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-
-*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75016 ***
-
-
-
-
-
-                    BLACKWOOD’S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
-           NO. CCCCLXVI.      AUGUST, 1854.      VOL. LXXVI.
-
-
-
-
-                               CONTENTS.
-
-
-      TRICOUPI AND ALISON ON THE GREEK REVOLUTION,            119
-      STUDENT LIFE IN SCOTLAND,                               135
-      THE INSURRECTION IN SPAIN,                              151
-      THE ETHNOLOGY OF EUROPE,                                165
-      THE GANGETIC PROVINCES OF BRITISH INDIA,                183
-      THE SECRET OF STOKE MANOR: A FAMILY HISTORY.—PART III., 206
-      CONSERVATIVE REASCENDANCY CONSIDERED,                   230
-
-                               EDINBURGH:
-              WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS, 45 GEORGE STREET,
-                    AND 37 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON;
-
-      _To whom all communications (post paid) must be addressed._
-
-           SOLD BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM.
-
-           PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH.
-
-
-
-
-                              BLACKWOOD’S
-
-                          EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
-
-           NO. CCCCLXVI.      AUGUST, 1854.      VOL. LXXVI.
-
-
-
-
-           TRICOUPI AND ALISON ON THE GREEK REVOLUTION.[1][2]
-
-
-We certainly owe an apology to our Greek ambassador. The nine hundred
-and ninety-ninth edition of a declamatory old play of Euripides, cut and
-slashed into the most newfangled propriety by some J. A. Hartung, or
-other critical German, with a tomahawk, is a phenomenon in the literary
-world that can excite no attention; but when a regularly built living
-Greek comes forward in the middle of this nineteenth century, exactly
-four hundred years after the last Byzantine chronicler had been blown
-into the air by our brave allies the Turks—and within the precincts of
-the Red Lion Court, London—ἐν τῇ ἀυλῇ τοῦ ἐρυθροῦ λέοντος—puts forth a
-regularly built history of the Greek Revolution of 1821, thereby
-claiming—not without impudence, as some think—a place on our classical
-shelves alongside of Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon, and a great
-way above Diodorus Siculus, and other such retailers of venerable
-hearsay: this truly is an event in the Greek world that claims notice
-from the general reviewer even more than from the professed classical
-scholar. At the present moment, particularly, one likes to see what a
-living Greek, with a pen in his hand, has to say for himself; his
-language and his power of utterance is an element in the great
-Turko-Russian question that cannot be lost sight of. Doubly welcome,
-therefore, is this first instalment of Mr Tricoupi’s long-expected
-history; and as it happens opportunely that the most interesting portion
-of Sir A. Alison’s third volume is occupied with the same theme, we
-eagerly seize the present opportunity at once to acquit ourselves of an
-old debt to our Hellenic ambassador, and to thank Sir A. Alison for the
-spirited, graphic, and thoroughly sympathetic style in which he has
-presented to the general English reader the history of a bright period
-of Greek history, which recent events have somewhat tended to becloud.
-It is not our intention on the present occasion to attempt a sketch of
-the strategetical movements of the Greek war, 1821–6. A criticism of
-these will be more opportune when Mr Tricoupi shall have finished his
-great work.[3] We shall rather confine ourselves to bringing out a few
-salient points of that great movement, which may serve, by way of
-contrast or similitude, to throw light on the very significant struggle
-in which we are now engaged. A single word, however, in the first place,
-with regard to the dialect in which Mr Tricoupi’s work is written; as
-that is a point on which all persons are not well informed, and a point
-also by no means unimportant in the decision of the question,—_What are
-the hopes, prospects, and capabilities of the living race of Greeks?_
-
-Now, with regard to this point, Mr Tricoupi’s book furnishes the most
-decided and convincing evidence that the language of Aristotle and Plato
-yet survives in a state of the most perfect purity, the materials of
-which it is composed being genuine Greek, and the main difference
-between the style of Tricoupi and that of Xenophon consisting in the
-loss of a few superfluous verbal flexions, and the adoption of one or
-two new syntactical forms to compensate for the loss—the merest points
-of grammar, indeed, which to a schoolmaster great in Attic forms may
-appear mighty, but to the general scholar, and the practical linguist,
-are of no moment. A few such words of Turkish extraction, as ζάμιον, _a
-mosque_; φιρμάνιον, _a firman_; βεζιρης, _a vizier_; γενίτσαρος, _a
-janizary_; ραγιάδης, _a rajah_, so far from being any blot on the purity
-of Mr Tricoupi’s Greek, do in fact only prove his good sense; for even
-the ancient Greeks, ultra-national as they were in all their habits,
-never scrupled to adopt a foreign word—such as γάζα, παράδεισος,
-ἄγγαρος—when it came in their way, just as we have κοδράντης, κηνσος,
-σουδάριον, and a few other Latinisms in the New Testament. The fact is,
-that the modern Greeks are rather to be blamed for the affectation of
-extreme purity in their style, than for any undue admixture of foreign
-words, such as we find by scores in every German newspaper. But this is
-their affair. It is a vice that leans to virtue’s side, and springs
-manifestly from that strong and obstinate vitality of race which has
-survived the political revolutions of nearly two thousand years; and a
-vice, moreover, that may prove of the utmost use to our young scholars,
-who may have the sense and the enterprise to turn it to practical
-account. For, as the pure Greek of Mr Tricoupi’s book is no private
-invention of his own, but the very same dialect which is at present used
-as an organ of intellectual utterance by a large phalanx of talented
-professors in the University of Athens, and is in fact the language of
-polite intercourse over the whole of Greece, it follows that Greek,
-which is at present almost universally studied as a dead language, and
-that by a most laborious and tedious process of grammatical
-indoctrination, may be more readily picked up, like German or French, in
-the course of the living practice of a few months. It is worthy of
-serious consideration, indeed, how far the progress of our young men in
-an available knowledge of the finest language of the world may have been
-impeded by the perverse methods of teachers who could not speak, and who
-gave themselves no concern to speak, the language which they were
-teaching; who invented, also, an arbitrary system of pronouncing the
-language, which completely separated them from the nation who speak it.
-But this is a philological matter on which we have no vocation to enter
-here: we only drop a hint for the wise, who are able to inquire and to
-conclude for themselves.
-
-We now proceed to business. There are five points connected with the
-late Greek Revolution which stand out with a prominent interest at the
-present moment.
-
-_First_,—The character, conduct, and position of RUSSIA at the outbreak
-of the Revolution.
-
-_Second_,—The character and conduct of the TURKS and the Turkish
-government, as displayed by the manner in which the revolt was met.
-
-_Third_,—The character, conduct, and political significance of the GREEK
-PEOPLE, as exhibited during the five years’ struggle.
-
-_Fourth_,—The character, conduct, and position of RUSSIA, as more fully
-developed at the conclusion of the struggle.
-
-_Fifth_,—The character, conduct, and political significance of the GREEK
-PEOPLE, as exhibited since the battle of Navarino and the establishment
-of the existing Bavarian dynasty.
-
-On all these points we shall offer a few remarks in the order in which
-they are set down.
-
-_First_,—As to the conduct of RUSSIA. It is a remarkable fact, and very
-significant of the nature of Russian influence in Turkey, that the Greek
-Revolution did not commence where one might have expected it to
-commence, in Greece proper—_i.e._, the mountainous strongholds of
-Acarnania and the Peloponnesus—but in those very Principalities where we
-are now fighting, and where the Muscovites are always intriguing. How
-was this? Plainly because all those Greeks who had for years been
-brewing revolt in their ἑταιριαι, or secret conspiracies, took it for
-granted that on that nominally Turkish but really Russian ground, Russia
-would at once come forward and help them to kill—we use the Imperial
-simile—the sick old Infidel, who had been so long lying with his
-diseased lumpish body on the back of the Christian population; and
-accordingly the man whom they set up to raise the flag of Christian
-insurrection on the banks of the Pruth and the Sereth, was an officer in
-the Russian service, Alexander Ypsilanti by name; and the first thing he
-did when he came forward as military head of the revolt in the
-Principalities, was to put forth a proclamation, in which the Christian
-tribes of Turkey were told that “_a great European power_” might be
-depended on as “_patronising the insurrection_”—ὁτι μιά μεγάλη δύναμις
-τοῦς προστατευει. Now, here was a lie to begin with, to which perhaps
-the old _Græcia mendax_ may seem not inapplicable: but in fact it was a
-most probable lie; and if lies were at all justifiable, either on
-principle or policy, at the opening scene of a great war, certainly this
-was the lie which at that time and place looked most like the truth. But
-it is a dangerous thing to raise warlike enthusiasm at any time,
-especially when an emperor is concerned, by sounding statements not
-founded on truth. Had the Czar been ever so willing to assist the
-movement of the Wallachian Greeks, and to lead his victorious Cossacks,
-scarcely returned from fair Paris, to magnificent Stamboul, he could not
-but feel offended at the unceremonious manner in which his decision had
-been taken out of his own mouth, and the absolute spontaneity of an
-imperial ukase been forestalled by a vagabond Greek captain. But the
-Greeks were, from the beginning, out of their reckoning in supposing
-that the then Czar would, as a matter of course, patronise their
-insurrectionary movement against the Turks. Alexander, though not
-naturally a very bellicose person, had already done as much for the
-territorial aggrandisement of Russia as would have contented the most
-warlike of his predecessors. He had rounded off the north-west corner of
-his vast domain in the most neat and dexterous way by the appropriation
-of Finland in 1808; and he had profited alike in the upshot by the
-friendship of Napoleon at Tilsit in 1807, and by his enmity at Moscow in
-1812. That he should enter upon a new, and in all probability a severe
-contest with another enemy, and put himself at the head of a great
-insurrectionary movement, disturbing all the peaceful relations so
-recently established, and in such friendly amity with the great
-conservative powers at Paris and Vienna, was a proceeding not to be
-looked for from a moderate and a prudent man. This the Greeks might have
-known, had they not been befooled by patriotic passion. A “_holy_
-alliance” no doubt it was which, in 1815, the pious soul of the good
-Czar had made with his brother kings; but this “holiness” was either a
-mere fraternisation of sentiment, too vague to be of any practical
-force, or at best a religious stamp placed upon a document, the contents
-of which were essentially political, and did not at all warrant the
-expectation that the most Christian crowned Allies should be called upon
-to interfere in supporting every revolt which Christian subjects in any
-land might feel themselves called upon to make against their traditional
-lords. Then as to politics: Though Alexander was a most kind-hearted,
-truly popular, and very liberal sovereign, and had made speeches at
-Paris, Warsaw, and elsewhere, equal to anything ever spouted by the
-present Majesty of Prussia in his most liberal fits, yet he was very
-little of a constitutionalist, and not at all a democrat. From Laybach,
-therefore, where he was when the revolution broke out in March 1821, he
-gave his decision in the matter of the Greek insurrection in the
-following very remarkable words:—
-
-
-  “The motives of the Emperor are now known, from the best of all
-  sources, his own words, in confidential conversation with Mons. de
-  Chateaubriand. ‘The time is past,’ said he, ‘when there can be a
-  French, Russian, Prussian, or Austrian policy. One only policy for the
-  safety of all can be admitted in common by all people and all kings.
-  It devolves on me to show myself the first to be convinced of the
-  principles on which the Holy Alliance is founded. An opportunity
-  presented itself on occasion of the insurrection of the Greeks.
-  Nothing certainly could have been more for my interests, those of my
-  people, and the opinion of my country, than a religious war against
-  the Turks; but I discerned in the _troubles of the Peloponnesus the
-  revolutionary mark. From that moment I kept aloof from them._ Nothing
-  has been spared to turn me aside from the Alliance; but in vain. My
-  self-love has been assailed, my prejudices appealed to; but in vain.
-  What need have I for an extension of my empire? Providence has not put
-  under my orders 800,000 soldiers to satisfy my ambition, but to
-  protect religion, morality, and justice, and to establish the
-  principles of order on which human society reposes.’ In pursuance of
-  these principles, Count Nesselrode declared officially that ‘his
-  Imperial Majesty could not regard the enterprise of Ypsilanti as
-  anything but the effect of the exaltation which characterises the
-  present epoch, as well as of the inexperience and levity of that young
-  man, whose name is ordered to be erased from the Russian service.’
-  Orders were at the same time sent to the imperial forces on the Pruth
-  and in the Black Sea to observe the strictest neutrality.”
-
-
-The publication of this resolution on the part of the Imperial
-government effectually quashed the movement in the Principalities; and
-poor Ypsilanti, after a few awkward and ill-managed plunges, was obliged
-to back out of his position, and, leaving “Olympian George,” and other
-sturdy Greek mountaineers, in the lurch, seek for refuge, and find a
-prison in Austria. In this whole affair, however, though the Greeks had
-shown themselves very vain and foolish, no man can deny that the Czar
-behaved with great moderation—like a gentleman, in fact, and a
-Christian, as he was—and moreover, we must add, like a wise politician.
-For we can scarcely agree with some strong indications of feeling, both
-in Tricoupi and in Sir Archibald Alison,[4] that any Christian power
-would have been justified in supporting a revolt of Christian subjects
-against their lawful sovereign, being an Infidel, till these Christians
-had first shown, by their own exertions, that they were worthy of the
-intervention which afterwards took place in their favour. We see, also,
-that Lord Aberdeen, in some late remarks in the House of Lords, was
-quite correct historically when he called attention to the comparative
-“moderation” of Russian counsels in some of her dealings with Turkey.
-Russia, in fact, never has displayed any very flagrant rapacity in her
-dealings with Turkey, for the best of all possible reasons,—because,
-having as much of the fox as of the bear in her nature, she does not
-wish to alarm the European powers on a point where she knows they are
-peculiarly sensitive. Her policy has been to poison the sick old man,
-not to kill him; and in this very moderation, as all the world now
-knows, lies the peculiar danger of her encroachments. Like a deep
-swirling river, she rolls beneath the fat mud-banks of your political
-STATUS QUO, and you suspect no harm, and can walk on the green bank with
-delectation; but when the flood comes, there will be a shaking and a
-precipitation; and then God help the sleepers!
-
-So much for Russia. Our next question relates to the Turks. How did they
-behave at the outbreak of the insurrection? The answer is given in two
-words—like butchers, and like blunderers. Like butchers in the first
-place. Their way of crushing an insurrection was truly a brutal
-one—πολιτική θηριώδης as Mr Tricoupi says; or shall we not rather say
-devilish. Certainly Sylla, in his most sanguinary humours, never enacted
-anything more inhuman and more diabolical than the wholesale massacre of
-the prosperous Greeks in Scios, April 1822, which, next to certain
-scenes when the Furies were let loose in France, forms the most bloody
-page of modern history.[5] When a Turk suspects a Greek of treason, he
-makes short work of it: no forms of law, no investigation, no trial, no
-proof; but right on with the instinct of a tiger, in the very simple and
-effective old Oriental style,—“_Why should this dead dog curse my lord
-the king? let me go over, I pray thee, and take off his head._” So an
-old Jew once said to King David; but Sultan Mahmoud did not require that
-a word of cursing should have been spoken. Sufficient that the
-individual marked for butchery stood in a prominent situation, and was
-of the same brotherhood as those who had spoken or acted treason: if he
-was not guilty in his own person, he was bound to be cognisant of the
-guilt of others; and for not revealing this guilt he must die. Such is
-the simple theory on which proceeded the wholesale murders which took
-place at Constantinople so soon as word was brought of the
-insurrectionary movement in the Principalities. As a specimen of these
-infamous proceedings, we shall select from Mr Tricoupi’s book the
-account of the death of the Patriarch Gregory, a murder committed with
-the most flagrant disregard of all the forms of justice (if there be
-such forms in Turkey), and under circumstances calculated to rouse to
-the utmost pitch the spirit of the people whom it was intended to crush;
-a murder, therefore, not merely cruel and barbarous, but stupid and
-impolitic. The account given by our author of this most characteristic
-event is somewhat circumstantial, as might be expected from the piety of
-a true Greek writing on such a subject. We curtail it, however, as
-little as possible,—especially as the closing scene, in which Russia
-appears a chief actor, affords a vivid glimpse of the very natural
-manner in which, unassisted by any evil arts of diplomacy, that power
-can continually earn for itself golden opinions among the Christian
-nations of the south.
-
-“On the evening of Easter Saturday, or great Saturday—το μέγα σάββατον,
-as the Greeks call it—being the 9th of March, there were seen dispersed
-in the neighbourhood of the Patriarch’s palace, within and without the
-Fanar, about five thousand armed Janizaries, without any person knowing
-why. The Janizaries perambulated the streets of the Fanar the whole
-night, but did no harm to any one. At midnight, as is the use in our
-Church, the church-crier made proclamation, and the Christian people,
-though under great apprehensions, immediately obeyed the sacred summons,
-and assembled without hindrance or disturbance in the church of the
-Patriarchate. The Patriarch himself officiated as usual, with twelve
-other priests; and after the service was finished, the people were
-dismissed, and retired quietly to their own homes. The Patriarch went to
-his palace, when the first streaks of day were beginning to appear; but
-scarcely had he entered, when word was brought that Staurakis
-Aristarches, the great Interpreter, wished to speak with him. The
-Patriarch proposed to go with him to his private room, but the
-Interpreter replied that he preferred being taken immediately to the
-great Hall of the Synod. There he came with one of the Secretaries of
-State, and forthwith produced a firman, which he declared he had orders
-to read aloud without a moment’s delay in the presence of the Patriarch,
-the chief priests, the heads of the Greek people, and the deacons of
-corporations. These parties were sent for, and the firman instantly read
-as follows: ‘Forasmuch as the Patriarch Gregory has shown himself
-unworthy of the patriarchal throne, ungrateful to the Porte, and a
-deviser of plots,—for these reasons he is deposed from his office.’ The
-Patriarch, accompanied by his faithful archdeacon, was immediately led
-off to prison; and as soon as he had left the hall, a second firman was
-read out in the following terms: ‘Forasmuch as the Sublime Porte does
-not desire to deprive his faithful subjects of their spiritual
-superintendence, he hereby commands them to elect a patriarch according
-to their ancient custom.’ A consultation immediately took place among
-the clergy; and they agreed that they should call to the patriarchal
-throne Cyril, who had been formerly patriarch, and was now in
-Adrianople; but the secretary replied that this could not be allowed, as
-the proposed patriarch was absent, and under present circumstances the
-Porte could not allow the throne to be vacant for a single hour;
-wherefore he commanded them instantly to make election of a new
-patriarch from the number of the clergy then present. Another
-consultation immediately took place; and after considerable difficulty
-the vote fell upon Peisidias Eugenios, who, according to usage, was
-immediately sent to the Porte, the rest remaining till he should return.
-After three hours he appeared, environed with a pomp and circumstance
-more magnificent than usual.
-
-“This ceremony of electing the new pontiff was still going on, when
-Gregory was led out of prison, where he had been preparing himself by
-constant prayer for the death which he had too good reason for supposing
-was prepared for him. After taking him from the prison, they put him
-into a boat, and disembarked him on the strand of the Fanar. There the
-venerable old man, looking up steadfastly to heaven,[6] made the sign of
-the cross, and knelt down, and inclined his hoary head to the
-executioner’s axe; but the headsman ordered him to rise, saying that
-here was not the place where he was to be executed. They accordingly led
-him into his own palace, and there the executioner hung him as he was
-praying on the threshold of the principal entrance at the hour of noon
-on Easter Sunday—so that at the very moment when the wretched Christians
-above were singing the hymn of welcome to their new Patriarch, with the
-accustomed words εις πολλᾶ ἔτη δέσποτα, his predecessor was hung on the
-ground-floor like a thief and a malefactor; the very holy person who
-only a few hours before had offered the bloodless sacrifice for the sins
-of the people, and had blessed his faithful flock, who, with devoutness
-and contrition of heart, had kissed the hand that had been hallowed by
-the handling of the holiest elements. The last moments of Gregory were
-moments of pure faith and resignation, springing from an unspotted
-conscience, a heart the fountain of good deeds, a calm contempt of this
-ephemeral life, and a bright expectation of futurity. The writing of
-condemnation, by virtue of which he died, called, in Turkish, _Yiaftás_,
-was fixed upon the dead body, and set forth the causes of his death as
-follows.”
-
-Here Mr Tricoupi gives the Turkish act of condemnation at full length;
-but the substance of it is contained in two points: first, “that the
-Patriarch did not use his spiritual weapons of excommunication, &c.,
-against the revolters; and, second, that he was personally privy to the
-conspiracy.” To which two charges the historian answers shortly that the
-first is directly contrary to the fact (for the revolters were
-excommunicated by the Greek hierarchy in the capital); and with regard
-to the second, he avers, that though it was quite impossible for the
-head of the Greek Church to be ignorant of the existence of a conspiracy
-of which thousands of the most notable Greeks in Europe were members,
-yet he was never a member of the secret societies, and had, on the
-contrary, like many other influential persons of his nation, considered
-the movement premature,[7] and warned his countrymen against it as
-likely to lead to the most pernicious consequences. But it is vain, as
-we already remarked, to look for reasons that would satisfy any European
-ideas of justice in proceedings between Turks in authority and
-rebellious Giaours. The calm and solemn gentleman, enveloped in smoke
-and coffee fumes, whose bland dignity we so much admired in time of
-peace, becomes suddenly seized with a preternatural fury when the scent
-of Greek blood is in the gale. It is a primary law of his religion,
-inherited from the oldest Oriental theocracies, that no infidel is
-entitled to live; and if the head seems more serviceable for the nonce
-than the capitation-tax, which is its substitute, the law of the Prophet
-is satisfied, and no man has a right to complain. Mr Tricoupi now
-proceeds with his narrative.
-
-
-  “The execution being over, the great interpreter, the secretary, and
-  their attendants, left the palace of the Patriarch. In the evening of
-  the same day, Beterli Ali Pasha, who had recently been appointed Grand
-  Vizier, went through the Fanar with only one attendant, and, asking
-  for a chair, sat down for five or six minutes on the street opposite
-  the suspended body of the Patriarch, looking at him, and speaking to
-  his attendant. After an hour the Sultan himself passed the same way,
-  and cast his eye on the Patriarch. The body remained suspended three
-  days; but on the fourth the hangman took it down to throw it into the
-  sea, it being contrary to law in Turkey that persons hung or beheaded
-  should receive burial. Then there came to the hangman certain Jews,
-  and having received his permission (some say that they bribed him),
-  bound together the feet of the corpse, and dragged it away to the
-  extreme end of the quay of the Fanar, with mockery and blasphemous
-  words. Then they threw it into the sea, and gave the end of the rope
-  with which they had bound the feet to the hangman, who, having gone
-  before, was waiting them in a little boat. He immediately, seizing the
-  rope and dragging the body after him, came to the middle of the
-  bay,[8] and there attached to the body a stone which he had brought
-  with him in order to sink it: but it proved not weighty enough for
-  this purpose; so he left the corpse floating on the water, and, making
-  for the strand, came back with two other stones, which he attached to
-  the body; and then, giving it two or three stabs with his knife, to
-  let out the water, he immediately sunk it. After some days, however,
-  it came to the surface at Galata between two ships lying at the point
-  where a great many boats are always stationed, for passing over to the
-  city. One of these ships was a Slavonian, and the other a Greek, from
-  Cephalonia. The captain of the Slavonian saw the body first, and threw
-  some straw matting over it, with the view of concealing it till the
-  night, when he meant to bury it, like a good Christian. But when the
-  evening came, the Cephalonian captain anticipated him, and perceiving
-  from the unshaven chin that it was the body of a priest, brought into
-  his ship secretly some Christians, who assured him that it was the
-  body of the Patriarch. The pious Cephaliote immediately swathed the
-  body in a winding-sheet, and, transporting it to Odessa, deposited it
-  in the Lazaretto there.[9] There the body was examined by the order of
-  the governor, and was recognised by certain signs as that of the
-  Patriarch.
-
-  “Information of this being sent to St Petersburg, orders were given to
-  bury the body with all appropriate honours. The sacred Russian synod
-  came to assist in the funeral ceremony; and on the 17th of June there
-  were assembled in the Lazaretto all the local authorities, political
-  and military, the two metropolitan bishops, Cyril of Silistria, and
-  Gregory of Hieropolis; also Demetrius, bishop of Bender and Akerman,
-  all the clergy of the province, a great number of Greek refugees, who
-  had fled from the butchery at Constantinople. Then the church bells
-  were rung, the funeral psalms were sung, a salute of cannons was
-  given, and, with the accompaniment of military music and the prayers
-  of the congregated faithful, the remains of the venerated Patriarch
-  were carried to the metropolitan church of Odessa. Here they remained
-  three days, till the 19th, when the burial-service was again sung, and
-  a funeral oration was pronounced by Constantine Œconomos, preacher to
-  the Œcomenic Patriarchate, who happened to be in Odessa; after which
-  the body was removed with great pomp to the church of the Greeks, and
-  deposited in a new sepulchre within the railing of the holy altar, at
-  the north side of the holy table, as being the body of a martyr. And
-  thus—to use the very words of the semi-official journal of St
-  Petersburg—by the command of the most pious Autocrat of all the
-  Russians, Alexander I., were rendered due honours of faith and love to
-  Gregory, the holy Patriarch of the Eastern Orthodox Church of the
-  Greeks, who suffered a martyr’s death.”
-
-
-Next to the butchery—which, by the way, the Greeks, as opportunity
-offered, were not ashamed to retaliate—the most noticeable thing in the
-Turkish conduct of the war was their extraordinary slowness, fickleness,
-inefficiency, and bungling of every sort. The insurrection, though
-attempted in Thessaly and Macedonia, did, in fact, never extend with any
-permanent force beyond the narrow boundaries of the present kingdom of
-Greece, with the addition of Crete, and one or two of the Ægean islands,
-now in the possession of the Turks; but to suppress this petty revolt of
-an ill-peopled and divided district, occupying a small corner of a vast
-empire, all the strength of Turkey, both Asiatic and European, proved in
-vain; for it was not till Ibrahim Pasha, in 1825, was sent by his
-father, Mehemet Ali, with a large Egyptian armament that the Morea was
-recovered to the Sultan, and the insurrection virtually quashed. Now,
-when we consider that the Greeks of the Morea were stamped with the
-servitude of nearly four hundred years—that they were, in fact, so awed
-by the hereditary authority of their haughty masters, that in the
-beginning of the war, as Gordon expressly testifies, three hundred of
-them could not be made to stand against thirty Turks; that their only
-effective leaders were a few brigand chiefs from the wild regions of
-Acarnania, Ætolia, and Epirus; that the land was of such a nature as to
-be kept in subjection by fortresses, all of which were in the possession
-of the lords of the soil; that the sea was open to the men of Stamboul
-as much as to those of Hydra and to Mehemet Ali’s Egyptians, we shall
-see plainly that nothing but a wonderful combination of slowness,
-stupidity, and cowardice on the part of the Turks could have allowed the
-Greek revolt to protract its existence during the space of those first
-four years, when—not without large aids from English gold—it continued
-to present a prosperous front to the world. What strikes us most in the
-account of the war given by Gordon—who will always be a main
-authority—is the great want of capacity and enterprise in the Turkish
-commanders both by sea and land—the very same weakness, in fact, which
-is remarked at the present hour as afflicting the Turkish armies—a want
-of good officers. There is in Turkey a want of a high-minded,
-independent, and energetic middle class, without which an army never can
-be well officered. Only one efficient Turkish captain appeared in the
-whole course of the Greek war; and he took Missolonghi.
-
-We have been anxious to bring forward this sad account of the conduct of
-the Turks in the insurrection distinctly, as there is a danger, at the
-present moment, of the Turkish military virtue being overrated. No man
-who knew that nation ever doubted that they could defend a fort well in
-the present war, as they have ever done where they happened to have a
-good commander, and acted under encouraging circumstances. This is the
-secret of the recent successful defence of Silistria, for which we feel
-all respect. With the English and French fleet to guard their flank, and
-all Europe as spectators of their mettle, with the very existence of
-their empire perhaps at stake, and with the choice of their own
-battlefield—that is, the defence of forts—the Turks would have been dull
-truly, never to be roused, if the old heroism had not flamed out with
-more than wonted fierceness. But the successful defence of this fort
-affords no proof that the people who made it possess a spirit and an
-organisation able to cope in a continued campaign with some Paskiewitch
-or Diebitch of the next generation. Let us look to the history of the
-Greek Revolution, and not believe that the Turks are great masters in
-the art of war till they have successfully conducted a great campaign.
-Above all things, matters must be so arranged at the next pacification
-that the preservation of the peace of Europe may not be left to depend
-on them.
-
-Our third question has reference to the Greeks. Their conduct in the
-great revolt by which their independence was ultimately achieved,
-deserves to be noted with the greater care at the present moment,
-because there are not a few persons in this country who are only too
-ready, in the unhappy blunder of 1854, to forget the glorious heroism of
-1821–26. Sir A. Alison, we are happy to say, with that large spirit of
-appreciation for which he is remarkable, has shown no tendency to chime
-in with this vulgar cry. He is not surprised that the brigands of
-Thessaly and Epirus should not possess all the virtues of Pericles and
-Aristides; and therefore he is not offended. The Greeks, in fact, in
-1821, were the authors of their own liberty, as much as the Turks now
-are the authors of the retreat of the Russians from Silistria. Most true
-it is, that without the intervention of the Allied Powers,
-notwithstanding their utmost efforts, their cause was lost; so also will
-the defence of Silistria have proved in vain, if England and France, in
-the proceedings that are yet waited for, show weakness or vacillation.
-But the Greeks, in 1821, had this decided moral vantage-ground over the
-Turks of the present day, that the intervention would never have taken
-place had it not been forced upon the great Powers by the popular
-sympathy which the heroism of the Greeks had excited. We may say, upon a
-review of the whole five years’ struggle, that the Greeks displayed on
-that occasion all the weakness, and indeed all the vices, that belonged
-to a people just rising from under the weight of centuries of
-oppression—but virtues also of the highest order, which it is of the
-very nature of oppression to make a people forget. Oppression, in fact,
-had never done its perfect work with this noble-spirited people; it had
-made intriguers of those who remained in the Fanar, and mere
-money-changers and money-makers of those who peopled the cities; the
-base stamp of slavery also might be found on the plains: but freedom
-remained among the mountains; and in Maina and Souli every brigand chief
-was a hero. In fact, under such a military despotism as that of Turkey,
-brigandage, which is outlawed by a good government, becomes the very
-church militant of liberty. Whatsoever virtues, therefore, belong to the
-indomitable spirit of nationality when forced to create its own law, and
-redeem itself from destruction by the desperate efforts of individual
-self-assertion, belonged to the Greek people, and those Albanian tribes
-who were identified with them in the highest degree. But there was more
-than that. The Greeks, as the whole spirit and tendency of Corai’s
-writings show, were intellectually an advancing people. They had
-scholars, and thinkers, and poets among them, who were fighting not
-merely for the rude privilege of freedom—which a brute can understand as
-well as a man—but for the vindication of an intellectual heritage of
-which they were proud. To these men the possession of the uncorrupted
-Greek tongue was not a mere pretty plaything, as it may be to many of
-our academical men; but it was the badge which publicly proclaimed their
-brotherhood with that great hierarchy of intellect which had conquered
-ancient Rome, and inspired modern Europe. These men did not fight with
-the mere impatient spirit of vulgar insurrection: they came, like
-banished kings, claiming a long-lost throne; and Europe felt that there
-was a dignity in their work not belonging to every exile. But there was
-another element of strength in the Greek revolt, without which it never
-could have succeeded, and an element which, like their zeal for
-intellectual culture, proved that the modern Greeks are the true sons of
-Themistocles and Pericles. This element was their use of the sea. The
-Turks, though they had possessed the finest harbour in the world for
-four centuries, though they governed a country where arms of the sea
-serve the same purpose that railroads do elsewhere, had not only made no
-progress in the nautical art, but had allowed their enterprising slaves
-to create for themselves a navy by which they were to succeed in driving
-their masters out of the field. When Ibrahim Pasha, in his march across
-the Morea in 1825, had arrived at that high ground between Tripolizza
-and Argos where the island of Hydra becomes visible, pointing with his
-hand to that little nest of daring adventurers, he exclaimed, “_Thou_
-LITTLE ENGLAND, _when shall I hold thee!_” This little England it was
-which saved Greece. There is nothing in the records of modern history
-more interesting than the dashing exploits of the gallant Ipsariote
-Canaris with his fire-ships in the Greek war; and wherever Miaulis the
-Hydriote appeared with his squadron, there everything that could be done
-was done. But great as were the exploits of the islanders, Europe,
-perhaps, knew more, and was justly more astonished at the gallant
-conduct of the land army in the two sieges of Missolonghi—a fortress
-protected only by shallow lagoons and a mud rampart, and utterly
-unprovided with those long lines of fire-spouting barricades that make
-Cronstadt and Sevastopol so difficult of approach. Yet Missolonghi was
-maintained against the whole force of the Turks for two years; and when
-it did fall, the resolute garrison made no capitulation, but after
-having exhausted the last scraps of raw hides and sea-weeds which served
-them for food, cut their way with gallant desperation, men and women
-together, through the sabred ranks of their enemies. Nor were they
-without their reward. Let Mr Alison speak:—
-
-
-  “Thus fell Missolonghi; but its heroic resistance had not been made in
-  vain. It laid the foundation of Greek independence; for it preserved
-  that blessing during a period of despondence and doubt, when its very
-  existence had come to be endangered. By drawing the whole forces of
-  the Ottoman empire upon themselves, its heroic garrison allowed the
-  nation to remain undisturbed in other quarters, and prevented the
-  entire reduction of the Morea, which was threatened during the first
-  moments of consternation consequent on Ibrahim’s success. By holding
-  out so long, and with such resolute perseverance, they not only
-  inflicted a loss upon the enemy greater than they themselves
-  experienced, but superior to the whole garrison of the place put
-  together. The Western nations watched the struggle with breathless
-  interest; and when at last it terminated in the daring sally, and the
-  cutting through of the enemy’s lines by a body of intrepid men,
-  fighting for themselves, their wives, and children, the public
-  enthusiasm knew no bounds. It will appear immediately that it was this
-  warm sympathy which mainly contributed to the success of the
-  Philhellenic societies which had sprung up in every country of Europe,
-  and ultimately rendered public opinion so strong as to lead to the
-  treaty of July, the battle of Navarino, and the establishment of Greek
-  independence.”
-
-
-On the other hand, we must not shut our eyes to the faults of the
-Greek people—which were, in fact, just the faults of their ancestors
-made more large and more prominent by the long-continued action of
-circumstances favourable to their development. Will it be
-believed?—during the time that this heroic struggle was going on, by
-a people manifestly unable, even with their strongest combined
-exertions, to withstand their gigantic adversary—even in the
-mid-heat and the critical turning-point of this grapple for free
-existence, the Greek captains were quarrelling among themselves!
-There were actually at one time, as Gordon assures us, seven civil
-wars among a people who could only collect hundreds to plant against
-the thousands of their masters! Such a self-divided people, one
-might almost say, was unworthy of liberty. Certainly if they could
-not agree to fight for themselves, it did not seem the business
-either of France or England to force them to be patriotic. But,
-after all, what was this but the natural result of the geography of
-the country, and of the circumstances under which its latent liberty
-had been maintained? What was it else but the same thing, on a small
-scale, which the Peloponnesian war exhibited on a large scale?
-Division is the weak point of Greece, and always was; and as for
-other vices which stank so strongly in the nostrils of some of our
-sentimental Philhellenes—cunning, falsehood, selfishness, rapacity,
-and blushless impudence of all kinds—such rank weeds grow from a
-neglected moral soil, not only in Greece, but in the streets of
-London and Edinburgh, and elsewhere; the only difference being that
-in our case a wicked or neglectful parent brings up corrupt
-individuals, while in the case of the modern Greeks, a wicked and
-neglectful government had brought up a corrupt people. There is, no
-doubt, some truth in the doctrine of races and hereditary
-propensities; and the Greek may probably be more subtle in
-speculation, and more cunning in practice, than the other families
-of the Indo-European stock. Nevertheless, we are inclined to believe
-that the proverbial falsehood of the Greeks, which is the worst vice
-now continually thrown in their teeth, is as much the result of
-circumstances as of blood, and that, under the same influences, any
-Teutonic race whose honesty is now most loudly bepraised, would
-exhibit a large development of the same vice. When a people is not
-allowed to play the lion, it must either learn to play the fox or
-perish.
-
-We shall now make a few remarks on the fourth point stated—viz., the
-circumstances attending the conclusion of the war, as illustrative of
-the policy of Russia. Here a very interesting contrast immediately
-presents itself. Alexander, as we have seen, occupied with various
-benevolent projects and perambulations, fearing also not a little
-everything in the shape of rebellion and revolution, refused to have
-anything to do with the Greek insurrection. In this he behaved like a
-man, a gentleman, and a king, but not like a Russian. As a Russian he
-would have followed the footsteps of Catherine, who twice, in the latter
-half of the last century, raised a rebellion in the Morea, and assisted
-Greece not from any classical enthusiasm, we may be sure, (such as
-helped not a little to fan the Greek fire of ourselves and the Germans),
-but that she might cripple Turkey by inflicting such a deep wound on her
-left leg as would render amputation necessary. All this became plain in
-a few years. Alexander died. In the year 1826 Nicholas succeeded; and
-matters were at that period, by the fall of Missolonghi, and Ibrahim
-Pasha’s occupation of the Morea, brought to such a pass that the bloody
-five years’ struggle, with all its heroism, must have gone for nothing,
-had not the tide of popular sympathy begun to move so strongly in favour
-of intervention among the great European nations, that the governments
-were forced to take the matter up. England, as the most classical, and,
-may we not say also, the most generous, country in matters of
-international feeling, was the first to make overtures for a European
-demonstration in favour of Greek independence; and of the consulted
-Powers none came forward with greater alacrity than the new Emperor of
-the North. On the invitation of the Duke of Wellington, Nicholas was
-invited to send ships into the Mediterranean to co-operate with the
-fleets of France and England in coercing the Porte. Here was an
-opportunity thrown in his way, by pure accident, to achieve in a few
-days results more favourable to the most cherished projects of Russian
-aggrandisement than might have been brought about by the tortuous
-diplomacy and bloody encounters of long years; and this not only without
-exciting suspicion of ambitious views, but amid acclamations, and
-cheers, and philanthropic hurrahs innumerable. By joining England and
-France in establishing the independence of Greece, the Czar felt that
-not only would Turkey be reft of one of her limbs, but a new field would
-be opened for diplomatic intrigue in regions hitherto preserved, by the
-blessings of barbarism, from such refinements. A little tinselled court
-at Athens, with some German princeling on the throne, was no doubt even
-then seen in near vista, as the best possible theatre for the display of
-those arts of political falsehood and finesse in which the Russian
-Nesselrodes and Pozzo di Borgos excel. But more. Might not the Turk, who
-is by no means a milksop, and who can deal heavy blows, as we have just
-seen, even from his sick-bed—might not the Turk oppose the armed
-intervention of the Powers, and might not some untoward collision be the
-result, and might not the Turkish navy be annihilated; and then—O! then,
-might not the way to Constantinople be more open, and the Balkan more
-easily crossed? Such were the cogitations that might naturally begin to
-move in the brain of a thoroughly Russian energetic and enterprising
-young Czar, when the proposal was made to coerce the Sultan into the
-recognition of the total or partial independence of one of his revolted
-provinces. And the result, as we all know, was exactly such as the most
-brilliant imagination of a brisk young emperor could have conceived. In
-the course of a few months the Turkish fleet was destroyed at Navarino;
-in two years Kustendji and Varna, and the whole sea-road to Stamboul,
-were in the hands of the Russian fleet; and in three years General
-Diebitch had made himself immortal by surmounting the unsurmountable
-Balkan, and was resting with twenty thousand men (supposed, however, to
-be sixty thousand!) on the banks of the Hebrus at Adrianople. Never was
-game better played. The Turko-Russian campaign of 1828–9, which we can
-now study to such advantage, was, we may say, impossible, but for the
-battle of Navarino, which was only the natural result of the armed
-intervention of the three Powers in favour of Greece. Add to this the
-disorganisation of the Turkish army, caused by the massacre of the
-Janizaries in 1826, and the consequent disaffection among the old
-Turkish conservatives; and we shall see at once how the campaign of
-1828–9 ended so gloriously for Russia, while that of 1854 has proved so
-shameful. The cause of the difference lies obviously in the command of
-the Black Sea, which Russia, by the disaster of Navarino, then had, and
-which, by the Anglo-French alliance, she now has not. This, and this
-only, has on the present occasion made the gallant defence of a single
-fortress by the Turks equivalent to the loss of a whole campaign by the
-Russians.
-
-The last of our five points only remains—How has the establishment of
-Greek independence, by the treaty of 1827, answered the expectations of
-its founders?—What is the actual state of Greece, material, moral, and
-intellectual?—Are the Greeks under German Otho substantially more
-prosperous than they were under the Turkish Mahmouds? We cannot, of
-course, hope to answer these questions satisfactorily within the limits
-at present prescribed to us; but one or two observations we are
-compelled to make, for the sake of taming down to somewhat of a more
-sober temper the glowing observations with which Sir Archibald Alison
-concludes his fourteenth chapter. There is a class of wise men in the
-world who show their wisdom only in the negative way of seeing
-difficulties and making objections. Sir Archibald Alison certainly does
-not belong to this class. Once possessed by a grand idea, he marches on
-fearlessly to its realisation, and lets difficulties shift for
-themselves. He gives you a project for a marble palace and a granite
-bridge; but seems to forget sometimes that there are only bricks to
-build with. We like this error, which leans to virtue’s side, and has a
-savour of something positive and productive; nevertheless the truth must
-be spoken—for in politics the best intentions are often the mother of
-the greatest blunders. The remarks of Sir Archibald Alison, which we
-think require a little chastening, are as follows:—
-
-
-  “In truth, so far from the treaty of 6th July 1827 having been an
-  unjustifiable interference with the rights of the Ottoman Government
-  as an independent power, it was just the reverse; and the only thing
-  to be regretted is that the Christian powers did not interfere earlier
-  in the contest, and with far more extensive views for the restoration
-  of the Greek empire. After the massacre of Chios, the Turks had thrown
-  themselves out of the pale of civilisation: they had proved themselves
-  to be pirates, enemies of the human race, and no longer entitled to
-  toleration from the European family. Expulsion from Europe was the
-  natural and legitimate consequence of their flagrant violation of its
-  usages in war. Had this been done in 1822—had the Congress of Verona
-  acceded to the prayers of the Greeks, and restored the Christian
-  empire of the East under the guarantee of the Allied Powers—what an
-  ocean of blood would have been dried up, what boundless misery
-  prevented, what prospects of felicity to the human race opened! A
-  Christian monarchy often millions of souls, with Constantinople for
-  its capital, would, ere this, have added a half to its population,
-  wealth, and all the elements of national strength. The rapid growth,
-  since the Crescent was expelled from their territories, of Servia,
-  Greece, the Isles of the Archipelago, Wallachia, and Moldavia, and of
-  the Christian inhabitants in all parts of the country, proves what
-  might have been expected had all Turkey in Europe been blessed by a
-  similar liberation. The fairest portion of Europe would have been
-  restored to the rule of religion, liberty, and civilisation, and a
-  barrier erected by European freedom against Asiatic despotism in the
-  regions where it was first successfully combated.
-
-  “What is the grand difficulty that now surrounds the Eastern question,
-  which has rendered it all but insoluble even to the most far-seeing
-  statesman, and has compelled the Western Powers, for their own sake,
-  to ally themselves with a state which they would all gladly, were it
-  practicable without general danger, see expelled from Europe? Is it
-  not that the Ottoman empire is the only barrier which exists against
-  the encroachments of Russia, and that if it is destroyed the
-  independence of every European state is endangered by the extension of
-  the Muscovite power from the Baltic to the Mediterranean? All see the
-  necessity of this barrier, yet all are sensible of its weakness, and
-  feel that it is one which is daily becoming more feeble, and must in
-  the progress of time be swept away. This difficulty is entirely of our
-  own creation; it might have been obviated, and a firm bulwark erected
-  in the East, against which all the surges of Muscovite ambition would
-  have beat in vain. Had the dictates of humanity, justice, and policy
-  been listened to in 1822, and a _Christian_ monarchy been erected in
-  European Turkey, under the guarantee of Austria, France, and England,
-  the whole difficulties of the Eastern Question would have been
-  obviated, and European independence would have found an additional
-  security in the very quarter where it is now most seriously menaced.
-  Instead of the living being allied to the dead, they would have been
-  linked to the living; and a barrier against Eastern conquest erected
-  on the shores of the Hellespont, not with the worn-out materials of
-  Mahommedan despotism, but with the rising energy of Christian
-  civilisation.
-
-  “But modern Turkey, it is said, is divided by race, religion, and
-  situation; three-fourths of it are Christian, one-fourth Mahommedan:
-  there are six millions of Slavonians, four millions of Bulgarians, two
-  millions and a half of Turks, and only one million of Greeks;—how can
-  a united and powerful empire be formed of such materials? Most true;
-  and in what state was Greece anterior to the Persian invasion; Italy
-  before the Punic wars; England during the Heptarchy; Spain in the time
-  of the Moors; France during its civil wars? Has the existence of such
-  apparently fatal elements of division prevented these countries from
-  becoming the most renowned, the most powerful, the most prosperous
-  communities upon earth? In truth, diversity of race, so far from being
-  an element of weakness, is, when duly coerced, the most prolific
-  source of strength; it is to the body politic what the intermixture of
-  soils is to the richness of the earth. It is the meagreness of
-  unmingled race which is the real source of weakness; for it leaves
-  hereditary maladies unchanged, hereditary defects unsupplied. Witness
-  the unchanging ferocity in every age of the Ishmaelite, the
-  irremediable indolence of the Irish, the incurable arrogance of the
-  Turk; while the mingled blood of the Briton, the Roman, the Saxon, the
-  Dane, and the Norman, has produced the race to which is destined the
-  sceptre of half the globe.
-
-  “Such was the resurrection of Greece; thus did old Hellas rise from
-  the grave of nations. Scorched by fire, riddled by shot, baptised in
-  blood, she emerged victorious from the contest; she achieved her
-  independence because she proved herself worthy of it; she was trained
-  to manhood in the only school of real improvement, the school of
-  suffering. Twenty-five years have elapsed since her independence was
-  sealed by the battle of Navarino, and already the warmest hopes of her
-  friends have been realised. Her capital, Athens, now contains thirty
-  thousand inhabitants, quadruple what it did when the contest
-  terminated; its commerce has doubled, and all the signs of rapidly
-  advancing prosperity are to be seen on the land. The inhabitants have
-  increased fifty per cent; they are now above seven hundred thousand,
-  but the fatal chasms produced by the war, especially in the male
-  population, are still in a great measure unsupplied, and vast tracts
-  of fertile land, spread with the bones of its defenders, await in
-  every part of the country the robust arm of industry for their
-  cultivation. The Greeks, indeed, have not all the virtues of freemen;
-  perhaps they are never destined to exhibit them. Like the Muscovites,
-  and from the same cause, they are often cunning, fraudulent,
-  deceitful; slaves always are such; and a nation is not crushed by a
-  thousand years of Byzantine despotism, and four hundred of Mahommedan
-  oppression, without having some of the features of the servile
-  character impressed upon it. But they exhibit also the cheering
-  symptoms of social improvement; they have proved they still possess
-  the qualities to which their ancestors’ greatness was owing. They are
-  lively, ardent, and persevering, passionately desirous of knowledge,
-  and indefatigable in the pursuit of it. The whole life which yet
-  animates the Ottoman Empire is owing to their intelligence and
-  activity. The stagnation of despotism is unknown among them; if the
-  union of civilisation is unhappily equally unknown, that is a virtue
-  of the manhood, and not to be looked for in the infancy of nations.
-  The consciousness of deficiencies is the first step to their removal;
-  the pride of barbarism, the self-sufficiency of ignorance, is the real
-  bar to improvement; and a nation which is capable of making the
-  efforts for improvement which the Greeks are doing, if not in
-  possession of political greatness, is on the road to it.”
-
-
-Now, to the first proposition contained in the above remarks, that the
-Great Powers were perfectly justified in their intervention to save the
-Greeks from the lawless ferocity of the Turks, we have no objections to
-offer. It is a gladdening thing to believe and to see that the strong
-cry of human sympathy will sometimes be listened to even by politicians,
-and that heartless diplomacy in the public intercourse between people
-and people is not all in all. But the summary expulsion of the Turks
-from European Turkey, even supposing it were not too great a punishment
-for the offence, would, when achieved, leave the most difficult part of
-the Greek problem unsolved. Sir Archibald assumes that the discordant
-and crude elements of which European Turkey, less the Turks, is
-composed, would, in 1827, have readily coalesced, or is ready now, in
-1854, to coalesce, into a great Greek empire, of which Constantinople
-shall be the capital. That the Greeks themselves should believe this is
-natural; that Sir Archibald Alison should believe it, carried away by a
-noble sympathy with a heroic theme, is but the radiation of that fire
-with which the noblest minds burn most intensely; but we have never
-conversed with an individual practically conversant with the elements of
-which Christian Turkey is composed, who looked upon such a consummation,
-in the present age at least, as possible. A very intelligent and
-patriotic Greek gentleman once remarked in our hearing, that the Greek
-kingdom could never prosper in its present tiny dimensions; that the
-Greek Islands—except Corcyra, which the English must keep as a naval
-station—with Thessaly, and part of Thrace and Macedonia, must be added
-to it before it could be free from that spirit of petty intrigue which
-is the great vice of small governments. This is intelligible; because
-the population included under such an extended Greek kingdom would, by a
-great predominance both of numbers and moral forces, be essentially
-Greek. But when it is proposed seriously to revive a Byzantine empire,
-Greek merely in name, and comprising such large sections of a
-non-Hellenic population as Servia, for instance, and Bulgaria, then, we
-confess, we feel staggered; and all the historic analogies which Sir
-Archibald Alison so skilfully presses into his service will not give
-wings to our drooping faith. The best-instructed man with whom we ever
-conversed on the subject—Dr George Finlay, who has lived among the
-Greeks all his life—declares that such a combination is impossible: the
-principle of cohesion is too weak, that of repulsion too strong: the
-splendid aggregate would fall to pieces in a few years; and out of the
-confused elements a new compulsory crystallisation take place under the
-influence—very likely—of Russian polarity. Sir Archibald Alison himself,
-in one of the phrases which he accidentally drops, seems to admit the
-truth of this view. “Diversity of race,” he says, “so far from being an
-element of weakness, is, _when duly coerced_, the most prolific source
-of strength.” Very true, when _duly coerced_; but it is this very
-principle of coercion that would not exist in the supposed Byzantine
-empire; and could exist only, according to one of Sir A. Alison’s own
-analogies, through the violent subjection of all the other races by the
-one that happened to be strongest; for so it was, as Livy shows in
-bloody detail, that the different races of Italy were coerced into a
-grand national unity by the Roman Latins. But even after all that bloody
-cementing, the aggregate of the Italian States, as no one knows better
-than Sir Archibald Alison, was kept together by the loosest possible
-cohesion; as the terrible outburst of the Marsic or Social war
-testifies, which well-nigh split Italy into two, at a time when Julius
-Cæsar, its future master, had not yet begun to trim his beard. He
-certainly, the lion, and his nephew Augustus, the fox after him, did use
-the bloody cement successfully, and exercised a strong coercion, the
-effect of which is visible even now among the again-divided possessors
-of the Italian soil; such a coercion as the present Czar of Russia might
-perhaps at the present moment be in the fair way of exercising for the
-sake of the Orthodox Church, had Sir Archibald Alison’s Byzantine empire
-been patched together with a few purple rags in the year 1828. Or again,
-to take another of his analogies, has Sir Archibald Alison forgotten
-what was the state of Greece, not anterior to, but immediately after the
-Persian invasion?—did it not plunge at once into all the pettiness of
-provincial rivalry? and was not the great Peloponnesian war a speaking
-proof, that there were no elements of cohesion even among pure Greeks,
-and in the best days of Greece, strong enough to keep that unfortunate
-country from consuming its own vitals in civil war, and becoming, by
-voluntary self-betrayal, first the scoff of the Persian, and then the
-prey of the Macedonian?—With these examples before us, we cannot but
-consider ourselves more near the truth in following the practical
-statesmen who declared that the new Greek kingdom should be confined
-within the limits where the insurrection had chiefly raged, and where
-the battle had been fought. Sober politicians could not but look upon
-the whole affair as experimental; and whatever arguments may in the
-course of events be advanced for an expansion of the limits of the
-existing monarchy, no person practically acquainted with the events of
-Greek government, or rather _mis_government, since the creation of
-Otho’s kingdom in 1832, can imagine that the evils under which the
-country has groaned would have been less, had Thessaly and Macedonia
-been at that time included within the Hellenic border. We should still
-have had German bureaucracy, French constitutionalism, Fanariete
-intrigue, Ætolian brigandage, and modern diplomacy, thrown together to
-brew a devil’s soup of jobbery, and falsehood, and feebleness, over
-which the wisest man can only hold up his hands, and with a hopeless
-wonderment exclaim—
-
-                   “Double, double, toil and trouble;
-                   Fire burn, and cauldron bubble!”
-
-In conclusion, we need hardly say that we cannot agree with Sir A.
-Alison when he states, so strongly as he does in the last paragraph,
-that “_already the warmest hopes of the friends of Greece have been
-realised; and all the signs of advancing prosperity are to be seen in
-the land_.” It is a great mistake to imagine that the country is really
-in a prosperous state because Athens has trebled its population in
-thirty years. Athens has a well-furnished and rather a flourishing
-appearance, for the same reason that Nauplia looks out upon the
-beautiful Bay of Argos in such a state of woeful dismantlement and
-dilapidation: the court has left the Argive city, and travelled to the
-Attic; and all the gilded gingerbread, which you call prosperity, has
-gone with it. Let no man be hasty to draw sanguine promises of Greek
-prosperity from anything good or glittering that may delight his eyes in
-the streets of Athens. That splendid palace of the little German prince,
-now called King of Greece, with its fine well-watered gardens without,
-and its fine pictures within, and its large dancing-saloon, the wonder
-even of London beauties—this palace was a mere toy of the boy’s poetical
-papa, and has no more to do with the progress of real prosperity in
-Greece than a wax-doll has to do with life and organisation. Nay, it may
-be most certainly affirmed, that not a small part of that sudden growth
-of the capital of Greece is, with reference to the country at large, a
-positive evil, a brilliant excrescence, which owes its existence
-altogether to the artificial attraction of the nutritive fluids of the
-body politic to one prominent point, while the largest and most useful
-limbs are left without their natural supply. If there are shining white
-palaces, and green Venetian blinds, in one Greek city, there is
-desolation and dreariness, stagnation and every sort of barbarism, in
-the fields. But “commerce flourishes;” it has doubled, says Sir A.
-Alison, since the battle of Navarino. Be it so. Patras is a goodly city,
-preferable, in some points, to Athens, we think; but were there not rich
-merchants at Hydra before the Revolution? and are the Greeks at Patras
-more prosperous than at Salonica, at Odessa, at Trieste, at Leghorn, at
-Manchester? There were always clever merchants among the Greeks, just as
-generally as there are sharp bankers and money-changers among Jews and
-Armenians. We would by no means despair of Young Greece; there is much
-to admire in her, especially her schools, university, and the wonderful
-culture of her deathless language in its most recent shape; and only in
-a fit of foolish pettishness would any Englishman entertain the thought
-of blotting her again out of the map of nations, for any of the many
-sins she has committed, whether by her own fault, or—what we suspect to
-be the real truth—by the ignorant and officious agency of German
-bureaucratists, Anglo-French constitutionalists, and Muscovite
-diplomatists. Nevertheless, in so slippery a science as politics, and
-with creatures so difficult to manage as human beings, it is always
-better to avoid the temptation of drawing panoramic pictures in rose
-colour; and with regard to Greece, a country to which humanity owes so
-much, our first duty, in the present very critical state of Europe, is
-to look soberly at a reality full of perilous problems, and to possess
-our souls in patience.
-
-
-
-
-                       STUDENT LIFE IN SCOTLAND.
-
-
-If the latest lingering summer tourist in Scotland should perchance
-delay his departure until he is driven southward by the chill evenings
-of November, he may chance to see arising around him, in some
-considerable town, a race of young men, whose loose robes, varying from
-the brightest of fresh scarlet to the sombrest hue which years of bad
-usage can bestow on that gay colour, attract him as peculiar and funny,
-and as, on the whole, a phenomenon provocative of inquiry. He is told
-that the session has begun, and these are the students of the
-university. The information will perhaps be surprising to him, whoever
-he be: if he be an Oxonian or Cantab, a sneer of derision will perhaps
-curve his lips when he remembers the gentleman commoners, and tufted
-noblemen, who crowd the streets of his Alma Mater in haughty
-exclusiveness and unmeasured contempt of the citizen class, who
-evidently have no respect whatever for the scarlet gown men of poor
-Scotland. Indeed, the luxurious academic ease, the placid repose of
-dignified scholarship, are strangers to these wearers of the flowing
-toga. It is evident that many of them have felt the pinch of poverty. No
-pliant gyp attends the toilet, or lays forth the table for the jovial
-“night-cap.” Hard work and hard fare are their portion, and their
-raiment shows that they have been rubbed roughly against the world,
-instead of being set apart from its toils and cares and vulgar turmoil
-in aristocratic isolation. Some of the gowns are bright and new, indeed,
-and the faces in which they culminate are ruddy, fresh, and warm. Yet
-the youths endowed in these blushing honours seem not to exult therein,
-but rather to give place to the hard-featured brethren, whose threadbare
-togas bear the grim marks of mud and soot, or hang in tatters like a
-beggar’s cloak. The truth is, that the wear and tear of the gown is held
-indicative of advancement in the academic curriculum, and is rather
-encouraged than avoided. And of those who wear it, many, though they may
-have been sufficiently tutored in the economy of their more serviceable
-clothing, have not made acquisitions in the school of finery, or
-acquired a weakness for decorative vanity. We remember an instance of a
-hard-featured mountaineer, who afterwards rose to distinction in an
-abstruse department of science, being charged by his fellow-students
-with having so far desecrated the gown as to have perambulated the
-streets with a barrow hawking potatoes, by the cry of “Taties—taties!”
-He admitted the commercial part of the charge, but denied the admixture
-of potato-vender and student by the desecration of the robes. He was
-careful to put off his gown while he cried “taties.”
-
-With all these and other indications of poverty, there is something to
-our eyes extremely interesting in the Scottish universities, as relics
-preserved through all changes in dynasties, constitutions, and
-ecclesiastical polities, through poverty, neglect, and enmity, of the
-original characteristics of the university system, as it existed in all
-its grandeur of design in the middle ages.
-
-A collection of remarkable papers, now before us, opens up and presents,
-in valuable and full light, the progress of a portion of our Scottish
-universities. They consist of two works of that class commonly called
-“Club Books.” The one is a collection of records and other documents
-connected with the University of Glasgow, printed under the auspices of
-the Maitland Club; the other a “Fasti Aberdonenses,” appropriately
-collected by that northern association which, in honour of the Cavalier
-annalist of “The Troubles,” is called the “Spalding Club.” Both works
-are edited with that peculiar archæological strictness which has been
-applied to this class of documents, through the special skill of Mr
-Cosmo Innes. They are both edited by him, with some partial aid, in the
-case of the Glasgow documents, from his ablest coadjutor in Scottish
-archæology, Mr Joseph Robertson. These volumes form a very apt
-supplement to that collection of ecclesiastical records which, arranged
-and printed under the same able management, are an honour to our
-country. With the exception of their curious and agreeable prefaces,
-neither the chartularies nor the volumes before us profess to be
-readable books. They are collections of records, and must have all the
-substantial dryness of records. But then they contain in themselves the
-materials of the social and incidental history of the classes of persons
-to which they refer, and contain imbedded within them the materials of
-instruction, both valuable and curious. With some labour we have driven
-shafts through their strata, and we may have occasion to lay before our
-readers a few of the specimens we have excavated—confining ourselves, in
-the mean time, to the characteristics developed by the collection of
-documents.
-
-The direction of these is chiefly to show how thoroughly these remote
-institutions partook in the great system of the European universities,
-and how many of its vestiges they still retain. The forms, the
-nomenclature, and the usages of the middle ages are still preserved,
-though some of them have naturally changed their character with the
-shifting of the times. Each university has still its chancellor, and
-sometimes a high State dignitary accepts of the office. It was of old a
-very peculiar one, for it was the link which allied the semi-republican
-institutions of the universities to the hierarchy of St Peter. The
-bishop was almost invariably the chancellor, unless the university were
-subordinated to some great monastic institution, when its head was the
-chancellor—as in Paris the Prior of St Genevieve exercised the high
-office. In the Scottish universities the usual Continental arrangement
-seems to have been adopted prior to the Reformation—as a matter of
-course, the bishop was the chancellor.
-
-But while the institution was thus connected through a high dignitary
-with the Romish hierarchy, it possessed, as a great literary community
-with peculiar privileges, its own great officer electively chosen for
-the preservation of those privileges. It had its rector, who, like the
-chief magistrate of a municipal corporation, but infinitely above him in
-the more illustrious character of the functions for which his
-constituents were incorporated, stood forth as the head of his republic,
-and its protector from the invasions either of the subtle churchmen or
-the grasping barons. The rector, indeed, was the concentration of that
-peculiar commonwealth which the constitution of the ancient university
-prescribed. Sir William Hamilton has shown pretty clearly that, in its
-original acceptation, the word Universitas was applied, not to the
-comprehensiveness of the studies, but to that of the local and personal
-expansion of the institution. The university despised the bounds of
-provinces, and even nations, and was a place where ardent minds from all
-parts of the world met to study together, and impart to each other the
-influence of collective intellect working in combination and
-competition. The constitution of the rectorship was calculated to
-provide for the protection of this universality, for the election was
-managed by the procurators or proctors of the nations or local bodies
-into which the students were divided, generally for the purpose of
-neutralising the naturally superior influence of the home students, and
-keeping up the cosmopolitan character imparted to the system by its
-enlightened founders. Hence in Paris the nations were France, Picardy,
-and England, afterwards changed to Germany, in which Scotland was
-included. Glasgow is still divided into four nations: the Natio
-Glottiana, or Clydesdale, taken from the name given to the river by
-Tacitus. In the Natio Laudoniana were originally included the rest of
-Scotland, but it was found expedient to place the English and the
-colonists within it; while Albania, intended to include Britain south of
-the Forth, has been made rather inaptly the nation of the foreigners.
-Rothesay, the fourth nation, includes the extreme west of Scotland and
-Ireland. In Aberdeen there is a like division into Marenses, or
-inhabitants of Mar, Angusiani or men of Angus, which we believe includes
-the whole world south of the Grampians as the Angusiani, while the
-northern districts are partitioned into Buchanenses and Moravienses.
-
-The procurators of the nations were, in the University of Paris, those
-high authorities to whom, as far separated from all sublunary
-influences, King Henry of England proposed, in the twelfth century, to
-refer his disputes with the Papal power. In England they are represented
-at the present day by the formidable proctor, who is a terror to
-evil-doers without being any praise or protection to them that do well.
-But it may safely be said that the chubby youths who in Glasgow and
-Aberdeen go through the annual ceremony, as _procuratores nationum_, of
-representing the votes of the nations in the election of a rector, more
-legitimately represent those procurators of the thirteenth and
-fourteenth century, who maintained the rights of their respective
-nations in the great intellectual republic called a Universitas. The
-discovery, indeed, of this latent power, long hidden, like some
-palæontological fossil, under the pedagogical innovations of modern
-days—which tended to make the self-governing institution a school ruled
-by masters—created astonishment in all quarters, even in those who found
-themselves in possession of the privilege. In Aberdeen especially, when
-some mischievous antiquary maintained that by the charter the election
-of a lord rector lay with the students themselves, the announcement was
-received with derision by a discerning public, and with a severe frown,
-as a sort of seditious libel, enticing the youth to rebellion, by the
-indignant professors. But it turned out to be absolutely true, however
-astounding it might be to those who are unacquainted with the early
-history of universities, and think that everything ancient must have
-been tyrannical and hierarchical. The young ones made a sort of
-saturnalia of their fugitive power, while the professors looked on as
-one may see a solemn mastiff contemplate the gambols of a litter of
-privileged spaniel pups. The privilege was, however, used effectively,
-we may say nobly. There has been no fogyism, or adherence to any settled
-routine of humdrum respectability, in the selection of the rectors. From
-Burke to Bulwer Lytton and Macaulay, they have, with a few exceptions,
-been men of the first intellectual rank. What is a still more remarkable
-result than that they should often have been men of genius, there is
-scarcely an instance of a lord rector having been a clamorous quack or a
-canting fanatic.
-
-In Edinburgh there is no such relic of the ancient university
-commonwealth, and the students have instinctively supplied the want by
-affiliating their voluntary societies, and choosing a distinguished man
-to be the president of the aggregate group. The constitution of the
-College of Edinburgh, indeed, was not matured until after the old
-constitution of the universities had suffered a reaction, and, far from
-any new ones being constructed on the old model, the earlier
-universities with difficulty preserved their constitution. Some person
-called a College Bailie is the dignitary who presides over the interests
-of the University of Edinburgh as one of the appendages of the Town
-Council. By that body the greater part of the patronage of the
-institution is administered, and now it is decided that they have the
-sole and absolute right of making bye-laws for the regulation of this,
-the leading educational institution of Scotland. There is something
-transcendently ludicrous in a civic corporation—a conclave of demure
-tradesmen, intensely respectable—extending those functions of
-administration which are appropriately applicable to marketing and
-street-cleaning to the direction and adjustment of the highest ranges of
-human instruction. Yet somehow it has worked well, on account of the
-very anomaly involved in it. The town-councillors, in selecting a
-professor, like the students in choosing a rector, are afraid of their
-own powers, and never venture to use their own discretion. Absolutely
-ignorant of the branches of knowledge to which the rules they frame
-apply, they become a medium through which these rules are moulded by
-others, and a certain commercial sagacity enables them to divine who are
-the most sagacious advisers. So also in the exercise of their patronage,
-being utterly unable to test the capacity of a candidate, they dare not
-give way to any partiality founded at least on this ground, and they are
-generally acute enough to find out who is most highly estimated by those
-who are competent to judge.
-
-That principle of internal self-action and independence of the
-contemporary constituted powers, of which the rectorship and some other
-relics remain to us at this day, is one of the most remarkable, and in
-many respects admirable, features in the history of the middle ages. It
-is involved in mysteries and contradictions which one would be glad to
-see unravelled by skilful and full inquirers. Adapted to the service of
-pure knowledge, and investing her with absolute prerogatives, the system
-was yet one of the creatures of that Romish hierarchy, which at the same
-time thought by other efforts to circumscribe human inquiry, and make it
-the servant of her own ambitious efforts.
-
-It may help us in some measure to the solution of the phenomenon to
-remember that, however dim the light of the Church may have shone, it
-was yet the representative of the intellectual system, and was in that
-capacity carrying on a war with brute force. Catholicism was the great
-rival and controller of the feudal strength and tyranny of the
-age—_informe ingens cui lumen ademptum_. As intellect and knowledge were
-the weapons with which they encountered the sightless colossus, it was
-believed that the intellectual arsenals could not be too extensive or
-complete—that intellect could not be too richly cultivated. Like many
-combatants, they perhaps forgot future results in the desire of
-immediate victory, and were for the moment blind to the effect so
-nervously apprehended by their successors, that the light thus brought
-in by them would illuminate the dark corners of their own ecclesiastical
-system, and lead the way to its fall. Perhaps such hardy intellects as
-Abelard or Aquinas may have anticipated such a result from the stimulus
-given by them to intellectual inquiry, and may not have deeply lamented
-the process.
-
-But however it came about—whether in the blindness of all, or the
-far-sightedness of some—the Church, from the thirteenth to pretty far on
-in the fifteenth century, encouraged learning with a noble reliance and
-a zealous energy which it would ill become the present age to despise or
-forget. And even if it should all have proceeded from a blind confidence
-that the Church placed on a rock was unassailable, and that mere human
-wisdom, even trained to the utmost of its powers, was, after all, to be
-nothing but her handmaiden, let us respect this unconscious simplicity
-which enabled the educational institutions to be placed in so high and
-trusted a position. The Church supplied something then, indeed, which we
-search after in vain in the present day, and which we shall only achieve
-by some great strides in academic organisation, capable of supplying
-from within what was then supplied from without: and the quality thus
-supplied was no less than that cosmopolitan nature, which made the
-university not merely parochial, or merely national, but universal, as
-its name denoted. The temporal prince might endow the academy with lands
-and riches, and might confer upon its members honourable and lucrative
-privileges, but it was to the head of the one indivisible Church that
-the power belonged of franking it all over Christendom, and establishing
-throughout the civilised world a free-masonry of intellect, which made
-all the universities, as it were, one great corporation of the learned
-men of the world.
-
-It must be admitted that we have here one of those practical
-difficulties which form the necessary price of the freedom of
-Protestantism. When a great portion of Europe was no longer attached to
-Rome, the peculiar centralisation of the educational systems was broken
-up. The old universities, indeed, retained their ancient privileges in a
-traditional, if not a practically legal shape, through Lutheranism and
-Calvinism carrying the characteristics of the abjured Romanism, yet
-carrying them unscathed, since they were protected from injury and
-insult by the enlightened object for which they were established and
-endowed. When, however, in Protestant countries, the old universities
-became poor, or when a change of condition demanded the foundation of a
-new university, it was difficult to restore anything so simple and grand
-as that old community of privileges which made the member of one
-university a citizen of all others, according to his rank, whether he
-were laureated in Paris or distant Upsala—in the gorgeous academies
-close to the fostering influence of the Pope, or in that humble edifice
-endowed after the model of the University of Bologna, in an obscure
-Scottish town named Glasgow.
-
-The English universities, by their great wealth and political influence,
-were able to stand alone, neither giving nor taking. Their Scottish
-contemporaries, unable to fight a like battle, have had reason to
-complain of their ungenerous isolation; and as children of the same
-parentage, and differing only with their southern neighbours in not
-having so much worldly prosperity, it is natural that they should look
-back with a sigh, which even orthodox Presbyterianism cannot suppress,
-to the time when the universal mental sway of Rome, however offensive it
-might be in its own insolent supremacy, yet exercised that high
-privilege of supereminent greatness to level secondary inequalities, and
-place those whom it favoured beyond the reach of conventional
-humiliations.
-
-To keep up that characteristic which the Popedom only offered, the
-monarchs of the larger Protestant states have endeavoured to apply the
-incorporation principle to universities. In small states and republics
-the difficulty of obtaining a general sanction to frank their honours to
-any distance from the place where they are given is still greater; yet
-it is in such places that, through fortunate coincidents, an academy
-sometimes acquires a widespread reputation and influence. To what
-eminence the universities in the United States are destined who shall
-predict? yet, in the estimate of many, they have no right to be called
-universities at all; and of the doctors’ degrees which they freely
-distribute in this country, much doubt is entertained of the
-genuineness. Yet if it would be difficult to lay down how it is that
-these American institutions have acquired any power to grant
-degrees—that is to say, the power not only to confer prizes and rewards
-among their own alumni, but to invest them with insignia of literary
-rank current for their value over the world—it would be equally
-difficult for any of the ancient universities in Protestant states to
-claim an exclusive right to such a power, since this could only be done
-through Papal authority. It will be said that there is just the same
-practical difficulty in this as in all other departments of human
-institutions, and especially those which, like rank, are transferable
-from country to country, so as to require and obtain an estimate of
-their value in each. It will be said that the exclusiveness which denies
-the Heidelberg Doctor of Philosophy a parallel with the LL.D. of Oxford
-is just the same as that which will by no means admit the count or baron
-who is deputy-assistant highways controller, as on a par with an earl or
-baron in the peerage of England. The Kammer Junker of Denmark is not
-looked on as a privy-councillor. The Sheriff of Mecca, the Sheriff of
-London, and the Sheriff of Edinburgh, are three totally different
-personages, and would feel very much puzzled how to act if they were to
-change places for a while. Some Eastern dignitaries—Baboo, Fudky, and
-the like, must occasionally puzzle even the adepts of Leadenhall. Nor
-are we without our instances near at hand. What is the Knight of Kerry,
-what the Captain of Clanranald, what The Chisholm—and how do the
-authorities at the Herald’s Office deal with them? Has not an Archbishop
-of York been suspected of imposture in a Scottish bank when he signed
-with the surname of Eborac; and have not our Scottish judges, with their
-strange-sounding peerage-titles, made mighty confusion in respectable
-English hotels, when my Lord Kames is so intimate with Mrs Home, and my
-Lord Auchinleck retires with Mrs Boswell? But admitting the confusion to
-be irremediable in the department of political and decorative rank, the
-absence of a uniform intellectual hierarchy is not the less to be
-regretted, while the great effort made to secure it in an early and
-imperfect condition of society should be contemplated with a respectful
-awe. There is just one man who professes to be able effectually to
-restore it—the sage of positivism, M. Comte; and he is to do it when he
-has established absolute science in everything, and put down freedom of
-opinion by the application of sure scientific deduction in every
-department of the world’s intellectual pursuits; when it shall be as
-impossible to question the most abstruse propositions in chemistry,
-geology, or social organisation, as to question the multiplication table
-or the succession of the tides—then, indeed, may absolute laws be laid
-down to govern the world in its appreciation of intellectual rank. But
-it is long yet ere that day of certain knowledge—if it is ever destined
-to dawn on that poor, blundering, unfortunate fellow, man. We have got
-but a very, very little way yet, and we know not how much farther it is
-permitted us to penetrate. Terrible are the chaotic heaps that have to
-be cleared away or set in order by the pioneers of intellect, and it is
-still a question whether our race can provide those who are
-strong-headed enough for the task.
-
-There is much truth, however, at the foundation of the French sage’s
-audacious speculations, that intellect must achieve for herself her own
-conquests and take her own position. In the greatness of the
-acquirements of which they are the nursery, must we look hereafter to
-the greatness of our seminaries of learning. If the university is but a
-grammar school or a collection of popular lecture-rooms, no royal
-decrees or republican ordinances will give it rank—if it be a great
-centre of literary and scientific illumination, the pride or enmity of
-its rivals will not tarnish its lustre. But apart from, the question
-between catholicity and positivity, it is, we think, very interesting to
-notice in our universities—humble as we admit them to be—the relics of
-the nomenclature and customs which, in the fifteenth century, marked
-their rank in the great European cluster of universities. The most
-eminent of their characteristics is that high officer, the Rector,
-already spoken of. There is a Censor too—but for all the grandeur of his
-etymological ancestry in Roman history, he is but a small officer—in
-stature sometimes, as well as dignity. He calls over the catalogue or
-roll of names, marking those absent—a duty quite in keeping with that
-enumerating function of the Roman officer which has left to us the word
-census as a numbering of the people.
-
-So lately as the eighteenth century, when the monastic or collegiate
-system which has now so totally disappeared from the Scottish
-universities yet lingered about them, the censor was a more important,
-or at least more laborious officer, and, oddly enough, he corresponded
-in some measure with the character into which, in England, the Proctor
-had been so strangely diverted. In a regulation adopted in Glasgow, in
-1725, it is provided “that all students be obliged, after the bells
-ring, immediately to repair to their classes, and to keep within them,
-and a censor be appointed to every class, to attend from the ringing of
-the bells till the several masters come to their classes, and observe
-any, either of his own class or of any other, who shall be found walking
-in the courts during the above time, or standing on the stairs, or
-looking out at the windows, or making noise.”—_Munimenta Univ.
-Glasguensis_, ii. 429. This has something of the mere schoolroom
-characteristic of our modern university discipline, but this other
-paragraph, from the same set of regulations, is indicative both of more
-mature vices among the precocious youth of Glasgow, and a more
-inquisitorial corrective organisation:—
-
-“That for keeping order without the College, a censor be appointed to
-observe any who shall be in the streets before the bells ring, and to go
-now and then to the billiard-tables, and to the other gaming-places, to
-observe if any be playing at the times when they ought to be in their
-chambers; and that this censor be taken from the poor scholars of the
-several classes alternately, as they shall be thought most fit for that
-office, and that some reward be thought of for their pains.” (_Ibid._,
-425). In the fierce street-conflicts, to which we may have occasion to
-refer, the poor censors had a more perilous service.
-
-In the universities of Central Europe, and that of Paris, their parent,
-the censor was a very important person; yet he was the subordinate of
-one far greater in power and influence. In the words of the writers of
-the _Trevaux_, so full of knowledge about such matters, “Un Régent est
-dans sa classe comme un Souverain; il crée des charges de _Censeurs_
-comme il lui plait, il les donne à qui il veut, et il les abolit quand
-il le judge à propos.” The regents still exist in more than their
-original potency; for they are that essential invigorating element of
-the university of the present day, without which it would not exist. Of
-old, when every magister was entitled to teach in the university, the
-regents were persons selected from among them, with the powers of
-government as separate from the capacity and function of instructing; at
-present, in so far as the university is a school, the regent is a
-schoolmaster—and therefore, as we have just said, he is an essential
-element of the establishment. The term regent, like most of the other
-university distinctions, was originally of Parisian nomenclature, and
-there might be adduced a good deal of learning bearing on its
-signification as distinct from that of the word professor—now so
-desecrated in its use that we are most familiar with it in connection
-with dancing-schools, jugglers’ booths, and veterinary surgeries. The
-regency, as a university distinction conferred as a reward of capacities
-shown within the arena of the university, and judged of according to its
-republican principles, seems to have lingered in a rather confused shape
-in our Scottish universities, and to have gradually ingrafted itself on
-the patronage of the professorships. So in reference to Glasgow,
-immediately after the Revolution, when there was a vacancy or two from
-Episcopalians declining to take the obligation to acknowledge the new
-Church Establishment, there appears the following notice:—
-
-“_January 2, 1691._—There had never been so solemn and numerous an
-appearance of disputants for a regent’s place as was for fourteen days
-before this, nine candidates disputing; and in all their disputes and
-other exercises they all behaved themselves so well, as that the Faculty
-judged there was not one of them but gave such specimens of their
-learning as might deserve the place, which occasioned so great
-difficulty in the choice that the Faculty, choosing a leet of some of
-them who seemed most to excel and be fittest, did determine the same by
-lot, which the Faculty did solemnly go about, and the lot fell upon Mr
-John Law, who thereupon was this day established regent.”—_Ibid._, vol.
-iii. p. 596.
-
-Sir William Hamilton explains the position of the regents with a lucid
-precision which makes his statement correspond precisely with the
-documentary stores before us. “In the original constitution of Oxford,”
-he says, “as in that of all the older universities of the Parisian
-model, the business of instruction was not confided to a special body of
-privileged professors. The University was governed, the University was
-taught, by the graduates at large. Professor, master, doctor, were
-originally synonymous. Every graduate had an equal right of teaching
-publicly in the University the subjects competent to his faculty and to
-the rank of his degree; nay, every graduate incurred the obligation of
-teaching publicly, for a certain period, the subjects of his faculty—for
-such was the condition involved in the grant of the degree itself. The
-bachelor, or imperfect graduate, partly as an exercise towards the
-higher honour, and useful to himself, partly as a performance due for
-the degree obtained, and of advantage to others, was bound to read under
-a master or doctor in his faculty a course of lectures; and the master,
-doctor, or perfect graduate, was in like manner, after his promotion,
-obliged immediately to commence (_incipere_), and to continue for a
-certain period publicly to teach (_regere_), some at least of the
-subjects appertaining to his faculty. As, however, it was only necessary
-for the University to enforce this obligation of public teaching,
-compulsory on all graduates during the term of their _necessary
-regency_, if there did not come forward a competent number of _voluntary
-regents_ to execute this function; and as the schools belonging to the
-several faculties, and in which alone all public or ordinary instruction
-could be delivered, were frequently inadequate to accommodate the
-multitude of the inceptors, it came to pass that in these universities
-the original period of necessary regency was once and again abbreviated,
-and even a dispensation from actual teaching during its continuance
-commonly allowed. At the same time, as the University only accomplished
-the end of its existence through its regents, they alone were allowed to
-enjoy full privileges in its legislature and government; they alone
-partook of its _beneficia_ and _sportulæ_. In Paris the non-regent
-graduates were only assembled on rare and extraordinary occasions: in
-Oxford the regents constituted the house of congregation, which, among
-other exclusive prerogatives, was anciently the initiatory assembly
-through which it behoved that every measure should pass before it could
-be admitted to the house of convocation, composed indifferently of all
-regents and non-regents resident in the University.”—_Dissertations_, p.
-391–2.
-
-But the term Regent became afterwards obsolete in the southern
-universities, while it continued by usage to be applied to a certain
-class of professors in our own. Along with other purely academic titles
-and functions, it fell in England before the rising ascendancy of the
-heads and other functionaries of the collegiate institutions—colleges,
-halls, inns, and entries. So, in the same way, evaporated the faculties
-and their deans, still conspicuous in Scottish academic nomenclature. In
-both quarters they were derived from the all-fruitful nursery of the
-Parisian University. But Scotland kept and cherished what she obtained
-from a friend and ally; England despised and forgot the example of an
-alien and hostile people. The Decanus seems to have been a captain or
-leader of ten—a sort of tything-man; and Ducange speaks of him as a
-superintendent of ten monks. He afterwards came into general employment
-as a sort of chairman and leader. The _Doyens_ of all sorts, lay and
-ecclesiastical, were a marked feature of ancient France, as they still
-are of Scotland, where there is a large body of lay deans, from the
-eminent lawyer who presides over the Faculty of Advocates down to “my
-feyther the deacon,” who gathers behind a half-door the gear that is to
-make his son a capitalist and a magistrate. Among the Scottish
-universities the deans of faculty are still nearly as familiar a title
-as they were at Paris or Bologna.
-
-The employment in the universities of a dead language as the means of
-communication was not only a natural arrangement for teaching the
-familiar use of that language, but it was also evidently courted as one
-of the tokens of learned isolation from the common illiterate world. In
-Scotland, as perhaps in some other small countries, such as Holland, the
-Latin remained as the language of literature after the great nations
-England, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain, were making a vernacular
-literature for themselves. In the seventeenth century the Scot had not
-been reconciled to the acceptance of the English tongue as his own; nor,
-indeed, could he employ it either gracefully or accurately. On the other
-hand, he felt the provincialism of the Lowland Scottish tongue, the
-ridicule attached to its use in books which happened to cross the
-Border, and the narrowness of the field it afforded to literary
-ambition.
-
-Hence every man who looked to be a worker in literature or science,
-threw himself into the academic practice of cultivating the familiar use
-of the Latin language. To the Scottish scholars it was almost a revived
-language, and they possessed as great a command over it as can ever be
-obtained of a language confined to a class, and not universally used by
-the lowest as well as the highest of the people. Hence, when he had the
-pen in hand, the educated Scotsman felt the Latin come more naturally to
-his call than the vernacular; and people accustomed to rummage among old
-letters by Scotsmen will have sometimes noticed that the writer,
-beginning with his native tongue, slips gradually into the employment of
-Latin as a relief, just as we may find a foreigner abandon the arduous
-labour of breaking English, to repose himself in the easy fluency of his
-natural speech. We believe that no language, employed only by a class,
-is capable of the same copiousness and flexibility as that which is
-necessarily applicable to all purposes, from the meanest to the highest.
-But such as a class-language could become, the Latin was among the
-Scots; and it is to their peculiar position and academic practices that,
-among a host of distinguished humanists, we possess in George Buchanan
-the most illustrious writer in the Roman tongue, both in poetry and
-prose, since the best days of Rome.
-
-The records before us afford some amusing instances of the anxious zeal
-with which any lapse into the vernacular tongue was prevented, and
-conversation among the students was rendered as uneasy and unpleasant as
-possible. In the visitorial regulations of King’s College, Aberdeen, in
-1546, it is provided that the attendant boys—the gyps, if we may so call
-them—shall be expert in the use of Latin, lest they should give occasion
-to the masters or students to have recourse to the vernacular speech:
-“_Ne dent occasionem magistris et Studentibus lingua vernacula uti._” If
-Aberdeen supplied a considerable number of waiting-boys thus
-accomplished, the stranger wandering to that far northern region, in the
-seventeenth century, might have been as much astonished as the man in
-_Ignoramus_, who tested the state of education in Paris by finding that
-even the dirty boys in the streets were taught French. It would, after
-all, have perhaps been more difficult to find waiting-boys who could
-speak English. The term by which they are described is a curious
-indication of the French habits and traditions of the northern
-universities: they are spoken of as _garciones_—a word of obvious origin
-to any one who has been in a French hotel.
-
-In Glasgow, in a law passed in 1667, it is provided that “all who are
-delated by the public censor for speaking of English shall be fined in
-an halfpenny _toties quoties_.” The sum is not large, but the imposition
-of the penalty at that particular juncture looks rather unreasonable,
-since the Senate and the Faculty of Arts had just abandoned the use of
-Latin in their public documents, and had adopted what, if not strictly
-English, was the vernacular tongue—a change which was doubtless as much
-to their own ease as it is to the satisfaction of the reader, who
-becomes painfully alive to the continued and progressive barbarisation
-of the academic Latin.
-
-In a great measure, however, it seems to have been less the object in
-view to inculcate Latin than to discountenance the vernacular language
-of the country. In some instances the language of France is admitted;
-and, from the number of Scotsmen who carved out their fortunes in that
-hospitable and affluent country, this acquisition must have been one of
-peculiar value. In a set of statutes and laws of the Grammar School of
-Aberdeen, adopted in 1553, there is a very singular liberty of
-choice—the pupils might speak in Greek, Hebrew, or even in Gaelic,
-rather than in Lowland Scots: “Loquantur omnes Latinè, Græcè, Hebraicè,
-Gallicè, Hybernicè—nunquam vernaculè, saltem cum his qui Latinè
-noscunt.” This is by no means to be held as an indication of the
-familiar acquaintance of the Aberdonian students with the language of
-the Gael; on the contrary, it shows how entirely this was placed within
-the category of foreign tongues. We know no other instances in which the
-tongue of the Highlander is spoken of in connection with the earlier
-educational institutions of the country; but we think it not improbable
-that any encouragement it received was for much the same reason that
-Hindostanee and the African dialects are now sometimes taught to young
-divines—that they may work as missionaries among the heathen. A few
-students from this wild region, to which Christianity had scarcely
-penetrated, were indeed a peculiar feature of the educational
-institutions of Aberdeen, and in a modified shape so remain to this day,
-since some wild men from the hills, spending a brief period at school or
-college to acquire a fragment of education, are yet known by the term
-_extranni_, of old applied to them. There is a prevailing, but utterly
-false impression, that Aberdeen is in the Highlands. It lingers chiefly,
-in the present century, with Cockneys beginning their first northern
-tour; but in the seventeenth century it may, perhaps, have been
-entertained even in the metropolis of Scotland. Hence the educational
-institutions there, though at the extremity of a long tract of
-agricultural lowland, inhabited by a Teutonic people, and farther
-separated from the actual Celtic line than Edinburgh itself, are
-generally talked of in old documents as those which are peculiarly
-available for the civilisation of the Highlanders. Glasgow was nearer
-and more accessible to the great body of the western Celts; but in this
-town the prejudices against them were greater, and the alienation,
-especially in religion, was more emphatic. It was to Aberdeen then,
-generally, that the son of a predatory chief would be sent, to fit him
-in some measure for converse with the civilised world, such as it then
-was; and the fierce owner of a despotic power over his clansmen would
-appear among the sober burgesses of the northern metropolis much as an
-American chief may among the inhabitants of some distant city in the
-Union. Lovat studied at King’s College, in Aberdeen, and there acquired
-a portion of those accomplishments which made him act the subtle
-courtier in Paris or London, and reserve his sanguinary ruffianism for
-Castle Dunie. Not unmindful of the benefits of the institution, some of
-the Celtic princes bestowed endowments on it. Thus, the Laird of
-Macintosh, who begins in the true regal style, “We, Lachlan Macintosh of
-that ilk,” and who calls himself the Chief and _Principall_ of the Clan
-Chattan—probably using the term which he thought would be the most
-likely to make his supremacy intelligible to university
-dignitaries—dispenses to the King’s College two thousand marks, “for
-maintaining hopeful students thereat.” He reserves, however, a dynastic
-control over the endowment, making it conducive to the clan discipline
-and the support of the hierarchy surrounding the chief. It was a
-condition that the beneficiary should be presented “by the lairds of
-Macintosh successively in all time coming; that a youth of the name of
-Macintosh or of Clan Chattan shall be preferred to those of any other
-name,” &c.—_Fasti_, 206. This document is titled in the records,
-“Macintosh’s Mortification,” according to a peculiar technical
-application of that expression in Scotland, to the perpetuity of
-possession which in England is termed mortmain. Later in the eighteenth
-century, M‘Lean of Coll causes another mortification to be “applied
-towards the maintenance and education of such young man or boy of the
-name of M‘Lean as shall be recommended by me, or my heirs or successors
-on the estate of Coll.” This is probably the same Highland potentate who
-frowned so savagely on young Colman, when he, seeing an old gentleman
-familiarly called Coll by his contemporaries, addressed him as Mr Coll.
-Such a solecism would never be permitted to pass as an accidental
-mistake, since it would be utterly impossible to convince the mighty
-chief of Coll that there existed in this world a person ignorant enough
-to be unacquainted with his style and title. At a still later date, a
-bequest is more gracefully made by Sir John M‘Pherson: “In testimony of
-my gratitude to the University of Old Aberdeen, I bequeath to ditto, so
-as to afford an annual bursary to any Highland student who may be
-selected to receive the said bursary, two thousand five hundred pounds
-of my Carnatic stock.”
-
-Here there is a wider range of application, but still the endowment is
-to a Highland student. Nor, after all, when the social state of the
-Highlanders is considered, can we wonder that their gentry should seek
-to preserve the wealth which they are constrained to deposit in the
-hands of the stranger for their own people. Occasionally, at the present
-day, some wild wiry M‘Lean or M‘Dougal makes his appearance, by command
-of the chief, at the proper time and place, to claim investment in the
-clan bursary. Other of these endowments are of restricted application,
-being exclusively appropriated to students of a special name, such as
-Smith or Thomson, or born in a special parish, or descended from members
-of some corporation. In general, however, these endowments—some of them
-of very ancient date—are open to free universal competition, and are in
-this shape one of the most interesting and remarkable specimens of the
-ancient literary republics, in which each man fought with his brains,
-and held what his brains could achieve for him. Annually, at the
-competition for bursaries in Aberdeen, there assembles a varied group of
-intellectual gladiators—long red-haired Highlanders, who feel trousers
-and shoes an infringement of the liberty of the subject—square-built
-Lowland farmers—flaxen-haired Orcadians, and pale citizens’ sons,
-vibrating between scholarship and the tailor’s board or the shoemaker’s
-last. Grim and silent they sit for a day, rendering into Latin an
-English essay, and drop away one by one, depositing with the judges the
-evidence of success or failure as the case may be. The thing is very
-fairly and impartially managed, and honourable to all the parties
-concerned.
-
-It is indeed, as we have hinted, a relic of the old competitive spirit
-which distinguished the universities as literal republics of letters,
-where each man fought his own battle, and gained and wore his own
-laurels. Nor was his arena confined to his own college. The free-masonry
-we have already alluded to opened every honour and emolument to all, and
-the Scotsman might suddenly enter the lists at Paris, Bologna, or
-Upsala, or the Spaniard might compete in Glasgow or Aberdeen. The
-records before us contain many forms in which the ancient spirit has now
-ceased to breathe. Already has been mentioned the competition for the
-regentship. The old form of the Impugnment of Theses, so renowned in
-literary histories, has died away as a portion of the ordinary
-laureation. The comprehensive challenges and corresponding victories
-attributed to the Admirable Crichton give this practice a peculiar
-interest in the eyes of Scotsmen; and it has a great place in the annals
-of the Reformation, since one of its main stages was the posting the
-twenty-five theses on the door of the church of Würtemberg by Luther.
-But in reading these remarkable events people are apt to forget the
-commonness of the practice; and Crichton has the aspect of a
-preposterous intellectual bully going out of his proper way to attract
-notice, instead of doing what was in its time and circumstances as
-ordinary and common sense an act as running a tilt, joining a crusade,
-or burning a witch. Goldsmith, in that account of the intellectual
-vagabond which so evidently describes himself, has noticed some relics
-of the practice as he found it on the Continent. “In all the
-universities and convents there are, upon certain days, philosophical
-theses maintained against every adventitious disputant; for which, if
-the champion opposes with any dexterity, he can claim a gratuity in
-money, a dinner, and a bed for one night. In this manner, then, I fought
-my way towards England.” A collection of German pamphlets, amounting, it
-is said, to upwards of a hundred thousand, and called the Dietrich
-Collection, was some years ago purchased by the Faculty of Advocates,
-and was found to consist chiefly of the academic theses in which the
-scholars of Germany—illustrious and obscure—had been disputing for
-centuries. In the same place, by the way, where this vast collection
-reposes, may be found the most complete living illustration of the old
-form of impugnment. The anxious litigant or busy agent entering the main
-door of the Parliament House at 9 o’clock of a morning, may find, by an
-_affiche_ to the door-post, that there is to be a _disputatio juridica_
-under the auspices of the _inclytus Diaconus facultatis_. Since the year
-1693 it has been the practice of each intrant to undergo public
-impugnment, or, as the act of Faculty says, “the publict tryall of
-candidates, by printing and publishing theses on the subject assigned
-with corollaries, as it is observed amongst other nations.” A title of
-the Pandects is assigned on each occasion. Thus the Faculty possesses
-more than one running commentary upon that celebrated collection; and it
-has always been deemed remarkable that, considering the number and
-varied talent of the authors of these theses, they should be so uniform
-in their Latinity and structure. A great innovation has lately taken
-place in sparing the cost of printing the theses, and applying the
-amount so saved to the Faculty’s magnificent library.
-
-Many of the old university theses are very interesting as the youthful
-efforts of men who have subsequently become eminent. Those connected
-with Aberdeen are apparently the most numerous. It is very noticeable,
-indeed, that in the remote rival institutions there established, the
-spirit and practice of the Continental universities, in almost every
-department, had their most tenacious existence. As in England, the
-Church of Rome was succeeded there, not by Presbyterianism but
-Episcopacy, and there were fewer changes in all old habits and
-institutions. The celebrated “Aberdeen doctors,” who carried on a
-controversy with the Covenanters, met their zealous religionists with
-something like the old pedantic formality of the academic system of
-disputation. They resolved the Covenant into a thesis, and impugned it.
-Of this remarkable group of scholars we have the following notice in
-Professor Innes’s Preface:—
-
-
-  “Their names are now little known, except to the local antiquary;
-  but no one who has even slightly studied the history of that
-  disturbed time is unacquainted with the collective designation of
-  ‘the Aberdeen Doctors’ bestowed upon the learned ‘querists’ of the
-  ultra-Presbyterian Assembly of 1638, and the most formidable
-  opponents of the Solemn League and Covenant.
-
-  “Of these learned divines, Dr Robert Barron had succeeded Bishop
-  Forbes in his parish of Keith, and from thence was brought on the
-  first opportunity to be made Minister of Aberdeen, and afterwards
-  Professor of Divinity in Marischal College. He is best judged by the
-  estimation of his own time, which placed him foremost in philosophy
-  and theology. Bishop Sydserf characterises him as ‘vir in omni
-  scholastica theologia et omni literatura versatissimus:’ ‘A person of
-  incomparable worth and learning,’ says Middleton, ‘he had a clear
-  apprehension of things, and a rare facultie of making the hardest
-  things to be easily understood.’[10] Gordon of Rothiemay says, ‘He was
-  one of those who maintained the unanswerable dispute (in 1638) against
-  the Covenante, which drew upon him both ther envye, hate, and
-  calumneyes; yet so innocently lived and dyed hee, that such as then
-  hated him doo now reverence his memorye, and admire his works.’
-  Principal Baillie, of the opposite party, speaks of him as ‘a meek and
-  learned person,’ and always with great respect: and Bishop Jeremy
-  Taylor, when writing in 1659 to a fellow of Trinity College, Dublin,
-  recommending the choice of books for ‘the beginning of a theological
-  library,’ named two treatises of Barron’s especially, and recommended
-  generally ‘everything of his.’[11] That a man so honoured for his
-  learning and his life should receive the indignities inflicted on
-  Barron after his death, is rather to be held as a mark of the general
-  coarseness of the time, than attributed to the persecuting spirit of
-  any one sect.[12]
-
-  “Another of the Aberdeen doctors, William Leslie, was successively
-  Sub-principal and Principal of King’s College. The visitors of 1638
-  found him worthie of censure, as defective and negligent in his
-  office, but recorded their knowledge that he was ‘ane man of gude
-  literature, lyff, and conversatioun.’[13] ‘He was a man,’ says James
-  Gordon, ‘grave, and austere, and exemplar. The University was happy in
-  having such a light as he, who was eminent in all the sciences above
-  the most of his age.’[14]
-
-  “Dr James Sibbald, Minister of St Nicholas, and a Regent in the
-  University, is recorded by the same contemporary: ‘It will not be
-  affirmed by his very enemyes, but that Dr James Sibbald was ane
-  eloquent and painefull preacher, a man godly, and grave, and modest,
-  not tainted with any vice unbeseeming a minister, to whom nothing
-  could in reason be objected, if you call not his ante-covenanting a
-  cryme.’[15] Principal Baillie, while condemning his Arminian
-  doctrines, says—‘The man was, there, of great fame.’
-
-  “Dr Alexander Scroggy, minister in the Cathedral Church, first known
-  to the world as thought worthy to contribute to the ‘Funerals’ of his
-  patron and friend, Bishop Forbes,[16] is described in 1640 by Gordon
-  as ‘a man sober, grave, and painefull in his calling;’[17] and by
-  Baillie as ‘ane old man, not verie corrupt, yet perverse in the
-  Covenant and Service-book.’ His obstinacy yielded under the weight of
-  old age and the need of rest, but he is not the more respected for the
-  questionable recantation of all his early opinions.[18]
-
-  “Foremost, by common consent, among that body of divines and scholars,
-  was John Forbes, the good bishop’s son. He had studied at King’s
-  College, and, after completing his education in the approved manner by
-  a round of foreign universities, returned to Scotland to take his
-  doctor’s degree, and to be the first professor in the chair of
-  theology, founded and endowed in our University by his father and the
-  clergy of the diocese. Dr John Forbes’s theological works have been
-  appreciated by all critics and students, and have gone some way to
-  remove the reproach of want of learning from the divines of Scotland.
-  His greatest undertaking, the _Instructiones historico-theologicæ_,
-  which he left unfinished, Bishop Burnett pronounces to be ‘a work
-  which, if he had finished it, and had been suffered to enjoy the
-  privacies of his retirement and study to give us the second volume,
-  had been the greatest treasure of theological learning that perhaps
-  the world has yet received.[19]
-
-  “These were the men whom the bishop drew into the centre and heart of
-  the sphere which he had set himself to illuminate; and in a short
-  space of time, by their united endeavours, there grew up around their
-  Cathedral and University a society more learned and accomplished than
-  Scotland had hitherto known, which spread a taste for literature and
-  art beyond the academic circle, and gave a tone of refinement to the
-  great commercial city and its neighbourhood.
-
-  “It must be confessed cultivation was not without bias. It would seem
-  that, in proportion as the Presbyterian and Puritan party receded from
-  the learning of some of their first teachers, literature became here,
-  as afterwards in England, the peculiar badge of Episcopacy. With
-  Episcopacy went, hand in hand, the high assertion of royal authority;
-  and influenced as it had been by Bishop Patrick Forbes and his
-  followers, Aberdeen became, and continued for a century to be, not
-  only a centre of northern academic learning, but a little stronghold
-  of loyalty and Episcopacy—the marked seat of high Cavalier politics
-  and anti-Puritan sentiments of religion and church government.
-
-  “That there was a dash of pedantry in the learning of that Augustan
-  age of our University, was the misfortune of the age, rather than
-  peculiar to Aberdeen. The literature of Britain and all Europe, except
-  Italy, was still for the most part scholastic, and still to a great
-  degree shrouded in the scholastic dress of a dead language; and we
-  must not wonder that the northern University exacted from her divines
-  and philosophers, even from her historians and poets, that they should
-  use the language of the learned. After all, we owe too much to
-  classical learning to grudge that it should for a time have
-  overshadowed and kept down its legitimate offspring of native
-  literature. ‘We never ought to forget,’ writes one worthy to record
-  the life and learning of Andrew Melville, ‘that the refinement and the
-  science, secular and sacred, with which modern Europe is enriched,
-  must be traced to the revival of ancient literature, and that the hid
-  treasures could not have been laid open and rendered available but for
-  that enthusiasm with which the languages of Greece and Rome were
-  cultivated in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.’[20]
-
-  “It is not to be questioned that in the literature of that age, and in
-  all departments of it, Aberdeen stood pre-eminent. Clarendon
-  commemorates the ‘many excellent scholars and very learned men under
-  whom the Scotch universities, and especially Aberdeen,
-  flourished.’[21] ‘Bishop Patrick Forbes,’ says Burnet, ‘took such care
-  of the two colleges in his diocese, that they became quickly
-  distinguished from all the rest of Scotland.... They were an honour to
-  the Church, both by their lives and by their learning; and with that
-  excellent temper they seasoned that whole diocese, both clergy and
-  laity, that it continues to this very day very much distinguished from
-  all the rest of Scotland, both for learning, loyalty, and
-  peaceableness.’[22]
-
-  “That this was no unfounded boast, as regards one department of
-  learning, has been already shown, in enumerating the learned divines
-  who drew upon Aberdeen the general attention soon after the death of
-  their bishop and master. In secular learning it was no less
-  distinguished. No one excelled Robert Gordon of Straloch in all the
-  accomplishments that honour the country gentleman. Without the common
-  desire of fame or any more sordid motive, he devoted his life and
-  talents to illustrate the history and literature of his country. He
-  was the prime assistant to Scotstarvet in his two great undertakings,
-  the Atlas and the collections of Scotch poetry.[23] The maps of
-  Scotland in the Great Atlas (many of them drawn by himself, and the
-  whole ‘revised’ by him at the earnest entreaty of Charles I.), with
-  the topographical descriptions that accompany them, are among the most
-  valuable contributions ever made by an individual to the physical
-  history of his country. His son, James Gordon, parson of Rothiemay,
-  followed out his father’s great objects with admirable skill, and in
-  two particulars he merits our gratitude even more. He was one of the
-  earliest of our countrymen to study drawing, and to apply it to plans
-  and views of places; and, while he could wield Latin easily, he
-  condescended to write the history of his time in excellent Scotch.
-
-  “While these writers were illustrating the history of their country in
-  prose, a crowd of scholars were writing poetry, or, at least, pouring
-  forth innumerable copies of elegant Latin verses. While the two
-  Johnstons were the most distinguished of those poets of Aberdeen, John
-  Leech, once Rector of our University,[24] David Wedderburn, rector of
-  the Grammar School, and many others, wrote and published pleasing
-  Latin verse, which stands the test of criticism. While it cannot be
-  said that such compositions produce on the reader the higher effects
-  of real poetry, they are not without value, if we view them as tests
-  of the cultivation of the society among which they were produced.
-  Arthur Johnston not only addresses elegiacs to the bishop and his
-  doctors, throwing a charming classical air over their abstruser
-  learning, but puts up a petition to the magistrates of the city, or
-  celebrates the charms of Mistress Abernethy, or the embroideries of
-  the Lady Lauderdale—all in choice Latin verse, quite as if the persons
-  whom he addressed appreciated the language of the poet.[25]
-
-  “Intelligent and educated strangers, both foreigners and the gentry of
-  the north, were attracted to Aberdeen; and its colleges became the
-  place of education for a higher class of students than had hitherto
-  been accustomed to draw their philosophy from a native source.[26]
-
-  “If it was altogether chance, it was a very fortunate accident, which
-  placed in the midst of a society so worthy of commemoration a painter
-  like George Jamiesone, the pupil of Rubens, the first, and, till
-  Raeburn, the only great painter whom Scotland had produced. Though he
-  was a native of Aberdeen, it is not likely that anything but the
-  little court of the bishop could have induced such an artist to
-  prosecute his art in a provincial town. An academic orator in 1630,
-  while boasting of the crowd of distinguished men, natives and
-  strangers, either produced by the University, or brought to Aberdeen
-  by the bishop, was able to point to their pictures ornamenting the
-  hall where his audience were assembled. Knowing by whom these
-  portraits were painted, we cannot but regret that so few are
-  preserved.”[27]
-
-
-Keeping, however, to the matter of academic impugnment, we shall now
-turn to an instance of its incidental occurrence in that University,
-which, from its late origin, was least imbued with the spirit of the
-Continental system.
-
-The visit of King James to his ancient kingdom in 1617, afforded the
-half-formed collegiate institution in Edinburgh an opportunity for a
-rhetorical display, which ended in substantial advantages. Tired with
-business at Holyrood, and in the enjoyment of full eating and drinking,
-and “driving our” at his quieter palace of Stirling, he bethought
-himself of a rhetorical pastime with the professors of the new
-University, wherein he could not fail to luxuriate in the scholastic
-quibbling with which his mind was so well crammed, and he was pretty
-certain of enjoying an ample banquet of success and applause. Hence, as
-Thomas Crawford the annalist of the institution informs us, “It pleased
-his majesty to appoint the maisters of the college to attend him at
-Sterling the 29th day of July, where, in the royal chapel, his majesty,
-with the flower of the nobility, and many of the most learned men of
-both nations, were present, a little before five of the clock, and
-continued with much chearfulness above three hours.”
-
-The display was calculated to be rather appalling to any man who had
-much diffidence or reserve in his disposition, and hence Charteris, the
-principal, “being naturally averse from public show, and professor of
-divinity,” transferred the duty of leading the discussion to Professor
-Adamson. The form adopted was the good old method of the impugnment of
-theses, so many being appointed to defend, and so many to impugn; “but
-they insisted only upon such purposes as were conceived would be most
-acceptable to the king’s majesty and the auditory.”
-
-The first thesis was better suited for the legislature than an academic
-body, and there must have been some peculiar reason for bringing it on.
-It was, “that sheriffs and other inferior magistrates should not be
-hereditary,” which was oppugned by Professor Lands “with many pretty
-arguments.” The king was so pleased with the oppugnation, that he turned
-to the Marquis of Hamilton, hereditary sheriff of Clydesdale, and said,
-“James, you see your cause lost—and all that can be said for it clearly
-satisfied and answered.” _N.—B._ It is just worth noticing that the
-College and the Marquis were then at feud. There was a question about
-the possession of the old lodging of the Hamilton family, then
-constituting a considerable portion of the University edifices. The “gud
-old nobleman,” his father, had been easily satisfied, but the young man
-was determined to stand upon his rights, and, though he could not
-recover possession, get something in the shape of rent or damages; nor
-would he take the judicious hint that “so honourable a personage would
-never admit into his thoughts to impoverish the patrimony of the young
-University, which had been so great an ornament, and so fruitful an
-instrument of so much good to the whole nation, but rather accept of
-some honourable acknowledgment of his munificence in bestowing upon the
-College an honest residence for the muses.” But to return to the
-impugnment. The next thesis was on local motion, “pressing many things
-by clear testimonies of Aristotle’s text;” and this passage of literary
-arms called out one of James’s sallies of pawky persiflage. “These men,”
-he said, “know Aristotle’s mind as well as himself did while he lived.”
-The next thesis was on the “Original of Fountains;” and the discussion,
-much to the purpose, no doubt, was so interesting that it was allowed to
-go on far beyond the prescribed period, “his majesty himself sometimes
-speaking for the impugner, and sometimes for the defender, in good
-Latin, and with much knowledge of the secrets of philosophy.”
-
-Talking is, however, at the best, dry work. His majesty went at last to
-supper, and no doubt would have what is termed “a wet night.” When up to
-the proper mark, he sent for the professors, and delivered himself of
-the following brilliant address:—
-
-“Methinks these gentlemen, by their very names, have been destined for
-the acts which they have had in hand to-day. Adam was father of all;
-and, very fitly, Adamson had the first part of this act. The defender is
-justly called Fairly—his thesis had some fair lies, and he defended them
-very fairly, and with many fair lies given to the oppugners. And why
-should not Mr Lands be the first to enter the lands? but now I clearly
-see that all lands are not barren, for certainly he hath shown a fertile
-wit. Mr Young is very old in Aristotle. Mr Reed needs not be red with
-blushing for his acting to-day. Mr King disputed very kingly, and of a
-kingly purpose, anent the royal supremacy of reason over anger and all
-passions.” And here his majesty was going to close the encomiums, when
-some one nudged his elbow, and hinted that he had omitted to notice the
-modest Charteris; but the royal wit was not abashed, and his concluding
-impromptu was by no means the least successful of his puns. “Well, his
-name agreeth very well to his nature; for charters contain much matter,
-yet say nothing, but put great purposes in men’s mouths.”
-
-Few natures would be churlish enough to resist a genial glow of
-satisfaction on receiving such pearls of rhetoric scattered among them
-by a royal hand, and we may believe that the professors were greatly
-gratified. But, pleased more probably by his own success, the king gave
-a more substantial mark of his satisfaction, and said, “I am so well
-satisfied with this day’s exercise, that I will be godfather to the
-College of Edinburgh, and have it called the College of King James; for
-after the founding of it had been stopped for sundry years in my
-minority, so soon as I came to any knowledge, I zealously held hand to
-it, and caused it to be established; and although I see many look upon
-it with an evil eye, yet I will have them to know that, having given it
-this name, I have espoused its quarrel.” And further on in the night, he
-promised, “that as he had given the College a name, he would also, in
-time convenient, give it a royal godbairn gift for enlarging the
-patrimony thereof.”
-
-In the course of the multifarious talk of the evening, a curious and
-delicate matter was opened up—the difference between the English
-pronunciation of Latin and the Scottish, which corresponds with that of
-Europe in general. An English doctor, who must have enjoyed exceptional
-opinions, or been a master of hypocrisy, praised the readiness and
-elegancy of his majesty’s Latinity; on which he said, “All the world
-knows that my maister, Mr George Buchanan, was a great maister in that
-faculty. I follow his pronunciation both of Latin and Greek, and am
-sorry that my people of England do not the like, for certainly their
-pronunciation utterly spoils the grace of these two learned languages;
-but you see all the university and learned men of Scotland express the
-true and native pronunciation of both.”[28]
-
-
-
-
-                       THE INSURRECTION IN SPAIN.
-
-
-                                                    _Madrid, July 1854._
-
-Dear Ebony.—Had I known that you would treacherously publish my private
-communications, and that Maga comes to Madrid, I certainly would have
-waited until I had quitted this capital, before imparting to you my
-impressions of it, its inhabitants, and its institutions. I admit that I
-have but myself to blame for my ignorance of the fact that Maga, whose
-fame extends to the uttermost parts of the earth, has her regular
-readers even in Madrid. But you, who must be aware of that fact, are not
-the less culpable for risking the valuable life of your old ally and
-contributor. You might have had a little more consideration for your
-outpost than to expose him to the thrust of an Albacete dagger or
-Catalan knife, whether dealt under the fifth rib, or treacherously in
-the back. You should have reflected that my olive-green uniform, with a
-golden thistle on the black-facings, would naturally betray my quality
-of Maga’s vedette. Since the 10th of June, date of the Magazine’s
-arrival in Madrid, my existence has not been worth an hour’s purchase. I
-have been obliged to strike my tent, pitched in the Puerta del Sol, as
-the best place for observation, and to picket my charger in the recesses
-of the Retiro, whose cool shades, I confess, are not altogether to be
-despised now that the thermometer ranges from 90 to 100 in the shade,
-and that the streets of this capital resemble nothing so much as
-limekilns, thanks to dust from demolitions, and to the rays of a sun
-compared to which the Phœbus of the British Isles is a very feeble
-impostor. You are, of course, aware of the pleasant peculiarities of the
-Madrid climate—Siberia in winter and in the wind; the Sahara in summer
-and in the sun. We are just now in all the delights of the dogdays; a
-wet brick is sunburned red in half an hour; eggs, placed for ten minutes
-on the tiles, open for the exit of lively chickens; and Madrid, to avoid
-calcination, flies to the woods and waves. As I hope soon to follow its
-example, and shall consequently not be here when your August number
-arrives, I will venture to send you another epistle, notwithstanding
-that I have received sundry mysterious warnings that a repetition of my
-first offence would lead to prompt blood-letting. This time, however, I
-shall have less to say of the follies and failings of the natives, and
-more of what has occurred since last I troubled you with my prose. Then
-I did but glance at politics _en passant_; now, I propose devoting my
-whole letter to them. Just one fortnight ago there occurred at Madrid an
-event so important that I think it best to confine myself to an account
-of it, and to reserve lighter matters for a future communication. I need
-hardly say that the event in question is the military insurrection of
-the 28th of June.
-
-Things had been in rather a queer state here for some time past. As you
-may possibly, amidst the excitement of the Eastern question, have
-neglected to follow up the minute intricacies of Spanish politics, I
-must step back a pace or two, in order to put you _au fait_. Autumn of
-last year witnessed the arrival at power of the present ministry, which
-speedily became far more unpopular than, for some time past, any
-administration had been. Headed by an unprincipled and unscrupulous
-adventurer, it recoiled from no illegality or tyranny that might conduce
-to its own advantage. Defeated in the senate by a large majority, on the
-memorable railway question, it suspended the session, and began to
-indulge its hatred of those who assisted in its rebuff. In January of
-the present year, about a month after the closing of the legislative
-chambers, some of the most formidable of its opponents, on that occasion
-and on most others, were ordered into exile. It is customary and legal
-in Spain for the minister to assign a residence to unemployed officers,
-whither they are bound to proceed. In those dispositions, the
-convenience of the officers is usually to a certain extent consulted,
-but sometimes, especially for political reasons, the contrary is the
-case, and such assignment of quarters becomes little less than a
-sentence of banishment. A military man may be authorised to reside in
-Madrid (the Spaniard’s paradise), or transported to the Philippines,
-which he would consider purgatory. As most military men of high rank in
-this country are more or less political characters, either having held
-office, or hoping some day to find a place in one of the ephemeral
-Spanish governments (whose existence rarely exceeds a year, and is
-sometimes limited to a day), and constantly manœuvring to obtain it,
-they hold it a cruel destiny that consigns them to a colonial abode, or
-to vegetation in a remote town, far from the capital, that centre of
-every kind of intrigue. It may be imagined, therefore, with what extreme
-disgust some of the military chiefs of the Moderado opposition suddenly
-found themselves ordered to places where they would be at full liberty
-to study strategy, or play the Cincinnatus in their cabbage gardens, but
-where they would be forgotten by the world, and powerless to annoy the
-ministers or to forward their own ambitious views. Generals Leopold
-O’Donnell, Manuel Concha, José Concha, and Infante (a deserter from the
-Progresista or liberal party), were the men whose influence and
-intrigues the Sartorius ministry thus attempted to annul. The two former
-were ordered to the Canary Islands, the two latter to the Balearics.
-Manuel Concha and Infante obeyed orders and departed for their
-destinations; José Concha, by far the cleverer of the brothers, went
-into France; O’Donnell disappeared, and it was not until some time
-afterwards that it became known where he was concealed. From the time of
-these banishments (the latter part of January) may be dated the
-commencement of the conspiracy which has just broken out in the shape of
-a military insurrection.
-
-On the 20th of February, the regiment of Cordova, quartered at
-Saragossa, rose in revolt, headed by its colonel, Brigadier Hore, an
-officer of merit, who had served in the royal guards during the civil
-war. Nearly the whole of the garrison, and several officers of high
-rank, were pledged to support the movement; but some of the latter
-played the traitor, others hesitated at the very moment when promptness
-and decision were most necessary; José Concha, who was then concealed in
-Spain, and expected to start up at Saragossa to head the revolt, did not
-appear, but soon afterwards presented himself to the authorities of
-Bordeaux. In short, the whole thing failed. The Cordova regiment was
-broken up; changes were made in one or two garrisons; a number of
-arrests, especially of military men and newspaper editors, were made in
-Madrid; promotions and decorations were lavished upon certain officers,
-amongst whom were some who had betrayed to death the friends and
-confederates they had promised to support; the last of the insurgents
-were driven across the frontier; the government emerged from the brief
-struggle with renewed strength, and became daily more unconstitutional,
-arbitrary, and tyrannical.
-
-Within a short time after the incidents I have thus briefly sketched, it
-was generally reported that the place where the Moderado opposition
-(noway discouraged by the disaster in Arragon) intended to make their
-next attempt, was Madrid itself. The conduct of the government in the
-mean time had certainly been such as to irritate its enemies, and rouse
-public indignation. No one was safe from the despotic system introduced.
-Illegal arrests were of frequent occurrence, made without a shadow of a
-pretext, and whose victims, conscious of no crime, were left to languish
-in prison, transported to the colonies, or escorted out of Spain. The
-opposition journals were daily seized, not only for the articles they
-published, but for the mere news they gave, as there were many things
-which ministers did not choose to have communicated to the nation except
-in the falsified version given by their own journals. The _Clamor
-Publico_, ably conducted by a staunch and well-known liberal, Don
-Fernando Corradi; the _Nacion_, also a Progresista paper, whose editor,
-Rua Figueroa, still contrived to write in it from the concealment to
-which an order for his arrest had compelled him; the _Diario Español_
-and the _Epoca_, representing the Moderado opposition, were the chief
-objects of ministerial oppression and vindictiveness, and day after day
-their columns were headed with the announcement, that their first
-edition had been seized by order of the censor. In spite of this
-persecution, they steadily persevered, opposing the government as well
-as they might, but prevented from exposing, otherwise than by inference
-and in a most guarded manner, the scandalous corruption and jobbing of
-the ministers and the court. Discontent was general, and daily
-increased. It was asked when the Cortes were to assemble, for only in
-their discussions did there seem a chance of such expression of public
-opinion as might alarm and check the men in power. These, however, had
-no intention of calling together the legislative chambers. They
-continued to make laws by decree, and to sanction, for the benefit of
-their friends and adherents, railways and other national works, for
-which the approval of the Cortes was to be asked at some future day. But
-that day has not yet come, nor will it come, so long as the present
-ministry is in office and the Queen-mother supports them, for she
-dreads, as much as they do, the exposure of the countless iniquitous
-speculations at the country’s expense, in which she and her husband have
-been concerned, with the connivance and aid of the government, who thus
-repaid her for the countenance that often stood them in good stead
-against the intrigues of the camarilla headed by the Queen’s favourite.
-Then there were frequent rumours of an approaching _coup d’état_, on the
-plan of that of December 1851 in France, or of that, nearly resembling
-it, which the bravo-Murillo ministry had actually published, but had
-been unable to carry out. All this time (ever since the outbreak at
-Saragossa) the whole country was under martial law; no _coup d’état_
-could confer upon the government more arbitrary powers than those it
-already exercised—it could but legalise illegality. The case was vastly
-different in France and in Spain. In France, after a period of anarchy,
-succeeded by a conflict of political factions which rendered all
-government impossible, a man long depreciated, but now generally
-admitted to be of commanding talent, and, we are justified in believing,
-of far more patriotic mind than he ever had credit for, cut the knot of
-the difficulty, at the cost, certainly, of constitutional forms, but, as
-many now think, for the real benefit of the nation. In Spain, the
-situation of affairs was quite otherwise. Where was here the vigorous
-intellect whose judgment, and firmness and foresight were to guide,
-without assistance and through many perils, the ship of the state. Was
-it that of the unfortunate, uneducated Queen, who detests business, and
-passes her life sunk in sloth and sensuality? Was it to be the upstart
-unscrupulous minister who, by sheer audacity (the most valuable quality
-for a Spanish politician who seeks but his own aggrandisement), had
-first crawled and afterwards pushed his way to the head of the royal
-council-board? Or would the arch-intriguer, Maria Christina, sketch the
-course her daughter should adopt when converted into an absolute
-sovereign? No, for her time was too much taken up in adding, at the
-expense of Spain, to her already incalculable wealth, and in planning
-marriages for her numerous daughters. In short, to carry into the higher
-sphere of politics the general and servile imitation of France now
-observable in Spain, was an idea repugnant to the Spanish nation, and
-which increased, if possible, the universal discontent that already
-prevailed—excited by the closing of the chambers, the violence used
-towards the independent press (which it was evidently intended to
-crush), the notorious corruption of the administration; the
-unsatisfactory state of the finances, tending inevitably to some
-extraordinary exactions from the already over-taxed people; and last,
-but not least, by the scandalous concessions daily made to the friends
-and adherents of the ministry, and to those influential persons, the
-Rianzares, Señor Arana, Mr Salamanca, and others, whose enmity the
-Sartorius cabinet dared not encounter, and whose support they were
-compelled to purchase.
-
-It was understood that a military insurrection was contemplated, with
-O’Donnell at its head. The government affected to make light of the
-affair, but in reality they were not without uneasiness, for they could
-not but feel—although they daily had it proclaimed by the hireling
-_Heraldo_ that they were the saviours of the nation, and the most
-popular and prosperous of ministries—that they were execrated, and that
-all classes would rejoice in their downfall. It is difficult to convey
-to Englishmen—except to those who may be personally acquainted with this
-singular country and people—a clear idea of the state of political
-affairs in Madrid during the second quarter of the present year. I must
-content myself with supplying a few detached facts and details, from
-which you may, perhaps, form a notion of the whole. For three months
-conspiracy may be said to have walked the streets of Madrid openly and
-in broad daylight. Almost every one knew that something was plotting,
-and a considerable number of persons could have told the names of the
-chief conspirators, and given some sort of general outline of their
-plans. O’Donnell, disobeying the orders of the Queen’s government,
-remained hidden in Madrid, seeing numerous friends, but undiscoverable
-by the police. He had frequent meetings with his fellow-conspirators;
-his wife often saw him; for some time, during which he was seriously
-ill, he was daily visited by one of the first physicians in Madrid;
-still the government, although most anxious to apprehend him, failed in
-every attempt to discover his hiding-place, which was known to many. It
-is rare that the secrets of a conspiracy, when they have been confided
-to so large a number of persons, have been kept so well and for so long
-a time as in the present case; but this caution and discretion are
-easily explicable by the universal hatred felt for the present
-government and by the strong desire for its fall. The superior police
-authorities were bitterly blamed by the minister; large sums were placed
-at their disposal, numerous agents had assigned to them the sole duty of
-seeking O’Donnell. All was in vain. The government paid these agents
-well, but O’Donnell, as it afterwards appeared, paid them better. A
-portion, at least, of the men employed to detect him, watched over his
-safety. The government, ashamed of its impotence to capture, spread
-reports that he they sought had left Madrid; and, afterwards, that they
-knew where he was, but preferred leaving him there and watching his
-movements to seizing him and sending him out of the country, to prepare,
-on a foreign soil, revolutionary movements in the provinces of Spain.
-These ridiculous pretences imposed upon very few. Could the government
-have apprehended O’Donnell, they might not have dared to shoot him, and
-might have hesitated permanently to imprison him; but they would not
-have scrupled to ship him to the Philippines, where he would have done
-little mischief. The truth was, that they employed every means to
-discover his hiding-place, and every means proved ineffectual.
-O’Donnell, I am informed, was concealed in a house that communicated
-with the one next to it, which had back and front entrances. His friends
-and the friendly police kept strict watch. Of a night, when he sometimes
-went out to walk, his safety was cared for by the very men whom the
-authorities had commissioned to look for him, and who went away with him
-when he left Madrid to assume the command of the insurgents. A gentleman
-who, during a certain period, was in the habit of frequently seeing him,
-was one morning on his way to his place of concealment, and had entered
-the street in which it was situated, when a police agent, making him a
-sign, slipped a scrap of paper into his hand. On it were the words
-“Beware, you are watched.” Taking the hint, the person warned passed the
-house to which he was going, and entered another, in the same street,
-where he had friends. From the window he observed a policeman, who had
-been loitering about as if in the ordinary discharge of his duty,
-hastily depart. When he had made sure that the coast was clear, he left
-the house, entered that in which O’Donnell was, saw him, passed into the
-next house, and departed by the back door. There was soon a cordon of
-police agents round the house into which he first had gone, but their
-vigilance was fruitless. I had this anecdote from one of the most
-intimate friends of the person who visited O’Donnell, and who was named
-to me at the same time.
-
-During the period of suspense that preceded the insurrection, attempts
-were made to bring about a union between the Liberal party and the
-Moderado opposition. The former, although divided into sections which
-differ on certain points, is unanimous in its desire to see Spain
-governed constitutionally. Overtures were made to some of its chiefs. It
-was proposed that it should co-operate in the overthrow of the set of
-men who had detached themselves from all parties, and were marching on
-the high road to absolutism. These men, known as the Polacos or Poles—a
-word which seems to have had its origin in an electioneering joke—were
-odious alike to Progresistas and Moderados. But there were great
-difficulties in the way of a sincere and cordial junction between the
-two principal parties into which Spaniards are divided. The Moderados
-would gladly have availed themselves of the aid of the Liberals to upset
-their common enemy; but they would give them no guarantees that they
-should be, in any way, gainers by the revolution. The Liberals, on the
-other hand, mistrusted the Moderados, and would not assist men whose
-aims they believed to be purely personal. When the Moderados asked what
-guarantees they required, they were quickly ready with an answer. “Arm
-the national guard of Madrid,” they said; or, “March your troops, as
-soon as you have induced them to revolt, at once into Arragon, with one
-of our most influential and determined chiefs.” The Moderados could not
-be induced to listen to such terms. They found themselves exactly in the
-position in which the Progresistas were in 1843. Divided amongst
-themselves, the probabilities were that the insurrection they proposed
-would turn to the advantage of the Liberals; and the risk of this was
-doubled if they accepted even the most favourable of the conditions
-offered to them. They knew that the feeling of a large majority of the
-nation was in favour of the Progresistas; that Espartero, although for
-seven years he had led the life of a country gentleman at Logroño, and
-had steadily resisted all temptations to mingle again in political
-affairs, was in reality the most popular man in Spain, and that he was
-idolised by the people of Madrid. Some amongst them (O’Donnell himself,
-it has been said), whose views were more patriotic and less selfish than
-those of the majority, were not unwilling to blend with the
-Progresistas, to whom a few, including Rios Rosas, a distinguished
-lawyer and senator, frankly proclaimed their adherence, declaring that
-the parties which for so many years had divided Spain were virtually
-defunct, and that there were but two parties in the country,—the
-national one, which desired the welfare of Spain, and to see it governed
-according to the constitution, and the retrograde or absolutist, which
-trampled on the rights of the people. But although a few men were found
-ready to waive personal considerations and to forget old animosities,
-the great majority of the Moderados were less disinterested, and the
-decision finally come to was to do without the aid of the Liberals, and
-to accomplish an insurrection which, although its success was likely to
-be of some advantage to the country, at least for a time, had for its
-object a change of men rather than of measures.
-
-One of the most important persons concerned in the conspiracy was the
-Director of Cavalry, Major-General Domingo Dulce, reputed one of the
-best and bravest officers in the Spanish army, and who had won his high
-rank and many honours, not by political intrigue, as is so frequently
-the case in this country, but at the point of his good sword. He passed
-for a Progresista, and most of his friends were of that party; but in
-fact he had never mixed much in politics, and, as a military man, had
-served under governments of various principles. It is evident, however,
-that whilst confining himself to the duties of his profession—which is
-rarely the case with Spanish general officers—he cherished in his heart
-the love of liberty, and a strong detestation of the tyranny under which
-Spain has for some time groaned. An intimate friend of his, a well-known
-and distinguished Liberal, was the immediate means of his joining the
-conspiracy. It was an immense acquisition to the cause he agreed to
-assist. Chief of the whole of the Spanish cavalry, respected and beloved
-by the men and officers under his command, he could bring a large force
-to the insurgent banner, and his own presence beneath it was of itself
-of great value, for he is a daring and decided officer. He it was who,
-by his obstinate resistance in the palace, at the head of a handful of
-halberdiers, defeated the designs of the conspirators in the year 1841.
-Dulce is a slightly-made, active, wiry man, rather below the middle
-height, of bilious temperament, and taciturn mood, extremely reserved,
-even with his friends, not calculated to cut a great figure in the
-council, but a man of action, precious in the field. The other principal
-conspirators were General Messina, a man of education and talent, who
-had been under-secretary of the war department, and is an intimate
-friend of Narvaez; Ros de Olano, a general officer of some repute; and
-Brigadier Echague, colonel of the Principe regiment, a Basque officer
-who served with high distinction throughout the whole of the civil War.
-
-Several false starts were made before the insurrection really broke out.
-On the 13th of June, especially, it had been fixed to take place. The
-garrison of Madrid had been ordered to parade before daybreak for a
-military promenade and review outside the town. Such parades had been
-unusually frequent for a short time past; and it was thought the
-government ordered them, owing to information it received, not
-sufficiently definite to compromise the conspirators personally, but
-which yet enabled it to defeat their designs. On that morning, however,
-all was ready. The Principe regiment, instead of marching directly to
-the parade ground, lingered, and finally halted at a place where it
-could easily join the cavalry. O’Donnell left the town, disguised, and
-stationed himself in a house whence he could observe all that passed.
-Persons were placed in the vicinity to watch over his safety. The
-proclamations that had been prepared were got ready for distribution.
-Late on the eve of the intended outbreak, about four or five hours
-before it was to occur, its approach was known to several persons who,
-without being implicated in the plot, sincerely wished it success. There
-seemed no doubt of the event. But, at the very moment, a portion of the
-artillery of the garrison, which had pledged itself to take part in the
-movement, failed to make its appearance at the place of rendezvous.
-General Dulce considered their absence so important that he abandoned,
-for that day, his intention of marching off his cavalry, and declaring
-against the government. The combat of the 30th of June, in the fields of
-Vicálvaro, showed that he did not overrate the importance of including
-all arms in the composition of the insurrectionary force. At the time,
-however, a storm of censure burst over his head. He was taxed with
-treachery, with a deficiency in moral courage; his best friends looked
-mistrustfully and coldly upon him; more than one general officer,
-presuming on seniority of rank and age, took him severely to task.
-General O’Donnell was not backward in reproaching him. “Never was a
-white man” (these were the very words of the ex-governor of Cuba) “sold
-as you have sold me.” Dulce, although deeply sensitive to all this
-blame, took it meekly, acknowledged that appearances were against him,
-but declared that he had acted for the best, and steadily affirmed that
-his future conduct would prove his fidelity to the cause he had
-espoused. Not all believed him.
-
-Some days passed over, and there was no word of an insurrection. The
-conspirators were discouraged. Rumour spoke of dissensions among them.
-It was thought that nothing would occur. It was known to many that Dulce
-was of the conspiracy, and that, by his fault or will, a good
-opportunity had been lost; and they said that if he were not playing a
-double game, the government would certainly have heard of his complicity
-with O’Donnell, and would at least have removed him from his command. It
-was fact that, for some time past, anonymous letters had been received
-by the ministers, warning them that he was plotting against them. But
-they disbelieved this information, and some of the letters were even
-shown to Dulce. The Duke of Rianzares, calling one day on a minister,
-found Dulce there. “What is this that I hear, general?” said Queen
-Christina’s husband; “is it true that you intend to shoot us all?” The
-question was awkward, but easily parried. A few days before the
-insurrection occurred, Dulce went over to Alcala, five leagues from
-Madrid, under pretence of inspecting the recruits stationed there. Seven
-squadrons of cavalry were in that town. Doubtless his object was to see
-if he could still reckon upon their following him whithersoever he chose
-to lead. I met him in the street after his return; I think it was on the
-26th of June. He looked anxious and careworn. His position was certainly
-critical, and it is not presuming too much to suppose that a severe
-struggle was going on within him between a long habit of military
-discipline and duty, and what we must in justice believe to have been,
-in his opinion, a paramount duty to his oppressed country. For he was at
-the top of the tree. His position was splendid; his emoluments were
-large; he had but to persevere in his adherence to the government of the
-day to attain to the very highest rank in his profession—although that
-did not afford a more desirable place than the one he already occupied.
-Under these circumstances, even his enemies must admit—however guilty
-they may deem him—that he was not actuated by the selfish desire of
-personal advantage or aggrandisement.
-
-Madrid, incredulous of an insurrection, was taken completely by surprise
-by the news that greeted its uprising on the morning of the 28th June.
-Some hours previously, it was informed, the director-general of cavalry,
-after mustering for review, in a field just outside the walls, the
-eleven squadrons that formed part of the garrison of the capital, had
-been joined by a battalion of the regiment of Principe, by a few
-companies from other regiments, and by General O’Donnell himself, and
-had marched to Alcala to incorporate in his insurrectionary force the
-troops there stationed. Other generals, it was stated, were with him,
-but for many hours—indeed for the whole of that day—truth was hard to be
-got at, and Rumour had it all her own way. The aspect of Madrid was
-curious. The Queen and Court had left two days previously for the
-Escurial; all but two of the ministers were absent; those two were
-paralysed by the sudden event, and seemingly helpless. No measures were
-taken, no troops brought out; for a time it might have been thought
-that, as was reported, all but some fifteen hundred of these had left
-with the insurgent generals; for several hours the town was at the mercy
-of the people, and had they then risen it would probably have been their
-own, for many of the troops remaining in Madrid were disaffected and
-would have joined them. There was great excitement; the general
-expression was one of joy at the prospect of getting rid of a ministry
-than which none could be more odious; the Puerta del Sol and the
-principal streets were full of groups eagerly discussing the events of
-the hour; friends met each other with joyous countenances, and shook
-hands as if in congratulation—Liberals and Moderados alike well pleased
-at the event that threatened to prove fatal to the common enemy. I need
-not repeat the countless reports current on that day. The most important
-fact that became known was that the cavalry at Alcala had joined the
-insurgents, and that two thousand horsemen, some of the best dragoons in
-the Spanish army, were in hostile attitude close to Madrid, accompanied
-by a small but most efficient body of infantry. Towards evening the
-authorities began to awake from their lethargy of alarm. Ignorant of the
-fact that a line of telegraphic wires had been concluded on the previous
-day between Madrid and the Escurial, the insurgents had neglected to cut
-off this means of rapid communication; news of the insurrection had been
-transmitted to the Queen, and her return to the capital was announced.
-The streets were quickly filled with troops, illuminations were ordered
-(there was no hope of their being volunteered), and at about ten o’clock
-her Majesty made her entrance, passing completely through the town,
-having previously been to perform her devotions in the church of Atocha,
-whose presiding virgin is the special patroness of the royal family of
-Spain—the gracious protectress for whom princes embroider petticoats,
-and whose shrine queens enrich with jewels, whose cost would found an
-hospital or comfort many poor. A young Queen, entering her capital in
-haste and anxiety, a few hours after a revolt against her authority,
-ought, one might suppose, to command, by her mere presence, some
-demonstration of loyalty and affection from her subjects. But the
-present Queen of Spain has so completely weaned from her the affections
-of her people, has so well earned their contempt, and even their hatred,
-that neither on that night nor on any other occasion that I have
-witnessed was a voice uplifted or a _viva_ heard. A body of gendarmes,
-drawn up opposite to the ministry of the interior, cheered as she
-passed, and possibly the same may have been the case on the part of
-civil and military functionaries at other points of the line of her
-progress, but the attitude of the people and soldiers was one of perfect
-indifference. The same was the case on the following day, when she
-reviewed the garrison in the Prado, and conferred decorations and
-promotion on sergeants and privates who had distinguished themselves by
-their fidelity in refusing to be led away by the insurgents. Surrounded
-by a numerous staff of officers, and having the troops formed in such
-wise that as many as possible of them might hear her, she addressed to
-them a short speech, was profuse of smiles, and held up to them her
-infant daughter as if confiding it to their defence. Now was the time,
-if ever, for the old Castilian loyalty to burst forth in acclamation.
-But its spirit is dead, crushed by royal misconduct and misrule. Not a
-cheer was uttered, either by officer or soldier. The ominous silence was
-remarked by all present. It was equally profound as the Queen returned
-to her palace through the most populous streets of her capital, crowded
-on the warm summer night. It is said and believed here that, on reaching
-the palace, she was so affected and disheartened by the chilling
-reception she had on all sides met, that she burst into a passion of
-tears. Pity it is for the poor woman, who is not without some natural
-good qualities, but whom evil influences and a neglected education have
-brought to sorrow and contempt.
-
-I cannot pretend to relate all the incidents of the last fortnight,
-which has been crowded with them to an extent that baffles memory. The
-most important you will find in this letter—many of the minor ones have
-doubtless escaped me. I must devote a few more lines to the first day.
-An unsigned proclamation was circulated, of a tenor by no means
-unacceptable to the Liberals, whose chiefs consulted as to the propriety
-of rising in arms, or at least of making some demonstration of hostility
-to the government. Another proclamation, of greater length, signed by
-three generals, O’Donnell, Dulce, and Messina, disappointed them, for it
-contained not a word that guaranteed benefit to the nation, and spoke
-merely of the knavery of the ministers and of the necessity of getting
-rid of them. Moreover, a request was sent in by the insurgents that
-Madrid would remain quiet, and leave them to settle matters militarily.
-Between deliberation and delays the day passed away, and towards night
-the altered attitude of the authorities, who had received telegraphic
-orders from Mr Sartorius to act with the utmost vigour, the large bodies
-of troops in the streets convincing those who had previously doubted
-that there was still a sufficient force in the town to repress any
-popular attempt, caused half-formed plans to fall to the ground, and
-even the most ardent and bellicose resolved to wait the events of the
-morrow before shouldering musket and throwing up barricades.
-
-The morrow was the festival of St Peter, a great holiday, kept quiet as
-a Sunday, with much mass and bull-fights. I presume the churches were
-attended, but the bull-fights did not take place. Some arrests were
-made, but not many, for some of the persons sought after had concealed
-themselves. Madrid was still excited, but quite tranquil. On that and
-the following day every sort of rumour was current. The insurgents were
-near the town, and there were frequent reports that they were coming to
-attack it. Circulation was prohibited in the lower part of the street of
-Alcala, leading to the gate near to which the enemy were supposed to be.
-The residence of the Captain-general and the officers of the staff is in
-the lower part of that street, and the constant passage to and fro of
-orderlies and aides-de-camp interested the people: so that on the line
-of demarcation, beyond which there was no passage, there was a throng
-from morning till night, watching—they knew not exactly for what. From
-time to time there was a rush and panic—when the mob encroached on the
-limit, and the military were ordered to make them recede. The Café
-Suizo, at the summit of the street—which rises and again sinks over a
-small eminence—was a great point of rendezvous, and was crowded with
-eager politicians. Towards evening, on the 30th, the garrison (almost
-the whole) being out of the town, it became known that a fight was
-imminent, or already begun. This was in the neighbourhood; but as none
-were allowed to pass, or even to approach the gates, news were scanty,
-and little to be relied upon. Cannon and musketry were heard, and
-wounded men were seen straggling in. The fever of expectation was at its
-height. Public opinion was decidedly in favour of the insurgents. They
-would beat the government troops, it was said, and enter the town
-pell-mell with them. All the male population of Madrid was in the
-streets, a few troops were stationed here and there; there was no
-disorder, but it was easy to see that a trifle would produce it. I was
-in the Café Suizo, which was crowded in every part, a short time after
-nightfall, when one of the alarms I have referred to was given. There
-was a violent rush in the street outside, cries and shouts; those
-without crowded into the café, most of those within made for the open
-doors. The effect was really startling; it was exactly that produced by
-a charge of troops upon a mob; and I saw more than one cheek blanch
-amongst the consumers of ices and lemonade (the evening was extremely
-hot) who filled the café. But it was a groundless alarm, produced, as
-before, merely by the troops compelling the crowd to recede. Armed
-police circulated in the throng, dispersing groups, and urging them to
-go home. Soon the streets were comparatively clear, but the clubs and
-coffee-houses were filled until past midnight with persons discussing
-what had occurred, and giving fifty different versions. There had been a
-fight, it was certain, at about a league from Madrid, but who had won
-and who had lost was a matter of doubt until the next day.
-
-The _Madrid Gazette_, the order of the day, published by General
-O’Donnell, and conversation with officers present in the short but sharp
-action, enable me to give you a sketch, which you may rely upon as
-correct, of its principal incidents. The garrison of Madrid, consisting
-of about eight battalions of infantry, four batteries of artillery, and
-some three hundred cavalry, took position on a ridge of ground at about
-a league from Madrid. The enemy, strong in cavalry, but weak in
-infantry, sought to draw them farther from the town, and into a more
-favourable position for horse to act against them. As the result proved,
-the wisest plan would have been to persevere in these tactics, and, if
-the garrison refused to advance further, to let the day pass without an
-action. But General O’Donnell had assurances that a large portion of the
-troops opposed to him only waited an opportunity to pass over to his
-banner. A part of the artillery, especially, was pledged to do so. After
-some preliminary skirmishing, he ordered a charge, which was made in
-gallant style by two squadrons of the Principe regiment. In spite of a
-severe fire of shot and shell, reserved, until they were within a very
-short distance of the battery they attacked, they got amongst the guns,
-and sabred many of the artillerymen, but were prevented from carrying
-off the pieces, and compelled to retire, by the heavy fire of the
-squares of infantry formed in rear of the artillery. Having thus
-ascertained, beyond a doubt, that there was no chance of the artillery
-coming over to them, or allowing themselves to be taken, the insurgents
-would have perhaps acted wisely in making no farther attempts upon the
-hostile line, or, if they were resolved upon a contrary course, in
-assailing the flanks, instead of again charging up to the mouths of the
-cannon. But it appears from O’Donnell’s own bulletin that the troops
-were not well in hand, and that, enraged at finding themselves fired
-upon by those from whom they expected a very different reception, they
-made several charges under the direction of their regimental chiefs, but
-without the sanction of their generals. I can hardly give a better
-account of the latter part of the combat than is contained in two short
-paragraphs of the insurgent general’s order of the day, which has been
-copied in the government papers, and admitted by these to be a fair and
-true statement of what occurred. The bulletin is before me, and I
-translate the passages in question:—
-
-
-  “The retreat of the two squadrons of the Principe cavalry (those which
-  had charged the battery) was opportunely taken advantage of by the
-  hostile squadrons of the Villaviciosa lancers, and of the _Guardia
-  Civil_, who charged after them. This cavalry, however, was driven
-  back, when in full career, by the 3d and 4th squadrons of the
-  Principe, who routed them, cutting down a great part of them, and
-  receiving into their ranks a large number of the soldiers of
-  Villaviciosa, with their standard, and four officers, who reversed
-  their lances, proclaiming themselves friends. In a second charge made
-  by these same squadrons, the standard-bearer of Villaviciosa, and some
-  soldiers of the same corps, who had joined us only because they
-  considered themselves prisoners, went over again to the enemy.
-
-  “The bloody effect of the fire of the artillery, who, well assured
-  that they would not be encountered by the same arm (of which we had
-  none), had deliberately studied their range, and taken the breasts of
-  our soldiers for their mark, caused the action to become hot, and the
-  regiment of Farnesio again charged upon the guns, with great valour
-  and determination. At the very mouth of the cannon its colonel was
-  wounded and taken prisoner, and several officers and soldiers were
-  struck down, our cries of _Viva la Reina y la Constitucion_ being
-  drowned in the roar of the enemy’s pieces. Repeated charges of the
-  same regiment, and of those of Bourbon, Santiago, and the School of
-  Cavalry, must have convinced our opponents in the action of Vicálvaro,
-  that the feelings which prompted those cries are to be extinguished in
-  the hearts of our brave soldiers by death alone.”
-
-
-The upshot of the action was this: The insurgents accepted battle when
-there was little to be gained by them in so doing, unless, indeed, the
-contest had been conducted very differently, and a more judicious plan
-had been adopted than that of charging headlong up to the muzzles of
-artillery supported by squares of infantry. But this mistake had its
-origin, as I have already observed, in the expectation that the
-artillery would not fire. The insurgents were repulsed, not, however,
-without inflicting considerable loss upon their enemies. The garrison
-returned into Madrid in some haste and confusion, and near the gate a
-singular incident occurred. It was dark, and some lancers appeared on
-their flank—insurgents, according to some accounts—a part of their own
-cavalry, as it is reported by others. The exact truth will probably
-never be known. But a panic seized the infantry; some of the battalions
-were composed in great part of recruits; young soldiers, retiring
-hastily and in the dark after their first fight, are easily alarmed; the
-confusion that ensued was as great as that of a rout; the men fired at
-random killing and wounding their own friends, and a great number,
-especially of the battalion of engineers, were thus injured. The
-government papers passed this unlucky mistake almost _sub silentio_; but
-the fact is certain, the troops returned into the town in disorder, and
-it was not until the next day that all the wounded were brought in.
-
-Some prisoners had been taken from the insurgents, including three or
-four wounded officers, the chief of whom, Colonel Garrigó, was captured
-amongst the guns, where his horse fell, killed by grape-shot. The
-gallant manner in which Garrigó had led his men again and again to the
-charge, encountering each time a storm of bullets, had excited a strong
-interest in his fate, and measures were taken to move the queen’s
-clemency on his behalf. Before the result of these were known, and when
-it was thought probable that at any hour he might be judged, condemned,
-and shot, I went to the ward of the military hospital where he lay under
-arrest, to see another officer of cavalry who had been wounded when with
-the insurgents. This officer had gone out of Madrid to see some friends
-who were with O’Donnell; he was in plain clothes and without arms, but,
-venturing too far forward during the action, he got struck from his
-horse, and received, as he lay on the ground, a lance-thrust in the
-neck, of which, however, he complained less than of blows received from
-the lance-poles, when the men struck at him as they rode rapidly past.
-He had afterwards been taken prisoner by an officer, and brought into
-Madrid. In the next bed to him was Garrigó, a swarthy, soldierly-looking
-man of about fifty-five; he had been hit in the leg, but not severely,
-by a grape-shot, and was sitting up in bed, fanning away the flies which
-entered in unpleasant numbers through the open windows. He looked
-gloomy, but firm. There were some other wounded officers in the ward,
-one of whom subsequently died after undergoing amputation of a leg, and
-a number of soldiers in an adjoining one. Amongst the insurgents, I
-heard there were as many killed as wounded; and many horses dead, the
-artillery having pointed their guns low. Grape and round shot, at fifty
-paces, the distance to which the cavalry were allowed to come before the
-gunners got the word, were quite as likely, perhaps, to kill as only to
-wound. An officer received two grape-shot in his face—one at each angle
-of the nostrils; another, Captain Letamendi, the English son of a
-Spanish father, who served during the civil war in the British Legion,
-was met by a round shot, which carried away the greater part of his
-head. But you will find nothing attractive in such details.
-
-The combat of Vicálvaro, insignificant in its material results, had
-little effect upon the _morale_ of either party. The government troops
-were assured by the gazette that they had achieved a glorious victory,
-of which they themselves were not very sure, especially when they saw
-the numerous carts of wounded that came into the town, and remembered
-their own disorderly return from the field and final panic. The
-insurgents, conscious that they had fought gallantly, and lost no
-ground, although they had failed in their chief object, which was to
-capture the artillery, were well satisfied with themselves, and in no
-way disheartened by the event. It was clear that the insurgent generals
-must not reckon on the support of the garrison of Madrid, and they
-consequently changed their plans, retiring to Aranjuez, a pleasant spot,
-eight leagues from Madrid, with abundant shade, water, and forage, where
-for two or three days they gave their men and horses rest, organised
-their staff and commissariat, and took other measures necessary for the
-welfare of the division. There they received several reinforcements,
-both of infantry and cavalry, and were joined by a number of civilians
-from Madrid, many of them belonging to the better classes. These
-received caps, muskets, and belts, and were formed into a battalion
-called the _Cazadores di Madrid_.
-
-Meanwhile, the capital anxiously awaited news from the provinces, where
-insurrections were expected to occur. Madrid itself continued perfectly
-tranquil, although occasional rumours of an intended popular rising
-alarmed the government. The excitement of the first three days subsided
-into a strong interest. There was great eagerness for news from the
-insurgents, and much difficulty in learning anything authentic,
-especially when once they had left Aranjuez. Save the government and its
-hangers-on and personal adherents, all Madrid was for the insurrection,
-and heartily wished it well. The recent compulsory advance of half a
-year’s taxes, extorted from the people by a notoriously corrupt and
-grasping government, had greatly incensed the Madrileños, who did not
-scruple openly to express their good wishes for Generals O’Donnell and
-Dulce, the most prominent personages of the day and of the movement.
-Although the insurrection deprived Madrid of two things which it can ill
-do without, bull-fights and strawberries, not a murmur was heard on this
-account. Aranjuez is the strawberry garden of Madrid, and from it daily
-comes an abundant supply of that fruit, particularly grateful in this
-hot climate. I suppose that the insurgents, who had been for three days
-roasting in the shadeless desert that surrounds this capital, needed
-refreshment, and eat up all the strawberries, or else that the want of a
-railway—that to Aranjuez being partly in the hands of the government,
-and partly in those of O’Donnell, and cut in the middle—precluded their
-being sent. As for bull-fights, it was no time for them when man-fights
-were going on; and moreover, the gates of Madrid were for several days
-shut—besides which, some of the bull-fighters are said to have joined
-the insurgents. The dramatic season being at an end, and all the
-theatres closed, Madrid has now for sole amusement the insurrection,
-which every day seems taking farther from its walls, but which not
-impossibly may break out again within them. If a decided advantage were
-gained by O’Donnell’s division, or if news came that Saragossa or some
-other large town had pronounced against the government, there would very
-likely be a rising in this capital. I am assured that attempts are now
-making to work upon the troops of the garrison, and if only a few
-companies could be won over and relied upon, the government might
-speedily be upset. There are in Madrid plenty of ex-national guards, and
-of men who have served in the army, who would quickly produce their
-hidden arms and rush out into the streets, with cries of “Down with the
-ministry.” It is matter of considerable doubt whether these would be
-coupled with _vivas_ for the Queen. As for the Queen-mother, I am
-convinced that her life would be in danger in the event of such an
-outbreak. She is deeply detested here; the more so as she is known to
-support the present government with all the influence she possesses over
-her daughter. A Madrid revolutionary mob is dangerous, vindictive, and
-bloody-minded. In proof of this many incidents recur to my memory, and
-doubtless will to yours—amongst others, the fate of Quesada, whose son
-is now military governor here, and who was almost torn to pieces at the
-country house in the environs, whither he had fled for shelter. His
-murderers returned to Madrid, singing the dreaded _Tragala!_ and drank
-in the public cafés bowls of coffee stirred with his severed fingers.
-The revolutionary spirit is calmer now, but it may again revive upon
-occasion. No person in Spain, not even Sartorius himself, who certainly
-is sufficiently hated, is so much under public ban as Maria Christina.
-She doubtless knows it: her conscience can hardly be easy, and her fears
-are probably roused; for her approaching departure for France is much
-spoken of, and likely to take place.
-
-Since O’Donnell’s division left the neighbourhood of Madrid, we have
-heard comparatively little concerning him. We know his route; also that
-his strength has somewhat increased, that his troops are
-well-disciplined and confident of success, and that he is at this date
-in Andalusia. Where he may be, and what may have occurred by the time
-you receive this letter, it is of course impossible to foretell; but,
-although ministerial bulletins daily scatter his men to the winds,
-representing them as deserting, weary, exterminated, and, if possible,
-even in worse plight, the truth is that they are in as good order, and
-as ready for service, as if they held themselves subject to the
-government of the Queen. Every possible means have been taken by the
-authorities to throw discredit upon the insurgents and upon their
-leaders, by representing them as robbers and oppressors, paying for
-nothing, ill-treating the people, and exacting forced contributions at
-the bayonet’s point. “To lie like a bulletin,” is an old saying, but it
-would be at least as apt to say—“like the _Madrid Gazette_ or the
-_Heraldo_ newspaper.” I can well imagine how difficult it must be in
-other countries to get at the truth about Spanish affairs, when I see
-the systematic efforts made to suppress it here. Letters are seized by
-wholesale in their passage through the post-office, some newspapers are
-suppressed, and others are permitted to publish no news but those they
-copy from the government journals, which are for the most part
-ingeniously embellished to suit the purpose of the ministers; whilst
-sometimes they are pure fabrications. One of the great occupations of
-the official papers, for the first few days after the insurrection broke
-out, was to blacken the character of its leaders. Dulce, especially—who,
-in common with the other generals engaged in the outbreak, had been
-stripped by royal decree of all rank, titles, and honours—was the object
-of abuse which bordered upon billingsgate.
-
-The virtuous _Heraldo_ daily came out with fierce philippics upon the
-“rebel and traitor,” who had deserted his Queen because he deemed that
-she had deserted the country and broken her oath, and who, by so doing,
-had exchanged large emoluments, high rank, and one of the best positions
-his profession affords in Spain, for the uncertain fate of an insurgent
-leader—perhaps, in the end, for a short shrift and a firing party. The
-men of the _Heraldo_ could not understand this; they felt that _they_
-were incapable of such conduct; in their heart of hearts they must have
-thought Dulce more remarkable as a fool than as a rebel, but in their
-paper they contented themselves with abusing him as the latter. Inexpert
-with the pen, Dulce nevertheless took it up to reply. On the 1st of
-July, the day after the drawn fight of Vicálvaro, and in a village close
-to the scene of action, he wrote a letter, whose faulty style and
-soldierly abruptness are the best evidence of its being his own
-unassisted production. As a characteristic production, and in justice to
-its writer, who will doubtless be blamed by many in foreign countries,
-where the facts of the case and the extent of the sacrifices he has made
-are imperfectly known and appreciated, I give you a translation of the
-letter. It is addressed to the editors of the _Heraldo_, and runs as
-follows:—
-
-“Since you have allowed the publication in your periodical of an article
-referring to me personally, and to my conduct, and as I consider that an
-insult is not a reason, I trust you will be pleased to publish my
-protest against the whole of your accusation, by doing which you will
-fulfil your duty as public writers.
-
-“I do not wish to prejudge the issue of our enterprise; whatever that
-may be it will not surprise me, or make me repent what I have done. That
-I may not be disappointed, the worst that I expect is to die in the
-field of battle or in the _Campo de Guardias_ (the place of military
-executions at Madrid). Whatever occurs, I shall have acted according to
-my conscience.
-
-“I seek neither places nor honours, for I have them in abundance. No
-desire of revenge of any kind has moved me, for I cherish neither
-dislike nor resentment against the persons composing the present
-government, and much less against the Queen. The cause of my
-insurrection is entirely the memory that I have of the oath taken by the
-King of Castile when he ascends the throne. He swears upon the Holy
-Scriptures to observe and enforce the law of the State—‘_and if I should
-not do so, I desire not to be obeyed_.’
-
-“My conviction is, that the Queen has violated her oath, and, in this
-case, I prefer being guilty of _leze-majesty_ to being guilty of
-_leze-nation_.
-
-“I well know that the sentiments I have expressed will not convince you,
-because they must be felt and not explained. For my justification I
-appeal to the inexorable tribunal of posterity, and to the secret police
-of the consciences of yourselves in the first place, of the Queen
-herself, and of this unhappy country.
-
-“A copy of this document is already on the road, and will be published,
-as you will see, in foreign countries. I also send it to other Madrid
-newspapers, although I believe that a miserable fear will prevent their
-publishing it.
-
-“That you may never be able to deny that I have sent you this letter, I
-have had formal registry made of it, and it perhaps will one day be
-published. I trust then that you will be sufficiently generous and
-gentlemanly[29] to insert it in your periodical, by doing which you will
-highly oblige me. (Signed) EL GENERAL DULCE.
-
-“Vallecas, 1st July 1854.
-
-“The original is to be found duly stamped in the register of this
-corporation, where it has been inserted against the will of the
-individuals composing it, who are exempt from all blame.”
-
-I need hardly say that the _Heraldo_ has not published this letter, of
-which numerous copies have been distributed in Madrid by friends of its
-writer, and by persons who believe that, as he himself says, he has
-“acted according to his conscience (_dado una satisfaccion à mi
-conciencia_), and who admire his disinterestedness—the rarest quality
-amongst public men in Spain.
-
-It is not easy to foretell the result of this insurrection, which has
-now lasted for fifteen days without any decisive or even important
-event. The country, taken by surprise, and ignorant of the objects of
-the outbreak—which it suspected to have been made merely to bring about
-a change of men, but not of system—looked on at first with apathy.
-O’Donnell’s greatest error was the first proclamation he issued, which,
-in many words, said nothing and held out no prospect of advantage to the
-people. Another has just appeared, short, pithy, explicit, and
-calculated to satisfy the liberal party. It promises the Spanish nation
-the benefits of the representative system, for which it has shed so much
-of its blood and made so many sacrifices, as yet without result.
-
-“It is time,” it continues, “to say what we propose doing on the day of
-victory. We desire the preservation of the throne, but without the
-camarilla that dishonours it; the rigorous enforcement of the
-fundamental laws, improving them, especially those of elections and of
-the press; a diminution of taxation, founded on strict economy; respect
-to seniority and merit in the civil and military services. We desire to
-relieve the towns from the centralising system that consumes them,
-giving them the local independence necessary to preserve and increase
-their own interests; and, as a guarantee of all these things, we desire
-the NATIONAL MILITIA, and will plant it on a solid basis. Such are our
-intentions, which we frankly express, but without imposing them upon the
-nation. The juntas of government that are to be constituted in the free
-provinces, the general Cortes that are soon to be assembled, the nation
-itself, in short, shall fix the definitive bases of the liberal
-regeneration to which we aspire. We devote our swords to the national
-will, and sheathe them only when it is fulfilled.”
-
-This proclamation is dated from Manzanaris, the 7th July, and is signed
-by O’Donnell. You will observe that no mention is made in it of the
-Queen. It is monarchical, because it desires to “preserve the throne;”
-but it by no means pledges those who publish it to retain Isabella II.
-The promise to arm the national guard is the most important that it
-contains, since that is the only guarantee the Liberals can have for the
-fulfilment of the other pledges. It may possibly induce the
-Progresistas, who hitherto have scarcely stirred in the business, to
-take active measures. Meanwhile we hear of risings and armed bands in
-various parts of the country, and persons familiar with Spanish
-revolutions, and who have witnessed many of them, notice signs of
-fermentation, which prove the insurrectionary spirit to be spreading—a
-bubble here and there on water, indicating that it will presently boil.
-When O’Donnell’s proclamation gets spread abroad, and its purport known,
-it is quite possible that large towns or districts may declare for the
-insurgents. In Spain, however, it is most difficult to speculate on
-coming events, for it is the land of the unforeseen—_le pays de
-l’imprévu_—and I shall not attempt to play the prophet, for, if I did,
-perhaps, before my letter reached you, the electric telegraph would have
-proved me a false one. Moreover, I have no time to add much more, for I
-well know that you, Ebony, will grumble, if this letter does not reach
-you somewhere about the twentieth of the month. Moreover, the horses of
-Maga’s foreign-service messenger neigh with impatience, and the escort
-which is to accompany him on the first stage of his journey is already
-formed up. For the roads are far from safe just now, thanks to the
-concentration of the gendarmes, (who usually keep excellent order upon
-them), to do duty in the capital, or pursue the insurgents. We hear of
-various bands appearing—north, south, and east—some calling themselves
-Carlists, others Republicans, but in either case probably not pleasant
-to meet on the road; and besides those there are smaller parties who do
-not aspire to a political character, and are abroad simply for their own
-behoof and advantage, and, I need not say, for the disadvantage of the
-travellers they may chance to encounter. As for sending letters of the
-nature and importance of this one by the ordinary channel of Her
-Catholic Majesty’s mails, one would do better to abstain from writing
-them, as the chances would be fifty to one against their ever reaching
-their destination. One might almost as well throw them into the fire as
-into the marble lion’s mouth that yawns at the _casa de correos_,—as if
-to warn people of the dangers their correspondence runs. Were I to
-consign this epistle to leo’s jaws, I should not expect it ever to go
-farther than to the Graham-department of the Madrid post-office.
-
-Although you will have gathered from the newspapers the principal
-events, and some of the minor particulars of the insurrection of 1854—as
-far as it has as yet gone—this sketch of it, however imperfect, from an
-eyewitness, will, I trust, interest you. Spanish revolutions and
-insurrections rarely resemble each other; every successive outbreak has
-a character of its own, distinct from that of its predecessors. And that
-of the 28th of last month has peculiar features, which I have
-endeavoured to portray. If my letter has no other merit, it will, I
-think, bring its readers, concisely, without much detail, but with
-perfect truth, up to the present point of Spanish politics. Should aught
-worth relating occur whilst I am within the boundaries of Queen Isabel’s
-dominions, rely upon my keeping you duly informed. Meanwhile, may
-Providence preserve you, in your happy Land of Cakes, alike from
-military revolts, and from popular _pronunciamientos_. So prays, from
-his exile _in partibus_, your faithful
-
-                                                                VEDETTE.
-
-
-
-
-                        THE ETHNOLOGY OF EUROPE.
-
-
-“There were brave men before Agamemnon,”—heroes before there was a Homer
-to sing them, says that prince of sensible poets, Horace. It is not less
-true that there were nations before history—communities, races, of which
-the eye of civilisation never caught a glimpse. In some cases, before
-the light of history broke in upon their seclusion, these old types of
-mankind, losing their individuality, had become merged in a succeeding
-and mightier wave of population; in others they had wholly
-disappeared,—they had lived and fought and died in perfect isolation
-from every focus of civilisation, and left not even a floating legend
-behind them in the world. Man’s mortality—the destiny of the individual
-to pass away from earth like a vapour, making room for others, heirs of
-his wisdom and unimbued with his prejudices—is the most familiar of
-truths; but the mortality of nations, the death of races, is a
-conception which at first staggers us. That a family should grow into a
-nation,—that from the loins of one man should descend a seed like unto
-the sands on the sea-shore for multitude, appears to our everyday senses
-as a natural consequence; but that nations should dwindle down to
-families, and families into solitary individuals, until death gets all,
-and earth has swallowed up a whole phase of humanity, is a thought the
-grandeur of which is felt to be solemn, if not appalling. The
-conception, however, need not be a strange one. Facts, which reconcile
-us to everything, are testifying to its truth even at the present day.
-It is not long since the Guanches in the Canary Islands, that last
-specimen of what may once have been a race, and the Guarras in Brazil,
-dwindled out of existence in their last asylum,—expiring at the feet of
-the more lordly race which the fulness of time brought to their
-dwellings.
-
-Not to mention the Miaou-tse in China, and other relics of Asiatic
-races, the same phenomenon is more impressively presented to us among
-the Red Men of America, where the old race is seen dying out beneath our
-very eyes. Year by year they are melting away. Of the millions which
-once peopled the vast regions on this side of the Mississippi River, all
-have vanished, but a few scattered families; and it is as clear as the
-sun at noonday, that in a few generations more, the last of the Red Men
-will be numbered with the dead. Why, is it asked, are they thus doomed?
-In the suburbs of Mobile, or wandering through its streets, you will see
-the remnant of the Choctaw tribe, covered with nothing but blankets, and
-living in bark tents, scarcely a degree advanced above the beasts of the
-field. No philanthropy can civilise them,—no ingenuity can induce them
-to do an honest day’s work. The life of the woods is struck from
-them,—the white man has taken their hunting-grounds; and they live on
-helpless as in a dream, quietly abiding their time. They are stationary,
-they will not advance; and, like everything stationary, the world is
-sweeping away. They sufficed for the first phase of humanity in the New
-World. As long as there was only need for man to be lord of the woods
-and of the animal creation, the Red Man did well; but no sooner did the
-call come for him to perfect himself, and change the primeval forest
-into gardens, than the Red Man knew, by mysterious instinct, that his
-mission was over,—and either allowed himself, in sheer apathy, to sink
-out of existence among the pitiless feet of the new-comers, or died
-fighting fiercely with the apostle of a civilisation which he hated but
-could not comprehend.
-
-Far back in the history of Europe and of our own country—or rather, we
-should say, in periods entirely pre-historic—it is now known that a
-similar disappearance of a human race has taken place. Celt and Teuton,
-we fancy, were the first occupiers of Europe,—but the case is not so. A
-wave or waves of population had preceded even them; and as we dig down
-into the soil beneath us, ever and anon we come upon strange and
-startling traces of those primeval occupants of the land. In those
-natural museums of the past, the caves and peat-bogs of Europe, the
-keen-witted archæologists of present times are finding abundant relics
-of a race dissimilar from all the human varieties of which written
-history takes cognisance. The researches of Wilson among the peat-bogs
-of the British Isles have brought to light traces of no less than two
-distinct pre-Celtic races inhabiting the land,—one of which had the
-skull of a singularly broad and short, square and compact form, while
-the head of the other race was long and very narrow, or “boat-shaped.”
-The exhumations of Retzius show that precisely similar races once
-inhabited Scandinavia. The caves and ossuaries of Franconia and Upper
-Saxony prove that in Central Europe, also, there were races before the
-advent of the Celts; and the researches of Boucher de Perthes, amid the
-alluvial stratifications of the river Somme, indicate a not less ancient
-epoch for the cinerary urns, bones, and instruments of a primordial
-people in France.
-
-
-  “Here,” says M. de Perthes, “we naturally inquire, who were these
-  mysterious primitive inhabitants of Gaul? We are told that this part
-  of Europe is of modern origin, or at least of recent population. Its
-  annals scarcely reach to twenty centuries, and even its traditions do
-  not exceed two thousand five hundred years. The various people who are
-  known to history as having occupied it—the Gauls, the Celts, the
-  Veneti, Ligurians, Iberians, Cimbrians, and Scythians have left no
-  vestiges to which we can assign that date. The traces of those
-  [originally] nomadic tribes who ravaged Gaul scarcely precede the
-  Christian era by a few centuries. Was Gaul, then, a desert, a
-  solitude, before this period? Was its sun less genial, or its soil
-  less fertile? Were not its hills as pleasant, and its plains and
-  valleys as ready for the harvest? Or, if men had not yet learned to
-  plough and sow, were not its rivers filled with fish, and its forests
-  with game? And, if the land abounded with everything calculated to
-  attract and support a population, why should it not have been
-  inhabited? The absence of great ruins, indeed, indicates that Gaul at
-  this period, and even much later, had not attained a great degree of
-  civilisation, nor been the seat of powerful kingdoms; but why should
-  it not have had its towns and villages?—or rather, why should it not,
-  like the steppes of Russia, the prairies and virgin forests of
-  America, and the fertile plains of Africa, have been overrun from time
-  immemorial by tribes of men—savages, perhaps, but nevertheless united
-  in families if not in nations?”
-
-
-We shall not dwell at present upon the relics of these races who have
-thus preceded all history, and vanished into their graves before a
-civilised age could behold them. We shall not accompany M. de Perthes in
-his various excavations, nor, after passing through the first stratum of
-soil, and coming to the relics of the middle ages, see him meet
-subsequently, in regular order, with traces of the Roman and Celtic
-periods, until at last he comes upon weapons, utensils, figures, signs
-and symbols, which must have been the work of a surpassingly ancient
-people. We need not describe his discovery of successive beds of bones
-and ashes, separated from each other by strata of turf and tufa, with no
-less than five different stages of cinerary urns, belonging to distinct
-generations, of which the oldest were deposited below the woody or
-diluvian turf,—nor the coarse structure of these vases (made by hand and
-dried in the sun), nor the rude utensils of bone, or roughly-carved
-stone, by which they were surrounded.[30] Neither need we do more than
-allude to the remains of a fossil whale recently exhumed in Blair
-Drummond moss, (twenty miles from the nearest point of the river Forth
-where, by any possibility, a whale could nowadays be stranded), having
-beside it a rude harpoon of deer’s horn—speaking plainly of the
-coexistence, in these remote pre-Celtic times, of human inhabitants.
-Even above ground there are striking relics scattered over Europe which
-it would be hazardous to assign to any race known to history. Those
-circles of upright stones, of which Stonehenge is the most familiar
-example, date back to an unknown antiquity. They are found throughout
-Europe, from Norway to the Mediterranean; and manifestly they must have
-been erected by a numerous people, and faithful exponents of a general
-sentiment, since we find them in so many countries. They are commonly
-called Celtic or Druidic; not because they were raised originally by
-Druids, but because they had been used in the Druidical worship, though
-erected, it may be, for other uses, or dedicated to other
-divinities,—even as the temples of Paganism afterwards served for the
-solemnities of Christianity. All that we know is, that, having neither
-date nor inscription, they must be older than written language,—for a
-people who can write never leave their own names or exploits
-unchronicled. The ancients were as ignorant on this matter as ourselves;
-even tradition is silent; and, at the period of the Roman invasion, the
-origin of those monuments was already shrouded in obscurity. A
-revolution, therefore, must have intervened between the time of their
-erection and the advent of the Legions; and what revolution could it be
-in those days save a revolution of race? “The Celtæ,” says Dr Wilson,
-“are by no means to be regarded as the primal heirs of the land, but
-are, on the contrary, comparatively recent intruders. Ages before their
-migration into Europe, an unknown Allophylian race had wandered to this
-remote island of the sea, and in its turn gave place to later
-Allophylian nomades, also destined to occupy it only for a time. Of
-these ante-historical nations, archæology alone reveals any traces.”
-
-Passing from this strange and solemn spectacle of the death and utter
-extinction of human races, once living and enjoying themselves amidst
-those very scenes where we ourselves now pant and revel in the drama of
-existence,—let us look upon the face of Europe as it appears when first
-the light of history broke upon it. Since then, there have been
-remarkable declines, but no extinction of races. As if war and rivalry
-were a permanent attribute of the species, when the curtain first rises
-upon Europe, it is a struggle of races that is discernible through the
-gloom. A dark-skinned race, long settled in the land, are fighting
-doggedly with a fair-skinned race of invaders from the East. The
-dark-skins were worsted, but still survive—definitely in detached
-groups, and indefinitely as a leaven to entire populations. That
-dark-skinned race have been called Iberians,—the fair-skinned new-comers
-were the Indo-Germans, headed by the Gaels or Celts. When the two races
-first met in Europe—the _blond_ from the south-east, meeting the _dark_
-in the west—they encountered each other as natural enemies, and a severe
-struggle ensued. The Celts finally forced their way into Spain, and
-established themselves there,—became more or less amalgamated with the
-darker occupants, and were called _Celt-Iberians_. Ever since, these two
-opposite types have been commingling throughout Western Europe; but a
-complete fusion has not even yet taken place, and the types of each are
-still traceable in certain localities.
-
-There was thus an Iberian world before there was a Celtic world. One of
-the pre-Celtic populations of the British Isles was probably Iberian;
-and their type, besides leavening indefinitely a portion of the present
-population, is still distinctly traceable in many of the dark-haired,
-dark-eyed, and dark-skinned Irish, as well as occasionally in Great
-Britain itself. The Basques, protected by their Pyrenean fastnesses, are
-a still existent group of nearly pure Iberians; and of their tongue,
-termed Euskaldune by its speakers, Duponceau long ago said:—“This
-language, preserved in a corner of Europe, by a few thousand
-mountaineers, is the sole remaining fragment of perhaps a hundred
-dialects, constructed on the same plan, which probably existed and were
-universally spoken, at a remote period, in that quarter of the world.
-Like the bones of the mammoth, and the relics of unknown races which
-have perished, it remains a monument of the destruction brought by a
-succession of ages. It stands single and alone of its kind, surrounded
-by idioms whose modern construction bears no analogy to it.”
-
-The Bretons form another isolated but less distinct group of still
-existent Iberians. To this day they present a striking contrast to the
-population around them, who are of tall stature, with blue eyes, white
-skins, and blond hair—communicative, impetuous, versatile—passing
-rapidly from courage to timidity, and from audacity to despair;—in other
-words, presenting the distinctive character of the Celtic race, now, as
-in the ancient Gauls. The Bretons are entirely different. They are
-taciturn—hold strongly to their ideas and usages—are persevering and of
-melancholic temperament;—in a word, both in _morale_ and _physique_,
-they present the type of a southern race. And this brings us to the
-question—whence came these Iberians? M. Bodichon, a surgeon
-distinguished for fifteen years in the French army of Algeria, observes
-that persons who have lived in Brittany, and then go to Algeria, are
-struck with the resemblance which they discover between the ancient
-Armoricans (the Bretons) and the Cabyles of northern Africa. “In fact,
-the moral and physical character of the two races is identical. The
-Breton of pure blood has a bony head, light-yellow complexion of bistre
-tinge, eyes black or brown, stature short, and the black hair of the
-Cabyle. Like him, he instinctively hates strangers. In both, the same
-perverseness and obstinacy, the same endurance of fatigue, same love of
-independence, same inflexion of voice, same expression of feelings.
-Listen to a Cabyle speaking his native tongue, and you will think you
-hear a Breton talking Celtic.” Impressed with this resemblance, M.
-Bodichon was induced to reflect on the subject, and at last came to the
-conclusion that the Berbers who primally peopled Northern Africa, and
-the dark-skinned Iberians of Western Europe, belonged to the same race.
-He thinks that, as Europe and Africa were once united at their western
-extremities, previous to the convulsion which produced the Straits of
-Gibraltar, this Iberian population passed into Spain by this primeval
-isthmus, and thence diffused themselves over Western Europe and its
-isles. Whether this were actually the case, it is hard to say; but it is
-important to note that Sallust, quoting “the Punic books which were
-ascribed to King Hiempsal,” exactly reverses the course of migration,
-and states that the progenitors of the African Moors were Medians and
-Persians who had marched through Europe into Spain, and thence into
-Mauritania—though whether overland by the isthmus, or by boats across
-the strait, is still left to conjecture. Prichard thinks the Libyans and
-Iberians were distinct races, but owns that they were found
-intermingling in the islands and along the western shores of the
-Mediterranean. Of course it may be taken for granted that among these
-Iberians thus spread over Africa, Spain, France, and the British Isles,
-local differences would exist—just as there is a perceptible difference
-between the Anglo-Saxons of the Old World and those of the New; but
-there is little doubt that the _Scoti_ of Ireland, the Iberians of
-Spain, and the Berbers of Africa, belonged to a fundamentally identical
-race.
-
-How any race first came into a country, is a matter of little moment,
-especially when the epoch of their arrival so far transcends the dawn of
-history as does that of the Iberians. Even the first wave of the Celtic
-migration had reached the West before any scrutiny of their progress was
-possible; for when tradition first dimly opens upon Gaul, about 1500 B.
-C., its territory was occupied by these two primitive and
-distinctly-marked Caucasian races—the Celts and Iberians: the one
-fair-skinned and light-haired, the other a dark race; and each speaking
-a language bearing no affinity to that of the other—precisely as the
-Euskaldune of the present Basques is unintelligible to Gaelic tribes of
-Lower Brittany. Some of the subsequent waves of Celtic or Scythic
-migration come within the ken of history; and it is remarkable that the
-line of march which these followed, after passing the shores of the
-Black Sea, seems to have been along the “Riphæan Valley,” which lay to
-the north of the Carpathian mountains, and stretched to the Baltic. Now,
-if we look at the contour map of Europe in _Johnston’s Physical Atlas_,
-we see a narrow strip of the lowest elevation extending from the Black
-Sea to the Baltic—nowhere rising to the second line of elevation, _i.e._
-more than 150 and less than 300 feet above the level of the sea,—and
-turning to the geological map, we find that this same tract is overlaid
-with recent diluvial deposits. We know that the Scandinavian region is
-rising, and it is probable that all the plain of Sarmatia has partaken
-of the elevation,—and before the barriers of the Thracian Bosphorus
-burst, it is quite certain that the waters of the Caspian, the Euxine,
-and the Baltic were united by that “ocean-river” of which Homer, Hesiod,
-and all the old bards sing, and by sailing along which, both the
-Argonauts and Ulysses are reported to have passed northwards into the
-western ocean. The existence of this vast belt of water, stretching from
-the southmost point of the Baltic to the Caucasus, is probably one
-reason why the Slavonians were late of appearing in southern Europe, and
-why no sprinkling of them or of the Mongols is to be found among the
-early settlers of South-western Europe. All the early migrations into
-Europe proceeded from Caucasian or sub-Caucasian regions—a circumstance
-which, considering the known simultaneous existence of roving hordes and
-a great population on the Mongolian plains, can hardly be accounted for
-on the supposition that the face of Eastern Europe has since then
-undergone no change. But on the supposition we make, the chain of the
-Ural Mountains and this large Mediterranean basin would for long act as
-restraints upon any tendency of the Mongolian population to move
-westward, or of the Slavonians to move southwards.[31]
-
-The next wave of population which flowed westwards was the Cimbri or
-Cimmerians,—a people cognate to the Celts or Gaels, yet by no means
-closely related. About the seventh century B.C., as may be inferred from
-Herodotus, a clan of this race abandoned the Tauric Chersonese, and
-marched westwards,—this Cimbrian migration, however, like most others,
-not being conducted in one mass, but by successive and sometimes
-widely-severed movements. Three centuries afterwards we find the Cimbri
-on the shores of the Northern Ocean in Jutland; and between the years
-113 and 101 B.C., we find the race all on the move, and setting out on
-that southward career of devastation which eventually brought them into
-Gaul, Spain, and Italy. The Belgians seem to have been a Cimbrian tribe
-which had preceded the main body; for when, in this invasion, the Cimbri
-reached Northern Gaul, the Belgæ immediately joined them as allies
-against the Celts,—and it seems also proven that the Cimbri and Belgæ
-spoke dialects of the same language. The Celts, routed by the invaders,
-were impelled to the south and east, doubtless trespassing in turn upon
-the dark-skinned Iberians. It was immediately after this inroad that
-Cæsar and his Romans entered Gaul, and commenced his Commentaries with
-the well-known statement:—“All Gaul is divided into three parts, of
-which one is inhabited by the Belgians, [or Cimbri, in the
-north]—another by the Aquitanians [or Iberians, in the south-west],—and
-the third [or eastern], by those who in their own language, call
-themselves Celts, and who in our tongue are called Gael (_Galli_). These
-races differ among themselves by their language, their manners, and
-their laws.” Previous to this time the Teutons had settled in central
-Europe, and in alliance with Celtic tribes made incursions into Italy.
