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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59,
+No. 368, June 1846, 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 59, No. 368, June 1846
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: October 4, 2010 [EBook #34026]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE, JUNE 1846 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Brendan OConnor, Jonathan Ingram and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Library of Early Journals.)
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+
+
+  BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
+
+  NO. CCCLXVIII.   JUNE, 1846.   VOL. LIX.
+
+
+
+
+THE LITERATURE OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.[1]
+
+
+Lord Brougham has resumed his memoirs of the eminent writers of England;
+and every lover of literature will feel gratified by this employment of
+his active research and of his vigorous pen.
+
+One of the most striking distinctions of English public life from that
+of the Continent, is in the condition of statesmen after their casual
+retirement from power. The Foreign statesman seems to exist only in
+office. The moment that sees him "out of place," sees him extinguished.
+He is lost as suddenly to the public eye, as if he were carried to the
+tomb of his ancestors. He retires to his country-seat, and there
+subsides into the garrulous complainant against the caprices of fortune,
+or buries his calamities in the quiet indulgence of his appetites;
+smokes away his term of years, subsides into the lean and slippered
+pantaloon, occupies his studies with the _Court Gazette_, and his
+faculties with cards; and is finally deposited in the family vault, to
+continue the process of mouldering which had been begun in his
+arm-chair, to be remembered only in an epitaph. France, at the present
+day, alone seems to form an exception. Her legislature affords a new
+element in which statesmanship in abeyance can still float: the little
+vessel is there at least kept in view of mankind; if it makes no
+progress, it at least keeps above water; and, however incapable of
+reaching the port by its own means, the fluctuations of the national
+surge, sometimes so powerful, and always so contemptuous of calculation,
+may at some time or other carry the craziest craft into harbour. But the
+general order of continental ministers, even of the highest rank, when
+abandoned by the monarch, are like men consigned to the dungeon. They go
+to their place of sentence at once. The man who to-day figured in the
+highest robe of power, to-morrow wears the prison costume. His rise was
+the work of the royal will--his fall is equally the work of the royal
+will. Having no connexion with the national mind, he has no resource in
+the national sympathies. He has been a royal instrument: when his edge
+becomes dull, or the royal artificer finds a tool whose fashion he likes
+better, the old tool is flung by to rust, and no man asks where or why,
+his use is at an end, and the world and the workman, alike, "knoweth it
+no more."
+
+But, in England, the condition of public life is wholly different. The
+statesman is the creation of the national will, and neither in office,
+nor in opposition, does the nation forget the product of its will. The
+minister is no offspring of slavery, no official negro, made to be sold,
+and, when sold, separated from his parentage once and for ever. If he
+sins in power, he is at worst but the Prodigal Son, watched in his
+career, and willingly welcomed when he has abjured his wanderings.
+Instead of being extinguished by the loss of power, he often more than
+compensates the change, by the revival of popularity. Disencumbered of
+the laced and embroidered drapery of office, he often exhibits the
+natural vigour and proportion of his faculties to higher advantage;
+cultivates his intellectual distinctions with more palpable success;
+refreshes his strength for nobler purposes than even those of ambition;
+and, if he should not exert his renewed popularity for a new conquest of
+power, only substitutes for place the more generous and exalted
+determination of deserving those tributes which men naturally offer to
+great abilities exerted for the good of present and future generations.
+
+We must allude, for the national honour, to this characteristic of
+English feeling, in the changes of public men. On the Continent, the
+hour which deprived a statesman of office, at once deprived him of every
+thing. All the world ran away from him, as they would from a falling
+house. The crowded antechamber of yesterday, exhibited nothing to-day
+but utter solitude. The fallen minister was a leper; men shrank from his
+touch; the contagion of ill-luck was upon him; and every one dreaded to
+catch the disease. It was sometimes even worse. The loss of power was
+the ruin of fortune. The Dives had been suddenly transformed into the
+Lazarus; the purple and fine linen were "shreds and patches," and not
+even the dogs came to administer to his malady. But, among us, the
+breaking up of a cabinet often only gives rise to a bold and brilliant
+opposition. It is not like the breaking up of a ship, where the wreck is
+irreparable, and the timbers are shattered and scattered, and good for
+nothing; it is often more like the breaking up of a regiment in one of
+our colonies, where the once compact mass of force, which knew nothing
+but the command of its colonel, now takes, each man his own way,
+exhibits his own style of cleverness; instead of the one manual exercise
+of musket and bayonet, each individual takes the axe or the spade, the
+tool or the ploughshare, and works a new fertility out of the soil,
+according to his own "thews and sinews."
+
+The moral of all this is, that the distinguished author of these Memoirs
+is now devoting himself to a career of literature, to which even his
+political services may have been of inferior utility. He is recalling
+the public memory to those eminent achievements, which have so
+powerfully advanced the mental grandeur of our era; and, while he thus
+gives due honour to the labours of the past, he is at once encouraging
+and illustrating the nobleness of the course which opens to posterity.
+But Lord Brougham's influence cannot be contented, we should hope, with
+merely speculative benefits; it is for him, and for men like him, to
+look with interest on the struggles of literary existence at the hour;
+to call the attention of government and the nation to the neglects, the
+narrowness, and the caprices of national patronage; to demand protection
+for genius depressed by the worldliness of the crowd; to point out to
+men of rank and wealth a path of service infinitely more honourable to
+their own taste, and infinitely more productive to their country, than
+ribands and stars; than the tinkling of a name, than pompous palaces, or
+picture galleries of royal price; to excite our nobles to constitute
+themselves the true patrons of the living genius of the land, and
+disdain to be content with either the offering of weak regrets or the
+tribute of worthless honours to the slumberers in the grave. A tenth
+part of the sums employed in raising obelisks to Burns, would have
+rescued one half of his life from poverty, and the other half from
+despair. The single sum which raised the monument to Sir Walter Scott in
+Edinburgh, would have saved him from the final pressure which broke his
+heart, elastic as it was, and dimmed his intellect, capable as he still
+was of throwing a splendour over his native soil.
+
+This neglect is known and suffered in no other province of public
+service. The soldier, the sailor, the architect, the painter, are all
+within sight of the most lavish prizes of public liberality. Parliament
+has just given titles and superb pensions to the conquerors of the
+Sikhs. The India Company has followed its example. We applaud this
+munificent liberality in both instances. Two general officers have thus
+obtained the peerage, with £7000 and £5000 a-year. They deserved those
+rewards. But the whole literary encouragement of the British empire,
+with a revenue of fifty-two millions sterling, is £1200, little more
+than the tenth part of the pensions allotted to those two gallant men.
+£1200 for the whole literary encouragement of England! There can be no
+greater scandal to the intellectual honour of the country. The pettiest
+German principality scarcely limits its literary encouragement to this
+sum. We doubt whether Weimar, between literary offices and pensions, did
+not give twice the sum annually. But named in competition with the
+liberality of the leading sovereigns, it is utterly mean. Louis XIV.,
+two hundred years ago, allotted 80,000 francs a-year to his forty
+members of the Academy, a sum equivalent in _that day_, and in _France_,
+to little less than £5000 a-year in our day, and in England. Frederic
+II. gave pensions and appointments to a whole corps of literary men. At
+this moment, there is scarcely a man of any literary distinction in
+Paris, who has not a share in the liberal and wise patronage of
+government, either in office or public pension.
+
+But if we are to be answered by a class, plethoric with wealth and rank;
+that literature ought to be content with living on its own means; must
+not the obvious answer be--Is the author to be an author, down to his
+grave? Is there to be no relaxation of his toil? is there to be no
+allowance for the exhaustion of his overworked faculties? for the
+natural infirmities of years? for the vexations of a noble spirit
+compelled to submit to the caprices of public change? and with its full
+share of the common calamities of life, increasing their pressure at
+once by an inevitable sense of wrong, and by a feeling that the delight
+of his youth must be the drudgery of his age? When the great Dryden, in
+his seventieth year, was forced, in the bitterness of his heart, to
+exclaim, "Must I die in the harness!" his language was a brand on the
+common sense, as well as on the just generosity, of his country. We now
+abandon the topic with one remark. This want of the higher liberality of
+the nation has already produced the most injurious effects on our
+literature.
+
+All the great works of our ancestral literature were the works of
+leisure and comparative competence. All the great dramatic poetry of
+France was the work of comparative competence. Its writers were not
+compelled to hurry after the popular tastes; they followed their own,
+and impressed its character upon the mind of the nation. The plays of
+Racine, Corneille, Molière, and Voltaire, are nobler trophies to the
+greatness of France than all the victories of Louis the XIV., than
+Versailles, than all the pomps of his splendid reign. Louis Philippe has
+adopted the same munificent policy, and it will be followed by the same
+honour with posterity. But, in England, the keeping of a stud of
+racehorses, the building of a dog-kennel, or the purchase of a foreign
+picture, is ignominiously and selfishly suffered to absorb a larger sum
+than the whole literary patronage of the most opulent empire that the
+sun ever shone upon. We recommend these considerations to Lord Brougham:
+they are nobler than politics; they are fitter for his combined
+character of statesman and philosopher; they will also combine with that
+character another which alone can give permanency to the fame of any
+public man--that of the philanthropist. His ability, his knowledge of
+human nature, and his passion for public service--qualities in which his
+merits are known to Europe--designate him as the founder of a great
+system of public liberality to the enterprise of genius. And when party
+is forgotten, and cabinets have perished; when, perhaps, even the
+boundaries of empire may have been changed, and new nations rise to
+claim the supremacy of arts and arms; the services of the protector of
+literature will stand out before the eye with increased honour, and his
+name be rescued from the common ruin which envelopes the memory of
+ostentatious conquerors and idle kings.
+
+The present volume contains biographies of Johnson, Adam Smith,
+Lavoisier, Gibbon, Sir Joseph Banks, D'Alembert. We shall commence with
+the lives less known to the generality of readers than those of our
+great moralist and great political economist, reserving ourselves for
+sketches of their career, as our space may allow.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Lord Brougham commences his life of Sir Joseph Banks by a species of
+apology, for placing in the ranks of philosophers a man who had never
+written a book. But no one has ever doubted that a man may be a
+philosopher, without being an author. Some of the greatest inventions of
+philosophy, of science, and of practical power, have been the work of
+men who never wrote a book. In fact, the inventor is generally a man of
+few words; his disciples, or rivals, or imitators, are the men of
+description. The inventor gives the idea, the follower gives the
+treatise; but the inventor is the philosopher after all. The question,
+however, with Sir Joseph Banks is, whether he was any more an inventor
+than a writer. It does not appear that he was either. Of course, he has
+no right to rank among men of science. But he had merits of his own, and
+on those his distinctions ought to have been placed. He was a zealous,
+active, and influential friend of philosophers. He gave them his time,
+he received them in his house, and he assisted their progress. He
+volunteered to be the protector of their class; he sympathised with
+their pursuits; and, while adding little or nothing to their
+discoveries, he assisted in bringing those discoveries before the world.
+He loved to be thought the patriarch of British science; and, like the
+patriarch, he retained his authority even when he was past his labour.
+If he filled the throne of science feebly, none could deny that he
+filled it zealously. The true definition of him was, an English
+gentleman occupying his leisure with philosophical pursuits, and
+encouraging others of more powerful understanding to do the same.
+
+Sir Joseph Banks was of an old and wealthy family, dating so far back as
+Edward III.; first settled in the West Riding of Yorkshire, and
+afterwards in the county of Lincoln. He was born in London in January
+1743. At the age of nine he was sent to Harrow, and at thirteen to Eton,
+where the tutors observed, as has happened in many other instances, that
+he was fonder of play than of books. In about a twelvemonth, however, he
+became studious, though not to the taste of his schoolmasters. The
+origin of this change was described by himself, in a letter to Sir
+Everard Home, as accidental. One afternoon he had been bathing with some
+of the Eton boys, and, on returning to dress himself, found that they
+had left him alone. Walking down a green lane, whose sides exhibited the
+wild-flowers of the season, the thought occurred to him, how much more
+natural and useful would be the knowledge of plants, than of Greek and
+Latin. From this time he devoted himself to the study of botany, though
+still continuing that of the classics. On returning to his father's
+house, he found a copy of Gerard's _Herbal_, which fixed his taste. He
+now added to his collecting of plants that of butterflies and other
+insects. Lord Brougham mentions that his father was one of Banks's
+associates at this period, and that they employed themselves together in
+natural history.
+
+Natural history has been so frequently the pursuit of studious triflers,
+that it is difficult to exempt it from the charge of trifling. To gather
+plants which have been gathered a thousand times before, to ascertain
+their names from an herbal, and classify them according to its list,
+seems to be little more than a grave apology for playing the fool. A
+determination to gather all the butterflies and blue-bottles within the
+limits of the realm, certainly has nothing that can dignify it with the
+name of scientific pursuit. The collecting of pebbles and shells, or
+even the arranging of animals in the cases of a museum, are
+accomplishments of so easy an order, and of so little actual use, that
+they serve for little else than to wile away the time. But this trifling
+assumes a more important shape when it rises to the acquisition of
+actual knowledge; when, instead of classifying plants, it develops their
+medicinal virtues, and, instead of embalming animals, it examines their
+structure, as throwing light on the conformation or diseases of man.
+
+But Sir Joseph Banks was fortunately relieved from subsiding into this
+foppery, by circumstances which forced him into vigorous and useful
+exertion. An approaching transit of Venus had been long looked to, as
+giving an opportunity for ascertaining the distance of the sun from the
+earth. It was recommended, that observations on this phenomenon should
+be made from different stations on the globe. Accordingly, in 1761, the
+British government sent out two observers, one to the Cape and the other
+to St Helena. The French government at the same time sent out three--to
+Pondicherry, Siberia, and the Mauritius. But the weather was
+unfavourable, and the observations were to be regarded as a failure. But
+there was a second transit in 1769, and the leading powers of Europe
+sent out observers; England sending a vessel to the South Seas, an
+observer to India, and two to Hudson's Bay. Captain Wallace having
+lately made several discoveries in the Pacific, public attention had
+been strongly drawn to that hitherto scarcely known portion of the
+globe. The celebrated Captain Cook was appointed commander, and Sir
+Joseph Banks, stimulated by an honourable zeal and a rational desire of
+knowledge, obtained leave from his friend, Lord Sandwich, to join the
+expedition. He took with him Dr Solander the botanist, and two
+draughtsmen.
+
+On the 25th of August 1768, Cook's vessel, the Endeavour, sailed from
+Plymouth Sound, and the first point of land at which they touched was
+the Terra del Fuego, the southern extremity of the American continent.
+There they encountered such severity of cold, that, although it was the
+summer of those regions, Banks and Solander, in one of their botanical
+excursions, had nearly shared the fate of three of their attendants, who
+perished from the intensity of the cold. The effect of this excess of
+low temperature has been often felt and often described. It was a
+general torpor of the frame, producing an almost irresistible propensity
+to sleep. Every exertion was painful, and the strongest desire was to
+lie down in the snow and give way to slumber. Solander, who had acquired
+his experience in botanizing among the Swedish mountains, warned the
+party of their danger. "Whoever," said he, "sits down, will sleep;
+whoever sleeps, will wake no more." Yet he himself was one of the first
+to yield; he insisted on lying down, fell asleep before he could be
+brought to the fire which Banks had kindled, and was restored with
+difficulty. His companion had felt a similar inclination, but resisted
+it, by the greater energy of youth, and probably of a more vigorous
+mind.
+
+Cook then sailed for Otaheite, which he reached in April. The contrast
+of the luxurious climate with the inclement region which they had left
+behind them, was doubly striking to men who, for upwards of half a year,
+had seen nothing but the ocean or the deserts of Cape Horn. They now
+proceeded vigorously to the chief purposes of their voyage. The captain
+and his officers prepared their instruments to observe the transit,
+while Banks and his botanical attendants ranged the island, made
+themselves acquainted with its natural productions, and conciliated the
+natives. The effect of his intelligence and intrepidity was conspicuous
+on an occasion which might have involved the scientific fate of the
+expedition. The quadrant, though under charge of a sentinel, had been
+stolen by the adroitness of some of the natives. But without it no
+observation could be taken. Banks volunteered to go in search of it into
+the woods, made himself master of it, and conveyed it in safety to the
+observatory; though followed by parties of the natives, and occasionally
+compelled to keep them at bay by exhibiting his pistols.
+
+The transit was successfully observed, but it took six hours for the
+operation. As the period approached, even the crew had felt the
+strongest anxiety for its success. The state of the sky was reported
+every half hour during the night before, and their spirits rose and fell
+as the report gave its answer, clear or cloudy. But at dawn the sky was
+brilliant, and the day passed without a cloud. Four other observations
+had been simultaneously made, in Siberia, Lapland, Hudson's Bay, and
+California. The general result gave the sun's distance at nearly
+ninety-four millions of miles.
+
+The next object of the voyage was a search for the great southern
+continent, which the philosophers of the day had conceived to exist, as
+a "necessary balance" to the mass of land in the northern hemisphere.
+But conjectural philosophy is often at fault, and necessary as this
+terrestrial balance was asserted to be, no "great" southern continent
+has yet been found. For a while, even Cook's sagacity seems to have been
+deceived by the mountains of New Zealand, which had been discovered, in
+1620, by Tasman. Cook sailed round it, and explored its shores for six
+months. He then, on his homeward voyage, examined the east coast of New
+Holland. Of course, it is not the intention of this paper to trace a
+career so well known as that of the celebrated navigator. We refer to
+its incidents, merely as connected with Sir Joseph Banks. They had run
+about thirteen hundred miles of the coast, when, after having received
+some alarm from the neighbourhood of coral reefs, the vessel suddenly
+struck. It was Cook's sagacious habit, nightly, to give all his orders
+and precautions before he went to rest; and thus, after having done all
+that prudence could do, he undressed, went to bed, and such was the
+composure of his mind that he instantly fell asleep. But immediately on
+the vessel's striking, the captain was on deck, and giving his orders
+with his characteristic coolness. The light of the moon showed the
+sheathing boards of the ship floating all round, and at last her false
+keel. Their fate appeared imminent, but it was only when the day broke,
+that they became fully sensible of their forlorn condition. The land was
+at eight leagues' distance. There were no intermediate islets on which
+the crew might be saved, and the boats were wholly insufficient to take
+them all at once. To lighten the ship was their first object. Guns,
+ballast, stores, every thing was thrown over. After two tides they were
+enabled to get the ship afloat. To their great relief, the leak did not
+seem to gain upon them, though to keep it down required the labour of
+the men night and day. At length a midshipman fortunately suggested an
+expedient which he had once seen adopted at sea. This was to draw under
+the ship's bottom a sail, to which were fastened oakum, flax, and other
+light substances. The sail thus covered the leak, and enabled the ship
+to swim. On pursuing their voyage, and reaching a river, in which they
+attempted to repair the ship, they found that her preservation, in the
+first instance, was owing to the extraordinary circumstance of a large
+fragment of rock which had stuck into the vessel, and thus partially
+stopped up the leak. In this most anxious emergency Sir Joseph Banks and
+his party exhibited all the coolness and intrepidity which were
+required; and in the subsequent account of the voyage, received from
+Cook himself well-merited praises.
+
+Another peril likely to be attended with still more certain ruin, now
+assailed the crew. The scurvy began to make its appearance. The
+devastations of this dreadful disease, in the early history of our
+navigation, fortunately now appear almost fabulous. It was a real
+plague; it seemed almost to dissolve the whole frame; teeth fell out,
+limbs dropped off, and the sufferer sank into a rapid, and, as it was
+once thought, an inevitable grave. It is a remarkable instance of the
+powers which man possesses to counteract the most formidable evils, that
+this terrible disease is now scarcely known. It has been overpowered
+solely by such simple means as fresh meat and vegetables, and a drink
+medicated with lemon-juice. Simple as those expedients are, they have
+saved the lives of thousands and tens of thousands of the sea-going
+population of England.
+
+But new hazards, arising alike from the imperfect condition of the
+vessel and their ignorance of the coast, continued to pursue them. Never
+was a voyage attempted with greater difficulties to surmount, or
+achieved with more triumphant success; after having explored two
+thousand miles of this perilous coast, Cook took possession of it in the
+name of his king, giving it the title of New South Wales.
+
+At length he arrived at Batavia, where, on laying up his ship to repair,
+it was discovered that their preservation throughout this long voyage
+had been little less than miraculous, her planks having been in many
+instances worn "as thin as the sole of a shoe." But their trials were
+not yet over: the marsh fever quickly laid up the crew; the captain,
+Banks, and Solander, were taken seriously ill. They set sail from this
+pestilential island as soon as possible; but before they reached the
+Cape, three-and-twenty had died, including Green the astronomer, and the
+midshipman whose suggestion had saved the ship. At length, on the 12th
+of July 1771, they cast anchor in the Downs, and Cook and his companions
+were received with national acclamation.
+
+The triumph of the navigation was naturally due to Cook, but the most
+important part of the knowledge which had been communicated to the
+empire was due to the labours of Banks. It was from his journals, that
+the chief details of the habits, manners, and resources of the natives
+were derived. The vegetable, mineral, and animal products of the Society
+Islands, and of New Holland, New Zealand, and New Guinea, had been
+explored, and a vast quantity of general intelligence was obtained
+relative to countries, which now form an essential portion of the
+British empire. The novelty of those possessions has now worn off, their
+value has made them familiar. We are fully acquainted with their
+products, however we may be still ignorant of their powers. But, at the
+period of this memorable voyage, the Southern Hemisphere was scarcely
+more known than the hemisphere of the moon. Every league of the coasts
+of New Holland, and the islands of the Great Southern Ocean, abounded
+with natural perils, heightened by the necessary ignorance of the
+navigator. Even to this day, many a fearful catastrophe attests the
+difficulties of the navigation; the coral rocks were a phenomenon wholly
+new to nautical experience; and, in all the modern improvements of
+nautical science, full room is left for wonder, at the skill, the
+intelligence, and the daring, which carried Cook and his companions safe
+through the perils of this gigantic navigation.
+
+A new expedition was soon demanded at once by the curiosity of the
+people and the interests of science. The dream of a great southern
+continent was still the favourite topic of all who regarded themselves
+as philosophers in England, although Cook had sailed over an
+unfathomable ocean, in the very tract where he ought, according to this
+adventurous theory, to have found a continent. Sir Joseph Banks again
+gallantly volunteered to join the expedition which was equipped for the
+discovery. His large fortune enabled him to make unusual preparations;
+but such was his zeal, that he even raised a loan for the purpose. He
+engaged Zoffani, the painter, with three assistant draughtsmen. He
+selected two secretaries and nine attendants, instructed in the art of
+preserving plants and animals; he also provided books, drawings, and
+instruments. But his natural ambition was suddenly thwarted by the
+opposition of Sir Hugh Palliser, controller of the navy. For whatever
+reason--and it is now difficult to imagine any, except some jealousy too
+contemptible to name--so many obstructions were thrown in the way, that
+Banks relinquished the pursuit, and turned his attention to a voyage to
+Iceland. His suite, seamen and all, amounting to forty persons, reached
+the island in 1772, examined its chief natural phenomena, Hecla and its
+hot springs, and furnished its historian, Von Troil, with the materials
+for the most accurate history of this outpost of the northern world.
+
+On his return to England, he commenced the career, natural to an opulent
+man of a cultivated mind, but yet so seldom followed in England by
+individuals of even higher means than his own. He fitted up a large
+house in Soho Square with all the preparatives for a life of literary
+association--a copious library, collections of natural history, and
+philosophical instruments. He held frequent conversaziones, gave
+dinners, and easily and naturally constituted himself the leader of the
+men of science in London. In Lincolnshire, where his chief property
+lay, he performed the part of the liberal and hospitable country
+gentleman on a large scale; while in London, he was the first person to
+whom scientific foreigners were introduced, and the principal patron and
+protector of ingenious men.
+
+On the resignation of Sir John Pringle as President of the Royal
+Society, Sir Joseph Banks was placed in the chair, in 1778, almost by
+acclamation. He had some obvious qualifications for the office, but he
+as obviously wanted others. His opulence, his hospitality, and his zeal
+for science, were valuable, and are nearly indispensable in the
+president of a body which concentrates the chief intellectual force of
+the community. But his favourite pursuit, botany, has never deserved the
+name of a science, and inevitably bears a character of triviality in the
+eyes of the mathematician and the philosopher. The distinction given to
+a comparatively young man, known to the world only as a voyager, and a
+collector of plants and animals, not unnaturally tended to breed
+scoffing among the professors of the severe sciences. The feeling
+spread, and the opportunity for its expression was soon found. Dr
+Hutton, the mathematical professor at Woolwich, happened to be secretary
+for foreign correspondence. His residence at Woolwich was said to
+produce some inconvenience in his intercourse with the president; and
+the council passed a resolution, in 1783, recommending that "the foreign
+secretary should reside in London." The secret history of this
+transaction is, that Hutton was one of the mathematical party; though we
+cannot distinctly ascertain whether he had actually gone so far as to
+sneer at the president. Upon this Hutton resigned the office; to accept
+which, the emolument could not have been his object, the salary being
+but L.20 a-year--a sum that cannot be mentioned without a sense of
+disgrace to a society reckoning among its members some of the wealthiest
+men of England.
+
+Hutton's resignation, or rather dismissal, produced an open war in the
+society. The mathematicians ranged themselves on the Huttonian side; the
+cultivators of natural history, and the cultivators of nothing, ranged
+themselves on the side of the president. The mathematicians were headed
+by Horsley, afterwards the bishop--a man whom Lord Brougham
+characterizes as extremely arrogant, of violent temper, and intoxicated
+with an extravagant sense of his own scientific merits, which his noble
+biographer pronounces to be altogether insignificant, heading this
+charge with the unkindest cut of all, namely, that he was "a priest."
+Horsley was certainly no great mathematician, as his publication of the
+_Principia_ unluckily shows; but the picture is high coloured, which
+represents him as a hot-tempered, loud-tongued, bustling personage--a
+sort of bravo of science and theology, who took up the first opinion
+which occurred to him, scorned to rectify it by any after-thought, and
+plunged from one absurdity into another, for the sake of consistency.
+The eloquence of his attacks upon the chair, of whose possession he was
+supposed to be foolishly ambitious, was vaunted a good deal by his
+partisans. But, as the only evidence of his rhetoric in these squabbles
+ever quoted, is one sentence, it is like the pretension to wit on the
+strength of a single pun, and may be easily cast aside. This boasted
+sentence was uttered, in threatening the secession of the mathematical
+party. "The president will then be left with his train of feeble
+amateurs, and that toy (the mace) upon the table--the ghost of the
+Society in which Philosophy once reigned, and Newton officiated as her
+minister."
+
+Horsley's theology was too nearly on a par with his mathematics--he
+_was_ harsh and headlong. The fortunate folly of Priestley in
+challenging the English clergy to a trial of strength in the old arena
+of Unitarianism, gained him an opportunity of crushing an antagonist
+whose presumption was in proportion to his ignorance. Accordingly, the
+Unitarian was speedily put _hors-de-combat_, and Horsley was rewarded
+with a mitre.
+
+The president had long felt that the purpose of this violent lover of
+parallelograms was, to unseat him. The question was therefore brought to
+a decision, in the shape of a resolution "approving of Sir Joseph Banks
+as president, and resolving to support him in his office." This
+resolution was carried by 119 to 43.
+
+Honours began now to gather upon him. In 1788 he had been made a
+baronet. In 1795 he received the order of the Bath, then generally
+restricted to soldiers and diplomatists. In two years after, he was
+called to the Privy Council. On the death of the Duke of Ancaster he was
+chosen recorder of Boston; but, though often solicited to stand an
+election, he was never a member of Parliament. Though professing himself
+a Tory, he seems never to have taken any active part in politics,
+preserving a curious practical neutrality in Lincolnshire, and giving
+his interest to Mr Pelham, a Whig, and Mr Chaplin, a Tory. This, which
+his noble biographer curiously seems to consider as a happy proof of the
+absence of all party feelings, we should be apt to look upon as a proof
+of a degenerate wish to consult his own ease, and of a sluggish
+neutrality discreditable to the character of an Englishman.
+
+However, he had more honourable distinctions. In the furious
+Revolutionary war--a war of principles and passions, not less than of
+public interests, the president of the Royal Society largely exerted his
+interest with both governments, to alleviate the sufferings of
+scientific men who happened to fall into the hands of the belligerents,
+and to effect the restoration of scientific property captured by our
+ships of war. In 1802 he was chosen one of the foreign members of the
+Institute of France; and his letter of thanks, a little too ardent in
+its gratitude, was said to have involved the baronet in some vexations
+peculiarly felt by his courtly temperament. He was instantly attacked
+for his Gallican panegyric, by a portion of the Royal Society. Cobbett,
+who was then looking out for a victim, and whose loyalty was at that
+period peculiarly glowing, flew at him like a tiger-cat; and, last and
+most dreaded of all, he was said to have received at Windsor some of
+those frowns, which to a courtier are a total eclipse of the sun. But
+the nation soon had higher things to think of than a slip of the
+President's pen, or a little betrayal of his vanity. Napoleon ascended
+the throne; and, when the thunderbolts began to fall, the squibs and
+crackers flung from hand to hand of little men are of necessity
+forgotten.
+
+His latter years were signalized by acts of unequivocal public service.
+He is designated by Lord Brougham, and no one can have a better right to
+be informed of the fact, as the real founder of the African
+Association.--His lordship also regards him as the real founder of the
+colony of Botany Bay.--He was the first to suggest the transfer of the
+tropical fruits to the West India islands.--British horticulture owed
+him great services.--And the British Museum, during forty-two years of
+his trusteeship, was the object of his peculiar care, and finally
+received the bequest of his excellent library and of all his
+collections.
+
+His career, however, was now, by the course of nature, drawing to its
+close. Yet, he had lived seventy-eight years in this anxious and
+disappointing world, in opulence, in peace, and in public estimation.
+But his lot had been singularly fortunate. Few men are without their
+share of those troubles which characterize the general condition of
+human nature. Sir Joseph Banks had _his_ trial, in physical suffering.
+In the first portion of his life he had been remarkable for robust
+health and activity; but, from about his fortieth year, he suffered
+severely from attacks of gout, which increased so much, that for his
+last fourteen years he was scarcely able to walk. His robust mind,
+however, enabled him to encounter his disease by increased and extreme
+temperance. He gave up all fermented liquors and animal food. He seems
+to have derived considerable benefit from D'Huisson's medicine. But his
+hour was come; and on the 19th of June 1820, in the seventy-eighth year
+of his age, he died--just one year after his honoured and royal friend,
+George III.
+
+Thus passed through the world one of those men who are among the most
+useful in their generation. It would be idle to pronounce him a genius,
+a discoverer, or a profound philosopher. But he served an important
+purpose in society; he suggested philosophical enterprise, he protected
+the honourable ambition of men whose career, without that protection,
+might have closed in obscure suffering: he gave the philosophy and
+literature of his time a leader, and formed it into a substantial shape.
+In this spirit he employed his life; and he accomplished his purpose
+with the constancy and determination of a sagacious and systematic mind.
+He might not be a pillar of the philosophical temple of his country, nor
+its architrave; but he performed the office of the clamp--he bound
+together the materials of both pillar and architrave, and sustained the
+edifice alike in its stateliness and in its security.
+
+Lord Brougham's biography of D'Alembert commences with a brief
+dissertation on the interest which the mind takes in the study of
+mathematics. This study he regards as superior in gratification to every
+other, from its independence of external circumstances. In all other
+studies, he observes truly, that a large portion of the researches must
+depend upon facts imperfectly ascertained from the reports of others,
+and upon knowledge impeded by the capricious chances of things; while in
+pure science, the principles, the premises, and the conclusions, are
+wholly within our own power.
+
+In a passage exhibiting the affluence of the noble lord's language, he
+says, "The life of a geometrician may well be supposed an uninterrupted
+calm, and the gratification which is derived from its researches, is of
+a pure and also of a lively kind--whether he contemplates the truths
+discovered by others, with the demonstrative evidence on which they
+rest, or carries the science further, and himself adds to the number of
+the interesting truths before known. He may be often stopt in his
+researches by the difficulties that beset his path; he may be frustrated
+in his attempts to discover relations, depending on complicated data,
+which he cannot unravel or reconcile; but his study is wholly
+independent of accident, his reliance is on his own powers. Contestation
+and uncertainty he never can know; a stranger to all controversy, above
+all mystery, he possesses his mind in unruffled peace. Bound by no
+authority, regardless of all consequences as of all opposition, he is
+entire master of his conclusions as of his operations, and feels even
+perfect indifference to the acceptance or objection of his doctrines,
+because he confidently looks forward to their universal and immediate
+admission the moment they are comprehended."
+
+All this is strikingly expressed, yet it is after all but a showy
+hypothesis. That pure mathematics have nothing to do with external
+existence, may be easily granted; but that mathematicians are exempt
+from controversy, is no more a matter of experience than that all
+mathematical assertions are self-evident. The history of science is a
+direct contradiction of this halcyon hypothesis. The bitterest
+controversies, and the most ridiculous too, have been raised on
+mathematical opinions. Universal experience tends strongly to the proof,
+that no exclusive exertion of the mind is more fatal to its general
+vigour, more apt to narrow its range of conception; more distinctly
+operative, by its very exclusiveness, and by its making minute truths
+the especial object of the mind, in rendering it incapable of those
+loftier and broader truths on which depend all the great concerns of
+society, all the efficient progress of civilisation, and all the nobler
+growth of human powers--than the mere study of mathematics. A spider
+drawing his web out of his own fibres, and constructing his little lines
+and circles in his dusty corner, is the fittest emblem of the mere
+mathematician. In this language, we acknowledge the use of the science;
+we protest only against its pretence of superiority. Every man's
+experience of college studies may supply him with examples; but we have
+room but for one, and that of a sufficiently high order.
+
+When Napoleon assumed the French throne, in his ambition of being
+regarded as the universal patron of science he appointed the author of
+the _Méchanique Céleste_ a member of his privy council. But La Place,
+then and since, the first scientific name of France, was found utterly
+inadequate to even the almost sinecure duties of his office. Napoleon
+soon found that he could make no use of him. He accordingly consulted
+him no longer. "I found his mind," said he, "like his book, full of
+_infiniments petits_." Or if we look for further illustration among the
+French geometers--the only men among whom the trial can be made, from
+their opportunities of power in the Revolution--there was not one of
+them who exhibited any qualification for the higher duties of public
+life. Bailly, Condorcet, and their tribe, proved themselves utterly
+feeble, helpless, and trifling, where manliness, activity, and
+intelligence of mind were required. The Savans were swept away like a
+swarm of mice, or crushed like musquitoes, when they dared to buzz in
+the presence of the public. That they were first-rate mathematicians
+there can be no question; that they quarrelled about their mathematical
+theories with the bitterness, and not a little in the style of village
+gossips, is equally certain; and that, though the Encyclopedists had
+chiefly died off before the Revolution, their successors and imitators
+were extinguished by their preposterous combination of an avarice of
+power, and of an inadequacy to exertion, is a fact written unanswerably
+in the history of their trifling career, and of their early scaffolds.
+The ridiculous figure made in politics by the first astronomer of
+France, at this moment, only strengthens the conclusion.
+
+The life of D'Alembert is, however, one of the happiest illustrations of
+the use to which science may be applied, in raising an obscure
+individual into public fame. Yet, it is not to be forgotten, that
+D'Alembert's European celebrity commenced only when he had laid aside
+the exclusive study of mathematics, and devoted himself to general
+literature, and, shaking off the dust of his closet, he became a man of
+the world.
+
+Jean le Rond d'Alembert was born in November 1717, and was exposed as a
+foundling near the church of St Jean le Rond in Paris, and thus called
+by the name of the parish. The commissary of the district, taking pity
+upon the infant's apparently dying condition, instead of sending it to
+the hospital, where it would have inevitably died, gave it to be nursed
+by the wife of a poor glazier. In a few days, however, a person named
+D'Estouches, a commissary of artillery, came forward, acknowledged the
+child, and made provision for its support. The habits of foreign life
+are generally so scandalous, that they can scarcely be alluded to
+without offending our sense of delicacy. The mother of this infant was
+an unmarried woman, living in the very highest circles of Paris, the
+sister of Cardinal Tencin, archbishop of Lyons. This woman thus added to
+her vice the cruelty of exposing her unfortunate offspring to die of
+cold and hunger in the streets. It does not appear that her profligacy,
+though notorious, ever affected her position in society. Her coteries
+were as gay, her circle was as complete, and her rank as high, as ever.
+In the Paris of those days, "throwing the first stone" was unheard of;
+its reaction would have been an avalanche; there was no scandal where
+there was no concealment; there was no crime where there was no
+conscience; and thus danced the world away, until the scourge of a
+higher power swept the whole noblesse of France into beggary and exile.
+
+D'Alembert seems to have taken his surname from that of his nurse, and
+was sent, when twelve years old, to the College of La Nation, then in
+the possession of the Jansenists. There he learned mathematics. On
+leaving the college, he returned to the glazier's house, there had one
+room for his bedroom and study, lived on the family fare, supported
+himself on a pension of £50 a-year left to him by his father, and in
+that house lived for forty years. He once made an abortive attempt to
+study the law and medicine, but soon grew weary of both, and returned to
+mathematics, for which he had a decided predilection. His application to
+this study, however, by no means pleased the homely sense of his old
+nurse. "You will never be any thing better than a philosopher," was her
+usual saying. "And what's a philosopher?--a fool, who wears out his
+life, to be spoken of after he is dead."
+
+But D'Alembert had evidently a passion for science; and in his
+twenty-third year he sent to the Academy of Sciences an analytical
+paper, which attracted general notice. This was followed by his
+admission into the society, at the unusually early age of twenty-four.
+From this period, he proceeded for eighteen years, constantly furnishing
+the Academy with papers, which added greatly to its reputation and his
+own. In a note on the presumed discovery of Taylor's Theorem by
+D'Alembert, the noble biographer alludes to what he regards as a similar
+event, the discovery of the "Binomial Theorem" by himself. We must
+acknowledge, that we cannot easily comprehend how any student, within
+the last hundred years, could have had this "discovery" to make--the
+Binomial Theorem being one of the very first which meets the eye of the
+algebraist, in Newton's, and every other treatise on analysis. It seems
+to us very like an English reader's "discovery" of the alphabet, or, at
+least, of the recondite art of spelling words of two syllables. But
+D'Alembert was at length to find, that if he was to obtain either fame
+or fortune, he must seek them in some other road. At this period,
+infidelity had become the distinction of all who arrogated to themselves
+intellectual accomplishment. The power of the crown, and the power of
+the clergy, had hitherto made its expression dangerous; but the new
+liberalism of the throne having enfeebled its power, the reign of the
+libeller, the rebel, and the sceptic openly commenced. The opulence of
+the clergy increased the bitterness of their enemies; and the blow which
+was intended to lay the throne in the dust, was nominally aimed at
+religion. Voltaire had commenced this crusade half a century before; but
+the arch-infidel lived beyond the dominion of France, possessed an
+independent income, had acquired the reputation of the wittiest man in
+Europe, and had established a species of impunity by the pungency of his
+perpetual sneers. During this period, French infidelity had been silent
+through fear, but it was not the less virulent, active, and general. It
+appeared in the result, that almost the whole of the French higher
+orders were either deists or total unbelievers. All the literary men of
+France followed the example of Voltaire, and a scoff at religion was
+always accepted as an evidence of wit. France loves extremes; and, as
+the poplar literature of Paris is now plunged in impurity, fifty years
+ago it was characterized by outrageous blasphemy. The only religion
+which France knew, was certainly not calculated to repress the evil. Its
+fantastic exhibitions and grim formalities, were equally obnoxious to
+the human understanding. Its persecuting spirit insulted the growing
+passion of the people for liberty; while its fierce dogmas, contrasting
+with its ridiculous traditions, supplied the largest materials at once
+for horror and ridicule.
+
+At length the storm broke forth. The infidelity which had danced and
+smiled, and made _calembourgs_ and scoffed, in the full-dress circles of
+the nobles; made its appearance in the streets and highways, in rags and
+riot, with the axe for the pen, and blood for the ink, and trampled the
+whole polished race of scoffers in the mire of Revolution.
+
+The _Encyclopédie_ was the great text-book of the literary faction, and
+Diderot and D'Alembert were the editors of its first seven
+volumes--D'Alembert writing the preliminary discourse upon the progress
+of the sciences. But the latter mixed caution with his courage; for on
+the issue of the government prohibition of the work, he abandoned the
+editorship and left it to Diderot.
+
+At length, in 1752, the King of Prussia, who, with all his fame, had the
+weakness of being emulous of French flattery, offered him an appointment
+at Berlin, with an allowance of five hundred pounds a-year, and the
+reversionary office of president of the academy. But this royal offer he
+refused, on the ground of his reluctance to quit Paris, and the fear
+that the employment would be inconsistent with his freedom. At this
+period his fixed income seemed to be about seventy pounds a-year; yet,
+when we suffer ourselves to be astonished at the apparent magnanimity of
+the refusal, we are to remember that this sum, a hundred years ago, and
+in Paris, would be about equivalent to two hundred pounds a-year in
+England at the present day; that, like all Frenchmen, he hated Germany;
+that Frederic's dealings with Voltaire gave by no means a favourable
+specimen of his friendships; and that, to a Frenchman of that day,
+Paris was all the world. But, ten years after, the Empress Catharine
+made him the much more tempting offer of the tutorship of her son,
+afterwards the unfortunate Emperor Paul. The salary was to be
+magnificent, no less than four thousand pounds a-year; still he refused
+the offer, and preferred remaining in Paris.
+
+Whether we are to applaud his magnanimity, or blame his habits, on this
+occasion, may fairly be a question. The possession of the four thousand
+pounds a-year, even if it were limited to the period of tuition, would
+have made him opulent; and his opulence would undoubtedly have given him
+the means of extensive benevolence, of relieving private distress, of
+assisting his less fortunate literary brethren, of promoting public
+objects, and ultimately, perhaps, of founding some valuable institution
+which might last for ages. But D'Alembert, and men like him, seem to
+live only for themselves. It would have cost him an absence from Paris
+for a certain period to have obtained this power of public good; and he
+preferred living without it, and haunting, night after night, the
+coteries of the old blue-stockings who kept open house for the evening
+gossipry of the capital.
+
+Nothing can form a stronger contrast to the general passion of the
+French character for change, than its devotion to the same coterie for
+half a century together. In the middle of the eighteenth century two
+houses in Paris were especially the rendezvous of the talkers, idlers,
+and philosophers of Paris. That some of those visitants were men of
+remarkable ability, there can be no doubt. But this perpetual haunting
+of the same coffee-cups, this regularity of trifling, this wretched
+inability to remain at home for a single evening, is so wholly
+irreconcilable with our English sense of domestic duties, of the
+attachment of parents to their families, and of the exercise of the
+natural affections, that we find it utterly impossible to attach any
+degree of respect to the perpetual lounger at another's fire-side.
+Madame Geoffrin had now succeeded to Madame de Tencin, as the receiver
+of the coterie. Madame du Deffand held a kind of rival, but inferior,
+coterie. The former had a house, the latter had only a lodging; the
+former was good-humoured, amiable, and kind--the latter satirical and
+cold; but both were clever, and, at all events, both received the
+gossips, wise and foolish, of Paris. At the lodging of Madame du
+Deffand, D'Alembert met Mademoiselle de l'Espinasse, a species of
+companion to Madame. She was the illegitimate daughter of a woman of
+fashion, as D'Alembert was the son. The circumstance was too common in
+Parisian high life, to involve any censure on the parents, or any
+disgrace on the children; but it may have produced a degree of sympathy,
+which suddenly rose to its height by their taking a lodging together!
+Those things, too, were so frequent in France, that, except the laugh of
+the moment, no one seems to have taken notice of the connexion; and they
+continued to carry it on, as well received as ever, and holding their
+evening coterie with undiminished applause.
+
+"No one," observes the noble biographer, "whispered a syllable of
+suspicion, respecting a connexion which all were fully convinced could
+be only of the most innocent kind." This French credulity is too simple
+for our credence. That a he and she philosophic pair should have lived
+in the same apartments for a dozen years with perfect innocency, may
+have been the case in Paris; but the story would not be believed in any
+less immaculate region on the face of the earth. The plain truth seems
+to be, that the general looseness of Parisian society saw nothing gross
+in the grossest connexion. Even where they affected virtue, they
+palpably preferred their having an evening lounge open to them, to any
+consideration grounded on common propriety and a sense of shame.
+
+But the philosopher was a dirty fellow after all, and it only does
+credit to his noble biographer's sense of propriety to admit, that "his
+conduct must seem strange to all men of right and honourable feelings."
+In fact, the philosopher seems to have lent his aid very zealously to a
+correspondence carried on by his sensitive fellow-lodger! with a view to
+a marriage with a Spanish Marquis Mora. Among other proofs, he went
+every morning to the post-office to receive the Spaniard's letters for
+the lady. "I confess," says Lord Brougham, "I am driven, how reluctantly
+soever, to the painful conclusion, that he lent himself to the plan of
+her _inveigling_ the Spaniard into a marriage." And this was not the
+only instance of his by-play. Mademoiselle professed also to have fallen
+in love with a M. Guibert, known as a military writer. Guibert exhibited
+his best tactics, in keeping clear of the lady. "All this time, she
+continued," says his lordship, "to make D'Alembert believe, that she had
+no real passion for any one but himself." No one can easily suppose that
+they were not connected in a plan of obtaining for her a settlement in
+life by marriage. But, if this marriage-intrigue was in every sense, and
+on all sides, contemptible; what are we to think of the nature of the
+connexion existing between this sensitive lady and D'Alembert, living
+for years under the same roof? The whole matter would be too repulsive
+for the decorums of biography, if it were not among the evidences of
+that utter corruption of morals, and callousness of feeling, which were
+finally avenged in the havoc of the Revolution.
+
+D'Alembert's income had been increased by his appointment to the office
+of secretary to the Academy, in 1772. Unfortunately for his literary
+fame, it became a part of his duty to write the _éloges_ of the deceased
+members, an office which he fulfilled with equal diligence and
+unproductiveness; for, of those unfortunate performances he wrote no
+less than eighty-three. But the French are fond of fooleries of this
+kind; a few sounding sentences with them are biography; a few rambling
+sketches fill up the outline to their taste; and the whole forms a
+specimen of that eloquence which men are content to admire on the other
+side of the Channel.
+
+At length his career drew to a close. Towards his sixty-fourth year, his
+health began to decline. It had never been robust, though his habits had
+been temperate; but feebleness of stomach, and an organic disease,
+predicted the approach of his dissolution. He died on the 29th of
+October 1783, in the sixty-seventh year of his age. Notwithstanding his
+feebleness of body, his intellectual vigour remained--thus adding one to
+the many proofs of the distinct natures of mind and body. In his
+intervals of ease, he continued to occupy himself with mathematical
+investigations. With a deplorable want of feeling, he talked with levity
+of his approaching departure--an event awful to the best, and, to the
+wisest, solemn in proportion to their wisdom. He died in the fulness of
+that scientific reputation which he deserved, and of that literary
+reputation which he did not deserve; but, by the combination of both,
+ranking as the most distinguished intellectual name of Europe in his
+day.
+
+The life of a later philosopher, the unfortunate Lavoisier, gives Lord
+Brougham an opportunity of rendering justice to an eminent foreigner,
+and of vindicating the claims of his own still more memorable
+countrymen, Black and Watt. Chemistry is especially the science of the
+eighteenth century, as geometry was of the seventeenth. It is a
+characteristic of that great, however slow, change, which is now
+evidently in progress through Europe, that those sciences which most
+promote the comforts, the powers, and the progress of the multitude,
+obviously occupy the largest share of mental illustration. Of all the
+sciences, chemistry is that one which contributes most largely to the
+dominion of man over nature. It is the very handmaid of Wisdom,
+instructing us in the properties of things, and continually developing
+more and more the secrets of those vast and beneficent processes by
+which the physical frame of creation is rendered productive to man. It
+must thus be regarded as the most essential instrument of our physical
+well-being. It takes a part in all that administers to our wants and
+enjoyments. Our clothing, our medicine, our food; the cultivation of the
+ground, the salubrity of the atmosphere; the very blood, bone, and
+muscle of man, all depend on chemical evolutions. But it has its still
+loftier secrets; and the experimental philosopher is constantly
+stimulated and delighted by his approach to at least the borders of
+discoveries which promise to give a nobler insight into the laws of
+matter; to exhibit more fully the mechanism formed and moved by the
+Divine hand; and to develop the glories of the universe on a scale
+continually enlarging, and continually more luminous.
+
+A matchless source of interest in this most effective and essential of
+all the sciences, is, that it seems capable of an infinite progress. The
+chemical philosopher cannot even conceive any limit to its variety,
+multitude, or utility of purpose. The more he discovers, the more he
+finds is still to be discovered. Every new property awakens him to the
+existence of some other property, more capacious and more profound.
+Every difficulty mastered, only leads him towards some deeper and more
+tempting problem. And, in addition to the ardour derived from this
+triumph of our intellectual ambition--as if all the incentives that can
+act upon man were expressly accumulated upon this pursuit--there is no
+science in which the actual triumphs are more directly connected with
+personal opulence. The invention of a new acid or alkali might create
+unbounded wealth. The discovery of a new principle of the most vulgar
+use--for tanning leather, for extracting oils, for strengthening soap,
+for purifying tallow, might place the discoverer in possession of wealth
+beyond the dreams of avarice. But a loftier ambition may still find its
+field in this science. A chemical discovery might change the face of the
+world. Gunpowder had already changed the whole form of European society.
+A chemical discovery might give us the power of managing at our will the
+storm and the lightning, of averting the pestilence, or of ensuring the
+fertility of the soil, and the regularity of the seasons. The Divine
+intention in placing us here, was evidently the perpetual exercise of
+the human understanding. For that purpose were given the wants, and the
+remedies of the wants, of man; for that purpose all sciences are perhaps
+inexhaustible; but of all, the most palpably inexhaustible, the most
+teeming with immediate results, and the most remedial as to human
+necessities, is Chemistry--fitted by its extent to supply the largest
+proportion of human objects, by its power to excite the most eager
+inquiry, and by its richness to reward the intelligent labour of man, to
+the last ages of the world.
+
+Antoine Laurent Lavoisier was born in Paris in 1743, the son of one of
+the "farmers-general." As the office was nearly hereditary, and was
+proverbially connected with great opulence, the son of the rich
+functionary was highly educated. But science soon attracted all his
+study, and, devoting himself especially to chemistry, he made himself
+conspicuous among the leading philosophers of his time.
+
+At the age of twenty-two, he presented to the Academy of Sciences an
+analysis of gypsum. At twenty-five he was admitted a member of the
+Academy, an unusually early age. In his next year he succeeded his
+father in his lucrative office. He then married the daughter of another
+farmer-general, and having made this provision for a life of luxury or
+public employment, with all that political ambition might offer in the
+old _régime_ of France, he collected his books about him, shut himself
+up in his study, and gave up his time, fortune, and energy to the
+advancement of science.
+
+After occupying himself for a brief period with geology, he commenced
+his chemical career by refuting the theories alike of Margraff and Stahl
+on the conversion of water into earth. The chemistry of the gases had
+made rapid progress in England; and the names of Black, Priestley, and
+Cavendish, had already attracted the attention of scientific Europe.
+Lavoisier followed in their track by a series of experiments in the
+calcination of metals, pursued with remarkable intelligence and
+industry. The biographer observes that he was now on the verge of two
+dazzling discoveries--the composition of the atmosphere, and the
+identity of the diamond with carbon. But he stopped short, and left the
+glory to more fortunate investigators.
+
+We hasten from the controversies to which the claim of priority in those
+distinguished discoveries gave rise, and come to the more authentic
+services of Lavoisier. He was appointed by the minister to superintend
+the royal manufacture of gunpowder, which his chemical knowledge enabled
+him greatly to improve. He next, by appointment of the National
+Assembly, drew up his laborious and valuable memoir on the _Territorial
+Wealth of France_. He was now appointed one of the commissioners of the
+treasury, and introduced an unexampled regularity into the public
+accounts. He aided the formation of the metrical system, the security of
+the assignats against forgery, and seems to have borne an active part in
+every public matter in which practical science was concerned. In the
+mean time he employed himself in scientific agriculture, and set apart a
+tract of land on his estate for experimental farming. His style of
+living in Paris was at once rational and splendid. His house was open
+twice a-week for the reception of distinguished persons, both foreigners
+and natives, and especially if they brought with them the recommendation
+of scientific ability. With the finest philosophical apparatus in the
+possession of any individual in France, he was constantly carrying on
+experiments on his own account, or performing them for others whose
+means could not meet their expense. This conduct, united to remarkable
+amiability of manners, made him popular, and placed him at the head of
+French science in his day. But the evil time had come when opulence was
+to be a crime, and virtue was to be no longer a safe-guard. The
+democratic triumvirate of 1794 issued an order for the seizure of
+twenty-seven individuals who had been farmers-general before the
+Revolution. The true charge was the crime of being opulent. The popular
+and ridiculous charge was, their having mixed deleterious ingredients
+with the tobacco. Lavoisier having received information that the order
+was about to be executed, fled, and remained for some days in
+concealment. On understanding that his flight might injure the other
+prisoners, and as his father-in-law was among them, he, with a rash
+reliance on the public justice, yet with manly generosity, returned to
+Paris, and gave himself up to his oppressors. The course of the
+Revolution had been so palpably that of general plunder, that he had
+long expected the loss of fortune, and proposed, in case of ruin, to
+begin the world again, and live by the profession of medicine.
+
+But, by a furious act of violence, he was condemned to die. He asked
+only a few days to complete some experiments which were going on during
+his imprisonment. The scoffing answer of this merciless tribunal was,
+that the Republic had no need of philosophers; and on the day after this
+sentence, the 8th of May 1794, he was hurried to the guillotine with no
+less than one hundred and twenty-three other victims, who all died
+within a few hours.
+
+On this melancholy and desperate atrocity of republicanism, Lord
+Brougham makes the following remark, which, though natural in the lips
+of any human being, has double force as coming from one who has seen the
+operation of the revolutionary spirit on so large a scale, and during so
+extended a portion of his public career.
+
+"The lustre," he observes, "which the labours of Lavoisier had shed over
+the scientific renown of France, the valuable services which he had
+rendered her in so many important departments of her affairs, the
+virtues which adorned his character and made his philosophy beloved as
+well as revered, were all destined to meet the reward with which the
+tyranny of _vulgar faction_ is sure to recompense the good and the wise,
+as often as the _base unlettered multitude_ are permitted to bear sway,
+and to place in the seat of dominion their idols, who _dupe_ to
+_betray_, and finally punish them."
+
+Lord Brougham justly reprobates the suspicious silence of the celebrated
+Carnot on this occasion, and the still more scandalous apathy of
+Fourcroix, who had been the pupil and panegyrist of the great chemist
+during many years. He acquits him of the deadly imputation, that he had
+even been instrumental in sending his master to the guillotine. But he
+praises, in contradistinction, M. Hallé, who had the honest courage to
+proclaim Lavoisier's public services before the dreadful tribunal,
+while he consigns the pupil to perpetual scorn. He was murdered in his
+fifty-first year.
+
+Lord Brougham's French predilections do credit to his sense of
+cosmopolitism; but he appears to us somewhat more disposed to conciliate
+the jealousy of his very irritable French _confrères_, than to deal
+rigorous justice. No man deserves the reputation of science but a
+discoverer. To know all that has been hitherto known on a subject,
+deserves the character of diligence; to promote the progress of a
+science by largeness of expenditure, or steadiness of exertion, deserves
+the praise of liberality and labour; but the man who adds to the science
+by original invention, who enlarges its boundaries, and detects new
+principles, is the man alone to whom the name of genius can be applied.
+Lavoisier was, unquestionably, an important minister of science; he
+possessed singular assiduity, unwearied zeal, and remarkable sagacity.
+What these could do, he did; what knowledge could accomplish, he
+performed; but the inventors were of another country, and of a higher
+order, and he must be content with the honours due to imitation. Yet he
+had considerable happiness in the difficult art of communicating his
+knowledge. His _Treatise on Chemistry_, though now superseded by
+subsequent arrangements, is singularly clear; and no great teacher of
+chemistry has hitherto given the world a more striking example of
+exactness in detail, and clearness in conception.
+
+His cruel death, too, may be almost said to have continued his services
+to society. It proved, with irresistible force, the true character of
+Infidel Revolution. It showed a noble-minded and benevolent man the
+victim of revolutionary rage; an intelligent, studious, and retired man,
+obnoxious to the rabble love of ruin; a mild, generous, and patriotic
+man, the instant prey of revolutionary government, which boasted of its
+superiority to the vices of kings, of its homage to intellect, and of
+its supreme value for the virtues of private life. Yet it murdered
+Lavoisier without a moment's hesitation, or a moment's remorse, and
+flung the first philosopher of France into a felon's grave.
+
+The biography of Adam Smith gives Lord Brougham an opportunity of
+pouring out, at the distance of nearly half a century, that knowledge of
+Political Economy which first brought him into notice. His _Colonial
+Policy_, a remarkable performance for a student of eighteen, exhibited
+in miniature the principles and propensities which his long career has
+been expended in maturing and moulding. Adam Smith was the idol of all
+Scottish worship in the last century; and his originality of conception,
+the weight of his subject, and the clearness of his judgment, made him
+worthy of the elevation.
+
+Adam Smith's birth was of a higher order than is often to be found in
+the instance of men destined to literary eminence. He was the son of a
+comptroller of the customs, who had been private secretary to Lord
+Loudoun, secretary of state, and keeper of the great seal.
+
+An accident in infancy had nearly deprived the age of its first
+philosopher, even if it had not trained him to be hanged. At three years
+of age he was stolen by travelling tinkers, a race resembling the
+gipsies, and which in that day formed a numerous population in Scotland.
+But a pursuit being speedily set on foot, he was fortunately recovered.
+He was well educated, and, after the routine of school, was sent to
+Glasgow for three years, where he obtained an Exhibition to Baliol
+College. At Oxford he remained for seven years, chiefly addicted to
+mathematics--a study, however, which he subsequently wholly abandoned.
+He had been intended for the Church of England; but whether from dislike
+of its discipline, or from disappointment in his views, he retired to
+Scotland, to take his chance of employment in its colleges. In 1748 he
+settled in Edinburgh, and, for three years, read a course of lectures on
+rhetoric. His contemporaries, then obscure, became, in some instances,
+conspicuous; for among them were Hume, Robertson, and Wedderburne. In
+1751, Smith was elected to the professorship of Logic in the University
+of Glasgow, which he soon after exchanged for that of Moral Philosophy.
+
+Thus far we run on smoothly with Lord Brougham; but when he comes to
+discuss religion, we must occasionally doubt his guidance. For example,
+in speaking of Smith's lectures on Natural Theology, he denounces the
+jealousy of those who regard it as other than "the very foundation
+essential to support its fabric." From this opinion we totally dissent.
+It is perfectly true that natural religion and revelation are consistent
+with each other, as must be presumed from their being the work of the
+same Divine wisdom. But their foundations are wholly distinct. Why did
+the Jew believe the Mosaic revelation? Simply and solely, because it was
+delivered to him with such evidences of supernatural origin, in the
+thunders of Sinai, and substantiated at subsequent periods by miracle
+and prophecy, that he must receive it as divine. Why did the early
+converts receive Christianity? Simply on the same direct evidence
+supplied to their senses. No apostle sent them to examine their notions
+of the Godhead, or left them to inculcate the doctrines of the gospel by
+their reason. But he declared his doctrine as a new truth, and gave
+proof of its truth being divine, by working wonders palpably beyond the
+power of man. Of course, unless man knew what was meant by the power of
+the Deity, he could not have comprehended the simplest communication of
+the apostle. But we are speaking of the foundation of a belief--not the
+intelligibility of a language. We are entitled to go further still, and
+say, that the first idea of the being of a God was itself a
+revelation--a much plainer solution of the extraordinary circumstance,
+that so lofty and recondite a conception should have existed in the
+earliest and rudest ages of society; than to suppose that the
+antediluvian shepherd, or the postdiluvian hunter, should have ever
+thought of tracing effects and causes up to that extreme elevation,
+where a pure and supreme Spirit creates and governs the whole. We are
+entitled even to doubt whether the idea of Spirit was ever _naturally_
+conceived in the mind of any human being, difficult as is the conception
+to a creature surrounded with materiality, with every thought derived
+from his senses, and with the total incapacity of defining to this hour,
+or even imagining, the nature of Spirit. It will be fully admitted, that
+when the idea was once communicated, its reality was substantiated by
+the frame of nature, by the regularity, the extent, and the beneficence
+of the great physical system. But the origin was revelation. Lord
+Brougham quotes Tillotson; but the archbishop had earned his mitre by
+other means than the vigour of his understanding, and often trifles like
+other men.
+
+In 1759, Smith published his _Theory of Moral Sentiments_--a work of
+skill and invention, but which has long since fallen into disuse with
+the intelligent world. It, however, had the rare good fortune of
+attracting the notice of an individual, possessed at once of the taste
+to honour, and the will to befriend, a man of original ability. This
+volume fell into the hands of the celebrated Charles Townsend, who
+proposed that the author should take charge of the young Duke of
+Buccleuch, whose mother, the dowager-duchess, he had married. Nothing in
+the life of Townsend was more honourable to him than this choice, not
+only for its judgment but for its rarity. The generality of men in
+possession of affluence think only of themselves, and would value the
+most common-place gratification more highly than the encouragement of
+the obscure genius, which wanted only that encouragement to shed a new
+lustre on its generation. The man of power in general feels its
+possession the primary object of his patronage, and sees no purpose in
+the immense opportunity given to him by his rank, but to obtain
+adherents, and make his power impregnable. Though there may be
+exceptions, such is the rule; and with this recollection of the
+established course of things, we give all honour to the memory of the
+man, without whose patronage the world would probably have lost the
+ablest work of its century, the immortal _Wealth of Nations_.
+
+In 1763, Smith was appointed tutor to the young nobleman, resigned his
+professorship, and went with his pupil to France. After a residence of a
+year and a half at Toulouse, he travelled in Switzerland, and then,
+returning to Paris, spent ten months there. His French residence was
+peculiarly fortunate. It rubbed off the rust of his seclusion; it
+introduced him to the best society of courtly life; and it brought him
+into direct intercourse with that whole circle of active intellect and
+novel philosophy, which made the Parisian coteries at once the most
+bustling and brilliant of Europe. However the horrid profligacy of the
+court, and the contemptuous infidelity of high life, might have either
+disgusted the morals, or startled even the scepticism of the stranger,
+there can be no doubt of the interest which he felt in the society of
+such men as Turgot, Necker, D'Alembert, and Quesnay. Smith, some fifteen
+or twenty years before, had drawn up a sketch of the principles which he
+afterwards developed in his _Wealth of Nations_. Political economy was
+then beginning to take a form in French science. Whether it ever
+deserved the name of science, or will ever deserve it, may be a grave
+question. It depends upon such a multitude of facts, and the facts
+themselves vary so perpetually, the "principles" derived from those
+facts are so feeble and fluctuating, and common experience so
+provokingly contradicts, from day to day, the most laboured conclusions,
+that every new professor has a new theory, and every new theory turns
+the former into ridicule, itself to be burlesqued by the next that
+follows. This at least is known, that Fox declared his suspicion of the
+whole, saying, that it was at once too daring to be intelligible, and
+too indefinite to be reducible to practice. Even in our day, no two
+authors on the subject agree; all the successful measures of revenue and
+finance have been adopted in utter defiance of its dogmas; while all the
+modern attempts to act upon what are called its principles, have only
+convulsed commerce, shaken public credit, and substituted fantastic
+visions of prosperity for the old substantial wealth of England. No
+occupation could have been fitter for the half-frivolous, half-factious
+spirit of France. A revolution in revenue was openly regarded as the
+first step to revolution in power; the political economists indulged
+themselves in a philosophic conspiracy, and vented their sneers against
+the government, under pretext of recognising the rights of trade. It
+took but a little more than twenty years to mature this dexterous
+contrivance, and the meek friends of free trade had the happiness of
+seeing France in a blaze.
+
+Smith, on his return, shut himself up in his study in Kirkcaldy for ten
+years. His friends in vain attempted to draw him from his solitude to
+Edinburgh: he steadily, we may almost say magnanimously, refused; and at
+the end of the tenth year, in 1776, he explained the mystery, by the
+publication of the two quarto volumes of his _Enquiry into the Nature
+and Causes of the Wealth of Nations_. The work was received with general
+congratulation; it was regarded as a new science, although it is
+well-known, as stated in the introduction to the biography, that many
+others had previously discussed the same subjects. Smith's views,
+however, were so much more comprehensive, his division so much more
+distinct, and his remarks so much more practical, that he deserved all
+the credit of the architect who combines in beauty and utility the beams
+and pillars which he finds scattered on the ground. And here we advert
+to the obvious benefit of that patronage which had been extended to this
+very able man by Townsend. The annuity which had been settled on him as
+tutor, had enabled Smith to give up the whole of his time, and the whole
+powers of his mind, during those ten years, to this great work. During
+nearly twenty years of lecturing, on the other hand, in which his pen
+was necessarily employed without ceasing, he seems to have published but
+one work, _The Theory of Moral Sentiment_. That he constantly formed
+ingenious conceptions, may be easily admitted; but that he wanted either
+time or inclination to complete them, is evident from the fact, that he
+never suffered them to appear in print, and that one of his dying
+directions was, that they should be destroyed by his executors.
+
+He was now a man of fame, and to enjoy it came up to London, where he
+resided for two years in the midst of the best society, political and
+literary, to be found in England. He was now to be a man of fortune as
+well as of fame; he was appointed a commissioner of the customs in
+Scotland. He returned to Edinburgh, and commenced the agreeable life of
+a man at once distinguished, and opulent to the full extent of his
+simple desires, in a society whose names are still regarded as the
+lights of Scotland. He lived hospitably, and entertained good society,
+but he wrote no more; he was growing old, and Lord Brougham evidently
+thinks that the duties of his office exhausted his spirits and occupied
+his time. But those duties always partook largely of the nature of a
+sinecure; and there is every reason to doubt whether they could have
+worn down a man of regular habits, and who had been trained to the
+routine of daily business by an apprenticeship of a quarter of a
+century. The greater probability is, that Smith felt that he had done
+enough for fame; that, knowing the world, he was unwilling to expose
+himself to the caprices of critical applause; and that he even felt how
+inadequate the early theories which found admirers in the lecture-room,
+might be to sustain a character already brought into full publicity by
+his own volumes. The fact is certain, that he produced nothing more. In
+July 1790, he died, at the age of sixty-seven. It was his custom to give
+a supper on the Sunday evening to a numerous circle of friends. How far
+this entertainment, which was more consistent with the latitude of his
+Paris recollections, was reconcilable with the decorums of Scotland, we
+cannot say. But on one evening, after having destroyed his manuscripts,
+finding himself not so well as usual, he retired to bed before supper,
+and as he went, said to his friends, "I believe we must adjourn this
+meeting to some other place." He died in a very few days afterwards.
+
+Lord Brougham has obviously expended his chief labour on the life of
+this favourite philosopher, of whom, fifty years ago, every Scottish
+economist was a devoted pupil. Times are changed, yet this intelligent
+biographer has given a very ample and accurate, so far as we can judge,
+analysis of the _Enquiry_. But he would have greatly increased the
+obligations of the reader, by giving some portion of his treatise to the
+questions which modern artifice has devised, and modern infatuation has
+adopted.
+
+An interesting "memoir" of Johnson commences the volume; but the topic
+would lead us too far. The biographer gives that literary Samson full
+applause for the strength of his understanding, the boldness of his
+morality, and the pungency of his wit. Rather to our surprise, he pours
+out an eloquent panegyric on Boswell. That we are indebted to this
+versatile personage for one of the most amusing and instructive
+collections of reminiscences in the history of authorship, will be
+readily conceded. But this is the first time of our hearing a demand
+that we should pay him any more peculiar homage. But Lord Brougham is
+himself the head of a school: his _ipse dixit_ demands acquiescence, and
+none can doubt that, if he is singular in his dogmas, he deserves
+attention for the vigour of his advocacy.
+
+
+
+
+REYNARD THE FOX.[2]
+
+
+The natural history of the Cockney has been frequently illustrated, and
+never so successfully as in time past in the pages of Maga. But nature
+is inexhaustible in all her creations. You might study a lifetime, and
+yet not fully master the properties of one of those little Infusoria
+that wriggle or spin about in a phial of foul or fair water, and a still
+wider subject of study is of course supplied by any larger animal, such
+as a Cockney, placed as he is a little lower than the angels, and
+half-way down, or there abouts, between a man and a chimpanzee.
+
+Upon careful inquiry it would probably be found, that in most nations
+the population, though all purporting to be men and women, consists in a
+good measure of beings that stand several degrees below the point of
+humanity. France, among several specimens of a higher order, has
+occasionally shown that a considerable proportion of its inhabitants was
+a hideous cross between the tiger and the baboon. Holland has had its
+Grotius and its Erasmus, but the otter and the beaver breed make up the
+mass of those who go by the name of Dutchmen. There has been no want in
+Germany of clear-sighted men, but the mole, the bat, and the owl furnish
+a large contingent to the ranks of its _literati_. In other nations we
+see a greater or less preponderance of the wolf or the bear, the goat or
+the goose, the ass, the hog, or the hippopotamus. Such being the
+universal condition of the world, we should rather be proud than
+otherwise, that, in England, we can boast of a secondary tribe, made,
+perhaps, by some of nature's journeymen, but that yet imitate humanity
+so respectably, so amiably, and so amusingly, as the Cockney must be
+admitted to do.
+
+A Cockney is by locality very much what a tailor is by trade. Though a
+remote sub-multiple of a man, he is enterprising, indefatigable, cutting
+his way to his object through every thing with a ready tongue and a
+quick wit. Yet he is deficient in some qualities indispensable to the
+species _homo_. Courage the Cockney undoubtedly possesses, because he is
+always among those who are said to rush in where others fear to tread.
+But veneration is utterly wanting in his composition; and here the
+resemblance to the tailor is conspicuous; as we never knew a single snip
+that had the slightest reverence for any thing under heaven--if, indeed,
+the assertion should not be made in still broader terms. In the tailor
+this effect, defective, comes by an obvious cause. The intolerable
+liberties which the vulgar fraction is permitted to take with people's
+persons, divesting the best and bravest of us of the halo of heroism
+that surrounds us at a distance; and the fact that the great mysteries
+of dress, the paraphernalia of our dignity and decency, and the chief
+emblems of our manhood and domestic authority, emerge exclusively from
+the hands of this insignificant but indispensable maker of men, are
+enough to extinguish within him all sentiment of respect for any thing
+human or divine. The Cockney arrives at a similar state of easy and
+impudent _non-chalance_ by a different process. Littered in London, and
+living there all his life, he is proud of its position among cites; and
+he comes, by a natural process of reasoning, to ascribe its importance
+to its connexion with his own person and people, and to see nothing
+better or greater in the universe than himself and what belongs to him.
+The feeling grows with his growth, and is fed by a full indulgence in
+all the good things with which the land of Cockayne abounds, and which
+the most morose of mortals must admit to be eminently conducive to
+self-complacency.
+
+The Cockney, thus devoid of all diffidence in himself, is prepared for
+every thing in the scale of human thought or action; pleasuring or
+politics, theatricals or theology, an Epping hunt or an Epic poem. In
+literature we may say of him, nearly in the words applied by Dr Johnson
+to Goldsmith, that there is scarcely any kind of composition that he
+does not handle, and none that he handles which he does not adorn with
+graces all his own.
+
+It is wonderful, however, to see with what success a Cockney can
+sometimes disguise himself. He will write you a book, in which, several
+pages on end, you think you are reading the thoughts of some ordinary
+mortal. But the cloven foot always appears before you are done with him.
+In poetry, indeed, you can go but a short way till the cat is let out of
+the bag. That unfortunate letter R! No lessons in elocution, no change
+of climate, can eradicate the deep-seated mischief of its
+mispronunciation in a Cockney whose years of pupilarity have been passed
+on the spot of his birth.
+
+These remarks have been elicited by a disappointment we have recently
+suffered, in being led to purchase the book referred to at the
+commencement of this article. We saw it advertised by an alluring
+title--"REYNARD THE FOX--a renowned Apologue of the Middle Ages
+reproduced in Rhyme." We bought the book, and were delighted with its
+appearance. A quaint, antique, cream-coloured binding--a golden vignette
+on the outside, of the fox making his obeisance to Noble the king of the
+beasts, and the lioness his spouse--a beautiful paper and type within,
+with red and blue illuminations interspersed at the heads of chapters
+and paragraphs;--all this combined to whet our appetite for a delicious
+treat. We read the preface and introduction, if not with pleasure, at
+least with patience, and with wonderfully few misgivings as to the
+truth, the worst feature in them being the tendency to Carlyleism, to
+which, however offensive in itself, custom has made us somewhat callous.
+But we had not perused a page or two of the reproduction in rhyme
+itself, when we discovered that we were wandering in the regions of
+Cockneyland, with one of its most distinguished natives for our guide.
+
+Our immediate purpose is to offer an exposition, not of the old Reynard,
+but of its present "reproduction." We may say, however, that we think
+the original work is one peculiarly ill-suited to be appreciated or
+reproduced by one of Mr Naylor's compatriots. It is a product of true
+genius, humour, and sagacity. The author must have looked at beasts and
+men with a keen eye, and from the vantage ground of a contemplative
+mind; and he has worked out his thoughts in a plain and simple style of
+illustration, and embodied them in easy and natural language. There is
+much merriment in his work, but no straining after wit. There is all the
+knowledge of the day that an accomplished man could be expected to
+possess, but no parade of learning. There is no quaintness in the style,
+and no effort in the verse. The age of _Hudibras_ had not come; and that
+of the _Ingoldsby Legends_, or _Miss Kilmansegg_, was still further off.
+The old Flemish writers of Reynard exhibit judgment as well as talent,
+and their Low Saxon successor, though himself a reproducer, has asserted
+a claim both to freedom and originality. The quiet, sensible, unaffected
+treatment of their subject, which these old versifiers exhibit, where
+the topics offered so much temptation to burlesque and extravagance, is
+the thing of all others least likely to be comprehended or relished in
+the meridian of Bow Bells.
+
+But, then, Goethe has successfully translated the book; and, therefore,
+Mr Naylor must do the same. This is a common mode of syllogising in
+Cockayne. Homer, Dante, Milton, Goethe, Wordsworth, have done such and
+such things, and therefore a Cockney is to do them also. Whatever may be
+the precise minor premise involved in this argument, we venture to
+suggest a doubt of its soundness. Mr Naylor tells us he has followed
+Alkmar's and Goethe's example, "mindful ever of the requisitions
+insisted on by Novalis in all paraphrastic translations, that they
+should convey accurately an idea of the first type, whilst, at the same
+time, the translator made his author speak after that appreciation of
+his work which exists in his own mind, no less than according to the
+poet's original conception." Mr Naylor may have succeeded in making his
+author speak after that appreciation of his work which exists in his own
+mind; but if the "first type" of Reynard had been no better than the
+reproduction gives us an idea of, the shapeless and sickly cub would not
+have lived an hour into the thirteenth century.
+
+Before Mr Naylor resolved on reproducing Reynard in English rhyme, he
+should have inquired whether it was not already as well done as he was
+likely to do it. In his elaborate enumeration of his predecessors in the
+task of translation, he thus writes:--"There is also _said_ to be a
+translation of Reynard into English _doggerel_, by _one_ Soltau, a
+German"--"known," as he adds in a note, "as the translator of _Hudibras_
+into German." We have now before us the translation so slightingly
+alluded to, published at Hamburg in 1826. In all external and physical
+recommendations, this homely volume is far inferior to the London
+reproduction; but we shall immediately give our readers an opportunity
+of judging whether the doggerel of "one Soltau, a German," is not at
+least as good as that of "one Naylor, a Cockney."
+
+Take the opening of the poem, which, in the original, is full of
+freshness and spirit, with all the joyousness of a holiday scene.
+
+SOLTAU.
+
+    "It happen'd on a Whitsunday,
+  When woods and fields look'd green and gay,
+  When balmy flow'rs and herbs were springing,
+  And feather'd folks were sweetly singing;
+  The morn was fine, the weather clear,
+  And fragrant odours fill'd the air,
+  When Noble, sov'reign king of beasts,
+  Proclaim'd a court and public feasts.
+  His loyal subjects, lords and commons,
+  Obey'd their master's royal summons;
+  And many a valiant knight and squire
+  To court repair'd in grand attire,
+  With their attendants, great and small--
+  'Twas difficult to count them all."
+
+NAYLOR.
+
+    "Now Pentecost, the feast, by some
+  Call'd 'merry Whitsuntide,' was come!
+  The fields show'd brave, with kingcups dight,
+  And hawthorns kercheft were in white:
+  Her low-breathed lute the fresh'ning rill
+  Unto the waken'd woods 'gan trill;
+  Whilst, hid in leafy bower remote,
+  The cuckoo tuned his herald-note;
+  The meads were prankt in gold and green,
+  And 'leetel fowles' of liveried sheen,
+  Their pipes with JUBILATE! swelling,
+  From bush and spray were philomelling--
+  The breeze came balmy from the west,
+  And April, harness'd in her best,
+  The laughing sun led forth to see--
+  When Noble (lion-king was he,
+  And sceptre sway'd o'er bird and beast,)
+  Held ancient ways, and kept the feast,
+  The trumpets clang'd loud proclamation--
+  The couriers coursed throughout the nation--
+  Full many a Brave and many a Bold
+  Came hastening in troops untold."
+
+The German translator here keeps precisely within the same compass of
+fourteen lines with his "first type," while the Londoner has one-half
+more. But this is not the main difference. The German is neater and more
+natural, and nearer the spirit as well as the letter of his model. All
+the trash in the new reproduction about hawthorns "kercheft in white,"
+the low-breathed lute of the rill trilling, the cuckoo and his herald
+note, the 'leetel fowles' swelling and philomelling, and April harnessed
+in her best, are mere frippery sewed on by the reproducer, to make the
+venerable old garment look finer in the eyes of his co-Cockneys.
+
+We next give the two translations of that part of the poem which
+represents the Cock's complaints against Reynard, for killing his
+daughter, and which is supposed to give so accurate a representation of
+the form of process in the Middle Ages in an accusation of murder.
+
+SOLTAU.
+
+    "Gray scarce had done, when Chanticleer
+  The Cock in mourning did appear;
+  Two sons accompanied their sire,
+  Like him in funeral attire,
+  With hoods of crape and torches lighted,
+  And doleful lays they both recited.
+  Two others follow'd with a bier;
+  Mournful and slowly they drew near,
+  With heartfelt sighs and deepest groan,
+  Their fav'rite sister to bemoan.
+    "The Cock in tears the throne approach'd,
+  And thus his sad harangue he broach'd:
+  'My Liege, have pity on a man,
+  The most distressed of his clan,
+  Who, with his children here before You,
+  Is come, for vengeance to implore You
+  On Reynard, who, with fell design,
+  Hath done great harm to me and mine.
+  When hoary Winter left the plain,
+  And Spring smiled on the world again,
+  When leaves were budding, daisies springing,
+  And tuneful birds in thickets singing,
+  The sun at dawn of morning found me
+  With my young family around me;
+  Ten sons and fourteen daughters fair,
+  Breathing with joy the genial air,
+  All of one breed, and full of life,
+  Brought up by my good prudent wife.
+  Protected by a massy wall
+  And six bold mastiffs, stout and tall,
+  They lived, in spite of Reynard crafty,
+  Within a cloister-yard in safety.
+    "But lo! our enemy contrived
+  Our joy, alas! should be short-lived.
+  In hermit's garb the traitor came,
+  With letters, written in your name,
+  Where strictest orders were express'd,
+  To keep peace between bird and beast.
+  He said, he scorn'd the joys of sense,
+  And led a life of penitence,
+  To expiate his former guilt,
+  And streams of blood, which he had spilt;
+  He vow'd, in future he would eat
+  No poultry, nor forbidden meat.
+    "All joyful, to my little crew,
+  To tell the happy news I flew,
+  That Reynard friar's garments wore,
+  And was our enemy no more.
+  Now for the first time we did venture
+  Out of our gate. A dire adventure
+  Awaited us; for whilst we stray'd
+  And sported on a sunny glade,
+  Reynard, conceal'd below a bush,
+  Upon us suddenly did rush;
+  One of my hopeful sons he slew,
+  And of my fairest daughters two.--
+  Five only out of twenty-four
+  Are left; the rest he did devour.
+  My daughter Rake-up, on this bier,
+  Slain by the murderer, lies here;
+  He bit her neck off yesterday--
+  Revenge her death, my liege, I pray.'
+    "'Sir Gray,(quoth Noble,) did you hear?
+  Fine things of th' hermit-fox appear.
+  Was't thus, that with his fasts he meant it?
+  Sure as I live he shall repent it!
+    "'Good Cock, we've heard your mournful tale,
+  And we your daughter's fate bewail;
+  Thus, first of all, we'll see the honour
+  Of funeral rites bestow'd upon her;
+  Next with our Council we shall further
+  Consult, how to revenge this murther.'"
+
+NAYLOR.
+
+    "He ceased; and scarce a sand had run
+  When Chanticleer and all his clan
+  Appear'd in court: right in the van
+  A pullet's corse accompanied,
+  'Clept Dem'selle Scratchclaw ere she died;
+  By Reynard's bite decapitated--
+  This wise the tidings were related.
+  Close to the throne the Cock drew nigh:
+  Deep anguish dimm'd his upturn'd eye:
+  Two little Bantams, right and left,
+  Wept bitter tears, as birds bereft.
+  Sir Flapwing was of high degree,
+  As fine a bantling as you'd see
+  'Twixt Amsterdam and Paris, he.
+  Sir Strain-neck was the other 'clept,
+  And, like the first one, proudly stept.
+  Before them each a torch they bear,
+  Alike the same; for twins they were.
+  Young Cocks yet twain bare up the pall,
+  And help'd the wail with voices small.
+  Then Chanticleer, before the King
+  Commenced, in tones deep harrowing:
+  'Ah, gracious Lord and King! give ear
+  To my disastrous tale! The tear
+  Of pity shed on us who stand
+  For justice, suppliants at your hand.
+  Sire! thus it chanced;--The frosted beard
+  Of Winter scarce had disappear'd;
+  Scarce had the thorny brake put by
+  Its hosiery of fleece, and I
+  As happy felt as though a chicken;
+  About me, strutting, crowing, picking,
+  In comeliness my little ones:
+  I counted up ten stalwart sons;
+  Of daughters, too, a wondrous store,--
+  Plump Ortolans, and full a score.
+  My dame, the thoughtful prudent Hen,
+  Had train'd their youth beneath her ken
+  All virtues cardinal to practise,
+  Best learned from mothers, as the fact is.
+  Our house was in the convent yard,
+  High wall'd around: six dogs stood guard;--
+  All kept for our peculiar care,
+  By night and day to shield us there.
+  Now, gracious Liege! mark what I tell.
+  Reynard, (the knave!) with cockle-shell
+  And pilgrim's staff, wellworn, appears,
+  Bearing a packet: as he nears,
+  I note your royal seal, and read
+  Announcement of the truce decreed:
+  No more, he said, he played the royster,
+  But sought repentance in a cloister:
+  Observed the rule o' th' strictest sect,
+  His sins to purge with sure effect;
+  Whereby myself might to the end
+  My life secure and fearless spend.
+  Said he, 'flesh diet I have sworn
+  Never to touch from night to morn.'--
+  Unto my children all, I stated
+  The royal message, then related
+  How Reynard had assumed the cowl,
+  And left off hankering after fowl.
+  Myself I led them far and wide,
+  When lo! the Fox's guile defied
+  My anxious cares: in that same hour
+  He'd mark'd a victim for his power!
+  Perdu behind a bush he lay,
+  And took, before mine eyes, his prey!
+  The best of all my brood he seized,
+  And ate her up. The morsel pleased
+  His scoundrel maw--'twas dainty meat--
+  And soon he sought another treat.--
+  Full four-and twenty hopeful chicks
+  As e'er peck'd corn from out fresh ricks
+  Were mine,--and now, as I'm alive,
+  The villain's kill'd them all but five!
+  Pity, O King! my sorrowing tale:
+  Grant succour in this hour of wail!
+  But yesterday, the huntsman's cry
+  Surprised him in the act to fly
+  With Scratchclaw's body, which you see
+  Kill'd by his murd'rous tooth--ah me!
+  'Tis here as witness of my woe--
+  Oh that my hardhap to your heart may go!'
+  Enraged, the King: 'Sir Badger, ho!
+  The monk your uncle (troth!) doth know
+  To keep his fast,--the holy man!--
+  Match me the like of this who can?
+  What need of further question here?
+  Draw nigh and listen, Chanticleer!
+  Ourself your daughter dead will see
+  Entomb'd with all solemnity
+  Of dirge and mass, in her last slumber,
+  And vigils also without number.
+  This done, from these our lieges true
+  We'll crave their help and counsel too,
+  Touching the murder and the vengeance due.'
+  To Bruin then the King thus spake:
+  'Bruin! look well you undertake
+  This journey with dispatch--'Tis I,
+  Your Sov'reign, calls upon you--fly!
+  Be wise and wary: Reynard's guile
+  Is practised in each crafty wile.'"
+
+Neither of the translators is here very good, and Naylor is perhaps as
+near hitting the nail on the point (to use the phrase of a friend of
+ours of the Fogie Club) as his competitor. He still gives us, however, a
+great many silly superfluities, though some of them we have ventured to
+cut out.
+
+Finally, as our readers may begin to think they have enough of this, we
+shall close our comparative view by some quotations from the Wager of
+Battle, by which the Wolf and the Fox ultimately terminate their
+disputes.
+
+SOLTAU.
+
+    "The trumpets then began to sound,
+  And next the wardens did appear,
+  And call'd the champions forth, to swear.
+  Growler advanced, his oath to take;
+  He swore, that Reynard was a rake,
+  A murd'rer, and a treach'rous wight,
+  For which assertion he would fight.
+    "Then Reynard in his turn did swear,
+  That Growler was a perjurer;
+  To prove his charge, he did defy him,
+  Because he basely did belie him.
+    "The wardens then admonish'd both,
+  To fight with honour and good troth.
+  This being done, the lists were clear'd,
+  Where both the combatants appear'd.
+    "The combatants with equal rage
+  And fury now began t'engage.
+  The Wolf, by dint of strength and art,
+  Attack'd the Fox with leap and start;
+  But Reynard, being shrewd and light,
+  Avoided him by cunning flight,
+  And while he ran, he did not fail
+  To water well his rugged tail.
+  When Growler meant to hold him fast,
+  He nimbly veer'd about at last,
+  And with his tail the dust and dirt
+  He full into his face did flirt.
+  Whilst Growler rubb'd his eyes with pain,
+  Reynard his flirts renew'd again,
+  Till Growler was quite spent at last,
+  And by the throat he held him fast.
+  'Sir Wolf,(he said,)if heretofore
+  Poor lambs and kids you oft have tore,
+  It is high time now to repent,
+  Before your last breath you have spent,
+  And with contrition to behave,
+  If you would wish your soul to save.'
+    "In this provoking style he spoke,
+  Striving his enemy to choke;
+  But Growler was for him too strong,
+  And broke loose from his hold erelong;
+  Though ere he got out of his jaws,
+  Reynard gall'd him with teeth and claws;
+  One of his eyes was almost out,
+  And streams of blood ran down his snout.
+    "As soon as he his blood did view,
+  At Reynard in a rage he flew;
+  He got him under, and his paw
+  He seized, and held it in his jaw.
+  'You caitiff, your last hour has come,
+  (Said he,) and you'll meet with your doom.
+  'T shall not avail you now, to shear,
+  To flirt, kick up a dust, and smear.
+  I'll make you pay for all your lies,
+  And for the damage of my eyes.'
+    "Whilst Growler kept hold of the paw,
+  Sly Reynard with his other claw
+  Seiz'd him in such a tender part,
+  That it made Growler howl with smart,
+  And forced him soon to ope his jaw,
+  And to let go the imprison'd paw.
+  Reynard now tugg'd, and pull'd, and tore,
+  And made the Wolf spit blood and gore;
+  He brought him senseless to the ground,
+  And dragg'd him through the lists around.
+    "When this his wife and friends perceived,
+  They were much terrified and grieved.
+  Then pray'd the king to use his right,
+  And to suspend the bloody fight.
+    "The king took their request to heart,
+  And bade the champions straight to part,
+  To whom the leopard and the ounce,
+  As wardens, did his will announce.
+  "Reynard," they said, "the king has sent
+  To let you know 'tis his intent
+  To put an end to all your strife.
+  He bids you to spare Growler's life;
+  For 'twould be a pity after all,
+  If either of you both should fall.
+  Meantime all, who are present, say
+  That you at last have won the day.'"
+
+NAYLOR.
+
+  "Hark! hark! the tuckets sound on high!
+  'He comes! Sir Isengrim!' they cry.
+  The Wolf and all his kith and kin
+  Approach in long array! The din
+  Their multitudinous trampling made
+  Resounded like a cavalcade
+  Of mailèd warriors on the march,
+  Or winds that, through a wood of larch,
+  The groaning branches swing and sway,
+  And thunder out and roar alway.
+  Still forward they their course observe,
+  Neither to right nor left they swerve;
+  But onward to the lists the band
+  March up, then halt, and take their stand.
+  When first the Wolf--'I here repeat
+  The Fox a villain is, and cheat!
+  I brand him murderer to boot!
+  Adulterer! with heart, as soot
+  Is, black! that solemn truth do I
+  Wager on hazard of this die!'
+  Then Reynard--'What the Wolf alleges
+  Are lies! I'll prove it! and my pledge is
+  The victory, which I by battle,
+  This day will gain o'er yon _base cattle_!'
+  The marshal of the lists then cried:
+  'The right shall by the might be tried,
+  What fair and fetis is, that do!
+  The god of battles prosper you!'
+  He said, then towards the side withdrew.
+  The rest soon follow'd; save the two,
+  Who occupied alone the space,
+  And stood for action face to face!
+  The marshal now, with plumed hat on,
+  Beside the barrier stood; his baton
+  Of office thrice he whirled aloft;
+  And not a soul or spake or _cough'd_.
+  'Oyez! oyez! oyez!' he cried,
+  'Will each of ye the issue bide?'
+  'We will!' they answer. 'Are ye ready?'
+  'Yes!' 'Yes!'--'Then LAISSEZ ALLER!' said he.
+  Reynard address'd him then to fight;
+  And Isengrim commenced to bite
+  The air, and show'd his teeth, by way
+  Of prelude to the coming fray;
+  Next, rear'd his snout, and brought the jowl
+  To Reynard's level; one loud howl
+  He utter'd, ere he crouch'd, then bounded
+  To where the Fox, no whit astounded
+  By noises so unknightly, stood;
+  For raising lofty as he could
+  His voice, the foe the terms defied.
+  'Come on,' he resolutely cried.
+  The struggle was commenced! The sternest
+  There present felt it was right earnest;
+  The Fox, as smaller of the two,
+  Was favourite; and when he drew
+  '_First claret_,' at that _tapping_ action
+  The mob express'd their satisfaction;
+  Exclaiming, '_go it! ten to one
+  Upon the varmint little 'un!'_
+  By this time had Dan Phoebus clomb
+  The summit of his glowing dome,
+  And Isengrim his power to feel
+  Began, which made the Wolf to reel.
+  He mourn'd his hapless want of claws,
+  His teeth, too, batter'd by the paws
+  Of Reynard, woefully he miss'd;
+  For grasp'd within his well-clench'd fist,
+  The Fox a flint stone firmly held,
+  With which he deftly aim'd and fell'd
+  One after t'other every fang,
+  Till down his weasand, at each bang,
+  Successively they flew. This thing
+  To Isengrim _so punishing_,
+  Set him forthwith to calculate
+  The odds on his _superior weight_,
+  How best it might the foeman tell on--
+  Which done, he threw himself pêle-mêle on
+  The Fox, to bear him down intending.
+  But Reynard saw: instead of spending
+  His strength in any vain endeavour
+  'Gainst Isengrim, he waited ever
+  Upon the Wolf--so this time he
+  Perceived the rushing enemy,
+  And as he near'd him slipp'd aside.
+  The Wolf came on with awful stride,
+  But meeting not with Reynard there,
+  He buffeted the yielding air
+  Instead, found no impediment,
+  His force him to the barrier sent,
+  Where toppling heels o'er head he went
+  With emphasis--a heavy _flop_,
+  '_My eyes,' the mob cry, 'what a whop!_'
+  Then Reynard to the Wolf stepp'd close,
+  And said aloud, 'How lik'st the dose?
+  Friend Isengrim, there yet may be
+  For pardon opportunity
+  Ere thou departest, only speed ye,
+  Or else the wandering ghosts, I rede ye,
+  Of all the lambs and kids thou'st slain
+  Will haunt thee through the wide champain
+  Whither thou'rt ebbing fast, down yonder;
+  But softly, is he kill'd I wonder?'
+  For so it seem'd. Through that vast crowd
+  A pin drop had resounded loud.
+  Thought Reynard, he has got it now!
+  I'll rest awhile, for any how
+  If he the fight again begin
+  I'll try the trick upon his shin.
+  Stunn'd lay the prostrate Wolf quite still
+  And stiff, nor moved a peg until
+  His squires, much fearing for his life,
+  Rush'd in, preceded by his wife;
+  And lifting him upon their knees,
+  They gave him _salts to make him sneeze_,
+  Which thirteen times he did repeat,
+  Then started lively to his feet.
+  A feeling of relief ran through
+  The crowd, whose visages look'd rue,
+  To think their fun forestall'd and spent
+  By that untoward accident.
+  Again the tuckets sound--again
+  The dauntless heroes give the rein
+  To their revenge. The Fox now charges
+  The Wolf, and both his eyes enlarges,
+  With _right and lefters planted well_,
+  And _punches on the nob that tell_;
+  So hard and fast the bangs and thumps,
+  You'd thought that firemen at their pumps
+  Were working--
+          ----crafty Reynard quick
+  Deliver'd him a villain kick
+  Right in the midriff--down he dropp'd!
+  Like some tall forester when lopp'd
+  By stroke of woodman's axe. 'Twas all
+  He spake, not groaned in his fall,
+  Outstretch'd upon the ground there lay
+  The Wolf--he'd fainted clean away.
+  No herald's voice, no tucket's cheer,
+  The noble Isengrim could hear;
+  An all but victor lately, now
+  Prostrated, palsied by one blow;
+  Nay, not so, by a kick unknightly,
+  Foul aim'd, yet for the mark too rightly,
+  Alas, its only merit that!
+  But what cared Reynard, it was pat,
+  And told, and did its business well;
+  'Twas every thing desirable.
+  The fight was o'er--the Wolf dragg'd out
+  More dead than living, 'mid the shout
+  Of rabble, whilst the heralds cry
+  'Largesse,' the others 'Victory.'
+  The air with noise and din resounded.
+  The friends of Isengrim, confounded,
+  Slunk off, whilst Reynard's stay'd; indeed
+  The very people who agreed
+  The Fox's death a public good
+  Had been, now 'mong the foremost stood,
+  By acclamations to attest
+  Regard outheroding the rest!"
+
+We have not the heart to criticise this last and greatest effort of the
+reproducer. Its slang speaks for itself, and certainly carries along
+with it an undeniable "certificate of origin".
+
+A good translation of any thing is perhaps an impossibility. But it must
+be confessed, that the attempt of the German foreigner is highly
+creditable to him, and, with a little amendment, would probably afford
+our countrymen as fair an idea of the original as they are ever likely
+to see. Certain it is, that Mr Naylor has not improved upon it.
+
+If our readers think, that in the samples we have given of Mr Naylor's
+beauties, we have not sufficiently brought forward some of the more
+striking peculiarities of the Cockney school, we shall meet this
+complaint by presenting them with the subjoined anthology, the fragrance
+of which we think will satisfy their highest anticipations.
+
+  "The first in consequence at _court_,
+  As foremost in the public _thought_."
+
+  "Your cap and gloves you've left in _pawn_,
+  Thus adding ribaldry to _scorn_."
+
+  "What visitors had been? they _tell her_
+  How Reynard call'd, and said, 'nice _fellow_.'"
+
+  "Malkin should fall! and now the _fork_
+  By Martin turn'd to toma_hawk_."
+
+  "No sooner had the foe with_drawn_
+  To howl around the priest for_lorn_."
+
+  "Besides, he must have more than _thought once_
+  Upon the very vast _importance_."
+
+  "Of solemn asses half-a-_score_,
+  Who kick, when tickled with a _straw_!"
+
+  "I left him trapp'd, and then made _sheer off_:
+  His sufferings you can't form _idea of_."
+
+  "From underneath the frame I _draw_
+  The pin that propp'd it: with a _roar_."
+
+  "Their eggs upon a heap of _straw_,
+  Then loitering hindermost, the _more_."
+
+  "When it was bruited round the _court_
+  How Reynard was by greybeard _brought_."
+
+  "Grimalkin there one eye had _lost_,
+  His scalp from Bruin's head been _forced_."
+
+  "With any thing, in short, to _fasten_
+  Guilt on him--burglary--e'en _arson_!"
+
+  "Than at the words the Queen, _alarm'd_,
+  Nigh swoon'd before her fears were _calm'd_."
+
+  "The son dishonour'd: not a _straw_
+  It weigh'd with him, to think how _sore_."
+
+  "There dwelt my father; him they _sought_,
+  And plotted, whilst they soak'd his _port_."
+
+  "To practise after my pa_pa_--
+  Through life my light and exem_plar_!"
+
+  "Another life to lead he's _sworn_:
+  And will to-morrow at the _dawn_."
+
+  "Then, turning to the Queen, _besought_
+  Her majesty in merry _sport_."
+
+  "Quoth Reynard, as with sudden _thought_
+  Before the portal stopping _short_."
+
+  "We have so many a sally-_port_,
+  And _cul-de-sac_, we can't be _caught_."
+
+  "Send far and near the heralds _forth_,
+  By blast of trump to tell my _wrath_."
+
+  "At Rome, I on our banker _draw_,
+  And when that's gone, I send for _more_."
+
+  "That none dared venture! This he _saw_
+  And felt his pluck return once _more_."
+
+                  "But I've no _claws_
+  And therefore am not fit for _wars_."
+
+  "By envy eaten up, they _saw_
+  Me prosper; looking all _before_."
+
+  "And ever, when they walk'd _abroad_
+  Each arm'd with hunting-whip and _cord_."
+
+If any of our readers doubt the authenticity of some of the rhymes above
+set down, we are willing that they should buy the book, as we have done,
+and ascertain for themselves.
+
+Merciful as we are by nature, and growing more and more so every day by
+age, we yet feel that the enormities we have now denounced are beyond
+endurance. Such poetry as this, neither gods, men, nor booksellers
+should tolerate; and with the highest respect for the very excellent
+publishers who have assisted in the birth of this production, and to
+whom we owe so many useful and admirable contributions to knowledge and
+literature, we do venture humbly to submit, that their peculiar duty
+makes them somewhat more responsible for what is thus brought forth,
+than ordinary obstetrical practitioners can be for what they may help
+into the world. There is no reason that such a bantling should be born
+at all, and at least we would recommend the continuance of gestation for
+nine times the Horatian period. Seriously speaking, we always regret to
+miss the general security which the title-page should give us, that in
+what we buy, we shall have something for our money. A bad or inferior
+book may, inadvertently, issue from the most respectable quarter. But
+when a work is ushered into the light with such pomp and pageantry of
+paper, printing, and getting up, as are here lavished, we hold that the
+public have a right to expect that it has received the imprimatur of
+some discerning judge, and to enforce the implied warranty that the
+inside, as well as the outside, is a merchantable commodity in the
+market of Parnassus.
+
+But the publisher's part of it is the least of the evil. It is obvious
+that the natives of Cockneyland are forgetting themselves. A new
+generation has sprung up that do not remember the castigations bestowed
+on their fathers of yore, and which for a time kept them in tolerable
+subjection. A young Londoner, who happens to have enthusiasm, or
+industry, or information, on a particular subject, may deserve
+commendation for the laudable direction of his private studies; but is
+he, therefore, entitled to _haspire_ to write, and not to write merely,
+but to write poetry, and to disfigure a venerable old poem under
+pretence of reproducing it? That is a different question, which needs to
+be seriously and decidedly dealt with. This is not the first time,
+within a brief period, that we have been compelled to make an example of
+similar delinquencies; and, as sure as the crutch is in yonder corner,
+it shall not be the last, if the nuisance be not speedily and completely
+abated.
+
+
+
+
+THE AMERICANS AND THE ABORIGINES
+
+A TALE OF THE SHORT WAR. PART II.
+
+
+The conclusion of our first notice of "The Americans and the
+Aborigines," saw Hodges, the midshipman, on his way to the Mississippi,
+and, if he could find it, to his ship; whilst Tokeah and his Indians
+returned to their village upon the banks of the Natchez. There, upon the
+day after the arrival of the warriors, we find the Indians assembled and
+deliberating in their council-house. Some important matter is evidently
+in agitation: an ominous gloom hangs over the village; and Canondah, to
+whom her father has not spoken since his return, and who is in complete
+ignorance of what passed between him and Hodges, is shut up in her
+wigwam with Rosa. The absence of one of the Indians, sent as a guide
+with the Englishman, the silence of Tokeah, and their state of
+semi-captivity, render the two girls sad and anxious, and they busy
+themselves with a thousand conjectures as to what has occurred, when a
+shrill whistle attracts them to the window. The sight that there
+presents itself chases the blood from the cheeks of Rosa, and causes her
+to sink, terrified and half-fainting, into the arms of her friend.
+
+A large boat, of similar build to the one in which Hodges had arrived,
+ascended the river, impelled by the strokes of six vigorous rowers.
+Besides these, two other men were seated in the skiff, which now entered
+the creek where the canoes were moored. The Englishman's boat was
+amongst the latter, and seemed to attract the particular notice of one
+of the two men; he glanced sharply at it, and then made a remark to his
+companion, who nodded his head, as if assenting to his observation. The
+man who had spoken stepped on shore. He was of the middle height and
+slightly made, with a sunburnt complexion, hollow cheeks, in which the
+smallpox had left black, unpleasant-looking scars, and a pointed and
+rather red nose. The expression of his eyes, which were sunken and of a
+dark-grey colour, and his enormous whiskers and mustaches, gave him any
+thing but an agreeable physiognomy. There was an air about him as if he
+strove to appear natural and unassuming, but at times his false
+side-glances and malicious smile more than neutralized all his efforts.
+His dress was a short blue frock, buttoned up to the chin, trousers of
+the same colour, and a cap. After addressing a few words to his
+companion, who had also come ashore, he walked with a quick step and
+military gait towards the Miko's wigwam. Just then the Indian council
+broke up; the old chief strode slowly and gravely towards his dwelling;
+whilst the warriors hurried in various directions to their respective
+wigwams. It seemed as if they avoided the new-comer; for not one of them
+crossed his path, although he evidently expected them so to do. He gazed
+silently after the receding groups, shook his head, and entered the
+Miko's hut.
+
+"Here I am, friend Tokeah!" cried he, with a forced smile, stretching
+out his hand to the Miko, who was seated upon his couch, calm, and with
+his head bowed upon his breast. "I'm a man of my word, you see. Arrived
+only last night in the bay; but the devil take me if I could keep quiet:
+started off again, and rowed all night and all day; and here you see me,
+old friend, as hungry as a sea-lawyer, and as dry as a dolphin." He
+spoke in English, fluently enough, but with a strong French accent.
+
+Tokeah knocked with his finger upon the table, and Canondah came out of
+her room.
+
+"Canondah!" cried the man, stepping forward with an air of gallantry to
+salute her. The young girl avoided his embrace, and with the single
+word, "Welcome!" slipped out at the door. Our guest appeared
+thunderstruck.
+
+"What does this mean, friend Miko?" cried he. "Am I in disgrace? Should
+really be sorry for it. As I came across the meadow, your people made
+all sail from me, as if I had been a privateer; and now you are as cold
+as a nor'-wester, and your daughter as stiff as a frozen cable.
+Apropos--you have had a visit. The young Englishman, I see, has been
+amongst you."
+
+As he spoke these last words, the stranger cast a lowering glance at the
+old man.
+
+"Of whom does my brother speak?" said the chief.
+
+"Of a prisoner--a young fellow who escaped whilst I was at sea."
+
+"My young brother has been here and is gone," replied Tokeah, dryly.
+
+"Gone!" repeated the other; "you probably did not know that he had
+escaped from me. But it matters not," added he, indifferently.
+
+"The Miko knew," replied the old man in a firm tone, "that his young
+brother had escaped from the chief of the Salt Lake. My brother ought
+not to have made him prisoner."
+
+"What! would not the Miko of the Oconees seize the Yankee who came as a
+spy into his wigwam?"
+
+"And was my young brother a Yankee?" inquired Tokeah, with a penetrating
+glance.
+
+"Not exactly; but an enemy"--
+
+"My brother," interrupted the Miko, "has too many enemies--the Yankees,
+and the warriors of the great father of the Canadas."
+
+The man bit his lips. "Pshaw!" said he; "you have the Americans on the
+wrong side of your heart, and I have both. That's all the difference."
+
+"The Miko," said the old chief, "lifts the war-hatchet to protect his
+people against the palefaces, and to avenge his slain brethren. But my
+brother has lifted the tomahawk against every one, and, like a thief,
+steals women and children."
+
+A burning crimson overspread the countenance of Tokeah's visitor, and
+his teeth chattered with rage. "Truly, Miko," said he, "you say things
+which I can hardly stomach;" and with gleaming eye he measured the old
+man from head to foot. Suddenly, however, resuming his former
+smile--"Nonsense," said he; "we won't quarrel about trifles. Let every
+man do what he likes, and answer for what he does."
+
+"When the Miko of the Oconees gave his right hand to the chief of the
+Salt Lake, and welcomed him to his wigwam, he held him for a friend and
+a brother, who had declared war against the Yengheese. Had he known that
+he was a thief"----
+
+"Monsieur Miko!" interrupted the pirate, threateningly.
+
+"He would not have taken him for his friend. Tokeah," continued the
+Indian with dignity, "lifted the tomahawk against the palefaces as the
+Miko of his people, but the chief of the Salt Lake has made him a
+robber. What shall he, the chief of the Oconees, say to the Yengheese
+warriors when he falls into their snares? They will hang him on a tree."
+
+The truth, thus fearlessly and decidedly spoken, made an impression upon
+the pirate. He walked several times hastily up and down the room, and
+then again stopped opposite to the old man.
+
+"We'll say no more about that, friend Tokeah," said he. "I do not count
+the scalps that you have stripped from the skulls of the Yankees, and
+you must not reckon too severely with me. What is done is done; but the
+future will be very different. I am fully decided to abandon my wild
+course of life, and then we'll sit down quietly, and live together in a
+little paradise, half à l'Indienne, half à la Francçaise. Jovial and
+joyous."
+
+"The Miko of the Oconees," replied Tokeah, "has never stained his hand
+with the blood of his friends. He is poor, but his hand has never
+touched what belonged not to him. His fathers would look down on him
+with grief, if he lived in friendship with a thief; the Great Spirit
+would hide his face, if he disgraced his people by an alliance with the
+robber."
+
+The Frenchman had listened to these words more tranquilly than might
+have been expected, but with a slight twitching of his features, that
+showed they touched him to the quick. Suddenly he turned away.
+
+"Is that your way of thinking?" said he. "You fancy you can get on
+better without Lafitte? I've no objection. If I had known it sooner, I
+would have spared myself the trouble of listening to your insolence, and
+you that of uttering it. Adieu! Monsieur Miko."
+
+"My brother is hungry," said the Indian, starting up, and greatly
+shocked. "He must eat. Canondah has prepared his favourite repast."
+
+"And after he has eaten, he may make himself scarce?" said the pirate,
+surlily.
+
+"My brother is welcome in the wigwam of the Miko. His hand never closes
+when it has once been opened," said the old nan, soothingly.
+
+"Come, that sounds like reason. I thought my old friend had only caught
+a fit of spleen from the Englishman. I trust it will soon be over.
+Meanwhile, we'll see what the ladies are doing."
+
+He stepped up to the curtain, and tried to open it, but in vain.
+
+"Is it not allowed?" said he to the old man.
+
+"My brother must seek another squaw. Rosa shall not enter his wigwam."
+
+In the adjoining chamber a sound was heard. It resembled a cry of joy,
+but presently subsided into a gentle murmur, of one in prayer.
+
+The pirate stood stupefied opposite to the curtain. "Our alliance broken
+off, the door shut in my face!" muttered he. "_Eh bien! nous verrons._"
+And so saying, he left the hut. The next minute he again put his head in
+at the door.
+
+"I suppose I may make use of my own boat?" said he. "It is likely that I
+may have unwelcome visitors during my absence."
+
+"When the chief of the Salt Lake is on the war-path, he knows how to
+meet his foes."
+
+"Sensibly spoken for once," said the pirate.
+
+"My brother is hungry," said the Miko, pointing to his daughter, who now
+entered the room with several dishes.
+
+"We'll come directly. Duty before pleasure."
+
+And so saying, the bucanier hurried down to the shore, and approached
+his companion, a short square-built man, who was walking up and down
+with folded arms, and whose dark olive countenance was so buried in an
+enormous beard, that scarcely any part of it, except a long fiery
+Bardolphian nose was visible. This man, so soon as he saw the pirate,
+assumed a less _nonchalant_ attitude, and his hands fell by his side
+into the position proper to a subordinate.
+
+"Nothing happened, lieutenant?" said Lafitte.
+
+"So little, that I should almost doubt this to be the Miko's village,
+did not my eyes convince me of it. Beg pardon, captain, but what does it
+all mean?"
+
+"I might ask you the same question," replied the other, sulkily.
+
+"On our former visits," continued the lieutenant, "it was like a fair;
+but to-day not a creature comes near us. The squaws and girls seemed
+inclined to come down, but the men prevented them."
+
+The lieutenant paused, for his commanding-officer was evidently getting
+more and more out of humour.
+
+"How many hands have we below on Lake Sabine?"
+
+"Thirty," was the reply. "To-morrow, the others will have finished
+clearing out."
+
+"Giacomo and George," said the pirate, in a sharp peremptory tone, "will
+go back and take them orders to come up here. Let every man bring his
+musket and bayonet, pistols and hanger, and let them wait instructions
+in the great bend of the river, two miles below this place. Don't look
+down stream, and then at me," said he angrily to the lieutenant, who had
+cast a glance down the river. "The young Englishman has been here, and
+the old savage has let him go."
+
+"That's what you did with his companions, captain. I wouldn't have done
+it."
+
+"There are many things that Monsieur Cloraud would not have done,"
+replied the pirate, sarcastically. "But this younker has made an
+infernal confusion."
+
+"Any thing else happened, captain?"
+
+"Nothing particular, except that the old man is tired of our alliance."
+
+"Pshaw! we don't want him any more, and may well indulge the people with
+a merry hour."
+
+The bucanier glanced at his subordinate with unspeakable scorn.
+
+"And therefore, as Monsieur Cloraud thinks, do I send for the men. The
+hour's pleasure would be dearly bought. I hate such folly. You shall
+learn my intentions hereafter."
+
+The lieutenant's low bow showed that the lawless pirate was on no very
+familiar footing even with his first officer, and that he well knew how
+to make his captain's dignity respected. Monsieur Cloraud now turned to
+the rowers, and communicated to them the orders he had received. In a
+few seconds, the boat, in which the Englishman had come, was pushed off,
+and glided swiftly down the stream.
+
+"Now then, to dinner. Have some wine brought up, lieutenant."
+
+The person addressed made a sign to one of the sailors; the man took up
+several bottles, and followed his officers to the wigwam of the chief.
+
+"Take no notice, lieutenant," said Lafitte; "be as cheerful and natural
+as possible. We must try and find out what the old fellow has got upon
+his mind."
+
+The two men entered the wigwam, and took their places at the table. A
+buffalo hump, that most delicious of all roast-beef, which Canondah had
+carefully cooked under the embers, was smoking upon it.
+
+"You won't refuse to drink with me?" said the pirate, filling three
+glasses, and offering one to the chief.
+
+"Tokeah is not thirsty," was the reply.
+
+"Well, then, rum?" said Lafitte. "Have a bottle brought, lieutenant."
+
+"Tokeah is not thirsty," repeated the chief in a louder tone.
+
+"As you please," said the pirate, carelessly. "Isn't it strange,"
+continued he to his lieutenant, "that the whole juice and strength of
+the beast should centre in this hump? If this is to be the food of the
+Indians in their happy hunting-grounds, it would be almost worth while
+turning Indian. Enjoyments of this kind are rather more substantial than
+the lies of our hungry priests."
+
+As in duty bound, the lieutenant laughed heartily at the facetiousness
+of his commander. The Miko, who was sitting in his usual attitude, his
+head sunk upon his breast, looked up, gazed for a few seconds at the
+pirate, and then relapsed into his previous brooding mood.
+
+"Make the most of it, lieutenant," said the pirate. "We shall not enjoy
+many more such tit-bits. The Great Spirit would hide his face from us if
+we despised his gifts. But come, friend Miko, you must empty a glass to
+the health of your guests, unless you wish to see them depart this very
+night. I like a little pride, but too much is unwholesome."
+
+"My brother," said the Miko, "is welcome. Tokeah has never raised his
+tomahawk against the stranger whom he received in his hut, nor has he
+counted the suns that he dwelt with him."
+
+"I am certain," said the Frenchman, "that Tokeah is my friend; and, if
+an evil tongue has sown discord on the path between us, the wise Miko
+will know how to step over it."
+
+"The Oconees are men and warriors," said the chief; "they listen to the
+words of the Miko, but their hands are free."
+
+"Yes, yes, I know that. Yours is a sort of republic, of which you are
+hereditary consul. Well, for to-night let the matter rest. To-morrow we
+will discuss it further."
+
+The lieutenant had left the wigwam; night had come on, and the moon's
+slender crescent sank behind the summits of the western trees. The old
+Indian arose, and with his guest stepped silently out before the door.
+
+"My brother," said he, with emotion in his voice, "is no longer young;
+but his words are more silly than those of a foolish girl, who for the
+first time hangs glass beads around her neck. My brother has foes
+sufficient; he needs not to make an enemy of the Great Spirit."
+
+"Oh!" said the pirate laughing, "we won't bother our heads about him."
+
+"My brother," continued the Indian, "has long deceived the eyes of the
+Miko; but the Great Spirit has at last opened them, that he may warn his
+people. See," said he, and his long meagre form seemed to increase to a
+gigantic stature as he pointed to the moon swimming behind the topmost
+branches of the trees; "that great light shines on the shores of the
+Natchez, and it shines in the villages of the whites; neither the chief
+of the Salt Lake nor the Miko of the Oconees made it; it is the Great
+Spirit who gave it brightness. Here," said he, pointing to the palmetto
+field, whose soft rustle came murmuring across the meadow, "here is
+heard the sighing of the Miko's fathers; in the forest where he was born
+it howls in the storm; both are the breath of the Great Spirit, the
+winds which he places in the mouths of the departed, who are his
+messengers. Listen!" he continued, again drawing up his weather-beaten
+form to its utmost height; "the Miko has read your book of life; when
+yet a young man he learned your letters, for he saw that the cunning of
+the palefaces came from their dead friends. That book says, what the
+wise men of his people have also told him, that there is one Great
+Spirit, one great father. The Miko," he resumed, after a moment's pause,
+"was sent from his people to the great father of the palefaces, and when
+he came with the other chiefs to the villages where the whites worship
+the Great Spirit in the lofty council wigwams, he found them very good,
+and they received him and his as brothers. Tokeah spoke with the great
+father--see, this is from him"--he showed a silver medal with the head
+of Washington. "He asked the great father, who was a wise father and a
+very great warrior, if he believed in the Great Spirit of his book, and
+he answered that he did believe, and that his Great Spirit was the same
+whom the Red men worship. When the Miko returned to his wigwam and came
+towards the setting sun, his soul remembered the words of the great
+father, and his eyes were wide open. So long as he saw the high walls of
+the council wigwams, where the palefaces pray to their Great Spirit, the
+Red men were treated as brothers; but when they approached their own
+forests, the countenances of the white men grew dark, because the Great
+Spirit no longer lighted them up. Tokeah saw that the men who did not
+worship the Great Spirit were not good men. And my brother scoffs at the
+Great Spirit, and yet would be a friend of the Oconees? He would be a
+friend of the Miko, who would already have sunk under his burden had not
+his fathers beckoned to him from the happy hunting-grounds! Go," said
+the old man, turning away from the pirate with a gesture of disgust;
+"you would rob the Miko and his people of their last hope."
+
+"Good-night," said Lafitte, yawning. "There's been a good Methodist
+parson spoilt in you." And so saying he turned towards the council
+wigwam, his usual dwelling when at the village. Tokeah stepped back into
+his hut. No night-song soothed the oppressed spirit of the old chief;
+and only the shrill whistle of the watch, repeated every two hours from
+the shore and before the wigwam of the pirate, told of the presence of
+living creatures in the village.
+
+Upon the following morning Lafitte's lieutenant rouses him from his
+sleep, and informs him that there is an unusual stir and bustle amongst
+the Indians. The pirate hastily dresses, and repairs to the wigwam of
+the Miko, whom he finds restless and excited. The cause of this soon
+becomes apparent.
+
+On a sudden the village resounded with a long joyous shout, which,
+spreading like wildfire from hut to hut, swelled at last into one wild
+and universal chorus, in which men, women, and children united their
+voices. The Miko had betaken himself in haste to the council wigwam, and
+the whole village was in an uproar. From behind each hedge, from out of
+every hut, the Oconees emerged and rushed towards the council-house;
+even the presence of Tokeah was insufficient to keep them within bounds.
+On the further side of the Natchez was seen a party of thirty Indians,
+all on horseback. Some of them were seeking a ford; but presently a
+young man, impatient of the delay, plunged with his horse into the
+water, and all thirty followed him, in the same order in which they had
+approached the river. The breadth of the stream, opposite to the wigwam,
+was about five hundred feet, and the depth considerable. Nevertheless
+the gallant little troop seemed in their element, and, almost without
+breaking their ranks, they swam their steeds across. Meanwhile the
+pirate stood upon the shore, watching their approach with the most
+uncontrolled fury depicted on his countenance.
+
+"Had we but ten good marksmen," muttered he to the lieutenant.
+
+"_Pardon, capitaine_, they are not Oconees, but those devils of
+Comanches. I made their acquaintance in my Mexican campaigns."
+
+The little squadron had now reached the creek. Swinging their legs over
+their horses, they sprang upon shore, drew the animals after them, and
+again flung themselves upon their backs with a swiftness and dexterity
+that recalled the fable of the centaur. The foremost of the strangers
+had arrived within a few paces of the Oconees, who, with the Miko at
+their head, were assembled in front of the council-house, when the
+circle opened, and Tokeah stepped forward, his hand outstretched.
+
+"The great chief of the mighty Comanches, and of the Pawnees of the
+Toyask, is welcome," said he, gravely.
+
+The young Indian to whom these words were addressed, halted and listened
+attentively, and with head reverently bowed, to the greeting. When the
+old chief had spoken, he sprang from his horse and advanced towards him,
+his right hand extended. Coming close up to Tokeah, he again bowed
+himself, took the Miko's hand, and placed it upon his own head. The
+interchange of greetings was remarkable for dignity, and derived a
+peculiar interest from the contrast between the two chiefs. Nothing
+could be in stronger opposition than the gaunt meagre form of the Miko,
+who stood like the weather-beaten trunk of some gigantic tree, stiff,
+mute, and melancholy, and the open, manly, dignified and yet gentle
+aspect of the young chief of the Comanches. His oval-shaped head was
+covered with a picturesque head-dress of fur and feathers; his high,
+arched forehead, and blooming complexion of a light copper colour,
+scorned the wild war-paint of his companions; the expressive black eyes
+and aquiline nose were in admirable harmony with the manly contour of
+his person, which his style of dress and equipment showed off to the
+greatest advantage. A doublet of blue fox fur covered his breast, and
+from his shoulders, on which it was fastened by golden clasps, hung the
+skin of a panther, draping a form that would have enchanted Thorwaldsen
+or Canova. It was a magnificent model of manly beauty, that had grown up
+untrammelled and without blemish in the enchanting prairies of Mexico,
+and in the midst of a mighty people owning no master but the Great
+Spirit. A dagger, with a hilt of wrought gold, a short rifle, and a
+lance nine feet long, decorated with a horse-tail, completed an
+equipment which for richness and utility combined could scarcely be
+surpassed. The young chief's horse, of extraordinary beauty, was almost
+covered with a panther skin, secured on its back and shoulders by four
+golden buckles. It had neither saddle nor stirrups, but on either side,
+at the end of a strap, hung a small leathern bucket, in which the muzzle
+of the rifle and butt of the lance reposed.
+
+Similar to those above described were the dress and arms of other four
+of the warriors, also belonging to the powerful Indian tribe of the
+Comanches. They wore their hair combed back on either side of the
+forehead; their complexion was a mixture of olive and copper-colour.
+Their bearing was proud, and they seemed almost to look down upon the
+Pawnees who accompanied them. Round the necks of their steeds hung the
+lasso, that terrible weapon with which the Mexican riders capture, with
+wonderful skill and dexterity, the horse, the buffalo, or a human foe.
+
+The remainder of the troop were Pawnees of the Toyask tribe. Their heads
+were clean shaven, excepting of one carefully plaited tuft upon the
+crown. Upon their shoulders were buffalo skins, the leather dyed red,
+the hair worn inwards; and similar hides served them for saddles. They
+wore broad girdles, to which their calico under-garment was fastened.
+About half of them were armed with muskets and rifles, but all had
+lances, a long knife, or rather hanger, and the tomahawk. They were
+well-made and powerful men, compared with whom the thin-armed,
+narrow-shouldered Oconees had the appearance of children.
+
+"My brother is thrice welcome," repeated the Miko after a pause, during
+which his eyes dwelt with an expression of the purest satisfaction upon
+his stately guest and his companions. "Has the great El Sol reflected on
+the words which Tokeah sent him through his runners?"
+
+"His ears are open and his heart large," replied the young chief
+gravely. "Are the words of the great Miko for El Sol alone, or may the
+warriors of the Comanches and Pawnees also hear them?"
+
+"The chiefs and warriors of the Comanches and Pawnees are welcome in the
+council wigwam of the Oconees. They are their brothers."
+
+When the Miko had spoken these words, the four Comanches and a like
+number of Pawnees dismounted from their horses, and followed the chiefs
+to the council wigwam. The others also dismounted, and forming a
+semi-circle, stood leaning against their horses' shoulders. Nearer to
+the council-house were ranged the Oconee warriors, armed only with their
+long scalping-knives; and behind them, at a respectful distance, the
+young men of the village had stationed themselves, also in a half
+circle. Again, far behind these, were the squaws and children, to whom
+the strict rules of Indian etiquette did not allow a nearer approach.
+The village had gradually assumed the appearance of a little camp, with
+various corps of troops formed up in it. On the shore stood the four
+pirates leaning on their muskets, whilst their captain and lieutenant
+paced up and down among the bushes. With the exception of a sharp quick
+glance occasionally cast towards the groups of Indians, they appeared to
+take no particular interest in what was passing.
+
+El Sol, the young chief of the Comanches, is the affianced husband of
+Canondah, whom he has come to make his bride. In the council now held,
+it is decided that the alliance between Tokeah and the pirate shall be
+broken off, and that the remnant of the Oconees shall be incorporated
+with the powerful tribes of the Comanches and Pawnees. The former part
+of this decision is communicated to Lafitte who makes violent but
+unsuccessful claim upon the hand of Rosa, and finally enters his boat
+and descends the stream. El Sol, who greatly distrusts him, advises
+Tokeah to be on his guard against treachery; but the Miko denies the
+possibility of danger, on account of the distance of the pirate's haunt,
+and because, on the following morning, the village is to be abandoned,
+and the Oconees and their visitors are to proceed together to the
+country of the Comanches. He either forgets that the pirate had sent off
+a boat on the preceding morning, or thinks it unnecessary to increase
+the uneasiness of his guest by adverting to so unimportant a
+circumstance. In spite of what he has recently learned, he still
+entertains a feeling of kindness for Lafitte, with whom he has so long
+been on terms of friendship, and thinks him incapable of acting towards
+him in a base or hostile manner.
+
+That evening the nuptials of Canondah and El Sol are celebrated; but the
+Indian maiden, although fondly attached to the young chief, is weighed
+down by a foreboding of evil which she finds it impossible to shake off.
+On her marriage day she is sad and in tears.
+
+"And does Canondah," said the bridegroom mildly, "enter the wigwam of El
+Sol with a sorrowful heart?"
+
+"El Sol," replied the maiden, "is dearer to Canondah than her own life;
+his voice is music in her ears, and his love the limit of her wishes;
+but Canondah's heart is heavy to bursting. The Great Spirit whispers to
+her, and she has no words to express his whisperings." She clasped Rosa
+in her arms, and pressed a long and feverish kiss upon her lips. "Rosa,"
+said she, in a stifled voice, "will you be a daughter to the Miko when
+Canondah is no more?"
+
+"I will," sobbed Rosa.
+
+"Will you promise, by the Great Spirit, not to forsake him?"
+
+"I promise it," replied Rosa, her tears flowing fast.
+
+The Miko, who stood silent, and sunk in thought, now made a sign; El Sol
+threw his arm round Canondah, and led her away in the direction of the
+council wigwam.
+
+The wedding has been celebrated with great rejoicings; the Indians, who
+have indulged largely, many of them to excess, in the fire-water of the
+palefaces, retire to their huts, to sleep off the effects of their
+libations, and soon the village is sunk in silence and repose. We
+extract the chapter that follows:--
+
+It was past midnight, and the village and its environs were buried in
+profound repose, when a man, carrying a naked sabre under his arm,
+advanced with stealthy steps from the shore, towards the Miko's wigwam.
+He reached the trees in front of the dwelling; and after casting a
+cautious and searching glance around him, was about to retrace his
+steps, when, with the quickness of light, a noose of buffalo hide
+encircled his neck, and he was thrown to the ground with a shock so
+sudden and irresistible, that it seemed caused by a supernatural rather
+than a human power. His sabre fell from his hand, before he had time to
+raise it to his neck and sever the noose; and so rapidly and silently
+did all this take place, that a group of armed men, stationed between
+the creek and the cottage, at scarcely forty paces from the latter, were
+perfectly unaware of what occurred. Now, however, a yell that might have
+roused the dead from their graves was heard; the door of the council
+wigwam, in which the bridal-bed of Canondah and El Sol had been spread
+was burst furiously open; and by the flash of several muskets, just then
+fired from the shore, a powerful figure, bearing something heavy in its
+arms, was seen to rush out and plunge into the neighbouring thicket.
+Other cries, proceeding apparently from a thousand throats, multiplied
+themselves in every direction, behind hedge and bush, over land and
+water, in accents as wild and fierce as if the demons of hell had been
+unchained, and were rejoicing in a nocturnal revel. Simultaneously with
+this uproar, a regular platoon fire commenced upon the shore, and blue
+flames issued from various cottages of the peaceful Indian hamlet,
+rapidly increasing till they burst out into a bright red blaze, that
+spread hissing and crackling over wall and roof. In the midst of this
+frightful tumult another shout was uttered, resembling the roar of the
+lion when he rages in his utmost fury. It was the war-whoop of El Sol.
+
+The noble Mexican had been lulled to sleep by the night-song of his
+bride, when the well-known yell of his tribe awakened him. Clasping his
+beloved wife with one arm, he grasped his knife and rifle, and darted
+through the door of the wigwam. A discharge of musketry greeted his
+appearance. The chief felt his left arm pierced by a ball; he trembled,
+and a slight shudder came over him. "Canondah!" cried he, in a hoarse
+tone, leaping the hedges like a wounded deer, and hurrying towards the
+forest; "Canondah, fear nothing--you are in the arms of El Sol!"
+
+She answered not; her head had sunk upon her breast, her body writhed
+with a convulsive spasm, and then again stretched itself out. For one
+moment a horrible thought paralysed the very soul of her husband;--but
+no--it was impossible; his arm had received the bullet, her silence was
+the result of sudden terror, the blood that flowed over him was from his
+own wound. He was still flying from his treacherous and invisible foe,
+when his howling warriors came almost instinctively to join him; and,
+before he reached the forest, he found himself surrounded by the most
+trusty of his followers. "It is the pirate," he whispered to his wife;
+and then, pressing a kiss upon her lips, he laid her softly upon the
+grass, stepped forward into the midst of his warriors, and uttered his
+terrible war-cry. "Behold," cried he, pointing to the blazing cottages,
+"the faith of the white thief!"
+
+It was a wildly beautiful, almost an awful sight. Already more than
+thirty huts were converted into blazing piles, lighting up the whole of
+that glorious shore, reflected in ruddy brilliancy from the still
+surface of the water, and illuminating the avenues of cypress and
+mangroves with long streaks of flame. Scattered shots were still heard,
+and after each report another hut began to blaze. In the group of
+Indians assembled round El Sol a deep silence now reigned, only broken
+by the tardy arrival of some yelling Pawnee or Oconee, who, roused out
+of his drunken slumber, was scarcely even yet aware of the cause of the
+uproar.
+
+"Where is the Miko?" fifty voices suddenly demanded.
+
+There was no reply. Just then a woman's scream was heard, proceeding
+from the brink of the water. El Sol had stood silent, his eyes fixed
+upon the burning huts, beyond which, near to the crest of the shore, the
+polished musket-barrels of the pirates gleamed in the firelight. Not
+more than five minutes had elapsed since the first yell proclaimed the
+presence of a foe, but already the young warrior had combined his plan,
+and he now gave his orders in a short decided tone, betraying the habit
+of command, and the certainty of prompt and implicit obedience. One of
+the Comanches, followed by the majority of the Pawnees and Oconees,
+glided away through the thick bushes; whilst El Sol himself, with the
+three remaining Comanches, and a troop of chosen Pawnees, hurried
+rapidly along the skirt of the forest.
+
+The broad belt of land over which the village was scattered, rose near
+the shore, as already mentioned, into a sort of crest overgrown with
+mangroves and myrtle bushes, through the middle of which ran a broad
+footpath. The elevation of this ridge was about twenty feet, and it
+continued along the whole length of the hamlet, excepting opposite to
+the creek, where nature had broken it down into a small harbour. Near
+this the glitter of arms betrayed the presence of a strong picket,
+placed there doubtless to guard the boats. This picket was each moment
+strengthened by the return of one or other of the pirates who had been
+detached to fire the wigwams. Along the bush-crowned ridge several
+advanced posts were stationed, intended to maintain the communication
+between the picket at the creek, and a second party which had pressed
+forward to the habitation of the Miko, and to support either, as need
+might be. From the whole arrangement, it was evident that the pirate had
+planned the carrying off the Miko and his adopted daughter; and this he
+might possibly have accomplished before creating an alarm, had not two
+of the Comanches taken upon themselves, according to the custom of their
+nation, to keep guard during the bridal night in front of the wigwam of
+their chief. These warriors, it is true, had partaken largely of the
+Miko's extravagant hospitality; but their senses, although duller than
+usual, were not sufficiently deadened to prevent their overhearing the
+step of the white men, a sound so easily recognised by Indian ears.
+
+During his two years' intercourse with the Oconees, the pirate had
+become too well acquainted with their habits, not to appreciate the
+danger of attacking them in broad daylight, when each of his men would
+furnish an easy target for the Indians, who, on their side, would be
+sheltered behind trees and in the brushwood. He had therefore chosen the
+night for his attack; and, in order to ensure himself as much as
+possible against a counter-surprise in the darkness, and at the same
+time to spread terror amongst the assailed, he had caused the huts to be
+fired. Three practised marksmen were posted at a short distance from the
+council wigwam, for the express purpose of shooting the young Mexican
+chief, whom Lafitte justly deemed the most formidable of his opponents.
+The pirate himself, with a party of picked men, pressed forward to the
+Miko's dwelling, surrounded it, and seized its two inmates. Tokeah,
+usually so abstemious, had probably upon this festive occasion
+overstepped the bounds of sobriety, and he fell unresisting into the
+hands of his foe. So well arranged, indeed, and rapid had all the
+movements been, that the first call to arms had hardly died away, when
+the Miko and Rosa were in the power of the bucaniers. Lafitte then
+formed his men into a small square, and retreated steadily but in double
+quick time towards the shore. Not an Indian was to be seen. The little
+phalanx was already in the neighbourhood of the creek, and at only a few
+yards from the picket; another dozen paces and they would be in their
+boats, which a very few strokes of the oar would send into the middle of
+the stream, and out of bullet range. A pursuit by canoes, in which each
+Indian would offer an easy mark, was not to be thought of. Such had been
+the pirate's calculation, and his plans seemed likely to be crowned with
+complete success. He was within a step of the shore, when suddenly there
+was a movement in the bushes immediately opposite to him, and glimpses
+were caught of the copper-coloured forms of the Indians, glowing redly
+in the firelight.
+
+"Steady!" cried the pirate to his men, who marched firmly and calmly
+onwards, gazing in a sort of wonderment at the bushes, which waved to
+and fro as if hundreds of anacondas had been winding their way through
+them. The pirates joined the picket and opened their square.
+
+Lafitte threw Rosa into the arms of a sailor, and then pushed the Miko
+over the edge of the bank into the boat. The old man sank down like a
+lifeless mass in the bottom of the skiff, and Lafitte again turned to
+his men. The picket had already retired behind the ridge, where they
+were sheltered from the enemy's fire; the square alone was stationary,
+and seemed destined to observe the movements of the Indians, and to
+cover the retreat. It was a small but desperate looking band of about
+four-and-twenty-men, to the composition of which nearly every nation and
+quarter of the globe, every colour and language, contributed its quota.
+Thirst of blood gleamed in their eyes as they stood formed in column, in
+deep silence, and with fixed bayonets, waiting the signal to fire.
+
+Suddenly the Indian warwhoop burst from a hundred throats. A second time
+the frightful yell was repeated, rendered more hideous by the shrill
+tones of the squaws and maidens, who struck up the death-song, and were
+seen running and dancing like demons round the blazing huts. The next
+instant, with brandished arms and shouts of fury, the Indians rushed
+towards the creek.
+
+A malicious smile played over the hard features of the pirate as the Red
+men came charging down upon his band.
+
+"Reserve, forward!" cried he, turning to the picket. The order was
+obeyed. In profound silence Lafitte allowed the howling Indians to
+advance to within ten paces of the musket muzzles, and then uttered a
+hoarse "Fire!" A deadly volley was poured in, and the first rank of the
+assailants fell to a man. Their comrades started back, but instantly
+returning to the charge, threw themselves with a desperate leap upon the
+pirates. The latter coolly tossed their muskets into the hollow of their
+left arms, and drew their pistols; a second volley in which the fire of
+the reserve picket mingled, threw the Red men into utter confusion. The
+slope of the shore was covered with killed and wounded, and the
+survivors fled howling to the cover of the thicket.
+
+"March!" commanded Lafitte. The picket again approached the boat,
+followed by the main body.
+
+At that moment, when to all appearance the retreat of the pirates was
+ensured, four heavy splashes in the water were heard, and Lafitte saw
+the four men who had been in charge of the boats, rise to the surface of
+the water and then disappear for ever. At the same time the boats
+themselves, impelled by some invisible power, shot, with the swiftness
+of an arrow, into the centre of the stream.
+
+"'Tis the Mexican!" exclaimed the pirate, gnashing his teeth with fury,
+and firing a brace of pistols at the boat. A hollow laugh replied to the
+shots. The pirates looked around them, saw that their boats had
+disappeared, and for a moment stood thunderstruck, but speedily
+recovering themselves, they reloaded their muskets, and, firm as rocks,
+awaited a fresh assault. They had not long to wait. A volley from the
+river warned them of the proximity of a new foe; a second, still better
+directed, stretched a third of them upon the ground. And now once more
+the terrible war-cry resounded along the shore, and the Indians, roused
+to madness by their previous repulses, rushed for a third time upon
+their enemy. Another volley from the boats, and then the Mexican and his
+companions sprang like tigers upon the terrified pirates. The struggle
+was short. Unable to resist the furious attack upon their front and
+rear, the pirates threw away their weapons, and flung themselves
+headlong into the river to escape the tomahawks of their raging foes.
+
+Lafitte was the only one who stood firm, and seemed determined to sell
+his life dearly. His back against the bank, his sabre in his right hand,
+a pistol in his left, he parried a blow dealt him by an Oconee, who
+fell, the next instant, with his head nearly severed from his shoulders.
+A bullet finished another of his assailants, and he was raising his
+sabre for the second time, when a lasso was flung over his head, and he
+fell helpless to the ground. The long and terrible yell that now rang
+along the shore, and was re-echoed from the adjacent forest, proclaimed
+the complete and bloody triumph of the Red men.
+
+The bullet that grazed the arm of El Sol pierced the heart of Canondah,
+and the day subsequent to the sanguinary conflict above described,
+witnesses her interment, and that of the Indians who fell in the fight.
+At the funeral a difference of opinion arises between the Oconees and
+Comanches. The number of slain pirates is insufficient to furnish a
+scalp to be buried with each of the dead Indians, and, to supply the
+deficiency, the Oconees are anxious to immolate Lafitte and twelve of
+his companions who have fallen alive into their hands. To this El Sol
+and his warriors, free from many of the barbarous prejudices of their
+new brethren, object. Two of the pirates are sacrificed to an outbreak
+of Indian fury, but the others are saved by El Sol, and it then becomes
+a question how they are to be disposed of. It is proposed to deliver
+them over to the Americans, that they may deal with them according to
+their laws; but Tokeah, with a refinement of hatred towards the white
+men, devises an amendment upon this plan. Sooner or later, he says, they
+will come to the tree upon which they are to hang. Meanwhile let them go
+at large, and cause the blood of the palefaces to flow, as that of the
+Oconees has done.
+
+This singular proposition at first startles the vindictive and
+bloodthirsty Oconees, but when they fully understand it, they receive it
+with a burst of applause. Lafitte and his companions are unbound, and
+allowed to depart.
+
+The funeral over, the Indians set out for the hunting-grounds of the
+Comanches, but Tokeah does not accompany them. He has had a dream,
+enjoining him to disinter his father's bones, which lie buried several
+hundred miles within the limits of the United States, in a district
+formerly possessed by the Oconees. He wishes Rosa to accompany the tribe
+to their new residence; but the young girl, mindful of her promise to
+Canondah, insists upon encountering with him the perils of the long and
+wearisome journey he is about to undertake. Whilst the main body of the
+Indians set off in a westerly direction, Rosa, a young Indian girl,
+Tokeah, El Sol, and four warriors, turn their steps towards the country
+of the white men. Thither we will now precede them.
+
+It was a bright cool December morning, and the sunbeams had just
+sufficient power to disperse the fog and mist which at that season
+frequently hang for a week together over the rivers and lakes of
+Louisiana. In the county town of Opelousas there was a great and unusual
+crowd. It seemed astonishing how so many people could have been got
+together in that thinly populated neighbourhood, and a person who had
+suddenly arrived in the midst of the concourse would have been sorely
+puzzled to conjecture its occasion. To judge from the drinking, dancing,
+fighting, and pranks of all sorts that went on, a sort of festival was
+celebrating; but weapons were also to be seen; men were formed up by
+companies and nearly every body had something more or less military in
+his equipment. Some wore uniforms that had served in the revolutionary
+war, and were consequently more than thirty years old; others, armed
+with rifles, ranged themselves in rank and file, and, by a lieutenant of
+their own election, were manoeuvred into a corner, out of which no
+word of command that he was acquainted with was sufficient to bring
+them. Another corps had got a band of music, consisting of one fiddler,
+who marched along at the side of the captain, sawing his catgut with
+might and main. Those individuals who had not yet attached themselves to
+any particular corps, shouldered rifles, fowling-pieces, or, in some
+instances, an old horse-pistol, with nothing wanting but the lock; and
+the few who had no fire-arms, had provided themselves with stout
+bludgeons.
+
+These, however, were merely the outposts. In the centre of the town the
+flower of the citizens was assembled, divided into two groups. One of
+them, consisting of the younger men, had fixed its headquarters in front
+of a tavern, the destination of which was indicated by a sign, whose
+hieroglyphics, according to our firm belief, neither Denon nor
+Champollion could have deciphered. Under these was written, for those
+who could read it, the customary announcement of "Entertainment for Man
+and Beast." In the interior of the establishment a second fiddle was to
+be heard; the performer upon which, of a less martial turn than his
+rival, was performing a lively jig for the benefit of a crowd of
+dancers.
+
+The other group, more gravely disposed, had chosen a more respectable
+parade-ground, and established itself in front of a store, containing a
+miscellany of earthen jugs, rolls of chewing tobacco, felt hats, shoes,
+knives, forks, and spoons, and (the most essential of all) a cask of
+whisky and a keg of lead and powder. Above the door was a board, with
+the inscription, "New Shop--Cheap for Cash;" and on the wall of the
+crazy frame-house was written in chalk--"Whisky, Brandy, Tobacco,
+Post-office."
+
+On the stump of a tree stood a man who, to judge from his new beaver
+hat, clean shirt-collar, and bran-new coat and breeches of a pompadour
+red, was a candidate for some one of the offices in the gift of the
+sovereign people. Near him were several other men of equally elegant
+exterior, to all appearance also aspirants to the vacant post, and who
+seemed to wait with some impatience for the termination of his harangue.
+Comparatively speaking, tranquillity and order reigned here, only
+excepting the noise of the dancers, and the occasional bellowing of some
+noisy toper stumbling about through the mud, with which the single
+street of the little town was covered knee-deep. Such interruptions,
+however, the orator seemed totally to disregard, and he continued in
+stentorian tones to inform his auditors how he would whip them damned
+British, whom he hated worse than skunks. This he was setting forth in
+the clearest possible manner, when the attention of his hearers was in
+some degree distracted by a loud "Hallo!" proceeding from two boon
+companions, who, after having for some time floundered about the street,
+had at last rambled towards the edge of the forest, and now suddenly
+began to shout violently, and to run as fast as their unsteady condition
+would allow. Amongst their vociferations, the words, "Stop, you cussed
+Redskin!" were clearly distinguishable--sounds far too interesting not
+to create a sensation amongst backwoodsmen. A dozen of the orator's
+audience slipped away, just to see "what was the matter with the d----d
+fools, and why they made such a devil of a row." The example found
+imitators, and presently not above thirty listeners remained collected
+round the speaker. Insubordination also broke out in the different corps
+that were exercising, and a full third of the men left their ranks and
+scampered towards the wood. Only the group in front of the chandler's
+store remained grave and steady in the midst of the general excitement.
+
+From out of the dark cypress forest that stretches southwards from the
+shore of the Atchafalaya, a figure had emerged which judging from its
+dress, belonged to the Indian race. The savage had crept along the edge
+of the forest in order to get near the town; but alarmed perhaps by the
+crowd and noise in the latter, he had not ventured to take the road
+leading to it, but had struck into a side-path across a cotton field. He
+was about to climb over the fence, when he was descried by the two
+idlers already mentioned, who no sooner saw him than, although their
+heads were tolerably full of whisky, they commenced a rapid pursuit. One
+of the first took the precaution to place his pint glass in safety
+behind a hedge, and then followed his companion, a swift-footed son of
+the west, who already had the Indian in his clutches. The Redskin was so
+exhausted that he would evidently not have been able to proceed much
+further. The staggering and unsteady state of his captor, however, did
+not escape him, and he gave him a sudden push, which stretched him at
+full length in the mud.
+
+"Stop!" shouted the backwoodsman, no way disconcerted by his fall;
+"Stop! or I will so maul your ugly face that you sha'n't be able to eat
+for a week."
+
+The Indian seemed to understand, and stopped accordingly, at the same
+time assuming an attitude indicative of a firm resolution to defend
+himself. He grasped his knife, and boldly confronted his pursuers, who
+on their part examined him with looks of curiosity and of some
+suspicion. The appearance of an Indian in this neighbourhood was nothing
+very unusual, seeing that they had a village scarcely a hundred miles
+off to the north-west, and that they continually made excursions of
+several hundred miles into the States in all directions, and even to the
+capital. For a long time past their diminished numbers had not allowed
+then to attempt any thing hostile against their white neighbours, who
+each year drew nearer to them: and their increasing wants, particularly
+their insatiable greed after the precious fire-water, had reduced them
+to be, _de facto_, little better than slaves to fur-dealers and
+storekeepers, for whom they hunted, and who paid the poor wretches in
+whisky scarcely the tenth part of the value of their skins.
+
+In the present instance the two backwoodsmen had no evil intention
+against the Indian; all they wanted was to give him a glass of
+Monongahela, and to amuse themselves a little at his expense. So at
+least it appeared from the words of the one who had been knocked down,
+and who, without taking his tumble at all in ill part, now roared out,
+that "he must drink a half-pint of whisky with him, or he would put him
+in his pocket."
+
+"Come, young Redskin," cried the other; "come along. You shall help us
+to fight the cussed Britishers, and drink, ay, drink like a fish."
+
+By this time the little group was surrounded by deserters from the
+parade-ground, examining the Indian with a rude and unceremonious, but
+not an ill-natured, curiosity. Without permission or apology they
+inspected his wardrobe, tried the edge of his scalping-knife, examined
+his mocassins, and one of them even made an attempt to remove the cap
+from his head. By these various investigations the stranger seemed more
+surprised than gratified. His exterior was, it must be confessed,
+somewhat singular. A foxskin cap covered his head and extended down over
+his ears, concealing his light brown hair, an attempt at disguise which
+the long fair down upon his upper lip rendered tolerably unsuccessful.
+His deerskin doublet denoted the Indian, but his trousers were those of
+a white man. One of his mocassins--the other he had left in some
+swamp--was of Indian workmanship; one of his cheeks was still daubed
+with the red and black war-paint, which had been nearly rubbed off the
+other; his hands, although burnt brown by the sun, were those of a white
+man. If any doubt could have remained, his features would have settled
+it; the bold blue eye could no more have belonged to an Indian than
+could the full rosy cheek and the well-formed mouth. The crowd stared at
+him with the same sort of stupefaction which they might have shown had
+they entered a thicket expecting to find a fat deer, and encountered in
+its stead a growling bear.
+
+"I should think you've looked at me enough," said the stranger at last,
+in good English, and in a sort of half-humorous, half-petulant tone; at
+the same time delivering a blow, with the flat of his knife, upon the
+horny hand of a backwoodsman, who had again attempted to lift his cap
+with a view to examine his hair.
+
+It was, as the reader will already have conjectured, our young
+Englishman, who, having been guided by the Indian runner into the path
+to the Coshattoes, had at last succeeded in making his way over and
+through the innumerable swamps, rivers, and forests with which that
+district is so superabundantly blessed. The comparative coolness of the
+season, and the shallowness of the swamps and rivers, of the former of
+which many were entirely dried up and converted into meadows, had
+favoured his journey, or else he would scarcely have succeeded in
+reaching the banks of the Atchafalaya. For the preceding three weeks he
+had lived upon wild-geese and ducks, which he had killed and roasted as
+the Indians had taught him. He had now just emerged from the wilderness,
+and, however great his wish undoubtedly was to find himself once more in
+civilized society, the grim aspect of the Goliath-like backwoodsmen,
+their keen eyes and sunburnt visages, and long horn-handled knives, were
+so uninviting, that he was almost tempted to wish himself back again.
+Nevertheless, he seemed rather amused than disconcerted by the frank,
+forward familiarity of the people he had come amongst.
+
+"And d--n it!" exclaimed one of the men after a long pause, during which
+Hodges had been the observed of all eyes, "who, in the devil's name, are
+you? You are no Redskin?"
+
+"No, that I'm not," replied the young man, laughing; "I am an
+Englishman."
+
+He spoke the last words in the short decided tone, and with all the
+importance of a baron or count, who, having condescended to arrive in
+disguise amongst his dependents, on a sudden thinks proper to lay aside
+his incognito. There was in his look and manner, as he glanced over the
+crowd, a degree of self-satisfaction, and a curiosity to see the
+impression made by the announcement, mingled with the feeling of
+superiority which John Bull willingly entertains, and which he at that
+time was wont to display towards Brother Jonathan, but which has since
+entirely disappeared, and given place to a sort of envious uneasiness--a
+certain proof, in spite of the scorn in which it disguises itself, of
+his consciousness of the superiority of the detested Brother Jonathan,
+aforesaid.
+
+"An Englishman!" repeated twenty voices.
+
+"A Britisher!" vociferated fifty more, and amongst these a young man in
+a grass-green coat, who had just come up with an air of peculiar haste
+and importance.
+
+"A Britisher!" repeated the gentleman in green; "that's not your only
+recommendation, is it?"
+
+The person addressed glanced slightly at the speaker, who was measuring
+him with a pair of lobster-eyes of no very friendly expression, and then
+carelessly replied--
+
+"For the present, it is my only one."
+
+"And d--n it, what has brought you to Opelousas?" demanded the green
+man.
+
+"My legs!" replied Hodges. But the joke was not well taken.
+
+"Young man," said an elderly American, "you are in Louisiana state, and
+see before you citizens of the United States of America. That man
+there"--he pointed to green-coat--"is the constable. Jokin' is out of
+place here."
+
+"I come from on board my ship, if you must know."
+
+"From on board his ship!" repeated every body, and every brow visibly
+knit, and a low murmur ran through the crowd.
+
+The news of the landing of British troops had just reached the town, and
+the same courier had brought the unwelcome intelligence of the capture
+of the American gunboats on the Mississippi. Trifling as this disaster
+was, compared with the brilliant victories achieved on Lakes Champlain
+and Erie, and on the ocean, at every meeting, by American ships over
+British, it had, nevertheless, produced a general feeling of
+exasperation.
+
+The constable stepped aside with several other men, and talked with them
+in a low voice. When they returned, and again surrounded the Englishman,
+their conference had produced a marked change in their manner. Their
+rough familiarity and friendly inquisitiveness had given place to a
+repulsive coldness; the humorous cheerfulness of their countenances was
+exchanged for a proud, cold earnestness, and they measured Hodges with
+keen distrustful glances.
+
+"Stranger," said the constable, in a tone of command, "you are a
+suspicious person, and must follow me."
+
+"And who may you be, who take upon yourself to show me the way?"
+demanded the midshipman.
+
+"You have already heard who I am. These men are citizens of the United
+States, presently at war with your country, as you probably know."
+
+The green-clad functionary spoke these words with a certain emphasis,
+and even dignity, which caused the young man to look with rather less
+disdain at his shining beaver-hat, and verdant inexpressibles.
+
+"I am ready to follow," said he; "but I trust I am in safety amongst
+you."
+
+"That you will soon see," replied the constable, dryly.
+
+And so saying, he, his prisoner, and the crowd, set off in the direction
+of the town.
+
+If, as appears from the preceding extract, our author is ready enough to
+expose the peculiarities and failings of the English, whose foibles, in
+various parts of this book, he sets forth with at least as much severity
+as justice, he, on the other hand, and although his sympathies are
+evidently American, gives some curious specimens of their deficiency in
+military organization and discipline, and of the loose manner in which
+public affairs were carried on in the then newly formed state of
+Louisiana. The young midshipman is taken before our old acquaintance,
+Squire Copeland, who, with the restlessness characteristic of his
+countrymen, has emigrated some three years before from Georgia to the
+infant town of Opelousas, and holds the double office of justice of the
+peace and major of militia. Hodges is examined on suspicion of being an
+emissary from the British, sent to stir up the Indian tribes against the
+Americans. He scrupulously observes his promise, made to Tokeah and
+Canondah, not to reveal their place of abode; and, hampered by this
+pledge, is unable to give a clear account of himself. Suspicion is
+confirmed by his disguise, and by certain exclamations which he
+imprudently allows to escape him on hearing Major Copeland and his wife
+make mention of Tokeah, and of Rosa, their foster-child, of whom they
+now for seven years have heard nothing. The result of his examination,
+of which the good-natured and unsuspicious squire, having his hands full
+of business, and being less skilled in the use of the pen than the
+rifle, requests the prisoner himself to draw up the report, is, that
+Major Copeland, the constable, and Hodges, set off for a town upon the
+Mississippi, then the headquarters of the Louisianian militia. What
+occurs upon their arrival there, we will relate in a third and final
+notice of the book before us.
+
+
+
+
+THE FALL OF ROME.
+
+ITS CAUSES AT WORK IN THE BRITISH EMPIRE.
+
+
+The Rise and Fall of the Roman empire is by far the most remarkable and
+memorable event which has occurred in the whole history of mankind. It
+is hard to say whether the Rise or the Fall is most worthy of profound
+study and anxious examination. The former has hitherto most strongly
+attracted the attention of men, from the extraordinary spectacle it
+exhibited of human fortitude triumphing over every obstacle, and human
+perseverance at length attaining universal dominion. It was the
+spectacle most likely to rivet the attention of strenuous and growing
+nations--of men in that stage of existence when national ambition is
+strong and the patriotic passions ardent, and the selfish interests have
+not yet become so powerful as to have generally extinguished the
+generous affections. But it may be doubted whether the events that
+occurred in the later stages of the Roman empire, are not fraught with
+more valuable and important information than those of its earlier
+annals. Less interesting to the soldier, less animating to the citizen,
+less heart-stirring to the student, they are more instructive to the
+philosopher, more pregnant with warning to the statesman. They contain
+the only instance yet exhibited among men of a nation sinking from no
+external shock, but from the mere influence of internal decay; and point
+alone, of all passages in the annals of the species, to the provision
+made by nature, in the passions and selfishness of men, against the
+possibility of universal dominion.
+
+To any one who attentively considers this all-important subject, two
+things must be apparent, of the very highest consequence in arriving at
+correct ideas on it. The first is, that the Roman empire did not sink
+under the external violence of the barbarians, but under the weakness
+and decline which had arisen in its own bosom. The second, that the
+causes hitherto assigned by historians and philosophers for this
+internal decay, are either vague generalities, having no definite
+meaning, and incapable of any practical application, or can be easily
+shown, even to the most superficial reader, not to have been the real
+causes of the phenomenon.
+
+There can be no doubt that some of the irruptions of the
+barbarians--particularly those of the Goths into Romelia, which led to
+the fatal battles of Thessalonica and Adrianople; and of Alaric into
+Italy, which terminated in the capture of the Eternal City--were very
+formidable inroads, and might, in the best days of the empire, have
+taxed its strength and resolution to repel. But a little consideration
+must be sufficient to show, that, formidable as these invasions were,
+they could without much difficulty have been withstood, if the empire
+had possessed the strength which it did in the days of the republic, or
+in the first two centuries of the Cæsars. The Cimbri and Teutones, whom
+Marius combated and destroyed on the Rhone and in the north of Italy,
+were at least as formidable a body of barbarians as those which four
+centuries afterwards overturned the western empire. The forces whom
+Cæsar conquered in Gaul, Trajan on the Danube, were to the full as
+powerful as those which carried the standards of the Goths and Vandals
+to Athens and Carthage. Ætius, in the decline of the empire, and with
+the mingled Roman and barbarian force of Gaul alone, defeated Attila in
+the plenitude of his power, at the head of three hundred thousand men,
+on the field of Chalons.
+
+Belisarius, with fifteen thousand men, recovered Africa from the
+Vandals; thirty thousand legionary soldiers did the same by Italy under
+Narses, and overthrew the whole power of the Goths. So high did the
+Roman soldiers still stand even in the estimation of their enemies, that
+Totila, the warlike monarch of the Goths, strove to bribe them into his
+service by offers of high pay. None had yet been approved equal to these
+legionary soldiers in battle; and the manner in which, with infinitely
+inferior forces, they repelled the barbarians on all sides, decisively
+demonstrates this superiority. The vigour and ability of Heraclius so
+restored the empire, when wellnigh sinking under the might of its
+enemies, that for a century it was regarded with awe by the barbarous
+nations all round its immense frontier. The five provinces beyond the
+Euphrates were conquered by the Romans from the Parthians during the
+decline of the empire. Nothing is so remarkable, in the last three
+centuries of Roman history, as the _small number_ of the forces which
+combated around the Eagles, and the astonishing victories which, when
+led by ability, they gained over prodigious bodies of their enemies. The
+legions had dwindled into battalions, the battalions into cohorts. The
+four hundred and fifty thousand men who under Augustus guarded the
+frontiers of the empire, had sunk to one hundred and fifty thousand in
+the time of Justinian.[3] But this hundred and fifty thousand upheld the
+Eastern empire for a thousand years. So feeble were the assaults of the
+barbarians, that for above two centuries of that time the single city of
+Constantinople, with the aid of the Greek fire, defended itself with
+scarce any territory from which to draw support. It was not the strength
+of its enemies, therefore, but the weakness of itself, which, after an
+existence in the West and East of _two thousand years_, at length
+extinguished the Roman empire.
+
+What, then, were the causes of decay which proved fatal at length to
+this immense and enduring dominion? Philosophers in all ages have
+pondered on the causes; but those hitherto assigned do not seem adequate
+to explain the phenomenon. Not that the causes of weakness are baseless
+or imaginary; on the contrary, many of them were most real and
+substantial sources of evil. But what renders them inadequate to explain
+the fall of Rome is, that they had _all existed, and were in full
+operation, at the time when the commonwealth and empire were at their
+highest point of elevation_, and centuries before either exhibited any
+symptoms of lasting decay. For example, the ancient historians, from
+Sallust downwards, are loud in their denunciation of the corruption of
+public morals, and the selfish vices of the patrician classes of
+society, as being the chief source of the decay which was going forward,
+while the growth of the republic had been mainly owing to the
+extraordinary virtue and energy of a small number of individuals.[4] But
+the very circumstance of these complaints having been made by Sallust in
+the time of Augustus, and the fact of the empire of the West having
+existed for four hundred, that of the East for fourteen hundred years
+afterwards, affords decisive evidence that this cause cannot be
+considered as having been mainly instrumental in producing their fall.
+How is the unexampled grandeur and prosperity of the empire under Nero,
+Adrian, Trajan, and the two Antonines, whose united reigns extended over
+eighty years, to be explained, if the seeds of ruin two centuries before
+had been sown in the vices and corruption of the rich patricians? In
+truth, so far was general luxury or corruption from being the cause of
+the ruin of the empire, the cause of its fall was just the reverse. It
+was the excessive _poverty_ of its central provinces, and their
+inability to pay the taxes, which was the immediate cause of the
+catastrophe. The nobles and patricians often were luxurious, but they
+were not a thousandth part of the nation. The people was miserably poor,
+and got more indigent daily, in the later stages of its decay.
+
+Modern writers, to whom the philosophy of history for the first time in
+the annals of mankind has become known, and who were aware of the
+important influence of general causes on social prosperity, independent
+of the agency of individual men, have assigned a different set of causes
+more nearly approaching the truth. Montesquieu says, the decay of the
+Roman empire was the natural consequence of its extension. This sounds
+well, and looks like an aphorism: but if the matter be considered with
+attention, it will be found that it is _vox et præterea nihil_. Those
+who, with so much complacency, rest in the belief that the fall of the
+Roman empire was the natural result of its extension, forget that its
+_greatest prosperity was coexistent with that very extension_. It is
+impossible to hold that the decay of the empire was the consequence of
+its magnitude, when the glorious era of the Antonines, during which it
+numbered a hundred and twenty millions of inhabitants under its rule,
+and embraced nearly the whole known habitable globe within its dominion,
+immediately succeeded its greatest extension by the victories, unhappily
+to us so little known, of Trajan.
+
+More recent writers, seeing that Montesquieu's aphorism was a vague
+proposition which meant nothing, have gone a step further, and
+approached much nearer to the real explanation of the phenomenon.
+Guizot, Sismondi, and Michelet have concurred in assigning as the real
+cause of the decay of the Roman empire, the prevalence of slavery among
+its working population, and the great and increasing weight of taxes to
+support the imperial government. There can be no doubt that these were
+most powerful causes of weakness; and that they stand prominently forth
+from the facts recorded by contemporary annalists, as the immediate and
+_visible_ causes of the decline of the empire. The history of these
+melancholy periods is full of eternal complaints, that men could not be
+got to fill the legions, nor taxes to replenish the treasury; that the
+army had to be recruited from the semi-barbarous tribes on the frontier;
+and that vast tracts of fertile land in the heart of the empire relapsed
+into a state of nature, or were devoted only to pasturage, from the
+impossibility of finding cultivators who either would till the land, or
+could afford to pay the taxes with which it was charged. Doubtless the
+large proportion--at least a half, perhaps nearly two-thirds--of the
+people who were slaves, must have weakened the elements of strength in
+the empire; and the enormous weight of the direct taxes, so grievously
+felt and loudly complained of,[5] must have paralysed, to a very great
+degree, both the industry of the people and the resources of government.
+But a very little consideration must be sufficient to show, that these
+were not the real sources of the decline of the empire; or rather, that
+if they had not been aided in their operation by other causes, which
+truly undermined its strength, it might have been great and flourishing
+to this hour.
+
+Slavery, it must be recollected, was _universal_ in antiquity, and is so
+over two-thirds of the human race at this hour. Much as we may feel its
+evils and deprecate its severities, we ourselves, till within these
+three centuries, were entirely fed by serfs; and a few years only have
+elapsed since the whole of our colonial produce was raised by slave
+labour. America and Russia--the two most rising states in
+existence--are, the former in part, the latter wholly, maintained by
+slaves. It was an army, in a great measure composed of men originally
+serfs, which repelled Napoleon's invasion, survived the horrors of the
+Moscow retreat, and carried the Russian standards to Paris, Erivan, and
+Adrianople. Alexander the Great conquered Asia with an army of freemen
+wholly fed by slaves. The Athenians, in the palmy days of their
+prosperity, had only 21,000 freemen, and 400,000 slaves. Rome itself, in
+its great and glorious periods, when it vanquished Hannibal, conquered
+Gaul, subdued the East--in the days of Scipio, Cæsar, and Trajan--was to
+the full as dependent on slave labour as it was in those of its
+decrepitude under Honorius or Justinian. Cato was a great dealer in
+slaves; the Sabine farm was tilled by the arms of slaves; Cincinnatus
+and Regulus worked their little freeholds entirely by means of slaves.
+Rome was brought to the verge of destruction, nearer ruin than it had
+been by the arms of the Carthaginians, by the insurrection of the slaves
+shortly after the third Punic contest, so well known under the
+appellation of the Servile war. It is perfectly ridiculous, therefore,
+to assign as a cause of the destruction of Rome, a circumstance in the
+social condition of its people which coexisted with their greatest
+prosperity, which has prevailed in all the most renowned nations of the
+earth in a certain stage of their progress, and is to be found, in our
+own times, in states the most powerful, and the most likely to attain
+vast and long-continued dominion.
+
+Equally futile is it to point to the weight of the taxes as the main
+cause of the long decline and final overthrow of Rome. Taxes no doubt
+are an evil; and if they become excessive, and are levied in a direct
+form, they may come in the end to ruin industry, and weaken all the
+public resources to such an extent as to render a nation incapable of
+defending itself. But a very little consideration must be sufficient to
+show that it was not, in the case of Rome, the increase of the taxes
+taken as a whole, _but the decline in the resources of those who paid
+them_, which rendered them so oppressive. If, indeed, the national
+establishment of the Roman empire had gone on increasing as it advanced
+in years, until at length their charges became excessive and crushing to
+industry, the theory would have been borne out by the fact, and afforded
+perhaps satisfactory explanation of the phenomenon. But the fact was
+_just the reverse_. The military establishment of the Roman empire was
+so much _contracted_ as it advanced in years that whereas it amounted to
+450,000 men in the days of Augustus, in those of Justinian it had sunk,
+as already noticed to 150,000.[6] So far were the forces of Rome from
+being excessive in the later stages of the empire or disproportioned to
+an empire still, after all its losses, holding so large and fair a
+portion of the earth under its dominion, that on the other hand they
+were miserably small; and the disasters it underwent were mainly owing
+to the government of the Cæsars never being able to equip an adequate
+army to repel the attacks of the barbarians. The force with which
+Belisarius reconquered Africa and recovered Italy, never mustered
+_seventeen thousand men_; and the greater part of his successes were
+achieved by _six thousand_ legionary followers. It was not the weight of
+the national establishments, therefore, but the diminished resources of
+those who were to pay them, which really occasioned the destruction of
+the empire.
+
+There are two other facts of vital importance in considering the real
+causes of the gradual decay and ultimate ruin of the dominion of the
+legions.
+
+The first of these is, that the extent of the decay was, in the latter
+stages of Rome, _very unequal_ in the different provinces of the empire;
+and that while the central provinces, and those in the neighbourhood of
+the metropolis, were in the most wretched state of decrepitude, the
+remote districts were _in the highest state of affluence and
+prosperity_. This important fact is abundantly proved by unquestionable
+authority, and it sheds a flood of light on the real causes of the ruin
+which ultimately overtook them all.
+
+The state of agriculture in the Italian plains under the Cæsars, is thus
+set forth by Gibbon:--
+
+     "Since the age of Tiberius, _the decay of agriculture had been felt
+     in Italy_; and it was a just subject of complaint that the life of
+     the Roman people depended on the accidents of the winds and the
+     waves. In the division and decline of the empire, the _tributary
+     harvests of Egypt and Africa_ were withdrawn; the numbers of the
+     inhabitants continually diminished with the means of subsistence;
+     and the country was exhausted by the irretrievable losses of war,
+     pestilence, and famine. Pope Gelasius was a subject of Odoacer, and
+     he affirms, with strong exaggeration, that in Emila, Tuscany, and
+     the adjacent provinces, the human species was almost
+     extirpated."[7]
+
+Of the progress and extent of this decay, Gibbon gives the following
+account in another part of his great work:--
+
+     "The agriculture of the Roman provinces was _insensibly ruined_;
+     and in the progress of despotism, which tends to disappoint its own
+     purpose, the emperors were obliged to derive some merit from the
+     forgiveness of debts, or the remission of tributes, which their
+     subjects were utterly incapable of paying. According to the new
+     division of Italy, the fertile and happy province of Campania, the
+     scene of the early victories and of the delicious retirements of
+     the citizens of Rome, extended between the sea and the Apennines,
+     from the Tiber to the Silarius. Within sixty years after the death
+     of Constantine, and on the evidence of an actual survey, an
+     exemption was granted in favour of 330,000 English acres _of desert
+     and uncultivated land, which amounted to one-eighth of the whole
+     surface of the province_. As the footsteps of the barbarians had
+     not yet been seen in Italy, the cause of this amazing desolation,
+     which is recorded in the laws, (Cod. Theod. lxi. t. 38, l. 2,) can
+     be ascribed only to the administration of the Roman emperors."[8]
+
+Michelet observes, in his late profound and able History of France:--
+
+     "The Christian emperors could not remedy the growing depopulation
+     of the country, any more than their heathen predecessors. All their
+     efforts only showed the impotence of government to arrest that
+     dreadful evil. Sometimes, alarmed at the depopulation, they tried
+     to mitigate the lot of the farmer, to shield him against the
+     landlord; upon this the proprietor exclaimed he could no longer pay
+     the taxes. At other times they abandoned the farmer, surrendered
+     him to the landlord, and strove to chain him to the soil; but the
+     unhappy cultivators perished or fled, _and the land became
+     deserted_. Even in the time of Augustus, efforts were made to
+     arrest the depopulation at the expense of morals, by encouraging
+     concubinage. Pertinax granted an immunity from taxes to those who
+     could _occupy the desert lands of Italy, to the cultivators of the
+     distant province and the allied kings_. Aurelian did the same.
+     Probus was obliged to transport from Germany men and oxen to
+     cultivate Gaul.[9] Maximian and Constantius transported the Franks
+     and Germans from Picardy and Hainault into Italy; but the
+     depopulation in the towns and the country alike continued. The
+     people surrendered themselves in the fields to despair, as a beast
+     of burden lies down beneath his load and refuses to rise. In vain
+     the emperor strove, by offers of immunities and exemptions, to
+     recall the cultivator to his deserted fields. Nothing, could do so.
+     _The desert extended daily._ At the commencement of the fifth
+     century there was, _in the Happy Campania, the most fertile
+     province of the empire, 520,000 jugera_ (320,000 acres) in a state
+     of nature."[10]
+
+So general, indeed, was the depopulation of the empire in the time of
+Justinian, that it suggested to many of the emperors the project of
+repeopling those favoured districts by a fresh influx of inhabitants.
+"Justinian II. had a great taste for these emigrations. He transported
+half the population of Cyprus to a new city near Cyzicus, called
+Justinianopolis after its founder. But it was all in vain. The
+desolation and ruin of the provinces continued, and up to the very gates
+of Constantinople, which was maintained entirely by grain _imported at a
+low price from Egypt, and cattle from the Tauric Chersonesus_."[11]
+
+As a natural consequence of this entire or principal dependence of Rome
+on foreign or provincial raising of grain, there was, on any
+interruption of these foreign supplies, the greatest scarcity and even
+famine in the metropolis. All the vigilance of the emperors, which was
+constantly directed to this object, could not prevent this from taking
+place. Tacitus says, that in the scarcity under Claudius, there only
+remained a supply of fifteen days for the city.[12] Famine in Rome was
+frequent under Augustus, Tiberius, Claudius, and Nero. Claudian laments,
+that after Egypt had been assigned to Constantinople, Rome had come to
+derive its subsistence solely from Lybia, and depended on the _double_
+chances of the seasons and the winds.
+
+      ----"Nunquam secura futuri,
+  Semper inops, ventique fidem poscebat et anni."[13]
+
+"When Africa revolted under Gildo, in the reign of Honorius, Rome," says
+Gibbon, "was on _the brink of starvation_, from which she was only saved
+by large importations _from Gaul_."[14] She still depended on her
+provinces; domestic agriculture was ruined. Claudian represents the
+genius of ancient Rome bewailing, in pathetic and eloquent terms, her
+dependence for food on the nations she had conquered, in words which all
+governments rendering their people dependent on foreign supplies would
+do well to bear in mind. "Formerly," says the poet, "my prayers used to
+be that my legions might triumph on the banks of the Araxes, or that the
+consul might display his eagles at Susa; _now all I ask is a supply of
+food to avert the extremities of hunger_. The province of Africa, which
+furnishes corn to my people, is under the power of Gildo. _He intercepts
+our supplies, and our food is at his mercy._ He sells the harvests which
+belong to the descendants of Romulus; he possesses the fields purchased
+by my blood. The warrior people which conquered the world, now
+dishonoured and in want, endures the miserable punishment of peace;
+_blockaded by no enemy, they are like the inhabitants of a besieged
+town_. Death impends at every moment; there remain only doubtful
+supplies for a few days. _My greatness has been my ruin_; I was safer
+when my territory was more limited; would that its boundaries were once
+more at my gates! But, if I am doomed to perish, at least let me have a
+different fate; let me be conquered by another Porsenna; let my city be
+burnt by a second Brennus. All things are more tolerable than
+hunger."[15]
+
+Nor was the state of Greece, in the later stages of the empire, more
+favourable.
+
+"No description could exaggerate the miseries of Greece in the later
+stages of the empire. The slave population, which had formerly laboured
+for the wealthy, had then disappeared, and the free labourer had sunk
+into a serf. The uncultivated plains were traversed by bands of armed
+Sclavonians, who settled in great numbers in Thessaly and Macedonia. The
+cities of Greece ceased to receive the usual supplies of agricultural
+produce from the country; and even Thessalonica, with _its fertile
+territory and abundant pastures, was dependent on foreign importation
+for relief from famine_. The smaller cities, destitute of the same
+advantages of situation, would naturally be more exposed to
+depopulation, and sink more rapidly to decay. The roads, after the
+seizure of the local funds of the Greek cities by Justinian, were
+allowed to go to ruin, and the transport of provisions by land became
+difficult. When the Byzantine writers, after the time of Heraclius,
+mention the Greeks and Peloponnesus, it is with feelings of aversion and
+contempt."[16]
+
+Nor was Asia Minor in a more prosperous condition in the later stages of
+the empire. In Asia Minor the decline of the Greek race had been rapid.
+This decline, too, must be attributed rather to bad governments than to
+hostile invasions; for from the period of the Persian invasion, in the
+time of Heraclius, the greater part of that immense country had enjoyed
+almost a century of uninterrupted peace. The Persian invasions had never
+been very injurious to the sea-coast, where the _Greek cities were
+wealthy and numerous_; but the central provinces were entirely ruined.
+The fact that extensive districts, once populous and wealthy, _were
+already deserts_, is proved by the colonies which Justinian II. settled
+in various parts of the country. Population had disappeared even more
+rapidly than the agricultural resources of the country."[17]
+
+But while this was the state of matters in Italy, Asia Minor, and
+Greece--that is, the heart of the empire--its remoter provinces, Spain,
+Lybia, and Egypt, not only exhibited no symptoms of similar decay, but
+were, down to the very close of the reigns of the Cæsars, in the highest
+state of wealth, prosperity, and happiness. Listen to Gibbon on this
+subject in regard to Spain:--
+
+"The situation of Spain, separated on all sides from the enemies of Rome
+by the sea, the mountains, and intermediate provinces, had secured the
+long tranquillity of that _remote and sequestered country_; and we may
+observe, as a sure symptom of domestic happiness, that in a period of
+four hundred years, Spain furnished very few materials to the history of
+the Roman empire. The cities of Merida, Cordova, Seville, and Tarragona,
+were numbered among the most illustrious of the Roman world. The various
+plenty of the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms, was improved and
+manufactured by the skill of an industrious people; and the peculiar
+advantages of naval stores contributed to support an extensive and
+profitable trade. Many particulars concerning the fertility of Spain may
+be found in Huet's _Commerce of the Ancients_, c. 40."[18]
+
+The state of Lybia was equally characteristic of the highest and most
+general prosperity, especially in relation to agricultural industry, at
+the time when Italy and Greece were thus languishing in the last stage
+of decrepitude and decay.
+
+"The long and narrow tract," says Gibbon, "of the African coast was
+filled, when the Vandals approached its shores, with frequent monuments
+of Roman art and magnificence; and the respective degrees of improvement
+might be accurately measured by the distance from Carthage and the
+Mediterranean. A simple reflection will impress every thinking mind with
+the clearest idea of its fertility and cultivation. The country was
+_extremely populous_; the inhabitants reserved a liberal supply for
+their own use; _and the annual exportation, particularly of wheat_, was
+so regular and plentiful, that Africa _deserved the name of the common
+granary of Rome and of mankind_."[19]
+
+Nor was the state of Egypt less prosperous in the last ages of the Roman
+empire; nor was its condition a less striking contrast to the miserable
+and languishing condition of the Italian and Grecian plains. It is thus
+described by Mr Finlay,[20] whose recent work has thrown so much light
+on the social condition of the inhabitants of the Roman empire in their
+later days:--"If the accounts of ancient historians can be relied on,
+the population of Egypt had suffered less from the vicious
+administration of the Roman empire, and from the Persian invasion, than
+any other part of their dominions; for at the time of its conquest by
+the Romans it contained seven millions and a half of inhabitants,
+exclusive of Alexandria; and in the last days of the empire it nourished
+almost as great a number. The Nile spread its fertilizing waters over
+the land; the canals were kept in a state sufficient for irrigation; and
+the vested capital of Egypt suffered little diminution, whilst war and
+oppression annihilated the accumulation of ages over the rest of the
+world. The immense wealth and importance of Alexandria, the only port
+which Egypt possessed for communicating with the empire, still made it
+_one of the first cities in the universe for riches and population_,
+though its strength had received a severe blow from the Persian
+conquest."[21]
+
+Sicily was another exception from the general decrepitude and ruin of
+the Roman empire in the latter reigns of the Cæsars. "In the island of
+Sicily, the great bulk of the population was Greek, and few portions of
+the Greek race _had succeeded so well in preserving their wealth and
+property uninjured_."[22]
+
+But in the other parts of the empire, to the north of the Mediterranean,
+the agricultural population was, in the time of Heraclius, _absolutely
+destroyed_. "The imperial armies," says Finlay, "which, in the time of
+Maurice, had waged an active war in Illyria and Thrace, and frequently
+invaded the territories of the Avars, had melted away during the
+disorders of the reign of Phocas. The loss was irreparable; for in
+Europe _no agricultural population remained to supply the means of
+forming a body of local militia, or even a body of irregular
+troops_."[23]
+
+It may readily be supposed, that so entire a destruction of the rural
+population in Europe, as thus took place under the Emperors in the Roman
+empire, must have been attended with the most fatal effects to their
+means of defence and national power. The inhabitants of towns,
+accustomed to sedentary occupations, and habituated to the luxury of
+baths, the excitement of theatres, the gratuitous distributions of food,
+could not endure the fatigue, privations, and hardships of the military
+life. Substitutes were almost universally sought for, and they, amidst
+the desolation of the country, could be found only in the semi-barbarous
+tribes on the frontier. Thus the defence of the empire came to be
+intrusted almost entirely to the arms of the barbarians, and it was hard
+to say whether they were most formidable to their friends or foes.
+Nothing could supply the place of the rural population on the shores of
+the Mediterranean. The legions gave a master to the Roman world, and the
+legions were recruited from Gaul, Germany, Britain, and Pannonia. Thus
+the dominion of the Capitol was really at an end long before it was
+formally subverted; and Rome had received a master from the barbarians
+long before the days of Alaric.
+
+This continued splendour and population of the towns, amidst the ruin of
+the country, in the declining periods of the Roman empire, has attracted
+the particular notice of one of the greatest historians of modern times.
+"In the midst," says Sismondi, "of the general desolation of the
+country, the continued existence and splendour of the great towns is not
+so easily explained; but the same thing is now to be witnessed in
+Barbary and Turkey, and in the whole Levant. Wherever despotism
+oppresses insulated man, he seeks refuge from its outrages in crowds.
+The great Roman towns, in the first three centuries of the empire, were
+in great part peopled by artisans, and freedmen, and slaves; but they
+contained also a number far greater than in our days of men who,
+limiting their wants to the mere support of existence, spent their
+lives in indolence. All that population was alike unarmed, unpatriotic,
+incapable of defence against a foreign enemy; but as it was collected
+together, and at hand, it always inspired fear to domestic authority.
+Accordingly, to keep it quiet, there was always a regular gratuitous
+distribution of corn in the larger towns, and numerous spectacles in the
+theatres, the amphitheatres, and the circus, maintained at the public
+expense. The carelessness of the future, the love of pleasure and
+indolence, which have always characterised the inhabitants of great
+towns, characterised the Roman provincials even to the latest days of
+the empire, and in the midst of their greatest calamities. Treves, the
+capital of the northern prefecture of Gaul, was not the only city of the
+empire which was surprised and pillaged by the barbarians, at the moment
+when its citizens, their heads crowned with garlands, were applauding
+with enthusiasm the victors in the games of the circus."[24]
+
+The frequent custom of recruiting the legions by means of slaves, in the
+later period of the empire, which was wholly unknown in the days of the
+Republic, reveals, in the clearest manner, the weakness to which, in
+respect of military resources, it had arrived, long before the external
+symptoms of decay were visible in its fortunes. Even in the time of
+Marcus Aurelius, the legions which were to combat the Quadi and
+Marcomanni, on the Danube, were recruited from the servile class.
+Justinian went so far as to declare, by a public edict, every slave free
+who had served in the army.[25] "At last the army came to be composed
+entirely," says Finlay, "of the rudest and most ignorant peasants, of
+_enfranchised slaves, and naturalised barbarians_. This increased the
+repugnance, already sufficiently great, felt by the better class of
+citizens to enter the military life. The mercenaries formed the most
+valued and brilliant portions of the army, and it became the fashion to
+copy and admire the dress and manners of the barbarian cavalry."[26]
+
+All the ancient historians concur in representing this impossibility of
+finding native soldiers in its central provinces, as the main cause of
+the overthrow of the empire. And that this, and not the power of the
+barbarians, was the real cause of the destruction of the empire, is
+proved by the fact, that whenever they were well directed, the
+superiority of the legions was as clearly evinced as in the days of
+Marius or Cæsar. "Whenever the invaders," says Finlay, "met with a
+steady and well-combined resistance, they were defeated without much
+difficulty. The victorious reigns of Claudius II., Aurelian, and Probus,
+prove the immense superiority of the Roman armies when properly
+commanded; but the custom which was constantly gaining ground, _of
+recruiting the legions from among the barbarians_, reveals the
+deplorable state of _depopulation and weakness_ to which three centuries
+of despotism and bad administration had reduced the empire."[27]
+
+But amidst this general prostration of the political and military
+strength of the Roman empire, in consequence of the decline and
+desolation of the _country_, the _great towns_ still continued
+flourishing, and wealth to an extraordinary and unparalleled extent
+existed among the chief families, some of patrician, some of plebeian
+origin. That was the grand characteristic of Rome in its later days. The
+country, in the European part of the empire at least, was daily growing
+poorer; the cultivation of the fields was neglected; and the provinces,
+crushed under the weight of the direct taxes, which had become
+unavoidable, had in most cases sunk to half their former number of
+inhabitants. But the metropolis, whether in Italy or on the shores of
+the Bosphorus, was still the seat of opulence, luxury, and prosperity.
+The strength of Constantinople was sufficient to repel the barbarians,
+and prolong the life of the empire of the east, for many centuries after
+it had ceased to derive effective support from any of its provinces. It
+is recorded by Ammianus Marcellinus, that when Rome was taken by the
+Goths under Alaric, it was still inhabited by 1,200,000 souls, who were
+maintained chiefly by the expenditure of seventeen hundred and sixty
+great families, many of whom had £160,000 of yearly income, equal to at
+least £300,000 a-year of our money.[28] And of the flourishing condition
+of the cities of the empire, especially those which were on the shores
+of the Mediterranean, even so late as the eighth century, Mr Finlay
+gives the following account:--
+
+"The strongest proof of the _wealth and prosperity of the_ CITIES _of
+Greece_, even in the last days of the empire, is to be found in the
+circumstance of their being able to fit out the expedition which
+ventured to attempt wresting Constantinople from the grasp of a soldier
+and statesman such as Leo the Isaurian was known to be, when the Greeks
+deliberately resolved to overturn his throne. The _rural_ districts, in
+the eighth century, were reduced to a _state of desolation_, and the
+_towns were flourishing in wealth_. _Agriculture was at the lowest ebb,
+and trade in a prosperous condition._"[29] Sismondi gives his valuable
+testimony to the same effect:--"It was at this very time, _when industry
+in the country was declining_, that the _towns_ of the provinces arrived
+_at their highest degree of opulence_. Adrian excited the emulation of
+their rich citizens, and he extended to the furthest extremities of the
+empire the luxury of monuments and decorations, which had hitherto been
+reserved for the illustrious cities which scorned to be the depots of
+the civilisation of the world."[30] Such, in a few words, was the
+condition, generally speaking, of all the part of the empire to the
+north of the Mediterranean, in the decaying period of its existence. The
+towns were every where flourishing; but it was in Africa, Sicily, and
+Spain alone that agriculture was undecayed. And the decay and ruin of
+rural industry, and of the inhabitants of the country to the north of
+the Mediterranean, left them no adequate means of resisting the attacks
+of the brave but artless barbarians, who there pressed upon the yielding
+frontiers of the empire.
