raised the price to 56s. a quarter,
+free on board; and as the same rumours have advanced the freight to
+6s. a quarter, wheat cannot <i>now</i> be landed here in bond under 66s.
+The suspension of the corn-law would tend to confirm the panic abroad,
+and would therefore increase the difficulties of our corn-merchants,
+in making purchases of wheat for this market. It seems to us very
+strange that sensible men of business should be so credulous as to
+believe every idle rumour that is broached in the newspapers, so
+evidently for party purposes; for the current report of the immediate
+suspension of the corn-law originated in the papers avowedly inimical
+to the Ministry. The character of the League is well known. That body
+has never permitted truth to be an obstacle in the way of its
+attempts.</p>
+
+<p>So much for corn and the corn-laws. But there is a more serious
+question beyond this, and that is the state of the potatoes. If we are
+to believe the journals, more especially those which are attached to
+the cause of the League, the affection has spread, and is spreading to
+a most disastrous extent. Supposing these accounts to be true, we say,
+advisedly, that it will be impossible to find a substitute for the
+potato among the vegetable productions of the world; for neither wheat
+nor maize can be used, like it, with the simplest culinary
+preparation. There can be no doubt that in some places this affection
+is very prevalent, and that a considerable part of the crop in certain
+soils has been rendered unfit for ordinary domestic use. It is
+understood that the Lord-Advocate of Scotland has issued a circular to
+the parish clergymen throughout the kingdom, requesting answers to
+certain queries on this important subject. The information thus
+obtained will no doubt be classified, so that the government will
+immediately arrive at a true estimate of the extent of damage
+incurred.</p>
+
+<p>In the mean time we have caused enquiry to be made for ourselves, and
+the result, in so far as regards Scotland, is much more favourable
+than we had expected, considering the extent of the first alarm. We
+have seen accounts <i>from every quarter of the kingdom</i>, and the
+following report may therefore be relied on as strictly consistent
+with fact.</p>
+
+<p>It appears, on investigation, that no traces whatever of the complaint
+have yet been found in the northern half of Scotland. The crop in the
+upper parts of Forfarshire and Perthshire is quite untainted, and so
+across the island. When we consider what a vast stretch of country
+extends to the north of Montrose, the point beyond which, as our
+informants say, this singular affection has not penetrated, we shall
+have great reason to be thankful for such a providential immunity. Our
+chief anxiety, when we first heard of the probable failure, was for
+the Highlands, where potato plant furnishes so common and so necessary
+an article of food. We know by former experience what bitter privation
+is felt during a bad season in the far glens and lonely western
+islands; and most rejoiced are we to find, that for this winter there
+is little likelihood of a repetition of the same calamity.
+Argyleshire, however, except<!-- Page 776 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_776" id="Page_776">[Pg 776]</a></span> in its northern parishes has not escaped
+so well. We have reason to believe that the potatoes in that district
+have suffered very materially, but to what extent is not yet
+accurately ascertained.</p>
+
+<p>In the Lowlands the accounts are more conflicting; but it is
+remarkable that almost every farmer confesses now, that his first
+apprehensions were greatly worse than the reality. On examination, it
+turns out that many fields which were considered so tainted as to be
+useless, are very slightly affected: it is thus apparent that undue
+precipitation has been used in pronouncing upon the general character
+of the crop from a few isolated samples. Some districts appear to have
+escaped altogether; and from a considerable number we have seen
+reports of a decided abatement in the disease.</p>
+
+<p>In short, keeping in view all the information we have been able to
+collect, the following seems to be the true state of the case:&mdash;The
+crop throughout Scotland has been a very large one, but one-half of it
+is affected to a greater or less degree. About a fourth or a fifth of
+this half crop is so slightly damaged, that the unusual amount of
+produce will more than compensate the injury. The remainder is
+certainly worse. Of this, however, a considerable proportion has been
+converted into starch&mdash;an expedient which was early recommended in
+many quarters, wisely adopted by the prudent, and may yet be
+extensively increased. An affected potato, unless its juices were
+thoroughly fermented, and decomposition commenced, will yield quite as
+good starch as the healthy root, and all this may be considered as
+saved. Potato starch or farina, when mixed with flour, makes a
+wholesome and palatable bread. In some districts the doubtful potatoes
+are given to the cattle in quantities, and are considered excellent
+feeding. This also is a material saving.</p>
+
+<p>The spread of the complaint, or rather the appearance of its worst
+symptoms, seems to depend very much on the mode of management adopted
+after the potatoes are raised. A friend of ours in Mid-Lothian, who
+has paid much attention to agriculture, has saved nearly the whole of
+his crop, by careful attention to the dryness of the roots when
+heaped, by keeping these heaps small and frequently turned, and, above
+all, by judicious ventilation <i>through them</i>. A neighbouring farmer,
+who had an immense crop, but who did not avail him of any of these
+precautions, has suffered most severely.</p>
+
+<p>One letter which we have received is of great importance, as it
+details the means by which an affected crop has been preserved. We
+think it our duty to make the following extract, premising that the
+writer is an eminent practical farmer in the south of Scotland:&mdash;"I
+had this year a large crop of potatoes, but my fields, like those of
+my neighbours, did not escape the epidemic. On its first appearance, I
+directed my serious attention to the means of preserving the crop.
+Though inclined to impute the complaint to a deeper cause than the
+wetness of the season, I conceived that damp would, as a matter of
+course, increase any tendency to decay, and I took my measures
+accordingly. Having raised my potatoes, I caused all the sound ones,
+which seemed free from spot and blemish, to be carefully picked by the
+hand; and, having selected a dry situation in an adjoining field, I
+desired them to be heaped there in quantities, none of which exceeded
+a couple of bolls. The method of pitting them was this:&mdash;On a dry
+foundation we placed a layer of potatoes, which we covered with sandy
+mould, though I don't doubt straw would do as well; above that,
+another layer, also covered; and so on, keeping the potatoes as
+separate from each other as possible. We then thatched and covered
+them over as usual with straw, leaving ventilators on the top. I have
+had them opened since, and there is no trace whatever of any decay,
+which I attribute to the above precautions, as others in the
+neighbourhood, whose potatoes grew in exactly similar soil, have lost
+great part of their crop by heaping them in huge masses. Ventilation,
+you may depend upon it, is a great preservative. I have, I think,
+arrested the complaint even in affected potatoes, by laying them out
+(not heaping them) on a dry floor, in a covered place where there is a
+strong current of air.<!-- Page 777 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_777" id="Page_777">[Pg 777]</a></span> They are not spoiling <i>now</i>; and when the
+unsound parts are cut out, we find them quite wholesome and fit for
+use. I am of opinion, therefore, that by using due caution, the
+progress of the complaint, so far as it has gone, may in most cases be
+effectually checked."</p>
+
+<p>We are, therefore, almost certain, that when the damaged portion is
+deducted from the whole amount of the crop, there still remains an
+ample store of good potatoes for the consumption of the whole
+population&mdash;that is, if the potatoes were distributed equally through
+the markets. This, however, cannot be done, and, therefore, there are
+some places where this vegetable will be dear and scarce. The farmer
+who has a large crop of sound potatoes, and who does not reside in an
+exporting part of the country, will naturally enough use his
+superfluity for his cattle; and this cannot be prevented. We hope,
+however, that the habitual thrift of our countrymen will cause them to
+abstain, as much as possible, from wasting their extra stock in this
+manner, more especially as there is abundance of other kinds of
+fodder. They will command a high price as an esculent, and perhaps a
+higher, if they are preserved for the purposes of seed. Exportation
+also should be carried on cautiously; but we repeat, that the general
+tenor of our information is so far satisfactory, that it exhibits
+nothing more than a partial affection of the crop in the southern
+districts, and the majority of those are compensated by a good
+provision of corn.</p>
+
+<p>In addition to these statistics, obtained from many and various
+sources, we have been favoured with the opinion of Mr Stephens, which
+we now subjoin:&mdash;</p>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">The Potato Rot.</span></h3>
+
+<p>"This affection I do not regard as a disease&mdash;but simply as a
+rottenness in the tuber, superinduced by the combination of a low
+temperature with excessive moisture, during the growing season of that
+sort of root, when it is most liable to be affected on account of its
+succulent texture.<a name="FNanchor_39_39" id="FNanchor_39_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> A friend informs me that he remembers the same
+kind of rottenness seizing the potato crop of the country in the late
+and wet season of 1799; and, as a consequence, the seed potato for the
+following crop fetched as high a price as 26s. the boll of 5 cwt.<a name="FNanchor_40_40" id="FNanchor_40_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a>
+I am inclined to believe, however, that the effects of this rot are
+much exaggerated. It is, in the first place, said to be poisonous; and
+yet pigs, to my certain knowledge, have been fed on spoiled potatoes
+alone, on purpose, with impunity. There is little outcry made against
+rot in the dry soils of Perthshire and Forfarshire, and these are the
+two most extensive districts from which potatoes are shipped for
+London. There are farmers in various parts of the country who warrant
+the soundness of the potatoes they supply their customers. The
+accounts<!-- Page 778 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_778" id="Page_778">[Pg 778]</a></span> of the potato crop from the Highland districts are most
+favourable. I believe the fact will turn out to be this, that, like
+corn, the potatoes will not only be a good, but a great crop, in all
+the <i>true potato soils</i>&mdash;that is, in deep dry soils on a dry subsoil,
+whether naturally so, or made so by draining&mdash;and that in all the
+heavy soils, whether rich or poor, they are rotting.</p>
+
+<p>A short time will put an end to all conjecture on the state of the
+potato crop, and afford us facts upon which we shall be able to reason
+and judge aright."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>As the question of seed is always a most important one, whenever a new
+disease or partial affection of so staple a product is discovered, it
+may not be useless to note down Mr Stephens' ideas, in regard to the
+supposed destruction of the vegetative principle in part of the
+affected crop&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Seed Potatoes.</span></p>
+
+<p>"I would feel no apprehension in employing such affected potatoes for
+seed, next spring, as shall be preserved till that time; because I
+believe it to be the case that the low temperature enfeebled the
+vegetative powers of the plant so much as to disable it from throwing
+off the large quantity of moisture that was presented to it; and I
+therefore conclude that any rot superinduced by such causes cannot
+possess a character which is hereditary. There seems no reason,
+therefore, why the complaint should be propagated in future, in
+circumstances favourable to vegetation; and this opinion is the more
+likely to be true, that it is not inconsistent with the idea of the
+disease of former years having arisen from a degenerate state of the
+potato plant, since low temperature and excessive moisture were more
+likely to affect a plant in a state of degeneracy than when its
+vitality remains unimpaired.</p>
+
+<p>There is no doubt that this affection of the potato is general, and it
+is quite possible that it may yet spread. This, however, is a question
+which cannot yet be solved, and certainly, so far as we know, the
+Highlands, and the Orkney and Shetland Isles, have hitherto escaped.
+The portion of the crop as yet actually rendered unfit for human food,
+does not perhaps exceed one-fourth in parts of the country whence
+potatoes are exported; and could the affection be stopped from
+spreading further than this, there would still be a sufficiency of
+potatoes for the consumption of <i>human beings</i>, as the crop is
+acknowledged to be a large one in the best districts. Much, however,
+depends upon our ability to arrest the affection, or its cessation
+from other causes.</p>
+
+<p>It is known that rotten potatoes, like rotten turnips, when left in
+heaps in contact with sound ones, will cause the latter to rot. Aware
+of this fact, farmers have, this last year, caused the potatoes in the
+heaps, as soon as the lifting of the crop was over, to be individually
+examined, and placed the sound ones in narrow, low pits, mixed with
+some desiccating substance, and covered with straw and earth. When the
+pits were opened for examination, the rot was found to have spread
+very much, in consequence of the dampness and heat which was so
+diffused throughout the pits. This is an effect that might have been
+anticipated. Had the precaution been used of taking up the crop in
+small quantities at a time, or of spreading the potatoes on the ground
+when the weather was fair, or in sheds when wet&mdash;and of allowing them
+to be exposed to the air until they had became tolerably firm and dry;
+and had the sound potatoes been then selected by hand, piled together,
+and afterwards put into smaller pits, it is probable that a much less
+proportion of any crop that was taken up would have been lost. Such a
+plan, no doubt, would have caused a protracted potato harvest, but the
+loss of time at that period, in performing the necessary work of
+selection, is a small consideration compared with an extensive injury
+to the crop. It is no doubt desirable to have the potato land ploughed
+for wheat as soon as possible after the potatoes have been removed;
+but<!-- Page 779 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_779" id="Page_779">[Pg 779]</a></span> there is no more urgency in ploughing potato than in ploughing
+turnip land for wheat; and, at any rate, it is better to delay the
+ploughing of the potato land for a few days, than run the risk of
+losing a whole crop of so excellent an esculent.</p>
+
+<p>I may here mention an experiment in regard to the potato, which shows
+that a larger crop has been received by planting the sets in autumn
+than in spring. Those who have tried this system on a large scale say,
+that the increase is in the ratio of 111 to 80 bolls per acre. If this
+is near the truth, it would indicate, that the sets may safely be
+entrusted to lie in the ground all winter upon the dung; and could we
+be assured of their safety there in all cases, the potatoes of this
+year, selected in the manner above described, might be used as seed
+this winter and preserved as such, in the ground, in a safer state
+than even in the small pits. Such an experiment may be tried this
+winter, in dry weather, without much risk of losing the future crop;
+for if, on examination in spring, it should be found that all the sets
+have rotted in the drills, there would be plenty of time to replant
+the crop, in its proper season, with the sets that had survived till
+that time, by the means of preservation used.</p>
+
+<p>I have heard of farmers in this neighbourhood who are planting their
+potato crop in this favourable weather; and it does seem very probable
+that, as each set is placed at a considerable distance from the other,
+and in circumstances to resist frost&mdash;namely, amongst plenty of dung
+and earth&mdash;the entire number may escape putrefaction."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>No doubt, if the potato crop shall prove to be very generally
+affected, the price of corn will rise yet farther, and may be for a
+long time maintained. But this is a very different thing from a
+scarcity of that article, which we believe is merely visionary. We
+must be fed with corn if we cannot get the potato in its usual plenty;
+and it is the certainty, or rather the expectation, of this, which has
+raised the price of the former. In the course of last month (October)
+we met with an admirable article on this subject, in the columns of
+<i>Bell's Weekly Messenger</i>, which we do not hesitate to adopt, as clear
+in its views, hopeful in its tone, and strictly rational in its
+argument.</p>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">The Rising Price of Wheat and Flour.</span></h3>
+
+<p>"What we predicted in one of our recent papers is daily becoming
+realised to an extent which is now exciting general attention, and,
+with some classes of the people, has already produced great alarm and
+anxiety for the future. We stated at that time, that though the return
+of fine weather, about the middle of last month, had saved the
+harvest, and given us a crop much more than had been anticipated,
+still there were causes in operation which would keep up the prices of
+wheat and flour; and that, at least for many weeks to come wheat would
+not fall in the British Market.</p>
+
+<p>"It should be borne in mind that the getting in of the harvest is very
+closely followed by the wheat seed-time, and that two causes are then
+always operative to maintain and raise the price of wheat. There is,
+first, a large call on the stock in hand for seed wheat; and,
+secondly, the farmers are too busy to carry their corn into market,
+and accordingly the market is ill supplied. A third cause is also in
+operation to produce the same effect&mdash;that of an unreasonable alarm
+always resulting from an ill-supplied market.</p>
+
+<p>"It would seem astonishing and even incredible to men who argue only
+theoretically, that though year after year the same uniform causes
+operate, and produce exactly the same effects, yet that this aspect of
+the market should continue to delude and mislead the public mind, but
+so it is in the corn-market, and with the British public in general;
+for though they see through a long succession of years that wheat and
+flour invariably rise in the market immediately after harvest and
+during seed-time, and though they ought to understand that this rise
+is produced by the quantity required for seed, and by the busy
+occupation of the farmers, they still perversely attribute it to
+another cause, existing only in their own apprehensions, namely, that
+the recent harvest has been deficient, and that the market is ill
+supplied because there is<!-- Page 780 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_780" id="Page_780">[Pg 780]</a></span> an insufficient stock with which to supply
+it.</p>
+
+<p>"As it is the inflexible rule of our paper to apply itself on the
+instant to correct all popular errors and to dissipate all
+unreasonable panics, we feel ourselves called upon to say, that the
+present rise in the price of corn results only from the very serious
+failure of the potato crop in many of our own counties, and still more
+materially in Belgium and other foreign kingdoms. From the mere
+circumstance of their numbers only, to say nothing of their habits and
+necessities, an immense quantity of this food is required for the
+sustenance of many millions of the community; and when the crop fails
+to such an extensive degree as it has done in the present case, this
+vast numerical proportion of every state must necessarily be chiefly
+maintained from the stock of corn. If the potato crop fail at home,
+the poor are directly thrown upon the corn-market, and the price of
+corn must necessarily rise in proportion to the increased demand.
+Where the potato crop has failed abroad, the supply of foreign corn
+must necessarily be directed to that quarter, and therefore less corn
+will be imported into the British market.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, it is the expectation of this result, which, together with the
+wheat seed-time and the full occupation of the farmers, is producing
+the present rise in the British corn-market, and these causes will
+probably continue to operate for some time longer.</p>
+
+<p>"In some parts of the country, such as our northern and eastern
+counties, we understand the current judgment to be, that though the
+harvest has produced more bushels than in an average year, the weight
+per bushel is less than last year, and that the deficiency of the
+quality brings the produce down in such districts to less than an
+average crop. But if we set against this the happier result of the
+wheat harvest in our southern and western counties, we must still
+retain our former opinion, that there is at least no present ground
+for any thing like a panic, either amongst the public in general or
+amongst the farmers themselves. The public as yet have no cause to
+dread any thing like that very serious scarcity which some of our
+papers have announced, and the farmers themselves have no cause to
+apprehend such a sudden and extraordinary state of the market, as
+would involve them in the general suffering of the community."</p>
+
+<p>We shall now close our remarks on the subject of the Scottish Harvest.
+In thus limiting our remarks to the harvest in Scotland, we have been
+actuated by no narrow spirit of nationality, but have judged it right,
+in treating a subject of such importance, to confine ourselves to that
+portion of the United Kingdom in which we possessed means of obtaining
+information which positively could be relied upon. Indeed, were it not
+for the paramount importance of the question, which will soon be
+founded on as a topic for political discussion, we should hardly have
+addressed ourselves to the task. But we have noticed, with great
+disgust, the efforts of the League to influence, at this particular
+crisis, the public mind, by gross misrepresentations of our position
+and prospects; and, being convinced that a more dangerous and
+designing faction never yet thrust themselves into public notice, we
+have thought it right, in the first instance, to collect and to
+classify our facts. This done, we have yet a word or two in store for
+the members of the mountebank coalition.</p>
+
+<p>No evil is unmixed with good. The murmurs of the alarmists at home,
+unfounded as we believe them to be, have brought out, more clearly
+than we could have hoped for, the state of foreign feeling with regard
+to British enterprise, and the prospects of future supply upon which
+this country must depend, should the sliding-scale be abrogated and
+all import duties abolished. The most infatuated Leaguer will hardly
+deny, that if the corn-law had ceased to exist three years ago, and a
+great part of our poorer soils had in consequence been removed from
+tillage, our present position with regard to food must have been
+infinitely worse. In fact, we should then have presented the unhappy
+spectacle of a great industrial community incapable of rearing food
+for its population at home, and solely dependent for a supply on
+foreign states; and that, too, in a year when the harvests throughout
+Europe, and even in America, have suffered. And here, by the way,
+before going further, let us remark, that the advocates of the League
+never seem to have contemplated, at all events they have never
+grappled with, the notorious fact, that<!-- Page 781 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_781" id="Page_781">[Pg 781]</a></span> the effects of most
+unpropitious seasons are felt far beyond the confines of the British
+isles. This year, indeed, we were the last to suffer; and the memory
+of the youngest of us, who has attained the age of reason, will
+furnish him with examples of far severer seasons than that which has
+just gone by. What, then, is to be done, should the proportion of the
+land in tillage be reduced below the mark which, in an average year,
+could supply our population with food&mdash;if, at the same time, a famine
+were to occur abroad, and deprive the continental agriculturists of
+their surplus store of corn? The answer is a short one&mdash;<i>Our people
+must necessarily</i> <span class="smcap">STARVE</span>. The manufacturers would be the first to feel
+the appalling misery of their situation, and the men whom they would
+have to thank for the severest and most lingering death, are the
+chosen apostles of the League!</p>
+
+<p>Is this an overdrawn picture? Let us see. France at this moment is
+convinced that we are on the verge of a state of famine. Almost all
+the French journalists, believing what they probably wish for, and
+misled by the repealing howl, and faint-hearted predictions of the
+coward, assume that our home stock of provision is not sufficient to
+last us for the ensuing winter. That is just the situation to which we
+should be reduced <i>every</i> year, if Messrs Cobden, Bright, and Company
+had their will. What, then, says our neighbour, and now most
+magnanimous ally? Is he willing&mdash;for they allege they have a
+superfluity&mdash;to supply us in this time of hypothetical distress&mdash;to
+act the part of the good Samaritan, and pour, not wine and oil, but
+corn into our wounds? Is he about to take the noblest revenge upon a
+former adversary, by showing himself, in the moment of need, a
+benefactor instead of a foe? Oh, my Lord Ashley! you and others, whose
+spirit is more timid than becomes your blood, had better look, ere you
+give up the mainstay of your country's prosperity&mdash;ere you surrender
+the cause of the agriculturist&mdash;to the <i>animus</i> that is now manifested
+abroad. We have reason to bless Heaven that it has been thus early
+shown, before, by mean and miserable concession to the clamours of a
+selfish interest, we have placed Britain for the first time absolutely
+at the mercy of a foreign power. Scarce a journal in France that does
+not tell you&mdash;loudly&mdash;boldly&mdash;exultingly&mdash;what treatment we may expect
+from their hands. "At last," they say, "we have got this perfidious
+Albion in our power. Nature has done for us, in her cycle, what for
+centuries the force of our arms and concentrated rancour could not
+achieve. The English newspapers in every column teem with the tidings
+of failure. The crop of corn is bad beyond any former experience. It
+cannot suffice to feed one half of the population. The potato crop
+also, which is the sole subsistence of Ireland, is thoroughly ruined.
+Scarce a minute fraction of it can be used for the purposes of human
+food. The British Cabinet are earnestly deliberating on the propriety
+of opening the ports. The public, almost to a man, are demanding the
+adoption of that measure&mdash;and doubtless erelong they will be opened.</p>
+
+<p>"What, then, are we to do? Are we to be guilty of the egregious folly
+of supplying our huge and overgrown rival, at the moment when we have
+the opportunity to strike a blow at the very centre of her system, and
+that without having recourse to the slightest belligerent measures?
+Are we, at the commencement of her impending misery, to reciprocate
+with England&mdash;that England which arrested us in the midst of our
+career of conquest, swept our navies from the seas, baffled our
+bravest armies, and led away our Emperor captive? The man who can
+entertain such an idea&mdash;be he who he may&mdash;is a traitor to the honour
+of his country. Let England open her ports if she will, and as she
+must, but let us at the self-same moment be prepared to <span class="smcap">CLOSE</span> our own.
+Let not one grain of corn, if possible, be exported from France. We
+have plenty, and to spare. Our hardy peasantry can pass the winter in
+comfort; whilst, on the opposite side of the Channel, we shall have
+the satisfaction of beholding our haughty enemy convulsed, and
+wallowing like a stranded Leviathan on the shore! We pity the brave
+Irish, but we shall not help them. To do so would be, in fact, to
+exonerate Britain of her greatest and primary burden."</p>
+
+<p>This is the language which the<!-- Page 782 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_782" id="Page_782">[Pg 782]</a></span> French journalists are using at the
+present moment. Let no Englishman delude himself into the belief that
+it does not express the true sentiments of the nation. We know
+something of the men whose vocation it is to compound these patriotic
+articles. They are fostered under the pernicious system which converts
+the penny-a-liner into that anomalous hybrid, a Peer of France&mdash;which
+make it almost a necessary qualification to become a statesman, that
+the aspirant has been a successful scribbler in the public journals.
+And this, forsooth, they call the genuine aristocracy of talent! Their
+whole aim is to be popular, even at the expense of truth. They are
+pandars to the weakness of a nation for their own individual
+advancement. They have no stake in the country save the grey
+goose-quill they dishonour; and yet they affect to lead the opinions
+of the people, and&mdash;to the discredit of the French intellect be it
+recorded&mdash;they do in a great measure lead them. In short, it is a
+ruffian press, and we know well by what means France has been
+ruffianized. The war party&mdash;as it calls itself&mdash;is strong, and has
+been reared up by the unremitting exertions of these felons of
+society, who, for the sake of a cheer to tickle their own despicable
+vanity, would not hesitate for a moment, if they had the power, to
+wrap Europe again in the flames of universal war. Such will,
+doubtless, one day be the result of this unbridled license. The demon
+is not yet exorcised from France, and the horrors of the Revolution
+may be acted over again, with such additional refinements of brutality
+as foregone experience shall suggest. Meantime, we say to our own
+domestic shrinkers&mdash;Is this a season, when such a spirit is abroad, to
+make ourselves dependent for subsistence&mdash;which is life&mdash;upon the
+chance of a foreign supply?</p>
+
+<p>Yes, gentlemen journalists of France&mdash;whether you be peers or not&mdash;you
+have spoken out a little too early. The blindest of us now can see you
+in your genuine character and colours. But rest satisfied; the day of
+retribution, as you impiously dare to term it, has not yet arrived.
+Britain does not want your corn, and not for it will she abandon an
+iota of her system.</p>
+
+<p>There can be no doubt, that the news of a famine here would be
+received in France with more joy than the tidings of a second Marengo.
+The mere expectation of it has already intoxicated the press; and,
+accordingly, they have begun to speculate upon the probable conduct of
+other foreign powers, in the event of our ports being opened. Belgium,
+they are delighted to find, is in so bad a situation, in so far as
+regards its crop, that the august King Leopold has thought proper to
+issue a public declaration, that his own royal mouth shall for the
+next year remain innocent of the flavour of a single potato. This
+looks well. Belgium, it is hoped, is not overabundant in wheat; but,
+even if she were, Belgium owes much to France, and&mdash;a meaning asterisk
+covers and conveys the remaining part of the inuendo. Swampy Holland,
+they say, can do Britain no good&mdash;nay, have not the cautious Dutch
+been beforehand with Britain, and forestalled, by previous purchase,
+the calculated supply of rice? Well done, Batavian merchant! In this
+instance, at least, you are playing the game for France.</p>
+
+<p>Then they have high hopes from the <span class="smcap">Zollverein</span>. That combination has
+evidently to dread the rivalry of British manufacture, and its
+managers are too shrewd to lose this glorious opportunity of
+barricado. There are, therefore, hopes that Germany, utterly
+forgetting the days of subsidies, will shut her ports for export, and
+also prevent the descent of Polish corn. If not, winter is near at
+hand, and the mouths of the rivers may be frozen before a supply can
+be sent to the starving British. Another delightful prospect for young
+and regenerated France!</p>
+
+<p>Also, mysterious rumours are afloat with regard to the policy of the
+Autocrat. It is said, he too is going to shut up&mdash;whether from hatred
+to Britain, or paternal anxiety for the welfare of his subjects, does
+not appear. Yet there is not a Parisian scribe of them all but derives
+his information direct from the secret cabinet of Nicholas. Then there
+is America&mdash;have we not rumours of war there? How much depends upon
+the result of the speech which President Polk shall deliver! <i>He</i>
+knows well by this time<!-- Page 783 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_783" id="Page_783">[Pg 783]</a></span> that England is threatened with famine&mdash;and
+will he be fool enough to submit to a compromise, when by simple
+embargo he might enforce his country's claims? So that altogether, in
+the opinion of the French, we are like to have the worst of it, and
+may be sheerly starved into any kind of submission.</p>
+
+<p>No thanks to Cobden and Co. that this is not our case at present. The
+abolition of the corn-duty would be immediately followed by the
+abandonment of a large part of the soil now under tillage. Every year
+we should learn to depend more and more upon foreign supply, and give
+up a further portion of our own agricultural toil. Place us in that
+position, and let a bad season, which shall affect not only us, but
+the Continent, come round, and the dreams of France will be realized.
+Gentlemen of England&mdash;you that are wavering from your former
+faith&mdash;will you refuse the lesson afforded you, by this premature
+exultation on the part of our dangerous neighbour? Do you not see what
+weight France evidently attaches to the repeal of our protection
+duties&mdash;how anxiously she is watching&mdash;how earnestly she is praying
+for it? If you will not believe your friends, will you not take
+warning from an enemy? Would you hold it chivalry, if you saw an
+antagonist before you armed at all points, and confident of further
+assistance, to throw away your defensive armour, and leave yourselves
+exposed to his attacks? And yet, is not this precisely what will be
+done if you abandon the principles of protection?</p>
+
+<p>Are you afraid of that word, <span class="smcap">Protection</span>? Shame upon you, if you are!
+No doubt it has been most scandalously misrepresented by the
+cotton-mongering orators, but it is a great word, and a wise word, if
+truly and thoroughly understood. It does not mean that corn shall be
+grown in this country for <i>your</i> benefit or that of any exclusive
+class&mdash;were it so, protection would be a wrong&mdash;but it means, that at
+all times there shall be maintained in the country an amount of food,
+reared within itself, sufficient for the sustenance of the nation, in
+case that war, or some other external cause, should shut up all other
+sources. And this, which is in fact protection for the nation&mdash;a just
+and wise security against famine, in which the poor and the rich are
+equally interested&mdash;is perverted by the chimney-stalk proprietors into
+a positive national grievance. Why, the question lies in a nutshell.
+Corn will not be grown in this country unless you give it an adequate
+market. Admit foreign corn, and you not only put a stop to
+agricultural improvement in reclaiming waste land, by means of which
+production may be carried to an indefinite degree, but you also throw
+a vast quantity of the land at present productive out of bearing.
+Suppose, then, that next year, all protection being abolished, the
+quantity of grain raised in the country is but equal to half the
+demand of the population; foreign corn, of course, must come in to
+supply the deficiency. We shall not enlarge upon the first argument
+which must occur to every thinking person&mdash;the argument being, that in
+such a state of things, the foreigner, whoever he may be, with whom we
+are dealing, has it in his power to demand and exact any price he
+pleases for his corn. What say the Cobdenites in answer to this? "Oh,
+then, we shall charge the foreigner a corresponding price for our
+cottons and our calicoes!" No, gentlemen&mdash;that will not do. We have no
+doubt this idea <i>has</i> entered into your calculations, and that you
+hope, through a scarcity of home-grown corn, to realize an augmented
+profit on your produce&mdash;in short, to be the only gainers in a time of
+general distress. But there is a flaw in your reasoning, too palpable
+to be overlooked. The foreigner <i>can do without calico</i>, but the
+British nation <span class="smcap">CANNOT</span> <i>do without bread</i>. The wants of the stomach are
+paramount&mdash;nothing can enter into competition with them. The German,
+Pole, or Frenchman, may, for a season, wear a ragged coat, or an
+inferior shirt, or even dispense with the latter garment, if it so
+pleases him; and yet suffer comparatively nothing. But what are our
+population to do, if bread is not procurable except at the enormous
+prices which, when you abolish protection, you entitle the foreigner
+to charge? Have you the heart to respond, in the only imaginable
+answer&mdash;it is a mere monosyllable&mdash;<span class="smcap">Starve</span>?</p>
+
+<p>But suppose that, for the first two years or so, we went on
+swimmingly&mdash;that<!-- Page 784 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_784" id="Page_784">[Pg 784]</a></span> there were good and plentiful seasons abroad, and
+that corn flowed into our market abundantly from all quarters of the
+world. Suppose that bread became cheaper than we ever knew it before,
+that our manufactures were readily and greedily taken, and that we had
+realised the manufacturing Eden, which the disciples of Devil's-dust
+have predicted, as the immediate consequence of our abandoning all
+manner of restrictions. How will this state of unbounded prosperity
+affect the land? For every five shillings of fall in the price of the
+quarter of wheat, fresh districts will be abandoned by the plough. The
+farmer will be unable to work them at a profit, and so he will cease
+to grow grain. He may put steers upon them; or they may be covered
+with little fancy villas, or Owenite parallelograms, to suit the taste
+of the modern philosopher, and accomodate the additional population
+who are to assist in the prospective crops of calico. The cheaper corn
+then is, the smaller will become our home-producing surface. The
+chaw-bacon will be driven to the railroads, where there is already a
+tolerable demand for him. The flail will be silent in the barn, and
+the song of the reaper in the fields.</p>
+
+<p>Let us suppose this to last for a few years, during which Lord John
+Russell&mdash;the Whigs having, in the meantime, got rid of all graduating
+scruples and come back to power&mdash;has taken an opportunity of enriching
+the peerage by elevating the redoubted Cobden to its ranks. But a
+change suddenly passes across the spirit of our dream. At once, and
+like a thunderbolt&mdash;without warning or presage&mdash;comes a famine or a
+war. We care not which of them is taken as an illustration. Both are
+calamities, unfortunately, well known in this country; and we hardly
+can expect that many years shall pass over our heads without the
+occurrence of one or other of them. Let us take the evil of man's
+creating&mdash;war. The Channel is filled with French shipping, and all
+along the coast, from Cape Ushant to Elsinore, the ports are rigidly
+shut. Mean time American cruisers are scouring the Atlantic, chasing
+our merchantmen, and embarassing communication with the colonies.
+Also, there is war in the Mediterranean. We have fifty, nay, a hundred
+points to watch with our vessels&mdash;a hundred isolated interests to
+maintain, and these demand an immense and yet a divided force. Convoys
+cannot be spared without loss of territory, and then&mdash;what becomes of
+us at home?</p>
+
+<p>Most miserable is the prospect; and yet it does appear, if we are mad
+enough to abandon protection, perfectly inevitable. With but a portion
+of our land in tillage&mdash;an augmented population&mdash;no stored corn&mdash;no
+means of recalling for two years at the soonest, even if we could
+spare seed, and that is questionable, the dormant energies of the
+earth!&mdash;Can you fancy, my Lord Ashley, or you, converted Mr Escott,
+what Britain would be then? We will tell you. Not perhaps a prey&mdash;for
+we will not even imagine such degradation&mdash;but a bargainer and
+compounder with an inferior power or powers, whom she might have
+bearded for centuries with impunity, had not some selfish traitors
+been wicked enough to demand, and some infatuated statesmen foolish
+enough to grant, the abrogation of that protection which is her sole
+security for pre-eminence. What are all the cotton bales of Manchester
+in comparison with such considerations as these? O
+Devil's-dust&mdash;Devil's-dust! Have we really declined so far, that <i>you</i>
+are to be the Sinon to bring us to this sorry pass? Is the poisoned
+breath of the casuist to destroy the prosperity of those&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="i0">"Quos neque Tydides, nec Lariss&aelig;us Achilles,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Non anni domuere decem, non mille carin&aelig;!"</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>It may be so&mdash;for a small shard-beetle can upset a massive
+candle-stick; and it will be so assuredly, if the protective principle
+is abandoned. The first duty of a nation is to rear food for its
+inhabitants from the bosom of its own soil, and woe must follow if it
+relies for daily sustenance upon another. We can now form a fair
+estimate of the probable continuance of the supply, from the premature
+exultation exhibited in the foreign journals, and we shall be worse
+than fools if we do not avail ourselves of the lesson.</p>
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES.</h3>
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_39_39" id="Footnote_39_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> "Not that I think there was more rain in the <i>earlier
+part of summer</i> than the potato crop could absorb, for it is known to
+require a large supply of moisture in its growing state, in order to
+acquire a full development of all its parts. It was observable,
+however, that the rain increased as the season advanced, and after the
+potato plant had reached its full development. It is, therefore,
+probable that the increased moisture, which was not then wanted by the
+plant, would become excessive; and this moisture, along with the low
+temperature, may have produced such chemical change in the sap as to
+facilitate the putrefaction of the entire plant. As to the theories
+with respect to the presence of a fungus, or of insects, in the plant,
+I consider these as a mere exponent of the tendency to a state of
+putrefaction; such being the usual accompaniments of all vegetable and
+animal decay."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_40_40" id="Footnote_40_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> "I remember the wet seasons of 1816 and 1817. There was
+then no rot in the potato; but, during the whole of those rainy
+seasons, we had not the <i>continued cold</i> weather which we have this
+year experienced."</p></div></div>
+
+<hr style="width: 85%;" />
+<div class="biggap"><!-- Page 785 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_785" id="Page_785">[Pg 785]</a></span></div>
+
+<h2><a name="INDEX_TO_VOL_LVIII" id="INDEX_TO_VOL_LVIII"></a>INDEX TO VOL. LVIII.</h2>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Account of a Visit to the Volcano of Kirauea, in the Island of Owhyhee, 591.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Agriculture round Lucca, 619.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Alas, for her! from the Russian of P&uacute;shkin, 141.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Alpine scenery, sketches of, <a href="#Page_704">704</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">American war, causes which fostered the, <a href='#Page_721'><b>721</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Andes, description of the, 555.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Andr&eacute; Chenier, from the Russian of P&uacute;shkin, 154.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Anti-corn-law League, strictures on the, <a href='#Page_780'><b>780</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Apparitions, &amp;c., letter to Eusebius on, <a href='#Page_735'><b>735</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Armfelt, Count, 59.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Arndt, notices of, 332, 333.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Art, causes of the absence of taste for, 414.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Avernus, lake, 489.</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bacon, political essays of, 389.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bai&aelig;, 488.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Barclay de Tolly, from the Russian of P&uacute;shkin, 40.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Baron von Stein, 328.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Barri, Madame du, <a href='#Page_730'><b>730</b></a>, <a href='#Page_733'><b>733</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bazars of Constantinople, the, <a href='#Page_688'><b>688</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Beaumont, Sir George, 258, 262.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bell's Messenger, extract from, on the prices of grain, <a href='#Page_779'><b>779</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Betterton's version of Chaucer, remarks on, 114.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bettina, sketch of the life, &amp;c., of, 357.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Biographical sketch of Frank Abney Hastings, 496.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Black Shawl, the, from P&uacute;shkin, 37.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Blanc, Mont, on the scenery of, <a href='#Page_707'><b>707</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Blenheim, battle of, 18.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Boas, Edward, sketches of Sweden, &amp;c. by, 56.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bossuet's Universal History, characteristics of, 390.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bottetort, Lord, anecdote of, <a href='#Page_724'><b>724</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bowles, W. L., on the Dunciad, 251.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Boyhood, a reminiscence of, by Delta, 408.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Brabant, conquest of, by Marlborough, <a href='#Page_665'><b>665</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bread, causes of the present dearness of, <a href='#Page_772'><b>772</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bremer, Miss, the Swedish novelist, 62.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Brentford election, the, <a href='#Page_725'><b>725</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Brienz, scenery of the lake of, <a href='#Page_705'><b>705</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">British critics, North's specimens of the,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;No. VI.&mdash;Supplement to Dryden on Chaucer, 114.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;No. VI.&mdash;MacFlecnoe and the Dunciad, 229.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;No. VIII.&mdash;Supplement to the same, 366.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bulwer's Last of the Barons, remarks on, 350, 353.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Burtin on Pictures, review of, 413.</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Capital punishment, on, 131.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Carlist war, sketches of the, 210.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Caserta, palace of, 491&mdash;silk manufactory, 492.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Caucasus, the, from the Russian of P&uacute;shkin, 34.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Celibacy of the clergy, effects of the, in France, 187.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Chamouni, valley of, <a href='#Page_707'><b>707</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Chatham, Lord, <a href='#Page_717'><b>717</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Chaucer, Dryden on, 114.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Chimborazo, ascent of, by Humboldt, 547.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Choiseul, the Duc de, <a href='#Page_730'><b>730</b></a>, <a href='#Page_732'><b>732</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Churchill, critique on, 372.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Churchill, see Marlborough.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Clairvoyance, remarks on, <a href='#Page_736'><b>736</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Clarke, Dr, extracts from, 555.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Clarke's Life of James II., notice of, 4.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cloud, the, and the Mountain, a reminiscence of Switzerland, <a href='#Page_704'><b>704</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Clytha house, &amp;c., 477.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Col de Balme, pass of the, <a href='#Page_707'><b>707</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Colebrook, Sir George, extracts from the memoirs of, <a href='#Page_716'><b>716</b></a>, <a href='#Page_719'><b>719</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Colour in painting, remarks on, 419.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Confessions of an English opium-eater, sequel to the, Part II., 43.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Constable the painter, sketch of the life, &amp;c., of, 257.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Constantinople, Three Years in, <a href='#Page_688'><b>688</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Convicts at Norfolk Island, management, &amp;c. of, 138.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cooper, characteristics of, as a novelist, 355.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Copenhagen, description of, 68.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Corali, by J. D., 495.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Corn-laws, proposed suspension of the, <a href='#Page_773'><b>773</b></a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;effects of the abolition of, 780.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cornwallis, Earl, administration of Ireland by, <a href='#Page_731'><b>731</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Corporations of Constantinople, the, <a href='#Page_696'><b>696</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Corsica, conquest of, by the French, <a href='#Page_728'><b>728</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Coventry, Lady, <a href='#Page_726'><b>726</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<!-- Page 786 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_786" id="Page_786">[Pg 786]</a></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Coxe's Life of Marlborough, notice of, 3.</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dalarna or Dalecarlia, sketches of, 64.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">D'Alembert, character of Montesquieu by, 395.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dalin, Olof von, 62.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Danes, national character of the, 69.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">David the Telynwr; or, the Daughter's trial&mdash;a tale of Wales, by Joseph Downs, 96.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Days of the Fronde, the, 596.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dearness of bread, causes of the present, <a href='#Page_772'><b>772</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">De Burtin on pictures, 413.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Delta, a reminiscence of boyhood by, 408.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dendermonde, capture of, by Marlborough, <a href='#Page_668'><b>668</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Despatches of the Duke of Marlborough, review of, No. I. 1.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;No. II. <a href='#Page_649'><b>649</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Domestic manners of the Turks, the, <a href='#Page_688'><b>688</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Downes, Joseph&mdash;David the Telynwr, a tale of Wales, by, 96.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Drama, state of the, 178.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dreams, &amp;c., letter to Eusebius on, <a href='#Page_735'><b>735</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Drinking, prevalence of, in the 19th century, <a href='#Page_726'><b>726</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dryden on Chaucer, 114.<br /></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;his MacFlecnoe, 232, 366.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dumas' Margaret of Valois, extracts from, 312.<br /></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;extracts from his Days of the Fronde, 596.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dunciad, the, critique on, 234, 366.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dunning the solicitor-general, character of, <a href='#Page_722'><b>722</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dutch school of painting, the, 426.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dutem's life of Marlborough, notice of, 3.</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Echo, from the Russian of P&uacute;shkin, 145.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Education, state of, in Turkey, <a href='#Page_692'><b>692</b></a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;remarks on the system of, at the English Universities, 542.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Edward, Duke of York, character of, <a href='#Page_719'><b>719</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Egyptian market at Constantinople, the, <a href='#Page_700'><b>700</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">English landscape painting, on, 257.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">English Opium-eater, a sequel to the confessions of the, Part II. 43.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Epitaphs in Wales, 484.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Esprit des Lois of Montesquieu, the, 392.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;its characteristics, 397.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Eugene, Prince, 14, <a href='#Page_669'><b>669</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Eusebius, letter to, on omens, dreams, appearances, &amp;c., <a href='#Page_735'><b>735</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Failure of the potato crop, extent, &amp;c. of the, <a href='#Page_775'><b>775</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Feast of Peter the First, the, from P&uacute;shkin, 142.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fersen, Count, murder of, 61.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Few passages concerning omens, dreams, appearances, &amp;c., in a letter to Eusebius, <a href='#Page_735'><b>735</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Few words for Bettina, a, 357.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fisher, Archdeacon, 260.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Flemish school of painting, the, 426.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Flour, on the rising price of, <a href='#Page_779'><b>779</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Flygare, Emily, the Swedish novelist, 62.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">France under Louis XIV., 12&mdash;prevalent feeling in, towards England, <a href='#Page_781'><b>781</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">French school of painting, the, 427.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;Noblesse, character of the, <a href='#Page_733'><b>733</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Garden of the Villa Reale, the, 486.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">General, the, from the Russian of P&uacute;shkin, 41.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">German school of painting, the, 427.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Gleig's life of Marlborough, notice of, 4.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Glenmutchkin railway, the&mdash;How we got it up, and how we got out of it, 453.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Gloucester the Duke of, character of, <a href='#Page_719'><b>719</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Goethe and Bettina, the correspondence of, 358.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Goethe's Torquato Tasso, translations from, 87.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Gotha canal, the, 68.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Grafton, the Duke of, Walpole's character of, <a href='#Page_718'><b>718</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Grain crop, quantity, &amp;c., of the, in Scotland, <a href='#Page_769'><b>769</b></a> .</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;and its quality, <a href='#Page_770'><b>770</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Grandeur et d&eacute;cadence des Romains, Montesquieu's, characteristics, &amp;c. of, 391, 401.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Grand general junction and indefinite extension railway rhapsody, 614.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Greek Revolution, sketches of the, 496.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Griesbach, fall of the, <a href='#Page_707'><b>707</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Guamos of South America, the, 554.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Guilds of Constantinople, the, <a href='#Page_696'><b>696</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Gunning, the Misses, <a href='#Page_726'><b>726</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Gustavus Vasa, notices of, 66.</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hahn-Hahn, the Countess, 71.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hakem the slave, a tale extracted from the history of Poland.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;Chapter I., 560.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;Chap. II., 561.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;Chap. III., 563.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;Chap. IV., 565.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;Chap. V., 567.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hamilton, the Duchess of, <a href='#Page_726'><b>726</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Handel, character of the music of, 573.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Harvest, the Scottish, <a href='#Page_769'><b>769</b></a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;quantity of the grain crop, ib.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;and its quality, <a href='#Page_770'><b>770</b></a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;cause of the inferiority of the wheat, <a href='#Page_771'><b>771</b></a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;and of the dearness of bread, <a href='#Page_772'><b>772</b></a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;state of the potato crop, <a href='#Page_775'><b>775</b></a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;potatoes for seed, <a href='#Page_778'><b>778</b></a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;rising price of wheat and flour, <a href='#Page_780'><b>780</b></a>.</span><br />
+<!-- Page 787 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_787" id="Page_787">[Pg 787</a></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;affords no argument for abolition of the corn-laws, <a href='#Page_781'><b>781</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hastings, Frank Abney, biographical sketch of, 496.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Haydn, character of, 573.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Heber, Bishop, description of the Himalayas by, 557.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hemp, culture of, in Italy, 620.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hints for doctors, 630.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Historical romance, the, 341.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hogarth, Churchill's epistle to, criticised, 377.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Holme's Life of Mozart, review of, 572.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Horace Leicester, a sketch, 197.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hornes' Chaucer Modernized, remarks on, 115.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">House-hunting in Wales, 74.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;a sequel to, 474.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">How we got up the Glenmutchkin railway, and how we got out of it, 453.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Humboldt, 541.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;character of his mind, 545.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;his early life, 546.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;sketch of his travels, 547.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;list of his works, 548.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;extracts from these, 549.</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I have outlived the hopes that charmed me, from P&uacute;shkin, 149.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ida, Countess Hahn-Hahn, 71.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Imprisonment as a punishment, 131.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Improvisatore, the, 626.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Inferior quality of wheat, cause of the, <a href='#Page_771'><b>771</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Insects common at Lucca, 623.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Italian school of painting, the, 425.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Italy, sketches of</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;Lucca, 617.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;agriculture round Lucca, 619.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;sagena, 620.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;lupins, ib.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;hemp, ib.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;trees, 622.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;oaks, ib.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;insects, 623.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;ants,624.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;shooting fish, 625.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;owls, 626.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;the improvisatore, ib.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;tables-d'h&ocirc;tes, Mr Snapley, 628.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;hints for doctors, 630.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;private music-party, 631.</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">J. D., a meditation by, 494.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;on the old year, 495.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;Corali, ib.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;a mother to her deserted child, <a href='#Page_752'><b>752</b></a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;summer noontide, ib.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;to Clara, <a href='#Page_753'><b>753</b></a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;seclusion, ib.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">James II., notices of, 7.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">James's Philip Augustus, remarks on, 353.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Jesuitism in France, 185.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;sources of its power, 186.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Jones, Sir William, character of Dunning, by, <a href='#Page_723'><b>723</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Johnson on the Dunciad, 236.</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Kames, Lord, on the Dunciad, 253.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Kavanagh's Science of Languages, review of, 467.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Kirauca, account of a visit to the volcano of, 591.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Knorring, the Baroness, 62.</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Land, tenure of, in Turkey, <a href='#Page_693'><b>693</b></a> .</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Landscape painting in England, 257.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Languages, Kavanagh's Science of, reviewed, 467.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Last hours of a reign, a tale in two parts.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;Part I., Chapter 1, <a href='#Page_754'><b>754</b></a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;Chapter 2, <a href='#Page_761'><b>761</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Law, administration of, in Turkey, <a href='#Page_699'><b>699</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Law studies, Warren's Introduction to, reviewed, 300.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lay of Stark&agrave;ther, the, 571.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lay of the wise Ol&eacute;g, the, from the Russian of P&uacute;shkin, 146.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ledyard's Life of Marlborough, notice of, 3.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Leman, lake, scenery of, <a href='#Page_706'><b>706</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Leslie's Life of John Constable, review of, 257.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Letter from London, by a railway witness, 173.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Letter to Eusebius, on omens, dreams, appearances, &amp;c., <a href='#Page_735'><b>735</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lettres Persanes of Montesquieu, the, 391.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Libraries at Constantinople, the, <a href='#Page_690'><b>690</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lipscomb's version of Chaucer, remarks on, 114.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Llanos of South America, the, 551.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Llansaintfraed lodge and church, 476.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Llantony abbey, 485.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Llanvair Kilgiden church, &amp;c., 483.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">London, letter from, by a railway witness, 173.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Louis XIV., notices of, 6, 12.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Louis XV., character, &amp;c., of, <a href='#Page_714'><b>714</b></a>, <a href='#Page_730'><b>730</b></a>, <a href='#Page_733'><b>733</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lowell, J. Russell, remarks on his strictures on Pope, 368.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lucca, sketches of; 617.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;agriculture round, 619.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lucrine lake, the, 489.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lupins, culture of, in Italy, 620.</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">MacFlecnoe and the Dunciad, 229.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;a supplement to, 366.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Machiavel as a historian, 389.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Maconochie, Captain, on the management of transported criminals, review of, 129.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Madonna, the, from P&uacute;shkin, 152.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Maeler, lake, 58.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Mahmood the Ghaznavide, by B. Simmons, 266.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Mahon's England, remarks on, 2.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Manner and Matter, a tale, Chapter I., 431.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;Chapter II., 435.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Manzoni's Promessi Sposi, remarks on, 356.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Margaret of Valois, from the French of Dumas, 312.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Marlborough, No. I, 1.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;Various lives of him, 3.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;His parentage and early career, 5.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;Is created Lord Churchill, 7.</span><br />
+<!-- Page 788 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_788" id="Page_788">[Pg 788]></a></span><span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;His conduct at the Revolution, 8.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;Further honours conferred on him, 9.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;His disgrace in 1691, and mystery attending it, ib.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;Is restored to favour, 10.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;Appointed commander in the Netherlands, 11.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;His first successes, 14.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;Defeats the French at Blenheim, 19.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;His subsequent campaign, and causes which thwarted his success, 27. No. II., <a href='#Page_649'><b>649</b></a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;Plans for the campaign of 1705, <a href='#Page_650'><b>650</b></a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;Marches into Flanders, <a href='#Page_652'><b>652</b></a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;Defeats Villeroi, <a href='#Page_653'><b>653</b></a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;Thwarted by the inactivity of the Dutch, <a href='#Page_654'><b>654</b></a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;Victory of Ramilies, <a href='#Page_661'><b>661</b></a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;Subsequent operations, <a href='#Page_664'><b>664</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Marston; or, Memoirs of a Statesman.&mdash;Part XVIII., 157.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;Part XIX., 272.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;Part XX. and last, 439.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Meditation, a, by J. D., 494.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Memoirs of a Statesman. <i>See</i> Marston.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Menin, siege and capture of, by Marlborough, <a href='#Page_667'><b>667</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Mesmerism, remarks on, <a href='#Page_736'><b>736</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Metternich, Stein's opinion of, 337.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Michelet's Priests, Women, and Families, review of, 185.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Mob, the, from the Russian of P&uacute;shkin, 36.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Modern novels, characteristics of, 342.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Monmouthshire, scrambles in, 474.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Mont Blanc, scenery of, <a href='#Page_707'><b>707</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Montesquieu, 389.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;Compared with Tacitus, Machiavel, and Bacon, ib.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;Sketch of his early life, 390.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;Publication and character of his Lettres Persanes, 391.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;Of the Grandeur et Decadence des Romains, ib.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;And of the Esprit des Loix, and the defence of it, 392, 393.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;His private life and character, and anecdotes of him, 394.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;His death, 395.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;Unpublished papers left by him, 396.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;Characteristics of his works, and extracts from them, 397.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;Causes which led to their comparative neglect, 398.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">More, Hannah, anecdotes of, <a href='#Page_723'><b>723</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Mother, a, to her deserted child, by J. D., <a href='#Page_752'><b>752</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Motion, from the Russian of P&uacute;shkin, 149.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Mountain and the Cloud, the; a Reminiscence of Switzerland, <a href='#Page_704'><b>704</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Mozart, 573.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;Sketches of his life, 575.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;Extracts from his letters, &amp;c., 578.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;Characteristics of his music, 590.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Murillo as a painter, 420.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Murray, Sir George, the Marlborough Despatches edited by, reviewed</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;No. I., 1.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;No. II., <a href='#Page_649'><b>649</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">My college friends, No. II.&mdash;Horace Leicester, 197.</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nantiglo ironworks, 485.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Naples, see Neapolitan.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Napoleon, from the Russian of P&uacute;shkin, 39.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">National gallery, want of a, in Great Britain, 413.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Natural history, Waterton's essays on, second series, reviewed, 289.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Neapolitan sketches.&mdash;garden of the Villa Reale, 486.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;Servi de Pena, ib.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;San Carlo, 487.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;Pozzuoli, 488.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;Bai&aelig;, ib.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;Lucrine and Avernus lakes, 489.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;Procida, 490.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;palace of Caserta, 491.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;silk manufactory, 492.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;The snake-tamer, 490.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Newcastle, Duke of, character of, <a href='#Page_730'><b>730</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Norfolk Island, management of convicts at, 138.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">North's specimens of the British critics.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;No. VI. Supplement to Dryden on Chaucer, 114.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;No. VII. MacFlecnoe and the Dunciad, 229.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;No. VIII. Supplement to the same, 366.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Northern lights, 56.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nyberg, Fru, a Swedish poetess, 57.</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Oaks in Italy, 622.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Oberland, scenery of the, <a href='#Page_707'><b>707</b></a>, <a href='#Page_710'><b>710</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ol&eacute;g, lay of, from P&uacute;shkin, 146.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Omens, &amp;c., letter to Eusebius on, <a href='#Page_735'><b>735</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">On the Old Year, by J. D., 495.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Opening the ports, on the, <a href='#Page_773'><b>773</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Opium-eater, sequel to the Confessions of an, part II., 43.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Orinoco, description of the rapids of the, 550.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Oscar, crown-prince of Sweden, 59.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ostend, capture of by Marlborough, <a href='#Page_666'><b>666</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Overkirk, General, notices of, <a href='#Page_653'><b>653</b></a>, <a href='#Page_654'><b>654</b></a>, <a href='#Page_656'><b>656</b></a>, <a href='#Page_662'><b>662</b></a>, <a href='#Page_664'><b>664</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Owls in Italy, 626.</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Painting and pictures, remarks on, 413.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;characteristics of the various schools of, 424.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Palace of Caserta, the, 491.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Pampas of South America, the, 550.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Paoli, the Corsican patriot, <a href='#Page_731'><b>731</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Phipps, Mr, character, &amp;c., of, <a href='#Page_727'><b>727</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Pictures, De Burtin on, 413.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;choice of subjects for, 417.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;colouring, &amp;c., ib.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Poetry</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;Specimens of the lyrics of P&uacute;shkin, translated by T. B. Shaw.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;No. I., 28.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;No. II., 140.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;Mahmood the Ghaznavide, by B. Simmons, 266.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;A reminiscence of boyhood, by Delta, 408.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;A meditation, by J. D., 494.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;On the old year, by the same, 495.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;Corali, by the same, ib.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;The lay of Stark&agrave;ther, 571.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;The Grand General Junction and Indefinite Extension Railway rhapsody, 614.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;The second Pandora, <a href='#Page_711'><b>711</b></a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;A mother to her deserted child, by J. D., <a href='#Page_752'><b>752</b></a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;Summer noontide, ib.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;to Clara, <a href='#Page_753'><b>753</b></a>.</span><br />
+<!-- Page 789 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_789" id="Page_789">[Pg 789]</a></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;seclusion, ib.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Pompadour, Madame de, <a href='#Page_732'><b>732</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Pope's version of Chaucer, remarks on, 119.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;Dunciad, remarks on, 234.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;Strictures on Lowell's criticism of him, 368.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Potato crop, state of the, throughout Scotland, <a href='#Page_776'><b>776</b></a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;saving of them for seed, <a href='#Page_780'><b>780</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Pozzuoli, 488.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Presentiment, from the Russian of P&uacute;shkin, 152.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Priests, Women, and Families, review of Michelet's work on, 185.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Printing establishments in Constantinople, <a href='#Page_691'><b>691</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Private music-party, a, 631.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Prophecy of Famine, Churchill's, remarks on, 380.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Procida, 490.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Punishment, remarks on, 129.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;its objects, ib.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;various modes of, 131.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;on capital, and a proposed substitute for it, ib.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">P&uacute;shkin, the Russian poet. No. II. Specimen of his lyrics, translated by T. B. Shaw. Introductory remarks, 28.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;October 19th, 1825, 31.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;The Caucasus, 34.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;To * * *, 35.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;The mob, 36.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;The black shawl, 37.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;The rose, 38.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;Napoleon, 39.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;The storm, 40.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;The general, 41.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;No. III. Introduction, 140.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;Alas, for her! 141.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;The feast of Peter the First, 142.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;Town of starving, town of splendour, 143.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;To the sea, 144.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;Echo, 145.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;The lay of the wise Ol&eacute;g, 146.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;Remembrance, 149.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;I have outlived the hopes that charmed me, ib.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;Motion, ib.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;To the slanderers of Russia, 150.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;Presentiment, 152.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;The Madonna, ib.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;Andr&eacute; Chenier, 154.</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Quietists, effects of the doctrines of the, in France, 190.</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Raffaele's Transfiguration, remarks on, 418.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;his St Cecilia, 422.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ragland Castle, description of, 476.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Railway rhapsody, the grand general junction and indefinite extension, 614.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Railway witness in London, letter from a, 173.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Railways and railway speculation, on, 633.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ramilies, battle of, <a href='#Page_661'><b>661</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Reformation by punishment, on, 129.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Reign of George III., Walpole's memoirs of the, <a href='#Page_713'><b>713</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Religion, state of, during the eighteenth century, <a href='#Page_714'><b>714</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Remembrance, from the Russian of P&uacute;shkin, 149.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Reminiscence of boyhood, a, by Delta, 409.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Reminiscence of Switzerland, a, <a href='#Page_704'><b>704</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Reviews.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;Despatches of the Duke of Marlborough. No. I., 1.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;No. II., <a href='#Page_649'><b>649</b></a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;Maconochie and Zschokke on punishment and reformation of criminals, 129.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;Michelet's priests, women, and families, 185.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;Leslie's life of Constable, the painter, 257.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;Waterton's essays on natural history, second series, 289.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;Warren's introduction to law studies, 300.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;Kavanagh's science of languages, 467.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;Holmes' life of Mozart, 572.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;White's three years in Constantinople, <a href='#Page_688'><b>688</b></a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;Walpole's memoirs of the reign of George III., <a href='#Page_713'><b>713</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Richelieu, Marshal, <a href='#Page_730'><b>730</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ritterhaus at Stockholm, the, 59.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Romance, the historical, 341.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Rose, the, from the Russian of P&uacute;shkin, 38.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Russia, to the slanderers of, from P&uacute;shkin, 150.</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sagena, culture of, at Lucca, 620.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Saltza, Count, 68.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">San Carlo, 487.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sandwich, Lord, anecdote of, <a href='#Page_724'><b>724</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Schools of painting, characteristics of the, 424.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Science of languages, Kavanagh's, review of, 467.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Scott's historical romances, remarks on, 345.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Scottish harvest, the, <a href='#Page_769'><b>769</b></a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;quantity and quality of the grain crop, ib., <a href='#Page_770'><b>770</b></a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;cause of the inferior quality of the wheat, <a href='#Page_771'><b>771</b></a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;and of the high price of bread, <a href='#Page_772'><b>772</b></a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;state of the potato crop, <a href='#Page_775'><b>775</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Scrambles in Monmouthshire, a sequel to house-hunting in Wales, 474.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sea, to the, from P&uacute;shkin, 144.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Secker, Archbishop, character of, <a href='#Page_728'><b>728</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Seclusion, by J. D., <a href='#Page_752'><b>752</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Second Pandora, the, <a href='#Page_711'><b>711</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Seed potatoes, saving of, <a href='#Page_778'><b>778</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Servi de Pena, 486.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Shaw, T. B., specimens of the lyrics of P&uacute;shkin, by, 28, 140.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Shooting fish in Italy, 625.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Silk manufactory of Caserta, the, 492.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Simmons, B., Mahmood the Ghaznavide, by, 266.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sketches of Italy. Lucca, 617.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;agriculture round Lucca, 619.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;sagena, 620.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;lupines, ib.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;hemp, ib.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;trees and oaks, 622.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;insects, 623.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;ants, 624.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;shooting fish, 625.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;owls, 626.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;the improvisatore, ib.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;tables-d'h&ocirc;tes&mdash;Mr Snapley, 628.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;hints for doctors, 630.</span><br />
+<!-- Page 790 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_790" id="Page_790">[Pg 790]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;private music-party, 631.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Smith, Sydney, on modern sermons, <a href='#Page_714'><b>714</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Smollet's England, remarks on, 2.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Snake-tamer, the, 493.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Snapley, Mr, 628.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Solitary imprisonment, effects of, 139.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Stampe, the Countess, 69.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Stark&agrave;ther, the lay of, 571.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Staubbach, fall of the, <a href='#Page_706'><b>706</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Stein, the Baron von, career of, 328.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Stephens, Mr, letters from, on the results of the harvest, <a href='#Page_769'><b>769</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Stockholm, description of, 59.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Storm, the, from P&uacute;shkin, 40.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Stralsund, sketch of, 56.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Struensee, Count, <a href='#Page_729'><b>729</b></a> .</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Student of Salamanca, the. Part I., 521.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Part II., <a href='#Page_673'><b>673</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Summer noontide, by J. D., <a href='#Page_752'><b>752</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Suspiria de profundis; being a sequel to the confessions of an English opium-eater. Part II., 43.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Swedes, character of the, 69.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Swift's apology for Queen Anne, &amp;c., notice of, 4.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Switzerland, a reminiscence of, <a href='#Page_704'><b>704</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Tables-d'h&ocirc;tes in Italy, 628.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Tacitus, as a historian, 389.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Tenure of land, &amp;c. in Turkey, <a href='#Page_693'><b>693</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thorwaldsen the sculptor, 69.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Three years in Constantinople; review of, <a href='#Page_688'><b>688</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Titian, remarks on the style, &amp;c. of, 420.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To * * *, from the Russian of P&uacute;shkin, 35.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To Clara, by J. D., <a href='#Page_753'><b>753</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To the sea, from P&uacute;shkin, 144.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To the slanderers of Russia, from P&uacute;shkin, 150.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Torquato Tasso, Goethe's translations from, 87.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Townsend, Charles, character of, <a href='#Page_715'><b>715</b></a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;his death, <a href='#Page_719'><b>719</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Transfiguration of Raffaele, remarks on the, 418.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Trees in Italy, 622.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Turks, domestic manners of the, <a href='#Page_688'><b>688</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Usk river, scenery of the, 475.</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Varnhagen von Ense, sketch of Stein by, 331.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Villa Reale, garden of the, 486.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Villars, Marshal, <a href='#Page_650'><b>650</b></a>, <a href='#Page_651'><b>651</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Villeroi, Marshal, <a href='#Page_651'><b>651</b></a>, <a href='#Page_652'><b>652</b></a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;his defeat at Ramilies, <a href='#Page_661'><b>661</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Volcano of Kirauea, account of a visit to the, 591.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Voltaire's Age of Louis XIV., remarks on, 3.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Von Stein, sketch of the career and character of, 328.</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Wales, sketches of, 74.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Walpole's memoirs of the reign of George III., review of, <a href='#Page_713'><b>713</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Warburton on the Dunciad, 253.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Warren's introduction to law-studies, review of, 300.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Warton, Dr, on the Dunciad, 251.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Waterton's second series of essays in natural history, review of, 289.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Waxholm, fortress of, 58.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Weymouth, Lord, <a href='#Page_727'><b>727</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Wheat crop, quantity and quality of the, throughout Scotland, <a href='#Page_769'><b>769</b></a>, <a href='#Page_770'><b>770</b>.</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;cause of its inferior quality, <a href='#Page_771'><b>771</b></a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;the supply abundant, <a href='#Page_773'><b>773</b></a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;on the rising price of, <a href='#Page_779'><b>779</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Wild animals of South America, the, 553.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Wilkes, John, notice of, <a href='#Page_722'><b>722</b></a>, <a href='#Page_725'><b>725</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">William III., notices of, 9.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;his death, 11.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">White's three years in Constantinople, review of, <a href='#Page_688'><b>688</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Wordsworth's modernization of Chaucer, remarks on, 125.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Wye, scenery of the, 481.</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Zschokke's Aehrenlese, review of, 129.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Zumalacarregui, career of, 210.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><i>Edinburgh: Printed by Ballantyne &amp; Hughes, Paul's Work.</i></h2>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume
+58, No. 362, December 1845, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH ***
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+</pre>
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+</body>
+</html>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58,
+No. 362, December 1845, 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 58, No. 362, December 1845
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: October 10, 2010 [EBook #33938]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Brendan OConnor, Erica Hills, Jonathan Ingram
+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.)
+
+
+
+
+
+TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:  A few obvious misprints have been corrected, but
+in general the originally erratic spelling, punctuation and typesetting
+conventions have been retained. Accents in foreign-language poetry and
+phrases, particularly the Greek, are inconsistent in the original, and
+have not been standardised.
+
+
+BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
+
+No. CCCLXII. DECEMBER, 1845. VOL. LVIII.
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+  MARLBOROUGH No. II.,                       649
+
+  THE STUDENT OF SALAMANCA Part II.,         673
+
+  WHITE'S THREE YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE,     688
+
+  THE MOUNTAIN AND THE CLOUD,                704
+
+  THE SECOND PANDORA,                        711
+
+  THE REIGN OF GEORGE THE THIRD,             713
+
+  A FEW PASSAGES CONCERNING OMENS, DREAMS, APPEARANCES, &C.,  735
+
+  A MOTHER TO HER FORSAKEN CHILD,            752
+
+  SUMMER NOONTIDE,                          _ib._
+
+  TO CLARA,                                  753
+
+  SECLUSION,                                _ib._
+
+  THE LAST HOURS OF A REIGN. Part I.,        754
+
+  THE SCOTTISH HARVEST,                      769
+
+
+
+
+EDINBURGH:
+
+WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, 45, GEORGE STREET;
+
+AND 37, PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON.
+
+_To whom all Communications (post paid) must be addressed._
+
+SOLD BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM.
+
+
+PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE AND HUGHES, EDINBURGH.
+
+
+
+
+MARLBOROUGH. No. II.[1]
+
+
+It might have been expected, that after the march into Bavaria had
+demonstrated the military genius of the Duke of Marlborough, and the
+battle of Blenheim had in so decisive a manner broken the enemy's
+power, the principal direction of military affairs would have been
+entrusted to that consummate commander; and that the Allied cabinets,
+without presuming to interfere in the management of the campaigns,
+would have turned all their efforts to place at his disposal forces
+adequate to carry into execution the mighty designs which he
+meditated, and had shown himself so well qualified to carry into
+execution. It was quite the reverse. The Allied cabinets did nothing.
+They did worse than nothing--they interfered only to do mischief.
+Their principal object after this appeared to be to cramp the efforts
+of this great general, to overrule his bold designs, to tie down his
+aspiring genius. Each looked only to his own separate objects, and
+nothing could make them see that they were to be gained only by
+promoting the general objects of the alliance. Relieved from the
+danger of instant subjugation by the victory of Blenheim, and the
+retreat of the French army across the Rhine, the German powers
+relapsed into their usual state of supineness, lukewarmness, and
+indifference. No efforts of Marlborough could induce the Dutch either
+to enlarge their contingent, or even render that already in the field
+fit for active service. The English force was not half of what the
+national strength was capable of sending forth. Parliament would not
+hear of any thing like an adequate expenditure. Thus the golden
+opportunity, never likely to be regained, of profiting by the
+consternation of the enemy after the battle of Blenheim, and their
+weakness after forty thousand of their best troops had been lost to
+their armies, was allowed to pass away; and the war was permitted to
+dwindle into one of posts and sieges, when, by a vigorous effort, it
+might have been concluded in the next campaign.[2]
+
+It was not thus with the French. The same cause which had loosened
+the efforts of the confederates, had inspired unwonted vigour into
+their councils. The Rhine was crossed by the Allies; the French armies
+had been hurled with disgrace out of Germany; the territory of the
+Grand Monarque was threatened both from the side of Alsace and
+Flanders; and a formidable insurrection in the Cevennes both
+distracted the force and threatened the peace of the kingdom. But
+against all these evils Louis made head. Never had the superior vigour
+and perseverance of a monarchy over that of a confederacy been more
+clearly evinced. Marshal Villars had been employed in the close of the
+preceding year to appease the insurrection in the Cevennes, and his
+measures were at once so vigorous and conciliatory, that before the
+end of the following winter the disturbances were entirely appeased.