-
-We have now reached a period at which the population of Europe becomes
-greatly mixed, in consequence of the constant rovings and incursions of
-the various races and tribes of which it was composed. It is interesting
-to note the effect of such a state of things upon the physical
-characteristics of the people. And first it is to be observed, that,
-with extremely rare exceptions, conquest is not attended by
-extermination. When one people, even in semi-barbarous times, conquers
-another, it does not annihilate and rarely displaces, but for the most
-part only overlays it. The annihilating process, of which a sample may
-be seen in America, only takes place in the rare case of the meeting of
-two nations, in such widely different states of civilisation as to
-render amalgamation impossible,—and even in this case only when the
-inferior race is so intractable as to resist all obedience to the
-superior. _Displacement_—which is obsolete now, since advancing
-civilisation has rendered conquest political only—was pretty common two
-thousand years ago, when Europe was thinly and nomadically peopled, and
-tribes migrated _en masse_. In this way, for example, the Cimbri wedged
-themselves in among the Celts in Northern Gaul, and took possession of a
-large tract in Northern Italy. But soon after the Christian era—chiefly
-in consequence of the increasing density and settled habits of the
-population—conquest ceased to produce either extermination or
-displacement, and consisted merely in the overlaying of one population
-by another much less numerous but more powerful. Thus the Normans in
-England and the Franks in Gaul were but a handful compared to the
-conquered population; and consequently, though they might give their
-laws and even their name to the country, they could not materially alter
-the physical character of the people.
-
-The chief influence which, in the case of two races mingling, determines
-the preservation or extinction of types or national features, is simply
-the numerical proportion existing between the two races thus
-amalgamating. When races meet and mix on equal terms, and with no
-natural repugnance to each other (in other words, _cæteris paribus_),
-the relative number of the two races decides the question—the type of
-the smaller number, in this hypothetical case, inevitably disappearing
-in the long run. Take, for example, a thousand white families and fifty
-black ones—place them on an island, and let them regularly intermarry;
-and the result would be, that in the course of time the black type would
-disappear, although there is reason to believe that traces of it would
-“crop out” during a very long period. And if two fair-skinned races were
-brought into contact in a similar manner, and in similar proportions,
-the extermination of the less numerous one would be even sooner
-effected. The operation of this law is well illustrated in the lower
-animals. Cross two domestic animals of different breeds—take the
-offspring and cross it with one of the parent stocks, and continue this
-process for a few generations, and the result is that the one becomes
-swallowed up in the other. This is the theory; but in the actual world
-races never intermarry with such theoretical regularity and
-indifference. Each community of mankind has, as its conservative
-element, a tendency to form unions within its own limits; and if a
-foreign element is once introduced into a population, the operation of
-this predilection tends to preserve the type of the lesser number for a
-much longer period than mere theory would assign to it. The
-stranger-hating and obstinate-tempered Bretons and Basques, for
-instance, by intermarrying among themselves, have thus preserved the
-type of the old Iberians through three thousand years, although
-surrounded on all sides by the fair-haired Celts. In the case of a
-conquering race like the Franks and Normans, there is generally less
-isolation than this; but then, the way in which the amalgamation between
-the conquerors and the conquered takes place, is such as to give a great
-advantage to the former. The sons of the conquerors may wed the
-daughters of the conquered, for the sake of their lands; but it is
-comparatively seldom that the daughters of the invaders will condescend
-to tarnish their scutcheon by becoming wedded to and merged in the class
-of the vanquished. The principle of caste is all-pervading, even when
-nominally repudiated; and thus, as the male ever influences most
-directly the type of the offspring, a small number of conquerors may for
-long perpetuate their line in comparative purity, even though surrounded
-by myriads of a different race.
-
-From all this it results, that when a small body of foreigners is shot
-into the middle of a large population, as it were in virtue of a mere
-casual impetus, and not owing to higher qualities and organisation on
-the part of the aliens, the new-comers are quickly absorbed into the
-general mass of the population, and their type, in course of time,
-wholly disappears. The history of Italy throws important light upon this
-subject. Successive hordes of barbarians broke into and overran that
-country, powerful from their rude energy, but numerically weak, and
-inferior in mental condition to the conquered race. Again and again did
-human waves of Visigoths, Vandals, Huns, Herules, Ostrogoths, Lombards,
-and Normans roll in succession over the Italian plains; and even the
-Saracens for a time held possession of some of its fairest provinces;
-yet what vestiges remain in Italy of these barbarian surges? The first
-three passed over it like tornados; the two next, after contending with
-the Goths, were expelled from the land; and of the whole conglomerate
-mass but small fragments were left, too insignificant to materially
-influence the native Italic types. The Lombards, indeed, remained, and
-implanted their name on a portion of the peninsula; but, with this
-fragmentary exception, the aboriginal population of Italy has remained
-unaltered in blood and features since the early times when the Celts and
-Cimbri made settlements in its northern provinces. And thus the normal
-law is fulfilled, in the invaders being swallowed up in the mass of the
-native population,—leavening it, of course, more or less, but ever
-tending towards ultimate extinction.
-
-When a really conquering race, however—one superior alike in physical
-and mental power to the subjugated population—invades a country, and,
-instead of being expelled, or passing onwards like a transient
-whirlwind, continues to hold the realm in virtue of superior power, such
-a race, as we have said, may long and almost indelibly perpetuate their
-features in the land. In such a case they in reality, if not in name,
-form a caste; each one of the invaders becomes a noble; and when they
-make exceptions to the practice of intermarrying among themselves, it is
-only that they may more widely diffuse their lineaments, by forming
-matrimonial or other unions with the female portion of the native
-race.[32] Thus the feudalism of the all-conquering Normans was a system
-of caste, by means of which they long maintained the purity and
-pre-eminence of their race in the countries which they conquered; as may
-best be seen in French history, where the _vieux noblesse_, even in
-1789, were the lineal descendants of the soldiers of Clovis; and where
-the distinction between _noble_ and _roturier_ was kept up with such
-rigid and antiquated pertinacity, that at length the Celtic population,
-becoming more and more developed alike in intellect and resources, threw
-off the whole foreign system like an incubus, and returned to those
-principles of equality and volatility in government which distinguished
-their ancestors of old Gaul.
-
-We may remark in conclusion, on this topic, that the ascendancy of
-certain families of mankind is due not only to their superior physical,
-but even more to their superior mental organisation, which ever keeps
-them uppermost, and enables them to mate themselves with whom they
-please. It is a remarkable fact, as illustrative of the native vigour of
-some races, that there is not a head in Christendom which _legitimately_
-wears a crown—not a single family in Europe whose blood is acknowledged
-to be royal, but traces its genealogy to that Norman colossus, WILLIAM
-the CONQUEROR. This has been well shown by M. Paulmier;[33] but we may
-add, as a curiosity which lately attracted our own notice, when looking
-at the portrait of the Conqueror—namely, that a strong resemblance
-exists between his fine and massive features and those of the present
-Czar of Russia. Both are distinguished by the same broad brow and arched
-eyebrows (not each forming a semicircle, as seems to be the meaning of
-the term “arched” when applied to eyebrows nowadays, but both combining
-to form an oval curve, vaulting over the under part of the face, as was
-the meaning among the Greeks), the same thick straight nose, and the
-same massive and beautiful conformation in the bones of the jaw and
-chin. The face of the Czar, however, we must add, is not equal in solid
-strength and intellect to that of his great progenitor.
-
-The operation of these physiological laws upon the population of Europe
-has been interestingly illustrated by the recent researches of a French
-naturalist of high reputation, M. Edwards. This gentleman, after
-perusing Thierry’s _History of the Gauls_, made a tour through France,
-Belgium, Switzerland, and Italy, engaged in careful study of the present
-population in relation to the ancient settlers; and he asserts that now,
-after the lapse of two thousand years, the types of the Cimbri, the
-Celts, and Iberians are still distinctly traceable among their living
-descendants, in the very localities where history first descries these
-early families. Of the inland eastern parts of France, tenanted of old
-by the Gauls proper, and which were never penetrated into by the Cimbri,
-who took quiet possession of their outskirts, M. Edwards thus
-speaks:—“In traversing, from north to south, the part of France which
-corresponds to Oriental Gaul—viz., Burgundy, Lyons, Dauphiny, and
-Savoy—I have distinguished that type, so well marked, which
-ethnographers have assigned to the Gauls.” That is to say, “the head is
-so round as to approach the spherical form; the forehead is moderate,
-slightly protuberant, and receding towards the temples; eyes large and
-open; the nose, from its depression at its commencement to its
-termination, almost straight—that is to say, without any marked curve;
-its extremity is rounded, as well as the chin; the stature medium;—the
-features thus being quite in harmony with the form of the head.” Of the
-northern part of ancient Gaul, the principal seat of the Belgæ or
-Cimbri, he says:—“I traversed a great part of the _Gallia Belgica_ of
-Cæsar, from the mouth of the Somme to that of the Seine; and here I
-distinguished for the first time the assemblage of features which
-constitutes the other type, and often to such an exaggerated degree that
-I was very forcibly struck,—the long head, the broad high forehead, the
-curved nose, with the point below, and the wings tucked up; the chin
-boldly developed; and the stature tall.” In the other parts of France
-(exclusive of the south and west, anciently occupied by the Iberians),
-M. Edwards found that the Cimbrian type had been overcome by the round
-heads and straight noses of the Gauls, who were the more numerous
-because the more ancient race in those parts, and had covered the whole
-country before the arrival of the Cimbrians.
-
-Passing into Italy, he continues his examinations. “Whatever may have
-been the anterior state of matters,” he says, “it is certain, from
-Thierry’s researches and the unanimous accord of all historians, that
-the _Peuples Gaulois_ have predominated in the north of Italy, between
-the Alps and the Apennines. We find them established there at the first
-dawn of history; and the most authentic testimony represents them with
-all the character of a great nation, from this remote period down to a
-very advanced point of Roman history. This is all I need to trouble
-myself about. I know the features of their compatriots in Transalpine
-Gaul—I find them again in Cisalpine Gaul.” The old “Gallic” settlers in
-northern Italy appear to have been Cimbrian. After describing the
-well-known head of Dante—which is long and narrow, with a high and
-developed forehead, nose long and curved, with sharp point and elevated
-wings—M. Edwards says that he was struck by the great frequency of this
-type in Tuscany (although a mixed Roman type is there the prevailing
-one) among the peasantry; in the statues and busts of the Medici family;
-and also amongst the effigies and bas-reliefs of the illustrious men of
-the republic of Florence. This type is well marked since the time of
-Dante, as doubtless long before. It extends to Venice; and in the ducal
-palace, M. Edwards had occasion to observe that it is common among the
-doges. The type became more predominant as he approached Milan, and
-thence he traced it as to its fountain into Transalpine Gaul. The
-physical characteristics of the present population, therefore,
-correspond with the statements of history, and show that the ancient
-type of this widespread people, the Cimbri, has survived the lapse and
-vicissitudes of two thousand years.
-
-In passing through Florence, M. Edwards took occasion to visit the Ducal
-Gallery, to study the ancient Roman type,—selecting, by preference, the
-busts of the early Roman emperors, because they were descendants of
-ancient families. Augustus, Tiberius, Germanicus, Claudius, Nero, Titus,
-&c., exemplify this type in the Florentine collections; and the family
-resemblance is so close, and the style of features so remarkable, that
-they cannot be mistaken. The following is his description:—“The vertical
-diameter of the head is short, and, consequently, the face broad. As the
-summit of the cranium is flattened, and the lower margin of the jaw-bone
-almost horizontal, the contour of the head, when viewed in front,
-approaches a square. The lateral parts, above the ears, are protuberant;
-the forehead low; the nose truly aquiline—that is to say, the curve
-commences near the top and ends before it reaches the point, so that the
-base is horizontal; the chin is round; and the stature short.” This is
-the characteristic type of a Roman; but we cannot expect now to meet
-with absolute uniformity in any race, however seemingly pure. Such a
-type M. Edwards subsequently found to predominate in Rome, and certain
-parts of Italy, at the present day. It is the original type of the
-central portions of the peninsula, and, however overlayed at times, has
-swallowed up all intruders. As a singular corroboration of the French
-ethnographer’s observations, Mr J. C. Nott, an American surgeon and
-naturalist, says:—“A sailor came to my office, a few months ago, to have
-a dislocated arm set. When stripped and standing before me, he presented
-the type described by M. Edwards so perfectly, and moreover combined
-with such extraordinary development of bone and muscle, that there
-occurred to my mind at once the beau-ideal of a Roman soldier. Though
-the man had been an American sailor for twenty years, and spoke English
-without foreign accent, I could not help asking where he was born. He
-replied in a deep strong voice, ‘In _Rome_, sir!’”[34]
-
-In Greece the Hellenes and Pelasgi are two races identified with the
-earliest traditions of the country; but when we appeal to history for
-their origin, or seek for the part that each has played in the majestic
-drama of antiquity, there is little more than conjecture to guide us.
-Greece did not come fairly within the scope of M. Edwards’ researches,
-yet he has ventured a few note-worthy observations in connection with
-this point. He thinks the same principles that governed his examination
-of Gaul may be applied to Greece; and that the Hellenes and Pelasgi
-might be followed ethnologically like the Celts and Cimbri. Perhaps the
-most important remark which he makes is that which refers to the
-differences between what he calls the _heroic_ and _historic_—or what is
-generally termed the ideal and real types of the Greek countenance. The
-ancient monuments of art in Greece exhibit a wide diversity of types,
-and this at every period of their history. Of the two great classes into
-which these may be divided, M. Edwards says:—
-
-
-  “Most of the divinities and personages of the _heroic_ times are
-  formed on that well-known model which constitutes what we term the
-  beau-ideal. The forms and proportions of the head and countenance are
-  so regular that we may describe them with mathematical precision. A
-  perfectly oval contour, forehead and nose straight, without depression
-  between them, would suffice to distinguish this type. The harmony is
-  such that the presence of these traits implies the others. But such is
-  not the character of the personages of truly _historic_ times. The
-  philosophers, orators, warriors, and poets almost all differ from it,
-  and form a group apart. It cannot be confounded with the rest: it is
-  sufficient to point it out, for one to recognise at once how far it is
-  separated. It greatly resembles, on the contrary, the type which is
-  seen in other countries of Europe, while the former is scarcely met
-  with there.”
-
-
-This observation is just. The head of Alexander the Great is nearly
-allied to the pure classical or heroic type; but this case is an
-exception—and the lineaments of Lycurgus, Eratosthenes, and most other
-specimens of old Greek portrait-sculpture, are, with the exception of
-the beard (if indeed such an exception is now requisite), very much like
-those which one meets with daily in our streets. “Were we to judge
-solely by the monuments of Greece,” continues M. Edwards, “on account of
-this contrast, we should be tempted to regard the type of the fabulous
-or heroic personages as ideal. But imagination more readily creates
-monsters than models of beauty; and this principle alone will suffice to
-convince us that such a type has existed in Greece, and the countries
-where its population has spread, if it does not still exist there.”
-
-In corroboration of this conjecture, it may be stated that the learned
-travellers, M.M. de Stackelberg and de Bronsted, who have journeyed
-through the Morea and closely examined the population, assert that the
-_heroic_ type is still extant in certain localities. M. Poqueville
-likewise assures us that the models which inspired Phidias and Apelles
-are still to be found among the inhabitants of the Morea. “They are
-generally tall, and finely formed; their eyes are full of fire, and they
-have a beautiful mouth, ornamented with the finest teeth. There are,
-however, degrees in their beauty, though all may be generally termed
-handsome. The Spartan woman is fair, of a slender make, but with a noble
-air. The women of Taÿgetus have the carriage of a Pallas when she
-wielded her formidable ægis in the midst of a battle. The Messenian
-woman is low of stature, and distinguished for her _embonpoint_,” (this
-may be owing to a mixture with the primitive race of the Morea, who, as
-Helots, long existed as a distinct caste in Messenia); “she has regular
-features, large blue eyes, and long black hair. The Arcadian, in her
-coarse woollen garments, scarcely suffers the symmetry of her form to
-appear; but her countenance is expressive of innocence and purity of
-mind.” In the time of Poqueville the Greek women were extremely ignorant
-and uneducated; but, he says, “music and dancing seem to have been
-taught them by nature.” He speaks of the long flaxen hair of the women
-of Sparta, their majestic air and carriage, their elegant forms, the
-symmetry of their features, lighted up by large blue eyes, fringed and
-shaded with long eye-lashes. “The men,” he says, “among whom some are
-‘blonds,’ or fair, have noble countenances; are of tall stature, with
-masculine and regular features.” They have preserved something of the
-Dorians of ancient Sparta.
-
-It would be erroneous, however, to conclude from this that Greek art
-owed everything to the actual. The type existed more or less imperfectly
-in the population, but Phidias and the Greek artists took and developed
-it, by the aid of the imagination, into that perfect phase of physical
-beauty which we justly term the _beau-ideal_. A nation’s beau-ideal is
-always the perfectionment of its own type. It is easy to see how this
-happens. In nations, as in individuals, the soul moulds the body, so far
-as extrinsic circumstances permit, into a form in accordance with its
-own ideas and desire; and accordingly, whenever a marked difference
-exists in the physical aspect of two nations, there, also, we may expect
-to find a variance in their beau-ideals. Not, as is generally supposed,
-from the eye of each race becoming accustomed to the national features,
-but because these features, are themselves an incarnation and embodiment
-of the national mind. It is the soul which shapes the national features,
-not the national features that mould the æsthetic judgment of the soul.
-It is not _association_, therefore, that is the cause of the different
-beau-ideals we behold in the world, but a psychical difference in the
-nations which produce them,—a circumstance no more remarkable than those
-moral and intellectual diversities in virtue of which we see one race
-excelling in the exact sciences, another in the fine arts, a third in
-military renown, and a fourth in pacific industry. We may adduce, in
-curious illustration of this point, the well-known fact that Raphael and
-many other eminent artists have repeatedly given their own likeness to
-the imaginary offspring of their art,—not real, but idealised
-likenesses. How was this? From vanity? No, certainly; but because the
-ideal most congenial to them, which they could most easily hold in their
-mind, and which it gave them most pleasure to linger over and beautify,
-was the ideal constituted by the perfectionment of their own features.
-There is something more than mere vanity in the pleasure usually derived
-from looking into a mirror; for when the features are in exact or nearly
-exact accordance with the desires of the framing Spirit within, there
-must always be a pleasure in the soul looking upon its own likeness:
-even as it experiences a similar delight when meeting with a being of
-perfectly congenial nature—in other words, its spiritual (as the other
-is its physical) likeness. It is to be expected, _cæteris paribus_, that
-this pleasure will be most felt by those who are gifted with much
-personal beauty, and whose features are most perfect of their kind; for
-in their case there is more than ordinary harmony between the soul and
-its fleshly envelope. Accordingly, no artist ever painted himself more
-than the beautiful Raphael. And we could name an eminent individual, now
-no more, as rarely gifted with physical beauty as with mental powers, to
-whom the contemplation of his portrait was almost a passion. Some of our
-readers may recognise the distinguished man of whom we speak. No one
-less vain or more noble-hearted than he, yet his painted likeness had
-always a fascination for him. “It is a curious thing,” he used to say,
-“how I like to look at my own portrait.” Was it not because, in that
-beautifully developed form and countenance, the spirit within had most
-successfully embodied its ideal, with little or no hindrance from
-extrinsic circumstances, and accordingly rejoiced, though it knew not
-why, in the presence of its own likeness?
-
-But to return to ethnography, and trace out the successive changes which
-have taken place in the population of Europe. As we have already
-observed, the great ebb and flow of nations was over by the Christian
-era. The population had become comparatively dense, so that room could
-no more be made for tribes of new-comers—and settled in their habits and
-occupations, so as no longer to admit of their shifting or being driven
-to and fro like waves over the land, as was the case while they were in
-the nomadic state. And as the nations became consolidated, they began,
-however feebly at first, to live a national existence, and to put forth
-national efforts of self-defence against those who assailed them. On
-these various accounts, the system of conquest by displacement, which
-marked the pre-historic and in a faint degree the early historic times,
-was brought to an end,—the conquests of the Northmen being the last
-examples of the kind; and these being hardly worthy of the name, as they
-were marked rather by the political predominance of the new-comers, and
-by an overlaying rather than by any displacement of the native
-population. For all useful purposes, therefore, we may conceive that at
-the Christian era the various nations of Europe were arranged on the map
-very much as they are now,—the only exceptions worth mentioning being
-the influx of the Magyars and Turks, and the southward progress of
-several of the Slavonian tribes through the old Byzantine provinces into
-Greece.
-
-
-  “Had a Roman geographer of the days of the Empire,” it has been well
-  observed, “advanced in a straight line from the Atlantic to the
-  Pacific, he would have traversed the exact succession of races that is
-  to be met in the same route now. First, he would have found the Celts
-  occupying as far as the Rhine; thence, eastward to the Vistula and
-  Carpathian mountains, he would have found Germans; beyond them, and
-  stretching away into Central Asia, he would have found the so-called
-  Scythians,—a race which, had he possessed our information, he would
-  have divided into the two great branches of the Slavonians or European
-  Scythians, and the Tartars and Turks, or Asiatic Scythians; and
-  finally, beyond these, he would have found Mongolian hordes
-  overspreading Eastern Asia to the shores of the Pacific. These
-  successive races or populations he would have found shading off into
-  each other at their points of junction. He would have remarked, also,
-  a general westward pressure of the whole mass, tending toward mutual
-  rupture and invasion,—the Mongolian pressing against the Tartars, the
-  Tartars against the Slavonians, the Slavonians against the Germans,
-  and the Germans against the Celts.”
-
-
-Although the early history and migrations of the Slavonians are involved
-in greater obscurity than that of either of the other two great branches
-of the European population, it is erroneous to suppose that they are a
-recent accession out of the depths of Asia. It was evidently a branch of
-them that Herodotus describes as peaceful, pastoral, and agricultural
-tribes located near the shores of the Black Sea. Instead of entering
-Europe _via_ Asia Minor and the southern borders of the Euxine, as many
-of the Celtic and Teutonic tribes did, they appear to have taken the
-route by the north of the Caspian and Black Seas, and probably advanced
-southwards into Europe on the gradual and ultimately sudden subsidence
-of the waters of the inland sea which primevally stretched from the
-Baltic eastwards to the Sea of Aral.
-
-This race, which now constitutes the largest ethnographical unit of
-population in Europe, numbering nearly eighty millions, has never yet
-been examined in rigorous detail. The earliest and best developed of its
-tribes is the Polish, which, though it has in recent times been
-subjected by the Russo-Slavons aided by the German powers, has not yet
-lost its nationality; and it is probable that, in the course of the
-future, the mighty Slavonic race will yet give rise to several distinct
-states. Both in features and complexion there is much diversity to be
-found in the various tribes which it comprises; but, if we consider the
-immense numbers of the race, and the different climes and temperatures
-under which they are located, it must be allowed that they are more
-homogeneous in character than any other people in Europe. The general
-type of the Slavonians is thus described by M. Edwards:—
-
-
-  “The contour of the head, viewed in front, approaches nearly to a
-  square; the height surpasses a little the breadth; the summit is
-  sensibly flattened; and the direction of the jaw is horizontal. The
-  length of the nose is less than the distance from its base to the
-  chin; it is almost straight from the depression at its root—that is to
-  say, without any decided curvature; but, if appreciable, it is
-  slightly concave, so that the end has a tendency to turn up; the lower
-  part is rather large, and the extremity rounded. The eyes, which are
-  rather deep-set, are [unlike those of the Tartars] perfectly on the
-  same line; and when they have any particular character, they are
-  smaller than the proportion of the head ought to indicate. The
-  eyebrows are thin, and very near the eyes, particularly at the
-  internal angle; and from this point are often [like those of the
-  Tartars] directed obliquely outwards. The mouth, which is not salient,
-  has thin lips, and is much nearer to the nose than to the tip of the
-  chin. Another singular characteristic may be added, and which is very
-  general, viz., their small beard, except on the upper lip [a trait
-  connecting them with the peoples of Upper Asia]. Such is the common
-  type among the Poles, Alesians, Moravians, Bohemians, Slavonic
-  Hungarians, and is very common among the Russians.”
-
-
-Having thus briefly and imperfectly glanced at the ethnographical
-features of Europe prior to the Christian era, we come now to note,
-equally briefly, the accession of foreign elements which the Continent
-has received subsequently to that period. The first of these is the
-memorable one of the Jews. Unlike the other incomers, they came not as
-conquerors, nor in a mass—but as isolated exiles, seeking new homes
-where they might be suffered to preserve their religion and gain a
-livelihood. A military race when in the land of their fathers, in Europe
-they developed only that other feature of their nation, the passion for
-moneymaking. In pursuit of this object they have settled in every
-country of Europe; and, in spite of persecutions innumerable, continue
-to preserve to this day their religion and their national features.
-Despite the warm passions of the Hebrews, which, even when in their own
-land, repeatedly led both the people and their princes into the
-contraction of sexual alliances with other nations, the Jewish blood on
-the whole is still much purer than that of any other race—the foreign
-elements from time to time mingled with it being gradually thrown off by
-innumerable crossings and re-crossings with the native stock. At present
-there are about two millions of Jews in Europe, and in the rest of the
-world about a million and a half. The modern Jews, while preserving the
-national features, present every variety of complexion save black—for
-the _black_ Jews of Malabar are not Jews at all, but the descendants of
-apostate Hindoos. In regard to the matter of complexion, which varies so
-much with the climate and condition of the people, we shall say
-something by-and-by; but we shall here give some remarks of Mr Leeser, a
-learned Jew of Philadelphia, on the curious diversities of complexion so
-remarkably observable among the Hebrew race:—
-
-
-  “In respect to the true Jewish complexion, it is _fair_; which is
-  proved by the variety of the people I have seen, from Persia, Russia,
-  Palestine, and Africa, not to mention those of Europe and America, the
-  latter of whom are identical with the Europeans, like all other white
-  inhabitants of this continent. All Jews that ever I have beheld are
-  _identical in features_; though the colour of their skin and eyes
-  differs materially, inasmuch as the Southern are nearly all
-  black-eyed, and somewhat sallow, while the Northern are blue-eyed, in
-  a great measure, and of a fair and clear complexion. In this they
-  assimilate to all Caucasians, when transported for a number of
-  generations into various climates. Though I am free to admit that the
-  dark and hazel eye and tawny skin are oftener met with among the
-  Germanic Jews than among the German natives proper. There are also
-  red-haired and white-haired Jews, as well as other people, and perhaps
-  of as great a proportion. I speak now of the Jews north—I am myself a
-  native of Germany, and among my own family I know of none without blue
-  eyes, brown hair (though mine is black), and very fair skin—still I
-  recollect, when a boy, seeing many who had not these characteristics,
-  and had, on the contrary, eyes, hair, and skin of a more southern
-  complexion. In America, you will see all varieties of complexion, from
-  the very fair Canadian down to the almost yellow of the West
-  Indian—the latter, however, is solely the effect of exposure to a
-  _deleterious_ climate for several generations, which changes, I should
-  judge, the texture of the hair and skin, and thus leaves its mark on
-  the constitution—otherwise the Caucasian type is strongly developed;
-  but this is the case more emphatically among those sprung from a
-  German than a Portuguese stock. The latter was an original inhabitant
-  of the Iberian Peninsula, and whether it was preserved pure, or became
-  mixed with Moorish blood in the process of centuries, or whether the
-  Germans contracted an intimacy with Teutonic nations, and thus
-  acquired a part of their national characteristics, it is impossible to
-  be told now. But one thing is certain, that, both in Spain and
-  Germany, conversions to Judaism during the early ages, say from the
-  eighth to the thirteenth century, were by no means rare, or else the
-  governments would not have so energetically prohibited Jews from
-  making proselytes of their servants and others. I know not, indeed,
-  whether there is any greater physical discrepancy between northern and
-  southern Jews than between English families who continue in England or
-  emigrate to Alabama—I rather judge there is not.”—_Types of Mankind_,
-  p. 121.
-
-
-The Huns and Magyars were the next tribes who made their way into
-Europe; and their advent, fierce, rapid, and exterminating, was
-conducted like a charge of cavalry. They hewed their way with the sword
-through the Slavonian and other tribes who impeded their march; and
-after being for a brief season the terror of Europe, they settled _en
-permanence_ on the plains of Hungary, where for upwards of a thousand
-years they dominated, like a ruling caste, over the surrounding Slavonic
-tribes. The influx of this warlike race took place by two
-migrations,—firstly, of the Huns, under Attila, in the fifth century;
-and, secondly, of the Magyars, under Arpad, in the ninth. The type of
-the two races was identical; it is peculiarly exotic, and unlike any
-other in Europe. It belongs to the great Uralian-Tatar stem of Asia;
-but, strangely enough, though they differ in type from the Fins, the
-Magyars speak a dialect of the Finnish language,—which shows that the
-two races must have been associated in some way at a remote epoch, and
-before either of them emerged from the depths of Asia. M. Edwards thus
-describes the Magyar type:—“Head nearly round; forehead little
-developed, low, and bending; the eyes placed obliquely, so that the
-external angle is elevated; the nose short and flat; mouth prominent,
-and lips thick; neck very strong, so that the back of the head appears
-flat, forming almost a straight line with the nape; beard weak and
-scattering; stature short.” The Magyars did not belong to the Caucasian
-stock; and their long-continued supremacy over tribes decidedly
-Caucasian, is a nut to crack for those ethnographers who deduce
-everything from race, irrespective of the habits and state of
-development of particular nations.
-
-The next alien race which entered Europe was the Gypseys, the history
-and peculiarities of which strange people present many curious analogies
-with those of the Israelites. “Both have had an exodus; both are exiles,
-and dispersed among the Gentiles, by whom they are hated and despised,
-and whom they hate and despise under the names of Busnees and Goyim;
-both, though speaking the language of the Gentiles, possess a peculiar
-language which the latter do not understand; and both possess a peculiar
-cast of countenance by which they may without difficulty be
-distinguished from all other nations. But with these points the
-similarity terminates. The Israelites have a peculiar religion, to which
-they are fanatically attached; the Romas (gypseys) have none. The
-Israelites have an authentic history; the Gypseys have no history,—they
-do not even know the name of their original country.” Everything
-connected with the Gypsey race is involved in mystery; though, from
-their physical type, language, &c., it is conjectured that they came
-from some part of India. It has been supposed that they fled from the
-exterminating sword of the great Tartar conqueror, Tamerlane, who
-ravaged India in 1408–9 A.D.; but Borrow’s work furnishes good ground
-for believing that they may have migrated at a much earlier period
-northwards, amongst the Slavonians, before they entered Germany and the
-other countries where we first catch sight of them. All that we know
-with certainty is, that in the beginning of the fifteenth century they
-appeared in Germany, and were soon scattered over Europe, as far as
-Spain. The precise day upon which these strange beings first entered
-France has been recorded,—namely, the 17th of August 1427. The entire
-number of the race at present is estimated at about 700,000,—thus
-constituting them the smallest as well as the most singular and
-distinctly marked of races. But if their numbers be small, their range
-of habitat is one of the widest. They are scattered over most countries
-of the habitable globe—Europe, Asia, Africa, and both the Americas,
-containing specimens of these roving tribes. “Their tents,” says Borrow,
-“are pitched on the heaths of Brazil and the ridges of the Himalaya
-hills; and their language is heard in Moscow and Madrid, in London and
-Stamboul. Their power of resisting cold is truly wonderful, as it is not
-uncommon to find them encamped in the midst of the snow, in slight
-canvass tents, where the temperature is 25° or 30° below the
-freezing-point according to Reaumur;” while, on the other hand, they
-withstand without difficulty the sultry climes of Africa and India.
-
-The last accession which the population of Europe received was
-accomplished by an irruption similar to that of the Huns, but on a
-grander scale. In the beginning of the fifteenth century the Osmanli
-Turks swept across the Hellespont and Bosphorus, and in 1453 established
-their empire in Europe by the capture of Byzantium. In proportion to its
-numbers, no race ever gave such a shock to the Western world as this;
-and, by its very antagonism, it helped to quicken into life the
-population and kingdoms of central and eastern Europe. It is
-semi-Caucasian by extraction, but, coming from the northern side of the
-Caucasus, and pretty far to the east, the original features of the race
-had a strong dash of the Tartar in them. The portrait of Mahomed II.,
-the conqueror of Byzantium, may be taken as a fair sample of the
-primitive Turkish type,—indeed a more than average specimen, for among
-all nations the nobles and princes, as a class, are ever found to
-possess the most perfect forms and features. The Turkish tribes who
-still follow their ancient nomadic life, and wander in the cold and dry
-deserts of Turkistan, still exhibit the Tartar physiognomy—even the
-Nogays of the Crimea, and some of the roving tribes of Asia Minor,
-present much of this character. The European Turks, and the upper
-classes of the race generally, exhibit a greatly superior style of
-countenance, in consequence of the elevating influences of civilisation,
-and of their harems having been replenished for four centuries by fair
-ones from Georgia and Circassia,—a region which, as Chardin long ago
-remarked, “is assuredly the one where nature produces the most beautiful
-persons, and a people brave and valiant, as well as lively, _galant_,
-and loving.” There is hardly a man of quality in Turkey who is not born
-of a Georgian or Circassian mother,—counting downwards from the Sultan,
-who is generally Georgian or Circassian by the female side. As this
-crossing of the two races has been carried on for several centuries, the
-modern Ottomans in Europe are in truth a _new nation_—and, on the whole,
-a very handsome one. The general proportion of the face is symmetrical,
-and the facial angle nearly vertical,—the features thus approaching to
-the Circassian mould; while the head is remarkable for its excellent
-globular form, with the forehead broad and the glabella prominent.
-
-The natural destiny of the Turks in Europe, like that of ruling castes
-everywhere when holding in subjection a population greatly more numerous
-than themselves, is either to gradually relax their sway and share the
-government with the subject races, as the Normans in England did,—or, if
-obstinately maintaining their class-despotism, to be violently deposed
-from the supremacy. The increasing development of the Greek and other
-sections of the population of European Turkey has of late years made one
-or other of these alternatives imminent; but the extensive reforms and
-liberalisation of the government simultaneously undertaken by the
-Ottoman rulers, and the remarkable abeyance in which they have begun to
-place the _distinctive_ tenets of the Mahommedan faith, promised, if
-unthwarted by foreign influences, to keep the various races in amity,
-and admit Christians to offices in the state. The history of the last
-fifteen years has shown this system of governmental relaxation growing
-gradually stronger—so that Lord Palmerston was justified in saying that
-no country in the world could show so many reforms accomplished in so
-short a time as Turkey. And after the recent exploits of the Ottomans in
-defeating simultaneously the attacks of Russia and of the Greek and
-Montenegrin insurgents, and the Turkish predilections even of those
-provinces which were entered by the Christian forces of the Czar, it
-cannot be doubted that the Turkish rule was on the whole giving
-satisfaction, and that, if unaided by foreign Powers, no insurrection
-against the supremacy of the bold-hearted Osmanlis had the slightest
-chance of success. It was this state of matters which alarmed the
-ambitious Czar into his present aggression; for he felt that now or
-never was the time to interfere, if he did not wish to see a Turko-Greek
-state establish itself in such strength as to bid defiance to his power.
-We may add, that, whatever be the issue of the present contest, it must
-tend to a further and higher development of the Turkish character. The
-contagion of Western ideas, disseminated in the most imposing of ways by
-the presence of the armies of England and France, cannot fail to impress
-itself on the slumbrous but awakening Ottomans, and not only expand
-their stereotyped civilisation into a wider and freer form, but possibly
-to strike also from their religion the more faulty and obstructive of
-its tenets.
-
-Such are the elements of the present population of Europe,—a population
-which, in its western and southern portions, no longer presents distinct
-masses of diverse tribes, and whose various sections every century is
-drawing into closer contact. The progress of commerce and civilisation
-produces not only an interchange of products of various climes, and of
-ideas between the various races of mankind, but also a commingling of
-blood; and as the most nobly developed races are always the great
-wanderers and conquerors, it will be seen that the progress of the world
-ever tends to improve the types of mankind by infusing the blood of the
-superior races into the veins of the inferior. The settlements of the
-Normans are an instance of this. And a still more remarkable, though
-exceptional, exemplification of the same thing may at present be
-witnessed in America—where the Negroes, transported from their native
-clime, have already become a mixed race, owing to the relation in which
-all female slaves stand to their masters, and the consequent frequent
-crossing of the European blood with the blood of Africa. In point of
-fact, there are slaves to be found in the Southern States, who, like
-“George” in _Uncle Tom’s Cabin_, are as Caucasian in their features and
-intellect as their masters,—a circumstance fraught with considerable
-danger to the White caste in these States, because producing the
-extremest irritation in these nearly full-blood “white slaves,” and at
-the same time providing able and fiery leaders for the oppressed Negro
-race in the event of an insurrection and servile war.
-
-But the great variety of countenance and temperament in Western and
-Southern Europe is not due merely to actual crossings of the commingling
-races. Civilisation itself is the parent of variety. The progress of
-humanity produces physical effects upon the race, which may be classed
-under two heads, one of these being a general physical improvement, and
-the other increasing variety. Take an undeveloped race like the Tartars
-or Negroes, and you will find the aspect and mental character of the
-nation nearly homogeneous,—the differences existing amongst its
-individual members being comparatively trivial. Pass to the Slavonians,
-and you will perceive this uniformity lessened; and when you reach the
-nations of Western Europe, you will find the transition accomplished,
-and homogeneity exchanged for variety. The explanation of this is
-obvious. Just as all plants of the same species, when in embryo, are
-nearly alike, undeveloped races of mankind present but few signs of
-spiritual life; and therefore their individual members greatly resemble
-one another,—because the fewer the characteristics, the less room is
-there for variety, and the more radical and therefore more universal
-must be the characteristics themselves. Pebbles, as they lie rough upon
-the sea-shore, may present a great uniformity of appearance; but take
-and polish them, and a hundred diversities of colour and marking
-forthwith show themselves;—even so does civilisation and growth develop
-the rich varieties of human nature. As these mental varieties spring up
-within, they ever seek to develop themselves by corresponding varieties
-in the outer life,—placing men now in riches, now in poverty, now under
-the sway of the intellect, now of the passions, now of good principles,
-now of bad, and moreover leading to an infinite diversity of external
-occupation. The joint influence of the feelings within, and of the
-corresponding circumstances without, in course of time comes to affect
-the physical frame, often in a very marked manner; and, indeed, it is
-well known that even so subtle a thing as the predominant thoughts and
-sentiments of an individual are almost always reflected in the aspect of
-his countenance. Nations, when in a primitive uncultured state, differ
-as widely from those at the apex of civilisation, as the monotonous
-countenance and one-phased mind of a peasant contrasts with the rich
-variety of expression in the face of genius, whose nature is quickly
-responsive to every influence, though often steadied into a masculine
-calm. Let any one inspect the various classes of our metropolitan
-population, and he will perceive an amount of physical, mental, and
-occupational variety such as he will meet with nowhere else in the
-world—presenting countenances deformed now by this form of brutal
-passion, now by that, ranging upwards to the noblest types of the human
-face, the joint product of easy circumstances and high mental and
-spiritual culture. It is all the result of civilisation, which ever
-tends to break up the uniformity of a population, and allows of its
-members rising to the highest heights or sinking to the lowest
-depths,—thus breaking the primitive monotony of life into its manifold
-prismatic hues.
-
-Not the least remarkable of the physical changes thus produced by
-civilisation, is the diversity of complexion which it gradually affects.
-It appears certain, for example, that the races who peopled the northern
-and western parts of Europe, subsequent to the dark-skinned Iberians,
-were all of the fair or xanthous style of complexion; but this is by no
-means the case with the great mass of people who are supposed to have
-descended from them. “It seems unquestionable,” says Prichard, “that the
-complexion prevalent through the British Isles has greatly varied from
-that of all [?] the original tribes who are known to have jointly
-constituted the population. We have seen that the ancient Celtic tribes
-were a xanthous race; such, likewise, were the Saxons, Danes, and
-Normans; the Caledonians also, and the Gael, were fair and
-yellow-haired. Not so the mixed descendants of all these blue-eyed
-tribes. The Britons had already deviated from the colour of the Celts in
-the time of Strabo, who declares that the Britons are taller than the
-Gauls, and less yellow-haired, and more infirm and relaxed in their
-bodies.” The Germans have also varied in their complexion. The ancient
-Germans are said to have had universally yellow or red hair and blue
-eyes,—in short, a strongly marked xanthous constitution. This, says
-Niebuhr, “has now, in most parts of Germany, become uncommon. I can
-assert, from my own observation, that the Germans are now, in many parts
-of their country, far from a light-haired race. I have seen a
-considerable number of persons assembled in a large room at
-Frankfort-on-the-Maine, and observed that, except one or two Englishmen,
-there was not an individual among them who had not dark hair. The
-Chevalier Bunsen has assured me that he has often looked in vain for the
-auburn or golden locks and the light cerulean eyes of the old Germans,
-and never verified the picture given by the ancients of his countrymen
-till he visited Scandinavia,—there he found himself surrounded by the
-Germans of Tacitus.” In the towns of Germany, especially, the people are
-far from being a red-haired, or even a xanthous race; and, from the fact
-that this change has been developed chiefly in towns, we may infer that
-it depends in part on habits, and the way of living, and on food. Towns
-are much warmer and drier than the country; but even the open country is
-much warmer and drier than the forests and morasses with which Germany
-was formerly covered. The climate of Germany has, in fact, changed since
-the country was cleared of its vast forests; and we must attribute the
-altered physical character of the Germans to the altered condition under
-which the present inhabitants live.
-
-It was the conquests of Rome that first scattered the seeds of
-civilisation in Western Europe. There it has grown up into a stately and
-nearly perfect fabric on the shores of the Atlantic, gradually losing
-its perfection as it proceeds eastwards, until it reaches the
-semi-barbarism of Russia, and the still deeper barbarism of Upper Asia.
-Our limits hardly allow of our inquiring what influence this
-civilisation is calculated to exert in future upon the ethnological
-condition of the Continent, although it is a question of great
-importance, as foreshadowing the chief changes which may be expected to
-result from the state of chronic strife upon which Europe has now
-entered. We can only remark that the grand action of progress and
-civilisation is to develop _the mind_, and so convert the units of
-society from a mass of automatons into thinking and self-directing
-agents,—conscious of, and able to attain, alike their own rights and
-those of their nation. Hence follows the growth of liberty within; and,
-without, the gradual establishment of union between scattered sections
-of the same race. Supposing, then, that the progress of civilisation in
-Europe be unobstructed, we may calculate that wherever we now see
-internal despotism, there will be liberty,—wherever we see foreign
-domination, there will be national freedom,—and that, after a little
-more training in the stern school of suffering, the Continental nations,
-grown wiser, will make an end of the present arbitrary and unnatural
-territorial system of Europe, and arrange themselves in the more
-natural, grander, and permanent communities of race.
-
-It was doubtless a perception of this truth that caused the French
-Emperor recently to declare that “the age of conquests is past.” We
-regret to think, however, that the statement is somewhat premature,—for
-Europe is still far from that happy climax of civilisation which in the
-preceding sentences we have indicated. Moreover, there are two very
-opposite periods in the life of nations when the race-principle reigns
-supreme, their first and their last;—just as, in the case of
-individuals, men often adopt in old age, from the dictates of
-experience, principles which in youth they had acted upon from instinct.
-Now, Europe at this day presents both of these phases of national life
-existing simultaneously, at its eastern and western extremities; and it
-seems probable that the development of the race-principle in its early
-form among the Slavonians, will take precedence of its development in
-maturity among the civilised races of the Continent. There is every
-indication that the Panslavism of Russia will precede the coalescing of
-the Teutonic tribes into a united Germany—or of the Romano-Gallic races
-of France, Spain, and Italy, into that trinity of confederate states
-which Lamartine so stoutly predicts. Nay, may not this Panslavism of
-Russia, by a short-lived political domination, be destined to prove the
-very means of exciting the ethnological affinities of the rest of
-Europe, and of thereby raising up an insuperable barrier to its own
-progress, as well as involuntarily launching the other nations on their
-true line of progress?
-
-The fag-end of an article is little suitable for the discussion of such
-really momentous topics, and we especially regret that we cannot proceed
-to consider the effects which the progress of civilisation is likely to
-exert upon Russia itself. Any one, however, who is disposed to supply
-for himself the deductions from the above principles, will feel that his
-labour in so doing is not without its recompense, by establishing the
-consolatory truth that, so far as human eye can discern, “a good time
-coming” is yet in store for Europe,—though, alas, what turmoil must
-there be between this and then!
-
-
-
-
-              THE GANGETIC PROVINCES OF BRITISH INDIA.[35]
-
-
-Disguise it as we may, conquest to the conquered must ever be a bitter
-draught.
-
-It is impossible for nations to be entirely disinterested. The rewards
-of the victors cannot be reaped without trenching upon the rights of the
-vanquished.
-
-Three centuries have gone by since Machiavelli wrote, yet still does the
-Italian mutter his words, “Ad ognuno puzza questo barbaro dominio;” and
-all the material benefits which the peasantry of Lombardy often admit
-that they enjoy under their present masters, cannot abate the aversion
-of the people of that province to the Austrian rule.
-
-There are more points of resemblance than we may like to confess between
-the position of Austria towards Italy, and that of England towards
-India. In both cases, the bulk of the conquered, especially the
-agricultural classes, have little to complain of, and are on the whole
-passively contented and reconciled to a yoke which, as far as they are
-concerned, presses, perhaps, but does not gall; in both cases, all of a
-higher order, all upon whom ambition can have any influence, must feel
-more or less discontented with a condition necessarily attended with a
-diminished chance of advancement, and a mortifying stagnation of hope.
-Both of the dominant powers ought to regard this frame of mind not as a
-fault, but as a moral malady, and to direct their best efforts to the
-cure of an affection naturally resulting from the depressed position of
-those brought by conquest under their sway.
-
-What the sanative measures of Austria may have been, and into the causes
-of their failure, we need not stop to inquire, but may proceed at once
-to consider in how far we have, in this respect, acquitted ourselves of
-our obligations to those over whom we also rule mainly by the right of
-conquest and superior strength.
-
-Not being gifted, like many of our contemporaries, with power to take in
-the totality of the gorgeous East at one comprehensive glance, we must
-examine our Indian empire in detail, and for the present confine our
-remarks to the Presidency of Bengal, with its appendage the
-Lieutenant-Governorship of Agra.
-
-The guides whom we propose to follow in the prosecution of our inquiries
-into the state of these Gangetic provinces, their past and present
-condition, and their future prospects, are the authors enumerated at the
-foot of the page, each of whom may be regarded as a representative of
-one or other of the schools into which those interested in the work of
-Indian administration may now be said to be divided.
-
-The history of our civil administration of the Gangetic portion of our
-Eastern territory divides itself into three distinct periods. The first,
-extending from the victories of Clive in 1757, to the commencement of
-Lord Cornwallis’s system in 1793, may be called the heroic and
-irregular; the second, dating from the year last mentioned, and
-continuing till the accession of Lord William Bentinck in 1829, may be
-designated the judicial and regular; and the third, stretching from that
-time to the present day, the anti-judicial and progressive period.
-
-During the first of these periods, it is in vain to deny that gross
-abuses prevailed, and that many acts of oppression were committed by
-those very individuals among our own countrymen, whose heroism in the
-field and sagacity in council were the subjects of admiration to such
-natives as were brought into communication and contact with them.
-
-A degree of intimacy thus subsisted between the European rulers and
-natives of higher rank, such as, in these days, is only to be found
-where the native has been by education assimilated in some degree to the
-Englishman.
-
-It is stated by Mr F. H. Robinson, that men who had left India at that
-early period, could not believe those who, in after years, told them of
-the social estrangement prevailing in that country, and of the
-reluctance evinced, even by Mahommedans, to share a repast with a
-Christian.
-
-Engaged, as the English of those early days were, in a struggle for
-political existence, their deportment towards natives of rank was
-influenced by the often-felt necessity of winning them over to their
-interests; and thus our national disposition to be contemptuously
-churlish towards those who differ from ourselves in language,
-complexion, and manner, was kept for a while in abeyance. At that
-period, therefore, we find traces of friendly personal feeling
-subsisting between Englishmen and natives, and expressed by the latter,
-even in the same breath with the most earnest protestations against the
-mal-administration of the country then in our hands. Striking instances
-of these conflicting feelings are exhibited in that most curious work
-entitled _Syar-ul Mootekherin_, which may be translated into a “Review
-of Modern Times,” or more literally, “Manners of the Moderns.” This
-history of the events attending the downfall of the Moghul and the rise
-of our own power in India, was written by a Mahommedan gentleman, of the
-name of Mir Gholan Hussein, whose descendants, if we are not
-misinformed, continued under our rule to hold possession of certain
-lands in the province of Behar, since lost to them in a manner likely to
-be chronicled among the events of the third of the three historic
-periods to which we have alluded.
-
-If even at this distance of time it is painful to read the reproaches
-bestowed by the author on our internal administration, it is still
-consolatory to find one, to whom neither partiality nor flattery can be
-imputed, recording his unfeigned admiration of the personal conduct of
-many of our countrymen in those early days.
-
-Of Warren Hastings the author writes with enthusiasm. He records all of
-that great man’s troubles with his council; and gives, if we remember
-right—for we have not been able to find a complete translation of the
-work in London—a circumstantial account of the duel with Francis,
-fought, according to English custom, with _tummunchas_ (pistols), in a
-_bugishea_ (garden); and then after narrating the complete dispersion of
-the factious opposition by which he had been thwarted, he breaks out in
-a triumphant tone, with an exclamation like the following: “Now did the
-genius of Mr Hastings, like the sun bursting through a cloud, beam forth
-in all its splendour.” In describing an action fought in the vicinity of
-the city of Patna, in the year 1760, the native author dwells with
-delight upon the conduct of his friend Dr William Fullerton, who, in the
-midst of a retreat in the face of a victorious enemy, on an
-ammunition-cart breaking down, stopped unconcernedly, put it in order,
-and then bravely pursued his route, and “it must be acknowledged,” he
-adds, “that this nation’s presence of mind, firmness of temper, and
-undaunted bravery, are past all question.”
-
-In abatement of these praises, he adds the following reflections: “If,
-to so many military qualifications, they knew how to join the art of
-government, no nation would be preferable to them, or prove worthier of
-command; but such is their little regard to the people of these
-kingdoms, and such their apathy and indifference for their welfare, that
-the people under their dominion groan everywhere, and are reduced to
-poverty and distress.”
-
-Though this censure is in so far unfair, that all is, in Oriental
-fashion, imputed to the ruling power, without allowance for the
-circumstances of a period of troublous transition, it is evidently
-penned in an honest and friendly spirit; and evinces no repugnance
-whatever to the domination of the English, provided they would acquire
-some better knowledge of “the art of government.” In another passage he
-recounts how gallantly a Hindoo of high rank, Rajah Shitab Roy,
-co-operated with Captain Knox in attacking an immensely superior force,
-and how heartily, on returning to Patna, the English captain expressed
-his admiration of his Hindoo ally, exclaiming repeatedly, “This is a
-real Nawab; I never saw such a Nawab in my life.”
-
-Soon afterwards the French officer with the force opposed to the
-English, the Chevalier Law, having been deserted by his men, remained
-by himself on the field of battle, when, bestriding one of his guns,
-“he awaited the moment of his death.” His surrender and courteous
-reception are dwelt on with evident delight; and, after stating how a
-rude question addressed to the Chevalier by a native chief was checked
-and rebuked by the English officer, he makes the following
-observation:—“This reprimand did much honour to the English; and it
-must be acknowledged, to the honour of these strangers, that as their
-conduct in war and in battle is worthy of admiration, so, on the other
-hand, nothing is more modest and more becoming than their behaviour to
-an enemy, whether in the heat of action or in the pride of success and
-victory.”
-
-These extracts, borrowed from the notes to the third volume of Mill’s
-History, might be supported by many other passages of a similar tendency
-in the native work itself; and all tend to prove that the social
-estrangement since prevailing between our countrymen and the native
-gentry has not had its origin in the religious scruples of the latter,
-or in any decided aversion on their part to a closer intercourse with
-the strangers to whom Providence has assigned the mastery over their
-land.
-
-This view is confirmed, in as far as the Mahommedans are concerned, by
-what Mrs Colin Mackenzie tells us of the comments of the Afghan chiefs
-on the reluctance of their co-religionists in Hindostan to share a
-repast with their Christian rulers, and the absence of any fellowship
-between the two classes is traced by that lady to the very cause to
-which it is in our opinion also mainly to be ascribed; namely, to our
-peculiar and somewhat repulsive bearing towards all who differ from
-ourselves in tone of thought, in taste, or in manners.—With a scrupulous
-respect for the persons and property of those among whom we are thrown
-by the accidents of war, or trade, or travel, we too often manifest a
-great disregard for the feelings; and as insults rankle in the memory
-long after injuries are forgotten, we find that liberal expenditure and
-strict justice in our dealings cannot make us as popular as our rivals
-the French, even in countries where we paid for all, and they for
-nothing, that was supplied or taken. Now, it is well remarked by Mr
-Marshman, at p. 63 of his Reply to Mr Cobden, that “everything in and
-about our Eastern Empire is English, even to our imperfections;” and
-among them we need not be surprised to find an undue scorn of all that
-is foreign, heightened by the arrogance of conquest and the Anglo-Saxon
-antipathy to a dark complexion. This last is a more potent principle
-than in our present humour of theoretical philanthropy we may be
-disposed to admit; but it seems to be born with us, for it may be seen
-sometimes in English children at an age too young for prejudice, or even
-a perception of social distinctions.
-
-It was said by “the Duke,” that there is no aristocracy like the
-aristocracy of colour; and all experience in lands where the races are
-brought into contact, proves the correctness of the aphorism.
-
-During the first thirty years of our ascendancy in India, this most
-forbidding of our national characteristics was kept in check by the
-exigencies of our position; and the consequence was, that,
-notwithstanding all the corruption of the time, we were then
-individually more popular than we have ever been since. There was so
-little of what could be called European society then to be met with
-throughout the country, that Englishmen were drawn into some degree of
-intimacy with natives, in order to escape from the painful sense of
-total isolation and solitude. That this intercourse was favourable to
-morality in the highest sense of the term, is more than we can venture
-to affirm; each party too often acquired more of the faults than of the
-virtues of the other. But still, bad as the public and private life of
-Anglo-Indians was at that period, and however great the corruption that
-prevailed, these defects in those who ruled were perhaps more tolerable
-to the governed than the ill-mannered integrity of a succeeding
-generation.
-
-The abuses had probably gone on increasing, and the palliating courtesy
-most likely diminishing, when a new era was ushered in by the arrival of
-the first Governor-General of superior rank, in the person of the
-Marquis Cornwallis.
-
-We must refer our readers to Mr Kaye’s pages for a clear description of
-the state of the Bengal Presidency at the commencement of this the
-second of the three periods into which we have assumed that its history
-may be distributed. Our space will not allow of our entering into the
-controversy about the merits of the system then introduced by Lord
-Cornwallis and his coadjutors, but we gladly make room for the following
-picture of the state of the peasantry in Bengal, sketched as we are
-assured by an eyewitness, in the course of the year 1853.
-
-
-  “What strikes the eye most in any village, or set of villages, in a
-  Bengal district, is the exuberant fertility of the soil, the sluttish
-  plenty surrounding the Grihasta’s (cultivator’s) abode, the rich
-  foliage, the fruit and timber trees, and the palpable evidence against
-  anything like penury. Did any man ever go through a Bengalee village
-  and find himself assailed by the cry of want or famine? Was he ever
-  told that the Ryot and his family did not know where to turn for a
-  meal, that they had no shade to shelter them, no tank to bathe in, no
-  employment for their active limbs? That villages are not neatly laid
-  out like a model village in an English county; that things seem to go
-  on, year by year, in the same slovenly fashion; that there are no
-  local improvements, and no advances in civilisation, is all very true.
-  But considering the wretched condition of some of the Irish peasantry,
-  or even the Scotch, and the misery experienced by hundreds in the
-  purlieus of our great cities at home, compared with the condition of
-  the Ryots who know neither cold nor hunger, it is high time that the
-  outcry about the extreme unhappiness of the Bengal Ryot should
-  cease.”—(P. 194.)
-
-
-It is cheering to read in the chapter of Mr Kaye’s work, from which the
-above extract is taken, the proofs that the labours of Cornwallis and
-his able coadjutors have not been fruitless, and that the peasantry of
-the part of India more immediately under their care, are not, as some
-have asserted, to this hour suffering from their blundering humanity.
-
-It would indeed be most mortifying to think that regulations, pronounced
-at the time of their promulgation by Sir Wm. Jones and the best English
-lawyers in India (though, in the true spirit of professional pedantry,
-they would not allow them to be called laws), to be such as would do
-credit to any legislator of ancient or modern times, should really in
-operation have proved productive of little or no good.
-
-The preambles to some of the first of these regulations are worthy of
-notice, even on the score of literary merit; and it is impossible to
-peruse them without feeling that they must have proceeded from highly
-cultivated minds, deeply impressed with the importance of the duty on
-which they were engaged.
-
-It was the recorded opinion of the late Mr Courtenay Smith, of the
-Bengal Civil Service (a brother of the celebrated Sidney Smith, and,
-like him, a man of great wit and general talent, though unfortunately
-his good things were mostly expressed in Persian or Hindostanee, and are
-thus lost to the European world), that succeeding governments have
-always erred as they have departed from the principles of the Cornwallis
-code; and that it would have been well if they had confined their
-legislation to such few modifications of the regulations of 1793 as the
-slowly progressive changes of Oriental life might have really rendered
-necessary.
-
-For very nearly thirty years the government of Bengal resisted the
-tempting facility of legislation incident to its position of entire and
-absolute power, and was content to rule upon the principles, and in
-general adherence to the forms, prescribed by those early enactments.
-
-The benefits resulting from this system were to be seen in a yearly
-extending cultivation, a growing respect for rights of property, and the
-gradual rise in the minds of the people of an habitual reference to
-certain known laws, instead of to the caprice of a ruler, for their
-guidance in the more serious affairs of life.
-
-The counterbalancing evils alleged against it were, the monopoly of all
-high offices by the covenanted servants of the East India Company; the
-accumulation of suits in the courts of civil justice—a result partly of
-that monopoly, and partly of the check imposed by our police on all
-simpler and ruder modes of arbitrement; and its tendency, by humouring
-the Asiatic aversion to change, to keep things stationary, and
-discountenance that progress without which there ought, in the opinion
-of many of our countrymen, to be no content on earth. Indeed, the very
-fact of the natives of Bengal being satisfied with such a system, would,
-we apprehend, be advanced as a reason for its abolition—a contented
-frame of mind, under their circumstances, being held to indicate a moral
-abasement, only to be corrected by the excitement of a little
-discontent. But, in truth, there was nothing in the Cornwallis system to
-preclude the introduction of necessary amendments.
-
-The great reproach attaching to it was the insufficient employment of
-natives, and the exclusive occupation by the Civil Service of the higher
-judicial posts. Now, we hope to make it clear, by a brief explanation,
-that the correction of both of these evils might more easily have been
-effected under the Cornwallis system, than under that by which it has
-been superseded. There are, as we have remarked at the outset of this
-article, questions of difficult solution inseparable from conquest;
-among which, that of the degree of trust to be reposed in the conquered
-is perhaps the greatest.
-
-Where attachment can hardly be presumed to exist, some reserve in the
-allotment of power appears to be dictated by prudence; and to fix the
-amount of influence annexed to an office to be filled by one of the
-subjugated, so as to render its importance and respectability compatible
-with the supremacy of the ruling race, is far from being so easy as
-those imagine who, in their reliance on certain general principles of
-supposed universal application, leave national feelings and prejudices
-out of account in making up their own little nostrums for the
-improvement of mankind.
-
-Under the Cornwallis system, there was an office which, though then
-always filled by a member of the Civil Service, seemed, in the
-limitation as well as the importance of its duties, to be exactly suited
-for natives to hold. When the civil file of a district became overloaded
-with arrears, the government used to appoint an officer to be assistant
-or deputy judge. To him the regular judge of the district was empowered
-to refer any cases that he thought fit, though there his power ceased,
-as the appeal lay direct to the provincial court from the award of the
-deputy.
-
-The deputy being made merely a referee without original jurisdiction,
-was a wise provision for keeping the primary judicial power in the hands
-of the officer charged with the preservation of the peace of the
-district, while importance and weight were given to the office of the
-deputy, by making the appeals from his decisions lie to the Provincial
-Court, and not to his local superior. A single little law of three
-lines, declaring natives of India to be eligible to the office of Deputy
-Judge, would, by throwing a number of respectable situations open to
-their aspirations, have provided for their advancement, without any
-disturbance of institutions to which the people of the country had
-become accustomed and reconciled. Again, as to the monopoly of higher
-judicial office by members of the Civil Service, the Cornwallis system,
-perhaps, provided a readier means of abating even this grievance than
-will be found in that by which it has been supplanted.
-
-Nothing can be more extravagant than the scheme of sending out
-barristers from Westminster Hall, to undertake, without any intermediate
-training, the management of districts in Bengal and Hindostan. Sir
-William Jones himself, unintelligible as he was, on his first arrival,
-to the natives of India, would have failed if he had undertaken such a
-task. This visionary proposal has happily received its _coup de grace_
-from Sir Edward Ryan, the late Chief Justice in Bengal, in his evidence
-before the Commons’ Committee; but it does not, in our opinion, follow
-that the aid of lawyers trained in England is therefore to be altogether
-discarded in providing for the administration of justice in India.
-Although the man fresh from England would be sadly bewildered if left by
-himself in a separate district, it does not follow that he should not,
-after some preparatory training, be able to co-operate vigorously with
-others. The horse will go well in double-harness, or in a team, who
-would upset a gig, and kick it to pieces.
-
-If barristers chose to repair to Bengal, and, while there practising at
-the bar of the Supreme Court, would study the native languages, it
-appears to us that, on their proficiency being proved by an examination,
-they might have been advantageously admitted, under certain limitations
-as to number, into the now abolished Provincial Courts.
-
-Had these experimental provisions in favour of natives of India, and
-barristers from England, been found to succeed, their eligibility to
-every grade in the judicial branch of the service might have been
-proclaimed, and the most plausible of all the complaints against our
-system of Indian government would thus have been removed. But
-improvement without change was not to the taste of those by whom the
-last of our three administrative periods was ushered in; and in further
-confirmation of Mr Marshman’s remark, already cited, on the parallelism
-of movement in England and in India, it was in the changeful years 1830
-and 1831 that a revolution was effected in our system of internal
-administration, which has since given a colour and a bent to our whole
-policy in the East. In the course of those two years the magisterial
-power was detached from the office of the judge, and annexed to that of
-the collector; the Provincial Courts were abolished, their judicial
-duties being transferred to the district judges, and their ministerial
-functions of superintendence and control to commissioners, each with the
-police and revenue of about half a dozen districts under his charge.
-
-Two Sudder, or courts of ultimate resort, were established, one at
-Calcutta, the other at Allahabad in upper India; but all real executive
-power centred in the magisterial revenue department, presided over by
-two Boards, located, like the Sudder Courts, at Calcutta and Allahabad.
-
-One of the new provisions then introduced abolished the office of
-Register, or subordinate Judge, held by young civilians conjointly with
-that of Assistant to the Magistrate. This was a most serious change, for
-it abolished the very situation in which young civilians received their
-judicial training, and fitted themselves for the better eventual
-discharge of the higher duties of the judicature.
-
-The Registers used to have the trial of civil suits for property, if not
-more than five hundred rupees (£50) in value. The abolitionists urged
-the injustice of letting raw youths experimentalise upon small suits, to
-the supposed detriment of poor suitors. There was a show of reason in
-this mode of arguing; but those who used it did not give due weight to
-the consideration that these youths were to become the dispensers of
-justice to all classes, and that it was better for the country to suffer
-a little from their blunders at the outset, than to have them at last
-advanced to the highest posts on the judgment-seat without any judicial
-training whatsoever. But, in fact, the whole argument was based upon a
-mere assumption. The young Registers certainly committed occasional
-blunders, as old Justices and Aldermen, if we are to believe the daily
-papers, constantly commit them in England; but, on the whole, their
-courts were generally popular and in good repute among the natives. The
-young civilian had often a pride in his own little court of record,
-liked to know that it was well thought of, and was sometimes pleased to
-find parties shaping their plaints so as to bring them within the limits
-of his cognisance.
-
-They thus often acquired a personal regard for the people, whom it was
-their pride, as well as their duty, to protect—a feeling which has
-since, we fear, been too much weakened. The young civilians of the
-present day, though excellent men of business, and accomplished
-linguists, have seldom any individual feeling for the natives, whom they
-regard in a light for which no word occurs to us so happily expressive
-as the French term, “les administrés.” Thus it happened that the
-abolition of Registerships proved almost the death-blow to the
-Cornwallis system, and shook, not merely the framework, but the very
-principles of judicial administration throughout the country. It was
-followed up by a series of measures, all calculated to lower the
-judicial department of the service, and to prove to the natives that the
-protection of the law, promised in the still unrepealed regulations, was
-thenceforward to prove illusory, wherever it was required to shield them
-from the encroachments of any new scheme or theory finding favour for
-the moment with an executive government ruling avowedly upon principles
-of expediency, and seeking every occasion to shake off the trammels
-imposed upon its freedom of action by the cautious provisions of the
-Cornwallis code.
-
-The people soon found in their rulers under the new system a scrupulous
-discharge of all positive duties, combined with a diminished
-consideration for native prejudices, a neglect of many punctilios of
-etiquette, and a stern hostility to every exceptional privilege
-exempting an individual in any degree from the operation of the rules of
-general administration. This last-mentioned tendency showed itself
-particularly in the case of the rent-free tenures, which had for some
-ten years previously been undergoing revision.
-
-These landed tenures were held under grants from former rulers,
-exempting the grantee and his heirs from all payment on the score of
-revenue, though sometimes, as in our own feudal tenures, imposing upon
-him obligations of suit and service in some form or other.
-
-When the framers of the Cornwallis code, in 1793, determined on
-recognising the validity of every such tenure as was held under an
-authentic and sufficient grant, a provision was at the same time made
-for their being carefully recorded and registered.
-
-This duty of registration was, however, either totally neglected or very
-imperfectly performed, and the consequence was, that by collusive
-extensions of their limits, and other means, such as it would be tedious
-to explain, the rent-free tenures were gradually eating into the
-rent-paying lands forming the main source of the revenues of the state.
-Careful revision, therefore, became necessary, and was in fact commenced
-so far back as the year 1819. The inquiry was intrusted to the officers
-of the revenue department; but for some time permission was left to
-those discontented with their award, to bring the question at issue
-between them and the Government before the regular courts of justice for
-final decision. This process proving too tardy, in about ten years
-afterwards a sort of exchequer court, called a Special Commission, was
-erected for the trial of appeals from the decisions of the revenue
-authorities on the validity of rent-free grants. This commission was
-filled by officers of the judicial branch of the service, and their
-proceedings, carried on in strict conformity with the practice of the
-courts of civil justice, gave no offence, and created no alarm,
-notwithstanding that extensive tracts were brought by their decisions
-under the liability of paying revenue to the state. But not long after
-the country had entered into the third period of its administration, the
-revenue authorities got impatient of all restraint, and sought to break
-through the impediments of judicial procedure and rules. The primary
-proceedings, being intrusted to young deputy-collectors, were carried on
-with a rapidity which rendered due investigation utterly impossible, and
-all real inquiry must have been deemed superfluous by juniors, who saw
-their superiors gravely pronounce, even in official documents, that the
-very existence of a rent-free tenure was an abuse, and ought to be
-abated.
-
-We have said that the forgeries practised by some, and the extension of
-their privileges by others of the holders, rendered strict investigation
-of rent-free tenures an immediate necessity and a duty. Still, it was to
-be borne in mind, that our faith was pledged to the recognition of all
-_genuine_ grants, and that, in the larger of these tenures, the fallen
-nobility and gentry of the land found their solace for the loss of
-power, place, station, hope of advancement, and all that gives a zest to
-the life of the upper classes in every part of the globe; while the
-smaller tenures of the kind constituted, in many instances, the sole
-support of well-descended but indigent families. There was something to
-move the compassion even of a universal philanthropist, in the thought
-of the humble individuals of both sexes to whom a sweeping resumption of
-all such tenures was in fact the extinction of almost every earthly
-hope. The Indian government itself, though at that period described by
-Mr F. H. Robinson (p. 12) as “a despotism administered upon radical
-principles,” became startled at the havoc which the zeal of its
-subordinates was committing among this class of sufferers, and
-interfered to mitigate the severity of their proceedings. Many of the
-“soft-hearted” seniors of the Civil Service rejoiced at a resolution
-which relieved them from an odious and painful duty. But thus reasons a
-strong-minded junior on what he regards as a feeble concession:—
-
-
-  “Unfortunately the long delay in making the investigations had
-  established in their seats the fraudulent appropriators of the
-  revenue; and when it came to be taken from them, the measure caused
-  great change and apparent hardship to individuals in comfortable
-  circumstances; hence arose a great cry of hardship and injustice. We
-  were still most apt to view with sympathy the misfortunes of the
-  higher classes; many soft-hearted officers of Government exclaimed
-  against the sudden deprivation; and some of the seditious Europeans,
-  who find their profit in professional attacks on Government, raised
-  the cry much louder. But the worst of the storm had expended itself; a
-  little firmness, a little voluntary beneficence to individual cases,
-  and it would have ceased; and the temporary inconvenience to
-  fraudulent individuals would have resulted in great permanent addition
-  to the means of the state; but the Bengal Government is pusillanimous.
-  Since Warren Hastings was persecuted in doing his duty, and Lord
-  Cornwallis praised for sacrificing the interests of Government, and of
-  the body of the people, it has always erred on the side of abandoning
-  its rights to any sufficiently strong interested cry. It wavered about
-  these resumptions. It let off first one kind of holding, then another,
-  then all holdings under one hundred beegas (about seventy acres),
-  whether one man possessed several such or not: life-tenures were
-  granted where no right existed. Finally, _all_ resumed lands were
-  settled at _half_ rates in perpetuity, and the Board of Revenue
-  intimated that they ‘would be happy to see all operations
-  discontinued.’ The result therefore is, that the Government have
-  incurred all the odium and abuse of the measure, have given the cry
-  more colour by so much yielding, and in the end have got not half so
-  much revenue as they ought to have had. There has been an addition of
-  about £300,000 to the annual revenue, at an expense of £800,000.”[36]
-
-
-According to Mr Campbell’s calculation, a stricter enforcement of the
-resumption laws might have doubled the above sum; but as only the
-smaller tenures were let off, it is scarcely possible that more than
-half as much again as was actually realised could have been wrung out of
-the remnants to which the Government so timidly, as he asserts,
-abandoned its rights. An addition, therefore, of about £450,000 to our
-annual income would have been all that we should have gained by a
-measure violating the most solemn pledge given to the people that every
-VALID grant should be respected, reducing many families to ruin, and
-shaking the general confidence in our honesty and good faith. Though the
-passage cited is open to many objections on the score of arbitrary
-assumption and false reasoning, it is to its hardness of tone that we
-would chiefly draw our readers’ attention, as strongly confirmatory of
-the following remark, taken from Mr F. H. Robinson’s pamphlet:—
-
-
-  “I have said enough, I think, to demonstrate that the disaffection
-  which exists is traceable to the despotic character our administration
-  has of late years assumed, simultaneously with its sedulous diffusion
-  of liberal doctrines; to the unhappy dislike of natives, as natives,
-  which has crept in among the servants of Government; to the many acts
-  of abuse, oppression, and arbitrary misgovernment, arising as much
-  from misguided zeal as from evil intention, which, on the part of the
-  administrative officers, harass and vex the people.”—(P. 31).
-
-
-We have already recorded our assent to Mr Marshman’s remark on the
-thoroughly English character of our Indian empire and its
-administration; but we have, moreover, to observe, that, in the
-application of new principles even of European growth, India often
-outstrips the mother country. That which in England is still theory has
-in India become practice. There are not wanting in England people to
-maintain that all grants of olden times ought to be forfeited, and their
-proceeds applied to the purposes of general government. If these people
-had their way, they would certainly resume the lands of the deans and
-chapters, probably those of the schools and colleges, and possibly such
-also as are devoted to the support of almshouses, and other charitable
-institutions scattered over the face of the country. These speculations
-in England evaporate in pamphlets, and cannot for a long time assume any
-more positive form than that of a speech in the House of Commons. But
-the following passage in Mr F. H. Robinson’s pamphlet shows us how
-differently such matters are ordered in India:—
-
-
-  “The Government have systematically resumed, of late years, all
-  religious endowments; an extensive inquiry has been going on into all
-  endowments, grants, and pensions; and in almost every one in which the
-  continuance of religious endowments has been recommended by
-  subordinate revenue authorities, backed by the Board of Revenue, the
-  fiat of confiscation has been issued by the Government.”—(P. 17).
-
-
-Again, there are many in England who would gladly reduce the landed
-possessions of great proprietors, like the Duke of Buccleuch and others,
-to more moderate dimensions; but they hardly venture to put forth
-speculations upon a measure which, in India, has been carried into
-positive and extensive execution.
-
-The fourth chapter of Mr Kaye’s work contains a clear and admirable
-account of the recent settlement of the provinces of the Upper Ganges,
-in the course of which the reader will meet with the following passage:—
-
-
-  “There was a class of large landed proprietors, known as Talookdars,
-  the territorial aristocracy of the country. The settlement officers
-  seem to have treated these men as usurpers and monopolists, and to
-  have sought every opportunity of reducing their tenures. It was not
-  denied that such reduction was, on the whole, desirable, inasmuch as
-  these large tenures interfered with the rights of the village
-  proprietors. But the reduction was undertaken in too precipitate and
-  arbitrary a manner; and the Court of Directors acknowledged that it
-  had caused great practical embarrassment to Government, against whom
-  numerous suits were instituted in the civil courts by the ousted
-  talookdars, and many decided in their favour.”—(P. 265).
-
-
-The redress afforded by these decisions of the civil courts has not, we
-fear, been sufficient to avert the ruin of such members of the
-“territorial aristocracy” as had the hardihood to withhold their
-adhesion to a scheme for their own extinction. The principle of that
-scheme was to grant, in the form of a per-centage on the revenue
-realised from the village communities of what had been his domain, a
-pension to the talookdar who was willing, for such a consideration, to
-give up all the other advantages of his hereditary position. Many of
-these men, or their immediate predecessors, had rendered us great
-service in the war by which we acquired the country; but they stood in
-the way of a favourite scheme, and before its irresistible advance they
-were compelled to retire. The provision made for their future wants may
-have been a liberal one; but how would the Duke of Buccleuch or the
-Marquess of Westminster like to be thus pensioned off?
-
-The truth had better be frankly avowed; the object aimed at is, to get
-rid of the old territorial aristocracy altogether,—indeed, it is so
-stated by Mr Campbell in the following sentences:—
-
-
-  “It is, I think, a remarkable distinction between the manners of the
-  natives and ours, and one which much affects our dealings with them,
-  that there does not exist that difference of tone between the higher
-  and lower classes—the distinction, in fact, of a gentleman. The lower
-  classes are to the full as good and intelligent as with us; indeed,
-  they are much more versed in the affairs of life, plead their causes
-  better, make more intelligent witnesses, and have many virtues.
-
-  “But these good qualities are not in the same proportion in the higher
-  classes; they cannot bear prosperity; it causes them to degenerate,
-  especially if they are born to greatness. The only efficient men of
-  rank (with, of course, a few exceptions) are those who have risen to
-  greatness. The lowest of the people, if fate raise him to be an
-  emperor, makes himself quite at home in his new situation, and shows
-  an aptitude of manner and conduct unknown to Europeans similarly
-  situated; but his son is altogether degenerate. Hence the
-  impossibility of adapting to anything useful most of the higher
-  classes found by us, and for all fresh requirements it is necessary to
-  _create_ a fresh class. From the acuteness and aptness to learn of the
-  inferior classes, this can be done as is done in other
-  countries.”—(Pp. 63, 64).
-
-
-We fully subscribe to all that is here said in commendation of the lower
-classes of our Indian subjects, but we demur to the author’s very
-disparaging estimate of the capacity of the higher orders. Doubtless
-there are, or rather were, many dull men of rank on the banks of the
-Ganges; but are there none on those of the Thames?—no squires of cramped
-and confused notions, no fortunate inheritors of wealth content to
-wallow through life in utter disregard of the duties attaching to
-property, while fiercely jealous of its rights? It would be a sad day
-for our own landed aristocracy if Mr Campbell were to obtain sway in
-England, and try to rule that country upon the principles of which he
-approves in the East. But if he could, would our peasantry be
-_permanently_ bettered by a change tending towards a destruction of all
-the gradations of society? If the reply to this query should be in the
-affirmative, we may contemplate with unalloyed satisfaction the progress
-of a system the description and defence of which is the main object of
-Mr Campbell’s work; but if we feel any hesitation as to the future
-effects of such a change in England, then, human nature being much the
-same in every clime, we ought to have some misgivings as to its eventual
-results in the East. We say _eventual_, because the _immediate_ fruits
-of the measures described by Mr Campbell have, we are assured by him,
-and have heard from other quarters, been satisfactory and cheering. But
-is it probable that a whole nation should rest satisfied for ever in
-this state of flat and tame sufficiency? and can we wonder to find
-alongside of Mr Campbell’s picture of what ought to be the feelings
-towards the English of the present day on the banks of the Ganges, Mr F.
-H. Robinson’s gloomy account of what, in his opinion, those feelings
-really are? Having been compelled, as a member of the Board of Revenue,
-to make a communication to an old retired officer of Gardiner’s
-Irregular Horse, and to a Mussulman of rank, calculated to hurt the
-feelings of both, Mr Robinson thus describes what followed:—
-
-
-  “I shall never forget the looks of mortification, anger, and at first
-  of incredulity, with which this announcement was received by both, nor
-  the bitter irony with which the old Russuldar remarked, that no doubt
-  the wisdom of the _new-gentlemen_ (Sahiblogue, so they designate the
-  English) had shown them the folly and ignorance of the gentlemen of
-  the old time, on whom it had pleased God, nevertheless, to bestow the
-  government of India.”—(P. 17).
-
-
-Mr Robinson goes too far when he taxes the rulers of the present day
-with dislike to the natives generally; but it is evident, from Mr
-Campbell’s own admission, that there is a strong prepossession in the
-minds of the young men of his school against all natives with any
-pretensions to rank. This feeling extending to those beyond the limits
-of our own dominions, has stamped on our foreign policy the character of
-our internal administration, and found its full development in the late
-Afghan war. Thirty or forty years ago, when natives, if excluded from
-office, were more often admitted to familiar intercourse with their
-European rulers, a mere regard for our own character in the eyes of our
-subjects would have withheld us from making an unprovoked attack upon an
-unoffending neighbour, and thus incurring a certain loss of reputation
-for a very uncertain amount of gain. This view of the case does not of
-course even occur to Mr Campbell as one likely to be taken by any
-reasonable being, and he sums up his account of the Afghan war with the
-following remarks, suggestive to our minds of little beyond a most
-earnest hope that the future advancement, doubtless in store for one of
-his abilities, may lead him far away from meddling with matters either
-political or military:—
-
-
-  “Such it was—a grievous military catastrophe and misfortune to us,
-  both then and in our subsequent relations with the country; but in no
-  way attributable to our policy, from which no such result necessarily
-  or probably flowed. To the policy is due the expense, but not the
-  disaster.”—(P. 136).
-
-
-Mr Campbell has evidently not made very minute inquiry into the facts of
-the war, or he would never have hazarded the assertion contained in the
-following passage, that Sir George Pollock literally paid his way
-through the Khyber Pass:—
-
-
-  “Through the Western mountains only has India been invaded; for beyond
-  them are all the great nations of Central India, and they are
-  penetrable to enemies through one or two difficult passes. But these
-  passes are so narrow, difficult, and easily defended, that _it is
-  believed_ that no army, from Alexander’s down to General Pollock’s,
-  has ever passed without bribing the mountain tribes. In the face of
-  regular troops and an organised defence, all the armies in the world
-  could not force an entrance; but in the absence of such a defence,
-  experience proves that the local tribes are always accessible to
-  moderate bribes.”—(P. 27).
-
-
-The absolute impracticability of any mountain barrier is, we believe,
-disputed; but, without offering any opinion on that point, we are happy
-to have it in our power to correct the mistake into which the author has
-fallen, in supposing that it was by bribing that Sir George Pollock
-carried his army through the Khyber Pass. It is true that, in the
-anxious time preceding our army’s movement from Peshawar, negotiations
-had been entered into with the local tribes; but we have the most
-unquestionable authority for asserting that, before the march towards
-Cabool began, the sum advanced to their chiefs, being 20,000 rupees or
-£2000, was demanded back from them by the political agent on the
-frontier, and actually repaid; so that the mountaineers had not only the
-clearest warning of the British general’s intention, but the strongest
-possible inducement to oppose him, as they did to the utmost of their
-power.
-
-But our chief motive for alluding to the Afghan war is, that we may show
-how the spirit of the two schools, under which, according to our theory,
-those engaged in the work of Indian government may now be classed,
-showed itself even in the direction of our armies in the field. Sir
-George Pollock was there the representative of what would be called by
-us the considerate and moderate, by Mr Campbell the soft-hearted and
-over-cautious school; while Sir William Nott was at the head of that
-which, going straight to its object, tramples under foot, without
-compunction, every consideration that might hamper its freedom of
-movement. We select but a few instances in proof of our position,
-choosing such as, from their notoriety, can be cited without injury or
-offence.
-
-As the two avenging armies, the one from Candahar on the south, the
-other from Peshawar on the east, drew nigh to Cabool, a powerful party,
-consisting chiefly of the Kuzzilbashes or Persians, who had never taken
-part against us, prayed earnestly that the citadel, the Bala Hissar,
-might be spared to serve as a place of refuge to themselves amid the
-troubles likely to ensue on our again evacuating the country.
-
-This prayer General Nott would have rejected, and in so doing would have
-gained the applause of every member of that school by which concession
-to the feelings of natives in opposition to the requirements of
-expediency, or the sternest justice, is regarded as a proof of weakness.
-With this prayer General Pollock complied; and to his doing so may the
-safety of the ladies and other prisoners, in whose fate the whole
-civilised world took so deep an interest, be ascribed; for it was
-through the co-operation of those thus conciliated that the Afghan
-chief, charged with the custody of the captives, was won over to assist
-in their escape. General Nott was fortunately the inferior in rank; for
-had he commanded in chief, we have his own words for the fact, that he
-would have destroyed the Bala Hissar and the City of Cabool, and marched
-on with the least possible delay to Jellabad, of course leaving the poor
-captives to their fate; or, in words which, from the manner of their
-insertion in the pages of the historian, it is to be feared he must have
-used, “throwing them overboard.”—(KAYE’S _History of the Afghan War_,
-vol. i. pp. 617, 631).
-
-Incomplete indeed, to use Mr Kaye’s words, would any victory have been,
-if these brave men and tender women, who had so well endured a long and
-fearful captivity, had been left behind; and it is well to reflect that
-we were saved from this reproach by the ascendancy of the milder
-principles of rule in the mind of the officer upon whom the chief
-command at this moment, we may almost say providentially, devolved.
-
-Many more instances are recorded, in the chapter just quoted, of the
-influence of a contrary spirit on the closing events of the Afghan war;
-but we must pass on to what happened in Scinde, where the anti-judicial
-principle may be said to have reached its climax.
-
-The following is Mr Campbell’s short and flippant account of that
-transaction, reminding us in one passage of a letter from the Empress
-Catherine to one of her French correspondents, wherein she congratulated
-herself “qu’il n’y a pas d’honneur à garder avec les Turcs”:—
-
-
-  “But though we withdrew from Cabool, our military experiences were not
-  yet over. On invading Afghanistan by the Bolan Pass, Scinde became a
-  base of our operations, and troops were there cantoned. When our
-  misfortunes occurred, it was supposed that the Beloch chiefs would
-  have liked to have turned against us, but dared not—did not.
-
-  “Major-General Sir C. Napier then commanded a division in Bombay; he
-  was a good soldier, of a keen, energetic temperament, but somewhat
-  quarrelsome disposition; had at one proud period of his life been in
-  temporary charge of a petty island in the Mediterranean, but was, I
-  believe, deposed by his superior—most unwisely, as he considered; and
-  he had ever since added to his military ardour a still greater thirst
-  for civil power—as it often happens that we prefer to the talents
-  which nature has given us those which she has denied us. He was
-  appointed to the command in Scinde; and Lord Ellenborough, an admirer
-  of heroes, subsequently invested him with political powers. He soon
-  quarrelled with the chiefs, and came to blows with them. Their
-  followers were brave, but undisciplined, and they had no efficient
-  artillery. An active soldier was opposed to them; he easily overcame
-  them, declared the territory annexed, and was made Governor of
-  Scinde.”
-
-  Now, the Beloch chiefs had no other right to the territory than the
-  sword; _and we, having the better sword, were perfectly justified in
-  taking it from them if we chose_, without reference to the particular
-  quarrel between Sir Charles and the chiefs, the merits of which have
-  been so keenly disputed, and on which I need not enter. But the
-  question _was one of expediency_; and this premature occupation of
-  Scinde was not so much a crime as a blunder,—for this very simple
-  reason, that Scinde did not pay, but, on the contrary, was a very
-  heavy burden, by which the Indian Government has been several millions
-  sterling out of pocket.
-
-  “The Ameers had amassed, in their own way, considerable property and
-  treasure, which the general obtained for the army. He was thus
-  rewarded by an unprecedented prize-money, and with the government of
-  Scinde, while Bengal paid the costs of the government he had gained.
-  Scinde was so great a loss, for this reason—that it was not, like
-  other acquisitions, in the midst of, or contiguous to, our
-  territories, but was at that time altogether detached and separated by
-  the sea, the desert, and the independent Punjab; while on the fourth
-  side it was exposed to the predatory Beloches of the neighbouring
-  hills. Consequently, every soldier employed there was cut off from
-  India, and was an expense solely due to Scinde; and while a great many
-  soldiers were required to keep it, it produced a very small revenue to
-  pay them. It is, in truth, very like Egypt—that is, it is the fertile
-  valley of a river running through a barren country, where no rain
-  falls. But there is this difference—first, that while no broader, it
-  is not so long, nor has the fine delta which constitutes the most
-  valuable portion of Egypt; second, that while Egypt is free from
-  external predatory invasion, Scinde is exceedingly exposed to it; and,
-  thirdly, that while Egypt has a European market for its grain, Scinde
-  has not. Altogether, the conquest was, at the time, as concerns India,
-  much as if we had taken the valley of the Euphrates.
-
-  “Half a dozen years later, when we advanced over the plain of the
-  Indus, and annexed the Punjab, we must have arranged to control Scinde
-  too, directly or indirectly, as might be done cheapest; but during
-  those intermediate years it was a gratuitous loss, and the chief cause
-  of the late derangement of our Indian finances.”—(Pp. 137–139).
-
-
-The better sword gives the better title! When such is the doctrine
-maintained, even by a man of the pen, we cannot wonder at its finding a
-ready expositor in the man of the sword.
-
-But, in truth, Mr Campbell’s sword plea, having the merit of honesty and
-openness, is by far the best that has been advanced; and yet, as he
-shows, it is only available in support of the right, and not of the
-policy, of the measure. After-events, he observes, alluding to the
-conquest of the Punjab, have given a value to Scinde, which in itself it
-did not possess; but he has omitted to remark that the one event very
-probably grew out of the other. The Sikhs, who not only had refrained,
-like the Ameers, from molesting, but had even assisted us in our recent
-difficulties, had some reason for apprehending that, in due time, the
-policy pursued in Scinde would be extended to their own more inviting
-country; while, as if to remove an obstacle to an apparently desired
-misunderstanding, Sir George Clerk was promoted to the nominally higher
-post of lieutenant-governor of Agra, and an officer, his very opposite
-in every quality excepting earnest zeal and undaunted courage, was
-appointed to be his political successor at Lahore.
-
-Though he is little disposed to state any case too favourably for the
-party opposed to us, this peculiarity in our relations with the Sikhs,
-immediately before their invasion of our territory, is frankly admitted
-by Mr Campbell. After mentioning various military movements calculated
-to give them alarm, he describes a political difficulty as to certain
-lands belonging to the Sikh state, lying on our side of the Sutledge,
-which he says had been so managed by two successive political agents,
-Sir Claude Wade and Sir George Clerk, that through their personal
-influence “it had so happened that our wishes were generally attended
-to.” He thus concludes:—
-
-
-  “Sir George Clerk having been promoted, new men were put in charge of
-  our frontier relations, and seem to have assumed as a right what had
-  heretofore been yielded to a good understanding. In 1845 Major
-  Broadfoot was political agent. He was a man of great talent and
-  immense energy, but of a rather overbearing habit. In difficult and
-  delicate times he certainly did not conciliate the Sikhs....
-  Altogether, I believe the fact to be, that had Sir George Clerk
-  remained in charge of our political relations, the Sikhs would not
-  have attacked us at the time they did; it might have been delayed: but
-  still it was well that they came when they did.”—(Pp. 142, 143.)
-
-
-The annexation of the Punjab followed hard on the conquest of Scinde,
-and both events may be regarded as sequels to the Afghan expedition, and
-this again as but a fuller development of the anti-judicial school,
-which, since the downfall of the Cornwallis system, has held almost
-undisputed sway on the banks of the Ganges.
-
-When a government essentially despotic, like that of British India,
-spontaneously engages to adhere to the rules of judicial procedure in
-dealing with its own subjects, a pledge is thereby given to neighbouring
-states that towards them also its conduct will be regulated on
-principles of justice and moderation.
-
-We admit that the ruling power may thus sometimes create obstructions to
-its own progress along the path of improvement; but it seems probable
-that such self-imposed restraints should more frequently operate (to
-borrow a term from the railway) as “breaks” to save it from
-precipitately rushing into acts of rashness or injustice.
-
-History confirms these conclusions, and shows the practical result to
-have been precisely what _a priori_ reasoning would have led us to
-expect.
-
-Five great wars were waged in India during the second or judicial period
-of its administration—that is, from 1793 to 1830. These were—the Mysore
-war in 1799, the Mahratta war in 1803, the Nepaul war in 1814, the
-Pindaree war in 1817, and the Burmese war in 1825. There is not one of
-these against which even a plausible charge of injustice can be
-maintained by our bitterest foreign foes, or most quick-sighted
-censorious countrymen.
-
-The acuteness of Mr Cobden himself would be at fault if he were to try
-to make out a case against the authors of any one of these wars, to
-satisfy a single sensible man beyond the circle of the “Peace Society.”
-
-But how is it with the wars which have occurred since, wandering from
-judicial ways, the rulers of Gangetic India have pursued whatever course
-for the moment found favour in their own eyes, with little or no
-reference to the feelings of their subjects, and with hardly a show of
-deference to the laws enacted by their predecessors?
-
-The Afghan war of 1838, the Scinde affair of 1843, the Gwalior campaign
-of 1844, have each in their turn, especially the two first-named, been
-made the subject of comments neither captious nor fastidious, but
-resting on indisputable evidence, and supported by reasoning such as
-pre-formed prejudice alone can resist. The two wars in the Punjab come
-under the category of the just and necessary; and Lord Hardinge’s
-generous use of the privileges of victory, at the close of the first of
-these hard-fought conflicts, did much to re-establish our character for
-justice and moderation. But still these wars are, we fear, coupled in
-the minds of the people of India with those out of which they sprang,
-and share in the reproach attaching, in their estimation, to the
-invasion of Afghanistan and the conquest of Scinde.
-
-We have now reached a point where we may stop to consider the several
-merits of the works on our list at the head of this article. Mr F. H.
-Robinson’s pamphlet is written in a frank conversational style,
-indicative of his earnest sincerity and his real sympathy with the
-people of the Upper Ganges, among whom his official life has been spent.
-We could wish occasionally that his language was a little more measured,
-for there are passages to startle some of his readers, and so to impair
-the general effect of his otherwise interesting pamphlet.
-
-Of the style, as well as the matter, of Mr Campbell’s more elaborate
-work, hardness is the chief characteristic. Indeed, he seems to discard
-all ornament from the one, and all sentiment from the other, and to aim
-at nothing beyond correctness as to his facts, and positiveness as to
-his deductions. In this he fully succeeds. His volume is a repertory of
-useful facts, and his conclusions can never be misapprehended. Some of
-Mr Campbell’s descriptions also are amusing; and we insert, as a
-specimen of his lighter style, the following sketch of the day of a
-magistrate and collector in Upper India, that functionary whose labours
-are so little known to any but those of his own service, or the people
-among whom he lives. After enumerating many out-of-door duties
-despatched in the course of an early morning’s ride, the description
-thus proceeds:—
-
-
-  “At breakfast comes the post and the packet of official letters. The
-  commissioner demands explanation on this matter, and transmits a paper
-  of instructions on that; the judge calls for cases which have been
-  appealed; the secretary to Government wants some statistical
-  information; the inspector of prisons fears that the prisoners are
-  growing too fat; the commander of the 105th regiment begs to state
-  that his regiment will halt at certain places on certain days, and
-  that he requires a certain quantity of flour, grain, hay, and eggs; Mr
-  Snooks, the indigo-planter, who is in a state of chronic warfare with
-  his next neighbour, has submitted his grievances in six folio sheets,
-  indifferent English, and a bold hand, and demands instant redress,
-  failing which he threatens the magistrate with Government, the supreme
-  court, an aspersion of his character as a gentleman, a Parliamentary
-  impeachment, a letter to the newspapers, and several other things
-  besides. After breakfast he despatches his public letters, writes
-  reports, examines returns, &c.
-
-  “During this time he has probably a succession of demi-officials from
-  the neighbouring cantonments. There is a great complaint that the
-  villagers have utterly, without provocation, broken the heads of the
-  cavalry grass-cutters, and the grass-cutters are sent to be looked at.
-  He goes out to look at them, but no sooner appears than a shout
-  announces that the villagers are waiting in a body, with a slightly
-  different version of the story, to demand justice against the
-  grass-cutters, who have invaded their grass-preserves, despoiled their
-  villages, and were with difficulty prevented from murdering the
-  inhabitants. So the case is sent to the joint magistrate. But there
-  are more notes; some want camels, some carts, and all apply to the
-  magistrate; then there may be natives of rank and condition, who come
-  to pay a serious formal kind of visit, and generally want something;
-  or a chatty native official who has plenty to say for himself.
-
-  “All this despatched, he orders his carriage or umbrella, and goes to
-  cutcherry—his regular court. Here he finds a sufficiency of business;
-  there are police, and revenue, and miscellaneous cases of all sorts,
-  appeals from the orders of his subordinates, charges of corruption or
-  misconduct against native officials. All petitions from all persons
-  are received daily in a box, read, and orders duly passed. Those
-  setting forth good grounds of complaint are filed under proper
-  headings; others are rejected, for written reason assigned. After
-  sunset, comes his evening, which is probably like his morning ride,
-  mixed up with official and demi-official affairs, and only at dark
-  does the wearied magistrate retire to dinner and to private
-  life.”—(Pp. 248–249).
-
-
-Mr Kaye’s essay recommends itself by the same easy flow of language as
-made his _History of the Afghan War_ such agreeable reading. His plan
-does not admit of his giving more than a series of sketches; but his
-outlines are so clear, and his selection of topics to fill up with is so
-happy, that we can safely recommend his volume to any one who, without
-leisure or inclination for more minute study of the subject, may still
-wish to obtain some general idea of the administration of our vast
-Eastern empire. In a note at page 661, Mr Kaye informs us, that in the
-summer of 1852 the Duke of Newcastle told the Haileybury students that,
-during a recent tour in the Tyrol, he had met an intelligent Austrian
-general who, in the course of conversation on our national resources,
-said that he could understand all the elements of our greatness except
-our Anglo-Indian empire, and _that_ he could not understand. The vast
-amount of administrative wisdom which the good government of such an
-empire demanded, baffled his comprehension.
-
-The Austrian general, perhaps, would not have readily assented to the
-explanation of the marvel given by the young French naturalist, Victor
-Jaquemont, who, in a letter dated from the confines of Tartary, in
-August 1830, thus writes to a relative in Paris: “The ideas
-entertained in France about this country are absurd; the governing
-talents of the English are immense; ours, on the contrary, are very
-mediocre; and we believe the former to be embarrassed when we see them
-in circumstances in which our awkwardness would be completely at a
-stand-still.”—(_English translation of Victor Jaquemont’s Letters_,
-vol. i. p. 169).
-
-The lady whose three volumes come next under our notice is certainly one
-of the most intelligent travellers of her sex who has visited India
-since the days when Maria Graham, afterwards Lady Callcott, amused her
-readers in England, and enraged many of her female acquaintances in
-India, by describing the latter as generally “under-bred and
-overdressed.”
-
-It is curious to observe how little change the lapse of forty years
-seems to have made in the outward peculiarities of Anglo-Indian
-drawing-room life, and how much in unison the two fair authors are in
-their remarks on their own countrymen.
-
-Mrs Colin Mackenzie, however, has enjoyed opportunities which her
-predecessor could not command, of observing the private and domestic
-side of Oriental life, and has evinced a wonderful aptitude in turning
-these opportunities to the best account. The great charm of her work is
-that it admits us within the Purdah, and lets us see what is hidden from
-all European masculine eyes,—the interior, namely, of an Asiatic
-household.
-
-It is pleasing to read an English lady’s lively account of her own
-friendly intercourse with families of another faith, upon whom her
-industrious energy, quickened and regulated by a zeal for her own
-religion, openly avowed and studiously exhibited as her main motive of
-action, cannot, we imagine, have failed to produce a deep and lasting
-impression. We trust that Mrs Mackenzie’s example may be followed by
-many of our countrywomen; for the information in which, of all others,
-the English functionaries in the East are most deficient—that regarding
-natives in their private and domestic sphere—is precisely what our
-ladies alone have the power to acquire and impart. Mrs Mackenzie, it is
-true, mingled chiefly with the Afghans, who are a more attractive race
-than the people of India.
-
-The Afghans, also, must have felt inclined to open their hearts to the
-wife of one who, both as a soldier in the field, and afterwards as a
-captive in their hands, had commanded the sincere respect of those among
-whom he was thrown. But though all cannot have her advantages, there is
-no lady whose husband holds office in India, who, if she makes herself
-acquainted with the languages of the country, will not find native women
-of rank and respectability ready to cultivate her acquaintance, and thus
-afford her the means of solving some of those problems of the native
-character which elude all the researches of our best-informed public
-functionaries. Having said thus much in praise of Mrs Mackenzie’s book,
-we cannot but censure most strongly the attempt at spicing her work with
-gossipping tales calculated to wound the feelings of private individuals
-among her own countrymen, and even of the officers of her husband’s own
-service, with whose characters she deals with a most unsparing degree of
-reproachful raillery, designating individuals as Colonel A., Major B.,
-or Captain C. of the — Regiment, stationed at such a place, so that
-there cannot be a doubt as to whom the anecdotes, which are always to
-the discredit of the parties, refer.
-
-The difficulty of commenting on a posthumous work is much enhanced when
-the author happens to have been, like the late Sir Charles Napier, one
-whose errors of the pen are more than redeemed by a career of long and
-glorious services. Still, though this consideration may soften, it ought
-not to silence criticism, for errors never more require correction than
-when heralded by an illustrious name. An additional reason for not
-passing over the last work of so distinguished a man is, that it
-contains many admirable remarks on the Native army, well deserving to be
-detached from the mass of other matter in which they are imbedded. The
-contents of the book may be classed under three heads: Censure of
-individuals; censure of public bodies; suggestive remarks on the civil
-and military administration of India.
-
-On whatever comes under the first of these heads, our strictures shall
-be brief.
-
-We find in the list of those censured, the names of so many of the best
-and ablest men who have taken part in Indian affairs, either at home or
-in the East, that we feel loth to give any additional publicity to what
-we have read with pain, and would gladly forget. Public bodies being
-fair targets to shoot at, the censures coming under the second head are
-open to no objection excepting such as may arise from their not standing
-the test of close examination. The Court of Directors, the Supreme
-Council of India, the whole body of the Civil Service (with one or two
-exceptions), the Political Agents, the Military Board in Calcutta, and
-the Board of Administration in the Punjab, follow each other like
-arraigned criminals in the black scroll of the author’s antipathies. To
-notice all that is advanced against those included in this catalogue
-would be impossible, for a few lines may contain assertions which it
-would fill a folio to discuss. Of the East India Company, the instrument
-through which India has been providentially preserved from the
-corruptions of an aristocratic and the precipitancy of a more popular
-rule, Sir Charles Napier’s view is not more enlarged than what we might
-have got from his own Sir Fiddle Faddle, of whom he has left us (at page
-253) so amusing a description. Though capable, as we shall soon see, of
-rising above the prejudices of his profession on other points, he looks
-at this singular Company and its governing Court with the eyes of a
-Dugald Dalgetty, who, while pocketing the commercial body’s extra pay,
-accounts it foul scorn to be obliged to submit to such base and
-mechanical control.
-
-But none are all bad, and we rejoice to see it admitted at page 210 of
-the unfriendly book before us, that “the Directors, generally speaking,
-treat their army well;” and at pages 49, 261, that the Company’s
-artillery, formed under the rule of these very Directors, is “_superb_,
-second to none in the world—perfect.” Yet it never seems to have
-occurred to the author, that those under whose rule one department has
-reached perfection, are not likely to blunder in every other, as in his
-moments of spleen he made himself believe. So able a man as Sir C.
-Napier could not always be blind to his own inconsistencies; and
-accordingly, in the midst of some declamation on what India might be
-under royal government, he seems to have been suddenly brought up by a
-thought about what the Crown Colonies really are.
-
-From this dilemma he escapes by saddling one distinguished personage
-with the blame of all that is wrong in the colonies, and thus punishes
-Earl Grey for the speech about Scinde, made by Lord Howick, some ten
-years ago, in the House of Commons.
-
-To the Supreme Council of India, though he was one of their number, the
-author never makes any but disparaging allusions. Discontented with
-being a commander-in-chief under a ruling body, of which he was himself
-a member, he sought to be recognised as the head of a separate military
-government. He wished, in short, to be, not what the Duke of York was in
-England, but what, under peculiar circumstances, the Duke of Wellington
-was in Spain during the war in the Peninsula. In this he was not
-singular; for we suspect that the real cause of that uneasiness in their
-position, stated at page 355, to have been manifested by many of Sir C.
-Napier’s predecessors, is to be found in a desire on their part for such
-an independency of military administrative power, as is totally
-incompatible with the necessary unity and indivisibility of a
-government. Yet it is admitted that, in England, “when war comes, the
-war-minister is the real commander,”—(p. 220.) The author evidently felt
-how much this admission must tell against his own complaints of undue
-interference with his authority; for he endeavours, by some feeble
-special pleading, to abate its effect, and to prove the “poor Indian
-general,” with his £15,000 a year, to be more unfavourably placed than
-his _confrère_ in England.
-
-One circumstance, however, is such, that while the latter is excluded
-from the Cabinet, the former can take his seat at the Council-Board, and
-his part in the guidance of the counsels of the State.
-
-It is, we think, greatly to be regretted that Sir C. Napier did not more
-frequently avail himself of this privilege, for by keeping apart from
-the Supreme Council he lost the benefit of free personal communication
-with equals, and incurred the evil of having none near him but
-subordinates, whom he could silence by a word or a look.
-
-The Civil Service is represented simply as a nuisance requiring
-immediate abatement.
-
-We are told that “a Civil form of government is uncongenial to
-_barbarous_ Eastern nations.” There is some truth in this, if a proper
-stress is laid on the word _barbarous_. In the first chapter of the
-fourth part of his work, Mr Kaye has shown how, in reaching the
-outskirts of civilisation, we are brought into contact with rude tribes
-like the Beloches in Scinde, “to whose feelings and habits the rough
-ways of Sir C. Napier were better adapted than the refined tenderness or
-the judicial niceties of the gentlest and wisest statesman that ever
-loved and toiled for a people.” But the error of such reasoners as Sir
-C. Napier is, that they would treat all India as barbarous, and rule it
-accordingly. Now, with all our respect for Sir C. Napier’s talents, we
-doubt much whether he would have governed the more civilised provinces
-of Upper India better than the late Mr Thomason, whom he condescends to
-praise—(p. 37); or managed the subtle and well-mannered Sikhs with more
-tact and skill than Sir George Clerk during the perilous period of our
-disasters in 1841–42.
-
-It is true that the utter failure of the system in operation in the
-Punjab is confidently predicted at p. 366; but it is consolatory to
-find, from the very last Indian newspapers, that no progress is making
-towards a fulfilment of this prophecy; but that, on the contrary, a
-reduction of taxation has been effected by the Board, such as would be
-felt as a boon by the tenant-farmers of England, its influence having
-been counteracted by nothing but by the effects of an excessive plenty.
-
-It is creditable to the candour of the Bengal Civil Service, that its
-members themselves furnish the information to be turned against their
-own body, and it is from a work published by the Hon. F. J. Shore, in
-1837, that Sir C. Napier has borrowed his most plausible charges.
-
-On this we can only observe, that Mr Shore, in his zeal for the
-improvement of his own service, forgot that what he wrote would be read
-by the ignorant and the unfriendly; by those who could not, and by those
-who would not, comprehend the real scope and meaning of his words.
-
-The faults imputed by him to his brother civilians are mainly those of
-manner, already noticed by ourselves as being common to the English,
-generally, in their deportment towards strangers in every clime.
-
-If we were writing only for those who know what British India is, our
-ungrateful task of correcting errors might here conclude; but it is
-upon those to whom that country is unknown that the work before us is
-calculated to produce an impression, and therefore we must try, in as
-few words as possible, to point out one of its most striking
-inaccuracies. On referring to the pages noted below,[37] the reader
-will find a series of assertions, to the effect that in Bengal the
-army is scattered over the country for the protection of the Civil
-servants. From the _Indian Register_ of this very year, it appears
-that, in the country below Benares, which, in extent and population,
-is about equal to France, there are only about ten battalions;[38] the
-half of these being stationed at Barrackpore, in the immediate
-vicinity of Calcutta. In the provinces above Benares, under the rule
-of the Lieutenant-governor at Agra, with a somewhat smaller but more
-hardy population, it appears that there are thirteen stations occupied
-by regular troops; of which eight are close to large towns, such as in
-every country require to be watched—or else purely military posts.
-There are only five other places where regular troops seem to be
-stationed, and of these, one is on the frontier of Nepaul.
-
-Admitting that the Civil power derives its support from the knowledge of
-a military force being at hand, still the exhibition of the latter is as
-rare on the Ganges as on the Thames; and a magistrate would sink in the
-opinion of his superiors, and of his own service, if he were to apply
-for the aid of troops in any but the extreme cases in which such an
-application would be warranted in England. It would be just as rational
-to argue that our provincial mayors and magistrates in England are
-hated, because troops are stationed at Manchester, Preston, or
-Newcastle, as to adduce the distribution of the regular Sepoys in Bengal
-and Upper India as a proof of the hatred borne to the Civil servants,
-through whose administration that vast region is made to furnish forth
-the funds to support the armies with which heroes win victories and
-gather laurels.
-
-What is meant by “guards for civilians” it is hard to guess. The
-Lieutenant-governor at Agra is, we believe, the only civilian, not in
-political employ, who has a guard of regulars at his house. In some
-places in Upper India, regulars may be posted at the Treasury, for the
-same reason that a corresponding force is posted at the Bank of England
-in the heart of London; but even to the Treasuries in the lower
-provinces no such protection is given.
-
-Sir C. Napier, we suspect, has confused the collector with the
-collections, and fancied the force occasionally posted to protect the
-latter to be, in fact, employed to swell the state or guard the person
-of the former. That regular Sepoys should be employed to escort treasure
-is much to be regretted; but treasure is tempting, and the mode of
-conveyance on carts very tedious, the ways long, the country to be
-traversed often very wild, and the robbers in some quarters very bold.
-It is not often that in England bullion belonging to the State has to be
-conveyed in waggons; but when this happens, it is, we think, usually
-accompanied by a party of soldiers.
-
-It would be tedious to follow out all the mistakes made about
-Chuprassees and Burkundazes—the former being a sort of orderly, of whom
-two or three are attached to every office-holder, military or civil, to
-carry orders and messages, in a climate where Europeans cannot at all
-hours of the day walk about with safety; and the latter being the
-constabulary, employed in parties of about fifteen or twenty at the
-various subdivisions into which, for purposes of police, each district
-is laid out. To form them into battalions would be to strip the interior
-of all the hands wanted for the common offices of preventive and
-detective police.
-
-We now gladly turn to the more pleasing duty of pointing out the
-brighter passages, and rejoice to draw our reader’s attention to the
-strain of kindly feeling towards the men and officers of the Company’s
-army, both European and Native, pervading the whole work.
-
-It is pleasing to observe the anxiety expressed by so thorough a
-soldier, to see the armies of the Crown and Company assimilated to each
-other, and all “the ridiculous jealousies entertained by the
-vulgar-minded in both armies”[39] removed. It is delightful to read the
-assurance given by such a man that, “under his command, at various
-times, for ten years, in action, and out of action, the Bengal Sepoys
-never failed in real courage or activity.”[40] It is instructive to
-learn from so great a master in the art of war, that “Martinets are of
-all military pests the worst;”[41] and still more so to read his earnest
-and heart-stirring exhortations to the younger of his own countrymen not
-to keep aloof from Native officers;[42] and his declaration that, even
-at his advanced age, he would have studied the language of the Sepoys,
-if his public duties had not filled up all his time. Our space will not
-allow us to give any specimens of the author’s style. It is ever
-animated and original. There was no need of a signature to attest a
-letter of his writing, for no one could mistake from whom it came.
-Though deformed by occasional outbursts of spleen, our readers may find
-much to admire in the narrative of the expedition to Kohat.[43] It will
-be well, however, after reading it through, to take up the _Bombay
-Times_ of the 14th of December last, to see what progress is being made
-by the very Board of Administration so contemptuously spoken of in the
-narrative,[44] towards reducing the turbulent Afridee tribes to a state
-of enduring submission and good order.
-
-Long practice had given great fluency to the author’s pen when employed
-in what we may call anti-laudatory writing, but this sometimes led him
-into that most pardonable of plagiarisms, the borrowing from himself, as
-in the following sentence, at page 118: “He,” meaning the
-Governor-General, “and his politicals, like many other men, mistook
-_rigour_, with cruelty, for _vigour_.” If our memory is to be relied on,
-this very antithetical jingle may be found in a pamphlet, published some
-twenty-five years ago, about the alleged “misgovernment of the Ionian
-Islands.” The author’s political speculations, when unwarped by
-prejudice, were generally correct, and we fully concur with him, and, we
-may add, with his predecessor, the late Sir Henry Fane, in the opinion
-expressed at page 66, that the Sutledge “ought to bound our Indian
-possessions;” and we now fear that, having crossed that river, we must
-also throw the Indus behind us, and fulfil the prediction hazarded at
-page 374, that, “with all our moderation, we shall conquer Afghanistan,
-and occupy Candahar.” Sometimes, however, his disposition to paint
-everything _en noir_ has misled our author even upon a military point,
-as in the following instance: “The close frontier of Burmah enables that
-power to press suddenly and dangerously upon the capital of our Indian
-Empire; and such events are no castles in the air, but threatening real
-perils. The Eastern frontier, therefore, is not safe,”—(p. 364).
-
-In former days, when the Burmese territories were dovetailed into our
-district of Chittagong, there might have been some ground for this
-opinion, supposing the Burmese to have been, what they are not, as
-energetic a people as the Sikhs. But a glance at the map might satisfy
-any one that with our occupation of Arracan, a country so intersected by
-arms of the sea as to be impassable for any power not having that
-absolute superiority on the water which a single steamer would give us,
-all danger of invasion from that side has for the last twenty-five years
-been at an end.
-
-The mention of Burmah naturally leads to the next work in our list, that
-of Mr J. C. Marshman, the well-known editor of the ablest of the
-Calcutta journals, the _Friend of India_.
-
-His pamphlet is a reply to another, by Mr Cobden, entitled “The origin
-of the Burmese war.” Mr Cobden could not, of course, write about a war
-excepting to blame it, consequently Mr Marshman appears in defence of
-what the other assails.
-
-We cannot devote much time to the consideration of this controversy, but
-at one passage we must indulge in a momentary glance.
-
-Towards the end of the fifth page of Mr Marshman’s pamphlet our readers
-will find a sentence throwing some light on the origin of the war which
-he undertakes to defend. He there dwells, with great emphasis, on the
-“unexampled and extraordinary unanimity which was exhibited by the
-Indian journals on the Burmese question,” and describes, with much
-unction, the happy spectacle of rival editors laying aside their
-animosities, to combine in applauding the course pursued on that
-occasion by the Government. Editors, like players, must please, to live;
-and as the whole Anglo-Saxon community in the East, most especially
-those of the shipping and shopping interest at Calcutta, have, for the
-last twenty-five years, had a craving for a renewal of war with Ava, the
-newspaper must have been conducted upon most disinterested principles,
-which had opposed itself to any measure conducive to so desiderated a
-result.
-
-We have now skimmed over the annals of a hundred years, endeavouring, as
-we moved along, to detect the ruling principle of each successive
-period, and to trace its influence upon the leading events of the time.
-
-In looking forward to what is to come, we shall not speculate on the
-spontaneous limitation of conquest, because we feel that this will never
-be; for this simple reason, that we shall never sincerely wish it to be.
-Wars, then, will go on, until, on the north-west, we shall have
-accomplished all that Sir C. Napier either predicted or recommended, and
-until, on the south-east, we shall have added Siam to Pegu, and Cambodia
-to Siam. Within the geographical boundaries of India Proper, also, there
-are several tempting patches of independent territory to be absorbed,
-such as the Deccan and Oude, both of which, along with the Rajpoot and
-Bondela states, are all marked like trees in a forest given up to the
-woodman. The inexhaustible plea for interminable conquest, internal
-mal-administration, will ever furnish grounds for the occupation of the
-larger states; and though many of the smaller Hindoo principalities are
-admirably governed, according to their own simple notions, still, as
-they certainly will not square with our ideas of right, some reason will
-always be found to satisfy the English-minded public that their
-annexation is both just and expedient. Then we shall, indeed, be the
-sole Lords of Ind; but after destroying every independent court where
-natives may hope to rise to offices of some little dignity, we shall be
-doubly bound to meet, by arrangements of our own, the cravings of
-natural and reasonable ambition.
-
-In searching for a guide at this point of our inquiry, we have hit upon
-the work standing last upon our list, the production of a gentleman who
-has extraordinary claims upon the attention of English as well as Indian
-readers. Mr Cameron carried out with him to India a mind stored with the
-best learning of the West; and during twelve years spent out there in
-the high posts of Law Commissioner, Member of the Supreme Council, and
-President of the Committee of Education, his best powers were exerted,
-not merely to impart instruction, but to inspire with a true love of
-knowledge, the native youth attached to the various institutions within
-the sphere of his influence.
-
-His work is truly one of which his country may be proud, for a more
-disinterested zeal in the cause of a conquered people was never
-exhibited by one of the dominant race, than is evinced in this noble
-address to the Parliament of England on behalf of the subject millions
-of India.
-
-Many, however, as Mr Cameron’s qualifications are for the task which he
-undertakes, there is one of much importance not to be found among them.
-He never served in the interior; never was burdened with the charge of a
-district; never spent six hours a day, at the least, in the crowded
-Babel of a Cutcherry,[45] with the thermometer at 98° in the shade. His
-Indian day was very different from that of the magistrate collector of
-which we have inserted Mr Campbell’s lively description. It was passed
-in the stillness of his library, or in the well-aired and well-ordered
-halls of a college, among educated young natives, mostly Bengalees, who
-were about as true specimens of Indian men as the exotics in a London
-conservatory are of British plants.
-
-Such a life is compatible with the acquirement of great Oriental lore,
-but not with the attainment of that ready knowledge of native character
-which is picked up by far inferior intellects in the rough daily school
-of Cutcherry drudgery.
-
-This reflection has somewhat damped our pleasure in perusing Mr
-Cameron’s eloquent and high-toned address. We devoutly hope to see our
-misgivings proved to be groundless; but in the mean time we must give
-one or two of our reasons for doubting whether the day is at hand when
-the natives of England and India may meet on terms of perfect parity in
-every walk of life. In the first place, to judge by precedent, we doubt
-the strict applicability to the present question of that drawn from the
-practice of ancient Rome. Of the people subjugated by Rome, a vast
-proportion were of the same race as their victors, with no
-peculiarities, personal or complexional, to check the amalgamation
-resulting from popular intermarriage. It is in Egypt that the closest
-similarity to our situation in India is likely to be found, and, judging
-by the contemptuous tone of Juvenal’s allusion to the people of that
-country in his 15th Satire, we can hardly imagine that, when employed in
-any public capacity, the “imbelle et inutile vulgus” were placed exactly
-on the same footing as the Roman knights who constituted the “covenanted
-service” of those days in that particular province.
-
-The geographical circumstances were also different. Rome grew like a
-tree—its root in the eternal city, its branches stretching forth in
-continuous lines to the furthest extremities of its vast domain.
-
-Our Indian empire springs from a transplanted offshoot of the parent
-State. No one part of it has a firmer hold on the soil than another. It
-is all equally loose. Our dominion is, in fact, based upon our ships,
-and it is to our ships that both Englishmen and natives, in touching on
-the possibility of our eventual downfall, always speak of our retreating
-or being driven. From our ships we sprung, and to our ships we shall
-some day perhaps return. It is in vain, therefore, to draw, from the
-practice of a purely continental empire like that of Rome, rules for the
-government of an essentially maritime dominion such as we have
-established on the Ganges. Ours is a power without a precedent, and
-perhaps, therefore, without a prognostic. There is nothing like it in
-the past, and its future will probably be stamped with the same
-singularity as has characterised its whole existence.
-
-We must try, therefore, to better the condition of our subjects by means
-such as our own experience teaches us to be best adapted to their
-nature. To open to them at once the civil and military services; to give
-to any number of them that absolute right to preferment implied in their
-enrolment in the ranks of a peculiar body, would not, we imagine, be to
-follow the guidance of experience. Presumption on the one side, and the
-pride of race on the other, might lead to serious jarrings between the
-English and the Indian members, who, though standing in the ranks of the
-same service, would still differ from each other like the keys of a
-piano-forte. It would, we think, be safer to commence, as we have
-already suggested, by selecting for preferment individuals from the mass
-of our native subjects. Situations in the judicial and revenue
-department may be found or created which natives can fill with great
-credit; but their general fitness for the office of magistrate remains
-to be proved. It is easy to imagine a case wherein to leave the powers
-wielded by a magistrate in the hands of any one open to the influences
-from which a fellow-countryman alone can be secure, would be, to say the
-least, most imprudent. Besides, there is a duty, perhaps but imperfectly
-performed at present, and to which, at least in the lower provinces, a
-native functionary would be quite incompetent, and that is, affording
-protection to the people against the violence of Englishmen settled in
-the interior as merchants, landholders, or Indigo-planters. We have now
-before us a letter written in excellent English by a native of Bengal,
-in which the following passage occurs:—“The fact is, that European
-traders have obtained, in many places in the interior of the Bengal
-Presidency, almost uncontrolled power—a power which they are seldom
-sufficiently scrupulous not to exert to the injury of those with whom
-they come in contact. It is not exaggeration to say, each
-Indigo-factory, together with its surrounding estate, is a little
-kingdom within itself, wherein avarice and tyranny hold unlimited sway.
-The police is too feeble to render effectual aid in suppressing the
-lawless oppression of the factor.”
-
-Now, let us figure to ourselves one of Mr Cameron’s slender dusky
-_élèves_ on the bench as magistrate, and (to take what ought to be the
-mildest specimen of a gentle Englishman) the leading member of the Peace
-party at the House of Commons at the bar in an Indigo-planter, taxed
-with oppressing the Hindoo, and we shall easily see that the law must
-have an almost supernatural inherent majesty, if, under such
-circumstances, it can be effectually enforced and impartially
-administered.
-
-The regulation of the intercourse between our own countrymen not in the
-service of Government, and our native subjects, will rise in importance
-with the progress of those works in which European agency is essential
-to insure success. Railways, electric telegraphs, improved
-cotton-cultivation, steam, and all other complicated machinery, must, if
-overspreading the country as many anticipate, bring with them a vast
-increase to the European section of the community, whose influence will
-still be out of all proportion to its commercial strength.
-
-To give to this little section full scope for the development of its
-industrial energies, and yet to restrain it from abusing its strength to
-the injury of the native population, is in fact the only real service
-ever likely to be rendered by the Law Commissions and Legislative
-Councils called into existence by the enactment of last session.
-
-In as far as the natives of Bengal and Upper India are alone concerned,
-we are convinced that all of this cumbrous law-making apparatus is quite
-superfluous. The existing regulations, with occasional pruning and
-trimming, would, if fairly enforced and adhered to, amply suffice to
-meet all of their simple wants. But the natives can no longer be left to
-themselves. Europeans will intrude, and legislation must therefore be
-shaped and stretched so as to fit it to the characters of the intruders.
-
-As at present constituted, the magistracy and the police are hardly
-equal to the control of British-born settlers, half a dozen of whom are
-more difficult to rule than half a million of natives. There prevails
-among Englishmen of every grade a notion of the East India Company being
-a body of a somewhat foreign stamp, to whose servants it is almost
-degrading for a free-born Britain to be obliged to submit.
-
-The amalgamation of the Queen’s and the Company’s superior tribunals,
-known at Calcutta as the Supreme, and the Sudder, Courts, would, by
-coupling the home-bred judges appointed by the Crown with the
-country-trained nominees of the local government, give a weight to the
-magistracy acting under this combined authority, and thus fit it for the
-better discharge of the difficult duty of controlling and correcting the
-excesses of Englishmen settled in the interior. These settlers often
-find in the menace of an action or prosecution before a remote and
-somewhat prejudiced tribunal, a weapon wherewith to combat the immediate
-power of a functionary, amenable individually to the Queen’s Court in
-Calcutta, for every act which legal ingenuity can represent to be
-personal, and so beyond the pale of official protection.
-
-The fusion of the two superior courts will not, in fact, lessen the
-personal responsibility of the English magistrate; but it will remove an
-apparent antagonism, calculated to keep alive a spirit of defiance
-towards the _local_ authority in the breast of many an English settler,
-the effects of which, as described in the extract above given, from the
-letter of a Bengal gentleman, are felt by every native with whom he may
-have any dealings. Much has been written and spoken about the duty of
-protecting the people of India from being oppressed by the Government
-and its agents, but few seem to have thought of that more searching
-tyranny which a few strong-nerved and coarse-minded Englishmen in the
-interior, invested with power by the possession of land, may exercise
-over the people among whom they are located, and from whom they are
-eager to extract the wealth which they long to enjoy in a more congenial
-climate.
-
-This species of tyranny will of course be most felt among the feeblest,
-and is, consequently, likely to be more grievous in Bengal than among
-the hardier population of Upper India. But wherever the Anglo-Saxon
-goes, he will carry with him his instinctive contempt for tribes of a
-dusky complexion; and where this is not counteracted by the imposed
-courtesies of official life, or checked by the presence of a sufficient
-controlling authority, it will ever be ready to break out in a manner
-injurious to the interests and feelings of those subject to his power.
-
-Our future rule will, it is evident, become daily more and more European
-in its tone, and there will consequently be an increasing call upon
-those engaged in its direction to watch over the conduct of the dominant
-race, to restrain its arrogance, and to see that the equality announced
-in the laws does not evaporate in print, but is something real and
-substantial, to be felt and enjoyed in the ordinary everyday intercourse
-of life.
-
-If this can be accomplished by legislation, the new Commissions and
-Councils will not have been created in vain; but if their labours end in
-merely adding to the existing tomes of benevolent enactments, without
-effectual provision for their enforcement, then we cannot but fear that
-our projected measures of improvement, being all of a European
-character, will add little to the happiness of our subjects on the banks
-of the Ganges, and be regarded by them merely as ingenious contrivances
-for extending our own power, and completing their subjugation.
-
-
-
-
-              THE SECRET OF STOKE MANOR: A FAMILY HISTORY.
-                               PART III.
-
-
-                    CHAPTER IV.—AU CENTRE DU MONDE.
-
-                “Oh, Paris! ville pleine de brouillard,
-                Et couverte de boue,
-                Où les hommes connoissent pas l’honneur,
-                Ni les femmes la vertu.”
-                                            ROUSSEAU.
-
-The Willoughby family, as has been already said, left England for the
-Continent; and the spring which succeeded Sir John’s death found them
-temporarily residing in Paris. It was very far from the Colonel’s
-intention, however, to remain there long; the household was only
-incomplete, as yet, without Francis, who in a few weeks would join it on
-leaving Oxford; and there had to be some consideration before finally
-settling, from among no slight variety of advertisements in the public
-journals, what district of the provinces might be best suited for a
-retreat, probably during some years. One or two points of business,
-also, requiring attention to his English letters, continued to make
-their early arrival a convenience; not so much from the Devonshire
-lawyer, whose methodical regularity left nothing to desire, as with
-regard to the sale of Sir Godfrey’s commission, and some arrangements
-left unfinished in town, of that tedious nature which characterises
-stockbroking. Meanwhile their establishment was certainly simple
-compared with that lately given up in Golden Square, where society, at
-no time deficient to the Willoughbies, had, since the Colonel’s last
-return home, been doubling itself every year, and had begun, since his
-brother’s death, absolutely to send visiting-cards by footmen, to call
-in carriages, to bespeak the earliest possible share of their company at
-dinner: contrasted with the extent which must have been necessary for
-Stoke, it was diminutive. Yet it was by no means one of a restricted
-kind, although the income from Lady Willoughby’s own small fortune would
-alone have sufficed to keep it up, leaving some surplus; so that, living
-as yet without new acquaintances, and, so far as their countrymen were
-concerned, in perfect obscurity, they had not a wish which it did not
-suffice for; as long, at least, as the vast, strange city held its first
-influences over them. To these, probably, it was owing that Colonel
-Willoughby appeared for some time to have had no other object in coming
-to Paris; if distinctly aware of any, beyond the facilities there for
-choosing a place of residence in the provinces, for awaiting his son
-Francis, and finishing the more important part of his correspondence,
-with the convenience of respectable banking-houses—besides the
-possibility of avoiding English acquaintances, which at Dieppe or
-Boulogne would not have been so easy—then he would without doubt have
-mentioned it to his wife. A reserved man, and in the strictest sense a
-proud one, he was amongst the last to have secrets; they would have sat
-on his brow, and troubled his manner; nor had he at any time had such a
-thing apart from _her_. During the whole course of their wedded life,
-whether together or separated, by word or letter, their mutual
-confidence had increased: for her part, she was of that easy, placid,
-seemingly almost torpid nature, which, save in a receipt of
-housekeeping, or a triumph of domestic management, appears merely to
-produce in it nothing worth the hiding, nor to receive, either, anything
-of that serious kind; while the course of time, that had begun to turn
-the fair features of Mrs Willoughby rather large, giving her form a
-somewhat more than matronly fulness, had so increased this peculiarity
-in her disposition as to make strangers think her insipid. Older friends
-thought very far otherwise, and it was, in some way, chiefly old friends
-Mrs Willoughby had had at all; but neither they, the oldest of them, nor
-even her children, perhaps, could so much as imagine the truth of heart,
-the perfect trust, the intimate, unhesitating appreciation, which, since
-they were first gained by him, her husband had been ever knowing better.
-Indolently placid as she might seem even to ordinary troubles, tumults,
-and embarrassments, as if the world’s care entered no imagination of
-hers—quietly busied, with attention fixed on household matters, knitting
-or sewing in her endless, noiseless manner—yet if his eye had shown
-anxiety, if he had ceased to read, if he paced the room, or had been
-very silent, a kind of divination there was, that, without any watching
-or any questioning, would have roused her up—the work suspended on her
-lap, her cheek losing the old dimple-mark which maturity had deepened
-there, and her glance widened with concern; till, if he had still not
-spoken, Lady Willoughby would have risen up gradually, looking round as
-if startled from a sort of mild dream, and have moved towards him,
-beginning of her own accord—which was a rare thing—to speak. Not
-necessarily, indeed, though they had been alone in the room, to invite
-confidence by any inquiry; but rather in the way of performing some
-slight office that might have been neglected, or with endeavours at such
-interesting news and small-talk as, to speak truth, she scarcely shone
-in, unsupported—nor any the better for the confused sense she evidently
-had at these times of having been by some means in fault, and having
-failed to be a very lively companion. She was of a plain country
-squire’s family, in fact; and in her day, if sent at all to
-boarding-schools, they had not lingered long over music, still less at
-flower-painting or the sciences; while with successive sisters waiting
-at home for their turn, as she had had, it was but to finish off baking
-and mending, with dancing and embroidery, then to come back, and bake
-and mend again. So when the dancing ended with marriage, the embroidery
-at the first birth, it might have been thought the officer had gained no
-very valuable society, sometimes in barrack-lodgings, sometimes abroad,
-sometimes for distant communication by letter; she might, at least, have
-been expected to form no great ornament in London circles, or among
-country people at Stoke Manor-house. Still there had been nothing in all
-their previous intercourse so precious to him as his wife’s letters,
-when almost for the first time, in her own natural way, she had to
-attempt expressing fond thoughts, soothing motives, and yet confessions
-of impatience—mixed up with accounts of children’s complaints, their
-faults, and their schooling—country gossip, and fashionable arrivals,
-with some stray suggestions and admissions, never before confided to
-him, of a pious kind: and when long afterwards came the events at Stoke,
-instead of any undue flutter or sense of importance being caused in her,
-she had fallen in as naturally to title or prospects, as she had sat
-before that at the head of their dinner-table in Golden Square. It was
-no doll’s disposition, as had been at the time hinted round some
-ill-natured card-tables in that region; if one thing more than another
-troubled Sir Godfrey in their present plans, it was that he believed
-devoutly in his wife’s aptitude for a high station, where expectations
-would be formed and occasions raised; his feeling was—and the partiality
-was excusable—that her chief value lay obscured in ordinary
-circumstances. Whereas at the new abode in Paris, with ample scope and
-convenience, all the earlier habits of domestic superintendence seemed
-returning, the making, baking, mending—almost even to washing; in
-reference to which alone Lady Willoughby seemed really active, and the
-more so that everything might go on as in England, had the mere economy
-of the thing not been a vital point. Her pleased air would alone have
-hindered him from reasoning it with her, had Sir Godfrey so much as
-dreamt, in the latter respect, how their case really stood: and when,
-indeed, there did lie any care on his mind, which he might be unwilling
-she should share, yet so gently did the conversation win it from him,
-and so quietly did something like the old manner woo him to bear no
-burden alone, that, ere he knew, it was no longer his, but they were
-talking of it plainly. What tranquil reassurance _then_, and grave,
-prompt advertence to the point—and pure sympathy, and that repose of
-soul from which a woman’s instinct can express so much by a tone, a
-look, silence itself! Sir Godfrey had sometimes been ashamed to find how
-much more he could be disturbed by trifles, or how cautiously he had
-been underrating his wife’s affection. So that she knew as well as he
-did, and almost as soon, how affairs stood at Stoke, with the tenor of
-his brother’s intended will, and any the slightest incident which could
-concern them. He had even casually mentioned, as among the more trivial,
-Sir John’s wishes for the benefit of the person entitled Suzanne Deroux,
-for Lady Willoughby had long known, of course, what of Sir John’s early
-history his brother knew. The matter had well-nigh escaped his memory,
-he said; till on happening to want a banker in Paris, it struck him that
-the house formerly employed by his brother, in the payment of the
-annuity referred to, might suit himself. To these gentlemen,
-accordingly, he had sent a memorandum of the address left by Sir John,
-with a request that they would have the money paid to her. It was a
-small sum, but might be important to the people, whoever they were,
-living in one of the poorest and most wretchedly-crowded quarters of
-Paris. Still, as Sir Godfrey smiled on that occasion cheerfully, and
-resumed his English newspaper, he did not, he could not tell all the
-painful and pertinacious impressions, of circumstances unknown or acts
-untraced, which any allusion to his late brother’s former stay in Paris
-still called up.
-
-Everything did not exactly go on in the household as in England, indeed,
-but all was as nearly so as a quiet assiduity could make it. The house,
-a somewhat dull and dilapidated mansion, very barely furnished, and
-taken by the month from an adjoining notary, stood far to the western or
-court-end of the city, though rather involved in the dinginess of a sort
-of minor fauxbourg, where, in those days, between the sudden curve of
-the river and the lesser alleys of the Champs Elysées, a motley
-population still clustered about the tan-pits or dye-houses, and towards
-the bridge and quays: it occupied one corner of a short,
-deserted-looking street, the other end of which was reduced to a narrow
-lane by the high enclosure of a convent; in front was a small paved
-court, very shady and damp, by the help of two or three stunted poplars
-it contained, yet not by any means private, being overlooked by dusty or
-broken staircase windows, one over the other, from at hand; while it,
-nevertheless, could boast of a wall surmounted by a railing, with a
-heavily-pillared gate of open ironwork, a little lodge on one side
-within, where the porter lived—at one end of the house a diminutive
-stable and coach-shed, at the other an entrance to a high-walled garden,
-laid out in intricate confusion, without sign of flowers, and overgrown
-with a luxury of weeds. Some rising bourgeois had probably at first
-designed it, with a moderate eye to fashion; although its prime
-recommendation from the notary was, that successive families of the
-English nobility had chosen it for their temporary residence; nor did
-the old concierge fail to point out, with some emphasis, when showing
-the garden, that it was in the English style. The place was, at all
-events, at a convenient distance from the central parts of Paris, and
-within an easy drive to the Protestant Episcopal chapel. At a sharp
-angle with the street ran a main thoroughfare from the city barrier, one
-way confused in the dense suburb, the other way breaking towards a leafy
-promenade of the public park; sending all day a busy throng of
-passengers into that brighter current, where it glimpsed broad past the
-gap of light, with the glitter of equipages, the shifting glow of
-dresses, and the constant hum and babble of its gaiety; while nearer by
-was an opening in the contiguous street, through which the first-floor
-windows of their house looked at the motion along the quay, and saw the
-stately piles of building on the opposite bank, in brighter perspective,
-curve away from the eastern avenue of the Champ de Mars, with the
-bending of the river. They had still a carriage, too, though it was
-merely hired by the month, like the house, from the nearest
-livery-stables—a light, English-shaped barouche, with its pair of
-soot-black, long-legged Flemish horses, long-tailed and square-nosed,
-barrel-bodied and hollow-backed, and formally-stepping, which the owner
-called English also, for everything English seemed the rage: they were
-objects of no slight scorn, in that light, to Sir Godfrey’s groom, a
-stiff old trooper, who, with his duties towards his master’s horse,
-Black Rupert (the only possession they had brought from Stoke, save the
-title), had soon to unite that of coachman. Since besides Jackson
-himself, there was not merely an English housemaid, but there was young
-Mr Charles’s tutor, a grave, rather middle-aged bachelor of arts from
-Cambridge, and in clerical orders, who was to make up for the lost
-advantages of Eton, while he looked forward to the first opening in the
-curacy at Stoke: there was Miss Willoughby’s governess, a lady
-apparently also of middle age, whose perfect breeding and great
-accomplishments had made her acceptance of the position a favour, when
-the sudden necessity arose for the young lady’s leaving school; she had
-been in the highest families, and her conversational powers were of a
-superior order, so that there was a continual silent gratitude towards
-her on the part of Lady Willoughby. To the latter, indeed, whose whole
-heart lay in her family, these unavoidable changes had been a source of
-pure satisfaction, so far as she was concerned; compared with the
-privilege of having their children about them, educated under their own
-eye, expecting Frank so soon, too, nothing else was a deprivation; she
-merely missed England and English habits when some one else did, and had
-seen Stoke but once; only through the occasional abstracted looks of Sir
-Godfrey did she regret its postponement. As for the old French concierge
-at the gate, indeed, with his wife, family, and friends, she could have
-gladly spared them; but the concierge was indispensable—he _lived_
-there—he went with the house, in fact; and at the very hint of his being
-superfluous, the old cracked-voiced porter had drawn himself up
-indignantly in his chair, while his bare-armed, black-browed wife had
-turned her leatherlike face up from her tub, looking daggers. True, the
-English family had, in the mean time, no visitors, but the concierge
-had;—_he_ was well known to his respectable neighbours; and, besides, it
-was possible that the misanthropy of the Chevalier Vilby and of Madame
-might be to some extent diminished; they would probably yet enter into
-society—all the previous tenants of the mansion had done so; Paris was,
-in reality, so attractive a capital. Such had been the response to the
-diplomacy of Jackson, who, having once been a French prisoner, far
-abroad, knew the language after a fashion of his own; and he received it
-in grim silence. The truth was, the gossipping receptions at the little
-lodge were somewhat troublesome, and seemed to concern themselves
-greatly with the affairs of the household within, had there been nothing
-else than the general interest taken in it by the adjacent windows, or
-the popularity of the whole family, collectively or individually, which
-had sometimes accompanied their exit or entrance with applause from
-crowds of street children—a prestige which had as evidently deserted
-them afterwards, to be replaced by tenfold scrutiny of a less partial
-kind, not unmingled with sundry trivial annoyances. Nor, although it
-resulted, with Lady Willoughby’s usual easy disposition, in her
-employing the services of the porter’s daughter within the house, did
-the one parent open the gate with less sullen dignity, and the other
-seem less jealously watchful against some abstraction of the furniture,
-or nocturnal evasion of the rent.
-
-Nevertheless, Paris itself was not more restless or more lively than the
-spirits of the young people in their first enjoyment of its scenes. The
-earliest summer had begun to lighten up what was already bright with
-heat that came before the leaves, quickly as these were bursting into
-verdure along every avenue; and when the dust is hovering in the sun,
-when the level light streams along causeway and pavement, crossed by
-cooler vistas, when the morning water-carts go slowly hissing past, the
-shopmen sprinkling their door-steps, putting out their canopies, setting
-their windows right—with the moist smell of market-carts still in the
-air, the stray fragrance of fruit-stalls near—steeples shining high
-beyond the steel-blue roofs, the dazzling skylight panes,—chambermaids
-looking far out from upper windows, long perspectives of architecture
-blending, and a vast hollow azure over all, ere the smoke is gathered,
-and before the street-cries are confused, or the growing rush of sounds
-has become oppressive in the heat—then who remembers not the fairy
-feeling of a city to youth! It is when they still look to life from
-under protection, with no experience, nothing like the need of directing
-for themselves; but most of all from a simple household, used to
-temperate pleasures, and to the sort of kindness that rests more in
-purpose than upon indulgence; the city need only be Paris, with sights
-as foreign as the language, to crown that morning cup of enchantment to
-its brim. For the two younger members of the family it wore all its
-charm: Rose Willoughby had seen little more of the world in her
-boarding-school, at sixteen, than if it had been a nunnery; while
-Charles, who was younger, had been fancying his knowledge of life at
-Westminster school and Eton rather uncommon;—so that every morning set
-them astir early, watching at the windows, impatient to get
-breakfast-time past, to have those studies severally over, in which, so
-far as the lad’s tutor was concerned, Mr Thorpe bore the chief
-difficulties of the task. Each day, in fact, found the party rolling
-farther from the shady environs, through into the hot heart of the city,
-towards scenes or structures that were multiplied by each previous
-discovery: for if the long stately façades of the Tuileries, from its
-formal gardens swarming with people and statues, ran already half-linked
-to the gorgeous old Louvre, steeped pale in the southern flood of light
-above the river, till all its deep-set, embossed windows seemed diamonds
-in the rich Corinthian filagree that framed them, though the workmen
-were still busy at its unfinished roof, like emmets from the crowd along
-the quays; so these also pointed to the Palais Royal court, with its new
-arcades and glittering shops—or, again, far through the labyrinth of
-exhaustless streets, where moted and dusty shadows plunged into the
-gloom of deep lanes, to the grim grey towers of the Bastille rising
-embattled out of the squalid fauxbourg, which blackened in manufactory
-smoke beyond—miles back, too, it led across some bridge, to the
-Gobelins, to the close and dingy quarter of the university, with its old
-legends of learning, or magic in dark ages; its careless students
-swaggering past, or smoking from their high-perched casements; its
-grisettes, that sat at work opposite with an air of coquettish grace
-amidst their poverty, their hair neither frizzed nor powdered, with a
-bright cotton handkerchief twined half about it, watering their little
-mignonette-boxes, or chirping to their bird-cages that hung outside to a
-gleam of sunshine;—or to where the golden dome of the great hospital
-hung in the air, faintly bright; to the bronze form of Henry of Navarre
-riding regardless above the throng of the market-place, and where the
-two huge cathedral-towers of Notre Dame stood over their mountain of
-roof, above the gaunt old houses of the island Cité; with the
-sharp-peaked prison-turrets and grated loopholes of the Conciergerie
-lifted from the river’s edge, whose muddy eddies swam each way by, among
-the barges. The Colonel had been in Paris many years before, ere he had
-had any interest in it save that of a young man, in lively company; when
-all sons of gentlemen made the grand tour, and the old glories of
-Versailles were still reflected even at the court of Louis Quinze, in
-the elegant dissipation of his latter days: he had come since then,
-indeed, into sterner contact with Frenchmen abroad; but it served him
-now, in making shift to act as guide among the principal wonders of the
-capital—when he rode near the carriage, sometimes accompanied by Mr
-Thorpe, the tutor, on a quiet white mare from the hackney stables. And
-Lady Willoughby mildly eyed the Bastille, or gently noticed the
-sumptuousness of the Louvre, at her husband’s remark; suffering herself
-to be handed out to some sentinel-guarded vestibule, and led along some
-chill historical corridor, although it might cost a shudder at what was
-told of it; if some positive domestic duty did not rather keep her all
-day at home. While Mrs Mason, the governess, following with the party,
-would sedulously express assent, at due intervals, by word or sign, to
-the statements of the baronet; not seldom addressing to the young lady
-beside her some comment of her own, or improving inference, such as Mrs
-Trimmer had recently brought into educational vogue. It might have been
-that Rose on these occasions sometimes caught her brother’s eye, so that
-her absorbed face and lighted look would grow all at once intensely
-demure, or she had to turn away to hide a smile at his air of
-exaggerated attention; while Mr Thorpe was usually so deep in
-abstraction, or had wandered so far, as to be in danger of their leaving
-him altogether behind. It was all one storm of spectacle and excitement,
-in fact, to the two; antique memories mingling in it with the record of
-fearful deeds, and quaint traces of rude manners with the grandeur of
-the church, the magnificence of the days of great kings—it only added
-zest to the living rush of the streets, the foreign faces and
-unaccustomed accents, the endless variety of movement that shone,
-flickered, or darkened every way about them. Then, slowly extricated
-from fetid lanes and old overhanging houses, patched, and stained, and
-ruinous, where the low-stretched cord of the street lantern showed that
-carriages seldom passed, they would wheel out suddenly from the rough
-causeway and its filthy middle-gutter, into the broad light and sunny
-air of the verdurous boulevards, where the ramparts of old Paris ran. So
-as the sounds of wheels grew soft, and they rolled leisurely along, the
-girl and her brother would look to each other, with something of the
-same feeling; her eyes would sparkle, while Charles’s were everywhere:
-when on either side of the curving vista, either way lost to sight, and
-heaped with the motion of equipages and riders, the showering elm-leaves
-and blossoming lime-twigs rose green ’gainst the tall, bright, ornate
-houses, tinted variously, and dappled fitfully by the shade—where the
-scattered passengers lounged, the loitering groups mingled, and all was
-open-air existence—while the gay shop-windows and café signs shone
-beneath the boughs, the open upper-casements seemed to drink coolness
-beneath their striped canopies through green-barred jalousies, the
-double shutter-frames were thrown out either way against the wall, and
-no care, no business appeared to hang on Paris far as eye could reach,
-as it thickened there through the swimming light of afternoon. To Rose
-and Charles it left no dissatisfactions about Stoke, nor regret for the
-smoke of London; and instead of wishing the place of their residence
-settled soon, although neither had confided it to the other, they would
-fain, no doubt, have had their father decide on staying where they were,
-so as to fulfil the suggestion of the worthy concierge, by making
-acquaintances and going into society. The truth was, that they were
-unconsciously somewhat conspicuous; whether it was that the full, fair,
-lady-like features of Lady Willoughby, with her hair aristocratically
-enough drawn up, heaped high, and powdered, had yet an air of
-half-sleepy ease and comfort that offered the strongest contrast to
-French looks, or that the hood-like bonnet of black crape which
-surmounted them, drawn in folds together and hung with its short
-curtain-like veil of black lace, however according to matronly usage
-then in London, had already been left behind in Paris by a barer and
-more classical taste; or the girlish grace and bloom of Rose in her
-mourning-dress and hat; the half clerical air of Mr Thorpe, with his
-mingled awkwardness and endeavours at attention to the ladies; or the
-military air, tall figure, and splendid English hunter of the baronet:
-all which, perhaps, taken together, might even in passing have suggested
-food for the proverbial Parisian curiosity. Especially if, as at times
-might have been done, they had noticed the grave silence of the elderly
-English gentleman on horseback, when his companion addressed him in
-vain, or when with a start he looked up to answer, sometimes running his
-eye keenly about the passing people, over the seated and trifling
-groups, up to the windows of the houses, or along the shop-signs, like
-one all at once awake to them. Indeed, out of the charmingly private
-_allée des veuves_ in the Elysian fields, where alone the equipages of
-the rich widows of the whole capital were in propriety seen to drive,
-and the doubtful widowers and needy bachelors to seek opportunities of
-consoling them, with a similar gravity of dress and demeanour—it was
-questionable whether the people of Paris were accustomed to observe so
-puzzlingly attractive a sight. It had altogether, no doubt, a sincere
-insular air in their eyes.
-
-It happened that on the day they had visited Notre Dame cathedral,
-Colonel Willoughby took advantage of their return through the Rue St
-Honoré to call at his banker’s in that leading street. He had transacted
-his principal business there, and only found some difficulty in
-detaching himself from the subsequent animated conversation of the
-courteous financier, whose spirits seemed to be excellent on account of
-some continued increase in the price of corn; a motive but dimly
-understood by Sir Godfrey, while at each step or two of his egress from
-the antechamber he was still detained by some fresh ground of
-satisfaction. As regarded places of abode to be had, in any part of
-France whatever, the perplexity did not certainly result from want of
-choice; since his last inquiry, the notices and advertisements had
-increased, particularly in the rural provinces; to be let or sold, they
-seemed surprisingly plentiful; nor were their advantages in every point
-omitted, after the usual style of such description, which sometimes
-dilated on the very nature of the landscape, or dwelt with gusto on the
-particular character of architecture. “It is doubtless owing, Monsieur
-le Baron,” suggested the banker, complacently, “to the immense resort,
-at the present, of the nobility to Paris. The attraction is excessive!
-It will indeed be impossible to reside but in the vicinity—and M. le
-Baron sympathises, I imagine, with the party of our ——, probably to a
-certain extent in the ——?”
-
-“I really know very little of political matters, Monsieur,” said the
-baronet, smiling, “even at home,—and as for those in this country, I can
-scarcely say that I have attended to them much.”
-
-“It is exactly the position which I have myself assumed, M. le Baron,”
-responded the banker, with a subdued air of confidential understanding.
-“In finance it is indispensable. But affairs are solid here;” and he
-gaily struck his hand on his pocket. “Things will move—they will go—now
-that M. Neckar is at the head! M. le Baron is doubtless aware that the
-meetings of the States-General have commenced, and are open to
-attendance, like the English parliament itself? Bah we are aware that in
-affairs nowadays, the minister is everything; to speak properly—the
-king, nothing! The discussions grow interesting—it was a happy stroke—to
-render the nation—yes, conceive, Monsieur,—responsible for its own
-expenses! And, after all, the world is governed by this money here!” Sir
-Godfrey sighed involuntarily, while the banker, slightly rubbing his
-hands together, bowing and smiling, still conducted him with
-_empressement_ towards the court in which his horse was held. “It would
-be easy to secure a distinguished place of audience for M. le Baron in
-the minister’s gallery at Versailles,” persisted Monsieur Blaise, with
-interest, “and for the family of M. le Baron, whom we have not yet,
-indeed, had the honour to see?” M. Blaise had, in fact, made sundry
-half-subdued advances, at various times, towards a mutual introduction
-of the families; which seemed latterly to become more obvious. “Thank
-you, Monsieur,” was the rather dry answer—“no. The fact is, we intend
-immediately leaving town, as soon as my eldest son arrives. And, of
-course, this matter as to a place of residence must be settled. I should
-prefer some remote, quiet, country place.”
-
-“Ah, you should then purchase, M. de Vilby,” said the banker,
-oracularly. “It is, on the whole, I assure you, cheaper—more
-satisfactory.” To this, however, he received a decided negative; Colonel
-Willoughby had as little interest in the idea presented to him by
-Monsieur Blaise, of a profitable re-sale at a future period, as of
-possessing property or forming permanent ties in France, or of leaving
-his son a landowner there. He was about to mount his horse amidst the
-attentions of the banker and his Swiss porter, when a depressed-looking
-clerk from the banking-office hastened out, with an air of some
-timidity, to offer a paper to his master. The latter frowned, while he
-received a hurried statement from the official. “What is this? not to be
-found!” he inquired. “It is a trifle, Monsieur,” added he, turning
-round; “the woman, it seems, to whom your communication referred, has
-for some time removed her residence. Inquiries shall be made, however.
-These poor people are of the most changeable habit—the notary of the
-proprietor is naturally ignorant of their new destination—the
-neighbours, they affect an unconsciousness which is probably feigned, on
-account of some sympathy with a fault, a defalcation in rent,—a crime,
-perhaps. But in this case, there is the police, under whom the emigrant
-necessarily falls, though unconsciously—and our police are now more
-efficient than ever. Yes, M. le Baron, this person shall be promptly
-discovered, believe me—if, indeed, this payment is still considered
-proper to be made?” The indifferent, languidly commercial tone of
-Monsieur Blaise, at that moment, jarred disagreeably on Sir Godfrey’s
-ear, in the full sunlight of the street, while its gay throng poured on
-either way like a twofold procession.
-
-“Yet there is a slight mistake, pardon me, Monsieur,” added the former,
-“in the understanding that Monsieur your brother had continued this
-pension, which is alluded to, during the late years. It was indeed paid
-with regularity, when transmitted; but although the promise remained
-subsequently, yet, after a certain point, by some omission, doubtless,
-the effects—the sums—ceased to arrive. I believe the inadvertency was,
-however, more than once reported from this office to the notary of M. de
-Vilby at Ezzeterre, in England—eh, Maître Robert?” And the clerk, to
-whom he again turned sharply, gave a reverential affirmative. It was not
-merely the revival of this trivial matter in this way that troubled Sir
-Godfrey; there was some slight concern stirred at his heart by the
-discovery of the slight sum having failed so long to reach its object,
-mixed with a little compunction at his remembrance of the crowded Cité,
-near the religious shadows of Notre Dame, which he had passed by that
-very day; there was a vivid feeling once more, too, of his brother’s
-characteristic carelessness, which was by no means lessened on
-recollecting his wife’s mild remark, when he had mentioned the
-circumstance, that possibly, if the person were very poor, it might have
-been better to see into it personally. The gross mingling of M. Blaise’s
-inquiries in it, besides, with his hint at crimes which might render the
-benefit undeserved, annoyed him. Sir Godfrey took the paper from the
-banker’s hands, expressed his intention of managing the matter at his
-own leisure, and with a hasty bow rode homewards.
-
-Willoughby was, as before said, a man with little imagination in his
-temperament, at least of no very lively fancy; but there was a kind of
-vague impatience at times in his mind, scarcely to be any better
-accounted for than the fits of gloom he felt creeping, as it were, over
-him, and which he checked only by a strong effort to think. Sir Godfrey
-felt, in fact, rather an indescribable satisfaction than otherwise, and
-a somewhat reviving interest, at the little matter of business that had
-returned on his hands, none the less that it took the aspect of a kind
-duty. Paris itself was certainly a degree nearer his attention, so soon
-as the concerns of any one in it, however obscure, were thus dependent
-on his own, stirring up an odd anxiety as to whether she were alive or
-dead, and really deserving; all which, the more unusual it was to his
-habits, bore with the greater novelty of sensation on a man whose
-ordinary habits had been somewhat abruptly broken up. Singular, indeed,
-as he rode along, grew the thought of how this vast city contrived to
-live from day to day? the question, yet more perplexing, how it spent
-its time? still less conceivable, to what end was all the constant
-movement, thickening and shifting far along the Rue St Honoré, in dust
-and sunlight? Nay, with a smiling sense of its absurdity, the baronet
-caught himself involuntarily pondering some such incalculable problem,
-and for a moment striving to put its organisation together, while the
-bridle lay slack on his horse’s neck, and his limbs kept time to the
-motion, as the noble black went stepping elastically on. Even in that
-fashionable street they excited notice amid its rattling cortège of
-equestrians and equipages, its rainbow quivering of dress, feathered,
-embroidered, gilded and laced and rustling, where all the artifice of
-French fashion was in its afternoon glory, with bell-hoop and white
-hair—from the queue-tag and three-cornered beaver, lace cravat, and
-ruffles, and pocket-flap, to the knee-buckles and the false calves,
-white or flesh-coloured, and high-heeled—treading on out-turned
-toes—while the smooth, tinted faces, with their mole-specks and black
-beauty-spots, seemed to have banished from about them, in the sun’s full
-influence, all effect of hair: though it was scarce so much the
-soberly-garbed rider, in dark riding-coat and boots, with military
-stock, as the jet gloss of Black Rupert, whose full nostril seemed half
-conscious of his master’s pride in him. Nor was it merely that the
-flickering blaze of the street disagreed with his mood, when Colonel
-Willoughby turned out of it through a quieter line of that gay
-fauxbourg, slightly using the spur: he shrank involuntarily from those
-of his countrymen who seemed to be in Paris, with their gregarious yet
-unsocial air, their loud voices, causeless laughter, and cool stare,
-their ill-affected ease of dress, their round morning hats at all hours,
-and their sudden knowing looks of interest from his horse to him, not
-seldom unaccompanied by distinct English questions of “Who is he?” or
-the drawling answer, with an eyeglass raised, of “Don’t know.” Yet in
-public places they were everywhere; they were looking out of corner
-cafés, and talking back to friends within, watching narrowly where some
-Parisian belle tripped carefully athwart a crossing, or leaning out of
-billiard-room second-floors and yawning; and it struck him the more in
-contrast, as two gentlemen, evidently French, turned before him into the
-same more secluded street, the one quietly shrugging his shoulders
-together, the other turning a silent look to his friend. They sauntered
-easily along on the sunny side of the gutter, as if delaying to cross;
-though side _trottoirs_ were as yet almost unknown, while the cry of
-_gare!_ from a rapid vehicle at times hurried the foot-passengers
-together towards the wall, or out amidst the causeway; so that a snatch
-of their conversation more than once reached the English baronet’s ears,
-or was mingled with other voices; as he looked round for the names of
-the streets, with some idea of at once beginning inquiries at the
-nearest police-office. “These, then, Jules,” said the taller and elder,
-who wore the gallant uniform of the Royal Body-Guard, sky-azure and
-gold-laced, with its white-plumed black hat, crimson-velvet breeches,
-stiff cavalry boots, and gilt spurs, and ruffles of rich lace—“are your
-allies—your Weegs, as you call them! Corbleu!” He looked back over one
-shoulder, as he spoke, with a supremely supercilious air, swinging the
-tassel of his sword-knot round his hand; the other, whose dress and
-manner were those of an elegant young man of fashion, seemed gently to
-draw him onward by the arm. “My dear Armand, what a fancy!” the latter
-ejaculated; “the generous sympathy of the enlightened English—of the
-descendants of Hampdeun and of Seednè, the Wheegs—but I forget, we
-agreed to——” “Yes, Comte,” said the other gloomily, “we agreed to
-observe silence on it, since it is impossible for us——” and by another
-influx from a cross street they were taken out of hearing; although the
-grave air of the young officer, enhanced by his long side-visage, and
-cavalier-like uniform, despite all the hair-powder and the smooth
-elaborateness of the time, had drawn Sir Godfrey’s interest from the
-matter he had in hand. They were walking near him again next minute.
-
-“He is at La Morgue, then?” asked the officer, in reference to some
-statement of his friend; “what was it—gambling? His mistress, perhaps?”
-
-“No, she was beautiful, and attached to him,” replied the other,
-carelessly; “she still slept, while he had left her, to shave in the
-adjacent dressing-room—the whole hotel was roused by her cries. The
-police can make nothing of it. Even his passport affords no clue.”
-
-“It was probably a plot, about to be discovered,” said his friend.
-“Paris, in my opinion, is full of plots—which had better soon be dashed
-to pieces.” He made an emphatic motion with the sheathed sabre on his
-left arm, and glanced firmly along the street, from face to face. “My
-dear Armand!” ejaculated the other, stopping for an instant till their
-eyes met, and the cheek of the garde-du-corps seemed to redden—“this
-is”—but the remainder was lost to Sir Godfrey, as he held round towards
-the outskirts of the Faubourg St Honoré. Crossing by a shorter way,
-however, they still preceded him at the next corner. “On the contrary,”
-continued the younger, “had there been anything to discover”—“—stupidly
-acute as the police are”—“—but believe me, my friend,” he added with
-animation, “there was nothing—nothing—it was merely _ennui_. And what
-police, were it the very espionage of old De Sartines himself, his
-apprentice and friend Lenoir, or even my fine cousin De Breteuil, with
-your thrice-humble servitor here, can guard against ennui? ’Tis the only
-spectre I dread, for the philosophers, the Encyclopédie, have still left
-it us!” Sir Godfrey had passed them, indeed, hardly heeding their
-detached words so much as the young soldier’s chivalrous air; a little
-on, he checked his horse at sight of a gendarme’s blue and red livery,
-to inquire for the police-bureau of the quarter; at which the man turned
-sharply, struck no doubt by the accent or the form of the question, and
-surveyed him before attempting to give an answer.
-
-“Ennui!” repeated the officer energetically, as they came on; “my faith,
-we shall soon have little enough of that luxury, I think! I had imagined
-it the disease of England!”
-
-“But without her suspecting it,” rejoined his livelier companion; “while
-France alone endeavours to expel, to define the malady! What is
-Versailles, Fontainebleau, Marly, Luciennes, but a vast sigh, a drowsy
-effort, a yawn (_baillement_)? Those parterres of Lenotre, those
-fountains, those statues, which are like the crimes of Paris! But we
-awake—and assure yourself, my friend, it is at the root of one half—”
-
-Colonel Willoughby had repeated his question rather impatiently, for the
-speaker, as he passed on, was turning a glance of attention that way:
-the gendarme, too, with a sudden motion of his hand to his huge cocked
-hat, seemed less careful to reply than to leave full room for the two
-gentlemen. The younger of them stopped, turned, and addressed a word of
-sharp reproof to the official. “Permit me, monsieur,” he added, coming
-forward with a slight bow, and speaking tolerably good English; “it is
-probably rather to the commissary of your quarter you would address
-yourself, and his residence is not far; at —— the number which I forget,
-in the Place Montaigne, Champs Elysées.” The Englishman thanked him
-briefly; bowing in return the more profoundly, as he felt the usual
-unwillingness of his race to receive a favour he had no claim to.
-
-“It is denoted, besides,” continued his informant with increased
-courtesy, “by the red lantern over the portico, which since two years
-has been fixed over the doorway of every commissary’s residence in
-Paris. Day or night this will serve to distinguish them by a glance.”
-
-“Indeed?” was the sole answer, in a tone of some indifference. There was
-nothing officious in the younger gentleman’s unasked interference; while
-his singularly handsome face, his vivacious eyes, the air of life in his
-expression, along with an undeniable elegance of manner, were contrasted
-for the first time with his elder companion, who stood apart, and almost
-haughtily silent, a dark shade seeming to gather on his thin and dusky
-cheek, as he gazed into the street, having even withdrawn his momentary
-notice of the spirited horse. Yet the baronet felt less annoyed thus
-than by the prolonged politeness of his friend; he involuntarily bit his
-lip; there was something disagreeable even in being so promptly
-addressed in his own language.
-
-“Might it be possible for one to assist monsieur in any yet further
-manner?” inquired the stranger, with the same easy grace; though a
-peculiar smile, at the time unintelligible to Sir Godfrey, had hovered
-about his lips.
-
-“My best thanks, monsieur,” was the stiff response. “I think not—it is a
-mere ordinary piece of business;” and, bowing deeply towards his horse’s
-shoulder, the English baronet turned in the direction indicated. He
-could see them from the distance, however, overtaken by a light
-cabriolet, which seemed to have been slowly following them all the
-while; the young _élégant_ stepped leisurely in, and with a gesture of
-adieu to his friend, was driven swiftly off towards the city again; the
-white plume of the garde-du-corps disappeared among the passengers.
-
-When Sir Godfrey had found the commissary’s office, shown the
-indispensable passport, and received, as he had expected, but little
-prospect of speedy information, he yet rode homewards in considerable
-ease of mind; the thing had in fact passed from his thoughts as he took
-the nearer way from the grand avenues of the Champs Elysées, thronging
-with gaiety, by the overhanging shade of garden walls and backs of
-stables, across the open spaces flushed green with the afternoon light,
-alive with strolling girls in their teens, beside their prim
-_gouvernantes_, or children scattered about the groups of their sitting,
-gossipping, sewing _bonnes_; while here and there, into a line of
-secluded street, full of tall, stately, old-fashioned houses in massy
-blocks, or separate in their high-walled court-yards, sloped lazily the
-white, gushing glory from far above; till the way towards a bridge, or
-some glimpse of the bustle about the airy quays, renewed again the sense
-of being in Paris. But it seemed as if some of its occurrences,
-otherwise as apparently fragmentary as the street-cries or confused
-accents, bore every now and then a more connected purport to the baronet
-as he came in contact with them.
-
-He had already thrown a coin or two mechanically to some squalid
-cripple, or some one-eyed beggar in his route, thinking no more of it;
-as he turned into the thoroughfare near home, however, out of one of
-these sun-bright and silent streets, where a few figures crossed here
-and there, a singular little incident presented itself, which was but
-part of many such scenes throughout the quieter quarters of the French
-capital. It was one of the strangest symptoms of that strange time, that
-while the king had been suppressing dungeons and projecting the good of
-the people, while the nobles desired reform of abuses, and the whole
-nation seemed to breathe peace, philanthropy, and enthusiasm—the very
-fashion of the salons had conceived a sudden sensibility to the miseries
-and wants of the lowest class. The late winters had been severe, and the
-last desperate, amidst dear provisions: there had been fêtes, lotteries,
-and performances of classic dramas in the theatre, although for these
-last the curés had refused to distribute their unhallowed proceeds: yet
-greatest of all had been the activity of the ladies in the genteel
-faubourgs, who, in graceful _toilettes de quête_, the most becoming of
-dresses, and with purses bearing embroideries of flowers, cupids, and
-touching mottoes, turned their morning calls into a quest for alms. In
-the less aristocratic quarters, where morning calls were scarcely made,
-it had taken hold chiefly on the little girls, from mere childhood up to
-their teens; lasting longer, doubtless, because exercised only in the
-open air on the street-passengers, with all the amusement of a play
-mingled in its touch of reality. How interesting was it, too, to the
-subjects of the performance, as they were chosen from the passing
-current with all that faculty of prompt organisation so peculiar to the
-race of France; for the _rendezvous_ was made in the neighbouring
-archway of some porte-cochère, apart from the bustle of the crowd, to
-hold the table with its white fringed cloth, and the silver salver,
-where the savings of their own pocket-money had been first put for a
-handsel, as they gathered from the various houses near. The old
-gentleman, as he approached, had his skirts pulled by some lisping
-little one, with chubby cheeks, and curls that had vainly been
-flattened, while her face peered from under the grey stuff of the mimic
-beggar’s cloak: the most simply dressed would hold the salver to the
-lady of quality; the most polite to the bourgeois; the plainest-featured
-to the widow, the spinster, or faded beauty; the tallest to the
-middle-aged gentleman, the prettiest to the gallant: and no rivalry, but
-how to get most, disturbed the co-operation of those young quêteuses.
-The English baronet, indeed, knew nothing of it as he trotted forward,
-before the archway could be seen, with its lurking, listening, peeping
-group, holding their breath in expectation: he only saw a slender young
-form, too tall for the grey cloak to smother the whole of her white
-summer dress, trip from beside the wall, and hold up her rosy palm
-before him, like a beggar; they had chosen the eldest, for her eyes and
-complexion, to try the rich Englishman.
-
-“Pour nos pauvres, s’il vous plait, Monsieur,” said a clear sweet voice,
-plaintively. Sir Godfrey had checked his horse with a start; she was a
-girl little younger than his own Rose, with the very blue eyes and that
-palest yellow hair, which are so rare in France, though with that
-warmly-bright complexion which is never seen out of it, suffused as it
-seems through a strange shadow of brown. The folds and hood of the cloak
-could not disguise the girlish grace of her figure, just shooting
-towards womanhood; the studiously plain arrangement of the hair _à la
-quête_, virgin-like, added to her pure beauty, and did not take away
-from the slightly coquettish glance from her drooped head as she thus
-made her appeal. “My dear little one!” ejaculated Sir Godfrey
-hastily—“how—what—_you_ are not a—in poverty?”
-
-Her cheek reddened as she drew up her head proudly. “Me? Yes, we are
-poor, but noble—Armand and I. It is for the poor of the city,
-Monsieur—of Paris.”
-
-Sir Godfrey reddened too, and listened calmly to her eager explanation.
-“Ah, _you_ are rich—you are English!” she added anxiously, as if afraid
-he hesitated. His glance of surprised inquiry did not escape her.
-
-“I know you, Monsieur,” she said, “for you live close to our convent in
-the Rue Debilly, near the Quai de Change, where I am a pensionnaire, and
-where my aunt is the superior. I come often with one of the sisters to
-arrange the quête here. There are so many poor!”
-
-“And to whom do you give this money, _belle petite_?” asked the baronet,
-smiling at her delighted thanks for the gold he placed in her hand.
-
-“To the curés and their vicars, Monsieur,” she said gravely, “who will
-distribute it—they know every one so well!” Sir Godfrey mused.
-
-“And you live near us!” he said, thinking of his own daughter, as he
-asked her name.
-
-“It is Aimée—and my brother is Armand de l’Orme, an officer at
-Versailles. We are orphans, Armand and I, and we do not belong to Paris.
-We were both born in the south, in Provence—Were you ever in Provence,
-Monsieur—ah, how much more beautiful it is!” With an air of empressement
-she clasped her hands, and standing there in the quietly sunny street,
-while the stream of the populous chaussée passed athwart its end, the
-girl seemed to forget her impatient company beyond, whose whispers and
-exclamations at last betrayed them to the surprised glance of Sir
-Godfrey. “Was she allowed,” he asked, however, “to make visits from her
-convent—for _he_ had a daughter, little older than herself, who had no
-companions of her own age in Paris.” And the young quêteuse responded
-eagerly to the hint. “Oh, yes—she was allowed—on certain days—and she
-would positively come. Indeed—perhaps—mademoiselle herself would assist
-at their quête.”
-
-The baronet shook his head, almost starting in his saddle at the
-thought. But it struck him suddenly that his oddly-made new
-acquaintance, through her friends the curés, might aid him in discovery
-of the missing Suzanne Deroux; and she was all readiness and sanguine
-expectation when he explained the matter. There was one young vicar in
-particular, so mild, so missionnaire, so apostolique, whose acquaintance
-with all the poorer quarters was miraculous: she would be able to bring
-the news, she was sure, very soon indeed. So giving her, at her request,
-the same paper he had recalled from his banker, Sir Godfrey saw her
-rejoin her archway amidst the impatient welcome of her companions, and
-took his way into the Rue Debilly, with a feeling half-amused,
-half-meditative.
-
-At home, there were fresh letters and newspapers awaiting him, with the
-dinner-time, unwontedly late. There had been already the expected
-tidings from Francis to his mother, though brief, that he was finally
-free of term-times, having reached London, which he was ready to leave
-next week; his father’s remaining business there seemed fully settled,
-but he was to dine, before starting, at their friend the solicitor’s,
-and bring over with him everything wanted. He enclosed his sister’s
-letter, however, from her dearest school-fellow, crossed and recrossed,
-with all its precious gossip for common use, its inexpressible
-sentiments that were not to be seen by another creature, and its
-postscript with the sole piece of real, intelligible information. Mrs
-Mason’s correspondence also, whose contents had at no time been breathed
-to any one, had been forwarded: while Sir Godfrey himself had a packet
-from Mr Hesketh’s office in Exeter, giving on the whole satisfactory
-prospects, and containing a few papers from among the late Sir John’s
-dreary mass of lumber; hitherto overlooked, but which he might care to
-examine. They were for the most part unimportant, but he saw, from the
-first glance at one of them, that had it arrived that morning, it might
-have simply saved him a little trouble and uncertainty; as it was a
-French letter of date not long before his brother’s death, evidently
-written by some humble notary’s clerk, to state the case of the Suzanne
-in question, who had received a pension for an injury received while in
-his service, probably interrupted through the change of abode by her
-children, whose work supported them; but her son had been ill, and the
-winter severe; the application had been rather made at the penman’s
-instance, as he lived _au quatrième_ in the house where their attic was,
-and had himself discovered the address by going to the banker’s, where
-he had obtained no other prospect. It stated the place and number
-distinctly, and had in all likelihood led to the memorandum of Sir
-John,—though no doubt thrown aside at the moment, and with his confused
-mind in those latter days, so busy amidst out-door matters or convivial
-meetings, its chief point had been forgotten.
-
-Joining in the eager table-talk it had all excited, with a mind at rest,
-the baronet could fully share the pleasure of home-thoughts: the very
-atmosphere of the room seemed English, for all its bare waxed floor and
-patch of carpet, its airy paper-hangings of pastoral scenes, its light
-curtains and tall glaring windows with flimsy frames, its stove-filled
-chimney-place, and the white folding-doors of its antechamber, about all
-which there lurked no corner of substantial comfort, as round the
-wainscot and panelling, the recesses and embayments, corner-cupboards,
-and hearth-places, and presses of home, with its high-backed arm-chair,
-noiseless floors, and family pictures: the sound of the convent-bell,
-and Sir Godfrey’s account of his pretty little _quêteuse_, alone brought
-back their recollection. It had been long since Lady Willoughby saw her
-husband so cheerful, even when he turned to his newspaper, and sat
-absorbed in its varied matter, leaning back on that hard diminutive
-sofa;—Mrs Mason, as her custom was, has withdrawn to the mysterious
-privacy of her own apartment; Mr Thorpe, to a book, apart in the wide
-naked antechamber; while at its further windows, looking out, sit the
-two young people in their unwearied charge of the street;—till, as that
-after-dinner repose steals through the sitting-room, with cool shade
-from the early May twilight, she feels instinctively that his old easy
-habit of middle age has returned on him, the first time since reaching
-France—nay, on second thought, since the day of that melancholy message
-from Devonshire—of sinking at that hour into a doze. It scarce needs her
-turning her head, to see how the affairs and concerns of the world at
-large have fallen from his mind; while gently netting on, without word
-or other motion, perhaps with no particular thought besides, she sits
-quiet that it may last the longer. It had seemed vague, in its
-connection with a trifle; but neither she nor he could have told the
-indescribable relief it had given him to find the only singularity in
-Sir John’s memoranda cleared up; in this commonplace way, too, when even
-casual circumstances had seemed joining to give it a feverish
-importance. That intended but ineffectual will of his, by which he had
-evidently contemplated a formal bequest, with those slight exceptions,
-of everything to the colonel, already his legal heir, could after all
-have had no rational motive; it was probably but one of those strangely
-groundless suspicions, those longings to exercise influence from the
-very tomb, which cross an unsound mind. The colonel had not been
-unconscious of the superior abilities of his eldest brother, nor of the
-still brighter parts which were attributed to his brother John in early
-life; he only felt reassured by the conviction, again confirmed, that
-the unhappy results of his foolish match had been such as to touch his
-brain with insanity. There was a vulgar old story about their family, in
-fact—a sort of absurd country superstition—that owing to some ancient
-ancestral impiety, even when the ghost ceased to be heard of in the long
-portrait-gallery at Stoke, over the great staircase—which had been
-invisible to the family alone—then somewhere or other a Willoughby was
-mad. Often had the colonel smiled at it, when merely a younger brother
-in the army; a wound once received in his head in America, which had
-cost him delirious days and nights, seemed formerly to entitle him
-doubly to his smile at the corroboration, when restored to full health:
-nay, from some cause, he had found himself thinking of it once or twice
-in the full blaze of the streets of Paris, with their vivid
-reminiscences—though his smile had been but faint, now he was the
-younger brother no longer. For _why_, really, after all, had he come to
-Paris in particular, or lingered there, persuading himself under so many
-different forms about its convenience, the novelty to his children, the
-advantage of his brother’s banker, the little legacy, the comparative
-privacy, the rapid post, or the many notices of places to let? Why, in
-that indirect way, had he sought to make inquiries of the police, and
-caught himself listening to words in the street, of unknown suicides,
-baffled investigations, and French ennui? Why had he mechanically shrunk
-from the Boulevards and rushing St Honoré, yet glanced askance at
-windows full of faces, or looked again with an irresistible suspicion,
-to see if he recognised or was recognised by any one—not merely on that
-day, but on previous ones also? Actually, in the hot, beating sun, it
-had for a moment or two resembled the preface to his fever in the
-colonies, after that affair with their rabble of militia, among whom he
-had fancied he saw a known visage disguised; and the strong effort of
-his understanding which recovered him had only brought more keenly the
-sudden question—whether his brother indeed, or he himself, had been
-touched with the germs of a growing madness. There had been strange
-horror in the thought. For, had there really been a deliberate, sober
-meaning in his brother’s stray purposes, through the confusion of all
-his neglect, and though cut off by death? While the quick, clear
-self-suspicion had seemed to pierce his own mind with shame, how, amidst
-an uneasiness to associate with his countrymen, he was still traversing
-Paris everywhere, under cover of guidance to his family, mingling
-private anxieties with the grandeur of royal edifices, and continuing to
-expect some chance vestige of things which his brother might have chosen
-wisely to leave in silence. Since his succession to Stoke he must have
-been altering insensibly. Even selfish feelings, impatient wishes,
-hidden thoughts, or half-fretful expressions towards her who had been so
-long his solace, had then recurred to mind with a painful surprise;
-compared with which, his brother’s eccentricity appeared innocent
-indeed, sadly as his earlier follies had brought it on. And had he heard
-before from Mr Hesketh what he learned from the letter on his return,
-that the manor-house and park were unlikely to be soon let, or to bring
-any profitable addition to the rents at present, from a fresh and
-growing rumour that they were haunted, it would have startled him with a
-superstitious feeling far more oppressive than any at Stoke. But, as it
-was, with a sober return to accustomed thoughts, calmed by his unwonted
-self-scrutiny, for him so deep—and soothed by gentle presence—Sir
-Godfrey slipped from his practical, matter-of-fact English newspaper to
-repose; though with the melancholy conviction that his brother’s
-understanding had indeed partially given way. They had not latterly seen
-very much of each other: John was now at peace; his fruitless life had
-come to an end. The baronet was awoke only by the rustling entrance of
-Mrs Mason to pour out the chocolate—Mr Thorpe’s awkward haste to set her
-chair—the bringing in of wax-lights—the pause before grace was said,
-with the tutor’s devout formality. The evening talk was as duly closed
-by Mr Thorpe’s reading of the appointed prayers—another advantage never
-gained by Lady Willoughby till their departure abroad required a tutor.
-
-As if there were not strange noises dying far and wide through the city,
-till across the river could be heard the great clock of the Invalides.
-As if the atmosphere of the world were not at that hour infected with
-inscrutable sympathies and mysterious desires; which gathered in Paris,
-as after long heat that malady of the air, felt keenly by the lower
-creatures: so that it might have been working vaguely even with Sir
-Godfrey. And as if, though clouded and stagnant, even well-nigh lost,
-the judgment of the departed might not have exercised some acute
-thought—deeper even than the sharpest lawyer could track it.
-
-So quiet, after prayers, was the outer night over the bare roofs, and
-lights, and distant pinnacles of the city—the glimpse of the river, the
-lamps on the bridge, the trees of the Champ de Mars—and so wide with its
-floating films of fair May-cloud, softening the few stars—that Rose
-Willoughby shaded her candle to peep out at it, lifting the blind, and
-putting her face close to the window-glass, after she had said her
-prayers, and was half ready to go to bed. Listening to Mrs Mason’s steps
-in the next room, extinguisher in hand, lest her door should suddenly be
-opened to that lady’s most indignant surprise—Rose thought still of
-to-morrow’s drive toward Versailles.
-
-
-                    CHAPTER V.—FALLING FLEUR-DE-LYS.
-
-          “Quel triste abaissement!
-              Quelle immortelle gloire!
-          Que de cris de douleur!
-              Que de chants de victoire!
-          Cessons de nous troubler; notre Dieu, quelque jour,
-          Devoilera ce grand mystère.
-          Révérons sa colère;
-          Espérons en son amour.”