+
+Coexistent with this fatal decline in the rural population and
+agricultural industry, was the increase of _direct taxation_, which was
+so keenly felt and loudly complained of in all the later stages of the
+Roman history. This is a branch of the subject of the very highest
+importance, because it leads to precisely the same conclusions, as to
+the real causes of the fall of Rome, as the others which have been
+already considered.
+
+It is well known that when the Romans first conquered Macedonia, the
+senate proclaimed a general liberation from taxes and imposts of every
+kind to the Roman citizens, as the reward of their victories. This state
+of matters, however, could not long continue in an old state charged
+with the duty, and under the necessity of keeping up, a large
+establishment to maintain its dominion over its subject provinces. For
+some time, indeed, the wealth brought by the conquest of Asia and Egypt
+into the Roman treasury was so considerable, that the necessity of taxes
+levied on its own citizens was not felt; and as long as the people had a
+direct share in the government, they took care to uphold an exemption in
+their own favour. But when one master was given to the whole Roman
+world, this invidious system of one class living upon another class was
+erelong abandoned. "Augustus," says Gibbon, "had no sooner assumed the
+reins of government, than he frequently intimated the insufficiency of
+the tributes from the provinces, and the necessity of throwing an
+equitable proportion of the public burdens upon Rome and Italy. In the
+prosecution of this unpopular design, however, he advanced with slow and
+cautious steps. The introduction of customs was followed by the
+establishment of an excise; and the scheme of taxation was completed by
+an artful assessment of the real and personal property of the Roman
+citizens, who had been exempted from every kind of contribution for
+above a century and a half."[31]
+
+Customs on foreign goods imported into Italy was the first species of
+taxation attempted on the Roman people. "In the reign of Augustus and
+his successor," says the same historian, "duties were imposed on every
+kind of merchandise, which, through a thousand channels, flowed to the
+great centre of opulence and luxury; and in whatever manner the law was
+expressed, it was the Roman purchaser, and not the provincial merchant,
+who paid the tax. The rate of the customs varied from the eighth to the
+fortieth part of the value of the commodity. There is still extant a
+long, but imperfect, catalogue of Eastern commodities, which, about the
+time of Alexander Severus, were subject to the payment of duties.
+Precious stones, Parthian and Babylonian leather, cottons, silks, raw
+and manufactured, ebony, ivory, and eunuchs, were among the taxed
+articles. An excise also was introduced by Augustus, of one _per cent_
+on whatever was sold in the markets or by public auction; and this
+extended from the most considerable purchase of lands or houses, to
+those minute objects which commonly derive their value from their
+infinite multitude and daily consumption."[32]
+
+But erelong these indirect taxes proved unproductive, and recourse was
+had to the lasting scourge of _direct taxes_. One of 5 per cent on
+legacies and inheritances was first imposed by Augustus, and adhered to
+by him, in spite of the indignant murmurs of the Roman nobles and
+people. The rate was raised by Caracalla to a tenth of all inheritances;
+and, when the privilege of Roman citizenship was extended to the whole
+provincials of the empire, they were subjected at once both to the
+former burdens which they had paid as provincials, and the new tax
+levied on them as Roman citizens.[33] From that time, the direct burdens
+became daily more oppressive, and at length proved an almost
+insurmountable bar to industry. "The noxious weed," says Gibbon, "sprung
+up with the most luxuriant growth, and in the succeeding age darkened
+the Roman world with its deadly shade. In the course of this history, we
+shall be too often summoned to explain the land-tax, the capitation, and
+the heavy contributions in corn, wine, oil, and meat, which were exacted
+from the provinces for the use of the court, the army, and the
+capital."[34]
+
+These direct taxes soon became fearfully oppressive, and it is proved,
+by the clearest evidence, that they were among the leading causes of the
+decline of the empire. "The whole landed property of the empire," says
+Gibbon, "without excepting the patrimonial estates of the monarch, was
+the object of ordinary taxation, and every new purchaser contracted the
+obligations of the former proprietor. An accurate survey was made of
+what every citizen should contribute to the public service, and this was
+made anew every fifteen years. The number of slaves and cattle
+constituted an essential part of the report; _an oath was administered
+to the proprietors, which obliged them to disclose the true state of
+their affairs_; and any attempt to prevaricate or elude the vigilance of
+the legislature, was severely watched, and punished as a capital crime,
+which included the double guilt of treason and sacrilege. A large
+portion of the tribute was paid in money; and, of the current coin of
+the empire, _gold alone could be legally accepted_. The remainder of the
+taxes, according to the proportion observed in the annual indiction, was
+levied in a manner still more direct and still more oppressive.
+According to the different value of lands, their real produce, in the
+various articles of wine or oil, corn or barley, wood or iron, was
+transported by the labour, or at the expense of the provincials, to the
+imperial magazines, from whence they were occasionally distributed for
+the use of the court, the army, and the two capitals, Rome and
+Constantinople. The commissioners of the revenue were so frequently
+obliged to make _considerable purchases_, that they were strictly
+prohibited from allowing any compensation, or from receiving in money
+the value of those articles which were exacted in kind."[35]
+
+"Either from accident or design, the mode of assessment seemed to unite
+the substance of a land to the form of a capitation-tax. The return
+which was sent from every province and district expressed the number of
+tributary subjects, and the amount of the public impositions. The latter
+of these sums was divided by the former; and the estimate, that each
+province and each head was rated at a certain sum, was universally
+received not only in the popular but the legal computation. Some idea of
+the weight of these contributions _per head_ may be formed by the
+details preserved of the taxation of Gaul. The rapacious ministers of
+Constantine had exhausted the wealth of that province, by exacting
+twenty-five gold pieces (£12, 10s.) for the annual tribute of every
+head. The humane policy of his successor reduced the computation to
+seven pieces. A moderate proportion between these two extremes of
+extravagant oppression and transient indulgence, therefore, may be fixed
+at sixteen gold pieces, or about _nine pounds_ sterling, as the common
+standard of the impositions of Gaul. The enormity of this tax is
+explained by the circumstance, that, as the great bulk of the people
+were slaves, the rolls of tribute were filled only with the names of
+citizens in decent circumstances. The taxable citizens in Gaul did not
+exceed 500,000; and their annual payments were about £4,500,000 of our
+money; a fourth part only of the modern taxes of France."[36] The
+ordinary land-tax in the eastern provinces was a tenth, though in some
+cases it rose by the operation of the survey to a fifth, in others fell
+to a twentieth of the produce. It was valued for a term of years, and
+paid, unless when exacted in kind, commonly in money.[37]
+
+There was one circumstance which rendered the direct taxes peculiarly
+oppressive in the declining periods of the Roman empire, and that was
+the _solid_ obligation, as the lawyers term it, which attached to the
+municipalities, into which the whole empire was divided, of making good
+the amount of their fixed assessment to the public treasury. Of course,
+if the municipality was declining, and the same quota required to be
+made up from its assessable inhabitants by the magistracy, who were
+responsible for its amount, it augmented the burden on those who
+remained within its limits; and if they dwindled, by public calamities
+or emigration, to a small number, it might, and often did become of a
+crushing weight. This system is general over the East; and its
+oppressive effect in the declining stage of states, is the chief cause
+of the rapid decay of Oriental empires. There is a remarkable authentic
+instrument, which attests the ruinous influence of this system in the
+later stages of the Roman dominion. This is a rescript of the Emperior
+Majorian, which sets forth:--"The municipal corporations, the lesser
+senates, as antiquity has justly styled them, deserve to be considered
+as the heart of the cities, and the sinews of the Republic. And yet so
+low are they now reduced, by the injustice of magistrates and the
+venality of collectors, that many of their numbers, renouncing their
+dignity and their country, have taken refuge in distant and obscure
+exile." He strongly urges, and even ordains their return to their
+respective cities; but he removes the grievances which had forced them
+to desert the exercises of their municipal functions, by directing that
+they shall be responsible, not for the _whole sum_ assessed on the
+district, but only for the payments they have actually received, and for
+the defaulters who are still indebted to the public.[38] But this humane
+and wise interposition was as shortlived as it was equitable. Succeeding
+emperors returned to the convenient system of making the municipal
+corporations responsible for the sum assessed on their respective
+districts, and it continued to be the general law of the empire down to
+its very latest day. Sismondi, in his _Décadence de l'Empire Romaine_,
+and Michelet, in his _Gaule sous les Romains_, concur in ascribing to
+this system the rapid decline and depopulation of the empire in its
+later stages.
+
+But although there can be no question that the conclusions of these
+learned writers are in great part well founded, yet this system of
+taxation by no means explains the decline and fall of the Roman empire.
+It requires no argument, indeed, to show, that such a system of solid
+obligations, and of levying a certain sum on districts without any
+regard to the decline in the resources or number of those who were to
+pay them, must, in a _declining_ state of society, be attended with the
+most disastrous, and it may be in the end fatal consequences. But it
+does not explain how society should be declining. _That_ is the matter
+which it behoves us to know. When the reverse is the case--when industry
+and population are _advancing_, the imposition of fixed tributes on
+districts is not only no disadvantage, but the greatest possible
+advantage to a state--witness the benefit of the perpetual settlement to
+the ryots of Hindostan--or of a perpetual quit-rent to English
+landholders. And that, bad as this system was when applied to a
+declining state of society, it was not the cause of the ruin of the
+Roman empire, and would not have proved injurious if the state had been
+advancing, is decisively proved by several considerations.
+
+1. In the first place, the taxes and system of municipalities, being
+responsible for a fixed sum, was not confined to the European provinces
+of the Roman dominion, viz.--Italy, Greece, Gaul, Macedonia, and
+Romelia, where the progress of decay was so rapid, but it was the
+general law of the empire, and obtained equally in Spain, Lybia, Egypt,
+and Sicily; as in the provinces which lay to the north of the
+Mediterranean. But these latter provinces, it has been shown, were, when
+overrun by the barbarians about the year 400, not only nowise in a state
+of decrepitude, but in _the very highest state of affluence and
+prosperity_. They had become, and deserved the appellation of, "the
+common granary of Rome and of the world." They maintained the
+inhabitants of Italy, Greece, Rome, and Constantinople, by the export of
+their magnificent crops of grain. Spain was at least twice as populous
+as it is at this time, Lybia contained twenty millions, Egypt seven
+millions of inhabitants. Sicily was in affluence and prosperity, while
+the adjoining plains of Italy were entirely laid out in pasturage, or
+returned to a state of desolation and insalubrity. It is in vain,
+therefore, to seek a solution of the decline of the empire in a system,
+which, _universally_ applied, left some parts of it in the last stages
+of decrepitude and decay, and others in the highest state of prosperity
+and affluence.
+
+2. In the next place, the taxes of the empire were by no means at first
+of such weight as to account, if there had been nothing else in the
+case, for the decay of its industry. The tax on inheritances, it has
+been shown, was at first five, afterwards ten _per cent_; and the
+land-tax was ten _per cent_ on the produce. The former tax of ten _per
+cent_ on successions, is the present legacy-tax on movable succession to
+persons not related to the deceased, in England; and ten _per cent_ on
+the produce, is the tithe, and no more than the tithe, which has so long
+existed in the European monarchies, and even when coexisting with many
+other and more oppressive burdens, has nowhere proved fatal to industry.
+Income of every sort paid ten _per cent_ in Great Britain during the
+war--the land paid the tithe and poor's-rate in addition--and the other
+taxes yielded a sum four times as great; yet industry of every kind
+flourished to an extraordinary degree during that struggle. Ever since
+the termination of the Revolution, the land-tax in France has been far
+heavier than it was in Rome, varying, according to the _Cadastre_, or
+valuation, from fifteen to twenty-five _per cent_; but yet it is well
+known public wealth and agricultural produce have increased in an
+extraordinary degree during that period. It was not, therefore, the
+weight of the impositions, but the simultaneous circumstances, which
+rendered the northern provinces of the empire _unable to bear them_,
+which was the real cause of the ruin of its industry.
+
+3. In the _third_ place, whether the magnitude of the naval and military
+establishments, or the absolute amount of its public revenue, is taken
+into consideration, it is equally apparent that the Roman empire was at
+first not only noways burdened with heavy, but was blessed with
+_singularly light_ government impositions. Gibbon states the population
+of the whole empire, in the time of Augustus, at 120,000,000, or about
+half of what all Europe, to the westward of the Ural mountains, now
+contains; and its naval and military establishments amounted to 450,000
+armed men--"a force," says the historian, "which, formidable as it may
+seem, was equalled by a monarch of the last century, (Louis XIV.)
+_whose kingdom was confined within a single province of the Roman
+empire_."[39] Compared with the military and naval forces of the
+European powers in time of peace, this must seem a most moderate public
+establishment. France, in the time of Napoleon, with 42,000,000
+inhabitants, had 850,000 regular soldiers in arms, besides 100,000
+sailors; and Great Britain, in its European dominions alone, with a
+population of 18,000,000 souls, had above 500,000 regular soldiers and
+sailors in the public service. France has now, in peace, with a
+population of 32,000,000 souls, about 360,000 men, between the army and
+navy, in the public service; and England, with a population of
+28,000,000, upwards of 150,000, besides double that number in India.
+Russia, with 62,000,000 inhabitants, has 460,000 soldiers in the public
+service. Austria, with 33,000,000, has 260,000. All these peace
+establishments are twice as heavy in proportion to the numbers of the
+people, as that of Rome was in the time of Augustus; and, in subsequent
+reigns, the number of armed men maintained by the state, was so far from
+increasing, that it was constantly diminishing, and, in the time of
+Justinian, had sunk down to 140,000 soldiers, maintained by an empire
+more extensive than that of Russia at this moment.
+
+4. The same conclusion results from the consideration of the absolute
+amount of the public revenue levied in the Roman empire, compared with
+what is extracted from modern states. Gibbon estimates the public
+revenue of the whole empire in the time of Augustus, at "fifteen or
+sixteen millions sterling;"[40] and in the time of Constantine the
+revenue derived from Gaul was £4,500,000 a-year.[41] The first of these
+sums is less than a _third_ of what is now levied in time of peace on
+Great Britain, with less than thirty millions of souls, instead of the
+hundred and twenty millions who swelled the population rolls of the
+Roman empire: the last is little more than an _eighth_ of what is now
+extracted from France, having nearly the same limits as ancient Gaul.
+Supposing that the value of money has declined, from the discovery of
+the South American mines, a half, (and at _this_ time, owing to the
+decline of those mines, it has not sunk more,) still it is apparent that
+the public burdens of modern times are at least three times as heavy as
+they were in the Roman empire in the highest period of its greatness. As
+its strength and military establishment constantly declined after that
+period, there is no reason to suppose that the absolute amount of the
+public taxes was at any subsequent time greater, although
+unquestionably, from the decline in the resources of those who were to
+bear them, they were felt as infinitely more oppressive. And that these
+taxes were not disproportioned to the strength of the empire, when its
+resources were unimpaired, and its industry flourishing, is decisively
+proved by the extremely prosperous condition in which it was during the
+eighty years when Nerva, Trajan, Adrian, and the two Antonines filled
+the imperial throne. "At that period," says Gibbon, "notwithstanding the
+propensity of mankind to exalt the past and depreciate the present, the
+tranquil and prosperous condition of the empire was warmly felt and
+honestly confessed by the provincials as well as the Romans."[42] "They
+affirm," says a contemporary writer, "that, with the increase of the
+arts, the human species has visibly multiplied. They celebrate the
+increasing beauty of the cities, the beautiful face of the country,
+cultivated and adorned like an immense garden, and the long festival of
+peace which was enjoyed by so many nations, forgetful of their ancient
+animosities, and delivered from the apprehension of future danger."[43]
+
+Ancient as well as modern historians are full of complaints, in the
+later periods of the Roman empire, of the prodigious increase of wealth
+in the hands of the rich, and decline in the remuneration of industry to
+the poor. Their complaints on this subject are so numerous, and
+supported by such an array of facts, as to leave no room for doubt that
+they are well founded. Indeed, it seems to have been generally true of
+the whole empire north of the Mediterranean, what Mr Finlay shows was
+the case down to the very latest periods in Greece, that while industry
+and population in the country were ruined, the towns were in a state of
+affluence and prosperity. Even so early as the time of Plutarch, the
+accumulation of _debts_ had come to be complained of as an extensive
+evil.[44] "These debts," says Finlay, "were generally contracted to
+Roman money-lenders. So injurious did their effects become to the
+provinces, that they afforded to one class the means of _accumulating
+enormous fortunes by forcing others into abject poverty_. The property
+of the provincial debtors was at length transferred to a very great
+extent to Roman creditors. Instead of invigorating the upper classes, by
+substituting an industrious timocracy for an idle aristocracy, it had a
+very different effect. It introduced new feelings of rivalry and
+distrust, by filling the country with foreign landlords. The weight of
+debts seems to have been the chief cause of revolutions in the ancient
+world. The Greeks could not long maintain the struggle, and they sunk
+gradually lower in wealth, until their poverty introduced an altered
+state of society, in which they learned the prudential habits of small
+proprietors, and escape not only from the eye of history but even of
+antiquarian research."[45]
+
+This constant tendency of wealth, in the later periods of the Roman
+empire, to accumulate in the hands of the great capitalists, accompanied
+by the progressive deterioration of the condition of the middle and
+working classes, is amply proved and forcibly illustrated by Sismondi,
+in his admirable work on the Decline of the Roman Empire. "During the
+long peace," says he, "which followed the victories of Trajan and Marcus
+Aurelius, those colossal fortunes were accumulated, which, according to
+Pliny, ruined Italy and the empire.[46] A single proprietor, by degrees,
+came to buy up whole provinces, the conquest of which had in former days
+furnished the occasion of many triumphs to the generals of the Republic.
+While this huge capitalist was amassing riches, wholly disproportioned
+to the capacity of man, the _once numerous and respectable, but now
+beggared, middle class, disappeared from the face of the earth_. In
+districts where so many brave and industrious citizens were to be seen
+in former times, alike ready to defend or cultivate their fields, were
+to be found nothing but slaves, who rapidly declined in number as the
+fields came to be exclusively devoted to pasturage. The fertile plains
+of Italy ceased to nourish its inhabitants; Rome depended entirely for
+its subsistence on the harvests which its fleets brought it from Sicily,
+Africa, and Egypt. From the capital to the farthest extremity of the
+provinces, _depopulation and misery in the country coexisted with
+enormous wealth an the towns_. From this cause the impossibility of
+recruiting the legions with native Romans was experienced even in the
+time of Marcus Aurelius. In his war against the Quadi and the
+Marcomanni, which had been preceded by a long peace, he was obliged to
+recruit the legions with the slaves and robbers of Rome."[47] It is
+impossible to give a stronger proof of the extent to which this enormous
+evil of the vast fortunes accumulated in the towns, and the entire ruin
+of industry in the country, had gone in the last days of the empire,
+than is to be found in the fact already mentioned, that when Rome was
+taken by Alaric, in the year 404 after Christ, while Italy could furnish
+no force to resist the invaders, the capital itself contained seventeen
+hundred and sixty great families, many of them with incomes of £160,000
+a-year, equal to £300,000 of our money, whose expenditure maintained an
+urban population of 1,200,000 souls.[48]
+
+It may readily be conceived, that when this prodigious concentration of
+wealth in the hands of the great proprietors of towns, and ruin of
+industry in the country, came to coexist with the _solid_ obligations of
+the rural municipalities for the sum assessed on their districts, the
+burden of the public taxes, though light at first, compared with what is
+little complained of in modern times, came to be altogether
+overwhelming. This accordingly was the case in all the Northern
+provinces of the empire in its later stages. What every where preceded
+their ruin, was the desertion of the inhabitants in consequence of the
+crushing weight of the public burdens. From the entire failure of the
+indirect taxes amidst the ruin of agricultural, and the imposition of
+taxation on urban industry, it had become necessary to make progressive
+additions to the direct taxes till they became exterminating. "Three
+great direct taxes," says Sismondi, "alike ruinous, impended over the
+citizens. The first was the Indictions or Land-Tax, estimated in general
+at a tenth of the produce, or a third of the clear revenue, and often
+doubled or tripled by the _Super indictions_ which the necessities of
+the provinces compelled them to impose. Secondly: the Capitation-Tax,
+which sometimes rose as high as 300 francs (£12) ahead on the free and
+taxable citizens; and, third, the Corvées, or forced contributions in
+labour, which were for the service of the imperial estates, or the
+maintenance of the public roads. These direct imposts in the declining
+days of the empire, so entirely ruined the proprietors of rural estates,
+that they abandoned them in all quarters. Vast provinces in the interior
+were deserted; the enrolment for the army became daily more difficult
+from the disappearance of the rural population; the magistrates of
+municipalities in town or country, rendered responsible for the
+assessment of their districts and the levy of their quota of soldiers,
+fled the country, or sought under a thousand pretexts to escape the
+perilous honour of public office. So far did the desertion of the
+magistracy go in the time of Valentinian, (364-375, after Christ,) that
+when that cruel tyrant ordered the heads of three magistrates of towns
+in a particular province to be brought to him for some alleged offences,
+'Will your Imperial Majesty be pleased to direct,' said the prefect
+Florentius, 'what we are to do in those towns _where three magistrates
+cannot be found_?' The order was upon this revoked."[49]
+
+The disastrous state of the rural districts amidst this accumulation of
+evils is thus forcibly described by Mr Finlay:--"In many provinces, the
+higher classes had been completely exterminated. The loss of their
+slaves and serfs, who had often been carried away by the invaders, had
+reduced many to the humble condition of labourers. Others had emigrated,
+and abandoned their land to the cultivators, from being unable to obtain
+any revenue from it in the miserable state to which the capture of the
+stock, the loss of a market, and the destruction of the agricultural
+buildings had reduced the country. In many of the towns, the diminished
+population was reduced to misery by the ruin of the rural districts in
+their neighbourhood. The higher classes in the country disappeared under
+the weight of the municipal duties they were called upon to perform.
+Houses remained unlet; and even when let, the portion of rent which was
+not absorbed by the imperial taxes was insufficient to supply the
+demands of the local expenditure. The labourer and the artisan alone
+could find bread; the walls of cities were allowed to fall into ruins;
+the streets were neglected, public buildings had become useless;
+aqueducts remained unrepaired; internal communications ceased; and with
+the extinction of the wealthy and educated classes in the provincial
+towns, the local prejudices of the lower orders became the law of
+society."[50]
+
+Such, on a nearer survey, was the condition of the Roman empire which
+preceded its fall. From it may be seen how widely the real causes of its
+decline differed from the vague generalities of Montesquieu, that the
+ruin of the empire was the necessary consequence of its extension; or
+the still vaguer declamations of the scholars, that it was the
+corruption incident to great and long-continued wealth which enervated
+the people, and rendered them incapable of defending themselves against
+the Northern nations. In truth, both these causes did operate, and that
+too in a most powerful manner, in bringing about the ruin of the empire;
+but they did so, not in the way supposed by these authors, but in an
+_indirect way_, by inducing a new set of evils, which destroyed industry
+in the most important of its provinces, by depriving the industrious of
+a market for their industry, and rendering the public burdens
+overwhelming, by changing the value of money. The operation of these
+causes can now be distinctly traced by us, because we feel them working
+among ourselves: their existence has not hitherto been suspected, or
+their effects traced by philosophers, because no state in modern Europe
+but our own, in recent times, had come within the sphere of their
+influence. And to see what these causes really were, it is only
+necessary to recall, in a few propositions, to the reader's mind, the
+general result of the foregoing deduction:--
+
+I. During the Republic, and till the commencement of the empire,
+agriculture was in the most flourishing state in Italy; and it was in
+its sturdy, free cultivators, that the legions were recruited which
+conquered the world.
+
+II. _From the time of Tiberius_, cultivation declined in the Italian and
+Grecian plains, and continued to do so to the fall of the empire.
+Pasturage came to supersede agriculture; population disappeared in the
+fields; the race of free cultivators, the strength of the legions, were
+ruined; the flocks and herds were tended only by slaves; the small
+proprietors became bankrupt, or fled the country; and the whole land in
+the European provinces of the empire fell into the hands of a limited
+number of territorial magnates, who resided at Rome or Constantinople,
+and mainly upheld, by their profuse expenditure, the prosperity of those
+capitals of the empire.
+
+III. In the midst of the general decline of rural industry in all the
+provinces to the north of the Mediterranean, the wealth and prosperity
+of the great cities remained undecayed. The small provincial towns were
+in great part ruined; but the great cities, especially such as were on
+the sea-coast, continued flourishing, and received in their ample bounds
+all the refluent population from the country. Rural industry languished
+and expired, but commerce was undecayed; the fortunes of the great
+capitalists were daily accumulating; and in no period in the history of
+mankind, were urban incomes so great as in the city of Rome, on the eve
+of its capture by the Goths.
+
+IV. While this was the state of matters to the north of the
+Mediterranean, that is, in the heart of the empire, the remoter
+agricultural provinces of Spain, Sicily, Lybia, and Egypt, were in the
+very highest state of prosperity; they fed all the great cities of the
+Roman world by their immense exportations of grain, and yet enough
+remained, down to their conquest by the Vandals under Genseric, to
+maintain a vast population at home, greater than has ever since existed
+in those countries, in a state of affluence and comfort.
+
+V. Taxation, from the time of its first introduction under Augustus, was
+at first chiefly indirect, and by no means oppressive. Gradually,
+however, the produce of the indirect taxes failed, or became inadequate
+to the wants of the empire, and recourse was had to direct taxes,
+levied chiefly on landed property and successions. But these direct
+taxes were at first light, and not a third part of those levied on
+Britain or France during the war; and the public establishments of the
+Roman government were not a fourth, in proportion to the population, of
+those now maintained by the great European monarchies during peace.
+
+VI. In process of time, however, the resources of the people, in the
+principal provinces of the empire, and especially those to the north of
+the Mediterranean, declined to such a degree, that though the military
+and naval establishments of the empire were reduced to a third of their
+former amount, and became inadequate to defend its frontiers against its
+enemies, the direct taxes required to be continually increased, till
+they became so oppressive as to destroy industry, and prove the
+immediate cause of the depopulation and ruin of the empire.
+
+Such are the _facts_, as established by the unanimous and concurring
+testimony of all the best informed historians; and now for the causes
+which produced these facts. They are set forth and supported by an
+equally clear and undisputable array of authorities.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Even so early as the latter days of the Republic, the system was
+introduced of feeding the Roman people with grain derived by tribute
+from the provinces. In the time of Augustus, the annual quantity
+distributed to the poorer citizens of Rome was 1,200,000 _modii_, or
+35,156 quarters. But _Tiberius went a step further, and actually gave
+bounties on the importation of foreign grain_. "An enormous quantity,"
+says Finlay, "of grain was distributed in this way, which was received
+as tribute from the provinces. Cæsar found 320,000 persons receiving
+this gratuity. It is true he reduced the number to one-half. The greater
+part of this grain was drawn from Sicily, Africa, and Egypt. In the time
+of Alexander, generally 75,000 _modii_ was distributed daily. This
+distribution enabled the poor to live in idleness, and was itself
+extremely injurious to industry; but another arrangement was adopted by
+the Roman government, which rendered the _cultivation of land around
+Rome unprofitable to the proprietors_. A large sum was annually employed
+by the state _in purchasing grain in the provinces_, and in transporting
+this supply to Rome, where it was _sold at a fixed price to the bakers_.
+Augustus appointed an officer, styled _Prefectus Annonæ_, whose duty was
+to provide by government purchases for the subsistence of the people. An
+allowance was also made _to the private importers of grain_, in order to
+ensure a constant supply.[51] In this way, a very large sum was expended
+_to keep grain cheap in a city_ where a variety of circumstances tended
+to make it dear. This singular system of annihilating capital, _and
+ruining agriculture and industry_, was so deeply rooted in the Roman
+administration, that similar gratuitous distributions of grain were
+established at Antioch and Alexandria, and introduced into
+Constantinople when that city became the capital of the empire."[52]
+
+The necessary effect of this system was the cessation of agriculture in
+Italy, the ruin of the small proprietors, and the engrossing of the land
+in the provinces by a few great landholders, who cultivated their
+extensive estates by means of slaves. "Riches, far exceeding the wealth
+of modern sovereigns, flowed into the hands of the great proprietors;
+villas and parks were formed over all Italy on a scale of the most
+stupendous grandeur; and land _became more valuable as hunting-ground
+than as productive farms_. The same habits were introduced into the
+provinces. In the neighbourhood of Rome, agriculture was ruined by the
+public distribution of grain received as tribute from the provinces,
+and by the bounty granted to merchants importing to secure a maximum
+price of bread. The same system proceeded in the provinces; and similar
+distributions at Alexandria and Antioch must have been equally
+injurious."[53] When Constantine established his new capital on the
+shores of the Bosphorus, he was under the necessity of adopting, and
+even extending, the same ruinous system. "Wealthy individuals from the
+provinces were compelled to keep up houses at Constantinople, pensions
+were conferred upon them, and a right to distributions of provisions to
+a considerable amount was annexed to those dwellings. These rations
+consisted of bread, oil, wine, meat, and formed an important branch of
+revenue even to the better class of citizens. These distributions were
+entirely different from the public ones at Rome, which were established
+as a gratification by the state to the poor citizens who had no other
+means of livelihood. The tribute of grain from Egypt was appropriated to
+supply Constantinople, and that of Africa was left for the consumption
+of Rome. This was the tie which bound the capital to the emperors, and
+the cause of the toleration shown to its factions. They both felt they
+had a common interest in supporting the despotic power by which the
+provinces were drained of money to support the expenditure of the court,
+and supply provisions for the people."[54]
+
+Although, however, these public distributions of grain in the chief
+towns of the empire had some effect in checking the cultivation of corn
+in Italy, Greece, and Asia Minor, by depriving its cultivators of their
+best market, yet _the private importation of grain_ from these great
+corn countries must have been a far more serious and general evil.
+Gibbon states the number who received rations at Constantinople daily in
+the time of Constantine at 80,000, and in Rome in the time of Tiberius
+it was 180,000. Supposing the other great towns were fed in the same
+proportion, perhaps a million of persons in the Roman world were
+nourished at the expense of the state on Egyptian or African grain. But
+a million of persons consume annually a million of quarters of grain;
+not a sixtieth part of the annual consumption of the British empire at
+this time, and probably not a two-hundredth part required by the
+120,000,000 souls who composed the Roman empire in the days of the
+Antonines. But though the state paupers were thus but a small fraction
+of the whole consumers of foreign grain, yet the _general importation
+was immense_, and became erelong so great as to constitute the entire
+source from which the population of Italy, as well as Constantinople and
+the adjacent provinces of Romelia, Macedonia, and Greece, were fed. It
+was this _general importation_, not the gratuitous distributions, which
+ruined Italian agriculture; for it alone was on a scale commensurate
+with the population of the Italian peninsula, and could alone account
+for its general ruin. Tacitus expressly says, it was the _preference_
+given to African agriculture, not the gratuitous distributions, which
+destroyed Italian cultivation. "At, Hercule, olim ex Italia legionibus
+longinquas in provincias commeatus portabantur: nec nunc infecunditate
+laboratur; _sed Africam_ POTIUS _et Egyptum excercemus, navibusque et
+casibus vita populi Romani permissa est_.[55]" The supply of grain for
+the Roman world was entirely obtained from Spain, Sicily, Africa, and
+Egypt, while Greece was maintained by corn imported from Poland.[56] It
+was not that the Italian and Grecian fields had become sterile: Tacitus
+expressly says the reverse,--"_nec_ nunc infecunditate laboratur." But
+the country in which grain produced fifteen fold, as Italy did, could
+not compete with that which produced sixty or eighty fold, on the banks
+of the Nile. Nor could the industry of the centre of the empire, where
+money was plentiful, comparatively speaking, and labour was therefore
+dear, stand against the competition of the remoter provinces, where it
+was scarce, and labour was therefore cheap.
+
+The ruin of Italian and Grecian agriculture from this cause is so
+evident, that it is admitted by the ablest advocates of an unlimited
+freedom in the corn trade. "The first effect of this system," says a
+late able and learned writer on the liberal side, "_was the ruin of
+Italian agriculture_. The natural market for the corn of the Italian
+farmer was, to a great extent, destroyed by the artificial supplies
+obtained from the provinces. Hence, as Dureau de la Malle has remarked,
+(ii. 218,) the history of the seventh and eighth centuries of Rome
+presents this singular contrast--that the agriculture, the population,
+and products of Italy, diminish progressively as she extends her
+conquests and power. The fatal influence which the gratuitous supplies
+from the provinces would exercise upon the native agriculture, was
+perceived by Augustus; but he abandoned his intention of altering the
+system, from a conviction it would be restored by his successor. The
+result was, that southern and central Italy, instead of being tilled by
+a race of hardy active farmers, themselves freemen, and working on their
+own land, was divided into plantations cultivated by slaves."[57] This
+explains how it came to pass that Spanish agriculture took such a start
+from _the time of Tiberius_; and how, in the general ruin of the empire,
+Spain, Africa, and Egypt, were the only provinces which retained their
+prosperity. It will be recollected that it was in the reign of Tiberius
+that bounties were first given by the Roman government to the private
+importers of foreign grain.
+
+Of the main dependence of the Western empire in its declining days on
+Africa, not merely for the necessary supply of food, but even for the
+chief resources and strength of the state in the midst of the desolation
+of its European fields, Sismondi gives a striking account--"The loss of
+Africa was at this period, (439 after Christ,) perhaps the greatest
+calamity which the empire of the West could have undergone. It was its
+only province the defence of which cost no trouble; the only one from
+which _they drew money, arms, and soldiers, without its ever requiring
+any back_. It was at the same time the granary of Rome and of Italy. The
+gratuitous distributions of grain at Rome, Milan, and Ravenna, had, over
+the whole Italian peninsula, destroyed the cultivation of grain.
+Experience had proved that the return could not pay its expense; and the
+reason was, that the more fertile fields of Africa furnished a part of
+the harvest destined for the nourishment of the people of Italy. The
+sudden stoppage of that supply by the conquest of Africa by the Vandals,
+caused a cruel famine in Italy; which still further reduced its wretched
+inhabitants."[58] And so entirely did Constantinople become dependent on
+foreign importation of sea-borne grain from Egypt and the Ukraine for
+its support, that "when the Persians, in the year 618, overran Egypt,
+and stopped the usual supplies of grain from that province, the famine
+became so alarming, that the government determined upon transferring
+_the seat of empire to Carthage_ in Africa, as the most likely point
+from whence the dominion of Syria and Egypt might be regained."[59] The
+latter of these had long been regarded as _the most valuable province of
+the empire_.[60]
+
+When this entire dependence of the great cities in the northern parts of
+the empire, for centuries together, on Spain, Sicily, Africa, and Egypt,
+is considered, it must with every rational mind cease to be a matter of
+surprise that its west and northern provinces declined in industry and
+population; that these grain provinces to the south of the Mediterranean
+alone retained their numbers and prosperity; and that under the constant
+decline, in the European provinces, in the market for agricultural
+produce, the rural population disappeared, and the recruiting of the
+army in the country became impossible. It is not surprising that while
+they were enrolling slaves in Italy, and enlisting barbarians on the
+Danube and the Rhine, to defend the frontiers, from Africa and Spain
+alone they drew supplies both of money and soldiers, without requiring
+to send back any. The latter provinces were the granary and garden of
+the empire; the only part of it where rural industry met with
+remunerating prices or adequate encouragement. And the same
+circumstances explain in a great degree how it happened, that while the
+_rural_ districts of Italy, Greece, Asia Minor, and Romelia, were
+continually declining in population, rental, and revenue, their _towns_,
+especially on the sea-coast, were, down to the last days of their
+existence, in a flourishing condition. These towns were the seat of
+manufactures and commerce. It was by their capital that the vast corn
+trade by which all the cities of the empire were fed was carried on. It
+was their fabrics which mainly furnished the means of purchasing the
+immense proportion of this grain, which, being imported by private
+importers, required to be paid for in some species of manufactured
+produce. And the reason why grain was raised so much cheaper, and
+therefore profitably, in Egypt, Lybia, and Spain, than in Italy and
+Greece, was, partly, that the former of these countries were by nature
+blessed with a more prolific soil and a warmer sun than the latter; and,
+partly, that as Rome and Constantinople were the two capitals of the
+empire, the greater part of its wealth was attracted, either by taxes,
+tribute, or the concourse of the rich, to them, and, consequently, the
+abundance of riches rendered money cheap, labour dear, and cultivation,
+when exposed to foreign competition, unprofitable.
+
+But there was more in the case than this. Simultaneously with the vast
+and increasing importation of foreign grain, which at length destroyed
+cultivation in all the northern provinces of the empire, a _continual
+diminution of its circulating medium_ was going forward; and it was to
+the combined and cotemporaneous operation of these two causes, that the
+ruin of the empire is beyond all question to be ascribed.
+
+So early as the days of Tiberius, the abstraction of the gold and silver
+currency of the empire by the incessant drain of foreign commerce, was
+loudly complained of by the Roman writers; and there is the most
+decisive proof, that in the course of time the supply of the precious
+metals on the empire became so inadequate to the wants of its
+inhabitants, that their value was enhanced to a great and ruinous
+degree. It was the commerce of the East which first induced this
+destructive drain upon the metallic treasures of the empire. "The
+objects," says Gibbon, "of oriental traffic were splendid and trifling;
+silk--a pound of which was esteemed worth a pound of gold--precious
+stones, and a variety of aromatics, were the chief articles. The labour
+and risks of the voyage were rewarded with almost incredible profit; but
+it was made on Roman subjects, and at the expense of the public. As the
+nations of Arabia and India were contented with the produce and
+manufactures of their own country, silver, on the side of the Romans,
+was the principal, if not the only instrument of commerce. It was a
+complaint worthy of the gravity of the senate, that in the pursuit of
+female ornaments, the wealth of the state was irrecoverably given away
+to foreign and hostile nations. The annual loss is computed by a writer
+of an inquisitive but censorious temper, (Pliny,) at £800,000 sterling.
+Such was the style of discontent brooding over the dark prospect of
+approaching poverty."[61] Eight hundred thousand pounds a-year,
+equivalent to about two millions of our money, must have been a severe
+drain upon the supply of the precious metals in the Roman empire; and
+we, who have seen in 1839 the Bank of England reel, and the United
+States bank fall, under the effect of an exportation of six or seven
+millions of sovereigns to buy foreign grain in a single year, can
+appreciate the effect of such a constant drain upon a state, the
+metallic resources of which were much less considerable than those of
+England at this time.
+
+The immense importation also of African and Egyptian grain, which
+continued from the time of Tiberius down to the very close of the
+empire, must have occasioned a great additional abstraction of the
+precious metals from the Roman world. It has already been shown that a
+very small proportion of the grain imported from these distant provinces
+was remitted in the shape of tribute. By far the greater part, probably
+nineteen-twentieths of the whole supply, was imported by private
+merchants for sale, as it could be got from them cheaper than it could
+be raised at home. This imported corn, of course, required to be paid
+for in something. But the inhabitants of the countries from which it
+came--Spain, Sicily, Africa, and Egypt--for the most part slaves,
+blessed with a fine climate, requiring little covering, and nearly
+destitute of artificial wants, did not require, and could not consume,
+any considerable amount of Italian or Grecian fabrics. Thus, by far the
+greatest part of the price of the imported grain was paid in gold and
+silver, for which there is a constant demand in all countries, savage or
+civilized. A nation which imports foreign grain largely, _must_ in all
+ages export the precious metals as largely; because the corn, of course,
+is brought from those countries where it is raised the cheapest--and the
+countries where this is the case, are those where labour is cheap, money
+scarce, and artificial wants unknown. Money is what these countries
+want, and money is what their surplus produce is nearly all exchanged
+for. And this explains how it happened, that in the decline of the
+empire, Spain, Africa, and Egypt, alone retained their flourishing
+aspect, and were the only provinces from which money and soldiers could
+be obtained, while they required none. The whole commerce between them
+and Italy, or Greece, was one in which grain was exchanged for the
+precious metals; and when they once got these, great part was hoarded,
+as it now is in the East, and very little ever returned.
+
+In addition to this, the mines which supplied the Roman world failed to
+a considerable extent under the emperors. "The poverty of Greece, as of
+the whole empire," says Finlay, "was further increased _by the gradual
+rise in the value of the precious metals_; an evil which began to be
+generally felt about the time of Nero, and affected Greece with great
+severity, from the altered distribution of wealth in the country with
+which it was attended. Greece had once been rich in mines, which had
+been a source of wealth and prosperity to Siphnos and Atticus, and had
+laid the foundation of the power of Philip of Macedon. The fiscal
+measures of the Romans soon rendered it a _ruinous speculation for
+individuals to attempt working mines of the precious metals_; and, in
+the hands of the state, they soon proved unprofitable. Many mines were
+exhausted; and even _though the value of the precious metals was
+enhanced_, some mines beyond the sphere of the Roman power _were
+abandoned_ from those causes which, after the second century of the
+Christian era, produced a sensible diminution in the commercial
+transactions of the Old Hemisphere.[62] Greece shared in the general
+decay: her commerce and manufactures, being confined to supplying the
+consumption of a diminished and impoverished population, sunk into
+insignificancy. _An accumulation of debts became general throughout the
+country_, and formed an extensive evil, as already observed, in the time
+of Plutarch."[63]
+
+As this great diminution on the supply, and drain upon the treasures of
+the precious metals in the time of the emperors, lowered the value of
+every species of produce, so it proportionally augmented debts, and
+swelled the already overgrown fortunes of the capitalists. What Finlay
+says of Greece was true of the whole European provinces of the
+empire:--"_The property of the Grecian debtors was at last transferred
+to a very great extent to the Roman creditors._"[64] The gradual
+diminution in the supply of, or abstraction of the precious metals, by
+contracting the currency, lowered prices, and thus diminished the
+returns of industry; while it proportionally augmented debts, and added
+to the fortunes of the great capitalists and landholders. This again
+produced another effect upon the manners of the inhabitants of the great
+cities, which had an equally powerful effect in increasing the drain
+upon that portion of the precious metals which was employed in the
+public currency. The rich patricians of Rome, Antioch, and
+Constantinople, possessed of colossal fortunes to which nothing in
+modern times will bear a comparison, and nursed in habits of luxury and
+expense beyond any thing we can even conceive, daily augmented the
+amount of their immense incomes, which was devoted to the purposes of
+extravagance. "The historians of the second and third centuries," says
+Finlay, "are filled with lamentations on this subject."[65] It is not
+surprising that it was so. Men possessed, in private stations, of as
+much as three or four hundred thousand pounds a-year of modern money,
+could not get through their incomes without indulging in the habitual
+purchase of the most costly articles. Society in this way had come to
+verify the saying of Bacon--"Above all things, good policy is to be used
+that the treasure and money in a state _be not gathered into few hands_.
+For otherwise, a state may _have a great stock and yet starve_. And
+money is like muck, not good unless it be spread."
+
+Hence the consumption and permanent fixing of gold and silver in the
+form of plate and costly ornaments, increased in the great families down
+to the very close of the empire; and while the currency was constantly
+declining, and prices in consequence falling in the provinces, the
+colossal capitalists of Rome and Constantinople were daily absorbing
+more of the precious metals in these beautiful but unproductive objects.
+The quantity of gold and silver moulded into the form of vases, statues,
+tripods, and personal ornaments, which was accumulated in Rome at the
+time it was taken by the Goths, would exceed belief if not attested by
+the unanimous testimony of all the contemporary writers. Great part of
+it was thrown into the Tiber, where it still remains covered by the
+alluvial deposits of fourteen centuries; the most precious of the spoils
+were buried with Alaric in the bed of a stream in Calabria, where that
+redoubtable conqueror was overtaken by the common fate of mortality. The
+place where he was interred was kept a profound secret, and the slaves
+who dug his grave in the bed of the river, of which the course had been
+turned aside for the purpose, were put to death, and buried with him and
+his treasures; and the river itself was immediately let into its old
+channel, that its ceaseless flow might secure, as it since has done, the
+grave of the mighty chief from disturbance, and enable him to present
+himself loaded with his earthly spoils in the land of spirits.[66]
+
+The concurring operation of these causes produced, in the three last
+centuries of the Roman empire, a very great scarcity in the supply of
+the precious metals for the purposes of the public currency, and
+consequently a most distressing fall in prices, and diminution in the
+remuneration of industry, accompanied by a proportional increase in the
+weight of debt and taxes. And the progressive effect of these changes
+appeared in the clearest manner, in the repeated changes which were made
+by successive emperors in the value of the gold and silver coins which
+passed current in the empire. Gold became progressively so scarce in
+proportion to silver, that the proportion between the two, which at
+first had been 1 to 10 in the time of Augustus, rose in time to 1 to
+12-1/2, and was fixed by Constantine the Great at 1 to 14-2/5ths.[67] In
+consequence of this rise in the value of gold--the precise counterpart
+of what was experienced in Great Britain in the later years of the war,
+when a _light_ guinea sold for 25s.--the quantity of gold in the
+_aureus_, or chief gold Roman coin, was progressively diminished, till
+it came to contain little more than _half_ its former weight of that
+precious metal. The learned Greaves has shown, after diligent inquiry,
+that while in the time of the Antonines the _aureus_ weighed 118, in the
+time of Majorian, in the fifth century, it had come to weigh only 68
+grains.[68] This is a clear indication, that 68 grains of gold were now
+equal in value to what 118 grains had been three centuries before; for
+Majorian, by a special decree, ordered all _aurei_ of whatever reign,
+the Gallic _solidus_ alone excepted, to pass, not according to weight
+but standard.[69] That is the most decisive proof to what a grievous
+extent the currency had, from the operation of the causes which have
+been mentioned, come to be contracted; for as gold constitutes, from its
+superior value, at least nine-tenths of the circulating medium of every
+civilized state, so great a rise in its value could only have been
+occasioned by a very great contraction of the whole currency. We know in
+what state the metallic currency of Great Britain was when the _light_
+guinea was selling for twenty-five shillings.
+
+In the latter days of the empire, when the invasions of the barbarians
+began, and its provinces were liable to be pierced through and overrun
+by columns of their predatory hordes, the universal and well-founded
+terror produced a general _hoarding_ of the precious metals, which
+entirely withdrew them from circulation, until they were forced from the
+trembling inhabitants by threats of massacre or conflagration. The
+effect of this, in contracting the currency, and causing the little that
+remained to disappear altogether from the circulation, of course was
+prodigious. It lowered to almost nothing the money-price of every
+species of industry, and proportionally augmented the weight of public
+and private debts--the subject of such loud and constant complaints from
+ancient historians. Nor was this evil confined to the latest periods of
+the empire of the West--the years which immediately preceded its fall.
+From the time of Commodus, who succeeded Marcus Antoninus, the
+incursions of the barbarians into the northern provinces of the empire
+had been severely felt; and from the time of the separation of the
+empires of the East and West, they were almost perpetual, and sometimes
+extended far into its interior provinces. The effect of these alarms and
+dangers, in producing a universal disposition to hoard, and consequently
+rendering money every where scarce, prices cheap, and debts and taxes
+oppressive, was very great, and may be regarded as one of the chief
+causes of the excessive and crushing weight which the direct burdens of
+the state acquired in the later periods of the empire.
+
+The resource so well known, and so often had recourse to with the
+happiest effects, in modern times, to supply the void produced by a
+temporary or permanent drain of the precious metals, was unknown in
+antiquity. _They had no paper currency._ Even bills of exchange were
+unknown. They, as is well known, were a contrivance of the Jews, in the
+middle ages, to transport their wealth in a commodious form, when
+threatened with persecution, from one country to another. To what an
+extent paper of these various kinds has come to supply the place of gold
+and silver, may be judged of by the fact, that during the war, the paper
+currency of Great Britain and Ireland rose to £60,000,000 sterling; and
+that, at the present time, the private bills in circulation in it are
+estimated at £132,000,000 sterling. But this admirable resource, by
+which an accidental or temporary dearth of the precious metals is
+supplied by a paper currency, circulating at par with it, and fully
+supplying, as long as credit lasts, its place, was unknown in the
+ancient world. Gold, silver, and copper were their sole circulating
+mediums; and consequently, when they were progressively withdrawn, by
+the causes which have been mentioned, from the currency, there was
+nothing left to supply their place. Instantly, as if by the stroke of a
+fell necromancer, disasters of every kind accumulated on the wretched
+inhabitants. Credit was violently shaken; money disappeared; prices
+fell to a ruinous degree; industry could obtain no remuneration; the
+influence and ascendancy of realized capital became irresistible; and
+the only efficient power left in the state was that of the emperor, who
+wrenched his taxes out of the impoverished hands of his subjects, or of
+the creditors and landlords, who, by legal process, exacted their debts
+from their debtors, and drove them to desperation. This was exactly the
+social state of the empire in its declining days. We can appreciate its
+horrors, from having had a foretaste of them during the commercial
+crises with which, during the last twenty-five years, this country has
+been visited.
+
+From what has now been said, it is evident that the two circumstances
+which occasioned the fall of the Roman empire, were _the destruction of
+its domestic agriculture, by the importation of grain from its distant
+provinces, and the accumulation of debts and taxes, arising from the
+contraction of the currency_. If these causes be attentively considered,
+it will be found that they not only afford a perfect solution of its
+fall, but explain how it happened at the period it did, and had not
+occurred at an earlier period. They show what it was which, slowly but
+steadily, wasting away the vitals of the empire, successively destroyed
+its rural population and agricultural industry, and at length crushed
+its property under the increasing load of debts and taxes. They explain
+how it happened that the indirect taxes, which at first were sufficient,
+with a moderate imposition of five per cent on inheritances, to support
+the large military and naval establishments of Augustus, became
+gradually unproductive, and were at length succeeded by direct taxes on
+land, of severe, and in the end destructive amount. They show what every
+page of contemporary history demonstrates, that it was neither the
+superior military power of the barbarians, nor the diminished skill and
+courage of the legions, which occasioned the overthrow of the mighty
+fabric, but the _wasting away of its internal resources_--which was the
+real cause of its decay. They tell us that it was not the timidity of
+the legions, but _the inability of government to array them in
+sufficient strength_, which rendered them unequal to the contest with an
+enemy whom, during the vigour of the state, they had so often repelled.
+They explain how it happened that Italy and Greece had become deserts in
+their rural districts, before one of the barbarians had crossed either
+the Alps or the Hæmus and how Africa, Spain, and Egypt, alone of the
+provinces, retained their prosperity, when rural industry was wellnigh
+extinct in all the other parts of the empire. Lastly, they explain how
+it happened, that while the rural districts to the north of the
+Mediterranean were so generally relapsing into a state of desolation,
+the great cities of Greece and Italy long retained their prosperity, and
+the wealth of the capitalists and great proprietors who inhabited them,
+was continually increasing, while all other classes were ground to the
+earth under the weight of public or private burdens.
+
+It must appear, at first sight, not a little extraordinary that the very
+causes which thus evidently led to the destruction of Rome, viz., the
+unlimited importation of foreign grain and contraction of the currency,
+are those which have been most the object of the policy of the British
+government, for the last quarter of a century, by every possible means
+to promote in this country. They were imposed upon Rome by necessity.
+The extension of the empire over Spain, Africa, and Egypt, as well as
+the magnanimous policy of its government towards all its subjects,
+rendered a free trade in grain with the provinces, and large
+importations from the great corn countries, unavoidable. Public
+misfortunes, the increasing luxury of the rich, that very great
+importation of grain itself, the failure of the Spanish and Grecian
+mines, and the entire want of any paper currency to supply the place of
+the metals thus largely abstracted, necessarily and unavoidably forced
+this calamitous contraction of the currency upon the Roman empire. But
+the British policy has adopted the same principles, and done the same
+things, when _no necessity_ or external pressure rendered it
+unavoidable. A free trade in grain is to be introduced, not in favour of
+distant provinces of the empire, but of its neighbours and its enemies.
+The currency has been contracted, not by public calamities, or any
+deficiency in the means of supplying the failure of the ordinary sources
+of gold and silver, but by the fixed determination of government,
+carried into execution by repeated acts of Parliament in 1819, 1826, and
+1844, to abridge the paper circulation, and deprive the nation of the
+benefit of the great discovery of modern times, by which the calamitous
+effects of the diminution in the supply of the precious metals
+throughout the world have been so materially prevented.
+
+Such a result must appear under all circumstances strange, and would be
+inexplicable, if we did not reflect, that the same impulse which was
+communicated to the measures of government in Rome by the influence of
+the capitalists and the clamorous inhabitants of great towns, is equally
+felt in the same stage of society in modern times. The people in our
+great cities do not call out, as in ancient days, for gratuitous
+distributions of corn from Lybia or Egypt; but they clamour just as
+loudly for free trade in grain with Poland and the Ukraine, which has
+the effect of swamping the home-grower quite as completely. The great
+capitalists do not make colossal fortunes by the plunder of subject
+provinces, as in the days of the Roman proconsuls; but they never cease
+to exert their influence to procure a contraction of the currency by the
+measures of government, which answers the purpose of augmenting their
+fortunes at the expense of the industrious classes just as well.
+Political writers, social philosophers, practical statesmen, fall in
+with the prevailing disposition of _the most influential classes_; they
+deceive themselves into the belief that they are original, and
+promulgating important truths, when they are merely yielding to the
+pressure of the strongest, or at least the most noisy, class at the
+moment in society. The Reform Bill gave _three-fifths_ of the British
+representation to the members for boroughs. From that moment the
+eventual adoption of legislative measures favourable to the interests of
+capital, and agreeable to the wishes of the inhabitants of towns, how
+destructive soever to those of the country, was as certain as the daily
+distribution of Egyptian grain to the inhabitants of Rome, Antioch, and
+Constantinople was, when the mob of these cities became, from their
+formidable numbers, an object of dread to the Roman government.
+
+The only answer which the partisans of free trade in grain have ever
+attempted to these considerations is, that the ruin of the agriculture
+in the central provinces of the Roman empire was owing, not to the
+importation of foreign corn as a mercantile commodity, but to its
+_distribution gratuitously_ to the poorer citizens of Rome,
+Constantinople, and some of the larger cities in the empire. They
+_admit_, in its fullest extent, the decay of domestic agriculture, and
+consequent ruin of the state, but allege it was owing to this gratuitous
+distribution, which was in fact a poor-law, and not to the free trade in
+grain.[70] But a very little consideration must be sufficient to show
+that this is an elusory distinction; and that it was the unrestricted
+admission of foreign wheat by purchase, which in reality, coupled with
+the contraction of the currency, destroyed the dominion of the legions.
+
+1. In the first place, the number who received these gratuitous
+distributions was, as already shown, _so small_, when compared to the
+whole body of the grain-consuming population, that they could not
+materially have affected the market for agricultural produce in Italy.
+Not more than 150,000 persons received rations in Rome daily, and
+perhaps as many in the other cities of Italy. What was this in a
+peninsula containing at that period sixteen or eighteen millions of
+souls, and with 2,300,000 in its capital alone?[71] It is evident that
+the gratuitous distributions of grain, taking those at their greatest
+extent, could not have embraced a fiftieth part of the Italian
+population. What ruined the agriculturists, who used to feed the
+remaining forty-nine fiftieths? The unlimited importation of cheap grain
+from Spain, Egypt, Sicily, and Lybia, and nothing else.
+
+2. In the next place, even if the gratuitous distributions of grain had
+embraced twenty times the number which they did, nothing can be clearer
+than that the effect _on agriculture_ is the same, whether cheap foreign
+grain is imported by the private importer, or bought and distributed by
+the government. If the home-grower _loses his market_, it is the same
+thing to him whether he does so from the effects of private importation
+or public distribution; whether his formidable competitor is the
+merchant, who brings the Lybian grain to the Tiber; or the government,
+which exacts it as a tribute from Sicily or Egypt. The difference is
+very great to the _urban_ population, whether they receive their foreign
+grain in return for their own labour, or get it doled out to them from
+the government store as the price of keeping quiet. But to the _rural_
+cultivator it is immaterial, whether destruction comes upon him in the
+one way or the other. It is the _importation of foreign grain_ which
+ruins him; and the effect is the same, whether the price paid for is the
+gold of the capitalist, or the blood of the legions.
+
+
+
+
+ELINOR TRAVIS.
+
+A TALE IN THREE CHAPTERS.
+
+
+CHAPTER THE FIRST.
+
+It is now forty years since I found myself, for the first time in my
+life, in the once fashionable city of Bath. I had accompanied thither
+from London a dear friend from whom I had parted two years before at
+Oxford; a man as noble as ingenuous, as gentle as he was brave. Few men
+could boast the advantages enjoyed by Rupert Sinclair. Born of noble
+blood, of a family whose peerage had been raised upon the foundation of
+a huge wealth, handsome in person, intellectual, well-informed,
+enthusiastic and aspiring, he bred a fascination around his existence
+which it was difficult to resist. I had already graduated when Rupert
+Sinclair entered Christ Church as a gentleman commoner; I was, moreover,
+his senior by five years, yet from the moment I saw him until the hour
+of his decease--with one painful interregnum--we were firm and
+unflinching friends. He was sent to the university, like others of his
+rank, to acquire such knowledge of men and books as a temporary
+residence--and that alone--in an atmosphere of mingled learning and
+frivolity, is generally supposed to impart. His father looked upon all
+book knowledge as superfluous, except in a parson or schoolmaster; his
+lady mother would have been shocked to find him, whether at Oxford or
+elsewhere, any thing but the gay and fashionable nonentity which her
+taste and experience had taught her to regard as the perfection of God's
+fair creation. Lord Railton was a courtier, and affected to be a
+politician; her ladyship was a woman of fashion. It is surprising to me
+that, with their views of a nobleman's duties at Oxford, they should
+have thought it necessary to procure for their son the services of one
+who had nothing better to offer for his amusement, than the poor
+learning he had picked up at Eton and elsewhere, to dole out again to
+the best advantage, for the support of himself and widowed mother. I
+ought rather to say it was surprising to me _then_. I have grown wiser
+since. A tutor was necessary to the position of Lord Railton's son, and
+it was my happiness to be chosen the instructor of Rupert Sinclair.
+Every possible pains had been taken to ruin the intellect and impair the
+moral faculties of the youth. His earliest teachers had been strictly
+enjoined to give him no tasks which should subject him to the slightest
+inconvenience, and were forbidden, under pain of dismissal, to ruffle
+the serenity of his temper, or intercept the slightest movement of his
+mind, however cross or wayward. Rupert in his very cradle had been
+taught, both by precept and example, that his equals in rank were his
+fellow creatures, and that all below him were--creatures, it is true,
+but the fellows of one another, and not of him and such as he; that the
+men to whose virtue, discretion, and conduct he was confided--his
+TEACHERS--were--oh, mockery of mockeries!--his dependents and inferiors,
+and necessary to him as his nurse or footman, but not a whit more so!
+Lord Railton was a tyrant, self-willed and imperious by nature, and as
+cold-blooded and selfish as a superadded artistocratic education could
+render him. He saw little of his children, whom he terrified when he did
+see them, and busied himself in this world with little more than the
+intrigues and plots of the political junto to whom he was bound by a
+community of interests, rather than affectionately attached. It is my
+firm belief that miracles have not ceased upon the earth. Invisible
+angels interpose now, as did the living saints of old, to repair the
+faults and infirmities of nature, and by a suspension of our ordinary
+laws to proclaim the might and mercy of the Divinity. How but by a
+miracle could the character of Rupert Sinclair have belied the natural
+reasoning of all ordinary mortals, exhibiting the utter annihilation of
+the intimate connexion of cause and effect, and the independence of the
+infant soul, when God so wills it, of the machinations of the wicked,
+and the vicious trifling of the foolish? The good sense of the youth had
+strengthened and increased under the enervating system which would have
+destroyed a weaker brain and a less honest heart. I was the tutor of
+Sinclair, but I suffered him to sketch out his own plan of study. His
+mother had not failed to forward me the usual instructions respecting
+the treatment of her darling child; but had she been silent I should not
+have insisted upon a strict adherence to the college system with one
+who, neither in the university nor in the world, to which he was about
+to be summoned, would be tasked to remember or repeat one syllable of
+his lessons. Great is the temptation to dwell upon these early days of
+our attachment; for, alas! a pang must wait upon the pen when it traces
+the last record of a period unclouded by grief. An account of the
+earliest springtime that promised so fair a summer and harvest, is, it
+is true, not necessary to the main plot of the drama I have undertaken
+to write; but one of its chief characters can hardly be thoroughly
+understood without some reference to his conduct and pursuits previously
+to the commencement of the action. To say that I was prepossessed in
+favour of my pupil after my first conversation with him, is to say but
+little. I was at once surprised, delighted, and charmed. I had expected
+to receive a spoiled child of fortune; a giddy, self-willed, arrogant,
+and overbearing boy. I met with one whose demeanour was gentle, modest,
+and sedate. A childlike simplicity governed his manners; reflection and
+sound judgment his discourse. Long before the close of my young friend's
+academical career I had gained his entire confidence--he my heart; and
+_at_ the close of it, I had not occasion to change one opinion or one
+sentiment entertained for my charge at the commencement of our
+friendship; so transparent are the minds of the ingenuous, and of those
+whom nature shelters from the baleful influences of life. It must,
+however, be stated, that in the all but perfect specimen of humanity
+presented to the world in the person of Rupert Sinclair, there existed
+one flaw to convict it of mortality, and to establish its relation with
+universal error. The simplicity spoken of as characteristic of the man,
+degenerated into weakness; faith in the goodness of his fellow-creatures
+into glaring credulity. It is a singular fact, and one that must be
+accounted for by those who have made the _Mind_ an especial study, that
+whilst no man was quicker in detecting the slightest indication of his
+own imperfection in another, no one could be less conscious of its
+existence in himself, or less alive to imposition, the moment it was
+practised under his own eye, and against his own good-nature. How many
+times, during his residence in Oxford, Rupert Sinclair became the
+victim of the unprincipled and the sharper, I will not venture to say,
+prepared as I am to assert that no discovery of falsehood and imposture
+ever convinced him of the folly of his benevolence, or of the
+worthlessness of the objects upon whom his favours had been showered.
+The world is said to be divided into two classes; into those who suspect
+all men until they are proved honest, and those who believe all men
+honest until they are proved to be false. The name of Rupert Sinclair
+might be written in neither category. He not only believed the world to
+be good prior to experience, but he denied it to be bad, let experience
+succeed as it might in convicting it of evil.
+
+It was exactly two years after Sinclair quitted Oxford, that I received
+a letter from him, requesting me to meet him in London as soon after the
+receipt of his letter as my engagements would permit. The long vacation
+had again commenced. Rupert was no longer a student, or, to speak more
+correctly, books had now become the solace and recreation of his leisure
+hours, rather than the business of his life. To please his fond and very
+foolish mother, he had accepted a commission in the Guards. The small
+ambition of Lady Railton was consummated the moment her noble boy
+appeared in her drawing-room "en grande tenue;" as for the peer, he was
+too absorbed in his own diplomacy to interfere with that of her
+ladyship, in whose knowledge of the world and sound discretion he placed
+unbounded faith. I attended to the summons of Sinclair without delay.
+Upon arriving in London I went to his hotel, and found him recovering
+from a fit of illness which at one period had threatened his life, but
+of which he had as yet kept his family in ignorance. He had been
+recommended by his physicians to try the waters and mild temperature of
+Bath; and he was willing to obey them, provided I would become his
+companion. My time was my own, and I loved Sinclair too well to throw an
+obstacle in his way, had not the offer itself been temptation enough to
+one who had passed so many months of physical inactivity, without one
+holiday, in the dusty gloominess of college rooms. In the course of two
+days our preparations were made, and we quitted London.
+
+A week glided by in happy idleness. The invalid, compelled to keep his
+room for many hours of the day, was thrown upon his resources, and upon
+such as I could command for his amusement. The past is always a pleasant
+subject of discourse where the speakers are young, and the past is a day
+of sunshine, still lingering and warm. The days we had seen were bright
+enough, and to speak of them was to bring them back in all their recent
+freshness. Rupert was twenty-one, and he wondered at the ingratitude of
+man that called this world a scene of strife and misery. I was
+twenty-six, and as yet without a calamity. I had never known my father;
+and I had maintained my mother in comfort for many years. I had yet to
+part with _her_.
+
+Another week, and the invalid was convalescent. The walks were extended
+and the prescriptions torn up. Invitations came and were accepted. A
+distant relative of Lady Railton was in Bath. Sinclair visited her, and
+was the next day a guest at her table. There was another guest there.
+Her name was ELINOR TRAVIS.
+
+Twenty times, on the day I speak of, had Sinclair resolved not to keep
+his engagement, but to send an apology to Mrs Twisleton, and to return
+to London on the following morning. He had become tired, he said, of
+idleness, and the frivolities that surrounded us. One word of
+encouragement from me, and Sinclair would _not_ have dined with Mrs
+Twisleton, would _not_ have met with _her_ who gave the colouring to his
+future life, would _not_ have blasted every----but I must not
+anticipate.
+
+General Travis and his family were amongst the most fashionable of the
+gay multitude then resident at Bath. They lived in first-rate style, and
+gathered about them all who aspired to a position in that upper world
+peopled pre-eminently by the "ton." The general was reputed a man of
+enormous wealth, and his banker's book procured for him the respect that
+was denied him in Debrett. The general was the father of two
+children--daughters--Elinor and Adela. His wife was also living. They
+were all, according to report, essentially dashing people. So much I
+knew of them at the period of Sinclair's first acquaintance with the
+ill-fated Elinor.
+
+After dining with Mrs Twisleton, Sinclair altered his mind. His
+departure was delayed. Within a day or two he was again invited to Mrs
+Twisleton's, and again he met the general and his family. Well, there
+was nothing to excite suspicion in all this! Sinclair said nothing; no
+observation escaped me. I concluded that a few days would put an end to
+the new interest that had been raised, and that we should return to
+London as quietly as we had left it. I was grievously mistaken.
+
+Since our arrival in Bath we had been early risers, and our habits
+generally somewhat primitive. Suddenly Sinclair took it into his head to
+walk without me for an hour or so before breakfast. He invariably looked
+flushed and confused on his return. At least I thought so. I was
+puzzled, but still said nothing.
+
+I had been favoured by Mrs Twisleton with one or two invitations to
+dinner, but had never cared to accept them. I resolved, should
+opportunity again offer, to accompany Sinclair to this lady's house.
+Whilst waiting, somewhat impatiently and in vain, for another invitation
+from Mrs Twisleton, a grand ball was announced at General Travis's, and
+Sinclair was in the number of the favoured guests. He was requested to
+bring his friend. "His friend" did not refuse.
+
+There were in truth grandeur, profusion, and style sufficient in the
+entertainments of that evening. No additional outlay could have added to
+the sumptuous provision that was made for the gratification and delight
+of every sense. Eye and ear were ravished by the luxuries set before
+them, and the grosser appetites were not forgotten. What Indian wealth!
+What princely hospitality! Well might the general be esteemed the most
+royal of entertainers. Nobility lost none of its prerogative in mixing
+in such a scene as this, upon which an emperor might have descended with
+no dishonour to his ermine. I experienced for a time the full power of
+the enchantment, and acknowledged, against my will, the sovereign
+dominion of Mammon. I was presented to my hostess and the general. The
+former was a woman of fifty or thereabouts, delicately formed, pale, and
+somewhat sickly-looking; there were traces of feminine beauty on her
+countenance, but, such as they were, retreating rapidly before disease
+or care, or some ailment hidden from the looker-on. She seemed more like
+a gentle handmaiden than the mistress of the happy feast. The general
+was of another race of beings. He stood six feet two, but his extreme
+height was modified by the admirable proportions of his frame. He was
+firmly built, and but for a certain unsatisfactory expression in his
+countenance, might have been considered one of the handsomest men of his
+day. This expression it is not easy to describe. It proceeded from his
+eye, and seemed to communicate with all his features, leaving the stamp
+of low cunning upon every one. The eye was large and grey, and very
+restless; always in motion; always attempting to convey more than the
+inner man would answer for, or the observer take for granted. It had a
+volubility of expression like his tongue, and both bespoke their owner
+no efficient actor.
+
+"You look magnificent to-night," said Sinclair, addressing the general
+after my introduction.
+
+"So, so, with slender opportunities!" said the general. "See us in
+London, my young friend. No place in the world like London for the
+exercise of a man's genius--a woman's it should be said, to-night, for
+Elinor is the presiding genius here. Have you ever seen these flowers?
+Pretty, eh? Her handiwork."
+
+Sinclair trifled for a moment with an exquisite specimen of artificial
+flowers, adorning an alabaster vase; but he gave no answer.
+
+"Have you seen her to-night?" continued the general.
+
+"Not yet."
+
+"She's with the Indian Yahoo, no doubt. He arrived this afternoon, and
+she will give him no rest. She has engaged him for the first four
+quadrilles, that she may hear the natural history of the Chimpanzee
+without interruption, which her cousin has promised to relate to her at
+the first convenient opportunity."
+
+"Her cousin has arrived then?" asked Sinclair, turning slightly pale.
+
+"This very day. Our information is quite correct. His mother, the Begum,
+is dead, and has left him enough in jewels to purchase an empire. The
+specie found in chests is immense. A lucky dog, with that brown face of
+his! If it were as black as soot, he might command a duchess. Elinor and
+he are first cousins, and are much attached, although they haven't seen
+each other for years."
+
+As the general spoke, music struck up, and a movement in our immediate
+neighbourhood announced the approach of dancers. Amongst them was a
+young and lovely woman. Her arm was in that of a small man, with a
+copper-coloured face and disgusting features. His beautiful partner,
+more beautiful by the contrast, looked proud of her prize, which, if I
+correctly interpreted the admiring gaze of the assembly, was coveted for
+one reason or another by every dowager and unmarried woman in the room.
+I felt an instinctive longing to smother the Yahoo.
+
+Inexpressibly lovely looked Elinor Travis, as she gracefully led off the
+merry dance. She had reached her twentieth year, and was in the full
+glory of her womanhood. Tall, yet exquisitely moulded, she left nothing
+for fancy to desire or imagination to create. Her dark and animated eye
+sparkled with living joy, and her perfect features were illuminated by
+its fire. I had never before beheld a creature so richly endowed with
+natural gifts; one who united in her person so much grace, sculpture,
+and expression; and yet, strange to say, the feeling all inspired was
+the very opposite to that which might have been expected. The
+consciousness of beauty was too definitely written upon that brow. That
+melting eye had inherited too much of the worldliness that played about
+the eager vision of her sire. Maidenly modesty and retirement were
+wanting to elevate and dignify mere voluptuousness. I was repulsed
+rather than attracted by a form, which, had it been more feminine, might
+have served for an angel; and as it was, was not sufficiently divine for
+a mortal woman. Such was my first impression, formed almost upon the
+instant. It never was removed.
+
+Sinclair and I looked on. The spirits of Elinor were exuberant. She
+laboured as it seemed, under more than ordinary excitement. She laughed
+and chatted with her tawny partner with a delight which it was
+impossible for such a copper monster to create. The gaiety of the lady
+had but one effect upon her partner. At short intervals he opened his
+jaws and exhibited his teeth to the company. Having rivalled a hyena in
+the hideousness of his grin, he closed the jaws and hid his molars. Far
+different was the effect upon another. It took but a very little time to
+discover that Rupert Sinclair had not been proof against the charms of
+this darling of nature. His heart had felt her witchery, and his spirit
+was enchained--not utterly and irretrievably, I fondly trusted, for I
+knew his worth, and could not willingly entrust him to such doubtful
+keeping. Elinor Travis was not the wife for Rupert Sinclair. Thanks to
+the Yahoo, my fears at first were not alarming; still it was vexatious
+enough to behold the pain with which Sinclair evidently regarded the
+good fortune of the Indian, and the complacency with which the monster
+received the favour of one of the loveliest of her sex. Once during the
+dance, the change of the figure brought the lady within a few feet of
+Sinclair. Her back was towards him, but, as if aware of his vicinity,
+she turned round and cast the lustre of her full eye upon him. She
+smiled, and archly nodded. Rupert shook like a leaf; the colour mounted
+to his cheek, and his heart beat almost audibly. I grew alarmed. My
+faith in the Yahoo was shaken, and I trembled for my friend. The
+position of the dancers was again reversed. Elinor faced us. Her eye
+once more was fixed upon Rupert, but this time, as I believed, exulting
+in triumph. Could it be possible that she was aware of her influence,
+and that she inhumanly trifled with this man's affection? What meant
+that ardent gaze and that triumphant smile? As the general had informed
+us, so it happened. The Yahoo danced four quadrilles with Elinor, and
+then vouchsafed the loan of his blackness to other ladies for the rest
+of the evening. Miss Travis being at liberty, I proposed to Rupert an
+adjournment to our hotel. The gentleman, in answer, started up and
+secured the hand of Elinor for the next dance. His chair at my side was
+filled on the instant by the general himself. I listened and replied to
+the questions of the latter as well as I could, watching every movement,
+step, and gesture of the young sorcerer and her victim.
+
+"Your friend, Mr Wilson, is not so gay as usual. What has happened?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"You return to London, I believe, in"----
+
+The general paused.
+
+"Mr Sinclair's leave of absence," I answered, "will soon expire."
+
+"A gentle-spirited man, Mr Wilson. He does you credit."
+
+"He owes me little, general," I answered. "Providence has been bountiful
+to him."
+
+"Strange! And his father, they say, is as great a brute."
+
+"Lord Railton," I said, "is not so amiable as his son."
+
+"Proud and overbearing! But a magnificent rent-roll though! His son does
+not appear a man of the world. Vastly good-natured, but he wants fire
+and character."
+
+"Mr Sinclair does not do himself justice," I replied. "There is more in
+him than meets the eye."
+
+"You are a scholar, Mr Wilson," suddenly exclaimed the general, "and can
+appreciate a literary curiosity. Do me the favour to accompany me to my
+study. I have a Greek manuscript which I picked up in Samaria, and which
+they tell me is invaluable."
+
+Before I could reply, the general was on his legs, and conducting me to
+his room. The dance was still proceeding.
+
+"I am a simple man, sir," said the general when we reached the
+apartment, "and very moderate in my desires. We are often called
+avaricious when we are simply prudent. I despise wealth but for the sake
+of my children. There," he exclaimed suddenly, showing me a
+jewel-case--"there's stuff that would buy up Bath."
+
+"Indeed!"
+
+"What do you imagine this to be, Mr Wilson?" next inquired the general,
+holding up a folded letter.
+
+"I cannot guess!" said I.
+
+"An offer of a peerage. Why should I accept it? I have no son, and am
+without personal ambition. The world do not give men credit for such
+self-denial. You are a constant visitor at Sackville Park, I presume?"
+
+"No, in truth. I have been there but once."
+
+"Lady Railton doats upon her son, I believe?"
+
+"A very fond mother," I replied.
+
+The general eyed me suspiciously, and went no further; but he produced
+forthwith his manuscript from Samaria. It was really a curiosity in its
+way, being a transcript of one of the gospels in a dialect which I had
+never before seen, and of which, I think, but few specimens can remain.
+But I had a fidgety desire to get back to the ball-room, which prevented
+any thing like a satisfactory inspection of the precious document.
+
+"Shall we return, general?" I asked.
+
+"By all means," said the general, evincing at the same time no
+disposition to budge. "I trust, Mr Wilson," he continued, "that you will
+be no stranger at our house. We are humble people, as you see us, but we
+have friends at court. A man of your talents should command preferment;
+but these are sad times, and the best fare ill enough without a helping
+hand. I stand well with the premier."
+
+"No doubt, deservedly," said I. "You have probably seen much service,
+general?"
+
+"A little, a little;" replied the soldier with mock humility. "But as to
+yourself, Mr Wilson, they must make a bishop of you."
+
+"Oh, general!" said I with unnecessary modesty.
+
+"Ah, but I say they must! Leave that to me. We want sound and good men
+like yourself at the head of the church. Methodism must be put down. It
+is increasing frightfully. Vigorous and learned men are required to
+cope with it."
+
+"Methodism," said I, with becoming warmth, "is undoubtedly a great curse
+to the church at the present moment, and every honest churchman is
+bound, to the extent of his ability, to oppose its further progress."
+
+"My own words, Mr Wilson; and I beg you not to suspect me of flattery
+when I tell you that half a dozen men like yourself would do more to
+bring back a salutary state of things than any legal enactments they
+could contrive. Sinclair has told me of your energy, high honour, and
+attainments, and it would be a sin to suffer them to be inactive."
+
+I confess I shall never forgive myself for having patiently, nay
+somewhat greedily, swallowed such monstrous and glaring trash as that
+above related, and for having been cajoled by it into spending one long
+half hour with my wily general in his study. I left the room at length,
+in a state of heroic excitement, and in time to discover that Rupert
+Sinclair and his partner had quitted the apartment in which I had
+previously left them.
+
+There remained upon my mind no longer a doubt of Rupert's attachment to
+this lovely woman, and I contemplated its issue with no feeling of
+gratification or delight. Notwithstanding the agreeable communications
+of the general, I could not thoroughly trust him; and as for the young
+lady herself, as I have already hinted, she was as adapted to the mild
+nature of Sinclair as a lioness to a lamb. What would Lord Railton say
+to the match? What would Lady Railton do, with her sublimated notions of
+marquises and dukes? I deplored the ill luck that had brought us to
+Bath, and resolved to carry the youth back whilst he still remained
+master of his actions. But where was he? I sought him in vain in every
+public room of the house. Neither he nor the syren could be found. Vexed
+and hurt, although I scarcely knew why, I determined to quit the place,
+and to return to the hotel. Attached to the general's house was a
+spacious pleasure garden, and upon the occasion of this fête it was
+studded with a number of small lamps, which cast a picturesque and
+oriental gleam in parts, leaving the remaining portion of the ground in
+deeper shade. The night was lovely. Passing the door that led into the
+garden, I turned into the latter, almost without a thought. Visitors
+were there before me, and to escape them I retired into the gloom.
+Within a few yards of me passed the pair of whom I had been in search.
+The arm of Sinclair was twined around the waist of Elinor, and his head
+was bent on the ground. They advanced, and were soon beyond my ken. I
+still heard their steps; but suddenly these ceased. The lovers had
+stopped, and to my great discomfort they spoke.
+
+"You do not know him," said a voice that did no dishonour to the coral
+lips through which it came. "His heart is fixed upon this hated match."
+
+"You smiled upon him, Elinor," said Rupert, in a voice of emotion; "you
+gave him hope."
+
+"For your sake, Sinclair, I smiled upon the man I hated; for your dear
+sake. The least suspicion of the truth, and we are ruined. I cannot have
+you banished from me."
+
+"What is to be done?" exclaimed Rupert in despair.
+
+I could hear no more. The voices dissolved into whispers, and these soon
+ceased. The fate of Rupert Sinclair was sealed.
+
+Now, what was my course at this alarming crisis? What steps did it
+behove me--the friend, tutor, and counsellor of Rupert Sinclair--to take
+at such a moment as this, when the happiness of his whole life was about
+to be decided? Was there, in fact, any thing to do? Had not Sinclair
+already reached that point at which remonstrance is vain, and advice
+impertinent? And why should I remonstrate at all? What had I to say
+against a union with a lovely and accomplished woman, whose father had
+perhaps wealth enough to buy off the prejudices of Lord and Lady
+Railton, had they been ten times as bigoted as they really were? What
+could I produce against the young lady herself but a prejudice formed at
+first sight, and perhaps as unfounded as it had been hastily adopted?
+Was not Sinclair old enough to select his partner for himself; and when
+did interference in the delicate affairs of love ever lead to any thing
+but the confusion of the intruder, and the acceleration of the mischief
+he absurdly hoped to prevent? I was at the height of my perplexity when
+Sinclair returned to me. I heard his footsteps at the door, and
+immediately plunged into my bedroom.
+
+Next morning I was awake betimes, but Rupert was up before me. Indeed,
+when I beheld him, I doubted whether he had been to rest at all. He
+looked haggard and distressed. I took my cue from his downcast
+appearance.
+
+"Rupert," said I, "it is my intention to quit Bath."
+
+"When?" he inquired.
+
+"Possibly to-day. To-morrow at the furthest."
+
+Rupert sighed.
+
+"We return together, I presume?" said I in continuation.
+
+"Wilson," answered Rupert, in a tone of kindness, "I have never deceived
+you yet; I will not deceive you now. Nor shall you suffer in any way
+from acts of mine. I cannot leave this place. It is not expedient that
+you should stay."
+
+"Your leave of absence soon expires," I said.
+
+"I shall not fail to be at my duty, Wilson," continued Sinclair. "But
+there is important business to do before I leave this city."
+
+"You have entered, Rupert, into some rash engagement."
+
+"Into an engagement--yes; not rashly, I believe; for I have held
+consultation with my heart--deep, earnest communings, that have
+sanctioned my fondest inclination."
+
+"Beware, Sinclair!" I answered. "In some cases, the heart is no safe
+monitor; and inclination and conviction become convertible terms."
+
+"You know my secret, Wilson."
+
+"I can guess it."
+
+"You saw her last night. I wished you to see her. I desired to hear from
+your lips a confirmation of the regard she has inspired in one"----
+
+I shook my head.
+
+"You are right--you are right," proceeded Sinclair, hastily. "You shall
+not speak. You shall not even tell me how divine a being Heaven has
+placed within my reach. You shall not be involved in the calamity which
+an irrevocable act may bring upon two whose crime it is to love too
+well."
+
+"Rupert," I replied, "I am not disposed to desert you at so critical a
+period of our life. We are both young. You are enthusiastic; your good
+opinion of mankind has before now led you into error. Have you well
+pondered on this step? Can you rely on Elinor Travis."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Is she as brave as she is gentle--as faithful as she is fair?"
+
+"I would answer for her with my life."
+
+"Yes, or with twenty lives, if you had them, for the venture. Yet you
+have not known her long."
+
+"Long enough to value and to love her. Does it require an age to
+discover truthfulness so palpable as hers?"
+
+"I have done, Sinclair," said I. "God grant you may be happy!"
+
+"You return to London, then?"
+
+"Such is my intention."
+
+"You do wisely. I would not have you stay with me. You must be clear
+from all participation in this business, let it end as it may. I know my
+father. His anger and his vengeance, however undeserved, would fall on
+you."
+
+"Would these were my greatest fears!" I answered, with a sigh.
+
+"Fear not for _me_, Wilson. The happiness of your friend is bound up
+with that of Elinor Travis. I tell you, in all sincerity, I cannot live
+without her. Fate decrees our movements. No woman but she has made me
+conscious of that great fountain of love which lies within the bosom of
+us all--none has had power to direct the stream, and to enchain me,
+heart and soul, to her will."
+
+"And should that will," I quickly urged, "be found as evil as
+resistless"----
+
+"Prove it so, and its power ceases on the instant. No; it is resistless,
+because virtuous and pure. I submit to an enchantment, but it is
+practised by a fairy as good as she is beautiful."
+
+It was useless to argue so abstruse a point with so interested and
+impassioned a reasoner. I remained silent.
+
+"One promise I must exact from you," continued Sinclair. "In passing
+through London, you will not see my father."
+
+"I shall not wait upon his lordship," I replied.
+
+"Nor mention, if you please, one syllable of this affair, should chance
+bring you together. For the present, I have sufficient reasons for
+wishing you to keep my secret sacred. In good time all will be known."
+
+"You shall be obeyed, of course."
+
+"Thanks," said Sinclair, grasping my hand, and holding it
+affectionately: "all will be well, I trust."
+
+For the rest of the day, the subject was not revived. I begged Sinclair
+to follow his own pleasure, without reference to me, and to leave me to
+the few arrangements necessary before departure. He insisted, however,
+upon spending the last day with me; and during many hours of
+well-remembered intercourse, he evinced a friendliness and affectionate
+regard such as I had never before experienced--even from him. We sat
+together until the early hour of morning chid us to our beds.
+
+"There is still one thing to say," said Sinclair, when we parted for the
+night, "and it had better be communicated now. Heaven knows, Wilson,
+when and where shall be our next meeting. It may be soon; it may be
+never. Death to one of us--a hundred circumstances may interfere between
+our hopes and their fruition. I have desired to tell you, many times,
+what I am sure you will not hear unkindly, although the fear of
+offending you has kept me silent. Yet, you ought to know it. I am sure
+your peace of mind will be secured when you know that the present
+enjoyments of your mother can, under no circumstances, ever be
+decreased. I have taken care, should any thing happen to yourself or me,
+that her latter days shall remain as peaceful as you, her faithful son,
+have rendered them."
+
+I would have spoken to my friend and benefactor, but could not. I shook
+his hand cordially, and an honest tear told him my gratitude. So we
+parted, as I half feared for ever; for his words and actions were full
+of evil omen.
+
+Upon reaching my bedroom on this eventful evening, the first thing that
+caught my eye was a mysterious document lying on the table--a lady's
+note. "A mistake," thought I, approaching the unusual visitor. Not so;
+it was addressed to me. I opened it, and read. It ran as follows:--
+
+     "Dear sir--Pardon my abruptness. As a friend of Mr Rupert Sinclair,
+     I entreat five minutes' conversation. I shall be at home to-morrow
+     at noon. Pray, come. His happiness depends upon your punctuality.
+     Keep this communication secret.--Yours, &c.,
+
+     "CHARLOTTE TWISLETON."
+
+The plot was thickening with a vengeance. What could this mean? And what
+was I to do? Clearly to wait upon the lady, as directed, to postpone my
+departure, to forfeit my fare, and to mix myself deeper than ever in a
+mystery, which, trusting to appearances, was likely to end in the ruin
+of Mr Rupert Sinclair, and his more luckless tutor. Taking care to avoid
+Sinclair in the morning, I directed his servant to acquaint him with my
+change of views; and quitted the hotel some hour or two before the time
+fixed for the anxious interview. Punctually at noon, I presented myself
+at Mrs Twisleton's door. My alarm was intense when I reached that lady's
+apartment. She had evidently been waiting my arrival with extreme
+impatience. Before I could speak or bow, she rushed towards me, and
+exclaimed--
+
+"Is it over, sir? Is he gone?"
+
+"What over, madam?" I answered. "Who gone?"
+
+"Mr Sinclair. Is he married?"
+
+"Married?"
+
+"Yes. Married. They are to be, if they are not already. Take him to
+town, sir. Drag him away. We shall be ruined."
+
+I had thought so for the last four-and-twenty hours; but I had certainly
+not included Mrs Twisleton in the calculation.
+
+"Mr Thompson," continued the lady, forgetting my name in her anxiety,
+"Lord Railton will go raving mad if this should come about. We shall all
+be punished. I know him well. You, for having brought Mr Sinclair here;
+I, for having introduced him to the impostors; and himself for having
+been caught in their snares. And he is a powerful man, and has the means
+to punish us."
+
+He had certainly the means of punishing Mrs Twisleton; for her son, at
+college, had been already promised the next presentation to a valuable
+living in Yorkshire. Her fears on my account were hardly so well
+founded.
+
+"Look here, Mr Wilson," said Mrs Twisleton, hurrying to her
+writing-desk, and taking from it a letter, which she placed in my hands.
+"Read that."
+
+I ran my eye over the document. It was from a female correspondent in
+London and it conjured Mrs Twisleton to avoid all connexion whatever
+with General Travis and his too fascinating family. The general was
+described as a bold bad man, utterly ruined, involved beyond the
+possibility of recovery, a mere hanger-on of fashion, an adventurer. His
+wife was spoken of as a mere simple instrument in his hand; naturally
+disposed to goodness, but perverted by the cruel necessity of her
+position. But what said this timely--oh, if but timely!--informer
+respecting _her_ whose name I greedily sought out in these disastrous
+pages? I grew sick as I proceeded in the narrative. Elinor Travis--so
+said the letter--was a clever, subtle, accomplished, and designing
+woman. Numerous had been her flirtations, not few her conquests; but the
+game she had brought down, it had never been worth the general's while
+to bag. The general had been a great traveller. He had passed some years
+in India. During his residence there, the fair fame of Elinor Travis had
+been--oh, horror!--sullied; falsely so, some said; but still sullied.
+She had loved an officer with whom, it was reported--I read no more.
+
+"The writer of this letter, madam," I asked--"is she trustworthy?"
+
+"Alas! alas! yes," exclaimed Mrs Twisleton, in despair.
+
+"It must be prevented by all and every means," I continued.
+
+"We are still safe then?"
+
+"Yes, although I cannot answer for an hour. He must be spoken to,
+remonstrated with"----
+
+"Threatened," added Mrs Twisleton, stamping with her foot. "Any thing to
+save us."
+
+"I will appeal to his reason."
+
+"Then we are lost," said the lady, emphatically. "That family never
+listened to reason yet."
+
+"Do you know," I enquired, "this great foreigner whom they call the
+Yahoo?"
+
+"Oh, no! no!" exclaimed Mrs Twisleton, shaking her head impatiently. "I
+don't know any of them. I disown them all; they are all impostors. I
+said so from the beginning. Oh, Mr Wilson, what _can_ he have to do with
+it? How can you talk so idly?"
+
+"Mrs Twisleton," said I, "have I your permission to communicate the
+contents of this letter to Mr Sinclair?"
+
+"Yes, but never mention my name in the matter. Take the address of the
+writer, and communicate with her yourself. Save your friend, and make
+your fortune. Get us all well out of the scrape, and then depend upon me
+for speaking about you to his lordship. He shall know the part you have
+played; and no man can be more generous than Lord Railton when the fit
+is on him."
+
+"Do not trouble yourself, madam, on my account," I replied. "This letter
+I will borrow, with your leave, for awhile. There is not a moment to
+lose. The next hour may prove fatal to the interests of our unfortunate
+friend."
+
+I had not spoken before Mrs Twisleton pulled the bell violently, shook
+my hand eagerly, and urged me to the door. Within ten minutes, I was
+face to face with Sinclair.
+
+"Sinclair," said I, "you must return to London with me."
+
+"What has happened, then?" he inquired.
+
+"You stand on a precipice," I continued. "Advance but another step, and
+you are lost."
+
+"Translate your language, friend," said Rupert, "and suffer me at least
+to understand you."
+
+"You are mistaken, Sinclair--cruelly deceived."
+
+"What, again?" he asked, with a smile.
+
+"Yes, again and again. No experience teaches you. No conviction reaches
+your judgment. Will you listen to me, and believe me?"
+
+"I will listen to you."
+
+"The family of General Travis are not what you suppose them. I can prove
+them unworthy your confidence and affection. Will you link your fate
+with that of one who"----
+
+I hesitated.
+
+"Go on," said Sinclair, calmly.
+
+"Read, read for yourself!" I exclaimed, placing the letter I had
+received from Mrs Twisleton, without further ceremony, in his hands.
+
+He did read--every line, without the smallest surprise or
+perturbation--and then folded the document, and gave it back to me. I
+thought him mad.
+
+"This is no news to me, Wilson," he said quietly. "I have been put on my
+guard respecting these slanderers. Their baseness does not take me by
+surprise. The trick is a poor one."
+
+"The trick!"
+
+"Yes; if it deserve no harsher name. What know you of the writer of that
+letter?"
+
+I had but one answer to give to that question--"Nothing." And the name
+of Mrs Twisleton was sacred.
+
+"I thought so," proceeded Rupert. "Every assertion contained in that
+precious document has already met with a sufficient refutation. I know
+_my_ informant, and can rely upon _my_ information; advantages of which,
+dear Wilson, you cannot boast."
+
+"Sinclair," I replied, with warmth, "remember what passed between us
+yesterday. 'Prove,' said you, 'that Elinor Travis is less good than
+beautiful and her influence ceases from that moment.' Give me time to
+prove it, or to ask your pardon and hers for as much as I have said
+already. I must exact this from you. It is all I ask. With this document
+before me, I can demand no less."
+
+"Do as you will. What do you propose?"
+
+"To go at once to town; to seek out the writer of this letter, and to
+obtain from her proofs of her allegations which even you must respect
+and listen to. If I fail to secure them, you shall be pained no more by
+interference of mine."
+
+"Be it so," said Sinclair; "I await your return here."
+
+Upon the evening of this day I was in London, and on the following
+morning at the residence of the lady whom I sought. Ill luck attended my
+steps. She was ill, and could not be seen. For a week I remained in
+London, unable to gain an interview, or to communicate with her. I
+obtained the name of her physician, waited upon him, and asked him to
+convey a letter from me to his patient. It was impossible. It was of the
+highest consequence to keep the lady tranquil. In every post I wrote to
+Sinclair, informing him of my disappointment, and conjuring him to take
+no steps until my mind, as well as his, was satisfied. He returned no
+answer to my communications, but I relied upon his friendship. Upon the
+eighth day of my absence, sick to death with impatience and idleness,
+and no nearer to my object than on the first day of my arrival, I
+resolved to return to Bath, and to remain with my friend until I should
+receive intelligence of the lady's convalescence. Something might be
+done by remonstrance and entreaty. To leave him to himself, was to give
+up every chance of his salvation.
+
+The coach in which I travelled halted at Marlborough for dinner. When I
+alighted, I perceived, but took no particular notice of a post-chaise
+standing at the door of the inn. I had scarcely set foot in the house,
+however, before I encountered General Travis. The moment he caught sight
+of me, he seemed to become agitated or alarmed. He approached me--took
+me by the arm, and led me into the open air.
+
+"Have you seen them?" he eagerly asked.
+
+"Seen whom?" I asked in return.
+
+"Your friend. He is a villain!"
+
+"General Travis," I said indignantly, "I have no friend to whom that
+term applies, nor must you couple it with any name that's dear to me."
+
+"Forgive me, forgive me!" said the general with evident grief. "I have
+been deceived, cruelly deceived; my house is deserted--my child is
+stolen--they have eloped!"
+
+"Eloped!"
+
+"Yes; Mr Sinclair and my daughter. This very morning. Your friend, my
+Elinor!"
+
+The general stamped; then walked furiously about, whilst I stood
+thunderstruck.
+
+"He never spoke to me on the matter; as I am a living man, he never
+hinted to me his attachment. Could I have suspected it--dreamed it? Oh,
+my child, my child!"
+
+I looked hard at the man, as intently as my agitation would permit, and
+I believed his passion to be genuine and honest. Tears were in his eyes,
+and he wrung his hands, and raved like men in deep affliction. Could I
+be deceived?
+
+"Whither have they gone?" I asked.
+
+"God knows; I missed my child at breakfast. She had never been absent
+before. I was alarmed, but looked for her return. At noon, we heard that
+she had been seen at the distance of half a mile from the city, walking
+quickly with Mr Sinclair. At Mr Sinclair's hotel, I learned that he had
+quitted the city, and had ordered a chaise and four to meet him a mile
+off, at ten o'clock precisely. I followed them at once, and traced them
+for twenty miles, and then lost sight of them altogether."
+
+"What is your intention now?"
+
+"To take the north road, and, if possible, to overtake and recover her.
+I am heart-broken and distracted. He has robbed me of a treasure, dearer
+to me"----
+
+Fresh horses had been put to the general's carriage, and the postilions
+were already in the saddle; not a moment was to be lost. Before the
+general could finish his speech, he was seated in the chaise, and
+driving away at the rate of fifteen miles an hour.
+
+My feelings may be imagined. What to do, I knew not; and there was
+little time to consider. The dinner had been transacted during our
+anxious conference, and the horses' heads were looking towards Bath. The
+coachman mounted the box. I ascended the other side, and took my seat
+next to him, quite mechanically.
+
+"Knowing gentleman, that 'ere," said Jehu, "as you conwersed with."
+
+"Do you know him then?" I asked with curiosity.
+
+Jehu closed one eye; rubbed his chin against his comforter, and said,
+"hexcessively!"
+
+"What of him?"
+
+"Werry deep and werry singular. I've druv him many a time."
+
+"He's very rich," said I.
+
+"Oh, werry! So they say. So I s'pose he is. For my part, I'm no judge of
+mutton till it's cut up. Is he a werry pertickler friend of yours?"
+
+"No friend at all. Scarcely an acquaintance. I have met him but once
+before to-day."
+
+"Then it won't break your heart to hear, that it wouldn't be quite as
+safe as the bank of England to lend him twenty pounds. A box fare once
+told me he wasn't worth a sixpence, and that he'd come down one of these
+days like a crash in a china shop. My fare was an Injyman, as had known
+the gentleman out in them parts, where he was obliged to cut with all
+his family."
+
+"Oh, did he say any thing about the family?"
+
+"No; nothing about the family. Them, he said, was all right, especially
+one beautiful girl as he had, that run the rigs with a hofficer, and
+broke every body else's heart. My eye! wouldn't I have given my
+top-boots to have been that 'ere hofficer!"
+
+I changed the subject of discourse, and not once again did I revert to
+it for the rest of that disastrous journey. Arriving at Bath, I
+proceeded at once to the hotel in which I had left Sinclair. He was
+gone--but no one could tell me whither. The account given by General
+Travis was corroborated by the master of the house. Mr Sinclair had
+ordered a chaise and four to wait for him at the distance of a mile from
+the city--his order had been complied with, and nothing since had been
+heard of him.
+
+"It's very strange," said I.
+
+"Yes, sir, very," replied mine host, "and strange things have happened
+since. You knew General Travis, sir, I believe?"
+
+"I have seen him in Bath; what of him?"
+
+"Dreadful affair that of his. The whole family have vanished."
+
+"Vanished!"
+
+"Yes, sir. Three or four days ago the general's lady vanished with the
+youngest daughter; this morning the eldest daughter vanished by herself;
+and an hour or two afterwards, the general vanished with his own man,
+having previously discharged every other servant in the establishment."
+
+"Is any reason assigned?"
+
+"Debt, they tell me. The family have gone abroad to recover themselves;
+and, whilst they are recovering themselves, scores here will be ruined.
+The house has been beset with creditors this afternoon, and one poor
+fellow in the next street, a working upholsterer, with a family of ten
+children, has been raving at the doors like a madman."
+
+"You are mistaken," I said; "the general has not vanished after the
+manner you describe. To-morrow every thing will be explained. I do not
+feel myself at liberty to say more now. Let me entreat you, however, to
+remove the absurd impression that has been made; and, above all, to
+dispel the unfounded apprehensions of the unfortunate man you speak of."
+
+"Glad to hear you say so," rejoined mine host; "but I doubt it."
+
+He left me and I sallied forth; first to Mrs Twisleton's, who at first
+was not at home, but, receiving my card, sent her servant running half a
+mile, to assure me that she was. Poor Mrs Twisleton! sad and lugubrious
+was she on that melancholy evening. Faithful visions of the unappeasable
+wrath of the proud Lord Railton flickered before her eyes, and pierced
+her very soul.
+
+The next advowson was no advowson at all, as far as she was concerned,
+and her hope and offspring were alike cut off by the terrible and
+irrevocable act of the morning. I found the lady in tears.
+
+"This is a shocking business, madam!" I began.
+
+It was the signal for a flood.
+
+"When did you arrive?" she sobbed.
+
+"An hour since."
+
+"And you have heard of it?"
+
+"Of the elope"----
+
+"Oh, don't, don't, don't speak of it!" shrieked the lady. "It turns me
+sick. He has married a beggar--the daughter of an impostor and a
+swindler."
+
+"Can it be true?"
+
+"Oh, you have been very dilatory and foolish, Mr Wilson," suddenly
+exclaimed Mrs Twisleton in a clear sharp tone, which had nothing of the
+softness of tears about it. "Had I been a man, I would have saved my
+friend from certain infamy. Mr Wilson, I gave you full warning--ample
+time. You cannot deny it."
+
+I sighed.
+
+"And now you have come to Bath again, what do you mean to do?"
+
+I thought for a second or two, and then sighed again.
+
+"Take my advice, sir; it's a woman's, but not the worse for that. If you
+stay here till doomsday, you can't alter what is unalterable. The fool's
+married by this time. The general has broken up his establishment and
+has decamped!"
+
+"Impossible!"
+
+"That may be, but what I tell you is the truth, nevertheless. The mail
+leaves Bath at eleven o'clock. Return by it to London. See Lord Railton
+as soon as you arrive. Make the best you can of this wretched business,
+and prepare him to meet his son without a curse. You need not tell him
+all you know about the general. He will find that out quickly enough;
+nor need you mention my insignificant name at all. The old man has
+feeling left in him; and the mother doats upon her namby-pamby boy.
+Obtain their pardon for your friend, and you will do that friend a
+service which he will never forget, and can never sufficiently repay."
+
+I reflected for a moment; the advice seemed sound. I determined to adopt
+it. Bewildered and vexed, I quitted the lady's house, and walked
+mechanically about the town, from street to street. An hour or two were
+yet at my disposal--heavy, irritating hours, converted into ages by my
+impatience and anxiety. Chance or fate conducted me to the abode of
+General Travis. I stopped before the door, as purposeless as I had just
+approached it. To curse the hour that had connected poor Sinclair with
+the proprietor of that late magnificent and extravagant establishment,
+was a natural movement. I cursed, and proceeded on my walk. I had not,
+however, advanced a few steps, before, looking back, I became aware of a
+light gleaming from one of the windows of the house. I returned. Some
+information might be gained from the servant left in charge of the
+place; possibly a clue to the mystery in which, without any valid
+reason, I had myself become entangled. I found the door of the mansion
+ajar. I knocked, but no one answered; I repeated the summons with as
+little success, and then I walked boldly in--and up-stairs, in order to
+place myself at once in communication with the apartment in which I had
+perceived the faint illumination. Opening the drawing-room door, I
+perceived, as much to my disgust as astonishment--the Yahoo!
+
+That dark gentleman was drunk; there was no doubt of it. He was sitting
+at a table that was literally covered with food, of which he had taken
+to repletion. His coat was off, so was his cravat, and the collar of his
+shirt unbuttoned. Perspiration hung about his cheeks, and his face
+looked very oily. Decanters of wine were before him; a pewter jug of
+ale; and bottles containing more or less of ardent spirits. There was a
+wild expression in his eye, but the general glow of his visage was one
+of fuddled sottishness. He saluted me with a grin.
+
+"Who the debil are you?" he politely asked.
+
+"I was looking," I answered, "for a servant."
+
+"D--n him serbant," exclaimed the Yahoo, speaking in his drunkenness
+like a very nigger. "I gib him a holyday. What are you got to say to
+dat? What do you want?" he proceeded. "Sit down. Enjoy yerself. What do
+you take? Deblish good rum, and no mistake."
+
+_Hold a candle to the Devil_ is a worldly maxim, which I had never an
+opportunity of practising to the letter until now. Much might be learned
+by humoring the monster--nothing by opposing him. I sat down and drank
+his health.
+
+"Thankee, old boy," said he. "I'm deblish glad to see you, upon my soul.
+Gib us your hand. How many are you got?"
+
+"Two," said I.
+
+"That's a lie," replied the nigger hastily. "I see four. But neber mind,
+I'm not partickler. Gib us two of 'em. I say, old boy," he continued,
+"don't you eat nothing? D----d sweet. Sure to make you sick. Him drink
+much as him like."
+
+"You wait the general's return, I presume?" said I, in the vain hope of
+eliciting something from this black moving barrel.
+
+The gentleman tried to look me full in the face; but his eyes rolled
+involuntarily, and prevented him. He contrived, however, to effect what
+he intended for a knowing wink, whilst he thrust out his cheek with the
+end of his tongue.
+
+"Oh yes, in course," he answered. "I wait till him come back. Him wait
+d----d long while. He! he! he!"
+
+"His departure was very sudden," I continued.
+
+"Oh, bery! All them departure's bery sudden. Missy General go bery
+sudden--Missy Elinor go bery sudden--rum go bery sudden," he concluded,
+drinking off a glassful.
+
+"I saw the general to-day. We met on the road. He told me every thing."
+
+"Stupid old codger! Him can't keep his own counsel. Dat him business,
+not mine. Deblish cleber old codger!"
+
+"He was much affected," said I. "The elopement of his child is a serious
+blow to him."
+
+The nigger performed the same pantomime as before; winking his eye, and
+enlarging his cheek.
+
+"Blow not so bad as a punch on the head, old boy. Deblish cleber old
+codger," repeated the Yahoo, laughing immoderately. "Deblish cleber
+'Gustus too!"
+
+"Who is he?" I inquired.
+
+The nigger attempted to rise in his chair, and to make a profound bow,
+but failed in both attempts.
+
+"I'm 'Gustus!" said he, "at your sarvice--take a glass of wine with
+you!"
+
+I pledged the gentleman, and he continued.
+
+"You know Massa Sinclair?"
+
+"A little."
+
+"Big jackass, Massa Sinclair. Awful big. He no run away with Missy
+Elinor, Missy run away with him. Massa General run away with both.
+'Gustus do it all."
+
+I groaned.
+
+"You ain't well? Take glass rum? Bery good rum!"
+
+"And so you did it all, Augustus? You must be a clever fellow!"
+
+"I think so. If you could but have seen us this morning. I and Massa
+General looking over the banisters whilst Missy Elinor was running away;
+and Massa Sinclair in de hall, trembling all over like a ninny, for fear
+Massa General should see him--Massa General and me splitting sides all
+the time. D----d good! like a play. He! he! he!"
+
+I groaned again.
+
+"Sure you are not well, old boy? Try the bitters."
+
+"I have had enough," said I. "I must begone."
+
+"Don't hurry, old fellow. Can't ask you again. Go to town to-morrow.
+Meet General Travis to-morrow night. Him sewed up. 'Gustus neber desert
+him."
+
+"The general will not return then?"
+
+"Him too good judge!"
+
+"And Mr Sinclair and the lady?"
+
+"They married by this time. I say, old boy, let's drink their health."
+
+"No, no, no. Tell me whither do they go!"
+
+"No, no, no!--I say yes, yes, yes," roared the intoxicated monster.
+"Drink it, you rascal," he added, "or I'll kick you down stairs."
+
+My blood was boiling in a moment. The nigger staggered to me, and
+touched the collar of my coat. His hand was scarcely there, before I
+took him by the neck, and flung him like a loathsome reptile from me. He
+fell at the foot of the table, but in his passage to the ground he
+grasped a decanter of wine, which he hurled at my head. It passed me,
+met the door, and flew in a thousand pieces about the room. Sick at
+heart, I took the opportunity to retire.
+
+Never shall I forget the morning upon which I stood in Grosvenor Square,
+knocker in hand, about to present myself before the father of Rupert
+Sinclair, and to acquaint him with the disgrace that had come to his
+family, by the alliance of the previous day. The feelings of the hour
+return with all their painful vividness as I recall the time. A lazy
+porter, richly attired, opened the door, and rang a bell in the hall,
+which brought to me his lordship's valet. The latter received my card,
+and after a quarter of an hour's absence, returned with the information,
+that his lordship was particularly busy with the Director of the Opera,
+and could not be seen by any one that morning. Every little circumstance
+is indelibly imprinted on my memory, stamped there by the peculiar
+anxiety under which I laboured. I respectfully submitted that my
+business was even more important than that of the Director, and
+requested the valet to return with my urgent request to his lordship for
+one short interview.
+
+"His lordship doesn't know you," said the valet.
+
+"Not know me!" I exclaimed, forgetting at the moment how little it was
+to his lordship's interest to remember me. "There," I exclaimed "take
+this card to him." I had written upon it--_Late tutor to the Hon. Rupert
+Sinclair._
+
+Another quarter of an hour, and I was admitted. His lordship was
+evidently angry at the interruption. My heart was fluttering. He
+extended to me one finger, by way of compromise, which I reverently
+touched, offered me no seat, but asked me my business.
+
+I began--continued--and ended without the least hinderance on his
+lordship's part. I spoke without reserve of my own share in the
+unfortunate business, taking particular care, however, not to say one
+word to the disparagement of Elinor, or that might unneccessarily excite
+Lord Railton against his erring son. I told him of Rupert's illness, of
+our having proceeded to Bath in company--of his recovery--his meeting
+with Elinor--her beauty--his devotion. I pleaded his youth, his ardent
+nature--referred to the past as irretrievable, to the future as full of
+happiness for Mr Sinclair, provided his lordship would look with
+forgiving kindness upon his act; and used all the eloquence I could
+command to move what I conceived to be at least a heart of flesh to pity
+and sympathy for its own blood and offspring.
+
+Lord Railton heard me to the end, with a knitted brow and closed lips.
+When I had finished, he asked me sternly if I had any thing more to say.
+
+"Nothing," I replied.
+
+Whereupon his lordship rang the bell.
+
+The valet again appeared.
+
+Lord Railton again held out his finger, as at our meeting. I was about
+to take it, when his lordship moved it quickly--pointed to the door--and
+said--"Show that person out!"
+
+For a second I stood astounded and confused. In another second I found
+myself breathing on the sunny side of Grosvenor Square. How I reached
+it, I no longer remember.
+
+
+
+
+THE PEOPLE.[72]
+
+
+Mr Cobden, in the House of Commons, has given us a definition of the
+term which heads this article:--THE PEOPLE _are the inhabitants of
+towns_. "I beg to tell the honourable member for Limerick," said the
+arch-leaguer, a few evenings since, "and the noble lord, the member for
+Lynn, and the two hundred and forty members who sit behind him, that
+there are other parties to be consulted with regard to their
+proposition--that there are THE PEOPLE; I don't mean the country party,
+but the people living in the towns, and who will govern this country."
+
+"What is the city," says Shakspeare, "but the People?"----"True, the
+people are the city."
+
+Against Mr Cobden we pit Mr D'Israeli, who defines the people to be the
+country gentlemen. Against Shakspeare, we bring M. Michelet, who, in an
+affectionate dedication of his latest work to his fellow-labourer and
+friend, M. Edgar Quinet, modestly acquaints the said M. Edgar, that THE
+PEOPLE are neither more nor less than the author of the book and the
+gentlemen to whom it is inscribed:--
+
+"Recevez-le donc, ce livre du Peuple, parce qu'il est vous, parce qu'il
+est moi. Par vos origines militaires, par la mienne, industrielle, nous
+représentons nous-mêmes, autant que d'autres peut-être, les deux faces
+modernes du Peuple, et son récent avénement."
+
+There is, in truth an extensive amount of cant afloat just now, both
+here and elsewhere, on this subject of THE PEOPLE. It is the staple
+commodity of your newspaper-mongers, and the catchpenny song of the
+streets. Agitators feed upon it, politicians play upon it, our needy
+brethren of the quill pay outstanding debts with it. It is one of the
+few things that pay at all in an age of fearful competition, and one
+that always will pay whilst poor human nature holds the purse-strings.
+The wretched beggarman of Ireland famishes for a crust, yet he has his
+farthings to spare for the greedy hypocrite who flatters his vanity, and
+heaps laudations on his social importance. JOHN HOWARD made four
+pilgrimages to Germany, five to Holland, three to France, two to Italy,
+with the simple object of mitigating the physical sufferings of his
+fellow creatures; he visited Spain, Portugal, the United States, and
+Turkey, with the same practical and praiseworthy purpose. He passed days
+in pest-houses and lazarettos, and finally laid down his life in the
+blessed work of charity at Cherson in the Crimea. _Nous avons changé
+tout cela._ Philanthropy is a luxurious creature now-a-days. She is
+passive rather than active; she does not work--she _talks_. Her
+disciples take no journeys, unless it be to Italy for their own
+pleasure; they sit at home in satin dressing-gowns, supported on velvet,
+feeding on turtle. They tell the labouring classes--whom they style the
+bone and sinew of the land--that though they talk prose, and lead
+prosaic lives, they are nevertheless first-rate poets, that though rough
+at the surface, they are the gentlest of creation "at the core;" that
+though dull, they are quick; though ugly, handsome; though stupid,
+vastly clever; though commoners in the last degree, yet nobles of God,
+and nature's grandees of the very first class. It is gratifying to
+believe all this, and the charge is only threepence a-week, or a
+shilling a-month. Open as we all are to flattery, who would not pay so
+trifling a sum for the pleasure of so sweet a dream? If you cannot
+relieve our sufferings, it is something to create an inordinate
+self-esteem. If you cannot afford us a shilling from your pockets, it is
+much that your goose-quill can convert us into birds of Paradise. The
+successful writers of the day are those who have nauseously fawned upon
+the million for the sale of their "sweet voices" and their halfpence.
+
+There is not one of these popular authors who has had the manliness to
+suggest, supposing that he has the head to discover, a remedy for the
+evils which every honest mind perceives in the social condition of the
+humbler classes. The most they have done is to drag further into the
+light miseries which every one saw without their aid--to point out
+exultingly distinctions of rank, which have always been, and can never
+cease to be--to remove bonds of sympathy, that united for mutual benefit
+one class with another--and to widen as far as possible the breach that
+has arisen between the governed and the governing of this great empire.
+We do them injustice--they have accomplished more. In seasons of
+difficulty and trial, in those periods of convulsion and danger, to
+which all great societies are liable, and a large mercantile community
+like our own is especially subject, they have assuaged alarm and
+appeased hunger by writing books with a _moral_; such a moral as that
+upon which THE CHIMES was founded, and which the snarling author of Mrs
+Caudle's Lectures loves to inculcate: we mean the moral that teaches the
+loveliness of all that lies in the hovel, the hatefulness of all that
+dwells in the palace; the sublimity of vulgarity, and the ridiculousness
+of high birth; the innate virtues of ignorance and poverty, and the
+equally essential wickedness of wealth and rank. Such are the exertions
+of modern philanthropy! Such are the self-denying, humble, and glorious
+achievements of the successors of John Howard!
+
+There are two classes of philanthropists very busy just now on this side
+the English Channel: viz., that composed of men who are particularly
+anxious that no laws whatever should be passed for the effectual
+punishment of the midnight assassin in Ireland; and that which stands up
+for the murderer in England, denying the right of the legislator to
+punish any man with death, and the expediency of the punishment,
+provided the right be conceded. Should society be restored to
+tranquillity, and crime be expurgated by the success of these
+gentlemen's endeavours, it is very clear that France will take the wrong
+track, by following the counsel of the belligerent M. Michelet,
+according to whose views, peace and order are to be obtained only by the
+proclamation of war, and the shedding of blood for the glory of his
+native country. "My only hope," says the valiant historian, "is in the
+flag." Every time, he tells us, that he sees the bayonets of the French
+army, his heart bounds within him. "Glorious army! pure swords! holy
+bayonets!" upon which the eyes of the world are fixed, and which will
+eventually save that world by--cutting the throats of all the enemies of
+France.
+
+M. MICHELET has obtained some celebrity in Europe: amongst the learned
+and the reading public by his histories; amongst the masses by that
+remarkable work styled _Priests, Women, and Families_, which met with
+many readers and elaborate notices in this country, and was reviewed in
+the pages of this Magazine as recently as August last. We paid our
+tribute of respect to an effort which, whatever might be its faults--and
+serious faults it had--was distinguished by a commanding eloquence, a
+manly energy, and an uncompromising zeal worthy of the cause which the
+historian had undertaken; viz., the restoration of _woman_ to her
+spiritual and social rights--rights invaded by the stranger, trampled
+upon by priestcraft. We did not stay to inquire into the motives by
+which the indignant professor of the College of France had been
+actuated. It may have been, that, to avenge a slight inflicted upon him
+by the Jesuits, the learned teacher aimed a blow at the entire Roman
+Catholic Church; that having repudiated the sentiments of his early
+life--sentiments which attached him affectionately to the religion,
+poetry, and traditions of the middle ages--he burned with the new fire
+of a convert or an apostate, and sought to establish the sincerity of
+his conversion by deadly home-thrusts at the party he had forsaken. It
+was sufficient for us that a scholar and a Frenchman had manfully
+advanced to the rescue of his fellow-countrywomen; that he had detected
+the errors that lay at the heart of their social condition; that he had
+noted the hindrances that affected domestic purity and peace; and
+bravely undertook, if possible, to remove, at all events to expose and
+brand them.
+
+There is great peril attending the career of any man who acquires the
+reputation of a reformer of abuses. It is easier to acquire that
+reputation than to sustain it. It is well when the necessity gives birth
+to the reformer; but it is ill when the reformer, in order to live, is
+forced to create the necessity. There was ease and grace, simplicity and
+truthfulness, honesty and ardour, in that defence of woman, to which the
+champion was urged by the conviction that he entertained of her wrongs.
+Few of these qualities remain in the work now before us--a work
+suggested by any thing rather than the crying evils of the community to
+which the author belongs; a work that may have been written for
+money--with the mere object of book-making--to bamboozle the million, to
+inspire it with cock-like crowing; certainly, with no hope of
+regenerating France, of removing one feather's weight from the load of
+calamity to which her people, in common with the people of all the
+nations of the earth, are mysteriously doomed.
+
+We do not pretend to understand the motives which have carried M.
+Michelet to his task; neither can we distinctly discern the object which
+it is his purpose to reach. His book is divided into three parts, which
+are again subdivided into chapters. There is a great appearance of
+connexion, and indeed an affectation of logical cohesion in the
+structure, but there is really and essentially no union whatever of the
+several divisions. Part I. is styled, "_Of Bondage and Hatred_;" Part
+II., "_Enfranchisement by Love--Nature_;" and Part III., "_Friendship_."
+Each part is an essay, complete, so to speak, in itself, more or less
+distinct; intelligible at times, but as often vague, dark, and
+paradoxical; most satisfactory where it treats of simple, well-known
+facts--least successful where it deals in the crudest theories, which
+are not tedious only because they are ridiculous and amusing.
+
+The spirit that pervades the entire book is that of intolerable
+conceit--individual and national. We can pardon the author of _The
+History of France_ much, but we will never forgive in him a vice that
+has ceased to be supportable in the most ignorant of his countrymen. It
+is impossible to conceive a philosopher and scholar so irritated and
+perverted by thin-skinned vanity as M. Michelet appears throughout this
+volume; and indeed we cannot do his intellect the injustice of supposing
+him to believe the jargon that has fallen from his pen. The heart, we
+fear, rather than the intellect, is at fault, when he who has the ear of
+the people approaches it with accents that inflame its lowest passions,
+rather than correct and guide, and bring to usefulness and good, its
+best and noblest instincts.
+
+Every thing is perfect in France; nothing is perfect elsewhere. This is
+the theme of the song which M. Michelet circulates throughout the
+empire. The people are nevertheless wretched, in poverty, and in
+bondage; they are doomed to evil government; their social state is one
+of tyranny and cruel persecution. An historian, sprung from the people,
+has deemed it his duty to proclaim these facts, and to write a book
+which shall go far to remove the evils he complains of; yet, at the
+outset of the work, he announces, to our astonishment, that France is
+beyond all other lands the favoured land of heaven, the mistress of the
+world, the paragon of countries. We turn back a page, and ask--Was it
+for this that the student stepped from his retirement, or was it to
+prove facts the very opposite to these? If France be indeed so
+pre-eminently good and great, why write so many pages to prove that she
+lies in bondage? If the literature of France be perfect, her army pure,
+her people great, her religion the only true revelation of God's
+purposes and will, wherefore complain and cry aloud, and seek to remedy
+a condition already so enviable, to elevate a character already so
+super-eminent? Is it that France is too self-loving to hear of her
+faults even from her own offspring, or that she will not take her
+wholesome medicine without the gilding that removes its flavour, and
+hides its ugliness? Is she a child, and must the teacher flatter her as
+a child; coax, pacify, and bribe her as a child, in order to work her
+reformation and secure her happiness?
+
+Let us for awhile follow the author of _The People_, as he traces
+bondage and hatred throughout the social scheme of France, and gather
+from him, as well as we may, the remedies he has for their destruction;
+so shall we do him greater justice, and obtain, if they be within grasp,
+the intention and the object of his undertaking.
+
+"If we would know," says M. Michelet, "the inmost thought, the passion
+of the French _Peasant_, it is very easy. Walk any Sunday into the
+country, and follow him. Look! he is yonder before us! It is two
+o'clock; his wife is at vespers, and he is in his Sunday's clothes. I
+warrant you he is going to see his mistress!" His mistress! Yes; but
+tropically. The peasant's mistress is his _Land_; he loves it with
+intensest delight, with procreative love. Happy for France that it is
+so; for let it once cease, and the land is barren from that instant. She
+brings forth because she is loved. "_La terre le veut ainsi, pour
+produire; autrement, elle ne donnerait rien, cette pauvre terre de
+France, sans bestiaux presque et sans engrais._" By _Love_, the reader
+will understand needful care and culture, but he will err in the
+interpretation. It is something far more poetical and French. The
+peasant having arrived face to face with his mistress, "folds his arms,
+stops, looks serious and thoughtful; he looks a long, long time, and
+seems to forget himself; at last, if he fancies himself overlooked, if
+he perceives any body passing, he moves slowly away; after a few steps,
+he stops, turns round, and casts upon his land one last profound and
+melancholy look: but to the keen-sighted, that look is full of passion,
+full of heart, full of devotion. If that be not love, (!) by what token
+shall we know it in this world? It is love--do not laugh." It were
+indeed very easy to laugh, but, thus intreated, we forbear, and proceed.
+To love is to covet possession. To have a bit of land, means "you shall
+not be a mercenary, to be hired to-day and turned off to-morrow. You
+shall not be a serf for your daily bread. You shall be free!" To acquire
+that land, the peasant will consent to any thing, even to lose sight of
+it. To obtain it he will sell his life, and go to meet death in Africa.
+The peasant is very aspiring; he has been a soldier; he believes in
+impossibilities. The acquisition of land is for him a combat; "he goes
+to it as he would to the charge, and will not retreat. It is his battle
+of Austerlitz; he will win it; it will be a desperate struggle, he
+knows, but he has seen plenty of these under his old commander;" and
+accordingly this brave and warlike peasant borrows money of a usurer at
+seven, eight, or ten per cent, to purchase a piece of earth that shall
+bring him in two. "Heroic man--are you surprised, if, meeting him on
+that land which devours him, you find him so gloomy?" Certainly not. "If
+you meet him," says M. Michelet--heroic and sublime as he is--"do not
+ask him your road; if he answers, he may perhaps induce you to turn your
+back on the place you are going to." It is the way with atrabilious
+heroes. What is to be done? "We must take serious measures for defending
+the nobility;" that is to say--the peasantry who are in the hands of the
+usurers. Alter the laws. This "vast and profound," but very much
+involved "legion of peasant-soldier proprietors," are the People: the
+people are France. France is a principle, "a great political principle.
+It must be defended at any cost. As a principle, she must live. _Live
+for the salvation of the world (!!)_ In the midst of his difficulties,
+the peasant learns to envy the town workman. He sees him on Sunday
+walking about like a gentleman, and thinks he is as free as a bird; he
+believes that a man who carries his trade with him, not caring a straw
+for the seasons, is a lord of the creation: he remembers his own
+liabilities to the usurer--and, lo! we have arrived at bondage and
+hatred, No. 1.
+
+But the _Workman_, after all, is not so well off as he looks in his
+Sunday's best. Work fluctuates, and at times there is a want of work
+altogether: moreover, there are wicked _cabarets_ and _cafés_, that play
+havoc with his four or five francs _per diem_. And, above all, there is
+that tremendous rival, with lungs of iron that know no rest, and never
+cease, whom men call MACHINERY, and who laughs the skill and strength of
+man to scorn. "It is humiliating," says the historian, "to behold, in
+presence of machinery, man fallen so low. The head is giddy, and the
+heart oppressed, when, for the first time, we visit those fairy halls,
+where iron and copper of a dazzling polish seem moving of themselves,
+and to have both thought and will, whilst pale and feeble man is the
+humble servant of those giants of steel." No reverie, no musing is
+allowed in the temples of MACHINERY. The _Lollards_, those mystic
+weavers of the middle ages, received their name, because, whilst
+working, they _lulled_, or hummed in an under tone some nursery rhyme
+that cheered then in their labour: for it is wisely said by our author,
+who can speak like a prophet and a sage when he will--shame to him when
+he speaks otherwise!--that "in the manual labours subject to our
+impulse, our inmost thought becomes identified with the work, puts it in
+its proper place; and the inert instrument, to which we impart the
+movement, far from being an obstacle to the spiritual movement, becomes
+its aid and companion. The rhythm of the shuttle, pushed forth and
+pulled back at equal periods, associated itself (in the case of the
+Lollards) with the rhythm of the heart; in the evening, it often
+happened, that, together with the cloth, a hymn, a lamentation, was
+woven to the self-same numbers." No human heart beats harmoniously with
+the thunder of machinery, whose abode is the real hell of _ennui_. "It
+seems, during those long hours, as if another heart, common to all, had
+taken its place--a metallic, indifferent, pitiless heart." Pitiless,
+indeed, if it degrade the human creature to the level of the brute. "The
+manufactory is a world of iron, a kingdom of necessity and fatality. The
+only living thing there is the severity of the foreman; there they often
+punish, but never reward. There man feels himself so little man, that as
+soon as ever he comes out, he must greedily seek the most intense
+excitement of the human faculties, that which concentrates the sentiment
+of boundless liberty in the short moment of a delicious dream. This
+excitement is intoxication, especially the intoxication of love." The
+workman becomes vicious; but extreme physical dependency, the claims of
+instinctive life, which once more revert to dependency, moral impotency,
+and the void of mind, are the causes of his vices. Talk of the bondage
+of the peasant! What is his slavery to that of the workman! _He_ was at
+least a happy _child_. He lived in the air and played. He was at
+liberty, whilst his body and his strength were forming: the chains did
+not gall him till his wrist was hard: he was not called upon to suffer,
+before his spirit was sufficient to cope with life. Yes, there is
+positive bondage here.
+
+And the _Artisan_? Is he at liberty? As an apprentice-boy, he is already
+in bondage. "Whatever annoys or irritates his master or his master's
+wife, falls very often upon his shoulders. A bankruptcy happens, the
+apprentice is beaten: the master comes home drunk, the apprentice is
+beaten: the work is slack or pressing, he is beaten all the same."
+Apprenticeship over, the artisan marries--has a wife, family; expense,
+misery! His children grow up, and the mother (we are in France, and M.
+Michelet speaks) is ambitious. Drawing will be serviceable, says the
+mother, to her boy in his business. She pinches herself for a few sous
+for _crayons_ and paper, and a miserable artist is made of one who would
+have proved a good workman. Or an inspired artist, the child of labour,
+is left an orphan and a beggar in the midst of his aspirations and
+struggles towards distinction: to subsist, he must desert art, and
+become a workman like his father. "All his life he will curse his fate;
+he will work here, but his soul will be elsewhere." If he weds, and has
+a family--that family will become less and less loved. "A man embittered
+in such a struggle, and wholly intent on personal progress, considers
+every thing else of little value. He weans himself even from his native
+land imputing to it the injustice of fate." And so there is imprisonment
+and hatred also here.
+
+Look at the _Manufacturer_. The manufacturers of France have, generally
+speaking, all been workmen. Six hundred thousand have become
+manufacturers or tradesmen since the peace. "Those brave men, who,
+returning from war, wheeled suddenly to the right-about towards
+Industry, charged as for an onset, and without difficulty carried every
+position." But they brought to commerce more of the violence of military
+life than the sentiment of honour, and treated unmercifully two classes
+of individuals, viz. the workman and the consumer. Towards the latter
+they behaved as the female shopkeepers ransomed the Cossacks in 1815.
+They sold at false weight, false die, false measure. With respect to the
+former, they applied to industry the great imperial principle--sacrifice
+men to abridge warfare. Men were _pressed_ in town and country, and the
+conscripts of labour were placed at the pace of the machine, and
+required to be, like it--indefatigable. The successors of these men, the
+present manufacturers, pay the penalty of their fathers' misdeeds. Their
+reputation is gone in the market--they cannot get on. "Most of them
+would be heartily glad to retire if they could; but they are engaged,
+they must go on--_march! march!_" Such men are not likely to be
+tender-hearted. They are unfeeling to their workmen, for the
+money-lender is unfeeling to them. To live, the manufacturer must
+borrow. To get back his interest he has recourse to the workmen, for the
+consumer is on his guard. The former present themselves in crowds, and
+are obtained at any price. But a glut in the market compels the
+manufacturer to sell at a loss; the lowness of wages, which is death to
+the workman, is no longer profitable to the master, and the consumer
+alone gains by it. May not bondage and hatred be discerned in the
+present condition of the French manufacturer?
+
+We come to the _Tradesman_. "The tradesman is the tyrant of the
+manufacturer. He pays him back all the annoyance and vexations of the
+purchaser." The purchaser of to-day wishes to buy for nothing: he
+requires two things, a showy article and the lowest price. The tradesman
+must deceive or perish. His life is made up of two warfares--one of
+cheating and cunning against the purchaser; the other of vexations and
+unreasonableness against the manufacturer. We have said that no one can
+talk more wisely than the author of _The People_ when he is so disposed.
+The picture of the tradesman is drawn with a masterly hand. The original
+may be found here as well as in France, and is, in truth, the creation
+of the unwholesome time in which we live rather than of any particular
+city or state.
+
+"The repugnance for industry exhibited by the noble republics of
+antiquity, and the haughty barons in the middle ages, is doubtless
+unreasonable, if by industry we understand those complicated fabrics
+which require science and art, or a grand wholesale trade, which
+requires such a variety of knowledge, information, and combination. But
+this repugnance is truly reasonable when it relates to the ordinary
+usages of commerce, the miserable necessity in which the tradesman finds
+himself of lying, cheating, and adulterating.
+
+"I do not hesitate to affirm, that, for a man of honour, the position of
+the most dependent working man is free in comparison with this. A serf
+in body, he is free in soul. To enslave his soul on the contrary and his
+tongue, to be obliged, from morning till night, to disguise his
+thoughts, this is the lowest state of slavery.
+
+"It is singular that it is precisely for honour that he lies every day,
+viz. to _honour_ his affairs. Dishonour for him is not falsehood, but
+bankruptcy. Rather than _fail_, commercial honour will urge him on to
+the point at which fraud is equivalent to robbery, adulteration to
+poisoning; a gentle poisoning, I know, with small doses, which kill only
+in the long run.
+
+"The manufacturer, and even the artisan, have two things which, in spite
+of work, render their lot better than that of the tradesman--
+
+"First.--_The tradesman does not create_; he has not the important
+happiness--worthy of a man--to produce something--to see his work
+growing under his hand, assuming a form, becoming harmonious, responding
+to its framer by its progress, and thus consoling his _ennui_ and his
+trouble.
+
+"Secondly.--Another awful disadvantage, in my opinion, is, _the
+tradesman is obliged to please_. The workman gives his time, the
+manufacturer his merchandise, for so much money: that is a simple
+contract which is not humiliating, neither has occasion to flatter. They
+are not obliged, often with a lacerated heart and tearful eyes, to be
+amiable and gay on a sudden, like the lady behind the counter. The
+tradesman, though uneasy, and tormented to death about a bill that falls
+due to-morrow, must smile, and give himself up by a cruel effort to the
+prating of some young fashionable lady, who makes him unfold a hundred
+pieces, chats for two hours, and, after all, departs without a purchase.
+He must please, and so must his wife. He has staked in trade, not only
+his wealth, his person, and his life, but often his family."
+
+We need not ask, is bondage here? or stay to inquire whether the
+condition of the tradesman thus described is likelier to engender love
+or hatred towards mankind.
+
+The _Official_, too, is enslaved. A vast proportion of men on the
+Continent are officials. Great efforts and great sacrifices are
+undergone to make the hope of the humble house a government servant. And
+in France what does this mean? It means to serve a hard master, and to
+receive ill wages for the service, to be subject to instant dismissal at
+the will of an arbitrary overseer, to pass a life of changes, journeys,
+and sudden transportations. A baker's boy at Paris earns more than two
+custom-house officers, more than a lieutenant of infantry, more than
+many a magistrate, more than the majority of professions; _he earns as
+much as six parish schoolmasters_.
+
+"Shame! infamy! The nation that pays the least to those that instruct
+the people (let us blush to confess it) is France. I speak of the France
+of these days. On the contrary, the true France, that of the Revolution,
+declared that teaching was a holy office, that the schoolmaster was
+equal to the priest. I do not conceal it; of all the miseries of the
+present day, there is not one that grieves me more. The most deserving,
+the most miserable, the most neglected man in France is the
+schoolmaster. The state, which does not even know what are its true
+instruments and its strength, that does not suspect that its most
+powerful moral lever is this class of men--the state, I say, abandons
+him to the enemy of the state--bondage; heavy bondage! I find it among
+the high and the low in every degree, crushing the most worthy, the most
+humble, the most deserving!"
+
+The _Rich Man_ and the _Bourgeois_ do not escape the curse that attaches
+to every other class: they too are in bondage. The ancient _bourgeoisie_
+was characterized by security, the present has no such characteristic.
+It lives in timidity and fear. It has risen from the Revolution, aspires
+to nobility, feels none, and is jealous of the advancing masses. The
+ancient _bourgeois_ was consistent. "He admired himself in his
+privileges, wanted to extend them, and looked upwards. Our man looks
+downwards: he sees the crowd ascending behind him, even as he ascended;
+he does not like it to mount; he retreats, and holds fast to the side of
+power. Does he avow to himself his retrograde tendency? Seldom, for his
+part is adverse to it; he remains almost always in this contradictory
+position--a liberal in principle, an egotist in practice, wanting, yet
+not willing. If there remain any thing French within him, he quiets it
+by the reading of some innocently growling, or pacifically warlike
+newspaper."
+
+The rich man of to-day was poor yesterday. He was the very artisan, the
+soldier, the peasant, whom he now avoids. He has the false notion, that
+people gain only by taking from others. He will not let his companions
+of yesterday ascend the ladder by which he has mounted, lest in the
+ascent he should lose something. He does not know that "every flood of
+rising people brings with it a flood of new wealth." He shuts himself up
+in his class, in his little circle of habits, closes the door, and
+carefully guards--a nonentity. To maintain his position, the rich man
+withdraws from the people--is insulated--and, therefore, in bondage.
+
+Here let us stop. What is it that we have seen? The peasant in fetters,
+the workman oppressed, the artisan crippled, the manufacturers
+embarrassed, the tradesman corrupted, the official in misery, the rich
+man exiled--all in bondage, all hating one another, and all
+constituting the life and marrow of the great and civilized country, to
+whose deplorable condition M. Michelet especially invites our attention.
+Deplorable, said we? Oh, far from it! The calamity that would crush any
+other nation, has a far different effect upon France. Bondage and hatred
+may exist, misery may eat like a canker-worm at the heart of the empire;
+but France, great, glorious, military, and beautiful, is consumed only
+to rise phoenix-like, fairer and younger, from her ashes. The French
+peasant may be in fetters, but he is also the nobleman of the world--the
+only nobleman remaining, "whilst Europe has continued plebeian." (!) "It
+is said the Revolution has suppressed the nobility, but it is just the
+reverse; it has made thirty-four millions of nobles. When an emigrant
+was boasting of the glory or his ancestors, a peasant, who had been
+successful in the field, replied, '_I am an ancestor_.'" "The strongest
+foundation that any nation has had since the Roman empire, is found in
+the peasantry of France." "It is by that that France is formidable to
+the world, and at the same time ready to aid it; it is this that the
+world looks upon with fear and hope. What, in fact, is it? The army of
+the future on the day the barbarians appear." If such is the picture of
+a peasantry in bondage, what must we expect from a peasantry at liberty?
+The workmen, as we have seen, are vicious enough, yet they are the most
+sociable and gentlest creatures in the universe. Nothing moves them to
+violence; if you starve them, they will wait; if you kill them, they are
+resigned; they are the least fortunate, but the most charitable; they
+know not what hatred is; the more you persecute, the more they love you.
+If in our haste we called these men degraded, we recall our words, for
+M. Michelet says that they stand amongst the highest "in the estimation
+of God." We told you just now, always upon the authority of our author,
+what rascals the French manufacturers were; and how the unfeeling
+masters of to-day are paying the penalty of their fathers' frauds and
+evil practices. We hinted, too, at the symptoms of decay already visible
+in their condition. But we did not tell you that France manufactures, in
+a spirit of self-denial that cannot be too strongly commended, for the
+whole world, who come to her, "buy her patterns, which they go and copy,
+ill or well, at home. Many an Englishman has declared, in an inquiry,
+that he has a house in Paris _to have patterns_. A few pieces purchased
+at Paris, Lyons, or in Alsatia, and afterwards copied abroad, are
+sufficient for the English and German counterfeiter to inundate the
+world. It is like the book-trade. France writes and Belgium sells." It
+was stated that the official is cruelly paid for his labour, and M.
+Michelet further hints, that peculation is but too often the grievous
+consequence. In England this would be fatal to a man's self-respect, and
+subject him to _bondage_ in more ways than one. But, across the Channel,
+Providence miraculously interposes, and even rescues the official in the
+hour of difficulty, for the honour and glory of _la belle France_. "Yes,
+at the moment of fainting, the culprit stops short without knowing
+why----because he feels upon his face the invisible spirit of the heroes
+of our wars, _the breath of the old flag_!!"
+
+It is really very difficult to go on satisfactorily with such a writer
+as this. If there be truth in the picture which he draws of his
+country's misery, there must be falsehood in the language with which he
+paints her pre-eminence, and battles for her unapproachable perfection.
+If she be perfect, the vital sores that have been presented to us exist
+not in her, but only in the imagination of the enthusiastic and deluded
+writer. Upon one page it is written that the situation of France is so
+serious, that there is no longer room for hesitation. France is "hourly
+declining, engulfed like an Atalantis." Five minutes afterwards, "the
+idea of our ruin is absurd, ridiculous. For who has a literature? Who
+still sways the mind of Europe? We, weak as we are. Who has an army? We
+alone." What is the conclusion which any unprejudiced reader would draw
+from the painful details which M. Michelet has deemed it his paramount
+duty to bring before the notice of mankind, and especially to the
+consciences of the French nation itself? Simply this--that France,
+disabled and diseased, is weak, and feebler than many other nations of
+the world. The conclusion of M. Michelet is the very opposite one. "Let
+France be united for an instant, she is strong as the world. England and
+Russia, two feeble bloated giants, impose an illusion on Europe. Great
+empires, weak people!" So it is throughout. M. Michelet leaves far
+behind him the butcher, who would not suffer any man to call his dog an
+ugly name but himself. You must not only utter no syllable of
+condemnation against his glorious country, but you must be prepared to
+regard the abuse of the author as so much panegyric.
+
+The means of enfranchisement suggested by the poetic historian are as
+fanciful as the bondage itself appears to be. Freedom for every class is
+to be gained by LOVE. Love for the native country: in other words,
+Frenchmen of every class are to believe that there never existed, that
+there never will exist, a country so great as their own; and then, as if
+by a charm, all their troubles will cease, their sorrow will be turned
+into joy--their imprisonment to liberty, such as mankind have never yet
+witnessed, such as no children of the great human family are capable of
+enjoying, but the darlings and favourites of God--beloved France. In the
+nursery, we do not correct the young by flattery and cajolery. The
+surgeon does not hesitate to cut to the marrow, if the safety of the
+patient depend upon the bold employment of the knife; but neither
+monitor nor doctor in France may approach the faults and corruptions of
+her people without doing homage to the one, and viciously tampering with
+the other. What but insult is the following balderdash offered to a
+great people as a remedy for physical suffering--cruelty--oppression--want?
+
+"Say not, I beseech you, that it is nothing at all to be born in the
+country surrounded by the Pyrenees, the Alps, the Rhine, and the ocean.
+Take the poorest man, starving in rags, him whom you suppose to be
+occupied solely with material wants. He will tell you it is an
+inheritance of itself to participate in this immense glory, this unique
+legend, which constitutes the talk of the world. He well knows that if
+he were to go to the most remote desert of the globe, under the equator
+or the poles, he would find Napoleon, our armies, our grand history, to
+shelter and protect him; that the children would come to him, that the
+old men would hold their peace, and entreat him to speak, and that to
+hear him only mention those names, they would kiss the hem of his
+garment."
+
+Yes--the thing has come to pass in Africa, at Tahiti, on the coast of
+Madagascar, whence the savages repulsed, with vindictive hatred, their
+French invaders, and refused even to correspond with them save through
+the medium of another nation. The feelings with which the natives of the
+Marquesas regard at the present moment the embroidered gentry, who,
+"protected by their grand history," and headed by that valiant fighting
+man, Rear-Admiral Du Petit Thouars, took unwarrantable possession of
+their shores, are of course faithfully described in the above
+nonsensical outburst; and are not, as every body knows, those of fear
+and utter detestation for a crew of wicked mountebanks and gold-laced
+ruffians. Of course the children come to Du Petit Thouars, and the old
+men hold their peace, and kiss the hem of his regimentals; and that's
+the very reason why the said Du Petit points the fatal tubes of his
+heavy, double-banked frigates and corvettes at the fragile bamboo sheds
+that lie timidly and harmlessly in a grove of cocoa-nuts.
+
+"For our part, whatever happens to us, poor or rich, happy or unhappy,
+while on this side of the grave, we will ever thank God for having given
+us this great France for our native land; and that not only on account
+of the many glorious deeds she has performed, but because in her we find
+especially at once the representative of the liberties of the world, and
+the country that links all others together by sympathetic ties--the
+initiation to universal love. This last feature is so strong in France,
+_that she has often forgotten herself_(!!) We must at present remind her
+of herself, and beseech her to love all the nations less than herself.
+
+"Doubtless, every great nation represents an idea important to the human
+race. But, gracious heaven! how much more true is this of France!
+Suppose for a moment that she were eclipsed, at an end, the sympathetic
+bond of the world would be loosened, dissolved, and probably destroyed.
+Love, that constitutes the life of the world, would be wounded in its
+most vital part. _The earth would enter into the frozen age, where other
+worlds close at hand have already landed._"
+
+We have never wittingly done injustice either to France or her people;
+but we confess we had no notion of the claims of both upon our regard
+and applause, until they were prominently put before us by her somewhat
+Quixotic historian.
+
+In the first place, if you would heap up all the blood, the gold, the
+efforts of every kind, that each nation has expended for disinterested
+matters that were to be profitable only to the world, France would have
+a pyramid that would reach to heaven; "and yours, oh nations! all of you
+put together--oh yours! the pile of your sacrifices would reach up to
+the knee of an infant!"
+
+And then God enlightens it more than any other nation, for she sees in
+the darkest night, when others can no longer distinguish. "During that
+dreadful darkness which often prevailed in the middle ages, and since,
+nobody perceived the sky. France alone saw it."
+
+Rome is nowhere but in France. Rome held the pontificate of the dark
+ages--the royalty of the obscure; and France has been the pontiff of the
+ages of light.
+
+Every other history is mutilated. France's is alone complete. Take the
+history of Italy, the last centuries are wanting; take the history of
+Germany or of England, the first are missing; take that of France, _with
+it you know the world_. Christianity has promised, France has performed.
+"The Christian had the faith that a God-made man would make a people of
+brothers, and would, sooner or later, unite the world in one and the
+same heart. This has not yet been verified, but it will be verified in
+us." The great and universal legend of France is the only complete one;
+other nations have only special legends which the world has not
+accepted. The natural legend of France, on the contrary, "is an immense,
+uninterrupted stream of light, a true milky way, upon which the world
+has ever its eyes fixed." An American once said, that for every man the
+first country is his native land, and the second is France. This surely
+was praise sufficient. But M. Michelet is very greedy of praise. "How
+many," says he, "_like better_ to live here than in their own country!
+As soon as ever they can break for a moment the thread that binds them,
+they come, poor birds of passage, to settle, take refuge, and enjoy here
+at least a moment's vital heat. They tacitly avow that this is the
+universal country." Beau Brummel certainly avowed it; but then he, "poor
+bird of passage," flew in a night from his own nest, to settle, take
+refuge, and enjoy a moment's vital peace in France, away from duns and
+creditors. Many, in similar circumstances, would unquestionably prefer
+Paris to London, provided they could break the thread which attaches
+them to their domestic responsibilities. France is the infant Solomon
+sitting in judgment. Who, but she, has preserved the tradition of the
+law? She has given her soul to the world, and the world is living on it
+now; but, strange condition! "what she has left is what she has given
+away. Come, listen to me well, and learn, oh nations! what without us
+you would never have learned:--_the more one gives, the more one keeps_.
+Her spirit may slumber within her, but it is always entire, and ever on
+the point of waking in its might."
+
+Now all this must be taught to the infant as soon as it can lisp, and he
+will, no doubt, perfectly understand and appreciate it. The regeneration
+of France (which is already so perfect, and is, besides, the great
+exemplar of mankind) depends upon the child's proper appreciation of his
+birthplace. If he will believe all that has been said, he is far on the
+road, but by no means at the end of his journey. As soon as he is
+breeched, his mother must become his instructor, and increase the dose
+by some such foolish proceeding as the following:--
+
+"Let her take him on St John's Day, when the earth performs her annual
+miracle, when every herb is in flower, when the plant seems to grow
+while you behold it; let her take him into the garden, embrace him, and
+say to him tenderly, 'You love me, you know only me. Well, listen! I am
+not all. You have another mother. All of us, men, women, children,
+animals, plants, and whatever has life, we have all a tender mother, who
+is ever feeding us, invisible, but present. Love her, my dear child; let
+us embrace her with all our hearts.'
+
+"Let there be nothing more. No metaphysics that destroy the impression.
+Let him brood over that sublime and tender mystery, which his whole life
+will not suffice to clear up. That is a day he will never forget.
+Throughout all the trials of life and the intricacies of science, amid
+all his passions and stormy nights, the gentle sun of St John's Day will
+ever illumine the deepest recesses of his heart with the immortal
+blossom of the purest, best love."
+
+The little gentleman, however, is not done with yet. The dose is not yet
+strong enough, although quite as strong as his mother, gentle creature,
+could mix it. The early jacket is discarded in favour of the
+swallow-tailed coat, and the youth passes into the hands of his
+father:--
+
+"His father takes him--'tis a great public festival--immense crowds in
+Paris--he leads him from Notre Dame to the Louvre, the Tuileries, the
+triumphal arch. From some roof or terrace, he shows him the people, _the
+army passing, the bayonets clashing and glittering, and the tricolored
+flag_. In the moments of expectation especially, before the _fête_, by
+the fantastic reflections of the illumination, in that awful silence
+which suddenly takes place in that dark ocean of people, he stoops
+towards him and says, 'There, my son, look, there is France--there is
+your native country! All this is like one man, one soul, one heart. They
+would all die for one; and each man ought also to live and die for all.
+Those men passing yonder, who are armed, and now departing, are going
+away to fight for us. They leave here their father, their aged mother,
+who will want them. You will do the same; you will never forget that
+your mother is France.'"
+
+The education is very nearly completed. The father suffers the
+swallow-tail to wear out, the incipient mustache to take root, and then
+he leads his second and better self to the mountain-side. This time he
+does not stoop over him, for the youth is erect, and is as big a man as
+his father. "Climb that mountain, my son," says the venerable gentleman,
+"provided it be high enough; look to the four winds, you will see
+nothing but _enemies_."
+
+And so, by a very roundabout process, we reach the heart of the mystery.
+M. Michelet loves fighting--remembers Waterloo--is game--is eager for
+another round, and in his heart believes one Frenchman to be equal to at
+least half a dozen Englishmen. He burns for one more trial of
+strength--a last decisive tussle; and he writes a philosophical work to
+prove the physical bout essential to the dignity, the grandeur, and the
+redemption of his country. Every time, we repeat the words, that he
+looks upon a bayonet, his heart bounds within him, and his only hope,
+teacher and professor of the College of France though he be, rests in
+trumpets, drums, swords, the epaulette, the sabredash, and the tricolor.
+
+We have surely wasted ink enough upon this theme. In common with
+ourselves, the reader will regard with due commiseration, a
+manifestation of wicked folly, which will do no harm only because it
+comes in an age not ripe for bloodshed, or happily too humanized for
+unprovoked, gratuitous warfare; and because the French people
+themselves, under a politic king and a peace-seeking ministry, have
+learned a little to regard the blessings of undisturbed domestic
+quietness. We quit the main subject of M. Michelet's book, to draw
+attention to a few insulated passages worthy of the better days of the
+author, and certainly out of place in the present volume. It were not
+possible for M. Michelet to write four hundred pages that should not,
+here and there, give evidence of his great genius--his general common
+sense, and his touching sympathy for the suffering and the oppressed.
+There are passages in the work under consideration that have universal
+interest, and claim universal attention; his appeals on behalf of
+children and women, the most neglected and oppressed of the community,
+let them be found where they may, in England or in France, in Europe or
+in Asia, are instinct with truthfulness and honest vigour; his
+vindication of the _mission_ of the child, philosophical and just, is
+beaming with the light that burns so steadily and clearly in the poems
+of our own Wordsworth, which have especial reference to the holy
+character of the "Father of the Man."
+
+It is in one of the insulated passages of which we speak, that M.
+Michelet bitterly and very sensibly complains of the exclusive regard
+which modern romance writers have shown for the prisons and kennels, the
+monsters and thieves of civilized societies; of the disposition every
+where exhibited to descend rather than ascend for the choice of a
+subject, or the selection of a hero. We have felt the inconvenience of
+the same sickly taste in this country, and can understand the
+complainings over productions similar to that of _The Mysteries of
+Paris_, whilst we remember our own inferior and not less baneful _Dick
+Turpins_ and _Jack Sheppards_. Hurtful to the morals of a nation, these
+productions are equally unjust to the national character. We have drawn
+our estimate of the present literature of France from what we have seen
+and heard of her least healthy writers. As well might the novels of Mr
+Ainsworth, or the miserable burlesques of Mr Albert Smith, be accepted
+as the representatives of the Romance and Drama of the modern English
+school. It is not one of the least crimes of which these unwholesome
+writers are guilty, that they present to their own countrymen, and to
+the world at large, only foul exceptions, hideously exaggerated, which
+they would have us believe are faithful pictures of the mass; and in
+their eager endeavours to interest and excite the unthinking many, rouse
+the disgust and alarm of all well-constituted and thoughtful minds. The
+perilous consequences of popular literature in France are finely pointed
+out by M. Michelet. The timid take fright, when the people are
+represented as monsters in the books which are greedily devoured, and
+intensely applauded by the majority of their readers. "What!" cry the
+citizens, "are the people so constituted? Then, let us increase our
+police, arm ourselves, shut our doors, and bolt them." And all the alarm
+has been occasioned by a conceited, and it may be clever, coxcomb, who,
+descending from his drawing-room, has asked the first passenger in the
+street where-abouts the People lived. He met with a fool, who directed
+him to the galleys, the prisons, and the stews.
+
+"One day," writes M. Michelet, "there came a man to the famous
+Themistocles, and proposed to him an art of memory. He answered
+bitterly, 'Give me rather the art of forgetfulness.' May God give me
+this art, to forget from this moment all your monsters, your fantastic
+creations, those shocking exceptions with which you perplex my subject!
+You go about, spyglass in hand; you hunt in the gutters, and find there
+some dirty filthy object, and bring it to us, exclaiming--'Triumph! we
+have found the people!'
+
+"To interest us in them, they show them to us forcing doors and picking
+locks. To these picturesque descriptions they add those profound
+theories, by which the People, if we listen to them, justify themselves
+in their own eyes for this crusade against property. Truly, it is a
+great misery, in addition to so many others, for them to have these
+imprudent friends. These theories and these acts are by no means of the
+people. The mass is, doubtless, neither pure nor irreproachable; but
+still, if you want to characterise it by the idea which prevails in the
+immense majority, you will find it occupied in founding by toil,
+economy, and the most respectable means, the immense work which
+constitutes the strength of this country, the participation of all
+classes in property."
+
+We believe it sincerely and heartily. The great writers of all ages have
+believed it. Your low-minded scribblers have never doubted it; but it is
+far easier to depict the limited class, with its violence and felony,
+its startling incidents and painful murders--far less difficult to give
+picturesque effect to its nauseous jargon and offensive situations, than
+it is to work the simple portraiture of a whole community, who have
+nothing to offer to the artist but the delicate and unobtrusive
+material, such as Goldsmith could weave into a fabric whose colour and
+texture shall endure and enchant for all time.
+
+"I feel," continues M. Michelet, with great tenderness--"I feel I am
+alone, and I should be sad indeed if I had not with me my faith and
+hope. I see myself weak, both by nature and my previous works, in
+presence of this mighty subject, as at the foot of a gigantic monument,
+that I must move all alone. Alas! how disfigured it is to-day; how
+loaded with foreign accumulations, moss, and mouldiness; spoilt by the
+rain and mud, and by the injuries it has received from passengers! The
+painter, the man of _art for art_, comes and looks at it; what pleases
+him is precisely that moss. But I would pluck it off. Painter, now
+passing by! This is not a plaything of art--this is our altar!"
+
+"To know the life of the people, their toils and sufferings," he
+continues, "I have but to interrogate my own memory." He has himself
+sprung from the labouring population. Before he wrote books, he
+_composed_ them in the literal sense of that term. He arranged letters
+before he grouped ideas; the sadness of the workshop, and the
+wearisomeness of long hours, are things known to his experience. The
+short narrative of his early struggles forms another beautiful passage
+in this singular and very unequal production. The great lesson which he
+brought with him from his season of difficulty and affliction, is one
+that authorizes him to approach the people as a teacher and a friend,
+and ought to have inspired him with nobler aims than he puts forth
+to-day. He has seen the disorders of destitution, the vices of misery;
+but he has seldom found them extinguishing original goodness of heart,
+or interfering with the noble sentiments that adorn the lowest as well
+as the highest of mankind. There is nothing new, he tells us, in this
+observation. At the time of the cholera in France, every body beheld one
+class eager to adopt the orphan children. What class was that? _The
+Poor._
+
+Whilst in poverty himself, his soul was kept free from envy by noting
+the unremitting devotedness, the indefatigable sacrifices of
+hard-working families--a devotedness, he assures us, not even exhausted
+in the immolation of one life, but often continued from one to another
+for several generations.
+
+The two families from which he descended were originally peasants. These
+families being very large, many of his father's and mother's brothers
+and sisters would not marry, in order that they might the better
+contribute to the education of some of the boys, whom they sent to
+college. This was a sacrifice of which he was early made aware, and
+which he never forgot. His grandfather, a music-master of Laon, came to
+Paris with his little savings after the Reign of Terror, where his son,
+the author's father, was employed at the _Imprimerie des Assignats_. His
+little wealth was made over to the same son, and all was invested in a
+printing-office. To facilitate the arrangement, a brother and a sister
+of the eldest son would not marry, but the latter espoused a sober
+damsel of Ardennes. M. Michelet, the child of this industrious pair, was
+born in the year 1798 in the choir of a church of nuns, then occupied by
+the printing-office. "Occupied, I say, but not profaned; for what is the
+Press in modern times but the holy ark?"
+
+The printing-office, prosperous at first, fed by the debates of the
+assemblies and the news of the armies, was overthrown in 1800 by the
+general suppression of the newspapers. The printer was allowed to
+publish only an ecclesiastical journal; and even this sanction was
+withdrawn in favour of a priest whom Napoleon thought safe, but was
+mistaken. The family of M. Michelet was ruined. They had but one
+resource; it was to print for their creditors a few works belonging to
+the printer. They had no longer any journeymen; they did the work
+themselves. The father, who was occupied with his employment abroad,
+could render no assistance, but the mother, though sick, turned binder,
+cut and folded. The child--the future historian--was the compositor; the
+grandfather, very old and feeble, betook himself to the hard work of
+the press, and printed with his palsied hands.
+
+The young compositor, at twelve years of age, knew four words of Latin
+which he had picked up from an old bookseller, who had been a village
+teacher, and doted on grammar. The scene of the lad's labors--his
+workshop--was a cellar. For company he had occasionally his grandfather
+who came to see them, and always, without interruption, an industrious
+spider, that worked at the compositor's side, and even more assiduously
+than he. There were severe privations to undergo, but there was also
+much compensation.
+
+"I had the kindness of my parents, and their faith in my future
+prospects, a faith which is truly inexplicable, when I reflect how
+backward I was. Save the binding duties of my work, I enjoyed extreme
+independence, which I never abused. I was apprenticed, but without being
+in contact with coarse-minded people, whose brutality, perhaps, would
+have crushed the precious blossom of liberty within me. In the morning,
+before work, I went to my old grammarian, who gave me a task of five or
+six lines. I have retained thus much; that the quantity of work has much
+less to do with it than is supposed; children can imbibe but a very
+little every day; like a vase with a narrow neck, pour little or pour
+much, you will never get a great deal in at a time."
+
+We have said that in his struggles the aspiring boy knew nothing of
+envy. It is to-day his solemn belief that man would never know envy of
+himself, he must be taught it. The year 1813 arrived, and the home of
+the historian, as well as France herself--it was the time of
+Moscow--looked very cheerless. The penury of the family was extreme. It
+was proposed to get the compositor a situation in the Imperial
+printing-office. The parents, more fond than reasonable, refused the
+offer, and strong in the belief that the child would yet save the
+household, obtained an entrance for him in the college of Charlemagne.
+The tale is told. From that hour he rose. His studies ended soon and
+well. In the year 1821 he procured, by competition, a professorship in a
+college. In 1827, two works, which appeared at the same time--_Vico_ and
+_Précis d'Histoire Moderne_--gained him a professorship in the _Ecole
+Normale_.
+
+"I grew up like grass between two paving-stones; but this grass has
+retained its sap as much as that of the Alps. My very solitude in Paris,
+my free study, and my free teaching, (ever free and every where the
+same,) have raised without altering me. They who rise almost always lose
+by it; because they become changed, they become mongrels, bastards; they
+lose the originality of their own class without gaining that of another.
+The difficulty is not to rise, but in rising to remain one's self."
+
+There is also another difficulty; one which, judging from the volume
+before us, M. Michelet has yet to overcome: we mean the
+difficulty--after education, and after achieving the heights to which
+honourable ambition aspires--of forgetting the terrible and bitter
+punishment of early penury and trouble; of cherishing no longer the
+anger and hatred that were borne against the world, whilst the struggler
+looked upon it as a world in arms against him. The author of THE PEOPLE
+tells us, that in his saddest hours he knew no _envy_ towards mankind;
+but he acknowledges also, that in his sufferings, he deemed all rich
+men, all men, _bad_; that he pined into a misanthropic humour, and, in
+the most deserted quarters of Paris, sought the most deserted streets.
+"I conceived an excessive antipathy against the human species." The
+writer, to use his own expression, "is raised, but not altered." The
+antipathy, somewhat chastened by prosperity, is not removed. It takes a
+bodily form in the volume that teaches France to regard the earth as her
+enemy, and calls upon her to vindicate her pre-eminence and glory in the
+field of battle and of blood.
+
+
+
+
+THE ROSE OF WARNING
+
+A LEGEND FROM THE GERMAN. BY A. LODGE.
+
+
+  Where towering o'er the vale on high,
+  Those ice-bound summits pierce the sky;
+  And on the mountain flood amain,
+  The giant oak, and dusky plane,
+  Uptorn, with ever-deepening sound,
+  Rush roughly 'mid the gorge profound:
+  Behold--where horrors mark the scene,
+  And loveliest Nature smiles between,
+  Yon ivied arch and turrets gray,
+  Mouldering in serene decay;
+  Half choked, the scanty columns rise,
+  Where the prone roof in fragments lies;--
+  Of yore, so legends tell, the fane
+  Was call'd, of sainted Bernard's train;
+  Pious Brethren, self denying,
+  Fill'd with thoughts of holy dying,
+  Here, 'mid penance, prayer, and praise,
+  Content they wore their tranquil days;
+  Now the heavenly truths expounding,
+  In the Lord's good work abounding;
+  For deeds of love the dome was bless'd;
+  The hungry fed, the faint had rest;--
+  Thus they gave their light to shine,
+  And the Bread of Life divine!
+
+  These walls confess'd, long ages flown,
+  Strange tidings of the world unknown;
+  And dark the boding wonder fell,
+  With signal of the midnight bell:
+  For ever, as in solemn row,
+  The Brotherhood, devout and slow,
+  Paced the dim-lighted aisles along,
+  Loud echoing to the choral song;
+  To each--when the dread hour was nigh,
+  Of man's appointed lot--to die,
+  A sure forewarner told of doom,
+  With silent summons to the tomb:
+  As in the choir he knelt to pray,
+  On the desk a white Rose lay!
+  Prompt at the sign of awful power,
+  The destined brother took the flower,
+  "Thy will be done!" he cried, and press'd
+  Death's pale memento to his breast;
+  And straight retired, the Office o'er,
+  He left his cloister'd cell no more;
+  There, with due shrift and penance made,
+  The last absolving rites were paid,
+  And dead to thoughts of earth and time,
+  The doom'd one soar'd on hope sublime!
+  But first, with reverend hand, he placed
+  The monitory emblem chaste
+  On that dear pledge of pardon free,
+  Christ on his redeeming tree!
+  Then gazed, as the long hours crept by,
+  With solemn thought, and musing eye,
+  From early dawn to eve's repose,
+  Steadfast on the warning Rose!
+
+  And quick the shadow'd message came;
+  To dust return'd the mortal frame;
+  And with sad strains and funeral moan,
+  They hymn'd the soul to Mercy's throne!
+  Thus by mysterious high behest,
+  Each holy brother sank to rest,
+  Forewarn'd with supernatural power,
+  By the Rose at midnight hour!
+
+  It chanced, as once, for nightly prayer,
+  They reach'd the choir--the Rose was there!
+  Oh grief! before a youth it lay,
+  Warning that his life's young day
+  Must wither in its blooming May!
+  With sudden mortal pang, dismay'd
+  At thought, like the brief Rose to fade;
+  While death and awful judgment near
+  Made life's half-tasted charms more dear;
+  The youth, with anxious, trembling haste,
+  Unseen, the boding flower displaced;
+  Thus might the signal'd doom betide,
+  He deem'd, the brother at his side,
+  Who, calm in age, his last repose
+  Long waiting, hailed the welcome Rose!
+  For him, by faith assured, to die--
+  His birth of immortality!
+
+  But on the morrow--hark! the sound
+  Of sorrow's wailings echoes round:
+  What means the tear--the plaint--the sigh?
+  Why sits despair in every eye?
+  Oh, dire presage! two souls had fled--
+  The old man and the youth were dead!
+  And with dumb wondering awe they view
+  The White Rose tinged with purple hue!
+  For this the ceaseless knell is rung,
+  For this the choral Requiem sung:--
+  And when, few summers past, once more
+  They wept a brother gone before;
+  No longer the White Rose was seen;
+  It shunn'd the spot where crime had been!
+
+  A pilgrim in the Alpine vale,
+  I heard the legendary tale;
+  And as at eve, by Fancy woo'd,
+  Amid the dark'ning aisles I stood;
+  O'er crumbling stone and grassy mound,
+  I saw the White Rose blooming round!
+  Death's flower, methought, fit emblem made
+  To dwell in Ruin's silent shade!
+  And may the youth--I breathed a prayer--
+  Have owned the Saviour's pardoning care,
+  Who, deaf to warnings from the sky,
+  Tinged the White Rose with murder's dye!
+
+
+
+
+GREEK FIRE AND GUNPOWDER.[73]
+
+
+The traditional account of inventions and discoveries whose origin is
+involved in the darkness of antiquity is generally short and summary. To
+some fortunate individual, whose name, either from his having actually
+taken the most prominent part in the progress of the discovery, or, as
+is more generally the case, having with the greatest and most
+persevering energy impressed it upon the public, the whole merit is
+ascribed and the whole glory attached.
+
+The world, active though its individual members be, as to their own
+specialties, is inert as a mass, and glad to save itself the trouble of
+entering into details by adopting the hypothesis which has been most
+urgently forced upon its notice, or which has caught its attention at
+one of its most wakeful periods. We thus find nearly every discovery
+which has added to the permanent stock of human knowledge attributed to
+a single individual, and to a single guess of that individual.
+
+The traditional account of so recent a discovery as that of Galvani, is
+the preparation of frog soup for his wife, and the accidental touching
+one of them with the knife; while, in fact, he had been for years
+employed in examining the convulsive action of frogs, and had presented
+several memoirs to the Institute of Bologna on the subject, before its
+general publicity; indeed, in the main fact he had been anticipated by
+Swammerdam, and he possibly by others.
+
+Schwartz, the monk of Cologne, probably had a real existence, probably
+had something to do with the progress of pyrotechnic art; it is even
+more probable that he invented gunpowder than that the public invented
+him. The very accident which is reported to have happened, it is not
+altogether improbable did happen; but if a mixture of saltpetre,
+sulphur, and charcoal accidentally exploded, it was not accident which
+brought together those particular three ingredients out of the whole
+laboratory of nature and art.
+
+It is indeed possible that the frequency of accidental explosions when
+gunpowder was known, were reflected back as a plausible hypothesis to
+account for its invention; but as the explosive power and utility of
+gunpowder were not facts which could have been arrived at by _a priori_
+reasoning, there is every likelihood of such an accident having
+originally suggested the application of an explosive mixture as a means
+of propulsion. The history of the invention then resolves itself into
+the question, Were any admixtures of these three ingredients previously
+known, what led to them, and what were the objects proposed by them?
+This question is attempted to be answered by the book before us,
+containing a very erudite inquiry into the progress of the invention of
+Greek fire and gunpowder, which are, according to the author's view,
+modifications of the same thing, _i.e._ pyrotechnic compositions,
+differing only or mainly in the proportions or purity of their
+ingredients. A mass of very curious information is given to the reader,
+which, in addition to the general stock of knowledge or obscure
+tradition on this subject, shows a gradual and generally diffused use of
+sulphur, saltpetre, and charcoal in different proportions, and
+occasionally mixed with other combustible substances. Among the Arabs of
+the thirteenth century a vast number of receipts for such mixtures
+existed; this is proved by some ancient Arabic MSS. preserved in the
+Bibliothèque Royale. How the Arabs got possession of these arts is left
+somewhat in obscurity, though our authors consider there are strong
+grounds for conjecturing that they obtained then originally from the
+Chinese about the ninth century; that they then proceeded slowly in
+improving this knowledge for the three centuries during which they had
+no intercourse with the Chinese; and that they again acquired further
+information on these points after the Mongul irruption in the thirteenth
+century.
+
+The defect of the book before us is its inconclusiveness: from the
+preface we are led to expect the solution of a theorem; after reading
+the book through, we find ourselves not indeed as far at sea as ever,
+but aided mainly by negations. The actual origin of gunpowder or Greek
+fire is not traced; many of the connecting links in the chain of
+pyrotechnic discovery are still deficient; and the conjectures, which
+stand in the place of conclusions, are frequently founded upon what
+appear to us insufficient data. On the other hand it must be admitted,
+that on a subject so involved in obscurity, inasmuch as proof is
+impossible, speculation is to a certain extent admissible as a link to
+render isolated facts intelligible.
+
+It may be well here if, before passing to the more immediate object of
+this paper--viz. a sketch of the probable progress of pyrotechny--we
+explain to those of our readers who are unacquainted with chemistry, the
+philosophy of explosive combustibles.
+
+Combustion is nothing else than rapid chemical union, taking place
+between two dissimilar substances, which have what is called an affinity
+for each other, _i.e._ a tendency to unite and form a new compound. When
+a candle or lamp is burned, it is carbon and hydrogen, the principal
+constituents of oil or fat, which combine with oxygen, one main
+ingredient of the atmosphere. As it requires a certain temperature for
+this union to take place, to prevent the cooling effect of mass, a wick
+is used which can be readily heated, and where, as soon as chemical
+action has once taken place, other portions of the oil or melted tallow
+are absorbed, which ascend just as water through the pores of a sponge,
+and supply the place of those burned. In this example, only a small
+ignited surface is exposed to the influence of the oxygen: if, however,
+this latter element could be obtained in a solid state, and mixed up
+with the combustible, each particle throughout the whole mass would have
+in contact with it a particle of oxygen; so that, if the whole were
+raised to the necessary temperature for combustion, combustion would be
+instantaneous--or if the temperature of a part were sufficiently
+elevated, the combustion of this portion would communicate an intense
+heat to the contiguous portions, and the whole would rapidly kindle as a
+fuse does. In this case also, the access of the air being immaterial,
+combustion might take place in a closed vessel, or even under water.
+
+Nitre, or saltpetre, is one of a class of substances which contains a
+large portion of oxygen in a combined and solid state; and, being mixed
+with combustible matter such as charcoal, it causes rapid deflagration
+when the temperature is raised. The whole class of pyrotechnic
+compositions are reducible to this simple principle--they all consist of
+combustible substances intimately mixed with substances containing
+oxygen; or, to reduce the proposition to more general and simple terms,
+they consist of two or more substances, having for each other a powerful
+chemical affinity, and capable of rapidly uniting when the temperature
+is elevated. When a projectile force is necessary, a further condition
+is essential, viz., that they liberate by their chemical action gaseous
+matter, whereby a sudden increase in volume is produced, the expansion
+of which, augmented by the high temperature, produces the required
+effect of propulsion.
+
+This slight sketch will show that the purity and proportions of the
+saltpetre, and the inflammable substances mixed with it, are the main
+elements to be attended to in the improvement of self-burning
+compositions: it is indeed far from improbable, that the substances used
+in purifying saltpetre have first suggested such compounds. Wood ashes
+were used at a very early period for purifying nitre; and at the end of
+an Arabic receipt of the thirteenth century, for the preparation of
+saltpetre, in which charcoal is used, is the expression, "guard against
+sparks of fire."
+
+The probabilities strongly favour the view, that incendiary compositions
+of the nature we have been describing originated with the Chinese. China
+snow, and China salt, are the names given by writers of the greatest
+antiquity to saltpetre. In the Arabic MSS. to which we shall presently
+allude, the words Chinese wheel, Chinese flower, Chinese dart, occur as
+appellatives of different fireworks. It is very possible that the influx
+of Chinese literature, which the result of the recent war with that
+people promises us, will lead to the discovery of Chinese treatises upon
+pyrotechny.
+
+Other authors speak of fire-arms among the Chinese at a very early
+period of our era, and even before Christ; but the interpretation which
+they have put upon obscure passages--interpretations evidently derived
+from their existing knowledge--makes these expressions and translations
+of extremely doubtful import.
+
+At a later period, however, we have the authority of Raschideddin,
+(minister of the Tartar Khan of Persia,) and of Marco Polo, that the
+machines of war employed at the siege of Siang Yang were constructed by
+Arabian or European workmen, and that the Tartars were not at this
+period themselves able to manufacture such machines. This would tend to
+negative the belief which has been entertained by some, that the Chinese
+then used gunpowder as a means of projection, but does not lessen the
+possibility that the fuses and compositions projected by these machines
+were of Chinese origin.
+
+In the history of the dynasty of Sang, A.D. 1259, there is a distinct
+account of a projectile by means of fire as follows:--"In the first year
+of the period _Khaiking_, a kind of arms was manufactured called
+_Tho-ho-tsiary_, that is to say, 'impetuous fire-lance.' A nest of
+grains was introduced into a long tube of bamboo, to which fire was set.
+A violent flame darted forth, and instantly the nest of grains was
+projected with a noise similar to that of a peacock, which was heard at
+a distance of about 150 paces."
+
+Upon the whole, it would appear that the Chinese, although the character
+of their claims to the knowledge of gunpowder has been exaggerated, were
+in all probability the people among whom mixtures of combustibles with
+oxygenated substances originated; and this will form one of the many
+interesting fields of inquiry to be pursued by those skilled in the
+literature of the Chinese, now that the field is so largely opened to
+them.
+
+There are obscure passages in writers of a very early period, which
+speak of thunderbolts being shot from the walls of besieged towns upon
+the enemy. Philostratus speaks of such; but the indefinite character of
+these expressions makes their connexion with either Greek fire or
+gunpowder extremely doubtful.
+
+In the year 883, Nicetas, admiral of the Eastern empire, was sent by the
+Saracens of Crete to assault Constantinople, and is stated to have
+burned twenty of their ships with Greek fire.
+
+One of the earliest accounts of its composition is that given by Anna
+Comnena, who states it was composed of sulphur, bitumen, and naphtha;
+but the most distinct early receipt for a composition analogous to
+gunpowder, is that contained in the celebrated book of Marcus Græcus. In
+the book called _Liber Ignium_, we have the following receipts:--
+
+"Note. That the fire capable of flying in the air is of twofold
+composition, of which the first is: One part of colophon and an equal
+part of sulphur, two parts of saltpetre, and well pulverized, to be
+dissolved in linseed or laurel oil. A case, or hollowed wood, is then to
+be charged with it, and ignited. It will fly suddenly to whatever place
+you wish, and burn up every thing by its fire."
+
+The second sort of flying fire is prepared in this manner:--
+
+"One pound of sulphur vivum, two pounds of charcoal of linden wood or of
+willow, six pounds of saltpetre, which three things are minutely pounded
+in a marble mortar. After that you will charge with it a sheath suitable
+for flying, or for making thunder.
+
+"Note. The sheath for flying ought to be slender and long, and filled
+with the aforesaid powder well rammed.
+
+"The sheath for making thunder ought to be short and large, and half
+filled with the aforesaid powder, and well bound in every direction with
+an iron band.
+
+"Note. That in every sheath a small aperture is to be made, in order
+that it may be ignited by the match when applied, which match is made
+slender at the extremities, but in the middle large and filled with the
+aforesaid powder."
+
+Another receipt of Marcus for Greek fire is as follows:--
+
+"Greek fire is made in the following manner. Take pure sulphur, tartar,
+sarcocole, (a kind of resin,) pitch, fused saltpetre, and oil of
+petroleum. Boil them well together. Dip tow in the mixture, and set fire
+to it. This fire cannot be extinguished but with vinegar or sand."
+
+The close analogy, or rather the identity, of these compositions with
+gunpowder as at present made, requires no comment. The more important
+question is the date at which this work was written. This is a matter of
+great doubt. Messrs Reinaud and Favé, from the fact that the receipt for
+the preparation of saltpetre to be found in this same book of Marcus is
+much more imperfect than that in the Arabian MSS., place the date of his
+book earlier than the thirteenth century. Again, Geber, an oriental
+writer, the date of whose life is doubtful, but whom our authors fix at
+the eighth century, has described the preparation of a salt which has
+been translated _nitre_, but which our authors consider to have been a
+sesqui-carbonate of soda, _natron_, not _nitrum_. They thence conclude
+that nitre was unknown to Geber, and thus, because it was known to
+Marcus, that he lived subsequently; and for this reason they place
+Marcus between the ninth and twelfth century.
+
+We have seldom seen an instance of more loose deduction than this. It is
+required to find the date of Marcus. Geber, whose date is unknown, is
+set down, upon rather weak data, as of the eighth century. Geber's
+translator is corrected to prove that Geber did not know saltpetre.
+Hassan Alrammah, an Arabian, is considered as more recent than Marcus, a
+Greek, because his process for saltpetre is somewhat more perfect; and
+from the cumulative effect of these data, each of which is very
+insufficiently established, and which, if established, only go to prove
+differences in the degrees of perfection of their respective receipts,
+the date of Marcus is fixed: this certainly is pushing _incertum per
+incertius_ very far. We fear that if no more accurate information be
+brought to bear on it, the epoch of Marcus Græcus will be a subject of
+as much controversy as ever.
+
+The paragraph in the treatises _De Mirabilibus_ of Albert the Great is
+so identical with that of Marcus Græcus, that there can be no doubt of
+its being copied from it, or derived from the same source, and is a
+strong additional instance of the general progress of inventions. A
+received publication calls attention to a fact already disclosed but
+forgotten, the knowledge acquired by the world since is brought to bear
+on the old fact; and a consequent improvement results.
+
+Roger Bacon, to whom the invention or knowledge of gunpowder has been
+attributed by some, would stand a very poor chance among the men of
+science of the present day: it is not now the man who conjectures a
+possibility, but he who demonstrates a fact, that is hailed as the
+discoverer.
+
+The following series of possibilities are curiously interesting, both
+from their partial subsequent realization, and from the simple credulity
+with which Bacon gives us that which he had known "a wise man explicitly
+excogitate."
+
+"Instruments of navigation can be made, men being the propelling agents,
+that the largest river and sea barks can be borne along (one man only
+managing them) with greater speed than if they were full of navigators.
+Carriages can also be constructed which may be moved without animals,
+with an inestimable impetus; so that one would think that they were the
+armed chariots with which they fought in ancient times. Instruments for
+flying can also be made, so that a man sitting in the centre of the
+machine, and turning an engine, by which artificial wings may strike the
+air in the manner of a bird flying. An instrument also can be made,
+small in magnitude, for elevating and lowering almost infinite weights,
+than which nothing is more useful in mischances, for by an instrument of
+the length of three fingers, and of the same breadth or less, a man may
+extract himself and companions from all danger of prison, and elevate
+and lower them. An instrument can also be made by which one man may
+draw to himself a thousand men, by force and against their will.
+Instruments for walking on the sea can also be made, and in rivers to
+the bottom without corporal peril. For Alexander the Great used them
+that he might see the secrets of the sea, according to the relation of
+Ethicus the astronomer.
+
+"These things, indeed, are of antiquity and of our times, and are
+certain, except the instrument for flying, which I have not seen, nor
+have I known a man who has, but I know a wise man who has explicitly
+excogitated it; and an infinity of other things can be made, as bridges
+over rivers, can be made without columns or any support, and machines or
+unheard of engines."
+
+The ultra admirer of the ancients will see in this, if not an accurate
+relation of facts, which with the exception of the flying it purports to
+be, at least a wonderful perception of practicabilities; and railroads,
+diving-bells, suspension-bridges, &c., will be so many circumstantial
+corroborations of the correctness of his view. We, however, are rather
+disposed to regard them as ingenious extravagances. Predictions of the
+success of science are always on the safe side. If in the present day
+one were to say, that we shall be able to see the inhabitants of
+Jupiter, or even converse with them, it would be a prophecy which could
+never be negatived, which might be the case if we said such things were
+impossible.
+
+Bacon's obscure intimations of gunpowder are not so clearly derived from
+the same source as the receipts of Marcus Græcus and Albertus Magnus
+are; but they are apparently derivatives from what was then known to a
+few, of nitre compositions, and are very analogous, though not quite so
+extravagant as some of his other deductions.
+
+Bacon also speaks of a child's toy (_ludicrum puerile_) which was made
+with saltpetre, the explosion of which produced a report, "quod fortis
+tonitrui sentiatur excedere rugitum."
+
+As with this, so with the greater number of Bacon's observations; they
+bear reference to facts, or relations received as facts, which were at
+that time either generally or partially known, and do not profess to
+give to the world his own inventions, though the theories deduced from
+those asserted facts are frequently the produce of his own imaginative
+brain. Upon the whole, we are fully disposed to agree with Messrs
+Reinaud and Favé, that the invention of gunpowder is by no means due to
+Bacon.
+
+We now pass to the Arabian manuscripts of the 13th century, to which we
+have before alluded, and which constitute the principal discovery of our
+authors. The same word (_baraud_) which is now used by the Arabs as
+signifying gunpowder, was originally used to signify saltpetre; and even
+in this application had a secondary meaning, its more primitive meaning
+being "hail." The whiteness and crystalline form of saltpetre presented
+a sufficient analogy to attach to it a similar name, neology being in
+those days not quite so common or so easy as at present.
+
+Various salts were also included under the same name, their specific
+differences not being then known. This fact had probably much influence
+in retarding the pyrotechnic art, as accurate means of testing the
+purity and chemical character of the salt were not distinctly
+understood. A receipt successful in one case, because a proper salt was
+used, failed in another, because the salt was totally unfit for
+supporting combustion, though passing under the same name.
+
+In these MSS. occur a vast number of receipts for pyrotechnic
+compositions, of which we may here give one or two as specimens, and as
+instances of the close approach made at that time to the composition of
+gunpowder as manufactured at the present day:--
+
+  _Proportions of the Sun's Rays._
+
+  1st Composition.
+  Saltpetre, 10--Sulphur, 1-1/8--Charcoal, 2-1/4.
+
+  2nd Composition.
+  Saltpetre, 10--Sulphur, 1-7/8--Charcoal, 2.
+
+
+  _Proportions of the Garland of Golden Flowers._
+
+  Saltpetre, 10--Sulphur, 1--Steel filings, 1/2--Bronze filings, 1/2.
+
+
+  _Flashing Rocket._
+
+  Saltpetre, 10--Sulphur, 1-3/8--Charcoal, 2-1/8.
+
+Each substance to be separately pounded; the charcoal and saltpetre are
+then mixed, and gently pounded; moisten with spittle, and then add the
+sulphur.
+
+  _White Rocket without sparks._
+
+  Saltpetre, 10--Sulphur, 1-1/4--Charcoal, 2-1/4.
+  To be mixed as before directed.
+
+
+  _Egyptian Moonshine._
+
+  Saltpetre, 10--Sulphur, 2-1/4--Charcoal, 1/4.
+  Add 4 parts of Lead or Black Ointment.
+
+These instances will be sufficient to show the general character of the
+Arabic receipts. Saltpetre is used in all of them--in most of them
+sulphur or charcoal; while arsenic, incense, camphor, iron and bronze
+filings, are occasionally used to vary the colour and character of the
+light produced. The Arabs were also in possession at this period of a
+vast number of instruments of war in which similar combustible matters
+were employed, such as lances and clubs, with fires at the extremity,
+girdles for the waist with fires attached. We translate the description
+of one of them:--
+
+     _War Club._
+
+     "Get the glass-maker to make a club, which shall be pierced at its
+     extremity like an iron club. Get the turner to turn a stick, which
+     you will fasten strongly to it. You may give it whatever form you
+     please. Arrange on the sides three 'tubulures,' and at the bottom
+     also three for the 'roses,' (one class of the compositions,) then
+     make the usual compositions. When you wish to set fire to them,
+     arrange them in the form of a segment, set fire to the club, and
+     break it, for the love of God."
+
+The termination of this receipt is a very usual one, and applied to
+several other receipts--instruments of destruction being then, as now,
+considered a most appropriate method of serving God.
+
+Another ingenious weapon was called "the egg which moves itself and
+burns;" and this consisted of two long fuses, which seemed to give force
+and direction to the firework, and a shorter one, which was directed
+forwards, the object of which was to burn the enemy. This projectile was
+cast by the hand, and then, to use the quaint language of the receipt,
+"it walks, it starts, and it burns extremely well."
+
+Many other compositions were known to the Arabs, as appears from the two
+curious MSS. above mentioned; such as compositions for covering the body
+to protect from fire, others to emit a suffocating smoke.
+
+The performances of these instruments were, doubtless, what we should
+now consider very insignificant; but they must have produced upon the
+excited imagination of the warrior of those days an effect which it is
+very difficult to conceive in the present day.
+
+Nothing, probably, has occasioned more frequent historical errors, than
+forming deductions as to real effects from the exaggerated descriptions
+of ancient writers.
+
+When Musschenbroek (not a superstitious soldier, but an inductive
+philosopher) first discovered the Leyden Phial, he declared he would not
+take a second shock for the kingdom of France; and yet we well know that
+a schoolboy would not now be frightened at a much more powerful shock
+than he then experienced. Want of familiarity with a phenomenon, and
+ignorance of its proximate cause, will ever make it terrible. We cannot
+see any thing terrible in a sky-rocket, because we have been early
+influenced by those on whom we rely to regard it as an amusement; but
+had they brought us up in fear of it--had they magnified these accounts,
+having some foundation in fact, as to its destructive power, we may well
+understand what effects of terror it would produce.