+In consequence of this, the forces employed in that quarter became
+disposable; and by this means, and the immense efforts made by the
+government over the whole kingdom, the armies on the frontier were so
+considerably augmented, that Villeroi and the Elector of Bavaria took
+the field in the Low Countries at the head of seventy-five thousand
+men, while Marshal Marsin on the Upper Rhine, covered Alsace with
+thirty thousand. Those armies were much larger than any which the
+Allies could bring against them; for although it had been calculated
+that Marlborough was to be at the head of ninety thousand men on the
+Moselle on the 1st May, yet such had been the dilatory conduct of the
+States-general and the German princes, that in the beginning of June
+there were scarcely thirty thousand men collected round his standards;
+and in Flanders and on the Upper Rhine the enemy's relative
+superiority was still greater.
+
+The plan of the campaign of 1705, based on the supposition that these
+great forces were to be at his disposal, concerted between him and
+Prince Eugene, was in the highest degree bold and decisive. It was
+fixed that, early in spring, ninety thousand men should be assembled
+in the country between the Moselle and the Saar, and, after
+establishing their magazines and base of operations at Treves and
+Traerbach, they should penetrate, in two columns into Lorraine; that
+the column under Marlborough in person should advance along the course
+of Moselle, and the other, under the Margrave of Baden, by the valley
+of the Saar, and that Saar-Louis should be invested before the French
+army had time to take the field. In this way the whole fortresses of
+Flanders would be avoided, and the war, carried into the enemy's
+territory, would assail France on the side where her iron barrier was
+most easily pierced through. But the slowness of the Dutch, and
+backwardness of the Germans, rendered this well-conceived plan
+abortive, and doomed the English general, for the whole of a campaign
+which promised such important advantages, to little else but
+difficulty, delay, and vexation. Marlborough's enthusiasm, great as it
+was, nearly sank under the repeated disappointments which he
+experienced at this juncture; and, guarded as he was, it exhaled in
+several bitter complaints in his confidential correspondence.[3] But,
+like a true patriot and man of perseverance, he did not give way to
+despair when he found nearly all that had been promised him awanting;
+but perceiving the greater designs impracticable, from the want of all
+the means by which they could be carried into execution, prepared to
+make the most of the diminutive force which alone was at his disposal.
+
+At length, some of the German reinforcements having arrived,
+Marlborough, in the beginning of June, though still greatly inferior
+to the enemy, commenced operations. Such was the terror inspired by
+his name, and the tried valour of the English troops, that Villars
+remained on the defensive, and soon retreated. Without firing a shot,
+he evacuated a strong woody country which he occupied, and retired to
+a strong defensive position, extending from Haute Sirk on the right,
+to the Nivelles on the left, and communicating in the rear with
+Luxembourg, Thionville, and Saar-Louis. This position was so strong,
+that it was hopeless to attempt to force it without heavy cannon; and
+Marlborough's had not yet arrived, from the failure of the German
+princes to furnish the draught-horses they had promised. For nine
+weary days he remained in front of the French position, counting the
+hours till the guns and reinforcements came up; but such was the
+tardiness of the German powers, and the universal inefficiency of the
+inferior princes and potentates, that they never made their
+appearance. The English general was still anxiously awaiting the
+promised supplies, when intelligence arrived from the right of so
+alarming a character as at once changed the theatre of operations, and
+fixed him for the remainder of the campaign in the plains of Flanders.
+
+It was the rapid progress which Marshal Villeroi and the Elector of
+Bavaria, at the head of seventy-five thousand men, were making in the
+heart of Flanders, which rendered this change necessary. General
+Overkirk was there entrusted with the army intended to cover Holland;
+but it was greatly inferior to the enemy in point of numerical amount,
+and still more so in the quality and composition of the troops of
+which it was composed. Aware of his superiority, and of the timid
+character of the government which was principally interested in that
+army, Villeroi pushed his advantages to the utmost. He advanced boldly
+upon the Meuse, carried by assault the fortress of Huys, and, marching
+upon Liege, occupied the town without much resistance, and laid siege
+to the citadel. Overkirk, in his lines before Maestricht, was unable
+even to keep the field. The utmost alarm seized upon the United
+Provinces. They already in imagination saw Louis XIV. a second time at
+the gates of Amsterdam. Courier after courier was dispatched to
+Marlborough, soliciting relief in the most urgent terms; and it was
+hinted, that if effectual protection were not immediately given,
+Holland would be under the necessity of negotiating for a separate
+peace. There was not a moment to be lost: the Dutch were now as hard
+pressed as the Austrians had been in the preceding year, and in
+greater alarm than the Emperor was before the battle of Blenheim. A
+cross march like that into Bavaria could alone reinstate affairs.
+Without a moment's hesitation, Marlborough took his determination.
+
+On the 17th June, without communicating his designs to any one, or
+even without saying a word of the alarming intelligence he had
+received, he ordered the whole army to be under arms at midnight, and
+setting out shortly after, he marched, without intermission, eighteen
+miles to the rear. Having thus gained a march upon the enemy, so as to
+avoid the risk of being pursued or harassed in his retreat, he left
+General D'Aubach with eleven battalions and twelve squadrons to cover
+the important magazines at Treves and Saarbruck; and himself, with the
+remainder of the army, about thirty thousand strong, marched rapidly
+in the direction of Maestricht. He was in hopes of being able, like
+the Consul Nero, in the memorable cross march from Apulia to the
+Metaurus in Roman story, to attack the enemy with his own army united
+to that of Overkirk, before he was aware of his approach; but in this
+he was disappointed. Villeroi got notice of his movement, and
+instantly raising the siege of the citadel of Liege, withdrew, though
+still superior in number to the united forces of the enemy, within the
+shelter of the lines he had prepared and fortified with great care on
+the Meuse. Marlborough instantly attacked and carried Huys on the 11th
+July. But the satisfaction derived from having thus arrested the
+progress of the enemy in Flanders, and wrested from him the only
+conquest of the campaign, soon received a bitter alloy. Like Napoleon
+in his later years, the successes he gained in person were almost
+always overbalanced by the disasters sustained through the blunders or
+treachery of his lieutenants. Hardly had Huys opened its gates, when
+advices were received that D'Aubach, instead of obeying his orders,
+and defending the magazines at Treves and Saarbruck to the last
+extremity, had fled on the first appearance of a weak French
+detachment, and burned the whole stores which it had cost so much time
+and money to collect. This was a severe blow to Marlborough, for it at
+once rendered impracticable the offensive movement into Lorraine, on
+which his heart was so set, and from which he had anticipated such
+important results. It was no longer possible to carry the war into the
+enemy's territory, or turn, by an irruption into Lorraine, the whole
+fortresses of the enemy in Flanders. The tardiness of the German
+powers in the first instance, the terrors of the Dutch, and misconduct
+of D'Aubach in the last, had caused that ably conceived design
+entirely to miscarry. Great was the mortification of the English
+general at this signal disappointment of his most warmly cherished
+hopes; it even went so far that he had thoughts of resigning his
+command.[4] But instead of abandoning himself to despair, he set
+about, like the King of Prussia in after times, the preparation of a
+stroke which should reinstate his affairs by the terror with which it
+inspired the enemy, and the demonstration of inexhaustible resources
+it afforded in himself.
+
+The position occupied by the Elector of Bavaria and Marshal Villeroi
+was so strong that it was regarded as impregnable, and in truth it was
+so to a front attack. With its right resting on Marche aux Dames on
+the Meuse, it stretched through Leau to the strong and important
+fortress of Antwerp. This line was long, and of course liable to be
+broken through at points; but such was the skill with which every
+vulnerable point had been strengthened and fortified by the French
+engineers, that it was no easy matter to say where an impression could
+be made. Wherever a marsh or a stream intervened, the most skilful use
+had been made of it; while forts and redoubts, plentifully mounted
+with heavy cannon, both commanded all the approaches to the lines, and
+formed so many _points d'appui_ to its defenders in case of disaster.
+Such a position, defended by seventy thousand men, directed by able
+generals, might well be deemed impregnable. But Marlborough, with an
+inferior force, resolved to attempt it. In doing so, however, he had
+difficulties more formidable to overcome than even the resistance of
+the enemy in front; the timidity of the authorities at the Hague, the
+nervousness and responsibility of the Dutch generals, were more to be
+dreaded than Villeroi's redoubts. It required all the consummate
+address of the English general, aided by the able co-operation of
+General Overkirk, to get liberty from the Dutch authorities to engage
+in any offensive undertaking. At length, however, after infinite
+difficulty, a council of war, at headquarters, agreed to support any
+undertaking which might be deemed advisable; and Marlborough instantly
+set about putting his design in execution.
+
+The better to conceal the real point of attack, he gave out that a
+march to the Moselle was to be immediately undertaken; and to give a
+colour to the report, the corps which had been employed in the siege
+of Huys was not brought forward to the front. At the same time
+Overkirk was detached to the Allied left towards Bourdine, and
+Marlborough followed with a considerable force, ostensibly to support
+him. So completely was Villeroi imposed upon, that he drew large
+reinforcements from the centre to his extreme right; and soon forty
+thousand men were grouped round the sources of the Little Gheet on his
+extreme right. By this means the centre was seriously weakened; and
+Marlborough instantly assembled, with every imaginable precaution to
+avoid discovery, all his disposable forces to attack the weakened part
+of the lines. The corps hitherto stationed on the Meuse was silently
+brought up to the front; Marlborough put himself at the head of his
+own English and German troops, whom he had carried with him from the
+Moselle; and at eight at night, on the 17th July, the whole began to
+march, all profoundly ignorant of the service on which they were to be
+engaged. Each trooper was ordered to carry a truss of hay at his
+saddle-bow, as if a long march was in contemplation. At the same
+instant on which the columns under Marlborough's orders commenced
+their march, Overkirk repassed the Mehaigne on the left, and, hid by
+darkness, fell into the general line of the advance of the Allied
+troops.
+
+No fascines or gabions had been brought along to pass the ditch, for
+fear of exciting alarm in the lines. The trusses of hay alone were
+trusted to for that purpose, which would be equally effectual, and
+less likely to awaken suspicion. At four in the morning, the heads of
+the columns, wholly unperceived, were in front of the French works,
+and, covered by a thick fog, traversed the morass, passed the Gheet
+despite its steep banks, carried the castle of Wange, and, rushing
+forward with a swift pace, crossed the ditch on the trusses of hay,
+and, in three weighty columns, scaled the rampart, and broke into the
+enemy's works. Hitherto entire success had attended this admirably
+planned attack; but the alarm was now given; a fresh corps of fifteen
+thousand men, under M. D'Allegre, hastily assembled, and a heavy fire
+was opened upon the Allies, now distinctly visible in the morning
+light, from a commanding battery. Upon this, Marlborough put himself
+at the head of Lumley's English horse, and, charging vigorously,
+succeeded, though not till he had sustained one repulse, in breaking
+through the line thus hastily formed. In this charge the Duke narrowly
+escaped with his life, in a personal conflict with a Bavarian officer.
+The Allies now crowded in, in great numbers, and the French,
+panic-struck, fled on all sides, abandoning the whole centre of their
+intrenchments to the bold assailants. Villeroi, who had become aware,
+from the retreat of Overkirk in his front, that some attack was in
+contemplation, but ignorant where the tempest was to fall, remained
+all night under arms. At length, attracted by the heavy fire, he
+approached the scene of action in the centre, only in time to see that
+the position was broken through, and the lines no longer tenable. He
+drew off his whole troops accordingly, and took up a new position,
+nearly at right angles to the former, stretching from Elixheim towards
+Tirlemont. It was part of the design of the Duke to have intercepted
+the line of retreat of the French, and prevented them from reaching
+the Dyle, to which they were tending; but such was the obstinacy and
+slowness of the Dutch generals, that nothing could persuade them to
+make any further exertion, and, in defiance of the orders and
+remonstrances alike of Marlborough and Overkirk, they pitched their
+tents, and refused to take any part in the pursuit. The consequence
+was, that Villeroi collected his scattered forces, crossed the Dyle in
+haste, and took up new ground, about eighteen miles in the rear, with
+his left sheltered by the cannon of Louvain. But, though the
+disobedience and obstinacy of the Dutch thus intercepted Marlborough
+in the career of victory, and rendered his success much less complete
+than it otherwise would have been, yet had a mighty blow been struck,
+reflecting the highest credit on the skill and resolution of the
+English general. The famous lines, on which the French had been
+labouring for months, had been broken through and carried, during a
+nocturnal conflict of a few hours; they had lost all their redoubts
+and ten pieces of cannon, with which they were armed; M. D'Allegre,
+with twelve hundred prisoners, had been taken; and the army which
+lately besieged Liege and threatened Maestricht, was now driven back,
+defeated and discouraged, to seek refuge under the cannon of Louvain.
+
+Overkirk, who had so ably co-operated with Marlborough in this
+glorious victory, had the magnanimity as well as candour, in his
+despatch to the States-general, to ascribe the success which had been
+gained entirely to the skill and courage of the English general.[5]
+But the Dutch generals, who had interrupted his career of success, had
+the malignity to charge the consequences of their misconduct on his
+head, and even carried their effrontery so far as to accuse him of
+supineness in not following up his success, and cutting off the
+enemy's retreat to the Dyle, when it was themselves who had refused to
+obey his orders to do so. Rains of extraordinary severity fell from
+the 19th to the 23d July, which rendered all offensive operations
+impracticable, and gave Villeroi time, of which he ably availed
+himself, to strengthen his position behind the Dyle to such a degree,
+as to render it no longer assailable with any prospect of success. The
+precious moment, when the enemy might have been driven from it in the
+first tumult of success, had been lost.
+
+The subsequent success in the Flemish campaign by no means
+corresponded to its brilliant commencement. The jealousy of the Dutch
+ruined every thing. This gave rise to recriminations and jealousies,
+which rendered it impracticable even for the great abilities and
+consummate address of Marlborough to effect any thing of importance
+with the heterogeneous array, with the nominal command of which he was
+invested. The English general dispatched his adjutant-general, Baron
+Hompesch, to represent to the States-general the impossibility of
+going on longer with such a divided responsibility; but, though they
+listened to his representations, nothing could induce them to put
+their troops under the direct orders of the commander-in-chief. They
+still had "field deputies," as they were called who were invested with
+the entire direction of the Dutch troops; and as they were civilians,
+wholly unacquainted with military affairs, they had recourse on every
+occasion to the very fractious generals who already had done so much
+mischief to the common cause. In vain Marlborough repeatedly
+endeavoured, as he himself said, "to cheat them into victory," by
+getting their consent to measures, of which they did not see the
+bearing, calculated to achieve that object; their timid, jealous
+spirit interposed on every occasion to mar important operations, and
+the corps they commanded was too considerable to admit of their being
+undertaken without their co-operation. After nine days' watching the
+enemy across the Dyle, Marlborough proposed to cross the river near
+Louvain, and attack the enemy; the Dutch Deputies interposed their
+negative, to Marlborough's infinite mortification, as, in his own
+words, "it spoiled the whole campaign."[6]
+
+Worn out with these long delays, Marlborough at length resolved at all
+hazards to pass the river, trusting that the Dutch, when they saw the
+conflict once seriously engaged, would not desert him. But in this he
+was mistaken. The Dutch not only failed to execute the part assigned
+them in the combined enterprise, but sent information of his designs
+to the enemy. The consequence was, Villeroi was on his guard. All the
+Duke's demonstrations could not draw his attention from his left,
+where the real attack was intended; but nevertheless the Duke pushed
+on the English and Germans under his orders, who forced the passage in
+the most gallant style. But when the Duke ordered the Dutch generals
+to support the attack of the Duke of Wirtemberg, who had crossed the
+river, and established himself in force on the opposite bank, they
+refused to move their men. The consequence was that this attack, as
+well planned and likely to succeed as the famous forcing of the lines
+a fortnight before, proved abortive; and Marlborough, burning with
+indignation, was obliged to recall his troops when on the high-road to
+victory, and when the river had been crossed, before they had
+sustained a loss of a hundred men. So general was the indignation at
+this shameful return on the part of the Dutch generals to Marlborough
+for all the services he had rendered to their country, that it drew
+forth the strongest expressions from one of his ablest, but most
+determined opponents, Lord Bolingbroke, who wrote to him at this
+juncture:--"It was very melancholy to find the malice of Slangenberg,
+the fears of Dopf, and the ignorance of the deputies, to mention no
+more, prevail so to disappoint your Grace, to their prejudice as well
+as ours. We hope the Dutch have agreed to what your Grace desires of
+them, without which the war becomes a jest to our enemies, _and can
+end in nothing but an ill peace, which is certain ruin to us_."[7]
+
+Still the English general was not discouraged. His public spirit and
+patriotism prevailed over his just private resentment. Finding it
+impossible to prevail on the Dutch deputies, who, in every sense, were
+so many viceroys over him, to agree to any attempt to force the
+passage of the Dyle, he resolved to turn it. For this purpose the army
+was put in motion on the 14th August; and, defiling to his left, he
+directed it in three columns towards the sources of the Dyle. The
+march was rapid, as the Duke had information that strong
+reinforcements, detached from the army at Alsace, would join Villeroi
+on the 18th. They soon came to ground subsequently immortalized in
+English story. On the 16th they reached Genappe, where, on 17th June
+1815, the Life-guards under Lord Anglesea defeated the French lancers;
+on the day following, the enemy retired into the forest of Soignies,
+still covering Brussels, and the Allied headquarters were moved to
+Braine la Leude. On the 17th August, a skirmish took place on the
+plain in front of WATERLOO; and the alarm being given, the Duke
+hastened to the spot, and rode over the field where Wellington and
+Napoleon contended a hundred and ten years afterwards. The French
+upon this retired into the forest of Soignies, and rested at Waterloo
+for the night.
+
+The slightest glance at the map must be sufficient to show, that by
+this cross march to Genappe and Waterloo, Marlborough had gained an
+immense advantage over the enemy. _He had interposed between them and
+France._ He had relinquished for the time, it is true, his own base of
+operations, and was out of communication with his magazines; but he
+had provided for this by taking six days' provisions for the army with
+him; and he could now force the French to fight or abandon Brussels,
+and retire towards Antwerp--the Allies being between them and France.
+Still clinging to their fortified lines on the Dyle, and desirous of
+covering Brussels, they had only occupied the wood of Soignies with
+their right wing; while the Allies occupied all the open country from
+Genappe to Frischermont and Braine la Leude, with their advanced posts
+up to La Haye Sainte and Mount St John. The Allies now occupied the
+ground, afterwards covered by Napoleon's army: the forest of Soignies
+and approaches to Brussels were guarded by the French. Incalculable
+were the results of a victory gained in such a position: it was by
+success gained over an army of half the size, that Napoleon
+established his power in so surprising a manner at Marengo. Impressed
+with such ideas, Marlborough, on the 18th August, anxiously
+reconnoitred the ground; and finding the front practicable for the
+passage of troops, moved up his men in three columns to the attack.
+The artillery was sent to Wavre; the Allied columns traversed at right
+angles the line of march by which Blucher advanced to the support of
+Wellington on the 18th June 1815.
+
+Had Marlborough's orders been executed, it is probable he would have
+gained a victory, which, from the relative position of the two armies,
+could not have been but decisive; and possibly the 18th August 1705,
+might have become as celebrated in history as the 18th June 1815.
+Overkirk, to whom he showed the ground at Over-Ische which he had
+destined for an attack, perfectly concurred in the expedience of it,
+and orders were given to bring the artillery forward to commence a
+cannonade. By the malice or negligence of Slangenberg, who had again
+violated his express instructions, and permitted the baggage to
+intermingle with the artillery-train, the guns had not arrived, and
+some hours were lost before they could be pushed up. At length, at
+noon, the guns were brought forward, and the troops being in line,
+Marlborough rode along the front to give his last orders. The English
+and Germans were in the highest spirits, anticipating certain victory
+from the relative position of the armies; the French fighting with
+their faces to Paris, the Allies with theirs to Brussels. But again
+the Dutch deputies and generals interposed, alleging that the enemy
+was too strongly posted to be attacked with any prospect of success.
+"Gentlemen," said Marlborough to the circle of generals which
+surrounded him, "I have reconnoitred the ground, and made dispositions
+for an attack. I am convinced that conscientiously, and as men of
+honour, we cannot now retire without an action. Should we neglect this
+opportunity, we must be responsible before God and man. You see the
+confusion which pervades the ranks of the enemy, and their
+embarrassment at our manoeuvres. I leave you to judge whether we
+should attack to-day, or wait till to-morrow. It is indeed late; but
+you must consider, that by throwing up intrenchments during the night,
+the enemy will render their position far more difficult to force."
+"Murder and massacre," replied Slangenberg. Marlborough, upon this,
+offered him two English for every Dutch battalion; but this too the
+Dutchman refused, on the plea that he did not understand English. Upon
+this the Duke offered to give him German regiments; but this too was
+declined, upon the pretence that the attack would be too hazardous.
+Marlborough, upon this, turned to the deputies and said--"I disdain to
+send troops to dangers which I will not myself encounter. I will lead
+them where the peril is most imminent. I adjure you, gentlemen! for
+the love of God and your country, do not let us neglect so favourable
+an opportunity." But it was all in vain; and instead of acting, the
+Dutch deputies and generals spent three hours in debating, until night
+came on and it was too late to attempt any thing. Such was
+Marlborough's chagrin at this disappointment, that he said, on
+retiring from the field, "I am at this moment _ten years_ older than I
+was four days ago."
+
+Next day, as Marlborough had foreseen, the enemy had strengthened
+their position with field-works; so that it was utterly hopeless to
+get the Dutch to agree to an attack which _then_ would indeed have
+been hazardous, though it was not so the evening before. The case was
+now irremediable. The six days' bread he had taken with him was on the
+point of being exhausted, and a protracted campaign without
+communication with his magazines was impracticable. With a heavy
+heart, therefore, Marlborough remeasured his steps to the ground he
+had left in front of the Dyle, and gave orders for destroying the
+lines of Leau, which he had carried with so much ability. His vexation
+was increased afterwards, by finding that the consternation of the
+French had been such on the 18th August, when he was so urgent to
+attack them, that they intended only to have made a show of
+resistance, in order to gain time for their baggage and heavy guns to
+retire to Brussels. To all appearance Marlborough, if he had not been
+so shamefully thwarted, would have illustrated the forest of Soignies
+by a victory as decisive as that of Blenheim, and realized the
+triumphant entrance to Brussels which Napoleon anticipated from his
+attack on Wellington on the same ground a hundred years afterwards.
+
+Nothing further, of any moment, was done in this campaign, except the
+capture of Leau and levelling of the enemy's lines on the Gheet.
+Marlborough wrote a formal letter to the States, in which he regretted
+the opportunity which had been lost, which M. Overkirk had coincided
+with him in thinking promised a great and glorious victory; and he
+added, "my heart is so full that I cannot forbear representing to your
+High Mightinesses on this occasion, that I find my authority here to
+be much less than when I had the honour to command your troops in
+Germany."[8] The Dutch generals sent in their counter-memorial to
+their government, which contains a curious picture of their idea of
+the subordination and direction of an army, and furnishes a key to the
+jealousy which had proved so fatal to the common cause. They
+complained that the Duke of Marlborough, "without holding a council of
+war, made two or three marches _for the execution of some design
+formed by his Grace_; and we cannot conceal from your High
+Mightinesses that all the generals of our army think it very strange
+_that they should not have the least notice of the said marches_."[9]
+It has been already mentioned that Marlborough, like every other good
+general, kept his designs to himself, from the impossibility of
+otherwise keeping them from the enemy; and that he had the additional
+motive, in the case of the Dutch deputies and generals, of being
+desirous "to cheat them into victory."
+
+Chagrined by disappointment, and fully convinced, as Wellington was
+after his campaign with Cuesta and the Spaniards at Talavera, that it
+was in vain to attempt any thing further with such impediments, on the
+part of the Allies, thrown in his way, Marlborough retired, in the
+beginning of September, to Tirlemont, the mineral waters of which had
+been recommended to him; and, in the end of October, the troops on
+both sides went into winter quarters. His vexation with the Dutch at
+this period strongly appeared in his private letters to his intimate
+friends;[10] but, though he exerted himself to the utmost during the
+suspension of operations in the field, both by memorials to his own
+government, and representations to the Dutch rulers, to get the
+direction of the army put upon a better footing, yet he had
+magnanimity and patriotism enough to sacrifice his private feelings to
+the public good. Instead of striving, therefore, to inflame the
+resentment of the English cabinet at the conduct of the Dutch
+generals, he strove only to moderate it; and prevailed on them to
+suspend the sending of a formal remonstrance, which they had prepared,
+to the States-general, till the effect of his own private
+representation in that quarter was first ascertained. The result
+proved that he had judged wisely; his disinterested conduct met with
+the deserved reward. The Patriotic party, both in England and at the
+Hague, was strongly roused in his favour; the factious accusations of
+the English Tories, like those of the Whigs a century after against
+Wellington, were silenced; the States-general were compelled by the
+public indignation to withdraw from their commands the generals who
+had thwarted his measures; and, without risking the union of the two
+powers, the factious, selfish men who had endangered the object of
+their alliance, were for ever deprived of the means of doing mischief.
+
+But while the danger was thus abated in one quarter, it only became
+more serious in another. The Dutch had been protected, and hindered
+from breaking off from the alliance, only by endangering the fidelity
+of the Austrians; and it had now become indispensable, at all hazards,
+to do something to appease their jealousies. The Imperial cabinet, in
+addition to the war in Italy, on the Upper Rhine, and in the Low
+Countries, was now involved in serious hostilities in Hungary; and
+felt the difficulty, or rather impossibility, of maintaining the
+contest at once in so many different quarters. The cross march of
+Marlborough from the Moselle to Flanders, however loudly called for by
+the danger and necessities of the States, had been viewed with a
+jealous eye by the Emperor, as tending to lead the war away from the
+side of Lorraine, with which the German interests were wound up; and
+the instances were loud and frequent, that, now that the interests of
+the Dutch were sufficiently provided for, he should return with the
+English contingent to that, the proper theatre of offensive
+operations. But Marlborough's experience had taught him, that as
+little reliance was to be placed on the co-operation of the Margrave
+of Baden, and the lesser German powers, as on that of the Dutch; and
+he felt that it was altogether in vain to attempt another campaign
+either in Germany or Flanders, unless some more effectual measures
+were taken to appease the jealousies, and secure the co-operation of
+this discordant alliance, than had hitherto been done. With this view,
+after having arranged matters to his satisfaction at the Hague, when
+Slangenberg was removed from the command, he repaired to Vienna in
+November, and thence soon after to Berlin.
+
+Marlborough's extraordinary address and powers of persuasion did not
+desert him on this critical occasion. Never was more strongly
+exemplified the truth of Chesterfield's remark, that manner had as
+much weight as matter in procuring him success; and that he was
+elevated to greatness as much on the wings of the Graces as by the
+strength of Minerva. Great as were the difficulties which attended the
+holding together the grand alliance, they all yielded to the magic of
+his name and the fascination of his manner. At Bernsberg he succeeded
+in obtaining from the Elector a promise for the increase of his
+contingent, and leave for it to be sent into Italy, where its
+co-operation was required; at Frankfort he overcame, by persuasion and
+address, the difficulties of the Margrave of Baden; and at Vienna he
+was magnificently received, and soon obtained unbounded credit with
+the Emperor. He was raised to the rank of prince of the empire, with
+the most flattering assurances of esteem; and feted by the nobles, who
+vied with each other in demonstrations of respect to the illustrious
+conqueror of Blenheim. During his short sojourn of a fortnight there,
+he succeeded in allaying the suspicions and quieting the apprehensions
+of the Emperor, which no other man could have done; and, having
+arranged the plan of the next campaign, and raised, on his own credit,
+a loan of 100,000 crowns for the imperial court from the bankers, as
+well as promised one of L.250,000 more, which he afterwards obtained
+in London, he set out for Berlin, where his presence was not less
+necessary to stimulate the exertions and appease the complaints of the
+King of Prussia. He arrived there on the 30th November, and on the
+same evening had an audience of the King, to whose strange and
+capricious temper he so completely accommodated himself, that he
+allayed all his discontents, and brought him over completely to his
+views. He prevailed on him to renew the treaty for the furnishing of
+eight thousand men to aid the common cause, and to repair the chasms
+occasioned by the campaign in their ranks, as well as revoke the
+orders which had been issued for their return from Italy, where their
+removal would have proved of essential detriment. This concession, in
+the words of the prime minister who announced it, was granted "as a
+mark of respect to the Queen, and of particular friendship to the
+Duke." From Berlin he went, loaded with honours and presents, to
+Hanover, where jealousies of a different kind, but not less dangerous,
+had arisen in consequence of the apprehensions there entertained, that
+the Whigs were endeavouring to thwart the eventual succession of the
+House of Hanover to the throne of England. Marlborough's address,
+however, here also succeeded in overcoming all difficulties; and,
+after a sojourn of only a few days, he departed in the highest favour
+both with the Elector and his mother. From thence he hastened to the
+Hague, where he remained a fortnight, and succeeded in a great degree
+in removing those difficulties, and smoothing down those jealousies,
+which had proved so injurious to the common cause in the preceding
+campaign. He prevailed on the Dutch to reject separate offers of
+accommodation, which had been made to them by the French government.
+Having thus put all things on as favourable a footing as could be
+hoped for on the Continent, he embarked for England in the beginning
+of January 1705--having overcome greater difficulties, and obtained
+greater advantages, in the course of this winter campaign, with his
+divided allies, than he ever did during a summer campaign with the
+enemy.
+
+Every one, how cursorily soever he may be acquainted with Wellington's
+campaigns, must be struck with the great similarity between the
+difficulties which thus beset the Duke of Marlborough, in the earlier
+periods of his career, and those which at a subsequent period so long
+hampered the genius and thwarted the efforts of England's greatest
+general. Slangenberg's jealousy as an exact counterpart of that of
+Cuesta at Talavera; the timidity of the Dutch authorities was
+precisely similar to that of the Portuguese regency; the difficulty of
+appeasing the jealousy of Austria and Prussia, identical with that
+which so often compelled Wellington to hurry from the field to Lisbon
+and Cadiz. Such is the selfishness of human nature that it seems
+impossible to get men, actuated by different interests, to concur in
+any measures for the general good but under the pressure of immediate
+danger, so threatening as to be obvious to every understanding, or by
+the influence of ability and address of the very highest order. It is
+this which in every age has caused the weakness of the best-cemented
+confederacies, and so often enabled single powers, not possessing a
+fourth part of their material resources, to triumph over them. And it
+is in the power of overcoming these difficulties, and allaying those
+jealousies, that one of the most important qualities of the general of
+an alliance is to be found.
+
+Marlborough sailed for the Continent, to take the command of the
+armies in the Low Countries, on the 20th April 1706. His design was to
+have transferred the seat of war into Italy, as affairs had become so
+unpromising in that quarter as to be well-nigh desperate. The
+Imperialists had been surprised by the French general, Vendome, in
+their quarters near Como, and driven into the mountains behind that
+town with the loss of three thousand men; so that all hold of the
+plain of Lombardy was lost. The Duke of Savoy was even threatened with
+a siege in his capital of Turin. The Margrave of Baden was displaying
+his usual fractious and impracticable disposition on the Upper Rhine:
+it seemed, in Marlborough's words, "as if he had no other object in
+view but to cover his own capital and residence." In Flanders, the
+habitual procrastination and tardiness of the Dutch had so thrown back
+the preparations, that it was impossible to begin the campaign so
+early as he had intended; and the jealousies of the cabinets of Berlin
+and Copenhagen had again revived to such a degree, that no aid was to
+be expected either from the Prussian or Danish contingents. It was
+chiefly to get beyond the reach of such troublesome and inconstant
+neighbours, that Marlborough was so desirous of transferring the seat
+of war to Italy, where he would have been beyond their reach. But all
+his efforts failed in inducing the States-general to allow any part of
+their troops to be employed to the south of the Alps; nor, indeed,
+could it reasonably have been expected that they would consent to
+hazard their forces, in an expedition not immediately connected with
+their interests, to so distant a quarter. The umbrage of the Elector
+of Hanover at the conduct of Queen Anne, had become so excessive, that
+he positively refused to let his contingent march. The Danes and
+Hessians excused themselves on various pretences from moving their
+troops to the south; and the Emperor, instead of contributing any
+thing to the war in Flanders, was urgent that succour should be sent,
+and that the English general should, in person, take the command on
+the Moselle. Marlborough was thus reduced to the English troops, and
+those in the pay of Holland; but they amounted to nearly sixty
+thousand men; and, on the 19th May, he set out from the Hague to take
+the command of this force, which lay in front of the old French
+frontier on the river Dyle. Marshal Villeroi had there collected
+sixty-two thousand men; so that the two armies, in point of numerical
+strength, were very nearly equal.
+
+The English general had established a secret correspondence with one
+Pasquini, an inhabitant of Namur, through whose agency, and that of
+some other citizens of the town who were inclined to the Imperial
+interest, he hoped to be able to make himself master of that important
+fortress. To facilitate that attempt, and have troops at hand ready to
+take advantage of any opening that might be afforded them in that
+quarter, he moved towards Tirlemont, directing his march by the
+sources of the Little Gheet. Determined to cover Namur, and knowing
+that the Hanoverians and Hessians were absent, Villeroi marched out of
+his lines, in order to stop the advance of the Allies, and give battle
+in the open field. On the 20th May, the English and Dutch forces
+effected their junction at Bitsia; and on the day following the Danish
+contingent arrived, Marlborough having by great exertions persuaded
+them to come up from the Rhine, upon receiving a guarantee for their
+pay from the Dutch government. This raised his force to seventy-three
+battalions and one hundred and twenty-four squadrons. The French had
+seventy-four battalions and one hundred and twenty-eight squadrons;
+but they had a much greater advantage in the homogeneous quality of
+their troops, who were all of one country; while the forces of the
+confederates were drawn from three different nations, speaking
+different languages, and many of whom had never acted in the field
+together. Cadogan, with six hundred horse, formed the vanguard of
+Marlborough's army; and at daybreak on the 22d, he beheld the enemy's
+army grouped in dense masses in the strong camp of Mont St Andre. As
+their position stretched directly across the allied line of march, a
+battle was unavoidable; and Marlborough no sooner was informed of it,
+than with a joyous heart he prepared for the conflict.
+
+The ground occupied by the enemy, and which has become so famous by
+the battle of RAMILIES which followed, was on the summit of an
+elevated plateau forming the highest ground in Brabant, immediately
+above the two sources of the Little Gheet. The plateau above them is
+varied by gentle undulations, interspersed with garden grounds, and
+dotted with coppice woods. From it the two Gheets, the Mehaigne and
+the Dyle, take their source, and flow in different directions, so that
+it is the most elevated ground in the whole country. The descents from
+the summit of the plateau to the Great Gheet are steep and abrupt; but
+the other rivers rise in marshes and mosses, which are very wet, and
+in some places impassable. Marlborough was well aware of the strength
+of the position on the summit of this eminence, and he had used all
+the dispatch in his power to reach it before the enemy; but Villeroi
+had less ground to go over, and had his troops in battle array on the
+summit before the English appeared in sight. The position which they
+occupied ran along the front of a curve facing inwards, and
+overhanging the sources of the Little Gheet. Their troops extended
+along the crest of the ridge above the marshes, having the village of
+Autre Eglise in its front on the extreme left, the villages of Offuz
+and Ramilies in its front, and its extreme right on the high grounds
+which overhung the course of the Mehaigne, and the old _chaussee_ of
+Brunehand which ran near and parallel to its banks. Their right
+stretched to the Mehaigne, on which it rested, and the village of
+Tavieres on its banks was strongly occupied by foot-soldiers. The
+French foot were drawn up in two lines, with the villages in their
+front strongly occupied by infantry. In Ramilies alone twenty
+battalions were posted. The great bulk of their horse was arranged
+also in two lines on the right, across the chaussee of Brunehand, by
+which part of the Allied column was to advance. On the highest point
+of the ridge occupied by the French, and in the rear of their extreme
+right, commanding the whole field of battle, behind the mass of
+cavalry, was the tomb or barrow of Ottomond, a German hero of renown
+in ancient days, which it was evident would become the subject of a
+desperate strife between the contending parties in the conflict which
+was approaching.
+
+Marlborough no sooner came in sight of the enemy's position than he
+formed his own plan of attack. His troops were divided into ten
+columns; the cavalry being into two lines on each wing, the infantry
+in six columns in the centre. He at once saw that the French right,
+surmounted by the lofty plateau on which the tomb of Ottomond was
+placed, was the key of the position, and against that he resolved to
+direct the weight of his onset; but the better to conceal his real
+design, he determined to make a vehement false attack on the village
+of Autre Eglise and the French left. The nature of the ground occupied
+by the allies and enemy respectively, favoured this design; for the
+French were posted round the circumference of a segment, while the
+allies occupied the centre and chord, so that they could move with
+greater rapidity than their opponents from one part of the field to
+another. Marlborough's stratagem was entirely successful. He formed,
+in the first instance, with some ostentation, a weighty column of
+attack opposite to the French left, menacing the village of Autre
+Eglise. No sooner did Villeroi perceive this than he drew a
+considerable body of infantry from his centre behind Offuz, and
+marched them with the utmost expedition to reinforce the threatened
+point on his left. When Marlborough saw this cross-movement fairly
+commenced, skilfully availing himself of a rising ground on which the
+front of his column of attack on his right was placed, he directed the
+second line and columns in support when the front had reached the edge
+of the plateau, where they obstructed the view of those behind them,
+to halt in a hollow where they could not be seen, and immediately
+after, still concealed from the enemy's sight, to defile rapidly to
+the left till they came into the rear of the left centre. The Danish
+horse, twenty squadrons strong, under the Duke of Wirtemberg, were at
+the same time placed in a third line behind the cavalry of the left
+wing, so as to bring the weight of his horse as well as foot into that
+quarter.
+
+At half past twelve the cannonade began on both sides, and that of the
+French played heavily on the columns of the confederates advancing to
+the attack. The Allied right wing directed against Autre Eglise,
+steadily advanced up the slopes from the banks of the Little Gheet to
+the edge of the plateau; but there they halted, deployed into line,
+and opened their fire in such a position as to conceal entirely the
+transfer of the infantry and cavalry in their rear to the Allied left.
+No sooner had they reached it, than the attack began in real earnest,
+and with a preponderating force in that direction. Colonel
+Wertonville, with four Dutch battalions, advanced against Tavieres,
+while twelve battalions in columns of companies, supported by a strong
+reserve, began the attack on Ramilies in the left centre. The
+vehemence of this assault soon convinced Villeroi that the real attack
+of the Allies was in that quarter; but he had no reserve of foot to
+support the troops in the villages, every disposable man having been
+sent off to the left in the direction of Autre Eglise. In this
+dilemma, he hastily ordered fourteen squadrons of horse to dismount,
+and, supported by two Swiss battalions, moved them up to the support
+of the troops in Tavieres. Before they could arrive, however, the
+Dutch battalions had with great gallantry carried that village; and
+Marlborough, directing the Danish horse, under the brave Duke of
+Wirtemberg, against the flank of the dismounted dragoons, as they were
+in column and marching up, speedily cut them in pieces, and hurled
+back the Swiss in confusion on the French horse, who were advancing to
+their support.
+
+Following up his success, Overkirk next charged the first line of
+advancing French cavalry with the first line of the Allied horse, and
+such was the vigour of his onset, that the enemy were broken and
+thrown back. But the second line of French and Bavarian horse soon
+came up, and assailing Overkirk's men when they were disordered by
+success, and little expecting another struggle, overthrew them without
+difficulty, drove them back in great confusion, and almost entirely
+restored the battle in that quarter. The danger was imminent that the
+victorious French horse, having cleared the open ground of their
+opponents, would wheel about and attack in rear the twelve battalions
+who were warmly engaged with the attack on Ramilies. Marlborough
+instantly saw the danger, and putting himself at the head of seventeen
+squadrons at hand, himself led them on to stop the progress of the
+victorious horse; while, at the same time, he sent orders for every
+disposable sabre to come up from his right with the utmost expedition.
+The moment was critical, and nothing but the admirable intrepidity and
+presence of mind of the English general retrieved the Allied affairs.
+Leading on the reserve of the Allied horse with his wonted gallantry,
+under a dreadful fire from the French batteries on the heights behind
+Ramilies, he was recognised by some French troopers, with whom he had
+formerly served in the time of Charles II., who made a sudden rush at
+him. They had well-nigh made him prisoner, for they succeeded in
+surrounding the Duke before his men could come up to the rescue, and
+he only extricated himself from the throng of assailants by fighting
+his way out, like the knights of old, sword in hand. He next tried to
+leap a ditch, but his horse fell in the attempt; and when mounting
+another horse, given him by his aide-de-camp Captain Molesworth,
+Colonel Bingfield, his equery, who held the stirrup, had his head
+carried off by a cannon ball. The imminent danger of their beloved
+general, however, revived the spirit of his troops, whom the dreadful
+severity of the cannonade had, during the scuffle, thrown into
+disorder; and, re-forming with great celerity, they again returned
+with desperate resolution to the charge.
+
+At this critical moment, when nothing was as yet decided, the twenty
+fresh squadrons whom Marlborough had so opportunely called up from the
+Allied right, were seen galloping at full speed, but still in regular
+order, on the plain behind this desperate conflict. Halting directly
+in rear of the spot where the horse on both sides were so vehemently
+engaged, they wheeled into line, and advanced, in close order and
+admirable array, to the support of the Duke. Encouraged by this
+powerful reinforcement, the whole Allied cavalry re-formed, and
+crowded forward in three lines, with loud shouts, to the attack of the
+now intimidated and disheartened French. They no longer withstood the
+onset, but, turning their horses' heads, fled with precipitation. The
+low grounds between Ramilies and the old chaussee were quickly passed,
+and the victorious horse, pressing up the slope on the opposite side,
+erelong reached the summit of the plateau. The tomb of Ottomond, its
+highest point, and visible from the whole field of battle, was soon
+seen resplendent with sabres and cuirasses, amidst a throng of horse;
+and deafening shouts, heard over the whole extent of both armies,
+announced that the crowning point and key of the whole position was
+carried.
+
+But Villeroi was an able and determined general, and his soldiers
+fought with the inherent bravery of the French nation. The contest,
+thus virtually decided, was not yet over. A fierce fight was raging
+around Ramilies, where the garrison of twenty French battalions
+opposed a stout resistance to Schultz's grenadiers. By degrees,
+however, the latter gained ground; two Swiss battalions, which had
+long and resolutely held their ground, were at length forced back into
+the village, and some of the nearest houses fell into the hands of the
+Allies. Upon this the whole rushed forward, and drove the enemy in a
+mass out of it towards the high grounds in their rear. The Marquis
+Maffei, however, rallied two regiments of Cologne guards, in a hollow
+way leading up from the village to the plateau, and opposed so
+vigorous a resistance that he not only checked the pursuit but
+regained part of the village. But Marlborough, whose eye was every
+where, no sooner saw this than he ordered up twenty battalions in
+reserve behind the centre, and they speedily cleared the village; and
+Maffei, with his gallant troops, being charged in flank by the
+victorious horse at the very time that he was driven out of the
+village by the infantry, was made prisoner, and almost all his men
+taken or destroyed.
+
+The victory was now decided on the British left and centre, where
+alone the real attack had been made. But so vehement had been the
+onset, so desperate the passage of arms which had taken place, that
+though the battle had lasted little more than three hours, the victors
+were nearly in as great disorder as the vanquished. Horse, foot, and
+artillery, were blended together in wild confusion; especially between
+Ramilies and the Mehaigne, and thence up to the tomb of Ottomond, in
+consequence of the various charges of all arms which had so rapidly
+succeeded each other on the same narrow space. Marlborough, seeing
+this, halted his troops, before hazarding any thing further, on the
+ground where they stood, which, in the left and centre, was where the
+enemy had been at the commencement of the action. Villeroi skilfully
+availed himself of this breathing-time to endeavour to re-form his
+broken troops, and take up a new line from Geest-a-Gerompont, on his
+right, through Offuz to Autre Eglise, still held by its original
+garrison, on his left. But in making the retrograde movement so as to
+get his men into this oblique position, he was even more impeded and
+thrown into disorder by the baggage waggons and dismounted guns on the
+heights, than the Allies had been in the plain below. Marlborough
+seeing this, resolved to give the enemy no time to rally, but again
+sounding the charge, ordered infantry and cavalry to advance. A strong
+column passed the morass in which the Little Gheet takes its rise,
+directing their steps towards Offuz; but the enemy, panic-struck as at
+Waterloo, by the general advance of the victors, gave way on all
+sides. Offuz was abandoned without firing a shot; the cavalry pursued
+with headlong fury, and soon the plateau of Mont St Andre was covered
+with a mass of fugitives. The troops in observation on the right,
+seeing the victory gained on the left and centre, of their own accord
+joined in the pursuit, and soon made themselves masters of Autre
+Eglise and the heights behind it. The Spanish and Bavarian
+horse-guards made a gallant attempt to stem the flood of disaster, but
+without attaining their object; it only led to their own destruction.
+Charged by General Wood and Colonel Wyndham at the head of the English
+horse-guards, they were cut to pieces. The rout now became universal,
+and all resistance ceased. In frightful confusion, a disorganized mass
+of horse and foot, abandoning their guns, streamed over the plateau,
+poured headlong down the banks of the Great Gheet, on the other side,
+and fled towards Louvain, which they reached in the most dreadful
+disorder at two o'clock in the morning. The British horse, under Lord
+Orkney, did not draw bridle from the pursuit till they reached the
+neighbourhood of that fortress; having, besides fighting the battle,
+marched full five-and-twenty miles that day. Marlborough halted for
+the night, and established headquarters at Mildert, thirteen miles
+from the field of battle, and five from Louvain.
+
+The trophies of the battle of Ramilies were immense; but they were
+even exceeded by its results. The loss of the French in killed and
+wounded was 7000 men, and, in addition to that, 6000 prisoners were
+taken. With the desertion in the days after the battle, they were
+weakened by full 15,000 men. They lost fifty-two guns, their whole
+baggage and pontoon train, all their caissons, and eighty standards
+wrested from them in fair fight. Among the prisoners were the Princes
+de Soubise and Rohan, and a son of Marshal Tallard. The victors lost
+1066 killed, and 2567 wounded, in all, 3633. The great and unusual
+proportion of killed to the wounded, shows how desperate and hand to
+hand, as in ancient battles, the fighting had been. Overkirk nobly
+supported the Duke in this action, and not only repeatedly charged at
+the head of his horse, but continued on horseback in the pursuit till
+one in the morning, when he narrowly escaped death from a Bavarian
+officer whom he had made prisoner, and given back his sword, saying,
+"You are a gentleman, and may keep it." The base wretch no sooner got
+it into his hand than he made a lounge at the Dutch general, but
+fortunately missed his blow, and was immediately cut down for his
+treachery by Overkirk's orderly.
+
+The immediate result of this splendid victory, was the acquisition of
+nearly all Austrian Flanders--Brussels, Louvain, Mechlin, Alort,
+Luise, and nearly all the great towns of Brabant, opened their gates
+immediately after. Ghent and Bruges speedily followed the example; and
+Daun and Oudenarde also soon declared for the Austrian cause. Of all
+the towns in Flanders, Antwerp, Ostend, Nieuport, and Dunkirk alone
+held out for the French; and to their reduction the Duke immediately
+turned his attention. The public transports in Holland knew no bounds;
+they much exceeded what had been felt for the victory of Blenheim, for
+that only saved Germany, but this delivered themselves. The wretched
+jealousy which had so long thwarted the Duke, as it does every other
+really great man, was fairly overpowered in "the electric shock of a
+nation's gratitude." In England, the rejoicings were equally
+enthusiastic, and a solemn thanksgiving, at which the Queen attended
+in person at St Paul's, gave a willing vent to the general
+thankfulness. "Faction and the French," as Bolingbroke expressed
+it,[11] were all that Marlborough had to fear, and he had fairly
+conquered both. But the snake was scotched, not killed, and he
+replenished his venom, and prepared future stings even during the roar
+of triumphant cannon, and the festive blaze of rejoicing cities.[12]
+
+The French army, after this terrible defeat, retired in the deepest
+dejection towards French Flanders, leaving garrisons in the principal
+fortresses which still held out for them. Marlborough made his
+triumphant entry into Brussels in great pomp on the 28th May, amidst
+the acclamations of the inhabitants. The Three Estates of Brabant
+assembled there, acknowledged Charles III. for their sovereign, and
+received, in return, a guarantee from the English government and the
+States-general, that the _joyeuse entree_, the Magna Charta of
+Flanders, should be faithfully observed. "Every where, says
+Marlborough, the joy was great at being delivered from the insolence
+and exactions of the French." The victory of Ramilies produced no less
+effect on the northern courts, where jealousies and lukewarmness had
+hitherto proved so pernicious to the common cause. The King of
+Prussia, who had hitherto kept aloof, and suspended the march of his
+troops, now on the mediation of Marlborough became reconciled to the
+Emperor and the States-general; and the Elector of Hanover, forgetting
+his apprehensions about the English succession, was among the foremost
+to offer his congratulations, and make a tender of his forces to the
+now triumphant cause. It is seldom that the prosperous want friends.
+
+The Dutch were clear, after the submission of Brabant, to levy
+contributions in it as a conquered country, to relieve themselves of
+part of the expenses of the war; and Godolphin, actuated by the same
+short-sighted views, was eager to replenish the English exchequer from
+the same source. But Marlborough, like Wellington in after days, had
+magnanimity and wisdom enough to see the folly, as well as injustice,
+of thus alienating infant allies at the moment of their conversion,
+and he combated the project so successfully, that it was
+abandoned.[13] At the same time, he preserved the strictest discipline
+on the part of his troops, and took every imaginable precaution to
+secure the affections and allay the apprehensions of the inhabitants
+of the ceded provinces. The good effects of this wise and conciliatory
+policy were soon apparent. Without firing a shot, the Allies gained
+greater advantages during the remainder of the campaign, than they
+could have done by a series of bloody sieges, and the sacrifice of
+thirty thousand men. Nor was it less advantageous to the English
+general than to the common cause; for it delivered him, for that
+season at least, from the thraldom of a council of war, the invariable
+resource of a weak, and bane of a lofty mind.[14]
+
+The Estates of Brabant, assembled at Brussels, sent injunctions to
+the governor of Antwerp, Ghent, and all the other fortresses within
+their territories, to declare for Charles III., and admit these
+troops. The effects of this, coupled with the discipline preserved by
+the Allied troops, and the protection from contributions, was
+incredible. No sooner were the orders from the States at Brussels
+received at Antwerp, than a schism broke out between the French
+regiments in the garrison and the Walloon guards, the latter declaring
+for Charles III. The approach of Marlborough's army, and the
+intelligence of the submission of the other cities of Brabant, brought
+matters to a crisis; and after some altercation, it was agreed that
+the French troops should march out with the honours of war, and be
+escorted to Bouchain, within the frontier of their own country. On the
+6th June this magnificent fortress, which it had cost the Prince of
+Parma so vast an expenditure of blood and treasure to reduce, and
+which Napoleon said was itself worth a kingdom, was gained without
+firing a shot. Oudenarde, which had been in vain besieged in the last
+war by William III. at the head of sixty thousand men, at the same
+time followed the example; and Ghent and Bruges opened their gates.
+Flanders, bristling with fortresses, and the possession of which in
+the early part of the war had been of such signal service to the
+French, was, with the exception of Ostend, Dunkirk, and two or three
+smaller places, entirely gained by the consternation produced by a
+single battle. Well might Marlborough say, "the consequences of our
+victory are almost incredible. A whole country, with so many strong
+places, delivered up without the least resistance, shows, not only the
+great loss they must have sustained, but likewise the terror and
+consternation they are in."[15]
+
+At this period, Marlborough hoped the war would be speedily brought to
+a close, and that a glorious peace would reward his own and his
+country's efforts. His thoughts reverted constantly, as his private
+correspondence shows, to home, quiet, and domestic happiness. To the
+Duchess he wrote at this period--"You are very kind in desiring I
+would not expose myself. Be assured, I love you so well, and am so
+desirous of ending my days quietly with you, that I shall not venture
+myself but when it is absolutely necessary; and I am sure you are so
+kind to me, and wish so well to the common cause, that you had rather
+see me dead than not do my duty. I am persuaded that this campaign
+will bring in a good peace; and I beg of you to do all that you can,
+that the house of Woodstock may be carried up as much as possible,
+that I may have the prospect of living in it."[16]--But these
+anticipations were not destined to be realized; and before he retired
+into the vale of years, the hero was destined to drain to the dregs
+the cup of envy, jealousy, and ingratitude.
+
+His first step of importance, after consolidating the important
+conquests he had made, and averting the cupidity of the Dutch, which,
+by levying contributions on their inhabitants, threatened to endanger
+them before they were well secured, was to undertake the siege of
+Ostend, the most considerable place in Flanders, which still held out
+for the French interest. This place, celebrated for its great
+strength, and the long siege of three years which it had withstood
+against the Spanish under Spinola, was expected to make a very
+protracted resistance; but such was the terror now inspired by
+Marlborough's name, that it was reduced much sooner than had been
+anticipated. Every preparation had been made for a protracted
+resistance. A fleet of nine ships of the line lay off the harbour, and
+a formidable besieging train was brought up from Antwerp and Brussels.
+Trenches were opened on the 28th June; the counterscarp was blown in
+on the 6th July; and the day following, the besieged, after a
+fruitless sally, capitulated, and the Flemish part of the garrison
+entered the service of the Allies. The garrison was still five
+thousand strong, when it surrendered; two ships of the line were
+taken in the harbour; and the total loss of the besiegers was only
+five hundred men.
+
+Menin was next besieged, but it made a more protracted resistance. Its
+great strength was derived from the means which the governor of the
+fortress possessed of flooding at will the immense low plains in which
+it is situated. Its fortifications had always been considered as one
+of the masterpieces of Vauban; the garrison was ample; and the
+governor a man of resolution, who was encouraged to make a vigorous
+resistance, by the assurances of succour which he had received from
+the French government. In effect, Louis XIV. had made the greatest
+efforts to repair the consequences of the disaster at Ramilies.
+Marshal Marsin had been detached from the Rhine with eighteen
+battalions and fourteen squadrons; and, in addition to that, thirty
+battalions and forty squadrons were marching from Alsace. These great
+reinforcements, with the addition of nine battalions which were in the
+lines on the Dyle when the battle of Ramilies was fought, would, when
+all assembled, have raised the French army to one hundred and ten
+battalions, and one hundred and forty squadrons--or above one hundred
+thousand men; whereas Marlborough, after employing thirty-two
+battalions in the siege, could only spare for the covering army about
+seventy-two battalions and eighty squadrons. The numerical
+superiority, therefore, was very great on the side of the enemy,
+especially when the Allies were divided by the necessity of carrying
+on the siege; and Villeroi, who had lost the confidence of his men,
+had been replaced by the Duke de Vendome, one of the best generals in
+the French service, illustrated by his recent victory over the
+Imperialists in Italy. He loudly gave out that he would raise the
+siege, and approached the covering army closely, as if with that
+design. But Marlborough persevered in his design; for, to use his own
+words, "The Elector of Bavaria says, he is promised a hundred and ten
+battalions, and they are certainly stronger in horse than we. But even
+if they had greater numbers, I neither think it is their interest nor
+their inclination to venture a battle; for our men are in heart, and
+theirs are cowed."[17]
+
+Considerable difficulties were experienced in the first instance in
+getting up the siege equipage, in consequence of the inundations which
+were let loose; but a drought having set in, when the blockade began,
+in the beginning of August, these obstacles were erelong overcome, and
+on the 9th August the besiegers' fire began, while Marlborough took
+post at Helchin to cover the siege. On the 18th, the fire of the
+breaching batteries had been so effectual, that it was deemed
+practicable to make an assault on the covered way. As a determined
+resistance was anticipated, the Duke repaired to the spot to
+superintend the attack. At seven in the evening, the signal was given
+by the explosion of two mines, and the troops, the English in front,
+rushed to the assault. They soon cut down the palisades, and, throwing
+their grenades before them, erelong got into the covered way; but
+there they were exposed to a dreadful fire from two ravelins which
+enfiladed it. For two hours they bore it without flinching, labouring
+hard to erect barricades, so as to get under cover; which was at
+length done, but not before fourteen hundred of the brave assailants
+had been struck down. This success, though thus dearly purchased, was
+however decisive. The establishment of the besiegers in this important
+lodgement, in the heart as it were of their works, so distressed the
+enemy, that on the 22d they hoisted the white flag, and capitulated,
+still 4300 strong, on the following day. The reduction of this strong
+and celebrated fortress gave the most unbounded satisfaction to the
+Allies, as it not only materially strengthened the barrier against
+France; but having taken place in presence of the Duke de Vendome and
+his powerful army, drawn together with such diligence to raise the
+siege, it afforded the strongest proof of the superiority they had now
+acquired over their enemy in the field.[18]
+
+Upon the fall of Menin, Vendome collected his troops, and occupied a
+position behind the Lys and the Dyle, in order to cover Lille, against
+which he supposed the intentions of Marlborough were directed. But he
+had another object in view, and immediately sat down before
+Dendermonde, still keeping post with his covering army at Helchin,
+which barred the access to that fortress. Being situated on the banks
+of the Scheldt, it was so completely within the power of the governor
+to hinder the approaches of the besiegers, by letting out the waters,
+that the King of France said, on hearing they had commenced its
+siege--"They must have an army of ducks to take it." An extraordinary
+drought at this period, however, which lasted seven weeks, had so
+lowered the Scheldt and canals, that the approaches were pushed with
+great celerity, and on the 5th September the garrison surrendered at
+discretion. Marlborough wrote to Godolphin on this occasion--"The
+taking of Dendermonde, making the garrison prisoners of war, was more
+than could have been expected; but I saw they were in a consternation.
+That place could never have been taken but by the hand of God, which
+gave us seven weeks without rain. The rain began the day after we had
+taken possession, and continued without intermission for the three
+next days."[19]
+
+Ath was the next object of attack. This small but strong fortress is
+of great importance, as lying on the direct road from Mons to Brussels
+by Halle; and, in consequence of that circumstance, it was rendered a
+fortress of the first order, when the barrier of strongholds, insanely
+demolished by Joseph II. before the war of the Revolution, was
+restored by the Allies, under the direction of Wellington, after its
+termination. Marlborough entrusted the direction of the attack to
+Overkirk, while he himself occupied, with the covering army, the
+position of Leuze. Vendome's army was so much discouraged that he did
+not venture to disturb the operations; but retiring behind the
+Scheldt, between Conde and Montagne, contented himself with throwing
+strong garrisons into Mons and Charleroi, which he apprehended would
+be the next object of attack. The operations of the besiegers against
+Ath were pushed with great vigour; and on the 4th October the
+garrison, eight hundred strong, all that remained out of two thousand
+who manned the works when the siege began, surrendered prisoners of
+war. Marlborough was very urgent after this success to undertake the
+siege of Mons, which would have completed the conquest of Brabant and
+Flanders; but he could not persuade the Dutch authorities to furnish
+him with the requisite stores to undertake it.[20] After a parade of
+his army in the open field near Cambron, in the hope of drawing
+Vendome, who boasted of having one hundred and forty battalions and
+one hundred and eighty squadrons at his command, to a battle, in which
+he was disappointed, he resigned the command to Overkirk, put the army
+into winter quarters, and hastened to Brussels, to commence his
+arduous duties of stilling the jealousies and holding together the
+discordant powers of the alliance.[21]
+
+Marlborough was received in the most splendid manner, and with
+unbounded demonstrations of joy, at Brussels, not only by the
+inconstant populace, but by the deputies of the Three Estates of
+Brabant, which were there assembled in regular and permanent
+sovereignty. Well might they lavish their demonstrations of respect
+and gratitude on the English general; for never in modern times had
+more important or glorious events signalized a successful campaign. In
+five months the power of France had been so completely broken, and the
+towering temper of its inhabitants so lowered, that their best
+general, at the head of above a hundred thousand men, did not venture
+to measure swords with the Allies, not more than two-thirds of their
+numerical strength in the field. By the effects of a single victory,
+the whole of Brabant and Flanders, studded with the strongest
+fortresses in Europe, each of which, in former wars, had required
+months--some, years--for their reduction, had been gained to the
+Allied arms. Between those taken on the field of Ramilies, and
+subsequently in the besieged fortresses, above twenty thousand men had
+been made prisoners, and twice that number lost to the enemy by the
+sword, sickness, and desertion; and France now made head against the
+Allies in Flanders only by drawing together their forces from all
+other quarters, and starving the war in Italy and on the Rhine, as
+well as straining every nerve in the interior. This state of almost
+frenzied exertion could not last. Already the effects of Marlborough's
+triumph at the commencement of the campaign had appeared, in the total
+defeat of the French in their lines before Turin, by Prince Eugene, on
+the 18th September, and their expulsion from Italy. It was the
+reinforcements procured for him, and withheld from his opponents, by
+Marlborough, which obtained for him this glorious victory, at which
+the English general, with the generosity of true greatness, rejoiced
+even more sincerely than he had done in any triumphs of his own;[22]
+while Eugene, with equal greatness of mind, was the first to ascribe
+his success mainly to the succours sent him by the Duke of
+Marlborough.[23]
+
+But all men are not Marlboroughs or Eugenes: the really great alone
+can witness success without envy, or achieve it without selfishness.
+In the base herd of ignoble men who profited by the efforts of these
+great leaders, the malignant passions were rapidly gaining strength by
+the very magnitude of their triumphs. The removal of danger was
+producing its usual effect, among the Allies, of reviving jealousy.
+Conquest was spreading its invariable discord in the cupidity to share
+its fruits. These divisions had early appeared after the battle of
+Ramilies, when the Emperor Joseph, as a natural mark of gratitude to
+the general who had delivered his people from their oppressors, as
+well as from a regard to his own interests, appointed Marlborough to
+the general command as viceroy of the Netherlands. The English general
+was highly gratified by this mark of confidence and gratitude; and the
+appointment was cordially approved of by Queen Anne and the English
+cabinet, who without hesitation authorized Marlborough to accept the
+proffered dignity. But the Dutch, who had already begun to conceive
+projects of ambition by an accession of territory to themselves on the
+side of Flanders, evinced such umbrage at this appointment, as tending
+to throw the administration of the Netherlands entirely into the hands
+of the English and Austrians, that Marlborough had the magnanimity to
+solicit permission to decline an honour which threatened to breed
+disunion in the alliance.[24] This conduct was as disinterested as it
+was patriotic; for the appointments of the government, thus declined
+from a desire for the public good, were no less than sixty thousand
+pounds a-year.
+
+Although, however, Marlborough thus renounced this splendid
+appointment, yet the court of Vienna were not equally tractable, and
+evinced the utmost jealousy at the no longer disguised desire of the
+Dutch to gain an accession of territory, and the barrier of which they
+were so passionately desirous, at the expense of the Austrian
+Netherlands. The project also got wind, and the inhabitants of
+Brabant, whom difference of religion and old-established national
+rivalry had long alienated from the Dutch, were so much alarmed at the
+prospect of being transferred to their hated neighbours, that it at
+once cooled their ardour in the cause of the alliance, and went far to
+sow the seeds of irrepressible dissension among them. The Emperor,
+therefore, again pressed the appointment on Marlborough; but from the
+same lofty motives he continued to decline, professing a willingness,
+at the same time, to give the Emperor every aid privately in the new
+government which was in his power; so that the Emperor was obliged to
+give a reluctant consent. Notwithstanding this refusal, the jealousy
+of the Dutch was such, that on the revival of a report that the
+government had been again confirmed to the Duke of Marlborough, they
+were thrown into such a ferment, that in the public congress the
+Pensionary could not avoid exclaiming in the presence of the English
+ambassador, "Mon Dieu! est-il possible qu'on voudrait faire ce pas
+sans notre participation?"[25]
+
+The French government were soon informed of this jealousy, and of the
+open desire of the Dutch for an accession of territory on the side of
+Flanders, at the expense of Austria; and they took advantage of it,
+early in the summer of 1706, to open a secret negotiation with the
+States-general for the conclusion of a separate peace with that
+republic. The basis of this accommodation was to be a renunciation by
+the Duke of Anjou of his claim to the crown of Spain, upon receiving
+an equivalent in Italy: he offered to recognize Anne as Queen of
+England, and professed the utmost readiness to secure for the Dutch,
+_at the expense of Austria_, that barrier in the Netherlands, to which
+he conceived them to be so well entitled. These proposals elated the
+Dutch government to such a degree, that they began to take a high
+hand, and assume a dictatorial tone at the Hague: and it was the
+secret belief that they would, if matters came to extremities, be
+supported by France in this exorbitant demand for a slice of Austria,
+that made them resist so strenuously the government of the Low
+Countries being placed in such firm and vigorous hands as those of
+Marlborough. Matters had come to such a pass in October and November
+1706, that Godolphin regarded affairs as desperate, and thought the
+alliance was on the point of being dissolved.[26] Thus was
+Marlborough's usual winter campaign with the confederates rendered
+more difficult on this than it had been on any preceding occasion; for
+he had now to contend with the consequences of his own success, and
+allay the jealousies and stifle the cupidity which had sprung up, out
+of the prospect of the magnificent spoil which he himself had laid at
+the feet of the Allies.
+
+But in this dangerous crisis, Marlborough's great diplomatic ability,
+consummate address, and thorough devotion to the common good, stood
+him in as good stead as his military talents had done him in the
+preceding campaign with Villeroi and Vendome. In the beginning of
+November, he repaired to the Hague, and though he found the Dutch in
+the first instance so extravagant in their ideas of the barrier they
+were to obtain, that he despaired of effecting any settlement of the
+differences between them and the Emperor;[27] yet he at length
+succeeded, though with very great difficulty, in appeasing, for the
+time, the jealousies between them and the cabinet of Vienna, and
+obtaining a public renewal of the alliance for the prosecution of the
+war. The publication of this treaty diffused the utmost satisfaction
+among the ministers of the Allied powers assembled at the Hague; and
+this was further increased by the breaking off, at the same time, of a
+negotiation which had pended for some months between Marlborough and
+the Elector of Bavaria, for a separate treaty with that prince, who
+had become disgusted with the French alliance. But all Marlborough's
+efforts failed to make any adjustment of the disputed matter of the
+barrier, on which the Dutch were so obstinately set; and finding them
+equally unreasonable and intractable on that subject, he deemed
+himself fortunate when he obtained the adjourning of the question, by
+the consent of all concerned, till the conclusion of a general peace.
+
+After the adjustment of this delicate and perilous negotiation,
+Marlborough returned to England, where he was received with transports
+of exultation by all classes of the people. He was conducted in one of
+the royal carriages, amidst a splendid procession of all the nobility
+of the kingdom, to Temple Bar, where he was received by the city
+authorities, by whom he was feasted in the most magnificent manner at
+Vintners' Hall. Thanks were voted to him by both Houses of Parliament;
+and when he took his seat in the House of Peers, the Lord Keeper
+addressed him in these just and appropriate terms--"What your Grace
+has performed in this last campaign has far exceeded all hopes, even
+of such as were most affectionate and partial to their country's
+interest and glory. The advantages you have gained against the enemy
+are of such a nature, so conspicuous in themselves, so undoubtedly
+owing to your courage and conduct, so sensibly and universally
+beneficial to the whole confederacy, that to attempt to adorn them
+with the colouring of words would be vain and inexcusable. Therefore I
+decline it, the rather because I should certainly offend that great
+modesty which alone can and does add lustre to your actions, and which
+in your Grace's example has successfully withstood as great trials, as
+that virtue has met with in any instance whatsoever." The House of
+Commons passed a similar resolution; and the better to testify the
+national gratitude, an annuity of L5000 a-year, charged upon the
+Post-Office, was settled upon the Duke and Duchess, and their
+descendants male or female; and the dukedom, which stood limited to
+heirs-male, was extended also to heirs-female, "in order," as it was
+finely expressed, "that England might never be without a title which
+might recall the remembrance of so much glory."
+
+So much glory, however, produced its usual effect in engendering
+jealousy in little minds. The Whigs had grown spiteful against that
+illustrious pillar of their party; they were tired of hearing him
+called the just. Both Godolphin and Marlborough became the objects of
+excessive jealousy to their own party; and this, combined with the
+rancour of the Tories, who could never forgive his desertion of his
+early patron the Duke of York, had well-nigh proved fatal to him when
+at the very zenith of his usefulness and popularity. Intrigue was rife
+at St James's. Parties were strangely intermixed and disjointed. Some
+of the moderate Tories were in power; many covetous Whigs were out of
+it. Neither party stood on great public principle, a sure sign of
+instability in the national councils, and ultimate neglect of the
+national interests. Harley's intrigues had become serious; the prime
+minister, Godolphin, had threatened to resign. In this alarming
+juncture of domestic affairs, the presence of Marlborough produced its
+usual pacifying and benign influence. In a long interview which he had
+with the Queen on his first private audience, he settled all
+differences; Godolphin was persuaded to withdraw his resignation; the
+cabinet was re-constructed on a new and harmonious basis, Harley and
+Bolingbroke being the only Tories of any note who remained in power;
+and this new peril to the prosecution of the war, and the cause of
+European independence, was removed.
+
+Marlborough's services to England and the cause of European
+independence in this campaign, recall one mournful feeling to the
+British annalist. All that he had won for his country--all that
+Wellington, with still greater difficulty, and amidst yet brighter
+glories, regained for it, has been lost. It has been lost, too, not by
+the enemies of the nation, but by itself; not by an opposite faction,
+but by the very party over whom his own great exploits had shed such
+imperishable lustre. Antwerp, the first-fruits of Ramilies--Antwerp,
+the last reward of Waterloo--Antwerp, to hold which against England
+Napoleon lost his crown, has been abandoned to France! An English
+fleet has combined with a French army to wrest from Holland the
+barrier of Dutch independence, and the key to the Low Countries. The
+barrier so passionately sought by the Dutch has been wrested from
+them, and wrested from them by British hands; a revolutionary power
+has been placed on the throne of Belgium; Flanders, instead of the
+outwork of Europe against France, has become the outwork of France
+against Europe. The tricolor flag waves in sight of Bergen-op-Zoom;
+within a month after the first European war, the whole coast from
+Bayonne to the Texel will be arrayed against Britain! The Whigs of
+1832 have undone all that the Whigs of 1706 had done--all that the
+glories of 1815 had secured. Such is the way in which nations are
+ruined by the blindness of faction.