-                                              _Athalie._
-
-Pleasant was it, on that bright hot morning, to escape at last from
-Paris altogether. Sir Godfrey, indeed, remained at home to write his
-letters, with the purpose of riding out to meet them on their return:
-and Mr Thorpe, on horseback, with charge of the magic passports, was the
-sole cavalier; shrewdly overseen, doubtless, by the hard-eyed,
-rough-visaged, experienced Jackson, to whose sturdy driving there lay no
-perplexity about those great, straight, formal French roads, with
-staring guide-posts and swarms of Parisian people.
-
-Soon, in fact, does the grand road towards Versailles sweep away from
-sight of Paris in its wide basin, among avenues and closing woods. With
-no lanes, nor secluded cross-ways, save to towns, it was harder to leave
-behind the Parisian people; and they soon heard that Versailles was
-stripped of its glory, so far as they were concerned, since nothing was
-doing there that day; the king had gone to Marly, or Fontainebleau,
-instead of passing in state to the Assembly, as had been expected from
-the journals. Much to the relief, it must have been, of Lady Willoughby,
-who disliked crowds and pressures of people, with the bustle and the
-dust; and to whom foreign kings and queens had but a dim,
-half-chimerical reality, after all, compared with the accustomed
-Georges, whose power and royalty were interwoven with any thoughts she
-had of public life; yet she appeared as much vexed as it was possible
-for her to be, proposing still to go on and see the outside of the
-palace, the fountains, or the remaining courtiers, the “houses of
-parliament,” which perhaps might be worth the pains. But these Charles
-disdained till another day, when the king should have returned—being
-even set against the remotest view of the town, its very smoke or
-spires; and, out of his father’s presence, Charles was always, by some
-peculiar force of his, indirectly master. His sister Rose, though the
-expedition had been fondly planned, nor did his arguments seem worth
-answering, too well knew the issue not to be resigned; while her
-governess, referred to as a matter of course, expressed as duly an
-entire acquiescence in any arrangement most satisfactory to Lady
-Willoughby, preserving an intense calm, and seeming to observe the
-various objects as their course was changed, the leaves of the trees,
-the tops of palisades, the very hats of market-people, with strange
-elevation of countenance, and with an air of suffering which required
-her vinaigrette. Even Jackson, who had a great share of the selfishness
-of privileged old servants, and greatly consulted his own personal ease,
-ventured to console his mistress, turning round and touching his hat, to
-remark that it was a long drive after all, and they would have had to
-put up at the town to bait these Flanders beasts—he carefully abstained
-from calling them horses—_which_ it might cost a deal of trouble, as
-these French inns very likely had no stables; the inward satisfaction of
-Jackson, indeed, somewhat belied his rueful effort to look grieved. All
-appeared disappointed, save the tutor, ever fain to be serviceable, if
-seldom very successful where the office was of the present kind. Yet
-that day Mr Thorpe was excelling himself, now riding on, or now
-remaining behind, always for some object; nor was it long ere he came
-posting back, his plain, ineffectual features animated, and his mild
-short-sighted blue eyes shining moist through the thin-framed spectacles
-which enlarged them, to mention that they were close to Sèvres, where
-the royal porcelain was made. And at Sèvres, with its quaint old village
-houses, and its bridge across the Seine to another village, seeing what
-could be seen of its manufactory, its water-mill where the clay was
-ground, or its woody island amidst the river, the earlier part of the
-day was spent. Then turning to make a wide circuit into the Versailles
-road again, where the afternoon was to bring Sir Godfrey, the carriage
-passed at leisure through the quieter country that slopes and rolls
-westward from the Seine.
-
-It was scarce country, indeed, where no hedgerows seemed to break up the
-wide spaces, no field-gates or clustered farms, nor half-sequestered
-hamlets, with the sprinkling on of solitary cottage and quiet house
-toward the next, where the church spire should rise, or tower; but
-sometimes with no division from the wide crops, save the lines of bushy
-pollards, they rolled over the paved roadway; again between continual
-park walls or wooden palisade, from which suddenly it would burst on the
-space about a large square village, with its cabaret and sign-board of
-the _Lion d’or_ or _d’argent_, its old fountain-well, and double row of
-trees, noisy, and alive with children, while another road brought
-through it the market-life from Paris. Though over the nearest wood
-would peep the white turrets of chateaus, peaked with purple slate, or
-tin, or gilding, like chandeliers extinguished in the light of day; and
-near to them were the little stunted churches, with their rounded ends,
-the squat towers that had lids to them like pots and vases, or the mean
-belfries perched on the roofs; where the church-yard was blooming with
-flowers that made its cypresses and yews look gloomier, and the small
-lonely curacy near it, snowing the cross on some wide gable, had an air
-of pious seclusion from the world. And still the parks spread round; the
-woods, with formal alleys striking through them, widened and surged
-outward, downward, into vale and over height; sometimes opening to let
-the high road pass on with its vehicles and pedestrians, or the traffic
-that seemed greater for its confinement,—oftener to show the terraces
-and bowers of still nobler mansions than before, till the country
-appeared fading away. They had forgotten their forenoon disappointment:
-the girl’s eyes sparkled as the sweet sense of being out of Paris grew,
-in spite of all it held in it; placid, tranquil, her mother leant
-opposite, while she breathed the freshness, enjoying the mere motion,
-and the vague variety as she heard it noticed, on pure trust, pleased at
-what pleased the others—it was not like England, indeed, but how pure
-and exhilarating seemed the French air—its sun gave a still sleepier
-stillness to her mild eyes, yet with so healthy a tint and soft fulness
-of person, that the holding of her parasol, in Lady Willoughby, the
-trouble she took to observe an object, were pleasant to see; as Mr
-Thorpe, riding by, devoted his conversation to the governess and her;
-the while Charles, still in a discontented mood, vented it on the whole
-country, and leaning across to his sister, one elbow on his knee, kept
-up his side-current of livelier talk.
-
-For one thing, their constant popularity displeased him, however
-acceptable to Rose. That national sharpness and curiosity had all at
-once become particularly disagreeable to the youth, in his grumbling
-humour; and it mingled through the whole thread of his discourse, not
-without some acute notions of the people’s character, on which he
-appeared to have been oddly brooding. Nor the less was his zest in
-showing that France and England were natural foes, because his tutor on
-the other side rode discoursing benevolently to the reverse effect;
-while Mrs Mason responded, in all that propriety of sentiment, which was
-blended, in her dialogue to gentlemen, with a slight shade of delicate
-reserve. But really there was a domineering style of argument in
-Charles, if one ventured to express a different view, that provoked his
-sister in the end—especially as he was a year younger; she turned her
-shoulder to him, and sat resolutely looking the other way, as if
-absorbed in the mild commonplaces of Mr Thorpe, and Mrs Mason’s weary
-platitudes, which diffused such additional complacency over her mother.
-After all, they _were_ tiresome things, such as all good books and
-worthy people said over and over; though Charles had no right to look
-down on his tutor with such secret contempt, because he knew nothing of
-what Charles called “life”—or to hint, because he looked serious, that
-his mind had got bewildered among triangles ever since he studied so
-terribly for a degree, leaving out nothing but his memory: perhaps,
-indeed, it _might_ be true that Mrs Mason, in spite of her early loss of
-some inestimable kind, had a sort of soft regard for him, and paid him
-little attentions, especially at table, with the sugar,—though
-moderately, till the curacy at Stoke should be sure; but what she would
-not for a moment be so disrespectful to Mr Thorpe as to credit, was that
-a hopeless love, never to be revealed, consumed him, amidst all his
-learning, for—for herself. Her indignation mounted at the thought,—for a
-moment even at the excellent tutor, so highly respected by Sir Godfrey,
-with his thin hair already leaving his forehead bald, through long delay
-of any preferment—whose sister was his only relative alive, and was to
-keep his house when he had one,—but most to Charles, with his rough
-boy’s jokes; even although the girl’s thoughts wandered the more
-irresistibly to foreign counts and picturesque barons that had hovered
-in vision before the whole boarding-school, being now eagerly inquired
-after by her dearest friend, who was still there.
-
-There were none of these, certainly, about the highway which the
-carriage struck into, alive though it was with people of every kind.
-Charles had ceased, at his mother’s unusually earnest request, to
-whistle indistinctly between his teeth, as it was of all sounds the one
-that most annoyed her; he had even left off, of his own accord, the
-substitution of a drumming motion with a small cane against his boot, as
-he superciliously noticed the passengers. He got quite silent, in fact,
-to watch the passing faces that seemed bent towards Paris; though the
-faint smoke of another large village appeared in the hollow, prettier
-than any they had passed, among inclining vineyards and whole knolls of
-roses. It might have been St Genevieve’s own, with that holy well
-resorted to by kings, where she had kept her sheep long ago; and where,
-at the May fête of _la rosière_, they still crowned the most virtuous
-girl in the place with roses; as the last work of Madame de Genlis had
-informed Mrs Mason. The summer afternoon sloped wide above it, full of
-light and the swarming hum of insects, through the outspread walnut
-leaves, flickering amber in the sun, from over the white wall that was
-dappled by the shadows; while the hedgeless corn-fields on the other
-side were rippling under the long air from the woods, one sea of
-tenderest green, full of blue-cockle flowers and scarlet poppies; the
-cottage casements flashed from amidst a pink-white glow of
-orchard-blossom, of milky cherry-boughs, of old rugged propped-up
-pear-trees that foamed over to the moss-green thatch, with the wooden
-chimney shot high, as it breathed blue among the leaves; with here and
-there a hooded dovecot window on the roof, where the pigeons sat sunning
-and swelling themselves, and cooing, white, blue, and purple together,
-in a gush of warm light—all the place beneath them bespattered and
-splashed with whiteness, through the shadow, to the very foliage of the
-nearest branch. The hum of the place burst round them as they crossed
-its little bridge, rattling over the rough causeway; and there were no
-carriage-ways save through the villages and towns.
-
-It was odd that for some time along the road, as if to meet the lad’s
-inclinations, the notice of them had been unaccompanied with signs of
-interest; every one had seemed occupied with his neighbour, talking, or
-hastening on somewhere; the voices had even grown suppressed as they
-passed. Here they were busier still, and talking louder, in a perfect
-babble of sounds. It was wonderful, at least to Charles Willoughby in
-his private mind, how the cobblers lived—the weavers, blacksmiths, or
-carpenters, found time to work; how the mill-wheel had a hand to feed
-it, or the women to mind their matters; they were letting their pitchers
-run over, in fact, at the old carved fountain-spout, till there was a
-little brook across the street, down into some one’s door-steps, and a
-duck that seemed comparatively quiet began to lead her troop of
-ducklings that way. The French infants even, held plainly enough here
-and there, in full sunlight, to their slatternly feeding-places, looked
-dissatisfied as the throng pressed about the doorway of a cabaret, with
-the sign of the Golden Crown: a horse stood by it with foam-flecked
-sides, and his head stooped in its corn-bag; while a man in a green
-jacket, with a leather case slung across him by a belt, apparently a
-courier, gesticulated in vain from the open window; the door being
-blocked up by a drunk dragoon, who stood swaying slightly to and fro,
-yet balancing himself carefully, as he surveyed the various groups from
-his half-closed eyelids with extreme sternness and grave suspicion; till
-at length drawing himself up, to extend his hand with a summons for
-attention, he essayed to speak; but all at once rushed forward with
-furious gesture amongst the crowd, where he fell flat from the steps.
-The blood gushed from his features, women shrieking, men running,
-without a glance behind, as the landlord hurried to his aid from the
-tavern, followed by more dragoons, who stamped their spurred feet upon
-the steps, and half drew their sabres, with fierce gestures and
-execrations. Yet as the carriage passed on through the narrow and
-awkward street, however slowly, it did not attract attention from any of
-the party except Charles, who preserved a seemingly sullen silence; not
-distracted by so much as a look to his sister, when her governess said
-there must be something improper going on, and sloped her parasol that
-way, using a scented handkerchief, with evident desire that the young
-lady should do the same; while his mother had no more suspicion of its
-not being common to villages all over the world, possibly on a
-market-day, than a duchess. The tutor was, as usual, on before, with his
-little note-book, to put down the name of the place, the probable
-population, and apparent area of the church, according to some dim
-theory that had been growing on him since he crossed the Channel. As for
-Jackson, he merely whipped his horses, and made a slash at some dogs,
-with obvious inclination to curse whatever came in his way. So they
-rolled through by degrees in sight of the church; but there was a
-greater throng at that end, in and about the low-walled enclosure before
-a smart new building, the use of which was not plain at first sight; for
-considering the size of the place, with the general squalidness of the
-long cottages or bald white houses, really the number of people of all
-ages was extraordinary, till one observed that single roofs seemed
-shared among ever so many families,—a thing the odder to the lad, as at
-school he used to know plenty of Eton folks, from bargemen to bat-maker.
-He even thought, somehow, of that one visit to Stoke. Oh! that was the
-school—the first he happened to have seen in France; and that youngish
-man, in an old figured dressing-gown, with a sharp dry face, standing up
-on something, without a hat—the schoolmaster; while they pushed and
-jumped to hear him, though quietly enough except for the hushing of each
-other, since the schoolmaster had evidently a weak voice; it only
-reached the carriage in an occasional screech, when he lifted his hand
-impressively in the air. “_Ecoutez—ecoutez, au Père Pierre!_” This Père
-Pierre must be rather an odd fellow; why, his school was in a perfect
-riot within, to judge by the dust, the flying books, and the noise
-sometimes louder than his voice outside. But he was not making a
-speech—the white article he held up to the blaze of the sun was not a
-pocket-handkerchief, but—yes—a newspaper. He must have a good deal of
-influence there, this teacher—at least over the grown-up men, with
-leather aprons and bare arms—one could not help marking him—with that
-scanty head of hair done up in bobs from his temples, and such a short
-queue behind, not to think of his short nose and high cheekbones, or a
-chin as bare as one’s palm. Perhaps something had happened—something
-important—a battle somewhere? There was peace, though. Some murder, it
-was likely—or a shipwreck—well, at any rate these boys didn’t mind, so
-crop-headed and stunted-looking, who were playing pitch-and-toss with
-such an old-mannish look in their eager faces, at the end of the school.
-There were more beneath the big bulging church-gable, with its black
-ugly windows and its zigzag crack in the plaster—in such long old livery
-coats, with plated saucer-buttons. Actually it was with the buttons they
-were playing—as if it had been money—cutting them off their coats, too,
-and their breeches, to rush back for another chance! The silent
-speculations of Charles reached their climax in profound wonder. It was
-beneath his notice to regard Mrs Mason’s words, as they cleared the
-place, and began to rise from the hollow—that it was an interesting
-village, so lively, so full of a holiday air, not without a degree of
-quick intelligence. “After labour,” his mother said, lifting up her
-eyelids, “it must be pleasant.”
-
-Beyond the church and an old crooked, high-arched bridge, was Mr Thorpe
-in the turning of a very narrow by-road, stony and grass-grown, that
-took a winding as if to avoid the village, by ditch-side and over
-rubbish, till it caught the highway behind again: the worthy tutor had
-drawn up his horse, he was settling his spectacles, putting in his
-note-book, and feeling in his pocket for some coin, apparently to bestow
-on a man he had been talking to. A very singular group revealed itself
-as they reached him. A dark-faced jet-eyed man with a beard, black and
-bushy, his rough cap in hand, and a little organ slung from his back,
-stood replying to Mr Thorpe in strange broken French, mingled with
-English; while he seemed carefully to keep the trees between himself and
-the village: somewhat further down the by-way sat a disconsolate-looking
-boy with a guitar, beside a crouching monkey; while another man held the
-chain of a huge muzzled beast, shaggy and brown, which reared on its
-hind-legs, now growling, now dancing, now shrinking from the threatened
-whip, like a creature enraged by the distant voices. Their trade had
-been ruined, the man said; for it was the first time they had been
-turned out into the _chemin des affronteux_, belonging to thieves and
-villains. It would be known for miles round Paris in a day, for it was
-wonderful how the news travelled there. They had often been at
-Charlemont before, and were received well. The bear felt it worst, he
-thought. He was as good a bear as you would see, owing to his love of
-society. Perhaps it might have been owing to some news in the place—but
-one could not know what tunes would offend people nowadays, to dance to.
-
-At Mr Thorpe’s condolence, however, backed by his gift of a six-sous
-piece, the Italian retreated thankfully. They watched him as he was
-joined by his singular company, slowly and with a crestfallen air
-disappearing round the by-way. All the tutor could find out was that
-they had been chased out from that end of the place just before, with
-sticks, stones, and pitchforks, by the very young people who had been
-dancing sociably enough along with the bear and monkey—because an air
-they commenced was _contre la liberté_. How any tune could be against
-liberty, Mr Thorpe could not conceive: nay, if they did not like dancing
-to it, they might have stood still; they might have requested it to be
-stopped; indeed, it was probable that some of these very people might
-have wished the liberty of dancing it! Still less could he perceive how
-_liberty_ could be connected with that particular tune—“_Richard o mon
-roi_”? And he looked interrogatively to Mrs Mason. Certainly not, the
-governess responded: Gretry’s new music! In fact, he rejoined, the
-musician could not, either: but that day mysteries seemed to grow, he
-added,—for, before himself emerging from the place, at sight of the
-church, he had very civilly inquired, from a group of inhabitants, what
-was the name of the village. What had been his astonishment to perceive,
-that passing from uncivil silence, from stares of wonder, and
-extraordinary, sudden indignation, they looked very much disposed to
-treat him as it now seemed they had before treated these inoffensive
-strangers. Until, adding insult, they had significantly touched their
-foreheads, looking to each other, or whispering, until one, perhaps
-still more ingenious in giving offence, had suddenly called out, “Bah!
-c’est un Anglais!” There had been then no farther notice of him—indeed
-absolute indifference; nor did he discover, till he encountered the
-injured foreigner, what the name of the place actually was. And was
-there, then, really any peculiar crime in asking the name of
-_Charlemont_—any strange privacy—any unutterable horror connected with
-_it_—that no one should put the mere question? But, at all events, was a
-spirit of inquiry to be thought madness! Nay more, was it lower than
-madness to be—an Englishman!
-
-Mr Thorpe looked a little discomposed and changed, in fact, even since
-they last had seen him. Usually, though not pedantic, he was tedious;
-but he began for a moment to appear almost respectable in the very eyes
-of his pupil, who had often thought before that the present curate at
-Stoke could not be more monotonous, nor the old rector duller: a spark
-of spirit seemed for the time to have given emphasis to his words, and
-meaning to his face—some faint dignity to his lengthy awkward person,
-sitting ordinarily like a sack on his horse, with the gaiters dangling
-in the stirrups. Yet how amazingly simple was Mr Thorpe; it was chiefly
-the Italian with his battered instruments and beaten animals that seemed
-to have roused him from his wont: while as for his chief puzzle, a light
-broke on it to the boy at once, from all he had seen and heard of these
-French. Why,—of course they thought the whole world should know
-Charlemont already!
-
-But, to the ladies, softly plashed and clattered below, from among
-alders in the deeper hollow, the mill-wheel of the village, dusty light
-flying from the upper door: the cracked striking of a clock was heard
-from farther off, till they saw the grey turrets of another yellow
-chateau among trees, though but a thread of smoke rose from it, and its
-discoloured plaster, where the sunlight struck, gave it a dilapidated
-aspect, helped by the pigeons from the dovecote tower close by, that
-were sitting on the window-sills and eaves. Full to the light on the
-brow of the eminence rose the carriage, widening the landscape on every
-side, save where the woods before it extended: there was a smooth, broad
-road in front, sweeping round where the labourers were still at work on
-it: they were on a hill, and all was exquisitely solitary otherwise for
-the first time, except close by, where the highway ran between the two
-porter’s-lodges of two great gates that faced each other. These great
-gates were, indeed, gorgeously beautiful, being each double, with
-side-wickets, all of open ironwork, elaborately complex; gilt crowns
-surmounted the globes upon their massy pillars of stone, their upper
-rims were formed of fleur-delis, as if of lance-heads, richly gilded;
-while the blade-shaped leaves, damasked and lettered with mottoes,
-stretched throughout the whole, hither and thither, like guardian
-swords, from the uncouth grasp of grotesque naked monsters at the lower
-corners; everywhere were small puzzling circles of cipher, and in the
-midst the joined halves composed a grand shield-shaped device, burnished
-and resplendent on either hand, of the royal arms of France. The very
-radiance of the afternoon sun came dazzling towards it, and threw the
-other way on the cross road, into one park, a mottled shadow of
-fleur-de-lis; shapes of crowns, ciphers, and monsters, even vanished
-among the dust of the horses’ feet on the highway as they trotted
-past—strange traces from the days of Louis Quatorze. Still was all that
-nothing to the broad glimpses of park scenery both ways through them.
-Mrs Mason herself saw one way, with unusual commendation, where a
-stately distance was made by Lenotre’s taste, in straight avenue, level
-turf, and high-clipped side-alleys, where a few well-dressed people were
-walking; her frequent headache did not, perhaps, at any time wholly
-leave her, but the vinaigrette paused in her hand, as she directed the
-attention of Lady and Miss Willoughby to each fine effect. Yet it was
-difficult to draw the latter from her absorbed delight the other way;
-for there the wilder chase seemed left to nature, the sun levelled more
-and more all his yellowing splendour through its deep-green, sinking
-glades, flinging out fantastic shadows, shooting gushes of verdurous
-light, in which the delicate young fern peeped from about the trunk of
-some far-off oak, while the broad umbrage of its gnarled boughs
-retreated crisply into cooler shade; the knolls were hung with the
-foxglove buds, like crimson bells that had not found a tongue; and all
-there was moist, secluded, solitary, sweet, save when some single bird
-seemed to wake up and make it musical, till again it trilled and rang
-with their innumerable notes. But gradually the road had lifted the
-carriage higher yet; it seemed to drive slow by instinct; and ere they
-well knew, the whole party made exclamations together, as, with Rose,
-they did not know which way to look first. Mr Thorpe came to a
-stand-still, and Jackson was shading his eyes, whip in hand, to look
-under the sun. Even Lady Willougbby said, fanning herself gently, “Dear
-me—what a fine country! what crops!” “Yes—the harvest will be excellent,
-I should think,” Mrs Mason replied, using her fan also, it was so hot.
-The young lady stood up, and her brother jumped out to get from the top
-of the bank upon the wall.
-
-They were nearer Paris than they thought; it bristled and shone through
-its haze, some miles away on the plain: westward, the high woods of
-Marly showed faint through the edges of two broad sunbeams, as through a
-veil, with bluer distinctness between, here a spire, there smoke; the
-waves of forest verdure undulating round, began to burn and blaze
-towards sunset; all was spotted with towns, sprinkled rich-red and white
-with villages, flushed with orchards, and in the barer spaces
-embroidered like a carpet that blended with the dark suburbs of the city
-on the horizon. Here and there appeared a soft misty glitter of the
-circuitous Seine in the level, with some faint white sails; the distant
-azure of some hills could be seen; it was all like one mighty map made
-real. Yet greatest of all to their eyes, even greater than the dusky
-grimness of Paris in the sun, showing its domes so helmet-like, and its
-pinnacles so like weapons—was where, with one accord looking back, they
-could perceive the silvered slates of one large town among the avenues
-they had turned from that forenoon, its steeples shining, its windows
-sparkling—and through that transparent French air, some lustrous snowy
-glimpses between embosoming bowers, of long level palace-roofs,
-embossed, and fringed, and tipped with undistinguishable ornament.
-Palaces, indeed, seemed to be visible in every direction; but they
-thickened towards _it_; all that way the landscape was but one mass of
-park-woods, and with those alleys, gardens, terraces, that long road at
-intervals perceived, it could be nothing but Versailles! Charles himself
-could not but look. The rainbow flashing of the fountains, and gleam of
-statues—the grand stairs of the terrace—they could almost fancy they
-distinguished.
-
-It was he who first broke the thread of their interest. Well, he
-shouldn’t care to have seen King Louis XVI.; he had once seen George
-III. It was easy enough to see him, in fact; if you only but knew it was
-he. He had seen a boy at Eton, fag to a friend of his, who was once
-spoken to a good while at a turnstile in Windsor Park by an elderly
-gentleman in drab gaiters, a nankeen waistcoat, and a blue coat with
-bright buttons; and when a ranger came up afterwards from behind, and
-told him it was the king, he nearly fainted. He could never learn
-anything after that, and always turned pale at the sight of a gold
-sovereign, so he had to be sent to sea.
-
-“My dear young gentleman,” said Mr Thorpe seriously, “the King of France
-is a much more powerful monarch than even His Majesty King George! I
-must beg to correct you on a point of history. He is absolute ruler, not
-only of all the land we see, but over the property, nay, the very
-persons of his subjects—he is the State himself—as the great Louis XIV.
-so emphatically told his nobles. Think of those _lettres du cachet_,
-given away even blank in thousands upon thousands—a kind of money, as it
-were—exchanged by the courtiers for all kinds of objects—with which, for
-all one knows, were he worth notice from some enemy, he may be sent to a
-Bastille on no account whatever, to remain there unknown the rest of his
-life!”
-
-Charles Willoughby still endeavoured to look indifferent, though the
-slight whistle died between his teeth, while he pushed his cap down on
-his head, deeply resolved never to lift it to a French king. Mr Thorpe,
-drawn into unwonted earnestness, by the expression of the ladies’ faces,
-sought to reassure them.
-
-“The character of the present king is such as to make this power a
-benefit,” he said. “There seems a rapid decrease of superstition in the
-church. Really, Lady Willoughby, there was something idolatrous in this
-excessive honour to a human being! To conceive that at his Majesty’s
-death, while the body lay for forty days embalmed in lead, a waxen
-effigy was placed in the grand hall of entertainment, and served by
-gentlemen-waiters at the usual times, while the meal was blessed by the
-almoner, the meat carved, and the wine presented to the figure; its
-hands were washed and thanks returned. The queen, in white mourning—”
-
-“In white mourning?” inquired the governess, with interest.
-
-“In white, I think, Mrs Mason—sat for six weeks in a chamber lighted by
-lamps alone. For a whole year she could not stir out of her own
-apartments, if she had received the intelligence there. Although similar
-ceremonies were observed after her own decease.”
-
-The feminine impression of former evils in France grew deep. The tutor
-could not say whether his present majesty would require such honours.
-There was only one person of inferior rank who had ever been
-distinguished by a shade of the same respect, though for a shorter time
-her effigy had sat. It was the far Gabrielle d’Estrées. “Who was she?”
-Rose asked,—“and why”—
-
-“Miss Willoughby,” interrupted Mrs Mason with a sudden air of severity,
-rustling and extending and drawing herself erect, “there are some
-questions too shocking and improper for us to ask?” Mr Thorpe, with a
-frightened look, sat dumb in his saddle; yet Mrs Mason professed to know
-history, and her charge must surely learn it: nay, unknown to them all,
-among the distant chateaus, palaces, and mansions they were gazing at,
-were St Germain’s in the blue eminence, which the great Louis had given
-to La Vallière when he wearied of her for Madame de Montespan; and
-Luciennes, where Madame du Barry was then living in fashionable
-retirement. But the one had been gallant, stately even in his vices; the
-royal patron of the other, in his dissipations, had at least been
-elegant. Probably Mr Thorpe’s confusion led him to a graver topic.
-
-“The chronicler I have lately perused,” he said, hastily, “is really
-worth study. Nothing can be so mournfully salutary. As the coffin was
-borne at night to yonder Notre Dame, and thence thereafter to the
-ancient town of St Denis, the streets were hung with black, and before
-every house was planted a tall lighted torch of white wax. First went
-the Capuchins, in their coarse sackcloth girt with ropes, bearing their
-huge cross, crowned with thorns—then five hundred poor men, under their
-bailiff, all in mourning as for a father—the magistrates and courts of
-justice, the parliament of Paris in rich sable furs, the high clergy in
-purple and gold—followed by the funeral car drawn by white horses,
-covered with black velvet crossed with white satin, and the long train
-of officers of the household.”
-
-The great knowledge of the tutor as to textile fabrics interested Mrs
-Mason. “Think of the expense!” Lady Willoughby said.
-
-“This vast procession,” pursued Mr Thorpe with solemnity, “went on in
-silence, while, as the chronicler quaintly expresses it, ‘ever and aye
-the royal musicians made a sound of lamentation, with instruments
-clothed in crape, very fierce and marvellously dolorous to hear or to
-behold, until they arrived at the church of St Denis,—blessed be his
-name! And the bier was borne into the choir, it being a-blaze with lamps
-and tapers beyond number, and the service lasted for the King’s soul
-several days—whereupon was the body let down into the vault, but not
-admitted within the inner chamber until the end of the next reign—and
-Normandy, the most ancient king of arms, summoned with a loud voice,
-that the high dignitaries should therein deposit their ensigns and
-truncheons of command—which done, the sacred oriflamme of France was let
-fall down upon the coffin, until the _fleur-de-lis_ began with the noble
-Bourbons—and the king of arms cried three times so that the vaults heard
-and replied—Ho! the king is dead! The king is dead! The king is dead!
-And when silence had been renewed, the same voice proclaimed—Long live
-the king!—and all the other heralds repeated it. Then was all finished,
-and they departed joyously.’ Really, in those older writers, compared
-with those of the present day,—however superstitious, there is
-considerable profit to be found.”
-
-And the worthy graduate settled his glasses complacently, used his
-pocket-handkerchief in the loud manner he was addicted to, and looked
-round with increased attention on the mighty view; for devouter wishes
-had long been breeding dimly in his mind, such as the chill
-Protestantism even of his revered mother-church did not at that period
-satisfy. He did not notice the shrinking, under that full sunlight and
-wide azure, with the swarm of summer flies in the ears, and the warble
-of birds at hand, with which the youngest of his hearers, at least, felt
-the thought of death—above all, that universal one, of sovereign power.
-As for Lady Willoughby, her anxious look was chiefly from a reference to
-her watch; and it had been growing. She had not even heard Mr Thorpe. It
-was time for them to turn into the road from Versailles, as Colonel
-Willoughby—Sir Godfrey—would soon be leaving Paris, and he was punctual
-to a moment. There was no other way, Jackson said in reply, but by
-turning right again through the last village; at his mistress’s request,
-accordingly, he suited the action to the word, by backing and wheeling
-round. But where was Charles? He had vanished over the wall, apparently,
-during his tutor’s irrelevant remarks. To the calls of Mr Thorpe, echoed
-from among the woods, he returned no sign. It was annoying. They must
-wait; and, at any rate, according to the views of Jackson, generally
-unfavourable if required—with these beasts, it would be impossible to
-get on in good time, besides having to walk through that village, which
-was like nothing English whatever—with perhaps a bucket of water needed
-at that there tavern, if such a thing was to be had. The sudden
-intelligence of Mr Thorpe suggested a way: he could ride off at once to
-meet Sir Godfrey, and set him at ease; in fact, for himself, at least,
-it would be easy to avoid the village of Charlemont altogether—by—yes—by
-taking that _chemin des affronteux_, as they called it. Lady
-Willoughby’s face brightened. Her thanks to Mr Thorpe were something
-energetic for _her_: and spurring, rising in his stirrups, bumping up
-and down on his white mare, that worthy man disappeared. Rose pressed
-her parasol against her mouth to repress a smile, at the thought how
-Charles would have enjoyed his following the bear and monkey: but,
-through _her_ means, she was resolved he should know nothing of it.
-
-When least expected, Charles reappeared, jumping with a flushed face
-over the wall, and carrying a load of wild-flowers for his mother, for
-Rose, even for Miss Mason. He had heard distant sounds over the woods of
-the chase, which he thought were those of hunting-horns. But all was
-again still, bright, sleepy and solitary, under the glory of the sloping
-sun. He got in; Jackson whipped his horses at last to a trot, for again
-and again they had been passed each way by humbler vehicles; and they
-rolled on their way back towards Charlemont. Mr Thorpe’s mission excited
-no extraordinary satisfaction in Charles, though he was sure they would
-get on better without him. Mr Thorpe ran a strong chance of being taken
-up as a spy. All at once it occurred to him that Mr Thorpe had all their
-passports. But a scene of far more exciting interest next moment
-eclipsed everything like that. Again, from the distance of those
-secluded glades, did a sound draw his ear—and it was really the sound of
-a bugle-horn—a faint, far-off, musical sound, sometimes smothered by the
-woods, then breaking out clearer. It sank into a long-drawn, almost
-wailing note, that rose up into a livelier quaver, joined by a burst
-from others. It must be a hunt. They were blowing the _Mort_—as they did
-only for a stag, and a stag that was dead. Such luck!—for it came ever
-nearer. But what a crowd at the turning, near those splendid
-gates—twenty times even Charlemont must be there, by the swarming noise!
-And the gates themselves, thrown each way open with their double leaves,
-closed up the road.
-
-The lad rose half up, with breath suspended, and without a look to spare
-for his party, kept mute as the carriage rolled into the crowd on that
-side. He did not so much as think what it could be.
-
-Though had there been a chance of the _chemin des affronteux_, and the
-carriage could have gone through it—indeed through one long enough and
-circuitous enough to avoid all France—it might have been better for the
-Willoughbies. Yet who knows? The master-history that shapes our ends is
-wiser than we.
-
-
-
-
-                 CONSERVATIVE REASCENDANCY CONSIDERED.
-
-
-Ours is an age of peculiar importance. Events seem to be crowded into a
-small space of time which, if, spread over half a century, would yet
-mark the time as one of peril, action, and renown. In the political
-world we view a rapid succession of exciting scenes. The calm of peace
-yields to the turmoil of war, and Europe, but lately placid, is now
-rocked to its very base, and every nation on the Continent seems torn
-with present evils or convulsed in the contemplation of those to come.
-The strife of nations has doubtless called forth all the energies of
-mankind; and though England is removed from the sphere of action, and
-the immediate influence of the war, yet it cannot be said but that she,
-too, lies in peril, and partakes the general restlessness of the times.
-It becomes her, then, to consider in what lies her safety, and into
-whose hands she should commit the guidance of her affairs at this moment
-of danger.
-
-Is not England, too, a sharer in this general convulsion? Let us look to
-her senate, the heart of this great nation, where all the movements by
-which she is agitated can be seen and analysed. First, we see the Whigs
-quarrelling amongst themselves, and their consequent fall from power.
-Next, we see the Conservative party, with the general acquiescence of
-the country, installed in power. Ten short months have elapsed, and we
-see that Government, after having conferred, in its short tenure of
-office, lasting benefits upon the country, now falling, though by a
-slight majority, before a combination of all those various sects,
-panting for office, which range between conservatism and turbulent
-democracy—between Popery on the one hand, and practical atheism on the
-other; at war amongst themselves, yet combined together against a
-Government which seemed determined to legislate for the country, and not
-for the exclusive interests of any one party. Well might the Minister
-exclaim, as he fell before the machinations of his enemies, prescient of
-the future, while contemplating the events of the present—“England has
-not loved coalitions.” Well might he “appeal from that coalition to that
-public opinion which governs this country,” and before whose searching
-tribunal that unprincipled combination must soon be brought. If he
-desired revenge, he has it now. A government of “all the talents,”
-containing, as we are told, within its ranks all the men of official
-experience, administrative ability, of parliamentary renown, and so
-forth, calling down upon them the contempt of Parliament and the scorn
-of the country, succeeds the Derby administration. Forced to abandon
-measure after measure, fairly vanquished in those with which they
-proceed, obliged to fall back upon their own imagined talent and
-ability, which must at any sacrifice of character be preserved at the
-service of the country, they are evidently, to all men but themselves,
-and a few of their own devoted adherents, eliciting the pity of their
-friends and the derision of their enemies. But, then, we are told that
-it is the war which prevents them from carrying their measures; that
-last session they carried their budget, India bill, &c., with large
-majorities, which they regard as a sign that they possess the confidence
-of Parliament, and that now Parliament and the country, with their
-attention distracted by the war, simply refuse to legislate. We protest
-against such arguments as these. It is introducing a dangerous
-principle, though it may serve as an excuse for clinging to office with
-a disgraceful pertinacity. But does it not occur to them, that probably
-the reason they carried their measures last year with such a semblance
-of triumph, was in consequence of that forbearance—nay, even favour—with
-which every government, new to office, is regarded; that it was, to a
-great extent, the result of that disorganisation of their opponents
-which ever follows defeat; and that the people, dazzled with
-appearances, were willing to admit that we had a government which was
-worthy of the confidence of the country. But how have these feelings
-been dispelled? Credulity or connivance, disgraceful in such
-keen-sighted and patriotic statesmen, has done it all—Parliament has
-lost confidence in them, and the country contemns them. Moreover,
-blinded by their confidence in their own talents, which has now become a
-byword among sensible men, they still declare they carry with them the
-confidence of the country, because in all matters connected with the war
-they still possess majorities. Such reasoning as this does not hold. The
-reason that they carry their financial measures so decisively through
-the House is, that many, who do not feel so strongly as others on the
-injustice of the measures proposed, are willing to support those
-measures rather than have it appear on the Continent that the House of
-Commons has refused the sinews of war at the very commencement of the
-struggle. It is not the war which prevents their carrying other
-measures, it is the war which enables them to carry what they do.
-
-But how has this been brought about?—how is it that this Government has
-so rapidly lost the favour of the people, and been reduced to the
-position of being a Government on sufferance? The reason is to be found
-in that general discontent and excitement which from Europe have
-infected England. Men are excited at what is passing abroad, and
-distrustful of affairs within. The want of union and mutual distrust
-which exist in headquarters, is spread throughout the kingdom. Those
-feelings of distrust and disagreement existing in the Government become
-every day more apparent, and add to the anxiety with which its motions
-are regarded. This distrust and anxiety must be prevalent whilst this
-state of things continues. It is only by the reascendancy of the
-Conservative party that they can be surmounted, and by the advent to
-power of men who have confidence in each other, who have unity of
-sentiment amongst themselves, and who are backed by united followers;
-who have, each and all, the same objects in view—viz., a firm resistance
-to Russian aggression and the establishment of a durable peace, the
-maintenance of our Protestant religion, and justice to all parties in
-the State. Unity of sentiment amongst the members of a government is of
-the greatest importance to the happiness and welfare of the people.
-There never, probably, was a Cabinet in which there were so many “open
-questions” as the present. Since so many of them are Peelites, we may as
-well have the opinion of Sir Robert Peel himself on those self-same open
-questions. We subjoin an extract of a speech delivered in 1840 by that
-eminent statesman, on a motion of want of confidence in Ministers, in
-which he refers, without any ambiguity of expression, to the fatality of
-open questions:—
-
-
-  “But there is a new resource for an incompetent Administration—there
-  is the ingenious device of open questions, the cunning scheme of
-  adding to the strength of a weak government by proclaiming its
-  disunion. It will be a fatal policy, indeed, if that which has
-  hitherto been an exception, and always an unfortunate exception in
-  recent times, is hereafter to constitute the rule of Government. If
-  every government may say, ‘We feel pressed by those behind us—we find
-  ourselves unable, by steadily maintaining our own opinions, to command
-  the majority and retain the confidence of our followers, our remedy is
-  an easy one—let us make each question an open question, and thereby
-  destroy every obstacle to every possible combination;’—what will be
-  the consequence? The exclusion of honourable and able men from the
-  conduct of affairs, and the unprincipled coalition of the refuse of
-  every party. The right honourable gentleman has said that there have
-  been instances of ‘open questions’ in the recent history of this
-  country. There have been; but there has scarcely been one that has not
-  been pregnant with evil, and which has not been branded by an
-  impartial posterity with censure and disgrace. He said, that in 1782
-  Mr Fox made Parliamentary Reform an open question; that Mr Pitt did so
-  on the Slave-trade; and that the Catholic Question was an open one.
-  Why, if ever lessons were written for your instruction, to guard you
-  against the recurrence to open questions, you will find them in these
-  melancholy examples. The first instance was the coalition of Mr Fox
-  and Lord North, which could not have taken place without open
-  questions. Does the right honourable gentleman know that that very
-  fact—the union in office of men who had differed, and continued to
-  differ on great constitutional and vital questions—produced such a
-  degree of discontent and disgust, as to lead to the disgraceful
-  expulsion of that Government? The second instance was that of the
-  Slave-trade; but has not that act of Mr Pitt (the permitting of the
-  Slave-trade to be an open question) been more condemned than any other
-  act of his public life? The next instance cited was that of the
-  Catholic Question. I have had some experience of the evils which arose
-  from making Catholic emancipation an open question. All parties in
-  this House were equally responsible for them. Fox made it an open
-  question; Pitt made it an open question; Lord Liverpool made it an
-  open question; Canning made it an open question. Each had to plead an
-  urgent necessity for tolerating disunion in the Cabinet on this great
-  question; but there cannot be a doubt that the practical result of
-  that disunion was to introduce discord amongst public men, and to
-  paralyse the vigour of the executive government. Every act of
-  administration was tainted by disunion in the Cabinet. Every party was
-  jealous of the predominance of the other. Each party must be
-  represented in the government of that very country which required,
-  above all things, a united and resolute Government. There must be a
-  lord-lieutenant of one class of opinions, a secretary of the opposite,
-  beginning their administration in harmony, but in spite of themselves
-  becoming each the nucleus of a party, gradually converting reciprocal
-  confidence into jealousy and distrust. It was my conviction of the
-  evils of such a state of things—of the long experience of distracted
-  councils, of the curse of an open question, as it affected the
-  practical government of Ireland—it was this conviction, and not the
-  fear of physical force, that convinced me that the policy must be
-  abandoned. I do not believe that the making the Catholic question an
-  open question facilitated the ultimate settlement of it. If the
-  decided friends of emancipation had refused to unite in government
-  with its opponents, the question would have been settled at an earlier
-  period, and (as it ought to have been) under better auspices. So much
-  for the encouraging examples of the right honourable gentleman. They
-  were fatal exceptions from the general policy of Government. If, as I
-  before observed, such exceptions are to constitute the future rule of
-  Government, there is an end to public confidence in the honour and
-  integrity of great political parties, a severance of all ties which
-  constitute party connections, a premium upon the shabby and shuffling
-  conduct of unprincipled politicians.”
-
-
-Such were the sentiments of Sir Robert Peel with regard to open
-questions in the Melbourne Cabinet: how much more completely those
-remarks apply to the present Government it is needless to point out.
-Again are the open questions in the Melbourne Cabinet vigorously
-attacked; but this time in the House of Lords, and by a more energetic
-and fiery orator:—
-
-
-  “My Lords,—‘_Idem sentire de republicâ_’ has been in all times, and
-  amongst the best of statesmen, a bond of union at once intelligible,
-  honourable, conducive to the common weal. But there is another kind of
-  union formed of baser materials—a tie that knits together far
-  different natures, the ‘_eadem velle atque nolle_,’ and of this it has
-  been known and been said, ‘_ea demum, inter malos, est prime
-  amicitia_.’ The abandonment of all opinions, the sacrifice of every
-  sentiment, the preference of sordid interest to honest principle, the
-  utter abdication of the power to act as conscience dictates and sense
-  of duty recommends—such is the vile dross of which the links are made
-  which bind profligate men together in a ‘covenant of shame;’ a
-  confederacy to seek their own advancement at the expense of every
-  duty;—and this, my Lords, is the literal meaning of ‘open questions.’
-  It is that each has his known recorded opinions, but that each is
-  willing to sacrifice them rather than break up the government to which
-  he belongs: the ‘_velle_’ is to keep in office, the ‘_nolle_’ to keep
-  out all antagonists; and none dare speak his mind in his official
-  capacity without losing the ‘_firmitas amicitiæ_,’ by shaking the
-  foundations of the Government.”
-
-
-Here is a splendid outburst of vehement denunciation. If that could be
-applied with justice to the Government of Lord Melbourne, if such an
-invective as that is an index of the state of opinion in the country at
-that time, with reference to the dissensions in the Whig Cabinet, how
-much more applicable is it to the Coalition of the present day, with
-regard to whose members, putting out of sight the question of Free
-Trade, which is now the law of the land, there is hardly a question of
-public importance to which we can point as an example that ‘_idem
-sentire de republicâ_’ is their bond of union. Discontent and anxiety
-may well prevail when we have, in times so important as these, a
-Ministry in power so disunited, and composed of such discordant
-elements, such base materials as the present, and backed by followers
-who, true to their nature, are constantly quarrelling amongst
-themselves. Look at the diversity of sentiment displayed in their
-recorded speeches on that subject which, more than any other, is
-uppermost in the minds of the people. There is Lord John Russell in the
-House of Commons inveighing against the criminal ambition of the Czar of
-Russia, declaring that “this enormous power has got to such a pitch,
-that even in its moderation it resembles the ambition of other states;”
-arguing that that power must be checked; telling the people of England
-that they must be prepared to enter the contest with a stout heart and a
-willing mind, and then solemnly invoking the God of justice to prosper
-her Majesty’s arms, to defend the right! We have the Home Secretary and
-the Earl of Clarendon completely subscribing to these sentiments; but we
-have the Prime Minister, who more than any other man ought, now that war
-is declared, to be imbued with hostile feelings against Russian
-aggression, and determined to carry on the war with vigour, eternally
-whining after peace, and throwing cold water on the ardour of the people
-by constantly enlarging on the horrors of war and the blessings of
-peace. They say that old age is second childhood. England seems likely
-soon to become aware of this fact, through dire experience. Her Premier,
-on the Continent, is described, and rightly so, as “the apologist of
-Russia;” the Minister who is supposed to be, more than any other, in the
-confidence of his Sovereign. Talk of explanation! The very fact of his
-entertaining sentiments with regard to Russia so ambiguous, so
-equivocal, and so lenient towards the enemy of his country, that
-actually in giving expression to them he is mistaken for offering an
-apology for the Czar, and exposed to the scorn of the country and the
-distrust of Europe, seems to us to be amply sufficient to disqualify him
-henceforth for ever being “the first Minister of the first Sovereign in
-the world” during the eventful period of war; and the only charitable
-construction which we can give to the passage is, that he—our helmsman
-in the storm—has entered upon his dotage, and returned to the proverbial
-folly of childhood. If his sentiments are the result of mere folly, then
-he may properly be charged with credulity; if his friendship for the
-Czar regulates his conduct, then it is connivance for which he is
-answerable. In either sense he is unfit for his office. There may be,
-for aught we know—indeed there probably are—others in the Cabinet of the
-same frame of mind. The man who could denounce Turkey as a country full
-of anomalies and inconsistencies, and endeavour with all the force of
-his “sanctimonious rhetoric” to excite an antipathy to that State, and
-despair at her fate, just at the moment when it was necessary to rouse
-the people against Russian aggression, was merely supporting the
-Emperor’s theory of the “sick man,” and cannot be said to have any
-definite ideas with reference to the aggressive policy of Russia, to
-check which we are at war; or any very great sympathy with that country
-to defend which we are also at war. Here is discordancy in the Cabinet
-on the most vital question; and there is probably as much on every other
-question that is brought before the notice of the British Parliament.
-Here is food for discontent and anxiety to the people of England. Thus
-may their ardour be damped and their spirits quenched long ere the
-struggle has concluded. And if we look at the supporters of the
-Government—the Ministerial party, as they are termed—there, too, we
-behold the same intestine strife. What has been the attitude of the
-Manchester party with regard to the Government?—what the attitude of the
-Whig statesmen who have been “banished to invisible corners of the
-senate?”—what of the Whig peers—such men, for example, as Lords Grey,
-Clanricarde, and others? Mr Bright and the Whig peers are openly, though
-on different grounds, hostile to the Ministerial policy, the others
-scarcely less so. The Manchester party rank amongst the regular
-supporters of the Government, yet they appeal to the Opposition to know
-“whether they don’t occupy a very absurd position” in following men who
-will not lead them, and are derisively answered in the affirmative. If
-they criticise the course of the Government, their opinion is regarded
-with the “greatest indifference and contempt.” Thus do matters stand,
-and yet Ministers have the audacity to affirm that they possess the
-confidence of Parliament, and that it is the war which prevents the
-success of their measures. But is this the front which we are to present
-to our foes? Are we to exhibit to Russia, as our leaders in the strife,
-a Government on sufferance notoriously incompetent, whether at home
-legislation or foreign negotiation? Is not Conservative reascendancy the
-only salvation of the country? Does not the nation at large pant for
-something like a Government—one which is followed by a united party—one
-which is at unison in itself—one of principle and not of expediency?
-When we see a Government openly hostile amongst themselves, scorned and
-contemned by the country, beaten on every point by their opponents,
-obliged to withdraw measure after measure, and retaining one only after
-it, as has been observed before, has undergone as many metamorphoses as
-ever Ovid described—when we see all this, which we can hardly do without
-being roused to feelings of indignation, it appears to us necessary to
-consider how may this be remedied, how may Russia be firmly opposed, how
-may England be rescued from the pernicious effects of an incapable
-Government, and how may unanimity be restored to the councils of her
-Majesty?
-
-It is very evident, that only by the reascendancy of the Conservative
-party can these blessings be secured to the country. The tradition of
-that party is, as its name implies, the preservation of our institutions
-in Church and State. This is a definite object. That it is a desirable
-one, is a conclusion which is arrived at by one course of reasoning, the
-same premises, the same logical inferences. Hence the Conservative party
-is a united band. A Conservative Minister cannot be a Minister on
-sufferance; a Whig Minister must. The Whigs are ever desirous of change,
-and the so-called amelioration of our institutions; but few of them
-agree together in the paramount importance which attaches to the reform
-of any particular abuse, or in the amount of innovation which it is
-desirable to introduce. Hence they are always at variance with each
-other when the time for action arrives; and this incapacitates them for
-carrying on the Queen’s government. If popular enthusiasm comes to their
-aid, and force them on in spite of themselves, then the case is
-different. The Reform Bill of 1832 was carried triumphantly, but by the
-people. Popular enthusiasm supplied vigour to the executive. Contrast
-this with another Reform Bill, of no very distant date, as regards its
-introduction at least, though few of the present generation are likely
-to see that bill become the law of the land. The time was unfortunate
-for Whig administrators, though backed by those who claim to themselves
-the name of Conservatives. A Russian war carried that enthusiasm, so
-necessary to the Whigs, through another channel, and exposed in a
-ludicrous manner the true value of a Liberal Administration, and their
-dependence upon the popular will. True, there was a large party in the
-Senate clamorous for reform—perhaps a majority. There was no hesitation
-amongst members to conclude that reform was necessary, for these are
-liberal times. How, then, do we account for their ill-success? By
-adopting a happy description of their worth as statesmen, given long
-ago: “Their head is at fever heat, but their hand is paralysed.” They
-are not slow to adopt as their own any principle, though calculated to
-throw the country in a flame, so long as it is traditionally the
-property of their party. But when the time for action arrives, when that
-principle is to be embodied in a bill, and that theory is to be reduced
-to a practical test, then comes division and discontent. One portion
-objects to this part as too sweeping, while another declares it to be
-too confined. This wants one remedy, the other declares the wished-for
-remedy will only prove an aggravation of the malady. There is no
-hesitation in adopting any principle, however dangerous. Give them the
-opportunity—the advantageous opportunity, in the eyes of politicians—of
-putting their plans into execution, and immediately we behold
-irresolution, consequent upon dissension, and inactivity, the offspring
-of indecision. Only divert the populace from them, who, when roused,
-carry all before them, as it were, and force their leaders to bury their
-dissensions—only deprive them of that support, and then you see the
-intrinsic worth of your Whig statesman. He may carry, perhaps, one bold
-measure; but his title to succeeding years of administration rests upon
-the gratitude of his supporters. He is unable to carry those minor
-measures—those measures of equal public importance, though of a less
-conspicuous character—more solid though less showy—which contribute so
-much to the moral happiness and physical enjoyment of a great nation,
-and which are the pillars of a statesman’s fame. There is no firmness in
-a Whig ruler—there cannot be, if he would reconcile and command the
-confidence of all the various sects of his followers. Who was it that
-held with a firm and steady hand the helm of England, when all other
-Continental nations were submerged in ruin? A Conservative statesman. No
-Whig Minister could have succeeded then. The utmost firmness and
-steadiness in conducting the public business of this country were then
-required. No Whig Cabinet could have guided the fortunes of England
-then. Obliged to truckle first to this man’s fancies, then to another’s
-follies, they are but a faithful index of the dissension amongst their
-followers, and uncertainty and irresolution are sure to follow. Yet to
-such as these are our fortunes, in times so perilous as our own,
-committed; and already are the baneful effects visible. If the
-Conservative party were to pursue the course which the Opposition of
-former days is known to have taken, what would be the position of the
-Government? If their opponents were not to support them in the war, the
-conduct of it would be in the same position as all the other measures
-which they have brought forward this session, and for the success of
-which they are dependent upon their followers. Such a state of affairs
-may continue for a time, but it must eventually call down the
-indignation of the country. No wonder that the conduct of our Government
-constantly gives rise to the suspicion that they are too desirous for
-the cessation of hostilities. It is manifestly their interest so to
-appear, if it be not also so to act. A peace, even though it were merely
-an armed truce, would satisfy the cravings of many of their followers;
-and probably the belief that such may be obtained, renders them less
-disagreeable to the Government than they would otherwise have proved
-themselves.
-
-Never, perhaps, was the inability of the Whig party to govern exhibited
-in such a marked manner as at the period immediately succeeding the
-passing of the Reform Bill. With a majority of three hundred, they yet
-disagreed amongst themselves concerning the desirability of introducing
-innovations into the Irish Church, and they fell. Some have declared
-that an excess of power—a majority too large to manage—was fatal to the
-endurance of their power. We rather think that it was but a conclusive
-proof that a Whig Minister _must_ be a Minister on sufferance—in other
-words, is unable to govern. Unhappily for themselves, at the period to
-which we are alluding, a rather more important question than usual
-occasioned the schism. Those who disagreed did not merely, as generally
-happens in these cases, hold aloof for a time, embarrass the Government,
-and then return to their allegiance, but they went at once into open
-hostility. They retired to swell the Conservative ranks. This is a
-specimen, on an exaggerated scale perhaps, of what is constantly
-occurring when a Whig Ministry is in power. For what do we see now? We
-behold the Conservative party united in their opinions with regard to
-Russian aggression upon Turkey. In the Ministerial host there is
-nothing, as usual, but dissension and endless disagreement. The
-Manchester party condemns the war and everything belonging to it. The
-Peelites evidently look with a cold eye upon it; they believe not in the
-vitality of Turkey, or in the danger of Russian aggrandisement. So far
-there is agreement between these sects. They cannot, however, form one
-party, for there is disagreement between them on vital points connected
-with Home administration. Then, again, there are the philosophical
-Radicals demanding the Ballot, while the aristocratic Whigs most
-properly declare that secret voting shall never become one of the
-institutions of the country. In short, the Ministerial camp is split up
-into various and opposing sects, which are continually warring with each
-other, while the Cabinet itself is but another scene of this general
-medley and confusion, this discontent and convulsion; and its executive
-power is paralysed by internal discord. The introduction of the Peelites
-amongst the Whigs has but increased the differences in the camp. Never
-was there a time when the internal dissensions of a Ministerial host
-were so marked, so wide-spreading, or so notorious. And this, too, at
-this critical time, when England ought especially to be calm and
-tranquil within, in order to be able to consider well what are her
-interests without. Is this to continue? Are the interests of England and
-Europe to be jeopardied by the continuance in power of a Ministry so
-divided and so weak? It is, we think, a truly logical inference that the
-fall of the Coalition, and the reascendancy of the Conservative party,
-is the only method by which an end can be put to that constant strife,
-and unanimity restored to the councils of our Sovereign. In a time of
-war, it is of the last importance that a Ministry should be united and
-firm, and possessed of the confidence of the country. Every one will
-probably admit this; but, then, does the Coalition answer to this
-description?
-
-It is idle to pursue this subject further. No one who really wishes well
-to his country in this emergency, can say that it is to the present
-Government that we ought to confide the direction of our affairs, unless
-he be dazzled by the undoubted splendour of their names. There are,
-doubtless, great talents amongst them; but there is such a thing as the
-utmost danger in a superfluity of talent, particularly when applied to
-pursuits to which they are not especially adapted. Too much collective
-talent begets an overweening self-confidence, and lessens the sense of
-responsibility; moreover, if this too great self-confidence be brought
-to bear its influence in the direction of affairs of which one is
-ignorant, no beneficial result is to be expected. Again, if all these
-misdirected and misapplied talents be controlled by an incapable chief,
-can it be said that their administrative abilities are placed at service
-of the country? No! personal pique and private considerations prevent
-it. We need not dwell upon the incapability of the First Lord of the
-Treasury, which is now generally admitted. We now look to the other
-prominent members of the Government. The office assigned to Lord
-Palmerston is the most notoriously incongruous. With a world-wide
-reputation for his administration of our foreign affairs, gained in an
-experience of them for sixteen years, his lordship is placed in an
-office where he may exercise his negotiative powers with county
-magistrates, town constables, and the like. There he is—the most popular
-Foreign Secretary of the day, the man in whom the country has perhaps as
-great a confidence as in any one, engaged in squabbles over town police,
-graveyards, sewers, and the rest. Lord Palmerston cannot be said to be
-at home in his office. The country is disposed to look with favour upon
-him on account of his great name and services; but does he really make a
-better Home Secretary than Mr Walpole? Why was he not transferred to the
-War Office on its creation, with his extensive knowledge of European
-affairs? If the interests of the country had been consulted, undoubtedly
-he would; but again private considerations were opposed to the national
-will and the public weal; and the Duke of Newcastle, who has as yet no
-claims to public confidence, is placed in an office to which, on the
-formation of the Government, it cannot be said that he was assigned.
-Again, there is Sir George Grey, who is adapted more especially to the
-Home Office, if to any; but, “being more remarkable for his private
-virtues than his administrative abilities,” is certainly not the man to
-be unceremoniously pitchforked into an office with which he has no
-acquaintance, other than the little he is supposed to have learnt during
-the “disastrous administration of Lord Glenelg.” If there are talents
-here—if there is experience here—as in Lord Palmerston’s case, so in
-this; the experience is rendered nothing worth, and the talents
-misapplied. It is unnecessary to dilate further upon this subject; let
-us look at the blessings derived to the country from the administrative
-abilities of those whose talents have not been misdirected. There is our
-gifted Chancellor of the Exchequer, who has made more mistakes within a
-given time than any of his predecessors in the past century; and when we
-remember that financial blunders are national misfortunes, it is no
-matter of wonder that people refuse to regard him with an eye of favour,
-even though we overlook the probable pernicious effects of his
-Tractarian tendencies over the Church of England, felt through his
-influence over the disposal of the Church patronage. How long will
-England, dazzled by names, overlook facts and their consequences? Divest
-the members of the Government of their previous reputation, of their
-great names—give them names unknown to the country, and what language
-sufficiently strong would be found to apply to such an incapable
-Administration, with all their blunders, their dissensions, and their
-disastrous speculations? Had Lord Derby and his colleagues committed
-half the blunders of this Cabinet—had they attempted to tamper
-recklessly with our finances—had they involved us in a war which might
-have been avoided by sufficient plain-speaking in negotiation, what
-would their opponents have said? Would we have witnessed the patriotic
-course which we have seen the Opposition of the present day adopt? Few
-would suppose it, when they recall to mind the undignified hurry which
-the Opposition manifested for office during the brief period which
-elapsed between the assembling of Parliament in November 1852 and the
-Christmas vacation—a restlessness which induced them all to combine
-together, Whig, Radical, and Peelite, High Church and Dissent, in order
-to overthrow the Administration of the day; while their unredeemed
-compact with the Roman Catholics will not easily be forgotten. Few would
-suppose it, when they recall to mind the course adopted by the Whig
-Opposition during the last war, when, for factious purposes, victories
-were represented as defeats, the movements of the British general
-rendered the battlefield of party strife at home, and the motions of the
-Government clogged by the hands of unprincipled and factious opponents.
-Few would suppose it, when they recollect that Whig alacrity to accept
-office is only equalled by Conservative disdain to hold it on
-sufferance. But what was the conduct of the Government of Lord Derby? Is
-not that Government now admitted to have been the instrument of more
-good to the country, in its short tenure of office, than was ever
-effected by any of its predecessors within so short a time? And if we
-remember the immense amount of opposition which was brought to bear
-against it; that, in the first few months of its existence, the
-completion of the business of Parliament, previous to its dissolution,
-was all that was expected or required at its hands; that, after the
-dissolution, a majority of nineteen effected, though with the greatest
-difficulty, the overthrow of the Administration, without allowing the
-smallest time for the trial of their legislative powers, it must be
-admitted that the members of that Conservative Government, in the face
-of the greatest difficulties, exhibited administrative abilities of a
-high order. They were unable, from circumstances, to take advantage,
-like their successors, of the tide of popular favour which in these days
-is sure to run in the direction of a new Administration, because they
-were only expected to wind up, as quickly as they could, the
-Parliamentary business of the session. Yet to them may be traced the
-advantages we possessed in preparation for the present war. They were
-the first Government who dared to come down to the British House of
-Commons, and tell it the national defences were insecure, and demand the
-means of placing England in a position to resist any threatened
-invasion. Do we not owe to them the establishment of our militia? Was
-not that a bill than which none has been more perfect in its details, or
-more universally satisfactory to the country? Do we not owe to them the
-establishment of our Channel Fleet on such a footing that it secured
-England from all aggression? Then was laid the basis of that splendid
-fleet which a few months back left our shores for the Baltic Sea. Again,
-it is to their prescience that we can trace the advantages which are
-derived to ourselves, and to the cause of civilisation and independence,
-from our present amicable relations with France. Did they not, in
-opposition to the popular will, unequivocally expressed, and in the face
-of the utmost censure of the press, persist in cultivating the
-friendship of France? To that firmness and political sagacity we trace
-the advantages we derive from having so powerful a friend by whose side
-to fight in the cause of Europe. Contrast this with the conduct of that
-brilliant Administration which was to rescue England from the evil
-position into which it was brought by the reckless Derby Government, and
-what do we find? Two members of that Government, immediately on taking
-office, commence their abuse of the French Emperor in no measured terms.
-Nor is this all: Their brilliant opponent, who was naturally desirous to
-bring such a glaring indiscretion before the notice of the Commons of
-England, was charged by the triumphant Coalition with having a mind
-deeply imbued with faction. The like absence of political sagacity is
-observable throughout the whole course of the Government. With a war
-staring us in the face, which ought to have appeared almost inevitable
-to the Government, with their superior information and knowledge of
-facts, the Chancellor of the Exchequer brings forward a Peace Budget,
-parting with an important item in our revenue. This was another blow
-levelled against the agricultural interest through the indiscretion of
-the Government, for it resulted in soap being relieved at the expense of
-malt. Our discreet Chancellor parts with a quantity of revenue derived
-from indirect taxation one year, and redeems his blunder the next by
-levying an increased tax on malt. But what are we to expect from a
-Chancellor of the Exchequer whose administration of the finances has
-been one continued system of blunders? The secret lies in this: All his
-various failings arise from his having entered upon schemes in which, as
-he proceeded, he soon found himself out of his depth. Another minister
-would have been deterred from entering upon them, from a sense of the
-responsibility he would incur. But when a Ministry fancies it contains
-within itself all the available administrative talent in the Empire, the
-sense of responsibility is lightened, because opponents are undervalued,
-and self-confidence augmented. Here, again, do all the other
-misdemeanours of the Cabinet take their origin. Confident in themselves,
-and in their fancied influence over Parliament, they bring forward, in
-the face of war, a larger number of important measures than ever before
-were introduced to Parliament in the same session. They only exhibited
-their own weakness. They proved that their plans of legislation differ
-materially from those of the House of Commons. They discovered that even
-all the talents cannot blunder with impunity, and they have rapidly sunk
-in public estimation. Their conduct has disgusted their followers, and
-provoked a powerful opposition. Their numerous indiscretions would
-certainly not have been tolerated in any men but our talented rulers in
-the Coalition; and even they are suffering from the effects of their
-rashness, but nevertheless seem determined to “survive in office the
-honour of their administration.” Referring, again, to the Derby
-Government of 1852, we ask if the Earl of Malmesbury, or any two
-important members of that Administration, had been afflicted with a like
-absence of political sagacity to that displayed by Sir James Graham and
-Sir Charles Wood, where would have been our relations with France? If
-that Government had, for the sake of the popularity which Sir James
-Graham values so much, but which no Minister has been so unfortunate in
-his attempt to gain, joined in the temporary popular resentment against
-the French Emperor, when would the breach have been healed? But _they_
-showed that they understood the interests of the country, and contrast
-in a favourable light with the members of the Coalition and their
-misdeeds. They evidently were aware of the deep responsibility under
-which they lay, and thus their actions were marked with a caution which
-is not observed by their successors. If Mr Disraeli had not handed over
-a large balance to his rival, what would have been the effect of the
-failure of his schemes? It comes to this, then: The forethought and
-prudence of the Derby Government have only had the effect of shielding
-the Coalition from the worst consequences of their indiscretions and
-total failures, and enabling the country to withstand the
-mal-administration of its present rulers, instead of being improved and
-brought to be of permanent advantage to the nation. It may, however, be
-thought to be a great drawback to Conservative reascendancy, that the
-leaders of that great party are, for the most part, comparatively
-inexperienced in office. However that may be, the administration of ten
-months’ duration stands out in broad relief between its predecessor and
-the Coalition; at all events, it would be difficult for them to commit
-more blunders than the present talented and _experienced_
-Administration. But can a charge of inability be fairly urged against a
-party which contains within its ranks men of such talent, parliamentary
-experience, and sagacity as the Earl of Derby, Lord St Leonards, Lord
-Eglinton, Disraeli, Walpole, Thesiger, Kelly, Pakington, Malmesbury,
-Bulwer Lytton, Stanley, Manners, and the other Conservative statesmen?
-The year 1852 must, in the eyes of thinking men, for ever dispel such an
-imputation. The same party which, shorn of its leaders in 1846, yet sent
-forward to maintain its cause in that “sad fierce session” its champions
-in debate, so many and so powerful as to astonish its foes and restore
-spirit amongst its ranks, produced also, in time of need, statesmen
-whose official career, short though it was, does no discredit to their
-followers—the gentlemen of England. The chiefs in either House, in
-particular, are men of brilliant talent and tried sagacity. Trained in
-the Liberal ranks, it may be presumed that they are deeply convinced of
-the danger of continually seeking after that phantom, which, the nearer
-we approach, the farther it recedes—viz., a system of representation
-which shall do justice to all parties in the State; while, at the same
-time, that very training has divested them of that spirit of exclusion,
-and that horror of anything approaching to innovation, which were the
-chief imputations against the Toryism of bygone times, but which do not
-accord with the intelligence of the present age. The Earl of Derby, as
-every one knows, was a member of that Cabinet which secured the reform
-of Parliament. He has since been engaged in endeavouring, and not
-unsuccessfully, to stem the tide of democracy which then set in. For
-that end he joined Sir Robert Peel—for that end he left him. Mr
-Disraeli, too, awakening to a full sense of the danger which “the
-youthful energies of Radicalism” are too well calculated to produce,
-became a decided Conservative, though not a bigoted exclusionist. To
-these principles he has steadily adhered in the whole course of his
-parliamentary career, which has now spread over a term of seventeen
-years. No man needs to stand higher in the estimation of his party than
-does the member for Buckinghamshire. Gifted with talents which fall to
-the lot of but few, possessed of keen sagacity, indomitable resolution,
-and extensive knowledge, he has never shrunk from placing at the service
-of his country, and of the great party of which he is the recognised
-chieftain, the utmost efforts of his admired and envied genius. Where is
-the man who has more unflinchingly stood by his party at all seasons,
-both of adversity and prosperity? His rapid elevation has, no doubt,
-been viewed by many with feelings of dissatisfaction; for
-
-                “Envy does merit, as its shade, pursue.”
-
-It is evident that he has also many personal enemies. The man who
-overthrew a Government which many supposed would have continued during
-the lifetime of its leader, and even have survived him, is not likely to
-be regarded with any especial favour by the members of that Cabinet. The
-uncompromising hostility which he bore to them has roused their utmost
-indignation, and his character has been unsparingly attacked. Some have
-had the sagacity to detect the cloven hoof in every step which he has
-made in public life; nor has he been allowed by them to possess the
-smallest particle of political virtue, and “one of the humblest
-individuals of this vast empire” has thought fit to embody his views of
-the political career of Mr Disraeli in a somewhat bulky volume, where he
-has given vent to his holy indignation. Such a production would have
-been a disgrace to the age, even if the author had had the courage to
-place his name at the head of it, for it is introducing into party
-warfare a weapon which is most unfair, unjust, and dishonourable. No
-statesman can condescend to notice such an attack; and when the author
-withholds his name and sends forth his anonymous slander into the world,
-then it must be confessed that the cowardly spirit in which it has been
-undertaken has only aggravated its revolting character.
-
-Mr Disraeli is an original genius. His great fault in early life was,
-that he formed his conclusions without deep study, and trusting chiefly
-to the power of his own intellect. With all the conceit and precipitancy
-of youth, he immediately gave forth to the world the conclusions at
-which he had arrived. Many of these were wild and improbable, and his
-maturer years discovered their true nature. His father was, as is well
-known, a Jew, while his ancestors were, down to a recent period, the
-natives of a foreign soil. The son, then, inherited no hereditary
-political principles, which are in England, generally, handed down from
-one generation to another, unchanging and unchanged. Mr Disraeli had
-therefore to choose for himself, from the wide field of English
-politics, those principles which appeared to his unbiassed mind most in
-accordance with the true spirit of the British constitution. The choice
-which he adopted, and the subsequent changes through which he passed,
-appear to us to be nothing but the natural workings of an unfettered
-mind, and which any man may, and probably often does, undergo, as he
-ponders over the English constitution and the science of government in
-the recesses of his own study. It is natural that, as an Englishman
-contemplates our form of government, as he becomes acquainted with its
-operations, and as he compares its results with reference to the mind,
-the habits, and the temper of the people with the influence of
-Continental governments over their subjects, he should be filled with
-admiration at the wonderful manner in which the united harmonious action
-of the Three Estates of the realm is secured; and his first thought is,
-that it must be preserved unimpaired and inviolate. As he proceeds, he
-finds blemishes, anomalies, and imperfections; these he concludes should
-be eradicated, and with all the ardour of youth he thinks that, once
-these disappear, a form of government remains complete in its splendour,
-and splendid in its completeness. A wider intercourse with the world, a
-more extensive knowledge of mankind, must dissipate in many minds this
-perhaps fondly-cherished sentiment. Perfection cannot be
-attained—contentment is never the lot of humanity; and perhaps it is
-better that each should endeavour to forget his particular object of
-antipathy, and unite in consolidating and preserving those institutions,
-with their many imperfections, than hazard their extinction by endless
-struggles after their purification. Are not these legitimate changes of
-opinion? A man who has thus formed his political opinions, remains a
-staunch Conservative, but eschews all those more repulsive features of
-Toryism, which do but defeat their own end, and raise up against itself,
-in power too strong to be resisted, the very influences it wishes to
-control and counteract. But what shall we say of a young man who thinks
-fit, in the impetuous ardour of his ambition, to publish to the world
-his opinions as they are forming? We may smile at the vanity displayed,
-and at the folly of such a course; but we may shrink from casting
-imputations and urging motives, from which a virtuous mind recoils, for
-the mere purpose of blackening and traducing the character of a
-political opponent. Such, however, is the course pursued by Mr
-Disraeli’s enemies; but we should think that the strong malevolence
-displayed in those satires and slanders must insure their being
-discarded by “all in whom political partisanship has not extinguished
-the common feelings of humanity.” It is said that Mr Disraeli’s changes
-of opinion were with a view to self-aggrandisement. The charge, we
-presume, rests upon the pretence that he was the better for each change.
-This may be; but we think an ardent, clever, and ambitious man like Mr
-Disraeli, would have risen to eminence whatever line of politics he
-adopted. It was not more difficult for him to get into Parliament as a
-Radical than as a Tory; indeed, this seems to be unwittingly allowed by
-his biographer when he states that his election for High Wycombe was
-lost because Mr Hume withdrew his support in consequence of Mr
-Disraeli’s refusing to compromise his opinions with regard to the Whigs.
-It is, however, a decidedly unfair course to rake together all that has
-fallen from an aspiring and even giddy youth, no matter whether in the
-heat of political contest or in the turmoil of an election strife, and
-then call him in his maturity to a severe account. No charitable
-construction is ever allowed to Mr Disraeli’s public acts. It is always
-easy to get up a colourable case against an English statesman, all whose
-acts lay bare before the eager gaze of the public. It requires the
-exercising of very little ingenuity to hang together a consistent string
-of facts with which to stigmatise with baseness the career of any
-politician, however brilliant in talent or in character. Mr Disraeli has
-risen from the people; he has excited the envy of some and the hatred of
-others, who indulge their vengeful feelings in spreading their malicious
-slanders; nor is the most stainless character proof against such
-assaults, since they can quickly acquire a consistency of character, and
-gain a hold on men’s minds when they are dinned into one’s ears on all
-sides. How easy it might be to make up a case of political profligacy
-against Sir James Graham, who has been through more political changes,
-and that, too, since he was a representative of the people, than any
-other statesman of the day! How easy it might be to discern in this the
-workings of a restless ambition! A colourable case is soon made, and
-then let a certain number of newspapers indulge in comments upon it, and
-spread the calumnies, each in his own strain, and all spiced with a
-little outpouring of virtuous indignation, and the best character is
-sure to be injured by it. There are some in these charitable times who
-can defend a Cromwell; we apprehend that with far less exercise of
-ingenuity can the character of the Conservative leader be maintained.
-But if it be true that Cromwell is not the remorseless villain which his
-history had depicted him, then it only shows how easily characters can
-be fatally blackened by constantly harping on the evil points, and
-quietly omitting all mention of the good.
-
-Throughout the whole parliamentary career of Mr Disraeli, a consistent
-course of conduct with reference to State policy has been pursued;
-though it is observable that, in the first few years, he had not yet
-thrown away some of his extraordinary theories. We see that, as he
-advances in manhood, and becomes practically acquainted with
-legislation, the vain conceptions and egotistic vanity of his youth pass
-away, and he settles down into a steady, through-going, parliamentary
-chief. The different opinions which he has at times expressed of various
-statesmen are easily to be accounted for, though some who, as the poet
-says, judge of others by themselves, may discern in this discreditable
-motives. Public opinion is always varying with regard to public men, and
-a young man is likely to be influenced by it. But, at all events, he
-ought, through motives of modesty, to keep his opinion to himself; and
-it is of the greatest importance that one who aspires to be a statesman
-in this country, where parties are always changing, should not be
-constantly giving expression to the feelings of the moment. It is not
-safe for a politician; for while he is giving vent to what is generally
-a mere fancied animosity to the mere party-feeling of the moment, he may
-perhaps be throwing down the gauntlet at the feet of a future colleague;
-and all for no purpose, for oftentimes there is no foundation for
-aversion to a public man. Nor is it right that the House of Commons, our
-country, and Continental nations, should be constantly hearing statesmen
-mutually complimenting and abusing each other. It is a maxim in State
-policy that you should deal with your enemy as though one day he may be
-your friend, and _vice versâ_. In private life, it happens that one who
-is a friend may first be viewed with coolness, and then treated as an
-enemy; and this change in conduct may be legitimate, though not
-creditable. Still more frequently may this happen in public life. Mr
-Disraeli has, we should think, learnt from bitter experience the folly
-of giving expression to mere transient feelings either of anger or
-respect. He is a man of extremes; he knows no mediocrity of feeling;
-witness the inflated style of the soliloquies in his novels, which have
-drawn down upon him the unmitigated ire of his zealous biographer. With
-him a statesman’s career is either “a system of petty larceny on a great
-scale,” or it is “a precious possession of the House of Commons.” This
-is a pity; but Mr Disraeli, unlike other statesmen, had not in early
-life the friendship of those who had trodden the thorny paths of English
-politics before him, to inculcate upon him the necessity of being
-habitually reserved and moderate in his expressions; and neither reserve
-nor moderation forms a part of his natural character. Too warm a nature,
-or too ardent a temperament are not discreditable, though they often
-bring pain and trouble along with them.
-
-We now come to the most hackneyed, and, we admit, the most painful
-portion of Mr Disraeli’s life—his treatment of Sir Robert Peel.
-
-But these things belong to the past. Great blame, in the eyes of an
-impartial observer, may be attached to Peel for the course he then took,
-and great blame may also attach to Disraeli; much, on the other hand,
-may be said in palliation of the conduct of both. The one has long ago
-been forgiven by the great party which he irreparably injured; the other
-will, we firmly believe, prove himself, at no distant period, as firm
-and enlightened a Minister as he is now one of the most talented and
-accomplished statesmen that ever adorned with his eloquence, or
-controlled by his wisdom, the legislation of the British Parliament.
-
-We now conclude by urging the necessity there is for the reascendancy of
-the Conservative party. We are evidently on the verge of a momentous
-period. Are we to commit the guidance of our affairs to a Government
-whose conduct, as yet, has been one course of bungling—the result of
-dissension, of abortive speculations—the result of a misplaced
-self-confidence, and of unsuccessful negotiation—the result of an
-infatuated love of peace? We make, then, our appeal to the Protestants
-of England; are we any longer to truckle to the Pope of Rome—are we
-still to devote the public money to the support of Roman Catholic
-priests, and then call it “religious bigotry?” We make our appeal to the
-friends of Turkey amongst us: are we to have a Ministry in power who are
-divided in their opinions concerning the vitality of the country which
-we are desirous of protecting, and amongst whose supporters are men who
-deny our right to go to war at all? We make our appeal to the foes of
-Russia; shall we have a Premier who declares that “what is called the
-security of Europe” has nothing to fear from Russian aggression, and
-then says that he has nothing to retract or explain? Let us have a
-Ministry of able men, united amongst themselves, prepared to uphold our
-Protestant religion, agreed upon the vitality of Turkey, resolved to
-resist Russia, determined to secure a durable peace; and, above all, one
-that is strong in the confidence of the country, and supported by a
-united majority. Let us tear down the emblems of the most incapable and
-mischief-making Coalition that ever any country was cursed with, and
-proclaim over its fall the reascendancy of Conservative principles.
-
-
-           _Printed by William Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh._
-
------
-
-Footnote 1:
-
-  Σπυριδῶνος Τρικουπη ἱστορία τῆς Ἕλληνικῆς ἐπαναστάσεως. Τόμος Α.
-  London, 1853. (History of the Greek Revolution. By Spiridion Tricoupi,
-  Greek Minister, London. Vol. i.)
-
-Footnote 2:
-
-  _History of Europe from the Fall of Napoleon in 1815, to the Accession
-  of Louis Napoleon in 1852._ By Sir ARCHIBALD ALISON, Bart. Vol. iii.
-
-Footnote 3:
-
-  The work, when completed, will, we understand, consist of four volumes
-  octavo; the second volume is expected to appear in a few weeks.
-
-Footnote 4:
-
-  Sir A. Alison, perhaps, as we shall see afterwards, confines his
-  sympathy to the assertion that, _after the infamous butchery of the
-  Greeks at Chios_, the intervention of the Christian States in behalf
-  of the oppressed Christian people became a duty.
-
-Footnote 5:
-
-  That this “_bloody_ and _brutal_” policy is still exercised by the
-  Turks, when they have their free swing, is evident from the letter of
-  Mr Saunders, the British Consul at Prevesa, which appeared about two
-  months ago in the _Times_, and of which a Greek translation now lies
-  before us in the Αθηνᾶ—an Athenian newspaper—of the 9th June.
-
-Footnote 6:
-
-  It may be interesting to observe here, as a proof of the permanency of
-  the Greek language, that the phrase used by our modern Greek
-  ambassador in this place, ατενίσας είς τον ουρανον, is exactly the
-  same as that used by St Luke in the account of the martyrdom of St
-  Stephen, Acts, vii. 55. Indeed, the vocabulary of the living Greeks,
-  as well as their syntax, is strongly tinged by the language of the
-  Septuagint and the New Testament; a fact, of which our students of
-  theology, if they have any sense, will take note.
-
-Footnote 7:
-
-  Δεν συστελλομαι νὰ ὁμολογήσω ὅτι ἤμῆν εναντιος τοῦ τοιούτου κινήματυς
-  κατὰ του Σουλτανου· ὄχι διότι θὲν επεθύμουν τῆν ελευθερίαν τοῦ ἔθνους
-  μου ἀλλὰ διότι μ’ εφαινετο ἄωρον το κίνημα, μὲ το νὰ ἦσαν
-  ἀπειροπολεμοι οἱ Ἕλληνες καὶ οἱ πλεῖστοι ἄοπλοι, ὁ δὲ κίνδυνος
-  μεγας.—PERRHAEBUS, _Military Memoirs_. Athens, 1836.
-
-Footnote 8:
-
-  τοῦ Κερατιου κὁλπου—that is, we have no doubt, the large expansion of
-  the Golden Horn west of Galata, and north of the Fanar.
-
-Footnote 9:
-
-  The modern Greek has lost not a whit of the fine rich flexibility
-  which has made the ancient dialect such a convenient organ for our
-  scientific terminology. The word for Lazaretto used here is
-  λοιμοκαθαρτήριον; and scores of such words are seen on the signboards
-  of the streets of Athens at the present hour.
-
-Footnote 10:
-
-  _Appendix to Spottiswood_, p. 29.
-
-Footnote 11:
-
-  Dr J. H. Todd, who first published this letter, (_English Churchman_,
-  Jan. 11, 1849), supposed Bishop Taylor to be speaking of Dr Peter
-  Barron of Cambridge, but afterwards, on the evidence being
-  communicated to him, was entirely satisfied, and corrected his
-  mistake. “The author referred to (writes Dr Todd) is certainly Dr
-  Robert Barron of Aberdeen, a divine of whom the Church of Scotland may
-  be justly proud.”—_Irish Ecclesiastical Journal_, March 1849.
-
-Footnote 12:
-
-  Upon an allegation of unsoundness of doctrine in some of his works,
-  the General Assembly of 1640 dragged his widow, in custody of a “rote
-  of musketiers,” from her retreat in Strathislay, to enable them to
-  search his house for his manuscripts and letters, a year after his
-  death. The proceedings add some circumstances of inhumanity to the old
-  revolting cases not unknown in Scotland, where a dead man was dug out
-  of his grave to be placed at the bar, tried and sentenced.
-
-Footnote 13:
-
-  P. 288.
-
-Footnote 14:
-
-  Vol. iii. p. 331.
-
-Footnote 15:
-
-  _History of Scots Affairs_, vol. iii. p. 231.
-
-Footnote 16:
-
-  Aberdeen, 1635.
-
-Footnote 17:
-
-  Vol. iii. p. 227.
-
-Footnote 18:
-
-  In the Presbytery of Aberdeen, 26th May 1642. He died in 1659, in the
-  ninety-fifth year of his age.
-
-Footnote 19:
-
-  _Life of Bishop Bedell_—Preface. Of most of these theological authors
-  I am obliged to speak in the language of others. I have not even, in
-  all cases, read the works which have formed their character.
-
-Footnote 20:
-
-  _Dr M‘Crie’s Life of Melville_, vol. ii. p. 445. It is with hesitation
-  that any one who has benefited by this work will express a difference
-  of opinion from its author. But it seems to me that Dr M‘Crie has been
-  led by his admiration for Andrew Melville to rate too highly an
-  exercise in which he excelled. The writing of modern Latin poetry,
-  however valuable as a part of grammatical education, has, in truth,
-  never been an effort of imagination or fancy; and its products, when
-  most successful, have never produced the effect of genuine poetry on
-  the mind of the reader.
-
-Footnote 21:
-
-  _History of the Rebellion_. Oxford, 1826. Vol. i. p. 145.
-
-Footnote 22:
-
-  _Life of Bishop Bedell_—Preface.
-
-Footnote 23:
-
-  _Delitiæ poetarum Scotorum hujus ævi illustrium_, and fifth volume of
-  the Great Atlas—both published by John Blaeu at Amsterdam, the former
-  in 1637, the latter in 1654.
-
-Footnote 24:
-
-  _Joannis Leochaei Scoti musæ._ _Londini_, 1620. Leech was Rector of
-  the University in 1619.
-
-Footnote 25:
-
-  “Ad Senatum Aberdonensem;” “Tumulus Joannis Colissonii;” “De
-  Abrenethæa;” “De aulæis acu-pictis D. Isabellæ Setonæ Comitissæ
-  Laderdeliæ.” _Epigrammata Arturi Jonstoni, Scoti, Medici Regii,
-  Abredoniæ: excudebat Edvardus Rabanus_, 1632.
-
-Footnote 26:
-
-  STRACHAN’S _Panegyricus_. Among the strangers he distinguishes
-  Parkins, an Englishman who had, the year before (1630), obtained a
-  degree of M.D. in our University. The earliest diploma of M.D. I have
-  seen is that which I have noted (somewhat out of place) among the
-  academic prints, and which was granted in 1697.
-
-Footnote 27:
-
-  “Patricius ... supremas dignitates scholasticas in viros onini laude
-  majores (_quorum vos hic vultus videtis_) qui vel ipsas dignitates
-  honorarunt, conferri curavit. Quid memorem Sandilandios, Rhætos,
-  Baronios, Scrogios, Sibbaldos, Leslæos, maxima illa nomina.... Deus
-  mi! quanta dici celebritas, quo tot pileati patres, theologiæ, juris
-  et medicinæ doctores et baccalaurei de gymnasio nostro velut agmine
-  facto prodierunt!” He alludes to the strangers attracted by the fame
-  of the society—to the divines, Forbes, Barron, &c.—to the physicians.
-  “Quantus medicorum grex! quanta claritas!... Quantum uterque
-  Jonstonus, ejusdem uteri, ejusdem artis fratres.... Mathesi profunda,
-  quantum poesi et impangendis carminibus valeant, novistis. Arthurus
-  medicus Regis et divinus poeta elegiæ et epigrammatis, quibus non
-  solum suæ ætatis homines superat verum antiquissimos quosque æquat.
-  Gulielmus rei herbariæ et mathematum, quorum professor meritissimus
-  est, gloria cluit. De Gulielmo certe idem usurpare possumus....
-  ‘Deliciæ est humani generis,’ tanta est ejus comitas, tanta
-  urbanitas.”
-
-Footnote 28:
-
-  These notices are taken from the _History of the University of
-  Edinburgh, from 1580 to 1646_, by Thomas Crawford, printed in 1808
-  from a MS. of the seventeenth century.
-
-Footnote 29:
-
-  _Caballeros_ is the word used. It is hardly to be translated in an
-  English word.
-
-Footnote 30:
-
-  As a single sample of these excavations, we may mention one made at
-  Portelette, on the Somme. At a depth of nine feet, a large quantity of
-  bones was met with; and one foot lower, a piece of deer’s horn,
-  bearing marks of human workmanship. At twenty feet from the surface,
-  and _five feet below the level of the present bed of the river_, three
-  axes, highly finished, and in perfect preservation, were turned up in
-  a bed of turf. Some axe-cases of stag’s horn were also discovered in
-  the same bed. Near these was a coarse vase of black pottery, very much
-  broken, and surrounded with a black mass of decomposed pottery; and
-  also large quantities of wrought bones, both human and animal.
-
-Footnote 31:
-
-  Some very curious speculations and researches on this subject will be
-  found in a pamphlet entitled _A Vindication of the Bardic Accounts of
-  the Early Invasions of Ireland; with a Verification of the River-Ocean
-  of the Greeks_. M‘Glashan, Dublin, 1851.
-
-Footnote 32:
-
-  It is not improbable that the old feudal law, which placed the person
-  of a female vassal at the disposal of the seigneur on her
-  wedding-night, originated in political motives as well as in a
-  tyrannous sensuality.
-
-Footnote 33:
-
-  _Aperçus Genealogiques sur les Descendants de Guillaume._ _Rev.
-  Archéol._ 1845, p. 794.
-
-Footnote 34:
-
-  _Types of Mankind._ By T. C. WATT and G. R. GLIDDON. London: 1854.
-
-Footnote 35:
-
-  _What Good may come of the India Bill; or Notes of what has been, is,
-  and may be, the Government of India._ By FRANCIS HORSLEY ROBINSON.
-
-  _Modern India. A Sketch of the System of Civil Government; to which is
-  prefixed some Account of the Natives and Native Institutions._ By
-  GEORGE CAMPBELL, Esq., Bengal Civil Service.
-
-  _The Administration of the East India Company. A History of Indian
-  Progress._ By JOHN WILLIAM KAYE, Author of the “History of the War in
-  Afghanistan.”
-
-  _Life in the Mission, the Camp, and the Zenana; or Six Years in
-  India._ By Mrs H. COLIN MACKENZIE.
-
-  _Defects Civil and Military of the Indian Government._ By
-  Lieutenant-General Sir CHARLES JAMES NAPIER, G.C.B. Edited by
-  Lieutenant-General Sir W. F. P. NAPIER, K.C.B.
-
-  _How Wars arise in India. Observations on Mr Cobden’s Pamphlet
-  entitled “The Origin of the Burmese War._” By JOHN CLARK MARSHMAN.
-
-  _An Address to Parliament on the Duties of Great Britain to India in
-  respect of the Education of the Natives and their Official
-  Employment._ By CHARLES HAY CAMERON, late Fourth Member of the Council
-  of India, President of the Indian Law Commission, and President of the
-  Council of Education for Bengal.
-
-Footnote 36:
-
-  _Modern India and its Government_, by G. CAMPBELL, Esq.; pp. 316, 317.
-
-Footnote 37:
-
-  Pages 229, 230, 388.
-
-Footnote 38:
-
-  We do not pretend to precise numerical accuracy; it is enough for our
-  argument that what we have gathered from the _Indian Register_ be
-  nearly correct.
-
-Footnote 39:
-
-  Page 241.
-
-Footnote 40:
-
-  Page 238.
-
-Footnote 41:
-
-  Page 248.
-
-Footnote 42:
-
-  Page 254.
-
-Footnote 43:
-
-  Page 89.
-
-Footnote 44:
-
-  Compare the fifth paragraph of the memorandum inserted at page 107
-  with the first nine lines of 114.
-
-Footnote 45:
-
-  Court-house or Office.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
-
-
-
-                          TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
-
-
- ● Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.
- ● Used numbers for footnotes, placing them all at the end of the last
-     chapter.
- ● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
-
-
-
-*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75016 ***
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75016 ***
+
+
+
+
+
+                    BLACKWOOD’S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
+           NO. CCCCLXVI.      AUGUST, 1854.      VOL. LXXVI.
+
+
+
+
+                               CONTENTS.
+
+
+      TRICOUPI AND ALISON ON THE GREEK REVOLUTION,            119
+      STUDENT LIFE IN SCOTLAND,                               135
+      THE INSURRECTION IN SPAIN,                              151
+      THE ETHNOLOGY OF EUROPE,                                165
+      THE GANGETIC PROVINCES OF BRITISH INDIA,                183
+      THE SECRET OF STOKE MANOR: A FAMILY HISTORY.—PART III., 206
+      CONSERVATIVE REASCENDANCY CONSIDERED,                   230
+
+                               EDINBURGH:
+              WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS, 45 GEORGE STREET,
+                    AND 37 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON;
+
+      _To whom all communications (post paid) must be addressed._
+
+           SOLD BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM.
+
+           PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH.
+
+
+
+
+                              BLACKWOOD’S
+
+                          EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
+
+           NO. CCCCLXVI.      AUGUST, 1854.      VOL. LXXVI.
+
+
+
+
+           TRICOUPI AND ALISON ON THE GREEK REVOLUTION.[1][2]
+
+
+We certainly owe an apology to our Greek ambassador. The nine hundred
+and ninety-ninth edition of a declamatory old play of Euripides, cut and
+slashed into the most newfangled propriety by some J. A. Hartung, or
+other critical German, with a tomahawk, is a phenomenon in the literary
+world that can excite no attention; but when a regularly built living
+Greek comes forward in the middle of this nineteenth century, exactly
+four hundred years after the last Byzantine chronicler had been blown
+into the air by our brave allies the Turks—and within the precincts of
+the Red Lion Court, London—ἐν τῇ ἀυλῇ τοῦ ἐρυθροῦ λέοντος—puts forth a
+regularly built history of the Greek Revolution of 1821, thereby
+claiming—not without impudence, as some think—a place on our classical
+shelves alongside of Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon, and a great
+way above Diodorus Siculus, and other such retailers of venerable
+hearsay: this truly is an event in the Greek world that claims notice
+from the general reviewer even more than from the professed classical
+scholar. At the present moment, particularly, one likes to see what a
+living Greek, with a pen in his hand, has to say for himself; his
+language and his power of utterance is an element in the great
+Turko-Russian question that cannot be lost sight of. Doubly welcome,
+therefore, is this first instalment of Mr Tricoupi’s long-expected
+history; and as it happens opportunely that the most interesting portion
+of Sir A. Alison’s third volume is occupied with the same theme, we
+eagerly seize the present opportunity at once to acquit ourselves of an
+old debt to our Hellenic ambassador, and to thank Sir A. Alison for the
+spirited, graphic, and thoroughly sympathetic style in which he has
+presented to the general English reader the history of a bright period
+of Greek history, which recent events have somewhat tended to becloud.
+It is not our intention on the present occasion to attempt a sketch of
+the strategetical movements of the Greek war, 1821–6. A criticism of
+these will be more opportune when Mr Tricoupi shall have finished his
+great work.[3] We shall rather confine ourselves to bringing out a few
+salient points of that great movement, which may serve, by way of
+contrast or similitude, to throw light on the very significant struggle
+in which we are now engaged. A single word, however, in the first place,
+with regard to the dialect in which Mr Tricoupi’s work is written; as
+that is a point on which all persons are not well informed, and a point
+also by no means unimportant in the decision of the question,—_What are
+the hopes, prospects, and capabilities of the living race of Greeks?_
+
+Now, with regard to this point, Mr Tricoupi’s book furnishes the most
+decided and convincing evidence that the language of Aristotle and Plato
+yet survives in a state of the most perfect purity, the materials of
+which it is composed being genuine Greek, and the main difference
+between the style of Tricoupi and that of Xenophon consisting in the
+loss of a few superfluous verbal flexions, and the adoption of one or
+two new syntactical forms to compensate for the loss—the merest points
+of grammar, indeed, which to a schoolmaster great in Attic forms may
+appear mighty, but to the general scholar, and the practical linguist,
+are of no moment. A few such words of Turkish extraction, as ζάμιον, _a
+mosque_; φιρμάνιον, _a firman_; βεζιρης, _a vizier_; γενίτσαρος, _a
+janizary_; ραγιάδης, _a rajah_, so far from being any blot on the purity
+of Mr Tricoupi’s Greek, do in fact only prove his good sense; for even
+the ancient Greeks, ultra-national as they were in all their habits,
+never scrupled to adopt a foreign word—such as γάζα, παράδεισος,
+ἄγγαρος—when it came in their way, just as we have κοδράντης, κηνσος,
+σουδάριον, and a few other Latinisms in the New Testament. The fact is,
+that the modern Greeks are rather to be blamed for the affectation of
+extreme purity in their style, than for any undue admixture of foreign
+words, such as we find by scores in every German newspaper. But this is
+their affair. It is a vice that leans to virtue’s side, and springs
+manifestly from that strong and obstinate vitality of race which has
+survived the political revolutions of nearly two thousand years; and a
+vice, moreover, that may prove of the utmost use to our young scholars,
+who may have the sense and the enterprise to turn it to practical
+account. For, as the pure Greek of Mr Tricoupi’s book is no private
+invention of his own, but the very same dialect which is at present used
+as an organ of intellectual utterance by a large phalanx of talented
+professors in the University of Athens, and is in fact the language of
+polite intercourse over the whole of Greece, it follows that Greek,
+which is at present almost universally studied as a dead language, and
+that by a most laborious and tedious process of grammatical
+indoctrination, may be more readily picked up, like German or French, in
+the course of the living practice of a few months. It is worthy of
+serious consideration, indeed, how far the progress of our young men in
+an available knowledge of the finest language of the world may have been
+impeded by the perverse methods of teachers who could not speak, and who
+gave themselves no concern to speak, the language which they were
+teaching; who invented, also, an arbitrary system of pronouncing the
+language, which completely separated them from the nation who speak it.
+But this is a philological matter on which we have no vocation to enter
+here: we only drop a hint for the wise, who are able to inquire and to
+conclude for themselves.
+
+We now proceed to business. There are five points connected with the
+late Greek Revolution which stand out with a prominent interest at the
+present moment.
+
+_First_,—The character, conduct, and position of RUSSIA at the outbreak
+of the Revolution.
+
+_Second_,—The character and conduct of the TURKS and the Turkish
+government, as displayed by the manner in which the revolt was met.
+
+_Third_,—The character, conduct, and political significance of the GREEK
+PEOPLE, as exhibited during the five years’ struggle.
+
+_Fourth_,—The character, conduct, and position of RUSSIA, as more fully
+developed at the conclusion of the struggle.
+
+_Fifth_,—The character, conduct, and political significance of the GREEK
+PEOPLE, as exhibited since the battle of Navarino and the establishment
+of the existing Bavarian dynasty.
+
+On all these points we shall offer a few remarks in the order in which
+they are set down.
+
+_First_,—As to the conduct of RUSSIA. It is a remarkable fact, and very
+significant of the nature of Russian influence in Turkey, that the Greek
+Revolution did not commence where one might have expected it to
+commence, in Greece proper—_i.e._, the mountainous strongholds of
+Acarnania and the Peloponnesus—but in those very Principalities where we
+are now fighting, and where the Muscovites are always intriguing. How
+was this? Plainly because all those Greeks who had for years been
+brewing revolt in their ἑταιριαι, or secret conspiracies, took it for
+granted that on that nominally Turkish but really Russian ground, Russia
+would at once come forward and help them to kill—we use the Imperial
+simile—the sick old Infidel, who had been so long lying with his
+diseased lumpish body on the back of the Christian population; and
+accordingly the man whom they set up to raise the flag of Christian
+insurrection on the banks of the Pruth and the Sereth, was an officer in
+the Russian service, Alexander Ypsilanti by name; and the first thing he
+did when he came forward as military head of the revolt in the
+Principalities, was to put forth a proclamation, in which the Christian
+tribes of Turkey were told that “_a great European power_” might be
+depended on as “_patronising the insurrection_”—ὁτι μιά μεγάλη δύναμις
+τοῦς προστατευει. Now, here was a lie to begin with, to which perhaps
+the old _Græcia mendax_ may seem not inapplicable: but in fact it was a
+most probable lie; and if lies were at all justifiable, either on
+principle or policy, at the opening scene of a great war, certainly this
+was the lie which at that time and place looked most like the truth. But
+it is a dangerous thing to raise warlike enthusiasm at any time,
+especially when an emperor is concerned, by sounding statements not
+founded on truth. Had the Czar been ever so willing to assist the
+movement of the Wallachian Greeks, and to lead his victorious Cossacks,
+scarcely returned from fair Paris, to magnificent Stamboul, he could not
+but feel offended at the unceremonious manner in which his decision had
+been taken out of his own mouth, and the absolute spontaneity of an
+imperial ukase been forestalled by a vagabond Greek captain. But the
+Greeks were, from the beginning, out of their reckoning in supposing
+that the then Czar would, as a matter of course, patronise their
+insurrectionary movement against the Turks. Alexander, though not
+naturally a very bellicose person, had already done as much for the
+territorial aggrandisement of Russia as would have contented the most
+warlike of his predecessors. He had rounded off the north-west corner of
+his vast domain in the most neat and dexterous way by the appropriation
+of Finland in 1808; and he had profited alike in the upshot by the
+friendship of Napoleon at Tilsit in 1807, and by his enmity at Moscow in
+1812. That he should enter upon a new, and in all probability a severe
+contest with another enemy, and put himself at the head of a great
+insurrectionary movement, disturbing all the peaceful relations so
+recently established, and in such friendly amity with the great
+conservative powers at Paris and Vienna, was a proceeding not to be
+looked for from a moderate and a prudent man. This the Greeks might have
+known, had they not been befooled by patriotic passion. A “_holy_
+alliance” no doubt it was which, in 1815, the pious soul of the good
+Czar had made with his brother kings; but this “holiness” was either a
+mere fraternisation of sentiment, too vague to be of any practical
+force, or at best a religious stamp placed upon a document, the contents
+of which were essentially political, and did not at all warrant the
+expectation that the most Christian crowned Allies should be called upon
+to interfere in supporting every revolt which Christian subjects in any
+land might feel themselves called upon to make against their traditional
+lords. Then as to politics: Though Alexander was a most kind-hearted,
+truly popular, and very liberal sovereign, and had made speeches at
+Paris, Warsaw, and elsewhere, equal to anything ever spouted by the
+present Majesty of Prussia in his most liberal fits, yet he was very
+little of a constitutionalist, and not at all a democrat. From Laybach,
+therefore, where he was when the revolution broke out in March 1821, he
+gave his decision in the matter of the Greek insurrection in the
+following very remarkable words:—
+
+
+  “The motives of the Emperor are now known, from the best of all
+  sources, his own words, in confidential conversation with Mons. de
+  Chateaubriand. ‘The time is past,’ said he, ‘when there can be a
+  French, Russian, Prussian, or Austrian policy. One only policy for the
+  safety of all can be admitted in common by all people and all kings.
+  It devolves on me to show myself the first to be convinced of the
+  principles on which the Holy Alliance is founded. An opportunity
+  presented itself on occasion of the insurrection of the Greeks.
+  Nothing certainly could have been more for my interests, those of my
+  people, and the opinion of my country, than a religious war against
+  the Turks; but I discerned in the _troubles of the Peloponnesus the
+  revolutionary mark. From that moment I kept aloof from them._ Nothing
+  has been spared to turn me aside from the Alliance; but in vain. My
+  self-love has been assailed, my prejudices appealed to; but in vain.
+  What need have I for an extension of my empire? Providence has not put
+  under my orders 800,000 soldiers to satisfy my ambition, but to
+  protect religion, morality, and justice, and to establish the
+  principles of order on which human society reposes.’ In pursuance of
+  these principles, Count Nesselrode declared officially that ‘his
+  Imperial Majesty could not regard the enterprise of Ypsilanti as
+  anything but the effect of the exaltation which characterises the
+  present epoch, as well as of the inexperience and levity of that young
+  man, whose name is ordered to be erased from the Russian service.’
+  Orders were at the same time sent to the imperial forces on the Pruth
+  and in the Black Sea to observe the strictest neutrality.”
+
+
+The publication of this resolution on the part of the Imperial
+government effectually quashed the movement in the Principalities; and
+poor Ypsilanti, after a few awkward and ill-managed plunges, was obliged
+to back out of his position, and, leaving “Olympian George,” and other
+sturdy Greek mountaineers, in the lurch, seek for refuge, and find a
+prison in Austria. In this whole affair, however, though the Greeks had
+shown themselves very vain and foolish, no man can deny that the Czar
+behaved with great moderation—like a gentleman, in fact, and a
+Christian, as he was—and moreover, we must add, like a wise politician.
+For we can scarcely agree with some strong indications of feeling, both
+in Tricoupi and in Sir Archibald Alison,[4] that any Christian power
+would have been justified in supporting a revolt of Christian subjects
+against their lawful sovereign, being an Infidel, till these Christians
+had first shown, by their own exertions, that they were worthy of the
+intervention which afterwards took place in their favour. We see, also,
+that Lord Aberdeen, in some late remarks in the House of Lords, was
+quite correct historically when he called attention to the comparative
+“moderation” of Russian counsels in some of her dealings with Turkey.
+Russia, in fact, never has displayed any very flagrant rapacity in her
+dealings with Turkey, for the best of all possible reasons,—because,
+having as much of the fox as of the bear in her nature, she does not
+wish to alarm the European powers on a point where she knows they are
+peculiarly sensitive. Her policy has been to poison the sick old man,
+not to kill him; and in this very moderation, as all the world now
+knows, lies the peculiar danger of her encroachments. Like a deep
+swirling river, she rolls beneath the fat mud-banks of your political
+STATUS QUO, and you suspect no harm, and can walk on the green bank with
+delectation; but when the flood comes, there will be a shaking and a
+precipitation; and then God help the sleepers!
+
+So much for Russia. Our next question relates to the Turks. How did they
+behave at the outbreak of the insurrection? The answer is given in two
+words—like butchers, and like blunderers. Like butchers in the first
+place. Their way of crushing an insurrection was truly a brutal
+one—πολιτική θηριώδης as Mr Tricoupi says; or shall we not rather say
+devilish. Certainly Sylla, in his most sanguinary humours, never enacted
+anything more inhuman and more diabolical than the wholesale massacre of
+the prosperous Greeks in Scios, April 1822, which, next to certain
+scenes when the Furies were let loose in France, forms the most bloody
+page of modern history.[5] When a Turk suspects a Greek of treason, he
+makes short work of it: no forms of law, no investigation, no trial, no
+proof; but right on with the instinct of a tiger, in the very simple and
+effective old Oriental style,—“_Why should this dead dog curse my lord
+the king? let me go over, I pray thee, and take off his head._” So an
+old Jew once said to King David; but Sultan Mahmoud did not require that
+a word of cursing should have been spoken. Sufficient that the
+individual marked for butchery stood in a prominent situation, and was
+of the same brotherhood as those who had spoken or acted treason: if he
+was not guilty in his own person, he was bound to be cognisant of the
+guilt of others; and for not revealing this guilt he must die. Such is
+the simple theory on which proceeded the wholesale murders which took
+place at Constantinople so soon as word was brought of the
+insurrectionary movement in the Principalities. As a specimen of these
+infamous proceedings, we shall select from Mr Tricoupi’s book the
+account of the death of the Patriarch Gregory, a murder committed with
+the most flagrant disregard of all the forms of justice (if there be
+such forms in Turkey), and under circumstances calculated to rouse to
+the utmost pitch the spirit of the people whom it was intended to crush;
+a murder, therefore, not merely cruel and barbarous, but stupid and
+impolitic. The account given by our author of this most characteristic
+event is somewhat circumstantial, as might be expected from the piety of
+a true Greek writing on such a subject. We curtail it, however, as
+little as possible,—especially as the closing scene, in which Russia
+appears a chief actor, affords a vivid glimpse of the very natural
+manner in which, unassisted by any evil arts of diplomacy, that power
+can continually earn for itself golden opinions among the Christian
+nations of the south.
+
+“On the evening of Easter Saturday, or great Saturday—το μέγα σάββατον,
+as the Greeks call it—being the 9th of March, there were seen dispersed
+in the neighbourhood of the Patriarch’s palace, within and without the
+Fanar, about five thousand armed Janizaries, without any person knowing
+why. The Janizaries perambulated the streets of the Fanar the whole
+night, but did no harm to any one. At midnight, as is the use in our
+Church, the church-crier made proclamation, and the Christian people,
+though under great apprehensions, immediately obeyed the sacred summons,
+and assembled without hindrance or disturbance in the church of the
+Patriarchate. The Patriarch himself officiated as usual, with twelve
+other priests; and after the service was finished, the people were
+dismissed, and retired quietly to their own homes. The Patriarch went to
+his palace, when the first streaks of day were beginning to appear; but
+scarcely had he entered, when word was brought that Staurakis
+Aristarches, the great Interpreter, wished to speak with him. The
+Patriarch proposed to go with him to his private room, but the
+Interpreter replied that he preferred being taken immediately to the
+great Hall of the Synod. There he came with one of the Secretaries of
+State, and forthwith produced a firman, which he declared he had orders
+to read aloud without a moment’s delay in the presence of the Patriarch,
+the chief priests, the heads of the Greek people, and the deacons of
+corporations. These parties were sent for, and the firman instantly read
+as follows: ‘Forasmuch as the Patriarch Gregory has shown himself
+unworthy of the patriarchal throne, ungrateful to the Porte, and a
+deviser of plots,—for these reasons he is deposed from his office.’ The
+Patriarch, accompanied by his faithful archdeacon, was immediately led
+off to prison; and as soon as he had left the hall, a second firman was
+read out in the following terms: ‘Forasmuch as the Sublime Porte does
+not desire to deprive his faithful subjects of their spiritual
+superintendence, he hereby commands them to elect a patriarch according
+to their ancient custom.’ A consultation immediately took place among
+the clergy; and they agreed that they should call to the patriarchal
+throne Cyril, who had been formerly patriarch, and was now in
+Adrianople; but the secretary replied that this could not be allowed, as
+the proposed patriarch was absent, and under present circumstances the
+Porte could not allow the throne to be vacant for a single hour;
+wherefore he commanded them instantly to make election of a new
+patriarch from the number of the clergy then present. Another
+consultation immediately took place; and after considerable difficulty
+the vote fell upon Peisidias Eugenios, who, according to usage, was
+immediately sent to the Porte, the rest remaining till he should return.
+After three hours he appeared, environed with a pomp and circumstance
+more magnificent than usual.
+
+“This ceremony of electing the new pontiff was still going on, when
+Gregory was led out of prison, where he had been preparing himself by
+constant prayer for the death which he had too good reason for supposing
+was prepared for him. After taking him from the prison, they put him
+into a boat, and disembarked him on the strand of the Fanar. There the
+venerable old man, looking up steadfastly to heaven,[6] made the sign of
+the cross, and knelt down, and inclined his hoary head to the
+executioner’s axe; but the headsman ordered him to rise, saying that
+here was not the place where he was to be executed. They accordingly led
+him into his own palace, and there the executioner hung him as he was
+praying on the threshold of the principal entrance at the hour of noon
+on Easter Sunday—so that at the very moment when the wretched Christians
+above were singing the hymn of welcome to their new Patriarch, with the
+accustomed words εις πολλᾶ ἔτη δέσποτα, his predecessor was hung on the
+ground-floor like a thief and a malefactor; the very holy person who
+only a few hours before had offered the bloodless sacrifice for the sins
+of the people, and had blessed his faithful flock, who, with devoutness
+and contrition of heart, had kissed the hand that had been hallowed by
+the handling of the holiest elements. The last moments of Gregory were
+moments of pure faith and resignation, springing from an unspotted
+conscience, a heart the fountain of good deeds, a calm contempt of this
+ephemeral life, and a bright expectation of futurity. The writing of
+condemnation, by virtue of which he died, called, in Turkish, _Yiaftás_,
+was fixed upon the dead body, and set forth the causes of his death as
+follows.”
+
+Here Mr Tricoupi gives the Turkish act of condemnation at full length;
+but the substance of it is contained in two points: first, “that the
+Patriarch did not use his spiritual weapons of excommunication, &c.,
+against the revolters; and, second, that he was personally privy to the
+conspiracy.” To which two charges the historian answers shortly that the
+first is directly contrary to the fact (for the revolters were
+excommunicated by the Greek hierarchy in the capital); and with regard
+to the second, he avers, that though it was quite impossible for the
+head of the Greek Church to be ignorant of the existence of a conspiracy
+of which thousands of the most notable Greeks in Europe were members,
+yet he was never a member of the secret societies, and had, on the
+contrary, like many other influential persons of his nation, considered
+the movement premature,[7] and warned his countrymen against it as
+likely to lead to the most pernicious consequences. But it is vain, as
+we already remarked, to look for reasons that would satisfy any European
+ideas of justice in proceedings between Turks in authority and
+rebellious Giaours. The calm and solemn gentleman, enveloped in smoke
+and coffee fumes, whose bland dignity we so much admired in time of
+peace, becomes suddenly seized with a preternatural fury when the scent
+of Greek blood is in the gale. It is a primary law of his religion,
+inherited from the oldest Oriental theocracies, that no infidel is
+entitled to live; and if the head seems more serviceable for the nonce
+than the capitation-tax, which is its substitute, the law of the Prophet
+is satisfied, and no man has a right to complain. Mr Tricoupi now
+proceeds with his narrative.
+
+
+  “The execution being over, the great interpreter, the secretary, and
+  their attendants, left the palace of the Patriarch. In the evening of
+  the same day, Beterli Ali Pasha, who had recently been appointed Grand
+  Vizier, went through the Fanar with only one attendant, and, asking
+  for a chair, sat down for five or six minutes on the street opposite
+  the suspended body of the Patriarch, looking at him, and speaking to
+  his attendant. After an hour the Sultan himself passed the same way,
+  and cast his eye on the Patriarch. The body remained suspended three
+  days; but on the fourth the hangman took it down to throw it into the
+  sea, it being contrary to law in Turkey that persons hung or beheaded
+  should receive burial. Then there came to the hangman certain Jews,
+  and having received his permission (some say that they bribed him),
+  bound together the feet of the corpse, and dragged it away to the
+  extreme end of the quay of the Fanar, with mockery and blasphemous
+  words. Then they threw it into the sea, and gave the end of the rope
+  with which they had bound the feet to the hangman, who, having gone
+  before, was waiting them in a little boat. He immediately, seizing the
+  rope and dragging the body after him, came to the middle of the
+  bay,[8] and there attached to the body a stone which he had brought
+  with him in order to sink it: but it proved not weighty enough for
+  this purpose; so he left the corpse floating on the water, and, making
+  for the strand, came back with two other stones, which he attached to
+  the body; and then, giving it two or three stabs with his knife, to
+  let out the water, he immediately sunk it. After some days, however,
+  it came to the surface at Galata between two ships lying at the point
+  where a great many boats are always stationed, for passing over to the
+  city. One of these ships was a Slavonian, and the other a Greek, from
+  Cephalonia. The captain of the Slavonian saw the body first, and threw
+  some straw matting over it, with the view of concealing it till the
+  night, when he meant to bury it, like a good Christian. But when the
+  evening came, the Cephalonian captain anticipated him, and perceiving
+  from the unshaven chin that it was the body of a priest, brought into
+  his ship secretly some Christians, who assured him that it was the
+  body of the Patriarch. The pious Cephaliote immediately swathed the
+  body in a winding-sheet, and, transporting it to Odessa, deposited it
+  in the Lazaretto there.[9] There the body was examined by the order of
+  the governor, and was recognised by certain signs as that of the
+  Patriarch.
+
+  “Information of this being sent to St Petersburg, orders were given to
+  bury the body with all appropriate honours. The sacred Russian synod
+  came to assist in the funeral ceremony; and on the 17th of June there
+  were assembled in the Lazaretto all the local authorities, political
+  and military, the two metropolitan bishops, Cyril of Silistria, and
+  Gregory of Hieropolis; also Demetrius, bishop of Bender and Akerman,
+  all the clergy of the province, a great number of Greek refugees, who
+  had fled from the butchery at Constantinople. Then the church bells
+  were rung, the funeral psalms were sung, a salute of cannons was
+  given, and, with the accompaniment of military music and the prayers
+  of the congregated faithful, the remains of the venerated Patriarch
+  were carried to the metropolitan church of Odessa. Here they remained
+  three days, till the 19th, when the burial-service was again sung, and
+  a funeral oration was pronounced by Constantine Œconomos, preacher to
+  the Œcomenic Patriarchate, who happened to be in Odessa; after which
+  the body was removed with great pomp to the church of the Greeks, and
+  deposited in a new sepulchre within the railing of the holy altar, at
+  the north side of the holy table, as being the body of a martyr. And
+  thus—to use the very words of the semi-official journal of St
+  Petersburg—by the command of the most pious Autocrat of all the
+  Russians, Alexander I., were rendered due honours of faith and love to
+  Gregory, the holy Patriarch of the Eastern Orthodox Church of the
+  Greeks, who suffered a martyr’s death.”
+
+
+Next to the butchery—which, by the way, the Greeks, as opportunity
+offered, were not ashamed to retaliate—the most noticeable thing in the
+Turkish conduct of the war was their extraordinary slowness, fickleness,
+inefficiency, and bungling of every sort. The insurrection, though
+attempted in Thessaly and Macedonia, did, in fact, never extend with any
+permanent force beyond the narrow boundaries of the present kingdom of
+Greece, with the addition of Crete, and one or two of the Ægean islands,
+now in the possession of the Turks; but to suppress this petty revolt of
+an ill-peopled and divided district, occupying a small corner of a vast
+empire, all the strength of Turkey, both Asiatic and European, proved in
+vain; for it was not till Ibrahim Pasha, in 1825, was sent by his
+father, Mehemet Ali, with a large Egyptian armament that the Morea was
+recovered to the Sultan, and the insurrection virtually quashed. Now,
+when we consider that the Greeks of the Morea were stamped with the
+servitude of nearly four hundred years—that they were, in fact, so awed
+by the hereditary authority of their haughty masters, that in the
+beginning of the war, as Gordon expressly testifies, three hundred of
+them could not be made to stand against thirty Turks; that their only
+effective leaders were a few brigand chiefs from the wild regions of
+Acarnania, Ætolia, and Epirus; that the land was of such a nature as to
+be kept in subjection by fortresses, all of which were in the possession
+of the lords of the soil; that the sea was open to the men of Stamboul
+as much as to those of Hydra and to Mehemet Ali’s Egyptians, we shall
+see plainly that nothing but a wonderful combination of slowness,
+stupidity, and cowardice on the part of the Turks could have allowed the
+Greek revolt to protract its existence during the space of those first
+four years, when—not without large aids from English gold—it continued
+to present a prosperous front to the world. What strikes us most in the
+account of the war given by Gordon—who will always be a main
+authority—is the great want of capacity and enterprise in the Turkish
+commanders both by sea and land—the very same weakness, in fact, which
+is remarked at the present hour as afflicting the Turkish armies—a want
+of good officers. There is in Turkey a want of a high-minded,
+independent, and energetic middle class, without which an army never can
+be well officered. Only one efficient Turkish captain appeared in the
+whole course of the Greek war; and he took Missolonghi.
+
+We have been anxious to bring forward this sad account of the conduct of
+the Turks in the insurrection distinctly, as there is a danger, at the
+present moment, of the Turkish military virtue being overrated. No man
+who knew that nation ever doubted that they could defend a fort well in
+the present war, as they have ever done where they happened to have a
+good commander, and acted under encouraging circumstances. This is the
+secret of the recent successful defence of Silistria, for which we feel
+all respect. With the English and French fleet to guard their flank, and
+all Europe as spectators of their mettle, with the very existence of
+their empire perhaps at stake, and with the choice of their own
+battlefield—that is, the defence of forts—the Turks would have been dull
+truly, never to be roused, if the old heroism had not flamed out with
+more than wonted fierceness. But the successful defence of this fort
+affords no proof that the people who made it possess a spirit and an
+organisation able to cope in a continued campaign with some Paskiewitch
+or Diebitch of the next generation. Let us look to the history of the
+Greek Revolution, and not believe that the Turks are great masters in
+the art of war till they have successfully conducted a great campaign.
+Above all things, matters must be so arranged at the next pacification
+that the preservation of the peace of Europe may not be left to depend
+on them.
+
+Our third question has reference to the Greeks. Their conduct in the
+great revolt by which their independence was ultimately achieved,
+deserves to be noted with the greater care at the present moment,
+because there are not a few persons in this country who are only too
+ready, in the unhappy blunder of 1854, to forget the glorious heroism of
+1821–26. Sir A. Alison, we are happy to say, with that large spirit of
+appreciation for which he is remarkable, has shown no tendency to chime
+in with this vulgar cry. He is not surprised that the brigands of
+Thessaly and Epirus should not possess all the virtues of Pericles and
+Aristides; and therefore he is not offended. The Greeks, in fact, in
+1821, were the authors of their own liberty, as much as the Turks now
+are the authors of the retreat of the Russians from Silistria. Most true
+it is, that without the intervention of the Allied Powers,
+notwithstanding their utmost efforts, their cause was lost; so also will
+the defence of Silistria have proved in vain, if England and France, in
+the proceedings that are yet waited for, show weakness or vacillation.
+But the Greeks, in 1821, had this decided moral vantage-ground over the
+Turks of the present day, that the intervention would never have taken
+place had it not been forced upon the great Powers by the popular
+sympathy which the heroism of the Greeks had excited. We may say, upon a
+review of the whole five years’ struggle, that the Greeks displayed on
+that occasion all the weakness, and indeed all the vices, that belonged
+to a people just rising from under the weight of centuries of
+oppression—but virtues also of the highest order, which it is of the
+very nature of oppression to make a people forget. Oppression, in fact,
+had never done its perfect work with this noble-spirited people; it had
+made intriguers of those who remained in the Fanar, and mere
+money-changers and money-makers of those who peopled the cities; the
+base stamp of slavery also might be found on the plains: but freedom
+remained among the mountains; and in Maina and Souli every brigand chief
+was a hero. In fact, under such a military despotism as that of Turkey,
+brigandage, which is outlawed by a good government, becomes the very
+church militant of liberty. Whatsoever virtues, therefore, belong to the
+indomitable spirit of nationality when forced to create its own law, and
+redeem itself from destruction by the desperate efforts of individual
+self-assertion, belonged to the Greek people, and those Albanian tribes
+who were identified with them in the highest degree. But there was more
+than that. The Greeks, as the whole spirit and tendency of Corai’s
+writings show, were intellectually an advancing people. They had
+scholars, and thinkers, and poets among them, who were fighting not
+merely for the rude privilege of freedom—which a brute can understand as
+well as a man—but for the vindication of an intellectual heritage of
+which they were proud. To these men the possession of the uncorrupted
+Greek tongue was not a mere pretty plaything, as it may be to many of
+our academical men; but it was the badge which publicly proclaimed their
+brotherhood with that great hierarchy of intellect which had conquered
+ancient Rome, and inspired modern Europe. These men did not fight with
+the mere impatient spirit of vulgar insurrection: they came, like
+banished kings, claiming a long-lost throne; and Europe felt that there
+was a dignity in their work not belonging to every exile. But there was
+another element of strength in the Greek revolt, without which it never
+could have succeeded, and an element which, like their zeal for
+intellectual culture, proved that the modern Greeks are the true sons of
+Themistocles and Pericles. This element was their use of the sea. The
+Turks, though they had possessed the finest harbour in the world for
+four centuries, though they governed a country where arms of the sea
+serve the same purpose that railroads do elsewhere, had not only made no
+progress in the nautical art, but had allowed their enterprising slaves
+to create for themselves a navy by which they were to succeed in driving
+their masters out of the field. When Ibrahim Pasha, in his march across
+the Morea in 1825, had arrived at that high ground between Tripolizza
+and Argos where the island of Hydra becomes visible, pointing with his
+hand to that little nest of daring adventurers, he exclaimed, “_Thou_
+LITTLE ENGLAND, _when shall I hold thee!_” This little England it was
+which saved Greece. There is nothing in the records of modern history
+more interesting than the dashing exploits of the gallant Ipsariote
+Canaris with his fire-ships in the Greek war; and wherever Miaulis the
+Hydriote appeared with his squadron, there everything that could be done
+was done. But great as were the exploits of the islanders, Europe,
+perhaps, knew more, and was justly more astonished at the gallant
+conduct of the land army in the two sieges of Missolonghi—a fortress
+protected only by shallow lagoons and a mud rampart, and utterly
+unprovided with those long lines of fire-spouting barricades that make
+Cronstadt and Sevastopol so difficult of approach. Yet Missolonghi was
+maintained against the whole force of the Turks for two years; and when
+it did fall, the resolute garrison made no capitulation, but after
+having exhausted the last scraps of raw hides and sea-weeds which served
+them for food, cut their way with gallant desperation, men and women
+together, through the sabred ranks of their enemies. Nor were they
+without their reward. Let Mr Alison speak:—
+
+
+  “Thus fell Missolonghi; but its heroic resistance had not been made in
+  vain. It laid the foundation of Greek independence; for it preserved
+  that blessing during a period of despondence and doubt, when its very
+  existence had come to be endangered. By drawing the whole forces of
+  the Ottoman empire upon themselves, its heroic garrison allowed the
+  nation to remain undisturbed in other quarters, and prevented the
+  entire reduction of the Morea, which was threatened during the first
+  moments of consternation consequent on Ibrahim’s success. By holding
+  out so long, and with such resolute perseverance, they not only
+  inflicted a loss upon the enemy greater than they themselves
+  experienced, but superior to the whole garrison of the place put
+  together. The Western nations watched the struggle with breathless
+  interest; and when at last it terminated in the daring sally, and the
+  cutting through of the enemy’s lines by a body of intrepid men,
+  fighting for themselves, their wives, and children, the public
+  enthusiasm knew no bounds. It will appear immediately that it was this
+  warm sympathy which mainly contributed to the success of the
+  Philhellenic societies which had sprung up in every country of Europe,
+  and ultimately rendered public opinion so strong as to lead to the
+  treaty of July, the battle of Navarino, and the establishment of Greek
+  independence.”
+
+
+On the other hand, we must not shut our eyes to the faults of the
+Greek people—which were, in fact, just the faults of their ancestors
+made more large and more prominent by the long-continued action of
+circumstances favourable to their development. Will it be
+believed?—during the time that this heroic struggle was going on, by
+a people manifestly unable, even with their strongest combined
+exertions, to withstand their gigantic adversary—even in the
+mid-heat and the critical turning-point of this grapple for free
+existence, the Greek captains were quarrelling among themselves!
+There were actually at one time, as Gordon assures us, seven civil
+wars among a people who could only collect hundreds to plant against
+the thousands of their masters! Such a self-divided people, one
+might almost say, was unworthy of liberty. Certainly if they could
+not agree to fight for themselves, it did not seem the business
+either of France or England to force them to be patriotic. But,
+after all, what was this but the natural result of the geography of
+the country, and of the circumstances under which its latent liberty
+had been maintained? What was it else but the same thing, on a small
+scale, which the Peloponnesian war exhibited on a large scale?
+Division is the weak point of Greece, and always was; and as for
+other vices which stank so strongly in the nostrils of some of our
+sentimental Philhellenes—cunning, falsehood, selfishness, rapacity,
+and blushless impudence of all kinds—such rank weeds grow from a
+neglected moral soil, not only in Greece, but in the streets of
+London and Edinburgh, and elsewhere; the only difference being that
+in our case a wicked or neglectful parent brings up corrupt
+individuals, while in the case of the modern Greeks, a wicked and
+neglectful government had brought up a corrupt people. There is, no
+doubt, some truth in the doctrine of races and hereditary
+propensities; and the Greek may probably be more subtle in
+speculation, and more cunning in practice, than the other families
+of the Indo-European stock. Nevertheless, we are inclined to believe
+that the proverbial falsehood of the Greeks, which is the worst vice
+now continually thrown in their teeth, is as much the result of
+circumstances as of blood, and that, under the same influences, any
+Teutonic race whose honesty is now most loudly bepraised, would
+exhibit a large development of the same vice. When a people is not
+allowed to play the lion, it must either learn to play the fox or
+perish.
+
+We shall now make a few remarks on the fourth point stated—viz., the
+circumstances attending the conclusion of the war, as illustrative of
+the policy of Russia. Here a very interesting contrast immediately
+presents itself. Alexander, as we have seen, occupied with various
+benevolent projects and perambulations, fearing also not a little
+everything in the shape of rebellion and revolution, refused to have
+anything to do with the Greek insurrection. In this he behaved like a
+man, a gentleman, and a king, but not like a Russian. As a Russian he
+would have followed the footsteps of Catherine, who twice, in the latter
+half of the last century, raised a rebellion in the Morea, and assisted
+Greece not from any classical enthusiasm, we may be sure, (such as
+helped not a little to fan the Greek fire of ourselves and the Germans),
+but that she might cripple Turkey by inflicting such a deep wound on her
+left leg as would render amputation necessary. All this became plain in
+a few years. Alexander died. In the year 1826 Nicholas succeeded; and
+matters were at that period, by the fall of Missolonghi, and Ibrahim
+Pasha’s occupation of the Morea, brought to such a pass that the bloody
+five years’ struggle, with all its heroism, must have gone for nothing,
+had not the tide of popular sympathy begun to move so strongly in favour
+of intervention among the great European nations, that the governments
+were forced to take the matter up. England, as the most classical, and,
+may we not say also, the most generous, country in matters of
+international feeling, was the first to make overtures for a European
+demonstration in favour of Greek independence; and of the consulted
+Powers none came forward with greater alacrity than the new Emperor of
+the North. On the invitation of the Duke of Wellington, Nicholas was
+invited to send ships into the Mediterranean to co-operate with the
+fleets of France and England in coercing the Porte. Here was an
+opportunity thrown in his way, by pure accident, to achieve in a few
+days results more favourable to the most cherished projects of Russian
+aggrandisement than might have been brought about by the tortuous
+diplomacy and bloody encounters of long years; and this not only without
+exciting suspicion of ambitious views, but amid acclamations, and
+cheers, and philanthropic hurrahs innumerable. By joining England and
+France in establishing the independence of Greece, the Czar felt that
+not only would Turkey be reft of one of her limbs, but a new field would
+be opened for diplomatic intrigue in regions hitherto preserved, by the
+blessings of barbarism, from such refinements. A little tinselled court
+at Athens, with some German princeling on the throne, was no doubt even
+then seen in near vista, as the best possible theatre for the display of
+those arts of political falsehood and finesse in which the Russian
+Nesselrodes and Pozzo di Borgos excel. But more. Might not the Turk, who
+is by no means a milksop, and who can deal heavy blows, as we have just
+seen, even from his sick-bed—might not the Turk oppose the armed
+intervention of the Powers, and might not some untoward collision be the
+result, and might not the Turkish navy be annihilated; and then—O! then,
+might not the way to Constantinople be more open, and the Balkan more
+easily crossed? Such were the cogitations that might naturally begin to
+move in the brain of a thoroughly Russian energetic and enterprising
+young Czar, when the proposal was made to coerce the Sultan into the
+recognition of the total or partial independence of one of his revolted
+provinces. And the result, as we all know, was exactly such as the most
+brilliant imagination of a brisk young emperor could have conceived. In
+the course of a few months the Turkish fleet was destroyed at Navarino;
+in two years Kustendji and Varna, and the whole sea-road to Stamboul,
+were in the hands of the Russian fleet; and in three years General
+Diebitch had made himself immortal by surmounting the unsurmountable
+Balkan, and was resting with twenty thousand men (supposed, however, to
+be sixty thousand!) on the banks of the Hebrus at Adrianople. Never was
+game better played. The Turko-Russian campaign of 1828–9, which we can
+now study to such advantage, was, we may say, impossible, but for the
+battle of Navarino, which was only the natural result of the armed
+intervention of the three Powers in favour of Greece. Add to this the
+disorganisation of the Turkish army, caused by the massacre of the
+Janizaries in 1826, and the consequent disaffection among the old
+Turkish conservatives; and we shall see at once how the campaign of
+1828–9 ended so gloriously for Russia, while that of 1854 has proved so
+shameful. The cause of the difference lies obviously in the command of
+the Black Sea, which Russia, by the disaster of Navarino, then had, and
+which, by the Anglo-French alliance, she now has not. This, and this
+only, has on the present occasion made the gallant defence of a single
+fortress by the Turks equivalent to the loss of a whole campaign by the
+Russians.
+
+The last of our five points only remains—How has the establishment of
+Greek independence, by the treaty of 1827, answered the expectations of
+its founders?—What is the actual state of Greece, material, moral, and
+intellectual?—Are the Greeks under German Otho substantially more
+prosperous than they were under the Turkish Mahmouds? We cannot, of
+course, hope to answer these questions satisfactorily within the limits
+at present prescribed to us; but one or two observations we are
+compelled to make, for the sake of taming down to somewhat of a more
+sober temper the glowing observations with which Sir Archibald Alison
+concludes his fourteenth chapter. There is a class of wise men in the
+world who show their wisdom only in the negative way of seeing
+difficulties and making objections. Sir Archibald Alison certainly does
+not belong to this class. Once possessed by a grand idea, he marches on
+fearlessly to its realisation, and lets difficulties shift for
+themselves. He gives you a project for a marble palace and a granite
+bridge; but seems to forget sometimes that there are only bricks to
+build with. We like this error, which leans to virtue’s side, and has a
+savour of something positive and productive; nevertheless the truth must
+be spoken—for in politics the best intentions are often the mother of
+the greatest blunders. The remarks of Sir Archibald Alison, which we
+think require a little chastening, are as follows:—
+
+
+  “In truth, so far from the treaty of 6th July 1827 having been an
+  unjustifiable interference with the rights of the Ottoman Government
+  as an independent power, it was just the reverse; and the only thing
+  to be regretted is that the Christian powers did not interfere earlier
+  in the contest, and with far more extensive views for the restoration
+  of the Greek empire. After the massacre of Chios, the Turks had thrown
+  themselves out of the pale of civilisation: they had proved themselves
+  to be pirates, enemies of the human race, and no longer entitled to
+  toleration from the European family. Expulsion from Europe was the
+  natural and legitimate consequence of their flagrant violation of its
+  usages in war. Had this been done in 1822—had the Congress of Verona
+  acceded to the prayers of the Greeks, and restored the Christian
+  empire of the East under the guarantee of the Allied Powers—what an
+  ocean of blood would have been dried up, what boundless misery
+  prevented, what prospects of felicity to the human race opened! A
+  Christian monarchy often millions of souls, with Constantinople for
+  its capital, would, ere this, have added a half to its population,
+  wealth, and all the elements of national strength. The rapid growth,
+  since the Crescent was expelled from their territories, of Servia,
+  Greece, the Isles of the Archipelago, Wallachia, and Moldavia, and of
+  the Christian inhabitants in all parts of the country, proves what
+  might have been expected had all Turkey in Europe been blessed by a
+  similar liberation. The fairest portion of Europe would have been
+  restored to the rule of religion, liberty, and civilisation, and a
+  barrier erected by European freedom against Asiatic despotism in the
+  regions where it was first successfully combated.
+
+  “What is the grand difficulty that now surrounds the Eastern question,
+  which has rendered it all but insoluble even to the most far-seeing
+  statesman, and has compelled the Western Powers, for their own sake,
+  to ally themselves with a state which they would all gladly, were it
+  practicable without general danger, see expelled from Europe? Is it
+  not that the Ottoman empire is the only barrier which exists against
+  the encroachments of Russia, and that if it is destroyed the
+  independence of every European state is endangered by the extension of
+  the Muscovite power from the Baltic to the Mediterranean? All see the
+  necessity of this barrier, yet all are sensible of its weakness, and
+  feel that it is one which is daily becoming more feeble, and must in
+  the progress of time be swept away. This difficulty is entirely of our
+  own creation; it might have been obviated, and a firm bulwark erected
+  in the East, against which all the surges of Muscovite ambition would
+  have beat in vain. Had the dictates of humanity, justice, and policy
+  been listened to in 1822, and a _Christian_ monarchy been erected in
+  European Turkey, under the guarantee of Austria, France, and England,
+  the whole difficulties of the Eastern Question would have been
+  obviated, and European independence would have found an additional
+  security in the very quarter where it is now most seriously menaced.
+  Instead of the living being allied to the dead, they would have been
+  linked to the living; and a barrier against Eastern conquest erected
+  on the shores of the Hellespont, not with the worn-out materials of
+  Mahommedan despotism, but with the rising energy of Christian
+  civilisation.
+
+  “But modern Turkey, it is said, is divided by race, religion, and
+  situation; three-fourths of it are Christian, one-fourth Mahommedan:
+  there are six millions of Slavonians, four millions of Bulgarians, two
+  millions and a half of Turks, and only one million of Greeks;—how can
+  a united and powerful empire be formed of such materials? Most true;
+  and in what state was Greece anterior to the Persian invasion; Italy
+  before the Punic wars; England during the Heptarchy; Spain in the time
+  of the Moors; France during its civil wars? Has the existence of such
+  apparently fatal elements of division prevented these countries from
+  becoming the most renowned, the most powerful, the most prosperous
+  communities upon earth? In truth, diversity of race, so far from being
+  an element of weakness, is, when duly coerced, the most prolific
+  source of strength; it is to the body politic what the intermixture of
+  soils is to the richness of the earth. It is the meagreness of
+  unmingled race which is the real source of weakness; for it leaves
+  hereditary maladies unchanged, hereditary defects unsupplied. Witness
+  the unchanging ferocity in every age of the Ishmaelite, the
+  irremediable indolence of the Irish, the incurable arrogance of the
+  Turk; while the mingled blood of the Briton, the Roman, the Saxon, the
+  Dane, and the Norman, has produced the race to which is destined the
+  sceptre of half the globe.
+
+  “Such was the resurrection of Greece; thus did old Hellas rise from
+  the grave of nations. Scorched by fire, riddled by shot, baptised in
+  blood, she emerged victorious from the contest; she achieved her
+  independence because she proved herself worthy of it; she was trained
+  to manhood in the only school of real improvement, the school of
+  suffering. Twenty-five years have elapsed since her independence was
+  sealed by the battle of Navarino, and already the warmest hopes of her
+  friends have been realised. Her capital, Athens, now contains thirty
+  thousand inhabitants, quadruple what it did when the contest
+  terminated; its commerce has doubled, and all the signs of rapidly
+  advancing prosperity are to be seen on the land. The inhabitants have
+  increased fifty per cent; they are now above seven hundred thousand,
+  but the fatal chasms produced by the war, especially in the male
+  population, are still in a great measure unsupplied, and vast tracts
+  of fertile land, spread with the bones of its defenders, await in
+  every part of the country the robust arm of industry for their
+  cultivation. The Greeks, indeed, have not all the virtues of freemen;
+  perhaps they are never destined to exhibit them. Like the Muscovites,
+  and from the same cause, they are often cunning, fraudulent,
+  deceitful; slaves always are such; and a nation is not crushed by a
+  thousand years of Byzantine despotism, and four hundred of Mahommedan
+  oppression, without having some of the features of the servile
+  character impressed upon it. But they exhibit also the cheering
+  symptoms of social improvement; they have proved they still possess
+  the qualities to which their ancestors’ greatness was owing. They are
+  lively, ardent, and persevering, passionately desirous of knowledge,
+  and indefatigable in the pursuit of it. The whole life which yet
+  animates the Ottoman Empire is owing to their intelligence and
+  activity. The stagnation of despotism is unknown among them; if the
+  union of civilisation is unhappily equally unknown, that is a virtue
+  of the manhood, and not to be looked for in the infancy of nations.
+  The consciousness of deficiencies is the first step to their removal;
+  the pride of barbarism, the self-sufficiency of ignorance, is the real
+  bar to improvement; and a nation which is capable of making the
+  efforts for improvement which the Greeks are doing, if not in
+  possession of political greatness, is on the road to it.”
+
+
+Now, to the first proposition contained in the above remarks, that the
+Great Powers were perfectly justified in their intervention to save the
+Greeks from the lawless ferocity of the Turks, we have no objections to
+offer. It is a gladdening thing to believe and to see that the strong
+cry of human sympathy will sometimes be listened to even by politicians,
+and that heartless diplomacy in the public intercourse between people
+and people is not all in all. But the summary expulsion of the Turks
+from European Turkey, even supposing it were not too great a punishment
+for the offence, would, when achieved, leave the most difficult part of
+the Greek problem unsolved. Sir Archibald assumes that the discordant
+and crude elements of which European Turkey, less the Turks, is
+composed, would, in 1827, have readily coalesced, or is ready now, in
+1854, to coalesce, into a great Greek empire, of which Constantinople
+shall be the capital. That the Greeks themselves should believe this is
+natural; that Sir Archibald Alison should believe it, carried away by a
+noble sympathy with a heroic theme, is but the radiation of that fire
+with which the noblest minds burn most intensely; but we have never
+conversed with an individual practically conversant with the elements of
+which Christian Turkey is composed, who looked upon such a consummation,
+in the present age at least, as possible. A very intelligent and
+patriotic Greek gentleman once remarked in our hearing, that the Greek
+kingdom could never prosper in its present tiny dimensions; that the
+Greek Islands—except Corcyra, which the English must keep as a naval
+station—with Thessaly, and part of Thrace and Macedonia, must be added
+to it before it could be free from that spirit of petty intrigue which
+is the great vice of small governments. This is intelligible; because
+the population included under such an extended Greek kingdom would, by a
+great predominance both of numbers and moral forces, be essentially
+Greek. But when it is proposed seriously to revive a Byzantine empire,
+Greek merely in name, and comprising such large sections of a
+non-Hellenic population as Servia, for instance, and Bulgaria, then, we
+confess, we feel staggered; and all the historic analogies which Sir
+Archibald Alison so skilfully presses into his service will not give
+wings to our drooping faith. The best-instructed man with whom we ever
+conversed on the subject—Dr George Finlay, who has lived among the
+Greeks all his life—declares that such a combination is impossible: the
+principle of cohesion is too weak, that of repulsion too strong: the
+splendid aggregate would fall to pieces in a few years; and out of the
+confused elements a new compulsory crystallisation take place under the
+influence—very likely—of Russian polarity. Sir Archibald Alison himself,
+in one of the phrases which he accidentally drops, seems to admit the
+truth of this view. “Diversity of race,” he says, “so far from being an
+element of weakness, is, _when duly coerced_, the most prolific source
+of strength.” Very true, when _duly coerced_; but it is this very
+principle of coercion that would not exist in the supposed Byzantine
+empire; and could exist only, according to one of Sir A. Alison’s own
+analogies, through the violent subjection of all the other races by the
+one that happened to be strongest; for so it was, as Livy shows in
+bloody detail, that the different races of Italy were coerced into a
+grand national unity by the Roman Latins. But even after all that bloody
+cementing, the aggregate of the Italian States, as no one knows better
+than Sir Archibald Alison, was kept together by the loosest possible
+cohesion; as the terrible outburst of the Marsic or Social war
+testifies, which well-nigh split Italy into two, at a time when Julius
+Cæsar, its future master, had not yet begun to trim his beard. He
+certainly, the lion, and his nephew Augustus, the fox after him, did use
+the bloody cement successfully, and exercised a strong coercion, the
+effect of which is visible even now among the again-divided possessors
+of the Italian soil; such a coercion as the present Czar of Russia might
+perhaps at the present moment be in the fair way of exercising for the
+sake of the Orthodox Church, had Sir Archibald Alison’s Byzantine empire
+been patched together with a few purple rags in the year 1828. Or again,
+to take another of his analogies, has Sir Archibald Alison forgotten
+what was the state of Greece, not anterior to, but immediately after the
+Persian invasion?—did it not plunge at once into all the pettiness of
+provincial rivalry? and was not the great Peloponnesian war a speaking
+proof, that there were no elements of cohesion even among pure Greeks,
+and in the best days of Greece, strong enough to keep that unfortunate
+country from consuming its own vitals in civil war, and becoming, by
+voluntary self-betrayal, first the scoff of the Persian, and then the
+prey of the Macedonian?—With these examples before us, we cannot but
+consider ourselves more near the truth in following the practical
+statesmen who declared that the new Greek kingdom should be confined
+within the limits where the insurrection had chiefly raged, and where
+the battle had been fought. Sober politicians could not but look upon
+the whole affair as experimental; and whatever arguments may in the
+course of events be advanced for an expansion of the limits of the
+existing monarchy, no person practically acquainted with the events of
+Greek government, or rather _mis_government, since the creation of
+Otho’s kingdom in 1832, can imagine that the evils under which the
+country has groaned would have been less, had Thessaly and Macedonia
+been at that time included within the Hellenic border. We should still
+have had German bureaucracy, French constitutionalism, Fanariete
+intrigue, Ætolian brigandage, and modern diplomacy, thrown together to
+brew a devil’s soup of jobbery, and falsehood, and feebleness, over
+which the wisest man can only hold up his hands, and with a hopeless
+wonderment exclaim—
+
+                   “Double, double, toil and trouble;
+                   Fire burn, and cauldron bubble!”
+
+In conclusion, we need hardly say that we cannot agree with Sir A.
+Alison when he states, so strongly as he does in the last paragraph,
+that “_already the warmest hopes of the friends of Greece have been
+realised; and all the signs of advancing prosperity are to be seen in
+the land_.” It is a great mistake to imagine that the country is really
+in a prosperous state because Athens has trebled its population in
+thirty years. Athens has a well-furnished and rather a flourishing
+appearance, for the same reason that Nauplia looks out upon the
+beautiful Bay of Argos in such a state of woeful dismantlement and
+dilapidation: the court has left the Argive city, and travelled to the
+Attic; and all the gilded gingerbread, which you call prosperity, has
+gone with it. Let no man be hasty to draw sanguine promises of Greek
+prosperity from anything good or glittering that may delight his eyes in
+the streets of Athens. That splendid palace of the little German prince,
+now called King of Greece, with its fine well-watered gardens without,
+and its fine pictures within, and its large dancing-saloon, the wonder
+even of London beauties—this palace was a mere toy of the boy’s poetical
+papa, and has no more to do with the progress of real prosperity in
+Greece than a wax-doll has to do with life and organisation. Nay, it may
+be most certainly affirmed, that not a small part of that sudden growth
+of the capital of Greece is, with reference to the country at large, a
+positive evil, a brilliant excrescence, which owes its existence
+altogether to the artificial attraction of the nutritive fluids of the
+body politic to one prominent point, while the largest and most useful
+limbs are left without their natural supply. If there are shining white
+palaces, and green Venetian blinds, in one Greek city, there is
+desolation and dreariness, stagnation and every sort of barbarism, in
+the fields. But “commerce flourishes;” it has doubled, says Sir A.
+Alison, since the battle of Navarino. Be it so. Patras is a goodly city,
+preferable, in some points, to Athens, we think; but were there not rich
+merchants at Hydra before the Revolution? and are the Greeks at Patras
+more prosperous than at Salonica, at Odessa, at Trieste, at Leghorn, at
+Manchester? There were always clever merchants among the Greeks, just as
+generally as there are sharp bankers and money-changers among Jews and
+Armenians. We would by no means despair of Young Greece; there is much
+to admire in her, especially her schools, university, and the wonderful
+culture of her deathless language in its most recent shape; and only in
+a fit of foolish pettishness would any Englishman entertain the thought
+of blotting her again out of the map of nations, for any of the many
+sins she has committed, whether by her own fault, or—what we suspect to
+be the real truth—by the ignorant and officious agency of German
+bureaucratists, Anglo-French constitutionalists, and Muscovite
+diplomatists. Nevertheless, in so slippery a science as politics, and
+with creatures so difficult to manage as human beings, it is always
+better to avoid the temptation of drawing panoramic pictures in rose
+colour; and with regard to Greece, a country to which humanity owes so
+much, our first duty, in the present very critical state of Europe, is
+to look soberly at a reality full of perilous problems, and to possess
+our souls in patience.
+
+
+
+
+                       STUDENT LIFE IN SCOTLAND.
+
+
+If the latest lingering summer tourist in Scotland should perchance
+delay his departure until he is driven southward by the chill evenings
+of November, he may chance to see arising around him, in some
+considerable town, a race of young men, whose loose robes, varying from
+the brightest of fresh scarlet to the sombrest hue which years of bad
+usage can bestow on that gay colour, attract him as peculiar and funny,
+and as, on the whole, a phenomenon provocative of inquiry. He is told
+that the session has begun, and these are the students of the
+university. The information will perhaps be surprising to him, whoever
+he be: if he be an Oxonian or Cantab, a sneer of derision will perhaps
+curve his lips when he remembers the gentleman commoners, and tufted
+noblemen, who crowd the streets of his Alma Mater in haughty
+exclusiveness and unmeasured contempt of the citizen class, who
+evidently have no respect whatever for the scarlet gown men of poor
+Scotland. Indeed, the luxurious academic ease, the placid repose of
+dignified scholarship, are strangers to these wearers of the flowing
+toga. It is evident that many of them have felt the pinch of poverty. No
+pliant gyp attends the toilet, or lays forth the table for the jovial
+“night-cap.” Hard work and hard fare are their portion, and their
+raiment shows that they have been rubbed roughly against the world,
+instead of being set apart from its toils and cares and vulgar turmoil
+in aristocratic isolation. Some of the gowns are bright and new, indeed,
+and the faces in which they culminate are ruddy, fresh, and warm. Yet
+the youths endowed in these blushing honours seem not to exult therein,
+but rather to give place to the hard-featured brethren, whose threadbare
+togas bear the grim marks of mud and soot, or hang in tatters like a
+beggar’s cloak. The truth is, that the wear and tear of the gown is held
+indicative of advancement in the academic curriculum, and is rather
+encouraged than avoided. And of those who wear it, many, though they may
+have been sufficiently tutored in the economy of their more serviceable
+clothing, have not made acquisitions in the school of finery, or
+acquired a weakness for decorative vanity. We remember an instance of a
+hard-featured mountaineer, who afterwards rose to distinction in an
+abstruse department of science, being charged by his fellow-students
+with having so far desecrated the gown as to have perambulated the
+streets with a barrow hawking potatoes, by the cry of “Taties—taties!”
+He admitted the commercial part of the charge, but denied the admixture
+of potato-vender and student by the desecration of the robes. He was
+careful to put off his gown while he cried “taties.”
+
+With all these and other indications of poverty, there is something to
+our eyes extremely interesting in the Scottish universities, as relics
+preserved through all changes in dynasties, constitutions, and
+ecclesiastical polities, through poverty, neglect, and enmity, of the
+original characteristics of the university system, as it existed in all
+its grandeur of design in the middle ages.
+
+A collection of remarkable papers, now before us, opens up and presents,
+in valuable and full light, the progress of a portion of our Scottish
+universities. They consist of two works of that class commonly called
+“Club Books.” The one is a collection of records and other documents
+connected with the University of Glasgow, printed under the auspices of
+the Maitland Club; the other a “Fasti Aberdonenses,” appropriately
+collected by that northern association which, in honour of the Cavalier
+annalist of “The Troubles,” is called the “Spalding Club.” Both works
+are edited with that peculiar archæological strictness which has been
+applied to this class of documents, through the special skill of Mr
+Cosmo Innes. They are both edited by him, with some partial aid, in the
+case of the Glasgow documents, from his ablest coadjutor in Scottish
+archæology, Mr Joseph Robertson. These volumes form a very apt
+supplement to that collection of ecclesiastical records which, arranged
+and printed under the same able management, are an honour to our
+country. With the exception of their curious and agreeable prefaces,
+neither the chartularies nor the volumes before us profess to be
+readable books. They are collections of records, and must have all the
+substantial dryness of records. But then they contain in themselves the
+materials of the social and incidental history of the classes of persons
+to which they refer, and contain imbedded within them the materials of
+instruction, both valuable and curious. With some labour we have driven
+shafts through their strata, and we may have occasion to lay before our
+readers a few of the specimens we have excavated—confining ourselves, in
+the mean time, to the characteristics developed by the collection of
+documents.
+
+The direction of these is chiefly to show how thoroughly these remote
+institutions partook in the great system of the European universities,
+and how many of its vestiges they still retain. The forms, the
+nomenclature, and the usages of the middle ages are still preserved,
+though some of them have naturally changed their character with the
+shifting of the times. Each university has still its chancellor, and
+sometimes a high State dignitary accepts of the office. It was of old a
+very peculiar one, for it was the link which allied the semi-republican
+institutions of the universities to the hierarchy of St Peter. The
+bishop was almost invariably the chancellor, unless the university were
+subordinated to some great monastic institution, when its head was the
+chancellor—as in Paris the Prior of St Genevieve exercised the high
+office. In the Scottish universities the usual Continental arrangement
+seems to have been adopted prior to the Reformation—as a matter of
+course, the bishop was the chancellor.
+
+But while the institution was thus connected through a high dignitary
+with the Romish hierarchy, it possessed, as a great literary community
+with peculiar privileges, its own great officer electively chosen for
+the preservation of those privileges. It had its rector, who, like the
+chief magistrate of a municipal corporation, but infinitely above him in
+the more illustrious character of the functions for which his
+constituents were incorporated, stood forth as the head of his republic,
+and its protector from the invasions either of the subtle churchmen or
+the grasping barons. The rector, indeed, was the concentration of that
+peculiar commonwealth which the constitution of the ancient university
+prescribed. Sir William Hamilton has shown pretty clearly that, in its
+original acceptation, the word Universitas was applied, not to the
+comprehensiveness of the studies, but to that of the local and personal
+expansion of the institution. The university despised the bounds of
+provinces, and even nations, and was a place where ardent minds from all
+parts of the world met to study together, and impart to each other the
+influence of collective intellect working in combination and
+competition. The constitution of the rectorship was calculated to
+provide for the protection of this universality, for the election was
+managed by the procurators or proctors of the nations or local bodies
+into which the students were divided, generally for the purpose of
+neutralising the naturally superior influence of the home students, and
+keeping up the cosmopolitan character imparted to the system by its
+enlightened founders. Hence in Paris the nations were France, Picardy,
+and England, afterwards changed to Germany, in which Scotland was
+included. Glasgow is still divided into four nations: the Natio
+Glottiana, or Clydesdale, taken from the name given to the river by
+Tacitus. In the Natio Laudoniana were originally included the rest of
+Scotland, but it was found expedient to place the English and the
+colonists within it; while Albania, intended to include Britain south of
+the Forth, has been made rather inaptly the nation of the foreigners.
+Rothesay, the fourth nation, includes the extreme west of Scotland and
+Ireland. In Aberdeen there is a like division into Marenses, or
+inhabitants of Mar, Angusiani or men of Angus, which we believe includes
+the whole world south of the Grampians as the Angusiani, while the
+northern districts are partitioned into Buchanenses and Moravienses.
+
+The procurators of the nations were, in the University of Paris, those
+high authorities to whom, as far separated from all sublunary
+influences, King Henry of England proposed, in the twelfth century, to
+refer his disputes with the Papal power. In England they are represented
+at the present day by the formidable proctor, who is a terror to
+evil-doers without being any praise or protection to them that do well.
+But it may safely be said that the chubby youths who in Glasgow and
+Aberdeen go through the annual ceremony, as _procuratores nationum_, of
+representing the votes of the nations in the election of a rector, more
+legitimately represent those procurators of the thirteenth and
+fourteenth century, who maintained the rights of their respective
+nations in the great intellectual republic called a Universitas. The
+discovery, indeed, of this latent power, long hidden, like some
+palæontological fossil, under the pedagogical innovations of modern
+days—which tended to make the self-governing institution a school ruled
+by masters—created astonishment in all quarters, even in those who found
+themselves in possession of the privilege. In Aberdeen especially, when
+some mischievous antiquary maintained that by the charter the election
+of a lord rector lay with the students themselves, the announcement was
+received with derision by a discerning public, and with a severe frown,
+as a sort of seditious libel, enticing the youth to rebellion, by the
+indignant professors. But it turned out to be absolutely true, however
+astounding it might be to those who are unacquainted with the early
+history of universities, and think that everything ancient must have
+been tyrannical and hierarchical. The young ones made a sort of
+saturnalia of their fugitive power, while the professors looked on as
+one may see a solemn mastiff contemplate the gambols of a litter of
+privileged spaniel pups. The privilege was, however, used effectively,
+we may say nobly. There has been no fogyism, or adherence to any settled
+routine of humdrum respectability, in the selection of the rectors. From
+Burke to Bulwer Lytton and Macaulay, they have, with a few exceptions,
+been men of the first intellectual rank. What is a still more remarkable
+result than that they should often have been men of genius, there is
+scarcely an instance of a lord rector having been a clamorous quack or a
+canting fanatic.
+
+In Edinburgh there is no such relic of the ancient university
+commonwealth, and the students have instinctively supplied the want by
+affiliating their voluntary societies, and choosing a distinguished man
+to be the president of the aggregate group. The constitution of the
+College of Edinburgh, indeed, was not matured until after the old
+constitution of the universities had suffered a reaction, and, far from
+any new ones being constructed on the old model, the earlier
+universities with difficulty preserved their constitution. Some person
+called a College Bailie is the dignitary who presides over the interests
+of the University of Edinburgh as one of the appendages of the Town
+Council. By that body the greater part of the patronage of the
+institution is administered, and now it is decided that they have the
+sole and absolute right of making bye-laws for the regulation of this,
+the leading educational institution of Scotland. There is something
+transcendently ludicrous in a civic corporation—a conclave of demure
+tradesmen, intensely respectable—extending those functions of
+administration which are appropriately applicable to marketing and
+street-cleaning to the direction and adjustment of the highest ranges of
+human instruction. Yet somehow it has worked well, on account of the
+very anomaly involved in it. The town-councillors, in selecting a
+professor, like the students in choosing a rector, are afraid of their
+own powers, and never venture to use their own discretion. Absolutely
+ignorant of the branches of knowledge to which the rules they frame
+apply, they become a medium through which these rules are moulded by
+others, and a certain commercial sagacity enables them to divine who are
+the most sagacious advisers. So also in the exercise of their patronage,
+being utterly unable to test the capacity of a candidate, they dare not
+give way to any partiality founded at least on this ground, and they are
+generally acute enough to find out who is most highly estimated by those
+who are competent to judge.
+
+That principle of internal self-action and independence of the
+contemporary constituted powers, of which the rectorship and some other
+relics remain to us at this day, is one of the most remarkable, and in
+many respects admirable, features in the history of the middle ages. It
+is involved in mysteries and contradictions which one would be glad to
+see unravelled by skilful and full inquirers. Adapted to the service of
+pure knowledge, and investing her with absolute prerogatives, the system
+was yet one of the creatures of that Romish hierarchy, which at the same
+time thought by other efforts to circumscribe human inquiry, and make it
+the servant of her own ambitious efforts.
+
+It may help us in some measure to the solution of the phenomenon to
+remember that, however dim the light of the Church may have shone, it
+was yet the representative of the intellectual system, and was in that
+capacity carrying on a war with brute force. Catholicism was the great
+rival and controller of the feudal strength and tyranny of the
+age—_informe ingens cui lumen ademptum_. As intellect and knowledge were
+the weapons with which they encountered the sightless colossus, it was
+believed that the intellectual arsenals could not be too extensive or
+complete—that intellect could not be too richly cultivated. Like many
+combatants, they perhaps forgot future results in the desire of
+immediate victory, and were for the moment blind to the effect so
+nervously apprehended by their successors, that the light thus brought
+in by them would illuminate the dark corners of their own ecclesiastical
+system, and lead the way to its fall. Perhaps such hardy intellects as
+Abelard or Aquinas may have anticipated such a result from the stimulus
+given by them to intellectual inquiry, and may not have deeply lamented
+the process.
+
+But however it came about—whether in the blindness of all, or the
+far-sightedness of some—the Church, from the thirteenth to pretty far on
+in the fifteenth century, encouraged learning with a noble reliance and
+a zealous energy which it would ill become the present age to despise or
+forget. And even if it should all have proceeded from a blind confidence
+that the Church placed on a rock was unassailable, and that mere human
+wisdom, even trained to the utmost of its powers, was, after all, to be
+nothing but her handmaiden, let us respect this unconscious simplicity
+which enabled the educational institutions to be placed in so high and
+trusted a position. The Church supplied something then, indeed, which we
+search after in vain in the present day, and which we shall only achieve
+by some great strides in academic organisation, capable of supplying
+from within what was then supplied from without: and the quality thus
+supplied was no less than that cosmopolitan nature, which made the
+university not merely parochial, or merely national, but universal, as
+its name denoted. The temporal prince might endow the academy with lands
+and riches, and might confer upon its members honourable and lucrative
+privileges, but it was to the head of the one indivisible Church that
+the power belonged of franking it all over Christendom, and establishing
+throughout the civilised world a free-masonry of intellect, which made
+all the universities, as it were, one great corporation of the learned
+men of the world.
+
+It must be admitted that we have here one of those practical
+difficulties which form the necessary price of the freedom of
+Protestantism. When a great portion of Europe was no longer attached to
+Rome, the peculiar centralisation of the educational systems was broken
+up. The old universities, indeed, retained their ancient privileges in a
+traditional, if not a practically legal shape, through Lutheranism and
+Calvinism carrying the characteristics of the abjured Romanism, yet
+carrying them unscathed, since they were protected from injury and
+insult by the enlightened object for which they were established and
+endowed. When, however, in Protestant countries, the old universities
+became poor, or when a change of condition demanded the foundation of a
+new university, it was difficult to restore anything so simple and grand
+as that old community of privileges which made the member of one
+university a citizen of all others, according to his rank, whether he
+were laureated in Paris or distant Upsala—in the gorgeous academies
+close to the fostering influence of the Pope, or in that humble edifice
+endowed after the model of the University of Bologna, in an obscure
+Scottish town named Glasgow.
+
+The English universities, by their great wealth and political influence,
+were able to stand alone, neither giving nor taking. Their Scottish
+contemporaries, unable to fight a like battle, have had reason to
+complain of their ungenerous isolation; and as children of the same
+parentage, and differing only with their southern neighbours in not
+having so much worldly prosperity, it is natural that they should look
+back with a sigh, which even orthodox Presbyterianism cannot suppress,
+to the time when the universal mental sway of Rome, however offensive it
+might be in its own insolent supremacy, yet exercised that high
+privilege of supereminent greatness to level secondary inequalities, and
+place those whom it favoured beyond the reach of conventional
+humiliations.
+
+To keep up that characteristic which the Popedom only offered, the
+monarchs of the larger Protestant states have endeavoured to apply the
+incorporation principle to universities. In small states and republics
+the difficulty of obtaining a general sanction to frank their honours to
+any distance from the place where they are given is still greater; yet
+it is in such places that, through fortunate coincidents, an academy
+sometimes acquires a widespread reputation and influence. To what
+eminence the universities in the United States are destined who shall
+predict? yet, in the estimate of many, they have no right to be called
+universities at all; and of the doctors’ degrees which they freely
+distribute in this country, much doubt is entertained of the
+genuineness. Yet if it would be difficult to lay down how it is that
+these American institutions have acquired any power to grant
+degrees—that is to say, the power not only to confer prizes and rewards
+among their own alumni, but to invest them with insignia of literary
+rank current for their value over the world—it would be equally
+difficult for any of the ancient universities in Protestant states to
+claim an exclusive right to such a power, since this could only be done
+through Papal authority. It will be said that there is just the same
+practical difficulty in this as in all other departments of human
+institutions, and especially those which, like rank, are transferable
+from country to country, so as to require and obtain an estimate of
+their value in each. It will be said that the exclusiveness which denies
+the Heidelberg Doctor of Philosophy a parallel with the LL.D. of Oxford
+is just the same as that which will by no means admit the count or baron
+who is deputy-assistant highways controller, as on a par with an earl or
+baron in the peerage of England. The Kammer Junker of Denmark is not
+looked on as a privy-councillor. The Sheriff of Mecca, the Sheriff of
+London, and the Sheriff of Edinburgh, are three totally different
+personages, and would feel very much puzzled how to act if they were to
+change places for a while. Some Eastern dignitaries—Baboo, Fudky, and
+the like, must occasionally puzzle even the adepts of Leadenhall. Nor
+are we without our instances near at hand. What is the Knight of Kerry,
+what the Captain of Clanranald, what The Chisholm—and how do the
+authorities at the Herald’s Office deal with them? Has not an Archbishop
+of York been suspected of imposture in a Scottish bank when he signed
+with the surname of Eborac; and have not our Scottish judges, with their
+strange-sounding peerage-titles, made mighty confusion in respectable
+English hotels, when my Lord Kames is so intimate with Mrs Home, and my
+Lord Auchinleck retires with Mrs Boswell? But admitting the confusion to
+be irremediable in the department of political and decorative rank, the
+absence of a uniform intellectual hierarchy is not the less to be
+regretted, while the great effort made to secure it in an early and
+imperfect condition of society should be contemplated with a respectful
+awe. There is just one man who professes to be able effectually to
+restore it—the sage of positivism, M. Comte; and he is to do it when he
+has established absolute science in everything, and put down freedom of
+opinion by the application of sure scientific deduction in every
+department of the world’s intellectual pursuits; when it shall be as
+impossible to question the most abstruse propositions in chemistry,
+geology, or social organisation, as to question the multiplication table
+or the succession of the tides—then, indeed, may absolute laws be laid
+down to govern the world in its appreciation of intellectual rank. But
+it is long yet ere that day of certain knowledge—if it is ever destined
+to dawn on that poor, blundering, unfortunate fellow, man. We have got
+but a very, very little way yet, and we know not how much farther it is
+permitted us to penetrate. Terrible are the chaotic heaps that have to
+be cleared away or set in order by the pioneers of intellect, and it is
+still a question whether our race can provide those who are
+strong-headed enough for the task.
+
+There is much truth, however, at the foundation of the French sage’s
+audacious speculations, that intellect must achieve for herself her own
+conquests and take her own position. In the greatness of the
+acquirements of which they are the nursery, must we look hereafter to
+the greatness of our seminaries of learning. If the university is but a
+grammar school or a collection of popular lecture-rooms, no royal
+decrees or republican ordinances will give it rank—if it be a great
+centre of literary and scientific illumination, the pride or enmity of
+its rivals will not tarnish its lustre. But apart from, the question
+between catholicity and positivity, it is, we think, very interesting to
+notice in our universities—humble as we admit them to be—the relics of
+the nomenclature and customs which, in the fifteenth century, marked
+their rank in the great European cluster of universities. The most
+eminent of their characteristics is that high officer, the Rector,
+already spoken of. There is a Censor too—but for all the grandeur of his
+etymological ancestry in Roman history, he is but a small officer—in
+stature sometimes, as well as dignity. He calls over the catalogue or
+roll of names, marking those absent—a duty quite in keeping with that
+enumerating function of the Roman officer which has left to us the word
+census as a numbering of the people.
+
+So lately as the eighteenth century, when the monastic or collegiate
+system which has now so totally disappeared from the Scottish
+universities yet lingered about them, the censor was a more important,
+or at least more laborious officer, and, oddly enough, he corresponded
+in some measure with the character into which, in England, the Proctor
+had been so strangely diverted. In a regulation adopted in Glasgow, in
+1725, it is provided “that all students be obliged, after the bells
+ring, immediately to repair to their classes, and to keep within them,
+and a censor be appointed to every class, to attend from the ringing of
+the bells till the several masters come to their classes, and observe
+any, either of his own class or of any other, who shall be found walking
+in the courts during the above time, or standing on the stairs, or
+looking out at the windows, or making noise.”—_Munimenta Univ.
+Glasguensis_, ii. 429. This has something of the mere schoolroom
+characteristic of our modern university discipline, but this other
+paragraph, from the same set of regulations, is indicative both of more
+mature vices among the precocious youth of Glasgow, and a more
+inquisitorial corrective organisation:—
+
+“That for keeping order without the College, a censor be appointed to
+observe any who shall be in the streets before the bells ring, and to go
+now and then to the billiard-tables, and to the other gaming-places, to
+observe if any be playing at the times when they ought to be in their
+chambers; and that this censor be taken from the poor scholars of the
+several classes alternately, as they shall be thought most fit for that
+office, and that some reward be thought of for their pains.” (_Ibid._,
+425). In the fierce street-conflicts, to which we may have occasion to
+refer, the poor censors had a more perilous service.
+
+In the universities of Central Europe, and that of Paris, their parent,
+the censor was a very important person; yet he was the subordinate of
+one far greater in power and influence. In the words of the writers of
+the _Trevaux_, so full of knowledge about such matters, “Un Régent est
+dans sa classe comme un Souverain; il crée des charges de _Censeurs_
+comme il lui plait, il les donne à qui il veut, et il les abolit quand
+il le judge à propos.” The regents still exist in more than their
+original potency; for they are that essential invigorating element of
+the university of the present day, without which it would not exist. Of
+old, when every magister was entitled to teach in the university, the
+regents were persons selected from among them, with the powers of
+government as separate from the capacity and function of instructing; at
+present, in so far as the university is a school, the regent is a
+schoolmaster—and therefore, as we have just said, he is an essential
+element of the establishment. The term regent, like most of the other
+university distinctions, was originally of Parisian nomenclature, and
+there might be adduced a good deal of learning bearing on its
+signification as distinct from that of the word professor—now so
+desecrated in its use that we are most familiar with it in connection
+with dancing-schools, jugglers’ booths, and veterinary surgeries. The
+regency, as a university distinction conferred as a reward of capacities
+shown within the arena of the university, and judged of according to its
+republican principles, seems to have lingered in a rather confused shape
+in our Scottish universities, and to have gradually ingrafted itself on
+the patronage of the professorships. So in reference to Glasgow,
+immediately after the Revolution, when there was a vacancy or two from
+Episcopalians declining to take the obligation to acknowledge the new
+Church Establishment, there appears the following notice:—
+
+“_January 2, 1691._—There had never been so solemn and numerous an
+appearance of disputants for a regent’s place as was for fourteen days
+before this, nine candidates disputing; and in all their disputes and
+other exercises they all behaved themselves so well, as that the Faculty
+judged there was not one of them but gave such specimens of their
+learning as might deserve the place, which occasioned so great
+difficulty in the choice that the Faculty, choosing a leet of some of
+them who seemed most to excel and be fittest, did determine the same by
+lot, which the Faculty did solemnly go about, and the lot fell upon Mr
+John Law, who thereupon was this day established regent.”—_Ibid._, vol.
+iii. p. 596.
+
+Sir William Hamilton explains the position of the regents with a lucid
+precision which makes his statement correspond precisely with the
+documentary stores before us. “In the original constitution of Oxford,”
+he says, “as in that of all the older universities of the Parisian
+model, the business of instruction was not confided to a special body of
+privileged professors. The University was governed, the University was
+taught, by the graduates at large. Professor, master, doctor, were
+originally synonymous. Every graduate had an equal right of teaching
+publicly in the University the subjects competent to his faculty and to
+the rank of his degree; nay, every graduate incurred the obligation of
+teaching publicly, for a certain period, the subjects of his faculty—for
+such was the condition involved in the grant of the degree itself. The
+bachelor, or imperfect graduate, partly as an exercise towards the
+higher honour, and useful to himself, partly as a performance due for
+the degree obtained, and of advantage to others, was bound to read under
+a master or doctor in his faculty a course of lectures; and the master,
+doctor, or perfect graduate, was in like manner, after his promotion,
+obliged immediately to commence (_incipere_), and to continue for a
+certain period publicly to teach (_regere_), some at least of the
+subjects appertaining to his faculty. As, however, it was only necessary
+for the University to enforce this obligation of public teaching,
+compulsory on all graduates during the term of their _necessary
+regency_, if there did not come forward a competent number of _voluntary
+regents_ to execute this function; and as the schools belonging to the
+several faculties, and in which alone all public or ordinary instruction
+could be delivered, were frequently inadequate to accommodate the
+multitude of the inceptors, it came to pass that in these universities
+the original period of necessary regency was once and again abbreviated,
+and even a dispensation from actual teaching during its continuance
+commonly allowed. At the same time, as the University only accomplished
+the end of its existence through its regents, they alone were allowed to
+enjoy full privileges in its legislature and government; they alone
+partook of its _beneficia_ and _sportulæ_. In Paris the non-regent
+graduates were only assembled on rare and extraordinary occasions: in
+Oxford the regents constituted the house of congregation, which, among
+other exclusive prerogatives, was anciently the initiatory assembly
+through which it behoved that every measure should pass before it could
+be admitted to the house of convocation, composed indifferently of all
+regents and non-regents resident in the University.”—_Dissertations_, p.
+391–2.
+
+But the term Regent became afterwards obsolete in the southern
+universities, while it continued by usage to be applied to a certain
+class of professors in our own. Along with other purely academic titles
+and functions, it fell in England before the rising ascendancy of the
+heads and other functionaries of the collegiate institutions—colleges,
+halls, inns, and entries. So, in the same way, evaporated the faculties
+and their deans, still conspicuous in Scottish academic nomenclature. In
+both quarters they were derived from the all-fruitful nursery of the
+Parisian University. But Scotland kept and cherished what she obtained
+from a friend and ally; England despised and forgot the example of an
+alien and hostile people. The Decanus seems to have been a captain or
+leader of ten—a sort of tything-man; and Ducange speaks of him as a
+superintendent of ten monks. He afterwards came into general employment
+as a sort of chairman and leader. The _Doyens_ of all sorts, lay and
+ecclesiastical, were a marked feature of ancient France, as they still
+are of Scotland, where there is a large body of lay deans, from the
+eminent lawyer who presides over the Faculty of Advocates down to “my
+feyther the deacon,” who gathers behind a half-door the gear that is to
+make his son a capitalist and a magistrate. Among the Scottish
+universities the deans of faculty are still nearly as familiar a title
+as they were at Paris or Bologna.
+
+The employment in the universities of a dead language as the means of
+communication was not only a natural arrangement for teaching the
+familiar use of that language, but it was also evidently courted as one
+of the tokens of learned isolation from the common illiterate world. In
+Scotland, as perhaps in some other small countries, such as Holland, the
+Latin remained as the language of literature after the great nations
+England, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain, were making a vernacular
+literature for themselves. In the seventeenth century the Scot had not
+been reconciled to the acceptance of the English tongue as his own; nor,
+indeed, could he employ it either gracefully or accurately. On the other
+hand, he felt the provincialism of the Lowland Scottish tongue, the
+ridicule attached to its use in books which happened to cross the
+Border, and the narrowness of the field it afforded to literary
+ambition.
+
+Hence every man who looked to be a worker in literature or science,
+threw himself into the academic practice of cultivating the familiar use
+of the Latin language. To the Scottish scholars it was almost a revived
+language, and they possessed as great a command over it as can ever be
+obtained of a language confined to a class, and not universally used by
+the lowest as well as the highest of the people. Hence, when he had the
+pen in hand, the educated Scotsman felt the Latin come more naturally to
+his call than the vernacular; and people accustomed to rummage among old
+letters by Scotsmen will have sometimes noticed that the writer,
+beginning with his native tongue, slips gradually into the employment of
+Latin as a relief, just as we may find a foreigner abandon the arduous
+labour of breaking English, to repose himself in the easy fluency of his
+natural speech. We believe that no language, employed only by a class,
+is capable of the same copiousness and flexibility as that which is
+necessarily applicable to all purposes, from the meanest to the highest.
+But such as a class-language could become, the Latin was among the
+Scots; and it is to their peculiar position and academic practices that,
+among a host of distinguished humanists, we possess in George Buchanan
+the most illustrious writer in the Roman tongue, both in poetry and
+prose, since the best days of Rome.
+
+The records before us afford some amusing instances of the anxious zeal
+with which any lapse into the vernacular tongue was prevented, and
+conversation among the students was rendered as uneasy and unpleasant as
+possible. In the visitorial regulations of King’s College, Aberdeen, in
+1546, it is provided that the attendant boys—the gyps, if we may so call
+them—shall be expert in the use of Latin, lest they should give occasion
+to the masters or students to have recourse to the vernacular speech:
+“_Ne dent occasionem magistris et Studentibus lingua vernacula uti._” If
+Aberdeen supplied a considerable number of waiting-boys thus
+accomplished, the stranger wandering to that far northern region, in the
+seventeenth century, might have been as much astonished as the man in
+_Ignoramus_, who tested the state of education in Paris by finding that
+even the dirty boys in the streets were taught French. It would, after
+all, have perhaps been more difficult to find waiting-boys who could
+speak English. The term by which they are described is a curious
+indication of the French habits and traditions of the northern
+universities: they are spoken of as _garciones_—a word of obvious origin
+to any one who has been in a French hotel.
+
+In Glasgow, in a law passed in 1667, it is provided that “all who are
+delated by the public censor for speaking of English shall be fined in
+an halfpenny _toties quoties_.” The sum is not large, but the imposition
+of the penalty at that particular juncture looks rather unreasonable,
+since the Senate and the Faculty of Arts had just abandoned the use of
+Latin in their public documents, and had adopted what, if not strictly
+English, was the vernacular tongue—a change which was doubtless as much
+to their own ease as it is to the satisfaction of the reader, who
+becomes painfully alive to the continued and progressive barbarisation
+of the academic Latin.
+
+In a great measure, however, it seems to have been less the object in
+view to inculcate Latin than to discountenance the vernacular language
+of the country. In some instances the language of France is admitted;
+and, from the number of Scotsmen who carved out their fortunes in that
+hospitable and affluent country, this acquisition must have been one of
+peculiar value. In a set of statutes and laws of the Grammar School of
+Aberdeen, adopted in 1553, there is a very singular liberty of
+choice—the pupils might speak in Greek, Hebrew, or even in Gaelic,
+rather than in Lowland Scots: “Loquantur omnes Latinè, Græcè, Hebraicè,
+Gallicè, Hybernicè—nunquam vernaculè, saltem cum his qui Latinè
+noscunt.” This is by no means to be held as an indication of the
+familiar acquaintance of the Aberdonian students with the language of
+the Gael; on the contrary, it shows how entirely this was placed within
+the category of foreign tongues. We know no other instances in which the
+tongue of the Highlander is spoken of in connection with the earlier
+educational institutions of the country; but we think it not improbable
+that any encouragement it received was for much the same reason that
+Hindostanee and the African dialects are now sometimes taught to young
+divines—that they may work as missionaries among the heathen. A few
+students from this wild region, to which Christianity had scarcely
+penetrated, were indeed a peculiar feature of the educational
+institutions of Aberdeen, and in a modified shape so remain to this day,
+since some wild men from the hills, spending a brief period at school or
+college to acquire a fragment of education, are yet known by the term
+_extranni_, of old applied to them. There is a prevailing, but utterly
+false impression, that Aberdeen is in the Highlands. It lingers chiefly,
+in the present century, with Cockneys beginning their first northern
+tour; but in the seventeenth century it may, perhaps, have been
+entertained even in the metropolis of Scotland. Hence the educational
+institutions there, though at the extremity of a long tract of
+agricultural lowland, inhabited by a Teutonic people, and farther
+separated from the actual Celtic line than Edinburgh itself, are
+generally talked of in old documents as those which are peculiarly
+available for the civilisation of the Highlanders. Glasgow was nearer
+and more accessible to the great body of the western Celts; but in this
+town the prejudices against them were greater, and the alienation,
+especially in religion, was more emphatic. It was to Aberdeen then,
+generally, that the son of a predatory chief would be sent, to fit him
+in some measure for converse with the civilised world, such as it then
+was; and the fierce owner of a despotic power over his clansmen would
+appear among the sober burgesses of the northern metropolis much as an
+American chief may among the inhabitants of some distant city in the
+Union. Lovat studied at King’s College, in Aberdeen, and there acquired
+a portion of those accomplishments which made him act the subtle
+courtier in Paris or London, and reserve his sanguinary ruffianism for
+Castle Dunie. Not unmindful of the benefits of the institution, some of
+the Celtic princes bestowed endowments on it. Thus, the Laird of
+Macintosh, who begins in the true regal style, “We, Lachlan Macintosh of
+that ilk,” and who calls himself the Chief and _Principall_ of the Clan
+Chattan—probably using the term which he thought would be the most
+likely to make his supremacy intelligible to university
+dignitaries—dispenses to the King’s College two thousand marks, “for
+maintaining hopeful students thereat.” He reserves, however, a dynastic
+control over the endowment, making it conducive to the clan discipline
+and the support of the hierarchy surrounding the chief. It was a
+condition that the beneficiary should be presented “by the lairds of
+Macintosh successively in all time coming; that a youth of the name of
+Macintosh or of Clan Chattan shall be preferred to those of any other
+name,” &c.—_Fasti_, 206. This document is titled in the records,
+“Macintosh’s Mortification,” according to a peculiar technical
+application of that expression in Scotland, to the perpetuity of
+possession which in England is termed mortmain. Later in the eighteenth
+century, M‘Lean of Coll causes another mortification to be “applied
+towards the maintenance and education of such young man or boy of the
+name of M‘Lean as shall be recommended by me, or my heirs or successors
+on the estate of Coll.” This is probably the same Highland potentate who
+frowned so savagely on young Colman, when he, seeing an old gentleman
+familiarly called Coll by his contemporaries, addressed him as Mr Coll.