+
+Thus regarded, the _ignotum pro magnifico_ appears quite sufficient to
+explain the narrated effects of the Greek fire. But there was also
+another reason--viz. that all results, not of continual occurrence, and
+within the range of ordinary experience, were attributed to magic, and
+consequently spread a terror far disproportioned to the real effects;
+for this reason, the means of producing then were prohibited by the
+hierarchy, and, as they gradually acquired a more extensive use, were
+then only permitted against the enemies of the religion of the people
+who used them; hence the expression so frequent in the Arabian receipts,
+"You shall burn your adversary for the service of God;" and similar
+language is used by the Christian writers, when similar compositions
+became used by Christian warriors.
+
+A narration, taken from the Sieur Joinville's History of St Louis, will
+place before our readers the contemporaneous description of the effects
+of the pyrotechny of the Arabs.
+
+The following is the account of Joinville of one of the skirmishes of St
+Louis on the borders of the Nile. We should premise that Turk is the
+term generally applied by Joinville to all Mussulman soldiers; and
+though the army was generally recruited from Turkish slaves, yet the
+country was possessed by Arabs, and the language and arts were theirs.
+
+"One evening it happened that the Turks brought an engine called '_la
+perriere_,' a terrible engine for doing mischief, and placed it opposite
+the '_chaz chateils_,' (wooden towers to shelter the advanced guard,)
+which Messire Gaultier de Carel and I were watching at night, by which
+engine they cast at us Greek fire, which was the most horrible thing
+that ever I saw. When the good Chevalier Messire Gualtier, my companion,
+saw this fire, he exclaimed and said to us, Sirs, we are lost for ever
+without any remedy; for if they burn our '_chaz chateils_' we are
+broiled and burned, and if we leave our watch we are disgraced. From
+which I conclude that there is no one can defend us from this peril,
+except God our blessed Creator. So I counsel you all, that whenever they
+cast at us the '_feu Grégeois_,' that each of us throw himself upon his
+elbows and knees, and cry mercy to our Lord, in whom is all power; and
+as soon as the Turcs threw the first charge of fire, we threw ourselves
+upon elbows and knees, as we had been instructed. And the fire of this
+first discharge fell between our two '_chaz chateils_,' in a space in
+front which our people had made for damming the river; and immediately
+the fire was extinguished, by a man whom we had for this purpose. The
+manner of the Greek fire was such, that it came forth as large as a tun,
+and the tail extended as long as '_une demye canne de quatre pans_.' It
+made such a noise in approaching, that it seemed like thunder which had
+fallen from heaven, and seemed to me a great dragon flying through the
+air; and threw out such a blaze that it appeared as clear as the day, so
+great a flame of fire was there. Three times during the night they threw
+this Greek fire at us from the above-mentioned '_perriere_,' and four
+times with the '_arbalesté_.' And every time that our good king Saint
+Loys heard that they thus threw the fire, he cast himself upon the
+ground, and stretched his hands to heaven, and cried with a loud voice
+to our Lord, and said, shedding copious tears--'Good Lord Jesus Christ,
+preserve me and all my people;' and, believe me, his good prayers and
+orisons did us good service (_nous eurent bon mestier_)."
+
+It is impossible to render, in literal translation, the quaint
+simplicity of the old French; but the fact that this terrible fire was
+extinguished by a single man, would tend very much to lessen our belief
+in the marvels attributed to it by the narrator.
+
+Be that as it may, we have, in the extract quoted, the expression Greek
+fire, (_feu Grégeois_,) which will connect the effect then produced with
+that known as pertaining to the Greek fire. There is every probability
+that the compositions here used were the same or similar to those
+generally known under that title, while the MSS. above quoted detail the
+compositions used by the Arabs at that period: the evidence is,
+therefore, very strong that the Greek fire was a composition closely
+resembling, if not identical with, those indicated in the Arabian
+receipts.
+
+If we trace back the effects of the combustible compositions to the
+period of the Crusades, anterior to the time when Joinville wrote, we
+shall find a strong analogy with those described by him; but the use of
+saltpetre appears to have been more rare, and that of bituminous
+substances more frequent.
+
+From an Arabian author of the middle of the 13th century, Casiri
+translates a passage into Latin, which Reinaud somewhat alters. We
+render it as nearly as we can in English. "It creeps along with
+scorpions of nitre powder (_baraud_) placed in cases. These scorpions
+take fire, and wherever they fall they burn; they spread abroad like a
+cloud; they yell like thunder; they burn like a brazier; they reduce all
+to cinders."
+
+This passage is important, as showing the connexion of nitre or
+_baraud_--a word, as we have before stated, applied to nitre and nitre
+compositions--with a class of effects analogous to those attributed to
+the Greek fire.
+
+The passage of incendiary compositions into gunpowder is still involved
+in much obscurity. Messrs Reinaud and Favé consider that a treatise,
+printed at Paris A.D. 1561, entitled _Livre de Cannonerie_, throws much
+light on the subject--"_vient de l'éclairer d'une lumière nouvelle_;"
+but we cannot at all agree with them in this view, and for the simple
+reason, that neither the names of the authors of the receipts contained
+in it, nor the dates, nor the countries, are given. Without either of
+these data, our readers, we think, will find it difficult to conceive
+that much new light can be thrown on the subject. The treatise contains
+a number of receipts for mixtures of oils, bitumens, sulphur, and nitre;
+and, as appears to us, all the aid given by this work towards
+elucidating the subject is, that these receipts are analogous to those
+of Marcus and of the Arabs, and have some internal evidence of having
+been written or copied from writings of an early date, though probably
+subsequent to Marcus; and, secondly the term Greek fire (_feu Grégeois_)
+being employed, and receipts for it given, would lead to the inference
+that the compositions here used under the same title were analogous to
+those which originally constituted the Greek fire. It is, however,
+certainly open to the remark, that Greek fire having become, in a great
+measure, a generic name for violent incendiary compositions, the term
+may have been applied to compositions analogous in their effects, though
+of more recent discovery. When, however, we find, in various distinct
+quarters, similar receipts; when we find these appearing at different
+epochs, and having different degrees of approximation to the explosive
+compounds which a more matured experience has rendered certain in their
+composition, the discovery of such a book as this becomes certainly a
+corroborative circumstance in favour of that view which regards the
+Greek fire as never having become extinct, and as having, by progressive
+but unequal gradations, changed into gunpowder.
+
+In discussing the treatise above mentioned, there is a naïve expression
+of our authors, who, in remarking the necessary slow combustion of these
+compounds from the imperfections of the processes of manufacturing
+saltpetre, also given in the same book, say:--"One sees how much there
+is that is providential in the progress of human invention. If man had,
+in the first instance, a powder as strong as at present, he would
+probably have been unable to master this force, or to use it with
+suitable instruments, and the discovery would have remained without
+application. We see that, thanks to the primitive impurity of the
+saltpetre, man employed mixtures of it with sulphur and charcoal, which
+produced a force suitable for throwing to short distances feeble parcels
+of incendiary matter. This force increased little by little, as men
+became better able to refine saltpetre, and ends by enabling them to
+employ it for throwing projectiles."
+
+We have frequently heard the word providential applied in a strange
+manner; but this is one of the most novel views of providential
+intervention we happen to have met with. The quiet gravity with which
+Providence is assumed to have interfered in favour of the progress of
+destructive implements, is about as instructive an instance of the
+unconscious devotion of an author to his speciality as could easily be
+selected.
+
+In the treatise of 1561 are some receipts, assumed to be taken from
+works of an earlier date, in which saltpetre, sulphur, and charcoal, are
+submitted to a considerable degree of heat. The following is one:--"Take
+of saltpetre 100 lbs., sulphur, 25 lbs., charcoal, 25 lbs., put them
+altogether, and make them boil well, until the whole be well united, and
+then you will thus have a strong powder." Mixed in these proportions,
+and submitted to such a temperature, the chance of explosion is very
+great; and, as our authors observe, "the essential fact of the tradition
+respecting the invention of gunpowder is confirmed;" or rather,
+strictly speaking, the probability of its truth is strengthened. We
+therefore do not see very clearly why they should be anxious to divest
+Schwartz of the merit of its discovery, while they produce arguments to
+show the probability of the discovery being so made. The results of
+these arguments would only tend to show that the tradition is not
+sufficiently explicit, in not stating why the three ingredients were
+mixed together; and Schwartz would, according to this view, be regarded
+as the first who remarked and applied, or suggested the application of
+gunpowder, as supplying an explosive projective force.
+
+Though the probabilities of the use of gunpowder, as an explosive
+compound, being suggested by accidents occurring in the manufacture of
+combustible compounds, are thus shown to be very great, the actual step,
+if step it were, still remains in obscurity. Most probably, like many
+other inventions, the fact was observed again and again with different
+degrees of accuracy and different resulting suggestions; until, at
+length, growing intelligence seized on it, and increasing facility of
+publication rendered its development more rapid and general. The actual
+date of its general introduction or use in war is still uncertain.
+Schwartz's discovery is stated by Kircher at 1354; but gunpowder is
+stated to have been used at the siege of Stirling in 1339; in Denmark in
+1340; in Spain in 1343; at Cressy in 1346; at the siege of Calais in
+1347.
+
+Without entering into the critical discussions which the vagueness of
+the historical records of these periods might tempt, we can scarcely be
+far wrong in setting down the general introduction of gunpowder during
+the first half of the fourteenth century, although any attempt to
+specify, from existing data, the exact date of its invention, would be
+vain. With regard to its connexion with Greek fire, we may sum up by
+stating, that during different periods, extending from the eighth to the
+fourteenth century, combustible matters, in which saltpetre was one
+ingredient, have been used; and that the term Greek fire has been, at
+various times within this period, applied to them. Although it does not
+necessarily follow that the Greek fire alluded to in the more recent
+works was identical with the Greek fire of an earlier period, yet the
+probability is strong that there was at least a striking analogy in
+effect, or the name would not have been used. There is, moreover, some
+internal evidence of community of origin in these various receipts, when
+we find that in different parts of the world, in China, in Arabia, and
+Greece, one general characteristic ingredient is present, viz., nitre;
+when also the history and progress of chemistry have taught us that no
+substance, other than nitre or a salt of nitric acid, has ever been, or
+is now known, which would produce similar effects, (for the
+comparatively recent discovery of the chlorates would produce effects of
+detonation by friction or percussion, of which we find no records,)
+there can, we think, be little doubt that Greek fire was of the same
+chemical character as gunpowder; that it passed by a transition, which
+may have been in particular cases more or less sudden, but which upon
+the whole was gradual, into gunpowder; and that the history of the
+progress of one of these manufactures is, in fact, the history of the
+progress of the other. In this history there are still many gaps to be
+filled up, many errors to be rectified.
+
+The book of Messrs Reinaud and Favé, though somewhat inartificially
+arranged, has given to the public much valuable information; but there
+is still room for an elaborate and well-digested treatise on the
+subject, in which the whole progress of pyrotechnic invention may be
+arranged in chronological order, and more lucidly expounded than are
+antiquarian matters in general. This is a task, however, which few, if
+any, are capable of undertaking, as it requires for its successful
+execution a combination of extensive antiquarian, chemical, and
+philological acquirements. In the mean time, our authors may say, and we
+say with them,
+
+          "Si quid novisti rectius istis,
+  Candidus imperti; si non, his utere mecum."
+
+
+
+
+HOW TO BUILD A HOUSE AND LIVE IN IT.
+
+
+We're a true Boeotian people after all: that's a fact. We may talk
+about Attic art and Doric strength; but in our habits, no less than in
+our climate, we certainly belong to the wrong side of the hills. We're a
+stuffing and guzzling race, if ever there was one; we doat on great
+hunks of meat and flagons of strong drink; and as truly as every Paddy
+has got a hot potato somewhere in his head, making him the queer, mad
+chap he is, so have we got a national brain compounded of pudding, and
+beef, and sausages, turning us into that stubborn and stolid people
+which we know ourselves to be. Sidney Smith expressed the fundamental
+idea of the English nation to a T, when he said that the ultimate end of
+all good government was a hot chop and plenty of claret; but, in saying
+so, he did no more than re-echo the burden of the old song, translated
+into more modern and fashionable language--
+
+  "Back and side go bare, go bare;
+    Both foot and hand go cold;
+  But belly, God send thee good ale enough,
+    Whether it be new or old!"
+
+Ah! he was a splendid fellow that indited this song, and so was that
+other clerical wight who broached the idea--
+
+  "When I go to bed, then of heaven I dream;
+  But that is fat pullets and clotted cream;"--
+
+A real Devonian or Somersettian parson; but they spoke from the
+heart,--or rather from the stomach, jolly, good comfortable souls as
+they were, and their words go right home to the stomachs and hearts of
+all, wherever the British lion has the privilege of lashing his tail or
+shaking his mane.
+
+As to eating, _quoad comedendum constipandumque_, we keep up the
+Boeotic charter to the very letter and spirit of all its provisions;
+and in the moistening of our national clay, we certainly show a
+praiseworthy diligence; we wet it like bricks--and that's a fact, too;
+but as for doing these important matters in proper places and at proper
+times, there, _selon nous_, we are lamentably behind-hand with the rest
+of the unfledged, articulate-speaking, bipedal genus to which we have
+the honour to belong. And as it has been lately shown in our pages, as
+clear as the sun at noonday, (the truth of which beautiful and rare
+simile, gentle reader, varies considerably with the place where you may
+happen to use it--from Shoe Lane, London, to the Strada di Toledo at
+Naples,) or as clear as--clear can be, that John Bull does not know how
+to put a decent coat on his back when he goes out to dinner; so now it
+is to be essayed to show, that for all he may think otherwise, John has
+not got a comfortable, sensible house to go and eat his dinner in; that
+he does not know what a regular, good, snug, and snoozy chimney-corner
+is; and that, when he stumbles up-stairs to bed, he generally puts
+himself into a hole, but not what can be called a room--a real
+comfortable, respectable bed-room. We do not say that he might not have
+done so once--we know, on the contrary, that he did; all we contend for
+is, that he does not do so now, and we don't think he is in the right
+way to mend; and, as John is a special friend of ours, and so is Mrs
+Bull, and all the little Bulls, who will be big, full-grown Bulls some
+day or other, and as we like to make ourselves useful to the present
+generation, and hope to be agreeably remembered by posterity, therefore
+do we intend to take the Bull by the horns, and see if we cannot
+wheedle, coax, pull, push, or bully him into our way of thinking about
+rooms and houses.
+
+It is set down as a national axiom at the present day, that we are at
+the very head of the world in arts, arms, manufactures, laws,
+constitution, Church and State, literature, science--(any thing
+else?--there must be something more; to be sure there is)--money and
+railroads! and he's no true Englishman, Sir, he's not one of the
+British public, if he does not think so. We see it in print every
+day--it must be true; we've read as much in the _Times_, _Herald_,
+_Chronicle_, _Post_, &c.--for the last twenty years, and what all the
+world says must be so. Be it so, honest John, we honour your Boeotic
+patriotism; it's a glorious principle, old boy, and 'twill carry you
+bravely through all the thicks and thins of life--"sed audi alteram
+partem"--do put your nose outside your own door a bit, now that
+railroads are so plenty and cheap--do go abroad a little--just go and
+look at some of those foreigners in their own outlandish countries, and
+then think quietly over these matters again. Besides, who's afraid of
+change now-a-days? Are we not making all these splendid inroads into the
+country, ay, and into the constitution?--are we not going to have corn
+and cattle, and silk and cotton, and butter and cheese, and brandy to
+boot, all brought to our own doors for nothing? We'll leave these other
+things alone--we will not argue about them now; let us talk about bricks
+and mortar, and suchlike, and see if we cannot open your eyes to the
+light of reason and common sense.
+
+Now, what is the end, object, and use of all habitations, houses,
+tenements, and premises whatsoever in this same united kingdom of our's,
+and in this glorious nineteenth century, except to shelter a man from
+the cold, or the heat, or the damp, or the frost, or the wind, whichever
+may come upon him, or any part or parcel of the same; and further, to
+give him room to hoard up, stow away, display, use, and enjoy all his
+goods, chattels, and other appurtenances; and further, wherein to sit
+down with a friend or friends, as the case may be, to any description of
+meal that his purse can or cannot pay for, and then to give him room and
+opportunity either to spatiate for the good of digestion, or to put his
+India-silk handkerchief over his bald pate, and snore away till
+tea-time? This being the very acme of comfort, the very object of all
+labour, the only thing that makes life worth living for, in the opinion
+of three-fourths of Queen Victoria's loving subjects, it follows, that
+if they would spend that money they love so much in a rational and truly
+economical way, they should bear such objects as these constantly in
+sight. This brings us, therefore, to the enunciating, for the second
+time, that great fundamental law of human operations--usefulness first,
+ornament afterwards, or both together if you please; but not, as we see
+the law interpreted now-a-days--ornament and show in the first place,
+and usefulness and comfort put in the background. It is this backward
+reading of the great rule of common sense, that makes men so uncommonly
+senseless as we often find them to be; and when it comes in the way of
+building, it turns us into the least architectural and worst built
+nation of any in this part of Christendom. Taking into account the cost
+of erecting buildings, and the relative value of money in different
+countries, there are no towns in Europe where so little good building
+and so small a degree of architectural effect are produced as in those
+of "old England." Poets and home tourists have affected to fall into
+rhapsodies of admiration at the beautiful neatness of our small country
+towns, at the unparalleled magnificence of London, at the ostentatious
+splendour of our commercial cities, Liverpool, Bristol, &c. This is all
+very well for home readers, and for home reputation; for there is
+nothing like a lot of people congregating themselves into a nation, and
+then be-lauding themselves and their doings up to the skies--there is
+nobody to say nay, and they can easily write themselves down the first
+people on earth. The fault is not peculiar to England; that vapouring
+coxcomb Crapaud is full of such nonsense; and that long-haired,
+sallow-cheeked, quid-chewing Jonathan, is still more ridiculously fond
+of indulging in it: but because it is one of the most offensive
+weaknesses of human nature, it is not therefore the less worthy of
+reprehension, and the sooner we try to throw off such false and morbid
+patriotism the better. The three towns in Great Britain, which, taking
+them in the general average of their common buildings, their citizens'
+houses, can be called the best-looking ones, are these:--first and
+fairest is dear Auld Reekie, next is Cheltenham, and last is Bath. The
+great metropolis we put out of the comparison, for metropolitical cities
+should be compared together; but Edinburgh is _facile princeps_ in the
+list of all habitable places in this island; Cheltenham is at the head
+of all watering-places, and pleasure-places--(Brighton, Leamington,
+Clifton, &c., are certainly not equal to it in point of good
+architecture and general effect;) and Bath, now that its fashionable
+name has somewhat declined, may be looked on as the leader of our
+second-rate quiet kind of towns. Were we to make a fourth class of
+comparisons we would take our cathedral cities, and place Oxford at the
+head, before Worcester, Exeter, and so forth. But we revert to our first
+proposition; and were we about to show a foreigner those places
+wherewith we could desire him to compare his own distant cities, we
+should take him to the three above mentioned. It is in these three
+places that the great essentials of use and ornament seem to us to be
+the most happily combined; attempts are made at them in other quarters
+with various degrees of success, but here their union has been the most
+decided. Bear our opinion in mind, gentle reader; and, when next you go
+upon your travels, see if what we assert be not correct.
+
+The style of house we most object to is Johnson's--you don't know
+Johnson? Why, don't you recollect the little bustling man that used to
+live at the yellow house in the City-Road, and that you were sure to
+meet every day, about eleven o'clock, in Threadneedle Street, or by the
+Bank Buildings? Well, he has been so successful in the drug line that he
+has left the City-Road, and has moved into the far west, Paragon Place,
+Bryanstone Square; and, not content with this, has taken a house at
+Brighton, on the Marine-Parade, for his "Sunday out," as he terms it. He
+is a worthy fellow at bottom, but he has no more taste than the pump;
+and while he thinks he inhabits the _ne plus ultra_ of all good houses,
+lives in reality in ramshackle, rickety, ugly, and inconvenient dens.
+The house in Paragon Place is built of brick, like all others; but the
+parlour story is stuccoed to look like stone, the original brick tint
+being resumed at the levels of the kitchen below and the drawing-room
+above. There are two windows to the said drawing-room--one to the
+dining-room; and so on in proportion for the four stories of which the
+edifice consists: but the back is a curious medley of ins and outs, and
+ups and downs; single windows to dark rooms, and a dirty little bit of a
+back-yard, with a square plot of mud at the end of it, called "the
+garden;" the cook says the "airey" is in front; and Johnson knows that
+his wine-cellar is between the dust-bin and the coal-hole under the
+street. If you knock at the door you are let in to a passage too wide
+for one, but not wide enough for two, and you find at once the whole
+penetralia of the habitation lying open to your vision; dining-room door
+on right hand, parlour door behind it; kitchen door under the stairs,
+and garden door at the end of the passage. You know the man's whole
+household arrangements in a minute; and if he is not in the
+drawing-room, (but Johnson never does sit there, his wife keeps it for
+company,) it is of no use his pretending not to be at home, when you
+have your hand within a few feet of the locks of each door on the
+ground-story. And then, though the passage is dark, for there is only
+the fan-light over the entrance, and the long round-headed window at the
+first landing, all full of blue and orange glass, you know that dinner
+is preparing; for you see the little mahogany slab turned up to serve as
+a table near the parlour door, and such a smell comes up the kitchen
+stairs, that were you at the cook's elbow you could not be more in the
+thick of it. Well, they tell you he's in, and you walk up-stairs to the
+drawing-room; one room in front and the best bed-room behind; and Mr and
+Mrs Johnson's up-stairs again over the drawing-room; and the children's
+room behind that--you can hear them plain enough; and above all, no
+doubt, is the maid's room, and the servant-boy's who let you in; not so,
+the boy sleeps in the kitchen, and the front attic is kept for one of
+Johnson's clerks, for you might have seen him going up the second pair;
+and if he wasn't going to his bed-room what business had he up-stairs at
+all? So that, though you have been in the house only five minutes, you
+know all about it as well as if Mortice the builder had lain the plans
+on the table before you. Well, Johnson won a picture in the _Art-Union_
+some time since, and determined to stick it up in the drawing-room,
+against the wall fronting the windows; so up came the carpenter; and, as
+the picture was large, away went a ten-penny nail into the wall; and so
+it did go in, and not only in, but through the wall, for it was only
+half a brick thick; and, what with repeated hammerings, the bricks
+became so loose that the picture could not be safely hung there. So it
+was ordered to be placed against the wall opposite the fireplace--the
+wall of the next house in fact--and the same operation was going on,
+when old Mrs Wheedle, the next door neighbour, sent in her compliments
+to beg that Mr Johnson would have some regard for her hanging
+bookshelves, the nails of which had been all loosened by his
+battering-ram, and the books were threatening to fall on her tableful of
+china--she called it "cheyney"--below. Again, on the other side lives,
+or rather lodges, Signor Bramante, the celebrated violoncello, and he
+practises in what he has made the back drawing-room, equivalent to
+Johnson's best bed; but, the other day, when Smith came up from
+Birmingham to see Johnson, he could get no sleep for the first half of
+the night, Bramante having occasion to practise till nearly one o'clock,
+for the _Stabat Mater_ of next morning's concert. So much for the
+substantiality of Johnson's town-house. His rooms, too, to our mind, are
+of bad proportions, and most inconveniently situated; they are so low
+that it is impossible to ventilate them properly; he has always a flight
+or two of stairs to go up when he retires to bed, and his servants might
+as well live in a treadmill, for the quantity of step-treading that they
+have to perform. There is no possibility of sitting in any one room out
+of a draft from either door or window, and there is not a single good
+cupboard in the whole house. As for ornament, there is none outside save
+the brass-knocker on the street door, for the windows are plain oblong
+holes in the walls; and, as for the inside, the only attempts at it are
+the cheap and meagre stucco patterns of the cornices, and the somewhat
+tawdry designs of the paper-hangings. He pays seventy pounds a-year rent
+for it, however, and sets himself down as a lucky man, because with his
+rates, &c., he comes within the hundred.
+
+After all, when he goes to Brighton he is not much better off; though,
+as he likes fresh air, he gets plenty of it there, through every window,
+door, and chimney of the house--for there the bow-windowed projection in
+front is made of wood, coated over with tiles, to look like bricks.
+There he never attempted any picture-hanging fancies, the
+partition-walls would stand no such liberties being taken with them;
+there he cannot complain of not knowing what is going on in the town,
+for he can hear all that is said in the next house, by merely putting
+his ear to the wall. The most serious drawback, however, to his comfort
+in his marine residence, is, that while there he can never have a
+good-sized dinner-party, inasmuch as his landlord made it a stipulation
+of the lease, that not more than twelve people should be allowed to meet
+in the drawing-room at the same time, and that no dancing whatever
+should be attempted within the dwelling. The Brighton man only built the
+house for fifteen years; whereas the London one was more provident, he
+guaranteed his for thirty.
+
+Johnson's bed-rooms are, even the best of them, of moderate size, while
+the small ones are very small indeed; and into these small rooms he has
+stuck large four-post beds, that make them darker and more inconvenient
+than they naturally are, and leave room for hardly any of the usual
+evolutions of the toilette. What, indeed, with the big chests of
+drawers, like the big sideboard in the dining-room, it is as much as you
+can do to get about conveniently between the bed and the side walls;
+though one good thing the builder and furnisher have certainly
+effected--you can open the bed-room door, and you can stir the fire, and
+you can almost pull up the window-blind, without quitting the protection
+of the counterpane; and this on a cold morning is something.
+
+Mrs Johnson says that the arrangement of the area gate in Paragon Place
+is perfection itself; for she can see the butcher's boy as he comes for
+his orders of a morning, while sitting at the breakfast-table, through
+the green blinds, and that the policeman dares not stop there, during
+daylight at least--she should be much too sharp upon him; so that the
+cook is twice as punctual as when they lived in the city. True; these
+are points of household management that have their weight; but then Mrs
+J. forgets that the dustman rings his bell there at most inconvenient
+hours, that the dirty coalheaver spoils the pavement once a month, and
+that it is a perpetual running up and down those stone steps, to shut
+the gate and keep dogs and beggars out, all day. However, the railings
+and the gate are not part of the house; and, if people like to have
+their back-doors under their eyes, why, there is no accounting for their
+taste.
+
+We could not help thinking, the last time we went over to Paris, that
+our friend Dubois, the wine-merchant--him from whom we get our
+Chambertin, and who has about the same relative income as Johnson--was
+much better housed. His cellars are down at the Halle aux Vins, like
+every body else's; and he is shut up there in his little box of a
+counting-house nine hours every day of his life; but he lives, now that
+he has moved from the Marais, in the Rue Neuve des Mathurins, which
+leads out of the Chaussée d'Antin. Here he has a _premier_, as they call
+it in Paris--or a first-floor, as we should term it in London; and he
+pays 2000 francs, or £80 a-year for it, with about 100 francs of rates
+and taxes. For this he has two drawing-rooms, a dining-room, a study,
+six bed-rooms, kitchens, and cellars; some of the rooms look into the
+street, the rest run round the ample court-yard of the house. To get at
+him you go up a flight of stone stairs that four people can easily mount
+abreast; when you enter his door, from the little hall paved with stone
+and marble, you pass from the sitting-rooms one into the other--for they
+all form a suite; while the bed-rooms lie mostly along a corridor, into
+which they open. Once up the two flights of stairs that lead to the
+doorway, and the mounting, whether for masters or servants, is done
+with. The kitchen is at the furthest end, away from the other rooms, and
+is approached by a back staircase from the court-yard. There are no
+beggars nor dogs, nor butcher's boys, nor other bores, except what the
+concierge at the gateway allows to come in; and though the street is
+rather noisy, being in a fashionable quarter, yet the court-yard is
+perfectly quiet, and free from all plagues of organs, singers, &c. The
+rooms are, one and all, _twelve_ feet high; their Windows down to the
+ground; the floors of solid oak, polished till you can slide on them;
+the doors are in carved oak, painted white and richly gilt; the
+chimney-pieces are all marble--none of the flimsy thin slabs of Paragon
+Place, but good solid blocks, cut out from the red quarries of the
+Pyrenees; with polished brass dogs in the fireplaces, and large logs of
+flaming wood across then. The drawing-rooms are hung in silk on the
+walls; the other rooms are tastefully papered. There is abundance of
+good furniture, which, from the ample size of the apartments--the
+principal room being thirty feet by twenty--sets off the proportions of
+the dwelling without blocking it up. Dubois has not a four-post bed in
+his house; no more has any man in France. They are all those elegant and
+comfortable things which we know a French bed to be; and the long
+sweeping folds of the red and white curtains that come down to the floor
+from the ceiling, form a graceful contrast to the curves of the other
+furniture. The walls are all of good solid stone, two feet thick on the
+outside; the house has been built these fifty years, and is of a better
+colour than when first put up; the windows are richly ornamented in
+their frames without, and form commodious recesses for settees within.
+You may dine twenty, and dance forty people here! or you may throw your
+rooms open, give a soirée, (no boiled mutton affair, remember; but
+music, dancing, and cards; coffee, ice, and champagne,) and cram each
+room full of people, and the landlord will never fear for the safety of
+his building.
+
+Now, there are three other sets of apartments in the same house, and
+above Dubois, not so lofty as his, but nearly as commodious, and all
+with their proportionate degree of elegance and solid comfort. Dubois
+has not got a house at Dieppe, it is true; but then, like all Frenchmen,
+he is so absorbed in his dear Paris, that he hardly cares to stir out
+from it. If ever he does, he runs off to Vichy or Mont Dor for a
+fortnight in the _saison des eaux_, and he is contented.
+
+But then, you will say, Dubois lives, after all, in another man's
+house--he is only a lodger; whereas Johnson dwells in what the law calls
+his "castle." Be it so; for the same money we would rather have the
+positive advantages of the one, _en société_, than the tasteless and
+inconvenient isolation of the other.
+
+And, after all, is Johnson more decidedly at home in his own house, than
+Dubois is in his "_appartement_?" What does it matter whether you have
+people living on each side of you, with their street doors so close to
+yours that their wives or their daughters pop up their noses above the
+green blinds every time a cab or a jarvey drives up; or whether you have
+people who come in at the same gateway with yourself, and go up the same
+stairs, it is true, and who live either above or below you, and who can,
+if they like, run out on their landings to see who is thumping at your
+door panels? Upon our conscience as honest folks, who have lived in half
+the capitals of Europe, to say nothing of those of our own islands, we
+never found the slightest intrusion on privacy arising from the
+collecting of several families in the same house, in Paris, Rome,
+Florence, or Vienna. All we know is, and we often think of it agreeably,
+that these continental houses seemed to us like so many social colleges,
+and that the having a set of rooms with a common staircase, used to put
+us in mind of our old Christ Church, and of Garden Court in the Temple.
+'Tis true, that in the one set of rooms we had no fellow-inmates except
+our dog, and every now and then a joyous set of fellows that would have
+made any place tolerable; that in the other there was our old laundress
+and bed-maker, and our "boy," and for a short time our "man," and
+actually, upon our honour it is true, we did once see a client in them!
+whereas, in our continental suites of chambers, we are _en famille_ with
+wife, bairns, and "bounes" to boot, and that we did _parfois_ try the
+elasticity or the stretching powers of our _camere_ pretty considerably,
+and did cram therein no end of guests. But on the whole, we have fairly
+made the experiment _in propriâ personâ_; we have weighed well friend
+Johnson's castellated independence, and _l'ami_ Dubois's social
+contiguation;--and, rent for rent, we prefer the latter. If we must live
+with two neighbours within a few feet of us, we would rather have one
+under us on the ground floor, and one above us on the second, and
+ourselves in the midst on the first, and all three clubbing together to
+live in a little palazzo:--we would rather have this, than be crammed in
+between Mr A and Mr B, each of us in a third or fourth rate kind of
+house, with poor thin walls, small low rooms, dirty areas, melancholy
+gardens, shabby-genteel fronts, ugly backs, and little comfort.
+
+It may be said, and justly, that the idea of a man living in his own
+castle is applicable only to that state of society when large towns do
+not exist, inasmuch as the idea can be nothing more than an idea, and
+can hardly ever approach to a reality, the moment men begin to
+congregate themselves together in cities. Doubtless, it is indispensable
+to all our notions of comfort, and of the due independence of social
+life--it is, indeed, one of the main elements of the constitution of a
+family, that a certain degree of isolation should be maintained and
+respected; but we submit to the candid observer, that the only
+difference between English cities and continental ones in this respect
+is, that Englishmen aim at "horizontal" independence, foreigners at
+"vertical." Englishmen form their line of location every man shoulder to
+shoulder, or rather, elbows in ribs; foreigners mostly get upon one
+another's backs and heads, and form a living pyramid like the clown and
+boys at Astley's. By this arrangement, however, it comes to pass, that
+for the same number of inhabitants much more ground is occupied by an
+English than by a continental town; and also, that each single dwelling
+is of mean, or, at the most, moderate architectural appearance, the
+great condition of elevation being wanting, and the power of
+ornamentation being generally kept closely under by the limitation of
+each individual's pecuniary resources. Practically, we contend, there is
+quite as much comfort (we think, indeed, in many cases more) in the
+continental manner of arranging houses as in the English one: while the
+former allows of and encourages architectural display, and indeed
+requires a much more solid system of construction; but the latter leads
+to the running up of cheap, slight, shabby-genteel houses, and represses
+all attempts at external ornament as superfluous from its expense. Upon
+this subject, we appeal to the experience of all who have dwelt for any
+length of time on the Continent, not to those who merely run across the
+water for six weeks or so, and come back as blind as they went; but
+rather to those who have given themselves time and opportunity enough
+for the film of national prejudice to wear away from before their eyes,
+and have been at length able to use that natural good sense with which
+most Englishmen are blessed by Providence. To them we would say, that
+the plan of several families tenanting one large dwelling, clubbing
+together, as it were, for the erection of a handsome and commodious
+edifice, and just so far sacrificing their independence as to consent
+occasionally to run up against their neighbour in the common court-yard,
+or perchance to see his coat-tails whisking by their door up or down
+stairs, is the more sensible of the two. There is practically a great
+saving of walls, of spaces of support, as the architects term it, in
+this plan: great saving in roofing; and, from the mere dimensions of the
+building, a certain degree of grandeur is necessarily given to it. This
+plan requires the edifice to be built court-fashion, and sometimes will
+admit of a good garden being appended: it also requires that a most
+useful servant, a porter, in a suitable lodge, should be kept by the
+little social community; and every body knows what an useful body the
+porter, or _concierge_, as the French call him, may be made. Just as
+bachelors join together in clubs to the great promotion of their
+individual comfort, and certainly to the outward advantage of a city, so
+should families join together for their civic residences; they would all
+derive benefit from their mutual support, and the appearance of a town
+would be immediately improved.
+
+We do not say that any joining together of houses should take place in
+country, nor even in suburban residences. No; there let every man have a
+house to himself; the foundation of the whole system is quite different:
+and there is also a certain class of persons who should always have
+separate dwellings in a town; but to these subjects we will revert on
+another occasion. We will only allude to one objection which the
+fastidious Englishman will be sure to raise: if you live under the same
+roof with one or more families he will say, you must necessarily be
+acquainted with all the members of the same: you must, in fact, know
+what they are going to have for dinner, and thus must be acquainted with
+all the secrets of their household economy. Well, so one would
+undoubtedly expect to be the case: unfortunately, however, for the
+theory, the practical working of the thing is just the contrary: we do
+not know of any town where so much isolation is kept up as in Paris,
+though there men crowd together under the same roof like bees into the
+common hive. We have lived ourselves, between the epochs of our bachelor
+or embryo state, and that of our full-blown paternal maturity, on every
+floor of a Parisian house, from the _entresol_ just over the stable,
+where we could lean out of our window of a morning, smoke our hookah,
+and talk to the "Jockey Anglais" who used to rub down our bit of blood,
+up to the _Septième_, where in those celestial regions we could walk
+about upon our little terrace, look over the gardens of the Tuileries,
+('twas in the Rue de Rivoli, gentle reader!) all the way to St Cloud and
+Meudon, one of the sweetest and gayest prospects in the world, by the
+by, and hold soft communings either with the stars or our next
+neighbours--(but thereon hangs a tale!) and yet never did we know the
+name even of any other soul in the house, nor they ours. Oh! we have had
+many an adventure up and down that interminable staircase, when we used
+to skip up two hundred and twenty steps to get to our eyry; many a
+blow-up with our old porter: she was a good soul, too, was old Madame
+Nicaise; many a time have we seen flounces and redingotes coming in and
+out of doors as we went up or down; but actually we cannot call to mind
+the reality, the living vision of a single individual in that vasty
+mansion. On the contrary, we used to think them all a set of unsociable
+toads, and, in our days of raw Anglicism, we used to think that we might
+be just as well called in to "assist" at some of the charming soirées
+which we used to hear of from the porter: we did not then know that a
+Parisian likes to be "chez lui" as he calls it, quite as much as an
+Englishman. We should have lived on in that house, gentle reader, _ad
+infinitum_; but one day on going up-stairs, we saw in ominous letters,
+on a new brass plate, "au troisième, de la cour," LEGRAND, TAILLEUR.
+Horror of horrors! 'twas our own man! we had not paid him for two years:
+we gave _congé_ that evening, and were off to the Antipodes.
+
+
+
+
+"ROGUES IN OUTLINE."
+
+
+BIRBONE I.
+
+SIGNOR RUSCA.
+
+  "Rusca the lawyer, an exceeding knave."--POPE.
+
+  "Currunt verba licet, manus est velocior illis
+  Nondum linguâ suâ, dextra peregit opus."--MARTIAL.
+
+A more knowing man in his way than Signor Avocato Rusca R---- it would
+not be easy to find; so first-rate is he in his style, though his style
+may not be quite first-rate! His father intended him for a lawyer,
+whilst nature qualified him for a cheat; and, as there seemed to be
+nothing absolutely incompatible in the prosecution of these two
+professions,
+
+  "He sought, without offence to either,
+  How he might deal in both together;"
+
+in doing which for a season, he accumulated much useful knowledge,
+besides laying the foundation of his future fortune. Whether in his
+earlier career he followed the practice of his learned predecessor,
+Paulus, and sought, like him, to augment his fees by pleading in a hired
+Sardonyx,[74] we have not heard; but his passion for jewels, none who
+have seen him without his gloves (and we never saw him otherwise) can
+for a moment doubt.
+
+  "Tight girt with gems, in massive mountings set,
+  Beneath their weight his tumid fingers sweat."
+
+When he had come to find that his dealings as _dealer_ better repaid the
+cost of his earlier education than the teasing uncertainties of the law,
+a sense of filial duty perhaps, and of inclination certainly, led him
+ultimately to give up all his time and talents, together with whatever
+little money he had accumulated, _legally_ or _otherwise_, to the
+acquisition of practical archæology. He had seen enough of antiquarian
+transactions already, to convince him of the unlimited credulity of a
+certain class of connoisseurs--this knowledge was important, and he
+began to apply it presently. Having made himself a competent scholar,
+(he could quote Horace, and had Seneca's[75] moral precepts at his
+_finger-ends_;) being plausible in speech, and knowing the market-price
+of every ancient relic by rote, he could not but succeed; he succeeded
+accordingly--and is now considered throughout Italy as a _mezzo
+galant'uomo_ of first-rate abilities and tact!
+
+By putting himself early under efficient tutelage at _Rome_, and doing
+as they did _there_, he soon outstripped most of his masters in his art;
+the art, that is, of buying "uncertain merchandise," as low as duplicity
+can buy of ignorance and want; and of re-selling at as high a price as
+credulity will pay to cunning.[76] His unusual astuteness made it really
+diverting, when you knew your man, to have dealings with him, otherwise
+it was likely to turn out an expensive amusement. Our acquaintance with
+him began in the full maturity of his powers, when his mode of
+cross-questioning false witnesses who brought him _soi-disant_ antiques
+to sell, and his lawyer-like mode of eliciting the truth, were capital.
+How he would lie! and what lungs he had to lie with! _immensa cavi
+spirant mendacia folles!_ What action! what volubility of tongue! what
+anecdotes! and then only to see how he would look a _false_ Augustus in
+the face, and discern that wily sovereign from a thousand counterfeits;
+or when a sly forger brought him a modern gold coin, carefully coated in
+mould--how he knew by _instinct_ that it was an imposture, and would not
+condescend to exhume and expose the fraud. Like all knaves, he would
+take incredible pains to prove that there was not a more honest man than
+himself breathing--and when he considered himself to have quite
+established _this_ on his own showing, he would sometimes speak with
+"honest indignation" of men who were palpable rogues: assuring you all
+the while, that it gave him pain thus to bear testimony against his
+neighbour, but then every honest man owed it to his Pope and to the
+people to expose Birbonism. On one occasion, when he had a large batch
+of _silver Emperors_ for sale, we said we must see about their _prices_
+in Mionnet.[77] Upon which, with a look of frightened honesty, he asked
+us if "we really knew what we were talking of?" "Perfectly," we replied.
+"Well, sir," continued he, "Mionnet was a Frenchman; did _you_ ever know
+an honest Frenchman?" "Not as many as we could have wished to know; but
+we had known _some_." "We had in that case," he confessed, "the
+advantage over him--_he never had!_ As to Mionnet's book, it was
+written, at least so thought Rusca, with a frightfully corrupt view,
+being published during the French occupancy of Italy, for the joint
+benefit of Mr M. and the _Bibliotheque du Roi_. I admit," quoth our
+lawyer, "that the French only entertained a natural wish (nay, sir, as
+far as the _mood_ was _optative_ merely I commend it as a highly
+laudable one) in desiring to have the best monetary collection in
+Europe; but was it honourable, or just, to pledge this Mionnet to affix
+such prices for rare and better specimens, (such as I have the honour to
+show you here!) when both they and he knew them to be preposterous, and
+then to launch forth this misguiding book as a guide? This precious
+book, sir, was in the hands of all M----'s myrmidons, and the only book
+of appeal then extant; _this_--(thumping his fist, by way of emphasis,
+upon our copy of it)--this, which has been the ruin of Italy, and is the
+degradation of France! I only wish you could hear my friend _Sestini_
+(quel _numen_ degli numismcatici) inveigh against this man and his
+prices, with less reluctance, I assure you, than I feel in doing it, and
+much more powerfully too, because he knows so much more; but come now,
+if you _won't_ think me vain, I will show you the difference between
+honesty and dishonesty. I wish it was of some one else I was about to
+speak, but truth compels me here to introduce my own name. Last week
+that pleasant countryman of yours, Lord X----,--do you know him? (we did
+for a goose!)--comes to buy some gold coins of me; one of the lot he
+fixed upon was a Becker, and so of course only worth what it weighed. He
+had purchased it for fifty Napoleons of me, and we went to his bankers
+together for the payment. There, having duly received the money, I
+requested him to let me see once more the coins he had just purchased of
+me--there might have been a dozen--and instantly picking out the Becker,
+I pushed him over his fifty Napoleons again, and said, "Milord, I cannot
+let you have that coin." "Why?" says he, alarmed and in anger. "Because
+_it is false, Milord_!--and I was quite grieved," added our ingenuous
+informant, "to see how much Lord X---- was disconcerted at this
+disclosure." "You did not let so pretty a coin go a-begging, I dare say?"
+said we with laudable curiosity and interest. "No, two days ago in comes
+Coco--you know Coco?" we smiled. Know Coco! did we know St Peter's? did
+we know the Pope? for whom did Rusca take us, we wonder? "He came,"
+prosecuted Signor R----, "to see if I had by me any first-rate
+imitations from the antique, for he knew a gentleman who might fancy
+something of the sort; and, as soon as he had set eyes upon this Becker,
+he must have _it_; _it_ was just the thing to tempt Lord X----; and so I
+let him have it for _five times_ its supposititious value, but not for a
+_tenth_ of what Lord X---- would, I knew, buy it for a second time as an
+undoubted antique; and lest that rogue should at any time take liberties
+with my name, (for he is capable of anything,) and say he had been duped
+by Avocato Rusca into the purchase of a false thing for a true, here is
+a document with his name to it, which I then and there caused him to
+sign, which _proves_ the contrary. I met him to-day, and he seems much
+pleased with Lord X----'s liberality, who has bought the coin!!" The
+above is a sample of Avocato Rusca's _confessions_, and of his somewhat
+original notions of honesty! Once, however, our honest friend forgot
+himself in a purchase we made of him. And no wonder, for we had also
+forgotten ourselves; for the time when we transacted business was the
+gloaming, and the room being dark had lent its aid to the deception. We
+had also an engagement to dine out, and it was getting late, and we were
+in a hurry. But that same night, on returning from our party, we had
+looked again at what we had bought, and then, first perceiving our
+mistake, determined, if possible, to repair it by repairing early next
+morning to the Minerva Hotel, there to surprise him in his
+dressing-gown, by which bold _coup-de-main_ (having pre-arranged in our
+own minds what we should take away with us in lieu _of_ what we brought
+back) we carried our point at last!--and hardly carried it; for while
+the _new_ batch and the _old_ confronted each other on his table, the
+one being fair, the other like himself, ill-favoured in appearance, we
+saw his restless glance move wistfully from the one to the other. Three
+times in one minute his countenance fell; he coughed, he hesitated, he
+_cospetto'd_ once, he wished we had made known our mind over night; he
+_cospetto'd_ again, and finally was about to reconsider the affair,
+when, not to be foiled by a rogue, we threw it upon _his honour_, (of
+which he had not a particle,) and, by the extravagance of such a
+compliment, prevailed. "He had never cheated us before," (which was
+strictly true; but the reason, which the reader will have no difficulty
+to guess, we did not think it necessary or prudent to assign;) would he,
+after so long an acquaintance with us, change his tactics now?--we need
+not ask him--we were "persuasissimi" that he would not, neither did he!
+We removed the temptation out of his way as soon as we could, and felt,
+as we went home, that we had achieved that morning as _great_ a piece of
+diplomacy, and as difficult, as ever did Lord Palmerston when he was
+minister for our foreign affairs; and grateful were we to Apollo, the
+god of medicine, who had for once assisted us to overreach Mercury, the
+god of rogues.
+
+
+BIRBONE II.
+
+COCO.
+
+          ----"Adspice quantâ
+  Voce negat quæ sit ficti constantia vultûs!"--JUV. _Sat._ vii.
+
+We cut our pen afresh to say a few words concerning that arch-impostor,
+that "Fourbum imperator," Coco the coiner. Had it not been for the
+_prosperity_ of the St Angelo ministry at Naples, that three-headed
+Cerberus of iniquity, of whom the people,
+
+  "Tre Angeli a noi più recan danno
+  Che trenta orrendi Demoni non fanno,"
+
+had it not been that _their_ success seemed to militate against such an
+inference, we might have supposed that Coco, poor, starving, and in
+utter disesteem, had been thus let to live, to prove by a sad contrast
+the truth of the old adage--that "honesty is the best policy." Coco is
+the very impersonation of wiliness and subtlety--a fox amongst
+foxes--the Metternich of his craft;--he has cheated every dealer in
+turn, and by turns has learnt to know the internal arrangements of every
+prison throughout the kingdom. By sheer force of talent he has been
+able, like Napoleon, to maintain his cause single-handed against a host
+of rivals who would crush him, and cannot; and, whenever he is not
+_closeted elsewhere_, he is either holding a privy council with St
+Angelo, or transacting busines with his Serene Highness of Salerno,
+against whom (_par parenthese_) we have not a word to say. Cicero's
+oration for Milo is not better than Coco's oration for Coco; and to hear
+him plead it personally for the first time, is certainly entertaining.
+He seems to have taken _that_ oration for his model, setting out, as
+Tully for that client did, with a staunch negation of the charges
+alleged against him; but embarrassed, as he proceeds in his harangue, to
+maintain himself strictly honest, he gradually throws off reserve,
+converts your room into a court of justice, and, confronting imaginary
+accusers, endeavours to shake their testimony by making out that they
+are just as great rogues as himself! "Coco! say over again just half a
+dozen of _those sentences_--you know where to begin--that you have so
+often been the habit of indulging me with; not the _whole_ speech, Coco,
+if you please." "Eccelenza, no! I was saying, then, that I was in
+advance of my age, and that, if I had been born in France or England in
+place of Naples, I should not now have been called Coco the cheat, the
+thief, the _birbone_, but _Sir_ Coco--or Monsieur le Marquis de Cocon.
+Look at the things I have done, sir, and see what they have done for
+me. No sooner have I devised some new _galanteria_--elegant, classical,
+and sure to take--when it is enough to whisper '_Coco's_,' to bring it
+into discredit: a great outcry is raised against me as its author, and,
+like a second Galileo, I am cast into prison! Knowledge is not power at
+Naples; for my countrymen know that I have knowledge enough when I mulct
+their ignorance, as I sometimes do. It is _too much_ knowledge that has
+brought me into all my scrapes and difficulties! Do you doubt it,
+signor? Why, then, was I _first_ sent to prison?--why, but because my
+mint was frequently preferred to that of his majesty here, and he feared
+lest _my_ Ferdinands should drive _his_ Ferdinands out of the market!
+Had I done the same in England, I suppose they would, on discovering my
+talent, have made me master of their mint, in place of sending me to
+expiate my offence in a dungeon--_basta_ about that affair!--but when I
+had given up making Ferdinands, and took to minting _Domitians_, what
+business was that to the King of Naples, I wonder, unless indeed I had
+put _his_ name to that tyrant's _head_? Yet he sent me a second time to
+prison for it, notwithstanding for which in return I have taken the
+liberty of sending him to a warmer place. See, here's a pretty
+baioccho--Ferdinand's head on one side, and a '_concordia-Augustorum_'
+on the other, where the devil and he are holding hands over a lighted
+altar, he wanting to withdraw his hand,--but the devil's clutch is too
+tight for that!--whilst a little imp is putting a bit of live coal into
+his palm, and another is doing the same under his right foot! For four
+elegant horses in bronze, of which _I forgot the age_, and sold them to
+St Angelo as _antiques_, I was sent to prison again, and a third time.
+Though, when it suited _him_ last year to sell off certain old
+horseflesh that had been many years on his hands as _young_, _his_
+purchaser of course got no redress. Out upon that old Birbone! with his
+galleries, his harems, and his horses;--but he eats too much, and is
+never well,--a great consolation to me, who might else have repined at
+his successes; but when I compare my _health_ with his, I bless the good
+St Januario who keeps me poor! Again, I ought to be grateful to our good
+Saint that, though men may pretend that I lie and cheat, (which perhaps
+I do a little,) you never heard any body say of _me_, what all the world
+says of HIM, that I am _cruel_,--_mai_, you never heard that; and if I
+make money occasionally in some way that it don't _sound_ well to speak
+of, what then? I never hoard it up, the lottery office is my banker, and
+it circulates again presently. And as to cheating, if we look it boldly
+in the face, and see in what company we cheat, why should I be ashamed
+of what all the world does here from King Ferdinand, to Beppo Tuzzi of
+the Mergellina? Didn't Ferdinand try hard to cheat you last year in the
+sulphur question? and would he not have succeeded, too, unless you had
+thought of mixing up the sulphur with some nitre and charcoal, and of
+converting it into a _question of gunpowder_!" "That's true, Coco! and
+now tell us of your last device for raising the wind." "Here it is," and
+Coco has presented us with a small opaque lachrymatory, glistening all
+over in the exquisite irridescence of old glass. "Was it not beautiful?"
+he enquired. "Yes; and ancient as well," replied we; "the decomposition
+of the glass showed that, and the elegant and classical form of the
+vessel showed it too." "Well! he would manufacture just such another
+before us, if we would like to see it done!" "_Comè?_ we should be
+delighted!" "_Dunque e fatto subito_, now that I have _shown how_ it is
+to be effected--just as when that great sea-captain, _quel famoso
+Cristoforo Colombo_"--"Yes, yes! Coco, never mind about _him_ just now."
+"Ah, your excellency, I perceive, knows the story! Well, here you see is
+a small clay vessel moulded from the antique; here a small packet which
+I untie; and here a little gum-water in a phial." We require no other
+materials--a child might do the rest. In the packet now open, we remark
+a quantity of a beautiful, many-coloured glass-dust, in the midst of
+which appear thousands of filmy flakes that have been scraped off from
+the sides of old lachrymatories, and present every hue of colour. In a
+twinkling Coco has _gummed_ the vessel all over, and in less than a
+minute he has rolled round its sides a rainbow robe of the most rich and
+glowing colours, while not a speck of clay remains visible by which to
+make out the fraud! "_Eccolo!_" says he, placing the beautiful
+fabrication in our hand; "_Eccolo!_ do you think that for such a work as
+_that_ I ought to have been sent for the twentieth time to prison?"
+Fearful of having our moral sense dazzled _by the glass_ into making
+some indiscreet admission, we now change the theme. We had heard that
+morning a good story; it was "the case of Coco _versus_ Casanuova," in
+which the cleverness of the former rogue had prevailed against his
+equally astute rival, who had himself been so obliging as to favour us
+with the full particulars thereof, in words like the
+following:--"Coco--(you know Coco?")--(Coco and I smiled, for we knew
+each other perfectly,)--"Well, he presents himself one day before me in
+a shop in the Piazza degli Orefici, bringing in a coin in his hand,
+which he throws down carelessly on the counter, asking me what price he
+should put upon it? On taking it up, I see '[Greek: Yeliôn],' which,
+with the common type of the Velian Lion, as we all know, _vale poco_;
+but, in place of a lion, this had the Athenian _diota_ (or two-eared
+_amphora_) upon the field of the reverse. Knowing that the rogue was
+eyeing me to see how I liked it, in order that he might charge for it
+accordingly, I asked him doubtingly whether _he_ was quite sure it was
+genuine, (_entertaining no doubt on that subject myself._) 'Rather an
+ingenious question for a profound connossieur like Casanuova, to put to
+a poor devil who has the good fortune for once in his life to buy
+something good. _You_ have no doubt about it; but if you say you have, I
+will take it to Tuzzi, and get his opinion first.' Fearing to lose it if
+he did, I confessed that I believed it genuine, and then asked him his
+price. 'He had _refused_ fifty; we might have it at seventy dollars.' Of
+course I 'was astonished,' and offered 'forty--Would that do?' No!
+_honest_ men had but one price; seventy he had said--seventy, he
+repeated, was the price.' I bought it, and paid for it and took it home,
+and consulted my books, and _there_ there was no such type to be
+seen--learned friends who called upon me had never seen its fellow--it
+was pronounced an _inedited_ coin, as indeed it turned out afterwards to
+be! The annual meeting of our archæological society was at hand. I
+determined to _memorialize_ my coin, and to read my memoir at the
+meeting. In three weeks I had finished my labours. There were some
+striking conjectures in the paper, which I went early to deliver. We had
+waited half an hour for the Prince St Georgio. At last he came. 'Look!'
+said I, putting the coin into his hands, (and I said not a word beyond
+this.) Mightily pleased he seemed with it _at once_, looking from me to
+it and from it to me. I thought he was going to propose for it. At last
+he spoke--it was but a word; but his emphasis and accent made my ears
+tingle. '_Excellent!_' said he; but I was reassured on hearing him add,
+'Casanuova has the luck of St Angelo, and nobody ever took him in.'
+Relieved by this announcement, I could now afford to be modest, and said
+it was but by accident that I had _first_ seen the coin. '_Not first_,
+Casanuova," said the prince--'but second, I _believe_. I saw it
+_first_.' '_You!_' said I, aghast; 'you saw this coin, and did not buy
+it?' '_Costava!_ it cost too much; besides, to tell you the truth,
+_Coco, who had just made it_, told me it was expressly intended for the
+cabinet of _quel dottissimo suo amico J. Battista Casanuova_.'" "'Tis
+all true," said Coco, rubbing his hands; "and I believe I can do almost
+any thing I _like_ with any of them." "Except not to tell lies, and not
+to impose upon antiquaries?" "_Caro lei!_ these are the very things I
+like to _do most_, and do accordingly."
+
+"What has become of Coco?" asked we of an _orefice, three years later_,
+on finding ourselves a second time in Naples, and nothing doubting, as
+he had not been to visit us, that he was doing Baron Trenck, and
+exercising his ingenuity in prison. We were surprised, therefore, to
+learn that he now kept a smart shop, and was a sort of joint householder
+with a respectable man, and that nothing particular had occurred to
+tarnish his reputation for now nearly a year! The shop we had already
+noticed as one of promise on the outside; for, as yet, we had not found
+time to visit its interior. It stood half-way up the Toledo, on the left
+hand side as you go to the Studii. Etruscan jars were painted on all the
+shutters, and bits of statues and bas-reliefs _bossaged_ and projected
+from the house front. In face of each window was an enormous shelving
+tray, full of all sorts of odds and ends, from the Flood downwards, the
+whole under protection of a strong iron _grillage_. In one corner of the
+shop (we had _now_ gone forth to visit it) sat a pretty young woman, in
+spectacles, reading Manzoni, or sleeping over him (the aforesaid
+spectacles prevented our noticing which) as he lay open in her lap;
+while on another chair, in the opposite corner, an old man, almost in
+his dotage, looked wistfully round his shop, not suppressing an anxious
+sigh when the scrutiny was done. In an inner room of _his_ palace--for
+such, in derision of its owner, was the house called--busy in preparing
+and cleaning the specimens that were about to be transferred into the
+shop, lurked, like some keen-eyed tarantula, the industrious _Coco_
+himself, with such an eye to business, and such an ear, that we were no
+sooner turned in from the street than he, too, had turned in, and was
+beside us.--"Well, Coco, _bon giorrio_, &c. &c. &c., 'tis said you have
+become an _honest_ man at last; how does this _new_ trade answer?" "Not
+at all," sighed the old man behind us. "Nonsense!" rejoined Coco;
+"whoever heard of a man's making money all at once? Nothing stake,
+nothing make--there's no mending where there's no spending. '_Necesse
+est facere sumptum qui quærit lucrum_, dice bene il Plauto.'" "Allegro
+though you be, Coco, I am not. With you nothing can go ill, for you have
+nothing to lose, either in money or in character; but to me, who am old,
+bankruptcy and a prison are not matters of jest." "Nonsense, again, you
+are not going to prison _yet_!" "Not _at all_, I hope, Coco," said the
+poor little lazy woman in the corner. "If I had my 5000 ducats, and my
+vineyard, again, at Sorrento, that you persuaded me to sell for your
+_Scavi_ at Calvi, which never brought me any thing but a few lamps, and
+_lots of lachrymatories_!" "Basta, 'tis too late to talk about what you
+_would do_ if you had it to do over again. Let bygones be bygones. Who
+knows what this gentleman may come to buy of us? and he never would have
+come to you but from his previous acquaintance with _me_. Isn't it so,
+sir? Ah, there are some pretty things _there_," continued he, following
+our eyes into a placarded recess. "Antichi Sono?" and we look into his
+face; "I'd as lief sell my own flesh and blood, as any thing _here_ that
+was not. Think, sir, of my position. I am the _responsible_ head of this
+firm. That good old gentleman, having begun antiquities late in life,
+does not know much about them. The signora there has taste, plenty; but
+it is not a lady's business to know the prices of things she may value
+or take an interest in; for suppose, now, she should wish to make money
+by the sale of _Coco_, she would hardly know what to ask for him." The
+old man fidgeted; Coco shot a glance at the blue spectacles, which were
+raised at this sally. But the signora, who sat behind them, said
+nothing. "Whence came these same things?" we inquire, for on going close
+up to them, they seemed not unfamiliar to us. Before Coco could coin the
+forthcoming lie, the old man had told us whence they came. "From
+Baroni's shop!" adding that they had cost 700 ducats. This confirmed the
+story we had heard from the beginning to its end. Our clever scoundrel
+had contrived, it seems, to engage the old man in a speculative
+excavation at Calvi; from which a few lachrymatories turning up, the old
+man's cupidity was excited; and, on the false representations made to
+him by Coco, he sold his estate; left the country; and hiring the
+expensive shop in which we see him, _leaves Coco to stock it_! which he
+does by the purchase of such merchandise as _his friends_ have to
+dispose of--"When," says he, "they don't sell them too dear!" The old
+man admits that his employer is very clever; but says quietly, that he
+has not much _fiducia_ in his honesty. Coco says, on his side, that his
+employer is mean in his conduct towards him, and pays his activity and
+zeal in a very niggardly manner. Thus neither is satisfied with the
+other. Meantime the public are saying, that in less than a year the shop
+will be again for sale; that Coco will have bolted; and that the old
+man, if he be alive, will be fretting his soul out in St Elmo! Nobody
+speculates upon what is to become of the lady with the blue spectacles.
+_We_ predict, that should she be alive, and the old man dead, in the
+course of another year, she will have entirely given up her taste for
+things old and curious, and have become curious to try something new and
+comely; if, indeed, Coco shall have left her any money to indulge in
+such a fancy.
+
+On returning from this visit to our hotel, about an hour later, we found
+Coco under the gateway, and on the look-out for us. _More solito_, he
+had something to show us. The porter looked after us inquiringly, as we
+bid him follow up-stairs; but was surprised by a counter look, and by
+our calling him by his _name_. Even on the stairs, he could not forbear
+sundry short ejaculations, by way of preparing us for what we were to
+see presently. "_Ah! ché bella roba!_ Ah, what flowers of the mint I
+have brought you to see to-day!--bought for a song--at three Carlini
+a-piece! You shall have them at three and a half--I content myself with
+small gains. But you, sir, who are discreet, and know the value of these
+things, shall judge whether I have told you a falsehood or no." By this
+time we were in our room. The dirty bag was untied; and there leaped out
+of it, not indeed a cat, but a large heap of consular coins, with which
+we seemed forthwith to be vastly familiar; and no wonder; since, on
+inspecting them, we found that the whole had been ours not twelve hours
+before, we having disposed of them to a refiner for their weight in
+silver, to melt. "Take them all, sir, _tutti quanti_, at three Carlines
+and a half a-piece." "No; nor yet for two Carlines, Coco," said we,
+putting the paper from us. Upon which the cunning fellow hoped _he_ had
+not been taken in; having certainly purchased them in the persuasion of
+reselling them, as a catch, to us. "The _Italian marquis_, of whom he
+had bought them, assured him, on his honour, that he had made a rare
+bargain with him." "Are the coins your own, Coco?" "To my cost are they,
+signor, unless you re-purchase them." "I sold them only this morning,
+Coco, for the weight of the silver; you must try somebody else." Upon
+which Coco, with admirable presence of mind, replaced them in his bag,
+and said "he had made a _mistake_!" "We regretted that he had not
+purchased them from us at the rate of one Carline and a-half per piece;
+in place of having been duped into paying three and a-half." Though he
+saw plainly, from our manner, that we were aware of his roguery, he was
+not put out; but shrugging his shoulders, and twitching the angles of a
+mouth remarkable for its mobility, he merely said--"Pazienza! a
+bargain's a bargain; we grow wiser as we grow older," and speedily
+withdrew.
+
+
+BIRBONE III.
+
+BASSEGGIO.
+
+  "Unde habeas quærit nemo, sed oportet habere."
+  "Fidarsi e bene, ma non fidarsi e meglio."--_Italian Proverb._
+
+Near a fountain in one of the main streets of the west end of Rome, in
+which a recumbent figure bends over his ever-gushing urn; his body half
+hid from sight, and slowly dissolving in the water, under protection of
+a dimly lit shrine of a gaily painted Madonna; a tarnished brass plate
+with the word B---- engraved thereon, is inserted into the panels of a
+dingy-looking door, out of which a long piece of dirty string dangles
+through a hole. If you touch the electric cord, the shock is instantly
+transmitted to the other end, and the importunate tinkling of a
+well-hung bell is responded to by a clicking of the latch, when an
+invisible arm pulls back the door, and your entrance is secured into a
+passage encumbered with broken busts and bas-reliefs, tier above tier,
+and a series of marble tablets, with _Dis manibus_ inscriptions, let
+into the wall on either side. If, now, you pick your way amid the many
+stumbling-blocks that beset it, till you have reached the stair, (a
+narrow stair and dark, and encumbered like the passage, with numerous
+relics of antiquity,) a female voice, loudly shrilling from above,
+demands your business--"_Chi c'e?_"--you answer of course "_Amico_," and
+are bid to mount accordingly. Arrived at the summit of the stair, that
+same voice, the high-pitched key of which startled you from below,
+sounds less disagreeable, now that you are close beside the fair
+proprietress of it, who at once greets you affably, begs you to be
+seated, has seated herself beside you, and, premising that her
+"_marito_" will appear anon, has begun to ask you a hundred questions,
+some of which you are relieved from answering by the actual advent of
+Signor B----, who makes his politest bow, while Madame introduces you as
+an old acquaintance. You see at a glance _this_ part of Signor B----'s
+history, that he has bought a young and pretty wife out of many years'
+traffic in antiquities. Whatever else he may at any other time have
+purchased, was with intention to dispose of afterwards, a suitable
+opportunity offering. But this pretty wife he keeps like an inedited
+coin, or fancies that he keeps to himself entirely. Few antiquaries have
+shown more enterprise than B----. Possessed of little, very little money
+in his youth, he did not, like many other Roman youths of this day,
+squander it away in cigars, and was under twenty when he undertook his
+first commercial expedition. He went into Egypt, could not buy the
+Pyramids, they were too large for his portmanteau; then into Greece;
+then to Sicily. He sailed to Syracuse, landed at Naxos, sacked Taormina
+and Catania; came back and sold his curiosities well; went abroad again,
+and again returned like an industrious bee laden with spoils. Enriched
+at length by these numerous journeys, he was able to purchase a
+vineyard, and to plant it. His next step was to build a villa upon it,
+and to marry an ancient dame, who, dying shortly, left him at liberty to
+marry again. The lady whom he now calls his own being at the time poor,
+his treasures soon won her heart, while his house flattered her
+ambition, and so they made a match of it; and she now accompanies him in
+most of his antiquarian prowling excursions during the summer; and the
+_ménage_, on the whole, for an Italian ménage, goes on well enough.
+
+One day--(this was when, by much frequentation of the premises, we had
+become intimate with its inmates)--one day we had just been _ringing_ an
+Etruscan vase, and liked the sound thereof; and examining the painting,
+we liked that too; and therefore, agreeing as to price, completed the
+purchase, and were sitting between old husband and young wife, round a
+brazier mounted on an ancient tripod, with a handful of gems, _loculis
+quæ custoditur eburnis_, talking carelessly, and taking our
+_impressions_ of them, and of the stones, as we talked. It was a fête
+day, and, now we came to notice it, Madame B---- was en _grande
+toilette_, and had been hearing Padre S---- preach, as she informed us,
+at St Carlo's in the Corso. When she heard we had not been there, she
+sighed for our sakes--"Our friend _should_ have heard Padre S----
+to-day, is it not so?" to her husband, who assented to this good opinion
+of the Padre: "It was such a good sermon! all about doing as you would
+be done by--no loophole for a self-deceiver to escape by. I only wish
+A---- had been there to hear it." "Bagatello!" said Signor B----,
+stirring the brazier, "Do you think he would not have cheated Lord V----
+just the same in this head of Medusa, which he palmed off upon him for
+an antique, knowing it was a Calandrelli? Good sermons are thrown away
+upon some people." "Well," sighed the lady, looking up to the ceiling,
+and then taking a second dose of it--"well, at least we may apply it _to
+ourselves_." "Not a bit of it. _We_ never apply any thing to ourselves.
+Do you think, for instance, when I married you, I sought to mate me with
+a lark, or a nightingale--_risponde_." She had no difficulty in doing
+so. "And was I not a lark till my poor sister died--_poverella_--eighteen
+months ago?" "_Si, Signora!_ but _since_ that time you treat me with
+coldness; are always looking up to the sky; and always telling me your
+soul is with her soul in Paradise. No Paradise for me! What think you,
+sir?" "We always sided with those who were suffering from the loss of
+friends." "_Bene, bene_, for three months or so--'twas all very well,
+natural. But beyond this? Besides, though it were ever so sincere--what
+was the use of it?" "Oh! of _no use_, of course," said we. "I shall
+never give over mourning for her, I promise you that," said the lady,
+much moved. The husband shrugged his shoulders; said, "That all women
+were more or less foolish;" and asked us if we were married? Before we
+had time to answer, in came Padre S----, whose sermon had made such
+impression on B---- and his wife. We now sit all around the brazier;
+both wife and husband being, for some time, loud in their praises, which
+were somewhat extravagant! "It was a divine sermon--St Paul could not
+have preached a better"--when the good man hopes it may, by God's
+blessing, do good, politely acknowledges the compliment implied in our
+regrets that we had not been of the auditory, and then rises to look
+round, Signor B---- doing the honours, at the curiosities of the shop;
+at the sight of several objects of virtù, he expresses, somewhat
+naïvely, great pleasure--would like to have seen more, but has another
+sermon to deliver in St Jacomo--the bell is ringing!--he must say _idio_
+at once. As he makes his exit, (Madame kisses his hand first,) two other
+visitors present themselves; the one a young Roman, who comes to console
+her; the other a young English nobleman, who comes to buy in haste, and
+will have to repent at leisure afterwards. In five minutes, Madame seems
+to have entirely forgotten her sister; B---- his wife! The one is
+receiving comfort in compliment; the other, in cash! Hush! Surely we
+heard Lord A---- ask if that vamped old vase, which will fall some day
+to pieces, was _antique_; and B----assert that it was! Why, the paint is
+scarcely dry on its sides! Lord A----'s unlucky eye lights upon a bust,
+which, when he gets it over to England, he may match at the stone-mason's
+in the New Road, and at half-price--_two_ words, _three_ syllables,
+and the purchase is made "_Chi?_" Whose bust is it? "Cicero's," of course!
+"Quanto," what's the price of it? "Twenty Napoleons!" You old rogue B----!
+you are safe in sending it to Terny's, _packed_; for, if it should be
+seen, you might have to refund the purchase-money. _Necdum finitus?_
+Another bust tempts him; he inquires, and finds it is a _Jove_--a Jove!
+and is
+
+  "Jupiter, hæc nec labra moves, quum mittere vocem
+  Debueras, vel _marmoreus_, vel aheneus?
+  ... Quod nullum discrimen habendum est
+  Effigies inter vestras, statuamque Bathylli?"
+
+And this too, he buys for twenty Napoleons more; and having paid the
+purchase-money, away goes the possessor of Jupiter, and at the same
+juncture away goes the Cavaliere--each perfectly satisfied with his
+visit.
+
+"_Molto intelligente_, that countryman of yours," said B----, spelling
+his card. "He seems to take things very much upon trust," said we. "'Tis
+a pity he don't understand Italian or French better. Otherwise, I
+_might_ have perhaps suggested better things than those he has actually
+chosen. But after all," added he, "people don't like being put out of
+conceit with their own opinions; and think you personally interested, if
+you offer yours unasked." "I should have been sorry to have taken that
+vase as antique, as he has done; or to have paid the tenth of the price
+he has paid you for it." "Oh! don't be afraid; he can afford it--an
+English gentleman!--and to _him_ it is worth what he paid for it; else,
+if he did not think so, who forced him to take it?" "I _wonder_ now what
+Father S---- would have said to it;" asked Madame of her husband,
+looking up to the ceiling, and sighing. "Nothing, 'twas not in his
+province to pronounce judgment in such a matter." We too _wondered_,
+perhaps, what he might have said to Madame, touching her Cavaliere,
+whose discourse seemed to have told almost as powerfully on her as
+_his_ sermon at St Carlo's. We wondered, but _to ourselves_, and making
+the common-place remark, that it seemed easier to _preach_ than to
+_practise_, exchanged smiles with B---- and his wife, and withdrew, to
+think over what we had seen; and to arrive at our own conclusions,
+touching the general utility of fashionable and popular preaching!
+
+
+BIRBONE IV.
+
+HERR ASCHERSON.
+
+"Rogare malo, quam emere."--SUIDAS.
+
+Sly old fox, what pen shall do justice to thy cunning! Grave, venerable,
+ancient cheat, who showest a _Bible_, left thee by some pious enthusiast
+(the old family pew-book, morocco, in silver clasps--well thou lookest
+to them at least) in return for many dealings with thee, and in
+requital, so thou sayest, for thine incomparable disinterestedness and
+honesty!
+
+It would be no harder task to unwind a mummy, than to unroll and
+unriddle _thee_, old rogue, in thy endless windings and detours! "Have
+no dealings with A----," said that _timid_ rogue, the Florentine
+attorney R----; "the man is so gigantic a cheat, that he frightens me!"
+"and cunning to a degree" was D----'s account of him. "He is up to a
+thing or two," said S----, looking knowing, and putting his finger, like
+Harpocrates, to his mouth, that it went no further. A brother dealer
+called him a Hebrew; another (himself as sly as any fox) admitted that
+he had been overreached by him. His name, whenever mentioned, seldom
+failed to call forth a smile, or a shrug, in those who had not dealt
+with him; and a thundering oath against his German blood in those that
+had. Mr A---- was therefore too remarkable a man for us, ourself an
+incipient collector, not to visit; and so, as soon as we got to Naples,
+we dispatched a note, and the next day followed it in person; rang at
+the bell, and were ushered into his sanctum; where we beheld the old
+_necromancer_ standing at his table, looking out for us. He put down his
+eyeglass and his old coin; and said in answer to our question, which was
+in English, "Ya! ya! mein name is A----." Forgetting at this moment what
+R---- had said of him, and only recollecting that they were acquainted,
+we began, by way of introducing ourselves to his best things, to say,
+that we had lately seen his friend R---- at Rome--"Dat is not mein
+friend, dat is mein enemy," said he, displeased at our mentioning the
+name; and looking at us half suspiciously, half spitefully. "I hav notin
+to say wit him more," and he took a huge pinch of snuff, and wasted a
+deal on his snuffy waistcoat and shirt frill. We at once saw our
+mistake, which indeed, but for our anxiety to get to business, we should
+not, assuredly, have been guilty of. We had now to make the best of it.
+"A mistake, Mr. A----, we assure you. Mr. R---- might say that, on _one_
+occasion, you _had_ been _brusque_ with him; but advised us,
+notwithstanding, to pay you a visit, regretting that, from some little
+difference between you, _he_ could not give us the introduction, which,
+under more favourable circumstances, he would have pressed upon us;" an
+announcement which completely mollified the old rogue, who, in his heart
+of hearts, was thinking that a new victim had turned up to him, and one
+of Rusca's recommending. "It is pleasant to make peace between two
+honest men," said we; "Rusca and you should not have quarrelled.
+Ill-natured people take advantage of these disputes, and begin to
+profess open distrust as to the age and genuineness of whatever you
+sell." "For dis reason I hate not Mr Rusca; but he has too much
+_strepitusness_ of voice--_il s'emporte trop facilement_." "Ah,"
+interpose we in the mediatorial capacity we had assumed, "'tis the
+character of the Italian to do so." "Ya, dat is true," assented he; and
+then we went to look at his coins. "We are not blind friends of
+Rusca's," said we, sitting down to the first tray which he gave us to
+look at, and seeing, from the character of the coins therein exhibited,
+that A---- had presumed we _might_ be. "We only buy from R---- when he
+is discreet, and does not overcharge; which, _entre nous_, he is very
+apt to do." The old man glanced at us approvingly, and trying hard to
+look honest, said, "Ya, ya; when he can get _ein_ piastre he will not
+take _ein halb_--but when I ask a piastre for any tings, (and he was
+grave again,) it is tantamount as to say, 'dis is de _leastest_ preis to
+give.'" "All here has a fixed price, has it?" "Ya, ya." "And what may
+this pretty little figure be worth?" "I shall confess dat is dear; two
+hundred piastres is de preis--Rusca would have said four hundred to
+begin mit." We admitted its beauty; but said two hundred spread out upon
+the table were also beautiful. "De good ting is de dear ting," said he,
+and we admitted the truth of the proposition, both in the abstract and
+in its application; took up a specious-looking coin, which he took as
+abruptly out of our hand--"_Nein gewiss nicht_," we must not buy that.
+"Why?" Because some people had not scrupled to tell him (though they
+knew better) that it was a Rusca. "Rusca!" said we, "and what does that
+mean?" "In Neapolitan _patois_," said he, "we call all our specious but
+doubtful wares Ruscas! But dis," continued he, taking up a companion to
+it--"dis I baptize in my own name, and offer for a true John A----."
+"Ah!" sighed we, but without _emphasis_, as if it had only _just_
+occurred to us "how difficult, now-a-days, _not_ to be deceived;" and we
+replaced the J---- A---- in his box accordingly. "Ven all amateurs,"
+said he, (following out his own thought, rather than replying to ours,)
+"ven all amateurs were connoisseurs likewise, we might say goot-night to
+dis bissnesse."
+
+In the days of our novitiate, when we used to say, and think we knew (as
+the phrase is) what would please us, and would buy according to our
+means, we found (as indeed all purchasers in these matters find) that
+time, while it brought with it a nicer appreciation in judging works of
+art, diminished also our opinion of what we had formerly purchased; and,
+to avoid fresh disappointments, we used to apply to an _antiquario_ to
+give us his advice _pro re nata_;--as the reader will see by the
+following note of Herr A----, which, as it prevented our making one or
+two foolish purchases, was not without its value, and we preserved it
+accordingly. It ran _verbatim_ thus--
+
+     "Sir,--You may copy my catalogue, but on Montag ber sur I must hav
+     back. The _botel_ is not good in such a manner. The _figure_ is of
+     no great value; it is not antic, and not fair; so is the _bust_ in
+     stone not antic, and not nice; and every thing that is neither
+     antic nor fair I cannot give any worth. Your obedient servant,
+
+     "A----.
+
+     "Pray you must not tell to any one my estimation of any thing."
+
+Neither did we, excepting to _Maga_, to whom we tell every thing.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX TO VOL. LIX.
+
+
+  Adams, Mr, on the Oregon Question, 443.
+
+  Æschylus, tragedies of, 61, 65.
+
+  Æsthetics of Dress
+    --Military Costume, 114.
+
+  Agriculture, decline of, in Italy, 339.
+
+  Alamo, siege of the, 39.
+
+  Alexander of Russia, accession, &c. of, 224.
+
+  Alexander, Prince of Servia, 133, 146.
+
+  Alfieri, tragedies of, 71.
+
+  Aliwal, battle of, 639.
+
+  Almanza, battle of, 200.
+
+  America, specimens of the debates, &c. in, 439.
+
+  Americans and the Aborigines, the, a tale of the short war, Part I., 554
+    --Part II., 677.
+
+  Amusements at Vichy, 309.
+
+  Anacreon's grave, from Goethe, 121.
+
+  Andreossi, the French ambassador, 466.
+
+  Antigone of Sophocles, the, 64.
+
+  Antonio Perez, sketch of the career of, 450.
+
+  Apology for a review, an, 249.
+
+  Arethusa, fountain of, 103.
+
+  Assur, battle of, 491.
+
+  Atheism, first public avowal of, in France, 393.
+
+  Austin, Stephen F., 37.
+
+
+  Baker, Mr, on the Oregon Question, 444.
+
+  Banks, Sir Joseph, 648.
+
+  Barclay of Ury, first feat of, 225.
+
+  Barré, Colonel, death of, 463.
+
+  Bedford, Duke of, death of, 227.
+
+  Belgrade, town of, 133.
+
+  Bells of Venice, the, 256.
+
+  Bentinck, Lord George, on Ireland, 601.
+
+  Berwick, Marshal, 211, 213.
+
+  Birboniana, or Italian Antiquities and Antichitá
+    --scene the first
+    --the introduction, 543
+    --Birboniana, 548
+    --Birbone I., Signor Rusca, 765
+    --II. Coco, 768
+    --III. Basseggio, 772
+    --IV. Herr Ascherson, 775.
+
+  Borneo, the expedition to, 356.
+
+  Bosniaks, character of the, 138.
+
+  Boufflers, Marshal, 211, 213, 214.
+
+  Breece, Captain, 38, 39.
+
+  Bridge of Sighs at Venice, the, 254.
+
+  Broadfoot, Major, on the state of the Punjaub, 628.
+
+  Brooke, Mr, of Borneo, Sketch of the life, &c. of, 356.
+
+  Brougham's lives of men of letters and science, &c., review of, 645.
+
+  Bunkerhoff, M., on Oregon, 447.
+
+  Burden of Zion, the, by Delta, 493.
+
+
+  Camelford, Lord, anecdotes of, 217.
+
+  Campagna of Rome, description of the, 252
+    --causes, &c., of its present condition, 337.
+
+  Campaign in Texas, a, 37.
+
+  Campaign of the Sutlej, the, 625.
+
+  Capucin convent at Syracuse, the, 106.
+
+  Cass, Mr, on the Oregon question, 442.
+
+  Cathedral service in England the, 181.
+
+  Catholic emancipation, on, 387.
+
+  Charles XII., character of, 195.
+
+  Chipman, Mr, on Oregon, 447.
+
+  Christie the auctioneer, anecdote of, 229.
+
+  Christmas carol, 1845, 122.
+
+  Clarke, Mr, murder of, 593.
+
+  Clerks of counsel, duties of, 5.
+
+  Coercion bill, the Irish, 572.
+
+  Colonel O'Kelly's parrot, death of, 466.
+
+  Colosseum, the, 252.
+
+  Consultation, a; a Sicilian sketch, 109.
+
+  Contrast, the, 307.
+
+  Cook, General, 39
+    --Captain, 649.
+
+  Corn-law repeal, the proposed, 373.
+
+  Corneille, tragedies of, 69.
+
+  Cos, General, 37, 40.
+
+  Crisis, the, 124.
+
+  Crusades, the, and their effects on Europe, 475.
+
+  Czabacz, town of, 135.
+
+
+  D'Alembert, career of, 654.
+
+  Darragh, Mr, on the Oregon question, 444.
+
+  Darwin, Dr, death of, 228.
+
+  Delta, burden of Zion by, 493.
+
+  Despard, Colonel, conspiracy and trial of, 467.
+
+  Devon, Lord, on the state of Ireland, 567.
+
+  Dionysius, the ear of, 105.
+
+  Distribution of grain in Rome, effects of, 340.
+
+  Dorislaus, battle of, 484.
+
+  Douglas, Mr, on the Oregon question, 443.
+
+  Drama, remarks on the Greek and romantic, 54
+    --Causes of the decline of, 58.
+
+  Dramatic poet, qualifications necessary for the, 54.
+
+  Dress, æsthetics of
+    --Military costume, 114.
+
+  Dyaks of Borneo, the, 359.
+
+
+  Ear of Dionysius, the, 105.
+
+  East and west, 248.
+
+  Eboli, princess of, 454.
+
+  Education in Servia, state of, 135.
+
+  Ehrenberg's campaign in Texas, 37.
+
+  Ejections in Ireland, 578.
+
+  Elinor Travis; Chap. I., 713.
+
+  Ellis, Wellbore, death of, 229.
+
+  English hexameter, remarks on the, 259.
+
+  Enriquez, narrative of the murder of Escovedo, by, 455.
+
+  Epigrams from Goethe, 121.
+
+  Epipolæ, excursion to, 110.
+
+  Escovedo, the secretary, murder of, 452, 455.
+
+  Eugene, Prince, 201, 206, 212.
+
+  Eusebius, letter to, 408.
+
+  Excursion to Epipolæ, an, 110.
+
+
+  Fall of Rome, causes of the, 339
+    --its causes at work in the British Empire, 692.
+
+  Famine in Ireland, the, 599.
+
+  Fanning, Colonel, 42, 43, 44.
+
+  Faucit, Miss, 55.
+
+  Ferozeshah, battle of, 635.
+
+  Follett, Sir William, sketch of the career and character of, 1.
+
+  Fountain of Arethusa, the, 103.
+
+  Fox, conduct of, on the regency question, 389.
+
+  Fragments of Italy and the Rhineland, review of, 249.
+
+  French drama, characteristics of the, 68.
+
+  French revolution, Wellesley on the, 394.
+
+
+  Geddings, Mr, on the Oregon question, 443.
+
+  Goethe, translation from
+    --Goethe to his Roman love, 120
+    --Epigrams
+    --Anacreon's grave, 121
+    --the warning, ib.
+    --the Swiss alp, ib.
+    --north and south, ib.
+
+  Goliad, fort, massacre at, 43.
+
+  Gordon, Mr, on the Oregon question, 447.
+
+  Grain, importation of, into Rome, 340.
+
+  Grant, Colonel, 41, 42.
+
+  Greek and romantic drama, the, 54.
+
+  Greek Fire and Gunpowder, 749.
+
+  Griffiths, Mr, on Ireland, 586.
+
+  Gunpowder, on the origin of, 749.
+
+
+  Hamlin, Mr, on the Oregon question, 446.
+
+  Heberden, Dr, 224.
+
+  Herbert, Mr Sidney, on the state of Ireland, 572, 573.
+
+  Hexameter, the English, remarks on, 259.
+
+  His epitaph, by Ennius, 496.
+
+  Holman, the blind traveller, 134.
+
+  Homer's Iliad, twenty-fourth book of, translated into English
+        hexameters, 259
+    --book the first, 610.
+
+  Horace, translations from, 411.
+
+  Houston, General, notices of, 51.
+
+  How they manage matters in the Model Republic, 439.
+
+  How to build a house and live in it, 758.
+
+  Hyder Ali, the war with, 398.
+
+
+  Iliad, the twenty-fourth book of, in English hexameters, 251
+    --the first, 610.
+
+  India, Wellesley's administration in, 396.
+
+  India bill, Pitt's, 391.
+
+  Ingersoll, Mr, on the Oregon question, 444.
+
+  Iphigenia in Aulis, the, 65.
+
+  Ireland, state of, in 1780, 387.
+
+  Ireland, present state of, and measures with reference to, 572.
+
+  Italian antiquities and antichitá, 543, 765.
+
+  It's all for the best, Chap. I, 230
+    --Chap. II., 234
+    --Chap. III., 238
+    --Chap. IV., 242
+    --Chap. V., 245
+    --Chap. VI., 319
+    --Chap. VII., 320
+    --Chap. VIII., the squire's tale, 323
+    --Chap. IX., 329
+    --Chap. X., 334.
+
+
+  Jack Robertson and the professor of eloquence, 104.
+
+  Jenner, discovery of vaccination by, 230.
+
+  Jerusalem, storming of, by the Crusaders, 486.
+
+  John, Don, of Austria, 452.
+
+
+  Kara George, the Servian leader, 143.
+
+  Kemble, Stephen, 225.
+
+  Kennedy, Mr, on Oregon, 446.
+
+  Kopaunik mountain, the, 139.
+
+  Krushevatz, town of, 139.
+
+
+  Last hours of a reign; a tale in two parts
+    --Part II., Chap. III., 17
+    --Chap. IV., 24
+    --Chap. V., 29
+    --conclusion, 36.
+
+  Lauriston, General, 223.
+
+  Lavater the physiognomist, 221.
+
+  Lavoisier, career of, 658.
+
+  Leases, effects of, in Ireland, 584.
+
+  Le Peuple, review of, 733.
+
+  Let never cruelty dishonour beauty, 16.*
+
+  Letter to Eusebius, 410.
+
+  Lille, siege of, by Marlborough, 211.
+
+  Literature of the eighteenth century, the, 645.
+
+  Lodge, A., the Old Player by, 473
+    --the Rose of Warning, by, 747.
+
+  Lover of society, recollections of a, 215
+    --Part II., 463.
+
+
+  Mackintosh, Sir James, defence of Peltier by, 468.
+
+  Maher, Mr, on the state of Ireland, 589.
+
+  Malta, seizure of, by France, 467.
+
+  Marlborough, No. III., 195
+    --his interview with Charles XII., 197
+    --difficulties with which he had to contend, 199
+    --invades France, 201
+    --returns to England, 202
+    --resumes the command, 203
+    --movements previous to Oudenarde, 204
+    --defeats the French there, 207
+    --besieges Lille, 211.
+
+  Marquis Wellesley, sketch of the career of, 385.
+
+  Martha Brown, by an ancient contributor, 184
+    --Chap. II., 187.
+
+  Martial, epigrams from, 496.
+
+  Martin, General Claud, 226.
+
+  Masham, Mrs, 202.
+
+  Mendip, Lord, 229.
+
+  Metastasio, dramas of, 70.
+
+  Mexico, war between, and Texas, 37.
+
+  Michaud's History of the Crusades, review of, 475.
+
+  Michelet's Le Peuple, review of, 733.
+
+  Mignet's Antonio Perez and Philip II., 450.
+
+  Military costume, remarks on, 114, 219
+    --Music, 175.
+
+  Milosh, the Servian leader, 145.
+
+  Ministerial measures, the, 373.
+
+  Model Republic, how they manage matters in the, 439.
+
+  Modern Pilgrim's Progress--the fragment of a dream
+    --Chap. I., How Scapegrace first made acquaintance with Scrip, 604
+    --Chap. II., How Scapegrace, losing sight of Premium, was mocked at
+          Vanity Fair, 606.
+
+  Moodkee, battle of, 633.
+
+  Mornington, Earl of, 386.
+
+  Moses and Son, a didactic tale
+    --Chap. I., 294
+    --Chap. II., 297
+    --Chap. III., 299.
+
+  Mother and her dead child, the, 53.
+
+  Muda Hassim, rajah of Borneo, 358, 359.
+
+  Music, something more about, 169.
+
+  My College Friends, No. III.
+    --Mr W. Wellington Hurst, 73.
+
+  Mysore war, the, 397.
+
+
+  Napoleon, epigram on, 220.
+
+  Natural history of Vichy, the, 306.
+
+  Naylor's Reynard the Fox, review of, 665.
+
+  Naval costume, remarks on, 119.
+
+  Nobility, re-establishment of, in France, 230.
+
+  North and South, from Goethe, 121.
+
+  Novibazar, town of, 138.
+
+
+  O'Connell, Mr, condition of the tenantry of, 589.
+
+  Old player, the, by A. Lodge, 473.
+
+  On a bee, from Martial, 496.
+
+  On Gellia, from Martial, 496.
+
+  Oregon question, American speeches on the, 441.
+
+  Orford, Lord, 470.
+
+  Oudenarde, battle of, 207.
+
+  Overkirk, General, death of, 214.
+
+
+  Palmerston, Lord, on the Servian question, 147.
+
+  Paton's Servia, review of, 129.
+
+  Paul, the emperor, 216, 218, 219.
+
+  Peace of Amiens, the, 223, 228.
+
+  Pearce's life of Wellesley, review of, 385.
+
+  Peel ministry, resignation of the, 124
+    --their return to office, 128.
+
+  Peel, Sir Robert, and his corn-law measure, 373.
+
+  Peep into the Whig penny-post bag, a, 247.
+
+  Peltier, trial of, 468.
+
+  Peninsular war, opening of the, 402.
+
+  People, the, 733.
+
+  Perceval, Mr, death of, 403.
+
+  Perez, Antonio, sketch of the career of, 450.
+
+  Petronevich, M. 131, 134, 142.
+
+  Petty, Sir William, 219.
+
+  Philip II. sketches of, 450.
+
+  Piper, Count, minister of Charles XII. 197.
+
+  Pitt, retirement of, 227
+    --Regency question, 389.
+
+  Poetry:
+    --Let never cruelty dishonour beauty, 16*
+    --the mother and her dead child, 53
+    --translations from Goethe, 120
+    --Christmas carol, 1845, 122
+    --the twenty-fourth book of Homer's Iliad, in English hexameters, 259
+    --the Old Player, by A. Lodge, 473
+    --the burden of Sion, by Delta, 493
+    --rhymed hexameters, 496
+    --the first book of Homer's Iliad, 610
+    --Truth and Beauty, 624
+    --the Rose of Warning, 747.
+
+  Posharevatz, town of, 140.
+
+  Potatoe failure, the, 382.
+
+  Powell, Mr, murder of, 591.
+
+  Prometheus Vinctus, the, 65.
+
+  Prospectus, a, 621.
+
+
+  Racine, remarks on, 69.
+
+  Rassavatz, M. 140.
+
+  Recollections of a Lover of Society
+    --the Irish Union, 215
+    --Challenge to George III. 216
+    --anecdotes of Lord Camelford, &c. 217
+    --death of Paul of Russia, 218
+    --anecdotes of him, 219
+    --epitaphs, 221
+    --death of Lavater, Heberden, &c. _ib._
+    --peace of Amiens, 223
+    --coronation of Alexander of Russia, 224
+    --first feat of Barclay of Ury, 225
+    --appearance of Stephen Kemble, _ib._
+    --on the peace, &c. 226
+    --death of the Duke of Bedford, 227
+    --retirement of Pitt, _ib._
+    --conclusion of the peace, 228
+    --death of Darwin, _ib._
+    --and of Lord Mendip, 229
+    --re-establishment of nobility in France, 230
+    --Jenner and vaccination, _ib._
+    --No. II.
+    --ball in honour of the peace, 463
+    --accident to George Rose, _ib._
+    --death of Colonel Barré, _ib._
+    --curious law action, &c. 464
+    --measures of Napoleon, _ib._
+    --Schinderhannes the robber, 465
+    --Colonel O'Kelly's parrot, 466
+    --Andreossi and the seizure of Malta, _ib._
+    --image of our Lady of Loretto, 467
+    --trial of Colonel Despard, _ib._
+    --trial of Peltier, 468
+    --Lord Orford, 470
+    --frauds on the Stock Exchange, 471
+    --declaration of war against France, 472.
+
+  Reform, first agitation of, 390.
+
+  Regency question, the, 389.
+
+  Reign, last hours of, a tale in two parts, Part II., Chap. III., 17
+    --Chap IV., 24
+    --Chap. V., 29
+    --Conclusion, 36.
+
+  Reinaud on Greek Fire, 749.
+
+  Rent, rates of, in Ireland, 586.
+
+  Reynard the Fox, 665.
+
+  Rhodes, description of, 130.
+
+  Rhymed Hexameters and Pentameters, 496.
+
+  Rogues in Outline, see _Birboniana_.
+
+  Roman Campagna, the, 337.
+
+  Romantic drama compared with the Greek, 54.
+
+  Rome, sketches of, 250
+    --causes of the decline and fall of, 340
+    --the fall of
+    --its causes at work in the British Empire, 692.
+
+  Rose, George, accident to, 463.
+
+  Rose of Warning, the, by A. Lodge, 747.
+
+  Roustchouk, fortress of, 131.
+
+
+  Sacred music, on, 181.
+
+  St Antonio, siege of, 38.
+
+  St Germans, Lord, coercion bill of, 572.
+
+  Santa Anna, notices of, 37.
+
+  Santa Lucia and the Capucin convent, 106.
+
+  Schiller, dramas of, 72.
+
+  Schinderhannes, the robber of the Rhine, 465.
+
+  Scott's novels and poems, remarks on, 414.
+
+  Serier, Mr, on the Oregon question, 442.
+
+  Servia, and the Servian question, 129.
+
+  Shabatz, town of, 135.
+
+  Shakspeare and Æschylus, comparison of, 61
+    --and the drama, 534.
+
+  Sharks and fireflies, 108.
+
+  Sheridan on the French Revolution, 395.
+
+  Sicilian sketches
+    --Syracusiana--the fountain of Arethusa, 103
+    --Jack Robertson and the professor of eloquence, 104
+    --Ear of Dionysius, 105
+    --Santa Lucia and the Capucin convent, 106
+    --sharks and fireflies, 108
+    --a consultation, 109
+    --excursion to Epipolæ, 110
+    --addio, Sicilia, 111.
+
+  Siddons, Mrs, 55.
+
+  Sikhs, subjugation of the, 625.
+
+  Simitch Stogan, 142.
+
+  Sims, Mr, on the Oregon question, 415.
+
+  Sir William Follett, sketch of the life and character of, 1.
+
+  Small canals of Venice, the, 254.
+
+  Smith, Adam, 661.
+
+  Smith, Sir Harry, despatch of, 639.
+
+  Smuggler's leap, the, a passage in the Pyrenees, 366.
+
+  Sobraon, battle of, 642.
+
+  Sokol or Szoko, fortress of, 136, 137.
+
+  Soltau's Reynard the Fox, review of, 665.
+
+  Something more about music, 169.
+
+  Stanton, Mr, on the Oregon question, 447.
+
+  State of Ireland, the, 572.
+
+  Story of Periander, the, 417.
+
+  Studenitza, convent of, 138.
+
+  Student of Salamanca, the, Part III., 85
+    --Part IV., 149
+    --Part V., 273
+    --Part VI., 419
+    --Part the last, 513.
+
+  Surveyor's tale, the, 497.
+
+  Sutlej, campaign of the, 625.
+
+  Suvaroff, anecdote of, 219.
+
+  Svilainitza, town of, 140.
+
+  Swindler, a female, 218.
+
+  Swiss Alp, the, from Goethe, 121.
+
+  Syracusiana, _see_ Sicilian sketches.
+
+
+  Tariff, the new, 373.
+
+  Texas, a campaign in, 37.
+
+  Tickell, Mr, on the state of Ireland, 379.
+
+  Tippoo Saib, the war with, 397.
+
+  To Cecilianus, from Martial, 496.
+
+  Toulon, siege of, by Eugene, 201.
+
+  Tronosha, convent of, 136.
+
+  Truth and beauty, 624.
+
+  Twenty-fourth book of Homer's Iliad, attempted in English
+        hexameters, 259.
+
+
+  Union of Great Britain and Ireland, the, 215.
+
+  Ushitza, town of, 137.
+
+
+  Vaccination, discovery of, 230.
+
+  Vendôme, Marshal, 205, 206, 212.
+
+  Venice, sketches of, 254.
+
+  Vichyana, natural history, &c., 406
+    --the contrast, 307
+    --miscellanea, 308
+    --our amusements, 309
+    --first table-d'hôte dinner, 315.
+
+  Villa Borghese, the, 251.
+
+  Voltaire, the tragedies of, 70.
+
+
+  Wakefield, Gilbert, 222.
+
+  Walls of Rome, the, 250.
+
+  War in Texas, anecdotes of the, 37.
+
+  Warning, the, from Goethe, 121.
+
+  Wellesley, the Marquis, sketch of the career of, 385.
+
+  Whyte's pilgrim's reliquary, review of, 249.
+
+  Widdin, town of, 132.
+
+  Wuczicz, M. 134, 142.
+
+
+END OF VOL. LIX.
+
+_Edinburgh: Printed by Ballantyne and Hughes, Paul's Work._
+
+
+
+
+Footnotes:
+
+[1] _Lives of Men of Letters and Science who Flourished in the Time of
+George III._ By HENRY LORD BROUGHAM, with Portraits. London: Colburn.
+
+[2] _Reynard the Fox--a renowned Apologue of the Middle Ages reproduced
+in Rhyme._ By S. NAYLOR. Longman & Co. London: 1845.
+
+[3] Finlay's _Greece under the Romans_, p. 250.
+
+[4] "Mihi multum legenti multum audienti quæ populus Romanus domi
+militiæque præclara facinora fecissent, forte lubuit attendere quæ res
+maxime tanta negotia sustinuit. At mihi multa agitanti constabat,
+paucorum civium egregiam virtutem cuncta patravisse: eoque factum ut
+divitias paupertas, multitudinem paucitas, superaret."--Sallust, _Bell.
+Cat._, 32.
+
+[5] They were as high as L.9 sterling in the time of Constantine, a sum
+probably equal to L.20 of our money. But the freemen were the higher
+classes alone, and it is probable a similar class, both in France and
+England, pay at least as much at this time.--See Gibbon, iii. 88.
+
+[6] Gibbon, c. i. and c. xxxii. Agathias states the military
+establishment in its best days at 675,000, which is much more likely its
+real amount. Agathias, v. p. 157, Paris edition.
+
+[7] Gibbon, vol. vi. c. xxxvi. p. 235.
+
+[8] Ibid. vol. iii. c. xviii. p. 87. Edition in twelve volumes.
+
+[9] "Arantur Gallicana rura _barbaris bobus_, et juga Germanica captiva
+præbent colla nostris cultoribus."--_Probi Epist. ad Senatum, in
+Vopesio._
+
+[10] Michelet, _Histoire de France_, vol. i. p. 104-108.
+
+[11] Finlay's _Greece under the Romans_.
+
+[12] Tacitus, _Annal._, xii. 43.
+
+[13] _De Bello Gild._, v. 64, 65.
+
+[14] Gibbon, c. xxix.
+
+[15]
+
+  "Advenio supplex, non ut proculcet Araxen
+  Consul ovans, nostræve premant pharetrata secures
+  Susa, nec ut Rubris aquilas figamus arenis.
+  Hæc nobis, hæc ante dabas.--Nunc pabula tantum
+  Roma precor. Miserere tuæ, Pater Optime, gentis--
+  Extremam defende famem.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  Tot mihi pro meritis Lybiam Nilumque dedêre
+  Ut _dominam plebem_ bellatoremque senatum
+  Classibus astivis alerent.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  Nunc inhonorus, egens, perfert miserabile pacis
+  Supplicium, nulloque palam circumdatus hoste
+  Obessi discrimen habet. Per singula letum
+  Impendet momenta mihi, dubitandaque pauci
+  Præscribunt alimenta dies."--CLAUD. _De Bello Gild._
+
+[16] Finlay's _Greece under the Romans_, 435, 436.
+
+[17] Ibid. 517.
+
+[18] Gibbon, c. xxxi. p. 351.
+
+[19] Ibid. c. xxxiii. vol. vi. p. 20.
+
+[20] _Greece under the Romans_, 456, 467.
+
+[21] Josephus, ii. 16.
+
+[22] Finlay, 515.
+
+[23] Ibid. 406.
+
+[24] Sismondi, _Chute de l'Empire Romaine_, i. 36.
+
+[25] Novell, 81.
+
+[26] Finlay, 246, 247.
+
+[27] Finlay, 117.
+
+[28] Ammianus Marcellinus, c. xiv.
+
+[29] Finlay, 544. Ammianus Marcellinus, c. xix.
+
+[30] Sismondi, _Chute de l'Empire Romaine_, i. 50.
+
+[31] Gibbon, i. 261, c. vi.
+
+[32] Gibbon, c. vi. vol. i. p. 262.
+
+[33] Ibid. c. vi. vol. i. p. 268.
+
+[34] Ibid. p. 268.
+
+[35] Ibid. c. xvii. vol. ii. p. 86.
+
+[36] Gibbon, c. xvii. vol. iii. p. 92.
+
+[37] Finlay, pp. 49-50.
+
+[38] Novell Majorian, tit. iv. p. 34. Gibbon, c. xxxvi. vol. vi. p. 173.
+
+[39] Gibbon, c. i. vol. i. p. 30.
+
+[40] Ibid. c. i. vol. i. p. 37.
+
+[41] Ibid. c. xvii. vol. iii. p. 93.
+
+[42] Ibid. c. ii. vol. i. p. 91.
+
+[43] Plin. _Hist. Nat._ iii. 5.
+
+[44] [Greek: Peri tou mêdein Daneixeisthai.] "De Ære Alieno
+vitando."--_Plutarch._
+
+[45] Finlay, 90.
+
+[46] "Verumque confitentibus latifundia perdidêre Italiam, immo ac
+provincias."--Plin. _Hist. Nat._
+
+[47] Sismondi, _Chute de l'Empire Romaine_, i. 51.
+
+[48] Ammianus Marcellinus, c. xiv.
+
+[49] Sismondi, _Chute de l'Empire Romaine_, i. 44.
+
+[50] Finlay, 219, 220.
+
+[51] It is curious to find Tacitus praising the establishment _of
+bounties on_ the importation of foreign grain by Tiberius, without a
+word on the evil effects of the system.--_Annal._ vi. 13. "Quibus _e
+provinciis et quanto majorum, quam Augustus_ rei frumentariæ copiam
+advectaret."
+
+[52] Finlay, 53.
+
+[53] Finlay, 105.
+
+[54] Ibid. 137.
+
+[55] Tacitus, _Annal._ xii. 43.
+
+[56] Michelet, _Histoire de France_, i. 277.
+
+[57] _Edinburgh Review._ April 1846. No. 168. Page 370-371.
+
+[58] Sismondi, _Chute de l'Empire Romaine_, i. 233.
+
+[59] Finlay, 389.
+
+[60] Ibid. 392.
+
+[61] Gibbon, chap. ii. vol. i. p. 90.
+
+[62] Jacob's _Historical Inquiry into the Production and Consumption of
+the Precious Metals_, i. 35, 42.
+
+[63] Finlay, 88.
+
+[64] _Ibid._ 90.
+
+[65] Finlay, 89.
+
+[66] Gibbon, v. 329.
+
+[67] _Arbuthnott on Ancient Coins_, c. 5. Gibbon, i. 90, c. ii.
+
+[68] _Greaves on Ancient Coins_, i. 229, 331.
+
+[69] Gibbon, c. 36, vol. vi. 173.
+
+[70] See _Edinburgh Review_. No. 168. April 1846.
+
+[71] There are now 20,000,000 inhabitants in Italy, and it was certainly
+as populous in the time of Augustus, when Rome alone, which now has
+180,000, contained 2,386,000 souls.
+
+[72] _Le Peuple._ Par J. MICHELET.
+
+[73] _Du Feu Greçois, des Feux de Guerre, et des Origines de la
+Poudre-à-Canon._ Par MM. REINAUD et FAVÉ.
+
+[74] --------"Conductâ Paulus agebat Sardonyche."--JUV. _Sat._ vii.
+
+[75] Poor Seneca, for a _moral_ philosopher, seems to have been somewhat
+harshly handled: here patronised by cheats and gamblers, and here
+censured by philosophy and dissent! Now invoked by Rusca to assist him
+in his ingannations; now lugged on the stage to be commented on by the
+valet of a gambler,[*] as he _debits_ him, for his master's consolation,
+under his losses; here glanced at by Coleridge for his splendid
+"inconsistencies;" and here by the sour _Dissenter_, who accuses our
+Church's ministers of borrowing their sermons from his precepts.
+
+  "Preaching the trash they purchase at the stalls,
+  And more like _Seneca's_, than _HIS_!! or _Paul's_!"
+
+And, as he could make no higher appeal for human virtue than the
+authority of human wisdom for the plea of expediency, it was not to be
+wondered at if he should have met with no better fate than to be praised
+of fools, and neglected of the wise, who wisely deemed him an
+insufficient, and therefore a dangerous guide.
+
+     [*] Le Joueur.
+
+[76] The name of "_half honest_" exactly suits this class of men, who,
+adopting one _half_ of what our admirable Taylor lays down in his golden
+"rules and measures of justice in bargaining," neglect the other half.
+"In prices of bargaining concerning _uncertain_ merchandises, you may
+buy as cheap, ordinarily, as you can, and sell as dear as you can;" so
+far they and Taylor are of a mind. "Provided," continues he, "that you
+contract on _equal terms_ with persons in _all senses_ (as to the matter
+and skill of bargaining) _equal to yourself_; that is, merchants with
+merchants, _wise men with wise men_, rich with rich"--and _here_ the
+_mezzo galant'uomo_ gives up Taylor, to keep true to his name and
+calling.
+
+[77] Mionnet, _De la Rareté et du Prix des Medailles Romaines_, a very
+useful work, which no amateur collector should fail to possess, and to
+carry constantly about with him, _non obstant_ all the abuse heaped upon
+it by all the dealers.
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+Passages in italics are indicated by _italics_.
+
+The original text includes Greek characters. For this text version these
+letters have been replaced with transliterations.
+
+The original text contains several instances of unmatched quotation marks.
+Obvious errors have been silently corrected while those requiring
+interpretation have been left open.
+
+The following misprints have been corrected:
+  "dveloping" corrected to "developing" (page 658)
+  missing "a" added (page 684)
+  "ancedote" corrected to "anecdote" (index)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume
+59, No. 368, June 1846, by Various
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59,
+No. 368, June 1846, 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 59, No. 368, June 1846
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: October 4, 2010 [EBook #34026]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE, JUNE 1846 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Brendan OConnor, Jonathan Ingram and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Library of Early Journals.)
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+</pre>
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+<h1>BLACKWOOD'S<br />EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.</h1>
+<h2>NO. CCCLXVIII.<span class="spacer2">&nbsp;</span>JUNE, 1846.<span class="spacer2">&nbsp;</span>VOL. LIX.</h2>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CONTENTS.</h3>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="Contents">
+<tr><td><a href="#EIGHTEENTH_CENTURY"><span class="smcap">The Literature of the Eighteenth Century</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#REYNARD"><span class="smcap">Reynard the Fox</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#AMERICANS"><span class="smcap">The Americans and the Aborigines</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#FALL_OF_ROME"><span class="smcap">The Fall of Rome</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#ELINOR"><span class="smcap">Elinor Travis</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#PEOPLE"><span class="smcap">The People</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#WARNING"><span class="smcap">The Rose of Warning</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#GUNPOWDER"><span class="smcap">Greek Fire and Warning</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#BUILD_A_HOUSE"><span class="smcap">How to Build a House and Live in It</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#ROGUES"><span class="smcap">"Rogues in Outline"</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#INDEX"><span class="smcap">Index to Vol. LIX</span></a></td></tr></table>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_645" id="Page_645">[Pg 645]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="EIGHTEENTH_CENTURY" id="EIGHTEENTH_CENTURY"></a>THE LITERATURE OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.<span class="foot"><a name="f1.1" id="f1.1" href="#f1">[1]</a></span></h2>
+
+<p>Lord Brougham has resumed his memoirs of the eminent writers of England;
+and every lover of literature will feel gratified by this employment of
+his active research and of his vigorous pen.</p>
+
+<p>One of the most striking distinctions of English public life from that
+of the Continent, is in the condition of statesmen after their casual
+retirement from power. The Foreign statesman seems to exist only in
+office. The moment that sees him "out of place," sees him extinguished.
+He is lost as suddenly to the public eye, as if he were carried to the
+tomb of his ancestors. He retires to his country-seat, and there
+subsides into the garrulous complainant against the caprices of fortune,
+or buries his calamities in the quiet indulgence of his appetites;
+smokes away his term of years, subsides into the lean and slippered
+pantaloon, occupies his studies with the <i>Court Gazette</i>, and his
+faculties with cards; and is finally deposited in the family vault, to
+continue the process of mouldering which had been begun in his
+arm-chair, to be remembered only in an epitaph. France, at the present
+day, alone seems to form an exception. Her legislature affords a new
+element in which statesmanship in abeyance can still float: the little
+vessel is there at least kept in view of mankind; if it makes no
+progress, it at least keeps above water; and, however incapable of
+reaching the port by its own means, the fluctuations of the national
+surge, sometimes so powerful, and always so contemptuous of calculation,
+may at some time or other carry the craziest craft into harbour. But the
+general order of continental ministers, even of the highest rank, when
+abandoned by the monarch, are like men consigned to the dungeon. They go
+to their place of sentence at once. The man who to-day figured in the
+highest robe of power, to-morrow wears the prison costume. His rise was
+the work of the royal will&mdash;his fall is equally the work of the royal
+will. Having no connexion with the national mind, he has no resource in
+the national sympathies. He has been a royal instrument: when his edge
+becomes dull, or the royal artificer finds a tool whose fashion he likes
+better, the old tool is flung by to rust, and no man asks where or why,
+his use is at an end, and the world and the workman, alike, "knoweth it
+no more."</p>
+
+<p>But, in England, the condition of public life is wholly different. The
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_646" id="Page_646">[Pg 646]</a></span>statesman is the creation of the national will, and neither in office,
+nor in opposition, does the nation forget the product of its will. The
+minister is no offspring of slavery, no official negro, made to be sold,
+and, when sold, separated from his parentage once and for ever. If he
+sins in power, he is at worst but the Prodigal Son, watched in his
+career, and willingly welcomed when he has abjured his wanderings.
+Instead of being extinguished by the loss of power, he often more than
+compensates the change, by the revival of popularity. Disencumbered of
+the laced and embroidered drapery of office, he often exhibits the
+natural vigour and proportion of his faculties to higher advantage;
+cultivates his intellectual distinctions with more palpable success;
+refreshes his strength for nobler purposes than even those of ambition;
+and, if he should not exert his renewed popularity for a new conquest of
+power, only substitutes for place the more generous and exalted
+determination of deserving those tributes which men naturally offer to
+great abilities exerted for the good of present and future generations.</p>
+
+<p>We must allude, for the national honour, to this characteristic of
+English feeling, in the changes of public men. On the Continent, the
+hour which deprived a statesman of office, at once deprived him of every
+thing. All the world ran away from him, as they would from a falling
+house. The crowded antechamber of yesterday, exhibited nothing to-day
+but utter solitude. The fallen minister was a leper; men shrank from his
+touch; the contagion of ill-luck was upon him; and every one dreaded to
+catch the disease. It was sometimes even worse. The loss of power was
+the ruin of fortune. The Dives had been suddenly transformed into the
+Lazarus; the purple and fine linen were "shreds and patches," and not
+even the dogs came to administer to his malady. But, among us, the
+breaking up of a cabinet often only gives rise to a bold and brilliant
+opposition. It is not like the breaking up of a ship, where the wreck is
+irreparable, and the timbers are shattered and scattered, and good for
+nothing; it is often more like the breaking up of a regiment in one of
+our colonies, where the once compact mass of force, which knew nothing
+but the command of its colonel, now takes, each man his own way,
+exhibits his own style of cleverness; instead of the one manual exercise
+of musket and bayonet, each individual takes the axe or the spade, the
+tool or the ploughshare, and works a new fertility out of the soil,
+according to his own "thews and sinews."</p>
+
+<p>The moral of all this is, that the distinguished author of these Memoirs
+is now devoting himself to a career of literature, to which even his
+political services may have been of inferior utility. He is recalling
+the public memory to those eminent achievements, which have so
+powerfully advanced the mental grandeur of our era; and, while he thus
+gives due honour to the labours of the past, he is at once encouraging
+and illustrating the nobleness of the course which opens to posterity.
+But Lord Brougham's influence cannot be contented, we should hope, with
+merely speculative benefits; it is for him, and for men like him, to
+look with interest on the struggles of literary existence at the hour;
+to call the attention of government and the nation to the neglects, the
+narrowness, and the caprices of national patronage; to demand protection
+for genius depressed by the worldliness of the crowd; to point out to
+men of rank and wealth a path of service infinitely more honourable to
+their own taste, and infinitely more productive to their country, than
+ribands and stars; than the tinkling of a name, than pompous palaces, or
+picture galleries of royal price; to excite our nobles to constitute
+themselves the true patrons of the living genius of the land, and
+disdain to be content with either the offering of weak regrets or the
+tribute of worthless honours to the slumberers in the grave. A tenth
+part of the sums employed in raising obelisks to Burns, would have
+rescued one half of his life from poverty, and the other half from
+despair. The single sum which raised the monument to Sir Walter Scott in
+Edinburgh, would have saved him from the final pressure which broke his
+heart, elastic as it was, and dimmed his intellect, capable as he still
+was of throwing a splendour over his native soil.</p>
+
+<p>This neglect is known and suffered<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_647" id="Page_647">[Pg 647]</a></span> in no other province of public
+service. The soldier, the sailor, the architect, the painter, are all
+within sight of the most lavish prizes of public liberality. Parliament
+has just given titles and superb pensions to the conquerors of the
+Sikhs. The India Company has followed its example. We applaud this
+munificent liberality in both instances. Two general officers have thus
+obtained the peerage, with £7000 and £5000 a-year. They deserved those
+rewards. But the whole literary encouragement of the British empire,
+with a revenue of fifty-two millions sterling, is £1200, little more
+than the tenth part of the pensions allotted to those two gallant men.
+£1200 for the whole literary encouragement of England! There can be no
+greater scandal to the intellectual honour of the country. The pettiest
+German principality scarcely limits its literary encouragement to this
+sum. We doubt whether Weimar, between literary offices and pensions, did
+not give twice the sum annually. But named in competition with the
+liberality of the leading sovereigns, it is utterly mean. Louis XIV.,
+two hundred years ago, allotted 80,000 francs a-year to his forty
+members of the Academy, a sum equivalent in <i>that day</i>, and in <i>France</i>,
+to little less than £5000 a-year in our day, and in England. Frederic
+II. gave pensions and appointments to a whole corps of literary men. At
+this moment, there is scarcely a man of any literary distinction in
+Paris, who has not a share in the liberal and wise patronage of
+government, either in office or public pension.</p>
+
+<p>But if we are to be answered by a class, plethoric with wealth and rank;
+that literature ought to be content with living on its own means; must
+not the obvious answer be&mdash;Is the author to be an author, down to his
+grave? Is there to be no relaxation of his toil? is there to be no
+allowance for the exhaustion of his overworked faculties? for the
+natural infirmities of years? for the vexations of a noble spirit
+compelled to submit to the caprices of public change? and with its full
+share of the common calamities of life, increasing their pressure at
+once by an inevitable sense of wrong, and by a feeling that the delight
+of his youth must be the drudgery of his age? When the great Dryden, in
+his seventieth year, was forced, in the bitterness of his heart, to
+exclaim, "Must I die in the harness!" his language was a brand on the
+common sense, as well as on the just generosity, of his country. We now
+abandon the topic with one remark. This want of the higher liberality of
+the nation has already produced the most injurious effects on our
+literature.</p>
+
+<p>All the great works of our ancestral literature were the works of
+leisure and comparative competence. All the great dramatic poetry of
+France was the work of comparative competence. Its writers were not
+compelled to hurry after the popular tastes; they followed their own,
+and impressed its character upon the mind of the nation. The plays of
+Racine, Corneille, Molière, and Voltaire, are nobler trophies to the
+greatness of France than all the victories of Louis the XIV., than
+Versailles, than all the pomps of his splendid reign. Louis Philippe has
+adopted the same munificent policy, and it will be followed by the same
+honour with posterity. But, in England, the keeping of a stud of
+racehorses, the building of a dog-kennel, or the purchase of a foreign
+picture, is ignominiously and selfishly suffered to absorb a larger sum
+than the whole literary patronage of the most opulent empire that the
+sun ever shone upon. We recommend these considerations to Lord Brougham:
+they are nobler than politics; they are fitter for his combined
+character of statesman and philosopher; they will also combine with that
+character another which alone can give permanency to the fame of any
+public man&mdash;that of the philanthropist. His ability, his knowledge of
+human nature, and his passion for public service&mdash;qualities in which his
+merits are known to Europe&mdash;designate him as the founder of a great
+system of public liberality to the enterprise of genius. And when party
+is forgotten, and cabinets have perished; when, perhaps, even the
+boundaries of empire may have been changed, and new nations rise<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_648" id="Page_648">[Pg 648]</a></span> to
+claim the supremacy of arts and arms; the services of the protector of
+literature will stand out before the eye with increased honour, and his
+name be rescued from the common ruin which envelopes the memory of
+ostentatious conquerors and idle kings.</p>
+
+<p>The present volume contains biographies of Johnson, Adam Smith,
+Lavoisier, Gibbon, Sir Joseph Banks, D'Alembert. We shall commence with
+the lives less known to the generality of readers than those of our
+great moralist and great political economist, reserving ourselves for
+sketches of their career, as our space may allow.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p>Lord Brougham commences his life of Sir Joseph Banks by a species of
+apology, for placing in the ranks of philosophers a man who had never
+written a book. But no one has ever doubted that a man may be a
+philosopher, without being an author. Some of the greatest inventions of
+philosophy, of science, and of practical power, have been the work of
+men who never wrote a book. In fact, the inventor is generally a man of
+few words; his disciples, or rivals, or imitators, are the men of
+description. The inventor gives the idea, the follower gives the
+treatise; but the inventor is the philosopher after all. The question,
+however, with Sir Joseph Banks is, whether he was any more an inventor
+than a writer. It does not appear that he was either. Of course, he has
+no right to rank among men of science. But he had merits of his own, and
+on those his distinctions ought to have been placed. He was a zealous,
+active, and influential friend of philosophers. He gave them his time,
+he received them in his house, and he assisted their progress. He
+volunteered to be the protector of their class; he sympathised with
+their pursuits; and, while adding little or nothing to their
+discoveries, he assisted in bringing those discoveries before the world.
+He loved to be thought the patriarch of British science; and, like the
+patriarch, he retained his authority even when he was past his labour.
+If he filled the throne of science feebly, none could deny that he
+filled it zealously. The true definition of him was, an English
+gentleman occupying his leisure with philosophical pursuits, and
+encouraging others of more powerful understanding to do the same.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Joseph Banks was of an old and wealthy family, dating so far back as
+Edward III.; first settled in the West Riding of Yorkshire, and
+afterwards in the county of Lincoln. He was born in London in January
+1743. At the age of nine he was sent to Harrow, and at thirteen to Eton,
+where the tutors observed, as has happened in many other instances, that
+he was fonder of play than of books. In about a twelvemonth, however, he
+became studious, though not to the taste of his schoolmasters. The
+origin of this change was described by himself, in a letter to Sir
+Everard Home, as accidental. One afternoon he had been bathing with some
+of the Eton boys, and, on returning to dress himself, found that they
+had left him alone. Walking down a green lane, whose sides exhibited the
+wild-flowers of the season, the thought occurred to him, how much more
+natural and useful would be the knowledge of plants, than of Greek and
+Latin. From this time he devoted himself to the study of botany, though
+still continuing that of the classics. On returning to his father's
+house, he found a copy of Gerard's <i>Herbal</i>, which fixed his taste. He
+now added to his collecting of plants that of butterflies and other
+insects. Lord Brougham mentions that his father was one of Banks's
+associates at this period, and that they employed themselves together in
+natural history.</p>
+
+<p>Natural history has been so frequently the pursuit of studious triflers,
+that it is difficult to exempt it from the charge of trifling. To gather
+plants which have been gathered a thousand times before, to ascertain
+their names from an herbal, and classify them according to its list,
+seems to be little more than a grave apology for playing the fool. A
+determination to gather all the butterflies and blue-bottles within the
+limits of the realm, certainly has nothing that can dignify it with the
+name of scientific pursuit. The collecting of pebbles and shells, or
+even the arranging of animals in the cases of a museum, are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_649" id="Page_649">[Pg 649]</a></span>
+accomplishments of so easy an order, and of so little actual use, that
+they serve for little else than to wile away the time. But this trifling
+assumes a more important shape when it rises to the acquisition of
+actual knowledge; when, instead of classifying plants, it develops their
+medicinal virtues, and, instead of embalming animals, it examines their
+structure, as throwing light on the conformation or diseases of man.</p>
+
+<p>But Sir Joseph Banks was fortunately relieved from subsiding into this
+foppery, by circumstances which forced him into vigorous and useful
+exertion. An approaching transit of Venus had been long looked to, as
+giving an opportunity for ascertaining the distance of the sun from the
+earth. It was recommended, that observations on this phenomenon should
+be made from different stations on the globe. Accordingly, in 1761, the
+British government sent out two observers, one to the Cape and the other
+to St Helena. The French government at the same time sent out three&mdash;to
+Pondicherry, Siberia, and the Mauritius. But the weather was
+unfavourable, and the observations were to be regarded as a failure. But
+there was a second transit in 1769, and the leading powers of Europe
+sent out observers; England sending a vessel to the South Seas, an
+observer to India, and two to Hudson's Bay. Captain Wallace having
+lately made several discoveries in the Pacific, public attention had
+been strongly drawn to that hitherto scarcely known portion of the
+globe. The celebrated Captain Cook was appointed commander, and Sir
+Joseph Banks, stimulated by an honourable zeal and a rational desire of
+knowledge, obtained leave from his friend, Lord Sandwich, to join the
+expedition. He took with him Dr Solander the botanist, and two
+draughtsmen.</p>
+
+<p>On the 25th of August 1768, Cook's vessel, the Endeavour, sailed from
+Plymouth Sound, and the first point of land at which they touched was
+the Terra del Fuego, the southern extremity of the American continent.
+There they encountered such severity of cold, that, although it was the
+summer of those regions, Banks and Solander, in one of their botanical
+excursions, had nearly shared the fate of three of their attendants, who
+perished from the intensity of the cold. The effect of this excess of
+low temperature has been often felt and often described. It was a
+general torpor of the frame, producing an almost irresistible propensity
+to sleep. Every exertion was painful, and the strongest desire was to
+lie down in the snow and give way to slumber. Solander, who had acquired
+his experience in botanizing among the Swedish mountains, warned the
+party of their danger. "Whoever," said he, "sits down, will sleep;
+whoever sleeps, will wake no more." Yet he himself was one of the first
+to yield; he insisted on lying down, fell asleep before he could be
+brought to the fire which Banks had kindled, and was restored with
+difficulty. His companion had felt a similar inclination, but resisted
+it, by the greater energy of youth, and probably of a more vigorous
+mind.</p>
+
+<p>Cook then sailed for Otaheite, which he reached in April. The contrast
+of the luxurious climate with the inclement region which they had left
+behind them, was doubly striking to men who, for upwards of half a year,
+had seen nothing but the ocean or the deserts of Cape Horn. They now
+proceeded vigorously to the chief purposes of their voyage. The captain
+and his officers prepared their instruments to observe the transit,
+while Banks and his botanical attendants ranged the island, made
+themselves acquainted with its natural productions, and conciliated the
+natives. The effect of his intelligence and intrepidity was conspicuous
+on an occasion which might have involved the scientific fate of the
+expedition. The quadrant, though under charge of a sentinel, had been
+stolen by the adroitness of some of the natives. But without it no
+observation could be taken. Banks volunteered to go in search of it into
+the woods, made himself master of it, and conveyed it in safety to the
+observatory; though followed by parties of the natives, and occasionally
+compelled to keep them at bay by exhibiting his pistols.</p>
+
+<p>The transit was successfully observed, but it took six hours for the
+operation. As the period approached, even the crew had felt the
+strongest<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_650" id="Page_650">[Pg 650]</a></span> anxiety for its success. The state of the sky was reported
+every half hour during the night before, and their spirits rose and fell
+as the report gave its answer, clear or cloudy. But at dawn the sky was
+brilliant, and the day passed without a cloud. Four other observations
+had been simultaneously made, in Siberia, Lapland, Hudson's Bay, and
+California. The general result gave the sun's distance at nearly
+ninety-four millions of miles.</p>
+
+<p>The next object of the voyage was a search for the great southern
+continent, which the philosophers of the day had conceived to exist, as
+a "necessary balance" to the mass of land in the northern hemisphere.
+But conjectural philosophy is often at fault, and necessary as this
+terrestrial balance was asserted to be, no "great" southern continent
+has yet been found. For a while, even Cook's sagacity seems to have been
+deceived by the mountains of New Zealand, which had been discovered, in
+1620, by Tasman. Cook sailed round it, and explored its shores for six
+months. He then, on his homeward voyage, examined the east coast of New
+Holland. Of course, it is not the intention of this paper to trace a
+career so well known as that of the celebrated navigator. We refer to
+its incidents, merely as connected with Sir Joseph Banks. They had run
+about thirteen hundred miles of the coast, when, after having received
+some alarm from the neighbourhood of coral reefs, the vessel suddenly
+struck. It was Cook's sagacious habit, nightly, to give all his orders
+and precautions before he went to rest; and thus, after having done all
+that prudence could do, he undressed, went to bed, and such was the
+composure of his mind that he instantly fell asleep. But immediately on
+the vessel's striking, the captain was on deck, and giving his orders
+with his characteristic coolness. The light of the moon showed the
+sheathing boards of the ship floating all round, and at last her false
+keel. Their fate appeared imminent, but it was only when the day broke,
+that they became fully sensible of their forlorn condition. The land was
+at eight leagues' distance. There were no intermediate islets on which
+the crew might be saved, and the boats were wholly insufficient to take
+them all at once. To lighten the ship was their first object. Guns,
+ballast, stores, every thing was thrown over. After two tides they were
+enabled to get the ship afloat. To their great relief, the leak did not
+seem to gain upon them, though to keep it down required the labour of
+the men night and day. At length a midshipman fortunately suggested an
+expedient which he had once seen adopted at sea. This was to draw under
+the ship's bottom a sail, to which were fastened oakum, flax, and other
+light substances. The sail thus covered the leak, and enabled the ship
+to swim. On pursuing their voyage, and reaching a river, in which they
+attempted to repair the ship, they found that her preservation, in the
+first instance, was owing to the extraordinary circumstance of a large
+fragment of rock which had stuck into the vessel, and thus partially
+stopped up the leak. In this most anxious emergency Sir Joseph Banks and
+his party exhibited all the coolness and intrepidity which were
+required; and in the subsequent account of the voyage, received from
+Cook himself well-merited praises.</p>
+
+<p>Another peril likely to be attended with still more certain ruin, now
+assailed the crew. The scurvy began to make its appearance. The
+devastations of this dreadful disease, in the early history of our
+navigation, fortunately now appear almost fabulous. It was a real
+plague; it seemed almost to dissolve the whole frame; teeth fell out,
+limbs dropped off, and the sufferer sank into a rapid, and, as it was
+once thought, an inevitable grave. It is a remarkable instance of the
+powers which man possesses to counteract the most formidable evils, that
+this terrible disease is now scarcely known. It has been overpowered
+solely by such simple means as fresh meat and vegetables, and a drink
+medicated with lemon-juice. Simple as those expedients are, they have
+saved the lives of thousands and tens of thousands of the sea-going
+population of England.</p>
+
+<p>But new hazards, arising alike from the imperfect condition of the
+vessel and their ignorance of the coast, continued to pursue them. Never
+was a voyage attempted with greater <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_651" id="Page_651">[Pg 651]</a></span>difficulties to surmount, or
+achieved with more triumphant success; after having explored two
+thousand miles of this perilous coast, Cook took possession of it in the
+name of his king, giving it the title of New South Wales.</p>
+
+<p>At length he arrived at Batavia, where, on laying up his ship to repair,
+it was discovered that their preservation throughout this long voyage
+had been little less than miraculous, her planks having been in many
+instances worn "as thin as the sole of a shoe." But their trials were
+not yet over: the marsh fever quickly laid up the crew; the captain,
+Banks, and Solander, were taken seriously ill. They set sail from this
+pestilential island as soon as possible; but before they reached the
+Cape, three-and-twenty had died, including Green the astronomer, and the
+midshipman whose suggestion had saved the ship. At length, on the 12th
+of July 1771, they cast anchor in the Downs, and Cook and his companions
+were received with national acclamation.</p>
+
+<p>The triumph of the navigation was naturally due to Cook, but the most
+important part of the knowledge which had been communicated to the
+empire was due to the labours of Banks. It was from his journals, that
+the chief details of the habits, manners, and resources of the natives
+were derived. The vegetable, mineral, and animal products of the Society
+Islands, and of New Holland, New Zealand, and New Guinea, had been
+explored, and a vast quantity of general intelligence was obtained
+relative to countries, which now form an essential portion of the
+British empire. The novelty of those possessions has now worn off, their
+value has made them familiar. We are fully acquainted with their
+products, however we may be still ignorant of their powers. But, at the
+period of this memorable voyage, the Southern Hemisphere was scarcely
+more known than the hemisphere of the moon. Every league of the coasts
+of New Holland, and the islands of the Great Southern Ocean, abounded
+with natural perils, heightened by the necessary ignorance of the
+navigator. Even to this day, many a fearful catastrophe attests the
+difficulties of the navigation; the coral rocks were a phenomenon wholly
+new to nautical experience; and, in all the modern improvements of
+nautical science, full room is left for wonder, at the skill, the
+intelligence, and the daring, which carried Cook and his companions safe
+through the perils of this gigantic navigation.</p>
+
+<p>A new expedition was soon demanded at once by the curiosity of the
+people and the interests of science. The dream of a great southern
+continent was still the favourite topic of all who regarded themselves
+as philosophers in England, although Cook had sailed over an
+unfathomable ocean, in the very tract where he ought, according to this
+adventurous theory, to have found a continent. Sir Joseph Banks again
+gallantly volunteered to join the expedition which was equipped for the
+discovery. His large fortune enabled him to make unusual preparations;
+but such was his zeal, that he even raised a loan for the purpose. He
+engaged Zoffani, the painter, with three assistant draughtsmen. He
+selected two secretaries and nine attendants, instructed in the art of
+preserving plants and animals; he also provided books, drawings, and
+instruments. But his natural ambition was suddenly thwarted by the
+opposition of Sir Hugh Palliser, controller of the navy. For whatever
+reason&mdash;and it is now difficult to imagine any, except some jealousy too
+contemptible to name&mdash;so many obstructions were thrown in the way, that
+Banks relinquished the pursuit, and turned his attention to a voyage to
+Iceland. His suite, seamen and all, amounting to forty persons, reached
+the island in 1772, examined its chief natural phenomena, Hecla and its
+hot springs, and furnished its historian, Von Troil, with the materials
+for the most accurate history of this outpost of the northern world.</p>
+
+<p>On his return to England, he commenced the career, natural to an opulent
+man of a cultivated mind, but yet so seldom followed in England by
+individuals of even higher means than his own. He fitted up a large
+house in Soho Square with all the preparatives for a life of literary
+association&mdash;a copious library, collections of natural history, and
+philosophical instruments. He held frequent conversaziones, gave
+dinners, and easily and naturally constituted himself the leader of the
+men of science in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_652" id="Page_652">[Pg 652]</a></span> London. In Lincolnshire, where his chief property
+lay, he performed the part of the liberal and hospitable country
+gentleman on a large scale; while in London, he was the first person to
+whom scientific foreigners were introduced, and the principal patron and
+protector of ingenious men.</p>
+
+<p>On the resignation of Sir John Pringle as President of the Royal
+Society, Sir Joseph Banks was placed in the chair, in 1778, almost by
+acclamation. He had some obvious qualifications for the office, but he
+as obviously wanted others. His opulence, his hospitality, and his zeal
+for science, were valuable, and are nearly indispensable in the
+president of a body which concentrates the chief intellectual force of
+the community. But his favourite pursuit, botany, has never deserved the
+name of a science, and inevitably bears a character of triviality in the
+eyes of the mathematician and the philosopher. The distinction given to
+a comparatively young man, known to the world only as a voyager, and a
+collector of plants and animals, not unnaturally tended to breed
+scoffing among the professors of the severe sciences. The feeling
+spread, and the opportunity for its expression was soon found. Dr
+Hutton, the mathematical professor at Woolwich, happened to be secretary
+for foreign correspondence. His residence at Woolwich was said to
+produce some inconvenience in his intercourse with the president; and
+the council passed a resolution, in 1783, recommending that "the foreign
+secretary should reside in London." The secret history of this
+transaction is, that Hutton was one of the mathematical party; though we
+cannot distinctly ascertain whether he had actually gone so far as to
+sneer at the president. Upon this Hutton resigned the office; to accept
+which, the emolument could not have been his object, the salary being
+but L.20 a-year&mdash;a sum that cannot be mentioned without a sense of
+disgrace to a society reckoning among its members some of the wealthiest
+men of England.</p>
+
+<p>Hutton's resignation, or rather dismissal, produced an open war in the
+society. The mathematicians ranged themselves on the Huttonian side; the
+cultivators of natural history, and the cultivators of nothing, ranged
+themselves on the side of the president. The mathematicians were headed
+by Horsley, afterwards the bishop&mdash;a man whom Lord Brougham
+characterizes as extremely arrogant, of violent temper, and intoxicated
+with an extravagant sense of his own scientific merits, which his noble
+biographer pronounces to be altogether insignificant, heading this
+charge with the unkindest cut of all, namely, that he was "a priest."
+Horsley was certainly no great mathematician, as his publication of the
+<i>Principia</i> unluckily shows; but the picture is high coloured, which
+represents him as a hot-tempered, loud-tongued, bustling personage&mdash;a
+sort of bravo of science and theology, who took up the first opinion
+which occurred to him, scorned to rectify it by any after-thought, and
+plunged from one absurdity into another, for the sake of consistency.
+The eloquence of his attacks upon the chair, of whose possession he was
+supposed to be foolishly ambitious, was vaunted a good deal by his
+partisans. But, as the only evidence of his rhetoric in these squabbles
+ever quoted, is one sentence, it is like the pretension to wit on the
+strength of a single pun, and may be easily cast aside. This boasted
+sentence was uttered, in threatening the secession of the mathematical
+party. "The president will then be left with his train of feeble
+amateurs, and that toy (the mace) upon the table&mdash;the ghost of the
+Society in which Philosophy once reigned, and Newton officiated as her
+minister."</p>
+
+<p>Horsley's theology was too nearly on a par with his mathematics&mdash;he
+<i>was</i> harsh and headlong. The fortunate folly of Priestley in
+challenging the English clergy to a trial of strength in the old arena
+of Unitarianism, gained him an opportunity of crushing an antagonist
+whose presumption was in proportion to his ignorance. Accordingly, the
+Unitarian was speedily put <i>hors-de-combat</i>, and Horsley was rewarded
+with a mitre.</p>
+
+<p>The president had long felt that the purpose of this violent lover of
+parallelograms was, to unseat him. The question was therefore brought to
+a decision, in the shape of a resolution "approving of Sir Joseph Banks
+as president, and resolving to support<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_653" id="Page_653">[Pg 653]</a></span> him in his office." This
+resolution was carried by 119 to 43.</p>
+
+<p>Honours began now to gather upon him. In 1788 he had been made a
+baronet. In 1795 he received the order of the Bath, then generally
+restricted to soldiers and diplomatists. In two years after, he was
+called to the Privy Council. On the death of the Duke of Ancaster he was
+chosen recorder of Boston; but, though often solicited to stand an
+election, he was never a member of Parliament. Though professing himself
+a Tory, he seems never to have taken any active part in politics,
+preserving a curious practical neutrality in Lincolnshire, and giving
+his interest to Mr Pelham, a Whig, and Mr Chaplin, a Tory. This, which
+his noble biographer curiously seems to consider as a happy proof of the
+absence of all party feelings, we should be apt to look upon as a proof
+of a degenerate wish to consult his own ease, and of a sluggish
+neutrality discreditable to the character of an Englishman.</p>
+
+<p>However, he had more honourable distinctions. In the furious
+Revolutionary war&mdash;a war of principles and passions, not less than of
+public interests, the president of the Royal Society largely exerted his
+interest with both governments, to alleviate the sufferings of
+scientific men who happened to fall into the hands of the belligerents,
+and to effect the restoration of scientific property captured by our
+ships of war. In 1802 he was chosen one of the foreign members of the
+Institute of France; and his letter of thanks, a little too ardent in
+its gratitude, was said to have involved the baronet in some vexations
+peculiarly felt by his courtly temperament. He was instantly attacked
+for his Gallican panegyric, by a portion of the Royal Society. Cobbett,
+who was then looking out for a victim, and whose loyalty was at that
+period peculiarly glowing, flew at him like a tiger-cat; and, last and
+most dreaded of all, he was said to have received at Windsor some of
+those frowns, which to a courtier are a total eclipse of the sun. But
+the nation soon had higher things to think of than a slip of the
+President's pen, or a little betrayal of his vanity. Napoleon ascended
+the throne; and, when the thunderbolts began to fall, the squibs and
+crackers flung from hand to hand of little men are of necessity
+forgotten.</p>
+
+<p>His latter years were signalized by acts of unequivocal public service.
+He is designated by Lord Brougham, and no one can have a better right to
+be informed of the fact, as the real founder of the African
+Association.&mdash;His lordship also regards him as the real founder of the
+colony of Botany Bay.&mdash;He was the first to suggest the transfer of the
+tropical fruits to the West India islands.&mdash;British horticulture owed
+him great services.&mdash;And the British Museum, during forty-two years of
+his trusteeship, was the object of his peculiar care, and finally
+received the bequest of his excellent library and of all his
+collections.</p>
+
+<p>His career, however, was now, by the course of nature, drawing to its
+close. Yet, he had lived seventy-eight years in this anxious and
+disappointing world, in opulence, in peace, and in public estimation.
+But his lot had been singularly fortunate. Few men are without their
+share of those troubles which characterize the general condition of
+human nature. Sir Joseph Banks had <i>his</i> trial, in physical suffering.
+In the first portion of his life he had been remarkable for robust
+health and activity; but, from about his fortieth year, he suffered
+severely from attacks of gout, which increased so much, that for his
+last fourteen years he was scarcely able to walk. His robust mind,
+however, enabled him to encounter his disease by increased and extreme
+temperance. He gave up all fermented liquors and animal food. He seems
+to have derived considerable benefit from D'Huisson's medicine. But his
+hour was come; and on the 19th of June 1820, in the seventy-eighth year
+of his age, he died&mdash;just one year after his honoured and royal friend,
+George III.</p>
+
+<p>Thus passed through the world one of those men who are among the most
+useful in their generation. It would be idle to pronounce him a genius,
+a discoverer, or a profound philosopher. But he served an important
+purpose in society; he suggested philosophical enterprise, he protected
+the honourable<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_654" id="Page_654">[Pg 654]</a></span> ambition of men whose career, without that protection,
+might have closed in obscure suffering: he gave the philosophy and
+literature of his time a leader, and formed it into a substantial shape.
+In this spirit he employed his life; and he accomplished his purpose
+with the constancy and determination of a sagacious and systematic mind.
+He might not be a pillar of the philosophical temple of his country, nor
+its architrave; but he performed the office of the clamp&mdash;he bound
+together the materials of both pillar and architrave, and sustained the
+edifice alike in its stateliness and in its security.</p>
+
+<p>Lord Brougham's biography of D'Alembert commences with a brief
+dissertation on the interest which the mind takes in the study of
+mathematics. This study he regards as superior in gratification to every
+other, from its independence of external circumstances. In all other
+studies, he observes truly, that a large portion of the researches must
+depend upon facts imperfectly ascertained from the reports of others,
+and upon knowledge impeded by the capricious chances of things; while in
+pure science, the principles, the premises, and the conclusions, are
+wholly within our own power.</p>
+
+<p>In a passage exhibiting the affluence of the noble lord's language, he
+says, "The life of a geometrician may well be supposed an uninterrupted
+calm, and the gratification which is derived from its researches, is of
+a pure and also of a lively kind&mdash;whether he contemplates the truths
+discovered by others, with the demonstrative evidence on which they
+rest, or carries the science further, and himself adds to the number of
+the interesting truths before known. He may be often stopt in his
+researches by the difficulties that beset his path; he may be frustrated
+in his attempts to discover relations, depending on complicated data,
+which he cannot unravel or reconcile; but his study is wholly
+independent of accident, his reliance is on his own powers. Contestation
+and uncertainty he never can know; a stranger to all controversy, above
+all mystery, he possesses his mind in unruffled peace. Bound by no
+authority, regardless of all consequences as of all opposition, he is
+entire master of his conclusions as of his operations, and feels even
+perfect indifference to the acceptance or objection of his doctrines,
+because he confidently looks forward to their universal and immediate
+admission the moment they are comprehended."</p>
+
+<p>All this is strikingly expressed, yet it is after all but a showy
+hypothesis. That pure mathematics have nothing to do with external
+existence, may be easily granted; but that mathematicians are exempt
+from controversy, is no more a matter of experience than that all
+mathematical assertions are self-evident. The history of science is a
+direct contradiction of this halcyon hypothesis. The bitterest
+controversies, and the most ridiculous too, have been raised on
+mathematical opinions. Universal experience tends strongly to the proof,
+that no exclusive exertion of the mind is more fatal to its general
+vigour, more apt to narrow its range of conception; more distinctly
+operative, by its very exclusiveness, and by its making minute truths
+the especial object of the mind, in rendering it incapable of those
+loftier and broader truths on which depend all the great concerns of
+society, all the efficient progress of civilisation, and all the nobler
+growth of human powers&mdash;than the mere study of mathematics. A spider
+drawing his web out of his own fibres, and constructing his little lines
+and circles in his dusty corner, is the fittest emblem of the mere
+mathematician. In this language, we acknowledge the use of the science;
+we protest only against its pretence of superiority. Every man's
+experience of college studies may supply him with examples; but we have
+room but for one, and that of a sufficiently high order.</p>
+
+<p>When Napoleon assumed the French throne, in his ambition of being
+regarded as the universal patron of science he appointed the author of
+the <i>Méchanique Céleste</i> a member of his privy council. But La Place,
+then and since, the first scientific name of France, was found utterly
+inadequate to even the almost sinecure duties of his office. Napoleon
+soon found that he could make no use of him. He accordingly consulted
+him no longer. "I found his mind," said he, "like his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_655" id="Page_655">[Pg 655]</a></span> book, full of
+<i>infiniments petits</i>." Or if we look for further illustration among the
+French geometers&mdash;the only men among whom the trial can be made, from
+their opportunities of power in the Revolution&mdash;there was not one of
+them who exhibited any qualification for the higher duties of public
+life. Bailly, Condorcet, and their tribe, proved themselves utterly
+feeble, helpless, and trifling, where manliness, activity, and
+intelligence of mind were required. The Savans were swept away like a
+swarm of mice, or crushed like musquitoes, when they dared to buzz in
+the presence of the public. That they were first-rate mathematicians
+there can be no question; that they quarrelled about their mathematical
+theories with the bitterness, and not a little in the style of village
+gossips, is equally certain; and that, though the Encyclopedists had
+chiefly died off before the Revolution, their successors and imitators
+were extinguished by their preposterous combination of an avarice of
+power, and of an inadequacy to exertion, is a fact written unanswerably
+in the history of their trifling career, and of their early scaffolds.
+The ridiculous figure made in politics by the first astronomer of
+France, at this moment, only strengthens the conclusion.</p>
+
+<p>The life of D'Alembert is, however, one of the happiest illustrations of
+the use to which science may be applied, in raising an obscure
+individual into public fame. Yet, it is not to be forgotten, that
+D'Alembert's European celebrity commenced only when he had laid aside
+the exclusive study of mathematics, and devoted himself to general
+literature, and, shaking off the dust of his closet, he became a man of
+the world.</p>
+
+<p>Jean le Rond d'Alembert was born in November 1717, and was exposed as a
+foundling near the church of St Jean le Rond in Paris, and thus called
+by the name of the parish. The commissary of the district, taking pity
+upon the infant's apparently dying condition, instead of sending it to
+the hospital, where it would have inevitably died, gave it to be nursed
+by the wife of a poor glazier. In a few days, however, a person named
+D'Estouches, a commissary of artillery, came forward, acknowledged the
+child, and made provision for its support. The habits of foreign life
+are generally so scandalous, that they can scarcely be alluded to
+without offending our sense of delicacy. The mother of this infant was
+an unmarried woman, living in the very highest circles of Paris, the
+sister of Cardinal Tencin, archbishop of Lyons. This woman thus added to
+her vice the cruelty of exposing her unfortunate offspring to die of
+cold and hunger in the streets. It does not appear that her profligacy,
+though notorious, ever affected her position in society. Her coteries
+were as gay, her circle was as complete, and her rank as high, as ever.
+In the Paris of those days, "throwing the first stone" was unheard of;
+its reaction would have been an avalanche; there was no scandal where
+there was no concealment; there was no crime where there was no
+conscience; and thus danced the world away, until the scourge of a
+higher power swept the whole noblesse of France into beggary and exile.</p>
+
+<p>D'Alembert seems to have taken his surname from that of his nurse, and
+was sent, when twelve years old, to the College of La Nation, then in
+the possession of the Jansenists. There he learned mathematics. On
+leaving the college, he returned to the glazier's house, there had one
+room for his bedroom and study, lived on the family fare, supported
+himself on a pension of £50 a-year left to him by his father, and in
+that house lived for forty years. He once made an abortive attempt to
+study the law and medicine, but soon grew weary of both, and returned to
+mathematics, for which he had a decided predilection. His application to
+this study, however, by no means pleased the homely sense of his old
+nurse. "You will never be any thing better than a philosopher," was her
+usual saying. "And what's a philosopher?&mdash;a fool, who wears out his
+life, to be spoken of after he is dead."</p>
+
+<p>But D'Alembert had evidently a passion for science; and in his
+twenty-third year he sent to the Academy of Sciences an analytical
+paper, which attracted general notice. This was followed by his
+admission into the society, at the unusually early age of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_656" id="Page_656">[Pg 656]</a></span> twenty-four.
+From this period, he proceeded for eighteen years, constantly furnishing
+the Academy with papers, which added greatly to its reputation and his
+own. In a note on the presumed discovery of Taylor's Theorem by
+D'Alembert, the noble biographer alludes to what he regards as a similar
+event, the discovery of the "Binomial Theorem" by himself. We must
+acknowledge, that we cannot easily comprehend how any student, within
+the last hundred years, could have had this "discovery" to make&mdash;the
+Binomial Theorem being one of the very first which meets the eye of the
+algebraist, in Newton's, and every other treatise on analysis. It seems
+to us very like an English reader's "discovery" of the alphabet, or, at
+least, of the recondite art of spelling words of two syllables. But
+D'Alembert was at length to find, that if he was to obtain either fame
+or fortune, he must seek them in some other road. At this period,
+infidelity had become the distinction of all who arrogated to themselves
+intellectual accomplishment. The power of the crown, and the power of
+the clergy, had hitherto made its expression dangerous; but the new
+liberalism of the throne having enfeebled its power, the reign of the
+libeller, the rebel, and the sceptic openly commenced. The opulence of
+the clergy increased the bitterness of their enemies; and the blow which
+was intended to lay the throne in the dust, was nominally aimed at
+religion. Voltaire had commenced this crusade half a century before; but
+the arch-infidel lived beyond the dominion of France, possessed an
+independent income, had acquired the reputation of the wittiest man in
+Europe, and had established a species of impunity by the pungency of his
+perpetual sneers. During this period, French infidelity had been silent
+through fear, but it was not the less virulent, active, and general. It
+appeared in the result, that almost the whole of the French higher
+orders were either deists or total unbelievers. All the literary men of
+France followed the example of Voltaire, and a scoff at religion was
+always accepted as an evidence of wit. France loves extremes; and, as
+the poplar literature of Paris is now plunged in impurity, fifty years
+ago it was characterized by outrageous blasphemy. The only religion
+which France knew, was certainly not calculated to repress the evil. Its
+fantastic exhibitions and grim formalities, were equally obnoxious to
+the human understanding. Its persecuting spirit insulted the growing
+passion of the people for liberty; while its fierce dogmas, contrasting
+with its ridiculous traditions, supplied the largest materials at once
+for horror and ridicule.</p>
+
+<p>At length the storm broke forth. The infidelity which had danced and
+smiled, and made <i>calembourgs</i> and scoffed, in the full-dress circles of
+the nobles; made its appearance in the streets and highways, in rags and
+riot, with the axe for the pen, and blood for the ink, and trampled the
+whole polished race of scoffers in the mire of Revolution.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Encyclopédie</i> was the great text-book of the literary faction, and
+Diderot and D'Alembert were the editors of its first seven
+volumes&mdash;D'Alembert writing the preliminary discourse upon the progress
+of the sciences. But the latter mixed caution with his courage; for on
+the issue of the government prohibition of the work, he abandoned the
+editorship and left it to Diderot.</p>
+
+<p>At length, in 1752, the King of Prussia, who, with all his fame, had the
+weakness of being emulous of French flattery, offered him an appointment
+at Berlin, with an allowance of five hundred pounds a-year, and the
+reversionary office of president of the academy. But this royal offer he
+refused, on the ground of his reluctance to quit Paris, and the fear
+that the employment would be inconsistent with his freedom. At this
+period his fixed income seemed to be about seventy pounds a-year; yet,
+when we suffer ourselves to be astonished at the apparent magnanimity of
+the refusal, we are to remember that this sum, a hundred years ago, and
+in Paris, would be about equivalent to two hundred pounds a-year in
+England at the present day; that, like all Frenchmen, he hated Germany;
+that Frederic's dealings with Voltaire gave by no means a favourable
+specimen of his friendships; and that, to a Frenchman<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_657" id="Page_657">[Pg 657]</a></span> of that day,
+Paris was all the world. But, ten years after, the Empress Catharine
+made him the much more tempting offer of the tutorship of her son,
+afterwards the unfortunate Emperor Paul. The salary was to be
+magnificent, no less than four thousand pounds a-year; still he refused
+the offer, and preferred remaining in Paris.</p>
+
+<p>Whether we are to applaud his magnanimity, or blame his habits, on this
+occasion, may fairly be a question. The possession of the four thousand
+pounds a-year, even if it were limited to the period of tuition, would
+have made him opulent; and his opulence would undoubtedly have given him
+the means of extensive benevolence, of relieving private distress, of
+assisting his less fortunate literary brethren, of promoting public
+objects, and ultimately, perhaps, of founding some valuable institution
+which might last for ages. But D'Alembert, and men like him, seem to
+live only for themselves. It would have cost him an absence from Paris
+for a certain period to have obtained this power of public good; and he
+preferred living without it, and haunting, night after night, the
+coteries of the old blue-stockings who kept open house for the evening
+gossipry of the capital.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing can form a stronger contrast to the general passion of the
+French character for change, than its devotion to the same coterie for
+half a century together. In the middle of the eighteenth century two
+houses in Paris were especially the rendezvous of the talkers, idlers,
+and philosophers of Paris. That some of those visitants were men of
+remarkable ability, there can be no doubt. But this perpetual haunting
+of the same coffee-cups, this regularity of trifling, this wretched
+inability to remain at home for a single evening, is so wholly
+irreconcilable with our English sense of domestic duties, of the
+attachment of parents to their families, and of the exercise of the
+natural affections, that we find it utterly impossible to attach any
+degree of respect to the perpetual lounger at another's fire-side.
+Madame Geoffrin had now succeeded to Madame de Tencin, as the receiver
+of the coterie. Madame du Deffand held a kind of rival, but inferior,
+coterie. The former had a house, the latter had only a lodging; the
+former was good-humoured, amiable, and kind&mdash;the latter satirical and
+cold; but both were clever, and, at all events, both received the
+gossips, wise and foolish, of Paris. At the lodging of Madame du
+Deffand, D'Alembert met Mademoiselle de l'Espinasse, a species of
+companion to Madame. She was the illegitimate daughter of a woman of
+fashion, as D'Alembert was the son. The circumstance was too common in
+Parisian high life, to involve any censure on the parents, or any
+disgrace on the children; but it may have produced a degree of sympathy,
+which suddenly rose to its height by their taking a lodging together!
+Those things, too, were so frequent in France, that, except the laugh of
+the moment, no one seems to have taken notice of the connexion; and they
+continued to carry it on, as well received as ever, and holding their
+evening coterie with undiminished applause.</p>
+
+<p>"No one," observes the noble biographer, "whispered a syllable of
+suspicion, respecting a connexion which all were fully convinced could
+be only of the most innocent kind." This French credulity is too simple
+for our credence. That a he and she philosophic pair should have lived
+in the same apartments for a dozen years with perfect innocency, may
+have been the case in Paris; but the story would not be believed in any
+less immaculate region on the face of the earth. The plain truth seems
+to be, that the general looseness of Parisian society saw nothing gross
+in the grossest connexion. Even where they affected virtue, they
+palpably preferred their having an evening lounge open to them, to any
+consideration grounded on common propriety and a sense of shame.</p>
+
+<p>But the philosopher was a dirty fellow after all, and it only does
+credit to his noble biographer's sense of propriety to admit, that "his
+conduct must seem strange to all men of right and honourable feelings."
+In fact, the philosopher seems to have lent his aid very zealously to a
+correspondence carried on by his sensitive fellow-lodger! with a view to
+a marriage with a Spanish Marquis Mora. Among<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_658" id="Page_658">[Pg 658]</a></span> other proofs, he went
+every morning to the post-office to receive the Spaniard's letters for
+the lady. "I confess," says Lord Brougham, "I am driven, how reluctantly
+soever, to the painful conclusion, that he lent himself to the plan of
+her <i>inveigling</i> the Spaniard into a marriage." And this was not the
+only instance of his by-play. Mademoiselle professed also to have fallen
+in love with a M. Guibert, known as a military writer. Guibert exhibited
+his best tactics, in keeping clear of the lady. "All this time, she
+continued," says his lordship, "to make D'Alembert believe, that she had
+no real passion for any one but himself." No one can easily suppose that
+they were not connected in a plan of obtaining for her a settlement in
+life by marriage. But, if this marriage-intrigue was in every sense, and
+on all sides, contemptible; what are we to think of the nature of the
+connexion existing between this sensitive lady and D'Alembert, living
+for years under the same roof? The whole matter would be too repulsive
+for the decorums of biography, if it were not among the evidences of
+that utter corruption of morals, and callousness of feeling, which were
+finally avenged in the havoc of the Revolution.</p>
+
+<p>D'Alembert's income had been increased by his appointment to the office
+of secretary to the Academy, in 1772. Unfortunately for his literary
+fame, it became a part of his duty to write the <i>éloges</i> of the deceased
+members, an office which he fulfilled with equal diligence and
+unproductiveness; for, of those unfortunate performances he wrote no
+less than eighty-three. But the French are fond of fooleries of this
+kind; a few sounding sentences with them are biography; a few rambling
+sketches fill up the outline to their taste; and the whole forms a
+specimen of that eloquence which men are content to admire on the other
+side of the Channel.</p>
+
+<p>At length his career drew to a close. Towards his sixty-fourth year, his
+health began to decline. It had never been robust, though his habits had
+been temperate; but feebleness of stomach, and an organic disease,
+predicted the approach of his dissolution. He died on the 29th of
+October 1783, in the sixty-seventh year of his age. Notwithstanding his
+feebleness of body, his intellectual vigour remained&mdash;thus adding one to
+the many proofs of the distinct natures of mind and body. In his
+intervals of ease, he continued to occupy himself with mathematical
+investigations. With a deplorable want of feeling, he talked with levity
+of his approaching departure&mdash;an event awful to the best, and, to the
+wisest, solemn in proportion to their wisdom. He died in the fulness of
+that scientific reputation which he deserved, and of that literary
+reputation which he did not deserve; but, by the combination of both,
+ranking as the most distinguished intellectual name of Europe in his
+day.</p>
+
+<p>The life of a later philosopher, the unfortunate Lavoisier, gives Lord
+Brougham an opportunity of rendering justice to an eminent foreigner,
+and of vindicating the claims of his own still more memorable
+countrymen, Black and Watt. Chemistry is especially the science of the
+eighteenth century, as geometry was of the seventeenth. It is a
+characteristic of that great, however slow, change, which is now
+evidently in progress through Europe, that those sciences which most
+promote the comforts, the powers, and the progress of the multitude,
+obviously occupy the largest share of mental illustration. Of all the
+sciences, chemistry is that one which contributes most largely to the
+dominion of man over nature. It is the very handmaid of Wisdom,
+instructing us in the properties of things, and continually <ins class="correction" title="original: dveloping">developing</ins>
+more and more the secrets of those vast and beneficent processes by
+which the physical frame of creation is rendered productive to man. It
+must thus be regarded as the most essential instrument of our physical
+well-being. It takes a part in all that administers to our wants and
+enjoyments. Our clothing, our medicine, our food; the cultivation of the
+ground, the salubrity of the atmosphere; the very blood, bone, and
+muscle of man, all depend on chemical evolutions. But it has its still
+loftier secrets; and the experimental philosopher is constantly
+stimulated and delighted by his approach to at least the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_659" id="Page_659">[Pg 659]</a></span>borders of
+discoveries which promise to give a nobler insight into the laws of
+matter; to exhibit more fully the mechanism formed and moved by the
+Divine hand; and to develop the glories of the universe on a scale
+continually enlarging, and continually more luminous.</p>
+
+<p>A matchless source of interest in this most effective and essential of
+all the sciences, is, that it seems capable of an infinite progress. The
+chemical philosopher cannot even conceive any limit to its variety,
+multitude, or utility of purpose. The more he discovers, the more he
+finds is still to be discovered. Every new property awakens him to the
+existence of some other property, more capacious and more profound.
+Every difficulty mastered, only leads him towards some deeper and more
+tempting problem. And, in addition to the ardour derived from this
+triumph of our intellectual ambition&mdash;as if all the incentives that can
+act upon man were expressly accumulated upon this pursuit&mdash;there is no
+science in which the actual triumphs are more directly connected with
+personal opulence. The invention of a new acid or alkali might create
+unbounded wealth. The discovery of a new principle of the most vulgar
+use&mdash;for tanning leather, for extracting oils, for strengthening soap,
+for purifying tallow, might place the discoverer in possession of wealth
+beyond the dreams of avarice. But a loftier ambition may still find its
+field in this science. A chemical discovery might change the face of the
+world. Gunpowder had already changed the whole form of European society.
+A chemical discovery might give us the power of managing at our will the
+storm and the lightning, of averting the pestilence, or of ensuring the
+fertility of the soil, and the regularity of the seasons. The Divine
+intention in placing us here, was evidently the perpetual exercise of
+the human understanding. For that purpose were given the wants, and the
+remedies of the wants, of man; for that purpose all sciences are perhaps
+inexhaustible; but of all, the most palpably inexhaustible, the most
+teeming with immediate results, and the most remedial as to human
+necessities, is Chemistry&mdash;fitted by its extent to supply the largest
+proportion of human objects, by its power to excite the most eager
+inquiry, and by its richness to reward the intelligent labour of man, to
+the last ages of the world.</p>
+
+<p>Antoine Laurent Lavoisier was born in Paris in 1743, the son of one of
+the "farmers-general." As the office was nearly hereditary, and was
+proverbially connected with great opulence, the son of the rich
+functionary was highly educated. But science soon attracted all his
+study, and, devoting himself especially to chemistry, he made himself
+conspicuous among the leading philosophers of his time.</p>
+
+<p>At the age of twenty-two, he presented to the Academy of Sciences an
+analysis of gypsum. At twenty-five he was admitted a member of the
+Academy, an unusually early age. In his next year he succeeded his
+father in his lucrative office. He then married the daughter of another
+farmer-general, and having made this provision for a life of luxury or
+public employment, with all that political ambition might offer in the
+old <i>régime</i> of France, he collected his books about him, shut himself
+up in his study, and gave up his time, fortune, and energy to the
+advancement of science.</p>
+
+<p>After occupying himself for a brief period with geology, he commenced
+his chemical career by refuting the theories alike of Margraff and Stahl
+on the conversion of water into earth. The chemistry of the gases had
+made rapid progress in England; and the names of Black, Priestley, and
+Cavendish, had already attracted the attention of scientific Europe.
+Lavoisier followed in their track by a series of experiments in the
+calcination of metals, pursued with remarkable intelligence and
+industry. The biographer observes that he was now on the verge of two
+dazzling discoveries&mdash;the composition of the atmosphere, and the
+identity of the diamond with carbon. But he stopped short, and left the
+glory to more fortunate investigators.</p>
+
+<p>We hasten from the controversies to which the claim of priority in those
+distinguished discoveries gave rise, and come to the more authentic<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_660" id="Page_660">[Pg 660]</a></span>
+services of Lavoisier. He was appointed by the minister to superintend
+the royal manufacture of gunpowder, which his chemical knowledge enabled
+him greatly to improve. He next, by appointment of the National
+Assembly, drew up his laborious and valuable memoir on the <i>Territorial
+Wealth of France</i>. He was now appointed one of the commissioners of the
+treasury, and introduced an unexampled regularity into the public
+accounts. He aided the formation of the metrical system, the security of
+the assignats against forgery, and seems to have borne an active part in
+every public matter in which practical science was concerned. In the
+mean time he employed himself in scientific agriculture, and set apart a
+tract of land on his estate for experimental farming. His style of
+living in Paris was at once rational and splendid. His house was open
+twice a-week for the reception of distinguished persons, both foreigners
+and natives, and especially if they brought with them the recommendation
+of scientific ability. With the finest philosophical apparatus in the
+possession of any individual in France, he was constantly carrying on
+experiments on his own account, or performing them for others whose
+means could not meet their expense. This conduct, united to remarkable
+amiability of manners, made him popular, and placed him at the head of
+French science in his day. But the evil time had come when opulence was
+to be a crime, and virtue was to be no longer a safe-guard. The
+democratic triumvirate of 1794 issued an order for the seizure of
+twenty-seven individuals who had been farmers-general before the
+Revolution. The true charge was the crime of being opulent. The popular
+and ridiculous charge was, their having mixed deleterious ingredients
+with the tobacco. Lavoisier having received information that the order
+was about to be executed, fled, and remained for some days in
+concealment. On understanding that his flight might injure the other
+prisoners, and as his father-in-law was among them, he, with a rash
+reliance on the public justice, yet with manly generosity, returned to
+Paris, and gave himself up to his oppressors. The course of the
+Revolution had been so palpably that of general plunder, that he had
+long expected the loss of fortune, and proposed, in case of ruin, to
+begin the world again, and live by the profession of medicine.</p>
+
+<p>But, by a furious act of violence, he was condemned to die. He asked
+only a few days to complete some experiments which were going on during
+his imprisonment. The scoffing answer of this merciless tribunal was,
+that the Republic had no need of philosophers; and on the day after this
+sentence, the 8th of May 1794, he was hurried to the guillotine with no
+less than one hundred and twenty-three other victims, who all died
+within a few hours.</p>
+
+<p>On this melancholy and desperate atrocity of republicanism, Lord
+Brougham makes the following remark, which, though natural in the lips
+of any human being, has double force as coming from one who has seen the
+operation of the revolutionary spirit on so large a scale, and during so
+extended a portion of his public career.</p>
+
+<p>"The lustre," he observes, "which the labours of Lavoisier had shed over
+the scientific renown of France, the valuable services which he had
+rendered her in so many important departments of her affairs, the
+virtues which adorned his character and made his philosophy beloved as
+well as revered, were all destined to meet the reward with which the
+tyranny of <i>vulgar faction</i> is sure to recompense the good and the wise,
+as often as the <i>base unlettered multitude</i> are permitted to bear sway,
+and to place in the seat of dominion their idols, who <i>dupe</i> to
+<i>betray</i>, and finally punish them."</p>
+
+<p>Lord Brougham justly reprobates the suspicious silence of the celebrated
+Carnot on this occasion, and the still more scandalous apathy of
+Fourcroix, who had been the pupil and panegyrist of the great chemist
+during many years. He acquits him of the deadly imputation, that he had
+even been instrumental in sending his master to the guillotine. But he
+praises, in contradistinction, M. Hallé, who had the honest courage to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_661" id="Page_661">[Pg 661]</a></span>proclaim Lavoisier's public services before the dreadful tribunal,
+while he consigns the pupil to perpetual scorn. He was murdered in his
+fifty-first year.</p>
+
+<p>Lord Brougham's French predilections do credit to his sense of
+cosmopolitism; but he appears to us somewhat more disposed to conciliate
+the jealousy of his very irritable French <i>confrères</i>, than to deal
+rigorous justice. No man deserves the reputation of science but a
+discoverer. To know all that has been hitherto known on a subject,
+deserves the character of diligence; to promote the progress of a
+science by largeness of expenditure, or steadiness of exertion, deserves
+the praise of liberality and labour; but the man who adds to the science
+by original invention, who enlarges its boundaries, and detects new
+principles, is the man alone to whom the name of genius can be applied.
+Lavoisier was, unquestionably, an important minister of science; he
+possessed singular assiduity, unwearied zeal, and remarkable sagacity.
+What these could do, he did; what knowledge could accomplish, he
+performed; but the inventors were of another country, and of a higher
+order, and he must be content with the honours due to imitation. Yet he
+had considerable happiness in the difficult art of communicating his
+knowledge. His <i>Treatise on Chemistry</i>, though now superseded by
+subsequent arrangements, is singularly clear; and no great teacher of
+chemistry has hitherto given the world a more striking example of
+exactness in detail, and clearness in conception.</p>
+
+<p>His cruel death, too, may be almost said to have continued his services
+to society. It proved, with irresistible force, the true character of
+Infidel Revolution. It showed a noble-minded and benevolent man the
+victim of revolutionary rage; an intelligent, studious, and retired man,
+obnoxious to the rabble love of ruin; a mild, generous, and patriotic
+man, the instant prey of revolutionary government, which boasted of its
+superiority to the vices of kings, of its homage to intellect, and of
+its supreme value for the virtues of private life. Yet it murdered
+Lavoisier without a moment's hesitation, or a moment's remorse, and
+flung the first philosopher of France into a felon's grave.</p>
+
+<p>The biography of Adam Smith gives Lord Brougham an opportunity of
+pouring out, at the distance of nearly half a century, that knowledge of
+Political Economy which first brought him into notice. His <i>Colonial
+Policy</i>, a remarkable performance for a student of eighteen, exhibited
+in miniature the principles and propensities which his long career has
+been expended in maturing and moulding. Adam Smith was the idol of all
+Scottish worship in the last century; and his originality of conception,
+the weight of his subject, and the clearness of his judgment, made him
+worthy of the elevation.</p>
+
+<p>Adam Smith's birth was of a higher order than is often to be found in
+the instance of men destined to literary eminence. He was the son of a
+comptroller of the customs, who had been private secretary to Lord
+Loudoun, secretary of state, and keeper of the great seal.</p>
+
+<p>An accident in infancy had nearly deprived the age of its first
+philosopher, even if it had not trained him to be hanged. At three years
+of age he was stolen by travelling tinkers, a race resembling the
+gipsies, and which in that day formed a numerous population in Scotland.
+But a pursuit being speedily set on foot, he was fortunately recovered.
+He was well educated, and, after the routine of school, was sent to
+Glasgow for three years, where he obtained an Exhibition to Baliol
+College. At Oxford he remained for seven years, chiefly addicted to
+mathematics&mdash;a study, however, which he subsequently wholly abandoned.
+He had been intended for the Church of England; but whether from dislike
+of its discipline, or from disappointment in his views, he retired to
+Scotland, to take his chance of employment in its colleges. In 1748 he
+settled in Edinburgh, and, for three years, read a course of lectures on
+rhetoric. His contemporaries, then obscure, became, in some instances,
+conspicuous; for among them were Hume, Robertson, and Wedderburne. In
+1751, Smith was elected to the professorship<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_662" id="Page_662">[Pg 662]</a></span> of Logic in the University
+of Glasgow, which he soon after exchanged for that of Moral Philosophy.</p>
+
+<p>Thus far we run on smoothly with Lord Brougham; but when he comes to
+discuss religion, we must occasionally doubt his guidance. For example,
+in speaking of Smith's lectures on Natural Theology, he denounces the
+jealousy of those who regard it as other than "the very foundation
+essential to support its fabric." From this opinion we totally dissent.
+It is perfectly true that natural religion and revelation are consistent
+with each other, as must be presumed from their being the work of the
+same Divine wisdom. But their foundations are wholly distinct. Why did
+the Jew believe the Mosaic revelation? Simply and solely, because it was
+delivered to him with such evidences of supernatural origin, in the
+thunders of Sinai, and substantiated at subsequent periods by miracle
+and prophecy, that he must receive it as divine. Why did the early
+converts receive Christianity? Simply on the same direct evidence
+supplied to their senses. No apostle sent them to examine their notions
+of the Godhead, or left them to inculcate the doctrines of the gospel by
+their reason. But he declared his doctrine as a new truth, and gave
+proof of its truth being divine, by working wonders palpably beyond the
+power of man. Of course, unless man knew what was meant by the power of
+the Deity, he could not have comprehended the simplest communication of
+the apostle. But we are speaking of the foundation of a belief&mdash;not the
+intelligibility of a language. We are entitled to go further still, and
+say, that the first idea of the being of a God was itself a
+revelation&mdash;a much plainer solution of the extraordinary circumstance,
+that so lofty and recondite a conception should have existed in the
+earliest and rudest ages of society; than to suppose that the
+antediluvian shepherd, or the postdiluvian hunter, should have ever
+thought of tracing effects and causes up to that extreme elevation,
+where a pure and supreme Spirit creates and governs the whole. We are
+entitled even to doubt whether the idea of Spirit was ever <i>naturally</i>
+conceived in the mind of any human being, difficult as is the conception
+to a creature surrounded with materiality, with every thought derived
+from his senses, and with the total incapacity of defining to this hour,
+or even imagining, the nature of Spirit. It will be fully admitted, that
+when the idea was once communicated, its reality was substantiated by
+the frame of nature, by the regularity, the extent, and the beneficence
+of the great physical system. But the origin was revelation. Lord
+Brougham quotes Tillotson; but the archbishop had earned his mitre by
+other means than the vigour of his understanding, and often trifles like
+other men.</p>
+
+<p>In 1759, Smith published his <i>Theory of Moral Sentiments</i>&mdash;a work of
+skill and invention, but which has long since fallen into disuse with
+the intelligent world. It, however, had the rare good fortune of
+attracting the notice of an individual, possessed at once of the taste
+to honour, and the will to befriend, a man of original ability. This
+volume fell into the hands of the celebrated Charles Townsend, who
+proposed that the author should take charge of the young Duke of
+Buccleuch, whose mother, the dowager-duchess, he had married. Nothing in
+the life of Townsend was more honourable to him than this choice, not
+only for its judgment but for its rarity. The generality of men in
+possession of affluence think only of themselves, and would value the
+most common-place gratification more highly than the encouragement of
+the obscure genius, which wanted only that encouragement to shed a new
+lustre on its generation. The man of power in general feels its
+possession the primary object of his patronage, and sees no purpose in
+the immense opportunity given to him by his rank, but to obtain
+adherents, and make his power impregnable. Though there may be
+exceptions, such is the rule; and with this recollection of the
+established course of things, we give all honour to the memory of the
+man, without whose patronage the world would probably have lost the
+ablest work of its century, the immortal <i>Wealth of Nations</i>.</p>
+
+<p>In 1763, Smith was appointed tutor<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_663" id="Page_663">[Pg 663]</a></span> to the young nobleman, resigned his
+professorship, and went with his pupil to France. After a residence of a
+year and a half at Toulouse, he travelled in Switzerland, and then,
+returning to Paris, spent ten months there. His French residence was
+peculiarly fortunate. It rubbed off the rust of his seclusion; it
+introduced him to the best society of courtly life; and it brought him
+into direct intercourse with that whole circle of active intellect and
+novel philosophy, which made the Parisian coteries at once the most
+bustling and brilliant of Europe. However the horrid profligacy of the
+court, and the contemptuous infidelity of high life, might have either
+disgusted the morals, or startled even the scepticism of the stranger,
+there can be no doubt of the interest which he felt in the society of
+such men as Turgot, Necker, D'Alembert, and Quesnay. Smith, some fifteen
+or twenty years before, had drawn up a sketch of the principles which he
+afterwards developed in his <i>Wealth of Nations</i>. Political economy was
+then beginning to take a form in French science. Whether it ever
+deserved the name of science, or will ever deserve it, may be a grave
+question. It depends upon such a multitude of facts, and the facts
+themselves vary so perpetually, the "principles" derived from those
+facts are so feeble and fluctuating, and common experience so
+provokingly contradicts, from day to day, the most laboured conclusions,
+that every new professor has a new theory, and every new theory turns
+the former into ridicule, itself to be burlesqued by the next that
+follows. This at least is known, that Fox declared his suspicion of the
+whole, saying, that it was at once too daring to be intelligible, and
+too indefinite to be reducible to practice. Even in our day, no two
+authors on the subject agree; all the successful measures of revenue and
+finance have been adopted in utter defiance of its dogmas; while all the
+modern attempts to act upon what are called its principles, have only
+convulsed commerce, shaken public credit, and substituted fantastic
+visions of prosperity for the old substantial wealth of England. No
+occupation could have been fitter for the half-frivolous, half-factious
+spirit of France. A revolution in revenue was openly regarded as the
+first step to revolution in power; the political economists indulged
+themselves in a philosophic conspiracy, and vented their sneers against
+the government, under pretext of recognising the rights of trade. It
+took but a little more than twenty years to mature this dexterous
+contrivance, and the meek friends of free trade had the happiness of
+seeing France in a blaze.</p>
+
+<p>Smith, on his return, shut himself up in his study in Kirkcaldy for ten
+years. His friends in vain attempted to draw him from his solitude to
+Edinburgh: he steadily, we may almost say magnanimously, refused; and at
+the end of the tenth year, in 1776, he explained the mystery, by the
+publication of the two quarto volumes of his <i>Enquiry into the Nature
+and Causes of the Wealth of Nations</i>. The work was received with general
+congratulation; it was regarded as a new science, although it is
+well-known, as stated in the introduction to the biography, that many
+others had previously discussed the same subjects. Smith's views,
+however, were so much more comprehensive, his division so much more
+distinct, and his remarks so much more practical, that he deserved all
+the credit of the architect who combines in beauty and utility the beams
+and pillars which he finds scattered on the ground. And here we advert
+to the obvious benefit of that patronage which had been extended to this
+very able man by Townsend. The annuity which had been settled on him as
+tutor, had enabled Smith to give up the whole of his time, and the whole
+powers of his mind, during those ten years, to this great work. During
+nearly twenty years of lecturing, on the other hand, in which his pen
+was necessarily employed without ceasing, he seems to have published but
+one work, <i>The Theory of Moral Sentiment</i>. That he constantly formed
+ingenious conceptions, may be easily admitted; but that he wanted either
+time or inclination to complete them, is evident from the fact, that he
+never suffered them to appear in print, and that one of his dying
+directions was, that they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_664" id="Page_664">[Pg 664]</a></span> should be destroyed by his executors.</p>
+
+<p>He was now a man of fame, and to enjoy it came up to London, where he
+resided for two years in the midst of the best society, political and
+literary, to be found in England. He was now to be a man of fortune as
+well as of fame; he was appointed a commissioner of the customs in
+Scotland. He returned to Edinburgh, and commenced the agreeable life of
+a man at once distinguished, and opulent to the full extent of his
+simple desires, in a society whose names are still regarded as the
+lights of Scotland. He lived hospitably, and entertained good society,
+but he wrote no more; he was growing old, and Lord Brougham evidently
+thinks that the duties of his office exhausted his spirits and occupied
+his time. But those duties always partook largely of the nature of a
+sinecure; and there is every reason to doubt whether they could have
+worn down a man of regular habits, and who had been trained to the
+routine of daily business by an apprenticeship of a quarter of a
+century. The greater probability is, that Smith felt that he had done
+enough for fame; that, knowing the world, he was unwilling to expose
+himself to the caprices of critical applause; and that he even felt how
+inadequate the early theories which found admirers in the lecture-room,
+might be to sustain a character already brought into full publicity by
+his own volumes. The fact is certain, that he produced nothing more. In
+July 1790, he died, at the age of sixty-seven. It was his custom to give
+a supper on the Sunday evening to a numerous circle of friends. How far
+this entertainment, which was more consistent with the latitude of his
+Paris recollections, was reconcilable with the decorums of Scotland, we
+cannot say. But on one evening, after having destroyed his manuscripts,
+finding himself not so well as usual, he retired to bed before supper,
+and as he went, said to his friends, "I believe we must adjourn this
+meeting to some other place." He died in a very few days afterwards.</p>
+
+<p>Lord Brougham has obviously expended his chief labour on the life of
+this favourite philosopher, of whom, fifty years ago, every Scottish
+economist was a devoted pupil. Times are changed, yet this intelligent
+biographer has given a very ample and accurate, so far as we can judge,
+analysis of the <i>Enquiry</i>. But he would have greatly increased the
+obligations of the reader, by giving some portion of his treatise to the
+questions which modern artifice has devised, and modern infatuation has
+adopted.</p>
+
+<p>An interesting "memoir" of Johnson commences the volume; but the topic
+would lead us too far. The biographer gives that literary Samson full
+applause for the strength of his understanding, the boldness of his
+morality, and the pungency of his wit. Rather to our surprise, he pours
+out an eloquent panegyric on Boswell. That we are indebted to this
+versatile personage for one of the most amusing and instructive
+collections of reminiscences in the history of authorship, will be
+readily conceded. But this is the first time of our hearing a demand
+that we should pay him any more peculiar homage. But Lord Brougham is
+himself the head of a school: his <i>ipse dixit</i> demands acquiescence, and
+none can doubt that, if he is singular in his dogmas, he deserves
+attention for the vigour of his advocacy.</p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_665" id="Page_665">[Pg 665]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="REYNARD" id="REYNARD"></a>REYNARD THE FOX.<span class="foot"><a name="f2.1" id="f2.1" href="#f2">[2]</a></span></h2>
+
+<p>The natural history of the Cockney has been frequently illustrated, and
+never so successfully as in time past in the pages of Maga. But nature
+is inexhaustible in all her creations. You might study a lifetime, and
+yet not fully master the properties of one of those little Infusoria
+that wriggle or spin about in a phial of foul or fair water, and a still
+wider subject of study is of course supplied by any larger animal, such
+as a Cockney, placed as he is a little lower than the angels, and
+half-way down, or there abouts, between a man and a chimpanzee.</p>
+
+<p>Upon careful inquiry it would probably be found, that in most nations
+the population, though all purporting to be men and women, consists in a
+good measure of beings that stand several degrees below the point of
+humanity. France, among several specimens of a higher order, has
+occasionally shown that a considerable proportion of its inhabitants was
+a hideous cross between the tiger and the baboon. Holland has had its
+Grotius and its Erasmus, but the otter and the beaver breed make up the
+mass of those who go by the name of Dutchmen. There has been no want in
+Germany of clear-sighted men, but the mole, the bat, and the owl furnish
+a large contingent to the ranks of its <i>literati</i>. In other nations we
+see a greater or less preponderance of the wolf or the bear, the goat or
+the goose, the ass, the hog, or the hippopotamus. Such being the
+universal condition of the world, we should rather be proud than
+otherwise, that, in England, we can boast of a secondary tribe, made,
+perhaps, by some of nature's journeymen, but that yet imitate humanity
+so respectably, so amiably, and so amusingly, as the Cockney must be
+admitted to do.</p>
+
+<p>A Cockney is by locality very much what a tailor is by trade. Though a
+remote sub-multiple of a man, he is enterprising, indefatigable, cutting
+his way to his object through every thing with a ready tongue and a
+quick wit. Yet he is deficient in some qualities indispensable to the
+species <i>homo</i>. Courage the Cockney undoubtedly possesses, because he is
+always among those who are said to rush in where others fear to tread.
+But veneration is utterly wanting in his composition; and here the
+resemblance to the tailor is conspicuous; as we never knew a single snip
+that had the slightest reverence for any thing under heaven&mdash;if, indeed,
+the assertion should not be made in still broader terms. In the tailor
+this effect, defective, comes by an obvious cause. The intolerable
+liberties which the vulgar fraction is permitted to take with people's
+persons, divesting the best and bravest of us of the halo of heroism
+that surrounds us at a distance; and the fact that the great mysteries
+of dress, the paraphernalia of our dignity and decency, and the chief
+emblems of our manhood and domestic authority, emerge exclusively from
+the hands of this insignificant but indispensable maker of men, are
+enough to extinguish within him all sentiment of respect for any thing
+human or divine. The Cockney arrives at a similar state of easy and
+impudent <i>non-chalance</i> by a different process. Littered in London, and
+living there all his life, he is proud of its position among cites; and
+he comes, by a natural process of reasoning, to ascribe its importance
+to its connexion with his own person and people, and to see nothing
+better or greater in the universe than himself and what belongs to him.
+The feeling grows with his growth, and is fed by a full indulgence in
+all the good things with which the land of Cockayne abounds, and which
+the most morose of mortals must admit to be eminently conducive to
+self-complacency.</p>
+
+<p>The Cockney, thus devoid of all diffidence in himself, is prepared for
+every thing in the scale of human<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_666" id="Page_666">[Pg 666]</a></span> thought or action; pleasuring or
+politics, theatricals or theology, an Epping hunt or an Epic poem. In
+literature we may say of him, nearly in the words applied by Dr Johnson
+to Goldsmith, that there is scarcely any kind of composition that he
+does not handle, and none that he handles which he does not adorn with
+graces all his own.</p>
+
+<p>It is wonderful, however, to see with what success a Cockney can
+sometimes disguise himself. He will write you a book, in which, several
+pages on end, you think you are reading the thoughts of some ordinary
+mortal. But the cloven foot always appears before you are done with him.