+
+[Footnote 1: Continued from No. I., in July 1845, Vol. lviii. p. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 2: "C'est le retard de toutes les troupes Allemandes qui
+derange nos affaires. Je ne saurais vous expliquer la situation ou
+nous sommes qu'en vous envoyant les deux lettres ci jointes,--l'une
+que je viens de recevoir du Prince de Bade, et l'autre la reponse que
+je lui fais. En verite notre etat est plus a plaindre que vous ne
+croyez; mais je vous prie que cela n'aille pas outre. _Nous perdons la
+plus belle occasion du monde--manque des troupes qui devaient etre ici
+il y a deja longtemps._ Pour le reste de l'artillerie Hollandaise, et
+les provisions qui peuvent arriver de Mayence, vous les arreterez,
+s'il vous plait, pour quelques jours, jusqu'a ce que je vous en
+ecrive."--_Marlborough a M. Pesters; Treves, 31 Mai 1705. Despatches_,
+II. 60-1.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Even so late as the 8th June, Marlborough wrote.--"J'ai
+d'abord pris poste dans ce camp, ou je me trouve a portee
+d'entreprendre la siege de Saar-Louis, si les troupes qui devaient
+avoir ete ici il y a quelques jours m'avaient joint. Cependant je n'ai
+pas jusqu'ici un seul homme qui ne soit a la solde d'Angleterre ou de
+la Hollande. Les troupes de Bade ne peuvent arriver avant le 21 au
+plutot; quelques-uns des Prussiens sont encore plus en arriere; et
+pour les trois mille chevaux que les princes voisins devaient nous
+fournir pour mener l'artillerie et les munitions, et sans quoi il nous
+sera impossible d'agir, je n'en ai aucune nouvelle, nonobstant toutes
+mes instances. J'ai grand peur meme qu'il n'y ait, a l'heure meme que
+je vous ecris celle-ci, des regulations en chemin de la Haye qui
+detruiront entierement tous nos projets de ce cote. Cette situation me
+donne tant d'inquietude que je ne saurais me dispenser de vous prier
+d'en vouloir part a sa Majeste Imperiale."--_Marlborough au Comte de
+Wroteslau; Elft, 8 Juin 1705. Despatches_, II. 85.]
+
+[Footnote 4: "Par ces contretemps tous nos projets de ce cote-ci sont
+evanouis, au moins pour le present; et j'espere que V.A. me fera la
+justice de croire que j'ai fait tout ce qui a dependu de moi pour les
+faire reussir. Si je pouvais avoir l'honneur d'entretenir V.A. pour
+une seule heure, je lui dirai bien des choses, par ou elle verrait
+combien je suis a plaindre. J'avais 94 escadrons et 72 bataillons,
+tous a la solde de l'Angleterre et de la Hollande; de sorte que, si
+l'on m'avait seconde nous aurions une des plus glorieuses campagnes
+qu'on pouvait souhaiter. Apres un tel traitment, V.A., je suis sur, ne
+m'aurait pas blame si j'avais pris la resolution _de ne jamais plus
+servir_, comme je ne ferai pas aussi, je vous assure, apres cette
+campagne, a moins que de pouvoir prendre des mesures avec l'empereur
+sur lesquelles je pourrais entierement me fier."--_Marlborough a
+Eugene, 21 Juin 1705. Despatches_, II. 124.]
+
+[Footnote 5: "It is a justice I owe to the Duke of Marlborough to
+state, that the whole honour of the enterprise, executed with so much
+skill and courage, is entirely due to him."--_Overkirk to
+States-general, 19th July 1705. Coxe_, II. 151.]
+
+[Footnote 6: "On Wednesday, it was unanimously resolved we should pass
+the Dyle, but that afternoon there fell so much rain as rendered it
+impracticable; but the fair weather this morning made me determine to
+attempt it. Upon this the deputies held a council with all the
+generals of Overkirk's army, who have unanimously retracted their
+opinions, and declared the passage of the river too dangerous, which
+resolution, in my opinion, _will ruin the whole campaign_. They have,
+at the same time, proposed to me to attack the French on their left;
+but I know they will let that fall also, as soon as they see the
+ground. It is very mortifying to meet more obstruction from friends
+than from enemies; but that is now the case with me; yet I dare not
+show my resentment for fear of alarming the Dutch."--_Marlborough to
+Godolphin, 29th July 1705. Coxe_, II. 158.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Bolingbroke to Marlborough, August 18, 1705. _Coxe_, II.
+160.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Marlborough to the States, Wavre, 19th August 1705.
+_Desp._ II. 224.]
+
+[Footnote 9: Dutch Generals' Mem. _Coxe_, II. 174.]
+
+[Footnote 10: "Several prisoners whom we have taken, as well as the
+deserters, assure us, that they should have made no other defence but
+such as might have given them time to draw off their army to Brussels,
+where their baggage was already gone. By this you may imagine how I am
+vexed, seeing very plainly I am joined with people who will never do
+any thing."--_Marlborough to Godolphin, August 24 1705._
+
+"M. Overkirk et moi avons d'abord ete reconnaitre les postes que nous
+voulions attaquer, et l'armee etant rangee en bataille sur le midi,
+nous avions tout d'esperer, avec la benediction du ciel, vu notre
+superiorite, et la bonte des troupes, une heuruse journee; mais MM.
+les deputes de l'etat ayant voulu consulter leurs generaux, et les
+trouvant de differentes sentiments d'avec M. Overkirk et moi, ils
+n'ont pas voulu passer outre. De sorte que tout notre dessein, apres
+l'avoir mene jusque la, a echoue, et nous avons rebrousse chemin pour
+aller commencer la demolition des Lignes, et prendre Leau. Vous pouvez
+bien croire, Monsieur, que je suis au desespoir d'etre oblige
+d'essuyer encore ce contretemps; mais je vois bien qu'il ne faut pas
+plus songer a agir offensivement avec ces messieurs, puisqu' ils ne
+veulent rien risquer quand meme ils ont tout l'advantage de leur
+cote."--_Marlborough au Comte de Wartenberg, Wavre, 20 Aout 1705.
+Despatches_, II. 226.]
+
+[Footnote 11: "This vast addition of renown which your Grace has
+acquired, and the wonderful preservation of your life, are subjects
+upon which I can never express a thousandth part of what I feel.
+_France and faction are the only enemies England has to fear_, and
+your Grace will conquer both; at least, while you beat the French, you
+give a strength to the Government which the other dares not contend
+with."--_Bolingbroke to Marlborough, May 28, 1706. Coxe_, II. 358.]
+
+[Footnote 12: "I shall attend the Queen at the thanksgiving on
+Thursday next: I assure you I shall do it, from every vein within me,
+having scarce any thing else to support either my head or heart. The
+_animosity and inveteracy one has to struggle against is
+unimaginable_, not to mention the difficulty of obtaining things to be
+done that are reasonable, or of satisfying people with reason when
+they are done."--_Godolphin to Marlborough, May 24, 1706._]
+
+[Footnote 13: Duke of Marlborough to Mr Secretary Harley, June 14,
+1706.]
+
+[Footnote 14: "The consequences of this battle are likely to be
+greater than that of Blenheim; for we have now the whole summer before
+us, and, with the blessing of God, I will make the best use of it.
+_For as I have had no council of war before this battle, so I hope to
+have none during the whole campaign_; and I think we may make such
+work of it as may give the Queen the glory of making a safe and
+honourable peace, for the blessing of God is certainly with
+us."--_Marlborough to Lord Godolphin, May 27, 1706. Coxe, II. 365._]
+
+[Footnote 15: Marlborough to Mr Secretary Harley, 3d June 1706. _Desp.
+II._ 554.]
+
+[Footnote 16: Marlborough to Duchess of Marlborough, May 31, 1706.]
+
+[Footnote 17: Marlborough to Secretary Harley, Helchin, 9th August
+1706. _Desp._ III. 69.]
+
+[Footnote 18: Marlborough to Duke of Savoy, Helchin, 25th August 1706.
+_Desp._ III. 101.]
+
+[Footnote 19: Marlborough to Godolphin, September 4, 1706. _Coxe_,
+III. 10.]
+
+[Footnote 20: "If the Dutch can furnish ammunition for the siege of
+Mons, we shall undertake it; for if the weather continues fair, we
+shall have it much cheaper this year than the next, when they have had
+time to recruit their army. The taking of that town would be a very
+great advantage to us for the opening of next campaign, which we must
+make if we would bring France to such a peace as will give us quiet
+hereafter."--_Marlborough to Godolphin, October 14, 1706. Coxe_, III.
+14.]
+
+[Footnote 21: "M. de Vendome tells his officers he has one hundred and
+forty battalions and one hundred and eighty squadrons, and that, if my
+Lord Marlborough gives him an opportunity, he will pay him a visit
+before this campaign ends. I believe he has neither will nor power to
+do it, which we shall see quickly, for we are now camped in so open a
+country that if he marches to us we cannot refuse fighting."--_Marlborough
+to Lord Godolphin, October 14, 1706. Ibid._]
+
+[Footnote 22: "I have now received confirmation of the success in
+Italy, from the Duke of Savoy and Prince Eugene, and it is impossible
+for me to express the joy it has given me; _for I not only esteem, but
+really love, that Prince_. This glorious action must bring France so
+low, that if our friends can be persuaded to carry on the war one year
+longer with vigour, we could not fail, with God's blessing, to have
+such a peace as would give us quiet in our days. But the Dutch are at
+this time unaccountable."--_Marlborough to the Duchess, Sept. 26,
+1706. Coxe_, III. 20, 21.]
+
+[Footnote 23: "Your highness, I am sure, will rejoice at the signal
+advantage which the arms of his Imperial Majesty and the Allies have
+gained. _You have had so great a hand in it, by the succours you have
+procured_, that you must permit me to thank you again."--_Eugene to
+Marlborough, 20th Sept. 1706. Coxe_, III. 20.]
+
+[Footnote 24: "This appointment by the Emperor has given some
+uneasiness in Holland, by thinking that the Emperor has a mind to put
+the power in this country into the Queen's hands, in order that they
+may have nothing to do with it. If I should find the same thing by the
+Pensionary, and that nothing can cure this jealousy but my desiring to
+be excused from accepting this commission, I hope the Queen will allow
+of it; for the advantage and honour I have by this commission is _very
+insignificant in comparison of the fatal consequences that might be if
+it should cause a jealousy between the two nations_. And though the
+appointments of this government are sixty thousand pounds a-year, I
+shall with pleasure excuse myself, since I am convinced it is for her
+service, if the States should not make it their request, which they
+are very far from doing."--_Marlborough to Godolphin, July 1 and 8,
+1706. Coxe_, III. 391, 393.]
+
+[Footnote 25: Mr Stepney to Duke of Marlborough, _Hague, Jan. 4, 1707.
+Coxe_, II. 407.]
+
+[Footnote 26: "Lord Somers has shown me a long letter which he has had
+from the Pensionary, very intent _upon settling the barrier_. The
+inclinations of the Dutch are so violent and plain, that I am of
+opinion nothing will be able to prevent their taking effect but our
+being as plain with them upon the same subject, and threatening to
+publish to the whole world the terms for which they solicit."--_Lord
+Godolphin to Marlborough_, Oct. 24, 1706. Coxe, III. 74.]
+
+[Footnote 27: "My inclinations will lead me to stay as little as
+possible at the Hague, though the Pensionary tells me I must stay to
+finish the succession treaty and their barrier, which, should I stay
+the whole winter, I am very confident would not be brought to
+perfection. For they are of so many minds, and are all so very
+extravagant about their barrier, that I despair of doing any thing
+good till they are more reasonable, which they will not be till they
+see that they have it not in their power to dispose of the whole Low
+Countries at their will and pleasure, in which the French flatter
+them."--_Marlborough to Godolphin, Oct. 29, 1706. Coxe_, III. 79.]
+
+
+
+
+THE STUDENT OF SALAMANCA.
+
+PART II.
+
+   "Por estas montanas,
+    Facciosos siguiendo,
+    Vamos defendiendo
+    La Constitucion."
+
+             _Himno de Navarra._
+
+
+Rarely had the alameda of the picturesque old town of Logrono
+presented a gayer or more brilliant appearance than on a certain July
+evening of the year 1834. The day had been sultry in the extreme, and
+the sun was touching the horizon before the fair Riojanas ventured to
+quit their artificially darkened rooms, and the cool shelter of their
+well-screened _miradores_, for the customary promenade. It was
+pleasant, certainly, in those sombre apartments, and beneath those
+thick awnings, which excluded each ray of sun, although they did not
+prevent what little breeze there was from circulating freely between
+the heavy stone balustrades or quaintly moulded iron-work of the
+spacious balconies, rustling the leaves and blossoms of the
+orange-trees, and wafting their fragrance to the languid beauties who
+sat dozing, chatting, or love-making within. But if the _farniente_
+and languor induced by the almost tropical heat, were so agreeable as
+to tempt to their longer indulgence, on the other hand the _paseo_,
+that indispensable termination to a Spaniard's day, had, upon the
+evening in question, peculiar attractions for the inhabitants of
+Logrono, and especially for their fairer portion. Within the preceding
+three days, a body of troops, in number nearly twenty thousand men, a
+large portion of them the pick and flower of the Spanish army, had
+been concentrated at Logrono, whence, under the command of Rodil--a
+general of high reputation--they were to advance into Navarre, and
+exterminate the daring rebels, who, for some months past, had
+disturbed the peace of Spain. All had been noise and movement in the
+town during those three days; every stable full of horses, every house
+crowded with soldiers; artillery and baggage-waggons encumbering the
+squares and suburbs; the streets resounding with the harsh clang of
+trumpets and monotonous beat of drums; muleteers loading and unloading
+their beasts; commissaries bustling about for rations; beplumed and
+embroidered staff-officers galloping to and fro with orders; the clash
+of arms and tramp of horses in the barrack-yards; the clatter of
+wine-cups, joyous song, and merry tinkle of the guitar, from the
+various wine-houses in which the light-hearted soldiery were snatching
+a moment of enjoyment in the intervals of duty;--such were a few of
+the sights and sounds which for the time animated and gave importance
+to the usually quiet town of Logrono. Towards evening, the throng and
+bustle within the town diminished, and were transferred to the
+pleasant walks around it, and especially to the shady and
+flower-bordered avenues of the alameda. Thither repaired the proud and
+graceful beauties of Castile and Navarre, their raven locks but
+partially veiled by the fascinating mantilla, their dark and lustrous
+eyes flashing coquettish glances upon the gay officers who accompanied
+or hovered around them. Every variety of uniform was there to be seen;
+all was blaze, and glitter, and brilliancy; the smart trappings of
+these fresh troops had not yet been tattered and tarnished amidst the
+hardships of mountain warfare. The showy hussar, the elegant lancer,
+the helmeted dragoon, aides-de-camp with their cocked-hats and blue
+sashes, crossed and mingled in the crowd that filled the alameda, at
+either end of which a band of music was playing the beautiful and
+spirit-stirring national airs of Spain. On the one hand arose the
+dingy masses of the houses of Logrono, speckled with the lights that
+issued from their open casements, their outline distinctly defined
+against the rapidly darkening sky; on the other side was a wide
+extent of corn-field, intersected and varied by rows and clusters of
+trees, amongst the branches of which, and over the waving surface of
+the corn, innumerable fire-flies darted and sparkled. Here, a group of
+soldiers and country girls danced a bolero to the music of a guitar
+and tambourine; there, another party was collected round an Andalusian
+ballad-singer, of whose patriotic ditties "_la Libertad_" and "_la
+inocente Isabel_" were the usual themes. In a third place, a few
+inveterate gamblers--as what Spanish soldiers are not?--had stretched
+themselves upon the grass in a circle, and by the flickering light of
+a broken lantern, or of a candle stuck in the earth, were playing a
+game at cards for their day's pay, or for any thing else they might
+chance to possess. On all sides, ragged, bare-footed boys ran about,
+carrying pieces of lighted rope in their hands, the end of which they
+occasionally dashed against the ground, causing a shower of sparks to
+fly out, whilst they recommended themselves to the custom of the
+cigar-smokers by loud cries of "_Fuego! Buen fuego! Quien quiere
+fuego?_"
+
+At few of the young officers, who, on the evening referred to, paraded
+the alameda of Logrono, was the artillery of eyes and fan more
+frequently levelled by the love-breathing beauties there assembled,
+than at Luis Herrera, who, in the uniform of the cavalry regiment to
+which he now belonged, was present upon the paseo. But for him fans
+waved and bright eyes sparkled in vain. He was deeply engaged in
+conversation with Mariano Torres, who, having recently obtained a
+commission in the same corps with his friend, had arrived that evening
+to join it. The two young men had parted soon after the death of Don
+Manuel Herrera, and had not met since. One of Mariano's first
+questions concerned the Villabuenas.
+
+"The count went to France some months ago, I believe," replied Luis,
+dryly.
+
+"Yes," said Torres, "so I heard, and took his daughter with him. But I
+thought it probable that he might have returned in the train of his
+self-styled sovereign. He is capable of any folly, I should imagine,
+since he was mad enough to sacrifice his fine fortune and position in
+the country by joining in this absurd rebellion. You of course know
+that he has been declared a traitor, and that his estates have been
+confiscated?"
+
+Luis nodded assent.
+
+"Well, in some respects the count's losses may prove a gain to you,"
+continued Torres, pursuing the train of his own thoughts, and not
+observing that the subject he had started was a painful one to his
+friend. "When we have put an end to the war, in a month or two at
+furthest, you can go to France, and obtain his consent to your
+marriage with his daughter. In the present state of his fortunes he
+will hardly refuse it; and you may then return to Spain, and make
+interest for your father-in-law's pardon."
+
+"I am by no means certain," said Herrera, "that the war will be over
+so soon as you imagine. But you will oblige me, Mariano, by not
+speaking of this again. My engagement with Rita is long at an end, and
+not likely ever to be renewed. It was a dream, a vision of happiness
+not destined to be realized, and I endeavour to forget it. I myself
+put an end to it; and not under present circumstances, perhaps under
+none, should I think myself justified in seeking its renewal. Let us
+talk of something else--of the future if you will, but not of the
+past."
+
+The hours passed by Luis beside Don Manuel's death-bed, had witnessed
+a violent revolution in his feelings and character. Devotedly attached
+to his father, who had been the sole friend, almost the only
+companion, of his boyhood, the fiercer passions of Herrera's nature
+were awakened into sudden and violent action by his untimely fate. A
+burning desire of revenge on the unscrupulous faction to which the
+persecution, exile, and cruel death of Don Manuel were to be
+attributed, took possession of him; and in order to gratify this
+desire, and at the same time to fulfil the solemn pledge he had given
+to his dying parent, he felt himself at the moment capable of
+sacrificing even his love for Rita. No sooner was the mournful
+ceremony of the interment over, than he wrote to Villabuena, informing
+him, in a few stern words, how those who professed like him to be the
+defenders of religion and legitimacy, had enacted the part of
+assassins and incendiaries, and shed his father's blood upon his own
+threshold. This communication he considered to be, without further
+comment, a sufficient reply to the proposition made to him by the
+count a few days previously. At the same time--and this was by far the
+most difficult part of his self-imposed task--he addressed a letter to
+Rita, releasing her from her engagement. He felt, he told her, that,
+by so doing, he renounced all his fondest hopes; but were he to act
+otherwise, and at once violate his oath, and forego his revenge, he
+should despise himself, and deserve her contempt. He implored her to
+forget their ill-fated attachment, for his own misery would be
+endurable only when he knew that he had not compromised her happiness.
+
+Scarcely had he dispatched these letters, written under a state of
+excitement almost amounting to frenzy, when Herrera, in pursuance of a
+previously formed plan, and as if to stifle the regrets which a forced
+and painful determination occasioned him, hastened to join as a
+volunteer the nearest Christino column. It was one commanded by
+General Lorenzo, then operating against Santos Ladron and the
+Navarrese Carlists. In several skirmishes Herrera signalized himself
+by the intrepidity and fury with which he fought. Ladron was taken and
+shot, and Lorenzo marched to form the advanced guard of a strong
+division which, under the command of Sarsfield, was rapidly nearing
+the scene of the insurrection. On the mere approach of the Christino
+army, the battalions of Castilian Realistas, which formed, numerically
+speaking, an important part of the forces then under arms for Don
+Carlos, disbanded themselves and fled to their homes. Sarsfield
+continued his movement northwards, took possession, after trifling
+resistance, of Logrono, Vittoria, Bilboa, and other towns occupied by
+the Carlists; and, after a few insignificant skirmishes, succeeded in
+dispersing and disarming the whole of the insurgents in the three
+Basque provinces. A handful of badly armed and undisciplined Navarrese
+peasants were all that now kept the field for Charles V., and of the
+rapid capture or destruction of these, the sanguine Christinos
+entertained no doubt. The principal strength of the Carlists was
+broken; their arms were taken away; the majority of the officers who
+had joined, and of the men of note and influence in the country who
+had declared for them, had been compelled to cross the Pyrenees. But
+the tenacious courage and hardihood of the Navarrese insurgents, and
+the military skill of the man who commanded them, baffled the
+unceasing pursuit kept up by the Queen's generals. During the whole of
+the winter the Carlists lived like wolves in the mountains, surrounded
+by ice and snow, cheerfully supporting the most incredible hardships
+and privations. Nay, even under such disadvantageous circumstances,
+their numbers increased, and their discipline improved; and when the
+spring came they presented the appearance, not of a band of robbers,
+as their opponents had hitherto designated them, but of a body of
+regular troops, hardy and well organized, devoted to their general,
+and enthusiastic for the cause they defended. Their rapid movements,
+their bravery and success in several well-contested skirmishes, some
+of which almost deserved the name of regular actions, the surprise of
+various Christino posts and convoys, the consistency, in short, which
+the war was taking, began seriously to alarm the Queen's government;
+and the formidable preparations made by the latter for a campaign
+against the Carlists, were a tacit acknowledgment that Spain was in a
+state of civil war.
+
+In the wild and beautiful valley of the Lower Amezcoa, in the
+_merindad_ or district of Estella, a large body of Christino troops
+was assembled on the fifteenth day after Rodil's entrance into
+Navarre. The numerous forces which that general found under his
+command, after uniting the troops he had brought with him with those
+already in the province, had enabled him to adopt a system of
+occupation, the most effectual, it was believed, for putting an end to
+the war. In pursuance of this plan, he established military lines of
+communication between the different towns of Navarre and Alava,
+garrisoned and fortified the principal villages, and having in this
+manner disseminated a considerable portion of his army through the
+insurgent districts, he commenced, with a column of ten thousand men
+that remained at his disposal, a movement through the mountainous
+regions, to which, upon his approach, the Carlists had retired. His
+object was the double one of attacking and destroying their army, and,
+if possible, of seizing the person of Don Carlos, who but a few days
+previously had arrived in Spain. The heat of the weather was
+remarkable, even for that usually sultry season; the troops had had a
+long and fatiguing march over the rugged sierra of Urbasa; and Rodil,
+either with a view of giving them rest, or with some intention of
+garrisoning the villages scattered about the valley, which had
+hitherto been one of the chief haunts of the Carlists, had come to a
+halt in the Lower Amezcoa.
+
+It was two in the afternoon, and, notwithstanding the presence of so
+large a body of men, all was stillness and repose in the valley. The
+troops had arrived that morning, and after taking up their cantonments
+in the various villages and hamlets, had sought refuge from the
+overpowering heat. In the houses, the shutters of which were carefully
+closed to exclude the importunate sunbeams, in the barns and stables,
+under the shadow cast by balconies or projecting eaves, and along the
+banks of the stream which traverses the valley, and is noted in the
+surrounding country for the crystal clearness and extreme coldness of
+its waters, the soldiers were lying, their uniforms unbuttoned, the
+stiff leathern stock thrown aside, enjoying the mid-day slumber, which
+the temperature and their recent fatigue rendered doubly acceptable.
+Here and there, at a short distance from the villages, and further
+off, near the different roads and passes that give access to the
+valley through or over the gigantic mountain-wall by which it is
+encircled, the sun flashed upon the polished bayonets and
+musket-barrels of the pickets. The men were lying beside their piled
+arms, or had crept under some neighbouring bush to indulge in the
+universal _siesta_; and even the sentries seemed almost to sleep as
+they paced lazily up and down, or stood leaning upon their muskets,
+keeping but a drowsy watch and careless look-out for an enemy whose
+proximity was neither to be anticipated nor dreaded by a force so
+superior to any which he could get together.
+
+Such was the scene that presented itself to one who, having approached
+the valley from the south, and ascended the mountains that bound it on
+that side, now contemplated from their summit the inactivity of its
+occupants. He was a man of the middle height, but appearing rather
+shorter, from a slight stoop in the shoulders; his age was between
+forty and fifty years, his aspect grave and thoughtful. His features
+were regular, his eyes clear and penetrating, a strong dark mustache
+covered his upper lip and joined his whisker, which was allowed to
+extend but little below the ear. His dress consisted of a plain blue
+frock, girt at the waist by a belt of black leather, to which a sabre
+was suspended, and his head was covered with a _boina_, or flat cap,
+of the description commonly worn in the neighbourhood of the Pyrenees,
+woven in one piece of fine scarlet wool, and decorated with a _borla_,
+or tassel of gold cord, spreading like a star over the crown of the
+head. In his hand he held a telescope, which he rested on the top of a
+fragment of rock, and through which he attentively noted what passed
+in the valley below. The case of the field-glass was slung across his
+body by a strap, and, upon inspection, a name would have been found
+stamped upon its leathern surface. It was that of Tomas
+Zumalacarregui.
+
+A short distance in rear of the Carlist leader, and so posted as not
+to be visible from the valley, stood a little group of officers, and
+persons in civilian garb, and a few orderlies, one of whom held the
+general's horse. Behind, a battalion of infantry was drawn up--fine,
+muscular, active fellows, inured to every hardship, and as indifferent
+to the scorching heat to which they were now exposed, as they had been
+to the bitter cold in the mountains amongst which they had passed the
+preceding winter. Their appearance was not very uniform in its
+details; short jackets, loose trousers, and sandals, composed the
+dress of most of them--one well adapted to long marches and active
+movements--and they all wore caps similar to those of the officers,
+but of a blue colour, and coarser material. A second battalion of
+these hardy guerillas was advancing with light and elastic step up the
+rugged and difficult path; and this was followed by two others, which,
+as fast as they arrived, were formed up by their officers in the best
+manner that the uneven nature of the ground would admit. Half a dozen
+mules, laden with ammunition, brought up the rear. When the four
+battalions, consisting together of nearly three thousand men, were
+assembled on the summit of the mountain, the arms were piled, and the
+soldiers allowed to sit down or repose themselves as they chose from
+the fatigues of their long and wearisome ascent, and of a march that
+had lasted from early dawn.
+
+The mountain upon which these troops were now stationed was less
+precipitous upon its inner side than most of those that surrounded the
+valley. It shelved gradually downwards, broken here and there by
+ravines, its partially wooded slopes forming a succession of terraces,
+which extended right and left for a distance of more than a mile. At
+the foot of these slopes, and immediately below the spot occupied by
+the Carlists, a low hill ran off at right angles from the higher
+range, projecting into the valley as a promontory does into the sea.
+With the exception of the side furthest from the mountains, which
+consisted of pasture land, the base and skirts of this hill were
+covered with oak and chestnut, and upon the clearing on its summit
+stood a shepherd's hut, whence was commanded a view of a considerable
+extent of the face of the sierra, as well as of the entrance of a
+neighbouring pass that led out of the valley in the direction of
+Estella. At this hut a Christino picket was stationed, to which, when
+the Carlist chief had completed his general survey of the valley, his
+attention became more particularly directed. The outpost consisted of
+about thirty men, little, brown-complexioned, monkey-faced creatures
+from the southern provinces, who, sunk in fancied security and in the
+indolence natural to them, were neglecting their duty to an extent
+which might seriously have compromised the safety of the Christino
+army, had it depended upon their vigilance. The majority of them were
+lying asleep in and around the picket-house, which was situated on one
+side of the platform, within fifty yards of the trees. Of the three
+sentinels, one had seated himself on a stone, with his musket between
+his knees, and, having unbuttoned the loose grey coat that hung like a
+sack about his wizened carcass, was busily engaged in seeking, between
+his shirt and his skin, for certain companions whom he had perhaps
+picked up in his quarters of the previous night, and by whose presence
+about his person he seemed to be but moderately gratified. One of the
+other two sentries had wandered away from the post assigned to him,
+and approached his remaining comrade, with the charitable view of
+dividing with him a small quantity of tobacco, which the two were now
+deliberately manufacturing into paper cigars, beguiling the time as
+they did so by sundry guardroom jokes and witticisms.
+
+An almost imperceptible smile of contempt curled the lip of
+Zumalacarregui as he observed the unmilitary negligence apparent in
+the advanced post of the Christinos. It was exchanged for a proud and
+well-pleased glance when he turned round and saw his gallant Navarrese
+awaiting in eager suspense a signal to advance upon the enemy, whom
+they knew to be close at hand. Zumalacarregui walked towards the
+nearest battalion, and on his approach the men darted from their
+various sitting and reclining postures, and stood ready to seize their
+muskets, and fall into their places. Their chief nodded his
+approbation of their alacrity, but intimated to them, by a motion of
+his hand, that the time for action was not yet come.
+
+"_Paciencia, muchachos!_" said he. "Patience, you will not have long
+to wait. Refresh yourselves, men, whilst the time is given you.
+Captain Landa!" cried he, raising his voice.
+
+The officer commanding the light company of the battalion stepped
+forward, and, halting at a short distance from his general, stood
+motionless, with his hand to his cap, awaiting orders.
+
+"Come with me, Landa," said Zumalacarregui; and, taking the officer's
+arm, he led him to the spot whence he had been observing the valley,
+and pointed to the Christino picket.
+
+"Take your company," said he, "and fetch me those sleepy fellows here;
+without firing a shot if it be possible."
+
+The officer returned to his men, and, forming them up with all speed,
+marched them off at a rapid pace. When they had disappeared amongst
+the rocks, Zumalacarregui turned to the chief of his staff.
+
+"Colonel Gomez," said he, "take the third and fourth battalions, and
+move them half a mile to our left, keeping them well out of sight. We
+are not strong enough to attack in the plain, but we shall perhaps get
+our friends to meet us in the mountain."
+
+Gomez--a tall, portly man, of inexpressive countenance, and whose
+accent, when he spoke, betrayed the Andalusian--proceeded to execute
+the orders he had received, and Zumalacarregui once more resumed his
+post of observation.
+
+The carelessness of the Christino picket, and the practice which the
+Carlists had already had in a warfare of stratagem and surprise,
+enabled the company of light infantry to execute, with great facility,
+the instructions they had received. The young ensign who commanded the
+outpost was walking listlessly along the edge of the wood, cursing the
+wearisome duty entrusted to him, and referring to his watch to see how
+far still the hour of relief was off, when he was suddenly struck to
+the ground by a blow from a musket-butt, and before he could attempt
+to rise, the point of a bayonet was at his throat. At the same instant
+three score long-legged Navarrese dashed from under cover of the wood,
+bayoneted the sentinels, surrounded the picket-house, and made
+prisoners of the picket. The surprise was complete; not a shot had
+been fired, and all had passed with so little noise that it appeared
+probable the _coup-de-main_ would only become known to the Christinos
+when the time arrived for relieving the outposts.
+
+A trifling oversight, however, on the part of the Carlists, caused
+things to pass differently. A soldier belonging to the picket, and who
+was sleeping amongst the long grass, just within the wood, had escaped
+all notice. The noise of the scuffle awoke him; but on perceiving how
+matters stood, he prudently remained in his hiding-place till the
+Carlists, having collected the arms and ammunition of their prisoners,
+began to reascend the mountain. At a distance of three hundred yards
+he fired at them, and then scampered off in the contrary direction.
+His bullet took no effect, and the retreating guerillas, seeing how
+great a start he had, allowed him to escape unpursued. But the report
+of his musket spread the alarm. The pickets right and left of the one
+that had been surprised, saw the Carlists winding their way up the
+mountain; the vedettes fired, and the drums beat to arms. The alarm
+spread rapidly from one end of the valley to the other, and every part
+of it was in an instant swarming with men. Dragoons saddled and
+artillery harnessed; infantry formed up by battalions and brigades;
+generals and aides-de-camp dashed about hurrying the movements of the
+troops, and asking the whereabouts of the enemy. This information they
+soon obtained. No sooner was the alarm given, than Zumalacarregui,
+relying upon the tried courage of his soldiers, and on the advantage
+of his position, which must render the enemy's cavalry useless, and
+greatly diminish the effect of the artillery, put himself at the head
+of his two battalions, and rapidly descended the mountain, dispatching
+an officer after Gomez with orders for a similar movement on his part.
+Before the Carlists reached the plain, the Christinos quartered in the
+nearest village advanced to meet them, and a smart skirmish began.
+
+Distributed along the clifts and terraces of the mountain, kneeling
+amongst the bushes and sheltered behind the trees that grew at its
+base, the Carlists kept up a steady fire, which was warmly replied to
+by their antagonists. In the most exposed situations, the Carlist
+officers of all ranks, from the ensign to the general, showed
+themselves, encouraging their men, urging them to take good aim, and
+not to fire till they could distinguish the faces of their enemies,
+themselves sometimes taking up a dead man's musket and sending a few
+well-directed shots amongst the Christinos. Here a man was seen
+binding the sash, which forms part of the dress of every Navarrese
+peasant, over a wound that was not of sufficient importance to send
+him to the rear; in another place a guerilla replenished his scanty
+stock of ammunition from the cartridge-belt of a fallen comrade, and
+sprang forward, to meet perhaps, the next moment, a similar fate. On
+the side of the Christinos there was less appearance of enthusiasm and
+ardour for the fight; but their numbers were far superior, and each
+moment increased, and some light guns and howitzers that had been
+brought up began to scatter shot and shell amongst the Carlists,
+although the manner in which the latter were sheltered amongst wood
+and rock, prevented those missiles from doing them very material
+injury. The fight was hottest around the hill on which the picket had
+been stationed, now the most advanced point of the Carlist line. It
+was held by a battalion, which, dispersed amongst the trees that
+fringed its sides, opposed a fierce resistance to the assaults of the
+Christinos. At last the latter, weary of the protracted skirmishing,
+by which they lost many men, but were unable to obtain any material
+advantage, sent forward two battalions of the royal guards to take the
+hill at the point of the bayonet. With their bugles playing a lively
+march, these troops, the finest infantry in the Spanish army, advanced
+in admirable order, and without firing a shot, to perform the duty
+assigned to them. On their approach the Carlists retreated from the
+sides of the hill, and assembled in the wood on its summit, at the
+foot of the higher mountains. One battalion of the guards ascended the
+hill in line, and advanced along the open ground, whilst the other
+marched round the skirt of the eminence to take the Carlists in flank.
+The Navarrese reserved their fire till they saw the former battalion
+within fifty yards of them, and then poured in a deadly volley. The
+ranks of the Christinos were thinned, but they closed them again, and,
+with levelled bayonets and quickened step, advanced to clear the wood,
+little expecting that the newly-raised troops opposed to them would
+venture to meet them at close quarters. The event, however, proved
+that they had undervalued their antagonists. Emerging from their
+shelter, the Carlists brought their bayonets to the charge, and, with
+a ringing shout of "_Viva Carlos Quinto!_" rushed upon their foe. A
+griding clash of steel and a shrill cry of agony bore witness to the
+fury of the encounter. The loss on both sides was severe, but the
+advantage remained with the Carlists. The guards, unprepared for so
+obstinate a resistance, were borne back several paces, and thrown into
+some confusion. But the victors had no time to follow up their
+advantage, for the other Christino battalion had entered the wood, and
+was advancing rapidly upon their flank. Hastily collecting their
+wounded, the Carlists retired, still fighting, to the higher ground in
+their rear. At the same moment Zumalacarregui, observing a body of
+fresh troops making a movement upon his right, as if with the
+intention of outflanking him, ordered the retreat to be sounded, and
+the Carlist line retired slowly up the mountains. Some of Rodil's
+battalions followed, and the skirmishing was kept up with more or less
+spirit till an end was put to it by the arrival of night.
+
+From the commencement of the fight, several squadrons of the Queen's
+cavalry had remained drawn up near a village in which they had their
+quarters, at about a mile from the left of the Carlists. A short
+distance in front of the line, a number of officers had collected
+together, and were observing the progress of the combat, in which the
+impracticability of the ground for horsemen prevented them from taking
+a share. There was considerable grumbling, especially amongst the
+juniors, at the inactivity to which they found themselves condemned.
+
+"If this is the kind of fighting we are always to have," said a young
+cornet sulkily, "they might as well have left us in our garrisons. We
+were a deuced deal more comfortable, and quite as useful, in our snug
+quarters at Valladolid. The faction, it is well known, have no
+cavalry, and you will not catch their infernal guerillas coming down
+into the plain to be sabred at leisure."
+
+"No," said another subaltern, "but they are forming cavalry, it is
+said. Besides, we may catch their infantry napping some day, as they
+did our picket just now."
+
+"Pshaw!" replied the first speaker. "Before that time comes every
+horse in the brigade will be lame or sore-backed, and we ourselves
+shall be converted into infantry men. All respect for lance and
+sabre--but curse me if I would not rather turn foot-soldier at once,
+than have to crawl over these mountains as we have done for the last
+fortnight, dragging our horses after us by the bridle. For six hours
+yesterday did I flounder over ground that was never meant to be trod
+by any but bears or izards, breaking my spurs and shins, whilst my
+poor nag here was rubbing the skin off his legs against rocks and
+tree-stumps. When I entered the cavalry I expected my horse would
+carry me; but if this goes on, it is much more likely I shall have to
+carry him."
+
+"A nice set of fellows you are," said an old grey-mustached captain,
+"to be grumbling before you have been a month in the field. Wait a
+bit, my boys, till your own flesh and your horses' have been taken
+down by hard marching and short commons, and until, if you mount a
+hill, you are obliged to hold on by the mane, lest the saddle should
+slip back over the lean ribs of your charger. The marches you have as
+yet seen are but child's play to what you _will_ see before the
+campaign is over."
+
+"Then hang me if I don't join the footpads," returned the dissatisfied
+cornet. "At any rate one would have a little fighting then--a chance
+of a broken head or t'other epaulet; and that is better than carrying
+a sabre one never has to draw. Why, the very mules cannot keep their
+footing amongst these mountains. Ask our quartermaster, whom I saw
+yesterday craning over the edge of a precipice, and watching two of
+his beasts of burden which were going down hill a deal quicker than
+they had come up--their legs in the air, and the sacks of corn upon
+their backs hastening their descent to some ravine or other, where the
+crows no doubt at the present moment are picking their bones. You
+should have heard old Skinflint swear. I thought he would have thrown
+the muleteer after the mules. And they call this a country for
+cavalry!"
+
+"I certainly fear," said Herrera, who had been listening to the
+colloquy, "that as long as the war is confined to these provinces,
+cavalry will not be very often wanted."
+
+"And if they were not here, they would be wanted immediately," said a
+field-officer, who was observing the skirmish through a telescope.
+"Besides, you young gentlemen have less cause for discontent than any
+body else. There may be no opportunity for brilliant charges, but
+there is always work for a subaltern's party, in the way of cutting
+off detachments, or some such _coup-de-main_. I see a group of fellows
+yonder who will get themselves into trouble if they do not take care."
+
+All eyes and glasses turned towards the direction in which the major
+was looking. It was the hottest moment of the fight; by their
+impetuosity and courage the Carlists were keeping at bay the superior
+numbers of their antagonists; and on their extreme left, a small party
+of horsemen, consisting of four or five officers and a dozen lancers,
+had ventured to advance a short distance into the plain. They had
+halted at the edge of a _manzanal_, or cider orchard; and although
+some way in advance of their own line, they were at a considerable
+distance from any Christino troops; whilst a tolerably good path,
+which led up the least precipitous part of the mountains in their
+rear, seemed to ensure them an easy retreat whenever it might become
+necessary. So confident were they of their safety, that the officers
+had dismounted, and were observing the Christino reserves, and the
+various bodies of infantry which were advancing from the more distant
+cantonments. At this moment the officer commanding the cavalry rode up
+to the spot where Herrera and his comrades were assembled.
+
+"Major Gonzalez," said he, "send half a troop to cut off those
+gentlemen who are reconnoitring. Let the party file off to the rear,
+or their intention will be perceived."
+
+The subalterns belonging to the squadron under command of Gonzalez,
+pressed round him, eager to be chosen for the duty that was to vary
+the monotony and inaction of which they had so recently been
+complaining.
+
+"Herrera," said the major, "you have most practice in this sort of
+thing. Take thirty men and march them back into the village, out on
+the other side, and round that rising ground upon our right. There is
+plenty of cover, and if you make the most of it, the game cannot
+escape. And, a hint to you--your fellows generally grind their sabres
+pretty sharp, I know, and you are not fond of encumbering yourself
+with prisoners; but yonder party, judging from their appearance, may
+be men of note amongst the rebels, worth more alive than dead. Bring
+them in with whole skins if you can. As to the fellows with the red
+and white lance-flags, I leave them entirely at your discretion."
+
+"I shall observe your orders, major," replied Herrera, whose eyes
+sparkled at the prospect of a brush with the enemy. "Sergeant
+Velasquez, tell off thirty men from the left of the troop."
+
+The non-commissioned officer, who was introduced to the reader at the
+commencement of this narrative, and who now found himself, in
+consequence of a change of regiment, in the same squadron as Herrera,
+obeyed the order he had received, and the party marched leisurely into
+the village. No sooner, however, had they entered the narrow street,
+and were concealed from the view of those whom they intended to
+surprise, than their pace was altered to a brisk trot, which became a
+hand-gallop when they got into the fields beyond the rising ground
+referred to by the major. They then struck into a hollow road,
+sheltered by bush-crowned banks, and finally reached the long narrow
+strip of apple-orchard, at the further angle of which the group of
+Carlists was posted. Skirting the plantation on the reverse side to
+the enemy, they arrived at its extremity, and wheeling to the left,
+cantered on in line, their sabre scabbards hooked up to their belts to
+diminish the clatter, the noise of their horses' feet inaudible upon
+the grass and fern over which they rode. "Charge!" shouted Herrera, as
+they reached the second angle of the orchard; and with a loud hurra
+and brandished sabres, the dragoons dashed down upon the little party
+of Carlists, now within a hundred paces of them. The dismounted
+officers hurried to their horses, and the lancers hastily faced about
+to resist the charge; but before they could complete the movement,
+they were sabred and ridden over. Herrera, mindful of the orders he
+had received, hurried to protect the officers from a similar fate. One
+of the latter, who had his back turned to Herrera, and who, although
+he wore a sword by his side, was dressed in plain clothes, was in the
+very act of getting into the saddle, when a dragoon aimed a furious
+cut at his head. Herrera was in time to parry the blow, and as he did
+so, the person whose life he had saved, turned round and disclosed the
+well-known features of the Conde de Villabuena.
+
+"Senor Conde!" exclaimed the astonished Luis, "I am grieved"----
+
+"It is unnecessary, sir," said the count, coldly. "You are obeying
+orders, I presume, and doing what you consider your duty. Am I to be
+shot here, or taken to your chief?"
+
+"It is much against my will," answered Herrera, "that I constrain you
+in any way. I am compelled to conduct you to General Rodil."
+
+The count made no reply, but, turning his horse's head in the
+direction of the Christino camp, rode moodily onwards, followed,
+rather then accompanied, by his captor. A Carlist officer and three
+members of the rebel junta were the other prisoners. The lancers had
+all been cut to pieces.
+
+The position in which Herrera now found himself was in the highest
+degree embarrassing and painful. Old affection and friendship were
+revived by the sight of the count; and, had he obeyed his first
+impulse, he would frankly have expressed his sorrow at the chance
+which had thrown Villabuena into the hands of his foes, and have said
+what he could to console him under his misfortune. But the count's
+manner was so haughty and repulsive, and he so studiously avoided
+recognising in Luis any thing more than an opponent and a captor, that
+the words of kindness froze upon the young man's tongue, and during
+the few minutes that were required to rejoin the regiment, the silence
+remained unbroken. On reaching the spot where the cavalry was still
+halted, the detachment was received with loud congratulations on the
+successful issue of the expedition.
+
+"Cleverly managed, Senor Herrera!" said the colonel; "and the
+prisoners are of importance. Take them yourself to the general."
+
+In obedience to this order, Herrera moved off to the part of the field
+in which Rodil, surrounded by a numerous and brilliant staff, had
+taken his post.
+
+"Ha!" said the general, when the young officer had made his report,
+his quick eye glancing at the prisoners, some of whom were known to
+him by sight. "Ha! you have done well, sir, and your conduct shall be
+favourably reported at Madrid. The Marquis of Torralva and Count
+Villabuena--an important capture this. Your name, sir--and yours, and
+yours?" said he sharply to the other prisoners.
+
+The answers visibly increased his satisfaction. They were all men well
+known as zealous and influential partizans of the Pretender. Rodil
+paused an instant, and then turned to one of his aides-de-camp.
+
+"A priest and a firing party," said he. "You have half an hour to
+prepare for death," he added, addressing the prisoners. "Rebels taken
+with arms in their hands can expect no greater favour."
+
+Herrera felt a cold chill come over him as he heard this order given
+for the instant execution of a man whom he had so long regarded as his
+friend and benefactor. Forgetting, in the agitation of the moment, his
+own subordinate position, and the impropriety of his interference, he
+was about to address the general, and petition for the life of
+Villabuena, when he was saved from the commission of a breach of
+discipline by the interposition of a third party. A young man in the
+uniform of a general officer, of sallow complexion and handsome
+countenance, who was stationed upon Rodil's right hand, moved his
+horse nearer to that of the general, and spoke a few words to him in a
+low tone of voice. Rodil seemed to listen with attention, and to
+reflect a moment before replying.
+
+"You are right, Cordova," said he; "they may be worth keeping as
+hostages; and I will delay their death till I can communicate with her
+Majesty's government. Let them be strictly guarded, and sent to-morrow
+to Pampeluna under good escort. Your name, sir?" said he, turning to
+Herrera.
+
+Herrera told his name and regiment.
+
+"Luis Herrera," repeated Rodil; "I have heard it before, as that of a
+brave and promising officer. Well, sir, since you have taken these
+prisoners, you shall keep them. Yourself and a detachment of your
+squadron will form part of their escort to Pampeluna."
+
+The flattering words of his general went but a short way towards
+reconciling Luis to the unpleasant task of escorting his former friend
+to a captivity which would in all probability find its termination in
+a violent death. With a heavy heart he saw Villabuena and the other
+prisoners led off to the house that was to serve as their place of
+confinement for the night; and still more painful were his feelings,
+when he thought of Rita's grief on receiving intelligence of her
+father's peril, perhaps of his execution. In order to alleviate to the
+utmost of his power the present position of the count, he recommended
+him to the care of the officer placed on guard over him, who promised
+to allow his prisoner every indulgence consistent with his safe
+keeping. And although the escort duty assigned to him was in some
+respects so unpleasant to fulfil, Herrera became almost reconciled to
+it by the reflection, that he might be able to spare Villabuena much
+of the hardship and rough treatment to which his captivity exposed
+him.
+
+The first grey light of morning had scarcely appeared in the Lower
+Amezcoa, stealing over the mountain-tops, and indistinctly shadowing
+forth the objects in the plain, when the stillness that had reigned in
+the valley since the conclusion of the preceding day's skirmish, was
+broken by the loud and joyous clang of the reveille. At various points
+of the Christino cantonments, the brazen instruments of the cavalry,
+and the more numerous, but perhaps less martially sounding, bands of
+the infantry regiments, were rousing the drowsy soldiers from their
+slumbers, and awakening the surrounding echoes by the wild melody of
+Riego's hymn. Gradually the sky grew brighter, the last lingering
+stars disappeared, the summits of the western mountains were
+illuminated with a golden flush, and the banks and billows of white
+mist that rested on the meadows, and hung upon the hillsides, began to
+melt away and disappear at the approach of the sun's rays. In the
+fields and on the roads near the different villages, the troops were
+seen assembling, the men silent and heavy-eyed, but refreshed and
+invigorated by the night's repose, the horses champing their bits, and
+neighing with impatience. Trains of mules, laden with sacks of corn
+and rations, that from their weight might be deemed sufficient load
+for as many dromedaries, issued from barn and stable, expending their
+superfluous strength and spirit by kicking and biting viciously at
+each other, and were ranged in rear of the troops, where also carts
+and litters, containing wounded men, awaited the order for departure.
+The sergeant-majors called the roll of their troops and companies;
+whilst the men, leaning upon their muskets, or sitting at ease in
+their saddles, munched fragments of the brown ration bread, smoked the
+cigarette, or received from the hands of the tawny-visaged sutlers and
+_cantinieras_, who walked up and down the ranks, an antidote to the
+effects of the cool morning air, in the shape of a glass of
+_aguardiente_. When all preparations were completed, and the time
+necessary for the forming up of so numerous a body of men had elapsed,
+the order to march was given, and the troops moved off in a southerly
+direction.
+
+Whilst this general movement took place, a detachment, consisting of
+four companies of infantry, and fifty dragoons, separated itself from
+the main body, and took the road to Pampeluna, whither it was to
+escort Count Villabuena and his fellow captives. The country to the
+north-east of the Amezcoa, through which they would have to pass, was
+known to be free from Carlists, with the exception of unimportant
+parties of armed peasants; Rodil himself had gone in pursuit of
+Zumalacarregui, who had retired in the same direction whence he had
+approached the valley; and therefore this escort, although so few in
+number, was deemed amply sufficient to convey the prisoners in all
+safety to their destination, to which one long day's march would bring
+them. The detachment was commanded by a major of infantry--a young man
+who had acquired what military experience he possessed in the ease and
+sloth of a garrison life, during which, however, thanks to certain
+influential recommendations, he had found promotion come so quickly
+that he had not the same reason with many of his comrades to be
+satisfied with the more active and dangerous service to which he had
+recently been called. Inwardly congratulating himself on the change
+which his present duty ensured him from the hardships of bivouacs and
+bad quarters to at least a day or two's enjoyment of the fleshpots of
+Pampeluna, he rode gaily along at the head of the escort, chatting and
+laughing with his second in command. Behind him came Herrera and his
+dragoons, and in rear of them the prisoners, on either side of whom
+marched foot-soldiers with fixed bayonets. The body of infantry
+brought up the rear. Strict orders had been given against conversing
+with the captives; and Herrera was compelled, therefore, to abandon
+the intention he had formed of endeavouring to break down the barrier
+of cold reserve within which Count Villabuena had fenced himself, and
+of offering such assistance and comfort as it was in his power to
+give. He was forced to be contented with keeping near the prisoners,
+in order to protect them from any abuse or ill-treatment on the part
+of the soldiery.
+
+For some hours the march continued without incident or novelty to vary
+its monotony. There was no high-road in the direction the escort was
+taking; the way, which was shown them by a peasant, led through
+country lanes, over hills, and across fields, as nearly in a straight
+line as the rugged and mountainous nature of the country would allow.
+Towards noon, the heat, endurable enough during the first hours of the
+morning, became excessive. The musket barrels and sabre scabbards
+almost burned the fingers that touched them; the coats of the horses
+were caked with sweat and dust; and the men went panting along,
+looking out eagerly, but in vain, for some roadside fountain or
+streamlet, at which to quench the thirst that parched their mouths.
+They had reached a beaten road, which, although rough and neglected,
+yet afforded a better footing than they had hitherto had, when such
+means of refreshment at last presented themselves. It was near the
+entrance of a sort of defile formed by two irregular lines of low
+hills, closing in the road, which was fringed with patches of trees
+and brushwood, and with huge masses of rock that seemed to have been
+placed there by the hands of the Titans, or to have rolled thither
+during some mighty convulsion of nature from the distant ranges of
+mountains. At a short distance from this pass, there bubbled forth
+from under a moss-grown block of granite a clear and sparkling
+rivulet, which, overflowing the margin of the basin it had formed for
+itself, rippled across the road, and entered the opposite fields. Here
+a five minutes' halt was called, the men were allowed to quit their
+ranks, and in an instant they were kneeling by scores along the side
+of the little stream, collecting the water in canteens and
+foraging-caps, and washing their hands and faces in the pure element.
+The much-needed refreshment taken, the march was resumed.
+
+Notwithstanding that the pass through which the prisoners and their
+escort were now advancing was nearly a mile in length, and in many
+places admirably adapted for a surprise, the officer in command,
+either through ignorance or over-confidence, neglected the usual
+precaution of sending scouts along the hills that on either side
+commanded the road. This negligence struck Herrera, who knew by
+experience, that, with such active and wily foes as the Carlists, no
+precaution could be dispensed with, however superfluous it might seem.
+Scarcely had the troops entered the defile when he suggested to the
+major the propriety of sending out skirmishers to beat the thickets
+and guard against an ambuscade.
+
+"Quite unnecessary, sir," was the reply. "There is no rebel force in
+this part of the country that would venture to come within a league of
+us."
+
+"So we are told," said Herrera; "but I have had occasion to see that
+one must not always rely on such assurances."
+
+"I shall do so, nevertheless, in this instance," said the major. "We
+have a long march before us, and if I fag the men by sending them
+clambering over hills and rocks, I shall lose half of them by
+straggling, and perhaps not reach Pampeluna to-night."
+
+"If you will allow me," said Herrera, "I will send a few of my
+dragoons to do the duty. They will hardly be so effective as infantry
+for such a service, but it will be better than leaving our flanks
+entirely unguarded."
+
+"I have already told you, sir," replied the major testily, "that I
+consider such precaution overstrained and unnecessary. I believe,
+Lieutenant Herrera, that it is I who command this detachment."
+
+Thus rebuked, Herrera desisted from his remonstrances, and fell back
+into his place. The march continued in all security through the wild
+and dangerous defile; the men, refreshed by their momentary halt,
+tramping briskly along, chattering, smoking, and singing snatches of
+soldier's songs. It appeared as if the negligence of the major was
+likely to be justified, as far as it could be, by the result; for they
+were now within two hundred yards of the extremity of the pass, and in
+view of the open country. The defile was each moment widening, and
+the space between the road and the hills was filled up with a wood of
+young beech and oak. Herrera himself, who had each moment been
+expecting to receive a volley from some ambushed foe, was beginning to
+think the danger over, when a man dressed in red uniform, with a
+scarlet cap upon his head, and mounted on a white horse, suddenly
+appeared at the end of the pass, and tossing his lance, which he
+carried at the trail, into his bridle hand, put a trumpet that was
+slung round his neck, to his mouth, and blew a loud and startling
+blast. The signal, for such it was, did not long remain unanswered. A
+hoarse wild shout issued from the wood on either side of the road, and
+a volley of musketry resounded through the pass. In an instant the
+hills were alive with Carlist soldiers, some reloading the muskets
+they had just fired, others taking aim at the Christinos, or fixing
+their bayonets in preparation for a closer encounter. Another minute
+had scarcely elapsed, when a strong squadron of cavalry, which the
+trumpeter had preceded, dashed out of the fields at the extremity of
+the pass, formed column upon the road, and levelling their long light
+lances, advanced, led on by Zumalacarregui himself, to charge the
+astonished Christinos.
+
+Extreme was the confusion into which the escort was thrown by this
+attack, so totally unexpected by every body but Herrera. All was
+bewilderment and terror; the men stood staring at each other, or at
+their dead and wounded comrades, without even thinking of defending
+themselves. This state of stupefaction lasted, however, but a second;
+and then the soldiers, without waiting for orders, turned back to
+back, and facing the points where the Carlists had stationed
+themselves, returned their fire with all the vigour and promptness
+which desperation could give. The major--a really brave man, but quite
+unequal to an emergency of this nature--knew not what orders to give,
+or how to extricate himself and his men from the scrape into which his
+own headstrong imprudence had brought them. Foreseeing no possibility
+of escape from an enemy who, in numbers and advantage of position, so
+far overmatched him, his next thought regarded the prisoners, and he
+galloped hastily back to where they stood. The Carlists had probably
+received orders concerning them; for neither they nor their immediate
+escort had suffered injury from the volley that had played such havoc
+with the main body of the detachment.
+
+"Fire on the prisoners!" shouted the major.
+
+The guard round Villabuena and his fellow-captives stared at their
+officer without obeying. Some of them were reloading, and the others
+apparently did not comprehend the strange order.
+
+"Fire, I say!" repeated the commandant. "By the holy cross! if we are
+to leave our bones here, theirs shall whiten beside them."
+
+More than one musket was already turned in the direction of the doomed
+captives, when Herrera, who, at the moment that he was about to lead
+his dragoons to the encounter of the Carlist cavalry, just then
+appearing on the road, had overheard the furious exclamation of his
+superior, came galloping back to the rescue.
+
+"Stop!" shouted he, striking up the muzzles of the muskets. "You have
+no warrant for such cruelty."
+
+"Traitor!" screamed the major, almost breathless with rage, and
+raising his sword to make a cut at Herrera. Before, however, he could
+give force to the blow, his eyes rolled frightfully, his feet left the
+stirrups, and, dropping his weapon, he fell headlong into the dust. A
+Carlist bullet had pierced his heart.
+
+"Fire at your foes, and not at defenceless prisoners," said Herrera
+sternly to the dismayed soldiers. "Remember that your lives shall
+answer for those of these men."
+
+And again placing himself at the head of the cavalry, he led them to
+meet Zumalacarregui and his lancers, who were already charging down
+upon them.
+
+But the few seconds that had been occupied in saving Villabuena and
+his companions from the slaughter, had made all the difference in the
+chances of success. Could Herrera have charged, as he had been about
+to do, before the Carlists formed up and advanced, he might, in all
+probability, owing to the greater skill of his men in the use of
+their weapons, and to the superiority of their horses, have broken and
+sabred his opponents, and opened the road for the Christino infantry.
+Once in the plain, where the dragoons could act with advantage, the
+Carlists might have been kept at bay, and a retreat effected. Now,
+however, the state of affairs was very different. The lancers, with
+Zumalacarregui and several of his staff charging at their head like
+mere subalterns, came thundering along the road, and before Herrera
+could get his dragoons into full career, the shock took place. In an
+instant the way was blocked up with a confused mass of men and horses.
+The rear files of the contending cavalry, unable immediately to check
+their speed, pushed forward those in front, or forced them off the
+road upon the strip of broken ground and brushwood on either side;
+friends and foes were mingled together, cutting, thrusting, swearing,
+and shouting. But the dragoons, besides encountering the lances of the
+hostile cavalry, suffered terribly from the fire of the foot-soldiers,
+who came down to the side of the road, blazing at them from within a
+few paces, and even thrusting them off their horses with the bayonet.
+In so confused a struggle, and against such odds, the superior
+discipline and skill of the Christinos was of small avail. Herrera,
+who, at the first moment of the encounter, had crossed swords with
+Zumalacarregui himself, but who the next instant had been separated
+from him by the melee, fought like a lion, till his right arm was
+disabled by a lance-thrust. The soldier who had wounded him was about
+to repeat the blow, when a Carlist officer interfered to save him. He
+was made prisoner, and his men, discouraged by his loss, and reduced
+already to little more than a third of their original numbers, threw
+down their arms and asked for quarter. Their example was immediately
+followed by those of the infantry who had escaped alive from the
+murderous volleys of their opponents.
+
+Of all those who took part in this bloody conflict, not one bore
+himself more gallantly, or did more execution amongst the enemy, than
+our old acquaintance, Sergeant Velasquez. When the charge had taken
+place, and the desperate fight above described commenced, he backed
+his horse off the narrow road upon which the combatants were cooped
+up, into a sort of nook formed by a bank and some trees. In this
+advantageous position, his rear and flanks protected, he kept off all
+who attacked him, replying with laugh and jeer to the furious oaths
+and imprecations of his baffled antagonists. His fierce and determined
+aspect, and still more the long and powerful sweep of his broad sabre,
+struck terror into his assailants, who found their best aimed blows
+and most furious assaults repelled, and returned with fatal effect by
+the practised arm of the dragoon. At the moment that Herrera was
+wounded, and the fight brought to a close, the mass of combatants had
+pressed further forward into the defile, and only three or four of the
+rearmost of the Carlists occupied the portion of the pass between
+Velasquez and the open country. Just then a shout in his rear, and a
+bullet that pierced his shako, warned the sergeant that the infantry
+were upon him; and at the same moment he saw his comrades desist from
+their defence. Setting spurs to his charger, he made the animal bound
+forward upon the road, clove the shoulder of the nearest lancer, rode
+over another, and passing unhurt through the rain of bullets that
+whistled around him, galloped out of the defile.
+
+But, although unwounded, Velasquez was not unpursued. A dozen lancers
+spurred their horses after him; and although more than half of these,
+seeing that they had no chance of overtaking the well-mounted
+fugitive, soon pulled up and retraced their steps, three or four still
+persevered in the chase. Fortunate was it for the sergeant that the
+good horse which he had lost at the venta near Tudela, had been
+replaced by one of equal speed and mettle. With unabated swiftness he
+scoured along the road through the whirlwind of dust raised by his
+charger's feet, until the Carlists, seeing the distance between them
+and the object of their pursuit rapidly increasing, gradually
+abandoned the race. One man alone continued stanch, and seemed not
+unlikely to overtake the dragoon. This was no other than the
+sergeant's former opponent in the ball-court, Paco the muleteer, now
+converted into a Carlist lancer, and who, his sharp-rowelled spurs
+goring his horse's sides, his lance in his hand, his body bent forward
+as though he would fain have outstripped in his eagerness the speed of
+the animal he bestrode, dashed onward with headlong and reckless
+violence. His lean and raw-boned but swift and vigorous horse,
+scarcely felt the light weight of its rider; whilst Velasquez'
+charger, in addition to the solid bulk of the dragoon, was encumbered
+with a well-filled valise and heavy trappings. The distance between
+pursued and pursuer was rapidly diminishing; and the sergeant, hearing
+the clatter of hoofs each moment drawing nearer, looked over his
+shoulder to see by how many of his enemies he was so obstinately
+followed. Paco immediately recognised him, and with a shout of
+exultation again drove the rowels into his horse's belly.
+
+"_Halto! traidor! infame!_" yelled the ex-muleteer. "Stop, coward, and
+meet your death like a man!"
+
+His invitation was not long disregarded. Velasquez, having ascertained
+that he had but a single pursuer, and that pursuer a man to whom he
+owed a grudge and was by no means sorry to give a lesson, pulled up
+his horse and confronted Paco, who, nothing daunted, came tearing
+along, waving his lance above his head like a mad Cossack, and
+shouting imprecations and defiance. As he came up, Velasquez, who had
+steadily awaited his charge, parried the furious thrust that was aimed
+at him, and at the same time, by a movement of leg and rein which he
+had often practised in the _manege_, caused his horse to bound aside.
+Unable immediately to check his steed, Paco passed onwards; but as he
+did so, Velasquez dealt him a back-handed blow of his sabre, and the
+unlucky Carlist fell bleeding and senseless from the saddle. His
+horse, terrified at its rider's fall, galloped wildly across the
+country.
+
+"That makes the half-dozen," said the sergeant coolly, as he looked
+down on his prostrate foe; "if every one of us had done as much, the
+day's work would have been better."
+
+And sheathing his sabre, he resumed, but at a more moderate pace, the
+flight which had for a moment been interrupted.
+
+
+
+
+WHITE'S THREE YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE.
+
+
+The title of "_Domestic_ Manners of the Turks,"[28] given to the
+volumes before us, can scarcely be considered as a correct
+designation; since it is not in the privacy of their own families, in
+their harems and among their children, (scenes in which it would
+indeed be rash to challenge comparison with the eloquent author of the
+_Spirit of the East_,) that Mr White has depicted the Turks of the
+present day: but rather in the places "where men most do
+congregate"--in the _bezestans_ and _tcharshys_ or markets, commonly
+called bazars:[29] in the exercise of the various trades and callings,
+and the intercourse of professional and commercial relations. The work
+is rather a treatise on the corporate bodies and municipal
+institutions of Constantinople--a subject hitherto almost untouched by
+European writers, and in the investigation of which Mr White has
+diligently availed himself of the opportunities afforded him by the
+liberal spirit which the events of late years have fostered among the
+Turks. The results of these researches are now laid before us, in a
+form which, though perhaps not the most popular which might have been
+adopted, is not ill calculated to embrace the vast variety of subjects
+included in the range of the author's observations. Taking the
+bezestans and markets--the focus of business and commerce to which the
+various classes of the Stamboul population converge--as the
+ground-work of his lucubrations, Mr White proceeds to enumerate in
+detail the various trades and handicrafts carried on within the
+precincts of these great national marts, the articles therein sold,
+and the guilds or incorporated companies, to many of which extensive
+privileges have been granted by the sultans for their services to the
+state. These topics are diversified by numerous digressions on
+politics, religion, criminal law, the imperial harem, the language of
+flowers--in short, _de omnibus rebus et quibusdam aliis_--in the
+course of which Mr White gives his readers the benefit of all the
+miscellaneous information which has fallen in his way during his three
+years' residence among the Osmanlis. Of a work so diffuse in its
+nature, it is impossible to give more than an outline; and
+accordingly, omitting all mention of those subjects which have been
+rendered tolerably familiar to European readers by the narratives of
+former travellers, we shall select from these "orient pearls," strung
+most literally "at random," such topics as possess most novelty, or on
+which Mr White has imparted some novel information.
+
+The space of ground occupied by the two great bezestans--the jewel or
+arms' bezestan, and the silk bezestan--with the surrounding
+_tcharshys_, and other buildings appropriated to trade, forms an
+irregular quadrangle of about three hundred and fifty square yards, to
+the north of the Mosque of Sultan Bajazet, and west of that of
+Noor-Osmanya. "The bezestans originally consisted of isolated
+buildings, each with four gates opening nearly to the cardinal points,
+which were, and still are, designated after the trades carried on in
+booths around or beneath their respective porches. By degrees new
+shops, alleys, and enclosures clustered around the original depots,
+until the whole were enclosed within walls, arched, roofed, and
+provided with lock-up gates and posterns, of which there are twelve
+large and about twenty small. They were then subjected to the same
+syndical laws that regulate the police and administration of the
+parent buildings." They are opened soon after dawn, and closed at
+afternoon prayer; and the same regulations are observed at the _Missr
+Tcharshy_, or Egyptian drug-market, hereafter to be noticed. The
+jewel bezestan alone shuts at mid-day--the former occupants having
+been principally janissaries, who held it beneath their dignity to
+keep their shops open all day; on Fridays they are closed; and, during
+Ramazan, are open only from mid-day to afternoon prayer. The silk
+bezestan, being tenanted only by Armenians, is closed on Sundays, and
+the saints' days of their calendar, amounting to nearly a fourth of
+the year. "With the exception of the two bezestans, the bazars are not
+surmounted by domes, the distinctive ornament of almost all public
+edifices; ... so that the whole surface, when seen from the Serasker's
+Tower, presents a vast area of tiles, without any architectural
+relief, and exhibits a monotonous vacuum in the midst of the
+surrounding noble mosques and lofty khans."
+
+The Jewel or Arms' Bezestan (Djevahir or Silah-Bezestany) is the
+oldest of these establishments, dating from the time of the conquest
+by Mahommed II.; but, having been repeatedly destroyed by fire, the
+present edifice of stone was constructed in 1708. It is a lofty oblong
+quadrangular building, with fifteen cupolas and four arched gates--the
+booksellers', the goldsmiths', the mercers', and the beltmakers'. The
+interior consists of a broad alley, intersected by four transverse
+alleys with double rows of shops, where the dealers, who are all
+Moslems, sit on platforms raised about three feet and a half from the
+pavement. They constitute a guild among themselves, presided over by a
+sheikh, with a deputy and six elders; and are so highly esteemed for
+their probity, that valuable deposits are frequently left in their
+charge by persons going on pilgrimage or to distant countries; but
+this privilege has lately been interfered with by government, which
+has claimed, in failure of heirs, the reversions which formerly fell
+to the guild. "It would be an endless task to describe the articles
+exposed to sale in Djevahir-Bezestany, which, from jewels being rarely
+sold there at present, might be more appropriately called the bezestan
+of antiquities." The principal objects of attraction, especially to
+foreigners, are the arms, to which Mr White accordingly confines his
+remarks: but the once famed Damascus sabres (called _Sham_ or Syrian)
+are now held as inferior to those of Khorassan and Persia, (_Taban_ or
+polished,) unless anterior to the destruction of the old manufactory
+by Timour in 1400; and those of this ancient fabric are now of extreme
+rarity and value. "A full-sized Khorassan, or ancient Damascus sabre,
+should measure about thirty-five inches from guard to point; the back
+should be free from flaws, the watering even and distinct throughout
+the whole length: the colour a bluish grey. A perfect sabre should
+possess what the Turks call the Kirk Merdevend, (forty gradations:)
+that is, the blade should consist of forty compartments of watered
+circles, diminishing in diameter as they reach the point. A tolerable
+_taban_ of this kind, with plain scabbard and horn handle, is not
+easily purchased for less than 2000 piastres; some fetch as much as
+5000, and when recognised as extraordinary, there is no limit to the
+price. Damascus sabres made prior to 1600 are seldom seen, but modern
+blades of less pure temper and lighter colour are common. Their form
+is nearly similar to the Khorassan; but the latter, when of
+extraordinary temper, will cut through the former like a knife through
+a bean-stalk." The shorter swords of bright steel called _pala_,
+watered not in circles, but in waving lines, are mostly from the
+manufactory established at Stamboul by Mahommed II. soon after the
+conquest, and which maintained its celebrity up to the time of Mourad
+IV., the last sultan who headed his armies in person:--"After his
+death, the fashion of wearing Khorassan and old Syrian blades was
+revived: and the Stamboul manufactory was gradually neglected."
+
+It is needless to follow Mr White through his dissertations on
+handjars, yataghans, and other Oriental varieties of cold steel; but
+passing through the booksellers' (Sahhaf) gate of the bezestan, we
+find ourselves in the Paternoster Row of Stamboul--a short space
+exclusively inhabited by the trade from which the gate derives its
+name. The booksellers' guild consists of about forty members, presided
+over by a sheikh and a council of elders; and is conducted on
+principles as rigidly exclusive as those of some corporations nearer
+home, it being almost impossible for any one to purchase the good-will
+of a shop, unless connected by blood with some of the fraternity: but
+Mr White's account of "the trade," and of the bearded Murrays and
+Colburns by whom it is carried on, is far from favourable. Competition
+being excluded by this monopoly, the prices demanded are so
+exorbitant, "that it is common to say of a close-fisted dealer, 'he is
+worse than a sahhaf.' The booksellers' stalls are the meanest in
+appearance in all the bazars; and the effendy, who lord it over the
+literary treasures, are the least prepossessing, and by no means the
+most obliging, of the crafts within this vast emporium." There are
+some exceptions, however, to this sweeping censure. Suleiman Effendi,
+father of the imperial historiographer, Sheikh-Zadeh Assad Effendi, is
+celebrated as a philologist; and Hadji-Effendi, though blind, "appears
+as expert in discovering the merits of a MS. or printed work as the
+most eagle-eyed of his contemporaries, and is moreover full of
+literary and scientific information." Catalogues are unknown, and the
+price even of printed books, after they have passed out of the hands
+of the editor, is perfectly arbitrary; but the commonest printed books
+are double the relative rate in Europe. The value of MSS. of course
+depends on their rarity and beauty of transcription; a finely
+illuminated Koran cannot be procured for less than 5000 or 6000
+piastres, and those written by celebrated caligraphers fetch from
+25,000 to even 50,000. Mr White estimates the average number of
+volumes on a stall at about 700, or less than 30,000 in the whole
+bazar; but among these are frequently found works of great rarity in
+the "three languages," (Arabic, Persian, and Turkish.) Of those most
+in request, a catalogue is given, comprising the usual range of
+Oriental literature.