+Such a solecism would never be permitted to pass as an accidental
+mistake, since it would be utterly impossible to convince the mighty
+chief of Coll that there existed in this world a person ignorant enough
+to be unacquainted with his style and title. At a still later date, a
+bequest is more gracefully made by Sir John M‘Pherson: “In testimony of
+my gratitude to the University of Old Aberdeen, I bequeath to ditto, so
+as to afford an annual bursary to any Highland student who may be
+selected to receive the said bursary, two thousand five hundred pounds
+of my Carnatic stock.”
+
+Here there is a wider range of application, but still the endowment is
+to a Highland student. Nor, after all, when the social state of the
+Highlanders is considered, can we wonder that their gentry should seek
+to preserve the wealth which they are constrained to deposit in the
+hands of the stranger for their own people. Occasionally, at the present
+day, some wild wiry M‘Lean or M‘Dougal makes his appearance, by command
+of the chief, at the proper time and place, to claim investment in the
+clan bursary. Other of these endowments are of restricted application,
+being exclusively appropriated to students of a special name, such as
+Smith or Thomson, or born in a special parish, or descended from members
+of some corporation. In general, however, these endowments—some of them
+of very ancient date—are open to free universal competition, and are in
+this shape one of the most interesting and remarkable specimens of the
+ancient literary republics, in which each man fought with his brains,
+and held what his brains could achieve for him. Annually, at the
+competition for bursaries in Aberdeen, there assembles a varied group of
+intellectual gladiators—long red-haired Highlanders, who feel trousers
+and shoes an infringement of the liberty of the subject—square-built
+Lowland farmers—flaxen-haired Orcadians, and pale citizens’ sons,
+vibrating between scholarship and the tailor’s board or the shoemaker’s
+last. Grim and silent they sit for a day, rendering into Latin an
+English essay, and drop away one by one, depositing with the judges the
+evidence of success or failure as the case may be. The thing is very
+fairly and impartially managed, and honourable to all the parties
+concerned.
+
+It is indeed, as we have hinted, a relic of the old competitive spirit
+which distinguished the universities as literal republics of letters,
+where each man fought his own battle, and gained and wore his own
+laurels. Nor was his arena confined to his own college. The free-masonry
+we have already alluded to opened every honour and emolument to all, and
+the Scotsman might suddenly enter the lists at Paris, Bologna, or
+Upsala, or the Spaniard might compete in Glasgow or Aberdeen. The
+records before us contain many forms in which the ancient spirit has now
+ceased to breathe. Already has been mentioned the competition for the
+regentship. The old form of the Impugnment of Theses, so renowned in
+literary histories, has died away as a portion of the ordinary
+laureation. The comprehensive challenges and corresponding victories
+attributed to the Admirable Crichton give this practice a peculiar
+interest in the eyes of Scotsmen; and it has a great place in the annals
+of the Reformation, since one of its main stages was the posting the
+twenty-five theses on the door of the church of Würtemberg by Luther.
+But in reading these remarkable events people are apt to forget the
+commonness of the practice; and Crichton has the aspect of a
+preposterous intellectual bully going out of his proper way to attract
+notice, instead of doing what was in its time and circumstances as
+ordinary and common sense an act as running a tilt, joining a crusade,
+or burning a witch. Goldsmith, in that account of the intellectual
+vagabond which so evidently describes himself, has noticed some relics
+of the practice as he found it on the Continent. “In all the
+universities and convents there are, upon certain days, philosophical
+theses maintained against every adventitious disputant; for which, if
+the champion opposes with any dexterity, he can claim a gratuity in
+money, a dinner, and a bed for one night. In this manner, then, I fought
+my way towards England.” A collection of German pamphlets, amounting, it
+is said, to upwards of a hundred thousand, and called the Dietrich
+Collection, was some years ago purchased by the Faculty of Advocates,
+and was found to consist chiefly of the academic theses in which the
+scholars of Germany—illustrious and obscure—had been disputing for
+centuries. In the same place, by the way, where this vast collection
+reposes, may be found the most complete living illustration of the old
+form of impugnment. The anxious litigant or busy agent entering the main
+door of the Parliament House at 9 o’clock of a morning, may find, by an
+_affiche_ to the door-post, that there is to be a _disputatio juridica_
+under the auspices of the _inclytus Diaconus facultatis_. Since the year
+1693 it has been the practice of each intrant to undergo public
+impugnment, or, as the act of Faculty says, “the publict tryall of
+candidates, by printing and publishing theses on the subject assigned
+with corollaries, as it is observed amongst other nations.” A title of
+the Pandects is assigned on each occasion. Thus the Faculty possesses
+more than one running commentary upon that celebrated collection; and it
+has always been deemed remarkable that, considering the number and
+varied talent of the authors of these theses, they should be so uniform
+in their Latinity and structure. A great innovation has lately taken
+place in sparing the cost of printing the theses, and applying the
+amount so saved to the Faculty’s magnificent library.
+
+Many of the old university theses are very interesting as the youthful
+efforts of men who have subsequently become eminent. Those connected
+with Aberdeen are apparently the most numerous. It is very noticeable,
+indeed, that in the remote rival institutions there established, the
+spirit and practice of the Continental universities, in almost every
+department, had their most tenacious existence. As in England, the
+Church of Rome was succeeded there, not by Presbyterianism but
+Episcopacy, and there were fewer changes in all old habits and
+institutions. The celebrated “Aberdeen doctors,” who carried on a
+controversy with the Covenanters, met their zealous religionists with
+something like the old pedantic formality of the academic system of
+disputation. They resolved the Covenant into a thesis, and impugned it.
+Of this remarkable group of scholars we have the following notice in
+Professor Innes’s Preface:—
+
+
+  “Their names are now little known, except to the local antiquary;
+  but no one who has even slightly studied the history of that
+  disturbed time is unacquainted with the collective designation of
+  ‘the Aberdeen Doctors’ bestowed upon the learned ‘querists’ of the
+  ultra-Presbyterian Assembly of 1638, and the most formidable
+  opponents of the Solemn League and Covenant.
+
+  “Of these learned divines, Dr Robert Barron had succeeded Bishop
+  Forbes in his parish of Keith, and from thence was brought on the
+  first opportunity to be made Minister of Aberdeen, and afterwards
+  Professor of Divinity in Marischal College. He is best judged by the
+  estimation of his own time, which placed him foremost in philosophy
+  and theology. Bishop Sydserf characterises him as ‘vir in omni
+  scholastica theologia et omni literatura versatissimus:’ ‘A person of
+  incomparable worth and learning,’ says Middleton, ‘he had a clear
+  apprehension of things, and a rare facultie of making the hardest
+  things to be easily understood.’[10] Gordon of Rothiemay says, ‘He was
+  one of those who maintained the unanswerable dispute (in 1638) against
+  the Covenante, which drew upon him both ther envye, hate, and
+  calumneyes; yet so innocently lived and dyed hee, that such as then
+  hated him doo now reverence his memorye, and admire his works.’
+  Principal Baillie, of the opposite party, speaks of him as ‘a meek and
+  learned person,’ and always with great respect: and Bishop Jeremy
+  Taylor, when writing in 1659 to a fellow of Trinity College, Dublin,
+  recommending the choice of books for ‘the beginning of a theological
+  library,’ named two treatises of Barron’s especially, and recommended
+  generally ‘everything of his.’[11] That a man so honoured for his
+  learning and his life should receive the indignities inflicted on
+  Barron after his death, is rather to be held as a mark of the general
+  coarseness of the time, than attributed to the persecuting spirit of
+  any one sect.[12]
+
+  “Another of the Aberdeen doctors, William Leslie, was successively
+  Sub-principal and Principal of King’s College. The visitors of 1638
+  found him worthie of censure, as defective and negligent in his
+  office, but recorded their knowledge that he was ‘ane man of gude
+  literature, lyff, and conversatioun.’[13] ‘He was a man,’ says James
+  Gordon, ‘grave, and austere, and exemplar. The University was happy in
+  having such a light as he, who was eminent in all the sciences above
+  the most of his age.’[14]
+
+  “Dr James Sibbald, Minister of St Nicholas, and a Regent in the
+  University, is recorded by the same contemporary: ‘It will not be
+  affirmed by his very enemyes, but that Dr James Sibbald was ane
+  eloquent and painefull preacher, a man godly, and grave, and modest,
+  not tainted with any vice unbeseeming a minister, to whom nothing
+  could in reason be objected, if you call not his ante-covenanting a
+  cryme.’[15] Principal Baillie, while condemning his Arminian
+  doctrines, says—‘The man was, there, of great fame.’
+
+  “Dr Alexander Scroggy, minister in the Cathedral Church, first known
+  to the world as thought worthy to contribute to the ‘Funerals’ of his
+  patron and friend, Bishop Forbes,[16] is described in 1640 by Gordon
+  as ‘a man sober, grave, and painefull in his calling;’[17] and by
+  Baillie as ‘ane old man, not verie corrupt, yet perverse in the
+  Covenant and Service-book.’ His obstinacy yielded under the weight of
+  old age and the need of rest, but he is not the more respected for the
+  questionable recantation of all his early opinions.[18]
+
+  “Foremost, by common consent, among that body of divines and scholars,
+  was John Forbes, the good bishop’s son. He had studied at King’s
+  College, and, after completing his education in the approved manner by
+  a round of foreign universities, returned to Scotland to take his
+  doctor’s degree, and to be the first professor in the chair of
+  theology, founded and endowed in our University by his father and the
+  clergy of the diocese. Dr John Forbes’s theological works have been
+  appreciated by all critics and students, and have gone some way to
+  remove the reproach of want of learning from the divines of Scotland.
+  His greatest undertaking, the _Instructiones historico-theologicæ_,
+  which he left unfinished, Bishop Burnett pronounces to be ‘a work
+  which, if he had finished it, and had been suffered to enjoy the
+  privacies of his retirement and study to give us the second volume,
+  had been the greatest treasure of theological learning that perhaps
+  the world has yet received.[19]
+
+  “These were the men whom the bishop drew into the centre and heart of
+  the sphere which he had set himself to illuminate; and in a short
+  space of time, by their united endeavours, there grew up around their
+  Cathedral and University a society more learned and accomplished than
+  Scotland had hitherto known, which spread a taste for literature and
+  art beyond the academic circle, and gave a tone of refinement to the
+  great commercial city and its neighbourhood.
+
+  “It must be confessed cultivation was not without bias. It would seem
+  that, in proportion as the Presbyterian and Puritan party receded from
+  the learning of some of their first teachers, literature became here,
+  as afterwards in England, the peculiar badge of Episcopacy. With
+  Episcopacy went, hand in hand, the high assertion of royal authority;
+  and influenced as it had been by Bishop Patrick Forbes and his
+  followers, Aberdeen became, and continued for a century to be, not
+  only a centre of northern academic learning, but a little stronghold
+  of loyalty and Episcopacy—the marked seat of high Cavalier politics
+  and anti-Puritan sentiments of religion and church government.
+
+  “That there was a dash of pedantry in the learning of that Augustan
+  age of our University, was the misfortune of the age, rather than
+  peculiar to Aberdeen. The literature of Britain and all Europe, except
+  Italy, was still for the most part scholastic, and still to a great
+  degree shrouded in the scholastic dress of a dead language; and we
+  must not wonder that the northern University exacted from her divines
+  and philosophers, even from her historians and poets, that they should
+  use the language of the learned. After all, we owe too much to
+  classical learning to grudge that it should for a time have
+  overshadowed and kept down its legitimate offspring of native
+  literature. ‘We never ought to forget,’ writes one worthy to record
+  the life and learning of Andrew Melville, ‘that the refinement and the
+  science, secular and sacred, with which modern Europe is enriched,
+  must be traced to the revival of ancient literature, and that the hid
+  treasures could not have been laid open and rendered available but for
+  that enthusiasm with which the languages of Greece and Rome were
+  cultivated in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.’[20]
+
+  “It is not to be questioned that in the literature of that age, and in
+  all departments of it, Aberdeen stood pre-eminent. Clarendon
+  commemorates the ‘many excellent scholars and very learned men under
+  whom the Scotch universities, and especially Aberdeen,
+  flourished.’[21] ‘Bishop Patrick Forbes,’ says Burnet, ‘took such care
+  of the two colleges in his diocese, that they became quickly
+  distinguished from all the rest of Scotland.... They were an honour to
+  the Church, both by their lives and by their learning; and with that
+  excellent temper they seasoned that whole diocese, both clergy and
+  laity, that it continues to this very day very much distinguished from
+  all the rest of Scotland, both for learning, loyalty, and
+  peaceableness.’[22]
+
+  “That this was no unfounded boast, as regards one department of
+  learning, has been already shown, in enumerating the learned divines
+  who drew upon Aberdeen the general attention soon after the death of
+  their bishop and master. In secular learning it was no less
+  distinguished. No one excelled Robert Gordon of Straloch in all the
+  accomplishments that honour the country gentleman. Without the common
+  desire of fame or any more sordid motive, he devoted his life and
+  talents to illustrate the history and literature of his country. He
+  was the prime assistant to Scotstarvet in his two great undertakings,
+  the Atlas and the collections of Scotch poetry.[23] The maps of
+  Scotland in the Great Atlas (many of them drawn by himself, and the
+  whole ‘revised’ by him at the earnest entreaty of Charles I.), with
+  the topographical descriptions that accompany them, are among the most
+  valuable contributions ever made by an individual to the physical
+  history of his country. His son, James Gordon, parson of Rothiemay,
+  followed out his father’s great objects with admirable skill, and in
+  two particulars he merits our gratitude even more. He was one of the
+  earliest of our countrymen to study drawing, and to apply it to plans
+  and views of places; and, while he could wield Latin easily, he
+  condescended to write the history of his time in excellent Scotch.
+
+  “While these writers were illustrating the history of their country in
+  prose, a crowd of scholars were writing poetry, or, at least, pouring
+  forth innumerable copies of elegant Latin verses. While the two
+  Johnstons were the most distinguished of those poets of Aberdeen, John
+  Leech, once Rector of our University,[24] David Wedderburn, rector of
+  the Grammar School, and many others, wrote and published pleasing
+  Latin verse, which stands the test of criticism. While it cannot be
+  said that such compositions produce on the reader the higher effects
+  of real poetry, they are not without value, if we view them as tests
+  of the cultivation of the society among which they were produced.
+  Arthur Johnston not only addresses elegiacs to the bishop and his
+  doctors, throwing a charming classical air over their abstruser
+  learning, but puts up a petition to the magistrates of the city, or
+  celebrates the charms of Mistress Abernethy, or the embroideries of
+  the Lady Lauderdale—all in choice Latin verse, quite as if the persons
+  whom he addressed appreciated the language of the poet.[25]
+
+  “Intelligent and educated strangers, both foreigners and the gentry of
+  the north, were attracted to Aberdeen; and its colleges became the
+  place of education for a higher class of students than had hitherto
+  been accustomed to draw their philosophy from a native source.[26]
+
+  “If it was altogether chance, it was a very fortunate accident, which
+  placed in the midst of a society so worthy of commemoration a painter
+  like George Jamiesone, the pupil of Rubens, the first, and, till
+  Raeburn, the only great painter whom Scotland had produced. Though he
+  was a native of Aberdeen, it is not likely that anything but the
+  little court of the bishop could have induced such an artist to
+  prosecute his art in a provincial town. An academic orator in 1630,
+  while boasting of the crowd of distinguished men, natives and
+  strangers, either produced by the University, or brought to Aberdeen
+  by the bishop, was able to point to their pictures ornamenting the
+  hall where his audience were assembled. Knowing by whom these
+  portraits were painted, we cannot but regret that so few are
+  preserved.”[27]
+
+
+Keeping, however, to the matter of academic impugnment, we shall now
+turn to an instance of its incidental occurrence in that University,
+which, from its late origin, was least imbued with the spirit of the
+Continental system.
+
+The visit of King James to his ancient kingdom in 1617, afforded the
+half-formed collegiate institution in Edinburgh an opportunity for a
+rhetorical display, which ended in substantial advantages. Tired with
+business at Holyrood, and in the enjoyment of full eating and drinking,
+and “driving our” at his quieter palace of Stirling, he bethought
+himself of a rhetorical pastime with the professors of the new
+University, wherein he could not fail to luxuriate in the scholastic
+quibbling with which his mind was so well crammed, and he was pretty
+certain of enjoying an ample banquet of success and applause. Hence, as
+Thomas Crawford the annalist of the institution informs us, “It pleased
+his majesty to appoint the maisters of the college to attend him at
+Sterling the 29th day of July, where, in the royal chapel, his majesty,
+with the flower of the nobility, and many of the most learned men of
+both nations, were present, a little before five of the clock, and
+continued with much chearfulness above three hours.”
+
+The display was calculated to be rather appalling to any man who had
+much diffidence or reserve in his disposition, and hence Charteris, the
+principal, “being naturally averse from public show, and professor of
+divinity,” transferred the duty of leading the discussion to Professor
+Adamson. The form adopted was the good old method of the impugnment of
+theses, so many being appointed to defend, and so many to impugn; “but
+they insisted only upon such purposes as were conceived would be most
+acceptable to the king’s majesty and the auditory.”
+
+The first thesis was better suited for the legislature than an academic
+body, and there must have been some peculiar reason for bringing it on.
+It was, “that sheriffs and other inferior magistrates should not be
+hereditary,” which was oppugned by Professor Lands “with many pretty
+arguments.” The king was so pleased with the oppugnation, that he turned
+to the Marquis of Hamilton, hereditary sheriff of Clydesdale, and said,
+“James, you see your cause lost—and all that can be said for it clearly
+satisfied and answered.” _N.—B._ It is just worth noticing that the
+College and the Marquis were then at feud. There was a question about
+the possession of the old lodging of the Hamilton family, then
+constituting a considerable portion of the University edifices. The “gud
+old nobleman,” his father, had been easily satisfied, but the young man
+was determined to stand upon his rights, and, though he could not
+recover possession, get something in the shape of rent or damages; nor
+would he take the judicious hint that “so honourable a personage would
+never admit into his thoughts to impoverish the patrimony of the young
+University, which had been so great an ornament, and so fruitful an
+instrument of so much good to the whole nation, but rather accept of
+some honourable acknowledgment of his munificence in bestowing upon the
+College an honest residence for the muses.” But to return to the
+impugnment. The next thesis was on local motion, “pressing many things
+by clear testimonies of Aristotle’s text;” and this passage of literary
+arms called out one of James’s sallies of pawky persiflage. “These men,”
+he said, “know Aristotle’s mind as well as himself did while he lived.”
+The next thesis was on the “Original of Fountains;” and the discussion,
+much to the purpose, no doubt, was so interesting that it was allowed to
+go on far beyond the prescribed period, “his majesty himself sometimes
+speaking for the impugner, and sometimes for the defender, in good
+Latin, and with much knowledge of the secrets of philosophy.”
+
+Talking is, however, at the best, dry work. His majesty went at last to
+supper, and no doubt would have what is termed “a wet night.” When up to
+the proper mark, he sent for the professors, and delivered himself of
+the following brilliant address:—
+
+“Methinks these gentlemen, by their very names, have been destined for
+the acts which they have had in hand to-day. Adam was father of all;
+and, very fitly, Adamson had the first part of this act. The defender is
+justly called Fairly—his thesis had some fair lies, and he defended them
+very fairly, and with many fair lies given to the oppugners. And why
+should not Mr Lands be the first to enter the lands? but now I clearly
+see that all lands are not barren, for certainly he hath shown a fertile
+wit. Mr Young is very old in Aristotle. Mr Reed needs not be red with
+blushing for his acting to-day. Mr King disputed very kingly, and of a
+kingly purpose, anent the royal supremacy of reason over anger and all
+passions.” And here his majesty was going to close the encomiums, when
+some one nudged his elbow, and hinted that he had omitted to notice the
+modest Charteris; but the royal wit was not abashed, and his concluding
+impromptu was by no means the least successful of his puns. “Well, his
+name agreeth very well to his nature; for charters contain much matter,
+yet say nothing, but put great purposes in men’s mouths.”
+
+Few natures would be churlish enough to resist a genial glow of
+satisfaction on receiving such pearls of rhetoric scattered among them
+by a royal hand, and we may believe that the professors were greatly
+gratified. But, pleased more probably by his own success, the king gave
+a more substantial mark of his satisfaction, and said, “I am so well
+satisfied with this day’s exercise, that I will be godfather to the
+College of Edinburgh, and have it called the College of King James; for
+after the founding of it had been stopped for sundry years in my
+minority, so soon as I came to any knowledge, I zealously held hand to
+it, and caused it to be established; and although I see many look upon
+it with an evil eye, yet I will have them to know that, having given it
+this name, I have espoused its quarrel.” And further on in the night, he
+promised, “that as he had given the College a name, he would also, in
+time convenient, give it a royal godbairn gift for enlarging the
+patrimony thereof.”
+
+In the course of the multifarious talk of the evening, a curious and
+delicate matter was opened up—the difference between the English
+pronunciation of Latin and the Scottish, which corresponds with that of
+Europe in general. An English doctor, who must have enjoyed exceptional
+opinions, or been a master of hypocrisy, praised the readiness and
+elegancy of his majesty’s Latinity; on which he said, “All the world
+knows that my maister, Mr George Buchanan, was a great maister in that
+faculty. I follow his pronunciation both of Latin and Greek, and am
+sorry that my people of England do not the like, for certainly their
+pronunciation utterly spoils the grace of these two learned languages;
+but you see all the university and learned men of Scotland express the
+true and native pronunciation of both.”[28]
+
+
+
+
+                       THE INSURRECTION IN SPAIN.
+
+
+                                                    _Madrid, July 1854._
+
+Dear Ebony.—Had I known that you would treacherously publish my private
+communications, and that Maga comes to Madrid, I certainly would have
+waited until I had quitted this capital, before imparting to you my
+impressions of it, its inhabitants, and its institutions. I admit that I
+have but myself to blame for my ignorance of the fact that Maga, whose
+fame extends to the uttermost parts of the earth, has her regular
+readers even in Madrid. But you, who must be aware of that fact, are not
+the less culpable for risking the valuable life of your old ally and
+contributor. You might have had a little more consideration for your
+outpost than to expose him to the thrust of an Albacete dagger or
+Catalan knife, whether dealt under the fifth rib, or treacherously in
+the back. You should have reflected that my olive-green uniform, with a
+golden thistle on the black-facings, would naturally betray my quality
+of Maga’s vedette. Since the 10th of June, date of the Magazine’s
+arrival in Madrid, my existence has not been worth an hour’s purchase. I
+have been obliged to strike my tent, pitched in the Puerta del Sol, as
+the best place for observation, and to picket my charger in the recesses
+of the Retiro, whose cool shades, I confess, are not altogether to be
+despised now that the thermometer ranges from 90 to 100 in the shade,
+and that the streets of this capital resemble nothing so much as
+limekilns, thanks to dust from demolitions, and to the rays of a sun
+compared to which the Phœbus of the British Isles is a very feeble
+impostor. You are, of course, aware of the pleasant peculiarities of the
+Madrid climate—Siberia in winter and in the wind; the Sahara in summer
+and in the sun. We are just now in all the delights of the dogdays; a
+wet brick is sunburned red in half an hour; eggs, placed for ten minutes
+on the tiles, open for the exit of lively chickens; and Madrid, to avoid
+calcination, flies to the woods and waves. As I hope soon to follow its
+example, and shall consequently not be here when your August number
+arrives, I will venture to send you another epistle, notwithstanding
+that I have received sundry mysterious warnings that a repetition of my
+first offence would lead to prompt blood-letting. This time, however, I
+shall have less to say of the follies and failings of the natives, and
+more of what has occurred since last I troubled you with my prose. Then
+I did but glance at politics _en passant_; now, I propose devoting my
+whole letter to them. Just one fortnight ago there occurred at Madrid an
+event so important that I think it best to confine myself to an account
+of it, and to reserve lighter matters for a future communication. I need
+hardly say that the event in question is the military insurrection of
+the 28th of June.
+
+Things had been in rather a queer state here for some time past. As you
+may possibly, amidst the excitement of the Eastern question, have
+neglected to follow up the minute intricacies of Spanish politics, I
+must step back a pace or two, in order to put you _au fait_. Autumn of
+last year witnessed the arrival at power of the present ministry, which
+speedily became far more unpopular than, for some time past, any
+administration had been. Headed by an unprincipled and unscrupulous
+adventurer, it recoiled from no illegality or tyranny that might conduce
+to its own advantage. Defeated in the senate by a large majority, on the
+memorable railway question, it suspended the session, and began to
+indulge its hatred of those who assisted in its rebuff. In January of
+the present year, about a month after the closing of the legislative
+chambers, some of the most formidable of its opponents, on that occasion
+and on most others, were ordered into exile. It is customary and legal
+in Spain for the minister to assign a residence to unemployed officers,
+whither they are bound to proceed. In those dispositions, the
+convenience of the officers is usually to a certain extent consulted,
+but sometimes, especially for political reasons, the contrary is the
+case, and such assignment of quarters becomes little less than a
+sentence of banishment. A military man may be authorised to reside in
+Madrid (the Spaniard’s paradise), or transported to the Philippines,
+which he would consider purgatory. As most military men of high rank in
+this country are more or less political characters, either having held
+office, or hoping some day to find a place in one of the ephemeral
+Spanish governments (whose existence rarely exceeds a year, and is
+sometimes limited to a day), and constantly manœuvring to obtain it,
+they hold it a cruel destiny that consigns them to a colonial abode, or
+to vegetation in a remote town, far from the capital, that centre of
+every kind of intrigue. It may be imagined, therefore, with what extreme
+disgust some of the military chiefs of the Moderado opposition suddenly
+found themselves ordered to places where they would be at full liberty
+to study strategy, or play the Cincinnatus in their cabbage gardens, but
+where they would be forgotten by the world, and powerless to annoy the
+ministers or to forward their own ambitious views. Generals Leopold
+O’Donnell, Manuel Concha, José Concha, and Infante (a deserter from the
+Progresista or liberal party), were the men whose influence and
+intrigues the Sartorius ministry thus attempted to annul. The two former
+were ordered to the Canary Islands, the two latter to the Balearics.
+Manuel Concha and Infante obeyed orders and departed for their
+destinations; José Concha, by far the cleverer of the brothers, went
+into France; O’Donnell disappeared, and it was not until some time
+afterwards that it became known where he was concealed. From the time of
+these banishments (the latter part of January) may be dated the
+commencement of the conspiracy which has just broken out in the shape of
+a military insurrection.
+
+On the 20th of February, the regiment of Cordova, quartered at
+Saragossa, rose in revolt, headed by its colonel, Brigadier Hore, an
+officer of merit, who had served in the royal guards during the civil
+war. Nearly the whole of the garrison, and several officers of high
+rank, were pledged to support the movement; but some of the latter
+played the traitor, others hesitated at the very moment when promptness
+and decision were most necessary; José Concha, who was then concealed in
+Spain, and expected to start up at Saragossa to head the revolt, did not
+appear, but soon afterwards presented himself to the authorities of
+Bordeaux. In short, the whole thing failed. The Cordova regiment was
+broken up; changes were made in one or two garrisons; a number of
+arrests, especially of military men and newspaper editors, were made in
+Madrid; promotions and decorations were lavished upon certain officers,
+amongst whom were some who had betrayed to death the friends and
+confederates they had promised to support; the last of the insurgents
+were driven across the frontier; the government emerged from the brief
+struggle with renewed strength, and became daily more unconstitutional,
+arbitrary, and tyrannical.
+
+Within a short time after the incidents I have thus briefly sketched, it
+was generally reported that the place where the Moderado opposition
+(noway discouraged by the disaster in Arragon) intended to make their
+next attempt, was Madrid itself. The conduct of the government in the
+mean time had certainly been such as to irritate its enemies, and rouse
+public indignation. No one was safe from the despotic system introduced.
+Illegal arrests were of frequent occurrence, made without a shadow of a
+pretext, and whose victims, conscious of no crime, were left to languish
+in prison, transported to the colonies, or escorted out of Spain. The
+opposition journals were daily seized, not only for the articles they
+published, but for the mere news they gave, as there were many things
+which ministers did not choose to have communicated to the nation except
+in the falsified version given by their own journals. The _Clamor
+Publico_, ably conducted by a staunch and well-known liberal, Don
+Fernando Corradi; the _Nacion_, also a Progresista paper, whose editor,
+Rua Figueroa, still contrived to write in it from the concealment to
+which an order for his arrest had compelled him; the _Diario Español_
+and the _Epoca_, representing the Moderado opposition, were the chief
+objects of ministerial oppression and vindictiveness, and day after day
+their columns were headed with the announcement, that their first
+edition had been seized by order of the censor. In spite of this
+persecution, they steadily persevered, opposing the government as well
+as they might, but prevented from exposing, otherwise than by inference
+and in a most guarded manner, the scandalous corruption and jobbing of
+the ministers and the court. Discontent was general, and daily
+increased. It was asked when the Cortes were to assemble, for only in
+their discussions did there seem a chance of such expression of public
+opinion as might alarm and check the men in power. These, however, had
+no intention of calling together the legislative chambers. They
+continued to make laws by decree, and to sanction, for the benefit of
+their friends and adherents, railways and other national works, for
+which the approval of the Cortes was to be asked at some future day. But
+that day has not yet come, nor will it come, so long as the present
+ministry is in office and the Queen-mother supports them, for she
+dreads, as much as they do, the exposure of the countless iniquitous
+speculations at the country’s expense, in which she and her husband have
+been concerned, with the connivance and aid of the government, who thus
+repaid her for the countenance that often stood them in good stead
+against the intrigues of the camarilla headed by the Queen’s favourite.
+Then there were frequent rumours of an approaching _coup d’état_, on the
+plan of that of December 1851 in France, or of that, nearly resembling
+it, which the bravo-Murillo ministry had actually published, but had
+been unable to carry out. All this time (ever since the outbreak at
+Saragossa) the whole country was under martial law; no _coup d’état_
+could confer upon the government more arbitrary powers than those it
+already exercised—it could but legalise illegality. The case was vastly
+different in France and in Spain. In France, after a period of anarchy,
+succeeded by a conflict of political factions which rendered all
+government impossible, a man long depreciated, but now generally
+admitted to be of commanding talent, and, we are justified in believing,
+of far more patriotic mind than he ever had credit for, cut the knot of
+the difficulty, at the cost, certainly, of constitutional forms, but, as
+many now think, for the real benefit of the nation. In Spain, the
+situation of affairs was quite otherwise. Where was here the vigorous
+intellect whose judgment, and firmness and foresight were to guide,
+without assistance and through many perils, the ship of the state. Was
+it that of the unfortunate, uneducated Queen, who detests business, and
+passes her life sunk in sloth and sensuality? Was it to be the upstart
+unscrupulous minister who, by sheer audacity (the most valuable quality
+for a Spanish politician who seeks but his own aggrandisement), had
+first crawled and afterwards pushed his way to the head of the royal
+council-board? Or would the arch-intriguer, Maria Christina, sketch the
+course her daughter should adopt when converted into an absolute
+sovereign? No, for her time was too much taken up in adding, at the
+expense of Spain, to her already incalculable wealth, and in planning
+marriages for her numerous daughters. In short, to carry into the higher
+sphere of politics the general and servile imitation of France now
+observable in Spain, was an idea repugnant to the Spanish nation, and
+which increased, if possible, the universal discontent that already
+prevailed—excited by the closing of the chambers, the violence used
+towards the independent press (which it was evidently intended to
+crush), the notorious corruption of the administration; the
+unsatisfactory state of the finances, tending inevitably to some
+extraordinary exactions from the already over-taxed people; and last,
+but not least, by the scandalous concessions daily made to the friends
+and adherents of the ministry, and to those influential persons, the
+Rianzares, Señor Arana, Mr Salamanca, and others, whose enmity the
+Sartorius cabinet dared not encounter, and whose support they were
+compelled to purchase.
+
+It was understood that a military insurrection was contemplated, with
+O’Donnell at its head. The government affected to make light of the
+affair, but in reality they were not without uneasiness, for they could
+not but feel—although they daily had it proclaimed by the hireling
+_Heraldo_ that they were the saviours of the nation, and the most
+popular and prosperous of ministries—that they were execrated, and that
+all classes would rejoice in their downfall. It is difficult to convey
+to Englishmen—except to those who may be personally acquainted with this
+singular country and people—a clear idea of the state of political
+affairs in Madrid during the second quarter of the present year. I must
+content myself with supplying a few detached facts and details, from
+which you may, perhaps, form a notion of the whole. For three months
+conspiracy may be said to have walked the streets of Madrid openly and
+in broad daylight. Almost every one knew that something was plotting,
+and a considerable number of persons could have told the names of the
+chief conspirators, and given some sort of general outline of their
+plans. O’Donnell, disobeying the orders of the Queen’s government,
+remained hidden in Madrid, seeing numerous friends, but undiscoverable
+by the police. He had frequent meetings with his fellow-conspirators;
+his wife often saw him; for some time, during which he was seriously
+ill, he was daily visited by one of the first physicians in Madrid;
+still the government, although most anxious to apprehend him, failed in
+every attempt to discover his hiding-place, which was known to many. It
+is rare that the secrets of a conspiracy, when they have been confided
+to so large a number of persons, have been kept so well and for so long
+a time as in the present case; but this caution and discretion are
+easily explicable by the universal hatred felt for the present
+government and by the strong desire for its fall. The superior police
+authorities were bitterly blamed by the minister; large sums were placed
+at their disposal, numerous agents had assigned to them the sole duty of
+seeking O’Donnell. All was in vain. The government paid these agents
+well, but O’Donnell, as it afterwards appeared, paid them better. A
+portion, at least, of the men employed to detect him, watched over his
+safety. The government, ashamed of its impotence to capture, spread
+reports that he they sought had left Madrid; and, afterwards, that they
+knew where he was, but preferred leaving him there and watching his
+movements to seizing him and sending him out of the country, to prepare,
+on a foreign soil, revolutionary movements in the provinces of Spain.
+These ridiculous pretences imposed upon very few. Could the government
+have apprehended O’Donnell, they might not have dared to shoot him, and
+might have hesitated permanently to imprison him; but they would not
+have scrupled to ship him to the Philippines, where he would have done
+little mischief. The truth was, that they employed every means to
+discover his hiding-place, and every means proved ineffectual.
+O’Donnell, I am informed, was concealed in a house that communicated
+with the one next to it, which had back and front entrances. His friends
+and the friendly police kept strict watch. Of a night, when he sometimes
+went out to walk, his safety was cared for by the very men whom the
+authorities had commissioned to look for him, and who went away with him
+when he left Madrid to assume the command of the insurgents. A gentleman
+who, during a certain period, was in the habit of frequently seeing him,
+was one morning on his way to his place of concealment, and had entered
+the street in which it was situated, when a police agent, making him a
+sign, slipped a scrap of paper into his hand. On it were the words
+“Beware, you are watched.” Taking the hint, the person warned passed the
+house to which he was going, and entered another, in the same street,
+where he had friends. From the window he observed a policeman, who had
+been loitering about as if in the ordinary discharge of his duty,
+hastily depart. When he had made sure that the coast was clear, he left
+the house, entered that in which O’Donnell was, saw him, passed into the
+next house, and departed by the back door. There was soon a cordon of
+police agents round the house into which he first had gone, but their
+vigilance was fruitless. I had this anecdote from one of the most
+intimate friends of the person who visited O’Donnell, and who was named
+to me at the same time.
+
+During the period of suspense that preceded the insurrection, attempts
+were made to bring about a union between the Liberal party and the
+Moderado opposition. The former, although divided into sections which
+differ on certain points, is unanimous in its desire to see Spain
+governed constitutionally. Overtures were made to some of its chiefs. It
+was proposed that it should co-operate in the overthrow of the set of
+men who had detached themselves from all parties, and were marching on
+the high road to absolutism. These men, known as the Polacos or Poles—a
+word which seems to have had its origin in an electioneering joke—were
+odious alike to Progresistas and Moderados. But there were great
+difficulties in the way of a sincere and cordial junction between the
+two principal parties into which Spaniards are divided. The Moderados
+would gladly have availed themselves of the aid of the Liberals to upset
+their common enemy; but they would give them no guarantees that they
+should be, in any way, gainers by the revolution. The Liberals, on the
+other hand, mistrusted the Moderados, and would not assist men whose
+aims they believed to be purely personal. When the Moderados asked what
+guarantees they required, they were quickly ready with an answer. “Arm
+the national guard of Madrid,” they said; or, “March your troops, as
+soon as you have induced them to revolt, at once into Arragon, with one
+of our most influential and determined chiefs.” The Moderados could not
+be induced to listen to such terms. They found themselves exactly in the
+position in which the Progresistas were in 1843. Divided amongst
+themselves, the probabilities were that the insurrection they proposed
+would turn to the advantage of the Liberals; and the risk of this was
+doubled if they accepted even the most favourable of the conditions
+offered to them. They knew that the feeling of a large majority of the
+nation was in favour of the Progresistas; that Espartero, although for
+seven years he had led the life of a country gentleman at Logroño, and
+had steadily resisted all temptations to mingle again in political
+affairs, was in reality the most popular man in Spain, and that he was
+idolised by the people of Madrid. Some amongst them (O’Donnell himself,
+it has been said), whose views were more patriotic and less selfish than
+those of the majority, were not unwilling to blend with the
+Progresistas, to whom a few, including Rios Rosas, a distinguished
+lawyer and senator, frankly proclaimed their adherence, declaring that
+the parties which for so many years had divided Spain were virtually
+defunct, and that there were but two parties in the country,—the
+national one, which desired the welfare of Spain, and to see it governed
+according to the constitution, and the retrograde or absolutist, which
+trampled on the rights of the people. But although a few men were found
+ready to waive personal considerations and to forget old animosities,
+the great majority of the Moderados were less disinterested, and the
+decision finally come to was to do without the aid of the Liberals, and
+to accomplish an insurrection which, although its success was likely to
+be of some advantage to the country, at least for a time, had for its
+object a change of men rather than of measures.
+
+One of the most important persons concerned in the conspiracy was the
+Director of Cavalry, Major-General Domingo Dulce, reputed one of the
+best and bravest officers in the Spanish army, and who had won his high
+rank and many honours, not by political intrigue, as is so frequently
+the case in this country, but at the point of his good sword. He passed
+for a Progresista, and most of his friends were of that party; but in
+fact he had never mixed much in politics, and, as a military man, had
+served under governments of various principles. It is evident, however,
+that whilst confining himself to the duties of his profession—which is
+rarely the case with Spanish general officers—he cherished in his heart
+the love of liberty, and a strong detestation of the tyranny under which
+Spain has for some time groaned. An intimate friend of his, a well-known
+and distinguished Liberal, was the immediate means of his joining the
+conspiracy. It was an immense acquisition to the cause he agreed to
+assist. Chief of the whole of the Spanish cavalry, respected and beloved
+by the men and officers under his command, he could bring a large force
+to the insurgent banner, and his own presence beneath it was of itself
+of great value, for he is a daring and decided officer. He it was who,
+by his obstinate resistance in the palace, at the head of a handful of
+halberdiers, defeated the designs of the conspirators in the year 1841.
+Dulce is a slightly-made, active, wiry man, rather below the middle
+height, of bilious temperament, and taciturn mood, extremely reserved,
+even with his friends, not calculated to cut a great figure in the
+council, but a man of action, precious in the field. The other principal
+conspirators were General Messina, a man of education and talent, who
+had been under-secretary of the war department, and is an intimate
+friend of Narvaez; Ros de Olano, a general officer of some repute; and
+Brigadier Echague, colonel of the Principe regiment, a Basque officer
+who served with high distinction throughout the whole of the civil War.
+
+Several false starts were made before the insurrection really broke out.
+On the 13th of June, especially, it had been fixed to take place. The
+garrison of Madrid had been ordered to parade before daybreak for a
+military promenade and review outside the town. Such parades had been
+unusually frequent for a short time past; and it was thought the
+government ordered them, owing to information it received, not
+sufficiently definite to compromise the conspirators personally, but
+which yet enabled it to defeat their designs. On that morning, however,
+all was ready. The Principe regiment, instead of marching directly to
+the parade ground, lingered, and finally halted at a place where it
+could easily join the cavalry. O’Donnell left the town, disguised, and
+stationed himself in a house whence he could observe all that passed.
+Persons were placed in the vicinity to watch over his safety. The
+proclamations that had been prepared were got ready for distribution.
+Late on the eve of the intended outbreak, about four or five hours
+before it was to occur, its approach was known to several persons who,
+without being implicated in the plot, sincerely wished it success. There
+seemed no doubt of the event. But, at the very moment, a portion of the
+artillery of the garrison, which had pledged itself to take part in the
+movement, failed to make its appearance at the place of rendezvous.
+General Dulce considered their absence so important that he abandoned,
+for that day, his intention of marching off his cavalry, and declaring
+against the government. The combat of the 30th of June, in the fields of
+Vicálvaro, showed that he did not overrate the importance of including
+all arms in the composition of the insurrectionary force. At the time,
+however, a storm of censure burst over his head. He was taxed with
+treachery, with a deficiency in moral courage; his best friends looked
+mistrustfully and coldly upon him; more than one general officer,
+presuming on seniority of rank and age, took him severely to task.
+General O’Donnell was not backward in reproaching him. “Never was a
+white man” (these were the very words of the ex-governor of Cuba) “sold
+as you have sold me.” Dulce, although deeply sensitive to all this
+blame, took it meekly, acknowledged that appearances were against him,
+but declared that he had acted for the best, and steadily affirmed that
+his future conduct would prove his fidelity to the cause he had
+espoused. Not all believed him.
+
+Some days passed over, and there was no word of an insurrection. The
+conspirators were discouraged. Rumour spoke of dissensions among them.
+It was thought that nothing would occur. It was known to many that Dulce
+was of the conspiracy, and that, by his fault or will, a good
+opportunity had been lost; and they said that if he were not playing a
+double game, the government would certainly have heard of his complicity
+with O’Donnell, and would at least have removed him from his command. It
+was fact that, for some time past, anonymous letters had been received
+by the ministers, warning them that he was plotting against them. But
+they disbelieved this information, and some of the letters were even
+shown to Dulce. The Duke of Rianzares, calling one day on a minister,
+found Dulce there. “What is this that I hear, general?” said Queen
+Christina’s husband; “is it true that you intend to shoot us all?” The
+question was awkward, but easily parried. A few days before the
+insurrection occurred, Dulce went over to Alcala, five leagues from
+Madrid, under pretence of inspecting the recruits stationed there. Seven
+squadrons of cavalry were in that town. Doubtless his object was to see
+if he could still reckon upon their following him whithersoever he chose
+to lead. I met him in the street after his return; I think it was on the
+26th of June. He looked anxious and careworn. His position was certainly
+critical, and it is not presuming too much to suppose that a severe
+struggle was going on within him between a long habit of military
+discipline and duty, and what we must in justice believe to have been,
+in his opinion, a paramount duty to his oppressed country. For he was at
+the top of the tree. His position was splendid; his emoluments were
+large; he had but to persevere in his adherence to the government of the
+day to attain to the very highest rank in his profession—although that
+did not afford a more desirable place than the one he already occupied.
+Under these circumstances, even his enemies must admit—however guilty
+they may deem him—that he was not actuated by the selfish desire of
+personal advantage or aggrandisement.
+
+Madrid, incredulous of an insurrection, was taken completely by surprise
+by the news that greeted its uprising on the morning of the 28th June.
+Some hours previously, it was informed, the director-general of cavalry,
+after mustering for review, in a field just outside the walls, the
+eleven squadrons that formed part of the garrison of the capital, had
+been joined by a battalion of the regiment of Principe, by a few
+companies from other regiments, and by General O’Donnell himself, and
+had marched to Alcala to incorporate in his insurrectionary force the
+troops there stationed. Other generals, it was stated, were with him,
+but for many hours—indeed for the whole of that day—truth was hard to be
+got at, and Rumour had it all her own way. The aspect of Madrid was
+curious. The Queen and Court had left two days previously for the
+Escurial; all but two of the ministers were absent; those two were
+paralysed by the sudden event, and seemingly helpless. No measures were
+taken, no troops brought out; for a time it might have been thought
+that, as was reported, all but some fifteen hundred of these had left
+with the insurgent generals; for several hours the town was at the mercy
+of the people, and had they then risen it would probably have been their
+own, for many of the troops remaining in Madrid were disaffected and
+would have joined them. There was great excitement; the general
+expression was one of joy at the prospect of getting rid of a ministry
+than which none could be more odious; the Puerta del Sol and the
+principal streets were full of groups eagerly discussing the events of
+the hour; friends met each other with joyous countenances, and shook
+hands as if in congratulation—Liberals and Moderados alike well pleased
+at the event that threatened to prove fatal to the common enemy. I need
+not repeat the countless reports current on that day. The most important
+fact that became known was that the cavalry at Alcala had joined the
+insurgents, and that two thousand horsemen, some of the best dragoons in
+the Spanish army, were in hostile attitude close to Madrid, accompanied
+by a small but most efficient body of infantry. Towards evening the
+authorities began to awake from their lethargy of alarm. Ignorant of the
+fact that a line of telegraphic wires had been concluded on the previous
+day between Madrid and the Escurial, the insurgents had neglected to cut
+off this means of rapid communication; news of the insurrection had been
+transmitted to the Queen, and her return to the capital was announced.
+The streets were quickly filled with troops, illuminations were ordered
+(there was no hope of their being volunteered), and at about ten o’clock
+her Majesty made her entrance, passing completely through the town,
+having previously been to perform her devotions in the church of Atocha,
+whose presiding virgin is the special patroness of the royal family of
+Spain—the gracious protectress for whom princes embroider petticoats,
+and whose shrine queens enrich with jewels, whose cost would found an
+hospital or comfort many poor. A young Queen, entering her capital in
+haste and anxiety, a few hours after a revolt against her authority,
+ought, one might suppose, to command, by her mere presence, some
+demonstration of loyalty and affection from her subjects. But the
+present Queen of Spain has so completely weaned from her the affections
+of her people, has so well earned their contempt, and even their hatred,
+that neither on that night nor on any other occasion that I have
+witnessed was a voice uplifted or a _viva_ heard. A body of gendarmes,
+drawn up opposite to the ministry of the interior, cheered as she
+passed, and possibly the same may have been the case on the part of
+civil and military functionaries at other points of the line of her
+progress, but the attitude of the people and soldiers was one of perfect
+indifference. The same was the case on the following day, when she
+reviewed the garrison in the Prado, and conferred decorations and
+promotion on sergeants and privates who had distinguished themselves by
+their fidelity in refusing to be led away by the insurgents. Surrounded
+by a numerous staff of officers, and having the troops formed in such
+wise that as many as possible of them might hear her, she addressed to
+them a short speech, was profuse of smiles, and held up to them her
+infant daughter as if confiding it to their defence. Now was the time,
+if ever, for the old Castilian loyalty to burst forth in acclamation.
+But its spirit is dead, crushed by royal misconduct and misrule. Not a
+cheer was uttered, either by officer or soldier. The ominous silence was
+remarked by all present. It was equally profound as the Queen returned
+to her palace through the most populous streets of her capital, crowded
+on the warm summer night. It is said and believed here that, on reaching
+the palace, she was so affected and disheartened by the chilling
+reception she had on all sides met, that she burst into a passion of
+tears. Pity it is for the poor woman, who is not without some natural
+good qualities, but whom evil influences and a neglected education have
+brought to sorrow and contempt.
+
+I cannot pretend to relate all the incidents of the last fortnight,
+which has been crowded with them to an extent that baffles memory. The
+most important you will find in this letter—many of the minor ones have
+doubtless escaped me. I must devote a few more lines to the first day.
+An unsigned proclamation was circulated, of a tenor by no means
+unacceptable to the Liberals, whose chiefs consulted as to the propriety
+of rising in arms, or at least of making some demonstration of hostility
+to the government. Another proclamation, of greater length, signed by
+three generals, O’Donnell, Dulce, and Messina, disappointed them, for it
+contained not a word that guaranteed benefit to the nation, and spoke
+merely of the knavery of the ministers and of the necessity of getting
+rid of them. Moreover, a request was sent in by the insurgents that
+Madrid would remain quiet, and leave them to settle matters militarily.
+Between deliberation and delays the day passed away, and towards night
+the altered attitude of the authorities, who had received telegraphic
+orders from Mr Sartorius to act with the utmost vigour, the large bodies
+of troops in the streets convincing those who had previously doubted
+that there was still a sufficient force in the town to repress any
+popular attempt, caused half-formed plans to fall to the ground, and
+even the most ardent and bellicose resolved to wait the events of the
+morrow before shouldering musket and throwing up barricades.
+
+The morrow was the festival of St Peter, a great holiday, kept quiet as
+a Sunday, with much mass and bull-fights. I presume the churches were
+attended, but the bull-fights did not take place. Some arrests were
+made, but not many, for some of the persons sought after had concealed
+themselves. Madrid was still excited, but quite tranquil. On that and
+the following day every sort of rumour was current. The insurgents were
+near the town, and there were frequent reports that they were coming to
+attack it. Circulation was prohibited in the lower part of the street of
+Alcala, leading to the gate near to which the enemy were supposed to be.
+The residence of the Captain-general and the officers of the staff is in
+the lower part of that street, and the constant passage to and fro of
+orderlies and aides-de-camp interested the people: so that on the line
+of demarcation, beyond which there was no passage, there was a throng
+from morning till night, watching—they knew not exactly for what. From
+time to time there was a rush and panic—when the mob encroached on the
+limit, and the military were ordered to make them recede. The Café
+Suizo, at the summit of the street—which rises and again sinks over a
+small eminence—was a great point of rendezvous, and was crowded with
+eager politicians. Towards evening, on the 30th, the garrison (almost
+the whole) being out of the town, it became known that a fight was
+imminent, or already begun. This was in the neighbourhood; but as none
+were allowed to pass, or even to approach the gates, news were scanty,
+and little to be relied upon. Cannon and musketry were heard, and
+wounded men were seen straggling in. The fever of expectation was at its
+height. Public opinion was decidedly in favour of the insurgents. They
+would beat the government troops, it was said, and enter the town
+pell-mell with them. All the male population of Madrid was in the
+streets, a few troops were stationed here and there; there was no
+disorder, but it was easy to see that a trifle would produce it. I was
+in the Café Suizo, which was crowded in every part, a short time after
+nightfall, when one of the alarms I have referred to was given. There
+was a violent rush in the street outside, cries and shouts; those
+without crowded into the café, most of those within made for the open
+doors. The effect was really startling; it was exactly that produced by
+a charge of troops upon a mob; and I saw more than one cheek blanch
+amongst the consumers of ices and lemonade (the evening was extremely
+hot) who filled the café. But it was a groundless alarm, produced, as
+before, merely by the troops compelling the crowd to recede. Armed
+police circulated in the throng, dispersing groups, and urging them to
+go home. Soon the streets were comparatively clear, but the clubs and
+coffee-houses were filled until past midnight with persons discussing
+what had occurred, and giving fifty different versions. There had been a
+fight, it was certain, at about a league from Madrid, but who had won
+and who had lost was a matter of doubt until the next day.
+
+The _Madrid Gazette_, the order of the day, published by General
+O’Donnell, and conversation with officers present in the short but sharp
+action, enable me to give you a sketch, which you may rely upon as
+correct, of its principal incidents. The garrison of Madrid, consisting
+of about eight battalions of infantry, four batteries of artillery, and
+some three hundred cavalry, took position on a ridge of ground at about
+a league from Madrid. The enemy, strong in cavalry, but weak in
+infantry, sought to draw them farther from the town, and into a more
+favourable position for horse to act against them. As the result proved,
+the wisest plan would have been to persevere in these tactics, and, if
+the garrison refused to advance further, to let the day pass without an
+action. But General O’Donnell had assurances that a large portion of the
+troops opposed to him only waited an opportunity to pass over to his
+banner. A part of the artillery, especially, was pledged to do so. After
+some preliminary skirmishing, he ordered a charge, which was made in
+gallant style by two squadrons of the Principe regiment. In spite of a
+severe fire of shot and shell, reserved, until they were within a very
+short distance of the battery they attacked, they got amongst the guns,
+and sabred many of the artillerymen, but were prevented from carrying
+off the pieces, and compelled to retire, by the heavy fire of the
+squares of infantry formed in rear of the artillery. Having thus
+ascertained, beyond a doubt, that there was no chance of the artillery
+coming over to them, or allowing themselves to be taken, the insurgents
+would have perhaps acted wisely in making no farther attempts upon the
+hostile line, or, if they were resolved upon a contrary course, in
+assailing the flanks, instead of again charging up to the mouths of the
+cannon. But it appears from O’Donnell’s own bulletin that the troops
+were not well in hand, and that, enraged at finding themselves fired
+upon by those from whom they expected a very different reception, they
+made several charges under the direction of their regimental chiefs, but
+without the sanction of their generals. I can hardly give a better
+account of the latter part of the combat than is contained in two short
+paragraphs of the insurgent general’s order of the day, which has been
+copied in the government papers, and admitted by these to be a fair and
+true statement of what occurred. The bulletin is before me, and I
+translate the passages in question:—
+
+
+  “The retreat of the two squadrons of the Principe cavalry (those which
+  had charged the battery) was opportunely taken advantage of by the
+  hostile squadrons of the Villaviciosa lancers, and of the _Guardia
+  Civil_, who charged after them. This cavalry, however, was driven
+  back, when in full career, by the 3d and 4th squadrons of the
+  Principe, who routed them, cutting down a great part of them, and
+  receiving into their ranks a large number of the soldiers of
+  Villaviciosa, with their standard, and four officers, who reversed
+  their lances, proclaiming themselves friends. In a second charge made
+  by these same squadrons, the standard-bearer of Villaviciosa, and some
+  soldiers of the same corps, who had joined us only because they
+  considered themselves prisoners, went over again to the enemy.
+
+  “The bloody effect of the fire of the artillery, who, well assured
+  that they would not be encountered by the same arm (of which we had
+  none), had deliberately studied their range, and taken the breasts of
+  our soldiers for their mark, caused the action to become hot, and the
+  regiment of Farnesio again charged upon the guns, with great valour
+  and determination. At the very mouth of the cannon its colonel was
+  wounded and taken prisoner, and several officers and soldiers were
+  struck down, our cries of _Viva la Reina y la Constitucion_ being
+  drowned in the roar of the enemy’s pieces. Repeated charges of the
+  same regiment, and of those of Bourbon, Santiago, and the School of
+  Cavalry, must have convinced our opponents in the action of Vicálvaro,
+  that the feelings which prompted those cries are to be extinguished in
+  the hearts of our brave soldiers by death alone.”
+
+
+The upshot of the action was this: The insurgents accepted battle when
+there was little to be gained by them in so doing, unless, indeed, the
+contest had been conducted very differently, and a more judicious plan
+had been adopted than that of charging headlong up to the muzzles of
+artillery supported by squares of infantry. But this mistake had its
+origin, as I have already observed, in the expectation that the
+artillery would not fire. The insurgents were repulsed, not, however,
+without inflicting considerable loss upon their enemies. The garrison
+returned into Madrid in some haste and confusion, and near the gate a
+singular incident occurred. It was dark, and some lancers appeared on
+their flank—insurgents, according to some accounts—a part of their own
+cavalry, as it is reported by others. The exact truth will probably
+never be known. But a panic seized the infantry; some of the battalions
+were composed in great part of recruits; young soldiers, retiring
+hastily and in the dark after their first fight, are easily alarmed; the
+confusion that ensued was as great as that of a rout; the men fired at
+random killing and wounding their own friends, and a great number,
+especially of the battalion of engineers, were thus injured. The
+government papers passed this unlucky mistake almost _sub silentio_; but
+the fact is certain, the troops returned into the town in disorder, and
+it was not until the next day that all the wounded were brought in.
+
+Some prisoners had been taken from the insurgents, including three or
+four wounded officers, the chief of whom, Colonel Garrigó, was captured
+amongst the guns, where his horse fell, killed by grape-shot. The
+gallant manner in which Garrigó had led his men again and again to the
+charge, encountering each time a storm of bullets, had excited a strong
+interest in his fate, and measures were taken to move the queen’s
+clemency on his behalf. Before the result of these were known, and when
+it was thought probable that at any hour he might be judged, condemned,
+and shot, I went to the ward of the military hospital where he lay under
+arrest, to see another officer of cavalry who had been wounded when with
+the insurgents. This officer had gone out of Madrid to see some friends
+who were with O’Donnell; he was in plain clothes and without arms, but,
+venturing too far forward during the action, he got struck from his
+horse, and received, as he lay on the ground, a lance-thrust in the
+neck, of which, however, he complained less than of blows received from
+the lance-poles, when the men struck at him as they rode rapidly past.
+He had afterwards been taken prisoner by an officer, and brought into
+Madrid. In the next bed to him was Garrigó, a swarthy, soldierly-looking
+man of about fifty-five; he had been hit in the leg, but not severely,
+by a grape-shot, and was sitting up in bed, fanning away the flies which
+entered in unpleasant numbers through the open windows. He looked
+gloomy, but firm. There were some other wounded officers in the ward,
+one of whom subsequently died after undergoing amputation of a leg, and
+a number of soldiers in an adjoining one. Amongst the insurgents, I
+heard there were as many killed as wounded; and many horses dead, the
+artillery having pointed their guns low. Grape and round shot, at fifty
+paces, the distance to which the cavalry were allowed to come before the
+gunners got the word, were quite as likely, perhaps, to kill as only to
+wound. An officer received two grape-shot in his face—one at each angle
+of the nostrils; another, Captain Letamendi, the English son of a
+Spanish father, who served during the civil war in the British Legion,
+was met by a round shot, which carried away the greater part of his
+head. But you will find nothing attractive in such details.
+
+The combat of Vicálvaro, insignificant in its material results, had
+little effect upon the _morale_ of either party. The government troops
+were assured by the gazette that they had achieved a glorious victory,
+of which they themselves were not very sure, especially when they saw
+the numerous carts of wounded that came into the town, and remembered
+their own disorderly return from the field and final panic. The
+insurgents, conscious that they had fought gallantly, and lost no
+ground, although they had failed in their chief object, which was to
+capture the artillery, were well satisfied with themselves, and in no
+way disheartened by the event. It was clear that the insurgent generals
+must not reckon on the support of the garrison of Madrid, and they
+consequently changed their plans, retiring to Aranjuez, a pleasant spot,
+eight leagues from Madrid, with abundant shade, water, and forage, where
+for two or three days they gave their men and horses rest, organised
+their staff and commissariat, and took other measures necessary for the
+welfare of the division. There they received several reinforcements,
+both of infantry and cavalry, and were joined by a number of civilians
+from Madrid, many of them belonging to the better classes. These
+received caps, muskets, and belts, and were formed into a battalion
+called the _Cazadores di Madrid_.
+
+Meanwhile, the capital anxiously awaited news from the provinces, where
+insurrections were expected to occur. Madrid itself continued perfectly
+tranquil, although occasional rumours of an intended popular rising
+alarmed the government. The excitement of the first three days subsided
+into a strong interest. There was great eagerness for news from the
+insurgents, and much difficulty in learning anything authentic,
+especially when once they had left Aranjuez. Save the government and its
+hangers-on and personal adherents, all Madrid was for the insurrection,
+and heartily wished it well. The recent compulsory advance of half a
+year’s taxes, extorted from the people by a notoriously corrupt and
+grasping government, had greatly incensed the Madrileños, who did not
+scruple openly to express their good wishes for Generals O’Donnell and
+Dulce, the most prominent personages of the day and of the movement.
+Although the insurrection deprived Madrid of two things which it can ill
+do without, bull-fights and strawberries, not a murmur was heard on this
+account. Aranjuez is the strawberry garden of Madrid, and from it daily
+comes an abundant supply of that fruit, particularly grateful in this
+hot climate. I suppose that the insurgents, who had been for three days
+roasting in the shadeless desert that surrounds this capital, needed
+refreshment, and eat up all the strawberries, or else that the want of a
+railway—that to Aranjuez being partly in the hands of the government,
+and partly in those of O’Donnell, and cut in the middle—precluded their
+being sent. As for bull-fights, it was no time for them when man-fights
+were going on; and moreover, the gates of Madrid were for several days
+shut—besides which, some of the bull-fighters are said to have joined
+the insurgents. The dramatic season being at an end, and all the
+theatres closed, Madrid has now for sole amusement the insurrection,
+which every day seems taking farther from its walls, but which not
+impossibly may break out again within them. If a decided advantage were
+gained by O’Donnell’s division, or if news came that Saragossa or some
+other large town had pronounced against the government, there would very
+likely be a rising in this capital. I am assured that attempts are now
+making to work upon the troops of the garrison, and if only a few
+companies could be won over and relied upon, the government might
+speedily be upset. There are in Madrid plenty of ex-national guards, and
+of men who have served in the army, who would quickly produce their
+hidden arms and rush out into the streets, with cries of “Down with the
+ministry.” It is matter of considerable doubt whether these would be
+coupled with _vivas_ for the Queen. As for the Queen-mother, I am
+convinced that her life would be in danger in the event of such an
+outbreak. She is deeply detested here; the more so as she is known to
+support the present government with all the influence she possesses over
+her daughter. A Madrid revolutionary mob is dangerous, vindictive, and
+bloody-minded. In proof of this many incidents recur to my memory, and
+doubtless will to yours—amongst others, the fate of Quesada, whose son
+is now military governor here, and who was almost torn to pieces at the
+country house in the environs, whither he had fled for shelter. His
+murderers returned to Madrid, singing the dreaded _Tragala!_ and drank
+in the public cafés bowls of coffee stirred with his severed fingers.
+The revolutionary spirit is calmer now, but it may again revive upon
+occasion. No person in Spain, not even Sartorius himself, who certainly
+is sufficiently hated, is so much under public ban as Maria Christina.
+She doubtless knows it: her conscience can hardly be easy, and her fears
+are probably roused; for her approaching departure for France is much
+spoken of, and likely to take place.
+
+Since O’Donnell’s division left the neighbourhood of Madrid, we have
+heard comparatively little concerning him. We know his route; also that
+his strength has somewhat increased, that his troops are
+well-disciplined and confident of success, and that he is at this date
+in Andalusia. Where he may be, and what may have occurred by the time
+you receive this letter, it is of course impossible to foretell; but,
+although ministerial bulletins daily scatter his men to the winds,
+representing them as deserting, weary, exterminated, and, if possible,
+even in worse plight, the truth is that they are in as good order, and
+as ready for service, as if they held themselves subject to the
+government of the Queen. Every possible means have been taken by the
+authorities to throw discredit upon the insurgents and upon their
+leaders, by representing them as robbers and oppressors, paying for
+nothing, ill-treating the people, and exacting forced contributions at
+the bayonet’s point. “To lie like a bulletin,” is an old saying, but it
+would be at least as apt to say—“like the _Madrid Gazette_ or the
+_Heraldo_ newspaper.” I can well imagine how difficult it must be in
+other countries to get at the truth about Spanish affairs, when I see
+the systematic efforts made to suppress it here. Letters are seized by
+wholesale in their passage through the post-office, some newspapers are
+suppressed, and others are permitted to publish no news but those they
+copy from the government journals, which are for the most part
+ingeniously embellished to suit the purpose of the ministers; whilst
+sometimes they are pure fabrications. One of the great occupations of
+the official papers, for the first few days after the insurrection broke
+out, was to blacken the character of its leaders. Dulce, especially—who,
+in common with the other generals engaged in the outbreak, had been
+stripped by royal decree of all rank, titles, and honours—was the object
+of abuse which bordered upon billingsgate.
+
+The virtuous _Heraldo_ daily came out with fierce philippics upon the
+“rebel and traitor,” who had deserted his Queen because he deemed that
+she had deserted the country and broken her oath, and who, by so doing,
+had exchanged large emoluments, high rank, and one of the best positions
+his profession affords in Spain, for the uncertain fate of an insurgent
+leader—perhaps, in the end, for a short shrift and a firing party. The
+men of the _Heraldo_ could not understand this; they felt that _they_
+were incapable of such conduct; in their heart of hearts they must have
+thought Dulce more remarkable as a fool than as a rebel, but in their
+paper they contented themselves with abusing him as the latter. Inexpert
+with the pen, Dulce nevertheless took it up to reply. On the 1st of
+July, the day after the drawn fight of Vicálvaro, and in a village close
+to the scene of action, he wrote a letter, whose faulty style and
+soldierly abruptness are the best evidence of its being his own
+unassisted production. As a characteristic production, and in justice to
+its writer, who will doubtless be blamed by many in foreign countries,
+where the facts of the case and the extent of the sacrifices he has made
+are imperfectly known and appreciated, I give you a translation of the
+letter. It is addressed to the editors of the _Heraldo_, and runs as
+follows:—
+
+“Since you have allowed the publication in your periodical of an article
+referring to me personally, and to my conduct, and as I consider that an
+insult is not a reason, I trust you will be pleased to publish my
+protest against the whole of your accusation, by doing which you will
+fulfil your duty as public writers.
+
+“I do not wish to prejudge the issue of our enterprise; whatever that
+may be it will not surprise me, or make me repent what I have done. That
+I may not be disappointed, the worst that I expect is to die in the
+field of battle or in the _Campo de Guardias_ (the place of military
+executions at Madrid). Whatever occurs, I shall have acted according to
+my conscience.
+
+“I seek neither places nor honours, for I have them in abundance. No
+desire of revenge of any kind has moved me, for I cherish neither
+dislike nor resentment against the persons composing the present
+government, and much less against the Queen. The cause of my
+insurrection is entirely the memory that I have of the oath taken by the
+King of Castile when he ascends the throne. He swears upon the Holy
+Scriptures to observe and enforce the law of the State—‘_and if I should
+not do so, I desire not to be obeyed_.’
+
+“My conviction is, that the Queen has violated her oath, and, in this
+case, I prefer being guilty of _leze-majesty_ to being guilty of
+_leze-nation_.
+
+“I well know that the sentiments I have expressed will not convince you,
+because they must be felt and not explained. For my justification I
+appeal to the inexorable tribunal of posterity, and to the secret police
+of the consciences of yourselves in the first place, of the Queen
+herself, and of this unhappy country.
+
+“A copy of this document is already on the road, and will be published,
+as you will see, in foreign countries. I also send it to other Madrid
+newspapers, although I believe that a miserable fear will prevent their
+publishing it.
+
+“That you may never be able to deny that I have sent you this letter, I
+have had formal registry made of it, and it perhaps will one day be
+published. I trust then that you will be sufficiently generous and
+gentlemanly[29] to insert it in your periodical, by doing which you will
+highly oblige me. (Signed) EL GENERAL DULCE.
+
+“Vallecas, 1st July 1854.
+
+“The original is to be found duly stamped in the register of this
+corporation, where it has been inserted against the will of the
+individuals composing it, who are exempt from all blame.”
+
+I need hardly say that the _Heraldo_ has not published this letter, of
+which numerous copies have been distributed in Madrid by friends of its
+writer, and by persons who believe that, as he himself says, he has
+“acted according to his conscience (_dado una satisfaccion à mi
+conciencia_), and who admire his disinterestedness—the rarest quality
+amongst public men in Spain.
+
+It is not easy to foretell the result of this insurrection, which has
+now lasted for fifteen days without any decisive or even important
+event. The country, taken by surprise, and ignorant of the objects of
+the outbreak—which it suspected to have been made merely to bring about
+a change of men, but not of system—looked on at first with apathy.
+O’Donnell’s greatest error was the first proclamation he issued, which,
+in many words, said nothing and held out no prospect of advantage to the
+people. Another has just appeared, short, pithy, explicit, and
+calculated to satisfy the liberal party. It promises the Spanish nation
+the benefits of the representative system, for which it has shed so much
+of its blood and made so many sacrifices, as yet without result.
+
+“It is time,” it continues, “to say what we propose doing on the day of
+victory. We desire the preservation of the throne, but without the
+camarilla that dishonours it; the rigorous enforcement of the
+fundamental laws, improving them, especially those of elections and of
+the press; a diminution of taxation, founded on strict economy; respect
+to seniority and merit in the civil and military services. We desire to
+relieve the towns from the centralising system that consumes them,
+giving them the local independence necessary to preserve and increase
+their own interests; and, as a guarantee of all these things, we desire
+the NATIONAL MILITIA, and will plant it on a solid basis. Such are our
+intentions, which we frankly express, but without imposing them upon the
+nation. The juntas of government that are to be constituted in the free
+provinces, the general Cortes that are soon to be assembled, the nation
+itself, in short, shall fix the definitive bases of the liberal
+regeneration to which we aspire. We devote our swords to the national
+will, and sheathe them only when it is fulfilled.”
+
+This proclamation is dated from Manzanaris, the 7th July, and is signed
+by O’Donnell. You will observe that no mention is made in it of the
+Queen. It is monarchical, because it desires to “preserve the throne;”
+but it by no means pledges those who publish it to retain Isabella II.
+The promise to arm the national guard is the most important that it
+contains, since that is the only guarantee the Liberals can have for the
+fulfilment of the other pledges. It may possibly induce the
+Progresistas, who hitherto have scarcely stirred in the business, to
+take active measures. Meanwhile we hear of risings and armed bands in
+various parts of the country, and persons familiar with Spanish
+revolutions, and who have witnessed many of them, notice signs of
+fermentation, which prove the insurrectionary spirit to be spreading—a
+bubble here and there on water, indicating that it will presently boil.
+When O’Donnell’s proclamation gets spread abroad, and its purport known,
+it is quite possible that large towns or districts may declare for the
+insurgents. In Spain, however, it is most difficult to speculate on
+coming events, for it is the land of the unforeseen—_le pays de
+l’imprévu_—and I shall not attempt to play the prophet, for, if I did,
+perhaps, before my letter reached you, the electric telegraph would have
+proved me a false one. Moreover, I have no time to add much more, for I
+well know that you, Ebony, will grumble, if this letter does not reach
+you somewhere about the twentieth of the month. Moreover, the horses of
+Maga’s foreign-service messenger neigh with impatience, and the escort
+which is to accompany him on the first stage of his journey is already
+formed up. For the roads are far from safe just now, thanks to the
+concentration of the gendarmes, (who usually keep excellent order upon
+them), to do duty in the capital, or pursue the insurgents. We hear of
+various bands appearing—north, south, and east—some calling themselves
+Carlists, others Republicans, but in either case probably not pleasant
+to meet on the road; and besides those there are smaller parties who do
+not aspire to a political character, and are abroad simply for their own
+behoof and advantage, and, I need not say, for the disadvantage of the
+travellers they may chance to encounter. As for sending letters of the
+nature and importance of this one by the ordinary channel of Her
+Catholic Majesty’s mails, one would do better to abstain from writing
+them, as the chances would be fifty to one against their ever reaching
+their destination. One might almost as well throw them into the fire as
+into the marble lion’s mouth that yawns at the _casa de correos_,—as if
+to warn people of the dangers their correspondence runs. Were I to
+consign this epistle to leo’s jaws, I should not expect it ever to go
+farther than to the Graham-department of the Madrid post-office.
+
+Although you will have gathered from the newspapers the principal
+events, and some of the minor particulars of the insurrection of 1854—as
+far as it has as yet gone—this sketch of it, however imperfect, from an
+eyewitness, will, I trust, interest you. Spanish revolutions and
+insurrections rarely resemble each other; every successive outbreak has
+a character of its own, distinct from that of its predecessors. And that
+of the 28th of last month has peculiar features, which I have
+endeavoured to portray. If my letter has no other merit, it will, I
+think, bring its readers, concisely, without much detail, but with
+perfect truth, up to the present point of Spanish politics. Should aught
+worth relating occur whilst I am within the boundaries of Queen Isabel’s
+dominions, rely upon my keeping you duly informed. Meanwhile, may
+Providence preserve you, in your happy Land of Cakes, alike from
+military revolts, and from popular _pronunciamientos_. So prays, from
+his exile _in partibus_, your faithful
+
+                                                                VEDETTE.
+
+
+
+
+                        THE ETHNOLOGY OF EUROPE.
+
+
+“There were brave men before Agamemnon,”—heroes before there was a Homer
+to sing them, says that prince of sensible poets, Horace. It is not less
+true that there were nations before history—communities, races, of which
+the eye of civilisation never caught a glimpse. In some cases, before
+the light of history broke in upon their seclusion, these old types of
+mankind, losing their individuality, had become merged in a succeeding
+and mightier wave of population; in others they had wholly
+disappeared,—they had lived and fought and died in perfect isolation
+from every focus of civilisation, and left not even a floating legend
+behind them in the world. Man’s mortality—the destiny of the individual
+to pass away from earth like a vapour, making room for others, heirs of
+his wisdom and unimbued with his prejudices—is the most familiar of
+truths; but the mortality of nations, the death of races, is a
+conception which at first staggers us. That a family should grow into a
+nation,—that from the loins of one man should descend a seed like unto
+the sands on the sea-shore for multitude, appears to our everyday senses
+as a natural consequence; but that nations should dwindle down to
+families, and families into solitary individuals, until death gets all,
+and earth has swallowed up a whole phase of humanity, is a thought the
+grandeur of which is felt to be solemn, if not appalling. The
+conception, however, need not be a strange one. Facts, which reconcile
+us to everything, are testifying to its truth even at the present day.
+It is not long since the Guanches in the Canary Islands, that last
+specimen of what may once have been a race, and the Guarras in Brazil,
+dwindled out of existence in their last asylum,—expiring at the feet of
+the more lordly race which the fulness of time brought to their
+dwellings.
+
+Not to mention the Miaou-tse in China, and other relics of Asiatic
+races, the same phenomenon is more impressively presented to us among
+the Red Men of America, where the old race is seen dying out beneath our
+very eyes. Year by year they are melting away. Of the millions which
+once peopled the vast regions on this side of the Mississippi River, all
+have vanished, but a few scattered families; and it is as clear as the
+sun at noonday, that in a few generations more, the last of the Red Men
+will be numbered with the dead. Why, is it asked, are they thus doomed?
+In the suburbs of Mobile, or wandering through its streets, you will see
+the remnant of the Choctaw tribe, covered with nothing but blankets, and
+living in bark tents, scarcely a degree advanced above the beasts of the
+field. No philanthropy can civilise them,—no ingenuity can induce them
+to do an honest day’s work. The life of the woods is struck from
+them,—the white man has taken their hunting-grounds; and they live on
+helpless as in a dream, quietly abiding their time. They are stationary,
+they will not advance; and, like everything stationary, the world is
+sweeping away. They sufficed for the first phase of humanity in the New
+World. As long as there was only need for man to be lord of the woods
+and of the animal creation, the Red Man did well; but no sooner did the
+call come for him to perfect himself, and change the primeval forest
+into gardens, than the Red Man knew, by mysterious instinct, that his
+mission was over,—and either allowed himself, in sheer apathy, to sink
+out of existence among the pitiless feet of the new-comers, or died
+fighting fiercely with the apostle of a civilisation which he hated but
+could not comprehend.
+
+Far back in the history of Europe and of our own country—or rather, we
+should say, in periods entirely pre-historic—it is now known that a
+similar disappearance of a human race has taken place. Celt and Teuton,
+we fancy, were the first occupiers of Europe,—but the case is not so. A
+wave or waves of population had preceded even them; and as we dig down
+into the soil beneath us, ever and anon we come upon strange and
+startling traces of those primeval occupants of the land. In those
+natural museums of the past, the caves and peat-bogs of Europe, the
+keen-witted archæologists of present times are finding abundant relics
+of a race dissimilar from all the human varieties of which written
+history takes cognisance. The researches of Wilson among the peat-bogs
+of the British Isles have brought to light traces of no less than two
+distinct pre-Celtic races inhabiting the land,—one of which had the
+skull of a singularly broad and short, square and compact form, while
+the head of the other race was long and very narrow, or “boat-shaped.”
+The exhumations of Retzius show that precisely similar races once
+inhabited Scandinavia. The caves and ossuaries of Franconia and Upper
+Saxony prove that in Central Europe, also, there were races before the
+advent of the Celts; and the researches of Boucher de Perthes, amid the
+alluvial stratifications of the river Somme, indicate a not less ancient
+epoch for the cinerary urns, bones, and instruments of a primordial
+people in France.
+
+
+  “Here,” says M. de Perthes, “we naturally inquire, who were these
+  mysterious primitive inhabitants of Gaul? We are told that this part
+  of Europe is of modern origin, or at least of recent population. Its
+  annals scarcely reach to twenty centuries, and even its traditions do
+  not exceed two thousand five hundred years. The various people who are
+  known to history as having occupied it—the Gauls, the Celts, the
+  Veneti, Ligurians, Iberians, Cimbrians, and Scythians have left no
+  vestiges to which we can assign that date. The traces of those
+  [originally] nomadic tribes who ravaged Gaul scarcely precede the
+  Christian era by a few centuries. Was Gaul, then, a desert, a
+  solitude, before this period? Was its sun less genial, or its soil
+  less fertile? Were not its hills as pleasant, and its plains and
+  valleys as ready for the harvest? Or, if men had not yet learned to
+  plough and sow, were not its rivers filled with fish, and its forests
+  with game? And, if the land abounded with everything calculated to
+  attract and support a population, why should it not have been
+  inhabited? The absence of great ruins, indeed, indicates that Gaul at
+  this period, and even much later, had not attained a great degree of
+  civilisation, nor been the seat of powerful kingdoms; but why should
+  it not have had its towns and villages?—or rather, why should it not,
+  like the steppes of Russia, the prairies and virgin forests of
+  America, and the fertile plains of Africa, have been overrun from time
+  immemorial by tribes of men—savages, perhaps, but nevertheless united
+  in families if not in nations?”
+
+
+We shall not dwell at present upon the relics of these races who have
+thus preceded all history, and vanished into their graves before a
+civilised age could behold them. We shall not accompany M. de Perthes in
+his various excavations, nor, after passing through the first stratum of
+soil, and coming to the relics of the middle ages, see him meet
+subsequently, in regular order, with traces of the Roman and Celtic
+periods, until at last he comes upon weapons, utensils, figures, signs
+and symbols, which must have been the work of a surpassingly ancient
+people. We need not describe his discovery of successive beds of bones
+and ashes, separated from each other by strata of turf and tufa, with no
+less than five different stages of cinerary urns, belonging to distinct
+generations, of which the oldest were deposited below the woody or
+diluvian turf,—nor the coarse structure of these vases (made by hand and
+dried in the sun), nor the rude utensils of bone, or roughly-carved
+stone, by which they were surrounded.[30] Neither need we do more than
+allude to the remains of a fossil whale recently exhumed in Blair
+Drummond moss, (twenty miles from the nearest point of the river Forth
+where, by any possibility, a whale could nowadays be stranded), having
+beside it a rude harpoon of deer’s horn—speaking plainly of the
+coexistence, in these remote pre-Celtic times, of human inhabitants.
+Even above ground there are striking relics scattered over Europe which
+it would be hazardous to assign to any race known to history. Those
+circles of upright stones, of which Stonehenge is the most familiar
+example, date back to an unknown antiquity. They are found throughout
+Europe, from Norway to the Mediterranean; and manifestly they must have
+been erected by a numerous people, and faithful exponents of a general
+sentiment, since we find them in so many countries. They are commonly
+called Celtic or Druidic; not because they were raised originally by
+Druids, but because they had been used in the Druidical worship, though
+erected, it may be, for other uses, or dedicated to other
+divinities,—even as the temples of Paganism afterwards served for the
+solemnities of Christianity. All that we know is, that, having neither
+date nor inscription, they must be older than written language,—for a
+people who can write never leave their own names or exploits
+unchronicled. The ancients were as ignorant on this matter as ourselves;
+even tradition is silent; and, at the period of the Roman invasion, the
+origin of those monuments was already shrouded in obscurity. A
+revolution, therefore, must have intervened between the time of their
+erection and the advent of the Legions; and what revolution could it be
+in those days save a revolution of race? “The Celtæ,” says Dr Wilson,
+“are by no means to be regarded as the primal heirs of the land, but
+are, on the contrary, comparatively recent intruders. Ages before their
+migration into Europe, an unknown Allophylian race had wandered to this
+remote island of the sea, and in its turn gave place to later
+Allophylian nomades, also destined to occupy it only for a time. Of
+these ante-historical nations, archæology alone reveals any traces.”
+
+Passing from this strange and solemn spectacle of the death and utter
+extinction of human races, once living and enjoying themselves amidst
+those very scenes where we ourselves now pant and revel in the drama of
+existence,—let us look upon the face of Europe as it appears when first
+the light of history broke upon it. Since then, there have been
+remarkable declines, but no extinction of races. As if war and rivalry
+were a permanent attribute of the species, when the curtain first rises
+upon Europe, it is a struggle of races that is discernible through the
+gloom. A dark-skinned race, long settled in the land, are fighting
+doggedly with a fair-skinned race of invaders from the East. The
+dark-skins were worsted, but still survive—definitely in detached
+groups, and indefinitely as a leaven to entire populations. That
+dark-skinned race have been called Iberians,—the fair-skinned new-comers
+were the Indo-Germans, headed by the Gaels or Celts. When the two races
+first met in Europe—the _blond_ from the south-east, meeting the _dark_
+in the west—they encountered each other as natural enemies, and a severe
+struggle ensued. The Celts finally forced their way into Spain, and
+established themselves there,—became more or less amalgamated with the
+darker occupants, and were called _Celt-Iberians_. Ever since, these two
+opposite types have been commingling throughout Western Europe; but a
+complete fusion has not even yet taken place, and the types of each are
+still traceable in certain localities.
+
+There was thus an Iberian world before there was a Celtic world. One of
+the pre-Celtic populations of the British Isles was probably Iberian;
+and their type, besides leavening indefinitely a portion of the present
+population, is still distinctly traceable in many of the dark-haired,
+dark-eyed, and dark-skinned Irish, as well as occasionally in Great
+Britain itself. The Basques, protected by their Pyrenean fastnesses, are
+a still existent group of nearly pure Iberians; and of their tongue,
+termed Euskaldune by its speakers, Duponceau long ago said:—“This
+language, preserved in a corner of Europe, by a few thousand
+mountaineers, is the sole remaining fragment of perhaps a hundred
+dialects, constructed on the same plan, which probably existed and were
+universally spoken, at a remote period, in that quarter of the world.
+Like the bones of the mammoth, and the relics of unknown races which
+have perished, it remains a monument of the destruction brought by a
+succession of ages. It stands single and alone of its kind, surrounded
+by idioms whose modern construction bears no analogy to it.”
+
+The Bretons form another isolated but less distinct group of still
+existent Iberians. To this day they present a striking contrast to the
+population around them, who are of tall stature, with blue eyes, white
+skins, and blond hair—communicative, impetuous, versatile—passing
+rapidly from courage to timidity, and from audacity to despair;—in other
+words, presenting the distinctive character of the Celtic race, now, as
+in the ancient Gauls. The Bretons are entirely different. They are
+taciturn—hold strongly to their ideas and usages—are persevering and of
+melancholic temperament;—in a word, both in _morale_ and _physique_,
+they present the type of a southern race. And this brings us to the
+question—whence came these Iberians? M. Bodichon, a surgeon
+distinguished for fifteen years in the French army of Algeria, observes
+that persons who have lived in Brittany, and then go to Algeria, are
+struck with the resemblance which they discover between the ancient
+Armoricans (the Bretons) and the Cabyles of northern Africa. “In fact,
+the moral and physical character of the two races is identical. The
+Breton of pure blood has a bony head, light-yellow complexion of bistre
+tinge, eyes black or brown, stature short, and the black hair of the
+Cabyle. Like him, he instinctively hates strangers. In both, the same
+perverseness and obstinacy, the same endurance of fatigue, same love of
+independence, same inflexion of voice, same expression of feelings.
+Listen to a Cabyle speaking his native tongue, and you will think you
+hear a Breton talking Celtic.” Impressed with this resemblance, M.
+Bodichon was induced to reflect on the subject, and at last came to the
+conclusion that the Berbers who primally peopled Northern Africa, and
+the dark-skinned Iberians of Western Europe, belonged to the same race.
+He thinks that, as Europe and Africa were once united at their western
+extremities, previous to the convulsion which produced the Straits of
+Gibraltar, this Iberian population passed into Spain by this primeval
+isthmus, and thence diffused themselves over Western Europe and its
+isles. Whether this were actually the case, it is hard to say; but it is
+important to note that Sallust, quoting “the Punic books which were
+ascribed to King Hiempsal,” exactly reverses the course of migration,
+and states that the progenitors of the African Moors were Medians and
+Persians who had marched through Europe into Spain, and thence into
+Mauritania—though whether overland by the isthmus, or by boats across
+the strait, is still left to conjecture. Prichard thinks the Libyans and
+Iberians were distinct races, but owns that they were found
+intermingling in the islands and along the western shores of the
+Mediterranean. Of course it may be taken for granted that among these
+Iberians thus spread over Africa, Spain, France, and the British Isles,
+local differences would exist—just as there is a perceptible difference
+between the Anglo-Saxons of the Old World and those of the New; but
+there is little doubt that the _Scoti_ of Ireland, the Iberians of
+Spain, and the Berbers of Africa, belonged to a fundamentally identical
+race.
+
+How any race first came into a country, is a matter of little moment,
+especially when the epoch of their arrival so far transcends the dawn of
+history as does that of the Iberians. Even the first wave of the Celtic
+migration had reached the West before any scrutiny of their progress was
+possible; for when tradition first dimly opens upon Gaul, about 1500 B.
+C., its territory was occupied by these two primitive and
+distinctly-marked Caucasian races—the Celts and Iberians: the one
+fair-skinned and light-haired, the other a dark race; and each speaking
+a language bearing no affinity to that of the other—precisely as the
+Euskaldune of the present Basques is unintelligible to Gaelic tribes of
+Lower Brittany. Some of the subsequent waves of Celtic or Scythic
+migration come within the ken of history; and it is remarkable that the
+line of march which these followed, after passing the shores of the
+Black Sea, seems to have been along the “Riphæan Valley,” which lay to
+the north of the Carpathian mountains, and stretched to the Baltic. Now,
+if we look at the contour map of Europe in _Johnston’s Physical Atlas_,
+we see a narrow strip of the lowest elevation extending from the Black
+Sea to the Baltic—nowhere rising to the second line of elevation, _i.e._
+more than 150 and less than 300 feet above the level of the sea,—and
+turning to the geological map, we find that this same tract is overlaid
+with recent diluvial deposits. We know that the Scandinavian region is
+rising, and it is probable that all the plain of Sarmatia has partaken
+of the elevation,—and before the barriers of the Thracian Bosphorus
+burst, it is quite certain that the waters of the Caspian, the Euxine,
+and the Baltic were united by that “ocean-river” of which Homer, Hesiod,
+and all the old bards sing, and by sailing along which, both the
+Argonauts and Ulysses are reported to have passed northwards into the
+western ocean. The existence of this vast belt of water, stretching from
+the southmost point of the Baltic to the Caucasus, is probably one
+reason why the Slavonians were late of appearing in southern Europe, and
+why no sprinkling of them or of the Mongols is to be found among the
+early settlers of South-western Europe. All the early migrations into
+Europe proceeded from Caucasian or sub-Caucasian regions—a circumstance
+which, considering the known simultaneous existence of roving hordes and
+a great population on the Mongolian plains, can hardly be accounted for
+on the supposition that the face of Eastern Europe has since then
+undergone no change. But on the supposition we make, the chain of the
+Ural Mountains and this large Mediterranean basin would for long act as
+restraints upon any tendency of the Mongolian population to move
+westward, or of the Slavonians to move southwards.[31]
+
+The next wave of population which flowed westwards was the Cimbri or
+Cimmerians,—a people cognate to the Celts or Gaels, yet by no means
+closely related. About the seventh century B.C., as may be inferred from
+Herodotus, a clan of this race abandoned the Tauric Chersonese, and
+marched westwards,—this Cimbrian migration, however, like most others,
+not being conducted in one mass, but by successive and sometimes
+widely-severed movements. Three centuries afterwards we find the Cimbri
+on the shores of the Northern Ocean in Jutland; and between the years
+113 and 101 B.C., we find the race all on the move, and setting out on
+that southward career of devastation which eventually brought them into
+Gaul, Spain, and Italy. The Belgians seem to have been a Cimbrian tribe
+which had preceded the main body; for when, in this invasion, the Cimbri
+reached Northern Gaul, the Belgæ immediately joined them as allies
+against the Celts,—and it seems also proven that the Cimbri and Belgæ
+spoke dialects of the same language. The Celts, routed by the invaders,
+were impelled to the south and east, doubtless trespassing in turn upon
+the dark-skinned Iberians. It was immediately after this inroad that
+Cæsar and his Romans entered Gaul, and commenced his Commentaries with
+the well-known statement:—“All Gaul is divided into three parts, of
+which one is inhabited by the Belgians, [or Cimbri, in the
+north]—another by the Aquitanians [or Iberians, in the south-west],—and
+the third [or eastern], by those who in their own language, call
+themselves Celts, and who in our tongue are called Gael (_Galli_). These
+races differ among themselves by their language, their manners, and
+their laws.” Previous to this time the Teutons had settled in central
+Europe, and in alliance with Celtic tribes made incursions into Italy.
+
+We have now reached a period at which the population of Europe becomes
+greatly mixed, in consequence of the constant rovings and incursions of
+the various races and tribes of which it was composed. It is interesting
+to note the effect of such a state of things upon the physical
+characteristics of the people. And first it is to be observed, that,
+with extremely rare exceptions, conquest is not attended by
+extermination. When one people, even in semi-barbarous times, conquers
+another, it does not annihilate and rarely displaces, but for the most
+part only overlays it. The annihilating process, of which a sample may
+be seen in America, only takes place in the rare case of the meeting of
+two nations, in such widely different states of civilisation as to
+render amalgamation impossible,—and even in this case only when the
+inferior race is so intractable as to resist all obedience to the
+superior. _Displacement_—which is obsolete now, since advancing
+civilisation has rendered conquest political only—was pretty common two
+thousand years ago, when Europe was thinly and nomadically peopled, and
+tribes migrated _en masse_. In this way, for example, the Cimbri wedged
+themselves in among the Celts in Northern Gaul, and took possession of a
+large tract in Northern Italy. But soon after the Christian era—chiefly
+in consequence of the increasing density and settled habits of the
+population—conquest ceased to produce either extermination or
+displacement, and consisted merely in the overlaying of one population
+by another much less numerous but more powerful. Thus the Normans in
+England and the Franks in Gaul were but a handful compared to the
+conquered population; and consequently, though they might give their
+laws and even their name to the country, they could not materially alter
+the physical character of the people.
+
+The chief influence which, in the case of two races mingling, determines
+the preservation or extinction of types or national features, is simply
+the numerical proportion existing between the two races thus
+amalgamating. When races meet and mix on equal terms, and with no
+natural repugnance to each other (in other words, _cæteris paribus_),
+the relative number of the two races decides the question—the type of
+the smaller number, in this hypothetical case, inevitably disappearing
+in the long run. Take, for example, a thousand white families and fifty
+black ones—place them on an island, and let them regularly intermarry;
+and the result would be, that in the course of time the black type would
+disappear, although there is reason to believe that traces of it would
+“crop out” during a very long period. And if two fair-skinned races were
+brought into contact in a similar manner, and in similar proportions,
+the extermination of the less numerous one would be even sooner
+effected. The operation of this law is well illustrated in the lower
+animals. Cross two domestic animals of different breeds—take the
+offspring and cross it with one of the parent stocks, and continue this
+process for a few generations, and the result is that the one becomes
+swallowed up in the other. This is the theory; but in the actual world
+races never intermarry with such theoretical regularity and
+indifference. Each community of mankind has, as its conservative
+element, a tendency to form unions within its own limits; and if a
+foreign element is once introduced into a population, the operation of
+this predilection tends to preserve the type of the lesser number for a
+much longer period than mere theory would assign to it. The
+stranger-hating and obstinate-tempered Bretons and Basques, for
+instance, by intermarrying among themselves, have thus preserved the
+type of the old Iberians through three thousand years, although
+surrounded on all sides by the fair-haired Celts. In the case of a
+conquering race like the Franks and Normans, there is generally less
+isolation than this; but then, the way in which the amalgamation between
+the conquerors and the conquered takes place, is such as to give a great
+advantage to the former. The sons of the conquerors may wed the
+daughters of the conquered, for the sake of their lands; but it is
+comparatively seldom that the daughters of the invaders will condescend
+to tarnish their scutcheon by becoming wedded to and merged in the class
+of the vanquished. The principle of caste is all-pervading, even when
+nominally repudiated; and thus, as the male ever influences most
+directly the type of the offspring, a small number of conquerors may for
+long perpetuate their line in comparative purity, even though surrounded
+by myriads of a different race.
+
+From all this it results, that when a small body of foreigners is shot
+into the middle of a large population, as it were in virtue of a mere
+casual impetus, and not owing to higher qualities and organisation on
+the part of the aliens, the new-comers are quickly absorbed into the
+general mass of the population, and their type, in course of time,
+wholly disappears. The history of Italy throws important light upon this
+subject. Successive hordes of barbarians broke into and overran that
+country, powerful from their rude energy, but numerically weak, and
+inferior in mental condition to the conquered race. Again and again did
+human waves of Visigoths, Vandals, Huns, Herules, Ostrogoths, Lombards,
+and Normans roll in succession over the Italian plains; and even the
+Saracens for a time held possession of some of its fairest provinces;
+yet what vestiges remain in Italy of these barbarian surges? The first
+three passed over it like tornados; the two next, after contending with
+the Goths, were expelled from the land; and of the whole conglomerate
+mass but small fragments were left, too insignificant to materially
+influence the native Italic types. The Lombards, indeed, remained, and
+implanted their name on a portion of the peninsula; but, with this
+fragmentary exception, the aboriginal population of Italy has remained
+unaltered in blood and features since the early times when the Celts and
+Cimbri made settlements in its northern provinces. And thus the normal
+law is fulfilled, in the invaders being swallowed up in the mass of the
+native population,—leavening it, of course, more or less, but ever
+tending towards ultimate extinction.
+
+When a really conquering race, however—one superior alike in physical
+and mental power to the subjugated population—invades a country, and,
+instead of being expelled, or passing onwards like a transient
+whirlwind, continues to hold the realm in virtue of superior power, such
+a race, as we have said, may long and almost indelibly perpetuate their
+features in the land. In such a case they in reality, if not in name,
+form a caste; each one of the invaders becomes a noble; and when they
+make exceptions to the practice of intermarrying among themselves, it is
+only that they may more widely diffuse their lineaments, by forming
+matrimonial or other unions with the female portion of the native
+race.[32] Thus the feudalism of the all-conquering Normans was a system
+of caste, by means of which they long maintained the purity and
+pre-eminence of their race in the countries which they conquered; as may
+best be seen in French history, where the _vieux noblesse_, even in
+1789, were the lineal descendants of the soldiers of Clovis; and where
+the distinction between _noble_ and _roturier_ was kept up with such
+rigid and antiquated pertinacity, that at length the Celtic population,
+becoming more and more developed alike in intellect and resources, threw
+off the whole foreign system like an incubus, and returned to those
+principles of equality and volatility in government which distinguished
+their ancestors of old Gaul.
+
+We may remark in conclusion, on this topic, that the ascendancy of
+certain families of mankind is due not only to their superior physical,
+but even more to their superior mental organisation, which ever keeps
+them uppermost, and enables them to mate themselves with whom they
+please. It is a remarkable fact, as illustrative of the native vigour of
+some races, that there is not a head in Christendom which _legitimately_
+wears a crown—not a single family in Europe whose blood is acknowledged
+to be royal, but traces its genealogy to that Norman colossus, WILLIAM
+the CONQUEROR. This has been well shown by M. Paulmier;[33] but we may
+add, as a curiosity which lately attracted our own notice, when looking
+at the portrait of the Conqueror—namely, that a strong resemblance
+exists between his fine and massive features and those of the present
+Czar of Russia. Both are distinguished by the same broad brow and arched
+eyebrows (not each forming a semicircle, as seems to be the meaning of
+the term “arched” when applied to eyebrows nowadays, but both combining
+to form an oval curve, vaulting over the under part of the face, as was
+the meaning among the Greeks), the same thick straight nose, and the
+same massive and beautiful conformation in the bones of the jaw and
+chin. The face of the Czar, however, we must add, is not equal in solid
+strength and intellect to that of his great progenitor.
+
+The operation of these physiological laws upon the population of Europe
+has been interestingly illustrated by the recent researches of a French
+naturalist of high reputation, M. Edwards. This gentleman, after
+perusing Thierry’s _History of the Gauls_, made a tour through France,
+Belgium, Switzerland, and Italy, engaged in careful study of the present
+population in relation to the ancient settlers; and he asserts that now,
+after the lapse of two thousand years, the types of the Cimbri, the
+Celts, and Iberians are still distinctly traceable among their living
+descendants, in the very localities where history first descries these
+early families. Of the inland eastern parts of France, tenanted of old
+by the Gauls proper, and which were never penetrated into by the Cimbri,
+who took quiet possession of their outskirts, M. Edwards thus
+speaks:—“In traversing, from north to south, the part of France which
+corresponds to Oriental Gaul—viz., Burgundy, Lyons, Dauphiny, and
+Savoy—I have distinguished that type, so well marked, which
+ethnographers have assigned to the Gauls.” That is to say, “the head is
+so round as to approach the spherical form; the forehead is moderate,
+slightly protuberant, and receding towards the temples; eyes large and
+open; the nose, from its depression at its commencement to its
+termination, almost straight—that is to say, without any marked curve;
+its extremity is rounded, as well as the chin; the stature medium;—the
+features thus being quite in harmony with the form of the head.” Of the
+northern part of ancient Gaul, the principal seat of the Belgæ or
+Cimbri, he says:—“I traversed a great part of the _Gallia Belgica_ of
+Cæsar, from the mouth of the Somme to that of the Seine; and here I
+distinguished for the first time the assemblage of features which
+constitutes the other type, and often to such an exaggerated degree that
+I was very forcibly struck,—the long head, the broad high forehead, the
+curved nose, with the point below, and the wings tucked up; the chin
+boldly developed; and the stature tall.” In the other parts of France
+(exclusive of the south and west, anciently occupied by the Iberians),
+M. Edwards found that the Cimbrian type had been overcome by the round
+heads and straight noses of the Gauls, who were the more numerous
+because the more ancient race in those parts, and had covered the whole
+country before the arrival of the Cimbrians.
+
+Passing into Italy, he continues his examinations. “Whatever may have
+been the anterior state of matters,” he says, “it is certain, from
+Thierry’s researches and the unanimous accord of all historians, that
+the _Peuples Gaulois_ have predominated in the north of Italy, between
+the Alps and the Apennines. We find them established there at the first
+dawn of history; and the most authentic testimony represents them with
+all the character of a great nation, from this remote period down to a
+very advanced point of Roman history. This is all I need to trouble
+myself about. I know the features of their compatriots in Transalpine
+Gaul—I find them again in Cisalpine Gaul.” The old “Gallic” settlers in
+northern Italy appear to have been Cimbrian. After describing the
+well-known head of Dante—which is long and narrow, with a high and
+developed forehead, nose long and curved, with sharp point and elevated
+wings—M. Edwards says that he was struck by the great frequency of this
+type in Tuscany (although a mixed Roman type is there the prevailing
+one) among the peasantry; in the statues and busts of the Medici family;
+and also amongst the effigies and bas-reliefs of the illustrious men of
+the republic of Florence. This type is well marked since the time of
+Dante, as doubtless long before. It extends to Venice; and in the ducal
+palace, M. Edwards had occasion to observe that it is common among the
+doges. The type became more predominant as he approached Milan, and
+thence he traced it as to its fountain into Transalpine Gaul. The
+physical characteristics of the present population, therefore,
+correspond with the statements of history, and show that the ancient
+type of this widespread people, the Cimbri, has survived the lapse and
+vicissitudes of two thousand years.
+
+In passing through Florence, M. Edwards took occasion to visit the Ducal
+Gallery, to study the ancient Roman type,—selecting, by preference, the
+busts of the early Roman emperors, because they were descendants of
+ancient families. Augustus, Tiberius, Germanicus, Claudius, Nero, Titus,
+&c., exemplify this type in the Florentine collections; and the family
+resemblance is so close, and the style of features so remarkable, that
+they cannot be mistaken. The following is his description:—“The vertical
+diameter of the head is short, and, consequently, the face broad. As the
+summit of the cranium is flattened, and the lower margin of the jaw-bone
+almost horizontal, the contour of the head, when viewed in front,
+approaches a square. The lateral parts, above the ears, are protuberant;
+the forehead low; the nose truly aquiline—that is to say, the curve
+commences near the top and ends before it reaches the point, so that the
+base is horizontal; the chin is round; and the stature short.” This is
+the characteristic type of a Roman; but we cannot expect now to meet
+with absolute uniformity in any race, however seemingly pure. Such a
+type M. Edwards subsequently found to predominate in Rome, and certain
+parts of Italy, at the present day. It is the original type of the
+central portions of the peninsula, and, however overlayed at times, has
+swallowed up all intruders. As a singular corroboration of the French
+ethnographer’s observations, Mr J. C. Nott, an American surgeon and
+naturalist, says:—“A sailor came to my office, a few months ago, to have
+a dislocated arm set. When stripped and standing before me, he presented
+the type described by M. Edwards so perfectly, and moreover combined
+with such extraordinary development of bone and muscle, that there
+occurred to my mind at once the beau-ideal of a Roman soldier. Though
+the man had been an American sailor for twenty years, and spoke English
+without foreign accent, I could not help asking where he was born. He
+replied in a deep strong voice, ‘In _Rome_, sir!’”[34]
+
+In Greece the Hellenes and Pelasgi are two races identified with the
+earliest traditions of the country; but when we appeal to history for
+their origin, or seek for the part that each has played in the majestic
+drama of antiquity, there is little more than conjecture to guide us.
+Greece did not come fairly within the scope of M. Edwards’ researches,
+yet he has ventured a few note-worthy observations in connection with
+this point. He thinks the same principles that governed his examination
+of Gaul may be applied to Greece; and that the Hellenes and Pelasgi
+might be followed ethnologically like the Celts and Cimbri. Perhaps the
+most important remark which he makes is that which refers to the
+differences between what he calls the _heroic_ and _historic_—or what is
+generally termed the ideal and real types of the Greek countenance. The
+ancient monuments of art in Greece exhibit a wide diversity of types,
+and this at every period of their history. Of the two great classes into
+which these may be divided, M. Edwards says:—
+
+
+  “Most of the divinities and personages of the _heroic_ times are
+  formed on that well-known model which constitutes what we term the
+  beau-ideal. The forms and proportions of the head and countenance are
+  so regular that we may describe them with mathematical precision. A
+  perfectly oval contour, forehead and nose straight, without depression
+  between them, would suffice to distinguish this type. The harmony is
+  such that the presence of these traits implies the others. But such is
+  not the character of the personages of truly _historic_ times. The
+  philosophers, orators, warriors, and poets almost all differ from it,
+  and form a group apart. It cannot be confounded with the rest: it is
+  sufficient to point it out, for one to recognise at once how far it is
+  separated. It greatly resembles, on the contrary, the type which is
+  seen in other countries of Europe, while the former is scarcely met
+  with there.”
+
+
+This observation is just. The head of Alexander the Great is nearly
+allied to the pure classical or heroic type; but this case is an
+exception—and the lineaments of Lycurgus, Eratosthenes, and most other
+specimens of old Greek portrait-sculpture, are, with the exception of
+the beard (if indeed such an exception is now requisite), very much like
+those which one meets with daily in our streets. “Were we to judge
+solely by the monuments of Greece,” continues M. Edwards, “on account of
+this contrast, we should be tempted to regard the type of the fabulous
+or heroic personages as ideal. But imagination more readily creates
+monsters than models of beauty; and this principle alone will suffice to
+convince us that such a type has existed in Greece, and the countries
+where its population has spread, if it does not still exist there.”
+
+In corroboration of this conjecture, it may be stated that the learned
+travellers, M.M. de Stackelberg and de Bronsted, who have journeyed
+through the Morea and closely examined the population, assert that the
+_heroic_ type is still extant in certain localities. M. Poqueville
+likewise assures us that the models which inspired Phidias and Apelles
+are still to be found among the inhabitants of the Morea. “They are
+generally tall, and finely formed; their eyes are full of fire, and they
+have a beautiful mouth, ornamented with the finest teeth. There are,
+however, degrees in their beauty, though all may be generally termed
+handsome. The Spartan woman is fair, of a slender make, but with a noble
+air. The women of Taÿgetus have the carriage of a Pallas when she
+wielded her formidable ægis in the midst of a battle. The Messenian
+woman is low of stature, and distinguished for her _embonpoint_,” (this
+may be owing to a mixture with the primitive race of the Morea, who, as
+Helots, long existed as a distinct caste in Messenia); “she has regular
+features, large blue eyes, and long black hair. The Arcadian, in her
+coarse woollen garments, scarcely suffers the symmetry of her form to
+appear; but her countenance is expressive of innocence and purity of
+mind.” In the time of Poqueville the Greek women were extremely ignorant
+and uneducated; but, he says, “music and dancing seem to have been
+taught them by nature.” He speaks of the long flaxen hair of the women
+of Sparta, their majestic air and carriage, their elegant forms, the
+symmetry of their features, lighted up by large blue eyes, fringed and
+shaded with long eye-lashes. “The men,” he says, “among whom some are
+‘blonds,’ or fair, have noble countenances; are of tall stature, with
+masculine and regular features.” They have preserved something of the
+Dorians of ancient Sparta.
+
+It would be erroneous, however, to conclude from this that Greek art
+owed everything to the actual. The type existed more or less imperfectly
+in the population, but Phidias and the Greek artists took and developed
+it, by the aid of the imagination, into that perfect phase of physical
+beauty which we justly term the _beau-ideal_. A nation’s beau-ideal is
+always the perfectionment of its own type. It is easy to see how this
+happens. In nations, as in individuals, the soul moulds the body, so far
+as extrinsic circumstances permit, into a form in accordance with its
+own ideas and desire; and accordingly, whenever a marked difference
+exists in the physical aspect of two nations, there, also, we may expect
+to find a variance in their beau-ideals. Not, as is generally supposed,
+from the eye of each race becoming accustomed to the national features,
+but because these features, are themselves an incarnation and embodiment
+of the national mind. It is the soul which shapes the national features,
+not the national features that mould the æsthetic judgment of the soul.
+It is not _association_, therefore, that is the cause of the different
+beau-ideals we behold in the world, but a psychical difference in the
+nations which produce them,—a circumstance no more remarkable than those
+moral and intellectual diversities in virtue of which we see one race
+excelling in the exact sciences, another in the fine arts, a third in
+military renown, and a fourth in pacific industry. We may adduce, in
+curious illustration of this point, the well-known fact that Raphael and
+many other eminent artists have repeatedly given their own likeness to
+the imaginary offspring of their art,—not real, but idealised
+likenesses. How was this? From vanity? No, certainly; but because the
+ideal most congenial to them, which they could most easily hold in their
+mind, and which it gave them most pleasure to linger over and beautify,
+was the ideal constituted by the perfectionment of their own features.
+There is something more than mere vanity in the pleasure usually derived
+from looking into a mirror; for when the features are in exact or nearly
+exact accordance with the desires of the framing Spirit within, there
+must always be a pleasure in the soul looking upon its own likeness:
+even as it experiences a similar delight when meeting with a being of
+perfectly congenial nature—in other words, its spiritual (as the other
+is its physical) likeness. It is to be expected, _cæteris paribus_, that
+this pleasure will be most felt by those who are gifted with much
+personal beauty, and whose features are most perfect of their kind; for
+in their case there is more than ordinary harmony between the soul and
+its fleshly envelope. Accordingly, no artist ever painted himself more
+than the beautiful Raphael. And we could name an eminent individual, now
+no more, as rarely gifted with physical beauty as with mental powers, to
+whom the contemplation of his portrait was almost a passion. Some of our
+readers may recognise the distinguished man of whom we speak. No one
+less vain or more noble-hearted than he, yet his painted likeness had
+always a fascination for him. “It is a curious thing,” he used to say,
+“how I like to look at my own portrait.” Was it not because, in that
+beautifully developed form and countenance, the spirit within had most
+successfully embodied its ideal, with little or no hindrance from
+extrinsic circumstances, and accordingly rejoiced, though it knew not
+why, in the presence of its own likeness?
+
+But to return to ethnography, and trace out the successive changes which
+have taken place in the population of Europe. As we have already
+observed, the great ebb and flow of nations was over by the Christian
+era. The population had become comparatively dense, so that room could
+no more be made for tribes of new-comers—and settled in their habits and
+occupations, so as no longer to admit of their shifting or being driven
+to and fro like waves over the land, as was the case while they were in
+the nomadic state. And as the nations became consolidated, they began,
+however feebly at first, to live a national existence, and to put forth
+national efforts of self-defence against those who assailed them. On
+these various accounts, the system of conquest by displacement, which
+marked the pre-historic and in a faint degree the early historic times,
+was brought to an end,—the conquests of the Northmen being the last
+examples of the kind; and these being hardly worthy of the name, as they
+were marked rather by the political predominance of the new-comers, and
+by an overlaying rather than by any displacement of the native
+population. For all useful purposes, therefore, we may conceive that at
+the Christian era the various nations of Europe were arranged on the map
+very much as they are now,—the only exceptions worth mentioning being
+the influx of the Magyars and Turks, and the southward progress of
+several of the Slavonian tribes through the old Byzantine provinces into
+Greece.
+
+
+  “Had a Roman geographer of the days of the Empire,” it has been well
+  observed, “advanced in a straight line from the Atlantic to the
+  Pacific, he would have traversed the exact succession of races that is
+  to be met in the same route now. First, he would have found the Celts
+  occupying as far as the Rhine; thence, eastward to the Vistula and
+  Carpathian mountains, he would have found Germans; beyond them, and
+  stretching away into Central Asia, he would have found the so-called
+  Scythians,—a race which, had he possessed our information, he would
+  have divided into the two great branches of the Slavonians or European
+  Scythians, and the Tartars and Turks, or Asiatic Scythians; and
+  finally, beyond these, he would have found Mongolian hordes
+  overspreading Eastern Asia to the shores of the Pacific. These
+  successive races or populations he would have found shading off into
+  each other at their points of junction. He would have remarked, also,
+  a general westward pressure of the whole mass, tending toward mutual
+  rupture and invasion,—the Mongolian pressing against the Tartars, the
+  Tartars against the Slavonians, the Slavonians against the Germans,
+  and the Germans against the Celts.”
+
+
+Although the early history and migrations of the Slavonians are involved
+in greater obscurity than that of either of the other two great branches
+of the European population, it is erroneous to suppose that they are a
+recent accession out of the depths of Asia. It was evidently a branch of
+them that Herodotus describes as peaceful, pastoral, and agricultural
+tribes located near the shores of the Black Sea. Instead of entering
+Europe _via_ Asia Minor and the southern borders of the Euxine, as many
+of the Celtic and Teutonic tribes did, they appear to have taken the
+route by the north of the Caspian and Black Seas, and probably advanced
+southwards into Europe on the gradual and ultimately sudden subsidence
+of the waters of the inland sea which primevally stretched from the
+Baltic eastwards to the Sea of Aral.
+
+This race, which now constitutes the largest ethnographical unit of
+population in Europe, numbering nearly eighty millions, has never yet
+been examined in rigorous detail. The earliest and best developed of its
+tribes is the Polish, which, though it has in recent times been
+subjected by the Russo-Slavons aided by the German powers, has not yet
+lost its nationality; and it is probable that, in the course of the
+future, the mighty Slavonic race will yet give rise to several distinct
+states. Both in features and complexion there is much diversity to be
+found in the various tribes which it comprises; but, if we consider the
+immense numbers of the race, and the different climes and temperatures
+under which they are located, it must be allowed that they are more
+homogeneous in character than any other people in Europe. The general
+type of the Slavonians is thus described by M. Edwards:—
+
+
+  “The contour of the head, viewed in front, approaches nearly to a
+  square; the height surpasses a little the breadth; the summit is
+  sensibly flattened; and the direction of the jaw is horizontal. The
+  length of the nose is less than the distance from its base to the
+  chin; it is almost straight from the depression at its root—that is to
+  say, without any decided curvature; but, if appreciable, it is
+  slightly concave, so that the end has a tendency to turn up; the lower
+  part is rather large, and the extremity rounded. The eyes, which are
+  rather deep-set, are [unlike those of the Tartars] perfectly on the
+  same line; and when they have any particular character, they are
+  smaller than the proportion of the head ought to indicate. The
+  eyebrows are thin, and very near the eyes, particularly at the
+  internal angle; and from this point are often [like those of the
+  Tartars] directed obliquely outwards. The mouth, which is not salient,
+  has thin lips, and is much nearer to the nose than to the tip of the
+  chin. Another singular characteristic may be added, and which is very
+  general, viz., their small beard, except on the upper lip [a trait
+  connecting them with the peoples of Upper Asia]. Such is the common
+  type among the Poles, Alesians, Moravians, Bohemians, Slavonic
+  Hungarians, and is very common among the Russians.”
+
+
+Having thus briefly and imperfectly glanced at the ethnographical
+features of Europe prior to the Christian era, we come now to note,
+equally briefly, the accession of foreign elements which the Continent
+has received subsequently to that period. The first of these is the
+memorable one of the Jews. Unlike the other incomers, they came not as
+conquerors, nor in a mass—but as isolated exiles, seeking new homes
+where they might be suffered to preserve their religion and gain a
+livelihood. A military race when in the land of their fathers, in Europe
+they developed only that other feature of their nation, the passion for
+moneymaking. In pursuit of this object they have settled in every
+country of Europe; and, in spite of persecutions innumerable, continue
+to preserve to this day their religion and their national features.
+Despite the warm passions of the Hebrews, which, even when in their own
+land, repeatedly led both the people and their princes into the
+contraction of sexual alliances with other nations, the Jewish blood on
+the whole is still much purer than that of any other race—the foreign
+elements from time to time mingled with it being gradually thrown off by
+innumerable crossings and re-crossings with the native stock. At present
+there are about two millions of Jews in Europe, and in the rest of the
+world about a million and a half. The modern Jews, while preserving the
+national features, present every variety of complexion save black—for
+the _black_ Jews of Malabar are not Jews at all, but the descendants of
+apostate Hindoos. In regard to the matter of complexion, which varies so
+much with the climate and condition of the people, we shall say
+something by-and-by; but we shall here give some remarks of Mr Leeser, a
+learned Jew of Philadelphia, on the curious diversities of complexion so
+remarkably observable among the Hebrew race:—
+
+
+  “In respect to the true Jewish complexion, it is _fair_; which is
+  proved by the variety of the people I have seen, from Persia, Russia,
+  Palestine, and Africa, not to mention those of Europe and America, the
+  latter of whom are identical with the Europeans, like all other white
+  inhabitants of this continent. All Jews that ever I have beheld are
+  _identical in features_; though the colour of their skin and eyes
+  differs materially, inasmuch as the Southern are nearly all
+  black-eyed, and somewhat sallow, while the Northern are blue-eyed, in
+  a great measure, and of a fair and clear complexion. In this they
+  assimilate to all Caucasians, when transported for a number of
+  generations into various climates. Though I am free to admit that the
+  dark and hazel eye and tawny skin are oftener met with among the
+  Germanic Jews than among the German natives proper. There are also
+  red-haired and white-haired Jews, as well as other people, and perhaps
+  of as great a proportion. I speak now of the Jews north—I am myself a
+  native of Germany, and among my own family I know of none without blue
+  eyes, brown hair (though mine is black), and very fair skin—still I
+  recollect, when a boy, seeing many who had not these characteristics,
+  and had, on the contrary, eyes, hair, and skin of a more southern
+  complexion. In America, you will see all varieties of complexion, from
+  the very fair Canadian down to the almost yellow of the West
+  Indian—the latter, however, is solely the effect of exposure to a
+  _deleterious_ climate for several generations, which changes, I should
+  judge, the texture of the hair and skin, and thus leaves its mark on
+  the constitution—otherwise the Caucasian type is strongly developed;
+  but this is the case more emphatically among those sprung from a
+  German than a Portuguese stock. The latter was an original inhabitant
+  of the Iberian Peninsula, and whether it was preserved pure, or became
+  mixed with Moorish blood in the process of centuries, or whether the
+  Germans contracted an intimacy with Teutonic nations, and thus
+  acquired a part of their national characteristics, it is impossible to
+  be told now. But one thing is certain, that, both in Spain and
+  Germany, conversions to Judaism during the early ages, say from the
+  eighth to the thirteenth century, were by no means rare, or else the
+  governments would not have so energetically prohibited Jews from
+  making proselytes of their servants and others. I know not, indeed,
+  whether there is any greater physical discrepancy between northern and
+  southern Jews than between English families who continue in England or
+  emigrate to Alabama—I rather judge there is not.”—_Types of Mankind_,
+  p. 121.
+
+
+The Huns and Magyars were the next tribes who made their way into
+Europe; and their advent, fierce, rapid, and exterminating, was
+conducted like a charge of cavalry. They hewed their way with the sword
+through the Slavonian and other tribes who impeded their march; and
+after being for a brief season the terror of Europe, they settled _en
+permanence_ on the plains of Hungary, where for upwards of a thousand
+years they dominated, like a ruling caste, over the surrounding Slavonic
+tribes. The influx of this warlike race took place by two
+migrations,—firstly, of the Huns, under Attila, in the fifth century;
+and, secondly, of the Magyars, under Arpad, in the ninth. The type of
+the two races was identical; it is peculiarly exotic, and unlike any
+other in Europe. It belongs to the great Uralian-Tatar stem of Asia;
+but, strangely enough, though they differ in type from the Fins, the
+Magyars speak a dialect of the Finnish language,—which shows that the
+two races must have been associated in some way at a remote epoch, and
+before either of them emerged from the depths of Asia. M. Edwards thus
+describes the Magyar type:—“Head nearly round; forehead little
+developed, low, and bending; the eyes placed obliquely, so that the
+external angle is elevated; the nose short and flat; mouth prominent,
+and lips thick; neck very strong, so that the back of the head appears
+flat, forming almost a straight line with the nape; beard weak and
+scattering; stature short.” The Magyars did not belong to the Caucasian
+stock; and their long-continued supremacy over tribes decidedly
+Caucasian, is a nut to crack for those ethnographers who deduce
+everything from race, irrespective of the habits and state of
+development of particular nations.
+
+The next alien race which entered Europe was the Gypseys, the history
+and peculiarities of which strange people present many curious analogies
+with those of the Israelites. “Both have had an exodus; both are exiles,
+and dispersed among the Gentiles, by whom they are hated and despised,
+and whom they hate and despise under the names of Busnees and Goyim;
+both, though speaking the language of the Gentiles, possess a peculiar
+language which the latter do not understand; and both possess a peculiar
+cast of countenance by which they may without difficulty be
+distinguished from all other nations. But with these points the
+similarity terminates. The Israelites have a peculiar religion, to which
+they are fanatically attached; the Romas (gypseys) have none. The
+Israelites have an authentic history; the Gypseys have no history,—they
+do not even know the name of their original country.” Everything
+connected with the Gypsey race is involved in mystery; though, from
+their physical type, language, &c., it is conjectured that they came
+from some part of India. It has been supposed that they fled from the
+exterminating sword of the great Tartar conqueror, Tamerlane, who
+ravaged India in 1408–9 A.D.; but Borrow’s work furnishes good ground
+for believing that they may have migrated at a much earlier period
+northwards, amongst the Slavonians, before they entered Germany and the
+other countries where we first catch sight of them. All that we know
+with certainty is, that in the beginning of the fifteenth century they
+appeared in Germany, and were soon scattered over Europe, as far as
+Spain. The precise day upon which these strange beings first entered
+France has been recorded,—namely, the 17th of August 1427. The entire
+number of the race at present is estimated at about 700,000,—thus
+constituting them the smallest as well as the most singular and
+distinctly marked of races. But if their numbers be small, their range
+of habitat is one of the widest. They are scattered over most countries
+of the habitable globe—Europe, Asia, Africa, and both the Americas,
+containing specimens of these roving tribes. “Their tents,” says Borrow,
+“are pitched on the heaths of Brazil and the ridges of the Himalaya
+hills; and their language is heard in Moscow and Madrid, in London and
+Stamboul. Their power of resisting cold is truly wonderful, as it is not
+uncommon to find them encamped in the midst of the snow, in slight
+canvass tents, where the temperature is 25° or 30° below the
+freezing-point according to Reaumur;” while, on the other hand, they
+withstand without difficulty the sultry climes of Africa and India.
+
+The last accession which the population of Europe received was
+accomplished by an irruption similar to that of the Huns, but on a
+grander scale. In the beginning of the fifteenth century the Osmanli
+Turks swept across the Hellespont and Bosphorus, and in 1453 established
+their empire in Europe by the capture of Byzantium. In proportion to its
+numbers, no race ever gave such a shock to the Western world as this;
+and, by its very antagonism, it helped to quicken into life the
+population and kingdoms of central and eastern Europe. It is
+semi-Caucasian by extraction, but, coming from the northern side of the
+Caucasus, and pretty far to the east, the original features of the race
+had a strong dash of the Tartar in them. The portrait of Mahomed II.,
+the conqueror of Byzantium, may be taken as a fair sample of the
+primitive Turkish type,—indeed a more than average specimen, for among
+all nations the nobles and princes, as a class, are ever found to
+possess the most perfect forms and features. The Turkish tribes who
+still follow their ancient nomadic life, and wander in the cold and dry
+deserts of Turkistan, still exhibit the Tartar physiognomy—even the
+Nogays of the Crimea, and some of the roving tribes of Asia Minor,
+present much of this character. The European Turks, and the upper
+classes of the race generally, exhibit a greatly superior style of
+countenance, in consequence of the elevating influences of civilisation,
+and of their harems having been replenished for four centuries by fair
+ones from Georgia and Circassia,—a region which, as Chardin long ago
+remarked, “is assuredly the one where nature produces the most beautiful
+persons, and a people brave and valiant, as well as lively, _galant_,
+and loving.” There is hardly a man of quality in Turkey who is not born
+of a Georgian or Circassian mother,—counting downwards from the Sultan,
+who is generally Georgian or Circassian by the female side. As this
+crossing of the two races has been carried on for several centuries, the
+modern Ottomans in Europe are in truth a _new nation_—and, on the whole,
+a very handsome one. The general proportion of the face is symmetrical,
+and the facial angle nearly vertical,—the features thus approaching to
+the Circassian mould; while the head is remarkable for its excellent
+globular form, with the forehead broad and the glabella prominent.
+
+The natural destiny of the Turks in Europe, like that of ruling castes
+everywhere when holding in subjection a population greatly more numerous
+than themselves, is either to gradually relax their sway and share the
+government with the subject races, as the Normans in England did,—or, if
+obstinately maintaining their class-despotism, to be violently deposed
+from the supremacy. The increasing development of the Greek and other
+sections of the population of European Turkey has of late years made one
+or other of these alternatives imminent; but the extensive reforms and
+liberalisation of the government simultaneously undertaken by the
+Ottoman rulers, and the remarkable abeyance in which they have begun to
+place the _distinctive_ tenets of the Mahommedan faith, promised, if
+unthwarted by foreign influences, to keep the various races in amity,
+and admit Christians to offices in the state. The history of the last
+fifteen years has shown this system of governmental relaxation growing
+gradually stronger—so that Lord Palmerston was justified in saying that
+no country in the world could show so many reforms accomplished in so
+short a time as Turkey. And after the recent exploits of the Ottomans in
+defeating simultaneously the attacks of Russia and of the Greek and
+Montenegrin insurgents, and the Turkish predilections even of those
+provinces which were entered by the Christian forces of the Czar, it
+cannot be doubted that the Turkish rule was on the whole giving
+satisfaction, and that, if unaided by foreign Powers, no insurrection
+against the supremacy of the bold-hearted Osmanlis had the slightest
+chance of success. It was this state of matters which alarmed the
+ambitious Czar into his present aggression; for he felt that now or
+never was the time to interfere, if he did not wish to see a Turko-Greek
+state establish itself in such strength as to bid defiance to his power.
+We may add, that, whatever be the issue of the present contest, it must
+tend to a further and higher development of the Turkish character. The
+contagion of Western ideas, disseminated in the most imposing of ways by
+the presence of the armies of England and France, cannot fail to impress
+itself on the slumbrous but awakening Ottomans, and not only expand
+their stereotyped civilisation into a wider and freer form, but possibly
+to strike also from their religion the more faulty and obstructive of
+its tenets.
+
+Such are the elements of the present population of Europe,—a population
+which, in its western and southern portions, no longer presents distinct
+masses of diverse tribes, and whose various sections every century is
+drawing into closer contact. The progress of commerce and civilisation
+produces not only an interchange of products of various climes, and of
+ideas between the various races of mankind, but also a commingling of
+blood; and as the most nobly developed races are always the great
+wanderers and conquerors, it will be seen that the progress of the world
+ever tends to improve the types of mankind by infusing the blood of the
+superior races into the veins of the inferior. The settlements of the
+Normans are an instance of this. And a still more remarkable, though
+exceptional, exemplification of the same thing may at present be
+witnessed in America—where the Negroes, transported from their native
+clime, have already become a mixed race, owing to the relation in which
+all female slaves stand to their masters, and the consequent frequent
+crossing of the European blood with the blood of Africa. In point of
+fact, there are slaves to be found in the Southern States, who, like
+“George” in _Uncle Tom’s Cabin_, are as Caucasian in their features and
+intellect as their masters,—a circumstance fraught with considerable
+danger to the White caste in these States, because producing the
+extremest irritation in these nearly full-blood “white slaves,” and at
+the same time providing able and fiery leaders for the oppressed Negro
+race in the event of an insurrection and servile war.
+
+But the great variety of countenance and temperament in Western and
+Southern Europe is not due merely to actual crossings of the commingling
+races. Civilisation itself is the parent of variety. The progress of
+humanity produces physical effects upon the race, which may be classed
+under two heads, one of these being a general physical improvement, and
+the other increasing variety. Take an undeveloped race like the Tartars
+or Negroes, and you will find the aspect and mental character of the
+nation nearly homogeneous,—the differences existing amongst its
+individual members being comparatively trivial. Pass to the Slavonians,
+and you will perceive this uniformity lessened; and when you reach the
+nations of Western Europe, you will find the transition accomplished,
+and homogeneity exchanged for variety. The explanation of this is
+obvious. Just as all plants of the same species, when in embryo, are
+nearly alike, undeveloped races of mankind present but few signs of
+spiritual life; and therefore their individual members greatly resemble
+one another,—because the fewer the characteristics, the less room is
+there for variety, and the more radical and therefore more universal
+must be the characteristics themselves. Pebbles, as they lie rough upon
+the sea-shore, may present a great uniformity of appearance; but take
+and polish them, and a hundred diversities of colour and marking
+forthwith show themselves;—even so does civilisation and growth develop
+the rich varieties of human nature. As these mental varieties spring up
+within, they ever seek to develop themselves by corresponding varieties
+in the outer life,—placing men now in riches, now in poverty, now under
+the sway of the intellect, now of the passions, now of good principles,
+now of bad, and moreover leading to an infinite diversity of external
+occupation. The joint influence of the feelings within, and of the
+corresponding circumstances without, in course of time comes to affect
+the physical frame, often in a very marked manner; and, indeed, it is
+well known that even so subtle a thing as the predominant thoughts and
+sentiments of an individual are almost always reflected in the aspect of
+his countenance. Nations, when in a primitive uncultured state, differ
+as widely from those at the apex of civilisation, as the monotonous
+countenance and one-phased mind of a peasant contrasts with the rich
+variety of expression in the face of genius, whose nature is quickly
+responsive to every influence, though often steadied into a masculine
+calm. Let any one inspect the various classes of our metropolitan
+population, and he will perceive an amount of physical, mental, and
+occupational variety such as he will meet with nowhere else in the
+world—presenting countenances deformed now by this form of brutal
+passion, now by that, ranging upwards to the noblest types of the human
+face, the joint product of easy circumstances and high mental and
+spiritual culture. It is all the result of civilisation, which ever
+tends to break up the uniformity of a population, and allows of its
+members rising to the highest heights or sinking to the lowest
+depths,—thus breaking the primitive monotony of life into its manifold
+prismatic hues.
+
+Not the least remarkable of the physical changes thus produced by
+civilisation, is the diversity of complexion which it gradually affects.
+It appears certain, for example, that the races who peopled the northern
+and western parts of Europe, subsequent to the dark-skinned Iberians,
+were all of the fair or xanthous style of complexion; but this is by no
+means the case with the great mass of people who are supposed to have
+descended from them. “It seems unquestionable,” says Prichard, “that the
+complexion prevalent through the British Isles has greatly varied from
+that of all [?] the original tribes who are known to have jointly
+constituted the population. We have seen that the ancient Celtic tribes
+were a xanthous race; such, likewise, were the Saxons, Danes, and
+Normans; the Caledonians also, and the Gael, were fair and
+yellow-haired. Not so the mixed descendants of all these blue-eyed
+tribes. The Britons had already deviated from the colour of the Celts in
+the time of Strabo, who declares that the Britons are taller than the
+Gauls, and less yellow-haired, and more infirm and relaxed in their
+bodies.” The Germans have also varied in their complexion. The ancient
+Germans are said to have had universally yellow or red hair and blue
+eyes,—in short, a strongly marked xanthous constitution. This, says
+Niebuhr, “has now, in most parts of Germany, become uncommon. I can
+assert, from my own observation, that the Germans are now, in many parts
+of their country, far from a light-haired race. I have seen a
+considerable number of persons assembled in a large room at
+Frankfort-on-the-Maine, and observed that, except one or two Englishmen,
+there was not an individual among them who had not dark hair. The
+Chevalier Bunsen has assured me that he has often looked in vain for the
+auburn or golden locks and the light cerulean eyes of the old Germans,
+and never verified the picture given by the ancients of his countrymen
+till he visited Scandinavia,—there he found himself surrounded by the
+Germans of Tacitus.” In the towns of Germany, especially, the people are
+far from being a red-haired, or even a xanthous race; and, from the fact
+that this change has been developed chiefly in towns, we may infer that
+it depends in part on habits, and the way of living, and on food. Towns
+are much warmer and drier than the country; but even the open country is
+much warmer and drier than the forests and morasses with which Germany
+was formerly covered. The climate of Germany has, in fact, changed since
+the country was cleared of its vast forests; and we must attribute the
+altered physical character of the Germans to the altered condition under
+which the present inhabitants live.
+
+It was the conquests of Rome that first scattered the seeds of
+civilisation in Western Europe. There it has grown up into a stately and
+nearly perfect fabric on the shores of the Atlantic, gradually losing
+its perfection as it proceeds eastwards, until it reaches the
+semi-barbarism of Russia, and the still deeper barbarism of Upper Asia.
+Our limits hardly allow of our inquiring what influence this
+civilisation is calculated to exert in future upon the ethnological
+condition of the Continent, although it is a question of great
+importance, as foreshadowing the chief changes which may be expected to
+result from the state of chronic strife upon which Europe has now
+entered. We can only remark that the grand action of progress and
+civilisation is to develop _the mind_, and so convert the units of
+society from a mass of automatons into thinking and self-directing
+agents,—conscious of, and able to attain, alike their own rights and
+those of their nation. Hence follows the growth of liberty within; and,
+without, the gradual establishment of union between scattered sections
+of the same race. Supposing, then, that the progress of civilisation in
+Europe be unobstructed, we may calculate that wherever we now see
+internal despotism, there will be liberty,—wherever we see foreign
+domination, there will be national freedom,—and that, after a little
+more training in the stern school of suffering, the Continental nations,
+grown wiser, will make an end of the present arbitrary and unnatural
+territorial system of Europe, and arrange themselves in the more
+natural, grander, and permanent communities of race.
+
+It was doubtless a perception of this truth that caused the French
+Emperor recently to declare that “the age of conquests is past.” We
+regret to think, however, that the statement is somewhat premature,—for
+Europe is still far from that happy climax of civilisation which in the
+preceding sentences we have indicated. Moreover, there are two very
+opposite periods in the life of nations when the race-principle reigns
+supreme, their first and their last;—just as, in the case of
+individuals, men often adopt in old age, from the dictates of
+experience, principles which in youth they had acted upon from instinct.
+Now, Europe at this day presents both of these phases of national life
+existing simultaneously, at its eastern and western extremities; and it
+seems probable that the development of the race-principle in its early
+form among the Slavonians, will take precedence of its development in
+maturity among the civilised races of the Continent. There is every
+indication that the Panslavism of Russia will precede the coalescing of
+the Teutonic tribes into a united Germany—or of the Romano-Gallic races
+of France, Spain, and Italy, into that trinity of confederate states
+which Lamartine so stoutly predicts. Nay, may not this Panslavism of
+Russia, by a short-lived political domination, be destined to prove the
+very means of exciting the ethnological affinities of the rest of
+Europe, and of thereby raising up an insuperable barrier to its own
+progress, as well as involuntarily launching the other nations on their
+true line of progress?
+
+The fag-end of an article is little suitable for the discussion of such
+really momentous topics, and we especially regret that we cannot proceed
+to consider the effects which the progress of civilisation is likely to
+exert upon Russia itself. Any one, however, who is disposed to supply
+for himself the deductions from the above principles, will feel that his
+labour in so doing is not without its recompense, by establishing the
+consolatory truth that, so far as human eye can discern, “a good time
+coming” is yet in store for Europe,—though, alas, what turmoil must
+there be between this and then!
+
+
+
+
+              THE GANGETIC PROVINCES OF BRITISH INDIA.[35]
+
+
+Disguise it as we may, conquest to the conquered must ever be a bitter
+draught.
+
+It is impossible for nations to be entirely disinterested. The rewards
+of the victors cannot be reaped without trenching upon the rights of the
+vanquished.
+
+Three centuries have gone by since Machiavelli wrote, yet still does the
+Italian mutter his words, “Ad ognuno puzza questo barbaro dominio;” and
+all the material benefits which the peasantry of Lombardy often admit
+that they enjoy under their present masters, cannot abate the aversion
+of the people of that province to the Austrian rule.
+
+There are more points of resemblance than we may like to confess between
+the position of Austria towards Italy, and that of England towards
+India. In both cases, the bulk of the conquered, especially the
+agricultural classes, have little to complain of, and are on the whole
+passively contented and reconciled to a yoke which, as far as they are
+concerned, presses, perhaps, but does not gall; in both cases, all of a
+higher order, all upon whom ambition can have any influence, must feel
+more or less discontented with a condition necessarily attended with a
+diminished chance of advancement, and a mortifying stagnation of hope.
+Both of the dominant powers ought to regard this frame of mind not as a
+fault, but as a moral malady, and to direct their best efforts to the
+cure of an affection naturally resulting from the depressed position of
+those brought by conquest under their sway.
+
+What the sanative measures of Austria may have been, and into the causes
+of their failure, we need not stop to inquire, but may proceed at once
+to consider in how far we have, in this respect, acquitted ourselves of
+our obligations to those over whom we also rule mainly by the right of
+conquest and superior strength.
+
+Not being gifted, like many of our contemporaries, with power to take in
+the totality of the gorgeous East at one comprehensive glance, we must
+examine our Indian empire in detail, and for the present confine our
+remarks to the Presidency of Bengal, with its appendage the
+Lieutenant-Governorship of Agra.
+
+The guides whom we propose to follow in the prosecution of our inquiries
+into the state of these Gangetic provinces, their past and present
+condition, and their future prospects, are the authors enumerated at the
+foot of the page, each of whom may be regarded as a representative of
+one or other of the schools into which those interested in the work of
+Indian administration may now be said to be divided.
+
+The history of our civil administration of the Gangetic portion of our
+Eastern territory divides itself into three distinct periods. The first,
+extending from the victories of Clive in 1757, to the commencement of
+Lord Cornwallis’s system in 1793, may be called the heroic and
+irregular; the second, dating from the year last mentioned, and
+continuing till the accession of Lord William Bentinck in 1829, may be
+designated the judicial and regular; and the third, stretching from that
+time to the present day, the anti-judicial and progressive period.
+
+During the first of these periods, it is in vain to deny that gross
+abuses prevailed, and that many acts of oppression were committed by
+those very individuals among our own countrymen, whose heroism in the
+field and sagacity in council were the subjects of admiration to such
+natives as were brought into communication and contact with them.
+
+A degree of intimacy thus subsisted between the European rulers and
+natives of higher rank, such as, in these days, is only to be found
+where the native has been by education assimilated in some degree to the
+Englishman.
+
+It is stated by Mr F. H. Robinson, that men who had left India at that
+early period, could not believe those who, in after years, told them of
+the social estrangement prevailing in that country, and of the
+reluctance evinced, even by Mahommedans, to share a repast with a
+Christian.
+
+Engaged, as the English of those early days were, in a struggle for
+political existence, their deportment towards natives of rank was
+influenced by the often-felt necessity of winning them over to their
+interests; and thus our national disposition to be contemptuously
+churlish towards those who differ from ourselves in language,
+complexion, and manner, was kept for a while in abeyance. At that
+period, therefore, we find traces of friendly personal feeling
+subsisting between Englishmen and natives, and expressed by the latter,
+even in the same breath with the most earnest protestations against the
+mal-administration of the country then in our hands. Striking instances
+of these conflicting feelings are exhibited in that most curious work
+entitled _Syar-ul Mootekherin_, which may be translated into a “Review
+of Modern Times,” or more literally, “Manners of the Moderns.” This
+history of the events attending the downfall of the Moghul and the rise
+of our own power in India, was written by a Mahommedan gentleman, of the
+name of Mir Gholan Hussein, whose descendants, if we are not
+misinformed, continued under our rule to hold possession of certain
+lands in the province of Behar, since lost to them in a manner likely to
+be chronicled among the events of the third of the three historic
+periods to which we have alluded.
+
+If even at this distance of time it is painful to read the reproaches
+bestowed by the author on our internal administration, it is still
+consolatory to find one, to whom neither partiality nor flattery can be
+imputed, recording his unfeigned admiration of the personal conduct of
+many of our countrymen in those early days.
+
+Of Warren Hastings the author writes with enthusiasm. He records all of
+that great man’s troubles with his council; and gives, if we remember
+right—for we have not been able to find a complete translation of the
+work in London—a circumstantial account of the duel with Francis,
+fought, according to English custom, with _tummunchas_ (pistols), in a
+_bugishea_ (garden); and then after narrating the complete dispersion of
+the factious opposition by which he had been thwarted, he breaks out in
+a triumphant tone, with an exclamation like the following: “Now did the
+genius of Mr Hastings, like the sun bursting through a cloud, beam forth
+in all its splendour.” In describing an action fought in the vicinity of
+the city of Patna, in the year 1760, the native author dwells with
+delight upon the conduct of his friend Dr William Fullerton, who, in the
+midst of a retreat in the face of a victorious enemy, on an
+ammunition-cart breaking down, stopped unconcernedly, put it in order,
+and then bravely pursued his route, and “it must be acknowledged,” he
+adds, “that this nation’s presence of mind, firmness of temper, and
+undaunted bravery, are past all question.”
+
+In abatement of these praises, he adds the following reflections: “If,
+to so many military qualifications, they knew how to join the art of
+government, no nation would be preferable to them, or prove worthier of
+command; but such is their little regard to the people of these
+kingdoms, and such their apathy and indifference for their welfare, that
+the people under their dominion groan everywhere, and are reduced to
+poverty and distress.”
+
+Though this censure is in so far unfair, that all is, in Oriental
+fashion, imputed to the ruling power, without allowance for the
+circumstances of a period of troublous transition, it is evidently
+penned in an honest and friendly spirit; and evinces no repugnance
+whatever to the domination of the English, provided they would acquire
+some better knowledge of “the art of government.” In another passage he
+recounts how gallantly a Hindoo of high rank, Rajah Shitab Roy,
+co-operated with Captain Knox in attacking an immensely superior force,
+and how heartily, on returning to Patna, the English captain expressed
+his admiration of his Hindoo ally, exclaiming repeatedly, “This is a
+real Nawab; I never saw such a Nawab in my life.”
+
+Soon afterwards the French officer with the force opposed to the
+English, the Chevalier Law, having been deserted by his men, remained
+by himself on the field of battle, when, bestriding one of his guns,
+“he awaited the moment of his death.” His surrender and courteous
+reception are dwelt on with evident delight; and, after stating how a
+rude question addressed to the Chevalier by a native chief was checked
+and rebuked by the English officer, he makes the following
+observation:—“This reprimand did much honour to the English; and it
+must be acknowledged, to the honour of these strangers, that as their
+conduct in war and in battle is worthy of admiration, so, on the other
+hand, nothing is more modest and more becoming than their behaviour to
+an enemy, whether in the heat of action or in the pride of success and
+victory.”
+
+These extracts, borrowed from the notes to the third volume of Mill’s
+History, might be supported by many other passages of a similar tendency
+in the native work itself; and all tend to prove that the social
+estrangement since prevailing between our countrymen and the native
+gentry has not had its origin in the religious scruples of the latter,
+or in any decided aversion on their part to a closer intercourse with
+the strangers to whom Providence has assigned the mastery over their
+land.
+
+This view is confirmed, in as far as the Mahommedans are concerned, by
+what Mrs Colin Mackenzie tells us of the comments of the Afghan chiefs
+on the reluctance of their co-religionists in Hindostan to share a
+repast with their Christian rulers, and the absence of any fellowship
+between the two classes is traced by that lady to the very cause to
+which it is in our opinion also mainly to be ascribed; namely, to our
+peculiar and somewhat repulsive bearing towards all who differ from
+ourselves in tone of thought, in taste, or in manners.—With a scrupulous
+respect for the persons and property of those among whom we are thrown
+by the accidents of war, or trade, or travel, we too often manifest a
+great disregard for the feelings; and as insults rankle in the memory
+long after injuries are forgotten, we find that liberal expenditure and
+strict justice in our dealings cannot make us as popular as our rivals
+the French, even in countries where we paid for all, and they for
+nothing, that was supplied or taken. Now, it is well remarked by Mr
+Marshman, at p. 63 of his Reply to Mr Cobden, that “everything in and
+about our Eastern Empire is English, even to our imperfections;” and
+among them we need not be surprised to find an undue scorn of all that
+is foreign, heightened by the arrogance of conquest and the Anglo-Saxon
+antipathy to a dark complexion. This last is a more potent principle
+than in our present humour of theoretical philanthropy we may be
+disposed to admit; but it seems to be born with us, for it may be seen
+sometimes in English children at an age too young for prejudice, or even
+a perception of social distinctions.
+
+It was said by “the Duke,” that there is no aristocracy like the
+aristocracy of colour; and all experience in lands where the races are
+brought into contact, proves the correctness of the aphorism.
+
+During the first thirty years of our ascendancy in India, this most
+forbidding of our national characteristics was kept in check by the
+exigencies of our position; and the consequence was, that,
+notwithstanding all the corruption of the time, we were then
+individually more popular than we have ever been since. There was so
+little of what could be called European society then to be met with
+throughout the country, that Englishmen were drawn into some degree of
+intimacy with natives, in order to escape from the painful sense of
+total isolation and solitude. That this intercourse was favourable to
+morality in the highest sense of the term, is more than we can venture
+to affirm; each party too often acquired more of the faults than of the
+virtues of the other. But still, bad as the public and private life of
+Anglo-Indians was at that period, and however great the corruption that
+prevailed, these defects in those who ruled were perhaps more tolerable
+to the governed than the ill-mannered integrity of a succeeding
+generation.
+
+The abuses had probably gone on increasing, and the palliating courtesy
+most likely diminishing, when a new era was ushered in by the arrival of
+the first Governor-General of superior rank, in the person of the
+Marquis Cornwallis.
+
+We must refer our readers to Mr Kaye’s pages for a clear description of
+the state of the Bengal Presidency at the commencement of this the
+second of the three periods into which we have assumed that its history
+may be distributed. Our space will not allow of our entering into the
+controversy about the merits of the system then introduced by Lord
+Cornwallis and his coadjutors, but we gladly make room for the following
+picture of the state of the peasantry in Bengal, sketched as we are
+assured by an eyewitness, in the course of the year 1853.
+
+
+  “What strikes the eye most in any village, or set of villages, in a
+  Bengal district, is the exuberant fertility of the soil, the sluttish
+  plenty surrounding the Grihasta’s (cultivator’s) abode, the rich
+  foliage, the fruit and timber trees, and the palpable evidence against
+  anything like penury. Did any man ever go through a Bengalee village
+  and find himself assailed by the cry of want or famine? Was he ever
+  told that the Ryot and his family did not know where to turn for a
+  meal, that they had no shade to shelter them, no tank to bathe in, no
+  employment for their active limbs? That villages are not neatly laid
+  out like a model village in an English county; that things seem to go
+  on, year by year, in the same slovenly fashion; that there are no
+  local improvements, and no advances in civilisation, is all very true.
+  But considering the wretched condition of some of the Irish peasantry,
+  or even the Scotch, and the misery experienced by hundreds in the
+  purlieus of our great cities at home, compared with the condition of
+  the Ryots who know neither cold nor hunger, it is high time that the
+  outcry about the extreme unhappiness of the Bengal Ryot should
+  cease.”—(P. 194.)
+
+
+It is cheering to read in the chapter of Mr Kaye’s work, from which the
+above extract is taken, the proofs that the labours of Cornwallis and
+his able coadjutors have not been fruitless, and that the peasantry of
+the part of India more immediately under their care, are not, as some
+have asserted, to this hour suffering from their blundering humanity.
+
+It would indeed be most mortifying to think that regulations, pronounced
+at the time of their promulgation by Sir Wm. Jones and the best English
+lawyers in India (though, in the true spirit of professional pedantry,
+they would not allow them to be called laws), to be such as would do
+credit to any legislator of ancient or modern times, should really in
+operation have proved productive of little or no good.
+
+The preambles to some of the first of these regulations are worthy of
+notice, even on the score of literary merit; and it is impossible to
+peruse them without feeling that they must have proceeded from highly
+cultivated minds, deeply impressed with the importance of the duty on
+which they were engaged.
+
+It was the recorded opinion of the late Mr Courtenay Smith, of the
+Bengal Civil Service (a brother of the celebrated Sidney Smith, and,
+like him, a man of great wit and general talent, though unfortunately
+his good things were mostly expressed in Persian or Hindostanee, and are
+thus lost to the European world), that succeeding governments have
+always erred as they have departed from the principles of the Cornwallis
+code; and that it would have been well if they had confined their
+legislation to such few modifications of the regulations of 1793 as the
+slowly progressive changes of Oriental life might have really rendered
+necessary.
+
+For very nearly thirty years the government of Bengal resisted the
+tempting facility of legislation incident to its position of entire and
+absolute power, and was content to rule upon the principles, and in
+general adherence to the forms, prescribed by those early enactments.
+
+The benefits resulting from this system were to be seen in a yearly
+extending cultivation, a growing respect for rights of property, and the
+gradual rise in the minds of the people of an habitual reference to
+certain known laws, instead of to the caprice of a ruler, for their
+guidance in the more serious affairs of life.
+
+The counterbalancing evils alleged against it were, the monopoly of all
+high offices by the covenanted servants of the East India Company; the
+accumulation of suits in the courts of civil justice—a result partly of
+that monopoly, and partly of the check imposed by our police on all
+simpler and ruder modes of arbitrement; and its tendency, by humouring
+the Asiatic aversion to change, to keep things stationary, and
+discountenance that progress without which there ought, in the opinion
+of many of our countrymen, to be no content on earth. Indeed, the very
+fact of the natives of Bengal being satisfied with such a system, would,
+we apprehend, be advanced as a reason for its abolition—a contented
+frame of mind, under their circumstances, being held to indicate a moral
+abasement, only to be corrected by the excitement of a little
+discontent. But, in truth, there was nothing in the Cornwallis system to
+preclude the introduction of necessary amendments.
+
+The great reproach attaching to it was the insufficient employment of
+natives, and the exclusive occupation by the Civil Service of the higher
+judicial posts. Now, we hope to make it clear, by a brief explanation,
+that the correction of both of these evils might more easily have been
+effected under the Cornwallis system, than under that by which it has
+been superseded. There are, as we have remarked at the outset of this
+article, questions of difficult solution inseparable from conquest;
+among which, that of the degree of trust to be reposed in the conquered
+is perhaps the greatest.
+
+Where attachment can hardly be presumed to exist, some reserve in the
+allotment of power appears to be dictated by prudence; and to fix the
+amount of influence annexed to an office to be filled by one of the
+subjugated, so as to render its importance and respectability compatible
+with the supremacy of the ruling race, is far from being so easy as
+those imagine who, in their reliance on certain general principles of
+supposed universal application, leave national feelings and prejudices
+out of account in making up their own little nostrums for the
+improvement of mankind.
+
+Under the Cornwallis system, there was an office which, though then
+always filled by a member of the Civil Service, seemed, in the
+limitation as well as the importance of its duties, to be exactly suited
+for natives to hold. When the civil file of a district became overloaded
+with arrears, the government used to appoint an officer to be assistant
+or deputy judge. To him the regular judge of the district was empowered
+to refer any cases that he thought fit, though there his power ceased,
+as the appeal lay direct to the provincial court from the award of the
+deputy.
+
+The deputy being made merely a referee without original jurisdiction,
+was a wise provision for keeping the primary judicial power in the hands
+of the officer charged with the preservation of the peace of the
+district, while importance and weight were given to the office of the
+deputy, by making the appeals from his decisions lie to the Provincial
+Court, and not to his local superior. A single little law of three
+lines, declaring natives of India to be eligible to the office of Deputy
+Judge, would, by throwing a number of respectable situations open to
+their aspirations, have provided for their advancement, without any
+disturbance of institutions to which the people of the country had
+become accustomed and reconciled. Again, as to the monopoly of higher
+judicial office by members of the Civil Service, the Cornwallis system,
+perhaps, provided a readier means of abating even this grievance than
+will be found in that by which it has been supplanted.
+
+Nothing can be more extravagant than the scheme of sending out
+barristers from Westminster Hall, to undertake, without any intermediate
+training, the management of districts in Bengal and Hindostan. Sir
+William Jones himself, unintelligible as he was, on his first arrival,
+to the natives of India, would have failed if he had undertaken such a
+task. This visionary proposal has happily received its _coup de grace_
+from Sir Edward Ryan, the late Chief Justice in Bengal, in his evidence
+before the Commons’ Committee; but it does not, in our opinion, follow
+that the aid of lawyers trained in England is therefore to be altogether
+discarded in providing for the administration of justice in India.
+Although the man fresh from England would be sadly bewildered if left by
+himself in a separate district, it does not follow that he should not,
+after some preparatory training, be able to co-operate vigorously with
+others. The horse will go well in double-harness, or in a team, who
+would upset a gig, and kick it to pieces.
+
+If barristers chose to repair to Bengal, and, while there practising at
+the bar of the Supreme Court, would study the native languages, it
+appears to us that, on their proficiency being proved by an examination,
+they might have been advantageously admitted, under certain limitations
+as to number, into the now abolished Provincial Courts.
+
+Had these experimental provisions in favour of natives of India, and
+barristers from England, been found to succeed, their eligibility to
+every grade in the judicial branch of the service might have been
+proclaimed, and the most plausible of all the complaints against our
+system of Indian government would thus have been removed. But
+improvement without change was not to the taste of those by whom the
+last of our three administrative periods was ushered in; and in further
+confirmation of Mr Marshman’s remark, already cited, on the parallelism
+of movement in England and in India, it was in the changeful years 1830
+and 1831 that a revolution was effected in our system of internal
+administration, which has since given a colour and a bent to our whole
+policy in the East. In the course of those two years the magisterial
+power was detached from the office of the judge, and annexed to that of
+the collector; the Provincial Courts were abolished, their judicial
+duties being transferred to the district judges, and their ministerial
+functions of superintendence and control to commissioners, each with the
+police and revenue of about half a dozen districts under his charge.
+
+Two Sudder, or courts of ultimate resort, were established, one at
+Calcutta, the other at Allahabad in upper India; but all real executive
+power centred in the magisterial revenue department, presided over by
+two Boards, located, like the Sudder Courts, at Calcutta and Allahabad.
+
+One of the new provisions then introduced abolished the office of
+Register, or subordinate Judge, held by young civilians conjointly with
+that of Assistant to the Magistrate. This was a most serious change, for
+it abolished the very situation in which young civilians received their
+judicial training, and fitted themselves for the better eventual
+discharge of the higher duties of the judicature.
+
+The Registers used to have the trial of civil suits for property, if not
+more than five hundred rupees (£50) in value. The abolitionists urged
+the injustice of letting raw youths experimentalise upon small suits, to
+the supposed detriment of poor suitors. There was a show of reason in
+this mode of arguing; but those who used it did not give due weight to
+the consideration that these youths were to become the dispensers of
+justice to all classes, and that it was better for the country to suffer
+a little from their blunders at the outset, than to have them at last
+advanced to the highest posts on the judgment-seat without any judicial
+training whatsoever. But, in fact, the whole argument was based upon a
+mere assumption. The young Registers certainly committed occasional
+blunders, as old Justices and Aldermen, if we are to believe the daily
+papers, constantly commit them in England; but, on the whole, their
+courts were generally popular and in good repute among the natives. The
+young civilian had often a pride in his own little court of record,
+liked to know that it was well thought of, and was sometimes pleased to
+find parties shaping their plaints so as to bring them within the limits
+of his cognisance.
+
+They thus often acquired a personal regard for the people, whom it was
+their pride, as well as their duty, to protect—a feeling which has
+since, we fear, been too much weakened. The young civilians of the
+present day, though excellent men of business, and accomplished
+linguists, have seldom any individual feeling for the natives, whom they
+regard in a light for which no word occurs to us so happily expressive
+as the French term, “les administrés.” Thus it happened that the
+abolition of Registerships proved almost the death-blow to the
+Cornwallis system, and shook, not merely the framework, but the very
+principles of judicial administration throughout the country. It was
+followed up by a series of measures, all calculated to lower the
+judicial department of the service, and to prove to the natives that the
+protection of the law, promised in the still unrepealed regulations, was
+thenceforward to prove illusory, wherever it was required to shield them
+from the encroachments of any new scheme or theory finding favour for
+the moment with an executive government ruling avowedly upon principles
+of expediency, and seeking every occasion to shake off the trammels
+imposed upon its freedom of action by the cautious provisions of the
+Cornwallis code.
+
+The people soon found in their rulers under the new system a scrupulous
+discharge of all positive duties, combined with a diminished
+consideration for native prejudices, a neglect of many punctilios of
+etiquette, and a stern hostility to every exceptional privilege
+exempting an individual in any degree from the operation of the rules of
+general administration. This last-mentioned tendency showed itself
+particularly in the case of the rent-free tenures, which had for some
+ten years previously been undergoing revision.
+
+These landed tenures were held under grants from former rulers,
+exempting the grantee and his heirs from all payment on the score of
+revenue, though sometimes, as in our own feudal tenures, imposing upon
+him obligations of suit and service in some form or other.
+
+When the framers of the Cornwallis code, in 1793, determined on
+recognising the validity of every such tenure as was held under an
+authentic and sufficient grant, a provision was at the same time made
+for their being carefully recorded and registered.
+
+This duty of registration was, however, either totally neglected or very
+imperfectly performed, and the consequence was, that by collusive
+extensions of their limits, and other means, such as it would be tedious
+to explain, the rent-free tenures were gradually eating into the
+rent-paying lands forming the main source of the revenues of the state.
+Careful revision, therefore, became necessary, and was in fact commenced
+so far back as the year 1819. The inquiry was intrusted to the officers
+of the revenue department; but for some time permission was left to
+those discontented with their award, to bring the question at issue
+between them and the Government before the regular courts of justice for
+final decision. This process proving too tardy, in about ten years
+afterwards a sort of exchequer court, called a Special Commission, was
+erected for the trial of appeals from the decisions of the revenue
+authorities on the validity of rent-free grants. This commission was
+filled by officers of the judicial branch of the service, and their
+proceedings, carried on in strict conformity with the practice of the
+courts of civil justice, gave no offence, and created no alarm,
+notwithstanding that extensive tracts were brought by their decisions
+under the liability of paying revenue to the state. But not long after
+the country had entered into the third period of its administration, the
+revenue authorities got impatient of all restraint, and sought to break
+through the impediments of judicial procedure and rules. The primary
+proceedings, being intrusted to young deputy-collectors, were carried on
+with a rapidity which rendered due investigation utterly impossible, and
+all real inquiry must have been deemed superfluous by juniors, who saw
+their superiors gravely pronounce, even in official documents, that the
+very existence of a rent-free tenure was an abuse, and ought to be
+abated.
+
+We have said that the forgeries practised by some, and the extension of
+their privileges by others of the holders, rendered strict investigation
+of rent-free tenures an immediate necessity and a duty. Still, it was to
+be borne in mind, that our faith was pledged to the recognition of all
+_genuine_ grants, and that, in the larger of these tenures, the fallen
+nobility and gentry of the land found their solace for the loss of
+power, place, station, hope of advancement, and all that gives a zest to
+the life of the upper classes in every part of the globe; while the
+smaller tenures of the kind constituted, in many instances, the sole
+support of well-descended but indigent families. There was something to
+move the compassion even of a universal philanthropist, in the thought
+of the humble individuals of both sexes to whom a sweeping resumption of
+all such tenures was in fact the extinction of almost every earthly
+hope. The Indian government itself, though at that period described by
+Mr F. H. Robinson (p. 12) as “a despotism administered upon radical
+principles,” became startled at the havoc which the zeal of its
+subordinates was committing among this class of sufferers, and
+interfered to mitigate the severity of their proceedings. Many of the
+“soft-hearted” seniors of the Civil Service rejoiced at a resolution
+which relieved them from an odious and painful duty. But thus reasons a
+strong-minded junior on what he regards as a feeble concession:—
+
+
+  “Unfortunately the long delay in making the investigations had
+  established in their seats the fraudulent appropriators of the
+  revenue; and when it came to be taken from them, the measure caused
+  great change and apparent hardship to individuals in comfortable
+  circumstances; hence arose a great cry of hardship and injustice. We
+  were still most apt to view with sympathy the misfortunes of the
+  higher classes; many soft-hearted officers of Government exclaimed
+  against the sudden deprivation; and some of the seditious Europeans,
+  who find their profit in professional attacks on Government, raised
+  the cry much louder. But the worst of the storm had expended itself; a
+  little firmness, a little voluntary beneficence to individual cases,
+  and it would have ceased; and the temporary inconvenience to
+  fraudulent individuals would have resulted in great permanent addition
+  to the means of the state; but the Bengal Government is pusillanimous.
+  Since Warren Hastings was persecuted in doing his duty, and Lord
+  Cornwallis praised for sacrificing the interests of Government, and of
+  the body of the people, it has always erred on the side of abandoning
+  its rights to any sufficiently strong interested cry. It wavered about
+  these resumptions. It let off first one kind of holding, then another,
+  then all holdings under one hundred beegas (about seventy acres),
+  whether one man possessed several such or not: life-tenures were
+  granted where no right existed. Finally, _all_ resumed lands were
+  settled at _half_ rates in perpetuity, and the Board of Revenue
+  intimated that they ‘would be happy to see all operations
+  discontinued.’ The result therefore is, that the Government have
+  incurred all the odium and abuse of the measure, have given the cry
+  more colour by so much yielding, and in the end have got not half so
+  much revenue as they ought to have had. There has been an addition of
+  about £300,000 to the annual revenue, at an expense of £800,000.”[36]
+
+
+According to Mr Campbell’s calculation, a stricter enforcement of the
+resumption laws might have doubled the above sum; but as only the
+smaller tenures were let off, it is scarcely possible that more than
+half as much again as was actually realised could have been wrung out of
+the remnants to which the Government so timidly, as he asserts,
+abandoned its rights. An addition, therefore, of about £450,000 to our
+annual income would have been all that we should have gained by a
+measure violating the most solemn pledge given to the people that every
+VALID grant should be respected, reducing many families to ruin, and
+shaking the general confidence in our honesty and good faith. Though the
+passage cited is open to many objections on the score of arbitrary
+assumption and false reasoning, it is to its hardness of tone that we
+would chiefly draw our readers’ attention, as strongly confirmatory of
+the following remark, taken from Mr F. H. Robinson’s pamphlet:—
+
+
+  “I have said enough, I think, to demonstrate that the disaffection
+  which exists is traceable to the despotic character our administration
+  has of late years assumed, simultaneously with its sedulous diffusion
+  of liberal doctrines; to the unhappy dislike of natives, as natives,
+  which has crept in among the servants of Government; to the many acts
+  of abuse, oppression, and arbitrary misgovernment, arising as much
+  from misguided zeal as from evil intention, which, on the part of the
+  administrative officers, harass and vex the people.”—(P. 31).
+
+
+We have already recorded our assent to Mr Marshman’s remark on the
+thoroughly English character of our Indian empire and its
+administration; but we have, moreover, to observe, that, in the
+application of new principles even of European growth, India often
+outstrips the mother country. That which in England is still theory has
+in India become practice. There are not wanting in England people to
+maintain that all grants of olden times ought to be forfeited, and their
+proceeds applied to the purposes of general government. If these people
+had their way, they would certainly resume the lands of the deans and
+chapters, probably those of the schools and colleges, and possibly such
+also as are devoted to the support of almshouses, and other charitable
+institutions scattered over the face of the country. These speculations
+in England evaporate in pamphlets, and cannot for a long time assume any
+more positive form than that of a speech in the House of Commons. But
+the following passage in Mr F. H. Robinson’s pamphlet shows us how
+differently such matters are ordered in India:—
+
+
+  “The Government have systematically resumed, of late years, all
+  religious endowments; an extensive inquiry has been going on into all
+  endowments, grants, and pensions; and in almost every one in which the
+  continuance of religious endowments has been recommended by
+  subordinate revenue authorities, backed by the Board of Revenue, the
+  fiat of confiscation has been issued by the Government.”—(P. 17).
+
+
+Again, there are many in England who would gladly reduce the landed
+possessions of great proprietors, like the Duke of Buccleuch and others,
+to more moderate dimensions; but they hardly venture to put forth
+speculations upon a measure which, in India, has been carried into
+positive and extensive execution.
+
+The fourth chapter of Mr Kaye’s work contains a clear and admirable
+account of the recent settlement of the provinces of the Upper Ganges,
+in the course of which the reader will meet with the following passage:—
+
+
+  “There was a class of large landed proprietors, known as Talookdars,
+  the territorial aristocracy of the country. The settlement officers
+  seem to have treated these men as usurpers and monopolists, and to
+  have sought every opportunity of reducing their tenures. It was not
+  denied that such reduction was, on the whole, desirable, inasmuch as
+  these large tenures interfered with the rights of the village
+  proprietors. But the reduction was undertaken in too precipitate and
+  arbitrary a manner; and the Court of Directors acknowledged that it
+  had caused great practical embarrassment to Government, against whom
+  numerous suits were instituted in the civil courts by the ousted
+  talookdars, and many decided in their favour.”—(P. 265).
+
+
+The redress afforded by these decisions of the civil courts has not, we
+fear, been sufficient to avert the ruin of such members of the
+“territorial aristocracy” as had the hardihood to withhold their
+adhesion to a scheme for their own extinction. The principle of that
+scheme was to grant, in the form of a per-centage on the revenue
+realised from the village communities of what had been his domain, a
+pension to the talookdar who was willing, for such a consideration, to
+give up all the other advantages of his hereditary position. Many of
+these men, or their immediate predecessors, had rendered us great
+service in the war by which we acquired the country; but they stood in
+the way of a favourite scheme, and before its irresistible advance they
+were compelled to retire. The provision made for their future wants may
+have been a liberal one; but how would the Duke of Buccleuch or the
+Marquess of Westminster like to be thus pensioned off?
+
+The truth had better be frankly avowed; the object aimed at is, to get
+rid of the old territorial aristocracy altogether,—indeed, it is so
+stated by Mr Campbell in the following sentences:—
+
+
+  “It is, I think, a remarkable distinction between the manners of the
+  natives and ours, and one which much affects our dealings with them,
+  that there does not exist that difference of tone between the higher
+  and lower classes—the distinction, in fact, of a gentleman. The lower
+  classes are to the full as good and intelligent as with us; indeed,
+  they are much more versed in the affairs of life, plead their causes
+  better, make more intelligent witnesses, and have many virtues.
+
+  “But these good qualities are not in the same proportion in the higher
+  classes; they cannot bear prosperity; it causes them to degenerate,
+  especially if they are born to greatness. The only efficient men of
+  rank (with, of course, a few exceptions) are those who have risen to
+  greatness. The lowest of the people, if fate raise him to be an
+  emperor, makes himself quite at home in his new situation, and shows
+  an aptitude of manner and conduct unknown to Europeans similarly
+  situated; but his son is altogether degenerate. Hence the
+  impossibility of adapting to anything useful most of the higher
+  classes found by us, and for all fresh requirements it is necessary to
+  _create_ a fresh class. From the acuteness and aptness to learn of the
+  inferior classes, this can be done as is done in other
+  countries.”—(Pp. 63, 64).
+
+
+We fully subscribe to all that is here said in commendation of the lower
+classes of our Indian subjects, but we demur to the author’s very
+disparaging estimate of the capacity of the higher orders. Doubtless
+there are, or rather were, many dull men of rank on the banks of the
+Ganges; but are there none on those of the Thames?—no squires of cramped
+and confused notions, no fortunate inheritors of wealth content to
+wallow through life in utter disregard of the duties attaching to
+property, while fiercely jealous of its rights? It would be a sad day
+for our own landed aristocracy if Mr Campbell were to obtain sway in
+England, and try to rule that country upon the principles of which he
+approves in the East. But if he could, would our peasantry be
+_permanently_ bettered by a change tending towards a destruction of all
+the gradations of society? If the reply to this query should be in the
+affirmative, we may contemplate with unalloyed satisfaction the progress
+of a system the description and defence of which is the main object of
+Mr Campbell’s work; but if we feel any hesitation as to the future
+effects of such a change in England, then, human nature being much the
+same in every clime, we ought to have some misgivings as to its eventual
+results in the East. We say _eventual_, because the _immediate_ fruits
+of the measures described by Mr Campbell have, we are assured by him,
+and have heard from other quarters, been satisfactory and cheering. But
+is it probable that a whole nation should rest satisfied for ever in
+this state of flat and tame sufficiency? and can we wonder to find
+alongside of Mr Campbell’s picture of what ought to be the feelings
+towards the English of the present day on the banks of the Ganges, Mr F.
+H. Robinson’s gloomy account of what, in his opinion, those feelings
+really are? Having been compelled, as a member of the Board of Revenue,
+to make a communication to an old retired officer of Gardiner’s
+Irregular Horse, and to a Mussulman of rank, calculated to hurt the
+feelings of both, Mr Robinson thus describes what followed:—
+
+
+  “I shall never forget the looks of mortification, anger, and at first
+  of incredulity, with which this announcement was received by both, nor
+  the bitter irony with which the old Russuldar remarked, that no doubt
+  the wisdom of the _new-gentlemen_ (Sahiblogue, so they designate the
+  English) had shown them the folly and ignorance of the gentlemen of
+  the old time, on whom it had pleased God, nevertheless, to bestow the
+  government of India.”—(P. 17).
+
+
+Mr Robinson goes too far when he taxes the rulers of the present day
+with dislike to the natives generally; but it is evident, from Mr
+Campbell’s own admission, that there is a strong prepossession in the
+minds of the young men of his school against all natives with any
+pretensions to rank. This feeling extending to those beyond the limits
+of our own dominions, has stamped on our foreign policy the character of
+our internal administration, and found its full development in the late
+Afghan war. Thirty or forty years ago, when natives, if excluded from
+office, were more often admitted to familiar intercourse with their
+European rulers, a mere regard for our own character in the eyes of our
+subjects would have withheld us from making an unprovoked attack upon an
+unoffending neighbour, and thus incurring a certain loss of reputation
+for a very uncertain amount of gain. This view of the case does not of
+course even occur to Mr Campbell as one likely to be taken by any
+reasonable being, and he sums up his account of the Afghan war with the
+following remarks, suggestive to our minds of little beyond a most
+earnest hope that the future advancement, doubtless in store for one of
+his abilities, may lead him far away from meddling with matters either
+political or military:—
+
+
+  “Such it was—a grievous military catastrophe and misfortune to us,
+  both then and in our subsequent relations with the country; but in no
+  way attributable to our policy, from which no such result necessarily
+  or probably flowed. To the policy is due the expense, but not the
+  disaster.”—(P. 136).
+
+
+Mr Campbell has evidently not made very minute inquiry into the facts of
+the war, or he would never have hazarded the assertion contained in the
+following passage, that Sir George Pollock literally paid his way
+through the Khyber Pass:—
+
+
+  “Through the Western mountains only has India been invaded; for beyond
+  them are all the great nations of Central India, and they are
+  penetrable to enemies through one or two difficult passes. But these
+  passes are so narrow, difficult, and easily defended, that _it is
+  believed_ that no army, from Alexander’s down to General Pollock’s,
+  has ever passed without bribing the mountain tribes. In the face of
+  regular troops and an organised defence, all the armies in the world
+  could not force an entrance; but in the absence of such a defence,
+  experience proves that the local tribes are always accessible to
+  moderate bribes.”—(P. 27).
+
+
+The absolute impracticability of any mountain barrier is, we believe,
+disputed; but, without offering any opinion on that point, we are happy
+to have it in our power to correct the mistake into which the author has
+fallen, in supposing that it was by bribing that Sir George Pollock
+carried his army through the Khyber Pass. It is true that, in the
+anxious time preceding our army’s movement from Peshawar, negotiations
+had been entered into with the local tribes; but we have the most
+unquestionable authority for asserting that, before the march towards
+Cabool began, the sum advanced to their chiefs, being 20,000 rupees or
+£2000, was demanded back from them by the political agent on the
+frontier, and actually repaid; so that the mountaineers had not only the
+clearest warning of the British general’s intention, but the strongest
+possible inducement to oppose him, as they did to the utmost of their
+power.
+
+But our chief motive for alluding to the Afghan war is, that we may show
+how the spirit of the two schools, under which, according to our theory,
+those engaged in the work of Indian government may now be classed,
+showed itself even in the direction of our armies in the field. Sir
+George Pollock was there the representative of what would be called by
+us the considerate and moderate, by Mr Campbell the soft-hearted and
+over-cautious school; while Sir William Nott was at the head of that
+which, going straight to its object, tramples under foot, without
+compunction, every consideration that might hamper its freedom of
+movement. We select but a few instances in proof of our position,
+choosing such as, from their notoriety, can be cited without injury or
+offence.
+
+As the two avenging armies, the one from Candahar on the south, the
+other from Peshawar on the east, drew nigh to Cabool, a powerful party,
+consisting chiefly of the Kuzzilbashes or Persians, who had never taken
+part against us, prayed earnestly that the citadel, the Bala Hissar,
+might be spared to serve as a place of refuge to themselves amid the
+troubles likely to ensue on our again evacuating the country.
+
+This prayer General Nott would have rejected, and in so doing would have
+gained the applause of every member of that school by which concession
+to the feelings of natives in opposition to the requirements of
+expediency, or the sternest justice, is regarded as a proof of weakness.
+With this prayer General Pollock complied; and to his doing so may the
+safety of the ladies and other prisoners, in whose fate the whole
+civilised world took so deep an interest, be ascribed; for it was
+through the co-operation of those thus conciliated that the Afghan
+chief, charged with the custody of the captives, was won over to assist
+in their escape. General Nott was fortunately the inferior in rank; for
+had he commanded in chief, we have his own words for the fact, that he
+would have destroyed the Bala Hissar and the City of Cabool, and marched
+on with the least possible delay to Jellabad, of course leaving the poor
+captives to their fate; or, in words which, from the manner of their
+insertion in the pages of the historian, it is to be feared he must have
+used, “throwing them overboard.”—(KAYE’S _History of the Afghan War_,
+vol. i. pp. 617, 631).
+
+Incomplete indeed, to use Mr Kaye’s words, would any victory have been,
+if these brave men and tender women, who had so well endured a long and
+fearful captivity, had been left behind; and it is well to reflect that
+we were saved from this reproach by the ascendancy of the milder
+principles of rule in the mind of the officer upon whom the chief
+command at this moment, we may almost say providentially, devolved.
+
+Many more instances are recorded, in the chapter just quoted, of the
+influence of a contrary spirit on the closing events of the Afghan war;
+but we must pass on to what happened in Scinde, where the anti-judicial
+principle may be said to have reached its climax.
+
+The following is Mr Campbell’s short and flippant account of that
+transaction, reminding us in one passage of a letter from the Empress
+Catherine to one of her French correspondents, wherein she congratulated
+herself “qu’il n’y a pas d’honneur à garder avec les Turcs”:—
+
+
+  “But though we withdrew from Cabool, our military experiences were not
+  yet over. On invading Afghanistan by the Bolan Pass, Scinde became a
+  base of our operations, and troops were there cantoned. When our
+  misfortunes occurred, it was supposed that the Beloch chiefs would
+  have liked to have turned against us, but dared not—did not.
+
+  “Major-General Sir C. Napier then commanded a division in Bombay; he
+  was a good soldier, of a keen, energetic temperament, but somewhat
+  quarrelsome disposition; had at one proud period of his life been in
+  temporary charge of a petty island in the Mediterranean, but was, I
+  believe, deposed by his superior—most unwisely, as he considered; and
+  he had ever since added to his military ardour a still greater thirst
+  for civil power—as it often happens that we prefer to the talents
+  which nature has given us those which she has denied us. He was
+  appointed to the command in Scinde; and Lord Ellenborough, an admirer
+  of heroes, subsequently invested him with political powers. He soon
+  quarrelled with the chiefs, and came to blows with them. Their
+  followers were brave, but undisciplined, and they had no efficient
+  artillery. An active soldier was opposed to them; he easily overcame
+  them, declared the territory annexed, and was made Governor of
+  Scinde.”
+
+  Now, the Beloch chiefs had no other right to the territory than the
+  sword; _and we, having the better sword, were perfectly justified in
+  taking it from them if we chose_, without reference to the particular
+  quarrel between Sir Charles and the chiefs, the merits of which have
+  been so keenly disputed, and on which I need not enter. But the
+  question _was one of expediency_; and this premature occupation of
+  Scinde was not so much a crime as a blunder,—for this very simple
+  reason, that Scinde did not pay, but, on the contrary, was a very
+  heavy burden, by which the Indian Government has been several millions
+  sterling out of pocket.
+
+  “The Ameers had amassed, in their own way, considerable property and
+  treasure, which the general obtained for the army. He was thus
+  rewarded by an unprecedented prize-money, and with the government of
+  Scinde, while Bengal paid the costs of the government he had gained.
+  Scinde was so great a loss, for this reason—that it was not, like
+  other acquisitions, in the midst of, or contiguous to, our
+  territories, but was at that time altogether detached and separated by
+  the sea, the desert, and the independent Punjab; while on the fourth
+  side it was exposed to the predatory Beloches of the neighbouring
+  hills. Consequently, every soldier employed there was cut off from
+  India, and was an expense solely due to Scinde; and while a great many
+  soldiers were required to keep it, it produced a very small revenue to
+  pay them. It is, in truth, very like Egypt—that is, it is the fertile
+  valley of a river running through a barren country, where no rain
+  falls. But there is this difference—first, that while no broader, it
+  is not so long, nor has the fine delta which constitutes the most
+  valuable portion of Egypt; second, that while Egypt is free from
+  external predatory invasion, Scinde is exceedingly exposed to it; and,
+  thirdly, that while Egypt has a European market for its grain, Scinde
+  has not. Altogether, the conquest was, at the time, as concerns India,
+  much as if we had taken the valley of the Euphrates.
+
+  “Half a dozen years later, when we advanced over the plain of the
+  Indus, and annexed the Punjab, we must have arranged to control Scinde
+  too, directly or indirectly, as might be done cheapest; but during
+  those intermediate years it was a gratuitous loss, and the chief cause
+  of the late derangement of our Indian finances.”—(Pp. 137–139).
+
+
+The better sword gives the better title! When such is the doctrine
+maintained, even by a man of the pen, we cannot wonder at its finding a
+ready expositor in the man of the sword.