+In poetry, indeed, you can go but a short way till the cat is let out of
+the bag. That unfortunate letter <span class="smcaplc">R</span>! No lessons in elocution, no change
+of climate, can eradicate the deep-seated mischief of its
+mispronunciation in a Cockney whose years of pupilarity have been passed
+on the spot of his birth.</p>
+
+<p>These remarks have been elicited by a disappointment we have recently
+suffered, in being led to purchase the book referred to at the
+commencement of this article. We saw it advertised by an alluring
+title&mdash;"<span class="smcap">Reynard the Fox</span>&mdash;a renowned Apologue of the Middle Ages
+reproduced in Rhyme." We bought the book, and were delighted with its
+appearance. A quaint, antique, cream-coloured binding&mdash;a golden vignette
+on the outside, of the fox making his obeisance to Noble the king of the
+beasts, and the lioness his spouse&mdash;a beautiful paper and type within,
+with red and blue illuminations interspersed at the heads of chapters
+and paragraphs;&mdash;all this combined to whet our appetite for a delicious
+treat. We read the preface and introduction, if not with pleasure, at
+least with patience, and with wonderfully few misgivings as to the
+truth, the worst feature in them being the tendency to Carlyleism, to
+which, however offensive in itself, custom has made us somewhat callous.
+But we had not perused a page or two of the reproduction in rhyme
+itself, when we discovered that we were wandering in the regions of
+Cockneyland, with one of its most distinguished natives for our guide.</p>
+
+<p>Our immediate purpose is to offer an exposition, not of the old Reynard,
+but of its present "reproduction." We may say, however, that we think
+the original work is one peculiarly ill-suited to be appreciated or
+reproduced by one of Mr Naylor's compatriots. It is a product of true
+genius, humour, and sagacity. The author must have looked at beasts and
+men with a keen eye, and from the vantage ground of a contemplative
+mind; and he has worked out his thoughts in a plain and simple style of
+illustration, and embodied them in easy and natural language. There is
+much merriment in his work, but no straining after wit. There is all the
+knowledge of the day that an accomplished man could be expected to
+possess, but no parade of learning. There is no quaintness in the style,
+and no effort in the verse. The age of <i>Hudibras</i> had not come; and that
+of the <i>Ingoldsby Legends</i>, or <i>Miss Kilmansegg</i>, was still further off.
+The old Flemish writers of Reynard exhibit judgment as well as talent,
+and their Low Saxon successor, though himself a reproducer, has asserted
+a claim both to freedom and originality. The quiet, sensible, unaffected
+treatment of their subject, which these old versifiers exhibit, where
+the topics offered so much temptation to burlesque and extravagance, is
+the thing of all others least likely to be comprehended or relished in
+the meridian of Bow Bells.</p>
+
+<p>But, then, Goethe has successfully translated the book; and, therefore,
+Mr Naylor must do the same. This is a common mode of syllogising in
+Cockayne. Homer, Dante, Milton, Goethe, Wordsworth, have done such and
+such things, and therefore a Cockney is to do them also. Whatever may be
+the precise minor premise involved in this argument, we venture to
+suggest a doubt of its soundness. Mr Naylor tells us he has followed
+Alkmar's and Goethe's example, "mindful ever of the requisitions
+insisted on by Novalis in all paraphrastic translations, that they
+should convey accurately an idea of the first type, whilst, at the same
+time, the translator made his author speak after that appreciation of
+his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_667" id="Page_667">[Pg 667]</a></span> work which exists in his own mind, no less than according to the
+poet's original conception." Mr Naylor may have succeeded in making his
+author speak after that appreciation of his work which exists in his own
+mind; but if the "first type" of Reynard had been no better than the
+reproduction gives us an idea of, the shapeless and sickly cub would not
+have lived an hour into the thirteenth century.</p>
+
+<p>Before Mr Naylor resolved on reproducing Reynard in English rhyme, he
+should have inquired whether it was not already as well done as he was
+likely to do it. In his elaborate enumeration of his predecessors in the
+task of translation, he thus writes:&mdash;"There is also <i>said</i> to be a
+translation of Reynard into English <i>doggerel</i>, by <i>one</i> Soltau, a
+German"&mdash;"known," as he adds in a note, "as the translator of <i>Hudibras</i>
+into German." We have now before us the translation so slightingly
+alluded to, published at Hamburg in 1826. In all external and physical
+recommendations, this homely volume is far inferior to the London
+reproduction; but we shall immediately give our readers an opportunity
+of judging whether the doggerel of "one Soltau, a German," is not at
+least as good as that of "one Naylor, a Cockney."</p>
+
+<p>Take the opening of the poem, which, in the original, is full of
+freshness and spirit, with all the joyousness of a holiday scene.</p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="table">
+<tr><td align="center"><span class="smcap">Soltau.</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">"It happen'd on a Whitsunday,</span><br />
+When woods and fields look'd green and gay,<br />
+When balmy flow'rs and herbs were springing,<br />
+And feather'd folks were sweetly singing;<br />
+The morn was fine, the weather clear,<br />
+And fragrant odours fill'd the air,<br />
+When Noble, sov'reign king of beasts,<br />
+Proclaim'd a court and public feasts.<br />
+His loyal subjects, lords and commons,<br />
+Obey'd their master's royal summons;<br />
+And many a valiant knight and squire<br />
+To court repair'd in grand attire,<br />
+With their attendants, great and small&mdash;<br />
+'Twas difficult to count them all."</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><span class="smcap">Naylor.</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Now Pentecost, the feast, by some</span><br />
+Call'd 'merry Whitsuntide,' was come!<br />
+The fields show'd brave, with kingcups dight,<br />
+And hawthorns kercheft were in white:<br />
+Her low-breathed lute the fresh'ning rill<br />
+Unto the waken'd woods 'gan trill;<br />
+Whilst, hid in leafy bower remote,<br />
+The cuckoo tuned his herald-note;<br />
+The meads were prankt in gold and green,<br />
+And 'leetel fowles' of liveried sheen,<br />
+Their pipes with <span class="smcap">Jubilate!</span> swelling,<br />
+From bush and spray were philomelling&mdash;<br />
+The breeze came balmy from the west,<br />
+And April, harness'd in her best,<br />
+The laughing sun led forth to see&mdash;<br />
+When Noble (lion-king was he,<br />
+And sceptre sway'd o'er bird and beast,)<br />
+Held ancient ways, and kept the feast,<br />
+The trumpets clang'd loud proclamation&mdash;<br />
+The couriers coursed throughout the nation&mdash;<br />
+Full many a Brave and many a Bold<br />
+Came hastening in troops untold."</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>The German translator here keeps precisely within the same compass of
+fourteen lines with his "first type," while the Londoner has one-half<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_668" id="Page_668">[Pg 668]</a></span>
+more. But this is not the main difference. The German is neater and more
+natural, and nearer the spirit as well as the letter of his model. All
+the trash in the new reproduction about hawthorns "kercheft in white,"
+the low-breathed lute of the rill trilling, the cuckoo and his herald
+note, the 'leetel fowles' swelling and philomelling, and April harnessed
+in her best, are mere frippery sewed on by the reproducer, to make the
+venerable old garment look finer in the eyes of his co-Cockneys.</p>
+
+<p>We next give the two translations of that part of the poem which
+represents the Cock's complaints against Reynard, for killing his
+daughter, and which is supposed to give so accurate a representation of
+the form of process in the Middle Ages in an accusation of murder.</p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="table">
+<tr><td align="center"><span class="smcap">Soltau.</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Gray scarce had done, when Chanticleer</span><br />
+The Cock in mourning did appear;<br />
+Two sons accompanied their sire,<br />
+Like him in funeral attire,<br />
+With hoods of crape and torches lighted,<br />
+And doleful lays they both recited.<br />
+Two others follow'd with a bier;<br />
+Mournful and slowly they drew near,<br />
+With heartfelt sighs and deepest groan,<br />
+Their fav'rite sister to bemoan.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"The Cock in tears the throne approach'd,</span><br />
+And thus his sad harangue he broach'd:<br />
+'My Liege, have pity on a man,<br />
+The most distressed of his clan,<br />
+Who, with his children here before You,<br />
+Is come, for vengeance to implore You<br />
+On Reynard, who, with fell design,<br />
+Hath done great harm to me and mine.<br />
+When hoary Winter left the plain,<br />
+And Spring smiled on the world again,<br />
+When leaves were budding, daisies springing,<br />
+And tuneful birds in thickets singing,<br />
+The sun at dawn of morning found me<br />
+With my young family around me;<br />
+Ten sons and fourteen daughters fair,<br />
+Breathing with joy the genial air,<br />
+All of one breed, and full of life,<br />
+Brought up by my good prudent wife.<br />
+Protected by a massy wall<br />
+And six bold mastiffs, stout and tall,<br />
+They lived, in spite of Reynard crafty,<br />
+Within a cloister-yard in safety.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"But lo! our enemy contrived</span><br />
+Our joy, alas! should be short-lived.<br />
+In hermit's garb the traitor came,<br />
+With letters, written in your name,<br />
+Where strictest orders were express'd,<br />
+To keep peace between bird and beast.<br />
+He said, he scorn'd the joys of sense,<br />
+And led a life of penitence,<br />
+To expiate his former guilt,<br />
+And streams of blood, which he had spilt;<br />
+He vow'd, in future he would eat<br />
+No poultry, nor forbidden meat.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"All joyful, to my little crew,</span><br />
+To tell the happy news I flew,<br />
+That Reynard friar's garments wore,<br />
+And was our enemy no more.<br />
+Now for the first time we did venture<br />
+Out of our gate. A dire adventure<br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_669" id="Page_669">[Pg 669]</a></span>Awaited us; for whilst we stray'd<br />
+And sported on a sunny glade,<br />
+Reynard, conceal'd below a bush,<br />
+Upon us suddenly did rush;<br />
+One of my hopeful sons he slew,<br />
+And of my fairest daughters two.&mdash;<br />
+Five only out of twenty-four<br />
+Are left; the rest he did devour.<br />
+My daughter Rake-up, on this bier,<br />
+Slain by the murderer, lies here;<br />
+He bit her neck off yesterday&mdash;<br />
+Revenge her death, my liege, I pray.'<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"'Sir Gray,(quoth Noble,) did you hear?</span><br />
+Fine things of th' hermit-fox appear.<br />
+Was't thus, that with his fasts he meant it?<br />
+Sure as I live he shall repent it!<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"'Good Cock, we've heard your mournful tale,</span><br />
+And we your daughter's fate bewail;<br />
+Thus, first of all, we'll see the honour<br />
+Of funeral rites bestow'd upon her;<br />
+Next with our Council we shall further<br />
+Consult, how to revenge this murther.'"</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><span class="smcap">Naylor.</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">"He ceased; and scarce a sand had run</span><br />
+When Chanticleer and all his clan<br />
+Appear'd in court: right in the van<br />
+A pullet's corse accompanied,<br />
+'Clept Dem'selle Scratchclaw ere she died;<br />
+By Reynard's bite decapitated&mdash;<br />
+This wise the tidings were related.<br />
+Close to the throne the Cock drew nigh:<br />
+Deep anguish dimm'd his upturn'd eye:<br />
+Two little Bantams, right and left,<br />
+Wept bitter tears, as birds bereft.<br />
+Sir Flapwing was of high degree,<br />
+As fine a bantling as you'd see<br />
+'Twixt Amsterdam and Paris, he.<br />
+Sir Strain-neck was the other 'clept,<br />
+And, like the first one, proudly stept.<br />
+Before them each a torch they bear,<br />
+Alike the same; for twins they were.<br />
+Young Cocks yet twain bare up the pall,<br />
+And help'd the wail with voices small.<br />
+Then Chanticleer, before the King<br />
+Commenced, in tones deep harrowing:<br />
+'Ah, gracious Lord and King! give ear<br />
+To my disastrous tale! The tear<br />
+Of pity shed on us who stand<br />
+For justice, suppliants at your hand.<br />
+Sire! thus it chanced;&mdash;The frosted beard<br />
+Of Winter scarce had disappear'd;<br />
+Scarce had the thorny brake put by<br />
+Its hosiery of fleece, and I<br />
+As happy felt as though a chicken;<br />
+About me, strutting, crowing, picking,<br />
+In comeliness my little ones:<br />
+I counted up ten stalwart sons;<br />
+Of daughters, too, a wondrous store,&mdash;<br />
+Plump Ortolans, and full a score.<br />
+My dame, the thoughtful prudent Hen,<br />
+Had train'd their youth beneath her ken<br />
+All virtues cardinal to practise,<br />
+Best learned from mothers, as the fact is.<br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_670" id="Page_670">[Pg 670]</a></span>Our house was in the convent yard,<br />
+High wall'd around: six dogs stood guard;&mdash;<br />
+All kept for our peculiar care,<br />
+By night and day to shield us there.<br />
+Now, gracious Liege! mark what I tell.<br />
+Reynard, (the knave!) with cockle-shell<br />
+And pilgrim's staff, wellworn, appears,<br />
+Bearing a packet: as he nears,<br />
+I note your royal seal, and read<br />
+Announcement of the truce decreed:<br />
+No more, he said, he played the royster,<br />
+But sought repentance in a cloister:<br />
+Observed the rule o' th' strictest sect,<br />
+His sins to purge with sure effect;<br />
+Whereby myself might to the end<br />
+My life secure and fearless spend.<br />
+Said he, 'flesh diet I have sworn<br />
+Never to touch from night to morn.'&mdash;<br />
+Unto my children all, I stated<br />
+The royal message, then related<br />
+How Reynard had assumed the cowl,<br />
+And left off hankering after fowl.<br />
+Myself I led them far and wide,<br />
+When lo! the Fox's guile defied<br />
+My anxious cares: in that same hour<br />
+He'd mark'd a victim for his power!<br />
+Perdu behind a bush he lay,<br />
+And took, before mine eyes, his prey!<br />
+The best of all my brood he seized,<br />
+And ate her up. The morsel pleased<br />
+His scoundrel maw&mdash;'twas dainty meat&mdash;<br />
+And soon he sought another treat.&mdash;<br />
+Full four-and twenty hopeful chicks<br />
+As e'er peck'd corn from out fresh ricks<br />
+Were mine,&mdash;and now, as I'm alive,<br />
+The villain's kill'd them all but five!<br />
+Pity, O King! my sorrowing tale:<br />
+Grant succour in this hour of wail!<br />
+But yesterday, the huntsman's cry<br />
+Surprised him in the act to fly<br />
+With Scratchclaw's body, which you see<br />
+Kill'd by his murd'rous tooth&mdash;ah me!<br />
+'Tis here as witness of my woe&mdash;<br />
+Oh that my hardhap to your heart may go!'<br />
+Enraged, the King: 'Sir Badger, ho!<br />
+The monk your uncle (troth!) doth know<br />
+To keep his fast,&mdash;the holy man!&mdash;<br />
+Match me the like of this who can?<br />
+What need of further question here?<br />
+Draw nigh and listen, Chanticleer!<br />
+Ourself your daughter dead will see<br />
+Entomb'd with all solemnity<br />
+Of dirge and mass, in her last slumber,<br />
+And vigils also without number.<br />
+This done, from these our lieges true<br />
+We'll crave their help and counsel too,<br />
+Touching the murder and the vengeance due.'<br />
+To Bruin then the King thus spake:<br />
+'Bruin! look well you undertake<br />
+This journey with dispatch&mdash;'Tis I,<br />
+Your Sov'reign, calls upon you&mdash;fly!<br />
+Be wise and wary: Reynard's guile<br />
+Is practised in each crafty wile.'"</td></tr></table>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_671" id="Page_671">[Pg 671]</a></span>Neither of the translators is here very good, and Naylor is perhaps as
+near hitting the nail on the point (to use the phrase of a friend of
+ours of the Fogie Club) as his competitor. He still gives us, however, a
+great many silly superfluities, though some of them we have ventured to
+cut out.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, as our readers may begin to think they have enough of this, we
+shall close our comparative view by some quotations from the Wager of
+Battle, by which the Wolf and the Fox ultimately terminate their
+disputes.</p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="table">
+<tr><td align="center"><span class="smcap">Soltau.</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">"The trumpets then began to sound,</span><br />
+And next the wardens did appear,<br />
+And call'd the champions forth, to swear.<br />
+Growler advanced, his oath to take;<br />
+He swore, that Reynard was a rake,<br />
+A murd'rer, and a treach'rous wight,<br />
+For which assertion he would fight.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Then Reynard in his turn did swear,</span><br />
+That Growler was a perjurer;<br />
+To prove his charge, he did defy him,<br />
+Because he basely did belie him.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"The wardens then admonish'd both,</span><br />
+To fight with honour and good troth.<br />
+This being done, the lists were clear'd,<br />
+Where both the combatants appear'd.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"The combatants with equal rage</span><br />
+And fury now began t'engage.<br />
+The Wolf, by dint of strength and art,<br />
+Attack'd the Fox with leap and start;<br />
+But Reynard, being shrewd and light,<br />
+Avoided him by cunning flight,<br />
+And while he ran, he did not fail<br />
+To water well his rugged tail.<br />
+When Growler meant to hold him fast,<br />
+He nimbly veer'd about at last,<br />
+And with his tail the dust and dirt<br />
+He full into his face did flirt.<br />
+Whilst Growler rubb'd his eyes with pain,<br />
+Reynard his flirts renew'd again,<br />
+Till Growler was quite spent at last,<br />
+And by the throat he held him fast.<br />
+'Sir Wolf,(he said,)if heretofore<br />
+Poor lambs and kids you oft have tore,<br />
+It is high time now to repent,<br />
+Before your last breath you have spent,<br />
+And with contrition to behave,<br />
+If you would wish your soul to save.'<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"In this provoking style he spoke,</span><br />
+Striving his enemy to choke;<br />
+But Growler was for him too strong,<br />
+And broke loose from his hold erelong;<br />
+Though ere he got out of his jaws,<br />
+Reynard gall'd him with teeth and claws;<br />
+One of his eyes was almost out,<br />
+And streams of blood ran down his snout.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"As soon as he his blood did view,</span><br />
+At Reynard in a rage he flew;<br />
+He got him under, and his paw<br />
+He seized, and held it in his jaw.<br />
+'You caitiff, your last hour has come,<br />
+(Said he,) and you'll meet with your doom.<br />
+'T shall not avail you now, to shear,<br />
+To flirt, kick up a dust, and smear.<br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_672" id="Page_672">[Pg 672]</a></span>I'll make you pay for all your lies,<br />
+And for the damage of my eyes.'<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Whilst Growler kept hold of the paw,</span><br />
+Sly Reynard with his other claw<br />
+Seiz'd him in such a tender part,<br />
+That it made Growler howl with smart,<br />
+And forced him soon to ope his jaw,<br />
+And to let go the imprison'd paw.<br />
+Reynard now tugg'd, and pull'd, and tore,<br />
+And made the Wolf spit blood and gore;<br />
+He brought him senseless to the ground,<br />
+And dragg'd him through the lists around.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"When this his wife and friends perceived,</span><br />
+They were much terrified and grieved.<br />
+Then pray'd the king to use his right,<br />
+And to suspend the bloody fight.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"The king took their request to heart,</span><br />
+And bade the champions straight to part,<br />
+To whom the leopard and the ounce,<br />
+As wardens, did his will announce.<br />
+"Reynard," they said, "the king has sent<br />
+To let you know 'tis his intent<br />
+To put an end to all your strife.<br />
+He bids you to spare Growler's life;<br />
+For 'twould be a pity after all,<br />
+If either of you both should fall.<br />
+Meantime all, who are present, say<br />
+That you at last have won the day.'"</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><span class="smcap">Naylor.</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td>"Hark! hark! the tuckets sound on high!<br />
+'He comes! Sir Isengrim!' they cry.<br />
+The Wolf and all his kith and kin<br />
+Approach in long array! The din<br />
+Their multitudinous trampling made<br />
+Resounded like a cavalcade<br />
+Of mailèd warriors on the march,<br />
+Or winds that, through a wood of larch,<br />
+The groaning branches swing and sway,<br />
+And thunder out and roar alway.<br />
+Still forward they their course observe,<br />
+Neither to right nor left they swerve;<br />
+But onward to the lists the band<br />
+March up, then halt, and take their stand.<br />
+When first the Wolf&mdash;'I here repeat<br />
+The Fox a villain is, and cheat!<br />
+I brand him murderer to boot!<br />
+Adulterer! with heart, as soot<br />
+Is, black! that solemn truth do I<br />
+Wager on hazard of this die!'<br />
+Then Reynard&mdash;'What the Wolf alleges<br />
+Are lies! I'll prove it! and my pledge is<br />
+The victory, which I by battle,<br />
+This day will gain o'er yon <i>base cattle</i>!'<br />
+The marshal of the lists then cried:<br />
+'The right shall by the might be tried,<br />
+What fair and fetis is, that do!<br />
+The god of battles prosper you!'<br />
+He said, then towards the side withdrew.<br />
+The rest soon follow'd; save the two,<br />
+Who occupied alone the space,<br />
+And stood for action face to face!<br />
+The marshal now, with plumed hat on,<br />
+Beside the barrier stood; his baton<br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_673" id="Page_673">[Pg 673]</a></span>Of office thrice he whirled aloft;<br />
+And not a soul or spake or <i>cough'd</i>.<br />
+'Oyez! oyez! oyez!' he cried,<br />
+'Will each of ye the issue bide?'<br />
+'We will!' they answer. 'Are ye ready?'<br />
+'Yes!' 'Yes!'&mdash;'Then <span class="smcaplc">LAISSEZ ALLER</span>!' said he.<br />
+Reynard address'd him then to fight;<br />
+And Isengrim commenced to bite<br />
+The air, and show'd his teeth, by way<br />
+Of prelude to the coming fray;<br />
+Next, rear'd his snout, and brought the jowl<br />
+To Reynard's level; one loud howl<br />
+He utter'd, ere he crouch'd, then bounded<br />
+To where the Fox, no whit astounded<br />
+By noises so unknightly, stood;<br />
+For raising lofty as he could<br />
+His voice, the foe the terms defied.<br />
+'Come on,' he resolutely cried.<br />
+The struggle was commenced! The sternest<br />
+There present felt it was right earnest;<br />
+The Fox, as smaller of the two,<br />
+Was favourite; and when he drew<br />
+'<i>First claret</i>,' at that <i>tapping</i> action<br />
+The mob express'd their satisfaction;<br />
+Exclaiming, '<i>go it! ten to one<br />
+Upon the varmint little 'un!'</i><br />
+By this time had Dan Ph&oelig;bus clomb<br />
+The summit of his glowing dome,<br />
+And Isengrim his power to feel<br />
+Began, which made the Wolf to reel.<br />
+He mourn'd his hapless want of claws,<br />
+His teeth, too, batter'd by the paws<br />
+Of Reynard, woefully he miss'd;<br />
+For grasp'd within his well-clench'd fist,<br />
+The Fox a flint stone firmly held,<br />
+With which he deftly aim'd and fell'd<br />
+One after t'other every fang,<br />
+Till down his weasand, at each bang,<br />
+Successively they flew. This thing<br />
+To Isengrim <i>so punishing</i>,<br />
+Set him forthwith to calculate<br />
+The odds on his <i>superior weight</i>,<br />
+How best it might the foeman tell on&mdash;<br />
+Which done, he threw himself pêle-mêle on<br />
+The Fox, to bear him down intending.<br />
+But Reynard saw: instead of spending<br />
+His strength in any vain endeavour<br />
+'Gainst Isengrim, he waited ever<br />
+Upon the Wolf&mdash;so this time he<br />
+Perceived the rushing enemy,<br />
+And as he near'd him slipp'd aside.<br />
+The Wolf came on with awful stride,<br />
+But meeting not with Reynard there,<br />
+He buffeted the yielding air<br />
+Instead, found no impediment,<br />
+His force him to the barrier sent,<br />
+Where toppling heels o'er head he went<br />
+With emphasis&mdash;a heavy <i>flop</i>,<br />
+'<i>My eyes,' the mob cry, 'what a whop!</i>'<br />
+Then Reynard to the Wolf stepp'd close,<br />
+And said aloud, 'How lik'st the dose?<br />
+Friend Isengrim, there yet may be<br />
+For pardon opportunity<br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_674" id="Page_674">[Pg 674]</a></span>Ere thou departest, only speed ye,<br />
+Or else the wandering ghosts, I rede ye,<br />
+Of all the lambs and kids thou'st slain<br />
+Will haunt thee through the wide champain<br />
+Whither thou'rt ebbing fast, down yonder;<br />
+But softly, is he kill'd I wonder?'<br />
+For so it seem'd. Through that vast crowd<br />
+A pin drop had resounded loud.<br />
+Thought Reynard, he has got it now!<br />
+I'll rest awhile, for any how<br />
+If he the fight again begin<br />
+I'll try the trick upon his shin.<br />
+Stunn'd lay the prostrate Wolf quite still<br />
+And stiff, nor moved a peg until<br />
+His squires, much fearing for his life,<br />
+Rush'd in, preceded by his wife;<br />
+And lifting him upon their knees,<br />
+They gave him <i>salts to make him sneeze</i>,<br />
+Which thirteen times he did repeat,<br />
+Then started lively to his feet.<br />
+A feeling of relief ran through<br />
+The crowd, whose visages look'd rue,<br />
+To think their fun forestall'd and spent<br />
+By that untoward accident.<br />
+Again the tuckets sound&mdash;again<br />
+The dauntless heroes give the rein<br />
+To their revenge. The Fox now charges<br />
+The Wolf, and both his eyes enlarges,<br />
+With <i>right and lefters planted well</i>,<br />
+And <i>punches on the nob that tell</i>;<br />
+So hard and fast the bangs and thumps,<br />
+You'd thought that firemen at their pumps<br />
+Were working&mdash;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">&mdash;&mdash;crafty Reynard quick</span><br />
+Deliver'd him a villain kick<br />
+Right in the midriff&mdash;down he dropp'd!<br />
+Like some tall forester when lopp'd<br />
+By stroke of woodman's axe. 'Twas all<br />
+He spake, not groaned in his fall,<br />
+Outstretch'd upon the ground there lay<br />
+The Wolf&mdash;he'd fainted clean away.<br />
+No herald's voice, no tucket's cheer,<br />
+The noble Isengrim could hear;<br />
+An all but victor lately, now<br />
+Prostrated, palsied by one blow;<br />
+Nay, not so, by a kick unknightly,<br />
+Foul aim'd, yet for the mark too rightly,<br />
+Alas, its only merit that!<br />
+But what cared Reynard, it was pat,<br />
+And told, and did its business well;<br />
+'Twas every thing desirable.<br />
+The fight was o'er&mdash;the Wolf dragg'd out<br />
+More dead than living, 'mid the shout<br />
+Of rabble, whilst the heralds cry<br />
+'Largesse,' the others 'Victory.'<br />
+The air with noise and din resounded.<br />
+The friends of Isengrim, confounded,<br />
+Slunk off, whilst Reynard's stay'd; indeed<br />
+The very people who agreed<br />
+The Fox's death a public good<br />
+Had been, now 'mong the foremost stood,<br />
+By acclamations to attest<br />
+Regard outheroding the rest!"</td></tr></table>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_675" id="Page_675">[Pg 675]</a></span>We have not the heart to criticise this last and greatest effort of the
+reproducer. Its slang speaks for itself, and certainly carries along
+with it an undeniable "certificate of origin".</p>
+
+<p>A good translation of any thing is perhaps an impossibility. But it must
+be confessed, that the attempt of the German foreigner is highly
+creditable to him, and, with a little amendment, would probably afford
+our countrymen as fair an idea of the original as they are ever likely
+to see. Certain it is, that Mr Naylor has not improved upon it.</p>
+
+<p>If our readers think, that in the samples we have given of Mr Naylor's
+beauties, we have not sufficiently brought forward some of the more
+striking peculiarities of the Cockney school, we shall meet this
+complaint by presenting them with the subjoined anthology, the fragrance
+of which we think will satisfy their highest anticipations.</p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="table">
+<tr><td>"The first in consequence at <i>court</i>,<br />
+As foremost in the public <i>thought</i>."<br />
+<br />
+"Your cap and gloves you've left in <i>pawn</i>,<br />
+Thus adding ribaldry to <i>scorn</i>."<br />
+<br />
+"What visitors had been? they <i>tell her</i><br />
+How Reynard call'd, and said, 'nice <i>fellow</i>.'"<br />
+<br />
+"Malkin should fall! and now the <i>fork</i><br />
+By Martin turn'd to toma<i>hawk</i>."<br />
+<br />
+"No sooner had the foe with<i>drawn</i><br />
+To howl around the priest for<i>lorn</i>."<br />
+<br />
+"Besides, he must have more than <i>thought once</i><br />
+Upon the very vast <i>importance</i>."<br />
+<br />
+"Of solemn asses half-a-<i>score</i>,<br />
+Who kick, when tickled with a <i>straw</i>!"<br />
+<br />
+"I left him trapp'd, and then made <i>sheer off</i>:<br />
+His sufferings you can't form <i>idea of</i>."<br />
+<br />
+"From underneath the frame I <i>draw</i><br />
+The pin that propp'd it: with a <i>roar</i>."<br />
+<br />
+"Their eggs upon a heap of <i>straw</i>,<br />
+Then loitering hindermost, the <i>more</i>."<br />
+<br />
+"When it was bruited round the <i>court</i><br />
+How Reynard was by greybeard <i>brought</i>."<br />
+<br />
+"Grimalkin there one eye had <i>lost</i>,<br />
+His scalp from Bruin's head been <i>forced</i>."<br />
+<br />
+"With any thing, in short, to <i>fasten</i><br />
+Guilt on him&mdash;burglary&mdash;e'en <i>arson</i>!"<br />
+<br />
+"Than at the words the Queen, <i>alarm'd</i>,<br />
+Nigh swoon'd before her fears were <i>calm'd</i>."<br />
+<br />
+"The son dishonour'd: not a <i>straw</i><br />
+It weigh'd with him, to think how <i>sore</i>."<br />
+<br />
+"There dwelt my father; him they <i>sought</i>,<br />
+And plotted, whilst they soak'd his <i>port</i>."<br />
+<br />
+"To practise after my pa<i>pa</i>&mdash;<br />
+Through life my light and exem<i>plar</i>!"<br />
+<br />
+"Another life to lead he's <i>sworn</i>:<br />
+And will to-morrow at the <i>dawn</i>."<br />
+<br />
+"Then, turning to the Queen, <i>besought</i><br />
+Her majesty in merry <i>sport</i>."<br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_676" id="Page_676">[Pg 676]</a></span><br />
+"Quoth Reynard, as with sudden <i>thought</i><br />
+Before the portal stopping <i>short</i>."<br />
+<br />
+"We have so many a sally-<i>port</i>,<br />
+And <i>cul-de-sac</i>, we can't be <i>caught</i>."<br />
+<br />
+"Send far and near the heralds <i>forth</i>,<br />
+By blast of trump to tell my <i>wrath</i>."<br />
+<br />
+"At Rome, I on our banker <i>draw</i>,<br />
+And when that's gone, I send for <i>more</i>."<br />
+<br />
+"That none dared venture! This he <i>saw</i><br />
+And felt his pluck return once <i>more</i>."<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8em;">"But I've no <i>claws</i></span><br />
+And therefore am not fit for <i>wars</i>."<br />
+<br />
+"By envy eaten up, they <i>saw</i><br />
+Me prosper; looking all <i>before</i>."<br />
+<br />
+"And ever, when they walk'd <i>abroad</i><br />
+Each arm'd with hunting-whip and <i>cord</i>."</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>If any of our readers doubt the authenticity of some of the rhymes above
+set down, we are willing that they should buy the book, as we have done,
+and ascertain for themselves.</p>
+
+<p>Merciful as we are by nature, and growing more and more so every day by
+age, we yet feel that the enormities we have now denounced are beyond
+endurance. Such poetry as this, neither gods, men, nor booksellers
+should tolerate; and with the highest respect for the very excellent
+publishers who have assisted in the birth of this production, and to
+whom we owe so many useful and admirable contributions to knowledge and
+literature, we do venture humbly to submit, that their peculiar duty
+makes them somewhat more responsible for what is thus brought forth,
+than ordinary obstetrical practitioners can be for what they may help
+into the world. There is no reason that such a bantling should be born
+at all, and at least we would recommend the continuance of gestation for
+nine times the Horatian period. Seriously speaking, we always regret to
+miss the general security which the title-page should give us, that in
+what we buy, we shall have something for our money. A bad or inferior
+book may, inadvertently, issue from the most respectable quarter. But
+when a work is ushered into the light with such pomp and pageantry of
+paper, printing, and getting up, as are here lavished, we hold that the
+public have a right to expect that it has received the imprimatur of
+some discerning judge, and to enforce the implied warranty that the
+inside, as well as the outside, is a merchantable commodity in the
+market of Parnassus.</p>
+
+<p>But the publisher's part of it is the least of the evil. It is obvious
+that the natives of Cockneyland are forgetting themselves. A new
+generation has sprung up that do not remember the castigations bestowed
+on their fathers of yore, and which for a time kept them in tolerable
+subjection. A young Londoner, who happens to have enthusiasm, or
+industry, or information, on a particular subject, may deserve
+commendation for the laudable direction of his private studies; but is
+he, therefore, entitled to <i>haspire</i> to write, and not to write merely,
+but to write poetry, and to disfigure a venerable old poem under
+pretence of reproducing it? That is a different question, which needs to
+be seriously and decidedly dealt with. This is not the first time,
+within a brief period, that we have been compelled to make an example of
+similar delinquencies; and, as sure as the crutch is in yonder corner,
+it shall not be the last, if the nuisance be not speedily and completely
+abated.</p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_677" id="Page_677">[Pg 677]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="AMERICANS" id="AMERICANS"></a>THE AMERICANS AND THE ABORIGINES</h2>
+<h3><span class="smcap">A Tale of the Short War. Part II.</span></h3>
+
+<p>The conclusion of our first notice of "The Americans and the
+Aborigines," saw Hodges, the midshipman, on his way to the Mississippi,
+and, if he could find it, to his ship; whilst Tokeah and his Indians
+returned to their village upon the banks of the Natchez. There, upon the
+day after the arrival of the warriors, we find the Indians assembled and
+deliberating in their council-house. Some important matter is evidently
+in agitation: an ominous gloom hangs over the village; and Canondah, to
+whom her father has not spoken since his return, and who is in complete
+ignorance of what passed between him and Hodges, is shut up in her
+wigwam with Rosa. The absence of one of the Indians, sent as a guide
+with the Englishman, the silence of Tokeah, and their state of
+semi-captivity, render the two girls sad and anxious, and they busy
+themselves with a thousand conjectures as to what has occurred, when a
+shrill whistle attracts them to the window. The sight that there
+presents itself chases the blood from the cheeks of Rosa, and causes her
+to sink, terrified and half-fainting, into the arms of her friend.</p>
+
+<p>A large boat, of similar build to the one in which Hodges had arrived,
+ascended the river, impelled by the strokes of six vigorous rowers.
+Besides these, two other men were seated in the skiff, which now entered
+the creek where the canoes were moored. The Englishman's boat was
+amongst the latter, and seemed to attract the particular notice of one
+of the two men; he glanced sharply at it, and then made a remark to his
+companion, who nodded his head, as if assenting to his observation. The
+man who had spoken stepped on shore. He was of the middle height and
+slightly made, with a sunburnt complexion, hollow cheeks, in which the
+smallpox had left black, unpleasant-looking scars, and a pointed and
+rather red nose. The expression of his eyes, which were sunken and of a
+dark-grey colour, and his enormous whiskers and mustaches, gave him any
+thing but an agreeable physiognomy. There was an air about him as if he
+strove to appear natural and unassuming, but at times his false
+side-glances and malicious smile more than neutralized all his efforts.
+His dress was a short blue frock, buttoned up to the chin, trousers of
+the same colour, and a cap. After addressing a few words to his
+companion, who had also come ashore, he walked with a quick step and
+military gait towards the Miko's wigwam. Just then the Indian council
+broke up; the old chief strode slowly and gravely towards his dwelling;
+whilst the warriors hurried in various directions to their respective
+wigwams. It seemed as if they avoided the new-comer; for not one of them
+crossed his path, although he evidently expected them so to do. He gazed
+silently after the receding groups, shook his head, and entered the
+Miko's hut.</p>
+
+<p>"Here I am, friend Tokeah!" cried he, with a forced smile, stretching
+out his hand to the Miko, who was seated upon his couch, calm, and with
+his head bowed upon his breast. "I'm a man of my word, you see. Arrived
+only last night in the bay; but the devil take me if I could keep quiet:
+started off again, and rowed all night and all day; and here you see me,
+old friend, as hungry as a sea-lawyer, and as dry as a dolphin." He
+spoke in English, fluently enough, but with a strong French accent.</p>
+
+<p>Tokeah knocked with his finger upon the table, and Canondah came out of
+her room.</p>
+
+<p>"Canondah!" cried the man, stepping forward with an air of gallantry to
+salute her. The young girl avoided his embrace, and with the single
+word, "Welcome!" slipped out at the door. Our guest appeared
+thunderstruck.</p>
+
+<p>"What does this mean, friend Miko?" cried he. "Am I in disgrace? Should
+really be sorry for it. As I came across the meadow, your people made
+all sail from me, as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_678" id="Page_678">[Pg 678]</a></span> if I had been a privateer; and now you are as cold
+as a nor'-wester, and your daughter as stiff as a frozen cable.
+Apropos&mdash;you have had a visit. The young Englishman, I see, has been
+amongst you."</p>
+
+<p>As he spoke these last words, the stranger cast a lowering glance at the
+old man.</p>
+
+<p>"Of whom does my brother speak?" said the chief.</p>
+
+<p>"Of a prisoner&mdash;a young fellow who escaped whilst I was at sea."</p>
+
+<p>"My young brother has been here and is gone," replied Tokeah, dryly.</p>
+
+
+<p>"Gone!" repeated the other; "you probably did not know that he had
+escaped from me. But it matters not," added he, indifferently.</p>
+
+<p>"The Miko knew," replied the old man in a firm tone, "that his young
+brother had escaped from the chief of the Salt Lake. My brother ought
+not to have made him prisoner."</p>
+
+<p>"What! would not the Miko of the Oconees seize the Yankee who came as a
+spy into his wigwam?"</p>
+
+<p>"And was my young brother a Yankee?" inquired Tokeah, with a penetrating
+glance.</p>
+
+<p>"Not exactly; but an enemy"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"My brother," interrupted the Miko, "has too many enemies&mdash;the Yankees,
+and the warriors of the great father of the Canadas."</p>
+
+<p>The man bit his lips. "Pshaw!" said he; "you have the Americans on the
+wrong side of your heart, and I have both. That's all the difference."</p>
+
+<p>"The Miko," said the old chief, "lifts the war-hatchet to protect his
+people against the palefaces, and to avenge his slain brethren. But my
+brother has lifted the tomahawk against every one, and, like a thief,
+steals women and children."</p>
+
+<p>A burning crimson overspread the countenance of Tokeah's visitor, and
+his teeth chattered with rage. "Truly, Miko," said he, "you say things
+which I can hardly stomach;" and with gleaming eye he measured the old
+man from head to foot. Suddenly, however, resuming his former
+smile&mdash;"Nonsense," said he; "we won't quarrel about trifles. Let every
+man do what he likes, and answer for what he does."</p>
+
+<p>"When the Miko of the Oconees gave his right hand to the chief of the
+Salt Lake, and welcomed him to his wigwam, he held him for a friend and
+a brother, who had declared war against the Yengheese. Had he known that
+he was a thief"&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur Miko!" interrupted the pirate, threateningly.</p>
+
+<p>"He would not have taken him for his friend. Tokeah," continued the
+Indian with dignity, "lifted the tomahawk against the palefaces as the
+Miko of his people, but the chief of the Salt Lake has made him a
+robber. What shall he, the chief of the Oconees, say to the Yengheese
+warriors when he falls into their snares? They will hang him on a tree."</p>
+
+<p>The truth, thus fearlessly and decidedly spoken, made an impression upon
+the pirate. He walked several times hastily up and down the room, and
+then again stopped opposite to the old man.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll say no more about that, friend Tokeah," said he. "I do not count
+the scalps that you have stripped from the skulls of the Yankees, and
+you must not reckon too severely with me. What is done is done; but the
+future will be very different. I am fully decided to abandon my wild
+course of life, and then we'll sit down quietly, and live together in a
+little paradise, half à l'Indienne, half à la Francçaise. Jovial and
+joyous."</p>
+
+<p>"The Miko of the Oconees," replied Tokeah, "has never stained his hand
+with the blood of his friends. He is poor, but his hand has never
+touched what belonged not to him. His fathers would look down on him
+with grief, if he lived in friendship with a thief; the Great Spirit
+would hide his face, if he disgraced his people by an alliance with the
+robber."</p>
+
+<p>The Frenchman had listened to these words more tranquilly than might
+have been expected, but with a slight twitching of his features, that
+showed they touched him to the quick. Suddenly he turned away.</p>
+
+<p>"Is that your way of thinking?" said he. "You fancy you can get on
+better without Lafitte? I've no objection. If I had known it sooner, I
+would have spared myself the trouble of listening to your insolence, and
+you that of uttering it. Adieu! Monsieur Miko."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_679" id="Page_679">[Pg 679]</a></span>"My brother is hungry," said the Indian, starting up, and greatly
+shocked. "He must eat. Canondah has prepared his favourite repast."</p>
+
+<p>"And after he has eaten, he may make himself scarce?" said the pirate,
+surlily.</p>
+
+<p>"My brother is welcome in the wigwam of the Miko. His hand never closes
+when it has once been opened," said the old nan, soothingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, that sounds like reason. I thought my old friend had only caught
+a fit of spleen from the Englishman. I trust it will soon be over.
+Meanwhile, we'll see what the ladies are doing."</p>
+
+<p>He stepped up to the curtain, and tried to open it, but in vain.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it not allowed?" said he to the old man.</p>
+
+<p>"My brother must seek another squaw. Rosa shall not enter his wigwam."</p>
+
+<p>In the adjoining chamber a sound was heard. It resembled a cry of joy,
+but presently subsided into a gentle murmur, of one in prayer.</p>
+
+<p>The pirate stood stupefied opposite to the curtain. "Our alliance broken
+off, the door shut in my face!" muttered he. "<i>Eh bien! nous verrons.</i>"
+And so saying, he left the hut. The next minute he again put his head in
+at the door.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose I may make use of my own boat?" said he. "It is likely that I
+may have unwelcome visitors during my absence."</p>
+
+<p>"When the chief of the Salt Lake is on the war-path, he knows how to
+meet his foes."</p>
+
+<p>"Sensibly spoken for once," said the pirate.</p>
+
+<p>"My brother is hungry," said the Miko, pointing to his daughter, who now
+entered the room with several dishes.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll come directly. Duty before pleasure."</p>
+
+<p>And so saying, the bucanier hurried down to the shore, and approached
+his companion, a short square-built man, who was walking up and down
+with folded arms, and whose dark olive countenance was so buried in an
+enormous beard, that scarcely any part of it, except a long fiery
+Bardolphian nose was visible. This man, so soon as he saw the pirate,
+assumed a less <i>nonchalant</i> attitude, and his hands fell by his side
+into the position proper to a subordinate.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing happened, lieutenant?" said Lafitte.</p>
+
+<p>"So little, that I should almost doubt this to be the Miko's village,
+did not my eyes convince me of it. Beg pardon, captain, but what does it
+all mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"I might ask you the same question," replied the other, sulkily.</p>
+
+<p>"On our former visits," continued the lieutenant, "it was like a fair;
+but to-day not a creature comes near us. The squaws and girls seemed
+inclined to come down, but the men prevented them."</p>
+
+<p>The lieutenant paused, for his commanding-officer was evidently getting
+more and more out of humour.</p>
+
+<p>"How many hands have we below on Lake Sabine?"</p>
+
+<p>"Thirty," was the reply. "To-morrow, the others will have finished
+clearing out."</p>
+
+<p>"Giacomo and George," said the pirate, in a sharp peremptory tone, "will
+go back and take them orders to come up here. Let every man bring his
+musket and bayonet, pistols and hanger, and let them wait instructions
+in the great bend of the river, two miles below this place. Don't look
+down stream, and then at me," said he angrily to the lieutenant, who had
+cast a glance down the river. "The young Englishman has been here, and
+the old savage has let him go."</p>
+
+<p>"That's what you did with his companions, captain. I wouldn't have done
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"There are many things that Monsieur Cloraud would not have done,"
+replied the pirate, sarcastically. "But this younker has made an
+infernal confusion."</p>
+
+<p>"Any thing else happened, captain?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing particular, except that the old man is tired of our alliance."</p>
+
+<p>"Pshaw! we don't want him any more, and may well indulge the people with
+a merry hour."</p>
+
+<p>The bucanier glanced at his subordinate with unspeakable scorn.</p>
+
+<p>"And therefore, as Monsieur Cloraud thinks, do I send for the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_680" id="Page_680">[Pg 680]</a></span> men. The
+hour's pleasure would be dearly bought. I hate such folly. You shall
+learn my intentions hereafter."</p>
+
+<p>The lieutenant's low bow showed that the lawless pirate was on no very
+familiar footing even with his first officer, and that he well knew how
+to make his captain's dignity respected. Monsieur Cloraud now turned to
+the rowers, and communicated to them the orders he had received. In a
+few seconds, the boat, in which the Englishman had come, was pushed off,
+and glided swiftly down the stream.</p>
+
+<p>"Now then, to dinner. Have some wine brought up, lieutenant."</p>
+
+<p>The person addressed made a sign to one of the sailors; the man took up
+several bottles, and followed his officers to the wigwam of the chief.</p>
+
+<p>"Take no notice, lieutenant," said Lafitte; "be as cheerful and natural
+as possible. We must try and find out what the old fellow has got upon
+his mind."</p>
+
+<p>The two men entered the wigwam, and took their places at the table. A
+buffalo hump, that most delicious of all roast-beef, which Canondah had
+carefully cooked under the embers, was smoking upon it.</p>
+
+<p>"You won't refuse to drink with me?" said the pirate, filling three
+glasses, and offering one to the chief.</p>
+
+<p>"Tokeah is not thirsty," was the reply.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, rum?" said Lafitte. "Have a bottle brought, lieutenant."</p>
+
+<p>"Tokeah is not thirsty," repeated the chief in a louder tone.</p>
+
+<p>"As you please," said the pirate, carelessly. "Isn't it strange,"
+continued he to his lieutenant, "that the whole juice and strength of
+the beast should centre in this hump? If this is to be the food of the
+Indians in their happy hunting-grounds, it would be almost worth while
+turning Indian. Enjoyments of this kind are rather more substantial than
+the lies of our hungry priests."</p>
+
+<p>As in duty bound, the lieutenant laughed heartily at the facetiousness
+of his commander. The Miko, who was sitting in his usual attitude, his
+head sunk upon his breast, looked up, gazed for a few seconds at the
+pirate, and then relapsed into his previous brooding mood.</p>
+
+<p>"Make the most of it, lieutenant," said the pirate. "We shall not enjoy
+many more such tit-bits. The Great Spirit would hide his face from us if
+we despised his gifts. But come, friend Miko, you must empty a glass to
+the health of your guests, unless you wish to see them depart this very
+night. I like a little pride, but too much is unwholesome."</p>
+
+<p>"My brother," said the Miko, "is welcome. Tokeah has never raised his
+tomahawk against the stranger whom he received in his hut, nor has he
+counted the suns that he dwelt with him."</p>
+
+<p>"I am certain," said the Frenchman, "that Tokeah is my friend; and, if
+an evil tongue has sown discord on the path between us, the wise Miko
+will know how to step over it."</p>
+
+<p>"The Oconees are men and warriors," said the chief; "they listen to the
+words of the Miko, but their hands are free."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, I know that. Yours is a sort of republic, of which you are
+hereditary consul. Well, for to-night let the matter rest. To-morrow we
+will discuss it further."</p>
+
+<p>The lieutenant had left the wigwam; night had come on, and the moon's
+slender crescent sank behind the summits of the western trees. The old
+Indian arose, and with his guest stepped silently out before the door.</p>
+
+<p>"My brother," said he, with emotion in his voice, "is no longer young;
+but his words are more silly than those of a foolish girl, who for the
+first time hangs glass beads around her neck. My brother has foes
+sufficient; he needs not to make an enemy of the Great Spirit."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" said the pirate laughing, "we won't bother our heads about him."</p>
+
+<p>"My brother," continued the Indian, "has long deceived the eyes of the
+Miko; but the Great Spirit has at last opened them, that he may warn his
+people. See," said he, and his long meagre form seemed to increase to a
+gigantic stature as he pointed to the moon swimming behind the topmost
+branches of the trees; "that great light shines on the shores of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_681" id="Page_681">[Pg 681]</a></span>
+Natchez, and it shines in the villages of the whites; neither the chief
+of the Salt Lake nor the Miko of the Oconees made it; it is the Great
+Spirit who gave it brightness. Here," said he, pointing to the palmetto
+field, whose soft rustle came murmuring across the meadow, "here is
+heard the sighing of the Miko's fathers; in the forest where he was born
+it howls in the storm; both are the breath of the Great Spirit, the
+winds which he places in the mouths of the departed, who are his
+messengers. Listen!" he continued, again drawing up his weather-beaten
+form to its utmost height; "the Miko has read your book of life; when
+yet a young man he learned your letters, for he saw that the cunning of
+the palefaces came from their dead friends. That book says, what the
+wise men of his people have also told him, that there is one Great
+Spirit, one great father. The Miko," he resumed, after a moment's pause,
+"was sent from his people to the great father of the palefaces, and when
+he came with the other chiefs to the villages where the whites worship
+the Great Spirit in the lofty council wigwams, he found them very good,
+and they received him and his as brothers. Tokeah spoke with the great
+father&mdash;see, this is from him"&mdash;he showed a silver medal with the head
+of Washington. "He asked the great father, who was a wise father and a
+very great warrior, if he believed in the Great Spirit of his book, and
+he answered that he did believe, and that his Great Spirit was the same
+whom the Red men worship. When the Miko returned to his wigwam and came
+towards the setting sun, his soul remembered the words of the great
+father, and his eyes were wide open. So long as he saw the high walls of
+the council wigwams, where the palefaces pray to their Great Spirit, the
+Red men were treated as brothers; but when they approached their own
+forests, the countenances of the white men grew dark, because the Great
+Spirit no longer lighted them up. Tokeah saw that the men who did not
+worship the Great Spirit were not good men. And my brother scoffs at the
+Great Spirit, and yet would be a friend of the Oconees? He would be a
+friend of the Miko, who would already have sunk under his burden had not
+his fathers beckoned to him from the happy hunting-grounds! Go," said
+the old man, turning away from the pirate with a gesture of disgust;
+"you would rob the Miko and his people of their last hope."</p>
+
+<p>"Good-night," said Lafitte, yawning. "There's been a good Methodist
+parson spoilt in you." And so saying he turned towards the council
+wigwam, his usual dwelling when at the village. Tokeah stepped back into
+his hut. No night-song soothed the oppressed spirit of the old chief;
+and only the shrill whistle of the watch, repeated every two hours from
+the shore and before the wigwam of the pirate, told of the presence of
+living creatures in the village.</p>
+
+<p>Upon the following morning Lafitte's lieutenant rouses him from his
+sleep, and informs him that there is an unusual stir and bustle amongst
+the Indians. The pirate hastily dresses, and repairs to the wigwam of
+the Miko, whom he finds restless and excited. The cause of this soon
+becomes apparent.</p>
+
+<p>On a sudden the village resounded with a long joyous shout, which,
+spreading like wildfire from hut to hut, swelled at last into one wild
+and universal chorus, in which men, women, and children united their
+voices. The Miko had betaken himself in haste to the council wigwam, and
+the whole village was in an uproar. From behind each hedge, from out of
+every hut, the Oconees emerged and rushed towards the council-house;
+even the presence of Tokeah was insufficient to keep them within bounds.
+On the further side of the Natchez was seen a party of thirty Indians,
+all on horseback. Some of them were seeking a ford; but presently a
+young man, impatient of the delay, plunged with his horse into the
+water, and all thirty followed him, in the same order in which they had
+approached the river. The breadth of the stream, opposite to the wigwam,
+was about five hundred feet, and the depth considerable. Nevertheless
+the gallant little troop seemed in their element, and, almost without
+breaking their ranks, they swam their steeds across. Meanwhile the
+pirate stood upon the shore, watching their approach with the most
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_682" id="Page_682">[Pg 682]</a></span>uncontrolled fury depicted on his countenance.</p>
+
+<p>"Had we but ten good marksmen," muttered he to the lieutenant.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Pardon, capitaine</i>, they are not Oconees, but those devils of
+Comanches. I made their acquaintance in my Mexican campaigns."</p>
+
+<p>The little squadron had now reached the creek. Swinging their legs over
+their horses, they sprang upon shore, drew the animals after them, and
+again flung themselves upon their backs with a swiftness and dexterity
+that recalled the fable of the centaur. The foremost of the strangers
+had arrived within a few paces of the Oconees, who, with the Miko at
+their head, were assembled in front of the council-house, when the
+circle opened, and Tokeah stepped forward, his hand outstretched.</p>
+
+<p>"The great chief of the mighty Comanches, and of the Pawnees of the
+Toyask, is welcome," said he, gravely.</p>
+
+<p>The young Indian to whom these words were addressed, halted and listened
+attentively, and with head reverently bowed, to the greeting. When the
+old chief had spoken, he sprang from his horse and advanced towards him,
+his right hand extended. Coming close up to Tokeah, he again bowed
+himself, took the Miko's hand, and placed it upon his own head. The
+interchange of greetings was remarkable for dignity, and derived a
+peculiar interest from the contrast between the two chiefs. Nothing
+could be in stronger opposition than the gaunt meagre form of the Miko,
+who stood like the weather-beaten trunk of some gigantic tree, stiff,
+mute, and melancholy, and the open, manly, dignified and yet gentle
+aspect of the young chief of the Comanches. His oval-shaped head was
+covered with a picturesque head-dress of fur and feathers; his high,
+arched forehead, and blooming complexion of a light copper colour,
+scorned the wild war-paint of his companions; the expressive black eyes
+and aquiline nose were in admirable harmony with the manly contour of
+his person, which his style of dress and equipment showed off to the
+greatest advantage. A doublet of blue fox fur covered his breast, and
+from his shoulders, on which it was fastened by golden clasps, hung the
+skin of a panther, draping a form that would have enchanted Thorwaldsen
+or Canova. It was a magnificent model of manly beauty, that had grown up
+untrammelled and without blemish in the enchanting prairies of Mexico,
+and in the midst of a mighty people owning no master but the Great
+Spirit. A dagger, with a hilt of wrought gold, a short rifle, and a
+lance nine feet long, decorated with a horse-tail, completed an
+equipment which for richness and utility combined could scarcely be
+surpassed. The young chief's horse, of extraordinary beauty, was almost
+covered with a panther skin, secured on its back and shoulders by four
+golden buckles. It had neither saddle nor stirrups, but on either side,
+at the end of a strap, hung a small leathern bucket, in which the muzzle
+of the rifle and butt of the lance reposed.</p>
+
+<p>Similar to those above described were the dress and arms of other four
+of the warriors, also belonging to the powerful Indian tribe of the
+Comanches. They wore their hair combed back on either side of the
+forehead; their complexion was a mixture of olive and copper-colour.
+Their bearing was proud, and they seemed almost to look down upon the
+Pawnees who accompanied them. Round the necks of their steeds hung the
+lasso, that terrible weapon with which the Mexican riders capture, with
+wonderful skill and dexterity, the horse, the buffalo, or a human foe.</p>
+
+<p>The remainder of the troop were Pawnees of the Toyask tribe. Their heads
+were clean shaven, excepting of one carefully plaited tuft upon the
+crown. Upon their shoulders were buffalo skins, the leather dyed red,
+the hair worn inwards; and similar hides served them for saddles. They
+wore broad girdles, to which their calico under-garment was fastened.
+About half of them were armed with muskets and rifles, but all had
+lances, a long knife, or rather hanger, and the tomahawk. They were
+well-made and powerful men, compared with whom the thin-armed,
+narrow-shouldered Oconees had the appearance of children.</p>
+
+<p>"My brother is thrice welcome," repeated the Miko after a pause,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_683" id="Page_683">[Pg 683]</a></span> during
+which his eyes dwelt with an expression of the purest satisfaction upon
+his stately guest and his companions. "Has the great El Sol reflected on
+the words which Tokeah sent him through his runners?"</p>
+
+<p>"His ears are open and his heart large," replied the young chief
+gravely. "Are the words of the great Miko for El Sol alone, or may the
+warriors of the Comanches and Pawnees also hear them?"</p>
+
+<p>"The chiefs and warriors of the Comanches and Pawnees are welcome in the
+council wigwam of the Oconees. They are their brothers."</p>
+
+<p>When the Miko had spoken these words, the four Comanches and a like
+number of Pawnees dismounted from their horses, and followed the chiefs
+to the council wigwam. The others also dismounted, and forming a
+semi-circle, stood leaning against their horses' shoulders. Nearer to
+the council-house were ranged the Oconee warriors, armed only with their
+long scalping-knives; and behind them, at a respectful distance, the
+young men of the village had stationed themselves, also in a half
+circle. Again, far behind these, were the squaws and children, to whom
+the strict rules of Indian etiquette did not allow a nearer approach.
+The village had gradually assumed the appearance of a little camp, with
+various corps of troops formed up in it. On the shore stood the four
+pirates leaning on their muskets, whilst their captain and lieutenant
+paced up and down among the bushes. With the exception of a sharp quick
+glance occasionally cast towards the groups of Indians, they appeared to
+take no particular interest in what was passing.</p>
+
+<p>El Sol, the young chief of the Comanches, is the affianced husband of
+Canondah, whom he has come to make his bride. In the council now held,
+it is decided that the alliance between Tokeah and the pirate shall be
+broken off, and that the remnant of the Oconees shall be incorporated
+with the powerful tribes of the Comanches and Pawnees. The former part
+of this decision is communicated to Lafitte who makes violent but
+unsuccessful claim upon the hand of Rosa, and finally enters his boat
+and descends the stream. El Sol, who greatly distrusts him, advises
+Tokeah to be on his guard against treachery; but the Miko denies the
+possibility of danger, on account of the distance of the pirate's haunt,
+and because, on the following morning, the village is to be abandoned,
+and the Oconees and their visitors are to proceed together to the
+country of the Comanches. He either forgets that the pirate had sent off
+a boat on the preceding morning, or thinks it unnecessary to increase
+the uneasiness of his guest by adverting to so unimportant a
+circumstance. In spite of what he has recently learned, he still
+entertains a feeling of kindness for Lafitte, with whom he has so long
+been on terms of friendship, and thinks him incapable of acting towards
+him in a base or hostile manner.</p>
+
+<p>That evening the nuptials of Canondah and El Sol are celebrated; but the
+Indian maiden, although fondly attached to the young chief, is weighed
+down by a foreboding of evil which she finds it impossible to shake off.
+On her marriage day she is sad and in tears.</p>
+
+<p>"And does Canondah," said the bridegroom mildly, "enter the wigwam of El
+Sol with a sorrowful heart?"</p>
+
+<p>"El Sol," replied the maiden, "is dearer to Canondah than her own life;
+his voice is music in her ears, and his love the limit of her wishes;
+but Canondah's heart is heavy to bursting. The Great Spirit whispers to
+her, and she has no words to express his whisperings." She clasped Rosa
+in her arms, and pressed a long and feverish kiss upon her lips. "Rosa,"
+said she, in a stifled voice, "will you be a daughter to the Miko when
+Canondah is no more?"</p>
+
+<p>"I will," sobbed Rosa.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you promise, by the Great Spirit, not to forsake him?"</p>
+
+<p>"I promise it," replied Rosa, her tears flowing fast.</p>
+
+<p>The Miko, who stood silent, and sunk in thought, now made a sign; El Sol
+threw his arm round Canondah, and led her away in the direction of the
+council wigwam.</p>
+
+<p>The wedding has been celebrated with great rejoicings; the Indians, who
+have indulged largely, many of them to excess, in the fire-water of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_684" id="Page_684">[Pg 684]</a></span> the
+palefaces, retire to their huts, to sleep off the effects of their
+libations, and soon the village is sunk in silence and repose. We
+extract the chapter that follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>It was past midnight, and the village and its environs were buried in
+profound repose, when a man, carrying a naked sabre under his arm,
+advanced with stealthy steps from the shore, towards the Miko's wigwam.
+He reached the trees in front of the dwelling; and after casting a
+cautious and searching glance around him, was about to retrace his
+steps, when, with the quickness of light, a noose of buffalo hide
+encircled his neck, and he was thrown to the ground with a shock so
+sudden and irresistible, that it seemed caused by a supernatural rather
+than a human power. His sabre fell from his hand, before he had time to
+raise it to his neck and sever the noose; and so rapidly and silently
+did all this take place, that a group of armed men, stationed between
+the creek and the cottage, at scarcely forty paces from the latter, were
+perfectly unaware of what occurred. Now, however, a yell that might have
+roused the dead from their graves was heard; the door of the council
+wigwam, in which the bridal-bed of Canondah and El Sol had been spread
+was burst furiously open; and by the flash of several muskets, just then
+fired from the shore, a powerful figure, bearing something heavy in its
+arms, was seen to rush out and plunge into the neighbouring thicket.
+Other cries, proceeding apparently from a thousand throats, multiplied
+themselves in every direction, behind hedge and bush, over land and
+water, in accents as wild and fierce as if the demons of hell had been
+unchained, and were rejoicing in a nocturnal revel. Simultaneously with
+this uproar, a regular platoon fire commenced upon the shore, and blue
+flames issued from various cottages of the peaceful Indian hamlet,
+rapidly increasing till they burst out into a bright red blaze, that
+spread hissing and crackling over wall and roof. In the midst of this
+frightful tumult another shout was uttered, resembling the roar of the
+lion when he rages in his utmost fury. It was the war-whoop of El Sol.</p>
+
+<p>The noble Mexican had been lulled to sleep by the night-song of his
+bride, when the well-known yell of his tribe awakened him. Clasping his
+beloved wife with one arm, he grasped his knife and rifle, and darted
+through the door of the wigwam. A discharge of musketry greeted his
+appearance. The chief felt his left arm pierced by a ball; he trembled,
+and a slight shudder came over him. "Canondah!" cried he, in a hoarse
+tone, leaping the hedges like a wounded deer, and hurrying towards the
+forest; "Canondah, fear nothing&mdash;you are in the arms of El Sol!"</p>
+
+<p>She answered not; her head had sunk upon her breast, her body writhed
+with a convulsive spasm, and then again stretched itself out. For one
+moment a horrible thought paralysed the very soul of her husband;&mdash;but
+no&mdash;it was impossible; his arm had received the bullet, her silence was
+the result of sudden terror, the blood that flowed over him was from his
+own wound. He was still flying from his treacherous and invisible foe,
+when his howling warriors came almost instinctively to join him; and,
+before he reached the forest, he found himself surrounded by the most
+trusty of his followers. "It is the pirate," he whispered to his wife;
+and then, pressing a kiss upon her lips, he laid her softly upon the
+grass, stepped forward into the midst of his warriors, and uttered his
+terrible war-cry. "Behold," cried he, pointing to the blazing cottages,
+"the faith of the white thief!"</p>
+
+<p>It was a wildly beautiful, almost an awful sight. Already more than
+thirty huts were converted into blazing piles, lighting up the whole of
+that glorious shore, reflected in ruddy brilliancy from the still
+surface of the water, and illuminating the avenues of cypress and
+mangroves with long streaks of flame. Scattered shots were still heard,
+and after each report another hut began to blaze. In the group of
+Indians assembled round El Sol a deep silence now reigned, only broken
+by the tardy arrival of some yelling Pawnee or Oconee, who, roused out
+of his drunken slumber, was scarcely even yet aware of the cause of the
+uproar.</p>
+
+<p>"Where is the Miko?" fifty voices suddenly demanded.</p>
+
+<p>There was no reply. Just then <ins class="correction" title="not in original">a</ins>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_685" id="Page_685">[Pg 685]</a></span> woman's scream was heard, proceeding
+from the brink of the water. El Sol had stood silent, his eyes fixed
+upon the burning huts, beyond which, near to the crest of the shore, the
+polished musket-barrels of the pirates gleamed in the firelight. Not
+more than five minutes had elapsed since the first yell proclaimed the
+presence of a foe, but already the young warrior had combined his plan,
+and he now gave his orders in a short decided tone, betraying the habit
+of command, and the certainty of prompt and implicit obedience. One of
+the Comanches, followed by the majority of the Pawnees and Oconees,
+glided away through the thick bushes; whilst El Sol himself, with the
+three remaining Comanches, and a troop of chosen Pawnees, hurried
+rapidly along the skirt of the forest.</p>
+
+<p>The broad belt of land over which the village was scattered, rose near
+the shore, as already mentioned, into a sort of crest overgrown with
+mangroves and myrtle bushes, through the middle of which ran a broad
+footpath. The elevation of this ridge was about twenty feet, and it
+continued along the whole length of the hamlet, excepting opposite to
+the creek, where nature had broken it down into a small harbour. Near
+this the glitter of arms betrayed the presence of a strong picket,
+placed there doubtless to guard the boats. This picket was each moment
+strengthened by the return of one or other of the pirates who had been
+detached to fire the wigwams. Along the bush-crowned ridge several
+advanced posts were stationed, intended to maintain the communication
+between the picket at the creek, and a second party which had pressed
+forward to the habitation of the Miko, and to support either, as need
+might be. From the whole arrangement, it was evident that the pirate had
+planned the carrying off the Miko and his adopted daughter; and this he
+might possibly have accomplished before creating an alarm, had not two
+of the Comanches taken upon themselves, according to the custom of their
+nation, to keep guard during the bridal night in front of the wigwam of
+their chief. These warriors, it is true, had partaken largely of the
+Miko's extravagant hospitality; but their senses, although duller than
+usual, were not sufficiently deadened to prevent their overhearing the
+step of the white men, a sound so easily recognised by Indian ears.</p>
+
+<p>During his two years' intercourse with the Oconees, the pirate had
+become too well acquainted with their habits, not to appreciate the
+danger of attacking them in broad daylight, when each of his men would
+furnish an easy target for the Indians, who, on their side, would be
+sheltered behind trees and in the brushwood. He had therefore chosen the
+night for his attack; and, in order to ensure himself as much as
+possible against a counter-surprise in the darkness, and at the same
+time to spread terror amongst the assailed, he had caused the huts to be
+fired. Three practised marksmen were posted at a short distance from the
+council wigwam, for the express purpose of shooting the young Mexican
+chief, whom Lafitte justly deemed the most formidable of his opponents.
+The pirate himself, with a party of picked men, pressed forward to the
+Miko's dwelling, surrounded it, and seized its two inmates. Tokeah,
+usually so abstemious, had probably upon this festive occasion
+overstepped the bounds of sobriety, and he fell unresisting into the
+hands of his foe. So well arranged, indeed, and rapid had all the
+movements been, that the first call to arms had hardly died away, when
+the Miko and Rosa were in the power of the bucaniers. Lafitte then
+formed his men into a small square, and retreated steadily but in double
+quick time towards the shore. Not an Indian was to be seen. The little
+phalanx was already in the neighbourhood of the creek, and at only a few
+yards from the picket; another dozen paces and they would be in their
+boats, which a very few strokes of the oar would send into the middle of
+the stream, and out of bullet range. A pursuit by canoes, in which each
+Indian would offer an easy mark, was not to be thought of. Such had been
+the pirate's calculation, and his plans seemed likely to be crowned with
+complete success. He was within a step of the shore, when suddenly there
+was a movement in the bushes immediately opposite to him, and glimpses
+were caught of the copper-coloured<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_686" id="Page_686">[Pg 686]</a></span> forms of the Indians, glowing redly
+in the firelight.</p>
+
+<p>"Steady!" cried the pirate to his men, who marched firmly and calmly
+onwards, gazing in a sort of wonderment at the bushes, which waved to
+and fro as if hundreds of anacondas had been winding their way through
+them. The pirates joined the picket and opened their square.</p>
+
+<p>Lafitte threw Rosa into the arms of a sailor, and then pushed the Miko
+over the edge of the bank into the boat. The old man sank down like a
+lifeless mass in the bottom of the skiff, and Lafitte again turned to
+his men. The picket had already retired behind the ridge, where they
+were sheltered from the enemy's fire; the square alone was stationary,
+and seemed destined to observe the movements of the Indians, and to
+cover the retreat. It was a small but desperate looking band of about
+four-and-twenty-men, to the composition of which nearly every nation and
+quarter of the globe, every colour and language, contributed its quota.
+Thirst of blood gleamed in their eyes as they stood formed in column, in
+deep silence, and with fixed bayonets, waiting the signal to fire.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the Indian warwhoop burst from a hundred throats. A second time
+the frightful yell was repeated, rendered more hideous by the shrill
+tones of the squaws and maidens, who struck up the death-song, and were
+seen running and dancing like demons round the blazing huts. The next
+instant, with brandished arms and shouts of fury, the Indians rushed
+towards the creek.</p>
+
+<p>A malicious smile played over the hard features of the pirate as the Red
+men came charging down upon his band.</p>
+
+<p>"Reserve, forward!" cried he, turning to the picket. The order was
+obeyed. In profound silence Lafitte allowed the howling Indians to
+advance to within ten paces of the musket muzzles, and then uttered a
+hoarse "Fire!" A deadly volley was poured in, and the first rank of the
+assailants fell to a man. Their comrades started back, but instantly
+returning to the charge, threw themselves with a desperate leap upon the
+pirates. The latter coolly tossed their muskets into the hollow of their
+left arms, and drew their pistols; a second volley in which the fire of
+the reserve picket mingled, threw the Red men into utter confusion. The
+slope of the shore was covered with killed and wounded, and the
+survivors fled howling to the cover of the thicket.</p>
+
+<p>"March!" commanded Lafitte. The picket again approached the boat,
+followed by the main body.</p>
+
+<p>At that moment, when to all appearance the retreat of the pirates was
+ensured, four heavy splashes in the water were heard, and Lafitte saw
+the four men who had been in charge of the boats, rise to the surface of
+the water and then disappear for ever. At the same time the boats
+themselves, impelled by some invisible power, shot, with the swiftness
+of an arrow, into the centre of the stream.</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis the Mexican!" exclaimed the pirate, gnashing his teeth with fury,
+and firing a brace of pistols at the boat. A hollow laugh replied to the
+shots. The pirates looked around them, saw that their boats had
+disappeared, and for a moment stood thunderstruck, but speedily
+recovering themselves, they reloaded their muskets, and, firm as rocks,
+awaited a fresh assault. They had not long to wait. A volley from the
+river warned them of the proximity of a new foe; a second, still better
+directed, stretched a third of them upon the ground. And now once more
+the terrible war-cry resounded along the shore, and the Indians, roused
+to madness by their previous repulses, rushed for a third time upon
+their enemy. Another volley from the boats, and then the Mexican and his
+companions sprang like tigers upon the terrified pirates. The struggle
+was short. Unable to resist the furious attack upon their front and
+rear, the pirates threw away their weapons, and flung themselves
+headlong into the river to escape the tomahawks of their raging foes.</p>
+
+<p>Lafitte was the only one who stood firm, and seemed determined to sell
+his life dearly. His back against the bank, his sabre in his right hand,
+a pistol in his left, he parried a blow<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_687" id="Page_687">[Pg 687]</a></span> dealt him by an Oconee, who
+fell, the next instant, with his head nearly severed from his shoulders.
+A bullet finished another of his assailants, and he was raising his
+sabre for the second time, when a lasso was flung over his head, and he
+fell helpless to the ground. The long and terrible yell that now rang
+along the shore, and was re-echoed from the adjacent forest, proclaimed
+the complete and bloody triumph of the Red men.</p>
+
+<p>The bullet that grazed the arm of El Sol pierced the heart of Canondah,
+and the day subsequent to the sanguinary conflict above described,
+witnesses her interment, and that of the Indians who fell in the fight.
+At the funeral a difference of opinion arises between the Oconees and
+Comanches. The number of slain pirates is insufficient to furnish a
+scalp to be buried with each of the dead Indians, and, to supply the
+deficiency, the Oconees are anxious to immolate Lafitte and twelve of
+his companions who have fallen alive into their hands. To this El Sol
+and his warriors, free from many of the barbarous prejudices of their
+new brethren, object. Two of the pirates are sacrificed to an outbreak
+of Indian fury, but the others are saved by El Sol, and it then becomes
+a question how they are to be disposed of. It is proposed to deliver
+them over to the Americans, that they may deal with them according to
+their laws; but Tokeah, with a refinement of hatred towards the white
+men, devises an amendment upon this plan. Sooner or later, he says, they
+will come to the tree upon which they are to hang. Meanwhile let them go
+at large, and cause the blood of the palefaces to flow, as that of the
+Oconees has done.</p>
+
+<p>This singular proposition at first startles the vindictive and
+bloodthirsty Oconees, but when they fully understand it, they receive it
+with a burst of applause. Lafitte and his companions are unbound, and
+allowed to depart.</p>
+
+<p>The funeral over, the Indians set out for the hunting-grounds of the
+Comanches, but Tokeah does not accompany them. He has had a dream,
+enjoining him to disinter his father's bones, which lie buried several
+hundred miles within the limits of the United States, in a district
+formerly possessed by the Oconees. He wishes Rosa to accompany the tribe
+to their new residence; but the young girl, mindful of her promise to
+Canondah, insists upon encountering with him the perils of the long and
+wearisome journey he is about to undertake. Whilst the main body of the
+Indians set off in a westerly direction, Rosa, a young Indian girl,
+Tokeah, El Sol, and four warriors, turn their steps towards the country
+of the white men. Thither we will now precede them.</p>
+
+<p>It was a bright cool December morning, and the sunbeams had just
+sufficient power to disperse the fog and mist which at that season
+frequently hang for a week together over the rivers and lakes of
+Louisiana. In the county town of Opelousas there was a great and unusual
+crowd. It seemed astonishing how so many people could have been got
+together in that thinly populated neighbourhood, and a person who had
+suddenly arrived in the midst of the concourse would have been sorely
+puzzled to conjecture its occasion. To judge from the drinking, dancing,
+fighting, and pranks of all sorts that went on, a sort of festival was
+celebrating; but weapons were also to be seen; men were formed up by
+companies and nearly every body had something more or less military in
+his equipment. Some wore uniforms that had served in the revolutionary
+war, and were consequently more than thirty years old; others, armed
+with rifles, ranged themselves in rank and file, and, by a lieutenant of
+their own election, were man&oelig;uvred into a corner, out of which no
+word of command that he was acquainted with was sufficient to bring
+them. Another corps had got a band of music, consisting of one fiddler,
+who marched along at the side of the captain, sawing his catgut with
+might and main. Those individuals who had not yet attached themselves to
+any particular corps, shouldered rifles, fowling-pieces, or, in some
+instances, an old horse-pistol, with nothing wanting but the lock; and
+the few who had no fire-arms, had provided themselves with stout
+bludgeons.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_688" id="Page_688">[Pg 688]</a></span>These, however, were merely the outposts. In the centre of the town the
+flower of the citizens was assembled, divided into two groups. One of
+them, consisting of the younger men, had fixed its headquarters in front
+of a tavern, the destination of which was indicated by a sign, whose
+hieroglyphics, according to our firm belief, neither Denon nor
+Champollion could have deciphered. Under these was written, for those
+who could read it, the customary announcement of "Entertainment for Man
+and Beast." In the interior of the establishment a second fiddle was to
+be heard; the performer upon which, of a less martial turn than his
+rival, was performing a lively jig for the benefit of a crowd of
+dancers.</p>
+
+<p>The other group, more gravely disposed, had chosen a more respectable
+parade-ground, and established itself in front of a store, containing a
+miscellany of earthen jugs, rolls of chewing tobacco, felt hats, shoes,
+knives, forks, and spoons, and (the most essential of all) a cask of
+whisky and a keg of lead and powder. Above the door was a board, with
+the inscription, "New Shop&mdash;Cheap for Cash;" and on the wall of the
+crazy frame-house was written in chalk&mdash;"Whisky, Brandy, Tobacco,
+Post-office."</p>
+
+<p>On the stump of a tree stood a man who, to judge from his new beaver
+hat, clean shirt-collar, and bran-new coat and breeches of a pompadour
+red, was a candidate for some one of the offices in the gift of the
+sovereign people. Near him were several other men of equally elegant
+exterior, to all appearance also aspirants to the vacant post, and who
+seemed to wait with some impatience for the termination of his harangue.
+Comparatively speaking, tranquillity and order reigned here, only
+excepting the noise of the dancers, and the occasional bellowing of some
+noisy toper stumbling about through the mud, with which the single
+street of the little town was covered knee-deep. Such interruptions,
+however, the orator seemed totally to disregard, and he continued in
+stentorian tones to inform his auditors how he would whip them damned
+British, whom he hated worse than skunks. This he was setting forth in
+the clearest possible manner, when the attention of his hearers was in
+some degree distracted by a loud "Hallo!" proceeding from two boon
+companions, who, after having for some time floundered about the street,
+had at last rambled towards the edge of the forest, and now suddenly
+began to shout violently, and to run as fast as their unsteady condition
+would allow. Amongst their vociferations, the words, "Stop, you cussed
+Redskin!" were clearly distinguishable&mdash;sounds far too interesting not
+to create a sensation amongst backwoodsmen. A dozen of the orator's
+audience slipped away, just to see "what was the matter with the d&mdash;&mdash;d
+fools, and why they made such a devil of a row." The example found
+imitators, and presently not above thirty listeners remained collected
+round the speaker. Insubordination also broke out in the different corps
+that were exercising, and a full third of the men left their ranks and
+scampered towards the wood. Only the group in front of the chandler's
+store remained grave and steady in the midst of the general excitement.</p>
+
+<p>From out of the dark cypress forest that stretches southwards from the
+shore of the Atchafalaya, a figure had emerged which judging from its
+dress, belonged to the Indian race. The savage had crept along the edge
+of the forest in order to get near the town; but alarmed perhaps by the
+crowd and noise in the latter, he had not ventured to take the road
+leading to it, but had struck into a side-path across a cotton field. He
+was about to climb over the fence, when he was descried by the two
+idlers already mentioned, who no sooner saw him than, although their
+heads were tolerably full of whisky, they commenced a rapid pursuit. One
+of the first took the precaution to place his pint glass in safety
+behind a hedge, and then followed his companion, a swift-footed son of
+the west, who already had the Indian in his clutches. The Redskin was so
+exhausted that he would evidently not have been able to proceed much
+further. The staggering and unsteady state of his captor, however, did
+not escape him,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_689" id="Page_689">[Pg 689]</a></span> and he gave him a sudden push, which stretched him at
+full length in the mud.</p>
+
+<p>"Stop!" shouted the backwoodsman, no way disconcerted by his fall;
+"Stop! or I will so maul your ugly face that you sha'n't be able to eat
+for a week."</p>
+
+<p>The Indian seemed to understand, and stopped accordingly, at the same
+time assuming an attitude indicative of a firm resolution to defend
+himself. He grasped his knife, and boldly confronted his pursuers, who
+on their part examined him with looks of curiosity and of some
+suspicion. The appearance of an Indian in this neighbourhood was nothing
+very unusual, seeing that they had a village scarcely a hundred miles
+off to the north-west, and that they continually made excursions of
+several hundred miles into the States in all directions, and even to the
+capital. For a long time past their diminished numbers had not allowed
+then to attempt any thing hostile against their white neighbours, who
+each year drew nearer to them: and their increasing wants, particularly
+their insatiable greed after the precious fire-water, had reduced them
+to be, <i>de facto</i>, little better than slaves to fur-dealers and
+storekeepers, for whom they hunted, and who paid the poor wretches in
+whisky scarcely the tenth part of the value of their skins.</p>
+
+<p>In the present instance the two backwoodsmen had no evil intention
+against the Indian; all they wanted was to give him a glass of
+Monongahela, and to amuse themselves a little at his expense. So at
+least it appeared from the words of the one who had been knocked down,
+and who, without taking his tumble at all in ill part, now roared out,
+that "he must drink a half-pint of whisky with him, or he would put him
+in his pocket."</p>
+
+<p>"Come, young Redskin," cried the other; "come along. You shall help us
+to fight the cussed Britishers, and drink, ay, drink like a fish."</p>
+
+<p>By this time the little group was surrounded by deserters from the
+parade-ground, examining the Indian with a rude and unceremonious, but
+not an ill-natured, curiosity. Without permission or apology they
+inspected his wardrobe, tried the edge of his scalping-knife, examined
+his mocassins, and one of them even made an attempt to remove the cap
+from his head. By these various investigations the stranger seemed more
+surprised than gratified. His exterior was, it must be confessed,
+somewhat singular. A foxskin cap covered his head and extended down over
+his ears, concealing his light brown hair, an attempt at disguise which
+the long fair down upon his upper lip rendered tolerably unsuccessful.
+His deerskin doublet denoted the Indian, but his trousers were those of
+a white man. One of his mocassins&mdash;the other he had left in some
+swamp&mdash;was of Indian workmanship; one of his cheeks was still daubed
+with the red and black war-paint, which had been nearly rubbed off the
+other; his hands, although burnt brown by the sun, were those of a white
+man. If any doubt could have remained, his features would have settled
+it; the bold blue eye could no more have belonged to an Indian than
+could the full rosy cheek and the well-formed mouth. The crowd stared at
+him with the same sort of stupefaction which they might have shown had
+they entered a thicket expecting to find a fat deer, and encountered in
+its stead a growling bear.</p>
+
+<p>"I should think you've looked at me enough," said the stranger at last,
+in good English, and in a sort of half-humorous, half-petulant tone; at
+the same time delivering a blow, with the flat of his knife, upon the
+horny hand of a backwoodsman, who had again attempted to lift his cap
+with a view to examine his hair.</p>
+
+<p>It was, as the reader will already have conjectured, our young
+Englishman, who, having been guided by the Indian runner into the path
+to the Coshattoes, had at last succeeded in making his way over and
+through the innumerable swamps, rivers, and forests with which that
+district is so superabundantly blessed. The comparative coolness of the
+season, and the shallowness of the swamps and rivers, of the former of
+which many were entirely dried up and converted into meadows, had
+favoured his <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_690" id="Page_690">[Pg 690]</a></span>journey, or else he would scarcely have succeeded in
+reaching the banks of the Atchafalaya. For the preceding three weeks he
+had lived upon wild-geese and ducks, which he had killed and roasted as
+the Indians had taught him. He had now just emerged from the wilderness,
+and, however great his wish undoubtedly was to find himself once more in
+civilized society, the grim aspect of the Goliath-like backwoodsmen,
+their keen eyes and sunburnt visages, and long horn-handled knives, were
+so uninviting, that he was almost tempted to wish himself back again.
+Nevertheless, he seemed rather amused than disconcerted by the frank,
+forward familiarity of the people he had come amongst.</p>
+
+<p>"And d&mdash;n it!" exclaimed one of the men after a long pause, during which
+Hodges had been the observed of all eyes, "who, in the devil's name, are
+you? You are no Redskin?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, that I'm not," replied the young man, laughing; "I am an
+Englishman."</p>
+
+<p>He spoke the last words in the short decided tone, and with all the
+importance of a baron or count, who, having condescended to arrive in
+disguise amongst his dependents, on a sudden thinks proper to lay aside
+his incognito. There was in his look and manner, as he glanced over the
+crowd, a degree of self-satisfaction, and a curiosity to see the
+impression made by the announcement, mingled with the feeling of
+superiority which John Bull willingly entertains, and which he at that
+time was wont to display towards Brother Jonathan, but which has since
+entirely disappeared, and given place to a sort of envious uneasiness&mdash;a
+certain proof, in spite of the scorn in which it disguises itself, of
+his consciousness of the superiority of the detested Brother Jonathan,
+aforesaid.</p>
+
+<p>"An Englishman!" repeated twenty voices.</p>
+
+<p>"A Britisher!" vociferated fifty more, and amongst these a young man in
+a grass-green coat, who had just come up with an air of peculiar haste
+and importance.</p>
+
+<p>"A Britisher!" repeated the gentleman in green; "that's not your only
+recommendation, is it?"</p>
+
+<p>The person addressed glanced slightly at the speaker, who was measuring
+him with a pair of lobster-eyes of no very friendly expression, and then
+carelessly replied&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"For the present, it is my only one."</p>
+
+<p>"And d&mdash;n it, what has brought you to Opelousas?" demanded the green
+man.</p>
+
+<p>"My legs!" replied Hodges. But the joke was not well taken.</p>
+
+<p>"Young man," said an elderly American, "you are in Louisiana state, and
+see before you citizens of the United States of America. That man
+there"&mdash;he pointed to green-coat&mdash;"is the constable. Jokin' is out of
+place here."</p>
+
+<p>"I come from on board my ship, if you must know."</p>
+
+<p>"From on board his ship!" repeated every body, and every brow visibly
+knit, and a low murmur ran through the crowd.</p>
+
+<p>The news of the landing of British troops had just reached the town, and
+the same courier had brought the unwelcome intelligence of the capture
+of the American gunboats on the Mississippi. Trifling as this disaster
+was, compared with the brilliant victories achieved on Lakes Champlain
+and Erie, and on the ocean, at every meeting, by American ships over
+British, it had, nevertheless, produced a general feeling of
+exasperation.</p>
+
+<p>The constable stepped aside with several other men, and talked with them
+in a low voice. When they returned, and again surrounded the Englishman,
+their conference had produced a marked change in their manner. Their
+rough familiarity and friendly inquisitiveness had given place to a
+repulsive coldness; the humorous cheerfulness of their countenances was
+exchanged for a proud, cold earnestness, and they measured Hodges with
+keen distrustful glances.</p>
+
+<p>"Stranger," said the constable, in a tone of command, "you are a
+suspicious person, and must follow me."</p>
+
+<p>"And who may you be, who take upon yourself to show me the way?"
+demanded the midshipman.</p>
+
+<p>"You have already heard who I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_691" id="Page_691">[Pg 691]</a></span> am. These men are citizens of the United
+States, presently at war with your country, as you probably know."</p>
+
+<p>The green-clad functionary spoke these words with a certain emphasis,
+and even dignity, which caused the young man to look with rather less
+disdain at his shining beaver-hat, and verdant inexpressibles.</p>
+
+<p>"I am ready to follow," said he; "but I trust I am in safety amongst
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"That you will soon see," replied the constable, dryly.</p>
+
+<p>And so saying, he, his prisoner, and the crowd, set off in the direction
+of the town.</p>
+
+<p>If, as appears from the preceding extract, our author is ready enough to
+expose the peculiarities and failings of the English, whose foibles, in
+various parts of this book, he sets forth with at least as much severity
+as justice, he, on the other hand, and although his sympathies are
+evidently American, gives some curious specimens of their deficiency in
+military organization and discipline, and of the loose manner in which
+public affairs were carried on in the then newly formed state of
+Louisiana. The young midshipman is taken before our old acquaintance,
+Squire Copeland, who, with the restlessness characteristic of his
+countrymen, has emigrated some three years before from Georgia to the
+infant town of Opelousas, and holds the double office of justice of the
+peace and major of militia. Hodges is examined on suspicion of being an
+emissary from the British, sent to stir up the Indian tribes against the
+Americans. He scrupulously observes his promise, made to Tokeah and
+Canondah, not to reveal their place of abode; and, hampered by this
+pledge, is unable to give a clear account of himself. Suspicion is
+confirmed by his disguise, and by certain exclamations which he
+imprudently allows to escape him on hearing Major Copeland and his wife
+make mention of Tokeah, and of Rosa, their foster-child, of whom they
+now for seven years have heard nothing. The result of his examination,
+of which the good-natured and unsuspicious squire, having his hands full
+of business, and being less skilled in the use of the pen than the
+rifle, requests the prisoner himself to draw up the report, is, that
+Major Copeland, the constable, and Hodges, set off for a town upon the
+Mississippi, then the headquarters of the Louisianian militia. What
+occurs upon their arrival there, we will relate in a third and final
+notice of the book before us.</p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_692" id="Page_692">[Pg 692]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="FALL_OF_ROME" id="FALL_OF_ROME"></a>THE FALL OF ROME.</h2>
+<h3><span class="smcap">Its Causes at Work in the British Empire.</span></h3>
+
+<p>The Rise and Fall of the Roman empire is by far the most remarkable and
+memorable event which has occurred in the whole history of mankind. It
+is hard to say whether the Rise or the Fall is most worthy of profound
+study and anxious examination. The former has hitherto most strongly
+attracted the attention of men, from the extraordinary spectacle it
+exhibited of human fortitude triumphing over every obstacle, and human
+perseverance at length attaining universal dominion. It was the
+spectacle most likely to rivet the attention of strenuous and growing
+nations&mdash;of men in that stage of existence when national ambition is
+strong and the patriotic passions ardent, and the selfish interests have
+not yet become so powerful as to have generally extinguished the
+generous affections. But it may be doubted whether the events that
+occurred in the later stages of the Roman empire, are not fraught with
+more valuable and important information than those of its earlier
+annals. Less interesting to the soldier, less animating to the citizen,
+less heart-stirring to the student, they are more instructive to the
+philosopher, more pregnant with warning to the statesman. They contain
+the only instance yet exhibited among men of a nation sinking from no
+external shock, but from the mere influence of internal decay; and point
+alone, of all passages in the annals of the species, to the provision
+made by nature, in the passions and selfishness of men, against the
+possibility of universal dominion.</p>
+
+<p>To any one who attentively considers this all-important subject, two
+things must be apparent, of the very highest consequence in arriving at
+correct ideas on it. The first is, that the Roman empire did not sink
+under the external violence of the barbarians, but under the weakness
+and decline which had arisen in its own bosom. The second, that the
+causes hitherto assigned by historians and philosophers for this
+internal decay, are either vague generalities, having no definite
+meaning, and incapable of any practical application, or can be easily
+shown, even to the most superficial reader, not to have been the real
+causes of the phenomenon.</p>
+
+<p>There can be no doubt that some of the irruptions of the
+barbarians&mdash;particularly those of the Goths into Romelia, which led to
+the fatal battles of Thessalonica and Adrianople; and of Alaric into
+Italy, which terminated in the capture of the Eternal City&mdash;were very
+formidable inroads, and might, in the best days of the empire, have
+taxed its strength and resolution to repel. But a little consideration
+must be sufficient to show, that, formidable as these invasions were,
+they could without much difficulty have been withstood, if the empire
+had possessed the strength which it did in the days of the republic, or
+in the first two centuries of the C&aelig;sars. The Cimbri and Teutones, whom
+Marius combated and destroyed on the Rhone and in the north of Italy,
+were at least as formidable a body of barbarians as those which four
+centuries afterwards overturned the western empire. The forces whom
+C&aelig;sar conquered in Gaul, Trajan on the Danube, were to the full as
+powerful as those which carried the standards of the Goths and Vandals
+to Athens and Carthage. &AElig;tius, in the decline of the empire, and with
+the mingled Roman and barbarian force of Gaul alone, defeated Attila in
+the plenitude of his power, at the head of three hundred thousand men,
+on the field of Chalons.</p>
+
+<p>Belisarius, with fifteen thousand men, recovered Africa from the
+Vandals; thirty thousand legionary soldiers did the same by Italy under
+Narses, and overthrew the whole power of the Goths. So high did the
+Roman soldiers still stand even in the estimation of their enemies, that
+Totila, the warlike monarch of the Goths, strove to bribe them into his
+service by offers of high pay. None had yet been approved equal to these
+legionary soldiers in battle; and the manner in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_693" id="Page_693">[Pg 693]</a></span> which, with infinitely
+inferior forces, they repelled the barbarians on all sides, decisively
+demonstrates this superiority. The vigour and ability of Heraclius so
+restored the empire, when wellnigh sinking under the might of its
+enemies, that for a century it was regarded with awe by the barbarous
+nations all round its immense frontier. The five provinces beyond the
+Euphrates were conquered by the Romans from the Parthians during the
+decline of the empire. Nothing is so remarkable, in the last three
+centuries of Roman history, as the <i>small number</i> of the forces which
+combated around the Eagles, and the astonishing victories which, when
+led by ability, they gained over prodigious bodies of their enemies. The
+legions had dwindled into battalions, the battalions into cohorts. The
+four hundred and fifty thousand men who under Augustus guarded the
+frontiers of the empire, had sunk to one hundred and fifty thousand in
+the time of Justinian.<small><a name="f3.1" id="f3.1" href="#f3">[3]</a></small> But this hundred and fifty thousand upheld the
+Eastern empire for a thousand years. So feeble were the assaults of the
+barbarians, that for above two centuries of that time the single city of
+Constantinople, with the aid of the Greek fire, defended itself with
+scarce any territory from which to draw support. It was not the strength
+of its enemies, therefore, but the weakness of itself, which, after an
+existence in the West and East of <i>two thousand years</i>, at length
+extinguished the Roman empire.</p>
+
+<p>What, then, were the causes of decay which proved fatal at length to
+this immense and enduring dominion? Philosophers in all ages have
+pondered on the causes; but those hitherto assigned do not seem adequate
+to explain the phenomenon. Not that the causes of weakness are baseless
+or imaginary; on the contrary, many of them were most real and
+substantial sources of evil. But what renders them inadequate to explain
+the fall of Rome is, that they had <i>all existed, and were in full
+operation, at the time when the commonwealth and empire were at their
+highest point of elevation</i>, and centuries before either exhibited any
+symptoms of lasting decay. For example, the ancient historians, from
+Sallust downwards, are loud in their denunciation of the corruption of
+public morals, and the selfish vices of the patrician classes of
+society, as being the chief source of the decay which was going forward,
+while the growth of the republic had been mainly owing to the
+extraordinary virtue and energy of a small number of individuals.<small><a name="f4.1" id="f4.1" href="#f4">[4]</a></small> But
+the very circumstance of these complaints having been made by Sallust in
+the time of Augustus, and the fact of the empire of the West having
+existed for four hundred, that of the East for fourteen hundred years
+afterwards, affords decisive evidence that this cause cannot be
+considered as having been mainly instrumental in producing their fall.
+How is the unexampled grandeur and prosperity of the empire under Nero,
+Adrian, Trajan, and the two Antonines, whose united reigns extended over
+eighty years, to be explained, if the seeds of ruin two centuries before
+had been sown in the vices and corruption of the rich patricians? In
+truth, so far was general luxury or corruption from being the cause of
+the ruin of the empire, the cause of its fall was just the reverse. It
+was the excessive <i>poverty</i> of its central provinces, and their
+inability to pay the taxes, which was the immediate cause of the
+catastrophe. The nobles and patricians often were luxurious, but they
+were not a thousandth part of the nation. The people was miserably poor,
+and got more indigent daily, in the later stages of its decay.</p>
+
+<p>Modern writers, to whom the philosophy of history for the first time in
+the annals of mankind has become known, and who were aware of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_694" id="Page_694">[Pg 694]</a></span>
+important influence of general causes on social prosperity, independent
+of the agency of individual men, have assigned a different set of causes
+more nearly approaching the truth. Montesquieu says, the decay of the
+Roman empire was the natural consequence of its extension. This sounds
+well, and looks like an aphorism: but if the matter be considered with
+attention, it will be found that it is <i>vox et pr&aelig;terea nihil</i>. Those
+who, with so much complacency, rest in the belief that the fall of the
+Roman empire was the natural result of its extension, forget that its
+<i>greatest prosperity was coexistent with that very extension</i>. It is
+impossible to hold that the decay of the empire was the consequence of
+its magnitude, when the glorious era of the Antonines, during which it
+numbered a hundred and twenty millions of inhabitants under its rule,
+and embraced nearly the whole known habitable globe within its dominion,
+immediately succeeded its greatest extension by the victories, unhappily
+to us so little known, of Trajan.</p>
+
+<p>More recent writers, seeing that Montesquieu's aphorism was a vague
+proposition which meant nothing, have gone a step further, and
+approached much nearer to the real explanation of the phenomenon.
+Guizot, Sismondi, and Michelet have concurred in assigning as the real
+cause of the decay of the Roman empire, the prevalence of slavery among
+its working population, and the great and increasing weight of taxes to
+support the imperial government. There can be no doubt that these were
+most powerful causes of weakness; and that they stand prominently forth
+from the facts recorded by contemporary annalists, as the immediate and
+<i>visible</i> causes of the decline of the empire. The history of these
+melancholy periods is full of eternal complaints, that men could not be
+got to fill the legions, nor taxes to replenish the treasury; that the
+army had to be recruited from the semi-barbarous tribes on the frontier;
+and that vast tracts of fertile land in the heart of the empire relapsed
+into a state of nature, or were devoted only to pasturage, from the
+impossibility of finding cultivators who either would till the land, or
+could afford to pay the taxes with which it was charged. Doubtless the
+large proportion&mdash;at least a half, perhaps nearly two-thirds&mdash;of the
+people who were slaves, must have weakened the elements of strength in
+the empire; and the enormous weight of the direct taxes, so grievously
+felt and loudly complained of,<small><a name="f5.1" id="f5.1" href="#f5">
+[5]</a></small> must have paralysed, to a very great
+degree, both the industry of the people and the resources of government.
+But a very little consideration must be sufficient to show, that these
+were not the real sources of the decline of the empire; or rather, that
+if they had not been aided in their operation by other causes, which
+truly undermined its strength, it might have been great and flourishing
+to this hour.</p>
+
+<p>Slavery, it must be recollected, was <i>universal</i> in antiquity, and is so
+over two-thirds of the human race at this hour. Much as we may feel its
+evils and deprecate its severities, we ourselves, till within these
+three centuries, were entirely fed by serfs; and a few years only have
+elapsed since the whole of our colonial produce was raised by slave
+labour. America and Russia&mdash;the two most rising states in
+existence&mdash;are, the former in part, the latter wholly, maintained by
+slaves. It was an army, in a great measure composed of men originally
+serfs, which repelled Napoleon's invasion, survived the horrors of the
+Moscow retreat, and carried the Russian standards to Paris, Erivan, and
+Adrianople. Alexander the Great conquered Asia with an army of freemen
+wholly fed by slaves. The Athenians, in the palmy days of their
+prosperity, had only 21,000 freemen, and 400,000 slaves. Rome itself, in
+its great and glorious periods, when it vanquished Hannibal, conquered<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_695" id="Page_695">[Pg 695]</a></span>
+Gaul, subdued the East&mdash;in the days of Scipio, C&aelig;sar, and Trajan&mdash;was to
+the full as dependent on slave labour as it was in those of its
+decrepitude under Honorius or Justinian. Cato was a great dealer in
+slaves; the Sabine farm was tilled by the arms of slaves; Cincinnatus
+and Regulus worked their little freeholds entirely by means of slaves.
+Rome was brought to the verge of destruction, nearer ruin than it had
+been by the arms of the Carthaginians, by the insurrection of the slaves
+shortly after the third Punic contest, so well known under the
+appellation of the Servile war. It is perfectly ridiculous, therefore,
+to assign as a cause of the destruction of Rome, a circumstance in the
+social condition of its people which coexisted with their greatest
+prosperity, which has prevailed in all the most renowned nations of the
+earth in a certain stage of their progress, and is to be found, in our
+own times, in states the most powerful, and the most likely to attain
+vast and long-continued dominion.</p>
+
+<p>Equally futile is it to point to the weight of the taxes as the main
+cause of the long decline and final overthrow of Rome. Taxes no doubt
+are an evil; and if they become excessive, and are levied in a direct
+form, they may come in the end to ruin industry, and weaken all the
+public resources to such an extent as to render a nation incapable of
+defending itself. But a very little consideration must be sufficient to
+show that it was not, in the case of Rome, the increase of the taxes
+taken as a whole, <i>but the decline in the resources of those who paid
+them</i>, which rendered them so oppressive. If, indeed, the national
+establishment of the Roman empire had gone on increasing as it advanced
+in years, until at length their charges became excessive and crushing to
+industry, the theory would have been borne out by the fact, and afforded
+perhaps satisfactory explanation of the phenomenon. But the fact was
+<i>just the reverse</i>. The military establishment of the Roman empire was
+so much <i>contracted</i> as it advanced in years that whereas it amounted to
+450,000 men in the days of Augustus, in those of Justinian it had sunk,
+as already noticed to 150,000.<small><a name="f6.1" id="f6.1" href="#f6">
+[6]</a></small> So far were the forces of Rome from
+being excessive in the later stages of the empire or disproportioned to
+an empire still, after all its losses, holding so large and fair a
+portion of the earth under its dominion, that on the other hand they
+were miserably small; and the disasters it underwent were mainly owing
+to the government of the C&aelig;sars never being able to equip an adequate
+army to repel the attacks of the barbarians. The force with which
+Belisarius reconquered Africa and recovered Italy, never mustered
+<i>seventeen thousand men</i>; and the greater part of his successes were
+achieved by <i>six thousand</i> legionary followers. It was not the weight of
+the national establishments, therefore, but the diminished resources of
+those who were to pay them, which really occasioned the destruction of
+the empire.</p>
+
+<p>There are two other facts of vital importance in considering the real
+causes of the gradual decay and ultimate ruin of the dominion of the
+legions.</p>
+
+<p>The first of these is, that the extent of the decay was, in the latter
+stages of Rome, <i>very unequal</i> in the different provinces of the empire;
+and that while the central provinces, and those in the neighbourhood of
+the metropolis, were in the most wretched state of decrepitude, the
+remote districts were <i>in the highest state of affluence and
+prosperity</i>. This important fact is abundantly proved by unquestionable
+authority, and it sheds a flood of light on the real causes of the ruin
+which ultimately overtook them all.</p>
+
+<p>The state of agriculture in the Italian plains under the C&aelig;sars, is thus
+set forth by Gibbon:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Since the age of Tiberius, <i>the decay of agriculture had been felt
+in Italy</i>; and it was a just subject of complaint that the life of
+the Roman people <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_696" id="Page_696">[Pg 696]</a></span>depended on the accidents of the winds and the
+waves. In the division and decline of the empire, the <i>tributary
+harvests of Egypt and Africa</i> were withdrawn; the numbers of the
+inhabitants continually diminished with the means of subsistence;
+and the country was exhausted by the irretrievable losses of war,
+pestilence, and famine. Pope Gelasius was a subject of Odoacer, and
+he affirms, with strong exaggeration, that in Emila, Tuscany, and
+the adjacent provinces, the human species was almost
+extirpated."<small><a name="f7.1" id="f7.1" href="#f7">[7]</a></small></p></div>
+
+<p>Of the progress and extent of this decay, Gibbon gives the following
+account in another part of his great work:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"The agriculture of the Roman provinces was <i>insensibly ruined</i>;
+and in the progress of despotism, which tends to disappoint its own
+purpose, the emperors were obliged to derive some merit from the
+forgiveness of debts, or the remission of tributes, which their
+subjects were utterly incapable of paying. According to the new
+division of Italy, the fertile and happy province of Campania, the
+scene of the early victories and of the delicious retirements of
+the citizens of Rome, extended between the sea and the Apennines,
+from the Tiber to the Silarius. Within sixty years after the death
+of Constantine, and on the evidence of an actual survey, an
+exemption was granted in favour of 330,000 English acres <i>of desert
+and uncultivated land, which amounted to one-eighth of the whole
+surface of the province</i>. As the footsteps of the barbarians had
+not yet been seen in Italy, the cause of this amazing desolation,
+which is recorded in the laws, (Cod. Theod. lxi. t. 38, l. 2,) can
+be ascribed only to the administration of the Roman emperors."<small><a name="f8.1" id="f8.1" href="#f8">[8]</a></small></p></div>
+
+<p>Michelet observes, in his late profound and able History of France:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"The Christian emperors could not remedy the growing depopulation
+of the country, any more than their heathen predecessors. All their
+efforts only showed the impotence of government to arrest that
+dreadful evil. Sometimes, alarmed at the depopulation, they tried
+to mitigate the lot of the farmer, to shield him against the
+landlord; upon this the proprietor exclaimed he could no longer pay
+the taxes. At other times they abandoned the farmer, surrendered
+him to the landlord, and strove to chain him to the soil; but the
+unhappy cultivators perished or fled, <i>and the land became
+deserted</i>. Even in the time of Augustus, efforts were made to
+arrest the depopulation at the expense of morals, by encouraging
+concubinage. Pertinax granted an immunity from taxes to those who
+could <i>occupy the desert lands of Italy, to the cultivators of the
+distant province and the allied kings</i>. Aurelian did the same.
+Probus was obliged to transport from Germany men and oxen to
+cultivate Gaul.<small><a name="f9.1" id="f9.1" href="#f9">[9]</a></small> Maximian and Constantius transported the Franks
+and Germans from Picardy and Hainault into Italy; but the
+depopulation in the towns and the country alike continued. The
+people surrendered themselves in the fields to despair, as a beast
+of burden lies down beneath his load and refuses to rise. In vain
+the emperor strove, by offers of immunities and exemptions, to
+recall the cultivator to his deserted fields. Nothing, could do so.
+<i>The desert extended daily.</i> At the commencement of the fifth
+century there was, <i>in the Happy Campania, the most fertile
+province of the empire, 520,000 jugera</i> (320,000 acres) in a state
+of nature."<small><a name="f10.1" id="f10.1" href="#f10">[10]</a></small></p></div>
+
+<p>So general, indeed, was the depopulation of the empire in the time of
+Justinian, that it suggested to many of the emperors the project of
+repeopling those favoured districts by a fresh influx of inhabitants.
+"Justinian II. had a great taste for these emigrations. He transported
+half the population of Cyprus to a new city near Cyzicus, called
+Justinianopolis after its founder. But it was all in vain. The
+desolation and ruin of the provinces continued, and up to the very gates
+of Constantinople, which was maintained entirely by grain <i>imported at a
+low price from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_697" id="Page_697">[Pg 697]</a></span> Egypt, and cattle from the Tauric Chersonesus</i>."<small><a name="f11.1" id="f11.1" href="#f11">[11]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>As a natural consequence of this entire or principal dependence of Rome
+on foreign or provincial raising of grain, there was, on any
+interruption of these foreign supplies, the greatest scarcity and even
+famine in the metropolis. All the vigilance of the emperors, which was
+constantly directed to this object, could not prevent this from taking
+place. Tacitus says, that in the scarcity under Claudius, there only
+remained a supply of fifteen days for the city.<small><a name="f12.1" id="f12.1" href="#f12">[12]</a></small> Famine in Rome was
+frequent under Augustus, Tiberius, Claudius, and Nero. Claudian laments,
+that after Egypt had been assigned to Constantinople, Rome had come to
+derive its subsistence solely from Lybia, and depended on the <i>double</i>
+chances of the seasons and the winds.</p>
+
+<p class="poem"><span style="margin-left: 3em;">&mdash;&mdash;"Nunquam secura futuri,</span><br />
+Semper inops, ventique fidem poscebat et anni."<small><a name="f13.1" id="f13.1" href="#f13">[13]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>"When Africa revolted under Gildo, in the reign of Honorius, Rome," says
+Gibbon, "was on <i>the brink of starvation</i>, from which she was only saved
+by large importations <i>from Gaul</i>."<small><a name="f14.1" id="f14.1" href="#f14">[14]</a></small> She still depended on her
+provinces; domestic agriculture was ruined. Claudian represents the
+genius of ancient Rome bewailing, in pathetic and eloquent terms, her
+dependence for food on the nations she had conquered, in words which all
+governments rendering their people dependent on foreign supplies would
+do well to bear in mind. "Formerly," says the poet, "my prayers used to
+be that my legions might triumph on the banks of the Araxes, or that the
+consul might display his eagles at Susa; <i>now all I ask is a supply of
+food to avert the extremities of hunger</i>. The province of Africa, which
+furnishes corn to my people, is under the power of Gildo. <i>He intercepts
+our supplies, and our food is at his mercy.</i> He sells the harvests which
+belong to the descendants of Romulus; he possesses the fields purchased
+by my blood. The warrior people which conquered the world, now
+dishonoured and in want, endures the miserable punishment of peace;
+<i>blockaded by no enemy, they are like the inhabitants of a besieged
+town</i>. Death impends at every moment; there remain only doubtful
+supplies for a few days. <i>My greatness has been my ruin</i>; I was safer
+when my territory was more limited; would that its boundaries were once
+more at my gates! But, if I am doomed to perish, at least let me have a
+different fate; let me be conquered by another Porsenna; let my city be
+burnt by a second Brennus. All things are more tolerable than
+hunger."<small><a name="f15.1" id="f15.1" href="#f15">[15]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>Nor was the state of Greece, in the later stages of the empire, more
+favourable.</p>
+
+<p>"No description could exaggerate the miseries of Greece in the later
+stages of the empire. The slave population, which had formerly laboured
+for the wealthy, had then disappeared, and the free labourer<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_698" id="Page_698">[Pg 698]</a></span> had sunk
+into a serf. The uncultivated plains were traversed by bands of armed
+Sclavonians, who settled in great numbers in Thessaly and Macedonia. The
+cities of Greece ceased to receive the usual supplies of agricultural
+produce from the country; and even Thessalonica, with <i>its fertile
+territory and abundant pastures, was dependent on foreign importation
+for relief from famine</i>. The smaller cities, destitute of the same
+advantages of situation, would naturally be more exposed to
+depopulation, and sink more rapidly to decay. The roads, after the
+seizure of the local funds of the Greek cities by Justinian, were
+allowed to go to ruin, and the transport of provisions by land became
+difficult. When the Byzantine writers, after the time of Heraclius,
+mention the Greeks and Peloponnesus, it is with feelings of aversion and
+contempt."<small><a name="f16.1" id="f16.1" href="#f16">[16]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>Nor was Asia Minor in a more prosperous condition in the later stages of
+the empire. In Asia Minor the decline of the Greek race had been rapid.
+This decline, too, must be attributed rather to bad governments than to
+hostile invasions; for from the period of the Persian invasion, in the
+time of Heraclius, the greater part of that immense country had enjoyed
+almost a century of uninterrupted peace. The Persian invasions had never
+been very injurious to the sea-coast, where the <i>Greek cities were
+wealthy and numerous</i>; but the central provinces were entirely ruined.
+The fact that extensive districts, once populous and wealthy, <i>were
+already deserts</i>, is proved by the colonies which Justinian II. settled
+in various parts of the country. Population had disappeared even more
+rapidly than the agricultural resources of the country."<small><a name="f17.1" id="f17.1" href="#f17">[17]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>But while this was the state of matters in Italy, Asia Minor, and
+Greece&mdash;that is, the heart of the empire&mdash;its remoter provinces, Spain,
+Lybia, and Egypt, not only exhibited no symptoms of similar decay, but
+were, down to the very close of the reigns of the C&aelig;sars, in the highest
+state of wealth, prosperity, and happiness. Listen to Gibbon on this
+subject in regard to Spain:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"The situation of Spain, separated on all sides from the enemies of Rome
+by the sea, the mountains, and intermediate provinces, had secured the
+long tranquillity of that <i>remote and sequestered country</i>; and we may
+observe, as a sure symptom of domestic happiness, that in a period of
+four hundred years, Spain furnished very few materials to the history of
+the Roman empire. The cities of Merida, Cordova, Seville, and Tarragona,
+were numbered among the most illustrious of the Roman world. The various
+plenty of the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms, was improved and
+manufactured by the skill of an industrious people; and the peculiar
+advantages of naval stores contributed to support an extensive and
+profitable trade. Many particulars concerning the fertility of Spain may
+be found in Huet's <i>Commerce of the Ancients</i>, c. 40."<small><a name="f18.1" id="f18.1" href="#f18">[18]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>The state of Lybia was equally characteristic of the highest and most
+general prosperity, especially in relation to agricultural industry, at
+the time when Italy and Greece were thus languishing in the last stage
+of decrepitude and decay.</p>
+
+<p>"The long and narrow tract," says Gibbon, "of the African coast was
+filled, when the Vandals approached its shores, with frequent monuments
+of Roman art and magnificence; and the respective degrees of improvement
+might be accurately measured by the distance from Carthage and the
+Mediterranean. A simple reflection will impress every thinking mind with
+the clearest idea of its fertility and cultivation. The country was
+<i>extremely populous</i>; the inhabitants reserved a liberal supply for
+their own use; <i>and the annual exportation, particularly of wheat</i>, was
+so regular and plentiful, that Africa <i>deserved the name of the common
+granary of Rome and of mankind</i>."<small><a name="f19.1" id="f19.1" href="#f19">[19]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>Nor was the state of Egypt less prosperous in the last ages of the Roman
+empire; nor was its condition a less striking contrast to the miserable
+and languishing condition of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_699" id="Page_699">[Pg 699]</a></span> Italian and Grecian plains. It is thus
+described by Mr Finlay,<small><a name="f20.1" id="f20.1" href="#f20">[20]</a></small> whose recent work has thrown so much light
+on the social condition of the inhabitants of the Roman empire in their
+later days:&mdash;"If the accounts of ancient historians can be relied on,
+the population of Egypt had suffered less from the vicious
+administration of the Roman empire, and from the Persian invasion, than
+any other part of their dominions; for at the time of its conquest by
+the Romans it contained seven millions and a half of inhabitants,
+exclusive of Alexandria; and in the last days of the empire it nourished
+almost as great a number. The Nile spread its fertilizing waters over
+the land; the canals were kept in a state sufficient for irrigation; and
+the vested capital of Egypt suffered little diminution, whilst war and
+oppression annihilated the accumulation of ages over the rest of the
+world. The immense wealth and importance of Alexandria, the only port
+which Egypt possessed for communicating with the empire, still made it
+<i>one of the first cities in the universe for riches and population</i>,
+though its strength had received a severe blow from the Persian
+conquest."<small><a name="f21.1" id="f21.1" href="#f21">[21]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>Sicily was another exception from the general decrepitude and ruin of
+the Roman empire in the latter reigns of the C&aelig;sars. "In the island of
+Sicily, the great bulk of the population was Greek, and few portions of
+the Greek race <i>had succeeded so well in preserving their wealth and
+property uninjured</i>."<small><a name="f22.1" id="f22.1" href="#f22">[22]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>But in the other parts of the empire, to the north of the Mediterranean,
+the agricultural population was, in the time of Heraclius, <i>absolutely
+destroyed</i>. "The imperial armies," says Finlay, "which, in the time of
+Maurice, had waged an active war in Illyria and Thrace, and frequently
+invaded the territories of the Avars, had melted away during the
+disorders of the reign of Phocas. The loss was irreparable; for in
+Europe <i>no agricultural population remained to supply the means of
+forming a body of local militia, or even a body of irregular
+troops</i>."<small><a name="f23.1" id="f23.1" href="#f23">[23]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>It may readily be supposed, that so entire a destruction of the rural
+population in Europe, as thus took place under the Emperors in the Roman
+empire, must have been attended with the most fatal effects to their
+means of defence and national power. The inhabitants of towns,
+accustomed to sedentary occupations, and habituated to the luxury of
+baths, the excitement of theatres, the gratuitous distributions of food,
+could not endure the fatigue, privations, and hardships of the military
+life. Substitutes were almost universally sought for, and they, amidst
+the desolation of the country, could be found only in the semi-barbarous
+tribes on the frontier. Thus the defence of the empire came to be
+intrusted almost entirely to the arms of the barbarians, and it was hard
+to say whether they were most formidable to their friends or foes.
+Nothing could supply the place of the rural population on the shores of
+the Mediterranean. The legions gave a master to the Roman world, and the
+legions were recruited from Gaul, Germany, Britain, and Pannonia. Thus
+the dominion of the Capitol was really at an end long before it was
+formally subverted; and Rome had received a master from the barbarians
+long before the days of Alaric.</p>
+
+<p>This continued splendour and population of the towns, amidst the ruin of
+the country, in the declining periods of the Roman empire, has attracted
+the particular notice of one of the greatest historians of modern times.
+"In the midst," says Sismondi, "of the general desolation of the
+country, the continued existence and splendour of the great towns is not
+so easily explained; but the same thing is now to be witnessed in
+Barbary and Turkey, and in the whole Levant. Wherever despotism
+oppresses insulated man, he seeks refuge from its outrages in crowds.
+The great Roman towns, in the first three centuries of the empire, were
+in great part peopled by artisans, and freedmen, and slaves; but they
+contained also a number far greater than in our days of men who,
+limiting their wants to the mere support of <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_700" id="Page_700">[Pg 700]</a></span>existence, spent their
+lives in indolence. All that population was alike unarmed, unpatriotic,
+incapable of defence against a foreign enemy; but as it was collected
+together, and at hand, it always inspired fear to domestic authority.
+Accordingly, to keep it quiet, there was always a regular gratuitous
+distribution of corn in the larger towns, and numerous spectacles in the
+theatres, the amphitheatres, and the circus, maintained at the public
+expense. The carelessness of the future, the love of pleasure and
+indolence, which have always characterised the inhabitants of great
+towns, characterised the Roman provincials even to the latest days of
+the empire, and in the midst of their greatest calamities. Treves, the
+capital of the northern prefecture of Gaul, was not the only city of the
+empire which was surprised and pillaged by the barbarians, at the moment
+when its citizens, their heads crowned with garlands, were applauding
+with enthusiasm the victors in the games of the circus."<small><a name="f24.1" id="f24.1" href="#f24">[24]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>The frequent custom of recruiting the legions by means of slaves, in the
+later period of the empire, which was wholly unknown in the days of the
+Republic, reveals, in the clearest manner, the weakness to which, in
+respect of military resources, it had arrived, long before the external
+symptoms of decay were visible in its fortunes. Even in the time of
+Marcus Aurelius, the legions which were to combat the Quadi and
+Marcomanni, on the Danube, were recruited from the servile class.
+Justinian went so far as to declare, by a public edict, every slave free
+who had served in the army.<small><a name="f25.1" id="f25.1" href="#f25">[25]</a></small> "At last the army came to be composed
+entirely," says Finlay, "of the rudest and most ignorant peasants, of
+<i>enfranchised slaves, and naturalised barbarians</i>. This increased the
+repugnance, already sufficiently great, felt by the better class of
+citizens to enter the military life. The mercenaries formed the most
+valued and brilliant portions of the army, and it became the fashion to
+copy and admire the dress and manners of the barbarian cavalry."<small><a name="f26.1" id="f26.1" href="#f26">[26]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>All the ancient historians concur in representing this impossibility of
+finding native soldiers in its central provinces, as the main cause of
+the overthrow of the empire. And that this, and not the power of the
+barbarians, was the real cause of the destruction of the empire, is
+proved by the fact, that whenever they were well directed, the
+superiority of the legions was as clearly evinced as in the days of
+Marius or C&aelig;sar. "Whenever the invaders," says Finlay, "met with a
+steady and well-combined resistance, they were defeated without much
+difficulty. The victorious reigns of Claudius II., Aurelian, and Probus,
+prove the immense superiority of the Roman armies when properly
+commanded; but the custom which was constantly gaining ground, <i>of
+recruiting the legions from among the barbarians</i>, reveals the
+deplorable state of <i>depopulation and weakness</i> to which three centuries
+of despotism and bad administration had reduced the empire."<small><a name="f27.1" id="f27.1" href="#f27">[27]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>But amidst this general prostration of the political and military
+strength of the Roman empire, in consequence of the decline and
+desolation of the <i>country</i>, the <i>great towns</i> still continued
+flourishing, and wealth to an extraordinary and unparalleled extent
+existed among the chief families, some of patrician, some of plebeian
+origin. That was the grand characteristic of Rome in its later days. The
+country, in the European part of the empire at least, was daily growing
+poorer; the cultivation of the fields was neglected; and the provinces,
+crushed under the weight of the direct taxes, which had become
+unavoidable, had in most cases sunk to half their former number of
+inhabitants. But the metropolis, whether in Italy or on the shores of
+the Bosphorus, was still the seat of opulence, luxury, and prosperity.
+The strength of Constantinople was sufficient to repel the barbarians,
+and prolong the life of the empire of the east, for many centuries after
+it had ceased to derive effective support from any of its provinces. It
+is recorded by Ammianus <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_701" id="Page_701">[Pg 701]</a></span>Marcellinus, that when Rome was taken by the
+Goths under Alaric, it was still inhabited by 1,200,000 souls, who were
+maintained chiefly by the expenditure of seventeen hundred and sixty
+great families, many of whom had £160,000 of yearly income, equal to at
+least £300,000 a-year of our money.<small><a name="f28.1" id="f28.1" href="#f28">[28]</a></small> And of the flourishing condition
+of the cities of the empire, especially those which were on the shores
+of the Mediterranean, even so late as the eighth century, Mr Finlay
+gives the following account:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"The strongest proof of the <i>wealth and prosperity of the</i> <span class="smcaplc">CITIES</span> <i>of
+Greece</i>, even in the last days of the empire, is to be found in the
+circumstance of their being able to fit out the expedition which
+ventured to attempt wresting Constantinople from the grasp of a soldier
+and statesman such as Leo the Isaurian was known to be, when the Greeks
+deliberately resolved to overturn his throne. The <i>rural</i> districts, in
+the eighth century, were reduced to a <i>state of desolation</i>, and the
+<i>towns were flourishing in wealth</i>. <i>Agriculture was at the lowest ebb,
+and trade in a prosperous condition.</i>"<small><a name="f29.1" id="f29.1" href="#f29">[29]</a></small> Sismondi gives his valuable
+testimony to the same effect:&mdash;"It was at this very time, <i>when industry
+in the country was declining</i>, that the <i>towns</i> of the provinces arrived
+<i>at their highest degree of opulence</i>. Adrian excited the emulation of
+their rich citizens, and he extended to the furthest extremities of the
+empire the luxury of monuments and decorations, which had hitherto been
+reserved for the illustrious cities which scorned to be the depots of
+the civilisation of the world."<small><a name="f30.1" id="f30.1" href="#f30">[30]</a></small> Such, in a few words, was the
+condition, generally speaking, of all the part of the empire to the
+north of the Mediterranean, in the decaying period of its existence. The
+towns were every where flourishing; but it was in Africa, Sicily, and
+Spain alone that agriculture was undecayed. And the decay and ruin of
+rural industry, and of the inhabitants of the country to the north of
+the Mediterranean, left them no adequate means of resisting the attacks
+of the brave but artless barbarians, who there pressed upon the yielding
+frontiers of the empire.</p>
+
+<p>Coexistent with this fatal decline in the rural population and
+agricultural industry, was the increase of <i>direct taxation</i>, which was
+so keenly felt and loudly complained of in all the later stages of the
+Roman history. This is a branch of the subject of the very highest
+importance, because it leads to precisely the same conclusions, as to
+the real causes of the fall of Rome, as the others which have been
+already considered.</p>
+
+<p>It is well known that when the Romans first conquered Macedonia, the
+senate proclaimed a general liberation from taxes and imposts of every
+kind to the Roman citizens, as the reward of their victories. This state
+of matters, however, could not long continue in an old state charged
+with the duty, and under the necessity of keeping up, a large
+establishment to maintain its dominion over its subject provinces. For
+some time, indeed, the wealth brought by the conquest of Asia and Egypt
+into the Roman treasury was so considerable, that the necessity of taxes
+levied on its own citizens was not felt; and as long as the people had a
+direct share in the government, they took care to uphold an exemption in
+their own favour. But when one master was given to the whole Roman
+world, this invidious system of one class living upon another class was
+erelong abandoned. "Augustus," says Gibbon, "had no sooner assumed the
+reins of government, than he frequently intimated the insufficiency of
+the tributes from the provinces, and the necessity of throwing an
+equitable proportion of the public burdens upon Rome and Italy. In the
+prosecution of this unpopular design, however, he advanced with slow and
+cautious steps. The introduction of customs was followed by the
+establishment of an excise; and the scheme of taxation was completed by
+an artful assessment of the real and personal property of the Roman
+citizens, who had been exempted from every kind of contribution for
+above a century and a half."<small><a name="f31.1" id="f31.1" href="#f31">[31]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>Customs on foreign goods imported<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_702" id="Page_702">[Pg 702]</a></span> into Italy was the first species of
+taxation attempted on the Roman people. "In the reign of Augustus and
+his successor," says the same historian, "duties were imposed on every
+kind of merchandise, which, through a thousand channels, flowed to the
+great centre of opulence and luxury; and in whatever manner the law was
+expressed, it was the Roman purchaser, and not the provincial merchant,
+who paid the tax. The rate of the customs varied from the eighth to the
+fortieth part of the value of the commodity. There is still extant a
+long, but imperfect, catalogue of Eastern commodities, which, about the
+time of Alexander Severus, were subject to the payment of duties.
+Precious stones, Parthian and Babylonian leather, cottons, silks, raw
+and manufactured, ebony, ivory, and eunuchs, were among the taxed
+articles. An excise also was introduced by Augustus, of one <i>per cent</i>
+on whatever was sold in the markets or by public auction; and this
+extended from the most considerable purchase of lands or houses, to
+those minute objects which commonly derive their value from their
+infinite multitude and daily consumption."<small><a name="f32.1" id="f32.1" href="#f32">[32]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>But erelong these indirect taxes proved unproductive, and recourse was
+had to the lasting scourge of <i>direct taxes</i>. One of 5 per cent on
+legacies and inheritances was first imposed by Augustus, and adhered to
+by him, in spite of the indignant murmurs of the Roman nobles and
+people. The rate was raised by Caracalla to a tenth of all inheritances;
+and, when the privilege of Roman citizenship was extended to the whole
+provincials of the empire, they were subjected at once both to the
+former burdens which they had paid as provincials, and the new tax
+levied on them as Roman citizens.<small><a name="f33.1" id="f33.1" href="#f33">[33]</a></small> From that time, the direct burdens
+became daily more oppressive, and at length proved an almost
+insurmountable bar to industry. "The noxious weed," says Gibbon, "sprung
+up with the most luxuriant growth, and in the succeeding age darkened
+the Roman world with its deadly shade. In the course of this history, we
+shall be too often summoned to explain the land-tax, the capitation, and
+the heavy contributions in corn, wine, oil, and meat, which were exacted
+from the provinces for the use of the court, the army, and the
+capital."<small><a name="f34.1" id="f34.1" href="#f34">[34]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>These direct taxes soon became fearfully oppressive, and it is proved,
+by the clearest evidence, that they were among the leading causes of the
+decline of the empire. "The whole landed property of the empire," says
+Gibbon, "without excepting the patrimonial estates of the monarch, was
+the object of ordinary taxation, and every new purchaser contracted the
+obligations of the former proprietor. An accurate survey was made of
+what every citizen should contribute to the public service, and this was
+made anew every fifteen years. The number of slaves and cattle
+constituted an essential part of the report; <i>an oath was administered
+to the proprietors, which obliged them to disclose the true state of
+their affairs</i>; and any attempt to prevaricate or elude the vigilance of
+the legislature, was severely watched, and punished as a capital crime,
+which included the double guilt of treason and sacrilege. A large
+portion of the tribute was paid in money; and, of the current coin of
+the empire, <i>gold alone could be legally accepted</i>. The remainder of the
+taxes, according to the proportion observed in the annual indiction, was
+levied in a manner still more direct and still more oppressive.
+According to the different value of lands, their real produce, in the
+various articles of wine or oil, corn or barley, wood or iron, was
+transported by the labour, or at the expense of the provincials, to the
+imperial magazines, from whence they were occasionally distributed for
+the use of the court, the army, and the two capitals, Rome and
+Constantinople. The commissioners of the revenue were so frequently
+obliged to make <i>considerable purchases</i>, that they were strictly
+prohibited from allowing any compensation, or from receiving in money
+the value of those articles which were exacted in kind."<small><a name="f35.1" id="f35.1" href="#f35">[35]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>"Either from accident or design,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_703" id="Page_703">[Pg 703]</a></span> the mode of assessment seemed to unite
+the substance of a land to the form of a capitation-tax. The return
+which was sent from every province and district expressed the number of
+tributary subjects, and the amount of the public impositions. The latter
+of these sums was divided by the former; and the estimate, that each
+province and each head was rated at a certain sum, was universally
+received not only in the popular but the legal computation. Some idea of
+the weight of these contributions <i>per head</i> may be formed by the
+details preserved of the taxation of Gaul. The rapacious ministers of
+Constantine had exhausted the wealth of that province, by exacting
+twenty-five gold pieces (£12, 10s.) for the annual tribute of every
+head. The humane policy of his successor reduced the computation to
+seven pieces. A moderate proportion between these two extremes of
+extravagant oppression and transient indulgence, therefore, may be fixed
+at sixteen gold pieces, or about <i>nine pounds</i> sterling, as the common
+standard of the impositions of Gaul. The enormity of this tax is
+explained by the circumstance, that, as the great bulk of the people
+were slaves, the rolls of tribute were filled only with the names of
+citizens in decent circumstances. The taxable citizens in Gaul did not
+exceed 500,000; and their annual payments were about £4,500,000 of our
+money; a fourth part only of the modern taxes of France."<small><a name="f36.1" id="f36.1" href="#f36">[36]</a></small> The
+ordinary land-tax in the eastern provinces was a tenth, though in some
+cases it rose by the operation of the survey to a fifth, in others fell
+to a twentieth of the produce. It was valued for a term of years, and
+paid, unless when exacted in kind, commonly in money.<small><a name="f37.1" id="f37.1" href="#f37">[37]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>There was one circumstance which rendered the direct taxes peculiarly
+oppressive in the declining periods of the Roman empire, and that was
+the <i>solid</i> obligation, as the lawyers term it, which attached to the
+municipalities, into which the whole empire was divided, of making good
+the amount of their fixed assessment to the public treasury. Of course,
+if the municipality was declining, and the same quota required to be
+made up from its assessable inhabitants by the magistracy, who were
+responsible for its amount, it augmented the burden on those who
+remained within its limits; and if they dwindled, by public calamities
+or emigration, to a small number, it might, and often did become of a
+crushing weight. This system is general over the East; and its
+oppressive effect in the declining stage of states, is the chief cause
+of the rapid decay of Oriental empires. There is a remarkable authentic
+instrument, which attests the ruinous influence of this system in the
+later stages of the Roman dominion. This is a rescript of the Emperior
+Majorian, which sets forth:&mdash;"The municipal corporations, the lesser
+senates, as antiquity has justly styled them, deserve to be considered
+as the heart of the cities, and the sinews of the Republic. And yet so
+low are they now reduced, by the injustice of magistrates and the
+venality of collectors, that many of their numbers, renouncing their
+dignity and their country, have taken refuge in distant and obscure
+exile." He strongly urges, and even ordains their return to their
+respective cities; but he removes the grievances which had forced them
+to desert the exercises of their municipal functions, by directing that
+they shall be responsible, not for the <i>whole sum</i> assessed on the
+district, but only for the payments they have actually received, and for
+the defaulters who are still indebted to the public.<small><a name="f38.1" id="f38.1" href="#f38">[38]</a></small> But this humane
+and wise interposition was as shortlived as it was equitable. Succeeding
+emperors returned to the convenient system of making the municipal
+corporations responsible for the sum assessed on their respective
+districts, and it continued to be the general law of the empire down to
+its very latest day. Sismondi, in his <i>Décadence de l'Empire Romaine</i>,
+and Michelet, in his <i>Gaule sous les Romains</i>, concur in ascribing to
+this system the rapid decline and depopulation of the empire in its
+later stages.</p>
+
+<p>But although there can be no question<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_704" id="Page_704">[Pg 704]</a></span> that the conclusions of these
+learned writers are in great part well founded, yet this system of
+taxation by no means explains the decline and fall of the Roman empire.
+It requires no argument, indeed, to show, that such a system of solid
+obligations, and of levying a certain sum on districts without any
+regard to the decline in the resources or number of those who were to
+pay them, must, in a <i>declining</i> state of society, be attended with the
+most disastrous, and it may be in the end fatal consequences. But it
+does not explain how society should be declining. <i>That</i> is the matter
+which it behoves us to know. When the reverse is the case&mdash;when industry
+and population are <i>advancing</i>, the imposition of fixed tributes on
+districts is not only no disadvantage, but the greatest possible
+advantage to a state&mdash;witness the benefit of the perpetual settlement to
+the ryots of Hindostan&mdash;or of a perpetual quit-rent to English
+landholders. And that, bad as this system was when applied to a
+declining state of society, it was not the cause of the ruin of the
+Roman empire, and would not have proved injurious if the state had been
+advancing, is decisively proved by several considerations.</p>
+
+<p>1. In the first place, the taxes and system of municipalities, being
+responsible for a fixed sum, was not confined to the European provinces
+of the Roman dominion, viz.&mdash;Italy, Greece, Gaul, Macedonia, and
+Romelia, where the progress of decay was so rapid, but it was the
+general law of the empire, and obtained equally in Spain, Lybia, Egypt,
+and Sicily; as in the provinces which lay to the north of the
+Mediterranean. But these latter provinces, it has been shown, were, when
+overrun by the barbarians about the year 400, not only nowise in a state
+of decrepitude, but in <i>the very highest state of affluence and
+prosperity</i>. They had become, and deserved the appellation of, "the
+common granary of Rome and of the world." They maintained the
+inhabitants of Italy, Greece, Rome, and Constantinople, by the export of
+their magnificent crops of grain. Spain was at least twice as populous
+as it is at this time, Lybia contained twenty millions, Egypt seven
+millions of inhabitants. Sicily was in affluence and prosperity, while
+the adjoining plains of Italy were entirely laid out in pasturage, or
+returned to a state of desolation and insalubrity. It is in vain,
+therefore, to seek a solution of the decline of the empire in a system,
+which, <i>universally</i> applied, left some parts of it in the last stages
+of decrepitude and decay, and others in the highest state of prosperity
+and affluence.</p>
+
+<p>2. In the next place, the taxes of the empire were by no means at first
+of such weight as to account, if there had been nothing else in the
+case, for the decay of its industry. The tax on inheritances, it has
+been shown, was at first five, afterwards ten <i>per cent</i>; and the
+land-tax was ten <i>per cent</i> on the produce. The former tax of ten <i>per
+cent</i> on successions, is the present legacy-tax on movable succession to
+persons not related to the deceased, in England; and ten <i>per cent</i> on
+the produce, is the tithe, and no more than the tithe, which has so long
+existed in the European monarchies, and even when coexisting with many
+other and more oppressive burdens, has nowhere proved fatal to industry.
+Income of every sort paid ten <i>per cent</i> in Great Britain during the
+war&mdash;the land paid the tithe and poor's-rate in addition&mdash;and the other
+taxes yielded a sum four times as great; yet industry of every kind
+flourished to an extraordinary degree during that struggle. Ever since
+the termination of the Revolution, the land-tax in France has been far
+heavier than it was in Rome, varying, according to the <i>Cadastre</i>, or
+valuation, from fifteen to twenty-five <i>per cent</i>; but yet it is well
+known public wealth and agricultural produce have increased in an
+extraordinary degree during that period. It was not, therefore, the
+weight of the impositions, but the simultaneous circumstances, which
+rendered the northern provinces of the empire <i>unable to bear them</i>,
+which was the real cause of the ruin of its industry.</p>
+
+<p>3. In the <i>third</i> place, whether the magnitude of the naval and military
+establishments, or the absolute amount of its public revenue, is taken
+into consideration, it is equally apparent that the Roman empire was at
+first not only noways burdened with heavy, but was blessed with
+<i>singularly light</i> government impositions. Gibbon states the population
+of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_705" id="Page_705">[Pg 705]</a></span> whole empire, in the time of Augustus, at 120,000,000, or about
+half of what all Europe, to the westward of the Ural mountains, now
+contains; and its naval and military establishments amounted to 450,000
+armed men&mdash;"a force," says the historian, "which, formidable as it may
+seem, was equalled by a monarch of the last century, (Louis XIV.)
+<i>whose kingdom was confined within a single province of the Roman
+empire</i>."<small><a name="f39.1" id="f39.1" href="#f39">[39]</a></small> Compared with the military and naval forces of the
+European powers in time of peace, this must seem a most moderate public
+establishment. France, in the time of Napoleon, with 42,000,000
+inhabitants, had 850,000 regular soldiers in arms, besides 100,000
+sailors; and Great Britain, in its European dominions alone, with a
+population of 18,000,000 souls, had above 500,000 regular soldiers and
+sailors in the public service. France has now, in peace, with a
+population of 32,000,000 souls, about 360,000 men, between the army and
+navy, in the public service; and England, with a population of
+28,000,000, upwards of 150,000, besides double that number in India.
+Russia, with 62,000,000 inhabitants, has 460,000 soldiers in the public
+service. Austria, with 33,000,000, has 260,000. All these peace
+establishments are twice as heavy in proportion to the numbers of the
+people, as that of Rome was in the time of Augustus; and, in subsequent
+reigns, the number of armed men maintained by the state, was so far from
+increasing, that it was constantly diminishing, and, in the time of
+Justinian, had sunk down to 140,000 soldiers, maintained by an empire
+more extensive than that of Russia at this moment.</p>
+
+<p>4. The same conclusion results from the consideration of the absolute
+amount of the public revenue levied in the Roman empire, compared with
+what is extracted from modern states. Gibbon estimates the public
+revenue of the whole empire in the time of Augustus, at "fifteen or
+sixteen millions sterling;"<small><a name="f40.1" id="f40.1" href="#f40">[40]</a></small> and in the time of Constantine the
+revenue derived from Gaul was £4,500,000 a-year.<small><a name="f41.1" id="f41.1" href="#f41">[41]</a></small> The first of these
+sums is less than a <i>third</i> of what is now levied in time of peace on
+Great Britain, with less than thirty millions of souls, instead of the
+hundred and twenty millions who swelled the population rolls of the
+Roman empire: the last is little more than an <i>eighth</i> of what is now
+extracted from France, having nearly the same limits as ancient Gaul.
+Supposing that the value of money has declined, from the discovery of
+the South American mines, a half, (and at <i>this</i> time, owing to the
+decline of those mines, it has not sunk more,) still it is apparent that
+the public burdens of modern times are at least three times as heavy as
+they were in the Roman empire in the highest period of its greatness. As
+its strength and military establishment constantly declined after that
+period, there is no reason to suppose that the absolute amount of the
+public taxes was at any subsequent time greater, although
+unquestionably, from the decline in the resources of those who were to
+bear them, they were felt as infinitely more oppressive. And that these
+taxes were not disproportioned to the strength of the empire, when its
+resources were unimpaired, and its industry flourishing, is decisively
+proved by the extremely prosperous condition in which it was during the
+eighty years when Nerva, Trajan, Adrian, and the two Antonines filled
+the imperial throne. "At that period," says Gibbon, "notwithstanding the
+propensity of mankind to exalt the past and depreciate the present, the
+tranquil and prosperous condition of the empire was warmly felt and
+honestly confessed by the provincials as well as the Romans."<small><a name="f42.1" id="f42.1" href="#f42">[42]</a></small> "They
+affirm," says a contemporary writer, "that, with the increase of the
+arts, the human species has visibly multiplied. They celebrate the
+increasing beauty of the cities, the beautiful face of the country,
+cultivated and adorned like an immense garden, and the long festival of
+peace which was enjoyed by so many nations, forgetful of their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_706" id="Page_706">[Pg 706]</a></span> ancient
+animosities, and delivered from the apprehension of future danger."<small><a name="f43.1" id="f43.1" href="#f43">[43]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>Ancient as well as modern historians are full of complaints, in the
+later periods of the Roman empire, of the prodigious increase of wealth
+in the hands of the rich, and decline in the remuneration of industry to
+the poor. Their complaints on this subject are so numerous, and
+supported by such an array of facts, as to leave no room for doubt that
+they are well founded. Indeed, it seems to have been generally true of
+the whole empire north of the Mediterranean, what Mr Finlay shows was
+the case down to the very latest periods in Greece, that while industry
+and population in the country were ruined, the towns were in a state of
+affluence and prosperity. Even so early as the time of Plutarch, the
+accumulation of <i>debts</i> had come to be complained of as an extensive
+evil.<small><a name="f44.1" id="f44.1" href="#f44">[44]</a></small> "These debts," says Finlay, "were generally contracted to
+Roman money-lenders. So injurious did their effects become to the
+provinces, that they afforded to one class the means of <i>accumulating
+enormous fortunes by forcing others into abject poverty</i>. The property
+of the provincial debtors was at length transferred to a very great
+extent to Roman creditors. Instead of invigorating the upper classes, by
+substituting an industrious timocracy for an idle aristocracy, it had a
+very different effect. It introduced new feelings of rivalry and
+distrust, by filling the country with foreign landlords. The weight of
+debts seems to have been the chief cause of revolutions in the ancient
+world. The Greeks could not long maintain the struggle, and they sunk
+gradually lower in wealth, until their poverty introduced an altered
+state of society, in which they learned the prudential habits of small
+proprietors, and escape not only from the eye of history but even of
+antiquarian research."<small><a name="f45.1" id="f45.1" href="#f45">[45]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>This constant tendency of wealth, in the later periods of the Roman
+empire, to accumulate in the hands of the great capitalists, accompanied
+by the progressive deterioration of the condition of the middle and
+working classes, is amply proved and forcibly illustrated by Sismondi,
+in his admirable work on the Decline of the Roman Empire. "During the
+long peace," says he, "which followed the victories of Trajan and Marcus
+Aurelius, those colossal fortunes were accumulated, which, according to
+Pliny, ruined Italy and the empire.<small><a name="f46.1" id="f46.1" href="#f46">[46]</a></small> A single proprietor, by degrees,
+came to buy up whole provinces, the conquest of which had in former days
+furnished the occasion of many triumphs to the generals of the Republic.
+While this huge capitalist was amassing riches, wholly disproportioned
+to the capacity of man, the <i>once numerous and respectable, but now
+beggared, middle class, disappeared from the face of the earth</i>. In
+districts where so many brave and industrious citizens were to be seen
+in former times, alike ready to defend or cultivate their fields, were
+to be found nothing but slaves, who rapidly declined in number as the
+fields came to be exclusively devoted to pasturage. The fertile plains
+of Italy ceased to nourish its inhabitants; Rome depended entirely for
+its subsistence on the harvests which its fleets brought it from Sicily,
+Africa, and Egypt. From the capital to the farthest extremity of the
+provinces, <i>depopulation and misery in the country coexisted with
+enormous wealth an the towns</i>. From this cause the impossibility of
+recruiting the legions with native Romans was experienced even in the
+time of Marcus Aurelius. In his war against the Quadi and the
+Marcomanni, which had been preceded by a long peace, he was obliged to
+recruit the legions with the slaves and robbers of Rome."<small><a name="f47.1" id="f47.1" href="#f47">[47]</a></small> It is
+impossible to give a stronger proof of the extent to which this enormous
+evil of the vast fortunes accumulated in the towns,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_707" id="Page_707">[Pg 707]</a></span> and the entire ruin
+of industry in the country, had gone in the last days of the empire,
+than is to be found in the fact already mentioned, that when Rome was
+taken by Alaric, in the year 404 after Christ, while Italy could furnish
+no force to resist the invaders, the capital itself contained seventeen
+hundred and sixty great families, many of them with incomes of £160,000
+a-year, equal to £300,000 of our money, whose expenditure maintained an
+urban population of 1,200,000 souls.<small><a name="f48.1" id="f48.1" href="#f48">[48]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>It may readily be conceived, that when this prodigious concentration of
+wealth in the hands of the great proprietors of towns, and ruin of
+industry in the country, came to coexist with the <i>solid</i> obligations of
+the rural municipalities for the sum assessed on their districts, the
+burden of the public taxes, though light at first, compared with what is
+little complained of in modern times, came to be altogether
+overwhelming. This accordingly was the case in all the Northern
+provinces of the empire in its later stages. What every where preceded
+their ruin, was the desertion of the inhabitants in consequence of the
+crushing weight of the public burdens. From the entire failure of the
+indirect taxes amidst the ruin of agricultural, and the imposition of
+taxation on urban industry, it had become necessary to make progressive
+additions to the direct taxes till they became exterminating. "Three
+great direct taxes," says Sismondi, "alike ruinous, impended over the
+citizens. The first was the Indictions or Land-Tax, estimated in general
+at a tenth of the produce, or a third of the clear revenue, and often
+doubled or tripled by the <i>Super indictions</i> which the necessities of
+the provinces compelled them to impose. Secondly: the Capitation-Tax,
+which sometimes rose as high as 300 francs (£12) ahead on the free and
+taxable citizens; and, third, the Corvées, or forced contributions in
+labour, which were for the service of the imperial estates, or the
+maintenance of the public roads. These direct imposts in the declining
+days of the empire, so entirely ruined the proprietors of rural estates,
+that they abandoned them in all quarters. Vast provinces in the interior
+were deserted; the enrolment for the army became daily more difficult
+from the disappearance of the rural population; the magistrates of
+municipalities in town or country, rendered responsible for the
+assessment of their districts and the levy of their quota of soldiers,
+fled the country, or sought under a thousand pretexts to escape the
+perilous honour of public office. So far did the desertion of the
+magistracy go in the time of Valentinian, (364-375, after Christ,) that
+when that cruel tyrant ordered the heads of three magistrates of towns
+in a particular province to be brought to him for some alleged offences,
+'Will your Imperial Majesty be pleased to direct,' said the prefect
+Florentius, 'what we are to do in those towns <i>where three magistrates
+cannot be found</i>?' The order was upon this revoked."<small><a name="f49.1" id="f49.1" href="#f49">[49]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>The disastrous state of the rural districts amidst this accumulation of
+evils is thus forcibly described by Mr Finlay:&mdash;"In many provinces, the
+higher classes had been completely exterminated. The loss of their
+slaves and serfs, who had often been carried away by the invaders, had
+reduced many to the humble condition of labourers. Others had emigrated,
+and abandoned their land to the cultivators, from being unable to obtain
+any revenue from it in the miserable state to which the capture of the
+stock, the loss of a market, and the destruction of the agricultural
+buildings had reduced the country. In many of the towns, the diminished
+population was reduced to misery by the ruin of the rural districts in
+their neighbourhood. The higher classes in the country disappeared under
+the weight of the municipal duties they were called upon to perform.
+Houses remained unlet; and even when let, the portion of rent which was
+not absorbed by the imperial taxes was insufficient to supply the
+demands of the local expenditure. The labourer and the artisan alone
+could find bread; the walls of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_708" id="Page_708">[Pg 708]</a></span> cities were allowed to fall into ruins;
+the streets were neglected, public buildings had become useless;
+aqueducts remained unrepaired; internal communications ceased; and with
+the extinction of the wealthy and educated classes in the provincial
+towns, the local prejudices of the lower orders became the law of
+society."<small><a name="f50.1" id="f50.1" href="#f50">[50]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>Such, on a nearer survey, was the condition of the Roman empire which
+preceded its fall. From it may be seen how widely the real causes of its
+decline differed from the vague generalities of Montesquieu, that the
+ruin of the empire was the necessary consequence of its extension; or
+the still vaguer declamations of the scholars, that it was the
+corruption incident to great and long-continued wealth which enervated
+the people, and rendered them incapable of defending themselves against
+the Northern nations. In truth, both these causes did operate, and that
+too in a most powerful manner, in bringing about the ruin of the empire;
+but they did so, not in the way supposed by these authors, but in an
+<i>indirect way</i>, by inducing a new set of evils, which destroyed industry
+in the most important of its provinces, by depriving the industrious of
+a market for their industry, and rendering the public burdens
+overwhelming, by changing the value of money. The operation of these
+causes can now be distinctly traced by us, because we feel them working
+among ourselves: their existence has not hitherto been suspected, or
+their effects traced by philosophers, because no state in modern Europe
+but our own, in recent times, had come within the sphere of their
+influence. And to see what these causes really were, it is only
+necessary to recall, in a few propositions, to the reader's mind, the
+general result of the foregoing deduction:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>I. During the Republic, and till the commencement of the empire,
+agriculture was in the most flourishing state in Italy; and it was in
+its sturdy, free cultivators, that the legions were recruited which
+conquered the world.</p>
+
+<p>II. <i>From the time of Tiberius</i>, cultivation declined in the Italian and
+Grecian plains, and continued to do so to the fall of the empire.
+Pasturage came to supersede agriculture; population disappeared in the
+fields; the race of free cultivators, the strength of the legions, were
+ruined; the flocks and herds were tended only by slaves; the small
+proprietors became bankrupt, or fled the country; and the whole land in
+the European provinces of the empire fell into the hands of a limited
+number of territorial magnates, who resided at Rome or Constantinople,
+and mainly upheld, by their profuse expenditure, the prosperity of those
+capitals of the empire.</p>
+
+<p>III. In the midst of the general decline of rural industry in all the
+provinces to the north of the Mediterranean, the wealth and prosperity
+of the great cities remained undecayed. The small provincial towns were
+in great part ruined; but the great cities, especially such as were on
+the sea-coast, continued flourishing, and received in their ample bounds
+all the refluent population from the country. Rural industry languished
+and expired, but commerce was undecayed; the fortunes of the great
+capitalists were daily accumulating; and in no period in the history of
+mankind, were urban incomes so great as in the city of Rome, on the eve
+of its capture by the Goths.</p>
+
+<p>IV. While this was the state of matters to the north of the
+Mediterranean, that is, in the heart of the empire, the remoter
+agricultural provinces of Spain, Sicily, Lybia, and Egypt, were in the
+very highest state of prosperity; they fed all the great cities of the
+Roman world by their immense exportations of grain, and yet enough
+remained, down to their conquest by the Vandals under Genseric, to
+maintain a vast population at home, greater than has ever since existed
+in those countries, in a state of affluence and comfort.</p>
+
+<p>V. Taxation, from the time of its first introduction under Augustus, was
+at first chiefly indirect, and by no means oppressive. Gradually,
+however, the produce of the indirect taxes failed, or became inadequate
+to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_709" id="Page_709">[Pg 709]</a></span> wants of the empire, and recourse was had to direct taxes,
+levied chiefly on landed property and successions. But these direct
+taxes were at first light, and not a third part of those levied on
+Britain or France during the war; and the public establishments of the
+Roman government were not a fourth, in proportion to the population, of
+those now maintained by the great European monarchies during peace.</p>
+
+<p>VI. In process of time, however, the resources of the people, in the
+principal provinces of the empire, and especially those to the north of
+the Mediterranean, declined to such a degree, that though the military
+and naval establishments of the empire were reduced to a third of their
+former amount, and became inadequate to defend its frontiers against its
+enemies, the direct taxes required to be continually increased, till
+they became so oppressive as to destroy industry, and prove the
+immediate cause of the depopulation and ruin of the empire.</p>
+
+<p>Such are the <i>facts</i>, as established by the unanimous and concurring
+testimony of all the best informed historians; and now for the causes
+which produced these facts. They are set forth and supported by an
+equally clear and undisputable array of authorities.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p>Even so early as the latter days of the Republic, the system was
+introduced of feeding the Roman people with grain derived by tribute
+from the provinces. In the time of Augustus, the annual quantity
+distributed to the poorer citizens of Rome was 1,200,000 <i>modii</i>, or
+35,156 quarters. But <i>Tiberius went a step further, and actually gave
+bounties on the importation of foreign grain</i>. "An enormous quantity,"
+says Finlay, "of grain was distributed in this way, which was received
+as tribute from the provinces. C&aelig;sar found 320,000 persons receiving
+this gratuity. It is true he reduced the number to one-half. The greater
+part of this grain was drawn from Sicily, Africa, and Egypt. In the time
+of Alexander, generally 75,000 <i>modii</i> was distributed daily. This
+distribution enabled the poor to live in idleness, and was itself
+extremely injurious to industry; but another arrangement was adopted by
+the Roman government, which rendered the <i>cultivation of land around
+Rome unprofitable to the proprietors</i>. A large sum was annually employed
+by the state <i>in purchasing grain in the provinces</i>, and in transporting
+this supply to Rome, where it was <i>sold at a fixed price to the bakers</i>.
+Augustus appointed an officer, styled <i>Prefectus Annon&aelig;</i>, whose duty was
+to provide by government purchases for the subsistence of the people. An
+allowance was also made <i>to the private importers of grain</i>, in order to
+ensure a constant supply.<small><a name="f51.1" id="f51.1" href="#f51">[51]</a></small> In this way, a very large sum was expended
+<i>to keep grain cheap in a city</i> where a variety of circumstances tended
+to make it dear. This singular system of annihilating capital, <i>and
+ruining agriculture and industry</i>, was so deeply rooted in the Roman
+administration, that similar gratuitous distributions of grain were
+established at Antioch and Alexandria, and introduced into
+Constantinople when that city became the capital of the empire."<small><a name="f52.1" id="f52.1" href="#f52">[52]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>The necessary effect of this system was the cessation of agriculture in
+Italy, the ruin of the small proprietors, and the engrossing of the land
+in the provinces by a few great landholders, who cultivated their
+extensive estates by means of slaves. "Riches, far exceeding the wealth
+of modern sovereigns, flowed into the hands of the great proprietors;
+villas and parks were formed over all Italy on a scale of the most
+stupendous grandeur; and land <i>became more valuable as hunting-ground
+than as productive farms</i>. The same habits were introduced into the
+provinces. In the neighbourhood of Rome, agriculture was ruined by the
+public distribution of grain received<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_710" id="Page_710">[Pg 710]</a></span> as tribute from the provinces,
+and by the bounty granted to merchants importing to secure a maximum
+price of bread. The same system proceeded in the provinces; and similar
+distributions at Alexandria and Antioch must have been equally
+injurious."<small><a name="f53.1" id="f53.1" href="#f53">[53]</a></small> When Constantine established his new capital on the
+shores of the Bosphorus, he was under the necessity of adopting, and
+even extending, the same ruinous system. "Wealthy individuals from the
+provinces were compelled to keep up houses at Constantinople, pensions
+were conferred upon them, and a right to distributions of provisions to
+a considerable amount was annexed to those dwellings. These rations
+consisted of bread, oil, wine, meat, and formed an important branch of
+revenue even to the better class of citizens. These distributions were
+entirely different from the public ones at Rome, which were established
+as a gratification by the state to the poor citizens who had no other
+means of livelihood. The tribute of grain from Egypt was appropriated to
+supply Constantinople, and that of Africa was left for the consumption
+of Rome. This was the tie which bound the capital to the emperors, and
+the cause of the toleration shown to its factions. They both felt they
+had a common interest in supporting the despotic power by which the
+provinces were drained of money to support the expenditure of the court,
+and supply provisions for the people."<small><a name="f54.1" id="f54.1" href="#f54">[54]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>Although, however, these public distributions of grain in the chief
+towns of the empire had some effect in checking the cultivation of corn
+in Italy, Greece, and Asia Minor, by depriving its cultivators of their
+best market, yet <i>the private importation of grain</i> from these great
+corn countries must have been a far more serious and general evil.
+Gibbon states the number who received rations at Constantinople daily in
+the time of Constantine at 80,000, and in Rome in the time of Tiberius
+it was 180,000. Supposing the other great towns were fed in the same
+proportion, perhaps a million of persons in the Roman world were
+nourished at the expense of the state on Egyptian or African grain. But
+a million of persons consume annually a million of quarters of grain;
+not a sixtieth part of the annual consumption of the British empire at
+this time, and probably not a two-hundredth part required by the
+120,000,000 souls who composed the Roman empire in the days of the
+Antonines. But though the state paupers were thus but a small fraction
+of the whole consumers of foreign grain, yet the <i>general importation
+was immense</i>, and became erelong so great as to constitute the entire
+source from which the population of Italy, as well as Constantinople and
+the adjacent provinces of Romelia, Macedonia, and Greece, were fed. It
+was this <i>general importation</i>, not the gratuitous distributions, which
+ruined Italian agriculture; for it alone was on a scale commensurate
+with the population of the Italian peninsula, and could alone account
+for its general ruin. Tacitus expressly says, it was the <i>preference</i>
+given to African agriculture, not the gratuitous distributions, which
+destroyed Italian cultivation. "At, Hercule, olim ex Italia legionibus
+longinquas in provincias commeatus portabantur: nec nunc infecunditate
+laboratur; <i>sed Africam</i> <span class="smcaplc">POTIUS</span> <i>et Egyptum excercemus, navibusque et
+casibus vita populi Romani permissa est</i>.<small><a name="f55.1" id="f55.1" href="#f55">[55]</a></small>" The supply of grain for
+the Roman world was entirely obtained from Spain, Sicily, Africa, and
+Egypt, while Greece was maintained by corn imported from Poland.<small><a name="f56.1" id="f56.1" href="#f56">[56]</a></small> It
+was not that the Italian and Grecian fields had become sterile: Tacitus
+expressly says the reverse,&mdash;"<i>nec</i> nunc infecunditate laboratur." But
+the country in which grain produced fifteen fold, as Italy did, could
+not compete with that which produced sixty or eighty fold, on the banks
+of the Nile. Nor could the industry of the centre of the empire, where
+money was plentiful, comparatively speaking, and labour was therefore
+dear, stand against the competition of the remoter provinces, where it
+was scarce, and labour was therefore cheap.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_711" id="Page_711">[Pg 711]</a></span>The ruin of Italian and Grecian agriculture from this cause is so
+evident, that it is admitted by the ablest advocates of an unlimited
+freedom in the corn trade. "The first effect of this system," says a
+late able and learned writer on the liberal side, "<i>was the ruin of
+Italian agriculture</i>. The natural market for the corn of the Italian
+farmer was, to a great extent, destroyed by the artificial supplies
+obtained from the provinces. Hence, as Dureau de la Malle has remarked,
+(ii. 218,) the history of the seventh and eighth centuries of Rome
+presents this singular contrast&mdash;that the agriculture, the population,
+and products of Italy, diminish progressively as she extends her
+conquests and power. The fatal influence which the gratuitous supplies
+from the provinces would exercise upon the native agriculture, was
+perceived by Augustus; but he abandoned his intention of altering the
+system, from a conviction it would be restored by his successor. The
+result was, that southern and central Italy, instead of being tilled by
+a race of hardy active farmers, themselves freemen, and working on their
+own land, was divided into plantations cultivated by slaves."<small><a name="f57.1" id="f57.1" href="#f57">[57]</a></small> This
+explains how it came to pass that Spanish agriculture took such a start
+from <i>the time of Tiberius</i>; and how, in the general ruin of the empire,
+Spain, Africa, and Egypt, were the only provinces which retained their
+prosperity. It will be recollected that it was in the reign of Tiberius
+that bounties were first given by the Roman government to the private
+importers of foreign grain.</p>
+
+<p>Of the main dependence of the Western empire in its declining days on
+Africa, not merely for the necessary supply of food, but even for the
+chief resources and strength of the state in the midst of the desolation
+of its European fields, Sismondi gives a striking account&mdash;"The loss of
+Africa was at this period, (439 after Christ,) perhaps the greatest
+calamity which the empire of the West could have undergone. It was its
+only province the defence of which cost no trouble; the only one from
+which <i>they drew money, arms, and soldiers, without its ever requiring
+any back</i>. It was at the same time the granary of Rome and of Italy. The
+gratuitous distributions of grain at Rome, Milan, and Ravenna, had, over
+the whole Italian peninsula, destroyed the cultivation of grain.
+Experience had proved that the return could not pay its expense; and the
+reason was, that the more fertile fields of Africa furnished a part of
+the harvest destined for the nourishment of the people of Italy. The
+sudden stoppage of that supply by the conquest of Africa by the Vandals,
+caused a cruel famine in Italy; which still further reduced its wretched
+inhabitants."<small><a name="f58.1" id="f58.1" href="#f58">[58]</a></small> And so entirely did Constantinople become dependent on
+foreign importation of sea-borne grain from Egypt and the Ukraine for
+its support, that "when the Persians, in the year 618, overran Egypt,
+and stopped the usual supplies of grain from that province, the famine
+became so alarming, that the government determined upon transferring
+<i>the seat of empire to Carthage</i> in Africa, as the most likely point
+from whence the dominion of Syria and Egypt might be regained."<small><a name="f59.1" id="f59.1" href="#f59">[59]</a></small> The
+latter of these had long been regarded as <i>the most valuable province of
+the empire</i>.<small><a name="f60.1" id="f60.1" href="#f60">[60]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>When this entire dependence of the great cities in the northern parts of
+the empire, for centuries together, on Spain, Sicily, Africa, and Egypt,
+is considered, it must with every rational mind cease to be a matter of
+surprise that its west and northern provinces declined in industry and
+population; that these grain provinces to the south of the Mediterranean
+alone retained their numbers and prosperity; and that under the constant
+decline, in the European provinces, in the market for agricultural
+produce, the rural population disappeared, and the recruiting of the
+army in the country became impossible. It is not surprising that while
+they were enrolling slaves in Italy, and enlisting<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_712" id="Page_712">[Pg 712]</a></span> barbarians on the
+Danube and the Rhine, to defend the frontiers, from Africa and Spain
+alone they drew supplies both of money and soldiers, without requiring
+to send back any. The latter provinces were the granary and garden of
+the empire; the only part of it where rural industry met with
+remunerating prices or adequate encouragement. And the same
+circumstances explain in a great degree how it happened, that while the
+<i>rural</i> districts of Italy, Greece, Asia Minor, and Romelia, were
+continually declining in population, rental, and revenue, their <i>towns</i>,
+especially on the sea-coast, were, down to the last days of their
+existence, in a flourishing condition. These towns were the seat of
+manufactures and commerce. It was by their capital that the vast corn
+trade by which all the cities of the empire were fed was carried on. It
+was their fabrics which mainly furnished the means of purchasing the
+immense proportion of this grain, which, being imported by private
+importers, required to be paid for in some species of manufactured
+produce. And the reason why grain was raised so much cheaper, and
+therefore profitably, in Egypt, Lybia, and Spain, than in Italy and
+Greece, was, partly, that the former of these countries were by nature
+blessed with a more prolific soil and a warmer sun than the latter; and,
+partly, that as Rome and Constantinople were the two capitals of the
+empire, the greater part of its wealth was attracted, either by taxes,
+tribute, or the concourse of the rich, to them, and, consequently, the
+abundance of riches rendered money cheap, labour dear, and cultivation,
+when exposed to foreign competition, unprofitable.</p>
+
+<p>But there was more in the case than this. Simultaneously with the vast
+and increasing importation of foreign grain, which at length destroyed
+cultivation in all the northern provinces of the empire, a <i>continual
+diminution of its circulating medium</i> was going forward; and it was to
+the combined and cotemporaneous operation of these two causes, that the
+ruin of the empire is beyond all question to be ascribed.</p>
+
+<p>So early as the days of Tiberius, the abstraction of the gold and silver
+currency of the empire by the incessant drain of foreign commerce, was
+loudly complained of by the Roman writers; and there is the most
+decisive proof, that in the course of time the supply of the precious
+metals on the empire became so inadequate to the wants of its
+inhabitants, that their value was enhanced to a great and ruinous
+degree. It was the commerce of the East which first induced this
+destructive drain upon the metallic treasures of the empire. "The
+objects," says Gibbon, "of oriental traffic were splendid and trifling;
+silk&mdash;a pound of which was esteemed worth a pound of gold&mdash;precious
+stones, and a variety of aromatics, were the chief articles. The labour
+and risks of the voyage were rewarded with almost incredible profit; but
+it was made on Roman subjects, and at the expense of the public. As the
+nations of Arabia and India were contented with the produce and
+manufactures of their own country, silver, on the side of the Romans,
+was the principal, if not the only instrument of commerce. It was a
+complaint worthy of the gravity of the senate, that in the pursuit of
+female ornaments, the wealth of the state was irrecoverably given away
+to foreign and hostile nations. The annual loss is computed by a writer
+of an inquisitive but censorious temper, (Pliny,) at £800,000 sterling.
+Such was the style of discontent brooding over the dark prospect of
+approaching poverty."<small><a name="f61.1" id="f61.1" href="#f61">[61]</a></small> Eight hundred thousand pounds a-year,
+equivalent to about two millions of our money, must have been a severe
+drain upon the supply of the precious metals in the Roman empire; and
+we, who have seen in 1839 the Bank of England reel, and the United
+States bank fall, under the effect of an exportation of six or seven
+millions of sovereigns to buy foreign grain in a single year, can
+appreciate the effect of such a constant drain upon a state, the
+metallic resources of which were much less considerable than those of
+England at this time.</p>
+
+<p>The immense importation also of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_713" id="Page_713">[Pg 713]</a></span> African and Egyptian grain, which
+continued from the time of Tiberius down to the very close of the
+empire, must have occasioned a great additional abstraction of the
+precious metals from the Roman world. It has already been shown that a
+very small proportion of the grain imported from these distant provinces
+was remitted in the shape of tribute. By far the greater part, probably
+nineteen-twentieths of the whole supply, was imported by private
+merchants for sale, as it could be got from them cheaper than it could
+be raised at home. This imported corn, of course, required to be paid
+for in something. But the inhabitants of the countries from which it
+came&mdash;Spain, Sicily, Africa, and Egypt&mdash;for the most part slaves,
+blessed with a fine climate, requiring little covering, and nearly
+destitute of artificial wants, did not require, and could not consume,
+any considerable amount of Italian or Grecian fabrics. Thus, by far the
+greatest part of the price of the imported grain was paid in gold and
+silver, for which there is a constant demand in all countries, savage or
+civilized. A nation which imports foreign grain largely, <i>must</i> in all
+ages export the precious metals as largely; because the corn, of course,
+is brought from those countries where it is raised the cheapest&mdash;and the
+countries where this is the case, are those where labour is cheap, money
+scarce, and artificial wants unknown. Money is what these countries
+want, and money is what their surplus produce is nearly all exchanged
+for. And this explains how it happened, that in the decline of the
+empire, Spain, Africa, and Egypt, alone retained their flourishing
+aspect, and were the only provinces from which money and soldiers could
+be obtained, while they required none. The whole commerce between them
+and Italy, or Greece, was one in which grain was exchanged for the
+precious metals; and when they once got these, great part was hoarded,
+as it now is in the East, and very little ever returned.</p>
+
+<p>In addition to this, the mines which supplied the Roman world failed to
+a considerable extent under the emperors. "The poverty of Greece, as of
+the whole empire," says Finlay, "was further increased <i>by the gradual
+rise in the value of the precious metals</i>; an evil which began to be
+generally felt about the time of Nero, and affected Greece with great
+severity, from the altered distribution of wealth in the country with
+which it was attended. Greece had once been rich in mines, which had
+been a source of wealth and prosperity to Siphnos and Atticus, and had
+laid the foundation of the power of Philip of Macedon. The fiscal
+measures of the Romans soon rendered it a <i>ruinous speculation for
+individuals to attempt working mines of the precious metals</i>; and, in
+the hands of the state, they soon proved unprofitable. Many mines were
+exhausted; and even <i>though the value of the precious metals was
+enhanced</i>, some mines beyond the sphere of the Roman power <i>were
+abandoned</i> from those causes which, after the second century of the
+Christian era, produced a sensible diminution in the commercial
+transactions of the Old Hemisphere.<small><a name="f62.1" id="f62.1" href="#f62">[62]</a></small> Greece shared in the general
+decay: her commerce and manufactures, being confined to supplying the
+consumption of a diminished and impoverished population, sunk into
+insignificancy. <i>An accumulation of debts became general throughout the
+country</i>, and formed an extensive evil, as already observed, in the time
+of Plutarch."<small><a name="f63.1" id="f63.1" href="#f63">[63]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>As this great diminution on the supply, and drain upon the treasures of
+the precious metals in the time of the emperors, lowered the value of
+every species of produce, so it proportionally augmented debts, and
+swelled the already overgrown fortunes of the capitalists. What Finlay
+says of Greece was true of the whole European provinces of the
+empire:&mdash;"<i>The property of the Grecian debtors was at last transferred
+to a very great extent to the Roman creditors.</i>"<small><a name="f64.1" id="f64.1" href="#f64">[64]</a></small> The gradual
+diminution in the supply of, or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_714" id="Page_714">[Pg 714]</a></span> abstraction of the precious metals, by
+contracting the currency, lowered prices, and thus diminished the
+returns of industry; while it proportionally augmented debts, and added
+to the fortunes of the great capitalists and landholders. This again
+produced another effect upon the manners of the inhabitants of the great
+cities, which had an equally powerful effect in increasing the drain
+upon that portion of the precious metals which was employed in the
+public currency. The rich patricians of Rome, Antioch, and
+Constantinople, possessed of colossal fortunes to which nothing in
+modern times will bear a comparison, and nursed in habits of luxury and
+expense beyond any thing we can even conceive, daily augmented the
+amount of their immense incomes, which was devoted to the purposes of
+extravagance. "The historians of the second and third centuries," says
+Finlay, "are filled with lamentations on this subject."<small><a name="f65.1" id="f65.1" href="#f65">[65]</a></small> It is not
+surprising that it was so. Men possessed, in private stations, of as
+much as three or four hundred thousand pounds a-year of modern money,
+could not get through their incomes without indulging in the habitual
+purchase of the most costly articles. Society in this way had come to
+verify the saying of Bacon&mdash;"Above all things, good policy is to be used
+that the treasure and money in a state <i>be not gathered into few hands</i>.
+For otherwise, a state may <i>have a great stock and yet starve</i>. And
+money is like muck, not good unless it be spread."</p>
+
+<p>Hence the consumption and permanent fixing of gold and silver in the
+form of plate and costly ornaments, increased in the great families down
+to the very close of the empire; and while the currency was constantly
+declining, and prices in consequence falling in the provinces, the
+colossal capitalists of Rome and Constantinople were daily absorbing
+more of the precious metals in these beautiful but unproductive objects.
+The quantity of gold and silver moulded into the form of vases, statues,
+tripods, and personal ornaments, which was accumulated in Rome at the
+time it was taken by the Goths, would exceed belief if not attested by
+the unanimous testimony of all the contemporary writers. Great part of
+it was thrown into the Tiber, where it still remains covered by the
+alluvial deposits of fourteen centuries; the most precious of the spoils
+were buried with Alaric in the bed of a stream in Calabria, where that
+redoubtable conqueror was overtaken by the common fate of mortality. The
+place where he was interred was kept a profound secret, and the slaves
+who dug his grave in the bed of the river, of which the course had been
+turned aside for the purpose, were put to death, and buried with him and
+his treasures; and the river itself was immediately let into its old
+channel, that its ceaseless flow might secure, as it since has done, the
+grave of the mighty chief from disturbance, and enable him to present
+himself loaded with his earthly spoils in the land of spirits.<small><a name="f66.1" id="f66.1" href="#f66">[66]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>The concurring operation of these causes produced, in the three last
+centuries of the Roman empire, a very great scarcity in the supply of
+the precious metals for the purposes of the public currency, and
+consequently a most distressing fall in prices, and diminution in the
+remuneration of industry, accompanied by a proportional increase in the
+weight of debt and taxes. And the progressive effect of these changes
+appeared in the clearest manner, in the repeated changes which were made
+by successive emperors in the value of the gold and silver coins which
+passed current in the empire. Gold became progressively so scarce in
+proportion to silver, that the proportion between the two, which at
+first had been 1 to 10 in the time of Augustus, rose in time to 1 to
+12&#189;, and was fixed by Constantine the Great at 1 to 14&#8534;ths.<small><a name="f67.1" id="f67.1" href="#f67">[67]</a></small> In
+consequence of this rise in the value of gold&mdash;the precise counterpart
+of what was experienced in Great Britain in the later years of the war,
+when a <i>light</i> guinea sold for 25s.&mdash;the quantity of gold in the
+<i>aureus</i>, or chief gold<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_715" id="Page_715">[Pg 715]</a></span> Roman coin, was progressively diminished, till
+it came to contain little more than <i>half</i> its former weight of that
+precious metal. The learned Greaves has shown, after diligent inquiry,
+that while in the time of the Antonines the <i>aureus</i> weighed 118, in the
+time of Majorian, in the fifth century, it had come to weigh only 68
+grains.<small><a name="f68.1" id="f68.1" href="#f68">[68]</a></small> This is a clear indication, that 68 grains of gold were now
+equal in value to what 118 grains had been three centuries before; for
+Majorian, by a special decree, ordered all <i>aurei</i> of whatever reign,
+the Gallic <i>solidus</i> alone excepted, to pass, not according to weight
+but standard.<small><a name="f69.1" id="f69.1" href="#f69">[69]</a></small> That is the most decisive proof to what a grievous
+extent the currency had, from the operation of the causes which have
+been mentioned, come to be contracted; for as gold constitutes, from its
+superior value, at least nine-tenths of the circulating medium of every
+civilized state, so great a rise in its value could only have been
+occasioned by a very great contraction of the whole currency. We know in
+what state the metallic currency of Great Britain was when the <i>light</i>
+guinea was selling for twenty-five shillings.</p>
+
+<p>In the latter days of the empire, when the invasions of the barbarians
+began, and its provinces were liable to be pierced through and overrun
+by columns of their predatory hordes, the universal and well-founded
+terror produced a general <i>hoarding</i> of the precious metals, which
+entirely withdrew them from circulation, until they were forced from the
+trembling inhabitants by threats of massacre or conflagration. The
+effect of this, in contracting the currency, and causing the little that
+remained to disappear altogether from the circulation, of course was
+prodigious. It lowered to almost nothing the money-price of every
+species of industry, and proportionally augmented the weight of public
+and private debts&mdash;the subject of such loud and constant complaints from
+ancient historians. Nor was this evil confined to the latest periods of
+the empire of the West&mdash;the years which immediately preceded its fall.
+From the time of Commodus, who succeeded Marcus Antoninus, the
+incursions of the barbarians into the northern provinces of the empire
+had been severely felt; and from the time of the separation of the
+empires of the East and West, they were almost perpetual, and sometimes
+extended far into its interior provinces. The effect of these alarms and
+dangers, in producing a universal disposition to hoard, and consequently
+rendering money every where scarce, prices cheap, and debts and taxes
+oppressive, was very great, and may be regarded as one of the chief
+causes of the excessive and crushing weight which the direct burdens of
+the state acquired in the later periods of the empire.</p>
+
+<p>The resource so well known, and so often had recourse to with the
+happiest effects, in modern times, to supply the void produced by a
+temporary or permanent drain of the precious metals, was unknown in
+antiquity. <i>They had no paper currency.</i> Even bills of exchange were
+unknown. They, as is well known, were a contrivance of the Jews, in the
+middle ages, to transport their wealth in a commodious form, when
+threatened with persecution, from one country to another. To what an
+extent paper of these various kinds has come to supply the place of gold
+and silver, may be judged of by the fact, that during the war, the paper
+currency of Great Britain and Ireland rose to £60,000,000 sterling; and
+that, at the present time, the private bills in circulation in it are
+estimated at £132,000,000 sterling. But this admirable resource, by
+which an accidental or temporary dearth of the precious metals is
+supplied by a paper currency, circulating at par with it, and fully
+supplying, as long as credit lasts, its place, was unknown in the
+ancient world. Gold, silver, and copper were their sole circulating
+mediums; and consequently, when they were progressively withdrawn, by
+the causes which have been mentioned, from the currency, there was
+nothing left to supply their place. Instantly, as if by the stroke of a
+fell necromancer, disasters of every kind accumulated on the wretched
+inhabitants. Credit was violently shaken;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_716" id="Page_716">[Pg 716]</a></span> money disappeared; prices
+fell to a ruinous degree; industry could obtain no remuneration; the
+influence and ascendancy of realized capital became irresistible; and
+the only efficient power left in the state was that of the emperor, who
+wrenched his taxes out of the impoverished hands of his subjects, or of
+the creditors and landlords, who, by legal process, exacted their debts
+from their debtors, and drove them to desperation. This was exactly the
+social state of the empire in its declining days. We can appreciate its
+horrors, from having had a foretaste of them during the commercial
+crises with which, during the last twenty-five years, this country has
+been visited.</p>
+
+<p>From what has now been said, it is evident that the two circumstances
+which occasioned the fall of the Roman empire, were <i>the destruction of
+its domestic agriculture, by the importation of grain from its distant
+provinces, and the accumulation of debts and taxes, arising from the
+contraction of the currency</i>. If these causes be attentively considered,
+it will be found that they not only afford a perfect solution of its
+fall, but explain how it happened at the period it did, and had not
+occurred at an earlier period. They show what it was which, slowly but
+steadily, wasting away the vitals of the empire, successively destroyed
+its rural population and agricultural industry, and at length crushed
+its property under the increasing load of debts and taxes. They explain
+how it happened that the indirect taxes, which at first were sufficient,
+with a moderate imposition of five per cent on inheritances, to support
+the large military and naval establishments of Augustus, became
+gradually unproductive, and were at length succeeded by direct taxes on
+land, of severe, and in the end destructive amount. They show what every
+page of contemporary history demonstrates, that it was neither the
+superior military power of the barbarians, nor the diminished skill and
+courage of the legions, which occasioned the overthrow of the mighty
+fabric, but the <i>wasting away of its internal resources</i>&mdash;which was the
+real cause of its decay. They tell us that it was not the timidity of
+the legions, but <i>the inability of government to array them in
+sufficient strength</i>, which rendered them unequal to the contest with an
+enemy whom, during the vigour of the state, they had so often repelled.
+They explain how it happened that Italy and Greece had become deserts in
+their rural districts, before one of the barbarians had crossed either
+the Alps or the H&aelig;mus and how Africa, Spain, and Egypt, alone of the
+provinces, retained their prosperity, when rural industry was wellnigh
+extinct in all the other parts of the empire. Lastly, they explain how
+it happened, that while the rural districts to the north of the
+Mediterranean were so generally relapsing into a state of desolation,
+the great cities of Greece and Italy long retained their prosperity, and
+the wealth of the capitalists and great proprietors who inhabited them,
+was continually increasing, while all other classes were ground to the
+earth under the weight of public or private burdens.</p>
+
+<p>It must appear, at first sight, not a little extraordinary that the very
+causes which thus evidently led to the destruction of Rome, viz., the
+unlimited importation of foreign grain and contraction of the currency,
+are those which have been most the object of the policy of the British
+government, for the last quarter of a century, by every possible means
+to promote in this country. They were imposed upon Rome by necessity.
+The extension of the empire over Spain, Africa, and Egypt, as well as
+the magnanimous policy of its government towards all its subjects,
+rendered a free trade in grain with the provinces, and large
+importations from the great corn countries, unavoidable. Public
+misfortunes, the increasing luxury of the rich, that very great
+importation of grain itself, the failure of the Spanish and Grecian
+mines, and the entire want of any paper currency to supply the place of
+the metals thus largely abstracted, necessarily and unavoidably forced
+this calamitous contraction of the currency upon the Roman empire. But
+the British policy has adopted the same principles, and done the same
+things, when <i>no necessity</i> or external pressure rendered it
+unavoidable. A free trade in grain is to be introduced, not in favour of
+distant<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_717" id="Page_717">[Pg 717]</a></span> provinces of the empire, but of its neighbours and its enemies.
+The currency has been contracted, not by public calamities, or any
+deficiency in the means of supplying the failure of the ordinary sources
+of gold and silver, but by the fixed determination of government,
+carried into execution by repeated acts of Parliament in 1819, 1826, and
+1844, to abridge the paper circulation, and deprive the nation of the
+benefit of the great discovery of modern times, by which the calamitous
+effects of the diminution in the supply of the precious metals
+throughout the world have been so materially prevented.</p>
+
+<p>Such a result must appear under all circumstances strange, and would be
+inexplicable, if we did not reflect, that the same impulse which was
+communicated to the measures of government in Rome by the influence of
+the capitalists and the clamorous inhabitants of great towns, is equally
+felt in the same stage of society in modern times. The people in our
+great cities do not call out, as in ancient days, for gratuitous
+distributions of corn from Lybia or Egypt; but they clamour just as
+loudly for free trade in grain with Poland and the Ukraine, which has
+the effect of swamping the home-grower quite as completely. The great
+capitalists do not make colossal fortunes by the plunder of subject
+provinces, as in the days of the Roman proconsuls; but they never cease
+to exert their influence to procure a contraction of the currency by the
+measures of government, which answers the purpose of augmenting their
+fortunes at the expense of the industrious classes just as well.
+Political writers, social philosophers, practical statesmen, fall in
+with the prevailing disposition of <i>the most influential classes</i>; they
+deceive themselves into the belief that they are original, and
+promulgating important truths, when they are merely yielding to the
+pressure of the strongest, or at least the most noisy, class at the
+moment in society. The Reform Bill gave <i>three-fifths</i> of the British
+representation to the members for boroughs. From that moment the
+eventual adoption of legislative measures favourable to the interests of
+capital, and agreeable to the wishes of the inhabitants of towns, how
+destructive soever to those of the country, was as certain as the daily
+distribution of Egyptian grain to the inhabitants of Rome, Antioch, and
+Constantinople was, when the mob of these cities became, from their
+formidable numbers, an object of dread to the Roman government.</p>
+
+<p>The only answer which the partisans of free trade in grain have ever
+attempted to these considerations is, that the ruin of the agriculture
+in the central provinces of the Roman empire was owing, not to the
+importation of foreign corn as a mercantile commodity, but to its
+<i>distribution gratuitously</i> to the poorer citizens of Rome,
+Constantinople, and some of the larger cities in the empire. They
+<i>admit</i>, in its fullest extent, the decay of domestic agriculture, and
+consequent ruin of the state, but allege it was owing to this gratuitous
+distribution, which was in fact a poor-law, and not to the free trade in
+grain.<small><a name="f70.1" id="f70.1" href="#f70">[70]</a></small> But a very little consideration must be sufficient to show
+that this is an elusory distinction; and that it was the unrestricted
+admission of foreign wheat by purchase, which in reality, coupled with
+the contraction of the currency, destroyed the dominion of the legions.</p>
+
+<p>1. In the first place, the number who received these gratuitous
+distributions was, as already shown, <i>so small</i>, when compared to the
+whole body of the grain-consuming population, that they could not
+materially have affected the market for agricultural produce in Italy.