+
+There are about forty public libraries in Constantinople, but many of
+these are within the principal mosques, and therefore not easily
+accessible to Europeans. They are all endowed with ample funds for
+their maintenance and the salaries of their librarians, who frequently
+add considerably to their emoluments by transcribing MSS:--"but it
+does not appear that these funds are employed in adding to these
+collections; so that in point of numbers they remain nearly as when
+first founded." Each library has not only a simple nomenclature, but a
+_catalogue raisonnee_ containing a summary of each work; and the
+books, most of which are transcribed on vellum or highly glazed paper,
+are bound in the manner of a tuck pocket-book, in dark morocco or
+calf, with the titles written on the outside of the margin, and are
+laid on their sides on the shelves. The floors are covered with mats,
+and on one or more sides are low divans for the use of the students,
+who leave their slippers at the door; a narrow desk in front of the
+divans supports the volumes in use. Neither fire, candle, nor smoking,
+is permitted; and the libraries in general are open daily, except on
+Friday, and during Ramazan and the two Beirams, from about 9 A.M. to
+afternoon prayer; those present at the time of mid-day prayer, quit
+their studies and perform their devotions in common.
+
+Many of the most valuable and costly of the illuminated MSS. are in
+the two libraries of the seraglio, the larger of which, containing at
+present 4400 volumes, is the most extensive collection of books in
+Constantinople: but they can scarcely be reckoned among the public
+libraries, as admission to them is obtained with difficulty, and only
+by special permission, even by Moslems. Besides the MSS. in the great
+seraglio library, among the most valuable of which is a magnificent
+copy of the Arabic poem of Antar, and another of the Gulistan, the
+great moral poem of Saadi, there is a canvass genealogical tree,
+containing portraits of all the sovereigns of the house of Osman, from
+originals preserved in the sultan's private library. Next in
+importance is the library of the mosque of Aya Sofia (St Sophia,)
+founded by Mohammed the Conqueror, which is rich in valuable MSS. and
+contains a Koran said to have been written by the hand of the Khalif
+Ali, the son-in-law of the Prophet: another attributed to the same
+source, as well as one ascribed to the Khalif Omar, are in the library
+of Osman III., attached to the beautiful mosque of Noor-Osmanya. But
+the most interesting of the public libraries, though the number of its
+volumes does not exceed sixteen hundred, is that of the grand-vizir
+Raghib Pasha, a celebrated patron of learning in the middle of the
+last century. It stands in an enclosed court, which also contains a
+free school, fountains, and the monuments of the founder and his
+family. The library itself is a lofty square chamber, with a central
+dome and four semi-domes, supported by marble columns, and round the
+apartment "runs a complete and most correct version of the celebrated
+Boorda of the poet Keab," (a poem composed in honour of Mohammed by an
+Arab contemporary,) "in gold letters, fourteen inches long, on a green
+ground, forming an original and brilliant embellishment." Its contents
+include some of the richest and rarest specimens of Persian and Arabic
+caligraphy; and the founder's note-book, with a copy of his divan,
+(poetical works,) is also exhibited: "the former proves that he was
+not unaccomplished as a draughtsman and architect.... There is a
+lightness and elegance in this building which renders it superior to
+all others: but he survived its foundation only three years. His
+remains are deposited in the north-east angle of the court, on an
+elevated terrace, beneath open marble canopy, protected by a wirework
+trellis. This, with the roses and myrtles, and the figs, vines,
+pomegranates, and cypresses, that cast their shade around, gives it
+the appearance of a noble aviary, more than that of a repository for
+the dead: and the doves that nestle in the overhanging branches, and
+fill the air with their querulous notes, add to the delusion."
+
+The total number of volumes in all the public libraries is believed
+not to exceed 75,000, of which at least a fourth are duplicates; "it
+must be remembered, however, that, with a few modern exceptions, the
+whole are MSS. admirably transcribed, elaborately embellished: and
+thus, taking one volume with another, the sums paid for each work far
+exceed the average price of rare printed editions in Europe." Besides
+these stores of Oriental lore, the library of the medical academy
+established by Mahmood II. in the palace of Galata Serai, contains
+several hundred volumes of the best French medical works, which the
+professors are allowed to carry to their own apartments--a privilege
+not allowed in any other library. The art of printing was first
+introduced in 1726, by a Hungarian renegade named Ibrahim, (known as
+_Basmadji_, or the printer,) who was patronised by the Sultan Achmet
+III;--but the establishment languished after his death; and though
+revived in 1784 by Sultan Abdoul Hamid, it was only after the
+destruction of the janissaries, the enemies of every innovation, that
+the press began to exhibit any thing like activity. At present there
+are four imperial printing establishments; and the types, which were
+formerly cast in Venice, being now manufactured in Stamboul, a marked
+improvement has taken place in the character. Though the Koran, and
+all religious and doctrinal works, are still transcribed exclusively
+by hand, the art of printing is regarded with great jealousy by the
+booksellers, who hold that "presses are made from the calcined wood of
+Al-Zacum, the dread tree of the lowest pit; while transcribers have
+their seats near the gate of the seventh heaven." The newspaper press
+of Stamboul is still in its infancy--for though the _Takwim_, or
+_Moniteur Ottoman_, established in 1831 by Mahmood II. as an official
+gazette, was conducted with considerable ability by the original
+editor, M. Blaque, and his successor M. Francesschi, the sudden death
+of both these gentlemen, within a short period of each other, awakened
+strong suspicions of foul play; and the French translation, published
+for European circulation, has since sunk into a mere transcript of the
+Turkish original, which consists of little but official announcements.
+Several attempts made, by Mr Churchill and others, to establish a
+non-official paper for the advocacy of Turkish interests, have been
+smothered after a brief existence, by the jealousy of Russia and
+France: "the result is, that the _Moniteur_ is a dull court-circular,
+and the Smyrna journals, abandoned to chance communications, are
+neither prompt nor exact in circulating or detailing events."[30]
+
+The spread of literary cultivation among the Turks of the present day,
+and the European education which many of the rising generation have
+received, has naturally led to a taste for European literature; and
+many possess libraries stored not only with the lore of the East, but
+with the choicest treasures of the French and English classics. Ali
+Effendi, late ambassador from the Porte to the court of St James's, is
+well known to have collected a most extensive and valuable library
+during his residence in the regions of the West; and Mr White
+enumerates several young Osmanlis distinguished for their
+accomplishments in the literature and science of the Franks. Emin
+Pasha, the director of the Imperial Military Academy, and Bekir Pasha,
+late superintendent of the small-arm manufactory at Dolma-Baktchi,
+were both educated in England, the latter at Woolwich and the former
+at Cambridge, where he gained a prize for his mathematical
+attainments. Fouad Effendi, son of the celebrated poet Izzet-Mollah,
+and himself a poet of no small note, "possesses a choice library of
+some 2000 volumes, in French, English, and Italian;" and Derwish
+Effendi, professor of natural history in the academy of Galata Serai,
+"has studied in France and England, and is not less esteemed for his
+knowledge than for his modesty." But foremost among this _Tugenbund_,
+the future hopes of Turkey, stands one whose name has already appeared
+in the pages of _Maga_, (Sept. 1841, p. 304,) Achmet Wekif Effendi,
+now third dragoman to the Porte, and son of Rouh-ed-deen Effendi, late
+Secretary of Legation at Vienna, whom Mr White pronounces, with
+justice, "one of the most rising and enlightened young men of the
+Turkish empire. His knowledge of the French language is perfect, and
+he adds to this an intimate acquaintance with the literature of that
+country and of England." While men like these (and we could add other
+names to those enumerated by Mr White, from our personal knowledge)
+are in training for the future administration of the empire, there is
+yet hope of the regeneration of the Osmanli nation.
+
+In no country is primary instruction more general than in Turkey. Each
+of the smaller mosques has attached to it an elementary school,
+superintended by the imam, where the children of the lower classes are
+taught to read and write, and to repeat the Koran by heart; while
+those intended for the liberal professions undergo a long and
+laborious course of study at the medressehs or colleges of the great
+mosques, some of which are intended to train youth in general
+literature, or qualify them for government employments, while others
+are devoted to the study of theology and jurisprudence. Mr White
+states the number of students in Stamboul, in 1843, at not less than
+5000, all of whom were lodged, instructed, and furnished with one meal
+a-day, at the expense of the _wakoof_ or foundation, (a term which we
+shall hereafter more fully explain,) all their other expenses being at
+their own charge; but "the sallow complexions and exhausted appearance
+of these young men indicate intense labour, or most limited commons."
+
+After thus successfully vindicating the Turks from the charge so often
+brought against them by travellers who have only spent a few weeks at
+Pera, of ignorance and indifference to knowledge, Mr White thus sums
+up the general question of education. "For ten men that _can_ read
+among Perotes and Fanariotes, there are an equal number that _do_ read
+at Constantinople; and, taking the mass of the better classes
+indiscriminately, it will be found also that there are more libraries
+of useful books in Turkish houses than in those of Greeks and
+Armenians." And though "the number of Turkish ladies that can read is
+much less than those of Pera and the Fanar, those who can read among
+the former never open a bad book; while among the latter there is
+scarcely one that ever reads a good work, unless it be the catechism
+or breviary on certain forced occasions. And while neither Greek nor
+Armenian women occupy themselves with literature, Constantinople can
+boast of more than one female author. Among the most celebrated of
+these is Laila Khanum, niece to the above-mentioned Izzet-Mollah. Her
+poems are principally satirical, and she is held in great dread by her
+sex, who tremble at her cutting pen. Her _divan_ (collection of poems)
+has been printed, and amounts to three volumes. Laila Khanum is also
+famed for her songs, which are set to music, and highly popular.
+Hassena Khanum, wife of the Hakim Bashy, (chief physician,) is
+likewise renowned for the purity and elegance of her style as a
+letter-writer, which entitles her to the appellation of the Turkish
+Sevigne."
+
+But we must again diverge, in following Mr White's desultory steps,
+from the Turkish fair ones--whom he has so satisfactorily cleared from
+Lord Byron's imputation, that
+
+   "They cannot read, and so don't lisp in criticism;
+    Nor write, and so they don't affect the muse--"
+
+to his dissertation on the _wakoofs_ above referred to;--a word
+implying a deposit or mortgage, and used to designate a species of
+tenure under which the greater part of the landed property throughout
+the empire is held, and the nature of which is but imperfectly
+understood in Europe. These institutions have existed from the
+earliest period of Islam; but nowhere to so great an extent as in the
+Ottoman empire; where they were divided by Soliman the Magnificent
+into three classes, all alike held sacred, and exempt from
+confiscation either by the sovereign or courts of law. The first class
+comprises the lands or funds absolutely bequeathed to the mosques
+either by founders or subsequent benefactors, the revenues of which
+are employed in the payment of the imams, khatibs, and other ministers
+of religion attached to their service, and to the gratuitous
+maintenance of the colleges and hospitals dependent on them; and which
+are in all cases amply sufficient for these purposes. "No demands in
+the shape of tithes, collections, or entrance-money, are ever made:
+the doors of all temples are open to the public without distinction:"
+and although the imam usually receives a fee for marriages,
+name-givings, circumcisions, and funerals, no demand can be legally
+made. The author proceeds to enumerate the endowments in 1842, as
+nearly as they could be ascertained, of the seventeen mosques in the
+capital entitled to rank as imperial foundations--the richest being
+that of Aya-Sofia, amounting to 1,500,000 piastres annually, while the
+others vary from 710,000 to 100,000 piastres. The ecclesiastical staff
+of an imperial mosque comprehends in general from thirty to forty
+persons--the sheikh, who preaches after mid-day prayer on Friday, and
+who is a member of the superior ecclesiastical synod, with rank and
+privileges nearly similar to those of our bishops:--two or more
+khatibs, who recite the khotbah, or prayer for the Prophet and
+sultan:--four imams, who alternately read prayers:--twelve to twenty
+muezzins, who call to prayers from the minarets:--with fifteen to
+twenty subordinate functionaries. The finances of each of the mosques
+are regulated by a _nazir_ (inspector) and _mutawelly_, (accountant,)
+who are bound by law to render half-yearly statements; and these
+offices, lucrative from the opportunities they afford for
+malversation, are usually held for life by the holders for the time
+being of high official stations, or sometimes by the heirs of the
+founders, who thus secure their lands from forfeiture or confiscation;
+or by persons to whom they have been bequeathed, with power to
+nominate their successors. The annual revenues of the imperial mosques
+being triple their expenditure, the wakoof fund has been often
+encroached upon by the Sultan, nominally as a loan under the warrant
+of the minister of finance, who checks the accounts of the imperial
+nazir; and by these not unfrequent inroads, as well as by the
+peculations of the superintendents, the accumulations, though great,
+are not so enormous as they would otherwise become.
+
+The second class comprises the funds devoted to the maintenance of
+public baths, libraries, fountains, alms-houses, and of useful and
+charitable institutions in general. They are frequently charged with
+annuities to the representatives of the founder; and in all
+foundations for gratuitous education, or distribution of alms or food,
+founders' kin have the preference. They are all registered in the
+treasury; but the foundation is invalidated if the property assigned
+for its support be encumbered by mortgages or other obligations:--nor
+can any one labouring under an incurable disease convert freehold
+property into wakoof except as a testator, in which case the
+inalienable rights of the heirs to two-thirds of the property are
+secured:--a third part only, according to law, being otherwise
+disposable by will. The third class of wakoofs (called _ady_ or
+customary, the others being termed _shary_ or legal, as sanctioned by
+religious law) are considered as secular foundations, consisting of
+lands purchased by the religious wakoofs from their accumulations, on
+reversion at the death of the assigner, or failure of his direct
+heirs, for an inconsiderable portion of their value, leaving to the
+vendors in the interim the full enjoyment of the property, which is
+frequently continued to their nephews and brothers on the same terms.
+"At first this plan was not considered lucrative for the wakoofs: but
+when the system was widely extended, the multitude of assignments,
+which fell in every year from death and default of issue, soon crowned
+the speculation with success, in a country where the tenure of life is
+eminently uncertain, not only from the caprices of sultans, but from
+the constant ravages of plague.... The advantages to sellers were
+equally great. They secured themselves from confiscation, and their
+heirs from spoliation at their demise. They were enabled to raise
+money to the value of a sixth or eighth of their capital, on payment
+of a trifling interest, and yet retained the full enjoyment of the
+whole for themselves and immediate issue. By founding these wakoofs,
+sellers are also enabled to check the extravagance of their children,
+who can neither mortgage nor alienate the property--a practice nearly
+as common in Turkey as in other countries."
+
+Not less than three-fourths of the buildings and cultivated lands
+throughout the empire, according to the author, and even the imperial
+domains, are held under one or other of these wakoof tenures, which
+thus represent the great landed interests of the country. Formerly,
+the domains belonging to the mosques in each pashalik were let on
+annual leases (as the public revenues are still farmed) to _multezim_
+or contractors, generally the pashas of the provinces: but the system
+of subletting and dilapidation to which this course of short leases
+gave rise, was so ruinous to the agricultural population and the
+property of the wakoofs, that a thorough reform was introduced in the
+reign of Abdoul-Hamid, the father of Mahmood II. The lands were now
+let on life tenancies, (_malikania_,) on the same system of beneficial
+leases and large fines on renewals which prevails with respect to the
+property of collegiate and other corporate bodies in England; which
+has greatly improved their condition, as it is no longer the interest
+of the lessee to rack the peasantry, or damage the property, for the
+sake of present advantage. "More than one monarch has entertained
+projects of dispossessing the mosques of these privileges, and of
+placing the wakoofya under the exclusive superintendence of
+government. Sultan Mahmood II. seriously contemplated carrying this
+plan into effect, and probably would have done so, had his life been
+spared. The government in this case would have paid the salaries of
+all sheikhs, priests, and persons attached to the sacred edifices,
+together with all repairs and expenses of their dependent
+institutions, and would have converted the surplus to state purposes.
+Various plans were suggested to Mahmood's predecessors; but during the
+existence of the janissaries, no one dared to interfere with
+institutions whence the Oolema, (men of law and religion,) intimately
+connected with the janissaries, derived invariable profit."
+
+Returning at length from this long digression to the jewel bezestan,
+and passing from the south-eastern, or mercers' gate, "through lines
+of shops stored with a variety of ready-made articles required by
+ladies," we reach the Silk Bezestan, (Sandal Bezestany,) which, like
+the other, has four arched gates named after different trades, and is
+surmounted by twenty domes, four in a line. Though occupied solely by
+Armenians, and regulated by a committee of six Armenian elders, it is
+directed by a Turkish kehaya or president, with his deputy, whose duty
+it is to superintend the police and collect the government dues. The
+scene presented by the interior presents a striking contrast to the
+other, and (we regret to say) not at all to the advantage of the
+Christians. "The building is gloomy and badly lighted, and appears not
+to have been white-washed or cleansed since the first construction;
+and while a stranger may repeatedly enter the jewel bezestan, and its
+tenants, though they see him gazing with covetous eyes on some
+antiquated object, will scarcely condescend to say 'Ne istersiniz?'
+(what want you?) ... the clamours of the Armenians to attract
+purchasers are only to be surpassed by their want of honesty.
+Strangers may often pay too much to Turkish shopkeepers, but they will
+receive fair weight to a hair: whereas they will be subject not only
+to overcharge, but to short quantity, at the hands of the Armeninians
+and their more profligate imitators, the Greek dealers." The original
+silk manufactories were established before the conquest of
+Constantinople at the old capital of Broussa, whence most of the raw
+material is still derived, the abundance of mulberry trees in its
+neighbourhood being favourable to the nurture of the silkworm; little
+Broussa silk is, however, now sold in the sandal bezestany, the
+manufacture being principally carried on along the shores of the
+Bosphorus. "But within the last ten years, and especially since the
+conclusion of commercial treaties with the Porte, the silk trade in
+home-made articles has decreased 50 per cent. A large supply of common
+imitation goods is now received from England, France, and Italy, and
+the richer articles, principally manufactured at Lyons, have
+completely superseded those formerly received from Broussa, or
+fabricated at Scutari and Constantinople."
+
+The trade in furs, as well as that in silk, is entirely in the hands
+of the Armenians, but has greatly fallen off since the European dress,
+now worn by the court and the official personages, replaced the old
+Turkish costume. In former times, the quality of the fur worn by
+different ranks, and at different seasons of the year, was a matter of
+strict etiquette, regulated by the example of the sultan, who, on a
+day previously fixed by the imperial astrologer, repaired in state to
+the mosque arrayed in furs, varying from the squirrel or red fox,
+assumed at the beginning of autumn, to the samoor or sable worn during
+the depth of winter; while all ranks of persons in office changed
+their furs, on the same day with the monarch, for those appropriated
+to their respective grades. The most costly were those of the black
+fox and sable, the former of which was restricted, unless by special
+permission, to the use of royalty: while sable was reserved for vizirs
+and pashas of the highest rank. The price of these furs, indeed,
+placed them beyond the reach of ordinary purchasers, 15,000 or 20,000
+piastres being no unusual price for a sable lined pelisse, while black
+fox cost twice as much. In the present day the _kurk_ or pelisse is
+never worn by civil or military functionaries, except in private: but
+it still continues in general use among the sheikhs and men of the
+law, "who may be seen mounted on fat ambling galloways, with richly
+embroidered saddle-cloths and embossed bridles, attired in kurks faced
+with sables, in all the pomp of ancient times." The kurk is, moreover,
+in harem etiquette, the recognised symbol of matronly rank:--and its
+assumption by a Circassian is a significant intimation to the other
+inmates of the position she has assumed as the favourite of their
+master. The same rule extends to the imperial palace, where the
+elevation of a fair slave to the rank of _kadinn_ (the title given to
+the partners of the sultan) is announced to her, by her receiving a
+pelisse lined with sables from the _ket-khoda_ or mistress of the
+palace, the principal of the seven great female officers to whom is
+entrusted the management of all matters connected with the harem. The
+imperial favourites are limited by law to seven, but this number is
+seldom complete; the present sultan has hitherto raised only five to
+this rank, one of whom died of consumption in 1842. These ladies are
+now always Circassian slaves, and though never manumitted, have each
+their separate establishments, suites of apartments, and female slaves
+acting as ladies of honour, &c. Their slipper, or (as we should call
+it) pin money, is about 25,000 piastres (L240) monthly--their other
+expenses being defrayed by the sultan's treasurer. Mr White enters
+into considerable detail on the interior arrangements of the seraglio,
+the private life of the sultan, &c.; but as it does not appear from
+what sources his information is derived, we shall maintain an Oriental
+reserve on these subjects.
+
+The slave-markets and condition of slaves in the East is treated at
+considerable length: but as the erroneous notions formerly entertained
+have been in a great measure dispelled by more correct views obtained
+by modern travellers, it is sufficient to observe, that "the laws and
+customs relative to the treatment of slaves in Turkey divest their
+condition of its worst features, and place the slave nearly on a level
+with the free servitor: nay, in many instances the condition of the
+slave, especially of white slaves, is superior to the other; as the
+path of honour and fortune is more accessible to the dependent and
+protected slave than to the independent man of lower degree." It is
+well known that many of those holding the highest dignities of the
+state--Halil Pasha, brother-in-law of the Sultan--Khosref, who for
+many years virtually ruled the empire, with numberless others, were
+originally slaves: and in all cases the liberation of male slaves,
+after seven or nine years' servitude, is ordained by _adet_ or custom,
+which, in Turkey, is stronger than law. This rule is rarely
+infringed:--and excepting the slaves of men in the middle ranks of
+life, who frequently adopt their master's trade, and are employed by
+him as workmen, they in most cases become domestic servants, or enter
+the army, as holding out the greatest prospect of honour and
+promotion. The condition of white female slaves is even more
+favourable. In point of dress and equipment, they are on a par with
+their mistresses, the menial offices in all great harems being
+performed by negresses;--and frequent instances occur, where parents
+prefer slaves educated in their own families to free women as wives
+for their sons:--the only distinction being in the title of _kadinn_,
+which may be considered equivalent to _madame_, and which is always
+borne by these emancipated slaves, instead of _khanum_, (or _lady_,)
+used by women of free birth. Female slaves are rarely sold or parted
+with, except for extreme misconduct; and though it is customary for
+their masters, in the event of their becoming mothers, to enfranchise
+and marry them, "the facility of divorce is such, that women, if
+mothers, prefer remaining slaves to being legally married: as they are
+aware that custom prevents their being sold when in the former
+condition: whereas their having a family is no bar to divorce when
+married."
+
+The guilds, or corporations of the different trades and professions,
+to which allusion has more than once been made, and which constitute
+what may be called the municipality of Constantinople, were formerly
+mustered and paraded through the city, on every occasion when the
+Sandjak-Shereef (or holy banner of Mahommed) was taken from the
+seraglio to accompany the army. This gathering, the object of which
+was to ascertain the number of men who could be levied in case of
+extremity for the defence of the capital, was first ordained by Mourad
+IV.,[31] before his march against Bagdad in 1638; when, according to
+Evliya Effendi, 200,000 men fit to bear arms passed in review--and the
+last muster was in the reign of Mustapha III., at the commencement of
+the disastrous war with Russia in 1769. Its subsequent discontinuance
+is said to have been owing to an insult then offered by the guild of
+_emirs_ (or descendants of the Prophet) to the Austrian Internuncio,
+who was detected in witnessing incognito the procession of the
+Sandjak-Shereef, deemed too sacred for the eyes of an infidel--and a
+tumult ensued, in which many Christians were maltreated and murdered,
+and which had nearly led to a rupture with the court of Vienna. On
+this occasion the number of guilds was forty-six, subdivided into 554
+minor sections; and, excepting the disappearance of those more
+immediately connected with the janissaries, it is probable that little
+or no change has since taken place. These guilds included not only the
+handicraft and other trades, but the physicians and other learned
+professions, and even the _Oolemah_ and imams, and others connected
+with the mosques. Each marched with its own badges and ensigns, headed
+by its own officers, of whom there were seven of the first grade, with
+their deputies and subordinates, all elected by the crafts, and
+entrusted with the control of its affairs, subject to the approbation
+of a council of delegates: while the property of these corporations is
+invariably secured by being made _wakoof_, the nature of which has
+been already explained. The shoemakers', saddlers', and tanners'
+guilds are among the strongest in point of numbers, and from them were
+drawn the _elite_ of the janissaries stationed in the capital, after
+the cruel system of seizing Christian children for recruits had been
+discontinued; the tailors are also a numerous and resolute craft,
+generally well affected to government, to which they rendered
+important services in the overthrow of the janissaries in 1826, when
+the Sandjak-Shereef[32] was displayed in pursuance of the _Fethwa_ of
+the mufti excommunicating the sons of Hadji-Bektash, and the guilds
+mustered in arms by thousands for the support of the Sheikh al Islam
+and the Commander of the Faithful.
+
+Among these fraternities, one of the most numerous is that of the
+_kayikjees_ or boatmen, of whom there are not fewer than 19,000,
+mostly Turks, in the city and its suburbs; while 5000 more, nearly all
+of whom are Greeks, are found in the villages of the Bosphorus. They
+are all registered in the books of the _kayikjee-bashi_, or chief of
+the boatmen, paying each eight piastres monthly (or twice as much if
+unmarried) for their _teskera_ or license: and cannot remove from the
+stations assigned them without giving notice. The skill and activity
+of these men, in the management of their light and apparently fragile
+skiffs, has been celebrated by almost every tourist who has floated on
+the waters of the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus: and not less precise
+is the accuracy with which is adjusted the number of oars to be
+employed by the members of the European _corps diplomatique_, and the
+great officers of the Porte, according to their relative ranks; the
+smallest infringement of which would be regarded as an unpardonable
+breach of etiquette. The oars and mouldings are painted of the
+national colours, with the hulls white or black; the latter colour is
+usually affected by the Turkish grandees, with the exception of the
+capitan-pasha, who is alone privileged to use a green boat.
+Ambassadors-extraordinary are entitled to ten oars; and the same
+number is assigned to the grand-vizir, the mufti, and ministers
+holding the rank of _mushir_, or marshal, the highest degree in the
+new scale of Ottoman precedence. Pashas of the second rank, the
+_cazi-askers_ or grand judges of Anatolia and Roumelia, with other
+functionaries of equivalent grade, are allowed eight oars, the number
+employed by the Austrian Internuncio, and by ministers-plenipotentiary;
+while three or five pair of sculls are allotted to _charges
+d'affaires_, and the heads of different departments at the Porte. The
+procession of the sultan, when he proceeds to the mosque by water,
+consists of six kayiks, the largest of which is seventy-eight feet in
+length, and pulled by twenty-four rowers--under the old _regime_ the
+crew was taken from the bostandjis, whose chief, the bostandji-bashi,
+held the helm; but since the abolition of that corps, they have been
+chosen, without distinction of creed, from the common boatmen. The
+imperial barge is distinguished, independent of its superior size, by
+the gold-embroidered canopy of crimson silk, surmounted by crescents
+at the stern; it is painted white within and without, with rich gilt
+mouldings, under which runs a broad external green border, ornamented
+with gilded arabesques. The oars are painted white, with gold scrolls;
+the stern is adorned with massive gilt carvings; and the long
+projecting prow with a richly-gilded ornament, representing a
+palm-branch curling upwards. Behind this flutters a gilded falcon, the
+emblem of the house of Osman. The carvings and ornaments of these
+boats are elaborately finished, and exquisitely light and graceful.
+These embellishments, combined with the loose white dresses,
+blue-tasselled red caps, and muscular forms of the boatmen, as they
+rise from their seats, vigorously plunge their oars into the dark blue
+waters, and propel the kayiks with racehorse speed, give to these
+splendid vessels an air of majesty and brilliancy, not less
+characteristic than original and imposing.
+
+Many instances have occurred, in which men have risen from the class
+of boatmen to stations of high honour and dignity; the most recent
+instance of which was in the case of the arch-traitor Achmet Fevzy
+Pasha, who, in 1839, betrayed the Ottoman fleet under his command into
+the hands of Mohammed Ali--a deed of unparalleled perfidy, for which
+he righteously received a traitor's reward, perishing in January 1843
+(as was generally believed) by poison administered by the orders of
+the Egyptian Viceroy. The kayikjees, as a class, are generally
+considered, in point of personal advantages, the finest body of men in
+the empire; and share with the _sakkas_, or water-carriers--another
+numerous and powerful guild, equally remarkable with the kayikjees for
+their symmetry and athletic proportions--the dangerous reputation of
+being distinguished favourites of the fair sex--doubly dangerous in a
+country where, in such cases, "the cord or scimitar is the doom of the
+stronger sex--the deep sea-bed that of the weaker. Money will
+counterbalance all crimes in Turkey save female frailty. For this
+neither religious law nor social customs admit atonement. Tears,
+beauty, youth, gold--untold gold--are of no avail. The fish of the
+Bosphorus and Propontis could disclose fearful secrets, even in our
+days:"--and as a natural transition, apparently, from cause to effect,
+Mr White proceeds, in the next chapter, to give an account of the
+Balyk-Bazary, the Billingsgate of Stamboul. But we shall not follow
+him through his enumeration of such a carte as throws the glories of a
+Blackwall dinner into dim eclipse, and which no other waters of Europe
+could probably rival:--since, in Mr White's usual course of digression
+upon digression, the mention of the Fishmarket Gate, the usual place
+of executions, leads him off again at a tangent to the consideration
+of the criminal law, and its present administration in the Ottoman
+Empire.
+
+There is no change among those wrought since the introduction of the
+new system, more calculated forcibly to impress those who had known
+Constantinople in former years, than the almost total cessation of
+those public executions, the sanguinary frequency of which formed so
+obtrusive and revolting a feature under the old _regime_. Since the
+fate of the unfortunate Pertef Pasha in 1837, no one has suffered
+death for political offences:--and the abolition by Sultan Mahmoud,
+immediately after the destruction of the janissaries, of the
+_Moukhallafat Kalemy_, or Court of Confiscations, put an end to the
+atrocious system which had for centuries made wealth a sufficient
+pretext for the murder of its possessors. In all cases of banishment
+or condemnation to death, however arbitrary, confiscation of property
+inevitably followed: but the wealthy Armenians and Greeks were usually
+selected as the victims of these ruthless deeds of despotism and
+rapacity; numerous records of which may be seen in the Christian
+burying-grounds, where the rudely-carved figure of a headless trunk,
+or a hanging man, indicates the fate of the sufferer. But the humane
+and politic act of Mahmoud, which rendered riches no longer a crime,
+has produced its natural effects in the impulse which has been given
+to commercial activity and public confidence by the security thus
+afforded to life and property. "The government finds the Armenians
+willing to advance money in case of need; and there is scarcely a
+pasha of rank who has not recourse to their assistance, which is the
+more readily afforded, as the Armenians are aware that their debtors'
+lives and property, as well as their own, are secure, and that they
+shall not endure extreme persecution in the event of suing those on
+whom they have claims."
+
+In criminal cases, the administration of justice by the Moslem law
+appears at all times to have been tempered by lenity; and the extreme
+repugnance of the present sultan to sign death-warrants, even in cases
+which in this country would be considered as amounting to wilful
+murder, has rendered capital punishments extremely rare: while the
+horrible death by impalement, and the amputation of the hand for
+theft, have fallen into complete disuse. Offences are tried, in the
+first instance, in the court of the Cazi-asker or grand judge of
+Roumelia or Anatolia, according as the crime has been committed in
+Europe or Asia: from this tribunal an appeal lies to the Supreme
+Council of justice, the decisions of which require to be further
+ratified by the Mufti. The _proces-verbal_ of two of the cases above
+referred to, is given at length; in one of which the murderer escaped
+condign punishment only because the extreme youth of the only
+eye-witness, a slave, nine years old, prevented his testimony from
+being received otherwise than as _circumstantial_ evidence:--in the
+other, "it being essential to make a lasting and impressive public
+example, it was resolved that the criminals should not be put to
+death, but condemned to such ignominious public chastisement as might
+serve during many years as a warning to others." The sentence in the
+former case was ten, and in the latter, seven years' public labour in
+heavy irons--a punishment of extreme severity, frequently terminating
+in the death of the convict. Nafiz Bey, the principal offender in the
+second of the above cases, did not survive his sentence more than
+twenty months. "On examining a multitude of condemnations for crimes
+of magnitude, the maximum average, when death was not awarded, was
+seven years' hard labour in chains, and fine, for which the convict is
+subsequently imprisoned as a simple debtor till the sum is paid. The
+average punishment for theft, robbery, assault, and slightly wounding,
+is three years' hard labour, with costs and damages. These sentences
+(of which several examples are given) were referred, according to
+established forms, from the local tribunals to the supreme council:
+and before being carried into effect, were legalized by a _fethwa_
+(decree) of the Sheikh-Islam, (Mufti,) and after that by the sultan's
+warrant; a process affording a triple advantage to the accused, each
+reference serving as an appeal."
+
+The exclusive jurisdiction over the subjects of their own nation,
+exercised by the legations of the different European powers in virtue
+of capitulations with the Porte, was doubtless at one time necessary
+for the protection of foreigners from the arbitrary proceedings of
+Turkish despotism; it has, however, given rise to great abuses, and at
+the present day its practical effect is only to secure impunity to
+crime, by impeding the course of justice. The system in all the
+legations is extremely defective; "but in none is it more flagrantly
+vicious and ineffective than in that of Great Britain." This is a
+grave charge; but only too fully borne out by the facts adduced. Not
+fewer than three thousand British subjects are now domiciled in and
+about the Turkish capital, chiefly vagabonds and desperadoes, driven
+by the rigour of English law from Malta and the Ionian Isles:--and
+half the outrages in Stamboul "are committed by or charged to the
+Queen's adopted subjects, who, well knowing that eventual impunity is
+their privilege, are not restrained by fear of retribution." All the
+zeal and energy of our consul-general, Mr Cartwright, (in whom are
+vested the judicial functions exercised by chancellors of other
+legations,) are paralysed by the necessity of adhering to the forms of
+British law, the execution of which is practically impossible. "In a
+case of murder or felony, for instance,--a case which often occurs--a
+_pro forma_ verdict of guilty is returned; but what follows? The
+ambassador has no power to order the law to be carried into effect:
+nothing remains, therefore, but to send the accused, with the
+depositions, to Malta or England. But the Maltese courts declare
+themselves incompetent, and either liberate or send back the prisoner;
+and English tribunals do not adjudicate on documentary evidence. The
+consequence is, that unless witnesses proceed to England, criminals
+must be liberated at Pera, or sent to be liberated at home, for want
+of legal testimony. They have then their action at law against the
+consul-general for illegal arrest." It appears scarcely credible that
+a state of things, so calculated to degrade the British national
+character in the eyes of the representatives of the other European
+powers, should ever have been suffered to exist, and still more that
+it should have remained so long unheeded. A bill was indeed carried
+through Parliament in 1835, in consequence of the urgent reclamations
+of Lord Ponsonby and Mr Cartwright, for empowering the Crown to remedy
+the evil; but though the subject was again pressed by Sir Stratford
+Canning in 1842, it still remains a dead letter. Mr White has done
+good service in placing this plain and undeniable statement of facts
+before the public eye; and we trust that the next session of
+Parliament will not pass over without our seeing the point brought
+forward by Mr D'Israeli, Mr Monckton Milnes, or some other of those
+members of the legislature whose personal knowledge of the East
+qualifies them to undertake it. "One plan ought to be adopted
+forthwith, that of investing the consul-general with such full powers
+as are granted to London police magistrates, or, if possible, to any
+magistrates at quarter-sessions. He would then be able to dispose of a
+multitude of minor correctional cases, which now pass unpunished, to
+the constant scandal of all other nations. The delegated power might
+be arbitrary, and inconsistent with our constitutional habits, but the
+evil requires extrajudicial measures."
+
+In pursuing Mr White's devious course through the various marts of
+Constantinople, we have not yet brought our readers to the Missr
+Tcharshy, or Egyptian market, probably the most diversified and purely
+Oriental scene to be seen in Constantinople, and a representation of
+which forms the frontispiece to one of the volumes. The building, the
+entrance to which is between the Fishmarket Gate and the beautiful
+mosque of the Valida, (built by the mother of Mohammed IV.,) consists
+of an arcade lighted from the roof, like those of our own capital, 140
+yards long, and 20 wide, filled on each side with shops, not separated
+from each other by partitions, so as to impede the view; the tenants
+of which are all Osmanlis, and dealers exclusively in perfumes,
+spices, &c., imported chiefly through Egypt from India, Arabia, &c.
+Here may be found "the Persian atar-gul's perfume," sandalwood, and
+odoriferous woods of all kinds from the lands of the East; opium for
+the _Teryakis_, a race whose numbers are happily now daily decreasing;
+ambergris for pastilles; "cinnamon and ginger, nutmegs and cloves;"
+the pink henna powder brought from Mekka by the pilgrims for tinging
+ladies' fingers, though these "rosy-fingered Auroras" (as Mr W. kindly
+warns the poetasters of Franguestan) are now only to be found among
+slaves and the lower orders, the custom being now utterly exploded
+among dames of high degree: "add to the above, spices, roots,
+dyewoods, and minerals, and colours of every denomination, and an
+idea may be formed of the contents of this neatly-arranged and
+picturesque bazar. Its magnitude, its abundance and variety of goods,
+the order that reigns on every side, and the respectability of the
+dealers, render it one of the most original and interesting sights of
+the city; it serves to refresh the senses and to dispel the
+unfavourable impressions caused on first landing."
+
+In the foregoing remarks and extracts, it has been our aim rather to
+give a condensed view of the information to be derived from the
+volumes before us, on topics of interest, than to attempt any thing
+like a general abstract of a work so multifarious in its nature, and
+so broken into detail, as to render the ordinary rules of criticism as
+inapplicable to it as they would be to an encylopaedia. In point of
+arrangement, indeed, the latter would have the advantage; for a total
+absence of _lucidus ordo_ pervades Mr White's pages, to a degree
+scarcely to be excused even by the very miscellaneous nature of the
+subject. Thus, while constant reference is made, from the first, to
+the bezestans, the names of their different gates, &c., no description
+of these edifices occurs till the middle of the second volume, where
+it is introduced apropos to nothing, between the public libraries and
+the fur-market. The chapter headed "Capital Punishments," (iv. vol.
+1.) is principally devoted to political disquisitions, with an episode
+on lunatic asylums and the medical academy of Galata Serai, while only
+a few pages are occupied by the subject implied in the title; which is
+treated at greater length, and illustrated by the _proces-verbaux_ of
+several criminal trials, at the end of the second volume, where it is
+brought in as a digression from the slavery laws, on the point of the
+admissibility of a slave's evidence! But without following Mr White
+further through the slipper-market, the poultry-market, the
+coffee-shops, and tobacco-shops, the fruit and flower market, the
+Ozoon Tcharshy or long market, devoted to the sale of articles of
+dress and household furniture, _cum multis aliis_; it will suffice to
+say that there is no article whatever, either of luxury or use, sold
+in Constantinople, from diamonds to old clothes, of which some
+account, with the locality in which it is procurable, is not to be
+found in some part or other of his volumes. We have, besides,
+disquisitions on statistics and military matters; aqueducts and baths,
+marriages and funerals, farriery and cookery, &c. &c.--in fact on
+every imaginable subject, except the price of railway shares, which
+are as yet to the Turks a pleasure to come. It would be unpardonable
+to omit mentioning, however, for the benefit of gourmands, that for
+the savoury viands called kabobs, and other Stamboul delicacies, the
+shop of the worthy Hadji Mustapha, on the south side of the street
+called Divan-Yolly, stands unequaled; while horticulturists and
+poetasters should be informed, that in spite of Lord Byron's fragrant
+descriptions of "the gardens of Gul in their bloom," the finer
+European roses do not sympathize with the climate. Lady Ponsonby's
+attempts to introduce the moss-rose at Therapia failed; and the only
+place where they have succeeded is the garden of Count Stuermer, the
+Austrian Internuncio, whose palace is, in more respects than one,
+according to Mr White, the Gulistan of Stamboul society.
+
+But we cannot take leave of this part of the subject without
+remarking, that while all praise is due to Mr White's accuracy in
+describing the scenes and subjects on which he speaks from personal
+knowledge, his acquaintance with past Turkish history appears to be by
+no means on a par with the insight he has succeeded in acquiring into
+the usages and manners of the Turks of the present day. The
+innumerable anecdotes interspersed through his pages, and which often
+mar rather than aid the effect of the more solid matter, are
+frequently both improbable and pointless; and the lapses which here
+and there occur in matters of historical fact, are almost
+incomprehensible. Thus we are told (i. 179,) that the favour enjoyed
+(until recently) by Riza Pasha, was owing to his having rescued the
+present sultan, when a child, from a reservoir in the Imperial Gardens
+of Beglerbey, into which he had been hurled by his father in a fit of
+brutal fury--an act wholly alien to the character of Mahmoud, but
+which (as Mr W. observes,) "will not appear improbable to those
+acquainted with Oriental history"--since it is found related, in all
+its circumstances, in Rycaut's history of the reign of Ibrahim, whose
+infant son, afterwards Mohammed IV., nearly perished in this manner by
+his hands, and retained through life the scar of a wound on the face,
+received in the fall. This palpable anachronism is balanced in the
+next page by a version of the latter incident, in which Mohammed's
+wound is said to have been inflicted by the dagger of his intoxicated
+father, irritated by a rebuke from the prince (who, be it remarked,
+was only seven years old at Ibrahim's death, some years later) on his
+unseemly exhibition of himself as a dancer. As a further instance of
+paternal barbarity in the Osmanli sultans, it is related how Selim I.
+was bastinadoed by command of his father, Bajazet II., for misconduct
+in the government of Bagdad! with the marvellous addition, (worthy of
+Ovid's _Metamorphoses_,) that from the sticks used for his punishment,
+and planted by his sorrowing tutor, sprung the grove of Tchibookly,
+opposite Yenikouy! History will show that Selim and Bajazet never met
+after the accession of the latter, except when the rebellious son met
+the father in arms at Tchourlou; and it is well known that Bagdad did
+not become part of the Ottoman empire till the reign of Soliman the
+Magnificent the son of Selim. The mention of the City of the Khalifs,
+indeed, seems destined to lead Mr White into error; for in another
+story, the circumstances of which differ in every point from the same
+incident as related by Oriental historians, we find the Ommiyade
+Khalif, Yezid III., who died A.D. 723, (twenty-seven years before the
+accession of the Abbasides, and forty before the foundation of
+Bagdad,) spoken of as an Abbaside khalif of Bagdad! Again, we find in
+the list of geographical writers, (ii. 172,) "Ebul Feredj, Prince of
+Hama, 1331"--thus confounding the monk Gregory Abulpharagius with the
+Arabic Livy, Abulfeda, a prince of the line of Saladin! This last
+error, indeed, can scarcely be more than a slip of the pen. But
+instances of this kind might be multiplied; and it would be well if
+such passages, with numerous idle legends (such as the patronage of
+black bears by the Abbasides, and brown bears by the Ommiyades,) be
+omitted in any future edition.
+
+We have reserved for the conclusion of our notice, the consideration
+of Mr White's observations on the late _constitution_ (as it has been
+called) of Gul-khana, a visionary scheme concocted by Reshid Pasha,
+under French influence, by which it was proposed to secure equal
+rights to all the component parts of the heterogeneous mass which
+constitutes the population of the Ottoman empire. The author's remarks
+on this well-meant, but crude and impracticable _coup-d'etat_, evince
+a clear perception of the domestic interests and relative political
+position of Turkey, which lead us to hope that he will erelong turn
+his attention on a more extended scale, to the important subject of
+Ottoman politics. For the present, we must content ourselves with
+laying before our readers, in an abridged form, the clear and
+comprehensive views here laid down, on a question involving the future
+interests of Europe, and of no European power more than of Great Britain.
+
+"The population of the Turkish empire consists of several distinct
+races, utterly opposed to each other in religion, habits, descent,
+objects, and in every moral and even physical characteristic. The
+Turkomans, Kurds, Arabs, Egyptians, Druses, Maronites, Albanians,
+Bosnians, Bulgarians, Greeks, Jews, and Armenians, are so many
+distinct nations, inhabiting the same or contiguous soils, without
+having intermixed in the slightest degree from their earliest
+conquest, and without having a single object in common. Over these
+dissentient populations stands the pure Ottoman race, the paramount
+nation, charged with maintaining the equilibrium between all, and with
+neutralizing the ascendancy of one faction by the aid of others. Were
+this control not to exist--were the Turks, who represent their
+ancestors, the conquerors of the land, to be reduced to a level with
+those now beneath them, or were the preponderating influence of the
+former to be destroyed by the elevation and equalization of the
+latter, perpetual revolts and civil wars could not fail to ensue. The
+dependent populations, now constituting so large a portion of the
+empire, would continue the struggle until one of them obtained the
+supremacy at present exercised by the Turkish race, or until the
+territory were divided among themselves, or parcelled out by foreign
+powers. In this last hypothesis will be found the whole secret of the
+ardent sympathy evinced by most foreigners, especially by the press of
+France, for the subjugated races.
+
+"Many benevolent men argue, that the surest means of tranquillizing
+the tributaries of the Porte, and attaching them to the government, is
+by raising them in the social scale, and by granting to all the same
+rights and immunities as are enjoyed by their rulers. But it has been
+repeatedly proved, that concessions do but lead to fresh demands, and
+that partial enfranchisement conducts to total emancipation. 'And why
+should they not?' is often asked. To this may be replied, that the
+possession of the Bosphorus and Dardanelles by any other power, or
+fraction of power, than the Porte, would be a source of interminable
+discord to Europe, and irreparable detriment to England. It would not
+only affect our commerce, and undermine our political influence
+throughout the East, but would add enormously to our naval
+expenditure, by requiring an augmentation of our maritime force
+equivalent to that now remaining neuter in the Golden Horn. Treaties,
+it is said, might be concluded, exacting maritime restrictions. But
+what are treaties in the face of events? Whoever possesses the
+Bosphorus, Propontis, and Archipelago, _must_ become a maritime nation
+in spite of treaties. Whoever possesses Constantinople _must_ become a
+great manufacturing and exporting nation, in defiance of competition.
+In less than half a century, the romantic villas and tapering
+cypresses that now fringe the blue Bosphorus, would be replaced by
+factories and steam-chimneys--every one of which would be a deadly
+rival to a similar establishment in Great Britain. I argue as an
+Englishman, whose duty it is to consider the material interests of his
+country, now and hereafter, and not to occupy himself with the
+theories of political philanthropists.
+
+"According to the levelling system, recommended as the basis of
+reforms, all classes would eventually be assimilated--the desert Arabs
+to the laborious Maronites, the intractable Arnoots to the industrious
+Bulgarians, the thrifty Armenians to the restless and ambitious
+Greeks, and the humble and parsimonious Jews to the haughty and lavish
+Osmanlis. Thus, contiguous populations, which now keep each other in
+check, because their interests are divergent and their jealousies
+inveterate, would find their interests assimilated; and in the event
+of opposition to government, the Porte, in lieu of being able to
+overcome one sect through the rivalry of another, would find them all
+united against the dominant power. The Ottoman government should
+therefore avoid establishing any community of rights or interests
+among the races subjected to its rule. Each of these races ought to be
+governed according to its own usages and individual creed; there
+should be uniformity in the principles of administration, but
+diversity in the application. The Ottoman tenure cannot be maintained
+but by decided and peremptory superiority. Adhesion on the part of the
+subjugated is impossible; connexion is all that can be expected; and
+to preserve this connexion, the supremacy of conquest must not be
+relaxed. The Porte cannot expect attachment; it must consequently
+enforce submission. When this absolutism ceases to exist, the power
+will pass into other hands; and where is the politician that can
+calculate the results of the transfer? One issue may be safely
+predicted--England must lose, but cannot gain by the change. With the
+increasing embarrassments to commerce and industry, which continental
+states are raising against Britain, it is essential that we should not
+allow a false cry of philanthropy to throw us off our guard in the
+Levant. France in Africa, and Russia on the Danube, are intent on the
+same object. Their battle-cries are civilization and religion; their
+pretext the improvement of the Christian populations. But who is there
+that has studied the recent policy of the one, and the undeviating
+system of the other, since the days of Catherine, that can question
+for a moment the purport of both? _And yet England and Austria have
+acted recently as if France were sincere, and Russia disinterested._"
+
+[Footnote 28: _Three Years in Constantinople; or, Domestic Manners of
+the Turks in 1844._ By CHARLES WHITE, ESQ.]
+
+[Footnote 29: The root of bezestan and bazar is _bez_, cloth;--of
+tcharshy, _tchar_, four, meaning a square.]
+
+[Footnote 30: A catalogue of works printed from the establishment of
+the press in 1726 to 1820, is given in the notes to Book 65 of Von
+Hammer Purgstall's Ottoman History.]
+
+[Footnote 31: Mr White erroneously calls him Mourad III., and places
+the expedition against Bagdad in 1834.]
+
+[Footnote 32: Mr White here introduces a digression on the other
+relics of the Prophet, the Moslem festivals, &c., his account of which
+presents little novelty; but he falls into the general error of
+describing the Mahmil, borne by the holy camel in the pilgrim caravan,
+as containing the brocade covering of the Kaaba, when it is in fact
+merely an emblem of the presence of the monarch, like an empty
+carriage sent in a procession.--(See _Lane's Modern Egyptians_, ii. p.
+204, 8vo. ed.) It is indeed sufficiently obvious, that a box six feet
+high and two in diameter, could not contain a piece of brocade
+sufficient to surround a building described by Burckhardt as eighteen
+paces long, fourteen broad, and from thirty-five to forty feet high.]
+
+
+
+
+THE MOUNTAIN AND THE CLOUD.
+
+(A REMINISCENCE OF SWITZERLAND)
+
+
+The cloud is to the mountain what motion is to the sea; it gives to it
+an infinite variety of expression--gives it a life--gives it joy and
+sufferance, alternate calm, and terror, and anger. Without the cloud,
+the mountain would still be sublime, but monotonous; it would have but
+a picture-like existence.
+
+How thoroughly they understand and sympathize with each other--these
+glorious playmates, these immortal brethren! Sometimes the cloud lies
+supported in the hollow of the hill, as if out of love it feigned
+weariness, and needed to be upheld. At other times the whole hill
+stands enveloped in the cloud that has expanded to embrace and to
+conceal it. No jealousy here. Each lives its own grand life under the
+equal eye of heaven.
+
+As you approach the mountains, it seems that the clouds begin already
+to arrange themselves in bolder and more fantastic shapes. They have a
+fellowship here. They built their mountains upon mountains--their
+mountains which are as light as air--huge structures built at the
+giddy suggestion of the passing breeze. Theirs is the wild liberty of
+endless change, by which they compensate themselves for their thin and
+fleeting existence, and seem to mock the stationary forms of their
+stable brethren fast rooted to the earth. And how genially does the
+sun pour his beam upon these twin grandeurs! For a moment they are
+assimilated; his ray has permeated, has etherealized the solid
+mountain, has fixed and defined the floating vapour. What now is the
+one but a stationary cloud? what is the other but a risen
+hill?--poised not in the air but in the flood of light.
+
+I am never weary of watching the play of these giant children of the
+earth. Sometimes a soft white cloud, so pure, so bright, sleeps,
+amidst open sunshine, nestled like an infant in the bosom of a green
+mountain. Sometimes the rising upcurling vapour will linger Just above
+the summit, and seem for a while an incense exhaling from this vast
+censer. Sometimes it will descend, and _drape_ the whole side of the
+hill as with a transparent veil. I have seen it sweep between me and
+the mountain like a sheeted ghost, tall as the mountain, till the
+strong daylight dissolved its thin substance, and it rose again in
+flakes to decorate the blue heavens. But oh, glorious above all! when
+on some brightest of days, the whole mass of whitest clouds gathers
+midway upon the snow-topped mountain. How magnificent then is that
+bright eminence seen above the cloud! How it seems rising upwards--how
+it seems borne aloft by those innumerable wings--by those enormous
+pinions which I see stretching from the cloudy mass! What an ascension
+have we here!--what a transfiguration! O Raphael! I will not disparage
+thy name nor thy art, but thy angels bearing on their wings the
+brightening saint to Heaven--what are they to the picture here?
+
+Look! there--fairly in the sky--where we should see but the pure
+ether--above the clouds which themselves are sailing high in serenest
+air--yes, there, in the blue and giddy expanse, stands the solid
+mountain, glittering like a diamond. O God! the bewildered reason pent
+up in cities, toils much to prove and penetrate thy being and thy
+nature--toils much in vain. Here, I reason not--I see. The Great King
+lives--lo there is his throne.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+To him who quits the plain for the mountain, how the character of the
+cloud alters. That which seemed to belong exclusively to the sky, has
+been drawn down and belongs as plainly to the earth. Mount some noble
+eminence and look down--you will see the clouds lying _on_ and _about_
+the landscape, as if they had fallen on it. You are on the steadfast
+earth, and they are underneath you. You look down perhaps on the lake,
+and there is a solitary cloud lying settled on it; when the rest of
+the fleecy drove had risen from their couch, this idle sleeper had
+been left dreaming there.
+
+Or stay below, and see the sun rise in the valley. When all is warm
+and clear upon the heights, and the tops of the hills are fervid with
+the beams of heaven, there still lies a cold white mass of cloud about
+your feet. It is not yet morning in the valley. There the cloud has
+been slumbering all night--there it found its home. It also will by
+and by receive the beam, and then it will arise, enveloping the hill
+as it ascends; the hill will have a second dawn; the cloud will assume
+its proud station in the sky; but it will return again to the valley
+at night.
+
+I am sailing on the lake of Brienz on a day golden with sunbeams. The
+high ridge of its rocky castellated hills is distinct as light can
+make it. Yet half-way up, amidst the pine forests, there lies upon the
+rich verdure a huge motionless cloud. What does it there? Its place
+was surely in the sky. But no; it belongs, like ourselves, to the
+earth.
+
+Is nature gaily mocking us, when upon her impregnable hills she builds
+these _castles in the air_? But, good heavens! what a military aspect
+all on a sudden does this mountain-side put on. Mark that innumerable
+host of pine-trees. What regiments of them are marching up the hill in
+the hot sun, as if to storm those rocky forts above! What serried
+ranks! and yet there are some stragglers--some that have hastened on
+in front, some that have lingered in the rear. Look at that tall
+gigantic pine breasting the hill alone, like an old grenadier. How
+upright against the steep declivity! while his lengthened shadow is
+thrown headlong back behind him down the precipice. I should be giddy
+to see such a shadow of my own. I should doubt if it would consent to
+be drawn up by the heels to the summit of the mountain--whether it
+would not rather drag me down with it into the abyss.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I have seen hills on which lay the clear unclouded sky, making them
+blue as itself. I have gazed on those beautiful far-receding
+valleys--as the valley of the Rhone--when they have appeared to
+collect and retain the azure ether. They were full of Heaven. Angels
+might breathe that air. And yet I better love the interchange, the
+wild combination of cloud and mountain. Not cloud that intercepts the
+sun, but that reflects its brilliancy, and brightens round the hills.
+It is but a gorgeous drapery that the sky lets fall on the broad
+Herculean shoulders of the mountain. No, it should not intercept the
+beams of the great luminary; for the mountain loves the light. I have
+observed that the twilight, so grateful to the plain, is mortal to the
+mountain. It craves light--it lifts up its great chalice for
+light--this great flower is the first to close, to fade, at the
+withdrawal of the sun. It stretches up to heaven seeking light; it
+cannot have too much--under the strongest beam it never droops--its
+brow is never dazzled.
+
+But then these clouds, you will tell me, that hover about the
+mountain, all wing, all plumage, with just so much of substance for
+light to live in them--these very clouds can descend, and thicken, and
+blacken, and cover all things with an inexpressible gloom. True, and
+the mountain, or what is seen of it, becomes now the very image of a
+great and unfathomable sorrow. And only the great can express a great
+sadness. This aspect of nature shall never by me be forgotten; nor
+will I ever shrink from encountering it. If you would know the gloom
+of heart which nature can betray, as well as the glory it can
+manifest, you must visit the mountains. For days together, clouds,
+huge, dense, unwieldy, lie heavily upon the hills--which stand, how
+mute, how mournful!--as if they, too, knew of death. And look at the
+little lake at their feet. What now is its tranquillity when not a
+single sunbeam plays upon it? Better the earth opened and received it,
+and hid for ever its leaden despondency. And now there comes the
+paroxysm of terror and despair; deep thunders are heard, and a madness
+flashes forth in the vivid lightning. There is desperation amongst the
+elements. But the elements, like the heart of man, must rage in
+vain--must learn the universal lesson of submission. With them, as
+with humanity, despair brings back tranquillity. And now the driving
+cloud reveals again the glittering summits of the mountains, and light
+falls in laughter on the beaming lake.
+
+How like to a ruined Heaven is this earth! Nay, is it not more
+beautiful for being a ruin?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Who can speak of lakes and not think of thee, beautiful Leman? How
+calm! how exquisitely blue! Let me call it a liquid sky that is spread
+here beneath us. And note how, where the boat presses, or the oar
+strikes, it yields ever a still more exquisite hue--akin to the
+violet, which gives to the rude pressure a redoubled fragrance--akin
+to the gentlest of womankind, whose love plays sweetest round the
+strokes of calamity.
+
+Oh, there is a woman's heart in thy waters, beautiful Leman!
+
+I have seen thee in all thy moods, in all thy humours. I have watched
+thee in profoundest calm; and suddenly, with little note of
+preparation, seen thee lash thy blue waves into a tempest. How
+beautiful in their anger were those azure waves crested with their
+white foam! And at other times, when all has been a sad unjoyous calm,
+I have seen, without being able to trace whence the light had broken,
+a soft expanse of brightness steal tremulous over the marble waters. A
+smile that seemed to speak of sweet caprice--that seemed to say that
+half its anger had been feint.
+
+Yes, verily there is a woman's heart in thy waters, beautiful Leman!
+
+I lie rocking in a boat midway between Vevay and Lausanne. On the
+opposite coast are the low purple hills _couching_ beside the lake.
+But there, to the left, what an ethereal structure of cloud and snowy
+mountain is revealed to me! What a creation of that spirit of beauty
+which works its marvels in the unconscious earth! The Alps here, while
+they retain all the aerial effect gathered from distance, yet seem to
+arise from the very margin of the lake. The whole scene is so
+ethereal, you fear to look aside, lest when you look again it may have
+vanished like a vision of the clouds.
+
+And why should these little boats, with their tall triangular sails,
+which glide so gracefully over the water, be forgotten? The sail,
+though an artifice of man, is almost always in harmony with nature.
+Nature has adopted it--has lent it some of her own wild
+privileges--her own bold and varied contrasts of light and shade. The
+surface of the water is perhaps dark and overclouded; the little
+upright sail is the only thing that has caught the light, and it
+glitters there like a moving star. Or the water is all one dazzling
+sheet of silver, tremulous with the vivid sunbeam, and now the little
+sail is black as night, and steals with bewitching contrast over that
+sparkling surface.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But we fly again to the mountain. Tourists are too apt to speak of the
+waterfall as something independent, something to be visited as a
+separate curiosity. There may be some such. But in general, the
+waterfall should be understood as part of the mountain--as the great
+fountain which adorns the architecture of its rocks, and the gardens
+of its pine forests. It belongs to the mountain. Pass through the
+valley, and look up; you see here and there thin stripes of glittering
+white, noiseless, motionless. They are waterfalls, which, if you
+approach them, will din you with their roar, and which are dashing
+headlong down, covered with tossing spray. Or ascend the face of the
+mountain, and again look around and above you. From all sides the
+waterfalls are rushing. They bear you down. You are giddy with their
+reckless speed. How they make the rock live! What a stormy vitality
+have they diffused around them! You might as well separate a river
+from its banks as a waterfall from its mountain.
+
+And yet there is one which I could look at for hours together, merely
+watching its own graceful movements. Let me sit again in imagination
+in the valley of Lauterbrunnen, under the fall of the Staubbach. Most
+graceful and ladylike of descents! It does not fall; but over the
+rock, and along the face of the precipice, developes some lovely form
+that nature had at heart;--diffuses itself in down-pointing pinnacles
+of liquid vapour, fretted with the finest spray. The laws of gravity
+have nothing to do with its movements. It is not hurled down; it does
+not leap, plunging madly into the abyss; it thinks only of beauty as
+it sinks. No noise, no shock, no rude concussion. Where it should dash
+against the projecting rock, lo! its series of out-shooting pinnacles
+is complete, and the vanishing point just kisses the granite. It
+disappoints the harsh obstruction by its exquisite grace and most
+beautiful levity, and springs a second time from the rock without
+trace of ever having encountered it.
+
+The whole side of the mountain is here barren granite. It glides like
+a spirit down the adverse and severe declivity. It is like Christ in
+this world. The famous fall of the Griesbach, near the lake of Brienz,
+thunders through the most luxuriant foliage; the Staubbach meets the
+bare rock with touches of love, and a movement all grace, and a voice
+full of reconcilement.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mont Blanc! Mont Blanc! I have not scaled thy heights so boldly or so
+far as others have, but I will yield to none in worship of thee and
+thy neighbour mountains. Some complain that the valley of Chamouni is
+barren; they are barren souls that so complain. True, it has not the
+rich pastures that lie bordering on the snow in the Oberland. But
+neither does it need them. Look _down_ the valley from the pass of the
+Col de Balme, and see summit beyond summit; or ascend the lateral
+heights of La Flegere, and see the Alps stretched out in a line before
+you, and say if any thing be wanting. Here is the sculpture of
+landscape. Stretched yourself upon the bare open rock, you see the
+great hills built up before you, from their green base to their snowy
+summits, with rock, and glacier, and pine forests. You see how the
+Great Architect has wrought.
+
+And for softer beauty, has not the eye been feasted even to
+excess--till you cried "hold--enough!" till you craved repose from
+excitement--along the whole route, from Lausanne to this spot? What
+perfect combinations of beauty and sublimity--of grandeur of outline
+with richness of colouring--have you not been travelling through!
+
+It seems a fanciful illustration, and yet it has more than once
+occurred to me, when comparing the scenery of the Oberland with that
+of the valley of Chamouni and its neighbourhood; the one resembles the
+first work--be it picture or poem--of a great genius; the other, the
+second. On his first performance, the artist lavishes beauties of
+every description; he crowds it with charms; all the stores of his
+imagination are at once unfolded, and he must find a place for all. In
+the second, which is more calm and mature, the style is broader, the
+disposition of materials more skilful: the artist, master of his
+inspiration, no longer suffers one beauty to crowd upon another, finds
+for all not only place, but place sufficient; and, above all, no
+longer fears being simple or even austere. I dare not say that the
+Oberland has a fault in its composition--so charming, so magnificent
+have I found it; but let me mark the broad masterly style of this
+Alpine region. As you journey from Villeneuve, with what a gentle,
+bland magnificence does the valley expand before you! The hills and
+rocks, as they increase in altitude, still fall back, and reveal in
+the centre the towering _Dent du Midi_, glittering with its eternal
+snows. The whole way to Martigny you see sublimity without admixture
+of terror; it is beauty elevated into grandeur, without losing its
+amenity. And then, if you cross by the Col de Balme, leaving the
+valley of the Rhone as you ascend, and descending upon the valley of
+Chamouni, where the Alps curve before you in most perfect
+grouping--tell me if it is possible for the heart of man to desire
+more. Nay, is not the heart utterly exhausted by this series of scenic
+raptures?
+
+For ever be remembered that magnificent pass of the Col de Balme! If I
+have a white day in my calendar, it is the day I spent in thy defiles.
+Deliberately I assert that life has nothing comparable to the delight
+of traversing alone, borne leisurely on the back of one's mule, a
+mountain-pass such as this. Those who have stouter limbs may prefer to
+use them; give me for my instrument of progression the legs of the
+patient and sure-footed mule. They are better legs, at all events,
+than mine. I am seated on his back, the bridle lies knotted upon his
+neck--the cares of the way are all his--the toil and the anxiety of
+it; the scene is all mine, and I am all in it. I am seated there, all
+eye, all thought, gazing, musing; yet not without just sufficient
+occupation to keep it still a luxury--this leisure to contemplate. The
+mule takes care of himself, and, in so doing, of you too; yet not so
+entirely but that you must look a little after yourself. That he by no
+means has your safety for his primary object is evident from this,
+that, in turning sharp corners or traversing narrow paths, he never
+calculates whether there is sufficient room for any other legs than
+his own--takes no thought of yours. To keep your knees, in such
+places, from collision with huge boulders, or shattered stumps of
+trees, must be your own care; to say nothing of the occasional
+application of whip or stick, and a _very_ strong pull at his mouth to
+raise his head from the grass which he has leisurely begun to crop.
+Seated thus upon your mule, given up to the scene, with something
+still of active life going on about you, with full liberty to pause
+and gaze, and dismount when you will, and at no time proceeding at a
+railroad speed, I do say--unless you are seated by your own
+incomparable Juliet, who has for the first time breathed that she
+loves you--I do say that you are in the most enviable position that
+the wide world affords. As for me, I have spent some days, some weeks,
+in this fashion amongst the mountains; they are the only days of my
+life I would wish to live over again. But mind, if you would really
+enjoy all this, go alone--a silent guide before or behind you. No
+friends, no companion, no gossip. You will find gossip enough in your
+inn, if you want it. If your guide thinks it is his duty to talk, to
+explain, to tell you the foolish names of things that need no
+name--make belief that you understand him not--that his language, be
+it French or German, is to you utterly incomprehensible.
+
+I would not paint it all _couleur de rose_. The sun is not always
+shining.
+
+There is tempest and foul weather, fatigue and cold, and abundant
+moisture to be occasionally encountered. There is something to endure.
+But if you prayed to Heaven for perpetual fair weather, and your
+prayer were granted, it would be the most unfortunate petition you
+could put up. Why, there are some of the sublimest aspects, the
+noblest moods and tempers of the great scene, which you would utterly
+forfeit by this miserable immunity. He who loves the mountain, will
+love it in the tempest as well as in the sunshine. To be enveloped in
+driving mist or cloud that obscures every thing from view--to be made
+aware of the neighbouring precipice only by the sound of the torrent
+that rushes unseen beneath you--how low down you can only guess--this,
+too, has its excitement. Besides, while you are in this total blank,
+the wind will suddenly drive the whole mass of cloud and thick vapour
+from the scene around you, and leave the most glorious spectacle for
+some moments exposed to view. Nothing can exceed these moments of
+sudden and partial revelation. The glittering summits of the mountains
+appear as by enchantment where there had long been nothing but dense
+dark vapour. And how beautiful the wild disorder of the clouds, whose
+array has been broken up, and who are seen flying, huddled together in
+tumultuous retreat! But the veering wind rallies them again, and again
+they sweep back over the vast expanse, and hill and valley, earth and
+sky, are obliterated in a second.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He who would ponder what _man_ is, should journey amongst the
+mountains. What _men_ are, is best learnt in the city.
+
+How, to a museful spirit, the heart and soul of man is reflected in
+the shows of nature! I cannot see this torrent battling for ever along
+its rocky path, and not animate it with human passions, and torture it
+with a human fate. Can it have so much turmoil and restlessness, and
+not be allied to humanity?
+
+But all are not images of violence or lessons of despondency. Mark the
+Yungfrau, how she lifts her slight and virgin snows fearlessly to the
+blazing sun! She is so high, she feels no _reflected heat_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+How well the simple architecture of the low-roofed buildings of
+Switzerland accords with its magnificent scenery! What were lofty
+steeples beside Mont Blanc, or turreted castles beside her pinnacles
+of granite? Elsewhere, in the level plain, I love the cathedral. I had
+lately stood enraptured in the choir of that of Cologne, gazing up at
+those tall windows which spring where other loftiest buildings
+terminate--windows so high that God only can look in upon the
+worshipper.
+
+But here--what need of the stately edifice, when there is a church
+whose buttresses are mountains, whose roof and towers are above the
+clouds, verily in the heavens? What need of artificial reminiscences
+of the Great King, here where he has built for himself? The plain, it
+is _man's_ nature--given to man's wants; there stands his corn, there
+flow his milk and honey. But the mountain, it is God's nature--his
+stationary tabernacle--reserved for the eye only of man and the
+communing of his spirit. If meant to subserve the wants of his earthly
+nature, meant still more expressly to kindle other wants. Do they not
+indeed lead to Heaven, these mountains? At least I know they lead
+beyond this earth.
+
+There is a little church stands in the valley of Chamouni. It was
+open, as is customary in Catholic countries, to receive the visits and
+the prayers of the faithful; but there was no service, no priest, nor
+indeed a single person in the building. It was evening--and a solitary
+lamp hung suspended from the ceiling, just before the altar. Allured
+by the mysterious appearance of this lamp burning in solitude, I
+entered, and remained in it some time, making out, in the dim light,
+the wondrous figures of virgins and saints generally found in such
+edifices. When I emerged from the church, there stood Mont Blanc
+before me, reflecting the last tints of the setting sun. I am
+habitually tolerant of Catholic devices and ceremonies; but at this
+moment how inexpressibly strange, how very little, how poor,
+contemptible, and like an infant's toy, seemed all the implements of
+worship I had just left!
+
+And yet the tall, simple, wooden cross that stands in the open air on
+the platform before the church, this was well. This was a symbol that
+might well stand, even in the presence of Mont Blanc. Symbol of
+suffering and of love, where is it out of place? On no spot on earth,
+on no spot where a human heart is beating.
+
+Mont Blanc and this wooden cross, are they not the two greatest
+symbols that the world can show? They are wisely placed opposite each
+other.