+
+But, in truth, Mr Campbell’s sword plea, having the merit of honesty and
+openness, is by far the best that has been advanced; and yet, as he
+shows, it is only available in support of the right, and not of the
+policy, of the measure. After-events, he observes, alluding to the
+conquest of the Punjab, have given a value to Scinde, which in itself it
+did not possess; but he has omitted to remark that the one event very
+probably grew out of the other. The Sikhs, who not only had refrained,
+like the Ameers, from molesting, but had even assisted us in our recent
+difficulties, had some reason for apprehending that, in due time, the
+policy pursued in Scinde would be extended to their own more inviting
+country; while, as if to remove an obstacle to an apparently desired
+misunderstanding, Sir George Clerk was promoted to the nominally higher
+post of lieutenant-governor of Agra, and an officer, his very opposite
+in every quality excepting earnest zeal and undaunted courage, was
+appointed to be his political successor at Lahore.
+
+Though he is little disposed to state any case too favourably for the
+party opposed to us, this peculiarity in our relations with the Sikhs,
+immediately before their invasion of our territory, is frankly admitted
+by Mr Campbell. After mentioning various military movements calculated
+to give them alarm, he describes a political difficulty as to certain
+lands belonging to the Sikh state, lying on our side of the Sutledge,
+which he says had been so managed by two successive political agents,
+Sir Claude Wade and Sir George Clerk, that through their personal
+influence “it had so happened that our wishes were generally attended
+to.” He thus concludes:—
+
+
+  “Sir George Clerk having been promoted, new men were put in charge of
+  our frontier relations, and seem to have assumed as a right what had
+  heretofore been yielded to a good understanding. In 1845 Major
+  Broadfoot was political agent. He was a man of great talent and
+  immense energy, but of a rather overbearing habit. In difficult and
+  delicate times he certainly did not conciliate the Sikhs....
+  Altogether, I believe the fact to be, that had Sir George Clerk
+  remained in charge of our political relations, the Sikhs would not
+  have attacked us at the time they did; it might have been delayed: but
+  still it was well that they came when they did.”—(Pp. 142, 143.)
+
+
+The annexation of the Punjab followed hard on the conquest of Scinde,
+and both events may be regarded as sequels to the Afghan expedition, and
+this again as but a fuller development of the anti-judicial school,
+which, since the downfall of the Cornwallis system, has held almost
+undisputed sway on the banks of the Ganges.
+
+When a government essentially despotic, like that of British India,
+spontaneously engages to adhere to the rules of judicial procedure in
+dealing with its own subjects, a pledge is thereby given to neighbouring
+states that towards them also its conduct will be regulated on
+principles of justice and moderation.
+
+We admit that the ruling power may thus sometimes create obstructions to
+its own progress along the path of improvement; but it seems probable
+that such self-imposed restraints should more frequently operate (to
+borrow a term from the railway) as “breaks” to save it from
+precipitately rushing into acts of rashness or injustice.
+
+History confirms these conclusions, and shows the practical result to
+have been precisely what _a priori_ reasoning would have led us to
+expect.
+
+Five great wars were waged in India during the second or judicial period
+of its administration—that is, from 1793 to 1830. These were—the Mysore
+war in 1799, the Mahratta war in 1803, the Nepaul war in 1814, the
+Pindaree war in 1817, and the Burmese war in 1825. There is not one of
+these against which even a plausible charge of injustice can be
+maintained by our bitterest foreign foes, or most quick-sighted
+censorious countrymen.
+
+The acuteness of Mr Cobden himself would be at fault if he were to try
+to make out a case against the authors of any one of these wars, to
+satisfy a single sensible man beyond the circle of the “Peace Society.”
+
+But how is it with the wars which have occurred since, wandering from
+judicial ways, the rulers of Gangetic India have pursued whatever course
+for the moment found favour in their own eyes, with little or no
+reference to the feelings of their subjects, and with hardly a show of
+deference to the laws enacted by their predecessors?
+
+The Afghan war of 1838, the Scinde affair of 1843, the Gwalior campaign
+of 1844, have each in their turn, especially the two first-named, been
+made the subject of comments neither captious nor fastidious, but
+resting on indisputable evidence, and supported by reasoning such as
+pre-formed prejudice alone can resist. The two wars in the Punjab come
+under the category of the just and necessary; and Lord Hardinge’s
+generous use of the privileges of victory, at the close of the first of
+these hard-fought conflicts, did much to re-establish our character for
+justice and moderation. But still these wars are, we fear, coupled in
+the minds of the people of India with those out of which they sprang,
+and share in the reproach attaching, in their estimation, to the
+invasion of Afghanistan and the conquest of Scinde.
+
+We have now reached a point where we may stop to consider the several
+merits of the works on our list at the head of this article. Mr F. H.
+Robinson’s pamphlet is written in a frank conversational style,
+indicative of his earnest sincerity and his real sympathy with the
+people of the Upper Ganges, among whom his official life has been spent.
+We could wish occasionally that his language was a little more measured,
+for there are passages to startle some of his readers, and so to impair
+the general effect of his otherwise interesting pamphlet.
+
+Of the style, as well as the matter, of Mr Campbell’s more elaborate
+work, hardness is the chief characteristic. Indeed, he seems to discard
+all ornament from the one, and all sentiment from the other, and to aim
+at nothing beyond correctness as to his facts, and positiveness as to
+his deductions. In this he fully succeeds. His volume is a repertory of
+useful facts, and his conclusions can never be misapprehended. Some of
+Mr Campbell’s descriptions also are amusing; and we insert, as a
+specimen of his lighter style, the following sketch of the day of a
+magistrate and collector in Upper India, that functionary whose labours
+are so little known to any but those of his own service, or the people
+among whom he lives. After enumerating many out-of-door duties
+despatched in the course of an early morning’s ride, the description
+thus proceeds:—
+
+
+  “At breakfast comes the post and the packet of official letters. The
+  commissioner demands explanation on this matter, and transmits a paper
+  of instructions on that; the judge calls for cases which have been
+  appealed; the secretary to Government wants some statistical
+  information; the inspector of prisons fears that the prisoners are
+  growing too fat; the commander of the 105th regiment begs to state
+  that his regiment will halt at certain places on certain days, and
+  that he requires a certain quantity of flour, grain, hay, and eggs; Mr
+  Snooks, the indigo-planter, who is in a state of chronic warfare with
+  his next neighbour, has submitted his grievances in six folio sheets,
+  indifferent English, and a bold hand, and demands instant redress,
+  failing which he threatens the magistrate with Government, the supreme
+  court, an aspersion of his character as a gentleman, a Parliamentary
+  impeachment, a letter to the newspapers, and several other things
+  besides. After breakfast he despatches his public letters, writes
+  reports, examines returns, &c.
+
+  “During this time he has probably a succession of demi-officials from
+  the neighbouring cantonments. There is a great complaint that the
+  villagers have utterly, without provocation, broken the heads of the
+  cavalry grass-cutters, and the grass-cutters are sent to be looked at.
+  He goes out to look at them, but no sooner appears than a shout
+  announces that the villagers are waiting in a body, with a slightly
+  different version of the story, to demand justice against the
+  grass-cutters, who have invaded their grass-preserves, despoiled their
+  villages, and were with difficulty prevented from murdering the
+  inhabitants. So the case is sent to the joint magistrate. But there
+  are more notes; some want camels, some carts, and all apply to the
+  magistrate; then there may be natives of rank and condition, who come
+  to pay a serious formal kind of visit, and generally want something;
+  or a chatty native official who has plenty to say for himself.
+
+  “All this despatched, he orders his carriage or umbrella, and goes to
+  cutcherry—his regular court. Here he finds a sufficiency of business;
+  there are police, and revenue, and miscellaneous cases of all sorts,
+  appeals from the orders of his subordinates, charges of corruption or
+  misconduct against native officials. All petitions from all persons
+  are received daily in a box, read, and orders duly passed. Those
+  setting forth good grounds of complaint are filed under proper
+  headings; others are rejected, for written reason assigned. After
+  sunset, comes his evening, which is probably like his morning ride,
+  mixed up with official and demi-official affairs, and only at dark
+  does the wearied magistrate retire to dinner and to private
+  life.”—(Pp. 248–249).
+
+
+Mr Kaye’s essay recommends itself by the same easy flow of language as
+made his _History of the Afghan War_ such agreeable reading. His plan
+does not admit of his giving more than a series of sketches; but his
+outlines are so clear, and his selection of topics to fill up with is so
+happy, that we can safely recommend his volume to any one who, without
+leisure or inclination for more minute study of the subject, may still
+wish to obtain some general idea of the administration of our vast
+Eastern empire. In a note at page 661, Mr Kaye informs us, that in the
+summer of 1852 the Duke of Newcastle told the Haileybury students that,
+during a recent tour in the Tyrol, he had met an intelligent Austrian
+general who, in the course of conversation on our national resources,
+said that he could understand all the elements of our greatness except
+our Anglo-Indian empire, and _that_ he could not understand. The vast
+amount of administrative wisdom which the good government of such an
+empire demanded, baffled his comprehension.
+
+The Austrian general, perhaps, would not have readily assented to the
+explanation of the marvel given by the young French naturalist, Victor
+Jaquemont, who, in a letter dated from the confines of Tartary, in
+August 1830, thus writes to a relative in Paris: “The ideas
+entertained in France about this country are absurd; the governing
+talents of the English are immense; ours, on the contrary, are very
+mediocre; and we believe the former to be embarrassed when we see them
+in circumstances in which our awkwardness would be completely at a
+stand-still.”—(_English translation of Victor Jaquemont’s Letters_,
+vol. i. p. 169).
+
+The lady whose three volumes come next under our notice is certainly one
+of the most intelligent travellers of her sex who has visited India
+since the days when Maria Graham, afterwards Lady Callcott, amused her
+readers in England, and enraged many of her female acquaintances in
+India, by describing the latter as generally “under-bred and
+overdressed.”
+
+It is curious to observe how little change the lapse of forty years
+seems to have made in the outward peculiarities of Anglo-Indian
+drawing-room life, and how much in unison the two fair authors are in
+their remarks on their own countrymen.
+
+Mrs Colin Mackenzie, however, has enjoyed opportunities which her
+predecessor could not command, of observing the private and domestic
+side of Oriental life, and has evinced a wonderful aptitude in turning
+these opportunities to the best account. The great charm of her work is
+that it admits us within the Purdah, and lets us see what is hidden from
+all European masculine eyes,—the interior, namely, of an Asiatic
+household.
+
+It is pleasing to read an English lady’s lively account of her own
+friendly intercourse with families of another faith, upon whom her
+industrious energy, quickened and regulated by a zeal for her own
+religion, openly avowed and studiously exhibited as her main motive of
+action, cannot, we imagine, have failed to produce a deep and lasting
+impression. We trust that Mrs Mackenzie’s example may be followed by
+many of our countrywomen; for the information in which, of all others,
+the English functionaries in the East are most deficient—that regarding
+natives in their private and domestic sphere—is precisely what our
+ladies alone have the power to acquire and impart. Mrs Mackenzie, it is
+true, mingled chiefly with the Afghans, who are a more attractive race
+than the people of India.
+
+The Afghans, also, must have felt inclined to open their hearts to the
+wife of one who, both as a soldier in the field, and afterwards as a
+captive in their hands, had commanded the sincere respect of those among
+whom he was thrown. But though all cannot have her advantages, there is
+no lady whose husband holds office in India, who, if she makes herself
+acquainted with the languages of the country, will not find native women
+of rank and respectability ready to cultivate her acquaintance, and thus
+afford her the means of solving some of those problems of the native
+character which elude all the researches of our best-informed public
+functionaries. Having said thus much in praise of Mrs Mackenzie’s book,
+we cannot but censure most strongly the attempt at spicing her work with
+gossipping tales calculated to wound the feelings of private individuals
+among her own countrymen, and even of the officers of her husband’s own
+service, with whose characters she deals with a most unsparing degree of
+reproachful raillery, designating individuals as Colonel A., Major B.,
+or Captain C. of the — Regiment, stationed at such a place, so that
+there cannot be a doubt as to whom the anecdotes, which are always to
+the discredit of the parties, refer.
+
+The difficulty of commenting on a posthumous work is much enhanced when
+the author happens to have been, like the late Sir Charles Napier, one
+whose errors of the pen are more than redeemed by a career of long and
+glorious services. Still, though this consideration may soften, it ought
+not to silence criticism, for errors never more require correction than
+when heralded by an illustrious name. An additional reason for not
+passing over the last work of so distinguished a man is, that it
+contains many admirable remarks on the Native army, well deserving to be
+detached from the mass of other matter in which they are imbedded. The
+contents of the book may be classed under three heads: Censure of
+individuals; censure of public bodies; suggestive remarks on the civil
+and military administration of India.
+
+On whatever comes under the first of these heads, our strictures shall
+be brief.
+
+We find in the list of those censured, the names of so many of the best
+and ablest men who have taken part in Indian affairs, either at home or
+in the East, that we feel loth to give any additional publicity to what
+we have read with pain, and would gladly forget. Public bodies being
+fair targets to shoot at, the censures coming under the second head are
+open to no objection excepting such as may arise from their not standing
+the test of close examination. The Court of Directors, the Supreme
+Council of India, the whole body of the Civil Service (with one or two
+exceptions), the Political Agents, the Military Board in Calcutta, and
+the Board of Administration in the Punjab, follow each other like
+arraigned criminals in the black scroll of the author’s antipathies. To
+notice all that is advanced against those included in this catalogue
+would be impossible, for a few lines may contain assertions which it
+would fill a folio to discuss. Of the East India Company, the instrument
+through which India has been providentially preserved from the
+corruptions of an aristocratic and the precipitancy of a more popular
+rule, Sir Charles Napier’s view is not more enlarged than what we might
+have got from his own Sir Fiddle Faddle, of whom he has left us (at page
+253) so amusing a description. Though capable, as we shall soon see, of
+rising above the prejudices of his profession on other points, he looks
+at this singular Company and its governing Court with the eyes of a
+Dugald Dalgetty, who, while pocketing the commercial body’s extra pay,
+accounts it foul scorn to be obliged to submit to such base and
+mechanical control.
+
+But none are all bad, and we rejoice to see it admitted at page 210 of
+the unfriendly book before us, that “the Directors, generally speaking,
+treat their army well;” and at pages 49, 261, that the Company’s
+artillery, formed under the rule of these very Directors, is “_superb_,
+second to none in the world—perfect.” Yet it never seems to have
+occurred to the author, that those under whose rule one department has
+reached perfection, are not likely to blunder in every other, as in his
+moments of spleen he made himself believe. So able a man as Sir C.
+Napier could not always be blind to his own inconsistencies; and
+accordingly, in the midst of some declamation on what India might be
+under royal government, he seems to have been suddenly brought up by a
+thought about what the Crown Colonies really are.
+
+From this dilemma he escapes by saddling one distinguished personage
+with the blame of all that is wrong in the colonies, and thus punishes
+Earl Grey for the speech about Scinde, made by Lord Howick, some ten
+years ago, in the House of Commons.
+
+To the Supreme Council of India, though he was one of their number, the
+author never makes any but disparaging allusions. Discontented with
+being a commander-in-chief under a ruling body, of which he was himself
+a member, he sought to be recognised as the head of a separate military
+government. He wished, in short, to be, not what the Duke of York was in
+England, but what, under peculiar circumstances, the Duke of Wellington
+was in Spain during the war in the Peninsula. In this he was not
+singular; for we suspect that the real cause of that uneasiness in their
+position, stated at page 355, to have been manifested by many of Sir C.
+Napier’s predecessors, is to be found in a desire on their part for such
+an independency of military administrative power, as is totally
+incompatible with the necessary unity and indivisibility of a
+government. Yet it is admitted that, in England, “when war comes, the
+war-minister is the real commander,”—(p. 220.) The author evidently felt
+how much this admission must tell against his own complaints of undue
+interference with his authority; for he endeavours, by some feeble
+special pleading, to abate its effect, and to prove the “poor Indian
+general,” with his £15,000 a year, to be more unfavourably placed than
+his _confrère_ in England.
+
+One circumstance, however, is such, that while the latter is excluded
+from the Cabinet, the former can take his seat at the Council-Board, and
+his part in the guidance of the counsels of the State.
+
+It is, we think, greatly to be regretted that Sir C. Napier did not more
+frequently avail himself of this privilege, for by keeping apart from
+the Supreme Council he lost the benefit of free personal communication
+with equals, and incurred the evil of having none near him but
+subordinates, whom he could silence by a word or a look.
+
+The Civil Service is represented simply as a nuisance requiring
+immediate abatement.
+
+We are told that “a Civil form of government is uncongenial to
+_barbarous_ Eastern nations.” There is some truth in this, if a proper
+stress is laid on the word _barbarous_. In the first chapter of the
+fourth part of his work, Mr Kaye has shown how, in reaching the
+outskirts of civilisation, we are brought into contact with rude tribes
+like the Beloches in Scinde, “to whose feelings and habits the rough
+ways of Sir C. Napier were better adapted than the refined tenderness or
+the judicial niceties of the gentlest and wisest statesman that ever
+loved and toiled for a people.” But the error of such reasoners as Sir
+C. Napier is, that they would treat all India as barbarous, and rule it
+accordingly. Now, with all our respect for Sir C. Napier’s talents, we
+doubt much whether he would have governed the more civilised provinces
+of Upper India better than the late Mr Thomason, whom he condescends to
+praise—(p. 37); or managed the subtle and well-mannered Sikhs with more
+tact and skill than Sir George Clerk during the perilous period of our
+disasters in 1841–42.
+
+It is true that the utter failure of the system in operation in the
+Punjab is confidently predicted at p. 366; but it is consolatory to
+find, from the very last Indian newspapers, that no progress is making
+towards a fulfilment of this prophecy; but that, on the contrary, a
+reduction of taxation has been effected by the Board, such as would be
+felt as a boon by the tenant-farmers of England, its influence having
+been counteracted by nothing but by the effects of an excessive plenty.
+
+It is creditable to the candour of the Bengal Civil Service, that its
+members themselves furnish the information to be turned against their
+own body, and it is from a work published by the Hon. F. J. Shore, in
+1837, that Sir C. Napier has borrowed his most plausible charges.
+
+On this we can only observe, that Mr Shore, in his zeal for the
+improvement of his own service, forgot that what he wrote would be read
+by the ignorant and the unfriendly; by those who could not, and by those
+who would not, comprehend the real scope and meaning of his words.
+
+The faults imputed by him to his brother civilians are mainly those of
+manner, already noticed by ourselves as being common to the English,
+generally, in their deportment towards strangers in every clime.
+
+If we were writing only for those who know what British India is, our
+ungrateful task of correcting errors might here conclude; but it is
+upon those to whom that country is unknown that the work before us is
+calculated to produce an impression, and therefore we must try, in as
+few words as possible, to point out one of its most striking
+inaccuracies. On referring to the pages noted below,[37] the reader
+will find a series of assertions, to the effect that in Bengal the
+army is scattered over the country for the protection of the Civil
+servants. From the _Indian Register_ of this very year, it appears
+that, in the country below Benares, which, in extent and population,
+is about equal to France, there are only about ten battalions;[38] the
+half of these being stationed at Barrackpore, in the immediate
+vicinity of Calcutta. In the provinces above Benares, under the rule
+of the Lieutenant-governor at Agra, with a somewhat smaller but more
+hardy population, it appears that there are thirteen stations occupied
+by regular troops; of which eight are close to large towns, such as in
+every country require to be watched—or else purely military posts.
+There are only five other places where regular troops seem to be
+stationed, and of these, one is on the frontier of Nepaul.
+
+Admitting that the Civil power derives its support from the knowledge of
+a military force being at hand, still the exhibition of the latter is as
+rare on the Ganges as on the Thames; and a magistrate would sink in the
+opinion of his superiors, and of his own service, if he were to apply
+for the aid of troops in any but the extreme cases in which such an
+application would be warranted in England. It would be just as rational
+to argue that our provincial mayors and magistrates in England are
+hated, because troops are stationed at Manchester, Preston, or
+Newcastle, as to adduce the distribution of the regular Sepoys in Bengal
+and Upper India as a proof of the hatred borne to the Civil servants,
+through whose administration that vast region is made to furnish forth
+the funds to support the armies with which heroes win victories and
+gather laurels.
+
+What is meant by “guards for civilians” it is hard to guess. The
+Lieutenant-governor at Agra is, we believe, the only civilian, not in
+political employ, who has a guard of regulars at his house. In some
+places in Upper India, regulars may be posted at the Treasury, for the
+same reason that a corresponding force is posted at the Bank of England
+in the heart of London; but even to the Treasuries in the lower
+provinces no such protection is given.
+
+Sir C. Napier, we suspect, has confused the collector with the
+collections, and fancied the force occasionally posted to protect the
+latter to be, in fact, employed to swell the state or guard the person
+of the former. That regular Sepoys should be employed to escort treasure
+is much to be regretted; but treasure is tempting, and the mode of
+conveyance on carts very tedious, the ways long, the country to be
+traversed often very wild, and the robbers in some quarters very bold.
+It is not often that in England bullion belonging to the State has to be
+conveyed in waggons; but when this happens, it is, we think, usually
+accompanied by a party of soldiers.
+
+It would be tedious to follow out all the mistakes made about
+Chuprassees and Burkundazes—the former being a sort of orderly, of whom
+two or three are attached to every office-holder, military or civil, to
+carry orders and messages, in a climate where Europeans cannot at all
+hours of the day walk about with safety; and the latter being the
+constabulary, employed in parties of about fifteen or twenty at the
+various subdivisions into which, for purposes of police, each district
+is laid out. To form them into battalions would be to strip the interior
+of all the hands wanted for the common offices of preventive and
+detective police.
+
+We now gladly turn to the more pleasing duty of pointing out the
+brighter passages, and rejoice to draw our reader’s attention to the
+strain of kindly feeling towards the men and officers of the Company’s
+army, both European and Native, pervading the whole work.
+
+It is pleasing to observe the anxiety expressed by so thorough a
+soldier, to see the armies of the Crown and Company assimilated to each
+other, and all “the ridiculous jealousies entertained by the
+vulgar-minded in both armies”[39] removed. It is delightful to read the
+assurance given by such a man that, “under his command, at various
+times, for ten years, in action, and out of action, the Bengal Sepoys
+never failed in real courage or activity.”[40] It is instructive to
+learn from so great a master in the art of war, that “Martinets are of
+all military pests the worst;”[41] and still more so to read his earnest
+and heart-stirring exhortations to the younger of his own countrymen not
+to keep aloof from Native officers;[42] and his declaration that, even
+at his advanced age, he would have studied the language of the Sepoys,
+if his public duties had not filled up all his time. Our space will not
+allow us to give any specimens of the author’s style. It is ever
+animated and original. There was no need of a signature to attest a
+letter of his writing, for no one could mistake from whom it came.
+Though deformed by occasional outbursts of spleen, our readers may find
+much to admire in the narrative of the expedition to Kohat.[43] It will
+be well, however, after reading it through, to take up the _Bombay
+Times_ of the 14th of December last, to see what progress is being made
+by the very Board of Administration so contemptuously spoken of in the
+narrative,[44] towards reducing the turbulent Afridee tribes to a state
+of enduring submission and good order.
+
+Long practice had given great fluency to the author’s pen when employed
+in what we may call anti-laudatory writing, but this sometimes led him
+into that most pardonable of plagiarisms, the borrowing from himself, as
+in the following sentence, at page 118: “He,” meaning the
+Governor-General, “and his politicals, like many other men, mistook
+_rigour_, with cruelty, for _vigour_.” If our memory is to be relied on,
+this very antithetical jingle may be found in a pamphlet, published some
+twenty-five years ago, about the alleged “misgovernment of the Ionian
+Islands.” The author’s political speculations, when unwarped by
+prejudice, were generally correct, and we fully concur with him, and, we
+may add, with his predecessor, the late Sir Henry Fane, in the opinion
+expressed at page 66, that the Sutledge “ought to bound our Indian
+possessions;” and we now fear that, having crossed that river, we must
+also throw the Indus behind us, and fulfil the prediction hazarded at
+page 374, that, “with all our moderation, we shall conquer Afghanistan,
+and occupy Candahar.” Sometimes, however, his disposition to paint
+everything _en noir_ has misled our author even upon a military point,
+as in the following instance: “The close frontier of Burmah enables that
+power to press suddenly and dangerously upon the capital of our Indian
+Empire; and such events are no castles in the air, but threatening real
+perils. The Eastern frontier, therefore, is not safe,”—(p. 364).
+
+In former days, when the Burmese territories were dovetailed into our
+district of Chittagong, there might have been some ground for this
+opinion, supposing the Burmese to have been, what they are not, as
+energetic a people as the Sikhs. But a glance at the map might satisfy
+any one that with our occupation of Arracan, a country so intersected by
+arms of the sea as to be impassable for any power not having that
+absolute superiority on the water which a single steamer would give us,
+all danger of invasion from that side has for the last twenty-five years
+been at an end.
+
+The mention of Burmah naturally leads to the next work in our list, that
+of Mr J. C. Marshman, the well-known editor of the ablest of the
+Calcutta journals, the _Friend of India_.
+
+His pamphlet is a reply to another, by Mr Cobden, entitled “The origin
+of the Burmese war.” Mr Cobden could not, of course, write about a war
+excepting to blame it, consequently Mr Marshman appears in defence of
+what the other assails.
+
+We cannot devote much time to the consideration of this controversy, but
+at one passage we must indulge in a momentary glance.
+
+Towards the end of the fifth page of Mr Marshman’s pamphlet our readers
+will find a sentence throwing some light on the origin of the war which
+he undertakes to defend. He there dwells, with great emphasis, on the
+“unexampled and extraordinary unanimity which was exhibited by the
+Indian journals on the Burmese question,” and describes, with much
+unction, the happy spectacle of rival editors laying aside their
+animosities, to combine in applauding the course pursued on that
+occasion by the Government. Editors, like players, must please, to live;
+and as the whole Anglo-Saxon community in the East, most especially
+those of the shipping and shopping interest at Calcutta, have, for the
+last twenty-five years, had a craving for a renewal of war with Ava, the
+newspaper must have been conducted upon most disinterested principles,
+which had opposed itself to any measure conducive to so desiderated a
+result.
+
+We have now skimmed over the annals of a hundred years, endeavouring, as
+we moved along, to detect the ruling principle of each successive
+period, and to trace its influence upon the leading events of the time.
+
+In looking forward to what is to come, we shall not speculate on the
+spontaneous limitation of conquest, because we feel that this will never
+be; for this simple reason, that we shall never sincerely wish it to be.
+Wars, then, will go on, until, on the north-west, we shall have
+accomplished all that Sir C. Napier either predicted or recommended, and
+until, on the south-east, we shall have added Siam to Pegu, and Cambodia
+to Siam. Within the geographical boundaries of India Proper, also, there
+are several tempting patches of independent territory to be absorbed,
+such as the Deccan and Oude, both of which, along with the Rajpoot and
+Bondela states, are all marked like trees in a forest given up to the
+woodman. The inexhaustible plea for interminable conquest, internal
+mal-administration, will ever furnish grounds for the occupation of the
+larger states; and though many of the smaller Hindoo principalities are
+admirably governed, according to their own simple notions, still, as
+they certainly will not square with our ideas of right, some reason will
+always be found to satisfy the English-minded public that their
+annexation is both just and expedient. Then we shall, indeed, be the
+sole Lords of Ind; but after destroying every independent court where
+natives may hope to rise to offices of some little dignity, we shall be
+doubly bound to meet, by arrangements of our own, the cravings of
+natural and reasonable ambition.
+
+In searching for a guide at this point of our inquiry, we have hit upon
+the work standing last upon our list, the production of a gentleman who
+has extraordinary claims upon the attention of English as well as Indian
+readers. Mr Cameron carried out with him to India a mind stored with the
+best learning of the West; and during twelve years spent out there in
+the high posts of Law Commissioner, Member of the Supreme Council, and
+President of the Committee of Education, his best powers were exerted,
+not merely to impart instruction, but to inspire with a true love of
+knowledge, the native youth attached to the various institutions within
+the sphere of his influence.
+
+His work is truly one of which his country may be proud, for a more
+disinterested zeal in the cause of a conquered people was never
+exhibited by one of the dominant race, than is evinced in this noble
+address to the Parliament of England on behalf of the subject millions
+of India.
+
+Many, however, as Mr Cameron’s qualifications are for the task which he
+undertakes, there is one of much importance not to be found among them.
+He never served in the interior; never was burdened with the charge of a
+district; never spent six hours a day, at the least, in the crowded
+Babel of a Cutcherry,[45] with the thermometer at 98° in the shade. His
+Indian day was very different from that of the magistrate collector of
+which we have inserted Mr Campbell’s lively description. It was passed
+in the stillness of his library, or in the well-aired and well-ordered
+halls of a college, among educated young natives, mostly Bengalees, who
+were about as true specimens of Indian men as the exotics in a London
+conservatory are of British plants.
+
+Such a life is compatible with the acquirement of great Oriental lore,
+but not with the attainment of that ready knowledge of native character
+which is picked up by far inferior intellects in the rough daily school
+of Cutcherry drudgery.
+
+This reflection has somewhat damped our pleasure in perusing Mr
+Cameron’s eloquent and high-toned address. We devoutly hope to see our
+misgivings proved to be groundless; but in the mean time we must give
+one or two of our reasons for doubting whether the day is at hand when
+the natives of England and India may meet on terms of perfect parity in
+every walk of life. In the first place, to judge by precedent, we doubt
+the strict applicability to the present question of that drawn from the
+practice of ancient Rome. Of the people subjugated by Rome, a vast
+proportion were of the same race as their victors, with no
+peculiarities, personal or complexional, to check the amalgamation
+resulting from popular intermarriage. It is in Egypt that the closest
+similarity to our situation in India is likely to be found, and, judging
+by the contemptuous tone of Juvenal’s allusion to the people of that
+country in his 15th Satire, we can hardly imagine that, when employed in
+any public capacity, the “imbelle et inutile vulgus” were placed exactly
+on the same footing as the Roman knights who constituted the “covenanted
+service” of those days in that particular province.
+
+The geographical circumstances were also different. Rome grew like a
+tree—its root in the eternal city, its branches stretching forth in
+continuous lines to the furthest extremities of its vast domain.
+
+Our Indian empire springs from a transplanted offshoot of the parent
+State. No one part of it has a firmer hold on the soil than another. It
+is all equally loose. Our dominion is, in fact, based upon our ships,
+and it is to our ships that both Englishmen and natives, in touching on
+the possibility of our eventual downfall, always speak of our retreating
+or being driven. From our ships we sprung, and to our ships we shall
+some day perhaps return. It is in vain, therefore, to draw, from the
+practice of a purely continental empire like that of Rome, rules for the
+government of an essentially maritime dominion such as we have
+established on the Ganges. Ours is a power without a precedent, and
+perhaps, therefore, without a prognostic. There is nothing like it in
+the past, and its future will probably be stamped with the same
+singularity as has characterised its whole existence.
+
+We must try, therefore, to better the condition of our subjects by means
+such as our own experience teaches us to be best adapted to their
+nature. To open to them at once the civil and military services; to give
+to any number of them that absolute right to preferment implied in their
+enrolment in the ranks of a peculiar body, would not, we imagine, be to
+follow the guidance of experience. Presumption on the one side, and the
+pride of race on the other, might lead to serious jarrings between the
+English and the Indian members, who, though standing in the ranks of the
+same service, would still differ from each other like the keys of a
+piano-forte. It would, we think, be safer to commence, as we have
+already suggested, by selecting for preferment individuals from the mass
+of our native subjects. Situations in the judicial and revenue
+department may be found or created which natives can fill with great
+credit; but their general fitness for the office of magistrate remains
+to be proved. It is easy to imagine a case wherein to leave the powers
+wielded by a magistrate in the hands of any one open to the influences
+from which a fellow-countryman alone can be secure, would be, to say the
+least, most imprudent. Besides, there is a duty, perhaps but imperfectly
+performed at present, and to which, at least in the lower provinces, a
+native functionary would be quite incompetent, and that is, affording
+protection to the people against the violence of Englishmen settled in
+the interior as merchants, landholders, or Indigo-planters. We have now
+before us a letter written in excellent English by a native of Bengal,
+in which the following passage occurs:—“The fact is, that European
+traders have obtained, in many places in the interior of the Bengal
+Presidency, almost uncontrolled power—a power which they are seldom
+sufficiently scrupulous not to exert to the injury of those with whom
+they come in contact. It is not exaggeration to say, each
+Indigo-factory, together with its surrounding estate, is a little
+kingdom within itself, wherein avarice and tyranny hold unlimited sway.
+The police is too feeble to render effectual aid in suppressing the
+lawless oppression of the factor.”
+
+Now, let us figure to ourselves one of Mr Cameron’s slender dusky
+_élèves_ on the bench as magistrate, and (to take what ought to be the
+mildest specimen of a gentle Englishman) the leading member of the Peace
+party at the House of Commons at the bar in an Indigo-planter, taxed
+with oppressing the Hindoo, and we shall easily see that the law must
+have an almost supernatural inherent majesty, if, under such
+circumstances, it can be effectually enforced and impartially
+administered.
+
+The regulation of the intercourse between our own countrymen not in the
+service of Government, and our native subjects, will rise in importance
+with the progress of those works in which European agency is essential
+to insure success. Railways, electric telegraphs, improved
+cotton-cultivation, steam, and all other complicated machinery, must, if
+overspreading the country as many anticipate, bring with them a vast
+increase to the European section of the community, whose influence will
+still be out of all proportion to its commercial strength.
+
+To give to this little section full scope for the development of its
+industrial energies, and yet to restrain it from abusing its strength to
+the injury of the native population, is in fact the only real service
+ever likely to be rendered by the Law Commissions and Legislative
+Councils called into existence by the enactment of last session.
+
+In as far as the natives of Bengal and Upper India are alone concerned,
+we are convinced that all of this cumbrous law-making apparatus is quite
+superfluous. The existing regulations, with occasional pruning and
+trimming, would, if fairly enforced and adhered to, amply suffice to
+meet all of their simple wants. But the natives can no longer be left to
+themselves. Europeans will intrude, and legislation must therefore be
+shaped and stretched so as to fit it to the characters of the intruders.
+
+As at present constituted, the magistracy and the police are hardly
+equal to the control of British-born settlers, half a dozen of whom are
+more difficult to rule than half a million of natives. There prevails
+among Englishmen of every grade a notion of the East India Company being
+a body of a somewhat foreign stamp, to whose servants it is almost
+degrading for a free-born Britain to be obliged to submit.
+
+The amalgamation of the Queen’s and the Company’s superior tribunals,
+known at Calcutta as the Supreme, and the Sudder, Courts, would, by
+coupling the home-bred judges appointed by the Crown with the
+country-trained nominees of the local government, give a weight to the
+magistracy acting under this combined authority, and thus fit it for the
+better discharge of the difficult duty of controlling and correcting the
+excesses of Englishmen settled in the interior. These settlers often
+find in the menace of an action or prosecution before a remote and
+somewhat prejudiced tribunal, a weapon wherewith to combat the immediate
+power of a functionary, amenable individually to the Queen’s Court in
+Calcutta, for every act which legal ingenuity can represent to be
+personal, and so beyond the pale of official protection.
+
+The fusion of the two superior courts will not, in fact, lessen the
+personal responsibility of the English magistrate; but it will remove an
+apparent antagonism, calculated to keep alive a spirit of defiance
+towards the _local_ authority in the breast of many an English settler,
+the effects of which, as described in the extract above given, from the
+letter of a Bengal gentleman, are felt by every native with whom he may
+have any dealings. Much has been written and spoken about the duty of
+protecting the people of India from being oppressed by the Government
+and its agents, but few seem to have thought of that more searching
+tyranny which a few strong-nerved and coarse-minded Englishmen in the
+interior, invested with power by the possession of land, may exercise
+over the people among whom they are located, and from whom they are
+eager to extract the wealth which they long to enjoy in a more congenial
+climate.
+
+This species of tyranny will of course be most felt among the feeblest,
+and is, consequently, likely to be more grievous in Bengal than among
+the hardier population of Upper India. But wherever the Anglo-Saxon
+goes, he will carry with him his instinctive contempt for tribes of a
+dusky complexion; and where this is not counteracted by the imposed
+courtesies of official life, or checked by the presence of a sufficient
+controlling authority, it will ever be ready to break out in a manner
+injurious to the interests and feelings of those subject to his power.
+
+Our future rule will, it is evident, become daily more and more European
+in its tone, and there will consequently be an increasing call upon
+those engaged in its direction to watch over the conduct of the dominant
+race, to restrain its arrogance, and to see that the equality announced
+in the laws does not evaporate in print, but is something real and
+substantial, to be felt and enjoyed in the ordinary everyday intercourse
+of life.
+
+If this can be accomplished by legislation, the new Commissions and
+Councils will not have been created in vain; but if their labours end in
+merely adding to the existing tomes of benevolent enactments, without
+effectual provision for their enforcement, then we cannot but fear that
+our projected measures of improvement, being all of a European
+character, will add little to the happiness of our subjects on the banks
+of the Ganges, and be regarded by them merely as ingenious contrivances
+for extending our own power, and completing their subjugation.
+
+
+
+
+              THE SECRET OF STOKE MANOR: A FAMILY HISTORY.
+                               PART III.
+
+
+                    CHAPTER IV.—AU CENTRE DU MONDE.
+
+                “Oh, Paris! ville pleine de brouillard,
+                Et couverte de boue,
+                Où les hommes connoissent pas l’honneur,
+                Ni les femmes la vertu.”
+                                            ROUSSEAU.
+
+The Willoughby family, as has been already said, left England for the
+Continent; and the spring which succeeded Sir John’s death found them
+temporarily residing in Paris. It was very far from the Colonel’s
+intention, however, to remain there long; the household was only
+incomplete, as yet, without Francis, who in a few weeks would join it on
+leaving Oxford; and there had to be some consideration before finally
+settling, from among no slight variety of advertisements in the public
+journals, what district of the provinces might be best suited for a
+retreat, probably during some years. One or two points of business,
+also, requiring attention to his English letters, continued to make
+their early arrival a convenience; not so much from the Devonshire
+lawyer, whose methodical regularity left nothing to desire, as with
+regard to the sale of Sir Godfrey’s commission, and some arrangements
+left unfinished in town, of that tedious nature which characterises
+stockbroking. Meanwhile their establishment was certainly simple
+compared with that lately given up in Golden Square, where society, at
+no time deficient to the Willoughbies, had, since the Colonel’s last
+return home, been doubling itself every year, and had begun, since his
+brother’s death, absolutely to send visiting-cards by footmen, to call
+in carriages, to bespeak the earliest possible share of their company at
+dinner: contrasted with the extent which must have been necessary for
+Stoke, it was diminutive. Yet it was by no means one of a restricted
+kind, although the income from Lady Willoughby’s own small fortune would
+alone have sufficed to keep it up, leaving some surplus; so that, living
+as yet without new acquaintances, and, so far as their countrymen were
+concerned, in perfect obscurity, they had not a wish which it did not
+suffice for; as long, at least, as the vast, strange city held its first
+influences over them. To these, probably, it was owing that Colonel
+Willoughby appeared for some time to have had no other object in coming
+to Paris; if distinctly aware of any, beyond the facilities there for
+choosing a place of residence in the provinces, for awaiting his son
+Francis, and finishing the more important part of his correspondence,
+with the convenience of respectable banking-houses—besides the
+possibility of avoiding English acquaintances, which at Dieppe or
+Boulogne would not have been so easy—then he would without doubt have
+mentioned it to his wife. A reserved man, and in the strictest sense a
+proud one, he was amongst the last to have secrets; they would have sat
+on his brow, and troubled his manner; nor had he at any time had such a
+thing apart from _her_. During the whole course of their wedded life,
+whether together or separated, by word or letter, their mutual
+confidence had increased: for her part, she was of that easy, placid,
+seemingly almost torpid nature, which, save in a receipt of
+housekeeping, or a triumph of domestic management, appears merely to
+produce in it nothing worth the hiding, nor to receive, either, anything
+of that serious kind; while the course of time, that had begun to turn
+the fair features of Mrs Willoughby rather large, giving her form a
+somewhat more than matronly fulness, had so increased this peculiarity
+in her disposition as to make strangers think her insipid. Older friends
+thought very far otherwise, and it was, in some way, chiefly old friends
+Mrs Willoughby had had at all; but neither they, the oldest of them, nor
+even her children, perhaps, could so much as imagine the truth of heart,
+the perfect trust, the intimate, unhesitating appreciation, which, since
+they were first gained by him, her husband had been ever knowing better.
+Indolently placid as she might seem even to ordinary troubles, tumults,
+and embarrassments, as if the world’s care entered no imagination of
+hers—quietly busied, with attention fixed on household matters, knitting
+or sewing in her endless, noiseless manner—yet if his eye had shown
+anxiety, if he had ceased to read, if he paced the room, or had been
+very silent, a kind of divination there was, that, without any watching
+or any questioning, would have roused her up—the work suspended on her
+lap, her cheek losing the old dimple-mark which maturity had deepened
+there, and her glance widened with concern; till, if he had still not
+spoken, Lady Willoughby would have risen up gradually, looking round as
+if startled from a sort of mild dream, and have moved towards him,
+beginning of her own accord—which was a rare thing—to speak. Not
+necessarily, indeed, though they had been alone in the room, to invite
+confidence by any inquiry; but rather in the way of performing some
+slight office that might have been neglected, or with endeavours at such
+interesting news and small-talk as, to speak truth, she scarcely shone
+in, unsupported—nor any the better for the confused sense she evidently
+had at these times of having been by some means in fault, and having
+failed to be a very lively companion. She was of a plain country
+squire’s family, in fact; and in her day, if sent at all to
+boarding-schools, they had not lingered long over music, still less at
+flower-painting or the sciences; while with successive sisters waiting
+at home for their turn, as she had had, it was but to finish off baking
+and mending, with dancing and embroidery, then to come back, and bake
+and mend again. So when the dancing ended with marriage, the embroidery
+at the first birth, it might have been thought the officer had gained no
+very valuable society, sometimes in barrack-lodgings, sometimes abroad,
+sometimes for distant communication by letter; she might, at least, have
+been expected to form no great ornament in London circles, or among
+country people at Stoke Manor-house. Still there had been nothing in all
+their previous intercourse so precious to him as his wife’s letters,
+when almost for the first time, in her own natural way, she had to
+attempt expressing fond thoughts, soothing motives, and yet confessions
+of impatience—mixed up with accounts of children’s complaints, their
+faults, and their schooling—country gossip, and fashionable arrivals,
+with some stray suggestions and admissions, never before confided to
+him, of a pious kind: and when long afterwards came the events at Stoke,
+instead of any undue flutter or sense of importance being caused in her,
+she had fallen in as naturally to title or prospects, as she had sat
+before that at the head of their dinner-table in Golden Square. It was
+no doll’s disposition, as had been at the time hinted round some
+ill-natured card-tables in that region; if one thing more than another
+troubled Sir Godfrey in their present plans, it was that he believed
+devoutly in his wife’s aptitude for a high station, where expectations
+would be formed and occasions raised; his feeling was—and the partiality
+was excusable—that her chief value lay obscured in ordinary
+circumstances. Whereas at the new abode in Paris, with ample scope and
+convenience, all the earlier habits of domestic superintendence seemed
+returning, the making, baking, mending—almost even to washing; in
+reference to which alone Lady Willoughby seemed really active, and the
+more so that everything might go on as in England, had the mere economy
+of the thing not been a vital point. Her pleased air would alone have
+hindered him from reasoning it with her, had Sir Godfrey so much as
+dreamt, in the latter respect, how their case really stood: and when,
+indeed, there did lie any care on his mind, which he might be unwilling
+she should share, yet so gently did the conversation win it from him,
+and so quietly did something like the old manner woo him to bear no
+burden alone, that, ere he knew, it was no longer his, but they were
+talking of it plainly. What tranquil reassurance _then_, and grave,
+prompt advertence to the point—and pure sympathy, and that repose of
+soul from which a woman’s instinct can express so much by a tone, a
+look, silence itself! Sir Godfrey had sometimes been ashamed to find how
+much more he could be disturbed by trifles, or how cautiously he had
+been underrating his wife’s affection. So that she knew as well as he
+did, and almost as soon, how affairs stood at Stoke, with the tenor of
+his brother’s intended will, and any the slightest incident which could
+concern them. He had even casually mentioned, as among the more trivial,
+Sir John’s wishes for the benefit of the person entitled Suzanne Deroux,
+for Lady Willoughby had long known, of course, what of Sir John’s early
+history his brother knew. The matter had well-nigh escaped his memory,
+he said; till on happening to want a banker in Paris, it struck him that
+the house formerly employed by his brother, in the payment of the
+annuity referred to, might suit himself. To these gentlemen,
+accordingly, he had sent a memorandum of the address left by Sir John,
+with a request that they would have the money paid to her. It was a
+small sum, but might be important to the people, whoever they were,
+living in one of the poorest and most wretchedly-crowded quarters of
+Paris. Still, as Sir Godfrey smiled on that occasion cheerfully, and
+resumed his English newspaper, he did not, he could not tell all the
+painful and pertinacious impressions, of circumstances unknown or acts
+untraced, which any allusion to his late brother’s former stay in Paris
+still called up.
+
+Everything did not exactly go on in the household as in England, indeed,
+but all was as nearly so as a quiet assiduity could make it. The house,
+a somewhat dull and dilapidated mansion, very barely furnished, and
+taken by the month from an adjoining notary, stood far to the western or
+court-end of the city, though rather involved in the dinginess of a sort
+of minor fauxbourg, where, in those days, between the sudden curve of
+the river and the lesser alleys of the Champs Elysées, a motley
+population still clustered about the tan-pits or dye-houses, and towards
+the bridge and quays: it occupied one corner of a short,
+deserted-looking street, the other end of which was reduced to a narrow
+lane by the high enclosure of a convent; in front was a small paved
+court, very shady and damp, by the help of two or three stunted poplars
+it contained, yet not by any means private, being overlooked by dusty or
+broken staircase windows, one over the other, from at hand; while it,
+nevertheless, could boast of a wall surmounted by a railing, with a
+heavily-pillared gate of open ironwork, a little lodge on one side
+within, where the porter lived—at one end of the house a diminutive
+stable and coach-shed, at the other an entrance to a high-walled garden,
+laid out in intricate confusion, without sign of flowers, and overgrown
+with a luxury of weeds. Some rising bourgeois had probably at first
+designed it, with a moderate eye to fashion; although its prime
+recommendation from the notary was, that successive families of the
+English nobility had chosen it for their temporary residence; nor did
+the old concierge fail to point out, with some emphasis, when showing
+the garden, that it was in the English style. The place was, at all
+events, at a convenient distance from the central parts of Paris, and
+within an easy drive to the Protestant Episcopal chapel. At a sharp
+angle with the street ran a main thoroughfare from the city barrier, one
+way confused in the dense suburb, the other way breaking towards a leafy
+promenade of the public park; sending all day a busy throng of
+passengers into that brighter current, where it glimpsed broad past the
+gap of light, with the glitter of equipages, the shifting glow of
+dresses, and the constant hum and babble of its gaiety; while nearer by
+was an opening in the contiguous street, through which the first-floor
+windows of their house looked at the motion along the quay, and saw the
+stately piles of building on the opposite bank, in brighter perspective,
+curve away from the eastern avenue of the Champ de Mars, with the
+bending of the river. They had still a carriage, too, though it was
+merely hired by the month, like the house, from the nearest
+livery-stables—a light, English-shaped barouche, with its pair of
+soot-black, long-legged Flemish horses, long-tailed and square-nosed,
+barrel-bodied and hollow-backed, and formally-stepping, which the owner
+called English also, for everything English seemed the rage: they were
+objects of no slight scorn, in that light, to Sir Godfrey’s groom, a
+stiff old trooper, who, with his duties towards his master’s horse,
+Black Rupert (the only possession they had brought from Stoke, save the
+title), had soon to unite that of coachman. Since besides Jackson
+himself, there was not merely an English housemaid, but there was young
+Mr Charles’s tutor, a grave, rather middle-aged bachelor of arts from
+Cambridge, and in clerical orders, who was to make up for the lost
+advantages of Eton, while he looked forward to the first opening in the
+curacy at Stoke: there was Miss Willoughby’s governess, a lady
+apparently also of middle age, whose perfect breeding and great
+accomplishments had made her acceptance of the position a favour, when
+the sudden necessity arose for the young lady’s leaving school; she had
+been in the highest families, and her conversational powers were of a
+superior order, so that there was a continual silent gratitude towards
+her on the part of Lady Willoughby. To the latter, indeed, whose whole
+heart lay in her family, these unavoidable changes had been a source of
+pure satisfaction, so far as she was concerned; compared with the
+privilege of having their children about them, educated under their own
+eye, expecting Frank so soon, too, nothing else was a deprivation; she
+merely missed England and English habits when some one else did, and had
+seen Stoke but once; only through the occasional abstracted looks of Sir
+Godfrey did she regret its postponement. As for the old French concierge
+at the gate, indeed, with his wife, family, and friends, she could have
+gladly spared them; but the concierge was indispensable—he _lived_
+there—he went with the house, in fact; and at the very hint of his being
+superfluous, the old cracked-voiced porter had drawn himself up
+indignantly in his chair, while his bare-armed, black-browed wife had
+turned her leatherlike face up from her tub, looking daggers. True, the
+English family had, in the mean time, no visitors, but the concierge
+had;—_he_ was well known to his respectable neighbours; and, besides, it
+was possible that the misanthropy of the Chevalier Vilby and of Madame
+might be to some extent diminished; they would probably yet enter into
+society—all the previous tenants of the mansion had done so; Paris was,
+in reality, so attractive a capital. Such had been the response to the
+diplomacy of Jackson, who, having once been a French prisoner, far
+abroad, knew the language after a fashion of his own; and he received it
+in grim silence. The truth was, the gossipping receptions at the little
+lodge were somewhat troublesome, and seemed to concern themselves
+greatly with the affairs of the household within, had there been nothing
+else than the general interest taken in it by the adjacent windows, or
+the popularity of the whole family, collectively or individually, which
+had sometimes accompanied their exit or entrance with applause from
+crowds of street children—a prestige which had as evidently deserted
+them afterwards, to be replaced by tenfold scrutiny of a less partial
+kind, not unmingled with sundry trivial annoyances. Nor, although it
+resulted, with Lady Willoughby’s usual easy disposition, in her
+employing the services of the porter’s daughter within the house, did
+the one parent open the gate with less sullen dignity, and the other
+seem less jealously watchful against some abstraction of the furniture,
+or nocturnal evasion of the rent.
+
+Nevertheless, Paris itself was not more restless or more lively than the
+spirits of the young people in their first enjoyment of its scenes. The
+earliest summer had begun to lighten up what was already bright with
+heat that came before the leaves, quickly as these were bursting into
+verdure along every avenue; and when the dust is hovering in the sun,
+when the level light streams along causeway and pavement, crossed by
+cooler vistas, when the morning water-carts go slowly hissing past, the
+shopmen sprinkling their door-steps, putting out their canopies, setting
+their windows right—with the moist smell of market-carts still in the
+air, the stray fragrance of fruit-stalls near—steeples shining high
+beyond the steel-blue roofs, the dazzling skylight panes,—chambermaids
+looking far out from upper windows, long perspectives of architecture
+blending, and a vast hollow azure over all, ere the smoke is gathered,
+and before the street-cries are confused, or the growing rush of sounds
+has become oppressive in the heat—then who remembers not the fairy
+feeling of a city to youth! It is when they still look to life from
+under protection, with no experience, nothing like the need of directing
+for themselves; but most of all from a simple household, used to
+temperate pleasures, and to the sort of kindness that rests more in
+purpose than upon indulgence; the city need only be Paris, with sights
+as foreign as the language, to crown that morning cup of enchantment to
+its brim. For the two younger members of the family it wore all its
+charm: Rose Willoughby had seen little more of the world in her
+boarding-school, at sixteen, than if it had been a nunnery; while
+Charles, who was younger, had been fancying his knowledge of life at
+Westminster school and Eton rather uncommon;—so that every morning set
+them astir early, watching at the windows, impatient to get
+breakfast-time past, to have those studies severally over, in which, so
+far as the lad’s tutor was concerned, Mr Thorpe bore the chief
+difficulties of the task. Each day, in fact, found the party rolling
+farther from the shady environs, through into the hot heart of the city,
+towards scenes or structures that were multiplied by each previous
+discovery: for if the long stately façades of the Tuileries, from its
+formal gardens swarming with people and statues, ran already half-linked
+to the gorgeous old Louvre, steeped pale in the southern flood of light
+above the river, till all its deep-set, embossed windows seemed diamonds
+in the rich Corinthian filagree that framed them, though the workmen
+were still busy at its unfinished roof, like emmets from the crowd along
+the quays; so these also pointed to the Palais Royal court, with its new
+arcades and glittering shops—or, again, far through the labyrinth of
+exhaustless streets, where moted and dusty shadows plunged into the
+gloom of deep lanes, to the grim grey towers of the Bastille rising
+embattled out of the squalid fauxbourg, which blackened in manufactory
+smoke beyond—miles back, too, it led across some bridge, to the
+Gobelins, to the close and dingy quarter of the university, with its old
+legends of learning, or magic in dark ages; its careless students
+swaggering past, or smoking from their high-perched casements; its
+grisettes, that sat at work opposite with an air of coquettish grace
+amidst their poverty, their hair neither frizzed nor powdered, with a
+bright cotton handkerchief twined half about it, watering their little
+mignonette-boxes, or chirping to their bird-cages that hung outside to a
+gleam of sunshine;—or to where the golden dome of the great hospital
+hung in the air, faintly bright; to the bronze form of Henry of Navarre
+riding regardless above the throng of the market-place, and where the
+two huge cathedral-towers of Notre Dame stood over their mountain of
+roof, above the gaunt old houses of the island Cité; with the
+sharp-peaked prison-turrets and grated loopholes of the Conciergerie
+lifted from the river’s edge, whose muddy eddies swam each way by, among
+the barges. The Colonel had been in Paris many years before, ere he had
+had any interest in it save that of a young man, in lively company; when
+all sons of gentlemen made the grand tour, and the old glories of
+Versailles were still reflected even at the court of Louis Quinze, in
+the elegant dissipation of his latter days: he had come since then,
+indeed, into sterner contact with Frenchmen abroad; but it served him
+now, in making shift to act as guide among the principal wonders of the
+capital—when he rode near the carriage, sometimes accompanied by Mr
+Thorpe, the tutor, on a quiet white mare from the hackney stables. And
+Lady Willoughby mildly eyed the Bastille, or gently noticed the
+sumptuousness of the Louvre, at her husband’s remark; suffering herself
+to be handed out to some sentinel-guarded vestibule, and led along some
+chill historical corridor, although it might cost a shudder at what was
+told of it; if some positive domestic duty did not rather keep her all
+day at home. While Mrs Mason, the governess, following with the party,
+would sedulously express assent, at due intervals, by word or sign, to
+the statements of the baronet; not seldom addressing to the young lady
+beside her some comment of her own, or improving inference, such as Mrs
+Trimmer had recently brought into educational vogue. It might have been
+that Rose on these occasions sometimes caught her brother’s eye, so that
+her absorbed face and lighted look would grow all at once intensely
+demure, or she had to turn away to hide a smile at his air of
+exaggerated attention; while Mr Thorpe was usually so deep in
+abstraction, or had wandered so far, as to be in danger of their leaving
+him altogether behind. It was all one storm of spectacle and excitement,
+in fact, to the two; antique memories mingling in it with the record of
+fearful deeds, and quaint traces of rude manners with the grandeur of
+the church, the magnificence of the days of great kings—it only added
+zest to the living rush of the streets, the foreign faces and
+unaccustomed accents, the endless variety of movement that shone,
+flickered, or darkened every way about them. Then, slowly extricated
+from fetid lanes and old overhanging houses, patched, and stained, and
+ruinous, where the low-stretched cord of the street lantern showed that
+carriages seldom passed, they would wheel out suddenly from the rough
+causeway and its filthy middle-gutter, into the broad light and sunny
+air of the verdurous boulevards, where the ramparts of old Paris ran. So
+as the sounds of wheels grew soft, and they rolled leisurely along, the
+girl and her brother would look to each other, with something of the
+same feeling; her eyes would sparkle, while Charles’s were everywhere:
+when on either side of the curving vista, either way lost to sight, and
+heaped with the motion of equipages and riders, the showering elm-leaves
+and blossoming lime-twigs rose green ’gainst the tall, bright, ornate
+houses, tinted variously, and dappled fitfully by the shade—where the
+scattered passengers lounged, the loitering groups mingled, and all was
+open-air existence—while the gay shop-windows and café signs shone
+beneath the boughs, the open upper-casements seemed to drink coolness
+beneath their striped canopies through green-barred jalousies, the
+double shutter-frames were thrown out either way against the wall, and
+no care, no business appeared to hang on Paris far as eye could reach,
+as it thickened there through the swimming light of afternoon. To Rose
+and Charles it left no dissatisfactions about Stoke, nor regret for the
+smoke of London; and instead of wishing the place of their residence
+settled soon, although neither had confided it to the other, they would
+fain, no doubt, have had their father decide on staying where they were,
+so as to fulfil the suggestion of the worthy concierge, by making
+acquaintances and going into society. The truth was, that they were
+unconsciously somewhat conspicuous; whether it was that the full, fair,
+lady-like features of Lady Willoughby, with her hair aristocratically
+enough drawn up, heaped high, and powdered, had yet an air of
+half-sleepy ease and comfort that offered the strongest contrast to
+French looks, or that the hood-like bonnet of black crape which
+surmounted them, drawn in folds together and hung with its short
+curtain-like veil of black lace, however according to matronly usage
+then in London, had already been left behind in Paris by a barer and
+more classical taste; or the girlish grace and bloom of Rose in her
+mourning-dress and hat; the half clerical air of Mr Thorpe, with his
+mingled awkwardness and endeavours at attention to the ladies; or the
+military air, tall figure, and splendid English hunter of the baronet:
+all which, perhaps, taken together, might even in passing have suggested
+food for the proverbial Parisian curiosity. Especially if, as at times
+might have been done, they had noticed the grave silence of the elderly
+English gentleman on horseback, when his companion addressed him in
+vain, or when with a start he looked up to answer, sometimes running his
+eye keenly about the passing people, over the seated and trifling
+groups, up to the windows of the houses, or along the shop-signs, like
+one all at once awake to them. Indeed, out of the charmingly private
+_allée des veuves_ in the Elysian fields, where alone the equipages of
+the rich widows of the whole capital were in propriety seen to drive,
+and the doubtful widowers and needy bachelors to seek opportunities of
+consoling them, with a similar gravity of dress and demeanour—it was
+questionable whether the people of Paris were accustomed to observe so
+puzzlingly attractive a sight. It had altogether, no doubt, a sincere
+insular air in their eyes.
+
+It happened that on the day they had visited Notre Dame cathedral,
+Colonel Willoughby took advantage of their return through the Rue St
+Honoré to call at his banker’s in that leading street. He had transacted
+his principal business there, and only found some difficulty in
+detaching himself from the subsequent animated conversation of the
+courteous financier, whose spirits seemed to be excellent on account of
+some continued increase in the price of corn; a motive but dimly
+understood by Sir Godfrey, while at each step or two of his egress from
+the antechamber he was still detained by some fresh ground of
+satisfaction. As regarded places of abode to be had, in any part of
+France whatever, the perplexity did not certainly result from want of
+choice; since his last inquiry, the notices and advertisements had
+increased, particularly in the rural provinces; to be let or sold, they
+seemed surprisingly plentiful; nor were their advantages in every point
+omitted, after the usual style of such description, which sometimes
+dilated on the very nature of the landscape, or dwelt with gusto on the
+particular character of architecture. “It is doubtless owing, Monsieur
+le Baron,” suggested the banker, complacently, “to the immense resort,
+at the present, of the nobility to Paris. The attraction is excessive!
+It will indeed be impossible to reside but in the vicinity—and M. le
+Baron sympathises, I imagine, with the party of our ——, probably to a
+certain extent in the ——?”
+
+“I really know very little of political matters, Monsieur,” said the
+baronet, smiling, “even at home,—and as for those in this country, I can
+scarcely say that I have attended to them much.”
+
+“It is exactly the position which I have myself assumed, M. le Baron,”
+responded the banker, with a subdued air of confidential understanding.
+“In finance it is indispensable. But affairs are solid here;” and he
+gaily struck his hand on his pocket. “Things will move—they will go—now
+that M. Neckar is at the head! M. le Baron is doubtless aware that the
+meetings of the States-General have commenced, and are open to
+attendance, like the English parliament itself? Bah we are aware that in
+affairs nowadays, the minister is everything; to speak properly—the
+king, nothing! The discussions grow interesting—it was a happy stroke—to
+render the nation—yes, conceive, Monsieur,—responsible for its own
+expenses! And, after all, the world is governed by this money here!” Sir
+Godfrey sighed involuntarily, while the banker, slightly rubbing his
+hands together, bowing and smiling, still conducted him with
+_empressement_ towards the court in which his horse was held. “It would
+be easy to secure a distinguished place of audience for M. le Baron in
+the minister’s gallery at Versailles,” persisted Monsieur Blaise, with
+interest, “and for the family of M. le Baron, whom we have not yet,
+indeed, had the honour to see?” M. Blaise had, in fact, made sundry
+half-subdued advances, at various times, towards a mutual introduction
+of the families; which seemed latterly to become more obvious. “Thank
+you, Monsieur,” was the rather dry answer—“no. The fact is, we intend
+immediately leaving town, as soon as my eldest son arrives. And, of
+course, this matter as to a place of residence must be settled. I should
+prefer some remote, quiet, country place.”
+
+“Ah, you should then purchase, M. de Vilby,” said the banker,
+oracularly. “It is, on the whole, I assure you, cheaper—more
+satisfactory.” To this, however, he received a decided negative; Colonel
+Willoughby had as little interest in the idea presented to him by
+Monsieur Blaise, of a profitable re-sale at a future period, as of
+possessing property or forming permanent ties in France, or of leaving
+his son a landowner there. He was about to mount his horse amidst the
+attentions of the banker and his Swiss porter, when a depressed-looking
+clerk from the banking-office hastened out, with an air of some
+timidity, to offer a paper to his master. The latter frowned, while he
+received a hurried statement from the official. “What is this? not to be
+found!” he inquired. “It is a trifle, Monsieur,” added he, turning
+round; “the woman, it seems, to whom your communication referred, has
+for some time removed her residence. Inquiries shall be made, however.
+These poor people are of the most changeable habit—the notary of the
+proprietor is naturally ignorant of their new destination—the
+neighbours, they affect an unconsciousness which is probably feigned, on
+account of some sympathy with a fault, a defalcation in rent,—a crime,
+perhaps. But in this case, there is the police, under whom the emigrant
+necessarily falls, though unconsciously—and our police are now more
+efficient than ever. Yes, M. le Baron, this person shall be promptly
+discovered, believe me—if, indeed, this payment is still considered
+proper to be made?” The indifferent, languidly commercial tone of
+Monsieur Blaise, at that moment, jarred disagreeably on Sir Godfrey’s
+ear, in the full sunlight of the street, while its gay throng poured on
+either way like a twofold procession.
+
+“Yet there is a slight mistake, pardon me, Monsieur,” added the former,
+“in the understanding that Monsieur your brother had continued this
+pension, which is alluded to, during the late years. It was indeed paid
+with regularity, when transmitted; but although the promise remained
+subsequently, yet, after a certain point, by some omission, doubtless,
+the effects—the sums—ceased to arrive. I believe the inadvertency was,
+however, more than once reported from this office to the notary of M. de
+Vilby at Ezzeterre, in England—eh, Maître Robert?” And the clerk, to
+whom he again turned sharply, gave a reverential affirmative. It was not
+merely the revival of this trivial matter in this way that troubled Sir
+Godfrey; there was some slight concern stirred at his heart by the
+discovery of the slight sum having failed so long to reach its object,
+mixed with a little compunction at his remembrance of the crowded Cité,
+near the religious shadows of Notre Dame, which he had passed by that
+very day; there was a vivid feeling once more, too, of his brother’s
+characteristic carelessness, which was by no means lessened on
+recollecting his wife’s mild remark, when he had mentioned the
+circumstance, that possibly, if the person were very poor, it might have
+been better to see into it personally. The gross mingling of M. Blaise’s
+inquiries in it, besides, with his hint at crimes which might render the
+benefit undeserved, annoyed him. Sir Godfrey took the paper from the
+banker’s hands, expressed his intention of managing the matter at his
+own leisure, and with a hasty bow rode homewards.
+
+Willoughby was, as before said, a man with little imagination in his
+temperament, at least of no very lively fancy; but there was a kind of
+vague impatience at times in his mind, scarcely to be any better
+accounted for than the fits of gloom he felt creeping, as it were, over
+him, and which he checked only by a strong effort to think. Sir Godfrey
+felt, in fact, rather an indescribable satisfaction than otherwise, and
+a somewhat reviving interest, at the little matter of business that had
+returned on his hands, none the less that it took the aspect of a kind
+duty. Paris itself was certainly a degree nearer his attention, so soon
+as the concerns of any one in it, however obscure, were thus dependent
+on his own, stirring up an odd anxiety as to whether she were alive or
+dead, and really deserving; all which, the more unusual it was to his
+habits, bore with the greater novelty of sensation on a man whose
+ordinary habits had been somewhat abruptly broken up. Singular, indeed,
+as he rode along, grew the thought of how this vast city contrived to
+live from day to day? the question, yet more perplexing, how it spent
+its time? still less conceivable, to what end was all the constant
+movement, thickening and shifting far along the Rue St Honoré, in dust
+and sunlight? Nay, with a smiling sense of its absurdity, the baronet
+caught himself involuntarily pondering some such incalculable problem,
+and for a moment striving to put its organisation together, while the
+bridle lay slack on his horse’s neck, and his limbs kept time to the
+motion, as the noble black went stepping elastically on. Even in that
+fashionable street they excited notice amid its rattling cortège of
+equestrians and equipages, its rainbow quivering of dress, feathered,
+embroidered, gilded and laced and rustling, where all the artifice of
+French fashion was in its afternoon glory, with bell-hoop and white
+hair—from the queue-tag and three-cornered beaver, lace cravat, and
+ruffles, and pocket-flap, to the knee-buckles and the false calves,
+white or flesh-coloured, and high-heeled—treading on out-turned
+toes—while the smooth, tinted faces, with their mole-specks and black
+beauty-spots, seemed to have banished from about them, in the sun’s full
+influence, all effect of hair: though it was scarce so much the
+soberly-garbed rider, in dark riding-coat and boots, with military
+stock, as the jet gloss of Black Rupert, whose full nostril seemed half
+conscious of his master’s pride in him. Nor was it merely that the
+flickering blaze of the street disagreed with his mood, when Colonel
+Willoughby turned out of it through a quieter line of that gay
+fauxbourg, slightly using the spur: he shrank involuntarily from those
+of his countrymen who seemed to be in Paris, with their gregarious yet
+unsocial air, their loud voices, causeless laughter, and cool stare,
+their ill-affected ease of dress, their round morning hats at all hours,
+and their sudden knowing looks of interest from his horse to him, not
+seldom unaccompanied by distinct English questions of “Who is he?” or
+the drawling answer, with an eyeglass raised, of “Don’t know.” Yet in
+public places they were everywhere; they were looking out of corner
+cafés, and talking back to friends within, watching narrowly where some
+Parisian belle tripped carefully athwart a crossing, or leaning out of
+billiard-room second-floors and yawning; and it struck him the more in
+contrast, as two gentlemen, evidently French, turned before him into the
+same more secluded street, the one quietly shrugging his shoulders
+together, the other turning a silent look to his friend. They sauntered
+easily along on the sunny side of the gutter, as if delaying to cross;
+though side _trottoirs_ were as yet almost unknown, while the cry of
+_gare!_ from a rapid vehicle at times hurried the foot-passengers
+together towards the wall, or out amidst the causeway; so that a snatch
+of their conversation more than once reached the English baronet’s ears,
+or was mingled with other voices; as he looked round for the names of
+the streets, with some idea of at once beginning inquiries at the
+nearest police-office. “These, then, Jules,” said the taller and elder,
+who wore the gallant uniform of the Royal Body-Guard, sky-azure and
+gold-laced, with its white-plumed black hat, crimson-velvet breeches,
+stiff cavalry boots, and gilt spurs, and ruffles of rich lace—“are your
+allies—your Weegs, as you call them! Corbleu!” He looked back over one
+shoulder, as he spoke, with a supremely supercilious air, swinging the
+tassel of his sword-knot round his hand; the other, whose dress and
+manner were those of an elegant young man of fashion, seemed gently to
+draw him onward by the arm. “My dear Armand, what a fancy!” the latter
+ejaculated; “the generous sympathy of the enlightened English—of the
+descendants of Hampdeun and of Seednè, the Wheegs—but I forget, we
+agreed to——” “Yes, Comte,” said the other gloomily, “we agreed to
+observe silence on it, since it is impossible for us——” and by another
+influx from a cross street they were taken out of hearing; although the
+grave air of the young officer, enhanced by his long side-visage, and
+cavalier-like uniform, despite all the hair-powder and the smooth
+elaborateness of the time, had drawn Sir Godfrey’s interest from the
+matter he had in hand. They were walking near him again next minute.
+
+“He is at La Morgue, then?” asked the officer, in reference to some
+statement of his friend; “what was it—gambling? His mistress, perhaps?”
+
+“No, she was beautiful, and attached to him,” replied the other,
+carelessly; “she still slept, while he had left her, to shave in the
+adjacent dressing-room—the whole hotel was roused by her cries. The
+police can make nothing of it. Even his passport affords no clue.”
+
+“It was probably a plot, about to be discovered,” said his friend.
+“Paris, in my opinion, is full of plots—which had better soon be dashed
+to pieces.” He made an emphatic motion with the sheathed sabre on his
+left arm, and glanced firmly along the street, from face to face. “My
+dear Armand!” ejaculated the other, stopping for an instant till their
+eyes met, and the cheek of the garde-du-corps seemed to redden—“this
+is”—but the remainder was lost to Sir Godfrey, as he held round towards
+the outskirts of the Faubourg St Honoré. Crossing by a shorter way,
+however, they still preceded him at the next corner. “On the contrary,”
+continued the younger, “had there been anything to discover”—“—stupidly
+acute as the police are”—“—but believe me, my friend,” he added with
+animation, “there was nothing—nothing—it was merely _ennui_. And what
+police, were it the very espionage of old De Sartines himself, his
+apprentice and friend Lenoir, or even my fine cousin De Breteuil, with
+your thrice-humble servitor here, can guard against ennui? ’Tis the only
+spectre I dread, for the philosophers, the Encyclopédie, have still left
+it us!” Sir Godfrey had passed them, indeed, hardly heeding their
+detached words so much as the young soldier’s chivalrous air; a little
+on, he checked his horse at sight of a gendarme’s blue and red livery,
+to inquire for the police-bureau of the quarter; at which the man turned
+sharply, struck no doubt by the accent or the form of the question, and
+surveyed him before attempting to give an answer.
+
+“Ennui!” repeated the officer energetically, as they came on; “my faith,
+we shall soon have little enough of that luxury, I think! I had imagined
+it the disease of England!”
+
+“But without her suspecting it,” rejoined his livelier companion; “while
+France alone endeavours to expel, to define the malady! What is
+Versailles, Fontainebleau, Marly, Luciennes, but a vast sigh, a drowsy
+effort, a yawn (_baillement_)? Those parterres of Lenotre, those
+fountains, those statues, which are like the crimes of Paris! But we
+awake—and assure yourself, my friend, it is at the root of one half—”
+
+Colonel Willoughby had repeated his question rather impatiently, for the
+speaker, as he passed on, was turning a glance of attention that way:
+the gendarme, too, with a sudden motion of his hand to his huge cocked
+hat, seemed less careful to reply than to leave full room for the two
+gentlemen. The younger of them stopped, turned, and addressed a word of
+sharp reproof to the official. “Permit me, monsieur,” he added, coming
+forward with a slight bow, and speaking tolerably good English; “it is
+probably rather to the commissary of your quarter you would address
+yourself, and his residence is not far; at —— the number which I forget,
+in the Place Montaigne, Champs Elysées.” The Englishman thanked him
+briefly; bowing in return the more profoundly, as he felt the usual
+unwillingness of his race to receive a favour he had no claim to.
+
+“It is denoted, besides,” continued his informant with increased
+courtesy, “by the red lantern over the portico, which since two years
+has been fixed over the doorway of every commissary’s residence in
+Paris. Day or night this will serve to distinguish them by a glance.”
+
+“Indeed?” was the sole answer, in a tone of some indifference. There was
+nothing officious in the younger gentleman’s unasked interference; while
+his singularly handsome face, his vivacious eyes, the air of life in his
+expression, along with an undeniable elegance of manner, were contrasted
+for the first time with his elder companion, who stood apart, and almost
+haughtily silent, a dark shade seeming to gather on his thin and dusky
+cheek, as he gazed into the street, having even withdrawn his momentary
+notice of the spirited horse. Yet the baronet felt less annoyed thus
+than by the prolonged politeness of his friend; he involuntarily bit his
+lip; there was something disagreeable even in being so promptly
+addressed in his own language.
+
+“Might it be possible for one to assist monsieur in any yet further
+manner?” inquired the stranger, with the same easy grace; though a
+peculiar smile, at the time unintelligible to Sir Godfrey, had hovered
+about his lips.
+
+“My best thanks, monsieur,” was the stiff response. “I think not—it is a
+mere ordinary piece of business;” and, bowing deeply towards his horse’s
+shoulder, the English baronet turned in the direction indicated. He
+could see them from the distance, however, overtaken by a light
+cabriolet, which seemed to have been slowly following them all the
+while; the young _élégant_ stepped leisurely in, and with a gesture of
+adieu to his friend, was driven swiftly off towards the city again; the
+white plume of the garde-du-corps disappeared among the passengers.
+
+When Sir Godfrey had found the commissary’s office, shown the
+indispensable passport, and received, as he had expected, but little
+prospect of speedy information, he yet rode homewards in considerable
+ease of mind; the thing had in fact passed from his thoughts as he took
+the nearer way from the grand avenues of the Champs Elysées, thronging
+with gaiety, by the overhanging shade of garden walls and backs of
+stables, across the open spaces flushed green with the afternoon light,
+alive with strolling girls in their teens, beside their prim
+_gouvernantes_, or children scattered about the groups of their sitting,
+gossipping, sewing _bonnes_; while here and there, into a line of
+secluded street, full of tall, stately, old-fashioned houses in massy
+blocks, or separate in their high-walled court-yards, sloped lazily the
+white, gushing glory from far above; till the way towards a bridge, or
+some glimpse of the bustle about the airy quays, renewed again the sense
+of being in Paris. But it seemed as if some of its occurrences,
+otherwise as apparently fragmentary as the street-cries or confused
+accents, bore every now and then a more connected purport to the baronet
+as he came in contact with them.
+
+He had already thrown a coin or two mechanically to some squalid
+cripple, or some one-eyed beggar in his route, thinking no more of it;
+as he turned into the thoroughfare near home, however, out of one of
+these sun-bright and silent streets, where a few figures crossed here
+and there, a singular little incident presented itself, which was but
+part of many such scenes throughout the quieter quarters of the French
+capital. It was one of the strangest symptoms of that strange time, that
+while the king had been suppressing dungeons and projecting the good of
+the people, while the nobles desired reform of abuses, and the whole
+nation seemed to breathe peace, philanthropy, and enthusiasm—the very
+fashion of the salons had conceived a sudden sensibility to the miseries
+and wants of the lowest class. The late winters had been severe, and the
+last desperate, amidst dear provisions: there had been fêtes, lotteries,
+and performances of classic dramas in the theatre, although for these
+last the curés had refused to distribute their unhallowed proceeds: yet
+greatest of all had been the activity of the ladies in the genteel
+faubourgs, who, in graceful _toilettes de quête_, the most becoming of
+dresses, and with purses bearing embroideries of flowers, cupids, and
+touching mottoes, turned their morning calls into a quest for alms. In
+the less aristocratic quarters, where morning calls were scarcely made,
+it had taken hold chiefly on the little girls, from mere childhood up to
+their teens; lasting longer, doubtless, because exercised only in the
+open air on the street-passengers, with all the amusement of a play
+mingled in its touch of reality. How interesting was it, too, to the
+subjects of the performance, as they were chosen from the passing
+current with all that faculty of prompt organisation so peculiar to the
+race of France; for the _rendezvous_ was made in the neighbouring
+archway of some porte-cochère, apart from the bustle of the crowd, to
+hold the table with its white fringed cloth, and the silver salver,
+where the savings of their own pocket-money had been first put for a
+handsel, as they gathered from the various houses near. The old
+gentleman, as he approached, had his skirts pulled by some lisping
+little one, with chubby cheeks, and curls that had vainly been
+flattened, while her face peered from under the grey stuff of the mimic
+beggar’s cloak: the most simply dressed would hold the salver to the
+lady of quality; the most polite to the bourgeois; the plainest-featured
+to the widow, the spinster, or faded beauty; the tallest to the
+middle-aged gentleman, the prettiest to the gallant: and no rivalry, but
+how to get most, disturbed the co-operation of those young quêteuses.
+The English baronet, indeed, knew nothing of it as he trotted forward,
+before the archway could be seen, with its lurking, listening, peeping
+group, holding their breath in expectation: he only saw a slender young
+form, too tall for the grey cloak to smother the whole of her white
+summer dress, trip from beside the wall, and hold up her rosy palm
+before him, like a beggar; they had chosen the eldest, for her eyes and
+complexion, to try the rich Englishman.
+
+“Pour nos pauvres, s’il vous plait, Monsieur,” said a clear sweet voice,
+plaintively. Sir Godfrey had checked his horse with a start; she was a
+girl little younger than his own Rose, with the very blue eyes and that
+palest yellow hair, which are so rare in France, though with that
+warmly-bright complexion which is never seen out of it, suffused as it
+seems through a strange shadow of brown. The folds and hood of the cloak
+could not disguise the girlish grace of her figure, just shooting
+towards womanhood; the studiously plain arrangement of the hair _à la
+quête_, virgin-like, added to her pure beauty, and did not take away
+from the slightly coquettish glance from her drooped head as she thus
+made her appeal. “My dear little one!” ejaculated Sir Godfrey
+hastily—“how—what—_you_ are not a—in poverty?”
+
+Her cheek reddened as she drew up her head proudly. “Me? Yes, we are
+poor, but noble—Armand and I. It is for the poor of the city,
+Monsieur—of Paris.”
+
+Sir Godfrey reddened too, and listened calmly to her eager explanation.
+“Ah, _you_ are rich—you are English!” she added anxiously, as if afraid
+he hesitated. His glance of surprised inquiry did not escape her.
+
+“I know you, Monsieur,” she said, “for you live close to our convent in
+the Rue Debilly, near the Quai de Change, where I am a pensionnaire, and
+where my aunt is the superior. I come often with one of the sisters to
+arrange the quête here. There are so many poor!”
+
+“And to whom do you give this money, _belle petite_?” asked the baronet,
+smiling at her delighted thanks for the gold he placed in her hand.
+
+“To the curés and their vicars, Monsieur,” she said gravely, “who will
+distribute it—they know every one so well!” Sir Godfrey mused.
+
+“And you live near us!” he said, thinking of his own daughter, as he
+asked her name.
+
+“It is Aimée—and my brother is Armand de l’Orme, an officer at
+Versailles. We are orphans, Armand and I, and we do not belong to Paris.
+We were both born in the south, in Provence—Were you ever in Provence,
+Monsieur—ah, how much more beautiful it is!” With an air of empressement
+she clasped her hands, and standing there in the quietly sunny street,
+while the stream of the populous chaussée passed athwart its end, the
+girl seemed to forget her impatient company beyond, whose whispers and
+exclamations at last betrayed them to the surprised glance of Sir
+Godfrey. “Was she allowed,” he asked, however, “to make visits from her
+convent—for _he_ had a daughter, little older than herself, who had no
+companions of her own age in Paris.” And the young quêteuse responded
+eagerly to the hint. “Oh, yes—she was allowed—on certain days—and she
+would positively come. Indeed—perhaps—mademoiselle herself would assist
+at their quête.”
+
+The baronet shook his head, almost starting in his saddle at the
+thought. But it struck him suddenly that his oddly-made new
+acquaintance, through her friends the curés, might aid him in discovery
+of the missing Suzanne Deroux; and she was all readiness and sanguine
+expectation when he explained the matter. There was one young vicar in
+particular, so mild, so missionnaire, so apostolique, whose acquaintance
+with all the poorer quarters was miraculous: she would be able to bring
+the news, she was sure, very soon indeed. So giving her, at her request,
+the same paper he had recalled from his banker, Sir Godfrey saw her
+rejoin her archway amidst the impatient welcome of her companions, and
+took his way into the Rue Debilly, with a feeling half-amused,
+half-meditative.
+
+At home, there were fresh letters and newspapers awaiting him, with the
+dinner-time, unwontedly late. There had been already the expected
+tidings from Francis to his mother, though brief, that he was finally
+free of term-times, having reached London, which he was ready to leave
+next week; his father’s remaining business there seemed fully settled,
+but he was to dine, before starting, at their friend the solicitor’s,
+and bring over with him everything wanted. He enclosed his sister’s
+letter, however, from her dearest school-fellow, crossed and recrossed,
+with all its precious gossip for common use, its inexpressible
+sentiments that were not to be seen by another creature, and its
+postscript with the sole piece of real, intelligible information. Mrs
+Mason’s correspondence also, whose contents had at no time been breathed
+to any one, had been forwarded: while Sir Godfrey himself had a packet
+from Mr Hesketh’s office in Exeter, giving on the whole satisfactory
+prospects, and containing a few papers from among the late Sir John’s
+dreary mass of lumber; hitherto overlooked, but which he might care to
+examine. They were for the most part unimportant, but he saw, from the
+first glance at one of them, that had it arrived that morning, it might
+have simply saved him a little trouble and uncertainty; as it was a
+French letter of date not long before his brother’s death, evidently
+written by some humble notary’s clerk, to state the case of the Suzanne
+in question, who had received a pension for an injury received while in
+his service, probably interrupted through the change of abode by her
+children, whose work supported them; but her son had been ill, and the
+winter severe; the application had been rather made at the penman’s
+instance, as he lived _au quatrième_ in the house where their attic was,
+and had himself discovered the address by going to the banker’s, where
+he had obtained no other prospect. It stated the place and number
+distinctly, and had in all likelihood led to the memorandum of Sir
+John,—though no doubt thrown aside at the moment, and with his confused
+mind in those latter days, so busy amidst out-door matters or convivial
+meetings, its chief point had been forgotten.
+
+Joining in the eager table-talk it had all excited, with a mind at rest,
+the baronet could fully share the pleasure of home-thoughts: the very
+atmosphere of the room seemed English, for all its bare waxed floor and
+patch of carpet, its airy paper-hangings of pastoral scenes, its light
+curtains and tall glaring windows with flimsy frames, its stove-filled
+chimney-place, and the white folding-doors of its antechamber, about all
+which there lurked no corner of substantial comfort, as round the
+wainscot and panelling, the recesses and embayments, corner-cupboards,
+and hearth-places, and presses of home, with its high-backed arm-chair,
+noiseless floors, and family pictures: the sound of the convent-bell,
+and Sir Godfrey’s account of his pretty little _quêteuse_, alone brought
+back their recollection. It had been long since Lady Willoughby saw her
+husband so cheerful, even when he turned to his newspaper, and sat
+absorbed in its varied matter, leaning back on that hard diminutive
+sofa;—Mrs Mason, as her custom was, has withdrawn to the mysterious
+privacy of her own apartment; Mr Thorpe, to a book, apart in the wide
+naked antechamber; while at its further windows, looking out, sit the
+two young people in their unwearied charge of the street;—till, as that
+after-dinner repose steals through the sitting-room, with cool shade
+from the early May twilight, she feels instinctively that his old easy
+habit of middle age has returned on him, the first time since reaching
+France—nay, on second thought, since the day of that melancholy message
+from Devonshire—of sinking at that hour into a doze. It scarce needs her
+turning her head, to see how the affairs and concerns of the world at
+large have fallen from his mind; while gently netting on, without word
+or other motion, perhaps with no particular thought besides, she sits
+quiet that it may last the longer. It had seemed vague, in its
+connection with a trifle; but neither she nor he could have told the
+indescribable relief it had given him to find the only singularity in
+Sir John’s memoranda cleared up; in this commonplace way, too, when even
+casual circumstances had seemed joining to give it a feverish
+importance. That intended but ineffectual will of his, by which he had
+evidently contemplated a formal bequest, with those slight exceptions,
+of everything to the colonel, already his legal heir, could after all
+have had no rational motive; it was probably but one of those strangely
+groundless suspicions, those longings to exercise influence from the
+very tomb, which cross an unsound mind. The colonel had not been
+unconscious of the superior abilities of his eldest brother, nor of the
+still brighter parts which were attributed to his brother John in early
+life; he only felt reassured by the conviction, again confirmed, that
+the unhappy results of his foolish match had been such as to touch his
+brain with insanity. There was a vulgar old story about their family, in
+fact—a sort of absurd country superstition—that owing to some ancient
+ancestral impiety, even when the ghost ceased to be heard of in the long
+portrait-gallery at Stoke, over the great staircase—which had been
+invisible to the family alone—then somewhere or other a Willoughby was
+mad. Often had the colonel smiled at it, when merely a younger brother
+in the army; a wound once received in his head in America, which had
+cost him delirious days and nights, seemed formerly to entitle him
+doubly to his smile at the corroboration, when restored to full health:
+nay, from some cause, he had found himself thinking of it once or twice
+in the full blaze of the streets of Paris, with their vivid
+reminiscences—though his smile had been but faint, now he was the
+younger brother no longer. For _why_, really, after all, had he come to
+Paris in particular, or lingered there, persuading himself under so many
+different forms about its convenience, the novelty to his children, the
+advantage of his brother’s banker, the little legacy, the comparative
+privacy, the rapid post, or the many notices of places to let? Why, in
+that indirect way, had he sought to make inquiries of the police, and
+caught himself listening to words in the street, of unknown suicides,
+baffled investigations, and French ennui? Why had he mechanically shrunk
+from the Boulevards and rushing St Honoré, yet glanced askance at
+windows full of faces, or looked again with an irresistible suspicion,
+to see if he recognised or was recognised by any one—not merely on that
+day, but on previous ones also? Actually, in the hot, beating sun, it
+had for a moment or two resembled the preface to his fever in the
+colonies, after that affair with their rabble of militia, among whom he
+had fancied he saw a known visage disguised; and the strong effort of
+his understanding which recovered him had only brought more keenly the
+sudden question—whether his brother indeed, or he himself, had been
+touched with the germs of a growing madness. There had been strange
+horror in the thought. For, had there really been a deliberate, sober
+meaning in his brother’s stray purposes, through the confusion of all
+his neglect, and though cut off by death? While the quick, clear
+self-suspicion had seemed to pierce his own mind with shame, how, amidst
+an uneasiness to associate with his countrymen, he was still traversing
+Paris everywhere, under cover of guidance to his family, mingling
+private anxieties with the grandeur of royal edifices, and continuing to
+expect some chance vestige of things which his brother might have chosen
+wisely to leave in silence. Since his succession to Stoke he must have
+been altering insensibly. Even selfish feelings, impatient wishes,
+hidden thoughts, or half-fretful expressions towards her who had been so
+long his solace, had then recurred to mind with a painful surprise;
+compared with which, his brother’s eccentricity appeared innocent
+indeed, sadly as his earlier follies had brought it on. And had he heard
+before from Mr Hesketh what he learned from the letter on his return,
+that the manor-house and park were unlikely to be soon let, or to bring
+any profitable addition to the rents at present, from a fresh and
+growing rumour that they were haunted, it would have startled him with a
+superstitious feeling far more oppressive than any at Stoke. But, as it
+was, with a sober return to accustomed thoughts, calmed by his unwonted
+self-scrutiny, for him so deep—and soothed by gentle presence—Sir
+Godfrey slipped from his practical, matter-of-fact English newspaper to
+repose; though with the melancholy conviction that his brother’s
+understanding had indeed partially given way. They had not latterly seen
+very much of each other: John was now at peace; his fruitless life had
+come to an end. The baronet was awoke only by the rustling entrance of
+Mrs Mason to pour out the chocolate—Mr Thorpe’s awkward haste to set her
+chair—the bringing in of wax-lights—the pause before grace was said,
+with the tutor’s devout formality. The evening talk was as duly closed
+by Mr Thorpe’s reading of the appointed prayers—another advantage never
+gained by Lady Willoughby till their departure abroad required a tutor.
+
+As if there were not strange noises dying far and wide through the city,
+till across the river could be heard the great clock of the Invalides.
+As if the atmosphere of the world were not at that hour infected with
+inscrutable sympathies and mysterious desires; which gathered in Paris,
+as after long heat that malady of the air, felt keenly by the lower
+creatures: so that it might have been working vaguely even with Sir
+Godfrey. And as if, though clouded and stagnant, even well-nigh lost,
+the judgment of the departed might not have exercised some acute
+thought—deeper even than the sharpest lawyer could track it.
+
+So quiet, after prayers, was the outer night over the bare roofs, and
+lights, and distant pinnacles of the city—the glimpse of the river, the
+lamps on the bridge, the trees of the Champ de Mars—and so wide with its
+floating films of fair May-cloud, softening the few stars—that Rose
+Willoughby shaded her candle to peep out at it, lifting the blind, and
+putting her face close to the window-glass, after she had said her
+prayers, and was half ready to go to bed. Listening to Mrs Mason’s steps
+in the next room, extinguisher in hand, lest her door should suddenly be
+opened to that lady’s most indignant surprise—Rose thought still of
+to-morrow’s drive toward Versailles.
+
+
+                    CHAPTER V.—FALLING FLEUR-DE-LYS.
+
+          “Quel triste abaissement!
+              Quelle immortelle gloire!
+          Que de cris de douleur!
+              Que de chants de victoire!
+          Cessons de nous troubler; notre Dieu, quelque jour,
+          Devoilera ce grand mystère.
+          Révérons sa colère;
+          Espérons en son amour.”
+                                              _Athalie._
+
+Pleasant was it, on that bright hot morning, to escape at last from
+Paris altogether. Sir Godfrey, indeed, remained at home to write his
+letters, with the purpose of riding out to meet them on their return:
+and Mr Thorpe, on horseback, with charge of the magic passports, was the
+sole cavalier; shrewdly overseen, doubtless, by the hard-eyed,
+rough-visaged, experienced Jackson, to whose sturdy driving there lay no
+perplexity about those great, straight, formal French roads, with
+staring guide-posts and swarms of Parisian people.
+
+Soon, in fact, does the grand road towards Versailles sweep away from
+sight of Paris in its wide basin, among avenues and closing woods. With
+no lanes, nor secluded cross-ways, save to towns, it was harder to leave
+behind the Parisian people; and they soon heard that Versailles was
+stripped of its glory, so far as they were concerned, since nothing was
+doing there that day; the king had gone to Marly, or Fontainebleau,
+instead of passing in state to the Assembly, as had been expected from
+the journals. Much to the relief, it must have been, of Lady Willoughby,
+who disliked crowds and pressures of people, with the bustle and the
+dust; and to whom foreign kings and queens had but a dim,
+half-chimerical reality, after all, compared with the accustomed
+Georges, whose power and royalty were interwoven with any thoughts she
+had of public life; yet she appeared as much vexed as it was possible
+for her to be, proposing still to go on and see the outside of the
+palace, the fountains, or the remaining courtiers, the “houses of
+parliament,” which perhaps might be worth the pains. But these Charles
+disdained till another day, when the king should have returned—being
+even set against the remotest view of the town, its very smoke or
+spires; and, out of his father’s presence, Charles was always, by some
+peculiar force of his, indirectly master. His sister Rose, though the
+expedition had been fondly planned, nor did his arguments seem worth
+answering, too well knew the issue not to be resigned; while her
+governess, referred to as a matter of course, expressed as duly an
+entire acquiescence in any arrangement most satisfactory to Lady
+Willoughby, preserving an intense calm, and seeming to observe the
+various objects as their course was changed, the leaves of the trees,
+the tops of palisades, the very hats of market-people, with strange
+elevation of countenance, and with an air of suffering which required
+her vinaigrette. Even Jackson, who had a great share of the selfishness
+of privileged old servants, and greatly consulted his own personal ease,
+ventured to console his mistress, turning round and touching his hat, to
+remark that it was a long drive after all, and they would have had to
+put up at the town to bait these Flanders beasts—he carefully abstained
+from calling them horses—_which_ it might cost a deal of trouble, as
+these French inns very likely had no stables; the inward satisfaction of
+Jackson, indeed, somewhat belied his rueful effort to look grieved. All
+appeared disappointed, save the tutor, ever fain to be serviceable, if
+seldom very successful where the office was of the present kind. Yet
+that day Mr Thorpe was excelling himself, now riding on, or now
+remaining behind, always for some object; nor was it long ere he came
+posting back, his plain, ineffectual features animated, and his mild
+short-sighted blue eyes shining moist through the thin-framed spectacles
+which enlarged them, to mention that they were close to Sèvres, where
+the royal porcelain was made. And at Sèvres, with its quaint old village
+houses, and its bridge across the Seine to another village, seeing what
+could be seen of its manufactory, its water-mill where the clay was
+ground, or its woody island amidst the river, the earlier part of the
+day was spent. Then turning to make a wide circuit into the Versailles
+road again, where the afternoon was to bring Sir Godfrey, the carriage
+passed at leisure through the quieter country that slopes and rolls
+westward from the Seine.
+
+It was scarce country, indeed, where no hedgerows seemed to break up the
+wide spaces, no field-gates or clustered farms, nor half-sequestered
+hamlets, with the sprinkling on of solitary cottage and quiet house
+toward the next, where the church spire should rise, or tower; but
+sometimes with no division from the wide crops, save the lines of bushy
+pollards, they rolled over the paved roadway; again between continual
+park walls or wooden palisade, from which suddenly it would burst on the
+space about a large square village, with its cabaret and sign-board of
+the _Lion d’or_ or _d’argent_, its old fountain-well, and double row of
+trees, noisy, and alive with children, while another road brought
+through it the market-life from Paris. Though over the nearest wood
+would peep the white turrets of chateaus, peaked with purple slate, or
+tin, or gilding, like chandeliers extinguished in the light of day; and
+near to them were the little stunted churches, with their rounded ends,
+the squat towers that had lids to them like pots and vases, or the mean
+belfries perched on the roofs; where the church-yard was blooming with
+flowers that made its cypresses and yews look gloomier, and the small
+lonely curacy near it, snowing the cross on some wide gable, had an air
+of pious seclusion from the world. And still the parks spread round; the
+woods, with formal alleys striking through them, widened and surged
+outward, downward, into vale and over height; sometimes opening to let
+the high road pass on with its vehicles and pedestrians, or the traffic
+that seemed greater for its confinement,—oftener to show the terraces
+and bowers of still nobler mansions than before, till the country
+appeared fading away. They had forgotten their forenoon disappointment:
+the girl’s eyes sparkled as the sweet sense of being out of Paris grew,
+in spite of all it held in it; placid, tranquil, her mother leant
+opposite, while she breathed the freshness, enjoying the mere motion,
+and the vague variety as she heard it noticed, on pure trust, pleased at
+what pleased the others—it was not like England, indeed, but how pure
+and exhilarating seemed the French air—its sun gave a still sleepier
+stillness to her mild eyes, yet with so healthy a tint and soft fulness
+of person, that the holding of her parasol, in Lady Willoughby, the
+trouble she took to observe an object, were pleasant to see; as Mr
+Thorpe, riding by, devoted his conversation to the governess and her;
+the while Charles, still in a discontented mood, vented it on the whole
+country, and leaning across to his sister, one elbow on his knee, kept
+up his side-current of livelier talk.
+
+For one thing, their constant popularity displeased him, however
+acceptable to Rose. That national sharpness and curiosity had all at
+once become particularly disagreeable to the youth, in his grumbling
+humour; and it mingled through the whole thread of his discourse, not
+without some acute notions of the people’s character, on which he
+appeared to have been oddly brooding. Nor the less was his zest in
+showing that France and England were natural foes, because his tutor on
+the other side rode discoursing benevolently to the reverse effect;
+while Mrs Mason responded, in all that propriety of sentiment, which was
+blended, in her dialogue to gentlemen, with a slight shade of delicate
+reserve. But really there was a domineering style of argument in
+Charles, if one ventured to express a different view, that provoked his
+sister in the end—especially as he was a year younger; she turned her
+shoulder to him, and sat resolutely looking the other way, as if
+absorbed in the mild commonplaces of Mr Thorpe, and Mrs Mason’s weary
+platitudes, which diffused such additional complacency over her mother.
+After all, they _were_ tiresome things, such as all good books and
+worthy people said over and over; though Charles had no right to look
+down on his tutor with such secret contempt, because he knew nothing of
+what Charles called “life”—or to hint, because he looked serious, that
+his mind had got bewildered among triangles ever since he studied so
+terribly for a degree, leaving out nothing but his memory: perhaps,
+indeed, it _might_ be true that Mrs Mason, in spite of her early loss of
+some inestimable kind, had a sort of soft regard for him, and paid him
+little attentions, especially at table, with the sugar,—though
+moderately, till the curacy at Stoke should be sure; but what she would
+not for a moment be so disrespectful to Mr Thorpe as to credit, was that
+a hopeless love, never to be revealed, consumed him, amidst all his
+learning, for—for herself. Her indignation mounted at the thought,—for a
+moment even at the excellent tutor, so highly respected by Sir Godfrey,
+with his thin hair already leaving his forehead bald, through long delay
+of any preferment—whose sister was his only relative alive, and was to
+keep his house when he had one,—but most to Charles, with his rough
+boy’s jokes; even although the girl’s thoughts wandered the more
+irresistibly to foreign counts and picturesque barons that had hovered
+in vision before the whole boarding-school, being now eagerly inquired
+after by her dearest friend, who was still there.
+
+There were none of these, certainly, about the highway which the
+carriage struck into, alive though it was with people of every kind.
+Charles had ceased, at his mother’s unusually earnest request, to
+whistle indistinctly between his teeth, as it was of all sounds the one
+that most annoyed her; he had even left off, of his own accord, the
+substitution of a drumming motion with a small cane against his boot, as
+he superciliously noticed the passengers. He got quite silent, in fact,
+to watch the passing faces that seemed bent towards Paris; though the
+faint smoke of another large village appeared in the hollow, prettier
+than any they had passed, among inclining vineyards and whole knolls of
+roses. It might have been St Genevieve’s own, with that holy well
+resorted to by kings, where she had kept her sheep long ago; and where,
+at the May fête of _la rosière_, they still crowned the most virtuous
+girl in the place with roses; as the last work of Madame de Genlis had
+informed Mrs Mason. The summer afternoon sloped wide above it, full of
+light and the swarming hum of insects, through the outspread walnut
+leaves, flickering amber in the sun, from over the white wall that was
+dappled by the shadows; while the hedgeless corn-fields on the other
+side were rippling under the long air from the woods, one sea of
+tenderest green, full of blue-cockle flowers and scarlet poppies; the
+cottage casements flashed from amidst a pink-white glow of
+orchard-blossom, of milky cherry-boughs, of old rugged propped-up
+pear-trees that foamed over to the moss-green thatch, with the wooden
+chimney shot high, as it breathed blue among the leaves; with here and
+there a hooded dovecot window on the roof, where the pigeons sat sunning
+and swelling themselves, and cooing, white, blue, and purple together,
+in a gush of warm light—all the place beneath them bespattered and
+splashed with whiteness, through the shadow, to the very foliage of the
+nearest branch. The hum of the place burst round them as they crossed
+its little bridge, rattling over the rough causeway; and there were no
+carriage-ways save through the villages and towns.
+
+It was odd that for some time along the road, as if to meet the lad’s
+inclinations, the notice of them had been unaccompanied with signs of
+interest; every one had seemed occupied with his neighbour, talking, or
+hastening on somewhere; the voices had even grown suppressed as they
+passed. Here they were busier still, and talking louder, in a perfect
+babble of sounds. It was wonderful, at least to Charles Willoughby in
+his private mind, how the cobblers lived—the weavers, blacksmiths, or
+carpenters, found time to work; how the mill-wheel had a hand to feed
+it, or the women to mind their matters; they were letting their pitchers
+run over, in fact, at the old carved fountain-spout, till there was a
+little brook across the street, down into some one’s door-steps, and a
+duck that seemed comparatively quiet began to lead her troop of
+ducklings that way. The French infants even, held plainly enough here
+and there, in full sunlight, to their slatternly feeding-places, looked
+dissatisfied as the throng pressed about the doorway of a cabaret, with
+the sign of the Golden Crown: a horse stood by it with foam-flecked
+sides, and his head stooped in its corn-bag; while a man in a green
+jacket, with a leather case slung across him by a belt, apparently a
+courier, gesticulated in vain from the open window; the door being
+blocked up by a drunk dragoon, who stood swaying slightly to and fro,
+yet balancing himself carefully, as he surveyed the various groups from
+his half-closed eyelids with extreme sternness and grave suspicion; till
+at length drawing himself up, to extend his hand with a summons for
+attention, he essayed to speak; but all at once rushed forward with
+furious gesture amongst the crowd, where he fell flat from the steps.
+The blood gushed from his features, women shrieking, men running,
+without a glance behind, as the landlord hurried to his aid from the
+tavern, followed by more dragoons, who stamped their spurred feet upon
+the steps, and half drew their sabres, with fierce gestures and
+execrations. Yet as the carriage passed on through the narrow and
+awkward street, however slowly, it did not attract attention from any of
+the party except Charles, who preserved a seemingly sullen silence; not
+distracted by so much as a look to his sister, when her governess said
+there must be something improper going on, and sloped her parasol that
+way, using a scented handkerchief, with evident desire that the young
+lady should do the same; while his mother had no more suspicion of its
+not being common to villages all over the world, possibly on a
+market-day, than a duchess. The tutor was, as usual, on before, with his
+little note-book, to put down the name of the place, the probable
+population, and apparent area of the church, according to some dim
+theory that had been growing on him since he crossed the Channel. As for
+Jackson, he merely whipped his horses, and made a slash at some dogs,
+with obvious inclination to curse whatever came in his way. So they
+rolled through by degrees in sight of the church; but there was a
+greater throng at that end, in and about the low-walled enclosure before
+a smart new building, the use of which was not plain at first sight; for
+considering the size of the place, with the general squalidness of the
+long cottages or bald white houses, really the number of people of all
+ages was extraordinary, till one observed that single roofs seemed
+shared among ever so many families,—a thing the odder to the lad, as at
+school he used to know plenty of Eton folks, from bargemen to bat-maker.
+He even thought, somehow, of that one visit to Stoke. Oh! that was the
+school—the first he happened to have seen in France; and that youngish
+man, in an old figured dressing-gown, with a sharp dry face, standing up
+on something, without a hat—the schoolmaster; while they pushed and
+jumped to hear him, though quietly enough except for the hushing of each
+other, since the schoolmaster had evidently a weak voice; it only
+reached the carriage in an occasional screech, when he lifted his hand
+impressively in the air. “_Ecoutez—ecoutez, au Père Pierre!_” This Père
+Pierre must be rather an odd fellow; why, his school was in a perfect
+riot within, to judge by the dust, the flying books, and the noise
+sometimes louder than his voice outside. But he was not making a
+speech—the white article he held up to the blaze of the sun was not a
+pocket-handkerchief, but—yes—a newspaper. He must have a good deal of
+influence there, this teacher—at least over the grown-up men, with
+leather aprons and bare arms—one could not help marking him—with that
+scanty head of hair done up in bobs from his temples, and such a short
+queue behind, not to think of his short nose and high cheekbones, or a
+chin as bare as one’s palm. Perhaps something had happened—something
+important—a battle somewhere? There was peace, though. Some murder, it
+was likely—or a shipwreck—well, at any rate these boys didn’t mind, so
+crop-headed and stunted-looking, who were playing pitch-and-toss with
+such an old-mannish look in their eager faces, at the end of the school.
+There were more beneath the big bulging church-gable, with its black
+ugly windows and its zigzag crack in the plaster—in such long old livery
+coats, with plated saucer-buttons. Actually it was with the buttons they
+were playing—as if it had been money—cutting them off their coats, too,
+and their breeches, to rush back for another chance! The silent
+speculations of Charles reached their climax in profound wonder. It was
+beneath his notice to regard Mrs Mason’s words, as they cleared the
+place, and began to rise from the hollow—that it was an interesting
+village, so lively, so full of a holiday air, not without a degree of
+quick intelligence. “After labour,” his mother said, lifting up her
+eyelids, “it must be pleasant.”
+
+Beyond the church and an old crooked, high-arched bridge, was Mr Thorpe
+in the turning of a very narrow by-road, stony and grass-grown, that
+took a winding as if to avoid the village, by ditch-side and over
+rubbish, till it caught the highway behind again: the worthy tutor had
+drawn up his horse, he was settling his spectacles, putting in his
+note-book, and feeling in his pocket for some coin, apparently to bestow
+on a man he had been talking to. A very singular group revealed itself
+as they reached him. A dark-faced jet-eyed man with a beard, black and
+bushy, his rough cap in hand, and a little organ slung from his back,
+stood replying to Mr Thorpe in strange broken French, mingled with
+English; while he seemed carefully to keep the trees between himself and
+the village: somewhat further down the by-way sat a disconsolate-looking
+boy with a guitar, beside a crouching monkey; while another man held the
+chain of a huge muzzled beast, shaggy and brown, which reared on its
+hind-legs, now growling, now dancing, now shrinking from the threatened
+whip, like a creature enraged by the distant voices. Their trade had
+been ruined, the man said; for it was the first time they had been
+turned out into the _chemin des affronteux_, belonging to thieves and
+villains. It would be known for miles round Paris in a day, for it was
+wonderful how the news travelled there. They had often been at
+Charlemont before, and were received well. The bear felt it worst, he
+thought. He was as good a bear as you would see, owing to his love of
+society. Perhaps it might have been owing to some news in the place—but
+one could not know what tunes would offend people nowadays, to dance to.
+
+At Mr Thorpe’s condolence, however, backed by his gift of a six-sous
+piece, the Italian retreated thankfully. They watched him as he was
+joined by his singular company, slowly and with a crestfallen air
+disappearing round the by-way. All the tutor could find out was that
+they had been chased out from that end of the place just before, with
+sticks, stones, and pitchforks, by the very young people who had been
+dancing sociably enough along with the bear and monkey—because an air
+they commenced was _contre la liberté_. How any tune could be against
+liberty, Mr Thorpe could not conceive: nay, if they did not like dancing
+to it, they might have stood still; they might have requested it to be
+stopped; indeed, it was probable that some of these very people might
+have wished the liberty of dancing it! Still less could he perceive how
+_liberty_ could be connected with that particular tune—“_Richard o mon
+roi_”? And he looked interrogatively to Mrs Mason. Certainly not, the
+governess responded: Gretry’s new music! In fact, he rejoined, the
+musician could not, either: but that day mysteries seemed to grow, he
+added,—for, before himself emerging from the place, at sight of the
+church, he had very civilly inquired, from a group of inhabitants, what
+was the name of the village. What had been his astonishment to perceive,
+that passing from uncivil silence, from stares of wonder, and
+extraordinary, sudden indignation, they looked very much disposed to
+treat him as it now seemed they had before treated these inoffensive
+strangers. Until, adding insult, they had significantly touched their
+foreheads, looking to each other, or whispering, until one, perhaps
+still more ingenious in giving offence, had suddenly called out, “Bah!
+c’est un Anglais!” There had been then no farther notice of him—indeed
+absolute indifference; nor did he discover, till he encountered the
+injured foreigner, what the name of the place actually was. And was
+there, then, really any peculiar crime in asking the name of
+_Charlemont_—any strange privacy—any unutterable horror connected with
+_it_—that no one should put the mere question? But, at all events, was a
+spirit of inquiry to be thought madness! Nay more, was it lower than
+madness to be—an Englishman!
+
+Mr Thorpe looked a little discomposed and changed, in fact, even since
+they last had seen him. Usually, though not pedantic, he was tedious;
+but he began for a moment to appear almost respectable in the very eyes
+of his pupil, who had often thought before that the present curate at
+Stoke could not be more monotonous, nor the old rector duller: a spark
+of spirit seemed for the time to have given emphasis to his words, and
+meaning to his face—some faint dignity to his lengthy awkward person,
+sitting ordinarily like a sack on his horse, with the gaiters dangling
+in the stirrups. Yet how amazingly simple was Mr Thorpe; it was chiefly
+the Italian with his battered instruments and beaten animals that seemed
+to have roused him from his wont: while as for his chief puzzle, a light
+broke on it to the boy at once, from all he had seen and heard of these
+French. Why,—of course they thought the whole world should know
+Charlemont already!
+
+But, to the ladies, softly plashed and clattered below, from among
+alders in the deeper hollow, the mill-wheel of the village, dusty light
+flying from the upper door: the cracked striking of a clock was heard
+from farther off, till they saw the grey turrets of another yellow
+chateau among trees, though but a thread of smoke rose from it, and its
+discoloured plaster, where the sunlight struck, gave it a dilapidated
+aspect, helped by the pigeons from the dovecote tower close by, that
+were sitting on the window-sills and eaves. Full to the light on the
+brow of the eminence rose the carriage, widening the landscape on every
+side, save where the woods before it extended: there was a smooth, broad
+road in front, sweeping round where the labourers were still at work on
+it: they were on a hill, and all was exquisitely solitary otherwise for
+the first time, except close by, where the highway ran between the two
+porter’s-lodges of two great gates that faced each other. These great
+gates were, indeed, gorgeously beautiful, being each double, with
+side-wickets, all of open ironwork, elaborately complex; gilt crowns
+surmounted the globes upon their massy pillars of stone, their upper
+rims were formed of fleur-delis, as if of lance-heads, richly gilded;
+while the blade-shaped leaves, damasked and lettered with mottoes,
+stretched throughout the whole, hither and thither, like guardian
+swords, from the uncouth grasp of grotesque naked monsters at the lower
+corners; everywhere were small puzzling circles of cipher, and in the
+midst the joined halves composed a grand shield-shaped device, burnished
+and resplendent on either hand, of the royal arms of France. The very
+radiance of the afternoon sun came dazzling towards it, and threw the
+other way on the cross road, into one park, a mottled shadow of
+fleur-de-lis; shapes of crowns, ciphers, and monsters, even vanished
+among the dust of the horses’ feet on the highway as they trotted
+past—strange traces from the days of Louis Quatorze. Still was all that
+nothing to the broad glimpses of park scenery both ways through them.
+Mrs Mason herself saw one way, with unusual commendation, where a
+stately distance was made by Lenotre’s taste, in straight avenue, level
+turf, and high-clipped side-alleys, where a few well-dressed people were
+walking; her frequent headache did not, perhaps, at any time wholly
+leave her, but the vinaigrette paused in her hand, as she directed the
+attention of Lady and Miss Willoughby to each fine effect. Yet it was
+difficult to draw the latter from her absorbed delight the other way;
+for there the wilder chase seemed left to nature, the sun levelled more
+and more all his yellowing splendour through its deep-green, sinking
+glades, flinging out fantastic shadows, shooting gushes of verdurous
+light, in which the delicate young fern peeped from about the trunk of
+some far-off oak, while the broad umbrage of its gnarled boughs
+retreated crisply into cooler shade; the knolls were hung with the
+foxglove buds, like crimson bells that had not found a tongue; and all
+there was moist, secluded, solitary, sweet, save when some single bird
+seemed to wake up and make it musical, till again it trilled and rang
+with their innumerable notes. But gradually the road had lifted the
+carriage higher yet; it seemed to drive slow by instinct; and ere they
+well knew, the whole party made exclamations together, as, with Rose,
+they did not know which way to look first. Mr Thorpe came to a
+stand-still, and Jackson was shading his eyes, whip in hand, to look
+under the sun. Even Lady Willougbby said, fanning herself gently, “Dear
+me—what a fine country! what crops!” “Yes—the harvest will be excellent,
+I should think,” Mrs Mason replied, using her fan also, it was so hot.
+The young lady stood up, and her brother jumped out to get from the top
+of the bank upon the wall.
+
+They were nearer Paris than they thought; it bristled and shone through
+its haze, some miles away on the plain: westward, the high woods of
+Marly showed faint through the edges of two broad sunbeams, as through a
+veil, with bluer distinctness between, here a spire, there smoke; the
+waves of forest verdure undulating round, began to burn and blaze
+towards sunset; all was spotted with towns, sprinkled rich-red and white
+with villages, flushed with orchards, and in the barer spaces
+embroidered like a carpet that blended with the dark suburbs of the city
+on the horizon. Here and there appeared a soft misty glitter of the
+circuitous Seine in the level, with some faint white sails; the distant
+azure of some hills could be seen; it was all like one mighty map made
+real. Yet greatest of all to their eyes, even greater than the dusky
+grimness of Paris in the sun, showing its domes so helmet-like, and its
+pinnacles so like weapons—was where, with one accord looking back, they
+could perceive the silvered slates of one large town among the avenues
+they had turned from that forenoon, its steeples shining, its windows
+sparkling—and through that transparent French air, some lustrous snowy
+glimpses between embosoming bowers, of long level palace-roofs,
+embossed, and fringed, and tipped with undistinguishable ornament.
+Palaces, indeed, seemed to be visible in every direction; but they
+thickened towards _it_; all that way the landscape was but one mass of
+park-woods, and with those alleys, gardens, terraces, that long road at
+intervals perceived, it could be nothing but Versailles! Charles himself
+could not but look. The rainbow flashing of the fountains, and gleam of
+statues—the grand stairs of the terrace—they could almost fancy they
+distinguished.
+
+It was he who first broke the thread of their interest. Well, he
+shouldn’t care to have seen King Louis XVI.; he had once seen George
+III. It was easy enough to see him, in fact; if you only but knew it was
+he. He had seen a boy at Eton, fag to a friend of his, who was once
+spoken to a good while at a turnstile in Windsor Park by an elderly
+gentleman in drab gaiters, a nankeen waistcoat, and a blue coat with
+bright buttons; and when a ranger came up afterwards from behind, and
+told him it was the king, he nearly fainted. He could never learn
+anything after that, and always turned pale at the sight of a gold
+sovereign, so he had to be sent to sea.
+
+“My dear young gentleman,” said Mr Thorpe seriously, “the King of France
+is a much more powerful monarch than even His Majesty King George! I
+must beg to correct you on a point of history. He is absolute ruler, not
+only of all the land we see, but over the property, nay, the very
+persons of his subjects—he is the State himself—as the great Louis XIV.
+so emphatically told his nobles. Think of those _lettres du cachet_,
+given away even blank in thousands upon thousands—a kind of money, as it
+were—exchanged by the courtiers for all kinds of objects—with which, for
+all one knows, were he worth notice from some enemy, he may be sent to a
+Bastille on no account whatever, to remain there unknown the rest of his
+life!”
+
+Charles Willoughby still endeavoured to look indifferent, though the
+slight whistle died between his teeth, while he pushed his cap down on
+his head, deeply resolved never to lift it to a French king. Mr Thorpe,
+drawn into unwonted earnestness, by the expression of the ladies’ faces,
+sought to reassure them.
+
+“The character of the present king is such as to make this power a
+benefit,” he said. “There seems a rapid decrease of superstition in the
+church. Really, Lady Willoughby, there was something idolatrous in this
+excessive honour to a human being! To conceive that at his Majesty’s
+death, while the body lay for forty days embalmed in lead, a waxen
+effigy was placed in the grand hall of entertainment, and served by
+gentlemen-waiters at the usual times, while the meal was blessed by the
+almoner, the meat carved, and the wine presented to the figure; its
+hands were washed and thanks returned. The queen, in white mourning—”
+
+“In white mourning?” inquired the governess, with interest.
+
+“In white, I think, Mrs Mason—sat for six weeks in a chamber lighted by
+lamps alone. For a whole year she could not stir out of her own
+apartments, if she had received the intelligence there. Although similar
+ceremonies were observed after her own decease.”
+
+The feminine impression of former evils in France grew deep. The tutor
+could not say whether his present majesty would require such honours.
+There was only one person of inferior rank who had ever been
+distinguished by a shade of the same respect, though for a shorter time
+her effigy had sat. It was the far Gabrielle d’Estrées. “Who was she?”
+Rose asked,—“and why”—
+
+“Miss Willoughby,” interrupted Mrs Mason with a sudden air of severity,
+rustling and extending and drawing herself erect, “there are some
+questions too shocking and improper for us to ask?” Mr Thorpe, with a
+frightened look, sat dumb in his saddle; yet Mrs Mason professed to know
+history, and her charge must surely learn it: nay, unknown to them all,
+among the distant chateaus, palaces, and mansions they were gazing at,
+were St Germain’s in the blue eminence, which the great Louis had given
+to La Vallière when he wearied of her for Madame de Montespan; and
+Luciennes, where Madame du Barry was then living in fashionable
+retirement. But the one had been gallant, stately even in his vices; the
+royal patron of the other, in his dissipations, had at least been
+elegant. Probably Mr Thorpe’s confusion led him to a graver topic.
+
+“The chronicler I have lately perused,” he said, hastily, “is really
+worth study. Nothing can be so mournfully salutary. As the coffin was
+borne at night to yonder Notre Dame, and thence thereafter to the
+ancient town of St Denis, the streets were hung with black, and before
+every house was planted a tall lighted torch of white wax. First went
+the Capuchins, in their coarse sackcloth girt with ropes, bearing their
+huge cross, crowned with thorns—then five hundred poor men, under their
+bailiff, all in mourning as for a father—the magistrates and courts of
+justice, the parliament of Paris in rich sable furs, the high clergy in
+purple and gold—followed by the funeral car drawn by white horses,
+covered with black velvet crossed with white satin, and the long train
+of officers of the household.”
+
+The great knowledge of the tutor as to textile fabrics interested Mrs
+Mason. “Think of the expense!” Lady Willoughby said.
+
+“This vast procession,” pursued Mr Thorpe with solemnity, “went on in
+silence, while, as the chronicler quaintly expresses it, ‘ever and aye
+the royal musicians made a sound of lamentation, with instruments
+clothed in crape, very fierce and marvellously dolorous to hear or to
+behold, until they arrived at the church of St Denis,—blessed be his
+name! And the bier was borne into the choir, it being a-blaze with lamps
+and tapers beyond number, and the service lasted for the King’s soul
+several days—whereupon was the body let down into the vault, but not
+admitted within the inner chamber until the end of the next reign—and
+Normandy, the most ancient king of arms, summoned with a loud voice,
+that the high dignitaries should therein deposit their ensigns and
+truncheons of command—which done, the sacred oriflamme of France was let
+fall down upon the coffin, until the _fleur-de-lis_ began with the noble
+Bourbons—and the king of arms cried three times so that the vaults heard
+and replied—Ho! the king is dead! The king is dead! The king is dead!
+And when silence had been renewed, the same voice proclaimed—Long live
+the king!—and all the other heralds repeated it. Then was all finished,
+and they departed joyously.’ Really, in those older writers, compared
+with those of the present day,—however superstitious, there is
+considerable profit to be found.”
+
+And the worthy graduate settled his glasses complacently, used his
+pocket-handkerchief in the loud manner he was addicted to, and looked
+round with increased attention on the mighty view; for devouter wishes
+had long been breeding dimly in his mind, such as the chill
+Protestantism even of his revered mother-church did not at that period
+satisfy. He did not notice the shrinking, under that full sunlight and
+wide azure, with the swarm of summer flies in the ears, and the warble
+of birds at hand, with which the youngest of his hearers, at least, felt
+the thought of death—above all, that universal one, of sovereign power.
+As for Lady Willoughby, her anxious look was chiefly from a reference to
+her watch; and it had been growing. She had not even heard Mr Thorpe. It
+was time for them to turn into the road from Versailles, as Colonel
+Willoughby—Sir Godfrey—would soon be leaving Paris, and he was punctual
+to a moment. There was no other way, Jackson said in reply, but by
+turning right again through the last village; at his mistress’s request,
+accordingly, he suited the action to the word, by backing and wheeling
+round. But where was Charles? He had vanished over the wall, apparently,
+during his tutor’s irrelevant remarks. To the calls of Mr Thorpe, echoed
+from among the woods, he returned no sign. It was annoying. They must
+wait; and, at any rate, according to the views of Jackson, generally
+unfavourable if required—with these beasts, it would be impossible to
+get on in good time, besides having to walk through that village, which
+was like nothing English whatever—with perhaps a bucket of water needed
+at that there tavern, if such a thing was to be had. The sudden
+intelligence of Mr Thorpe suggested a way: he could ride off at once to
+meet Sir Godfrey, and set him at ease; in fact, for himself, at least,
+it would be easy to avoid the village of Charlemont altogether—by—yes—by
+taking that _chemin des affronteux_, as they called it. Lady
+Willoughby’s face brightened. Her thanks to Mr Thorpe were something
+energetic for _her_: and spurring, rising in his stirrups, bumping up
+and down on his white mare, that worthy man disappeared. Rose pressed
+her parasol against her mouth to repress a smile, at the thought how
+Charles would have enjoyed his following the bear and monkey: but,
+through _her_ means, she was resolved he should know nothing of it.
+
+When least expected, Charles reappeared, jumping with a flushed face
+over the wall, and carrying a load of wild-flowers for his mother, for
+Rose, even for Miss Mason. He had heard distant sounds over the woods of
+the chase, which he thought were those of hunting-horns. But all was
+again still, bright, sleepy and solitary, under the glory of the sloping
+sun. He got in; Jackson whipped his horses at last to a trot, for again
+and again they had been passed each way by humbler vehicles; and they
+rolled on their way back towards Charlemont. Mr Thorpe’s mission excited
+no extraordinary satisfaction in Charles, though he was sure they would
+get on better without him. Mr Thorpe ran a strong chance of being taken
+up as a spy. All at once it occurred to him that Mr Thorpe had all their
+passports. But a scene of far more exciting interest next moment
+eclipsed everything like that. Again, from the distance of those
+secluded glades, did a sound draw his ear—and it was really the sound of
+a bugle-horn—a faint, far-off, musical sound, sometimes smothered by the
+woods, then breaking out clearer. It sank into a long-drawn, almost
+wailing note, that rose up into a livelier quaver, joined by a burst
+from others. It must be a hunt. They were blowing the _Mort_—as they did
+only for a stag, and a stag that was dead. Such luck!—for it came ever
+nearer. But what a crowd at the turning, near those splendid
+gates—twenty times even Charlemont must be there, by the swarming noise!
+And the gates themselves, thrown each way open with their double leaves,
+closed up the road.
+
+The lad rose half up, with breath suspended, and without a look to spare
+for his party, kept mute as the carriage rolled into the crowd on that
+side. He did not so much as think what it could be.
+
+Though had there been a chance of the _chemin des affronteux_, and the
+carriage could have gone through it—indeed through one long enough and
+circuitous enough to avoid all France—it might have been better for the
+Willoughbies. Yet who knows? The master-history that shapes our ends is
+wiser than we.
+
+
+
+
+                 CONSERVATIVE REASCENDANCY CONSIDERED.
+
+
+Ours is an age of peculiar importance. Events seem to be crowded into a
+small space of time which, if, spread over half a century, would yet
+mark the time as one of peril, action, and renown. In the political
+world we view a rapid succession of exciting scenes. The calm of peace
+yields to the turmoil of war, and Europe, but lately placid, is now
+rocked to its very base, and every nation on the Continent seems torn
+with present evils or convulsed in the contemplation of those to come.
+The strife of nations has doubtless called forth all the energies of
+mankind; and though England is removed from the sphere of action, and
+the immediate influence of the war, yet it cannot be said but that she,
+too, lies in peril, and partakes the general restlessness of the times.
+It becomes her, then, to consider in what lies her safety, and into
+whose hands she should commit the guidance of her affairs at this moment
+of danger.
+
+Is not England, too, a sharer in this general convulsion? Let us look to
+her senate, the heart of this great nation, where all the movements by
+which she is agitated can be seen and analysed. First, we see the Whigs
+quarrelling amongst themselves, and their consequent fall from power.
+Next, we see the Conservative party, with the general acquiescence of
+the country, installed in power. Ten short months have elapsed, and we
+see that Government, after having conferred, in its short tenure of
+office, lasting benefits upon the country, now falling, though by a
+slight majority, before a combination of all those various sects,
+panting for office, which range between conservatism and turbulent
+democracy—between Popery on the one hand, and practical atheism on the
+other; at war amongst themselves, yet combined together against a
+Government which seemed determined to legislate for the country, and not
+for the exclusive interests of any one party. Well might the Minister
+exclaim, as he fell before the machinations of his enemies, prescient of
+the future, while contemplating the events of the present—“England has
+not loved coalitions.” Well might he “appeal from that coalition to that
+public opinion which governs this country,” and before whose searching
+tribunal that unprincipled combination must soon be brought. If he
+desired revenge, he has it now. A government of “all the talents,”
+containing, as we are told, within its ranks all the men of official
+experience, administrative ability, of parliamentary renown, and so
+forth, calling down upon them the contempt of Parliament and the scorn
+of the country, succeeds the Derby administration. Forced to abandon
+measure after measure, fairly vanquished in those with which they
+proceed, obliged to fall back upon their own imagined talent and
+ability, which must at any sacrifice of character be preserved at the
+service of the country, they are evidently, to all men but themselves,
+and a few of their own devoted adherents, eliciting the pity of their
+friends and the derision of their enemies. But, then, we are told that
+it is the war which prevents them from carrying their measures; that
+last session they carried their budget, India bill, &c., with large
+majorities, which they regard as a sign that they possess the confidence
+of Parliament, and that now Parliament and the country, with their
+attention distracted by the war, simply refuse to legislate. We protest
+against such arguments as these. It is introducing a dangerous
+principle, though it may serve as an excuse for clinging to office with
+a disgraceful pertinacity. But does it not occur to them, that probably
+the reason they carried their measures last year with such a semblance
+of triumph, was in consequence of that forbearance—nay, even favour—with
+which every government, new to office, is regarded; that it was, to a
+great extent, the result of that disorganisation of their opponents
+which ever follows defeat; and that the people, dazzled with
+appearances, were willing to admit that we had a government which was
+worthy of the confidence of the country. But how have these feelings
+been dispelled? Credulity or connivance, disgraceful in such
+keen-sighted and patriotic statesmen, has done it all—Parliament has
+lost confidence in them, and the country contemns them. Moreover,
+blinded by their confidence in their own talents, which has now become a
+byword among sensible men, they still declare they carry with them the
+confidence of the country, because in all matters connected with the war
+they still possess majorities. Such reasoning as this does not hold. The
+reason that they carry their financial measures so decisively through
+the House is, that many, who do not feel so strongly as others on the
+injustice of the measures proposed, are willing to support those
+measures rather than have it appear on the Continent that the House of
+Commons has refused the sinews of war at the very commencement of the
+struggle. It is not the war which prevents their carrying other
+measures, it is the war which enables them to carry what they do.
+
+But how has this been brought about?—how is it that this Government has
+so rapidly lost the favour of the people, and been reduced to the
+position of being a Government on sufferance? The reason is to be found
+in that general discontent and excitement which from Europe have
+infected England. Men are excited at what is passing abroad, and
+distrustful of affairs within. The want of union and mutual distrust
+which exist in headquarters, is spread throughout the kingdom. Those
+feelings of distrust and disagreement existing in the Government become
+every day more apparent, and add to the anxiety with which its motions
+are regarded. This distrust and anxiety must be prevalent whilst this
+state of things continues. It is only by the reascendancy of the
+Conservative party that they can be surmounted, and by the advent to
+power of men who have confidence in each other, who have unity of
+sentiment amongst themselves, and who are backed by united followers;
+who have, each and all, the same objects in view—viz., a firm resistance
+to Russian aggression and the establishment of a durable peace, the
+maintenance of our Protestant religion, and justice to all parties in
+the State. Unity of sentiment amongst the members of a government is of
+the greatest importance to the happiness and welfare of the people.
+There never, probably, was a Cabinet in which there were so many “open
+questions” as the present. Since so many of them are Peelites, we may as
+well have the opinion of Sir Robert Peel himself on those self-same open
+questions. We subjoin an extract of a speech delivered in 1840 by that
+eminent statesman, on a motion of want of confidence in Ministers, in
+which he refers, without any ambiguity of expression, to the fatality of
+open questions:—
+
+
+  “But there is a new resource for an incompetent Administration—there
+  is the ingenious device of open questions, the cunning scheme of
+  adding to the strength of a weak government by proclaiming its
+  disunion. It will be a fatal policy, indeed, if that which has
+  hitherto been an exception, and always an unfortunate exception in
+  recent times, is hereafter to constitute the rule of Government. If
+  every government may say, ‘We feel pressed by those behind us—we find
+  ourselves unable, by steadily maintaining our own opinions, to command
+  the majority and retain the confidence of our followers, our remedy is
+  an easy one—let us make each question an open question, and thereby
+  destroy every obstacle to every possible combination;’—what will be
+  the consequence? The exclusion of honourable and able men from the
+  conduct of affairs, and the unprincipled coalition of the refuse of
+  every party. The right honourable gentleman has said that there have
+  been instances of ‘open questions’ in the recent history of this
+  country. There have been; but there has scarcely been one that has not
+  been pregnant with evil, and which has not been branded by an
+  impartial posterity with censure and disgrace. He said, that in 1782
+  Mr Fox made Parliamentary Reform an open question; that Mr Pitt did so
+  on the Slave-trade; and that the Catholic Question was an open one.
+  Why, if ever lessons were written for your instruction, to guard you
+  against the recurrence to open questions, you will find them in these
+  melancholy examples. The first instance was the coalition of Mr Fox
+  and Lord North, which could not have taken place without open
+  questions. Does the right honourable gentleman know that that very
+  fact—the union in office of men who had differed, and continued to
+  differ on great constitutional and vital questions—produced such a
+  degree of discontent and disgust, as to lead to the disgraceful
+  expulsion of that Government? The second instance was that of the
+  Slave-trade; but has not that act of Mr Pitt (the permitting of the
+  Slave-trade to be an open question) been more condemned than any other
+  act of his public life? The next instance cited was that of the
+  Catholic Question. I have had some experience of the evils which arose
+  from making Catholic emancipation an open question. All parties in
+  this House were equally responsible for them. Fox made it an open
+  question; Pitt made it an open question; Lord Liverpool made it an
+  open question; Canning made it an open question. Each had to plead an
+  urgent necessity for tolerating disunion in the Cabinet on this great
+  question; but there cannot be a doubt that the practical result of
+  that disunion was to introduce discord amongst public men, and to
+  paralyse the vigour of the executive government. Every act of
+  administration was tainted by disunion in the Cabinet. Every party was
+  jealous of the predominance of the other. Each party must be
+  represented in the government of that very country which required,
+  above all things, a united and resolute Government. There must be a
+  lord-lieutenant of one class of opinions, a secretary of the opposite,
+  beginning their administration in harmony, but in spite of themselves
+  becoming each the nucleus of a party, gradually converting reciprocal
+  confidence into jealousy and distrust. It was my conviction of the
+  evils of such a state of things—of the long experience of distracted
+  councils, of the curse of an open question, as it affected the
+  practical government of Ireland—it was this conviction, and not the
+  fear of physical force, that convinced me that the policy must be
+  abandoned. I do not believe that the making the Catholic question an
+  open question facilitated the ultimate settlement of it. If the
+  decided friends of emancipation had refused to unite in government
+  with its opponents, the question would have been settled at an earlier
+  period, and (as it ought to have been) under better auspices. So much
+  for the encouraging examples of the right honourable gentleman. They
+  were fatal exceptions from the general policy of Government. If, as I
+  before observed, such exceptions are to constitute the future rule of
+  Government, there is an end to public confidence in the honour and
+  integrity of great political parties, a severance of all ties which
+  constitute party connections, a premium upon the shabby and shuffling
+  conduct of unprincipled politicians.”
+
+
+Such were the sentiments of Sir Robert Peel with regard to open
+questions in the Melbourne Cabinet: how much more completely those
+remarks apply to the present Government it is needless to point out.
+Again are the open questions in the Melbourne Cabinet vigorously
+attacked; but this time in the House of Lords, and by a more energetic
+and fiery orator:—
+
+
+  “My Lords,—‘_Idem sentire de republicâ_’ has been in all times, and
+  amongst the best of statesmen, a bond of union at once intelligible,
+  honourable, conducive to the common weal. But there is another kind of
+  union formed of baser materials—a tie that knits together far
+  different natures, the ‘_eadem velle atque nolle_,’ and of this it has
+  been known and been said, ‘_ea demum, inter malos, est prime
+  amicitia_.’ The abandonment of all opinions, the sacrifice of every
+  sentiment, the preference of sordid interest to honest principle, the
+  utter abdication of the power to act as conscience dictates and sense
+  of duty recommends—such is the vile dross of which the links are made
+  which bind profligate men together in a ‘covenant of shame;’ a
+  confederacy to seek their own advancement at the expense of every
+  duty;—and this, my Lords, is the literal meaning of ‘open questions.’
+  It is that each has his known recorded opinions, but that each is
+  willing to sacrifice them rather than break up the government to which
+  he belongs: the ‘_velle_’ is to keep in office, the ‘_nolle_’ to keep
+  out all antagonists; and none dare speak his mind in his official
+  capacity without losing the ‘_firmitas amicitiæ_,’ by shaking the
+  foundations of the Government.”
+
+
+Here is a splendid outburst of vehement denunciation. If that could be
+applied with justice to the Government of Lord Melbourne, if such an
+invective as that is an index of the state of opinion in the country at
+that time, with reference to the dissensions in the Whig Cabinet, how
+much more applicable is it to the Coalition of the present day, with
+regard to whose members, putting out of sight the question of Free
+Trade, which is now the law of the land, there is hardly a question of
+public importance to which we can point as an example that ‘_idem
+sentire de republicâ_’ is their bond of union. Discontent and anxiety
+may well prevail when we have, in times so important as these, a
+Ministry in power so disunited, and composed of such discordant
+elements, such base materials as the present, and backed by followers
+who, true to their nature, are constantly quarrelling amongst
+themselves. Look at the diversity of sentiment displayed in their
+recorded speeches on that subject which, more than any other, is
+uppermost in the minds of the people. There is Lord John Russell in the
+House of Commons inveighing against the criminal ambition of the Czar of
+Russia, declaring that “this enormous power has got to such a pitch,
+that even in its moderation it resembles the ambition of other states;”
+arguing that that power must be checked; telling the people of England
+that they must be prepared to enter the contest with a stout heart and a
+willing mind, and then solemnly invoking the God of justice to prosper
+her Majesty’s arms, to defend the right! We have the Home Secretary and
+the Earl of Clarendon completely subscribing to these sentiments; but we
+have the Prime Minister, who more than any other man ought, now that war
+is declared, to be imbued with hostile feelings against Russian
+aggression, and determined to carry on the war with vigour, eternally
+whining after peace, and throwing cold water on the ardour of the people
+by constantly enlarging on the horrors of war and the blessings of
+peace. They say that old age is second childhood. England seems likely
+soon to become aware of this fact, through dire experience. Her Premier,
+on the Continent, is described, and rightly so, as “the apologist of
+Russia;” the Minister who is supposed to be, more than any other, in the
+confidence of his Sovereign. Talk of explanation! The very fact of his
+entertaining sentiments with regard to Russia so ambiguous, so
+equivocal, and so lenient towards the enemy of his country, that
+actually in giving expression to them he is mistaken for offering an
+apology for the Czar, and exposed to the scorn of the country and the
+distrust of Europe, seems to us to be amply sufficient to disqualify him
+henceforth for ever being “the first Minister of the first Sovereign in
+the world” during the eventful period of war; and the only charitable
+construction which we can give to the passage is, that he—our helmsman
+in the storm—has entered upon his dotage, and returned to the proverbial
+folly of childhood. If his sentiments are the result of mere folly, then
+he may properly be charged with credulity; if his friendship for the
+Czar regulates his conduct, then it is connivance for which he is
+answerable. In either sense he is unfit for his office. There may be,
+for aught we know—indeed there probably are—others in the Cabinet of the
+same frame of mind. The man who could denounce Turkey as a country full
+of anomalies and inconsistencies, and endeavour with all the force of
+his “sanctimonious rhetoric” to excite an antipathy to that State, and
+despair at her fate, just at the moment when it was necessary to rouse
+the people against Russian aggression, was merely supporting the
+Emperor’s theory of the “sick man,” and cannot be said to have any
+definite ideas with reference to the aggressive policy of Russia, to
+check which we are at war; or any very great sympathy with that country
+to defend which we are also at war. Here is discordancy in the Cabinet
+on the most vital question; and there is probably as much on every other
+question that is brought before the notice of the British Parliament.
+Here is food for discontent and anxiety to the people of England. Thus
+may their ardour be damped and their spirits quenched long ere the
+struggle has concluded. And if we look at the supporters of the
+Government—the Ministerial party, as they are termed—there, too, we
+behold the same intestine strife. What has been the attitude of the
+Manchester party with regard to the Government?—what the attitude of the
+Whig statesmen who have been “banished to invisible corners of the
+senate?”—what of the Whig peers—such men, for example, as Lords Grey,
+Clanricarde, and others? Mr Bright and the Whig peers are openly, though
+on different grounds, hostile to the Ministerial policy, the others
+scarcely less so. The Manchester party rank amongst the regular
+supporters of the Government, yet they appeal to the Opposition to know
+“whether they don’t occupy a very absurd position” in following men who
+will not lead them, and are derisively answered in the affirmative. If
+they criticise the course of the Government, their opinion is regarded
+with the “greatest indifference and contempt.” Thus do matters stand,
+and yet Ministers have the audacity to affirm that they possess the
+confidence of Parliament, and that it is the war which prevents the
+success of their measures. But is this the front which we are to present
+to our foes? Are we to exhibit to Russia, as our leaders in the strife,
+a Government on sufferance notoriously incompetent, whether at home
+legislation or foreign negotiation? Is not Conservative reascendancy the
+only salvation of the country? Does not the nation at large pant for
+something like a Government—one which is followed by a united party—one
+which is at unison in itself—one of principle and not of expediency?
+When we see a Government openly hostile amongst themselves, scorned and
+contemned by the country, beaten on every point by their opponents,
+obliged to withdraw measure after measure, and retaining one only after
+it, as has been observed before, has undergone as many metamorphoses as
+ever Ovid described—when we see all this, which we can hardly do without
+being roused to feelings of indignation, it appears to us necessary to
+consider how may this be remedied, how may Russia be firmly opposed, how
+may England be rescued from the pernicious effects of an incapable
+Government, and how may unanimity be restored to the councils of her
+Majesty?
+
+It is very evident, that only by the reascendancy of the Conservative
+party can these blessings be secured to the country. The tradition of
+that party is, as its name implies, the preservation of our institutions
+in Church and State. This is a definite object. That it is a desirable
+one, is a conclusion which is arrived at by one course of reasoning, the
+same premises, the same logical inferences. Hence the Conservative party
+is a united band. A Conservative Minister cannot be a Minister on
+sufferance; a Whig Minister must. The Whigs are ever desirous of change,
+and the so-called amelioration of our institutions; but few of them
+agree together in the paramount importance which attaches to the reform
+of any particular abuse, or in the amount of innovation which it is
+desirable to introduce. Hence they are always at variance with each
+other when the time for action arrives; and this incapacitates them for
+carrying on the Queen’s government. If popular enthusiasm comes to their
+aid, and force them on in spite of themselves, then the case is
+different. The Reform Bill of 1832 was carried triumphantly, but by the
+people. Popular enthusiasm supplied vigour to the executive. Contrast
+this with another Reform Bill, of no very distant date, as regards its
+introduction at least, though few of the present generation are likely
+to see that bill become the law of the land. The time was unfortunate
+for Whig administrators, though backed by those who claim to themselves
+the name of Conservatives. A Russian war carried that enthusiasm, so
+necessary to the Whigs, through another channel, and exposed in a
+ludicrous manner the true value of a Liberal Administration, and their
+dependence upon the popular will. True, there was a large party in the
+Senate clamorous for reform—perhaps a majority. There was no hesitation
+amongst members to conclude that reform was necessary, for these are
+liberal times. How, then, do we account for their ill-success? By
+adopting a happy description of their worth as statesmen, given long
+ago: “Their head is at fever heat, but their hand is paralysed.” They
+are not slow to adopt as their own any principle, though calculated to
+throw the country in a flame, so long as it is traditionally the
+property of their party. But when the time for action arrives, when that
+principle is to be embodied in a bill, and that theory is to be reduced
+to a practical test, then comes division and discontent. One portion
+objects to this part as too sweeping, while another declares it to be
+too confined. This wants one remedy, the other declares the wished-for
+remedy will only prove an aggravation of the malady. There is no
+hesitation in adopting any principle, however dangerous. Give them the
+opportunity—the advantageous opportunity, in the eyes of politicians—of
+putting their plans into execution, and immediately we behold
+irresolution, consequent upon dissension, and inactivity, the offspring
+of indecision. Only divert the populace from them, who, when roused,
+carry all before them, as it were, and force their leaders to bury their
+dissensions—only deprive them of that support, and then you see the
+intrinsic worth of your Whig statesman. He may carry, perhaps, one bold
+measure; but his title to succeeding years of administration rests upon
+the gratitude of his supporters. He is unable to carry those minor
+measures—those measures of equal public importance, though of a less
+conspicuous character—more solid though less showy—which contribute so
+much to the moral happiness and physical enjoyment of a great nation,
+and which are the pillars of a statesman’s fame. There is no firmness in
+a Whig ruler—there cannot be, if he would reconcile and command the
+confidence of all the various sects of his followers. Who was it that
+held with a firm and steady hand the helm of England, when all other
+Continental nations were submerged in ruin? A Conservative statesman. No
+Whig Minister could have succeeded then. The utmost firmness and
+steadiness in conducting the public business of this country were then
+required. No Whig Cabinet could have guided the fortunes of England
+then. Obliged to truckle first to this man’s fancies, then to another’s
+follies, they are but a faithful index of the dissension amongst their
+followers, and uncertainty and irresolution are sure to follow. Yet to
+such as these are our fortunes, in times so perilous as our own,
+committed; and already are the baneful effects visible. If the
+Conservative party were to pursue the course which the Opposition of
+former days is known to have taken, what would be the position of the
+Government? If their opponents were not to support them in the war, the
+conduct of it would be in the same position as all the other measures
+which they have brought forward this session, and for the success of
+which they are dependent upon their followers. Such a state of affairs
+may continue for a time, but it must eventually call down the
+indignation of the country. No wonder that the conduct of our Government
+constantly gives rise to the suspicion that they are too desirous for
+the cessation of hostilities. It is manifestly their interest so to
+appear, if it be not also so to act. A peace, even though it were merely
+an armed truce, would satisfy the cravings of many of their followers;
+and probably the belief that such may be obtained, renders them less
+disagreeable to the Government than they would otherwise have proved
+themselves.
+
+Never, perhaps, was the inability of the Whig party to govern exhibited
+in such a marked manner as at the period immediately succeeding the
+passing of the Reform Bill. With a majority of three hundred, they yet
+disagreed amongst themselves concerning the desirability of introducing
+innovations into the Irish Church, and they fell. Some have declared
+that an excess of power—a majority too large to manage—was fatal to the
+endurance of their power. We rather think that it was but a conclusive
+proof that a Whig Minister _must_ be a Minister on sufferance—in other
+words, is unable to govern. Unhappily for themselves, at the period to
+which we are alluding, a rather more important question than usual
+occasioned the schism. Those who disagreed did not merely, as generally
+happens in these cases, hold aloof for a time, embarrass the Government,
+and then return to their allegiance, but they went at once into open
+hostility. They retired to swell the Conservative ranks. This is a
+specimen, on an exaggerated scale perhaps, of what is constantly
+occurring when a Whig Ministry is in power. For what do we see now? We
+behold the Conservative party united in their opinions with regard to
+Russian aggression upon Turkey. In the Ministerial host there is
+nothing, as usual, but dissension and endless disagreement. The
+Manchester party condemns the war and everything belonging to it. The
+Peelites evidently look with a cold eye upon it; they believe not in the
+vitality of Turkey, or in the danger of Russian aggrandisement. So far
+there is agreement between these sects. They cannot, however, form one
+party, for there is disagreement between them on vital points connected
+with Home administration. Then, again, there are the philosophical
+Radicals demanding the Ballot, while the aristocratic Whigs most
+properly declare that secret voting shall never become one of the
+institutions of the country. In short, the Ministerial camp is split up
+into various and opposing sects, which are continually warring with each
+other, while the Cabinet itself is but another scene of this general
+medley and confusion, this discontent and convulsion; and its executive
+power is paralysed by internal discord. The introduction of the Peelites
+amongst the Whigs has but increased the differences in the camp. Never
+was there a time when the internal dissensions of a Ministerial host
+were so marked, so wide-spreading, or so notorious. And this, too, at
+this critical time, when England ought especially to be calm and
+tranquil within, in order to be able to consider well what are her
+interests without. Is this to continue? Are the interests of England and
+Europe to be jeopardied by the continuance in power of a Ministry so
+divided and so weak? It is, we think, a truly logical inference that the
+fall of the Coalition, and the reascendancy of the Conservative party,
+is the only method by which an end can be put to that constant strife,
+and unanimity restored to the councils of our Sovereign. In a time of
+war, it is of the last importance that a Ministry should be united and
+firm, and possessed of the confidence of the country. Every one will
+probably admit this; but, then, does the Coalition answer to this
+description?
+
+It is idle to pursue this subject further. No one who really wishes well
+to his country in this emergency, can say that it is to the present
+Government that we ought to confide the direction of our affairs, unless
+he be dazzled by the undoubted splendour of their names. There are,
+doubtless, great talents amongst them; but there is such a thing as the
+utmost danger in a superfluity of talent, particularly when applied to
+pursuits to which they are not especially adapted. Too much collective
+talent begets an overweening self-confidence, and lessens the sense of
+responsibility; moreover, if this too great self-confidence be brought
+to bear its influence in the direction of affairs of which one is
+ignorant, no beneficial result is to be expected. Again, if all these
+misdirected and misapplied talents be controlled by an incapable chief,
+can it be said that their administrative abilities are placed at service
+of the country? No! personal pique and private considerations prevent
+it. We need not dwell upon the incapability of the First Lord of the
+Treasury, which is now generally admitted. We now look to the other
+prominent members of the Government. The office assigned to Lord
+Palmerston is the most notoriously incongruous. With a world-wide
+reputation for his administration of our foreign affairs, gained in an
+experience of them for sixteen years, his lordship is placed in an
+office where he may exercise his negotiative powers with county
+magistrates, town constables, and the like. There he is—the most popular
+Foreign Secretary of the day, the man in whom the country has perhaps as
+great a confidence as in any one, engaged in squabbles over town police,
+graveyards, sewers, and the rest. Lord Palmerston cannot be said to be
+at home in his office. The country is disposed to look with favour upon
+him on account of his great name and services; but does he really make a
+better Home Secretary than Mr Walpole? Why was he not transferred to the
+War Office on its creation, with his extensive knowledge of European
+affairs? If the interests of the country had been consulted, undoubtedly
+he would; but again private considerations were opposed to the national
+will and the public weal; and the Duke of Newcastle, who has as yet no
+claims to public confidence, is placed in an office to which, on the
+formation of the Government, it cannot be said that he was assigned.
+Again, there is Sir George Grey, who is adapted more especially to the
+Home Office, if to any; but, “being more remarkable for his private
+virtues than his administrative abilities,” is certainly not the man to
+be unceremoniously pitchforked into an office with which he has no
+acquaintance, other than the little he is supposed to have learnt during
+the “disastrous administration of Lord Glenelg.” If there are talents
+here—if there is experience here—as in Lord Palmerston’s case, so in
+this; the experience is rendered nothing worth, and the talents
+misapplied. It is unnecessary to dilate further upon this subject; let
+us look at the blessings derived to the country from the administrative
+abilities of those whose talents have not been misdirected. There is our
+gifted Chancellor of the Exchequer, who has made more mistakes within a
+given time than any of his predecessors in the past century; and when we
+remember that financial blunders are national misfortunes, it is no
+matter of wonder that people refuse to regard him with an eye of favour,
+even though we overlook the probable pernicious effects of his
+Tractarian tendencies over the Church of England, felt through his
+influence over the disposal of the Church patronage. How long will
+England, dazzled by names, overlook facts and their consequences? Divest
+the members of the Government of their previous reputation, of their
+great names—give them names unknown to the country, and what language
+sufficiently strong would be found to apply to such an incapable
+Administration, with all their blunders, their dissensions, and their
+disastrous speculations? Had Lord Derby and his colleagues committed
+half the blunders of this Cabinet—had they attempted to tamper
+recklessly with our finances—had they involved us in a war which might
+have been avoided by sufficient plain-speaking in negotiation, what
+would their opponents have said? Would we have witnessed the patriotic
+course which we have seen the Opposition of the present day adopt? Few
+would suppose it, when they recall to mind the undignified hurry which
+the Opposition manifested for office during the brief period which
+elapsed between the assembling of Parliament in November 1852 and the
+Christmas vacation—a restlessness which induced them all to combine
+together, Whig, Radical, and Peelite, High Church and Dissent, in order
+to overthrow the Administration of the day; while their unredeemed
+compact with the Roman Catholics will not easily be forgotten. Few would
+suppose it, when they recall to mind the course adopted by the Whig
+Opposition during the last war, when, for factious purposes, victories
+were represented as defeats, the movements of the British general
+rendered the battlefield of party strife at home, and the motions of the
+Government clogged by the hands of unprincipled and factious opponents.
+Few would suppose it, when they recollect that Whig alacrity to accept
+office is only equalled by Conservative disdain to hold it on
+sufferance. But what was the conduct of the Government of Lord Derby? Is
+not that Government now admitted to have been the instrument of more
+good to the country, in its short tenure of office, than was ever
+effected by any of its predecessors within so short a time? And if we
+remember the immense amount of opposition which was brought to bear
+against it; that, in the first few months of its existence, the
+completion of the business of Parliament, previous to its dissolution,
+was all that was expected or required at its hands; that, after the
+dissolution, a majority of nineteen effected, though with the greatest
+difficulty, the overthrow of the Administration, without allowing the
+smallest time for the trial of their legislative powers, it must be
+admitted that the members of that Conservative Government, in the face
+of the greatest difficulties, exhibited administrative abilities of a
+high order. They were unable, from circumstances, to take advantage,
+like their successors, of the tide of popular favour which in these days
+is sure to run in the direction of a new Administration, because they
+were only expected to wind up, as quickly as they could, the
+Parliamentary business of the session. Yet to them may be traced the
+advantages we possessed in preparation for the present war. They were
+the first Government who dared to come down to the British House of
+Commons, and tell it the national defences were insecure, and demand the
+means of placing England in a position to resist any threatened
+invasion. Do we not owe to them the establishment of our militia? Was
+not that a bill than which none has been more perfect in its details, or
+more universally satisfactory to the country? Do we not owe to them the
+establishment of our Channel Fleet on such a footing that it secured
+England from all aggression? Then was laid the basis of that splendid
+fleet which a few months back left our shores for the Baltic Sea. Again,
+it is to their prescience that we can trace the advantages which are
+derived to ourselves, and to the cause of civilisation and independence,
+from our present amicable relations with France. Did they not, in
+opposition to the popular will, unequivocally expressed, and in the face
+of the utmost censure of the press, persist in cultivating the
+friendship of France? To that firmness and political sagacity we trace
+the advantages we derive from having so powerful a friend by whose side
+to fight in the cause of Europe. Contrast this with the conduct of that
+brilliant Administration which was to rescue England from the evil
+position into which it was brought by the reckless Derby Government, and
+what do we find? Two members of that Government, immediately on taking
+office, commence their abuse of the French Emperor in no measured terms.
+Nor is this all: Their brilliant opponent, who was naturally desirous to
+bring such a glaring indiscretion before the notice of the Commons of
+England, was charged by the triumphant Coalition with having a mind
+deeply imbued with faction. The like absence of political sagacity is
+observable throughout the whole course of the Government. With a war
+staring us in the face, which ought to have appeared almost inevitable
+to the Government, with their superior information and knowledge of
+facts, the Chancellor of the Exchequer brings forward a Peace Budget,
+parting with an important item in our revenue. This was another blow
+levelled against the agricultural interest through the indiscretion of
+the Government, for it resulted in soap being relieved at the expense of
+malt. Our discreet Chancellor parts with a quantity of revenue derived
+from indirect taxation one year, and redeems his blunder the next by
+levying an increased tax on malt. But what are we to expect from a
+Chancellor of the Exchequer whose administration of the finances has
+been one continued system of blunders? The secret lies in this: All his
+various failings arise from his having entered upon schemes in which, as
+he proceeded, he soon found himself out of his depth. Another minister
+would have been deterred from entering upon them, from a sense of the
+responsibility he would incur. But when a Ministry fancies it contains
+within itself all the available administrative talent in the Empire, the
+sense of responsibility is lightened, because opponents are undervalued,
+and self-confidence augmented. Here, again, do all the other
+misdemeanours of the Cabinet take their origin. Confident in themselves,
+and in their fancied influence over Parliament, they bring forward, in
+the face of war, a larger number of important measures than ever before
+were introduced to Parliament in the same session. They only exhibited
+their own weakness. They proved that their plans of legislation differ
+materially from those of the House of Commons. They discovered that even
+all the talents cannot blunder with impunity, and they have rapidly sunk
+in public estimation. Their conduct has disgusted their followers, and
+provoked a powerful opposition. Their numerous indiscretions would
+certainly not have been tolerated in any men but our talented rulers in
+the Coalition; and even they are suffering from the effects of their
+rashness, but nevertheless seem determined to “survive in office the
+honour of their administration.” Referring, again, to the Derby
+Government of 1852, we ask if the Earl of Malmesbury, or any two
+important members of that Administration, had been afflicted with a like
+absence of political sagacity to that displayed by Sir James Graham and
+Sir Charles Wood, where would have been our relations with France? If
+that Government had, for the sake of the popularity which Sir James
+Graham values so much, but which no Minister has been so unfortunate in
+his attempt to gain, joined in the temporary popular resentment against
+the French Emperor, when would the breach have been healed? But _they_
+showed that they understood the interests of the country, and contrast
+in a favourable light with the members of the Coalition and their
+misdeeds. They evidently were aware of the deep responsibility under
+which they lay, and thus their actions were marked with a caution which
+is not observed by their successors. If Mr Disraeli had not handed over
+a large balance to his rival, what would have been the effect of the
+failure of his schemes? It comes to this, then: The forethought and
+prudence of the Derby Government have only had the effect of shielding
+the Coalition from the worst consequences of their indiscretions and
+total failures, and enabling the country to withstand the
+mal-administration of its present rulers, instead of being improved and
+brought to be of permanent advantage to the nation. It may, however, be
+thought to be a great drawback to Conservative reascendancy, that the
+leaders of that great party are, for the most part, comparatively
+inexperienced in office. However that may be, the administration of ten
+months’ duration stands out in broad relief between its predecessor and
+the Coalition; at all events, it would be difficult for them to commit
+more blunders than the present talented and _experienced_
+Administration. But can a charge of inability be fairly urged against a
+party which contains within its ranks men of such talent, parliamentary
+experience, and sagacity as the Earl of Derby, Lord St Leonards, Lord
+Eglinton, Disraeli, Walpole, Thesiger, Kelly, Pakington, Malmesbury,
+Bulwer Lytton, Stanley, Manners, and the other Conservative statesmen?
+The year 1852 must, in the eyes of thinking men, for ever dispel such an
+imputation. The same party which, shorn of its leaders in 1846, yet sent
+forward to maintain its cause in that “sad fierce session” its champions
+in debate, so many and so powerful as to astonish its foes and restore
+spirit amongst its ranks, produced also, in time of need, statesmen
+whose official career, short though it was, does no discredit to their
+followers—the gentlemen of England. The chiefs in either House, in
+particular, are men of brilliant talent and tried sagacity. Trained in
+the Liberal ranks, it may be presumed that they are deeply convinced of
+the danger of continually seeking after that phantom, which, the nearer
+we approach, the farther it recedes—viz., a system of representation
+which shall do justice to all parties in the State; while, at the same
+time, that very training has divested them of that spirit of exclusion,
+and that horror of anything approaching to innovation, which were the
+chief imputations against the Toryism of bygone times, but which do not
+accord with the intelligence of the present age. The Earl of Derby, as
+every one knows, was a member of that Cabinet which secured the reform
+of Parliament. He has since been engaged in endeavouring, and not
+unsuccessfully, to stem the tide of democracy which then set in. For
+that end he joined Sir Robert Peel—for that end he left him. Mr
+Disraeli, too, awakening to a full sense of the danger which “the
+youthful energies of Radicalism” are too well calculated to produce,
+became a decided Conservative, though not a bigoted exclusionist. To
+these principles he has steadily adhered in the whole course of his
+parliamentary career, which has now spread over a term of seventeen
+years. No man needs to stand higher in the estimation of his party than
+does the member for Buckinghamshire. Gifted with talents which fall to
+the lot of but few, possessed of keen sagacity, indomitable resolution,
+and extensive knowledge, he has never shrunk from placing at the service
+of his country, and of the great party of which he is the recognised
+chieftain, the utmost efforts of his admired and envied genius. Where is
+the man who has more unflinchingly stood by his party at all seasons,
+both of adversity and prosperity? His rapid elevation has, no doubt,
+been viewed by many with feelings of dissatisfaction; for
+
+                “Envy does merit, as its shade, pursue.”
+
+It is evident that he has also many personal enemies. The man who
+overthrew a Government which many supposed would have continued during
+the lifetime of its leader, and even have survived him, is not likely to
+be regarded with any especial favour by the members of that Cabinet. The
+uncompromising hostility which he bore to them has roused their utmost
+indignation, and his character has been unsparingly attacked. Some have
+had the sagacity to detect the cloven hoof in every step which he has
+made in public life; nor has he been allowed by them to possess the
+smallest particle of political virtue, and “one of the humblest
+individuals of this vast empire” has thought fit to embody his views of
+the political career of Mr Disraeli in a somewhat bulky volume, where he
+has given vent to his holy indignation. Such a production would have
+been a disgrace to the age, even if the author had had the courage to
+place his name at the head of it, for it is introducing into party
+warfare a weapon which is most unfair, unjust, and dishonourable. No
+statesman can condescend to notice such an attack; and when the author
+withholds his name and sends forth his anonymous slander into the world,
+then it must be confessed that the cowardly spirit in which it has been
+undertaken has only aggravated its revolting character.
+
+Mr Disraeli is an original genius. His great fault in early life was,
+that he formed his conclusions without deep study, and trusting chiefly
+to the power of his own intellect. With all the conceit and precipitancy
+of youth, he immediately gave forth to the world the conclusions at
+which he had arrived. Many of these were wild and improbable, and his
+maturer years discovered their true nature. His father was, as is well
+known, a Jew, while his ancestors were, down to a recent period, the
+natives of a foreign soil. The son, then, inherited no hereditary
+political principles, which are in England, generally, handed down from
+one generation to another, unchanging and unchanged. Mr Disraeli had
+therefore to choose for himself, from the wide field of English
+politics, those principles which appeared to his unbiassed mind most in
+accordance with the true spirit of the British constitution. The choice
+which he adopted, and the subsequent changes through which he passed,
+appear to us to be nothing but the natural workings of an unfettered
+mind, and which any man may, and probably often does, undergo, as he
+ponders over the English constitution and the science of government in
+the recesses of his own study. It is natural that, as an Englishman
+contemplates our form of government, as he becomes acquainted with its
+operations, and as he compares its results with reference to the mind,
+the habits, and the temper of the people with the influence of
+Continental governments over their subjects, he should be filled with
+admiration at the wonderful manner in which the united harmonious action
+of the Three Estates of the realm is secured; and his first thought is,
+that it must be preserved unimpaired and inviolate. As he proceeds, he
+finds blemishes, anomalies, and imperfections; these he concludes should
+be eradicated, and with all the ardour of youth he thinks that, once
+these disappear, a form of government remains complete in its splendour,
+and splendid in its completeness. A wider intercourse with the world, a
+more extensive knowledge of mankind, must dissipate in many minds this
+perhaps fondly-cherished sentiment. Perfection cannot be
+attained—contentment is never the lot of humanity; and perhaps it is
+better that each should endeavour to forget his particular object of
+antipathy, and unite in consolidating and preserving those institutions,
+with their many imperfections, than hazard their extinction by endless
+struggles after their purification. Are not these legitimate changes of
+opinion? A man who has thus formed his political opinions, remains a
+staunch Conservative, but eschews all those more repulsive features of
+Toryism, which do but defeat their own end, and raise up against itself,
+in power too strong to be resisted, the very influences it wishes to
+control and counteract. But what shall we say of a young man who thinks
+fit, in the impetuous ardour of his ambition, to publish to the world
+his opinions as they are forming? We may smile at the vanity displayed,
+and at the folly of such a course; but we may shrink from casting
+imputations and urging motives, from which a virtuous mind recoils, for
+the mere purpose of blackening and traducing the character of a
+political opponent. Such, however, is the course pursued by Mr
+Disraeli’s enemies; but we should think that the strong malevolence
+displayed in those satires and slanders must insure their being
+discarded by “all in whom political partisanship has not extinguished
+the common feelings of humanity.” It is said that Mr Disraeli’s changes
+of opinion were with a view to self-aggrandisement. The charge, we
+presume, rests upon the pretence that he was the better for each change.
+This may be; but we think an ardent, clever, and ambitious man like Mr
+Disraeli, would have risen to eminence whatever line of politics he
+adopted. It was not more difficult for him to get into Parliament as a
+Radical than as a Tory; indeed, this seems to be unwittingly allowed by
+his biographer when he states that his election for High Wycombe was
+lost because Mr Hume withdrew his support in consequence of Mr
+Disraeli’s refusing to compromise his opinions with regard to the Whigs.
+It is, however, a decidedly unfair course to rake together all that has
+fallen from an aspiring and even giddy youth, no matter whether in the
+heat of political contest or in the turmoil of an election strife, and
+then call him in his maturity to a severe account. No charitable
+construction is ever allowed to Mr Disraeli’s public acts. It is always
+easy to get up a colourable case against an English statesman, all whose
+acts lay bare before the eager gaze of the public. It requires the
+exercising of very little ingenuity to hang together a consistent string
+of facts with which to stigmatise with baseness the career of any
+politician, however brilliant in talent or in character. Mr Disraeli has
+risen from the people; he has excited the envy of some and the hatred of
+others, who indulge their vengeful feelings in spreading their malicious
+slanders; nor is the most stainless character proof against such
+assaults, since they can quickly acquire a consistency of character, and
+gain a hold on men’s minds when they are dinned into one’s ears on all
+sides. How easy it might be to make up a case of political profligacy
+against Sir James Graham, who has been through more political changes,
+and that, too, since he was a representative of the people, than any
+other statesman of the day! How easy it might be to discern in this the
+workings of a restless ambition! A colourable case is soon made, and
+then let a certain number of newspapers indulge in comments upon it, and
+spread the calumnies, each in his own strain, and all spiced with a
+little outpouring of virtuous indignation, and the best character is
+sure to be injured by it. There are some in these charitable times who
+can defend a Cromwell; we apprehend that with far less exercise of
+ingenuity can the character of the Conservative leader be maintained.
+But if it be true that Cromwell is not the remorseless villain which his
+history had depicted him, then it only shows how easily characters can
+be fatally blackened by constantly harping on the evil points, and
+quietly omitting all mention of the good.
+
+Throughout the whole parliamentary career of Mr Disraeli, a consistent
+course of conduct with reference to State policy has been pursued;
+though it is observable that, in the first few years, he had not yet
+thrown away some of his extraordinary theories. We see that, as he
+advances in manhood, and becomes practically acquainted with
+legislation, the vain conceptions and egotistic vanity of his youth pass
+away, and he settles down into a steady, through-going, parliamentary
+chief. The different opinions which he has at times expressed of various
+statesmen are easily to be accounted for, though some who, as the poet
+says, judge of others by themselves, may discern in this discreditable
+motives. Public opinion is always varying with regard to public men, and
+a young man is likely to be influenced by it. But, at all events, he
+ought, through motives of modesty, to keep his opinion to himself; and
+it is of the greatest importance that one who aspires to be a statesman
+in this country, where parties are always changing, should not be
+constantly giving expression to the feelings of the moment. It is not
+safe for a politician; for while he is giving vent to what is generally
+a mere fancied animosity to the mere party-feeling of the moment, he may
+perhaps be throwing down the gauntlet at the feet of a future colleague;
+and all for no purpose, for oftentimes there is no foundation for
+aversion to a public man. Nor is it right that the House of Commons, our
+country, and Continental nations, should be constantly hearing statesmen
+mutually complimenting and abusing each other. It is a maxim in State
+policy that you should deal with your enemy as though one day he may be
+your friend, and _vice versâ_. In private life, it happens that one who
+is a friend may first be viewed with coolness, and then treated as an
+enemy; and this change in conduct may be legitimate, though not
+creditable. Still more frequently may this happen in public life. Mr
+Disraeli has, we should think, learnt from bitter experience the folly
+of giving expression to mere transient feelings either of anger or
+respect. He is a man of extremes; he knows no mediocrity of feeling;
+witness the inflated style of the soliloquies in his novels, which have
+drawn down upon him the unmitigated ire of his zealous biographer. With
+him a statesman’s career is either “a system of petty larceny on a great
+scale,” or it is “a precious possession of the House of Commons.” This
+is a pity; but Mr Disraeli, unlike other statesmen, had not in early
+life the friendship of those who had trodden the thorny paths of English
+politics before him, to inculcate upon him the necessity of being
+habitually reserved and moderate in his expressions; and neither reserve
+nor moderation forms a part of his natural character. Too warm a nature,
+or too ardent a temperament are not discreditable, though they often
+bring pain and trouble along with them.
+
+We now come to the most hackneyed, and, we admit, the most painful
+portion of Mr Disraeli’s life—his treatment of Sir Robert Peel.
+
+But these things belong to the past. Great blame, in the eyes of an
+impartial observer, may be attached to Peel for the course he then took,
+and great blame may also attach to Disraeli; much, on the other hand,
+may be said in palliation of the conduct of both. The one has long ago
+been forgiven by the great party which he irreparably injured; the other
+will, we firmly believe, prove himself, at no distant period, as firm
+and enlightened a Minister as he is now one of the most talented and
+accomplished statesmen that ever adorned with his eloquence, or
+controlled by his wisdom, the legislation of the British Parliament.
+
+We now conclude by urging the necessity there is for the reascendancy of
+the Conservative party. We are evidently on the verge of a momentous
+period. Are we to commit the guidance of our affairs to a Government
+whose conduct, as yet, has been one course of bungling—the result of
+dissension, of abortive speculations—the result of a misplaced
+self-confidence, and of unsuccessful negotiation—the result of an
+infatuated love of peace? We make, then, our appeal to the Protestants
+of England; are we any longer to truckle to the Pope of Rome—are we
+still to devote the public money to the support of Roman Catholic
+priests, and then call it “religious bigotry?” We make our appeal to the
+friends of Turkey amongst us: are we to have a Ministry in power who are
+divided in their opinions concerning the vitality of the country which
+we are desirous of protecting, and amongst whose supporters are men who
+deny our right to go to war at all? We make our appeal to the foes of
+Russia; shall we have a Premier who declares that “what is called the
+security of Europe” has nothing to fear from Russian aggression, and
+then says that he has nothing to retract or explain? Let us have a
+Ministry of able men, united amongst themselves, prepared to uphold our
+Protestant religion, agreed upon the vitality of Turkey, resolved to
+resist Russia, determined to secure a durable peace; and, above all, one
+that is strong in the confidence of the country, and supported by a
+united majority. Let us tear down the emblems of the most incapable and
+mischief-making Coalition that ever any country was cursed with, and
+proclaim over its fall the reascendancy of Conservative principles.
+
+
+           _Printed by William Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh._
+
+-----
+
+Footnote 1:
+
+  Σπυριδῶνος Τρικουπη ἱστορία τῆς Ἕλληνικῆς ἐπαναστάσεως. Τόμος Α.
+  London, 1853. (History of the Greek Revolution. By Spiridion Tricoupi,
+  Greek Minister, London. Vol. i.)
+
+Footnote 2:
+
+  _History of Europe from the Fall of Napoleon in 1815, to the Accession
+  of Louis Napoleon in 1852._ By Sir ARCHIBALD ALISON, Bart. Vol. iii.
+
+Footnote 3:
+
+  The work, when completed, will, we understand, consist of four volumes
+  octavo; the second volume is expected to appear in a few weeks.
+
+Footnote 4:
+
+  Sir A. Alison, perhaps, as we shall see afterwards, confines his
+  sympathy to the assertion that, _after the infamous butchery of the
+  Greeks at Chios_, the intervention of the Christian States in behalf
+  of the oppressed Christian people became a duty.
+
+Footnote 5:
+
+  That this “_bloody_ and _brutal_” policy is still exercised by the
+  Turks, when they have their free swing, is evident from the letter of
+  Mr Saunders, the British Consul at Prevesa, which appeared about two
+  months ago in the _Times_, and of which a Greek translation now lies
+  before us in the Αθηνᾶ—an Athenian newspaper—of the 9th June.
+
+Footnote 6:
+
+  It may be interesting to observe here, as a proof of the permanency of
+  the Greek language, that the phrase used by our modern Greek
+  ambassador in this place, ατενίσας είς τον ουρανον, is exactly the
+  same as that used by St Luke in the account of the martyrdom of St
+  Stephen, Acts, vii. 55. Indeed, the vocabulary of the living Greeks,
+  as well as their syntax, is strongly tinged by the language of the
+  Septuagint and the New Testament; a fact, of which our students of
+  theology, if they have any sense, will take note.
+
+Footnote 7:
+
+  Δεν συστελλομαι νὰ ὁμολογήσω ὅτι ἤμῆν εναντιος τοῦ τοιούτου κινήματυς
+  κατὰ του Σουλτανου· ὄχι διότι θὲν επεθύμουν τῆν ελευθερίαν τοῦ ἔθνους
+  μου ἀλλὰ διότι μ’ εφαινετο ἄωρον το κίνημα, μὲ το νὰ ἦσαν
+  ἀπειροπολεμοι οἱ Ἕλληνες καὶ οἱ πλεῖστοι ἄοπλοι, ὁ δὲ κίνδυνος
+  μεγας.—PERRHAEBUS, _Military Memoirs_. Athens, 1836.
+
+Footnote 8:
+
+  τοῦ Κερατιου κὁλπου—that is, we have no doubt, the large expansion of
+  the Golden Horn west of Galata, and north of the Fanar.
+
+Footnote 9:
+
+  The modern Greek has lost not a whit of the fine rich flexibility
+  which has made the ancient dialect such a convenient organ for our
+  scientific terminology. The word for Lazaretto used here is
+  λοιμοκαθαρτήριον; and scores of such words are seen on the signboards
+  of the streets of Athens at the present hour.
+
+Footnote 10:
+
+  _Appendix to Spottiswood_, p. 29.
+
+Footnote 11:
+
+  Dr J. H. Todd, who first published this letter, (_English Churchman_,
+  Jan. 11, 1849), supposed Bishop Taylor to be speaking of Dr Peter
+  Barron of Cambridge, but afterwards, on the evidence being
+  communicated to him, was entirely satisfied, and corrected his
+  mistake. “The author referred to (writes Dr Todd) is certainly Dr
+  Robert Barron of Aberdeen, a divine of whom the Church of Scotland may
+  be justly proud.”—_Irish Ecclesiastical Journal_, March 1849.
+
+Footnote 12:
+
+  Upon an allegation of unsoundness of doctrine in some of his works,
+  the General Assembly of 1640 dragged his widow, in custody of a “rote
+  of musketiers,” from her retreat in Strathislay, to enable them to
+  search his house for his manuscripts and letters, a year after his
+  death. The proceedings add some circumstances of inhumanity to the old
+  revolting cases not unknown in Scotland, where a dead man was dug out
+  of his grave to be placed at the bar, tried and sentenced.
+
+Footnote 13:
+
+  P. 288.
+
+Footnote 14:
+
+  Vol. iii. p. 331.
+
+Footnote 15:
+
+  _History of Scots Affairs_, vol. iii. p. 231.
+
+Footnote 16:
+
+  Aberdeen, 1635.
+
+Footnote 17:
+
+  Vol. iii. p. 227.
+
+Footnote 18:
+
+  In the Presbytery of Aberdeen, 26th May 1642. He died in 1659, in the
+  ninety-fifth year of his age.
+
+Footnote 19:
+
+  _Life of Bishop Bedell_—Preface. Of most of these theological authors
+  I am obliged to speak in the language of others. I have not even, in
+  all cases, read the works which have formed their character.
+
+Footnote 20:
+
+  _Dr M‘Crie’s Life of Melville_, vol. ii. p. 445. It is with hesitation
+  that any one who has benefited by this work will express a difference
+  of opinion from its author. But it seems to me that Dr M‘Crie has been
+  led by his admiration for Andrew Melville to rate too highly an
+  exercise in which he excelled. The writing of modern Latin poetry,
+  however valuable as a part of grammatical education, has, in truth,
+  never been an effort of imagination or fancy; and its products, when
+  most successful, have never produced the effect of genuine poetry on
+  the mind of the reader.
+
+Footnote 21:
+
+  _History of the Rebellion_. Oxford, 1826. Vol. i. p. 145.
+
+Footnote 22:
+
+  _Life of Bishop Bedell_—Preface.
+
+Footnote 23:
+
+  _Delitiæ poetarum Scotorum hujus ævi illustrium_, and fifth volume of
+  the Great Atlas—both published by John Blaeu at Amsterdam, the former
+  in 1637, the latter in 1654.
+
+Footnote 24:
+
+  _Joannis Leochaei Scoti musæ._ _Londini_, 1620. Leech was Rector of
+  the University in 1619.
+
+Footnote 25:
+
+  “Ad Senatum Aberdonensem;” “Tumulus Joannis Colissonii;” “De
+  Abrenethæa;” “De aulæis acu-pictis D. Isabellæ Setonæ Comitissæ
+  Laderdeliæ.” _Epigrammata Arturi Jonstoni, Scoti, Medici Regii,
+  Abredoniæ: excudebat Edvardus Rabanus_, 1632.
+
+Footnote 26:
+
+  STRACHAN’S _Panegyricus_. Among the strangers he distinguishes
+  Parkins, an Englishman who had, the year before (1630), obtained a
+  degree of M.D. in our University. The earliest diploma of M.D. I have
+  seen is that which I have noted (somewhat out of place) among the
+  academic prints, and which was granted in 1697.
+
+Footnote 27:
+
+  “Patricius ... supremas dignitates scholasticas in viros onini laude
+  majores (_quorum vos hic vultus videtis_) qui vel ipsas dignitates
+  honorarunt, conferri curavit. Quid memorem Sandilandios, Rhætos,
+  Baronios, Scrogios, Sibbaldos, Leslæos, maxima illa nomina.... Deus
+  mi! quanta dici celebritas, quo tot pileati patres, theologiæ, juris
+  et medicinæ doctores et baccalaurei de gymnasio nostro velut agmine
+  facto prodierunt!” He alludes to the strangers attracted by the fame
+  of the society—to the divines, Forbes, Barron, &c.—to the physicians.
+  “Quantus medicorum grex! quanta claritas!... Quantum uterque
+  Jonstonus, ejusdem uteri, ejusdem artis fratres.... Mathesi profunda,
+  quantum poesi et impangendis carminibus valeant, novistis. Arthurus
+  medicus Regis et divinus poeta elegiæ et epigrammatis, quibus non
+  solum suæ ætatis homines superat verum antiquissimos quosque æquat.
+  Gulielmus rei herbariæ et mathematum, quorum professor meritissimus
+  est, gloria cluit. De Gulielmo certe idem usurpare possumus....
+  ‘Deliciæ est humani generis,’ tanta est ejus comitas, tanta
+  urbanitas.”
+
+Footnote 28:
+
+  These notices are taken from the _History of the University of
+  Edinburgh, from 1580 to 1646_, by Thomas Crawford, printed in 1808
+  from a MS. of the seventeenth century.
+
+Footnote 29:
+
+  _Caballeros_ is the word used. It is hardly to be translated in an
+  English word.
+
+Footnote 30:
+
+  As a single sample of these excavations, we may mention one made at
+  Portelette, on the Somme. At a depth of nine feet, a large quantity of
+  bones was met with; and one foot lower, a piece of deer’s horn,
+  bearing marks of human workmanship. At twenty feet from the surface,
+  and _five feet below the level of the present bed of the river_, three
+  axes, highly finished, and in perfect preservation, were turned up in
+  a bed of turf. Some axe-cases of stag’s horn were also discovered in
+  the same bed. Near these was a coarse vase of black pottery, very much
+  broken, and surrounded with a black mass of decomposed pottery; and
+  also large quantities of wrought bones, both human and animal.
+
+Footnote 31:
+
+  Some very curious speculations and researches on this subject will be
+  found in a pamphlet entitled _A Vindication of the Bardic Accounts of
+  the Early Invasions of Ireland; with a Verification of the River-Ocean
+  of the Greeks_. M‘Glashan, Dublin, 1851.
+
+Footnote 32:
+
+  It is not improbable that the old feudal law, which placed the person
+  of a female vassal at the disposal of the seigneur on her
+  wedding-night, originated in political motives as well as in a
+  tyrannous sensuality.