+Not more than 150,000 persons received rations in Rome daily, and
+perhaps as many in the other cities of Italy. What was this in a
+peninsula containing at that period sixteen or eighteen millions of
+souls, and with 2,300,000 in its capital alone?<small><a name="f71.1" id="f71.1" href="#f71">[71]</a></small> It is evident that
+the gratuitous distributions of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_718" id="Page_718">[Pg 718]</a></span> grain, taking those at their greatest
+extent, could not have embraced a fiftieth part of the Italian
+population. What ruined the agriculturists, who used to feed the
+remaining forty-nine fiftieths? The unlimited importation of cheap grain
+from Spain, Egypt, Sicily, and Lybia, and nothing else.</p>
+
+<p>2. In the next place, even if the gratuitous distributions of grain had
+embraced twenty times the number which they did, nothing can be clearer
+than that the effect <i>on agriculture</i> is the same, whether cheap foreign
+grain is imported by the private importer, or bought and distributed by
+the government. If the home-grower <i>loses his market</i>, it is the same
+thing to him whether he does so from the effects of private importation
+or public distribution; whether his formidable competitor is the
+merchant, who brings the Lybian grain to the Tiber; or the government,
+which exacts it as a tribute from Sicily or Egypt. The difference is
+very great to the <i>urban</i> population, whether they receive their foreign
+grain in return for their own labour, or get it doled out to them from
+the government store as the price of keeping quiet. But to the <i>rural</i>
+cultivator it is immaterial, whether destruction comes upon him in the
+one way or the other. It is the <i>importation of foreign grain</i> which
+ruins him; and the effect is the same, whether the price paid for is the
+gold of the capitalist, or the blood of the legions.</p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<h2><a name="ELINOR" id="ELINOR"></a>ELINOR TRAVIS.</h2>
+<h3><span class="smcap">A Tale in Three Chapters.</span></h3>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><span class="smcap">Chapter the First.</span></p>
+
+<p>It is now forty years since I found myself, for the first time in my
+life, in the once fashionable city of Bath. I had accompanied thither
+from London a dear friend from whom I had parted two years before at
+Oxford; a man as noble as ingenuous, as gentle as he was brave. Few men
+could boast the advantages enjoyed by Rupert Sinclair. Born of noble
+blood, of a family whose peerage had been raised upon the foundation of
+a huge wealth, handsome in person, intellectual, well-informed,
+enthusiastic and aspiring, he bred a fascination around his existence
+which it was difficult to resist. I had already graduated when Rupert
+Sinclair entered Christ Church as a gentleman commoner; I was, moreover,
+his senior by five years, yet from the moment I saw him until the hour
+of his decease&mdash;with one painful interregnum&mdash;we were firm and
+unflinching friends. He was sent to the university, like others of his
+rank, to acquire such knowledge of men and books as a temporary
+residence&mdash;and that alone&mdash;in an atmosphere of mingled learning and
+frivolity, is generally supposed to impart. His father looked upon all
+book knowledge as superfluous, except in a parson or schoolmaster; his
+lady mother would have been shocked to find him, whether at Oxford or
+elsewhere, any thing but the gay and fashionable nonentity which her
+taste and experience had taught her to regard as the perfection of God's
+fair creation. Lord Railton was a courtier, and affected to be a
+politician; her ladyship was a woman of fashion. It is surprising to me
+that, with their views of a nobleman's duties at Oxford, they should
+have thought it necessary to procure for their son the services of one
+who had nothing better to offer for his amusement, than the poor
+learning he had picked up at Eton and elsewhere, to dole out again to
+the best advantage, for the support of himself and widowed mother. I
+ought rather to say it was surprising to me <i>then</i>. I have grown wiser
+since. A tutor was necessary to the position of Lord Railton's son, and
+it was my happiness to be chosen the instructor of Rupert Sinclair.
+Every possible pains had been taken to ruin the intellect and impair the
+moral faculties of the youth. His earliest teachers had been strictly
+enjoined to give him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_719" id="Page_719">[Pg 719]</a></span> no tasks which should subject him to the slightest
+inconvenience, and were forbidden, under pain of dismissal, to ruffle
+the serenity of his temper, or intercept the slightest movement of his
+mind, however cross or wayward. Rupert in his very cradle had been
+taught, both by precept and example, that his equals in rank were his
+fellow creatures, and that all below him were&mdash;creatures, it is true,
+but the fellows of one another, and not of him and such as he; that the
+men to whose virtue, discretion, and conduct he was confided&mdash;his
+<span class="smcaplc">TEACHERS</span>&mdash;were&mdash;oh, mockery of mockeries!&mdash;his dependents and inferiors,
+and necessary to him as his nurse or footman, but not a whit more so!
+Lord Railton was a tyrant, self-willed and imperious by nature, and as
+cold-blooded and selfish as a superadded artistocratic education could
+render him. He saw little of his children, whom he terrified when he did
+see them, and busied himself in this world with little more than the
+intrigues and plots of the political junto to whom he was bound by a
+community of interests, rather than affectionately attached. It is my
+firm belief that miracles have not ceased upon the earth. Invisible
+angels interpose now, as did the living saints of old, to repair the
+faults and infirmities of nature, and by a suspension of our ordinary
+laws to proclaim the might and mercy of the Divinity. How but by a
+miracle could the character of Rupert Sinclair have belied the natural
+reasoning of all ordinary mortals, exhibiting the utter annihilation of
+the intimate connexion of cause and effect, and the independence of the
+infant soul, when God so wills it, of the machinations of the wicked,
+and the vicious trifling of the foolish? The good sense of the youth had
+strengthened and increased under the enervating system which would have
+destroyed a weaker brain and a less honest heart. I was the tutor of
+Sinclair, but I suffered him to sketch out his own plan of study. His
+mother had not failed to forward me the usual instructions respecting
+the treatment of her darling child; but had she been silent I should not
+have insisted upon a strict adherence to the college system with one
+who, neither in the university nor in the world, to which he was about
+to be summoned, would be tasked to remember or repeat one syllable of
+his lessons. Great is the temptation to dwell upon these early days of
+our attachment; for, alas! a pang must wait upon the pen when it traces
+the last record of a period unclouded by grief. An account of the
+earliest springtime that promised so fair a summer and harvest, is, it
+is true, not necessary to the main plot of the drama I have undertaken
+to write; but one of its chief characters can hardly be thoroughly
+understood without some reference to his conduct and pursuits previously
+to the commencement of the action. To say that I was prepossessed in
+favour of my pupil after my first conversation with him, is to say but
+little. I was at once surprised, delighted, and charmed. I had expected
+to receive a spoiled child of fortune; a giddy, self-willed, arrogant,
+and overbearing boy. I met with one whose demeanour was gentle, modest,
+and sedate. A childlike simplicity governed his manners; reflection and
+sound judgment his discourse. Long before the close of my young friend's
+academical career I had gained his entire confidence&mdash;he my heart; and
+<i>at</i> the close of it, I had not occasion to change one opinion or one
+sentiment entertained for my charge at the commencement of our
+friendship; so transparent are the minds of the ingenuous, and of those
+whom nature shelters from the baleful influences of life. It must,
+however, be stated, that in the all but perfect specimen of humanity
+presented to the world in the person of Rupert Sinclair, there existed
+one flaw to convict it of mortality, and to establish its relation with
+universal error. The simplicity spoken of as characteristic of the man,
+degenerated into weakness; faith in the goodness of his fellow-creatures
+into glaring credulity. It is a singular fact, and one that must be
+accounted for by those who have made the <i>Mind</i> an especial study, that
+whilst no man was quicker in detecting the slightest indication of his
+own imperfection in another, no one could be less conscious of its
+existence in himself, or less alive to imposition, the moment it was
+practised under his own eye, and against his own good-nature. How many
+times, during his residence in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_720" id="Page_720">[Pg 720]</a></span> Oxford, Rupert Sinclair became the
+victim of the unprincipled and the sharper, I will not venture to say,
+prepared as I am to assert that no discovery of falsehood and imposture
+ever convinced him of the folly of his benevolence, or of the
+worthlessness of the objects upon whom his favours had been showered.
+The world is said to be divided into two classes; into those who suspect
+all men until they are proved honest, and those who believe all men
+honest until they are proved to be false. The name of Rupert Sinclair
+might be written in neither category. He not only believed the world to
+be good prior to experience, but he denied it to be bad, let experience
+succeed as it might in convicting it of evil.</p>
+
+<p>It was exactly two years after Sinclair quitted Oxford, that I received
+a letter from him, requesting me to meet him in London as soon after the
+receipt of his letter as my engagements would permit. The long vacation
+had again commenced. Rupert was no longer a student, or, to speak more
+correctly, books had now become the solace and recreation of his leisure
+hours, rather than the business of his life. To please his fond and very
+foolish mother, he had accepted a commission in the Guards. The small
+ambition of Lady Railton was consummated the moment her noble boy
+appeared in her drawing-room "en grande tenue;" as for the peer, he was
+too absorbed in his own diplomacy to interfere with that of her
+ladyship, in whose knowledge of the world and sound discretion he placed
+unbounded faith. I attended to the summons of Sinclair without delay.
+Upon arriving in London I went to his hotel, and found him recovering
+from a fit of illness which at one period had threatened his life, but
+of which he had as yet kept his family in ignorance. He had been
+recommended by his physicians to try the waters and mild temperature of
+Bath; and he was willing to obey them, provided I would become his
+companion. My time was my own, and I loved Sinclair too well to throw an
+obstacle in his way, had not the offer itself been temptation enough to
+one who had passed so many months of physical inactivity, without one
+holiday, in the dusty gloominess of college rooms. In the course of two
+days our preparations were made, and we quitted London.</p>
+
+<p>A week glided by in happy idleness. The invalid, compelled to keep his
+room for many hours of the day, was thrown upon his resources, and upon
+such as I could command for his amusement. The past is always a pleasant
+subject of discourse where the speakers are young, and the past is a day
+of sunshine, still lingering and warm. The days we had seen were bright
+enough, and to speak of them was to bring them back in all their recent
+freshness. Rupert was twenty-one, and he wondered at the ingratitude of
+man that called this world a scene of strife and misery. I was
+twenty-six, and as yet without a calamity. I had never known my father;
+and I had maintained my mother in comfort for many years. I had yet to
+part with <i>her</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Another week, and the invalid was convalescent. The walks were extended
+and the prescriptions torn up. Invitations came and were accepted. A
+distant relative of Lady Railton was in Bath. Sinclair visited her, and
+was the next day a guest at her table. There was another guest there.
+Her name was <span class="smcap">Elinor Travis</span>.</p>
+
+<p>Twenty times, on the day I speak of, had Sinclair resolved not to keep
+his engagement, but to send an apology to Mrs Twisleton, and to return
+to London on the following morning. He had become tired, he said, of
+idleness, and the frivolities that surrounded us. One word of
+encouragement from me, and Sinclair would <i>not</i> have dined with Mrs
+Twisleton, would <i>not</i> have met with <i>her</i> who gave the colouring to his
+future life, would <i>not</i> have blasted every&mdash;&mdash;but I must not
+anticipate.</p>
+
+<p>General Travis and his family were amongst the most fashionable of the
+gay multitude then resident at Bath. They lived in first-rate style, and
+gathered about them all who aspired to a position in that upper world
+peopled pre-eminently by the "ton." The general was reputed a man of
+enormous wealth, and his banker's book procured for him the respect that
+was denied him in Debrett. The general was the father of two
+children&mdash;daughters&mdash;Elinor and Adela. His wife was also living. They
+were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_721" id="Page_721">[Pg 721]</a></span> all, according to report, essentially dashing people. So much I
+knew of them at the period of Sinclair's first acquaintance with the
+ill-fated Elinor.</p>
+
+<p>After dining with Mrs Twisleton, Sinclair altered his mind. His
+departure was delayed. Within a day or two he was again invited to Mrs
+Twisleton's, and again he met the general and his family. Well, there
+was nothing to excite suspicion in all this! Sinclair said nothing; no
+observation escaped me. I concluded that a few days would put an end to
+the new interest that had been raised, and that we should return to
+London as quietly as we had left it. I was grievously mistaken.</p>
+
+<p>Since our arrival in Bath we had been early risers, and our habits
+generally somewhat primitive. Suddenly Sinclair took it into his head to
+walk without me for an hour or so before breakfast. He invariably looked
+flushed and confused on his return. At least I thought so. I was
+puzzled, but still said nothing.</p>
+
+<p>I had been favoured by Mrs Twisleton with one or two invitations to
+dinner, but had never cared to accept them. I resolved, should
+opportunity again offer, to accompany Sinclair to this lady's house.
+Whilst waiting, somewhat impatiently and in vain, for another invitation
+from Mrs Twisleton, a grand ball was announced at General Travis's, and
+Sinclair was in the number of the favoured guests. He was requested to
+bring his friend. "His friend" did not refuse.</p>
+
+<p>There were in truth grandeur, profusion, and style sufficient in the
+entertainments of that evening. No additional outlay could have added to
+the sumptuous provision that was made for the gratification and delight
+of every sense. Eye and ear were ravished by the luxuries set before
+them, and the grosser appetites were not forgotten. What Indian wealth!
+What princely hospitality! Well might the general be esteemed the most
+royal of entertainers. Nobility lost none of its prerogative in mixing
+in such a scene as this, upon which an emperor might have descended with
+no dishonour to his ermine. I experienced for a time the full power of
+the enchantment, and acknowledged, against my will, the sovereign
+dominion of Mammon. I was presented to my hostess and the general. The
+former was a woman of fifty or thereabouts, delicately formed, pale, and
+somewhat sickly-looking; there were traces of feminine beauty on her
+countenance, but, such as they were, retreating rapidly before disease
+or care, or some ailment hidden from the looker-on. She seemed more like
+a gentle handmaiden than the mistress of the happy feast. The general
+was of another race of beings. He stood six feet two, but his extreme
+height was modified by the admirable proportions of his frame. He was
+firmly built, and but for a certain unsatisfactory expression in his
+countenance, might have been considered one of the handsomest men of his
+day. This expression it is not easy to describe. It proceeded from his
+eye, and seemed to communicate with all his features, leaving the stamp
+of low cunning upon every one. The eye was large and grey, and very
+restless; always in motion; always attempting to convey more than the
+inner man would answer for, or the observer take for granted. It had a
+volubility of expression like his tongue, and both bespoke their owner
+no efficient actor.</p>
+
+<p>"You look magnificent to-night," said Sinclair, addressing the general
+after my introduction.</p>
+
+<p>"So, so, with slender opportunities!" said the general. "See us in
+London, my young friend. No place in the world like London for the
+exercise of a man's genius&mdash;a woman's it should be said, to-night, for
+Elinor is the presiding genius here. Have you ever seen these flowers?
+Pretty, eh? Her handiwork."</p>
+
+<p>Sinclair trifled for a moment with an exquisite specimen of artificial
+flowers, adorning an alabaster vase; but he gave no answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you seen her to-night?" continued the general.</p>
+
+<p>"Not yet."</p>
+
+<p>"She's with the Indian Yahoo, no doubt. He arrived this afternoon, and
+
+she will give him no rest. She has engaged him for the first four
+quadrilles, that she may hear the natural history of the Chimpanzee
+without interruption, which her cousin has promised to relate to her at
+the first convenient opportunity."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_722" id="Page_722">[Pg 722]</a></span>"Her cousin has arrived then?" asked Sinclair, turning slightly pale.</p>
+
+<p>"This very day. Our information is quite correct. His mother, the Begum,
+is dead, and has left him enough in jewels to purchase an empire. The
+specie found in chests is immense. A lucky dog, with that brown face of
+his! If it were as black as soot, he might command a duchess. Elinor and
+he are first cousins, and are much attached, although they haven't seen
+each other for years."</p>
+
+<p>As the general spoke, music struck up, and a movement in our immediate
+neighbourhood announced the approach of dancers. Amongst them was a
+young and lovely woman. Her arm was in that of a small man, with a
+copper-coloured face and disgusting features. His beautiful partner,
+more beautiful by the contrast, looked proud of her prize, which, if I
+correctly interpreted the admiring gaze of the assembly, was coveted for
+one reason or another by every dowager and unmarried woman in the room.
+I felt an instinctive longing to smother the Yahoo.</p>
+
+<p>Inexpressibly lovely looked Elinor Travis, as she gracefully led off the
+merry dance. She had reached her twentieth year, and was in the full
+glory of her womanhood. Tall, yet exquisitely moulded, she left nothing
+for fancy to desire or imagination to create. Her dark and animated eye
+sparkled with living joy, and her perfect features were illuminated by
+its fire. I had never before beheld a creature so richly endowed with
+natural gifts; one who united in her person so much grace, sculpture,
+and expression; and yet, strange to say, the feeling all inspired was
+the very opposite to that which might have been expected. The
+consciousness of beauty was too definitely written upon that brow. That
+melting eye had inherited too much of the worldliness that played about
+the eager vision of her sire. Maidenly modesty and retirement were
+wanting to elevate and dignify mere voluptuousness. I was repulsed
+rather than attracted by a form, which, had it been more feminine, might
+have served for an angel; and as it was, was not sufficiently divine for
+a mortal woman. Such was my first impression, formed almost upon the
+instant. It never was removed.</p>
+
+<p>Sinclair and I looked on. The spirits of Elinor were exuberant. She
+laboured as it seemed, under more than ordinary excitement. She laughed
+and chatted with her tawny partner with a delight which it was
+impossible for such a copper monster to create. The gaiety of the lady
+had but one effect upon her partner. At short intervals he opened his
+jaws and exhibited his teeth to the company. Having rivalled a hyena in
+the hideousness of his grin, he closed the jaws and hid his molars. Far
+different was the effect upon another. It took but a very little time to
+discover that Rupert Sinclair had not been proof against the charms of
+this darling of nature. His heart had felt her witchery, and his spirit
+was enchained&mdash;not utterly and irretrievably, I fondly trusted, for I
+knew his worth, and could not willingly entrust him to such doubtful
+keeping. Elinor Travis was not the wife for Rupert Sinclair. Thanks to
+the Yahoo, my fears at first were not alarming; still it was vexatious
+enough to behold the pain with which Sinclair evidently regarded the
+good fortune of the Indian, and the complacency with which the monster
+received the favour of one of the loveliest of her sex. Once during the
+dance, the change of the figure brought the lady within a few feet of
+Sinclair. Her back was towards him, but, as if aware of his vicinity,
+she turned round and cast the lustre of her full eye upon him. She
+smiled, and archly nodded. Rupert shook like a leaf; the colour mounted
+to his cheek, and his heart beat almost audibly. I grew alarmed. My
+faith in the Yahoo was shaken, and I trembled for my friend. The
+position of the dancers was again reversed. Elinor faced us. Her eye
+once more was fixed upon Rupert, but this time, as I believed, exulting
+in triumph. Could it be possible that she was aware of her influence,
+and that she inhumanly trifled with this man's affection? What meant
+that ardent gaze and that triumphant smile? As the general had informed
+us, so it happened. The Yahoo danced four quadrilles with Elinor, and
+then vouchsafed the loan of his blackness to other<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_723" id="Page_723">[Pg 723]</a></span> ladies for the rest
+of the evening. Miss Travis being at liberty, I proposed to Rupert an
+adjournment to our hotel. The gentleman, in answer, started up and
+secured the hand of Elinor for the next dance. His chair at my side was
+filled on the instant by the general himself. I listened and replied to
+the questions of the latter as well as I could, watching every movement,
+step, and gesture of the young sorcerer and her victim.</p>
+
+<p>"Your friend, Mr Wilson, is not so gay as usual. What has happened?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"You return to London, I believe, in"&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>The general paused.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr Sinclair's leave of absence," I answered, "will soon expire."</p>
+
+<p>"A gentle-spirited man, Mr Wilson. He does you credit."</p>
+
+<p>"He owes me little, general," I answered. "Providence has been bountiful
+to him."</p>
+
+<p>"Strange! And his father, they say, is as great a brute."</p>
+
+<p>"Lord Railton," I said, "is not so amiable as his son."</p>
+
+<p>"Proud and overbearing! But a magnificent rent-roll though! His son does
+not appear a man of the world. Vastly good-natured, but he wants fire
+and character."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr Sinclair does not do himself justice," I replied. "There is more in
+him than meets the eye."</p>
+
+<p>"You are a scholar, Mr Wilson," suddenly exclaimed the general, "and can
+appreciate a literary curiosity. Do me the favour to accompany me to my
+study. I have a Greek manuscript which I picked up in Samaria, and which
+they tell me is invaluable."</p>
+
+<p>Before I could reply, the general was on his legs, and conducting me to
+his room. The dance was still proceeding.</p>
+
+<p>"I am a simple man, sir," said the general when we reached the
+apartment, "and very moderate in my desires. We are often called
+avaricious when we are simply prudent. I despise wealth but for the sake
+of my children. There," he exclaimed suddenly, showing me a
+jewel-case&mdash;"there's stuff that would buy up Bath."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed!"</p>
+
+<p>"What do you imagine this to be, Mr Wilson?" next inquired the general,
+holding up a folded letter.</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot guess!" said I.</p>
+
+<p>"An offer of a peerage. Why should I accept it? I have no son, and am
+without personal ambition. The world do not give men credit for such
+self-denial. You are a constant visitor at Sackville Park, I presume?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, in truth. I have been there but once."</p>
+
+<p>"Lady Railton doats upon her son, I believe?"</p>
+
+<p>"A very fond mother," I replied.</p>
+
+<p>The general eyed me suspiciously, and went no further; but he produced
+forthwith his manuscript from Samaria. It was really a curiosity in its
+way, being a transcript of one of the gospels in a dialect which I had
+never before seen, and of which, I think, but few specimens can remain.
+But I had a fidgety desire to get back to the ball-room, which prevented
+any thing like a satisfactory inspection of the precious document.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall we return, general?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"By all means," said the general, evincing at the same time no
+disposition to budge. "I trust, Mr Wilson," he continued, "that you will
+be no stranger at our house. We are humble people, as you see us, but we
+have friends at court. A man of your talents should command preferment;
+but these are sad times, and the best fare ill enough without a helping
+hand. I stand well with the premier."</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt, deservedly," said I. "You have probably seen much service,
+general?"</p>
+
+<p>"A little, a little;" replied the soldier with mock humility. "But as to
+yourself, Mr Wilson, they must make a bishop of you."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, general!" said I with unnecessary modesty.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, but I say they must! Leave that to me. We want sound and good men
+like yourself at the head of the church. Methodism must be put down. It
+is increasing frightfully. Vigorous and learned men are required to
+cope with it."</p>
+
+<p>"Methodism," said I, with becoming warmth, "is undoubtedly a great curse
+to the church at the present moment, and every honest churchman<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_724" id="Page_724">[Pg 724]</a></span> is
+bound, to the extent of his ability, to oppose its further progress."</p>
+
+<p>"My own words, Mr Wilson; and I beg you not to suspect me of flattery
+when I tell you that half a dozen men like yourself would do more to
+bring back a salutary state of things than any legal enactments they
+could contrive. Sinclair has told me of your energy, high honour, and
+attainments, and it would be a sin to suffer them to be inactive."</p>
+
+<p>I confess I shall never forgive myself for having patiently, nay
+somewhat greedily, swallowed such monstrous and glaring trash as that
+above related, and for having been cajoled by it into spending one long
+half hour with my wily general in his study. I left the room at length,
+in a state of heroic excitement, and in time to discover that Rupert
+Sinclair and his partner had quitted the apartment in which I had
+previously left them.</p>
+
+<p>There remained upon my mind no longer a doubt of Rupert's attachment to
+this lovely woman, and I contemplated its issue with no feeling of
+gratification or delight. Notwithstanding the agreeable communications
+of the general, I could not thoroughly trust him; and as for the young
+lady herself, as I have already hinted, she was as adapted to the mild
+nature of Sinclair as a lioness to a lamb. What would Lord Railton say
+to the match? What would Lady Railton do, with her sublimated notions of
+marquises and dukes? I deplored the ill luck that had brought us to
+Bath, and resolved to carry the youth back whilst he still remained
+master of his actions. But where was he? I sought him in vain in every
+public room of the house. Neither he nor the syren could be found. Vexed
+and hurt, although I scarcely knew why, I determined to quit the place,
+and to return to the hotel. Attached to the general's house was a
+spacious pleasure garden, and upon the occasion of this fête it was
+studded with a number of small lamps, which cast a picturesque and
+oriental gleam in parts, leaving the remaining portion of the ground in
+deeper shade. The night was lovely. Passing the door that led into the
+garden, I turned into the latter, almost without a thought. Visitors
+were there before me, and to escape them I retired into the gloom.
+Within a few yards of me passed the pair of whom I had been in search.
+The arm of Sinclair was twined around the waist of Elinor, and his head
+was bent on the ground. They advanced, and were soon beyond my ken. I
+still heard their steps; but suddenly these ceased. The lovers had
+stopped, and to my great discomfort they spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"You do not know him," said a voice that did no dishonour to the coral
+lips through which it came. "His heart is fixed upon this hated match."</p>
+
+<p>"You smiled upon him, Elinor," said Rupert, in a voice of emotion; "you
+gave him hope."</p>
+
+<p>"For your sake, Sinclair, I smiled upon the man I hated; for your dear
+sake. The least suspicion of the truth, and we are ruined. I cannot have
+you banished from me."</p>
+
+<p>"What is to be done?" exclaimed Rupert in despair.</p>
+
+<p>I could hear no more. The voices dissolved into whispers, and these soon
+ceased. The fate of Rupert Sinclair was sealed.</p>
+
+<p>Now, what was my course at this alarming crisis? What steps did it
+behove me&mdash;the friend, tutor, and counsellor of Rupert Sinclair&mdash;to take
+at such a moment as this, when the happiness of his whole life was about
+to be decided? Was there, in fact, any thing to do? Had not Sinclair
+already reached that point at which remonstrance is vain, and advice
+impertinent? And why should I remonstrate at all? What had I to say
+against a union with a lovely and accomplished woman, whose father had
+perhaps wealth enough to buy off the prejudices of Lord and Lady
+Railton, had they been ten times as bigoted as they really were? What
+could I produce against the young lady herself but a prejudice formed at
+first sight, and perhaps as unfounded as it had been hastily adopted?
+Was not Sinclair old enough to select his partner for himself; and when
+did interference in the delicate affairs of love ever lead to any thing
+but the confusion of the intruder, and the acceleration of the mischief
+he absurdly hoped to prevent? I was at the height of my perplexity when
+Sinclair returned to me. I heard his footsteps at the door, and
+immediately plunged into my bedroom.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_725" id="Page_725">[Pg 725]</a></span>Next morning I was awake betimes, but Rupert was up before me. Indeed,
+when I beheld him, I doubted whether he had been to rest at all. He
+looked haggard and distressed. I took my cue from his downcast appearance.</p>
+
+<p>"Rupert," said I, "it is my intention to quit Bath."</p>
+
+<p>"When?" he inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"Possibly to-day. To-morrow at the furthest."</p>
+
+<p>Rupert sighed.</p>
+
+<p>"We return together, I presume?" said I in continuation.</p>
+
+<p>"Wilson," answered Rupert, in a tone of kindness, "I have never deceived
+you yet; I will not deceive you now. Nor shall you suffer in any way
+from acts of mine. I cannot leave this place. It is not expedient that
+you should stay."</p>
+
+<p>"Your leave of absence soon expires," I said.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall not fail to be at my duty, Wilson," continued Sinclair. "But
+there is important business to do before I leave this city."</p>
+
+<p>"You have entered, Rupert, into some rash engagement."</p>
+
+<p>"Into an engagement&mdash;yes; not rashly, I believe; for I have held
+consultation with my heart&mdash;deep, earnest communings, that have
+sanctioned my fondest inclination."</p>
+
+<p>"Beware, Sinclair!" I answered. "In some cases, the heart is no safe
+monitor; and inclination and conviction become convertible terms."</p>
+
+<p>"You know my secret, Wilson."</p>
+
+<p>"I can guess it."</p>
+
+<p>"You saw her last night. I wished you to see her. I desired to hear from
+your lips a confirmation of the regard she has inspired in one"&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>I shook my head.</p>
+
+<p>"You are right&mdash;you are right," proceeded Sinclair, hastily. "You shall
+not speak. You shall not even tell me how divine a being Heaven has
+placed within my reach. You shall not be involved in the calamity which
+an irrevocable act may bring upon two whose crime it is to love too
+well."</p>
+
+<p>"Rupert," I replied, "I am not disposed to desert you at so critical a
+period of our life. We are both young. You are enthusiastic; your good
+opinion of mankind has before now led you into error. Have you well
+pondered on this step? Can you rely on Elinor Travis."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Is she as brave as she is gentle&mdash;as faithful as she is fair?"</p>
+
+<p>"I would answer for her with my life."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, or with twenty lives, if you had them, for the venture. Yet you
+have not known her long."</p>
+
+<p>"Long enough to value and to love her. Does it require an age to
+discover truthfulness so palpable as hers?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have done, Sinclair," said I. "God grant you may be happy!"</p>
+
+<p>"You return to London, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Such is my intention."</p>
+
+<p>"You do wisely. I would not have you stay with me. You must be clear
+from all participation in this business, let it end as it may. I know my
+father. His anger and his vengeance, however undeserved, would fall on
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"Would these were my greatest fears!" I answered, with a sigh.</p>
+
+<p>"Fear not for <i>me</i>, Wilson. The happiness of your friend is bound up
+with that of Elinor Travis. I tell you, in all sincerity, I cannot live
+without her. Fate decrees our movements. No woman but she has made me
+conscious of that great fountain of love which lies within the bosom of
+us all&mdash;none has had power to direct the stream, and to enchain me,
+heart and soul, to her will."</p>
+
+<p>"And should that will," I quickly urged, "be found as evil as
+resistless"&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Prove it so, and its power ceases on the instant. No; it is resistless,
+because virtuous and pure. I submit to an enchantment, but it is
+practised by a fairy as good as she is beautiful."</p>
+
+<p>It was useless to argue so abstruse a point with so interested and
+impassioned a reasoner. I remained silent.</p>
+
+<p>"One promise I must exact from you," continued Sinclair. "In passing
+through London, you will not see my father."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall not wait upon his lordship," I replied.</p>
+
+<p>"Nor mention, if you please, one syllable of this affair, should chance
+bring you together. For the present, I have sufficient reasons for
+wishing you to keep my secret sacred. In good time all will be known."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_726" id="Page_726">[Pg 726]</a></span>"You shall be obeyed, of course."</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks," said Sinclair, grasping my hand, and holding it
+affectionately: "all will be well, I trust."</p>
+
+<p>For the rest of the day, the subject was not revived. I begged Sinclair
+to follow his own pleasure, without reference to me, and to leave me to
+the few arrangements necessary before departure. He insisted, however,
+upon spending the last day with me; and during many hours of
+well-remembered intercourse, he evinced a friendliness and affectionate
+regard such as I had never before experienced&mdash;even from him. We sat
+together until the early hour of morning chid us to our beds.</p>
+
+<p>"There is still one thing to say," said Sinclair, when we parted for the
+night, "and it had better be communicated now. Heaven knows, Wilson,
+when and where shall be our next meeting. It may be soon; it may be
+never. Death to one of us&mdash;a hundred circumstances may interfere between
+our hopes and their fruition. I have desired to tell you, many times,
+what I am sure you will not hear unkindly, although the fear of
+offending you has kept me silent. Yet, you ought to know it. I am sure
+your peace of mind will be secured when you know that the present
+enjoyments of your mother can, under no circumstances, ever be
+decreased. I have taken care, should any thing happen to yourself or me,
+that her latter days shall remain as peaceful as you, her faithful son,
+have rendered them."</p>
+
+<p>I would have spoken to my friend and benefactor, but could not. I shook
+his hand cordially, and an honest tear told him my gratitude. So we
+parted, as I half feared for ever; for his words and actions were full
+of evil omen.</p>
+
+<p>Upon reaching my bedroom on this eventful evening, the first thing that
+caught my eye was a mysterious document lying on the table&mdash;a lady's
+note. "A mistake," thought I, approaching the unusual visitor. Not so;
+it was addressed to me. I opened it, and read. It ran as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Dear sir&mdash;Pardon my abruptness. As a friend of Mr Rupert Sinclair,
+I entreat five minutes' conversation. I shall be at home to-morrow
+at noon. Pray, come. His happiness depends upon your punctuality.
+Keep this communication secret.&mdash;Yours, &amp;c.,</p>
+
+<p class="right">"<span class="smcap">Charlotte Twisleton</span>."</p></div>
+
+<p>The plot was thickening with a vengeance. What could this mean? And what
+was I to do? Clearly to wait upon the lady, as directed, to postpone my
+departure, to forfeit my fare, and to mix myself deeper than ever in a
+mystery, which, trusting to appearances, was likely to end in the ruin
+of Mr Rupert Sinclair, and his more luckless tutor. Taking care to avoid
+Sinclair in the morning, I directed his servant to acquaint him with my
+change of views; and quitted the hotel some hour or two before the time
+fixed for the anxious interview. Punctually at noon, I presented myself
+at Mrs Twisleton's door. My alarm was intense when I reached that lady's
+apartment. She had evidently been waiting my arrival with extreme
+impatience. Before I could speak or bow, she rushed towards me, and
+exclaimed&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Is it over, sir? Is he gone?"</p>
+
+<p>"What over, madam?" I answered. "Who gone?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr Sinclair. Is he married?"</p>
+
+<p>"Married?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Married. They are to be, if they are not already. Take him to
+town, sir. Drag him away. We shall be ruined."</p>
+
+<p>I had thought so for the last four-and-twenty hours; but I had certainly
+not included Mrs Twisleton in the calculation.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr Thompson," continued the lady, forgetting my name in her anxiety,
+"Lord Railton will go raving mad if this should come about. We shall all
+be punished. I know him well. You, for having brought Mr Sinclair here;
+I, for having introduced him to the impostors; and himself for having
+been caught in their snares. And he is a powerful man, and has the means
+to punish us."</p>
+
+<p>He had certainly the means of punishing Mrs Twisleton; for her son, at
+college, had been already promised the next presentation to a valuable
+living in Yorkshire. Her fears on my account were hardly so well
+founded.</p>
+
+<p>"Look here, Mr Wilson," said Mrs<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_727" id="Page_727">[Pg 727]</a></span> Twisleton, hurrying to her
+writing-desk, and taking from it a letter, which she placed in my hands.
+"Read that."</p>
+
+<p>I ran my eye over the document. It was from a female correspondent in
+London and it conjured Mrs Twisleton to avoid all connexion whatever
+with General Travis and his too fascinating family. The general was
+described as a bold bad man, utterly ruined, involved beyond the
+possibility of recovery, a mere hanger-on of fashion, an adventurer. His
+wife was spoken of as a mere simple instrument in his hand; naturally
+disposed to goodness, but perverted by the cruel necessity of her
+position. But what said this timely&mdash;oh, if but timely!&mdash;informer
+respecting <i>her</i> whose name I greedily sought out in these disastrous
+pages? I grew sick as I proceeded in the narrative. Elinor Travis&mdash;so
+said the letter&mdash;was a clever, subtle, accomplished, and designing
+woman. Numerous had been her flirtations, not few her conquests; but the
+game she had brought down, it had never been worth the general's while
+to bag. The general had been a great traveller. He had passed some years
+in India. During his residence there, the fair fame of Elinor Travis had
+been&mdash;oh, horror!&mdash;sullied; falsely so, some said; but still sullied.
+She had loved an officer with whom, it was reported&mdash;I read no more.</p>
+
+<p>"The writer of this letter, madam," I asked&mdash;"is she trustworthy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Alas! alas! yes," exclaimed Mrs Twisleton, in despair.</p>
+
+<p>"It must be prevented by all and every means," I continued.</p>
+
+<p>"We are still safe then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, although I cannot answer for an hour. He must be spoken to,
+remonstrated with"&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Threatened," added Mrs Twisleton, stamping with her foot. "Any thing to
+save us."</p>
+
+<p>"I will appeal to his reason."</p>
+
+<p>"Then we are lost," said the lady, emphatically. "That family never
+listened to reason yet."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know," I enquired, "this great foreigner whom they call the
+Yahoo?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no! no!" exclaimed Mrs Twisleton, shaking her head impatiently. "I
+don't know any of them. I disown them all; they are all impostors. I
+said so from the beginning. Oh, Mr Wilson, what <i>can</i> he have to do with
+it? How can you talk so idly?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs Twisleton," said I, "have I your permission to communicate the
+contents of this letter to Mr Sinclair?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but never mention my name in the matter. Take the address of the
+writer, and communicate with her yourself. Save your friend, and make
+your fortune. Get us all well out of the scrape, and then depend upon me
+for speaking about you to his lordship. He shall know the part you have
+played; and no man can be more generous than Lord Railton when the fit
+is on him."</p>
+
+<p>"Do not trouble yourself, madam, on my account," I replied. "This letter
+I will borrow, with your leave, for awhile. There is not a moment to
+lose. The next hour may prove fatal to the interests of our unfortunate
+friend."</p>
+
+<p>I had not spoken before Mrs Twisleton pulled the bell violently, shook
+my hand eagerly, and urged me to the door. Within ten minutes, I was
+face to face with Sinclair.</p>
+
+<p>"Sinclair," said I, "you must return to London with me."</p>
+
+<p>"What has happened, then?" he inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"You stand on a precipice," I continued. "Advance but another step, and
+you are lost."</p>
+
+<p>"Translate your language, friend," said Rupert, "and suffer me at least
+to understand you."</p>
+
+<p>"You are mistaken, Sinclair&mdash;cruelly deceived."</p>
+
+<p>"What, again?" he asked, with a smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, again and again. No experience teaches you. No conviction reaches
+your judgment. Will you listen to me, and believe me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I will listen to you."</p>
+
+<p>"The family of General Travis are not what you suppose them. I can prove
+them unworthy your confidence and affection. Will you link your fate
+with that of one who"&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>I hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>"Go on," said Sinclair, calmly.</p>
+
+<p>"Read, read for yourself!" I exclaimed, placing the letter I had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_728" id="Page_728">[Pg 728]</a></span>
+received from Mrs Twisleton, without further ceremony, in his hands.</p>
+
+<p>He did read&mdash;every line, without the smallest surprise or
+perturbation&mdash;and then folded the document, and gave it back to me. I
+thought him mad.</p>
+
+<p>"This is no news to me, Wilson," he said quietly. "I have been put on my
+guard respecting these slanderers. Their baseness does not take me by
+surprise. The trick is a poor one."</p>
+
+<p>"The trick!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; if it deserve no harsher name. What know you of the writer of that
+letter?"</p>
+
+<p>I had but one answer to give to that question&mdash;"Nothing." And the name
+of Mrs Twisleton was sacred.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought so," proceeded Rupert. "Every assertion contained in that
+precious document has already met with a sufficient refutation. I know
+<i>my</i> informant, and can rely upon <i>my</i> information; advantages of which,
+dear Wilson, you cannot boast."</p>
+
+<p>"Sinclair," I replied, with warmth, "remember what passed between us
+yesterday. 'Prove,' said you, 'that Elinor Travis is less good than
+beautiful and her influence ceases from that moment.' Give me time to
+prove it, or to ask your pardon and hers for as much as I have said
+already. I must exact this from you. It is all I ask. With this document
+before me, I can demand no less."</p>
+
+<p>"Do as you will. What do you propose?"</p>
+
+<p>"To go at once to town; to seek out the writer of this letter, and to
+obtain from her proofs of her allegations which even you must respect
+and listen to. If I fail to secure them, you shall be pained no more by
+interference of mine."</p>
+
+<p>"Be it so," said Sinclair; "I await your return here."</p>
+
+<p>Upon the evening of this day I was in London, and on the following
+morning at the residence of the lady whom I sought. Ill luck attended my
+steps. She was ill, and could not be seen. For a week I remained in
+London, unable to gain an interview, or to communicate with her. I
+obtained the name of her physician, waited upon him, and asked him to
+convey a letter from me to his patient. It was impossible. It was of the
+highest consequence to keep the lady tranquil. In every post I wrote to
+Sinclair, informing him of my disappointment, and conjuring him to take
+no steps until my mind, as well as his, was satisfied. He returned no
+answer to my communications, but I relied upon his friendship. Upon the
+eighth day of my absence, sick to death with impatience and idleness,
+and no nearer to my object than on the first day of my arrival, I
+resolved to return to Bath, and to remain with my friend until I should
+receive intelligence of the lady's convalescence. Something might be
+done by remonstrance and entreaty. To leave him to himself, was to give
+up every chance of his salvation.</p>
+
+<p>The coach in which I travelled halted at Marlborough for dinner. When I
+alighted, I perceived, but took no particular notice of a post-chaise
+standing at the door of the inn. I had scarcely set foot in the house,
+however, before I encountered General Travis. The moment he caught sight
+of me, he seemed to become agitated or alarmed. He approached me&mdash;took
+me by the arm, and led me into the open air.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you seen them?" he eagerly asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Seen whom?" I asked in return.</p>
+
+<p>"Your friend. He is a villain!"</p>
+
+<p>"General Travis," I said indignantly, "I have no friend to whom that
+term applies, nor must you couple it with any name that's dear to me."</p>
+
+<p>"Forgive me, forgive me!" said the general with evident grief. "I have
+been deceived, cruelly deceived; my house is deserted&mdash;my child is
+stolen&mdash;they have eloped!"</p>
+
+<p>"Eloped!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; Mr Sinclair and my daughter. This very morning. Your friend, my
+Elinor!"</p>
+
+<p>The general stamped; then walked furiously about, whilst I stood
+thunderstruck.</p>
+
+<p>"He never spoke to me on the matter; as I am a living man, he never
+hinted to me his attachment. Could I have suspected it&mdash;dreamed it? Oh,
+my child, my child!"</p>
+
+<p>I looked hard at the man, as intently as my agitation would permit,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_729" id="Page_729">[Pg 729]</a></span> and
+I believed his passion to be genuine and honest. Tears were in his eyes,
+and he wrung his hands, and raved like men in deep affliction. Could I
+be deceived?</p>
+
+<p>"Whither have they gone?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"God knows; I missed my child at breakfast. She had never been absent
+before. I was alarmed, but looked for her return. At noon, we heard that
+she had been seen at the distance of half a mile from the city, walking
+quickly with Mr Sinclair. At Mr Sinclair's hotel, I learned that he had
+quitted the city, and had ordered a chaise and four to meet him a mile
+off, at ten o'clock precisely. I followed them at once, and traced them
+for twenty miles, and then lost sight of them altogether."</p>
+
+<p>"What is your intention now?"</p>
+
+<p>"To take the north road, and, if possible, to overtake and recover her.
+I am heart-broken and distracted. He has robbed me of a treasure, dearer
+to me"&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Fresh horses had been put to the general's carriage, and the postilions
+were already in the saddle; not a moment was to be lost. Before the
+general could finish his speech, he was seated in the chaise, and
+driving away at the rate of fifteen miles an hour.</p>
+
+<p>My feelings may be imagined. What to do, I knew not; and there was
+little time to consider. The dinner had been transacted during our
+anxious conference, and the horses' heads were looking towards Bath. The
+coachman mounted the box. I ascended the other side, and took my seat
+next to him, quite mechanically.</p>
+
+<p>"Knowing gentleman, that 'ere," said Jehu, "as you conwersed with."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know him then?" I asked with curiosity.</p>
+
+<p>Jehu closed one eye; rubbed his chin against his comforter, and said,
+"hexcessively!"</p>
+
+<p>"What of him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Werry deep and werry singular. I've druv him many a time."</p>
+
+<p>"He's very rich," said I.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, werry! So they say. So I s'pose he is. For my part, I'm no judge of
+mutton till it's cut up. Is he a werry pertickler friend of yours?"</p>
+
+<p>"No friend at all. Scarcely an acquaintance. I have met him but once
+before to-day."</p>
+
+<p>"Then it won't break your heart to hear, that it wouldn't be quite as
+safe as the bank of England to lend him twenty pounds. A box fare once
+told me he wasn't worth a sixpence, and that he'd come down one of these
+days like a crash in a china shop. My fare was an Injyman, as had known
+the gentleman out in them parts, where he was obliged to cut with all
+his family."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, did he say any thing about the family?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; nothing about the family. Them, he said, was all right, especially
+one beautiful girl as he had, that run the rigs with a hofficer, and
+broke every body else's heart. My eye! wouldn't I have given my
+top-boots to have been that 'ere hofficer!"</p>
+
+<p>I changed the subject of discourse, and not once again did I revert to
+it for the rest of that disastrous journey. Arriving at Bath, I
+proceeded at once to the hotel in which I had left Sinclair. He was
+gone&mdash;but no one could tell me whither. The account given by General
+Travis was corroborated by the master of the house. Mr Sinclair had
+ordered a chaise and four to wait for him at the distance of a mile from
+the city&mdash;his order had been complied with, and nothing since had been
+heard of him.</p>
+
+<p>"It's very strange," said I.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir, very," replied mine host, "and strange things have happened
+since. You knew General Travis, sir, I believe?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have seen him in Bath; what of him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Dreadful affair that of his. The whole family have vanished."</p>
+
+<p>"Vanished!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir. Three or four days ago the general's lady vanished with the
+youngest daughter; this morning the eldest daughter vanished by herself;
+and an hour or two afterwards, the general vanished with his own man,
+having previously discharged every other servant in the establishment."</p>
+
+<p>"Is any reason assigned?"</p>
+
+<p>"Debt, they tell me. The family have gone abroad to recover themselves;
+and, whilst they are recovering themselves, scores here will be ruined.
+The house has been beset with creditors this afternoon, and one poor
+fellow in the next street, a working upholsterer, with a family of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_730" id="Page_730">[Pg 730]</a></span> ten
+children, has been raving at the doors like a madman."</p>
+
+<p>"You are mistaken," I said; "the general has not vanished after the
+manner you describe. To-morrow every thing will be explained. I do not
+feel myself at liberty to say more now. Let me entreat you, however, to
+remove the absurd impression that has been made; and, above all, to
+dispel the unfounded apprehensions of the unfortunate man you speak of."</p>
+
+<p>"Glad to hear you say so," rejoined mine host; "but I doubt it."</p>
+
+<p>He left me and I sallied forth; first to Mrs Twisleton's, who at first
+was not at home, but, receiving my card, sent her servant running half a
+mile, to assure me that she was. Poor Mrs Twisleton! sad and lugubrious
+was she on that melancholy evening. Faithful visions of the unappeasable
+wrath of the proud Lord Railton flickered before her eyes, and pierced
+her very soul.</p>
+
+<p>The next advowson was no advowson at all, as far as she was concerned,
+and her hope and offspring were alike cut off by the terrible and
+irrevocable act of the morning. I found the lady in tears.</p>
+
+<p>"This is a shocking business, madam!" I began.</p>
+
+<p>It was the signal for a flood.</p>
+
+<p>"When did you arrive?" she sobbed.</p>
+
+<p>"An hour since."</p>
+
+<p>"And you have heard of it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of the elope"&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, don't, don't, don't speak of it!" shrieked the lady. "It turns me
+sick. He has married a beggar&mdash;the daughter of an impostor and a
+swindler."</p>
+
+<p>"Can it be true?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you have been very dilatory and foolish, Mr Wilson," suddenly
+exclaimed Mrs Twisleton in a clear sharp tone, which had nothing of the
+softness of tears about it. "Had I been a man, I would have saved my
+friend from certain infamy. Mr Wilson, I gave you full warning&mdash;ample
+time. You cannot deny it."</p>
+
+<p>I sighed.</p>
+
+<p>"And now you have come to Bath again, what do you mean to do?"</p>
+
+<p>I thought for a second or two, and then sighed again.</p>
+
+<p>"Take my advice, sir; it's a woman's, but not the worse for that. If you
+stay here till doomsday, you can't alter what is unalterable. The fool's
+married by this time. The general has broken up his establishment and
+has decamped!"</p>
+
+<p>"Impossible!"</p>
+
+<p>"That may be, but what I tell you is the truth, nevertheless. The mail
+leaves Bath at eleven o'clock. Return by it to London. See Lord Railton
+as soon as you arrive. Make the best you can of this wretched business,
+and prepare him to meet his son without a curse. You need not tell him
+all you know about the general. He will find that out quickly enough;
+nor need you mention my insignificant name at all. The old man has
+feeling left in him; and the mother doats upon her namby-pamby boy.
+Obtain their pardon for your friend, and you will do that friend a
+service which he will never forget, and can never sufficiently repay."</p>
+
+<p>I reflected for a moment; the advice seemed sound. I determined to adopt
+it. Bewildered and vexed, I quitted the lady's house, and walked
+mechanically about the town, from street to street. An hour or two were
+yet at my disposal&mdash;heavy, irritating hours, converted into ages by my
+impatience and anxiety. Chance or fate conducted me to the abode of
+General Travis. I stopped before the door, as purposeless as I had just
+approached it. To curse the hour that had connected poor Sinclair with
+the proprietor of that late magnificent and extravagant establishment,
+was a natural movement. I cursed, and proceeded on my walk. I had not,
+however, advanced a few steps, before, looking back, I became aware of a
+light gleaming from one of the windows of the house. I returned. Some
+information might be gained from the servant left in charge of the
+place; possibly a clue to the mystery in which, without any valid
+reason, I had myself become entangled. I found the door of the mansion
+ajar. I knocked, but no one answered; I repeated the summons with as
+little success, and then I walked boldly in&mdash;and up-stairs, in order to
+place myself at once in communication with the apartment in which I had
+perceived the faint illumination. Opening the drawing-room door, I
+perceived, as much to my disgust as astonishment&mdash;the Yahoo!</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_731" id="Page_731">[Pg 731]</a></span>That dark gentleman was drunk; there was no doubt of it. He was sitting
+at a table that was literally covered with food, of which he had taken
+to repletion. His coat was off, so was his cravat, and the collar of his
+shirt unbuttoned. Perspiration hung about his cheeks, and his face
+looked very oily. Decanters of wine were before him; a pewter jug of
+ale; and bottles containing more or less of ardent spirits. There was a
+wild expression in his eye, but the general glow of his visage was one
+of fuddled sottishness. He saluted me with a grin.</p>
+
+<p>"Who the debil are you?" he politely asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I was looking," I answered, "for a servant."</p>
+
+<p>"D&mdash;n him serbant," exclaimed the Yahoo, speaking in his drunkenness
+like a very nigger. "I gib him a holyday. What are you got to say to
+dat? What do you want?" he proceeded. "Sit down. Enjoy yerself. What do
+you take? Deblish good rum, and no mistake."</p>
+
+<p><i>Hold a candle to the Devil</i> is a worldly maxim, which I had never an
+opportunity of practising to the letter until now. Much might be learned
+by humoring the monster&mdash;nothing by opposing him. I sat down and drank
+his health.</p>
+
+<p>"Thankee, old boy," said he. "I'm deblish glad to see you, upon my soul.
+Gib us your hand. How many are you got?"</p>
+
+<p>"Two," said I.</p>
+
+<p>"That's a lie," replied the nigger hastily. "I see four. But neber mind,
+I'm not partickler. Gib us two of 'em. I say, old boy," he continued,
+"don't you eat nothing? D&mdash;&mdash;d sweet. Sure to make you sick. Him drink
+much as him like."</p>
+
+<p>"You wait the general's return, I presume?" said I, in the vain hope of
+eliciting something from this black moving barrel.</p>
+
+<p>The gentleman tried to look me full in the face; but his eyes rolled
+involuntarily, and prevented him. He contrived, however, to effect what
+he intended for a knowing wink, whilst he thrust out his cheek with the
+end of his tongue.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes, in course," he answered. "I wait till him come back. Him wait
+d&mdash;&mdash;d long while. He! he! he!"</p>
+
+<p>"His departure was very sudden," I continued.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, bery! All them departure's bery sudden. Missy General go bery
+sudden&mdash;Missy Elinor go bery sudden&mdash;rum go bery sudden," he concluded,
+drinking off a glassful.</p>
+
+<p>"I saw the general to-day. We met on the road. He told me every thing."</p>
+
+<p>"Stupid old codger! Him can't keep his own counsel. Dat him business,
+not mine. Deblish cleber old codger!"</p>
+
+<p>"He was much affected," said I. "The elopement of his child is a serious
+blow to him."</p>
+
+<p>The nigger performed the same pantomime as before; winking his eye, and
+enlarging his cheek.</p>
+
+<p>"Blow not so bad as a punch on the head, old boy. Deblish cleber old
+codger," repeated the Yahoo, laughing immoderately. "Deblish cleber
+'Gustus too!"</p>
+
+<p>"Who is he?" I inquired.</p>
+
+<p>The nigger attempted to rise in his chair, and to make a profound bow,
+but failed in both attempts.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm 'Gustus!" said he, "at your sarvice&mdash;take a glass of wine with
+you!"</p>
+
+<p>I pledged the gentleman, and he continued.</p>
+
+<p>"You know Massa Sinclair?"</p>
+
+<p>"A little."</p>
+
+<p>"Big jackass, Massa Sinclair. Awful big. He no run away with Missy
+Elinor, Missy run away with him. Massa General run away with both.
+'Gustus do it all."</p>
+
+<p>I groaned.</p>
+
+<p>"You ain't well? Take glass rum? Bery good rum!"</p>
+
+<p>"And so you did it all, Augustus? You must be a clever fellow!"</p>
+
+<p>"I think so. If you could but have seen us this morning. I and Massa
+General looking over the banisters whilst Missy Elinor was running away;
+and Massa Sinclair in de hall, trembling all over like a ninny, for fear
+Massa General should see him&mdash;Massa General and me splitting sides all
+the time. D&mdash;&mdash;d good! like a play. He! he! he!"</p>
+
+<p>I groaned again.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure you are not well, old boy? Try the bitters."</p>
+
+<p>"I have had enough," said I. "I must begone."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't hurry, old fellow. Can't<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_732" id="Page_732">[Pg 732]</a></span> ask you again. Go to town to-morrow.
+Meet General Travis to-morrow night. Him sewed up. 'Gustus neber desert
+him."</p>
+
+<p>"The general will not return then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Him too good judge!"</p>
+
+<p>"And Mr Sinclair and the lady?"</p>
+
+<p>"They married by this time. I say, old boy, let's drink their health."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, no. Tell me whither do they go!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, no!&mdash;I say yes, yes, yes," roared the intoxicated monster.
+"Drink it, you rascal," he added, "or I'll kick you down stairs."</p>
+
+<p>My blood was boiling in a moment. The nigger staggered to me, and
+touched the collar of my coat. His hand was scarcely there, before I
+took him by the neck, and flung him like a loathsome reptile from me. He
+fell at the foot of the table, but in his passage to the ground he
+grasped a decanter of wine, which he hurled at my head. It passed me,
+met the door, and flew in a thousand pieces about the room. Sick at
+heart, I took the opportunity to retire.</p>
+
+<p>Never shall I forget the morning upon which I stood in Grosvenor Square,
+knocker in hand, about to present myself before the father of Rupert
+Sinclair, and to acquaint him with the disgrace that had come to his
+family, by the alliance of the previous day. The feelings of the hour
+return with all their painful vividness as I recall the time. A lazy
+porter, richly attired, opened the door, and rang a bell in the hall,
+which brought to me his lordship's valet. The latter received my card,
+and after a quarter of an hour's absence, returned with the information,
+that his lordship was particularly busy with the Director of the Opera,
+and could not be seen by any one that morning. Every little circumstance
+is indelibly imprinted on my memory, stamped there by the peculiar
+anxiety under which I laboured. I respectfully submitted that my
+business was even more important than that of the Director, and
+requested the valet to return with my urgent request to his lordship for
+one short interview.</p>
+
+<p>"His lordship doesn't know you," said the valet.</p>
+
+<p>"Not know me!" I exclaimed, forgetting at the moment how little it was
+to his lordship's interest to remember me. "There," I exclaimed "take
+this card to him." I had written upon it&mdash;<i>Late tutor to the Hon. Rupert
+Sinclair.</i></p>
+
+<p>Another quarter of an hour, and I was admitted. His lordship was
+evidently angry at the interruption. My heart was fluttering. He
+extended to me one finger, by way of compromise, which I reverently
+touched, offered me no seat, but asked me my business.</p>
+
+<p>I began&mdash;continued&mdash;and ended without the least hinderance on his
+lordship's part. I spoke without reserve of my own share in the
+unfortunate business, taking particular care, however, not to say one
+word to the disparagement of Elinor, or that might unneccessarily excite
+Lord Railton against his erring son. I told him of Rupert's illness, of
+our having proceeded to Bath in company&mdash;of his recovery&mdash;his meeting
+with Elinor&mdash;her beauty&mdash;his devotion. I pleaded his youth, his ardent
+nature&mdash;referred to the past as irretrievable, to the future as full of
+happiness for Mr Sinclair, provided his lordship would look with
+forgiving kindness upon his act; and used all the eloquence I could
+command to move what I conceived to be at least a heart of flesh to pity
+and sympathy for its own blood and offspring.</p>
+
+<p>Lord Railton heard me to the end, with a knitted brow and closed lips.
+When I had finished, he asked me sternly if I had any thing more to say.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing," I replied.</p>
+
+<p>Whereupon his lordship rang the bell.</p>
+
+<p>The valet again appeared.</p>
+
+<p>Lord Railton again held out his finger, as at our meeting. I was about
+to take it, when his lordship moved it quickly&mdash;pointed to the door&mdash;and
+said&mdash;"Show that person out!"</p>
+
+<p>For a second I stood astounded and confused. In another second I found
+myself breathing on the sunny side of Grosvenor Square. How I reached
+it, I no longer remember.</p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_733" id="Page_733">[Pg 733]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="PEOPLE" id="PEOPLE"></a>THE PEOPLE.<span class="foot"><a name="f72.1" id="f72.1" href="#f72">[72]</a></span></h2>
+
+<p>Mr Cobden, in the House of Commons, has given us a definition of the
+term which heads this article:&mdash;<span class="smcap">The People</span> <i>are the inhabitants of
+towns</i>. "I beg to tell the honourable member for Limerick," said the
+arch-leaguer, a few evenings since, "and the noble lord, the member for
+Lynn, and the two hundred and forty members who sit behind him, that
+there are other parties to be consulted with regard to their
+proposition&mdash;that there are <span class="smcap">The People</span>; I don't mean the country party,
+but the people living in the towns, and who will govern this country."</p>
+
+<p>"What is the city," says Shakspeare, "but the People?"&mdash;&mdash;"True, the
+people are the city."</p>
+
+<p>Against Mr Cobden we pit Mr D'Israeli, who defines the people to be the
+country gentlemen. Against Shakspeare, we bring M. Michelet, who, in an
+affectionate dedication of his latest work to his fellow-labourer and
+friend, M. Edgar Quinet, modestly acquaints the said M. Edgar, that <span class="smcap">The
+People</span> are neither more nor less than the author of the book and the
+gentlemen to whom it is inscribed:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Recevez-le donc, ce livre du Peuple, parce qu'il est vous, parce qu'il
+est moi. Par vos origines militaires, par la mienne, industrielle, nous
+représentons nous-mêmes, autant que d'autres peut-être, les deux faces
+modernes du Peuple, et son récent avénement."</p>
+
+<p>There is, in truth an extensive amount of cant afloat just now, both
+here and elsewhere, on this subject of <span class="smcap">The People</span>. It is the staple
+commodity of your newspaper-mongers, and the catchpenny song of the
+streets. Agitators feed upon it, politicians play upon it, our needy
+brethren of the quill pay outstanding debts with it. It is one of the
+few things that pay at all in an age of fearful competition, and one
+that always will pay whilst poor human nature holds the purse-strings.
+The wretched beggarman of Ireland famishes for a crust, yet he has his
+farthings to spare for the greedy hypocrite who flatters his vanity, and
+heaps laudations on his social importance. <span class="smcap">John Howard</span> made four
+pilgrimages to Germany, five to Holland, three to France, two to Italy,
+with the simple object of mitigating the physical sufferings of his
+fellow creatures; he visited Spain, Portugal, the United States, and
+Turkey, with the same practical and praiseworthy purpose. He passed days
+in pest-houses and lazarettos, and finally laid down his life in the
+blessed work of charity at Cherson in the Crimea. <i>Nous avons changé
+tout cela.</i> Philanthropy is a luxurious creature now-a-days. She is
+passive rather than active; she does not work&mdash;she <i>talks</i>. Her
+disciples take no journeys, unless it be to Italy for their own
+pleasure; they sit at home in satin dressing-gowns, supported on velvet,
+feeding on turtle. They tell the labouring classes&mdash;whom they style the
+bone and sinew of the land&mdash;that though they talk prose, and lead
+prosaic lives, they are nevertheless first-rate poets, that though rough
+at the surface, they are the gentlest of creation "at the core;" that
+though dull, they are quick; though ugly, handsome; though stupid,
+vastly clever; though commoners in the last degree, yet nobles of God,
+and nature's grandees of the very first class. It is gratifying to
+believe all this, and the charge is only threepence a-week, or a
+shilling a-month. Open as we all are to flattery, who would not pay so
+trifling a sum for the pleasure of so sweet a dream? If you cannot
+relieve our sufferings, it is something to create an inordinate
+self-esteem. If you cannot afford us a shilling from your pockets, it is
+much that your goose-quill can convert us into birds of Paradise. The
+successful writers of the day are those who have nauseously fawned upon
+the million for the sale of their "sweet voices" and their halfpence.</p>
+
+<p>There is not one of these popular authors who has had the manliness<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_734" id="Page_734">[Pg 734]</a></span> to
+suggest, supposing that he has the head to discover, a remedy for the
+evils which every honest mind perceives in the social condition of the
+humbler classes. The most they have done is to drag further into the
+light miseries which every one saw without their aid&mdash;to point out
+exultingly distinctions of rank, which have always been, and can never
+cease to be&mdash;to remove bonds of sympathy, that united for mutual benefit
+one class with another&mdash;and to widen as far as possible the breach that
+has arisen between the governed and the governing of this great empire.
+We do them injustice&mdash;they have accomplished more. In seasons of
+difficulty and trial, in those periods of convulsion and danger, to
+which all great societies are liable, and a large mercantile community
+like our own is especially subject, they have assuaged alarm and
+appeased hunger by writing books with a <i>moral</i>; such a moral as that
+upon which <span class="smcap">The Chimes</span> was founded, and which the snarling author of Mrs
+Caudle's Lectures loves to inculcate: we mean the moral that teaches the
+loveliness of all that lies in the hovel, the hatefulness of all that
+dwells in the palace; the sublimity of vulgarity, and the ridiculousness
+of high birth; the innate virtues of ignorance and poverty, and the
+equally essential wickedness of wealth and rank. Such are the exertions
+of modern philanthropy! Such are the self-denying, humble, and glorious
+achievements of the successors of John Howard!</p>
+
+<p>There are two classes of philanthropists very busy just now on this side
+the English Channel: viz., that composed of men who are particularly
+anxious that no laws whatever should be passed for the effectual
+punishment of the midnight assassin in Ireland; and that which stands up
+for the murderer in England, denying the right of the legislator to
+punish any man with death, and the expediency of the punishment,
+provided the right be conceded. Should society be restored to
+tranquillity, and crime be expurgated by the success of these
+gentlemen's endeavours, it is very clear that France will take the wrong
+track, by following the counsel of the belligerent M. Michelet,
+according to whose views, peace and order are to be obtained only by the
+proclamation of war, and the shedding of blood for the glory of his
+native country. "My only hope," says the valiant historian, "is in the
+flag." Every time, he tells us, that he sees the bayonets of the French
+army, his heart bounds within him. "Glorious army! pure swords! holy
+bayonets!" upon which the eyes of the world are fixed, and which will
+eventually save that world by&mdash;cutting the throats of all the enemies of
+France.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">M. Michelet</span> has obtained some celebrity in Europe: amongst the learned
+and the reading public by his histories; amongst the masses by that
+remarkable work styled <i>Priests, Women, and Families</i>, which met with
+many readers and elaborate notices in this country, and was reviewed in
+the pages of this Magazine as recently as August last. We paid our
+tribute of respect to an effort which, whatever might be its faults&mdash;and
+serious faults it had&mdash;was distinguished by a commanding eloquence, a
+manly energy, and an uncompromising zeal worthy of the cause which the
+historian had undertaken; viz., the restoration of <i>woman</i> to her
+spiritual and social rights&mdash;rights invaded by the stranger, trampled
+upon by priestcraft. We did not stay to inquire into the motives by
+which the indignant professor of the College of France had been
+actuated. It may have been, that, to avenge a slight inflicted upon him
+by the Jesuits, the learned teacher aimed a blow at the entire Roman
+Catholic Church; that having repudiated the sentiments of his early
+life&mdash;sentiments which attached him affectionately to the religion,
+poetry, and traditions of the middle ages&mdash;he burned with the new fire
+of a convert or an apostate, and sought to establish the sincerity of
+his conversion by deadly home-thrusts at the party he had forsaken. It
+was sufficient for us that a scholar and a Frenchman had manfully
+advanced to the rescue of his fellow-countrywomen; that he had detected
+the errors that lay at the heart of their social condition; that he had
+noted the hindrances that affected domestic purity and peace; and
+bravely undertook, if possible, to remove, at all events to expose and
+brand them.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_735" id="Page_735">[Pg 735]</a></span>There is great peril attending the career of any man who acquires the
+reputation of a reformer of abuses. It is easier to acquire that
+reputation than to sustain it. It is well when the necessity gives birth
+to the reformer; but it is ill when the reformer, in order to live, is
+forced to create the necessity. There was ease and grace, simplicity and
+truthfulness, honesty and ardour, in that defence of woman, to which the
+champion was urged by the conviction that he entertained of her wrongs.
+Few of these qualities remain in the work now before us&mdash;a work
+suggested by any thing rather than the crying evils of the community to
+which the author belongs; a work that may have been written for
+money&mdash;with the mere object of book-making&mdash;to bamboozle the million, to
+inspire it with cock-like crowing; certainly, with no hope of
+regenerating France, of removing one feather's weight from the load of
+calamity to which her people, in common with the people of all the
+nations of the earth, are mysteriously doomed.</p>
+
+<p>We do not pretend to understand the motives which have carried M.
+Michelet to his task; neither can we distinctly discern the object which
+it is his purpose to reach. His book is divided into three parts, which
+are again subdivided into chapters. There is a great appearance of
+connexion, and indeed an affectation of logical cohesion in the
+structure, but there is really and essentially no union whatever of the
+several divisions. Part I. is styled, "<i>Of Bondage and Hatred</i>;" Part
+II., "<i>Enfranchisement by Love&mdash;Nature</i>;" and Part III., "<i>Friendship</i>."
+Each part is an essay, complete, so to speak, in itself, more or less
+distinct; intelligible at times, but as often vague, dark, and
+paradoxical; most satisfactory where it treats of simple, well-known
+facts&mdash;least successful where it deals in the crudest theories, which
+are not tedious only because they are ridiculous and amusing.</p>
+
+<p>The spirit that pervades the entire book is that of intolerable
+conceit&mdash;individual and national. We can pardon the author of <i>The
+History of France</i> much, but we will never forgive in him a vice that
+has ceased to be supportable in the most ignorant of his countrymen. It
+is impossible to conceive a philosopher and scholar so irritated and
+perverted by thin-skinned vanity as M. Michelet appears throughout this
+volume; and indeed we cannot do his intellect the injustice of supposing
+him to believe the jargon that has fallen from his pen. The heart, we
+fear, rather than the intellect, is at fault, when he who has the ear of
+the people approaches it with accents that inflame its lowest passions,
+rather than correct and guide, and bring to usefulness and good, its
+best and noblest instincts.</p>
+
+<p>Every thing is perfect in France; nothing is perfect elsewhere. This is
+the theme of the song which M. Michelet circulates throughout the
+empire. The people are nevertheless wretched, in poverty, and in
+bondage; they are doomed to evil government; their social state is one
+of tyranny and cruel persecution. An historian, sprung from the people,
+has deemed it his duty to proclaim these facts, and to write a book
+which shall go far to remove the evils he complains of; yet, at the
+outset of the work, he announces, to our astonishment, that France is
+beyond all other lands the favoured land of heaven, the mistress of the
+world, the paragon of countries. We turn back a page, and ask&mdash;Was it
+for this that the student stepped from his retirement, or was it to
+prove facts the very opposite to these? If France be indeed so
+pre-eminently good and great, why write so many pages to prove that she
+lies in bondage? If the literature of France be perfect, her army pure,
+her people great, her religion the only true revelation of God's
+purposes and will, wherefore complain and cry aloud, and seek to remedy
+a condition already so enviable, to elevate a character already so
+super-eminent? Is it that France is too self-loving to hear of her
+faults even from her own offspring, or that she will not take her
+wholesome medicine without the gilding that removes its flavour, and
+hides its ugliness? Is she a child, and must the teacher flatter her as
+a child; coax, pacify, and bribe her as a child, in order to work her
+reformation and secure her happiness?</p>
+
+<p>Let us for awhile follow the author<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_736" id="Page_736">[Pg 736]</a></span> of <i>The People</i>, as he traces
+bondage and hatred throughout the social scheme of France, and gather
+from him, as well as we may, the remedies he has for their destruction;
+so shall we do him greater justice, and obtain, if they be within grasp,
+the intention and the object of his undertaking.</p>
+
+<p>"If we would know," says M. Michelet, "the inmost thought, the passion
+of the French <i>Peasant</i>, it is very easy. Walk any Sunday into the
+country, and follow him. Look! he is yonder before us! It is two
+o'clock; his wife is at vespers, and he is in his Sunday's clothes. I
+warrant you he is going to see his mistress!" His mistress! Yes; but
+tropically. The peasant's mistress is his <i>Land</i>; he loves it with
+intensest delight, with procreative love. Happy for France that it is
+so; for let it once cease, and the land is barren from that instant. She
+brings forth because she is loved. "<i>La terre le veut ainsi, pour
+produire; autrement, elle ne donnerait rien, cette pauvre terre de
+France, sans bestiaux presque et sans engrais.</i>" By <i>Love</i>, the reader
+will understand needful care and culture, but he will err in the
+interpretation. It is something far more poetical and French. The
+peasant having arrived face to face with his mistress, "folds his arms,
+stops, looks serious and thoughtful; he looks a long, long time, and
+seems to forget himself; at last, if he fancies himself overlooked, if
+he perceives any body passing, he moves slowly away; after a few steps,
+he stops, turns round, and casts upon his land one last profound and
+melancholy look: but to the keen-sighted, that look is full of passion,
+full of heart, full of devotion. If that be not love, (!) by what token
+shall we know it in this world? It is love&mdash;do not laugh." It were
+indeed very easy to laugh, but, thus intreated, we forbear, and proceed.
+To love is to covet possession. To have a bit of land, means "you shall
+not be a mercenary, to be hired to-day and turned off to-morrow. You
+shall not be a serf for your daily bread. You shall be free!" To acquire
+that land, the peasant will consent to any thing, even to lose sight of
+it. To obtain it he will sell his life, and go to meet death in Africa.
+The peasant is very aspiring; he has been a soldier; he believes in
+impossibilities. The acquisition of land is for him a combat; "he goes
+to it as he would to the charge, and will not retreat. It is his battle
+of Austerlitz; he will win it; it will be a desperate struggle, he
+knows, but he has seen plenty of these under his old commander;" and
+accordingly this brave and warlike peasant borrows money of a usurer at
+seven, eight, or ten per cent, to purchase a piece of earth that shall
+bring him in two. "Heroic man&mdash;are you surprised, if, meeting him on
+that land which devours him, you find him so gloomy?" Certainly not. "If
+you meet him," says M. Michelet&mdash;heroic and sublime as he is&mdash;"do not
+ask him your road; if he answers, he may perhaps induce you to turn your
+back on the place you are going to." It is the way with atrabilious
+heroes. What is to be done? "We must take serious measures for defending
+the nobility;" that is to say&mdash;the peasantry who are in the hands of the
+usurers. Alter the laws. This "vast and profound," but very much
+involved "legion of peasant-soldier proprietors," are the People: the
+people are France. France is a principle, "a great political principle.
+It must be defended at any cost. As a principle, she must live. <i>Live
+for the salvation of the world (!!)</i> In the midst of his difficulties,
+the peasant learns to envy the town workman. He sees him on Sunday
+walking about like a gentleman, and thinks he is as free as a bird; he
+believes that a man who carries his trade with him, not caring a straw
+for the seasons, is a lord of the creation: he remembers his own
+liabilities to the usurer&mdash;and, lo! we have arrived at bondage and
+hatred, No. 1.</p>
+
+<p>But the <i>Workman</i>, after all, is not so well off as he looks in his
+Sunday's best. Work fluctuates, and at times there is a want of work
+altogether: moreover, there are wicked <i>cabarets</i> and <i>cafés</i>, that play
+havoc with his four or five francs <i>per diem</i>. And, above all, there is
+that tremendous rival, with lungs of iron that know no rest, and never
+cease, whom men call <span class="smcap">Machinery</span>, and who laughs the skill and strength of
+man to scorn.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_737" id="Page_737">[Pg 737]</a></span> "It is humiliating," says the historian, "to behold, in
+presence of machinery, man fallen so low. The head is giddy, and the
+heart oppressed, when, for the first time, we visit those fairy halls,
+where iron and copper of a dazzling polish seem moving of themselves,
+and to have both thought and will, whilst pale and feeble man is the
+humble servant of those giants of steel." No reverie, no musing is
+allowed in the temples of <span class="smcap">Machinery</span>. The <i>Lollards</i>, those mystic
+weavers of the middle ages, received their name, because, whilst
+working, they <i>lulled</i>, or hummed in an under tone some nursery rhyme
+that cheered then in their labour: for it is wisely said by our author,
+who can speak like a prophet and a sage when he will&mdash;shame to him when
+he speaks otherwise!&mdash;that "in the manual labours subject to our
+impulse, our inmost thought becomes identified with the work, puts it in
+its proper place; and the inert instrument, to which we impart the
+movement, far from being an obstacle to the spiritual movement, becomes
+its aid and companion. The rhythm of the shuttle, pushed forth and
+pulled back at equal periods, associated itself (in the case of the
+Lollards) with the rhythm of the heart; in the evening, it often
+happened, that, together with the cloth, a hymn, a lamentation, was
+woven to the self-same numbers." No human heart beats harmoniously with
+the thunder of machinery, whose abode is the real hell of <i>ennui</i>. "It
+seems, during those long hours, as if another heart, common to all, had
+taken its place&mdash;a metallic, indifferent, pitiless heart." Pitiless,
+indeed, if it degrade the human creature to the level of the brute. "The
+manufactory is a world of iron, a kingdom of necessity and fatality. The
+only living thing there is the severity of the foreman; there they often
+punish, but never reward. There man feels himself so little man, that as
+soon as ever he comes out, he must greedily seek the most intense
+excitement of the human faculties, that which concentrates the sentiment
+of boundless liberty in the short moment of a delicious dream. This
+excitement is intoxication, especially the intoxication of love." The
+workman becomes vicious; but extreme physical dependency, the claims of
+instinctive life, which once more revert to dependency, moral impotency,
+and the void of mind, are the causes of his vices. Talk of the bondage
+of the peasant! What is his slavery to that of the workman! <i>He</i> was at
+least a happy <i>child</i>. He lived in the air and played. He was at
+liberty, whilst his body and his strength were forming: the chains did
+not gall him till his wrist was hard: he was not called upon to suffer,
+before his spirit was sufficient to cope with life. Yes, there is
+positive bondage here.</p>
+
+<p>And the <i>Artisan</i>? Is he at liberty? As an apprentice-boy, he is already
+in bondage. "Whatever annoys or irritates his master or his master's
+wife, falls very often upon his shoulders. A bankruptcy happens, the
+apprentice is beaten: the master comes home drunk, the apprentice is
+beaten: the work is slack or pressing, he is beaten all the same."
+Apprenticeship over, the artisan marries&mdash;has a wife, family; expense,
+misery! His children grow up, and the mother (we are in France, and M.
+Michelet speaks) is ambitious. Drawing will be serviceable, says the
+mother, to her boy in his business. She pinches herself for a few sous
+for <i>crayons</i> and paper, and a miserable artist is made of one who would
+have proved a good workman. Or an inspired artist, the child of labour,
+is left an orphan and a beggar in the midst of his aspirations and
+struggles towards distinction: to subsist, he must desert art, and
+become a workman like his father. "All his life he will curse his fate;
+he will work here, but his soul will be elsewhere." If he weds, and has
+a family&mdash;that family will become less and less loved. "A man embittered
+in such a struggle, and wholly intent on personal progress, considers
+every thing else of little value. He weans himself even from his native
+land imputing to it the injustice of fate." And so there is imprisonment
+and hatred also here.</p>
+
+<p>Look at the <i>Manufacturer</i>. The manufacturers of France have, generally
+speaking, all been workmen. Six hundred thousand have become
+manufacturers or tradesmen since the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_738" id="Page_738">[Pg 738]</a></span> peace. "Those brave men, who,
+returning from war, wheeled suddenly to the right-about towards
+Industry, charged as for an onset, and without difficulty carried every
+position." But they brought to commerce more of the violence of military
+life than the sentiment of honour, and treated unmercifully two classes
+of individuals, viz. the workman and the consumer. Towards the latter
+they behaved as the female shopkeepers ransomed the Cossacks in 1815.
+They sold at false weight, false die, false measure. With respect to the
+former, they applied to industry the great imperial principle&mdash;sacrifice
+men to abridge warfare. Men were <i>pressed</i> in town and country, and the
+conscripts of labour were placed at the pace of the machine, and
+required to be, like it&mdash;indefatigable. The successors of these men, the
+present manufacturers, pay the penalty of their fathers' misdeeds. Their
+reputation is gone in the market&mdash;they cannot get on. "Most of them
+would be heartily glad to retire if they could; but they are engaged,
+they must go on&mdash;<i>march! march!</i>" Such men are not likely to be
+tender-hearted. They are unfeeling to their workmen, for the
+money-lender is unfeeling to them. To live, the manufacturer must
+borrow. To get back his interest he has recourse to the workmen, for the
+consumer is on his guard. The former present themselves in crowds, and
+are obtained at any price. But a glut in the market compels the
+manufacturer to sell at a loss; the lowness of wages, which is death to
+the workman, is no longer profitable to the master, and the consumer
+alone gains by it. May not bondage and hatred be discerned in the
+present condition of the French manufacturer?</p>
+
+<p>We come to the <i>Tradesman</i>. "The tradesman is the tyrant of the
+manufacturer. He pays him back all the annoyance and vexations of the
+purchaser." The purchaser of to-day wishes to buy for nothing: he
+requires two things, a showy article and the lowest price. The tradesman
+must deceive or perish. His life is made up of two warfares&mdash;one of
+cheating and cunning against the purchaser; the other of vexations and
+unreasonableness against the manufacturer. We have said that no one can
+talk more wisely than the author of <i>The People</i> when he is so disposed.
+The picture of the tradesman is drawn with a masterly hand. The original
+may be found here as well as in France, and is, in truth, the creation
+of the unwholesome time in which we live rather than of any particular
+city or state.</p>
+
+<p>"The repugnance for industry exhibited by the noble republics of
+antiquity, and the haughty barons in the middle ages, is doubtless
+unreasonable, if by industry we understand those complicated fabrics
+which require science and art, or a grand wholesale trade, which
+requires such a variety of knowledge, information, and combination. But
+this repugnance is truly reasonable when it relates to the ordinary
+usages of commerce, the miserable necessity in which the tradesman finds
+himself of lying, cheating, and adulterating.</p>
+
+<p>"I do not hesitate to affirm, that, for a man of honour, the position of
+the most dependent working man is free in comparison with this. A serf
+in body, he is free in soul. To enslave his soul on the contrary and his
+tongue, to be obliged, from morning till night, to disguise his
+thoughts, this is the lowest state of slavery.</p>
+
+<p>"It is singular that it is precisely for honour that he lies every day,
+viz. to <i>honour</i> his affairs. Dishonour for him is not falsehood, but
+bankruptcy. Rather than <i>fail</i>, commercial honour will urge him on to
+the point at which fraud is equivalent to robbery, adulteration to
+poisoning; a gentle poisoning, I know, with small doses, which kill only
+in the long run.</p>
+
+<p>"The manufacturer, and even the artisan, have two things which, in spite
+of work, render their lot better than that of the tradesman&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"First.&mdash;<i>The tradesman does not create</i>; he has not the important
+happiness&mdash;worthy of a man&mdash;to produce something&mdash;to see his work
+growing under his hand, assuming a form, becoming harmonious, responding
+to its framer by its progress, and thus consoling his <i>ennui</i> and his
+trouble.</p>
+
+<p>"Secondly.&mdash;Another awful disadvantage, in my opinion, is, <i>the
+tradesman is obliged to please</i>. The workman gives his time, the
+manufacturer<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_739" id="Page_739">[Pg 739]</a></span> his merchandise, for so much money: that is a simple
+contract which is not humiliating, neither has occasion to flatter. They
+are not obliged, often with a lacerated heart and tearful eyes, to be
+amiable and gay on a sudden, like the lady behind the counter. The
+tradesman, though uneasy, and tormented to death about a bill that falls
+due to-morrow, must smile, and give himself up by a cruel effort to the
+prating of some young fashionable lady, who makes him unfold a hundred
+pieces, chats for two hours, and, after all, departs without a purchase.
+He must please, and so must his wife. He has staked in trade, not only
+his wealth, his person, and his life, but often his family."</p>
+
+<p>We need not ask, is bondage here? or stay to inquire whether the
+condition of the tradesman thus described is likelier to engender love
+or hatred towards mankind.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Official</i>, too, is enslaved. A vast proportion of men on the
+Continent are officials. Great efforts and great sacrifices are
+undergone to make the hope of the humble house a government servant. And
+in France what does this mean? It means to serve a hard master, and to
+receive ill wages for the service, to be subject to instant dismissal at
+the will of an arbitrary overseer, to pass a life of changes, journeys,
+and sudden transportations. A baker's boy at Paris earns more than two
+custom-house officers, more than a lieutenant of infantry, more than
+many a magistrate, more than the majority of professions; <i>he earns as
+much as six parish schoolmasters</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"Shame! infamy! The nation that pays the least to those that instruct
+the people (let us blush to confess it) is France. I speak of the France
+of these days. On the contrary, the true France, that of the Revolution,
+declared that teaching was a holy office, that the schoolmaster was
+equal to the priest. I do not conceal it; of all the miseries of the
+present day, there is not one that grieves me more. The most deserving,
+the most miserable, the most neglected man in France is the
+schoolmaster. The state, which does not even know what are its true
+instruments and its strength, that does not suspect that its most
+powerful moral lever is this class of men&mdash;the state, I say, abandons
+him to the enemy of the state&mdash;bondage; heavy bondage! I find it among
+the high and the low in every degree, crushing the most worthy, the most
+humble, the most deserving!"</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Rich Man</i> and the <i>Bourgeois</i> do not escape the curse that attaches
+to every other class: they too are in bondage. The ancient <i>bourgeoisie</i>
+was characterized by security, the present has no such characteristic.
+It lives in timidity and fear. It has risen from the Revolution, aspires
+to nobility, feels none, and is jealous of the advancing masses. The
+ancient <i>bourgeois</i> was consistent. "He admired himself in his
+privileges, wanted to extend them, and looked upwards. Our man looks
+downwards: he sees the crowd ascending behind him, even as he ascended;
+he does not like it to mount; he retreats, and holds fast to the side of
+power. Does he avow to himself his retrograde tendency? Seldom, for his
+part is adverse to it; he remains almost always in this contradictory
+position&mdash;a liberal in principle, an egotist in practice, wanting, yet
+not willing. If there remain any thing French within him, he quiets it
+by the reading of some innocently growling, or pacifically warlike
+newspaper."</p>
+
+<p>The rich man of to-day was poor yesterday. He was the very artisan, the
+soldier, the peasant, whom he now avoids. He has the false notion, that
+people gain only by taking from others. He will not let his companions
+of yesterday ascend the ladder by which he has mounted, lest in the
+ascent he should lose something. He does not know that "every flood of
+rising people brings with it a flood of new wealth." He shuts himself up
+in his class, in his little circle of habits, closes the door, and
+carefully guards&mdash;a nonentity. To maintain his position, the rich man
+withdraws from the people&mdash;is insulated&mdash;and, therefore, in bondage.</p>
+
+<p>Here let us stop. What is it that we have seen? The peasant in fetters,
+the workman oppressed, the artisan crippled, the manufacturers
+embarrassed, the tradesman corrupted, the official in misery, the rich
+man exiled&mdash;all in bondage, all hating one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_740" id="Page_740">[Pg 740]</a></span> another, and all
+constituting the life and marrow of the great and civilized country, to
+whose deplorable condition M. Michelet especially invites our attention.
+Deplorable, said we? Oh, far from it! The calamity that would crush any
+other nation, has a far different effect upon France. Bondage and hatred
+may exist, misery may eat like a canker-worm at the heart of the empire;
+but France, great, glorious, military, and beautiful, is consumed only
+to rise ph&oelig;nix-like, fairer and younger, from her ashes. The French
+peasant may be in fetters, but he is also the nobleman of the world&mdash;the
+only nobleman remaining, "whilst Europe has continued plebeian." (!) "It
+is said the Revolution has suppressed the nobility, but it is just the
+reverse; it has made thirty-four millions of nobles. When an emigrant
+was boasting of the glory or his ancestors, a peasant, who had been
+successful in the field, replied, '<i>I am an ancestor</i>.'" "The strongest
+foundation that any nation has had since the Roman empire, is found in
+the peasantry of France." "It is by that that France is formidable to
+the world, and at the same time ready to aid it; it is this that the
+world looks upon with fear and hope. What, in fact, is it? The army of
+the future on the day the barbarians appear." If such is the picture of
+a peasantry in bondage, what must we expect from a peasantry at liberty?
+The workmen, as we have seen, are vicious enough, yet they are the most
+sociable and gentlest creatures in the universe. Nothing moves them to
+violence; if you starve them, they will wait; if you kill them, they are
+resigned; they are the least fortunate, but the most charitable; they
+know not what hatred is; the more you persecute, the more they love you.
+If in our haste we called these men degraded, we recall our words, for
+M. Michelet says that they stand amongst the highest "in the estimation
+of God." We told you just now, always upon the authority of our author,
+what rascals the French manufacturers were; and how the unfeeling
+masters of to-day are paying the penalty of their fathers' frauds and
+evil practices. We hinted, too, at the symptoms of decay already visible
+in their condition. But we did not tell you that France manufactures, in
+a spirit of self-denial that cannot be too strongly commended, for the
+whole world, who come to her, "buy her patterns, which they go and copy,
+ill or well, at home. Many an Englishman has declared, in an inquiry,
+that he has a house in Paris <i>to have patterns</i>. A few pieces purchased
+at Paris, Lyons, or in Alsatia, and afterwards copied abroad, are
+sufficient for the English and German counterfeiter to inundate the
+world. It is like the book-trade. France writes and Belgium sells." It
+was stated that the official is cruelly paid for his labour, and M.
+Michelet further hints, that peculation is but too often the grievous
+consequence. In England this would be fatal to a man's self-respect, and
+subject him to <i>bondage</i> in more ways than one. But, across the Channel,
+Providence miraculously interposes, and even rescues the official in the
+hour of difficulty, for the honour and glory of <i>la belle France</i>. "Yes,
+at the moment of fainting, the culprit stops short without knowing
+why&mdash;&mdash;because he feels upon his face the invisible spirit of the heroes
+of our wars, <i>the breath of the old flag</i>!!"</p>
+
+<p>It is really very difficult to go on satisfactorily with such a writer
+as this. If there be truth in the picture which he draws of his
+country's misery, there must be falsehood in the language with which he
+paints her pre-eminence, and battles for her unapproachable perfection.
+If she be perfect, the vital sores that have been presented to us exist
+not in her, but only in the imagination of the enthusiastic and deluded
+writer. Upon one page it is written that the situation of France is so
+serious, that there is no longer room for hesitation. France is "hourly
+declining, engulfed like an Atalantis." Five minutes afterwards, "the
+idea of our ruin is absurd, ridiculous. For who has a literature? Who
+still sways the mind of Europe? We, weak as we are. Who has an army? We
+alone." What is the conclusion which any unprejudiced reader would draw
+from the painful details which M. Michelet has deemed it his paramount
+duty to bring before the notice of mankind,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_741" id="Page_741">[Pg 741]</a></span> and especially to the
+consciences of the French nation itself? Simply this&mdash;that France,
+disabled and diseased, is weak, and feebler than many other nations of
+the world. The conclusion of M. Michelet is the very opposite one. "Let
+France be united for an instant, she is strong as the world. England and
+Russia, two feeble bloated giants, impose an illusion on Europe. Great
+empires, weak people!" So it is throughout. M. Michelet leaves far
+behind him the butcher, who would not suffer any man to call his dog an
+ugly name but himself. You must not only utter no syllable of
+condemnation against his glorious country, but you must be prepared to
+regard the abuse of the author as so much panegyric.</p>
+
+<p>The means of enfranchisement suggested by the poetic historian are as
+fanciful as the bondage itself appears to be. Freedom for every class is
+to be gained by <span class="smcaplc">LOVE</span>. Love for the native country: in other words,
+Frenchmen of every class are to believe that there never existed, that
+there never will exist, a country so great as their own; and then, as if
+by a charm, all their troubles will cease, their sorrow will be turned
+into joy&mdash;their imprisonment to liberty, such as mankind have never yet
+witnessed, such as no children of the great human family are capable of
+enjoying, but the darlings and favourites of God&mdash;beloved France. In the
+nursery, we do not correct the young by flattery and cajolery. The
+surgeon does not hesitate to cut to the marrow, if the safety of the
+patient depend upon the bold employment of the knife; but neither
+monitor nor doctor in France may approach the faults and corruptions of
+her people without doing homage to the one, and viciously tampering with
+the other. What but insult is the following balderdash offered to a
+great people as a remedy for physical suffering&mdash;cruelty&mdash;oppression&mdash;want?</p>
+
+<p>"Say not, I beseech you, that it is nothing at all to be born in the
+country surrounded by the Pyrenees, the Alps, the Rhine, and the ocean.
+Take the poorest man, starving in rags, him whom you suppose to be
+occupied solely with material wants. He will tell you it is an
+inheritance of itself to participate in this immense glory, this unique
+legend, which constitutes the talk of the world. He well knows that if
+he were to go to the most remote desert of the globe, under the equator
+or the poles, he would find Napoleon, our armies, our grand history, to
+shelter and protect him; that the children would come to him, that the
+old men would hold their peace, and entreat him to speak, and that to
+hear him only mention those names, they would kiss the hem of his
+garment."</p>
+
+<p>Yes&mdash;the thing has come to pass in Africa, at Tahiti, on the coast of
+Madagascar, whence the savages repulsed, with vindictive hatred, their
+French invaders, and refused even to correspond with them save through
+the medium of another nation. The feelings with which the natives of the
+Marquesas regard at the present moment the embroidered gentry, who,
+"protected by their grand history," and headed by that valiant fighting
+man, Rear-Admiral Du Petit Thouars, took unwarrantable possession of
+their shores, are of course faithfully described in the above
+nonsensical outburst; and are not, as every body knows, those of fear
+and utter detestation for a crew of wicked mountebanks and gold-laced
+ruffians. Of course the children come to Du Petit Thouars, and the old
+men hold their peace, and kiss the hem of his regimentals; and that's
+the very reason why the said Du Petit points the fatal tubes of his
+heavy, double-banked frigates and corvettes at the fragile bamboo sheds
+that lie timidly and harmlessly in a grove of cocoa-nuts.</p>
+
+<p>"For our part, whatever happens to us, poor or rich, happy or unhappy,
+while on this side of the grave, we will ever thank God for having given
+us this great France for our native land; and that not only on account
+of the many glorious deeds she has performed, but because in her we find
+especially at once the representative of the liberties of the world, and
+the country that links all others together by sympathetic ties&mdash;the
+initiation to universal love. This last feature is so strong in France,
+<i>that she has often forgotten herself</i>(!!) We must at present remind her
+of herself, and beseech her to love all the nations less than herself.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_742" id="Page_742">[Pg 742]</a></span>"Doubtless, every great nation represents an idea important to the human
+race. But, gracious heaven! how much more true is this of France!
+Suppose for a moment that she were eclipsed, at an end, the sympathetic
+bond of the world would be loosened, dissolved, and probably destroyed.
+Love, that constitutes the life of the world, would be wounded in its
+most vital part. <i>The earth would enter into the frozen age, where other
+worlds close at hand have already landed.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>We have never wittingly done injustice either to France or her people;
+but we confess we had no notion of the claims of both upon our regard
+and applause, until they were prominently put before us by her somewhat
+Quixotic historian.</p>
+
+<p>In the first place, if you would heap up all the blood, the gold, the
+efforts of every kind, that each nation has expended for disinterested
+matters that were to be profitable only to the world, France would have
+a pyramid that would reach to heaven; "and yours, oh nations! all of you
+put together&mdash;oh yours! the pile of your sacrifices would reach up to
+the knee of an infant!"</p>
+
+<p>And then God enlightens it more than any other nation, for she sees in
+the darkest night, when others can no longer distinguish. "During that
+dreadful darkness which often prevailed in the middle ages, and since,
+nobody perceived the sky. France alone saw it."</p>
+
+<p>Rome is nowhere but in France. Rome held the pontificate of the dark
+ages&mdash;the royalty of the obscure; and France has been the pontiff of the
+ages of light.</p>
+
+<p>Every other history is mutilated. France's is alone complete. Take the
+history of Italy, the last centuries are wanting; take the history of
+Germany or of England, the first are missing; take that of France, <i>with
+it you know the world</i>. Christianity has promised, France has performed.
+"The Christian had the faith that a God-made man would make a people of
+brothers, and would, sooner or later, unite the world in one and the
+same heart. This has not yet been verified, but it will be verified in
+us." The great and universal legend of France is the only complete one;
+other nations have only special legends which the world has not
+accepted. The natural legend of France, on the contrary, "is an immense,
+uninterrupted stream of light, a true milky way, upon which the world
+has ever its eyes fixed." An American once said, that for every man the
+first country is his native land, and the second is France. This surely
+was praise sufficient. But M. Michelet is very greedy of praise. "How
+many," says he, "<i>like better</i> to live here than in their own country!
+As soon as ever they can break for a moment the thread that binds them,
+they come, poor birds of passage, to settle, take refuge, and enjoy here
+at least a moment's vital heat. They tacitly avow that this is the
+universal country." Beau Brummel certainly avowed it; but then he, "poor
+bird of passage," flew in a night from his own nest, to settle, take
+refuge, and enjoy a moment's vital peace in France, away from duns and
+creditors. Many, in similar circumstances, would unquestionably prefer
+Paris to London, provided they could break the thread which attaches
+them to their domestic responsibilities. France is the infant Solomon
+sitting in judgment. Who, but she, has preserved the tradition of the
+law? She has given her soul to the world, and the world is living on it
+now; but, strange condition! "what she has left is what she has given
+away. Come, listen to me well, and learn, oh nations! what without us
+you would never have learned:&mdash;<i>the more one gives, the more one keeps</i>.
+Her spirit may slumber within her, but it is always entire, and ever on
+the point of waking in its might."</p>
+
+<p>Now all this must be taught to the infant as soon as it can lisp, and he
+will, no doubt, perfectly understand and appreciate it. The regeneration
+of France (which is already so perfect, and is, besides, the great
+exemplar of mankind) depends upon the child's proper appreciation of his
+birthplace. If he will believe all that has been said, he is far on the
+road, but by no means at the end of his journey. As soon as he is
+breeched, his mother must become his instructor, and increase the dose
+by some such foolish proceeding as the following:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_743" id="Page_743">[Pg 743]</a></span>"Let her take him on St John's Day, when the earth performs her annual
+miracle, when every herb is in flower, when the plant seems to grow
+while you behold it; let her take him into the garden, embrace him, and
+say to him tenderly, 'You love me, you know only me. Well, listen! I am
+not all. You have another mother. All of us, men, women, children,
+animals, plants, and whatever has life, we have all a tender mother, who
+is ever feeding us, invisible, but present. Love her, my dear child; let
+us embrace her with all our hearts.'</p>
+
+<p>"Let there be nothing more. No metaphysics that destroy the impression.
+Let him brood over that sublime and tender mystery, which his whole life
+will not suffice to clear up. That is a day he will never forget.
+Throughout all the trials of life and the intricacies of science, amid
+all his passions and stormy nights, the gentle sun of St John's Day will
+ever illumine the deepest recesses of his heart with the immortal
+blossom of the purest, best love."</p>
+
+<p>The little gentleman, however, is not done with yet. The dose is not yet
+strong enough, although quite as strong as his mother, gentle creature,
+could mix it. The early jacket is discarded in favour of the
+swallow-tailed coat, and the youth passes into the hands of his
+father:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"His father takes him&mdash;'tis a great public festival&mdash;immense crowds in
+Paris&mdash;he leads him from Notre Dame to the Louvre, the Tuileries, the
+triumphal arch. From some roof or terrace, he shows him the people, <i>the
+army passing, the bayonets clashing and glittering, and the tricolored
+flag</i>. In the moments of expectation especially, before the <i>fête</i>, by
+the fantastic reflections of the illumination, in that awful silence
+which suddenly takes place in that dark ocean of people, he stoops
+towards him and says, 'There, my son, look, there is France&mdash;there is
+your native country! All this is like one man, one soul, one heart. They
+would all die for one; and each man ought also to live and die for all.
+Those men passing yonder, who are armed, and now departing, are going
+away to fight for us. They leave here their father, their aged mother,
+who will want them. You will do the same; you will never forget that
+your mother is France.'"</p>
+
+<p>The education is very nearly completed. The father suffers the
+swallow-tail to wear out, the incipient mustache to take root, and then
+he leads his second and better self to the mountain-side. This time he
+does not stoop over him, for the youth is erect, and is as big a man as
+his father. "Climb that mountain, my son," says the venerable gentleman,
+"provided it be high enough; look to the four winds, you will see
+nothing but <i>enemies</i>."</p>
+
+<p>And so, by a very roundabout process, we reach the heart of the mystery.
+M. Michelet loves fighting&mdash;remembers Waterloo&mdash;is game&mdash;is eager for
+another round, and in his heart believes one Frenchman to be equal to at
+least half a dozen Englishmen. He burns for one more trial of
+strength&mdash;a last decisive tussle; and he writes a philosophical work to
+prove the physical bout essential to the dignity, the grandeur, and the
+redemption of his country. Every time, we repeat the words, that he
+looks upon a bayonet, his heart bounds within him, and his only hope,
+teacher and professor of the College of France though he be, rests in
+trumpets, drums, swords, the epaulette, the sabredash, and the tricolor.</p>
+
+<p>We have surely wasted ink enough upon this theme. In common with
+ourselves, the reader will regard with due commiseration, a
+manifestation of wicked folly, which will do no harm only because it
+comes in an age not ripe for bloodshed, or happily too humanized for
+unprovoked, gratuitous warfare; and because the French people
+themselves, under a politic king and a peace-seeking ministry, have
+learned a little to regard the blessings of undisturbed domestic
+quietness. We quit the main subject of M. Michelet's book, to draw
+attention to a few insulated passages worthy of the better days of the
+author, and certainly out of place in the present volume. It were not
+possible for M. Michelet to write four hundred pages that should not,
+here and there, give evidence of his great genius&mdash;his general common
+sense, and his touching sympathy for the suffering and the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_744" id="Page_744">[Pg 744]</a></span>oppressed.
+There are passages in the work under consideration that have universal
+interest, and claim universal attention; his appeals on behalf of
+children and women, the most neglected and oppressed of the community,
+let them be found where they may, in England or in France, in Europe or
+in Asia, are instinct with truthfulness and honest vigour; his
+vindication of the <i>mission</i> of the child, philosophical and just, is
+beaming with the light that burns so steadily and clearly in the poems
+of our own Wordsworth, which have especial reference to the holy
+character of the "Father of the Man."</p>
+
+<p>It is in one of the insulated passages of which we speak, that M.
+Michelet bitterly and very sensibly complains of the exclusive regard
+which modern romance writers have shown for the prisons and kennels, the
+monsters and thieves of civilized societies; of the disposition every
+where exhibited to descend rather than ascend for the choice of a
+subject, or the selection of a hero. We have felt the inconvenience of
+the same sickly taste in this country, and can understand the
+complainings over productions similar to that of <i>The Mysteries of
+Paris</i>, whilst we remember our own inferior and not less baneful <i>Dick
+Turpins</i> and <i>Jack Sheppards</i>. Hurtful to the morals of a nation, these
+productions are equally unjust to the national character. We have drawn
+our estimate of the present literature of France from what we have seen
+and heard of her least healthy writers. As well might the novels of Mr
+Ainsworth, or the miserable burlesques of Mr Albert Smith, be accepted
+as the representatives of the Romance and Drama of the modern English
+school. It is not one of the least crimes of which these unwholesome
+writers are guilty, that they present to their own countrymen, and to
+the world at large, only foul exceptions, hideously exaggerated, which
+they would have us believe are faithful pictures of the mass; and in
+their eager endeavours to interest and excite the unthinking many, rouse
+the disgust and alarm of all well-constituted and thoughtful minds. The
+perilous consequences of popular literature in France are finely pointed
+out by M. Michelet. The timid take fright, when the people are
+represented as monsters in the books which are greedily devoured, and
+intensely applauded by the majority of their readers. "What!" cry the
+citizens, "are the people so constituted? Then, let us increase our
+police, arm ourselves, shut our doors, and bolt them." And all the alarm
+has been occasioned by a conceited, and it may be clever, coxcomb, who,
+descending from his drawing-room, has asked the first passenger in the
+street where-abouts the People lived. He met with a fool, who directed
+him to the galleys, the prisons, and the stews.</p>
+
+<p>"One day," writes M. Michelet, "there came a man to the famous
+Themistocles, and proposed to him an art of memory. He answered
+bitterly, 'Give me rather the art of forgetfulness.' May God give me
+this art, to forget from this moment all your monsters, your fantastic
+creations, those shocking exceptions with which you perplex my subject!
+You go about, spyglass in hand; you hunt in the gutters, and find there
+some dirty filthy object, and bring it to us, exclaiming&mdash;'Triumph! we
+have found the people!'</p>
+
+<p>"To interest us in them, they show them to us forcing doors and picking
+locks. To these picturesque descriptions they add those profound
+theories, by which the People, if we listen to them, justify themselves
+in their own eyes for this crusade against property. Truly, it is a
+great misery, in addition to so many others, for them to have these
+imprudent friends. These theories and these acts are by no means of the
+people. The mass is, doubtless, neither pure nor irreproachable; but
+still, if you want to characterise it by the idea which prevails in the
+immense majority, you will find it occupied in founding by toil,
+economy, and the most respectable means, the immense work which
+constitutes the strength of this country, the participation of all
+classes in property."</p>
+
+<p>We believe it sincerely and heartily. The great writers of all ages have
+believed it. Your low-minded scribblers have never doubted it; but it is
+far easier to depict the limited class, with its violence and felony,
+its startling incidents and painful<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_745" id="Page_745">[Pg 745]</a></span> murders&mdash;far less difficult to give
+picturesque effect to its nauseous jargon and offensive situations, than
+it is to work the simple portraiture of a whole community, who have
+nothing to offer to the artist but the delicate and unobtrusive
+material, such as Goldsmith could weave into a fabric whose colour and
+texture shall endure and enchant for all time.</p>
+
+<p>"I feel," continues M. Michelet, with great tenderness&mdash;"I feel I am
+alone, and I should be sad indeed if I had not with me my faith and
+hope. I see myself weak, both by nature and my previous works, in
+presence of this mighty subject, as at the foot of a gigantic monument,
+that I must move all alone. Alas! how disfigured it is to-day; how
+loaded with foreign accumulations, moss, and mouldiness; spoilt by the
+rain and mud, and by the injuries it has received from passengers! The
+painter, the man of <i>art for art</i>, comes and looks at it; what pleases
+him is precisely that moss. But I would pluck it off. Painter, now
+passing by! This is not a plaything of art&mdash;this is our altar!"</p>
+
+<p>"To know the life of the people, their toils and sufferings," he
+continues, "I have but to interrogate my own memory." He has himself
+sprung from the labouring population. Before he wrote books, he
+<i>composed</i> them in the literal sense of that term. He arranged letters
+before he grouped ideas; the sadness of the workshop, and the
+wearisomeness of long hours, are things known to his experience. The
+short narrative of his early struggles forms another beautiful passage
+in this singular and very unequal production. The great lesson which he
+brought with him from his season of difficulty and affliction, is one
+that authorizes him to approach the people as a teacher and a friend,
+and ought to have inspired him with nobler aims than he puts forth
+to-day. He has seen the disorders of destitution, the vices of misery;
+but he has seldom found them extinguishing original goodness of heart,
+or interfering with the noble sentiments that adorn the lowest as well
+as the highest of mankind. There is nothing new, he tells us, in this
+observation. At the time of the cholera in France, every body beheld one
+class eager to adopt the orphan children. What class was that? <i>The
+Poor.</i></p>
+
+<p>Whilst in poverty himself, his soul was kept free from envy by noting
+the unremitting devotedness, the indefatigable sacrifices of
+hard-working families&mdash;a devotedness, he assures us, not even exhausted
+in the immolation of one life, but often continued from one to another
+for several generations.</p>
+
+<p>The two families from which he descended were originally peasants. These
+families being very large, many of his father's and mother's brothers
+and sisters would not marry, in order that they might the better
+contribute to the education of some of the boys, whom they sent to
+college. This was a sacrifice of which he was early made aware, and
+which he never forgot. His grandfather, a music-master of Laon, came to
+Paris with his little savings after the Reign of Terror, where his son,
+the author's father, was employed at the <i>Imprimerie des Assignats</i>. His
+little wealth was made over to the same son, and all was invested in a
+printing-office. To facilitate the arrangement, a brother and a sister
+of the eldest son would not marry, but the latter espoused a sober
+damsel of Ardennes. M. Michelet, the child of this industrious pair, was
+born in the year 1798 in the choir of a church of nuns, then occupied by
+the printing-office. "Occupied, I say, but not profaned; for what is the
+Press in modern times but the holy ark?"</p>
+
+<p>The printing-office, prosperous at first, fed by the debates of the
+assemblies and the news of the armies, was overthrown in 1800 by the
+general suppression of the newspapers. The printer was allowed to
+publish only an ecclesiastical journal; and even this sanction was
+withdrawn in favour of a priest whom Napoleon thought safe, but was
+mistaken. The family of M. Michelet was ruined. They had but one
+resource; it was to print for their creditors a few works belonging to
+the printer. They had no longer any journeymen; they did the work
+themselves. The father, who was occupied with his employment abroad,
+could render no assistance, but the mother, though sick, turned binder,
+cut and folded. The child&mdash;the future historian&mdash;was the compositor; the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_746" id="Page_746">[Pg 746]</a></span>grandfather, very old and feeble, betook himself to the hard work of
+the press, and printed with his palsied hands.</p>
+
+<p>The young compositor, at twelve years of age, knew four words of Latin
+which he had picked up from an old bookseller, who had been a village
+teacher, and doted on grammar. The scene of the lad's labors&mdash;his
+workshop&mdash;was a cellar. For company he had occasionally his grandfather
+who came to see them, and always, without interruption, an industrious
+spider, that worked at the compositor's side, and even more assiduously
+than he. There were severe privations to undergo, but there was also
+much compensation.</p>
+
+<p>"I had the kindness of my parents, and their faith in my future
+prospects, a faith which is truly inexplicable, when I reflect how
+backward I was. Save the binding duties of my work, I enjoyed extreme
+independence, which I never abused. I was apprenticed, but without being
+in contact with coarse-minded people, whose brutality, perhaps, would
+have crushed the precious blossom of liberty within me. In the morning,
+before work, I went to my old grammarian, who gave me a task of five or
+six lines. I have retained thus much; that the quantity of work has much
+less to do with it than is supposed; children can imbibe but a very
+little every day; like a vase with a narrow neck, pour little or pour
+much, you will never get a great deal in at a time."</p>
+
+<p>We have said that in his struggles the aspiring boy knew nothing of
+envy. It is to-day his solemn belief that man would never know envy of
+himself, he must be taught it. The year 1813 arrived, and the home of
+the historian, as well as France herself&mdash;it was the time of
+Moscow&mdash;looked very cheerless. The penury of the family was extreme. It
+was proposed to get the compositor a situation in the Imperial
+printing-office. The parents, more fond than reasonable, refused the
+offer, and strong in the belief that the child would yet save the
+household, obtained an entrance for him in the college of Charlemagne.
+The tale is told. From that hour he rose. His studies ended soon and
+well. In the year 1821 he procured, by competition, a professorship in a
+college. In 1827, two works, which appeared at the same time&mdash;<i>Vico</i> and
+<i>Précis d'Histoire Moderne</i>&mdash;gained him a professorship in the <i>Ecole
+Normale</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"I grew up like grass between two paving-stones; but this grass has
+retained its sap as much as that of the Alps. My very solitude in Paris,
+my free study, and my free teaching, (ever free and every where the
+same,) have raised without altering me. They who rise almost always lose
+by it; because they become changed, they become mongrels, bastards; they
+lose the originality of their own class without gaining that of another.
+The difficulty is not to rise, but in rising to remain one's self."</p>
+
+<p>There is also another difficulty; one which, judging from the volume
+before us, M. Michelet has yet to overcome: we mean the
+difficulty&mdash;after education, and after achieving the heights to which
+honourable ambition aspires&mdash;of forgetting the terrible and bitter
+punishment of early penury and trouble; of cherishing no longer the
+anger and hatred that were borne against the world, whilst the struggler
+looked upon it as a world in arms against him. The author of <span class="smcap">The People</span>
+tells us, that in his saddest hours he knew no <i>envy</i> towards mankind;
+but he acknowledges also, that in his sufferings, he deemed all rich
+men, all men, <i>bad</i>; that he pined into a misanthropic humour, and, in
+the most deserted quarters of Paris, sought the most deserted streets.
+"I conceived an excessive antipathy against the human species." The
+writer, to use his own expression, "is raised, but not altered." The
+antipathy, somewhat chastened by prosperity, is not removed. It takes a
+bodily form in the volume that teaches France to regard the earth as her
+enemy, and calls upon her to vindicate her pre-eminence and glory in the
+field of battle and of blood.</p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_747" id="Page_747">[Pg 747]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="WARNING" id="WARNING"></a>THE ROSE OF WARNING</h2>
+<h3><span class="smcap">A Legend from the German. By A. Lodge.</span></h3>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="table">
+<tr><td>Where towering o'er the vale on high,<br />
+Those ice-bound summits pierce the sky;<br />
+And on the mountain flood amain,<br />
+The giant oak, and dusky plane,<br />
+Uptorn, with ever-deepening sound,<br />
+Rush roughly 'mid the gorge profound:<br />
+Behold&mdash;where horrors mark the scene,<br />
+And loveliest Nature smiles between,<br />
+Yon ivied arch and turrets gray,<br />
+Mouldering in serene decay;<br />
+Half choked, the scanty columns rise,<br />
+Where the prone roof in fragments lies;&mdash;<br />
+Of yore, so legends tell, the fane<br />
+Was call'd, of sainted Bernard's train;<br />
+Pious Brethren, self denying,<br />
+Fill'd with thoughts of holy dying,<br />
+Here, 'mid penance, prayer, and praise,<br />
+Content they wore their tranquil days;<br />
+Now the heavenly truths expounding,<br />
+In the Lord's good work abounding;<br />
+For deeds of love the dome was bless'd;<br />
+The hungry fed, the faint had rest;&mdash;<br />
+Thus they gave their light to shine,<br />
+And the Bread of Life divine!<br />
+<br />
+These walls confess'd, long ages flown,<br />
+Strange tidings of the world unknown;<br />
+And dark the boding wonder fell,<br />
+With signal of the midnight bell:<br />
+For ever, as in solemn row,<br />
+The Brotherhood, devout and slow,<br />
+Paced the dim-lighted aisles along,<br />
+Loud echoing to the choral song;<br />
+To each&mdash;when the dread hour was nigh,<br />
+Of man's appointed lot&mdash;to die,<br />
+A sure forewarner told of doom,<br />
+With silent summons to the tomb:<br />
+As in the choir he knelt to pray,<br />
+On the desk a white Rose lay!<br />
+Prompt at the sign of awful power,<br />
+The destined brother took the flower,<br />
+"Thy will be done!" he cried, and press'd<br />
+Death's pale memento to his breast;<br />
+And straight retired, the Office o'er,<br />
+He left his cloister'd cell no more;<br />
+There, with due shrift and penance made,<br />
+The last absolving rites were paid,<br />
+And dead to thoughts of earth and time,<br />
+The doom'd one soar'd on hope sublime!<br />
+But first, with reverend hand, he placed<br />
+The monitory emblem chaste<br />
+On that dear pledge of pardon free,<br />
+Christ on his redeeming tree!<br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_748" id="Page_748">[Pg 748]</a></span>Then gazed, as the long hours crept by,<br />
+With solemn thought, and musing eye,<br />
+From early dawn to eve's repose,<br />
+Steadfast on the warning Rose!<br />
+<br />
+And quick the shadow'd message came;<br />
+To dust return'd the mortal frame;<br />
+And with sad strains and funeral moan,<br />
+They hymn'd the soul to Mercy's throne!<br />
+Thus by mysterious high behest,<br />
+Each holy brother sank to rest,<br />
+Forewarn'd with supernatural power,<br />
+By the Rose at midnight hour!<br />
+<br />
+It chanced, as once, for nightly prayer,<br />
+They reach'd the choir&mdash;the Rose was there!<br />
+Oh grief! before a youth it lay,<br />
+Warning that his life's young day<br />
+Must wither in its blooming May!<br />
+With sudden mortal pang, dismay'd<br />
+At thought, like the brief Rose to fade;<br />
+While death and awful judgment near<br />
+Made life's half-tasted charms more dear;<br />
+The youth, with anxious, trembling haste,<br />
+Unseen, the boding flower displaced;<br />
+Thus might the signal'd doom betide,<br />
+He deem'd, the brother at his side,<br />
+Who, calm in age, his last repose<br />
+Long waiting, hailed the welcome Rose!<br />
+For him, by faith assured, to die&mdash;<br />
+His birth of immortality!<br />
+<br />
+But on the morrow&mdash;hark! the sound<br />
+Of sorrow's wailings echoes round:<br />
+What means the tear&mdash;the plaint&mdash;the sigh?<br />
+Why sits despair in every eye?<br />
+Oh, dire presage! two souls had fled&mdash;<br />
+The old man and the youth were dead!<br />
+And with dumb wondering awe they view<br />
+The White Rose tinged with purple hue!<br />
+For this the ceaseless knell is rung,<br />
+For this the choral Requiem sung:&mdash;<br />
+And when, few summers past, once more<br />
+They wept a brother gone before;<br />
+No longer the White Rose was seen;<br />
+It shunn'd the spot where crime had been!<br />
+<br />
+A pilgrim in the Alpine vale,<br />
+I heard the legendary tale;<br />
+And as at eve, by Fancy woo'd,<br />
+Amid the dark'ning aisles I stood;<br />
+O'er crumbling stone and grassy mound,<br />
+I saw the White Rose blooming round!<br />
+Death's flower, methought, fit emblem made<br />
+To dwell in Ruin's silent shade!<br />
+And may the youth&mdash;I breathed a prayer&mdash;<br />
+Have owned the Saviour's pardoning care,<br />
+Who, deaf to warnings from the sky,<br />
+Tinged the White Rose with murder's dye!</td></tr></table>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_749" id="Page_749">[Pg 749]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="GUNPOWDER" id="GUNPOWDER"></a>GREEK FIRE AND GUNPOWDER.<span class="foot"><a name="f73.1" id="f73.1" href="#f73">[73]</a></span></h2>
+
+<p>The traditional account of inventions and discoveries whose origin is
+involved in the darkness of antiquity is generally short and summary. To
+some fortunate individual, whose name, either from his having actually
+taken the most prominent part in the progress of the discovery, or, as
+is more generally the case, having with the greatest and most
+persevering energy impressed it upon the public, the whole merit is
+ascribed and the whole glory attached.</p>
+
+<p>The world, active though its individual members be, as to their own
+specialties, is inert as a mass, and glad to save itself the trouble of
+entering into details by adopting the hypothesis which has been most
+urgently forced upon its notice, or which has caught its attention at
+one of its most wakeful periods. We thus find nearly every discovery
+which has added to the permanent stock of human knowledge attributed to
+a single individual, and to a single guess of that individual.</p>
+
+<p>The traditional account of so recent a discovery as that of Galvani, is
+the preparation of frog soup for his wife, and the accidental touching
+one of them with the knife; while, in fact, he had been for years
+employed in examining the convulsive action of frogs, and had presented
+several memoirs to the Institute of Bologna on the subject, before its
+general publicity; indeed, in the main fact he had been anticipated by
+Swammerdam, and he possibly by others.</p>
+
+<p>Schwartz, the monk of Cologne, probably had a real existence, probably
+had something to do with the progress of pyrotechnic art; it is even
+more probable that he invented gunpowder than that the public invented
+him. The very accident which is reported to have happened, it is not
+altogether improbable did happen; but if a mixture of saltpetre,
+sulphur, and charcoal accidentally exploded, it was not accident which
+brought together those particular three ingredients out of the whole
+laboratory of nature and art.</p>
+
+<p>It is indeed possible that the frequency of accidental explosions when
+gunpowder was known, were reflected back as a plausible hypothesis to
+account for its invention; but as the explosive power and utility of
+gunpowder were not facts which could have been arrived at by <i>a priori</i>
+reasoning, there is every likelihood of such an accident having
+originally suggested the application of an explosive mixture as a means
+of propulsion. The history of the invention then resolves itself into
+the question, Were any admixtures of these three ingredients previously
+known, what led to them, and what were the objects proposed by them?
+This question is attempted to be answered by the book before us,
+containing a very erudite inquiry into the progress of the invention of
+Greek fire and gunpowder, which are, according to the author's view,
+modifications of the same thing, <i>i.e.</i> pyrotechnic compositions,
+differing only or mainly in the proportions or purity of their
+ingredients. A mass of very curious information is given to the reader,
+which, in addition to the general stock of knowledge or obscure
+tradition on this subject, shows a gradual and generally diffused use of
+sulphur, saltpetre, and charcoal in different proportions, and
+occasionally mixed with other combustible substances. Among the Arabs of
+the thirteenth century a vast number of receipts for such mixtures
+existed; this is proved by some ancient Arabic MSS. preserved in the
+Bibliothèque Royale. How the Arabs got possession of these arts is left
+somewhat in obscurity, though our authors consider there are strong
+grounds for conjecturing that they obtained then originally from the
+Chinese about the ninth century; that they then proceeded slowly in
+improving this knowledge for the three centuries during<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_750" id="Page_750">[Pg 750]</a></span> which they had
+no intercourse with the Chinese; and that they again acquired further
+information on these points after the Mongul irruption in the thirteenth
+century.</p>
+
+<p>The defect of the book before us is its inconclusiveness: from the
+preface we are led to expect the solution of a theorem; after reading
+the book through, we find ourselves not indeed as far at sea as ever,
+but aided mainly by negations. The actual origin of gunpowder or Greek
+fire is not traced; many of the connecting links in the chain of
+pyrotechnic discovery are still deficient; and the conjectures, which
+stand in the place of conclusions, are frequently founded upon what
+appear to us insufficient data. On the other hand it must be admitted,
+that on a subject so involved in obscurity, inasmuch as proof is
+impossible, speculation is to a certain extent admissible as a link to
+render isolated facts intelligible.</p>
+
+<p>It may be well here if, before passing to the more immediate object of
+this paper&mdash;viz. a sketch of the probable progress of pyrotechny&mdash;we
+explain to those of our readers who are unacquainted with chemistry, the
+philosophy of explosive combustibles.</p>
+
+<p>Combustion is nothing else than rapid chemical union, taking place
+between two dissimilar substances, which have what is called an affinity
+for each other, <i>i.e.</i> a tendency to unite and form a new compound. When
+a candle or lamp is burned, it is carbon and hydrogen, the principal
+constituents of oil or fat, which combine with oxygen, one main
+ingredient of the atmosphere. As it requires a certain temperature for
+this union to take place, to prevent the cooling effect of mass, a wick
+is used which can be readily heated, and where, as soon as chemical
+action has once taken place, other portions of the oil or melted tallow
+are absorbed, which ascend just as water through the pores of a sponge,
+and supply the place of those burned. In this example, only a small
+ignited surface is exposed to the influence of the oxygen: if, however,
+this latter element could be obtained in a solid state, and mixed up
+with the combustible, each particle throughout the whole mass would have
+in contact with it a particle of oxygen; so that, if the whole were
+raised to the necessary temperature for combustion, combustion would be
+instantaneous&mdash;or if the temperature of a part were sufficiently
+elevated, the combustion of this portion would communicate an intense
+heat to the contiguous portions, and the whole would rapidly kindle as a
+fuse does. In this case also, the access of the air being immaterial,
+combustion might take place in a closed vessel, or even under water.</p>
+
+<p>Nitre, or saltpetre, is one of a class of substances which contains a
+large portion of oxygen in a combined and solid state; and, being mixed
+with combustible matter such as charcoal, it causes rapid deflagration
+when the temperature is raised. The whole class of pyrotechnic
+compositions are reducible to this simple principle&mdash;they all consist of
+combustible substances intimately mixed with substances containing
+oxygen; or, to reduce the proposition to more general and simple terms,
+they consist of two or more substances, having for each other a powerful
+chemical affinity, and capable of rapidly uniting when the temperature
+is elevated. When a projectile force is necessary, a further condition
+is essential, viz., that they liberate by their chemical action gaseous
+matter, whereby a sudden increase in volume is produced, the expansion
+of which, augmented by the high temperature, produces the required
+effect of propulsion.</p>
+
+<p>This slight sketch will show that the purity and proportions of the
+saltpetre, and the inflammable substances mixed with it, are the main
+elements to be attended to in the improvement of self-burning
+compositions: it is indeed far from improbable, that the substances used
+in purifying saltpetre have first suggested such compounds. Wood ashes
+were used at a very early period for purifying nitre; and at the end of
+an Arabic receipt of the thirteenth century, for the preparation of
+saltpetre, in which charcoal is used, is the expression, "guard against
+sparks of fire."</p>
+
+<p>The probabilities strongly favour the view, that incendiary compositions
+of the nature we have been describing originated with the Chinese. China
+snow, and China salt, are the names given by writers of the greatest
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_751" id="Page_751">[Pg 751]</a></span>antiquity to saltpetre. In the Arabic MSS. to which we shall presently
+allude, the words Chinese wheel, Chinese flower, Chinese dart, occur as
+appellatives of different fireworks. It is very possible that the influx
+of Chinese literature, which the result of the recent war with that
+people promises us, will lead to the discovery of Chinese treatises upon
+pyrotechny.</p>
+
+<p>Other authors speak of fire-arms among the Chinese at a very early
+period of our era, and even before Christ; but the interpretation which
+they have put upon obscure passages&mdash;interpretations evidently derived
+from their existing knowledge&mdash;makes these expressions and translations
+of extremely doubtful import.</p>
+
+<p>At a later period, however, we have the authority of Raschideddin,
+(minister of the Tartar Khan of Persia,) and of Marco Polo, that the
+machines of war employed at the siege of Siang Yang were constructed by
+Arabian or European workmen, and that the Tartars were not at this
+period themselves able to manufacture such machines. This would tend to
+negative the belief which has been entertained by some, that the Chinese
+then used gunpowder as a means of projection, but does not lessen the
+possibility that the fuses and compositions projected by these machines
+were of Chinese origin.</p>
+
+<p>In the history of the dynasty of Sang, <span class="smcaplc">A.D.</span> 1259, there is a distinct
+account of a projectile by means of fire as follows:&mdash;"In the first year
+of the period <i>Khaiking</i>, a kind of arms was manufactured called
+<i>Tho-ho-tsiary</i>, that is to say, 'impetuous fire-lance.' A nest of
+grains was introduced into a long tube of bamboo, to which fire was set.
+A violent flame darted forth, and instantly the nest of grains was
+projected with a noise similar to that of a peacock, which was heard at
+a distance of about 150 paces."</p>
+
+<p>Upon the whole, it would appear that the Chinese, although the character
+of their claims to the knowledge of gunpowder has been exaggerated, were
+in all probability the people among whom mixtures of combustibles with
+oxygenated substances originated; and this will form one of the many
+interesting fields of inquiry to be pursued by those skilled in the
+literature of the Chinese, now that the field is so largely opened to
+them.</p>
+
+<p>There are obscure passages in writers of a very early period, which
+speak of thunderbolts being shot from the walls of besieged towns upon
+the enemy. Philostratus speaks of such; but the indefinite character of
+these expressions makes their connexion with either Greek fire or
+gunpowder extremely doubtful.</p>
+
+<p>In the year 883, Nicetas, admiral of the Eastern empire, was sent by the
+Saracens of Crete to assault Constantinople, and is stated to have
+burned twenty of their ships with Greek fire.</p>
+
+<p>One of the earliest accounts of its composition is that given by Anna
+Comnena, who states it was composed of sulphur, bitumen, and naphtha;
+but the most distinct early receipt for a composition analogous to
+gunpowder, is that contained in the celebrated book of Marcus Gr&aelig;cus. In
+the book called <i>Liber Ignium</i>, we have the following receipts:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Note. That the fire capable of flying in the air is of twofold
+composition, of which the first is: One part of colophon and an equal
+part of sulphur, two parts of saltpetre, and well pulverized, to be
+dissolved in linseed or laurel oil. A case, or hollowed wood, is then to
+be charged with it, and ignited. It will fly suddenly to whatever place
+you wish, and burn up every thing by its fire."</p>
+
+<p>The second sort of flying fire is prepared in this manner:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"One pound of sulphur vivum, two pounds of charcoal of linden wood or of
+willow, six pounds of saltpetre, which three things are minutely pounded
+in a marble mortar. After that you will charge with it a sheath suitable
+for flying, or for making thunder.</p>
+
+<p>"Note. The sheath for flying ought to be slender and long, and filled
+with the aforesaid powder well rammed.</p>
+
+<p>"The sheath for making thunder ought to be short and large, and half
+filled with the aforesaid powder, and well bound in every direction with
+an iron band.</p>
+
+<p>"Note. That in every sheath a small aperture is to be made, in order
+that it may be ignited by the match when<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_752" id="Page_752">[Pg 752]</a></span> applied, which match is made
+slender at the extremities, but in the middle large and filled with the
+aforesaid powder."</p>
+
+<p>Another receipt of Marcus for Greek fire is as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Greek fire is made in the following manner. Take pure sulphur, tartar,
+sarcocole, (a kind of resin,) pitch, fused saltpetre, and oil of
+petroleum. Boil them well together. Dip tow in the mixture, and set fire
+to it. This fire cannot be extinguished but with vinegar or sand."</p>
+
+<p>The close analogy, or rather the identity, of these compositions with
+gunpowder as at present made, requires no comment. The more important
+question is the date at which this work was written. This is a matter of
+great doubt. Messrs Reinaud and Favé, from the fact that the receipt for
+the preparation of saltpetre to be found in this same book of Marcus is
+much more imperfect than that in the Arabian MSS., place the date of his
+book earlier than the thirteenth century. Again, Geber, an oriental
+writer, the date of whose life is doubtful, but whom our authors fix at
+the eighth century, has described the preparation of a salt which has
+been translated <i>nitre</i>, but which our authors consider to have been a
+sesqui-carbonate of soda, <i>natron</i>, not <i>nitrum</i>. They thence conclude
+that nitre was unknown to Geber, and thus, because it was known to
+Marcus, that he lived subsequently; and for this reason they place
+Marcus between the ninth and twelfth century.</p>
+
+<p>We have seldom seen an instance of more loose deduction than this. It is
+required to find the date of Marcus. Geber, whose date is unknown, is
+set down, upon rather weak data, as of the eighth century. Geber's
+translator is corrected to prove that Geber did not know saltpetre.
+Hassan Alrammah, an Arabian, is considered as more recent than Marcus, a
+Greek, because his process for saltpetre is somewhat more perfect; and
+from the cumulative effect of these data, each of which is very
+insufficiently established, and which, if established, only go to prove
+differences in the degrees of perfection of their respective receipts,
+the date of Marcus is fixed: this certainly is pushing <i>incertum per
+incertius</i> very far. We fear that if no more accurate information be
+brought to bear on it, the epoch of Marcus Gr&aelig;cus will be a subject of
+as much controversy as ever.</p>
+
+<p>The paragraph in the treatises <i>De Mirabilibus</i> of Albert the Great is
+so identical with that of Marcus Gr&aelig;cus, that there can be no doubt of
+its being copied from it, or derived from the same source, and is a
+strong additional instance of the general progress of inventions. A
+received publication calls attention to a fact already disclosed but
+forgotten, the knowledge acquired by the world since is brought to bear
+on the old fact; and a consequent improvement results.</p>
+
+<p>Roger Bacon, to whom the invention or knowledge of gunpowder has been
+attributed by some, would stand a very poor chance among the men of
+science of the present day: it is not now the man who conjectures a
+possibility, but he who demonstrates a fact, that is hailed as the
+discoverer.</p>
+
+<p>The following series of possibilities are curiously interesting, both
+from their partial subsequent realization, and from the simple credulity
+with which Bacon gives us that which he had known "a wise man explicitly
+excogitate."</p>
+
+<p>"Instruments of navigation can be made, men being the propelling agents,
+that the largest river and sea barks can be borne along (one man only
+managing them) with greater speed than if they were full of navigators.
+Carriages can also be constructed which may be moved without animals,
+with an inestimable impetus; so that one would think that they were the
+armed chariots with which they fought in ancient times. Instruments for
+flying can also be made, so that a man sitting in the centre of the
+machine, and turning an engine, by which artificial wings may strike the
+air in the manner of a bird flying. An instrument also can be made,
+small in magnitude, for elevating and lowering almost infinite weights,
+than which nothing is more useful in mischances, for by an instrument of
+the length of three fingers, and of the same breadth or less, a man may
+extract himself and companions from all danger of prison, and elevate
+and lower them. An instrument can also<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_753" id="Page_753">[Pg 753]</a></span> be made by which one man may
+draw to himself a thousand men, by force and against their will.
+Instruments for walking on the sea can also be made, and in rivers to
+the bottom without corporal peril. For Alexander the Great used them
+that he might see the secrets of the sea, according to the relation of
+Ethicus the astronomer.</p>
+
+<p>"These things, indeed, are of antiquity and of our times, and are
+certain, except the instrument for flying, which I have not seen, nor
+have I known a man who has, but I know a wise man who has explicitly
+excogitated it; and an infinity of other things can be made, as bridges
+over rivers, can be made without columns or any support, and machines or
+unheard of engines."</p>
+
+<p>The ultra admirer of the ancients will see in this, if not an accurate
+relation of facts, which with the exception of the flying it purports to
+be, at least a wonderful perception of practicabilities; and railroads,
+diving-bells, suspension-bridges, &amp;c., will be so many circumstantial
+corroborations of the correctness of his view. We, however, are rather
+disposed to regard them as ingenious extravagances. Predictions of the
+success of science are always on the safe side. If in the present day
+one were to say, that we shall be able to see the inhabitants of
+Jupiter, or even converse with them, it would be a prophecy which could
+never be negatived, which might be the case if we said such things were
+impossible.</p>
+
+<p>Bacon's obscure intimations of gunpowder are not so clearly derived from
+the same source as the receipts of Marcus Gr&aelig;cus and Albertus Magnus
+are; but they are apparently derivatives from what was then known to a
+few, of nitre compositions, and are very analogous, though not quite so
+extravagant as some of his other deductions.</p>
+
+<p>Bacon also speaks of a child's toy (<i>ludicrum puerile</i>) which was made
+with saltpetre, the explosion of which produced a report, "quod fortis
+tonitrui sentiatur excedere rugitum."</p>
+
+<p>As with this, so with the greater number of Bacon's observations; they
+bear reference to facts, or relations received as facts, which were at
+that time either generally or partially known, and do not profess to
+give to the world his own inventions, though the theories deduced from
+those asserted facts are frequently the produce of his own imaginative
+brain. Upon the whole, we are fully disposed to agree with Messrs
+Reinaud and Favé, that the invention of gunpowder is by no means due to
+Bacon.</p>
+
+<p>We now pass to the Arabian manuscripts of the 13th century, to which we
+have before alluded, and which constitute the principal discovery of our
+authors. The same word (<i>baraud</i>) which is now used by the Arabs as
+signifying gunpowder, was originally used to signify saltpetre; and even
+in this application had a secondary meaning, its more primitive meaning
+being "hail." The whiteness and crystalline form of saltpetre presented
+a sufficient analogy to attach to it a similar name, neology being in
+those days not quite so common or so easy as at present.</p>
+
+<p>Various salts were also included under the same name, their specific
+differences not being then known. This fact had probably much influence
+in retarding the pyrotechnic art, as accurate means of testing the
+purity and chemical character of the salt were not distinctly
+understood. A receipt successful in one case, because a proper salt was
+used, failed in another, because the salt was totally unfit for
+supporting combustion, though passing under the same name.</p>
+
+<p>In these MSS. occur a vast number of receipts for pyrotechnic
+compositions, of which we may here give one or two as specimens, and as
+instances of the close approach made at that time to the composition of
+gunpowder as manufactured at the present day:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Proportions of the Sun's Rays.</i><br />
+<br />
+1st Composition.<br />
+Saltpetre, 10&mdash;Sulphur, 1&#8539;&mdash;Charcoal, 2&#188;.<br />
+<br />
+2nd Composition.<br />
+Saltpetre, 10&mdash;Sulphur, 1&#8542;&mdash;Charcoal, 2.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<i>Proportions of the Garland of Golden Flowers.</i><br />
+<br />
+Saltpetre, 10&mdash;Sulphur, 1&mdash;Steel filings, &#189;&mdash;Bronze filings, &#189;.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<i>Flashing Rocket.</i><br />
+<br />
+Saltpetre, 10&mdash;Sulphur, 1&#8540;&mdash;Charcoal, 2&#8539;.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_754" id="Page_754">[Pg 754]</a></span>Each substance to be separately pounded; the charcoal and saltpetre are
+then mixed, and gently pounded; moisten with spittle, and then add the
+sulphur.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>White Rocket without sparks.</i><br />
+<br />
+Saltpetre, 10&mdash;Sulphur, 1&#188;&mdash;Charcoal, 2&#188;.<br />
+To be mixed as before directed.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<i>Egyptian Moonshine.</i><br />
+<br />
+Saltpetre, 10&mdash;Sulphur, 2&#188;&mdash;Charcoal, &#188;.<br />
+Add 4 parts of Lead or Black Ointment.</p>
+
+<p>These instances will be sufficient to show the general character of the
+Arabic receipts. Saltpetre is used in all of them&mdash;in most of them
+sulphur or charcoal; while arsenic, incense, camphor, iron and bronze
+filings, are occasionally used to vary the colour and character of the
+light produced. The Arabs were also in possession at this period of a
+vast number of instruments of war in which similar combustible matters
+were employed, such as lances and clubs, with fires at the extremity,
+girdles for the waist with fires attached. We translate the description
+of one of them:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p class="center"><i>War Club.</i></p>
+
+<p>"Get the glass-maker to make a club, which shall be pierced at its
+extremity like an iron club. Get the turner to turn a stick, which
+you will fasten strongly to it. You may give it whatever form you
+please. Arrange on the sides three 'tubulures,' and at the bottom
+also three for the 'roses,' (one class of the compositions,) then
+make the usual compositions. When you wish to set fire to them,
+arrange them in the form of a segment, set fire to the club, and
+break it, for the love of God."</p></div>
+
+<p>The termination of this receipt is a very usual one, and applied to
+several other receipts&mdash;instruments of destruction being then, as now,
+considered a most appropriate method of serving God.</p>
+
+<p>Another ingenious weapon was called "the egg which moves itself and
+burns;" and this consisted of two long fuses, which seemed to give force
+and direction to the firework, and a shorter one, which was directed
+forwards, the object of which was to burn the enemy. This projectile was
+cast by the hand, and then, to use the quaint language of the receipt,
+"it walks, it starts, and it burns extremely well."</p>
+
+<p>Many other compositions were known to the Arabs, as appears from the two
+curious MSS. above mentioned; such as compositions for covering the body
+to protect from fire, others to emit a suffocating smoke.</p>
+
+<p>The performances of these instruments were, doubtless, what we should
+now consider very insignificant; but they must have produced upon the
+excited imagination of the warrior of those days an effect which it is
+very difficult to conceive in the present day.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing, probably, has occasioned more frequent historical errors, than
+forming deductions as to real effects from the exaggerated descriptions
+of ancient writers.</p>
+
+<p>When Musschenbroek (not a superstitious soldier, but an inductive
+philosopher) first discovered the Leyden Phial, he declared he would not
+take a second shock for the kingdom of France; and yet we well know that
+a schoolboy would not now be frightened at a much more powerful shock
+than he then experienced. Want of familiarity with a phenomenon, and
+ignorance of its proximate cause, will ever make it terrible. We cannot
+see any thing terrible in a sky-rocket, because we have been early
+influenced by those on whom we rely to regard it as an amusement; but
+had they brought us up in fear of it&mdash;had they magnified these accounts,
+having some foundation in fact, as to its destructive power, we may well
+understand what effects of terror it would produce.</p>
+
+<p>Thus regarded, the <i>ignotum pro magnifico</i> appears quite sufficient to
+explain the narrated effects of the Greek fire. But there was also
+another reason&mdash;viz. that all results, not of continual occurrence, and
+within the range of ordinary experience, were attributed to magic, and
+consequently spread a terror far disproportioned to the real effects;
+for this reason, the means of producing then were prohibited by the
+hierarchy, and, as they gradually acquired a more extensive use, were
+then only permitted against<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_755" id="Page_755">[Pg 755]</a></span> the enemies of the religion of the people
+who used them; hence the expression so frequent in the Arabian receipts,
+"You shall burn your adversary for the service of God;" and similar
+language is used by the Christian writers, when similar compositions
+became used by Christian warriors.</p>
+
+<p>A narration, taken from the Sieur Joinville's History of St Louis, will
+place before our readers the contemporaneous description of the effects
+of the pyrotechny of the Arabs.</p>
+
+<p>The following is the account of Joinville of one of the skirmishes of St
+Louis on the borders of the Nile. We should premise that Turk is the
+term generally applied by Joinville to all Mussulman soldiers; and
+though the army was generally recruited from Turkish slaves, yet the
+country was possessed by Arabs, and the language and arts were theirs.</p>
+
+<p>"One evening it happened that the Turks brought an engine called '<i>la
+perriere</i>,' a terrible engine for doing mischief, and placed it opposite
+the '<i>chaz chateils</i>,' (wooden towers to shelter the advanced guard,)
+which Messire Gaultier de Carel and I were watching at night, by which
+engine they cast at us Greek fire, which was the most horrible thing
+that ever I saw. When the good Chevalier Messire Gualtier, my companion,
+saw this fire, he exclaimed and said to us, Sirs, we are lost for ever
+without any remedy; for if they burn our '<i>chaz chateils</i>' we are
+broiled and burned, and if we leave our watch we are disgraced. From
+which I conclude that there is no one can defend us from this peril,
+except God our blessed Creator. So I counsel you all, that whenever they
+cast at us the '<i>feu Grégeois</i>,' that each of us throw himself upon his
+elbows and knees, and cry mercy to our Lord, in whom is all power; and
+as soon as the Turcs threw the first charge of fire, we threw ourselves
+upon elbows and knees, as we had been instructed. And the fire of this
+first discharge fell between our two '<i>chaz chateils</i>,' in a space in
+front which our people had made for damming the river; and immediately
+the fire was extinguished, by a man whom we had for this purpose. The
+manner of the Greek fire was such, that it came forth as large as a tun,
+and the tail extended as long as '<i>une demye canne de quatre pans</i>.' It
+made such a noise in approaching, that it seemed like thunder which had
+fallen from heaven, and seemed to me a great dragon flying through the
+air; and threw out such a blaze that it appeared as clear as the day, so
+great a flame of fire was there. Three times during the night they threw
+this Greek fire at us from the above-mentioned '<i>perriere</i>,' and four
+times with the '<i>arbalesté</i>.' And every time that our good king Saint
+Loys heard that they thus threw the fire, he cast himself upon the
+ground, and stretched his hands to heaven, and cried with a loud voice
+to our Lord, and said, shedding copious tears&mdash;'Good Lord Jesus Christ,
+preserve me and all my people;' and, believe me, his good prayers and
+orisons did us good service (<i>nous eurent bon mestier</i>)."</p>
+
+<p>It is impossible to render, in literal translation, the quaint
+simplicity of the old French; but the fact that this terrible fire was
+extinguished by a single man, would tend very much to lessen our belief
+in the marvels attributed to it by the narrator.</p>
+
+<p>Be that as it may, we have, in the extract quoted, the expression Greek
+fire, (<i>feu Grégeois</i>,) which will connect the effect then produced with
+that known as pertaining to the Greek fire. There is every probability
+that the compositions here used were the same or similar to those
+generally known under that title, while the MSS. above quoted detail the
+compositions used by the Arabs at that period: the evidence is,
+therefore, very strong that the Greek fire was a composition closely
+resembling, if not identical with, those indicated in the Arabian
+receipts.</p>
+
+<p>If we trace back the effects of the combustible compositions to the
+period of the Crusades, anterior to the time when Joinville wrote, we
+shall find a strong analogy with those described by him; but the use of
+saltpetre appears to have been more rare, and that of bituminous
+substances more frequent.</p>
+
+<p>From an Arabian author of the middle of the 13th century, Casiri
+translates a passage into Latin, which Reinaud somewhat alters. We
+render it as nearly as we can in English. "It creeps along with
+scorpions of nitre powder (<i>baraud</i>) placed in cases.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_756" id="Page_756">[Pg 756]</a></span> These scorpions
+take fire, and wherever they fall they burn; they spread abroad like a
+cloud; they yell like thunder; they burn like a brazier; they reduce all
+to cinders."</p>
+
+<p>This passage is important, as showing the connexion of nitre or
+<i>baraud</i>&mdash;a word, as we have before stated, applied to nitre and nitre
+compositions&mdash;with a class of effects analogous to those attributed to
+the Greek fire.</p>
+
+<p>The passage of incendiary compositions into gunpowder is still involved
+in much obscurity. Messrs Reinaud and Favé consider that a treatise,
+printed at Paris <span class="smcaplc">A.D.</span> 1561, entitled <i>Livre de Cannonerie</i>, throws much
+light on the subject&mdash;"<i>vient de l'éclairer d'une lumière nouvelle</i>;"
+but we cannot at all agree with them in this view, and for the simple
+reason, that neither the names of the authors of the receipts contained
+in it, nor the dates, nor the countries, are given. Without either of
+these data, our readers, we think, will find it difficult to conceive
+that much new light can be thrown on the subject. The treatise contains
+a number of receipts for mixtures of oils, bitumens, sulphur, and nitre;
+and, as appears to us, all the aid given by this work towards
+elucidating the subject is, that these receipts are analogous to those
+of Marcus and of the Arabs, and have some internal evidence of having
+been written or copied from writings of an early date, though probably
+subsequent to Marcus; and, secondly the term Greek fire (<i>feu Grégeois</i>)
+being employed, and receipts for it given, would lead to the inference
+that the compositions here used under the same title were analogous to
+those which originally constituted the Greek fire. It is, however,
+certainly open to the remark, that Greek fire having become, in a great
+measure, a generic name for violent incendiary compositions, the term
+may have been applied to compositions analogous in their effects, though
+of more recent discovery. When, however, we find, in various distinct
+quarters, similar receipts; when we find these appearing at different
+epochs, and having different degrees of approximation to the explosive
+compounds which a more matured experience has rendered certain in their
+composition, the discovery of such a book as this becomes certainly a
+corroborative circumstance in favour of that view which regards the
+Greek fire as never having become extinct, and as having, by progressive
+but unequal gradations, changed into gunpowder.</p>
+
+<p>In discussing the treatise above mentioned, there is a naïve expression
+of our authors, who, in remarking the necessary slow combustion of these
+compounds from the imperfections of the processes of manufacturing
+saltpetre, also given in the same book, say:&mdash;"One sees how much there
+is that is providential in the progress of human invention. If man had,
+in the first instance, a powder as strong as at present, he would
+probably have been unable to master this force, or to use it with
+suitable instruments, and the discovery would have remained without
+application. We see that, thanks to the primitive impurity of the
+saltpetre, man employed mixtures of it with sulphur and charcoal, which
+produced a force suitable for throwing to short distances feeble parcels
+of incendiary matter. This force increased little by little, as men
+became better able to refine saltpetre, and ends by enabling them to
+employ it for throwing projectiles."</p>
+
+<p>We have frequently heard the word providential applied in a strange
+manner; but this is one of the most novel views of providential
+intervention we happen to have met with. The quiet gravity with which
+Providence is assumed to have interfered in favour of the progress of
+destructive implements, is about as instructive an instance of the
+unconscious devotion of an author to his speciality as could easily be
+selected.</p>
+
+<p>In the treatise of 1561 are some receipts, assumed to be taken from
+works of an earlier date, in which saltpetre, sulphur, and charcoal, are
+submitted to a considerable degree of heat. The following is one:&mdash;"Take
+of saltpetre 100 lbs., sulphur, 25 lbs., charcoal, 25 lbs., put them
+altogether, and make them boil well, until the whole be well united, and
+then you will thus have a strong powder." Mixed in these proportions,
+and submitted to such a temperature, the chance of explosion is very
+great; and, as our authors observe, "the essential fact of the tradition
+respecting<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_757" id="Page_757">[Pg 757]</a></span> the invention of gunpowder is confirmed;" or rather,
+strictly speaking, the probability of its truth is strengthened. We
+therefore do not see very clearly why they should be anxious to divest
+Schwartz of the merit of its discovery, while they produce arguments to
+show the probability of the discovery being so made. The results of
+these arguments would only tend to show that the tradition is not
+sufficiently explicit, in not stating why the three ingredients were
+mixed together; and Schwartz would, according to this view, be regarded
+as the first who remarked and applied, or suggested the application of
+gunpowder, as supplying an explosive projective force.</p>
+
+<p>Though the probabilities of the use of gunpowder, as an explosive
+compound, being suggested by accidents occurring in the manufacture of
+combustible compounds, are thus shown to be very great, the actual step,
+if step it were, still remains in obscurity. Most probably, like many
+other inventions, the fact was observed again and again with different
+degrees of accuracy and different resulting suggestions; until, at
+length, growing intelligence seized on it, and increasing facility of
+publication rendered its development more rapid and general. The actual
+date of its general introduction or use in war is still uncertain.
+Schwartz's discovery is stated by Kircher at 1354; but gunpowder is
+stated to have been used at the siege of Stirling in 1339; in Denmark in
+1340; in Spain in 1343; at Cressy in 1346; at the siege of Calais in
+1347.</p>
+
+<p>Without entering into the critical discussions which the vagueness of
+the historical records of these periods might tempt, we can scarcely be
+far wrong in setting down the general introduction of gunpowder during
+the first half of the fourteenth century, although any attempt to
+specify, from existing data, the exact date of its invention, would be
+vain. With regard to its connexion with Greek fire, we may sum up by
+stating, that during different periods, extending from the eighth to the
+fourteenth century, combustible matters, in which saltpetre was one
+ingredient, have been used; and that the term Greek fire has been, at
+various times within this period, applied to them. Although it does not
+necessarily follow that the Greek fire alluded to in the more recent
+works was identical with the Greek fire of an earlier period, yet the
+probability is strong that there was at least a striking analogy in
+effect, or the name would not have been used. There is, moreover, some
+internal evidence of community of origin in these various receipts, when
+we find that in different parts of the world, in China, in Arabia, and
+Greece, one general characteristic ingredient is present, viz., nitre;
+when also the history and progress of chemistry have taught us that no
+substance, other than nitre or a salt of nitric acid, has ever been, or
+is now known, which would produce similar effects, (for the
+comparatively recent discovery of the chlorates would produce effects of
+detonation by friction or percussion, of which we find no records,)
+there can, we think, be little doubt that Greek fire was of the same
+chemical character as gunpowder; that it passed by a transition, which
+may have been in particular cases more or less sudden, but which upon
+the whole was gradual, into gunpowder; and that the history of the
+progress of one of these manufactures is, in fact, the history of the
+progress of the other. In this history there are still many gaps to be
+filled up, many errors to be rectified.</p>
+
+<p>The book of Messrs Reinaud and Favé, though somewhat inartificially
+arranged, has given to the public much valuable information; but there
+is still room for an elaborate and well-digested treatise on the
+subject, in which the whole progress of pyrotechnic invention may be
+arranged in chronological order, and more lucidly expounded than are
+antiquarian matters in general. This is a task, however, which few, if
+any, are capable of undertaking, as it requires for its successful
+execution a combination of extensive antiquarian, chemical, and
+philological acquirements. In the mean time, our authors may say, and we
+say with them,</p>
+
+<p class="poem"><span style="margin-left: 4em;">"Si quid novisti rectius istis,</span><br />
+Candidus imperti; si non, his utere mecum."</p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_758" id="Page_758">[Pg 758]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="BUILD_A_HOUSE" id="BUILD_A_HOUSE"></a>HOW TO BUILD A HOUSE AND LIVE IN IT.</h2>
+
+<p>We're a true B&oelig;otian people after all: that's a fact. We may talk
+about Attic art and Doric strength; but in our habits, no less than in
+our climate, we certainly belong to the wrong side of the hills. We're a
+stuffing and guzzling race, if ever there was one; we doat on great
+hunks of meat and flagons of strong drink; and as truly as every Paddy
+has got a hot potato somewhere in his head, making him the queer, mad
+chap he is, so have we got a national brain compounded of pudding, and
+beef, and sausages, turning us into that stubborn and stolid people
+which we know ourselves to be. Sidney Smith expressed the fundamental
+idea of the English nation to a T, when he said that the ultimate end of
+all good government was a hot chop and plenty of claret; but, in saying
+so, he did no more than re-echo the burden of the old song, translated
+into more modern and fashionable language&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">"Back and side go bare, go bare;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Both foot and hand go cold;</span><br />
+But belly, God send thee good ale enough,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Whether it be new or old!"</span></p>
+
+<p>Ah! he was a splendid fellow that indited this song, and so was that
+other clerical wight who broached the idea&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">"When I go to bed, then of heaven I dream;<br />
+But that is fat pullets and clotted cream;"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>A real Devonian or Somersettian parson; but they spoke from the
+heart,&mdash;or rather from the stomach, jolly, good comfortable souls as
+they were, and their words go right home to the stomachs and hearts of
+all, wherever the British lion has the privilege of lashing his tail or
+shaking his mane.</p>
+
+<p>As to eating, <i>quoad comedendum constipandumque</i>, we keep up the
+B&oelig;otic charter to the very letter and spirit of all its provisions;
+and in the moistening of our national clay, we certainly show a
+praiseworthy diligence; we wet it like bricks&mdash;and that's a fact, too;
+but as for doing these important matters in proper places and at proper
+times, there, <i>selon nous</i>, we are lamentably behind-hand with the rest
+of the unfledged, articulate-speaking, bipedal genus to which we have
+the honour to belong. And as it has been lately shown in our pages, as
+clear as the sun at noonday, (the truth of which beautiful and rare
+simile, gentle reader, varies considerably with the place where you may
+happen to use it&mdash;from Shoe Lane, London, to the Strada di Toledo at
+Naples,) or as clear as&mdash;clear can be, that John Bull does not know how
+to put a decent coat on his back when he goes out to dinner; so now it
+is to be essayed to show, that for all he may think otherwise, John has
+not got a comfortable, sensible house to go and eat his dinner in; that
+he does not know what a regular, good, snug, and snoozy chimney-corner
+is; and that, when he stumbles up-stairs to bed, he generally puts
+himself into a hole, but not what can be called a room&mdash;a real
+comfortable, respectable bed-room. We do not say that he might not have
+done so once&mdash;we know, on the contrary, that he did; all we contend for
+is, that he does not do so now, and we don't think he is in the right
+way to mend; and, as John is a special friend of ours, and so is Mrs
+Bull, and all the little Bulls, who will be big, full-grown Bulls some
+day or other, and as we like to make ourselves useful to the present
+generation, and hope to be agreeably remembered by posterity, therefore
+do we intend to take the Bull by the horns, and see if we cannot
+wheedle, coax, pull, push, or bully him into our way of thinking about
+rooms and houses.</p>
+
+<p>It is set down as a national axiom at the present day, that we are at
+the very head of the world in arts, arms, manufactures, laws,
+constitution, Church and State, literature, science&mdash;(any thing
+else?&mdash;there must be something more; to be sure there is)&mdash;money and
+railroads! and he's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_759" id="Page_759">[Pg 759]</a></span> no true Englishman, Sir, he's not one of the
+British public, if he does not think so. We see it in print every
+day&mdash;it must be true; we've read as much in the <i>Times</i>, <i>Herald</i>,
+<i>Chronicle</i>, <i>Post</i>, &amp;c.&mdash;for the last twenty years, and what all the
+world says must be so. Be it so, honest John, we honour your B&oelig;otic
+patriotism; it's a glorious principle, old boy, and 'twill carry you
+bravely through all the thicks and thins of life&mdash;"sed audi alteram
+partem"&mdash;do put your nose outside your own door a bit, now that
+railroads are so plenty and cheap&mdash;do go abroad a little&mdash;just go and
+look at some of those foreigners in their own outlandish countries, and
+then think quietly over these matters again. Besides, who's afraid of
+change now-a-days? Are we not making all these splendid inroads into the
+country, ay, and into the constitution?&mdash;are we not going to have corn
+and cattle, and silk and cotton, and butter and cheese, and brandy to
+boot, all brought to our own doors for nothing? We'll leave these other
+things alone&mdash;we will not argue about them now; let us talk about bricks
+and mortar, and suchlike, and see if we cannot open your eyes to the
+light of reason and common sense.</p>
+
+<p>Now, what is the end, object, and use of all habitations, houses,
+tenements, and premises whatsoever in this same united kingdom of our's,
+and in this glorious nineteenth century, except to shelter a man from
+the cold, or the heat, or the damp, or the frost, or the wind, whichever
+may come upon him, or any part or parcel of the same; and further, to
+give him room to hoard up, stow away, display, use, and enjoy all his
+goods, chattels, and other appurtenances; and further, wherein to sit
+down with a friend or friends, as the case may be, to any description of
+meal that his purse can or cannot pay for, and then to give him room and
+opportunity either to spatiate for the good of digestion, or to put his
+India-silk handkerchief over his bald pate, and snore away till
+tea-time? This being the very acme of comfort, the very object of all
+labour, the only thing that makes life worth living for, in the opinion
+of three-fourths of Queen Victoria's loving subjects, it follows, that
+if they would spend that money they love so much in a rational and truly
+economical way, they should bear such objects as these constantly in
+sight. This brings us, therefore, to the enunciating, for the second
+time, that great fundamental law of human operations&mdash;usefulness first,
+ornament afterwards, or both together if you please; but not, as we see
+the law interpreted now-a-days&mdash;ornament and show in the first place,
+and usefulness and comfort put in the background. It is this backward
+reading of the great rule of common sense, that makes men so uncommonly
+senseless as we often find them to be; and when it comes in the way of
+building, it turns us into the least architectural and worst built
+nation of any in this part of Christendom. Taking into account the cost
+of erecting buildings, and the relative value of money in different
+countries, there are no towns in Europe where so little good building
+and so small a degree of architectural effect are produced as in those
+of "old England." Poets and home tourists have affected to fall into
+rhapsodies of admiration at the beautiful neatness of our small country
+towns, at the unparalleled magnificence of London, at the ostentatious
+splendour of our commercial cities, Liverpool, Bristol, &amp;c. This is all
+very well for home readers, and for home reputation; for there is
+nothing like a lot of people congregating themselves into a nation, and
+then be-lauding themselves and their doings up to the skies&mdash;there is
+nobody to say nay, and they can easily write themselves down the first
+people on earth. The fault is not peculiar to England; that vapouring
+coxcomb Crapaud is full of such nonsense; and that long-haired,
+sallow-cheeked, quid-chewing Jonathan, is still more ridiculously fond
+of indulging in it: but because it is one of the most offensive
+weaknesses of human nature, it is not therefore the less worthy of
+reprehension, and the sooner we try to throw off such false and morbid
+patriotism the better. The three towns in Great Britain, which, taking
+them in the general average of their common buildings, their citizens'
+houses, can be called the best-looking ones, are these:&mdash;first and
+fairest is dear Auld Reekie,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_760" id="Page_760">[Pg 760]</a></span> next is Cheltenham, and last is Bath. The
+great metropolis we put out of the comparison, for metropolitical cities
+should be compared together; but Edinburgh is <i>facile princeps</i> in the
+list of all habitable places in this island; Cheltenham is at the head
+of all watering-places, and pleasure-places&mdash;(Brighton, Leamington,
+Clifton, &amp;c., are certainly not equal to it in point of good
+architecture and general effect;) and Bath, now that its fashionable
+name has somewhat declined, may be looked on as the leader of our
+second-rate quiet kind of towns. Were we to make a fourth class of
+comparisons we would take our cathedral cities, and place Oxford at the
+head, before Worcester, Exeter, and so forth. But we revert to our first
+proposition; and were we about to show a foreigner those places
+wherewith we could desire him to compare his own distant cities, we
+should take him to the three above mentioned. It is in these three
+places that the great essentials of use and ornament seem to us to be
+the most happily combined; attempts are made at them in other quarters
+with various degrees of success, but here their union has been the most
+decided. Bear our opinion in mind, gentle reader; and, when next you go
+upon your travels, see if what we assert be not correct.</p>
+
+<p>The style of house we most object to is Johnson's&mdash;you don't know
+Johnson? Why, don't you recollect the little bustling man that used to
+live at the yellow house in the City-Road, and that you were sure to
+meet every day, about eleven o'clock, in Threadneedle Street, or by the
+Bank Buildings? Well, he has been so successful in the drug line that he
+has left the City-Road, and has moved into the far west, Paragon Place,
+Bryanstone Square; and, not content with this, has taken a house at
+Brighton, on the Marine-Parade, for his "Sunday out," as he terms it. He
+is a worthy fellow at bottom, but he has no more taste than the pump;
+and while he thinks he inhabits the <i>ne plus ultra</i> of all good houses,
+lives in reality in ramshackle, rickety, ugly, and inconvenient dens.
+The house in Paragon Place is built of brick, like all others; but the
+parlour story is stuccoed to look like stone, the original brick tint
+being resumed at the levels of the kitchen below and the drawing-room
+above. There are two windows to the said drawing-room&mdash;one to the
+dining-room; and so on in proportion for the four stories of which the
+edifice consists: but the back is a curious medley of ins and outs, and
+ups and downs; single windows to dark rooms, and a dirty little bit of a
+back-yard, with a square plot of mud at the end of it, called "the
+garden;" the cook says the "airey" is in front; and Johnson knows that
+his wine-cellar is between the dust-bin and the coal-hole under the
+street. If you knock at the door you are let in to a passage too wide
+for one, but not wide enough for two, and you find at once the whole
+penetralia of the habitation lying open to your vision; dining-room door
+on right hand, parlour door behind it; kitchen door under the stairs,
+and garden door at the end of the passage. You know the man's whole
+household arrangements in a minute; and if he is not in the
+drawing-room, (but Johnson never does sit there, his wife keeps it for
+company,) it is of no use his pretending not to be at home, when you
+have your hand within a few feet of the locks of each door on the
+ground-story. And then, though the passage is dark, for there is only
+the fan-light over the entrance, and the long round-headed window at the
+first landing, all full of blue and orange glass, you know that dinner
+is preparing; for you see the little mahogany slab turned up to serve as
+a table near the parlour door, and such a smell comes up the kitchen
+stairs, that were you at the cook's elbow you could not be more in the
+thick of it. Well, they tell you he's in, and you walk up-stairs to the
+drawing-room; one room in front and the best bed-room behind; and Mr and
+Mrs Johnson's up-stairs again over the drawing-room; and the children's
+room behind that&mdash;you can hear them plain enough; and above all, no
+doubt, is the maid's room, and the servant-boy's who let you in; not so,
+the boy sleeps in the kitchen, and the front attic is kept for one of
+Johnson's clerks, for you might have seen him going up the second pair;
+and if he wasn't going to his bed-room what business had he up-stairs at
+all? So that, though you have been in the house only five<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_761" id="Page_761">[Pg 761]</a></span> minutes, you
+know all about it as well as if Mortice the builder had lain the plans
+on the table before you. Well, Johnson won a picture in the <i>Art-Union</i>
+some time since, and determined to stick it up in the drawing-room,
+against the wall fronting the windows; so up came the carpenter; and, as
+the picture was large, away went a ten-penny nail into the wall; and so
+it did go in, and not only in, but through the wall, for it was only
+half a brick thick; and, what with repeated hammerings, the bricks
+became so loose that the picture could not be safely hung there. So it
+was ordered to be placed against the wall opposite the fireplace&mdash;the
+wall of the next house in fact&mdash;and the same operation was going on,
+when old Mrs Wheedle, the next door neighbour, sent in her compliments
+to beg that Mr Johnson would have some regard for her hanging
+bookshelves, the nails of which had been all loosened by his
+battering-ram, and the books were threatening to fall on her tableful of
+china&mdash;she called it "cheyney"&mdash;below. Again, on the other side lives,
+or rather lodges, Signor Bramante, the celebrated violoncello, and he
+practises in what he has made the back drawing-room, equivalent to
+Johnson's best bed; but, the other day, when Smith came up from
+Birmingham to see Johnson, he could get no sleep for the first half of
+the night, Bramante having occasion to practise till nearly one o'clock,
+for the <i>Stabat Mater</i> of next morning's concert. So much for the
+substantiality of Johnson's town-house. His rooms, too, to our mind, are
+of bad proportions, and most inconveniently situated; they are so low
+that it is impossible to ventilate them properly; he has always a flight
+or two of stairs to go up when he retires to bed, and his servants might
+as well live in a treadmill, for the quantity of step-treading that they
+have to perform. There is no possibility of sitting in any one room out
+of a draft from either door or window, and there is not a single good
+cupboard in the whole house. As for ornament, there is none outside save
+the brass-knocker on the street door, for the windows are plain oblong
+holes in the walls; and, as for the inside, the only attempts at it are
+the cheap and meagre stucco patterns of the cornices, and the somewhat
+tawdry designs of the paper-hangings. He pays seventy pounds a-year rent
+for it, however, and sets himself down as a lucky man, because with his
+rates, &amp;c., he comes within the hundred.</p>
+
+<p>After all, when he goes to Brighton he is not much better off; though,
+as he likes fresh air, he gets plenty of it there, through every window,
+door, and chimney of the house&mdash;for there the bow-windowed projection in
+front is made of wood, coated over with tiles, to look like bricks.
+There he never attempted any picture-hanging fancies, the
+partition-walls would stand no such liberties being taken with them;
+there he cannot complain of not knowing what is going on in the town,
+for he can hear all that is said in the next house, by merely putting
+his ear to the wall. The most serious drawback, however, to his comfort
+in his marine residence, is, that while there he can never have a
+good-sized dinner-party, inasmuch as his landlord made it a stipulation
+of the lease, that not more than twelve people should be allowed to meet
+in the drawing-room at the same time, and that no dancing whatever
+should be attempted within the dwelling. The Brighton man only built the
+house for fifteen years; whereas the London one was more provident, he
+guaranteed his for thirty.</p>
+
+<p>Johnson's bed-rooms are, even the best of them, of moderate size, while
+the small ones are very small indeed; and into these small rooms he has
+stuck large four-post beds, that make them darker and more inconvenient
+than they naturally are, and leave room for hardly any of the usual
+evolutions of the toilette. What, indeed, with the big chests of
+drawers, like the big sideboard in the dining-room, it is as much as you
+can do to get about conveniently between the bed and the side walls;
+though one good thing the builder and furnisher have certainly
+effected&mdash;you can open the bed-room door, and you can stir the fire, and
+you can almost pull up the window-blind, without quitting the protection
+of the counterpane;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_762" id="Page_762">[Pg 762]</a></span> and this on a cold morning is something.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs Johnson says that the arrangement of the area gate in Paragon Place
+is perfection itself; for she can see the butcher's boy as he comes for
+his orders of a morning, while sitting at the breakfast-table, through
+the green blinds, and that the policeman dares not stop there, during
+daylight at least&mdash;she should be much too sharp upon him; so that the
+cook is twice as punctual as when they lived in the city. True; these
+are points of household management that have their weight; but then Mrs
+J. forgets that the dustman rings his bell there at most inconvenient
+hours, that the dirty coalheaver spoils the pavement once a month, and
+that it is a perpetual running up and down those stone steps, to shut
+the gate and keep dogs and beggars out, all day. However, the railings
+and the gate are not part of the house; and, if people like to have
+their back-doors under their eyes, why, there is no accounting for their
+taste.</p>
+
+<p>We could not help thinking, the last time we went over to Paris, that
+our friend Dubois, the wine-merchant&mdash;him from whom we get our
+Chambertin, and who has about the same relative income as Johnson&mdash;was
+much better housed. His cellars are down at the Halle aux Vins, like
+every body else's; and he is shut up there in his little box of a
+counting-house nine hours every day of his life; but he lives, now that
+he has moved from the Marais, in the Rue Neuve des Mathurins, which
+leads out of the Chaussée d'Antin. Here he has a <i>premier</i>, as they call
+it in Paris&mdash;or a first-floor, as we should term it in London; and he
+pays 2000 francs, or £80 a-year for it, with about 100 francs of rates
+and taxes. For this he has two drawing-rooms, a dining-room, a study,
+six bed-rooms, kitchens, and cellars; some of the rooms look into the
+street, the rest run round the ample court-yard of the house. To get at
+him you go up a flight of stone stairs that four people can easily mount
+abreast; when you enter his door, from the little hall paved with stone
+and marble, you pass from the sitting-rooms one into the other&mdash;for they
+all form a suite; while the bed-rooms lie mostly along a corridor, into
+which they open. Once up the two flights of stairs that lead to the
+doorway, and the mounting, whether for masters or servants, is done
+with. The kitchen is at the furthest end, away from the other rooms, and
+is approached by a back staircase from the court-yard. There are no
+beggars nor dogs, nor butcher's boys, nor other bores, except what the
+concierge at the gateway allows to come in; and though the street is
+rather noisy, being in a fashionable quarter, yet the court-yard is
+perfectly quiet, and free from all plagues of organs, singers, &amp;c. The
+rooms are, one and all, <i>twelve</i> feet high; their Windows down to the
+ground; the floors of solid oak, polished till you can slide on them;
+the doors are in carved oak, painted white and richly gilt; the
+chimney-pieces are all marble&mdash;none of the flimsy thin slabs of Paragon
+Place, but good solid blocks, cut out from the red quarries of the
+Pyrenees; with polished brass dogs in the fireplaces, and large logs of
+flaming wood across then. The drawing-rooms are hung in silk on the
+walls; the other rooms are tastefully papered. There is abundance of
+good furniture, which, from the ample size of the apartments&mdash;the
+principal room being thirty feet by twenty&mdash;sets off the proportions of
+the dwelling without blocking it up. Dubois has not a four-post bed in
+his house; no more has any man in France. They are all those elegant and
+comfortable things which we know a French bed to be; and the long
+sweeping folds of the red and white curtains that come down to the floor
+from the ceiling, form a graceful contrast to the curves of the other
+furniture. The walls are all of good solid stone, two feet thick on the
+outside; the house has been built these fifty years, and is of a better
+colour than when first put up; the windows are richly ornamented in
+their frames without, and form commodious recesses for settees within.
+You may dine twenty, and dance forty people here! or you may throw your
+rooms open, give a soirée, (no boiled mutton affair, remember; but
+music, dancing, and cards; coffee, ice, and <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_763" id="Page_763">[Pg 763]</a></span>champagne,) and cram each
+room full of people, and the landlord will never fear for the safety of
+his building.</p>
+
+<p>Now, there are three other sets of apartments in the same house, and
+above Dubois, not so lofty as his, but nearly as commodious, and all
+with their proportionate degree of elegance and solid comfort. Dubois
+has not got a house at Dieppe, it is true; but then, like all Frenchmen,
+he is so absorbed in his dear Paris, that he hardly cares to stir out
+from it. If ever he does, he runs off to Vichy or Mont Dor for a
+fortnight in the <i>saison des eaux</i>, and he is contented.</p>
+
+<p>But then, you will say, Dubois lives, after all, in another man's
+house&mdash;he is only a lodger; whereas Johnson dwells in what the law calls
+his "castle." Be it so; for the same money we would rather have the
+positive advantages of the one, <i>en société</i>, than the tasteless and
+inconvenient isolation of the other.</p>
+
+<p>And, after all, is Johnson more decidedly at home in his own house, than
+Dubois is in his "<i>appartement</i>?" What does it matter whether you have
+people living on each side of you, with their street doors so close to
+yours that their wives or their daughters pop up their noses above the
+green blinds every time a cab or a jarvey drives up; or whether you have
+people who come in at the same gateway with yourself, and go up the same
+stairs, it is true, and who live either above or below you, and who can,
+if they like, run out on their landings to see who is thumping at your
+door panels? Upon our conscience as honest folks, who have lived in half
+the capitals of Europe, to say nothing of those of our own islands, we
+never found the slightest intrusion on privacy arising from the
+collecting of several families in the same house, in Paris, Rome,
+Florence, or Vienna. All we know is, and we often think of it agreeably,
+that these continental houses seemed to us like so many social colleges,
+and that the having a set of rooms with a common staircase, used to put
+us in mind of our old Christ Church, and of Garden Court in the Temple.
+'Tis true, that in the one set of rooms we had no fellow-inmates except
+our dog, and every now and then a joyous set of fellows that would have
+made any place tolerable; that in the other there was our old laundress
+and bed-maker, and our "boy," and for a short time our "man," and
+actually, upon our honour it is true, we did once see a client in them!
+whereas, in our continental suites of chambers, we are <i>en famille</i> with
+wife, bairns, and "bounes" to boot, and that we did <i>parfois</i> try the
+elasticity or the stretching powers of our <i>camere</i> pretty considerably,
+and did cram therein no end of guests. But on the whole, we have fairly
+made the experiment <i>in propriâ personâ</i>; we have weighed well friend
+Johnson's castellated independence, and <i>l'ami</i> Dubois's social
+contiguation;&mdash;and, rent for rent, we prefer the latter. If we must live
+with two neighbours within a few feet of us, we would rather have one
+under us on the ground floor, and one above us on the second, and
+ourselves in the midst on the first, and all three clubbing together to
+live in a little palazzo:&mdash;we would rather have this, than be crammed in
+between Mr A and Mr B, each of us in a third or fourth rate kind of
+house, with poor thin walls, small low rooms, dirty areas, melancholy
+gardens, shabby-genteel fronts, ugly backs, and little comfort.</p>
+
+<p>It may be said, and justly, that the idea of a man living in his own
+castle is applicable only to that state of society when large towns do
+not exist, inasmuch as the idea can be nothing more than an idea, and
+can hardly ever approach to a reality, the moment men begin to
+congregate themselves together in cities. Doubtless, it is indispensable
+to all our notions of comfort, and of the due independence of social
+life&mdash;it is, indeed, one of the main elements of the constitution of a
+family, that a certain degree of isolation should be maintained and
+respected; but we submit to the candid observer, that the only
+difference between English cities and continental ones in this respect
+is, that Englishmen aim at "horizontal" independence, foreigners at
+"vertical." Englishmen form their line of location every man shoulder to
+shoulder, or rather, elbows in ribs; foreigners mostly get upon one
+another's backs and heads, and form a living pyramid<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_764" id="Page_764">[Pg 764]</a></span> like the clown and
+boys at Astley's. By this arrangement, however, it comes to pass, that
+for the same number of inhabitants much more ground is occupied by an
+English than by a continental town; and also, that each single dwelling
+is of mean, or, at the most, moderate architectural appearance, the
+great condition of elevation being wanting, and the power of
+ornamentation being generally kept closely under by the limitation of
+each individual's pecuniary resources. Practically, we contend, there is
+quite as much comfort (we think, indeed, in many cases more) in the
+continental manner of arranging houses as in the English one: while the
+former allows of and encourages architectural display, and indeed
+requires a much more solid system of construction; but the latter leads
+to the running up of cheap, slight, shabby-genteel houses, and represses
+all attempts at external ornament as superfluous from its expense. Upon
+this subject, we appeal to the experience of all who have dwelt for any
+length of time on the Continent, not to those who merely run across the
+water for six weeks or so, and come back as blind as they went; but
+rather to those who have given themselves time and opportunity enough
+for the film of national prejudice to wear away from before their eyes,
+and have been at length able to use that natural good sense with which
+most Englishmen are blessed by Providence. To them we would say, that
+the plan of several families tenanting one large dwelling, clubbing
+together, as it were, for the erection of a handsome and commodious
+edifice, and just so far sacrificing their independence as to consent
+occasionally to run up against their neighbour in the common court-yard,
+or perchance to see his coat-tails whisking by their door up or down
+stairs, is the more sensible of the two. There is practically a great
+saving of walls, of spaces of support, as the architects term it, in
+this plan: great saving in roofing; and, from the mere dimensions of the
+building, a certain degree of grandeur is necessarily given to it. This
+plan requires the edifice to be built court-fashion, and sometimes will
+admit of a good garden being appended: it also requires that a most
+useful servant, a porter, in a suitable lodge, should be kept by the
+little social community; and every body knows what an useful body the
+porter, or <i>concierge</i>, as the French call him, may be made. Just as
+bachelors join together in clubs to the great promotion of their
+individual comfort, and certainly to the outward advantage of a city, so
+should families join together for their civic residences; they would all
+derive benefit from their mutual support, and the appearance of a town
+would be immediately improved.</p>
+
+<p>We do not say that any joining together of houses should take place in
+country, nor even in suburban residences. No; there let every man have a
+house to himself; the foundation of the whole system is quite different:
+and there is also a certain class of persons who should always have
+separate dwellings in a town; but to these subjects we will revert on
+another occasion. We will only allude to one objection which the
+fastidious Englishman will be sure to raise: if you live under the same
+roof with one or more families he will say, you must necessarily be
+acquainted with all the members of the same: you must, in fact, know
+what they are going to have for dinner, and thus must be acquainted with
+all the secrets of their household economy. Well, so one would
+undoubtedly expect to be the case: unfortunately, however, for the
+theory, the practical working of the thing is just the contrary: we do
+not know of any town where so much isolation is kept up as in Paris,
+though there men crowd together under the same roof like bees into the
+common hive. We have lived ourselves, between the epochs of our bachelor
+or embryo state, and that of our full-blown paternal maturity, on every
+floor of a Parisian house, from the <i>entresol</i> just over the stable,
+where we could lean out of our window of a morning, smoke our hookah,
+and talk to the "Jockey Anglais" who used to rub down our bit of blood,
+up to the <i>Septième</i>, where in those celestial regions we could walk
+about upon our little terrace, look over the gardens of the Tuileries,
+('twas in the Rue de Rivoli, gentle reader!) all the way to St Cloud and
+Meudon, one of the sweetest and gayest prospects in the world,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_765" id="Page_765">[Pg 765]</a></span> by the
+by, and hold soft communings either with the stars or our next
+neighbours&mdash;(but thereon hangs a tale!) and yet never did we know the
+name even of any other soul in the house, nor they ours. Oh! we have had
+many an adventure up and down that interminable staircase, when we used
+to skip up two hundred and twenty steps to get to our eyry; many a
+blow-up with our old porter: she was a good soul, too, was old Madame
+Nicaise; many a time have we seen flounces and redingotes coming in and
+out of doors as we went up or down; but actually we cannot call to mind
+the reality, the living vision of a single individual in that vasty
+mansion. On the contrary, we used to think them all a set of unsociable
+toads, and, in our days of raw Anglicism, we used to think that we might
+be just as well called in to "assist" at some of the charming soirées
+which we used to hear of from the porter: we did not then know that a
+Parisian likes to be "chez lui" as he calls it, quite as much as an
+Englishman. We should have lived on in that house, gentle reader, <i>ad
+infinitum</i>; but one day on going up-stairs, we saw in ominous letters,
+on a new brass plate, "au troisième, de la cour," <span class="smcap">Legrand, Tailleur</span>.
+Horror of horrors! 'twas our own man! we had not paid him for two years:
+we gave <i>congé</i> that evening, and were off to the Antipodes.</p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<h2><a name="ROGUES" id="ROGUES"></a>"ROGUES IN OUTLINE."</h2>
+<h3><span class="smcap">Birbone I.</span></h3>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Signor Rusca.</span></p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="table">
+<tr><td>"Rusca the lawyer, an exceeding knave."&mdash;<span class="smcap">Pope.</span><br />
+<br />
+"Currunt verba licet, manus est velocior illis<br />
+Nondum linguâ suâ, dextra peregit opus."&mdash;<span class="smcap">Martial.</span></td></tr></table>
+
+<p><br />A more knowing man in his way than Signor Avocato Rusca R&mdash;&mdash; it would
+not be easy to find; so first-rate is he in his style, though his style
+may not be quite first-rate! His father intended him for a lawyer,
+whilst nature qualified him for a cheat; and, as there seemed to be
+nothing absolutely incompatible in the prosecution of these two
+professions,</p>
+
+<p class="poem">"He sought, without offence to either,<br />
+How he might deal in both together;"</p>
+
+<p>in doing which for a season, he accumulated much useful knowledge,
+besides laying the foundation of his future fortune. Whether in his
+earlier career he followed the practice of his learned predecessor,
+Paulus, and sought, like him, to augment his fees by pleading in a hired
+Sardonyx,<small><a name="f74.1" id="f74.1" href="#f74">[74]</a></small> we have not heard; but his passion for jewels, none who
+have seen him without his gloves (and we never saw him otherwise) can
+for a moment doubt.</p>
+
+<p class="poem">"Tight girt with gems, in massive mountings set,<br />
+Beneath their weight his tumid fingers sweat."</p>
+
+<p>When he had come to find that his dealings as <i>dealer</i> better repaid the
+cost of his earlier education than the teasing uncertainties of the law,
+a sense of filial duty perhaps, and of inclination certainly, led him
+ultimately to give up all his time and talents, together with whatever
+little money he had accumulated, <i>legally</i> or <i>otherwise</i>, to the
+acquisition of practical arch&aelig;ology. He had seen enough of antiquarian
+transactions already, to convince him of the unlimited credulity of a
+certain class of connoisseurs&mdash;this knowledge was important, and he
+began to apply it presently. Having made himself a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_766" id="Page_766">[Pg 766]</a></span> competent scholar,
+(he could quote Horace, and had Seneca's<small><a name="f75.1" id="f75.1" href="#f75">[75]</a></small> moral precepts at his
+<i>finger-ends</i>;) being plausible in speech, and knowing the market-price
+of every ancient relic by rote, he could not but succeed; he succeeded
+accordingly&mdash;and is now considered throughout Italy as a <i>mezzo
+galant'uomo</i> of first-rate abilities and tact!</p>
+
+<p>By putting himself early under efficient tutelage at <i>Rome</i>, and doing
+as they did <i>there</i>, he soon outstripped most of his masters in his art;
+the art, that is, of buying "uncertain merchandise," as low as duplicity
+can buy of ignorance and want; and of re-selling at as high a price as
+credulity will pay to cunning.<small><a name="f76.1" id="f76.1" href="#f76">[76]</a></small> His unusual astuteness made it really
+diverting, when you knew your man, to have dealings with him, otherwise
+it was likely to turn out an expensive amusement. Our acquaintance with
+him began in the full maturity of his powers, when his mode of
+cross-questioning false witnesses who brought him <i>soi-disant</i> antiques
+to sell, and his lawyer-like mode of eliciting the truth, were capital.
+How he would lie! and what lungs he had to lie with! <i>immensa cavi
+spirant mendacia folles!</i> What action! what volubility of tongue! what
+anecdotes! and then only to see how he would look a <i>false</i> Augustus in
+the face, and discern that wily sovereign from a thousand counterfeits;
+or when a sly forger brought him a modern gold coin, carefully coated in
+mould&mdash;how he knew by <i>instinct</i> that it was an imposture, and would not
+condescend to exhume and expose the fraud. Like all knaves, he would
+take incredible pains to prove that there was not a more honest man than
+himself breathing&mdash;and when he considered himself to have quite
+established <i>this</i> on his own showing, he would sometimes speak with
+"honest indignation" of men who were palpable rogues: assuring you all
+the while, that it gave him pain thus to bear testimony against his
+neighbour, but then every honest man owed it to his Pope and to the
+people to expose Birbonism. On one occasion, when he had a large batch
+of <i>silver Emperors</i> for sale, we said we must see about their <i>prices</i>
+in Mionnet.<small><a name="f77.1" id="f77.1" href="#f77">[77]</a></small> Upon which, with a look of frightened honesty, he asked
+us if "we really knew what we were talking of?" "Perfectly," we replied.
+"Well, sir," continued he, "Mionnet was a Frenchman; did <i>you</i> ever know
+an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_767" id="Page_767">[Pg 767]</a></span> honest Frenchman?" "Not as many as we could have wished to know; but
+we had known <i>some</i>." "We had in that case," he confessed, "the
+advantage over him&mdash;<i>he never had!</i> As to Mionnet's book, it was
+written, at least so thought Rusca, with a frightfully corrupt view,
+being published during the French occupancy of Italy, for the joint
+benefit of Mr M. and the <i>Bibliotheque du Roi</i>. I admit," quoth our
+lawyer, "that the French only entertained a natural wish (nay, sir, as
+far as the <i>mood</i> was <i>optative</i> merely I commend it as a highly
+laudable one) in desiring to have the best monetary collection in
+Europe; but was it honourable, or just, to pledge this Mionnet to affix
+such prices for rare and better specimens, (such as I have the honour to
+show you here!) when both they and he knew them to be preposterous, and
+then to launch forth this misguiding book as a guide? This precious
+book, sir, was in the hands of all M&mdash;&mdash;'s myrmidons, and the only book
+of appeal then extant; <i>this</i>&mdash;(thumping his fist, by way of emphasis,
+upon our copy of it)&mdash;this, which has been the ruin of Italy, and is the
+degradation of France! I only wish you could hear my friend <i>Sestini</i>
+(quel <i>numen</i> degli numismcatici) inveigh against this man and his
+prices, with less reluctance, I assure you, than I feel in doing it, and
+much more powerfully too, because he knows so much more; but come now,
+if you <i>won't</i> think me vain, I will show you the difference between
+honesty and dishonesty. I wish it was of some one else I was about to
+speak, but truth compels me here to introduce my own name. Last week
+that pleasant countryman of yours, Lord X&mdash;&mdash;,&mdash;do you know him? (we did
+for a goose!)&mdash;comes to buy some gold coins of me; one of the lot he
+fixed upon was a Becker, and so of course only worth what it weighed. He
+had purchased it for fifty Napoleons of me, and we went to his bankers
+together for the payment. There, having duly received the money, I
+requested him to let me see once more the coins he had just purchased of
+me&mdash;there might have been a dozen&mdash;and instantly picking out the Becker,
+I pushed him over his fifty Napoleons again, and said, "Milord, I cannot
+let you have that coin." "Why?" says he, alarmed and in anger. "Because
+<i>it is false, Milord</i>!&mdash;and I was quite grieved," added our ingenuous
+informant, "to see how much Lord X&mdash;&mdash; was disconcerted at this
+disclosure." "You did not let so pretty a coin go a-begging, I dare say?"