+
+I have alluded to the sunset seen in this valley. All travellers love
+to talk a little of their own experience, their good or their ill
+fortune. The first evening I entered Chamouni, the clouds had gathered
+on the summits of the mountains, and a view of Mont Blanc was thought
+hopeless. Nevertheless I sallied forth, and planted myself in the
+valley, with a singular confidence in the goodness of nature towards
+one who was the humblest but one of the sincerest of her votaries. My
+confidence was rewarded. The clouds dispersed, and the roseate sunset
+on the mountain was seen to perfection. I had not yet learned to
+distinguish that summit which, in an especial manner, bears the name
+of Mont Blanc. There is a modesty in its greatness. It makes no
+ostentatious claim to be the highest in the range, and is content if
+for a time you give the glory of pre-eminence to others. But it
+reserves a convincing proof of its own superiority. I had been looking
+elsewhere, and in a wrong direction, for Mont Blanc, when I found that
+all the summits had sunk, like the clouds when day deserts them, into
+a cold dead white--all but one point, that still glowed with the
+radiance of the sun when all beside had lost it. There was the royal
+mountain.
+
+What a cold, corpse-like hue it is which the snow-mountain assumes
+just after the sun has quitted it. There is a short interval then,
+when it seems the very image of death. But the moon rises, or the
+stars take up their place, and the mountain resumes its beauty and its
+life. Beauty is always life. Under the star-light how ethereal does it
+look!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the landscapes of other countries, the house--the habitation of
+man--be it farm-house or cottage--gathers, so to speak, some of the
+country about itself--makes itself the centre of some circle, however
+small. Not so in Switzerland. The hooded chalet, which even in summer
+speaks so plainly of winter, and stands ever prepared with its low
+drooping roof to shelter its eyes and ears from the snow and the
+wind--these dot the landscape most charmingly, but yet are lost in it;
+they form no group, no central point in the scene. I am thinking more
+particularly of the chalets in the Oberland. There is no path
+apparently between one and the other; the beautiful green verdure lies
+untrodden around them. One would say, the inhabitants found their way
+to them like birds to their nests. And like enough to nests they are,
+both in the elevation at which they are sometimes perched, and in the
+manner of their distribution over the scene.
+
+However they got there, people at all events are living in them, and
+the farm and the dairy are carried up into I know not what altitudes.
+Those beautiful little tame cattle, with their short horns, and long
+ears, and mouse-coloured skin, with all the agility of a goat, and all
+the gentleness of domesticity--you meet them feeding in places where
+your mule looks thoughtfully to his footing. And then follows perhaps
+a peasant girl in her picturesque cloak made of the undressed fur of
+the goat and her round hat of thickly plaited straw, calling after
+them in that high sing-song note, which forms the basis of what is
+called Swiss music. This cry heard in the mountains is delightful, the
+voice is sustained and yet varied--being varied, it can be sustained
+the longer--and the high note pierces far into the distance. As a real
+cry of the peasant it is delightful to hear; it is appropriate to the
+purpose and the place. But defend my ears against that imitation of it
+introduced by young ladies into the Swiss songs. Swiss music in an
+English drawing-room--may I escape the infliction! but the Swiss
+peasant chanting across the mountain defiles--may I often again halt
+to listen to it!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But from the mountain and the cloud we must now depart. We must wend
+towards the plain. One very simple and consolatory thought strikes
+me--though we must leave the glory of the mountain, we at least take
+the sun with us. And the cloud too, you will add. Alas! something too
+much of that.
+
+But no murmurs. We islanders, who can see the sun set on the broad
+ocean--had we nothing else to boast of--can never feel deserted of
+nature. We have our portion of her excellent gifts. I know not yet how
+an Italian sky, so famed for its deep and constant azure, may affect
+me, but I know that we have our gorgeous melancholy sunsets, to which
+our island tempers become singularly attuned. The cathedral
+splendours--the dim religious light of our vesper skies--I doubt if I
+would exchange them for the unmitigated glories of a southern clime.
+
+
+
+
+THE SECOND PANDORA.
+
+
+      Methought Prometheus, from his rock unbound,
+    Had with the Gods again acceptance found.
+    Once more he seem'd his wond'rous task to ply,
+    While all Olympus stood admiring by.
+    To high designs his heart and hands aspire,
+    To quicken earthly dust with heavenly fire,
+    Won by no fraud, but lent by liberal love,
+    To raise weak mortals to the realms above;
+    For the bright flame remembers, even on earth,
+    And pants to reach, the region of its birth.
+      A female form was now the artist's care;
+    Faultless in shape, and exquisitely fair.
+    Of more than Parian purity, the clay
+    Had all been leaven'd with the ethereal ray.
+    Deep in the heart the kindling spark began,
+    And far diffused through every fibre ran;
+    The eyes reveal'd it, and the blooming skin
+    Glow'd with the lovely light that shone within.
+      The applauding Gods confess'd the matchless sight;
+    The first Pandora was not half so bright;
+    That beauteous mischief, formed at Jove's command,
+    A curse to men, by Mulciber's own hand;
+    Whose eager haste the fatal jar to know,
+    Fill'd the wide world with all but hopeless woe.
+    But dawn of better days arose, when He,
+    The patient Hero, set Prometheus free,
+    Alcides, to whose toils the joy was given
+    To conquer Hell and climb the heights of Heaven.
+      In the fair work that now the master wrought,
+    The first-fruits of his liberty were brought;
+    The Gods receive her as a pledge of peace,
+    And heap their gifts and happiest auspices.
+      Minerva to the virgin first imparts
+    Her skill in woman's works and household arts;
+    The needle's use, the robe's embroider'd bloom,
+    And all the varied labours of the loom.
+    Calm fortitude she gave, and courage strong,
+    To cope with ill and triumph over wrong;
+    Ingenuous prudence, with prophetic sight,
+    And clear instinctive wisdom, ever right.
+      Diana brought the maid her modest mien,
+    Her love of fountains and the sylvan scene;
+    The Hours and Seasons lent each varying ray
+    That gilds the rolling year or changing day.
+    The cunning skill of Hermes nicely hung,
+    With subtle blandishments, her sliding tongue,
+    And train'd her eyes to stolen glances sweet,
+    And all the wiles of innocent deceit.
+    Phoebus attuned her ear to love the lyre,
+    And warm'd her fancy with poetic fire.
+    Nor this alone; but shared his healing art,
+    And robb'd his son of all the gentler part;
+    Taught her with soothing touch and silent tread
+    To hover lightly round the sick one's bed,
+    And promised oft to show, when medicines fail,
+    A woman's watchful tenderness prevail.
+      Next Venus and the Graces largely shed
+    A shower of fascinations on her head.
+    Each line, each look, was brighten'd and refined,
+    Each outward act, each movement of the mind,
+    Till all her charms confess the soft control,
+    And blend at once in one harmonious whole.
+      But still the Eternal Sire apart remain'd,
+    And Juno's bounty was not yet obtained.
+    The voice of Heaven's High Queen then fill'd the ear,
+    "A wife and mother, let the Nymph appear."
+    The mystic change like quick enchantment shows--
+    The slender lily blooms a blushing rose.
+    Three gentle children now, by just degrees,
+    Are ranged in budding beauty round her knees:
+    Still to her lips their looks attentive turn,
+    And drink instruction from its purest urn,
+    While o'er their eyes soft memories seem to play,
+    That paint a friend or father far away.
+    A richer charm her ripen'd form displays,
+    A halo round her shines with holier rays;
+    And if at times, a shade of pensive grace
+    Pass like a cloud across her earnest face,
+    Yet faithful tokens the glad truth impart,
+    That deeper happiness pervades her heart.
+      Jove latest spoke: "One boon remains," he said,
+    And bent serenely his ambrosial head;
+    "The last, best boon, which I alone bestow;"
+    Then bade the waters of Affliction flow.
+    The golden dream was dimm'd; a darken'd room
+    Scarce show'd where dire disease had shed its gloom.
+    A little child in death extended lay,
+    Still round her linger'd the departing ray.
+    Another pallid face appear'd, where Life
+    With its fell foe maintain'd a doubtful strife.
+    Long was the contest; changeful hopes and fears
+    Now sunk the Mother's soul, now dried her tears.
+    At last a steady line of dawning light
+    Show'd that her son was saved, and banish'd night.
+    Though sad her heart, of one fair pledge bereft,
+    She sees and owns the bounties Heaven hath left.
+    In natural drops her anguish finds relief,
+    And leaves the Matron beautified by grief;
+    While consolation, beaming from above,
+    Fills her with new-felt gratitude and love.
+      O happy He! before whose waking eyes,
+    So bright a vision may resplendent rise--
+    The New PANDORA, by the Gods designed,
+    Not now the bane, but blessing of Mankind!
+
+
+
+
+THE REIGN OF GEORGE THE THIRD.[33]
+
+
+It is scarcely theoretical to say, that every century has a character
+of its own. The human mind is essentially progressive in Europe. The
+accumulations of past knowledge, experience, and impulse, are
+perpetually preparing changes on the face of society; and we may
+fairly regard every hundred years as the period maturing those changes
+into visible form. Thus, the fifteenth century was the age of
+discovery in the arts, in the powers of nature, and in the great
+provinces of the globe: the sixteenth exhibited the general mind under
+the impressions of religion--the Reformation, the German wars for
+liberty and faith, and the struggles of Protestantism in France. The
+seventeenth was the brilliant period of scientific advance, of
+continental literature, and of courtly pomp and power. The eighteenth
+was the period of politics; every court of Europe was engaged in the
+game of political rivalry; the European balance became the test, the
+labour, and the triumph of statesmanship. The negotiator was then the
+great instrument of public action. Diplomacy assumed a shape, and
+Europe was governed by despatches. The genius of Frederick the Second
+restored war to its early rank among the elements of national life;
+but brilliant as his wars were, they were subservient to the leading
+feature of the age. They were fought, not, like the battles of the old
+conquerors, for fame, but for influence--not to leave the king without
+an enemy, but to leave his ambassadors without an opponent--less to
+gain triumphs, than to ensure treaties: they all began and ended in
+diplomacy!
+
+It is remarkable, that this process was exhibited in Europe alone. In
+the East, comprehending two-thirds of human kind, no change was made
+since the conquests of Mahomet. That vast convulsion, in which the
+nervousness of frenzy had given the effeminate spirit of the Oriental
+the strength of the soldier and the ambition of universal conqueror,
+had no sooner wrought its purpose than it passed away, leaving the
+general mind still more exhausted than before. The Saracen warrior
+sank into the peasant, and the Arab was again lost in his sands; the
+Turk alone survived, exhibiting splendour without wealth, and pride
+without power--a decaying image of Despotism, which nothing but the
+jealousy of the European saved from falling under the first assault.
+Such is the repressive strength of evil government; progress, the most
+salient principle of our nature, dies before it. And man, of all
+beings the most eager for acquirement, and the most restless under all
+monotony of time, place, and position, becomes like the dog or the
+mule, and generation after generation lives and dies with no more
+consciousness of the capacities of his existence, than the root which
+the animal devours, or the tree under which it was born.
+
+In England, the eighteenth century was wholly political. It was a
+continual struggle through all the difficulties belonging to a free
+constitution, exposed to the full discussion of an intellectual
+people. Without adopting the offensive prejudice, which places the
+individual ability of the Englishmen in the first rank; or without
+doubting that nature has distributed nearly an equal share of personal
+ability among all European nations; we may, not unjustly, place the
+national mind of England in the very highest rank of general
+capacity--if that is the most intellectual nation, by which the public
+intellect is most constantly employed, in which all the great
+questions of society are most habitually referred to the decision of
+the intellect, and in which that decision is the most irresistible in
+its effects, no nation of Europe can stand upon equal ground with the
+English. For, in what other nation is the public intellect in such
+unwearied exercise, in such continual demand, and in such unanswerable
+power?
+
+In what other nation of the world (excepting, within those few years,
+France; and that most imperfectly) has public opinion ever been
+appealed to? But, in England, to what else is there any appeal? Or,
+does not the foreign mind bear some resemblance to the foreign
+landscape--exhibiting barren though noble elevations, spots of
+singular though obscure beauty among its recesses, and even in its
+wildest scenes a capacity of culture?--while, in the mind of England,
+like its landscape, that culture has already laid its hand upon the
+soil; has crowned the hill with verdure, and clothed the vale with
+fertility; has run its ploughshare along the mountain side, and led
+the stream from its brow; has sought out every finer secret of the
+scene, and given the last richness of cultivation to the whole.
+
+From the beginning of the reign of Anne, all was a contest of leading
+statesmen at the head of parties. Those contests exhibit great mental
+power, singular system, and extraordinary knowledge of the art of
+making vast bodies of men minister to the personal objects of avarice
+and ambition. But they do no honour to the moral dignity of England.
+All revolutions are hazardous to principle. A succession of
+revolutions have always extinguished even the pretence to principle.
+The French Revolution is not the only one which made a race of
+_girouettes_. The political life of England, from the death of Anne to
+the reign of George the Third, was a perpetual turning of the
+weathercock. Whig and Tory were the names of distinction. But their
+subordinates were of as many varieties of feature as the cargo of a
+slave-ship; the hue might be the same, but the jargon was that of
+Babel. It was perhaps fortunate for the imperial power of England,
+that while she was thus humiliating the national morality, which is
+the life-blood of nations; her reckless and perpetual enemy beyond the
+Channel had lost all means of being her antagonist. The French sceptre
+had fallen into the hands of a prince, who had come to the throne a
+debauchee; and to whom the throne seemed only a scene for the larger
+display of his vices. The profligacy of Louis-Quatorze had been
+palliated by his passion for splendour, among a dissolute people who
+loved splendour much, and hated profligacy little. But the vices of
+Louis the Fifteenth were marked by a grossness which degraded them in
+the eye even of popular indulgence, and prepared the nation for the
+overthrow of the monarchy. In this period, religion, the great
+purifier of national council, maintained but a struggling existence.
+The Puritanism of the preceding century had crushed the Church of
+England; and the restoration of the monarchy had given the people a
+saturnalia. Religion had been confounded with hypocrisy, until the
+people had equally confounded freedom with infidelity. The heads of
+the church, chosen by freethinking administrations, were chosen more
+for the suppleness than for the strength of their principles; and
+while the people were thus taught to regard churchmen as tools, and
+the ministers to use them as dependents, the cause of truth sank
+between both. The Scriptures are the life of religion. It can no more
+subsist in health without them, than the human frame can subsist
+without food; it may have the dreams of the enthusiast, or the frenzy
+of the monk; but, for all the substantial and safe purposes of the
+human heart, its life is gone for ever. It has been justly remarked,
+that the theological works of that day, including the sermons, might,
+in general, have been written if Christianity had never existed. The
+sermons were chiefly essays, of the dreariest kind on the most
+commonplace topics of morals. The habit of reading these discourses
+from the pulpit, a habit so fatal to all impression, speedily rendered
+the preachers as indifferent as their auditory; and if we were to name
+the period when religion had most fallen into decay in the public
+mind, we should pronounce it the half century which preceded the reign
+of George the Third.
+
+On the subject of pulpit eloquence there are some remarks in one of
+the reviews of the late Sydney Smith, expressed with all the
+shrewdness, divested of the levity of that writer, who had keenly
+observed the popular sources of failure.
+
+"The great object of modern sermons is, to hazard nothing. Their
+characteristic is decent debility; which alike guards their authors
+from ludicrous errors, and precludes them from striking beauties. Yet
+it is curious to consider, how a body of men so well educated as the
+English clergy, can distinguish themselves so little in a species of
+composition, to which it is their peculiar duty, as well as their
+ordinary habit, to attend. To solve this difficulty, it should be
+remembered that the eloquence of the bar and of the senate force
+themselves into notice, power, and wealth." He then slightly guards
+against the conception, that eloquence should be the sole source of
+preferment; or even "a common cause of preferment." But he strongly,
+and with great appearance of truth, attributes the want of public
+effect to the want of those means by which that effect is secured in
+every other instance.
+
+"Pulpit discourses have insensibly dwindled from speaking into
+reading; a practice of itself sufficient to stifle every germ of
+eloquence. It is only by the fresh feelings of the heart that mankind
+can be very powerfully affected. What can be more unfortunate, than an
+orator delivering stale indignation, and fervour of a week old;
+turning over whole pages of violent passions, written out in German
+text; reading the tropes and metaphors into which he is hurried by the
+ardour of his mind; and so affected, at a preconcerted line and page,
+that he is unable to proceed any further?"
+
+This criticism was perfectly true of sermons forty years ago, when it
+was written. Times are changed since, and changed for the better. The
+pulpit is no longer ashamed of the doctrines of Christianity, as too
+harsh for the ears of a classic audience, or too familiar for the ears
+of the people. Still there are no rewards in the Church, for that
+great faculty, or rather that great combination of faculties, which
+commands all the honours of the senate and the bar. A clerical
+Demosthenes might find his triumph in the shillings of a charity
+sermon, but he must never hope for a Stall.
+
+We now revert to the curious, inquisitive, and gossiping historian of
+the time. Walpole, fond of French manners, delighting in the easy
+sarcasm, and almost saucy levity, of French "Memoirs," and adopting,
+in all its extent, the confession, (then so fashionable on the
+Continent,) that the perfection of writing was to be formed in their
+lively _persiflage_, evidently modelled his "History" on the style of
+the Sevignes and St Simons. But he was altogether their superior. If
+he had been a chamberlain in the court of Louis XV., he might have
+been as frivolously witty, and as laughingly sarcastic, as any
+Frenchman who ever sat at the feet of a court mistress, or whoever
+looked for fame among the sallies of a _petit souper_. But England was
+an atmosphere which compelled him to a manlier course. The storms of
+party were not to be stemmed by a wing of gossamer. The writer had
+bold facts, strong principles, and the struggles of powerful minds to
+deal with, and their study gave him a strength not his own.
+
+Walpole was fond of having a hero. In private life, George Selwyn was
+his Admirable Crichton; in public, Charles Townshend. Charles was
+unquestionably a man of wit. Yet his wit rather consisted in dexterity
+of language than in brilliancy of conception. He was also eloquent in
+Parliament; though his charm evidently consisted more in happiness of
+phrase, than in richness, variety, or vigour, of thought. On the
+whole, he seems to have been made to amuse rather than to impress, and
+to give a high conception of his general faculties than to produce
+either conviction by his argument, or respect by the solid qualities
+of his genius. Still, he must have been an extraordinary man. Walpole
+describes his conduct and powers, as exhibited on one of those days of
+sharp debate which preceded the tremendous discussions of the American
+war. The subject was a bill for regulating the dividends of the East
+India Company--the topic was extremely trite, and apparently trifling.
+But any perch will answer for the flight of such bird. "It was on
+that day," says Walpole, "and on that occasion, that Charles Townshend
+displayed, in a latitude beyond belief, the amazing powers of his
+capacity, and the no less amazing incongruities of his character."
+Early in the day he had opened the business, by taking on himself the
+examination of the Company's conduct, had made a calm speech on the
+subject, and even went so far as to say, "that he hoped he had atoned
+for the inconsiderateness of his past life, by the care which he had
+taken of that business." He then went home to dinner. In his absence a
+motion was made, which Conway, the secretary of state, not choosing to
+support alone, it being virtually Townshend's own measure besides,
+sent to hurry him back to the House. "He returned about eight in the
+evening, half drunk with champagne," as Walpole says, (which, however,
+was subsequently denied,) and more intoxicated with spirits. He then
+instantly rose to speak, without giving himself time to learn any
+thing, except that the motion had given alarm. He began by vowing that
+he had not been consulted on the motion--a declaration which
+astonished every body, there being twelve persons round him at the
+moment, who had been in consultation with him that very morning, and
+with his assistance had drawn up the motion on his own table, and who
+were petrified at his unparalleled effrontery. But before he sat down,
+he had poured forth, as Walpole says, "a torrent of wit, humour,
+knowledge, absurdity, vanity, and fiction, heightened by all the
+graces of comedy, the happiness of quotation, and the buffoonery of
+farce. To the purpose of the question he said not a syllable. It was a
+descant on the times, a picture of parties, of their leaders, their
+hopes, and effects. It was an encomium and a satire on himself; and
+when he painted the pretensions of birth, riches, connexions, favours,
+titles, while he effected to praise Lord Rockingham and that faction,
+he yet insinuated that nothing but parts like his own were qualified
+to preside. And while he less covertly arraigned the wild incapacity
+of Lord Chatham, he excited such murmurs of wonder, admiration,
+applause, laughter, pity, and scorn, that nothing was so true as the
+sentence with which he concluded--when, speaking of government, he
+said, that it had become what he himself had often been called--the
+weathercock."
+
+Walpole exceeds even his usual measure of admiration, in speaking of
+this masterly piece of extravagance. "Such was the wit, abundance, and
+impropriety of this speech," says he, "that for some days men could
+talk or enquire of nothing else. 'Did you hear Charles Townshend's
+champagne speech,' was the universal question. The bacchanalian
+enthusiasm of Pindar flowed in torrents less rapid and less eloquent,
+and inspired less delight, than Townshend's imagery, which conveyed
+meaning in every sentence. It was Garrick acting extempore scenes of
+Congreve." He went to supper with Walpole at Conway's afterwards,
+where, the flood of his gaiety not being exhausted, he kept the table
+in a roar till two in the morning. A part of this entertainment,
+however, must have found his auditory in a condition as unfit for
+criticism as himself. Claret till "two in the morning," might easily
+disqualify a convivial circle from the exercise of too delicate a
+perception. And a part of Townshend's facetiousness on that occasion
+consisted in mimicking his own wife, and a woman of rank with whom he
+fancied himself in love. He at last gave up from mere bodily
+lassitude. Walpole happily enough illustrates those talents and their
+abuse by an allusion to those eastern tales, in which a benevolent
+genius endows a being with supernatural excellence on some points,
+while a malignant genius counteracts the gift by some qualification
+which perpetually baffles and perverts it. The story, however, of
+Charles Townshend's tipsiness is thus contradicted by a graver
+authority, Sir George Colebrook, in his Memoirs.
+
+"Mr Townshend loved good living, but had not a strong stomach. He
+committed therefore frequent excesses, considering his constitution;
+which would not have been intemperance in another. He was supposed,
+for instance, to have made a speech in the heat of wine, when that was
+really not the case. It was a speech in which he treated with great
+levity, but with wonderful art, the characters of the Duke of Grafton
+and Lord Shelburne, whom, though his colleagues in office, he
+entertained a sovereign contempt for, and heartily wished to get rid
+of. He had a black riband over one of his eyes that day, having
+tumbled out of bed, probably in a fit of epilepsy; and this added to
+the impression made on his auditors that he was tipsy. Whereas, it was
+a speech he had meditated a great while upon, and it was only by
+accident that it found utterance that day. I write with certainty,
+because Sir George Yonge and I were the only persons who dined with
+him, and we had but one bottle of champagne after dinner; General
+Conway having repeatedly sent messengers to press his return to the
+House."
+
+This brings the miracle down to the human standard, yet that standard
+was high, and the man who could excite this admiration, in a House
+which contained so great a number of eminent speakers, and which could
+charm the caustic spirit of Walpole into the acknowledgment that his
+speech "was the most singular pleasure of the kind he had ever
+tasted," must have been an extraordinary performance, even if his
+instrument was not of the highest tone of oratory. A note from the
+Duke of Grafton's manuscript memoirs also contradicts, on Townshend's
+own authority, his opinion of the "wild incapacity of Lord Chatham."
+The note says:--
+
+    "On the night preceding Lord Chatham's first journey to Bath, Mr
+    Charles Townshend was for the first time summoned to the Cabinet.
+    The business was on a general view and statement of the actual
+    situation and interests of the various powers in Europe. Lord
+    Chatham had taken the lead in this consideration in so masterly a
+    manner, as to raise the admiration and desire of us all to
+    co-operate with him in forwarding his views. Mr Townshend was
+    particularly astonished, and owned to me, as I was carrying him in
+    my carriage home, that Lord Chatham had just shown to us what
+    inferior animals we were, and that as much as he had seen of him
+    before, he did not conceive till that night his superiority to be
+    so transcendant."
+
+Walpole writes with habitual bitterness of the great Lord Chatham. The
+recollection of his early opposition to Sir Robert Walpole, seems to
+have made him an unfaithful historian, wherever this extraordinary
+man's name comes within his page; but at the period of those
+discussions, it seems not improbable that the vigour of Chatham's
+understanding had in some degree given way to the tortures of his
+disease. He had suffered from gout at an early period of life; and as
+this is a disease remarkably affected by the mind, the perpetual
+disturbances of a public life seem to have given it a mastery over the
+whole frame of the great minister. Walpole talks in unjustifiable
+language of his "haughty sterility of talents." But there seems to be
+more truth in his account of the caprices of this powerful
+understanding in his retirement. Walpole calls it the "reality of Lord
+Chatham's madness." Still, we cannot see much in those instances,
+beyond the temper naturally resulting from an agonizing disease. When
+the Pynsent estate fell to him, he removed to it, and sold his house
+and grounds at Hayes--"a place on which he had wasted prodigious sums,
+and which yet retained small traces of expense, great part having been
+consumed in purchasing contiguous tenements, to free himself from all
+neighbourhood. Much had gone in doing and undoing, and not a little in
+planting by torchlight, as his peremptory and impatient habits could
+brook no delay. Nor were those the sole circumstances which marked his
+caprice. His children he could not bear under the same roof, nor
+communications from room to room, nor whatever he thought promoted
+noise. A winding passage between his house and children was built with
+the same view. When, at the beginning of his second administration, he
+fixed at North End by Hampstead, he took four or five houses
+successively, as fast as Mr Dingley his landlord went into them,
+still, as he said, to ward off the houses of the neighbourhood."
+
+Walpole relates another anecdote equally inconclusive. At Pynsent, a
+bleak hill bounded his view. He ordered his gardener to have it
+planted with evergreens. The man asked "with what sorts." He replied,
+"With cedars and cypresses." "Bless me, my lord," replied the
+gardener, "all the nurseries in this county would not furnish a
+hundredth part." "No matter, send for them from London: and they were
+brought by land carriage." Certainly, there was not much in this
+beyond the natural desire of every improver to shut out a disagreeable
+object, by putting an agreeable one in its place. His general object
+was the natural one of preventing all noise--a point of importance
+with every sufferer under a wakeful and miserable disease. His
+appetite was delicate and fanciful, and a succession of chickens were
+kept boiling and roasting at every hour, to be ready whenever he
+should call. He at length grew weary of his residence and, after
+selling Hayes, took a longing to return there. After considerable
+negotiation with Mr Thomas Walpole the purchaser, he obtained it
+again, and we hear no more of his madness.
+
+The session was one of continual intrigues, constant exhibitions of
+subtlety amongst the leaders of the party, which at this distance of
+time are only ridiculous, and intricate discussions, which are now
+among the lumber of debate. Townshend, if he gained nothing else,
+gained the freedom of the city for his conduct on the East India and
+Dividend bills, for which, as Walpole says, "he deserved nothing but
+censure." A contemptuous epigram appeared on the occasion by "somebody
+a little more sagacious"--that "somebody" probably being Walpole
+himself:
+
+   "The joke of Townshend's box is little known,
+    Great judgment in the thing the cits have shown;
+    The compliment was an expedient clever,
+    To rid them of the like expense for ever.
+    Of so burlesque a choice the example sure
+    For city boxes must all longing cure,
+    The honor'd Ostracism at Athens fell,
+    Soon as Hyperbolus had got the shell."
+
+It is scarcely possible to think that an epigram of this heavy order
+could have been praised by Walpole, if his criticism had not been
+tempered by the tenderness of paternity.
+
+We then have a character of a man embalmed in the contempt poured upon
+him by Junius--the Duke of Grafton. Though less bitter, it is equally
+scornful. "Hitherto," says Walpole, "he had passed for a man of much
+obstinacy and firmness, of strict honour, devoid of ambition, and,
+though reserved, more diffident than designing. He retained so much of
+this character, as to justify those who had mistaken the rest. If he
+precipitated himself into the most sudden and inextricable
+contradictions, at least he pursued the object of the moment with
+inflexible ardour. If he abandoned himself to total negligence of
+business, in pursuit of his sports and pleasures, the love of power
+never quitted him; and, when his will was disputed, no man was more
+imperiously arbitrary. If his designs were not deeply laid, at least
+they were conducted in profound silence. He rarely pardoned those who
+did not guess his inclination. It was necessary to guess, so rare was
+any instance of his unbosoming himself to either friends or
+confidants. Why his honour had been so highly rated I can less
+account, except that he had advertised it, and that obstinate young
+men are apt to have high notions, before they have practised the
+world, and essayed their own virtue."
+
+At length, after a vast variety of intrigues, which threw the public
+life of those days into the most contemptible point of view, the King
+being made virtually a cipher, while the families of the Hertfords,
+Buckinghams, and Rockinghams trafficked the high offices of state as
+children would barter toys; an administration was tardily formed.
+Walpole, who seemed to take a sort of _dilettante_ pleasure in
+constructing those intrigues, and making himself wretched at their
+failure, while nobody suffered him to take advantage of their success;
+now gave himself a holiday, and went to relax in Paris for six
+weeks--his relaxation consisting of gossip amongst the literary ladies
+of the capital. During his absence an event happened which, though it
+did not break up the ministry, yet must have had considerable effect
+in its influence on the House of Commons. This was the death of the
+celebrated Charles Townshend, on the 4th of September 1767, in the
+forty-second year of his age. The cause of his death was a neglected
+fever; if even this did not arise from his carelessness of health, and
+those habits which, if not amounting to intemperance, were certainly
+trespasses on his constitution. Walpole speaks of him with continual
+admiration of his genius, and continual contempt of his principles. He
+also thinks, that he had arrived at his highest fame, or, in his
+peculiar phrase, "that his genius could have received no accession of
+brightness, while his faults only promised multiplication." Walpole,
+with no pretence to rival, probably envied this singular personage;
+for, whenever he begins by panegyric, he uniformly ends with a sting.
+One of the Notes gives an extract on Sir George Colebrook's Memoirs,
+which perhaps places his faculties in a more favourable point of view
+than the high-coloured eulogium of Burke, or the polished insinuations
+of Walpole. Sir George tells us, that Townshend's object was to be
+prime minister, and that he would doubtless have attained that object
+had he lived to see the Duke of Grafton's resignation. Lord North
+succeeded him as chancellor of the exchequer, and Townshend would
+evidently have preceded _him_ as prime minister. "As a private man,
+his friends were used to say, that they should not see his like again.
+Though they were often the butts of his wit, they always returned to
+his company with fresh delight, which they would not have done had
+there been either malice or rancour in what he said. He loved society,
+and in his choice of friends preferred those over whom he had a
+decided superiority of talent. He was satisfied when he had put the
+table in a roar, and he did not like to see it done by another. When
+Garrick and Foote were present, he took the lead, and hardly allowed
+them an opportunity of showing their talents for mimicry, because he
+could excel them in their own art. He shone particularly in taking off
+the principal members of the House of Commons. Among the few whom he
+feared was Mr Selwyn, and at a dinner at Lord Gower's they had a trial
+of skill, in which Mr Selwyn prevailed. When the company broke up, Mr
+Townshend, to show that he had no animosity, carried him in his
+carriage to White's; and, as they parted, Selwyn could not help
+saying--'Remember, this is the first set-down you have given me
+to-day.'"
+
+As Townshend lived at a considerable expense, and had little paternal
+fortune, he speculated occasionally in both the French and English
+funds. One of the incidents related by Sir George, and without a
+syllable of censure too, throws on him an imputation of trickery
+which, in our later day, would utterly destroy any public man. "When
+he was chancellor of the exchequer, he came in his nightgown to a
+dinner given by the Duke of Grafton to several of the principal men of
+the city to settle the loan. After dinner, when the terms were
+settled, and every body present wished to introduce some friend on the
+list of subscribers, he pretended to cast up the sums already
+admitted, said the loan was full, huddled up his papers, got into a
+chair, and returned home, reserving to himself by this manoeuvre a
+large share of the loan." An act of this kind exhibits the honesty of
+the last age in a very equivocal point of view. If proud of nothing
+else, we may be proud of the public sense of responsibility; in our
+day, it may be presumed that such an act would be impossible, for it
+would inevitably involve the ruin of the perpetrator, followed by the
+ruin of any ministry which would dare to defend him.
+
+At this period died a brother of the king, Edward Duke of York, a man
+devoted to pleasure, headstrong in his temper, and ignorant in his
+conceptions. "Immoderate travelling, followed by immoderate balls and
+entertainments," had long kept his blood in a peculiar state of
+accessibility to disease. He died of a putrid fever. Walpole makes a
+panegyric on the Duke of Gloucester, his brother; of which a part may
+be supposed due to the Duke's marriage with Lady Waldegrave, a
+marriage which provoked the indignation of the King, and which once
+threatened political evils of a formidable nature. Henry, the Duke of
+Cumberland, was also an unfortunate specimen of the blood royal. He is
+described as having the babbling loquacity of the Duke of York,
+without his talents; as at once arrogant and low; presuming on his
+rank as a prince, and degrading himself by an association with low
+company. Still, we are to remember Walpole's propensity to sarcasm,
+the enjoyment which he seems to have felt in shooting his brilliant
+missiles at all ranks superior to his own; and his especial hostility
+to George the Third, one of the honestest monarchs that ever sat upon
+a throne.
+
+In those days the composition of ministries depended altogether upon
+the high families.--The peerage settled every thing amongst
+themselves. A few of their dependents were occasionally taken into
+office; but all the great places were distributed among a little
+clique, who thus constituted themselves the real masters of the
+empire. Walpole's work has its value, in letting us into the secrets
+of a conclave, which at once shows us the singular emptiness of its
+constituent parts, and the equally singular authority with which they
+seem to have disposed of both the king and the people. We give a scene
+from the _Historian_, which would make an admirable fragment of the
+_Rehearsal_, and which wanted only the genius of Sheridan to be an
+admirable pendant to Mr Puff's play in the _Critic_. "On the 20th a
+meeting was held at the Duke of Newcastle's, of Lord Rockingham, the
+Duke of Richmond, and of Dowdeswell, with Newcastle himself on one
+part, and of the Duke of Bedford, Lord Weymouth, and Rigby on the
+other. The Duke of Bedford had powers from Grenville to act for him;
+but did not seem to like Lord Buckingham's taking on himself to name
+to places. On the latter's asking what friends they wished to prefer,
+Rigby said, with his cavalier bluntness--Take the _Court Calendar_ and
+give them one, two, three thousand pounds a-year! Bedford
+observed--They had said nothing on measures. Mr Grenville would insist
+on the sovereignty of this country over America being asserted. Lord
+Rockingham replied--He would never allow it to be a question whether
+he had given up this country--he never had. The Duke insisted on a
+declaration. The Duke of Richmond said--We may as well demand one from
+you, that you will never disturb that country again. Neither would
+yield. However, though they could not agree on measures; as the
+distribution of place was more the object of their thoughts and of
+their meeting, they reverted to that topic. Lord Rockingham named Mr
+Conway. Bedford started; said he had no notion of Conway; had thought
+he was to return to the military line. The Duke of Richmond said it
+was true, Mr Conway did not desire a civil place; did not know whether
+he would be persuaded to accept one; but they were so bound to him for
+his resignation, and thought him so able, they must insist. The Duke
+of Bedford said--Conway was an officer _sans tache_, but not a
+minister _sans tache_. Rigby said--Not one of the present cabinet
+should be saved. Dowdeswell asked--'What! not one?' 'No.' 'What! not
+Charles Townshend.' 'Oh!' said Rigby, 'that is different. Besides, he
+has been in opposition.' 'So has Conway,' said Dowdeswell. 'He has
+voted twice against the court, Townshend but once.' 'But,' said Rigby,
+'Conway is Bute's man.' 'Pray,' said Dowdeswell, 'is not Charles
+Townshend Bute's?' 'Ah! but Conway is governed by his brother
+Hertford, who is Bute's.' 'But Lady Ailesbury is a Scotchwoman.' 'So
+is Lady Dalkeith.' Those ladies had been widows and were now married,
+(the former to Conway, the latter to Townshend.) From this dialogue
+the assembly fell to wrangling, and broke up quarrelling. So high did
+the heats go, that the Conways ran about the town publishing the issue
+of the conference, and taxing the Bedfords with treachery."
+
+Notwithstanding this collision, at once so significant, and so
+trifling--at once a burlesque on the gravity of public affairs, and a
+satire on the selfishness of public men--on the same evening, the Duke
+of Bedford sent to desire another interview, to which Lord Rockingham
+yielded, but the Duke of Bedford refused to be present. So much,
+however, were the minds on both sides ulcerated by former and recent
+disputes, and so incompatible were their views, that the second
+meeting broke up in a final quarrel, and Lord Rockingham released the
+other party from all their engagements. The Duke of Bedford desired
+they might still continue friends, or at least to agree to oppose
+together. Lord Rockingham said no, "they were broken for ever."
+
+It was at this meeting that the Duke of Newcastle appeared for the
+last time in a political light. Age and feebleness had at length worn
+out that busy passion for intrigue, which power had not been able to
+satiate, nor disgrace correct. He languished above a year longer, but
+was heard of no more on the scene of affairs. (He died in November 1768.)
+
+A remarkable circumstance in all those arrangements is, that we hear
+nothing of either the king or the people. The king is of course
+applied to to sign and seal, but simply as a head clerk. The people
+are occasionally mentioned at the end of every seven years; but in the
+interim all was settled in the parlours of the peerage! The scene
+which we have just given was absolutely puerile, if it were not
+scandalous; and, without laying ourselves open to the charge of
+superstition on such subjects, we might almost regard the preservation
+of the empire as directly miraculous, while power was in the hands of
+such men as the Butes and Newcastles, the Bedfords and Rockinghams, of
+the last century. It is not even difficult to trace to this
+intolerable system, alike the foreign calamities and the internal
+convulsions during this period. Whether America could, by any
+possibility of arrangement, have continued a British colony up to the
+present time, may be rationally doubted. A vast country, rapidly
+increasing in wealth and population, would have been an incumbrance,
+rather than an addition, to the power of England. If the patronage of
+her offices continued in the hands of ministers, it must have supplied
+them with the means of buying up every man who was to be bought in
+England. It would have been the largest fund of corruption ever known
+in the world. Or, if the connexion continued, with the population of
+America doubling in every five-and-twenty years, the question must in
+time have arisen, whether England or America ought to be the true seat
+of government. The probable consequence, however, would have been
+separation; and as this could scarcely be effected by amicable means,
+the result might have been a war of a much more extensive, wasteful,
+and formidable nature, than that which divided the two countries
+sixty-five years ago.
+
+But all the blunders of the American war, nay the war itself, may be
+still almost directly traceable to the arrogance of the oligarchy. Too
+much accustomed to regard government as a natural appendage to their
+birth, they utterly forgot the true element of national power--the
+force of public opinion. Inflated with a sense of their personal
+superiority, they looked with easy indifference or studied contempt on
+every thing that was said or done by men whose genealogy was not
+registered in the red book. Of America--a nation of Englishmen--and of
+its proceedings, they talked, as a Russian lord might talk of his
+serfs. Some of them thought, that a Stamp act would frighten the
+sturdy free-holders of the Western World into submission! others
+talked of reducing them to obedience by laying a tax on their tea!
+others prescribed a regimen of writs and constables! evidently
+regarding the American farmers as they regarded the poachers and
+paupers on their own demesnes. All this arose from stupendous
+ignorance; but it was ignorance engendered by pride, by exclusiveness
+of rank, and by the arrogance of _caste_. So excessive was this
+exclusiveness, that Burke, though the most extraordinary man of his
+time, and one of the most memorable of any time, could never obtain a
+seat in the cabinet; where such triflers as Newcastle, such figures of
+patrician pedantry as Buckingham, such shallow intriguers as the
+Bedfords, and such notorious characters as the Sandwiches, played with
+power, like children with the cups and balls of their nursery. Lord
+North, with all his wit, his industry, and his eloquence, owed his
+admission into the cabinet, to his being the son of the Earl of
+Guilford. Charles Fox, though marked by nature, from his first
+entrance into public life, for the highest eminence of the senate,
+would never have been received into the government _class_, but for
+his casual connexion with the House of Richmond. Thus, they knew
+nothing of the real powers of that infinite multitude, which, however
+below the peerage, forms the country. They thought that a few frowns
+from Downing Street could extinguish the resistance of millions, three
+thousand miles off, with muskets in their hands, inflamed by a sense
+of wrong, whether fancied or true, and insensible to the gatherings of
+a brow however coroneted and antique.
+
+This haughty exclusiveness equally accounts for the contests with
+Wilkes. They felt themselves affronted, much more than resisted; they
+were much more stung by the defiance of a private individual to
+themselves, than they were urged to the collision by any conceivable
+sense of hazard to the Monarchy. No man, out of bedlam, could
+conceive, that Wilkes had either the power or the intention to subvert
+the state. But Mr Wilkes, an obscure man, whose name was not known to
+the calendar of the government fabricators, had actually dared to call
+their privilege of power into question; had defied them in the courts
+of law; had rebuked them in the senate; had shaken their influence in
+the elections; and had, in fact, compelled them to know, what they
+were so reluctant to learn, that they were but human beings after all!
+The acquisition of this knowledge cost them half a dozen years of
+convulsions, the most ruinous to themselves, and the most hazardous to
+the constitution. Wilkes' profligacy alone, perhaps, saved the
+constitution from a shock, which might have changed the whole system
+of the empire. If he had not been sunk by his personal character, at
+the first moment when the populace grew cool, he might have availed
+himself of the temper of the times to commit mischiefs the most
+irreparable. If his personal character had been as free from public
+offence as his spirit was daring, he might have led the people much
+further than the government ever had the foresight to contemplate. The
+conduct of the successive cabinets had covered the King with
+unpopularity, not the less fierce, that it was wholly undeserved.
+Junius, the ablest political writer that England has ever seen, or
+probably ever will see, in the art of assailing a ministry, had
+pilloried every leading man of his time except Chatham, in the
+imperishable virulence of his page. The popular mind was furious with
+indignation at the conduct of all cabinets; in despair of all
+improvement in the system; irritated by the rash severity which
+alternated with the equally rash pusillanimity of ministers; and
+beginning to regard government less as a protection, than as an
+encroachment on the natural privileges of a nation of freemen.
+
+They soon had a growing temptation before them in the successful
+revolt of America.
+
+We do not now enter into that question; it is too long past. But we
+shall never allude to it without paying that homage to truth, which
+pronounces, that the American revolt was a rebellion, wholly
+unjustifiable by the provocation; utterly rejecting all explanation,
+or atonement for casual injuries; and made in the spirit of a
+determination to throw off the allegiance to the mother country. But,
+if Wilkes could have sustained his opposition but a few years longer,
+and with any character but one so shattered as his own, he might have
+carried it on through life, and even bequeathed it as a legacy to his
+party; until the French Revolution had joined flame to flame across
+the Channel, and England had rivalled even the frenzy of France in the
+rapidity and ruin of her Reform.
+
+Fortunately, the empire was rescued from this most fatal of all
+catastrophes. A great English minister appeared, on whom were to
+devolve the defence of England and the restoration of Europe. The
+sagacity of Pitt saw where the evil lay; his intrepidity instantly
+struck at its source, and his unrivalled ability completed the saving
+operation. He broke down the cabinet monopoly. No man less humiliated
+himself to the populace, but no man better understood the people. No
+man paid more practical respect to the peerage, but no man more
+thoroughly extinguished their exclusive possession of power. He formed
+his cabinet from men of all ranks, in the peerage and out of the
+peerage. The great peers chiefly went over to the opposition. He
+resisted them there, with as much daring, and with as successful a
+result, as he had expelled them from the stronghold of government. He
+made new peers. He left his haughty antagonists to graze on the barren
+field of opposition for successive years; and finally saw almost the
+whole herd come over for shelter to the ministerial fold.
+
+At this period a remarkable man was brought into public life--the
+celebrated Dunning, appointed solicitor-general. Walpole calls this
+"an extraordinary promotion," as Dunning was connected with Lord
+Shelburne. It was like every thing else, obviously an intrigue; and
+Dunning would have lost the appointment, but for his remarkable
+reputation in the courts; Wedderburne being the man of the Bedfords.
+Walpole's opinion of Dunning in the House, shows, how much even the
+highest abilities may be influenced by circumstances. He says, "that
+Dunning immediately and utterly lost character as a speaker, although
+he had acquired the very highest distinctions as a pleader;" so
+different, says he, is the oratory of the bar and of parliament.
+Mansfield and Camden retained an equal rank in both. Wedderburne was
+most successful in the House. Norton had at first disappointed the
+expectations that were conceived of him when he came into parliament;
+yet his strong sense, that glowed through all the coarseness of his
+language and brutality of his manner, recovered his weight, and he was
+much distinguished. While Sir Dudley Ryder, attorney-general in the
+preceding reign, the soundest lawyer, and Charles Yorke, one of the
+most distinguished pleaders, soon talked themselves out of all
+consideration in parliament; the former by laying too great a stress
+on every part of his diffusive knowledge, and the latter by the
+sterility of his intelligence.
+
+An intelligent Note, however, vindicates the reputation of Dunning. It
+is observed, that Dunning's having been counsel for Wilkes, and the
+intimate of Lord Shelburne, it could not be expected that he should
+take a prominent part in any of the debates which were so largely
+occupied with Wilkes' misdemeanours. Lord North, too, was hostile to
+Dunning. Under such conditions it was impossible that any man should
+exhibit his powers to advantage; but at a later period, when he had
+got rid of those trammels, his singular abilities vindicated
+themselves. He became one of the leaders of the opposition, even when
+that honour was to be shared with Burke. We have heard, that such was
+the pungency of Dunning's expressions, and the happy dexterity of his
+conceptions, that when he spoke, (his voice being feeble, and unable
+to make itself heard at any great distance,) the members used to
+throng around the bench on which he spoke. Wraxall panegyrizes him,
+and yet with a tautology of terms, which must have been the very
+reverse of Dunning's style. Thus, he tells us that when Dunning spoke,
+"every murmur was hushed, and every ear attentive," two sentences
+which amount to the same thing. Hannah More is also introduced as one
+of the panegyrists; for poor Hannah seems to have been one of the most
+bustling persons possible; to have run every where, and to have given
+_her_ opinion of every body, however much above her comprehension. She
+was one of the spectators on the Duchess of Kingston's trial, (a most
+extraordinary scene for the choice of such a purist;) but Hannah was
+not at that time quite so sublime as she became afterwards. Hannah
+describes Dunning's manner as "insufferably bad, coughing and spitting
+at every word; but his sense and expression pointed to the last
+degree." But the character which the annotator gives as a model of
+panegyric, pleases us least of all. It is by Sir William Jones, and
+consists of one long antithesis. It is a studied toil of language,
+expressing ideas, a commonplace succession, substituting words for
+thoughts, and at once leaving the ear palled, and the understanding
+dissatisfied. What, for instance, could be made of such a passage as
+this? Sir William is speaking of Dunning's wit. "This," says he,
+"relieved the weary, calmed the resentful, and animated the drowsy.
+This drew smiles even from such as were _the object of it, and
+scattered flowers over a desert_, and, like _sunbeams sparkling on a
+lake_, gave spirit and vivacity to the dullest and least interesting
+cause." And this mangling of metaphor is to teach us the qualities of
+a profound and practical mind. What follows, is the perfection of
+see-saw. "He was endued with an intellect sedate yet penetrating,
+clear yet profound, subtle yet strong. His knowledge, too, was equal
+to his imagination, and his memory to his knowledge." He might have
+equally added, that the capacity of his boots was equal to the size of
+his legs, and the length of his purse to the extent of his generosity.
+This reminds us of one of Sydney Smith's burlesques on the balancing
+of epithets by that most pedantic of pedants, the late Dr
+Parr--"profundity without obscurity, perspicuity without prolixity,
+ornament without glare, terseness without barrenness, penetration
+without subtlety, comprehensiveness without digression, and a great
+number of other things without a great number of other things."
+
+Little tricks, or rather large ones, now and then diversify the
+narrative. On the same day that Conway resigned the seals, Lord
+Weymouth was declared secretary of state. At the same time, Lord
+Hilsborough kissed hands for the American department, but nominally
+retaining the post-office, the salary of which he paid to Lord
+Sandwich, _till the elections should be over_; there being so strict a
+disqualifying clause in the bill for prohibiting the postmasters for
+interfering in elections, which Sandwich _was determined to do_ to the
+utmost, that he did not dare to accept the office in his own name,
+_till he had incurred the guilt_. Another trick of a very
+dishonourable nature, though ultimately defeated, may supply a moral
+for our share-trafficking days in high quarters. Lord Bottetort, one
+of the bedchamber, and a kind of second-hand favourite, had engaged in
+an adventure with a company of copper-workers at Warmley. They broke,
+and his lordship, in order to cover his estate from the creditors,
+begged a privy seal to incorporate the company, by which means private
+estates would not be answerable. The king ignorantly granted the
+request; but Lord Chatham, aware of the deception, refused to affix
+the seal to the patent, pleading that he was not able. Lord Bottetort,
+outrageous at the disappointment, threatened to petition the lords to
+remove Lord Chatham, on the ground of inability. The annotator justly
+observes, that the proposal was absolutely monstrous, being nothing
+but a gross fraud on his lordship's creditors. It, however, does not
+seem to have attracted the attention of the attorney-general, or the
+home-office; but, for some cause or other, the patent did not pass,
+the result being, that Lord Bottetort, unable to retrieve his losses,
+obtained the government of Virginia in the following summer, where he
+subsequently died.
+
+A curious instance of parliamentary corruption next attracted the
+notice of the public. It came out, that the city of Oxford had offered
+their representation to two gentlemen, if they would pay L7500 towards
+the debts of the corporation. They refused the bargain, and Oxford
+sold itself to the Duke of Marlborough and Lord Abingdon. The matter
+was brought before the House, and the mayor of Oxford and ten of the
+corporation appeared at the bar, confessing their crime, and asking
+pardon. It ended with committing them to prison for five days. A note
+describes the whole affair as being treated with great ridicule,
+(there being probably not a few who looked upon things of this nature
+as a matter of course;) and the story being, that the aldermen
+completed their bargain with the Duke of Marlborough, during their
+imprisonment in Newgate.
+
+On the 11th of March 1768, the parliament was dissolved. Walpole says,
+"that its only characteristic was servility to the government; while
+our ancestors, we presume, from the shamelessness of its servility,
+might have called it the Impudent Parliament."
+
+After wearying himself in the dusty field of politics, Walpole
+retired, like Homer's gods from Troy, to rest in the more flowery
+region of literature. His habits led him to the enjoyment of bitter
+political poetry, which, in fact, is not poetry at all; while they
+evidently disqualified him from feeling the power and beauty of the
+imaginative, the only poetry that deserves the name. Thus, he
+describes Goldsmith as the "correct author of _The Traveller_," one of
+the most beautiful poems in the language; while he panegyrizes, with a
+whole catalogue of plaudits, Anstey's _Bath Guide_--a very scandalous,
+though undoubtedly a lively and ingenious, caricature of the habits of
+the time. An ultra-heavy poem by Bentley, the son of the critic,
+enjoys a similar panegyric. We give, as an evidence of its dulness, a
+fragment of its praise of Lord Bute:--
+
+   "Oh, if we seize with skill the coming hour,
+    And reinvest us with the robe of power;
+    Rule while we live, let future days transmute
+    To every merit all we've charged on Bute.
+    Let late posterity receive his name,
+    And swell its sails with every breath of fame--
+    Downwards as far as Time shall roll his tide,
+    With ev'ry pendant flying, let it glide."
+
+The rest is equally intolerable.
+
+But Bentley was lucky in his patrons, if not in his poetry; as, in
+addition to a Commissionership of Lotteries, he received a pension for
+the lives of himself and his wife of L500 a-year! Though thus
+undeservedly successful in attracting the notice of the government,
+his more honest efforts failed with the public. He wrote two plays,
+both of which failed. Walpole next describes Robertson the historian
+in these high-coloured terms, "as sagacious and penetrating as
+Tacitus, with a perspicuity of Livy:" qualities which every one else
+knows to be directly the reverse of those which characterize
+Robertson. That very impudent woman, Catharine Macaulay, seems also to
+have been one of the objects of his literary admiration. He describes
+her, as being as partial in the cause of liberty as bigots to the
+church and royalists to tyranny, and as exerting manly strength with
+the gravity of a philosopher.
+
+But Walpole is aways amusing when he gives anecdotes of passing
+things. The famous Brentford election finds in him its most graphic
+historian. The most singular carelessness was exhibited by the
+government on this most perilous occasion--a carelessness obviously
+arising from that contempt which the higher ranks of the nobility in
+those days were weak enough to feel for the opinion of those below
+them. On the very verge of an election, within five miles of London,
+and which must bring to a point all the exasperation of years; Camden,
+the chancellor, went down to Bath, and the Duke of Grafton, the prime
+minister, who was a great horse-racer, drove off to Newmarket.
+Mansfield, whom Walpole seems to have hated, and whom he represents as
+at "once resentful, timorous, and subtle," the three worst qualities
+of the heart, the nerves, and the understanding, pretended that it was
+the office of the chancellor to bring the outlaw (Wilkes) to justice,
+and did nothing. The consequence was, that the multitude were left
+masters of the field.
+
+On the morning of the election; while the irresolution of the court,
+and the negligence of the prime minister, caused a neglect of all
+precautions; the populace took possession of all the turnpikes and
+avenues leading to the hustings by break of day, and would suffer no
+man to pass who did not wear in his hat a blue cockade, with "Wilkes
+and Number 45," on a written paper. Riots took place in the streets,
+and the carriage of Sir William Proctor, the opposing candidate, was
+demolished. The first day's poll for Wilkes was 1200, for Proctor 700,
+for Cooke 300. It must be remembered, that in these times the
+elections were capable of being prolonged from week to week, and that
+the first day was regarded as scarcely more than a formality. At night
+the West-end was in an uproar. It was not safe to pass through
+Piccadilly. Every house was compelled to illuminate; the windows of
+all which did not exhibit lights were broken; the coach-glasses of
+such as did not huzza for "Wilkes and liberty" were broken; and the
+panels of the carriages were scratched with 45! Lord Weymouth, the
+secretary of state, wrote to Justice Fielding for constables. Fielding
+answered, that they were all gone to Brentford. On this, the guards
+were drawn out. The mob then attacked Lord Bute's house and Lord
+Egmont's, but without being able to force an entrance. They compelled
+the Duke of Northumberland to give them liquor to drink Wilkes's
+health. Ladies of rank were taken out of their sedan-chairs, and
+ordered to join the popular cry. The lord-mayor was an anti-Wilkite--the
+mob attacked the Mansion-house, and broke the windows. He ordered out
+the trained bands; they had no effect. Six thousand weavers had risen
+under the Wilkite banner, and defied all resistance. Even some of the
+regimental drummers beat their drums for Wilkes! His force at the
+election was evidently to be resisted no longer. The ministerial
+candidate was beaten, Wilkes threw in his remaining votes for Cooke,
+and they came in together. The election was thus over on the second
+day, but the mob paraded the metropolis at night, insisting on a
+general illumination. The handsome Duchess of Hamilton, one of the
+Gunnings, who had now become quite a Butite, was determined not to
+illuminate. The result was, that the mob grew outrageous, broke down
+the outward gates with iron-crows, tore up the pavement of the street,
+and battered the doors and shutters for three hours; fortunately
+without being able to get in. The Count de Sollein, the Austrian
+ambassador, the most stately and ceremonious of men, was taken out of
+his coach by the mob, who chalked 45 on the sole of his shoe! He
+complained in form of the insult. Walpole says, fairly enough, "it was
+as difficult for the ministers to help laughing as to give him
+redress."
+
+Walpole frequently alludes to the two Gunnings as the two handsomest
+sisters of their time. They were Irish-women, fresh-coloured, lively,
+and well formed, but obviously more indebted to nature than to
+education. Lady Coventry died young, and had the misfortune, even in
+her grave, of being made the subject of an epitaph by Mason, one of
+the most listless and languid poems of an unpoetic time. The Duchess
+of Hamilton survived to a considerable age, and was loaded with
+matrimonial honours. She first married the Duke of Hamilton. On his
+death, she married the Marquis of Lorn, eldest son of the Duke of
+Argyll, whom he succeeded in the title--thus becoming mother of the
+heirs of the two great rival houses of Hamilton and Argyll. While in
+her widowhood, she had been proposed for by the Duke of Bridgewater.
+Lady Coventry seems to have realized Pope's verses of a dying belle--
+
+   "And, Betty, give this cheek a little red,
+    One would not, sure, look ugly when one's dead."
+
+"Till within a few days of her death, she lay on a couch with a
+looking-glass in her hand. When she found her beauty, which she
+idolized, was quite gone, she took to her bed, and would be seen by
+nobody, not even by her nurse, suffering only the light of a lamp in
+her room."
+
+Walpole's description of the ministry adds strikingly to the
+contemptuous feeling, naturally generated by their singular ill
+success. We must also observe, as much to the discredit of the past
+age as to the honour of the present; that the leading men of the day
+exhibited or affected a depravity of morals, which would be the ruin
+of any public character at the present time. Many of the scenes in
+high life would have been fitter for the court of Charles II., and
+many of the actors in those scenes ought to have been cashiered from
+public employment. Personal profligacy seems actually to have been
+regarded as a species of ornamental appendage to public character;
+and, except where its exposure sharpened the sting of an epigram, or
+gave an additional flourish to the periods of a political writer, no
+one seems to have conceived that the grossest offences against
+morality were of the nature of crime. Another scandal seems to have
+been frequent--intemperance in wine. Hard drinking was common in
+England at that period, and was even regarded as the sign of a
+generous spirit; but nearly all the leading politicians who died
+early, are described as owing their deaths to excess. Those are
+fortunate distinctions for the days which have followed; and the
+country may justly congratulate itself on the abandonment of habits,
+which, deeply tending to corrupt private character, render political
+baseness the almost inevitable result among public men.
+
+Walpole promptly declares, that half the success of Wilkes was owing
+to the supineness of the ministers. He might have gone further, and
+fixed his charge on higher grounds. He ought to have said, that the
+whole was owing to the mingled treachery and profligacy which made the
+nation loathe the characters of public parties and public men. Walpole
+says, in support of his assertion--"that Lord Chatham would take no
+part in business; that the Duke of Grafton neglected every thing, and
+whenever pressed to be active threatened to resign; that the
+Chancellor Camden, placed between two such intractable friends, with
+whom he was equally discontented, avoided dipping himself further;
+that Conway, no longer in the Duke's confidence, and more hurt with
+neglect than pleased with power, stood in the same predicament; that
+Lord Gower thought of nothing but ingratiating himself at St James's;
+and though what little business was done was executed by Lord
+Weymouth, it required all Wood's, the secretary's, animosity to
+Wilkes, to stir him up to any activity. Wood even said, "that if the
+King should pardon Wilkes, Lord Weymouth would not sign the pardon."
+The chief magistrate of the city, consulting the chancellor on what he
+should do if Wilkes should stand for the city, and being answered that
+he "must consult the recorder," Harley sharply replied, "I consulted
+your lordship as a minister, I don't want to be told my duty."
+
+Some of the most interesting portions of these volumes are the notes,
+giving brief biographical sketches of the leading men. The politics
+have comparatively passed away, but the characters remain; and no
+slight instruction is still to be derived from the progressive steps
+by which the individuals rose from private life to public distinction.
+The editor, Sir Denis la Marchant, deserves no slight credit for his
+efforts to give authenticity to those notices. He seems to have
+collected his authorities from every available source; and what he has
+compiled with the diligence of an editor, he has expressed with the
+good taste of a gentleman.
+
+The commencement of a parliament is always looked to with curiosity,
+as the debut of new members. All the expectations which have been
+formed by favouritism, family, or faction, are then brought to the
+test. Parliament is an unerring tribunal, and no charlatanry can cheat
+its searching eye. College reputations are extinguished in a moment,
+the common-places of the hustings can avail no more, and the
+pamperings of party only hurry its favourites to more rapid decay.
+
+Mr Phipps, the son of Lord Mulgrave, now commenced his career. By an
+extraordinary taste, though bred a seaman, he was so fond of quoting
+law, that he got the sobriquet of the "marine lawyer." His knowledge
+of the science (as the annotator observes) could not have been very
+deep, for he was then but twenty-two. But he was an evidence of the
+effect of indefatigable exertion. Though a dull debater, he took a
+share in every debate, and he appears to have taken the pains of
+revising his speeches for the press. Yet even under his nursing, they
+exhibit no traces of eloquence. His manner was inanimate, and his
+large and heavy figure gained him the luckless appellation of Ursa
+Major, (to distinguish him from his brother, who was also a member.)
+As if to complete the amount of his deficiencies, his voice was
+particularly inharmonious, or rather it was two distinct voices, the
+one strong and hoarse, the other weak and querulous; both of which he
+frequently used. On this was constructed the waggish story--that one
+night, having fallen into a ditch, and calling out in his shrill
+voice, a countryman was coming up to assist him; when Phipps calling
+out again in his hoarse tone, the man exclaimed--"If there are two of
+you in the ditch, you may help each other out!"
+
+One of his qualities seems to have been a total insensibility to his
+own defects; which therefore suffered him to encounter any man, and
+every man, whatever might be their superiority. Thus, in his early
+day, his dulness constantly encountered Lord North, the most dexterous
+wit of his time. Thus, too, in his maturer age, he constantly thrust
+himself forward to meet the indignant eloquence of Fox; and seems to
+have been equally unconscious that he was ridiculed by the sarcastic
+pleasantry of the one, or blasted by the lofty contempt of the other.
+Yet, such is the value of perseverance, that this man was gradually
+regarded as important in the debates, that he wrought out for himself
+an influence in the House, and obtained finally the office of joint
+paymaster, one of the most lucrative under government, and a British
+peerage. And all this toil was undertaken by a man who had no
+children.
+
+At his death, he was succeeded in his Irish title by his brother
+Henry, who became first lord of the admiralty, and also obtained an
+English peerage. The present Marquis of Normandy is his eldest son.
+
+Parliamentary history sometimes gives valuable lessons, in exhibiting
+the infinite folly of parliamentary prediction. It will scarcely be
+believed in a day like ours, which has seen and survived the French
+Revolution, that the chief theme of the period, and especial terror of
+the opposition, was the conquest of Corsica by the French! Ministers
+seem to have been deterred from a war with the French monarchy, solely
+by the dislocated state of the cabinet; while the opposition declared,
+that the possession of Corsica by the French, would be "the death-blow
+to our influence in the Mediterranean." With Corsica in French hands,
+it was boldly pronounced that "France would receive an accession of
+power which nothing could shake; and they scarcely hesitated to say,
+that upon the independence of Corsica rested not merely the supremacy
+but the safety of England." Yet the French conquered Corsica (at a
+waste of money ten times worth its value to their nation, and at a
+criminal waste of life, both French and Corsican) without producing
+the slightest addition to the power of the monarchy, and with no
+slight disgrace to the honour of its arms. For, the Corsicans, the
+most savage race of the Italian blood, and accustomed to the use of
+weapons from their childhood, fought with the boldness of all men
+fighting for their property, and routed the troops of France in many a
+successive and desperate encounter. Still, the combat was too unequal;
+the whole force of a great monarchy was obviously too strong for the
+hope of successful resistance, and Corsica, after many a severe
+struggle, became a French territory. But, beyond this barren honour
+the war produced no fruit, except a deeper consciousness of the
+unsparing ambition of the monarchy, and of the recklessness with which
+it sacrificed all considerations of humanity and justice, to the
+tinsel of a military name. One fatal gift, however, Corsica made, in
+return to France. From it came, within a few years, the man who sealed
+the banishment of the Bourbons! and, tempting France by the ambition
+of military success, inflicted upon her the heaviest mortality, and
+the deepest shame known in any kingdom, since the fall of the Roman
+empire. Whether this were that direct retribution for innocent blood,
+which Providence has so often inflicted upon guilty nations; or
+whether it were merely one of those extraordinary casualties which
+circumstances make so impressive; there can be no question, that the
+man came from Corsica who inflicted on France the heaviest calamities
+that she had ever known; who, after leading her armies over Europe, to
+conquests which only aroused the hatred of all nations, and after
+wasting the blood of hundreds of thousands of her people in victories
+totally unproductive but of havoc; saw France twice invaded, and
+brought the nation under the ban of the civilized world!
+
+France is at this moment pursuing the same course in Algiers, which
+was the pride of her politicians in Corsica. She is pouring out her
+gigantic force, to overwhelm the resistance of peasants who have no
+defence but their naked bravery. She will probably subdue the
+resistance; for what can be done by a peasantry against the
+disciplined force and vast resources of a great European power,
+applied to this single object of success? But, barbarian as the Moor
+and the Arab are, and comparatively helpless in the struggle, the
+avenger may yet come, to teach the throne of France, that there is a
+power higher than all thrones; a tribunal to which the blood cries out
+of the ground.
+
+The death of Secker, Archbishop of Canterbury, excites a few touches
+of Walpole's sarcastic pen. He says, "that his early life had shown
+his versatility, his latter his ambition. But hypocrisy not being
+parts, he rose in the church without ever making a figure in the
+state." So much for antithesis. There is no reason why a clergyman
+should make a figure in the state under any circumstances; and the
+less figure he made in the state, as it was then constituted, the more
+likely he was to be fitted for the church. But the true censure on
+Secker would have been, that he rose, without making a figure in any
+thing; that he had never produced any work worthy of notice as a
+divine; that he had neither eloquence in the pulpit, nor vigour with
+the pen; that he seems to have been at all times a man of extreme
+mediocrity; that his qualifications with the ministry were, his being
+a neutral on all the great questions of the day; and his merits with
+posterity were, that he possessed power without giving offence. A
+hundred such men might have held the highest positions of the church,
+without producing the slightest effect on the public mind; or might
+have been left in the lowest, without being entitled to accuse the
+injustice of fortune. His successor was Cornwallis, Bishop of
+Lichfield, raised to the primacy by the Duke of Grafton, who, as
+Walpole says, "had a friendship for the bishop's nephew, Earl
+Cornwallis." This seems not altogether the most sufficient reason for
+placing a man at the head of the Church of England, but we must take
+the reason such as we find it. Walpole adds, that the nomination had,
+however, the merit of disappointing a more unsuitable candidate,
+Ternet of London, whom he describes as "the most time-serving of the
+clergy, and sorely chagrined at missing the archiepiscopal mitre."
+
+It was rather unlucky for the public estimate of royalty, that, at
+this moment of popular irritation, the young King of Denmark should
+have arrived in England. He had married the King's youngest sister,
+and making a sort of tour of Europe, he determined to visit the family
+of his wife. His proposal was waived by the King, who excused himself
+by the national confusions. But the young Dane, scarcely more than a
+giddy boy, and singularly self-willed, was not to be repelled; and he
+came. Nothing could be colder than his reception; not a royal
+carriage, not an officer of the court, was sent to meet him. He
+arrived at St James's even in a hired carriage. Neither King nor Queen
+was there. The only mark of attention paid to him was giving him an
+apartment, and supplying him and his suite with a table. Walpole
+observes, that this sullen treatment was as impolitic as it was
+inhospitable; that the Dane was then actually a pensioner of France,
+and, of course, it would have been wise to win him out of its hands.
+But the Danish king seems to have been little better than a fool; and
+between his frolics and his follies, he finally produced a species of
+revolution in his own country. All power fell into the hands of his
+queen, who, though of a bolder nature, seems to have been scarcely
+less frantic than himself. On the visit of her mother, the Princess of
+Wales, to Denmark, the Queen met her, at the head of a regiment,
+dressed in full uniform, and wearing buckskin breeches. She must have
+been an extraordinary figure altogether, for she had grown immensely
+corpulent. Court favouritism was the fashion in Denmark, and the King
+and Queen were equally ruled by favourites. But, in a short period, a
+young physician of the household managed both, obtaining peculiarly
+the confidence of the Queen. Scandal was not idle on this occasion,
+and Germany and England rang with stories of the court of Denmark. The
+physician was soon created a noble, and figured for a while as the
+prime minister, or rather sovereign of the kingdom, by the well-known
+title of Count Struensee. A party was formed against him by the
+Queen-mother, at the head of some of the nobility. The Queen was made
+prisoner, and died in prison. Struensee was tried as traitor, and
+beheaded. The King was finally incapacitated from reigning, and his
+son was raised to the regency. This melancholy transaction formed one
+of the tragedies of Europe; but it had the additional misfortune of
+occurring at a time when royalty had begun to sink under the incessant
+attacks of the revolutionists, and France, the leader of public
+opinion on the Continent, was filled with opinions contemptuous of all
+thrones.
+
+The year 1768 exhibited France in her most humiliating position before
+Europe. The Duc de Choiseul was the minister--a man of wit, elegance,
+and accomplishment; but too frivolous to follow, if he had not been
+too ignorant to discover, the true sources of national greatness. His
+foreign policy was intrigue, and his domestic policy the favouritism
+of the court by administering to its vices. He raised a war between
+the Russians and Turks, and had the mortification of seeing his
+_protege_ the Turk trampled by the armies of his rival the Czarina.
+Even the Corsicans had degraded the military name of France. But he
+had a new peril at home. Old Marshal Richelieu--who, as Walpole
+sarcastically observes, "had retained none of his faculties, but that
+last talent of a decayed Frenchman, a spirit of back-stairs
+intrigue"--had provided old Louis XV. with a new mistress. Of all the
+persons of this character who had made French royal life scandalous in
+the eyes of Europe, this connexion was the most scandalous. It
+scandalized even France. This mistress was the famous Countess du
+Barri--a wretched creature, originally of the very lowest condition;
+whose vices would have stained the very highest; and who, in the
+convulsions of the reign that followed, was butchered by the
+guillotine.
+
+In November of this year died the Duke of Newcastle, at the age of
+seventy-five. He had been struck with palsy some months before, and
+then for the first time withdrew from public life. Walpole observes,
+that his life had been a proof that, "even in a free country, great
+abilities are not necessary to govern it." Industry, perseverance, and
+intrigue, gave him that duration of power "which shining talents, and
+the favour of the crown, could not secure to Lord Granville, nor the
+first rank in eloquence, or the most brilliant services, to Lord
+Chatham. Rashness overset Lord Granville's parts, and presumptuous
+impracticability Lord Chatham; while adventitious cunning repaired
+Newcastle's folly." Such is the explanation of one of the most curious
+phenomena of the time, by one of its most ingenious lookers-on. But
+the explanation is not sufficient. It is impossible to conceive, how
+mere cunning could have sustained any man for a quarter of a century
+in the highest ministerial rank; while that rank was contested from
+day to day by men of every order of ability. Since the days of
+Bolingbroke, there have been no examples of ministerial talent, equal
+to those exhibited, in both Houses, in the day of the Duke of
+Newcastle. Chatham was as ambitious as any man that ever lived, and
+full of the faculties that make ambition successful. The Butes, the
+Bedfords, the Hollands, the Shelburnes, exhibited every shape and
+shade of cabinet dexterity, of court cabal, of popular influence, and
+of political knowledge and reckless intrigue. Yet the Duke of
+Newcastle, with remarkable personal disadvantages--a ridiculous
+manner, an ungainly address, speech without the slightest pretension
+to eloquence, and the character of extreme ignorance on general
+subjects--preserved his power almost to the extreme verge of life; and
+to the last was regarded as playing a most important part in the
+counsels of the country. Unless we believe in magic, we must believe
+that this man, with all his oddity of manner, possessed some
+remarkable faculty, by which he saw his way clearly through
+difficulties impervious to more showy minds. He must have deeply
+discovered the means of attaching the monarch, of acting upon the
+legislature, and of controlling the captiousness of the people. He
+must have had practical qualities of a remarkable kind; and his is not
+the first instance, in which such qualities, in the struggles of
+government, bear away the prize. Thus, in later times, we have seen
+Lord Liverpool minister for eleven years, and holding power with a
+firm, yet quiet grasp to the last; with the whole strength of Lord
+Grey and the Whigs struggling for it in front, and George Canning, a
+still more dangerous enemy, watching for it in the rear.