+
+Footnote 33:
+
+  _Aperçus Genealogiques sur les Descendants de Guillaume._ _Rev.
+  Archéol._ 1845, p. 794.
+
+Footnote 34:
+
+  _Types of Mankind._ By T. C. WATT and G. R. GLIDDON. London: 1854.
+
+Footnote 35:
+
+  _What Good may come of the India Bill; or Notes of what has been, is,
+  and may be, the Government of India._ By FRANCIS HORSLEY ROBINSON.
+
+  _Modern India. A Sketch of the System of Civil Government; to which is
+  prefixed some Account of the Natives and Native Institutions._ By
+  GEORGE CAMPBELL, Esq., Bengal Civil Service.
+
+  _The Administration of the East India Company. A History of Indian
+  Progress._ By JOHN WILLIAM KAYE, Author of the “History of the War in
+  Afghanistan.”
+
+  _Life in the Mission, the Camp, and the Zenana; or Six Years in
+  India._ By Mrs H. COLIN MACKENZIE.
+
+  _Defects Civil and Military of the Indian Government._ By
+  Lieutenant-General Sir CHARLES JAMES NAPIER, G.C.B. Edited by
+  Lieutenant-General Sir W. F. P. NAPIER, K.C.B.
+
+  _How Wars arise in India. Observations on Mr Cobden’s Pamphlet
+  entitled “The Origin of the Burmese War._” By JOHN CLARK MARSHMAN.
+
+  _An Address to Parliament on the Duties of Great Britain to India in
+  respect of the Education of the Natives and their Official
+  Employment._ By CHARLES HAY CAMERON, late Fourth Member of the Council
+  of India, President of the Indian Law Commission, and President of the
+  Council of Education for Bengal.
+
+Footnote 36:
+
+  _Modern India and its Government_, by G. CAMPBELL, Esq.; pp. 316, 317.
+
+Footnote 37:
+
+  Pages 229, 230, 388.
+
+Footnote 38:
+
+  We do not pretend to precise numerical accuracy; it is enough for our
+  argument that what we have gathered from the _Indian Register_ be
+  nearly correct.
+
+Footnote 39:
+
+  Page 241.
+
+Footnote 40:
+
+  Page 238.
+
+Footnote 41:
+
+  Page 248.
+
+Footnote 42:
+
+  Page 254.
+
+Footnote 43:
+
+  Page 89.
+
+Footnote 44:
+
+  Compare the fifth paragraph of the memorandum inserted at page 107
+  with the first nine lines of 114.
+
+Footnote 45:
+
+  Court-house or Office.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+
+
+                          TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
+
+
+ ● Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.
+ ● Used numbers for footnotes, placing them all at the end of the last
+     chapter.
+ ● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75016 ***
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-<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75016 ***</div>
-
-<div class='tnotes covernote'>
-
-<p class='c000'><strong>Transcriber’s Note:</strong></p>
-
-<p class='c000'>New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class='titlepage'>
-
-<div>
-  <h1 class='c001'>BLACKWOOD’S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.<br> <span class='large'><span class='sc'>No.</span> CCCCLXVI.&#8196; &#8196; &#8196; AUGUST, 1854.&#8196; &#8196; &#8196; <span class='sc'>Vol.</span> LXXVI.</span></h1>
-</div>
-
-<div class='chapter'>
-  <h2 class='c002'>CONTENTS.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<table class='table0'>
-  <tr>
-    <td class='c003'><span class='sc'>Tricoupi and Alison on the Greek Revolution</span>,</td>
-    <td class='c004'><a href='#Page_119'>119</a></td>
-  </tr>
-  <tr>
-    <td class='c003'><span class='sc'>Student Life in Scotland</span>,</td>
-    <td class='c004'><a href='#Page_135'>135</a></td>
-  </tr>
-  <tr>
-    <td class='c003'><span class='sc'>The Insurrection in Spain</span>,</td>
-    <td class='c004'><a href='#Page_151'>151</a></td>
-  </tr>
-  <tr>
-    <td class='c003'><span class='sc'>The Ethnology of Europe</span>,</td>
-    <td class='c004'><a href='#Page_165'>165</a></td>
-  </tr>
-  <tr>
-    <td class='c003'><span class='sc'>The Gangetic Provinces of British India</span>,</td>
-    <td class='c004'><a href='#Page_183'>183</a></td>
-  </tr>
-  <tr>
-    <td class='c003'><span class='sc'>The Secret of Stoke Manor: a Family History.—Part III.</span>,</td>
-    <td class='c004'><a href='#Page_206'>206</a></td>
-  </tr>
-  <tr>
-    <td class='c003'><span class='sc'>Conservative Reascendancy Considered</span>,</td>
-    <td class='c004'><a href='#Page_230'>230</a></td>
-  </tr>
-</table>
-
-<div class='nf-center-c0'>
-  <div class='nf-center'>
-    <div>EDINBURGH:</div>
-    <div>WILLIAM BLACKWOOD &#38; SONS, 45 GEORGE STREET,</div>
-    <div>AND 37 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON;</div>
-    <div class='c005'><em>To whom all communications (post paid) must be addressed.</em></div>
-    <div class='c005'>SOLD BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM.</div>
-    <div class='c005'>PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH.</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-<div><span class='pageno' id='Page_119'>119</span></div>
-<div class='chapter ph1'>
-
-<div class='nf-center-c0'>
-<div class='nf-center c006'>
-    <div>BLACKWOOD’S</div>
-    <div class='c005'>EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.</div>
-    <div class='c005'><span class='large'><span class='sc'>No.</span> CCCCLXVI.&#8196; &#8196; &#8196; AUGUST, 1854.&#8196; &#8196; &#8196; <span class='sc'>Vol.</span> LXXVI.</span></div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class='chapter'>
-  <h2 class='c002'>TRICOUPI AND ALISON ON THE GREEK REVOLUTION.<a id='r1'></a><a href='#f1' class='c007'><sup>[1]</sup></a><a id='r2'></a><a href='#f2' class='c007'><sup>[2]</sup></a></h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>We certainly owe an apology to
-our Greek ambassador. The nine
-hundred and ninety-ninth edition of
-a declamatory old play of Euripides,
-cut and slashed into the most newfangled
-propriety by some J. A. Hartung,
-or other critical German, with a
-tomahawk, is a phenomenon in the
-literary world that can excite no attention;
-but when a regularly built
-living Greek comes forward in the
-middle of this nineteenth century,
-exactly four hundred years after the
-last Byzantine chronicler had been
-blown into the air by our brave allies
-the Turks—and within the precincts
-of the Red Lion Court, London—ἐν
-τῇ ἀυλῇ τοῦ ἐρυθροῦ λέοντος—puts forth
-a regularly built history of the Greek
-Revolution of 1821, thereby claiming—not
-without impudence, as some
-think—a place on our classical shelves
-alongside of Herodotus, Thucydides,
-and Xenophon, and a great way above
-Diodorus Siculus, and other such retailers
-of venerable hearsay: this truly
-is an event in the Greek world that
-claims notice from the general reviewer
-even more than from the professed
-classical scholar. At the present moment,
-particularly, one likes to see
-what a living Greek, with a pen in his
-hand, has to say for himself; his
-language and his power of utterance
-is an element in the great Turko-Russian
-question that cannot be lost sight
-of. Doubly welcome, therefore, is
-this first instalment of Mr Tricoupi’s
-long-expected history; and as it happens
-opportunely that the most interesting
-portion of Sir A. Alison’s third
-volume is occupied with the same
-theme, we eagerly seize the present
-opportunity at once to acquit ourselves
-of an old debt to our Hellenic ambassador,
-and to thank Sir A. Alison for
-the spirited, graphic, and thoroughly
-sympathetic style in which he has presented
-to the general English reader
-the history of a bright period of Greek
-history, which recent events have
-somewhat tended to becloud. It is
-not our intention on the present
-occasion to attempt a sketch of
-the strategetical movements of the
-Greek war, 1821–6. A criticism of
-these will be more opportune when
-Mr Tricoupi shall have finished his
-great work.<a id='r3'></a><a href='#f3' class='c007'><sup>[3]</sup></a> We shall rather confine
-ourselves to bringing out a few salient
-points of that great movement, which
-may serve, by way of contrast or
-similitude, to throw light on the very
-significant struggle in which we are
-now engaged. A single word, however,
-in the first place, with regard to
-the dialect in which Mr Tricoupi’s
-work is written; as that is a point on
-which all persons are not well informed,
-and a point also by no means
-unimportant in the decision of the
-question,—<em>What are the hopes, prospects,
-and capabilities of the living
-race of Greeks?</em></p>
-
-<p class='c009'>Now, with regard to this point, Mr
-Tricoupi’s book furnishes the most
-decided and convincing evidence that
-the language of Aristotle and Plato
-yet survives in a state of the most
-perfect purity, the materials of which
-it is composed being genuine Greek,
-and the main difference between the
-style of Tricoupi and that of Xenophon
-consisting in the loss of a few superfluous
-verbal flexions, and the adoption
-of one or two new syntactical
-forms to compensate for the loss—the
-merest points of grammar, indeed, which
-to a schoolmaster great in Attic forms
-may appear mighty, but to the general
-scholar, and the practical linguist, are
-of no moment. A few such words of
-Turkish extraction, as ζάμιον, <em>a mosque</em>;
-φιρμάνιον, <em>a firman</em>; βεζιρης, <em>a vizier</em>;
-γενίτσαρος, <em>a janizary</em>; ραγιάδης, <em>a
-rajah</em>, so far from being any blot on
-the purity of Mr Tricoupi’s Greek, do
-in fact only prove his good sense; for
-even the ancient Greeks, ultra-national
-as they were in all their habits, never
-scrupled to adopt a foreign word—such
-as γάζα, παράδεισος, ἄγγαρος—when it
-came in their way, just as we have
-κοδράντης, κηνσος, σουδάριον, and a few
-other Latinisms in the New Testament.
-The fact is, that the modern
-Greeks are rather to be blamed for
-the affectation of extreme purity in
-their style, than for any undue admixture
-of foreign words, such as we find
-by scores in every German newspaper.
-But this is their affair. It is a vice
-that leans to virtue’s side, and springs
-manifestly from that strong and
-obstinate vitality of race which has
-survived the political revolutions of
-nearly two thousand years; and a
-vice, moreover, that may prove of the
-utmost use to our young scholars, who
-may have the sense and the enterprise
-to turn it to practical account. For,
-as the pure Greek of Mr Tricoupi’s
-book is no private invention of his
-own, but the very same dialect which
-is at present used as an organ of intellectual
-utterance by a large phalanx
-of talented professors in the University
-of Athens, and is in fact the language
-of polite intercourse over the whole of
-Greece, it follows that Greek, which
-is at present almost universally studied
-as a dead language, and that by a most
-laborious and tedious process of grammatical
-indoctrination, may be more
-readily picked up, like German or
-French, in the course of the living
-practice of a few months. It is
-worthy of serious consideration, indeed,
-how far the progress of our
-young men in an available knowledge
-of the finest language of the world may
-have been impeded by the perverse
-methods of teachers who could not
-speak, and who gave themselves no
-concern to speak, the language which
-they were teaching; who invented,
-also, an arbitrary system of pronouncing
-the language, which completely
-separated them from the nation who
-speak it. But this is a philological
-matter on which we have no vocation
-to enter here: we only drop a hint
-for the wise, who are able to inquire
-and to conclude for themselves.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>We now proceed to business. There
-are five points connected with the
-late Greek Revolution which stand out
-with a prominent interest at the present
-moment.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'><em>First</em>,—The character, conduct, and
-position of <span class='sc'>Russia</span> at the outbreak of
-the Revolution.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'><em>Second</em>,—The character and conduct
-of the <span class='sc'>Turks</span> and the Turkish government,
-as displayed by the manner in
-which the revolt was met.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'><em>Third</em>,—The character, conduct,
-and political significance of the <span class='sc'>Greek
-people</span>, as exhibited during the five
-years’ struggle.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'><em>Fourth</em>,—The character, conduct,
-and position of <span class='sc'>Russia</span>, as more fully
-developed at the conclusion of the
-struggle.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'><em>Fifth</em>,—The character, conduct, and
-political significance of the <span class='sc'>Greek
-people</span>, as exhibited since the battle
-of Navarino and the establishment of
-the existing Bavarian dynasty.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>On all these points we shall offer a
-few remarks in the order in which
-they are set down.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'><em>First</em>,—As to the conduct of <span class='sc'>Russia</span>.
-It is a remarkable fact, and very significant
-of the nature of Russian influence
-in Turkey, that the Greek
-Revolution did not commence where
-one might have expected it to commence,
-in Greece proper—<em>i.e.</em>, the
-mountainous strongholds of Acarnania
-and the Peloponnesus—but in those
-very Principalities where we are now
-fighting, and where the Muscovites
-are always intriguing. How was
-this? Plainly because all those
-Greeks who had for years been brewing
-revolt in their ἑταιριαι, or secret
-conspiracies, took it for granted that
-on that nominally Turkish but really
-Russian ground, Russia would at once
-come forward and help them to kill—we
-use the Imperial simile—the sick
-old Infidel, who had been so long lying
-with his diseased lumpish body on
-the back of the Christian population;
-and accordingly the man whom they
-set up to raise the flag of Christian
-insurrection on the banks of the
-Pruth and the Sereth, was an officer
-in the Russian service, Alexander
-Ypsilanti by name; and the first thing
-he did when he came forward as military
-head of the revolt in the Principalities,
-was to put forth a proclamation,
-in which the Christian tribes of
-Turkey were told that “<em>a great European
-power</em>” might be depended on as
-“<em>patronising the insurrection</em>”—ὁτι
-μιά μεγάλη δύναμις τοῦς προστατευει.
-Now, here was a lie to begin with, to
-which perhaps the old <i><span lang="la">Græcia mendax</span></i>
-may seem not inapplicable: but in
-fact it was a most probable lie; and
-if lies were at all justifiable, either on
-principle or policy, at the opening
-scene of a great war, certainly this
-was the lie which at that time and
-place looked most like the truth. But
-it is a dangerous thing to raise warlike
-enthusiasm at any time, especially
-when an emperor is concerned, by
-sounding statements not founded on
-truth. Had the Czar been ever so
-willing to assist the movement of the
-Wallachian Greeks, and to lead his
-victorious Cossacks, scarcely returned
-from fair Paris, to magnificent Stamboul,
-he could not but feel offended at
-the unceremonious manner in which
-his decision had been taken out of his
-own mouth, and the absolute spontaneity
-of an imperial ukase been
-forestalled by a vagabond Greek captain.
-But the Greeks were, from the
-beginning, out of their reckoning in
-supposing that the then Czar would,
-as a matter of course, patronise their
-insurrectionary movement against the
-Turks. Alexander, though not naturally
-a very bellicose person, had
-already done as much for the territorial
-aggrandisement of Russia as
-would have contented the most warlike
-of his predecessors. He had
-rounded off the north-west corner of
-his vast domain in the most neat and
-dexterous way by the appropriation
-of Finland in 1808; and he had profited
-alike in the upshot by the friendship
-of Napoleon at Tilsit in 1807,
-and by his enmity at Moscow in 1812.
-That he should enter upon a new, and
-in all probability a severe contest with
-another enemy, and put himself at the
-head of a great insurrectionary movement,
-disturbing all the peaceful relations
-so recently established, and in
-such friendly amity with the great
-conservative powers at Paris and
-Vienna, was a proceeding not to be
-looked for from a moderate and a
-prudent man. This the Greeks might
-have known, had they not been befooled
-by patriotic passion. A “<em>holy</em>
-alliance” no doubt it was which, in
-1815, the pious soul of the good Czar
-had made with his brother kings; but
-this “holiness” was either a mere fraternisation
-of sentiment, too vague to
-be of any practical force, or at best a religious
-stamp placed upon a document,
-the contents of which were essentially
-political, and did not at all warrant
-the expectation that the most Christian
-crowned Allies should be called
-upon to interfere in supporting every
-revolt which Christian subjects in any
-land might feel themselves called upon
-to make against their traditional lords.
-Then as to politics: Though Alexander
-was a most kind-hearted, truly
-popular, and very liberal sovereign,
-and had made speeches at Paris, Warsaw,
-and elsewhere, equal to anything
-ever spouted by the present Majesty
-of Prussia in his most liberal fits, yet
-he was very little of a constitutionalist,
-and not at all a democrat. From Laybach,
-therefore, where he was when
-the revolution broke out in March
-1821, he gave his decision in the matter
-of the Greek insurrection in the
-following very remarkable words:—</p>
-
-<p class='c010'>“The motives of the Emperor are now
-known, from the best of all sources, his
-own words, in confidential conversation
-with Mons. de Chateaubriand. ‘The time
-is past,’ said he, ‘when there can be a
-French, Russian, Prussian, or Austrian
-policy. One only policy for the safety of
-all can be admitted in common by all
-people and all kings. It devolves on me
-to show myself the first to be convinced
-of the principles on which the Holy
-Alliance is founded. An opportunity
-presented itself on occasion of the insurrection
-of the Greeks. Nothing certainly
-could have been more for my interests,
-those of my people, and the opinion of my
-country, than a religious war against the
-Turks; but I discerned in the <em>troubles of
-the Peloponnesus the revolutionary mark.
-From that moment I kept aloof from them.</em>
-Nothing has been spared to turn me aside
-from the Alliance; but in vain. My self-love
-has been assailed, my prejudices
-appealed to; but in vain. What need
-have I for an extension of my empire?
-Providence has not put under my orders
-800,000 soldiers to satisfy my ambition,
-but to protect religion, morality, and
-justice, and to establish the principles of
-order on which human society reposes.’
-In pursuance of these principles, Count
-Nesselrode declared officially that ‘his
-Imperial Majesty could not regard the
-enterprise of Ypsilanti as anything but
-the effect of the exaltation which characterises
-the present epoch, as well as of
-the inexperience and levity of that young
-man, whose name is ordered to be erased
-from the Russian service.’ Orders were
-at the same time sent to the imperial
-forces on the Pruth and in the Black Sea
-to observe the strictest neutrality.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The publication of this resolution
-on the part of the Imperial government
-effectually quashed the movement
-in the Principalities; and poor
-Ypsilanti, after a few awkward and
-ill-managed plunges, was obliged to
-back out of his position, and, leaving
-“Olympian George,” and other sturdy
-Greek mountaineers, in the lurch, seek
-for refuge, and find a prison in Austria.
-In this whole affair, however, though
-the Greeks had shown themselves
-very vain and foolish, no man can
-deny that the Czar behaved with
-great moderation—like a gentleman, in
-fact, and a Christian, as he was—and
-moreover, we must add, like a wise
-politician. For we can scarcely agree
-with some strong indications of feeling,
-both in Tricoupi and in Sir Archibald
-Alison,<a id='r4'></a><a href='#f4' class='c007'><sup>[4]</sup></a> that any Christian power
-would have been justified in supporting
-a revolt of Christian subjects
-against their lawful sovereign, being
-an Infidel, till these Christians had
-first shown, by their own exertions,
-that they were worthy of the intervention
-which afterwards took place
-in their favour. We see, also, that
-Lord Aberdeen, in some late remarks
-in the House of Lords, was quite
-correct historically when he called
-attention to the comparative “moderation”
-of Russian counsels in some
-of her dealings with Turkey. Russia,
-in fact, never has displayed any very
-flagrant rapacity in her dealings with
-Turkey, for the best of all possible
-reasons,—because, having as much of
-the fox as of the bear in her nature,
-she does not wish to alarm the
-European powers on a point where
-she knows they are peculiarly sensitive.
-Her policy has been to poison
-the sick old man, not to kill him; and
-in this very moderation, as all the
-world now knows, lies the peculiar
-danger of her encroachments. Like a
-deep swirling river, she rolls beneath
-the fat mud-banks of your political
-<span class='fss'>STATUS QUO</span>, and you suspect no harm,
-and can walk on the green bank with
-delectation; but when the flood comes,
-there will be a shaking and a precipitation;
-and then God help the
-sleepers!</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>So much for Russia. Our next
-question relates to the Turks. How
-did they behave at the outbreak of the
-insurrection? The answer is given in
-two words—like butchers, and like
-blunderers. Like butchers in the first
-place. Their way of crushing an insurrection
-was truly a brutal one—πολιτική
-θηριώδης as Mr Tricoupi
-says; or shall we not rather say
-devilish. Certainly Sylla, in his most
-sanguinary humours, never enacted
-anything more inhuman and more
-diabolical than the wholesale massacre
-of the prosperous Greeks in Scios,
-April 1822, which, next to certain
-scenes when the Furies were let loose
-in France, forms the most bloody
-page of modern history.<a id='r5'></a><a href='#f5' class='c007'><sup>[5]</sup></a> When a
-Turk suspects a Greek of treason, he
-makes short work of it: no forms of
-law, no investigation, no trial, no
-proof; but right on with the instinct
-of a tiger, in the very simple and
-effective old Oriental style,—“<em>Why
-should this dead dog curse my lord the
-king? let me go over, I pray thee, and
-take off his head.</em>” So an old Jew
-once said to King David; but Sultan
-Mahmoud did not require that a word
-of cursing should have been spoken.
-Sufficient that the individual marked
-for butchery stood in a prominent
-situation, and was of the same brotherhood
-as those who had spoken or
-acted treason: if he was not guilty in
-his own person, he was bound to be
-cognisant of the guilt of others; and
-for not revealing this guilt he must
-die. Such is the simple theory on
-which proceeded the wholesale murders
-which took place at Constantinople
-so soon as word was brought of
-the insurrectionary movement in the
-Principalities. As a specimen of these
-infamous proceedings, we shall select
-from Mr Tricoupi’s book the account
-of the death of the Patriarch Gregory,
-a murder committed with the most
-flagrant disregard of all the forms of
-justice (if there be such forms in
-Turkey), and under circumstances
-calculated to rouse to the utmost
-pitch the spirit of the people whom it
-was intended to crush; a murder,
-therefore, not merely cruel and barbarous,
-but stupid and impolitic. The
-account given by our author of this
-most characteristic event is somewhat
-circumstantial, as might be expected
-from the piety of a true Greek writing
-on such a subject. We curtail it,
-however, as little as possible,—especially
-as the closing scene, in which
-Russia appears a chief actor, affords
-a vivid glimpse of the very natural
-manner in which, unassisted by any
-evil arts of diplomacy, that power
-can continually earn for itself golden
-opinions among the Christian nations
-of the south.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>“On the evening of Easter Saturday,
-or great Saturday—το μέγα σάββατον,
-as the Greeks call it—being the
-9th of March, there were seen dispersed
-in the neighbourhood of the
-Patriarch’s palace, within and without
-the Fanar, about five thousand armed
-Janizaries, without any person knowing
-why. The Janizaries perambulated
-the streets of the Fanar the
-whole night, but did no harm to any
-one. At midnight, as is the use in
-our Church, the church-crier made
-proclamation, and the Christian people,
-though under great apprehensions,
-immediately obeyed the sacred summons,
-and assembled without hindrance
-or disturbance in the church of
-the Patriarchate. The Patriarch himself
-officiated as usual, with twelve
-other priests; and after the service
-was finished, the people were dismissed,
-and retired quietly to their
-own homes. The Patriarch went to
-his palace, when the first streaks
-of day were beginning to appear; but
-scarcely had he entered, when word
-was brought that Staurakis Aristarches,
-the great Interpreter, wished to
-speak with him. The Patriarch proposed
-to go with him to his private
-room, but the Interpreter replied that
-he preferred being taken immediately
-to the great Hall of the Synod. There
-he came with one of the Secretaries
-of State, and forthwith produced a
-firman, which he declared he had
-orders to read aloud without a moment’s
-delay in the presence of the
-Patriarch, the chief priests, the heads
-of the Greek people, and the deacons
-of corporations. These parties were
-sent for, and the firman instantly
-read as follows: ‘Forasmuch as the
-Patriarch Gregory has shown himself
-unworthy of the patriarchal throne,
-ungrateful to the Porte, and a deviser
-of plots,—for these reasons he is deposed
-from his office.’ The Patriarch,
-accompanied by his faithful archdeacon,
-was immediately led off to prison;
-and as soon as he had left the hall, a
-second firman was read out in the
-following terms:  ‘Forasmuch as the
-Sublime Porte does not desire to deprive
-his faithful subjects of their
-spiritual superintendence, he hereby
-commands them to elect a patriarch
-according to their ancient custom.’
-A consultation immediately took place
-among the clergy; and they agreed
-that they should call to the patriarchal
-throne Cyril, who had been formerly
-patriarch, and was now in Adrianople;
-but the secretary replied that this
-could not be allowed, as the proposed
-patriarch was absent, and under present
-circumstances the Porte could
-not allow the throne to be vacant for
-a single hour; wherefore he commanded
-them instantly to make election
-of a new patriarch from the number
-of the clergy then present. Another
-consultation immediately took place;
-and after considerable difficulty the
-vote fell upon Peisidias Eugenios, who,
-according to usage, was immediately
-sent to the Porte, the rest remaining
-till he should return. After three
-hours he appeared, environed with a
-pomp and circumstance more magnificent
-than usual.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>“This ceremony of electing the new
-pontiff was still going on, when Gregory
-was led out of prison, where he
-had been preparing himself by constant
-prayer for the death which he
-had too good reason for supposing was
-prepared for him. After taking him
-from the prison, they put him into a
-boat, and disembarked him on the
-strand of the Fanar. There the venerable
-old man, looking up steadfastly
-to heaven,<a id='r6'></a><a href='#f6' class='c007'><sup>[6]</sup></a> made the sign of the cross,
-and knelt down, and inclined his
-hoary head to the executioner’s axe;
-but the headsman ordered him to rise,
-saying that here was not the place
-where he was to be executed. They
-accordingly led him into his own
-palace, and there the executioner hung
-him as he was praying on the threshold
-of the principal entrance at the
-hour of noon on Easter Sunday—so that
-at the very moment when the wretched
-Christians above were singing the
-hymn of welcome to their new Patriarch,
-with the accustomed words εις
-πολλᾶ ἔτη δέσποτα, his predecessor was
-hung on the ground-floor like a thief
-and a malefactor; the very holy person
-who only a few hours before had
-offered the bloodless sacrifice for the
-sins of the people, and had blessed
-his faithful flock, who, with devoutness
-and contrition of heart, had
-kissed the hand that had been hallowed
-by the handling of the holiest
-elements. The last moments of Gregory
-were moments of pure faith and
-resignation, springing from an unspotted
-conscience, a heart the fountain
-of good deeds, a calm contempt
-of this ephemeral life, and a bright
-expectation of futurity. The writing
-of condemnation, by virtue of which he
-died, called, in Turkish, <em>Yiaftás</em>, was
-fixed upon the dead body, and set forth
-the causes of his death as follows.”</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>Here Mr Tricoupi gives the Turkish
-act of condemnation at full length;
-but the substance of it is contained in
-two points: first, “that the Patriarch
-did not use his spiritual weapons of
-excommunication, &#38;c., against the
-revolters; and, second, that he was
-personally privy to the conspiracy.”
-To which two charges the historian
-answers shortly that the first is
-directly contrary to the fact (for the
-revolters were excommunicated by
-the Greek hierarchy in the capital);
-and with regard to the second, he
-avers, that though it was quite impossible
-for the head of the Greek
-Church to be ignorant of the existence
-of a conspiracy of which thousands
-of the most notable Greeks in
-Europe were members, yet he was
-never a member of the secret societies,
-and had, on the contrary, like
-many other influential persons of his
-nation, considered the movement premature,<a id='r7'></a><a href='#f7' class='c007'><sup>[7]</sup></a>
-and warned his countrymen
-against it as likely to lead to the
-most pernicious consequences. But
-it is vain, as we already remarked,
-to look for reasons that would
-satisfy any European ideas of justice
-in proceedings between Turks in
-authority and rebellious Giaours.
-The calm and solemn gentleman,
-enveloped in smoke and coffee fumes,
-whose bland dignity we so much
-admired in time of peace, becomes
-suddenly seized with a preternatural
-fury when the scent of Greek blood
-is in the gale. It is a primary law
-of his religion, inherited from the
-oldest Oriental theocracies, that no
-infidel is entitled to live; and if the
-head seems more serviceable for the
-nonce than the capitation-tax, which
-is its substitute, the law of the
-Prophet is satisfied, and no man has
-a right to complain. Mr Tricoupi
-now proceeds with his narrative.</p>
-
-<p class='c010'>“The execution being over, the great
-interpreter, the secretary, and their
-attendants, left the palace of the Patriarch.
-In the evening of the same
-day, Beterli Ali Pasha, who had recently
-been appointed Grand Vizier, went
-through the Fanar with only one attendant,
-and, asking for a chair, sat
-down for five or six minutes on the
-street opposite the suspended body of
-the Patriarch, looking at him, and
-speaking to his attendant. After an
-hour the Sultan himself passed the same
-way, and cast his eye on the Patriarch.
-The body remained suspended three
-days; but on the fourth the hangman
-took it down to throw it into the sea, it
-being contrary to law in Turkey that
-persons hung or beheaded should receive
-burial. Then there came to the hangman
-certain Jews, and having received
-his permission (some say that they bribed
-him), bound together the feet of the
-corpse, and dragged it away to the
-extreme end of the quay of the Fanar,
-with mockery and blasphemous words.
-Then they threw it into the sea, and
-gave the end of the rope with which
-they had bound the feet to the hangman,
-who, having gone before, was waiting
-them in a little boat. He immediately,
-seizing the rope and dragging the body
-after him, came to the middle of the
-bay,<a id='r8'></a><a href='#f8' class='c007'><sup>[8]</sup></a> and there attached to the body a
-stone which he had brought with him in
-order to sink it: but it proved not
-weighty enough for this purpose; so he
-left the corpse floating on the water,
-and, making for the strand, came back
-with two other stones, which he attached
-to the body; and then, giving it two or
-three stabs with his knife, to let out the
-water, he immediately sunk it. After
-some days, however, it came to the
-surface at Galata between two ships
-lying at the point where a great many
-boats are always stationed, for passing
-over to the city. One of these ships
-was a Slavonian, and the other a Greek,
-from Cephalonia. The captain of the
-Slavonian saw the body first, and threw
-some straw matting over it, with the
-view of concealing it till the night, when
-he meant to bury it, like a good Christian.
-But when the evening came, the
-Cephalonian captain anticipated him, and
-perceiving from the unshaven chin that
-it was the body of a priest, brought into
-his ship secretly some Christians, who
-assured him that it was the body of the
-Patriarch. The pious Cephaliote immediately
-swathed the body in a winding-sheet,
-and, transporting it to Odessa,
-deposited it in the Lazaretto there.<a id='r9'></a><a href='#f9' class='c007'><sup>[9]</sup></a>
-There the body was examined by the
-order of the governor, and was recognised
-by certain signs as that of the
-Patriarch.</p>
-
-<p class='c011'>“Information of this being sent to St
-Petersburg, orders were given to bury
-the body with all appropriate honours.
-The sacred Russian synod came to assist
-in the funeral ceremony; and on the 17th
-of June there were assembled in the
-Lazaretto all the local authorities, political
-and military, the two metropolitan
-bishops, Cyril of Silistria, and Gregory
-of Hieropolis; also Demetrius, bishop of
-Bender and Akerman, all the clergy
-of the province, a great number of Greek
-refugees, who had fled from the butchery
-at Constantinople. Then the church
-bells were rung, the funeral psalms were
-sung, a salute of cannons was given, and,
-with the accompaniment of military
-music and the prayers of the congregated
-faithful, the remains of the venerated
-Patriarch were carried to the metropolitan
-church of Odessa. Here they
-remained three days, till the 19th, when
-the burial-service was again sung, and a
-funeral oration was pronounced by Constantine
-Œconomos, preacher to the
-Œcomenic Patriarchate, who happened
-to be in Odessa; after which the body
-was removed with great pomp to the
-church of the Greeks, and deposited in a
-new sepulchre within the railing of the
-holy altar, at the north side of the holy
-table, as being the body of a martyr.
-And thus—to use the very words of the
-semi-official journal of St Petersburg—by
-the command of the most pious Autocrat
-of all the Russians, Alexander I., were
-rendered due honours of faith and love
-to Gregory, the holy Patriarch of the
-Eastern Orthodox Church of the Greeks,
-who suffered a martyr’s death.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Next to the butchery—which, by
-the way, the Greeks, as opportunity
-offered, were not ashamed to retaliate—the
-most noticeable thing in the
-Turkish conduct of the war was their
-extraordinary slowness, fickleness,
-inefficiency, and bungling of every
-sort. The insurrection, though attempted
-in Thessaly and Macedonia,
-did, in fact, never extend with any
-permanent force beyond the narrow
-boundaries of the present kingdom
-of Greece, with the addition of Crete,
-and one or two of the Ægean islands,
-now in the possession of the Turks;
-but to suppress this petty revolt of
-an ill-peopled and divided district,
-occupying a small corner of a vast
-empire, all the strength of Turkey,
-both Asiatic and European, proved in
-vain; for it was not till Ibrahim
-Pasha, in 1825, was sent by his
-father, Mehemet Ali, with a large
-Egyptian armament that the Morea
-was recovered to the Sultan, and the
-insurrection virtually quashed. Now,
-when we consider that the Greeks of
-the Morea were stamped with the servitude
-of nearly four hundred years—that
-they were, in fact, so awed by the
-hereditary authority of their haughty
-masters, that in the beginning of the
-war, as Gordon expressly testifies,
-three hundred of them could not be
-made to stand against thirty Turks;
-that their only effective leaders were
-a few brigand chiefs from the wild
-regions of Acarnania, Ætolia, and
-Epirus; that the land was of such a
-nature as to be kept in subjection by
-fortresses, all of which were in the
-possession of the lords of the soil;
-that the sea was open to the men of
-Stamboul as much as to those of
-Hydra and to Mehemet Ali’s Egyptians,
-we shall see plainly that nothing
-but a wonderful combination of
-slowness, stupidity, and cowardice on
-the part of the Turks could have
-allowed the Greek revolt to protract
-its existence during the space of those
-first four years, when—not without
-large aids from English gold—it continued
-to present a prosperous front
-to the world. What strikes us most
-in the account of the war given by
-Gordon—who will always be a main
-authority—is the great want of capacity
-and enterprise in the Turkish
-commanders both by sea and land—the
-very same weakness, in fact,
-which is remarked at the present hour
-as afflicting the Turkish armies—a
-want of good officers. There is in
-Turkey a want of a high-minded, independent,
-and energetic middle class,
-without which an army never can be
-well officered. Only one efficient
-Turkish captain appeared in the
-whole course of the Greek war; and
-he took Missolonghi.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>We have been anxious to bring
-forward this sad account of the conduct
-of the Turks in the insurrection
-distinctly, as there is a danger, at the
-present moment, of the Turkish military
-virtue being overrated. No man
-who knew that nation ever doubted
-that they could defend a fort well in
-the present war, as they have ever
-done where they happened to have a
-good commander, and acted under
-encouraging circumstances. This is
-the secret of the recent successful defence
-of Silistria, for which we feel
-all respect. With the English and
-French fleet to guard their flank, and
-all Europe as spectators of their
-mettle, with the very existence of
-their empire perhaps at stake, and
-with the choice of their own battlefield—that
-is, the defence of forts—the
-Turks would have been dull truly,
-never to be roused, if the old heroism
-had not flamed out with more than
-wonted fierceness. But the successful
-defence of this fort affords no proof
-that the people who made it possess a
-spirit and an organisation able to
-cope in a continued campaign with
-some Paskiewitch or Diebitch of the
-next generation. Let us look to the
-history of the Greek Revolution, and
-not believe that the Turks are great
-masters in the art of war till they
-have successfully conducted a great
-campaign. Above all things, matters
-must be so arranged at the next
-pacification that the preservation of
-the peace of Europe may not be left
-to depend on them.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>Our third question has reference to
-the Greeks. Their conduct in the
-great revolt by which their independence
-was ultimately achieved, deserves
-to be noted with the greater
-care at the present moment, because
-there are not a few persons in this
-country who are only too ready, in
-the unhappy blunder of 1854, to forget
-the glorious heroism of 1821–26. Sir
-A. Alison, we are happy to say, with
-that large spirit of appreciation for
-which he is remarkable, has shown no
-tendency to chime in with this vulgar
-cry. He is not surprised that the
-brigands of Thessaly and Epirus
-should not possess all the virtues of
-Pericles and Aristides; and therefore
-he is not offended. The Greeks, in
-fact, in 1821, were the authors of
-their own liberty, as much as the
-Turks now are the authors of the
-retreat of the Russians from Silistria.
-Most true it is, that without the intervention
-of the Allied Powers, notwithstanding
-their utmost efforts,
-their cause was lost; so also will the
-defence of Silistria have proved in
-vain, if England and France, in the
-proceedings that are yet waited for,
-show weakness or vacillation. But
-the Greeks, in 1821, had this decided
-moral vantage-ground over the Turks
-of the present day, that the intervention
-would never have taken place
-had it not been forced upon the great
-Powers by the popular sympathy
-which the heroism of the Greeks had
-excited. We may say, upon a review
-of the whole five years’ struggle, that
-the Greeks displayed on that occasion
-all the weakness, and indeed all the
-vices, that belonged to a people just
-rising from under the weight of centuries
-of oppression—but virtues also
-of the highest order, which it is of the
-very nature of oppression to make a
-people forget. Oppression, in fact,
-had never done its perfect work with
-this noble-spirited people; it had
-made intriguers of those who remained
-in the Fanar, and mere money-changers
-and money-makers of those
-who peopled the cities; the base
-stamp of slavery also might be found
-on the plains: but freedom remained
-among the mountains; and in Maina
-and Souli every brigand chief was a
-hero. In fact, under such a military
-despotism as that of Turkey, brigandage,
-which is outlawed by a good
-government, becomes the very church
-militant of liberty. Whatsoever virtues,
-therefore, belong to the indomitable
-spirit of nationality when forced
-to create its own law, and redeem
-itself from destruction by the desperate
-efforts of individual self-assertion,
-belonged to the Greek people,
-and those Albanian tribes who were
-identified with them in the highest
-degree. But there was more than
-that. The Greeks, as the whole spirit
-and tendency of Corai’s writings
-show, were intellectually an advancing
-people. They had scholars, and
-thinkers, and poets among them, who
-were fighting not merely for the rude
-privilege of freedom—which a brute
-can understand as well as a man—but
-for the vindication of an intellectual
-heritage of which they were
-proud. To these men the possession
-of the uncorrupted Greek tongue was
-not a mere pretty plaything, as it may
-be to many of our academical men;
-but it was the badge which publicly
-proclaimed their brotherhood with
-that great hierarchy of intellect which
-had conquered ancient Rome, and
-inspired modern Europe. These men
-did not fight with the mere impatient
-spirit of vulgar insurrection: they
-came, like banished kings, claiming a
-long-lost throne; and Europe felt
-that there was a dignity in their work
-not belonging to every exile. But
-there was another element of strength
-in the Greek revolt, without which it
-never could have succeeded, and an
-element which, like their zeal for
-intellectual culture, proved that the
-modern Greeks are the true sons of
-Themistocles and Pericles. This element
-was their use of the sea. The
-Turks, though they had possessed
-the finest harbour in the world for
-four centuries, though they governed
-a country where arms of the sea
-serve the same purpose that railroads
-do elsewhere, had not only made no
-progress in the nautical art, but had
-allowed their enterprising slaves to
-create for themselves a navy by which
-they were to succeed in driving their
-masters out of the field. When Ibrahim
-Pasha, in his march across the
-Morea in 1825, had arrived at that high
-ground between Tripolizza and Argos
-where the island of Hydra becomes
-visible, pointing with his hand to that
-little nest of daring adventurers, he
-exclaimed, “<em>Thou</em> <span class='sc'>little England</span>,
-<em>when shall I hold thee!</em>” This little
-England it was which saved Greece.
-There is nothing in the records of
-modern history more interesting than
-the dashing exploits of the gallant
-Ipsariote Canaris with his fire-ships
-in the Greek war; and wherever
-Miaulis the Hydriote appeared with
-his squadron, there everything that
-could be done was done. But great
-as were the exploits of the islanders,
-Europe, perhaps, knew more, and
-was justly more astonished at the
-gallant conduct of the land army in
-the two sieges of Missolonghi—a
-fortress protected only by shallow
-lagoons and a mud rampart, and
-utterly unprovided with those long
-lines of fire-spouting barricades that
-make Cronstadt and Sevastopol so
-difficult of approach. Yet Missolonghi
-was maintained against the
-whole force of the Turks for two
-years; and when it did fall, the resolute
-garrison made no capitulation,
-but after having exhausted the last
-scraps of raw hides and sea-weeds
-which served them for food, cut their
-way with gallant desperation, men
-and women together, through the
-sabred ranks of their enemies. Nor
-were they without their reward. Let
-Mr Alison speak:—</p>
-
-<p class='c010'>“Thus fell Missolonghi; but its heroic
-resistance had not been made in vain. It
-laid the foundation of Greek independence;
-for it preserved that blessing
-during a period of despondence and doubt,
-when its very existence had come to be
-endangered. By drawing the whole forces
-of the Ottoman empire upon themselves,
-its heroic garrison allowed the nation to
-remain undisturbed in other quarters, and
-prevented the entire reduction of the
-Morea, which was threatened during the
-first moments of consternation consequent
-on Ibrahim’s success. By holding out so
-long, and with such resolute perseverance,
-they not only inflicted a loss upon
-the enemy greater than they themselves
-experienced, but superior to the whole
-garrison of the place put together. The
-Western nations watched the struggle
-with breathless interest; and when at last
-it terminated in the daring sally, and the
-cutting through of the enemy’s lines by a
-body of intrepid men, fighting for themselves,
-their wives, and children, the public
-enthusiasm knew no bounds. It will
-appear immediately that it was this warm
-sympathy which mainly contributed to
-the success of the Philhellenic societies
-which had sprung up in every country of
-Europe, and ultimately rendered public
-opinion so strong as to lead to the treaty
-of July, the battle of Navarino, and the
-establishment of Greek independence.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>On the other hand, we must not
-shut our eyes to the faults of the
-Greek people—which were, in fact,
-just the faults of their ancestors made
-more large and more prominent by
-the long-continued action of circumstances
-favourable to their development.
-Will it be believed?—during
-the time that this heroic struggle was
-going on, by a people manifestly unable,
-even with their strongest combined
-exertions, to withstand their
-gigantic adversary—even in the mid-heat
-and the critical turning-point of
-this grapple for free existence, the
-Greek captains were quarrelling among
-themselves! There were actually
-at one time, as Gordon assures us,
-seven civil wars among a people who
-could only collect hundreds to plant
-against the thousands of their masters!
-Such a self-divided people, one
-might almost say, was unworthy of
-liberty. Certainly if they could not
-agree to fight for themselves, it did
-not seem the business either of France
-or England to force them to be patriotic.
-But, after all, what was
-this but the natural result of the geography
-of the country, and of the circumstances
-under which its latent
-liberty had been maintained? What
-was it else but the same thing, on a
-small scale, which the Peloponnesian
-war exhibited on a large scale? Division
-is the weak point of Greece, and
-always was; and as for other vices
-which stank so strongly in the nostrils
-of some of our sentimental Philhellenes—cunning,
-falsehood, selfishness,
-rapacity, and blushless impudence of
-all kinds—such rank weeds grow from
-a neglected moral soil, not only in
-Greece, but in the streets of London
-and Edinburgh, and elsewhere; the
-only difference being that in our case
-a wicked or neglectful parent brings
-up corrupt individuals, while in the
-case of the modern Greeks, a wicked
-and neglectful government had brought
-up a corrupt people. There is, no
-doubt, some truth in the doctrine of
-races and hereditary propensities; and
-the Greek may probably be more subtle
-in speculation, and more cunning in
-practice, than the other families of
-the Indo-European stock. Nevertheless,
-we are inclined to believe that
-the proverbial falsehood of the Greeks,
-which is the worst vice now continually
-thrown in their teeth, is as much
-the result of circumstances as of blood,
-and that, under the same influences,
-any Teutonic race whose honesty is
-now most loudly bepraised, would exhibit
-a large development of the same
-vice. When a people is not allowed
-to play the lion, it must either learn
-to play the fox or perish.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>We shall now make a few remarks
-on the fourth point stated—viz., the
-circumstances attending the conclusion
-of the war, as illustrative of the
-policy of Russia. Here a very interesting
-contrast immediately presents
-itself. Alexander, as we have
-seen, occupied with various benevolent
-projects and perambulations, fearing
-also not a little everything in the
-shape of rebellion and revolution,
-refused to have anything to do with
-the Greek insurrection. In this he
-behaved like a man, a gentleman, and
-a king, but not like a Russian. As
-a Russian he would have followed
-the footsteps of Catherine, who twice,
-in the latter half of the last century,
-raised a rebellion in the Morea,
-and assisted Greece not from any
-classical enthusiasm, we may be sure,
-(such as helped not a little to fan the
-Greek fire of ourselves and the Germans),
-but that she might cripple
-Turkey by inflicting such a deep
-wound on her left leg as would
-render amputation necessary. All
-this became plain in a few years.
-Alexander died. In the year 1826
-Nicholas succeeded; and matters were
-at that period, by the fall of Missolonghi,
-and Ibrahim Pasha’s occupation
-of the Morea, brought to such a
-pass that the bloody five years’
-struggle, with all its heroism, must
-have gone for nothing, had not the
-tide of popular sympathy begun to
-move so strongly in favour of intervention
-among the great European
-nations, that the governments were
-forced to take the matter up. England,
-as the most classical, and, may
-we not say also, the most generous,
-country in matters of international
-feeling, was the first to make overtures
-for a European demonstration in
-favour of Greek independence; and
-of the consulted Powers none came
-forward with greater alacrity than the
-new Emperor of the North. On the
-invitation of the Duke of Wellington,
-Nicholas was invited to send ships
-into the Mediterranean to co-operate
-with the fleets of France and England
-in coercing the Porte. Here was
-an opportunity thrown in his way, by
-pure accident, to achieve in a few days
-results more favourable to the most
-cherished projects of Russian aggrandisement
-than might have been
-brought about by the tortuous diplomacy
-and bloody encounters of long
-years; and this not only without exciting
-suspicion of ambitious views,
-but amid acclamations, and cheers,
-and philanthropic hurrahs innumerable.
-By joining England and France
-in establishing the independence of
-Greece, the Czar felt that not only
-would Turkey be reft of one of her
-limbs, but a new field would be
-opened for diplomatic intrigue in regions
-hitherto preserved, by the blessings
-of barbarism, from such refinements.
-A little tinselled court at
-Athens, with some German princeling
-on the throne, was no doubt even then
-seen in near vista, as the best possible
-theatre for the display of those arts
-of political falsehood and finesse in
-which the Russian Nesselrodes and
-Pozzo di Borgos excel. But more.
-Might not the Turk, who is by no
-means a milksop, and who can deal
-heavy blows, as we have just seen,
-even from his sick-bed—might not
-the Turk oppose the armed intervention
-of the Powers, and might not
-some untoward collision be the result,
-and might not the Turkish navy be
-annihilated; and then—O! then,
-might not the way to Constantinople
-be more open, and the Balkan more
-easily crossed? Such were the cogitations
-that might naturally begin to
-move in the brain of a thoroughly
-Russian energetic and enterprising
-young Czar, when the proposal was
-made to coerce the Sultan into the
-recognition of the total or partial independence
-of one of his revolted provinces.
-And the result, as we all
-know, was exactly such as the most
-brilliant imagination of a brisk young
-emperor could have conceived. In
-the course of a few months the Turkish
-fleet was destroyed at Navarino;
-in two years Kustendji and Varna,
-and the whole sea-road to Stamboul,
-were in the hands of the Russian fleet;
-and in three years General Diebitch
-had made himself immortal by surmounting
-the unsurmountable Balkan,
-and was resting with twenty thousand
-men (supposed, however, to be sixty
-thousand!) on the banks of the Hebrus
-at Adrianople. Never was game
-better played. The Turko-Russian
-campaign of 1828–9, which we can
-now study to such advantage, was, we
-may say, impossible, but for the battle
-of Navarino, which was only the natural
-result of the armed intervention
-of the three Powers in favour of
-Greece. Add to this the disorganisation
-of the Turkish army, caused by
-the massacre of the Janizaries in
-1826, and the consequent disaffection
-among the old Turkish conservatives;
-and we shall see at once how the
-campaign of 1828–9 ended so gloriously
-for Russia, while that of 1854
-has proved so shameful. The cause
-of the difference lies obviously in the
-command of the Black Sea, which
-Russia, by the disaster of Navarino,
-then had, and which, by the Anglo-French
-alliance, she now has not.
-This, and this only, has on the present
-occasion made the gallant defence
-of a single fortress by the Turks equivalent
-to the loss of a whole campaign
-by the Russians.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>The last of our five points only remains—How
-has the establishment
-of Greek independence, by the treaty
-of 1827, answered the expectations of
-its founders?—What is the actual
-state of Greece, material, moral, and
-intellectual?—Are the Greeks under
-German Otho substantially more prosperous
-than they were under the
-Turkish Mahmouds? We cannot, of
-course, hope to answer these questions
-satisfactorily within the limits at present
-prescribed to us; but one or two
-observations we are compelled to
-make, for the sake of taming down
-to somewhat of a more sober temper
-the glowing observations with which
-Sir Archibald Alison concludes his
-fourteenth chapter. There is a class
-of wise men in the world who show
-their wisdom only in the negative way
-of seeing difficulties and making objections.
-Sir Archibald Alison certainly
-does not belong to this class. Once
-possessed by a grand idea, he marches
-on fearlessly to its realisation, and
-lets difficulties shift for themselves.
-He gives you a project for a marble
-palace and a granite bridge; but
-seems to forget sometimes that there
-are only bricks to build with. We
-like this error, which leans to virtue’s
-side, and has a savour of something
-positive and productive; nevertheless
-the truth must be spoken—for in politics
-the best intentions are often the
-mother of the greatest blunders. The
-remarks of Sir Archibald Alison, which
-we think require a little chastening,
-are as follows:—</p>
-
-<p class='c010'>“In truth, so far from the treaty of
-6th July 1827 having been an unjustifiable
-interference with the rights of the
-Ottoman Government as an independent
-power, it was just the reverse; and the
-only thing to be regretted is that the
-Christian powers did not interfere earlier
-in the contest, and with far more extensive
-views for the restoration of the Greek
-empire. After the massacre of Chios, the
-Turks had thrown themselves out of the
-pale of civilisation: they had proved
-themselves to be pirates, enemies of the
-human race, and no longer entitled to
-toleration from the European family. Expulsion
-from Europe was the natural and
-legitimate consequence of their flagrant
-violation of its usages in war. Had this
-been done in 1822—had the Congress of
-Verona acceded to the prayers of the
-Greeks, and restored the Christian empire
-of the East under the guarantee of the
-Allied Powers—what an ocean of blood
-would have been dried up, what boundless
-misery prevented, what prospects of
-felicity to the human race opened! A
-Christian monarchy often millions of souls,
-with Constantinople for its capital, would,
-ere this, have added a half to its population,
-wealth, and all the elements of national
-strength. The rapid growth, since
-the Crescent was expelled from their territories,
-of Servia, Greece, the Isles of the
-Archipelago, Wallachia, and Moldavia,
-and of the Christian inhabitants in all
-parts of the country, proves what might
-have been expected had all Turkey in
-Europe been blessed by a similar liberation.
-The fairest portion of Europe would
-have been restored to the rule of religion,
-liberty, and civilisation, and a barrier
-erected by European freedom against
-Asiatic despotism in the regions where it
-was first successfully combated.</p>
-
-<p class='c011'>“What is the grand difficulty that now
-surrounds the Eastern question, which
-has rendered it all but insoluble even to
-the most far-seeing statesman, and has
-compelled the Western Powers, for their
-own sake, to ally themselves with a state
-which they would all gladly, were it
-practicable without general danger, see
-expelled from Europe? Is it not that
-the Ottoman empire is the only barrier
-which exists against the encroachments
-of Russia, and that if it is destroyed the
-independence of every European state is
-endangered by the extension of the Muscovite
-power from the Baltic to the
-Mediterranean? All see the necessity of
-this barrier, yet all are sensible of its
-weakness, and feel that it is one which is
-daily becoming more feeble, and must in
-the progress of time be swept away. This
-difficulty is entirely of our own creation;
-it might have been obviated, and a firm
-bulwark erected in the East, against
-which all the surges of Muscovite ambition
-would have beat in vain. Had the dictates
-of humanity, justice, and policy been
-listened to in 1822, and a <em>Christian</em> monarchy
-been erected in European Turkey,
-under the guarantee of Austria, France,
-and England, the whole difficulties of the
-Eastern Question would have been obviated,
-and European independence would
-have found an additional security in the
-very quarter where it is now most seriously
-menaced. Instead of the living
-being allied to the dead, they would
-have been linked to the living; and a
-barrier against Eastern conquest erected
-on the shores of the Hellespont, not with
-the worn-out materials of Mahommedan
-despotism, but with the rising energy of
-Christian civilisation.</p>
-
-<p class='c011'>“But modern Turkey, it is said, is divided
-by race, religion, and situation;
-three-fourths of it are Christian, one-fourth
-Mahommedan: there are six millions
-of Slavonians, four millions of Bulgarians,
-two millions and a half of Turks,
-and only one million of Greeks;—how
-can a united and powerful empire be
-formed of such materials? Most true;
-and in what state was Greece anterior to
-the Persian invasion; Italy before the
-Punic wars; England during the Heptarchy;
-Spain in the time of the Moors;
-France during its civil wars? Has the
-existence of such apparently fatal elements
-of division prevented these countries
-from becoming the most renowned,
-the most powerful, the most prosperous
-communities upon earth? In truth, diversity
-of race, so far from being an element
-of weakness, is, when duly coerced,
-the most prolific source of strength; it
-is to the body politic what the intermixture
-of soils is to the richness of the
-earth. It is the meagreness of unmingled
-race which is the real source of weakness;
-for it leaves hereditary maladies unchanged,
-hereditary defects unsupplied.
-Witness the unchanging ferocity in every
-age of the Ishmaelite, the irremediable
-indolence of the Irish, the incurable arrogance
-of the Turk; while the mingled
-blood of the Briton, the Roman, the Saxon,
-the Dane, and the Norman, has produced
-the race to which is destined the
-sceptre of half the globe.</p>
-
-<p class='c011'>“Such was the resurrection of Greece;
-thus did old Hellas rise from the grave
-of nations. Scorched by fire, riddled by
-shot, baptised in blood, she emerged victorious
-from the contest; she achieved
-her independence because she proved herself
-worthy of it; she was trained to
-manhood in the only school of real improvement,
-the school of suffering.
-Twenty-five years have elapsed since
-her independence was sealed by the
-battle of Navarino, and already the
-warmest hopes of her friends have been
-realised. Her capital, Athens, now contains
-thirty thousand inhabitants, quadruple
-what it did when the contest terminated;
-its commerce has doubled, and
-all the signs of rapidly advancing prosperity
-are to be seen on the land. The
-inhabitants have increased fifty per cent;
-they are now above seven hundred thousand,
-but the fatal chasms produced by
-the war, especially in the male population,
-are still in a great measure unsupplied,
-and vast tracts of fertile land,
-spread with the bones of its defenders,
-await in every part of the country the
-robust arm of industry for their cultivation.
-The Greeks, indeed, have not all
-the virtues of freemen; perhaps they are
-never destined to exhibit them. Like
-the Muscovites, and from the same cause,
-they are often cunning, fraudulent, deceitful;
-slaves always are such; and a
-nation is not crushed by a thousand years
-of Byzantine despotism, and four hundred
-of Mahommedan oppression, without
-having some of the features of the servile
-character impressed upon it. But they exhibit
-also the cheering symptoms of social
-improvement; they have proved they still
-possess the qualities to which their ancestors’
-greatness was owing. They are
-lively, ardent, and persevering, passionately
-desirous of knowledge, and indefatigable
-in the pursuit of it. The whole
-life which yet animates the Ottoman Empire
-is owing to their intelligence and
-activity. The stagnation of despotism is
-unknown among them; if the union of civilisation
-is unhappily equally unknown, that
-is a virtue of the manhood, and not to be
-looked for in the infancy of nations. The
-consciousness of deficiencies is the first
-step to their removal; the pride of barbarism,
-the self-sufficiency of ignorance,
-is the real bar to improvement; and a
-nation which is capable of making the
-efforts for improvement which the
-Greeks are doing, if not in possession of
-political greatness, is on the road to it.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Now, to the first proposition contained
-in the above remarks, that the
-Great Powers were perfectly justified
-in their intervention to save the Greeks
-from the lawless ferocity of the Turks,
-we have no objections to offer. It is
-a gladdening thing to believe and to
-see that the strong cry of human sympathy
-will sometimes be listened to
-even by politicians, and that heartless
-diplomacy in the public intercourse
-between people and people is
-not all in all. But the summary expulsion
-of the Turks from European
-Turkey, even supposing it were
-not too great a punishment for
-the offence, would, when achieved,
-leave the most difficult part of the
-Greek problem unsolved. Sir Archibald
-assumes that the discordant and
-crude elements of which European
-Turkey, less the Turks, is composed,
-would, in 1827, have readily coalesced,
-or is ready now, in 1854, to coalesce,
-into a great Greek empire, of which
-Constantinople shall be the capital.
-That the Greeks themselves should
-believe this is natural; that Sir Archibald
-Alison should believe it, carried
-away by a noble sympathy with a
-heroic theme, is but the radiation of
-that fire with which the noblest minds
-burn most intensely; but we have
-never conversed with an individual
-practically conversant with the elements
-of which Christian Turkey is
-composed, who looked upon such a
-consummation, in the present age at
-least, as possible. A very intelligent
-and patriotic Greek gentleman once remarked
-in our hearing, that the Greek
-kingdom could never prosper in its
-present tiny dimensions; that the
-Greek Islands—except Corcyra, which
-the English must keep as a naval station—with
-Thessaly, and part of Thrace
-and Macedonia, must be added to it
-before it could be free from that spirit
-of petty intrigue which is the great
-vice of small governments. This is
-intelligible; because the population
-included under such an extended Greek
-kingdom would, by a great predominance
-both of numbers and moral forces,
-be essentially Greek. But when it is
-proposed seriously to revive a Byzantine
-empire, Greek merely in name,
-and comprising such large sections of
-a non-Hellenic population as Servia,
-for instance, and Bulgaria, then, we
-confess, we feel staggered; and all the
-historic analogies which Sir Archibald
-Alison so skilfully presses into his service
-will not give wings to our drooping
-faith. The best-instructed man
-with whom we ever conversed on the
-subject—Dr George Finlay, who has
-lived among the Greeks all his life—declares
-that such a combination is
-impossible: the principle of cohesion
-is too weak, that of repulsion too
-strong: the splendid aggregate would
-fall to pieces in a few years; and out
-of the confused elements a new compulsory
-crystallisation take place under
-the influence—very likely—of
-Russian polarity. Sir Archibald Alison
-himself, in one of the phrases which
-he accidentally drops, seems to admit
-the truth of this view. “Diversity of
-race,” he says, “so far from being an
-element of weakness, is, <em>when duly
-coerced</em>, the most prolific source of
-strength.” Very true, when <em>duly
-coerced</em>; but it is this very principle
-of coercion that would not exist in
-the supposed Byzantine empire; and
-could exist only, according to one of
-Sir A. Alison’s own analogies, through
-the violent subjection of all the other
-races by the one that happened to
-be strongest; for so it was, as Livy
-shows in bloody detail, that the different
-races of Italy were coerced into a
-grand national unity by the Roman
-Latins. But even after all that bloody
-cementing, the aggregate of the Italian
-States, as no one knows better than
-Sir Archibald Alison, was kept together
-by the loosest possible cohesion;
-as the terrible outburst of the Marsic
-or Social war testifies, which well-nigh
-split Italy into two, at a time
-when Julius Cæsar, its future master,
-had not yet begun to trim his beard.
-He certainly, the lion, and his nephew
-Augustus, the fox after him, did use
-the bloody cement successfully, and
-exercised a strong coercion, the effect
-of which is visible even now among
-the again-divided possessors of the
-Italian soil; such a coercion as the
-present Czar of Russia might perhaps
-at the present moment be in the fair
-way of exercising for the sake of the
-Orthodox Church, had Sir Archibald
-Alison’s Byzantine empire been patched
-together with a few purple rags in
-the year 1828. Or again, to take another
-of his analogies, has Sir Archibald
-Alison forgotten what was the
-state of Greece, not anterior to, but
-immediately after the Persian invasion?—did
-it not plunge at once into
-all the pettiness of provincial rivalry?
-and was not the great Peloponnesian
-war a speaking proof, that there
-were no elements of cohesion even
-among pure Greeks, and in the best
-days of Greece, strong enough to keep
-that unfortunate country from consuming
-its own vitals in civil war, and
-becoming, by voluntary self-betrayal,
-first the scoff of the Persian, and
-then the prey of the Macedonian?—With
-these examples before us, we
-cannot but consider ourselves more
-near the truth in following the practical
-statesmen who declared that the
-new Greek kingdom should be confined
-within the limits where the insurrection
-had chiefly raged, and where
-the battle had been fought. Sober
-politicians could not but look upon the
-whole affair as experimental; and
-whatever arguments may in the course
-of events be advanced for an expansion
-of the limits of the existing monarchy,
-no person practically acquainted
-with the events of Greek government,
-or rather <em>mis</em>government, since
-the creation of Otho’s kingdom in
-1832, can imagine that the evils under
-which the country has groaned would
-have been less, had Thessaly and Macedonia
-been at that time included
-within the Hellenic border. We
-should still have had German bureaucracy,
-French constitutionalism, Fanariete
-intrigue, Ætolian brigandage,
-and modern diplomacy, thrown together
-to brew a devil’s soup of jobbery,
-and falsehood, and feebleness,
-over which the wisest man can only
-hold up his hands, and with a hopeless
-wonderment exclaim—</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
-  <div class='linegroup'>
-    <div class='group'>
-      <div class='line'>“Double, double, toil and trouble;</div>
-      <div class='line'>Fire burn, and cauldron bubble!”</div>
-    </div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c009'>In conclusion, we need hardly say
-that we cannot agree with Sir A. Alison
-when he states, so strongly as he does
-in the last paragraph, that “<em>already
-the warmest hopes of the friends of
-Greece have been realised; and all the
-signs of advancing prosperity are to be
-seen in the land</em>.” It is a great mistake
-to imagine that the country is
-really in a prosperous state because
-Athens has trebled its population in
-thirty years. Athens has a well-furnished
-and rather a flourishing appearance,
-for the same reason that
-Nauplia looks out upon the beautiful
-Bay of Argos in such a state of woeful
-dismantlement and dilapidation:
-the court has left the Argive city, and
-travelled to the Attic; and all the
-gilded gingerbread, which you call
-prosperity, has gone with it. Let no
-man be hasty to draw sanguine promises
-of Greek prosperity from anything
-good or glittering that may delight
-his eyes in the streets of Athens.
-That splendid palace of the little German
-prince, now called King of Greece,
-with its fine well-watered gardens
-without, and its fine pictures within,
-and its large dancing-saloon, the wonder
-even of London beauties—this
-palace was a mere toy of the boy’s
-poetical papa, and has no more to do
-with the progress of real prosperity in
-Greece than a wax-doll has to do with
-life and organisation. Nay, it may
-be most certainly affirmed, that not a
-small part of that sudden growth of
-the capital of Greece is, with reference
-to the country at large, a positive evil,
-a brilliant excrescence, which owes
-its existence altogether to the artificial
-attraction of the nutritive fluids of the
-body politic to one prominent point,
-while the largest and most useful
-limbs are left without their natural
-supply. If there are shining white
-palaces, and green Venetian blinds,
-in one Greek city, there is desolation
-and dreariness, stagnation and every
-sort of barbarism, in the fields. But
-“commerce flourishes;” it has doubled,
-says Sir A. Alison, since the battle
-of Navarino. Be it so. Patras is a
-goodly city, preferable, in some points,
-to Athens, we think; but were there
-not rich merchants at Hydra before
-the Revolution? and are the Greeks
-at Patras more prosperous than at
-Salonica, at Odessa, at Trieste, at
-Leghorn, at Manchester? There were
-always clever merchants among the
-Greeks, just as generally as there are
-sharp bankers and money-changers
-among Jews and Armenians.  We
-would by no means despair of Young
-Greece; there is much to admire in
-her, especially her schools, university,
-and the wonderful culture of her
-deathless language in its most recent
-shape; and only in a fit of foolish pettishness
-would any Englishman entertain
-the thought of blotting her
-again out of the map of nations, for
-any of the many sins she has committed,
-whether by her own fault, or—what
-we suspect to be the real truth—by
-the ignorant and officious agency
-of German bureaucratists, Anglo-French
-constitutionalists, and Muscovite
-diplomatists. Nevertheless, in
-so slippery a science as politics, and
-with creatures so difficult to manage
-as human beings, it is always better to
-avoid the temptation of drawing panoramic
-pictures in rose colour; and
-with regard to Greece, a country to
-which humanity owes so much, our
-first duty, in the present very critical
-state of Europe, is to look soberly at
-a reality full of perilous problems,
-and to possess our souls in patience.</p>
-
-<div class='chapter'>
-  <span class='pageno' id='Page_135'>135</span>
-  <h2 class='c002'>STUDENT LIFE IN SCOTLAND.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>If the latest lingering summer tourist
-in Scotland should perchance delay
-his departure until he is driven southward
-by the chill evenings of November,
-he may chance to see arising
-around him, in some considerable
-town, a race of young men, whose
-loose robes, varying from the brightest
-of fresh scarlet to the sombrest hue
-which years of bad usage can bestow
-on that gay colour, attract him as
-peculiar and funny, and as, on the
-whole, a phenomenon provocative of
-inquiry. He is told that the session
-has begun, and these are the students
-of the university. The information
-will perhaps be surprising to him,
-whoever he be: if he be an Oxonian
-or Cantab, a sneer of derision will
-perhaps curve his lips when he remembers
-the gentleman commoners, and
-tufted noblemen, who crowd the
-streets of his Alma Mater in haughty
-exclusiveness and unmeasured contempt
-of the citizen class, who evidently
-have no respect whatever for
-the scarlet gown men of poor Scotland.
-Indeed, the luxurious academic ease,
-the placid repose of dignified scholarship,
-are strangers to these wearers
-of the flowing toga. It is evident that
-many of them have felt the pinch of
-poverty. No pliant gyp attends the
-toilet, or lays forth the table for the
-jovial “night-cap.” Hard work and
-hard fare are their portion, and their
-raiment shows that they have been
-rubbed roughly against the world, instead
-of being set apart from its toils
-and cares and vulgar turmoil in aristocratic
-isolation. Some of the gowns
-are bright and new, indeed, and the
-faces in which they culminate are
-ruddy, fresh, and warm. Yet the
-youths endowed in these blushing
-honours seem not to exult therein,
-but rather to give place to the hard-featured
-brethren, whose threadbare
-togas bear the grim marks of mud
-and soot, or hang in tatters like a
-beggar’s cloak. The truth is, that
-the wear and tear of the gown is held
-indicative of advancement in the academic
-curriculum, and is rather encouraged
-than avoided. And of those
-who wear it, many, though they may
-have been sufficiently tutored in the
-economy of their more serviceable
-clothing, have not made acquisitions
-in the school of finery, or acquired a
-weakness for decorative vanity. We
-remember an instance of a hard-featured
-mountaineer, who afterwards
-rose to distinction in an abstruse department
-of science, being charged by
-his fellow-students with having so far
-desecrated the gown as to have perambulated
-the streets with a barrow
-hawking potatoes, by the cry of “Taties—taties!”
-He admitted the commercial
-part of the charge, but denied
-the admixture of potato-vender and
-student by the desecration of the
-robes. He was careful to put off his
-gown while he cried “taties.”</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>With all these and other indications
-of poverty, there is something to our
-eyes extremely interesting in the Scottish
-universities, as relics preserved
-through all changes in dynasties, constitutions,
-and ecclesiastical polities,
-through poverty, neglect, and enmity,
-of the original characteristics of the
-university system, as it existed in
-all its grandeur of design in the middle
-ages.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>A collection of remarkable papers,
-now before us, opens up and presents,
-in valuable and full light, the progress
-of a portion of our Scottish universities.
-They consist of two works of
-that class commonly called “Club
-Books.” The one is a collection of
-records and other documents connected
-with the University of Glasgow,
-printed under the auspices of the Maitland
-Club; the other a “Fasti Aberdonenses,”
-appropriately collected by
-that northern association which, in
-honour of the Cavalier annalist of
-“The Troubles,” is called the “Spalding
-Club.” Both works are edited
-with that peculiar archæological strictness
-which has been applied to this
-class of documents, through the special
-skill of Mr Cosmo Innes. They
-are both edited by him, with some
-partial aid, in the case of the Glasgow
-documents, from his ablest coadjutor
-in Scottish archæology, Mr Joseph Robertson.
-These volumes form a very
-apt supplement to that collection of
-ecclesiastical records which, arranged
-and printed under the same able
-management, are an honour to our
-country. With the exception of their
-curious and agreeable prefaces, neither
-the chartularies nor the volumes before
-us profess to be readable books.
-They are collections of records, and
-must have all the substantial dryness
-of records. But then they contain in
-themselves the materials of the social
-and incidental history of the classes
-of persons to which they refer, and
-contain imbedded within them the
-materials of instruction, both valuable
-and curious. With some labour we
-have driven shafts through their strata,
-and we may have occasion to lay before
-our readers a few of the specimens
-we have excavated—confining ourselves,
-in the mean time, to the characteristics
-developed by the collection
-of documents.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>The direction of these is chiefly to
-show how thoroughly these remote
-institutions partook in the great
-system of the European universities,
-and how many of its vestiges they
-still retain. The forms, the nomenclature,
-and the usages of the middle
-ages are still preserved, though some
-of them have naturally changed their
-character with the shifting of the
-times. Each university has still its
-chancellor, and sometimes a high
-State dignitary accepts of the office. It
-was of old a very peculiar one, for it
-was the link which allied the semi-republican
-institutions of the universities
-to the hierarchy of St Peter.
-The bishop was almost invariably the
-chancellor, unless the university were
-subordinated to some great monastic
-institution, when its head was the
-chancellor—as in Paris the Prior of St
-Genevieve exercised the high office.
-In the Scottish universities the usual
-Continental arrangement seems to
-have been adopted prior to the Reformation—as
-a matter of course, the
-bishop was the chancellor.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>But while the institution was thus
-connected through a high dignitary
-with the Romish hierarchy, it possessed,
-as a great literary community
-with peculiar privileges, its own great
-officer electively chosen for the preservation
-of those privileges. It had
-its rector, who, like the chief magistrate
-of a municipal corporation, but
-infinitely above him in the more illustrious
-character of the functions for
-which his constituents were incorporated,
-stood forth as the head of his
-republic, and its protector from the
-invasions either of the subtle churchmen
-or the grasping barons. The
-rector, indeed, was the concentration
-of that peculiar commonwealth which
-the constitution of the ancient university
-prescribed. Sir William Hamilton
-has shown pretty clearly that,
-in its original acceptation, the word
-Universitas was applied, not to the
-comprehensiveness of the studies, but
-to that of the local and personal
-expansion of the institution. The
-university despised the bounds of provinces,
-and even nations, and was a
-place where ardent minds from all
-parts of the world met to study together,
-and impart to each other the
-influence of collective intellect working
-in combination and competition.
-The constitution of the rectorship was
-calculated to provide for the protection
-of this universality, for the election
-was managed by the procurators
-or proctors of the nations or local
-bodies into which the students were
-divided, generally for the purpose of
-neutralising the naturally superior
-influence of the home students, and
-keeping up the cosmopolitan character
-imparted to the system by its enlightened
-founders. Hence in Paris the
-nations were France, Picardy, and
-England, afterwards changed to Germany,
-in which Scotland was included.
-Glasgow is still divided into
-four nations: the Natio Glottiana, or
-Clydesdale, taken from the name
-given to the river by Tacitus. In
-the Natio Laudoniana were originally
-included the rest of Scotland, but it
-was found expedient to place the
-English and the colonists within it;
-while Albania, intended to include
-Britain south of the Forth, has been
-made rather inaptly the nation of the
-foreigners. Rothesay, the fourth nation,
-includes the extreme west of
-Scotland and Ireland. In Aberdeen
-there is a like division into Marenses,
-or inhabitants of Mar, Angusiani or
-men of Angus, which we believe includes
-the whole world south of the
-Grampians as the Angusiani, while
-the northern districts are partitioned
-into Buchanenses and Moravienses.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>The procurators of the nations were,
-in the University of Paris, those high
-authorities to whom, as far separated
-from all sublunary influences, King
-Henry of England proposed, in the
-twelfth century, to refer his disputes
-with the Papal power. In England they
-are represented at the present day by
-the formidable proctor, who is a
-terror to evil-doers without being any
-praise or protection to them that do
-well. But it may safely be said that
-the chubby youths who in Glasgow
-and Aberdeen go through the annual
-ceremony, as <i><span lang="la">procuratores nationum</span></i>,
-of representing the votes of the nations
-in the election of a rector, more
-legitimately represent those procurators
-of the thirteenth and fourteenth
-century, who maintained the rights
-of their respective nations in the great
-intellectual republic called a Universitas.
-The discovery, indeed, of this
-latent power, long hidden, like some
-palæontological fossil, under the pedagogical
-innovations of modern days—which
-tended to make the self-governing
-institution a school ruled by
-masters—created astonishment in all
-quarters, even in those who found
-themselves in possession of the privilege.
-In Aberdeen especially, when
-some mischievous antiquary maintained
-that by the charter the election
-of a lord rector lay with the students
-themselves, the announcement
-was received with derision by a discerning
-public, and with a severe
-frown, as a sort of seditious libel, enticing
-the youth to rebellion, by the
-indignant professors. But it turned
-out to be absolutely true, however
-astounding it might be to those who
-are unacquainted with the early
-history of universities, and think that
-everything ancient must have been
-tyrannical and hierarchical. The
-young ones made a sort of saturnalia
-of their fugitive power, while the professors
-looked on as one may see a
-solemn mastiff contemplate the gambols
-of a litter of privileged spaniel
-pups. The privilege was, however,
-used effectively, we may say nobly.
-There has been no fogyism, or adherence
-to any settled routine of humdrum
-respectability, in the selection
-of the rectors. From Burke to Bulwer
-Lytton and Macaulay, they have,
-with a few exceptions, been men of
-the first intellectual rank. What is a
-still more remarkable result than that
-they should often have been men of
-genius, there is scarcely an instance
-of a lord rector having been a clamorous
-quack or a canting fanatic.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>In Edinburgh there is no such relic
-of the ancient university commonwealth,
-and the students have instinctively
-supplied the want by
-affiliating their voluntary societies,
-and choosing a distinguished man to
-be the president of the aggregate
-group. The constitution of the College
-of Edinburgh, indeed, was not
-matured until after the old constitution
-of the universities had suffered a
-reaction, and, far from any new ones
-being constructed on the old model,
-the earlier universities with difficulty
-preserved their constitution. Some
-person called a College Bailie is the
-dignitary who presides over the interests
-of the University of Edinburgh
-as one of the appendages of the Town
-Council. By that body the greater
-part of the patronage of the institution
-is administered, and now it is
-decided that they have the sole and
-absolute right of making bye-laws for
-the regulation of this, the leading
-educational institution of Scotland.
-There is something transcendently
-ludicrous in a civic corporation—a
-conclave of demure tradesmen, intensely
-respectable—extending those
-functions of administration which are
-appropriately applicable to marketing
-and street-cleaning to the direction
-and adjustment of the highest ranges
-of human instruction. Yet somehow
-it has worked well, on account of the
-very anomaly involved in it. The
-town-councillors, in selecting a professor,
-like the students in choosing a
-rector, are afraid of their own powers,
-and never venture to use their own
-discretion. Absolutely ignorant of
-the branches of knowledge to which
-the rules they frame apply, they become
-a medium through which these
-rules are moulded by others, and a
-certain commercial sagacity enables
-them to divine who are the most
-sagacious advisers. So also in the
-exercise of their patronage, being
-utterly unable to test the capacity of a
-candidate, they dare not give way to
-any partiality founded at least on this
-ground, and they are generally acute
-enough to find out who is most highly
-estimated by those who are competent
-to judge.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>That principle of internal self-action
-and independence of the contemporary
-constituted powers, of which
-the rectorship and some other relics
-remain to us at this day, is one of
-the most remarkable, and in many
-respects admirable, features in the
-history of the middle ages. It is
-involved in mysteries and contradictions
-which one would be glad to see
-unravelled by skilful and full inquirers.
-Adapted to the service of
-pure knowledge, and investing her
-with absolute prerogatives, the system
-was yet one of the creatures of
-that Romish hierarchy, which at the
-same time thought by other efforts
-to circumscribe human inquiry, and
-make it the servant of her own ambitious
-efforts.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>It may help us in some measure to
-the solution of the phenomenon to
-remember that, however dim the light
-of the Church may have shone, it
-was yet the representative of the
-intellectual system, and was in that
-capacity carrying on a war with brute
-force. Catholicism was the great
-rival and controller of the feudal
-strength and tyranny of the age—<i><span lang="la">informe
-ingens cui lumen ademptum</span></i>.
-As intellect and knowledge were the
-weapons with which they encountered
-the sightless colossus, it was believed
-that the intellectual arsenals could not
-be too extensive or complete—that
-intellect could not be too richly cultivated.
-Like many combatants, they
-perhaps forgot future results in the
-desire of immediate victory, and were
-for the moment blind to the effect so
-nervously apprehended by their successors,
-that the light thus brought in
-by them would illuminate the dark
-corners of their own ecclesiastical
-system, and lead the way to its fall.
-Perhaps such hardy intellects as Abelard
-or Aquinas may have anticipated
-such a result from the stimulus
-given by them to intellectual inquiry,
-and may not have deeply lamented
-the process.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>But however it came about—whether
-in the blindness of all, or the
-far-sightedness of some—the Church,
-from the thirteenth to pretty far on
-in the fifteenth century, encouraged
-learning with a noble reliance and a
-zealous energy which it would ill become
-the present age to despise or
-forget. And even if it should all
-have proceeded from a blind confidence
-that the Church placed on a
-rock was unassailable, and that mere
-human wisdom, even trained to the
-utmost of its powers, was, after all,
-to be nothing but her handmaiden,
-let us respect this unconscious simplicity
-which enabled the educational
-institutions to be placed in so high
-and trusted a position. The Church
-supplied something then, indeed, which
-we search after in vain in the present
-day, and which we shall only achieve
-by some great strides in academic
-organisation, capable of supplying
-from within what was then supplied
-from without: and the quality thus
-supplied was no less than that cosmopolitan
-nature, which made the
-university not merely parochial, or
-merely national, but universal, as its
-name denoted. The temporal prince
-might endow the academy with lands
-and riches, and might confer upon its
-members honourable and lucrative
-privileges, but it was to the head of
-the one indivisible Church that the
-power belonged of franking it all
-over Christendom, and establishing
-throughout the civilised world a free-masonry
-of intellect, which made all
-the universities, as it were, one great
-corporation of the learned men of
-the world.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>It must be admitted that we have
-here one of those practical difficulties
-which form the necessary price of the
-freedom of Protestantism. When a
-great portion of Europe was no longer
-attached to Rome, the peculiar centralisation
-of the educational systems
-was broken up. The old universities,
-indeed, retained their ancient
-privileges in a traditional, if not a
-practically legal shape, through Lutheranism
-and Calvinism carrying the
-characteristics of the abjured Romanism,
-yet carrying them unscathed,
-since they were protected from injury
-and insult by the enlightened object
-for which they were established and
-endowed. When, however, in Protestant
-countries, the old universities
-became poor, or when a change of
-condition demanded the foundation of
-a new university, it was difficult to
-restore anything so simple and grand
-as that old community of privileges
-which made the member of one university
-a citizen of all others, according
-to his rank, whether he were
-laureated in Paris or distant Upsala—in
-the gorgeous academies close to
-the fostering influence of the Pope, or
-in that humble edifice endowed after
-the model of the University of Bologna,
-in an obscure Scottish town
-named Glasgow.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>The English universities, by their
-great wealth and political influence,
-were able to stand alone, neither giving
-nor taking. Their Scottish contemporaries,
-unable to fight a like
-battle, have had reason to complain
-of their ungenerous isolation; and as
-children of the same parentage, and
-differing only with their southern
-neighbours in not having so much
-worldly prosperity, it is natural that
-they should look back with a sigh,
-which even orthodox Presbyterianism
-cannot suppress, to the time when the
-universal mental sway of Rome, however
-offensive it might be in its own
-insolent supremacy, yet exercised that
-high privilege of supereminent greatness
-to level secondary inequalities,
-and place those whom it favoured beyond
-the reach of conventional humiliations.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>To keep up that characteristic
-which the Popedom only offered,
-the monarchs of the larger Protestant
-states have endeavoured to apply the
-incorporation principle to universities.
-In small states and republics
-the difficulty of obtaining a general
-sanction to frank their honours to any
-distance from the place where they
-are given is still greater; yet it is in
-such places that, through fortunate
-coincidents, an academy sometimes
-acquires a widespread reputation and
-influence. To what eminence the
-universities in the United States are
-destined who shall predict? yet, in the
-estimate of many, they have no right
-to be called universities at all; and
-of the doctors’ degrees which they
-freely distribute in this country, much
-doubt is entertained of the genuineness.
-Yet if it would be difficult to
-lay down how it is that these American
-institutions have acquired any
-power to grant degrees—that is to
-say, the power not only to confer
-prizes and rewards among their own
-alumni, but to invest them with insignia
-of literary rank current for
-their value over the world—it would
-be equally difficult for any of the
-ancient universities in Protestant
-states to claim an exclusive right to
-such a power, since this could only be
-done through Papal authority. It will
-be said that there is just the same practical
-difficulty in this as in all other
-departments of human institutions, and
-especially those which, like rank, are
-transferable from country to country,
-so as to require and obtain an estimate
-of their value in each. It will
-be said that the exclusiveness which
-denies the Heidelberg Doctor of Philosophy
-a parallel with the LL.D. of
-Oxford is just the same as that which
-will by no means admit the count or
-baron who is deputy-assistant highways
-controller, as on a par with an
-earl or baron in the peerage of England.
-The Kammer Junker of Denmark
-is not looked on as a privy-councillor.
-The Sheriff of Mecca, the
-Sheriff of London, and the Sheriff of
-Edinburgh, are three totally different
-personages, and would feel very much
-puzzled how to act if they were to
-change places for a while. Some
-Eastern dignitaries—Baboo, Fudky,
-and the like, must occasionally puzzle
-even the adepts of Leadenhall. Nor
-are we without our instances near at
-hand. What is the Knight of Kerry,
-what the Captain of Clanranald,
-what The Chisholm—and how do the
-authorities at the Herald’s Office
-deal with them? Has not an Archbishop
-of York been suspected of
-imposture in a Scottish bank when he
-signed with the surname of Eborac;
-and have not our Scottish judges, with
-their strange-sounding peerage-titles,
-made mighty confusion in respectable
-English hotels, when my Lord Kames
-is so intimate with Mrs Home, and
-my Lord Auchinleck retires with Mrs
-Boswell? But admitting the confusion
-to be irremediable in the department
-of political and decorative rank,
-the absence of a uniform intellectual
-hierarchy is not the less to be regretted,
-while the great effort made to
-secure it in an early and imperfect
-condition of society should be contemplated
-with a respectful awe.
-There is just one man who professes
-to be able effectually to restore it—the
-sage of positivism, M. Comte; and
-he is to do it when he has established
-absolute science in everything, and
-put down freedom of opinion by the
-application of sure scientific deduction
-in every department of the world’s
-intellectual pursuits; when it shall
-be as impossible to question the most
-abstruse propositions in chemistry,
-geology, or social organisation, as to
-question the multiplication table or
-the succession of the tides—then, indeed,
-may absolute laws be laid down
-to govern the world in its appreciation
-of intellectual rank. But it is long yet
-ere that day of certain knowledge—if it
-is ever destined to dawn on that poor,
-blundering, unfortunate fellow, man.
-We have got but a very, very little
-way yet, and we know not how much
-farther it is permitted us to penetrate.
-Terrible are the chaotic heaps that
-have to be cleared away or set in
-order by the pioneers of intellect, and
-it is still a question whether our race
-can provide those who are strong-headed
-enough for the task.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>There is much truth, however, at
-the foundation of the French sage’s
-audacious speculations, that intellect
-must achieve for herself her own conquests
-and take her own position. In
-the greatness of the acquirements of
-which they are the nursery, must we
-look hereafter to the greatness of our
-seminaries of learning. If the university
-is but a grammar school or a
-collection of popular lecture-rooms,
-no royal decrees or republican ordinances
-will give it rank—if it be a
-great centre of literary and scientific
-illumination, the pride or enmity of its
-rivals will not tarnish its lustre. But
-apart from, the question between
-catholicity and positivity, it is, we
-think, very interesting to notice in
-our universities—humble as we admit
-them to be—the relics of the nomenclature
-and customs which, in the
-fifteenth century, marked their rank
-in the great European cluster of universities.
-The most eminent of their
-characteristics is that high officer, the
-Rector, already spoken of. There is
-a Censor too—but for all the grandeur
-of his etymological ancestry in Roman
-history, he is but a small officer—in
-stature sometimes, as well as dignity.
-He calls over the catalogue or roll of
-names, marking those absent—a duty
-quite in keeping with that enumerating
-function of the Roman officer
-which has left to us the word census
-as a numbering of the people.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>So lately as the eighteenth century,
-when the monastic or collegiate
-system which has now so totally disappeared
-from the Scottish universities
-yet lingered about them, the
-censor was a more important, or at
-least more laborious officer, and, oddly
-enough, he corresponded in some measure
-with the character into which,
-in England, the Proctor had been so
-strangely diverted. In a regulation
-adopted in Glasgow, in 1725, it is provided
-“that all students be obliged,
-after the bells ring, immediately to
-repair to their classes, and to keep
-within them, and a censor be appointed
-to every class, to attend from the
-ringing of the bells till the several
-masters come to their classes, and
-observe any, either of his own class
-or of any other, who shall be found
-walking in the courts during the above
-time, or standing on the stairs, or
-looking out at the windows, or making
-noise.”—<cite><span lang="la">Munimenta Univ. Glasguensis</span></cite>,
-ii. 429. This has something of the
-mere schoolroom characteristic of
-our modern university discipline,
-but this other paragraph, from the
-same set of regulations, is indicative
-both of more mature vices among the
-precocious youth of Glasgow, and a
-more inquisitorial corrective organisation:—</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>“That for keeping order without
-the College, a censor be appointed to
-observe any who shall be in the streets
-before the bells ring, and to go now
-and then to the billiard-tables, and
-to the other gaming-places, to observe
-if any be playing at the times when
-they ought to be in their chambers;
-and that this censor be taken from
-the poor scholars of the several classes
-alternately, as they shall be thought
-most fit for that office, and that some
-reward be thought of for their pains.”
-(<em>Ibid.</em>, 425). In the fierce street-conflicts,
-to which we may have occasion
-to refer, the poor censors had a more
-perilous service.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>In the universities of Central
-Europe, and that of Paris, their
-parent, the censor was a very important
-person; yet he was the subordinate
-of one far greater in power
-and influence. In the words of the
-writers of the <cite>Trevaux</cite>, so full of
-knowledge about such matters, “<span lang="fr">Un
-Régent est dans sa classe comme un
-Souverain; il crée des charges de
-<em>Censeurs</em> comme il lui plait, il les
-donne à qui il veut, et il les abolit
-quand il le judge à propos.</span>” The
-regents still exist in more than their
-original potency; for they are that
-essential invigorating element of the
-university of the present day, without
-which it would not exist. Of old,
-when every magister was entitled to
-teach in the university, the regents
-were persons selected from among
-them, with the powers of government
-as separate from the capacity and
-function of instructing; at present, in
-so far as the university is a school, the
-regent is a schoolmaster—and therefore,
-as we have just said, he is an
-essential element of the establishment.
-The term regent, like most of the other
-university distinctions, was originally
-of Parisian nomenclature, and there
-might be adduced a good deal of learning
-bearing on its signification as distinct
-from that of the word professor—now
-so desecrated in its use that we
-are most familiar with it in connection
-with dancing-schools, jugglers’ booths,
-and veterinary surgeries. The regency,
-as a university distinction conferred
-as a reward of capacities shown within
-the arena of the university, and
-judged of according to its republican
-principles, seems to have lingered in a
-rather confused shape in our Scottish
-universities, and to have gradually
-ingrafted itself on the patronage of
-the professorships. So in reference to
-Glasgow, immediately after the Revolution,
-when there was a vacancy or
-two from Episcopalians declining to
-take the obligation to acknowledge
-the new Church Establishment, there
-appears the following notice:—</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>“<em>January 2, 1691.</em>—There had
-never been so solemn and numerous
-an appearance of disputants for a
-regent’s place as was for fourteen
-days before this, nine candidates
-disputing; and in all their disputes
-and other exercises they all behaved
-themselves so well, as that the Faculty
-judged there was not one of them but
-gave such specimens of their learning
-as might deserve the place, which
-occasioned so great difficulty in the
-choice that the Faculty, choosing a
-leet of some of them who seemed
-most to excel and be fittest, did determine
-the same by lot, which the
-Faculty did solemnly go about, and
-the lot fell upon Mr John Law, who
-thereupon was this day established
-regent.”—<em>Ibid.</em>, vol. iii. p. 596.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>Sir William Hamilton explains the
-position of the regents with a lucid
-precision which makes his statement
-correspond precisely with the documentary
-stores before us. “In the
-original constitution of Oxford,” he
-says, “as in that of all the older
-universities of the Parisian model,
-the business of instruction was not
-confided to a special body of privileged
-professors. The University was
-governed, the University was taught,
-by the graduates at large. Professor,
-master, doctor, were originally
-synonymous. Every graduate
-had an equal right of teaching publicly
-in the University the subjects competent
-to his faculty and to the rank of
-his degree; nay, every graduate incurred
-the obligation of teaching
-publicly, for a certain period, the
-subjects of his faculty—for such was
-the condition involved in the grant of
-the degree itself. The bachelor, or
-imperfect graduate, partly as an exercise
-towards the higher honour, and
-useful to himself, partly as a performance
-due for the degree obtained,
-and of advantage to others, was
-bound to read under a master or
-doctor in his faculty a course of
-lectures; and the master, doctor, or
-perfect graduate, was in like manner,
-after his promotion, obliged immediately
-to commence (<i><span lang="la">incipere</span></i>), and to
-continue for a certain period publicly
-to teach (<i><span lang="la">regere</span></i>), some at least of the
-subjects appertaining to his faculty.
-As, however, it was only necessary
-for the University to enforce this
-obligation of public teaching, compulsory
-on all graduates during the term
-of their <em>necessary regency</em>, if there did
-not come forward a competent number
-of <em>voluntary regents</em> to execute this
-function; and as the schools belonging
-to the several faculties, and in
-which alone all public or ordinary
-instruction could be delivered, were
-frequently inadequate to accommodate
-the multitude of the inceptors, it came
-to pass that in these universities the
-original period of necessary regency
-was once and again abbreviated, and
-even a dispensation from actual teaching
-during its continuance commonly
-allowed. At the same time, as the
-University only accomplished the end
-of its existence through its regents,
-they alone were allowed to enjoy full
-privileges in its legislature and government;
-they alone partook of its <i><span lang="la">beneficia</span></i>
-and <i><span lang="la">sportulæ</span></i>. In Paris the non-regent
-graduates were only assembled
-on rare and extraordinary occasions:
-in Oxford the regents constituted the
-house of congregation, which, among
-other exclusive prerogatives, was anciently
-the initiatory assembly through
-which it behoved that every measure
-should pass before it could be admitted
-to the house of convocation, composed
-indifferently of all regents and
-non-regents resident in the University.”—<cite>Dissertations</cite>,
-p. 391–2.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>But the term Regent became afterwards
-obsolete in the southern universities,
-while it continued by usage
-to be applied to a certain class of
-professors in our own. Along with
-other purely academic titles and functions,
-it fell in England before the
-rising ascendancy of the heads and
-other functionaries of the collegiate
-institutions—colleges, halls, inns, and
-entries. So, in the same way, evaporated
-the faculties and their deans,
-still conspicuous in Scottish academic
-nomenclature. In both quarters they
-were derived from the all-fruitful nursery
-of the Parisian University. But
-Scotland kept and cherished what she
-obtained from a friend and ally; England
-despised and forgot the example
-of an alien and hostile people. The
-Decanus seems to have been a captain
-or leader of ten—a sort of tything-man;
-and Ducange speaks of him as a superintendent
-of ten monks. He afterwards
-came into general employment as a
-sort of chairman and leader. The
-<em>Doyens</em> of all sorts, lay and ecclesiastical,
-were a marked feature of ancient
-France, as they still are of Scotland,
-where there is a large body of lay
-deans, from the eminent lawyer who
-presides over the Faculty of Advocates
-down to “my feyther the deacon,”
-who gathers behind a half-door
-the gear that is to make his son a
-capitalist and a magistrate. Among
-the Scottish universities the deans of
-faculty are still nearly as familiar a
-title as they were at Paris or Bologna.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>The employment in the universities
-of a dead language as the means of
-communication was not only a natural
-arrangement for teaching the familiar
-use of that language, but it was also
-evidently courted as one of the tokens
-of learned isolation from the common
-illiterate world. In Scotland, as perhaps
-in some other small countries,
-such as Holland, the Latin remained
-as the language of literature after the
-great nations England, France, Germany,
-Italy, and Spain, were making
-a vernacular literature for themselves.
-In the seventeenth century the Scot
-had not been reconciled to the acceptance
-of the English tongue as his own;
-nor, indeed, could he employ it either
-gracefully or accurately. On the other
-hand, he felt the provincialism of the
-Lowland Scottish tongue, the ridicule
-attached to its use in books which
-happened to cross the Border, and the
-narrowness of the field it afforded to
-literary ambition.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>Hence every man who looked to be
-a worker in literature or science, threw
-himself into the academic practice of
-cultivating the familiar use of the Latin
-language. To the Scottish scholars
-it was almost a revived language, and
-they possessed as great a command
-over it as can ever be obtained of a
-language confined to a class, and not
-universally used by the lowest as well
-as the highest of the people. Hence,
-when he had the pen in hand, the
-educated Scotsman felt the Latin
-come more naturally to his call than
-the vernacular; and people accustomed
-to rummage among old letters
-by Scotsmen will have sometimes
-noticed that the writer, beginning
-with his native tongue, slips gradually
-into the employment of Latin as a
-relief, just as we may find a foreigner
-abandon the arduous labour of breaking
-English, to repose himself in the
-easy fluency of his natural speech.
-We believe that no language, employed
-only by a class, is capable of
-the same copiousness and flexibility
-as that which is necessarily applicable
-to all purposes, from the meanest
-to the highest. But such as a
-class-language could become, the Latin
-was among the Scots; and it is to
-their peculiar position and academic
-practices that, among a host of distinguished
-humanists, we possess in
-George Buchanan the most illustrious
-writer in the Roman tongue, both in
-poetry and prose, since the best days
-of Rome.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>The records before us afford some
-amusing instances of the anxious zeal
-with which any lapse into the vernacular
-tongue was prevented, and conversation
-among the students was
-rendered as uneasy and unpleasant as
-possible. In the visitorial regulations
-of King’s College, Aberdeen, in 1546,
-it is provided that the attendant boys—the
-gyps, if we may so call them—shall
-be expert in the use of Latin, lest
-they should give occasion to the masters
-or students to have recourse to
-the vernacular speech: “<i><span lang="la">Ne dent occasionem
-magistris et Studentibus lingua
-vernacula uti.</span></i>” If Aberdeen supplied
-a considerable number of waiting-boys
-thus accomplished, the stranger wandering
-to that far northern region, in
-the seventeenth century, might have
-been as much astonished as the man
-in <cite>Ignoramus</cite>, who tested the state of
-education in Paris by finding that
-even the dirty boys in the streets
-were taught French. It would, after
-all, have perhaps been more difficult
-to find waiting-boys who could speak
-English. The term by which they
-are described is a curious indication
-of the French habits and traditions
-of the northern universities: they are
-spoken of as <i><span lang="fr">garciones</span></i>—a word of
-obvious origin to any one who has
-been in a French hotel.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>In Glasgow, in a law passed in
-1667, it is provided that “all who
-are delated by the public censor for
-speaking of English shall be fined in
-an halfpenny <i><span lang="la">toties quoties</span></i>.” The sum
-is not large, but the imposition of the
-penalty at that particular juncture
-looks rather unreasonable, since the
-Senate and the Faculty of Arts had
-just abandoned the use of Latin in
-their public documents, and had
-adopted what, if not strictly English,
-was the vernacular tongue—a change
-which was doubtless as much to their
-own ease as it is to the satisfaction of
-the reader, who becomes painfully
-alive to the continued and progressive
-barbarisation of the academic
-Latin.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>In a great measure, however, it
-seems to have been less the object
-in view to inculcate Latin than to
-discountenance the vernacular language
-of the country. In some instances
-the language of France is
-admitted; and, from the number of
-Scotsmen who carved out their fortunes
-in that hospitable and affluent
-country, this acquisition must have
-been one of peculiar value. In a set
-of statutes and laws of the Grammar
-School of Aberdeen, adopted
-in 1553, there is a very singular
-liberty of choice—the pupils might
-speak in Greek, Hebrew, or even in
-Gaelic, rather than in Lowland Scots:
-“Loquantur omnes Latinè, Græcè,
-Hebraicè, Gallicè, Hybernicè—nunquam
-vernaculè, saltem cum his qui
-Latinè noscunt.” This is by no means
-to be held as an indication of the
-familiar acquaintance of the Aberdonian
-students with the language of
-the Gael; on the contrary, it shows
-how entirely this was placed within
-the category of foreign tongues. We
-know no other instances in which the
-tongue of the Highlander is spoken of
-in connection with the earlier educational
-institutions of the country; but
-we think it not improbable that any
-encouragement it received was for
-much the same reason that Hindostanee
-and the African dialects are now
-sometimes taught to young divines—that
-they may work as missionaries
-among the heathen. A few students
-from this wild region, to which Christianity
-had scarcely penetrated, were
-indeed a peculiar feature of the educational
-institutions of Aberdeen, and
-in a modified shape so remain to this
-day, since some wild men from the
-hills, spending a brief period at school
-or college to acquire a fragment of
-education, are yet known by the term
-<i><span lang="it">extranni</span></i>, of old applied to them.
-There is a prevailing, but utterly false
-impression, that Aberdeen is in the
-Highlands. It lingers chiefly, in the
-present century, with Cockneys beginning
-their first northern tour; but
-in the seventeenth century it may,
-perhaps, have been entertained even
-in the metropolis of Scotland. Hence
-the educational institutions there,
-though at the extremity of a long
-tract of agricultural lowland, inhabited
-by a Teutonic people, and farther
-separated from the actual Celtic line
-than Edinburgh itself, are generally
-talked of in old documents as those
-which are peculiarly available for the
-civilisation of the Highlanders. Glasgow
-was nearer and more accessible
-to the great body of the western
-Celts; but in this town the prejudices
-against them were greater, and
-the alienation, especially in religion,
-was more emphatic. It was to Aberdeen
-then, generally, that the son of
-a predatory chief would be sent, to fit
-him in some measure for converse
-with the civilised world, such as it
-then was; and the fierce owner of a
-despotic power over his clansmen
-would appear among the sober burgesses
-of the northern metropolis
-much as an American chief may
-among the inhabitants of some distant
-city in the Union. Lovat studied
-at King’s College, in Aberdeen, and
-there acquired a portion of those accomplishments
-which made him act
-the subtle courtier in Paris or London,
-and reserve his sanguinary ruffianism
-for Castle Dunie. Not unmindful
-of the benefits of the institution,
-some of the Celtic princes bestowed
-endowments on it. Thus, the
-Laird of Macintosh, who begins in
-the true regal style, “We, Lachlan
-Macintosh of that ilk,” and who calls
-himself the Chief and <em>Principall</em> of the
-Clan Chattan—probably using the
-term which he thought would be the
-most likely to make his supremacy
-intelligible to university dignitaries—dispenses
-to the King’s College two
-thousand marks, “for maintaining
-hopeful students thereat.” He reserves,
-however, a dynastic control
-over the endowment, making it conducive
-to the clan discipline and the
-support of the hierarchy surrounding
-the chief. It was a condition that
-the beneficiary should be presented
-“by the lairds of Macintosh successively
-in all time coming; that a
-youth of the name of Macintosh or of
-Clan Chattan shall be preferred to
-those of any other name,” &#38;c.—<cite>Fasti</cite>,
-206. This document is titled in the
-records, “Macintosh’s Mortification,”
-according to a peculiar technical application
-of that expression in Scotland,
-to the perpetuity of possession
-which in England is termed mortmain.
-Later in the eighteenth century,
-M‘Lean of Coll causes another
-mortification to be “applied towards
-the maintenance and education of such
-young man or boy of the name of
-M‘Lean as shall be recommended
-by me, or my heirs or successors
-on the estate of Coll.” This is
-probably the same Highland potentate
-who frowned so savagely on
-young Colman, when he, seeing an
-old gentleman familiarly called Coll
-by his contemporaries, addressed him
-as Mr Coll. Such a solecism would
-never be permitted to pass as an accidental
-mistake, since it would be
-utterly impossible to convince the
-mighty chief of Coll that there existed
-in this world a person ignorant
-enough to be unacquainted with his
-style and title. At a still later date,
-a bequest is more gracefully made by
-Sir John M‘Pherson: “In testimony
-of my gratitude to the University of
-Old Aberdeen, I bequeath to ditto, so
-as to afford an annual bursary to any
-Highland student who may be selected
-to receive the said bursary,
-two thousand five hundred pounds of
-my Carnatic stock.”</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>Here there is a wider range of application,
-but still the endowment is to a
-Highland student. Nor, after all, when
-the social state of the Highlanders is
-considered, can we wonder that their
-gentry should seek to preserve the
-wealth which they are constrained to
-deposit in the hands of the stranger for
-their own people. Occasionally, at the
-present day, some wild wiry M‘Lean or
-M‘Dougal makes his appearance, by
-command of the chief, at the proper
-time and place, to claim investment
-in the clan bursary. Other of these
-endowments are of restricted application,
-being exclusively appropriated
-to students of a special name, such as
-Smith or Thomson, or born in a special
-parish, or descended from members
-of some corporation. In general,
-however, these endowments—some of
-them of very ancient date—are open
-to free universal competition, and
-are in this shape one of the most interesting
-and remarkable specimens
-of the ancient literary republics, in
-which each man fought with his
-brains, and held what his brains could
-achieve for him. Annually, at the
-competition for bursaries in Aberdeen,
-there assembles a varied group of intellectual
-gladiators—long red-haired
-Highlanders, who feel trousers and
-shoes an infringement of the liberty
-of the subject—square-built Lowland
-farmers—flaxen-haired Orcadians,
-and pale citizens’ sons, vibrating between
-scholarship and the tailor’s
-board or the shoemaker’s last. Grim
-and silent they sit for a day, rendering
-into Latin an English essay, and
-drop away one by one, depositing
-with the judges the evidence of success
-or failure as the case may be.
-The thing is very fairly and impartially
-managed, and honourable to all
-the parties concerned.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>It is indeed, as we have hinted, a
-relic of the old competitive spirit
-which distinguished the universities
-as literal republics of letters, where
-each man fought his own battle, and
-gained and wore his own laurels.
-Nor was his arena confined to his
-own college. The free-masonry we
-have already alluded to opened every
-honour and emolument to all, and the
-Scotsman might suddenly enter the
-lists at Paris, Bologna, or Upsala, or
-the Spaniard might compete in Glasgow
-or Aberdeen. The records before
-us contain many forms in which
-the ancient spirit has now ceased
-to breathe. Already has been mentioned
-the competition for the regentship.
-The old form of the Impugnment
-of Theses, so renowned in literary
-histories, has died away as a portion
-of the ordinary laureation. The
-comprehensive challenges and corresponding
-victories attributed to the
-Admirable Crichton give this practice
-a peculiar interest in the eyes of
-Scotsmen; and it has a great place in
-the annals of the Reformation, since
-one of its main stages was the posting
-the twenty-five theses on the door of
-the church of Würtemberg by Luther.
-But in reading these remarkable events
-people are apt to forget the commonness
-of the practice; and Crichton has
-the aspect of a preposterous intellectual
-bully going out of his proper way
-to attract notice, instead of doing what
-was in its time and circumstances as
-ordinary and common sense an act as
-running a tilt, joining a crusade, or
-burning a witch. Goldsmith, in that
-account of the intellectual vagabond
-which so evidently describes himself,
-has noticed some relics of the practice
-as he found it on the Continent.
-“In all the universities and convents
-there are, upon certain days, philosophical
-theses maintained against
-every adventitious disputant; for
-which, if the champion opposes with
-any dexterity, he can claim a gratuity
-in money, a dinner, and a bed for one
-night. In this manner, then, I fought
-my way towards England.” A collection
-of German pamphlets, amounting,
-it is said, to upwards of a hundred
-thousand, and called the Dietrich Collection,
-was some years ago purchased
-by the Faculty of Advocates, and was
-found to consist chiefly of the academic
-theses in which the scholars of Germany—illustrious
-and obscure—had
-been disputing for centuries. In the
-same place, by the way, where this
-vast collection reposes, may be found
-the most complete living illustration
-of the old form of impugnment. The
-anxious litigant or busy agent entering
-the main door of the Parliament
-House at 9 o’clock of a morning, may
-find, by an <em>affiche</em> to the door-post,
-that there is to be a <i><span lang="la">disputatio juridica</span></i>
-under the auspices of the <i><span lang="la">inclytus Diaconus
-facultatis</span></i>. Since the year 1693
-it has been the practice of each intrant
-to undergo public impugnment, or, as
-the act of Faculty says, “the publict
-tryall of candidates, by printing and
-publishing theses on the subject assigned
-with corollaries, as it is observed
-amongst other nations.” A
-title of the Pandects is assigned on
-each occasion. Thus the Faculty
-possesses more than one running commentary
-upon that celebrated collection;
-and it has always been deemed
-remarkable that, considering the number
-and varied talent of the authors of
-these theses, they should be so uniform
-in their Latinity and structure.
-A great innovation has lately taken
-place in sparing the cost of printing
-the theses, and applying the amount
-so saved to the Faculty’s magnificent
-library.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>Many of the old university theses are
-very interesting as the youthful efforts
-of men who have subsequently become
-eminent. Those connected with Aberdeen
-are apparently the most numerous.
-It is very noticeable, indeed,
-that in the remote rival institutions
-there established, the spirit and practice
-of the Continental universities, in
-almost every department, had their
-most tenacious existence. As in England,
-the Church of Rome was succeeded
-there, not by Presbyterianism but
-Episcopacy, and there were fewer
-changes in all old habits and institutions.
-The celebrated “Aberdeen
-doctors,” who carried on a controversy
-with the Covenanters, met their
-zealous religionists with something
-like the old pedantic formality of the
-academic system of disputation. They
-resolved the Covenant into a thesis,
-and impugned it. Of this remarkable
-group of scholars we have the following
-notice in Professor Innes’s Preface:—</p>
-
-<p class='c010'>“Their names are now little known,
-except to the local antiquary; but no
-one who has even slightly studied the
-history of that disturbed time is unacquainted
-with the collective designation
-of ‘the Aberdeen Doctors’ bestowed
-upon the learned ‘querists’ of the ultra-Presbyterian
-Assembly of 1638, and the
-most formidable opponents of the Solemn
-League and Covenant.</p>
-
-<p class='c011'>“Of these learned divines, Dr Robert
-Barron had succeeded Bishop Forbes in
-his parish of Keith, and from thence was
-brought on the first opportunity to be
-made Minister of Aberdeen, and afterwards
-Professor of Divinity in Marischal
-College. He is best judged by the estimation
-of his own time, which placed
-him foremost in philosophy and theology.
-Bishop Sydserf characterises him as ‘<span lang="la">vir
-in omni scholastica theologia et omni
-literatura versatissimus:</span>’ ‘A person
-of incomparable worth and learning,’
-says Middleton, ‘he had a clear apprehension
-of things, and a rare facultie of
-making the hardest things to be easily
-understood.’<a id='r10'></a><a href='#f10' class='c007'><sup>[10]</sup></a> Gordon of Rothiemay says,
-‘He was one of those who maintained the
-unanswerable dispute (in 1638) against
-the Covenante, which drew upon him both
-ther envye, hate, and calumneyes; yet so
-innocently lived and dyed hee, that such
-as then hated him doo now reverence his
-memorye, and admire his works.’ Principal
-Baillie, of the opposite party, speaks
-of him as ‘a meek and learned person,’
-and always with great respect: and
-Bishop Jeremy Taylor, when writing
-in 1659 to a fellow of Trinity College,
-Dublin, recommending the choice of
-books for ‘the beginning of a theological
-library,’ named two treatises of
-Barron’s especially, and recommended
-generally ‘everything of his.’<a id='r11'></a><a href='#f11' class='c007'><sup>[11]</sup></a> That
-a man so honoured for his learning and
-his life should receive the indignities
-inflicted on Barron after his death, is
-rather to be held as a mark of the general
-coarseness of the time, than attributed
-to the persecuting spirit of any one sect.<a id='r12'></a><a href='#f12' class='c007'><sup>[12]</sup></a></p>
-
-<p class='c011'>“Another of the Aberdeen doctors,
-William Leslie, was successively Sub-principal
-and Principal of King’s College.
-The visitors of 1638 found him worthie
-of censure, as defective and negligent in
-his office, but recorded their knowledge
-that he was ‘ane man of gude literature,
-lyff, and conversatioun.’<a id='r13'></a><a href='#f13' class='c007'><sup>[13]</sup></a> ‘He was a
-man,’ says James Gordon, ‘grave, and
-austere, and exemplar. The University
-was happy in having such a light as he,
-who was eminent in all the sciences
-above the most of his age.’<a id='r14'></a><a href='#f14' class='c007'><sup>[14]</sup></a></p>
-
-<p class='c011'>“Dr James Sibbald, Minister of St
-Nicholas, and a Regent in the University,
-is recorded by the same contemporary:
-‘It will not be affirmed by his very enemyes,
-but that Dr James Sibbald was
-ane eloquent and painefull preacher, a
-man godly, and grave, and modest, not
-tainted with any vice unbeseeming a
-minister, to whom nothing could in reason
-be objected, if you call not his ante-covenanting
-a cryme.’<a id='r15'></a><a href='#f15' class='c007'><sup>[15]</sup></a> Principal Baillie,
-while condemning his Arminian doctrines,
-says—‘The man was, there, of great
-fame.’</p>
-
-<p class='c011'>“Dr Alexander Scroggy, minister in
-the Cathedral Church, first known to the
-world as thought worthy to contribute to
-the ‘Funerals’ of his patron and friend,
-Bishop Forbes,<a id='r16'></a><a href='#f16' class='c007'><sup>[16]</sup></a> is described in 1640 by
-Gordon as ‘a man sober, grave, and
-painefull in his calling;’<a id='r17'></a><a href='#f17' class='c007'><sup>[17]</sup></a> and by Baillie
-as ‘ane old man, not verie corrupt, yet
-perverse in the Covenant and Service-book.’
-His obstinacy yielded under
-the weight of old age and the need of
-rest, but he is not the more respected for
-the questionable recantation of all his
-early opinions.<a id='r18'></a><a href='#f18' class='c007'><sup>[18]</sup></a></p>
-
-<p class='c011'>“Foremost, by common consent, among
-that body of divines and scholars, was
-John Forbes, the good bishop’s son. He
-had studied at King’s College, and, after
-completing his education in the approved
-manner by a round of foreign universities,
-returned to Scotland to take his
-doctor’s degree, and to be the first professor
-in the chair of theology, founded
-and endowed in our University by his
-father and the clergy of the diocese. Dr
-John Forbes’s theological works have
-been appreciated by all critics and students,
-and have gone some way to remove
-the reproach of want of learning from
-the divines of Scotland. His greatest
-undertaking, the <cite><span lang="la">Instructiones historico-theologicæ</span></cite>,
-which he left unfinished,
-Bishop Burnett pronounces to be ‘a work
-which, if he had finished it, and had been
-suffered to enjoy the privacies of his retirement
-and study to give us the second
-volume, had been the greatest treasure
-of theological learning that perhaps the
-world has yet received.<a id='r19'></a><a href='#f19' class='c007'><sup>[19]</sup></a></p>
-
-<p class='c011'>“These were the men whom the bishop
-drew into the centre and heart of the
-sphere which he had set himself to illuminate;
-and in a short space of time, by
-their united endeavours, there grew up
-around their Cathedral and University a
-society more learned and accomplished
-than Scotland had hitherto known, which
-spread a taste for literature and art beyond
-the academic circle, and gave a
-tone of refinement to the great commercial
-city and its neighbourhood.</p>
-
-<p class='c011'>“It must be confessed cultivation was
-not without bias. It would seem that,
-in proportion as the Presbyterian and
-Puritan party receded from the learning
-of some of their first teachers, literature
-became here, as afterwards in England,
-the peculiar badge of Episcopacy.
-With Episcopacy went, hand in hand, the
-high assertion of royal authority; and
-influenced as it had been by Bishop
-Patrick Forbes and his followers, Aberdeen
-became, and continued for a century
-to be, not only a centre of northern academic
-learning, but a little stronghold of
-loyalty and Episcopacy—the marked seat
-of high Cavalier politics and anti-Puritan
-sentiments of religion and church government.</p>
-
-<p class='c011'>“That there was a dash of pedantry
-in the learning of that Augustan age of
-our University, was the misfortune of the
-age, rather than peculiar to Aberdeen.
-The literature of Britain and all Europe,
-except Italy, was still for the most part
-scholastic, and still to a great degree
-shrouded in the scholastic dress of a dead
-language; and we must not wonder that
-the northern University exacted from
-her divines and philosophers, even from
-her historians and poets, that they should
-use the language of the learned. After
-all, we owe too much to classical learning
-to grudge that it should for a time have
-overshadowed and kept down its legitimate
-offspring of native literature. ‘We
-never ought to forget,’ writes one worthy
-to record the life and learning of Andrew
-Melville, ‘that the refinement and the
-science, secular and sacred, with which
-modern Europe is enriched, must be
-traced to the revival of ancient literature,
-and that the hid treasures could not have
-been laid open and rendered available
-but for that enthusiasm with which the
-languages of Greece and Rome were
-cultivated in the fifteenth and sixteenth
-centuries.’<a id='r20'></a><a href='#f20' class='c007'><sup>[20]</sup></a></p>
-
-<p class='c011'>“It is not to be questioned that in the
-literature of that age, and in all departments
-of it, Aberdeen stood pre-eminent.
-Clarendon commemorates the ‘many excellent
-scholars and very learned men
-under whom the Scotch universities,
-and especially Aberdeen, flourished.’<a id='r21'></a><a href='#f21' class='c007'><sup>[21]</sup></a>
-‘Bishop Patrick Forbes,’ says Burnet,
-‘took such care of the two colleges in
-his diocese, that they became quickly
-distinguished from all the rest of Scotland....
-They were an honour to
-the Church, both by their lives and by
-their learning; and with that excellent
-temper they seasoned that whole diocese,
-both clergy and laity, that it continues
-to this very day very much distinguished
-from all the rest of Scotland, both for
-learning, loyalty, and peaceableness.’<a id='r22'></a><a href='#f22' class='c007'><sup>[22]</sup></a></p>
-
-<p class='c011'>“That this was no unfounded boast,
-as regards one department of learning,
-has been already shown, in enumerating
-the learned divines who drew upon Aberdeen
-the general attention soon after the
-death of their bishop and master. In
-secular learning it was no less distinguished.
-No one excelled Robert Gordon
-of Straloch in all the accomplishments
-that honour the country gentleman.
-Without the common desire of fame or
-any more sordid motive, he devoted his
-life and talents to illustrate the history
-and literature of his country. He was
-the prime assistant to Scotstarvet in his
-two great undertakings, the Atlas and
-the collections of Scotch poetry.<a id='r23'></a><a href='#f23' class='c007'><sup>[23]</sup></a> The
-maps of Scotland in the Great Atlas
-(many of them drawn by himself, and
-the whole ‘revised’ by him at the earnest
-entreaty of Charles I.), with the topographical
-descriptions that accompany
-them, are among the most valuable contributions
-ever made by an individual to
-the physical history of his country. His
-son, James Gordon, parson of Rothiemay,
-followed out his father’s great objects
-with admirable skill, and in two particulars
-he merits our gratitude even more.
-He was one of the earliest of our countrymen
-to study drawing, and to apply it
-to plans and views of places; and, while
-he could wield Latin easily, he condescended
-to write the history of his time
-in excellent Scotch.</p>
-
-<p class='c011'>“While these writers were illustrating
-the history of their country in prose, a
-crowd of scholars were writing poetry,
-or, at least, pouring forth innumerable
-copies of elegant Latin verses. While
-the two Johnstons were the most distinguished
-of those poets of Aberdeen, John
-Leech, once Rector of our University,<a id='r24'></a><a href='#f24' class='c007'><sup>[24]</sup></a>
-David Wedderburn, rector of the Grammar
-School, and many others, wrote and
-published pleasing Latin verse, which
-stands the test of criticism. While it
-cannot be said that such compositions
-produce on the reader the higher effects
-of real poetry, they are not without
-value, if we view them as tests of the
-cultivation of the society among which
-they were produced. Arthur Johnston
-not only addresses elegiacs to the bishop
-and his doctors, throwing a charming
-classical air over their abstruser learning,
-but puts up a petition to the magistrates
-of the city, or celebrates the charms of
-Mistress Abernethy, or the embroideries
-of the Lady Lauderdale—all in choice
-Latin verse, quite as if the persons whom
-he addressed appreciated the language of
-the poet.<a id='r25'></a><a href='#f25' class='c007'><sup>[25]</sup></a></p>
-
-<p class='c011'>“Intelligent and educated strangers,
-both foreigners and the gentry of the
-north, were attracted to Aberdeen; and
-its colleges became the place of education
-for a higher class of students than had
-hitherto been accustomed to draw their
-philosophy from a native source.<a id='r26'></a><a href='#f26' class='c007'><sup>[26]</sup></a></p>
-
-<p class='c011'>“If it was altogether chance, it was a
-very fortunate accident, which placed in
-the midst of a society so worthy of commemoration
-a painter like George Jamiesone,
-the pupil of Rubens, the first, and,
-till Raeburn, the only great painter whom
-Scotland had produced. Though he was
-a native of Aberdeen, it is not likely that
-anything but the little court of the bishop
-could have induced such an artist to prosecute
-his art in a provincial town. An
-academic orator in 1630, while boasting
-of the crowd of distinguished men, natives
-and strangers, either produced by the
-University, or brought to Aberdeen by
-the bishop, was able to point to their
-pictures ornamenting the hall where his
-audience were assembled. Knowing by
-whom these portraits were painted, we
-cannot but regret that so few are preserved.”<a id='r27'></a><a href='#f27' class='c007'><sup>[27]</sup></a></p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Keeping, however, to the matter of
-academic impugnment, we shall now
-turn to an instance of its incidental
-occurrence in that University, which,
-from its late origin, was least imbued
-with the spirit of the Continental
-system.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>The visit of King James to his
-ancient kingdom in 1617, afforded the
-half-formed collegiate institution in
-Edinburgh an opportunity for a rhetorical
-display, which ended in substantial
-advantages. Tired with business
-at Holyrood, and in the enjoyment
-of full eating and drinking, and “driving
-our” at his quieter palace of Stirling,
-he bethought himself of a rhetorical
-pastime with the professors of
-the new University, wherein he could
-not fail to luxuriate in the scholastic
-quibbling with which his mind was
-so well crammed, and he was pretty
-certain of enjoying an ample banquet
-of success and applause. Hence, as
-Thomas Crawford the annalist of the
-institution informs us, “It pleased his
-majesty to appoint the maisters of the
-college to attend him at Sterling the
-29th day of July, where, in the royal
-chapel, his majesty, with the flower of
-the nobility, and many of the most
-learned men of both nations, were
-present, a little before five of the
-clock, and continued with much chearfulness
-above three hours.”</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>The display was calculated to be
-rather appalling to any man who had
-much diffidence or reserve in his disposition,
-and hence Charteris, the principal,
-“being naturally averse from
-public show, and professor of divinity,”
-transferred the duty of leading
-the discussion to Professor Adamson.
-The form adopted was the good
-old method of the impugnment of
-theses, so many being appointed to
-defend, and so many to impugn; “but
-they insisted only upon such purposes
-as were conceived would be most
-acceptable to the king’s majesty and
-the auditory.”</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>The first thesis was better suited
-for the legislature than an academic
-body, and there must have been some
-peculiar reason for bringing it on. It
-was, “that sheriffs and other inferior
-magistrates should not be hereditary,”
-which was oppugned by Professor
-Lands “with many pretty arguments.”
-The king was so pleased
-with the oppugnation, that he turned to
-the Marquis of Hamilton, hereditary
-sheriff of Clydesdale, and said,
-“James, you see your cause lost—and
-all that can be said for it clearly
-satisfied and answered.” <em>N.—B.</em> It is
-just worth noticing that the College
-and the Marquis were then at feud.
-There was a question about the possession
-of the old lodging of the Hamilton
-family, then constituting a considerable
-portion of the University
-edifices. The “gud old nobleman,”
-his father, had been easily satisfied,
-but the young man was determined to
-stand upon his rights, and, though he
-could not recover possession, get something
-in the shape of rent or damages;
-nor would he take the judicious hint
-that “so honourable a personage
-would never admit into his thoughts
-to impoverish the patrimony of the
-young University, which had been so
-great an ornament, and so fruitful an
-instrument of so much good to the
-whole nation, but rather accept of
-some honourable acknowledgment of
-his munificence in bestowing upon the
-College an honest residence for the
-muses.” But to return to the impugnment.
-The next thesis was on local
-motion, “pressing many things by
-clear testimonies of Aristotle’s text;”
-and this passage of literary arms called
-out one of James’s sallies of pawky persiflage.
-“These men,” he said, “know
-Aristotle’s mind as well as himself
-did while he lived.” The next thesis
-was on the “Original of Fountains;”
-and the discussion, much to the purpose,
-no doubt, was so interesting that
-it was allowed to go on far beyond
-the prescribed period, “his majesty
-himself sometimes speaking for the
-impugner, and sometimes for the defender,
-in good Latin, and with much
-knowledge of the secrets of philosophy.”</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>Talking is, however, at the best, dry
-work. His majesty went at last to
-supper, and no doubt would have
-what is termed “a wet night.” When
-up to the proper mark, he sent for the
-professors, and delivered himself of
-the following brilliant address:—</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>“Methinks these gentlemen, by
-their very names, have been destined
-for the acts which they have had in
-hand to-day. Adam was father of
-all; and, very fitly, Adamson had the
-first part of this act. The defender is
-justly called Fairly—his thesis had
-some fair lies, and he defended them
-very fairly, and with many fair lies
-given to the oppugners. And why
-should not Mr Lands be the first to
-enter the lands? but now I clearly
-see that all lands are not barren, for
-certainly he hath shown a fertile wit.
-Mr Young is very old in Aristotle.
-Mr Reed needs not be red with blushing
-for his acting to-day. Mr King
-disputed very kingly, and of a kingly
-purpose, anent the royal supremacy of
-reason over anger and all passions.”
-And here his majesty was going to
-close the encomiums, when some one
-nudged his elbow, and hinted that he
-had omitted to notice the modest
-Charteris; but the royal wit was not
-abashed, and his concluding impromptu
-was by no means the least
-successful of his puns. “Well, his
-name agreeth very well to his nature;
-for charters contain much matter, yet
-say nothing, but put great purposes in
-men’s mouths.”</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>Few natures would be churlish
-enough to resist a genial glow of satisfaction
-on receiving such pearls of
-rhetoric scattered among them by a
-royal hand, and we may believe that
-the professors were greatly gratified.
-But, pleased more probably by his own
-success, the king gave a more substantial
-mark of his satisfaction, and said,
-“I am so well satisfied with this
-day’s exercise, that I will be godfather
-to the College of Edinburgh,
-and have it called the College of
-King James; for after the founding
-of it had been stopped for sundry
-years in my minority, so soon as I
-came to any knowledge, I zealously
-held hand to it, and caused it to be
-established; and although I see many
-look upon it with an evil eye, yet I
-will have them to know that, having
-given it this name, I have espoused its
-quarrel.” And further on in the
-night, he promised, “that as he had
-given the College a name, he would
-also, in time convenient, give it a
-royal godbairn gift for enlarging the
-patrimony thereof.”</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>In the course of the multifarious
-talk of the evening, a curious and
-delicate matter was opened up—the
-difference between the English pronunciation
-of Latin and the Scottish,
-which corresponds with that of Europe
-in general. An English doctor, who
-must have enjoyed exceptional opinions,
-or been a master of hypocrisy,
-praised the readiness and elegancy of
-his majesty’s Latinity; on which he
-said, “All the world knows that my
-maister, Mr George Buchanan, was
-a great maister in that faculty. I follow
-his pronunciation both of Latin
-and Greek, and am sorry that my
-people of England do not the like, for
-certainly their pronunciation utterly
-spoils the grace of these two learned
-languages; but you see all the university
-and learned men of Scotland
-express the true and native pronunciation
-of both.”<a id='r28'></a><a href='#f28' class='c007'><sup>[28]</sup></a></p>
-
-<div class='chapter'>
-  <span class='pageno' id='Page_151'>151</span>
-  <h2 class='c002'>THE INSURRECTION IN SPAIN.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<div class='lg-container-r c013'>
-  <div class='linegroup'>
-    <div class='group'>
-      <div class='line'><em>Madrid, July 1854.</em></div>
-    </div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c009'>Dear Ebony.—Had I known that
-you would treacherously publish my
-private communications, and that
-Maga comes to Madrid, I certainly
-would have waited until I had quitted
-this capital, before imparting to you
-my impressions of it, its inhabitants,
-and its institutions. I admit that I
-have but myself to blame for my ignorance
-of the fact that Maga, whose
-fame extends to the uttermost parts of
-the earth, has her regular readers even
-in Madrid. But you, who must be
-aware of that fact, are not the less
-culpable for risking the valuable life
-of your old ally and contributor. You
-might have had a little more consideration
-for your outpost than to expose
-him to the thrust of an Albacete
-dagger or Catalan knife, whether dealt
-under the fifth rib, or treacherously in
-the back. You should have reflected
-that my olive-green uniform, with a
-golden thistle on the black-facings,
-would naturally betray my quality of
-Maga’s vedette. Since the 10th of
-June, date of the Magazine’s arrival
-in Madrid, my existence has not been
-worth an hour’s purchase. I have
-been obliged to strike my tent, pitched
-in the Puerta del Sol, as the best place
-for observation, and to picket my
-charger in the recesses of the Retiro,
-whose cool shades, I confess, are not
-altogether to be despised now that the
-thermometer ranges from 90 to 100 in
-the shade, and that the streets of this
-capital resemble nothing so much as
-limekilns, thanks to dust from demolitions,
-and to the rays of a sun compared
-to which the Phœbus of the
-British Isles is a very feeble impostor.
-You are, of course, aware of the pleasant
-peculiarities of the Madrid climate—Siberia
-in winter and in the
-wind; the Sahara in summer and in
-the sun. We are just now in all the
-delights of the dogdays; a wet brick
-is sunburned red in half an hour;
-eggs, placed for ten minutes on the
-tiles, open for the exit of lively
-chickens; and Madrid, to avoid calcination,
-flies to the woods and waves.
-As I hope soon to follow its example,
-and shall consequently not be here
-when your August number arrives,
-I will venture to send you another
-epistle, notwithstanding that I have
-received sundry mysterious warnings
-that a repetition of my first offence
-would lead to prompt blood-letting.
-This time, however, I shall have less
-to say of the follies and failings of the
-natives, and more of what has occurred
-since last I troubled you with
-my prose. Then I did but glance at
-politics <em>en passant</em>; now, I propose
-devoting my whole letter to them.
-Just one fortnight ago there occurred
-at Madrid an event so important that
-I think it best to confine myself to an
-account of it, and to reserve lighter
-matters for a future communication.
-I need hardly say that the event in
-question is the military insurrection
-of the 28th of June.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>Things had been in rather a queer
-state here for some time past. As
-you may possibly, amidst the excitement
-of the Eastern question, have
-neglected to follow up the minute
-intricacies of Spanish politics, I must
-step back a pace or two, in order to
-put you <em>au fait</em>. Autumn of last
-year witnessed the arrival at power
-of the present ministry, which speedily
-became far more unpopular than,
-for some time past, any administration
-had been. Headed by an unprincipled
-and unscrupulous adventurer, it
-recoiled from no illegality or tyranny
-that might conduce to its own advantage.
-Defeated in the senate by a
-large majority, on the memorable
-railway question, it suspended the
-session, and began to indulge its
-hatred of those who assisted in its
-rebuff. In January of the present
-year, about a month after the closing
-of the legislative chambers, some of
-the most formidable of its opponents,
-on that occasion and on most others,
-were ordered into exile. It is customary
-and legal in Spain for the
-minister to assign a residence to
-unemployed officers, whither they are
-bound to proceed. In those dispositions,
-the convenience of the officers
-is usually to a certain extent consulted,
-but sometimes, especially for
-political reasons, the contrary is the
-case, and such assignment of quarters
-becomes little less than a sentence of
-banishment. A military man may be
-authorised to reside in Madrid (the
-Spaniard’s paradise), or transported
-to the Philippines, which he would
-consider purgatory. As most military
-men of high rank in this country are
-more or less political characters,
-either having held office, or hoping
-some day to find a place in one of
-the ephemeral Spanish governments
-(whose existence rarely exceeds a
-year, and is sometimes limited to a
-day), and constantly manœuvring to
-obtain it, they hold it a cruel destiny
-that consigns them to a colonial abode,
-or to vegetation in a remote town, far
-from the capital, that centre of every
-kind of intrigue. It may be imagined,
-therefore, with what extreme disgust
-some of the military chiefs of the
-Moderado opposition suddenly found
-themselves ordered to places where
-they would be at full liberty to study
-strategy, or play the Cincinnatus in
-their cabbage gardens, but where they
-would be forgotten by the world, and
-powerless to annoy the ministers or
-to forward their own ambitious views.
-Generals Leopold O’Donnell, Manuel
-Concha, José Concha, and Infante
-(a deserter from the Progresista or
-liberal party), were the men whose
-influence and intrigues the Sartorius
-ministry thus attempted to annul.
-The two former were ordered to the
-Canary Islands, the two latter to the
-Balearics. Manuel Concha and Infante
-obeyed orders and departed for
-their destinations; José Concha, by
-far the cleverer of the brothers, went
-into France; O’Donnell disappeared,
-and it was not until some time afterwards
-that it became known where
-he was concealed. From the time of
-these banishments (the latter part of
-January) may be dated the commencement
-of the conspiracy which
-has just broken out in the shape of a
-military insurrection.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>On the 20th of February, the regiment
-of Cordova, quartered at Saragossa,
-rose in revolt, headed by its
-colonel, Brigadier Hore, an officer of
-merit, who had served in the royal
-guards during the civil war. Nearly
-the whole of the garrison, and several
-officers of high rank, were pledged to
-support the movement; but some of
-the latter played the traitor, others
-hesitated at the very moment when
-promptness and decision were most
-necessary; José Concha, who was
-then concealed in Spain, and expected
-to start up at Saragossa to head the
-revolt, did not appear, but soon afterwards
-presented himself to the authorities
-of Bordeaux. In short, the
-whole thing failed. The Cordova regiment
-was broken up; changes were
-made in one or two garrisons; a number
-of arrests, especially of military
-men and newspaper editors, were
-made in Madrid; promotions and decorations
-were lavished upon certain
-officers, amongst whom were some
-who had betrayed to death the friends
-and confederates they had promised
-to support; the last of the insurgents
-were driven across the frontier; the
-government emerged from the brief
-struggle with renewed strength, and
-became daily more unconstitutional,
-arbitrary, and tyrannical.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>Within a short time after the incidents
-I have thus briefly sketched, it
-was generally reported that the place
-where the Moderado opposition (noway
-discouraged by the disaster in
-Arragon) intended to make their next
-attempt, was Madrid itself. The conduct
-of the government in the mean
-time had certainly been such as to
-irritate its enemies, and rouse public
-indignation. No one was safe from
-the despotic system introduced. Illegal
-arrests were of frequent occurrence,
-made without a shadow of a
-pretext, and whose victims, conscious
-of no crime, were left to languish
-in prison, transported to the
-colonies, or escorted out of Spain.
-The opposition journals were daily
-seized, not only for the articles they
-published, but for the mere news they
-gave, as there were many things
-which ministers did not choose to have
-communicated to the nation except in
-the falsified version given by their own
-journals. The <cite><span lang="es">Clamor Publico</span></cite>, ably
-conducted by a staunch and well-known
-liberal, Don Fernando Corradi;
-the <cite><span lang="es">Nacion</span></cite>, also a Progresista paper,
-whose editor, Rua Figueroa, still contrived
-to write in it from the concealment
-to which an order for his arrest
-had compelled him; the <cite><span lang="es">Diario Español</span></cite>
-and the <cite><span lang="es">Epoca</span></cite>, representing the
-Moderado opposition, were the chief
-objects of ministerial oppression and
-vindictiveness, and day after day their
-columns were headed with the announcement,
-that their first edition
-had been seized by order of the censor.
-In spite of this persecution, they
-steadily persevered, opposing the government
-as well as they might, but
-prevented from exposing, otherwise
-than by inference and in a most guarded
-manner, the scandalous corruption
-and jobbing of the ministers and the
-court. Discontent was general, and
-daily increased. It was asked when
-the Cortes were to assemble, for only
-in their discussions did there seem a
-chance of such expression of public
-opinion as might alarm and check the
-men in power. These, however, had
-no intention of calling together the
-legislative chambers. They continued
-to make laws by decree, and to
-sanction, for the benefit of their friends
-and adherents, railways and other
-national works, for which the approval
-of the Cortes was to be asked at some
-future day. But that day has not yet
-come, nor will it come, so long as the
-present ministry is in office and the
-Queen-mother supports them, for she
-dreads, as much as they do, the exposure
-of the countless iniquitous speculations
-at the country’s expense, in
-which she and her husband have been
-concerned, with the connivance and
-aid of the government, who thus repaid
-her for the countenance that often
-stood them in good stead against the
-intrigues of the camarilla headed by
-the Queen’s favourite. Then there
-were frequent rumours of an approaching
-<em>coup d’état</em>, on the plan of that of
-December 1851 in France, or of that,
-nearly resembling it, which the bravo-Murillo
-ministry had actually published,
-but had been unable to carry
-out. All this time (ever since the
-outbreak at Saragossa) the whole
-country was under martial law; no
-<em>coup d’état</em> could confer upon the government
-more arbitrary powers than
-those it already exercised—it could
-but legalise illegality. The case was
-vastly different in France and in Spain.
-In France, after a period of anarchy,
-succeeded by a conflict of political
-factions which rendered all government
-impossible, a man long depreciated,
-but now generally admitted to
-be of commanding talent, and, we are
-justified in believing, of far more
-patriotic mind than he ever had credit
-for, cut the knot of the difficulty, at
-the cost, certainly, of constitutional
-forms, but, as many now think, for
-the real benefit of the nation. In
-Spain, the situation of affairs was
-quite otherwise. Where was here the
-vigorous intellect whose judgment, and
-firmness and foresight were to guide,
-without assistance and through many
-perils, the ship of the state. Was it
-that of the unfortunate, uneducated
-Queen, who detests business, and passes
-her life sunk in sloth and sensuality?
-Was it to be the upstart unscrupulous
-minister who, by sheer audacity (the
-most valuable quality for a Spanish
-politician who seeks but his own aggrandisement),
-had first crawled and
-afterwards pushed his way to the head
-of the royal council-board? Or would
-the arch-intriguer, Maria Christina,
-sketch the course her daughter should
-adopt when converted into an absolute
-sovereign? No, for her time was too
-much taken up in adding, at the expense
-of Spain, to her already incalculable
-wealth, and in planning marriages
-for her numerous daughters.
-In short, to carry into the higher
-sphere of politics the general and servile
-imitation of France now observable
-in Spain, was an idea repugnant to the
-Spanish nation, and which increased,
-if possible, the universal discontent
-that already prevailed—excited by the
-closing of the chambers, the violence
-used towards the independent press
-(which it was evidently intended to
-crush), the notorious corruption of the
-administration; the unsatisfactory
-state of the finances, tending inevitably
-to some extraordinary exactions from
-the already over-taxed people; and
-last, but not least, by the scandalous
-concessions daily made to the friends
-and adherents of the ministry, and to
-those influential persons, the Rianzares,
-Señor Arana, Mr Salamanca,
-and others, whose enmity the Sartorius
-cabinet dared not encounter, and
-whose support they were compelled to
-purchase.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>It was understood that a military
-insurrection was contemplated, with
-O’Donnell at its head. The government
-affected to make light of the
-affair, but in reality they were not
-without uneasiness, for they could not
-but feel—although they daily had it
-proclaimed by the hireling <cite><span lang="es">Heraldo</span></cite>
-that they were the saviours of the
-nation, and the most popular and
-prosperous of ministries—that they
-were execrated, and that all classes
-would rejoice in their downfall. It
-is difficult to convey to Englishmen—except
-to those who may be personally
-acquainted with this singular
-country and people—a clear idea of
-the state of political affairs in Madrid
-during the second quarter of the present
-year. I must content myself
-with supplying a few detached facts
-and details, from which you may,
-perhaps, form a notion of the whole.
-For three months conspiracy may be
-said to have walked the streets of
-Madrid openly and in broad daylight.
-Almost every one knew that something
-was plotting, and a considerable
-number of persons could have told the
-names of the chief conspirators, and
-given some sort of general outline of
-their plans. O’Donnell, disobeying
-the orders of the Queen’s government,
-remained hidden in Madrid,
-seeing numerous friends, but undiscoverable
-by the police. He had frequent
-meetings with his fellow-conspirators;
-his wife often saw him;
-for some time, during which he was
-seriously ill, he was daily visited by
-one of the first physicians in Madrid;
-still the government, although most
-anxious to apprehend him, failed in
-every attempt to discover his hiding-place,
-which was known to many. It
-is rare that the secrets of a conspiracy,
-when they have been confided
-to so large a number of persons, have
-been kept so well and for so long a time
-as in the present case; but this caution
-and discretion are easily explicable
-by the universal hatred felt for
-the present government and by the
-strong desire for its fall. The superior
-police authorities were bitterly
-blamed by the minister; large sums
-were placed at their disposal, numerous
-agents had assigned to them the
-sole duty of seeking O’Donnell. All
-was in vain. The government paid
-these agents well, but O’Donnell, as
-it afterwards appeared, paid them
-better. A portion, at least, of the
-men employed to detect him, watched
-over his safety. The government,
-ashamed of its impotence to capture,
-spread reports that he they sought
-had left Madrid; and, afterwards,
-that they knew where he was, but
-preferred leaving him there and
-watching his movements to seizing
-him and sending him out of the country,
-to prepare, on a foreign soil,
-revolutionary movements in the provinces
-of Spain. These ridiculous
-pretences imposed upon very few.
-Could the government have apprehended
-O’Donnell, they might not
-have dared to shoot him, and might
-have hesitated permanently to imprison
-him; but they would not have
-scrupled to ship him to the Philippines,
-where he would have done
-little mischief. The truth was, that
-they employed every means to discover
-his hiding-place, and every
-means proved ineffectual. O’Donnell,
-I am informed, was concealed in a
-house that communicated with the
-one next to it, which had back and
-front entrances. His friends and the
-friendly police kept strict watch. Of
-a night, when he sometimes went out
-to walk, his safety was cared for by
-the very men whom the authorities
-had commissioned to look for him,
-and who went away with him when
-he left Madrid to assume the command
-of the insurgents. A gentleman
-who, during a certain period,
-was in the habit of frequently seeing
-him, was one morning on his way to
-his place of concealment, and had
-entered the street in which it was
-situated, when a police agent, making
-him a sign, slipped a scrap of paper
-into his hand. On it were the words
-“Beware, you are watched.” Taking
-the hint, the person warned
-passed the house to which he was
-going, and entered another, in the
-same street, where he had friends.
-From the window he observed a
-policeman, who had been loitering
-about as if in the ordinary discharge
-of his duty, hastily depart. When
-he had made sure that the coast was
-clear, he left the house, entered that in
-which O’Donnell was, saw him, passed
-into the next house, and departed by
-the back door. There was soon a
-cordon of police agents round the
-house into which he first had gone,
-but their vigilance was fruitless. I
-had this anecdote from one of the
-most intimate friends of the person
-who visited O’Donnell, and who was
-named to me at the same time.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>During the period of suspense that
-preceded the insurrection, attempts
-were made to bring about a union between
-the Liberal party and the Moderado
-opposition. The former, although
-divided into sections which differ on
-certain points, is unanimous in its
-desire to see Spain governed constitutionally.
-Overtures were made to
-some of its chiefs. It was proposed
-that it should co-operate in the overthrow
-of the set of men who had
-detached themselves from all parties,
-and were marching on the high road
-to absolutism. These men, known
-as the Polacos or Poles—a word
-which seems to have had its origin
-in an electioneering joke—were odious
-alike to Progresistas and Moderados.
-But there were great difficulties in the
-way of a sincere and cordial junction
-between the two principal parties into
-which Spaniards are divided. The
-Moderados would gladly have availed
-themselves of the aid of the Liberals to
-upset their common enemy; but they
-would give them no guarantees that
-they should be, in any way, gainers by
-the revolution. The Liberals, on the
-other hand, mistrusted the Moderados,
-and would not assist men whose aims
-they believed to be purely personal.
-When the Moderados asked what guarantees
-they required, they were quickly
-ready with an answer. “Arm the
-national guard of Madrid,” they said;
-or, “March your troops, as soon as
-you have induced them to revolt, at
-once into Arragon, with one of our
-most influential and determined
-chiefs.” The Moderados could not
-be induced to listen to such terms.
-They found themselves exactly in
-the position in which the Progresistas
-were in 1843.  Divided amongst
-themselves, the probabilities were
-that the insurrection they proposed
-would turn to the advantage of the
-Liberals; and the risk of this was
-doubled if they accepted even the
-most favourable of the conditions offered
-to them. They knew that the
-feeling of a large majority of the nation
-was in favour of the Progresistas;
-that Espartero, although for seven
-years he had led the life of a country
-gentleman at Logroño, and had
-steadily resisted all temptations to
-mingle again in political affairs, was
-in reality the most popular man in
-Spain, and that he was idolised by
-the people of Madrid. Some amongst
-them (O’Donnell himself, it has been
-said), whose views were more patriotic
-and less selfish than those of the
-majority, were not unwilling to blend
-with the Progresistas, to whom a few,
-including Rios Rosas, a distinguished
-lawyer and senator, frankly proclaimed
-their adherence, declaring that
-the parties which for so many years
-had divided Spain were virtually
-defunct, and that there were but two
-parties in the country,—the national
-one, which desired the welfare of
-Spain, and to see it governed according
-to the constitution, and the retrograde
-or absolutist, which trampled
-on the rights of the people. But
-although a few men were found ready
-to waive personal considerations and
-to forget old animosities, the great
-majority of the Moderados were less
-disinterested, and the decision finally
-come to was to do without the aid of
-the Liberals, and to accomplish an
-insurrection which, although its success
-was likely to be of some advantage
-to the country, at least for a
-time, had for its object a change of
-men rather than of measures.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>One of the most important persons
-concerned in the conspiracy was the
-Director of Cavalry, Major-General
-Domingo Dulce, reputed one of
-the best and bravest officers in the
-Spanish army, and who had won his
-high rank and many honours, not by
-political intrigue, as is so frequently
-the case in this country, but at the
-point of his good sword. He passed
-for a Progresista, and most of his
-friends were of that party; but in fact
-he had never mixed much in politics,
-and, as a military man, had served
-under governments of various principles.
-It is evident, however, that
-whilst confining himself to the duties
-of his profession—which is rarely the
-case with Spanish general officers—he
-cherished in his heart the love of
-liberty, and a strong detestation of
-the tyranny under which Spain has
-for some time groaned. An intimate
-friend of his, a well-known and distinguished
-Liberal, was the immediate
-means of his joining the conspiracy.
-It was an immense acquisition to the
-cause he agreed to assist. Chief of
-the whole of the Spanish cavalry, respected
-and beloved by the men and
-officers under his command, he could
-bring a large force to the insurgent
-banner, and his own presence beneath
-it was of itself of great value, for he
-is a daring and decided officer. He
-it was who, by his obstinate resistance
-in the palace, at the head of a handful
-of halberdiers, defeated the designs of
-the conspirators in the year 1841.
-Dulce is a slightly-made, active, wiry
-man, rather below the middle height,
-of bilious temperament, and taciturn
-mood, extremely reserved, even with
-his friends, not calculated to cut a
-great figure in the council, but a man
-of action, precious in the field. The
-other principal conspirators were
-General Messina, a man of education
-and talent, who had been under-secretary
-of the war department,
-and is an intimate friend of Narvaez;
-Ros de Olano, a general officer of
-some repute; and Brigadier Echague,
-colonel of the Principe regiment, a
-Basque officer who served with high
-distinction throughout the whole of
-the civil War.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>Several false starts were made before
-the insurrection really broke out.
-On the 13th of June, especially, it
-had been fixed to take place. The
-garrison of Madrid had been ordered
-to parade before daybreak for a military
-promenade and review outside
-the town. Such parades had been
-unusually frequent for a short time
-past; and it was thought the government
-ordered them, owing to information
-it received, not sufficiently definite
-to compromise the conspirators
-personally, but which yet enabled it
-to defeat their designs. On that
-morning, however, all was ready.
-The Principe regiment, instead of
-marching directly to the parade
-ground, lingered, and finally halted
-at a place where it could easily join
-the cavalry. O’Donnell left the town,
-disguised, and stationed himself in a
-house whence he could observe all
-that passed. Persons were placed in
-the vicinity to watch over his safety.
-The proclamations that had been prepared
-were got ready for distribution.
-Late on the eve of the intended outbreak,
-about four or five hours before
-it was to occur, its approach was
-known to several persons who, without
-being implicated in the plot,
-sincerely wished it success. There
-seemed no doubt of the event. But,
-at the very moment, a portion of the
-artillery of the garrison, which had
-pledged itself to take part in the
-movement, failed to make its appearance
-at the place of rendezvous.
-General Dulce considered their absence
-so important that he abandoned,
-for that day, his intention of marching
-off his cavalry, and declaring against
-the government. The combat of the
-30th of June, in the fields of Vicálvaro,
-showed that he did not overrate
-the importance of including all
-arms in the composition of the insurrectionary
-force. At the time, however,
-a storm of censure burst over
-his head. He was taxed with treachery,
-with a deficiency in moral
-courage; his best friends looked mistrustfully
-and coldly upon him; more
-than one general officer, presuming
-on seniority of rank and age, took
-him severely to task. General O’Donnell
-was not backward in reproaching
-him. “Never was a white man”
-(these were the very words of the ex-governor
-of Cuba) “sold as you have
-sold me.” Dulce, although deeply
-sensitive to all this blame, took it
-meekly, acknowledged that appearances
-were against him, but declared
-that he had acted for the best, and
-steadily affirmed that his future conduct
-would prove his fidelity to the
-cause he had espoused. Not all believed
-him.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>Some days passed over, and there
-was no word of an insurrection. The
-conspirators were discouraged. Rumour
-spoke of dissensions among
-them. It was thought that nothing
-would occur. It was known to many
-that Dulce was of the conspiracy, and
-that, by his fault or will, a good
-opportunity had been lost; and they
-said that if he were not playing a
-double game, the government would
-certainly have heard of his complicity
-with O’Donnell, and would at least
-have removed him from his command.
-It was fact that, for some time past,
-anonymous letters had been received
-by the ministers, warning them that
-he was plotting against them. But
-they disbelieved this information, and
-some of the letters were even shown
-to Dulce. The Duke of Rianzares,
-calling one day on a minister, found
-Dulce there. “What is this that I
-hear, general?” said Queen Christina’s
-husband; “is it true that you intend
-to shoot us all?” The question was
-awkward, but easily parried. A few
-days before the insurrection occurred,
-Dulce went over to Alcala, five leagues
-from Madrid, under pretence of inspecting
-the recruits stationed there.
-Seven squadrons of cavalry were in
-that town. Doubtless his object was
-to see if he could still reckon upon
-their following him whithersoever he
-chose to lead. I met him in the street
-after his return; I think it was on the
-26th of June. He looked anxious and
-careworn. His position was certainly
-critical, and it is not presuming too
-much to suppose that a severe struggle
-was going on within him between a
-long habit of military discipline and
-duty, and what we must in justice
-believe to have been, in his opinion,
-a paramount duty to his oppressed
-country. For he was at the top of
-the tree. His position was splendid;
-his emoluments were large; he had
-but to persevere in his adherence to
-the government of the day to attain
-to the very highest rank in his profession—although
-that did not afford
-a more desirable place than the one
-he already occupied. Under these
-circumstances, even his enemies must
-admit—however guilty they may deem
-him—that he was not actuated by the
-selfish desire of personal advantage or
-aggrandisement.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>Madrid, incredulous of an insurrection,
-was taken completely by surprise
-by the news that greeted its uprising
-on the morning of the 28th
-June. Some hours previously, it was
-informed, the director-general of cavalry,
-after mustering for review, in a
-field just outside the walls, the eleven
-squadrons that formed part of the garrison
-of the capital, had been joined by a
-battalion of the regiment of Principe, by
-a few companies from other regiments,
-and by General O’Donnell himself, and
-had marched to Alcala to incorporate
-in his insurrectionary force the troops
-there stationed. Other generals, it
-was stated, were with him, but for
-many hours—indeed for the whole of
-that day—truth was hard to be got
-at, and Rumour had it all her own
-way. The aspect of Madrid was
-curious. The Queen and Court had left
-two days previously for the Escurial;
-all but two of the ministers were absent;
-those two were paralysed by the
-sudden event, and seemingly helpless.
-No measures were taken, no troops
-brought out; for a time it might have
-been thought that, as was reported,
-all but some fifteen hundred of these
-had left with the insurgent generals;
-for several hours the town was at the
-mercy of the people, and had they
-then risen it would probably have
-been their own, for many of the troops
-remaining in Madrid were disaffected
-and would have joined them. There
-was great excitement; the general
-expression was one of joy at the prospect
-of getting rid of a ministry than
-which none could be more odious;
-the Puerta del Sol and the principal
-streets were full of groups eagerly discussing
-the events of the hour; friends
-met each other with joyous countenances,
-and shook hands as if in congratulation—Liberals
-and Moderados
-alike well pleased at the event that
-threatened to prove fatal to the common
-enemy. I need not repeat the
-countless reports current on that day.
-The most important fact that became
-known was that the cavalry at Alcala
-had joined the insurgents, and that
-two thousand horsemen, some of the
-best dragoons in the Spanish army,
-were in hostile attitude close to Madrid,
-accompanied by a small but most
-efficient body of infantry. Towards
-evening the authorities began to
-awake from their lethargy of alarm.
-Ignorant of the fact that a line of
-telegraphic wires had been concluded
-on the previous day between Madrid
-and the Escurial, the insurgents had
-neglected to cut off this means of rapid
-communication; news of the insurrection
-had been transmitted to the
-Queen, and her return to the capital
-was announced. The streets were
-quickly filled with troops, illuminations
-were ordered (there was no
-hope of their being volunteered), and at
-about ten o’clock her Majesty made her
-entrance, passing completely through
-the town, having previously been to
-perform her devotions in the church
-of Atocha, whose presiding virgin is
-the special patroness of the royal
-family of Spain—the gracious protectress
-for whom princes embroider petticoats,
-and whose shrine queens enrich
-with jewels, whose cost would
-found an hospital or comfort many
-poor. A young Queen, entering her
-capital in haste and anxiety, a few
-hours after a revolt against her authority,
-ought, one might suppose, to
-command, by her mere presence, some
-demonstration of loyalty and affection
-from her subjects. But the present
-Queen of Spain has so completely
-weaned from her the affections of her
-people, has so well earned their contempt,
-and even their hatred, that
-neither on that night nor on any
-other occasion that I have witnessed
-was a voice uplifted or a <em>viva</em> heard.
-A body of gendarmes, drawn up opposite
-to the ministry of the interior,
-cheered as she passed, and possibly
-the same may have been the case on
-the part of civil and military functionaries
-at other points of the line of her
-progress, but the attitude of the
-people and soldiers was one of perfect
-indifference. The same was the case
-on the following day, when she reviewed
-the garrison in the Prado,
-and conferred decorations and promotion
-on sergeants and privates who
-had distinguished themselves by their
-fidelity in refusing to be led away by
-the insurgents. Surrounded by a numerous
-staff of officers, and having
-the troops formed in such wise that as
-many as possible of them might hear
-her, she addressed to them a short
-speech, was profuse of smiles, and
-held up to them her infant daughter
-as if confiding it to their defence. Now
-was the time, if ever, for the old
-Castilian loyalty to burst forth in acclamation.
-But its spirit is dead,
-crushed by royal misconduct and misrule.
-Not a cheer was uttered,
-either by officer or soldier. The ominous
-silence was remarked by all present.
-It was equally profound as the
-Queen returned to her palace through
-the most populous streets of her
-capital, crowded on the warm summer
-night. It is said and believed here
-that, on reaching the palace, she was
-so affected and disheartened by the
-chilling reception she had on all sides
-met, that she burst into a passion of
-tears. Pity it is for the poor woman,
-who is not without some natural good
-qualities, but whom evil influences and
-a neglected education have brought
-to sorrow and contempt.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>I cannot pretend to relate all the
-incidents of the last fortnight, which
-has been crowded with them to an
-extent that baffles memory. The
-most important you will find in this
-letter—many of the minor ones have
-doubtless escaped me. I must devote
-a few more lines to the first day. An
-unsigned proclamation was circulated,
-of a tenor by no means unacceptable
-to the Liberals, whose chiefs consulted
-as to the propriety of rising in arms,
-or at least of making some demonstration
-of hostility to the government.
-Another proclamation, of greater
-length, signed by three generals,
-O’Donnell, Dulce, and Messina, disappointed
-them, for it contained not
-a word that guaranteed benefit to the
-nation, and spoke merely of the
-knavery of the ministers and of the
-necessity of getting rid of them.
-Moreover, a request was sent in by the
-insurgents that Madrid would remain
-quiet, and leave them to settle matters
-militarily. Between deliberation and
-delays the day passed away, and towards
-night the altered attitude of
-the authorities, who had received
-telegraphic orders from Mr Sartorius
-to act with the utmost vigour, the
-large bodies of troops in the streets
-convincing those who had previously
-doubted that there was still a sufficient
-force in the town to repress any
-popular attempt, caused half-formed
-plans to fall to the ground, and even
-the most ardent and bellicose resolved
-to wait the events of the morrow before
-shouldering musket and throwing
-up barricades.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>The morrow was the festival of St
-Peter, a great holiday, kept quiet as
-a Sunday, with much mass and bull-fights.
-I presume the churches were
-attended, but the bull-fights did not
-take place. Some arrests were made,
-but not many, for some of the persons
-sought after had concealed themselves.
-Madrid was still excited, but quite
-tranquil. On that and the following
-day every sort of rumour was current.
-The insurgents were near the town,
-and there were frequent reports that
-they were coming to attack it. Circulation
-was prohibited in the lower
-part of the street of Alcala, leading to
-the gate near to which the enemy
-were supposed to be. The residence
-of the Captain-general and the officers
-of the staff is in the lower part of
-that street, and the constant passage
-to and fro of orderlies and aides-de-camp
-interested the people: so that
-on the line of demarcation, beyond
-which there was no passage, there
-was a throng from morning till night,
-watching—they knew not exactly for
-what. From time to time there was
-a rush and panic—when the mob encroached
-on the limit, and the military
-were ordered to make them recede.
-The Café Suizo, at the summit of
-the street—which rises and again sinks
-over a small eminence—was a great
-point of rendezvous, and was crowded
-with eager politicians. Towards evening,
-on the 30th, the garrison (almost
-the whole) being out of the town, it
-became known that a fight was imminent,
-or already begun. This was
-in the neighbourhood; but as none
-were allowed to pass, or even to approach
-the gates, news were scanty,
-and little to be relied upon. Cannon
-and musketry were heard, and wounded
-men were seen straggling in. The
-fever of expectation was at its height.
-Public opinion was decidedly in favour
-of the insurgents. They would beat
-the government troops, it was said,
-and enter the town pell-mell with
-them. All the male population of
-Madrid was in the streets, a few
-troops were stationed here and there;
-there was no disorder, but it was easy
-to see that a trifle would produce it.
-I was in the Café Suizo, which was
-crowded in every part, a short time
-after nightfall, when one of the
-alarms I have referred to was given.
-There was a violent rush in the street
-outside, cries and shouts; those without
-crowded into the café, most of
-those within made for the open doors.
-The effect was really startling; it was
-exactly that produced by a charge of
-troops upon a mob; and I saw more
-than one cheek blanch amongst the
-consumers of ices and lemonade (the
-evening was extremely hot) who
-filled the café. But it was a groundless
-alarm, produced, as before, merely
-by the troops compelling the crowd to
-recede. Armed police circulated in
-the throng, dispersing groups, and
-urging them to go home. Soon the
-streets were comparatively clear, but
-the clubs and coffee-houses were filled
-until past midnight with persons discussing
-what had occurred, and giving
-fifty different versions. There
-had been a fight, it was certain, at
-about a league from Madrid, but who
-had won and who had lost was a matter
-of doubt until the next day.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>The <cite>Madrid Gazette</cite>, the order of
-the day, published by General O’Donnell,
-and conversation with officers
-present in the short but sharp action,
-enable me to give you a sketch, which
-you may rely upon as correct, of its
-principal incidents. The garrison of
-Madrid, consisting of about eight battalions
-of infantry, four batteries of
-artillery, and some three hundred cavalry,
-took position on a ridge of
-ground at about a league from Madrid.
-The enemy, strong in cavalry, but
-weak in infantry, sought to draw them
-farther from the town, and into a
-more favourable position for horse to
-act against them. As the result
-proved, the wisest plan would have
-been to persevere in these tactics, and,
-if the garrison refused to advance
-further, to let the day pass without an
-action. But General O’Donnell had
-assurances that a large portion of the
-troops opposed to him only waited an
-opportunity to pass over to his banner.
-A part of the artillery, especially,
-was pledged to do so. After
-some preliminary skirmishing, he ordered
-a charge, which was made in
-gallant style by two squadrons of the
-Principe regiment. In spite of a severe
-fire of shot and shell, reserved,
-until they were within a very short
-distance of the battery they attacked,
-they got amongst the guns, and sabred
-many of the artillerymen, but were prevented
-from carrying off the pieces,
-and compelled to retire, by the heavy
-fire of the squares of infantry formed
-in rear of the artillery. Having thus
-ascertained, beyond a doubt, that
-there was no chance of the artillery
-coming over to them, or allowing
-themselves to be taken, the insurgents
-would have perhaps acted wisely in
-making no farther attempts upon the
-hostile line, or, if they were resolved
-upon a contrary course, in assailing
-the flanks, instead of again charging
-up to the mouths of the cannon. But
-it appears from O’Donnell’s own bulletin
-that the troops were not well in
-hand, and that, enraged at finding
-themselves fired upon by those from
-whom they expected a very different
-reception, they made several charges
-under the direction of their regimental
-chiefs, but without the sanction of
-their generals. I can hardly give a
-better account of the latter part of the
-combat than is contained in two short
-paragraphs of the insurgent general’s
-order of the day, which has been
-copied in the government papers, and
-admitted by these to be a fair and
-true statement of what occurred. The
-bulletin is before me, and I translate
-the passages in question:—</p>
-
-<p class='c010'>“The retreat of the two squadrons of the
-Principe cavalry (those which had charged
-the battery) was opportunely taken advantage
-of by the hostile squadrons of the
-Villaviciosa lancers, and of the <i><span lang="es">Guardia
-Civil</span></i>, who charged after them. This cavalry,
-however, was driven back, when
-in full career, by the 3d and 4th squadrons
-of the Principe, who routed them,
-cutting down a great part of them, and
-receiving into their ranks a large number
-of the soldiers of Villaviciosa, with their
-standard, and four officers, who reversed
-their lances, proclaiming themselves
-friends. In a second charge made by
-these same squadrons, the standard-bearer
-of Villaviciosa, and some soldiers of the
-same corps, who had joined us only because
-they considered themselves prisoners,
-went over again to the enemy.</p>
-
-<p class='c011'>“The bloody effect of the fire of the
-artillery, who, well assured that they would
-not be encountered by the same arm (of
-which we had none), had deliberately
-studied their range, and taken the breasts
-of our soldiers for their mark, caused the
-action to become hot, and the regiment of
-Farnesio again charged upon the guns,
-with great valour and determination. At
-the very mouth of the cannon its colonel
-was wounded and taken prisoner, and several
-officers and soldiers were struck
-down, our cries of <i><span lang="es">Viva la Reina y la
-Constitucion</span></i> being drowned in the roar of
-the enemy’s pieces. Repeated charges
-of the same regiment, and of those of Bourbon,
-Santiago, and the School of Cavalry,
-must have convinced our opponents in the
-action of Vicálvaro, that the feelings
-which prompted those cries are to be
-extinguished in the hearts of our brave
-soldiers by death alone.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The upshot of the action was this:
-The insurgents accepted battle when
-there was little to be gained by them
-in so doing, unless, indeed, the contest
-had been conducted very differently,
-and a more judicious plan had
-been adopted than that of charging
-headlong up to the muzzles of artillery
-supported by squares of infantry.
-But this mistake had its origin, as I
-have already observed, in the expectation
-that the artillery would not fire.
-The insurgents were repulsed, not,
-however, without inflicting considerable
-loss upon their enemies. The
-garrison returned into Madrid in some
-haste and confusion, and near the
-gate a singular incident occurred. It
-was dark, and some lancers appeared
-on their flank—insurgents, according
-to some accounts—a part of their own
-cavalry, as it is reported by others.
-The exact truth will probably never
-be known. But a panic seized the
-infantry; some of the battalions were
-composed in great part of recruits;
-young soldiers, retiring hastily and
-in the dark after their first fight, are
-easily alarmed; the confusion that ensued
-was as great as that of a rout;
-the men fired at random killing and
-wounding their own friends, and a
-great number, especially of the battalion
-of engineers, were thus injured.
-The government papers passed this
-unlucky mistake almost <i><span lang="la">sub silentio</span></i>;
-but the fact is certain, the troops returned
-into the town in disorder, and
-it was not until the next day that all
-the wounded were brought in.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>Some prisoners had been taken
-from the insurgents, including three
-or four wounded officers, the chief of
-whom, Colonel Garrigó, was captured
-amongst the guns, where his horse
-fell, killed by grape-shot. The gallant
-manner in which Garrigó had led
-his men again and again to the charge,
-encountering each time a storm of
-bullets, had excited a strong interest
-in his fate, and measures were taken
-to move the queen’s clemency on his
-behalf. Before the result of these
-were known, and when it was thought
-probable that at any hour he might
-be judged, condemned, and shot, I
-went to the ward of the military hospital
-where he lay under arrest, to see
-another officer of cavalry who had
-been wounded when with the insurgents.
-This officer had gone out of
-Madrid to see some friends who were
-with O’Donnell; he was in plain
-clothes and without arms, but, venturing
-too far forward during the
-action, he got struck from his horse,
-and received, as he lay on the ground,
-a lance-thrust in the neck, of which,
-however, he complained less than of
-blows received from the lance-poles,
-when the men struck at him as they
-rode rapidly past. He had afterwards
-been taken prisoner by an officer, and
-brought into Madrid. In the next
-bed to him was Garrigó, a swarthy,
-soldierly-looking man of about fifty-five;
-he had been hit in the leg, but
-not severely, by a grape-shot, and
-was sitting up in bed, fanning away
-the flies which entered in unpleasant
-numbers through the open windows.
-He looked gloomy, but firm. There
-were some other wounded officers in
-the ward, one of whom subsequently
-died after undergoing amputation of
-a leg, and a number of soldiers in an
-adjoining one. Amongst the insurgents,
-I heard there were as many
-killed as wounded; and many horses
-dead, the artillery having pointed
-their guns low. Grape and round
-shot, at fifty paces, the distance to
-which the cavalry were allowed to
-come before the gunners got the word,
-were quite as likely, perhaps, to kill
-as only to wound. An officer received
-two grape-shot in his face—one at
-each angle of the nostrils; another,
-Captain Letamendi, the English son
-of a Spanish father, who served during
-the civil war in the British Legion,
-was met by a round shot, which
-carried away the greater part of his
-head. But you will find nothing attractive
-in such details.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>The combat of Vicálvaro, insignificant
-in its material results, had little
-effect upon the <em>morale</em> of either party.
-The government troops were assured
-by the gazette that they had achieved
-a glorious victory, of which they themselves
-were not very sure, especially
-when they saw the numerous carts of
-wounded that came into the town, and
-remembered their own disorderly return
-from the field and final panic.
-The insurgents, conscious that they
-had fought gallantly, and lost no
-ground, although they had failed in
-their chief object, which was to capture
-the artillery, were well satisfied
-with themselves, and in no way disheartened
-by the event. It was clear
-that the insurgent generals must not
-reckon on the support of the garrison
-of Madrid, and they consequently
-changed their plans, retiring to Aranjuez,
-a pleasant spot, eight leagues
-from Madrid, with abundant shade,
-water, and forage, where for two or
-three days they gave their men and
-horses rest, organised their staff and
-commissariat, and took other measures
-necessary for the welfare of the division.
-There they received several
-reinforcements, both of infantry and
-cavalry, and were joined by a number
-of civilians from Madrid, many
-of them belonging to the better
-classes. These received caps, muskets,
-and belts, and were formed
-into a battalion called the <i><span lang="es">Cazadores
-di Madrid</span></i>.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>Meanwhile, the capital anxiously
-awaited news from the provinces,
-where insurrections were expected to
-occur. Madrid itself continued perfectly
-tranquil, although occasional
-rumours of an intended popular rising
-alarmed the government. The excitement
-of the first three days subsided
-into a strong interest. There
-was great eagerness for news from the
-insurgents, and much difficulty in
-learning anything authentic, especially
-when once they had left Aranjuez. Save
-the government and its hangers-on and
-personal adherents, all Madrid was
-for the insurrection, and heartily
-wished it well. The recent compulsory
-advance of half a year’s taxes,
-extorted from the people by a notoriously
-corrupt and grasping government,
-had greatly incensed the Madrileños,
-who did not scruple openly to
-express their good wishes for Generals
-O’Donnell and Dulce, the most
-prominent personages of the day and
-of the movement. Although the insurrection
-deprived Madrid of two
-things which it can ill do without,
-bull-fights and strawberries, not a
-murmur was heard on this account.
-Aranjuez is the strawberry garden of
-Madrid, and from it daily comes an
-abundant supply of that fruit, particularly
-grateful in this hot climate.
-I suppose that the insurgents, who
-had been for three days roasting in
-the shadeless desert that surrounds this
-capital, needed refreshment, and eat
-up all the strawberries, or else that
-the want of a railway—that to Aranjuez
-being partly in the hands of the
-government, and partly in those of
-O’Donnell, and cut in the middle—precluded
-their being sent. As for
-bull-fights, it was no time for them
-when man-fights were going on; and
-moreover, the gates of Madrid were
-for several days shut—besides which,
-some of the bull-fighters are said to
-have joined the insurgents. The dramatic
-season being at an end, and all
-the theatres closed, Madrid has now
-for sole amusement the insurrection,
-which every day seems taking farther
-from its walls, but which not impossibly
-may break out again within
-them. If a decided advantage were
-gained by O’Donnell’s division, or if
-news came that Saragossa or some
-other large town had pronounced
-against the government, there would
-very likely be a rising in this capital.
-I am assured that attempts are now
-making to work upon the troops
-of the garrison, and if only a few
-companies could be won over and
-relied upon, the government might
-speedily be upset. There are in
-Madrid plenty of ex-national guards,
-and of men who have served in
-the army, who would quickly produce
-their hidden arms and rush out into
-the streets, with cries of “Down with
-the ministry.” It is matter of considerable
-doubt whether these would
-be coupled with <em>vivas</em> for the Queen.
-As for the Queen-mother, I am convinced
-that her life would be in danger
-in the event of such an outbreak. She
-is deeply detested here; the more so
-as she is known to support the present
-government with all the influence she
-possesses over her daughter. A Madrid
-revolutionary mob is dangerous,
-vindictive, and bloody-minded. In
-proof of this many incidents recur to
-my memory, and doubtless will to
-yours—amongst others, the fate of
-Quesada, whose son is now military
-governor here, and who was almost
-torn to pieces at the country house in
-the environs, whither he had fled for
-shelter. His murderers returned to
-Madrid, singing the dreaded <cite><span lang="es">Tragala!</span></cite>
-and drank in the public cafés bowls of
-coffee stirred with his severed fingers.
-The revolutionary spirit is calmer
-now, but it may again revive upon
-occasion. No person in Spain, not
-even Sartorius himself, who certainly
-is sufficiently hated, is so much under
-public ban as Maria Christina. She
-doubtless knows it: her conscience
-can hardly be easy, and her fears are
-probably roused; for her approaching
-departure for France is much spoken
-of, and likely to take place.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>Since O’Donnell’s division left the
-neighbourhood of Madrid, we have
-heard comparatively little concerning
-him. We know his route; also that
-his strength has somewhat increased,
-that his troops are well-disciplined
-and confident of success, and that he
-is at this date in Andalusia. Where
-he may be, and what may have
-occurred by the time you receive this
-letter, it is of course impossible to
-foretell; but, although ministerial bulletins
-daily scatter his men to the
-winds, representing them as deserting,
-weary, exterminated, and, if possible,
-even in worse plight, the truth is that
-they are in as good order, and as ready
-for service, as if they held themselves
-subject to the government of the
-Queen. Every possible means have
-been taken by the authorities to throw
-discredit upon the insurgents and upon
-their leaders, by representing them as
-robbers and oppressors, paying for
-nothing, ill-treating the people, and
-exacting forced contributions at the
-bayonet’s point. “To lie like a bulletin,”
-is an old saying, but it would
-be at least as apt to say—“like the
-<em>Madrid Gazette</em> or the <em>Heraldo</em> newspaper.”
-I can well imagine how
-difficult it must be in other countries
-to get at the truth about Spanish
-affairs, when I see the systematic
-efforts made to suppress it here. Letters
-are seized by wholesale in their
-passage through the post-office, some
-newspapers are suppressed, and others
-are permitted to publish no news but
-those they copy from the government
-journals, which are for the most part
-ingeniously embellished to suit the
-purpose of the ministers; whilst sometimes
-they are pure fabrications. One
-of the great occupations of the official
-papers, for the first few days after the
-insurrection broke out, was to blacken
-the character of its leaders. Dulce,
-especially—who, in common with the
-other generals engaged in the outbreak,
-had been stripped by royal
-decree of all rank, titles, and honours—was
-the object of abuse
-which bordered upon billingsgate.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>The virtuous <em>Heraldo</em> daily came
-out with fierce philippics upon the
-“rebel and traitor,” who had deserted
-his Queen because he deemed that
-she had deserted the country and
-broken her oath, and who, by so doing,
-had exchanged large emoluments, high
-rank, and one of the best positions his
-profession affords in Spain, for the uncertain
-fate of an insurgent leader—perhaps,
-in the end, for a short shrift
-and a firing party. The men of the
-<em>Heraldo</em> could not understand this;
-they felt that <em>they</em> were incapable of
-such conduct; in their heart of hearts
-they must have thought Dulce more
-remarkable as a fool than as a rebel,
-but in their paper they contented
-themselves with abusing him as the
-latter. Inexpert with the pen, Dulce
-nevertheless took it up to reply. On
-the 1st of July, the day after the
-drawn fight of Vicálvaro, and in a
-village close to the scene of action,
-he wrote a letter, whose faulty style
-and soldierly abruptness are the best
-evidence of its being his own unassisted
-production. As a characteristic
-production, and in justice to its writer,
-who will doubtless be blamed by many
-in foreign countries, where the facts of
-the case and the extent of the sacrifices
-he has made are imperfectly
-known and appreciated, I give you a
-translation of the letter. It is addressed
-to the editors of the <em>Heraldo</em>,
-and runs as follows:—</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>“Since you have allowed the publication
-in your periodical of an article
-referring to me personally, and to my
-conduct, and as I consider that an insult
-is not a reason, I trust you will
-be pleased to publish my protest
-against the whole of your accusation,
-by doing which you will fulfil your
-duty as public writers.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>“I do not wish to prejudge the
-issue of our enterprise; whatever
-that may be it will not surprise me,
-or make me repent what I have done.
-That I may not be disappointed, the
-worst that I expect is to die in the
-field of battle or in the <i><span lang="es">Campo de
-Guardias</span></i> (the place of military executions
-at Madrid). Whatever occurs,
-I shall have acted according to my
-conscience.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>“I seek neither places nor honours,
-for I have them in abundance. No
-desire of revenge of any kind has
-moved me, for I cherish neither dislike
-nor resentment against the persons
-composing the present government,
-and much less against the
-Queen. The cause of my insurrection
-is entirely the memory that I have of
-the oath taken by the King of Castile
-when he ascends the throne. He
-swears upon the Holy Scriptures to
-observe and enforce the law of the
-State—‘<em>and if I should not do so, I
-desire not to be obeyed</em>.’</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>“My conviction is, that the Queen
-has violated her oath, and, in this
-case, I prefer being guilty of <em>leze-majesty</em>
-to being guilty of <em>leze-nation</em>.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>“I well know that the sentiments I
-have expressed will not convince you,
-because they must be felt and not explained.
-For my justification I appeal
-to the inexorable tribunal of posterity,
-and to the secret police of the consciences
-of yourselves in the first place,
-of the Queen herself, and of this unhappy
-country.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>“A copy of this document is already
-on the road, and will be published,
-as you will see, in foreign
-countries. I also send it to other
-Madrid newspapers, although I believe
-that a miserable fear will prevent
-their publishing it.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>“That you may never be able to
-deny that I have sent you this letter,
-I have had formal registry made of
-it, and it perhaps will one day be
-published. I trust then that you will
-be sufficiently generous and gentlemanly<a id='r29'></a><a href='#f29' class='c007'><sup>[29]</sup></a>
-to insert it in your periodical,
-by doing which you will highly oblige
-me. (Signed) <span class='sc'>El General Dulce</span>.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>“Vallecas, 1st July 1854.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>“The original is to be found duly
-stamped in the register of this corporation,
-where it has been inserted
-against the will of the individuals
-composing it, who are exempt from
-all blame.”</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>I need hardly say that the <em>Heraldo</em>
-has not published this letter, of which
-numerous copies have been distributed
-in Madrid by friends of its writer,
-and by persons who believe that, as
-he himself says, he has “acted according
-to his conscience (<i><span lang="es">dado una satisfaccion
-à mi conciencia</span></i>), and who admire
-his disinterestedness—the rarest
-quality amongst public men in Spain.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>It is not easy to foretell the result of
-this insurrection, which has now lasted
-for fifteen days without any decisive
-or even important event. The
-country, taken by surprise, and ignorant
-of the objects of the outbreak—which
-it suspected to have been
-made merely to bring about a change
-of men, but not of system—looked on
-at first with apathy. O’Donnell’s
-greatest error was the first proclamation
-he issued, which, in many words,
-said nothing and held out no prospect
-of advantage to the people. Another
-has just appeared, short, pithy, explicit,
-and calculated to satisfy the liberal
-party. It promises the Spanish nation
-the benefits of the representative
-system, for which it has shed so much
-of its blood and made so many sacrifices,
-as yet without result.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>“It is time,” it continues, “to say
-what we propose doing on the day of
-victory. We desire the preservation
-of the throne, but without the camarilla
-that dishonours it; the rigorous
-enforcement of the fundamental laws,
-improving them, especially those of
-elections and of the press; a diminution
-of taxation, founded on strict
-economy; respect to seniority and
-merit in the civil and military services.
-We desire to relieve the towns from
-the centralising system that consumes
-them, giving them the local independence
-necessary to preserve and increase
-their own interests; and, as a
-guarantee of all these things, we desire
-the <span class='sc'>National Militia</span>, and will
-plant it on a solid basis. Such are our
-intentions, which we frankly express,
-but without imposing them upon the
-nation. The juntas of government
-that are to be constituted in the free
-provinces, the general Cortes that are
-soon to be assembled, the nation itself,
-in short, shall fix the definitive
-bases of the liberal regeneration to
-which we aspire. We devote our
-swords to the national will, and sheathe
-them only when it is fulfilled.”</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>This proclamation is dated from
-Manzanaris, the 7th July, and is signed
-by O’Donnell. You will observe that
-no mention is made in it of the Queen.