+said we with laudable curiosity and interest. "No, two days ago in comes
+Coco&mdash;you know Coco?" we smiled. Know Coco! did we know St Peter's? did
+we know the Pope? for whom did Rusca take us, we wonder? "He came,"
+prosecuted Signor R&mdash;&mdash;, "to see if I had by me any first-rate
+imitations from the antique, for he knew a gentleman who might fancy
+something of the sort; and, as soon as he had set eyes upon this Becker,
+he must have <i>it</i>; <i>it</i> was just the thing to tempt Lord X&mdash;&mdash;; and so I
+let him have it for <i>five times</i> its supposititious value, but not for a
+<i>tenth</i> of what Lord X&mdash;&mdash; would, I knew, buy it for a second time as an
+undoubted antique; and lest that rogue should at any time take liberties
+with my name, (for he is capable of anything,) and say he had been duped
+by Avocato Rusca into the purchase of a false thing for a true, here is
+a document with his name to it, which I then and there caused him to
+sign, which <i>proves</i> the contrary. I met him to-day, and he seems much
+pleased with Lord X&mdash;&mdash;'s liberality, who has bought the coin!!" The
+above is a sample of Avocato Rusca's <i>confessions</i>, and of his somewhat
+original notions of honesty! Once, however, our honest friend forgot
+himself in a purchase we made of him. And no wonder, for we had also
+forgotten ourselves; for the time when we transacted business was the
+gloaming, and the room being dark had lent its aid to the deception. We
+had also an engagement to dine out, and it was getting late, and we were
+in a hurry. But that same night, on returning from our party, we had
+looked again at what we had bought, and then, first perceiving our
+mistake, determined, if possible, to repair it by repairing early next
+morning to the Minerva Hotel, there to surprise him in his
+dressing-gown, by which bold <i>coup-de-main</i> (having pre-arranged in our
+own minds what we should take away<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_768" id="Page_768">[Pg 768]</a></span> with us in lieu <i>of</i> what we brought
+back) we carried our point at last!&mdash;and hardly carried it; for while
+the <i>new</i> batch and the <i>old</i> confronted each other on his table, the
+one being fair, the other like himself, ill-favoured in appearance, we
+saw his restless glance move wistfully from the one to the other. Three
+times in one minute his countenance fell; he coughed, he hesitated, he
+<i>cospetto'd</i> once, he wished we had made known our mind over night; he
+<i>cospetto'd</i> again, and finally was about to reconsider the affair,
+when, not to be foiled by a rogue, we threw it upon <i>his honour</i>, (of
+which he had not a particle,) and, by the extravagance of such a
+compliment, prevailed. "He had never cheated us before," (which was
+strictly true; but the reason, which the reader will have no difficulty
+to guess, we did not think it necessary or prudent to assign;) would he,
+after so long an acquaintance with us, change his tactics now?&mdash;we need
+not ask him&mdash;we were "persuasissimi" that he would not, neither did he!
+We removed the temptation out of his way as soon as we could, and felt,
+as we went home, that we had achieved that morning as <i>great</i> a piece of
+diplomacy, and as difficult, as ever did Lord Palmerston when he was
+minister for our foreign affairs; and grateful were we to Apollo, the
+god of medicine, who had for once assisted us to overreach Mercury, the
+god of rogues.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3><span class="smcap">Birbone II.</span></h3>
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Coco.</span></p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="table">
+<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 4em;">&mdash;&mdash;"Adspice quantâ</span><br />
+Voce negat qu&aelig; sit ficti constantia vultûs!"&mdash;<span class="smcap">Juv.</span> <i>Sat.</i> vii.</td></tr></table>
+
+<p><br />We cut our pen afresh to say a few words concerning that arch-impostor,
+that "Fourbum imperator," Coco the coiner. Had it not been for the
+<i>prosperity</i> of the St Angelo ministry at Naples, that three-headed
+Cerberus of iniquity, of whom the people,</p>
+
+<p class="poem">"Tre Angeli a noi più recan danno<br />
+Che trenta orrendi Demoni non fanno,"</p>
+
+<p>had it not been that <i>their</i> success seemed to militate against such an
+inference, we might have supposed that Coco, poor, starving, and in
+utter disesteem, had been thus let to live, to prove by a sad contrast
+the truth of the old adage&mdash;that "honesty is the best policy." Coco is
+the very impersonation of wiliness and subtlety&mdash;a fox amongst
+foxes&mdash;the Metternich of his craft;&mdash;he has cheated every dealer in
+turn, and by turns has learnt to know the internal arrangements of every
+prison throughout the kingdom. By sheer force of talent he has been
+able, like Napoleon, to maintain his cause single-handed against a host
+of rivals who would crush him, and cannot; and, whenever he is not
+<i>closeted elsewhere</i>, he is either holding a privy council with St
+Angelo, or transacting busines with his Serene Highness of Salerno,
+against whom (<i>par parenthese</i>) we have not a word to say. Cicero's
+oration for Milo is not better than Coco's oration for Coco; and to hear
+him plead it personally for the first time, is certainly entertaining.
+He seems to have taken <i>that</i> oration for his model, setting out, as
+Tully for that client did, with a staunch negation of the charges
+alleged against him; but embarrassed, as he proceeds in his harangue, to
+maintain himself strictly honest, he gradually throws off reserve,
+converts your room into a court of justice, and, confronting imaginary
+accusers, endeavours to shake their testimony by making out that they
+are just as great rogues as himself! "Coco! say over again just half a
+dozen of <i>those sentences</i>&mdash;you know where to begin&mdash;that you have so
+often been the habit of indulging me with; not the <i>whole</i> speech, Coco,
+if you please." "Eccelenza, no! I was saying, then, that I was in
+advance of my age, and that, if I had been born in France or England in
+place of Naples, I should not now have been called Coco the cheat, the
+thief, the <i>birbone</i>, but <i>Sir</i> Coco&mdash;or Monsieur le Marquis de Cocon.
+Look at the things I have done, sir, and see what they have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_769" id="Page_769">[Pg 769]</a></span> done for
+me. No sooner have I devised some new <i>galanteria</i>&mdash;elegant, classical,
+and sure to take&mdash;when it is enough to whisper '<i>Coco's</i>,' to bring it
+into discredit: a great outcry is raised against me as its author, and,
+like a second Galileo, I am cast into prison! Knowledge is not power at
+Naples; for my countrymen know that I have knowledge enough when I mulct
+their ignorance, as I sometimes do. It is <i>too much</i> knowledge that has
+brought me into all my scrapes and difficulties! Do you doubt it,
+signor? Why, then, was I <i>first</i> sent to prison?&mdash;why, but because my
+mint was frequently preferred to that of his majesty here, and he feared
+lest <i>my</i> Ferdinands should drive <i>his</i> Ferdinands out of the market!
+Had I done the same in England, I suppose they would, on discovering my
+talent, have made me master of their mint, in place of sending me to
+expiate my offence in a dungeon&mdash;<i>basta</i> about that affair!&mdash;but when I
+had given up making Ferdinands, and took to minting <i>Domitians</i>, what
+business was that to the King of Naples, I wonder, unless indeed I had
+put <i>his</i> name to that tyrant's <i>head</i>? Yet he sent me a second time to
+prison for it, notwithstanding for which in return I have taken the
+liberty of sending him to a warmer place. See, here's a pretty
+baioccho&mdash;Ferdinand's head on one side, and a '<i>concordia-Augustorum</i>'
+on the other, where the devil and he are holding hands over a lighted
+altar, he wanting to withdraw his hand,&mdash;but the devil's clutch is too
+tight for that!&mdash;whilst a little imp is putting a bit of live coal into
+his palm, and another is doing the same under his right foot! For four
+elegant horses in bronze, of which <i>I forgot the age</i>, and sold them to
+St Angelo as <i>antiques</i>, I was sent to prison again, and a third time.
+Though, when it suited <i>him</i> last year to sell off certain old
+horseflesh that had been many years on his hands as <i>young</i>, <i>his</i>
+purchaser of course got no redress. Out upon that old Birbone! with his
+galleries, his harems, and his horses;&mdash;but he eats too much, and is
+never well,&mdash;a great consolation to me, who might else have repined at
+his successes; but when I compare my <i>health</i> with his, I bless the good
+St Januario who keeps me poor! Again, I ought to be grateful to our good
+Saint that, though men may pretend that I lie and cheat, (which perhaps
+I do a little,) you never heard any body say of <i>me</i>, what all the world
+says of <span class="smcaplc">HIM</span>, that I am <i>cruel</i>,&mdash;<i>mai</i>, you never heard that; and if I
+make money occasionally in some way that it don't <i>sound</i> well to speak
+of, what then? I never hoard it up, the lottery office is my banker, and
+it circulates again presently. And as to cheating, if we look it boldly
+in the face, and see in what company we cheat, why should I be ashamed
+of what all the world does here from King Ferdinand, to Beppo Tuzzi of
+the Mergellina? Didn't Ferdinand try hard to cheat you last year in the
+sulphur question? and would he not have succeeded, too, unless you had
+thought of mixing up the sulphur with some nitre and charcoal, and of
+converting it into a <i>question of gunpowder</i>!" "That's true, Coco! and
+now tell us of your last device for raising the wind." "Here it is," and
+Coco has presented us with a small opaque lachrymatory, glistening all
+over in the exquisite irridescence of old glass. "Was it not beautiful?"
+he enquired. "Yes; and ancient as well," replied we; "the decomposition
+of the glass showed that, and the elegant and classical form of the
+vessel showed it too." "Well! he would manufacture just such another
+before us, if we would like to see it done!" "<i>Comè?</i> we should be
+delighted!" "<i>Dunque e fatto subito</i>, now that I have <i>shown how</i> it is
+to be effected&mdash;just as when that great sea-captain, <i>quel famoso
+Cristoforo Colombo</i>"&mdash;"Yes, yes! Coco, never mind about <i>him</i> just now."
+"Ah, your excellency, I perceive, knows the story! Well, here you see is
+a small clay vessel moulded from the antique; here a small packet which
+I untie; and here a little gum-water in a phial." We require no other
+materials&mdash;a child might do the rest. In the packet now open, we remark
+a quantity of a beautiful, many-coloured glass-dust, in the midst of
+which appear thousands of filmy flakes that have been scraped off from
+the sides of old lachrymatories, and present every hue of colour. In a
+twinkling<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_770" id="Page_770">[Pg 770]</a></span> Coco has <i>gummed</i> the vessel all over, and in less than a
+minute he has rolled round its sides a rainbow robe of the most rich and
+glowing colours, while not a speck of clay remains visible by which to
+make out the fraud! "<i>Eccolo!</i>" says he, placing the beautiful
+fabrication in our hand; "<i>Eccolo!</i> do you think that for such a work as
+<i>that</i> I ought to have been sent for the twentieth time to prison?"
+Fearful of having our moral sense dazzled <i>by the glass</i> into making
+some indiscreet admission, we now change the theme. We had heard that
+morning a good story; it was "the case of Coco <i>versus</i> Casanuova," in
+which the cleverness of the former rogue had prevailed against his
+equally astute rival, who had himself been so obliging as to favour us
+with the full particulars thereof, in words like the
+following:&mdash;"Coco&mdash;(you know Coco?")&mdash;(Coco and I smiled, for we knew
+each other perfectly,)&mdash;"Well, he presents himself one day before me in
+a shop in the Piazza degli Orefici, bringing in a coin in his hand,
+which he throws down carelessly on the counter, asking me what price he
+should put upon it? On taking it up, I see '<ins class="correction" title="Yeliôn">&#933;&#949;&#955;&#953;&#969;&#957;</ins>,' which,
+with the common type of the Velian Lion, as we all know, <i>vale poco</i>;
+but, in place of a lion, this had the Athenian <i>diota</i> (or two-eared
+<i>amphora</i>) upon the field of the reverse. Knowing that the rogue was
+eyeing me to see how I liked it, in order that he might charge for it
+accordingly, I asked him doubtingly whether <i>he</i> was quite sure it was
+genuine, (<i>entertaining no doubt on that subject myself.</i>) 'Rather an
+ingenious question for a profound connossieur like Casanuova, to put to
+a poor devil who has the good fortune for once in his life to buy
+something good. <i>You</i> have no doubt about it; but if you say you have, I
+will take it to Tuzzi, and get his opinion first.' Fearing to lose it if
+he did, I confessed that I believed it genuine, and then asked him his
+price. 'He had <i>refused</i> fifty; we might have it at seventy dollars.' Of
+course I 'was astonished,' and offered 'forty&mdash;Would that do?' No!
+<i>honest</i> men had but one price; seventy he had said&mdash;seventy, he
+repeated, was the price.' I bought it, and paid for it and took it home,
+and consulted my books, and <i>there</i> there was no such type to be
+seen&mdash;learned friends who called upon me had never seen its fellow&mdash;it
+was pronounced an <i>inedited</i> coin, as indeed it turned out afterwards to
+be! The annual meeting of our arch&aelig;ological society was at hand. I
+determined to <i>memorialize</i> my coin, and to read my memoir at the
+meeting. In three weeks I had finished my labours. There were some
+striking conjectures in the paper, which I went early to deliver. We had
+waited half an hour for the Prince St Georgio. At last he came. 'Look!'
+said I, putting the coin into his hands, (and I said not a word beyond
+this.) Mightily pleased he seemed with it <i>at once</i>, looking from me to
+it and from it to me. I thought he was going to propose for it. At last
+he spoke&mdash;it was but a word; but his emphasis and accent made my ears
+tingle. '<i>Excellent!</i>' said he; but I was reassured on hearing him add,
+'Casanuova has the luck of St Angelo, and nobody ever took him in.'
+Relieved by this announcement, I could now afford to be modest, and said
+it was but by accident that I had <i>first</i> seen the coin. '<i>Not first</i>,
+Casanuova," said the prince&mdash;'but second, I <i>believe</i>. I saw it
+<i>first</i>.' '<i>You!</i>' said I, aghast; 'you saw this coin, and did not buy
+it?' '<i>Costava!</i> it cost too much; besides, to tell you the truth,
+<i>Coco, who had just made it</i>, told me it was expressly intended for the
+cabinet of <i>quel dottissimo suo amico J. Battista Casanuova</i>.'" "'Tis
+all true," said Coco, rubbing his hands; "and I believe I can do almost
+any thing I <i>like</i> with any of them." "Except not to tell lies, and not
+to impose upon antiquaries?" "<i>Caro lei!</i> these are the very things I
+like to <i>do most</i>, and do accordingly."</p>
+
+<p>"What has become of Coco?" asked we of an <i>orefice, three years later</i>,
+on finding ourselves a second time in Naples, and nothing doubting, as
+he had not been to visit us, that he was doing Baron Trenck, and
+exercising his ingenuity in prison. We were surprised, therefore, to
+learn that he now kept a smart shop, and was a sort of joint householder
+with a respectable man, and that nothing particular had occurred to
+tarnish his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_771" id="Page_771">[Pg 771]</a></span> reputation for now nearly a year! The shop we had already
+noticed as one of promise on the outside; for, as yet, we had not found
+time to visit its interior. It stood half-way up the Toledo, on the left
+hand side as you go to the Studii. Etruscan jars were painted on all the
+shutters, and bits of statues and bas-reliefs <i>bossaged</i> and projected
+from the house front. In face of each window was an enormous shelving
+tray, full of all sorts of odds and ends, from the Flood downwards, the
+whole under protection of a strong iron <i>grillage</i>. In one corner of the
+shop (we had <i>now</i> gone forth to visit it) sat a pretty young woman, in
+spectacles, reading Manzoni, or sleeping over him (the aforesaid
+spectacles prevented our noticing which) as he lay open in her lap;
+while on another chair, in the opposite corner, an old man, almost in
+his dotage, looked wistfully round his shop, not suppressing an anxious
+sigh when the scrutiny was done. In an inner room of <i>his</i> palace&mdash;for
+such, in derision of its owner, was the house called&mdash;busy in preparing
+and cleaning the specimens that were about to be transferred into the
+shop, lurked, like some keen-eyed tarantula, the industrious <i>Coco</i>
+himself, with such an eye to business, and such an ear, that we were no
+sooner turned in from the street than he, too, had turned in, and was
+beside us.&mdash;"Well, Coco, <i>bon giorrio</i>, &amp;c. &amp;c. &amp;c., 'tis said you have
+become an <i>honest</i> man at last; how does this <i>new</i> trade answer?" "Not
+at all," sighed the old man behind us. "Nonsense!" rejoined Coco;
+"whoever heard of a man's making money all at once? Nothing stake,
+nothing make&mdash;there's no mending where there's no spending. '<i>Necesse
+est facere sumptum qui qu&aelig;rit lucrum</i>, dice bene il Plauto.'" "Allegro
+though you be, Coco, I am not. With you nothing can go ill, for you have
+nothing to lose, either in money or in character; but to me, who am old,
+bankruptcy and a prison are not matters of jest." "Nonsense, again, you
+are not going to prison <i>yet</i>!" "Not <i>at all</i>, I hope, Coco," said the
+poor little lazy woman in the corner. "If I had my 5000 ducats, and my
+vineyard, again, at Sorrento, that you persuaded me to sell for your
+<i>Scavi</i> at Calvi, which never brought me any thing but a few lamps, and
+<i>lots of lachrymatories</i>!" "Basta, 'tis too late to talk about what you
+<i>would do</i> if you had it to do over again. Let bygones be bygones. Who
+knows what this gentleman may come to buy of us? and he never would have
+come to you but from his previous acquaintance with <i>me</i>. Isn't it so,
+sir? Ah, there are some pretty things <i>there</i>," continued he, following
+our eyes into a placarded recess. "Antichi Sono?" and we look into his
+face; "I'd as lief sell my own flesh and blood, as any thing <i>here</i> that
+was not. Think, sir, of my position. I am the <i>responsible</i> head of this
+firm. That good old gentleman, having begun antiquities late in life,
+does not know much about them. The signora there has taste, plenty; but
+it is not a lady's business to know the prices of things she may value
+or take an interest in; for suppose, now, she should wish to make money
+by the sale of <i>Coco</i>, she would hardly know what to ask for him." The
+old man fidgeted; Coco shot a glance at the blue spectacles, which were
+raised at this sally. But the signora, who sat behind them, said
+nothing. "Whence came these same things?" we inquire, for on going close
+up to them, they seemed not unfamiliar to us. Before Coco could coin the
+forthcoming lie, the old man had told us whence they came. "From
+Baroni's shop!" adding that they had cost 700 ducats. This confirmed the
+story we had heard from the beginning to its end. Our clever scoundrel
+had contrived, it seems, to engage the old man in a speculative
+excavation at Calvi; from which a few lachrymatories turning up, the old
+man's cupidity was excited; and, on the false representations made to
+him by Coco, he sold his estate; left the country; and hiring the
+expensive shop in which we see him, <i>leaves Coco to stock it</i>! which he
+does by the purchase of such merchandise as <i>his friends</i> have to
+dispose of&mdash;"When," says he, "they don't sell them too dear!" The old
+man admits that his employer is very clever; but says quietly, that he
+has not much <i>fiducia</i> in his honesty. Coco says, on his side, that his
+employer is mean in his conduct towards him, and pays his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_772" id="Page_772">[Pg 772]</a></span> activity and
+zeal in a very niggardly manner. Thus neither is satisfied with the
+other. Meantime the public are saying, that in less than a year the shop
+will be again for sale; that Coco will have bolted; and that the old
+man, if he be alive, will be fretting his soul out in St Elmo! Nobody
+speculates upon what is to become of the lady with the blue spectacles.
+<i>We</i> predict, that should she be alive, and the old man dead, in the
+course of another year, she will have entirely given up her taste for
+things old and curious, and have become curious to try something new and
+comely; if, indeed, Coco shall have left her any money to indulge in
+such a fancy.</p>
+
+<p>On returning from this visit to our hotel, about an hour later, we found
+Coco under the gateway, and on the look-out for us. <i>More solito</i>, he
+had something to show us. The porter looked after us inquiringly, as we
+bid him follow up-stairs; but was surprised by a counter look, and by
+our calling him by his <i>name</i>. Even on the stairs, he could not forbear
+sundry short ejaculations, by way of preparing us for what we were to
+see presently. "<i>Ah! ché bella roba!</i> Ah, what flowers of the mint I
+have brought you to see to-day!&mdash;bought for a song&mdash;at three Carlini
+a-piece! You shall have them at three and a half&mdash;I content myself with
+small gains. But you, sir, who are discreet, and know the value of these
+things, shall judge whether I have told you a falsehood or no." By this
+time we were in our room. The dirty bag was untied; and there leaped out
+of it, not indeed a cat, but a large heap of consular coins, with which
+we seemed forthwith to be vastly familiar; and no wonder; since, on
+inspecting them, we found that the whole had been ours not twelve hours
+before, we having disposed of them to a refiner for their weight in
+silver, to melt. "Take them all, sir, <i>tutti quanti</i>, at three Carlines
+and a half a-piece." "No; nor yet for two Carlines, Coco," said we,
+putting the paper from us. Upon which the cunning fellow hoped <i>he</i> had
+not been taken in; having certainly purchased them in the persuasion of
+reselling them, as a catch, to us. "The <i>Italian marquis</i>, of whom he
+had bought them, assured him, on his honour, that he had made a rare
+bargain with him." "Are the coins your own, Coco?" "To my cost are they,
+signor, unless you re-purchase them." "I sold them only this morning,
+Coco, for the weight of the silver; you must try somebody else." Upon
+which Coco, with admirable presence of mind, replaced them in his bag,
+and said "he had made a <i>mistake</i>!" "We regretted that he had not
+purchased them from us at the rate of one Carline and a-half per piece;
+in place of having been duped into paying three and a-half." Though he
+saw plainly, from our manner, that we were aware of his roguery, he was
+not put out; but shrugging his shoulders, and twitching the angles of a
+mouth remarkable for its mobility, he merely said&mdash;"Pazienza! a
+bargain's a bargain; we grow wiser as we grow older," and speedily
+withdrew.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3><span class="smcap">Birbone III.</span></h3>
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Basseggio.</span></p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="table">
+<tr><td>"Unde habeas qu&aelig;rit nemo, sed oportet habere."<br />
+"Fidarsi e bene, ma non fidarsi e meglio."&mdash;<i>Italian Proverb.</i></td></tr></table>
+
+<p><br />Near a fountain in one of the main streets of the west end of Rome, in
+which a recumbent figure bends over his ever-gushing urn; his body half
+hid from sight, and slowly dissolving in the water, under protection of
+a dimly lit shrine of a gaily painted Madonna; a tarnished brass plate
+with the word B&mdash;&mdash; engraved thereon, is inserted into the panels of a
+dingy-looking door, out of which a long piece of dirty string dangles
+through a hole. If you touch the electric cord, the shock is instantly
+transmitted to the other end, and the importunate tinkling of a
+well-hung bell is responded to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_773" id="Page_773">[Pg 773]</a></span> by a clicking of the latch, when an
+invisible arm pulls back the door, and your entrance is secured into a
+passage encumbered with broken busts and bas-reliefs, tier above tier,
+and a series of marble tablets, with <i>Dis manibus</i> inscriptions, let
+into the wall on either side. If, now, you pick your way amid the many
+stumbling-blocks that beset it, till you have reached the stair, (a
+narrow stair and dark, and encumbered like the passage, with numerous
+relics of antiquity,) a female voice, loudly shrilling from above,
+demands your business&mdash;"<i>Chi c'e?</i>"&mdash;you answer of course "<i>Amico</i>," and
+are bid to mount accordingly. Arrived at the summit of the stair, that
+same voice, the high-pitched key of which startled you from below,
+sounds less disagreeable, now that you are close beside the fair
+proprietress of it, who at once greets you affably, begs you to be
+seated, has seated herself beside you, and, premising that her
+"<i>marito</i>" will appear anon, has begun to ask you a hundred questions,
+some of which you are relieved from answering by the actual advent of
+Signor B&mdash;&mdash;, who makes his politest bow, while Madame introduces you as
+an old acquaintance. You see at a glance <i>this</i> part of Signor B&mdash;&mdash;'s
+history, that he has bought a young and pretty wife out of many years'
+traffic in antiquities. Whatever else he may at any other time have
+purchased, was with intention to dispose of afterwards, a suitable
+opportunity offering. But this pretty wife he keeps like an inedited
+coin, or fancies that he keeps to himself entirely. Few antiquaries have
+shown more enterprise than B&mdash;&mdash;. Possessed of little, very little money
+in his youth, he did not, like many other Roman youths of this day,
+squander it away in cigars, and was under twenty when he undertook his
+first commercial expedition. He went into Egypt, could not buy the
+Pyramids, they were too large for his portmanteau; then into Greece;
+then to Sicily. He sailed to Syracuse, landed at Naxos, sacked Taormina
+and Catania; came back and sold his curiosities well; went abroad again,
+and again returned like an industrious bee laden with spoils. Enriched
+at length by these numerous journeys, he was able to purchase a
+vineyard, and to plant it. His next step was to build a villa upon it,
+and to marry an ancient dame, who, dying shortly, left him at liberty to
+marry again. The lady whom he now calls his own being at the time poor,
+his treasures soon won her heart, while his house flattered her
+ambition, and so they made a match of it; and she now accompanies him in
+most of his antiquarian prowling excursions during the summer; and the
+<i>ménage</i>, on the whole, for an Italian ménage, goes on well enough.</p>
+
+<p>One day&mdash;(this was when, by much frequentation of the premises, we had
+become intimate with its inmates)&mdash;one day we had just been <i>ringing</i> an
+Etruscan vase, and liked the sound thereof; and examining the painting,
+we liked that too; and therefore, agreeing as to price, completed the
+purchase, and were sitting between old husband and young wife, round a
+brazier mounted on an ancient tripod, with a handful of gems, <i>loculis
+qu&aelig; custoditur eburnis</i>, talking carelessly, and taking our
+<i>impressions</i> of them, and of the stones, as we talked. It was a fête
+day, and, now we came to notice it, Madame B&mdash;&mdash; was en <i>grande
+toilette</i>, and had been hearing Padre S&mdash;&mdash; preach, as she informed us,
+at St Carlo's in the Corso. When she heard we had not been there, she
+sighed for our sakes&mdash;"Our friend <i>should</i> have heard Padre S&mdash;&mdash;
+to-day, is it not so?" to her husband, who assented to this good opinion
+of the Padre: "It was such a good sermon! all about doing as you would
+be done by&mdash;no loophole for a self-deceiver to escape by. I only wish
+A&mdash;&mdash; had been there to hear it." "Bagatello!" said Signor B&mdash;&mdash;,
+stirring the brazier, "Do you think he would not have cheated Lord V&mdash;&mdash;
+just the same in this head of Medusa, which he palmed off upon him for
+an antique, knowing it was a Calandrelli? Good sermons are thrown away
+upon some people." "Well," sighed the lady, looking up to the ceiling,
+and then taking a second dose of it&mdash;"well, at least we may apply it <i>to
+ourselves</i>." "Not a bit of it. <i>We</i> never apply any thing to ourselves.
+Do you think, for instance, when I married you, I sought to mate me with
+a lark, or a nightingale&mdash;<i>risponde</i>." She had no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_774" id="Page_774">[Pg 774]</a></span> difficulty in doing
+so. "And was I not a lark till my poor sister died&mdash;<i>poverella</i>&mdash;eighteen
+months ago?" "<i>Si, Signora!</i> but <i>since</i> that time you treat me with
+coldness; are always looking up to the sky; and always telling me your
+soul is with her soul in Paradise. No Paradise for me! What think you,
+sir?" "We always sided with those who were suffering from the loss of
+friends." "<i>Bene, bene</i>, for three months or so&mdash;'twas all very well,
+natural. But beyond this? Besides, though it were ever so sincere&mdash;what
+was the use of it?" "Oh! of <i>no use</i>, of course," said we. "I shall
+never give over mourning for her, I promise you that," said the lady,
+much moved. The husband shrugged his shoulders; said, "That all women
+were more or less foolish;" and asked us if we were married? Before we
+had time to answer, in came Padre S&mdash;&mdash;, whose sermon had made such
+impression on B&mdash;&mdash; and his wife. We now sit all around the brazier;
+both wife and husband being, for some time, loud in their praises, which
+were somewhat extravagant! "It was a divine sermon&mdash;St Paul could not
+have preached a better"&mdash;when the good man hopes it may, by God's
+blessing, do good, politely acknowledges the compliment implied in our
+regrets that we had not been of the auditory, and then rises to look
+round, Signor B&mdash;&mdash; doing the honours, at the curiosities of the shop;
+at the sight of several objects of virtù, he expresses, somewhat
+naïvely, great pleasure&mdash;would like to have seen more, but has another
+sermon to deliver in St Jacomo&mdash;the bell is ringing!&mdash;he must say <i>idio</i>
+at once. As he makes his exit, (Madame kisses his hand first,) two other
+visitors present themselves; the one a young Roman, who comes to console
+her; the other a young English nobleman, who comes to buy in haste, and
+will have to repent at leisure afterwards. In five minutes, Madame seems
+to have entirely forgotten her sister; B&mdash;&mdash; his wife! The one is
+receiving comfort in compliment; the other, in cash! Hush! Surely we
+heard Lord A&mdash;&mdash; ask if that vamped old vase, which will fall some day
+to pieces, was <i>antique</i>; and B&mdash;&mdash;assert that it was! Why, the paint is
+scarcely dry on its sides! Lord A&mdash;&mdash;'s unlucky eye lights upon a bust,
+which, when he gets it over to England, he may match at the stone-mason's
+in the New Road, and at half-price&mdash;<i>two</i> words, <i>three</i> syllables,
+and the purchase is made "<i>Chi?</i>" Whose bust is it? "Cicero's," of course!
+"Quanto," what's the price of it? "Twenty Napoleons!" You old rogue B&mdash;&mdash;!
+you are safe in sending it to Terny's, <i>packed</i>; for, if it should be
+seen, you might have to refund the purchase-money. <i>Necdum finitus?</i>
+Another bust tempts him; he inquires, and finds it is a <i>Jove</i>&mdash;a Jove!
+and is</p>
+
+<p class="poem">"Jupiter, h&aelig;c nec labra moves, quum mittere vocem<br />
+Debueras, vel <i>marmoreus</i>, vel aheneus?<br />
+... Quod nullum discrimen habendum est<br />
+Effigies inter vestras, statuamque Bathylli?"</p>
+
+<p>And this too, he buys for twenty Napoleons more; and having paid the
+purchase-money, away goes the possessor of Jupiter, and at the same
+juncture away goes the Cavaliere&mdash;each perfectly satisfied with his
+visit.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Molto intelligente</i>, that countryman of yours," said B&mdash;&mdash;, spelling
+his card. "He seems to take things very much upon trust," said we. "'Tis
+a pity he don't understand Italian or French better. Otherwise, I
+<i>might</i> have perhaps suggested better things than those he has actually
+chosen. But after all," added he, "people don't like being put out of
+conceit with their own opinions; and think you personally interested, if
+you offer yours unasked." "I should have been sorry to have taken that
+vase as antique, as he has done; or to have paid the tenth of the price
+he has paid you for it." "Oh! don't be afraid; he can afford it&mdash;an
+English gentleman!&mdash;and to <i>him</i> it is worth what he paid for it; else,
+if he did not think so, who forced him to take it?" "I <i>wonder</i> now what
+Father S&mdash;&mdash; would have said to it;" asked Madame of her husband,
+looking up to the ceiling, and sighing. "Nothing, 'twas not in his
+province to pronounce judgment in such a matter." We too <i>wondered</i>,
+perhaps, what he might have said to Madame, touching her Cavaliere,
+whose discourse seemed to have told almost as powerfully on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_775" id="Page_775">[Pg 775]</a></span> her as
+<i>his</i> sermon at St Carlo's. We wondered, but <i>to ourselves</i>, and making
+the common-place remark, that it seemed easier to <i>preach</i> than to
+<i>practise</i>, exchanged smiles with B&mdash;&mdash; and his wife, and withdrew, to
+think over what we had seen; and to arrive at our own conclusions,
+touching the general utility of fashionable and popular preaching!</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3><span class="smcap">Birbone IV.</span></h3>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Herr Ascherson.</span></p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="table">
+<tr><td>"Rogare malo, quam emere."&mdash;<span class="smcap">Suidas.</span></td></tr></table>
+
+<p><br />Sly old fox, what pen shall do justice to thy cunning! Grave, venerable,
+ancient cheat, who showest a <i>Bible</i>, left thee by some pious enthusiast
+(the old family pew-book, morocco, in silver clasps&mdash;well thou lookest
+to them at least) in return for many dealings with thee, and in
+requital, so thou sayest, for thine incomparable disinterestedness and
+honesty!</p>
+
+<p>It would be no harder task to unwind a mummy, than to unroll and
+unriddle <i>thee</i>, old rogue, in thy endless windings and detours! "Have
+no dealings with A&mdash;&mdash;," said that <i>timid</i> rogue, the Florentine
+attorney R&mdash;&mdash;; "the man is so gigantic a cheat, that he frightens me!"
+"and cunning to a degree" was D&mdash;&mdash;'s account of him. "He is up to a
+thing or two," said S&mdash;&mdash;, looking knowing, and putting his finger, like
+Harpocrates, to his mouth, that it went no further. A brother dealer
+called him a Hebrew; another (himself as sly as any fox) admitted that
+he had been overreached by him. His name, whenever mentioned, seldom
+failed to call forth a smile, or a shrug, in those who had not dealt
+with him; and a thundering oath against his German blood in those that
+had. Mr A&mdash;&mdash; was therefore too remarkable a man for us, ourself an
+incipient collector, not to visit; and so, as soon as we got to Naples,
+we dispatched a note, and the next day followed it in person; rang at
+the bell, and were ushered into his sanctum; where we beheld the old
+<i>necromancer</i> standing at his table, looking out for us. He put down his
+eyeglass and his old coin; and said in answer to our question, which was
+in English, "Ya! ya! mein name is A&mdash;&mdash;." Forgetting at this moment what
+R&mdash;&mdash; had said of him, and only recollecting that they were acquainted,
+we began, by way of introducing ourselves to his best things, to say,
+that we had lately seen his friend R&mdash;&mdash; at Rome&mdash;"Dat is not mein
+friend, dat is mein enemy," said he, displeased at our mentioning the
+name; and looking at us half suspiciously, half spitefully. "I hav notin
+to say wit him more," and he took a huge pinch of snuff, and wasted a
+deal on his snuffy waistcoat and shirt frill. We at once saw our
+mistake, which indeed, but for our anxiety to get to business, we should
+not, assuredly, have been guilty of. We had now to make the best of it.
+"A mistake, Mr. A&mdash;&mdash;, we assure you. Mr. R&mdash;&mdash; might say that, on <i>one</i>
+occasion, you <i>had</i> been <i>brusque</i> with him; but advised us,
+notwithstanding, to pay you a visit, regretting that, from some little
+difference between you, <i>he</i> could not give us the introduction, which,
+under more favourable circumstances, he would have pressed upon us;" an
+announcement which completely mollified the old rogue, who, in his heart
+of hearts, was thinking that a new victim had turned up to him, and one
+of Rusca's recommending. "It is pleasant to make peace between two
+honest men," said we; "Rusca and you should not have quarrelled.
+Ill-natured people take advantage of these disputes, and begin to
+profess open distrust as to the age and genuineness of whatever you
+sell." "For dis reason I hate not Mr Rusca; but he has too much
+<i>strepitusness</i> of voice&mdash;<i>il s'emporte trop facilement</i>." "Ah,"
+interpose we in the mediatorial capacity we had assumed, "'tis the
+character of the Italian to do so." "Ya, dat is true," assented he; and
+then we went to look at his coins. "We<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_776" id="Page_776">[Pg 776]</a></span> are not blind friends of
+Rusca's," said we, sitting down to the first tray which he gave us to
+look at, and seeing, from the character of the coins therein exhibited,
+that A&mdash;&mdash; had presumed we <i>might</i> be. "We only buy from R&mdash;&mdash; when he
+is discreet, and does not overcharge; which, <i>entre nous</i>, he is very
+apt to do." The old man glanced at us approvingly, and trying hard to
+look honest, said, "Ya, ya; when he can get <i>ein</i> piastre he will not
+take <i>ein halb</i>&mdash;but when I ask a piastre for any tings, (and he was
+grave again,) it is tantamount as to say, 'dis is de <i>leastest</i> preis to
+give.'" "All here has a fixed price, has it?" "Ya, ya." "And what may
+this pretty little figure be worth?" "I shall confess dat is dear; two
+hundred piastres is de preis&mdash;Rusca would have said four hundred to
+begin mit." We admitted its beauty; but said two hundred spread out upon
+the table were also beautiful. "De good ting is de dear ting," said he,
+and we admitted the truth of the proposition, both in the abstract and
+in its application; took up a specious-looking coin, which he took as
+abruptly out of our hand&mdash;"<i>Nein gewiss nicht</i>," we must not buy that.
+"Why?" Because some people had not scrupled to tell him (though they
+knew better) that it was a Rusca. "Rusca!" said we, "and what does that
+mean?" "In Neapolitan <i>patois</i>," said he, "we call all our specious but
+doubtful wares Ruscas! But dis," continued he, taking up a companion to
+it&mdash;"dis I baptize in my own name, and offer for a true John A&mdash;&mdash;."
+"Ah!" sighed we, but without <i>emphasis</i>, as if it had only <i>just</i>
+occurred to us "how difficult, now-a-days, <i>not</i> to be deceived;" and we
+replaced the J&mdash;&mdash; A&mdash;&mdash; in his box accordingly. "Ven all amateurs,"
+said he, (following out his own thought, rather than replying to ours,)
+"ven all amateurs were connoisseurs likewise, we might say goot-night to
+dis bissnesse."</p>
+
+<p>In the days of our novitiate, when we used to say, and think we knew (as
+the phrase is) what would please us, and would buy according to our
+means, we found (as indeed all purchasers in these matters find) that
+time, while it brought with it a nicer appreciation in judging works of
+art, diminished also our opinion of what we had formerly purchased; and,
+to avoid fresh disappointments, we used to apply to an <i>antiquario</i> to
+give us his advice <i>pro re nata</i>;&mdash;as the reader will see by the
+following note of Herr A&mdash;&mdash;, which, as it prevented our making one or
+two foolish purchases, was not without its value, and we preserved it
+accordingly. It ran <i>verbatim</i> thus&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Sir,&mdash;You may copy my catalogue, but on Montag ber sur I must hav
+back. The <i>botel</i> is not good in such a manner. The <i>figure</i> is of
+no great value; it is not antic, and not fair; so is the <i>bust</i> in
+stone not antic, and not nice; and every thing that is neither
+antic nor fair I cannot give any worth. Your obedient servant,</p>
+
+<p class="right">"A&mdash;&mdash;.</p>
+
+<p>"Pray you must not tell to any one my estimation of any thing."</p></div>
+
+<p>Neither did we, excepting to <i>Maga</i>, to whom we tell every thing.</p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_777" id="Page_777">[Pg 777]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="INDEX" id="INDEX"></a>INDEX TO VOL. LIX.</h2>
+
+
+<p class="index">
+Adams, Mr, on the Oregon Question, 443.<br />
+<br />
+&AElig;schylus, tragedies of, 61, 65.<br />
+<br />
+&AElig;sthetics of Dress<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;Military Costume, 114.</span><br />
+<br />
+Agriculture, decline of, in Italy, 339.<br />
+<br />
+Alamo, siege of the, 39.<br />
+<br />
+Alexander of Russia, accession, &amp;c. of, 224.<br />
+<br />
+Alexander, Prince of Servia, 133, 146.<br />
+<br />
+Alfieri, tragedies of, 71.<br />
+<br />
+Aliwal, battle of, 639.<br />
+<br />
+Almanza, battle of, 200.<br />
+<br />
+America, specimens of the debates, &amp;c. in, 439.<br />
+<br />
+Americans and the Aborigines, the, a tale of the short war, Part I., 554<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;Part II., <a href="#Page_677">677</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Amusements at Vichy, 309.<br />
+<br />
+Anacreon's grave, from Goethe, 121.<br />
+<br />
+Andreossi, the French ambassador, 466.<br />
+<br />
+Antigone of Sophocles, the, 64.<br />
+<br />
+Antonio Perez, sketch of the career of, 450.<br />
+<br />
+Apology for a review, an, 249.<br />
+<br />
+Arethusa, fountain of, 103.<br />
+<br />
+Assur, battle of, 491.<br />
+<br />
+Atheism, first public avowal of, in France, 393.<br />
+<br />
+Austin, Stephen F., 37.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Baker, Mr, on the Oregon Question, 444.<br />
+<br />
+Banks, Sir Joseph, <a href="#Page_648">648</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Barclay of Ury, first feat of, 225.<br />
+<br />
+Barré, Colonel, death of, 463.<br />
+<br />
+Bedford, Duke of, death of, 227.<br />
+<br />
+Belgrade, town of, 133.<br />
+<br />
+Bells of Venice, the, 256.<br />
+<br />
+Bentinck, Lord George, on Ireland, 601.<br />
+<br />
+Berwick, Marshal, 211, 213.<br />
+<br /><a name="birbo" id="birbo"></a>
+Birboniana, or Italian Antiquities and Antichitá<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;scene the first</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;the introduction, 543</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;Birboniana, 548</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;Birbone I., Signor Rusca, <a href="#Page_765">765</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;II. Coco, <a href="#Page_768">768</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;III. Basseggio, <a href="#Page_772">772</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;IV. Herr Ascherson, <a href="#Page_775">775</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Borneo, the expedition to, 356.<br />
+<br />
+Bosniaks, character of the, 138.<br />
+<br />
+Boufflers, Marshal, 211, 213, 214.<br />
+<br />
+Breece, Captain, 38, 39.<br />
+<br />
+Bridge of Sighs at Venice, the, 254.<br />
+<br />
+Broadfoot, Major, on the state of the Punjaub, 628.<br />
+<br />
+Brooke, Mr, of Borneo, Sketch of the life, &amp;c. of, 356.<br />
+<br />
+Brougham's lives of men of letters and science, &amp;c., review of, <a href="#Page_645">645</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Bunkerhoff, M., on Oregon, 447.<br />
+<br />
+Burden of Zion, the, by Delta, 493.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Camelford, Lord, anecdotes of, 217.<br />
+<br />
+Campagna of Rome, description of the, 252<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;causes, &amp;c., of its present condition, 337.</span><br />
+<br />
+Campaign in Texas, a, 37.<br />
+<br />
+Campaign of the Sutlej, the, 625.<br />
+<br />
+Capucin convent at Syracuse, the, 106.<br />
+<br />
+Cass, Mr, on the Oregon question, 442.<br />
+<br />
+Cathedral service in England the, 181.<br />
+<br />
+Catholic emancipation, on, 387.<br />
+<br />
+Charles XII., character of, 195.<br />
+<br />
+Chipman, Mr, on Oregon, 447.<br />
+<br />
+Christie the auctioneer, anecdote of, 229.<br />
+<br />
+Christmas carol, 1845, 122.<br />
+<br />
+Clarke, Mr, murder of, 593.<br />
+<br />
+Clerks of counsel, duties of, 5.<br />
+<br />
+Coercion bill, the Irish, 572.<br />
+<br />
+Colonel O'Kelly's parrot, death of, 466.<br />
+<br />
+Colosseum, the, 252.<br />
+<br />
+Consultation, a; a Sicilian sketch, 109.<br />
+<br />
+Contrast, the, 307.<br />
+<br />
+Cook, General, 39<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;Captain, <a href="#Page_649">649</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Corn-law repeal, the proposed, 373.<br />
+<br />
+Corneille, tragedies of, 69.<br />
+<br />
+Cos, General, 37, 40.<br />
+<br />
+Crisis, the, 124.<br />
+<br />
+Crusades, the, and their effects on Europe, 475.<br />
+<br />
+Czabacz, town of, 135.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+D'Alembert, career of, <a href="#Page_654">654</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Darragh, Mr, on the Oregon question, 444.<br />
+<br />
+Darwin, Dr, death of, 228.<br />
+<br />
+Delta, burden of Zion by, 493.<br />
+<br />
+Despard, Colonel, conspiracy and trial of, 467.<br />
+<br />
+Devon, Lord, on the state of Ireland, 567.<br />
+<br />
+Dionysius, the ear of, 105.<br />
+<br />
+Distribution of grain in Rome, effects of, 340.<br />
+<br />
+Dorislaus, battle of, 484.<br />
+<br />
+Douglas, Mr, on the Oregon question, 443.<br />
+<br />
+Drama, remarks on the Greek and romantic, 54<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;Causes of the decline of, 58.</span><br />
+<br />
+Dramatic poet, qualifications necessary for the, 54.<br />
+<br />
+Dress, &aelig;sthetics of<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;Military costume, 114.</span><br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_778" id="Page_778">[Pg 778]</a></span><br />
+Dyaks of Borneo, the, 359.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Ear of Dionysius, the, 105.<br />
+<br />
+East and west, 248.<br />
+<br />
+Eboli, princess of, 454.<br />
+<br />
+Education in Servia, state of, 135.<br />
+<br />
+Ehrenberg's campaign in Texas, 37.<br />
+<br />
+Ejections in Ireland, 578.<br />
+<br />
+Elinor Travis; Chap. I., <a href="#Page_713">713</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Ellis, Wellbore, death of, 229.<br />
+<br />
+English hexameter, remarks on the, 259.<br />
+<br />
+Enriquez, narrative of the murder of Escovedo, by, 455.<br />
+<br />
+Epigrams from Goethe, 121.<br />
+<br />
+Epipol&aelig;, excursion to, 110.<br />
+<br />
+Escovedo, the secretary, murder of, 452, 455.<br />
+<br />
+Eugene, Prince, 201, 206, 212.<br />
+<br />
+Eusebius, letter to, 408.<br />
+<br />
+Excursion to Epipol&aelig;, an, 110.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Fall of Rome, causes of the, 339<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;its causes at work in the British Empire, <a href="#Page_692">692</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Famine in Ireland, the, 599.<br />
+<br />
+Fanning, Colonel, 42, 43, 44.<br />
+<br />
+Faucit, Miss, 55.<br />
+<br />
+Ferozeshah, battle of, 635.<br />
+<br />
+Follett, Sir William, sketch of the career and character of, 1.<br />
+<br />
+Fountain of Arethusa, the, 103.<br />
+<br />
+Fox, conduct of, on the regency question, 389.<br />
+<br />
+Fragments of Italy and the Rhineland, review of, 249.<br />
+<br />
+French drama, characteristics of the, 68.<br />
+<br />
+French revolution, Wellesley on the, 394.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Geddings, Mr, on the Oregon question, 443.<br />
+<br />
+Goethe, translation from<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;Goethe to his Roman love, 120</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;Epigrams</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;Anacreon's grave, 121</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;the warning, ib.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;the Swiss alp, ib.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;north and south, ib.</span><br />
+<br />
+Goliad, fort, massacre at, 43.<br />
+<br />
+Gordon, Mr, on the Oregon question, 447.<br />
+<br />
+Grain, importation of, into Rome, 340.<br />
+<br />
+Grant, Colonel, 41, 42.<br />
+<br />
+Greek and romantic drama, the, 54.<br />
+<br />
+Greek Fire and Gunpowder, <a href="#Page_749">749</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Griffiths, Mr, on Ireland, 586.<br />
+<br />
+Gunpowder, on the origin of, <a href="#Page_749">749</a>.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Hamlin, Mr, on the Oregon question, 446.<br />
+<br />
+Heberden, Dr, 224.<br />
+<br />
+Herbert, Mr Sidney, on the state of Ireland, 572, 573.<br />
+<br />
+Hexameter, the English, remarks on, 259.<br />
+<br />
+His epitaph, by Ennius, 496.<br />
+<br />
+Holman, the blind traveller, 134.<br />
+<br />
+Homer's Iliad, twenty-fourth book of, translated into English hexameters, 259<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;book the first, 610.</span><br />
+<br />
+Horace, translations from, 411.<br />
+<br />
+Houston, General, notices of, 51.<br />
+<br />
+How they manage matters in the Model Republic, 439.<br />
+<br />
+How to build a house and live in it, 758.<br />
+<br />
+Hyder Ali, the war with, 398.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Iliad, the twenty-fourth book of, in English hexameters, 251<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;the first, 610.</span><br />
+<br />
+India, Wellesley's administration in, 396.<br />
+<br />
+India bill, Pitt's, 391.<br />
+<br />
+Ingersoll, Mr, on the Oregon question, 444.<br />
+<br />
+Iphigenia in Aulis, the, 65.<br />
+<br />
+Ireland, state of, in 1780, 387.<br />
+<br />
+Ireland, present state of, and measures with reference to, 572.<br />
+<br />
+Italian antiquities and antichitá, 543, <a href="#Page_765">765</a>.<br />
+<br />
+It's all for the best, Chap. I, 230<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;Chap. II., 234</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;Chap. III., 238</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;Chap. IV., 242</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;Chap. V., 245</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;Chap. VI., 319</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;Chap. VII., 320</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;Chap. VIII., the squire's tale, 323</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;Chap. IX., 329</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;Chap. X., 334.</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Jack Robertson and the professor of eloquence, 104.<br />
+<br />
+Jenner, discovery of vaccination by, 230.<br />
+<br />
+Jerusalem, storming of, by the Crusaders, 486.<br />
+<br />
+John, Don, of Austria, 452.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Kara George, the Servian leader, 143.<br />
+<br />
+Kemble, Stephen, 225.<br />
+<br />
+Kennedy, Mr, on Oregon, 446.<br />
+<br />
+Kopaunik mountain, the, 139.<br />
+<br />
+Krushevatz, town of, 139.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Last hours of a reign; a tale in two parts<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;Part II., Chap. III., 17</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;Chap. IV., 24</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;Chap. V., 29</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;conclusion, 36.</span><br />
+<br />
+Lauriston, General, 223.<br />
+<br />
+Lavater the physiognomist, 221.<br />
+<br />
+Lavoisier, career of, <a href="#Page_658">658</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Leases, effects of, in Ireland, 584.<br />
+<br />
+Le Peuple, review of, <a href="#Page_733">733</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Let never cruelty dishonour beauty, 16.*<br />
+<br />
+Letter to Eusebius, 410.<br />
+<br />
+Lille, siege of, by Marlborough, 211.<br />
+<br />
+Literature of the eighteenth century, the, <a href="#Page_645">645</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Lodge, A., the Old Player by, 473<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;the Rose of Warning, by, <a href="#Page_747">747</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Lover of society, recollections of a, 215<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;Part II., 463.</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Mackintosh, Sir James, defence of Peltier by, 468.<br />
+<br />
+Maher, Mr, on the state of Ireland, 589.<br />
+<br />
+Malta, seizure of, by France, 467.<br />
+<br />
+Marlborough, No. III., 195<br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_779" id="Page_779">[Pg 779]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;his interview with Charles XII., 197</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;difficulties with which he had to contend, 199</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;invades France, 201</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;returns to England, 202</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;resumes the command, 203</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;movements previous to Oudenarde, 204</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;defeats the French there, 207</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;besieges Lille, 211.</span><br />
+<br />
+Marquis Wellesley, sketch of the career of, 385.<br />
+<br />
+Martha Brown, by an ancient contributor, 184<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;Chap. II., 187.</span><br />
+<br />
+Martial, epigrams from, 496.<br />
+<br />
+Martin, General Claud, 226.<br />
+<br />
+Masham, Mrs, 202.<br />
+<br />
+Mendip, Lord, 229.<br />
+<br />
+Metastasio, dramas of, 70.<br />
+<br />
+Mexico, war between, and Texas, 37.<br />
+<br />
+Michaud's History of the Crusades, review of, 475.<br />
+<br />
+Michelet's Le Peuple, review of, <a href="#Page_733">733</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Mignet's Antonio Perez and Philip II., 450.<br />
+<br />
+Military costume, remarks on, 114, 219<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;Music, 175.</span><br />
+<br />
+Milosh, the Servian leader, 145.<br />
+<br />
+Ministerial measures, the, 373.<br />
+<br />
+Model Republic, how they manage matters in the, 439.<br />
+<br />
+Modern Pilgrim's Progress&mdash;the fragment of a dream<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;Chap. I., How Scapegrace first made acquaintance with Scrip, 604</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;Chap. II., How Scapegrace, losing sight of Premium, was mocked at Vanity Fair, 606.</span><br />
+<br />
+Moodkee, battle of, 633.<br />
+<br />
+Mornington, Earl of, 386.<br />
+<br />
+Moses and Son, a didactic tale<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;Chap. I., 294</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;Chap. II., 297</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;Chap. III., 299.</span><br />
+<br />
+Mother and her dead child, the, 53.<br />
+<br />
+Muda Hassim, rajah of Borneo, 358, 359.<br />
+<br />
+Music, something more about, 169.<br />
+<br />
+My College Friends, No. III.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;Mr W. Wellington Hurst, 73.</span><br />
+<br />
+Mysore war, the, 397.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Napoleon, epigram on, 220.<br />
+<br />
+Natural history of Vichy, the, 306.<br />
+<br />
+Naylor's Reynard the Fox, review of, <a href="#Page_665">665</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Naval costume, remarks on, 119.<br />
+<br />
+Nobility, re-establishment of, in France, 230.<br />
+<br />
+North and South, from Goethe, 121.<br />
+<br />
+Novibazar, town of, 138.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+O'Connell, Mr, condition of the tenantry of, 589.<br />
+<br />
+Old player, the, by A. Lodge, 473.<br />
+<br />
+On a bee, from Martial, 496.<br />
+<br />
+On Gellia, from Martial, 496.<br />
+<br />
+Oregon question, American speeches on the, 441.<br />
+<br />
+Orford, Lord, 470.<br />
+<br />
+Oudenarde, battle of, 207.<br />
+<br />
+Overkirk, General, death of, 214.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Palmerston, Lord, on the Servian question, 147.<br />
+<br />
+Paton's Servia, review of, 129.<br />
+<br />
+Paul, the emperor, 216, 218, 219.<br />
+<br />
+Peace of Amiens, the, 223, 228.<br />
+<br />
+Pearce's life of Wellesley, review of, 385.<br />
+<br />
+Peel ministry, resignation of the, 124<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;their return to office, 128.</span><br />
+<br />
+Peel, Sir Robert, and his corn-law measure, 373.<br />
+<br />
+Peep into the Whig penny-post bag, a, 247.<br />
+<br />
+Peltier, trial of, 468.<br />
+<br />
+Peninsular war, opening of the, 402.<br />
+<br />
+People, the, <a href="#Page_733">733</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Perceval, Mr, death of, 403.<br />
+<br />
+Perez, Antonio, sketch of the career of, 450.<br />
+<br />
+Petronevich, M. 131, 134, 142.<br />
+<br />
+Petty, Sir William, 219.<br />
+<br />
+Philip II. sketches of, 450.<br />
+<br />
+Piper, Count, minister of Charles XII. 197.<br />
+<br />
+Pitt, retirement of, 227<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;Regency question, 389.</span><br />
+<br />
+Poetry:<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;Let never cruelty dishonour beauty, 16*</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;the mother and her dead child, 53</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;translations from Goethe, 120</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;Christmas carol, 1845, 122</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;the twenty-fourth book of Homer's Iliad, in English hexameters, 259</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;the Old Player, by A. Lodge, 473</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;the burden of Sion, by Delta, 493</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;rhymed hexameters, 496</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;the first book of Homer's Iliad, 610</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;Truth and Beauty, 624</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;the Rose of Warning, <a href="#Page_747">747</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Posharevatz, town of, 140.<br />
+<br />
+Potatoe failure, the, 382.<br />
+<br />
+Powell, Mr, murder of, 591.<br />
+<br />
+Prometheus Vinctus, the, 65.<br />
+<br />
+Prospectus, a, 621.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Racine, remarks on, 69.<br />
+<br />
+Rassavatz, M. 140.<br />
+<br />
+Recollections of a Lover of Society<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;the Irish Union, 215</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;Challenge to George III. 216</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;anecdotes of Lord Camelford, &amp;c. 217</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;death of Paul of Russia, 218</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;anecdotes of him, 219</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;epitaphs, 221</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;death of Lavater, Heberden, &amp;c. <i>ib.</i></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;peace of Amiens, 223</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;coronation of Alexander of Russia, 224</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;first feat of Barclay of Ury, 225</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;appearance of Stephen Kemble, <i>ib.</i></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;on the peace, &amp;c. 226</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;death of the Duke of Bedford, 227</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;retirement of Pitt, <i>ib.</i></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;conclusion of the peace, 228</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;death of Darwin, <i>ib.</i></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;and of Lord Mendip, 229</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;re-establishment of nobility in France, 230</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;Jenner and vaccination, <i>ib.</i></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;No. II.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;ball in honour of the peace, 463</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;accident to George Rose, <i>ib.</i></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;death of Colonel Barré, <i>ib.</i></span><br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_780" id="Page_780">[Pg 780]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;curious law action, &amp;c. 464</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;measures of Napoleon, <i>ib.</i></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;Schinderhannes the robber, 465</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;Colonel O'Kelly's parrot, 466</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;Andreossi and the seizure of Malta, <i>ib.</i></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;image of our Lady of Loretto, 467</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;trial of Colonel Despard, <i>ib.</i></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;trial of Peltier, 468</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;Lord Orford, 470</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;frauds on the Stock Exchange, 471</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;declaration of war against France, 472.</span><br />
+<br />
+Reform, first agitation of, 390.<br />
+<br />
+Regency question, the, 389.<br />
+<br />
+Reign, last hours of, a tale in two parts, Part II., Chap. III., 17<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;Chap IV., 24</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;Chap. V., 29</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;Conclusion, 36.</span><br />
+<br />
+Reinaud on Greek Fire, <a href="#Page_749">749</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Rent, rates of, in Ireland, 586.<br />
+<br />
+Reynard the Fox, <a href="#Page_665">665</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Rhodes, description of, 130.<br />
+<br />
+Rhymed Hexameters and Pentameters, 496.<br />
+<br />
+Rogues in Outline, see <a href="#birbo"><i>Birboniana</i></a>.<br />
+<br />
+Roman Campagna, the, 337.<br />
+<br />
+Romantic drama compared with the Greek, 54.<br />
+<br />
+Rome, sketches of, 250<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;causes of the decline and fall of, 340</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;the fall of</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;its causes at work in the British Empire, <a href="#Page_692">692</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Rose, George, accident to, 463.<br />
+<br />
+Rose of Warning, the, by A. Lodge, <a href="#Page_747">747</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Roustchouk, fortress of, 131.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Sacred music, on, 181.<br />
+<br />
+St Antonio, siege of, 38.<br />
+<br />
+St Germans, Lord, coercion bill of, 572.<br />
+<br />
+Santa Anna, notices of, 37.<br />
+<br />
+Santa Lucia and the Capucin convent, 106.<br />
+<br />
+Schiller, dramas of, 72.<br />
+<br />
+Schinderhannes, the robber of the Rhine, 465.<br />
+<br />
+Scott's novels and poems, remarks on, 414.<br />
+<br />
+Serier, Mr, on the Oregon question, 442.<br />
+<br />
+Servia, and the Servian question, 129.<br />
+<br />
+Shabatz, town of, 135.<br />
+<br />
+Shakspeare and &AElig;schylus, comparison of, 61<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;and the drama, 534.</span><br />
+<br />
+Sharks and fireflies, 108.<br />
+<br />
+Sheridan on the French Revolution, 395.<br />
+<br />
+Sicilian sketches<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;Syracusiana&mdash;the fountain of Arethusa, 103</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;Jack Robertson and the professor of eloquence, 104</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;Ear of Dionysius, 105</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;Santa Lucia and the Capucin convent, 106</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;sharks and fireflies, 108</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;a consultation, 109</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;excursion to Epipol&aelig;, 110</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;addio, Sicilia, 111.</span><br />
+<br />
+Siddons, Mrs, 55.<br />
+<br />
+Sikhs, subjugation of the, 625.<br />
+<br />
+Simitch Stogan, 142.<br />
+<br />
+Sims, Mr, on the Oregon question, 415.<br />
+<br />
+Sir William Follett, sketch of the life and character of, 1.<br />
+<br />
+Small canals of Venice, the, 254.<br />
+<br />
+Smith, Adam, <a href="#Page_661">661</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Smith, Sir Harry, despatch of, 639.<br />
+<br />
+Smuggler's leap, the, a passage in the Pyrenees, 366.<br />
+<br />
+Sobraon, battle of, 642.<br />
+<br />
+Sokol or Szoko, fortress of, 136, 137.<br />
+<br />
+Soltau's Reynard the Fox, review of, <a href="#Page_655">665</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Something more about music, 169.<br />
+<br />
+Stanton, Mr, on the Oregon question, 447.<br />
+<br />
+State of Ireland, the, 572.<br />
+<br />
+Story of Periander, the, 417.<br />
+<br />
+Studenitza, convent of, 138.<br />
+<br />
+Student of Salamanca, the, Part III., 85<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;Part IV., 149</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;Part V., 273</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;Part VI., 419</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;Part the last, 513.</span><br />
+<br />
+Surveyor's tale, the, 497.<br />
+<br />
+Sutlej, campaign of the, 625.<br />
+<br />
+Suvaroff, <ins class="correction" title="original: ancedote">anecdote</ins> of, 219.<br />
+<br />
+Svilainitza, town of, 140.<br />
+<br />
+Swindler, a female, 218.<br />
+<br />
+Swiss Alp, the, from Goethe, 121.<br />
+<br />
+Syracusiana, <i>see</i> Sicilian sketches.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Tariff, the new, 373.<br />
+<br />
+Texas, a campaign in, 37.<br />
+<br />
+Tickell, Mr, on the state of Ireland, 379.<br />
+<br />
+Tippoo Saib, the war with, 397.<br />
+<br />
+To Cecilianus, from Martial, 496.<br />
+<br />
+Toulon, siege of, by Eugene, 201.<br />
+<br />
+Tronosha, convent of, 136.<br />
+<br />
+Truth and beauty, 624.<br />
+<br />
+Twenty-fourth book of Homer's Iliad, attempted in English hexameters, 259.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Union of Great Britain and Ireland, the, 215.<br />
+<br />
+Ushitza, town of, 137.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Vaccination, discovery of, 230.<br />
+<br />
+Vendôme, Marshal, 205, 206, 212.<br />
+<br />
+Venice, sketches of, 254.<br />
+<br />
+Vichyana, natural history, &amp;c., 406<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;the contrast, 307</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;miscellanea, 308</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;our amusements, 309</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;first table-d'hôte dinner, 315.</span><br />
+<br />
+Villa Borghese, the, 251.<br />
+<br />
+Voltaire, the tragedies of, 70.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Wakefield, Gilbert, 222.<br />
+<br />
+Walls of Rome, the, 250.<br />
+<br />
+War in Texas, anecdotes of the, 37.<br />
+<br />
+Warning, the, from Goethe, 121.<br />
+<br />
+Wellesley, the Marquis, sketch of the career of, 385.<br />
+<br />
+Whyte's pilgrim's reliquary, review of, 249.<br />
+<br />
+Widdin, town of, 132.<br />
+<br />
+Wuczicz, M. 134, 142.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="center">END OF VOL. LIX.</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="center"><br /><i>Edinburgh: Printed by Ballantyne and Hughes, Paul's Work.</i></p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><b>Footnotes:</b></p>
+
+<p><a name="f1" id="f1" href="#f1.1">[1]</a> <i>Lives of Men of Letters and Science who Flourished in the Time of
+George III.</i> By <span class="smcap">Henry Lord Brougham</span>, with Portraits. London: Colburn.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f2" id="f2" href="#f2.1">[2]</a> <i>Reynard the Fox&mdash;a renowned Apologue of the Middle Ages reproduced
+in Rhyme.</i> By <span class="smcap">S. Naylor</span>. Longman &amp; Co. London: 1845.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f3" id="f3" href="#f3.1">[3]</a> Finlay's <i>Greece under the Romans</i>, p. 250.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f4" id="f4" href="#f4.1">[4]</a> "Mihi multum legenti multum audienti qu&aelig; populus Romanus domi
+militi&aelig;que pr&aelig;clara facinora fecissent, forte lubuit attendere qu&aelig; res
+maxime tanta negotia sustinuit. At mihi multa agitanti constabat,
+paucorum civium egregiam virtutem cuncta patravisse: eoque factum ut
+divitias paupertas, multitudinem paucitas, superaret."&mdash;Sallust, <i>Bell.
+Cat.</i>, 32.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f5" id="f5" href="#f5.1">[5]</a> They were as high as L.9 sterling in the time of Constantine, a sum
+probably equal to L.20 of our money. But the freemen were the higher
+classes alone, and it is probable a similar class, both in France and
+England, pay at least as much at this time.&mdash;See Gibbon, iii. 88.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f6" id="f6" href="#f6.1">[6]</a> Gibbon, c. i. and c. xxxii. Agathias states the military
+establishment in its best days at 675,000, which is much more likely its
+real amount. Agathias, v. p. 157, Paris edition.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f7" id="f7" href="#f7.1">[7]</a> Gibbon, vol. vi. c. xxxvi. p. 235.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f8" id="f8" href="#f8.1">[8]</a> Ibid. vol. iii. c. xviii. p. 87. Edition in twelve volumes.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f9" id="f9" href="#f9.1">[9]</a> "Arantur Gallicana rura <i>barbaris bobus</i>, et juga Germanica captiva
+pr&aelig;bent colla nostris cultoribus."&mdash;<i>Probi Epist. ad Senatum, in
+Vopesio.</i></p>
+
+<p><a name="f10" id="f10" href="#f10.1">[10]</a> Michelet, <i>Histoire de France</i>, vol. i. p. 104-108.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f11" id="f11" href="#f11.1">[11]</a> Finlay's <i>Greece under the Romans</i>.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f12" id="f12" href="#f12.1">[12]</a> Tacitus, <i>Annal.</i>, xii. 43.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f13" id="f13" href="#f13.1">[13]</a> <i>De Bello Gild.</i>, v. 64, 65.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f14" id="f14" href="#f14.1">[14]</a> Gibbon, c. xxix.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f15" id="f15" href="#f15.1">[15]</a></p>
+
+<p class="footpoem">"Advenio supplex, non ut proculcet Araxen<br />
+Consul ovans, nostr&aelig;ve premant pharetrata secures<br />
+Susa, nec ut Rubris aquilas figamus arenis.<br />
+H&aelig;c nobis, h&aelig;c ante dabas.&mdash;Nunc pabula tantum<br />
+Roma precor. Miserere tu&aelig;, Pater Optime, gentis&mdash;<br />
+Extremam defende famem.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><span class="spacer">*</span><span class="spacer">*</span><span class="spacer">*</span><span class="spacer">*</span><span class="spacer">*</span><span class="spacer">*</span></span><br />
+Tot mihi pro meritis Lybiam Nilumque dedêre<br />
+Ut <i>dominam plebem</i> bellatoremque senatum<br />
+Classibus astivis alerent.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><span class="spacer">*</span><span class="spacer">*</span><span class="spacer">*</span><span class="spacer">*</span><span class="spacer">*</span><span class="spacer">*</span></span><br />
+Nunc inhonorus, egens, perfert miserabile pacis<br />
+Supplicium, nulloque palam circumdatus hoste<br />
+Obessi discrimen habet. Per singula letum<br />
+Impendet momenta mihi, dubitandaque pauci<br />
+Pr&aelig;scribunt alimenta dies."&mdash;<span class="smcap">Claud.</span> <i>De Bello Gild.</i></p>
+
+<p><a name="f16" id="f16" href="#f16.1">[16]</a> Finlay's <i>Greece under the Romans</i>, 435, 436.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f17" id="f17" href="#f17.1">[17]</a> Ibid. 517.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f18" id="f18" href="#f18.1">[18]</a> Gibbon, c. xxxi. p. 351.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f19" id="f19" href="#f19.1">[19]</a> Ibid. c. xxxiii. vol. vi. p. 20.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f20" id="f20" href="#f20.1">[20]</a> <i>Greece under the Romans</i>, 456, 467.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f21" id="f21" href="#f21.1">[21]</a> Josephus, ii. 16.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f22" id="f22" href="#f22.1">[22]</a> Finlay, 515.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f23" id="f23" href="#f23.1">[23]</a> Ibid. 406.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f24" id="f24" href="#f24.1">[24]</a> Sismondi, <i>Chute de l'Empire Romaine</i>, i. 36.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f25" id="f25" href="#f25.1">[25]</a> Novell, 81.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f26" id="f26" href="#f26.1">[26]</a> Finlay, 246, 247.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f27" id="f27" href="#f27.1">[27]</a> Finlay, 117.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f28" id="f28" href="#f28.1">[28]</a> Ammianus Marcellinus, c. xiv.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f29" id="f29" href="#f29.1">[29]</a> Finlay, 544. Ammianus Marcellinus, c. xix.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f30" id="f30" href="#f30.1">[30]</a> Sismondi, <i>Chute de l'Empire Romaine</i>, i. 50.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f31" id="f31" href="#f31.1">[31]</a> Gibbon, i. 261, c. vi.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f32" id="f32" href="#f32.1">[32]</a> Gibbon, c. vi. vol. i. p. 262.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f33" id="f33" href="#f33.1">[33]</a> Ibid. c. vi. vol. i. p. 268.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f34" id="f34" href="#f34.1">[34]</a> Ibid. p. 268.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f35" id="f35" href="#f35.1">[35]</a> Ibid. c. xvii. vol. ii. p. 86.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f36" id="f36" href="#f36.1">[36]</a> Gibbon, c. xvii. vol. iii. p. 92.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f37" id="f37" href="#f37.1">[37]</a> Finlay, pp. 49-50.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f38" id="f38" href="#f38.1">[38]</a> Novell Majorian, tit. iv. p. 34. Gibbon, c. xxxvi. vol. vi. p. 173.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f39" id="f39" href="#f39.1">[39]</a> Gibbon, c. i. vol. i. p. 30.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f40" id="f40" href="#f40.1">[40]</a> Ibid. c. i. vol. i. p. 37.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f41" id="f41" href="#f41.1">[41]</a> Ibid. c. xvii. vol. iii. p. 93.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f42" id="f42" href="#f42.1">[42]</a> Ibid. c. ii. vol. i. p. 91.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f43" id="f43" href="#f43.1">[43]</a> Plin. <i>Hist. Nat.</i> iii. 5.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f44" id="f44" href="#f44.1">[44]</a> <ins class="correction" title="Peri tou mêdein Daneixeisthai.">&#928;&#949;&#961;&#953; &#964;&#959;&#965;
+&#956;&#951;&#948;&#949;&#953;&#957; &#916;&#945;&#957;&#949;&#953;&#958;&#949;&#953;&#963;&#952;&#945;&#953;</ins><span class="spacer">&nbsp;</span>"De
+&AElig;re Alieno vitando."&mdash;<i>Plutarch.</i></p>
+
+<p><a name="f45" id="f45" href="#f45.1">[45]</a> Finlay, 90.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f46" id="f46" href="#f46.1">[46]</a> "Verumque confitentibus latifundia perdidêre Italiam, immo ac
+provincias."&mdash;Plin. <i>Hist. Nat.</i></p>
+
+<p><a name="f47" id="f47" href="#f47.1">[47]</a> Sismondi, <i>Chute de l'Empire Romaine</i>, i. 51.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f48" id="f48" href="#f48.1">[48]</a> Ammianus Marcellinus, c. xiv.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f49" id="f49" href="#f49.1">[49]</a> Sismondi, <i>Chute de l'Empire Romaine</i>, i. 44.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f50" id="f50" href="#f50.1">[50]</a> Finlay, 219, 220.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f51" id="f51" href="#f51.1">[51]</a> It is curious to find Tacitus praising the establishment <i>of
+bounties on</i> the importation of foreign grain by Tiberius, without a
+word on the evil effects of the system.&mdash;<i>Annal.</i> vi. 13. "Quibus <i>e
+provinciis et quanto majorum, quam Augustus</i> rei frumentari&aelig; copiam
+advectaret."</p>
+
+<p><a name="f52" id="f52" href="#f52.1">[52]</a> Finlay, 53.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f53" id="f53" href="#f53.1">[53]</a> Finlay, 105.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f54" id="f54" href="#f54.1">[54]</a> Ibid. 137.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f55" id="f55" href="#f55.1">[55]</a> Tacitus, <i>Annal.</i> xii. 43.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f56" id="f56" href="#f56.1">[56]</a> Michelet, <i>Histoire de France</i>, i. 277.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f57" id="f57" href="#f57.1">[57]</a> <i>Edinburgh Review.</i> April 1846. No. 168. Page 370-371.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f58" id="f58" href="#f58.1">[58]</a> Sismondi, <i>Chute de l'Empire Romaine</i>, i. 233.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f59" id="f59" href="#f59.1">[59]</a> Finlay, 389.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f60" id="f60" href="#f60.1">[60]</a> Ibid. 392.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f61" id="f61" href="#f61.1">[61]</a> Gibbon, chap. ii. vol. i. p. 90.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f62" id="f62" href="#f62.1">[62]</a> Jacob's <i>Historical Inquiry into the Production and Consumption of
+the Precious Metals</i>, i. 35, 42.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f63" id="f63" href="#f63.1">[63]</a> Finlay, 88.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f64" id="f64" href="#f64.1">[64]</a> <i>Ibid.</i> 90.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f65" id="f65" href="#f65.1">[65]</a> Finlay, 89.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f66" id="f66" href="#f66.1">[66]</a> Gibbon, v. 329.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f67" id="f67" href="#f67.1">[67]</a> <i>Arbuthnott on Ancient Coins</i>, c. 5. Gibbon, i. 90, c. ii.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f68" id="f68" href="#f68.1">[68]</a> <i>Greaves on Ancient Coins</i>, i. 229, 331.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f69" id="f69" href="#f69.1">[69]</a> Gibbon, c. 36, vol. vi. 173.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f70" id="f70" href="#f70.1">[70]</a> See <i>Edinburgh Review</i>. No. 168. April 1846.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f71" id="f71" href="#f71.1">[71]</a> There are now 20,000,000 inhabitants in Italy, and it was certainly
+as populous in the time of Augustus, when Rome alone, which now has
+180,000, contained 2,386,000 souls.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f72" id="f72" href="#f72.1">[72]</a> <i>Le Peuple.</i> Par J. <span class="smcap">Michelet</span>.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f73" id="f73" href="#f73.1">[73]</a> <i>Du Feu Greçois, des Feux de Guerre, et des Origines de la
+Poudre-à-Canon.</i> Par MM. <span class="smcap">Reinaud</span> et <span class="smcap">Favé</span>.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f74" id="f74" href="#f74.1">[74]</a> &mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;"Conductâ Paulus agebat Sardonyche."&mdash;<span class="smcap">Juv.</span> <i>Sat.</i> vii.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f75" id="f75" href="#f75.1">[75]</a> Poor Seneca, for a <i>moral</i> philosopher, seems to have been somewhat
+harshly handled: here patronised by cheats and gamblers, and here
+censured by philosophy and dissent! Now invoked by Rusca to assist him
+in his ingannations; now lugged on the stage to be commented on by the
+valet of a gambler,<small><a name="star.1" id="star.1" href="#star">[*]</a></small> as he <i>debits</i> him, for his master's consolation,
+under his losses; here glanced at by Coleridge for his splendid
+"inconsistencies;" and here by the sour <i>Dissenter</i>, who accuses our
+Church's ministers of borrowing their sermons from his precepts.</p>
+
+<p class="poem">"Preaching the trash they purchase at the stalls,<br />
+And more like <i>Seneca's</i>, than <i>HIS</i>!! or <i>Paul's</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>And, as he could make no higher appeal for human virtue than the
+authority of human wisdom for the plea of expediency, it was not to be
+wondered at if he should have met with no better fate than to be praised
+of fools, and neglected of the wise, who wisely deemed him an
+insufficient, and therefore a dangerous guide.</p>
+
+<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;"><a name="star" id="star" href="#star.1">[*]</a> Le Joueur.</span></p>
+
+<p><a name="f76" id="f76" href="#f76.1">[76]</a> The name of "<i>half honest</i>" exactly suits this class of men, who,
+adopting one <i>half</i> of what our admirable Taylor lays down in his golden
+"rules and measures of justice in bargaining," neglect the other half.
+"In prices of bargaining concerning <i>uncertain</i> merchandises, you may
+buy as cheap, ordinarily, as you can, and sell as dear as you can;" so
+far they and Taylor are of a mind. "Provided," continues he, "that you
+contract on <i>equal terms</i> with persons in <i>all senses</i> (as to the matter
+and skill of bargaining) <i>equal to yourself</i>; that is, merchants with
+merchants, <i>wise men with wise men</i>, rich with rich"&mdash;and <i>here</i> the
+<i>mezzo galant'uomo</i> gives up Taylor, to keep true to his name and
+calling.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f77" id="f77" href="#f77.1">[77]</a> Mionnet, <i>De la Rareté et du Prix des Medailles Romaines</i>, a very
+useful work, which no amateur collector should fail to possess, and to
+carry constantly about with him, <i>non obstant</i> all the abuse heaped upon
+it by all the dealers.</p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><b>Transcriber's Notes:</b></p>
+
+<p>The original text contains several instances of unmatched quotation marks. Obvious errors
+have been silently corrected while those requiring interpretation have been left open.</p>
+
+<p>The original text does not contain a Table of Contents. The Table of
+Contents included near the beginnning of this file was created by the
+transcriber as an aid for the reader.</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume
+59, No. 368, June 1846, by Various
+
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+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59,
+No. 368, June 1846, 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 59, No. 368, June 1846
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: October 4, 2010 [EBook #34026]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE, JUNE 1846 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Brendan OConnor, Jonathan Ingram and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Library of Early Journals.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
+
+  NO. CCCLXVIII.   JUNE, 1846.   VOL. LIX.
+
+
+
+
+THE LITERATURE OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.[1]
+
+
+Lord Brougham has resumed his memoirs of the eminent writers of England;
+and every lover of literature will feel gratified by this employment of
+his active research and of his vigorous pen.
+
+One of the most striking distinctions of English public life from that
+of the Continent, is in the condition of statesmen after their casual
+retirement from power. The Foreign statesman seems to exist only in
+office. The moment that sees him "out of place," sees him extinguished.
+He is lost as suddenly to the public eye, as if he were carried to the
+tomb of his ancestors. He retires to his country-seat, and there
+subsides into the garrulous complainant against the caprices of fortune,
+or buries his calamities in the quiet indulgence of his appetites;
+smokes away his term of years, subsides into the lean and slippered
+pantaloon, occupies his studies with the _Court Gazette_, and his
+faculties with cards; and is finally deposited in the family vault, to
+continue the process of mouldering which had been begun in his
+arm-chair, to be remembered only in an epitaph. France, at the present
+day, alone seems to form an exception. Her legislature affords a new
+element in which statesmanship in abeyance can still float: the little
+vessel is there at least kept in view of mankind; if it makes no
+progress, it at least keeps above water; and, however incapable of
+reaching the port by its own means, the fluctuations of the national
+surge, sometimes so powerful, and always so contemptuous of calculation,
+may at some time or other carry the craziest craft into harbour. But the
+general order of continental ministers, even of the highest rank, when
+abandoned by the monarch, are like men consigned to the dungeon. They go
+to their place of sentence at once. The man who to-day figured in the
+highest robe of power, to-morrow wears the prison costume. His rise was
+the work of the royal will--his fall is equally the work of the royal
+will. Having no connexion with the national mind, he has no resource in
+the national sympathies. He has been a royal instrument: when his edge
+becomes dull, or the royal artificer finds a tool whose fashion he likes
+better, the old tool is flung by to rust, and no man asks where or why,
+his use is at an end, and the world and the workman, alike, "knoweth it
+no more."
+
+But, in England, the condition of public life is wholly different. The
+statesman is the creation of the national will, and neither in office,
+nor in opposition, does the nation forget the product of its will. The
+minister is no offspring of slavery, no official negro, made to be sold,
+and, when sold, separated from his parentage once and for ever. If he
+sins in power, he is at worst but the Prodigal Son, watched in his
+career, and willingly welcomed when he has abjured his wanderings.
+Instead of being extinguished by the loss of power, he often more than
+compensates the change, by the revival of popularity. Disencumbered of
+the laced and embroidered drapery of office, he often exhibits the
+natural vigour and proportion of his faculties to higher advantage;
+cultivates his intellectual distinctions with more palpable success;
+refreshes his strength for nobler purposes than even those of ambition;
+and, if he should not exert his renewed popularity for a new conquest of
+power, only substitutes for place the more generous and exalted
+determination of deserving those tributes which men naturally offer to
+great abilities exerted for the good of present and future generations.
+
+We must allude, for the national honour, to this characteristic of
+English feeling, in the changes of public men. On the Continent, the
+hour which deprived a statesman of office, at once deprived him of every
+thing. All the world ran away from him, as they would from a falling
+house. The crowded antechamber of yesterday, exhibited nothing to-day
+but utter solitude. The fallen minister was a leper; men shrank from his
+touch; the contagion of ill-luck was upon him; and every one dreaded to
+catch the disease. It was sometimes even worse. The loss of power was
+the ruin of fortune. The Dives had been suddenly transformed into the
+Lazarus; the purple and fine linen were "shreds and patches," and not
+even the dogs came to administer to his malady. But, among us, the
+breaking up of a cabinet often only gives rise to a bold and brilliant
+opposition. It is not like the breaking up of a ship, where the wreck is
+irreparable, and the timbers are shattered and scattered, and good for
+nothing; it is often more like the breaking up of a regiment in one of
+our colonies, where the once compact mass of force, which knew nothing
+but the command of its colonel, now takes, each man his own way,
+exhibits his own style of cleverness; instead of the one manual exercise
+of musket and bayonet, each individual takes the axe or the spade, the
+tool or the ploughshare, and works a new fertility out of the soil,
+according to his own "thews and sinews."
+
+The moral of all this is, that the distinguished author of these Memoirs
+is now devoting himself to a career of literature, to which even his
+political services may have been of inferior utility. He is recalling
+the public memory to those eminent achievements, which have so
+powerfully advanced the mental grandeur of our era; and, while he thus
+gives due honour to the labours of the past, he is at once encouraging
+and illustrating the nobleness of the course which opens to posterity.
+But Lord Brougham's influence cannot be contented, we should hope, with
+merely speculative benefits; it is for him, and for men like him, to
+look with interest on the struggles of literary existence at the hour;
+to call the attention of government and the nation to the neglects, the
+narrowness, and the caprices of national patronage; to demand protection
+for genius depressed by the worldliness of the crowd; to point out to
+men of rank and wealth a path of service infinitely more honourable to
+their own taste, and infinitely more productive to their country, than
+ribands and stars; than the tinkling of a name, than pompous palaces, or
+picture galleries of royal price; to excite our nobles to constitute
+themselves the true patrons of the living genius of the land, and
+disdain to be content with either the offering of weak regrets or the
+tribute of worthless honours to the slumberers in the grave. A tenth
+part of the sums employed in raising obelisks to Burns, would have
+rescued one half of his life from poverty, and the other half from
+despair. The single sum which raised the monument to Sir Walter Scott in
+Edinburgh, would have saved him from the final pressure which broke his
+heart, elastic as it was, and dimmed his intellect, capable as he still
+was of throwing a splendour over his native soil.
+
+This neglect is known and suffered in no other province of public
+service. The soldier, the sailor, the architect, the painter, are all
+within sight of the most lavish prizes of public liberality. Parliament
+has just given titles and superb pensions to the conquerors of the
+Sikhs. The India Company has followed its example. We applaud this
+munificent liberality in both instances. Two general officers have thus
+obtained the peerage, with L7000 and L5000 a-year. They deserved those
+rewards. But the whole literary encouragement of the British empire,
+with a revenue of fifty-two millions sterling, is L1200, little more
+than the tenth part of the pensions allotted to those two gallant men.
+L1200 for the whole literary encouragement of England! There can be no
+greater scandal to the intellectual honour of the country. The pettiest
+German principality scarcely limits its literary encouragement to this
+sum. We doubt whether Weimar, between literary offices and pensions, did
+not give twice the sum annually. But named in competition with the
+liberality of the leading sovereigns, it is utterly mean. Louis XIV.,
+two hundred years ago, allotted 80,000 francs a-year to his forty
+members of the Academy, a sum equivalent in _that day_, and in _France_,
+to little less than L5000 a-year in our day, and in England. Frederic
+II. gave pensions and appointments to a whole corps of literary men. At
+this moment, there is scarcely a man of any literary distinction in
+Paris, who has not a share in the liberal and wise patronage of
+government, either in office or public pension.
+
+But if we are to be answered by a class, plethoric with wealth and rank;
+that literature ought to be content with living on its own means; must
+not the obvious answer be--Is the author to be an author, down to his
+grave? Is there to be no relaxation of his toil? is there to be no
+allowance for the exhaustion of his overworked faculties? for the
+natural infirmities of years? for the vexations of a noble spirit
+compelled to submit to the caprices of public change? and with its full
+share of the common calamities of life, increasing their pressure at
+once by an inevitable sense of wrong, and by a feeling that the delight
+of his youth must be the drudgery of his age? When the great Dryden, in
+his seventieth year, was forced, in the bitterness of his heart, to
+exclaim, "Must I die in the harness!" his language was a brand on the
+common sense, as well as on the just generosity, of his country. We now
+abandon the topic with one remark. This want of the higher liberality of
+the nation has already produced the most injurious effects on our
+literature.
+
+All the great works of our ancestral literature were the works of
+leisure and comparative competence. All the great dramatic poetry of
+France was the work of comparative competence. Its writers were not
+compelled to hurry after the popular tastes; they followed their own,
+and impressed its character upon the mind of the nation. The plays of
+Racine, Corneille, Moliere, and Voltaire, are nobler trophies to the
+greatness of France than all the victories of Louis the XIV., than
+Versailles, than all the pomps of his splendid reign. Louis Philippe has
+adopted the same munificent policy, and it will be followed by the same
+honour with posterity. But, in England, the keeping of a stud of
+racehorses, the building of a dog-kennel, or the purchase of a foreign
+picture, is ignominiously and selfishly suffered to absorb a larger sum
+than the whole literary patronage of the most opulent empire that the
+sun ever shone upon. We recommend these considerations to Lord Brougham:
+they are nobler than politics; they are fitter for his combined
+character of statesman and philosopher; they will also combine with that
+character another which alone can give permanency to the fame of any
+public man--that of the philanthropist. His ability, his knowledge of
+human nature, and his passion for public service--qualities in which his
+merits are known to Europe--designate him as the founder of a great
+system of public liberality to the enterprise of genius. And when party
+is forgotten, and cabinets have perished; when, perhaps, even the
+boundaries of empire may have been changed, and new nations rise to
+claim the supremacy of arts and arms; the services of the protector of
+literature will stand out before the eye with increased honour, and his
+name be rescued from the common ruin which envelopes the memory of
+ostentatious conquerors and idle kings.
+
+The present volume contains biographies of Johnson, Adam Smith,
+Lavoisier, Gibbon, Sir Joseph Banks, D'Alembert. We shall commence with
+the lives less known to the generality of readers than those of our
+great moralist and great political economist, reserving ourselves for
+sketches of their career, as our space may allow.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Lord Brougham commences his life of Sir Joseph Banks by a species of
+apology, for placing in the ranks of philosophers a man who had never
+written a book. But no one has ever doubted that a man may be a
+philosopher, without being an author. Some of the greatest inventions of
+philosophy, of science, and of practical power, have been the work of
+men who never wrote a book. In fact, the inventor is generally a man of
+few words; his disciples, or rivals, or imitators, are the men of
+description. The inventor gives the idea, the follower gives the
+treatise; but the inventor is the philosopher after all. The question,
+however, with Sir Joseph Banks is, whether he was any more an inventor
+than a writer. It does not appear that he was either. Of course, he has
+no right to rank among men of science. But he had merits of his own, and
+on those his distinctions ought to have been placed. He was a zealous,
+active, and influential friend of philosophers. He gave them his time,
+he received them in his house, and he assisted their progress. He
+volunteered to be the protector of their class; he sympathised with
+their pursuits; and, while adding little or nothing to their
+discoveries, he assisted in bringing those discoveries before the world.
+He loved to be thought the patriarch of British science; and, like the
+patriarch, he retained his authority even when he was past his labour.
+If he filled the throne of science feebly, none could deny that he
+filled it zealously. The true definition of him was, an English
+gentleman occupying his leisure with philosophical pursuits, and
+encouraging others of more powerful understanding to do the same.
+
+Sir Joseph Banks was of an old and wealthy family, dating so far back as
+Edward III.; first settled in the West Riding of Yorkshire, and
+afterwards in the county of Lincoln. He was born in London in January
+1743. At the age of nine he was sent to Harrow, and at thirteen to Eton,
+where the tutors observed, as has happened in many other instances, that
+he was fonder of play than of books. In about a twelvemonth, however, he
+became studious, though not to the taste of his schoolmasters. The
+origin of this change was described by himself, in a letter to Sir
+Everard Home, as accidental. One afternoon he had been bathing with some
+of the Eton boys, and, on returning to dress himself, found that they
+had left him alone. Walking down a green lane, whose sides exhibited the
+wild-flowers of the season, the thought occurred to him, how much more
+natural and useful would be the knowledge of plants, than of Greek and
+Latin. From this time he devoted himself to the study of botany, though
+still continuing that of the classics. On returning to his father's
+house, he found a copy of Gerard's _Herbal_, which fixed his taste. He
+now added to his collecting of plants that of butterflies and other
+insects. Lord Brougham mentions that his father was one of Banks's
+associates at this period, and that they employed themselves together in
+natural history.
+
+Natural history has been so frequently the pursuit of studious triflers,
+that it is difficult to exempt it from the charge of trifling. To gather
+plants which have been gathered a thousand times before, to ascertain
+their names from an herbal, and classify them according to its list,
+seems to be little more than a grave apology for playing the fool. A
+determination to gather all the butterflies and blue-bottles within the
+limits of the realm, certainly has nothing that can dignify it with the
+name of scientific pursuit. The collecting of pebbles and shells, or
+even the arranging of animals in the cases of a museum, are
+accomplishments of so easy an order, and of so little actual use, that
+they serve for little else than to wile away the time. But this trifling
+assumes a more important shape when it rises to the acquisition of
+actual knowledge; when, instead of classifying plants, it develops their
+medicinal virtues, and, instead of embalming animals, it examines their
+structure, as throwing light on the conformation or diseases of man.
+
+But Sir Joseph Banks was fortunately relieved from subsiding into this
+foppery, by circumstances which forced him into vigorous and useful
+exertion. An approaching transit of Venus had been long looked to, as
+giving an opportunity for ascertaining the distance of the sun from the
+earth. It was recommended, that observations on this phenomenon should
+be made from different stations on the globe. Accordingly, in 1761, the
+British government sent out two observers, one to the Cape and the other
+to St Helena. The French government at the same time sent out three--to
+Pondicherry, Siberia, and the Mauritius. But the weather was
+unfavourable, and the observations were to be regarded as a failure. But
+there was a second transit in 1769, and the leading powers of Europe
+sent out observers; England sending a vessel to the South Seas, an
+observer to India, and two to Hudson's Bay. Captain Wallace having
+lately made several discoveries in the Pacific, public attention had
+been strongly drawn to that hitherto scarcely known portion of the
+globe. The celebrated Captain Cook was appointed commander, and Sir
+Joseph Banks, stimulated by an honourable zeal and a rational desire of
+knowledge, obtained leave from his friend, Lord Sandwich, to join the
+expedition. He took with him Dr Solander the botanist, and two
+draughtsmen.
+
+On the 25th of August 1768, Cook's vessel, the Endeavour, sailed from
+Plymouth Sound, and the first point of land at which they touched was
+the Terra del Fuego, the southern extremity of the American continent.
+There they encountered such severity of cold, that, although it was the
+summer of those regions, Banks and Solander, in one of their botanical
+excursions, had nearly shared the fate of three of their attendants, who
+perished from the intensity of the cold. The effect of this excess of
+low temperature has been often felt and often described. It was a
+general torpor of the frame, producing an almost irresistible propensity
+to sleep. Every exertion was painful, and the strongest desire was to
+lie down in the snow and give way to slumber. Solander, who had acquired
+his experience in botanizing among the Swedish mountains, warned the
+party of their danger. "Whoever," said he, "sits down, will sleep;
+whoever sleeps, will wake no more." Yet he himself was one of the first
+to yield; he insisted on lying down, fell asleep before he could be
+brought to the fire which Banks had kindled, and was restored with
+difficulty. His companion had felt a similar inclination, but resisted
+it, by the greater energy of youth, and probably of a more vigorous
+mind.
+
+Cook then sailed for Otaheite, which he reached in April. The contrast
+of the luxurious climate with the inclement region which they had left
+behind them, was doubly striking to men who, for upwards of half a year,
+had seen nothing but the ocean or the deserts of Cape Horn. They now
+proceeded vigorously to the chief purposes of their voyage. The captain
+and his officers prepared their instruments to observe the transit,
+while Banks and his botanical attendants ranged the island, made
+themselves acquainted with its natural productions, and conciliated the
+natives. The effect of his intelligence and intrepidity was conspicuous
+on an occasion which might have involved the scientific fate of the
+expedition. The quadrant, though under charge of a sentinel, had been
+stolen by the adroitness of some of the natives. But without it no
+observation could be taken. Banks volunteered to go in search of it into
+the woods, made himself master of it, and conveyed it in safety to the
+observatory; though followed by parties of the natives, and occasionally
+compelled to keep them at bay by exhibiting his pistols.
+
+The transit was successfully observed, but it took six hours for the
+operation. As the period approached, even the crew had felt the
+strongest anxiety for its success. The state of the sky was reported
+every half hour during the night before, and their spirits rose and fell
+as the report gave its answer, clear or cloudy. But at dawn the sky was
+brilliant, and the day passed without a cloud. Four other observations
+had been simultaneously made, in Siberia, Lapland, Hudson's Bay, and
+California. The general result gave the sun's distance at nearly
+ninety-four millions of miles.
+
+The next object of the voyage was a search for the great southern
+continent, which the philosophers of the day had conceived to exist, as
+a "necessary balance" to the mass of land in the northern hemisphere.
+But conjectural philosophy is often at fault, and necessary as this
+terrestrial balance was asserted to be, no "great" southern continent
+has yet been found. For a while, even Cook's sagacity seems to have been
+deceived by the mountains of New Zealand, which had been discovered, in
+1620, by Tasman. Cook sailed round it, and explored its shores for six
+months. He then, on his homeward voyage, examined the east coast of New
+Holland. Of course, it is not the intention of this paper to trace a
+career so well known as that of the celebrated navigator. We refer to
+its incidents, merely as connected with Sir Joseph Banks. They had run
+about thirteen hundred miles of the coast, when, after having received
+some alarm from the neighbourhood of coral reefs, the vessel suddenly
+struck. It was Cook's sagacious habit, nightly, to give all his orders
+and precautions before he went to rest; and thus, after having done all
+that prudence could do, he undressed, went to bed, and such was the
+composure of his mind that he instantly fell asleep. But immediately on
+the vessel's striking, the captain was on deck, and giving his orders
+with his characteristic coolness. The light of the moon showed the
+sheathing boards of the ship floating all round, and at last her false
+keel. Their fate appeared imminent, but it was only when the day broke,
+that they became fully sensible of their forlorn condition. The land was
+at eight leagues' distance. There were no intermediate islets on which
+the crew might be saved, and the boats were wholly insufficient to take
+them all at once. To lighten the ship was their first object. Guns,
+ballast, stores, every thing was thrown over. After two tides they were
+enabled to get the ship afloat. To their great relief, the leak did not
+seem to gain upon them, though to keep it down required the labour of
+the men night and day. At length a midshipman fortunately suggested an
+expedient which he had once seen adopted at sea. This was to draw under
+the ship's bottom a sail, to which were fastened oakum, flax, and other
+light substances. The sail thus covered the leak, and enabled the ship
+to swim. On pursuing their voyage, and reaching a river, in which they
+attempted to repair the ship, they found that her preservation, in the
+first instance, was owing to the extraordinary circumstance of a large
+fragment of rock which had stuck into the vessel, and thus partially
+stopped up the leak. In this most anxious emergency Sir Joseph Banks and
+his party exhibited all the coolness and intrepidity which were
+required; and in the subsequent account of the voyage, received from
+Cook himself well-merited praises.
+
+Another peril likely to be attended with still more certain ruin, now
+assailed the crew. The scurvy began to make its appearance. The
+devastations of this dreadful disease, in the early history of our
+navigation, fortunately now appear almost fabulous. It was a real
+plague; it seemed almost to dissolve the whole frame; teeth fell out,
+limbs dropped off, and the sufferer sank into a rapid, and, as it was
+once thought, an inevitable grave. It is a remarkable instance of the
+powers which man possesses to counteract the most formidable evils, that
+this terrible disease is now scarcely known. It has been overpowered
+solely by such simple means as fresh meat and vegetables, and a drink
+medicated with lemon-juice. Simple as those expedients are, they have
+saved the lives of thousands and tens of thousands of the sea-going
+population of England.
+
+But new hazards, arising alike from the imperfect condition of the
+vessel and their ignorance of the coast, continued to pursue them. Never
+was a voyage attempted with greater difficulties to surmount, or
+achieved with more triumphant success; after having explored two
+thousand miles of this perilous coast, Cook took possession of it in the
+name of his king, giving it the title of New South Wales.
+
+At length he arrived at Batavia, where, on laying up his ship to repair,
+it was discovered that their preservation throughout this long voyage
+had been little less than miraculous, her planks having been in many
+instances worn "as thin as the sole of a shoe." But their trials were
+not yet over: the marsh fever quickly laid up the crew; the captain,
+Banks, and Solander, were taken seriously ill. They set sail from this
+pestilential island as soon as possible; but before they reached the
+Cape, three-and-twenty had died, including Green the astronomer, and the
+midshipman whose suggestion had saved the ship. At length, on the 12th
+of July 1771, they cast anchor in the Downs, and Cook and his companions
+were received with national acclamation.
+
+The triumph of the navigation was naturally due to Cook, but the most
+important part of the knowledge which had been communicated to the
+empire was due to the labours of Banks. It was from his journals, that
+the chief details of the habits, manners, and resources of the natives
+were derived. The vegetable, mineral, and animal products of the Society
+Islands, and of New Holland, New Zealand, and New Guinea, had been
+explored, and a vast quantity of general intelligence was obtained
+relative to countries, which now form an essential portion of the
+British empire. The novelty of those possessions has now worn off, their
+value has made them familiar. We are fully acquainted with their
+products, however we may be still ignorant of their powers. But, at the
+period of this memorable voyage, the Southern Hemisphere was scarcely
+more known than the hemisphere of the moon. Every league of the coasts
+of New Holland, and the islands of the Great Southern Ocean, abounded
+with natural perils, heightened by the necessary ignorance of the
+navigator. Even to this day, many a fearful catastrophe attests the
+difficulties of the navigation; the coral rocks were a phenomenon wholly
+new to nautical experience; and, in all the modern improvements of
+nautical science, full room is left for wonder, at the skill, the
+intelligence, and the daring, which carried Cook and his companions safe
+through the perils of this gigantic navigation.
+
+A new expedition was soon demanded at once by the curiosity of the
+people and the interests of science. The dream of a great southern
+continent was still the favourite topic of all who regarded themselves
+as philosophers in England, although Cook had sailed over an
+unfathomable ocean, in the very tract where he ought, according to this
+adventurous theory, to have found a continent. Sir Joseph Banks again
+gallantly volunteered to join the expedition which was equipped for the
+discovery. His large fortune enabled him to make unusual preparations;
+but such was his zeal, that he even raised a loan for the purpose. He
+engaged Zoffani, the painter, with three assistant draughtsmen. He
+selected two secretaries and nine attendants, instructed in the art of
+preserving plants and animals; he also provided books, drawings, and
+instruments. But his natural ambition was suddenly thwarted by the
+opposition of Sir Hugh Palliser, controller of the navy. For whatever
+reason--and it is now difficult to imagine any, except some jealousy too
+contemptible to name--so many obstructions were thrown in the way, that
+Banks relinquished the pursuit, and turned his attention to a voyage to
+Iceland. His suite, seamen and all, amounting to forty persons, reached
+the island in 1772, examined its chief natural phenomena, Hecla and its
+hot springs, and furnished its historian, Von Troil, with the materials
+for the most accurate history of this outpost of the northern world.
+
+On his return to England, he commenced the career, natural to an opulent
+man of a cultivated mind, but yet so seldom followed in England by
+individuals of even higher means than his own. He fitted up a large
+house in Soho Square with all the preparatives for a life of literary
+association--a copious library, collections of natural history, and
+philosophical instruments. He held frequent conversaziones, gave
+dinners, and easily and naturally constituted himself the leader of the
+men of science in London. In Lincolnshire, where his chief property
+lay, he performed the part of the liberal and hospitable country
+gentleman on a large scale; while in London, he was the first person to
+whom scientific foreigners were introduced, and the principal patron and
+protector of ingenious men.
+
+On the resignation of Sir John Pringle as President of the Royal
+Society, Sir Joseph Banks was placed in the chair, in 1778, almost by
+acclamation. He had some obvious qualifications for the office, but he
+as obviously wanted others. His opulence, his hospitality, and his zeal
+for science, were valuable, and are nearly indispensable in the
+president of a body which concentrates the chief intellectual force of
+the community. But his favourite pursuit, botany, has never deserved the
+name of a science, and inevitably bears a character of triviality in the
+eyes of the mathematician and the philosopher. The distinction given to
+a comparatively young man, known to the world only as a voyager, and a
+collector of plants and animals, not unnaturally tended to breed
+scoffing among the professors of the severe sciences. The feeling
+spread, and the opportunity for its expression was soon found. Dr
+Hutton, the mathematical professor at Woolwich, happened to be secretary
+for foreign correspondence. His residence at Woolwich was said to
+produce some inconvenience in his intercourse with the president; and
+the council passed a resolution, in 1783, recommending that "the foreign
+secretary should reside in London." The secret history of this
+transaction is, that Hutton was one of the mathematical party; though we
+cannot distinctly ascertain whether he had actually gone so far as to
+sneer at the president. Upon this Hutton resigned the office; to accept
+which, the emolument could not have been his object, the salary being
+but L.20 a-year--a sum that cannot be mentioned without a sense of
+disgrace to a society reckoning among its members some of the wealthiest
+men of England.
+
+Hutton's resignation, or rather dismissal, produced an open war in the
+society. The mathematicians ranged themselves on the Huttonian side; the
+cultivators of natural history, and the cultivators of nothing, ranged
+themselves on the side of the president. The mathematicians were headed
+by Horsley, afterwards the bishop--a man whom Lord Brougham
+characterizes as extremely arrogant, of violent temper, and intoxicated
+with an extravagant sense of his own scientific merits, which his noble
+biographer pronounces to be altogether insignificant, heading this
+charge with the unkindest cut of all, namely, that he was "a priest."
+Horsley was certainly no great mathematician, as his publication of the
+_Principia_ unluckily shows; but the picture is high coloured, which
+represents him as a hot-tempered, loud-tongued, bustling personage--a
+sort of bravo of science and theology, who took up the first opinion
+which occurred to him, scorned to rectify it by any after-thought, and
+plunged from one absurdity into another, for the sake of consistency.
+The eloquence of his attacks upon the chair, of whose possession he was
+supposed to be foolishly ambitious, was vaunted a good deal by his
+partisans. But, as the only evidence of his rhetoric in these squabbles
+ever quoted, is one sentence, it is like the pretension to wit on the
+strength of a single pun, and may be easily cast aside. This boasted
+sentence was uttered, in threatening the secession of the mathematical
+party. "The president will then be left with his train of feeble
+amateurs, and that toy (the mace) upon the table--the ghost of the
+Society in which Philosophy once reigned, and Newton officiated as her
+minister."
+
+Horsley's theology was too nearly on a par with his mathematics--he
+_was_ harsh and headlong. The fortunate folly of Priestley in
+challenging the English clergy to a trial of strength in the old arena
+of Unitarianism, gained him an opportunity of crushing an antagonist
+whose presumption was in proportion to his ignorance. Accordingly, the
+Unitarian was speedily put _hors-de-combat_, and Horsley was rewarded
+with a mitre.
+
+The president had long felt that the purpose of this violent lover of
+parallelograms was, to unseat him. The question was therefore brought to
+a decision, in the shape of a resolution "approving of Sir Joseph Banks
+as president, and resolving to support him in his office." This
+resolution was carried by 119 to 43.
+
+Honours began now to gather upon him. In 1788 he had been made a
+baronet. In 1795 he received the order of the Bath, then generally
+restricted to soldiers and diplomatists. In two years after, he was
+called to the Privy Council. On the death of the Duke of Ancaster he was
+chosen recorder of Boston; but, though often solicited to stand an
+election, he was never a member of Parliament. Though professing himself
+a Tory, he seems never to have taken any active part in politics,
+preserving a curious practical neutrality in Lincolnshire, and giving
+his interest to Mr Pelham, a Whig, and Mr Chaplin, a Tory. This, which
+his noble biographer curiously seems to consider as a happy proof of the
+absence of all party feelings, we should be apt to look upon as a proof
+of a degenerate wish to consult his own ease, and of a sluggish
+neutrality discreditable to the character of an Englishman.
+
+However, he had more honourable distinctions. In the furious
+Revolutionary war--a war of principles and passions, not less than of
+public interests, the president of the Royal Society largely exerted his
+interest with both governments, to alleviate the sufferings of
+scientific men who happened to fall into the hands of the belligerents,
+and to effect the restoration of scientific property captured by our
+ships of war. In 1802 he was chosen one of the foreign members of the
+Institute of France; and his letter of thanks, a little too ardent in
+its gratitude, was said to have involved the baronet in some vexations
+peculiarly felt by his courtly temperament. He was instantly attacked
+for his Gallican panegyric, by a portion of the Royal Society. Cobbett,
+who was then looking out for a victim, and whose loyalty was at that
+period peculiarly glowing, flew at him like a tiger-cat; and, last and
+most dreaded of all, he was said to have received at Windsor some of
+those frowns, which to a courtier are a total eclipse of the sun. But
+the nation soon had higher things to think of than a slip of the
+President's pen, or a little betrayal of his vanity. Napoleon ascended
+the throne; and, when the thunderbolts began to fall, the squibs and
+crackers flung from hand to hand of little men are of necessity
+forgotten.
+
+His latter years were signalized by acts of unequivocal public service.
+He is designated by Lord Brougham, and no one can have a better right to
+be informed of the fact, as the real founder of the African
+Association.--His lordship also regards him as the real founder of the
+colony of Botany Bay.--He was the first to suggest the transfer of the
+tropical fruits to the West India islands.--British horticulture owed
+him great services.--And the British Museum, during forty-two years of
+his trusteeship, was the object of his peculiar care, and finally
+received the bequest of his excellent library and of all his
+collections.
+
+His career, however, was now, by the course of nature, drawing to its
+close. Yet, he had lived seventy-eight years in this anxious and
+disappointing world, in opulence, in peace, and in public estimation.
+But his lot had been singularly fortunate. Few men are without their
+share of those troubles which characterize the general condition of
+human nature. Sir Joseph Banks had _his_ trial, in physical suffering.
+In the first portion of his life he had been remarkable for robust
+health and activity; but, from about his fortieth year, he suffered
+severely from attacks of gout, which increased so much, that for his
+last fourteen years he was scarcely able to walk. His robust mind,
+however, enabled him to encounter his disease by increased and extreme
+temperance. He gave up all fermented liquors and animal food. He seems
+to have derived considerable benefit from D'Huisson's medicine. But his
+hour was come; and on the 19th of June 1820, in the seventy-eighth year
+of his age, he died--just one year after his honoured and royal friend,
+George III.
+
+Thus passed through the world one of those men who are among the most
+useful in their generation. It would be idle to pronounce him a genius,
+a discoverer, or a profound philosopher. But he served an important
+purpose in society; he suggested philosophical enterprise, he protected
+the honourable ambition of men whose career, without that protection,
+might have closed in obscure suffering: he gave the philosophy and
+literature of his time a leader, and formed it into a substantial shape.
+In this spirit he employed his life; and he accomplished his purpose
+with the constancy and determination of a sagacious and systematic mind.
+He might not be a pillar of the philosophical temple of his country, nor
+its architrave; but he performed the office of the clamp--he bound
+together the materials of both pillar and architrave, and sustained the
+edifice alike in its stateliness and in its security.
+
+Lord Brougham's biography of D'Alembert commences with a brief
+dissertation on the interest which the mind takes in the study of
+mathematics. This study he regards as superior in gratification to every
+other, from its independence of external circumstances. In all other
+studies, he observes truly, that a large portion of the researches must
+depend upon facts imperfectly ascertained from the reports of others,
+and upon knowledge impeded by the capricious chances of things; while in
+pure science, the principles, the premises, and the conclusions, are
+wholly within our own power.
+
+In a passage exhibiting the affluence of the noble lord's language, he
+says, "The life of a geometrician may well be supposed an uninterrupted
+calm, and the gratification which is derived from its researches, is of
+a pure and also of a lively kind--whether he contemplates the truths
+discovered by others, with the demonstrative evidence on which they
+rest, or carries the science further, and himself adds to the number of
+the interesting truths before known. He may be often stopt in his
+researches by the difficulties that beset his path; he may be frustrated
+in his attempts to discover relations, depending on complicated data,
+which he cannot unravel or reconcile; but his study is wholly
+independent of accident, his reliance is on his own powers. Contestation
+and uncertainty he never can know; a stranger to all controversy, above
+all mystery, he possesses his mind in unruffled peace. Bound by no
+authority, regardless of all consequences as of all opposition, he is
+entire master of his conclusions as of his operations, and feels even
+perfect indifference to the acceptance or objection of his doctrines,
+because he confidently looks forward to their universal and immediate
+admission the moment they are comprehended."
+
+All this is strikingly expressed, yet it is after all but a showy
+hypothesis. That pure mathematics have nothing to do with external
+existence, may be easily granted; but that mathematicians are exempt
+from controversy, is no more a matter of experience than that all
+mathematical assertions are self-evident. The history of science is a
+direct contradiction of this halcyon hypothesis. The bitterest
+controversies, and the most ridiculous too, have been raised on
+mathematical opinions. Universal experience tends strongly to the proof,
+that no exclusive exertion of the mind is more fatal to its general
+vigour, more apt to narrow its range of conception; more distinctly
+operative, by its very exclusiveness, and by its making minute truths
+the especial object of the mind, in rendering it incapable of those
+loftier and broader truths on which depend all the great concerns of
+society, all the efficient progress of civilisation, and all the nobler
+growth of human powers--than the mere study of mathematics. A spider
+drawing his web out of his own fibres, and constructing his little lines
+and circles in his dusty corner, is the fittest emblem of the mere
+mathematician. In this language, we acknowledge the use of the science;
+we protest only against its pretence of superiority. Every man's
+experience of college studies may supply him with examples; but we have
+room but for one, and that of a sufficiently high order.
+
+When Napoleon assumed the French throne, in his ambition of being
+regarded as the universal patron of science he appointed the author of
+the _Mechanique Celeste_ a member of his privy council. But La Place,
+then and since, the first scientific name of France, was found utterly
+inadequate to even the almost sinecure duties of his office. Napoleon
+soon found that he could make no use of him. He accordingly consulted
+him no longer. "I found his mind," said he, "like his book, full of
+_infiniments petits_." Or if we look for further illustration among the
+French geometers--the only men among whom the trial can be made, from
+their opportunities of power in the Revolution--there was not one of
+them who exhibited any qualification for the higher duties of public
+life. Bailly, Condorcet, and their tribe, proved themselves utterly
+feeble, helpless, and trifling, where manliness, activity, and
+intelligence of mind were required. The Savans were swept away like a
+swarm of mice, or crushed like musquitoes, when they dared to buzz in
+the presence of the public. That they were first-rate mathematicians
+there can be no question; that they quarrelled about their mathematical
+theories with the bitterness, and not a little in the style of village
+gossips, is equally certain; and that, though the Encyclopedists had
+chiefly died off before the Revolution, their successors and imitators
+were extinguished by their preposterous combination of an avarice of
+power, and of an inadequacy to exertion, is a fact written unanswerably
+in the history of their trifling career, and of their early scaffolds.
+The ridiculous figure made in politics by the first astronomer of
+France, at this moment, only strengthens the conclusion.
+
+The life of D'Alembert is, however, one of the happiest illustrations of
+the use to which science may be applied, in raising an obscure
+individual into public fame. Yet, it is not to be forgotten, that
+D'Alembert's European celebrity commenced only when he had laid aside
+the exclusive study of mathematics, and devoted himself to general
+literature, and, shaking off the dust of his closet, he became a man of
+the world.
+
+Jean le Rond d'Alembert was born in November 1717, and was exposed as a
+foundling near the church of St Jean le Rond in Paris, and thus called
+by the name of the parish. The commissary of the district, taking pity
+upon the infant's apparently dying condition, instead of sending it to
+the hospital, where it would have inevitably died, gave it to be nursed
+by the wife of a poor glazier. In a few days, however, a person named
+D'Estouches, a commissary of artillery, came forward, acknowledged the
+child, and made provision for its support. The habits of foreign life
+are generally so scandalous, that they can scarcely be alluded to
+without offending our sense of delicacy. The mother of this infant was
+an unmarried woman, living in the very highest circles of Paris, the
+sister of Cardinal Tencin, archbishop of Lyons. This woman thus added to
+her vice the cruelty of exposing her unfortunate offspring to die of
+cold and hunger in the streets. It does not appear that her profligacy,
+though notorious, ever affected her position in society. Her coteries
+were as gay, her circle was as complete, and her rank as high, as ever.
+In the Paris of those days, "throwing the first stone" was unheard of;
+its reaction would have been an avalanche; there was no scandal where
+there was no concealment; there was no crime where there was no
+conscience; and thus danced the world away, until the scourge of a
+higher power swept the whole noblesse of France into beggary and exile.
+
+D'Alembert seems to have taken his surname from that of his nurse, and
+was sent, when twelve years old, to the College of La Nation, then in
+the possession of the Jansenists. There he learned mathematics. On
+leaving the college, he returned to the glazier's house, there had one
+room for his bedroom and study, lived on the family fare, supported
+himself on a pension of L50 a-year left to him by his father, and in
+that house lived for forty years. He once made an abortive attempt to
+study the law and medicine, but soon grew weary of both, and returned to
+mathematics, for which he had a decided predilection. His application to
+this study, however, by no means pleased the homely sense of his old
+nurse. "You will never be any thing better than a philosopher," was her
+usual saying. "And what's a philosopher?--a fool, who wears out his
+life, to be spoken of after he is dead."
+
+But D'Alembert had evidently a passion for science; and in his
+twenty-third year he sent to the Academy of Sciences an analytical
+paper, which attracted general notice. This was followed by his
+admission into the society, at the unusually early age of twenty-four.
+From this period, he proceeded for eighteen years, constantly furnishing
+the Academy with papers, which added greatly to its reputation and his
+own. In a note on the presumed discovery of Taylor's Theorem by
+D'Alembert, the noble biographer alludes to what he regards as a similar
+event, the discovery of the "Binomial Theorem" by himself. We must
+acknowledge, that we cannot easily comprehend how any student, within
+the last hundred years, could have had this "discovery" to make--the
+Binomial Theorem being one of the very first which meets the eye of the
+algebraist, in Newton's, and every other treatise on analysis. It seems
+to us very like an English reader's "discovery" of the alphabet, or, at
+least, of the recondite art of spelling words of two syllables. But
+D'Alembert was at length to find, that if he was to obtain either fame
+or fortune, he must seek them in some other road. At this period,
+infidelity had become the distinction of all who arrogated to themselves
+intellectual accomplishment. The power of the crown, and the power of
+the clergy, had hitherto made its expression dangerous; but the new
+liberalism of the throne having enfeebled its power, the reign of the
+libeller, the rebel, and the sceptic openly commenced. The opulence of
+the clergy increased the bitterness of their enemies; and the blow which
+was intended to lay the throne in the dust, was nominally aimed at
+religion. Voltaire had commenced this crusade half a century before; but
+the arch-infidel lived beyond the dominion of France, possessed an
+independent income, had acquired the reputation of the wittiest man in
+Europe, and had established a species of impunity by the pungency of his
+perpetual sneers. During this period, French infidelity had been silent
+through fear, but it was not the less virulent, active, and general. It
+appeared in the result, that almost the whole of the French higher
+orders were either deists or total unbelievers. All the literary men of
+France followed the example of Voltaire, and a scoff at religion was
+always accepted as an evidence of wit. France loves extremes; and, as
+the poplar literature of Paris is now plunged in impurity, fifty years
+ago it was characterized by outrageous blasphemy. The only religion
+which France knew, was certainly not calculated to repress the evil. Its
+fantastic exhibitions and grim formalities, were equally obnoxious to
+the human understanding. Its persecuting spirit insulted the growing
+passion of the people for liberty; while its fierce dogmas, contrasting
+with its ridiculous traditions, supplied the largest materials at once
+for horror and ridicule.
+
+At length the storm broke forth. The infidelity which had danced and
+smiled, and made _calembourgs_ and scoffed, in the full-dress circles of
+the nobles; made its appearance in the streets and highways, in rags and
+riot, with the axe for the pen, and blood for the ink, and trampled the
+whole polished race of scoffers in the mire of Revolution.
+
+The _Encyclopedie_ was the great text-book of the literary faction, and
+Diderot and D'Alembert were the editors of its first seven
+volumes--D'Alembert writing the preliminary discourse upon the progress
+of the sciences. But the latter mixed caution with his courage; for on
+the issue of the government prohibition of the work, he abandoned the
+editorship and left it to Diderot.
+
+At length, in 1752, the King of Prussia, who, with all his fame, had the
+weakness of being emulous of French flattery, offered him an appointment
+at Berlin, with an allowance of five hundred pounds a-year, and the
+reversionary office of president of the academy. But this royal offer he
+refused, on the ground of his reluctance to quit Paris, and the fear
+that the employment would be inconsistent with his freedom. At this
+period his fixed income seemed to be about seventy pounds a-year; yet,
+when we suffer ourselves to be astonished at the apparent magnanimity of
+the refusal, we are to remember that this sum, a hundred years ago, and
+in Paris, would be about equivalent to two hundred pounds a-year in
+England at the present day; that, like all Frenchmen, he hated Germany;
+that Frederic's dealings with Voltaire gave by no means a favourable
+specimen of his friendships; and that, to a Frenchman of that day,
+Paris was all the world. But, ten years after, the Empress Catharine
+made him the much more tempting offer of the tutorship of her son,
+afterwards the unfortunate Emperor Paul. The salary was to be
+magnificent, no less than four thousand pounds a-year; still he refused
+the offer, and preferred remaining in Paris.
+
+Whether we are to applaud his magnanimity, or blame his habits, on this
+occasion, may fairly be a question. The possession of the four thousand
+pounds a-year, even if it were limited to the period of tuition, would
+have made him opulent; and his opulence would undoubtedly have given him
+the means of extensive benevolence, of relieving private distress, of
+assisting his less fortunate literary brethren, of promoting public
+objects, and ultimately, perhaps, of founding some valuable institution
+which might last for ages. But D'Alembert, and men like him, seem to
+live only for themselves. It would have cost him an absence from Paris
+for a certain period to have obtained this power of public good; and he
+preferred living without it, and haunting, night after night, the
+coteries of the old blue-stockings who kept open house for the evening
+gossipry of the capital.
+
+Nothing can form a stronger contrast to the general passion of the
+French character for change, than its devotion to the same coterie for
+half a century together. In the middle of the eighteenth century two
+houses in Paris were especially the rendezvous of the talkers, idlers,
+and philosophers of Paris. That some of those visitants were men of
+remarkable ability, there can be no doubt. But this perpetual haunting
+of the same coffee-cups, this regularity of trifling, this wretched
+inability to remain at home for a single evening, is so wholly
+irreconcilable with our English sense of domestic duties, of the
+attachment of parents to their families, and of the exercise of the
+natural affections, that we find it utterly impossible to attach any
+degree of respect to the perpetual lounger at another's fire-side.
+Madame Geoffrin had now succeeded to Madame de Tencin, as the receiver
+of the coterie. Madame du Deffand held a kind of rival, but inferior,
+coterie. The former had a house, the latter had only a lodging; the
+former was good-humoured, amiable, and kind--the latter satirical and
+cold; but both were clever, and, at all events, both received the
+gossips, wise and foolish, of Paris. At the lodging of Madame du
+Deffand, D'Alembert met Mademoiselle de l'Espinasse, a species of
+companion to Madame. She was the illegitimate daughter of a woman of
+fashion, as D'Alembert was the son. The circumstance was too common in
+Parisian high life, to involve any censure on the parents, or any
+disgrace on the children; but it may have produced a degree of sympathy,
+which suddenly rose to its height by their taking a lodging together!
+Those things, too, were so frequent in France, that, except the laugh of
+the moment, no one seems to have taken notice of the connexion; and they
+continued to carry it on, as well received as ever, and holding their
+evening coterie with undiminished applause.
+
+"No one," observes the noble biographer, "whispered a syllable of
+suspicion, respecting a connexion which all were fully convinced could
+be only of the most innocent kind." This French credulity is too simple
+for our credence. That a he and she philosophic pair should have lived
+in the same apartments for a dozen years with perfect innocency, may
+have been the case in Paris; but the story would not be believed in any
+less immaculate region on the face of the earth. The plain truth seems
+to be, that the general looseness of Parisian society saw nothing gross
+in the grossest connexion. Even where they affected virtue, they
+palpably preferred their having an evening lounge open to them, to any
+consideration grounded on common propriety and a sense of shame.
+
+But the philosopher was a dirty fellow after all, and it only does
+credit to his noble biographer's sense of propriety to admit, that "his
+conduct must seem strange to all men of right and honourable feelings."
+In fact, the philosopher seems to have lent his aid very zealously to a
+correspondence carried on by his sensitive fellow-lodger! with a view to
+a marriage with a Spanish Marquis Mora. Among other proofs, he went
+every morning to the post-office to receive the Spaniard's letters for
+the lady. "I confess," says Lord Brougham, "I am driven, how reluctantly
+soever, to the painful conclusion, that he lent himself to the plan of
+her _inveigling_ the Spaniard into a marriage." And this was not the
+only instance of his by-play. Mademoiselle professed also to have fallen
+in love with a M. Guibert, known as a military writer. Guibert exhibited
+his best tactics, in keeping clear of the lady. "All this time, she
+continued," says his lordship, "to make D'Alembert believe, that she had
+no real passion for any one but himself." No one can easily suppose that
+they were not connected in a plan of obtaining for her a settlement in
+life by marriage. But, if this marriage-intrigue was in every sense, and
+on all sides, contemptible; what are we to think of the nature of the
+connexion existing between this sensitive lady and D'Alembert, living
+for years under the same roof? The whole matter would be too repulsive
+for the decorums of biography, if it were not among the evidences of
+that utter corruption of morals, and callousness of feeling, which were
+finally avenged in the havoc of the Revolution.
+
+D'Alembert's income had been increased by his appointment to the office
+of secretary to the Academy, in 1772. Unfortunately for his literary
+fame, it became a part of his duty to write the _eloges_ of the deceased
+members, an office which he fulfilled with equal diligence and
+unproductiveness; for, of those unfortunate performances he wrote no
+less than eighty-three. But the French are fond of fooleries of this
+kind; a few sounding sentences with them are biography; a few rambling
+sketches fill up the outline to their taste; and the whole forms a
+specimen of that eloquence which men are content to admire on the other
+side of the Channel.
+
+At length his career drew to a close. Towards his sixty-fourth year, his
+health began to decline. It had never been robust, though his habits had
+been temperate; but feebleness of stomach, and an organic disease,
+predicted the approach of his dissolution. He died on the 29th of
+October 1783, in the sixty-seventh year of his age. Notwithstanding his
+feebleness of body, his intellectual vigour remained--thus adding one to
+the many proofs of the distinct natures of mind and body. In his
+intervals of ease, he continued to occupy himself with mathematical
+investigations. With a deplorable want of feeling, he talked with levity
+of his approaching departure--an event awful to the best, and, to the
+wisest, solemn in proportion to their wisdom. He died in the fulness of
+that scientific reputation which he deserved, and of that literary
+reputation which he did not deserve; but, by the combination of both,
+ranking as the most distinguished intellectual name of Europe in his
+day.
+
+The life of a later philosopher, the unfortunate Lavoisier, gives Lord
+Brougham an opportunity of rendering justice to an eminent foreigner,
+and of vindicating the claims of his own still more memorable
+countrymen, Black and Watt. Chemistry is especially the science of the
+eighteenth century, as geometry was of the seventeenth. It is a
+characteristic of that great, however slow, change, which is now
+evidently in progress through Europe, that those sciences which most
+promote the comforts, the powers, and the progress of the multitude,
+obviously occupy the largest share of mental illustration. Of all the
+sciences, chemistry is that one which contributes most largely to the
+dominion of man over nature. It is the very handmaid of Wisdom,
+instructing us in the properties of things, and continually developing
+more and more the secrets of those vast and beneficent processes by
+which the physical frame of creation is rendered productive to man. It
+must thus be regarded as the most essential instrument of our physical
+well-being. It takes a part in all that administers to our wants and
+enjoyments. Our clothing, our medicine, our food; the cultivation of the
+ground, the salubrity of the atmosphere; the very blood, bone, and
+muscle of man, all depend on chemical evolutions. But it has its still
+loftier secrets; and the experimental philosopher is constantly
+stimulated and delighted by his approach to at least the borders of
+discoveries which promise to give a nobler insight into the laws of
+matter; to exhibit more fully the mechanism formed and moved by the
+Divine hand; and to develop the glories of the universe on a scale
+continually enlarging, and continually more luminous.
+
+A matchless source of interest in this most effective and essential of
+all the sciences, is, that it seems capable of an infinite progress. The
+chemical philosopher cannot even conceive any limit to its variety,
+multitude, or utility of purpose. The more he discovers, the more he
+finds is still to be discovered. Every new property awakens him to the
+existence of some other property, more capacious and more profound.
+Every difficulty mastered, only leads him towards some deeper and more
+tempting problem. And, in addition to the ardour derived from this
+triumph of our intellectual ambition--as if all the incentives that can
+act upon man were expressly accumulated upon this pursuit--there is no
+science in which the actual triumphs are more directly connected with
+personal opulence. The invention of a new acid or alkali might create
+unbounded wealth. The discovery of a new principle of the most vulgar
+use--for tanning leather, for extracting oils, for strengthening soap,
+for purifying tallow, might place the discoverer in possession of wealth
+beyond the dreams of avarice. But a loftier ambition may still find its
+field in this science. A chemical discovery might change the face of the
+world. Gunpowder had already changed the whole form of European society.
+A chemical discovery might give us the power of managing at our will the
+storm and the lightning, of averting the pestilence, or of ensuring the
+fertility of the soil, and the regularity of the seasons. The Divine
+intention in placing us here, was evidently the perpetual exercise of
+the human understanding. For that purpose were given the wants, and the
+remedies of the wants, of man; for that purpose all sciences are perhaps
+inexhaustible; but of all, the most palpably inexhaustible, the most
+teeming with immediate results, and the most remedial as to human
+necessities, is Chemistry--fitted by its extent to supply the largest
+proportion of human objects, by its power to excite the most eager
+inquiry, and by its richness to reward the intelligent labour of man, to
+the last ages of the world.
+
+Antoine Laurent Lavoisier was born in Paris in 1743, the son of one of
+the "farmers-general." As the office was nearly hereditary, and was
+proverbially connected with great opulence, the son of the rich
+functionary was highly educated. But science soon attracted all his
+study, and, devoting himself especially to chemistry, he made himself
+conspicuous among the leading philosophers of his time.
+
+At the age of twenty-two, he presented to the Academy of Sciences an
+analysis of gypsum. At twenty-five he was admitted a member of the
+Academy, an unusually early age. In his next year he succeeded his
+father in his lucrative office. He then married the daughter of another
+farmer-general, and having made this provision for a life of luxury or
+public employment, with all that political ambition might offer in the
+old _regime_ of France, he collected his books about him, shut himself
+up in his study, and gave up his time, fortune, and energy to the
+advancement of science.
+
+After occupying himself for a brief period with geology, he commenced
+his chemical career by refuting the theories alike of Margraff and Stahl
+on the conversion of water into earth. The chemistry of the gases had
+made rapid progress in England; and the names of Black, Priestley, and
+Cavendish, had already attracted the attention of scientific Europe.
+Lavoisier followed in their track by a series of experiments in the
+calcination of metals, pursued with remarkable intelligence and
+industry. The biographer observes that he was now on the verge of two
+dazzling discoveries--the composition of the atmosphere, and the
+identity of the diamond with carbon. But he stopped short, and left the
+glory to more fortunate investigators.
+
+We hasten from the controversies to which the claim of priority in those
+distinguished discoveries gave rise, and come to the more authentic
+services of Lavoisier. He was appointed by the minister to superintend
+the royal manufacture of gunpowder, which his chemical knowledge enabled
+him greatly to improve. He next, by appointment of the National
+Assembly, drew up his laborious and valuable memoir on the _Territorial
+Wealth of France_. He was now appointed one of the commissioners of the
+treasury, and introduced an unexampled regularity into the public
+accounts. He aided the formation of the metrical system, the security of
+the assignats against forgery, and seems to have borne an active part in
+every public matter in which practical science was concerned. In the
+mean time he employed himself in scientific agriculture, and set apart a
+tract of land on his estate for experimental farming. His style of
+living in Paris was at once rational and splendid. His house was open
+twice a-week for the reception of distinguished persons, both foreigners
+and natives, and especially if they brought with them the recommendation
+of scientific ability. With the finest philosophical apparatus in the
+possession of any individual in France, he was constantly carrying on
+experiments on his own account, or performing them for others whose
+means could not meet their expense. This conduct, united to remarkable
+amiability of manners, made him popular, and placed him at the head of
+French science in his day. But the evil time had come when opulence was
+to be a crime, and virtue was to be no longer a safe-guard. The
+democratic triumvirate of 1794 issued an order for the seizure of
+twenty-seven individuals who had been farmers-general before the
+Revolution. The true charge was the crime of being opulent. The popular
+and ridiculous charge was, their having mixed deleterious ingredients
+with the tobacco. Lavoisier having received information that the order
+was about to be executed, fled, and remained for some days in
+concealment. On understanding that his flight might injure the other
+prisoners, and as his father-in-law was among them, he, with a rash
+reliance on the public justice, yet with manly generosity, returned to
+Paris, and gave himself up to his oppressors. The course of the
+Revolution had been so palpably that of general plunder, that he had
+long expected the loss of fortune, and proposed, in case of ruin, to
+begin the world again, and live by the profession of medicine.
+
+But, by a furious act of violence, he was condemned to die. He asked
+only a few days to complete some experiments which were going on during
+his imprisonment. The scoffing answer of this merciless tribunal was,
+that the Republic had no need of philosophers; and on the day after this
+sentence, the 8th of May 1794, he was hurried to the guillotine with no
+less than one hundred and twenty-three other victims, who all died
+within a few hours.
+
+On this melancholy and desperate atrocity of republicanism, Lord
+Brougham makes the following remark, which, though natural in the lips
+of any human being, has double force as coming from one who has seen the
+operation of the revolutionary spirit on so large a scale, and during so
+extended a portion of his public career.
+
+"The lustre," he observes, "which the labours of Lavoisier had shed over
+the scientific renown of France, the valuable services which he had
+rendered her in so many important departments of her affairs, the
+virtues which adorned his character and made his philosophy beloved as
+well as revered, were all destined to meet the reward with which the
+tyranny of _vulgar faction_ is sure to recompense the good and the wise,
+as often as the _base unlettered multitude_ are permitted to bear sway,
+and to place in the seat of dominion their idols, who _dupe_ to
+_betray_, and finally punish them."
+
+Lord Brougham justly reprobates the suspicious silence of the celebrated
+Carnot on this occasion, and the still more scandalous apathy of
+Fourcroix, who had been the pupil and panegyrist of the great chemist
+during many years. He acquits him of the deadly imputation, that he had
+even been instrumental in sending his master to the guillotine. But he
+praises, in contradistinction, M. Halle, who had the honest courage to
+proclaim Lavoisier's public services before the dreadful tribunal,
+while he consigns the pupil to perpetual scorn. He was murdered in his
+fifty-first year.
+
+Lord Brougham's French predilections do credit to his sense of
+cosmopolitism; but he appears to us somewhat more disposed to conciliate
+the jealousy of his very irritable French _confreres_, than to deal
+rigorous justice. No man deserves the reputation of science but a
+discoverer. To know all that has been hitherto known on a subject,
+deserves the character of diligence; to promote the progress of a
+science by largeness of expenditure, or steadiness of exertion, deserves
+the praise of liberality and labour; but the man who adds to the science
+by original invention, who enlarges its boundaries, and detects new
+principles, is the man alone to whom the name of genius can be applied.
+Lavoisier was, unquestionably, an important minister of science; he
+possessed singular assiduity, unwearied zeal, and remarkable sagacity.
+What these could do, he did; what knowledge could accomplish, he
+performed; but the inventors were of another country, and of a higher
+order, and he must be content with the honours due to imitation. Yet he
+had considerable happiness in the difficult art of communicating his
+knowledge. His _Treatise on Chemistry_, though now superseded by
+subsequent arrangements, is singularly clear; and no great teacher of
+chemistry has hitherto given the world a more striking example of
+exactness in detail, and clearness in conception.
+
+His cruel death, too, may be almost said to have continued his services
+to society. It proved, with irresistible force, the true character of
+Infidel Revolution. It showed a noble-minded and benevolent man the
+victim of revolutionary rage; an intelligent, studious, and retired man,
+obnoxious to the rabble love of ruin; a mild, generous, and patriotic
+man, the instant prey of revolutionary government, which boasted of its
+superiority to the vices of kings, of its homage to intellect, and of
+its supreme value for the virtues of private life. Yet it murdered
+Lavoisier without a moment's hesitation, or a moment's remorse, and
+flung the first philosopher of France into a felon's grave.
+
+The biography of Adam Smith gives Lord Brougham an opportunity of
+pouring out, at the distance of nearly half a century, that knowledge of
+Political Economy which first brought him into notice. His _Colonial
+Policy_, a remarkable performance for a student of eighteen, exhibited
+in miniature the principles and propensities which his long career has
+been expended in maturing and moulding. Adam Smith was the idol of all
+Scottish worship in the last century; and his originality of conception,
+the weight of his subject, and the clearness of his judgment, made him
+worthy of the elevation.
+
+Adam Smith's birth was of a higher order than is often to be found in
+the instance of men destined to literary eminence. He was the son of a
+comptroller of the customs, who had been private secretary to Lord
+Loudoun, secretary of state, and keeper of the great seal.
+
+An accident in infancy had nearly deprived the age of its first
+philosopher, even if it had not trained him to be hanged. At three years
+of age he was stolen by travelling tinkers, a race resembling the
+gipsies, and which in that day formed a numerous population in Scotland.
+But a pursuit being speedily set on foot, he was fortunately recovered.
+He was well educated, and, after the routine of school, was sent to
+Glasgow for three years, where he obtained an Exhibition to Baliol
+College. At Oxford he remained for seven years, chiefly addicted to
+mathematics--a study, however, which he subsequently wholly abandoned.
+He had been intended for the Church of England; but whether from dislike
+of its discipline, or from disappointment in his views, he retired to
+Scotland, to take his chance of employment in its colleges. In 1748 he
+settled in Edinburgh, and, for three years, read a course of lectures on
+rhetoric. His contemporaries, then obscure, became, in some instances,
+conspicuous; for among them were Hume, Robertson, and Wedderburne. In
+1751, Smith was elected to the professorship of Logic in the University
+of Glasgow, which he soon after exchanged for that of Moral Philosophy.
+
+Thus far we run on smoothly with Lord Brougham; but when he comes to
+discuss religion, we must occasionally doubt his guidance. For example,
+in speaking of Smith's lectures on Natural Theology, he denounces the
+jealousy of those who regard it as other than "the very foundation
+essential to support its fabric." From this opinion we totally dissent.
+It is perfectly true that natural religion and revelation are consistent
+with each other, as must be presumed from their being the work of the
+same Divine wisdom. But their foundations are wholly distinct. Why did
+the Jew believe the Mosaic revelation? Simply and solely, because it was
+delivered to him with such evidences of supernatural origin, in the
+thunders of Sinai, and substantiated at subsequent periods by miracle
+and prophecy, that he must receive it as divine. Why did the early
+converts receive Christianity? Simply on the same direct evidence
+supplied to their senses. No apostle sent them to examine their notions
+of the Godhead, or left them to inculcate the doctrines of the gospel by
+their reason. But he declared his doctrine as a new truth, and gave
+proof of its truth being divine, by working wonders palpably beyond the
+power of man. Of course, unless man knew what was meant by the power of
+the Deity, he could not have comprehended the simplest communication of
+the apostle. But we are speaking of the foundation of a belief--not the
+intelligibility of a language. We are entitled to go further still, and
+say, that the first idea of the being of a God was itself a
+revelation--a much plainer solution of the extraordinary circumstance,
+that so lofty and recondite a conception should have existed in the
+earliest and rudest ages of society; than to suppose that the
+antediluvian shepherd, or the postdiluvian hunter, should have ever
+thought of tracing effects and causes up to that extreme elevation,
+where a pure and supreme Spirit creates and governs the whole. We are
+entitled even to doubt whether the idea of Spirit was ever _naturally_
+conceived in the mind of any human being, difficult as is the conception
+to a creature surrounded with materiality, with every thought derived
+from his senses, and with the total incapacity of defining to this hour,
+or even imagining, the nature of Spirit. It will be fully admitted, that
+when the idea was once communicated, its reality was substantiated by
+the frame of nature, by the regularity, the extent, and the beneficence
+of the great physical system. But the origin was revelation. Lord
+Brougham quotes Tillotson; but the archbishop had earned his mitre by
+other means than the vigour of his understanding, and often trifles like
+other men.
+
+In 1759, Smith published his _Theory of Moral Sentiments_--a work of
+skill and invention, but which has long since fallen into disuse with
+the intelligent world. It, however, had the rare good fortune of
+attracting the notice of an individual, possessed at once of the taste
+to honour, and the will to befriend, a man of original ability. This
+volume fell into the hands of the celebrated Charles Townsend, who
+proposed that the author should take charge of the young Duke of
+Buccleuch, whose mother, the dowager-duchess, he had married. Nothing in
+the life of Townsend was more honourable to him than this choice, not
+only for its judgment but for its rarity. The generality of men in
+possession of affluence think only of themselves, and would value the
+most common-place gratification more highly than the encouragement of
+the obscure genius, which wanted only that encouragement to shed a new
+lustre on its generation. The man of power in general feels its
+possession the primary object of his patronage, and sees no purpose in
+the immense opportunity given to him by his rank, but to obtain
+adherents, and make his power impregnable. Though there may be
+exceptions, such is the rule; and with this recollection of the
+established course of things, we give all honour to the memory of the
+man, without whose patronage the world would probably have lost the
+ablest work of its century, the immortal _Wealth of Nations_.
+
+In 1763, Smith was appointed tutor to the young nobleman, resigned his
+professorship, and went with his pupil to France. After a residence of a
+year and a half at Toulouse, he travelled in Switzerland, and then,
+returning to Paris, spent ten months there. His French residence was
+peculiarly fortunate. It rubbed off the rust of his seclusion; it
+introduced him to the best society of courtly life; and it brought him
+into direct intercourse with that whole circle of active intellect and
+novel philosophy, which made the Parisian coteries at once the most
+bustling and brilliant of Europe. However the horrid profligacy of the
+court, and the contemptuous infidelity of high life, might have either
+disgusted the morals, or startled even the scepticism of the stranger,
+there can be no doubt of the interest which he felt in the society of
+such men as Turgot, Necker, D'Alembert, and Quesnay. Smith, some fifteen
+or twenty years before, had drawn up a sketch of the principles which he
+afterwards developed in his _Wealth of Nations_. Political economy was
+then beginning to take a form in French science. Whether it ever
+deserved the name of science, or will ever deserve it, may be a grave
+question. It depends upon such a multitude of facts, and the facts
+themselves vary so perpetually, the "principles" derived from those
+facts are so feeble and fluctuating, and common experience so
+provokingly contradicts, from day to day, the most laboured conclusions,
+that every new professor has a new theory, and every new theory turns
+the former into ridicule, itself to be burlesqued by the next that
+follows. This at least is known, that Fox declared his suspicion of the
+whole, saying, that it was at once too daring to be intelligible, and
+too indefinite to be reducible to practice. Even in our day, no two
+authors on the subject agree; all the successful measures of revenue and
+finance have been adopted in utter defiance of its dogmas; while all the
+modern attempts to act upon what are called its principles, have only
+convulsed commerce, shaken public credit, and substituted fantastic
+visions of prosperity for the old substantial wealth of England. No
+occupation could have been fitter for the half-frivolous, half-factious
+spirit of France. A revolution in revenue was openly regarded as the
+first step to revolution in power; the political economists indulged
+themselves in a philosophic conspiracy, and vented their sneers against
+the government, under pretext of recognising the rights of trade. It
+took but a little more than twenty years to mature this dexterous
+contrivance, and the meek friends of free trade had the happiness of
+seeing France in a blaze.
+
+Smith, on his return, shut himself up in his study in Kirkcaldy for ten
+years. His friends in vain attempted to draw him from his solitude to
+Edinburgh: he steadily, we may almost say magnanimously, refused; and at
+the end of the tenth year, in 1776, he explained the mystery, by the
+publication of the two quarto volumes of his _Enquiry into the Nature
+and Causes of the Wealth of Nations_. The work was received with general
+congratulation; it was regarded as a new science, although it is
+well-known, as stated in the introduction to the biography, that many
+others had previously discussed the same subjects. Smith's views,
+however, were so much more comprehensive, his division so much more
+distinct, and his remarks so much more practical, that he deserved all
+the credit of the architect who combines in beauty and utility the beams
+and pillars which he finds scattered on the ground. And here we advert
+to the obvious benefit of that patronage which had been extended to this
+very able man by Townsend. The annuity which had been settled on him as
+tutor, had enabled Smith to give up the whole of his time, and the whole
+powers of his mind, during those ten years, to this great work. During
+nearly twenty years of lecturing, on the other hand, in which his pen
+was necessarily employed without ceasing, he seems to have published but
+one work, _The Theory of Moral Sentiment_. That he constantly formed
+ingenious conceptions, may be easily admitted; but that he wanted either
+time or inclination to complete them, is evident from the fact, that he
+never suffered them to appear in print, and that one of his dying
+directions was, that they should be destroyed by his executors.
+
+He was now a man of fame, and to enjoy it came up to London, where he
+resided for two years in the midst of the best society, political and
+literary, to be found in England. He was now to be a man of fortune as
+well as of fame; he was appointed a commissioner of the customs in
+Scotland. He returned to Edinburgh, and commenced the agreeable life of
+a man at once distinguished, and opulent to the full extent of his
+simple desires, in a society whose names are still regarded as the
+lights of Scotland. He lived hospitably, and entertained good society,
+but he wrote no more; he was growing old, and Lord Brougham evidently
+thinks that the duties of his office exhausted his spirits and occupied
+his time. But those duties always partook largely of the nature of a
+sinecure; and there is every reason to doubt whether they could have
+worn down a man of regular habits, and who had been trained to the
+routine of daily business by an apprenticeship of a quarter of a
+century. The greater probability is, that Smith felt that he had done
+enough for fame; that, knowing the world, he was unwilling to expose
+himself to the caprices of critical applause; and that he even felt how
+inadequate the early theories which found admirers in the lecture-room,
+might be to sustain a character already brought into full publicity by
+his own volumes. The fact is certain, that he produced nothing more. In
+July 1790, he died, at the age of sixty-seven. It was his custom to give
+a supper on the Sunday evening to a numerous circle of friends. How far
+this entertainment, which was more consistent with the latitude of his
+Paris recollections, was reconcilable with the decorums of Scotland, we
+cannot say. But on one evening, after having destroyed his manuscripts,
+finding himself not so well as usual, he retired to bed before supper,
+and as he went, said to his friends, "I believe we must adjourn this
+meeting to some other place." He died in a very few days afterwards.
+
+Lord Brougham has obviously expended his chief labour on the life of
+this favourite philosopher, of whom, fifty years ago, every Scottish
+economist was a devoted pupil. Times are changed, yet this intelligent
+biographer has given a very ample and accurate, so far as we can judge,
+analysis of the _Enquiry_. But he would have greatly increased the
+obligations of the reader, by giving some portion of his treatise to the
+questions which modern artifice has devised, and modern infatuation has
+adopted.
+
+An interesting "memoir" of Johnson commences the volume; but the topic
+would lead us too far. The biographer gives that literary Samson full
+applause for the strength of his understanding, the boldness of his
+morality, and the pungency of his wit. Rather to our surprise, he pours
+out an eloquent panegyric on Boswell. That we are indebted to this
+versatile personage for one of the most amusing and instructive
+collections of reminiscences in the history of authorship, will be
+readily conceded. But this is the first time of our hearing a demand
+that we should pay him any more peculiar homage. But Lord Brougham is
+himself the head of a school: his _ipse dixit_ demands acquiescence, and
+none can doubt that, if he is singular in his dogmas, he deserves
+attention for the vigour of his advocacy.
+
+
+
+
+REYNARD THE FOX.[2]
+
+
+The natural history of the Cockney has been frequently illustrated, and
+never so successfully as in time past in the pages of Maga. But nature
+is inexhaustible in all her creations. You might study a lifetime, and
+yet not fully master the properties of one of those little Infusoria
+that wriggle or spin about in a phial of foul or fair water, and a still
+wider subject of study is of course supplied by any larger animal, such
+as a Cockney, placed as he is a little lower than the angels, and
+half-way down, or there abouts, between a man and a chimpanzee.
+
+Upon careful inquiry it would probably be found, that in most nations
+the population, though all purporting to be men and women, consists in a
+good measure of beings that stand several degrees below the point of
+humanity. France, among several specimens of a higher order, has
+occasionally shown that a considerable proportion of its inhabitants was
+a hideous cross between the tiger and the baboon. Holland has had its
+Grotius and its Erasmus, but the otter and the beaver breed make up the
+mass of those who go by the name of Dutchmen. There has been no want in
+Germany of clear-sighted men, but the mole, the bat, and the owl furnish
+a large contingent to the ranks of its _literati_. In other nations we
+see a greater or less preponderance of the wolf or the bear, the goat or
+the goose, the ass, the hog, or the hippopotamus. Such being the
+universal condition of the world, we should rather be proud than
+otherwise, that, in England, we can boast of a secondary tribe, made,
+perhaps, by some of nature's journeymen, but that yet imitate humanity
+so respectably, so amiably, and so amusingly, as the Cockney must be
+admitted to do.
+
+A Cockney is by locality very much what a tailor is by trade. Though a
+remote sub-multiple of a man, he is enterprising, indefatigable, cutting
+his way to his object through every thing with a ready tongue and a
+quick wit. Yet he is deficient in some qualities indispensable to the
+species _homo_. Courage the Cockney undoubtedly possesses, because he is
+always among those who are said to rush in where others fear to tread.
+But veneration is utterly wanting in his composition; and here the
+resemblance to the tailor is conspicuous; as we never knew a single snip
+that had the slightest reverence for any thing under heaven--if, indeed,
+the assertion should not be made in still broader terms. In the tailor
+this effect, defective, comes by an obvious cause. The intolerable
+liberties which the vulgar fraction is permitted to take with people's
+persons, divesting the best and bravest of us of the halo of heroism
+that surrounds us at a distance; and the fact that the great mysteries
+of dress, the paraphernalia of our dignity and decency, and the chief
+emblems of our manhood and domestic authority, emerge exclusively from
+the hands of this insignificant but indispensable maker of men, are
+enough to extinguish within him all sentiment of respect for any thing
+human or divine. The Cockney arrives at a similar state of easy and
+impudent _non-chalance_ by a different process. Littered in London, and
+living there all his life, he is proud of its position among cites; and
+he comes, by a natural process of reasoning, to ascribe its importance
+to its connexion with his own person and people, and to see nothing
+better or greater in the universe than himself and what belongs to him.
+The feeling grows with his growth, and is fed by a full indulgence in
+all the good things with which the land of Cockayne abounds, and which
+the most morose of mortals must admit to be eminently conducive to
+self-complacency.
+
+The Cockney, thus devoid of all diffidence in himself, is prepared for
+every thing in the scale of human thought or action; pleasuring or
+politics, theatricals or theology, an Epping hunt or an Epic poem. In
+literature we may say of him, nearly in the words applied by Dr Johnson
+to Goldsmith, that there is scarcely any kind of composition that he
+does not handle, and none that he handles which he does not adorn with
+graces all his own.
+
+It is wonderful, however, to see with what success a Cockney can
+sometimes disguise himself. He will write you a book, in which, several
+pages on end, you think you are reading the thoughts of some ordinary
+mortal. But the cloven foot always appears before you are done with him.
+In poetry, indeed, you can go but a short way till the cat is let out of
+the bag. That unfortunate letter R! No lessons in elocution, no change
+of climate, can eradicate the deep-seated mischief of its
+mispronunciation in a Cockney whose years of pupilarity have been passed
+on the spot of his birth.
+
+These remarks have been elicited by a disappointment we have recently
+suffered, in being led to purchase the book referred to at the
+commencement of this article. We saw it advertised by an alluring
+title--"REYNARD THE FOX--a renowned Apologue of the Middle Ages
+reproduced in Rhyme." We bought the book, and were delighted with its
+appearance. A quaint, antique, cream-coloured binding--a golden vignette
+on the outside, of the fox making his obeisance to Noble the king of the
+beasts, and the lioness his spouse--a beautiful paper and type within,
+with red and blue illuminations interspersed at the heads of chapters
+and paragraphs;--all this combined to whet our appetite for a delicious
+treat. We read the preface and introduction, if not with pleasure, at
+least with patience, and with wonderfully few misgivings as to the
+truth, the worst feature in them being the tendency to Carlyleism, to
+which, however offensive in itself, custom has made us somewhat callous.
+But we had not perused a page or two of the reproduction in rhyme
+itself, when we discovered that we were wandering in the regions of
+Cockneyland, with one of its most distinguished natives for our guide.
+
+Our immediate purpose is to offer an exposition, not of the old Reynard,
+but of its present "reproduction." We may say, however, that we think
+the original work is one peculiarly ill-suited to be appreciated or
+reproduced by one of Mr Naylor's compatriots. It is a product of true
+genius, humour, and sagacity. The author must have looked at beasts and
+men with a keen eye, and from the vantage ground of a contemplative
+mind; and he has worked out his thoughts in a plain and simple style of
+illustration, and embodied them in easy and natural language. There is
+much merriment in his work, but no straining after wit. There is all the
+knowledge of the day that an accomplished man could be expected to
+possess, but no parade of learning. There is no quaintness in the style,
+and no effort in the verse. The age of _Hudibras_ had not come; and that
+of the _Ingoldsby Legends_, or _Miss Kilmansegg_, was still further off.
+The old Flemish writers of Reynard exhibit judgment as well as talent,
+and their Low Saxon successor, though himself a reproducer, has asserted
+a claim both to freedom and originality. The quiet, sensible, unaffected
+treatment of their subject, which these old versifiers exhibit, where
+the topics offered so much temptation to burlesque and extravagance, is
+the thing of all others least likely to be comprehended or relished in
+the meridian of Bow Bells.
+
+But, then, Goethe has successfully translated the book; and, therefore,
+Mr Naylor must do the same. This is a common mode of syllogising in
+Cockayne. Homer, Dante, Milton, Goethe, Wordsworth, have done such and
+such things, and therefore a Cockney is to do them also. Whatever may be
+the precise minor premise involved in this argument, we venture to
+suggest a doubt of its soundness. Mr Naylor tells us he has followed
+Alkmar's and Goethe's example, "mindful ever of the requisitions
+insisted on by Novalis in all paraphrastic translations, that they
+should convey accurately an idea of the first type, whilst, at the same
+time, the translator made his author speak after that appreciation of
+his work which exists in his own mind, no less than according to the
+poet's original conception." Mr Naylor may have succeeded in making his
+author speak after that appreciation of his work which exists in his own
+mind; but if the "first type" of Reynard had been no better than the
+reproduction gives us an idea of, the shapeless and sickly cub would not
+have lived an hour into the thirteenth century.
+
+Before Mr Naylor resolved on reproducing Reynard in English rhyme, he
+should have inquired whether it was not already as well done as he was
+likely to do it. In his elaborate enumeration of his predecessors in the
+task of translation, he thus writes:--"There is also _said_ to be a
+translation of Reynard into English _doggerel_, by _one_ Soltau, a
+German"--"known," as he adds in a note, "as the translator of _Hudibras_
+into German." We have now before us the translation so slightingly
+alluded to, published at Hamburg in 1826. In all external and physical
+recommendations, this homely volume is far inferior to the London
+reproduction; but we shall immediately give our readers an opportunity
+of judging whether the doggerel of "one Soltau, a German," is not at
+least as good as that of "one Naylor, a Cockney."
+
+Take the opening of the poem, which, in the original, is full of
+freshness and spirit, with all the joyousness of a holiday scene.
+
+SOLTAU.
+
+    "It happen'd on a Whitsunday,
+  When woods and fields look'd green and gay,
+  When balmy flow'rs and herbs were springing,
+  And feather'd folks were sweetly singing;
+  The morn was fine, the weather clear,
+  And fragrant odours fill'd the air,
+  When Noble, sov'reign king of beasts,
+  Proclaim'd a court and public feasts.
+  His loyal subjects, lords and commons,
+  Obey'd their master's royal summons;
+  And many a valiant knight and squire
+  To court repair'd in grand attire,
+  With their attendants, great and small--
+  'Twas difficult to count them all."
+
+NAYLOR.
+
+    "Now Pentecost, the feast, by some
+  Call'd 'merry Whitsuntide,' was come!
+  The fields show'd brave, with kingcups dight,
+  And hawthorns kercheft were in white:
+  Her low-breathed lute the fresh'ning rill
+  Unto the waken'd woods 'gan trill;
+  Whilst, hid in leafy bower remote,
+  The cuckoo tuned his herald-note;
+  The meads were prankt in gold and green,
+  And 'leetel fowles' of liveried sheen,
+  Their pipes with JUBILATE! swelling,
+  From bush and spray were philomelling--
+  The breeze came balmy from the west,
+  And April, harness'd in her best,
+  The laughing sun led forth to see--
+  When Noble (lion-king was he,
+  And sceptre sway'd o'er bird and beast,)
+  Held ancient ways, and kept the feast,
+  The trumpets clang'd loud proclamation--
+  The couriers coursed throughout the nation--
+  Full many a Brave and many a Bold
+  Came hastening in troops untold."
+
+The German translator here keeps precisely within the same compass of
+fourteen lines with his "first type," while the Londoner has one-half
+more. But this is not the main difference. The German is neater and more
+natural, and nearer the spirit as well as the letter of his model. All
+the trash in the new reproduction about hawthorns "kercheft in white,"
+the low-breathed lute of the rill trilling, the cuckoo and his herald
+note, the 'leetel fowles' swelling and philomelling, and April harnessed
+in her best, are mere frippery sewed on by the reproducer, to make the
+venerable old garment look finer in the eyes of his co-Cockneys.
+
+We next give the two translations of that part of the poem which
+represents the Cock's complaints against Reynard, for killing his
+daughter, and which is supposed to give so accurate a representation of
+the form of process in the Middle Ages in an accusation of murder.
+
+SOLTAU.
+
+    "Gray scarce had done, when Chanticleer
+  The Cock in mourning did appear;
+  Two sons accompanied their sire,
+  Like him in funeral attire,
+  With hoods of crape and torches lighted,
+  And doleful lays they both recited.
+  Two others follow'd with a bier;
+  Mournful and slowly they drew near,
+  With heartfelt sighs and deepest groan,
+  Their fav'rite sister to bemoan.
+    "The Cock in tears the throne approach'd,
+  And thus his sad harangue he broach'd:
+  'My Liege, have pity on a man,
+  The most distressed of his clan,
+  Who, with his children here before You,
+  Is come, for vengeance to implore You
+  On Reynard, who, with fell design,
+  Hath done great harm to me and mine.
+  When hoary Winter left the plain,
+  And Spring smiled on the world again,
+  When leaves were budding, daisies springing,
+  And tuneful birds in thickets singing,
+  The sun at dawn of morning found me
+  With my young family around me;
+  Ten sons and fourteen daughters fair,
+  Breathing with joy the genial air,
+  All of one breed, and full of life,
+  Brought up by my good prudent wife.
+  Protected by a massy wall
+  And six bold mastiffs, stout and tall,
+  They lived, in spite of Reynard crafty,
+  Within a cloister-yard in safety.
+    "But lo! our enemy contrived
+  Our joy, alas! should be short-lived.
+  In hermit's garb the traitor came,
+  With letters, written in your name,
+  Where strictest orders were express'd,
+  To keep peace between bird and beast.
+  He said, he scorn'd the joys of sense,
+  And led a life of penitence,
+  To expiate his former guilt,
+  And streams of blood, which he had spilt;
+  He vow'd, in future he would eat
+  No poultry, nor forbidden meat.
+    "All joyful, to my little crew,
+  To tell the happy news I flew,
+  That Reynard friar's garments wore,
+  And was our enemy no more.
+  Now for the first time we did venture
+  Out of our gate. A dire adventure
+  Awaited us; for whilst we stray'd
+  And sported on a sunny glade,
+  Reynard, conceal'd below a bush,
+  Upon us suddenly did rush;
+  One of my hopeful sons he slew,
+  And of my fairest daughters two.--
+  Five only out of twenty-four
+  Are left; the rest he did devour.
+  My daughter Rake-up, on this bier,
+  Slain by the murderer, lies here;
+  He bit her neck off yesterday--
+  Revenge her death, my liege, I pray.'
+    "'Sir Gray,(quoth Noble,) did you hear?
+  Fine things of th' hermit-fox appear.
+  Was't thus, that with his fasts he meant it?
+  Sure as I live he shall repent it!
+    "'Good Cock, we've heard your mournful tale,
+  And we your daughter's fate bewail;
+  Thus, first of all, we'll see the honour
+  Of funeral rites bestow'd upon her;
+  Next with our Council we shall further
+  Consult, how to revenge this murther.'"
+
+NAYLOR.
+
+    "He ceased; and scarce a sand had run
+  When Chanticleer and all his clan
+  Appear'd in court: right in the van
+  A pullet's corse accompanied,
+  'Clept Dem'selle Scratchclaw ere she died;
+  By Reynard's bite decapitated--
+  This wise the tidings were related.
+  Close to the throne the Cock drew nigh:
+  Deep anguish dimm'd his upturn'd eye:
+  Two little Bantams, right and left,
+  Wept bitter tears, as birds bereft.
+  Sir Flapwing was of high degree,
+  As fine a bantling as you'd see
+  'Twixt Amsterdam and Paris, he.
+  Sir Strain-neck was the other 'clept,
+  And, like the first one, proudly stept.
+  Before them each a torch they bear,
+  Alike the same; for twins they were.
+  Young Cocks yet twain bare up the pall,
+  And help'd the wail with voices small.
+  Then Chanticleer, before the King
+  Commenced, in tones deep harrowing:
+  'Ah, gracious Lord and King! give ear
+  To my disastrous tale! The tear
+  Of pity shed on us who stand
+  For justice, suppliants at your hand.
+  Sire! thus it chanced;--The frosted beard
+  Of Winter scarce had disappear'd;
+  Scarce had the thorny brake put by
+  Its hosiery of fleece, and I
+  As happy felt as though a chicken;
+  About me, strutting, crowing, picking,
+  In comeliness my little ones:
+  I counted up ten stalwart sons;
+  Of daughters, too, a wondrous store,--
+  Plump Ortolans, and full a score.
+  My dame, the thoughtful prudent Hen,
+  Had train'd their youth beneath her ken
+  All virtues cardinal to practise,
+  Best learned from mothers, as the fact is.
+  Our house was in the convent yard,
+  High wall'd around: six dogs stood guard;--
+  All kept for our peculiar care,
+  By night and day to shield us there.
+  Now, gracious Liege! mark what I tell.
+  Reynard, (the knave!) with cockle-shell
+  And pilgrim's staff, wellworn, appears,
+  Bearing a packet: as he nears,
+  I note your royal seal, and read
+  Announcement of the truce decreed:
+  No more, he said, he played the royster,
+  But sought repentance in a cloister:
+  Observed the rule o' th' strictest sect,
+  His sins to purge with sure effect;
+  Whereby myself might to the end
+  My life secure and fearless spend.
+  Said he, 'flesh diet I have sworn
+  Never to touch from night to morn.'--
+  Unto my children all, I stated
+  The royal message, then related
+  How Reynard had assumed the cowl,
+  And left off hankering after fowl.
+  Myself I led them far and wide,
+  When lo! the Fox's guile defied
+  My anxious cares: in that same hour
+  He'd mark'd a victim for his power!
+  Perdu behind a bush he lay,
+  And took, before mine eyes, his prey!
+  The best of all my brood he seized,
+  And ate her up. The morsel pleased
+  His scoundrel maw--'twas dainty meat--
+  And soon he sought another treat.--
+  Full four-and twenty hopeful chicks
+  As e'er peck'd corn from out fresh ricks
+  Were mine,--and now, as I'm alive,
+  The villain's kill'd them all but five!
+  Pity, O King! my sorrowing tale:
+  Grant succour in this hour of wail!
+  But yesterday, the huntsman's cry
+  Surprised him in the act to fly
+  With Scratchclaw's body, which you see
+  Kill'd by his murd'rous tooth--ah me!
+  'Tis here as witness of my woe--
+  Oh that my hardhap to your heart may go!'
+  Enraged, the King: 'Sir Badger, ho!
+  The monk your uncle (troth!) doth know
+  To keep his fast,--the holy man!--
+  Match me the like of this who can?
+  What need of further question here?
+  Draw nigh and listen, Chanticleer!
+  Ourself your daughter dead will see
+  Entomb'd with all solemnity
+  Of dirge and mass, in her last slumber,
+  And vigils also without number.
+  This done, from these our lieges true
+  We'll crave their help and counsel too,
+  Touching the murder and the vengeance due.'
+  To Bruin then the King thus spake:
+  'Bruin! look well you undertake
+  This journey with dispatch--'Tis I,
+  Your Sov'reign, calls upon you--fly!
+  Be wise and wary: Reynard's guile
+  Is practised in each crafty wile.'"
+
+Neither of the translators is here very good, and Naylor is perhaps as
+near hitting the nail on the point (to use the phrase of a friend of
+ours of the Fogie Club) as his competitor. He still gives us, however, a
+great many silly superfluities, though some of them we have ventured to
+cut out.
+
+Finally, as our readers may begin to think they have enough of this, we
+shall close our comparative view by some quotations from the Wager of
+Battle, by which the Wolf and the Fox ultimately terminate their
+disputes.
+
+SOLTAU.
+
+    "The trumpets then began to sound,
+  And next the wardens did appear,
+  And call'd the champions forth, to swear.
+  Growler advanced, his oath to take;
+  He swore, that Reynard was a rake,
+  A murd'rer, and a treach'rous wight,
+  For which assertion he would fight.
+    "Then Reynard in his turn did swear,
+  That Growler was a perjurer;
+  To prove his charge, he did defy him,
+  Because he basely did belie him.
+    "The wardens then admonish'd both,
+  To fight with honour and good troth.
+  This being done, the lists were clear'd,
+  Where both the combatants appear'd.
+    "The combatants with equal rage
+  And fury now began t'engage.
+  The Wolf, by dint of strength and art,
+  Attack'd the Fox with leap and start;
+  But Reynard, being shrewd and light,
+  Avoided him by cunning flight,
+  And while he ran, he did not fail
+  To water well his rugged tail.
+  When Growler meant to hold him fast,
+  He nimbly veer'd about at last,
+  And with his tail the dust and dirt
+  He full into his face did flirt.
+  Whilst Growler rubb'd his eyes with pain,
+  Reynard his flirts renew'd again,
+  Till Growler was quite spent at last,
+  And by the throat he held him fast.
+  'Sir Wolf,(he said,)if heretofore
+  Poor lambs and kids you oft have tore,
+  It is high time now to repent,
+  Before your last breath you have spent,
+  And with contrition to behave,
+  If you would wish your soul to save.'
+    "In this provoking style he spoke,
+  Striving his enemy to choke;
+  But Growler was for him too strong,
+  And broke loose from his hold erelong;
+  Though ere he got out of his jaws,
+  Reynard gall'd him with teeth and claws;
+  One of his eyes was almost out,
+  And streams of blood ran down his snout.
+    "As soon as he his blood did view,
+  At Reynard in a rage he flew;
+  He got him under, and his paw
+  He seized, and held it in his jaw.
+  'You caitiff, your last hour has come,
+  (Said he,) and you'll meet with your doom.
+  'T shall not avail you now, to shear,
+  To flirt, kick up a dust, and smear.
+  I'll make you pay for all your lies,
+  And for the damage of my eyes.'
+    "Whilst Growler kept hold of the paw,
+  Sly Reynard with his other claw
+  Seiz'd him in such a tender part,
+  That it made Growler howl with smart,
+  And forced him soon to ope his jaw,
+  And to let go the imprison'd paw.
+  Reynard now tugg'd, and pull'd, and tore,
+  And made the Wolf spit blood and gore;
+  He brought him senseless to the ground,
+  And dragg'd him through the lists around.
+    "When this his wife and friends perceived,
+  They were much terrified and grieved.
+  Then pray'd the king to use his right,
+  And to suspend the bloody fight.
+    "The king took their request to heart,
+  And bade the champions straight to part,
+  To whom the leopard and the ounce,
+  As wardens, did his will announce.
+  "Reynard," they said, "the king has sent
+  To let you know 'tis his intent
+  To put an end to all your strife.
+  He bids you to spare Growler's life;
+  For 'twould be a pity after all,
+  If either of you both should fall.
+  Meantime all, who are present, say
+  That you at last have won the day.'"
+
+NAYLOR.
+
+  "Hark! hark! the tuckets sound on high!
+  'He comes! Sir Isengrim!' they cry.
+  The Wolf and all his kith and kin
+  Approach in long array! The din
+  Their multitudinous trampling made
+  Resounded like a cavalcade
+  Of mailed warriors on the march,
+  Or winds that, through a wood of larch,
+  The groaning branches swing and sway,
+  And thunder out and roar alway.
+  Still forward they their course observe,
+  Neither to right nor left they swerve;
+  But onward to the lists the band
+  March up, then halt, and take their stand.
+  When first the Wolf--'I here repeat
+  The Fox a villain is, and cheat!
+  I brand him murderer to boot!
+  Adulterer! with heart, as soot
+  Is, black! that solemn truth do I
+  Wager on hazard of this die!'
+  Then Reynard--'What the Wolf alleges
+  Are lies! I'll prove it! and my pledge is
+  The victory, which I by battle,
+  This day will gain o'er yon _base cattle_!'
+  The marshal of the lists then cried:
+  'The right shall by the might be tried,
+  What fair and fetis is, that do!
+  The god of battles prosper you!'
+  He said, then towards the side withdrew.
+  The rest soon follow'd; save the two,
+  Who occupied alone the space,
+  And stood for action face to face!
+  The marshal now, with plumed hat on,
+  Beside the barrier stood; his baton
+  Of office thrice he whirled aloft;
+  And not a soul or spake or _cough'd_.
+  'Oyez! oyez! oyez!' he cried,
+  'Will each of ye the issue bide?'
+  'We will!' they answer. 'Are ye ready?'
+  'Yes!' 'Yes!'--'Then LAISSEZ ALLER!' said he.
+  Reynard address'd him then to fight;
+  And Isengrim commenced to bite
+  The air, and show'd his teeth, by way
+  Of prelude to the coming fray;
+  Next, rear'd his snout, and brought the jowl
+  To Reynard's level; one loud howl
+  He utter'd, ere he crouch'd, then bounded
+  To where the Fox, no whit astounded
+  By noises so unknightly, stood;
+  For raising lofty as he could
+  His voice, the foe the terms defied.
+  'Come on,' he resolutely cried.
+  The struggle was commenced! The sternest
+  There present felt it was right earnest;
+  The Fox, as smaller of the two,
+  Was favourite; and when he drew
+  '_First claret_,' at that _tapping_ action
+  The mob express'd their satisfaction;
+  Exclaiming, '_go it! ten to one
+  Upon the varmint little 'un!'_
+  By this time had Dan Phoebus clomb
+  The summit of his glowing dome,
+  And Isengrim his power to feel
+  Began, which made the Wolf to reel.
+  He mourn'd his hapless want of claws,
+  His teeth, too, batter'd by the paws
+  Of Reynard, woefully he miss'd;
+  For grasp'd within his well-clench'd fist,
+  The Fox a flint stone firmly held,
+  With which he deftly aim'd and fell'd
+  One after t'other every fang,
+  Till down his weasand, at each bang,
+  Successively they flew. This thing
+  To Isengrim _so punishing_,
+  Set him forthwith to calculate
+  The odds on his _superior weight_,
+  How best it might the foeman tell on--
+  Which done, he threw himself pele-mele on
+  The Fox, to bear him down intending.
+  But Reynard saw: instead of spending
+  His strength in any vain endeavour
+  'Gainst Isengrim, he waited ever
+  Upon the Wolf--so this time he
+  Perceived the rushing enemy,
+  And as he near'd him slipp'd aside.
+  The Wolf came on with awful stride,
+  But meeting not with Reynard there,
+  He buffeted the yielding air
+  Instead, found no impediment,
+  His force him to the barrier sent,
+  Where toppling heels o'er head he went
+  With emphasis--a heavy _flop_,
+  '_My eyes,' the mob cry, 'what a whop!_'
+  Then Reynard to the Wolf stepp'd close,
+  And said aloud, 'How lik'st the dose?
+  Friend Isengrim, there yet may be
+  For pardon opportunity
+  Ere thou departest, only speed ye,
+  Or else the wandering ghosts, I rede ye,
+  Of all the lambs and kids thou'st slain
+  Will haunt thee through the wide champain
+  Whither thou'rt ebbing fast, down yonder;
+  But softly, is he kill'd I wonder?'
+  For so it seem'd. Through that vast crowd
+  A pin drop had resounded loud.
+  Thought Reynard, he has got it now!
+  I'll rest awhile, for any how
+  If he the fight again begin
+  I'll try the trick upon his shin.
+  Stunn'd lay the prostrate Wolf quite still
+  And stiff, nor moved a peg until
+  His squires, much fearing for his life,
+  Rush'd in, preceded by his wife;
+  And lifting him upon their knees,
+  They gave him _salts to make him sneeze_,
+  Which thirteen times he did repeat,
+  Then started lively to his feet.
+  A feeling of relief ran through
+  The crowd, whose visages look'd rue,
+  To think their fun forestall'd and spent
+  By that untoward accident.
+  Again the tuckets sound--again
+  The dauntless heroes give the rein
+  To their revenge. The Fox now charges
+  The Wolf, and both his eyes enlarges,
+  With _right and lefters planted well_,
+  And _punches on the nob that tell_;
+  So hard and fast the bangs and thumps,
+  You'd thought that firemen at their pumps
+  Were working--
+          ----crafty Reynard quick
+  Deliver'd him a villain kick
+  Right in the midriff--down he dropp'd!
+  Like some tall forester when lopp'd
+  By stroke of woodman's axe. 'Twas all
+  He spake, not groaned in his fall,
+  Outstretch'd upon the ground there lay
+  The Wolf--he'd fainted clean away.
+  No herald's voice, no tucket's cheer,
+  The noble Isengrim could hear;
+  An all but victor lately, now
+  Prostrated, palsied by one blow;
+  Nay, not so, by a kick unknightly,
+  Foul aim'd, yet for the mark too rightly,
+  Alas, its only merit that!
+  But what cared Reynard, it was pat,
+  And told, and did its business well;
+  'Twas every thing desirable.
+  The fight was o'er--the Wolf dragg'd out
+  More dead than living, 'mid the shout
+  Of rabble, whilst the heralds cry
+  'Largesse,' the others 'Victory.'
+  The air with noise and din resounded.
+  The friends of Isengrim, confounded,
+  Slunk off, whilst Reynard's stay'd; indeed
+  The very people who agreed
+  The Fox's death a public good
+  Had been, now 'mong the foremost stood,
+  By acclamations to attest
+  Regard outheroding the rest!"
+
+We have not the heart to criticise this last and greatest effort of the
+reproducer. Its slang speaks for itself, and certainly carries along
+with it an undeniable "certificate of origin".
+
+A good translation of any thing is perhaps an impossibility. But it must
+be confessed, that the attempt of the German foreigner is highly
+creditable to him, and, with a little amendment, would probably afford
+our countrymen as fair an idea of the original as they are ever likely
+to see. Certain it is, that Mr Naylor has not improved upon it.
+
+If our readers think, that in the samples we have given of Mr Naylor's
+beauties, we have not sufficiently brought forward some of the more
+striking peculiarities of the Cockney school, we shall meet this
+complaint by presenting them with the subjoined anthology, the fragrance
+of which we think will satisfy their highest anticipations.
+
+  "The first in consequence at _court_,
+  As foremost in the public _thought_."
+
+  "Your cap and gloves you've left in _pawn_,
+  Thus adding ribaldry to _scorn_."
+
+  "What visitors had been? they _tell her_
+  How Reynard call'd, and said, 'nice _fellow_.'"
+
+  "Malkin should fall! and now the _fork_
+  By Martin turn'd to toma_hawk_."
+
+  "No sooner had the foe with_drawn_
+  To howl around the priest for_lorn_."
+
+  "Besides, he must have more than _thought once_
+  Upon the very vast _importance_."
+
+  "Of solemn asses half-a-_score_,
+  Who kick, when tickled with a _straw_!"
+
+  "I left him trapp'd, and then made _sheer off_:
+  His sufferings you can't form _idea of_."
+
+  "From underneath the frame I _draw_
+  The pin that propp'd it: with a _roar_."
+
+  "Their eggs upon a heap of _straw_,
+  Then loitering hindermost, the _more_."
+
+  "When it was bruited round the _court_
+  How Reynard was by greybeard _brought_."
+
+  "Grimalkin there one eye had _lost_,
+  His scalp from Bruin's head been _forced_."
+
+  "With any thing, in short, to _fasten_
+  Guilt on him--burglary--e'en _arson_!"
+
+  "Than at the words the Queen, _alarm'd_,
+  Nigh swoon'd before her fears were _calm'd_."
+
+  "The son dishonour'd: not a _straw_
+  It weigh'd with him, to think how _sore_."
+
+  "There dwelt my father; him they _sought_,
+  And plotted, whilst they soak'd his _port_."
+
+  "To practise after my pa_pa_--
+  Through life my light and exem_plar_!"
+
+  "Another life to lead he's _sworn_:
+  And will to-morrow at the _dawn_."
+
+  "Then, turning to the Queen, _besought_
+  Her majesty in merry _sport_."
+
+  "Quoth Reynard, as with sudden _thought_
+  Before the portal stopping _short_."
+
+  "We have so many a sally-_port_,
+  And _cul-de-sac_, we can't be _caught_."
+
+  "Send far and near the heralds _forth_,
+  By blast of trump to tell my _wrath_."
+
+  "At Rome, I on our banker _draw_,
+  And when that's gone, I send for _more_."
+
+  "That none dared venture! This he _saw_
+  And felt his pluck return once _more_."
+
+                  "But I've no _claws_
+  And therefore am not fit for _wars_."
+
+  "By envy eaten up, they _saw_
+  Me prosper; looking all _before_."
+
+  "And ever, when they walk'd _abroad_
+  Each arm'd with hunting-whip and _cord_."
+
+If any of our readers doubt the authenticity of some of the rhymes above
+set down, we are willing that they should buy the book, as we have done,
+and ascertain for themselves.
+
+Merciful as we are by nature, and growing more and more so every day by
+age, we yet feel that the enormities we have now denounced are beyond
+endurance. Such poetry as this, neither gods, men, nor booksellers
+should tolerate; and with the highest respect for the very excellent
+publishers who have assisted in the birth of this production, and to
+whom we owe so many useful and admirable contributions to knowledge and
+literature, we do venture humbly to submit, that their peculiar duty
+makes them somewhat more responsible for what is thus brought forth,
+than ordinary obstetrical practitioners can be for what they may help
+into the world. There is no reason that such a bantling should be born
+at all, and at least we would recommend the continuance of gestation for
+nine times the Horatian period. Seriously speaking, we always regret to
+miss the general security which the title-page should give us, that in
+what we buy, we shall have something for our money. A bad or inferior
+book may, inadvertently, issue from the most respectable quarter. But
+when a work is ushered into the light with such pomp and pageantry of
+paper, printing, and getting up, as are here lavished, we hold that the
+public have a right to expect that it has received the imprimatur of
+some discerning judge, and to enforce the implied warranty that the
+inside, as well as the outside, is a merchantable commodity in the
+market of Parnassus.
+
+But the publisher's part of it is the least of the evil. It is obvious
+that the natives of Cockneyland are forgetting themselves. A new
+generation has sprung up that do not remember the castigations bestowed
+on their fathers of yore, and which for a time kept them in tolerable
+subjection. A young Londoner, who happens to have enthusiasm, or
+industry, or information, on a particular subject, may deserve
+commendation for the laudable direction of his private studies; but is
+he, therefore, entitled to _haspire_ to write, and not to write merely,
+but to write poetry, and to disfigure a venerable old poem under
+pretence of reproducing it? That is a different question, which needs to
+be seriously and decidedly dealt with. This is not the first time,
+within a brief period, that we have been compelled to make an example of
+similar delinquencies; and, as sure as the crutch is in yonder corner,
+it shall not be the last, if the nuisance be not speedily and completely
+abated.
+
+
+
+
+THE AMERICANS AND THE ABORIGINES
+
+A TALE OF THE SHORT WAR. PART II.
+
+
+The conclusion of our first notice of "The Americans and the
+Aborigines," saw Hodges, the midshipman, on his way to the Mississippi,
+and, if he could find it, to his ship; whilst Tokeah and his Indians
+returned to their village upon the banks of the Natchez. There, upon the
+day after the arrival of the warriors, we find the Indians assembled and
+deliberating in their council-house. Some important matter is evidently
+in agitation: an ominous gloom hangs over the village; and Canondah, to
+whom her father has not spoken since his return, and who is in complete
+ignorance of what passed between him and Hodges, is shut up in her
+wigwam with Rosa. The absence of one of the Indians, sent as a guide
+with the Englishman, the silence of Tokeah, and their state of
+semi-captivity, render the two girls sad and anxious, and they busy
+themselves with a thousand conjectures as to what has occurred, when a
+shrill whistle attracts them to the window. The sight that there
+presents itself chases the blood from the cheeks of Rosa, and causes her
+to sink, terrified and half-fainting, into the arms of her friend.
+
+A large boat, of similar build to the one in which Hodges had arrived,
+ascended the river, impelled by the strokes of six vigorous rowers.
+Besides these, two other men were seated in the skiff, which now entered
+the creek where the canoes were moored. The Englishman's boat was
+amongst the latter, and seemed to attract the particular notice of one
+of the two men; he glanced sharply at it, and then made a remark to his
+companion, who nodded his head, as if assenting to his observation. The
+man who had spoken stepped on shore. He was of the middle height and
+slightly made, with a sunburnt complexion, hollow cheeks, in which the
+smallpox had left black, unpleasant-looking scars, and a pointed and
+rather red nose. The expression of his eyes, which were sunken and of a
+dark-grey colour, and his enormous whiskers and mustaches, gave him any
+thing but an agreeable physiognomy. There was an air about him as if he
+strove to appear natural and unassuming, but at times his false
+side-glances and malicious smile more than neutralized all his efforts.
+His dress was a short blue frock, buttoned up to the chin, trousers of
+the same colour, and a cap. After addressing a few words to his
+companion, who had also come ashore, he walked with a quick step and
+military gait towards the Miko's wigwam. Just then the Indian council
+broke up; the old chief strode slowly and gravely towards his dwelling;
+whilst the warriors hurried in various directions to their respective
+wigwams. It seemed as if they avoided the new-comer; for not one of them
+crossed his path, although he evidently expected them so to do. He gazed
+silently after the receding groups, shook his head, and entered the
+Miko's hut.
+
+"Here I am, friend Tokeah!" cried he, with a forced smile, stretching
+out his hand to the Miko, who was seated upon his couch, calm, and with
+his head bowed upon his breast. "I'm a man of my word, you see. Arrived
+only last night in the bay; but the devil take me if I could keep quiet:
+started off again, and rowed all night and all day; and here you see me,
+old friend, as hungry as a sea-lawyer, and as dry as a dolphin." He
+spoke in English, fluently enough, but with a strong French accent.
+
+Tokeah knocked with his finger upon the table, and Canondah came out of
+her room.
+
+"Canondah!" cried the man, stepping forward with an air of gallantry to
+salute her. The young girl avoided his embrace, and with the single
+word, "Welcome!" slipped out at the door. Our guest appeared
+thunderstruck.
+
+"What does this mean, friend Miko?" cried he. "Am I in disgrace? Should
+really be sorry for it. As I came across the meadow, your people made
+all sail from me, as if I had been a privateer; and now you are as cold
+as a nor'-wester, and your daughter as stiff as a frozen cable.
+Apropos--you have had a visit. The young Englishman, I see, has been
+amongst you."
+
+As he spoke these last words, the stranger cast a lowering glance at the
+old man.
+
+"Of whom does my brother speak?" said the chief.
+
+"Of a prisoner--a young fellow who escaped whilst I was at sea."
+
+"My young brother has been here and is gone," replied Tokeah, dryly.
+
+"Gone!" repeated the other; "you probably did not know that he had
+escaped from me. But it matters not," added he, indifferently.
+
+"The Miko knew," replied the old man in a firm tone, "that his young
+brother had escaped from the chief of the Salt Lake. My brother ought
+not to have made him prisoner."
+
+"What! would not the Miko of the Oconees seize the Yankee who came as a
+spy into his wigwam?"
+
+"And was my young brother a Yankee?" inquired Tokeah, with a penetrating
+glance.
+
+"Not exactly; but an enemy"--
+
+"My brother," interrupted the Miko, "has too many enemies--the Yankees,
+and the warriors of the great father of the Canadas."
+
+The man bit his lips. "Pshaw!" said he; "you have the Americans on the
+wrong side of your heart, and I have both. That's all the difference."
+
+"The Miko," said the old chief, "lifts the war-hatchet to protect his
+people against the palefaces, and to avenge his slain brethren. But my
+brother has lifted the tomahawk against every one, and, like a thief,
+steals women and children."
+
+A burning crimson overspread the countenance of Tokeah's visitor, and
+his teeth chattered with rage. "Truly, Miko," said he, "you say things
+which I can hardly stomach;" and with gleaming eye he measured the old
+man from head to foot. Suddenly, however, resuming his former
+smile--"Nonsense," said he; "we won't quarrel about trifles. Let every
+man do what he likes, and answer for what he does."
+
+"When the Miko of the Oconees gave his right hand to the chief of the
+Salt Lake, and welcomed him to his wigwam, he held him for a friend and
+a brother, who had declared war against the Yengheese. Had he known that
+he was a thief"----
+
+"Monsieur Miko!" interrupted the pirate, threateningly.
+
+"He would not have taken him for his friend. Tokeah," continued the
+Indian with dignity, "lifted the tomahawk against the palefaces as the
+Miko of his people, but the chief of the Salt Lake has made him a
+robber. What shall he, the chief of the Oconees, say to the Yengheese
+warriors when he falls into their snares? They will hang him on a tree."
+
+The truth, thus fearlessly and decidedly spoken, made an impression upon
+the pirate. He walked several times hastily up and down the room, and
+then again stopped opposite to the old man.
+
+"We'll say no more about that, friend Tokeah," said he. "I do not count
+the scalps that you have stripped from the skulls of the Yankees, and
+you must not reckon too severely with me. What is done is done; but the
+future will be very different. I am fully decided to abandon my wild
+course of life, and then we'll sit down quietly, and live together in a
+little paradise, half a l'Indienne, half a la Franccaise. Jovial and
+joyous."
+
+"The Miko of the Oconees," replied Tokeah, "has never stained his hand
+with the blood of his friends. He is poor, but his hand has never
+touched what belonged not to him. His fathers would look down on him
+with grief, if he lived in friendship with a thief; the Great Spirit
+would hide his face, if he disgraced his people by an alliance with the
+robber."