+
+In one of the Notes referring to the appointment of Earl Cornwallis to
+the vice-treasuryship of Ireland, the editor makes a remark which
+ought not to pass without strong reprehension. Earl Cornwallis,
+towards the close of the Irish rebellion in 1798, had been made chief
+governor of Ireland, at the head of a large army, for the purpose of
+extinguishing the remnants of the rebellion, and restoring the country
+to the habits of peace. The task was no longer difficult, but he
+performed his part with dignity and moderation. He had been sent
+expressly for the purpose of pacifying the country, an object which
+would have been altogether inconsistent with measures of violence; but
+the editor, in telling us that his conduct exhibited sagacity and
+benevolence, hazards the extraordinary assertion, that "he was one of
+the few statesmen who inculcated the necessity of forbearance and
+concession in the misgoverned country!" Nothing can be more erroneous
+than this statement in point of principle, or more ignorant in point
+of fact. For the last hundred years and upwards, dating from the
+cessation of the war with James II., Ireland had been the object of
+perpetual concessions, and, if misgoverned at all, it has been such by
+the excess of those concessions. It is to be remembered, that in the
+reign of William I. the Roman Catholics were in actual alliance with
+France, and in actual arms against England. They were next beaten in
+the field, and it was the business of the conquerors to prevent their
+taking arms again. From this arose the penal laws. To those laws we
+are not friendly; because we are not friendly to any attempt at the
+suppression even of religious error by the force of the state. It was
+a political blunder, and an offence to Christian principle, at the
+same time; but the Papist is the last man in the world who has a right
+to object to penal laws; for he is the very man who would have enacted
+them himself against the Protestant--who always enacts them where he
+has the power--and, from the spirit of whose laws, the British
+legislature were in fact only borrowing at the moment. Yet from the
+time when James II. and his family began to sink into insignificance,
+the legislature began to relax the penal laws. Within the course of
+half a century, they had wholly disappeared; and thus the editor's
+flippant assertion, that Earl Cornwallis was one of the few statesmen
+who inculcated the necessity of forbearance and concession, exhibits
+nothing but his Whiggish ignorance on the subject. The misgovernment
+of Ireland, if such existed, was to be laid to the charge of neither
+the English minister nor the English people. The editor probably
+forgets, that during that whole period she was governed by her own
+parliament; while her progress during the second half of the 18th
+century was memorably rapid, and prosperous in the highest degree,
+through the bounties, privileges, and encouragements of every kind,
+which were constantly held out to her by the _British_ government. And
+that so early as the year 1780, she was rich enough to raise, equip,
+and support a volunteer army of nearly a hundred thousand men--a
+measure unexampled in Europe, and which would probably task the
+strength of some of the most powerful kingdoms even at this day. And
+all this was previous to the existence of what is called the "patriot
+constitution."
+
+Walpole has the art of painting historic characters to the life; but
+he sadly extinguishes the romance with which our fancy so often
+enrobes them. We have been in the habit of hearing Pascal Paoli, the
+chief of the Corsicans, described as the model of a republican hero;
+and there can be no question, that the early resistance of the
+Corsicans cost the French a serious expenditure of men and money. But
+Walpole charges Paoli with want of military skill, and even with want
+of that personal intrepidity so essential to a national leader. At
+length, Corsican resistance being overpowered by the constant
+accumulation of French force, Paoli gave way, and, as Walpole
+classically observes, "not having fallen like Leonidas, did not
+despair like Cato." Paoli had been so panegyrized by Boswell's work,
+that he was received with almost romantic applause. The Opposition
+adopted him for the sake of popularity, but ministers took him out of
+their hands by a pension of L1000 a-year. "I saw him," says Walpole,
+"soon after his arrival, dangling at court. He was a man of decent
+deportment, and so void of any thing remarkable in his aspect, that,
+being asked if I knew who he was, I judged him a Scotch officer--for
+he was sandy complexioned and in regimentals--who was cautiously
+awaiting the moment of promotion." All this is in Walpole's style of
+fashionable impertinence; but there can be no doubt that Paoli was a
+brave man, and an able commander. He gave the French several severe
+defeats, but the contest was soon too unequal, and Paoli withdrew to
+this country; which was so soon after to be a shelter to the
+aristocracy of the country which had stained his mountains with blood.
+
+By a singular fate, on his return to France in an early period of the
+Revolution, he was received with a sort of national triumph, and
+actually appointed lieutenant-general of Corsica by the nation which
+had driven him into exile. In the war which followed, Paoli, disgusted
+by the tyranny of French republicanism, and alarmed by the violence of
+the native factions, proposed to put his country under the protection
+of the English government. A naval and military force was sent to
+Corsica, and the island was annexed to the British crown. But the
+possession was not maintained with rational vigour. The feeble
+armament was found unequal to resist the popular passion for
+republicanism. And, from this expenditure of troops, and probably
+still more from the discovery that the island would be wholly useless,
+the force was altogether withdrawn. Paoli returned to England, where
+he died, having attained the advanced age of eighty. His red hair and
+sandy complexion are probably fatal to his character as an Italian
+chieftain. But if his locks were not black, his heart was bold; and if
+his lip wanted mustaches, his mind wanted neither sagacity nor
+determination.
+
+Walpole was born for a cynic philosopher. He treats men of all ranks
+with equal scorn. From Wilkes to George III., he brands them all.
+Ministers meet no mercy at his hands. He ranges them, as the Sultan
+used to range heads on the spikes of the seraglio, for marks for his
+arrows. His history is a species of moveable panorama; the scene
+constantly shifting, and every scene a burlesque of the one that went
+before; or perhaps the more faithful similitude would be found in a
+volume of HB.'s ingenious caricatures, where all the likenesses are
+preserved, though perverted, and all the dexterity of an accomplished
+pencil is employed only in making its subjects ridiculous. He thus
+tells us:--"The Duke of Grafton was the fourth prime minister in seven
+years, who fell by his own fault. Lord Bute was seized with a panic,
+and ran away from his own victory. Grenville was undone by his
+insolence, by joining in the insult on the princess, and by his
+persecution of Lord Bute and Mackenzie. Lord Rockingham's incapacity
+overturned _him_; and now the Duke of Grafton destroyed a power which
+it had depended on himself to make as permanent as he could desire."
+But rash and rapid as those changes were, what were the grave
+intrigues of the English cabinet to the _boudoir_ ministries of
+France? Walpole is never so much in his element, as when he is
+sporting in the fussy frivolities of the Faubourg St Germain. He was
+much more a Frenchman than an Englishman; his love of gossip, his
+passion for haunting the society of talkative old women, and his
+delight at finding himself revelling in a region of _petite soupers_,
+court gallantries, and the faded indiscretions of court beauties in
+the wane, would have made him a rival to the courtiers of Louis XIV.
+
+Perhaps, the world never saw, since the days of Sardanapalus, a court
+so corrupt, wealth so profligate, and a state of society so utterly
+contemptuous of even the decent affectation of virtue, as the closing
+years of the reign of Louis XV. A succession of profligate women ruled
+the king, a similar succession ruled the cabinet; lower life was a
+sink of corruption; the whole a romance of the most scandalous order.
+Madame de Pompadour, a woman whose vice had long survived her beauty,
+and who ruled the decrepit heart of a debauched king, had made
+Choiseul minister. Choiseul was the beau-ideal of a French noble of
+the old _regime_. His ambition was boundless, his insolence
+ungoverned, his caprice unrestrained, and his love of pleasure
+predominant even over his love of power. "He was an open enemy, but a
+generous one; and had more pleasure in attaching an enemy, than in
+punishing him. Whether from gaiety or presumption, he was never
+dismayed; his vanity made him always depend on the success of his
+plans, and his spirits made him soon forget the miscarriage of them."
+
+At length appeared on the tapis the memorable Madame du Barri! For
+three months, all the faculties of the court were absorbed in the
+question of her public presentation. Indulgent as the courtiers were
+to the habits of royal life, the notoriety of Madame du Barri's early
+career, startled even their flexible sense of etiquette. The ladies of
+the court, most of whom would have been proud to have taken her place,
+determined "that they would not appear at court if she should be
+received there." The King's daughters (who had borne the ascendant of
+Madame du Pompadour in their mother's life) grew outrageous at the new
+favourite; and the relatives of Choiseul insisted upon it, that he
+should resign rather than consent to the presentation. Choiseul
+resisted, yielded, was insulted for his resistance, and was scoffed at
+for his submission. He finally retired, and was ridiculed for his
+retirement. Du Barri triumphed. Epigrams and _calembours_ blazed
+through Paris. Every one was a wit for the time, and every wit was a
+rebel. The infidel faction looked on at the general dissolution of
+morals with delight, as the omen of general overthrow. The Jesuits
+rejoiced in the hope of getting the old King into their hands, and
+terrifying him, if not into a proselyte, at least into a tool. Even Du
+Barri herself was probably not beyond their hopes; for the established
+career of a King's mistress was, to turn _devote_ on the decay of her
+personal attractions.
+
+Among Choiseul's intentions was that of making war on England. There
+was not the slightest ground for a war. But it is a part of the
+etiquette of a Frenchman's life, that he must be a warrior, or must
+promote a war, or must dream of a war. M. Guizot is the solitary
+exception in our age, as M. Fleury was the solitary exception in the
+last; but Fleury was an ecclesiastic, and was eighty years old
+besides--two strong disqualifications for a conqueror. But the King
+was then growing old, too; his belligerent propensities were absorbed
+in quarrels with his provincial parliaments; his administrative
+faculties found sufficient employment in managing the morals of his
+mistresses; his private hours were occupied in pelting Du Barri with
+sugar-plums; and thus his days wore away without that supreme glory of
+the old _regime_--a general war in Europe.
+
+The calamities of the French noblesse at the period of the Revolution,
+excited universal regret; and the sight of so many persons, of
+graceful manners and high birth, flung into the very depths of
+destitution in foreign lands, or destroyed by the guillotine at home,
+justified the sympathy of mankind. But, the secret history of that
+noblesse was a fearful stigma, not only on France, but on human
+nature. Vice may have existed to a high degree of criminality in other
+lands; but in no other country of Europe, or the earth, ever was vice
+so public, so ostentatiously forced upon the eyes of man, so
+completely formed into an established and essential portion of
+fashionable and courtly life. It was even the _etiquette_, that the
+King of France should have a _mistress_. She was as much a part of the
+royal establishment as a prime minister was of the royal councils;
+and, as if for the purpose of offering a still more contemptuous
+defiance to the common decencies of life, the etiquette was, that this
+mistress should be a _married woman_! Yet in that country the whole
+ritual of Popery was performed with scrupulous exactness. A vast and
+powerful clergy filled France; and the ceremonials of the national
+religion were performed continually before the court, with the most
+rigid formality. The King had his confessor, and, so far as we can
+discover, the mistress had her confessor too; the nobles attended the
+royal chapel, and also had their confessors. The confessional was
+never without royal and noble solicitors of monthly, or, at the
+furthest, quarterly absolution. Still, from the whole body of
+ecclesiastics, France heard no remonstrance against those public
+abominations. Their sermons, few and feeble, sometimes declaimed on
+the vices of the beggars of Paris, or the riots among the peasantry;
+but no sense of scriptural responsibility, and no natural feeling of
+duty, ever ventured to deprecate the vices of the nobles and the
+scandals of the throne.
+
+We must give but a fragment, from Walpole's _catalogue raisonne_, of
+this Court of Paphos. It had been the King's object to make some women
+of rank introduce Madame du Barri at court; and he had found
+considerable difficulty in this matter, not from her being a woman of
+no character, but on her being a woman of no birth, and whose earlier
+life had been spent in the lowest condition of vice. The King at last
+succeeded--and these are the _chaperons_. "There was Madame de
+l'Hopital, an ancient mistress of the Prince de Soubize! The Comtesse
+Valentinois, of the highest birth, very rich, but very foolish; and as
+far from a Lucretia as Madame du Barri herself! Madame de Flavacourt
+was another, a suitable companion to both in virtue and understanding.
+She was sister to _three_ of _the King's earliest mistresses_, and had
+aimed at succeeding them! The Marechale Duchesse de Mirpoix was the
+last, and a very important acquisition." Of her, Walpole simply
+mentions that all her talents were "drowned in such an overwhelming
+passion for play, that though she had long and singular credit with
+the King, she reduced her favour to an endless solicitation for money
+to pay her debts." He adds, in his keen and amusing style--"That, to
+obtain the post of _dame d'honneur_ to the Queen, she had left off
+_red_ (wearing rouge,) and acted _devotion_; and the very next day was
+seen riding with Madame de Pompadour (the King's mistress) in the
+latter's coach!" The editor settles the question of _her_ morality,
+too.--"She was a woman of extraordinary wit and cleverness, but
+totally _without character_." She had her morals by inheritance; for
+she was the daughter of the _mistress_ of the Duke of Lorraine, who
+married her to Monsieur de Beauvan, a poor noble, and whom the duke
+got made a prince of the empire, by the title of De Craon. Now, all
+those were females of the highest rank in France, ladies of fashion,
+the stars of court life, and the models of national manners. Can we
+wonder at the retribution which cast them out into the highways of
+Europe? Can we wonder at the ruin of the corrupted nobility? Can we
+wonder at the massacre of the worldly church, which stood looking on
+at those vilenesses, and yet never uttered a syllable against them, if
+it did not even share in their excesses? The true cause for
+astonishment is, not in the depth of their fall, but in its delay; not
+in the severity of the national judgment, but in that long-suffering
+which held back the thunderbolt for a hundred years, and even then did
+not extinguish the generation at a blow!
+
+[Footnote 33: _Memoirs of the Reign of King George the Third, by
+Horace Walpole. From the MSS. Edited, with Notes, by_ SIR D. LA
+MARCHANT, BART. London: Bentley.]
+
+
+
+
+A FEW PASSAGES CONCERNING OMENS, DREAMS, APPEARANCES, &c.
+
+IN A LETTER TO EUSEBIUS.
+
+No. II.
+
+
+It is somewhat late, my dear, Eusebius, to refer me to my letter of
+August 1840, and to enquire, in your bantering way, if I have shaken
+hands with a ghost recently, or dreamed a dream worth telling. You
+have evidently been thinking upon this subject ever since I wrote to
+you; and I suspect you are more of a convert than you will admit. You
+only wish to provoke me to further evidence; but I see--through the
+flimsy veil of your seeming denials, and through your put-on
+audacity--the nervous workings of your countenance, when your
+imagination is kindled by the mysterious subject. Your wit and your
+banter are but the whistle of the clown in the dark, to keep down his
+rising fears. However good your story[34] may be, there have been
+dreams even of the numbers of lottery-tickets that have been verified.
+We call things coincidences and chances, because we have no name to
+give them, whereas they are phenomena that want a better settlement.
+You speak, too, of the "doctrine of chances." If chance have a
+doctrine, it is subject to a rule, is under calculation, arithmetic,
+and loses all trace at once of our idea of absolute chance. If there
+be chance, there is also a power over chance. The very hairs of our
+head, which seem to be but a chance-confusion, are yet, we are
+assured, all numbered--and is it less credible that their every
+movement is noted also? One age is the type of another; and every age,
+from the beginning of the world, hath had its own symbols; and not
+poetically only, but literally true is it, that "coming events cast
+their shadows before." If the "vox populi" be the "vox Dei," it has
+pronounced continually, in a space of above five thousand years, that
+there is communication between the material and immaterial worlds. So
+rare are the exceptions, that, speaking of mankind, we may assert that
+there is a universal belief amongst them of that connexion by signs,
+omens, dreams, visions, or ghostly presences. Many professed sceptics,
+who have been sceptics only in the pride of understanding, have in
+secret bowed down to one form or other of the superstition. Take not
+the word in a bad sense. It is at least the germ, the natural germ,
+of religion in the human mind. It is the consciousness of a
+superiority not his own, of some power so immeasurably above man, that
+his mind cannot take it in, but accepts, as inconsiderable glimpses of
+it, the phenomena of nature, and the fears and misgivings of his own
+mind, spreading out from himself into the infinite and invisible. I am
+not certain, Eusebius, if it be not the spiritual part of conscience,
+and is to it what life is to organized matter--the mystery which gives
+it all its motion and beauty.
+
+It is not my intention to repeat the substance of my former letter--I
+therefore pass on. You ask me if the mesmeric phenomena--which you
+ridicule, yet of which I believe you covet a closer investigation--are
+not part and parcel of the same incomprehensible farrago? I cannot
+answer you. It would be easy to do so were I a disciple. If the
+mesmerists _can_ establish _clairvoyance_, it will certainly be upon a
+par with the ancient oracles. But what the philosopher La Place says,
+in his _Essay on Probabilities_, may be worth your consideration--that
+"any case, however apparently incredible, if it is a recurrent case,
+is as much entitled to a fair valuation under the laws of induction,
+as if it had been more probable beforehand." If the mesmerized can
+project, and that apparently without effort, their minds into the
+minds of others--read their thoughts; if they can see and tell what is
+going on hundreds of miles off, on the sea and on distant lands alike;
+if they can at remote distances _influence_ others with a sense of
+their presence--they possess a power so very similar to that ascribed,
+in some extraordinary cases, to persons who, in a dying state, have
+declared that they have been absent and conversed with individuals
+dear to them in distant countries, and whose presence has been
+recognised at those very times by the persons so said to be visited,
+that I do not see how they can be referable to different original
+phenomena. Yet with this fact before them, supposing the facts of
+mesmerism, of the mind's separation from, and independence of its
+organic frame, is it not extraordinary that so many of this new school
+are, or profess themselves by their writings, materialists? I would,
+however, use the argument of mesmerism thus:--Mesmerism, if true,
+confirms the ghost and vision power, though I cannot admit that
+dreams, ghosts, and visions are any confirmation of mesmerism; for if
+mesmerism be a delusion and cheat, it may have arisen from speculating
+upon the other known power--as true miracles have been known to give
+rise to false. In cases of mesmerism, however, this shock is felt--the
+facts, as facts in the ordinary sense, are incredible; but then I see
+persons who have examined the matter very nicely, whom I have known,
+some intimately, for many years, of whose good sense, judgement, and
+_veracity_ I will not allow myself to doubt--indeed to doubt whose
+veracity would be more incredible to me than the mesmeric facts
+themselves. Here is a conflict--a shock. Two contradictory
+impossibilities come together. I do not weigh in the scale at all the
+discovery of some cheats and pretenders; this was from the first to
+have been expected. In truth, the discoveries of trick and collusion
+are, after all, few. Not only has mesmerism been examined into by
+persons I respect, but practised likewise; and by one, a physician,
+whom I have known intimately many years, who, to his own detriment,
+has pursued it, and whom I have ever considered one of the most
+truthful persons living, and incapable of collusion, or knowingly in
+any way deceiving. Now, Eusebius, we cannot go into society, and
+pronounce persons whom we have ever respected all at once to be cheats
+and liars. Yet there may be some among them who will tell you that
+they themselves were entirely sceptical until they tried mesmerism,
+and found they had the power in themselves. We must then, in fairness,
+either acknowledge mesmerism as a power, or believe that these persons
+whom we respect and esteem are practised upon and deluded by others.
+And such would, I confess, be the solution of the difficulty, were it
+not that there are cases where this is next to an impossibility.
+
+But I do not mean now, Eusebius, to discuss mesmerism,[35] further
+than as it does seem "a part and parcel" of that mysterious power
+which has been manifested in omens, dreams, and appearances. I say
+_seem_--for if it be proved altogether false, the other mystery stands
+untouched by the failure--for in fact it was, thousands of years
+before either the discovery or practice--at least as far as we know;
+for some will not quite admit this, but, in their mesmeric dreaming,
+attribute to it the ancient oracles, and other wonders. And there are
+who somewhat inconsistently do this, having ridiculed and contemned as
+utterly false those phenomena, until they have found them hitch on to,
+and give a credit to, their new Mesmeric science.
+
+But to return to the immediate subject. It has been objected against
+dreams, omens, and visions, that they often occur without an object;
+that there is either no consequence, or a very trifling one; the knot
+is not "dignus vindice." Now, I am not at all staggered by this; on
+the contrary, it rather tends to show that there is some _natural_
+link by which the material and immaterial within and without ourselves
+may be connected; and very probably many more intimations of that
+connexion are given than noted. Those of thought, mental suggestions,
+may most commonly escape us. It is thus what we would not do of
+ourselves we may do in spite of ourselves. Nor do we always observe
+closely objects and ends. We might, were we to scrutinize, often find
+the completion of a dream or omen which we had considered a failure,
+because we looked too immediately for its fulfilment. But even where
+there is evidently no purpose attained, there is the less reason to
+suspect fabrication, which would surely commence with an object. Some
+very curious cases are well attested, where the persons under the
+impression act upon the impulse blindly, not knowing why; and
+suddenly, in conclusion, the whole purpose bursts upon their
+understandings. But I think the objection as to purpose is answered by
+one undoubted fact, the dream of Pilate's wife--"Have thou nothing to
+do with that just man; for I have suffered many things this day in a
+dream because of him." There is here no apparent purpose--the warning
+was unheeded. Yet the dream, recorded as it is and where it is, was
+unquestionably a dream upon the event to happen; and is not to be
+considered as a mere coincidence, which would have been unworthy the
+sacred historian, who wrote the account of it under inspiration. And
+this is a strong--the strongest confirmation of the inspiration of
+dreams, or rather, perhaps, of their significance, natural or
+otherwise, and with or without a purpose. So the dream of Caesar's wife
+did not save Caesar's life. And what are we to think of the whole
+narrative, beginning with the warning of the Ides of March? Now,
+Joseph's dream and Pharaoh's dream were dreams of purpose; they were
+prophetic, and disclosed to the understanding of Joseph. So that, with
+this authority of Scripture, I do not see how dreams can be set aside
+as of no significance. And we have the like authority for omens, and
+symbols, and visions--so that we must conclude the things themselves
+to be possible; and this many do, yet say that, with other miracles,
+they have long ceased to be.
+
+Then, again, in things that by their agreement, falling in with other
+facts and events, move our wonder, we escape from the difficulty, as
+we imagine, by calling them coincidences; as if we knew what
+coincidences are. I do not believe they are without a purpose, any
+more than that seeming fatality by which little circumstances produce
+great events, and in ordinary life occur frequently to an apparent
+detriment, yet turn out to be the very hinge upon which the fortune
+and happiness of life depend and are established. I remember a
+remarkable instance of this--though it may not strictly belong to
+omens or coincidences; but it shows the purpose of an accident. Many
+years ago, a lady sent her servant--a young man about twenty years of
+age, and a native of that part of the country where his mistress
+resided--to the neighbouring town with a ring which required some
+alteration, to be delivered into the hands of a jeweller. The young
+man went the shortest way, across the fields; and coming to a little
+wooden bridge that crossed a small stream, he leaned against the rail,
+and took the ring out of its case to look at it. While doing so, it
+slipped out of his hand, and fell into the water. In vain he searched
+for it, even till it grew dark. He thought it fell into the hollow of
+a stump of a tree under water; but he could not find it. The time
+taken in the search was so long, that he feared to return and tell his
+story--thinking it incredible, and that he should even be suspected of
+having gone into evil company, and gamed it away or sold it. In this
+fear, he determined never to return--left wages and clothes, and
+fairly ran away. This seemingly great misfortune was the making of
+him. His intermediate history I know not; but this--that after many
+years' absence, either in the East or West Indies, he returned with a
+very considerable fortune. He now wished to clear himself with his old
+mistress; ascertained that she was living, purchased a diamond ring of
+considerable value, which he determined to present in person, and
+clear his character, by telling his tale, which the credit of his
+present condition might testify. He took the coach to the town of ----,
+and from thence set out to walk the distance of a few miles. He found,
+I should tell you, on alighting, a gentleman who resided in the
+neighbourhood, who was bound for the adjacent village. They walked
+together; and, in conversation, this former servant, now a gentleman,
+with graceful manners and agreeable address, communicated the
+circumstance that made him leave the country abruptly, many years
+before. As he was telling this, they came to the very wooden bridge.
+"There," said he--"it was just here that I dropped the ring; and there
+is the very bit of old tree, into a hole of which it fell--just
+there." At the same time, he put down the point of his umbrella into
+the hole of a knot in the tree--and, drawing it up, to the
+astonishment of both, found _the_ very ring on the ferrule of the
+umbrella. I need not tell the rest. But make this reflection--why was
+it that he did not as easily find it immediately after it had fallen
+in? It was an incident like one of those in Parnell's "Hermit," which,
+though a seeming chance, was of purpose, and most important.
+
+Now, here is an extraordinary coincidence between a fact and a dream,
+or a vision, whatever it may be, which yet was of no result--I know it
+to be true. And you know, Eusebius, my excellent, truth-telling,
+worthy Mrs H----, who formerly kept a large school at ----. One morning
+early, the whole house was awakened by the screams of one of the
+pupils. She was in hysterics; and, from time to time, fainting away in
+an agony of distress. She said she had seen her grandfather--that he
+was dead, and they would bury him alive. In due time, the post brought
+a letter--the grandfather _was dead_. Letters were written to the
+friends to announce the dream or vision, and the burial was delayed in
+consequence. Nothing could be more natural than the fear of burying
+him alive in the mind of the young girl, unacquainted with death, and
+averse to persuade herself that the person she had seen could be
+really dead. Now, my dear Eusebius, you know Mrs H----, and cannot
+doubt the fact.
+
+Cases of this kind are so many, and well authenticated, that one knows
+not where to choose.
+
+          ----"Tam multa loquacem
+     Delassare valent Fabium."
+
+I think you knew the worthy and amiable Mr ----, who had the charge of
+the valuable museum at ----. I well remember hearing this narrated of
+him, long _before_ his death. He stated, that one day opening a case,
+he heard a voice issue from it, which said--"In three days you shall
+die." He became ill, and sent for Dr P----, the very celebrated
+physician. It was in vain to reason with him. The third day arrived.
+The kind physician sat with him till the hour was past. He did not
+then die! Did he, however, mistake or miscalculate the meaning of the
+voice? He died _that very day three years_!! Nothing can be more
+authentic than this.
+
+When I was in town in the summer, Eusebius, I spent an agreeable day
+with my friends, the C----s. Now, I do not know a human being more
+incapable of letting an idea, a falsehood of imagination, run away
+with his sober judgment. He has a habit, I should say, more than most
+men, of tying himself down to matters of fact. I copy for you an
+extract from a diary; it was taken down that night. "Mr C---- has just
+told me the following very curious circumstance:--Some years ago, Mrs
+C---- being not in good health, they determined to spend some weeks in
+the country. His father was then in his house. They separated--the
+father, to his own home in the neighbourhood of London, and Mr and Mrs
+C---- to visit the brother of Mrs C----, a clergyman, and resident
+upon his living, in Suffolk. Soon after their arrival, there was a
+large assembly of friends, in consequence of some church business.
+There was church service--in the midst of which Mr C---- suddenly
+felt an irresistible desire to return to his house in town. He knew
+not why. It was in vain he reasoned with himself--go he must, forced
+by an impulse for which he could in no way account. It would distress
+his friends--particularly on such an occasion. He could not help it.
+He communicated his intention to Mrs C----; begged her to tell no one,
+lest he should give trouble by having the carriage;--his resolution
+was instantly taken, to quit the church at once, to walk about six
+miles to meet the coach if possible; if not, determining to walk all
+night, a distance of thirty-two miles. He did quit the church, walked
+the six miles, was in time to take the coach, reached London, and his
+own home. The intelligence he found there was, that his father was
+dangerously ill. He went to him--found him dying--and learned that he
+had told those about him that he knew he should see his son. That wish
+was gratified, which could not have been but for this sudden impulse
+and resolution. His father expired in his arms."
+
+It is curious that his father had told him a dream which he had had
+some years before--that he was in the midst of some convulsion of
+nature, where death was inevitable, and that then the only one of his
+children who came to him was my friend Mr C----, which was thus in
+manner accomplished on the day of his death.
+
+I know not if some persons are naturally more under these and suchlike
+mysterious influences. There was another occurrence which much
+affected Mr C----. He went into Gloucestershire to visit a brother. I
+do not think the brother was ill. All the way that he went in the
+coach, he had, to use his own words, a death-smell which very much
+annoyed him. Leaving the coach, he walked towards his brother's house
+greatly depressed; so much so, that, for a considerable time, he sat
+on a stone by the way, deeply agitated, and could not account for the
+feeling. He arrived in time only to see his brother expire. I do not
+know, Eusebius, how you can wish for better evidence of facts so
+extraordinary. Mr C----'s character is sufficient voucher.
+
+Here is another of these extraordinary coincidences which I have been
+told by my friend Mrs S----, niece to the Rev. W. Carr, whom she has
+very frequently heard narrate the following:--A farmer's wife at
+Bolton Abbey, came to him, the Rev. W. Carr, in great agitation, and
+told him she had passed a dreadful night, having dreamed that she saw
+Mr Richard, (brother to Rev. W. Carr;) that she saw him in great
+distress, struggling in the water, with his portmanteau on his
+shoulders, escaping from a burning ship; and she begged the family to
+write to know if Mr Richard was safe. It was exactly according to the
+dream; he had, at the very time, so escaped from the burning of (I
+believe) the Boyne. How like is this to some of the mesmeric visions!
+I am assured of the truth of the following, by one who knew the
+circumstance. One morning, as Mrs F---- was sitting in her room, a
+person came in and told her he had had a very singular dream; that he
+had been sitting with her sister, Mrs B----k, when some one came into
+the room with distressing intelligence about her husband. Though it
+could not have been there known at the time, Mr B----k had been
+thrown from his horse and killed.
+
+A party of gentlemen had met at Newcastle; the nature of the meeting
+is stated to have been of a profane character. One of them suddenly
+started, and cried, "What's that?"--and saw a coffin. The others saw
+it; and one said--"It is mine: I see myself in it!" In twenty-four
+hours he was a corpse.
+
+I think I mentioned to you, Eusebius, that when I dined with Miss
+A----, in town, she told me a curious story about a black boy. I have
+been since favoured with the particulars, and copy part of the letter;
+weigh it well, and tell me what you think of such coincidences--if you
+are satisfied that there is nothing but chance in the matter.
+
+"Now for the little black boy. In the year 1813, I was at the house of
+Sir J. W. S----th of D---- House, near Bl----d, who then resided in
+Portman Square, and a Mr L----r of Norfolk, a great friend of Sir
+John's, was of the party. On coming into the room, he said--'I have
+just been calling on our old Cambridge friend, H----n, who returned
+the other day from India; and he has been telling me a very curious
+thing which happened in his family. He had to go up the country to a
+very remote part, on some law business, and he left Mrs H----n at
+home, under the protection of her sister and that lady's husband. The
+night after Mr H----n went away, the brother-in-law was awakened by
+the screams of his own wife in her sleep; she had dreamed that a
+little black boy, Mr H----n's servant, who had attended him, was
+murdering him. He woke her, and while he was endeavouring to quiet
+her, and convince her that her fears were the effects of a bad dream,
+produced probably by indigestion, he was roused by the alarming
+shrieks of Mrs H----n, who slept in an adjoining room. On going to
+her, he found her, too, just awakening after a horrid dream--the
+little Indian boy was murdering her husband. He used the same
+arguments with her that he had already found answer in quieting his
+own wife; but, in his own mind, he felt very anxious for tidings from
+Mr H----n. To their great surprise, that gentleman made his
+appearance the next evening, though he had expected to be absent above
+a week. He looked ill and dejected. They anxiously asked him what was
+the matter. Nothing, but that he was angry with himself for acting in
+a weak, foolish manner. He had dreamed that his attendant, the little
+black boy, intended to murder him; and the dream made such an
+impression on his nerves that he could not bear the sight of the boy,
+but dismissed him at once without any explanation. Finding he could
+not go on without an attendant, he had returned home to procure one;
+but as he had no reason whatever to suspect the boy of any ill
+intention, he felt very angry with himself for minding a dream. Dear
+Mrs H----n was much struck with this story; but she used to
+say--unless it were proved that the boy really had the intention of
+murdering his master, the dreams were for nothing.'"
+
+In this instance a murder may have been prevented by these dreams; for
+if merely coincidences, and without an object, the wonder of
+coincidences is great indeed; for it is not one dream, but three, and
+of three persons.
+
+Things apparently of little consequence are yet curious for
+observation. Our friend K----n, and two or three other friends, some
+months ago went on an excursion together. Their first point was Bath,
+where they meant to remain some time. K----n dreamed on Friday they
+were to start on Saturday; that there was a great confusion at the
+railway station; and that there would be no reaching Bath for them.
+They went, however, on Saturday morning, and he told his dream when in
+the carriage. One of the party immediately repeated the old saying--
+
+   "A Friday's dream on Saturday told
+    Will be sure to come true ere the day is old."
+
+There was no accident to the train; but, instead of finding themselves
+at Bath, they found themselves at Bristol--having, in their
+conversation, neglected to notice that they had passed Bath. They were
+put to great inconvenience, and confusion, and difficulty in getting
+their luggage. I know you too well, Eusebius, not to hear, by
+anticipation, your laughter at this trifling affair, and the wit with
+which for a few moments you will throw off your ridicule. You may ask,
+if the shooting of your corns are not as sure and as serious
+prognostications? Be it so; and why not, Eusebius? You can tell by
+them what weather to expect; and, after all, you know little more of
+the material world, less of the immaterial, and nothing of their
+mystical union. Nothing now, past, present, and future, may be but
+terms for we know not what, and cannot comprehend how they can be lost
+in an eternity. There they become submerged. So take the thing
+represented, not the paltry, perhaps ridiculous, one through which it
+is represented. It is the picture, the attitude, the position, the
+undignified familiarity of yourself with the defects of your own
+person, that make the ridiculous; but there is grave philosophy,
+nevertheless, to be drawn from every atom of your own person, if you
+view it aright. I have heard you eloquent against the "hypocrite
+Cicero," as you called him, for his saying, that one Augur meeting
+another could scarcely help laughing. If mankind chose augury as a
+sign, it might have been permitted them to find a sign in it. But this
+is plunging into deeper matter, and one which you will think a
+quagmire, wherein wiser thoughts may flounder and be lost. When the
+officers of Hannibal's army were heard to laugh by the soldiery on the
+morning of the battle of Cannae, they took it as a good omen. It was
+generally received, and the day was fatal to the Romans. "Possunt quia
+posse videntur," you will say; but whence comes the "videntur?" There,
+Eusebius, you beg the whole question. The wonders and omens, gravely
+related by Livy, at least portray a general feeling--an impression
+before events. In the absence of a better religion, I would not have
+quarrelled with the superstition, and very much join you in your
+condemnation of the passage in Cicero.
+
+The fatal necessity of event upon event, of omen, dream, and vision,
+is the great characteristic of the wondrous Greek drama. So awfully
+portrayed is the _OEdipus_--and with more grand and prophetic
+mystery pervading the _Agamemnon_. Had it not been congenial with
+popular belief, it could never have been so received; nor, indeed,
+could somewhat similar (though degraded from their high authority, as
+standing less alone by their amalgamation with a purer creed)
+characteristics in some of the plays of our own Shakspeare have
+touched the mind to wonderment, had there been no innate feeling to
+which they might, and without effort, unite. The progress, however, of
+the omen and vision, clearer and clearer, pointing to the very deed,
+and even while its enactment has commenced, and that fatality by which
+(prophetic, too) the plainest prophecy is unheeded, contemned, and the
+Prophetess herself doomed, and knowing herself doomed, may be
+considered as an epitome of the Grecian creeds upon the subject. It
+was no vulgar punning spirit that designated the very _name_ of Helen
+as a cursing omen.
+
+   [Greek:
+   "Tis pot' honomazen hod
+    Es to pan etetumos--
+    Me tis onton ouch oro--
+    Men pronoaisi tou pepromeuou
+    Glossan en tucha nemon."]
+
+Helen, the destroyer--yes, that was her significant name. The present
+King of the French was not allowed to assume the title of Valois,
+which was, strictly speaking, his, and instead assumed that of Duc de
+Chartres, on account of an evil omen attached to the former name; and
+that evil omen originating in a curious fact, the seeing of a spectre
+by that German princess who succeeded the poisoned sister of our
+second Charles. But there is nothing in modern history more analogous
+to the fatalities of the Grecian drama than those singular passages
+relating to the death of Henry the Fourth of France. We have the
+gravest authority of the gravest historians, that prophecies,
+warnings, and omens so prepared Henry for his death, that he waited
+for it with a calm resignation, as to an irresistible fatality. "In
+fact," (says an eloquent writer in Maga of April 1840,) "it is to this
+attitude of listening expectation in the king, and breathless waiting
+for the blow, that Schiller alludes in that fine speech of Wallenstein
+to his sister, where he notices the funeral knells that sounded
+continually in Henry's ears; and, above all, his prophetic instinct,
+that caught the sound from a far distance of his murderer's motions,
+that could distinguish, amidst all the tumult of a mighty Capital,
+those stealthy steps."
+
+And does it seem so strange to you, Eusebius, if the ear and the eye,
+those outposts, as it were, of the ever watchful, spiritual, and
+intellectual sentinels within man, convey the secret intelligences
+that most concern him? What is there, Eusebius, so marvellous to your
+conception, if there be sympathy more than electric between those two
+worlds, outer Nature and Man himself? If earth, that with him and for
+him partook of one curse, with all its accompanying chain and
+interchange of elements, be still one with him, in utterance and
+signification, whether of his weal or woe. The sunshine and the gloom
+enter into him, and are his; they reflect his feelings, or rather they
+are his feelings, almost become his flesh--they are his bodily
+sensations. The winds and the waters, in their gentler breathings and
+their sullen roar, are but the music of his mind, echo his joys, his
+passions, or funereally rehearse the dirge of his fate.
+
+Reject not, my Eusebius, any fact, because it seems little and
+trifling; a mite is a wonder in creation, from which deep, hidden
+truths present themselves. It was a heathen thought, an imperfect
+conception of the wide sympathy of all nature, and of that meaning
+which every particle of it can convey, and more significantly as we
+calculate our knowledge;--it was a heathen thought, that the poet
+should lament the unlikeliness of the flowers of the field to man in
+their fall and reappearance. It was not the blessing given to his
+times to see the perfectness of the truth--the "non omnis moriar"
+indicated even in his own lament.[36]
+
+I had written thus far, when our friend H---l---r looked in upon me,
+and enquired what I was about; I told him I was writing to you, and
+the subject of my letter. He is this moment gone, and has left with me
+these two incidents. They came within his own experience. He
+remembers, that when he was a boy, he was in a room with several of
+his brothers, some of whom were unwell, yet not seriously ill. On a
+sudden, there was a great noise, so great, that it could be compared
+to nothing but the firing of a pistol--a pane in the window was
+broken; not, he said, to _pieces_, but literally to a _powder_ of
+glass. All in the house heard it, with the exception of one of his
+brothers, which struck them as very strange. The servants from below,
+and their mother from above, rushed into the room, fearing one of them
+might have been shot. The mother, when she saw how it was, told
+H---l---r that his brother, who did not hear the noise, she knew it well,
+would die. At that same hour next day that brother did die.
+
+The other story is more singular. His family were very intimate with
+another, consisting of father, mother, and an only daughter--a child.
+Of her the father was so fond, that he was never happy but when she
+was with him. It happened that he lost his health, and during his long
+illness, continually prayed that, when he was gone, his child too
+should be shortly taken from this world, and that he might be with her
+in a better. He died--when, a short time after his death, the child,
+who was in perfect health, came rushing into the presence of her
+mother, from a little room which looked out upon a court, but from
+which there was no entrance to the room--she came rushing to her
+mother, calling out--"Oh, papa, papa! I have seen papa in the court,
+and he called me to him. I must go--open the door for me--do, mamma! I
+must go, for he called me." Within twenty-four hours that child was
+dead. Now, said H--l--r, I knew this to be a fact, as well as I ever
+knew any act, for our families were like one family. Sweet image of
+infant and of parental love!--let us excuse the prayer, by that of the
+ancient mother, who, when her sons dragged her chariot to the temple,
+prayed that they might receive from the gods what was best for
+them--and they were found dead in the temple. How beautiful is the
+smile of the sleeping infant! "Holds it not converse with angels?" the
+thought is natural--ministering spirits may be unseen around us, and
+in all space, and love the whispering speech in the ear of sleeping
+innocence; there is visible joy in the face, yet how little can it
+know of pleasurable sensations, communicable through this world's
+objects? How know we but the sense must be deteriorated, to make it
+serviceable for the lower purposes for which in part the child is
+born?--as the air we breathe must have something of poison, or it
+would be too pure for mortal beings. Look down some lengthening valley
+from a height, Eusebius, at the hour of twilight, when all lands,
+their marks and boundaries, grow dim, and only here and there the
+scant light indicates lowly dwellings, shelters of humanity in earth's
+sombre bosom, and mark the vast space of vapour that fills all
+between, and touches all, broods over all--can you think this little
+world of life that you know by having walked its path, and now see so
+indistinguishable, to be the all of existence before you? Lone indeed
+would be the world were there nothing better than ourselves in it. No
+beings to watch for us, to warn us, to defend us from "the Power of
+the Air:" ministering spirits--and why not of the departed?--may be
+there. If there be those that in darkness persuade to evil--and in
+winter nights, the winds that shake the casement seem to denote to the
+guilty conscience the presence of avenging fiends--take we not peace
+and wholesome suggestion from milder influences of air and sunshine?
+Brighter may be, perhaps, the child's vision than ours; as it grows
+for the toil and work for which it is destined, there comes another
+picture of a stern and new reality, and that which brought the smile
+of joy upon the face, is but as a dissolving view; and then he becomes
+fully fitted for humanity, of which he was before but the embryo. And
+even in his progress, if he keep charge of his mind, in purity and in
+love, seem there not ministering spirits, that spread before him, in
+the mirage of the mind, scenes that look like a new creation? and
+pedants, in their kind, call this the poet's fancy, his imagination.
+
+Lately I have spent a month by the sea: the silent rocks seemed
+significant in their overhanging look, and silence, as listening to
+the incessant sea. It would be painful to think every thing insensible
+about us, but ourselves. I wonder not that the rocks, the woods, and
+wilds, were peopled by ancient Mythologists; and with beings, too,
+with whom humanity could sympathize. I would not think that the
+greater part of the earth's islands and continents were given up to
+hearts insensate; that there were nothing better than wildernesses of
+chattering apes--no sounds more rational than
+
+    "The wolf's wild howl on Ulalaski's shore."
+
+I would rather think that there are myriads of beings of higher nature
+than ourselves, whose passage is [Greek: hoste noema], and whose home
+is ubiquity; and such as these may have their missions to us, and may
+sometimes take the dying breath of father or of brother in far-off
+seas, and instinct with, and maintaining in themselves, made visible,
+that poor remnant of life, stand at a moment at the bedside of beloved
+relatives, even in most distant lands, and give to each a blessed
+interchange and intelligence. In every sense, indeed, we "see but in
+part." In the dulness of the day, we see not a tenth part of the
+living things that people the ground; a gleam of sunshine instantly
+discovers to us in leaf and flower a little world; and could we but
+remove this outward fog, this impure atmosphere of our mortal senses,
+that which may be occasionally granted at dying hour, we might behold
+all space peopled with the glory of created beings. There is a
+beautiful truth of best feeling hidden in the superstition, that at
+one particular moment on Christmas Eve, all the beasts of the field go
+down on their knees amidst the darkness, seen alone by their Creator's
+eye, and by that angelic host that sing again the first divine hymn of
+Palestine.
+
+I do not wonder that sailors are, what we choose to call, more
+superstitious than landsmen; with but a plank between them and
+death--unfathomable seas around them, whose depths are continual
+wonder, from whose unseen treasure-house, the
+
+        ----"billows roll ashore
+     The beryl and the golden ore."
+
+Seas and skies with the great attribute of life, motion--their very
+ship a personification, as it were a living creature--cut off,
+separated as they are for the most part, from cities, and the
+mind-lowering ways of cities, which they see recede from them and melt
+into utter insignificance, leaving for companionship but the winds and
+the waters. Can it be a matter of wonder, if, with warm wishes and
+affections in their breasts, their imaginations shape the clouds and
+mists into being, messengers between them and the world they have all
+but lost? The stars, those "watches of the night," to them are not the
+same, changing yet ever significant. Even the waters about them, which
+by day are apparently without a living thing beyond the life of their
+own motion, in the darkness glittering with animated fire; can we
+wonder, then, if their thoughts rise from these myriad, invisible,
+lucent worms of the sea, to a faith in the more magnificent beings who
+"clothe themselves with light;" and if they believe that such are
+present, unseen, commissioned to guard and guide them in ways perilous
+and obscure? Seamen, accustomed to observe signs in their great
+solitude, unattracted by the innumerable sights and businesses of
+other life, are ever open and ready to receive signs and
+significations even of omen and vision; whereas he that is engaged in
+crowded street and market, heeds no sign, though it were offered, but
+that which his little and engrossing interests make for him; he,
+indeed, may receive "angels' visits unaware." Omens, dreams, and
+visions are to seamen more real, more frequent, as more congenial with
+their wants; and some extraordinary cases have even been registered in
+ships' logs, not resting on the credibility of one but of a crew, and
+such logs, if I mistake not, have been admitted evidence in courts of
+judicature. Am I led away by the subject, Eusebius? You will say I am;
+yet I could go on--the wonder increases--the common earth is not their
+sure grave--
+
+   "Nothing of them that doth fade,
+    But doth suffer a sea-change
+    Into something rich and strange."
+
+But I must not pursue this, lest, in your wit, you find reason to
+compare me to that great philosopher, who gravely asserted that he had
+discovered how to make a mermaid, but abstained from using the
+receipt; and I am quite sure you are not likely to resemble the
+learned Dr Farmer, who folded down the page for future experiment.[37]
+
+It is not very long ago that I was discussing subjects of this kind
+with our acute friend S---- V----. I send you a letter received from
+him, written, I presume, more for you than myself; for I told him I
+was on the point of answering yours, which he read. His attempt to
+account for any of his stories by common coincidences, is rather
+indicative of his naturally inquisitive mind than of his real belief;
+and I suspect he has been led into that train of argument by his
+hostility to mesmerism, which he pronounces to be a cheat from
+beginning to end; and he cannot but see that, granting mesmerism, the
+step in belief beyond is easy. He would, therefore, have no such
+stepping stone; and lest confidence in dreams, omens, &c., should make
+mesmerism more credible, he has been a little disposed to trim his own
+opinions on the subject. You will judge for yourself--here is his
+letter:--
+
+    "My dear --------,--You desire me to give you a written account
+    of the dreams which I related to you when we lately met, and
+    amused ourselves with speculations on these mysterious phenomena.
+
+    "_Dream I._--Mrs X----, when a child, was attached to Captain
+    T----, R.N. She had been brought up from infancy by her uncle and
+    aunt, with whom she resided, and with whom Captain T---- had long
+    been on terms of the most intimate friendship and regard. At the
+    time to which I now refer, Captain T---- commanded a frigate in
+    the West Indies, where he had been stationed for some months;
+    letters had been occasionally received from him; his health had
+    not suffered from the climate, nor had any of his friends in
+    England the least reason to apprehend that a man of his age, good
+    constitution, and temperate habits, by whom also the service in
+    which he was engaged had been eagerly desired, would be likely to
+    suffer from the diseases of these latitudes. One morning Mrs
+    X----, (then Miss X----,) appeared at the breakfast table with an
+    expression of grief on her countenance, that at once induced her
+    uncle and aunt to ask the cause. She said, that she had dreamed
+    that Captain T---- had died of fever in the West Indies, and that
+    the intelligence had been sent in a large letter to her uncle. The
+    young lady's uncle and aunt both represented to her the weakness
+    of yielding to the impression of a dream, and she appeared to
+    acquiesce in the good sense of their remonstrances--when, shortly
+    after, the servant brought in the letter-case from the
+    Post-office, and when her uncle had unlocked it, and was taking
+    out the letters, (there were several,) Miss X---- instantly
+    exclaimed, pointing to one of them--'That's the letter! I saw it
+    in my dream!' It was the letter--a large letter, of an official
+    size, addressed to her uncle, and conveying precisely the event
+    which Miss X---- had announced.
+
+    "_Dream II._--General D----, R.M., was one morning conversing with
+    me on the subject of dreams, and gave me the following
+    relation:--'I had the command of the marines on board a frigate,
+    and in company with another frigate, (giving names and date,) was
+    proceeding to America, when, on joining the breakfast table, I
+    told my brother officers that I had had a very vivid and singular
+    dream. That I had dreamed that the day was calm, as it now was,
+    and bright, but with some haziness in the distance; and that
+    whilst we were at breakfast, as we now are, the master-at-arms
+    came in and announced two sail in the distance. I thought we all
+    immediately ran on deck--saw the two ships--made them out to be
+    French frigates, and immediately gave chase to them. The wind
+    being light, it was long before we could approach the enemy near
+    enough to engage them; and when, in the evening, a distant fire
+    was commenced, a shot from the frigate which we attacked, carried
+    away our foretopmast, and, consequently, we were unable to
+    continue the chase. Our companion, also, had kept up a distant
+    fire with the other French frigate, but in consequence of our
+    damage, shortened sail to keep company with us during the night.
+    On the following morning the French frigates had made their
+    escape--no person had been killed or wounded on board our own
+    ship; but in the morning we were hailed by our companion, and told
+    that she had lost two men. Shortly after, whilst my brother
+    officers were making comments on my dream--and before the
+    breakfast table was cleared, the master-at-arms made his
+    appearance, announcing, to the great surprise of all present, two
+    sail in the distance; (and General D---- assured me that on
+    reaching the deck they appeared to him precisely the same in place
+    and distance as in his dream)--'the chase--the distant action--the
+    loss of the topmast--the escape of the enemy during the night--and
+    the announcement from the companion frigate that she had lost two
+    men--all took place precisely as represented in my dream.' The
+    General had but just concluded his narration, when a coincidence
+    took place, little less extraordinary than that of the dream and
+    its attendant circumstances.--The door opened, and a gentleman
+    rushed into the room with all that eagerness which characterizes
+    the unexpected meeting of warm friends after a long absence--and
+    immediately after the first cordial greetings, General D----
+    said--'My dear F----, it is most singular, that although we have
+    not met during the last fifteen years, and I had not the most
+    distant expectation of seeing or hearing from you, yet you were in
+    my thoughts not five minutes ago--I was relating to my friend my
+    extraordinary dream when on board the ----; you were present, and
+    cannot have forgotten it.' Major F---- replied, that he remembered
+    it most accurately, and, at his friend's request, related it to
+    me, in every particular correspondent with the General's account.
+
+    "What I now relate to you cannot be called a dream, but it bears a
+    close affinity to 'those shadowy tribes of mind' which constitute
+    our sleeping phantasmagoria. Calling one morning on my friend, Mrs
+    D----m, who had for some time resided in my neighbourhood, I
+    found her greatly distressed at the contents of a letter which she
+    had just received. The letter was from her sister, Mrs B----, who
+    was on her return to England, on board the ----, East Indiaman,
+    accompanied by her two youngest children, and their nurse; Mr
+    B----, her husband, remaining in India. One morning, shortly after
+    breakfast, Mrs B---- was sitting in the cabin, with many other
+    passengers present, but not herself at that moment engaged in
+    conversation with them; when she suddenly turned her head, and
+    exclaimed aloud, and with extreme surprise, 'Good God! B----, is
+    that you?' At the same moment the children, who were with their
+    nurse at a distant part of the ship, too far off, it is stated, to
+    have heard their mother's exclamation, both cried out, 'Papa!
+    papa!' Mrs B---- declared, that the moment she spoke, she saw her
+    husband most distinctly, but the vision instantly vanished. All
+    the persons present noted the precise time of this singular
+    occurrence, lat. and long., &c., and Mrs B----'s letter to her
+    sister was written immediately after it; it was forwarded to
+    England by a vessel that was expected to reach home before the
+    East Indiaman, and which did precede her by some weeks. No
+    reasonings that I could offer were sufficient to relieve my
+    friend's mind from the conviction that her sister had lost her
+    husband, and that his decease had been thus mysteriously announced
+    to her, until letters arrived from Mr B----, attesting his perfect
+    health, which he enjoyed for some years after--and I believe he is
+    still living.
+
+    "To arrive at any reasonable conclusion respecting the phenomena
+    of dreams, we require data most difficult to be obtained; we
+    should compare authentic dreams, faithfully related, with their
+    equally well-attested attendant and _precedent_ circumstances. But
+    who can feel certain that he correctly relates even his own dream?
+    I have many times made the attempt, but cannot be perfectly sure
+    that in the act of recording a dream, I have not given more of
+    order to the succession of the events than the dream itself
+    presented. In the case of the first dream, the mere delivery of a
+    letter, there is no succession of events, and therefore no ground
+    to suppose that any invention could have been added to give it
+    form and consistency. The young lady knew that her friend was in
+    the West Indies; she knew, too, the danger of that climate, and
+    had often seen the Admiral, her uncle, receive official letters.
+    Some transient thoughts on these subjects, although too transient
+    to be remembered, unquestionably formed her dream. That the letter
+    really arrived and confirmed the event predicted, can only be
+    referable to those coincidences which are not of very uncommon
+    occurrence in daily life. To similar causes I attribute the second
+    dream; and even its external fulfilment in so many particulars can
+    hardly be deemed more extraordinary than the coincidence of the
+    sudden and wholly unexpected arrival of Major F----, just at the
+    very moment after General D---- had related to me his dream. The
+    third narrative admits of an easy solution. Mrs B---- was not in
+    good health. Thinking of her husband, in a state of reverie, a
+    morbid spectrum might be the result--distinct enough to cause her
+    sudden alarm and exclamation which, if the children heard, (and
+    children distinguish their mother's voice at a considerable
+    distance--the cabin door, too, might have been open, and the
+    children much nearer than they were supposed to have been,) would
+    account at once for their calling out 'Papa! papa!' During our
+    waking hours, we are never conscious of any complete suspension of
+    thought, even for a moment; if fatigued by any long and laborious
+    mental exertion, such as the solution of a complicated
+    mathematical problem, how is the weariness relieved? Not by
+    listless rest like the tired body, but by a change of subject--a
+    change of action--a new train of thoughts and expressions. Are we,
+    then, always dreaming when asleep? We certainly are not conscious
+    that we are; but it may be that in our sleep we do not remember
+    our dreams, and that it is only in imperfect sleep, or in the act
+    of waking, that the memory records them. That dreams occupy an
+    exceedingly short period of time, I know from my own experience;
+    for I once had, when a boy, a very long dream about a bird, which
+    was placed in an insecure place in my bedroom, being attacked by a
+    cat. The fall of the cage on the floor awoke me, and I sprang out
+    of bed in time to save the bird. The dream must, I think, have
+    been suggested by the fall of the cage; and, if so, my seemingly
+    long dream could only have occupied a mere point of time. I have
+    also experienced other instances nearly similar. It seems
+    reasonable, too, to suppose that this is generally the case; for
+    our dreams present themselves to us as pictures, with the subjects
+    of which we are intimately acquainted. I now glance my eye at the
+    fine landscape hanging in my room. You may say of it, as Falstaff
+    said of Prince Henry, 'By the Lord, I know you as well as he that
+    made you.' Well, it is full of subject, full of varied beauty and
+    grand conception--a 'paulo majora' eclogue. When I first saw it, I
+    could barely read it through in an hour. For pictures that are
+    what pictures ought to be, Poems to the eye, demand and repay this
+    investigating attention--those that do not demand and suggest
+    thoughts are not worth a thought; but this picture, now its every
+    part, tint, and sentiment, have long been intimately known to me.
+    I see, at a glance, its entire subject--ay, at a glance, too, see
+    the effect which a casual gleam of light has just thrown over it.
+    Is it not probable, then, that our dreams may be equally
+    suggestive, in as short a space of time? Dreams that have not some
+    connexion, something of a continuity of events, however wild, are
+    not retained by the memory. Most persons would find it much more
+    difficult to learn to repeat the words in a dictionary, than a
+    page of poetry of equal length; and many dreams are probably
+    framed of very unconnected materials. In falling asleep, I have
+    often been conscious of the dissevering of my thoughts--like a
+    regiment dismissed from parade, they seemed to straggle away "in
+    most admired disorder;" but these scattered bands muster together
+    again in our sleep; and, as these have all been levied from the
+    impressions, cogitations, hopes, fears, and affections, of our
+    waking hours, however strangely they may re-combine, if they do
+    combine with sufficient continuity to be remembered, the form
+    presented, however wild, will always be found, on a fair analysis,
+    to be characteristic of the dreamer. They are his own thoughts
+    oddly joined, like freshwater Polyps, which may be divided, and
+    then stuck again together, so as to form chains, or any other
+    strange forms, across the globe of water in which they may be
+    exhibited. In Devonshire, the peasantry have a good term to
+    express that wandering of thought, and imperfect dreaming, which
+    is common in some states of disease.--"Oh, sir, he has been lying
+    pretty still; but he has been _roading_ all night." By this, they
+    mean, that the patient, in imperfect sleep, has been muttering
+    half-connected sentences; and the word, _roading_, is taken from
+    the mode in which they catch woodcocks. At the last gleam of
+    evening, the woodcocks rise from their shelter in the woods, and
+    wind their way to the open vistas, which lead to the adjacent
+    meadows, where they go to feed during the night; and they return
+    to their covert, through the same vistas, with the first beam of
+    morning. At the end of these vistas, which they call 'cock-roads,'
+    the woodcock catchers suspend nets to intercept the birds in their
+    evening and morning flights, and great numbers are taken in this
+    manner; the time when they suspend the nets, is called
+    roading-time; and thus, by applying the term, roading, to
+    disturbed and muttered sleep, they compare the dim, loose thoughts
+    of the half-dreaming patient, to the flight of the woodcocks,
+    wheeling their way through the gloomy and darkling woods. It has
+    been asserted that we never feel _surprise_ in our dreams; and
+    that we do not _reason_ on the subjects which they present to us.
+    This, from my own experience, I know to be a mistake. I once
+    dreamed, whilst residing with a friend in London, that on entering
+    his breakfast-room, the morning was uncommonly dark; but not very
+    much more so than sometimes occurs in a November fog, when, as
+    some one has said, the thick yellow air makes you think you are
+    walking through pease-soup, and the sun, when seen at all, looks
+    like the yolk of a poached egg floating on it. My friend was
+    seated alone by the table, resting his head thoughtfully on his
+    hand, when, looking towards me, with a very serious countenance,
+    he said--'Can you account for this darkness? There is no eclipse
+    stated in the almanack. Some change is taking place in our system.
+    Go to N----, (a philosophical neighbour, who lived within three
+    doors of our house,) and ask if he can explain it.' I certainly
+    felt much surprised at my friend's observations. I went to N----
+    's house--or, rather, I found myself in his room. He was walking
+    up and down the room in evident perplexity; and, turning to me,
+    said, 'This is very extraordinary! A change is taking place in our
+    system!--look at the barometer.'--I looked at the barometer, which
+    appeared to be hanging in its usual place in the room, and saw,
+    with great surprise, that the tube was without quicksilver; it had
+    fallen almost entirely down to the bulb. Certainly in this dream I
+    felt great _surprise_, and that the faculty of reason was not
+    suspended is apparent, nay, perhaps, it was quickened in this
+    instance, for I doubt, if I had really seen the praeternatural
+    darkness, whether I should so readily have thought of consulting
+    an almanack, or referring to a barometer; I should certainly have
+    gone to my friend N----, for I was in the frequent habit of
+    appealing to him on any subject of natural philosophy on which I
+    might be desirous to be fully instructed. It is clear that the
+    fabricator of the Ephesian Diana could not pay real adoration to
+    his own work; and as we must be the artificers of our own dreams,
+    and furnish all the materials, it seems difficult to discover by
+    what process the mind can present subjects of surprise to itself;
+    but surprise is that state of mind which occurs when an object or
+    idea is presented to it, which our previous train of thought would
+    not lead us to expect or account for. In dreams the catenation of
+    our ideas is very imperfect and perplexed; and the mind, by
+    forgetting its own faint and confused links of association, may
+    generate subjects of surprise to itself. There are some dreams
+    which we dream over again many times in our lives, but these
+    dreams are generally mere scenes, with little or no action or
+    dialogue. I formerly often dreamed that I was standing on a broad
+    road by the side of a piece of water, (in which geese were
+    swimming,) surrounding the base of a green hill, on the summit of
+    which were the ruins of a castle: the sun shining brightly, and
+    the blue sky throwing out the yellow stone-work of the ruin in
+    strong relief. This dream always gave me an indefinite sense of
+    pleasure. I fancied I had formed it from some picture that I might
+    at some time have casually seen and forgotten; but a few years ago
+    I visited the village in which I was born, and from which I had
+    been removed when about three and a half years old. I found that I
+    well remembered many things which might have engaged the attention
+    of a child. The house in which my parents resided was little
+    changed; and I remembered every room, and the pictures on the
+    Dutch tiles surrounding the fireplace of that which had been our
+    nursery. I pointed out the house where sugar-candy had formerly
+    been sold, and went to the very spot in the churchyard where I had
+    been led, when a child, to call out my name and hear the echo from
+    the tower. I then went by a pathway, through some fields, which
+    led to a neighbouring town. In these fields I recognised a
+    remarkable stone stile, and a bank on which I had gathered
+    daisies; then, extending my route, that I might return to the
+    village by a different course, suddenly the prototype of my often
+    dreamed dream stood before me. The day was bright. There was the
+    blue sky--the green hill--the geese in the surrounding water. 'In
+    every form of the thing _my dream_ made true and good.' The
+    distance of this spot from the house of my birth was rather a long
+    walk for a child so young; and, therefore, I suppose I might only
+    once or twice have seen it, and then only in the summer, or in
+    bright weather. I have said that that dream, whenever it recurred,
+    always impressed me with an indefinite sense of pleasure; was not
+    this feeling an echo, a redolence, of the happy, lively sensations
+    with which, as a child, I had first witnessed the scene? It is
+    singular that, remembering so many objects much less likely to
+    have fixed themselves on the memory, I should have so utterly
+    forgotten, in my waking hours, the real existence of that of which
+    my dream had so faithfully Daguerreotyped; and it is not less
+    remarkable that I have never had the dream since I recognised its
+    original. I think I can account for this, but will not now attempt
+    it, as the length of my epistle may probably have put you in a
+    fair way of having dreams of your own.--Ever faithfully yours.
+
+    "C. S."
+
+This last dream of our friend exhibits one of the phenomena of memory,
+which may not be unconnected with another, curious, and I suppose
+common. Did you never feel a sense of a reduplication of any passing
+occurrence, act, or scene--something which you were saying or doing,
+or in which you were actor or spectator? Did you never, while the
+occurrence was taking place, suddenly feel a consciousness of its
+pre-existence and pre-acting; that the whole had passed before, just
+as it was then passing, even to the details of place, persons, words,
+and circumstances, and this not in events of importance, but mostly in
+those of no importance whatever; as if life and all its phenomena were
+a duplicate in itself, and that that which is acting here, were at the
+same time acting also elsewhere, and the fact were suddenly revealed
+to you? I call this one of the phenomena of memory, because it may
+possibly be accounted for by the repercussion of a nerve, an organ,
+which, like the string of an instrument unequally struck, will double
+the sound. Vibrations of memory--vibrations of imagination are curious
+things upon which to speculate; but not now, Eusebius--you must work
+this out yourself.
+
+What a curious story is that of Pan.[38] "Pan is dead,"--great Pan is
+dead--as told by Plutarch. Was not one commissioned by dream or vision
+to go to a particular place to proclaim it there; and is it not added
+that the cry "great Pan is dead," was re-echoed from shore to shore,
+and that this happened at the time of the ceasing of oracles?
+
+It little matters whether you look to public events or private
+histories--you will see signs and omens, and wondrous visitations,
+prefiguring and accomplishing their purposes; and if occasionally,
+when too they are indisputable, they seem to accomplish no end, it may
+be only a seeming non-accomplishment--but suppose it real, it would
+then the more follow, that they arise necessarily from the nature of
+things, though a nature with which we are not acquainted. There is an
+unaccountable sympathy and connexion between all animated
+nature--perhaps the invisible, as well as the visible. Did you never
+remark, that in a crowded room, if you fix your eyes upon any one
+person, he will be sure soon to look at you? Whence is this more than
+electric power! Wonderful is that of yawning, that it is
+communicable;--it is so common, that the why escapes our observation.
+This attractive power, the fascination of the eye, is still more
+wonderful. Hence, perhaps, the superstition of the "Evil Eye," and the
+vulgarly believed mischief of "being overlooked."
+
+Of private histories--I should like to see the result of a commission
+to collect and enquire into the authenticity of anecdotes bearing upon
+this subject. I will tell you one, which is traditionary in our
+family--of whom one was of the _dramatis personae_. You know the old
+popular ballad of "Margaret's Ghost"--
+
+  "In glided Margaret's grimly ghost,
+   And stood at William's feet."
+
+You do not know, perhaps that it is founded on truth. William was Lord
+S----, who had jilted Margaret; she died; and after death appeared to
+him--and, it is said, gave him the choice of two things--to die within
+a week, or to vow constancy, never to marry. He gave the solemn
+promise to the ghost. We must transfer the scene to the living world
+of pleasure. Lord S---- is at Bath. He is in the rooms; suddenly he
+starts--is so overcome as to attract general attention--his eyes are
+riveted upon one person, the beautiful Mary T----, whose father
+resided in great style and fashion at Bathford. It was her resemblance
+to Margaret, her astonishing resemblance, that overcame him. He
+thought the ghost had again appeared. He was introduced--and, our
+family tradition says, was for a length of time a daily visitor at
+Bathford, where his habit was, to say little, but to sit opposite to,
+and fix his eyes upon the lovely face of Mary T----. The family not
+liking this, for there was no declaration on his part, removed Mary
+T---- to the house of some relative in London. There Lord S----
+followed her, and pursued his daily habit of profound admiration. At
+length the lady spoke, and asked him his intentions with regard to her
+guest. Lord S---- was in the greatest agitation, rose, burst into
+tears, and left the house. Time passed; and here nothing more is said
+of Mary T----; Lord S---- saw her no more. But of him, it is added,
+that, being persuaded by his family and friends, he consented to
+marry--that the bride and her relatives were at the appointed hour at
+the church--that no bridegroom was there--that messengers sent to
+enquire for him brought back the frightful intelligence, that he was
+no more. He had suddenly expired.
+
+My dear Eusebius, with this story I terminate my long letter. Ruminate
+upon the contents. Revolved in your mind, they will yield a rich
+harvest of thought. I hope to be at the reaping. Ever yours, &c.
+
+[Footnote 34: The story given by Eusebius is very probably of his own
+manufacture. It is this. Some years ago, when all the world were mad
+upon lotteries, the cook of a middle-aged gentleman drew from his
+hands the savings of some years. Her master, curious to know the
+cause, learned that she had repeatedly dreamed that a certain number
+was a great prize, and she had bought it. He called her a fool for her
+pains, and never omitted an occasion to tease her upon the subject.
+One day, however, the master saw in the newspaper, or at his
+bookseller's in the country town, that _the_ number was actually the
+L.20,000 prize. Cook is called up, a palaver ensues--had known each
+other many years, loth to part, &c.--in short, he proposes and is
+accepted, but insists on marriage being celebrated next morning.
+Married they were; and, as the carriage took them from the church they
+enjoy the following dialogue. "Well, Molly--two happy events in one
+day. You have married, I trust, a good husband. You have something
+else--but first let me ask you where you have locked up your
+lottery-ticket." Molly, who thought her master was only bantering her
+again on the old point, cried--"Don't ye say no more about it. I
+thought how it would be, and that I never should hear the end on't, so
+I sold it to the baker of our village for a guinea profit. So you need
+never be angry with me again about that."]
+
+[Footnote 35: Supposing mesmerism true in its facts, one knows not to
+what power to ascribe it--a good or an evil. It is difficult to
+imagine it possible that a good power would allow one human being such
+immense influence over others. All are passive in the hands of the
+mesmeriser. Let us take the case related by Miss Martineau. She
+willed, and the water drunk by the young girl _was_ wine, at another
+time it _was_ porter. These were the effects. Now, supposing Miss M.
+had willed it to be a poison, if her statement is strictly true, the
+girl would have been poisoned. We need no hemlock, if this be so--and
+the agent must be quite beyond the reach of justice. A coroner's
+inquest here would be of little avail.
+
+It is said that most mischievous consequences have resulted from the
+doings of some practitioners--and it must be so, if the means be
+granted; and it is admitted not to be a very rare gift. The last
+mesmeric exhibition I witnessed, was at Dr Elliotson's. It appeared to
+be of so public a nature, that I presume there is no breach of
+confidence in describing what took place. There were three persons
+mesmerised, all from the lower rank of life. The first was put into
+the sleep by, I think, but two passes of the hand, (Lord Morpeth the
+performer.) She was in an easy-chair: all her limbs were rendered
+rigid--and, as I was quite close to her, I can testify that she
+remained above two hours in one position, without moving hand or foot,
+and breathing deeply, as in a profound sleep. Her eyes were closed,
+and she was finally wakened by Dr Elliotson waving his hand at some
+distance from her. As he motioned his hand, I saw her eyelids quiver,
+and at last she awoke, but could not move until the rigidity of her
+limbs was removed by having the hand slightly passed over them. She
+then arose, and walked away, as if unconscious of the state she had
+been in. The two others were as easily transferred to a mesmeric
+state. They conversed, answered questions, showed the usual
+phrenological phenomena, singing, imitating, &c.