-It is monarchical, because it desires
-to “preserve the throne;” but it by no
-means pledges those who publish it
-to retain Isabella II. The promise to
-arm the national guard is the most
-important that it contains, since that
-is the only guarantee the Liberals can
-have for the fulfilment of the other
-pledges. It may possibly induce the
-Progresistas, who hitherto have scarcely
-stirred in the business, to take active
-measures. Meanwhile we hear of
-risings and armed bands in various
-parts of the country, and persons familiar
-with Spanish revolutions, and
-who have witnessed many of them,
-notice signs of fermentation, which
-prove the insurrectionary spirit to be
-spreading—a bubble here and there
-on water, indicating that it will presently
-boil. When O’Donnell’s proclamation
-gets spread abroad, and its
-purport known, it is quite possible
-that large towns or districts may declare
-for the insurgents. In Spain,
-however, it is most difficult to speculate
-on coming events, for it is the
-land of the unforeseen—<i><span lang="fr">le pays de l’imprévu</span></i>—and
-I shall not attempt to
-play the prophet, for, if I did, perhaps,
-before my letter reached you,
-the electric telegraph would have
-proved me a false one. Moreover,
-I have no time to add much more,
-for I well know that you, Ebony,
-will grumble, if this letter does not
-reach you somewhere about the twentieth
-of the month. Moreover, the
-horses of Maga’s foreign-service messenger
-neigh with impatience, and the
-escort which is to accompany him on
-the first stage of his journey is
-already formed up. For the roads
-are far from safe just now, thanks to
-the concentration of the gendarmes,
-(who usually keep excellent order
-upon them), to do duty in the capital,
-or pursue the insurgents. We hear
-of various bands appearing—north,
-south, and east—some calling themselves
-Carlists, others Republicans,
-but in either case probably not pleasant
-to meet on the road; and besides
-those there are smaller parties who
-do not aspire to a political character,
-and are abroad simply for their own
-behoof and advantage, and, I need
-not say, for the disadvantage of the
-travellers they may chance to encounter.
-As for sending letters of
-the nature and importance of this one
-by the ordinary channel of Her Catholic
-Majesty’s mails, one would do
-better to abstain from writing them,
-as the chances would be fifty to one
-against their ever reaching their destination.
-One might almost as well
-throw them into the fire as into the
-marble lion’s mouth that yawns at
-the <i><span lang="es">casa de correos</span></i>,—as if to warn
-people of the dangers their correspondence
-runs. Were I to consign this
-epistle to leo’s jaws, I should not expect
-it ever to go farther than to the
-Graham-department of the Madrid
-post-office.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>Although you will have gathered
-from the newspapers the principal
-events, and some of the minor particulars
-of the insurrection of 1854—as
-far as it has as yet gone—this sketch
-of it, however imperfect, from an eyewitness,
-will, I trust, interest you.
-Spanish revolutions and insurrections
-rarely resemble each other; every
-successive outbreak has a character
-of its own, distinct from that of its
-predecessors. And that of the 28th
-of last month has peculiar features,
-which I have endeavoured to portray.
-If my letter has no other merit, it
-will, I think, bring its readers, concisely,
-without much detail, but with
-perfect truth, up to the present point
-of Spanish politics. Should aught
-worth relating occur whilst I am
-within the boundaries of Queen Isabel’s
-dominions, rely upon my keeping
-you duly informed. Meanwhile,
-may Providence preserve you, in your
-happy Land of Cakes, alike from military
-revolts, and from popular <em>pronunciamientos</em>.
-So prays, from his
-exile <i><span lang="la">in partibus</span></i>, your faithful</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-r'>
-  <div class='linegroup'>
-    <div class='group'>
-      <div class='line'><span class='sc'>Vedette.</span></div>
-    </div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-
-<div class='chapter'>
-  <span class='pageno' id='Page_165'>165</span>
-  <h2 class='c002'>THE ETHNOLOGY OF EUROPE.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>“There were brave men before
-Agamemnon,”—heroes before there
-was a Homer to sing them, says that
-prince of sensible poets, Horace. It
-is not less true that there were nations
-before history—communities, races,
-of which the eye of civilisation never
-caught a glimpse. In some cases,
-before the light of history broke in
-upon their seclusion, these old types
-of mankind, losing their individuality,
-had become merged in a succeeding
-and mightier wave of population; in
-others they had wholly disappeared,—they
-had lived and fought and died
-in perfect isolation from every focus
-of civilisation, and left not even a
-floating legend behind them in the
-world. Man’s mortality—the destiny
-of the individual to pass away from
-earth like a vapour, making room for
-others, heirs of his wisdom and unimbued
-with his prejudices—is the
-most familiar of truths; but the mortality
-of nations, the death of races,
-is a conception which at first staggers
-us. That a family should grow into
-a nation,—that from the loins of one
-man should descend a seed like unto
-the sands on the sea-shore for multitude,
-appears to our everyday senses
-as a natural consequence; but that
-nations should dwindle down to families,
-and families into solitary individuals,
-until death gets all, and
-earth has swallowed up a whole phase
-of humanity, is a thought the grandeur
-of which is felt to be solemn, if not
-appalling. The conception, however,
-need not be a strange one. Facts,
-which reconcile us to everything, are
-testifying to its truth even at the present
-day. It is not long since the
-Guanches in the Canary Islands, that
-last specimen of what may once have
-been a race, and the Guarras in Brazil,
-dwindled out of existence in their
-last asylum,—expiring at the feet of
-the more lordly race which the fulness
-of time brought to their dwellings.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>Not to mention the Miaou-tse in
-China, and other relics of Asiatic
-races, the same phenomenon is more
-impressively presented to us among
-the Red Men of America, where the
-old race is seen dying out beneath our
-very eyes. Year by year they are
-melting away. Of the millions which
-once peopled the vast regions on this
-side of the Mississippi River, all have
-vanished, but a few scattered families;
-and it is as clear as the sun at noonday,
-that in a few generations more,
-the last of the Red Men will be numbered
-with the dead. Why, is it
-asked, are they thus doomed? In
-the suburbs of Mobile, or wandering
-through its streets, you will see the
-remnant of the Choctaw tribe, covered
-with nothing but blankets, and living
-in bark tents, scarcely a degree advanced
-above the beasts of the field.
-No philanthropy can civilise them,—no
-ingenuity can induce them to do
-an honest day’s work. The life of the
-woods is struck from them,—the white
-man has taken their hunting-grounds;
-and they live on helpless as in a
-dream, quietly abiding their time.
-They are stationary, they will not advance;
-and, like everything stationary,
-the world is sweeping away.
-They sufficed for the first phase of
-humanity in the New World. As
-long as there was only need for man
-to be lord of the woods and of the
-animal creation, the Red Man did
-well; but no sooner did the call come
-for him to perfect himself, and change
-the primeval forest into gardens, than
-the Red Man knew, by mysterious
-instinct, that his mission was over,—and
-either allowed himself, in sheer
-apathy, to sink out of existence among
-the pitiless feet of the new-comers, or
-died fighting fiercely with the apostle
-of a civilisation which he hated but
-could not comprehend.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>Far back in the history of Europe
-and of our own country—or rather,
-we should say, in periods entirely pre-historic—it
-is now known that a similar
-disappearance of a human race has
-taken place. Celt and Teuton, we
-fancy, were the first occupiers of Europe,—but
-the case is not so. A
-wave or waves of population had preceded
-even them; and as we dig down
-into the soil beneath us, ever and anon
-we come upon strange and startling
-traces of those primeval occupants of
-the land. In those natural museums
-of the past, the caves and peat-bogs of
-Europe, the keen-witted archæologists
-of present times are finding abundant
-relics of a race dissimilar from all the
-human varieties of which written history
-takes cognisance. The researches
-of Wilson among the peat-bogs of the
-British Isles have brought to light
-traces of no less than two distinct pre-Celtic
-races inhabiting the land,—one
-of which had the skull of a singularly
-broad and short, square and compact
-form, while the head of the other
-race was long and very narrow, or
-“boat-shaped.” The exhumations
-of Retzius show that precisely similar
-races once inhabited Scandinavia.
-The caves and ossuaries of
-Franconia and Upper Saxony prove
-that in Central Europe, also, there
-were races before the advent of the
-Celts; and the researches of Boucher
-de Perthes, amid the alluvial stratifications
-of the river Somme, indicate a
-not less ancient epoch for the cinerary
-urns, bones, and instruments of a primordial
-people in France.</p>
-
-<p class='c010'>“Here,” says M. de Perthes, “we
-naturally inquire, who were these mysterious
-primitive inhabitants of Gaul? We
-are told that this part of Europe is of
-modern origin, or at least of recent population.
-Its annals scarcely reach to
-twenty centuries, and even its traditions
-do not exceed two thousand five hundred
-years. The various people who are
-known to history as having occupied it—the
-Gauls, the Celts, the Veneti, Ligurians,
-Iberians, Cimbrians, and Scythians
-have left no vestiges to which we can
-assign that date. The traces of those
-[originally] nomadic tribes who ravaged
-Gaul scarcely precede the Christian era
-by a few centuries. Was Gaul, then, a
-desert, a solitude, before this period?
-Was its sun less genial, or its soil less
-fertile? Were not its hills as pleasant,
-and its plains and valleys as ready for the
-harvest? Or, if men had not yet learned to
-plough and sow, were not its rivers filled
-with fish, and its forests with game?
-And, if the land abounded with everything
-calculated to attract and support a
-population, why should it not have been
-inhabited? The absence of great ruins,
-indeed, indicates that Gaul at this period,
-and even much later, had not attained a
-great degree of civilisation, nor been the
-seat of powerful kingdoms; but why
-should it not have had its towns and villages?—or
-rather, why should it not, like
-the steppes of Russia, the prairies and
-virgin forests of America, and the fertile
-plains of Africa, have been overrun from
-time immemorial by tribes of men—savages,
-perhaps, but nevertheless united in
-families if not in nations?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>We shall not dwell at present upon
-the relics of these races who have thus
-preceded all history, and vanished into
-their graves before a civilised age could
-behold them. We shall not accompany
-M. de Perthes in his various excavations,
-nor, after passing through
-the first stratum of soil, and coming
-to the relics of the middle ages, see
-him meet subsequently, in regular
-order, with traces of the Roman and
-Celtic periods, until at last he comes
-upon weapons, utensils, figures, signs
-and symbols, which must have been
-the work of a surpassingly ancient
-people. We need not describe his
-discovery of successive beds of bones
-and ashes, separated from each other
-by strata of turf and tufa, with no less
-than five different stages of cinerary
-urns, belonging to distinct generations,
-of which the oldest were deposited
-below the woody or diluvian turf,—nor
-the coarse structure of these vases
-(made by hand and dried in the sun),
-nor the rude utensils of bone, or
-roughly-carved stone, by which they
-were surrounded.<a id='r30'></a><a href='#f30' class='c007'><sup>[30]</sup></a> Neither need we
-do more than allude to the remains
-of a fossil whale recently exhumed
-in Blair Drummond moss, (twenty
-miles from the nearest point of the
-river Forth where, by any possibility,
-a whale could nowadays be
-stranded), having beside it a rude
-harpoon of deer’s horn—speaking
-plainly of the coexistence, in these
-remote pre-Celtic times, of human inhabitants.
-Even above ground there
-are striking relics scattered over Europe
-which it would be hazardous to
-assign to any race known to history.
-Those circles of upright stones, of
-which Stonehenge is the most familiar
-example, date back to an unknown
-antiquity. They are found throughout
-Europe, from Norway to the
-Mediterranean; and manifestly they
-must have been erected by a numerous
-people, and faithful exponents of
-a general sentiment, since we find
-them in so many countries. They are
-commonly called Celtic or Druidic;
-not because they were raised originally
-by Druids, but because they had been
-used in the Druidical worship, though
-erected, it may be, for other uses, or
-dedicated to other divinities,—even
-as the temples of Paganism afterwards
-served for the solemnities of Christianity.
-All that we know is, that,
-having neither date nor inscription,
-they must be older than written language,—for
-a people who can write
-never leave their own names or exploits
-unchronicled. The ancients
-were as ignorant on this matter as
-ourselves; even tradition is silent;
-and, at the period of the Roman invasion,
-the origin of those monuments
-was already shrouded in obscurity.
-A revolution, therefore, must have intervened
-between the time of their
-erection and the advent of the Legions;
-and what revolution could it be in
-those days save a revolution of race?
-“The Celtæ,” says Dr Wilson, “are
-by no means to be regarded as the
-primal heirs of the land, but are, on
-the contrary, comparatively recent intruders.
-Ages before their migration
-into Europe, an unknown Allophylian
-race had wandered to this remote
-island of the sea, and in its turn gave
-place to later Allophylian nomades,
-also destined to occupy it only for a
-time. Of these ante-historical nations,
-archæology alone reveals any traces.”</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>Passing from this strange and solemn
-spectacle of the death and utter
-extinction of human races, once living
-and enjoying themselves amidst those
-very scenes where we ourselves now
-pant and revel in the drama of existence,—let
-us look upon the face of
-Europe as it appears when first the
-light of history broke upon it. Since
-then, there have been remarkable declines,
-but no extinction of races. As
-if war and rivalry were a permanent
-attribute of the species, when the
-curtain first rises upon Europe, it is
-a struggle of races that is discernible
-through the gloom. A dark-skinned
-race, long settled in the land, are
-fighting doggedly with a fair-skinned
-race of invaders from the East.
-The dark-skins were worsted, but
-still survive—definitely in detached
-groups, and indefinitely as a leaven
-to entire populations. That dark-skinned
-race have been called Iberians,—the
-fair-skinned new-comers
-were the Indo-Germans, headed by
-the Gaels or Celts. When the two
-races first met in Europe—the <em>blond</em>
-from the south-east, meeting the <em>dark</em>
-in the west—they encountered each
-other as natural enemies, and a severe
-struggle ensued. The Celts finally
-forced their way into Spain, and
-established themselves there,—became
-more or less amalgamated with
-the darker occupants, and were called
-<em>Celt-Iberians</em>. Ever since, these two
-opposite types have been commingling
-throughout Western Europe; but a
-complete fusion has not even yet
-taken place, and the types of each
-are still traceable in certain localities.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>There was thus an Iberian world
-before there was a Celtic world. One
-of the pre-Celtic populations of the
-British Isles was probably Iberian;
-and their type, besides leavening indefinitely
-a portion of the present
-population, is still distinctly traceable
-in many of the dark-haired, dark-eyed,
-and dark-skinned Irish, as well
-as occasionally in Great Britain itself.
-The Basques, protected by their Pyrenean
-fastnesses, are a still existent
-group of nearly pure Iberians; and of
-their tongue, termed Euskaldune by
-its speakers, Duponceau long ago
-said:—“This language, preserved in
-a corner of Europe, by a few thousand
-mountaineers, is the sole remaining
-fragment of perhaps a hundred
-dialects, constructed on the same
-plan, which probably existed and
-were universally spoken, at a remote
-period, in that quarter of the world.
-Like the bones of the mammoth, and
-the relics of unknown races which have
-perished, it remains a monument of
-the destruction brought by a succession
-of ages. It stands single and
-alone of its kind, surrounded by idioms
-whose modern construction bears no
-analogy to it.”</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>The Bretons form another isolated
-but less distinct group of still existent
-Iberians. To this day they present a
-striking contrast to the population
-around them, who are of tall stature,
-with blue eyes, white skins, and blond
-hair—communicative, impetuous, versatile—passing
-rapidly from courage
-to timidity, and from audacity to despair;—in
-other words, presenting the
-distinctive character of the Celtic race,
-now, as in the ancient Gauls. The
-Bretons are entirely different. They are
-taciturn—hold strongly to their ideas
-and usages—are persevering and of
-melancholic temperament;—in a word,
-both in <em>morale</em> and <em>physique</em>, they
-present the type of a southern race.
-And this brings us to the question—whence
-came these Iberians? M.
-Bodichon, a surgeon distinguished for
-fifteen years in the French army of
-Algeria, observes that persons who
-have lived in Brittany, and then go to
-Algeria, are struck with the resemblance
-which they discover between
-the ancient Armoricans (the Bretons)
-and the Cabyles of northern Africa.
-“In fact, the moral and physical character
-of the two races is identical.
-The Breton of pure blood has a bony
-head, light-yellow complexion of
-bistre tinge, eyes black or brown, stature
-short, and the black hair of the
-Cabyle. Like him, he instinctively
-hates strangers. In both, the same
-perverseness and obstinacy, the same
-endurance of fatigue, same love of
-independence, same inflexion of voice,
-same expression of feelings. Listen to
-a Cabyle speaking his native tongue,
-and you will think you hear a Breton
-talking Celtic.” Impressed with this
-resemblance, M. Bodichon was induced
-to reflect on the subject, and
-at last came to the conclusion that
-the Berbers who primally peopled
-Northern Africa, and the dark-skinned
-Iberians of Western Europe, belonged
-to the same race. He thinks that, as
-Europe and Africa were once united at
-their western extremities, previous to
-the convulsion which produced the
-Straits of Gibraltar, this Iberian population
-passed into Spain by this primeval
-isthmus, and thence diffused themselves
-over Western Europe and its
-isles. Whether this were actually the
-case, it is hard to say; but it is important
-to note that Sallust, quoting
-“the Punic books which were ascribed
-to King Hiempsal,” exactly reverses
-the course of migration, and states
-that the progenitors of the African
-Moors were Medians and Persians
-who had marched through Europe
-into Spain, and thence into Mauritania—though
-whether overland by
-the isthmus, or by boats across the
-strait, is still left to conjecture. Prichard
-thinks the Libyans and Iberians
-were distinct races, but owns that
-they were found intermingling in the
-islands and along the western shores
-of the Mediterranean. Of course it
-may be taken for granted that
-among these Iberians thus spread
-over Africa, Spain, France, and the
-British Isles, local differences would
-exist—just as there is a perceptible
-difference between the Anglo-Saxons
-of the Old World and those of the
-New; but there is little doubt that
-the <i><span lang="la">Scoti</span></i> of Ireland, the Iberians of
-Spain, and the Berbers of Africa, belonged
-to a fundamentally identical
-race.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>How any race first came into a
-country, is a matter of little moment,
-especially when the epoch of their
-arrival so far transcends the dawn of
-history as does that of the Iberians.
-Even the first wave of the Celtic
-migration had reached the West before
-any scrutiny of their progress was
-possible; for when tradition first dimly
-opens upon Gaul, about 1500 <span class='fss'>B. C.</span>,
-its territory was occupied by these
-two primitive and distinctly-marked
-Caucasian races—the Celts and Iberians:
-the one fair-skinned and light-haired,
-the other a dark race; and
-each speaking a language bearing no
-affinity to that of the other—precisely
-as the Euskaldune of the present
-Basques is unintelligible to Gaelic
-tribes of Lower Brittany. Some of
-the subsequent waves of Celtic or
-Scythic migration come within the
-ken of history; and it is remarkable
-that the line of march which these
-followed, after passing the shores of
-the Black Sea, seems to have been
-along the “Riphæan Valley,” which
-lay to the north of the Carpathian
-mountains, and stretched to the Baltic.
-Now, if we look at the contour
-map of Europe in <cite>Johnston’s
-Physical Atlas</cite>, we see a narrow strip
-of the lowest elevation extending
-from the Black Sea to the Baltic—nowhere
-rising to the second line of
-elevation, <em>i.e.</em> more than 150 and less
-than 300 feet above the level of the
-sea,—and turning to the geological
-map, we find that this same tract is
-overlaid with recent diluvial deposits.
-We know that the Scandinavian region
-is rising, and it is probable
-that all the plain of Sarmatia has
-partaken of the elevation,—and before
-the barriers of the Thracian
-Bosphorus burst, it is quite certain
-that the waters of the Caspian, the
-Euxine, and the Baltic were united
-by that “ocean-river” of which
-Homer, Hesiod, and all the old bards
-sing, and by sailing along which, both
-the Argonauts and Ulysses are reported
-to have passed northwards
-into the western ocean. The existence
-of this vast belt of water, stretching
-from the southmost point of the
-Baltic to the Caucasus, is probably
-one reason why the Slavonians were
-late of appearing in southern Europe,
-and why no sprinkling of them or of the
-Mongols is to be found among the early
-settlers of South-western Europe.
-All the early migrations into Europe
-proceeded from Caucasian or sub-Caucasian
-regions—a circumstance
-which, considering the known simultaneous
-existence of roving hordes
-and a great population on the Mongolian
-plains, can hardly be accounted
-for on the supposition that the face of
-Eastern Europe has since then undergone
-no change. But on the supposition
-we make, the chain of the Ural
-Mountains and this large Mediterranean
-basin would for long act as restraints
-upon any tendency of the
-Mongolian population to move westward,
-or of the Slavonians to move
-southwards.<a id='r31'></a><a href='#f31' class='c007'><sup>[31]</sup></a></p>
-
-<p class='c009'>The next wave of population which
-flowed westwards was the Cimbri or
-Cimmerians,—a people cognate to
-the Celts or Gaels, yet by no
-means closely related. About the
-seventh century <span class='fss'>B.C.</span>, as may be inferred
-from Herodotus, a clan of this
-race abandoned the Tauric Chersonese,
-and marched westwards,—this
-Cimbrian migration, however,
-like most others, not being conducted
-in one mass, but by successive
-and sometimes widely-severed
-movements. Three centuries afterwards
-we find the Cimbri on the
-shores of the Northern Ocean in Jutland;
-and between the years 113 and
-101 <span class='fss'>B.C.</span>, we find the race all on the
-move, and setting out on that southward
-career of devastation which
-eventually brought them into Gaul,
-Spain, and Italy. The Belgians seem
-to have been a Cimbrian tribe which
-had preceded the main body; for
-when, in this invasion, the Cimbri
-reached Northern Gaul, the Belgæ
-immediately joined them as allies
-against the Celts,—and it seems also
-proven that the Cimbri and Belgæ
-spoke dialects of the same language.
-The Celts, routed by the invaders,
-were impelled to the south and east,
-doubtless trespassing in turn upon
-the dark-skinned Iberians. It was immediately
-after this inroad that Cæsar
-and his Romans entered Gaul, and
-commenced his Commentaries with
-the well-known statement:—“All
-Gaul is divided into three parts, of
-which one is inhabited by the Belgians,
-[or Cimbri, in the north]—another
-by the Aquitanians [or Iberians,
-in the south-west],—and the
-third [or eastern], by those who in
-their own language, call themselves
-Celts, and who in our tongue are
-called Gael (<em>Galli</em>). These races
-differ among themselves by their
-language, their manners, and their
-laws.” Previous to this time the
-Teutons had settled in central Europe,
-and in alliance with Celtic tribes
-made incursions into Italy.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>We have now reached a period at
-which the population of Europe becomes
-greatly mixed, in consequence
-of the constant rovings and incursions
-of the various races and tribes of
-which it was composed. It is interesting
-to note the effect of such a state
-of things upon the physical characteristics
-of the people. And first it is
-to be observed, that, with extremely
-rare exceptions, conquest is not attended
-by extermination. When one
-people, even in semi-barbarous times,
-conquers another, it does not annihilate
-and rarely displaces, but for the
-most part only overlays it. The annihilating
-process, of which a sample
-may be seen in America, only takes
-place in the rare case of the meeting
-of two nations, in such widely different
-states of civilisation as to render
-amalgamation impossible,—and even
-in this case only when the inferior
-race is so intractable as to resist all
-obedience to the superior. <em>Displacement</em>—which
-is obsolete now, since
-advancing civilisation has rendered
-conquest political only—was pretty
-common two thousand years ago,
-when Europe was thinly and nomadically
-peopled, and tribes migrated <em>en
-masse</em>. In this way, for example, the
-Cimbri wedged themselves in among
-the Celts in Northern Gaul, and took
-possession of a large tract in Northern
-Italy. But soon after the Christian era—chiefly
-in consequence of the increasing
-density and settled habits of the
-population—conquest ceased to produce
-either extermination or displacement,
-and consisted merely in the
-overlaying of one population by another
-much less numerous but more
-powerful. Thus the Normans in England
-and the Franks in Gaul were
-but a handful compared to the conquered
-population; and consequently,
-though they might give their laws
-and even their name to the country,
-they could not materially alter the
-physical character of the people.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>The chief influence which, in the
-case of two races mingling, determines
-the preservation or extinction
-of types or national features, is simply
-the numerical proportion existing between
-the two races thus amalgamating.
-When races meet and mix on
-equal terms, and with no natural repugnance
-to each other (in other words,
-<i><span lang="la">cæteris paribus</span></i>), the relative number
-of the two races decides the question—the
-type of the smaller number, in
-this hypothetical case, inevitably disappearing
-in the long run. Take, for
-example, a thousand white families
-and fifty black ones—place them on
-an island, and let them regularly intermarry;
-and the result would be,
-that in the course of time the black
-type would disappear, although there
-is reason to believe that traces of it
-would “crop out” during a very long
-period. And if two fair-skinned races
-were brought into contact in a similar
-manner, and in similar proportions,
-the extermination of the less numerous
-one would be even sooner effected.
-The operation of this law is well illustrated
-in the lower animals. Cross
-two domestic animals of different
-breeds—take the offspring and cross
-it with one of the parent stocks, and
-continue this process for a few generations,
-and the result is that the one
-becomes swallowed up in the other.
-This is the theory; but in the actual
-world races never intermarry with
-such theoretical regularity and indifference.
-Each community of mankind
-has, as its conservative element, a
-tendency to form unions within its
-own limits; and if a foreign element
-is once introduced into a population,
-the operation of this predilection tends
-to preserve the type of the lesser
-number for a much longer period than
-mere theory would assign to it. The
-stranger-hating and obstinate-tempered
-Bretons and Basques, for instance,
-by intermarrying among themselves,
-have thus preserved the type
-of the old Iberians through three
-thousand years, although surrounded
-on all sides by the fair-haired Celts.
-In the case of a conquering race like
-the Franks and Normans, there is
-generally less isolation than this; but
-then, the way in which the amalgamation
-between the conquerors and the
-conquered takes place, is such as to
-give a great advantage to the former.
-The sons of the conquerors may wed
-the daughters of the conquered, for
-the sake of their lands; but it is comparatively
-seldom that the daughters
-of the invaders will condescend to
-tarnish their scutcheon by becoming
-wedded to and merged in the class of
-the vanquished. The principle of
-caste is all-pervading, even when
-nominally repudiated; and thus, as
-the male ever influences most directly
-the type of the offspring, a small
-number of conquerors may for long
-perpetuate their line in comparative
-purity, even though surrounded by
-myriads of a different race.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>From all this it results, that when
-a small body of foreigners is shot into
-the middle of a large population, as it
-were in virtue of a mere casual impetus,
-and not owing to higher qualities
-and organisation on the part of the
-aliens, the new-comers are quickly absorbed
-into the general mass of the
-population, and their type, in course
-of time, wholly disappears. The history
-of Italy throws important light
-upon this subject. Successive hordes
-of barbarians broke into and overran
-that country, powerful from their rude
-energy, but numerically weak, and
-inferior in mental condition to the
-conquered race. Again and again did
-human waves of Visigoths, Vandals,
-Huns, Herules, Ostrogoths, Lombards,
-and Normans roll in succession
-over the Italian plains; and even the
-Saracens for a time held possession of
-some of its fairest provinces; yet what
-vestiges remain in Italy of these barbarian
-surges? The first three passed
-over it like tornados; the two next,
-after contending with the Goths, were
-expelled from the land; and of the
-whole conglomerate mass but small
-fragments were left, too insignificant
-to materially influence the native Italic
-types. The Lombards, indeed, remained,
-and implanted their name on
-a portion of the peninsula; but, with
-this fragmentary exception, the aboriginal
-population of Italy has remained
-unaltered in blood and features since
-the early times when the Celts and
-Cimbri made settlements in its northern
-provinces. And thus the normal
-law is fulfilled, in the invaders being
-swallowed up in the mass of the native
-population,—leavening it, of course,
-more or less, but ever tending towards
-ultimate extinction.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>When a really conquering race,
-however—one superior alike in physical
-and mental power to the subjugated
-population—invades a country,
-and, instead of being expelled,
-or passing onwards like a transient
-whirlwind, continues to hold the
-realm in virtue of superior power,
-such a race, as we have said, may long
-and almost indelibly perpetuate their
-features in the land. In such a case
-they in reality, if not in name, form
-a caste; each one of the invaders becomes
-a noble; and when they make
-exceptions to the practice of intermarrying
-among themselves, it is only
-that they may more widely diffuse
-their lineaments, by forming matrimonial
-or other unions with the female
-portion of the native race.<a id='r32'></a><a href='#f32' class='c007'><sup>[32]</sup></a> Thus the
-feudalism of the all-conquering Normans
-was a system of caste, by means
-of which they long maintained the
-purity and pre-eminence of their race
-in the countries which they conquered;
-as may best be seen in French
-history, where the <i><span lang="fr">vieux noblesse</span></i>, even
-in 1789, were the lineal descendants
-of the soldiers of Clovis; and where
-the distinction between <em>noble</em> and <em>roturier</em>
-was kept up with such rigid and
-antiquated pertinacity, that at length
-the Celtic population, becoming more
-and more developed alike in intellect
-and resources, threw off the whole
-foreign system like an incubus, and
-returned to those principles of equality
-and volatility in government which
-distinguished their ancestors of old
-Gaul.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>We may remark in conclusion, on
-this topic, that the ascendancy of certain
-families of mankind is due not
-only to their superior physical, but
-even more to their superior mental
-organisation, which ever keeps them
-uppermost, and enables them to mate
-themselves with whom they please.
-It is a remarkable fact, as illustrative
-of the native vigour of some races,
-that there is not a head in Christendom
-which <em>legitimately</em> wears a crown—not
-a single family in Europe whose
-blood is acknowledged to be royal,
-but traces its genealogy to that Norman
-colossus, <span class='sc'>William</span> the <span class='sc'>Conqueror</span>.
-This has been well shown
-by M. Paulmier;<a id='r33'></a><a href='#f33' class='c007'><sup>[33]</sup></a> but we may add, as
-a curiosity which lately attracted our
-own notice, when looking at the portrait
-of the Conqueror—namely, that
-a strong resemblance exists between
-his fine and massive features and those
-of the present Czar of Russia. Both are
-distinguished by the same broad brow
-and arched eyebrows (not each forming
-a semicircle, as seems to be the
-meaning of the term “arched” when
-applied to eyebrows nowadays, but
-both combining to form an oval curve,
-vaulting over the under part of the
-face, as was the meaning among the
-Greeks), the same thick straight nose,
-and the same massive and beautiful
-conformation in the bones of the jaw
-and chin. The face of the Czar, however,
-we must add, is not equal in
-solid strength and intellect to that of
-his great progenitor.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>The operation of these physiological
-laws upon the population of Europe
-has been interestingly illustrated by
-the recent researches of a French
-naturalist of high reputation, M. Edwards.
-This gentleman, after perusing
-Thierry’s <cite>History of the Gauls</cite>,
-made a tour through France, Belgium,
-Switzerland, and Italy, engaged in
-careful study of the present population
-in relation to the ancient settlers;
-and he asserts that now, after the
-lapse of two thousand years, the types
-of the Cimbri, the Celts, and Iberians
-are still distinctly traceable among
-their living descendants, in the very
-localities where history first descries
-these early families. Of the inland
-eastern parts of France, tenanted of
-old by the Gauls proper, and which
-were never penetrated into by the
-Cimbri, who took quiet possession of
-their outskirts, M. Edwards thus
-speaks:—“In traversing, from north
-to south, the part of France which
-corresponds to Oriental Gaul—viz.,
-Burgundy, Lyons, Dauphiny, and
-Savoy—I have distinguished that
-type, so well marked, which ethnographers
-have assigned to the Gauls.”
-That is to say, “the head is so round
-as to approach the spherical form;
-the forehead is moderate, slightly
-protuberant, and receding towards
-the temples; eyes large and open;
-the nose, from its depression at its
-commencement to its termination, almost
-straight—that is to say, without
-any marked curve; its extremity is
-rounded, as well as the chin; the
-stature medium;—the features thus
-being quite in harmony with the form
-of the head.” Of the northern part of
-ancient Gaul, the principal seat of the
-Belgæ or Cimbri, he says:—“I traversed
-a great part of the <i><span lang="la">Gallia Belgica</span></i>
-of Cæsar, from the mouth of the
-Somme to that of the Seine; and here
-I distinguished for the first time the
-assemblage of features which constitutes
-the other type, and often to such
-an exaggerated degree that I was
-very forcibly struck,—the long head,
-the broad high forehead, the curved
-nose, with the point below, and the
-wings tucked up; the chin boldly
-developed; and the stature tall.” In
-the other parts of France (exclusive
-of the south and west, anciently occupied
-by the Iberians), M. Edwards
-found that the Cimbrian type had
-been overcome by the round heads
-and straight noses of the Gauls, who
-were the more numerous because the
-more ancient race in those parts, and
-had covered the whole country before
-the arrival of the Cimbrians.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>Passing into Italy, he continues his
-examinations. “Whatever may have
-been the anterior state of matters,” he
-says, “it is certain, from Thierry’s
-researches and the unanimous accord
-of all historians, that the <i><span lang="fr">Peuples
-Gaulois</span></i> have predominated in the
-north of Italy, between the Alps and
-the Apennines. We find them established
-there at the first dawn of
-history; and the most authentic testimony
-represents them with all the
-character of a great nation, from this
-remote period down to a very advanced
-point of Roman history. This
-is all I need to trouble myself about.
-I know the features of their compatriots
-in Transalpine Gaul—I find
-them again in Cisalpine Gaul.” The
-old “Gallic” settlers in northern
-Italy appear to have been Cimbrian.
-After describing the well-known head
-of Dante—which is long and narrow,
-with a high and developed forehead,
-nose long and curved, with sharp
-point and elevated wings—M. Edwards
-says that he was struck by the
-great frequency of this type in Tuscany
-(although a mixed Roman type is there
-the prevailing one) among the peasantry;
-in the statues and busts of the Medici
-family; and also amongst the effigies
-and bas-reliefs of the illustrious
-men of the republic of Florence. This
-type is well marked since the time of
-Dante, as doubtless long before. It
-extends to Venice; and in the ducal
-palace, M. Edwards had occasion to
-observe that it is common among the
-doges. The type became more predominant
-as he approached Milan, and
-thence he traced it as to its fountain
-into Transalpine Gaul. The physical
-characteristics of the present population,
-therefore, correspond with the
-statements of history, and show that
-the ancient type of this widespread
-people, the Cimbri, has survived the
-lapse and vicissitudes of two thousand
-years.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>In passing through Florence, M.
-Edwards took occasion to visit the Ducal
-Gallery, to study the ancient Roman
-type,—selecting, by preference,
-the busts of the early Roman emperors,
-because they were descendants of ancient
-families. Augustus, Tiberius,
-Germanicus, Claudius, Nero, Titus,
-&#38;c., exemplify this type in the Florentine
-collections; and the family resemblance
-is so close, and the style of
-features so remarkable, that they cannot
-be mistaken. The following is his
-description:—“The vertical diameter
-of the head is short, and, consequently,
-the face broad. As the summit of the
-cranium is flattened, and the lower
-margin of the jaw-bone almost horizontal,
-the contour of the head, when
-viewed in front, approaches a square.
-The lateral parts, above the ears, are
-protuberant; the forehead low; the
-nose truly aquiline—that is to say, the
-curve commences near the top and
-ends before it reaches the point, so
-that the base is horizontal; the chin
-is round; and the stature short.” This
-is the characteristic type of a Roman;
-but we cannot expect now to meet with
-absolute uniformity in any race, however
-seemingly pure. Such a type M.
-Edwards subsequently found to predominate
-in Rome, and certain parts of
-Italy, at the present day. It is the original
-type of the central portions of
-the peninsula, and, however overlayed
-at times, has swallowed up all intruders.
-As a singular corroboration of
-the French ethnographer’s observations,
-Mr J. C. Nott, an American
-surgeon and naturalist, says:—“A
-sailor came to my office, a few months
-ago, to have a dislocated arm set.
-When stripped and standing before
-me, he presented the type described
-by M. Edwards so perfectly, and
-moreover combined with such extraordinary
-development of bone and
-muscle, that there occurred to my
-mind at once the beau-ideal of a Roman
-soldier. Though the man had
-been an American sailor for twenty
-years, and spoke English without
-foreign accent, I could not help asking
-where he was born. He replied in a
-deep strong voice, ‘In <em>Rome</em>, sir!’”<a id='r34'></a><a href='#f34' class='c007'><sup>[34]</sup></a></p>
-
-<p class='c009'>In Greece the Hellenes and Pelasgi
-are two races identified with the earliest
-traditions of the country; but
-when we appeal to history for their
-origin, or seek for the part that each
-has played in the majestic drama of
-antiquity, there is little more than conjecture
-to guide us. Greece did not
-come fairly within the scope of M.
-Edwards’ researches, yet he has ventured
-a few note-worthy observations
-in connection with this point. He
-thinks the same principles that governed
-his examination of Gaul may
-be applied to Greece; and that the
-Hellenes and Pelasgi might be followed
-ethnologically like the Celts and
-Cimbri. Perhaps the most important
-remark which he makes is that which
-refers to the differences between what
-he calls the <em>heroic</em> and <em>historic</em>—or
-what is generally termed the ideal and
-real types of the Greek countenance.
-The ancient monuments of art in
-Greece exhibit a wide diversity of
-types, and this at every period of their
-history. Of the two great classes into
-which these may be divided, M. Edwards
-says:—</p>
-
-<p class='c010'>“Most of the divinities and personages
-of the <em>heroic</em> times are formed on that
-well-known model which constitutes what
-we term the beau-ideal. The forms and
-proportions of the head and countenance
-are so regular that we may describe them
-with mathematical precision. A perfectly
-oval contour, forehead and nose straight,
-without depression between them, would
-suffice to distinguish this type. The harmony
-is such that the presence of these
-traits implies the others. But such is not
-the character of the personages of truly <em>historic</em>
-times. The philosophers, orators,
-warriors, and poets almost all differ from
-it, and form a group apart. It cannot be
-confounded with the rest: it is sufficient
-to point it out, for one to recognise at
-once how far it is separated. It greatly
-resembles, on the contrary, the type which
-is seen in other countries of Europe,
-while the former is scarcely met with
-there.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>This observation is just. The head
-of Alexander the Great is nearly allied
-to the pure classical or heroic
-type; but this case is an exception—and
-the lineaments of Lycurgus, Eratosthenes,
-and most other specimens
-of old Greek portrait-sculpture, are,
-with the exception of the beard (if indeed
-such an exception is now requisite),
-very much like those which
-one meets with daily in our streets.
-“Were we to judge solely by the
-monuments of Greece,” continues M.
-Edwards, “on account of this contrast,
-we should be tempted to regard
-the type of the fabulous or heroic personages
-as ideal. But imagination
-more readily creates monsters than
-models of beauty; and this principle
-alone will suffice to convince us that
-such a type has existed in Greece,
-and the countries where its population
-has spread, if it does not still exist
-there.”</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>In corroboration of this conjecture,
-it may be stated that the learned
-travellers, M.M. de Stackelberg and de
-Bronsted, who have journeyed through
-the Morea and closely examined the
-population, assert that the <em>heroic</em> type
-is still extant in certain localities. M.
-Poqueville likewise assures us that
-the models which inspired Phidias and
-Apelles are still to be found among
-the inhabitants of the Morea. “They
-are generally tall, and finely formed;
-their eyes are full of fire, and they
-have a beautiful mouth, ornamented
-with the finest teeth. There are,
-however, degrees in their beauty,
-though all may be generally termed
-handsome. The Spartan woman is
-fair, of a slender make, but with a
-noble air. The women of Taÿgetus
-have the carriage of a Pallas when
-she wielded her formidable ægis in
-the midst of a battle. The Messenian
-woman is low of stature, and distinguished
-for her <em>embonpoint</em>,” (this
-may be owing to a mixture with the
-primitive race of the Morea, who, as
-Helots, long existed as a distinct caste
-in Messenia); “she has regular features,
-large blue eyes, and long black
-hair. The Arcadian, in her coarse
-woollen garments, scarcely suffers the
-symmetry of her form to appear; but
-her countenance is expressive of innocence
-and purity of mind.” In the
-time of Poqueville the Greek women
-were extremely ignorant and uneducated;
-but, he says, “music and
-dancing seem to have been taught
-them by nature.” He speaks of the
-long flaxen hair of the women of
-Sparta, their majestic air and carriage,
-their elegant forms, the symmetry of
-their features, lighted up by large
-blue eyes, fringed and shaded with
-long eye-lashes. “The men,” he says,
-“among whom some are ‘blonds,’ or
-fair, have noble countenances; are of
-tall stature, with masculine and regular
-features.” They have preserved
-something of the Dorians of ancient
-Sparta.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>It would be erroneous, however,
-to conclude from this that Greek art
-owed everything to the actual. The
-type existed more or less imperfectly
-in the population, but Phidias and
-the Greek artists took and developed
-it, by the aid of the imagination, into
-that perfect phase of physical beauty
-which we justly term the <em>beau-ideal</em>.
-A nation’s beau-ideal is always the
-perfectionment of its own type. It is
-easy to see how this happens. In
-nations, as in individuals, the soul
-moulds the body, so far as extrinsic
-circumstances permit, into a form
-in accordance with its own ideas
-and desire; and accordingly, whenever
-a marked difference exists in the
-physical aspect of two nations, there,
-also, we may expect to find a variance
-in their beau-ideals. Not, as is
-generally supposed, from the eye of
-each race becoming accustomed to the
-national features, but because these
-features, are themselves an incarnation
-and embodiment of the national mind.
-It is the soul which shapes the national
-features, not the national features that
-mould the æsthetic judgment of the
-soul. It is not <em>association</em>, therefore,
-that is the cause of the different beau-ideals
-we behold in the world, but a
-psychical difference in the nations
-which produce them,—a circumstance
-no more remarkable than those moral
-and intellectual diversities in virtue
-of which we see one race excelling in
-the exact sciences, another in the fine
-arts, a third in military renown, and
-a fourth in pacific industry. We may
-adduce, in curious illustration of this
-point, the well-known fact that Raphael
-and many other eminent artists
-have repeatedly given their own likeness
-to the imaginary offspring of their
-art,—not real, but idealised likenesses.
-How was this? From vanity? No,
-certainly; but because the ideal most
-congenial to them, which they could
-most easily hold in their mind, and
-which it gave them most pleasure to
-linger over and beautify, was the
-ideal constituted by the perfectionment
-of their own features. There is something
-more than mere vanity in the
-pleasure usually derived from looking
-into a mirror; for when the features
-are in exact or nearly exact accordance
-with the desires of the framing
-Spirit within, there must always
-be a pleasure in the soul looking upon
-its own likeness: even as it experiences
-a similar delight when meeting
-with a being of perfectly congenial nature—in
-other words, its spiritual (as
-the other is its physical) likeness.
-It is to be expected, <i><span lang="la">cæteris paribus</span></i>,
-that this pleasure will be most felt by
-those who are gifted with much personal
-beauty, and whose features are
-most perfect of their kind; for in their
-case there is more than ordinary harmony
-between the soul and its fleshly
-envelope. Accordingly, no artist ever
-painted himself more than the beautiful
-Raphael. And we could name an
-eminent individual, now no more, as
-rarely gifted with physical beauty as
-with mental powers, to whom the
-contemplation of his portrait was almost
-a passion. Some of our readers
-may recognise the distinguished man
-of whom we speak. No one less
-vain or more noble-hearted than
-he, yet his painted likeness had
-always a fascination for him. “It
-is a curious thing,” he used to say,
-“how I like to look at my own portrait.”
-Was it not because, in that
-beautifully developed form and countenance,
-the spirit within had most
-successfully embodied its ideal, with
-little or no hindrance from extrinsic
-circumstances, and accordingly rejoiced,
-though it knew not why, in the
-presence of its own likeness?</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>But to return to ethnography, and
-trace out the successive changes which
-have taken place in the population of
-Europe. As we have already observed,
-the great ebb and flow of nations
-was over by the Christian era. The
-population had become comparatively
-dense, so that room could no more be
-made for tribes of new-comers—and
-settled in their habits and occupations,
-so as no longer to admit of their shifting
-or being driven to and fro like
-waves over the land, as was the case
-while they were in the nomadic state.
-And as the nations became consolidated,
-they began, however feebly at
-first, to live a national existence, and
-to put forth national efforts of self-defence
-against those who assailed
-them. On these various accounts,
-the system of conquest by displacement,
-which marked the pre-historic
-and in a faint degree the early historic
-times, was brought to an end,—the
-conquests of the Northmen being the
-last examples of the kind; and these
-being hardly worthy of the name, as
-they were marked rather by the political
-predominance of the new-comers, and
-by an overlaying rather than by any
-displacement of the native population.
-For all useful purposes, therefore, we
-may conceive that at the Christian
-era the various nations of Europe were
-arranged on the map very much as
-they are now,—the only exceptions
-worth mentioning being the influx of
-the Magyars and Turks, and the
-southward progress of several of the
-Slavonian tribes through the old Byzantine
-provinces into Greece.</p>
-
-<p class='c010'>“Had a Roman geographer of the days
-of the Empire,” it has been well observed,
-“advanced in a straight line from the Atlantic
-to the Pacific, he would have traversed
-the exact succession of races that
-is to be met in the same route now. First,
-he would have found the Celts occupying
-as far as the Rhine; thence, eastward to
-the Vistula and Carpathian mountains,
-he would have found Germans; beyond
-them, and stretching away into Central
-Asia, he would have found the so-called
-Scythians,—a race which, had he possessed
-our information, he would have divided
-into the two great branches of the
-Slavonians or European Scythians, and
-the Tartars and Turks, or Asiatic Scythians;
-and finally, beyond these, he
-would have found Mongolian hordes overspreading
-Eastern Asia to the shores of
-the Pacific. These successive races or
-populations he would have found shading
-off into each other at their points of
-junction. He would have remarked,
-also, a general westward pressure of the
-whole mass, tending toward mutual rupture
-and invasion,—the Mongolian pressing
-against the Tartars, the Tartars against
-the Slavonians, the Slavonians against the
-Germans, and the Germans against the
-Celts.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Although the early history and migrations
-of the Slavonians are involved
-in greater obscurity than that of either
-of the other two great branches of the
-European population, it is erroneous
-to suppose that they are a recent accession
-out of the depths of Asia. It
-was evidently a branch of them that
-Herodotus describes as peaceful, pastoral,
-and agricultural tribes located
-near the shores of the Black Sea. Instead
-of entering Europe <em>via</em> Asia
-Minor and the southern borders of the
-Euxine, as many of the Celtic and Teutonic
-tribes did, they appear to have
-taken the route by the north of the Caspian
-and Black Seas, and probably advanced
-southwards into Europe on the
-gradual and ultimately sudden subsidence
-of the waters of the inland sea
-which primevally stretched from the
-Baltic eastwards to the Sea of Aral.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>This race, which now constitutes the
-largest ethnographical unit of population
-in Europe, numbering nearly eighty
-millions, has never yet been examined
-in rigorous detail. The earliest and
-best developed of its tribes is the Polish,
-which, though it has in recent
-times been subjected by the Russo-Slavons
-aided by the German powers,
-has not yet lost its nationality; and
-it is probable that, in the course of
-the future, the mighty Slavonic race
-will yet give rise to several distinct
-states. Both in features and complexion
-there is much diversity to be found
-in the various tribes which it comprises;
-but, if we consider the immense
-numbers of the race, and the
-different climes and temperatures under
-which they are located, it must
-be allowed that they are more homogeneous
-in character than any other
-people in Europe. The general type
-of the Slavonians is thus described by
-M. Edwards:—</p>
-
-<p class='c010'>“The contour of the head, viewed in
-front, approaches nearly to a square; the
-height surpasses a little the breadth; the
-summit is sensibly flattened; and the direction
-of the jaw is horizontal. The
-length of the nose is less than the distance
-from its base to the chin; it is almost
-straight from the depression at its root—that
-is to say, without any decided curvature;
-but, if appreciable, it is slightly
-concave, so that the end has a tendency
-to turn up; the lower part is rather large,
-and the extremity rounded. The eyes,
-which are rather deep-set, are [unlike
-those of the Tartars] perfectly on the same
-line; and when they have any particular
-character, they are smaller than the proportion
-of the head ought to indicate.
-The eyebrows are thin, and very near the
-eyes, particularly at the internal angle;
-and from this point are often [like those
-of the Tartars] directed obliquely outwards.
-The mouth, which is not salient,
-has thin lips, and is much nearer to the
-nose than to the tip of the chin. Another
-singular characteristic may be added, and
-which is very general, viz., their small
-beard, except on the upper lip [a trait
-connecting them with the peoples of Upper
-Asia]. Such is the common type
-among the Poles, Alesians, Moravians,
-Bohemians, Slavonic Hungarians, and is
-very common among the Russians.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Having thus briefly and imperfectly
-glanced at the ethnographical features
-of Europe prior to the Christian era,
-we come now to note, equally briefly,
-the accession of foreign elements which
-the Continent has received subsequently
-to that period. The first of these is
-the memorable one of the Jews. Unlike
-the other incomers, they came not
-as conquerors, nor in a mass—but as
-isolated exiles, seeking new homes
-where they might be suffered to preserve
-their religion and gain a livelihood.
-A military race when in the
-land of their fathers, in Europe they
-developed only that other feature of
-their nation, the passion for moneymaking.
-In pursuit of this object they
-have settled in every country of Europe;
-and, in spite of persecutions innumerable,
-continue to preserve to
-this day their religion and their national
-features. Despite the warm
-passions of the Hebrews, which, even
-when in their own land, repeatedly
-led both the people and their princes
-into the contraction of sexual alliances
-with other nations, the Jewish blood on
-the whole is still much purer than that
-of any other race—the foreign elements
-from time to time mingled with it being
-gradually thrown off by innumerable
-crossings and re-crossings with the
-native stock. At present there are
-about two millions of Jews in Europe,
-and in the rest of the world about a
-million and a half. The modern Jews,
-while preserving the national features,
-present every variety of complexion
-save black—for the <em>black</em> Jews of Malabar
-are not Jews at all, but the descendants
-of apostate Hindoos. In
-regard to the matter of complexion,
-which varies so much with the climate
-and condition of the people, we shall
-say something by-and-by; but we
-shall here give some remarks of
-Mr Leeser, a learned Jew of Philadelphia,
-on the curious diversities of
-complexion so remarkably observable
-among the Hebrew race:—</p>
-
-<p class='c010'>“In respect to the true Jewish complexion,
-it is <em>fair</em>; which is proved by the
-variety of the people I have seen, from
-Persia, Russia, Palestine, and Africa,
-not to mention those of Europe and America,
-the latter of whom are identical with
-the Europeans, like all other white inhabitants
-of this continent. All Jews that ever
-I have beheld are <em>identical in features</em>;
-though the colour of their skin and eyes
-differs materially, inasmuch as the Southern
-are nearly all black-eyed, and somewhat
-sallow, while the Northern are
-blue-eyed, in a great measure, and of a
-fair and clear complexion. In this they
-assimilate to all Caucasians, when transported
-for a number of generations into
-various climates. Though I am free to
-admit that the dark and hazel eye and
-tawny skin are oftener met with among
-the Germanic Jews than among the German
-natives proper. There are also red-haired
-and white-haired Jews, as well as
-other people, and perhaps of as great a
-proportion. I speak now of the Jews
-north—I am myself a native of Germany,
-and among my own family I know of none
-without blue eyes, brown hair (though
-mine is black), and very fair skin—still I
-recollect, when a boy, seeing many who
-had not these characteristics, and had, on
-the contrary, eyes, hair, and skin of a
-more southern complexion. In America,
-you will see all varieties of complexion,
-from the very fair Canadian down to the
-almost yellow of the West Indian—the
-latter, however, is solely the effect of exposure
-to a <em>deleterious</em> climate for several
-generations, which changes, I should
-judge, the texture of the hair and skin,
-and thus leaves its mark on the constitution—otherwise
-the Caucasian type is
-strongly developed; but this is the case
-more emphatically among those sprung
-from a German than a Portuguese stock.
-The latter was an original inhabitant of
-the Iberian Peninsula, and whether it
-was preserved pure, or became mixed
-with Moorish blood in the process of centuries,
-or whether the Germans contracted
-an intimacy with Teutonic nations,
-and thus acquired a part of their national
-characteristics, it is impossible to be told
-now. But one thing is certain, that, both
-in Spain and Germany, conversions to
-Judaism during the early ages, say from
-the eighth to the thirteenth century, were
-by no means rare, or else the governments
-would not have so energetically prohibited
-Jews from making proselytes of their
-servants and others. I know not, indeed,
-whether there is any greater physical discrepancy
-between northern and southern
-Jews than between English families who
-continue in England or emigrate to Alabama—I
-rather judge there is not.”—<cite>Types
-of Mankind</cite>, p. 121.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The Huns and Magyars were the
-next tribes who made their way into
-Europe; and their advent, fierce, rapid,
-and exterminating, was conducted
-like a charge of cavalry. They
-hewed their way with the sword
-through the Slavonian and other
-tribes who impeded their march; and
-after being for a brief season the
-terror of Europe, they settled <i><span lang="fr">en permanence</span></i>
-on the plains of Hungary,
-where for upwards of a thousand
-years they dominated, like a ruling
-caste, over the surrounding Slavonic
-tribes. The influx of this warlike
-race took place by two migrations,—firstly,
-of the Huns, under Attila,
-in the fifth century; and, secondly, of
-the Magyars, under Arpad, in the
-ninth. The type of the two races was
-identical; it is peculiarly exotic, and
-unlike any other in Europe. It belongs
-to the great Uralian-Tatar
-stem of Asia; but, strangely enough,
-though they differ in type from
-the Fins, the Magyars speak a dialect
-of the Finnish language,—which shows
-that the two races must have been
-associated in some way at a remote
-epoch, and before either of them
-emerged from the depths of Asia. M.
-Edwards thus describes the Magyar
-type:—“Head nearly round; forehead
-little developed, low, and bending;
-the eyes placed obliquely, so that
-the external angle is elevated; the
-nose short and flat; mouth prominent,
-and lips thick; neck very strong, so
-that the back of the head appears flat,
-forming almost a straight line with
-the nape; beard weak and scattering;
-stature short.” The Magyars did not
-belong to the Caucasian stock; and
-their long-continued supremacy over
-tribes decidedly Caucasian, is a nut
-to crack for those ethnographers who
-deduce everything from race, irrespective
-of the habits and state of development
-of particular nations.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>The next alien race which entered
-Europe was the Gypseys, the history
-and peculiarities of which strange
-people present many curious analogies
-with those of the Israelites. “Both
-have had an exodus; both are exiles,
-and dispersed among the Gentiles, by
-whom they are hated and despised,
-and whom they hate and despise under
-the names of Busnees and Goyim;
-both, though speaking the language
-of the Gentiles, possess a peculiar
-language which the latter do not understand;
-and both possess a peculiar
-cast of countenance by which they
-may without difficulty be distinguished
-from all other nations. But with
-these points the similarity terminates.
-The Israelites have a peculiar religion,
-to which they are fanatically attached;
-the Romas (gypseys) have none.
-The Israelites have an authentic history;
-the Gypseys have no history,—they
-do not even know the name of
-their original country.” Everything
-connected with the Gypsey race is involved
-in mystery; though, from their
-physical type, language, &#38;c., it is conjectured
-that they came from some
-part of India. It has been supposed
-that they fled from the exterminating
-sword of the great Tartar conqueror,
-Tamerlane, who ravaged India in
-1408–9 <span class='fss'>A.D.</span>; but Borrow’s work furnishes
-good ground for believing that
-they may have migrated at a much
-earlier period northwards, amongst
-the Slavonians, before they entered
-Germany and the other countries
-where we first catch sight of them.
-All that we know with certainty is,
-that in the beginning of the fifteenth
-century they appeared in Germany,
-and were soon scattered over Europe,
-as far as Spain. The precise day upon
-which these strange beings first entered
-France has been recorded,—namely,
-the 17th of August 1427. The entire
-number of the race at present is
-estimated at about 700,000,—thus
-constituting them the smallest as well
-as the most singular and distinctly
-marked of races. But if their numbers
-be small, their range of habitat
-is one of the widest. They are scattered
-over most countries of the habitable
-globe—Europe, Asia, Africa, and
-both the Americas, containing specimens
-of these roving tribes. “Their
-tents,” says Borrow, “are pitched on
-the heaths of Brazil and the ridges of
-the Himalaya hills; and their language
-is heard in Moscow and Madrid, in
-London and Stamboul. Their power
-of resisting cold is truly wonderful, as
-it is not uncommon to find them encamped
-in the midst of the snow, in
-slight canvass tents, where the temperature
-is 25° or 30° below the freezing-point
-according to Reaumur;”
-while, on the other hand, they withstand
-without difficulty the sultry
-climes of Africa and India.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>The last accession which the population
-of Europe received was accomplished
-by an irruption similar to that
-of the Huns, but on a grander scale.
-In the beginning of the fifteenth century
-the Osmanli Turks swept across
-the Hellespont and Bosphorus, and in
-1453 established their empire in Europe
-by the capture of Byzantium. In
-proportion to its numbers, no race
-ever gave such a shock to the Western
-world as this; and, by its very
-antagonism, it helped to quicken into
-life the population and kingdoms of
-central and eastern Europe. It is
-semi-Caucasian by extraction, but,
-coming from the northern side of the
-Caucasus, and pretty far to the east,
-the original features of the race had a
-strong dash of the Tartar in them.
-The portrait of Mahomed II., the conqueror
-of Byzantium, may be taken as
-a fair sample of the primitive Turkish
-type,—indeed a more than average
-specimen, for among all nations the
-nobles and princes, as a class, are
-ever found to possess the most perfect
-forms and features. The Turkish
-tribes who still follow their ancient
-nomadic life, and wander in the cold
-and dry deserts of Turkistan, still exhibit
-the Tartar physiognomy—even
-the Nogays of the Crimea, and some
-of the roving tribes of Asia Minor,
-present much of this character. The
-European Turks, and the upper classes
-of the race generally, exhibit a greatly
-superior style of countenance, in
-consequence of the elevating influences
-of civilisation, and of their
-harems having been replenished for
-four centuries by fair ones from
-Georgia and Circassia,—a region
-which, as Chardin long ago remarked,
-“is assuredly the one where nature
-produces the most beautiful persons,
-and a people brave and valiant, as
-well as lively, <em>galant</em>, and loving.”
-There is hardly a man of quality
-in Turkey who is not born of a
-Georgian or Circassian mother,—counting
-downwards from the Sultan,
-who is generally Georgian or Circassian
-by the female side. As this
-crossing of the two races has been
-carried on for several centuries, the
-modern Ottomans in Europe are in
-truth a <em>new nation</em>—and, on the whole,
-a very handsome one. The general
-proportion of the face is symmetrical,
-and the facial angle nearly vertical,—the
-features thus approaching to the
-Circassian mould; while the head is
-remarkable for its excellent globular
-form, with the forehead broad and the
-glabella prominent.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>The natural destiny of the Turks in
-Europe, like that of ruling castes everywhere
-when holding in subjection a
-population greatly more numerous
-than themselves, is either to gradually
-relax their sway and share the government
-with the subject races, as the
-Normans in England did,—or, if obstinately
-maintaining their class-despotism,
-to be violently deposed from the
-supremacy. The increasing development
-of the Greek and other sections
-of the population of European Turkey
-has of late years made one or other
-of these alternatives imminent; but
-the extensive reforms and liberalisation
-of the government simultaneously
-undertaken by the Ottoman rulers,
-and the remarkable abeyance in which
-they have begun to place the <em>distinctive</em>
-tenets of the Mahommedan
-faith, promised, if unthwarted by
-foreign influences, to keep the various
-races in amity, and admit Christians
-to offices in the state. The history
-of the last fifteen years has shown this
-system of governmental relaxation
-growing gradually stronger—so that
-Lord Palmerston was justified in saying
-that no country in the world could
-show so many reforms accomplished
-in so short a time as Turkey. And
-after the recent exploits of the Ottomans
-in defeating simultaneously the
-attacks of Russia and of the Greek
-and Montenegrin insurgents, and the
-Turkish predilections even of those
-provinces which were entered by the
-Christian forces of the Czar, it cannot
-be doubted that the Turkish rule was
-on the whole giving satisfaction, and
-that, if unaided by foreign Powers,
-no insurrection against the supremacy
-of the bold-hearted Osmanlis had the
-slightest chance of success. It was
-this state of matters which alarmed the
-ambitious Czar into his present aggression;
-for he felt that now or never
-was the time to interfere, if he did not
-wish to see a Turko-Greek state establish
-itself in such strength as to bid
-defiance to his power. We may add,
-that, whatever be the issue of the present
-contest, it must tend to a further
-and higher development of the Turkish
-character. The contagion of
-Western ideas, disseminated in the
-most imposing of ways by the presence
-of the armies of England and France,
-cannot fail to impress itself on the
-slumbrous but awakening Ottomans,
-and not only expand their stereotyped
-civilisation into a wider and freer
-form, but possibly to strike also from
-their religion the more faulty and
-obstructive of its tenets.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>Such are the elements of the present
-population of Europe,—a population
-which, in its western and southern
-portions, no longer presents distinct
-masses of diverse tribes, and
-whose various sections every century
-is drawing into closer contact. The
-progress of commerce and civilisation
-produces not only an interchange of
-products of various climes, and of
-ideas between the various races of
-mankind, but also a commingling of
-blood; and as the most nobly developed
-races are always the great
-wanderers and conquerors, it will be
-seen that the progress of the world
-ever tends to improve the types of
-mankind by infusing the blood of the
-superior races into the veins of the
-inferior. The settlements of the Normans
-are an instance of this. And a
-still more remarkable, though exceptional,
-exemplification of the same
-thing may at present be witnessed in
-America—where the Negroes, transported
-from their native clime, have
-already become a mixed race, owing
-to the relation in which all female
-slaves stand to their masters, and the
-consequent frequent crossing of the
-European blood with the blood of
-Africa. In point of fact, there are
-slaves to be found in the Southern
-States, who, like “George” in <cite>Uncle
-Tom’s Cabin</cite>, are as Caucasian in
-their features and intellect as their
-masters,—a circumstance fraught with
-considerable danger to the White caste
-in these States, because producing the
-extremest irritation in these nearly
-full-blood “white slaves,” and at the
-same time providing able and fiery
-leaders for the oppressed Negro race
-in the event of an insurrection and
-servile war.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>But the great variety of countenance
-and temperament in Western
-and Southern Europe is not due merely
-to actual crossings of the commingling
-races. Civilisation itself is the
-parent of variety. The progress of
-humanity produces physical effects
-upon the race, which may be classed
-under two heads, one of these being
-a general physical improvement, and
-the other increasing variety. Take
-an undeveloped race like the Tartars
-or Negroes, and you will find the
-aspect and mental character of the
-nation nearly homogeneous,—the differences
-existing amongst its individual
-members being comparatively
-trivial. Pass to the Slavonians, and
-you will perceive this uniformity lessened;
-and when you reach the nations
-of Western Europe, you will
-find the transition accomplished, and
-homogeneity exchanged for variety.
-The explanation of this is obvious.
-Just as all plants of the same species,
-when in embryo, are nearly alike, undeveloped
-races of mankind present
-but few signs of spiritual life; and
-therefore their individual members
-greatly resemble one another,—because
-the fewer the characteristics,
-the less room is there for variety, and
-the more radical and therefore more
-universal must be the characteristics
-themselves. Pebbles, as they lie
-rough upon the sea-shore, may present
-a great uniformity of appearance;
-but take and polish them, and a hundred
-diversities of colour and marking
-forthwith show themselves;—even so
-does civilisation and growth develop
-the rich varieties of human nature.
-As these mental varieties spring up
-within, they ever seek to develop themselves
-by corresponding varieties in
-the outer life,—placing men now in
-riches, now in poverty, now under the
-sway of the intellect, now of the passions,
-now of good principles, now of
-bad, and moreover leading to an infinite
-diversity of external occupation.
-The joint influence of the feelings
-within, and of the corresponding circumstances
-without, in course of time
-comes to affect the physical frame,
-often in a very marked manner; and,
-indeed, it is well known that even so
-subtle a thing as the predominant
-thoughts and sentiments of an individual
-are almost always reflected in
-the aspect of his countenance. Nations,
-when in a primitive uncultured
-state, differ as widely from those at the
-apex of civilisation, as the monotonous
-countenance and one-phased mind of
-a peasant contrasts with the rich variety
-of expression in the face of
-genius, whose nature is quickly responsive
-to every influence, though
-often steadied into a masculine calm.
-Let any one inspect the various classes
-of our metropolitan population, and
-he will perceive an amount of physical,
-mental, and occupational variety
-such as he will meet with nowhere
-else in the world—presenting
-countenances deformed now by this
-form of brutal passion, now by that,
-ranging upwards to the noblest types
-of the human face, the joint product
-of easy circumstances and high mental
-and spiritual culture. It is all the
-result of civilisation, which ever tends
-to break up the uniformity of a population,
-and allows of its members rising
-to the highest heights or sinking
-to the lowest depths,—thus breaking
-the primitive monotony of life into its
-manifold prismatic hues.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>Not the least remarkable of the
-physical changes thus produced by
-civilisation, is the diversity of complexion
-which it gradually affects. It
-appears certain, for example, that the
-races who peopled the northern and
-western parts of Europe, subsequent
-to the dark-skinned Iberians, were
-all of the fair or xanthous style of
-complexion; but this is by no means
-the case with the great mass of people
-who are supposed to have descended
-from them. “It seems unquestionable,”
-says Prichard, “that the complexion
-prevalent through the British
-Isles has greatly varied from that of
-all [?] the original tribes who are
-known to have jointly constituted the
-population. We have seen that the
-ancient Celtic tribes were a xanthous
-race; such, likewise, were the Saxons,
-Danes, and Normans; the Caledonians
-also, and the Gael, were fair
-and yellow-haired. Not so the mixed
-descendants of all these blue-eyed
-tribes. The Britons had already deviated
-from the colour of the Celts in
-the time of Strabo, who declares that
-the Britons are taller than the Gauls,
-and less yellow-haired, and more infirm
-and relaxed in their bodies.” The
-Germans have also varied in their
-complexion. The ancient Germans
-are said to have had universally yellow
-or red hair and blue eyes,—in
-short, a strongly marked xanthous
-constitution. This, says Niebuhr,
-“has now, in most parts of Germany,
-become uncommon. I can assert,
-from my own observation, that the
-Germans are now, in many parts of
-their country, far from a light-haired
-race. I have seen a considerable
-number of persons assembled in a large
-room at Frankfort-on-the-Maine, and
-observed that, except one or two
-Englishmen, there was not an individual
-among them who had not dark
-hair. The Chevalier Bunsen has assured
-me that he has often looked in
-vain for the auburn or golden locks
-and the light cerulean eyes of the old
-Germans, and never verified the picture
-given by the ancients of his
-countrymen till he visited Scandinavia,—there
-he found himself surrounded
-by the Germans of Tacitus.”
-In the towns of Germany, especially,
-the people are far from being a red-haired,
-or even a xanthous race; and,
-from the fact that this change has been
-developed chiefly in towns, we may
-infer that it depends in part on habits,
-and the way of living, and on food.
-Towns are much warmer and drier
-than the country; but even the open
-country is much warmer and drier
-than the forests and morasses with
-which Germany was formerly covered.
-The climate of Germany has, in fact,
-changed since the country was cleared
-of its vast forests; and we must attribute
-the altered physical character
-of the Germans to the altered condition
-under which the present inhabitants
-live.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>It was the conquests of Rome that
-first scattered the seeds of civilisation
-in Western Europe. There it has
-grown up into a stately and nearly
-perfect fabric on the shores of the
-Atlantic, gradually losing its perfection
-as it proceeds eastwards, until it
-reaches the semi-barbarism of Russia,
-and the still deeper barbarism of Upper
-Asia. Our limits hardly allow of
-our inquiring what influence this civilisation
-is calculated to exert in future
-upon the ethnological condition of the
-Continent, although it is a question of
-great importance, as foreshadowing
-the chief changes which may be expected
-to result from the state of
-chronic strife upon which Europe has
-now entered. We can only remark
-that the grand action of progress and
-civilisation is to develop <em>the mind</em>, and
-so convert the units of society from a
-mass of automatons into thinking and
-self-directing agents,—conscious of,
-and able to attain, alike their own
-rights and those of their nation. Hence
-follows the growth of liberty within;
-and, without, the gradual establishment
-of union between scattered sections
-of the same race. Supposing,
-then, that the progress of civilisation
-in Europe be unobstructed, we may
-calculate that wherever we now see
-internal despotism, there will be
-liberty,—wherever we see foreign domination,
-there will be national freedom,—and
-that, after a little more
-training in the stern school of suffering,
-the Continental nations, grown
-wiser, will make an end of the present
-arbitrary and unnatural territorial system
-of Europe, and arrange themselves
-in the more natural, grander,
-and permanent communities of race.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>It was doubtless a perception of
-this truth that caused the French
-Emperor recently to declare that
-“the age of conquests is past.” We
-regret to think, however, that the
-statement is somewhat premature,—for
-Europe is still far from that happy
-climax of civilisation which in the
-preceding sentences we have indicated.
-Moreover, there are two very
-opposite periods in the life of nations
-when the race-principle reigns supreme,
-their first and their last;—just
-as, in the case of individuals, men
-often adopt in old age, from the dictates
-of experience, principles which
-in youth they had acted upon from
-instinct. Now, Europe at this day
-presents both of these phases of national
-life existing simultaneously,
-at its eastern and western extremities;
-and it seems probable that the development
-of the race-principle in its
-early form among the Slavonians,
-will take precedence of its development
-in maturity among the civilised
-races of the Continent. There is
-every indication that the Panslavism
-of Russia will precede the coalescing
-of the Teutonic tribes into a united
-Germany—or of the Romano-Gallic
-races of France, Spain, and Italy,
-into that trinity of confederate states
-which Lamartine so stoutly predicts.
-Nay, may not this Panslavism of
-Russia, by a short-lived political domination,
-be destined to prove the
-very means of exciting the ethnological
-affinities of the rest of Europe, and
-of thereby raising up an insuperable
-barrier to its own progress, as well as
-involuntarily launching the other nations
-on their true line of progress?</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>The fag-end of an article is little
-suitable for the discussion of such
-really momentous topics, and we especially
-regret that we cannot proceed
-to consider the effects which the progress
-of civilisation is likely to exert
-upon Russia itself. Any one, however,
-who is disposed to supply for
-himself the deductions from the above
-principles, will feel that his labour in
-so doing is not without its recompense,
-by establishing the consolatory truth
-that, so far as human eye can discern,
-“a good time coming” is yet
-in store for Europe,—though, alas,
-what turmoil must there be between
-this and then!</p>
-
-<div class='chapter'>
-  <span class='pageno' id='Page_183'>183</span>
-  <h2 class='c002'>THE GANGETIC PROVINCES OF BRITISH INDIA.<a id='r35'></a><a href='#f35' class='c007'><sup>[35]</sup></a></h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>Disguise it as we may, conquest
-to the conquered must ever be a bitter
-draught.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>It is impossible for nations to be
-entirely disinterested. The rewards
-of the victors cannot be reaped without
-trenching upon the rights of the
-vanquished.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>Three centuries have gone by since
-Machiavelli wrote, yet still does the
-Italian mutter his words, “<span lang="it">Ad ognuno
-puzza questo barbaro dominio;</span>” and
-all the material benefits which the
-peasantry of Lombardy often admit
-that they enjoy under their present
-masters, cannot abate the aversion of
-the people of that province to the
-Austrian rule.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>There are more points of resemblance
-than we may like to confess
-between the position of Austria towards
-Italy, and that of England towards
-India. In both cases, the
-bulk of the conquered, especially the
-agricultural classes, have little to
-complain of, and are on the whole
-passively contented and reconciled to
-a yoke which, as far as they are concerned,
-presses, perhaps, but does not
-gall; in both cases, all of a higher
-order, all upon whom ambition can
-have any influence, must feel more or
-less discontented with a condition
-necessarily attended with a diminished
-chance of advancement, and a mortifying
-stagnation of hope. Both of
-the dominant powers ought to regard
-this frame of mind not as a fault, but
-as a moral malady, and to direct
-their best efforts to the cure of an
-affection naturally resulting from the
-depressed position of those brought
-by conquest under their sway.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>What the sanative measures of
-Austria may have been, and into the
-causes of their failure, we need not
-stop to inquire, but may proceed at
-once to consider in how far we have,
-in this respect, acquitted ourselves of
-our obligations to those over whom
-we also rule mainly by the right of
-conquest and superior strength.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>Not being gifted, like many of our
-contemporaries, with power to take in
-the totality of the gorgeous East at
-one comprehensive glance, we must
-examine our Indian empire in detail,
-and for the present confine our remarks
-to the Presidency of Bengal,
-with its appendage the Lieutenant-Governorship
-of Agra.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>The guides whom we propose to
-follow in the prosecution of our inquiries
-into the state of these Gangetic
-provinces, their past and present
-condition, and their future prospects,
-are the authors enumerated at the
-foot of the page, each of whom
-may be regarded as a representative
-of one or other of the schools into
-which those interested in the work of
-Indian administration may now be
-said to be divided.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>The history of our civil administration
-of the Gangetic portion of our
-Eastern territory divides itself into
-three distinct periods. The first, extending
-from the victories of Clive in
-1757, to the commencement of Lord
-Cornwallis’s system in 1793, may be
-called the heroic and irregular; the
-second, dating from the year last mentioned,
-and continuing till the accession
-of Lord William Bentinck in
-1829, may be designated the judicial
-and regular; and the third, stretching
-from that time to the present day, the
-anti-judicial and progressive period.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>During the first of these periods, it
-is in vain to deny that gross abuses
-prevailed, and that many acts of oppression
-were committed by those
-very individuals among our own
-countrymen, whose heroism in the field
-and sagacity in council were the subjects
-of admiration to such natives as
-were brought into communication and
-contact with them.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>A degree of intimacy thus subsisted
-between the European rulers and
-natives of higher rank, such as, in
-these days, is only to be found where
-the native has been by education assimilated
-in some degree to the Englishman.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>It is stated by Mr F. H. Robinson,
-that men who had left India at that
-early period, could not believe those
-who, in after years, told them of the
-social estrangement prevailing in that
-country, and of the reluctance evinced,
-even by Mahommedans, to share a
-repast with a Christian.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>Engaged, as the English of those
-early days were, in a struggle for political
-existence, their deportment towards
-natives of rank was influenced by the
-often-felt necessity of winning them
-over to their interests; and thus our
-national disposition to be contemptuously
-churlish towards those who
-differ from ourselves in language,
-complexion, and manner, was kept for
-a while in abeyance. At that period,
-therefore, we find traces of friendly
-personal feeling subsisting between
-Englishmen and natives, and expressed
-by the latter, even in the same
-breath with the most earnest protestations
-against the mal-administration
-of the country then in our hands.
-Striking instances of these conflicting
-feelings are exhibited in that most
-curious work entitled <cite>Syar-ul Mootekherin</cite>,
-which may be translated
-into a “Review of Modern Times,”
-or more literally, “Manners of the
-Moderns.” This history of the events
-attending the downfall of the Moghul
-and the rise of our own power in
-India, was written by a Mahommedan
-gentleman, of the name of Mir
-Gholan Hussein, whose descendants,
-if we are not misinformed, continued
-under our rule to hold possession of
-certain lands in the province of Behar,
-since lost to them in a manner likely
-to be chronicled among the events of
-the third of the three historic periods
-to which we have alluded.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>If even at this distance of time it
-is painful to read the reproaches bestowed
-by the author on our internal
-administration, it is still consolatory
-to find one, to whom neither partiality
-nor flattery can be imputed, recording
-his unfeigned admiration of the personal
-conduct of many of our countrymen
-in those early days.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>Of Warren Hastings the author
-writes with enthusiasm. He records
-all of that great man’s troubles with
-his council; and gives, if we remember
-right—for we have not been able to
-find a complete translation of the
-work in London—a circumstantial
-account of the duel with Francis,
-fought, according to English custom,
-with <em>tummunchas</em> (pistols), in a
-<em>bugishea</em> (garden); and then after
-narrating the complete dispersion of
-the factious opposition by which he
-had been thwarted, he breaks out in a
-triumphant tone, with an exclamation
-like the following: “Now did the
-genius of Mr Hastings, like the sun
-bursting through a cloud, beam forth
-in all its splendour.” In describing
-an action fought in the vicinity of the
-city of Patna, in the year 1760, the
-native author dwells with delight upon
-the conduct of his friend Dr William
-Fullerton, who, in the midst of a retreat
-in the face of a victorious enemy,
-on an ammunition-cart breaking down,
-stopped unconcernedly, put it in order,
-and then bravely pursued his route,
-and “it must be acknowledged,” he
-adds, “that this nation’s presence of
-mind, firmness of temper, and undaunted
-bravery, are past all question.”</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>In abatement of these praises, he
-adds the following reflections: “If, to
-so many military qualifications, they
-knew how to join the art of government,
-no nation would be preferable
-to them, or prove worthier of command;
-but such is their little regard
-to the people of these kingdoms, and
-such their apathy and indifference for
-their welfare, that the people under
-their dominion groan everywhere, and
-are reduced to poverty and distress.”</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>Though this censure is in so far
-unfair, that all is, in Oriental fashion,
-imputed to the ruling power, without
-allowance for the circumstances of a
-period of troublous transition, it is
-evidently penned in an honest and
-friendly spirit; and evinces no repugnance
-whatever to the domination of
-the English, provided they would
-acquire some better knowledge of
-“the art of government.” In another
-passage he recounts how gallantly a
-Hindoo of high rank, Rajah Shitab
-Roy, co-operated with Captain Knox
-in attacking an immensely superior
-force, and how heartily, on returning
-to Patna, the English captain expressed
-his admiration of his Hindoo ally,
-exclaiming repeatedly, “This is a real
-Nawab; I never saw such a Nawab in
-my life.”</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>Soon afterwards the French officer
-with the force opposed to the English,
-the Chevalier Law, having been deserted
-by his men, remained by himself
-on the field of battle, when, bestriding
-one of his guns, “he awaited
-the moment of his death.” His surrender
-and courteous reception are
-dwelt on with evident delight; and,
-after stating how a rude question addressed
-to the Chevalier by a native
-chief was checked and rebuked by the
-English officer, he makes the following
-observation:—“This reprimand
-did much honour to the English; and
-it must be acknowledged, to the honour
-of these strangers, that as their
-conduct in war and in battle is worthy
-of admiration, so, on the other hand,
-nothing is more modest and more becoming
-than their behaviour to an
-enemy, whether in the heat of action
-or in the pride of success and victory.”</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>These extracts, borrowed from the
-notes to the third volume of Mill’s
-History, might be supported by many
-other passages of a similar tendency
-in the native work itself; and all tend
-to prove that the social estrangement
-since prevailing between our countrymen
-and the native gentry has not
-had its origin in the religious scruples
-of the latter, or in any decided aversion
-on their part to a closer intercourse
-with the strangers to whom
-Providence has assigned the mastery
-over their land.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>This view is confirmed, in as far as
-the Mahommedans are concerned, by
-what Mrs Colin Mackenzie tells us of
-the comments of the Afghan chiefs on
-the reluctance of their co-religionists
-in Hindostan to share a repast with
-their Christian rulers, and the absence
-of any fellowship between the two
-classes is traced by that lady to the
-very cause to which it is in our opinion
-also mainly to be ascribed;
-namely, to our peculiar and somewhat
-repulsive bearing towards all
-who differ from ourselves in tone of
-thought, in taste, or in manners.—With
-a scrupulous respect for the
-persons and property of those among
-whom we are thrown by the accidents
-of war, or trade, or travel, we too
-often manifest a great disregard for
-the feelings; and as insults rankle in
-the memory long after injuries are
-forgotten, we find that liberal expenditure
-and strict justice in our dealings
-cannot make us as popular as our
-rivals the French, even in countries
-where we paid for all, and they for
-nothing, that was supplied or taken.
-Now, it is well remarked by Mr
-Marshman, at p. 63 of his Reply to
-Mr Cobden, that “everything in and
-about our Eastern Empire is English,
-even to our imperfections;” and
-among them we need not be surprised
-to find an undue scorn of all
-that is foreign, heightened by the
-arrogance of conquest and the Anglo-Saxon
-antipathy to a dark complexion.
-This last is a more potent
-principle than in our present humour
-of theoretical philanthropy we may
-be disposed to admit; but it seems to
-be born with us, for it may be seen
-sometimes in English children at an
-age too young for prejudice, or even a
-perception of social distinctions.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>It was said by “the Duke,” that
-there is no aristocracy like the aristocracy
-of colour; and all experience in
-lands where the races are brought into
-contact, proves the correctness of the
-aphorism.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>During the first thirty years of our
-ascendancy in India, this most forbidding
-of our national characteristics
-was kept in check by the exigencies of
-our position; and the consequence was,
-that, notwithstanding all the corruption
-of the time, we were then individually
-more popular than we have
-ever been since. There was so little
-of what could be called European
-society then to be met with throughout
-the country, that Englishmen were
-drawn into some degree of intimacy
-with natives, in order to escape from
-the painful sense of total isolation and
-solitude. That this intercourse was
-favourable to morality in the highest
-sense of the term, is more than we
-can venture to affirm; each party too
-often acquired more of the faults than
-of the virtues of the other. But still,
-bad as the public and private life of
-Anglo-Indians was at that period,
-and however great the corruption that
-prevailed, these defects in those who
-ruled were perhaps more tolerable to
-the governed than the ill-mannered
-integrity of a succeeding generation.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>The abuses had probably gone on
-increasing, and the palliating courtesy
-most likely diminishing, when a
-new era was ushered in by the arrival
-of the first Governor-General of superior
-rank, in the person of the Marquis
-Cornwallis.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>We must refer our readers to Mr
-Kaye’s pages for a clear description
-of the state of the Bengal Presidency
-at the commencement of this
-the second of the three periods into
-which we have assumed that its history
-may be distributed. Our space
-will not allow of our entering into the
-controversy about the merits of the
-system then introduced by Lord Cornwallis
-and his coadjutors, but we
-gladly make room for the following
-picture of the state of the peasantry
-in Bengal, sketched as we are assured
-by an eyewitness, in the course of
-the year 1853.</p>
-
-<p class='c010'>“What strikes the eye most in any
-village, or set of villages, in a Bengal
-district, is the exuberant fertility of the
-soil, the sluttish plenty surrounding the
-Grihasta’s (cultivator’s) abode, the rich
-foliage, the fruit and timber trees, and the
-palpable evidence against anything like
-penury. Did any man ever go through a
-Bengalee village and find himself assailed
-by the cry of want or famine? Was he
-ever told that the Ryot and his family
-did not know where to turn for a meal,
-that they had no shade to shelter them,
-no tank to bathe in, no employment for
-their active limbs? That villages are
-not neatly laid out like a model village
-in an English county; that things seem to
-go on, year by year, in the same slovenly
-fashion; that there are no local improvements,
-and no advances in civilisation, is
-all very true. But considering the wretched
-condition of some of the Irish peasantry,
-or even the Scotch, and the
-misery experienced by hundreds in the
-purlieus of our great cities at home, compared
-with the condition of the Ryots
-who know neither cold nor hunger, it is
-high time that the outcry about the extreme
-unhappiness of the Bengal Ryot
-should cease.”—(P. 194.)</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>It is cheering to read in the chapter
-of Mr Kaye’s work, from which the
-above extract is taken, the proofs that
-the labours of Cornwallis and his able
-coadjutors have not been fruitless, and
-that the peasantry of the part of India
-more immediately under their care,
-are not, as some have asserted, to
-this hour suffering from their blundering
-humanity.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>It would indeed be most mortifying
-to think that regulations, pronounced
-at the time of their promulgation by
-Sir Wm. Jones and the best English
-lawyers in India (though, in the true
-spirit of professional pedantry, they
-would not allow them to be called
-laws), to be such as would do credit
-to any legislator of ancient or modern
-times, should really in operation have
-proved productive of little or no good.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>The preambles to some of the first
-of these regulations are worthy of
-notice, even on the score of literary
-merit; and it is impossible to peruse
-them without feeling that they must
-have proceeded from highly cultivated
-minds, deeply impressed with the importance
-of the duty on which they
-were engaged.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>It was the recorded opinion of the
-late Mr Courtenay Smith, of the Bengal
-Civil Service (a brother of the
-celebrated Sidney Smith, and, like
-him, a man of great wit and general
-talent, though unfortunately his good
-things were mostly expressed in Persian
-or Hindostanee, and are thus
-lost to the European world), that
-succeeding governments have always
-erred as they have departed from the
-principles of the Cornwallis code; and
-that it would have been well if they
-had confined their legislation to such
-few modifications of the regulations
-of 1793 as the slowly progressive
-changes of Oriental life might have
-really rendered necessary.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>For very nearly thirty years the
-government of Bengal resisted the
-tempting facility of legislation incident
-to its position of entire and absolute
-power, and was content to rule
-upon the principles, and in general
-adherence to the forms, prescribed by
-those early enactments.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>The benefits resulting from this
-system were to be seen in a yearly
-extending cultivation, a growing respect
-for rights of property, and the
-gradual rise in the minds of the people
-of an habitual reference to certain
-known laws, instead of to the caprice
-of a ruler, for their guidance in the
-more serious affairs of life.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>The counterbalancing evils alleged
-against it were, the monopoly of all
-high offices by the covenanted servants
-of the East India Company;
-the accumulation of suits in the courts
-of civil justice—a result partly of that
-monopoly, and partly of the check
-imposed by our police on all simpler
-and ruder modes of arbitrement;
-and its tendency, by humouring the
-Asiatic aversion to change, to keep
-things stationary, and discountenance
-that progress without which there
-ought, in the opinion of many of our
-countrymen, to be no content on earth.
-Indeed, the very fact of the natives of
-Bengal being satisfied with such a
-system, would, we apprehend, be advanced
-as a reason for its abolition—a
-contented frame of mind, under their
-circumstances, being held to indicate
-a moral abasement, only to be corrected
-by the excitement of a little
-discontent. But, in truth, there was
-nothing in the Cornwallis system to
-preclude the introduction of necessary
-amendments.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>The great reproach attaching to it
-was the insufficient employment of
-natives, and the exclusive occupation
-by the Civil Service of the higher judicial
-posts. Now, we hope to make it
-clear, by a brief explanation, that the
-correction of both of these evils might
-more easily have been effected under
-the Cornwallis system, than under
-that by which it has been superseded.
-There are, as we have remarked at
-the outset of this article, questions of
-difficult solution inseparable from
-conquest; among which, that of the
-degree of trust to be reposed in the
-conquered is perhaps the greatest.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>Where attachment can hardly be
-presumed to exist, some reserve in
-the allotment of power appears to be
-dictated by prudence; and to fix the
-amount of influence annexed to an
-office to be filled by one of the subjugated,
-so as to render its importance
-and respectability compatible with
-the supremacy of the ruling race, is
-far from being so easy as those imagine
-who, in their reliance on certain
-general principles of supposed
-universal application, leave national
-feelings and prejudices out of account
-in making up their own little nostrums
-for the improvement of mankind.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>Under the Cornwallis system, there
-was an office which, though then always
-filled by a member of the Civil Service,
-seemed, in the limitation as well as the
-importance of its duties, to be exactly
-suited for natives to hold. When the
-civil file of a district became overloaded
-with arrears, the government used
-to appoint an officer to be assistant or
-deputy judge. To him the regular
-judge of the district was empowered
-to refer any cases that he thought fit,
-though there his power ceased, as the
-appeal lay direct to the provincial
-court from the award of the deputy.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>The deputy being made merely a
-referee without original jurisdiction,
-was a wise provision for keeping the
-primary judicial power in the hands
-of the officer charged with the preservation
-of the peace of the district,
-while importance and weight were
-given to the office of the deputy, by
-making the appeals from his decisions
-lie to the Provincial Court, and not
-to his local superior. A single little
-law of three lines, declaring natives of
-India to be eligible to the office of
-Deputy Judge, would, by throwing a
-number of respectable situations open
-to their aspirations, have provided
-for their advancement, without any
-disturbance of institutions to which
-the people of the country had become
-accustomed and reconciled. Again,
-as to the monopoly of higher judicial
-office by members of the Civil Service,
-the Cornwallis system, perhaps, provided
-a readier means of abating even
-this grievance than will be found in
-that by which it has been supplanted.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>Nothing can be more extravagant
-than the scheme of sending out barristers
-from Westminster Hall, to
-undertake, without any intermediate
-training, the management of districts
-in Bengal and Hindostan. Sir William
-Jones himself, unintelligible as
-he was, on his first arrival, to the
-natives of India, would have failed
-if he had undertaken such a task.
-This visionary proposal has happily
-received its <em>coup de grace</em> from Sir
-Edward Ryan, the late Chief Justice
-in Bengal, in his evidence before the
-Commons’ Committee; but it does not,
-in our opinion, follow that the aid of
-lawyers trained in England is therefore
-to be altogether discarded in providing
-for the administration of justice
-in India. Although the man fresh from
-England would be sadly bewildered if
-left by himself in a separate district,
-it does not follow that he should not,
-after some preparatory training, be
-able to co-operate vigorously with
-others. The horse will go well in
-double-harness, or in a team, who
-would upset a gig, and kick it to
-pieces.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>If barristers chose to repair to
-Bengal, and, while there practising at
-the bar of the Supreme Court, would
-study the native languages, it appears
-to us that, on their proficiency being
-proved by an examination, they might
-have been advantageously admitted,
-under certain limitations as to number,
-into the now abolished Provincial
-Courts.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>Had these experimental provisions
-in favour of natives of India, and
-barristers from England, been found
-to succeed, their eligibility to every
-grade in the judicial branch of the
-service might have been proclaimed,
-and the most plausible of all the complaints
-against our system of Indian
-government would thus have been
-removed. But improvement without
-change was not to the taste of those
-by whom the last of our three administrative
-periods was ushered in; and
-in further confirmation of Mr Marshman’s
-remark, already cited, on the
-parallelism of movement in England
-and in India, it was in the changeful
-years 1830 and 1831 that a revolution
-was effected in our system of internal
-administration, which has since given
-a colour and a bent to our whole
-policy in the East. In the course of
-those two years the magisterial power
-was detached from the office of the
-judge, and annexed to that of the
-collector; the Provincial Courts were
-abolished, their judicial duties being
-transferred to the district judges, and
-their ministerial functions of superintendence
-and control to commissioners,
-each with the police and revenue
-of about half a dozen districts under
-his charge.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>Two Sudder, or courts of ultimate
-resort, were established, one at Calcutta,
-the other at Allahabad in upper
-India; but all real executive power
-centred in the magisterial revenue
-department, presided over by two
-Boards, located, like the Sudder
-Courts, at Calcutta and Allahabad.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>One of the new provisions then introduced
-abolished the office of Register,
-or subordinate Judge, held by
-young civilians conjointly with that
-of Assistant to the Magistrate. This
-was a most serious change, for it
-abolished the very situation in which
-young civilians received their judicial
-training, and fitted themselves for the
-better eventual discharge of the higher
-duties of the judicature.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>The Registers used to have the
-trial of civil suits for property, if not
-more than five hundred rupees (£50)
-in value. The abolitionists urged the
-injustice of letting raw youths experimentalise
-upon small suits, to the supposed
-detriment of poor suitors. There
-was a show of reason in this mode of
-arguing; but those who used it did not
-give due weight to the consideration
-that these youths were to become the
-dispensers of justice to all classes, and
-that it was better for the country to
-suffer a little from their blunders at
-the outset, than to have them at last
-advanced to the highest posts on the
-judgment-seat without any judicial
-training whatsoever. But, in fact, the
-whole argument was based upon a
-mere assumption. The young Registers
-certainly committed occasional
-blunders, as old Justices and Aldermen,
-if we are to believe the daily
-papers, constantly commit them in
-England; but, on the whole, their
-courts were generally popular and in
-good repute among the natives. The
-young civilian had often a pride in his
-own little court of record, liked to
-know that it was well thought of, and
-was sometimes pleased to find parties
-shaping their plaints so as to bring
-them within the limits of his cognisance.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>They thus often acquired a personal
-regard for the people, whom it
-was their pride, as well as their duty,
-to protect—a feeling which has since,
-we fear, been too much weakened.
-The young civilians of the present day,
-though excellent men of business, and
-accomplished linguists, have seldom
-any individual feeling for the natives,
-whom they regard in a light for which
-no word occurs to us so happily expressive
-as the French term, “les
-administrés.” Thus it happened that
-the abolition of Registerships proved
-almost the death-blow to the Cornwallis
-system, and shook, not merely
-the framework, but the very principles
-of judicial administration throughout
-the country. It was followed up
-by a series of measures, all calculated
-to lower the judicial department of the
-service, and to prove to the natives
-that the protection of the law, promised
-in the still unrepealed regulations,
-was thenceforward to prove
-illusory, wherever it was required to
-shield them from the encroachments
-of any new scheme or theory finding
-favour for the moment with an executive
-government ruling avowedly
-upon principles of expediency, and
-seeking every occasion to shake off
-the trammels imposed upon its freedom
-of action by the cautious provisions
-of the Cornwallis code.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>The people soon found in their
-rulers under the new system a scrupulous
-discharge of all positive duties,
-combined with a diminished consideration
-for native prejudices, a neglect of
-many punctilios of etiquette, and a
-stern hostility to every exceptional
-privilege exempting an individual in
-any degree from the operation of the
-rules of general administration. This
-last-mentioned tendency showed itself
-particularly in the case of the
-rent-free tenures, which had for some
-ten years previously been undergoing
-revision.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>These landed tenures were held
-under grants from former rulers, exempting
-the grantee and his heirs
-from all payment on the score of revenue,
-though sometimes, as in our
-own feudal tenures, imposing upon
-him obligations of suit and service in
-some form or other.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>When the framers of the Cornwallis
-code, in 1793, determined on
-recognising the validity of every such
-tenure as was held under an authentic
-and sufficient grant, a provision was
-at the same time made for their
-being carefully recorded and registered.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>This duty of registration was, however,
-either totally neglected or very
-imperfectly performed, and the consequence
-was, that by collusive extensions
-of their limits, and other
-means, such as it would be tedious to
-explain, the rent-free tenures were
-gradually eating into the rent-paying
-lands forming the main source of the
-revenues of the state. Careful revision,
-therefore, became necessary, and
-was in fact commenced so far back as
-the year 1819. The inquiry was intrusted
-to the officers of the revenue
-department; but for some time permission
-was left to those discontented
-with their award, to bring the question
-at issue between them and the
-Government before the regular courts
-of justice for final decision. This process
-proving too tardy, in about ten
-years afterwards a sort of exchequer
-court, called a Special Commission,
-was erected for the trial of appeals
-from the decisions of the revenue
-authorities on the validity of rent-free
-grants. This commission was filled
-by officers of the judicial branch of the
-service, and their proceedings, carried
-on in strict conformity with the practice
-of the courts of civil justice, gave
-no offence, and created no alarm, notwithstanding
-that extensive tracts
-were brought by their decisions under
-the liability of paying revenue to the
-state. But not long after the country
-had entered into the third period of
-its administration, the revenue authorities
-got impatient of all restraint,
-and sought to break through the impediments
-of judicial procedure and
-rules. The primary proceedings, being
-intrusted to young deputy-collectors,
-were carried on with a rapidity
-which rendered due investigation
-utterly impossible, and all real inquiry
-must have been deemed superfluous
-by juniors, who saw their
-superiors gravely pronounce, even in
-official documents, that the very existence
-of a rent-free tenure was an
-abuse, and ought to be abated.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>We have said that the forgeries
-practised by some, and the extension
-of their privileges by others of the
-holders, rendered strict investigation of
-rent-free tenures an immediate necessity
-and a duty. Still, it was to be
-borne in mind, that our faith was
-pledged to the recognition of all <em>genuine</em>
-grants, and that, in the larger of
-these tenures, the fallen nobility and
-gentry of the land found their solace
-for the loss of power, place, station,
-hope of advancement, and all that
-gives a zest to the life of the upper
-classes in every part of the globe;
-while the smaller tenures of the kind
-constituted, in many instances, the
-sole support of well-descended but
-indigent families. There was something
-to move the compassion even
-of a universal philanthropist, in the
-thought of the humble individuals of
-both sexes to whom a sweeping resumption
-of all such tenures was in
-fact the extinction of almost every
-earthly hope. The Indian government
-itself, though at that period
-described by Mr F. H. Robinson
-(p. 12) as “a despotism administered
-upon radical principles,” became
-startled at the havoc which the zeal
-of its subordinates was committing
-among this class of sufferers, and interfered
-to mitigate the severity of
-their proceedings. Many of the “soft-hearted”
-seniors of the Civil Service
-rejoiced at a resolution which relieved
-them from an odious and painful duty.
-But thus reasons a strong-minded
-junior on what he regards as a feeble
-concession:—</p>
-
-<p class='c010'>“Unfortunately the long delay in making
-the investigations had established in
-their seats the fraudulent appropriators
-of the revenue; and when it came to be
-taken from them, the measure caused
-great change and apparent hardship to
-individuals in comfortable circumstances;
-hence arose a great cry of hardship and
-injustice. We were still most apt to view
-with sympathy the misfortunes of the
-higher classes; many soft-hearted officers
-of Government exclaimed against the
-sudden deprivation; and some of the
-seditious Europeans, who find their profit
-in professional attacks on Government,
-raised the cry much louder. But the
-worst of the storm had expended itself;
-a little firmness, a little voluntary beneficence
-to individual cases, and it would
-have ceased; and the temporary inconvenience
-to fraudulent individuals would
-have resulted in great permanent addition
-to the means of the state; but the
-Bengal Government is pusillanimous.
-Since Warren Hastings was persecuted
-in doing his duty, and Lord Cornwallis
-praised for sacrificing the interests of
-Government, and of the body of the people,
-it has always erred on the side of
-abandoning its rights to any sufficiently
-strong interested cry. It wavered about
-these resumptions. It let off first one
-kind of holding, then another, then all
-holdings under one hundred beegas (about
-seventy acres), whether one man possessed
-several such or not: life-tenures were
-granted where no right existed. Finally,
-<em>all</em> resumed lands were settled at <em>half</em>
-rates in perpetuity, and the Board of
-Revenue intimated that they ‘would be
-happy to see all operations discontinued.’
-The result therefore is, that the Government
-have incurred all the odium and
-abuse of the measure, have given the cry
-more colour by so much yielding, and in
-the end have got not half so much revenue
-as they ought to have had. There
-has been an addition of about £300,000
-to the annual revenue, at an expense of
-£800,000.”<a id='r36'></a><a href='#f36' class='c007'><sup>[36]</sup></a></p>
-
-<p class='c008'>According to Mr Campbell’s calculation,
-a stricter enforcement of the
-resumption laws might have doubled
-the above sum; but as only the
-smaller tenures were let off, it is
-scarcely possible that more than half
-as much again as was actually realised
-could have been wrung out of the
-remnants to which the Government
-so timidly, as he asserts, abandoned
-its rights. An addition, therefore,
-of about £450,000 to our annual
-income would have been all
-that we should have gained by a
-measure violating the most solemn
-pledge given to the people that every
-<span class='fss'>VALID</span> grant should be respected, reducing
-many families to ruin, and
-shaking the general confidence in our
-honesty and good faith. Though the
-passage cited is open to many objections
-on the score of arbitrary assumption
-and false reasoning, it is to its
-hardness of tone that we would chiefly
-draw our readers’ attention, as strongly
-confirmatory of the following remark,
-taken from Mr F. H. Robinson’s
-pamphlet:—</p>
-
-<p class='c010'>“I have said enough, I think, to demonstrate
-that the disaffection which exists
-is traceable to the despotic character
-our administration has of late years
-assumed, simultaneously with its sedulous
-diffusion of liberal doctrines; to the
-unhappy dislike of natives, as natives,
-which has crept in among the servants of
-Government; to the many acts of abuse,
-oppression, and arbitrary misgovernment,
-arising as much from misguided zeal as
-from evil intention, which, on the part of
-the administrative officers, harass and
-vex the people.”—(P. 31).</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>We have already recorded our assent
-to Mr Marshman’s remark on the thoroughly
-English character of our Indian
-empire and its administration;
-but we have, moreover, to observe,
-that, in the application of new principles
-even of European growth, India
-often outstrips the mother country.
-That which in England is still theory
-has in India become practice. There
-are not wanting in England people to
-maintain that all grants of olden times
-ought to be forfeited, and their proceeds
-applied to the purposes of general
-government. If these people had
-their way, they would certainly resume
-the lands of the deans and chapters,
-probably those of the schools and
-colleges, and possibly such also as
-are devoted to the support of almshouses,
-and other charitable institutions
-scattered over the face of the
-country. These speculations in England
-evaporate in pamphlets, and cannot
-for a long time assume any more
-positive form than that of a speech in
-the House of Commons. But the
-following passage in Mr F. H. Robinson’s
-pamphlet shows us how differently
-such matters are ordered in India:—</p>
-
-<p class='c010'>“The Government have systematically
-resumed, of late years, all religious endowments;
-an extensive inquiry has been
-going on into all endowments, grants,
-and pensions; and in almost every one
-in which the continuance of religious endowments
-has been recommended by subordinate
-revenue authorities, backed by
-the Board of Revenue, the fiat of confiscation
-has been issued by the Government.”—(P. 17).</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Again, there are many in England
-who would gladly reduce the landed
-possessions of great proprietors, like
-the Duke of Buccleuch and others, to
-more moderate dimensions; but they
-hardly venture to put forth speculations
-upon a measure which, in India,
-has been carried into positive and extensive
-execution.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>The fourth chapter of Mr Kaye’s
-work contains a clear and admirable
-account of the recent settlement of the
-provinces of the Upper Ganges, in the
-course of which the reader will meet
-with the following passage:—</p>
-
-<p class='c010'>“There was a class of large landed
-proprietors, known as Talookdars, the
-territorial aristocracy of the country.
-The settlement officers seem to have
-treated these men as usurpers and monopolists,
-and to have sought every opportunity
-of reducing their tenures. It was
-not denied that such reduction was, on
-the whole, desirable, inasmuch as these
-large tenures interfered with the rights
-of the village proprietors. But the reduction
-was undertaken in too precipitate
-and arbitrary a manner; and the Court
-of Directors acknowledged that it had
-caused great practical embarrassment to
-Government, against whom numerous
-suits were instituted in the civil courts
-by the ousted talookdars, and many decided
-in their favour.”—(P. 265).</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The redress afforded by these decisions
-of the civil courts has not, we
-fear, been sufficient to avert the ruin
-of such members of the “territorial
-aristocracy” as had the hardihood to
-withhold their adhesion to a scheme
-for their own extinction. The principle
-of that scheme was to grant, in
-the form of a per-centage on the revenue
-realised from the village communities
-of what had been his domain, a
-pension to the talookdar who was
-willing, for such a consideration, to
-give up all the other advantages of
-his hereditary position. Many of
-these men, or their immediate predecessors,
-had rendered us great service
-in the war by which we acquired the
-country; but they stood in the way
-of a favourite scheme, and before its
-irresistible advance they were compelled
-to retire. The provision made
-for their future wants may have been
-a liberal one; but how would the
-Duke of Buccleuch or the Marquess of
-Westminster like to be thus pensioned
-off?</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>The truth had better be frankly
-avowed; the object aimed at is, to get
-rid of the old territorial aristocracy
-altogether,—indeed, it is so stated by
-Mr Campbell in the following sentences:—</p>
-
-<p class='c010'>“It is, I think, a remarkable distinction
-between the manners of the natives
-and ours, and one which much affects our
-dealings with them, that there does not
-exist that difference of tone between the
-higher and lower classes—the distinction,
-in fact, of a gentleman. The lower classes
-are to the full as good and intelligent as
-with us; indeed, they are much more
-versed in the affairs of life, plead their
-causes better, make more intelligent witnesses,
-and have many virtues.</p>
-
-<p class='c011'>“But these good qualities are not in
-the same proportion in the higher classes;
-they cannot bear prosperity; it causes
-them to degenerate, especially if they
-are born to greatness. The only efficient
-men of rank (with, of course, a few exceptions)
-are those who have risen to
-greatness. The lowest of the people, if
-fate raise him to be an emperor, makes
-himself quite at home in his new situation,
-and shows an aptitude of manner and
-conduct unknown to Europeans similarly
-situated; but his son is altogether degenerate.
-Hence the impossibility of adapting
-to anything useful most of the higher
-classes found by us, and for all fresh requirements
-it is necessary to <em>create</em> a fresh
-class. From the acuteness and aptness
-to learn of the inferior classes, this can
-be done as is done in other countries.”—(Pp.
-63, 64).</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>We fully subscribe to all that is
-here said in commendation of the
-lower classes of our Indian subjects,
-but we demur to the author’s very
-disparaging estimate of the capacity
-of the higher orders. Doubtless there
-are, or rather were, many dull men of
-rank on the banks of the Ganges; but
-are there none on those of the Thames?—no
-squires of cramped and confused
-notions, no fortunate inheritors of
-wealth content to wallow through
-life in utter disregard of the duties
-attaching to property, while fiercely
-jealous of its rights? It would be a
-sad day for our own landed aristocracy
-if Mr Campbell were to obtain sway in
-England, and try to rule that country
-upon the principles of which he approves
-in the East. But if he could,
-would our peasantry be <em>permanently</em>
-bettered by a change tending towards
-a destruction of all the gradations of
-society? If the reply to this query
-should be in the affirmative, we may
-contemplate with unalloyed satisfaction
-the progress of a system the description
-and defence of which is the
-main object of Mr Campbell’s work;
-but if we feel any hesitation as to the
-future effects of such a change in
-England, then, human nature being
-much the same in every clime, we
-ought to have some misgivings as to
-its eventual results in the East. We
-say <em>eventual</em>, because the <em>immediate</em>
-fruits of the measures described by
-Mr Campbell have, we are assured
-by him, and have heard from other
-quarters, been satisfactory and cheering.
-But is it probable that a whole
-nation should rest satisfied for ever in
-this state of flat and tame sufficiency?
-and can we wonder to find alongside
-of Mr Campbell’s picture of what
-ought to be the feelings towards the
-English of the present day on the
-banks of the Ganges, Mr F. H.
-Robinson’s gloomy account of what,
-in his opinion, those feelings really
-are? Having been compelled, as a
-member of the Board of Revenue, to
-make a communication to an old
-retired officer of Gardiner’s Irregular
-Horse, and to a Mussulman of rank,
-calculated to hurt the feelings of both,
-Mr Robinson thus describes what
-followed:—</p>
-
-<p class='c010'>“I shall never forget the looks of mortification,
-anger, and at first of incredulity,
-with which this announcement was
-received by both, nor the bitter irony
-with which the old Russuldar remarked,
-that no doubt the wisdom of the <em>new-gentlemen</em>
-(Sahiblogue, so they designate
-the English) had shown them the folly
-and ignorance of the gentlemen of the
-old time, on whom it had pleased God,
-nevertheless, to bestow the government
-of India.”—(P. 17).</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Mr Robinson goes too far when
-he taxes the rulers of the present
-day with dislike to the natives generally;
-but it is evident, from Mr
-Campbell’s own admission, that there
-is a strong prepossession in the minds
-of the young men of his school against
-all natives with any pretensions to
-rank. This feeling extending to those
-beyond the limits of our own dominions,
-has stamped on our foreign policy
-the character of our internal administration,
-and found its full development
-in the late Afghan war. Thirty or
-forty years ago, when natives, if excluded
-from office, were more often
-admitted to familiar intercourse with
-their European rulers, a mere regard
-for our own character in the eyes of
-our subjects would have withheld us
-from making an unprovoked attack
-upon an unoffending neighbour, and
-thus incurring a certain loss of reputation
-for a very uncertain amount of
-gain. This view of the case does not
-of course even occur to Mr Campbell
-as one likely to be taken by any
-reasonable being, and he sums up his
-account of the Afghan war with the
-following remarks, suggestive to our
-minds of little beyond a most earnest
-hope that the future advancement,
-doubtless in store for one of his abilities,
-may lead him far away from
-meddling with matters either political
-or military:—</p>
-
-<p class='c010'>“Such it was—a grievous military
-catastrophe and misfortune to us, both
-then and in our subsequent relations with
-the country; but in no way attributable
-to our policy, from which no such result
-necessarily or probably flowed. To the
-policy is due the expense, but not the
-disaster.”—(P. 136).</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Mr Campbell has evidently not
-made very minute inquiry into the
-facts of the war, or he would never
-have hazarded the assertion contained
-in the following passage, that Sir
-George Pollock literally paid his way
-through the Khyber Pass:—</p>
-
-<p class='c010'>“Through the Western mountains only
-has India been invaded; for beyond them
-are all the great nations of Central India,
-and they are penetrable to enemies
-through one or two difficult passes. But
-these passes are so narrow, difficult, and
-easily defended, that <em>it is believed</em> that
-no army, from Alexander’s down to
-General Pollock’s, has ever passed without
-bribing the mountain tribes. In the
-face of regular troops and an organised
-defence, all the armies in the world could
-not force an entrance; but in the absence
-of such a defence, experience proves that
-the local tribes are always accessible to
-moderate bribes.”—(P. 27).</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The absolute impracticability of any
-mountain barrier is, we believe, disputed;
-but, without offering any
-opinion on that point, we are happy
-to have it in our power to correct the
-mistake into which the author has
-fallen, in supposing that it was by
-bribing that Sir George Pollock
-carried his army through the Khyber
-Pass. It is true that, in the anxious
-time preceding our army’s movement
-from Peshawar, negotiations had
-been entered into with the local
-tribes; but we have the most unquestionable
-authority for asserting
-that, before the march towards Cabool
-began, the sum advanced to their
-chiefs, being 20,000 rupees or £2000,
-was demanded back from them by
-the political agent on the frontier, and
-actually repaid; so that the mountaineers
-had not only the clearest
-warning of the British general’s intention,
-but the strongest possible
-inducement to oppose him, as they
-did to the utmost of their power.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>But our chief motive for alluding to
-the Afghan war is, that we may show
-how the spirit of the two schools, under
-which, according to our theory, those
-engaged in the work of Indian government
-may now be classed, showed itself
-even in the direction of our armies
-in the field. Sir George Pollock was
-there the representative of what would
-be called by us the considerate and
-moderate, by Mr Campbell the soft-hearted
-and over-cautious school;
-while Sir William Nott was at the
-head of that which, going straight to
-its object, tramples under foot, without
-compunction, every consideration that
-might hamper its freedom of movement.
-We select but a few instances
-in proof of our position, choosing
-such as, from their notoriety, can be
-cited without injury or offence.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>As the two avenging armies, the
-one from Candahar on the south, the
-other from Peshawar on the east,
-drew nigh to Cabool, a powerful
-party, consisting chiefly of the Kuzzilbashes
-or Persians, who had never
-taken part against us, prayed earnestly
-that the citadel, the Bala
-Hissar, might be spared to serve as a
-place of refuge to themselves amid
-the troubles likely to ensue on our
-again evacuating the country.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>This prayer General Nott would
-have rejected, and in so doing would
-have gained the applause of every
-member of that school by which concession
-to the feelings of natives in
-opposition to the requirements of
-expediency, or the sternest justice, is
-regarded as a proof of weakness.
-With this prayer General Pollock
-complied; and to his doing so may the
-safety of the ladies and other prisoners,
-in whose fate the whole civilised world
-took so deep an interest, be ascribed;
-for it was through the co-operation of
-those thus conciliated that the Afghan
-chief, charged with the custody of the
-captives, was won over to assist in
-their escape. General Nott was fortunately
-the inferior in rank; for had
-he commanded in chief, we have his
-own words for the fact, that he would
-have destroyed the Bala Hissar and
-the City of Cabool, and marched on
-with the least possible delay to Jellabad,
-of course leaving the poor captives
-to their fate; or, in words which,
-from the manner of their insertion in
-the pages of the historian, it is to be
-feared he must have used, “throwing
-them overboard.”—(<span class='sc'>Kaye’s</span> <cite>History of
-the Afghan War</cite>, vol. i. pp. 617, 631).</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>Incomplete indeed, to use Mr
-Kaye’s words, would any victory
-have been, if these brave men and
-tender women, who had so well endured
-a long and fearful captivity,
-had been left behind; and it is well
-to reflect that we were saved from
-this reproach by the ascendancy of
-the milder principles of rule in the
-mind of the officer upon whom the
-chief command at this moment, we
-may almost say providentially, devolved.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>Many more instances are recorded,
-in the chapter just quoted, of the influence
-of a contrary spirit on the
-closing events of the Afghan war;
-but we must pass on to what happened
-in Scinde, where the anti-judicial
-principle may be said to have
-reached its climax.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>The following is Mr Campbell’s short
-and flippant account of that transaction,
-reminding us in one passage
-of a letter from the Empress Catherine
-to one of her French correspondents,
-wherein she congratulated herself
-“<span lang="fr">qu’il n’y a pas d’honneur à
-garder avec les Turcs</span>”:—</p>
-
-<p class='c010'>“But though we withdrew from Cabool,
-our military experiences were not yet
-over. On invading Afghanistan by the
-Bolan Pass, Scinde became a base of our
-operations, and troops were there cantoned.
-When our misfortunes occurred,
-it was supposed that the Beloch chiefs
-would have liked to have turned against
-us, but dared not—did not.</p>
-
-<p class='c011'>“Major-General Sir C. Napier then
-commanded a division in Bombay; he
-was a good soldier, of a keen, energetic
-temperament, but somewhat quarrelsome
-disposition; had at one proud period of
-his life been in temporary charge of a
-petty island in the Mediterranean, but
-was, I believe, deposed by his superior—most
-unwisely, as he considered; and he
-had ever since added to his military
-ardour a still greater thirst for civil
-power—as it often happens that we prefer
-to the talents which nature has given
-us those which she has denied us. He
-was appointed to the command in Scinde;
-and Lord Ellenborough, an admirer of
-heroes, subsequently invested him with
-political powers. He soon quarrelled
-with the chiefs, and came to blows with
-them. Their followers were brave, but
-undisciplined, and they had no efficient
-artillery. An active soldier was opposed
-to them; he easily overcame them, declared
-the territory annexed, and was
-made Governor of Scinde.”</p>
-
-<p class='c011'>Now, the Beloch chiefs had no other
-right to the territory than the sword;
-<em>and we, having the better sword, were perfectly
-justified in taking it from them if
-we chose</em>, without reference to the particular
-quarrel between Sir Charles and
-the chiefs, the merits of which have been
-so keenly disputed, and on which I need
-not enter. But the question <em>was one of
-expediency</em>; and this premature occupation
-of Scinde was not so much a crime
-as a blunder,—for this very simple reason,
-that Scinde did not pay, but, on the contrary,
-was a very heavy burden, by which
-the Indian Government has been several
-millions sterling out of pocket.</p>
-
-<p class='c011'>“The Ameers had amassed, in their
-own way, considerable property and
-treasure, which the general obtained for
-the army. He was thus rewarded by
-an unprecedented prize-money, and with
-the government of Scinde, while Bengal
-paid the costs of the government he had
-gained. Scinde was so great a loss, for
-this reason—that it was not, like other
-acquisitions, in the midst of, or contiguous
-to, our territories, but was at that time
-altogether detached and separated by the
-sea, the desert, and the independent
-Punjab; while on the fourth side it was
-exposed to the predatory Beloches of the
-neighbouring hills. Consequently, every
-soldier employed there was cut off from
-India, and was an expense solely due to
-Scinde; and while a great many soldiers
-were required to keep it, it produced a
-very small revenue to pay them. It is,
-in truth, very like Egypt—that is, it is
-the fertile valley of a river running
-through a barren country, where no rain
-falls. But there is this difference—first,
-that while no broader, it is not so long,
-nor has the fine delta which constitutes
-the most valuable portion of Egypt;
-second, that while Egypt is free from
-external predatory invasion, Scinde is
-exceedingly exposed to it; and, thirdly,
-that while Egypt has a European market
-for its grain, Scinde has not. Altogether,
-the conquest was, at the time, as
-concerns India, much as if we had taken
-the valley of the Euphrates.</p>
-
-<p class='c011'>“Half a dozen years later, when we
-advanced over the plain of the Indus,
-and annexed the Punjab, we must have
-arranged to control Scinde too, directly
-or indirectly, as might be done cheapest;
-but during those intermediate years it
-was a gratuitous loss, and the chief cause
-of the late derangement of our Indian
-finances.”—(Pp. 137–139).</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The better sword gives the better
-title! When such is the doctrine
-maintained, even by a man of the
-pen, we cannot wonder at its finding
-a ready expositor in the man of the
-sword.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>But, in truth, Mr Campbell’s sword
-plea, having the merit of honesty and
-openness, is by far the best that has
-been advanced; and yet, as he shows,
-it is only available in support of the
-right, and not of the policy, of the
-measure. After-events, he observes,
-alluding to the conquest of the Punjab,
-have given a value to Scinde,
-which in itself it did not possess; but
-he has omitted to remark that the one
-event very probably grew out of the
-other. The Sikhs, who not only had
-refrained, like the Ameers, from molesting,
-but had even assisted us in
-our recent difficulties, had some reason
-for apprehending that, in due time,
-the policy pursued in Scinde would be
-extended to their own more inviting
-country; while, as if to remove an
-obstacle to an apparently desired misunderstanding,
-Sir George Clerk was
-promoted to the nominally higher
-post of lieutenant-governor of Agra,
-and an officer, his very opposite in
-every quality excepting earnest zeal
-and undaunted courage, was appointed
-to be his political successor at Lahore.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>Though he is little disposed to state
-any case too favourably for the party
-opposed to us, this peculiarity in our
-relations with the Sikhs, immediately
-before their invasion of our territory,
-is frankly admitted by Mr Campbell.
-After mentioning various military
-movements calculated to give them
-alarm, he describes a political difficulty
-as to certain lands belonging to
-the Sikh state, lying on our side of
-the Sutledge, which he says had been
-so managed by two successive political
-agents, Sir Claude Wade and
-Sir George Clerk, that through their
-personal influence “it had so happened
-that our wishes were generally
-attended to.” He thus concludes:—</p>
-
-<p class='c010'>“Sir George Clerk having been promoted,
-new men were put in charge of
-our frontier relations, and seem to have
-assumed as a right what had heretofore
-been yielded to a good understanding.
-In 1845 Major Broadfoot was political
-agent. He was a man of great talent
-and immense energy, but of a rather
-overbearing habit. In difficult and delicate
-times he certainly did not conciliate
-the Sikhs.... Altogether, I believe the
-fact to be, that had Sir George Clerk remained
-in charge of our political relations,
-the Sikhs would not have attacked
-us at the time they did; it might have
-been delayed: but still it was well that
-they came when they did.”—(Pp. 142,
-143.)</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The annexation of the Punjab followed
-hard on the conquest of Scinde,
-and both events may be regarded as
-sequels to the Afghan expedition, and
-this again as but a fuller development
-of the anti-judicial school, which, since
-the downfall of the Cornwallis system,
-has held almost undisputed sway on
-the banks of the Ganges.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>When a government essentially despotic,
-like that of British India, spontaneously
-engages to adhere to the
-rules of judicial procedure in dealing
-with its own subjects, a pledge is
-thereby given to neighbouring states
-that towards them also its conduct
-will be regulated on principles of justice
-and moderation.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>We admit that the ruling power
-may thus sometimes create obstructions
-to its own progress along the
-path of improvement; but it seems
-probable that such self-imposed restraints
-should more frequently operate
-(to borrow a term from the railway)
-as “breaks” to save it from
-precipitately rushing into acts of rashness
-or injustice.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>History confirms these conclusions,
-and shows the practical result to have
-been precisely what <em>a priori</em> reasoning
-would have led us to expect.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>Five great wars were waged in
-India during the second or judicial
-period of its administration—that is,
-from 1793 to 1830. These were—the
-Mysore war in 1799, the Mahratta
-war in 1803, the Nepaul war in 1814,
-the Pindaree war in 1817, and the
-Burmese war in 1825. There is not
-one of these against which even a
-plausible charge of injustice can be
-maintained by our bitterest foreign
-foes, or most quick-sighted censorious
-countrymen.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>The acuteness of Mr Cobden himself
-would be at fault if he were to
-try to make out a case against the
-authors of any one of these wars, to
-satisfy a single sensible man beyond
-the circle of the “Peace Society.”</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>But how is it with the wars which
-have occurred since, wandering from
-judicial ways, the rulers of Gangetic
-India have pursued whatever course
-for the moment found favour in their
-own eyes, with little or no reference
-to the feelings of their subjects, and
-with hardly a show of deference to
-the laws enacted by their predecessors?</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>The Afghan war of 1838, the Scinde
-affair of 1843, the Gwalior campaign
-of 1844, have each in their turn, especially
-the two first-named, been made
-the subject of comments neither captious
-nor fastidious, but resting on
-indisputable evidence, and supported
-by reasoning such as pre-formed prejudice
-alone can resist. The two wars
-in the Punjab come under the category
-of the just and necessary; and
-Lord Hardinge’s generous use of the
-privileges of victory, at the close of
-the first of these hard-fought conflicts,
-did much to re-establish our character
-for justice and moderation. But still
-these wars are, we fear, coupled in the
-minds of the people of India with
-those out of which they sprang, and
-share in the reproach attaching, in
-their estimation, to the invasion of
-Afghanistan and the conquest of
-Scinde.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>We have now reached a point
-where we may stop to consider the
-several merits of the works on our
-list at the head of this article. Mr
-F. H. Robinson’s pamphlet is written
-in a frank conversational style, indicative
-of his earnest sincerity and his
-real sympathy with the people of the
-Upper Ganges, among whom his official
-life has been spent. We could
-wish occasionally that his language
-was a little more measured, for there
-are passages to startle some of his
-readers, and so to impair the general
-effect of his otherwise interesting
-pamphlet.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>Of the style, as well as the matter,
-of Mr Campbell’s more elaborate
-work, hardness is the chief characteristic.
-Indeed, he seems to discard
-all ornament from the one, and all
-sentiment from the other, and to aim
-at nothing beyond correctness as to
-his facts, and positiveness as to his
-deductions. In this he fully succeeds.
-His volume is a repertory of useful
-facts, and his conclusions can never
-be misapprehended. Some of Mr
-Campbell’s descriptions also are
-amusing; and we insert, as a specimen
-of his lighter style, the following
-sketch of the day of a magistrate and
-collector in Upper India, that functionary
-whose labours are so little
-known to any but those of his own
-service, or the people among whom
-he lives. After enumerating many
-out-of-door duties despatched in the
-course of an early morning’s ride, the
-description thus proceeds:—</p>
-
-<p class='c010'>“At breakfast comes the post and the
-packet of official letters. The commissioner
-demands explanation on this matter,
-and transmits a paper of instructions
-on that; the judge calls for cases which
-have been appealed; the secretary to
-Government wants some statistical information;
-the inspector of prisons fears
-that the prisoners are growing too fat;
-the commander of the 105th regiment
-begs to state that his regiment will halt
-at certain places on certain days, and
-that he requires a certain quantity of
-flour, grain, hay, and eggs; Mr Snooks,
-the indigo-planter, who is in a state of
-chronic warfare with his next neighbour,
-has submitted his grievances in six folio
-sheets, indifferent English, and a bold
-hand, and demands instant redress, failing
-which he threatens the magistrate
-with Government, the supreme court, an
-aspersion of his character as a gentleman,
-a Parliamentary impeachment, a letter to
-the newspapers, and several other things
-besides. After breakfast he despatches
-his public letters, writes reports, examines
-returns, &#38;c.</p>
-
-<p class='c011'>“During this time he has probably a
-succession of demi-officials from the neighbouring
-cantonments. There is a great
-complaint that the villagers have utterly,
-without provocation, broken the heads of
-the cavalry grass-cutters, and the grass-cutters
-are sent to be looked at. He goes
-out to look at them, but no sooner appears
-than a shout announces that the villagers
-are waiting in a body, with a slightly different
-version of the story, to demand justice
-against the grass-cutters, who have
-invaded their grass-preserves, despoiled
-their villages, and were with difficulty
-prevented from murdering the inhabitants.
-So the case is sent to the joint
-magistrate. But there are more notes;
-some want camels, some carts, and all
-apply to the magistrate; then there may
-be natives of rank and condition, who
-come to pay a serious formal kind of
-visit, and generally want something; or a
-chatty native official who has plenty to
-say for himself.</p>
-
-<p class='c011'>“All this despatched, he orders his
-carriage or umbrella, and goes to cutcherry—his
-regular court. Here he finds
-a sufficiency of business; there are police,
-and revenue, and miscellaneous cases
-of all sorts, appeals from the orders of his
-subordinates, charges of corruption or
-misconduct against native officials. All
-petitions from all persons are received
-daily in a box, read, and orders duly
-passed. Those setting forth good grounds
-of complaint are filed under proper headings;
-others are rejected, for written reason
-assigned. After sunset, comes his
-evening, which is probably like his morning
-ride, mixed up with official and demi-official
-affairs, and only at dark does the
-wearied magistrate retire to dinner and
-to private life.”—(Pp. 248–249).</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Mr Kaye’s essay recommends itself
-by the same easy flow of language as
-made his <cite>History of the Afghan War</cite>
-such agreeable reading. His plan
-does not admit of his giving more
-than a series of sketches; but his outlines
-are so clear, and his selection of
-topics to fill up with is so happy, that
-we can safely recommend his volume
-to any one who, without leisure or
-inclination for more minute study of
-the subject, may still wish to obtain
-some general idea of the administration
-of our vast Eastern empire. In
-a note at page 661, Mr Kaye informs
-us, that in the summer of 1852 the
-Duke of Newcastle told the Haileybury
-students that, during a recent
-tour in the Tyrol, he had met an intelligent
-Austrian general who, in the
-course of conversation on our national
-resources, said that he could understand
-all the elements of our greatness
-except our Anglo-Indian empire, and
-<em>that</em> he could not understand. The
-vast amount of administrative wisdom
-which the good government of such
-an empire demanded, baffled his comprehension.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>The Austrian general, perhaps,
-would not have readily assented to
-the explanation of the marvel given
-by the young French naturalist, Victor
-Jaquemont, who, in a letter dated
-from the confines of Tartary, in
-August 1830, thus writes to a relative
-in Paris: “The ideas entertained
-in France about this country are
-absurd; the governing talents of the
-English are immense; ours, on the
-contrary, are very mediocre; and we
-believe the former to be embarrassed
-when we see them in circumstances
-in which our awkwardness would be
-completely at a stand-still.”—(<cite>English
-translation of Victor Jaquemont’s Letters</cite>,
-vol. i. p. 169).</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>The lady whose three volumes come
-next under our notice is certainly
-one of the most intelligent travellers
-of her sex who has visited India since
-the days when Maria Graham, afterwards
-Lady Callcott, amused her
-readers in England, and enraged
-many of her female acquaintances in
-India, by describing the latter as
-generally “under-bred and overdressed.”</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>It is curious to observe how little
-change the lapse of forty years seems
-to have made in the outward peculiarities
-of Anglo-Indian drawing-room
-life, and how much in unison
-the two fair authors are in their remarks
-on their own countrymen.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>Mrs Colin Mackenzie, however, has
-enjoyed opportunities which her predecessor
-could not command, of observing
-the private and domestic side
-of Oriental life, and has evinced a
-wonderful aptitude in turning these
-opportunities to the best account. The
-great charm of her work is that it
-admits us within the Purdah, and lets
-us see what is hidden from all European
-masculine eyes,—the interior,
-namely, of an Asiatic household.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>It is pleasing to read an English
-lady’s lively account of her own
-friendly intercourse with families of
-another faith, upon whom her industrious
-energy, quickened and regulated
-by a zeal for her own religion, openly
-avowed and studiously exhibited as
-her main motive of action, cannot,
-we imagine, have failed to produce a
-deep and lasting impression. We
-trust that Mrs Mackenzie’s example
-may be followed by many of our
-countrywomen; for the information
-in which, of all others, the English
-functionaries in the East are most
-deficient—that regarding natives in
-their private and domestic sphere—is
-precisely what our ladies alone have
-the power to acquire and impart.
-Mrs Mackenzie, it is true, mingled
-chiefly with the Afghans, who are a
-more attractive race than the people
-of India.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>The Afghans, also, must have felt
-inclined to open their hearts to the
-wife of one who, both as a soldier in
-the field, and afterwards as a captive
-in their hands, had commanded the
-sincere respect of those among whom
-he was thrown. But though all cannot
-have her advantages, there is no
-lady whose husband holds office in
-India, who, if she makes herself acquainted
-with the languages of the
-country, will not find native women
-of rank and respectability ready to
-cultivate her acquaintance, and thus
-afford her the means of solving some
-of those problems of the native character
-which elude all the researches
-of our best-informed public functionaries.
-Having said thus much in
-praise of Mrs Mackenzie’s book, we
-cannot but censure most strongly the
-attempt at spicing her work with
-gossipping tales calculated to wound
-the feelings of private individuals
-among her own countrymen, and even
-of the officers of her husband’s own
-service, with whose characters she
-deals with a most unsparing degree
-of reproachful raillery, designating
-individuals as Colonel A., Major B.,
-or Captain C. of the — Regiment,
-stationed at such a place, so that
-there cannot be a doubt as to whom
-the anecdotes, which are always to
-the discredit of the parties, refer.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>The difficulty of commenting on a
-posthumous work is much enhanced
-when the author happens to have
-been, like the late Sir Charles Napier,
-one whose errors of the pen are more
-than redeemed by a career of long
-and glorious services. Still, though
-this consideration may soften, it ought
-not to silence criticism, for errors
-never more require correction than
-when heralded by an illustrious name.
-An additional reason for not passing
-over the last work of so distinguished
-a man is, that it contains many admirable
-remarks on the Native army,
-well deserving to be detached from
-the mass of other matter in which
-they are imbedded. The contents of
-the book may be classed under three
-heads: Censure of individuals; censure
-of public bodies; suggestive remarks
-on the civil and military
-administration of India.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>On whatever comes under the first
-of these heads, our strictures shall be
-brief.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>We find in the list of those censured,
-the names of so many of the
-best and ablest men who have taken
-part in Indian affairs, either at home
-or in the East, that we feel loth to
-give any additional publicity to what
-we have read with pain, and would
-gladly forget. Public bodies being
-fair targets to shoot at, the censures
-coming under the second head are
-open to no objection excepting such
-as may arise from their not standing
-the test of close examination. The
-Court of Directors, the Supreme
-Council of India, the whole body of
-the Civil Service (with one or two
-exceptions), the Political Agents, the
-Military Board in Calcutta, and the
-Board of Administration in the Punjab,
-follow each other like arraigned
-criminals in the black scroll of the
-author’s antipathies. To notice all
-that is advanced against those included
-in this catalogue would be
-impossible, for a few lines may contain
-assertions which it would fill a
-folio to discuss. Of the East India
-Company, the instrument through
-which India has been providentially
-preserved from the corruptions of an
-aristocratic and the precipitancy of
-a more popular rule, Sir Charles
-Napier’s view is not more enlarged
-than what we might have got from
-his own Sir Fiddle Faddle, of whom
-he has left us (at page 253) so amusing
-a description. Though capable, as
-we shall soon see, of rising above the
-prejudices of his profession on other
-points, he looks at this singular Company
-and its governing Court with
-the eyes of a Dugald Dalgetty, who,
-while pocketing the commercial body’s
-extra pay, accounts it foul scorn to
-be obliged to submit to such base and
-mechanical control.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>But none are all bad, and we rejoice
-to see it admitted at page 210 of the
-unfriendly book before us, that “the
-Directors, generally speaking, treat
-their army well;” and at pages 49, 261,
-that the Company’s artillery, formed
-under the rule of these very Directors,
-is “<em>superb</em>, second to none in the
-world—perfect.” Yet it never seems
-to have occurred to the author, that
-those under whose rule one department
-has reached perfection, are not
-likely to blunder in every other, as in
-his moments of spleen he made himself
-believe. So able a man as Sir C.
-Napier could not always be blind to
-his own inconsistencies; and accordingly,
-in the midst of some declamation
-on what India might be under
-royal government, he seems to have
-been suddenly brought up by a thought
-about what the Crown Colonies
-really are.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>From this dilemma he escapes by
-saddling one distinguished personage
-with the blame of all that is wrong in
-the colonies, and thus punishes Earl
-Grey for the speech about Scinde,
-made by Lord Howick, some ten
-years ago, in the House of Commons.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>To the Supreme Council of India,
-though he was one of their number,
-the author never makes any but disparaging
-allusions. Discontented with
-being a commander-in-chief under a
-ruling body, of which he was himself
-a member, he sought to be recognised
-as the head of a separate military
-government. He wished, in short, to
-be, not what the Duke of York was
-in England, but what, under peculiar
-circumstances, the Duke of Wellington
-was in Spain during the war in the
-Peninsula. In this he was not singular;
-for we suspect that the real cause
-of that uneasiness in their position,
-stated at page 355, to have been manifested
-by many of Sir C. Napier’s
-predecessors, is to be found in a desire
-on their part for such an independency
-of military administrative power, as
-is totally incompatible with the necessary
-unity and indivisibility of a
-government. Yet it is admitted that,
-in England, “when war comes, the
-war-minister is the real commander,”—(p. 220.)
-The author evidently felt
-how much this admission must tell
-against his own complaints of undue
-interference with his authority; for he
-endeavours, by some feeble special
-pleading, to abate its effect, and to
-prove the “poor Indian general,” with
-his £15,000 a year, to be more unfavourably
-placed than his <em>confrère</em> in
-England.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>One circumstance, however, is such,
-that while the latter is excluded from
-the Cabinet, the former can take his
-seat at the Council-Board, and his
-part in the guidance of the counsels of
-the State.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>It is, we think, greatly to be regretted
-that Sir C. Napier did not
-more frequently avail himself of this
-privilege, for by keeping apart from
-the Supreme Council he lost the
-benefit of free personal communication
-with equals, and incurred the evil of
-having none near him but subordinates,
-whom he could silence by a
-word or a look.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>The Civil Service is represented
-simply as a nuisance requiring immediate
-abatement.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>We are told that “a Civil form of
-government is uncongenial to <em>barbarous</em>
-Eastern nations.” There is some
-truth in this, if a proper stress is laid
-on the word <em>barbarous</em>. In the first
-chapter of the fourth part of his work,
-Mr Kaye has shown how, in reaching
-the outskirts of civilisation, we are
-brought into contact with rude tribes
-like the Beloches in Scinde, “to whose
-feelings and habits the rough ways of
-Sir C. Napier were better adapted
-than the refined tenderness or the
-judicial niceties of the gentlest and
-wisest statesman that ever loved and
-toiled for a people.” But the error of
-such reasoners as Sir C. Napier is,
-that they would treat all India as barbarous,
-and rule it accordingly. Now,
-with all our respect for Sir C. Napier’s
-talents, we doubt much whether he
-would have governed the more civilised
-provinces of Upper India better
-than the late Mr Thomason, whom he
-condescends to praise—(p. 37); or
-managed the subtle and well-mannered
-Sikhs with more tact and skill
-than Sir George Clerk during the perilous
-period of our disasters in 1841–42.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>It is true that the utter failure of
-the system in operation in the Punjab
-is confidently predicted at p. 366; but
-it is consolatory to find, from the very
-last Indian newspapers, that no progress
-is making towards a fulfilment
-of this prophecy; but that, on the
-contrary, a reduction of taxation has
-been effected by the Board, such as
-would be felt as a boon by the tenant-farmers
-of England, its influence
-having been counteracted by nothing
-but by the effects of an excessive
-plenty.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>It is creditable to the candour of
-the Bengal Civil Service, that its
-members themselves furnish the information
-to be turned against their
-own body, and it is from a work published
-by the Hon. F. J. Shore, in
-1837, that Sir C. Napier has borrowed
-his most plausible charges.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>On this we can only observe, that
-Mr Shore, in his zeal for the improvement
-of his own service, forgot that
-what he wrote would be read by the
-ignorant and the unfriendly; by those
-who could not, and by those who would
-not, comprehend the real scope and
-meaning of his words.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>The faults imputed by him to his
-brother civilians are mainly those of
-manner, already noticed by ourselves
-as being common to the English, generally,
-in their deportment towards
-strangers in every clime.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>If we were writing only for those
-who know what British India is, our
-ungrateful task of correcting errors
-might here conclude; but it is upon
-those to whom that country is unknown
-that the work before us is calculated
-to produce an impression, and
-therefore we must try, in as few words
-as possible, to point out one of its
-most striking inaccuracies. On referring
-to the pages noted below,<a id='r37'></a><a href='#f37' class='c007'><sup>[37]</sup></a> the
-reader will find a series of assertions,
-to the effect that in Bengal the army
-is scattered over the country for the
-protection of the Civil servants. From
-the <cite>Indian Register</cite> of this very year,
-it appears that, in the country below
-Benares, which, in extent and population,
-is about equal to France, there
-are only about ten battalions;<a id='r38'></a><a href='#f38' class='c007'><sup>[38]</sup></a> the
-half of these being stationed at Barrackpore,
-in the immediate vicinity of
-Calcutta. In the provinces above
-Benares, under the rule of the Lieutenant-governor
-at Agra, with a
-somewhat smaller but more hardy
-population, it appears that there are
-thirteen stations occupied by regular
-troops; of which eight are close to
-large towns, such as in every country
-require to be watched—or else purely
-military posts. There are only five
-other places where regular troops
-seem to be stationed, and of these,
-one is on the frontier of Nepaul.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>Admitting that the Civil power
-derives its support from the knowledge
-of a military force being at hand, still
-the exhibition of the latter is as rare
-on the Ganges as on the Thames;
-and a magistrate would sink in the
-opinion of his superiors, and of his
-own service, if he were to apply for
-the aid of troops in any but the extreme
-cases in which such an application
-would be warranted in England.
-It would be just as rational to argue
-that our provincial mayors and magistrates
-in England are hated, because
-troops are stationed at Manchester,
-Preston, or Newcastle, as to adduce
-the distribution of the regular Sepoys
-in Bengal and Upper India as a proof
-of the hatred borne to the Civil servants,
-through whose administration
-that vast region is made to furnish
-forth the funds to support the armies
-with which heroes win victories and
-gather laurels.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>What is meant by “guards for
-civilians” it is hard to guess. The
-Lieutenant-governor at Agra is, we
-believe, the only civilian, not in political
-employ, who has a guard of
-regulars at his house. In some places
-in Upper India, regulars may be posted
-at the Treasury, for the same reason
-that a corresponding force is posted
-at the Bank of England in the heart
-of London; but even to the Treasuries
-in the lower provinces no such
-protection is given.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>Sir C. Napier, we suspect, has confused
-the collector with the collections,
-and fancied the force occasionally
-posted to protect the latter to be,
-in fact, employed to swell the state or
-guard the person of the former. That
-regular Sepoys should be employed to
-escort treasure is much to be regretted;
-but treasure is tempting, and the
-mode of conveyance on carts very
-tedious, the ways long, the country
-to be traversed often very wild,
-and the robbers in some quarters
-very bold. It is not often that in
-England bullion belonging to the
-State has to be conveyed in waggons;
-but when this happens, it is, we
-think, usually accompanied by a party
-of soldiers.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>It would be tedious to follow out
-all the mistakes made about Chuprassees
-and Burkundazes—the former
-being a sort of orderly, of whom two
-or three are attached to every office-holder,
-military or civil, to carry
-orders and messages, in a climate
-where Europeans cannot at all hours
-of the day walk about with safety;
-and the latter being the constabulary,
-employed in parties of about
-fifteen or twenty at the various subdivisions
-into which, for purposes of
-police, each district is laid out. To
-form them into battalions would be
-to strip the interior of all the hands
-wanted for the common offices of preventive
-and detective police.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>We now gladly turn to the more
-pleasing duty of pointing out the
-brighter passages, and rejoice to draw
-our reader’s attention to the strain of
-kindly feeling towards the men and
-officers of the Company’s army, both
-European and Native, pervading the
-whole work.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>It is pleasing to observe the anxiety
-expressed by so thorough a soldier,
-to see the armies of the Crown
-and Company assimilated to each
-other, and all “the ridiculous jealousies
-entertained by the vulgar-minded
-in both armies”<a id='r39'></a><a href='#f39' class='c007'><sup>[39]</sup></a> removed.
-It is delightful to read the assurance
-given by such a man that, “under
-his command, at various times, for
-ten years, in action, and out of action,
-the Bengal Sepoys never failed in
-real courage or activity.”<a id='r40'></a><a href='#f40' class='c007'><sup>[40]</sup></a> It is instructive
-to learn from so great a
-master in the art of war, that “Martinets
-are of all military pests the
-worst;”<a id='r41'></a><a href='#f41' class='c007'><sup>[41]</sup></a> and still more so to read
-his earnest and heart-stirring exhortations
-to the younger of his own
-countrymen not to keep aloof from
-Native officers;<a id='r42'></a><a href='#f42' class='c007'><sup>[42]</sup></a> and his declaration
-that, even at his advanced age, he
-would have studied the language of
-the Sepoys, if his public duties had
-not filled up all his time. Our space
-will not allow us to give any specimens
-of the author’s style. It is ever
-animated and original. There was
-no need of a signature to attest a
-letter of his writing, for no one could
-mistake from whom it came. Though
-deformed by occasional outbursts of
-spleen, our readers may find much to
-admire in the narrative of the expedition
-to Kohat.<a id='r43'></a><a href='#f43' class='c007'><sup>[43]</sup></a> It will be well,
-however, after reading it through, to
-take up the <cite>Bombay Times</cite> of the 14th
-of December last, to see what progress
-is being made by the very
-Board of Administration so contemptuously
-spoken of in the narrative,<a id='r44'></a><a href='#f44' class='c007'><sup>[44]</sup></a>
-towards reducing the turbulent Afridee
-tribes to a state of enduring submission
-and good order.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>Long practice had given great fluency
-to the author’s pen when employed
-in what we may call anti-laudatory
-writing, but this sometimes
-led him into that most pardonable of
-plagiarisms, the borrowing from himself,
-as in the following sentence, at
-page 118: “He,” meaning the Governor-General,
-“and his politicals,
-like many other men, mistook <em>rigour</em>,
-with cruelty, for <em>vigour</em>.” If our
-memory is to be relied on, this very
-antithetical jingle may be found in a
-pamphlet, published some twenty-five
-years ago, about the alleged “misgovernment
-of the Ionian Islands.”
-The author’s political speculations,
-when unwarped by prejudice, were
-generally correct, and we fully concur
-with him, and, we may add, with
-his predecessor, the late Sir Henry
-Fane, in the opinion expressed at
-page 66, that the Sutledge “ought to
-bound our Indian possessions;” and
-we now fear that, having crossed
-that river, we must also throw the
-Indus behind us, and fulfil the prediction
-hazarded at page 374, that,
-“with all our moderation, we shall
-conquer Afghanistan, and occupy
-Candahar.” Sometimes, however,
-his disposition to paint everything <i><span lang="fr">en
-noir</span></i> has misled our author even upon
-a military point, as in the following
-instance: “The close frontier of Burmah
-enables that power to press suddenly
-and dangerously upon the capital
-of our Indian Empire; and such
-events are no castles in the air, but
-threatening real perils. The Eastern
-frontier, therefore, is not safe,”—(p. 364).</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>In former days, when the Burmese
-territories were dovetailed into our
-district of Chittagong, there might
-have been some ground for this opinion,
-supposing the Burmese to have
-been, what they are not, as energetic
-a people as the Sikhs. But a glance at
-the map might satisfy any one that with
-our occupation of Arracan, a country
-so intersected by arms of the sea as to
-be impassable for any power not having
-that absolute superiority on the
-water which a single steamer would
-give us, all danger of invasion from
-that side has for the last twenty-five
-years been at an end.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>The mention of Burmah naturally
-leads to the next work in our list,
-that of Mr J. C. Marshman, the well-known
-editor of the ablest of the Calcutta
-journals, the <cite>Friend of India</cite>.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>His pamphlet is a reply to another,
-by Mr Cobden, entitled “The origin
-of the Burmese war.” Mr Cobden
-could not, of course, write about a
-war excepting to blame it, consequently
-Mr Marshman appears in defence
-of what the other assails.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>We cannot devote much time to
-the consideration of this controversy,
-but at one passage we must indulge
-in a momentary glance.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>Towards the end of the fifth page
-of Mr Marshman’s pamphlet our readers
-will find a sentence throwing
-some light on the origin of the war
-which he undertakes to defend. He
-there dwells, with great emphasis, on
-the “unexampled and extraordinary
-unanimity which was exhibited by
-the Indian journals on the Burmese
-question,” and describes, with much
-unction, the happy spectacle of rival
-editors laying aside their animosities,
-to combine in applauding the course
-pursued on that occasion by the Government.
-Editors, like players, must
-please, to live; and as the whole
-Anglo-Saxon community in the East,
-most especially those of the shipping
-and shopping interest at Calcutta,
-have, for the last twenty-five years,
-had a craving for a renewal of war
-with Ava, the newspaper must have
-been conducted upon most disinterested
-principles, which had opposed
-itself to any measure conducive to so
-desiderated a result.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>We have now skimmed over the
-annals of a hundred years, endeavouring,
-as we moved along, to detect the
-ruling principle of each successive
-period, and to trace its influence upon
-the leading events of the time.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>In looking forward to what is to
-come, we shall not speculate on the
-spontaneous limitation of conquest,
-because we feel that this will never be;
-for this simple reason, that we shall
-never sincerely wish it to be. Wars,
-then, will go on, until, on the north-west,
-we shall have accomplished all
-that Sir C. Napier either predicted or
-recommended, and until, on the south-east,
-we shall have added Siam to
-Pegu, and Cambodia to Siam. Within
-the geographical boundaries of India
-Proper, also, there are several tempting
-patches of independent territory
-to be absorbed, such as the Deccan
-and Oude, both of which, along with
-the Rajpoot and Bondela states, are
-all marked like trees in a forest given
-up to the woodman. The inexhaustible
-plea for interminable conquest,
-internal mal-administration, will ever
-furnish grounds for the occupation of
-the larger states; and though many
-of the smaller Hindoo principalities
-are admirably governed, according to
-their own simple notions, still, as
-they certainly will not square with
-our ideas of right, some reason will
-always be found to satisfy the English-minded
-public that their annexation
-is both just and expedient.
-Then we shall, indeed, be the sole
-Lords of Ind; but after destroying
-every independent court where natives
-may hope to rise to offices of
-some little dignity, we shall be doubly
-bound to meet, by arrangements of
-our own, the cravings of natural and
-reasonable ambition.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>In searching for a guide at this point
-of our inquiry, we have hit upon the
-work standing last upon our list, the
-production of a gentleman who has
-extraordinary claims upon the attention
-of English as well as Indian
-readers. Mr Cameron carried out
-with him to India a mind stored with
-the best learning of the West; and
-during twelve years spent out there
-in the high posts of Law Commissioner,
-Member of the Supreme Council,
-and President of the Committee
-of Education, his best powers were
-exerted, not merely to impart instruction,
-but to inspire with a true love of
-knowledge, the native youth attached
-to the various institutions within the
-sphere of his influence.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>His work is truly one of which his
-country may be proud, for a more
-disinterested zeal in the cause of a
-conquered people was never exhibited
-by one of the dominant race, than is
-evinced in this noble address to the
-Parliament of England on behalf of
-the subject millions of India.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>Many, however, as Mr Cameron’s
-qualifications are for the task which
-he undertakes, there is one of much
-importance not to be found among
-them. He never served in the interior;
-never was burdened with the charge
-of a district; never spent six hours
-a day, at the least, in the crowded
-Babel of a Cutcherry,<a id='r45'></a><a href='#f45' class='c007'><sup>[45]</sup></a> with the thermometer
-at 98° in the shade. His
-Indian day was very different from
-that of the magistrate collector of
-which we have inserted Mr Campbell’s
-lively description. It was passed
-in the stillness of his library, or in
-the well-aired and well-ordered halls
-of a college, among educated young
-natives, mostly Bengalees, who were
-about as true specimens of Indian
-men as the exotics in a London conservatory
-are of British plants.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>Such a life is compatible with the
-acquirement of great Oriental lore,
-but not with the attainment of that
-ready knowledge of native character
-which is picked up by far inferior intellects
-in the rough daily school of
-Cutcherry drudgery.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>This reflection has somewhat damped
-our pleasure in perusing Mr Cameron’s
-eloquent and high-toned address.
-We devoutly hope to see our
-misgivings proved to be groundless;
-but in the mean time we must give
-one or two of our reasons for doubting
-whether the day is at hand when
-the natives of England and India may
-meet on terms of perfect parity in
-every walk of life. In the first place,
-to judge by precedent, we doubt the
-strict applicability to the present question
-of that drawn from the practice
-of ancient Rome. Of the people subjugated
-by Rome, a vast proportion
-were of the same race as their victors,
-with no peculiarities, personal or complexional,
-to check the amalgamation
-resulting from popular intermarriage.
-It is in Egypt that the closest similarity
-to our situation in India is
-likely to be found, and, judging by
-the contemptuous tone of Juvenal’s
-allusion to the people of that country
-in his 15th Satire, we can hardly imagine
-that, when employed in any public
-capacity, the “<span lang="la">imbelle et inutile
-vulgus</span>” were placed exactly on the
-same footing as the Roman knights
-who constituted the “covenanted
-service” of those days in that particular
-province.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>The geographical circumstances
-were also different. Rome grew like
-a tree—its root in the eternal city, its
-branches stretching forth in continuous
-lines to the furthest extremities of
-its vast domain.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>Our Indian empire springs from a
-transplanted offshoot of the parent
-State. No one part of it has a firmer
-hold on the soil than another. It is
-all equally loose. Our dominion is,
-in fact, based upon our ships, and it is
-to our ships that both Englishmen and
-natives, in touching on the possibility
-of our eventual downfall, always speak
-of our retreating or being driven.
-From our ships we sprung, and to our
-ships we shall some day perhaps return.
-It is in vain, therefore, to draw,
-from the practice of a purely continental
-empire like that of Rome, rules
-for the government of an essentially
-maritime dominion such as we have
-established on the Ganges. Ours is a
-power without a precedent, and perhaps,
-therefore, without a prognostic.
-There is nothing like it in the past,
-and its future will probably be stamped
-with the same singularity as has
-characterised its whole existence.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>We must try, therefore, to better
-the condition of our subjects by means
-such as our own experience teaches
-us to be best adapted to their nature.
-To open to them at once the civil and
-military services; to give to any number
-of them that absolute right to preferment
-implied in their enrolment in
-the ranks of a peculiar body, would
-not, we imagine, be to follow the
-guidance of experience. Presumption
-on the one side, and the pride of race
-on the other, might lead to serious
-jarrings between the English and the
-Indian members, who, though standing
-in the ranks of the same service,
-would still differ from each other like
-the keys of a piano-forte. It would,
-we think, be safer to commence, as we
-have already suggested, by selecting
-for preferment individuals from the
-mass of our native subjects. Situations
-in the judicial and revenue department
-may be found or created
-which natives can fill with great credit;
-but their general fitness for the
-office of magistrate remains to be
-proved. It is easy to imagine a case
-wherein to leave the powers wielded
-by a magistrate in the hands of any
-one open to the influences from which
-a fellow-countryman alone can be secure,
-would be, to say the least, most
-imprudent. Besides, there is a duty,
-perhaps but imperfectly performed at
-present, and to which, at least in the
-lower provinces, a native functionary
-would be quite incompetent, and that
-is, affording protection to the people
-against the violence of Englishmen
-settled in the interior as merchants,
-landholders, or Indigo-planters. We
-have now before us a letter written in
-excellent English by a native of Bengal,
-in which the following passage
-occurs:—“The fact is, that European
-traders have obtained, in many
-places in the interior of the Bengal
-Presidency, almost uncontrolled power—a
-power which they are seldom sufficiently
-scrupulous not to exert to the
-injury of those with whom they come
-in contact. It is not exaggeration to
-say, each Indigo-factory, together
-with its surrounding estate, is a little
-kingdom within itself, wherein avarice
-and tyranny hold unlimited sway.
-The police is too feeble to render
-effectual aid in suppressing the lawless
-oppression of the factor.”</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>Now, let us figure to ourselves one
-of Mr Cameron’s slender dusky <i><span lang="fr">élèves</span></i>
-on the bench as magistrate, and (to
-take what ought to be the mildest
-specimen of a gentle Englishman) the
-leading member of the Peace party at
-the House of Commons at the bar in
-an Indigo-planter, taxed with oppressing
-the Hindoo, and we shall easily
-see that the law must have an almost
-supernatural inherent majesty, if, under
-such circumstances, it can be
-effectually enforced and impartially
-administered.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>The regulation of the intercourse
-between our own countrymen not in
-the service of Government, and our
-native subjects, will rise in importance
-with the progress of those works
-in which European agency is essential
-to insure success. Railways,
-electric telegraphs, improved cotton-cultivation,
-steam, and all other complicated
-machinery, must, if overspreading
-the country as many anticipate,
-bring with them a vast increase
-to the European section of the community,
-whose influence will still be
-out of all proportion to its commercial
-strength.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>To give to this little section full
-scope for the development of its industrial
-energies, and yet to restrain
-it from abusing its strength to the
-injury of the native population, is in
-fact the only real service ever likely
-to be rendered by the Law Commissions
-and Legislative Councils called
-into existence by the enactment of
-last session.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>In as far as the natives of Bengal
-and Upper India are alone concerned,
-we are convinced that all of this cumbrous
-law-making apparatus is quite
-superfluous. The existing regulations,
-with occasional pruning and trimming,
-would, if fairly enforced and adhered
-to, amply suffice to meet all of their
-simple wants. But the natives can
-no longer be left to themselves. Europeans
-will intrude, and legislation
-must therefore be shaped and stretched
-so as to fit it to the characters of the
-intruders.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>As at present constituted, the magistracy
-and the police are hardly
-equal to the control of British-born
-settlers, half a dozen of whom are
-more difficult to rule than half a million
-of natives. There prevails among
-Englishmen of every grade a notion
-of the East India Company being a
-body of a somewhat foreign stamp, to
-whose servants it is almost degrading
-for a free-born Britain to be obliged
-to submit.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>The amalgamation of the Queen’s
-and the Company’s superior tribunals,
-known at Calcutta as the Supreme,
-and the Sudder, Courts, would, by
-coupling the home-bred judges appointed
-by the Crown with the country-trained
-nominees of the local government,
-give a weight to the magistracy
-acting under this combined authority,
-and thus fit it for the better discharge
-of the difficult duty of controlling and
-correcting the excesses of Englishmen
-settled in the interior. These settlers
-often find in the menace of an action
-or prosecution before a remote and
-somewhat prejudiced tribunal, a weapon
-wherewith to combat the immediate
-power of a functionary, amenable
-individually to the Queen’s Court
-in Calcutta, for every act which legal
-ingenuity can represent to be personal,
-and so beyond the pale of official protection.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>The fusion of the two superior
-courts will not, in fact, lessen the personal
-responsibility of the English
-magistrate; but it will remove an apparent
-antagonism, calculated to keep
-alive a spirit of defiance towards the
-<em>local</em> authority in the breast of many
-an English settler, the effects of which,
-as described in the extract above
-given, from the letter of a Bengal
-gentleman, are felt by every native
-with whom he may have any dealings.
-Much has been written and
-spoken about the duty of protecting
-the people of India from being oppressed
-by the Government and its
-agents, but few seem to have thought
-of that more searching tyranny which
-a few strong-nerved and coarse-minded
-Englishmen in the interior, invested
-with power by the possession of land,
-may exercise over the people among
-whom they are located, and from whom
-they are eager to extract the wealth
-which they long to enjoy in a more
-congenial climate.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>This species of tyranny will of
-course be most felt among the feeblest,
-and is, consequently, likely to be more
-grievous in Bengal than among the
-hardier population of Upper India.
-But wherever the Anglo-Saxon goes,
-he will carry with him his instinctive
-contempt for tribes of a dusky complexion;
-and where this is not counteracted
-by the imposed courtesies of
-official life, or checked by the presence
-of a sufficient controlling authority, it
-will ever be ready to break out in a
-manner injurious to the interests and
-feelings of those subject to his power.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>Our future rule will, it is evident,
-become daily more and more European
-in its tone, and there will consequently
-be an increasing call upon those engaged
-in its direction to watch over
-the conduct of the dominant race, to
-restrain its arrogance, and to see that
-the equality announced in the laws
-does not evaporate in print, but is
-something real and substantial, to be
-felt and enjoyed in the ordinary everyday
-intercourse of life.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>If this can be accomplished by
-legislation, the new Commissions and
-Councils will not have been created in
-vain; but if their labours end in
-merely adding to the existing tomes
-of benevolent enactments, without
-effectual provision for their enforcement,
-then we cannot but fear that
-our projected measures of improvement,
-being all of a European character,
-will add little to the happiness
-of our subjects on the banks of the
-Ganges, and be regarded by them
-merely as ingenious contrivances for
-extending our own power, and completing
-their subjugation.</p>
-
-<div class='chapter'>
-  <span class='pageno' id='Page_206'>206</span>
-  <h2 class='c002'>THE SECRET OF STOKE MANOR: A FAMILY HISTORY.<br> PART III.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<h3 class='c014'>CHAPTER IV.—AU CENTRE DU MONDE.</h3>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
-  <div class='linegroup'>
-    <div class='group'>
-      <div class='line'>“<span lang="fr">Oh, Paris! ville pleine de brouillard,</span></div>
-      <div class='line'><span lang="fr">Et couverte de boue,</span></div>
-      <div class='line'><span lang="fr">Où les hommes connoissent pas l’honneur,</span></div>
-      <div class='line'><span lang="fr">Ni les femmes la vertu.</span>”</div>
-      <div class='line in28'><span class='sc'>Rousseau.</span></div>
-    </div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c009'>The Willoughby family, as has
-been already said, left England for
-the Continent; and the spring which
-succeeded Sir John’s death found
-them temporarily residing in Paris.
-It was very far from the Colonel’s
-intention, however, to remain there
-long; the household was only incomplete,
-as yet, without Francis, who
-in a few weeks would join it on leaving
-Oxford; and there had to be
-some consideration before finally settling,
-from among no slight variety of
-advertisements in the public journals,
-what district of the provinces might
-be best suited for a retreat, probably
-during some years. One or two
-points of business, also, requiring
-attention to his English letters, continued
-to make their early arrival a
-convenience; not so much from the
-Devonshire lawyer, whose methodical
-regularity left nothing to desire, as
-with regard to the sale of Sir Godfrey’s
-commission, and some arrangements
-left unfinished in town, of that
-tedious nature which characterises
-stockbroking. Meanwhile their establishment
-was certainly simple compared
-with that lately given up in
-Golden Square, where society, at no
-time deficient to the Willoughbies,
-had, since the Colonel’s last return
-home, been doubling itself every year,
-and had begun, since his brother’s
-death, absolutely to send visiting-cards
-by footmen, to call in carriages,
-to bespeak the earliest possible share
-of their company at dinner: contrasted
-with the extent which must
-have been necessary for Stoke, it was
-diminutive. Yet it was by no means
-one of a restricted kind, although
-the income from Lady Willoughby’s
-own small fortune would alone have
-sufficed to keep it up, leaving some
-surplus; so that, living as yet without
-new acquaintances, and, so far as
-their countrymen were concerned, in
-perfect obscurity, they had not a wish
-which it did not suffice for; as long,
-at least, as the vast, strange city
-held its first influences over them.
-To these, probably, it was owing that
-Colonel Willoughby appeared for
-some time to have had no other object
-in coming to Paris; if distinctly
-aware of any, beyond the facilities
-there for choosing a place of residence
-in the provinces, for awaiting his son
-Francis, and finishing the more important
-part of his correspondence,
-with the convenience of respectable
-banking-houses—besides the possibility
-of avoiding English acquaintances,
-which at Dieppe or Boulogne would
-not have been so easy—then he would
-without doubt have mentioned it to
-his wife. A reserved man, and in
-the strictest sense a proud one, he
-was amongst the last to have secrets;
-they would have sat on his brow,
-and troubled his manner; nor had he
-at any time had such a thing apart
-from <em>her</em>. During the whole course
-of their wedded life, whether together
-or separated, by word or letter, their
-mutual confidence had increased: for
-her part, she was of that easy, placid,
-seemingly almost torpid nature,
-which, save in a receipt of housekeeping,
-or a triumph of domestic
-management, appears merely to produce
-in it nothing worth the hiding,
-nor to receive, either, anything of
-that serious kind; while the course
-of time, that had begun to turn the
-fair features of Mrs Willoughby rather
-large, giving her form a somewhat
-more than matronly fulness, had so
-increased this peculiarity in her disposition
-as to make strangers think
-her insipid. Older friends thought
-very far otherwise, and it was, in
-some way, chiefly old friends Mrs
-Willoughby had had at all; but neither
-they, the oldest of them, nor even
-her children, perhaps, could so much
-as imagine the truth of heart, the perfect
-trust, the intimate, unhesitating
-appreciation, which, since they were
-first gained by him, her husband had
-been ever knowing better. Indolently
-placid as she might seem even to
-ordinary troubles, tumults, and embarrassments,
-as if the world’s care
-entered no imagination of hers—quietly
-busied, with attention fixed
-on household matters, knitting or
-sewing in her endless, noiseless manner—yet
-if his eye had shown anxiety,
-if he had ceased to read, if he paced
-the room, or had been very silent, a
-kind of divination there was, that,
-without any watching or any questioning,
-would have roused her up—the
-work suspended on her lap, her
-cheek losing the old dimple-mark
-which maturity had deepened there,
-and her glance widened with concern;
-till, if he had still not spoken, Lady
-Willoughby would have risen up
-gradually, looking round as if startled
-from a sort of mild dream, and have
-moved towards him, beginning of her
-own accord—which was a rare thing—to
-speak. Not necessarily, indeed,
-though they had been alone in the
-room, to invite confidence by any inquiry;
-but rather in the way of performing
-some slight office that might
-have been neglected, or with endeavours
-at such interesting news and
-small-talk as, to speak truth, she
-scarcely shone in, unsupported—nor
-any the better for the confused sense
-she evidently had at these times of
-having been by some means in fault,
-and having failed to be a very lively
-companion. She was of a plain
-country squire’s family, in fact; and
-in her day, if sent at all to boarding-schools,
-they had not lingered long
-over music, still less at flower-painting
-or the sciences; while with successive
-sisters waiting at home for
-their turn, as she had had, it was but
-to finish off baking and mending, with
-dancing and embroidery, then to come
-back, and bake and mend again. So
-when the dancing ended with marriage,
-the embroidery at the first
-birth, it might have been thought the
-officer had gained no very valuable
-society, sometimes in barrack-lodgings,
-sometimes abroad, sometimes
-for distant communication by letter;
-she might, at least, have been expected
-to form no great ornament in
-London circles, or among country
-people at Stoke Manor-house. Still
-there had been nothing in all their
-previous intercourse so precious to
-him as his wife’s letters, when almost
-for the first time, in her own natural
-way, she had to attempt expressing
-fond thoughts, soothing motives, and
-yet confessions of impatience—mixed
-up with accounts of children’s complaints,
-their faults, and their schooling—country
-gossip, and fashionable
-arrivals, with some stray suggestions
-and admissions, never before confided
-to him, of a pious kind: and when
-long afterwards came the events at
-Stoke, instead of any undue flutter or
-sense of importance being caused in
-her, she had fallen in as naturally to
-title or prospects, as she had sat before
-that at the head of their dinner-table
-in Golden Square. It was no
-doll’s disposition, as had been at the
-time hinted round some ill-natured
-card-tables in that region; if one
-thing more than another troubled Sir
-Godfrey in their present plans, it was
-that he believed devoutly in his wife’s
-aptitude for a high station, where
-expectations would be formed and
-occasions raised; his feeling was—and
-the partiality was excusable—that
-her chief value lay obscured in
-ordinary circumstances. Whereas at
-the new abode in Paris, with ample
-scope and convenience, all the earlier
-habits of domestic superintendence
-seemed returning, the making, baking,
-mending—almost even to washing;
-in reference to which alone Lady
-Willoughby seemed really active, and
-the more so that everything might go
-on as in England, had the mere economy
-of the thing not been a vital
-point. Her pleased air would alone
-have hindered him from reasoning it
-with her, had Sir Godfrey so much
-as dreamt, in the latter respect, how
-their case really stood: and when,
-indeed, there did lie any care on his
-mind, which he might be unwilling
-she should share, yet so gently did
-the conversation win it from him, and
-so quietly did something like the old
-manner woo him to bear no burden
-alone, that, ere he knew, it was no
-longer his, but they were talking of
-it plainly. What tranquil reassurance
-<em>then</em>, and grave, prompt advertence
-to the point—and pure
-sympathy, and that repose of soul
-from which a woman’s instinct can
-express so much by a tone, a look,
-silence itself! Sir Godfrey had sometimes
-been ashamed to find how much
-more he could be disturbed by trifles,
-or how cautiously he had been underrating
-his wife’s affection. So that
-she knew as well as he did, and almost
-as soon, how affairs stood at
-Stoke, with the tenor of his brother’s
-intended will, and any the slightest
-incident which could concern them.
-He had even casually mentioned, as
-among the more trivial, Sir John’s
-wishes for the benefit of the person
-entitled Suzanne Deroux, for Lady
-Willoughby had long known, of
-course, what of Sir John’s early history
-his brother knew. The matter
-had well-nigh escaped his memory,
-he said; till on happening to want a
-banker in Paris, it struck him that
-the house formerly employed by his
-brother, in the payment of the annuity
-referred to, might suit himself.
-To these gentlemen, accordingly, he
-had sent a memorandum of the address
-left by Sir John, with a request
-that they would have the money paid
-to her. It was a small sum, but
-might be important to the people,
-whoever they were, living in one of
-the poorest and most wretchedly-crowded
-quarters of Paris. Still, as
-Sir Godfrey smiled on that occasion
-cheerfully, and resumed his English
-newspaper, he did not, he could not
-tell all the painful and pertinacious
-impressions, of circumstances unknown
-or acts untraced, which any
-allusion to his late brother’s former
-stay in Paris still called up.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>Everything did not exactly go on
-in the household as in England, indeed,
-but all was as nearly so as a
-quiet assiduity could make it. The
-house, a somewhat dull and dilapidated
-mansion, very barely furnished,
-and taken by the month from an adjoining
-notary, stood far to the western
-or court-end of the city, though
-rather involved in the dinginess of a
-sort of minor fauxbourg, where, in
-those days, between the sudden curve
-of the river and the lesser alleys of
-the Champs Elysées, a motley population
-still clustered about the tan-pits
-or dye-houses, and towards the
-bridge and quays: it occupied one
-corner of a short, deserted-looking
-street, the other end of which was reduced
-to a narrow lane by the high
-enclosure of a convent; in front was
-a small paved court, very shady and
-damp, by the help of two or three
-stunted poplars it contained, yet not
-by any means private, being overlooked
-by dusty or broken staircase windows,
-one over the other, from at
-hand; while it, nevertheless, could
-boast of a wall surmounted by a railing,
-with a heavily-pillared gate of
-open ironwork, a little lodge on one
-side within, where the porter lived—at
-one end of the house a diminutive
-stable and coach-shed, at the other an
-entrance to a high-walled garden, laid
-out in intricate confusion, without
-sign of flowers, and overgrown with a
-luxury of weeds. Some rising bourgeois
-had probably at first designed
-it, with a moderate eye to fashion;
-although its prime recommendation
-from the notary was, that successive
-families of the English nobility had
-chosen it for their temporary residence;
-nor did the old concierge fail
-to point out, with some emphasis,
-when showing the garden, that it was
-in the English style. The place was,
-at all events, at a convenient distance
-from the central parts of Paris, and
-within an easy drive to the Protestant
-Episcopal chapel. At a sharp angle
-with the street ran a main thoroughfare
-from the city barrier, one way
-confused in the dense suburb, the
-other way breaking towards a leafy
-promenade of the public park; sending
-all day a busy throng of passengers
-into that brighter current, where
-it glimpsed broad past the gap of
-light, with the glitter of equipages,
-the shifting glow of dresses, and the
-constant hum and babble of its gaiety;
-while nearer by was an opening in
-the contiguous street, through which
-the first-floor windows of their house
-looked at the motion along the quay,
-and saw the stately piles of building
-on the opposite bank, in brighter perspective,
-curve away from the eastern
-avenue of the Champ de Mars, with
-the bending of the river. They had
-still a carriage, too, though it was
-merely hired by the month, like the
-house, from the nearest livery-stables—a
-light, English-shaped barouche,
-with its pair of soot-black, long-legged
-Flemish horses, long-tailed and square-nosed,
-barrel-bodied and hollow-backed,
-and formally-stepping, which the
-owner called English also, for everything
-English seemed the rage: they
-were objects of no slight scorn, in that
-light, to Sir Godfrey’s groom, a stiff
-old trooper, who, with his duties towards
-his master’s horse, Black Rupert
-(the only possession they had
-brought from Stoke, save the title), had
-soon to unite that of coachman. Since
-besides Jackson himself, there was
-not merely an English housemaid, but
-there was young Mr Charles’s tutor, a
-grave, rather middle-aged bachelor of
-arts from Cambridge, and in clerical
-orders, who was to make up for the lost
-advantages of Eton, while he looked
-forward to the first opening in the
-curacy at Stoke: there was Miss Willoughby’s
-governess, a lady apparently
-also of middle age, whose perfect
-breeding and great accomplishments
-had made her acceptance of the position
-a favour, when the sudden necessity
-arose for the young lady’s leaving
-school; she had been in the highest
-families, and her conversational powers
-were of a superior order, so that
-there was a continual silent gratitude
-towards her on the part of Lady Willoughby.
-To the latter, indeed, whose
-whole heart lay in her family, these
-unavoidable changes had been a source
-of pure satisfaction, so far as she was
-concerned; compared with the privilege
-of having their children about
-them, educated under their own eye,
-expecting Frank so soon, too, nothing
-else was a deprivation; she merely
-missed England and English habits
-when some one else did, and had
-seen Stoke but once; only through the
-occasional abstracted looks of Sir Godfrey
-did she regret its postponement.
-As for the old French concierge at the
-gate, indeed, with his wife, family,
-and friends, she could have gladly
-spared them; but the concierge was
-indispensable—he <em>lived</em> there—he
-went with the house, in fact; and at
-the very hint of his being superfluous,
-the old cracked-voiced porter had
-drawn himself up indignantly in his
-chair, while his bare-armed, black-browed
-wife had turned her leatherlike
-face up from her tub, looking
-daggers. True, the English family
-had, in the mean time, no visitors,
-but the concierge had;—<em>he</em> was well
-known to his respectable neighbours;
-and, besides, it was possible that
-the misanthropy of the Chevalier
-Vilby and of Madame might be to
-some extent diminished; they would
-probably yet enter into society—all
-the previous tenants of the mansion
-had done so; Paris was, in reality, so
-attractive a capital. Such had been
-the response to the diplomacy of Jackson,
-who, having once been a French
-prisoner, far abroad, knew the language
-after a fashion of his own; and he received
-it in grim silence. The truth
-was, the gossipping receptions at the
-little lodge were somewhat troublesome,
-and seemed to concern themselves
-greatly with the affairs of the
-household within, had there been nothing
-else than the general interest
-taken in it by the adjacent windows,
-or the popularity of the whole family,
-collectively or individually, which had
-sometimes accompanied their exit or
-entrance with applause from crowds
-of street children—a prestige which
-had as evidently deserted them afterwards,
-to be replaced by tenfold scrutiny
-of a less partial kind, not unmingled
-with sundry trivial annoyances.
-Nor, although it resulted, with
-Lady Willoughby’s usual easy disposition,
-in her employing the services
-of the porter’s daughter within the
-house, did the one parent open the
-gate with less sullen dignity, and the
-other seem less jealously watchful
-against some abstraction of the furniture,
-or nocturnal evasion of the rent.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>Nevertheless, Paris itself was not
-more restless or more lively than the
-spirits of the young people in their
-first enjoyment of its scenes. The
-earliest summer had begun to lighten
-up what was already bright with heat
-that came before the leaves, quickly as
-these were bursting into verdure along
-every avenue; and when the dust is
-hovering in the sun, when the level
-light streams along causeway and
-pavement, crossed by cooler vistas,
-when the morning water-carts go
-slowly hissing past, the shopmen
-sprinkling their door-steps, putting
-out their canopies, setting their windows
-right—with the moist smell of
-market-carts still in the air, the stray
-fragrance of fruit-stalls near—steeples
-shining high beyond the steel-blue
-roofs, the dazzling skylight panes,—chambermaids
-looking far out from
-upper windows, long perspectives of
-architecture blending, and a vast hollow
-azure over all, ere the smoke is
-gathered, and before the street-cries
-are confused, or the growing rush of
-sounds has become oppressive in the
-heat—then who remembers not the
-fairy feeling of a city to youth! It is
-when they still look to life from under
-protection, with no experience, nothing
-like the need of directing for themselves;
-but most of all from a simple
-household, used to temperate pleasures,
-and to the sort of kindness that
-rests more in purpose than upon indulgence;
-the city need only be Paris,
-with sights as foreign as the language,
-to crown that morning cup of enchantment
-to its brim.  For the two
-younger members of the family it
-wore all its charm: Rose Willoughby
-had seen little more of the world in
-her boarding-school, at sixteen, than
-if it had been a nunnery; while
-Charles, who was younger, had been
-fancying his knowledge of life at
-Westminster school and Eton rather
-uncommon;—so that every morning
-set them astir early, watching at the
-windows, impatient to get breakfast-time
-past, to have those studies severally
-over, in which, so far as the lad’s
-tutor was concerned, Mr Thorpe bore
-the chief difficulties of the task. Each
-day, in fact, found the party rolling
-farther from the shady environs,
-through into the hot heart of the city,
-towards scenes or structures that
-were multiplied by each previous discovery:
-for if the long stately façades
-of the Tuileries, from its formal gardens
-swarming with people and statues,
-ran already half-linked to the gorgeous
-old Louvre, steeped pale in the
-southern flood of light above the river,
-till all its deep-set, embossed windows
-seemed diamonds in the rich Corinthian
-filagree that framed them, though
-the workmen were still busy at its unfinished
-roof, like emmets from the
-crowd along the quays; so these also
-pointed to the Palais Royal court,
-with its new arcades and glittering
-shops—or, again, far through the
-labyrinth of exhaustless streets, where
-moted and dusty shadows plunged
-into the gloom of deep lanes, to the
-grim grey towers of the Bastille rising
-embattled out of the squalid fauxbourg,
-which blackened in manufactory
-smoke beyond—miles back, too,
-it led across some bridge, to the
-Gobelins, to the close and dingy
-quarter of the university, with its old
-legends of learning, or magic in dark
-ages; its careless students swaggering
-past, or smoking from their high-perched
-casements; its grisettes, that
-sat at work opposite with an air of
-coquettish grace amidst their poverty,
-their hair neither frizzed nor powdered,
-with a bright cotton handkerchief
-twined half about it, watering their
-little mignonette-boxes, or chirping
-to their bird-cages that hung outside
-to a gleam of sunshine;—or to where
-the golden dome of the great hospital
-hung in the air, faintly bright; to
-the bronze form of Henry of Navarre
-riding regardless above the throng of
-the market-place, and where the two
-huge cathedral-towers of Notre Dame
-stood over their mountain of roof,
-above the gaunt old houses of the
-island Cité; with the sharp-peaked
-prison-turrets and grated loopholes of
-the Conciergerie lifted from the river’s
-edge, whose muddy eddies swam each
-way by, among the barges. The
-Colonel had been in Paris many years
-before, ere he had had any interest in
-it save that of a young man, in lively
-company; when all sons of gentlemen
-made the grand tour, and the old
-glories of Versailles were still reflected
-even at the court of Louis Quinze, in
-the elegant dissipation of his latter
-days: he had come since then, indeed,
-into sterner contact with Frenchmen
-abroad; but it served him now, in
-making shift to act as guide among
-the principal wonders of the capital—when
-he rode near the carriage, sometimes
-accompanied by Mr Thorpe, the
-tutor, on a quiet white mare from the
-hackney stables. And Lady Willoughby
-mildly eyed the Bastille, or
-gently noticed the sumptuousness of
-the Louvre, at her husband’s remark;
-suffering herself to be handed out to
-some sentinel-guarded vestibule, and
-led along some chill historical corridor,
-although it might cost a
-shudder at what was told of it; if
-some positive domestic duty did
-not rather keep her all day at home.
-While Mrs Mason, the governess,
-following with the party, would
-sedulously express assent, at due intervals,
-by word or sign, to the statements
-of the baronet; not seldom addressing
-to the young lady beside her
-some comment of her own, or improving
-inference, such as Mrs Trimmer
-had recently brought into educational
-vogue. It might have been that Rose
-on these occasions sometimes caught
-her brother’s eye, so that her absorbed
-face and lighted look would grow all
-at once intensely demure, or she had
-to turn away to hide a smile at his air
-of exaggerated attention; while Mr
-Thorpe was usually so deep in abstraction,
-or had wandered so far, as to be
-in danger of their leaving him altogether
-behind. It was all one storm
-of spectacle and excitement, in fact,
-to the two; antique memories mingling
-in it with the record of fearful deeds,
-and quaint traces of rude manners
-with the grandeur of the church, the
-magnificence of the days of great
-kings—it only added zest to the living
-rush of the streets, the foreign faces
-and unaccustomed accents, the endless
-variety of movement that shone, flickered,
-or darkened every way about them.