+
+The Frenchman had listened to these words more tranquilly than might
+have been expected, but with a slight twitching of his features, that
+showed they touched him to the quick. Suddenly he turned away.
+
+"Is that your way of thinking?" said he. "You fancy you can get on
+better without Lafitte? I've no objection. If I had known it sooner, I
+would have spared myself the trouble of listening to your insolence, and
+you that of uttering it. Adieu! Monsieur Miko."
+
+"My brother is hungry," said the Indian, starting up, and greatly
+shocked. "He must eat. Canondah has prepared his favourite repast."
+
+"And after he has eaten, he may make himself scarce?" said the pirate,
+surlily.
+
+"My brother is welcome in the wigwam of the Miko. His hand never closes
+when it has once been opened," said the old nan, soothingly.
+
+"Come, that sounds like reason. I thought my old friend had only caught
+a fit of spleen from the Englishman. I trust it will soon be over.
+Meanwhile, we'll see what the ladies are doing."
+
+He stepped up to the curtain, and tried to open it, but in vain.
+
+"Is it not allowed?" said he to the old man.
+
+"My brother must seek another squaw. Rosa shall not enter his wigwam."
+
+In the adjoining chamber a sound was heard. It resembled a cry of joy,
+but presently subsided into a gentle murmur, of one in prayer.
+
+The pirate stood stupefied opposite to the curtain. "Our alliance broken
+off, the door shut in my face!" muttered he. "_Eh bien! nous verrons._"
+And so saying, he left the hut. The next minute he again put his head in
+at the door.
+
+"I suppose I may make use of my own boat?" said he. "It is likely that I
+may have unwelcome visitors during my absence."
+
+"When the chief of the Salt Lake is on the war-path, he knows how to
+meet his foes."
+
+"Sensibly spoken for once," said the pirate.
+
+"My brother is hungry," said the Miko, pointing to his daughter, who now
+entered the room with several dishes.
+
+"We'll come directly. Duty before pleasure."
+
+And so saying, the bucanier hurried down to the shore, and approached
+his companion, a short square-built man, who was walking up and down
+with folded arms, and whose dark olive countenance was so buried in an
+enormous beard, that scarcely any part of it, except a long fiery
+Bardolphian nose was visible. This man, so soon as he saw the pirate,
+assumed a less _nonchalant_ attitude, and his hands fell by his side
+into the position proper to a subordinate.
+
+"Nothing happened, lieutenant?" said Lafitte.
+
+"So little, that I should almost doubt this to be the Miko's village,
+did not my eyes convince me of it. Beg pardon, captain, but what does it
+all mean?"
+
+"I might ask you the same question," replied the other, sulkily.
+
+"On our former visits," continued the lieutenant, "it was like a fair;
+but to-day not a creature comes near us. The squaws and girls seemed
+inclined to come down, but the men prevented them."
+
+The lieutenant paused, for his commanding-officer was evidently getting
+more and more out of humour.
+
+"How many hands have we below on Lake Sabine?"
+
+"Thirty," was the reply. "To-morrow, the others will have finished
+clearing out."
+
+"Giacomo and George," said the pirate, in a sharp peremptory tone, "will
+go back and take them orders to come up here. Let every man bring his
+musket and bayonet, pistols and hanger, and let them wait instructions
+in the great bend of the river, two miles below this place. Don't look
+down stream, and then at me," said he angrily to the lieutenant, who had
+cast a glance down the river. "The young Englishman has been here, and
+the old savage has let him go."
+
+"That's what you did with his companions, captain. I wouldn't have done
+it."
+
+"There are many things that Monsieur Cloraud would not have done,"
+replied the pirate, sarcastically. "But this younker has made an
+infernal confusion."
+
+"Any thing else happened, captain?"
+
+"Nothing particular, except that the old man is tired of our alliance."
+
+"Pshaw! we don't want him any more, and may well indulge the people with
+a merry hour."
+
+The bucanier glanced at his subordinate with unspeakable scorn.
+
+"And therefore, as Monsieur Cloraud thinks, do I send for the men. The
+hour's pleasure would be dearly bought. I hate such folly. You shall
+learn my intentions hereafter."
+
+The lieutenant's low bow showed that the lawless pirate was on no very
+familiar footing even with his first officer, and that he well knew how
+to make his captain's dignity respected. Monsieur Cloraud now turned to
+the rowers, and communicated to them the orders he had received. In a
+few seconds, the boat, in which the Englishman had come, was pushed off,
+and glided swiftly down the stream.
+
+"Now then, to dinner. Have some wine brought up, lieutenant."
+
+The person addressed made a sign to one of the sailors; the man took up
+several bottles, and followed his officers to the wigwam of the chief.
+
+"Take no notice, lieutenant," said Lafitte; "be as cheerful and natural
+as possible. We must try and find out what the old fellow has got upon
+his mind."
+
+The two men entered the wigwam, and took their places at the table. A
+buffalo hump, that most delicious of all roast-beef, which Canondah had
+carefully cooked under the embers, was smoking upon it.
+
+"You won't refuse to drink with me?" said the pirate, filling three
+glasses, and offering one to the chief.
+
+"Tokeah is not thirsty," was the reply.
+
+"Well, then, rum?" said Lafitte. "Have a bottle brought, lieutenant."
+
+"Tokeah is not thirsty," repeated the chief in a louder tone.
+
+"As you please," said the pirate, carelessly. "Isn't it strange,"
+continued he to his lieutenant, "that the whole juice and strength of
+the beast should centre in this hump? If this is to be the food of the
+Indians in their happy hunting-grounds, it would be almost worth while
+turning Indian. Enjoyments of this kind are rather more substantial than
+the lies of our hungry priests."
+
+As in duty bound, the lieutenant laughed heartily at the facetiousness
+of his commander. The Miko, who was sitting in his usual attitude, his
+head sunk upon his breast, looked up, gazed for a few seconds at the
+pirate, and then relapsed into his previous brooding mood.
+
+"Make the most of it, lieutenant," said the pirate. "We shall not enjoy
+many more such tit-bits. The Great Spirit would hide his face from us if
+we despised his gifts. But come, friend Miko, you must empty a glass to
+the health of your guests, unless you wish to see them depart this very
+night. I like a little pride, but too much is unwholesome."
+
+"My brother," said the Miko, "is welcome. Tokeah has never raised his
+tomahawk against the stranger whom he received in his hut, nor has he
+counted the suns that he dwelt with him."
+
+"I am certain," said the Frenchman, "that Tokeah is my friend; and, if
+an evil tongue has sown discord on the path between us, the wise Miko
+will know how to step over it."
+
+"The Oconees are men and warriors," said the chief; "they listen to the
+words of the Miko, but their hands are free."
+
+"Yes, yes, I know that. Yours is a sort of republic, of which you are
+hereditary consul. Well, for to-night let the matter rest. To-morrow we
+will discuss it further."
+
+The lieutenant had left the wigwam; night had come on, and the moon's
+slender crescent sank behind the summits of the western trees. The old
+Indian arose, and with his guest stepped silently out before the door.
+
+"My brother," said he, with emotion in his voice, "is no longer young;
+but his words are more silly than those of a foolish girl, who for the
+first time hangs glass beads around her neck. My brother has foes
+sufficient; he needs not to make an enemy of the Great Spirit."
+
+"Oh!" said the pirate laughing, "we won't bother our heads about him."
+
+"My brother," continued the Indian, "has long deceived the eyes of the
+Miko; but the Great Spirit has at last opened them, that he may warn his
+people. See," said he, and his long meagre form seemed to increase to a
+gigantic stature as he pointed to the moon swimming behind the topmost
+branches of the trees; "that great light shines on the shores of the
+Natchez, and it shines in the villages of the whites; neither the chief
+of the Salt Lake nor the Miko of the Oconees made it; it is the Great
+Spirit who gave it brightness. Here," said he, pointing to the palmetto
+field, whose soft rustle came murmuring across the meadow, "here is
+heard the sighing of the Miko's fathers; in the forest where he was born
+it howls in the storm; both are the breath of the Great Spirit, the
+winds which he places in the mouths of the departed, who are his
+messengers. Listen!" he continued, again drawing up his weather-beaten
+form to its utmost height; "the Miko has read your book of life; when
+yet a young man he learned your letters, for he saw that the cunning of
+the palefaces came from their dead friends. That book says, what the
+wise men of his people have also told him, that there is one Great
+Spirit, one great father. The Miko," he resumed, after a moment's pause,
+"was sent from his people to the great father of the palefaces, and when
+he came with the other chiefs to the villages where the whites worship
+the Great Spirit in the lofty council wigwams, he found them very good,
+and they received him and his as brothers. Tokeah spoke with the great
+father--see, this is from him"--he showed a silver medal with the head
+of Washington. "He asked the great father, who was a wise father and a
+very great warrior, if he believed in the Great Spirit of his book, and
+he answered that he did believe, and that his Great Spirit was the same
+whom the Red men worship. When the Miko returned to his wigwam and came
+towards the setting sun, his soul remembered the words of the great
+father, and his eyes were wide open. So long as he saw the high walls of
+the council wigwams, where the palefaces pray to their Great Spirit, the
+Red men were treated as brothers; but when they approached their own
+forests, the countenances of the white men grew dark, because the Great
+Spirit no longer lighted them up. Tokeah saw that the men who did not
+worship the Great Spirit were not good men. And my brother scoffs at the
+Great Spirit, and yet would be a friend of the Oconees? He would be a
+friend of the Miko, who would already have sunk under his burden had not
+his fathers beckoned to him from the happy hunting-grounds! Go," said
+the old man, turning away from the pirate with a gesture of disgust;
+"you would rob the Miko and his people of their last hope."
+
+"Good-night," said Lafitte, yawning. "There's been a good Methodist
+parson spoilt in you." And so saying he turned towards the council
+wigwam, his usual dwelling when at the village. Tokeah stepped back into
+his hut. No night-song soothed the oppressed spirit of the old chief;
+and only the shrill whistle of the watch, repeated every two hours from
+the shore and before the wigwam of the pirate, told of the presence of
+living creatures in the village.
+
+Upon the following morning Lafitte's lieutenant rouses him from his
+sleep, and informs him that there is an unusual stir and bustle amongst
+the Indians. The pirate hastily dresses, and repairs to the wigwam of
+the Miko, whom he finds restless and excited. The cause of this soon
+becomes apparent.
+
+On a sudden the village resounded with a long joyous shout, which,
+spreading like wildfire from hut to hut, swelled at last into one wild
+and universal chorus, in which men, women, and children united their
+voices. The Miko had betaken himself in haste to the council wigwam, and
+the whole village was in an uproar. From behind each hedge, from out of
+every hut, the Oconees emerged and rushed towards the council-house;
+even the presence of Tokeah was insufficient to keep them within bounds.
+On the further side of the Natchez was seen a party of thirty Indians,
+all on horseback. Some of them were seeking a ford; but presently a
+young man, impatient of the delay, plunged with his horse into the
+water, and all thirty followed him, in the same order in which they had
+approached the river. The breadth of the stream, opposite to the wigwam,
+was about five hundred feet, and the depth considerable. Nevertheless
+the gallant little troop seemed in their element, and, almost without
+breaking their ranks, they swam their steeds across. Meanwhile the
+pirate stood upon the shore, watching their approach with the most
+uncontrolled fury depicted on his countenance.
+
+"Had we but ten good marksmen," muttered he to the lieutenant.
+
+"_Pardon, capitaine_, they are not Oconees, but those devils of
+Comanches. I made their acquaintance in my Mexican campaigns."
+
+The little squadron had now reached the creek. Swinging their legs over
+their horses, they sprang upon shore, drew the animals after them, and
+again flung themselves upon their backs with a swiftness and dexterity
+that recalled the fable of the centaur. The foremost of the strangers
+had arrived within a few paces of the Oconees, who, with the Miko at
+their head, were assembled in front of the council-house, when the
+circle opened, and Tokeah stepped forward, his hand outstretched.
+
+"The great chief of the mighty Comanches, and of the Pawnees of the
+Toyask, is welcome," said he, gravely.
+
+The young Indian to whom these words were addressed, halted and listened
+attentively, and with head reverently bowed, to the greeting. When the
+old chief had spoken, he sprang from his horse and advanced towards him,
+his right hand extended. Coming close up to Tokeah, he again bowed
+himself, took the Miko's hand, and placed it upon his own head. The
+interchange of greetings was remarkable for dignity, and derived a
+peculiar interest from the contrast between the two chiefs. Nothing
+could be in stronger opposition than the gaunt meagre form of the Miko,
+who stood like the weather-beaten trunk of some gigantic tree, stiff,
+mute, and melancholy, and the open, manly, dignified and yet gentle
+aspect of the young chief of the Comanches. His oval-shaped head was
+covered with a picturesque head-dress of fur and feathers; his high,
+arched forehead, and blooming complexion of a light copper colour,
+scorned the wild war-paint of his companions; the expressive black eyes
+and aquiline nose were in admirable harmony with the manly contour of
+his person, which his style of dress and equipment showed off to the
+greatest advantage. A doublet of blue fox fur covered his breast, and
+from his shoulders, on which it was fastened by golden clasps, hung the
+skin of a panther, draping a form that would have enchanted Thorwaldsen
+or Canova. It was a magnificent model of manly beauty, that had grown up
+untrammelled and without blemish in the enchanting prairies of Mexico,
+and in the midst of a mighty people owning no master but the Great
+Spirit. A dagger, with a hilt of wrought gold, a short rifle, and a
+lance nine feet long, decorated with a horse-tail, completed an
+equipment which for richness and utility combined could scarcely be
+surpassed. The young chief's horse, of extraordinary beauty, was almost
+covered with a panther skin, secured on its back and shoulders by four
+golden buckles. It had neither saddle nor stirrups, but on either side,
+at the end of a strap, hung a small leathern bucket, in which the muzzle
+of the rifle and butt of the lance reposed.
+
+Similar to those above described were the dress and arms of other four
+of the warriors, also belonging to the powerful Indian tribe of the
+Comanches. They wore their hair combed back on either side of the
+forehead; their complexion was a mixture of olive and copper-colour.
+Their bearing was proud, and they seemed almost to look down upon the
+Pawnees who accompanied them. Round the necks of their steeds hung the
+lasso, that terrible weapon with which the Mexican riders capture, with
+wonderful skill and dexterity, the horse, the buffalo, or a human foe.
+
+The remainder of the troop were Pawnees of the Toyask tribe. Their heads
+were clean shaven, excepting of one carefully plaited tuft upon the
+crown. Upon their shoulders were buffalo skins, the leather dyed red,
+the hair worn inwards; and similar hides served them for saddles. They
+wore broad girdles, to which their calico under-garment was fastened.
+About half of them were armed with muskets and rifles, but all had
+lances, a long knife, or rather hanger, and the tomahawk. They were
+well-made and powerful men, compared with whom the thin-armed,
+narrow-shouldered Oconees had the appearance of children.
+
+"My brother is thrice welcome," repeated the Miko after a pause, during
+which his eyes dwelt with an expression of the purest satisfaction upon
+his stately guest and his companions. "Has the great El Sol reflected on
+the words which Tokeah sent him through his runners?"
+
+"His ears are open and his heart large," replied the young chief
+gravely. "Are the words of the great Miko for El Sol alone, or may the
+warriors of the Comanches and Pawnees also hear them?"
+
+"The chiefs and warriors of the Comanches and Pawnees are welcome in the
+council wigwam of the Oconees. They are their brothers."
+
+When the Miko had spoken these words, the four Comanches and a like
+number of Pawnees dismounted from their horses, and followed the chiefs
+to the council wigwam. The others also dismounted, and forming a
+semi-circle, stood leaning against their horses' shoulders. Nearer to
+the council-house were ranged the Oconee warriors, armed only with their
+long scalping-knives; and behind them, at a respectful distance, the
+young men of the village had stationed themselves, also in a half
+circle. Again, far behind these, were the squaws and children, to whom
+the strict rules of Indian etiquette did not allow a nearer approach.
+The village had gradually assumed the appearance of a little camp, with
+various corps of troops formed up in it. On the shore stood the four
+pirates leaning on their muskets, whilst their captain and lieutenant
+paced up and down among the bushes. With the exception of a sharp quick
+glance occasionally cast towards the groups of Indians, they appeared to
+take no particular interest in what was passing.
+
+El Sol, the young chief of the Comanches, is the affianced husband of
+Canondah, whom he has come to make his bride. In the council now held,
+it is decided that the alliance between Tokeah and the pirate shall be
+broken off, and that the remnant of the Oconees shall be incorporated
+with the powerful tribes of the Comanches and Pawnees. The former part
+of this decision is communicated to Lafitte who makes violent but
+unsuccessful claim upon the hand of Rosa, and finally enters his boat
+and descends the stream. El Sol, who greatly distrusts him, advises
+Tokeah to be on his guard against treachery; but the Miko denies the
+possibility of danger, on account of the distance of the pirate's haunt,
+and because, on the following morning, the village is to be abandoned,
+and the Oconees and their visitors are to proceed together to the
+country of the Comanches. He either forgets that the pirate had sent off
+a boat on the preceding morning, or thinks it unnecessary to increase
+the uneasiness of his guest by adverting to so unimportant a
+circumstance. In spite of what he has recently learned, he still
+entertains a feeling of kindness for Lafitte, with whom he has so long
+been on terms of friendship, and thinks him incapable of acting towards
+him in a base or hostile manner.
+
+That evening the nuptials of Canondah and El Sol are celebrated; but the
+Indian maiden, although fondly attached to the young chief, is weighed
+down by a foreboding of evil which she finds it impossible to shake off.
+On her marriage day she is sad and in tears.
+
+"And does Canondah," said the bridegroom mildly, "enter the wigwam of El
+Sol with a sorrowful heart?"
+
+"El Sol," replied the maiden, "is dearer to Canondah than her own life;
+his voice is music in her ears, and his love the limit of her wishes;
+but Canondah's heart is heavy to bursting. The Great Spirit whispers to
+her, and she has no words to express his whisperings." She clasped Rosa
+in her arms, and pressed a long and feverish kiss upon her lips. "Rosa,"
+said she, in a stifled voice, "will you be a daughter to the Miko when
+Canondah is no more?"
+
+"I will," sobbed Rosa.
+
+"Will you promise, by the Great Spirit, not to forsake him?"
+
+"I promise it," replied Rosa, her tears flowing fast.
+
+The Miko, who stood silent, and sunk in thought, now made a sign; El Sol
+threw his arm round Canondah, and led her away in the direction of the
+council wigwam.
+
+The wedding has been celebrated with great rejoicings; the Indians, who
+have indulged largely, many of them to excess, in the fire-water of the
+palefaces, retire to their huts, to sleep off the effects of their
+libations, and soon the village is sunk in silence and repose. We
+extract the chapter that follows:--
+
+It was past midnight, and the village and its environs were buried in
+profound repose, when a man, carrying a naked sabre under his arm,
+advanced with stealthy steps from the shore, towards the Miko's wigwam.
+He reached the trees in front of the dwelling; and after casting a
+cautious and searching glance around him, was about to retrace his
+steps, when, with the quickness of light, a noose of buffalo hide
+encircled his neck, and he was thrown to the ground with a shock so
+sudden and irresistible, that it seemed caused by a supernatural rather
+than a human power. His sabre fell from his hand, before he had time to
+raise it to his neck and sever the noose; and so rapidly and silently
+did all this take place, that a group of armed men, stationed between
+the creek and the cottage, at scarcely forty paces from the latter, were
+perfectly unaware of what occurred. Now, however, a yell that might have
+roused the dead from their graves was heard; the door of the council
+wigwam, in which the bridal-bed of Canondah and El Sol had been spread
+was burst furiously open; and by the flash of several muskets, just then
+fired from the shore, a powerful figure, bearing something heavy in its
+arms, was seen to rush out and plunge into the neighbouring thicket.
+Other cries, proceeding apparently from a thousand throats, multiplied
+themselves in every direction, behind hedge and bush, over land and
+water, in accents as wild and fierce as if the demons of hell had been
+unchained, and were rejoicing in a nocturnal revel. Simultaneously with
+this uproar, a regular platoon fire commenced upon the shore, and blue
+flames issued from various cottages of the peaceful Indian hamlet,
+rapidly increasing till they burst out into a bright red blaze, that
+spread hissing and crackling over wall and roof. In the midst of this
+frightful tumult another shout was uttered, resembling the roar of the
+lion when he rages in his utmost fury. It was the war-whoop of El Sol.
+
+The noble Mexican had been lulled to sleep by the night-song of his
+bride, when the well-known yell of his tribe awakened him. Clasping his
+beloved wife with one arm, he grasped his knife and rifle, and darted
+through the door of the wigwam. A discharge of musketry greeted his
+appearance. The chief felt his left arm pierced by a ball; he trembled,
+and a slight shudder came over him. "Canondah!" cried he, in a hoarse
+tone, leaping the hedges like a wounded deer, and hurrying towards the
+forest; "Canondah, fear nothing--you are in the arms of El Sol!"
+
+She answered not; her head had sunk upon her breast, her body writhed
+with a convulsive spasm, and then again stretched itself out. For one
+moment a horrible thought paralysed the very soul of her husband;--but
+no--it was impossible; his arm had received the bullet, her silence was
+the result of sudden terror, the blood that flowed over him was from his
+own wound. He was still flying from his treacherous and invisible foe,
+when his howling warriors came almost instinctively to join him; and,
+before he reached the forest, he found himself surrounded by the most
+trusty of his followers. "It is the pirate," he whispered to his wife;
+and then, pressing a kiss upon her lips, he laid her softly upon the
+grass, stepped forward into the midst of his warriors, and uttered his
+terrible war-cry. "Behold," cried he, pointing to the blazing cottages,
+"the faith of the white thief!"
+
+It was a wildly beautiful, almost an awful sight. Already more than
+thirty huts were converted into blazing piles, lighting up the whole of
+that glorious shore, reflected in ruddy brilliancy from the still
+surface of the water, and illuminating the avenues of cypress and
+mangroves with long streaks of flame. Scattered shots were still heard,
+and after each report another hut began to blaze. In the group of
+Indians assembled round El Sol a deep silence now reigned, only broken
+by the tardy arrival of some yelling Pawnee or Oconee, who, roused out
+of his drunken slumber, was scarcely even yet aware of the cause of the
+uproar.
+
+"Where is the Miko?" fifty voices suddenly demanded.
+
+There was no reply. Just then a woman's scream was heard, proceeding
+from the brink of the water. El Sol had stood silent, his eyes fixed
+upon the burning huts, beyond which, near to the crest of the shore, the
+polished musket-barrels of the pirates gleamed in the firelight. Not
+more than five minutes had elapsed since the first yell proclaimed the
+presence of a foe, but already the young warrior had combined his plan,
+and he now gave his orders in a short decided tone, betraying the habit
+of command, and the certainty of prompt and implicit obedience. One of
+the Comanches, followed by the majority of the Pawnees and Oconees,
+glided away through the thick bushes; whilst El Sol himself, with the
+three remaining Comanches, and a troop of chosen Pawnees, hurried
+rapidly along the skirt of the forest.
+
+The broad belt of land over which the village was scattered, rose near
+the shore, as already mentioned, into a sort of crest overgrown with
+mangroves and myrtle bushes, through the middle of which ran a broad
+footpath. The elevation of this ridge was about twenty feet, and it
+continued along the whole length of the hamlet, excepting opposite to
+the creek, where nature had broken it down into a small harbour. Near
+this the glitter of arms betrayed the presence of a strong picket,
+placed there doubtless to guard the boats. This picket was each moment
+strengthened by the return of one or other of the pirates who had been
+detached to fire the wigwams. Along the bush-crowned ridge several
+advanced posts were stationed, intended to maintain the communication
+between the picket at the creek, and a second party which had pressed
+forward to the habitation of the Miko, and to support either, as need
+might be. From the whole arrangement, it was evident that the pirate had
+planned the carrying off the Miko and his adopted daughter; and this he
+might possibly have accomplished before creating an alarm, had not two
+of the Comanches taken upon themselves, according to the custom of their
+nation, to keep guard during the bridal night in front of the wigwam of
+their chief. These warriors, it is true, had partaken largely of the
+Miko's extravagant hospitality; but their senses, although duller than
+usual, were not sufficiently deadened to prevent their overhearing the
+step of the white men, a sound so easily recognised by Indian ears.
+
+During his two years' intercourse with the Oconees, the pirate had
+become too well acquainted with their habits, not to appreciate the
+danger of attacking them in broad daylight, when each of his men would
+furnish an easy target for the Indians, who, on their side, would be
+sheltered behind trees and in the brushwood. He had therefore chosen the
+night for his attack; and, in order to ensure himself as much as
+possible against a counter-surprise in the darkness, and at the same
+time to spread terror amongst the assailed, he had caused the huts to be
+fired. Three practised marksmen were posted at a short distance from the
+council wigwam, for the express purpose of shooting the young Mexican
+chief, whom Lafitte justly deemed the most formidable of his opponents.
+The pirate himself, with a party of picked men, pressed forward to the
+Miko's dwelling, surrounded it, and seized its two inmates. Tokeah,
+usually so abstemious, had probably upon this festive occasion
+overstepped the bounds of sobriety, and he fell unresisting into the
+hands of his foe. So well arranged, indeed, and rapid had all the
+movements been, that the first call to arms had hardly died away, when
+the Miko and Rosa were in the power of the bucaniers. Lafitte then
+formed his men into a small square, and retreated steadily but in double
+quick time towards the shore. Not an Indian was to be seen. The little
+phalanx was already in the neighbourhood of the creek, and at only a few
+yards from the picket; another dozen paces and they would be in their
+boats, which a very few strokes of the oar would send into the middle of
+the stream, and out of bullet range. A pursuit by canoes, in which each
+Indian would offer an easy mark, was not to be thought of. Such had been
+the pirate's calculation, and his plans seemed likely to be crowned with
+complete success. He was within a step of the shore, when suddenly there
+was a movement in the bushes immediately opposite to him, and glimpses
+were caught of the copper-coloured forms of the Indians, glowing redly
+in the firelight.
+
+"Steady!" cried the pirate to his men, who marched firmly and calmly
+onwards, gazing in a sort of wonderment at the bushes, which waved to
+and fro as if hundreds of anacondas had been winding their way through
+them. The pirates joined the picket and opened their square.
+
+Lafitte threw Rosa into the arms of a sailor, and then pushed the Miko
+over the edge of the bank into the boat. The old man sank down like a
+lifeless mass in the bottom of the skiff, and Lafitte again turned to
+his men. The picket had already retired behind the ridge, where they
+were sheltered from the enemy's fire; the square alone was stationary,
+and seemed destined to observe the movements of the Indians, and to
+cover the retreat. It was a small but desperate looking band of about
+four-and-twenty-men, to the composition of which nearly every nation and
+quarter of the globe, every colour and language, contributed its quota.
+Thirst of blood gleamed in their eyes as they stood formed in column, in
+deep silence, and with fixed bayonets, waiting the signal to fire.
+
+Suddenly the Indian warwhoop burst from a hundred throats. A second time
+the frightful yell was repeated, rendered more hideous by the shrill
+tones of the squaws and maidens, who struck up the death-song, and were
+seen running and dancing like demons round the blazing huts. The next
+instant, with brandished arms and shouts of fury, the Indians rushed
+towards the creek.
+
+A malicious smile played over the hard features of the pirate as the Red
+men came charging down upon his band.
+
+"Reserve, forward!" cried he, turning to the picket. The order was
+obeyed. In profound silence Lafitte allowed the howling Indians to
+advance to within ten paces of the musket muzzles, and then uttered a
+hoarse "Fire!" A deadly volley was poured in, and the first rank of the
+assailants fell to a man. Their comrades started back, but instantly
+returning to the charge, threw themselves with a desperate leap upon the
+pirates. The latter coolly tossed their muskets into the hollow of their
+left arms, and drew their pistols; a second volley in which the fire of
+the reserve picket mingled, threw the Red men into utter confusion. The
+slope of the shore was covered with killed and wounded, and the
+survivors fled howling to the cover of the thicket.
+
+"March!" commanded Lafitte. The picket again approached the boat,
+followed by the main body.
+
+At that moment, when to all appearance the retreat of the pirates was
+ensured, four heavy splashes in the water were heard, and Lafitte saw
+the four men who had been in charge of the boats, rise to the surface of
+the water and then disappear for ever. At the same time the boats
+themselves, impelled by some invisible power, shot, with the swiftness
+of an arrow, into the centre of the stream.
+
+"'Tis the Mexican!" exclaimed the pirate, gnashing his teeth with fury,
+and firing a brace of pistols at the boat. A hollow laugh replied to the
+shots. The pirates looked around them, saw that their boats had
+disappeared, and for a moment stood thunderstruck, but speedily
+recovering themselves, they reloaded their muskets, and, firm as rocks,
+awaited a fresh assault. They had not long to wait. A volley from the
+river warned them of the proximity of a new foe; a second, still better
+directed, stretched a third of them upon the ground. And now once more
+the terrible war-cry resounded along the shore, and the Indians, roused
+to madness by their previous repulses, rushed for a third time upon
+their enemy. Another volley from the boats, and then the Mexican and his
+companions sprang like tigers upon the terrified pirates. The struggle
+was short. Unable to resist the furious attack upon their front and
+rear, the pirates threw away their weapons, and flung themselves
+headlong into the river to escape the tomahawks of their raging foes.
+
+Lafitte was the only one who stood firm, and seemed determined to sell
+his life dearly. His back against the bank, his sabre in his right hand,
+a pistol in his left, he parried a blow dealt him by an Oconee, who
+fell, the next instant, with his head nearly severed from his shoulders.
+A bullet finished another of his assailants, and he was raising his
+sabre for the second time, when a lasso was flung over his head, and he
+fell helpless to the ground. The long and terrible yell that now rang
+along the shore, and was re-echoed from the adjacent forest, proclaimed
+the complete and bloody triumph of the Red men.
+
+The bullet that grazed the arm of El Sol pierced the heart of Canondah,
+and the day subsequent to the sanguinary conflict above described,
+witnesses her interment, and that of the Indians who fell in the fight.
+At the funeral a difference of opinion arises between the Oconees and
+Comanches. The number of slain pirates is insufficient to furnish a
+scalp to be buried with each of the dead Indians, and, to supply the
+deficiency, the Oconees are anxious to immolate Lafitte and twelve of
+his companions who have fallen alive into their hands. To this El Sol
+and his warriors, free from many of the barbarous prejudices of their
+new brethren, object. Two of the pirates are sacrificed to an outbreak
+of Indian fury, but the others are saved by El Sol, and it then becomes
+a question how they are to be disposed of. It is proposed to deliver
+them over to the Americans, that they may deal with them according to
+their laws; but Tokeah, with a refinement of hatred towards the white
+men, devises an amendment upon this plan. Sooner or later, he says, they
+will come to the tree upon which they are to hang. Meanwhile let them go
+at large, and cause the blood of the palefaces to flow, as that of the
+Oconees has done.
+
+This singular proposition at first startles the vindictive and
+bloodthirsty Oconees, but when they fully understand it, they receive it
+with a burst of applause. Lafitte and his companions are unbound, and
+allowed to depart.
+
+The funeral over, the Indians set out for the hunting-grounds of the
+Comanches, but Tokeah does not accompany them. He has had a dream,
+enjoining him to disinter his father's bones, which lie buried several
+hundred miles within the limits of the United States, in a district
+formerly possessed by the Oconees. He wishes Rosa to accompany the tribe
+to their new residence; but the young girl, mindful of her promise to
+Canondah, insists upon encountering with him the perils of the long and
+wearisome journey he is about to undertake. Whilst the main body of the
+Indians set off in a westerly direction, Rosa, a young Indian girl,
+Tokeah, El Sol, and four warriors, turn their steps towards the country
+of the white men. Thither we will now precede them.
+
+It was a bright cool December morning, and the sunbeams had just
+sufficient power to disperse the fog and mist which at that season
+frequently hang for a week together over the rivers and lakes of
+Louisiana. In the county town of Opelousas there was a great and unusual
+crowd. It seemed astonishing how so many people could have been got
+together in that thinly populated neighbourhood, and a person who had
+suddenly arrived in the midst of the concourse would have been sorely
+puzzled to conjecture its occasion. To judge from the drinking, dancing,
+fighting, and pranks of all sorts that went on, a sort of festival was
+celebrating; but weapons were also to be seen; men were formed up by
+companies and nearly every body had something more or less military in
+his equipment. Some wore uniforms that had served in the revolutionary
+war, and were consequently more than thirty years old; others, armed
+with rifles, ranged themselves in rank and file, and, by a lieutenant of
+their own election, were manoeuvred into a corner, out of which no
+word of command that he was acquainted with was sufficient to bring
+them. Another corps had got a band of music, consisting of one fiddler,
+who marched along at the side of the captain, sawing his catgut with
+might and main. Those individuals who had not yet attached themselves to
+any particular corps, shouldered rifles, fowling-pieces, or, in some
+instances, an old horse-pistol, with nothing wanting but the lock; and
+the few who had no fire-arms, had provided themselves with stout
+bludgeons.
+
+These, however, were merely the outposts. In the centre of the town the
+flower of the citizens was assembled, divided into two groups. One of
+them, consisting of the younger men, had fixed its headquarters in front
+of a tavern, the destination of which was indicated by a sign, whose
+hieroglyphics, according to our firm belief, neither Denon nor
+Champollion could have deciphered. Under these was written, for those
+who could read it, the customary announcement of "Entertainment for Man
+and Beast." In the interior of the establishment a second fiddle was to
+be heard; the performer upon which, of a less martial turn than his
+rival, was performing a lively jig for the benefit of a crowd of
+dancers.
+
+The other group, more gravely disposed, had chosen a more respectable
+parade-ground, and established itself in front of a store, containing a
+miscellany of earthen jugs, rolls of chewing tobacco, felt hats, shoes,
+knives, forks, and spoons, and (the most essential of all) a cask of
+whisky and a keg of lead and powder. Above the door was a board, with
+the inscription, "New Shop--Cheap for Cash;" and on the wall of the
+crazy frame-house was written in chalk--"Whisky, Brandy, Tobacco,
+Post-office."
+
+On the stump of a tree stood a man who, to judge from his new beaver
+hat, clean shirt-collar, and bran-new coat and breeches of a pompadour
+red, was a candidate for some one of the offices in the gift of the
+sovereign people. Near him were several other men of equally elegant
+exterior, to all appearance also aspirants to the vacant post, and who
+seemed to wait with some impatience for the termination of his harangue.
+Comparatively speaking, tranquillity and order reigned here, only
+excepting the noise of the dancers, and the occasional bellowing of some
+noisy toper stumbling about through the mud, with which the single
+street of the little town was covered knee-deep. Such interruptions,
+however, the orator seemed totally to disregard, and he continued in
+stentorian tones to inform his auditors how he would whip them damned
+British, whom he hated worse than skunks. This he was setting forth in
+the clearest possible manner, when the attention of his hearers was in
+some degree distracted by a loud "Hallo!" proceeding from two boon
+companions, who, after having for some time floundered about the street,
+had at last rambled towards the edge of the forest, and now suddenly
+began to shout violently, and to run as fast as their unsteady condition
+would allow. Amongst their vociferations, the words, "Stop, you cussed
+Redskin!" were clearly distinguishable--sounds far too interesting not
+to create a sensation amongst backwoodsmen. A dozen of the orator's
+audience slipped away, just to see "what was the matter with the d----d
+fools, and why they made such a devil of a row." The example found
+imitators, and presently not above thirty listeners remained collected
+round the speaker. Insubordination also broke out in the different corps
+that were exercising, and a full third of the men left their ranks and
+scampered towards the wood. Only the group in front of the chandler's
+store remained grave and steady in the midst of the general excitement.
+
+From out of the dark cypress forest that stretches southwards from the
+shore of the Atchafalaya, a figure had emerged which judging from its
+dress, belonged to the Indian race. The savage had crept along the edge
+of the forest in order to get near the town; but alarmed perhaps by the
+crowd and noise in the latter, he had not ventured to take the road
+leading to it, but had struck into a side-path across a cotton field. He
+was about to climb over the fence, when he was descried by the two
+idlers already mentioned, who no sooner saw him than, although their
+heads were tolerably full of whisky, they commenced a rapid pursuit. One
+of the first took the precaution to place his pint glass in safety
+behind a hedge, and then followed his companion, a swift-footed son of
+the west, who already had the Indian in his clutches. The Redskin was so
+exhausted that he would evidently not have been able to proceed much
+further. The staggering and unsteady state of his captor, however, did
+not escape him, and he gave him a sudden push, which stretched him at
+full length in the mud.
+
+"Stop!" shouted the backwoodsman, no way disconcerted by his fall;
+"Stop! or I will so maul your ugly face that you sha'n't be able to eat
+for a week."
+
+The Indian seemed to understand, and stopped accordingly, at the same
+time assuming an attitude indicative of a firm resolution to defend
+himself. He grasped his knife, and boldly confronted his pursuers, who
+on their part examined him with looks of curiosity and of some
+suspicion. The appearance of an Indian in this neighbourhood was nothing
+very unusual, seeing that they had a village scarcely a hundred miles
+off to the north-west, and that they continually made excursions of
+several hundred miles into the States in all directions, and even to the
+capital. For a long time past their diminished numbers had not allowed
+then to attempt any thing hostile against their white neighbours, who
+each year drew nearer to them: and their increasing wants, particularly
+their insatiable greed after the precious fire-water, had reduced them
+to be, _de facto_, little better than slaves to fur-dealers and
+storekeepers, for whom they hunted, and who paid the poor wretches in
+whisky scarcely the tenth part of the value of their skins.
+
+In the present instance the two backwoodsmen had no evil intention
+against the Indian; all they wanted was to give him a glass of
+Monongahela, and to amuse themselves a little at his expense. So at
+least it appeared from the words of the one who had been knocked down,
+and who, without taking his tumble at all in ill part, now roared out,
+that "he must drink a half-pint of whisky with him, or he would put him
+in his pocket."
+
+"Come, young Redskin," cried the other; "come along. You shall help us
+to fight the cussed Britishers, and drink, ay, drink like a fish."
+
+By this time the little group was surrounded by deserters from the
+parade-ground, examining the Indian with a rude and unceremonious, but
+not an ill-natured, curiosity. Without permission or apology they
+inspected his wardrobe, tried the edge of his scalping-knife, examined
+his mocassins, and one of them even made an attempt to remove the cap
+from his head. By these various investigations the stranger seemed more
+surprised than gratified. His exterior was, it must be confessed,
+somewhat singular. A foxskin cap covered his head and extended down over
+his ears, concealing his light brown hair, an attempt at disguise which
+the long fair down upon his upper lip rendered tolerably unsuccessful.
+His deerskin doublet denoted the Indian, but his trousers were those of
+a white man. One of his mocassins--the other he had left in some
+swamp--was of Indian workmanship; one of his cheeks was still daubed
+with the red and black war-paint, which had been nearly rubbed off the
+other; his hands, although burnt brown by the sun, were those of a white
+man. If any doubt could have remained, his features would have settled
+it; the bold blue eye could no more have belonged to an Indian than
+could the full rosy cheek and the well-formed mouth. The crowd stared at
+him with the same sort of stupefaction which they might have shown had
+they entered a thicket expecting to find a fat deer, and encountered in
+its stead a growling bear.
+
+"I should think you've looked at me enough," said the stranger at last,
+in good English, and in a sort of half-humorous, half-petulant tone; at
+the same time delivering a blow, with the flat of his knife, upon the
+horny hand of a backwoodsman, who had again attempted to lift his cap
+with a view to examine his hair.
+
+It was, as the reader will already have conjectured, our young
+Englishman, who, having been guided by the Indian runner into the path
+to the Coshattoes, had at last succeeded in making his way over and
+through the innumerable swamps, rivers, and forests with which that
+district is so superabundantly blessed. The comparative coolness of the
+season, and the shallowness of the swamps and rivers, of the former of
+which many were entirely dried up and converted into meadows, had
+favoured his journey, or else he would scarcely have succeeded in
+reaching the banks of the Atchafalaya. For the preceding three weeks he
+had lived upon wild-geese and ducks, which he had killed and roasted as
+the Indians had taught him. He had now just emerged from the wilderness,
+and, however great his wish undoubtedly was to find himself once more in
+civilized society, the grim aspect of the Goliath-like backwoodsmen,
+their keen eyes and sunburnt visages, and long horn-handled knives, were
+so uninviting, that he was almost tempted to wish himself back again.
+Nevertheless, he seemed rather amused than disconcerted by the frank,
+forward familiarity of the people he had come amongst.
+
+"And d--n it!" exclaimed one of the men after a long pause, during which
+Hodges had been the observed of all eyes, "who, in the devil's name, are
+you? You are no Redskin?"
+
+"No, that I'm not," replied the young man, laughing; "I am an
+Englishman."
+
+He spoke the last words in the short decided tone, and with all the
+importance of a baron or count, who, having condescended to arrive in
+disguise amongst his dependents, on a sudden thinks proper to lay aside
+his incognito. There was in his look and manner, as he glanced over the
+crowd, a degree of self-satisfaction, and a curiosity to see the
+impression made by the announcement, mingled with the feeling of
+superiority which John Bull willingly entertains, and which he at that
+time was wont to display towards Brother Jonathan, but which has since
+entirely disappeared, and given place to a sort of envious uneasiness--a
+certain proof, in spite of the scorn in which it disguises itself, of
+his consciousness of the superiority of the detested Brother Jonathan,
+aforesaid.
+
+"An Englishman!" repeated twenty voices.
+
+"A Britisher!" vociferated fifty more, and amongst these a young man in
+a grass-green coat, who had just come up with an air of peculiar haste
+and importance.
+
+"A Britisher!" repeated the gentleman in green; "that's not your only
+recommendation, is it?"
+
+The person addressed glanced slightly at the speaker, who was measuring
+him with a pair of lobster-eyes of no very friendly expression, and then
+carelessly replied--
+
+"For the present, it is my only one."
+
+"And d--n it, what has brought you to Opelousas?" demanded the green
+man.
+
+"My legs!" replied Hodges. But the joke was not well taken.
+
+"Young man," said an elderly American, "you are in Louisiana state, and
+see before you citizens of the United States of America. That man
+there"--he pointed to green-coat--"is the constable. Jokin' is out of
+place here."
+
+"I come from on board my ship, if you must know."
+
+"From on board his ship!" repeated every body, and every brow visibly
+knit, and a low murmur ran through the crowd.
+
+The news of the landing of British troops had just reached the town, and
+the same courier had brought the unwelcome intelligence of the capture
+of the American gunboats on the Mississippi. Trifling as this disaster
+was, compared with the brilliant victories achieved on Lakes Champlain
+and Erie, and on the ocean, at every meeting, by American ships over
+British, it had, nevertheless, produced a general feeling of
+exasperation.
+
+The constable stepped aside with several other men, and talked with them
+in a low voice. When they returned, and again surrounded the Englishman,
+their conference had produced a marked change in their manner. Their
+rough familiarity and friendly inquisitiveness had given place to a
+repulsive coldness; the humorous cheerfulness of their countenances was
+exchanged for a proud, cold earnestness, and they measured Hodges with
+keen distrustful glances.
+
+"Stranger," said the constable, in a tone of command, "you are a
+suspicious person, and must follow me."
+
+"And who may you be, who take upon yourself to show me the way?"
+demanded the midshipman.
+
+"You have already heard who I am. These men are citizens of the United
+States, presently at war with your country, as you probably know."
+
+The green-clad functionary spoke these words with a certain emphasis,
+and even dignity, which caused the young man to look with rather less
+disdain at his shining beaver-hat, and verdant inexpressibles.
+
+"I am ready to follow," said he; "but I trust I am in safety amongst
+you."
+
+"That you will soon see," replied the constable, dryly.
+
+And so saying, he, his prisoner, and the crowd, set off in the direction
+of the town.
+
+If, as appears from the preceding extract, our author is ready enough to
+expose the peculiarities and failings of the English, whose foibles, in
+various parts of this book, he sets forth with at least as much severity
+as justice, he, on the other hand, and although his sympathies are
+evidently American, gives some curious specimens of their deficiency in
+military organization and discipline, and of the loose manner in which
+public affairs were carried on in the then newly formed state of
+Louisiana. The young midshipman is taken before our old acquaintance,
+Squire Copeland, who, with the restlessness characteristic of his
+countrymen, has emigrated some three years before from Georgia to the
+infant town of Opelousas, and holds the double office of justice of the
+peace and major of militia. Hodges is examined on suspicion of being an
+emissary from the British, sent to stir up the Indian tribes against the
+Americans. He scrupulously observes his promise, made to Tokeah and
+Canondah, not to reveal their place of abode; and, hampered by this
+pledge, is unable to give a clear account of himself. Suspicion is
+confirmed by his disguise, and by certain exclamations which he
+imprudently allows to escape him on hearing Major Copeland and his wife
+make mention of Tokeah, and of Rosa, their foster-child, of whom they
+now for seven years have heard nothing. The result of his examination,
+of which the good-natured and unsuspicious squire, having his hands full
+of business, and being less skilled in the use of the pen than the
+rifle, requests the prisoner himself to draw up the report, is, that
+Major Copeland, the constable, and Hodges, set off for a town upon the
+Mississippi, then the headquarters of the Louisianian militia. What
+occurs upon their arrival there, we will relate in a third and final
+notice of the book before us.
+
+
+
+
+THE FALL OF ROME.
+
+ITS CAUSES AT WORK IN THE BRITISH EMPIRE.
+
+
+The Rise and Fall of the Roman empire is by far the most remarkable and
+memorable event which has occurred in the whole history of mankind. It
+is hard to say whether the Rise or the Fall is most worthy of profound
+study and anxious examination. The former has hitherto most strongly
+attracted the attention of men, from the extraordinary spectacle it
+exhibited of human fortitude triumphing over every obstacle, and human
+perseverance at length attaining universal dominion. It was the
+spectacle most likely to rivet the attention of strenuous and growing
+nations--of men in that stage of existence when national ambition is
+strong and the patriotic passions ardent, and the selfish interests have
+not yet become so powerful as to have generally extinguished the
+generous affections. But it may be doubted whether the events that
+occurred in the later stages of the Roman empire, are not fraught with
+more valuable and important information than those of its earlier
+annals. Less interesting to the soldier, less animating to the citizen,
+less heart-stirring to the student, they are more instructive to the
+philosopher, more pregnant with warning to the statesman. They contain
+the only instance yet exhibited among men of a nation sinking from no
+external shock, but from the mere influence of internal decay; and point
+alone, of all passages in the annals of the species, to the provision
+made by nature, in the passions and selfishness of men, against the
+possibility of universal dominion.
+
+To any one who attentively considers this all-important subject, two
+things must be apparent, of the very highest consequence in arriving at
+correct ideas on it. The first is, that the Roman empire did not sink
+under the external violence of the barbarians, but under the weakness
+and decline which had arisen in its own bosom. The second, that the
+causes hitherto assigned by historians and philosophers for this
+internal decay, are either vague generalities, having no definite
+meaning, and incapable of any practical application, or can be easily
+shown, even to the most superficial reader, not to have been the real
+causes of the phenomenon.
+
+There can be no doubt that some of the irruptions of the
+barbarians--particularly those of the Goths into Romelia, which led to
+the fatal battles of Thessalonica and Adrianople; and of Alaric into
+Italy, which terminated in the capture of the Eternal City--were very
+formidable inroads, and might, in the best days of the empire, have
+taxed its strength and resolution to repel. But a little consideration
+must be sufficient to show, that, formidable as these invasions were,
+they could without much difficulty have been withstood, if the empire
+had possessed the strength which it did in the days of the republic, or
+in the first two centuries of the Caesars. The Cimbri and Teutones, whom
+Marius combated and destroyed on the Rhone and in the north of Italy,
+were at least as formidable a body of barbarians as those which four
+centuries afterwards overturned the western empire. The forces whom
+Caesar conquered in Gaul, Trajan on the Danube, were to the full as
+powerful as those which carried the standards of the Goths and Vandals
+to Athens and Carthage. AEtius, in the decline of the empire, and with
+the mingled Roman and barbarian force of Gaul alone, defeated Attila in
+the plenitude of his power, at the head of three hundred thousand men,
+on the field of Chalons.
+
+Belisarius, with fifteen thousand men, recovered Africa from the
+Vandals; thirty thousand legionary soldiers did the same by Italy under
+Narses, and overthrew the whole power of the Goths. So high did the
+Roman soldiers still stand even in the estimation of their enemies, that
+Totila, the warlike monarch of the Goths, strove to bribe them into his
+service by offers of high pay. None had yet been approved equal to these
+legionary soldiers in battle; and the manner in which, with infinitely
+inferior forces, they repelled the barbarians on all sides, decisively
+demonstrates this superiority. The vigour and ability of Heraclius so
+restored the empire, when wellnigh sinking under the might of its
+enemies, that for a century it was regarded with awe by the barbarous
+nations all round its immense frontier. The five provinces beyond the
+Euphrates were conquered by the Romans from the Parthians during the
+decline of the empire. Nothing is so remarkable, in the last three
+centuries of Roman history, as the _small number_ of the forces which
+combated around the Eagles, and the astonishing victories which, when
+led by ability, they gained over prodigious bodies of their enemies. The
+legions had dwindled into battalions, the battalions into cohorts. The
+four hundred and fifty thousand men who under Augustus guarded the
+frontiers of the empire, had sunk to one hundred and fifty thousand in
+the time of Justinian.[3] But this hundred and fifty thousand upheld the
+Eastern empire for a thousand years. So feeble were the assaults of the
+barbarians, that for above two centuries of that time the single city of
+Constantinople, with the aid of the Greek fire, defended itself with
+scarce any territory from which to draw support. It was not the strength
+of its enemies, therefore, but the weakness of itself, which, after an
+existence in the West and East of _two thousand years_, at length
+extinguished the Roman empire.
+
+What, then, were the causes of decay which proved fatal at length to
+this immense and enduring dominion? Philosophers in all ages have
+pondered on the causes; but those hitherto assigned do not seem adequate
+to explain the phenomenon. Not that the causes of weakness are baseless
+or imaginary; on the contrary, many of them were most real and
+substantial sources of evil. But what renders them inadequate to explain
+the fall of Rome is, that they had _all existed, and were in full
+operation, at the time when the commonwealth and empire were at their
+highest point of elevation_, and centuries before either exhibited any
+symptoms of lasting decay. For example, the ancient historians, from
+Sallust downwards, are loud in their denunciation of the corruption of
+public morals, and the selfish vices of the patrician classes of
+society, as being the chief source of the decay which was going forward,
+while the growth of the republic had been mainly owing to the
+extraordinary virtue and energy of a small number of individuals.[4] But
+the very circumstance of these complaints having been made by Sallust in
+the time of Augustus, and the fact of the empire of the West having
+existed for four hundred, that of the East for fourteen hundred years
+afterwards, affords decisive evidence that this cause cannot be
+considered as having been mainly instrumental in producing their fall.
+How is the unexampled grandeur and prosperity of the empire under Nero,
+Adrian, Trajan, and the two Antonines, whose united reigns extended over
+eighty years, to be explained, if the seeds of ruin two centuries before
+had been sown in the vices and corruption of the rich patricians? In
+truth, so far was general luxury or corruption from being the cause of
+the ruin of the empire, the cause of its fall was just the reverse. It
+was the excessive _poverty_ of its central provinces, and their
+inability to pay the taxes, which was the immediate cause of the
+catastrophe. The nobles and patricians often were luxurious, but they
+were not a thousandth part of the nation. The people was miserably poor,
+and got more indigent daily, in the later stages of its decay.
+
+Modern writers, to whom the philosophy of history for the first time in
+the annals of mankind has become known, and who were aware of the
+important influence of general causes on social prosperity, independent
+of the agency of individual men, have assigned a different set of causes
+more nearly approaching the truth. Montesquieu says, the decay of the
+Roman empire was the natural consequence of its extension. This sounds
+well, and looks like an aphorism: but if the matter be considered with
+attention, it will be found that it is _vox et praeterea nihil_. Those
+who, with so much complacency, rest in the belief that the fall of the
+Roman empire was the natural result of its extension, forget that its
+_greatest prosperity was coexistent with that very extension_. It is
+impossible to hold that the decay of the empire was the consequence of
+its magnitude, when the glorious era of the Antonines, during which it
+numbered a hundred and twenty millions of inhabitants under its rule,
+and embraced nearly the whole known habitable globe within its dominion,
+immediately succeeded its greatest extension by the victories, unhappily
+to us so little known, of Trajan.
+
+More recent writers, seeing that Montesquieu's aphorism was a vague
+proposition which meant nothing, have gone a step further, and
+approached much nearer to the real explanation of the phenomenon.
+Guizot, Sismondi, and Michelet have concurred in assigning as the real
+cause of the decay of the Roman empire, the prevalence of slavery among
+its working population, and the great and increasing weight of taxes to
+support the imperial government. There can be no doubt that these were
+most powerful causes of weakness; and that they stand prominently forth
+from the facts recorded by contemporary annalists, as the immediate and
+_visible_ causes of the decline of the empire. The history of these
+melancholy periods is full of eternal complaints, that men could not be
+got to fill the legions, nor taxes to replenish the treasury; that the
+army had to be recruited from the semi-barbarous tribes on the frontier;
+and that vast tracts of fertile land in the heart of the empire relapsed
+into a state of nature, or were devoted only to pasturage, from the
+impossibility of finding cultivators who either would till the land, or
+could afford to pay the taxes with which it was charged. Doubtless the
+large proportion--at least a half, perhaps nearly two-thirds--of the
+people who were slaves, must have weakened the elements of strength in
+the empire; and the enormous weight of the direct taxes, so grievously
+felt and loudly complained of,[5] must have paralysed, to a very great
+degree, both the industry of the people and the resources of government.
+But a very little consideration must be sufficient to show, that these
+were not the real sources of the decline of the empire; or rather, that
+if they had not been aided in their operation by other causes, which
+truly undermined its strength, it might have been great and flourishing
+to this hour.
+
+Slavery, it must be recollected, was _universal_ in antiquity, and is so
+over two-thirds of the human race at this hour. Much as we may feel its
+evils and deprecate its severities, we ourselves, till within these
+three centuries, were entirely fed by serfs; and a few years only have
+elapsed since the whole of our colonial produce was raised by slave
+labour. America and Russia--the two most rising states in
+existence--are, the former in part, the latter wholly, maintained by
+slaves. It was an army, in a great measure composed of men originally
+serfs, which repelled Napoleon's invasion, survived the horrors of the
+Moscow retreat, and carried the Russian standards to Paris, Erivan, and
+Adrianople. Alexander the Great conquered Asia with an army of freemen
+wholly fed by slaves. The Athenians, in the palmy days of their
+prosperity, had only 21,000 freemen, and 400,000 slaves. Rome itself, in
+its great and glorious periods, when it vanquished Hannibal, conquered
+Gaul, subdued the East--in the days of Scipio, Caesar, and Trajan--was to
+the full as dependent on slave labour as it was in those of its
+decrepitude under Honorius or Justinian. Cato was a great dealer in
+slaves; the Sabine farm was tilled by the arms of slaves; Cincinnatus
+and Regulus worked their little freeholds entirely by means of slaves.
+Rome was brought to the verge of destruction, nearer ruin than it had
+been by the arms of the Carthaginians, by the insurrection of the slaves
+shortly after the third Punic contest, so well known under the
+appellation of the Servile war. It is perfectly ridiculous, therefore,
+to assign as a cause of the destruction of Rome, a circumstance in the
+social condition of its people which coexisted with their greatest
+prosperity, which has prevailed in all the most renowned nations of the
+earth in a certain stage of their progress, and is to be found, in our
+own times, in states the most powerful, and the most likely to attain
+vast and long-continued dominion.
+
+Equally futile is it to point to the weight of the taxes as the main
+cause of the long decline and final overthrow of Rome. Taxes no doubt
+are an evil; and if they become excessive, and are levied in a direct
+form, they may come in the end to ruin industry, and weaken all the
+public resources to such an extent as to render a nation incapable of
+defending itself. But a very little consideration must be sufficient to
+show that it was not, in the case of Rome, the increase of the taxes
+taken as a whole, _but the decline in the resources of those who paid
+them_, which rendered them so oppressive. If, indeed, the national
+establishment of the Roman empire had gone on increasing as it advanced
+in years, until at length their charges became excessive and crushing to
+industry, the theory would have been borne out by the fact, and afforded
+perhaps satisfactory explanation of the phenomenon. But the fact was
+_just the reverse_. The military establishment of the Roman empire was
+so much _contracted_ as it advanced in years that whereas it amounted to
+450,000 men in the days of Augustus, in those of Justinian it had sunk,
+as already noticed to 150,000.[6] So far were the forces of Rome from
+being excessive in the later stages of the empire or disproportioned to
+an empire still, after all its losses, holding so large and fair a
+portion of the earth under its dominion, that on the other hand they
+were miserably small; and the disasters it underwent were mainly owing
+to the government of the Caesars never being able to equip an adequate
+army to repel the attacks of the barbarians. The force with which
+Belisarius reconquered Africa and recovered Italy, never mustered
+_seventeen thousand men_; and the greater part of his successes were
+achieved by _six thousand_ legionary followers. It was not the weight of
+the national establishments, therefore, but the diminished resources of
+those who were to pay them, which really occasioned the destruction of
+the empire.
+
+There are two other facts of vital importance in considering the real
+causes of the gradual decay and ultimate ruin of the dominion of the
+legions.
+
+The first of these is, that the extent of the decay was, in the latter
+stages of Rome, _very unequal_ in the different provinces of the empire;
+and that while the central provinces, and those in the neighbourhood of
+the metropolis, were in the most wretched state of decrepitude, the
+remote districts were _in the highest state of affluence and
+prosperity_. This important fact is abundantly proved by unquestionable
+authority, and it sheds a flood of light on the real causes of the ruin
+which ultimately overtook them all.
+
+The state of agriculture in the Italian plains under the Caesars, is thus
+set forth by Gibbon:--
+
+     "Since the age of Tiberius, _the decay of agriculture had been felt
+     in Italy_; and it was a just subject of complaint that the life of
+     the Roman people depended on the accidents of the winds and the
+     waves. In the division and decline of the empire, the _tributary
+     harvests of Egypt and Africa_ were withdrawn; the numbers of the
+     inhabitants continually diminished with the means of subsistence;
+     and the country was exhausted by the irretrievable losses of war,
+     pestilence, and famine. Pope Gelasius was a subject of Odoacer, and
+     he affirms, with strong exaggeration, that in Emila, Tuscany, and
+     the adjacent provinces, the human species was almost
+     extirpated."[7]
+
+Of the progress and extent of this decay, Gibbon gives the following
+account in another part of his great work:--
+
+     "The agriculture of the Roman provinces was _insensibly ruined_;
+     and in the progress of despotism, which tends to disappoint its own
+     purpose, the emperors were obliged to derive some merit from the
+     forgiveness of debts, or the remission of tributes, which their
+     subjects were utterly incapable of paying. According to the new
+     division of Italy, the fertile and happy province of Campania, the
+     scene of the early victories and of the delicious retirements of
+     the citizens of Rome, extended between the sea and the Apennines,
+     from the Tiber to the Silarius. Within sixty years after the death
+     of Constantine, and on the evidence of an actual survey, an
+     exemption was granted in favour of 330,000 English acres _of desert
+     and uncultivated land, which amounted to one-eighth of the whole
+     surface of the province_. As the footsteps of the barbarians had
+     not yet been seen in Italy, the cause of this amazing desolation,
+     which is recorded in the laws, (Cod. Theod. lxi. t. 38, l. 2,) can
+     be ascribed only to the administration of the Roman emperors."[8]
+
+Michelet observes, in his late profound and able History of France:--
+
+     "The Christian emperors could not remedy the growing depopulation
+     of the country, any more than their heathen predecessors. All their
+     efforts only showed the impotence of government to arrest that
+     dreadful evil. Sometimes, alarmed at the depopulation, they tried
+     to mitigate the lot of the farmer, to shield him against the
+     landlord; upon this the proprietor exclaimed he could no longer pay
+     the taxes. At other times they abandoned the farmer, surrendered
+     him to the landlord, and strove to chain him to the soil; but the
+     unhappy cultivators perished or fled, _and the land became
+     deserted_. Even in the time of Augustus, efforts were made to
+     arrest the depopulation at the expense of morals, by encouraging
+     concubinage. Pertinax granted an immunity from taxes to those who
+     could _occupy the desert lands of Italy, to the cultivators of the
+     distant province and the allied kings_. Aurelian did the same.
+     Probus was obliged to transport from Germany men and oxen to
+     cultivate Gaul.[9] Maximian and Constantius transported the Franks
+     and Germans from Picardy and Hainault into Italy; but the
+     depopulation in the towns and the country alike continued. The
+     people surrendered themselves in the fields to despair, as a beast
+     of burden lies down beneath his load and refuses to rise. In vain
+     the emperor strove, by offers of immunities and exemptions, to
+     recall the cultivator to his deserted fields. Nothing, could do so.
+     _The desert extended daily._ At the commencement of the fifth
+     century there was, _in the Happy Campania, the most fertile
+     province of the empire, 520,000 jugera_ (320,000 acres) in a state
+     of nature."[10]
+
+So general, indeed, was the depopulation of the empire in the time of
+Justinian, that it suggested to many of the emperors the project of
+repeopling those favoured districts by a fresh influx of inhabitants.
+"Justinian II. had a great taste for these emigrations. He transported
+half the population of Cyprus to a new city near Cyzicus, called
+Justinianopolis after its founder. But it was all in vain. The
+desolation and ruin of the provinces continued, and up to the very gates
+of Constantinople, which was maintained entirely by grain _imported at a
+low price from Egypt, and cattle from the Tauric Chersonesus_."[11]
+
+As a natural consequence of this entire or principal dependence of Rome
+on foreign or provincial raising of grain, there was, on any
+interruption of these foreign supplies, the greatest scarcity and even
+famine in the metropolis. All the vigilance of the emperors, which was
+constantly directed to this object, could not prevent this from taking
+place. Tacitus says, that in the scarcity under Claudius, there only
+remained a supply of fifteen days for the city.[12] Famine in Rome was
+frequent under Augustus, Tiberius, Claudius, and Nero. Claudian laments,
+that after Egypt had been assigned to Constantinople, Rome had come to
+derive its subsistence solely from Lybia, and depended on the _double_
+chances of the seasons and the winds.
+
+      ----"Nunquam secura futuri,
+  Semper inops, ventique fidem poscebat et anni."[13]
+
+"When Africa revolted under Gildo, in the reign of Honorius, Rome," says
+Gibbon, "was on _the brink of starvation_, from which she was only saved
+by large importations _from Gaul_."[14] She still depended on her
+provinces; domestic agriculture was ruined. Claudian represents the
+genius of ancient Rome bewailing, in pathetic and eloquent terms, her
+dependence for food on the nations she had conquered, in words which all
+governments rendering their people dependent on foreign supplies would
+do well to bear in mind. "Formerly," says the poet, "my prayers used to
+be that my legions might triumph on the banks of the Araxes, or that the
+consul might display his eagles at Susa; _now all I ask is a supply of
+food to avert the extremities of hunger_. The province of Africa, which
+furnishes corn to my people, is under the power of Gildo. _He intercepts
+our supplies, and our food is at his mercy._ He sells the harvests which
+belong to the descendants of Romulus; he possesses the fields purchased
+by my blood. The warrior people which conquered the world, now
+dishonoured and in want, endures the miserable punishment of peace;
+_blockaded by no enemy, they are like the inhabitants of a besieged
+town_. Death impends at every moment; there remain only doubtful
+supplies for a few days. _My greatness has been my ruin_; I was safer
+when my territory was more limited; would that its boundaries were once
+more at my gates! But, if I am doomed to perish, at least let me have a
+different fate; let me be conquered by another Porsenna; let my city be
+burnt by a second Brennus. All things are more tolerable than
+hunger."[15]
+
+Nor was the state of Greece, in the later stages of the empire, more
+favourable.
+
+"No description could exaggerate the miseries of Greece in the later
+stages of the empire. The slave population, which had formerly laboured
+for the wealthy, had then disappeared, and the free labourer had sunk
+into a serf. The uncultivated plains were traversed by bands of armed
+Sclavonians, who settled in great numbers in Thessaly and Macedonia. The
+cities of Greece ceased to receive the usual supplies of agricultural
+produce from the country; and even Thessalonica, with _its fertile
+territory and abundant pastures, was dependent on foreign importation
+for relief from famine_. The smaller cities, destitute of the same
+advantages of situation, would naturally be more exposed to
+depopulation, and sink more rapidly to decay. The roads, after the
+seizure of the local funds of the Greek cities by Justinian, were
+allowed to go to ruin, and the transport of provisions by land became
+difficult. When the Byzantine writers, after the time of Heraclius,
+mention the Greeks and Peloponnesus, it is with feelings of aversion and
+contempt."[16]
+
+Nor was Asia Minor in a more prosperous condition in the later stages of
+the empire. In Asia Minor the decline of the Greek race had been rapid.
+This decline, too, must be attributed rather to bad governments than to
+hostile invasions; for from the period of the Persian invasion, in the
+time of Heraclius, the greater part of that immense country had enjoyed
+almost a century of uninterrupted peace. The Persian invasions had never
+been very injurious to the sea-coast, where the _Greek cities were
+wealthy and numerous_; but the central provinces were entirely ruined.
+The fact that extensive districts, once populous and wealthy, _were
+already deserts_, is proved by the colonies which Justinian II. settled
+in various parts of the country. Population had disappeared even more
+rapidly than the agricultural resources of the country."[17]
+
+But while this was the state of matters in Italy, Asia Minor, and
+Greece--that is, the heart of the empire--its remoter provinces, Spain,
+Lybia, and Egypt, not only exhibited no symptoms of similar decay, but
+were, down to the very close of the reigns of the Caesars, in the highest
+state of wealth, prosperity, and happiness. Listen to Gibbon on this
+subject in regard to Spain:--
+
+"The situation of Spain, separated on all sides from the enemies of Rome
+by the sea, the mountains, and intermediate provinces, had secured the
+long tranquillity of that _remote and sequestered country_; and we may
+observe, as a sure symptom of domestic happiness, that in a period of
+four hundred years, Spain furnished very few materials to the history of
+the Roman empire. The cities of Merida, Cordova, Seville, and Tarragona,
+were numbered among the most illustrious of the Roman world. The various
+plenty of the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms, was improved and
+manufactured by the skill of an industrious people; and the peculiar
+advantages of naval stores contributed to support an extensive and
+profitable trade. Many particulars concerning the fertility of Spain may
+be found in Huet's _Commerce of the Ancients_, c. 40."[18]
+
+The state of Lybia was equally characteristic of the highest and most
+general prosperity, especially in relation to agricultural industry, at
+the time when Italy and Greece were thus languishing in the last stage
+of decrepitude and decay.
+
+"The long and narrow tract," says Gibbon, "of the African coast was
+filled, when the Vandals approached its shores, with frequent monuments
+of Roman art and magnificence; and the respective degrees of improvement
+might be accurately measured by the distance from Carthage and the
+Mediterranean. A simple reflection will impress every thinking mind with
+the clearest idea of its fertility and cultivation. The country was
+_extremely populous_; the inhabitants reserved a liberal supply for
+their own use; _and the annual exportation, particularly of wheat_, was
+so regular and plentiful, that Africa _deserved the name of the common
+granary of Rome and of mankind_."[19]
+
+Nor was the state of Egypt less prosperous in the last ages of the Roman
+empire; nor was its condition a less striking contrast to the miserable
+and languishing condition of the Italian and Grecian plains. It is thus
+described by Mr Finlay,[20] whose recent work has thrown so much light
+on the social condition of the inhabitants of the Roman empire in their
+later days:--"If the accounts of ancient historians can be relied on,
+the population of Egypt had suffered less from the vicious
+administration of the Roman empire, and from the Persian invasion, than
+any other part of their dominions; for at the time of its conquest by
+the Romans it contained seven millions and a half of inhabitants,
+exclusive of Alexandria; and in the last days of the empire it nourished
+almost as great a number. The Nile spread its fertilizing waters over
+the land; the canals were kept in a state sufficient for irrigation; and
+the vested capital of Egypt suffered little diminution, whilst war and
+oppression annihilated the accumulation of ages over the rest of the
+world. The immense wealth and importance of Alexandria, the only port
+which Egypt possessed for communicating with the empire, still made it
+_one of the first cities in the universe for riches and population_,
+though its strength had received a severe blow from the Persian
+conquest."[21]
+
+Sicily was another exception from the general decrepitude and ruin of
+the Roman empire in the latter reigns of the Caesars. "In the island of
+Sicily, the great bulk of the population was Greek, and few portions of
+the Greek race _had succeeded so well in preserving their wealth and
+property uninjured_."[22]
+
+But in the other parts of the empire, to the north of the Mediterranean,
+the agricultural population was, in the time of Heraclius, _absolutely
+destroyed_. "The imperial armies," says Finlay, "which, in the time of
+Maurice, had waged an active war in Illyria and Thrace, and frequently
+invaded the territories of the Avars, had melted away during the
+disorders of the reign of Phocas. The loss was irreparable; for in
+Europe _no agricultural population remained to supply the means of
+forming a body of local militia, or even a body of irregular
+troops_."[23]
+
+It may readily be supposed, that so entire a destruction of the rural
+population in Europe, as thus took place under the Emperors in the Roman
+empire, must have been attended with the most fatal effects to their
+means of defence and national power. The inhabitants of towns,
+accustomed to sedentary occupations, and habituated to the luxury of
+baths, the excitement of theatres, the gratuitous distributions of food,
+could not endure the fatigue, privations, and hardships of the military
+life. Substitutes were almost universally sought for, and they, amidst
+the desolation of the country, could be found only in the semi-barbarous
+tribes on the frontier. Thus the defence of the empire came to be
+intrusted almost entirely to the arms of the barbarians, and it was hard
+to say whether they were most formidable to their friends or foes.
+Nothing could supply the place of the rural population on the shores of
+the Mediterranean. The legions gave a master to the Roman world, and the
+legions were recruited from Gaul, Germany, Britain, and Pannonia. Thus
+the dominion of the Capitol was really at an end long before it was
+formally subverted; and Rome had received a master from the barbarians
+long before the days of Alaric.
+
+This continued splendour and population of the towns, amidst the ruin of
+the country, in the declining periods of the Roman empire, has attracted
+the particular notice of one of the greatest historians of modern times.
+"In the midst," says Sismondi, "of the general desolation of the
+country, the continued existence and splendour of the great towns is not
+so easily explained; but the same thing is now to be witnessed in
+Barbary and Turkey, and in the whole Levant. Wherever despotism
+oppresses insulated man, he seeks refuge from its outrages in crowds.
+The great Roman towns, in the first three centuries of the empire, were
+in great part peopled by artisans, and freedmen, and slaves; but they
+contained also a number far greater than in our days of men who,
+limiting their wants to the mere support of existence, spent their
+lives in indolence. All that population was alike unarmed, unpatriotic,
+incapable of defence against a foreign enemy; but as it was collected
+together, and at hand, it always inspired fear to domestic authority.
+Accordingly, to keep it quiet, there was always a regular gratuitous
+distribution of corn in the larger towns, and numerous spectacles in the
+theatres, the amphitheatres, and the circus, maintained at the public
+expense. The carelessness of the future, the love of pleasure and
+indolence, which have always characterised the inhabitants of great
+towns, characterised the Roman provincials even to the latest days of
+the empire, and in the midst of their greatest calamities. Treves, the
+capital of the northern prefecture of Gaul, was not the only city of the
+empire which was surprised and pillaged by the barbarians, at the moment
+when its citizens, their heads crowned with garlands, were applauding
+with enthusiasm the victors in the games of the circus."[24]
+
+The frequent custom of recruiting the legions by means of slaves, in the
+later period of the empire, which was wholly unknown in the days of the
+Republic, reveals, in the clearest manner, the weakness to which, in
+respect of military resources, it had arrived, long before the external
+symptoms of decay were visible in its fortunes. Even in the time of
+Marcus Aurelius, the legions which were to combat the Quadi and
+Marcomanni, on the Danube, were recruited from the servile class.
+Justinian went so far as to declare, by a public edict, every slave free
+who had served in the army.[25] "At last the army came to be composed
+entirely," says Finlay, "of the rudest and most ignorant peasants, of
+_enfranchised slaves, and naturalised barbarians_. This increased the
+repugnance, already sufficiently great, felt by the better class of
+citizens to enter the military life. The mercenaries formed the most
+valued and brilliant portions of the army, and it became the fashion to
+copy and admire the dress and manners of the barbarian cavalry."[26]
+
+All the ancient historians concur in representing this impossibility of
+finding native soldiers in its central provinces, as the main cause of
+the overthrow of the empire. And that this, and not the power of the
+barbarians, was the real cause of the destruction of the empire, is
+proved by the fact, that whenever they were well directed, the
+superiority of the legions was as clearly evinced as in the days of
+Marius or Caesar. "Whenever the invaders," says Finlay, "met with a
+steady and well-combined resistance, they were defeated without much
+difficulty. The victorious reigns of Claudius II., Aurelian, and Probus,
+prove the immense superiority of the Roman armies when properly
+commanded; but the custom which was constantly gaining ground, _of
+recruiting the legions from among the barbarians_, reveals the
+deplorable state of _depopulation and weakness_ to which three centuries
+of despotism and bad administration had reduced the empire."[27]
+
+But amidst this general prostration of the political and military
+strength of the Roman empire, in consequence of the decline and
+desolation of the _country_, the _great towns_ still continued
+flourishing, and wealth to an extraordinary and unparalleled extent
+existed among the chief families, some of patrician, some of plebeian
+origin. That was the grand characteristic of Rome in its later days. The
+country, in the European part of the empire at least, was daily growing
+poorer; the cultivation of the fields was neglected; and the provinces,
+crushed under the weight of the direct taxes, which had become
+unavoidable, had in most cases sunk to half their former number of
+inhabitants. But the metropolis, whether in Italy or on the shores of
+the Bosphorus, was still the seat of opulence, luxury, and prosperity.
+The strength of Constantinople was sufficient to repel the barbarians,
+and prolong the life of the empire of the east, for many centuries after
+it had ceased to derive effective support from any of its provinces. It
+is recorded by Ammianus Marcellinus, that when Rome was taken by the
+Goths under Alaric, it was still inhabited by 1,200,000 souls, who were
+maintained chiefly by the expenditure of seventeen hundred and sixty
+great families, many of whom had L160,000 of yearly income, equal to at
+least L300,000 a-year of our money.[28] And of the flourishing condition
+of the cities of the empire, especially those which were on the shores
+of the Mediterranean, even so late as the eighth century, Mr Finlay
+gives the following account:--
+
+"The strongest proof of the _wealth and prosperity of the_ CITIES _of
+Greece_, even in the last days of the empire, is to be found in the
+circumstance of their being able to fit out the expedition which
+ventured to attempt wresting Constantinople from the grasp of a soldier
+and statesman such as Leo the Isaurian was known to be, when the Greeks
+deliberately resolved to overturn his throne. The _rural_ districts, in
+the eighth century, were reduced to a _state of desolation_, and the
+_towns were flourishing in wealth_. _Agriculture was at the lowest ebb,
+and trade in a prosperous condition._"[29] Sismondi gives his valuable
+testimony to the same effect:--"It was at this very time, _when industry
+in the country was declining_, that the _towns_ of the provinces arrived
+_at their highest degree of opulence_. Adrian excited the emulation of
+their rich citizens, and he extended to the furthest extremities of the
+empire the luxury of monuments and decorations, which had hitherto been
+reserved for the illustrious cities which scorned to be the depots of
+the civilisation of the world."[30] Such, in a few words, was the
+condition, generally speaking, of all the part of the empire to the
+north of the Mediterranean, in the decaying period of its existence. The
+towns were every where flourishing; but it was in Africa, Sicily, and
+Spain alone that agriculture was undecayed. And the decay and ruin of
+rural industry, and of the inhabitants of the country to the north of
+the Mediterranean, left them no adequate means of resisting the attacks
+of the brave but artless barbarians, who there pressed upon the yielding
+frontiers of the empire.
+
+Coexistent with this fatal decline in the rural population and
+agricultural industry, was the increase of _direct taxation_, which was
+so keenly felt and loudly complained of in all the later stages of the
+Roman history. This is a branch of the subject of the very highest
+importance, because it leads to precisely the same conclusions, as to
+the real causes of the fall of Rome, as the others which have been
+already considered.
+
+It is well known that when the Romans first conquered Macedonia, the
+senate proclaimed a general liberation from taxes and imposts of every
+kind to the Roman citizens, as the reward of their victories. This state
+of matters, however, could not long continue in an old state charged
+with the duty, and under the necessity of keeping up, a large
+establishment to maintain its dominion over its subject provinces. For
+some time, indeed, the wealth brought by the conquest of Asia and Egypt
+into the Roman treasury was so considerable, that the necessity of taxes
+levied on its own citizens was not felt; and as long as the people had a
+direct share in the government, they took care to uphold an exemption in
+their own favour. But when one master was given to the whole Roman
+world, this invidious system of one class living upon another class was
+erelong abandoned. "Augustus," says Gibbon, "had no sooner assumed the
+reins of government, than he frequently intimated the insufficiency of
+the tributes from the provinces, and the necessity of throwing an
+equitable proportion of the public burdens upon Rome and Italy. In the
+prosecution of this unpopular design, however, he advanced with slow and
+cautious steps. The introduction of customs was followed by the
+establishment of an excise; and the scheme of taxation was completed by
+an artful assessment of the real and personal property of the Roman
+citizens, who had been exempted from every kind of contribution for
+above a century and a half."[31]
+
+Customs on foreign goods imported into Italy was the first species of
+taxation attempted on the Roman people. "In the reign of Augustus and
+his successor," says the same historian, "duties were imposed on every
+kind of merchandise, which, through a thousand channels, flowed to the
+great centre of opulence and luxury; and in whatever manner the law was
+expressed, it was the Roman purchaser, and not the provincial merchant,
+who paid the tax. The rate of the customs varied from the eighth to the
+fortieth part of the value of the commodity. There is still extant a
+long, but imperfect, catalogue of Eastern commodities, which, about the
+time of Alexander Severus, were subject to the payment of duties.
+Precious stones, Parthian and Babylonian leather, cottons, silks, raw
+and manufactured, ebony, ivory, and eunuchs, were among the taxed
+articles. An excise also was introduced by Augustus, of one _per cent_
+on whatever was sold in the markets or by public auction; and this
+extended from the most considerable purchase of lands or houses, to
+those minute objects which commonly derive their value from their
+infinite multitude and daily consumption."[32]
+
+But erelong these indirect taxes proved unproductive, and recourse was
+had to the lasting scourge of _direct taxes_. One of 5 per cent on
+legacies and inheritances was first imposed by Augustus, and adhered to
+by him, in spite of the indignant murmurs of the Roman nobles and
+people. The rate was raised by Caracalla to a tenth of all inheritances;
+and, when the privilege of Roman citizenship was extended to the whole
+provincials of the empire, they were subjected at once both to the
+former burdens which they had paid as provincials, and the new tax
+levied on them as Roman citizens.[33] From that time, the direct burdens
+became daily more oppressive, and at length proved an almost
+insurmountable bar to industry. "The noxious weed," says Gibbon, "sprung
+up with the most luxuriant growth, and in the succeeding age darkened
+the Roman world with its deadly shade. In the course of this history, we
+shall be too often summoned to explain the land-tax, the capitation, and
+the heavy contributions in corn, wine, oil, and meat, which were exacted
+from the provinces for the use of the court, the army, and the
+capital."[34]
+
+These direct taxes soon became fearfully oppressive, and it is proved,
+by the clearest evidence, that they were among the leading causes of the
+decline of the empire. "The whole landed property of the empire," says
+Gibbon, "without excepting the patrimonial estates of the monarch, was
+the object of ordinary taxation, and every new purchaser contracted the
+obligations of the former proprietor. An accurate survey was made of
+what every citizen should contribute to the public service, and this was
+made anew every fifteen years. The number of slaves and cattle
+constituted an essential part of the report; _an oath was administered
+to the proprietors, which obliged them to disclose the true state of
+their affairs_; and any attempt to prevaricate or elude the vigilance of
+the legislature, was severely watched, and punished as a capital crime,
+which included the double guilt of treason and sacrilege. A large
+portion of the tribute was paid in money; and, of the current coin of
+the empire, _gold alone could be legally accepted_. The remainder of the
+taxes, according to the proportion observed in the annual indiction, was
+levied in a manner still more direct and still more oppressive.
+According to the different value of lands, their real produce, in the
+various articles of wine or oil, corn or barley, wood or iron, was
+transported by the labour, or at the expense of the provincials, to the
+imperial magazines, from whence they were occasionally distributed for
+the use of the court, the army, and the two capitals, Rome and
+Constantinople. The commissioners of the revenue were so frequently
+obliged to make _considerable purchases_, that they were strictly
+prohibited from allowing any compensation, or from receiving in money
+the value of those articles which were exacted in kind."[35]
+
+"Either from accident or design, the mode of assessment seemed to unite
+the substance of a land to the form of a capitation-tax. The return
+which was sent from every province and district expressed the number of
+tributary subjects, and the amount of the public impositions. The latter
+of these sums was divided by the former; and the estimate, that each
+province and each head was rated at a certain sum, was universally
+received not only in the popular but the legal computation. Some idea of
+the weight of these contributions _per head_ may be formed by the
+details preserved of the taxation of Gaul. The rapacious ministers of
+Constantine had exhausted the wealth of that province, by exacting
+twenty-five gold pieces (L12, 10s.) for the annual tribute of every
+head. The humane policy of his successor reduced the computation to
+seven pieces. A moderate proportion between these two extremes of
+extravagant oppression and transient indulgence, therefore, may be fixed
+at sixteen gold pieces, or about _nine pounds_ sterling, as the common
+standard of the impositions of Gaul. The enormity of this tax is
+explained by the circumstance, that, as the great bulk of the people
+were slaves, the rolls of tribute were filled only with the names of
+citizens in decent circumstances. The taxable citizens in Gaul did not
+exceed 500,000; and their annual payments were about L4,500,000 of our
+money; a fourth part only of the modern taxes of France."[36] The
+ordinary land-tax in the eastern provinces was a tenth, though in some
+cases it rose by the operation of the survey to a fifth, in others fell
+to a twentieth of the produce. It was valued for a term of years, and
+paid, unless when exacted in kind, commonly in money.[37]
+
+There was one circumstance which rendered the direct taxes peculiarly
+oppressive in the declining periods of the Roman empire, and that was
+the _solid_ obligation, as the lawyers term it, which attached to the
+municipalities, into which the whole empire was divided, of making good
+the amount of their fixed assessment to the public treasury. Of course,
+if the municipality was declining, and the same quota required to be
+made up from its assessable inhabitants by the magistracy, who were
+responsible for its amount, it augmented the burden on those who
+remained within its limits; and if they dwindled, by public calamities
+or emigration, to a small number, it might, and often did become of a
+crushing weight. This system is general over the East; and its
+oppressive effect in the declining stage of states, is the chief cause
+of the rapid decay of Oriental empires. There is a remarkable authentic
+instrument, which attests the ruinous influence of this system in the
+later stages of the Roman dominion. This is a rescript of the Emperior
+Majorian, which sets forth:--"The municipal corporations, the lesser
+senates, as antiquity has justly styled them, deserve to be considered
+as the heart of the cities, and the sinews of the Republic. And yet so
+low are they now reduced, by the injustice of magistrates and the
+venality of collectors, that many of their numbers, renouncing their
+dignity and their country, have taken refuge in distant and obscure
+exile." He strongly urges, and even ordains their return to their
+respective cities; but he removes the grievances which had forced them
+to desert the exercises of their municipal functions, by directing that
+they shall be responsible, not for the _whole sum_ assessed on the
+district, but only for the payments they have actually received, and for
+the defaulters who are still indebted to the public.[38] But this humane
+and wise interposition was as shortlived as it was equitable. Succeeding
+emperors returned to the convenient system of making the municipal
+corporations responsible for the sum assessed on their respective
+districts, and it continued to be the general law of the empire down to
+its very latest day. Sismondi, in his _Decadence de l'Empire Romaine_,
+and Michelet, in his _Gaule sous les Romains_, concur in ascribing to
+this system the rapid decline and depopulation of the empire in its
+later stages.
+
+But although there can be no question that the conclusions of these
+learned writers are in great part well founded, yet this system of
+taxation by no means explains the decline and fall of the Roman empire.
+It requires no argument, indeed, to show, that such a system of solid
+obligations, and of levying a certain sum on districts without any
+regard to the decline in the resources or number of those who were to
+pay them, must, in a _declining_ state of society, be attended with the
+most disastrous, and it may be in the end fatal consequences. But it
+does not explain how society should be declining. _That_ is the matter
+which it behoves us to know. When the reverse is the case--when industry
+and population are _advancing_, the imposition of fixed tributes on
+districts is not only no disadvantage, but the greatest possible
+advantage to a state--witness the benefit of the perpetual settlement to
+the ryots of Hindostan--or of a perpetual quit-rent to English
+landholders. And that, bad as this system was when applied to a
+declining state of society, it was not the cause of the ruin of the
+Roman empire, and would not have proved injurious if the state had been
+advancing, is decisively proved by several considerations.
+
+1. In the first place, the taxes and system of municipalities, being
+responsible for a fixed sum, was not confined to the European provinces
+of the Roman dominion, viz.--Italy, Greece, Gaul, Macedonia, and
+Romelia, where the progress of decay was so rapid, but it was the
+general law of the empire, and obtained equally in Spain, Lybia, Egypt,
+and Sicily; as in the provinces which lay to the north of the
+Mediterranean. But these latter provinces, it has been shown, were, when
+overrun by the barbarians about the year 400, not only nowise in a state
+of decrepitude, but in _the very highest state of affluence and
+prosperity_. They had become, and deserved the appellation of, "the
+common granary of Rome and of the world." They maintained the
+inhabitants of Italy, Greece, Rome, and Constantinople, by the export of
+their magnificent crops of grain. Spain was at least twice as populous
+as it is at this time, Lybia contained twenty millions, Egypt seven
+millions of inhabitants. Sicily was in affluence and prosperity, while
+the adjoining plains of Italy were entirely laid out in pasturage, or
+returned to a state of desolation and insalubrity. It is in vain,
+therefore, to seek a solution of the decline of the empire in a system,
+which, _universally_ applied, left some parts of it in the last stages
+of decrepitude and decay, and others in the highest state of prosperity
+and affluence.
+
+2. In the next place, the taxes of the empire were by no means at first
+of such weight as to account, if there had been nothing else in the
+case, for the decay of its industry. The tax on inheritances, it has
+been shown, was at first five, afterwards ten _per cent_; and the
+land-tax was ten _per cent_ on the produce. The former tax of ten _per
+cent_ on successions, is the present legacy-tax on movable succession to
+persons not related to the deceased, in England; and ten _per cent_ on
+the produce, is the tithe, and no more than the tithe, which has so long
+existed in the European monarchies, and even when coexisting with many
+other and more oppressive burdens, has nowhere proved fatal to industry.
+Income of every sort paid ten _per cent_ in Great Britain during the
+war--the land paid the tithe and poor's-rate in addition--and the other
+taxes yielded a sum four times as great; yet industry of every kind
+flourished to an extraordinary degree during that struggle. Ever since
+the termination of the Revolution, the land-tax in France has been far
+heavier than it was in Rome, varying, according to the _Cadastre_, or
+valuation, from fifteen to twenty-five _per cent_; but yet it is well
+known public wealth and agricultural produce have increased in an
+extraordinary degree during that period. It was not, therefore, the
+weight of the impositions, but the simultaneous circumstances, which
+rendered the northern provinces of the empire _unable to bear them_,
+which was the real cause of the ruin of its industry.
+
+3. In the _third_ place, whether the magnitude of the naval and military
+establishments, or the absolute amount of its public revenue, is taken
+into consideration, it is equally apparent that the Roman empire was at
+first not only noways burdened with heavy, but was blessed with
+_singularly light_ government impositions. Gibbon states the population
+of the whole empire, in the time of Augustus, at 120,000,000, or about
+half of what all Europe, to the westward of the Ural mountains, now
+contains; and its naval and military establishments amounted to 450,000
+armed men--"a force," says the historian, "which, formidable as it may
+seem, was equalled by a monarch of the last century, (Louis XIV.)
+_whose kingdom was confined within a single province of the Roman
+empire_."[39] Compared with the military and naval forces of the
+European powers in time of peace, this must seem a most moderate public
+establishment. France, in the time of Napoleon, with 42,000,000
+inhabitants, had 850,000 regular soldiers in arms, besides 100,000
+sailors; and Great Britain, in its European dominions alone, with a
+population of 18,000,000 souls, had above 500,000 regular soldiers and
+sailors in the public service. France has now, in peace, with a
+population of 32,000,000 souls, about 360,000 men, between the army and
+navy, in the public service; and England, with a population of
+28,000,000, upwards of 150,000, besides double that number in India.
+Russia, with 62,000,000 inhabitants, has 460,000 soldiers in the public
+service. Austria, with 33,000,000, has 260,000. All these peace
+establishments are twice as heavy in proportion to the numbers of the
+people, as that of Rome was in the time of Augustus; and, in subsequent
+reigns, the number of armed men maintained by the state, was so far from
+increasing, that it was constantly diminishing, and, in the time of
+Justinian, had sunk down to 140,000 soldiers, maintained by an empire
+more extensive than that of Russia at this moment.
+
+4. The same conclusion results from the consideration of the absolute
+amount of the public revenue levied in the Roman empire, compared with
+what is extracted from modern states. Gibbon estimates the public
+revenue of the whole empire in the time of Augustus, at "fifteen or
+sixteen millions sterling;"[40] and in the time of Constantine the
+revenue derived from Gaul was L4,500,000 a-year.[41] The first of these
+sums is less than a _third_ of what is now levied in time of peace on
+Great Britain, with less than thirty millions of souls, instead of the
+hundred and twenty millions who swelled the population rolls of the
+Roman empire: the last is little more than an _eighth_ of what is now
+extracted from France, having nearly the same limits as ancient Gaul.
+Supposing that the value of money has declined, from the discovery of
+the South American mines, a half, (and at _this_ time, owing to the
+decline of those mines, it has not sunk more,) still it is apparent that
+the public burdens of modern times are at least three times as heavy as
+they were in the Roman empire in the highest period of its greatness. As
+its strength and military establishment constantly declined after that
+period, there is no reason to suppose that the absolute amount of the
+public taxes was at any subsequent time greater, although
+unquestionably, from the decline in the resources of those who were to
+bear them, they were felt as infinitely more oppressive. And that these
+taxes were not disproportioned to the strength of the empire, when its
+resources were unimpaired, and its industry flourishing, is decisively
+proved by the extremely prosperous condition in which it was during the
+eighty years when Nerva, Trajan, Adrian, and the two Antonines filled
+the imperial throne. "At that period," says Gibbon, "notwithstanding the
+propensity of mankind to exalt the past and depreciate the present, the
+tranquil and prosperous condition of the empire was warmly felt and
+honestly confessed by the provincials as well as the Romans."[42] "They
+affirm," says a contemporary writer, "that, with the increase of the
+arts, the human species has visibly multiplied. They celebrate the
+increasing beauty of the cities, the beautiful face of the country,
+cultivated and adorned like an immense garden, and the long festival of
+peace which was enjoyed by so many nations, forgetful of their ancient
+animosities, and delivered from the apprehension of future danger."[43]
+
+Ancient as well as modern historians are full of complaints, in the
+later periods of the Roman empire, of the prodigious increase of wealth
+in the hands of the rich, and decline in the remuneration of industry to
+the poor. Their complaints on this subject are so numerous, and
+supported by such an array of facts, as to leave no room for doubt that
+they are well founded. Indeed, it seems to have been generally true of
+the whole empire north of the Mediterranean, what Mr Finlay shows was
+the case down to the very latest periods in Greece, that while industry
+and population in the country were ruined, the towns were in a state of
+affluence and prosperity. Even so early as the time of Plutarch, the
+accumulation of _debts_ had come to be complained of as an extensive
+evil.[44] "These debts," says Finlay, "were generally contracted to
+Roman money-lenders. So injurious did their effects become to the
+provinces, that they afforded to one class the means of _accumulating
+enormous fortunes by forcing others into abject poverty_. The property
+of the provincial debtors was at length transferred to a very great
+extent to Roman creditors. Instead of invigorating the upper classes, by
+substituting an industrious timocracy for an idle aristocracy, it had a
+very different effect. It introduced new feelings of rivalry and
+distrust, by filling the country with foreign landlords. The weight of
+debts seems to have been the chief cause of revolutions in the ancient
+world. The Greeks could not long maintain the struggle, and they sunk
+gradually lower in wealth, until their poverty introduced an altered
+state of society, in which they learned the prudential habits of small
+proprietors, and escape not only from the eye of history but even of
+antiquarian research."[45]
+
+This constant tendency of wealth, in the later periods of the Roman
+empire, to accumulate in the hands of the great capitalists, accompanied
+by the progressive deterioration of the condition of the middle and
+working classes, is amply proved and forcibly illustrated by Sismondi,
+in his admirable work on the Decline of the Roman Empire. "During the
+long peace," says he, "which followed the victories of Trajan and Marcus
+Aurelius, those colossal fortunes were accumulated, which, according to
+Pliny, ruined Italy and the empire.[46] A single proprietor, by degrees,
+came to buy up whole provinces, the conquest of which had in former days
+furnished the occasion of many triumphs to the generals of the Republic.
+While this huge capitalist was amassing riches, wholly disproportioned
+to the capacity of man, the _once numerous and respectable, but now
+beggared, middle class, disappeared from the face of the earth_. In
+districts where so many brave and industrious citizens were to be seen
+in former times, alike ready to defend or cultivate their fields, were
+to be found nothing but slaves, who rapidly declined in number as the
+fields came to be exclusively devoted to pasturage. The fertile plains
+of Italy ceased to nourish its inhabitants; Rome depended entirely for
+its subsistence on the harvests which its fleets brought it from Sicily,
+Africa, and Egypt. From the capital to the farthest extremity of the
+provinces, _depopulation and misery in the country coexisted with
+enormous wealth an the towns_. From this cause the impossibility of
+recruiting the legions with native Romans was experienced even in the
+time of Marcus Aurelius. In his war against the Quadi and the
+Marcomanni, which had been preceded by a long peace, he was obliged to
+recruit the legions with the slaves and robbers of Rome."[47] It is
+impossible to give a stronger proof of the extent to which this enormous
+evil of the vast fortunes accumulated in the towns, and the entire ruin
+of industry in the country, had gone in the last days of the empire,
+than is to be found in the fact already mentioned, that when Rome was
+taken by Alaric, in the year 404 after Christ, while Italy could furnish
+no force to resist the invaders, the capital itself contained seventeen
+hundred and sixty great families, many of them with incomes of L160,000
+a-year, equal to L300,000 of our money, whose expenditure maintained an
+urban population of 1,200,000 souls.[48]
+
+It may readily be conceived, that when this prodigious concentration of
+wealth in the hands of the great proprietors of towns, and ruin of
+industry in the country, came to coexist with the _solid_ obligations of
+the rural municipalities for the sum assessed on their districts, the
+burden of the public taxes, though light at first, compared with what is
+little complained of in modern times, came to be altogether
+overwhelming. This accordingly was the case in all the Northern
+provinces of the empire in its later stages. What every where preceded
+their ruin, was the desertion of the inhabitants in consequence of the
+crushing weight of the public burdens. From the entire failure of the
+indirect taxes amidst the ruin of agricultural, and the imposition of
+taxation on urban industry, it had become necessary to make progressive
+additions to the direct taxes till they became exterminating. "Three
+great direct taxes," says Sismondi, "alike ruinous, impended over the
+citizens. The first was the Indictions or Land-Tax, estimated in general
+at a tenth of the produce, or a third of the clear revenue, and often
+doubled or tripled by the _Super indictions_ which the necessities of
+the provinces compelled them to impose. Secondly: the Capitation-Tax,
+which sometimes rose as high as 300 francs (L12) ahead on the free and
+taxable citizens; and, third, the Corvees, or forced contributions in
+labour, which were for the service of the imperial estates, or the
+maintenance of the public roads. These direct imposts in the declining
+days of the empire, so entirely ruined the proprietors of rural estates,
+that they abandoned them in all quarters. Vast provinces in the interior
+were deserted; the enrolment for the army became daily more difficult
+from the disappearance of the rural population; the magistrates of
+municipalities in town or country, rendered responsible for the
+assessment of their districts and the levy of their quota of soldiers,
+fled the country, or sought under a thousand pretexts to escape the
+perilous honour of public office. So far did the desertion of the
+magistracy go in the time of Valentinian, (364-375, after Christ,) that
+when that cruel tyrant ordered the heads of three magistrates of towns
+in a particular province to be brought to him for some alleged offences,
+'Will your Imperial Majesty be pleased to direct,' said the prefect
+Florentius, 'what we are to do in those towns _where three magistrates
+cannot be found_?' The order was upon this revoked."[49]
+
+The disastrous state of the rural districts amidst this accumulation of
+evils is thus forcibly described by Mr Finlay:--"In many provinces, the
+higher classes had been completely exterminated. The loss of their
+slaves and serfs, who had often been carried away by the invaders, had
+reduced many to the humble condition of labourers. Others had emigrated,
+and abandoned their land to the cultivators, from being unable to obtain
+any revenue from it in the miserable state to which the capture of the
+stock, the loss of a market, and the destruction of the agricultural
+buildings had reduced the country. In many of the towns, the diminished
+population was reduced to misery by the ruin of the rural districts in
+their neighbourhood. The higher classes in the country disappeared under
+the weight of the municipal duties they were called upon to perform.
+Houses remained unlet; and even when let, the portion of rent which was
+not absorbed by the imperial taxes was insufficient to supply the
+demands of the local expenditure. The labourer and the artisan alone
+could find bread; the walls of cities were allowed to fall into ruins;
+the streets were neglected, public buildings had become useless;
+aqueducts remained unrepaired; internal communications ceased; and with
+the extinction of the wealthy and educated classes in the provincial
+towns, the local prejudices of the lower orders became the law of
+society."[50]
+
+Such, on a nearer survey, was the condition of the Roman empire which
+preceded its fall. From it may be seen how widely the real causes of its
+decline differed from the vague generalities of Montesquieu, that the
+ruin of the empire was the necessary consequence of its extension; or
+the still vaguer declamations of the scholars, that it was the
+corruption incident to great and long-continued wealth which enervated
+the people, and rendered them incapable of defending themselves against
+the Northern nations. In truth, both these causes did operate, and that
+too in a most powerful manner, in bringing about the ruin of the empire;
+but they did so, not in the way supposed by these authors, but in an
+_indirect way_, by inducing a new set of evils, which destroyed industry
+in the most important of its provinces, by depriving the industrious of
+a market for their industry, and rendering the public burdens
+overwhelming, by changing the value of money. The operation of these
+causes can now be distinctly traced by us, because we feel them working
+among ourselves: their existence has not hitherto been suspected, or
+their effects traced by philosophers, because no state in modern Europe
+but our own, in recent times, had come within the sphere of their
+influence. And to see what these causes really were, it is only
+necessary to recall, in a few propositions, to the reader's mind, the
+general result of the foregoing deduction:--
+
+I. During the Republic, and till the commencement of the empire,
+agriculture was in the most flourishing state in Italy; and it was in
+its sturdy, free cultivators, that the legions were recruited which
+conquered the world.
+
+II. _From the time of Tiberius_, cultivation declined in the Italian and
+Grecian plains, and continued to do so to the fall of the empire.
+Pasturage came to supersede agriculture; population disappeared in the
+fields; the race of free cultivators, the strength of the legions, were
+ruined; the flocks and herds were tended only by slaves; the small
+proprietors became bankrupt, or fled the country; and the whole land in
+the European provinces of the empire fell into the hands of a limited
+number of territorial magnates, who resided at Rome or Constantinople,
+and mainly upheld, by their profuse expenditure, the prosperity of those
+capitals of the empire.
+
+III. In the midst of the general decline of rural industry in all the
+provinces to the north of the Mediterranean, the wealth and prosperity
+of the great cities remained undecayed. The small provincial towns were
+in great part ruined; but the great cities, especially such as were on
+the sea-coast, continued flourishing, and received in their ample bounds
+all the refluent population from the country. Rural industry languished
+and expired, but commerce was undecayed; the fortunes of the great
+capitalists were daily accumulating; and in no period in the history of
+mankind, were urban incomes so great as in the city of Rome, on the eve
+of its capture by the Goths.
+
+IV. While this was the state of matters to the north of the
+Mediterranean, that is, in the heart of the empire, the remoter
+agricultural provinces of Spain, Sicily, Lybia, and Egypt, were in the
+very highest state of prosperity; they fed all the great cities of the
+Roman world by their immense exportations of grain, and yet enough
+remained, down to their conquest by the Vandals under Genseric, to
+maintain a vast population at home, greater than has ever since existed
+in those countries, in a state of affluence and comfort.
+
+V. Taxation, from the time of its first introduction under Augustus, was
+at first chiefly indirect, and by no means oppressive. Gradually,
+however, the produce of the indirect taxes failed, or became inadequate
+to the wants of the empire, and recourse was had to direct taxes,
+levied chiefly on landed property and successions. But these direct
+taxes were at first light, and not a third part of those levied on
+Britain or France during the war; and the public establishments of the
+Roman government were not a fourth, in proportion to the population, of
+those now maintained by the great European monarchies during peace.
+
+VI. In process of time, however, the resources of the people, in the
+principal provinces of the empire, and especially those to the north of
+the Mediterranean, declined to such a degree, that though the military
+and naval establishments of the empire were reduced to a third of their
+former amount, and became inadequate to defend its frontiers against its
+enemies, the direct taxes required to be continually increased, till
+they became so oppressive as to destroy industry, and prove the
+immediate cause of the depopulation and ruin of the empire.
+
+Such are the _facts_, as established by the unanimous and concurring
+testimony of all the best informed historians; and now for the causes
+which produced these facts. They are set forth and supported by an
+equally clear and undisputable array of authorities.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Even so early as the latter days of the Republic, the system was
+introduced of feeding the Roman people with grain derived by tribute
+from the provinces. In the time of Augustus, the annual quantity
+distributed to the poorer citizens of Rome was 1,200,000 _modii_, or
+35,156 quarters. But _Tiberius went a step further, and actually gave
+bounties on the importation of foreign grain_. "An enormous quantity,"
+says Finlay, "of grain was distributed in this way, which was received
+as tribute from the provinces. Caesar found 320,000 persons receiving
+this gratuity. It is true he reduced the number to one-half. The greater
+part of this grain was drawn from Sicily, Africa, and Egypt. In the time
+of Alexander, generally 75,000 _modii_ was distributed daily. This
+distribution enabled the poor to live in idleness, and was itself
+extremely injurious to industry; but another arrangement was adopted by
+the Roman government, which rendered the _cultivation of land around
+Rome unprofitable to the proprietors_. A large sum was annually employed
+by the state _in purchasing grain in the provinces_, and in transporting
+this supply to Rome, where it was _sold at a fixed price to the bakers_.
+Augustus appointed an officer, styled _Prefectus Annonae_, whose duty was
+to provide by government purchases for the subsistence of the people. An
+allowance was also made _to the private importers of grain_, in order to
+ensure a constant supply.[51] In this way, a very large sum was expended
+_to keep grain cheap in a city_ where a variety of circumstances tended
+to make it dear. This singular system of annihilating capital, _and
+ruining agriculture and industry_, was so deeply rooted in the Roman
+administration, that similar gratuitous distributions of grain were
+established at Antioch and Alexandria, and introduced into
+Constantinople when that city became the capital of the empire."[52]
+
+The necessary effect of this system was the cessation of agriculture in
+Italy, the ruin of the small proprietors, and the engrossing of the land
+in the provinces by a few great landholders, who cultivated their
+extensive estates by means of slaves. "Riches, far exceeding the wealth
+of modern sovereigns, flowed into the hands of the great proprietors;
+villas and parks were formed over all Italy on a scale of the most
+stupendous grandeur; and land _became more valuable as hunting-ground
+than as productive farms_. The same habits were introduced into the
+provinces. In the neighbourhood of Rome, agriculture was ruined by the
+public distribution of grain received as tribute from the provinces,
+and by the bounty granted to merchants importing to secure a maximum
+price of bread. The same system proceeded in the provinces; and similar
+distributions at Alexandria and Antioch must have been equally
+injurious."[53] When Constantine established his new capital on the
+shores of the Bosphorus, he was under the necessity of adopting, and
+even extending, the same ruinous system. "Wealthy individuals from the
+provinces were compelled to keep up houses at Constantinople, pensions
+were conferred upon them, and a right to distributions of provisions to
+a considerable amount was annexed to those dwellings. These rations
+consisted of bread, oil, wine, meat, and formed an important branch of
+revenue even to the better class of citizens. These distributions were
+entirely different from the public ones at Rome, which were established
+as a gratification by the state to the poor citizens who had no other
+means of livelihood. The tribute of grain from Egypt was appropriated to
+supply Constantinople, and that of Africa was left for the consumption
+of Rome. This was the tie which bound the capital to the emperors, and
+the cause of the toleration shown to its factions. They both felt they
+had a common interest in supporting the despotic power by which the
+provinces were drained of money to support the expenditure of the court,
+and supply provisions for the people."[54]
+
+Although, however, these public distributions of grain in the chief
+towns of the empire had some effect in checking the cultivation of corn
+in Italy, Greece, and Asia Minor, by depriving its cultivators of their
+best market, yet _the private importation of grain_ from these great
+corn countries must have been a far more serious and general evil.
+Gibbon states the number who received rations at Constantinople daily in
+the time of Constantine at 80,000, and in Rome in the time of Tiberius
+it was 180,000. Supposing the other great towns were fed in the same
+proportion, perhaps a million of persons in the Roman world were
+nourished at the expense of the state on Egyptian or African grain. But
+a million of persons consume annually a million of quarters of grain;
+not a sixtieth part of the annual consumption of the British empire at
+this time, and probably not a two-hundredth part required by the
+120,000,000 souls who composed the Roman empire in the days of the
+Antonines. But though the state paupers were thus but a small fraction
+of the whole consumers of foreign grain, yet the _general importation
+was immense_, and became erelong so great as to constitute the entire
+source from which the population of Italy, as well as Constantinople and
+the adjacent provinces of Romelia, Macedonia, and Greece, were fed. It
+was this _general importation_, not the gratuitous distributions, which
+ruined Italian agriculture; for it alone was on a scale commensurate
+with the population of the Italian peninsula, and could alone account
+for its general ruin. Tacitus expressly says, it was the _preference_
+given to African agriculture, not the gratuitous distributions, which
+destroyed Italian cultivation. "At, Hercule, olim ex Italia legionibus
+longinquas in provincias commeatus portabantur: nec nunc infecunditate
+laboratur; _sed Africam_ POTIUS _et Egyptum excercemus, navibusque et
+casibus vita populi Romani permissa est_.[55]" The supply of grain for
+the Roman world was entirely obtained from Spain, Sicily, Africa, and
+Egypt, while Greece was maintained by corn imported from Poland.[56] It
+was not that the Italian and Grecian fields had become sterile: Tacitus
+expressly says the reverse,--"_nec_ nunc infecunditate laboratur." But
+the country in which grain produced fifteen fold, as Italy did, could
+not compete with that which produced sixty or eighty fold, on the banks
+of the Nile. Nor could the industry of the centre of the empire, where
+money was plentiful, comparatively speaking, and labour was therefore
+dear, stand against the competition of the remoter provinces, where it
+was scarce, and labour was therefore cheap.
+
+The ruin of Italian and Grecian agriculture from this cause is so
+evident, that it is admitted by the ablest advocates of an unlimited
+freedom in the corn trade. "The first effect of this system," says a
+late able and learned writer on the liberal side, "_was the ruin of
+Italian agriculture_. The natural market for the corn of the Italian
+farmer was, to a great extent, destroyed by the artificial supplies
+obtained from the provinces. Hence, as Dureau de la Malle has remarked,
+(ii. 218,) the history of the seventh and eighth centuries of Rome
+presents this singular contrast--that the agriculture, the population,
+and products of Italy, diminish progressively as she extends her
+conquests and power. The fatal influence which the gratuitous supplies
+from the provinces would exercise upon the native agriculture, was
+perceived by Augustus; but he abandoned his intention of altering the
+system, from a conviction it would be restored by his successor. The
+result was, that southern and central Italy, instead of being tilled by
+a race of hardy active farmers, themselves freemen, and working on their
+own land, was divided into plantations cultivated by slaves."[57] This
+explains how it came to pass that Spanish agriculture took such a start
+from _the time of Tiberius_; and how, in the general ruin of the empire,
+Spain, Africa, and Egypt, were the only provinces which retained their
+prosperity. It will be recollected that it was in the reign of Tiberius
+that bounties were first given by the Roman government to the private
+importers of foreign grain.
+
+Of the main dependence of the Western empire in its declining days on
+Africa, not merely for the necessary supply of food, but even for the
+chief resources and strength of the state in the midst of the desolation
+of its European fields, Sismondi gives a striking account--"The loss of
+Africa was at this period, (439 after Christ,) perhaps the greatest
+calamity which the empire of the West could have undergone. It was its
+only province the defence of which cost no trouble; the only one from
+which _they drew money, arms, and soldiers, without its ever requiring
+any back_. It was at the same time the granary of Rome and of Italy. The
+gratuitous distributions of grain at Rome, Milan, and Ravenna, had, over
+the whole Italian peninsula, destroyed the cultivation of grain.
+Experience had proved that the return could not pay its expense; and the
+reason was, that the more fertile fields of Africa furnished a part of
+the harvest destined for the nourishment of the people of Italy. The
+sudden stoppage of that supply by the conquest of Africa by the Vandals,
+caused a cruel famine in Italy; which still further reduced its wretched
+inhabitants."[58] And so entirely did Constantinople become dependent on
+foreign importation of sea-borne grain from Egypt and the Ukraine for
+its support, that "when the Persians, in the year 618, overran Egypt,
+and stopped the usual supplies of grain from that province, the famine
+became so alarming, that the government determined upon transferring
+_the seat of empire to Carthage_ in Africa, as the most likely point
+from whence the dominion of Syria and Egypt might be regained."[59] The
+latter of these had long been regarded as _the most valuable province of
+the empire_.[60]
+
+When this entire dependence of the great cities in the northern parts of
+the empire, for centuries together, on Spain, Sicily, Africa, and Egypt,
+is considered, it must with every rational mind cease to be a matter of
+surprise that its west and northern provinces declined in industry and
+population; that these grain provinces to the south of the Mediterranean
+alone retained their numbers and prosperity; and that under the constant
+decline, in the European provinces, in the market for agricultural
+produce, the rural population disappeared, and the recruiting of the
+army in the country became impossible. It is not surprising that while
+they were enrolling slaves in Italy, and enlisting barbarians on the
+Danube and the Rhine, to defend the frontiers, from Africa and Spain
+alone they drew supplies both of money and soldiers, without requiring
+to send back any. The latter provinces were the granary and garden of
+the empire; the only part of it where rural industry met with
+remunerating prices or adequate encouragement. And the same
+circumstances explain in a great degree how it happened, that while the
+_rural_ districts of Italy, Greece, Asia Minor, and Romelia, were
+continually declining in population, rental, and revenue, their _towns_,
+especially on the sea-coast, were, down to the last days of their
+existence, in a flourishing condition. These towns were the seat of
+manufactures and commerce. It was by their capital that the vast corn
+trade by which all the cities of the empire were fed was carried on. It
+was their fabrics which mainly furnished the means of purchasing the
+immense proportion of this grain, which, being imported by private
+importers, required to be paid for in some species of manufactured
+produce. And the reason why grain was raised so much cheaper, and
+therefore profitably, in Egypt, Lybia, and Spain, than in Italy and
+Greece, was, partly, that the former of these countries were by nature
+blessed with a more prolific soil and a warmer sun than the latter; and,
+partly, that as Rome and Constantinople were the two capitals of the
+empire, the greater part of its wealth was attracted, either by taxes,
+tribute, or the concourse of the rich, to them, and, consequently, the
+abundance of riches rendered money cheap, labour dear, and cultivation,
+when exposed to foreign competition, unprofitable.
+
+But there was more in the case than this. Simultaneously with the vast
+and increasing importation of foreign grain, which at length destroyed
+cultivation in all the northern provinces of the empire, a _continual
+diminution of its circulating medium_ was going forward; and it was to
+the combined and cotemporaneous operation of these two causes, that the
+ruin of the empire is beyond all question to be ascribed.
+
+So early as the days of Tiberius, the abstraction of the gold and silver
+currency of the empire by the incessant drain of foreign commerce, was
+loudly complained of by the Roman writers; and there is the most
+decisive proof, that in the course of time the supply of the precious
+metals on the empire became so inadequate to the wants of its
+inhabitants, that their value was enhanced to a great and ruinous
+degree. It was the commerce of the East which first induced this
+destructive drain upon the metallic treasures of the empire. "The
+objects," says Gibbon, "of oriental traffic were splendid and trifling;
+silk--a pound of which was esteemed worth a pound of gold--precious
+stones, and a variety of aromatics, were the chief articles. The labour
+and risks of the voyage were rewarded with almost incredible profit; but
+it was made on Roman subjects, and at the expense of the public. As the
+nations of Arabia and India were contented with the produce and
+manufactures of their own country, silver, on the side of the Romans,
+was the principal, if not the only instrument of commerce. It was a
+complaint worthy of the gravity of the senate, that in the pursuit of
+female ornaments, the wealth of the state was irrecoverably given away
+to foreign and hostile nations. The annual loss is computed by a writer
+of an inquisitive but censorious temper, (Pliny,) at L800,000 sterling.
+Such was the style of discontent brooding over the dark prospect of
+approaching poverty."[61] Eight hundred thousand pounds a-year,
+equivalent to about two millions of our money, must have been a severe
+drain upon the supply of the precious metals in the Roman empire; and
+we, who have seen in 1839 the Bank of England reel, and the United
+States bank fall, under the effect of an exportation of six or seven
+millions of sovereigns to buy foreign grain in a single year, can
+appreciate the effect of such a constant drain upon a state, the
+metallic resources of which were much less considerable than those of
+England at this time.
+
+The immense importation also of African and Egyptian grain, which
+continued from the time of Tiberius down to the very close of the
+empire, must have occasioned a great additional abstraction of the
+precious metals from the Roman world. It has already been shown that a
+very small proportion of the grain imported from these distant provinces
+was remitted in the shape of tribute. By far the greater part, probably
+nineteen-twentieths of the whole supply, was imported by private
+merchants for sale, as it could be got from them cheaper than it could
+be raised at home. This imported corn, of course, required to be paid
+for in something. But the inhabitants of the countries from which it
+came--Spain, Sicily, Africa, and Egypt--for the most part slaves,
+blessed with a fine climate, requiring little covering, and nearly
+destitute of artificial wants, did not require, and could not consume,
+any considerable amount of Italian or Grecian fabrics. Thus, by far the
+greatest part of the price of the imported grain was paid in gold and
+silver, for which there is a constant demand in all countries, savage or
+civilized. A nation which imports foreign grain largely, _must_ in all
+ages export the precious metals as largely; because the corn, of course,
+is brought from those countries where it is raised the cheapest--and the
+countries where this is the case, are those where labour is cheap, money
+scarce, and artificial wants unknown. Money is what these countries
+want, and money is what their surplus produce is nearly all exchanged
+for. And this explains how it happened, that in the decline of the
+empire, Spain, Africa, and Egypt, alone retained their flourishing
+aspect, and were the only provinces from which money and soldiers could
+be obtained, while they required none. The whole commerce between them
+and Italy, or Greece, was one in which grain was exchanged for the
+precious metals; and when they once got these, great part was hoarded,
+as it now is in the East, and very little ever returned.
+
+In addition to this, the mines which supplied the Roman world failed to
+a considerable extent under the emperors. "The poverty of Greece, as of
+the whole empire," says Finlay, "was further increased _by the gradual
+rise in the value of the precious metals_; an evil which began to be
+generally felt about the time of Nero, and affected Greece with great
+severity, from the altered distribution of wealth in the country with
+which it was attended. Greece had once been rich in mines, which had
+been a source of wealth and prosperity to Siphnos and Atticus, and had
+laid the foundation of the power of Philip of Macedon. The fiscal
+measures of the Romans soon rendered it a _ruinous speculation for
+individuals to attempt working mines of the precious metals_; and, in
+the hands of the state, they soon proved unprofitable. Many mines were
+exhausted; and even _though the value of the precious metals was
+enhanced_, some mines beyond the sphere of the Roman power _were
+abandoned_ from those causes which, after the second century of the
+Christian era, produced a sensible diminution in the commercial
+transactions of the Old Hemisphere.[62] Greece shared in the general
+decay: her commerce and manufactures, being confined to supplying the
+consumption of a diminished and impoverished population, sunk into
+insignificancy. _An accumulation of debts became general throughout the
+country_, and formed an extensive evil, as already observed, in the time
+of Plutarch."[63]
+
+As this great diminution on the supply, and drain upon the treasures of
+the precious metals in the time of the emperors, lowered the value of
+every species of produce, so it proportionally augmented debts, and
+swelled the already overgrown fortunes of the capitalists. What Finlay
+says of Greece was true of the whole European provinces of the
+empire:--"_The property of the Grecian debtors was at last transferred
+to a very great extent to the Roman creditors._"[64] The gradual
+diminution in the supply of, or abstraction of the precious metals, by
+contracting the currency, lowered prices, and thus diminished the
+returns of industry; while it proportionally augmented debts, and added
+to the fortunes of the great capitalists and landholders. This again
+produced another effect upon the manners of the inhabitants of the great
+cities, which had an equally powerful effect in increasing the drain
+upon that portion of the precious metals which was employed in the
+public currency. The rich patricians of Rome, Antioch, and
+Constantinople, possessed of colossal fortunes to which nothing in
+modern times will bear a comparison, and nursed in habits of luxury and
+expense beyond any thing we can even conceive, daily augmented the
+amount of their immense incomes, which was devoted to the purposes of
+extravagance. "The historians of the second and third centuries," says
+Finlay, "are filled with lamentations on this subject."[65] It is not
+surprising that it was so. Men possessed, in private stations, of as
+much as three or four hundred thousand pounds a-year of modern money,
+could not get through their incomes without indulging in the habitual
+purchase of the most costly articles. Society in this way had come to
+verify the saying of Bacon--"Above all things, good policy is to be used
+that the treasure and money in a state _be not gathered into few hands_.
+For otherwise, a state may _have a great stock and yet starve_. And
+money is like muck, not good unless it be spread."
+
+Hence the consumption and permanent fixing of gold and silver in the
+form of plate and costly ornaments, increased in the great families down
+to the very close of the empire; and while the currency was constantly
+declining, and prices in consequence falling in the provinces, the
+colossal capitalists of Rome and Constantinople were daily absorbing
+more of the precious metals in these beautiful but unproductive objects.
+The quantity of gold and silver moulded into the form of vases, statues,
+tripods, and personal ornaments, which was accumulated in Rome at the
+time it was taken by the Goths, would exceed belief if not attested by
+the unanimous testimony of all the contemporary writers. Great part of
+it was thrown into the Tiber, where it still remains covered by the
+alluvial deposits of fourteen centuries; the most precious of the spoils
+were buried with Alaric in the bed of a stream in Calabria, where that
+redoubtable conqueror was overtaken by the common fate of mortality. The
+place where he was interred was kept a profound secret, and the slaves
+who dug his grave in the bed of the river, of which the course had been
+turned aside for the purpose, were put to death, and buried with him and
+his treasures; and the river itself was immediately let into its old
+channel, that its ceaseless flow might secure, as it since has done, the
+grave of the mighty chief from disturbance, and enable him to present
+himself loaded with his earthly spoils in the land of spirits.[66]
+
+The concurring operation of these causes produced, in the three last
+centuries of the Roman empire, a very great scarcity in the supply of
+the precious metals for the purposes of the public currency, and
+consequently a most distressing fall in prices, and diminution in the
+remuneration of industry, accompanied by a proportional increase in the
+weight of debt and taxes. And the progressive effect of these changes
+appeared in the clearest manner, in the repeated changes which were made
+by successive emperors in the value of the gold and silver coins which
+passed current in the empire. Gold became progressively so scarce in
+proportion to silver, that the proportion between the two, which at
+first had been 1 to 10 in the time of Augustus, rose in time to 1 to
+12-1/2, and was fixed by Constantine the Great at 1 to 14-2/5ths.[67] In
+consequence of this rise in the value of gold--the precise counterpart
+of what was experienced in Great Britain in the later years of the war,
+when a _light_ guinea sold for 25s.--the quantity of gold in the
+_aureus_, or chief gold Roman coin, was progressively diminished, till
+it came to contain little more than _half_ its former weight of that
+precious metal. The learned Greaves has shown, after diligent inquiry,
+that while in the time of the Antonines the _aureus_ weighed 118, in the
+time of Majorian, in the fifth century, it had come to weigh only 68
+grains.[68] This is a clear indication, that 68 grains of gold were now
+equal in value to what 118 grains had been three centuries before; for
+Majorian, by a special decree, ordered all _aurei_ of whatever reign,
+the Gallic _solidus_ alone excepted, to pass, not according to weight
+but standard.[69] That is the most decisive proof to what a grievous
+extent the currency had, from the operation of the causes which have
+been mentioned, come to be contracted; for as gold constitutes, from its
+superior value, at least nine-tenths of the circulating medium of every
+civilized state, so great a rise in its value could only have been
+occasioned by a very great contraction of the whole currency. We know in
+what state the metallic currency of Great Britain was when the _light_
+guinea was selling for twenty-five shillings.
+
+In the latter days of the empire, when the invasions of the barbarians
+began, and its provinces were liable to be pierced through and overrun
+by columns of their predatory hordes, the universal and well-founded
+terror produced a general _hoarding_ of the precious metals, which
+entirely withdrew them from circulation, until they were forced from the
+trembling inhabitants by threats of massacre or conflagration. The
+effect of this, in contracting the currency, and causing the little that
+remained to disappear altogether from the circulation, of course was
+prodigious. It lowered to almost nothing the money-price of every
+species of industry, and proportionally augmented the weight of public
+and private debts--the subject of such loud and constant complaints from
+ancient historians. Nor was this evil confined to the latest periods of
+the empire of the West--the years which immediately preceded its fall.
+From the time of Commodus, who succeeded Marcus Antoninus, the
+incursions of the barbarians into the northern provinces of the empire
+had been severely felt; and from the time of the separation of the
+empires of the East and West, they were almost perpetual, and sometimes
+extended far into its interior provinces. The effect of these alarms and
+dangers, in producing a universal disposition to hoard, and consequently
+rendering money every where scarce, prices cheap, and debts and taxes
+oppressive, was very great, and may be regarded as one of the chief
+causes of the excessive and crushing weight which the direct burdens of
+the state acquired in the later periods of the empire.
+
+The resource so well known, and so often had recourse to with the
+happiest effects, in modern times, to supply the void produced by a
+temporary or permanent drain of the precious metals, was unknown in
+antiquity. _They had no paper currency._ Even bills of exchange were
+unknown. They, as is well known, were a contrivance of the Jews, in the
+middle ages, to transport their wealth in a commodious form, when
+threatened with persecution, from one country to another. To what an
+extent paper of these various kinds has come to supply the place of gold
+and silver, may be judged of by the fact, that during the war, the paper
+currency of Great Britain and Ireland rose to L60,000,000 sterling; and
+that, at the present time, the private bills in circulation in it are
+estimated at L132,000,000 sterling. But this admirable resource, by
+which an accidental or temporary dearth of the precious metals is
+supplied by a paper currency, circulating at par with it, and fully
+supplying, as long as credit lasts, its place, was unknown in the
+ancient world. Gold, silver, and copper were their sole circulating
+mediums; and consequently, when they were progressively withdrawn, by
+the causes which have been mentioned, from the currency, there was
+nothing left to supply their place. Instantly, as if by the stroke of a
+fell necromancer, disasters of every kind accumulated on the wretched
+inhabitants. Credit was violently shaken; money disappeared; prices
+fell to a ruinous degree; industry could obtain no remuneration; the
+influence and ascendancy of realized capital became irresistible; and
+the only efficient power left in the state was that of the emperor, who
+wrenched his taxes out of the impoverished hands of his subjects, or of
+the creditors and landlords, who, by legal process, exacted their debts
+from their debtors, and drove them to desperation. This was exactly the
+social state of the empire in its declining days. We can appreciate its
+horrors, from having had a foretaste of them during the commercial
+crises with which, during the last twenty-five years, this country has
+been visited.
+
+From what has now been said, it is evident that the two circumstances
+which occasioned the fall of the Roman empire, were _the destruction of
+its domestic agriculture, by the importation of grain from its distant
+provinces, and the accumulation of debts and taxes, arising from the
+contraction of the currency_. If these causes be attentively considered,
+it will be found that they not only afford a perfect solution of its
+fall, but explain how it happened at the period it did, and had not
+occurred at an earlier period. They show what it was which, slowly but
+steadily, wasting away the vitals of the empire, successively destroyed
+its rural population and agricultural industry, and at length crushed
+its property under the increasing load of debts and taxes. They explain
+how it happened that the indirect taxes, which at first were sufficient,
+with a moderate imposition of five per cent on inheritances, to support
+the large military and naval establishments of Augustus, became
+gradually unproductive, and were at length succeeded by direct taxes on
+land, of severe, and in the end destructive amount. They show what every
+page of contemporary history demonstrates, that it was neither the
+superior military power of the barbarians, nor the diminished skill and
+courage of the legions, which occasioned the overthrow of the mighty
+fabric, but the _wasting away of its internal resources_--which was the
+real cause of its decay. They tell us that it was not the timidity of
+the legions, but _the inability of government to array them in
+sufficient strength_, which rendered them unequal to the contest with an
+enemy whom, during the vigour of the state, they had so often repelled.
+They explain how it happened that Italy and Greece had become deserts in
+their rural districts, before one of the barbarians had crossed either
+the Alps or the Haemus and how Africa, Spain, and Egypt, alone of the
+provinces, retained their prosperity, when rural industry was wellnigh
+extinct in all the other parts of the empire. Lastly, they explain how
+it happened, that while the rural districts to the north of the
+Mediterranean were so generally relapsing into a state of desolation,
+the great cities of Greece and Italy long retained their prosperity, and
+the wealth of the capitalists and great proprietors who inhabited them,
+was continually increasing, while all other classes were ground to the
+earth under the weight of public or private burdens.
+
+It must appear, at first sight, not a little extraordinary that the very
+causes which thus evidently led to the destruction of Rome, viz., the
+unlimited importation of foreign grain and contraction of the currency,
+are those which have been most the object of the policy of the British
+government, for the last quarter of a century, by every possible means
+to promote in this country. They were imposed upon Rome by necessity.
+The extension of the empire over Spain, Africa, and Egypt, as well as
+the magnanimous policy of its government towards all its subjects,
+rendered a free trade in grain with the provinces, and large
+importations from the great corn countries, unavoidable. Public
+misfortunes, the increasing luxury of the rich, that very great
+importation of grain itself, the failure of the Spanish and Grecian
+mines, and the entire want of any paper currency to supply the place of
+the metals thus largely abstracted, necessarily and unavoidably forced
+this calamitous contraction of the currency upon the Roman empire. But
+the British policy has adopted the same principles, and done the same
+things, when _no necessity_ or external pressure rendered it
+unavoidable. A free trade in grain is to be introduced, not in favour of
+distant provinces of the empire, but of its neighbours and its enemies.
+The currency has been contracted, not by public calamities, or any
+deficiency in the means of supplying the failure of the ordinary sources
+of gold and silver, but by the fixed determination of government,
+carried into execution by repeated acts of Parliament in 1819, 1826, and
+1844, to abridge the paper circulation, and deprive the nation of the
+benefit of the great discovery of modern times, by which the calamitous
+effects of the diminution in the supply of the precious metals
+throughout the world have been so materially prevented.
+
+Such a result must appear under all circumstances strange, and would be
+inexplicable, if we did not reflect, that the same impulse which was
+communicated to the measures of government in Rome by the influence of
+the capitalists and the clamorous inhabitants of great towns, is equally
+felt in the same stage of society in modern times. The people in our
+great cities do not call out, as in ancient days, for gratuitous
+distributions of corn from Lybia or Egypt; but they clamour just as
+loudly for free trade in grain with Poland and the Ukraine, which has
+the effect of swamping the home-grower quite as completely. The great
+capitalists do not make colossal fortunes by the plunder of subject
+provinces, as in the days of the Roman proconsuls; but they never cease
+to exert their influence to procure a contraction of the currency by the
+measures of government, which answers the purpose of augmenting their
+fortunes at the expense of the industrious classes just as well.
+Political writers, social philosophers, practical statesmen, fall in
+with the prevailing disposition of _the most influential classes_; they
+deceive themselves into the belief that they are original, and
+promulgating important truths, when they are merely yielding to the
+pressure of the strongest, or at least the most noisy, class at the
+moment in society. The Reform Bill gave _three-fifths_ of the British
+representation to the members for boroughs. From that moment the
+eventual adoption of legislative measures favourable to the interests of
+capital, and agreeable to the wishes of the inhabitants of towns, how
+destructive soever to those of the country, was as certain as the daily
+distribution of Egyptian grain to the inhabitants of Rome, Antioch, and
+Constantinople was, when the mob of these cities became, from their
+formidable numbers, an object of dread to the Roman government.
+
+The only answer which the partisans of free trade in grain have ever
+attempted to these considerations is, that the ruin of the agriculture
+in the central provinces of the Roman empire was owing, not to the
+importation of foreign corn as a mercantile commodity, but to its
+_distribution gratuitously_ to the poorer citizens of Rome,
+Constantinople, and some of the larger cities in the empire. They
+_admit_, in its fullest extent, the decay of domestic agriculture, and
+consequent ruin of the state, but allege it was owing to this gratuitous
+distribution, which was in fact a poor-law, and not to the free trade in
+grain.[70] But a very little consideration must be sufficient to show
+that this is an elusory distinction; and that it was the unrestricted
+admission of foreign wheat by purchase, which in reality, coupled with
+the contraction of the currency, destroyed the dominion of the legions.
+
+1. In the first place, the number who received these gratuitous
+distributions was, as already shown, _so small_, when compared to the
+whole body of the grain-consuming population, that they could not
+materially have affected the market for agricultural produce in Italy.
+Not more than 150,000 persons received rations in Rome daily, and
+perhaps as many in the other cities of Italy. What was this in a
+peninsula containing at that period sixteen or eighteen millions of
+souls, and with 2,300,000 in its capital alone?[71] It is evident that
+the gratuitous distributions of grain, taking those at their greatest
+extent, could not have embraced a fiftieth part of the Italian
+population. What ruined the agriculturists, who used to feed the
+remaining forty-nine fiftieths? The unlimited importation of cheap grain
+from Spain, Egypt, Sicily, and Lybia, and nothing else.
+
+2. In the next place, even if the gratuitous distributions of grain had
+embraced twenty times the number which they did, nothing can be clearer
+than that the effect _on agriculture_ is the same, whether cheap foreign
+grain is imported by the private importer, or bought and distributed by
+the government. If the home-grower _loses his market_, it is the same
+thing to him whether he does so from the effects of private importation
+or public distribution; whether his formidable competitor is the
+merchant, who brings the Lybian grain to the Tiber; or the government,
+which exacts it as a tribute from Sicily or Egypt. The difference is
+very great to the _urban_ population, whether they receive their foreign
+grain in return for their own labour, or get it doled out to them from
+the government store as the price of keeping quiet. But to the _rural_
+cultivator it is immaterial, whether destruction comes upon him in the
+one way or the other. It is the _importation of foreign grain_ which
+ruins him; and the effect is the same, whether the price paid for is the
+gold of the capitalist, or the blood of the legions.
+
+
+
+
+ELINOR TRAVIS.
+
+A TALE IN THREE CHAPTERS.
+
+
+CHAPTER THE FIRST.
+
+It is now forty years since I found myself, for the first time in my
+life, in the once fashionable city of Bath. I had accompanied thither
+from London a dear friend from whom I had parted two years before at
+Oxford; a man as noble as ingenuous, as gentle as he was brave. Few men
+could boast the advantages enjoyed by Rupert Sinclair. Born of noble
+blood, of a family whose peerage had been raised upon the foundation of
+a huge wealth, handsome in person, intellectual, well-informed,
+enthusiastic and aspiring, he bred a fascination around his existence
+which it was difficult to resist. I had already graduated when Rupert
+Sinclair entered Christ Church as a gentleman commoner; I was, moreover,
+his senior by five years, yet from the moment I saw him until the hour
+of his decease--with one painful interregnum--we were firm and
+unflinching friends. He was sent to the university, like others of his
+rank, to acquire such knowledge of men and books as a temporary
+residence--and that alone--in an atmosphere of mingled learning and
+frivolity, is generally supposed to impart. His father looked upon all
+book knowledge as superfluous, except in a parson or schoolmaster; his
+lady mother would have been shocked to find him, whether at Oxford or
+elsewhere, any thing but the gay and fashionable nonentity which her
+taste and experience had taught her to regard as the perfection of God's
+fair creation. Lord Railton was a courtier, and affected to be a
+politician; her ladyship was a woman of fashion. It is surprising to me
+that, with their views of a nobleman's duties at Oxford, they should
+have thought it necessary to procure for their son the services of one
+who had nothing better to offer for his amusement, than the poor
+learning he had picked up at Eton and elsewhere, to dole out again to
+the best advantage, for the support of himself and widowed mother. I
+ought rather to say it was surprising to me _then_. I have grown wiser
+since. A tutor was necessary to the position of Lord Railton's son, and
+it was my happiness to be chosen the instructor of Rupert Sinclair.
+Every possible pains had been taken to ruin the intellect and impair the
+moral faculties of the youth. His earliest teachers had been strictly
+enjoined to give him no tasks which should subject him to the slightest
+inconvenience, and were forbidden, under pain of dismissal, to ruffle
+the serenity of his temper, or intercept the slightest movement of his
+mind, however cross or wayward. Rupert in his very cradle had been
+taught, both by precept and example, that his equals in rank were his
+fellow creatures, and that all below him were--creatures, it is true,
+but the fellows of one another, and not of him and such as he; that the
+men to whose virtue, discretion, and conduct he was confided--his
+TEACHERS--were--oh, mockery of mockeries!--his dependents and inferiors,
+and necessary to him as his nurse or footman, but not a whit more so!
+Lord Railton was a tyrant, self-willed and imperious by nature, and as
+cold-blooded and selfish as a superadded artistocratic education could
+render him. He saw little of his children, whom he terrified when he did
+see them, and busied himself in this world with little more than the
+intrigues and plots of the political junto to whom he was bound by a
+community of interests, rather than affectionately attached. It is my
+firm belief that miracles have not ceased upon the earth. Invisible
+angels interpose now, as did the living saints of old, to repair the
+faults and infirmities of nature, and by a suspension of our ordinary
+laws to proclaim the might and mercy of the Divinity. How but by a
+miracle could the character of Rupert Sinclair have belied the natural
+reasoning of all ordinary mortals, exhibiting the utter annihilation of
+the intimate connexion of cause and effect, and the independence of the
+infant soul, when God so wills it, of the machinations of the wicked,
+and the vicious trifling of the foolish? The good sense of the youth had
+strengthened and increased under the enervating system which would have
+destroyed a weaker brain and a less honest heart. I was the tutor of
+Sinclair, but I suffered him to sketch out his own plan of study. His
+mother had not failed to forward me the usual instructions respecting
+the treatment of her darling child; but had she been silent I should not
+have insisted upon a strict adherence to the college system with one
+who, neither in the university nor in the world, to which he was about
+to be summoned, would be tasked to remember or repeat one syllable of
+his lessons. Great is the temptation to dwell upon these early days of
+our attachment; for, alas! a pang must wait upon the pen when it traces
+the last record of a period unclouded by grief. An account of the
+earliest springtime that promised so fair a summer and harvest, is, it
+is true, not necessary to the main plot of the drama I have undertaken
+to write; but one of its chief characters can hardly be thoroughly
+understood without some reference to his conduct and pursuits previously
+to the commencement of the action. To say that I was prepossessed in
+favour of my pupil after my first conversation with him, is to say but
+little. I was at once surprised, delighted, and charmed. I had expected
+to receive a spoiled child of fortune; a giddy, self-willed, arrogant,
+and overbearing boy. I met with one whose demeanour was gentle, modest,
+and sedate. A childlike simplicity governed his manners; reflection and
+sound judgment his discourse. Long before the close of my young friend's
+academical career I had gained his entire confidence--he my heart; and
+_at_ the close of it, I had not occasion to change one opinion or one
+sentiment entertained for my charge at the commencement of our
+friendship; so transparent are the minds of the ingenuous, and of those
+whom nature shelters from the baleful influences of life. It must,
+however, be stated, that in the all but perfect specimen of humanity
+presented to the world in the person of Rupert Sinclair, there existed
+one flaw to convict it of mortality, and to establish its relation with
+universal error. The simplicity spoken of as characteristic of the man,
+degenerated into weakness; faith in the goodness of his fellow-creatures
+into glaring credulity. It is a singular fact, and one that must be
+accounted for by those who have made the _Mind_ an especial study, that
+whilst no man was quicker in detecting the slightest indication of his
+own imperfection in another, no one could be less conscious of its
+existence in himself, or less alive to imposition, the moment it was
+practised under his own eye, and against his own good-nature. How many
+times, during his residence in Oxford, Rupert Sinclair became the
+victim of the unprincipled and the sharper, I will not venture to say,
+prepared as I am to assert that no discovery of falsehood and imposture
+ever convinced him of the folly of his benevolence, or of the
+worthlessness of the objects upon whom his favours had been showered.
+The world is said to be divided into two classes; into those who suspect
+all men until they are proved honest, and those who believe all men
+honest until they are proved to be false. The name of Rupert Sinclair
+might be written in neither category. He not only believed the world to
+be good prior to experience, but he denied it to be bad, let experience
+succeed as it might in convicting it of evil.
+
+It was exactly two years after Sinclair quitted Oxford, that I received
+a letter from him, requesting me to meet him in London as soon after the
+receipt of his letter as my engagements would permit. The long vacation
+had again commenced. Rupert was no longer a student, or, to speak more
+correctly, books had now become the solace and recreation of his leisure
+hours, rather than the business of his life. To please his fond and very
+foolish mother, he had accepted a commission in the Guards. The small
+ambition of Lady Railton was consummated the moment her noble boy
+appeared in her drawing-room "en grande tenue;" as for the peer, he was
+too absorbed in his own diplomacy to interfere with that of her
+ladyship, in whose knowledge of the world and sound discretion he placed
+unbounded faith. I attended to the summons of Sinclair without delay.
+Upon arriving in London I went to his hotel, and found him recovering
+from a fit of illness which at one period had threatened his life, but
+of which he had as yet kept his family in ignorance. He had been
+recommended by his physicians to try the waters and mild temperature of
+Bath; and he was willing to obey them, provided I would become his
+companion. My time was my own, and I loved Sinclair too well to throw an
+obstacle in his way, had not the offer itself been temptation enough to
+one who had passed so many months of physical inactivity, without one
+holiday, in the dusty gloominess of college rooms. In the course of two
+days our preparations were made, and we quitted London.
+
+A week glided by in happy idleness. The invalid, compelled to keep his
+room for many hours of the day, was thrown upon his resources, and upon
+such as I could command for his amusement. The past is always a pleasant
+subject of discourse where the speakers are young, and the past is a day
+of sunshine, still lingering and warm. The days we had seen were bright
+enough, and to speak of them was to bring them back in all their recent
+freshness. Rupert was twenty-one, and he wondered at the ingratitude of
+man that called this world a scene of strife and misery. I was
+twenty-six, and as yet without a calamity. I had never known my father;
+and I had maintained my mother in comfort for many years. I had yet to
+part with _her_.
+
+Another week, and the invalid was convalescent. The walks were extended
+and the prescriptions torn up. Invitations came and were accepted. A
+distant relative of Lady Railton was in Bath. Sinclair visited her, and
+was the next day a guest at her table. There was another guest there.
+Her name was ELINOR TRAVIS.
+
+Twenty times, on the day I speak of, had Sinclair resolved not to keep
+his engagement, but to send an apology to Mrs Twisleton, and to return
+to London on the following morning. He had become tired, he said, of
+idleness, and the frivolities that surrounded us. One word of
+encouragement from me, and Sinclair would _not_ have dined with Mrs
+Twisleton, would _not_ have met with _her_ who gave the colouring to his
+future life, would _not_ have blasted every----but I must not
+anticipate.
+
+General Travis and his family were amongst the most fashionable of the
+gay multitude then resident at Bath. They lived in first-rate style, and
+gathered about them all who aspired to a position in that upper world
+peopled pre-eminently by the "ton." The general was reputed a man of
+enormous wealth, and his banker's book procured for him the respect that
+was denied him in Debrett. The general was the father of two
+children--daughters--Elinor and Adela. His wife was also living. They
+were all, according to report, essentially dashing people. So much I
+knew of them at the period of Sinclair's first acquaintance with the
+ill-fated Elinor.
+
+After dining with Mrs Twisleton, Sinclair altered his mind. His
+departure was delayed. Within a day or two he was again invited to Mrs
+Twisleton's, and again he met the general and his family. Well, there
+was nothing to excite suspicion in all this! Sinclair said nothing; no
+observation escaped me. I concluded that a few days would put an end to
+the new interest that had been raised, and that we should return to
+London as quietly as we had left it. I was grievously mistaken.
+
+Since our arrival in Bath we had been early risers, and our habits
+generally somewhat primitive. Suddenly Sinclair took it into his head to
+walk without me for an hour or so before breakfast. He invariably looked
+flushed and confused on his return. At least I thought so. I was
+puzzled, but still said nothing.
+
+I had been favoured by Mrs Twisleton with one or two invitations to
+dinner, but had never cared to accept them. I resolved, should
+opportunity again offer, to accompany Sinclair to this lady's house.
+Whilst waiting, somewhat impatiently and in vain, for another invitation
+from Mrs Twisleton, a grand ball was announced at General Travis's, and
+Sinclair was in the number of the favoured guests. He was requested to
+bring his friend. "His friend" did not refuse.
+
+There were in truth grandeur, profusion, and style sufficient in the
+entertainments of that evening. No additional outlay could have added to
+the sumptuous provision that was made for the gratification and delight
+of every sense. Eye and ear were ravished by the luxuries set before
+them, and the grosser appetites were not forgotten. What Indian wealth!
+What princely hospitality! Well might the general be esteemed the most
+royal of entertainers. Nobility lost none of its prerogative in mixing
+in such a scene as this, upon which an emperor might have descended with
+no dishonour to his ermine. I experienced for a time the full power of
+the enchantment, and acknowledged, against my will, the sovereign
+dominion of Mammon. I was presented to my hostess and the general. The
+former was a woman of fifty or thereabouts, delicately formed, pale, and
+somewhat sickly-looking; there were traces of feminine beauty on her
+countenance, but, such as they were, retreating rapidly before disease
+or care, or some ailment hidden from the looker-on. She seemed more like
+a gentle handmaiden than the mistress of the happy feast. The general
+was of another race of beings. He stood six feet two, but his extreme
+height was modified by the admirable proportions of his frame. He was
+firmly built, and but for a certain unsatisfactory expression in his
+countenance, might have been considered one of the handsomest men of his
+day. This expression it is not easy to describe. It proceeded from his
+eye, and seemed to communicate with all his features, leaving the stamp
+of low cunning upon every one. The eye was large and grey, and very
+restless; always in motion; always attempting to convey more than the
+inner man would answer for, or the observer take for granted. It had a
+volubility of expression like his tongue, and both bespoke their owner
+no efficient actor.
+
+"You look magnificent to-night," said Sinclair, addressing the general
+after my introduction.
+
+"So, so, with slender opportunities!" said the general. "See us in
+London, my young friend. No place in the world like London for the
+exercise of a man's genius--a woman's it should be said, to-night, for
+Elinor is the presiding genius here. Have you ever seen these flowers?
+Pretty, eh? Her handiwork."
+
+Sinclair trifled for a moment with an exquisite specimen of artificial
+flowers, adorning an alabaster vase; but he gave no answer.
+
+"Have you seen her to-night?" continued the general.
+
+"Not yet."
+
+"She's with the Indian Yahoo, no doubt. He arrived this afternoon, and
+she will give him no rest. She has engaged him for the first four
+quadrilles, that she may hear the natural history of the Chimpanzee
+without interruption, which her cousin has promised to relate to her at
+the first convenient opportunity."
+
+"Her cousin has arrived then?" asked Sinclair, turning slightly pale.
+
+"This very day. Our information is quite correct. His mother, the Begum,
+is dead, and has left him enough in jewels to purchase an empire. The
+specie found in chests is immense. A lucky dog, with that brown face of
+his! If it were as black as soot, he might command a duchess. Elinor and
+he are first cousins, and are much attached, although they haven't seen
+each other for years."
+
+As the general spoke, music struck up, and a movement in our immediate
+neighbourhood announced the approach of dancers. Amongst them was a
+young and lovely woman. Her arm was in that of a small man, with a
+copper-coloured face and disgusting features. His beautiful partner,
+more beautiful by the contrast, looked proud of her prize, which, if I
+correctly interpreted the admiring gaze of the assembly, was coveted for
+one reason or another by every dowager and unmarried woman in the room.
+I felt an instinctive longing to smother the Yahoo.
+
+Inexpressibly lovely looked Elinor Travis, as she gracefully led off the
+merry dance. She had reached her twentieth year, and was in the full
+glory of her womanhood. Tall, yet exquisitely moulded, she left nothing
+for fancy to desire or imagination to create. Her dark and animated eye
+sparkled with living joy, and her perfect features were illuminated by
+its fire. I had never before beheld a creature so richly endowed with
+natural gifts; one who united in her person so much grace, sculpture,
+and expression; and yet, strange to say, the feeling all inspired was
+the very opposite to that which might have been expected. The
+consciousness of beauty was too definitely written upon that brow. That
+melting eye had inherited too much of the worldliness that played about
+the eager vision of her sire. Maidenly modesty and retirement were
+wanting to elevate and dignify mere voluptuousness. I was repulsed
+rather than attracted by a form, which, had it been more feminine, might
+have served for an angel; and as it was, was not sufficiently divine for
+a mortal woman. Such was my first impression, formed almost upon the
+instant. It never was removed.
+
+Sinclair and I looked on. The spirits of Elinor were exuberant. She
+laboured as it seemed, under more than ordinary excitement. She laughed
+and chatted with her tawny partner with a delight which it was
+impossible for such a copper monster to create. The gaiety of the lady
+had but one effect upon her partner. At short intervals he opened his
+jaws and exhibited his teeth to the company. Having rivalled a hyena in
+the hideousness of his grin, he closed the jaws and hid his molars. Far
+different was the effect upon another. It took but a very little time to
+discover that Rupert Sinclair had not been proof against the charms of
+this darling of nature. His heart had felt her witchery, and his spirit
+was enchained--not utterly and irretrievably, I fondly trusted, for I
+knew his worth, and could not willingly entrust him to such doubtful
+keeping. Elinor Travis was not the wife for Rupert Sinclair. Thanks to
+the Yahoo, my fears at first were not alarming; still it was vexatious
+enough to behold the pain with which Sinclair evidently regarded the
+good fortune of the Indian, and the complacency with which the monster
+received the favour of one of the loveliest of her sex. Once during the
+dance, the change of the figure brought the lady within a few feet of
+Sinclair. Her back was towards him, but, as if aware of his vicinity,
+she turned round and cast the lustre of her full eye upon him. She
+smiled, and archly nodded. Rupert shook like a leaf; the colour mounted
+to his cheek, and his heart beat almost audibly. I grew alarmed. My
+faith in the Yahoo was shaken, and I trembled for my friend. The
+position of the dancers was again reversed. Elinor faced us. Her eye
+once more was fixed upon Rupert, but this time, as I believed, exulting
+in triumph. Could it be possible that she was aware of her influence,
+and that she inhumanly trifled with this man's affection? What meant
+that ardent gaze and that triumphant smile? As the general had informed
+us, so it happened. The Yahoo danced four quadrilles with Elinor, and
+then vouchsafed the loan of his blackness to other ladies for the rest
+of the evening. Miss Travis being at liberty, I proposed to Rupert an
+adjournment to our hotel. The gentleman, in answer, started up and
+secured the hand of Elinor for the next dance. His chair at my side was
+filled on the instant by the general himself. I listened and replied to
+the questions of the latter as well as I could, watching every movement,
+step, and gesture of the young sorcerer and her victim.
+
+"Your friend, Mr Wilson, is not so gay as usual. What has happened?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"You return to London, I believe, in"----
+
+The general paused.
+
+"Mr Sinclair's leave of absence," I answered, "will soon expire."
+
+"A gentle-spirited man, Mr Wilson. He does you credit."
+
+"He owes me little, general," I answered. "Providence has been bountiful
+to him."
+
+"Strange! And his father, they say, is as great a brute."
+
+"Lord Railton," I said, "is not so amiable as his son."
+
+"Proud and overbearing! But a magnificent rent-roll though! His son does
+not appear a man of the world. Vastly good-natured, but he wants fire
+and character."
+
+"Mr Sinclair does not do himself justice," I replied. "There is more in
+him than meets the eye."
+
+"You are a scholar, Mr Wilson," suddenly exclaimed the general, "and can
+appreciate a literary curiosity. Do me the favour to accompany me to my
+study. I have a Greek manuscript which I picked up in Samaria, and which
+they tell me is invaluable."
+
+Before I could reply, the general was on his legs, and conducting me to
+his room. The dance was still proceeding.
+
+"I am a simple man, sir," said the general when we reached the
+apartment, "and very moderate in my desires. We are often called
+avaricious when we are simply prudent. I despise wealth but for the sake
+of my children. There," he exclaimed suddenly, showing me a
+jewel-case--"there's stuff that would buy up Bath."
+
+"Indeed!"
+
+"What do you imagine this to be, Mr Wilson?" next inquired the general,
+holding up a folded letter.
+
+"I cannot guess!" said I.
+
+"An offer of a peerage. Why should I accept it? I have no son, and am
+without personal ambition. The world do not give men credit for such
+self-denial. You are a constant visitor at Sackville Park, I presume?"
+
+"No, in truth. I have been there but once."
+
+"Lady Railton doats upon her son, I believe?"
+
+"A very fond mother," I replied.
+
+The general eyed me suspiciously, and went no further; but he produced
+forthwith his manuscript from Samaria. It was really a curiosity in its
+way, being a transcript of one of the gospels in a dialect which I had
+never before seen, and of which, I think, but few specimens can remain.
+But I had a fidgety desire to get back to the ball-room, which prevented
+any thing like a satisfactory inspection of the precious document.
+
+"Shall we return, general?" I asked.
+
+"By all means," said the general, evincing at the same time no
+disposition to budge. "I trust, Mr Wilson," he continued, "that you will
+be no stranger at our house. We are humble people, as you see us, but we
+have friends at court. A man of your talents should command preferment;
+but these are sad times, and the best fare ill enough without a helping
+hand. I stand well with the premier."
+
+"No doubt, deservedly," said I. "You have probably seen much service,
+general?"
+
+"A little, a little;" replied the soldier with mock humility. "But as to
+yourself, Mr Wilson, they must make a bishop of you."
+
+"Oh, general!" said I with unnecessary modesty.
+
+"Ah, but I say they must! Leave that to me. We want sound and good men
+like yourself at the head of the church. Methodism must be put down. It
+is increasing frightfully. Vigorous and learned men are required to
+cope with it."
+
+"Methodism," said I, with becoming warmth, "is undoubtedly a great curse
+to the church at the present moment, and every honest churchman is
+bound, to the extent of his ability, to oppose its further progress."
+
+"My own words, Mr Wilson; and I beg you not to suspect me of flattery
+when I tell you that half a dozen men like yourself would do more to
+bring back a salutary state of things than any legal enactments they
+could contrive. Sinclair has told me of your energy, high honour, and
+attainments, and it would be a sin to suffer them to be inactive."
+
+I confess I shall never forgive myself for having patiently, nay
+somewhat greedily, swallowed such monstrous and glaring trash as that
+above related, and for having been cajoled by it into spending one long
+half hour with my wily general in his study. I left the room at length,
+in a state of heroic excitement, and in time to discover that Rupert
+Sinclair and his partner had quitted the apartment in which I had
+previously left them.
+
+There remained upon my mind no longer a doubt of Rupert's attachment to
+this lovely woman, and I contemplated its issue with no feeling of
+gratification or delight. Notwithstanding the agreeable communications
+of the general, I could not thoroughly trust him; and as for the young
+lady herself, as I have already hinted, she was as adapted to the mild
+nature of Sinclair as a lioness to a lamb. What would Lord Railton say
+to the match? What would Lady Railton do, with her sublimated notions of
+marquises and dukes? I deplored the ill luck that had brought us to
+Bath, and resolved to carry the youth back whilst he still remained
+master of his actions. But where was he? I sought him in vain in every
+public room of the house. Neither he nor the syren could be found. Vexed
+and hurt, although I scarcely knew why, I determined to quit the place,
+and to return to the hotel. Attached to the general's house was a
+spacious pleasure garden, and upon the occasion of this fete it was
+studded with a number of small lamps, which cast a picturesque and
+oriental gleam in parts, leaving the remaining portion of the ground in
+deeper shade. The night was lovely. Passing the door that led into the
+garden, I turned into the latter, almost without a thought. Visitors
+were there before me, and to escape them I retired into the gloom.
+Within a few yards of me passed the pair of whom I had been in search.
+The arm of Sinclair was twined around the waist of Elinor, and his head
+was bent on the ground. They advanced, and were soon beyond my ken. I
+still heard their steps; but suddenly these ceased. The lovers had
+stopped, and to my great discomfort they spoke.
+
+"You do not know him," said a voice that did no dishonour to the coral
+lips through which it came. "His heart is fixed upon this hated match."
+
+"You smiled upon him, Elinor," said Rupert, in a voice of emotion; "you
+gave him hope."
+
+"For your sake, Sinclair, I smiled upon the man I hated; for your dear
+sake. The least suspicion of the truth, and we are ruined. I cannot have
+you banished from me."
+
+"What is to be done?" exclaimed Rupert in despair.
+
+I could hear no more. The voices dissolved into whispers, and these soon
+ceased. The fate of Rupert Sinclair was sealed.
+
+Now, what was my course at this alarming crisis? What steps did it
+behove me--the friend, tutor, and counsellor of Rupert Sinclair--to take
+at such a moment as this, when the happiness of his whole life was about
+to be decided? Was there, in fact, any thing to do? Had not Sinclair
+already reached that point at which remonstrance is vain, and advice
+impertinent? And why should I remonstrate at all? What had I to say
+against a union with a lovely and accomplished woman, whose father had
+perhaps wealth enough to buy off the prejudices of Lord and Lady
+Railton, had they been ten times as bigoted as they really were? What
+could I produce against the young lady herself but a prejudice formed at
+first sight, and perhaps as unfounded as it had been hastily adopted?
+Was not Sinclair old enough to select his partner for himself; and when
+did interference in the delicate affairs of love ever lead to any thing
+but the confusion of the intruder, and the acceleration of the mischief
+he absurdly hoped to prevent? I was at the height of my perplexity when
+Sinclair returned to me. I heard his footsteps at the door, and
+immediately plunged into my bedroom.
+
+Next morning I was awake betimes, but Rupert was up before me. Indeed,
+when I beheld him, I doubted whether he had been to rest at all. He
+looked haggard and distressed. I took my cue from his downcast
+appearance.
+
+"Rupert," said I, "it is my intention to quit Bath."
+
+"When?" he inquired.
+
+"Possibly to-day. To-morrow at the furthest."
+
+Rupert sighed.
+
+"We return together, I presume?" said I in continuation.
+
+"Wilson," answered Rupert, in a tone of kindness, "I have never deceived
+you yet; I will not deceive you now. Nor shall you suffer in any way
+from acts of mine. I cannot leave this place. It is not expedient that
+you should stay."
+
+"Your leave of absence soon expires," I said.
+
+"I shall not fail to be at my duty, Wilson," continued Sinclair. "But
+there is important business to do before I leave this city."
+
+"You have entered, Rupert, into some rash engagement."
+
+"Into an engagement--yes; not rashly, I believe; for I have held
+consultation with my heart--deep, earnest communings, that have
+sanctioned my fondest inclination."
+
+"Beware, Sinclair!" I answered. "In some cases, the heart is no safe
+monitor; and inclination and conviction become convertible terms."
+
+"You know my secret, Wilson."
+
+"I can guess it."
+
+"You saw her last night. I wished you to see her. I desired to hear from
+your lips a confirmation of the regard she has inspired in one"----
+
+I shook my head.
+
+"You are right--you are right," proceeded Sinclair, hastily. "You shall
+not speak. You shall not even tell me how divine a being Heaven has
+placed within my reach. You shall not be involved in the calamity which
+an irrevocable act may bring upon two whose crime it is to love too
+well."
+
+"Rupert," I replied, "I am not disposed to desert you at so critical a
+period of our life. We are both young. You are enthusiastic; your good
+opinion of mankind has before now led you into error. Have you well
+pondered on this step? Can you rely on Elinor Travis."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Is she as brave as she is gentle--as faithful as she is fair?"
+
+"I would answer for her with my life."
+
+"Yes, or with twenty lives, if you had them, for the venture. Yet you
+have not known her long."
+
+"Long enough to value and to love her. Does it require an age to
+discover truthfulness so palpable as hers?"
+
+"I have done, Sinclair," said I. "God grant you may be happy!"
+
+"You return to London, then?"
+
+"Such is my intention."
+
+"You do wisely. I would not have you stay with me. You must be clear
+from all participation in this business, let it end as it may. I know my
+father. His anger and his vengeance, however undeserved, would fall on
+you."
+
+"Would these were my greatest fears!" I answered, with a sigh.
+
+"Fear not for _me_, Wilson. The happiness of your friend is bound up
+with that of Elinor Travis. I tell you, in all sincerity, I cannot live
+without her. Fate decrees our movements. No woman but she has made me
+conscious of that great fountain of love which lies within the bosom of
+us all--none has had power to direct the stream, and to enchain me,
+heart and soul, to her will."
+
+"And should that will," I quickly urged, "be found as evil as
+resistless"----
+
+"Prove it so, and its power ceases on the instant. No; it is resistless,
+because virtuous and pure. I submit to an enchantment, but it is
+practised by a fairy as good as she is beautiful."
+
+It was useless to argue so abstruse a point with so interested and
+impassioned a reasoner. I remained silent.
+
+"One promise I must exact from you," continued Sinclair. "In passing
+through London, you will not see my father."
+
+"I shall not wait upon his lordship," I replied.
+
+"Nor mention, if you please, one syllable of this affair, should chance
+bring you together. For the present, I have sufficient reasons for
+wishing you to keep my secret sacred. In good time all will be known."
+
+"You shall be obeyed, of course."
+
+"Thanks," said Sinclair, grasping my hand, and holding it
+affectionately: "all will be well, I trust."
+
+For the rest of the day, the subject was not revived. I begged Sinclair
+to follow his own pleasure, without reference to me, and to leave me to
+the few arrangements necessary before departure. He insisted, however,
+upon spending the last day with me; and during many hours of
+well-remembered intercourse, he evinced a friendliness and affectionate
+regard such as I had never before experienced--even from him. We sat
+together until the early hour of morning chid us to our beds.
+
+"There is still one thing to say," said Sinclair, when we parted for the
+night, "and it had better be communicated now. Heaven knows, Wilson,
+when and where shall be our next meeting. It may be soon; it may be
+never. Death to one of us--a hundred circumstances may interfere between
+our hopes and their fruition. I have desired to tell you, many times,
+what I am sure you will not hear unkindly, although the fear of
+offending you has kept me silent. Yet, you ought to know it. I am sure
+your peace of mind will be secured when you know that the present
+enjoyments of your mother can, under no circumstances, ever be
+decreased. I have taken care, should any thing happen to yourself or me,
+that her latter days shall remain as peaceful as you, her faithful son,
+have rendered them."
+
+I would have spoken to my friend and benefactor, but could not. I shook
+his hand cordially, and an honest tear told him my gratitude. So we
+parted, as I half feared for ever; for his words and actions were full
+of evil omen.
+
+Upon reaching my bedroom on this eventful evening, the first thing that
+caught my eye was a mysterious document lying on the table--a lady's
+note. "A mistake," thought I, approaching the unusual visitor. Not so;
+it was addressed to me. I opened it, and read. It ran as follows:--
+
+     "Dear sir--Pardon my abruptness. As a friend of Mr Rupert Sinclair,
+     I entreat five minutes' conversation. I shall be at home to-morrow
+     at noon. Pray, come. His happiness depends upon your punctuality.
+     Keep this communication secret.--Yours, &c.,
+
+     "CHARLOTTE TWISLETON."
+
+The plot was thickening with a vengeance. What could this mean? And what
+was I to do? Clearly to wait upon the lady, as directed, to postpone my
+departure, to forfeit my fare, and to mix myself deeper than ever in a
+mystery, which, trusting to appearances, was likely to end in the ruin
+of Mr Rupert Sinclair, and his more luckless tutor. Taking care to avoid
+Sinclair in the morning, I directed his servant to acquaint him with my
+change of views; and quitted the hotel some hour or two before the time
+fixed for the anxious interview. Punctually at noon, I presented myself
+at Mrs Twisleton's door. My alarm was intense when I reached that lady's
+apartment. She had evidently been waiting my arrival with extreme
+impatience. Before I could speak or bow, she rushed towards me, and
+exclaimed--
+
+"Is it over, sir? Is he gone?"
+
+"What over, madam?" I answered. "Who gone?"
+
+"Mr Sinclair. Is he married?"
+
+"Married?"
+
+"Yes. Married. They are to be, if they are not already. Take him to
+town, sir. Drag him away. We shall be ruined."
+
+I had thought so for the last four-and-twenty hours; but I had certainly
+not included Mrs Twisleton in the calculation.
+
+"Mr Thompson," continued the lady, forgetting my name in her anxiety,
+"Lord Railton will go raving mad if this should come about. We shall all
+be punished. I know him well. You, for having brought Mr Sinclair here;
+I, for having introduced him to the impostors; and himself for having
+been caught in their snares. And he is a powerful man, and has the means
+to punish us."
+
+He had certainly the means of punishing Mrs Twisleton; for her son, at
+college, had been already promised the next presentation to a valuable
+living in Yorkshire. Her fears on my account were hardly so well
+founded.
+
+"Look here, Mr Wilson," said Mrs Twisleton, hurrying to her
+writing-desk, and taking from it a letter, which she placed in my hands.
+"Read that."
+
+I ran my eye over the document. It was from a female correspondent in
+London and it conjured Mrs Twisleton to avoid all connexion whatever
+with General Travis and his too fascinating family. The general was
+described as a bold bad man, utterly ruined, involved beyond the
+possibility of recovery, a mere hanger-on of fashion, an adventurer. His
+wife was spoken of as a mere simple instrument in his hand; naturally
+disposed to goodness, but perverted by the cruel necessity of her
+position. But what said this timely--oh, if but timely!--informer
+respecting _her_ whose name I greedily sought out in these disastrous
+pages? I grew sick as I proceeded in the narrative. Elinor Travis--so
+said the letter--was a clever, subtle, accomplished, and designing
+woman. Numerous had been her flirtations, not few her conquests; but the
+game she had brought down, it had never been worth the general's while
+to bag. The general had been a great traveller. He had passed some years
+in India. During his residence there, the fair fame of Elinor Travis had
+been--oh, horror!--sullied; falsely so, some said; but still sullied.
+She had loved an officer with whom, it was reported--I read no more.
+
+"The writer of this letter, madam," I asked--"is she trustworthy?"
+
+"Alas! alas! yes," exclaimed Mrs Twisleton, in despair.
+
+"It must be prevented by all and every means," I continued.
+
+"We are still safe then?"
+
+"Yes, although I cannot answer for an hour. He must be spoken to,
+remonstrated with"----
+
+"Threatened," added Mrs Twisleton, stamping with her foot. "Any thing to
+save us."
+
+"I will appeal to his reason."
+
+"Then we are lost," said the lady, emphatically. "That family never
+listened to reason yet."
+
+"Do you know," I enquired, "this great foreigner whom they call the
+Yahoo?"
+
+"Oh, no! no!" exclaimed Mrs Twisleton, shaking her head impatiently. "I
+don't know any of them. I disown them all; they are all impostors. I
+said so from the beginning. Oh, Mr Wilson, what _can_ he have to do with
+it? How can you talk so idly?"
+
+"Mrs Twisleton," said I, "have I your permission to communicate the
+contents of this letter to Mr Sinclair?"
+
+"Yes, but never mention my name in the matter. Take the address of the
+writer, and communicate with her yourself. Save your friend, and make
+your fortune. Get us all well out of the scrape, and then depend upon me
+for speaking about you to his lordship. He shall know the part you have
+played; and no man can be more generous than Lord Railton when the fit
+is on him."
+
+"Do not trouble yourself, madam, on my account," I replied. "This letter
+I will borrow, with your leave, for awhile. There is not a moment to
+lose. The next hour may prove fatal to the interests of our unfortunate
+friend."
+
+I had not spoken before Mrs Twisleton pulled the bell violently, shook
+my hand eagerly, and urged me to the door. Within ten minutes, I was
+face to face with Sinclair.
+
+"Sinclair," said I, "you must return to London with me."
+
+"What has happened, then?" he inquired.
+
+"You stand on a precipice," I continued. "Advance but another step, and
+you are lost."
+
+"Translate your language, friend," said Rupert, "and suffer me at least
+to understand you."
+
+"You are mistaken, Sinclair--cruelly deceived."
+
+"What, again?" he asked, with a smile.
+
+"Yes, again and again. No experience teaches you. No conviction reaches
+your judgment. Will you listen to me, and believe me?"
+
+"I will listen to you."
+
+"The family of General Travis are not what you suppose them. I can prove
+them unworthy your confidence and affection. Will you link your fate
+with that of one who"----
+
+I hesitated.
+
+"Go on," said Sinclair, calmly.
+
+"Read, read for yourself!" I exclaimed, placing the letter I had
+received from Mrs Twisleton, without further ceremony, in his hands.
+
+He did read--every line, without the smallest surprise or
+perturbation--and then folded the document, and gave it back to me. I
+thought him mad.
+
+"This is no news to me, Wilson," he said quietly. "I have been put on my
+guard respecting these slanderers. Their baseness does not take me by
+surprise. The trick is a poor one."
+
+"The trick!"
+
+"Yes; if it deserve no harsher name. What know you of the writer of that
+letter?"
+
+I had but one answer to give to that question--"Nothing." And the name
+of Mrs Twisleton was sacred.
+
+"I thought so," proceeded Rupert. "Every assertion contained in that
+precious document has already met with a sufficient refutation. I know
+_my_ informant, and can rely upon _my_ information; advantages of which,
+dear Wilson, you cannot boast."
+
+"Sinclair," I replied, with warmth, "remember what passed between us
+yesterday. 'Prove,' said you, 'that Elinor Travis is less good than
+beautiful and her influence ceases from that moment.' Give me time to
+prove it, or to ask your pardon and hers for as much as I have said
+already. I must exact this from you. It is all I ask. With this document
+before me, I can demand no less."
+
+"Do as you will. What do you propose?"
+
+"To go at once to town; to seek out the writer of this letter, and to
+obtain from her proofs of her allegations which even you must respect
+and listen to. If I fail to secure them, you shall be pained no more by
+interference of mine."
+
+"Be it so," said Sinclair; "I await your return here."
+
+Upon the evening of this day I was in London, and on the following
+morning at the residence of the lady whom I sought. Ill luck attended my
+steps. She was ill, and could not be seen. For a week I remained in
+London, unable to gain an interview, or to communicate with her. I
+obtained the name of her physician, waited upon him, and asked him to
+convey a letter from me to his patient. It was impossible. It was of the
+highest consequence to keep the lady tranquil. In every post I wrote to
+Sinclair, informing him of my disappointment, and conjuring him to take
+no steps until my mind, as well as his, was satisfied. He returned no
+answer to my communications, but I relied upon his friendship. Upon the
+eighth day of my absence, sick to death with impatience and idleness,
+and no nearer to my object than on the first day of my arrival, I
+resolved to return to Bath, and to remain with my friend until I should
+receive intelligence of the lady's convalescence. Something might be
+done by remonstrance and entreaty. To leave him to himself, was to give
+up every chance of his salvation.
+
+The coach in which I travelled halted at Marlborough for dinner. When I
+alighted, I perceived, but took no particular notice of a post-chaise
+standing at the door of the inn. I had scarcely set foot in the house,
+however, before I encountered General Travis. The moment he caught sight
+of me, he seemed to become agitated or alarmed. He approached me--took
+me by the arm, and led me into the open air.
+
+"Have you seen them?" he eagerly asked.
+
+"Seen whom?" I asked in return.
+
+"Your friend. He is a villain!"
+
+"General Travis," I said indignantly, "I have no friend to whom that
+term applies, nor must you couple it with any name that's dear to me."
+
+"Forgive me, forgive me!" said the general with evident grief. "I have
+been deceived, cruelly deceived; my house is deserted--my child is
+stolen--they have eloped!"
+
+"Eloped!"
+
+"Yes; Mr Sinclair and my daughter. This very morning. Your friend, my
+Elinor!"
+
+The general stamped; then walked furiously about, whilst I stood
+thunderstruck.
+
+"He never spoke to me on the matter; as I am a living man, he never
+hinted to me his attachment. Could I have suspected it--dreamed it? Oh,
+my child, my child!"
+
+I looked hard at the man, as intently as my agitation would permit, and
+I believed his passion to be genuine and honest. Tears were in his eyes,
+and he wrung his hands, and raved like men in deep affliction. Could I
+be deceived?
+
+"Whither have they gone?" I asked.
+
+"God knows; I missed my child at breakfast. She had never been absent
+before. I was alarmed, but looked for her return. At noon, we heard that
+she had been seen at the distance of half a mile from the city, walking
+quickly with Mr Sinclair. At Mr Sinclair's hotel, I learned that he had
+quitted the city, and had ordered a chaise and four to meet him a mile
+off, at ten o'clock precisely. I followed them at once, and traced them
+for twenty miles, and then lost sight of them altogether."
+
+"What is your intention now?"
+
+"To take the north road, and, if possible, to overtake and recover her.
+I am heart-broken and distracted. He has robbed me of a treasure, dearer
+to me"----
+
+Fresh horses had been put to the general's carriage, and the postilions
+were already in the saddle; not a moment was to be lost. Before the
+general could finish his speech, he was seated in the chaise, and
+driving away at the rate of fifteen miles an hour.
+
+My feelings may be imagined. What to do, I knew not; and there was
+little time to consider. The dinner had been transacted during our
+anxious conference, and the horses' heads were looking towards Bath. The
+coachman mounted the box. I ascended the other side, and took my seat
+next to him, quite mechanically.
+
+"Knowing gentleman, that 'ere," said Jehu, "as you conwersed with."
+
+"Do you know him then?" I asked with curiosity.
+
+Jehu closed one eye; rubbed his chin against his comforter, and said,
+"hexcessively!"
+
+"What of him?"
+
+"Werry deep and werry singular. I've druv him many a time."
+
+"He's very rich," said I.
+
+"Oh, werry! So they say. So I s'pose he is. For my part, I'm no judge of
+mutton till it's cut up. Is he a werry pertickler friend of yours?"
+
+"No friend at all. Scarcely an acquaintance. I have met him but once
+before to-day."
+
+"Then it won't break your heart to hear, that it wouldn't be quite as
+safe as the bank of England to lend him twenty pounds. A box fare once
+told me he wasn't worth a sixpence, and that he'd come down one of these
+days like a crash in a china shop. My fare was an Injyman, as had known
+the gentleman out in them parts, where he was obliged to cut with all
+his family."
+
+"Oh, did he say any thing about the family?"
+
+"No; nothing about the family. Them, he said, was all right, especially
+one beautiful girl as he had, that run the rigs with a hofficer, and
+broke every body else's heart. My eye! wouldn't I have given my
+top-boots to have been that 'ere hofficer!"
+
+I changed the subject of discourse, and not once again did I revert to
+it for the rest of that disastrous journey. Arriving at Bath, I
+proceeded at once to the hotel in which I had left Sinclair. He was
+gone--but no one could tell me whither. The account given by General
+Travis was corroborated by the master of the house. Mr Sinclair had
+ordered a chaise and four to wait for him at the distance of a mile from
+the city--his order had been complied with, and nothing since had been
+heard of him.
+
+"It's very strange," said I.
+
+"Yes, sir, very," replied mine host, "and strange things have happened
+since. You knew General Travis, sir, I believe?"
+
+"I have seen him in Bath; what of him?"
+
+"Dreadful affair that of his. The whole family have vanished."
+
+"Vanished!"
+
+"Yes, sir. Three or four days ago the general's lady vanished with the
+youngest daughter; this morning the eldest daughter vanished by herself;
+and an hour or two afterwards, the general vanished with his own man,
+having previously discharged every other servant in the establishment."
+
+"Is any reason assigned?"
+
+"Debt, they tell me. The family have gone abroad to recover themselves;
+and, whilst they are recovering themselves, scores here will be ruined.
+The house has been beset with creditors this afternoon, and one poor
+fellow in the next street, a working upholsterer, with a family of ten
+children, has been raving at the doors like a madman."
+
+"You are mistaken," I said; "the general has not vanished after the
+manner you describe. To-morrow every thing will be explained. I do not
+feel myself at liberty to say more now. Let me entreat you, however, to
+remove the absurd impression that has been made; and, above all, to
+dispel the unfounded apprehensions of the unfortunate man you speak of."
+
+"Glad to hear you say so," rejoined mine host; "but I doubt it."
+
+He left me and I sallied forth; first to Mrs Twisleton's, who at first
+was not at home, but, receiving my card, sent her servant running half a
+mile, to assure me that she was. Poor Mrs Twisleton! sad and lugubrious
+was she on that melancholy evening. Faithful visions of the unappeasable
+wrath of the proud Lord Railton flickered before her eyes, and pierced
+her very soul.
+
+The next advowson was no advowson at all, as far as she was concerned,
+and her hope and offspring were alike cut off by the terrible and
+irrevocable act of the morning. I found the lady in tears.
+
+"This is a shocking business, madam!" I began.
+
+It was the signal for a flood.
+
+"When did you arrive?" she sobbed.
+
+"An hour since."
+
+"And you have heard of it?"
+
+"Of the elope"----
+
+"Oh, don't, don't, don't speak of it!" shrieked the lady. "It turns me
+sick. He has married a beggar--the daughter of an impostor and a
+swindler."
+
+"Can it be true?"
+
+"Oh, you have been very dilatory and foolish, Mr Wilson," suddenly
+exclaimed Mrs Twisleton in a clear sharp tone, which had nothing of the
+softness of tears about it. "Had I been a man, I would have saved my
+friend from certain infamy. Mr Wilson, I gave you full warning--ample
+time. You cannot deny it."
+
+I sighed.
+
+"And now you have come to Bath again, what do you mean to do?"
+
+I thought for a second or two, and then sighed again.
+
+"Take my advice, sir; it's a woman's, but not the worse for that. If you
+stay here till doomsday, you can't alter what is unalterable. The fool's
+married by this time. The general has broken up his establishment and
+has decamped!"
+
+"Impossible!"
+
+"That may be, but what I tell you is the truth, nevertheless. The mail
+leaves Bath at eleven o'clock. Return by it to London. See Lord Railton
+as soon as you arrive. Make the best you can of this wretched business,
+and prepare him to meet his son without a curse. You need not tell him
+all you know about the general. He will find that out quickly enough;
+nor need you mention my insignificant name at all. The old man has
+feeling left in him; and the mother doats upon her namby-pamby boy.
+Obtain their pardon for your friend, and you will do that friend a
+service which he will never forget, and can never sufficiently repay."
+
+I reflected for a moment; the advice seemed sound. I determined to adopt
+it. Bewildered and vexed, I quitted the lady's house, and walked
+mechanically about the town, from street to street. An hour or two were
+yet at my disposal--heavy, irritating hours, converted into ages by my
+impatience and anxiety. Chance or fate conducted me to the abode of
+General Travis. I stopped before the door, as purposeless as I had just
+approached it. To curse the hour that had connected poor Sinclair with
+the proprietor of that late magnificent and extravagant establishment,
+was a natural movement. I cursed, and proceeded on my walk. I had not,
+however, advanced a few steps, before, looking back, I became aware of a
+light gleaming from one of the windows of the house. I returned. Some
+information might be gained from the servant left in charge of the
+place; possibly a clue to the mystery in which, without any valid
+reason, I had myself become entangled. I found the door of the mansion
+ajar. I knocked, but no one answered; I repeated the summons with as
+little success, and then I walked boldly in--and up-stairs, in order to
+place myself at once in communication with the apartment in which I had
+perceived the faint illumination. Opening the drawing-room door, I
+perceived, as much to my disgust as astonishment--the Yahoo!
+
+That dark gentleman was drunk; there was no doubt of it. He was sitting
+at a table that was literally covered with food, of which he had taken
+to repletion. His coat was off, so was his cravat, and the collar of his
+shirt unbuttoned. Perspiration hung about his cheeks, and his face
+looked very oily. Decanters of wine were before him; a pewter jug of
+ale; and bottles containing more or less of ardent spirits. There was a
+wild expression in his eye, but the general glow of his visage was one
+of fuddled sottishness. He saluted me with a grin.
+
+"Who the debil are you?" he politely asked.
+
+"I was looking," I answered, "for a servant."
+
+"D--n him serbant," exclaimed the Yahoo, speaking in his drunkenness
+like a very nigger. "I gib him a holyday. What are you got to say to
+dat? What do you want?" he proceeded. "Sit down. Enjoy yerself. What do
+you take? Deblish good rum, and no mistake."
+
+_Hold a candle to the Devil_ is a worldly maxim, which I had never an
+opportunity of practising to the letter until now. Much might be learned
+by humoring the monster--nothing by opposing him. I sat down and drank
+his health.
+
+"Thankee, old boy," said he. "I'm deblish glad to see you, upon my soul.
+Gib us your hand. How many are you got?"
+
+"Two," said I.
+
+"That's a lie," replied the nigger hastily. "I see four. But neber mind,
+I'm not partickler. Gib us two of 'em. I say, old boy," he continued,
+"don't you eat nothing? D----d sweet. Sure to make you sick. Him drink
+much as him like."
+
+"You wait the general's return, I presume?" said I, in the vain hope of
+eliciting something from this black moving barrel.
+
+The gentleman tried to look me full in the face; but his eyes rolled
+involuntarily, and prevented him. He contrived, however, to effect what
+he intended for a knowing wink, whilst he thrust out his cheek with the
+end of his tongue.
+
+"Oh yes, in course," he answered. "I wait till him come back. Him wait
+d----d long while. He! he! he!"
+
+"His departure was very sudden," I continued.
+
+"Oh, bery! All them departure's bery sudden. Missy General go bery
+sudden--Missy Elinor go bery sudden--rum go bery sudden," he concluded,
+drinking off a glassful.
+
+"I saw the general to-day. We met on the road. He told me every thing."
+
+"Stupid old codger! Him can't keep his own counsel. Dat him business,
+not mine. Deblish cleber old codger!"
+
+"He was much affected," said I. "The elopement of his child is a serious
+blow to him."
+
+The nigger performed the same pantomime as before; winking his eye, and
+enlarging his cheek.
+
+"Blow not so bad as a punch on the head, old boy. Deblish cleber old
+codger," repeated the Yahoo, laughing immoderately. "Deblish cleber
+'Gustus too!"
+
+"Who is he?" I inquired.
+
+The nigger attempted to rise in his chair, and to make a profound bow,
+but failed in both attempts.
+
+"I'm 'Gustus!" said he, "at your sarvice--take a glass of wine with
+you!"
+
+I pledged the gentleman, and he continued.
+
+"You know Massa Sinclair?"
+
+"A little."
+
+"Big jackass, Massa Sinclair. Awful big. He no run away with Missy
+Elinor, Missy run away with him. Massa General run away with both.
+'Gustus do it all."
+
+I groaned.
+
+"You ain't well? Take glass rum? Bery good rum!"
+
+"And so you did it all, Augustus? You must be a clever fellow!"
+
+"I think so. If you could but have seen us this morning. I and Massa
+General looking over the banisters whilst Missy Elinor was running away;
+and Massa Sinclair in de hall, trembling all over like a ninny, for fear
+Massa General should see him--Massa General and me splitting sides all
+the time. D----d good! like a play. He! he! he!"
+
+I groaned again.
+
+"Sure you are not well, old boy? Try the bitters."
+
+"I have had enough," said I. "I must begone."
+
+"Don't hurry, old fellow. Can't ask you again. Go to town to-morrow.
+Meet General Travis to-morrow night. Him sewed up. 'Gustus neber desert
+him."
+
+"The general will not return then?"
+
+"Him too good judge!"
+
+"And Mr Sinclair and the lady?"
+
+"They married by this time. I say, old boy, let's drink their health."
+
+"No, no, no. Tell me whither do they go!"
+
+"No, no, no!--I say yes, yes, yes," roared the intoxicated monster.
+"Drink it, you rascal," he added, "or I'll kick you down stairs."
+
+My blood was boiling in a moment. The nigger staggered to me, and
+touched the collar of my coat. His hand was scarcely there, before I
+took him by the neck, and flung him like a loathsome reptile from me. He
+fell at the foot of the table, but in his passage to the ground he
+grasped a decanter of wine, which he hurled at my head. It passed me,
+met the door, and flew in a thousand pieces about the room. Sick at
+heart, I took the opportunity to retire.
+
+Never shall I forget the morning upon which I stood in Grosvenor Square,
+knocker in hand, about to present myself before the father of Rupert
+Sinclair, and to acquaint him with the disgrace that had come to his
+family, by the alliance of the previous day. The feelings of the hour
+return with all their painful vividness as I recall the time. A lazy
+porter, richly attired, opened the door, and rang a bell in the hall,
+which brought to me his lordship's valet. The latter received my card,
+and after a quarter of an hour's absence, returned with the information,
+that his lordship was particularly busy with the Director of the Opera,
+and could not be seen by any one that morning. Every little circumstance
+is indelibly imprinted on my memory, stamped there by the peculiar
+anxiety under which I laboured. I respectfully submitted that my
+business was even more important than that of the Director, and
+requested the valet to return with my urgent request to his lordship for
+one short interview.
+
+"His lordship doesn't know you," said the valet.
+
+"Not know me!" I exclaimed, forgetting at the moment how little it was
+to his lordship's interest to remember me. "There," I exclaimed "take
+this card to him." I had written upon it--_Late tutor to the Hon. Rupert
+Sinclair._
+
+Another quarter of an hour, and I was admitted. His lordship was
+evidently angry at the interruption. My heart was fluttering. He
+extended to me one finger, by way of compromise, which I reverently
+touched, offered me no seat, but asked me my business.