+
+But there was one very curious phrenological experiment which deserves
+particular notice. They sat close together. Dr W. E---- touched the
+organ of Acquisitiveness of the one, (we will call her A.) She
+immediately put out her hand, as if to grasp something, and at length
+caught hold of the finger of Dr W. E----; she took off his ring and
+put it in her pocket. Dr W. E---- then touched the organ of Justice of
+the second girl, (B,) and told her that A had stolen his ring. B, or
+Justice, began to lecture upon the wickedness of stealing. A denied
+she had done any such thing, upon which Dr W. E---- remarked, that
+thieving and lying always went together. Then, still keeping his hand
+on Acquisitiveness, he touched also that of Pride; then, as Justice
+continued her lecture, the thief haughtily justified the act, that she
+should steal if she pleased. The mesmeriser then touched also the
+organ of Combativeness, so that three organs were in play. Justice
+still continued her lecture; upon which A, the thief, told her to hold
+her tongue, and not lecture her, and gave her several pretty hard
+slaps with her hand. Dr W. E---- then removed his hands, and
+transferred the operation, making Justice the thief, and the thief
+Justice; when a similar scene took place.
+
+Another curious experiment was, differently affecting the opposite
+organs--so that endearment was shown on one side, and aversion on the
+other, of the same person. One scene was beautiful, for the very
+graceful motion exhibited. One of these young women was attracted to
+Dr Elliotson by his beckoning her to him, while by word he told her
+not to come. Her movements were slow, very graceful, as if moved by
+irresistible power.]
+
+[Footnote 36: You remember the melancholy music of the lines of
+Moschus:--
+
+   [Greek: "Ai Ai tai malachai men epan kata katon olontai
+    E tachlora selina, to t' euthales oulon anedon,
+    Ysteron hauzoonti, kai eis etos allo phyonti.
+    Ammes d' hoi megaloi kai karteroi he sophoi andres,
+    Oppote prota thanomes, anakosi en chthoni koila
+    Eudames eu mala makron atermona negreton hypnon."]
+
+Accept of this attempt:--
+
+    Alas! alas! the mallows, though they wither where they lie,
+    And all the fresh and pleasant herbs within the garden die,
+    Another year they shall appear, and still fresh bloom supply.
+
+    But we, Great men, the strong, the wise, the noble, and the brave,
+    When once we fall into the earth, our nourriture that gave,
+    Long silence keep of endless sleep, within the hollow grave.]
+
+[Footnote 37: _Vide_ an amusing little _jeu-d'esprit--A Descant upon
+Weather-Wisdom--both Witty and Wise._--ANON. Longmans. 1845.]
+
+[Footnote 38: There is an exquisite little poem, taken from this
+passage of Plutarch, at once imaginative and true, for hidden truths
+are embodied in the tangible workings of the poet's imagination, by
+Miss Barrett.]
+
+
+
+
+A MOTHER TO HER FORSAKEN CHILD.
+
+
+    My child--my first-born! Oh, I weep
+      To think of thee--thy bitter lot!
+    The fair fond babe that strives to creep
+      Unto the breast where _thou art not_,
+    Awakes a piercing pang within,
+      And calls to mind thy heavy wrong.
+    Alas! I weep not for my sin--
+      To thy dark lot these tears belong.
+
+    Thy little arms stretch forth in vain
+      To meet a mother's fond embrace;
+    Alas! in weariness or pain,
+      Thou gazest on a hireling's face.
+    I left thee in thy rosy sleep--
+      I dared not then kneel down to bless;
+    Now--now, albeit thou may'st weep,
+      Thou canst not to my bosom press.
+
+    My child! though beauty tint thy cheek,
+      A deeper dye its bloom will claim,
+    When lips all pitiless shall speak
+      Thy mournful legacy of shame.
+    Perchance, when love shall gently steal
+      To thy young breast all pure as snow,
+    This cruel thought shall wreck thy weal,
+      _The mother's guilt doth lurk below_.
+
+    J. D.
+
+
+
+
+SUMMER NOONTIDE.
+
+
+    Unruffled the pure ether shines,
+      O'er the blue flood no vapour sails,
+    Bloom-laden are the clinging vines,
+      All odour-fraught the vales.
+
+    There's not a ripple on the main,
+      There's not a breath to stir the leaves,
+    The sunlight falls upon the plain
+      Beside the silent sheaves.
+
+    The drowsy herd forget to crop,
+      The bee is cradled in the balm:
+    If but one little leaf should drop,
+      'Twould break the sacred calm.
+
+    From the wide sea leaps up no voice,
+      Mute is the forest, mute the rill;
+    Whilst the glad earth sang forth _Rejoice_,
+      God's whisper said--_Be still_.
+
+    Her pulses in a lull of rest,
+      In hush submissive Nature lies,
+    With folded palms upon her breast,
+      Dreaming of yon fair skies.
+
+    J. D.
+
+
+
+
+TO CLARA.
+
+
+    I would not we should meet again--
+      We twain who loved so fond,
+    Although through years and years afar,
+      I wish'd for nought beyond.
+
+    Yet do I love thee none the less;
+      And aye to me it seems,
+    There's not on earth so fair a thing
+      As thou art in my dreams.
+
+    All, all hath darkly changed beside,
+      Grown old, or stern, or chill--
+    All, save one hoarded spring-tide gleam,
+      _Thy smile that haunts me still_!
+
+    My brow is but the register
+      Of youth's and joy's decline;
+    I would not trace such record too
+      Deep graven upon thine.
+
+    I would not _see_ how rudely Time
+      Hath dealt with all thy store
+    Of bloom and promise--'tis enough
+      To know the harvest's o'er.
+
+    I would not that one glance to-day,
+      One glance through clouds and tears,
+    Should mar the image in my soul
+      That love hath shrined for years.
+
+    J. D.
+
+
+
+
+SECLUSION.
+
+
+    The heart in sacred peace may dwell,
+      Apart from convent gloom--
+    To matins and to vespers rise,
+      'Mid nature's song and bloom:
+
+    Or in the busy haunts of life,
+      In gay or restless scene,
+    In sanctuary calm abide,
+      As vestal saint serene.
+
+    It is the pure and holy thought,
+      The spotless veil within,
+    That screens pollution from the breast,
+      And hides a world of sin.
+
+    J. D.
+
+
+
+
+THE LAST HOURS OF A REIGN.
+
+A TALE IN TWO PARTS.--PART I.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+      "Let's see the devil's writ.
+    What have we here?"
+
+         *       *       *       *       *
+
+   "First of the King. What shall of him become?"
+                                         SHAKSPEARE.
+
+   "A pretty plot, well chosen to build upon."
+                                             IDEM.
+
+
+It was in the month of May 1574, and in the city of Paris, that, at an
+hour of the night which in these days might be considered somewhat
+early, but which at that period was already late, two personages were
+seated in a gloomy room, belonging to a small and ancient hotel, at no
+great distance from the old palace of the Louvre, with which it was
+supposed to communicate by courts and passages little known and seldom
+used.
+
+One of these personages was a woman of middle age, whose form,
+although full, was peculiarly well made, and whose delicate but well
+fleshed hands were of striking beauty. The fair face was full and fat,
+but very pale; the eyes were fine and dark, and the whole expression
+of her physiognomy was in general calm, almost to mildness. But yet
+there lurked a haughty air on that pale brow; and at times a look of
+searching inquisitiveness, amounting almost to cunning, shot from
+those dark eyes. Her ample dress was entirely black, and unrelieved by
+any of the embroidery or ornament so much lavished upon the dress of
+the higher classes at that time; a pair of long white ruffles turned
+back upon the sleeve, and a large standing collar of spotless purity,
+alone gave light to the dark picture of her form. Upon her head she
+wore a sort of skull-cap of black velvet, descending with a sharp peak
+upon her forehead--the cowl-like air of which might almost have given
+her the appearance of the superior of some monastic community, had not
+the cold imperious physiognomy of the abbess been modified by a
+frequent bland smile, which showed her power of assuming the arts of
+seduction at will, and her practice of courts. She leaned her arms
+upon the table, whilst she studied with evident curiosity every
+movement of her companion, who was engaged in poring, by the light of
+a lamp, over a variety of strange manuscripts, all covered with the
+figures, cyphers, and hieroglyphics used in cabalistic calculations.
+
+This other personage was a man, whose appearance of age seemed to be
+more studied than real. His grey hair, contrary to the custom of the
+times, fell in thick locks upon his shoulders; and a white beard swept
+his dark velvet robe, which was fashioned to bestow upon him an air of
+priestly dignity; but his face was florid, and full of vigour, and the
+few wrinkles were furrowed only upon his brow.
+
+Around the room, the dark old panels of which, unrelieved by pictures
+and hangings, rendered it gloomy and severe, were scattered books and
+instruments, such as were used by the astronomers, or rather
+astrologers, of the day, and a variety of other objects of a bizarre
+and mysterious form, which, as the light of the lamp flickered feebly
+upon them, might have been taken, in their dark nooks, for the
+crouching forms of familiar imps, attendant upon a sorcerer. After
+some study of his manuscripts, the old man shook his head, and,
+rising, walked to the window, which stood open upon a heavy stone
+balcony. The night was bright and calm; not a cloud, not a vapour
+dimmed the glitter of the countless myriads of stars in the firmament;
+and the moon poured down a flood of light upon the roofs of the
+surrounding houses, and on the dark towers of the not far distant
+Louvre, which seemed quietly sleeping in the mild night-air, whilst
+within were fermenting passions, many and dark, like the troubled
+dreams of the apparently tranquil sleeper. As the old man stepped upon
+the balcony, he turned up his head with an assumed air of inspiration
+to the sky, and considered the stars long and in silence. The female
+had also risen and followed him to the window; but she remained
+cautiously in the shadow of the interior of the room, whence she
+watched with increasing interest the face of the astrologer. Again,
+after this study of the stars, the old man returned to his table, and
+began to trace new figures in various corners of the patterned
+horoscopes, and make new calculations. The female stood before him,
+resting her hands upon the table, awaiting with patience the result of
+these mysteries of the cabala.
+
+"Each new experience verifies the former," said the astrologer,
+raising up his head at last. "The truth cannot be concealed from your
+majesty. His hours are numbered--he cannot live long."
+
+"And it is of a surety _he_, of whom the stars thus speak?" enquired
+the female thus addressed, without emotion.
+
+"The horoscopes all clash and cross each other in many lines,"
+answered the astrologer: "but they are not confounded with his. The
+horoscope of near and inevitable death is that of your son Charles,
+the King."
+
+"I know that he must die," said the Queen-mother coldly, sitting down.
+
+The astrologer raised for an instant his deep-set, but piercing grey
+eyes, to the pale, passionless face of the Queen, as if he could have
+read the thoughts passing within. There was almost a sneer upon his
+lip, as though he would have said, that perhaps none knew it better;
+but that expression flickered only, like a passing flash of faint
+summer lightning, and he quickly resumed--
+
+"But about this point of death are centred many confused and jarring
+lines in an inextricable web; and bright as they look to vulgar eyes,
+yon stars in the heavens shine with a lurid light to those who know to
+look upon them with the eyes of science; and upon their path is a dim
+trail of blood--troubled and harassed shall be _the last hours of this
+reign_."
+
+"But what shall be the issue, Ruggieri?" said the Queen eagerly.
+"Since Charles must die, I must resign myself to the will of destiny,"
+she added, with an air of pious humility; and then, as if throwing
+aside a mask which she thought needless before the astrologer, she
+continued with a bitterness which amounted almost to passion in one
+externally so cold--"Since Charles must die, he can be spared. He has
+thrown off my maternal authority; and with the obstinacy of suspicion,
+he has thwarted all my efforts to resume that power which he has
+wrested from me, and which his weak hands wield so ill. He has been
+taught to look upon me with mistrust; in vain I have combated this
+influence, and if it grow upon him, mistrust will ripen into hate. He
+regrets that great master-stroke of policy, which, by destroying all
+those cursed Huguenots, delivered us at one blow from our most deadly
+enemies. He has spoken of it with horror. He has dared to blame me. He
+has taken Henry of Navarre, the recusant Huguenot, the false wavering
+Catholic, to his counsels lately. He is my son no longer, since he no
+longer acknowledges his mother's will: and he can be spared! But when
+he is gone, what shall be the issue, Ruggieri? how stand the other
+horoscopes?"
+
+"The stars of the two Henrys rise together in the heavens" replied the
+Queen's astrologer and confidant. "Before them stands a house of
+double glory, which promises a double crown; but the order of the
+heavens is not such that I can read as yet, which of the two shall
+first enter it, or enter it alone."
+
+"A double crown!" said the Queen musingly. "Henry of Anjou, my son, is
+king of Poland, and on his brother's death is rightful king of France.
+Yes, and he _shall_ be king of France, and wear its crown. Henry never
+thwarted his mother's will, he was ever pliant as a reed to do her
+bidding; and when he is king, Catherine of Medicis may again resume
+the reins of power. You had predicted that he would soon return to
+France; and I promised him he should return, when unwillingly he
+accepted that barbarian crown, which Charles' selfish policy forced
+upon him, in order to rid himself of a brother whom he hated as a
+rival--hated because I loved him. Yes, he shall return to resume his
+rightful crown--a double crown! But Henry of Navarre also wears a
+crown, although it be a barren one--although the kingdom of Navarre
+bestow upon him a mere empty title. Shall it be his--the double crown?
+Oh! no! no! The stars cannot surely say it. Should all my sons die
+childless, it is his by right. But they shall not die to leave _him_
+their heir. No! sooner shall the last means be applied, and the
+detested son perish, as did his hated mother, by one of those
+incomprehensible diseases for which medicine has no cure. A double
+crown! Shall his be the crown of France also? Never! Ah! little did I
+think, Ruggieri, when I bestowed upon him my daughter Margaret's hand,
+and thus lured him and his abhorred party to the court to finish them
+with one blow, that Margaret of Valois would become a traitress to her
+own mother, and protect a husband whom she accepted so unwillingly!
+But Margaret is ambitious for her husband, although she loves him not,
+although she loves another: the two would wish to thwart her brothers
+of their birthright, that she might wear their crown on her own brow.
+Through her intervention, Henry of Navarre has escaped me. He has
+outlived the massacre of that night of triumph, when all his party
+perished; and now Charles loves him, and calls him 'upright, honest
+Henry,' and if I contend not with all the last remnants of my broken
+power, my foolish son, upon his death-bed, may place the regency in
+his hands, and deprive his scorned and ill-used mother of her rights.
+The regency! Ah! lies there the double crown? Ah! Ruggieri, Ruggieri,
+why can you only tell me thus far and no further?"
+
+"Madam," replied the wary astrologer, "the stars run in their slow
+unerring course. We cannot compel their path; we can only read their
+dictates."
+
+Catherine de Medicis rose and approached the window, through which she
+contemplated the face of the bright heavens.
+
+"Mysterious orbs of light," she said, stretching forth her arms--"ye
+who rule our destinies, roll on, roll on, and tarry not. Accomplish
+your great task of fate; but be it quickly, that I may know what
+awaits me in that secret scroll spread out above on which ye write the
+future. Let me learn the good, that I may be prepared to greet it--the
+ill, that I may know how to parry it."
+
+Strange was the compound of that credulous mind, which, whilst it
+sought in the stars the announcement of an inevitable fate, hoped to
+find in its own resources the means of avoiding it--which, whilst it
+listened to their supposed dictates as a slave, strove to command them
+as a mistress.
+
+"And the fourth horoscope that I have bid you draw?" said the Queen,
+returning to the astrologer. "How stands it?"
+
+"The star of your youngest son, the Duke of Alencon, is towering also
+to its culminating point," replied the old man, looking over the
+papers before him. "But it is nebulous and dim, and shines only by a
+borrowed light--that of another star which rises with it to the
+zenith. They both pursue the same path; and if the star of Alencon
+reach that house of glory to which it tends, that other star will
+shine with such a lustre as shall dim all other lights, however bright
+and glorious they now may be."
+
+"Ha! is it so?" said Catherine thoughtfully. "Alencon conspires also
+to catch the tottering crown which falls from the dying head of
+Charles. But he is too weak and wavering to pursue a steady purpose.
+He is led, Ruggieri--he is led. He is taught to believe that since his
+elder brother has chosen the crown of Poland, it is his to claim the
+throne which death will soon leave vacant. But he wants firmness of
+will--it is another that guides his feeble hand. That star which
+aspires to follow in the track of Alencon--I know it well, Ruggieri.
+It is that of the ambitious favourite of my youngest son, of Philip de
+la Mole. It is he who pushes him on. It is he who would see his master
+on the throne, in order to throne it in his place. He has that
+influence over Alencon which the mother possesses no longer; and were
+Alencon king, it would be Philip de la Mole who would rule the
+destinies of France, not Catherine de Medicis. Beneath that exterior
+of thoughtless levity, lie a bold spirit and an ardent ambition. He is
+an enemy not to be despised; and he shall be provided for. Alencon
+protects him--my foolish Margaret loves him--but there are still means
+to be employed which may curdle love to hate, and poison the secret
+cup of sympathy. They shall be employed. Ha! Alencon would be king,
+and Philip de la Mole would lord it over the spirits of the house of
+Medicis. But they must be bold indeed who would contend with
+Catherine. Pursue, Ruggieri, pursue. This star, which way does it
+tend?"
+
+"It aspires to the zenith, madam," replied the astrologer. "But, as I
+have said, upon the track there is a trail of blood."
+
+Catherine smiled.
+
+"My youngest son has already been here to consult you; I think you
+told me?" she said, with an enquiring look to the astrologer.
+
+"Among others, who have come disguised and masked, to seek to read
+their destinies in the skies, I have thought to recognise Monseigneur
+the Duke of Alencon," replied Ruggieri. "He was accompanied by a tall
+young man, of gay exterior and proud bearing."
+
+"It is the very man!" exclaimed the Queen. "And do they come again?"
+
+"I left their horoscope undetermined," replied the astrologer, "and
+they must come to seek an answer to my researches in the stars."
+
+"Let the stars lie, Ruggieri--do you hear?" pursued Catherine.
+"Whatever the stars may say, you must promise them every success in
+whatever enterprise they may undertake. You must excite their highest
+hopes. Push them on in their mad career, that their plans may be
+developed. Catherine will know how to crush them."
+
+"It shall be as your majesty desires," said the astrologer.
+
+As the Queen and the astrologer still conferred, a loud knocking at
+the outer gate caused them to pause. Steps were heard ascending the
+hollow-sounding staircase.
+
+"I will dismiss these importunate visitors," said Ruggieri.
+
+"No," said Catherine, "admit them; and if it be really they you
+expect, leave them alone after a time, and come, by the outer passage,
+to the secret cabinet: there will I be. I may have directions to give;
+and, at all events, the cabinet may prove useful, as it has already
+done."
+
+Impatient knockings now resounded upon the panels of the door, and the
+Queen-mother, hastily snatching up a black velvet mask and a thick
+black veil, which hung upon the back of her high carved chair, flung
+the latter over her head, so as to conceal her features almost as
+entirely as if she had worn the mask. Ruggieri, in the meantime, had
+pushed back a part of the panel of the oak walls, and when Catherine
+had passed through it into a little room beyond, again closed this
+species of secret door, so effectually that it would have been
+impossible to discover any trace of the aperture. The astrologer then
+went to open the outer door. The persons who entered, were two men
+whose faces were concealed with black velvet masks, commonly worn at
+the period both by men and women, as well for the purpose of disguise,
+as for that of preserving the complexion; their bearing, as well as
+their style of dress, proclaimed them to be young and of courtly
+habits.
+
+The first who entered was of small stature, and utterly wanting in
+dignity of movement; and, although precedence into the room seemed to
+have been given him by a sort of deference, he turned back again to
+look at his companion, with an evident hesitation of purpose, before
+he advanced fully into the apartment. The young man who followed him
+was of tall stature, and of manly but graceful bearing. His step was
+firm, and his head was carried high; whilst the small velvet cap
+placed jauntily on one side upon his head, the light brown curling
+hair of which was boldly pushed back from the broad forehead and
+temples, according to the fashion of the times, seemed disposed as if
+purposely to give evidence of a certain gaiety, almost recklessness,
+of character. The astrologer, after giving them admittance, returned
+to his table, and sitting down, demanded what might be their bidding
+at that hour of the night! At his words the smaller, but apparently
+the more important of the two personages, made a sign to his companion
+to speak; and the latter, advancing boldly to the table, demanded of
+the old man whether he did not know him.
+
+"Whether I know you or know you not, matters but little," replied the
+astrologer; "although few things can be concealed before the eye of
+science."
+
+At these words the smaller young man shuffled uneasily with his feet,
+and plucked at the cloak of his companion. Ruggieri continued--"But I
+will not seek to pierce the mystery of a disguise which can have no
+control over the ways of destiny. Whether I know you or not, I
+recognise you well. Already have you been here to enquire into the
+dark secrets of the future. I told you then, that we must wait to
+judge the movements of the stars. Would you know further now?"
+
+"That is the purpose of our coming," said the latter of the two young
+men, to whom the office of spokesman had been given. "We have come,
+although at this late hour of the night, because the matter presses on
+which we would know our fate."
+
+"Yes, the matter presses," replied the astrologer; "for I have read
+the stars, and I have calculated the chances of your destinies."
+
+The smaller personage pressed forward at these words, as if full of
+eager curiosity. The other maintained the same easy bearing that
+seemed his usual habit.
+
+The astrologer turned over a variety of mysterious papers, as if
+searching among them for the ciphers that he needed; then, consulting
+the pages of a book, he again traced several figures upon a parchment;
+and at length, after the seeming calculation of some minutes, he
+raised his head, and addressing himself to the smaller man, said--
+
+"You have an enterprise in hand, young man, upon which not only your
+own destinies and those of your companion, but of many thousands of
+your fellow creatures depend! Your enterprise is grand, your destiny
+is noble."
+
+The young men turned to look at each other; and he, who had as yet not
+broken silence, said, with an eager palpitating curiosity, although
+the tones of his voice were ill assured--
+
+"And what say the stars? Will it succeed?"
+
+"Go on, and prosper!" replied the astrologer. "A noble course lies
+before you. Go on, and success the most brilliant and the most prompt
+attends you."
+
+"Ha! there is, after all, some truth in your astrology, I am inclined
+to think!" said the first speaker gaily.
+
+"Why have you doubted, young man?" pursued the astrologer severely.
+"The stars err not--cannot err."
+
+"Pardon me, father," said the young man with his usual careless air.
+"I will doubt no further. And we shall succeed?"
+
+"Beyond your utmost hopes. Upon your brow, young man," continued the
+astrologer, addressing again the smaller person, "descends a circlet
+of glory, the brilliancy of which shall dazzle every eye. But stay,
+all is not yet done. The stars thus declare the will of destiny; but
+yet, in these inscrutable mysteries of fate, it is man's own will that
+must direct the course of events--it is his own hand must strike the
+blow. Fatality and human will are bound together as incomprehensibly
+as soul and body. You must still lend your hand to secure the
+accomplishment of your own destiny. But our mighty science shall
+procure for you so powerful a charm, that no earthly power can resist
+its influence. Stay, I will return shortly." So saying, Ruggieri rose
+and left the room by the door through which the young men had entered.
+
+"What does he mean?" said the shorter of the young men.
+
+"What matter, Monseigneur!" replied the other. "Does he not promise us
+unbounded success? I little thought myself, when I accompanied you
+hither, that my belief in this astrology would grow up so rapidly.
+Long live the dark science, and the black old gentleman who professes
+it, when they lighten our path so brilliantly!"
+
+"Let us breathe a little at our ease, until he returns," said he who
+appeared the more important personage of the two; and throwing himself
+into a chair, and removing his mask, he discovered the pale face of a
+young man, who might have been said to possess some beauty, in spite
+of the irregularity of his features, had not the expression of that
+face been marred by a pinched and peevish look of weakness and
+indecision.
+
+His companion followed his example in removing his mask, and the face
+thus revealed formed a striking contrast to that of the other young
+man. His complexion was of a clear pale brown, relieved by a flush of
+animated colour; his brow was fair and noble; his features were finely
+but not too strongly chiselled. A small dark mustache curled boldly
+upwards above a beautifully traced and smiling mouth, the character of
+which was at once resolute and gay, and strangely at variance with the
+expression of the dark grey eyes, which was more that of tenderness
+and melancholy. He remained standing before the other personage, with
+one hand on his hip, in an attitude at once full of ease and
+deference.
+
+"Did I not right, then, to counsel you as I have done in this matter,
+my lord duke," he said to the other young man, "since the astrologer,
+in whom you have all confidence, promises us so unbounded a success:
+and you give full credence to the announcement of the stars?"
+
+"Yes--yes, Philip," answered the Duke, reclining back in his chair,
+and rubbing his hands with a sort of internal satisfaction.
+
+"Then let us act at once," continued the young man called Philip. "The
+King cannot live many days--perhaps not many hours. There is no time
+to be lost. Henry of Anjou, your elder brother, is far away; the crown
+of Poland weighs upon his brow. You are present. The troops have been
+taught to love you. The Huguenot party have confidence in you. The
+pretensions of Henry of Navarre to the regency must give way before
+yours. All parties will combine to look upon you as the heir of
+Charles; and now the very heavens, the very stars above, seem to
+conspire to make you that which I would you should be. Your fortune,
+then, is in your own hands."
+
+"Yes. So it is!" replied the Duke.
+
+"Assemble, then, all those attached to your service or your person!"
+
+"I will."
+
+"Let your intention be known among the guards."
+
+"It shall."
+
+"As soon as the King shall have ceased to breathe, seize upon all the
+gates of the Louvre."
+
+"Yes," continued the Duke, although his voice, so eager the moment
+before, seemed to tremble at the thought of so much decision of
+action.
+
+"Declare yourself the Master of the kingdom in full parliament."
+
+"Yes," again replied the young Duke, more weakly. "But"----
+
+"But what--Monseigneur!" exclaimed his companion.
+
+"But," continued the Duke again, with hesitation, "if Henry, my
+brother, should return--if he should come to claim his crown. You may
+be sure that our mother, who cares for him alone, will have already
+sent off messengers to advertise him of Charles's danger, and bid him
+come!"
+
+"I know she has," replied Philip coolly. "But I have already taken
+upon myself, without Monseigneur's instructions, for which I could not
+wait, to send off a sure agent to intercept her courier, to detain him
+at any price, to destroy his despatches."
+
+"Philip! what have you done?" exclaimed the young Duke, in evident
+alarm. "Intercept my mother's courier! Dare to disobey my mother! My
+Mother! You do not know her then."
+
+"Not know her?" answered his companion. "Who in this troubled land of
+France does not know Catherine of Medicis, her artful wiles, her
+deadly traits of vengeance? Shake not your head, Monseigneur! You know
+her too. But, Charles no more, you will have the crown upon your
+brow--it will be yours to give orders: those who will dare to disobey
+you will be your rebel subjects. Act, then, as king. If she resist,
+give orders for her arrest!"
+
+"Arrest my Mother! Who would dare to do it?" said the Duke with agitation.
+
+"I."
+
+"Oh, no--no--La Mole! Never would I take upon myself"----
+
+"Take upon yourself to be a King, if you would be one," said the
+Duke's confidant, with energy.
+
+"We will speak more of this," hastily interposed the wavering Duke.
+"Hush! some one comes. It is this Ruggieri!"
+
+In truth the astrologer re-entered the room. In his hand he bore a
+small object wrapped in a white cloth, which he laid down upon the
+table; and then, turning to the young men, who had hastily reassumed
+their masks before he appeared, and who now stood before him, he
+said--
+
+"The sole great charm that can complete the will of destiny, and
+assure the success of your great enterprise, lies there before you.
+Have you no enemy whose death you most earnestly desire, to forward
+that intent?"
+
+The young men looked at each other; but they both answered, after the
+hesitation of a moment--
+
+"None!"
+
+"None, upon whose death depends that turn in the wheel of fate that
+should place you on its summit?"
+
+Both the young men were silent.
+
+"At all events," continued the cunning astrologer, "your destiny
+depends upon the action of your own hands. This action we must symbol
+forth in mystery, in order that your destiny be accomplished.
+Here--take this instrument," he pursued, producing a long gold pin of
+curious workmanship, which at need might have done the task of a
+dagger, "and pierce the white cloth that lies before you on the
+table."
+
+The Duke drew back, and refused the instrument thus offered to him.
+
+"Do I not tell you that the accomplishment of your brilliant destiny
+depends upon this act?" resumed Ruggieri.
+
+"I know not what this incantation may be," said the timid Duke. "Take
+it, Philip."
+
+But La Mole, little as he was inclined to the superstitious credulity
+of the times, seemed not more disposed than his master to lend his
+hand to an act which had the appearance of being connected with the
+rites of sorcery, and he also refused. On the reiterated assurances of
+the astrologer, however, that upon that harmless blow hung the
+accomplishment of their enterprise, and at the command of the Duke, he
+took the instrument into his hand, and approached it over the cloth.
+Again, however, he would have hesitated, and would have withdrawn; but
+the astrologer seized his hand before he was aware, and, giving it a
+sharp direction downwards, caused him to plunge the instrument into
+the object beneath the cloth. La Mole shuddered as he felt it
+penetrate into a soft substance, that, small as it was, gave him the
+idea of a human body; and that shudder ran through his whole frame as
+a presentiment of evil.
+
+"It is done," said the astrologer. "Go! and let the work of fate be
+accomplished."
+
+The pale foreheads of both the young men, visible above their masks,
+showed that they felt they had been led further in the work of
+witchcraft than was their intention; but they did not expostulate. It
+was the Duke who now first rallied, and throwing down a heavy purse of
+coin on the table before the astrologer, he called to his companion to
+follow him.
+
+Scarcely had the young men left the apartment, when the pannel by
+which Catherine of Medicis had disappeared, again opened, and she
+entered the room. Her face was pale, cold, and calm as usual.
+
+"You heard them, Ruggieri!" she said, with her customary bland smile.
+"Alencon would be king, and that ambitious fool drives him to snatch
+his brother's crown. The Queen-mother is to be arrested, and
+imprisoned as a rebel to her usurping son. A notable scheme, forsooth!
+Her courier to recall Henry of Anjou from Poland has been intercepted
+also! But that mischance must be remedied immediately. Ay! and
+avenged. Biragne shall have instant orders. With this proof in my
+possession, the life of that La Mole is mine," continued she, tearing
+in twain the white linen cloth, and displaying beneath it a small wax
+figure, bearing the semblance of a king, with a crown upon its head,
+in which the gold pin was still left sticking, by the manner in which
+this operation was performed. "Little treasure of vengeance, thou art
+mine! Ruggieri, man, that plot was acted to the life. Verily, verily,
+you were right. Charles dies; and troubled and harassed will be the
+_last hours of his reign_."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+   "There is so hot a summer in my bosom,
+    That all my bowels crumble up to dust;
+    I am a scribbled form, drawn with a pen
+    Upon a parchment; and against this fire
+    Do I shrink up."
+                                       SHAKSPEARE.
+
+   "Ambition is a great man's madness,
+    That is not kept in chains and close-pent rooms
+    But in fair lightsome lodgings, and is girt
+    With the wild noise of prattling visitants,
+    Which makes it lunatic beyond all cure."
+                                          WEBSTER.
+
+
+In a room belonging to the lower apartments of the old palace of the
+Louvre, reclined, in one of the large but incommodious chairs of the
+time, a young man, whose pale, haggard face, and prematurely furrowed
+brow, betrayed deep suffering both from moral and physical causes. The
+thick lids of his heavy dark eyes closed over them with languor, as if
+he no longer possessed the force to open them; whilst his pale thin
+lips were distorted as if with pain. His whole air bore the stamp of
+exhaustion of mind and body.
+
+The dress of this personage was dark and of an extreme plainness and
+simplicity, in times when the fashion of attire demanded so much
+display--it bore somewhat the appearance of a hunting costume. The
+room, on the contrary, betrayed a strange mixture of great richness
+and luxury with much confusion and disorder. The hangings of the doors
+were of the finest stuffs, and embroidered with gold and jewellery;
+tapestry of price covered the walls. A raised curtain of heavy and
+costly tissue discovered a small oratory, in which were visible a
+crucifix and other religious ornaments of great value. But in the
+midst of this display of wealth and greatness, were to be seen the
+most incongruous objects. Beneath a bench in a corner of the room was
+littered straw, on which lay several young puppies; in other choice
+nooks slept two or three great hounds. Hunting horns were hung against
+the tapestry, or lay scattered on the floor; an arquebuss rested
+against the oratory door-stall--the instrument of death beside the
+retreat of religious aspiration. Upon a standing desk, in the middle
+of the room, lay a book, the coloured designs of which showed that it
+treated of the "noble science of venerye," whilst around its pages
+hung the beads of a chaplet. Against the wall of the room opposite the
+reclining young man, stood one of the heavy chests used at that period
+for seats, as much as depositories of clothes and other objects; but
+the occupant of this seat was a strange one. It was a large ape, the
+light brown colour of whose hair bordered so much upon the green as to
+give the animal, in certain lights, a perfectly verdant aspect. It sat
+"moping and mowing" in sulky loneliness, as if its grimaces were
+intended to caricature the expression of pain which crossed the young
+man's face--a strange distorted mirror of that suffering form.
+
+After a time the young man moved uneasily, as if he had in vain sought
+in sleep some repose from the torment of mind and body, and snapped
+his fingers. His hounds came obedient to his call; but, after patting
+them for a moment on the head, he again drove them from him with all
+the pettish ill-temper of ennui, and rose, feebly and with difficulty,
+from his chair. He moved languidly to the open book, looked at it for
+a moment, then shook his head and turned away. Again he took up one of
+the hunting horns and applied it to his lips; but the breath which he
+could fetch from his chest produced no sound but a sort of low
+melancholy whine from the instrument; and he flung it down. Then
+dealing a blow at the head of the grinning ape, who first dived to
+avoid it, and then snapped at its master's fingers, he returned
+wearily to his chair, and sunk into it with a deep groan, which told
+of many things--regret--bitter ennui--physical pain and mental
+anguish. The tears rose for a moment to his heavy languid eyes, but he
+checked their influence with a sneer of his thin upper-lip; then
+calling "Congo," to his ape, he made the animal approach and took it
+on his knees; and the two--the man and the beast--grinned at each
+other in bitter mockery.
+
+In this occupation of the most grotesque despair, the young man was
+disturbed by another personage, who, raising the tapestry over a
+concealed door, entered silently and unannounced.
+
+"My Mother!" murmured the sufferer, in a tone of impatience, as he
+became aware of the presence of this person; and turning away his
+head, he began to occupy himself in caressing his ape.
+
+"How goes it with you, Charles? Do you feel stronger now?" said the
+mother, in a soft voice of the fondest cajolery, as she advanced with
+noiseless, gliding steps.
+
+The son gave no reply, and continued to play with the animal upon his
+knee, whilst a dark frown knitted his brow.
+
+"What say the doctors to your state to-day, my son?" resumed the
+female soothingly. As she approached still nearer, the ape, with a
+movement of that instinctive hate often observable in animals towards
+persons who do not like them, sprang at her with a savage grin, that
+displayed its sharp teeth, and would have bitten her hand had she not
+started back in haste. Her cold physiognomy expressed, however,
+neither anger nor alarm, as she quietly remarked to her son--
+
+"Remove that horrid animal, Charles: see how savage he is?"
+
+"And why should I remove Congo, mother?" rejoined Charles, with a
+sneer upon his lip; "he is the only friend you have left me."
+
+"Sickness makes you forgetful and unjust, my son," replied the Mother.
+
+"Yes, the only friend you have left me," pursued the son bitterly,
+"except my poor dogs. Have you not so acted in my name, that you have
+left me not one kindred soul to love me; that in the whole wide
+kingdom of France, there remains not a voice, much less a heart, to
+bless its miserable king?"
+
+"If you say that you have no friends," responded the Queen-mother,
+"you may speak more truly than you would. For they are but false
+friends; and real enemies, who have instilled into your mind the evil
+thoughts of a mother, who has worked only for your glory and your
+good."
+
+"No, not one," continued the young King, unheeding her, but dismissing
+at the same time the ape from his knee with a blow that sent him
+screaming and mouthing to his accustomed seat upon the chest. "Not
+one! Where is Perotte, my poor old nurse? She loved me--she was a real
+mother to me. She! And where is she now? Did not that deed of horror,
+to which you counselled me, to which you urged me almost by
+force--that order, which, on the fatal night of St Bartholomew, gave
+signal for the massacre of all her co-religionists, drive her from my
+side? Did she not curse me--me, who at your instigation caused the
+blood of her friends and kindred to be shed--and leave me, her
+nursling, her boy, her Charlot, whom she loved till then, with that
+curse upon her lips? And do they not say that her horror of him who
+has sucked her milk, and lain upon her bosom, and of his damning deed,
+has frenzied her brain, and rendered her witless? Poor woman!" And the
+miserable King buried his haggard face between his hands.
+
+"She was a wretched Huguenot, and no fitting companion and confidant
+for a Catholic and a king," said the Queen, in a tone of mildness,
+which contrasted strangely with the harshness of her words. "You
+should return thanks to all the blessed Saints, that she has willingly
+renounced that influence about your person, which could tend only to
+endanger the salvation of your soul."
+
+"My soul! Ay! who has destroyed it?" muttered Charles in a hollow
+tone.
+
+The Queen-mother remained silent, but an unusual fire, in which
+trouble was mixed with scorn and anger, shot from her eyes.
+
+"And have you not contrived to keep Henry of Navarre, my honest Henry,
+from my presence?" pursued the young King, after a pause, lifting up
+his heavy head from between his hands. "He was the only being you had
+left me still to love me; for my brothers hate me, both Anjou and
+Alencon--both wish me dead, and would wear my crown. And who was it,
+and for her own purposes, curdled the blood of the Valois in their
+veins until it rankled into a poison that might have befitted the
+Atrides of the tragedies of old? Henry of Navarre was the only
+creature that loved me still, and your policy and intrigues, madam,
+keep him from me, and so watch and harass his very steps in my own
+palace of the Louvre, where he is my guest, that never can I see him
+alone, or speak to him in confidence. He, too, deserts and neglects me
+now; and I am alone--alone, madam, with courtiers and creatures, who
+hate me too, it may be--alone, as a wretched orphan beggar by the
+way-side."
+
+"My policy, as well as what you choose to call my intrigues, my son,"
+rejoined the Queen, "have ever been directed to your interests and
+welfare. You are aware that Henry of Navarre has conspired against the
+peace of our realm, against your crown, may-be against your life.
+Would you condemn that care which would prevent the renewal of such
+misdeeds, when your own sister--when his wife--leagues herself in
+secret with your enemies!"
+
+"Ay! Margaret too!" muttered Charles with bitterness. "Was the list of
+the Atrides not yet complete?"
+
+"The dictates of my love and affection, of my solicitude for my son,
+and for his weal--such have been the main-springs of my intrigues,"
+pursued the mother in a cajoling tone.
+
+"The intrigues of the house of Medicis!" murmured the King, with a
+mocking laugh.
+
+"What would you have me to do more, my son?" continued the
+Queen-mother.
+
+"Nothing," replied Charles, "nothing but leave me--leave me, as others
+have done, to die alone!"
+
+"My son, I will leave you shortly, and if it so please our Blessed
+Virgin, to a little repose, and a better frame of mind," said
+Catherine of Medicis. "But I came to speak to you of matters of
+weight, and of such deep importance that they brook no delay."
+
+"I am unfitted for all matters of state--my head is weary, my limbs
+ache, my heart burns with a torturing fire--I cannot listen to you
+now, madam," pursued the King languidly; and then, seeing that his
+mother still stood motionless by his side, he added with more
+energy--"Am I then no more a king, madam, that, at my own command, I
+cannot even be left to _die_ in peace?"
+
+"It is of your health, your safety, your life, that I would speak,"
+continued Catherine of Medicis, unmoved. "The physicians have sought
+in vain to discover the real sources of the cruel malady that devours
+you; but there is no reason to doubt of your recovery, when the cause
+shall be known and removed."
+
+"And you, madam, should know, it would appear, better than my
+physicians the hidden origin of my sufferings!" said Charles, in a
+tone in which might be remarked traces of the bitterest irony. "Is it
+not so?" and he looked upon his mother with a deadly look of suspicion
+and mistrust.
+
+The Queen-mother started slightly at these words; but, after a moment,
+she answered in her usual bland tone of voice--
+
+"It is my solicitude upon this subject that now brings me hither."
+
+"I thank you for your solicitude," replied the King, with the same
+marked manner; "and so, doubtless, does my brother Anjou: you love him
+well, madam, and he is the successor of his childish brother."
+
+In spite of the command over herself habitually exercised by Catherine
+of Medicis, her pale brow grew paler still, and she slightly
+compressed her lips, to prevent their quivering, upon hearing the
+horrible insinuation conveyed in these words. The suspicions
+prevalent at the time, that the Queen-mother had employed the aid of a
+slow poison to rid herself of a son who resisted her authority, in
+order to make room upon the throne for another whom she loved, had
+reached her ears, and, guilty or guiltless, she could not but perceive
+that her own son himself was not devoid of these suspicions. After the
+struggle of a moment with herself, however, during which the drops of
+perspiration stood upon her pale temples, she resumed----
+
+"I love my children all; and I would save your life, Charles. My
+ever-watchful affection for you, my son, has discovered the existence
+of a hellish plot against your life."
+
+"More plots, more blood!--what next, madam?" interrupted, with a
+groan, the unhappy King.
+
+"What the art of the physician could not discover," pursued his
+mother, "I have discovered. The strange nature of this unknown
+malady--these pains, this sleeplessness, this agony of mind and body,
+without a cause, excited my suspicions; and now I have the proofs in
+my own hands. My son, my poor son! you have been the victim of the
+foulest witchcraft and sorcery of your enemies."
+
+"Enemies abroad! enemies at home!" cried Charles, turning himself
+uneasily in his chair. "Did I not say so, madam?"
+
+"But the vile sorcerer has been discovered by the blessed intervention
+of the saints," continued Catherine; "and let him be once seized,
+tried, and executed for his abominable crime, your torments, my son,
+will cease for ever. You will live to be well, strong, happy."
+
+"Happy!" echoed the young King with bitterness; "happy! no, there the
+sorcery has gone too far for remedy." He then added after a pause,
+"And what is this plot? who is this sorcerer of whom you speak?"
+
+"Trouble not yourself with these details, my son; they are but of
+minor import," replied Catherine. "You are weak and exhausted. The
+horrid tale would too much move your mind. Leave every thing in my
+hands, and I will rid you of your enemies."
+
+"No, no. There has been enough of ill," resumed her son. "That he
+should be left in peace is all the miserable King now needs."
+
+"But your life, my son. The safety of the realm depends upon the
+extermination of the works of the powers of darkness. Would you, a
+Catholic Prince, allow the evil-doer of the works of Satan to roam
+about at will, and injure others as he would have destroyed his king?"
+pursued the Queen-mother.
+
+"Well, we will speak more of this at another opportunity. Leave me
+now, madam, for I am very weak both in mind and body; and I thank you
+for your zeal and care."
+
+"My son, I cannot leave you," persisted Catherine, "until you shall
+have signed this paper." She produced from the species of reticule
+suspended at her side a parchment already covered with writing. "It
+confers upon me full power to treat in this affair, and bring the
+offender to condign punishment. You shall have no trouble in this
+matter; and through your mother's care, your enemies shall be purged
+from the earth, and you yourself once more free, and strong and able
+shortly to resume the helm of state, to mount your horse, to cheer on
+your hounds. Come, my son, sign this paper."
+
+"Leave me--leave me in peace," again answered Charles. "I am sick at
+heart, and I would do no ill even to my bitterest enemy, be he only an
+obscure sorcerer, who has combined with the prince of darkness himself
+to work my death."
+
+"My son--it cannot be," said Catherine, perseveringly--for she was
+aware that by persisting alone could she weary her son to do at last
+her will. "Sign this order for prosecuting immediately the trial of
+the sorcerer. It is a duty you owe to your country, for which you
+should live, as much as to yourself. Come!" and, taking him by the
+arm, she attempted to raise him from his chair.
+
+"Must I ever be thus tormented, even in my hours of suffering?" said
+the King with impatience. "Well, be it so, madam. Work your will, and
+leave me to my repose."
+
+He rose wearily from his chair, and going to a table on which were
+placed materials for writing, hastily signed the paper laid before him
+by his mother; and then, fetching a deep respiration of relief, like
+a school-boy after the performance of some painful task, he flung
+himself on to the chest beside the ape, and, turning his back to his
+mother, began to make his peace with the sulky animal.
+
+Catherine of Medicis permitted a cold smile of satisfaction to wander
+over her face; and after greeting again her son, who paid her no more
+heed than might be expressed by an impatient shrug of the shoulders,
+indicative of his desire to be left in peace, again lifted the
+hangings, and passed through the concealed door. The suffering King,
+whose days of life were already numbered, and fast approaching their
+utmost span, although his years were still so few, remained again
+alone with his agony and his ennui.
+
+Behind the door by which the Queen-mother had left her son's apartment
+was a narrow stone corridor, communicating with a small winding
+staircase, by which she mounted to her own suite of rooms upon the
+first floor; but, when she had gained the summit, avoiding the secret
+entrance opening into her own chamber, she proceeded along one of the
+many hidden passages by which she was accustomed to gain not only
+those wings of the palace inhabited by her different children, but
+almost every other part of the building, unseen and unannounced.
+Stopping at last before a narrow door, forming a part of the
+stone-work of the corridor, she pulled it towards her, and again
+lifting up a tapestry hanging, entered, silently and stealthily, a
+small room, which appeared a sort of inner cabinet to a larger
+apartment. She was about to pass through it, when some papers
+scattered upon a table caught her eye, and moving towards them with
+her usual cat-like step, she began turning them over with the
+noiseless adroitness of one accustomed to such an employment.
+Presently, however, she threw them down, as if she had not found in
+them, at once, what she sought, or was fearful of betraying her
+presence to the persons whose voices might be heard murmuring in the
+adjoining room; and, advancing with inaudible tread, she paused to
+listen for a minute. The persons, however, spoke low; and finding that
+her _espionage_ profited nothing to her, the royal spy passed on and
+entered the apartment.
+
+In a chair, turning his back to her, sat a young man at a table, upon
+which papers and maps were mixed with jewellery, articles of dress,
+feathers and laces. A pair of newly-fashioned large gilt spurs lay
+upon a manuscript which appeared to contain a list of names; a naked
+rapier, the hilt of which was of curious device and workmanship, was
+carelessly thrust through a paper covered with notes of music. The
+whole formed a strange mixture, indicative at once of pre-occupation
+and listless _insouciance_, of grave employment and utter frivolity.
+Before this seated personage stood another, who appeared to be
+speaking to him earnestly and in low tones. At the sight of Catherine,
+as she advanced, however, the latter person exclaimed quickly,
+
+"My lord duke, her majesty the Queen-mother!"
+
+The other person rose hastily, and in some alarm, from his chair;
+whilst his companion took this opportunity to increase the confusion
+upon the table, by pushing one or two other papers beneath some of the
+articles of amusement or dress.
+
+Without any appearance of remarking the embarrassment that was
+pictured upon the young man's face, Catherine advanced to accept his
+troubled greeting with a mild smile of tenderness, and said--
+
+"Alencon, my son, I have a few matters of private business, upon which
+I would confer with you--and alone."
+
+The increasing embarrassment upon the face of the young Duke must have
+been visible to any eye but that which did not choose to see it. After
+a moment's hesitation, however, in which the habit of obeying
+implicitly his mother's authority seemed to subdue his desire to avoid
+a conference with her, he turned and said unwillingly to his
+companion,
+
+"Leave us, La Mole."
+
+The Duke's favourite cast a glance of encouragement and caution upon
+his master; and bowing to the Queen-mother, who returned his homage
+with her kindest and most re-assuring smile of courtesy and
+benevolence, and an affable wave of the hand, he left the apartment.
+
+Catherine took the seat from which her son had risen; and leaving him
+standing before her in an attitude which ill-repressed trouble
+combined with natural awkwardness of manner to render peculiarly
+ungainly, she seemed to study for a time, and with satisfaction, his
+confusion and constraint. But then, begging him to be seated near her,
+she commenced speaking to him of various matters, of his own pleasures
+and amusements, of the newest dress, of the fetes interrupted by the
+King's illness, of the effect which this illness, and the supposed
+danger of Charles, had produced upon the jarring parties in the state;
+of the audacity of the Huguenots, who now first began, since the
+massacre of St Bartholomew's day, again to raise their heads, and
+cause fresh disquietude to the government. And thus proceeding step by
+step to the point at which she desired to arrive, the wily
+Queen-mother resembled the cat, which creeps slowly onwards, until it
+springs at last with one bound upon its victim.
+
+"Alas!" she said, with an air of profound sorrow, "so quickly do
+treachery and ingratitude grow up around us, that we no longer can
+discern who are our friends and who our enemies. We bestow favours;
+but it is as if we gave food to the dog, who bites our fingers as he
+takes it. We cherish a friend; and it is an adder we nurse in our
+bosoms. That young man who left us but just now, the Count La Mole--he
+cannot hear us surely;"--the Duke of Alencon assured her, with
+ill-concealed agitation, that his favourite was out of ear-shot--"that
+young man--La Mole!--you love him well, I know, my son; and you know
+not that it is a traitor you have taken to your heart."
+
+"La Mole--a traitor! how? impossible!" stammered the young Duke.
+
+"Your generous and candid heart comprehends not treachery in those it
+loves," pursued his mother; "but I have, unhappily, the proofs in my
+own power. Philip de la Mole conspires against your brother's crown."
+
+The Duke of Alencon grew deadly pale; and he seemed to support himself
+with difficulty; but he stammered with faltering tongue,
+
+"Conspires? how? for whom? Surely, madam, you are most grossly
+misinformed?"
+
+"Unhappily, my son," pursued Catherine--"and my heart bleeds to say
+it--I have it no longer in my power to doubt."
+
+"Madam, it is false," stammered again the young Duke, rising hastily
+from his chair, with an air of assurance which he did not feel. "This
+is some calumny."
+
+"Sit down, my son, and listen to me for a while," said the
+Queen-mother with a bland, quiet smile. "I speak not unadvisedly. Be
+not so moved."
+
+Alencon again sat down unwillingly, subdued by the calm superiority of
+his mother's manner.
+
+"You think this Philip de la Mole," she continued, "attached solely to
+your interests, for you have showered upon him many and great favours;
+and your unsuspecting nature has been deceived. Listen to me, I pray
+you. Should our poor Henry never return from Poland, it would be yours
+to mount the throne of France upon the death of Charles. Nay, look not
+so uneasy. Such a thought, if it had crossed your mind, is an honest
+and a just one. How should I blame it? And now, how acts this Philip
+de la Mole--this man whom you have advanced, protected, loved almost
+as a brother? Regardless of all truth or honour, regardless of his
+master's fortunes, he conspires with friends and enemies, with
+Catholic and Huguenot, to place Henry of Navarre upon the throne!"
+
+"La Mole conspires for Henry of Navarre! Impossible!" cried the Duke.
+
+"Alas! my son, it is too truly as I say," pursued the Queen-mother;
+"the discoveries that have been made reveal most clearly the whole
+base scheme. Know you not that this upstart courtier has dared to love
+your sister Margaret, and that the foolish woman returns his
+presumptuous passion? It is she who has connived with her ambitious
+lover to see a real crown encircle her own brow. She has encouraged
+Philip de la Mole to conspire with her husband of Navarre, to grasp
+the throne of France upon the death of Charles. You are ignorant of
+this, my son; your honourable mind can entertain no such baseness. I
+am well aware that, had you been capable of harbouring a thought of
+treachery towards your elder brother--and I well know that you are
+not--believe me, the wily Philip de la Mole had rendered you his dupe,
+and blinded you to the true end of his artful and black designs."
+
+"Philip a traitor!" exclaimed the young Duke aghast.
+
+"A traitor to his king, his country, and to you, my son--to you, who
+have loved him but too well," repeated the Queen-mother.
+
+"And it was for this purpose that he"--commenced the weak Duke of
+Alencon. But then, checking the words he was about to utter, he added,
+clenching his hands together--"Oh! double, double traitor!"
+
+"I knew that you would receive the revelation of this truth with
+horror," pursued Catherine. "It is the attribute of your generous
+nature so to do; and I would have spared you the bitter pang of
+knowing that you have lavished so much affection upon a villain. But
+as orders will be immediately given for his arrest, it was necessary
+you should know his crime, and make no opposition to the seizure of
+one dependent so closely upon your person."
+
+More, much more, did the artful Queen-mother say to turn her weak and
+credulous son to her will, and when she had convinced him of the
+certain treachery of his favourite, she rose to leave him, with the
+words--
+
+"The guards will be here anon. Avoid him until then. Leave your
+apartment; speak to him not; or, if he cross your path, smile on him
+kindly, thus--and let him never read upon your face the thought that
+lurks within, 'Thou art a traitor.'"
+
+Alencon promised obedience to his mother's injunctions.
+
+"I have cut off thy right hand, my foolish son," muttered Catherine to
+herself as she departed by the secret door. "Thou art too powerless to
+act alone, and I fear thee now no longer. Margaret must still be dealt
+with; and thou, Henry of Navarre, if thou aspirest to the regency, the
+struggle is between thee and Catherine. Then will be seen whose star
+shines with the brightest lustre!"
+
+When Philip de la Mole returned to his master's presence, he found the
+Duke pacing up and down the chamber in evident agitation; and the only
+reply given to his words was a smile of so false and constrained a
+nature, that it almost resembled a grin of mockery.
+
+The Duke of Alencon was as incapable of continued dissimulation, as he
+was incapable of firmness of purpose; and when La Mole again
+approached him, he frowned sulkily, and, turning his back upon his
+favourite, was about to quit the room.
+
+"Shall I accompany my lord duke?" said La Mole, with his usual
+careless demeanour, although he saw the storm gathering, and guessed
+immediately from what quarter the wind had blown, but not the awful
+violence of the hurricane.
+
+"No--I want no traitors to dog my footsteps," replied Alencon, unable
+any longer to restrain himself, in spite of his mother's instructions.
+
+"There are no traitors here," replied his favourite proudly. "I could
+have judged, my lord, that the Queen-mother had been with you, had I
+not seen her enter your apartment. Yes--there has been treachery on
+foot, it seems, but not where you would say. Speak boldly, my lord,
+and truly. Of what does she accuse me?"
+
+"Traitor! double traitor!" exclaimed the Duke, bursting into a fit of
+childish wrath, "who hast led me on with false pretences of a
+Crown--who hast made _me_--thy master and thy prince--the dupe of thy
+base stratagems; who hast blinded me, and gulled me, whilst thy real
+design was the interest of another!"
+
+"Proceed, my lord duke," said La Mole calmly. "Of what other does my
+lord duke speak?"
+
+"Of Henry of Navarre, for whom you have conspired at Margaret's
+instigation," replied Alencon, walking uneasily up and down the room,
+and not venturing to look upon his accused favourite, as if he
+himself had been the criminal, and not the accuser.
+
+"Ah! thither flies the bolt, does it?" said La Mole, with score. "But
+it strikes not, my lord. If I may claim your lordship's attention to
+these papers for a short space of time, I should need no other answer
+to this strange accusation, so strangely thrown out against me." And
+he produced from his person several documents concealed about it, and
+laid them before the Duke, who had now again thrown himself into his
+chair. "This letter from Conde--this from La Breche--these from others
+of the Protestant party. Cast your eyes over them? Of whom do they
+speak? Is it of Henry of Navarre? Or is it of the Duke of Alencon?
+Whom do they look to as their chief and future King?"
+
+"Philip, forgive me--I have wronged you," said the vacillating Duke,
+as he turned over these documents from members of the conspiracy that
+had been formed in his own favour. "But, gracious Virgin!--I now
+remember my mother knows all--she is fearfully incensed against you.
+She spoke of your arrest."
+
+"Already!" exclaimed La Mole. "Then it is time to act! I would not
+that it had been so soon. But Charles is suffering--he can no longer
+wield the sceptre. Call out the guard at once. Summon your fiends.
+Seize on the Louvre."
+
+"No--no--it is too late," replied the Duke; "my mother knows all, I
+tell you. No matter whether for me or for another, but you have dared
+to attack the rights of my brother of Anjou--and that is a crime she
+never will forgive."
+
+"Then act at once," continued his favourite, with energy. "We have
+bold hearts and ready arms. Before to-night the Regency shall be
+yours; at Charles's death the Crown."
+
+"No, no--La Mole--impossible--I cannot--will not," said Alencon in
+despair.
+
+"Monseigneur!" cried La Mole, with a scorn he could not suppress.
+
+"You must fly, Philip--you must fly!" resumed his master.
+
+"No--since you will not act, I will remain and meet my fate!"
+
+"Fly, fly, I tell you! You would compromise me, were you to remain,"
+repeated the Duke. "Every moment endangers our safety."
+
+"If such be your command," replied La Mole coldly, "rather than
+sacrifice a little of your honour, I will fly."
+
+"They will be here shortly," continued Alencon hurriedly. "Here, take
+this cloak--this jewelled hat. They are well known to be mine. Wrap
+the cloak about you. Disguise your height--your gait. They will take
+you for me. The corridors are obscure--you may cross the outer court
+undiscovered--and once in safety, you will join our friends.
+Away--away!"
+
+La Mole obeyed his master's bidding, but without the least appearance
+of haste or fear.
+
+"And I would have made that man a king!" he murmured to himself, as,
+dressed in the Duke's cloak and hat, he plunged into the tortuous and
+gloomy corridors of the Louvre. "That man a king! Ambition made me
+mad. Ay! worse than mad--a fool!"
+
+The Duke of Alencon watched anxiously from his window, which dominated
+the outer court of the Louvre, for the appearance of that form,
+enveloped in his cloak; and when he saw La Mole pass unchallenged the
+gate leading without, he turned away from the window with an
+exclamation of satisfaction.
+
+A minute afterwards the agents of the Queen-mother entered his
+apartment.
+
+
+
+
+THE SCOTTISH HARVEST.
+
+
+The approach of winter is always a serious time. When the fields are
+cleared, and the produce of our harvest has been gathered into the
+yard and the barn, we begin to hold a general count and reckoning with
+the earth, and to calculate what amount of augmented riches we have
+drawn from the bosom of the soil. When the investigation proves
+satisfactory, the result is but slightly recorded. Our ancestors, with
+just piety and gratitude, were accustomed to set apart whole days for
+thanksgiving to the Almighty Being who had blessed the labours of the
+year; we--to our shame be it said--have departed from the reverent
+usage. We take a good season as if it were no more than our appointed
+due--a bad one comes upon us with all the terrors of a panic.
+
+But there are seasons frequently occurring which vary between the one
+and the other extreme; and these are they which give rise to the most
+discussion. It is unfortunately the tactics, if not the interest, of
+one great party in the nation, to magnify every season of scarcity
+into a famine for the purpose of promoting their own cherished
+theories. A bad August and an indifferent September are subjects of
+intense interest to your thorough-paced corn-law repealer; not that we
+believe the man has an absolute abstract joy in the prospect of coming
+scarcity--we acquit him of that--but he sees, or thinks he sees, a
+combination of events which, erelong, must realize his darling theory,
+and his sagacity, as a speculative politician, is at stake. Therefore,
+he is always ready, upon the slightest apprehension of failure, to
+demand, with most turbulent threat, the immediate opening of the
+ports, in the hope that, once opened, they may never be closed again.
+
+Our original intention was not to discuss the corn-law question in the
+present article. We took up the pen for the simple purpose of showing
+that, so far as Scotland is concerned, a most unnecessary alarm has
+been raised with regard to the produce of the harvest; and we have not
+the slightest doubt that the same exaggeration has been extended to
+the sister country. Of course, if we can prove this, it will follow as
+a matter of deduction, that no especial necessity exists for opening
+the ports at present; and we shall further strengthen our position by
+reference to the prices of bonded grain. We shall not, however,
+conclude, without a word or two regarding the mischievous theories
+which, if put into execution, would place this country at the mercy of
+a foreign power; and we entreat the attention of our readers the more,
+because already our prospective position has become the subject of
+intense interest on the Continent.
+
+It is a question of such immense importance, that we have thought it
+our duty to consult with one of the best-informed persons on the
+subject of practical agriculture in Scotland, or, indeed, in the
+United Kingdom. Our authority for the following facts, as to the
+results of the harvest in the North, is Mr Stephens, the author of
+_The Book of the Farm_. His opinions, and the results of his
+observation, have kindly been communicated to us in letters, written
+during the first fortnight in November; and we do not think that we
+can confer upon the public a greater service than by laying extracts
+from these before them. They may tend, if duly weighed and considered,
+to relieve the apprehensions of those who have taken alarm at the very
+commencement of the cry. Our conviction is, that the alarm is not only
+premature but unreasonable, and that the grain-produce of this year is
+rather above than below the ordinary average. We shall consider the
+potato question separately: in the meantime let us hear Mr Stephens
+on the subject of the quantity of the harvest.
+
+
+QUANTITY OF GRAIN-CROP.
+
+"I am quite satisfied in my own mind, from observation and
+information, that a greater quantity of grain convertible into bread
+has been derived from this harvest than from the last. Both oats and
+barley are a heavy crop; indeed oats are the bulkiest crop I ever
+remember to have seen in the higher districts of this country. The
+straw is not only long, but is strong in the reed, and thick in the
+ground; and notwithstanding all the rain, both barley and oats were
+much less laid than might have been expected. In regard to wheat, all
+the good soils have yielded well--the inferior but indifferently.
+There is a much greater diversity in the wheat than in barley and
+oats. The straw of wheat is long, and it is also strong; but still it
+was more laid than either oats or barley, and wherever it was laid the
+crop will be very deficient. As to the colour of all sorts of grain,
+it is much brighter than the farmers had anticipated, and there is no
+sprouted grain this year.
+
+Let me relate a few instances of be yield of the crop. I must premise
+that the results I am about to give are derived from the best
+cultivated districts, and that no returns of yield have yet been had
+from the upper and later districts. At the same time I have no reason
+to suppose that these, when received, will prove in any way
+contradictory. In East Lothian two fields of wheat have been tried, in
+not the best soil; and the one has yielded 4-1/2, and the other very
+nearly 5 quarters, per Scotch acre. Before being cut, the first one
+was estimated at 2-1/2, and the second at 4-1/2 quarters. The grain in
+both cases is good.
+
+In Mid-Lothian, one farmer assures himself, from trials, that he will
+reap 8 quarters of wheat per Scotch acre of good quality. And another
+says, that, altogether, he never had so great a crop since he was a
+farmer.
+
+In West Lothian, two farmers have thrashed some wheat, and the yield
+is 8 quarters per Scotch acre, of good quality.
+
+In the best district of Roxburghshire the wheat will yield well; while
+a large field of wheat, in Berwickshire, that was early laid on
+account of the weakness of the straw, which was too much forced by the
+high condition of the soil, will scarcely pay the cost of reaping.
+This, however, is but a single isolated instance, for a farmer in the
+same county has put in 73 ordinary-sized stacks, whereas his usual
+number is about 60.
+
+In the east of Forfarshire, the harvest is represented to me as being
+glorious; while in the west, there has not been a better crop of every
+thing for many years. The accounts from Northumberland, from two or
+three of my friends who farm there extensively, confirm the preceding
+statements, in regard to the bulk and general yield of the corn crop.
+
+I may also mention, that the samples of wheat, and oats, and barley,
+presented at the Highland and Agricultural Society's Show at Dumfries,
+along with the grain in the straw, were really admirable.
+
+With all these attestations from so many parts of the country, that
+are known to be good corn districts, I cannot doubt that the crop is a
+good one on good soils."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+So much for the quantity, which, after all, is the main consideration.
+The above account certainly gives no indications of famine, or even
+scarcity. It contains the general character of the weight of the
+harvest in the principal corn-growing districts of Scotland, and we
+have no reason whatever to suppose that worse fortune has attended the
+results of the husbandry in England. The next consideration is the
+
+
+QUALITY OF THE CROP
+
+"Not the entire crop, but most of it, is inferior in quality to that
+of last year. The barley and oats are both plump and heavy, but there
+is a slight roughness about them; and yet the weights in some cases of
+both are extraordinary. Potato oats were shown at Dumfries 48lb per
+bushel--3lb above the ordinary weight. Barley has been presented in
+the Edinburgh market every week as heavy as 56lb per quarter--about
+3lb more than the ordinary weight. All the samples of wheat I have
+seen in Leith in the hands of an eminent corn-merchant, weighed from
+60lb to 63lb per bushel, and it has been as high as 66lb in the
+Edinburgh market. I also saw samples of Essex wheat above 60lb, as
+well as good wheat from Lincolnshire.
+
+Now such weights could not be indicated by grain at the end of a wet
+harvest, unless it were of good quality.
+
+The quality is much diversified, especially in wheat; some of it not
+weighing above 48lb per bushel. The winnowings from all the grains
+will be proportionally large; although, in the case of barley and
+oats, had every pickle attained maturity, the crop would probably have
+exceeded the extraordinary one of 1815. But though heavy winnowings
+entail decided loss to the farmer, yet human beings will not be the
+greatest sufferers by them; the loss will chiefly fall on the poor
+work-horses, as they will be made to eat the light instead of the good
+corn, which latter will be reserved for human food. The light oats
+will no doubt be given to horses in larger quantities than good corn,
+and the light barley will be boiled for them in mashes probably every
+night.
+
+The beans are a heavy crop in _straw_ every where; and bean-straw,
+when well won, is as good for horses in winter as hay; while in
+certain districts, such as on the Border, the beans will also be good.
+
+With all these facts before me, I cannot make myself believe that we
+are to experience any thing approaching to the privation of famine, so
+far as the grain crop is concerned."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Our practical experience in these matters is so limited, that we feel
+diffident in adding any thing to these remarks of Mr Stephens. We may,
+however, be permitted to express a doubt whether the average quality
+of the crop has yet been satisfactorily ascertained. It is well known
+that the farmer rarely brings his best wheat into the earliest market,
+because it is his interest to thrash out that part of the crop which
+may have sustained a partial damage, as soon as possible; and in these
+circumstances it usually follows, that the worst wheat is first
+exposed for sale. In like manner he wishes to dispose of his inferior
+barley first. In regard to oats, the inferior portions find
+consumption at home by the horses. In ordinary seasons, any wheat or
+barley that may have shown symptoms of heating in the stacks are first
+presented at market; but in this season, when there is no heated
+grain--thanks to the low temperature and the precautions used in
+stacking--the high prices have tempted the farmers to thrash both
+wheat and barley earlier than usual, in order to meet the demands for
+rent and wages at Martinmas--a term which, owing to the lateness of
+the season, followed close on the termination of the harvest. This
+peculiarity of the season may, perhaps, account for the large supplies
+of wheat presented for some weeks past at Mark Lane--to the extent, we
+understand, of from 30,000 to 40,000 quarters more than last year at
+the same period. It is more than probable that the largest proportion
+of the land in fallow has been sown with old wheat, as it was early
+ascertained that the harvest would be unusually late. There is always
+more bare fallow in England than in Scotland, and the old wheat having
+been thus disposed of, the earlier portion of the new grain was
+brought to market, and not appropriated for its usual purpose. We
+must, however, conclude, that the crop--at all events the wheat--is
+inferior to that of former years. This has generally been attributed
+to the wetness of the season, in which view our correspondent does not
+altogether concur; and we are glad to observe that on one important
+matter--namely, the fitness of this year's grain for seed--his
+opinions are decidedly favourable.
+
+
+CAUSE OF INFERIOR QUALITY OF WHEAT.
+
+"I am of opinion, that the inferiority of the wheat in poor lands,
+both as regards quantity and quality, has not arisen from the wetness
+of the season, but from the _very low degree of temperature_ which
+prevailed at the blooming season in the end of June, and which
+prevented the pollen coming to maturity, and therefore interfered with
+the proper fecundation of the plant. I observed that, during all that
+time, the rain did not fall in so large quantities as afterwards, but
+the thermometer averaged so low as from 48 deg. to 52 deg., even during the
+day, and there was a sad want of sunshine. And it is an ascertained
+fact, that wheat will _not fecundate at all_ in a temperature which
+does not exceed 45 deg., accompanied with a gloomy atmosphere. This theory
+of the influence of a low temperature also accounts for the quantity
+of _light_ wheat this year; for the side of the ear that was exposed
+to the cold breeze which blew constantly from the north-east during
+the period of blooming, would experience a more chilly atmosphere than
+the other side, which was comparatively sheltered, and therefore its
+fecundation would be most interfered with.
+
+I may mention a peculiar characteristic of this year, if we take into
+consideration the wetness of the season; which is, that scarcely a
+sprouted ear of corn is to be found any where, notwithstanding that
+the crop was laid in many instances. This immunity from an evil which
+never fails to render grain, so affected, useless for human food, has
+no doubt been secured by the _low temperature of the season_. It was
+an observed fact, that immediately after the falls of rain, whether
+great or moderate, a firm, drying, cool breeze always sprang up, which
+quickly dried the standing and won the cut corn at the same time; and
+the consequence has been, that the entire crop has been secured in the
+stack-yard in a safe state. All the kinds of grain, therefore, may be
+regarded as being in a _sound_ state; and, on that account, even the
+lighter grains will be quite fit for seed next year."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The point on which the nation at large is principally interested, is,
+of course, the price of bread. It is quite evident that the cost of
+manufactured flour ought, in all cases, to remain in just proportion
+with the value of the raw material. Unfortunately that proportion is
+not always maintained. The baker is a middleman between the farmer and
+the public, between the producing and the consuming classes. Amongst
+those who follow that very necessary trade, there exists a combination
+which is not regulated by law; and the consequence is, that, whenever
+a scarcity is threatened, the bakers raise the price of the loaf at
+pleasure, and on no fixed principle corresponding with the price of
+corn. Few persons are aware at what rate the quartern loaf _ought to
+be sold_ when wheat is respectively at 50s., 60s., or 70s. per
+quarter: they are, however, painfully sensitive when they are
+subjected to an arbitrary rise of bread and their natural conclusion
+is, that they are taxed on account of the dearness of the grain. The
+number of those who buy grain or who study its fluctuations, is very
+small; but every one uses bread, and the monthly account of the baker
+is a sure memento of its price. Let us see how the middle functionary
+has behaved.
+
+
+WHY IS BREAD SO DEAR?