+
+I began--continued--and ended without the least hinderance on his
+lordship's part. I spoke without reserve of my own share in the
+unfortunate business, taking particular care, however, not to say one
+word to the disparagement of Elinor, or that might unneccessarily excite
+Lord Railton against his erring son. I told him of Rupert's illness, of
+our having proceeded to Bath in company--of his recovery--his meeting
+with Elinor--her beauty--his devotion. I pleaded his youth, his ardent
+nature--referred to the past as irretrievable, to the future as full of
+happiness for Mr Sinclair, provided his lordship would look with
+forgiving kindness upon his act; and used all the eloquence I could
+command to move what I conceived to be at least a heart of flesh to pity
+and sympathy for its own blood and offspring.
+
+Lord Railton heard me to the end, with a knitted brow and closed lips.
+When I had finished, he asked me sternly if I had any thing more to say.
+
+"Nothing," I replied.
+
+Whereupon his lordship rang the bell.
+
+The valet again appeared.
+
+Lord Railton again held out his finger, as at our meeting. I was about
+to take it, when his lordship moved it quickly--pointed to the door--and
+said--"Show that person out!"
+
+For a second I stood astounded and confused. In another second I found
+myself breathing on the sunny side of Grosvenor Square. How I reached
+it, I no longer remember.
+
+
+
+
+THE PEOPLE.[72]
+
+
+Mr Cobden, in the House of Commons, has given us a definition of the
+term which heads this article:--THE PEOPLE _are the inhabitants of
+towns_. "I beg to tell the honourable member for Limerick," said the
+arch-leaguer, a few evenings since, "and the noble lord, the member for
+Lynn, and the two hundred and forty members who sit behind him, that
+there are other parties to be consulted with regard to their
+proposition--that there are THE PEOPLE; I don't mean the country party,
+but the people living in the towns, and who will govern this country."
+
+"What is the city," says Shakspeare, "but the People?"----"True, the
+people are the city."
+
+Against Mr Cobden we pit Mr D'Israeli, who defines the people to be the
+country gentlemen. Against Shakspeare, we bring M. Michelet, who, in an
+affectionate dedication of his latest work to his fellow-labourer and
+friend, M. Edgar Quinet, modestly acquaints the said M. Edgar, that THE
+PEOPLE are neither more nor less than the author of the book and the
+gentlemen to whom it is inscribed:--
+
+"Recevez-le donc, ce livre du Peuple, parce qu'il est vous, parce qu'il
+est moi. Par vos origines militaires, par la mienne, industrielle, nous
+representons nous-memes, autant que d'autres peut-etre, les deux faces
+modernes du Peuple, et son recent avenement."
+
+There is, in truth an extensive amount of cant afloat just now, both
+here and elsewhere, on this subject of THE PEOPLE. It is the staple
+commodity of your newspaper-mongers, and the catchpenny song of the
+streets. Agitators feed upon it, politicians play upon it, our needy
+brethren of the quill pay outstanding debts with it. It is one of the
+few things that pay at all in an age of fearful competition, and one
+that always will pay whilst poor human nature holds the purse-strings.
+The wretched beggarman of Ireland famishes for a crust, yet he has his
+farthings to spare for the greedy hypocrite who flatters his vanity, and
+heaps laudations on his social importance. JOHN HOWARD made four
+pilgrimages to Germany, five to Holland, three to France, two to Italy,
+with the simple object of mitigating the physical sufferings of his
+fellow creatures; he visited Spain, Portugal, the United States, and
+Turkey, with the same practical and praiseworthy purpose. He passed days
+in pest-houses and lazarettos, and finally laid down his life in the
+blessed work of charity at Cherson in the Crimea. _Nous avons change
+tout cela._ Philanthropy is a luxurious creature now-a-days. She is
+passive rather than active; she does not work--she _talks_. Her
+disciples take no journeys, unless it be to Italy for their own
+pleasure; they sit at home in satin dressing-gowns, supported on velvet,
+feeding on turtle. They tell the labouring classes--whom they style the
+bone and sinew of the land--that though they talk prose, and lead
+prosaic lives, they are nevertheless first-rate poets, that though rough
+at the surface, they are the gentlest of creation "at the core;" that
+though dull, they are quick; though ugly, handsome; though stupid,
+vastly clever; though commoners in the last degree, yet nobles of God,
+and nature's grandees of the very first class. It is gratifying to
+believe all this, and the charge is only threepence a-week, or a
+shilling a-month. Open as we all are to flattery, who would not pay so
+trifling a sum for the pleasure of so sweet a dream? If you cannot
+relieve our sufferings, it is something to create an inordinate
+self-esteem. If you cannot afford us a shilling from your pockets, it is
+much that your goose-quill can convert us into birds of Paradise. The
+successful writers of the day are those who have nauseously fawned upon
+the million for the sale of their "sweet voices" and their halfpence.
+
+There is not one of these popular authors who has had the manliness to
+suggest, supposing that he has the head to discover, a remedy for the
+evils which every honest mind perceives in the social condition of the
+humbler classes. The most they have done is to drag further into the
+light miseries which every one saw without their aid--to point out
+exultingly distinctions of rank, which have always been, and can never
+cease to be--to remove bonds of sympathy, that united for mutual benefit
+one class with another--and to widen as far as possible the breach that
+has arisen between the governed and the governing of this great empire.
+We do them injustice--they have accomplished more. In seasons of
+difficulty and trial, in those periods of convulsion and danger, to
+which all great societies are liable, and a large mercantile community
+like our own is especially subject, they have assuaged alarm and
+appeased hunger by writing books with a _moral_; such a moral as that
+upon which THE CHIMES was founded, and which the snarling author of Mrs
+Caudle's Lectures loves to inculcate: we mean the moral that teaches the
+loveliness of all that lies in the hovel, the hatefulness of all that
+dwells in the palace; the sublimity of vulgarity, and the ridiculousness
+of high birth; the innate virtues of ignorance and poverty, and the
+equally essential wickedness of wealth and rank. Such are the exertions
+of modern philanthropy! Such are the self-denying, humble, and glorious
+achievements of the successors of John Howard!
+
+There are two classes of philanthropists very busy just now on this side
+the English Channel: viz., that composed of men who are particularly
+anxious that no laws whatever should be passed for the effectual
+punishment of the midnight assassin in Ireland; and that which stands up
+for the murderer in England, denying the right of the legislator to
+punish any man with death, and the expediency of the punishment,
+provided the right be conceded. Should society be restored to
+tranquillity, and crime be expurgated by the success of these
+gentlemen's endeavours, it is very clear that France will take the wrong
+track, by following the counsel of the belligerent M. Michelet,
+according to whose views, peace and order are to be obtained only by the
+proclamation of war, and the shedding of blood for the glory of his
+native country. "My only hope," says the valiant historian, "is in the
+flag." Every time, he tells us, that he sees the bayonets of the French
+army, his heart bounds within him. "Glorious army! pure swords! holy
+bayonets!" upon which the eyes of the world are fixed, and which will
+eventually save that world by--cutting the throats of all the enemies of
+France.
+
+M. MICHELET has obtained some celebrity in Europe: amongst the learned
+and the reading public by his histories; amongst the masses by that
+remarkable work styled _Priests, Women, and Families_, which met with
+many readers and elaborate notices in this country, and was reviewed in
+the pages of this Magazine as recently as August last. We paid our
+tribute of respect to an effort which, whatever might be its faults--and
+serious faults it had--was distinguished by a commanding eloquence, a
+manly energy, and an uncompromising zeal worthy of the cause which the
+historian had undertaken; viz., the restoration of _woman_ to her
+spiritual and social rights--rights invaded by the stranger, trampled
+upon by priestcraft. We did not stay to inquire into the motives by
+which the indignant professor of the College of France had been
+actuated. It may have been, that, to avenge a slight inflicted upon him
+by the Jesuits, the learned teacher aimed a blow at the entire Roman
+Catholic Church; that having repudiated the sentiments of his early
+life--sentiments which attached him affectionately to the religion,
+poetry, and traditions of the middle ages--he burned with the new fire
+of a convert or an apostate, and sought to establish the sincerity of
+his conversion by deadly home-thrusts at the party he had forsaken. It
+was sufficient for us that a scholar and a Frenchman had manfully
+advanced to the rescue of his fellow-countrywomen; that he had detected
+the errors that lay at the heart of their social condition; that he had
+noted the hindrances that affected domestic purity and peace; and
+bravely undertook, if possible, to remove, at all events to expose and
+brand them.
+
+There is great peril attending the career of any man who acquires the
+reputation of a reformer of abuses. It is easier to acquire that
+reputation than to sustain it. It is well when the necessity gives birth
+to the reformer; but it is ill when the reformer, in order to live, is
+forced to create the necessity. There was ease and grace, simplicity and
+truthfulness, honesty and ardour, in that defence of woman, to which the
+champion was urged by the conviction that he entertained of her wrongs.
+Few of these qualities remain in the work now before us--a work
+suggested by any thing rather than the crying evils of the community to
+which the author belongs; a work that may have been written for
+money--with the mere object of book-making--to bamboozle the million, to
+inspire it with cock-like crowing; certainly, with no hope of
+regenerating France, of removing one feather's weight from the load of
+calamity to which her people, in common with the people of all the
+nations of the earth, are mysteriously doomed.
+
+We do not pretend to understand the motives which have carried M.
+Michelet to his task; neither can we distinctly discern the object which
+it is his purpose to reach. His book is divided into three parts, which
+are again subdivided into chapters. There is a great appearance of
+connexion, and indeed an affectation of logical cohesion in the
+structure, but there is really and essentially no union whatever of the
+several divisions. Part I. is styled, "_Of Bondage and Hatred_;" Part
+II., "_Enfranchisement by Love--Nature_;" and Part III., "_Friendship_."
+Each part is an essay, complete, so to speak, in itself, more or less
+distinct; intelligible at times, but as often vague, dark, and
+paradoxical; most satisfactory where it treats of simple, well-known
+facts--least successful where it deals in the crudest theories, which
+are not tedious only because they are ridiculous and amusing.
+
+The spirit that pervades the entire book is that of intolerable
+conceit--individual and national. We can pardon the author of _The
+History of France_ much, but we will never forgive in him a vice that
+has ceased to be supportable in the most ignorant of his countrymen. It
+is impossible to conceive a philosopher and scholar so irritated and
+perverted by thin-skinned vanity as M. Michelet appears throughout this
+volume; and indeed we cannot do his intellect the injustice of supposing
+him to believe the jargon that has fallen from his pen. The heart, we
+fear, rather than the intellect, is at fault, when he who has the ear of
+the people approaches it with accents that inflame its lowest passions,
+rather than correct and guide, and bring to usefulness and good, its
+best and noblest instincts.
+
+Every thing is perfect in France; nothing is perfect elsewhere. This is
+the theme of the song which M. Michelet circulates throughout the
+empire. The people are nevertheless wretched, in poverty, and in
+bondage; they are doomed to evil government; their social state is one
+of tyranny and cruel persecution. An historian, sprung from the people,
+has deemed it his duty to proclaim these facts, and to write a book
+which shall go far to remove the evils he complains of; yet, at the
+outset of the work, he announces, to our astonishment, that France is
+beyond all other lands the favoured land of heaven, the mistress of the
+world, the paragon of countries. We turn back a page, and ask--Was it
+for this that the student stepped from his retirement, or was it to
+prove facts the very opposite to these? If France be indeed so
+pre-eminently good and great, why write so many pages to prove that she
+lies in bondage? If the literature of France be perfect, her army pure,
+her people great, her religion the only true revelation of God's
+purposes and will, wherefore complain and cry aloud, and seek to remedy
+a condition already so enviable, to elevate a character already so
+super-eminent? Is it that France is too self-loving to hear of her
+faults even from her own offspring, or that she will not take her
+wholesome medicine without the gilding that removes its flavour, and
+hides its ugliness? Is she a child, and must the teacher flatter her as
+a child; coax, pacify, and bribe her as a child, in order to work her
+reformation and secure her happiness?
+
+Let us for awhile follow the author of _The People_, as he traces
+bondage and hatred throughout the social scheme of France, and gather
+from him, as well as we may, the remedies he has for their destruction;
+so shall we do him greater justice, and obtain, if they be within grasp,
+the intention and the object of his undertaking.
+
+"If we would know," says M. Michelet, "the inmost thought, the passion
+of the French _Peasant_, it is very easy. Walk any Sunday into the
+country, and follow him. Look! he is yonder before us! It is two
+o'clock; his wife is at vespers, and he is in his Sunday's clothes. I
+warrant you he is going to see his mistress!" His mistress! Yes; but
+tropically. The peasant's mistress is his _Land_; he loves it with
+intensest delight, with procreative love. Happy for France that it is
+so; for let it once cease, and the land is barren from that instant. She
+brings forth because she is loved. "_La terre le veut ainsi, pour
+produire; autrement, elle ne donnerait rien, cette pauvre terre de
+France, sans bestiaux presque et sans engrais._" By _Love_, the reader
+will understand needful care and culture, but he will err in the
+interpretation. It is something far more poetical and French. The
+peasant having arrived face to face with his mistress, "folds his arms,
+stops, looks serious and thoughtful; he looks a long, long time, and
+seems to forget himself; at last, if he fancies himself overlooked, if
+he perceives any body passing, he moves slowly away; after a few steps,
+he stops, turns round, and casts upon his land one last profound and
+melancholy look: but to the keen-sighted, that look is full of passion,
+full of heart, full of devotion. If that be not love, (!) by what token
+shall we know it in this world? It is love--do not laugh." It were
+indeed very easy to laugh, but, thus intreated, we forbear, and proceed.
+To love is to covet possession. To have a bit of land, means "you shall
+not be a mercenary, to be hired to-day and turned off to-morrow. You
+shall not be a serf for your daily bread. You shall be free!" To acquire
+that land, the peasant will consent to any thing, even to lose sight of
+it. To obtain it he will sell his life, and go to meet death in Africa.
+The peasant is very aspiring; he has been a soldier; he believes in
+impossibilities. The acquisition of land is for him a combat; "he goes
+to it as he would to the charge, and will not retreat. It is his battle
+of Austerlitz; he will win it; it will be a desperate struggle, he
+knows, but he has seen plenty of these under his old commander;" and
+accordingly this brave and warlike peasant borrows money of a usurer at
+seven, eight, or ten per cent, to purchase a piece of earth that shall
+bring him in two. "Heroic man--are you surprised, if, meeting him on
+that land which devours him, you find him so gloomy?" Certainly not. "If
+you meet him," says M. Michelet--heroic and sublime as he is--"do not
+ask him your road; if he answers, he may perhaps induce you to turn your
+back on the place you are going to." It is the way with atrabilious
+heroes. What is to be done? "We must take serious measures for defending
+the nobility;" that is to say--the peasantry who are in the hands of the
+usurers. Alter the laws. This "vast and profound," but very much
+involved "legion of peasant-soldier proprietors," are the People: the
+people are France. France is a principle, "a great political principle.
+It must be defended at any cost. As a principle, she must live. _Live
+for the salvation of the world (!!)_ In the midst of his difficulties,
+the peasant learns to envy the town workman. He sees him on Sunday
+walking about like a gentleman, and thinks he is as free as a bird; he
+believes that a man who carries his trade with him, not caring a straw
+for the seasons, is a lord of the creation: he remembers his own
+liabilities to the usurer--and, lo! we have arrived at bondage and
+hatred, No. 1.
+
+But the _Workman_, after all, is not so well off as he looks in his
+Sunday's best. Work fluctuates, and at times there is a want of work
+altogether: moreover, there are wicked _cabarets_ and _cafes_, that play
+havoc with his four or five francs _per diem_. And, above all, there is
+that tremendous rival, with lungs of iron that know no rest, and never
+cease, whom men call MACHINERY, and who laughs the skill and strength of
+man to scorn. "It is humiliating," says the historian, "to behold, in
+presence of machinery, man fallen so low. The head is giddy, and the
+heart oppressed, when, for the first time, we visit those fairy halls,
+where iron and copper of a dazzling polish seem moving of themselves,
+and to have both thought and will, whilst pale and feeble man is the
+humble servant of those giants of steel." No reverie, no musing is
+allowed in the temples of MACHINERY. The _Lollards_, those mystic
+weavers of the middle ages, received their name, because, whilst
+working, they _lulled_, or hummed in an under tone some nursery rhyme
+that cheered then in their labour: for it is wisely said by our author,
+who can speak like a prophet and a sage when he will--shame to him when
+he speaks otherwise!--that "in the manual labours subject to our
+impulse, our inmost thought becomes identified with the work, puts it in
+its proper place; and the inert instrument, to which we impart the
+movement, far from being an obstacle to the spiritual movement, becomes
+its aid and companion. The rhythm of the shuttle, pushed forth and
+pulled back at equal periods, associated itself (in the case of the
+Lollards) with the rhythm of the heart; in the evening, it often
+happened, that, together with the cloth, a hymn, a lamentation, was
+woven to the self-same numbers." No human heart beats harmoniously with
+the thunder of machinery, whose abode is the real hell of _ennui_. "It
+seems, during those long hours, as if another heart, common to all, had
+taken its place--a metallic, indifferent, pitiless heart." Pitiless,
+indeed, if it degrade the human creature to the level of the brute. "The
+manufactory is a world of iron, a kingdom of necessity and fatality. The
+only living thing there is the severity of the foreman; there they often
+punish, but never reward. There man feels himself so little man, that as
+soon as ever he comes out, he must greedily seek the most intense
+excitement of the human faculties, that which concentrates the sentiment
+of boundless liberty in the short moment of a delicious dream. This
+excitement is intoxication, especially the intoxication of love." The
+workman becomes vicious; but extreme physical dependency, the claims of
+instinctive life, which once more revert to dependency, moral impotency,
+and the void of mind, are the causes of his vices. Talk of the bondage
+of the peasant! What is his slavery to that of the workman! _He_ was at
+least a happy _child_. He lived in the air and played. He was at
+liberty, whilst his body and his strength were forming: the chains did
+not gall him till his wrist was hard: he was not called upon to suffer,
+before his spirit was sufficient to cope with life. Yes, there is
+positive bondage here.
+
+And the _Artisan_? Is he at liberty? As an apprentice-boy, he is already
+in bondage. "Whatever annoys or irritates his master or his master's
+wife, falls very often upon his shoulders. A bankruptcy happens, the
+apprentice is beaten: the master comes home drunk, the apprentice is
+beaten: the work is slack or pressing, he is beaten all the same."
+Apprenticeship over, the artisan marries--has a wife, family; expense,
+misery! His children grow up, and the mother (we are in France, and M.
+Michelet speaks) is ambitious. Drawing will be serviceable, says the
+mother, to her boy in his business. She pinches herself for a few sous
+for _crayons_ and paper, and a miserable artist is made of one who would
+have proved a good workman. Or an inspired artist, the child of labour,
+is left an orphan and a beggar in the midst of his aspirations and
+struggles towards distinction: to subsist, he must desert art, and
+become a workman like his father. "All his life he will curse his fate;
+he will work here, but his soul will be elsewhere." If he weds, and has
+a family--that family will become less and less loved. "A man embittered
+in such a struggle, and wholly intent on personal progress, considers
+every thing else of little value. He weans himself even from his native
+land imputing to it the injustice of fate." And so there is imprisonment
+and hatred also here.
+
+Look at the _Manufacturer_. The manufacturers of France have, generally
+speaking, all been workmen. Six hundred thousand have become
+manufacturers or tradesmen since the peace. "Those brave men, who,
+returning from war, wheeled suddenly to the right-about towards
+Industry, charged as for an onset, and without difficulty carried every
+position." But they brought to commerce more of the violence of military
+life than the sentiment of honour, and treated unmercifully two classes
+of individuals, viz. the workman and the consumer. Towards the latter
+they behaved as the female shopkeepers ransomed the Cossacks in 1815.
+They sold at false weight, false die, false measure. With respect to the
+former, they applied to industry the great imperial principle--sacrifice
+men to abridge warfare. Men were _pressed_ in town and country, and the
+conscripts of labour were placed at the pace of the machine, and
+required to be, like it--indefatigable. The successors of these men, the
+present manufacturers, pay the penalty of their fathers' misdeeds. Their
+reputation is gone in the market--they cannot get on. "Most of them
+would be heartily glad to retire if they could; but they are engaged,
+they must go on--_march! march!_" Such men are not likely to be
+tender-hearted. They are unfeeling to their workmen, for the
+money-lender is unfeeling to them. To live, the manufacturer must
+borrow. To get back his interest he has recourse to the workmen, for the
+consumer is on his guard. The former present themselves in crowds, and
+are obtained at any price. But a glut in the market compels the
+manufacturer to sell at a loss; the lowness of wages, which is death to
+the workman, is no longer profitable to the master, and the consumer
+alone gains by it. May not bondage and hatred be discerned in the
+present condition of the French manufacturer?
+
+We come to the _Tradesman_. "The tradesman is the tyrant of the
+manufacturer. He pays him back all the annoyance and vexations of the
+purchaser." The purchaser of to-day wishes to buy for nothing: he
+requires two things, a showy article and the lowest price. The tradesman
+must deceive or perish. His life is made up of two warfares--one of
+cheating and cunning against the purchaser; the other of vexations and
+unreasonableness against the manufacturer. We have said that no one can
+talk more wisely than the author of _The People_ when he is so disposed.
+The picture of the tradesman is drawn with a masterly hand. The original
+may be found here as well as in France, and is, in truth, the creation
+of the unwholesome time in which we live rather than of any particular
+city or state.
+
+"The repugnance for industry exhibited by the noble republics of
+antiquity, and the haughty barons in the middle ages, is doubtless
+unreasonable, if by industry we understand those complicated fabrics
+which require science and art, or a grand wholesale trade, which
+requires such a variety of knowledge, information, and combination. But
+this repugnance is truly reasonable when it relates to the ordinary
+usages of commerce, the miserable necessity in which the tradesman finds
+himself of lying, cheating, and adulterating.
+
+"I do not hesitate to affirm, that, for a man of honour, the position of
+the most dependent working man is free in comparison with this. A serf
+in body, he is free in soul. To enslave his soul on the contrary and his
+tongue, to be obliged, from morning till night, to disguise his
+thoughts, this is the lowest state of slavery.
+
+"It is singular that it is precisely for honour that he lies every day,
+viz. to _honour_ his affairs. Dishonour for him is not falsehood, but
+bankruptcy. Rather than _fail_, commercial honour will urge him on to
+the point at which fraud is equivalent to robbery, adulteration to
+poisoning; a gentle poisoning, I know, with small doses, which kill only
+in the long run.
+
+"The manufacturer, and even the artisan, have two things which, in spite
+of work, render their lot better than that of the tradesman--
+
+"First.--_The tradesman does not create_; he has not the important
+happiness--worthy of a man--to produce something--to see his work
+growing under his hand, assuming a form, becoming harmonious, responding
+to its framer by its progress, and thus consoling his _ennui_ and his
+trouble.
+
+"Secondly.--Another awful disadvantage, in my opinion, is, _the
+tradesman is obliged to please_. The workman gives his time, the
+manufacturer his merchandise, for so much money: that is a simple
+contract which is not humiliating, neither has occasion to flatter. They
+are not obliged, often with a lacerated heart and tearful eyes, to be
+amiable and gay on a sudden, like the lady behind the counter. The
+tradesman, though uneasy, and tormented to death about a bill that falls
+due to-morrow, must smile, and give himself up by a cruel effort to the
+prating of some young fashionable lady, who makes him unfold a hundred
+pieces, chats for two hours, and, after all, departs without a purchase.
+He must please, and so must his wife. He has staked in trade, not only
+his wealth, his person, and his life, but often his family."
+
+We need not ask, is bondage here? or stay to inquire whether the
+condition of the tradesman thus described is likelier to engender love
+or hatred towards mankind.
+
+The _Official_, too, is enslaved. A vast proportion of men on the
+Continent are officials. Great efforts and great sacrifices are
+undergone to make the hope of the humble house a government servant. And
+in France what does this mean? It means to serve a hard master, and to
+receive ill wages for the service, to be subject to instant dismissal at
+the will of an arbitrary overseer, to pass a life of changes, journeys,
+and sudden transportations. A baker's boy at Paris earns more than two
+custom-house officers, more than a lieutenant of infantry, more than
+many a magistrate, more than the majority of professions; _he earns as
+much as six parish schoolmasters_.
+
+"Shame! infamy! The nation that pays the least to those that instruct
+the people (let us blush to confess it) is France. I speak of the France
+of these days. On the contrary, the true France, that of the Revolution,
+declared that teaching was a holy office, that the schoolmaster was
+equal to the priest. I do not conceal it; of all the miseries of the
+present day, there is not one that grieves me more. The most deserving,
+the most miserable, the most neglected man in France is the
+schoolmaster. The state, which does not even know what are its true
+instruments and its strength, that does not suspect that its most
+powerful moral lever is this class of men--the state, I say, abandons
+him to the enemy of the state--bondage; heavy bondage! I find it among
+the high and the low in every degree, crushing the most worthy, the most
+humble, the most deserving!"
+
+The _Rich Man_ and the _Bourgeois_ do not escape the curse that attaches
+to every other class: they too are in bondage. The ancient _bourgeoisie_
+was characterized by security, the present has no such characteristic.
+It lives in timidity and fear. It has risen from the Revolution, aspires
+to nobility, feels none, and is jealous of the advancing masses. The
+ancient _bourgeois_ was consistent. "He admired himself in his
+privileges, wanted to extend them, and looked upwards. Our man looks
+downwards: he sees the crowd ascending behind him, even as he ascended;
+he does not like it to mount; he retreats, and holds fast to the side of
+power. Does he avow to himself his retrograde tendency? Seldom, for his
+part is adverse to it; he remains almost always in this contradictory
+position--a liberal in principle, an egotist in practice, wanting, yet
+not willing. If there remain any thing French within him, he quiets it
+by the reading of some innocently growling, or pacifically warlike
+newspaper."
+
+The rich man of to-day was poor yesterday. He was the very artisan, the
+soldier, the peasant, whom he now avoids. He has the false notion, that
+people gain only by taking from others. He will not let his companions
+of yesterday ascend the ladder by which he has mounted, lest in the
+ascent he should lose something. He does not know that "every flood of
+rising people brings with it a flood of new wealth." He shuts himself up
+in his class, in his little circle of habits, closes the door, and
+carefully guards--a nonentity. To maintain his position, the rich man
+withdraws from the people--is insulated--and, therefore, in bondage.
+
+Here let us stop. What is it that we have seen? The peasant in fetters,
+the workman oppressed, the artisan crippled, the manufacturers
+embarrassed, the tradesman corrupted, the official in misery, the rich
+man exiled--all in bondage, all hating one another, and all
+constituting the life and marrow of the great and civilized country, to
+whose deplorable condition M. Michelet especially invites our attention.
+Deplorable, said we? Oh, far from it! The calamity that would crush any
+other nation, has a far different effect upon France. Bondage and hatred
+may exist, misery may eat like a canker-worm at the heart of the empire;
+but France, great, glorious, military, and beautiful, is consumed only
+to rise phoenix-like, fairer and younger, from her ashes. The French
+peasant may be in fetters, but he is also the nobleman of the world--the
+only nobleman remaining, "whilst Europe has continued plebeian." (!) "It
+is said the Revolution has suppressed the nobility, but it is just the
+reverse; it has made thirty-four millions of nobles. When an emigrant
+was boasting of the glory or his ancestors, a peasant, who had been
+successful in the field, replied, '_I am an ancestor_.'" "The strongest
+foundation that any nation has had since the Roman empire, is found in
+the peasantry of France." "It is by that that France is formidable to
+the world, and at the same time ready to aid it; it is this that the
+world looks upon with fear and hope. What, in fact, is it? The army of
+the future on the day the barbarians appear." If such is the picture of
+a peasantry in bondage, what must we expect from a peasantry at liberty?
+The workmen, as we have seen, are vicious enough, yet they are the most
+sociable and gentlest creatures in the universe. Nothing moves them to
+violence; if you starve them, they will wait; if you kill them, they are
+resigned; they are the least fortunate, but the most charitable; they
+know not what hatred is; the more you persecute, the more they love you.
+If in our haste we called these men degraded, we recall our words, for
+M. Michelet says that they stand amongst the highest "in the estimation
+of God." We told you just now, always upon the authority of our author,
+what rascals the French manufacturers were; and how the unfeeling
+masters of to-day are paying the penalty of their fathers' frauds and
+evil practices. We hinted, too, at the symptoms of decay already visible
+in their condition. But we did not tell you that France manufactures, in
+a spirit of self-denial that cannot be too strongly commended, for the
+whole world, who come to her, "buy her patterns, which they go and copy,
+ill or well, at home. Many an Englishman has declared, in an inquiry,
+that he has a house in Paris _to have patterns_. A few pieces purchased
+at Paris, Lyons, or in Alsatia, and afterwards copied abroad, are
+sufficient for the English and German counterfeiter to inundate the
+world. It is like the book-trade. France writes and Belgium sells." It
+was stated that the official is cruelly paid for his labour, and M.
+Michelet further hints, that peculation is but too often the grievous
+consequence. In England this would be fatal to a man's self-respect, and
+subject him to _bondage_ in more ways than one. But, across the Channel,
+Providence miraculously interposes, and even rescues the official in the
+hour of difficulty, for the honour and glory of _la belle France_. "Yes,
+at the moment of fainting, the culprit stops short without knowing
+why----because he feels upon his face the invisible spirit of the heroes
+of our wars, _the breath of the old flag_!!"
+
+It is really very difficult to go on satisfactorily with such a writer
+as this. If there be truth in the picture which he draws of his
+country's misery, there must be falsehood in the language with which he
+paints her pre-eminence, and battles for her unapproachable perfection.
+If she be perfect, the vital sores that have been presented to us exist
+not in her, but only in the imagination of the enthusiastic and deluded
+writer. Upon one page it is written that the situation of France is so
+serious, that there is no longer room for hesitation. France is "hourly
+declining, engulfed like an Atalantis." Five minutes afterwards, "the
+idea of our ruin is absurd, ridiculous. For who has a literature? Who
+still sways the mind of Europe? We, weak as we are. Who has an army? We
+alone." What is the conclusion which any unprejudiced reader would draw
+from the painful details which M. Michelet has deemed it his paramount
+duty to bring before the notice of mankind, and especially to the
+consciences of the French nation itself? Simply this--that France,
+disabled and diseased, is weak, and feebler than many other nations of
+the world. The conclusion of M. Michelet is the very opposite one. "Let
+France be united for an instant, she is strong as the world. England and
+Russia, two feeble bloated giants, impose an illusion on Europe. Great
+empires, weak people!" So it is throughout. M. Michelet leaves far
+behind him the butcher, who would not suffer any man to call his dog an
+ugly name but himself. You must not only utter no syllable of
+condemnation against his glorious country, but you must be prepared to
+regard the abuse of the author as so much panegyric.
+
+The means of enfranchisement suggested by the poetic historian are as
+fanciful as the bondage itself appears to be. Freedom for every class is
+to be gained by LOVE. Love for the native country: in other words,
+Frenchmen of every class are to believe that there never existed, that
+there never will exist, a country so great as their own; and then, as if
+by a charm, all their troubles will cease, their sorrow will be turned
+into joy--their imprisonment to liberty, such as mankind have never yet
+witnessed, such as no children of the great human family are capable of
+enjoying, but the darlings and favourites of God--beloved France. In the
+nursery, we do not correct the young by flattery and cajolery. The
+surgeon does not hesitate to cut to the marrow, if the safety of the
+patient depend upon the bold employment of the knife; but neither
+monitor nor doctor in France may approach the faults and corruptions of
+her people without doing homage to the one, and viciously tampering with
+the other. What but insult is the following balderdash offered to a
+great people as a remedy for physical suffering--cruelty--oppression--want?
+
+"Say not, I beseech you, that it is nothing at all to be born in the
+country surrounded by the Pyrenees, the Alps, the Rhine, and the ocean.
+Take the poorest man, starving in rags, him whom you suppose to be
+occupied solely with material wants. He will tell you it is an
+inheritance of itself to participate in this immense glory, this unique
+legend, which constitutes the talk of the world. He well knows that if
+he were to go to the most remote desert of the globe, under the equator
+or the poles, he would find Napoleon, our armies, our grand history, to
+shelter and protect him; that the children would come to him, that the
+old men would hold their peace, and entreat him to speak, and that to
+hear him only mention those names, they would kiss the hem of his
+garment."
+
+Yes--the thing has come to pass in Africa, at Tahiti, on the coast of
+Madagascar, whence the savages repulsed, with vindictive hatred, their
+French invaders, and refused even to correspond with them save through
+the medium of another nation. The feelings with which the natives of the
+Marquesas regard at the present moment the embroidered gentry, who,
+"protected by their grand history," and headed by that valiant fighting
+man, Rear-Admiral Du Petit Thouars, took unwarrantable possession of
+their shores, are of course faithfully described in the above
+nonsensical outburst; and are not, as every body knows, those of fear
+and utter detestation for a crew of wicked mountebanks and gold-laced
+ruffians. Of course the children come to Du Petit Thouars, and the old
+men hold their peace, and kiss the hem of his regimentals; and that's
+the very reason why the said Du Petit points the fatal tubes of his
+heavy, double-banked frigates and corvettes at the fragile bamboo sheds
+that lie timidly and harmlessly in a grove of cocoa-nuts.
+
+"For our part, whatever happens to us, poor or rich, happy or unhappy,
+while on this side of the grave, we will ever thank God for having given
+us this great France for our native land; and that not only on account
+of the many glorious deeds she has performed, but because in her we find
+especially at once the representative of the liberties of the world, and
+the country that links all others together by sympathetic ties--the
+initiation to universal love. This last feature is so strong in France,
+_that she has often forgotten herself_(!!) We must at present remind her
+of herself, and beseech her to love all the nations less than herself.
+
+"Doubtless, every great nation represents an idea important to the human
+race. But, gracious heaven! how much more true is this of France!
+Suppose for a moment that she were eclipsed, at an end, the sympathetic
+bond of the world would be loosened, dissolved, and probably destroyed.
+Love, that constitutes the life of the world, would be wounded in its
+most vital part. _The earth would enter into the frozen age, where other
+worlds close at hand have already landed._"
+
+We have never wittingly done injustice either to France or her people;
+but we confess we had no notion of the claims of both upon our regard
+and applause, until they were prominently put before us by her somewhat
+Quixotic historian.
+
+In the first place, if you would heap up all the blood, the gold, the
+efforts of every kind, that each nation has expended for disinterested
+matters that were to be profitable only to the world, France would have
+a pyramid that would reach to heaven; "and yours, oh nations! all of you
+put together--oh yours! the pile of your sacrifices would reach up to
+the knee of an infant!"
+
+And then God enlightens it more than any other nation, for she sees in
+the darkest night, when others can no longer distinguish. "During that
+dreadful darkness which often prevailed in the middle ages, and since,
+nobody perceived the sky. France alone saw it."
+
+Rome is nowhere but in France. Rome held the pontificate of the dark
+ages--the royalty of the obscure; and France has been the pontiff of the
+ages of light.
+
+Every other history is mutilated. France's is alone complete. Take the
+history of Italy, the last centuries are wanting; take the history of
+Germany or of England, the first are missing; take that of France, _with
+it you know the world_. Christianity has promised, France has performed.
+"The Christian had the faith that a God-made man would make a people of
+brothers, and would, sooner or later, unite the world in one and the
+same heart. This has not yet been verified, but it will be verified in
+us." The great and universal legend of France is the only complete one;
+other nations have only special legends which the world has not
+accepted. The natural legend of France, on the contrary, "is an immense,
+uninterrupted stream of light, a true milky way, upon which the world
+has ever its eyes fixed." An American once said, that for every man the
+first country is his native land, and the second is France. This surely
+was praise sufficient. But M. Michelet is very greedy of praise. "How
+many," says he, "_like better_ to live here than in their own country!
+As soon as ever they can break for a moment the thread that binds them,
+they come, poor birds of passage, to settle, take refuge, and enjoy here
+at least a moment's vital heat. They tacitly avow that this is the
+universal country." Beau Brummel certainly avowed it; but then he, "poor
+bird of passage," flew in a night from his own nest, to settle, take
+refuge, and enjoy a moment's vital peace in France, away from duns and
+creditors. Many, in similar circumstances, would unquestionably prefer
+Paris to London, provided they could break the thread which attaches
+them to their domestic responsibilities. France is the infant Solomon
+sitting in judgment. Who, but she, has preserved the tradition of the
+law? She has given her soul to the world, and the world is living on it
+now; but, strange condition! "what she has left is what she has given
+away. Come, listen to me well, and learn, oh nations! what without us
+you would never have learned:--_the more one gives, the more one keeps_.
+Her spirit may slumber within her, but it is always entire, and ever on
+the point of waking in its might."
+
+Now all this must be taught to the infant as soon as it can lisp, and he
+will, no doubt, perfectly understand and appreciate it. The regeneration
+of France (which is already so perfect, and is, besides, the great
+exemplar of mankind) depends upon the child's proper appreciation of his
+birthplace. If he will believe all that has been said, he is far on the
+road, but by no means at the end of his journey. As soon as he is
+breeched, his mother must become his instructor, and increase the dose
+by some such foolish proceeding as the following:--
+
+"Let her take him on St John's Day, when the earth performs her annual
+miracle, when every herb is in flower, when the plant seems to grow
+while you behold it; let her take him into the garden, embrace him, and
+say to him tenderly, 'You love me, you know only me. Well, listen! I am
+not all. You have another mother. All of us, men, women, children,
+animals, plants, and whatever has life, we have all a tender mother, who
+is ever feeding us, invisible, but present. Love her, my dear child; let
+us embrace her with all our hearts.'
+
+"Let there be nothing more. No metaphysics that destroy the impression.
+Let him brood over that sublime and tender mystery, which his whole life
+will not suffice to clear up. That is a day he will never forget.
+Throughout all the trials of life and the intricacies of science, amid
+all his passions and stormy nights, the gentle sun of St John's Day will
+ever illumine the deepest recesses of his heart with the immortal
+blossom of the purest, best love."
+
+The little gentleman, however, is not done with yet. The dose is not yet
+strong enough, although quite as strong as his mother, gentle creature,
+could mix it. The early jacket is discarded in favour of the
+swallow-tailed coat, and the youth passes into the hands of his
+father:--
+
+"His father takes him--'tis a great public festival--immense crowds in
+Paris--he leads him from Notre Dame to the Louvre, the Tuileries, the
+triumphal arch. From some roof or terrace, he shows him the people, _the
+army passing, the bayonets clashing and glittering, and the tricolored
+flag_. In the moments of expectation especially, before the _fete_, by
+the fantastic reflections of the illumination, in that awful silence
+which suddenly takes place in that dark ocean of people, he stoops
+towards him and says, 'There, my son, look, there is France--there is
+your native country! All this is like one man, one soul, one heart. They
+would all die for one; and each man ought also to live and die for all.
+Those men passing yonder, who are armed, and now departing, are going
+away to fight for us. They leave here their father, their aged mother,
+who will want them. You will do the same; you will never forget that
+your mother is France.'"
+
+The education is very nearly completed. The father suffers the
+swallow-tail to wear out, the incipient mustache to take root, and then
+he leads his second and better self to the mountain-side. This time he
+does not stoop over him, for the youth is erect, and is as big a man as
+his father. "Climb that mountain, my son," says the venerable gentleman,
+"provided it be high enough; look to the four winds, you will see
+nothing but _enemies_."
+
+And so, by a very roundabout process, we reach the heart of the mystery.
+M. Michelet loves fighting--remembers Waterloo--is game--is eager for
+another round, and in his heart believes one Frenchman to be equal to at
+least half a dozen Englishmen. He burns for one more trial of
+strength--a last decisive tussle; and he writes a philosophical work to
+prove the physical bout essential to the dignity, the grandeur, and the
+redemption of his country. Every time, we repeat the words, that he
+looks upon a bayonet, his heart bounds within him, and his only hope,
+teacher and professor of the College of France though he be, rests in
+trumpets, drums, swords, the epaulette, the sabredash, and the tricolor.
+
+We have surely wasted ink enough upon this theme. In common with
+ourselves, the reader will regard with due commiseration, a
+manifestation of wicked folly, which will do no harm only because it
+comes in an age not ripe for bloodshed, or happily too humanized for
+unprovoked, gratuitous warfare; and because the French people
+themselves, under a politic king and a peace-seeking ministry, have
+learned a little to regard the blessings of undisturbed domestic
+quietness. We quit the main subject of M. Michelet's book, to draw
+attention to a few insulated passages worthy of the better days of the
+author, and certainly out of place in the present volume. It were not
+possible for M. Michelet to write four hundred pages that should not,
+here and there, give evidence of his great genius--his general common
+sense, and his touching sympathy for the suffering and the oppressed.
+There are passages in the work under consideration that have universal
+interest, and claim universal attention; his appeals on behalf of
+children and women, the most neglected and oppressed of the community,
+let them be found where they may, in England or in France, in Europe or
+in Asia, are instinct with truthfulness and honest vigour; his
+vindication of the _mission_ of the child, philosophical and just, is
+beaming with the light that burns so steadily and clearly in the poems
+of our own Wordsworth, which have especial reference to the holy
+character of the "Father of the Man."
+
+It is in one of the insulated passages of which we speak, that M.
+Michelet bitterly and very sensibly complains of the exclusive regard
+which modern romance writers have shown for the prisons and kennels, the
+monsters and thieves of civilized societies; of the disposition every
+where exhibited to descend rather than ascend for the choice of a
+subject, or the selection of a hero. We have felt the inconvenience of
+the same sickly taste in this country, and can understand the
+complainings over productions similar to that of _The Mysteries of
+Paris_, whilst we remember our own inferior and not less baneful _Dick
+Turpins_ and _Jack Sheppards_. Hurtful to the morals of a nation, these
+productions are equally unjust to the national character. We have drawn
+our estimate of the present literature of France from what we have seen
+and heard of her least healthy writers. As well might the novels of Mr
+Ainsworth, or the miserable burlesques of Mr Albert Smith, be accepted
+as the representatives of the Romance and Drama of the modern English
+school. It is not one of the least crimes of which these unwholesome
+writers are guilty, that they present to their own countrymen, and to
+the world at large, only foul exceptions, hideously exaggerated, which
+they would have us believe are faithful pictures of the mass; and in
+their eager endeavours to interest and excite the unthinking many, rouse
+the disgust and alarm of all well-constituted and thoughtful minds. The
+perilous consequences of popular literature in France are finely pointed
+out by M. Michelet. The timid take fright, when the people are
+represented as monsters in the books which are greedily devoured, and
+intensely applauded by the majority of their readers. "What!" cry the
+citizens, "are the people so constituted? Then, let us increase our
+police, arm ourselves, shut our doors, and bolt them." And all the alarm
+has been occasioned by a conceited, and it may be clever, coxcomb, who,
+descending from his drawing-room, has asked the first passenger in the
+street where-abouts the People lived. He met with a fool, who directed
+him to the galleys, the prisons, and the stews.
+
+"One day," writes M. Michelet, "there came a man to the famous
+Themistocles, and proposed to him an art of memory. He answered
+bitterly, 'Give me rather the art of forgetfulness.' May God give me
+this art, to forget from this moment all your monsters, your fantastic
+creations, those shocking exceptions with which you perplex my subject!
+You go about, spyglass in hand; you hunt in the gutters, and find there
+some dirty filthy object, and bring it to us, exclaiming--'Triumph! we
+have found the people!'
+
+"To interest us in them, they show them to us forcing doors and picking
+locks. To these picturesque descriptions they add those profound
+theories, by which the People, if we listen to them, justify themselves
+in their own eyes for this crusade against property. Truly, it is a
+great misery, in addition to so many others, for them to have these
+imprudent friends. These theories and these acts are by no means of the
+people. The mass is, doubtless, neither pure nor irreproachable; but
+still, if you want to characterise it by the idea which prevails in the
+immense majority, you will find it occupied in founding by toil,
+economy, and the most respectable means, the immense work which
+constitutes the strength of this country, the participation of all
+classes in property."
+
+We believe it sincerely and heartily. The great writers of all ages have
+believed it. Your low-minded scribblers have never doubted it; but it is
+far easier to depict the limited class, with its violence and felony,
+its startling incidents and painful murders--far less difficult to give
+picturesque effect to its nauseous jargon and offensive situations, than
+it is to work the simple portraiture of a whole community, who have
+nothing to offer to the artist but the delicate and unobtrusive
+material, such as Goldsmith could weave into a fabric whose colour and
+texture shall endure and enchant for all time.
+
+"I feel," continues M. Michelet, with great tenderness--"I feel I am
+alone, and I should be sad indeed if I had not with me my faith and
+hope. I see myself weak, both by nature and my previous works, in
+presence of this mighty subject, as at the foot of a gigantic monument,
+that I must move all alone. Alas! how disfigured it is to-day; how
+loaded with foreign accumulations, moss, and mouldiness; spoilt by the
+rain and mud, and by the injuries it has received from passengers! The
+painter, the man of _art for art_, comes and looks at it; what pleases
+him is precisely that moss. But I would pluck it off. Painter, now
+passing by! This is not a plaything of art--this is our altar!"
+
+"To know the life of the people, their toils and sufferings," he
+continues, "I have but to interrogate my own memory." He has himself
+sprung from the labouring population. Before he wrote books, he
+_composed_ them in the literal sense of that term. He arranged letters
+before he grouped ideas; the sadness of the workshop, and the
+wearisomeness of long hours, are things known to his experience. The
+short narrative of his early struggles forms another beautiful passage
+in this singular and very unequal production. The great lesson which he
+brought with him from his season of difficulty and affliction, is one
+that authorizes him to approach the people as a teacher and a friend,
+and ought to have inspired him with nobler aims than he puts forth
+to-day. He has seen the disorders of destitution, the vices of misery;
+but he has seldom found them extinguishing original goodness of heart,
+or interfering with the noble sentiments that adorn the lowest as well
+as the highest of mankind. There is nothing new, he tells us, in this
+observation. At the time of the cholera in France, every body beheld one
+class eager to adopt the orphan children. What class was that? _The
+Poor._
+
+Whilst in poverty himself, his soul was kept free from envy by noting
+the unremitting devotedness, the indefatigable sacrifices of
+hard-working families--a devotedness, he assures us, not even exhausted
+in the immolation of one life, but often continued from one to another
+for several generations.
+
+The two families from which he descended were originally peasants. These
+families being very large, many of his father's and mother's brothers
+and sisters would not marry, in order that they might the better
+contribute to the education of some of the boys, whom they sent to
+college. This was a sacrifice of which he was early made aware, and
+which he never forgot. His grandfather, a music-master of Laon, came to
+Paris with his little savings after the Reign of Terror, where his son,
+the author's father, was employed at the _Imprimerie des Assignats_. His
+little wealth was made over to the same son, and all was invested in a
+printing-office. To facilitate the arrangement, a brother and a sister
+of the eldest son would not marry, but the latter espoused a sober
+damsel of Ardennes. M. Michelet, the child of this industrious pair, was
+born in the year 1798 in the choir of a church of nuns, then occupied by
+the printing-office. "Occupied, I say, but not profaned; for what is the
+Press in modern times but the holy ark?"
+
+The printing-office, prosperous at first, fed by the debates of the
+assemblies and the news of the armies, was overthrown in 1800 by the
+general suppression of the newspapers. The printer was allowed to
+publish only an ecclesiastical journal; and even this sanction was
+withdrawn in favour of a priest whom Napoleon thought safe, but was
+mistaken. The family of M. Michelet was ruined. They had but one
+resource; it was to print for their creditors a few works belonging to
+the printer. They had no longer any journeymen; they did the work
+themselves. The father, who was occupied with his employment abroad,
+could render no assistance, but the mother, though sick, turned binder,
+cut and folded. The child--the future historian--was the compositor; the
+grandfather, very old and feeble, betook himself to the hard work of
+the press, and printed with his palsied hands.
+
+The young compositor, at twelve years of age, knew four words of Latin
+which he had picked up from an old bookseller, who had been a village
+teacher, and doted on grammar. The scene of the lad's labors--his
+workshop--was a cellar. For company he had occasionally his grandfather
+who came to see them, and always, without interruption, an industrious
+spider, that worked at the compositor's side, and even more assiduously
+than he. There were severe privations to undergo, but there was also
+much compensation.
+
+"I had the kindness of my parents, and their faith in my future
+prospects, a faith which is truly inexplicable, when I reflect how
+backward I was. Save the binding duties of my work, I enjoyed extreme
+independence, which I never abused. I was apprenticed, but without being
+in contact with coarse-minded people, whose brutality, perhaps, would
+have crushed the precious blossom of liberty within me. In the morning,
+before work, I went to my old grammarian, who gave me a task of five or
+six lines. I have retained thus much; that the quantity of work has much
+less to do with it than is supposed; children can imbibe but a very
+little every day; like a vase with a narrow neck, pour little or pour
+much, you will never get a great deal in at a time."
+
+We have said that in his struggles the aspiring boy knew nothing of
+envy. It is to-day his solemn belief that man would never know envy of
+himself, he must be taught it. The year 1813 arrived, and the home of
+the historian, as well as France herself--it was the time of
+Moscow--looked very cheerless. The penury of the family was extreme. It
+was proposed to get the compositor a situation in the Imperial
+printing-office. The parents, more fond than reasonable, refused the
+offer, and strong in the belief that the child would yet save the
+household, obtained an entrance for him in the college of Charlemagne.
+The tale is told. From that hour he rose. His studies ended soon and
+well. In the year 1821 he procured, by competition, a professorship in a
+college. In 1827, two works, which appeared at the same time--_Vico_ and
+_Precis d'Histoire Moderne_--gained him a professorship in the _Ecole
+Normale_.
+
+"I grew up like grass between two paving-stones; but this grass has
+retained its sap as much as that of the Alps. My very solitude in Paris,
+my free study, and my free teaching, (ever free and every where the
+same,) have raised without altering me. They who rise almost always lose
+by it; because they become changed, they become mongrels, bastards; they
+lose the originality of their own class without gaining that of another.
+The difficulty is not to rise, but in rising to remain one's self."
+
+There is also another difficulty; one which, judging from the volume
+before us, M. Michelet has yet to overcome: we mean the
+difficulty--after education, and after achieving the heights to which
+honourable ambition aspires--of forgetting the terrible and bitter
+punishment of early penury and trouble; of cherishing no longer the
+anger and hatred that were borne against the world, whilst the struggler
+looked upon it as a world in arms against him. The author of THE PEOPLE
+tells us, that in his saddest hours he knew no _envy_ towards mankind;
+but he acknowledges also, that in his sufferings, he deemed all rich
+men, all men, _bad_; that he pined into a misanthropic humour, and, in
+the most deserted quarters of Paris, sought the most deserted streets.
+"I conceived an excessive antipathy against the human species." The
+writer, to use his own expression, "is raised, but not altered." The
+antipathy, somewhat chastened by prosperity, is not removed. It takes a
+bodily form in the volume that teaches France to regard the earth as her
+enemy, and calls upon her to vindicate her pre-eminence and glory in the
+field of battle and of blood.
+
+
+
+
+THE ROSE OF WARNING
+
+A LEGEND FROM THE GERMAN. BY A. LODGE.
+
+
+  Where towering o'er the vale on high,
+  Those ice-bound summits pierce the sky;
+  And on the mountain flood amain,
+  The giant oak, and dusky plane,
+  Uptorn, with ever-deepening sound,
+  Rush roughly 'mid the gorge profound:
+  Behold--where horrors mark the scene,
+  And loveliest Nature smiles between,
+  Yon ivied arch and turrets gray,
+  Mouldering in serene decay;
+  Half choked, the scanty columns rise,
+  Where the prone roof in fragments lies;--
+  Of yore, so legends tell, the fane
+  Was call'd, of sainted Bernard's train;
+  Pious Brethren, self denying,
+  Fill'd with thoughts of holy dying,
+  Here, 'mid penance, prayer, and praise,
+  Content they wore their tranquil days;
+  Now the heavenly truths expounding,
+  In the Lord's good work abounding;
+  For deeds of love the dome was bless'd;
+  The hungry fed, the faint had rest;--
+  Thus they gave their light to shine,
+  And the Bread of Life divine!
+
+  These walls confess'd, long ages flown,
+  Strange tidings of the world unknown;
+  And dark the boding wonder fell,
+  With signal of the midnight bell:
+  For ever, as in solemn row,
+  The Brotherhood, devout and slow,
+  Paced the dim-lighted aisles along,
+  Loud echoing to the choral song;
+  To each--when the dread hour was nigh,
+  Of man's appointed lot--to die,
+  A sure forewarner told of doom,
+  With silent summons to the tomb:
+  As in the choir he knelt to pray,
+  On the desk a white Rose lay!
+  Prompt at the sign of awful power,
+  The destined brother took the flower,
+  "Thy will be done!" he cried, and press'd
+  Death's pale memento to his breast;
+  And straight retired, the Office o'er,
+  He left his cloister'd cell no more;
+  There, with due shrift and penance made,
+  The last absolving rites were paid,
+  And dead to thoughts of earth and time,
+  The doom'd one soar'd on hope sublime!
+  But first, with reverend hand, he placed
+  The monitory emblem chaste
+  On that dear pledge of pardon free,
+  Christ on his redeeming tree!
+  Then gazed, as the long hours crept by,
+  With solemn thought, and musing eye,
+  From early dawn to eve's repose,
+  Steadfast on the warning Rose!
+
+  And quick the shadow'd message came;
+  To dust return'd the mortal frame;
+  And with sad strains and funeral moan,
+  They hymn'd the soul to Mercy's throne!
+  Thus by mysterious high behest,
+  Each holy brother sank to rest,
+  Forewarn'd with supernatural power,
+  By the Rose at midnight hour!
+
+  It chanced, as once, for nightly prayer,
+  They reach'd the choir--the Rose was there!
+  Oh grief! before a youth it lay,
+  Warning that his life's young day
+  Must wither in its blooming May!
+  With sudden mortal pang, dismay'd
+  At thought, like the brief Rose to fade;
+  While death and awful judgment near
+  Made life's half-tasted charms more dear;
+  The youth, with anxious, trembling haste,
+  Unseen, the boding flower displaced;
+  Thus might the signal'd doom betide,
+  He deem'd, the brother at his side,
+  Who, calm in age, his last repose
+  Long waiting, hailed the welcome Rose!
+  For him, by faith assured, to die--
+  His birth of immortality!
+
+  But on the morrow--hark! the sound
+  Of sorrow's wailings echoes round:
+  What means the tear--the plaint--the sigh?
+  Why sits despair in every eye?
+  Oh, dire presage! two souls had fled--
+  The old man and the youth were dead!
+  And with dumb wondering awe they view
+  The White Rose tinged with purple hue!
+  For this the ceaseless knell is rung,
+  For this the choral Requiem sung:--
+  And when, few summers past, once more
+  They wept a brother gone before;
+  No longer the White Rose was seen;
+  It shunn'd the spot where crime had been!
+
+  A pilgrim in the Alpine vale,
+  I heard the legendary tale;
+  And as at eve, by Fancy woo'd,
+  Amid the dark'ning aisles I stood;
+  O'er crumbling stone and grassy mound,
+  I saw the White Rose blooming round!
+  Death's flower, methought, fit emblem made
+  To dwell in Ruin's silent shade!
+  And may the youth--I breathed a prayer--
+  Have owned the Saviour's pardoning care,
+  Who, deaf to warnings from the sky,
+  Tinged the White Rose with murder's dye!
+
+
+
+
+GREEK FIRE AND GUNPOWDER.[73]
+
+
+The traditional account of inventions and discoveries whose origin is
+involved in the darkness of antiquity is generally short and summary. To
+some fortunate individual, whose name, either from his having actually
+taken the most prominent part in the progress of the discovery, or, as
+is more generally the case, having with the greatest and most
+persevering energy impressed it upon the public, the whole merit is
+ascribed and the whole glory attached.
+
+The world, active though its individual members be, as to their own
+specialties, is inert as a mass, and glad to save itself the trouble of
+entering into details by adopting the hypothesis which has been most
+urgently forced upon its notice, or which has caught its attention at
+one of its most wakeful periods. We thus find nearly every discovery
+which has added to the permanent stock of human knowledge attributed to
+a single individual, and to a single guess of that individual.
+
+The traditional account of so recent a discovery as that of Galvani, is
+the preparation of frog soup for his wife, and the accidental touching
+one of them with the knife; while, in fact, he had been for years
+employed in examining the convulsive action of frogs, and had presented
+several memoirs to the Institute of Bologna on the subject, before its
+general publicity; indeed, in the main fact he had been anticipated by
+Swammerdam, and he possibly by others.
+
+Schwartz, the monk of Cologne, probably had a real existence, probably
+had something to do with the progress of pyrotechnic art; it is even
+more probable that he invented gunpowder than that the public invented
+him. The very accident which is reported to have happened, it is not
+altogether improbable did happen; but if a mixture of saltpetre,
+sulphur, and charcoal accidentally exploded, it was not accident which
+brought together those particular three ingredients out of the whole
+laboratory of nature and art.
+
+It is indeed possible that the frequency of accidental explosions when
+gunpowder was known, were reflected back as a plausible hypothesis to
+account for its invention; but as the explosive power and utility of
+gunpowder were not facts which could have been arrived at by _a priori_
+reasoning, there is every likelihood of such an accident having
+originally suggested the application of an explosive mixture as a means
+of propulsion. The history of the invention then resolves itself into
+the question, Were any admixtures of these three ingredients previously
+known, what led to them, and what were the objects proposed by them?
+This question is attempted to be answered by the book before us,
+containing a very erudite inquiry into the progress of the invention of
+Greek fire and gunpowder, which are, according to the author's view,
+modifications of the same thing, _i.e._ pyrotechnic compositions,
+differing only or mainly in the proportions or purity of their
+ingredients. A mass of very curious information is given to the reader,
+which, in addition to the general stock of knowledge or obscure
+tradition on this subject, shows a gradual and generally diffused use of
+sulphur, saltpetre, and charcoal in different proportions, and
+occasionally mixed with other combustible substances. Among the Arabs of
+the thirteenth century a vast number of receipts for such mixtures
+existed; this is proved by some ancient Arabic MSS. preserved in the
+Bibliotheque Royale. How the Arabs got possession of these arts is left
+somewhat in obscurity, though our authors consider there are strong
+grounds for conjecturing that they obtained then originally from the
+Chinese about the ninth century; that they then proceeded slowly in
+improving this knowledge for the three centuries during which they had
+no intercourse with the Chinese; and that they again acquired further
+information on these points after the Mongul irruption in the thirteenth
+century.
+
+The defect of the book before us is its inconclusiveness: from the
+preface we are led to expect the solution of a theorem; after reading
+the book through, we find ourselves not indeed as far at sea as ever,
+but aided mainly by negations. The actual origin of gunpowder or Greek
+fire is not traced; many of the connecting links in the chain of
+pyrotechnic discovery are still deficient; and the conjectures, which
+stand in the place of conclusions, are frequently founded upon what
+appear to us insufficient data. On the other hand it must be admitted,
+that on a subject so involved in obscurity, inasmuch as proof is
+impossible, speculation is to a certain extent admissible as a link to
+render isolated facts intelligible.
+
+It may be well here if, before passing to the more immediate object of
+this paper--viz. a sketch of the probable progress of pyrotechny--we
+explain to those of our readers who are unacquainted with chemistry, the
+philosophy of explosive combustibles.
+
+Combustion is nothing else than rapid chemical union, taking place
+between two dissimilar substances, which have what is called an affinity
+for each other, _i.e._ a tendency to unite and form a new compound. When
+a candle or lamp is burned, it is carbon and hydrogen, the principal
+constituents of oil or fat, which combine with oxygen, one main
+ingredient of the atmosphere. As it requires a certain temperature for
+this union to take place, to prevent the cooling effect of mass, a wick
+is used which can be readily heated, and where, as soon as chemical
+action has once taken place, other portions of the oil or melted tallow
+are absorbed, which ascend just as water through the pores of a sponge,
+and supply the place of those burned. In this example, only a small
+ignited surface is exposed to the influence of the oxygen: if, however,
+this latter element could be obtained in a solid state, and mixed up
+with the combustible, each particle throughout the whole mass would have
+in contact with it a particle of oxygen; so that, if the whole were
+raised to the necessary temperature for combustion, combustion would be
+instantaneous--or if the temperature of a part were sufficiently
+elevated, the combustion of this portion would communicate an intense
+heat to the contiguous portions, and the whole would rapidly kindle as a
+fuse does. In this case also, the access of the air being immaterial,
+combustion might take place in a closed vessel, or even under water.
+
+Nitre, or saltpetre, is one of a class of substances which contains a
+large portion of oxygen in a combined and solid state; and, being mixed
+with combustible matter such as charcoal, it causes rapid deflagration
+when the temperature is raised. The whole class of pyrotechnic
+compositions are reducible to this simple principle--they all consist of
+combustible substances intimately mixed with substances containing
+oxygen; or, to reduce the proposition to more general and simple terms,
+they consist of two or more substances, having for each other a powerful
+chemical affinity, and capable of rapidly uniting when the temperature
+is elevated. When a projectile force is necessary, a further condition
+is essential, viz., that they liberate by their chemical action gaseous
+matter, whereby a sudden increase in volume is produced, the expansion
+of which, augmented by the high temperature, produces the required
+effect of propulsion.
+
+This slight sketch will show that the purity and proportions of the
+saltpetre, and the inflammable substances mixed with it, are the main
+elements to be attended to in the improvement of self-burning
+compositions: it is indeed far from improbable, that the substances used
+in purifying saltpetre have first suggested such compounds. Wood ashes
+were used at a very early period for purifying nitre; and at the end of
+an Arabic receipt of the thirteenth century, for the preparation of
+saltpetre, in which charcoal is used, is the expression, "guard against
+sparks of fire."
+
+The probabilities strongly favour the view, that incendiary compositions
+of the nature we have been describing originated with the Chinese. China
+snow, and China salt, are the names given by writers of the greatest
+antiquity to saltpetre. In the Arabic MSS. to which we shall presently
+allude, the words Chinese wheel, Chinese flower, Chinese dart, occur as
+appellatives of different fireworks. It is very possible that the influx
+of Chinese literature, which the result of the recent war with that
+people promises us, will lead to the discovery of Chinese treatises upon
+pyrotechny.
+
+Other authors speak of fire-arms among the Chinese at a very early
+period of our era, and even before Christ; but the interpretation which
+they have put upon obscure passages--interpretations evidently derived
+from their existing knowledge--makes these expressions and translations
+of extremely doubtful import.
+
+At a later period, however, we have the authority of Raschideddin,
+(minister of the Tartar Khan of Persia,) and of Marco Polo, that the
+machines of war employed at the siege of Siang Yang were constructed by
+Arabian or European workmen, and that the Tartars were not at this
+period themselves able to manufacture such machines. This would tend to
+negative the belief which has been entertained by some, that the Chinese
+then used gunpowder as a means of projection, but does not lessen the
+possibility that the fuses and compositions projected by these machines
+were of Chinese origin.
+
+In the history of the dynasty of Sang, A.D. 1259, there is a distinct
+account of a projectile by means of fire as follows:--"In the first year
+of the period _Khaiking_, a kind of arms was manufactured called
+_Tho-ho-tsiary_, that is to say, 'impetuous fire-lance.' A nest of
+grains was introduced into a long tube of bamboo, to which fire was set.
+A violent flame darted forth, and instantly the nest of grains was
+projected with a noise similar to that of a peacock, which was heard at
+a distance of about 150 paces."
+
+Upon the whole, it would appear that the Chinese, although the character
+of their claims to the knowledge of gunpowder has been exaggerated, were
+in all probability the people among whom mixtures of combustibles with
+oxygenated substances originated; and this will form one of the many
+interesting fields of inquiry to be pursued by those skilled in the
+literature of the Chinese, now that the field is so largely opened to
+them.
+
+There are obscure passages in writers of a very early period, which
+speak of thunderbolts being shot from the walls of besieged towns upon
+the enemy. Philostratus speaks of such; but the indefinite character of
+these expressions makes their connexion with either Greek fire or
+gunpowder extremely doubtful.
+
+In the year 883, Nicetas, admiral of the Eastern empire, was sent by the
+Saracens of Crete to assault Constantinople, and is stated to have
+burned twenty of their ships with Greek fire.
+
+One of the earliest accounts of its composition is that given by Anna
+Comnena, who states it was composed of sulphur, bitumen, and naphtha;
+but the most distinct early receipt for a composition analogous to
+gunpowder, is that contained in the celebrated book of Marcus Graecus. In
+the book called _Liber Ignium_, we have the following receipts:--
+
+"Note. That the fire capable of flying in the air is of twofold
+composition, of which the first is: One part of colophon and an equal
+part of sulphur, two parts of saltpetre, and well pulverized, to be
+dissolved in linseed or laurel oil. A case, or hollowed wood, is then to
+be charged with it, and ignited. It will fly suddenly to whatever place
+you wish, and burn up every thing by its fire."
+
+The second sort of flying fire is prepared in this manner:--
+
+"One pound of sulphur vivum, two pounds of charcoal of linden wood or of
+willow, six pounds of saltpetre, which three things are minutely pounded
+in a marble mortar. After that you will charge with it a sheath suitable
+for flying, or for making thunder.
+
+"Note. The sheath for flying ought to be slender and long, and filled
+with the aforesaid powder well rammed.
+
+"The sheath for making thunder ought to be short and large, and half
+filled with the aforesaid powder, and well bound in every direction with
+an iron band.
+
+"Note. That in every sheath a small aperture is to be made, in order
+that it may be ignited by the match when applied, which match is made
+slender at the extremities, but in the middle large and filled with the
+aforesaid powder."
+
+Another receipt of Marcus for Greek fire is as follows:--
+
+"Greek fire is made in the following manner. Take pure sulphur, tartar,
+sarcocole, (a kind of resin,) pitch, fused saltpetre, and oil of
+petroleum. Boil them well together. Dip tow in the mixture, and set fire
+to it. This fire cannot be extinguished but with vinegar or sand."
+
+The close analogy, or rather the identity, of these compositions with
+gunpowder as at present made, requires no comment. The more important
+question is the date at which this work was written. This is a matter of
+great doubt. Messrs Reinaud and Fave, from the fact that the receipt for
+the preparation of saltpetre to be found in this same book of Marcus is
+much more imperfect than that in the Arabian MSS., place the date of his
+book earlier than the thirteenth century. Again, Geber, an oriental
+writer, the date of whose life is doubtful, but whom our authors fix at
+the eighth century, has described the preparation of a salt which has
+been translated _nitre_, but which our authors consider to have been a
+sesqui-carbonate of soda, _natron_, not _nitrum_. They thence conclude
+that nitre was unknown to Geber, and thus, because it was known to
+Marcus, that he lived subsequently; and for this reason they place
+Marcus between the ninth and twelfth century.
+
+We have seldom seen an instance of more loose deduction than this. It is
+required to find the date of Marcus. Geber, whose date is unknown, is
+set down, upon rather weak data, as of the eighth century. Geber's
+translator is corrected to prove that Geber did not know saltpetre.
+Hassan Alrammah, an Arabian, is considered as more recent than Marcus, a
+Greek, because his process for saltpetre is somewhat more perfect; and
+from the cumulative effect of these data, each of which is very
+insufficiently established, and which, if established, only go to prove
+differences in the degrees of perfection of their respective receipts,
+the date of Marcus is fixed: this certainly is pushing _incertum per
+incertius_ very far. We fear that if no more accurate information be
+brought to bear on it, the epoch of Marcus Graecus will be a subject of
+as much controversy as ever.
+
+The paragraph in the treatises _De Mirabilibus_ of Albert the Great is
+so identical with that of Marcus Graecus, that there can be no doubt of
+its being copied from it, or derived from the same source, and is a
+strong additional instance of the general progress of inventions. A
+received publication calls attention to a fact already disclosed but
+forgotten, the knowledge acquired by the world since is brought to bear
+on the old fact; and a consequent improvement results.
+
+Roger Bacon, to whom the invention or knowledge of gunpowder has been
+attributed by some, would stand a very poor chance among the men of
+science of the present day: it is not now the man who conjectures a
+possibility, but he who demonstrates a fact, that is hailed as the
+discoverer.
+
+The following series of possibilities are curiously interesting, both
+from their partial subsequent realization, and from the simple credulity
+with which Bacon gives us that which he had known "a wise man explicitly
+excogitate."
+
+"Instruments of navigation can be made, men being the propelling agents,
+that the largest river and sea barks can be borne along (one man only
+managing them) with greater speed than if they were full of navigators.
+Carriages can also be constructed which may be moved without animals,
+with an inestimable impetus; so that one would think that they were the
+armed chariots with which they fought in ancient times. Instruments for
+flying can also be made, so that a man sitting in the centre of the
+machine, and turning an engine, by which artificial wings may strike the
+air in the manner of a bird flying. An instrument also can be made,
+small in magnitude, for elevating and lowering almost infinite weights,
+than which nothing is more useful in mischances, for by an instrument of
+the length of three fingers, and of the same breadth or less, a man may
+extract himself and companions from all danger of prison, and elevate
+and lower them. An instrument can also be made by which one man may
+draw to himself a thousand men, by force and against their will.
+Instruments for walking on the sea can also be made, and in rivers to
+the bottom without corporal peril. For Alexander the Great used them
+that he might see the secrets of the sea, according to the relation of
+Ethicus the astronomer.
+
+"These things, indeed, are of antiquity and of our times, and are
+certain, except the instrument for flying, which I have not seen, nor
+have I known a man who has, but I know a wise man who has explicitly
+excogitated it; and an infinity of other things can be made, as bridges
+over rivers, can be made without columns or any support, and machines or
+unheard of engines."
+
+The ultra admirer of the ancients will see in this, if not an accurate
+relation of facts, which with the exception of the flying it purports to
+be, at least a wonderful perception of practicabilities; and railroads,
+diving-bells, suspension-bridges, &c., will be so many circumstantial
+corroborations of the correctness of his view. We, however, are rather
+disposed to regard them as ingenious extravagances. Predictions of the
+success of science are always on the safe side. If in the present day
+one were to say, that we shall be able to see the inhabitants of
+Jupiter, or even converse with them, it would be a prophecy which could
+never be negatived, which might be the case if we said such things were
+impossible.
+
+Bacon's obscure intimations of gunpowder are not so clearly derived from
+the same source as the receipts of Marcus Graecus and Albertus Magnus
+are; but they are apparently derivatives from what was then known to a
+few, of nitre compositions, and are very analogous, though not quite so
+extravagant as some of his other deductions.
+
+Bacon also speaks of a child's toy (_ludicrum puerile_) which was made
+with saltpetre, the explosion of which produced a report, "quod fortis
+tonitrui sentiatur excedere rugitum."
+
+As with this, so with the greater number of Bacon's observations; they
+bear reference to facts, or relations received as facts, which were at
+that time either generally or partially known, and do not profess to
+give to the world his own inventions, though the theories deduced from
+those asserted facts are frequently the produce of his own imaginative
+brain. Upon the whole, we are fully disposed to agree with Messrs
+Reinaud and Fave, that the invention of gunpowder is by no means due to
+Bacon.
+
+We now pass to the Arabian manuscripts of the 13th century, to which we
+have before alluded, and which constitute the principal discovery of our
+authors. The same word (_baraud_) which is now used by the Arabs as
+signifying gunpowder, was originally used to signify saltpetre; and even
+in this application had a secondary meaning, its more primitive meaning
+being "hail." The whiteness and crystalline form of saltpetre presented
+a sufficient analogy to attach to it a similar name, neology being in
+those days not quite so common or so easy as at present.
+
+Various salts were also included under the same name, their specific
+differences not being then known. This fact had probably much influence
+in retarding the pyrotechnic art, as accurate means of testing the
+purity and chemical character of the salt were not distinctly
+understood. A receipt successful in one case, because a proper salt was
+used, failed in another, because the salt was totally unfit for
+supporting combustion, though passing under the same name.
+
+In these MSS. occur a vast number of receipts for pyrotechnic
+compositions, of which we may here give one or two as specimens, and as
+instances of the close approach made at that time to the composition of
+gunpowder as manufactured at the present day:--
+
+  _Proportions of the Sun's Rays._
+
+  1st Composition.
+  Saltpetre, 10--Sulphur, 1-1/8--Charcoal, 2-1/4.
+
+  2nd Composition.
+  Saltpetre, 10--Sulphur, 1-7/8--Charcoal, 2.
+
+
+  _Proportions of the Garland of Golden Flowers._
+
+  Saltpetre, 10--Sulphur, 1--Steel filings, 1/2--Bronze filings, 1/2.
+
+
+  _Flashing Rocket._
+
+  Saltpetre, 10--Sulphur, 1-3/8--Charcoal, 2-1/8.
+
+Each substance to be separately pounded; the charcoal and saltpetre are
+then mixed, and gently pounded; moisten with spittle, and then add the
+sulphur.
+
+  _White Rocket without sparks._
+
+  Saltpetre, 10--Sulphur, 1-1/4--Charcoal, 2-1/4.
+  To be mixed as before directed.
+
+
+  _Egyptian Moonshine._
+
+  Saltpetre, 10--Sulphur, 2-1/4--Charcoal, 1/4.
+  Add 4 parts of Lead or Black Ointment.
+
+These instances will be sufficient to show the general character of the
+Arabic receipts. Saltpetre is used in all of them--in most of them
+sulphur or charcoal; while arsenic, incense, camphor, iron and bronze
+filings, are occasionally used to vary the colour and character of the
+light produced. The Arabs were also in possession at this period of a
+vast number of instruments of war in which similar combustible matters
+were employed, such as lances and clubs, with fires at the extremity,
+girdles for the waist with fires attached. We translate the description
+of one of them:--
+
+     _War Club._
+
+     "Get the glass-maker to make a club, which shall be pierced at its
+     extremity like an iron club. Get the turner to turn a stick, which
+     you will fasten strongly to it. You may give it whatever form you
+     please. Arrange on the sides three 'tubulures,' and at the bottom
+     also three for the 'roses,' (one class of the compositions,) then
+     make the usual compositions. When you wish to set fire to them,
+     arrange them in the form of a segment, set fire to the club, and
+     break it, for the love of God."
+
+The termination of this receipt is a very usual one, and applied to
+several other receipts--instruments of destruction being then, as now,
+considered a most appropriate method of serving God.
+
+Another ingenious weapon was called "the egg which moves itself and
+burns;" and this consisted of two long fuses, which seemed to give force
+and direction to the firework, and a shorter one, which was directed
+forwards, the object of which was to burn the enemy. This projectile was
+cast by the hand, and then, to use the quaint language of the receipt,
+"it walks, it starts, and it burns extremely well."
+
+Many other compositions were known to the Arabs, as appears from the two
+curious MSS. above mentioned; such as compositions for covering the body
+to protect from fire, others to emit a suffocating smoke.
+
+The performances of these instruments were, doubtless, what we should
+now consider very insignificant; but they must have produced upon the
+excited imagination of the warrior of those days an effect which it is
+very difficult to conceive in the present day.
+
+Nothing, probably, has occasioned more frequent historical errors, than
+forming deductions as to real effects from the exaggerated descriptions
+of ancient writers.
+
+When Musschenbroek (not a superstitious soldier, but an inductive
+philosopher) first discovered the Leyden Phial, he declared he would not
+take a second shock for the kingdom of France; and yet we well know that
+a schoolboy would not now be frightened at a much more powerful shock
+than he then experienced. Want of familiarity with a phenomenon, and
+ignorance of its proximate cause, will ever make it terrible. We cannot
+see any thing terrible in a sky-rocket, because we have been early
+influenced by those on whom we rely to regard it as an amusement; but
+had they brought us up in fear of it--had they magnified these accounts,
+having some foundation in fact, as to its destructive power, we may well
+understand what effects of terror it would produce.
+
+Thus regarded, the _ignotum pro magnifico_ appears quite sufficient to
+explain the narrated effects of the Greek fire. But there was also
+another reason--viz. that all results, not of continual occurrence, and
+within the range of ordinary experience, were attributed to magic, and
+consequently spread a terror far disproportioned to the real effects;
+for this reason, the means of producing then were prohibited by the
+hierarchy, and, as they gradually acquired a more extensive use, were
+then only permitted against the enemies of the religion of the people
+who used them; hence the expression so frequent in the Arabian receipts,
+"You shall burn your adversary for the service of God;" and similar
+language is used by the Christian writers, when similar compositions
+became used by Christian warriors.
+
+A narration, taken from the Sieur Joinville's History of St Louis, will
+place before our readers the contemporaneous description of the effects
+of the pyrotechny of the Arabs.
+
+The following is the account of Joinville of one of the skirmishes of St
+Louis on the borders of the Nile. We should premise that Turk is the
+term generally applied by Joinville to all Mussulman soldiers; and
+though the army was generally recruited from Turkish slaves, yet the
+country was possessed by Arabs, and the language and arts were theirs.
+
+"One evening it happened that the Turks brought an engine called '_la
+perriere_,' a terrible engine for doing mischief, and placed it opposite
+the '_chaz chateils_,' (wooden towers to shelter the advanced guard,)
+which Messire Gaultier de Carel and I were watching at night, by which
+engine they cast at us Greek fire, which was the most horrible thing
+that ever I saw. When the good Chevalier Messire Gualtier, my companion,
+saw this fire, he exclaimed and said to us, Sirs, we are lost for ever
+without any remedy; for if they burn our '_chaz chateils_' we are
+broiled and burned, and if we leave our watch we are disgraced. From
+which I conclude that there is no one can defend us from this peril,
+except God our blessed Creator. So I counsel you all, that whenever they
+cast at us the '_feu Gregeois_,' that each of us throw himself upon his
+elbows and knees, and cry mercy to our Lord, in whom is all power; and
+as soon as the Turcs threw the first charge of fire, we threw ourselves
+upon elbows and knees, as we had been instructed. And the fire of this
+first discharge fell between our two '_chaz chateils_,' in a space in
+front which our people had made for damming the river; and immediately
+the fire was extinguished, by a man whom we had for this purpose. The
+manner of the Greek fire was such, that it came forth as large as a tun,
+and the tail extended as long as '_une demye canne de quatre pans_.' It
+made such a noise in approaching, that it seemed like thunder which had
+fallen from heaven, and seemed to me a great dragon flying through the
+air; and threw out such a blaze that it appeared as clear as the day, so
+great a flame of fire was there. Three times during the night they threw
+this Greek fire at us from the above-mentioned '_perriere_,' and four
+times with the '_arbaleste_.' And every time that our good king Saint
+Loys heard that they thus threw the fire, he cast himself upon the
+ground, and stretched his hands to heaven, and cried with a loud voice
+to our Lord, and said, shedding copious tears--'Good Lord Jesus Christ,
+preserve me and all my people;' and, believe me, his good prayers and
+orisons did us good service (_nous eurent bon mestier_)."
+
+It is impossible to render, in literal translation, the quaint
+simplicity of the old French; but the fact that this terrible fire was
+extinguished by a single man, would tend very much to lessen our belief
+in the marvels attributed to it by the narrator.
+
+Be that as it may, we have, in the extract quoted, the expression Greek
+fire, (_feu Gregeois_,) which will connect the effect then produced with
+that known as pertaining to the Greek fire. There is every probability
+that the compositions here used were the same or similar to those
+generally known under that title, while the MSS. above quoted detail the
+compositions used by the Arabs at that period: the evidence is,
+therefore, very strong that the Greek fire was a composition closely
+resembling, if not identical with, those indicated in the Arabian
+receipts.
+
+If we trace back the effects of the combustible compositions to the
+period of the Crusades, anterior to the time when Joinville wrote, we
+shall find a strong analogy with those described by him; but the use of
+saltpetre appears to have been more rare, and that of bituminous
+substances more frequent.
+
+From an Arabian author of the middle of the 13th century, Casiri
+translates a passage into Latin, which Reinaud somewhat alters. We
+render it as nearly as we can in English. "It creeps along with
+scorpions of nitre powder (_baraud_) placed in cases. These scorpions
+take fire, and wherever they fall they burn; they spread abroad like a
+cloud; they yell like thunder; they burn like a brazier; they reduce all
+to cinders."
+
+This passage is important, as showing the connexion of nitre or
+_baraud_--a word, as we have before stated, applied to nitre and nitre
+compositions--with a class of effects analogous to those attributed to
+the Greek fire.
+
+The passage of incendiary compositions into gunpowder is still involved
+in much obscurity. Messrs Reinaud and Fave consider that a treatise,
+printed at Paris A.D. 1561, entitled _Livre de Cannonerie_, throws much
+light on the subject--"_vient de l'eclairer d'une lumiere nouvelle_;"
+but we cannot at all agree with them in this view, and for the simple
+reason, that neither the names of the authors of the receipts contained
+in it, nor the dates, nor the countries, are given. Without either of
+these data, our readers, we think, will find it difficult to conceive
+that much new light can be thrown on the subject. The treatise contains
+a number of receipts for mixtures of oils, bitumens, sulphur, and nitre;
+and, as appears to us, all the aid given by this work towards
+elucidating the subject is, that these receipts are analogous to those
+of Marcus and of the Arabs, and have some internal evidence of having
+been written or copied from writings of an early date, though probably
+subsequent to Marcus; and, secondly the term Greek fire (_feu Gregeois_)
+being employed, and receipts for it given, would lead to the inference
+that the compositions here used under the same title were analogous to
+those which originally constituted the Greek fire. It is, however,
+certainly open to the remark, that Greek fire having become, in a great
+measure, a generic name for violent incendiary compositions, the term
+may have been applied to compositions analogous in their effects, though
+of more recent discovery. When, however, we find, in various distinct
+quarters, similar receipts; when we find these appearing at different
+epochs, and having different degrees of approximation to the explosive
+compounds which a more matured experience has rendered certain in their
+composition, the discovery of such a book as this becomes certainly a
+corroborative circumstance in favour of that view which regards the
+Greek fire as never having become extinct, and as having, by progressive
+but unequal gradations, changed into gunpowder.
+
+In discussing the treatise above mentioned, there is a naive expression
+of our authors, who, in remarking the necessary slow combustion of these
+compounds from the imperfections of the processes of manufacturing
+saltpetre, also given in the same book, say:--"One sees how much there
+is that is providential in the progress of human invention. If man had,
+in the first instance, a powder as strong as at present, he would
+probably have been unable to master this force, or to use it with
+suitable instruments, and the discovery would have remained without
+application. We see that, thanks to the primitive impurity of the
+saltpetre, man employed mixtures of it with sulphur and charcoal, which
+produced a force suitable for throwing to short distances feeble parcels
+of incendiary matter. This force increased little by little, as men
+became better able to refine saltpetre, and ends by enabling them to
+employ it for throwing projectiles."
+
+We have frequently heard the word providential applied in a strange
+manner; but this is one of the most novel views of providential
+intervention we happen to have met with. The quiet gravity with which
+Providence is assumed to have interfered in favour of the progress of
+destructive implements, is about as instructive an instance of the
+unconscious devotion of an author to his speciality as could easily be
+selected.
+
+In the treatise of 1561 are some receipts, assumed to be taken from
+works of an earlier date, in which saltpetre, sulphur, and charcoal, are
+submitted to a considerable degree of heat. The following is one:--"Take
+of saltpetre 100 lbs., sulphur, 25 lbs., charcoal, 25 lbs., put them
+altogether, and make them boil well, until the whole be well united, and
+then you will thus have a strong powder." Mixed in these proportions,
+and submitted to such a temperature, the chance of explosion is very
+great; and, as our authors observe, "the essential fact of the tradition
+respecting the invention of gunpowder is confirmed;" or rather,
+strictly speaking, the probability of its truth is strengthened. We
+therefore do not see very clearly why they should be anxious to divest
+Schwartz of the merit of its discovery, while they produce arguments to
+show the probability of the discovery being so made. The results of
+these arguments would only tend to show that the tradition is not
+sufficiently explicit, in not stating why the three ingredients were
+mixed together; and Schwartz would, according to this view, be regarded
+as the first who remarked and applied, or suggested the application of
+gunpowder, as supplying an explosive projective force.
+
+Though the probabilities of the use of gunpowder, as an explosive
+compound, being suggested by accidents occurring in the manufacture of
+combustible compounds, are thus shown to be very great, the actual step,
+if step it were, still remains in obscurity. Most probably, like many
+other inventions, the fact was observed again and again with different
+degrees of accuracy and different resulting suggestions; until, at
+length, growing intelligence seized on it, and increasing facility of
+publication rendered its development more rapid and general. The actual
+date of its general introduction or use in war is still uncertain.
+Schwartz's discovery is stated by Kircher at 1354; but gunpowder is
+stated to have been used at the siege of Stirling in 1339; in Denmark in
+1340; in Spain in 1343; at Cressy in 1346; at the siege of Calais in
+1347.
+
+Without entering into the critical discussions which the vagueness of
+the historical records of these periods might tempt, we can scarcely be
+far wrong in setting down the general introduction of gunpowder during
+the first half of the fourteenth century, although any attempt to
+specify, from existing data, the exact date of its invention, would be
+vain. With regard to its connexion with Greek fire, we may sum up by
+stating, that during different periods, extending from the eighth to the
+fourteenth century, combustible matters, in which saltpetre was one
+ingredient, have been used; and that the term Greek fire has been, at
+various times within this period, applied to them. Although it does not
+necessarily follow that the Greek fire alluded to in the more recent
+works was identical with the Greek fire of an earlier period, yet the
+probability is strong that there was at least a striking analogy in
+effect, or the name would not have been used. There is, moreover, some
+internal evidence of community of origin in these various receipts, when
+we find that in different parts of the world, in China, in Arabia, and
+Greece, one general characteristic ingredient is present, viz., nitre;
+when also the history and progress of chemistry have taught us that no
+substance, other than nitre or a salt of nitric acid, has ever been, or
+is now known, which would produce similar effects, (for the
+comparatively recent discovery of the chlorates would produce effects of
+detonation by friction or percussion, of which we find no records,)
+there can, we think, be little doubt that Greek fire was of the same
+chemical character as gunpowder; that it passed by a transition, which
+may have been in particular cases more or less sudden, but which upon
+the whole was gradual, into gunpowder; and that the history of the
+progress of one of these manufactures is, in fact, the history of the
+progress of the other. In this history there are still many gaps to be
+filled up, many errors to be rectified.
+
+The book of Messrs Reinaud and Fave, though somewhat inartificially
+arranged, has given to the public much valuable information; but there
+is still room for an elaborate and well-digested treatise on the
+subject, in which the whole progress of pyrotechnic invention may be
+arranged in chronological order, and more lucidly expounded than are
+antiquarian matters in general. This is a task, however, which few, if
+any, are capable of undertaking, as it requires for its successful
+execution a combination of extensive antiquarian, chemical, and
+philological acquirements. In the mean time, our authors may say, and we
+say with them,
+
+          "Si quid novisti rectius istis,
+  Candidus imperti; si non, his utere mecum."
+
+
+
+
+HOW TO BUILD A HOUSE AND LIVE IN IT.
+
+
+We're a true Boeotian people after all: that's a fact. We may talk
+about Attic art and Doric strength; but in our habits, no less than in
+our climate, we certainly belong to the wrong side of the hills. We're a
+stuffing and guzzling race, if ever there was one; we doat on great
+hunks of meat and flagons of strong drink; and as truly as every Paddy
+has got a hot potato somewhere in his head, making him the queer, mad
+chap he is, so have we got a national brain compounded of pudding, and
+beef, and sausages, turning us into that stubborn and stolid people
+which we know ourselves to be. Sidney Smith expressed the fundamental
+idea of the English nation to a T, when he said that the ultimate end of
+all good government was a hot chop and plenty of claret; but, in saying
+so, he did no more than re-echo the burden of the old song, translated
+into more modern and fashionable language--
+
+  "Back and side go bare, go bare;
+    Both foot and hand go cold;
+  But belly, God send thee good ale enough,
+    Whether it be new or old!"
+
+Ah! he was a splendid fellow that indited this song, and so was that
+other clerical wight who broached the idea--
+
+  "When I go to bed, then of heaven I dream;
+  But that is fat pullets and clotted cream;"--
+
+A real Devonian or Somersettian parson; but they spoke from the
+heart,--or rather from the stomach, jolly, good comfortable souls as
+they were, and their words go right home to the stomachs and hearts of
+all, wherever the British lion has the privilege of lashing his tail or
+shaking his mane.
+
+As to eating, _quoad comedendum constipandumque_, we keep up the
+Boeotic charter to the very letter and spirit of all its provisions;
+and in the moistening of our national clay, we certainly show a
+praiseworthy diligence; we wet it like bricks--and that's a fact, too;
+but as for doing these important matters in proper places and at proper
+times, there, _selon nous_, we are lamentably behind-hand with the rest
+of the unfledged, articulate-speaking, bipedal genus to which we have
+the honour to belong. And as it has been lately shown in our pages, as
+clear as the sun at noonday, (the truth of which beautiful and rare
+simile, gentle reader, varies considerably with the place where you may
+happen to use it--from Shoe Lane, London, to the Strada di Toledo at
+Naples,) or as clear as--clear can be, that John Bull does not know how
+to put a decent coat on his back when he goes out to dinner; so now it
+is to be essayed to show, that for all he may think otherwise, John has
+not got a comfortable, sensible house to go and eat his dinner in; that
+he does not know what a regular, good, snug, and snoozy chimney-corner
+is; and that, when he stumbles up-stairs to bed, he generally puts
+himself into a hole, but not what can be called a room--a real
+comfortable, respectable bed-room. We do not say that he might not have
+done so once--we know, on the contrary, that he did; all we contend for
+is, that he does not do so now, and we don't think he is in the right
+way to mend; and, as John is a special friend of ours, and so is Mrs
+Bull, and all the little Bulls, who will be big, full-grown Bulls some
+day or other, and as we like to make ourselves useful to the present
+generation, and hope to be agreeably remembered by posterity, therefore
+do we intend to take the Bull by the horns, and see if we cannot
+wheedle, coax, pull, push, or bully him into our way of thinking about
+rooms and houses.
+
+It is set down as a national axiom at the present day, that we are at
+the very head of the world in arts, arms, manufactures, laws,
+constitution, Church and State, literature, science--(any thing
+else?--there must be something more; to be sure there is)--money and
+railroads! and he's no true Englishman, Sir, he's not one of the
+British public, if he does not think so. We see it in print every
+day--it must be true; we've read as much in the _Times_, _Herald_,
+_Chronicle_, _Post_, &c.--for the last twenty years, and what all the
+world says must be so. Be it so, honest John, we honour your Boeotic
+patriotism; it's a glorious principle, old boy, and 'twill carry you
+bravely through all the thicks and thins of life--"sed audi alteram
+partem"--do put your nose outside your own door a bit, now that
+railroads are so plenty and cheap--do go abroad a little--just go and
+look at some of those foreigners in their own outlandish countries, and
+then think quietly over these matters again. Besides, who's afraid of
+change now-a-days? Are we not making all these splendid inroads into the
+country, ay, and into the constitution?--are we not going to have corn
+and cattle, and silk and cotton, and butter and cheese, and brandy to
+boot, all brought to our own doors for nothing? We'll leave these other
+things alone--we will not argue about them now; let us talk about bricks
+and mortar, and suchlike, and see if we cannot open your eyes to the
+light of reason and common sense.
+
+Now, what is the end, object, and use of all habitations, houses,
+tenements, and premises whatsoever in this same united kingdom of our's,
+and in this glorious nineteenth century, except to shelter a man from
+the cold, or the heat, or the damp, or the frost, or the wind, whichever
+may come upon him, or any part or parcel of the same; and further, to
+give him room to hoard up, stow away, display, use, and enjoy all his
+goods, chattels, and other appurtenances; and further, wherein to sit
+down with a friend or friends, as the case may be, to any description of
+meal that his purse can or cannot pay for, and then to give him room and
+opportunity either to spatiate for the good of digestion, or to put his
+India-silk handkerchief over his bald pate, and snore away till
+tea-time? This being the very acme of comfort, the very object of all
+labour, the only thing that makes life worth living for, in the opinion
+of three-fourths of Queen Victoria's loving subjects, it follows, that
+if they would spend that money they love so much in a rational and truly
+economical way, they should bear such objects as these constantly in
+sight. This brings us, therefore, to the enunciating, for the second
+time, that great fundamental law of human operations--usefulness first,
+ornament afterwards, or both together if you please; but not, as we see
+the law interpreted now-a-days--ornament and show in the first place,
+and usefulness and comfort put in the background. It is this backward
+reading of the great rule of common sense, that makes men so uncommonly
+senseless as we often find them to be; and when it comes in the way of
+building, it turns us into the least architectural and worst built
+nation of any in this part of Christendom. Taking into account the cost
+of erecting buildings, and the relative value of money in different
+countries, there are no towns in Europe where so little good building
+and so small a degree of architectural effect are produced as in those
+of "old England." Poets and home tourists have affected to fall into
+rhapsodies of admiration at the beautiful neatness of our small country
+towns, at the unparalleled magnificence of London, at the ostentatious
+splendour of our commercial cities, Liverpool, Bristol, &c. This is all
+very well for home readers, and for home reputation; for there is
+nothing like a lot of people congregating themselves into a nation, and
+then be-lauding themselves and their doings up to the skies--there is
+nobody to say nay, and they can easily write themselves down the first
+people on earth. The fault is not peculiar to England; that vapouring
+coxcomb Crapaud is full of such nonsense; and that long-haired,
+sallow-cheeked, quid-chewing Jonathan, is still more ridiculously fond
+of indulging in it: but because it is one of the most offensive
+weaknesses of human nature, it is not therefore the less worthy of
+reprehension, and the sooner we try to throw off such false and morbid
+patriotism the better. The three towns in Great Britain, which, taking
+them in the general average of their common buildings, their citizens'
+houses, can be called the best-looking ones, are these:--first and
+fairest is dear Auld Reekie, next is Cheltenham, and last is Bath. The
+great metropolis we put out of the comparison, for metropolitical cities
+should be compared together; but Edinburgh is _facile princeps_ in the
+list of all habitable places in this island; Cheltenham is at the head
+of all watering-places, and pleasure-places--(Brighton, Leamington,
+Clifton, &c., are certainly not equal to it in point of good
+architecture and general effect;) and Bath, now that its fashionable
+name has somewhat declined, may be looked on as the leader of our
+second-rate quiet kind of towns. Were we to make a fourth class of
+comparisons we would take our cathedral cities, and place Oxford at the
+head, before Worcester, Exeter, and so forth. But we revert to our first
+proposition; and were we about to show a foreigner those places
+wherewith we could desire him to compare his own distant cities, we
+should take him to the three above mentioned. It is in these three
+places that the great essentials of use and ornament seem to us to be
+the most happily combined; attempts are made at them in other quarters
+with various degrees of success, but here their union has been the most
+decided. Bear our opinion in mind, gentle reader; and, when next you go
+upon your travels, see if what we assert be not correct.
+
+The style of house we most object to is Johnson's--you don't know
+Johnson? Why, don't you recollect the little bustling man that used to
+live at the yellow house in the City-Road, and that you were sure to
+meet every day, about eleven o'clock, in Threadneedle Street, or by the
+Bank Buildings? Well, he has been so successful in the drug line that he
+has left the City-Road, and has moved into the far west, Paragon Place,
+Bryanstone Square; and, not content with this, has taken a house at
+Brighton, on the Marine-Parade, for his "Sunday out," as he terms it. He
+is a worthy fellow at bottom, but he has no more taste than the pump;
+and while he thinks he inhabits the _ne plus ultra_ of all good houses,
+lives in reality in ramshackle, rickety, ugly, and inconvenient dens.
+The house in Paragon Place is built of brick, like all others; but the
+parlour story is stuccoed to look like stone, the original brick tint
+being resumed at the levels of the kitchen below and the drawing-room
+above. There are two windows to the said drawing-room--one to the
+dining-room; and so on in proportion for the four stories of which the
+edifice consists: but the back is a curious medley of ins and outs, and
+ups and downs; single windows to dark rooms, and a dirty little bit of a
+back-yard, with a square plot of mud at the end of it, called "the
+garden;" the cook says the "airey" is in front; and Johnson knows that
+his wine-cellar is between the dust-bin and the coal-hole under the
+street. If you knock at the door you are let in to a passage too wide
+for one, but not wide enough for two, and you find at once the whole
+penetralia of the habitation lying open to your vision; dining-room door
+on right hand, parlour door behind it; kitchen door under the stairs,
+and garden door at the end of the passage. You know the man's whole
+household arrangements in a minute; and if he is not in the
+drawing-room, (but Johnson never does sit there, his wife keeps it for
+company,) it is of no use his pretending not to be at home, when you
+have your hand within a few feet of the locks of each door on the
+ground-story. And then, though the passage is dark, for there is only
+the fan-light over the entrance, and the long round-headed window at the
+first landing, all full of blue and orange glass, you know that dinner
+is preparing; for you see the little mahogany slab turned up to serve as
+a table near the parlour door, and such a smell comes up the kitchen
+stairs, that were you at the cook's elbow you could not be more in the
+thick of it. Well, they tell you he's in, and you walk up-stairs to the
+drawing-room; one room in front and the best bed-room behind; and Mr and
+Mrs Johnson's up-stairs again over the drawing-room; and the children's
+room behind that--you can hear them plain enough; and above all, no
+doubt, is the maid's room, and the servant-boy's who let you in; not so,
+the boy sleeps in the kitchen, and the front attic is kept for one of
+Johnson's clerks, for you might have seen him going up the second pair;
+and if he wasn't going to his bed-room what business had he up-stairs at
+all? So that, though you have been in the house only five minutes, you
+know all about it as well as if Mortice the builder had lain the plans
+on the table before you. Well, Johnson won a picture in the _Art-Union_
+some time since, and determined to stick it up in the drawing-room,
+against the wall fronting the windows; so up came the carpenter; and, as
+the picture was large, away went a ten-penny nail into the wall; and so
+it did go in, and not only in, but through the wall, for it was only
+half a brick thick; and, what with repeated hammerings, the bricks
+became so loose that the picture could not be safely hung there. So it
+was ordered to be placed against the wall opposite the fireplace--the
+wall of the next house in fact--and the same operation was going on,
+when old Mrs Wheedle, the next door neighbour, sent in her compliments
+to beg that Mr Johnson would have some regard for her hanging
+bookshelves, the nails of which had been all loosened by his
+battering-ram, and the books were threatening to fall on her tableful of
+china--she called it "cheyney"--below. Again, on the other side lives,
+or rather lodges, Signor Bramante, the celebrated violoncello, and he
+practises in what he has made the back drawing-room, equivalent to
+Johnson's best bed; but, the other day, when Smith came up from
+Birmingham to see Johnson, he could get no sleep for the first half of
+the night, Bramante having occasion to practise till nearly one o'clock,
+for the _Stabat Mater_ of next morning's concert. So much for the
+substantiality of Johnson's town-house. His rooms, too, to our mind, are
+of bad proportions, and most inconveniently situated; they are so low
+that it is impossible to ventilate them properly; he has always a flight
+or two of stairs to go up when he retires to bed, and his servants might
+as well live in a treadmill, for the quantity of step-treading that they
+have to perform. There is no possibility of sitting in any one room out
+of a draft from either door or window, and there is not a single good
+cupboard in the whole house. As for ornament, there is none outside save
+the brass-knocker on the street door, for the windows are plain oblong
+holes in the walls; and, as for the inside, the only attempts at it are
+the cheap and meagre stucco patterns of the cornices, and the somewhat
+tawdry designs of the paper-hangings. He pays seventy pounds a-year rent
+for it, however, and sets himself down as a lucky man, because with his
+rates, &c., he comes within the hundred.
+
+After all, when he goes to Brighton he is not much better off; though,
+as he likes fresh air, he gets plenty of it there, through every window,
+door, and chimney of the house--for there the bow-windowed projection in
+front is made of wood, coated over with tiles, to look like bricks.
+There he never attempted any picture-hanging fancies, the
+partition-walls would stand no such liberties being taken with them;
+there he cannot complain of not knowing what is going on in the town,
+for he can hear all that is said in the next house, by merely putting
+his ear to the wall. The most serious drawback, however, to his comfort
+in his marine residence, is, that while there he can never have a
+good-sized dinner-party, inasmuch as his landlord made it a stipulation
+of the lease, that not more than twelve people should be allowed to meet
+in the drawing-room at the same time, and that no dancing whatever
+should be attempted within the dwelling. The Brighton man only built the
+house for fifteen years; whereas the London one was more provident, he
+guaranteed his for thirty.
+
+Johnson's bed-rooms are, even the best of them, of moderate size, while
+the small ones are very small indeed; and into these small rooms he has
+stuck large four-post beds, that make them darker and more inconvenient
+than they naturally are, and leave room for hardly any of the usual
+evolutions of the toilette. What, indeed, with the big chests of
+drawers, like the big sideboard in the dining-room, it is as much as you
+can do to get about conveniently between the bed and the side walls;
+though one good thing the builder and furnisher have certainly
+effected--you can open the bed-room door, and you can stir the fire, and
+you can almost pull up the window-blind, without quitting the protection
+of the counterpane; and this on a cold morning is something.
+
+Mrs Johnson says that the arrangement of the area gate in Paragon Place
+is perfection itself; for she can see the butcher's boy as he comes for
+his orders of a morning, while sitting at the breakfast-table, through
+the green blinds, and that the policeman dares not stop there, during
+daylight at least--she should be much too sharp upon him; so that the
+cook is twice as punctual as when they lived in the city. True; these
+are points of household management that have their weight; but then Mrs
+J. forgets that the dustman rings his bell there at most inconvenient
+hours, that the dirty coalheaver spoils the pavement once a month, and
+that it is a perpetual running up and down those stone steps, to shut
+the gate and keep dogs and beggars out, all day. However, the railings
+and the gate are not part of the house; and, if people like to have
+their back-doors under their eyes, why, there is no accounting for their
+taste.
+
+We could not help thinking, the last time we went over to Paris, that
+our friend Dubois, the wine-merchant--him from whom we get our
+Chambertin, and who has about the same relative income as Johnson--was
+much better housed. His cellars are down at the Halle aux Vins, like
+every body else's; and he is shut up there in his little box of a
+counting-house nine hours every day of his life; but he lives, now that
+he has moved from the Marais, in the Rue Neuve des Mathurins, which
+leads out of the Chaussee d'Antin. Here he has a _premier_, as they call
+it in Paris--or a first-floor, as we should term it in London; and he
+pays 2000 francs, or L80 a-year for it, with about 100 francs of rates
+and taxes. For this he has two drawing-rooms, a dining-room, a study,
+six bed-rooms, kitchens, and cellars; some of the rooms look into the
+street, the rest run round the ample court-yard of the house. To get at
+him you go up a flight of stone stairs that four people can easily mount
+abreast; when you enter his door, from the little hall paved with stone
+and marble, you pass from the sitting-rooms one into the other--for they
+all form a suite; while the bed-rooms lie mostly along a corridor, into
+which they open. Once up the two flights of stairs that lead to the
+doorway, and the mounting, whether for masters or servants, is done
+with. The kitchen is at the furthest end, away from the other rooms, and
+is approached by a back staircase from the court-yard. There are no
+beggars nor dogs, nor butcher's boys, nor other bores, except what the
+concierge at the gateway allows to come in; and though the street is
+rather noisy, being in a fashionable quarter, yet the court-yard is
+perfectly quiet, and free from all plagues of organs, singers, &c. The
+rooms are, one and all, _twelve_ feet high; their Windows down to the
+ground; the floors of solid oak, polished till you can slide on them;
+the doors are in carved oak, painted white and richly gilt; the
+chimney-pieces are all marble--none of the flimsy thin slabs of Paragon
+Place, but good solid blocks, cut out from the red quarries of the
+Pyrenees; with polished brass dogs in the fireplaces, and large logs of
+flaming wood across then. The drawing-rooms are hung in silk on the
+walls; the other rooms are tastefully papered. There is abundance of
+good furniture, which, from the ample size of the apartments--the
+principal room being thirty feet by twenty--sets off the proportions of
+the dwelling without blocking it up. Dubois has not a four-post bed in
+his house; no more has any man in France. They are all those elegant and
+comfortable things which we know a French bed to be; and the long
+sweeping folds of the red and white curtains that come down to the floor
+from the ceiling, form a graceful contrast to the curves of the other
+furniture. The walls are all of good solid stone, two feet thick on the
+outside; the house has been built these fifty years, and is of a better
+colour than when first put up; the windows are richly ornamented in
+their frames without, and form commodious recesses for settees within.
+You may dine twenty, and dance forty people here! or you may throw your
+rooms open, give a soiree, (no boiled mutton affair, remember; but
+music, dancing, and cards; coffee, ice, and champagne,) and cram each
+room full of people, and the landlord will never fear for the safety of
+his building.
+
+Now, there are three other sets of apartments in the same house, and
+above Dubois, not so lofty as his, but nearly as commodious, and all
+with their proportionate degree of elegance and solid comfort. Dubois
+has not got a house at Dieppe, it is true; but then, like all Frenchmen,
+he is so absorbed in his dear Paris, that he hardly cares to stir out
+from it. If ever he does, he runs off to Vichy or Mont Dor for a
+fortnight in the _saison des eaux_, and he is contented.
+
+But then, you will say, Dubois lives, after all, in another man's
+house--he is only a lodger; whereas Johnson dwells in what the law calls
+his "castle." Be it so; for the same money we would rather have the
+positive advantages of the one, _en societe_, than the tasteless and
+inconvenient isolation of the other.
+
+And, after all, is Johnson more decidedly at home in his own house, than
+Dubois is in his "_appartement_?" What does it matter whether you have
+people living on each side of you, with their street doors so close to
+yours that their wives or their daughters pop up their noses above the
+green blinds every time a cab or a jarvey drives up; or whether you have
+people who come in at the same gateway with yourself, and go up the same
+stairs, it is true, and who live either above or below you, and who can,
+if they like, run out on their landings to see who is thumping at your
+door panels? Upon our conscience as honest folks, who have lived in half
+the capitals of Europe, to say nothing of those of our own islands, we
+never found the slightest intrusion on privacy arising from the
+collecting of several families in the same house, in Paris, Rome,
+Florence, or Vienna. All we know is, and we often think of it agreeably,
+that these continental houses seemed to us like so many social colleges,
+and that the having a set of rooms with a common staircase, used to put
+us in mind of our old Christ Church, and of Garden Court in the Temple.
+'Tis true, that in the one set of rooms we had no fellow-inmates except
+our dog, and every now and then a joyous set of fellows that would have
+made any place tolerable; that in the other there was our old laundress
+and bed-maker, and our "boy," and for a short time our "man," and
+actually, upon our honour it is true, we did once see a client in them!
+whereas, in our continental suites of chambers, we are _en famille_ with
+wife, bairns, and "bounes" to boot, and that we did _parfois_ try the
+elasticity or the stretching powers of our _camere_ pretty considerably,
+and did cram therein no end of guests. But on the whole, we have fairly
+made the experiment _in propria persona_; we have weighed well friend
+Johnson's castellated independence, and _l'ami_ Dubois's social
+contiguation;--and, rent for rent, we prefer the latter. If we must live
+with two neighbours within a few feet of us, we would rather have one
+under us on the ground floor, and one above us on the second, and
+ourselves in the midst on the first, and all three clubbing together to
+live in a little palazzo:--we would rather have this, than be crammed in
+between Mr A and Mr B, each of us in a third or fourth rate kind of
+house, with poor thin walls, small low rooms, dirty areas, melancholy
+gardens, shabby-genteel fronts, ugly backs, and little comfort.
+
+It may be said, and justly, that the idea of a man living in his own
+castle is applicable only to that state of society when large towns do
+not exist, inasmuch as the idea can be nothing more than an idea, and
+can hardly ever approach to a reality, the moment men begin to
+congregate themselves together in cities. Doubtless, it is indispensable
+to all our notions of comfort, and of the due independence of social
+life--it is, indeed, one of the main elements of the constitution of a
+family, that a certain degree of isolation should be maintained and
+respected; but we submit to the candid observer, that the only
+difference between English cities and continental ones in this respect
+is, that Englishmen aim at "horizontal" independence, foreigners at
+"vertical." Englishmen form their line of location every man shoulder to
+shoulder, or rather, elbows in ribs; foreigners mostly get upon one
+another's backs and heads, and form a living pyramid like the clown and
+boys at Astley's. By this arrangement, however, it comes to pass, that
+for the same number of inhabitants much more ground is occupied by an
+English than by a continental town; and also, that each single dwelling
+is of mean, or, at the most, moderate architectural appearance, the
+great condition of elevation being wanting, and the power of
+ornamentation being generally kept closely under by the limitation of
+each individual's pecuniary resources. Practically, we contend, there is
+quite as much comfort (we think, indeed, in many cases more) in the
+continental manner of arranging houses as in the English one: while the
+former allows of and encourages architectural display, and indeed
+requires a much more solid system of construction; but the latter leads
+to the running up of cheap, slight, shabby-genteel houses, and represses
+all attempts at external ornament as superfluous from its expense. Upon
+this subject, we appeal to the experience of all who have dwelt for any
+length of time on the Continent, not to those who merely run across the
+water for six weeks or so, and come back as blind as they went; but
+rather to those who have given themselves time and opportunity enough
+for the film of national prejudice to wear away from before their eyes,
+and have been at length able to use that natural good sense with which
+most Englishmen are blessed by Providence. To them we would say, that
+the plan of several families tenanting one large dwelling, clubbing
+together, as it were, for the erection of a handsome and commodious
+edifice, and just so far sacrificing their independence as to consent
+occasionally to run up against their neighbour in the common court-yard,
+or perchance to see his coat-tails whisking by their door up or down
+stairs, is the more sensible of the two. There is practically a great
+saving of walls, of spaces of support, as the architects term it, in
+this plan: great saving in roofing; and, from the mere dimensions of the
+building, a certain degree of grandeur is necessarily given to it. This
+plan requires the edifice to be built court-fashion, and sometimes will
+admit of a good garden being appended: it also requires that a most
+useful servant, a porter, in a suitable lodge, should be kept by the
+little social community; and every body knows what an useful body the
+porter, or _concierge_, as the French call him, may be made. Just as
+bachelors join together in clubs to the great promotion of their
+individual comfort, and certainly to the outward advantage of a city, so
+should families join together for their civic residences; they would all
+derive benefit from their mutual support, and the appearance of a town
+would be immediately improved.
+
+We do not say that any joining together of houses should take place in
+country, nor even in suburban residences. No; there let every man have a
+house to himself; the foundation of the whole system is quite different:
+and there is also a certain class of persons who should always have
+separate dwellings in a town; but to these subjects we will revert on
+another occasion. We will only allude to one objection which the
+fastidious Englishman will be sure to raise: if you live under the same
+roof with one or more families he will say, you must necessarily be
+acquainted with all the members of the same: you must, in fact, know
+what they are going to have for dinner, and thus must be acquainted with
+all the secrets of their household economy. Well, so one would
+undoubtedly expect to be the case: unfortunately, however, for the
+theory, the practical working of the thing is just the contrary: we do
+not know of any town where so much isolation is kept up as in Paris,
+though there men crowd together under the same roof like bees into the
+common hive. We have lived ourselves, between the epochs of our bachelor
+or embryo state, and that of our full-blown paternal maturity, on every
+floor of a Parisian house, from the _entresol_ just over the stable,
+where we could lean out of our window of a morning, smoke our hookah,
+and talk to the "Jockey Anglais" who used to rub down our bit of blood,
+up to the _Septieme_, where in those celestial regions we could walk
+about upon our little terrace, look over the gardens of the Tuileries,
+('twas in the Rue de Rivoli, gentle reader!) all the way to St Cloud and
+Meudon, one of the sweetest and gayest prospects in the world, by the
+by, and hold soft communings either with the stars or our next
+neighbours--(but thereon hangs a tale!) and yet never did we know the
+name even of any other soul in the house, nor they ours. Oh! we have had
+many an adventure up and down that interminable staircase, when we used
+to skip up two hundred and twenty steps to get to our eyry; many a
+blow-up with our old porter: she was a good soul, too, was old Madame
+Nicaise; many a time have we seen flounces and redingotes coming in and
+out of doors as we went up or down; but actually we cannot call to mind
+the reality, the living vision of a single individual in that vasty
+mansion. On the contrary, we used to think them all a set of unsociable
+toads, and, in our days of raw Anglicism, we used to think that we might
+be just as well called in to "assist" at some of the charming soirees
+which we used to hear of from the porter: we did not then know that a
+Parisian likes to be "chez lui" as he calls it, quite as much as an
+Englishman. We should have lived on in that house, gentle reader, _ad
+infinitum_; but one day on going up-stairs, we saw in ominous letters,
+on a new brass plate, "au troisieme, de la cour," LEGRAND, TAILLEUR.
+Horror of horrors! 'twas our own man! we had not paid him for two years:
+we gave _conge_ that evening, and were off to the Antipodes.
+
+
+
+
+"ROGUES IN OUTLINE."
+
+
+BIRBONE I.
+
+SIGNOR RUSCA.
+
+  "Rusca the lawyer, an exceeding knave."--POPE.
+
+  "Currunt verba licet, manus est velocior illis
+  Nondum lingua sua, dextra peregit opus."--MARTIAL.
+
+A more knowing man in his way than Signor Avocato Rusca R---- it would
+not be easy to find; so first-rate is he in his style, though his style
+may not be quite first-rate! His father intended him for a lawyer,
+whilst nature qualified him for a cheat; and, as there seemed to be
+nothing absolutely incompatible in the prosecution of these two
+professions,
+
+  "He sought, without offence to either,
+  How he might deal in both together;"
+
+in doing which for a season, he accumulated much useful knowledge,
+besides laying the foundation of his future fortune. Whether in his
+earlier career he followed the practice of his learned predecessor,
+Paulus, and sought, like him, to augment his fees by pleading in a hired
+Sardonyx,[74] we have not heard; but his passion for jewels, none who
+have seen him without his gloves (and we never saw him otherwise) can
+for a moment doubt.
+
+  "Tight girt with gems, in massive mountings set,
+  Beneath their weight his tumid fingers sweat."
+
+When he had come to find that his dealings as _dealer_ better repaid the
+cost of his earlier education than the teasing uncertainties of the law,
+a sense of filial duty perhaps, and of inclination certainly, led him
+ultimately to give up all his time and talents, together with whatever
+little money he had accumulated, _legally_ or _otherwise_, to the
+acquisition of practical archaeology. He had seen enough of antiquarian
+transactions already, to convince him of the unlimited credulity of a
+certain class of connoisseurs--this knowledge was important, and he
+began to apply it presently. Having made himself a competent scholar,
+(he could quote Horace, and had Seneca's[75] moral precepts at his
+_finger-ends_;) being plausible in speech, and knowing the market-price
+of every ancient relic by rote, he could not but succeed; he succeeded
+accordingly--and is now considered throughout Italy as a _mezzo
+galant'uomo_ of first-rate abilities and tact!
+
+By putting himself early under efficient tutelage at _Rome_, and doing
+as they did _there_, he soon outstripped most of his masters in his art;
+the art, that is, of buying "uncertain merchandise," as low as duplicity
+can buy of ignorance and want; and of re-selling at as high a price as
+credulity will pay to cunning.[76] His unusual astuteness made it really
+diverting, when you knew your man, to have dealings with him, otherwise
+it was likely to turn out an expensive amusement. Our acquaintance with
+him began in the full maturity of his powers, when his mode of
+cross-questioning false witnesses who brought him _soi-disant_ antiques
+to sell, and his lawyer-like mode of eliciting the truth, were capital.
+How he would lie! and what lungs he had to lie with! _immensa cavi
+spirant mendacia folles!_ What action! what volubility of tongue! what
+anecdotes! and then only to see how he would look a _false_ Augustus in
+the face, and discern that wily sovereign from a thousand counterfeits;
+or when a sly forger brought him a modern gold coin, carefully coated in
+mould--how he knew by _instinct_ that it was an imposture, and would not
+condescend to exhume and expose the fraud. Like all knaves, he would
+take incredible pains to prove that there was not a more honest man than
+himself breathing--and when he considered himself to have quite
+established _this_ on his own showing, he would sometimes speak with
+"honest indignation" of men who were palpable rogues: assuring you all
+the while, that it gave him pain thus to bear testimony against his
+neighbour, but then every honest man owed it to his Pope and to the
+people to expose Birbonism. On one occasion, when he had a large batch
+of _silver Emperors_ for sale, we said we must see about their _prices_
+in Mionnet.[77] Upon which, with a look of frightened honesty, he asked
+us if "we really knew what we were talking of?" "Perfectly," we replied.
+"Well, sir," continued he, "Mionnet was a Frenchman; did _you_ ever know
+an honest Frenchman?" "Not as many as we could have wished to know; but
+we had known _some_." "We had in that case," he confessed, "the
+advantage over him--_he never had!_ As to Mionnet's book, it was
+written, at least so thought Rusca, with a frightfully corrupt view,
+being published during the French occupancy of Italy, for the joint
+benefit of Mr M. and the _Bibliotheque du Roi_. I admit," quoth our
+lawyer, "that the French only entertained a natural wish (nay, sir, as
+far as the _mood_ was _optative_ merely I commend it as a highly
+laudable one) in desiring to have the best monetary collection in
+Europe; but was it honourable, or just, to pledge this Mionnet to affix
+such prices for rare and better specimens, (such as I have the honour to
+show you here!) when both they and he knew them to be preposterous, and
+then to launch forth this misguiding book as a guide? This precious
+book, sir, was in the hands of all M----'s myrmidons, and the only book
+of appeal then extant; _this_--(thumping his fist, by way of emphasis,
+upon our copy of it)--this, which has been the ruin of Italy, and is the
+degradation of France! I only wish you could hear my friend _Sestini_
+(quel _numen_ degli numismcatici) inveigh against this man and his
+prices, with less reluctance, I assure you, than I feel in doing it, and
+much more powerfully too, because he knows so much more; but come now,
+if you _won't_ think me vain, I will show you the difference between
+honesty and dishonesty. I wish it was of some one else I was about to
+speak, but truth compels me here to introduce my own name. Last week
+that pleasant countryman of yours, Lord X----,--do you know him? (we did
+for a goose!)--comes to buy some gold coins of me; one of the lot he
+fixed upon was a Becker, and so of course only worth what it weighed. He
+had purchased it for fifty Napoleons of me, and we went to his bankers
+together for the payment. There, having duly received the money, I
+requested him to let me see once more the coins he had just purchased of
+me--there might have been a dozen--and instantly picking out the Becker,
+I pushed him over his fifty Napoleons again, and said, "Milord, I cannot
+let you have that coin." "Why?" says he, alarmed and in anger. "Because
+_it is false, Milord_!--and I was quite grieved," added our ingenuous
+informant, "to see how much Lord X---- was disconcerted at this
+disclosure." "You did not let so pretty a coin go a-begging, I dare say?"
+said we with laudable curiosity and interest. "No, two days ago in comes
+Coco--you know Coco?" we smiled. Know Coco! did we know St Peter's? did
+we know the Pope? for whom did Rusca take us, we wonder? "He came,"
+prosecuted Signor R----, "to see if I had by me any first-rate
+imitations from the antique, for he knew a gentleman who might fancy
+something of the sort; and, as soon as he had set eyes upon this Becker,
+he must have _it_; _it_ was just the thing to tempt Lord X----; and so I
+let him have it for _five times_ its supposititious value, but not for a
+_tenth_ of what Lord X---- would, I knew, buy it for a second time as an
+undoubted antique; and lest that rogue should at any time take liberties
+with my name, (for he is capable of anything,) and say he had been duped
+by Avocato Rusca into the purchase of a false thing for a true, here is
+a document with his name to it, which I then and there caused him to
+sign, which _proves_ the contrary. I met him to-day, and he seems much
+pleased with Lord X----'s liberality, who has bought the coin!!" The
+above is a sample of Avocato Rusca's _confessions_, and of his somewhat
+original notions of honesty! Once, however, our honest friend forgot
+himself in a purchase we made of him. And no wonder, for we had also
+forgotten ourselves; for the time when we transacted business was the
+gloaming, and the room being dark had lent its aid to the deception. We
+had also an engagement to dine out, and it was getting late, and we were
+in a hurry. But that same night, on returning from our party, we had
+looked again at what we had bought, and then, first perceiving our
+mistake, determined, if possible, to repair it by repairing early next
+morning to the Minerva Hotel, there to surprise him in his
+dressing-gown, by which bold _coup-de-main_ (having pre-arranged in our
+own minds what we should take away with us in lieu _of_ what we brought
+back) we carried our point at last!--and hardly carried it; for while
+the _new_ batch and the _old_ confronted each other on his table, the
+one being fair, the other like himself, ill-favoured in appearance, we
+saw his restless glance move wistfully from the one to the other. Three
+times in one minute his countenance fell; he coughed, he hesitated, he
+_cospetto'd_ once, he wished we had made known our mind over night; he
+_cospetto'd_ again, and finally was about to reconsider the affair,
+when, not to be foiled by a rogue, we threw it upon _his honour_, (of
+which he had not a particle,) and, by the extravagance of such a
+compliment, prevailed. "He had never cheated us before," (which was
+strictly true; but the reason, which the reader will have no difficulty
+to guess, we did not think it necessary or prudent to assign;) would he,
+after so long an acquaintance with us, change his tactics now?--we need
+not ask him--we were "persuasissimi" that he would not, neither did he!
+We removed the temptation out of his way as soon as we could, and felt,
+as we went home, that we had achieved that morning as _great_ a piece of
+diplomacy, and as difficult, as ever did Lord Palmerston when he was
+minister for our foreign affairs; and grateful were we to Apollo, the
+god of medicine, who had for once assisted us to overreach Mercury, the
+god of rogues.
+
+
+BIRBONE II.
+
+COCO.
+
+          ----"Adspice quanta
+  Voce negat quae sit ficti constantia vultus!"--JUV. _Sat._ vii.
+
+We cut our pen afresh to say a few words concerning that arch-impostor,
+that "Fourbum imperator," Coco the coiner. Had it not been for the
+_prosperity_ of the St Angelo ministry at Naples, that three-headed
+Cerberus of iniquity, of whom the people,
+
+  "Tre Angeli a noi piu recan danno
+  Che trenta orrendi Demoni non fanno,"
+
+had it not been that _their_ success seemed to militate against such an
+inference, we might have supposed that Coco, poor, starving, and in
+utter disesteem, had been thus let to live, to prove by a sad contrast
+the truth of the old adage--that "honesty is the best policy." Coco is
+the very impersonation of wiliness and subtlety--a fox amongst
+foxes--the Metternich of his craft;--he has cheated every dealer in
+turn, and by turns has learnt to know the internal arrangements of every
+prison throughout the kingdom. By sheer force of talent he has been
+able, like Napoleon, to maintain his cause single-handed against a host
+of rivals who would crush him, and cannot; and, whenever he is not
+_closeted elsewhere_, he is either holding a privy council with St
+Angelo, or transacting busines with his Serene Highness of Salerno,
+against whom (_par parenthese_) we have not a word to say. Cicero's
+oration for Milo is not better than Coco's oration for Coco; and to hear
+him plead it personally for the first time, is certainly entertaining.
+He seems to have taken _that_ oration for his model, setting out, as
+Tully for that client did, with a staunch negation of the charges
+alleged against him; but embarrassed, as he proceeds in his harangue, to
+maintain himself strictly honest, he gradually throws off reserve,
+converts your room into a court of justice, and, confronting imaginary
+accusers, endeavours to shake their testimony by making out that they
+are just as great rogues as himself! "Coco! say over again just half a
+dozen of _those sentences_--you know where to begin--that you have so
+often been the habit of indulging me with; not the _whole_ speech, Coco,
+if you please." "Eccelenza, no! I was saying, then, that I was in
+advance of my age, and that, if I had been born in France or England in
+place of Naples, I should not now have been called Coco the cheat, the
+thief, the _birbone_, but _Sir_ Coco--or Monsieur le Marquis de Cocon.
+Look at the things I have done, sir, and see what they have done for
+me. No sooner have I devised some new _galanteria_--elegant, classical,
+and sure to take--when it is enough to whisper '_Coco's_,' to bring it
+into discredit: a great outcry is raised against me as its author, and,
+like a second Galileo, I am cast into prison! Knowledge is not power at
+Naples; for my countrymen know that I have knowledge enough when I mulct
+their ignorance, as I sometimes do. It is _too much_ knowledge that has
+brought me into all my scrapes and difficulties! Do you doubt it,
+signor? Why, then, was I _first_ sent to prison?--why, but because my
+mint was frequently preferred to that of his majesty here, and he feared
+lest _my_ Ferdinands should drive _his_ Ferdinands out of the market!
+Had I done the same in England, I suppose they would, on discovering my
+talent, have made me master of their mint, in place of sending me to
+expiate my offence in a dungeon--_basta_ about that affair!--but when I
+had given up making Ferdinands, and took to minting _Domitians_, what
+business was that to the King of Naples, I wonder, unless indeed I had
+put _his_ name to that tyrant's _head_? Yet he sent me a second time to
+prison for it, notwithstanding for which in return I have taken the
+liberty of sending him to a warmer place. See, here's a pretty
+baioccho--Ferdinand's head on one side, and a '_concordia-Augustorum_'
+on the other, where the devil and he are holding hands over a lighted
+altar, he wanting to withdraw his hand,--but the devil's clutch is too
+tight for that!--whilst a little imp is putting a bit of live coal into
+his palm, and another is doing the same under his right foot! For four
+elegant horses in bronze, of which _I forgot the age_, and sold them to
+St Angelo as _antiques_, I was sent to prison again, and a third time.
+Though, when it suited _him_ last year to sell off certain old
+horseflesh that had been many years on his hands as _young_, _his_
+purchaser of course got no redress. Out upon that old Birbone! with his
+galleries, his harems, and his horses;--but he eats too much, and is
+never well,--a great consolation to me, who might else have repined at
+his successes; but when I compare my _health_ with his, I bless the good
+St Januario who keeps me poor! Again, I ought to be grateful to our good
+Saint that, though men may pretend that I lie and cheat, (which perhaps
+I do a little,) you never heard any body say of _me_, what all the world
+says of HIM, that I am _cruel_,--_mai_, you never heard that; and if I
+make money occasionally in some way that it don't _sound_ well to speak
+of, what then? I never hoard it up, the lottery office is my banker, and
+it circulates again presently. And as to cheating, if we look it boldly
+in the face, and see in what company we cheat, why should I be ashamed
+of what all the world does here from King Ferdinand, to Beppo Tuzzi of
+the Mergellina? Didn't Ferdinand try hard to cheat you last year in the
+sulphur question? and would he not have succeeded, too, unless you had
+thought of mixing up the sulphur with some nitre and charcoal, and of
+converting it into a _question of gunpowder_!" "That's true, Coco! and
+now tell us of your last device for raising the wind." "Here it is," and
+Coco has presented us with a small opaque lachrymatory, glistening all
+over in the exquisite irridescence of old glass. "Was it not beautiful?"
+he enquired. "Yes; and ancient as well," replied we; "the decomposition
+of the glass showed that, and the elegant and classical form of the
+vessel showed it too." "Well! he would manufacture just such another
+before us, if we would like to see it done!" "_Come?_ we should be
+delighted!" "_Dunque e fatto subito_, now that I have _shown how_ it is
+to be effected--just as when that great sea-captain, _quel famoso
+Cristoforo Colombo_"--"Yes, yes! Coco, never mind about _him_ just now."
+"Ah, your excellency, I perceive, knows the story! Well, here you see is
+a small clay vessel moulded from the antique; here a small packet which
+I untie; and here a little gum-water in a phial." We require no other
+materials--a child might do the rest. In the packet now open, we remark
+a quantity of a beautiful, many-coloured glass-dust, in the midst of
+which appear thousands of filmy flakes that have been scraped off from
+the sides of old lachrymatories, and present every hue of colour. In a
+twinkling Coco has _gummed_ the vessel all over, and in less than a
+minute he has rolled round its sides a rainbow robe of the most rich and
+glowing colours, while not a speck of clay remains visible by which to
+make out the fraud! "_Eccolo!_" says he, placing the beautiful
+fabrication in our hand; "_Eccolo!_ do you think that for such a work as
+_that_ I ought to have been sent for the twentieth time to prison?"
+Fearful of having our moral sense dazzled _by the glass_ into making
+some indiscreet admission, we now change the theme. We had heard that
+morning a good story; it was "the case of Coco _versus_ Casanuova," in
+which the cleverness of the former rogue had prevailed against his
+equally astute rival, who had himself been so obliging as to favour us
+with the full particulars thereof, in words like the
+following:--"Coco--(you know Coco?")--(Coco and I smiled, for we knew
+each other perfectly,)--"Well, he presents himself one day before me in
+a shop in the Piazza degli Orefici, bringing in a coin in his hand,
+which he throws down carelessly on the counter, asking me what price he
+should put upon it? On taking it up, I see '[Greek: Yelion],' which,
+with the common type of the Velian Lion, as we all know, _vale poco_;
+but, in place of a lion, this had the Athenian _diota_ (or two-eared
+_amphora_) upon the field of the reverse. Knowing that the rogue was
+eyeing me to see how I liked it, in order that he might charge for it
+accordingly, I asked him doubtingly whether _he_ was quite sure it was
+genuine, (_entertaining no doubt on that subject myself._) 'Rather an
+ingenious question for a profound connossieur like Casanuova, to put to
+a poor devil who has the good fortune for once in his life to buy
+something good. _You_ have no doubt about it; but if you say you have, I
+will take it to Tuzzi, and get his opinion first.' Fearing to lose it if
+he did, I confessed that I believed it genuine, and then asked him his
+price. 'He had _refused_ fifty; we might have it at seventy dollars.' Of
+course I 'was astonished,' and offered 'forty--Would that do?' No!
+_honest_ men had but one price; seventy he had said--seventy, he
+repeated, was the price.' I bought it, and paid for it and took it home,
+and consulted my books, and _there_ there was no such type to be
+seen--learned friends who called upon me had never seen its fellow--it
+was pronounced an _inedited_ coin, as indeed it turned out afterwards to
+be! The annual meeting of our archaeological society was at hand. I
+determined to _memorialize_ my coin, and to read my memoir at the
+meeting. In three weeks I had finished my labours. There were some
+striking conjectures in the paper, which I went early to deliver. We had
+waited half an hour for the Prince St Georgio. At last he came. 'Look!'
+said I, putting the coin into his hands, (and I said not a word beyond
+this.) Mightily pleased he seemed with it _at once_, looking from me to
+it and from it to me. I thought he was going to propose for it. At last
+he spoke--it was but a word; but his emphasis and accent made my ears
+tingle. '_Excellent!_' said he; but I was reassured on hearing him add,
+'Casanuova has the luck of St Angelo, and nobody ever took him in.'
+Relieved by this announcement, I could now afford to be modest, and said
+it was but by accident that I had _first_ seen the coin. '_Not first_,
+Casanuova," said the prince--'but second, I _believe_. I saw it
+_first_.' '_You!_' said I, aghast; 'you saw this coin, and did not buy
+it?' '_Costava!_ it cost too much; besides, to tell you the truth,
+_Coco, who had just made it_, told me it was expressly intended for the
+cabinet of _quel dottissimo suo amico J. Battista Casanuova_.'" "'Tis
+all true," said Coco, rubbing his hands; "and I believe I can do almost
+any thing I _like_ with any of them." "Except not to tell lies, and not
+to impose upon antiquaries?" "_Caro lei!_ these are the very things I
+like to _do most_, and do accordingly."
+
+"What has become of Coco?" asked we of an _orefice, three years later_,
+on finding ourselves a second time in Naples, and nothing doubting, as
+he had not been to visit us, that he was doing Baron Trenck, and
+exercising his ingenuity in prison. We were surprised, therefore, to
+learn that he now kept a smart shop, and was a sort of joint householder
+with a respectable man, and that nothing particular had occurred to
+tarnish his reputation for now nearly a year! The shop we had already
+noticed as one of promise on the outside; for, as yet, we had not found
+time to visit its interior. It stood half-way up the Toledo, on the left
+hand side as you go to the Studii. Etruscan jars were painted on all the
+shutters, and bits of statues and bas-reliefs _bossaged_ and projected
+from the house front. In face of each window was an enormous shelving
+tray, full of all sorts of odds and ends, from the Flood downwards, the
+whole under protection of a strong iron _grillage_. In one corner of the
+shop (we had _now_ gone forth to visit it) sat a pretty young woman, in
+spectacles, reading Manzoni, or sleeping over him (the aforesaid
+spectacles prevented our noticing which) as he lay open in her lap;
+while on another chair, in the opposite corner, an old man, almost in
+his dotage, looked wistfully round his shop, not suppressing an anxious
+sigh when the scrutiny was done. In an inner room of _his_ palace--for
+such, in derision of its owner, was the house called--busy in preparing
+and cleaning the specimens that were about to be transferred into the
+shop, lurked, like some keen-eyed tarantula, the industrious _Coco_
+himself, with such an eye to business, and such an ear, that we were no
+sooner turned in from the street than he, too, had turned in, and was
+beside us.--"Well, Coco, _bon giorrio_, &c. &c. &c., 'tis said you have
+become an _honest_ man at last; how does this _new_ trade answer?" "Not
+at all," sighed the old man behind us. "Nonsense!" rejoined Coco;
+"whoever heard of a man's making money all at once? Nothing stake,
+nothing make--there's no mending where there's no spending. '_Necesse
+est facere sumptum qui quaerit lucrum_, dice bene il Plauto.'" "Allegro
+though you be, Coco, I am not. With you nothing can go ill, for you have
+nothing to lose, either in money or in character; but to me, who am old,
+bankruptcy and a prison are not matters of jest." "Nonsense, again, you
+are not going to prison _yet_!" "Not _at all_, I hope, Coco," said the
+poor little lazy woman in the corner. "If I had my 5000 ducats, and my
+vineyard, again, at Sorrento, that you persuaded me to sell for your
+_Scavi_ at Calvi, which never brought me any thing but a few lamps, and
+_lots of lachrymatories_!" "Basta, 'tis too late to talk about what you
+_would do_ if you had it to do over again. Let bygones be bygones. Who
+knows what this gentleman may come to buy of us? and he never would have
+come to you but from his previous acquaintance with _me_. Isn't it so,
+sir? Ah, there are some pretty things _there_," continued he, following
+our eyes into a placarded recess. "Antichi Sono?" and we look into his
+face; "I'd as lief sell my own flesh and blood, as any thing _here_ that
+was not. Think, sir, of my position. I am the _responsible_ head of this
+firm. That good old gentleman, having begun antiquities late in life,
+does not know much about them. The signora there has taste, plenty; but
+it is not a lady's business to know the prices of things she may value
+or take an interest in; for suppose, now, she should wish to make money
+by the sale of _Coco_, she would hardly know what to ask for him." The
+old man fidgeted; Coco shot a glance at the blue spectacles, which were
+raised at this sally. But the signora, who sat behind them, said
+nothing. "Whence came these same things?" we inquire, for on going close
+up to them, they seemed not unfamiliar to us. Before Coco could coin the
+forthcoming lie, the old man had told us whence they came. "From
+Baroni's shop!" adding that they had cost 700 ducats. This confirmed the
+story we had heard from the beginning to its end. Our clever scoundrel
+had contrived, it seems, to engage the old man in a speculative
+excavation at Calvi; from which a few lachrymatories turning up, the old
+man's cupidity was excited; and, on the false representations made to
+him by Coco, he sold his estate; left the country; and hiring the
+expensive shop in which we see him, _leaves Coco to stock it_! which he
+does by the purchase of such merchandise as _his friends_ have to
+dispose of--"When," says he, "they don't sell them too dear!" The old
+man admits that his employer is very clever; but says quietly, that he
+has not much _fiducia_ in his honesty. Coco says, on his side, that his
+employer is mean in his conduct towards him, and pays his activity and
+zeal in a very niggardly manner. Thus neither is satisfied with the
+other. Meantime the public are saying, that in less than a year the shop
+will be again for sale; that Coco will have bolted; and that the old
+man, if he be alive, will be fretting his soul out in St Elmo! Nobody
+speculates upon what is to become of the lady with the blue spectacles.
+_We_ predict, that should she be alive, and the old man dead, in the
+course of another year, she will have entirely given up her taste for
+things old and curious, and have become curious to try something new and
+comely; if, indeed, Coco shall have left her any money to indulge in
+such a fancy.
+
+On returning from this visit to our hotel, about an hour later, we found
+Coco under the gateway, and on the look-out for us. _More solito_, he
+had something to show us. The porter looked after us inquiringly, as we
+bid him follow up-stairs; but was surprised by a counter look, and by
+our calling him by his _name_. Even on the stairs, he could not forbear
+sundry short ejaculations, by way of preparing us for what we were to
+see presently. "_Ah! che bella roba!_ Ah, what flowers of the mint I
+have brought you to see to-day!--bought for a song--at three Carlini
+a-piece! You shall have them at three and a half--I content myself with
+small gains. But you, sir, who are discreet, and know the value of these
+things, shall judge whether I have told you a falsehood or no." By this
+time we were in our room. The dirty bag was untied; and there leaped out
+of it, not indeed a cat, but a large heap of consular coins, with which
+we seemed forthwith to be vastly familiar; and no wonder; since, on
+inspecting them, we found that the whole had been ours not twelve hours
+before, we having disposed of them to a refiner for their weight in
+silver, to melt. "Take them all, sir, _tutti quanti_, at three Carlines
+and a half a-piece." "No; nor yet for two Carlines, Coco," said we,
+putting the paper from us. Upon which the cunning fellow hoped _he_ had
+not been taken in; having certainly purchased them in the persuasion of
+reselling them, as a catch, to us. "The _Italian marquis_, of whom he
+had bought them, assured him, on his honour, that he had made a rare
+bargain with him." "Are the coins your own, Coco?" "To my cost are they,
+signor, unless you re-purchase them." "I sold them only this morning,
+Coco, for the weight of the silver; you must try somebody else." Upon
+which Coco, with admirable presence of mind, replaced them in his bag,
+and said "he had made a _mistake_!" "We regretted that he had not
+purchased them from us at the rate of one Carline and a-half per piece;
+in place of having been duped into paying three and a-half." Though he
+saw plainly, from our manner, that we were aware of his roguery, he was
+not put out; but shrugging his shoulders, and twitching the angles of a
+mouth remarkable for its mobility, he merely said--"Pazienza! a
+bargain's a bargain; we grow wiser as we grow older," and speedily
+withdrew.
+
+
+BIRBONE III.
+
+BASSEGGIO.
+
+  "Unde habeas quaerit nemo, sed oportet habere."
+  "Fidarsi e bene, ma non fidarsi e meglio."--_Italian Proverb._
+
+Near a fountain in one of the main streets of the west end of Rome, in
+which a recumbent figure bends over his ever-gushing urn; his body half
+hid from sight, and slowly dissolving in the water, under protection of
+a dimly lit shrine of a gaily painted Madonna; a tarnished brass plate
+with the word B---- engraved thereon, is inserted into the panels of a
+dingy-looking door, out of which a long piece of dirty string dangles
+through a hole. If you touch the electric cord, the shock is instantly
+transmitted to the other end, and the importunate tinkling of a
+well-hung bell is responded to by a clicking of the latch, when an
+invisible arm pulls back the door, and your entrance is secured into a
+passage encumbered with broken busts and bas-reliefs, tier above tier,
+and a series of marble tablets, with _Dis manibus_ inscriptions, let
+into the wall on either side. If, now, you pick your way amid the many
+stumbling-blocks that beset it, till you have reached the stair, (a
+narrow stair and dark, and encumbered like the passage, with numerous
+relics of antiquity,) a female voice, loudly shrilling from above,
+demands your business--"_Chi c'e?_"--you answer of course "_Amico_," and
+are bid to mount accordingly. Arrived at the summit of the stair, that
+same voice, the high-pitched key of which startled you from below,
+sounds less disagreeable, now that you are close beside the fair
+proprietress of it, who at once greets you affably, begs you to be
+seated, has seated herself beside you, and, premising that her
+"_marito_" will appear anon, has begun to ask you a hundred questions,
+some of which you are relieved from answering by the actual advent of
+Signor B----, who makes his politest bow, while Madame introduces you as
+an old acquaintance. You see at a glance _this_ part of Signor B----'s
+history, that he has bought a young and pretty wife out of many years'
+traffic in antiquities. Whatever else he may at any other time have
+purchased, was with intention to dispose of afterwards, a suitable
+opportunity offering. But this pretty wife he keeps like an inedited
+coin, or fancies that he keeps to himself entirely. Few antiquaries have
+shown more enterprise than B----. Possessed of little, very little money
+in his youth, he did not, like many other Roman youths of this day,
+squander it away in cigars, and was under twenty when he undertook his
+first commercial expedition. He went into Egypt, could not buy the
+Pyramids, they were too large for his portmanteau; then into Greece;
+then to Sicily. He sailed to Syracuse, landed at Naxos, sacked Taormina
+and Catania; came back and sold his curiosities well; went abroad again,
+and again returned like an industrious bee laden with spoils. Enriched
+at length by these numerous journeys, he was able to purchase a
+vineyard, and to plant it. His next step was to build a villa upon it,
+and to marry an ancient dame, who, dying shortly, left him at liberty to
+marry again. The lady whom he now calls his own being at the time poor,
+his treasures soon won her heart, while his house flattered her
+ambition, and so they made a match of it; and she now accompanies him in
+most of his antiquarian prowling excursions during the summer; and the
+_menage_, on the whole, for an Italian menage, goes on well enough.
+
+One day--(this was when, by much frequentation of the premises, we had
+become intimate with its inmates)--one day we had just been _ringing_ an
+Etruscan vase, and liked the sound thereof; and examining the painting,
+we liked that too; and therefore, agreeing as to price, completed the
+purchase, and were sitting between old husband and young wife, round a
+brazier mounted on an ancient tripod, with a handful of gems, _loculis
+quae custoditur eburnis_, talking carelessly, and taking our
+_impressions_ of them, and of the stones, as we talked. It was a fete
+day, and, now we came to notice it, Madame B---- was en _grande
+toilette_, and had been hearing Padre S---- preach, as she informed us,
+at St Carlo's in the Corso. When she heard we had not been there, she
+sighed for our sakes--"Our friend _should_ have heard Padre S----
+to-day, is it not so?" to her husband, who assented to this good opinion
+of the Padre: "It was such a good sermon! all about doing as you would
+be done by--no loophole for a self-deceiver to escape by. I only wish
+A---- had been there to hear it." "Bagatello!" said Signor B----,
+stirring the brazier, "Do you think he would not have cheated Lord V----
+just the same in this head of Medusa, which he palmed off upon him for
+an antique, knowing it was a Calandrelli? Good sermons are thrown away
+upon some people." "Well," sighed the lady, looking up to the ceiling,
+and then taking a second dose of it--"well, at least we may apply it _to
+ourselves_." "Not a bit of it. _We_ never apply any thing to ourselves.
+Do you think, for instance, when I married you, I sought to mate me with
+a lark, or a nightingale--_risponde_." She had no difficulty in doing
+so. "And was I not a lark till my poor sister died--_poverella_--eighteen
+months ago?" "_Si, Signora!_ but _since_ that time you treat me with
+coldness; are always looking up to the sky; and always telling me your
+soul is with her soul in Paradise. No Paradise for me! What think you,
+sir?" "We always sided with those who were suffering from the loss of
+friends." "_Bene, bene_, for three months or so--'twas all very well,
+natural. But beyond this? Besides, though it were ever so sincere--what
+was the use of it?" "Oh! of _no use_, of course," said we. "I shall
+never give over mourning for her, I promise you that," said the lady,
+much moved. The husband shrugged his shoulders; said, "That all women
+were more or less foolish;" and asked us if we were married? Before we
+had time to answer, in came Padre S----, whose sermon had made such
+impression on B---- and his wife. We now sit all around the brazier;
+both wife and husband being, for some time, loud in their praises, which
+were somewhat extravagant! "It was a divine sermon--St Paul could not
+have preached a better"--when the good man hopes it may, by God's
+blessing, do good, politely acknowledges the compliment implied in our
+regrets that we had not been of the auditory, and then rises to look
+round, Signor B---- doing the honours, at the curiosities of the shop;
+at the sight of several objects of virtu, he expresses, somewhat
+naively, great pleasure--would like to have seen more, but has another
+sermon to deliver in St Jacomo--the bell is ringing!--he must say _idio_
+at once. As he makes his exit, (Madame kisses his hand first,) two other
+visitors present themselves; the one a young Roman, who comes to console
+her; the other a young English nobleman, who comes to buy in haste, and
+will have to repent at leisure afterwards. In five minutes, Madame seems
+to have entirely forgotten her sister; B---- his wife! The one is
+receiving comfort in compliment; the other, in cash! Hush! Surely we
+heard Lord A---- ask if that vamped old vase, which will fall some day
+to pieces, was _antique_; and B----assert that it was! Why, the paint is
+scarcely dry on its sides! Lord A----'s unlucky eye lights upon a bust,
+which, when he gets it over to England, he may match at the stone-mason's
+in the New Road, and at half-price--_two_ words, _three_ syllables,
+and the purchase is made "_Chi?_" Whose bust is it? "Cicero's," of course!
+"Quanto," what's the price of it? "Twenty Napoleons!" You old rogue B----!
+you are safe in sending it to Terny's, _packed_; for, if it should be
+seen, you might have to refund the purchase-money. _Necdum finitus?_
+Another bust tempts him; he inquires, and finds it is a _Jove_--a Jove!
+and is
+
+  "Jupiter, haec nec labra moves, quum mittere vocem
+  Debueras, vel _marmoreus_, vel aheneus?
+  ... Quod nullum discrimen habendum est
+  Effigies inter vestras, statuamque Bathylli?"
+
+And this too, he buys for twenty Napoleons more; and having paid the
+purchase-money, away goes the possessor of Jupiter, and at the same
+juncture away goes the Cavaliere--each perfectly satisfied with his
+visit.
+
+"_Molto intelligente_, that countryman of yours," said B----, spelling
+his card. "He seems to take things very much upon trust," said we. "'Tis
+a pity he don't understand Italian or French better. Otherwise, I
+_might_ have perhaps suggested better things than those he has actually
+chosen. But after all," added he, "people don't like being put out of
+conceit with their own opinions; and think you personally interested, if
+you offer yours unasked." "I should have been sorry to have taken that
+vase as antique, as he has done; or to have paid the tenth of the price
+he has paid you for it." "Oh! don't be afraid; he can afford it--an
+English gentleman!--and to _him_ it is worth what he paid for it; else,
+if he did not think so, who forced him to take it?" "I _wonder_ now what
+Father S---- would have said to it;" asked Madame of her husband,
+looking up to the ceiling, and sighing. "Nothing, 'twas not in his
+province to pronounce judgment in such a matter." We too _wondered_,
+perhaps, what he might have said to Madame, touching her Cavaliere,
+whose discourse seemed to have told almost as powerfully on her as
+_his_ sermon at St Carlo's. We wondered, but _to ourselves_, and making
+the common-place remark, that it seemed easier to _preach_ than to
+_practise_, exchanged smiles with B---- and his wife, and withdrew, to
+think over what we had seen; and to arrive at our own conclusions,
+touching the general utility of fashionable and popular preaching!
+
+
+BIRBONE IV.
+
+HERR ASCHERSON.
+
+"Rogare malo, quam emere."--SUIDAS.
+
+Sly old fox, what pen shall do justice to thy cunning! Grave, venerable,
+ancient cheat, who showest a _Bible_, left thee by some pious enthusiast
+(the old family pew-book, morocco, in silver clasps--well thou lookest
+to them at least) in return for many dealings with thee, and in
+requital, so thou sayest, for thine incomparable disinterestedness and
+honesty!
+
+It would be no harder task to unwind a mummy, than to unroll and
+unriddle _thee_, old rogue, in thy endless windings and detours! "Have
+no dealings with A----," said that _timid_ rogue, the Florentine
+attorney R----; "the man is so gigantic a cheat, that he frightens me!"
+"and cunning to a degree" was D----'s account of him. "He is up to a
+thing or two," said S----, looking knowing, and putting his finger, like
+Harpocrates, to his mouth, that it went no further. A brother dealer
+called him a Hebrew; another (himself as sly as any fox) admitted that
+he had been overreached by him. His name, whenever mentioned, seldom
+failed to call forth a smile, or a shrug, in those who had not dealt
+with him; and a thundering oath against his German blood in those that
+had. Mr A---- was therefore too remarkable a man for us, ourself an
+incipient collector, not to visit; and so, as soon as we got to Naples,
+we dispatched a note, and the next day followed it in person; rang at
+the bell, and were ushered into his sanctum; where we beheld the old
+_necromancer_ standing at his table, looking out for us. He put down his
+eyeglass and his old coin; and said in answer to our question, which was
+in English, "Ya! ya! mein name is A----." Forgetting at this moment what
+R---- had said of him, and only recollecting that they were acquainted,
+we began, by way of introducing ourselves to his best things, to say,
+that we had lately seen his friend R---- at Rome--"Dat is not mein
+friend, dat is mein enemy," said he, displeased at our mentioning the
+name; and looking at us half suspiciously, half spitefully. "I hav notin
+to say wit him more," and he took a huge pinch of snuff, and wasted a
+deal on his snuffy waistcoat and shirt frill. We at once saw our
+mistake, which indeed, but for our anxiety to get to business, we should
+not, assuredly, have been guilty of. We had now to make the best of it.
+"A mistake, Mr. A----, we assure you. Mr. R---- might say that, on _one_
+occasion, you _had_ been _brusque_ with him; but advised us,
+notwithstanding, to pay you a visit, regretting that, from some little
+difference between you, _he_ could not give us the introduction, which,
+under more favourable circumstances, he would have pressed upon us;" an
+announcement which completely mollified the old rogue, who, in his heart
+of hearts, was thinking that a new victim had turned up to him, and one
+of Rusca's recommending. "It is pleasant to make peace between two
+honest men," said we; "Rusca and you should not have quarrelled.
+Ill-natured people take advantage of these disputes, and begin to
+profess open distrust as to the age and genuineness of whatever you
+sell." "For dis reason I hate not Mr Rusca; but he has too much
+_strepitusness_ of voice--_il s'emporte trop facilement_." "Ah,"
+interpose we in the mediatorial capacity we had assumed, "'tis the
+character of the Italian to do so." "Ya, dat is true," assented he; and
+then we went to look at his coins. "We are not blind friends of
+Rusca's," said we, sitting down to the first tray which he gave us to
+look at, and seeing, from the character of the coins therein exhibited,
+that A---- had presumed we _might_ be. "We only buy from R---- when he
+is discreet, and does not overcharge; which, _entre nous_, he is very
+apt to do." The old man glanced at us approvingly, and trying hard to
+look honest, said, "Ya, ya; when he can get _ein_ piastre he will not
+take _ein halb_--but when I ask a piastre for any tings, (and he was
+grave again,) it is tantamount as to say, 'dis is de _leastest_ preis to
+give.'" "All here has a fixed price, has it?" "Ya, ya." "And what may
+this pretty little figure be worth?" "I shall confess dat is dear; two
+hundred piastres is de preis--Rusca would have said four hundred to
+begin mit." We admitted its beauty; but said two hundred spread out upon
+the table were also beautiful. "De good ting is de dear ting," said he,
+and we admitted the truth of the proposition, both in the abstract and
+in its application; took up a specious-looking coin, which he took as
+abruptly out of our hand--"_Nein gewiss nicht_," we must not buy that.
+"Why?" Because some people had not scrupled to tell him (though they
+knew better) that it was a Rusca. "Rusca!" said we, "and what does that
+mean?" "In Neapolitan _patois_," said he, "we call all our specious but
+doubtful wares Ruscas! But dis," continued he, taking up a companion to
+it--"dis I baptize in my own name, and offer for a true John A----."
+"Ah!" sighed we, but without _emphasis_, as if it had only _just_
+occurred to us "how difficult, now-a-days, _not_ to be deceived;" and we
+replaced the J---- A---- in his box accordingly. "Ven all amateurs,"
+said he, (following out his own thought, rather than replying to ours,)
+"ven all amateurs were connoisseurs likewise, we might say goot-night to
+dis bissnesse."
+
+In the days of our novitiate, when we used to say, and think we knew (as
+the phrase is) what would please us, and would buy according to our
+means, we found (as indeed all purchasers in these matters find) that
+time, while it brought with it a nicer appreciation in judging works of
+art, diminished also our opinion of what we had formerly purchased; and,
+to avoid fresh disappointments, we used to apply to an _antiquario_ to
+give us his advice _pro re nata_;--as the reader will see by the
+following note of Herr A----, which, as it prevented our making one or
+two foolish purchases, was not without its value, and we preserved it
+accordingly. It ran _verbatim_ thus--
+
+     "Sir,--You may copy my catalogue, but on Montag ber sur I must hav
+     back. The _botel_ is not good in such a manner. The _figure_ is of
+     no great value; it is not antic, and not fair; so is the _bust_ in
+     stone not antic, and not nice; and every thing that is neither
+     antic nor fair I cannot give any worth. Your obedient servant,
+
+     "A----.
+
+     "Pray you must not tell to any one my estimation of any thing."
+
+Neither did we, excepting to _Maga_, to whom we tell every thing.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX TO VOL. LIX.
+
+
+  Adams, Mr, on the Oregon Question, 443.
+
+  AEschylus, tragedies of, 61, 65.
+
+  AEsthetics of Dress
+    --Military Costume, 114.
+
+  Agriculture, decline of, in Italy, 339.
+
+  Alamo, siege of the, 39.
+
+  Alexander of Russia, accession, &c. of, 224.
+
+  Alexander, Prince of Servia, 133, 146.
+
+  Alfieri, tragedies of, 71.
+
+  Aliwal, battle of, 639.
+
+  Almanza, battle of, 200.
+
+  America, specimens of the debates, &c. in, 439.
+
+  Americans and the Aborigines, the, a tale of the short war, Part I., 554
+    --Part II., 677.
+
+  Amusements at Vichy, 309.
+
+  Anacreon's grave, from Goethe, 121.
+
+  Andreossi, the French ambassador, 466.
+
+  Antigone of Sophocles, the, 64.
+
+  Antonio Perez, sketch of the career of, 450.
+
+  Apology for a review, an, 249.
+
+  Arethusa, fountain of, 103.
+
+  Assur, battle of, 491.
+
+  Atheism, first public avowal of, in France, 393.
+
+  Austin, Stephen F., 37.
+
+
+  Baker, Mr, on the Oregon Question, 444.
+
+  Banks, Sir Joseph, 648.
+
+  Barclay of Ury, first feat of, 225.
+
+  Barre, Colonel, death of, 463.
+
+  Bedford, Duke of, death of, 227.
+
+  Belgrade, town of, 133.
+
+  Bells of Venice, the, 256.
+
+  Bentinck, Lord George, on Ireland, 601.
+
+  Berwick, Marshal, 211, 213.
+
+  Birboniana, or Italian Antiquities and Antichita
+    --scene the first
+    --the introduction, 543
+    --Birboniana, 548
+    --Birbone I., Signor Rusca, 765
+    --II. Coco, 768
+    --III. Basseggio, 772
+    --IV. Herr Ascherson, 775.
+
+  Borneo, the expedition to, 356.
+
+  Bosniaks, character of the, 138.
+
+  Boufflers, Marshal, 211, 213, 214.
+
+  Breece, Captain, 38, 39.
+
+  Bridge of Sighs at Venice, the, 254.
+
+  Broadfoot, Major, on the state of the Punjaub, 628.
+
+  Brooke, Mr, of Borneo, Sketch of the life, &c. of, 356.
+
+  Brougham's lives of men of letters and science, &c., review of, 645.
+
+  Bunkerhoff, M., on Oregon, 447.
+
+  Burden of Zion, the, by Delta, 493.
+
+
+  Camelford, Lord, anecdotes of, 217.
+
+  Campagna of Rome, description of the, 252
+    --causes, &c., of its present condition, 337.
+
+  Campaign in Texas, a, 37.
+
+  Campaign of the Sutlej, the, 625.
+
+  Capucin convent at Syracuse, the, 106.
+
+  Cass, Mr, on the Oregon question, 442.
+
+  Cathedral service in England the, 181.
+
+  Catholic emancipation, on, 387.
+
+  Charles XII., character of, 195.
+
+  Chipman, Mr, on Oregon, 447.
+
+  Christie the auctioneer, anecdote of, 229.
+
+  Christmas carol, 1845, 122.
+
+  Clarke, Mr, murder of, 593.
+
+  Clerks of counsel, duties of, 5.
+
+  Coercion bill, the Irish, 572.
+
+  Colonel O'Kelly's parrot, death of, 466.
+
+  Colosseum, the, 252.
+
+  Consultation, a; a Sicilian sketch, 109.
+
+  Contrast, the, 307.
+
+  Cook, General, 39
+    --Captain, 649.
+
+  Corn-law repeal, the proposed, 373.
+
+  Corneille, tragedies of, 69.
+
+  Cos, General, 37, 40.
+
+  Crisis, the, 124.
+
+  Crusades, the, and their effects on Europe, 475.
+
+  Czabacz, town of, 135.
+
+
+  D'Alembert, career of, 654.
+
+  Darragh, Mr, on the Oregon question, 444.
+
+  Darwin, Dr, death of, 228.
+
+  Delta, burden of Zion by, 493.
+
+  Despard, Colonel, conspiracy and trial of, 467.
+
+  Devon, Lord, on the state of Ireland, 567.
+
+  Dionysius, the ear of, 105.
+
+  Distribution of grain in Rome, effects of, 340.
+
+  Dorislaus, battle of, 484.
+
+  Douglas, Mr, on the Oregon question, 443.
+
+  Drama, remarks on the Greek and romantic, 54
+    --Causes of the decline of, 58.
+
+  Dramatic poet, qualifications necessary for the, 54.
+
+  Dress, aesthetics of
+    --Military costume, 114.
+
+  Dyaks of Borneo, the, 359.
+
+
+  Ear of Dionysius, the, 105.
+
+  East and west, 248.
+
+  Eboli, princess of, 454.
+
+  Education in Servia, state of, 135.
+
+  Ehrenberg's campaign in Texas, 37.
+
+  Ejections in Ireland, 578.
+
+  Elinor Travis; Chap. I., 713.
+
+  Ellis, Wellbore, death of, 229.
+
+  English hexameter, remarks on the, 259.
+
+  Enriquez, narrative of the murder of Escovedo, by, 455.
+
+  Epigrams from Goethe, 121.
+
+  Epipolae, excursion to, 110.
+
+  Escovedo, the secretary, murder of, 452, 455.
+
+  Eugene, Prince, 201, 206, 212.
+
+  Eusebius, letter to, 408.
+
+  Excursion to Epipolae, an, 110.
+
+
+  Fall of Rome, causes of the, 339
+    --its causes at work in the British Empire, 692.
+
+  Famine in Ireland, the, 599.
+
+  Fanning, Colonel, 42, 43, 44.
+
+  Faucit, Miss, 55.
+
+  Ferozeshah, battle of, 635.
+
+  Follett, Sir William, sketch of the career and character of, 1.
+
+  Fountain of Arethusa, the, 103.
+
+  Fox, conduct of, on the regency question, 389.
+
+  Fragments of Italy and the Rhineland, review of, 249.
+
+  French drama, characteristics of the, 68.
+
+  French revolution, Wellesley on the, 394.
+
+
+  Geddings, Mr, on the Oregon question, 443.
+
+  Goethe, translation from
+    --Goethe to his Roman love, 120
+    --Epigrams
+    --Anacreon's grave, 121
+    --the warning, ib.
+    --the Swiss alp, ib.
+    --north and south, ib.
+
+  Goliad, fort, massacre at, 43.
+
+  Gordon, Mr, on the Oregon question, 447.
+
+  Grain, importation of, into Rome, 340.
+
+  Grant, Colonel, 41, 42.
+
+  Greek and romantic drama, the, 54.
+
+  Greek Fire and Gunpowder, 749.
+
+  Griffiths, Mr, on Ireland, 586.
+
+  Gunpowder, on the origin of, 749.
+
+
+  Hamlin, Mr, on the Oregon question, 446.
+
+  Heberden, Dr, 224.
+
+  Herbert, Mr Sidney, on the state of Ireland, 572, 573.
+
+  Hexameter, the English, remarks on, 259.
+
+  His epitaph, by Ennius, 496.
+
+  Holman, the blind traveller, 134.
+
+  Homer's Iliad, twenty-fourth book of, translated into English
+        hexameters, 259
+    --book the first, 610.
+
+  Horace, translations from, 411.
+
+  Houston, General, notices of, 51.
+
+  How they manage matters in the Model Republic, 439.
+
+  How to build a house and live in it, 758.
+
+  Hyder Ali, the war with, 398.
+
+
+  Iliad, the twenty-fourth book of, in English hexameters, 251
+    --the first, 610.
+
+  India, Wellesley's administration in, 396.
+
+  India bill, Pitt's, 391.
+
+  Ingersoll, Mr, on the Oregon question, 444.
+
+  Iphigenia in Aulis, the, 65.
+
+  Ireland, state of, in 1780, 387.
+
+  Ireland, present state of, and measures with reference to, 572.
+
+  Italian antiquities and antichita, 543, 765.
+
+  It's all for the best, Chap. I, 230
+    --Chap. II., 234
+    --Chap. III., 238
+    --Chap. IV., 242
+    --Chap. V., 245
+    --Chap. VI., 319
+    --Chap. VII., 320
+    --Chap. VIII., the squire's tale, 323
+    --Chap. IX., 329
+    --Chap. X., 334.
+
+
+  Jack Robertson and the professor of eloquence, 104.
+
+  Jenner, discovery of vaccination by, 230.
+
+  Jerusalem, storming of, by the Crusaders, 486.
+
+  John, Don, of Austria, 452.
+
+
+  Kara George, the Servian leader, 143.
+
+  Kemble, Stephen, 225.
+
+  Kennedy, Mr, on Oregon, 446.
+
+  Kopaunik mountain, the, 139.
+
+  Krushevatz, town of, 139.
+
+
+  Last hours of a reign; a tale in two parts
+    --Part II., Chap. III., 17
+    --Chap. IV., 24
+    --Chap. V., 29
+    --conclusion, 36.
+
+  Lauriston, General, 223.
+
+  Lavater the physiognomist, 221.
+
+  Lavoisier, career of, 658.
+
+  Leases, effects of, in Ireland, 584.
+
+  Le Peuple, review of, 733.
+
+  Let never cruelty dishonour beauty, 16.*
+
+  Letter to Eusebius, 410.
+
+  Lille, siege of, by Marlborough, 211.
+
+  Literature of the eighteenth century, the, 645.
+
+  Lodge, A., the Old Player by, 473
+    --the Rose of Warning, by, 747.
+
+  Lover of society, recollections of a, 215
+    --Part II., 463.
+
+
+  Mackintosh, Sir James, defence of Peltier by, 468.
+
+  Maher, Mr, on the state of Ireland, 589.
+
+  Malta, seizure of, by France, 467.
+
+  Marlborough, No. III., 195
+    --his interview with Charles XII., 197
+    --difficulties with which he had to contend, 199
+    --invades France, 201
+    --returns to England, 202
+    --resumes the command, 203
+    --movements previous to Oudenarde, 204
+    --defeats the French there, 207
+    --besieges Lille, 211.
+
+  Marquis Wellesley, sketch of the career of, 385.
+
+  Martha Brown, by an ancient contributor, 184
+    --Chap. II., 187.
+
+  Martial, epigrams from, 496.
+
+  Martin, General Claud, 226.
+
+  Masham, Mrs, 202.
+
+  Mendip, Lord, 229.
+
+  Metastasio, dramas of, 70.
+
+  Mexico, war between, and Texas, 37.
+
+  Michaud's History of the Crusades, review of, 475.
+
+  Michelet's Le Peuple, review of, 733.
+
+  Mignet's Antonio Perez and Philip II., 450.
+
+  Military costume, remarks on, 114, 219
+    --Music, 175.
+
+  Milosh, the Servian leader, 145.
+
+  Ministerial measures, the, 373.
+
+  Model Republic, how they manage matters in the, 439.
+
+  Modern Pilgrim's Progress--the fragment of a dream
+    --Chap. I., How Scapegrace first made acquaintance with Scrip, 604
+    --Chap. II., How Scapegrace, losing sight of Premium, was mocked at
+          Vanity Fair, 606.
+
+  Moodkee, battle of, 633.
+
+  Mornington, Earl of, 386.
+
+  Moses and Son, a didactic tale
+    --Chap. I., 294
+    --Chap. II., 297
+    --Chap. III., 299.
+
+  Mother and her dead child, the, 53.
+
+  Muda Hassim, rajah of Borneo, 358, 359.
+
+  Music, something more about, 169.
+
+  My College Friends, No. III.
+    --Mr W. Wellington Hurst, 73.
+
+  Mysore war, the, 397.
+
+
+  Napoleon, epigram on, 220.
+
+  Natural history of Vichy, the, 306.
+
+  Naylor's Reynard the Fox, review of, 665.
+
+  Naval costume, remarks on, 119.
+
+  Nobility, re-establishment of, in France, 230.
+
+  North and South, from Goethe, 121.
+
+  Novibazar, town of, 138.
+
+
+  O'Connell, Mr, condition of the tenantry of, 589.
+
+  Old player, the, by A. Lodge, 473.
+
+  On a bee, from Martial, 496.
+
+  On Gellia, from Martial, 496.
+
+  Oregon question, American speeches on the, 441.
+
+  Orford, Lord, 470.
+
+  Oudenarde, battle of, 207.
+
+  Overkirk, General, death of, 214.
+
+
+  Palmerston, Lord, on the Servian question, 147.
+
+  Paton's Servia, review of, 129.
+
+  Paul, the emperor, 216, 218, 219.
+
+  Peace of Amiens, the, 223, 228.
+
+  Pearce's life of Wellesley, review of, 385.
+
+  Peel ministry, resignation of the, 124
+    --their return to office, 128.
+
+  Peel, Sir Robert, and his corn-law measure, 373.
+
+  Peep into the Whig penny-post bag, a, 247.
+
+  Peltier, trial of, 468.
+
+  Peninsular war, opening of the, 402.
+
+  People, the, 733.
+
+  Perceval, Mr, death of, 403.
+
+  Perez, Antonio, sketch of the career of, 450.
+
+  Petronevich, M. 131, 134, 142.
+
+  Petty, Sir William, 219.
+
+  Philip II. sketches of, 450.
+
+  Piper, Count, minister of Charles XII. 197.
+
+  Pitt, retirement of, 227
+    --Regency question, 389.
+
+  Poetry:
+    --Let never cruelty dishonour beauty, 16*
+    --the mother and her dead child, 53
+    --translations from Goethe, 120
+    --Christmas carol, 1845, 122
+    --the twenty-fourth book of Homer's Iliad, in English hexameters, 259
+    --the Old Player, by A. Lodge, 473
+    --the burden of Sion, by Delta, 493
+    --rhymed hexameters, 496
+    --the first book of Homer's Iliad, 610
+    --Truth and Beauty, 624
+    --the Rose of Warning, 747.
+
+  Posharevatz, town of, 140.
+
+  Potatoe failure, the, 382.
+
+  Powell, Mr, murder of, 591.
+
+  Prometheus Vinctus, the, 65.
+
+  Prospectus, a, 621.
+
+
+  Racine, remarks on, 69.
+
+  Rassavatz, M. 140.
+
+  Recollections of a Lover of Society
+    --the Irish Union, 215
+    --Challenge to George III. 216
+    --anecdotes of Lord Camelford, &c. 217
+    --death of Paul of Russia, 218
+    --anecdotes of him, 219
+    --epitaphs, 221
+    --death of Lavater, Heberden, &c. _ib._
+    --peace of Amiens, 223
+    --coronation of Alexander of Russia, 224
+    --first feat of Barclay of Ury, 225
+    --appearance of Stephen Kemble, _ib._
+    --on the peace, &c. 226
+    --death of the Duke of Bedford, 227
+    --retirement of Pitt, _ib._
+    --conclusion of the peace, 228
+    --death of Darwin, _ib._
+    --and of Lord Mendip, 229
+    --re-establishment of nobility in France, 230
+    --Jenner and vaccination, _ib._
+    --No. II.
+    --ball in honour of the peace, 463
+    --accident to George Rose, _ib._
+    --death of Colonel Barre, _ib._
+    --curious law action, &c. 464
+    --measures of Napoleon, _ib._
+    --Schinderhannes the robber, 465
+    --Colonel O'Kelly's parrot, 466
+    --Andreossi and the seizure of Malta, _ib._
+    --image of our Lady of Loretto, 467
+    --trial of Colonel Despard, _ib._
+    --trial of Peltier, 468
+    --Lord Orford, 470
+    --frauds on the Stock Exchange, 471
+    --declaration of war against France, 472.
+
+  Reform, first agitation of, 390.
+
+  Regency question, the, 389.
+
+  Reign, last hours of, a tale in two parts, Part II., Chap. III., 17
+    --Chap IV., 24
+    --Chap. V., 29
+    --Conclusion, 36.
+
+  Reinaud on Greek Fire, 749.
+
+  Rent, rates of, in Ireland, 586.
+
+  Reynard the Fox, 665.
+
+  Rhodes, description of, 130.
+
+  Rhymed Hexameters and Pentameters, 496.
+
+  Rogues in Outline, see _Birboniana_.
+
+  Roman Campagna, the, 337.
+
+  Romantic drama compared with the Greek, 54.
+
+  Rome, sketches of, 250
+    --causes of the decline and fall of, 340
+    --the fall of
+    --its causes at work in the British Empire, 692.
+
+  Rose, George, accident to, 463.
+
+  Rose of Warning, the, by A. Lodge, 747.
+
+  Roustchouk, fortress of, 131.
+
+
+  Sacred music, on, 181.
+
+  St Antonio, siege of, 38.
+
+  St Germans, Lord, coercion bill of, 572.
+
+  Santa Anna, notices of, 37.
+
+  Santa Lucia and the Capucin convent, 106.
+
+  Schiller, dramas of, 72.
+
+  Schinderhannes, the robber of the Rhine, 465.
+
+  Scott's novels and poems, remarks on, 414.
+
+  Serier, Mr, on the Oregon question, 442.
+
+  Servia, and the Servian question, 129.
+
+  Shabatz, town of, 135.
+
+  Shakspeare and AEschylus, comparison of, 61
+    --and the drama, 534.
+
+  Sharks and fireflies, 108.
+
+  Sheridan on the French Revolution, 395.
+
+  Sicilian sketches
+    --Syracusiana--the fountain of Arethusa, 103
+    --Jack Robertson and the professor of eloquence, 104
+    --Ear of Dionysius, 105
+    --Santa Lucia and the Capucin convent, 106
+    --sharks and fireflies, 108
+    --a consultation, 109
+    --excursion to Epipolae, 110
+    --addio, Sicilia, 111.
+
+  Siddons, Mrs, 55.
+
+  Sikhs, subjugation of the, 625.
+
+  Simitch Stogan, 142.
+
+  Sims, Mr, on the Oregon question, 415.
+
+  Sir William Follett, sketch of the life and character of, 1.
+
+  Small canals of Venice, the, 254.
+
+  Smith, Adam, 661.
+
+  Smith, Sir Harry, despatch of, 639.
+
+  Smuggler's leap, the, a passage in the Pyrenees, 366.
+
+  Sobraon, battle of, 642.
+
+  Sokol or Szoko, fortress of, 136, 137.
+
+  Soltau's Reynard the Fox, review of, 665.
+
+  Something more about music, 169.
+
+  Stanton, Mr, on the Oregon question, 447.
+
+  State of Ireland, the, 572.
+
+  Story of Periander, the, 417.
+
+  Studenitza, convent of, 138.
+
+  Student of Salamanca, the, Part III., 85
+    --Part IV., 149
+    --Part V., 273
+    --Part VI., 419
+    --Part the last, 513.
+
+  Surveyor's tale, the, 497.
+
+  Sutlej, campaign of the, 625.
+
+  Suvaroff, anecdote of, 219.
+
+  Svilainitza, town of, 140.
+
+  Swindler, a female, 218.
+
+  Swiss Alp, the, from Goethe, 121.
+
+  Syracusiana, _see_ Sicilian sketches.
+
+
+  Tariff, the new, 373.
+
+  Texas, a campaign in, 37.
+
+  Tickell, Mr, on the state of Ireland, 379.
+
+  Tippoo Saib, the war with, 397.
+
+  To Cecilianus, from Martial, 496.
+
+  Toulon, siege of, by Eugene, 201.
+
+  Tronosha, convent of, 136.
+
+  Truth and beauty, 624.
+
+  Twenty-fourth book of Homer's Iliad, attempted in English
+        hexameters, 259.
+
+
+  Union of Great Britain and Ireland, the, 215.
+
+  Ushitza, town of, 137.
+
+
+  Vaccination, discovery of, 230.
+
+  Vendome, Marshal, 205, 206, 212.
+
+  Venice, sketches of, 254.
+
+  Vichyana, natural history, &c., 406
+    --the contrast, 307
+    --miscellanea, 308
+    --our amusements, 309
+    --first table-d'hote dinner, 315.
+
+  Villa Borghese, the, 251.
+
+  Voltaire, the tragedies of, 70.
+
+
+  Wakefield, Gilbert, 222.
+
+  Walls of Rome, the, 250.
+
+  War in Texas, anecdotes of the, 37.
+
+  Warning, the, from Goethe, 121.
+
+  Wellesley, the Marquis, sketch of the career of, 385.
+
+  Whyte's pilgrim's reliquary, review of, 249.
+
+  Widdin, town of, 132.
+
+  Wuczicz, M. 134, 142.
+
+
+END OF VOL. LIX.
+
+_Edinburgh: Printed by Ballantyne and Hughes, Paul's Work._
+
+
+
+
+Footnotes:
+
+[1] _Lives of Men of Letters and Science who Flourished in the Time of
+George III._ By HENRY LORD BROUGHAM, with Portraits. London: Colburn.
+
+[2] _Reynard the Fox--a renowned Apologue of the Middle Ages reproduced
+in Rhyme._ By S. NAYLOR. Longman & Co. London: 1845.
+
+[3] Finlay's _Greece under the Romans_, p. 250.
+
+[4] "Mihi multum legenti multum audienti quae populus Romanus domi
+militiaeque praeclara facinora fecissent, forte lubuit attendere quae res
+maxime tanta negotia sustinuit. At mihi multa agitanti constabat,
+paucorum civium egregiam virtutem cuncta patravisse: eoque factum ut
+divitias paupertas, multitudinem paucitas, superaret."--Sallust, _Bell.
+Cat._, 32.
+
+[5] They were as high as L.9 sterling in the time of Constantine, a sum
+probably equal to L.20 of our money. But the freemen were the higher
+classes alone, and it is probable a similar class, both in France and
+England, pay at least as much at this time.--See Gibbon, iii. 88.
+
+[6] Gibbon, c. i. and c. xxxii. Agathias states the military
+establishment in its best days at 675,000, which is much more likely its
+real amount. Agathias, v. p. 157, Paris edition.
+
+[7] Gibbon, vol. vi. c. xxxvi. p. 235.
+
+[8] Ibid. vol. iii. c. xviii. p. 87. Edition in twelve volumes.
+
+[9] "Arantur Gallicana rura _barbaris bobus_, et juga Germanica captiva
+praebent colla nostris cultoribus."--_Probi Epist. ad Senatum, in
+Vopesio._
+
+[10] Michelet, _Histoire de France_, vol. i. p. 104-108.
+
+[11] Finlay's _Greece under the Romans_.
+
+[12] Tacitus, _Annal._, xii. 43.
+
+[13] _De Bello Gild._, v. 64, 65.
+
+[14] Gibbon, c. xxix.
+
+[15]
+
+  "Advenio supplex, non ut proculcet Araxen
+  Consul ovans, nostraeve premant pharetrata secures
+  Susa, nec ut Rubris aquilas figamus arenis.
+  Haec nobis, haec ante dabas.--Nunc pabula tantum
+  Roma precor. Miserere tuae, Pater Optime, gentis--
+  Extremam defende famem.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  Tot mihi pro meritis Lybiam Nilumque dedere
+  Ut _dominam plebem_ bellatoremque senatum
+  Classibus astivis alerent.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  Nunc inhonorus, egens, perfert miserabile pacis
+  Supplicium, nulloque palam circumdatus hoste
+  Obessi discrimen habet. Per singula letum
+  Impendet momenta mihi, dubitandaque pauci
+  Praescribunt alimenta dies."--CLAUD. _De Bello Gild._
+
+[16] Finlay's _Greece under the Romans_, 435, 436.
+
+[17] Ibid. 517.
+
+[18] Gibbon, c. xxxi. p. 351.
+
+[19] Ibid. c. xxxiii. vol. vi. p. 20.
+
+[20] _Greece under the Romans_, 456, 467.
+
+[21] Josephus, ii. 16.
+
+[22] Finlay, 515.
+
+[23] Ibid. 406.
+
+[24] Sismondi, _Chute de l'Empire Romaine_, i. 36.
+
+[25] Novell, 81.
+
+[26] Finlay, 246, 247.
+
+[27] Finlay, 117.
+
+[28] Ammianus Marcellinus, c. xiv.
+
+[29] Finlay, 544. Ammianus Marcellinus, c. xix.
+
+[30] Sismondi, _Chute de l'Empire Romaine_, i. 50.
+
+[31] Gibbon, i. 261, c. vi.
+
+[32] Gibbon, c. vi. vol. i. p. 262.
+
+[33] Ibid. c. vi. vol. i. p. 268.
+
+[34] Ibid. p. 268.
+
+[35] Ibid. c. xvii. vol. ii. p. 86.
+
+[36] Gibbon, c. xvii. vol. iii. p. 92.
+
+[37] Finlay, pp. 49-50.
+
+[38] Novell Majorian, tit. iv. p. 34. Gibbon, c. xxxvi. vol. vi. p. 173.
+
+[39] Gibbon, c. i. vol. i. p. 30.
+
+[40] Ibid. c. i. vol. i. p. 37.
+
+[41] Ibid. c. xvii. vol. iii. p. 93.
+
+[42] Ibid. c. ii. vol. i. p. 91.
+
+[43] Plin. _Hist. Nat._ iii. 5.
+
+[44] [Greek: Peri tou medein Daneixeisthai.] "De AEre Alieno
+vitando."--_Plutarch._
+
+[45] Finlay, 90.
+
+[46] "Verumque confitentibus latifundia perdidere Italiam, immo ac
+provincias."--Plin. _Hist. Nat._
+
+[47] Sismondi, _Chute de l'Empire Romaine_, i. 51.
+
+[48] Ammianus Marcellinus, c. xiv.
+
+[49] Sismondi, _Chute de l'Empire Romaine_, i. 44.
+
+[50] Finlay, 219, 220.
+
+[51] It is curious to find Tacitus praising the establishment _of
+bounties on_ the importation of foreign grain by Tiberius, without a
+word on the evil effects of the system.--_Annal._ vi. 13. "Quibus _e
+provinciis et quanto majorum, quam Augustus_ rei frumentariae copiam
+advectaret."
+
+[52] Finlay, 53.
+
+[53] Finlay, 105.
+
+[54] Ibid. 137.
+
+[55] Tacitus, _Annal._ xii. 43.
+
+[56] Michelet, _Histoire de France_, i. 277.
+
+[57] _Edinburgh Review._ April 1846. No. 168. Page 370-371.
+
+[58] Sismondi, _Chute de l'Empire Romaine_, i. 233.
+
+[59] Finlay, 389.
+
+[60] Ibid. 392.
+
+[61] Gibbon, chap. ii. vol. i. p. 90.
+
+[62] Jacob's _Historical Inquiry into the Production and Consumption of
+the Precious Metals_, i. 35, 42.
+
+[63] Finlay, 88.
+
+[64] _Ibid._ 90.
+
+[65] Finlay, 89.
+
+[66] Gibbon, v. 329.
+
+[67] _Arbuthnott on Ancient Coins_, c. 5. Gibbon, i. 90, c. ii.
+
+[68] _Greaves on Ancient Coins_, i. 229, 331.
+
+[69] Gibbon, c. 36, vol. vi. 173.
+
+[70] See _Edinburgh Review_. No. 168. April 1846.
+
+[71] There are now 20,000,000 inhabitants in Italy, and it was certainly
+as populous in the time of Augustus, when Rome alone, which now has
+180,000, contained 2,386,000 souls.
+
+[72] _Le Peuple._ Par J. MICHELET.
+
+[73] _Du Feu Grecois, des Feux de Guerre, et des Origines de la
+Poudre-a-Canon._ Par MM. REINAUD et FAVE.
+
+[74] --------"Conducta Paulus agebat Sardonyche."--JUV. _Sat._ vii.
+
+[75] Poor Seneca, for a _moral_ philosopher, seems to have been somewhat
+harshly handled: here patronised by cheats and gamblers, and here
+censured by philosophy and dissent! Now invoked by Rusca to assist him
+in his ingannations; now lugged on the stage to be commented on by the
+valet of a gambler,[*] as he _debits_ him, for his master's consolation,
+under his losses; here glanced at by Coleridge for his splendid
+"inconsistencies;" and here by the sour _Dissenter_, who accuses our
+Church's ministers of borrowing their sermons from his precepts.
+
+  "Preaching the trash they purchase at the stalls,
+  And more like _Seneca's_, than _HIS_!! or _Paul's_!"
+
+And, as he could make no higher appeal for human virtue than the
+authority of human wisdom for the plea of expediency, it was not to be
+wondered at if he should have met with no better fate than to be praised
+of fools, and neglected of the wise, who wisely deemed him an
+insufficient, and therefore a dangerous guide.
+
+     [*] Le Joueur.
+
+[76] The name of "_half honest_" exactly suits this class of men, who,
+adopting one _half_ of what our admirable Taylor lays down in his golden
+"rules and measures of justice in bargaining," neglect the other half.
+"In prices of bargaining concerning _uncertain_ merchandises, you may
+buy as cheap, ordinarily, as you can, and sell as dear as you can;" so
+far they and Taylor are of a mind. "Provided," continues he, "that you
+contract on _equal terms_ with persons in _all senses_ (as to the matter
+and skill of bargaining) _equal to yourself_; that is, merchants with
+merchants, _wise men with wise men_, rich with rich"--and _here_ the
+_mezzo galant'uomo_ gives up Taylor, to keep true to his name and
+calling.
+
+[77] Mionnet, _De la Rarete et du Prix des Medailles Romaines_, a very
+useful work, which no amateur collector should fail to possess, and to
+carry constantly about with him, _non obstant_ all the abuse heaped upon
+it by all the dealers.
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+Passages in italics are indicated by _italics_.
+
+The original text includes Greek characters. For this text version these
+letters have been replaced with transliterations.
+
+The original text contains several instances of unmatched quotation marks.
+Obvious errors have been silently corrected while those requiring
+interpretation have been left open.
+
+The following misprints have been corrected:
+  "dveloping" corrected to "developing" (page 658)
+  missing "a" added (page 684)
+  "ancedote" corrected to "anecdote" (index)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume
+59, No. 368, June 1846, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE, JUNE 1846 ***
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