+
+"The price of bread is very high already, and is not likely to fall;
+and the reason a baker would assign for this is the high price of
+wheat--a very plausible reason, and to which most people would too
+good-naturedly assent; but examine the particulars of the case, and
+the reason adduced will be found based on a fallacy. During all the
+last year, the aggregate average price of wheat never exceeded 56s. a
+quarter, and in that time the price of the 4lb loaf was 5-1/2d.; at
+least I paid no more for it with ready money. The highest mark that
+wheat has yet attained in this market, is 88s. per quarter, and it is
+notorious that this market has, for the present year, been the dearest
+throughout the kingdom. As 10s. a quarter makes a difference of 1d. in
+the 4lb loaf, the loaf, according to this scale--which, be it
+remarked, is of the bakers' own selection--should be at 8-1/2d. when
+the wheat is at 88s. Can you, nevertheless, believe that, _whilst the
+present price of bread_ is 8-1/2d. _the loaf_ is made wholly of wheat
+which cost the bakers 88s. the quarter? The bakers tell you they
+always buy the best wheat, and yet, though they are the largest buyers
+in the wheat market, the aggregate average of the kingdom did not
+exceed 58s. 6d. on the 8th November. The truth is, the bakers are
+trying to make the most they can; and they are not to blame, provided
+their gains were not imputed to the farmers. But we all know, that
+when bread gets inordinately high in price, clamour is raised against
+_dear wheat_--that is, against the farmer--and this again is made the
+pretext for _a free trade in corn_; whilst the _high price secured to
+the baker by the privilege of his trade_ is left unblamed and
+unscathed."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Had the Court of Session thought proper to retain in observance the
+powers to which it succeeded after the abolition of the Privy Council,
+and which for some time it executed, we certainly should have applied
+to their Lordships for an Act of Sederunt to regulate the proceedings
+of Master Bakers. But, as centralisation has not even spared us an
+humble Secretary, we must leave our complaint for consideration in a
+higher quarter. Our correspondent, however, is rather too charitable
+in assuming that the bakers are not to blame. We cannot, for the life
+of us, understand why they are permitted to augment the price of
+bread, the great commodity of life, at this enormous ratio, in
+consequence of the rise of corn. Surely some enactment should be
+framed, by which the price of the loaf should be kept in strict
+correspondence with the average price of grain, and some salutary
+check put upon a monopoly, which, we are convinced, has often afforded
+a false argument against the agricultural interests of the country.
+
+Such we believe to be the true state of the grain crop throughout the
+kingdom generally. How, from such a state of things, any valid
+argument can be raised for opening the ports at this time, we are
+totally at a loss to conceive. The only serious feature connected with
+the present harvest, is the partial failure of the potato crop, to
+which we shall presently refer. But, so far as regards corn, we
+maintain that there is no real ground for alarm; and further, there is
+this important consideration connected with the late harvest, which
+should not be ungratefully disregarded, that two months of the grain
+season have already passed, and the new crop remains comparatively
+untouched, so that it will have to supply only ten months' consumption
+instead of twelve: and should the next harvest be an early one, which
+we have reason to expect after this late one, the time bearing on the
+present crop will be still more shortened. Nor should the fact be
+overlooked, that two months' consumption is equal to 2,000,000
+quarters of wheat--an amount which would form a very considerable item
+in a crop which had proved to be actually deficient.
+
+But as there has been a movement already in some parts of Scotland,
+though solely from professed repealers, towards memorialising
+government for open ports on the ground of special necessity, we shall
+consider that question for a little; and, in doing so, shall blend the
+observations of our able correspondent with our own.
+
+Such a step, we think, at the present moment, would be attended with
+mischief in more ways than one. There can be no pretext of a famine at
+present, immediately after harvest; and the natural course of events
+in operation is this, that the dear prices are inducing a stream of
+corn from every producing quarter towards Britain. In such
+circumstances, if you raise a cry of famine, and suspend the
+corn-laws, that stream of supply will at once be stopped. The
+importers will naturally suspend their trade, because they will then
+speculate, not on the rate of the import duty, which will be
+absolutely abolished by the suspension, but on the rise of price in
+the market of this country. They will therefore, as a matter of
+course--gain being their only object--withhold their supplies, until
+the prices shall have, through panic, attained a famine price here;
+and then they will realize their profit when they conceive they can
+gain no more. In the course of things at present, the price of fine
+wheat is so high, that a handsome surplus would remain to foreigners,
+though they paid the import duty. Remove that duty, and the foreigner
+will immediately add its amount to the price of his own wheat. The
+price of wheat would then be as high to the consumer as when the duty
+remained to be paid; while the amount of duty would go into the
+pockets of the foreigner, instead of into our own exchequer. At
+present, the finest foreign wheat is 62s. in bond--remove the present
+duty of 14s., and that wheat will freely give _in the market_ 80s. the
+quarter.
+
+It is, therefore, clear that such an expedient as that of suspending
+the corn-laws merely to include the bonded wheat to be entered for
+home consumption, would, in no degree, benefit the consumer. The
+quantity of wheat at present in bond does not exceed half-a-million of
+quarters--the greatest part of which did not cost the importer 30s.
+per quarter. At least we can vouch for this, that early last summer,
+when the crop looked luxuriant, 5000 quarters of wheat in bond were
+actually offered in the Edinburgh market for 26s., and were sold for
+that sum, and allowed to remain in bond. It still remains in bond, and
+could now realise 62s. Here, then, is a realisable profit of 36s. per
+quarter, and yet the holder will not take it, in the expectation of a
+higher.
+
+We cannot think that Sir Robert Peel would sanction a measure so
+clearly and palpably unwise, for the sake of liberating only half a
+million quarters of wheat, which is the calculated consumption of a
+fortnight. But the late frequent meetings of the Privy Council have
+afforded an admirable opportunity for the alarmists to declaim upon
+coming famine. Matters, they say, must be looking serious indeed, when
+both Cabinet and Council are repeatedly called together; and they jump
+at the conclusion, that suspension of the corn-law is the active
+subject of debate. We pretend to no special knowledge of what is
+passing behind the political curtain; but a far more rational
+conjecture as to the nature of those deliberations may be found in the
+state of the potato crop, and the question, whether any succedaneum
+can be found for it. Perhaps it would be advisable to allow Indian
+corn, or maize, to come in duty-free; if not as food for people, it
+would feed horses, pigs, or poultry, and would make a diversion in
+favour of the consumption of corn to a certain extent; and such a
+relaxation could be made without interfering with the _corn_-laws, for
+maize is not regarded as corn, but stands in the same position as rice
+and millet. We might try this experiment with the maize, as the Dutch
+have already forestalled the rice market.
+
+If the state of the harvest is such as we conscientiously believe it
+to be, there can be no special reason--but rather, as we have shown,
+the reverse--for suspending the action of the corn-laws at this
+particular juncture. If the enactment of that measure was founded on
+the principle of affording protection to the farmer, why interfere
+with these laws at a time when any apprehension of a famine is
+entirely visionary? And since there is a large quantity of food in the
+country, the present prices are certainly not attributable to a
+deficiency in the crop, and are, after all, little more than
+remunerative to the farmers who are raisers of corn alone. The present
+rents could not possibly be paid from the profits of the growth of
+corn. It is the high price of live stock which keeps up the value of
+the land. The aggregate average price of wheat throughout the kingdom
+is only 58s. 6d., upon which no rational argument can be founded for
+the suspension of the laws of the country. Besides the working of the
+corn-laws will in its natural course effect all that is desirable; at
+any rate it does not prevent the introduction of foreign grain into
+the market. The present state of the grain-market presents an apparent
+anomaly--that is, it affords a high and a low price for the same
+commodity, namely wheat; but this difference is no more than might
+have been anticipated from the peculiar condition of the wheat crop,
+which yields good and inferior samples at the same time. It can be no
+matter of surprise that fine wheat should realise good prices, or that
+inferior wheat should only draw low prices. The high price will
+remunerate those who have the good fortune to reap a crop of wheat of
+good quality, and the low prices of the inferior wheat will have the
+effect of keeping the aggregate average price at a medium figure, and,
+by maintaining a high duty, will prevent the influx of inferior grain
+to compete with our own inferior grain in the home market. The law
+thus really affords protection to those who are in need of it--namely,
+to such farmers as have reaped an inferior crop of wheat; while those
+foreigners who have fine wheat in bond, or a surplus which they may
+send to this country, can afford to pay a high duty on receiving a
+high price for their superior article. Taking such a state of things
+into consideration, we cannot conceive a measure more wise in its
+operation, inasmuch as it accommodates itself to the peculiar
+circumstances of the times, than the present form of the corn-law.
+
+Were that law allowed to operate as the legislature intended, it would
+bring grain into this country whenever a supply was actually
+necessary; but we cannot shut our eyes to the mischievous effects
+which unfounded rumours of its suspension have already produced in the
+foreign market. Owing to these reports, propagated by the newspapers,
+the holders of wheat abroad have raised the price to 56s. a quarter,
+free on board; and as the same rumours have advanced the freight to
+6s. a quarter, wheat cannot _now_ be landed here in bond under 66s.
+The suspension of the corn-law would tend to confirm the panic abroad,
+and would therefore increase the difficulties of our corn-merchants,
+in making purchases of wheat for this market. It seems to us very
+strange that sensible men of business should be so credulous as to
+believe every idle rumour that is broached in the newspapers, so
+evidently for party purposes; for the current report of the immediate
+suspension of the corn-law originated in the papers avowedly inimical
+to the Ministry. The character of the League is well known. That body
+has never permitted truth to be an obstacle in the way of its
+attempts.
+
+So much for corn and the corn-laws. But there is a more serious
+question beyond this, and that is the state of the potatoes. If we are
+to believe the journals, more especially those which are attached to
+the cause of the League, the affection has spread, and is spreading to
+a most disastrous extent. Supposing these accounts to be true, we say,
+advisedly, that it will be impossible to find a substitute for the
+potato among the vegetable productions of the world; for neither wheat
+nor maize can be used, like it, with the simplest culinary
+preparation. There can be no doubt that in some places this affection
+is very prevalent, and that a considerable part of the crop in certain
+soils has been rendered unfit for ordinary domestic use. It is
+understood that the Lord-Advocate of Scotland has issued a circular to
+the parish clergymen throughout the kingdom, requesting answers to
+certain queries on this important subject. The information thus
+obtained will no doubt be classified, so that the government will
+immediately arrive at a true estimate of the extent of damage
+incurred.
+
+In the mean time we have caused enquiry to be made for ourselves, and
+the result, in so far as regards Scotland, is much more favourable
+than we had expected, considering the extent of the first alarm. We
+have seen accounts _from every quarter of the kingdom_, and the
+following report may therefore be relied on as strictly consistent
+with fact.
+
+It appears, on investigation, that no traces whatever of the complaint
+have yet been found in the northern half of Scotland. The crop in the
+upper parts of Forfarshire and Perthshire is quite untainted, and so
+across the island. When we consider what a vast stretch of country
+extends to the north of Montrose, the point beyond which, as our
+informants say, this singular affection has not penetrated, we shall
+have great reason to be thankful for such a providential immunity. Our
+chief anxiety, when we first heard of the probable failure, was for
+the Highlands, where potato plant furnishes so common and so necessary
+an article of food. We know by former experience what bitter privation
+is felt during a bad season in the far glens and lonely western
+islands; and most rejoiced are we to find, that for this winter there
+is little likelihood of a repetition of the same calamity.
+Argyleshire, however, except in its northern parishes has not escaped
+so well. We have reason to believe that the potatoes in that district
+have suffered very materially, but to what extent is not yet
+accurately ascertained.
+
+In the Lowlands the accounts are more conflicting; but it is
+remarkable that almost every farmer confesses now, that his first
+apprehensions were greatly worse than the reality. On examination, it
+turns out that many fields which were considered so tainted as to be
+useless, are very slightly affected: it is thus apparent that undue
+precipitation has been used in pronouncing upon the general character
+of the crop from a few isolated samples. Some districts appear to have
+escaped altogether; and from a considerable number we have seen
+reports of a decided abatement in the disease.
+
+In short, keeping in view all the information we have been able to
+collect, the following seems to be the true state of the case:--The
+crop throughout Scotland has been a very large one, but one-half of it
+is affected to a greater or less degree. About a fourth or a fifth of
+this half crop is so slightly damaged, that the unusual amount of
+produce will more than compensate the injury. The remainder is
+certainly worse. Of this, however, a considerable proportion has been
+converted into starch--an expedient which was early recommended in
+many quarters, wisely adopted by the prudent, and may yet be
+extensively increased. An affected potato, unless its juices were
+thoroughly fermented, and decomposition commenced, will yield quite as
+good starch as the healthy root, and all this may be considered as
+saved. Potato starch or farina, when mixed with flour, makes a
+wholesome and palatable bread. In some districts the doubtful potatoes
+are given to the cattle in quantities, and are considered excellent
+feeding. This also is a material saving.
+
+The spread of the complaint, or rather the appearance of its worst
+symptoms, seems to depend very much on the mode of management adopted
+after the potatoes are raised. A friend of ours in Mid-Lothian, who
+has paid much attention to agriculture, has saved nearly the whole of
+his crop, by careful attention to the dryness of the roots when
+heaped, by keeping these heaps small and frequently turned, and, above
+all, by judicious ventilation _through them_. A neighbouring farmer,
+who had an immense crop, but who did not avail him of any of these
+precautions, has suffered most severely.
+
+One letter which we have received is of great importance, as it
+details the means by which an affected crop has been preserved. We
+think it our duty to make the following extract, premising that the
+writer is an eminent practical farmer in the south of Scotland:--"I
+had this year a large crop of potatoes, but my fields, like those of
+my neighbours, did not escape the epidemic. On its first appearance, I
+directed my serious attention to the means of preserving the crop.
+Though inclined to impute the complaint to a deeper cause than the
+wetness of the season, I conceived that damp would, as a matter of
+course, increase any tendency to decay, and I took my measures
+accordingly. Having raised my potatoes, I caused all the sound ones,
+which seemed free from spot and blemish, to be carefully picked by the
+hand; and, having selected a dry situation in an adjoining field, I
+desired them to be heaped there in quantities, none of which exceeded
+a couple of bolls. The method of pitting them was this:--On a dry
+foundation we placed a layer of potatoes, which we covered with sandy
+mould, though I don't doubt straw would do as well; above that,
+another layer, also covered; and so on, keeping the potatoes as
+separate from each other as possible. We then thatched and covered
+them over as usual with straw, leaving ventilators on the top. I have
+had them opened since, and there is no trace whatever of any decay,
+which I attribute to the above precautions, as others in the
+neighbourhood, whose potatoes grew in exactly similar soil, have lost
+great part of their crop by heaping them in huge masses. Ventilation,
+you may depend upon it, is a great preservative. I have, I think,
+arrested the complaint even in affected potatoes, by laying them out
+(not heaping them) on a dry floor, in a covered place where there is a
+strong current of air. They are not spoiling _now_; and when the
+unsound parts are cut out, we find them quite wholesome and fit for
+use. I am of opinion, therefore, that by using due caution, the
+progress of the complaint, so far as it has gone, may in most cases be
+effectually checked."
+
+We are, therefore, almost certain, that when the damaged portion is
+deducted from the whole amount of the crop, there still remains an
+ample store of good potatoes for the consumption of the whole
+population--that is, if the potatoes were distributed equally through
+the markets. This, however, cannot be done, and, therefore, there are
+some places where this vegetable will be dear and scarce. The farmer
+who has a large crop of sound potatoes, and who does not reside in an
+exporting part of the country, will naturally enough use his
+superfluity for his cattle; and this cannot be prevented. We hope,
+however, that the habitual thrift of our countrymen will cause them to
+abstain, as much as possible, from wasting their extra stock in this
+manner, more especially as there is abundance of other kinds of
+fodder. They will command a high price as an esculent, and perhaps a
+higher, if they are preserved for the purposes of seed. Exportation
+also should be carried on cautiously; but we repeat, that the general
+tenor of our information is so far satisfactory, that it exhibits
+nothing more than a partial affection of the crop in the southern
+districts, and the majority of those are compensated by a good
+provision of corn.
+
+In addition to these statistics, obtained from many and various
+sources, we have been favoured with the opinion of Mr Stephens, which
+we now subjoin:--
+
+
+THE POTATO ROT.
+
+"This affection I do not regard as a disease--but simply as a
+rottenness in the tuber, superinduced by the combination of a low
+temperature with excessive moisture, during the growing season of that
+sort of root, when it is most liable to be affected on account of its
+succulent texture.[39] A friend informs me that he remembers the same
+kind of rottenness seizing the potato crop of the country in the late
+and wet season of 1799; and, as a consequence, the seed potato for the
+following crop fetched as high a price as 26s. the boll of 5 cwt.[40]
+I am inclined to believe, however, that the effects of this rot are
+much exaggerated. It is, in the first place, said to be poisonous; and
+yet pigs, to my certain knowledge, have been fed on spoiled potatoes
+alone, on purpose, with impunity. There is little outcry made against
+rot in the dry soils of Perthshire and Forfarshire, and these are the
+two most extensive districts from which potatoes are shipped for
+London. There are farmers in various parts of the country who warrant
+the soundness of the potatoes they supply their customers. The
+accounts of the potato crop from the Highland districts are most
+favourable. I believe the fact will turn out to be this, that, like
+corn, the potatoes will not only be a good, but a great crop, in all
+the _true potato soils_--that is, in deep dry soils on a dry subsoil,
+whether naturally so, or made so by draining--and that in all the
+heavy soils, whether rich or poor, they are rotting.
+
+A short time will put an end to all conjecture on the state of the
+potato crop, and afford us facts upon which we shall be able to reason
+and judge aright."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As the question of seed is always a most important one, whenever a new
+disease or partial affection of so staple a product is discovered, it
+may not be useless to note down Mr Stephens' ideas, in regard to the
+supposed destruction of the vegetative principle in part of the
+affected crop--
+
+
+SEED POTATOES.
+
+"I would feel no apprehension in employing such affected potatoes for
+seed, next spring, as shall be preserved till that time; because I
+believe it to be the case that the low temperature enfeebled the
+vegetative powers of the plant so much as to disable it from throwing
+off the large quantity of moisture that was presented to it; and I
+therefore conclude that any rot superinduced by such causes cannot
+possess a character which is hereditary. There seems no reason,
+therefore, why the complaint should be propagated in future, in
+circumstances favourable to vegetation; and this opinion is the more
+likely to be true, that it is not inconsistent with the idea of the
+disease of former years having arisen from a degenerate state of the
+potato plant, since low temperature and excessive moisture were more
+likely to affect a plant in a state of degeneracy than when its
+vitality remains unimpaired.
+
+There is no doubt that this affection of the potato is general, and it
+is quite possible that it may yet spread. This, however, is a question
+which cannot yet be solved, and certainly, so far as we know, the
+Highlands, and the Orkney and Shetland Isles, have hitherto escaped.
+The portion of the crop as yet actually rendered unfit for human food,
+does not perhaps exceed one-fourth in parts of the country whence
+potatoes are exported; and could the affection be stopped from
+spreading further than this, there would still be a sufficiency of
+potatoes for the consumption of _human beings_, as the crop is
+acknowledged to be a large one in the best districts. Much, however,
+depends upon our ability to arrest the affection, or its cessation
+from other causes.
+
+It is known that rotten potatoes, like rotten turnips, when left in
+heaps in contact with sound ones, will cause the latter to rot. Aware
+of this fact, farmers have, this last year, caused the potatoes in the
+heaps, as soon as the lifting of the crop was over, to be individually
+examined, and placed the sound ones in narrow, low pits, mixed with
+some desiccating substance, and covered with straw and earth. When the
+pits were opened for examination, the rot was found to have spread
+very much, in consequence of the dampness and heat which was so
+diffused throughout the pits. This is an effect that might have been
+anticipated. Had the precaution been used of taking up the crop in
+small quantities at a time, or of spreading the potatoes on the ground
+when the weather was fair, or in sheds when wet--and of allowing them
+to be exposed to the air until they had became tolerably firm and dry;
+and had the sound potatoes been then selected by hand, piled together,
+and afterwards put into smaller pits, it is probable that a much less
+proportion of any crop that was taken up would have been lost. Such a
+plan, no doubt, would have caused a protracted potato harvest, but the
+loss of time at that period, in performing the necessary work of
+selection, is a small consideration compared with an extensive injury
+to the crop. It is no doubt desirable to have the potato land ploughed
+for wheat as soon as possible after the potatoes have been removed;
+but there is no more urgency in ploughing potato than in ploughing
+turnip land for wheat; and, at any rate, it is better to delay the
+ploughing of the potato land for a few days, than run the risk of
+losing a whole crop of so excellent an esculent.
+
+I may here mention an experiment in regard to the potato, which shows
+that a larger crop has been received by planting the sets in autumn
+than in spring. Those who have tried this system on a large scale say,
+that the increase is in the ratio of 111 to 80 bolls per acre. If this
+is near the truth, it would indicate, that the sets may safely be
+entrusted to lie in the ground all winter upon the dung; and could we
+be assured of their safety there in all cases, the potatoes of this
+year, selected in the manner above described, might be used as seed
+this winter and preserved as such, in the ground, in a safer state
+than even in the small pits. Such an experiment may be tried this
+winter, in dry weather, without much risk of losing the future crop;
+for if, on examination in spring, it should be found that all the sets
+have rotted in the drills, there would be plenty of time to replant
+the crop, in its proper season, with the sets that had survived till
+that time, by the means of preservation used.
+
+I have heard of farmers in this neighbourhood who are planting their
+potato crop in this favourable weather; and it does seem very probable
+that, as each set is placed at a considerable distance from the other,
+and in circumstances to resist frost--namely, amongst plenty of dung
+and earth--the entire number may escape putrefaction."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+No doubt, if the potato crop shall prove to be very generally
+affected, the price of corn will rise yet farther, and may be for a
+long time maintained. But this is a very different thing from a
+scarcity of that article, which we believe is merely visionary. We
+must be fed with corn if we cannot get the potato in its usual plenty;
+and it is the certainty, or rather the expectation, of this, which has
+raised the price of the former. In the course of last month (October)
+we met with an admirable article on this subject, in the columns of
+_Bell's Weekly Messenger_, which we do not hesitate to adopt, as clear
+in its views, hopeful in its tone, and strictly rational in its
+argument.
+
+
+THE RISING PRICE OF WHEAT AND FLOUR.
+
+"What we predicted in one of our recent papers is daily becoming
+realised to an extent which is now exciting general attention, and,
+with some classes of the people, has already produced great alarm and
+anxiety for the future. We stated at that time, that though the return
+of fine weather, about the middle of last month, had saved the
+harvest, and given us a crop much more than had been anticipated,
+still there were causes in operation which would keep up the prices of
+wheat and flour; and that, at least for many weeks to come wheat would
+not fall in the British Market.
+
+"It should be borne in mind that the getting in of the harvest is very
+closely followed by the wheat seed-time, and that two causes are then
+always operative to maintain and raise the price of wheat. There is,
+first, a large call on the stock in hand for seed wheat; and,
+secondly, the farmers are too busy to carry their corn into market,
+and accordingly the market is ill supplied. A third cause is also in
+operation to produce the same effect--that of an unreasonable alarm
+always resulting from an ill-supplied market.
+
+"It would seem astonishing and even incredible to men who argue only
+theoretically, that though year after year the same uniform causes
+operate, and produce exactly the same effects, yet that this aspect of
+the market should continue to delude and mislead the public mind, but
+so it is in the corn-market, and with the British public in general;
+for though they see through a long succession of years that wheat and
+flour invariably rise in the market immediately after harvest and
+during seed-time, and though they ought to understand that this rise
+is produced by the quantity required for seed, and by the busy
+occupation of the farmers, they still perversely attribute it to
+another cause, existing only in their own apprehensions, namely, that
+the recent harvest has been deficient, and that the market is ill
+supplied because there is an insufficient stock with which to supply
+it.
+
+"As it is the inflexible rule of our paper to apply itself on the
+instant to correct all popular errors and to dissipate all
+unreasonable panics, we feel ourselves called upon to say, that the
+present rise in the price of corn results only from the very serious
+failure of the potato crop in many of our own counties, and still more
+materially in Belgium and other foreign kingdoms. From the mere
+circumstance of their numbers only, to say nothing of their habits and
+necessities, an immense quantity of this food is required for the
+sustenance of many millions of the community; and when the crop fails
+to such an extensive degree as it has done in the present case, this
+vast numerical proportion of every state must necessarily be chiefly
+maintained from the stock of corn. If the potato crop fail at home,
+the poor are directly thrown upon the corn-market, and the price of
+corn must necessarily rise in proportion to the increased demand.
+Where the potato crop has failed abroad, the supply of foreign corn
+must necessarily be directed to that quarter, and therefore less corn
+will be imported into the British market.
+
+"Now, it is the expectation of this result, which, together with the
+wheat seed-time and the full occupation of the farmers, is producing
+the present rise in the British corn-market, and these causes will
+probably continue to operate for some time longer.
+
+"In some parts of the country, such as our northern and eastern
+counties, we understand the current judgment to be, that though the
+harvest has produced more bushels than in an average year, the weight
+per bushel is less than last year, and that the deficiency of the
+quality brings the produce down in such districts to less than an
+average crop. But if we set against this the happier result of the
+wheat harvest in our southern and western counties, we must still
+retain our former opinion, that there is at least no present ground
+for any thing like a panic, either amongst the public in general or
+amongst the farmers themselves. The public as yet have no cause to
+dread any thing like that very serious scarcity which some of our
+papers have announced, and the farmers themselves have no cause to
+apprehend such a sudden and extraordinary state of the market, as
+would involve them in the general suffering of the community."
+
+We shall now close our remarks on the subject of the Scottish Harvest.
+In thus limiting our remarks to the harvest in Scotland, we have been
+actuated by no narrow spirit of nationality, but have judged it right,
+in treating a subject of such importance, to confine ourselves to that
+portion of the United Kingdom in which we possessed means of obtaining
+information which positively could be relied upon. Indeed, were it not
+for the paramount importance of the question, which will soon be
+founded on as a topic for political discussion, we should hardly have
+addressed ourselves to the task. But we have noticed, with great
+disgust, the efforts of the League to influence, at this particular
+crisis, the public mind, by gross misrepresentations of our position
+and prospects; and, being convinced that a more dangerous and
+designing faction never yet thrust themselves into public notice, we
+have thought it right, in the first instance, to collect and to
+classify our facts. This done, we have yet a word or two in store for
+the members of the mountebank coalition.
+
+No evil is unmixed with good. The murmurs of the alarmists at home,
+unfounded as we believe them to be, have brought out, more clearly
+than we could have hoped for, the state of foreign feeling with regard
+to British enterprise, and the prospects of future supply upon which
+this country must depend, should the sliding-scale be abrogated and
+all import duties abolished. The most infatuated Leaguer will hardly
+deny, that if the corn-law had ceased to exist three years ago, and a
+great part of our poorer soils had in consequence been removed from
+tillage, our present position with regard to food must have been
+infinitely worse. In fact, we should then have presented the unhappy
+spectacle of a great industrial community incapable of rearing food
+for its population at home, and solely dependent for a supply on
+foreign states; and that, too, in a year when the harvests throughout
+Europe, and even in America, have suffered. And here, by the way,
+before going further, let us remark, that the advocates of the League
+never seem to have contemplated, at all events they have never
+grappled with, the notorious fact, that the effects of most
+unpropitious seasons are felt far beyond the confines of the British
+isles. This year, indeed, we were the last to suffer; and the memory
+of the youngest of us, who has attained the age of reason, will
+furnish him with examples of far severer seasons than that which has
+just gone by. What, then, is to be done, should the proportion of the
+land in tillage be reduced below the mark which, in an average year,
+could supply our population with food--if, at the same time, a famine
+were to occur abroad, and deprive the continental agriculturists of
+their surplus store of corn? The answer is a short one--_Our people
+must necessarily_ STARVE. The manufacturers would be the first to feel
+the appalling misery of their situation, and the men whom they would
+have to thank for the severest and most lingering death, are the
+chosen apostles of the League!
+
+Is this an overdrawn picture? Let us see. France at this moment is
+convinced that we are on the verge of a state of famine. Almost all
+the French journalists, believing what they probably wish for, and
+misled by the repealing howl, and faint-hearted predictions of the
+coward, assume that our home stock of provision is not sufficient to
+last us for the ensuing winter. That is just the situation to which we
+should be reduced _every_ year, if Messrs Cobden, Bright, and Company
+had their will. What, then, says our neighbour, and now most
+magnanimous ally? Is he willing--for they allege they have a
+superfluity--to supply us in this time of hypothetical distress--to
+act the part of the good Samaritan, and pour, not wine and oil, but
+corn into our wounds? Is he about to take the noblest revenge upon a
+former adversary, by showing himself, in the moment of need, a
+benefactor instead of a foe? Oh, my Lord Ashley! you and others, whose
+spirit is more timid than becomes your blood, had better look, ere you
+give up the mainstay of your country's prosperity--ere you surrender
+the cause of the agriculturist--to the _animus_ that is now manifested
+abroad. We have reason to bless Heaven that it has been thus early
+shown, before, by mean and miserable concession to the clamours of a
+selfish interest, we have placed Britain for the first time absolutely
+at the mercy of a foreign power. Scarce a journal in France that does
+not tell you--loudly--boldly--exultingly--what treatment we may expect
+from their hands. "At last," they say, "we have got this perfidious
+Albion in our power. Nature has done for us, in her cycle, what for
+centuries the force of our arms and concentrated rancour could not
+achieve. The English newspapers in every column teem with the tidings
+of failure. The crop of corn is bad beyond any former experience. It
+cannot suffice to feed one half of the population. The potato crop
+also, which is the sole subsistence of Ireland, is thoroughly ruined.
+Scarce a minute fraction of it can be used for the purposes of human
+food. The British Cabinet are earnestly deliberating on the propriety
+of opening the ports. The public, almost to a man, are demanding the
+adoption of that measure--and doubtless erelong they will be opened.
+
+"What, then, are we to do? Are we to be guilty of the egregious folly
+of supplying our huge and overgrown rival, at the moment when we have
+the opportunity to strike a blow at the very centre of her system, and
+that without having recourse to the slightest belligerent measures?
+Are we, at the commencement of her impending misery, to reciprocate
+with England--that England which arrested us in the midst of our
+career of conquest, swept our navies from the seas, baffled our
+bravest armies, and led away our Emperor captive? The man who can
+entertain such an idea--be he who he may--is a traitor to the honour
+of his country. Let England open her ports if she will, and as she
+must, but let us at the self-same moment be prepared to CLOSE our own.
+Let not one grain of corn, if possible, be exported from France. We
+have plenty, and to spare. Our hardy peasantry can pass the winter in
+comfort; whilst, on the opposite side of the Channel, we shall have
+the satisfaction of beholding our haughty enemy convulsed, and
+wallowing like a stranded Leviathan on the shore! We pity the brave
+Irish, but we shall not help them. To do so would be, in fact, to
+exonerate Britain of her greatest and primary burden."
+
+This is the language which the French journalists are using at the
+present moment. Let no Englishman delude himself into the belief that
+it does not express the true sentiments of the nation. We know
+something of the men whose vocation it is to compound these patriotic
+articles. They are fostered under the pernicious system which converts
+the penny-a-liner into that anomalous hybrid, a Peer of France--which
+make it almost a necessary qualification to become a statesman, that
+the aspirant has been a successful scribbler in the public journals.
+And this, forsooth, they call the genuine aristocracy of talent! Their
+whole aim is to be popular, even at the expense of truth. They are
+pandars to the weakness of a nation for their own individual
+advancement. They have no stake in the country save the grey
+goose-quill they dishonour; and yet they affect to lead the opinions
+of the people, and--to the discredit of the French intellect be it
+recorded--they do in a great measure lead them. In short, it is a
+ruffian press, and we know well by what means France has been
+ruffianized. The war party--as it calls itself--is strong, and has
+been reared up by the unremitting exertions of these felons of
+society, who, for the sake of a cheer to tickle their own despicable
+vanity, would not hesitate for a moment, if they had the power, to
+wrap Europe again in the flames of universal war. Such will,
+doubtless, one day be the result of this unbridled license. The demon
+is not yet exorcised from France, and the horrors of the Revolution
+may be acted over again, with such additional refinements of brutality
+as foregone experience shall suggest. Meantime, we say to our own
+domestic shrinkers--Is this a season, when such a spirit is abroad, to
+make ourselves dependent for subsistence--which is life--upon the
+chance of a foreign supply?
+
+Yes, gentlemen journalists of France--whether you be peers or not--you
+have spoken out a little too early. The blindest of us now can see you
+in your genuine character and colours. But rest satisfied; the day of
+retribution, as you impiously dare to term it, has not yet arrived.
+Britain does not want your corn, and not for it will she abandon an
+iota of her system.
+
+There can be no doubt, that the news of a famine here would be
+received in France with more joy than the tidings of a second Marengo.
+The mere expectation of it has already intoxicated the press; and,
+accordingly, they have begun to speculate upon the probable conduct of
+other foreign powers, in the event of our ports being opened. Belgium,
+they are delighted to find, is in so bad a situation, in so far as
+regards its crop, that the august King Leopold has thought proper to
+issue a public declaration, that his own royal mouth shall for the
+next year remain innocent of the flavour of a single potato. This
+looks well. Belgium, it is hoped, is not overabundant in wheat; but,
+even if she were, Belgium owes much to France, and--a meaning asterisk
+covers and conveys the remaining part of the inuendo. Swampy Holland,
+they say, can do Britain no good--nay, have not the cautious Dutch
+been beforehand with Britain, and forestalled, by previous purchase,
+the calculated supply of rice? Well done, Batavian merchant! In this
+instance, at least, you are playing the game for France.
+
+Then they have high hopes from the ZOLLVEREIN. That combination has
+evidently to dread the rivalry of British manufacture, and its
+managers are too shrewd to lose this glorious opportunity of
+barricado. There are, therefore, hopes that Germany, utterly
+forgetting the days of subsidies, will shut her ports for export, and
+also prevent the descent of Polish corn. If not, winter is near at
+hand, and the mouths of the rivers may be frozen before a supply can
+be sent to the starving British. Another delightful prospect for young
+and regenerated France!
+
+Also, mysterious rumours are afloat with regard to the policy of the
+Autocrat. It is said, he too is going to shut up--whether from hatred
+to Britain, or paternal anxiety for the welfare of his subjects, does
+not appear. Yet there is not a Parisian scribe of them all but derives
+his information direct from the secret cabinet of Nicholas. Then there
+is America--have we not rumours of war there? How much depends upon
+the result of the speech which President Polk shall deliver! _He_
+knows well by this time that England is threatened with famine--and
+will he be fool enough to submit to a compromise, when by simple
+embargo he might enforce his country's claims? So that altogether, in
+the opinion of the French, we are like to have the worst of it, and
+may be sheerly starved into any kind of submission.
+
+No thanks to Cobden and Co. that this is not our case at present. The
+abolition of the corn-duty would be immediately followed by the
+abandonment of a large part of the soil now under tillage. Every year
+we should learn to depend more and more upon foreign supply, and give
+up a further portion of our own agricultural toil. Place us in that
+position, and let a bad season, which shall affect not only us, but
+the Continent, come round, and the dreams of France will be realized.
+Gentlemen of England--you that are wavering from your former
+faith--will you refuse the lesson afforded you, by this premature
+exultation on the part of our dangerous neighbour? Do you not see what
+weight France evidently attaches to the repeal of our protection
+duties--how anxiously she is watching--how earnestly she is praying
+for it? If you will not believe your friends, will you not take
+warning from an enemy? Would you hold it chivalry, if you saw an
+antagonist before you armed at all points, and confident of further
+assistance, to throw away your defensive armour, and leave yourselves
+exposed to his attacks? And yet, is not this precisely what will be
+done if you abandon the principles of protection?
+
+Are you afraid of that word, PROTECTION? Shame upon you, if you are!
+No doubt it has been most scandalously misrepresented by the
+cotton-mongering orators, but it is a great word, and a wise word, if
+truly and thoroughly understood. It does not mean that corn shall be
+grown in this country for _your_ benefit or that of any exclusive
+class--were it so, protection would be a wrong--but it means, that at
+all times there shall be maintained in the country an amount of food,
+reared within itself, sufficient for the sustenance of the nation, in
+case that war, or some other external cause, should shut up all other
+sources. And this, which is in fact protection for the nation--a just
+and wise security against famine, in which the poor and the rich are
+equally interested--is perverted by the chimney-stalk proprietors into
+a positive national grievance. Why, the question lies in a nutshell.
+Corn will not be grown in this country unless you give it an adequate
+market. Admit foreign corn, and you not only put a stop to
+agricultural improvement in reclaiming waste land, by means of which
+production may be carried to an indefinite degree, but you also throw
+a vast quantity of the land at present productive out of bearing.
+Suppose, then, that next year, all protection being abolished, the
+quantity of grain raised in the country is but equal to half the
+demand of the population; foreign corn, of course, must come in to
+supply the deficiency. We shall not enlarge upon the first argument
+which must occur to every thinking person--the argument being, that in
+such a state of things, the foreigner, whoever he may be, with whom we
+are dealing, has it in his power to demand and exact any price he
+pleases for his corn. What say the Cobdenites in answer to this? "Oh,
+then, we shall charge the foreigner a corresponding price for our
+cottons and our calicoes!" No, gentlemen--that will not do. We have no
+doubt this idea _has_ entered into your calculations, and that you
+hope, through a scarcity of home-grown corn, to realize an augmented
+profit on your produce--in short, to be the only gainers in a time of
+general distress. But there is a flaw in your reasoning, too palpable
+to be overlooked. The foreigner _can do without calico_, but the
+British nation CANNOT _do without bread_. The wants of the stomach are
+paramount--nothing can enter into competition with them. The German,
+Pole, or Frenchman, may, for a season, wear a ragged coat, or an
+inferior shirt, or even dispense with the latter garment, if it so
+pleases him; and yet suffer comparatively nothing. But what are our
+population to do, if bread is not procurable except at the enormous
+prices which, when you abolish protection, you entitle the foreigner
+to charge? Have you the heart to respond, in the only imaginable
+answer--it is a mere monosyllable--STARVE?
+
+But suppose that, for the first two years or so, we went on
+swimmingly--that there were good and plentiful seasons abroad, and
+that corn flowed into our market abundantly from all quarters of the
+world. Suppose that bread became cheaper than we ever knew it before,
+that our manufactures were readily and greedily taken, and that we had
+realised the manufacturing Eden, which the disciples of Devil's-dust
+have predicted, as the immediate consequence of our abandoning all
+manner of restrictions. How will this state of unbounded prosperity
+affect the land? For every five shillings of fall in the price of the
+quarter of wheat, fresh districts will be abandoned by the plough. The
+farmer will be unable to work them at a profit, and so he will cease
+to grow grain. He may put steers upon them; or they may be covered
+with little fancy villas, or Owenite parallelograms, to suit the taste
+of the modern philosopher, and accomodate the additional population
+who are to assist in the prospective crops of calico. The cheaper corn
+then is, the smaller will become our home-producing surface. The
+chaw-bacon will be driven to the railroads, where there is already a
+tolerable demand for him. The flail will be silent in the barn, and
+the song of the reaper in the fields.
+
+Let us suppose this to last for a few years, during which Lord John
+Russell--the Whigs having, in the meantime, got rid of all graduating
+scruples and come back to power--has taken an opportunity of enriching
+the peerage by elevating the redoubted Cobden to its ranks. But a
+change suddenly passes across the spirit of our dream. At once, and
+like a thunderbolt--without warning or presage--comes a famine or a
+war. We care not which of them is taken as an illustration. Both are
+calamities, unfortunately, well known in this country; and we hardly
+can expect that many years shall pass over our heads without the
+occurrence of one or other of them. Let us take the evil of man's
+creating--war. The Channel is filled with French shipping, and all
+along the coast, from Cape Ushant to Elsinore, the ports are rigidly
+shut. Mean time American cruisers are scouring the Atlantic, chasing
+our merchantmen, and embarassing communication with the colonies.
+Also, there is war in the Mediterranean. We have fifty, nay, a hundred
+points to watch with our vessels--a hundred isolated interests to
+maintain, and these demand an immense and yet a divided force. Convoys
+cannot be spared without loss of territory, and then--what becomes of
+us at home?
+
+Most miserable is the prospect; and yet it does appear, if we are mad
+enough to abandon protection, perfectly inevitable. With but a portion
+of our land in tillage--an augmented population--no stored corn--no
+means of recalling for two years at the soonest, even if we could
+spare seed, and that is questionable, the dormant energies of the
+earth!--Can you fancy, my Lord Ashley, or you, converted Mr Escott,
+what Britain would be then? We will tell you. Not perhaps a prey--for
+we will not even imagine such degradation--but a bargainer and
+compounder with an inferior power or powers, whom she might have
+bearded for centuries with impunity, had not some selfish traitors
+been wicked enough to demand, and some infatuated statesmen foolish
+enough to grant, the abrogation of that protection which is her
+sole security for pre-eminence. What are all the cotton bales of
+Manchester in comparison with such considerations as these? O
+Devil's-dust--Devil's-dust! Have we really declined so far, that _you_
+are to be the Sinon to bring us to this sorry pass? Is the poisoned
+breath of the casuist to destroy the prosperity of those--
+
+   "Quos neque Tydides, nec Larissaeus Achilles,
+    Non anni domuere decem, non mille carinae!"
+
+It may be so--for a small shard-beetle can upset a massive
+candle-stick; and it will be so assuredly, if the protective principle
+is abandoned. The first duty of a nation is to rear food for its
+inhabitants from the bosom of its own soil, and woe must follow if it
+relies for daily sustenance upon another. We can now form a fair
+estimate of the probable continuance of the supply, from the premature
+exultation exhibited in the foreign journals, and we shall be worse
+than fools if we do not avail ourselves of the lesson.
+
+[Footnote 39: "Not that I think there was more rain in the _earlier
+part of summer_ than the potato crop could absorb, for it is known to
+require a large supply of moisture in its growing state, in order to
+acquire a full development of all its parts. It was observable,
+however, that the rain increased as the season advanced, and after the
+potato plant had reached its full development. It is, therefore,
+probable that the increased moisture, which was not then wanted by the
+plant, would become excessive; and this moisture, along with the low
+temperature, may have produced such chemical change in the sap as to
+facilitate the putrefaction of the entire plant. As to the theories
+with respect to the presence of a fungus, or of insects, in the plant,
+I consider these as a mere exponent of the tendency to a state of
+putrefaction; such being the usual accompaniments of all vegetable and
+animal decay."]
+
+[Footnote 40: "I remember the wet seasons of 1816 and 1817. There was
+then no rot in the potato; but, during the whole of those rainy
+seasons, we had not the _continued cold_ weather which we have this
+year experienced."]
+
+
+
+
+INDEX TO VOL. LVIII.
+
+
+  Account of a Visit to the Volcano of Kirauea, in the Island of
+    Owhyhee, 591.
+
+  Agriculture round Lucca, 619.
+
+  Alas, for her! from the Russian of Pushkin, 141.
+
+  Alpine scenery, sketches of, 704.
+
+  American war, causes which fostered the, 721.
+
+  Andes, description of the, 555.
+
+  Andre Chenier, from the Russian of Pushkin, 154.
+
+  Anti-corn-law League, strictures on the, 780.
+
+  Apparitions, &c., letter to Eusebius on, 735.
+
+  Armfelt, Count, 59.
+
+  Arndt, notices of, 332, 333.
+
+  Art, causes of the absence of taste for, 414.
+
+  Avernus, lake, 489.
+
+
+  Bacon, political essays of, 389.
+
+  Baiae, 488.
+
+  Barclay de Tolly, from the Russian of Pushkin, 40.
+
+  Baron von Stein, 328.
+
+  Barri, Madame du, 730, 733.
+
+  Bazars of Constantinople, the, 688.
+
+  Beaumont, Sir George, 258, 262.
+
+  Bell's Messenger, extract from, on the prices of grain, 779.
+
+  Betterton's version of Chaucer, remarks on, 114.
+
+  Bettina, sketch of the life, &c., of, 357.
+
+  Biographical sketch of Frank Abney Hastings, 496.
+
+  Black Shawl, the, from Pushkin, 37.
+
+  Blanc, Mont, on the scenery of, 707.
+
+  Blenheim, battle of, 18.
+
+  Boas, Edward, sketches of Sweden, &c. by, 56.
+
+  Bossuet's Universal History, characteristics of, 390.
+
+  Bottetort, Lord, anecdote of, 724.
+
+  Bowles, W. L., on the Dunciad, 251.
+
+  Boyhood, a reminiscence of, by Delta, 408.
+
+  Brabant, conquest of, by Marlborough, 665.
+
+  Bread, causes of the present dearness of, 772.
+
+  Bremer, Miss, the Swedish novelist, 62.
+
+  Brentford election, the, 725.
+
+  Brienz, scenery of the lake of, 705.
+
+  British critics, North's specimens of the,
+    --No. VI.--Supplement to Dryden on Chaucer, 114.
+    --No. VI.--MacFlecnoe and the Dunciad, 229.
+    --No. VIII.--Supplement to the same, 366.
+
+  Bulwer's Last of the Barons, remarks on, 350, 353.
+
+  Burtin on Pictures, review of, 413.
+
+
+  Capital punishment, on, 131.
+
+  Carlist war, sketches of the, 210.
+
+  Caserta, palace of, 491.
+    --silk manufactory, 492.
+
+  Caucasus, the, from the Russian of Pushkin, 34.
+
+  Celibacy of the clergy, effects of the, in France, 187.
+
+  Chamouni, valley of, 707.
+
+  Chatham, Lord, 717.
+
+  Chaucer, Dryden on, 114.
+
+  Chimborazo, ascent of, by Humboldt, 547.
+
+  Choiseul, the Duc de, 730, 732.
+
+  Churchill, critique on, 372.
+
+  Churchill, see Marlborough.
+
+  Clairvoyance, remarks on, 736.
+
+  Clarke, Dr, extracts from, 555.
+
+  Clarke's Life of James II., notice of, 4.
+
+  Cloud, the, and the Mountain, a reminiscence of Switzerland, 704.
+
+  Clytha house, &c., 477.
+
+  Col de Balme, pass of the, 707.
+
+  Colebrook, Sir George, extracts from the memoirs of, 716, 719.
+
+  Colour in painting, remarks on, 419.
+
+  Confessions of an English opium-eater, sequel to the, Part II., 43.
+
+  Constable the painter, sketch of the life, &c., of, 257.
+
+  Constantinople, Three Years in, 688.
+
+  Convicts at Norfolk Island, management, &c. of, 138.
+
+  Cooper, characteristics of, as a novelist, 355.
+
+  Copenhagen, description of, 68.
+
+  Corali, by J. D., 495.
+
+  Corn-laws, proposed suspension of the, 773.
+    --effects of the abolition of, 780.
+
+  Cornwallis, Earl, administration of Ireland by, 731.
+
+  Corporations of Constantinople, the, 696.
+
+  Corsica, conquest of, by the French, 728.
+
+  Coventry, Lady, 726.
+
+  Coxe's Life of Marlborough, notice of, 3.
+
+
+  Dalarna or Dalecarlia, sketches of, 64.
+
+  D'Alembert, character of Montesquieu by, 395.
+
+  Dalin, Olof von, 62.
+
+  Danes, national character of the, 69.
+
+  David the Telynwr; or, the Daughter's trial--a tale of Wales,
+    by Joseph Downs, 96.
+
+  Days of the Fronde, the, 596.
+
+  Dearness of bread, causes of the present, 772.
+
+  De Burtin on pictures, 413.
+
+  Delta, a reminiscence of boyhood by, 408.
+
+  Dendermonde, capture of, by Marlborough, 668.
+
+  Despatches of the Duke of Marlborough, review of,
+    --No. I. 1.
+    --No. II. 649.
+
+  Domestic manners of the Turks, the, 688.
+
+  Downes, Joseph--David the Telynwr, a tale of Wales, by, 96.
+
+  Drama, state of the, 178.
+
+  Dreams, &c., letter to Eusebius on, 735.
+
+  Drinking, prevalence of, in the 19th century, 726.
+
+  Dryden on Chaucer, 114.
+    --his MacFlecnoe, 232, 366.
+
+  Dumas' Margaret of Valois, extracts from, 312.
+    --extracts from his Days of the Fronde, 596.
+
+  Dunciad, the, critique on, 234, 366.
+
+  Dunning the solicitor-general, character of, 722.
+
+  Dutch school of painting, the, 426.
+
+  Dutem's life of Marlborough, notice of, 3.
+
+
+  Echo, from the Russian of Pushkin, 145.
+
+  Education, state of, in Turkey, 692.
+    --remarks on the system of, at the English Universities, 542.
+
+  Edward, Duke of York, character of, 719.
+
+  Egyptian market at Constantinople, the, 700.
+
+  English landscape painting, on, 257.
+
+  English Opium-eater, a sequel to the confessions of the, Part II. 43.
+
+  Epitaphs in Wales, 484.
+
+  Esprit des Lois of Montesquieu, the, 392.
+    --its characteristics, 397.
+
+  Eugene, Prince, 14, 669.
+
+  Eusebius, letter to, on omens, dreams, appearances, &c., 735.
+
+
+  Failure of the potato crop, extent, &c. of the, 775.
+
+  Feast of Peter the First, the, from Pushkin, 142.
+
+  Fersen, Count, murder of, 61.
+
+  Few passages concerning omens, dreams, appearances, &c., in a letter
+    to Eusebius, 735.
+
+  Few words for Bettina, a, 357.
+
+  Fisher, Archdeacon, 260.
+
+  Flemish school of painting, the, 426.
+
+  Flour, on the rising price of, 779.
+
+  Flygare, Emily, the Swedish novelist, 62.
+
+  France under Louis XIV., 12.
+    --prevalent feeling in, towards England, 781.
+
+  French school of painting, the, 427.
+    --Noblesse, character of the, 733.
+
+
+  Garden of the Villa Reale, the, 486.
+
+  General, the, from the Russian of Pushkin, 41.
+
+  German school of painting, the, 427.
+
+  Gleig's life of Marlborough, notice of, 4.
+
+  Glenmutchkin railway, the
+    --How we got it up, and how we got out of it, 453.
+
+  Gloucester the Duke of, character of, 719.
+
+  Goethe and Bettina, the correspondence of, 358.
+
+  Goethe's Torquato Tasso, translations from, 87.
+
+  Gotha canal, the, 68.
+
+  Grafton, the Duke of, Walpole's character of, 718.
+
+  Grain crop, quantity, &c., of the, in Scotland, 769.
+    --and its quality, 770.
+
+  Grandeur et decadence des Romains, Montesquieu's, characteristics,
+    &c. of, 391, 401.
+
+  Grand general junction and indefinite extension railway rhapsody, 614.
+
+  Greek Revolution, sketches of the, 496.
+
+  Griesbach, fall of the, 707.
+
+  Guamos of South America, the, 554.
+
+  Guilds of Constantinople, the, 696.
+
+  Gunning, the Misses, 726.
+
+  Gustavus Vasa, notices of, 66.
+
+
+  Hahn-Hahn, the Countess, 71.
+
+  Hakem the slave, a tale extracted from the history of Poland.
+    --Chapter I., 560.
+    --Chap. II., 561.
+    --Chap. III., 563.
+    --Chap. IV., 565.
+    --Chap. V., 567.
+
+  Hamilton, the Duchess of, 726.
+
+  Handel, character of the music of, 573.
+
+  Harvest, the Scottish, 769.
+    --quantity of the grain crop, ib.
+    --and its quality, 770.
+    --cause of the inferiority of the wheat, 771.
+    --and of the dearness of bread, 772.
+    --state of the potato crop, 775.
+    --potatoes for seed, 778.
+    --rising price of wheat and flour, 780.
+    --affords no argument for abolition of the corn-laws, 781.
+
+  Hastings, Frank Abney, biographical sketch of, 496.
+
+  Haydn, character of, 573.
+
+  Heber, Bishop, description of the Himalayas by, 557.
+
+  Hemp, culture of, in Italy, 620.
+
+  Hints for doctors, 630.
+
+  Historical romance, the, 341.
+
+  Hogarth, Churchill's epistle to, criticised, 377.
+
+  Holme's Life of Mozart, review of, 572.
+
+  Horace Leicester, a sketch, 197.
+
+  Hornes' Chaucer Modernized, remarks on, 115.
+
+  House-hunting in Wales, 74.
+    --a sequel to, 474.
+
+  How we got up the Glenmutchkin railway, and how we got out of it, 453.
+
+  Humboldt, 541.
+    --character of his mind, 545.
+    --his early life, 546.
+    --sketch of his travels, 547.
+    --list of his works, 548.
+    --extracts from these, 549.
+
+
+  I have outlived the hopes that charmed me, from Pushkin, 149.
+
+  Ida, Countess Hahn-Hahn, 71.
+
+  Imprisonment as a punishment, 131.
+
+  Improvisatore, the, 626.
+
+  Inferior quality of wheat, cause of the, 771.
+
+  Insects common at Lucca, 623.
+
+  Italian school of painting, the, 425.
+
+  Italy, sketches of Lucca, 617.
+    --agriculture round Lucca, 619.
+    --sagena, 620.
+    --lupins, ib.
+    --hemp, ib.
+    --trees, 622.
+    --oaks, ib.
+    --insects, 623.
+    --ants, 624.
+    --shooting fish, 625.
+    --owls, 626.
+    --the improvisatore, ib.
+    --tables-d'hotes, Mr Snapley, 628.
+    --hints for doctors, 630.
+    --private music-party, 631.
+
+
+  J. D., a meditation by, 494.
+    --on the old year, 495.
+    --Corali, ib.
+    --a mother to her deserted child, 752.
+    --summer noontide, ib.
+    --to Clara, 753.
+    --seclusion, ib.
+
+  James II., notices of, 7.
+
+  James's Philip Augustus, remarks on, 353.
+
+  Jesuitism in France, 185.
+    --sources of its power, 186.
+
+  Jones, Sir William, character of Dunning, by, 723.
+
+  Johnson on the Dunciad, 236.
+
+
+  Kames, Lord, on the Dunciad, 253.
+
+  Kavanagh's Science of Languages, review of, 467.
+
+  Kirauca, account of a visit to the volcano of, 591.
+
+  Knorring, the Baroness, 62.
+
+
+  Land, tenure of, in Turkey, 693.
+
+  Landscape painting in England, 257.
+
+  Languages, Kavanagh's Science of, reviewed, 467.
+
+  Last hours of a reign, a tale in two parts.
+    --Part I., Chapter 1, 754.
+    --Chapter 2, 761.
+
+  Law, administration of, in Turkey, 699.
+
+  Law studies, Warren's Introduction to, reviewed, 300.
+
+  Lay of Starkather, the, 571.
+
+  Lay of the wise Oleg, the, from the Russian of Pushkin, 146.
+
+  Ledyard's Life of Marlborough, notice of, 3.
+
+  Leman, lake, scenery of, 706.
+
+  Leslie's Life of John Constable, review of, 257.
+
+  Letter from London, by a railway witness, 173.
+
+  Letter to Eusebius, on omens, dreams, appearances, &c., 735.
+
+  Lettres Persanes of Montesquieu, the, 391.
+
+  Libraries at Constantinople, the, 690.
+
+  Lipscomb's version of Chaucer, remarks on, 114.
+
+  Llanos of South America, the, 551.
+
+  Llansaintfraed lodge and church, 476.
+
+  Llantony abbey, 485.
+
+  Llanvair Kilgiden church, &c., 483.
+
+  London, letter from, by a railway witness, 173.
+
+  Louis XIV., notices of, 6, 12.
+
+  Louis XV., character, &c., of, 714, 730, 733.
+
+  Lowell, J. Russell, remarks on his strictures on Pope, 368.
+
+  Lucca, sketches of; 617.
+    --agriculture round, 619.
+
+  Lucrine lake, the, 489.
+
+  Lupins, culture of, in Italy, 620.
+
+
+  MacFlecnoe and the Dunciad, 229.
+    --a supplement to, 366.
+
+  Machiavel as a historian, 389.
+
+  Maconochie, Captain, on the management of transported criminals,
+    review of, 129.
+
+  Madonna, the, from Pushkin, 152.
+
+  Maeler, lake, 58.
+
+  Mahmood the Ghaznavide, by B. Simmons, 266.
+
+  Mahon's England, remarks on, 2.
+
+  Manner and Matter, a tale, Chapter I., 431.
+    --Chapter II., 435.
+
+  Manzoni's Promessi Sposi, remarks on, 356.
+
+  Margaret of Valois, from the French of Dumas, 312.
+
+  Marlborough, No. I, 1.
+    --Various lives of him, 3.
+    --His parentage and early career, 5.
+    --Is created Lord Churchill, 7.
+    --His conduct at the Revolution, 8.
+    --Further honours conferred on him, 9.
+    --His disgrace in 1691, and mystery attending it, ib.
+    --Is restored to favour, 10.
+    --Appointed commander in the Netherlands, 11.
+    --His first successes, 14.
+    --Defeats the French at Blenheim, 19.
+    --His subsequent campaign, and causes which thwarted his success, 27.
+        No. II., 649.
+    --Plans for the campaign of 1705, 650.
+    --Marches into Flanders, 652.
+    --Defeats Villeroi, 653.
+    --Thwarted by the inactivity of the Dutch, 654.
+    --Victory of Ramilies, 661.
+    --Subsequent operations, 664.
+
+  Marston; or, Memoirs of a Statesman.--Part XVIII., 157.
+    --Part XIX., 272.
+    --Part XX. and last, 439.
+
+  Meditation, a, by J. D., 494.
+
+  Memoirs of a Statesman. _See_ Marston.
+
+  Menin, siege and capture of, by Marlborough, 667.
+
+  Mesmerism, remarks on, 736.
+
+  Metternich, Stein's opinion of, 337.
+
+  Michelet's Priests, Women, and Families, review of, 185.
+
+  Mob, the, from the Russian of Pushkin, 36.
+
+  Modern novels, characteristics of, 342.
+
+  Monmouthshire, scrambles in, 474.
+
+  Mont Blanc, scenery of, 707.
+
+  Montesquieu, 389.
+    --Compared with Tacitus, Machiavel, and Bacon, ib.
+    --Sketch of his early life, 390.
+    --Publication and character of his Lettres Persanes, 391.
+    --Of the Grandeur et Decadence des Romains, ib.
+    --And of the Esprit des Loix, and the defence of it, 392, 393.
+    --His private life and character, and anecdotes of him, 394.
+    --His death, 395.
+    --Unpublished papers left by him, 396.
+    --Characteristics of his works, and extracts from them, 397.
+    --Causes which led to their comparative neglect, 398.
+
+  More, Hannah, anecdotes of, 723.
+
+  Mother, a, to her deserted child, by J. D., 752.
+
+  Motion, from the Russian of Pushkin, 149.
+
+  Mountain and the Cloud, the; a Reminiscence of Switzerland, 704.
+
+  Mozart, 573.
+    --Sketches of his life, 575.
+    --Extracts from his letters, &c., 578.
+    --Characteristics of his music, 590.
+
+  Murillo as a painter, 420.
+
+  Murray, Sir George, the Marlborough Despatches edited by, reviewed
+    --No. I., 1.
+    --No. II., 649.
+
+  My college friends, No. II.--Horace Leicester, 197.
+
+
+  Nantiglo ironworks, 485.
+
+  Naples, see Neapolitan.
+
+  Napoleon, from the Russian of Pushkin, 39.
+
+  National gallery, want of a, in Great Britain, 413.
+
+  Natural history, Waterton's essays on, second series, reviewed, 289.
+
+  Neapolitan sketches.--garden of the Villa Reale, 486.
+    --Servi de Pena, ib.
+    --San Carlo, 487.
+    --Pozzuoli, 488.
+    --Baiae, ib.
+    --Lucrine and Avernus lakes, 489.
+    --Procida, 490.
+    --palace of Caserta, 491.
+    --silk manufactory, 492.
+    --The snake-tamer, 490.
+
+  Newcastle, Duke of, character of, 730.
+
+  Norfolk Island, management of convicts at, 138.
+
+  North's specimens of the British critics.
+    --No. VI. Supplement to Dryden on Chaucer, 114.
+    --No. VII. MacFlecnoe and the Dunciad, 229.
+    --No. VIII. Supplement to the same, 366.
+
+  Northern lights, 56.
+
+  Nyberg, Fru, a Swedish poetess, 57.
+
+
+  Oaks in Italy, 622.
+
+  Oberland, scenery of the, 707, 710.
+
+  Oleg, lay of, from Pushkin, 146.
+
+  Omens, &c., letter to Eusebius on, 735.
+
+  On the Old Year, by J. D., 495.
+
+  Opening the ports, on the, 773.
+
+  Opium-eater, sequel to the Confessions of an, part II., 43.
+
+  Orinoco, description of the rapids of the, 550.
+
+  Oscar, crown-prince of Sweden, 59.
+
+  Ostend, capture of by Marlborough, 666.
+
+  Overkirk, General, notices of, 653, 654, 656, 662, 664.
+
+  Owls in Italy, 626.
+
+
+  Painting and pictures, remarks on, 413.
+    --characteristics of the various schools of, 424.
+
+  Palace of Caserta, the, 491.
+
+  Pampas of South America, the, 550.
+
+  Paoli, the Corsican patriot, 731.
+
+  Phipps, Mr, character, &c., of, 727.
+
+  Pictures, De Burtin on, 413.
+    --choice of subjects for, 417.
+    --colouring, &c., ib.
+
+  Poetry
+    --Specimens of the lyrics of Pushkin, translated by T. B. Shaw.
+    --No. I., 28.
+    --No. II., 140.
+    --Mahmood the Ghaznavide, by B. Simmons, 266.
+    --A reminiscence of boyhood, by Delta, 408.
+    --A meditation, by J. D., 494.
+    --On the old year, by the same, 495.
+    --Corali, by the same, ib.
+    --The lay of Starkather, 571.
+    --The Grand General Junction and Indefinite Extension
+       Railway rhapsody, 614.
+    --The second Pandora, 711.
+    --A mother to her deserted child, by J. D., 752.
+    --Summer noontide, ib.
+    --to Clara, 753.
+    --seclusion, ib.
+
+  Pompadour, Madame de, 732.
+
+  Pope's version of Chaucer, remarks on, 119.
+    --Dunciad, remarks on, 234.
+    --Strictures on Lowell's criticism of him, 368.
+
+  Potato crop, state of the, throughout Scotland, 776.
+    --saving of them for seed, 780.
+
+  Pozzuoli, 488.
+
+  Presentiment, from the Russian of Pushkin, 152.
+
+  Priests, Women, and Families, review of Michelet's work on, 185.
+
+  Printing establishments in Constantinople, 691.
+
+  Private music-party, a, 631.
+
+  Prophecy of Famine, Churchill's, remarks on, 380.
+
+  Procida, 490.
+
+  Punishment, remarks on, 129.
+    --its objects, ib.
+    --various modes of, 131.
+    --on capital, and a proposed substitute for it, ib.
+
+  Pushkin, the Russian poet. No. II. Specimen of his lyrics, translated
+       by T. B. Shaw. Introductory remarks, 28.
+    --October 19th, 1825, 31.
+    --The Caucasus, 34.
+    --To * * *, 35.
+    --The mob, 36.
+    --The black shawl, 37.
+    --The rose, 38.
+    --Napoleon, 39.
+    --The storm, 40.
+    --The general, 41.
+    --No. III. Introduction, 140.
+    --Alas, for her! 141.
+    --The feast of Peter the First, 142.
+    --Town of starving, town of splendour, 143.
+    --To the sea, 144.
+    --Echo, 145.
+    --The lay of the wise Oleg, 146.
+    --Remembrance, 149.
+    --I have outlived the hopes that charmed me, ib.
+    --Motion, ib.
+    --To the slanderers of Russia, 150.
+    --Presentiment, 152.
+    --The Madonna, ib.
+    --Andre Chenier, 154.
+
+
+  Quietists, effects of the doctrines of the, in France, 190.
+
+
+  Raffaele's Transfiguration, remarks on, 418.
+    --his St Cecilia, 422.
+
+  Ragland Castle, description of, 476.
+
+  Railway rhapsody, the grand general junction and indefinite
+       extension, 614.
+
+  Railway witness in London, letter from a, 173.
+
+  Railways and railway speculation, on, 633.
+
+  Ramilies, battle of, 661.
+
+  Reformation by punishment, on, 129.
+
+  Reign of George III., Walpole's memoirs of the, 713.
+
+  Religion, state of, during the eighteenth century, 714.
+
+  Remembrance, from the Russian of Pushkin, 149.
+
+  Reminiscence of boyhood, a, by Delta, 409.
+
+  Reminiscence of Switzerland, a, 704.
+
+  Reviews.
+    --Despatches of the Duke of Marlborough. No. I., 1.
+    --No. II., 649.
+    --Maconochie and Zschokke on punishment and reformation of
+       criminals, 129.
+    --Michelet's priests, women, and families, 185.
+    --Leslie's life of Constable, the painter, 257.
+    --Waterton's essays on natural history, second series, 289.
+    --Warren's introduction to law studies, 300.
+    --Kavanagh's science of languages, 467.
+    --Holmes' life of Mozart, 572.
+    --White's three years in Constantinople, 688.
+    --Walpole's memoirs of the reign of George III., 713.
+
+  Richelieu, Marshal, 730.
+
+  Ritterhaus at Stockholm, the, 59.
+
+  Romance, the historical, 341.
+
+  Rose, the, from the Russian of Pushkin, 38.
+
+  Russia, to the slanderers of, from Pushkin, 150.
+
+
+  Sagena, culture of, at Lucca, 620.
+
+  Saltza, Count, 68.
+
+  San Carlo, 487.
+
+  Sandwich, Lord, anecdote of, 724.
+
+  Schools of painting, characteristics of the, 424.
+
+  Science of languages, Kavanagh's, review of, 467.
+
+  Scott's historical romances, remarks on, 345.
+
+  Scottish harvest, the, 769.
+    --quantity and quality of the grain crop, ib., 770.
+    --cause of the inferior quality of the wheat, 771.
+    --and of the high price of bread, 772.
+    --state of the potato crop, 775.
+
+  Scrambles in Monmouthshire, a sequel to house-hunting in Wales, 474.
+
+  Sea, to the, from Pushkin, 144.
+
+  Secker, Archbishop, character of, 728.
+
+  Seclusion, by J. D., 752.
+
+  Second Pandora, the, 711.
+
+  Seed potatoes, saving of, 778.
+
+  Servi de Pena, 486.
+
+  Shaw, T. B., specimens of the lyrics of Pushkin, by, 28, 140.
+
+  Shooting fish in Italy, 625.
+
+  Silk manufactory of Caserta, the, 492.
+
+  Simmons, B., Mahmood the Ghaznavide, by, 266.
+
+  Sketches of Italy. Lucca, 617.
+    --agriculture round Lucca, 619.
+    --sagena, 620.
+    --lupines, ib.
+    --hemp, ib.
+    --trees and oaks, 622.
+    --insects, 623.
+    --ants, 624.
+    --shooting fish, 625.
+    --owls, 626.
+    --the improvisatore, ib.
+    --tables-d'hotes--Mr Snapley, 628.
+    --hints for doctors, 630.
+    --private music-party, 631.
+
+  Smith, Sydney, on modern sermons, 714.
+
+  Smollet's England, remarks on, 2.
+
+  Snake-tamer, the, 493.
+
+  Snapley, Mr, 628.
+
+  Solitary imprisonment, effects of, 139.
+
+  Stampe, the Countess, 69.
+
+  Starkather, the lay of, 571.
+
+  Staubbach, fall of the, 706.
+
+  Stein, the Baron von, career of, 328.
+
+  Stephens, Mr, letters from, on the results of the harvest, 769.
+
+  Stockholm, description of, 59.
+
+  Storm, the, from Pushkin, 40.
+
+  Stralsund, sketch of, 56.
+
+  Struensee, Count, 729.
+
+  Student of Salamanca, the. Part I., 521.
+    Part II., 673.
+
+  Summer noontide, by J. D., 752.
+
+  Suspiria de profundis; being a sequel to the confessions of an English
+       opium-eater. Part II., 43.
+
+  Swedes, character of the, 69.
+
+  Swift's apology for Queen Anne, &c., notice of, 4.
+
+  Switzerland, a reminiscence of, 704.
+
+
+  Tables-d'hotes in Italy, 628.
+
+  Tacitus, as a historian, 389.
+
+  Tenure of land, &c. in Turkey, 693.
+
+  Thorwaldsen the sculptor, 69.
+
+  Three years in Constantinople; review of, 688.
+
+  Titian, remarks on the style, &c. of, 420.
+
+  To * * *, from the Russian of Pushkin, 35.
+
+  To Clara, by J. D., 753.
+
+  To the sea, from Pushkin, 144.
+
+  To the slanderers of Russia, from Pushkin, 150.
+
+  Torquato Tasso, Goethe's translations from, 87.
+
+  Townsend, Charles, character of, 715.
+    --his death, 719.
+
+  Transfiguration of Raffaele, remarks on the, 418.
+
+  Trees in Italy, 622.
+
+  Turks, domestic manners of the, 688.
+
+
+  Usk river, scenery of the, 475.
+
+
+  Varnhagen von Ense, sketch of Stein by, 331.
+
+  Villa Reale, garden of the, 486.
+
+  Villars, Marshal, 650, 651.
+
+  Villeroi, Marshal, 651, 652.
+    --his defeat at Ramilies, 661.
+
+  Volcano of Kirauea, account of a visit to the, 591.
+
+  Voltaire's Age of Louis XIV., remarks on, 3.
+
+  Von Stein, sketch of the career and character of, 328.
+
+
+  Wales, sketches of, 74.
+
+  Walpole's memoirs of the reign of George III., review of, 713.
+
+  Warburton on the Dunciad, 253.
+
+  Warren's introduction to law-studies, review of, 300.
+
+  Warton, Dr, on the Dunciad, 251.
+
+  Waterton's second series of essays in natural history, review of, 289.
+
+  Waxholm, fortress of, 58.
+
+  Weymouth, Lord, 727.
+
+  Wheat crop, quantity and quality of the, throughout Scotland, 769, 770.
+    --cause of its inferior quality, 771.
+    --the supply abundant, 773.
+    --on the rising price of, 779.
+
+  Wild animals of South America, the, 553.
+
+  Wilkes, John, notice of, 722, 725.
+
+  William III., notices of, 9.
+    --his death, 11.
+
+  White's three years in Constantinople, review of, 688.
+
+  Wordsworth's modernization of Chaucer, remarks on, 125.
+
+  Wye, scenery of the, 481.
+
+
+  Zschokke's Aehrenlese, review of, 129.
+
+  Zumalacarregui, career of, 210.
+
+
+
+
+_Edinburgh: Printed by Ballantyne & Hughes, Paul's Work._
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume
+58, No. 362, December 1845, by Various
+
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