-Then, slowly extricated from fetid
-lanes and old overhanging houses,
-patched, and stained, and ruinous,
-where the low-stretched cord of the
-street lantern showed that carriages
-seldom passed, they would wheel out
-suddenly from the rough causeway
-and its filthy middle-gutter, into the
-broad light and sunny air of the verdurous
-boulevards, where the ramparts
-of old Paris ran. So as the sounds
-of wheels grew soft, and they rolled
-leisurely along, the girl and her
-brother would look to each other, with
-something of the same feeling; her eyes
-would sparkle, while Charles’s were
-everywhere: when on either side of
-the curving vista, either way lost to
-sight, and heaped with the motion of
-equipages and riders, the showering
-elm-leaves and blossoming lime-twigs
-rose green ’gainst the tall, bright,
-ornate houses, tinted variously, and
-dappled fitfully by the shade—where
-the scattered passengers lounged, the
-loitering groups mingled, and all was
-open-air existence—while the gay
-shop-windows and café signs shone
-beneath the boughs, the open upper-casements
-seemed to drink coolness
-beneath their striped canopies through
-green-barred jalousies, the double shutter-frames
-were thrown out either way
-against the wall, and no care, no business
-appeared to hang on Paris far
-as eye could reach, as it thickened
-there through the swimming light of
-afternoon. To Rose and Charles it
-left no dissatisfactions about Stoke,
-nor regret for the smoke of London;
-and instead of wishing the place of
-their residence settled soon, although
-neither had confided it to the other,
-they would fain, no doubt, have had
-their father decide on staying where
-they were, so as to fulfil the suggestion
-of the worthy concierge, by making
-acquaintances and going into society.
-The truth was, that they were unconsciously
-somewhat conspicuous; whether
-it was that the full, fair, lady-like
-features of Lady Willoughby, with her
-hair aristocratically enough drawn up,
-heaped high, and powdered, had yet
-an air of half-sleepy ease and comfort
-that offered the strongest contrast to
-French looks, or that the hood-like
-bonnet of black crape which surmounted
-them, drawn in folds together and
-hung with its short curtain-like veil of
-black lace, however according to matronly
-usage then in London, had already
-been left behind in Paris by a
-barer and more classical taste; or the
-girlish grace and bloom of Rose in her
-mourning-dress and hat; the half clerical
-air of Mr Thorpe, with his mingled
-awkwardness and endeavours at attention
-to the ladies; or the military air,
-tall figure, and splendid English hunter
-of the baronet: all which, perhaps,
-taken together, might even in passing
-have suggested food for the proverbial
-Parisian curiosity. Especially if,
-as at times might have been done,
-they had noticed the grave silence of
-the elderly English gentleman on
-horseback, when his companion addressed
-him in vain, or when with a
-start he looked up to answer, sometimes
-running his eye keenly about
-the passing people, over the seated
-and trifling groups, up to the windows
-of the houses, or along the shop-signs,
-like one all at once awake to them.
-Indeed, out of the charmingly private
-<i><span lang="fr">allée des veuves</span></i> in the Elysian fields,
-where alone the equipages of the rich
-widows of the whole capital were in
-propriety seen to drive, and the doubtful
-widowers and needy bachelors to
-seek opportunities of consoling them,
-with a similar gravity of dress and demeanour—it
-was questionable whether
-the people of Paris were accustomed
-to observe so puzzlingly attractive a
-sight. It had altogether, no doubt,
-a sincere insular air in their eyes.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>It happened that on the day they had
-visited Notre Dame cathedral, Colonel
-Willoughby took advantage of their
-return through the Rue St Honoré to
-call at his banker’s in that leading
-street. He had transacted his principal
-business there, and only found
-some difficulty in detaching himself
-from the subsequent animated conversation
-of the courteous financier,
-whose spirits seemed to be excellent
-on account of some continued increase
-in the price of corn; a motive but
-dimly understood by Sir Godfrey,
-while at each step or two of his
-egress from the antechamber he was
-still detained by some fresh ground of
-satisfaction. As regarded places of
-abode to be had, in any part of France
-whatever, the perplexity did not certainly
-result from want of choice; since
-his last inquiry, the notices and advertisements
-had increased, particularly
-in the rural provinces; to be let or
-sold, they seemed surprisingly plentiful;
-nor were their advantages in every
-point omitted, after the usual style of
-such description, which sometimes dilated
-on the very nature of the landscape,
-or dwelt with gusto on the particular
-character of architecture. “It
-is doubtless owing, Monsieur le Baron,”
-suggested the banker, complacently,
-“to the immense resort, at the present,
-of the nobility to Paris. The attraction
-is excessive! It will indeed be
-impossible to reside but in the vicinity—and
-M. le Baron sympathises,
-I imagine, with the party of
-our ——, probably to a certain extent
-in the ——?”</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>“I really know very little of political
-matters, Monsieur,” said the
-baronet, smiling, “even at home,—and
-as for those in this country, I can
-scarcely say that I have attended to
-them much.”</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>“It is exactly the position which I
-have myself assumed, M. le Baron,”
-responded the banker, with a subdued
-air of confidential understanding. “In
-finance it is indispensable. But affairs
-are solid here;” and he gaily struck
-his hand on his pocket. “Things will
-move—they will go—now that M.
-Neckar is at the head! M. le Baron
-is doubtless aware that the meetings
-of the States-General have commenced,
-and are open to attendance, like
-the English parliament itself? Bah
-we are aware that in affairs nowadays,
-the minister is everything; to
-speak properly—the king, nothing!
-The discussions grow interesting—it
-was a happy stroke—to render the
-nation—yes, conceive, Monsieur,—responsible
-for its own expenses!
-And, after all, the world is governed
-by this money here!” Sir Godfrey
-sighed involuntarily, while the banker,
-slightly rubbing his hands together,
-bowing and smiling, still conducted
-him with <em>empressement</em> towards the
-court in which his horse was held.
-“It would be easy to secure a distinguished
-place of audience for M. le
-Baron in the minister’s gallery at Versailles,”
-persisted Monsieur Blaise,
-with interest, “and for the family of
-M. le Baron, whom we have not
-yet, indeed, had the honour to see?”
-M. Blaise had, in fact, made sundry
-half-subdued advances, at various
-times, towards a mutual introduction
-of the families; which seemed latterly
-to become more obvious. “Thank
-you, Monsieur,” was the rather dry
-answer—“no. The fact is, we intend
-immediately leaving town, as
-soon as my eldest son arrives. And,
-of course, this matter as to a place of
-residence must be settled. I should
-prefer some remote, quiet, country
-place.”</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>“Ah, you should then purchase, M.
-de Vilby,” said the banker, oracularly.
-“It is, on the whole, I assure you,
-cheaper—more satisfactory.” To this,
-however, he received a decided negative;
-Colonel Willoughby had as
-little interest in the idea presented to
-him by Monsieur Blaise, of a profitable
-re-sale at a future period, as of
-possessing property or forming permanent
-ties in France, or of leaving
-his son a landowner there. He was
-about to mount his horse amidst the
-attentions of the banker and his Swiss
-porter, when a depressed-looking
-clerk from the banking-office hastened
-out, with an air of some timidity, to
-offer a paper to his master. The latter
-frowned, while he received a hurried
-statement from the official. “What
-is this? not to be found!” he inquired.
-“It is a trifle, Monsieur,” added he,
-turning round; “the woman, it seems,
-to whom your communication referred,
-has for some time removed her residence.
-Inquiries shall be made, however.
-These poor people are of the
-most changeable habit—the notary of
-the proprietor is naturally ignorant of
-their new destination—the neighbours,
-they affect an unconsciousness which is
-probably feigned, on account of some
-sympathy with a fault, a defalcation
-in rent,—a crime, perhaps. But
-in this case, there is the police, under
-whom the emigrant necessarily falls,
-though unconsciously—and our police
-are now more efficient than ever. Yes,
-M. le Baron, this person shall be
-promptly discovered, believe me—if,
-indeed, this payment is still considered
-proper to be made?” The indifferent,
-languidly commercial tone of
-Monsieur Blaise, at that moment,
-jarred disagreeably on Sir Godfrey’s
-ear, in the full sunlight of the street,
-while its gay throng poured on either
-way like a twofold procession.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>“Yet there is a slight mistake,
-pardon me, Monsieur,” added the
-former, “in the understanding that
-Monsieur your brother had continued
-this pension, which is alluded to,
-during the late years. It was indeed
-paid with regularity, when transmitted;
-but although the promise remained
-subsequently, yet, after a certain
-point, by some omission, doubtless, the
-effects—the sums—ceased to arrive.
-I believe the inadvertency was, however,
-more than once reported from
-this office to the notary of M. de Vilby
-at Ezzeterre, in England—eh, Maître
-Robert?” And the clerk, to whom
-he again turned sharply, gave a reverential
-affirmative. It was not
-merely the revival of this trivial
-matter in this way that troubled Sir
-Godfrey; there was some slight concern
-stirred at his heart by the discovery
-of the slight sum having failed
-so long to reach its object, mixed
-with a little compunction at his remembrance
-of the crowded Cité, near
-the religious shadows of Notre Dame,
-which he had passed by that very
-day; there was a vivid feeling once
-more, too, of his brother’s characteristic
-carelessness, which was by no
-means lessened on recollecting his
-wife’s mild remark, when he had mentioned
-the circumstance, that possibly,
-if the person were very poor,
-it might have been better to see into
-it personally. The gross mingling of
-M. Blaise’s inquiries in it, besides,
-with his hint at crimes which might
-render the benefit undeserved, annoyed
-him. Sir Godfrey took the paper
-from the banker’s hands, expressed
-his intention of managing the matter
-at his own leisure, and with a hasty
-bow rode homewards.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>Willoughby was, as before said, a
-man with little imagination in his
-temperament, at least of no very lively
-fancy; but there was a kind of vague
-impatience at times in his mind,
-scarcely to be any better accounted for
-than the fits of gloom he felt creeping,
-as it were, over him, and which he
-checked only by a strong effort to
-think. Sir Godfrey felt, in fact, rather an
-indescribable satisfaction than otherwise,
-and a somewhat reviving interest,
-at the little matter of business that
-had returned on his hands, none the less
-that it took the aspect of a kind duty.
-Paris itself was certainly a degree
-nearer his attention, so soon as the
-concerns of any one in it, however
-obscure, were thus dependent on his
-own, stirring up an odd anxiety as to
-whether she were alive or dead, and
-really deserving; all which, the more
-unusual it was to his habits, bore with
-the greater novelty of sensation on a
-man whose ordinary habits had been
-somewhat abruptly broken up. Singular,
-indeed, as he rode along, grew
-the thought of how this vast city contrived
-to live from day to day? the
-question, yet more perplexing, how it
-spent its time? still less conceivable,
-to what end was all the constant
-movement, thickening and shifting far
-along the Rue St Honoré, in dust and
-sunlight? Nay, with a smiling sense
-of its absurdity, the baronet caught
-himself involuntarily pondering some
-such incalculable problem, and for a
-moment striving to put its organisation
-together, while the bridle lay
-slack on his horse’s neck, and his
-limbs kept time to the motion, as the
-noble black went stepping elastically
-on. Even in that fashionable street
-they excited notice amid its rattling
-cortège of equestrians and equipages,
-its rainbow quivering of dress, feathered,
-embroidered, gilded and laced
-and rustling, where all the artifice of
-French fashion was in its afternoon
-glory, with bell-hoop and white hair—from
-the queue-tag and three-cornered
-beaver, lace cravat, and ruffles, and
-pocket-flap, to the knee-buckles and
-the false calves, white or flesh-coloured,
-and high-heeled—treading on out-turned
-toes—while the smooth, tinted
-faces, with their mole-specks and
-black beauty-spots, seemed to have
-banished from about them, in the
-sun’s full influence, all effect of hair:
-though it was scarce so much the
-soberly-garbed rider, in dark riding-coat
-and boots, with military stock,
-as the jet gloss of Black Rupert,
-whose full nostril seemed half conscious
-of his master’s pride in him.
-Nor was it merely that the flickering
-blaze of the street disagreed with his
-mood, when Colonel Willoughby
-turned out of it through a quieter line
-of that gay fauxbourg, slightly using
-the spur: he shrank involuntarily
-from those of his countrymen who
-seemed to be in Paris, with their
-gregarious yet unsocial air, their loud
-voices, causeless laughter, and cool
-stare, their ill-affected ease of dress,
-their round morning hats at all hours,
-and their sudden knowing looks of
-interest from his horse to him, not
-seldom unaccompanied by distinct
-English questions of “Who is he?”
-or the drawling answer, with an eyeglass
-raised, of “Don’t know.” Yet
-in public places they were everywhere;
-they were looking out of
-corner cafés, and talking back to
-friends within, watching narrowly
-where some Parisian belle tripped
-carefully athwart a crossing, or leaning
-out of billiard-room second-floors
-and yawning; and it struck him the
-more in contrast, as two gentlemen,
-evidently French, turned before him
-into the same more secluded street,
-the one quietly shrugging his shoulders
-together, the other turning a silent
-look to his friend. They sauntered
-easily along on the sunny side of the
-gutter, as if delaying to cross; though
-side <em>trottoirs</em> were as yet almost unknown,
-while the cry of <i><span lang="fr">gare!</span></i> from a
-rapid vehicle at times hurried the foot-passengers
-together towards the wall,
-or out amidst the causeway; so that a
-snatch of their conversation more than
-once reached the English baronet’s
-ears, or was mingled with other
-voices; as he looked round for the
-names of the streets, with some idea
-of at once beginning inquiries at the
-nearest police-office. “These, then,
-Jules,” said the taller and elder, who
-wore the gallant uniform of the Royal
-Body-Guard, sky-azure and gold-laced,
-with its white-plumed black hat,
-crimson-velvet breeches, stiff cavalry
-boots, and gilt spurs, and ruffles of rich
-lace—“are your allies—your Weegs,
-as you call them! Corbleu!” He
-looked back over one shoulder, as he
-spoke, with a supremely supercilious
-air, swinging the tassel of his sword-knot
-round his hand; the other, whose
-dress and manner were those of an
-elegant young man of fashion, seemed
-gently to draw him onward by the
-arm. “My dear Armand, what a
-fancy!” the latter ejaculated; “the
-generous sympathy of the enlightened
-English—of the descendants of Hampdeun
-and of Seednè, the Wheegs—but
-I forget, we agreed to——” “Yes,
-Comte,” said the other gloomily, “we
-agreed to observe silence on it, since
-it is impossible for us——” and by
-another influx from a cross street they
-were taken out of hearing; although
-the grave air of the young officer,
-enhanced by his long side-visage, and
-cavalier-like uniform, despite all the
-hair-powder and the smooth elaborateness
-of the time, had drawn Sir
-Godfrey’s interest from the matter he
-had in hand. They were walking near
-him again next minute.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>“He is at La Morgue, then?”
-asked the officer, in reference to some
-statement of his friend; “what was
-it—gambling? His mistress, perhaps?”</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>“No, she was beautiful, and attached
-to him,” replied the other,
-carelessly; “she still slept, while he
-had left her, to shave in the adjacent
-dressing-room—the whole hotel was
-roused by her cries. The police can
-make nothing of it. Even his passport
-affords no clue.”</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>“It was probably a plot, about
-to be discovered,” said his friend.
-“Paris, in my opinion, is full of plots—which
-had better soon be dashed to
-pieces.” He made an emphatic motion
-with the sheathed sabre on his
-left arm, and glanced firmly along the
-street, from face to face. “My dear
-Armand!” ejaculated the other, stopping
-for an instant till their eyes met,
-and the cheek of the garde-du-corps
-seemed to redden—“this is”—but the
-remainder was lost to Sir Godfrey, as
-he held round towards the outskirts
-of the Faubourg St Honoré. Crossing
-by a shorter way, however, they still
-preceded him at the next corner.
-“On the contrary,” continued the
-younger, “had there been anything
-to discover”—“—stupidly acute as
-the police are”—“—but believe me,
-my friend,” he added with animation,
-“there was nothing—nothing—it was
-merely <em>ennui</em>. And what police,
-were it the very espionage of old De
-Sartines himself, his apprentice and
-friend Lenoir, or even my fine cousin
-De Breteuil, with your thrice-humble
-servitor here, can guard against ennui?
-’Tis the only spectre I dread, for the
-philosophers, the Encyclopédie, have
-still left it us!” Sir Godfrey had
-passed them, indeed, hardly heeding
-their detached words so much as the
-young soldier’s chivalrous air; a little
-on, he checked his horse at sight of a
-gendarme’s blue and red livery, to
-inquire for the police-bureau of the
-quarter; at which the man turned
-sharply, struck no doubt by the accent
-or the form of the question, and surveyed
-him before attempting to give
-an answer.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>“Ennui!” repeated the officer energetically,
-as they came on; “my faith,
-we shall soon have little enough of
-that luxury, I think! I had imagined
-it the disease of England!”</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>“But without her suspecting it,”
-rejoined his livelier companion; “while
-France alone endeavours to expel, to
-define the malady! What is Versailles,
-Fontainebleau, Marly, Luciennes,
-but a vast sigh, a drowsy
-effort, a yawn (<i><span lang="fr">baillement</span></i>)? Those
-parterres of Lenotre, those fountains,
-those statues, which are like the
-crimes of Paris! But we awake—and
-assure yourself, my friend, it is
-at the root of one half—”</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>Colonel Willoughby had repeated
-his question rather impatiently, for
-the speaker, as he passed on, was
-turning a glance of attention that
-way: the gendarme, too, with a sudden
-motion of his hand to his huge
-cocked hat, seemed less careful to
-reply than to leave full room for the
-two gentlemen. The younger of
-them stopped, turned, and addressed
-a word of sharp reproof to the official.
-“Permit me, monsieur,” he added,
-coming forward with a slight bow,
-and speaking tolerably good English;
-“it is probably rather to the commissary
-of your quarter you would address
-yourself, and his residence is not far;
-at —— the number which I forget,
-in the Place Montaigne, Champs
-Elysées.” The Englishman thanked
-him briefly; bowing in return the
-more profoundly, as he felt the usual
-unwillingness of his race to receive a
-favour he had no claim to.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>“It is denoted, besides,” continued
-his informant with increased courtesy,
-“by the red lantern over the portico,
-which since two years has been fixed
-over the doorway of every commissary’s
-residence in Paris. Day or
-night this will serve to distinguish
-them by a glance.”</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>“Indeed?” was the sole answer, in
-a tone of some indifference. There
-was nothing officious in the younger
-gentleman’s unasked interference;
-while his singularly handsome face,
-his vivacious eyes, the air of life in
-his expression, along with an undeniable
-elegance of manner, were contrasted
-for the first time with his
-elder companion, who stood apart,
-and almost haughtily silent, a dark
-shade seeming to gather on his thin
-and dusky cheek, as he gazed into the
-street, having even withdrawn his
-momentary notice of the spirited
-horse. Yet the baronet felt less
-annoyed thus than by the prolonged
-politeness of his friend; he involuntarily
-bit his lip; there was something
-disagreeable even in being so
-promptly addressed in his own language.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>“Might it be possible for one to
-assist monsieur in any yet further
-manner?” inquired the stranger, with
-the same easy grace; though a
-peculiar smile, at the time unintelligible
-to Sir Godfrey, had hovered
-about his lips.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>“My best thanks, monsieur,” was
-the stiff response. “I think not—it
-is a mere ordinary piece of business;”
-and, bowing deeply towards his horse’s
-shoulder, the English baronet turned
-in the direction indicated. He could
-see them from the distance, however,
-overtaken by a light cabriolet, which
-seemed to have been slowly following
-them all the while; the young <i><span lang="fr">élégant</span></i>
-stepped leisurely in, and with a gesture
-of adieu to his friend, was driven
-swiftly off towards the city again; the
-white plume of the garde-du-corps
-disappeared among the passengers.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>When Sir Godfrey had found the
-commissary’s office, shown the indispensable
-passport, and received, as he
-had expected, but little prospect of
-speedy information, he yet rode homewards
-in considerable ease of mind;
-the thing had in fact passed from his
-thoughts as he took the nearer way
-from the grand avenues of the Champs
-Elysées, thronging with gaiety, by
-the overhanging shade of garden walls
-and backs of stables, across the open
-spaces flushed green with the afternoon
-light, alive with strolling girls
-in their teens, beside their prim <em>gouvernantes</em>,
-or children scattered about
-the groups of their sitting, gossipping,
-sewing <em>bonnes</em>; while here and there,
-into a line of secluded street, full of
-tall, stately, old-fashioned houses in
-massy blocks, or separate in their
-high-walled court-yards, sloped lazily
-the white, gushing glory from far
-above; till the way towards a bridge,
-or some glimpse of the bustle about
-the airy quays, renewed again the
-sense of being in Paris. But it seemed
-as if some of its occurrences, otherwise
-as apparently fragmentary as the
-street-cries or confused accents, bore
-every now and then a more connected
-purport to the baronet as he came in
-contact with them.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>He had already thrown a coin or
-two mechanically to some squalid
-cripple, or some one-eyed beggar in
-his route, thinking no more of it; as
-he turned into the thoroughfare near
-home, however, out of one of these
-sun-bright and silent streets, where a
-few figures crossed here and there, a
-singular little incident presented itself,
-which was but part of many such
-scenes throughout the quieter quarters
-of the French capital. It was one of
-the strangest symptoms of that strange
-time, that while the king had been
-suppressing dungeons and projecting
-the good of the people, while the
-nobles desired reform of abuses, and
-the whole nation seemed to breathe
-peace, philanthropy, and enthusiasm—the
-very fashion of the salons had
-conceived a sudden sensibility to the
-miseries and wants of the lowest class.
-The late winters had been severe, and
-the last desperate, amidst dear provisions:
-there had been fêtes, lotteries,
-and performances of classic dramas
-in the theatre, although for these last
-the curés had refused to distribute their
-unhallowed proceeds: yet greatest of
-all had been the activity of the ladies in
-the genteel faubourgs, who, in graceful
-<i><span lang="fr">toilettes de quête</span></i>, the most becoming
-of dresses, and with purses bearing
-embroideries of flowers, cupids, and
-touching mottoes, turned their morning
-calls into a quest for alms. In
-the less aristocratic quarters, where
-morning calls were scarcely made, it
-had taken hold chiefly on the little
-girls, from mere childhood up to their
-teens; lasting longer, doubtless, because
-exercised only in the open air
-on the street-passengers, with all the
-amusement of a play mingled in its
-touch of reality. How interesting
-was it, too, to the subjects of the
-performance, as they were chosen from
-the passing current with all that
-faculty of prompt organisation so peculiar
-to the race of France; for the
-<em>rendezvous</em> was made in the neighbouring
-archway of some porte-cochère,
-apart from the bustle of the
-crowd, to hold the table with its
-white fringed cloth, and the silver
-salver, where the savings of their own
-pocket-money had been first put for
-a handsel, as they gathered from the
-various houses near. The old gentleman,
-as he approached, had his skirts
-pulled by some lisping little one, with
-chubby cheeks, and curls that had
-vainly been flattened, while her face
-peered from under the grey stuff of
-the mimic beggar’s cloak: the most
-simply dressed would hold the salver
-to the lady of quality; the most polite
-to the bourgeois; the plainest-featured
-to the widow, the spinster, or faded
-beauty; the tallest to the middle-aged
-gentleman, the prettiest to the gallant:
-and no rivalry, but how to get most,
-disturbed the co-operation of those
-young quêteuses. The English baronet,
-indeed, knew nothing of it as he
-trotted forward, before the archway
-could be seen, with its lurking, listening,
-peeping group, holding their
-breath in expectation: he only saw a
-slender young form, too tall for the
-grey cloak to smother the whole of her
-white summer dress, trip from beside
-the wall, and hold up her rosy palm
-before him, like a beggar; they had
-chosen the eldest, for her eyes and complexion,
-to try the rich Englishman.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>“Pour nos pauvres, s’il vous plait,
-Monsieur,” said a clear sweet voice,
-plaintively. Sir Godfrey had checked
-his horse with a start; she was a girl
-little younger than his own Rose, with
-the very blue eyes and that palest yellow
-hair, which are so rare in France,
-though with that warmly-bright complexion
-which is never seen out of it,
-suffused as it seems through a strange
-shadow of brown. The folds and hood
-of the cloak could not disguise the
-girlish grace of her figure, just shooting
-towards womanhood; the studiously
-plain arrangement of the hair
-<i><span lang="fr">à la quête</span></i>, virgin-like, added to her
-pure beauty, and did not take away
-from the slightly coquettish glance
-from her drooped head as she thus
-made her appeal. “My dear little
-one!” ejaculated Sir Godfrey hastily—“how—what—<em>you</em>
-are not a—in
-poverty?”</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>Her cheek reddened as she drew up
-her head proudly. “Me? Yes, we
-are poor, but noble—Armand and I.
-It is for the poor of the city, Monsieur—of
-Paris.”</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>Sir Godfrey reddened too, and listened
-calmly to her eager explanation.
-“Ah, <em>you</em> are rich—you are
-English!” she added anxiously, as if
-afraid he hesitated. His glance of
-surprised inquiry did not escape her.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>“I know you, Monsieur,” she said,
-“for you live close to our convent in
-the Rue Debilly, near the Quai de
-Change, where I am a pensionnaire,
-and where my aunt is the superior.
-I come often with one of the sisters
-to arrange the quête here. There are
-so many poor!”</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>“And to whom do you give this
-money, <i><span lang="fr">belle petite</span></i>?” asked the baronet,
-smiling at her delighted thanks
-for the gold he placed in her hand.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>“To the curés and their vicars,
-Monsieur,” she said gravely, “who
-will distribute it—they know every
-one so well!” Sir Godfrey mused.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>“And you live near us!” he said,
-thinking of his own daughter, as he
-asked her name.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>“It is Aimée—and my brother
-is Armand de l’Orme, an officer at
-Versailles. We are orphans, Armand
-and I, and we do not belong
-to Paris. We were both born in the
-south, in Provence—Were you ever
-in Provence, Monsieur—ah, how much
-more beautiful it is!” With an air of
-empressement she clasped her hands,
-and standing there in the quietly
-sunny street, while the stream of the
-populous chaussée passed athwart its
-end, the girl seemed to forget her impatient
-company beyond, whose whispers
-and exclamations at last betrayed
-them to the surprised glance of Sir
-Godfrey. “Was she allowed,” he
-asked, however, “to make visits from
-her convent—for <em>he</em> had a daughter,
-little older than herself, who had no
-companions of her own age in Paris.”
-And the young quêteuse responded
-eagerly to the hint. “Oh, yes—she
-was allowed—on certain days—and
-she would positively come. Indeed—perhaps—mademoiselle
-herself would
-assist at their quête.”</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>The baronet shook his head, almost
-starting in his saddle at the thought.
-But it struck him suddenly that
-his oddly-made new acquaintance,
-through her friends the curés, might
-aid him in discovery of the missing
-Suzanne Deroux; and she was all
-readiness and sanguine expectation
-when he explained the matter.
-There was one young vicar in particular,
-so mild, so missionnaire, so apostolique,
-whose acquaintance with all
-the poorer quarters was miraculous:
-she would be able to bring the news,
-she was sure, very soon indeed. So
-giving her, at her request, the same
-paper he had recalled from his banker,
-Sir Godfrey saw her rejoin her archway
-amidst the impatient welcome of
-her companions, and took his way
-into the Rue Debilly, with a feeling
-half-amused, half-meditative.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>At home, there were fresh letters
-and newspapers awaiting him, with
-the dinner-time, unwontedly late.
-There had been already the expected
-tidings from Francis to his mother,
-though brief, that he was finally free
-of term-times, having reached London,
-which he was ready to leave next
-week; his father’s remaining business
-there seemed fully settled, but he was
-to dine, before starting, at their friend
-the solicitor’s, and bring over with
-him everything wanted. He enclosed
-his sister’s letter, however, from her
-dearest school-fellow, crossed and recrossed,
-with all its precious gossip
-for common use, its inexpressible sentiments
-that were not to be seen by
-another creature, and its postscript
-with the sole piece of real, intelligible
-information. Mrs Mason’s correspondence
-also, whose contents had at
-no time been breathed to any one, had
-been forwarded: while Sir Godfrey
-himself had a packet from Mr Hesketh’s
-office in Exeter, giving on the
-whole satisfactory prospects, and containing
-a few papers from among the
-late Sir John’s dreary mass of lumber;
-hitherto overlooked, but which he
-might care to examine. They were
-for the most part unimportant, but he
-saw, from the first glance at one of
-them, that had it arrived that morning,
-it might have simply saved him a
-little trouble and uncertainty; as it
-was a French letter of date not long
-before his brother’s death, evidently
-written by some humble notary’s
-clerk, to state the case of the Suzanne
-in question, who had received a pension
-for an injury received while
-in his service, probably interrupted
-through the change of abode by her
-children, whose work supported them;
-but her son had been ill, and the winter
-severe; the application had been
-rather made at the penman’s instance,
-as he lived <i><span lang="fr">au quatrième</span></i> in the house
-where their attic was, and had himself
-discovered the address by going
-to the banker’s, where he had obtained
-no other prospect. It stated the place
-and number distinctly, and had in all
-likelihood led to the memorandum of
-Sir John,—though no doubt thrown
-aside at the moment, and with his
-confused mind in those latter days, so
-busy amidst out-door matters or convivial
-meetings, its chief point had
-been forgotten.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>Joining in the eager table-talk it
-had all excited, with a mind at rest,
-the baronet could fully share the pleasure
-of home-thoughts: the very atmosphere
-of the room seemed English,
-for all its bare waxed floor and patch
-of carpet, its airy paper-hangings of
-pastoral scenes, its light curtains and
-tall glaring windows with flimsy
-frames, its stove-filled chimney-place,
-and the white folding-doors of its
-antechamber, about all which there
-lurked no corner of substantial comfort,
-as round the wainscot and panelling,
-the recesses and embayments,
-corner-cupboards, and hearth-places,
-and presses of home, with its high-backed
-arm-chair, noiseless floors, and
-family pictures: the sound of the convent-bell,
-and Sir Godfrey’s account
-of his pretty little <i><span lang="fr">quêteuse</span></i>, alone
-brought back their recollection. It
-had been long since Lady Willoughby
-saw her husband so cheerful, even
-when he turned to his newspaper, and
-sat absorbed in its varied matter,
-leaning back on that hard diminutive
-sofa;—Mrs Mason, as her custom was,
-has withdrawn to the mysterious privacy
-of her own apartment; Mr
-Thorpe, to a book, apart in the wide
-naked antechamber; while at its further
-windows, looking out, sit the two
-young people in their unwearied charge
-of the street;—till, as that after-dinner
-repose steals through the sitting-room,
-with cool shade from the early May
-twilight, she feels instinctively that
-his old easy habit of middle age has
-returned on him, the first time since
-reaching France—nay, on second
-thought, since the day of that melancholy
-message from Devonshire—of
-sinking at that hour into a doze. It
-scarce needs her turning her head, to
-see how the affairs and concerns of the
-world at large have fallen from his
-mind; while gently netting on, without
-word or other motion, perhaps
-with no particular thought besides,
-she sits quiet that it may last the
-longer. It had seemed vague, in its
-connection with a trifle; but neither
-she nor he could have told the indescribable
-relief it had given him to find
-the only singularity in Sir John’s memoranda
-cleared up; in this commonplace
-way, too, when even casual circumstances
-had seemed joining to
-give it a feverish importance. That
-intended but ineffectual will of his, by
-which he had evidently contemplated
-a formal bequest, with those slight
-exceptions, of everything to the colonel,
-already his legal heir, could
-after all have had no rational motive;
-it was probably but one of those
-strangely groundless suspicions, those
-longings to exercise influence from
-the very tomb, which cross an unsound
-mind. The colonel had not
-been unconscious of the superior abilities
-of his eldest brother, nor of the
-still brighter parts which were attributed
-to his brother John in early
-life; he only felt reassured by the
-conviction, again confirmed, that the
-unhappy results of his foolish match
-had been such as to touch his brain
-with insanity. There was a vulgar
-old story about their family, in fact—a
-sort of absurd country superstition—that
-owing to some ancient ancestral
-impiety, even when the ghost
-ceased to be heard of in the long portrait-gallery
-at Stoke, over the great
-staircase—which had been invisible to
-the family alone—then somewhere or
-other a Willoughby was mad. Often
-had the colonel smiled at it, when
-merely a younger brother in the army;
-a wound once received in his head in
-America, which had cost him delirious
-days and nights, seemed formerly
-to entitle him doubly to his smile at
-the corroboration, when restored to
-full health: nay, from some cause, he
-had found himself thinking of it once
-or twice in the full blaze of the streets
-of Paris, with their vivid reminiscences—though
-his smile had been but
-faint, now he was the younger brother
-no longer. For <em>why</em>, really, after all,
-had he come to Paris in particular,
-or lingered there, persuading himself
-under so many different forms about
-its convenience, the novelty to his
-children, the advantage of his brother’s
-banker, the little legacy, the
-comparative privacy, the rapid post,
-or the many notices of places to let?
-Why, in that indirect way, had he
-sought to make inquiries of the police,
-and caught himself listening to words
-in the street, of unknown suicides,
-baffled investigations, and French
-ennui? Why had he mechanically
-shrunk from the Boulevards and rushing
-St Honoré, yet glanced askance
-at windows full of faces, or looked
-again with an irresistible suspicion, to
-see if he recognised or was recognised
-by any one—not merely on that day,
-but on previous ones also? Actually,
-in the hot, beating sun, it had for a
-moment or two resembled the preface
-to his fever in the colonies, after that
-affair with their rabble of militia,
-among whom he had fancied he saw a
-known visage disguised; and the strong
-effort of his understanding which recovered
-him had only brought more
-keenly the sudden question—whether
-his brother indeed, or he himself, had
-been touched with the germs of a growing
-madness. There had been strange
-horror in the thought. For, had
-there really been a deliberate, sober
-meaning in his brother’s stray purposes,
-through the confusion of all his
-neglect, and though cut off by death?
-While the quick, clear self-suspicion
-had seemed to pierce his own mind
-with shame, how, amidst an uneasiness
-to associate with his countrymen, he
-was still traversing Paris everywhere,
-under cover of guidance to his family,
-mingling private anxieties with the
-grandeur of royal edifices, and continuing
-to expect some chance vestige
-of things which his brother might have
-chosen wisely to leave in silence. Since
-his succession to Stoke he must have
-been altering insensibly. Even selfish
-feelings, impatient wishes, hidden
-thoughts, or half-fretful expressions
-towards her who had been so long his
-solace, had then recurred to mind with
-a painful surprise; compared with
-which, his brother’s eccentricity appeared
-innocent indeed, sadly as his
-earlier follies had brought it on. And
-had he heard before from Mr Hesketh
-what he learned from the letter on his
-return, that the manor-house and park
-were unlikely to be soon let, or to
-bring any profitable addition to the
-rents at present, from a fresh and
-growing rumour that they were haunted,
-it would have startled him with a
-superstitious feeling far more oppressive
-than any at Stoke. But, as it
-was, with a sober return to accustomed
-thoughts, calmed by his unwonted
-self-scrutiny, for him so deep—and
-soothed by gentle presence—Sir Godfrey
-slipped from his practical, matter-of-fact
-English newspaper to repose;
-though with the melancholy conviction
-that his brother’s understanding had
-indeed partially given way. They had
-not latterly seen very much of each
-other: John was now at peace; his
-fruitless life had come to an end. The
-baronet was awoke only by the rustling
-entrance of Mrs Mason to pour
-out the chocolate—Mr Thorpe’s awkward
-haste to set her chair—the bringing
-in of wax-lights—the pause before
-grace was said, with the tutor’s devout
-formality. The evening talk was
-as duly closed by Mr Thorpe’s reading
-of the appointed prayers—another
-advantage never gained by Lady Willoughby
-till their departure abroad
-required a tutor.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>As if there were not strange noises
-dying far and wide through the city,
-till across the river could be heard the
-great clock of the Invalides. As if
-the atmosphere of the world were not
-at that hour infected with inscrutable
-sympathies and mysterious desires;
-which gathered in Paris, as after long
-heat that malady of the air, felt keenly
-by the lower creatures: so that it
-might have been working vaguely
-even with Sir Godfrey. And as if,
-though clouded and stagnant, even
-well-nigh lost, the judgment of the
-departed might not have exercised
-some acute thought—deeper even
-than the sharpest lawyer could track
-it.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>So quiet, after prayers, was the outer
-night over the bare roofs, and lights,
-and distant pinnacles of the city—the
-glimpse of the river, the lamps on the
-bridge, the trees of the Champ de
-Mars—and so wide with its floating
-films of fair May-cloud, softening the
-few stars—that Rose Willoughby
-shaded her candle to peep out at it,
-lifting the blind, and putting her face
-close to the window-glass, after she had
-said her prayers, and was half ready
-to go to bed. Listening to Mrs
-Mason’s steps in the next room, extinguisher
-in hand, lest her door should
-suddenly be opened to that lady’s
-most indignant surprise—Rose thought
-still of to-morrow’s drive toward
-Versailles.</p>
-
-<h3 class='c015'>CHAPTER V.—FALLING FLEUR-DE-LYS.</h3>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
-  <div class='linegroup'>
-    <div class='group'>
-      <div class='line'>“<span lang="fr">Quel triste abaissement!</span></div>
-      <div class='line in4'><span lang="fr">Quelle immortelle gloire!</span></div>
-      <div class='line'><span lang="fr">Que de cris de douleur!</span></div>
-      <div class='line in4'><span lang="fr">Que de chants de victoire!</span></div>
-      <div class='line'><span lang="fr">Cessons de nous troubler; notre Dieu, quelque jour,</span></div>
-      <div class='line'><span lang="fr">Devoilera ce grand mystère.</span></div>
-      <div class='line'><span lang="fr">Révérons sa colère;</span></div>
-      <div class='line'><span lang="fr">Espérons en son amour.</span>”</div>
-      <div class='line in36'><em>Athalie.</em></div>
-    </div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c009'>Pleasant was it, on that bright hot
-morning, to escape at last from Paris
-altogether. Sir Godfrey, indeed, remained
-at home to write his letters,
-with the purpose of riding out to meet
-them on their return: and Mr Thorpe,
-on horseback, with charge of the magic
-passports, was the sole cavalier;
-shrewdly overseen, doubtless, by the
-hard-eyed, rough-visaged, experienced
-Jackson, to whose sturdy driving there
-lay no perplexity about those great,
-straight, formal French roads, with
-staring guide-posts and swarms of
-Parisian people.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>Soon, in fact, does the grand road
-towards Versailles sweep away from
-sight of Paris in its wide basin, among
-avenues and closing woods. With no
-lanes, nor secluded cross-ways, save
-to towns, it was harder to leave behind
-the Parisian people; and they
-soon heard that Versailles was stripped
-of its glory, so far as they were
-concerned, since nothing was doing
-there that day; the king had gone to
-Marly, or Fontainebleau, instead of
-passing in state to the Assembly, as
-had been expected from the journals.
-Much to the relief, it must have been,
-of Lady Willoughby, who disliked
-crowds and pressures of people, with
-the bustle and the dust; and to whom
-foreign kings and queens had but a
-dim, half-chimerical reality, after
-all, compared with the accustomed
-Georges, whose power and royalty
-were interwoven with any thoughts
-she had of public life; yet she appeared
-as much vexed as it was possible
-for her to be, proposing still to go on
-and see the outside of the palace, the
-fountains, or the remaining courtiers,
-the “houses of parliament,” which
-perhaps might be worth the pains. But
-these Charles disdained till another
-day, when the king should have returned—being
-even set against the
-remotest view of the town, its very
-smoke or spires; and, out of his
-father’s presence, Charles was always,
-by some peculiar force of his, indirectly
-master. His sister Rose, though the
-expedition had been fondly planned,
-nor did his arguments seem worth answering,
-too well knew the issue not
-to be resigned; while her governess,
-referred to as a matter of course, expressed
-as duly an entire acquiescence
-in any arrangement most satisfactory
-to Lady Willoughby, preserving an
-intense calm, and seeming to observe
-the various objects as their course was
-changed, the leaves of the trees, the
-tops of palisades, the very hats of
-market-people, with strange elevation
-of countenance, and with an air of
-suffering which required her vinaigrette.
-Even Jackson, who had a
-great share of the selfishness of privileged
-old servants, and greatly consulted
-his own personal ease, ventured to
-console his mistress, turning round
-and touching his hat, to remark that
-it was a long drive after all, and they
-would have had to put up at the town
-to bait these Flanders beasts—he carefully
-abstained from calling them horses—<em>which</em>
-it might cost a deal of trouble,
-as these French inns very likely had
-no stables; the inward satisfaction of
-Jackson, indeed, somewhat belied his
-rueful effort to look grieved. All appeared
-disappointed, save the tutor,
-ever fain to be serviceable, if seldom
-very successful where the office was
-of the present kind. Yet that day Mr
-Thorpe was excelling himself, now
-riding on, or now remaining behind,
-always for some object; nor was it
-long ere he came posting back, his
-plain, ineffectual features animated,
-and his mild short-sighted blue eyes
-shining moist through the thin-framed
-spectacles which enlarged them, to
-mention that they were close to Sèvres,
-where the royal porcelain was made.
-And at Sèvres, with its quaint old village
-houses, and its bridge across the
-Seine to another village, seeing what
-could be seen of its manufactory, its
-water-mill where the clay was ground,
-or its woody island amidst the river,
-the earlier part of the day was spent.
-Then turning to make a wide circuit
-into the Versailles road again, where
-the afternoon was to bring Sir Godfrey,
-the carriage passed at leisure
-through the quieter country that slopes
-and rolls westward from the Seine.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>It was scarce country, indeed, where
-no hedgerows seemed to break up the
-wide spaces, no field-gates or clustered
-farms, nor half-sequestered hamlets,
-with the sprinkling on of solitary cottage
-and quiet house toward the next,
-where the church spire should rise, or
-tower; but sometimes with no division
-from the wide crops, save the lines of
-bushy pollards, they rolled over the
-paved roadway; again between continual
-park walls or wooden palisade,
-from which suddenly it would burst
-on the space about a large square village,
-with its cabaret and sign-board
-of the <i><span lang="fr">Lion d’or</span></i> or <i><span lang="fr">d’argent</span></i>, its old
-fountain-well, and double row of trees,
-noisy, and alive with children, while
-another road brought through it the
-market-life from Paris. Though over
-the nearest wood would peep the white
-turrets of chateaus, peaked with purple
-slate, or tin, or gilding, like chandeliers
-extinguished in the light of day; and
-near to them were the little stunted
-churches, with their rounded ends, the
-squat towers that had lids to them like
-pots and vases, or the mean belfries
-perched on the roofs; where the church-yard
-was blooming with flowers that
-made its cypresses and yews look
-gloomier, and the small lonely curacy
-near it, snowing the cross on some wide
-gable, had an air of pious seclusion from
-the world. And still the parks spread
-round; the woods, with formal alleys
-striking through them, widened and
-surged outward, downward, into vale
-and over height; sometimes opening
-to let the high road pass on with its
-vehicles and pedestrians, or the traffic
-that seemed greater for its confinement,—oftener
-to show the terraces
-and bowers of still nobler mansions
-than before, till the country appeared
-fading away.  They had forgotten
-their forenoon disappointment: the
-girl’s eyes sparkled as the sweet sense
-of being out of Paris grew, in spite of
-all it held in it; placid, tranquil, her
-mother leant opposite, while she
-breathed the freshness, enjoying the
-mere motion, and the vague variety as
-she heard it noticed, on pure trust,
-pleased at what pleased the others—it
-was not like England, indeed, but
-how pure and exhilarating seemed the
-French air—its sun gave a still sleepier
-stillness to her mild eyes, yet with so
-healthy a tint and soft fulness of person,
-that the holding of her parasol,
-in Lady Willoughby, the trouble she
-took to observe an object, were pleasant
-to see; as Mr Thorpe, riding by,
-devoted his conversation to the governess
-and her; the while Charles, still
-in a discontented mood, vented it on
-the whole country, and leaning across
-to his sister, one elbow on his knee,
-kept up his side-current of livelier
-talk.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>For one thing, their constant popularity
-displeased him, however acceptable
-to Rose. That national sharpness
-and curiosity had all at once
-become particularly disagreeable to
-the youth, in his grumbling humour;
-and it mingled through the whole
-thread of his discourse, not without
-some acute notions of the people’s character,
-on which he appeared to have
-been oddly brooding. Nor the less was
-his zest in showing that France and
-England were natural foes, because his
-tutor on the other side rode discoursing
-benevolently to the reverse effect;
-while Mrs Mason responded, in all
-that propriety of sentiment, which was
-blended, in her dialogue to gentlemen,
-with a slight shade of delicate reserve.
-But really there was a domineering
-style of argument in Charles, if one
-ventured to express a different view,
-that provoked his sister in the end—especially
-as he was a year younger;
-she turned her shoulder to him, and
-sat resolutely looking the other way,
-as if absorbed in the mild commonplaces
-of Mr Thorpe, and Mrs Mason’s
-weary platitudes, which diffused
-such additional complacency over
-her mother. After all, they <em>were</em>
-tiresome things, such as all good
-books and worthy people said over
-and over; though Charles had no
-right to look down on his tutor with
-such secret contempt, because he knew
-nothing of what Charles called “life”—or
-to hint, because he looked serious,
-that his mind had got bewildered
-among triangles ever since
-he studied so terribly for a degree,
-leaving out nothing but his memory:
-perhaps, indeed, it <em>might</em> be true that
-Mrs Mason, in spite of her early loss
-of some inestimable kind, had a sort
-of soft regard for him, and paid him
-little attentions, especially at table,
-with the sugar,—though moderately,
-till the curacy at Stoke should be
-sure; but what she would not for a
-moment be so disrespectful to Mr
-Thorpe as to credit, was that a hopeless
-love, never to be revealed, consumed
-him, amidst all his learning,
-for—for herself. Her indignation
-mounted at the thought,—for a moment
-even at the excellent tutor, so
-highly respected by Sir Godfrey, with
-his thin hair already leaving his forehead
-bald, through long delay of any
-preferment—whose sister was his only
-relative alive, and was to keep his
-house when he had one,—but most to
-Charles, with his rough boy’s jokes;
-even although the girl’s thoughts
-wandered the more irresistibly to
-foreign counts and picturesque barons
-that had hovered in vision before the
-whole boarding-school, being now
-eagerly inquired after by her dearest
-friend, who was still there.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>There were none of these, certainly,
-about the highway which the carriage
-struck into, alive though it was with
-people of every kind. Charles had
-ceased, at his mother’s unusually
-earnest request, to whistle indistinctly
-between his teeth, as it was of all
-sounds the one that most annoyed
-her; he had even left off, of his own
-accord, the substitution of a drumming
-motion with a small cane against
-his boot, as he superciliously noticed
-the passengers. He got quite silent,
-in fact, to watch the passing faces
-that seemed bent towards Paris;
-though the faint smoke of another
-large village appeared in the hollow,
-prettier than any they had passed,
-among inclining vineyards and whole
-knolls of roses. It might have been
-St Genevieve’s own, with that holy
-well resorted to by kings, where
-she had kept her sheep long ago; and
-where, at the May fête of <i><span lang="fr">la rosière</span></i>,
-they still crowned the most virtuous
-girl in the place with roses; as the
-last work of Madame de Genlis had
-informed Mrs Mason. The summer
-afternoon sloped wide above it, full
-of light and the swarming hum of
-insects, through the outspread walnut
-leaves, flickering amber in the
-sun, from over the white wall that
-was dappled by the shadows; while
-the hedgeless corn-fields on the other
-side were rippling under the long air
-from the woods, one sea of tenderest
-green, full of blue-cockle flowers and
-scarlet poppies; the cottage casements
-flashed from amidst a pink-white
-glow of orchard-blossom, of
-milky cherry-boughs, of old rugged
-propped-up pear-trees that foamed
-over to the moss-green thatch, with
-the wooden chimney shot high, as it
-breathed blue among the leaves; with
-here and there a hooded dovecot window
-on the roof, where the pigeons
-sat sunning and swelling themselves,
-and cooing, white, blue, and purple
-together, in a gush of warm light—all
-the place beneath them bespattered
-and splashed with whiteness,
-through the shadow, to the very
-foliage of the nearest branch. The
-hum of the place burst round them as
-they crossed its little bridge, rattling
-over the rough causeway; and there
-were no carriage-ways save through
-the villages and towns.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>It was odd that for some time along
-the road, as if to meet the lad’s inclinations,
-the notice of them had been
-unaccompanied with signs of interest;
-every one had seemed occupied with
-his neighbour, talking, or hastening
-on somewhere; the voices had even
-grown suppressed as they passed.
-Here they were busier still, and talking
-louder, in a perfect babble of
-sounds. It was wonderful, at least
-to Charles Willoughby in his private
-mind, how the cobblers lived—the
-weavers, blacksmiths, or carpenters,
-found time to work; how the mill-wheel
-had a hand to feed it, or the
-women to mind their matters; they
-were letting their pitchers run over,
-in fact, at the old carved fountain-spout,
-till there was a little brook
-across the street, down into some
-one’s door-steps, and a duck that
-seemed comparatively quiet began to
-lead her troop of ducklings that way.
-The French infants even, held plainly
-enough here and there, in full sunlight,
-to their slatternly feeding-places,
-looked dissatisfied as the throng
-pressed about the doorway of a cabaret,
-with the sign of the Golden
-Crown: a horse stood by it with
-foam-flecked sides, and his head
-stooped in its corn-bag; while a man
-in a green jacket, with a leather case
-slung across him by a belt, apparently
-a courier, gesticulated in vain from
-the open window; the door being
-blocked up by a drunk dragoon, who
-stood swaying slightly to and fro, yet
-balancing himself carefully, as he surveyed
-the various groups from his
-half-closed eyelids with extreme sternness
-and grave suspicion; till at length
-drawing himself up, to extend his
-hand with a summons for attention,
-he essayed to speak; but all at once
-rushed forward with furious gesture
-amongst the crowd, where he fell flat
-from the steps. The blood gushed
-from his features, women shrieking,
-men running, without a glance behind,
-as the landlord hurried to his
-aid from the tavern, followed by more
-dragoons, who stamped their spurred
-feet upon the steps, and half drew
-their sabres, with fierce gestures and
-execrations. Yet as the carriage
-passed on through the narrow and
-awkward street, however slowly, it
-did not attract attention from any of
-the party except Charles, who preserved
-a seemingly sullen silence; not
-distracted by so much as a look to his
-sister, when her governess said there
-must be something improper going on,
-and sloped her parasol that way,
-using a scented handkerchief, with
-evident desire that the young lady
-should do the same; while his mother
-had no more suspicion of its not being
-common to villages all over the world,
-possibly on a market-day, than a
-duchess. The tutor was, as usual, on
-before, with his little note-book, to
-put down the name of the place, the
-probable population, and apparent
-area of the church, according to some
-dim theory that had been growing on
-him since he crossed the Channel. As
-for Jackson, he merely whipped his
-horses, and made a slash at some
-dogs, with obvious inclination to curse
-whatever came in his way. So they
-rolled through by degrees in sight of
-the church; but there was a greater
-throng at that end, in and about the
-low-walled enclosure before a smart
-new building, the use of which was
-not plain at first sight; for considering
-the size of the place, with the
-general squalidness of the long cottages
-or bald white houses, really the
-number of people of all ages was extraordinary,
-till one observed that single
-roofs seemed shared among ever so
-many families,—a thing the odder to
-the lad, as at school he used to know
-plenty of Eton folks, from bargemen
-to bat-maker. He even thought,
-somehow, of that one visit to Stoke.
-Oh! that was the school—the first he
-happened to have seen in France;
-and that youngish man, in an old
-figured dressing-gown, with a sharp
-dry face, standing up on something,
-without a hat—the schoolmaster;
-while they pushed and jumped to hear
-him, though quietly enough except
-for the hushing of each other, since
-the schoolmaster had evidently a weak
-voice; it only reached the carriage in
-an occasional screech, when he lifted
-his hand impressively in the air.
-“<i><span lang="fr">Ecoutez—ecoutez, au Père Pierre!</span></i>”
-This Père Pierre must be rather an
-odd fellow; why, his school was in a
-perfect riot within, to judge by the
-dust, the flying books, and the noise
-sometimes louder than his voice outside.
-But he was not making a
-speech—the white article he held up
-to the blaze of the sun was not a
-pocket-handkerchief, but—yes—a
-newspaper. He must have a good
-deal of influence there, this teacher—at
-least over the grown-up men, with
-leather aprons and bare arms—one
-could not help marking him—with
-that scanty head of hair done up in
-bobs from his temples, and such a
-short queue behind, not to think
-of his short nose and high cheekbones,
-or a chin as bare as one’s
-palm. Perhaps something had happened—something
-important—a
-battle somewhere? There was peace,
-though. Some murder, it was likely—or
-a shipwreck—well, at any rate
-these boys didn’t mind, so crop-headed
-and stunted-looking, who were playing
-pitch-and-toss with such an old-mannish
-look in their eager faces, at
-the end of the school. There were
-more beneath the big bulging church-gable,
-with its black ugly windows
-and its zigzag crack in the plaster—in
-such long old livery coats, with
-plated saucer-buttons. Actually it
-was with the buttons they were playing—as
-if it had been money—cutting
-them off their coats, too, and their
-breeches, to rush back for another
-chance! The silent speculations of
-Charles reached their climax in profound
-wonder. It was beneath his
-notice to regard Mrs Mason’s words,
-as they cleared the place, and began
-to rise from the hollow—that it was
-an interesting village, so lively, so
-full of a holiday air, not without a
-degree of quick intelligence. “After
-labour,” his mother said, lifting up
-her eyelids, “it must be pleasant.”</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>Beyond the church and an old
-crooked, high-arched bridge, was Mr
-Thorpe in the turning of a very narrow
-by-road, stony and grass-grown, that
-took a winding as if to avoid the village,
-by ditch-side and over rubbish,
-till it caught the highway behind
-again: the worthy tutor had drawn
-up his horse, he was settling his spectacles,
-putting in his note-book, and
-feeling in his pocket for some coin,
-apparently to bestow on a man he had
-been talking to. A very singular
-group revealed itself as they reached
-him. A dark-faced jet-eyed man
-with a beard, black and bushy, his
-rough cap in hand, and a little organ
-slung from his back, stood replying to
-Mr Thorpe in strange broken French,
-mingled with English; while he seemed
-carefully to keep the trees between
-himself and the village: somewhat
-further down the by-way sat a disconsolate-looking
-boy with a guitar, beside
-a crouching monkey; while another
-man held the chain of a huge
-muzzled beast, shaggy and brown,
-which reared on its hind-legs, now
-growling, now dancing, now shrinking
-from the threatened whip, like a creature
-enraged by the distant voices.
-Their trade had been ruined, the man
-said; for it was the first time they
-had been turned out into the <i><span lang="fr">chemin
-des affronteux</span></i>, belonging to thieves
-and villains. It would be known for
-miles round Paris in a day, for it was
-wonderful how the news travelled
-there. They had often been at Charlemont
-before, and were received well.
-The bear felt it worst, he thought.
-He was as good a bear as you would
-see, owing to his love of society. Perhaps
-it might have been owing to
-some news in the place—but one
-could not know what tunes would
-offend people nowadays, to dance to.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>At Mr Thorpe’s condolence, however,
-backed by his gift of a six-sous
-piece, the Italian retreated thankfully.
-They watched him as he was joined
-by his singular company, slowly and
-with a crestfallen air disappearing
-round the by-way. All the tutor
-could find out was that they had been
-chased out from that end of the place
-just before, with sticks, stones, and
-pitchforks, by the very young people
-who had been dancing sociably enough
-along with the bear and monkey—because
-an air they commenced was
-<i><span lang="fr">contre la liberté</span></i>. How any tune
-could be against liberty, Mr Thorpe
-could not conceive: nay, if they did
-not like dancing to it, they might
-have stood still; they might have requested
-it to be stopped; indeed, it
-was probable that some of these very
-people might have wished the liberty
-of dancing it! Still less could he perceive
-how <em>liberty</em> could be connected
-with that particular tune—“<cite><span lang="fr">Richard
-o mon roi</span></cite>”? And he looked interrogatively
-to Mrs Mason. Certainly
-not, the governess responded: Gretry’s
-new music! In fact, he rejoined,
-the musician could not, either:
-but that day mysteries seemed to
-grow, he added,—for, before himself
-emerging from the place, at sight of
-the church, he had very civilly inquired,
-from a group of inhabitants,
-what was the name of the village.
-What had been his astonishment to
-perceive, that passing from uncivil
-silence, from stares of wonder, and
-extraordinary, sudden indignation,
-they looked very much disposed to
-treat him as it now seemed they had
-before treated these inoffensive strangers.
-Until, adding insult, they had
-significantly touched their foreheads,
-looking to each other, or whispering,
-until one, perhaps still more ingenious
-in giving offence, had suddenly
-called out, “Bah! c’est un Anglais!”
-There had been then no farther notice
-of him—indeed absolute indifference;
-nor did he discover, till he encountered
-the injured foreigner, what the
-name of the place actually was. And
-was there, then, really any peculiar
-crime in asking the name of <em>Charlemont</em>—any
-strange privacy—any unutterable
-horror connected with <em>it</em>—that
-no one should put the mere question?
-But, at all events, was a spirit
-of inquiry to be thought madness!
-Nay more, was it lower than madness
-to be—an Englishman!</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>Mr Thorpe looked a little discomposed
-and changed, in fact, even
-since they last had seen him. Usually,
-though not pedantic, he was
-tedious; but he began for a moment
-to appear almost respectable in the
-very eyes of his pupil, who had often
-thought before that the present curate
-at Stoke could not be more monotonous,
-nor the old rector duller: a spark
-of spirit seemed for the time to have
-given emphasis to his words, and
-meaning to his face—some faint dignity
-to his lengthy awkward person, sitting
-ordinarily like a sack on his horse,
-with the gaiters dangling in the stirrups.
-Yet how amazingly simple
-was Mr Thorpe; it was chiefly the
-Italian with his battered instruments
-and beaten animals that seemed to
-have roused him from his wont: while
-as for his chief puzzle, a light broke on
-it to the boy at once, from all he had
-seen and heard of these French. Why,—of
-course they thought the whole
-world should know Charlemont already!</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>But, to the ladies, softly plashed
-and clattered below, from among
-alders in the deeper hollow, the mill-wheel
-of the village, dusty light
-flying from the upper door: the
-cracked striking of a clock was heard
-from farther off, till they saw the
-grey turrets of another yellow chateau
-among trees, though but a thread of
-smoke rose from it, and its discoloured
-plaster, where the sunlight struck,
-gave it a dilapidated aspect, helped
-by the pigeons from the dovecote
-tower close by, that were sitting on
-the window-sills and eaves. Full to
-the light on the brow of the eminence
-rose the carriage, widening the landscape
-on every side, save where the
-woods before it extended: there was
-a smooth, broad road in front, sweeping
-round where the labourers were
-still at work on it: they were on a
-hill, and all was exquisitely solitary
-otherwise for the first time, except
-close by, where the highway ran
-between the two porter’s-lodges of
-two great gates that faced each other.
-These great gates were, indeed, gorgeously
-beautiful, being each double,
-with side-wickets, all of open ironwork,
-elaborately complex; gilt
-crowns surmounted the globes upon
-their massy pillars of stone, their
-upper rims were formed of fleur-delis,
-as if of lance-heads, richly gilded;
-while the blade-shaped leaves, damasked
-and lettered with mottoes,
-stretched throughout the whole,
-hither and thither, like guardian
-swords, from the uncouth grasp of
-grotesque naked monsters at the
-lower corners; everywhere were small
-puzzling circles of cipher, and in the
-midst the joined halves composed a
-grand shield-shaped device, burnished
-and resplendent on either hand,
-of the royal arms of France. The
-very radiance of the afternoon sun
-came dazzling towards it, and threw
-the other way on the cross road, into
-one park, a mottled shadow of fleur-de-lis;
-shapes of crowns, ciphers,
-and monsters, even vanished among
-the dust of the horses’ feet on the
-highway as they trotted past—strange
-traces from the days of Louis
-Quatorze. Still was all that nothing
-to the broad glimpses of park scenery
-both ways through them. Mrs Mason
-herself saw one way, with unusual
-commendation, where a stately distance
-was made by Lenotre’s taste,
-in straight avenue, level turf, and
-high-clipped side-alleys, where a few
-well-dressed people were walking;
-her frequent headache did not, perhaps,
-at any time wholly leave her,
-but the vinaigrette paused in her
-hand, as she directed the attention
-of Lady and Miss Willoughby to each
-fine effect. Yet it was difficult to
-draw the latter from her absorbed
-delight the other way; for there the
-wilder chase seemed left to nature, the
-sun levelled more and more all his
-yellowing splendour through its deep-green,
-sinking glades, flinging out
-fantastic shadows, shooting gushes of
-verdurous light, in which the delicate
-young fern peeped from about the
-trunk of some far-off oak, while the
-broad umbrage of its gnarled boughs
-retreated crisply into cooler shade;
-the knolls were hung with the foxglove
-buds, like crimson bells that
-had not found a tongue; and all there
-was moist, secluded, solitary, sweet,
-save when some single bird seemed to
-wake up and make it musical, till
-again it trilled and rang with their
-innumerable notes. But gradually
-the road had lifted the carriage higher
-yet; it seemed to drive slow by instinct;
-and ere they well knew, the
-whole party made exclamations together,
-as, with Rose, they did not
-know which way to look first. Mr
-Thorpe came to a stand-still, and
-Jackson was shading his eyes, whip
-in hand, to look under the sun. Even
-Lady Willougbby said, fanning herself
-gently, “Dear me—what a fine
-country! what crops!” “Yes—the
-harvest will be excellent, I should
-think,” Mrs Mason replied, using her
-fan also, it was so hot. The young
-lady stood up, and her brother jumped
-out to get from the top of the bank
-upon the wall.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>They were nearer Paris than they
-thought; it bristled and shone
-through its haze, some miles away on
-the plain: westward, the high woods
-of Marly showed faint through the
-edges of two broad sunbeams, as
-through a veil, with bluer distinctness
-between, here a spire, there smoke;
-the waves of forest verdure undulating
-round, began to burn and blaze
-towards sunset; all was spotted with
-towns, sprinkled rich-red and white
-with villages, flushed with orchards,
-and in the barer spaces embroidered
-like a carpet that blended with the
-dark suburbs of the city on the horizon.
-Here and there appeared a soft misty
-glitter of the circuitous Seine in the
-level, with some faint white sails;
-the distant azure of some hills could
-be seen; it was all like one mighty
-map made real. Yet greatest of all
-to their eyes, even greater than the
-dusky grimness of Paris in the sun,
-showing its domes so helmet-like, and
-its pinnacles so like weapons—was
-where, with one accord looking back,
-they could perceive the silvered slates
-of one large town among the avenues
-they had turned from that forenoon,
-its steeples shining, its windows
-sparkling—and through that transparent
-French air, some lustrous
-snowy glimpses between embosoming
-bowers, of long level palace-roofs,
-embossed, and fringed, and tipped
-with undistinguishable ornament.
-Palaces, indeed, seemed to be visible
-in every direction; but they thickened
-towards <em>it</em>; all that way the landscape
-was but one mass of park-woods, and
-with those alleys, gardens, terraces,
-that long road at intervals perceived,
-it could be nothing but Versailles!
-Charles himself could not but look.
-The rainbow flashing of the fountains,
-and gleam of statues—the grand stairs
-of the terrace—they could almost
-fancy they distinguished.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>It was he who first broke the thread
-of their interest. Well, he shouldn’t
-care to have seen King Louis XVI.;
-he had once seen George III. It was
-easy enough to see him, in fact; if you
-only but knew it was he. He had seen
-a boy at Eton, fag to a friend of his,
-who was once spoken to a good while
-at a turnstile in Windsor Park by an
-elderly gentleman in drab gaiters, a
-nankeen waistcoat, and a blue coat
-with bright buttons; and when a
-ranger came up afterwards from
-behind, and told him it was the king,
-he nearly fainted. He could never
-learn anything after that, and always
-turned pale at the sight of a gold
-sovereign, so he had to be sent to
-sea.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>“My dear young gentleman,” said
-Mr Thorpe seriously, “the King of
-France is a much more powerful
-monarch than even His Majesty King
-George! I must beg to correct you
-on a point of history. He is absolute
-ruler, not only of all the land we see,
-but over the property, nay, the very
-persons of his subjects—he is the State
-himself—as the great Louis XIV.
-so emphatically told his nobles. Think
-of those <i><span lang="fr">lettres du cachet</span></i>, given away
-even blank in thousands upon thousands—a
-kind of money, as it were—exchanged
-by the courtiers for all
-kinds of objects—with which, for all
-one knows, were he worth notice from
-some enemy, he may be sent to a
-Bastille on no account whatever, to
-remain there unknown the rest of his
-life!”</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>Charles Willoughby still endeavoured
-to look indifferent, though the
-slight whistle died between his teeth,
-while he pushed his cap down on his
-head, deeply resolved never to lift it
-to a French king. Mr Thorpe, drawn
-into unwonted earnestness, by the
-expression of the ladies’ faces, sought
-to reassure them.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>“The character of the present king
-is such as to make this power a benefit,”
-he said. “There seems a rapid
-decrease of superstition in the church.
-Really, Lady Willoughby, there was
-something idolatrous in this excessive
-honour to a human being! To conceive
-that at his Majesty’s death, while
-the body lay for forty days embalmed
-in lead, a waxen effigy was placed in
-the grand hall of entertainment, and
-served by gentlemen-waiters at the
-usual times, while the meal was
-blessed by the almoner, the meat
-carved, and the wine presented to the
-figure; its hands were washed and
-thanks returned. The queen, in
-white mourning—”</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>“In white mourning?” inquired the
-governess, with interest.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>“In white, I think, Mrs Mason—sat
-for six weeks in a chamber lighted
-by lamps alone. For a whole year
-she could not stir out of her own apartments,
-if she had received the intelligence
-there. Although similar ceremonies
-were observed after her own
-decease.”</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>The feminine impression of former
-evils in France grew deep. The tutor
-could not say whether his present
-majesty would require such honours.
-There was only one person of inferior
-rank who had ever been distinguished
-by a shade of the same respect, though
-for a shorter time her effigy had sat.
-It was the far Gabrielle d’Estrées.
-“Who was she?” Rose asked,—“and
-why”—</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>“Miss Willoughby,” interrupted
-Mrs Mason with a sudden air of severity,
-rustling and extending and drawing
-herself erect, “there are some
-questions too shocking and improper
-for us to ask?” Mr Thorpe, with a
-frightened look, sat dumb in his saddle;
-yet Mrs Mason professed to know
-history, and her charge must surely
-learn it: nay, unknown to them all,
-among the distant chateaus, palaces,
-and mansions they were gazing at,
-were St Germain’s in the blue eminence,
-which the great Louis had given
-to La Vallière when he wearied of her
-for Madame de Montespan; and Luciennes,
-where Madame du Barry
-was then living in fashionable retirement.
-But the one had been gallant,
-stately even in his vices; the royal
-patron of the other, in his dissipations,
-had at least been elegant. Probably
-Mr Thorpe’s confusion led him to a
-graver topic.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>“The chronicler I have lately perused,”
-he said, hastily, “is really
-worth study. Nothing can be so
-mournfully salutary. As the coffin
-was borne at night to yonder Notre
-Dame, and thence thereafter to the
-ancient town of St Denis, the streets
-were hung with black, and before
-every house was planted a tall lighted
-torch of white wax. First went the
-Capuchins, in their coarse sackcloth
-girt with ropes, bearing their huge
-cross, crowned with thorns—then five
-hundred poor men, under their bailiff,
-all in mourning as for a father—the
-magistrates and courts of justice, the
-parliament of Paris in rich sable furs,
-the high clergy in purple and gold—followed
-by the funeral car drawn by
-white horses, covered with black velvet
-crossed with white satin, and the
-long train of officers of the household.”</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>The great knowledge of the tutor
-as to textile fabrics interested Mrs
-Mason. “Think of the expense!”
-Lady Willoughby said.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>“This vast procession,” pursued
-Mr Thorpe with solemnity, “went on
-in silence, while, as the chronicler
-quaintly expresses it, ‘ever and aye
-the royal musicians made a sound of
-lamentation, with instruments clothed
-in crape, very fierce and marvellously
-dolorous to hear or to behold, until
-they arrived at the church of St Denis,—blessed
-be his name! And the bier
-was borne into the choir, it being
-a-blaze with lamps and tapers beyond
-number, and the service lasted for the
-King’s soul several days—whereupon
-was the body let down into the vault,
-but not admitted within the inner
-chamber until the end of the next
-reign—and Normandy, the most ancient
-king of arms, summoned with a
-loud voice, that the high dignitaries
-should therein deposit their ensigns
-and truncheons of command—which
-done, the sacred oriflamme of France
-was let fall down upon the coffin,
-until the <em>fleur-de-lis</em> began with the
-noble Bourbons—and the king of arms
-cried three times so that the
-vaults heard and replied—Ho! the
-king is dead! The king is dead! The
-king is dead! And when silence had
-been renewed, the same voice proclaimed—Long
-live the king!—and all
-the other heralds repeated it. Then
-was all finished, and they departed
-joyously.’ Really, in those older
-writers, compared with those of the
-present day,—however superstitious,
-there is considerable profit to be
-found.”</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>And the worthy graduate settled
-his glasses complacently, used his
-pocket-handkerchief in the loud manner
-he was addicted to, and looked
-round with increased attention on the
-mighty view; for devouter wishes had
-long been breeding dimly in his mind,
-such as the chill Protestantism even
-of his revered mother-church did not
-at that period satisfy. He did not
-notice the shrinking, under that full
-sunlight and wide azure, with the
-swarm of summer flies in the ears,
-and the warble of birds at hand, with
-which the youngest of his hearers, at
-least, felt the thought of death—above
-all, that universal one, of sovereign
-power. As for Lady Willoughby,
-her anxious look was chiefly from a
-reference to her watch; and it had
-been growing. She had not even
-heard Mr Thorpe. It was time for
-them to turn into the road from Versailles,
-as Colonel Willoughby—Sir
-Godfrey—would soon be leaving Paris,
-and he was punctual to a moment.
-There was no other way, Jackson said
-in reply, but by turning right again
-through the last village; at his mistress’s
-request, accordingly, he suited
-the action to the word, by backing
-and wheeling round. But where was
-Charles? He had vanished over the
-wall, apparently, during his tutor’s
-irrelevant remarks. To the calls of Mr
-Thorpe, echoed from among the woods,
-he returned no sign. It was annoying.
-They must wait; and, at any
-rate, according to the views of Jackson,
-generally unfavourable if required—with
-these beasts, it would be impossible
-to get on in good time, besides
-having to walk through that village,
-which was like nothing English
-whatever—with perhaps a bucket
-of water needed at that there tavern,
-if such a thing was to be had. The
-sudden intelligence of Mr Thorpe suggested
-a way: he could ride off at
-once to meet Sir Godfrey, and set him
-at ease; in fact, for himself, at least,
-it would be easy to avoid the village
-of Charlemont altogether—by—yes—by
-taking that <i><span lang="fr">chemin des affronteux</span></i>,
-as they called it. Lady Willoughby’s
-face brightened. Her thanks to Mr
-Thorpe were something energetic for
-<em>her</em>: and spurring, rising in his stirrups,
-bumping up and down on his white
-mare, that worthy man disappeared.
-Rose pressed her parasol against her
-mouth to repress a smile, at the
-thought how Charles would have
-enjoyed his following the bear and
-monkey: but, through <em>her</em> means,
-she was resolved he should know
-nothing of it.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>When least expected, Charles reappeared,
-jumping with a flushed face
-over the wall, and carrying a load of
-wild-flowers for his mother, for Rose,
-even for Miss Mason. He had heard
-distant sounds over the woods of the
-chase, which he thought were those of
-hunting-horns. But all was again
-still, bright, sleepy and solitary, under
-the glory of the sloping sun. He got
-in; Jackson whipped his horses at last
-to a trot, for again and again they had
-been passed each way by humbler
-vehicles; and they rolled on their
-way back towards Charlemont. Mr
-Thorpe’s mission excited no extraordinary
-satisfaction in Charles, though
-he was sure they would get on better
-without him. Mr Thorpe ran a strong
-chance of being taken up as a spy. All
-at once it occurred to him that Mr
-Thorpe had all their passports. But
-a scene of far more exciting interest
-next moment eclipsed everything like
-that. Again, from the distance of those
-secluded glades, did a sound draw his
-ear—and it was really the sound of a
-bugle-horn—a faint, far-off, musical
-sound, sometimes smothered by the
-woods, then breaking out clearer. It
-sank into a long-drawn, almost wailing
-note, that rose up into a livelier
-quaver, joined by a burst from others.
-It must be a hunt. They were blowing
-the <em>Mort</em>—as they did only for a
-stag, and a stag that was dead. Such
-luck!—for it came ever nearer. But
-what a crowd at the turning, near
-those splendid gates—twenty times
-even Charlemont must be there, by the
-swarming noise! And the gates themselves,
-thrown each way open with
-their double leaves, closed up the
-road.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>The lad rose half up, with breath
-suspended, and without a look to
-spare for his party, kept mute as the
-carriage rolled into the crowd on that
-side. He did not so much as think
-what it could be.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>Though had there been a chance of
-the <i><span lang="fr">chemin des affronteux</span></i>, and the carriage
-could have gone through it—indeed
-through one long enough and
-circuitous enough to avoid all France—it
-might have been better for the
-Willoughbies. Yet who knows? The
-master-history that shapes our ends
-is wiser than we.</p>
-
-<div class='chapter'>
-  <span class='pageno' id='Page_230'>230</span>
-  <h2 class='c002'>CONSERVATIVE REASCENDANCY CONSIDERED.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>Ours is an age of peculiar importance.
-Events seem to be crowded
-into a small space of time which, if,
-spread over half a century, would yet
-mark the time as one of peril, action,
-and renown. In the political world
-we view a rapid succession of exciting
-scenes. The calm of peace yields
-to the turmoil of war, and Europe,
-but lately placid, is now rocked to
-its very base, and every nation on
-the Continent seems torn with present
-evils or convulsed in the contemplation
-of those to come. The strife of
-nations has doubtless called forth all
-the energies of mankind; and though
-England is removed from the sphere
-of action, and the immediate influence
-of the war, yet it cannot be said but
-that she, too, lies in peril, and partakes
-the general restlessness of the
-times. It becomes her, then, to consider
-in what lies her safety, and into
-whose hands she should commit the
-guidance of her affairs at this moment
-of danger.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>Is not England, too, a sharer in
-this general convulsion? Let us look
-to her senate, the heart of this great
-nation, where all the movements by
-which she is agitated can be seen and
-analysed. First, we see the Whigs
-quarrelling amongst themselves, and
-their consequent fall from power.
-Next, we see the Conservative party,
-with the general acquiescence of the
-country, installed in power. Ten
-short months have elapsed, and we
-see that Government, after having
-conferred, in its short tenure of office,
-lasting benefits upon the country,
-now falling, though by a slight majority,
-before a combination of all those
-various sects, panting for office, which
-range between conservatism and turbulent
-democracy—between Popery
-on the one hand, and practical atheism
-on the other; at war amongst themselves,
-yet combined together against
-a Government which seemed determined
-to legislate for the country, and not
-for the exclusive interests of any one
-party. Well might the Minister exclaim,
-as he fell before the machinations
-of his enemies, prescient of the
-future, while contemplating the events
-of the present—“England has not
-loved coalitions.” Well might he
-“appeal from that coalition to that
-public opinion which governs this
-country,” and before whose searching
-tribunal that unprincipled combination
-must soon be brought. If he
-desired revenge, he has it now. A
-government of “all the talents,” containing,
-as we are told, within its
-ranks all the men of official experience,
-administrative ability, of parliamentary
-renown, and so forth,
-calling down upon them the contempt
-of Parliament and the scorn of the
-country, succeeds the Derby administration.
-Forced to abandon measure
-after measure, fairly vanquished
-in those with which they proceed,
-obliged to fall back upon their own
-imagined talent and ability, which
-must at any sacrifice of character be
-preserved at the service of the country,
-they are evidently, to all men but
-themselves, and a few of their own
-devoted adherents, eliciting the pity
-of their friends and the derision of
-their enemies. But, then, we are told
-that it is the war which prevents them
-from carrying their measures; that
-last session they carried their budget,
-India bill, &#38;c., with large majorities,
-which they regard as a sign that they
-possess the confidence of Parliament,
-and that now Parliament and the
-country, with their attention distracted
-by the war, simply refuse to legislate.
-We protest against such arguments
-as these. It is introducing a dangerous
-principle, though it may serve as
-an excuse for clinging to office with a
-disgraceful pertinacity. But does it
-not occur to them, that probably the
-reason they carried their measures
-last year with such a semblance of
-triumph, was in consequence of that
-forbearance—nay, even favour—with
-which every government, new to
-office, is regarded; that it was, to a
-great extent, the result of that disorganisation
-of their opponents which
-ever follows defeat; and that the
-people, dazzled with appearances,
-were willing to admit that we had a
-government which was worthy of the
-confidence of the country. But how
-have these feelings been dispelled?
-Credulity or connivance, disgraceful
-in such keen-sighted and patriotic
-statesmen, has done it all—Parliament
-has lost confidence in them, and the
-country contemns them. Moreover,
-blinded by their confidence in their
-own talents, which has now become
-a byword among sensible men, they
-still declare they carry with them the
-confidence of the country, because in
-all matters connected with the war
-they still possess majorities. Such
-reasoning as this does not hold. The
-reason that they carry their financial
-measures so decisively through the
-House is, that many, who do not feel
-so strongly as others on the injustice
-of the measures proposed, are willing
-to support those measures rather
-than have it appear on the Continent
-that the House of Commons has refused
-the sinews of war at the very
-commencement of the struggle. It is
-not the war which prevents their
-carrying other measures, it is the war
-which enables them to carry what
-they do.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>But how has this been brought
-about?—how is it that this Government
-has so rapidly lost the favour of
-the people, and been reduced to the
-position of being a Government on sufferance?
-The reason is to be found in
-that general discontent and excitement
-which from Europe have infected
-England. Men are excited at what
-is passing abroad, and distrustful of
-affairs within. The want of union and
-mutual distrust which exist in headquarters,
-is spread throughout the
-kingdom. Those feelings of distrust
-and disagreement existing in the
-Government become every day more
-apparent, and add to the anxiety with
-which its motions are regarded. This
-distrust and anxiety must be prevalent
-whilst this state of things continues.
-It is only by the reascendancy of the
-Conservative party that they can
-be surmounted, and by the advent
-to power of men who have confidence
-in each other, who have unity
-of sentiment amongst themselves,
-and who are backed by united
-followers; who have, each and all,
-the same objects in view—viz., a
-firm resistance to Russian aggression
-and the establishment of a durable
-peace, the maintenance of our Protestant
-religion, and justice to all
-parties in the State. Unity of sentiment
-amongst the members of a government
-is of the greatest importance
-to the happiness and welfare of the
-people. There never, probably, was
-a Cabinet in which there were so
-many “open questions” as the present.
-Since so many of them are
-Peelites, we may as well have the
-opinion of Sir Robert Peel himself on
-those self-same open questions. We
-subjoin an extract of a speech delivered
-in 1840 by that eminent statesman,
-on a motion of want of confidence
-in Ministers, in which he refers,
-without any ambiguity of expression,
-to the fatality of open questions:—</p>
-
-<p class='c010'>“But there is a new resource for an
-incompetent Administration—there is the
-ingenious device of open questions, the
-cunning scheme of adding to the strength
-of a weak government by proclaiming
-its disunion. It will be a fatal policy,
-indeed, if that which has hitherto been
-an exception, and always an unfortunate
-exception in recent times, is hereafter to
-constitute the rule of Government. If
-every government may say, ‘We feel
-pressed by those behind us—we find ourselves
-unable, by steadily maintaining
-our own opinions, to command the majority
-and retain the confidence of our
-followers, our remedy is an easy one—let
-us make each question an open question,
-and thereby destroy every obstacle
-to every possible combination;’—what
-will be the consequence? The exclusion
-of honourable and able men from the
-conduct of affairs, and the unprincipled
-coalition of the refuse of every party.
-The right honourable gentleman has said
-that there have been instances of ‘open
-questions’ in the recent history of this
-country. There have been; but there
-has scarcely been one that has not been
-pregnant with evil, and which has not
-been branded by an impartial posterity
-with censure and disgrace. He said,
-that in 1782 Mr Fox made Parliamentary
-Reform an open question; that Mr
-Pitt did so on the Slave-trade; and that the
-Catholic Question was an open one. Why,
-if ever lessons were written for your instruction,
-to guard you against the recurrence
-to open questions, you will find
-them in these melancholy examples. The
-first instance was the coalition of Mr Fox
-and Lord North, which could not have
-taken place without open questions.
-Does the right honourable gentleman
-know that that very fact—the union in
-office of men who had differed, and continued
-to differ on great constitutional
-and vital questions—produced such a
-degree of discontent and disgust, as to
-lead to the disgraceful expulsion of that
-Government? The second instance was
-that of the Slave-trade; but has not
-that act of Mr Pitt (the permitting of
-the Slave-trade to be an open question)
-been more condemned than any other
-act of his public life? The next instance
-cited was that of the Catholic Question.
-I have had some experience of the evils
-which arose from making Catholic emancipation
-an open question. All parties in
-this House were equally responsible for
-them. Fox made it an open question;
-Pitt made it an open question; Lord
-Liverpool made it an open question;
-Canning made it an open question. Each
-had to plead an urgent necessity for
-tolerating disunion in the Cabinet on this
-great question; but there cannot be a
-doubt that the practical result of that disunion
-was to introduce discord amongst
-public men, and to paralyse the vigour of
-the executive government. Every act of
-administration was tainted by disunion
-in the Cabinet. Every party was jealous
-of the predominance of the other. Each
-party must be represented in the government
-of that very country which required,
-above all things, a united and resolute
-Government. There must be a lord-lieutenant
-of one class of opinions, a secretary
-of the opposite, beginning their administration
-in harmony, but in spite of themselves
-becoming each the nucleus of a
-party, gradually converting reciprocal
-confidence into jealousy and distrust. It
-was my conviction of the evils of such a
-state of things—of the long experience
-of distracted councils, of the curse of an
-open question, as it affected the practical
-government of Ireland—it was this conviction,
-and not the fear of physical force,
-that convinced me that the policy must
-be abandoned. I do not believe that the
-making the Catholic question an open
-question facilitated the ultimate settlement
-of it. If the decided friends of
-emancipation had refused to unite in government
-with its opponents, the question
-would have been settled at an earlier
-period, and (as it ought to have been)
-under better auspices. So much for the
-encouraging examples of the right honourable
-gentleman. They were fatal exceptions
-from the general policy of Government.
-If, as I before observed, such exceptions
-are to constitute the future rule
-of Government, there is an end to public
-confidence in the honour and integrity
-of great political parties, a severance of
-all ties which constitute party connections,
-a premium upon the shabby and
-shuffling conduct of unprincipled politicians.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Such were the sentiments of Sir
-Robert Peel with regard to open questions
-in the Melbourne Cabinet: how
-much more completely those remarks
-apply to the present Government it
-is needless to point out. Again are
-the open questions in the Melbourne
-Cabinet vigorously attacked; but
-this time in the House of Lords,
-and by a more energetic and fiery
-orator:—</p>
-
-<p class='c010'>“My Lords,—‘<i><span lang="la">Idem sentire de republicâ</span></i>’
-has been in all times, and amongst the
-best of statesmen, a bond of union at once
-intelligible, honourable, conducive to the
-common weal. But there is another kind
-of union formed of baser materials—a tie
-that knits together far different natures,
-the ‘<i><span lang="la">eadem velle atque nolle</span></i>,’ and of this
-it has been known and been said, ‘<i><span lang="la">ea demum,
-inter malos, est prime amicitia</span></i>.’
-The abandonment of all opinions, the sacrifice
-of every sentiment, the preference
-of sordid interest to honest principle, the
-utter abdication of the power to act as
-conscience dictates and sense of duty recommends—such
-is the vile dross of which
-the links are made which bind profligate
-men together in a ‘covenant of shame;’
-a confederacy to seek their own advancement
-at the expense of every duty;—and
-this, my Lords, is the literal meaning of
-‘open questions.’ It is that each has his
-known recorded opinions, but that each is
-willing to sacrifice them rather than break
-up the government to which he belongs:
-the ‘<i><span lang="la">velle</span></i>’ is to keep in office, the ‘<i><span lang="la">nolle</span></i>’
-to keep out all antagonists; and none
-dare speak his mind in his official capacity
-without losing the ‘<i><span lang="la">firmitas amicitiæ</span></i>,’ by
-shaking the foundations of the Government.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Here is a splendid outburst of vehement
-denunciation. If that could be
-applied with justice to the Government
-of Lord Melbourne, if such an invective
-as that is an index of the state of
-opinion in the country at that time,
-with reference to the dissensions in
-the Whig Cabinet, how much more
-applicable is it to the Coalition of the
-present day, with regard to whose
-members, putting out of sight the
-question of Free Trade, which is now
-the law of the land, there is hardly
-a question of public importance to
-which we can point as an example
-that ‘<i><span lang="la">idem sentire de republicâ</span></i>’ is
-their bond of union.  Discontent
-and anxiety may well prevail when
-we have, in times so important as
-these, a Ministry in power so disunited,
-and composed of such discordant elements,
-such base materials as the present,
-and backed by followers who,
-true to their nature, are constantly
-quarrelling amongst themselves. Look
-at the diversity of sentiment displayed
-in their recorded speeches on that subject
-which, more than any other, is
-uppermost in the minds of the people.
-There is Lord John Russell in the
-House of Commons inveighing against
-the criminal ambition of the Czar of
-Russia, declaring that “this enormous
-power has got to such a pitch, that
-even in its moderation it resembles the
-ambition of other states;” arguing
-that that power must be checked; telling
-the people of England that they
-must be prepared to enter the contest
-with a stout heart and a willing mind,
-and then solemnly invoking the God of
-justice to prosper her Majesty’s arms,
-to defend the right! We have the
-Home Secretary and the Earl of Clarendon
-completely subscribing to these
-sentiments; but we have the Prime
-Minister, who more than any other
-man ought, now that war is declared,
-to be imbued with hostile feelings
-against Russian aggression, and determined
-to carry on the war with vigour,
-eternally whining after peace, and
-throwing cold water on the ardour of
-the people by constantly enlarging on
-the horrors of war and the blessings of
-peace. They say that old age is
-second childhood. England seems
-likely soon to become aware of this fact,
-through dire experience. Her Premier,
-on the Continent, is described,
-and rightly so, as “the apologist of
-Russia;” the Minister who is supposed
-to be, more than any other, in the
-confidence of his Sovereign. Talk of
-explanation! The very fact of his entertaining
-sentiments with regard to
-Russia so ambiguous, so equivocal,
-and so lenient towards the enemy of
-his country, that actually in giving
-expression to them he is mistaken for
-offering an apology for the Czar, and
-exposed to the scorn of the country
-and the distrust of Europe, seems to
-us to be amply sufficient to disqualify
-him henceforth for ever being “the
-first Minister of the first Sovereign in
-the world” during the eventful period
-of war; and the only charitable construction
-which we can give to the passage
-is, that he—our helmsman in the
-storm—has entered upon his dotage,
-and returned to the proverbial folly of
-childhood. If his sentiments are the
-result of mere folly, then he may
-properly be charged with credulity;
-if his friendship for the Czar regulates
-his conduct, then it is connivance
-for which he is answerable.
-In either sense he is unfit for his office.
-There may be, for aught we know—indeed
-there probably are—others
-in the Cabinet of the same frame of
-mind. The man who could denounce
-Turkey as a country full of anomalies
-and inconsistencies, and endeavour
-with all the force of his “sanctimonious
-rhetoric” to excite an antipathy to that
-State, and despair at her fate, just at
-the moment when it was necessary to
-rouse the people against Russian aggression,
-was merely supporting the
-Emperor’s theory of the “sick man,”
-and cannot be said to have any definite
-ideas with reference to the aggressive
-policy of Russia, to check which we are
-at war; or any very great sympathy
-with that country to defend which we
-are also at war. Here is discordancy
-in the Cabinet on the most vital question;
-and there is probably as much on
-every other question that is brought
-before the notice of the British Parliament.
-Here is food for discontent and
-anxiety to the people of England. Thus
-may their ardour be damped and their
-spirits quenched long ere the struggle
-has concluded. And if we look at the
-supporters of the Government—the
-Ministerial party, as they are termed—there,
-too, we behold the same intestine
-strife. What has been the attitude
-of the Manchester party with regard
-to the Government?—what the
-attitude of the Whig statesmen who
-have been “banished to invisible corners
-of the senate?”—what of the Whig
-peers—such men, for example, as
-Lords Grey, Clanricarde, and others?
-Mr Bright and the Whig peers are
-openly, though on different grounds,
-hostile to the Ministerial policy, the
-others scarcely less so. The Manchester
-party rank amongst the regular
-supporters of the Government, yet
-they appeal to the Opposition to know
-“whether they don’t occupy a very
-absurd position” in following men who
-will not lead them, and are derisively
-answered in the affirmative. If they
-criticise the course of the Government,
-their opinion is regarded with the
-“greatest indifference and contempt.”
-Thus do matters stand, and yet Ministers
-have the audacity to affirm that
-they possess the confidence of Parliament,
-and that it is the war which
-prevents the success of their measures.
-But is this the front which we are to
-present to our foes? Are we to exhibit
-to Russia, as our leaders in the
-strife, a Government on sufferance notoriously
-incompetent, whether at home
-legislation or foreign negotiation? Is
-not Conservative reascendancy the
-only salvation of the country? Does
-not the nation at large pant for something
-like a Government—one which is
-followed by a united party—one which
-is at unison in itself—one of principle
-and not of expediency? When we see
-a Government openly hostile amongst
-themselves, scorned and contemned
-by the country, beaten on every point
-by their opponents, obliged to withdraw
-measure after measure, and retaining
-one only after it, as has been
-observed before, has undergone as
-many metamorphoses as ever Ovid described—when
-we see all this, which
-we can hardly do without being roused
-to feelings of indignation, it appears to
-us necessary to consider how may
-this be remedied, how may Russia
-be firmly opposed, how may England
-be rescued from the pernicious effects
-of an incapable Government, and how
-may unanimity be restored to the
-councils of her Majesty?</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>It is very evident, that only by the
-reascendancy of the Conservative
-party can these blessings be secured
-to the country. The tradition of that
-party is, as its name implies, the preservation
-of our institutions in Church
-and State. This is a definite object.
-That it is a desirable one, is a conclusion
-which is arrived at by one course
-of reasoning, the same premises, the
-same logical inferences. Hence the
-Conservative party is a united band.
-A Conservative Minister cannot be a
-Minister on sufferance; a Whig Minister
-must. The Whigs are ever desirous
-of change, and the so-called
-amelioration of our institutions; but
-few of them agree together in the paramount
-importance which attaches
-to the reform of any particular abuse,
-or in the amount of innovation which it
-is desirable to introduce. Hence they
-are always at variance with each other
-when the time for action arrives; and
-this incapacitates them for carrying on
-the Queen’s government. If popular
-enthusiasm comes to their aid, and
-force them on in spite of themselves,
-then the case is different. The Reform
-Bill of 1832 was carried triumphantly,
-but by the people. Popular
-enthusiasm supplied vigour to the executive.
-Contrast this with another
-Reform Bill, of no very distant date,
-as regards its introduction at least,
-though few of the present generation
-are likely to see that bill become the
-law of the land. The time was unfortunate
-for Whig administrators,
-though backed by those who claim to
-themselves the name of Conservatives.
-A Russian war carried that enthusiasm,
-so necessary to the Whigs, through another
-channel, and exposed in a ludicrous
-manner the true value of a Liberal
-Administration, and their dependence
-upon the popular will.
-True, there was a large party in the
-Senate clamorous for reform—perhaps
-a majority. There was no hesitation
-amongst members to conclude that
-reform was necessary, for these are
-liberal times. How, then, do we account
-for their ill-success? By
-adopting a happy description of their
-worth as statesmen, given long ago:
-“Their head is at fever heat, but their
-hand is paralysed.” They are not
-slow to adopt as their own any principle,
-though calculated to throw the
-country in a flame, so long as it is
-traditionally the property of their
-party. But when the time for action
-arrives, when that principle is to be
-embodied in a bill, and that theory is
-to be reduced to a practical test, then
-comes division and discontent. One
-portion objects to this part as too
-sweeping, while another declares it to
-be too confined. This wants one remedy,
-the other declares the wished-for
-remedy will only prove an aggravation
-of the malady. There is no
-hesitation in adopting any principle,
-however dangerous. Give them the
-opportunity—the advantageous opportunity,
-in the eyes of politicians—of
-putting their plans into execution,
-and immediately we behold irresolution,
-consequent upon dissension, and
-inactivity, the offspring of indecision.
-Only divert the populace from them,
-who, when roused, carry all before
-them, as it were, and force their
-leaders to bury their dissensions—only
-deprive them of that support, and then
-you see the intrinsic worth of your
-Whig statesman. He may carry,
-perhaps, one bold measure; but his
-title to succeeding years of administration
-rests upon the gratitude of his
-supporters. He is unable to carry
-those minor measures—those measures
-of equal public importance, though of
-a less conspicuous character—more
-solid though less showy—which contribute
-so much to the moral happiness
-and physical enjoyment of a
-great nation, and which are the pillars
-of a statesman’s fame. There is
-no firmness in a Whig ruler—there
-cannot be, if he would reconcile and
-command the confidence of all the
-various sects of his followers. Who
-was it that held with a firm and steady
-hand the helm of England, when all
-other Continental nations were submerged
-in ruin? A Conservative
-statesman. No Whig Minister could
-have succeeded then. The utmost
-firmness and steadiness in conducting
-the public business of this country
-were then required. No Whig Cabinet
-could have guided the fortunes of
-England then. Obliged to truckle
-first to this man’s fancies, then to another’s
-follies, they are but a faithful
-index of the dissension amongst their
-followers, and uncertainty and irresolution
-are sure to follow. Yet to such
-as these are our fortunes, in times so
-perilous as our own, committed; and
-already are the baneful effects visible.
-If the Conservative party were to
-pursue the course which the Opposition
-of former days is known to have
-taken, what would be the position of
-the Government? If their opponents
-were not to support them in the war,
-the conduct of it would be in the same
-position as all the other measures
-which they have brought forward this
-session, and for the success of which
-they are dependent upon their followers.
-Such a state of affairs may continue
-for a time, but it must eventually
-call down the indignation of the
-country. No wonder that the conduct
-of our Government constantly gives
-rise to the suspicion that they are too
-desirous for the cessation of hostilities.
-It is manifestly their interest so to
-appear, if it be not also so to act. A
-peace, even though it were merely an
-armed truce, would satisfy the cravings
-of many of their followers; and
-probably the belief that such may be
-obtained, renders them less disagreeable
-to the Government than they
-would otherwise have proved themselves.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>Never, perhaps, was the inability
-of the Whig party to govern exhibited
-in such a marked manner as at the
-period immediately succeeding the
-passing of the Reform Bill. With a
-majority of three hundred, they yet
-disagreed amongst themselves concerning
-the desirability of introducing
-innovations into the Irish Church, and
-they fell. Some have declared that
-an excess of power—a majority too
-large to manage—was fatal to the endurance
-of their power. We rather
-think that it was but a conclusive
-proof that a Whig Minister <em>must</em> be a
-Minister on sufferance—in other words,
-is unable to govern. Unhappily for
-themselves, at the period to which we
-are alluding, a rather more important
-question than usual occasioned the
-schism. Those who disagreed did not
-merely, as generally happens in these
-cases, hold aloof for a time, embarrass
-the Government, and then return to
-their allegiance, but they went at
-once into open hostility. They retired
-to swell the Conservative ranks. This
-is a specimen, on an exaggerated
-scale perhaps, of what is constantly
-occurring when a Whig Ministry is in
-power. For what do we see now?
-We behold the Conservative party
-united in their opinions with regard
-to Russian aggression upon Turkey.
-In the Ministerial host there is nothing,
-as usual, but dissension and
-endless disagreement. The Manchester
-party condemns the war and everything
-belonging to it. The Peelites
-evidently look with a cold eye upon
-it; they believe not in the vitality of
-Turkey, or in the danger of Russian
-aggrandisement. So far there is
-agreement between these sects. They
-cannot, however, form one party, for
-there is disagreement between them
-on vital points connected with Home
-administration. Then, again, there
-are the philosophical Radicals demanding
-the Ballot, while the aristocratic
-Whigs most properly declare that secret
-voting shall never become one of the
-institutions of the country. In short,
-the Ministerial camp is split up into
-various and opposing sects, which are
-continually warring with each other,
-while the Cabinet itself is but another
-scene of this general medley and confusion,
-this discontent and convulsion;
-and its executive power is paralysed
-by internal discord. The introduction
-of the Peelites amongst the Whigs has
-but increased the differences in the
-camp. Never was there a time when
-the internal dissensions of a Ministerial
-host were so marked, so wide-spreading,
-or so notorious. And this,
-too, at this critical time, when England
-ought especially to be calm and
-tranquil within, in order to be able to
-consider well what are her interests
-without. Is this to continue? Are
-the interests of England and Europe
-to be jeopardied by the continuance in
-power of a Ministry so divided and so
-weak? It is, we think, a truly logical
-inference that the fall of the Coalition,
-and the reascendancy of the Conservative
-party, is the only method by
-which an end can be put to that constant
-strife, and unanimity restored to
-the councils of our Sovereign. In a time
-of war, it is of the last importance
-that a Ministry should be united and
-firm, and possessed of the confidence
-of the country. Every one will probably
-admit this; but, then, does the
-Coalition answer to this description?</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>It is idle to pursue this subject
-further. No one who really wishes
-well to his country in this emergency,
-can say that it is to the present Government
-that we ought to confide the
-direction of our affairs, unless he be
-dazzled by the undoubted splendour
-of their names. There are, doubtless,
-great talents amongst them; but there
-is such a thing as the utmost danger
-in a superfluity of talent, particularly
-when applied to pursuits to which
-they are not especially adapted. Too
-much collective talent begets an overweening
-self-confidence, and lessens
-the sense of responsibility; moreover,
-if this too great self-confidence be
-brought to bear its influence in the
-direction of affairs of which one is
-ignorant, no beneficial result is to be
-expected. Again, if all these misdirected
-and misapplied talents be
-controlled by an incapable chief, can
-it be said that their administrative
-abilities are placed at service of the
-country? No! personal pique and
-private considerations prevent it. We
-need not dwell upon the incapability
-of the First Lord of the Treasury,
-which is now generally admitted. We
-now look to the other prominent members
-of the Government. The office
-assigned to Lord Palmerston is the
-most notoriously incongruous. With
-a world-wide reputation for his administration
-of our foreign affairs,
-gained in an experience of them for
-sixteen years, his lordship is placed
-in an office where he may exercise
-his negotiative powers with county
-magistrates, town constables, and the
-like. There he is—the most popular
-Foreign Secretary of the day, the man
-in whom the country has perhaps as
-great a confidence as in any one,
-engaged in squabbles over town police,
-graveyards, sewers, and the rest.
-Lord Palmerston cannot be said to
-be at home in his office. The country
-is disposed to look with favour upon
-him on account of his great name and
-services; but does he really make a
-better Home Secretary than Mr Walpole?
-Why was he not transferred
-to the War Office on its creation, with
-his extensive knowledge of European
-affairs? If the interests of the country
-had been consulted, undoubtedly he
-would; but again private considerations
-were opposed to the national
-will and the public weal; and the
-Duke of Newcastle, who has as yet
-no claims to public confidence, is
-placed in an office to which, on the
-formation of the Government, it cannot
-be said that he was assigned.
-Again, there is Sir George Grey, who
-is adapted more especially to the
-Home Office, if to any; but, “being
-more remarkable for his private virtues
-than his administrative abilities,”
-is certainly not the man to be unceremoniously
-pitchforked into an office
-with which he has no acquaintance,
-other than the little he is supposed
-to have learnt during the “disastrous
-administration of Lord Glenelg.” If
-there are talents here—if there is
-experience here—as in Lord Palmerston’s
-case, so in this; the experience
-is rendered nothing worth, and the
-talents misapplied. It is unnecessary
-to dilate further upon this subject;
-let us look at the blessings derived to
-the country from the administrative
-abilities of those whose talents have
-not been misdirected. There is our
-gifted Chancellor of the Exchequer,
-who has made more mistakes within
-a given time than any of his predecessors
-in the past century; and when
-we remember that financial blunders
-are national misfortunes, it is no matter
-of wonder that people refuse to
-regard him with an eye of favour,
-even though we overlook the probable
-pernicious effects of his Tractarian
-tendencies over the Church of England,
-felt through his influence over
-the disposal of the Church patronage.
-How long will England, dazzled by
-names, overlook facts and their consequences?
-Divest the members of
-the Government of their previous reputation,
-of their great names—give
-them names unknown to the country,
-and what language sufficiently strong
-would be found to apply to such an
-incapable Administration, with all
-their blunders, their dissensions, and
-their disastrous speculations? Had
-Lord Derby and his colleagues committed
-half the blunders of this
-Cabinet—had they attempted to tamper
-recklessly with our finances—had
-they involved us in a war
-which might have been avoided by
-sufficient plain-speaking in negotiation,
-what would their opponents
-have said? Would we have witnessed
-the patriotic course which we have
-seen the Opposition of the present day
-adopt? Few would suppose it, when
-they recall to mind the undignified
-hurry which the Opposition manifested
-for office during the brief period
-which elapsed between the assembling
-of Parliament in November 1852 and
-the Christmas vacation—a restlessness
-which induced them all to combine
-together, Whig, Radical, and Peelite,
-High Church and Dissent, in order to
-overthrow the Administration of the
-day; while their unredeemed compact
-with the Roman Catholics will not
-easily be forgotten. Few would suppose
-it, when they recall to mind the
-course adopted by the Whig Opposition
-during the last war, when, for
-factious purposes, victories were represented
-as defeats, the movements of
-the British general rendered the battlefield
-of party strife at home, and the
-motions of the Government clogged by
-the hands of unprincipled and factious
-opponents. Few would suppose it,
-when they recollect that Whig alacrity
-to accept office is only equalled by
-Conservative disdain to hold it on sufferance.
-But what was the conduct
-of the Government of Lord Derby?
-Is not that Government now admitted
-to have been the instrument of more
-good to the country, in its short tenure
-of office, than was ever effected by
-any of its predecessors within so short
-a time? And if we remember the
-immense amount of opposition which
-was brought to bear against it; that,
-in the first few months of its existence,
-the completion of the business of Parliament,
-previous to its dissolution,
-was all that was expected or required
-at its hands; that, after the dissolution,
-a majority of nineteen effected,
-though with the greatest difficulty,
-the overthrow of the Administration,
-without allowing the smallest time for
-the trial of their legislative powers,
-it must be admitted that the members
-of that Conservative Government, in
-the face of the greatest difficulties,
-exhibited administrative abilities of a
-high order. They were unable, from
-circumstances, to take advantage, like
-their successors, of the tide of popular
-favour which in these days is sure to
-run in the direction of a new Administration,
-because they were only
-expected to wind up, as quickly as
-they could, the Parliamentary business
-of the session. Yet to them may
-be traced the advantages we possessed
-in preparation for the present war.
-They were the first Government who
-dared to come down to the British
-House of Commons, and tell it the
-national defences were insecure, and
-demand the means of placing England
-in a position to resist any threatened
-invasion. Do we not owe to them
-the establishment of our militia? Was
-not that a bill than which none has
-been more perfect in its details, or
-more universally satisfactory to the
-country? Do we not owe to them the
-establishment of our Channel Fleet on
-such a footing that it secured England
-from all aggression? Then was laid
-the basis of that splendid fleet which
-a few months back left our shores for
-the Baltic Sea. Again, it is to their
-prescience that we can trace the advantages
-which are derived to ourselves,
-and to the cause of civilisation
-and independence, from our present
-amicable relations with France. Did
-they not, in opposition to the popular
-will, unequivocally expressed, and in
-the face of the utmost censure of the
-press, persist in cultivating the friendship
-of France? To that firmness and
-political sagacity we trace the advantages
-we derive from having so powerful
-a friend by whose side to fight in
-the cause of Europe. Contrast this
-with the conduct of that brilliant Administration
-which was to rescue England
-from the evil position into which
-it was brought by the reckless Derby
-Government, and what do we find?
-Two members of that Government, immediately
-on taking office, commence
-their abuse of the French Emperor in
-no measured terms. Nor is this all:
-Their brilliant opponent, who was naturally
-desirous to bring such a glaring
-indiscretion before the notice of the
-Commons of England, was charged
-by the triumphant Coalition with
-having a mind deeply imbued with
-faction. The like absence of political
-sagacity is observable throughout the
-whole course of the Government. With
-a war staring us in the face, which
-ought to have appeared almost inevitable
-to the Government, with their superior
-information and knowledge of
-facts, the Chancellor of the Exchequer
-brings forward a Peace Budget, parting
-with an important item in our revenue.
-This was another blow levelled against
-the agricultural interest through the
-indiscretion of the Government, for it
-resulted in soap being relieved at the
-expense of malt. Our discreet Chancellor
-parts with a quantity of revenue
-derived from indirect taxation one
-year, and redeems his blunder the
-next by levying an increased tax on
-malt. But what are we to expect
-from a Chancellor of the Exchequer
-whose administration of the finances
-has been one continued system of
-blunders? The secret lies in this:
-All his various failings arise from his
-having entered upon schemes in which,
-as he proceeded, he soon found himself
-out of his depth. Another minister
-would have been deterred from
-entering upon them, from a sense of the
-responsibility he would incur. But
-when a Ministry fancies it contains
-within itself all the available administrative
-talent in the Empire, the sense
-of responsibility is lightened, because
-opponents are undervalued, and self-confidence
-augmented. Here, again,
-do all the other misdemeanours of the
-Cabinet take their origin. Confident
-in themselves, and in their fancied
-influence over Parliament, they bring
-forward, in the face of war, a larger
-number of important measures than
-ever before were introduced to Parliament
-in the same session. They
-only exhibited their own weakness.
-They proved that their plans of legislation
-differ materially from those of
-the House of Commons. They discovered
-that even all the talents cannot
-blunder with impunity, and they
-have rapidly sunk in public estimation.
-Their conduct has disgusted their followers,
-and provoked a powerful opposition.
-Their numerous indiscretions
-would certainly not have been tolerated
-in any men but our talented
-rulers in the Coalition; and even they
-are suffering from the effects of their
-rashness, but nevertheless seem determined
-to “survive in office the honour
-of their administration.” Referring,
-again, to the Derby Government
-of 1852, we ask if the Earl of
-Malmesbury, or any two important
-members of that Administration, had
-been afflicted with a like absence of
-political sagacity to that displayed by
-Sir James Graham and Sir Charles
-Wood, where would have been our relations
-with France? If that Government
-had, for the sake of the popularity
-which Sir James Graham values
-so much, but which no Minister has
-been so unfortunate in his attempt to
-gain, joined in the temporary popular
-resentment against the French Emperor,
-when would the breach have been
-healed? But <em>they</em> showed that they
-understood the interests of the country,
-and contrast in a favourable light
-with the members of the Coalition and
-their misdeeds. They evidently were
-aware of the deep responsibility under
-which they lay, and thus their actions
-were marked with a caution which is
-not observed by their successors. If
-Mr Disraeli had not handed over a
-large balance to his rival, what would
-have been the effect of the failure of
-his schemes? It comes to this, then:
-The forethought and prudence of the
-Derby Government have only had the
-effect of shielding the Coalition from
-the worst consequences of their indiscretions
-and total failures, and enabling
-the country to withstand the
-mal-administration of its present
-rulers, instead of being improved and
-brought to be of permanent advantage
-to the nation. It may, however, be
-thought to be a great drawback to
-Conservative reascendancy, that the
-leaders of that great party are, for
-the most part, comparatively inexperienced
-in office. However that
-may be, the administration of ten
-months’ duration stands out in broad
-relief between its predecessor and the
-Coalition; at all events, it would be
-difficult for them to commit more
-blunders than the present talented
-and <em>experienced</em> Administration. But
-can a charge of inability be fairly
-urged against a party which contains
-within its ranks men of such talent,
-parliamentary experience, and sagacity
-as the Earl of Derby, Lord St
-Leonards, Lord Eglinton, Disraeli,
-Walpole, Thesiger, Kelly, Pakington,
-Malmesbury, Bulwer Lytton, Stanley,
-Manners, and the other Conservative
-statesmen? The year 1852 must, in
-the eyes of thinking men, for ever dispel
-such an imputation. The same
-party which, shorn of its leaders in
-1846, yet sent forward to maintain its
-cause in that “sad fierce session” its
-champions in debate, so many and so
-powerful as to astonish its foes and
-restore spirit amongst its ranks, produced
-also, in time of need, statesmen
-whose official career, short though it
-was, does no discredit to their followers—the
-gentlemen of England.
-The chiefs in either House, in particular,
-are men of brilliant talent and
-tried sagacity. Trained in the Liberal
-ranks, it may be presumed that they
-are deeply convinced of the danger of
-continually seeking after that phantom,
-which, the nearer we approach,
-the farther it recedes—viz., a system
-of representation which shall do justice
-to all parties in the State; while,
-at the same time, that very training
-has divested them of that spirit of exclusion,
-and that horror of anything
-approaching to innovation, which were
-the chief imputations against the Toryism
-of bygone times, but which do
-not accord with the intelligence of the
-present age. The Earl of Derby, as
-every one knows, was a member of
-that Cabinet which secured the reform
-of Parliament. He has since been
-engaged in endeavouring, and not unsuccessfully,
-to stem the tide of democracy
-which then set in. For that
-end he joined Sir Robert Peel—for
-that end he left him. Mr Disraeli,
-too, awakening to a full sense of the
-danger which “the youthful energies
-of Radicalism” are too well calculated
-to produce, became a decided Conservative,
-though not a bigoted exclusionist.
-To these principles he has
-steadily adhered in the whole course
-of his parliamentary career, which has
-now spread over a term of seventeen
-years. No man needs to stand higher
-in the estimation of his party than
-does the member for Buckinghamshire.
-Gifted with talents which
-fall to the lot of but few, possessed of
-keen sagacity, indomitable resolution,
-and extensive knowledge, he has never
-shrunk from placing at the service of
-his country, and of the great party of
-which he is the recognised chieftain,
-the utmost efforts of his admired and
-envied genius. Where is the man
-who has more unflinchingly stood by
-his party at all seasons, both of adversity
-and prosperity? His rapid
-elevation has, no doubt, been viewed
-by many with feelings of dissatisfaction;
-for</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
-  <div class='linegroup'>
-    <div class='group'>
-      <div class='line'>“Envy does merit, as its shade, pursue.”</div>
-    </div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c016'>It is evident that he has also many
-personal enemies. The man who overthrew
-a Government which many supposed
-would have continued during
-the lifetime of its leader, and even
-have survived him, is not likely to be
-regarded with any especial favour by
-the members of that Cabinet. The
-uncompromising hostility which he
-bore to them has roused their utmost indignation,
-and his character has been
-unsparingly attacked. Some have had
-the sagacity to detect the cloven hoof
-in every step which he has made in
-public life; nor has he been allowed
-by them to possess the smallest particle
-of political virtue, and “one of
-the humblest individuals of this vast
-empire” has thought fit to embody his
-views of the political career of Mr
-Disraeli in a somewhat bulky volume,
-where he has given vent to his holy
-indignation. Such a production would
-have been a disgrace to the age, even
-if the author had had the courage to
-place his name at the head of it, for it
-is introducing into party warfare a
-weapon which is most unfair, unjust,
-and dishonourable. No statesman
-can condescend to notice such an
-attack; and when the author withholds
-his name and sends forth his
-anonymous slander into the world, then
-it must be confessed that the cowardly
-spirit in which it has been undertaken
-has only aggravated its revolting
-character.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>Mr Disraeli is an original genius.
-His great fault in early life was, that
-he formed his conclusions without deep
-study, and trusting chiefly to the
-power of his own intellect. With all
-the conceit and precipitancy of youth,
-he immediately gave forth to the
-world the conclusions at which he had
-arrived. Many of these were wild
-and improbable, and his maturer
-years discovered their true nature.
-His father was, as is well known, a
-Jew, while his ancestors were, down
-to a recent period, the natives of a
-foreign soil. The son, then, inherited
-no hereditary political principles, which
-are in England, generally, handed
-down from one generation to another,
-unchanging and unchanged. Mr Disraeli
-had therefore to choose for himself,
-from the wide field of English
-politics, those principles which appeared
-to his unbiassed mind most in
-accordance with the true spirit of the
-British constitution. The choice which
-he adopted, and the subsequent changes
-through which he passed, appear to us
-to be nothing but the natural workings
-of an unfettered mind, and which
-any man may, and probably often
-does, undergo, as he ponders over the
-English constitution and the science
-of government in the recesses of his
-own study. It is natural that, as an
-Englishman contemplates our form of
-government, as he becomes acquainted
-with its operations, and as he compares
-its results with reference to the mind,
-the habits, and the temper of the people
-with the influence of Continental
-governments over their subjects, he
-should be filled with admiration at the
-wonderful manner in which the united
-harmonious action of the Three Estates
-of the realm is secured; and his first
-thought is, that it must be preserved
-unimpaired and inviolate. As he proceeds,
-he finds blemishes, anomalies,
-and imperfections; these he concludes
-should be eradicated, and with all the
-ardour of youth he thinks that, once
-these disappear, a form of government
-remains complete in its splendour, and
-splendid in its completeness. A wider
-intercourse with the world, a more
-extensive knowledge of mankind,
-must dissipate in many minds this
-perhaps fondly-cherished sentiment.
-Perfection cannot be attained—contentment
-is never the lot of humanity;
-and perhaps it is better that each
-should endeavour to forget his particular
-object of antipathy, and unite in
-consolidating and preserving those
-institutions, with their many imperfections,
-than hazard their extinction by
-endless struggles after their purification.
-Are not these legitimate changes
-of opinion? A man who has thus
-formed his political opinions, remains
-a staunch Conservative, but eschews
-all those more repulsive features of
-Toryism, which do but defeat their own
-end, and raise up against itself, in
-power too strong to be resisted, the
-very influences it wishes to control
-and counteract. But what shall we
-say of a young man who thinks
-fit, in the impetuous ardour of his
-ambition, to publish to the world
-his opinions as they are forming?
-We may smile at the vanity displayed,
-and at the folly of such a
-course; but we may shrink from casting
-imputations and urging motives,
-from which a virtuous mind recoils,
-for the mere purpose of blackening
-and traducing the character of a political
-opponent. Such, however, is
-the course pursued by Mr Disraeli’s
-enemies; but we should think that
-the strong malevolence displayed in
-those satires and slanders must insure
-their being discarded by “all in whom
-political partisanship has not extinguished
-the common feelings of humanity.”
-It is said that Mr Disraeli’s
-changes of opinion were with a view
-to self-aggrandisement. The charge,
-we presume, rests upon the pretence
-that he was the better for each change.
-This may be; but we think an ardent,
-clever, and ambitious man like Mr
-Disraeli, would have risen to eminence
-whatever line of politics he adopted.
-It was not more difficult for him to
-get into Parliament as a Radical than
-as a Tory; indeed, this seems to be
-unwittingly allowed by his biographer
-when he states that his election for
-High Wycombe was lost because Mr
-Hume withdrew his support in consequence
-of Mr Disraeli’s refusing to
-compromise his opinions with regard
-to the Whigs. It is, however, a decidedly
-unfair course to rake together
-all that has fallen from an aspiring
-and even giddy youth, no matter
-whether in the heat of political contest
-or in the turmoil of an election strife,
-and then call him in his maturity to a
-severe account. No charitable construction
-is ever allowed to Mr Disraeli’s
-public acts. It is always easy
-to get up a colourable case against an
-English statesman, all whose acts lay
-bare before the eager gaze of the public.
-It requires the exercising of very
-little ingenuity to hang together a
-consistent string of facts with which
-to stigmatise with baseness the career
-of any politician, however brilliant in
-talent or in character. Mr Disraeli
-has risen from the people; he has excited
-the envy of some and the hatred
-of others, who indulge their vengeful
-feelings in spreading their malicious
-slanders; nor is the most stainless
-character proof against such assaults,
-since they can quickly acquire a consistency
-of character, and gain a hold
-on men’s minds when they are dinned
-into one’s ears on all sides. How
-easy it might be to make up a case of
-political profligacy against Sir James
-Graham, who has been through more
-political changes, and that, too, since
-he was a representative of the people,
-than any other statesman of the day!
-How easy it might be to discern in
-this the workings of a restless ambition!
-A colourable case is soon made, and
-then let a certain number of newspapers
-indulge in comments upon it,
-and spread the calumnies, each in his
-own strain, and all spiced with a little
-outpouring of virtuous indignation,
-and the best character is sure to be
-injured by it. There are some in
-these charitable times who can defend
-a Cromwell; we apprehend that with
-far less exercise of ingenuity can the
-character of the Conservative leader
-be maintained. But if it be true that
-Cromwell is not the remorseless villain
-which his history had depicted him,
-then it only shows how easily characters
-can be fatally blackened by constantly
-harping on the evil points, and quietly
-omitting all mention of the good.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>Throughout the whole parliamentary
-career of Mr Disraeli, a consistent
-course of conduct with reference
-to State policy has been pursued;
-though it is observable that, in the first
-few years, he had not yet thrown
-away some of his extraordinary theories.
-We see that, as he advances
-in manhood, and becomes practically
-acquainted with legislation, the vain
-conceptions and egotistic vanity of his
-youth pass away, and he settles down
-into a steady, through-going, parliamentary
-chief. The different opinions
-which he has at times expressed
-of various statesmen are easily to be
-accounted for, though some who, as
-the poet says, judge of others by themselves,
-may discern in this discreditable
-motives. Public opinion is always
-varying with regard to public
-men, and a young man is likely to be
-influenced by it. But, at all events,
-he ought, through motives of modesty,
-to keep his opinion to himself; and it
-is of the greatest importance that one
-who aspires to be a statesman in this
-country, where parties are always
-changing, should not be constantly
-giving expression to the feelings of the
-moment. It is not safe for a politician;
-for while he is giving vent to
-what is generally a mere fancied animosity
-to the mere party-feeling of
-the moment, he may perhaps be throwing
-down the gauntlet at the feet of a
-future colleague; and all for no purpose,
-for oftentimes there is no foundation
-for aversion to a public man.
-Nor is it right that the House of
-Commons, our country, and Continental
-nations, should be constantly hearing
-statesmen mutually complimenting
-and abusing each other. It is a
-maxim in State policy that you should
-deal with your enemy as though one
-day he may be your friend, and <em>vice
-versâ</em>. In private life, it happens that
-one who is a friend may first be viewed
-with coolness, and then treated as an
-enemy; and this change in conduct
-may be legitimate, though not creditable.
-Still more frequently may this
-happen in public life. Mr Disraeli
-has, we should think, learnt from
-bitter experience the folly of giving
-expression to mere transient feelings
-either of anger or respect. He is a
-man of extremes; he knows no mediocrity
-of feeling; witness the inflated
-style of the soliloquies in his novels,
-which have drawn down upon him the
-unmitigated ire of his zealous biographer.
-With him a statesman’s career
-is either “a system of petty larceny
-on a great scale,” or it is “a precious
-possession of the House of Commons.”
-This is a pity; but Mr Disraeli, unlike
-other statesmen, had not in early
-life the friendship of those who had
-trodden the thorny paths of English
-politics before him, to inculcate upon
-him the necessity of being habitually
-reserved and moderate in his expressions;
-and neither reserve nor moderation
-forms a part of his natural
-character. Too warm a nature,
-or too ardent a temperament are
-not discreditable, though they often
-bring pain and trouble along with
-them.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>We now come to the most hackneyed,
-and, we admit, the most painful
-portion of Mr Disraeli’s life—his
-treatment of Sir Robert Peel.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>But these things belong to the past.
-Great blame, in the eyes of an impartial
-observer, may be attached to Peel
-for the course he then took, and great
-blame may also attach to Disraeli;
-much, on the other hand, may be said
-in palliation of the conduct of both.
-The one has long ago been forgiven
-by the great party which he irreparably
-injured; the other will, we firmly
-believe, prove himself, at no distant
-period, as firm and enlightened a Minister
-as he is now one of the most
-talented and accomplished statesmen
-that ever adorned with his eloquence,
-or controlled by his wisdom,
-the legislation of the British Parliament.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'>We now conclude by urging the
-necessity there is for the reascendancy
-of the Conservative party. We are
-evidently on the verge of a momentous
-period. Are we to commit the guidance
-of our affairs to a Government
-whose conduct, as yet, has been one
-course of bungling—the result of dissension,
-of abortive speculations—the
-result of a misplaced self-confidence,
-and of unsuccessful negotiation—the
-result of an infatuated love of peace?
-We make, then, our appeal to the
-Protestants of England; are we any
-longer to truckle to the Pope of Rome—are
-we still to devote the public
-money to the support of Roman Catholic
-priests, and then call it “religious
-bigotry?” We make our appeal
-to the friends of Turkey amongst
-us: are we to have a Ministry in
-power who are divided in their opinions
-concerning the vitality of the
-country which we are desirous of protecting,
-and amongst whose supporters
-are men who deny our right to go
-to war at all? We make our appeal
-to the foes of Russia; shall we have
-a Premier who declares that “what
-is called the security of Europe” has
-nothing to fear from Russian aggression,
-and then says that he has nothing
-to retract or explain? Let us
-have a Ministry of able men, united
-amongst themselves, prepared to uphold
-our Protestant religion, agreed
-upon the vitality of Turkey, resolved
-to resist Russia, determined to secure
-a durable peace; and, above all, one
-that is strong in the confidence of the
-country, and supported by a united
-majority. Let us tear down the emblems
-of the most incapable and mischief-making
-Coalition that ever any
-country was cursed with, and proclaim
-over its fall the reascendancy of Conservative
-principles.</p>
-
-<div class='nf-center-c0'>
-<div class='nf-center c013'>
-    <div><span class='small'><em>Printed by William Blackwood &#38; Sons, Edinburgh.</em></span></div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-
-<hr class='c017'>
-<div class='footnote' id='f1'>
-<p class='c009'><a href='#r1'>1</a>. Σπυριδῶνος Τρικουπη ἱστορία τῆς Ἕλληνικῆς ἐπαναστάσεως. Τόμος Α.
-London, 1853. (History of the Greek Revolution. By Spiridion Tricoupi,
-Greek Minister, London. Vol. i.)</p>
-</div>
-<div class='footnote' id='f2'>
-<p class='c009'><a href='#r2'>2</a>. <cite>History of Europe from the Fall of Napoleon in 1815, to the Accession of
-Louis Napoleon in 1852.</cite> By Sir <span class='sc'>Archibald Alison</span>, Bart. Vol. iii.</p>
-</div>
-<div class='footnote' id='f3'>
-<p class='c009'><a href='#r3'>3</a>. The work, when completed, will, we understand, consist of four volumes octavo;
-the second volume is expected to appear in a few weeks.</p>
-</div>
-<div class='footnote' id='f4'>
-<p class='c009'><a href='#r4'>4</a>. Sir A. Alison, perhaps, as we shall see afterwards, confines his sympathy to the
-assertion that, <em>after the infamous butchery of the Greeks at Chios</em>, the intervention of
-the Christian States in behalf of the oppressed Christian people became a duty.</p>
-</div>
-<div class='footnote' id='f5'>
-<p class='c009'><a href='#r5'>5</a>. That this “<em>bloody</em> and <em>brutal</em>” policy is still exercised by the Turks, when they
-have their free swing, is evident from the letter of Mr Saunders, the British Consul
-at Prevesa, which appeared about two months ago in the <cite>Times</cite>, and of which a Greek
-translation now lies before us in the Αθηνᾶ—an Athenian newspaper—of the 9th
-June.</p>
-</div>
-<div class='footnote' id='f6'>
-<p class='c009'><a href='#r6'>6</a>. It may be interesting to observe here, as a proof of the permanency of the Greek
-language, that the phrase used by our modern Greek ambassador in this place,
-ατενίσας είς τον ουρανον, is exactly the same as that used by St Luke in the account
-of the martyrdom of St Stephen, Acts, vii. 55. Indeed, the vocabulary of the living
-Greeks, as well as their syntax, is strongly tinged by the language of the Septuagint
-and the New Testament; a fact, of which our students of theology, if they have any
-sense, will take note.</p>
-</div>
-<div class='footnote' id='f7'>
-<p class='c009'><a href='#r7'>7</a>. Δεν συστελλομαι νὰ ὁμολογήσω ὅτι ἤμῆν εναντιος τοῦ τοιούτου κινήματυς κατὰ
-του Σουλτανου· ὄχι διότι θὲν επεθύμουν τῆν ελευθερίαν τοῦ ἔθνους μου ἀλλὰ διότι
-μ’ εφαινετο ἄωρον το κίνημα, μὲ το νὰ ἦσαν ἀπειροπολεμοι οἱ Ἕλληνες καὶ οἱ
-πλεῖστοι ἄοπλοι, ὁ δὲ κίνδυνος μεγας.—<span class='sc'>Perrhaebus</span>, <cite>Military Memoirs</cite>. Athens,
-1836.</p>
-</div>
-<div class='footnote' id='f8'>
-<p class='c009'><a href='#r8'>8</a>. τοῦ Κερατιου κὁλπου—that is, we have no doubt, the large expansion of the
-Golden Horn west of Galata, and north of the Fanar.</p>
-</div>
-<div class='footnote' id='f9'>
-<p class='c009'><a href='#r9'>9</a>. The modern Greek has lost not a whit of the fine rich flexibility which has made
-the ancient dialect such a convenient organ for our scientific terminology. The
-word for Lazaretto used here is λοιμοκαθαρτήριον; and scores of such words are
-seen on the signboards of the streets of Athens at the present hour.</p>
-</div>
-<div class='footnote' id='f10'>
-<p class='c009'><a href='#r10'>10</a>. <cite>Appendix to Spottiswood</cite>, p. 29.</p>
-</div>
-<div class='footnote' id='f11'>
-<p class='c009'><a href='#r11'>11</a>. Dr J. H. Todd, who first published this letter, (<cite>English Churchman</cite>, Jan. 11,
-1849), supposed Bishop Taylor to be speaking of Dr Peter Barron of Cambridge,
-but afterwards, on the evidence being communicated to him, was entirely satisfied,
-and corrected his mistake. “The author referred to (writes Dr Todd) is certainly
-Dr Robert Barron of Aberdeen, a divine of whom the Church of Scotland may be
-justly proud.”—<cite>Irish Ecclesiastical Journal</cite>, March 1849.</p>
-</div>
-<div class='footnote' id='f12'>
-<p class='c009'><a href='#r12'>12</a>. Upon an allegation of unsoundness of doctrine in some of his works, the General
-Assembly of 1640 dragged his widow, in custody of a “rote of musketiers,” from her
-retreat in Strathislay, to enable them to search his house for his manuscripts and
-letters, a year after his death. The proceedings add some circumstances of inhumanity
-to the old revolting cases not unknown in Scotland, where a dead man was dug out
-of his grave to be placed at the bar, tried and sentenced.</p>
-</div>
-<div class='footnote' id='f13'>
-<p class='c009'><a href='#r13'>13</a>. P. 288.</p>
-</div>
-<div class='footnote' id='f14'>
-<p class='c009'><a href='#r14'>14</a>. Vol. iii. p. 331.</p>
-</div>
-<div class='footnote' id='f15'>
-<p class='c009'><a href='#r15'>15</a>. <cite>History of Scots Affairs</cite>, vol. iii. p. 231.</p>
-</div>
-<div class='footnote' id='f16'>
-<p class='c009'><a href='#r16'>16</a>. Aberdeen, 1635.</p>
-</div>
-<div class='footnote' id='f17'>
-<p class='c009'><a href='#r17'>17</a>. Vol. iii. p. 227.</p>
-</div>
-<div class='footnote' id='f18'>
-<p class='c009'><a href='#r18'>18</a>. In the Presbytery of Aberdeen, 26th May 1642. He died in 1659, in the
-ninety-fifth year of his age.</p>
-</div>
-<div class='footnote' id='f19'>
-<p class='c009'><a href='#r19'>19</a>. <cite>Life of Bishop Bedell</cite>—Preface. Of most of these theological authors I am
-obliged to speak in the language of others. I have not even, in all cases, read the
-works which have formed their character.</p>
-</div>
-<div class='footnote' id='f20'>
-<p class='c009'><a href='#r20'>20</a>. <cite>Dr M‘Crie’s Life of Melville</cite>, vol. ii. p. 445. It is with hesitation that any one
-who has benefited by this work will express a difference of opinion from its author.
-But it seems to me that Dr M‘Crie has been led by his admiration for Andrew
-Melville to rate too highly an exercise in which he excelled. The writing of
-modern Latin poetry, however valuable as a part of grammatical education, has,
-in truth, never been an effort of imagination or fancy; and its products, when
-most successful, have never produced the effect of genuine poetry on the mind of the
-reader.</p>
-</div>
-<div class='footnote' id='f21'>
-<p class='c009'><a href='#r21'>21</a>. <cite>History of the Rebellion</cite>. Oxford, 1826. Vol. i. p. 145.</p>
-</div>
-<div class='footnote' id='f22'>
-<p class='c009'><a href='#r22'>22</a>. <cite>Life of Bishop Bedell</cite>—Preface.</p>
-</div>
-<div class='footnote' id='f23'>
-<p class='c009'><a href='#r23'>23</a>. <cite><span lang="la">Delitiæ poetarum Scotorum hujus ævi illustrium</span></cite>, and fifth volume of the Great
-Atlas—both published by John Blaeu at Amsterdam, the former in 1637, the latter
-in 1654.</p>
-</div>
-<div class='footnote' id='f24'>
-<p class='c009'><a href='#r24'>24</a>. <cite><span lang="la">Joannis Leochaei Scoti musæ.</span></cite> <em>Londini</em>, 1620. Leech was Rector of the University
-in 1619.</p>
-</div>
-<div class='footnote' id='f25'>
-<p class='c009'><a href='#r25'>25</a>. <span lang="la">“Ad Senatum Aberdonensem;” “Tumulus Joannis Colissonii;” “De Abrenethæa;”
-“De aulæis acu-pictis D. Isabellæ Setonæ Comitissæ Laderdeliæ.” <cite>Epigrammata
-Arturi Jonstoni, Scoti, Medici Regii, Abredoniæ: excudebat Edvardus
-Rabanus</cite>, 1632.</span></p>
-</div>
-<div class='footnote' id='f26'>
-<p class='c009'><a href='#r26'>26</a>. <span class='sc'>Strachan’s</span> <cite><span lang="la">Panegyricus</span></cite>. Among the strangers he distinguishes Parkins, an
-Englishman who had, the year before (1630), obtained a degree of M.D. in our University.
-The earliest diploma of M.D. I have seen is that which I have noted
-(somewhat out of place) among the academic prints, and which was granted in
-1697.</p>
-</div>
-<div class='footnote' id='f27'>
-<p class='c009'><a href='#r27'>27</a>. “<span lang="la">Patricius&#160;... supremas dignitates scholasticas in viros onini laude majores
-(<em>quorum vos hic vultus videtis</em>) qui vel ipsas dignitates honorarunt, conferri curavit.
-Quid memorem Sandilandios, Rhætos, Baronios, Scrogios, Sibbaldos, Leslæos, maxima
-illa nomina.... Deus mi! quanta dici celebritas, quo tot pileati patres, theologiæ,
-juris et medicinæ doctores et baccalaurei de gymnasio nostro velut agmine
-facto prodierunt!</span>” He alludes to the strangers attracted by the fame of the society—to
-the divines, Forbes, Barron, &#38;c.—to the physicians. “<span lang="la">Quantus medicorum grex!
-quanta claritas!... Quantum uterque Jonstonus, ejusdem uteri, ejusdem artis
-fratres.... Mathesi profunda, quantum poesi et impangendis carminibus valeant,
-novistis. Arthurus medicus Regis et divinus poeta elegiæ et epigrammatis, quibus
-non solum suæ ætatis homines superat verum antiquissimos quosque æquat. Gulielmus
-rei herbariæ et mathematum, quorum professor meritissimus est, gloria cluit.
-De Gulielmo certe idem usurpare possumus.... ‘Deliciæ est humani generis,’
-tanta est ejus comitas, tanta urbanitas.</span>”</p>
-</div>
-<div class='footnote' id='f28'>
-<p class='c009'><a href='#r28'>28</a>. These notices are taken from the <cite>History of the University of Edinburgh, from 1580
-to 1646</cite>, by Thomas Crawford, printed in 1808 from a MS. of the seventeenth century.</p>
-</div>
-<div class='footnote' id='f29'>
-<p class='c009'><a href='#r29'>29</a>. <em>Caballeros</em> is the word used. It is hardly to be translated in an English word.</p>
-</div>
-<div class='footnote' id='f30'>
-<p class='c009'><a href='#r30'>30</a>. As a single sample of these excavations, we may mention one made at Portelette,
-on the Somme. At a depth of nine feet, a large quantity of bones was met with; and
-one foot lower, a piece of deer’s horn, bearing marks of human workmanship. At
-twenty feet from the surface, and <em>five feet below the level of the present bed of the river</em>,
-three axes, highly finished, and in perfect preservation, were turned up in a bed of turf.
-Some axe-cases of stag’s horn were also discovered in the same bed. Near these was
-a coarse vase of black pottery, very much broken, and surrounded with a black mass
-of decomposed pottery; and also large quantities of wrought bones, both human and
-animal.</p>
-</div>
-<div class='footnote' id='f31'>
-<p class='c009'><a href='#r31'>31</a>. Some very curious speculations and researches on this subject will be found in a
-pamphlet entitled <cite>A Vindication of the Bardic Accounts of the Early Invasions of
-Ireland; with a Verification of the River-Ocean of the Greeks</cite>. M‘Glashan, Dublin,
-1851.</p>
-</div>
-<div class='footnote' id='f32'>
-<p class='c009'><a href='#r32'>32</a>. It is not improbable that the old feudal law, which placed the person of a female
-vassal at the disposal of the seigneur on her wedding-night, originated in political
-motives as well as in a tyrannous sensuality.</p>
-</div>
-<div class='footnote' id='f33'>
-<p class='c009'><a href='#r33'>33</a>. <cite><span lang="fr">Aperçus Genealogiques sur les Descendants de Guillaume.</span></cite> <cite>Rev. Archéol.</cite> 1845,
-p. 794.</p>
-</div>
-<div class='footnote' id='f34'>
-<p class='c009'><a href='#r34'>34</a>. <cite>Types of Mankind.</cite> By <span class='sc'>T. C. Watt</span> and <span class='sc'>G. R. Gliddon</span>. London: 1854.</p>
-</div>
-<div class='footnote' id='f35'>
-<p class='c009'><a href='#r35'>35</a>. <cite>What Good may come of the India Bill; or Notes of what has been, is, and may be,
-the Government of India.</cite> By <span class='sc'>Francis Horsley Robinson</span>.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'><cite>Modern India. A Sketch of the System of Civil Government; to which is prefixed
-some Account of the Natives and Native Institutions.</cite> By <span class='sc'>George Campbell</span>, Esq.,
-Bengal Civil Service.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'><cite>The Administration of the East India Company. A History of Indian Progress.</cite>
-By <span class='sc'>John William Kaye</span>, Author of the “History of the War in Afghanistan.”</p>
-
-<p class='c009'><cite>Life in the Mission, the Camp, and the Zenana; or Six Years in India.</cite> By Mrs <span class='sc'>H.
-Colin Mackenzie</span>.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'><cite>Defects Civil and Military of the Indian Government.</cite> By Lieutenant-General Sir
-<span class='sc'>Charles James Napier</span>, G.C.B. Edited by Lieutenant-General Sir <span class='sc'>W. F. P.
-Napier</span>, K.C.B.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'><cite>How Wars arise in India. Observations on Mr Cobden’s Pamphlet entitled “The
-Origin of the Burmese War.</cite>” By <span class='sc'>John Clark Marshman</span>.</p>
-
-<p class='c009'><cite>An Address to Parliament on the Duties of Great Britain to India in respect of
-the Education of the Natives and their Official Employment.</cite> By <span class='sc'>Charles Hay
-Cameron</span>, late Fourth Member of the Council of India, President of the Indian Law
-Commission, and President of the Council of Education for Bengal.</p>
-</div>
-<div class='footnote' id='f36'>
-<p class='c009'><a href='#r36'>36</a>. <cite>Modern India and its Government</cite>, by <span class='sc'>G. Campbell</span>, Esq.; pp. 316, 317.</p>
-</div>
-<div class='footnote' id='f37'>
-<p class='c009'><a href='#r37'>37</a>. Pages 229, 230, 388.</p>
-</div>
-<div class='footnote' id='f38'>
-<p class='c009'><a href='#r38'>38</a>. We do not pretend to precise numerical accuracy; it is enough for our argument
-that what we have gathered from the <cite>Indian Register</cite> be nearly correct.</p>
-</div>
-<div class='footnote' id='f39'>
-<p class='c009'><a href='#r39'>39</a>. Page 241.</p>
-</div>
-<div class='footnote' id='f40'>
-<p class='c009'><a href='#r40'>40</a>. Page 238.</p>
-</div>
-<div class='footnote' id='f41'>
-<p class='c009'><a href='#r41'>41</a>. Page 248.</p>
-</div>
-<div class='footnote' id='f42'>
-<p class='c009'><a href='#r42'>42</a>. Page 254.</p>
-</div>
-<div class='footnote' id='f43'>
-<p class='c009'><a href='#r43'>43</a>. Page 89.</p>
-</div>
-<div class='footnote' id='f44'>
-<p class='c009'><a href='#r44'>44</a>. Compare the fifth paragraph of the memorandum inserted at page 107 with the
-first nine lines of 114.</p>
-</div>
-<div class='footnote' id='f45'>
-<p class='c009'><a href='#r45'>45</a>. Court-house or Office.</p>
-</div>
-
-<div class='pbb'>
- <hr class='pb c005'>
-</div>
-<div class='tnotes x-ebookmaker'>
-
-<div class='chapter ph2'>
-
-<div class='nf-center-c0'>
-<div class='nf-center c006'>
-    <div>TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
- <ul class='ul_1 c013'>
-    <li>Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.
-
-    </li>
-    <li>Used numbers for footnotes, placing them all at the end of the last chapter.
-    </li>
-  </ul>
-
-</div>
-
-<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75016 ***</div>
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+  <body>   
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75016 ***</div>
+
+<div class='tnotes covernote'>
+
+<p class='c000'><strong>Transcriber’s Note:</strong></p>
+
+<p class='c000'>New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class='titlepage'>
+
+<div>
+  <h1 class='c001'>BLACKWOOD’S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.<br> <span class='large'><span class='sc'>No.</span> CCCCLXVI.&#8196; &#8196; &#8196; AUGUST, 1854.&#8196; &#8196; &#8196; <span class='sc'>Vol.</span> LXXVI.</span></h1>
+</div>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <h2 class='c002'>CONTENTS.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<table class='table0'>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c003'><span class='sc'>Tricoupi and Alison on the Greek Revolution</span>,</td>
+    <td class='c004'><a href='#Page_119'>119</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c003'><span class='sc'>Student Life in Scotland</span>,</td>
+    <td class='c004'><a href='#Page_135'>135</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c003'><span class='sc'>The Insurrection in Spain</span>,</td>
+    <td class='c004'><a href='#Page_151'>151</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c003'><span class='sc'>The Ethnology of Europe</span>,</td>
+    <td class='c004'><a href='#Page_165'>165</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c003'><span class='sc'>The Gangetic Provinces of British India</span>,</td>
+    <td class='c004'><a href='#Page_183'>183</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c003'><span class='sc'>The Secret of Stoke Manor: a Family History.—Part III.</span>,</td>
+    <td class='c004'><a href='#Page_206'>206</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c003'><span class='sc'>Conservative Reascendancy Considered</span>,</td>
+    <td class='c004'><a href='#Page_230'>230</a></td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+  <div class='nf-center'>
+    <div>EDINBURGH:</div>
+    <div>WILLIAM BLACKWOOD &#38; SONS, 45 GEORGE STREET,</div>
+    <div>AND 37 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON;</div>
+    <div class='c005'><em>To whom all communications (post paid) must be addressed.</em></div>
+    <div class='c005'>SOLD BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM.</div>
+    <div class='c005'>PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+</div>
+<div><span class='pageno' id='Page_119'>119</span></div>
+<div class='chapter ph1'>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c006'>
+    <div>BLACKWOOD’S</div>
+    <div class='c005'>EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.</div>
+    <div class='c005'><span class='large'><span class='sc'>No.</span> CCCCLXVI.&#8196; &#8196; &#8196; AUGUST, 1854.&#8196; &#8196; &#8196; <span class='sc'>Vol.</span> LXXVI.</span></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <h2 class='c002'>TRICOUPI AND ALISON ON THE GREEK REVOLUTION.<a id='r1'></a><a href='#f1' class='c007'><sup>[1]</sup></a><a id='r2'></a><a href='#f2' class='c007'><sup>[2]</sup></a></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c008'>We certainly owe an apology to
+our Greek ambassador. The nine
+hundred and ninety-ninth edition of
+a declamatory old play of Euripides,
+cut and slashed into the most newfangled
+propriety by some J. A. Hartung,
+or other critical German, with a
+tomahawk, is a phenomenon in the
+literary world that can excite no attention;
+but when a regularly built
+living Greek comes forward in the
+middle of this nineteenth century,
+exactly four hundred years after the
+last Byzantine chronicler had been
+blown into the air by our brave allies
+the Turks—and within the precincts
+of the Red Lion Court, London—ἐν
+τῇ ἀυλῇ τοῦ ἐρυθροῦ λέοντος—puts forth
+a regularly built history of the Greek
+Revolution of 1821, thereby claiming—not
+without impudence, as some
+think—a place on our classical shelves
+alongside of Herodotus, Thucydides,
+and Xenophon, and a great way above
+Diodorus Siculus, and other such retailers
+of venerable hearsay: this truly
+is an event in the Greek world that
+claims notice from the general reviewer
+even more than from the professed
+classical scholar. At the present moment,
+particularly, one likes to see
+what a living Greek, with a pen in his
+hand, has to say for himself; his
+language and his power of utterance
+is an element in the great Turko-Russian
+question that cannot be lost sight
+of. Doubly welcome, therefore, is
+this first instalment of Mr Tricoupi’s
+long-expected history; and as it happens
+opportunely that the most interesting
+portion of Sir A. Alison’s third
+volume is occupied with the same
+theme, we eagerly seize the present
+opportunity at once to acquit ourselves
+of an old debt to our Hellenic ambassador,
+and to thank Sir A. Alison for
+the spirited, graphic, and thoroughly
+sympathetic style in which he has presented
+to the general English reader
+the history of a bright period of Greek
+history, which recent events have
+somewhat tended to becloud. It is
+not our intention on the present
+occasion to attempt a sketch of
+the strategetical movements of the
+Greek war, 1821–6. A criticism of
+these will be more opportune when
+Mr Tricoupi shall have finished his
+great work.<a id='r3'></a><a href='#f3' class='c007'><sup>[3]</sup></a> We shall rather confine
+ourselves to bringing out a few salient
+points of that great movement, which
+may serve, by way of contrast or
+similitude, to throw light on the very
+significant struggle in which we are
+now engaged. A single word, however,
+in the first place, with regard to
+the dialect in which Mr Tricoupi’s
+work is written; as that is a point on
+which all persons are not well informed,
+and a point also by no means
+unimportant in the decision of the
+question,—<em>What are the hopes, prospects,
+and capabilities of the living
+race of Greeks?</em></p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Now, with regard to this point, Mr
+Tricoupi’s book furnishes the most
+decided and convincing evidence that
+the language of Aristotle and Plato
+yet survives in a state of the most
+perfect purity, the materials of which
+it is composed being genuine Greek,
+and the main difference between the
+style of Tricoupi and that of Xenophon
+consisting in the loss of a few superfluous
+verbal flexions, and the adoption
+of one or two new syntactical
+forms to compensate for the loss—the
+merest points of grammar, indeed, which
+to a schoolmaster great in Attic forms
+may appear mighty, but to the general
+scholar, and the practical linguist, are
+of no moment. A few such words of
+Turkish extraction, as ζάμιον, <em>a mosque</em>;
+φιρμάνιον, <em>a firman</em>; βεζιρης, <em>a vizier</em>;
+γενίτσαρος, <em>a janizary</em>; ραγιάδης, <em>a
+rajah</em>, so far from being any blot on
+the purity of Mr Tricoupi’s Greek, do
+in fact only prove his good sense; for
+even the ancient Greeks, ultra-national
+as they were in all their habits, never
+scrupled to adopt a foreign word—such
+as γάζα, παράδεισος, ἄγγαρος—when it
+came in their way, just as we have
+κοδράντης, κηνσος, σουδάριον, and a few
+other Latinisms in the New Testament.
+The fact is, that the modern
+Greeks are rather to be blamed for
+the affectation of extreme purity in
+their style, than for any undue admixture
+of foreign words, such as we find
+by scores in every German newspaper.
+But this is their affair. It is a vice
+that leans to virtue’s side, and springs
+manifestly from that strong and
+obstinate vitality of race which has
+survived the political revolutions of
+nearly two thousand years; and a
+vice, moreover, that may prove of the
+utmost use to our young scholars, who
+may have the sense and the enterprise
+to turn it to practical account. For,
+as the pure Greek of Mr Tricoupi’s
+book is no private invention of his
+own, but the very same dialect which
+is at present used as an organ of intellectual
+utterance by a large phalanx
+of talented professors in the University
+of Athens, and is in fact the language
+of polite intercourse over the whole of
+Greece, it follows that Greek, which
+is at present almost universally studied
+as a dead language, and that by a most
+laborious and tedious process of grammatical
+indoctrination, may be more
+readily picked up, like German or
+French, in the course of the living
+practice of a few months. It is
+worthy of serious consideration, indeed,
+how far the progress of our
+young men in an available knowledge
+of the finest language of the world may
+have been impeded by the perverse
+methods of teachers who could not
+speak, and who gave themselves no
+concern to speak, the language which
+they were teaching; who invented,
+also, an arbitrary system of pronouncing
+the language, which completely
+separated them from the nation who
+speak it. But this is a philological
+matter on which we have no vocation
+to enter here: we only drop a hint
+for the wise, who are able to inquire
+and to conclude for themselves.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>We now proceed to business. There
+are five points connected with the
+late Greek Revolution which stand out
+with a prominent interest at the present
+moment.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'><em>First</em>,—The character, conduct, and
+position of <span class='sc'>Russia</span> at the outbreak of
+the Revolution.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'><em>Second</em>,—The character and conduct
+of the <span class='sc'>Turks</span> and the Turkish government,
+as displayed by the manner in
+which the revolt was met.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'><em>Third</em>,—The character, conduct,
+and political significance of the <span class='sc'>Greek
+people</span>, as exhibited during the five
+years’ struggle.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'><em>Fourth</em>,—The character, conduct,
+and position of <span class='sc'>Russia</span>, as more fully
+developed at the conclusion of the
+struggle.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'><em>Fifth</em>,—The character, conduct, and
+political significance of the <span class='sc'>Greek
+people</span>, as exhibited since the battle
+of Navarino and the establishment of
+the existing Bavarian dynasty.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>On all these points we shall offer a
+few remarks in the order in which
+they are set down.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'><em>First</em>,—As to the conduct of <span class='sc'>Russia</span>.
+It is a remarkable fact, and very significant
+of the nature of Russian influence
+in Turkey, that the Greek
+Revolution did not commence where
+one might have expected it to commence,
+in Greece proper—<em>i.e.</em>, the
+mountainous strongholds of Acarnania
+and the Peloponnesus—but in those
+very Principalities where we are now
+fighting, and where the Muscovites
+are always intriguing. How was
+this? Plainly because all those
+Greeks who had for years been brewing
+revolt in their ἑταιριαι, or secret
+conspiracies, took it for granted that
+on that nominally Turkish but really
+Russian ground, Russia would at once
+come forward and help them to kill—we
+use the Imperial simile—the sick
+old Infidel, who had been so long lying
+with his diseased lumpish body on
+the back of the Christian population;
+and accordingly the man whom they
+set up to raise the flag of Christian
+insurrection on the banks of the
+Pruth and the Sereth, was an officer
+in the Russian service, Alexander
+Ypsilanti by name; and the first thing
+he did when he came forward as military
+head of the revolt in the Principalities,
+was to put forth a proclamation,
+in which the Christian tribes of
+Turkey were told that “<em>a great European
+power</em>” might be depended on as
+“<em>patronising the insurrection</em>”—ὁτι
+μιά μεγάλη δύναμις τοῦς προστατευει.
+Now, here was a lie to begin with, to
+which perhaps the old <i><span lang="la">Græcia mendax</span></i>
+may seem not inapplicable: but in
+fact it was a most probable lie; and
+if lies were at all justifiable, either on
+principle or policy, at the opening
+scene of a great war, certainly this
+was the lie which at that time and
+place looked most like the truth. But
+it is a dangerous thing to raise warlike
+enthusiasm at any time, especially
+when an emperor is concerned, by
+sounding statements not founded on
+truth. Had the Czar been ever so
+willing to assist the movement of the
+Wallachian Greeks, and to lead his
+victorious Cossacks, scarcely returned
+from fair Paris, to magnificent Stamboul,
+he could not but feel offended at
+the unceremonious manner in which
+his decision had been taken out of his
+own mouth, and the absolute spontaneity
+of an imperial ukase been
+forestalled by a vagabond Greek captain.
+But the Greeks were, from the
+beginning, out of their reckoning in
+supposing that the then Czar would,
+as a matter of course, patronise their
+insurrectionary movement against the
+Turks. Alexander, though not naturally
+a very bellicose person, had
+already done as much for the territorial
+aggrandisement of Russia as
+would have contented the most warlike
+of his predecessors. He had
+rounded off the north-west corner of
+his vast domain in the most neat and
+dexterous way by the appropriation
+of Finland in 1808; and he had profited
+alike in the upshot by the friendship
+of Napoleon at Tilsit in 1807,
+and by his enmity at Moscow in 1812.
+That he should enter upon a new, and
+in all probability a severe contest with
+another enemy, and put himself at the
+head of a great insurrectionary movement,
+disturbing all the peaceful relations
+so recently established, and in
+such friendly amity with the great
+conservative powers at Paris and
+Vienna, was a proceeding not to be
+looked for from a moderate and a
+prudent man. This the Greeks might
+have known, had they not been befooled
+by patriotic passion. A “<em>holy</em>
+alliance” no doubt it was which, in
+1815, the pious soul of the good Czar
+had made with his brother kings; but
+this “holiness” was either a mere fraternisation
+of sentiment, too vague to
+be of any practical force, or at best a religious
+stamp placed upon a document,
+the contents of which were essentially
+political, and did not at all warrant
+the expectation that the most Christian
+crowned Allies should be called
+upon to interfere in supporting every
+revolt which Christian subjects in any
+land might feel themselves called upon
+to make against their traditional lords.
+Then as to politics: Though Alexander
+was a most kind-hearted, truly
+popular, and very liberal sovereign,
+and had made speeches at Paris, Warsaw,
+and elsewhere, equal to anything
+ever spouted by the present Majesty
+of Prussia in his most liberal fits, yet
+he was very little of a constitutionalist,
+and not at all a democrat. From Laybach,
+therefore, where he was when
+the revolution broke out in March
+1821, he gave his decision in the matter
+of the Greek insurrection in the
+following very remarkable words:—</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“The motives of the Emperor are now
+known, from the best of all sources, his
+own words, in confidential conversation
+with Mons. de Chateaubriand. ‘The time
+is past,’ said he, ‘when there can be a
+French, Russian, Prussian, or Austrian
+policy. One only policy for the safety of
+all can be admitted in common by all
+people and all kings. It devolves on me
+to show myself the first to be convinced
+of the principles on which the Holy
+Alliance is founded. An opportunity
+presented itself on occasion of the insurrection
+of the Greeks. Nothing certainly
+could have been more for my interests,
+those of my people, and the opinion of my
+country, than a religious war against the
+Turks; but I discerned in the <em>troubles of
+the Peloponnesus the revolutionary mark.
+From that moment I kept aloof from them.</em>
+Nothing has been spared to turn me aside
+from the Alliance; but in vain. My self-love
+has been assailed, my prejudices
+appealed to; but in vain. What need
+have I for an extension of my empire?
+Providence has not put under my orders
+800,000 soldiers to satisfy my ambition,
+but to protect religion, morality, and
+justice, and to establish the principles of
+order on which human society reposes.’
+In pursuance of these principles, Count
+Nesselrode declared officially that ‘his
+Imperial Majesty could not regard the
+enterprise of Ypsilanti as anything but
+the effect of the exaltation which characterises
+the present epoch, as well as of
+the inexperience and levity of that young
+man, whose name is ordered to be erased
+from the Russian service.’ Orders were
+at the same time sent to the imperial
+forces on the Pruth and in the Black Sea
+to observe the strictest neutrality.”</p>
+
+<p class='c008'>The publication of this resolution
+on the part of the Imperial government
+effectually quashed the movement
+in the Principalities; and poor
+Ypsilanti, after a few awkward and
+ill-managed plunges, was obliged to
+back out of his position, and, leaving
+“Olympian George,” and other sturdy
+Greek mountaineers, in the lurch, seek
+for refuge, and find a prison in Austria.
+In this whole affair, however, though
+the Greeks had shown themselves
+very vain and foolish, no man can
+deny that the Czar behaved with
+great moderation—like a gentleman, in
+fact, and a Christian, as he was—and
+moreover, we must add, like a wise
+politician. For we can scarcely agree
+with some strong indications of feeling,
+both in Tricoupi and in Sir Archibald
+Alison,<a id='r4'></a><a href='#f4' class='c007'><sup>[4]</sup></a> that any Christian power
+would have been justified in supporting
+a revolt of Christian subjects
+against their lawful sovereign, being
+an Infidel, till these Christians had
+first shown, by their own exertions,
+that they were worthy of the intervention
+which afterwards took place
+in their favour. We see, also, that
+Lord Aberdeen, in some late remarks
+in the House of Lords, was quite
+correct historically when he called
+attention to the comparative “moderation”
+of Russian counsels in some
+of her dealings with Turkey. Russia,
+in fact, never has displayed any very
+flagrant rapacity in her dealings with
+Turkey, for the best of all possible
+reasons,—because, having as much of
+the fox as of the bear in her nature,
+she does not wish to alarm the
+European powers on a point where
+she knows they are peculiarly sensitive.
+Her policy has been to poison
+the sick old man, not to kill him; and
+in this very moderation, as all the
+world now knows, lies the peculiar
+danger of her encroachments. Like a
+deep swirling river, she rolls beneath
+the fat mud-banks of your political
+<span class='fss'>STATUS QUO</span>, and you suspect no harm,
+and can walk on the green bank with
+delectation; but when the flood comes,
+there will be a shaking and a precipitation;
+and then God help the
+sleepers!</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>So much for Russia. Our next
+question relates to the Turks. How
+did they behave at the outbreak of the
+insurrection? The answer is given in
+two words—like butchers, and like
+blunderers. Like butchers in the first
+place. Their way of crushing an insurrection
+was truly a brutal one—πολιτική
+θηριώδης as Mr Tricoupi
+says; or shall we not rather say
+devilish. Certainly Sylla, in his most
+sanguinary humours, never enacted
+anything more inhuman and more
+diabolical than the wholesale massacre
+of the prosperous Greeks in Scios,
+April 1822, which, next to certain
+scenes when the Furies were let loose
+in France, forms the most bloody
+page of modern history.<a id='r5'></a><a href='#f5' class='c007'><sup>[5]</sup></a> When a
+Turk suspects a Greek of treason, he
+makes short work of it: no forms of
+law, no investigation, no trial, no
+proof; but right on with the instinct
+of a tiger, in the very simple and
+effective old Oriental style,—“<em>Why
+should this dead dog curse my lord the
+king? let me go over, I pray thee, and
+take off his head.</em>” So an old Jew
+once said to King David; but Sultan
+Mahmoud did not require that a word
+of cursing should have been spoken.
+Sufficient that the individual marked
+for butchery stood in a prominent
+situation, and was of the same brotherhood
+as those who had spoken or
+acted treason: if he was not guilty in
+his own person, he was bound to be
+cognisant of the guilt of others; and
+for not revealing this guilt he must
+die. Such is the simple theory on
+which proceeded the wholesale murders
+which took place at Constantinople
+so soon as word was brought of
+the insurrectionary movement in the
+Principalities. As a specimen of these
+infamous proceedings, we shall select
+from Mr Tricoupi’s book the account
+of the death of the Patriarch Gregory,
+a murder committed with the most
+flagrant disregard of all the forms of
+justice (if there be such forms in
+Turkey), and under circumstances
+calculated to rouse to the utmost
+pitch the spirit of the people whom it
+was intended to crush; a murder,
+therefore, not merely cruel and barbarous,
+but stupid and impolitic. The
+account given by our author of this
+most characteristic event is somewhat
+circumstantial, as might be expected
+from the piety of a true Greek writing
+on such a subject. We curtail it,
+however, as little as possible,—especially
+as the closing scene, in which
+Russia appears a chief actor, affords
+a vivid glimpse of the very natural
+manner in which, unassisted by any
+evil arts of diplomacy, that power
+can continually earn for itself golden
+opinions among the Christian nations
+of the south.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>“On the evening of Easter Saturday,
+or great Saturday—το μέγα σάββατον,
+as the Greeks call it—being the
+9th of March, there were seen dispersed
+in the neighbourhood of the
+Patriarch’s palace, within and without
+the Fanar, about five thousand armed
+Janizaries, without any person knowing
+why. The Janizaries perambulated
+the streets of the Fanar the
+whole night, but did no harm to any
+one. At midnight, as is the use in
+our Church, the church-crier made
+proclamation, and the Christian people,
+though under great apprehensions,
+immediately obeyed the sacred summons,
+and assembled without hindrance
+or disturbance in the church of
+the Patriarchate. The Patriarch himself
+officiated as usual, with twelve
+other priests; and after the service
+was finished, the people were dismissed,
+and retired quietly to their
+own homes. The Patriarch went to
+his palace, when the first streaks
+of day were beginning to appear; but
+scarcely had he entered, when word
+was brought that Staurakis Aristarches,
+the great Interpreter, wished to
+speak with him. The Patriarch proposed
+to go with him to his private
+room, but the Interpreter replied that
+he preferred being taken immediately
+to the great Hall of the Synod. There
+he came with one of the Secretaries
+of State, and forthwith produced a
+firman, which he declared he had
+orders to read aloud without a moment’s
+delay in the presence of the
+Patriarch, the chief priests, the heads
+of the Greek people, and the deacons
+of corporations. These parties were
+sent for, and the firman instantly
+read as follows: ‘Forasmuch as the
+Patriarch Gregory has shown himself
+unworthy of the patriarchal throne,
+ungrateful to the Porte, and a deviser
+of plots,—for these reasons he is deposed
+from his office.’ The Patriarch,
+accompanied by his faithful archdeacon,
+was immediately led off to prison;
+and as soon as he had left the hall, a
+second firman was read out in the
+following terms:  ‘Forasmuch as the
+Sublime Porte does not desire to deprive
+his faithful subjects of their
+spiritual superintendence, he hereby
+commands them to elect a patriarch
+according to their ancient custom.’
+A consultation immediately took place
+among the clergy; and they agreed
+that they should call to the patriarchal
+throne Cyril, who had been formerly
+patriarch, and was now in Adrianople;
+but the secretary replied that this
+could not be allowed, as the proposed
+patriarch was absent, and under present
+circumstances the Porte could
+not allow the throne to be vacant for
+a single hour; wherefore he commanded
+them instantly to make election
+of a new patriarch from the number
+of the clergy then present. Another
+consultation immediately took place;
+and after considerable difficulty the
+vote fell upon Peisidias Eugenios, who,
+according to usage, was immediately
+sent to the Porte, the rest remaining
+till he should return. After three
+hours he appeared, environed with a
+pomp and circumstance more magnificent
+than usual.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>“This ceremony of electing the new
+pontiff was still going on, when Gregory
+was led out of prison, where he
+had been preparing himself by constant
+prayer for the death which he
+had too good reason for supposing was
+prepared for him. After taking him
+from the prison, they put him into a
+boat, and disembarked him on the
+strand of the Fanar. There the venerable
+old man, looking up steadfastly
+to heaven,<a id='r6'></a><a href='#f6' class='c007'><sup>[6]</sup></a> made the sign of the cross,
+and knelt down, and inclined his
+hoary head to the executioner’s axe;
+but the headsman ordered him to rise,
+saying that here was not the place
+where he was to be executed. They
+accordingly led him into his own
+palace, and there the executioner hung
+him as he was praying on the threshold
+of the principal entrance at the
+hour of noon on Easter Sunday—so that
+at the very moment when the wretched
+Christians above were singing the
+hymn of welcome to their new Patriarch,
+with the accustomed words εις
+πολλᾶ ἔτη δέσποτα, his predecessor was
+hung on the ground-floor like a thief
+and a malefactor; the very holy person
+who only a few hours before had
+offered the bloodless sacrifice for the
+sins of the people, and had blessed
+his faithful flock, who, with devoutness
+and contrition of heart, had
+kissed the hand that had been hallowed
+by the handling of the holiest
+elements. The last moments of Gregory
+were moments of pure faith and
+resignation, springing from an unspotted
+conscience, a heart the fountain
+of good deeds, a calm contempt
+of this ephemeral life, and a bright
+expectation of futurity. The writing
+of condemnation, by virtue of which he
+died, called, in Turkish, <em>Yiaftás</em>, was
+fixed upon the dead body, and set forth
+the causes of his death as follows.”</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Here Mr Tricoupi gives the Turkish
+act of condemnation at full length;
+but the substance of it is contained in
+two points: first, “that the Patriarch
+did not use his spiritual weapons of
+excommunication, &#38;c., against the
+revolters; and, second, that he was
+personally privy to the conspiracy.”
+To which two charges the historian
+answers shortly that the first is
+directly contrary to the fact (for the
+revolters were excommunicated by
+the Greek hierarchy in the capital);
+and with regard to the second, he
+avers, that though it was quite impossible
+for the head of the Greek
+Church to be ignorant of the existence
+of a conspiracy of which thousands
+of the most notable Greeks in
+Europe were members, yet he was
+never a member of the secret societies,
+and had, on the contrary, like
+many other influential persons of his
+nation, considered the movement premature,<a id='r7'></a><a href='#f7' class='c007'><sup>[7]</sup></a>
+and warned his countrymen
+against it as likely to lead to the
+most pernicious consequences. But
+it is vain, as we already remarked,
+to look for reasons that would
+satisfy any European ideas of justice
+in proceedings between Turks in
+authority and rebellious Giaours.
+The calm and solemn gentleman,
+enveloped in smoke and coffee fumes,
+whose bland dignity we so much
+admired in time of peace, becomes
+suddenly seized with a preternatural
+fury when the scent of Greek blood
+is in the gale. It is a primary law
+of his religion, inherited from the
+oldest Oriental theocracies, that no
+infidel is entitled to live; and if the
+head seems more serviceable for the
+nonce than the capitation-tax, which
+is its substitute, the law of the
+Prophet is satisfied, and no man has
+a right to complain. Mr Tricoupi
+now proceeds with his narrative.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“The execution being over, the great
+interpreter, the secretary, and their
+attendants, left the palace of the Patriarch.
+In the evening of the same
+day, Beterli Ali Pasha, who had recently
+been appointed Grand Vizier, went
+through the Fanar with only one attendant,
+and, asking for a chair, sat
+down for five or six minutes on the
+street opposite the suspended body of
+the Patriarch, looking at him, and
+speaking to his attendant. After an
+hour the Sultan himself passed the same
+way, and cast his eye on the Patriarch.
+The body remained suspended three
+days; but on the fourth the hangman
+took it down to throw it into the sea, it
+being contrary to law in Turkey that
+persons hung or beheaded should receive
+burial. Then there came to the hangman
+certain Jews, and having received
+his permission (some say that they bribed
+him), bound together the feet of the
+corpse, and dragged it away to the
+extreme end of the quay of the Fanar,
+with mockery and blasphemous words.
+Then they threw it into the sea, and
+gave the end of the rope with which
+they had bound the feet to the hangman,
+who, having gone before, was waiting
+them in a little boat. He immediately,
+seizing the rope and dragging the body
+after him, came to the middle of the
+bay,<a id='r8'></a><a href='#f8' class='c007'><sup>[8]</sup></a> and there attached to the body a
+stone which he had brought with him in
+order to sink it: but it proved not
+weighty enough for this purpose; so he
+left the corpse floating on the water,
+and, making for the strand, came back
+with two other stones, which he attached
+to the body; and then, giving it two or
+three stabs with his knife, to let out the
+water, he immediately sunk it. After
+some days, however, it came to the
+surface at Galata between two ships
+lying at the point where a great many
+boats are always stationed, for passing
+over to the city. One of these ships
+was a Slavonian, and the other a Greek,
+from Cephalonia. The captain of the
+Slavonian saw the body first, and threw
+some straw matting over it, with the
+view of concealing it till the night, when
+he meant to bury it, like a good Christian.
+But when the evening came, the
+Cephalonian captain anticipated him, and
+perceiving from the unshaven chin that
+it was the body of a priest, brought into
+his ship secretly some Christians, who
+assured him that it was the body of the
+Patriarch. The pious Cephaliote immediately
+swathed the body in a winding-sheet,
+and, transporting it to Odessa,
+deposited it in the Lazaretto there.<a id='r9'></a><a href='#f9' class='c007'><sup>[9]</sup></a>
+There the body was examined by the
+order of the governor, and was recognised
+by certain signs as that of the
+Patriarch.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“Information of this being sent to St
+Petersburg, orders were given to bury
+the body with all appropriate honours.
+The sacred Russian synod came to assist
+in the funeral ceremony; and on the 17th
+of June there were assembled in the
+Lazaretto all the local authorities, political
+and military, the two metropolitan
+bishops, Cyril of Silistria, and Gregory
+of Hieropolis; also Demetrius, bishop of
+Bender and Akerman, all the clergy
+of the province, a great number of Greek
+refugees, who had fled from the butchery
+at Constantinople. Then the church
+bells were rung, the funeral psalms were
+sung, a salute of cannons was given, and,
+with the accompaniment of military
+music and the prayers of the congregated
+faithful, the remains of the venerated
+Patriarch were carried to the metropolitan
+church of Odessa. Here they
+remained three days, till the 19th, when
+the burial-service was again sung, and a
+funeral oration was pronounced by Constantine
+Œconomos, preacher to the
+Œcomenic Patriarchate, who happened
+to be in Odessa; after which the body
+was removed with great pomp to the
+church of the Greeks, and deposited in a
+new sepulchre within the railing of the
+holy altar, at the north side of the holy
+table, as being the body of a martyr.
+And thus—to use the very words of the
+semi-official journal of St Petersburg—by
+the command of the most pious Autocrat
+of all the Russians, Alexander I., were
+rendered due honours of faith and love
+to Gregory, the holy Patriarch of the
+Eastern Orthodox Church of the Greeks,
+who suffered a martyr’s death.”</p>
+
+<p class='c008'>Next to the butchery—which, by
+the way, the Greeks, as opportunity
+offered, were not ashamed to retaliate—the
+most noticeable thing in the
+Turkish conduct of the war was their
+extraordinary slowness, fickleness,
+inefficiency, and bungling of every
+sort. The insurrection, though attempted
+in Thessaly and Macedonia,
+did, in fact, never extend with any
+permanent force beyond the narrow
+boundaries of the present kingdom
+of Greece, with the addition of Crete,
+and one or two of the Ægean islands,
+now in the possession of the Turks;
+but to suppress this petty revolt of
+an ill-peopled and divided district,
+occupying a small corner of a vast
+empire, all the strength of Turkey,
+both Asiatic and European, proved in
+vain; for it was not till Ibrahim
+Pasha, in 1825, was sent by his
+father, Mehemet Ali, with a large
+Egyptian armament that the Morea
+was recovered to the Sultan, and the
+insurrection virtually quashed. Now,
+when we consider that the Greeks of
+the Morea were stamped with the servitude
+of nearly four hundred years—that
+they were, in fact, so awed by the
+hereditary authority of their haughty
+masters, that in the beginning of the
+war, as Gordon expressly testifies,
+three hundred of them could not be
+made to stand against thirty Turks;
+that their only effective leaders were
+a few brigand chiefs from the wild
+regions of Acarnania, Ætolia, and
+Epirus; that the land was of such a
+nature as to be kept in subjection by
+fortresses, all of which were in the
+possession of the lords of the soil;
+that the sea was open to the men of
+Stamboul as much as to those of
+Hydra and to Mehemet Ali’s Egyptians,
+we shall see plainly that nothing
+but a wonderful combination of
+slowness, stupidity, and cowardice on
+the part of the Turks could have
+allowed the Greek revolt to protract
+its existence during the space of those
+first four years, when—not without
+large aids from English gold—it continued
+to present a prosperous front
+to the world. What strikes us most
+in the account of the war given by
+Gordon—who will always be a main
+authority—is the great want of capacity
+and enterprise in the Turkish
+commanders both by sea and land—the
+very same weakness, in fact,
+which is remarked at the present hour
+as afflicting the Turkish armies—a
+want of good officers. There is in
+Turkey a want of a high-minded, independent,
+and energetic middle class,
+without which an army never can be
+well officered. Only one efficient
+Turkish captain appeared in the
+whole course of the Greek war; and
+he took Missolonghi.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>We have been anxious to bring
+forward this sad account of the conduct
+of the Turks in the insurrection
+distinctly, as there is a danger, at the
+present moment, of the Turkish military
+virtue being overrated. No man
+who knew that nation ever doubted
+that they could defend a fort well in
+the present war, as they have ever
+done where they happened to have a
+good commander, and acted under
+encouraging circumstances. This is
+the secret of the recent successful defence
+of Silistria, for which we feel
+all respect. With the English and
+French fleet to guard their flank, and
+all Europe as spectators of their
+mettle, with the very existence of
+their empire perhaps at stake, and
+with the choice of their own battlefield—that
+is, the defence of forts—the
+Turks would have been dull truly,
+never to be roused, if the old heroism
+had not flamed out with more than
+wonted fierceness. But the successful
+defence of this fort affords no proof
+that the people who made it possess a
+spirit and an organisation able to
+cope in a continued campaign with
+some Paskiewitch or Diebitch of the
+next generation. Let us look to the
+history of the Greek Revolution, and
+not believe that the Turks are great
+masters in the art of war till they
+have successfully conducted a great
+campaign. Above all things, matters
+must be so arranged at the next
+pacification that the preservation of
+the peace of Europe may not be left
+to depend on them.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Our third question has reference to
+the Greeks. Their conduct in the
+great revolt by which their independence
+was ultimately achieved, deserves
+to be noted with the greater
+care at the present moment, because
+there are not a few persons in this
+country who are only too ready, in
+the unhappy blunder of 1854, to forget
+the glorious heroism of 1821–26. Sir
+A. Alison, we are happy to say, with
+that large spirit of appreciation for
+which he is remarkable, has shown no
+tendency to chime in with this vulgar
+cry. He is not surprised that the
+brigands of Thessaly and Epirus
+should not possess all the virtues of
+Pericles and Aristides; and therefore
+he is not offended. The Greeks, in
+fact, in 1821, were the authors of
+their own liberty, as much as the
+Turks now are the authors of the
+retreat of the Russians from Silistria.
+Most true it is, that without the intervention
+of the Allied Powers, notwithstanding
+their utmost efforts,
+their cause was lost; so also will the
+defence of Silistria have proved in
+vain, if England and France, in the
+proceedings that are yet waited for,
+show weakness or vacillation. But
+the Greeks, in 1821, had this decided
+moral vantage-ground over the Turks
+of the present day, that the intervention
+would never have taken place
+had it not been forced upon the great
+Powers by the popular sympathy
+which the heroism of the Greeks had
+excited. We may say, upon a review
+of the whole five years’ struggle, that
+the Greeks displayed on that occasion
+all the weakness, and indeed all the
+vices, that belonged to a people just
+rising from under the weight of centuries
+of oppression—but virtues also
+of the highest order, which it is of the
+very nature of oppression to make a
+people forget. Oppression, in fact,
+had never done its perfect work with
+this noble-spirited people; it had
+made intriguers of those who remained
+in the Fanar, and mere money-changers
+and money-makers of those
+who peopled the cities; the base
+stamp of slavery also might be found
+on the plains: but freedom remained
+among the mountains; and in Maina
+and Souli every brigand chief was a
+hero. In fact, under such a military
+despotism as that of Turkey, brigandage,
+which is outlawed by a good
+government, becomes the very church
+militant of liberty. Whatsoever virtues,
+therefore, belong to the indomitable
+spirit of nationality when forced
+to create its own law, and redeem
+itself from destruction by the desperate
+efforts of individual self-assertion,
+belonged to the Greek people,
+and those Albanian tribes who were
+identified with them in the highest
+degree. But there was more than
+that. The Greeks, as the whole spirit
+and tendency of Corai’s writings
+show, were intellectually an advancing
+people. They had scholars, and
+thinkers, and poets among them, who
+were fighting not merely for the rude
+privilege of freedom—which a brute
+can understand as well as a man—but
+for the vindication of an intellectual
+heritage of which they were
+proud. To these men the possession
+of the uncorrupted Greek tongue was
+not a mere pretty plaything, as it may
+be to many of our academical men;
+but it was the badge which publicly
+proclaimed their brotherhood with
+that great hierarchy of intellect which
+had conquered ancient Rome, and
+inspired modern Europe. These men
+did not fight with the mere impatient
+spirit of vulgar insurrection: they
+came, like banished kings, claiming a
+long-lost throne; and Europe felt
+that there was a dignity in their work
+not belonging to every exile. But
+there was another element of strength
+in the Greek revolt, without which it
+never could have succeeded, and an
+element which, like their zeal for
+intellectual culture, proved that the
+modern Greeks are the true sons of
+Themistocles and Pericles. This element
+was their use of the sea. The
+Turks, though they had possessed
+the finest harbour in the world for
+four centuries, though they governed
+a country where arms of the sea
+serve the same purpose that railroads
+do elsewhere, had not only made no
+progress in the nautical art, but had
+allowed their enterprising slaves to
+create for themselves a navy by which
+they were to succeed in driving their
+masters out of the field. When Ibrahim
+Pasha, in his march across the
+Morea in 1825, had arrived at that high
+ground between Tripolizza and Argos
+where the island of Hydra becomes
+visible, pointing with his hand to that
+little nest of daring adventurers, he
+exclaimed, “<em>Thou</em> <span class='sc'>little England</span>,
+<em>when shall I hold thee!</em>” This little
+England it was which saved Greece.
+There is nothing in the records of
+modern history more interesting than
+the dashing exploits of the gallant
+Ipsariote Canaris with his fire-ships
+in the Greek war; and wherever
+Miaulis the Hydriote appeared with
+his squadron, there everything that
+could be done was done. But great
+as were the exploits of the islanders,
+Europe, perhaps, knew more, and
+was justly more astonished at the
+gallant conduct of the land army in
+the two sieges of Missolonghi—a
+fortress protected only by shallow
+lagoons and a mud rampart, and
+utterly unprovided with those long
+lines of fire-spouting barricades that
+make Cronstadt and Sevastopol so
+difficult of approach. Yet Missolonghi
+was maintained against the
+whole force of the Turks for two
+years; and when it did fall, the resolute
+garrison made no capitulation,
+but after having exhausted the last
+scraps of raw hides and sea-weeds
+which served them for food, cut their
+way with gallant desperation, men
+and women together, through the
+sabred ranks of their enemies. Nor
+were they without their reward. Let
+Mr Alison speak:—</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Thus fell Missolonghi; but its heroic
+resistance had not been made in vain. It
+laid the foundation of Greek independence;
+for it preserved that blessing
+during a period of despondence and doubt,
+when its very existence had come to be
+endangered. By drawing the whole forces
+of the Ottoman empire upon themselves,
+its heroic garrison allowed the nation to
+remain undisturbed in other quarters, and
+prevented the entire reduction of the
+Morea, which was threatened during the
+first moments of consternation consequent
+on Ibrahim’s success. By holding out so
+long, and with such resolute perseverance,
+they not only inflicted a loss upon
+the enemy greater than they themselves
+experienced, but superior to the whole
+garrison of the place put together. The
+Western nations watched the struggle
+with breathless interest; and when at last
+it terminated in the daring sally, and the
+cutting through of the enemy’s lines by a
+body of intrepid men, fighting for themselves,
+their wives, and children, the public
+enthusiasm knew no bounds. It will
+appear immediately that it was this warm
+sympathy which mainly contributed to
+the success of the Philhellenic societies
+which had sprung up in every country of
+Europe, and ultimately rendered public
+opinion so strong as to lead to the treaty
+of July, the battle of Navarino, and the
+establishment of Greek independence.”</p>
+
+<p class='c008'>On the other hand, we must not
+shut our eyes to the faults of the
+Greek people—which were, in fact,
+just the faults of their ancestors made
+more large and more prominent by
+the long-continued action of circumstances
+favourable to their development.
+Will it be believed?—during
+the time that this heroic struggle was
+going on, by a people manifestly unable,
+even with their strongest combined
+exertions, to withstand their
+gigantic adversary—even in the mid-heat
+and the critical turning-point of
+this grapple for free existence, the
+Greek captains were quarrelling among
+themselves! There were actually
+at one time, as Gordon assures us,
+seven civil wars among a people who
+could only collect hundreds to plant
+against the thousands of their masters!
+Such a self-divided people, one
+might almost say, was unworthy of
+liberty. Certainly if they could not
+agree to fight for themselves, it did
+not seem the business either of France
+or England to force them to be patriotic.
+But, after all, what was
+this but the natural result of the geography
+of the country, and of the circumstances
+under which its latent
+liberty had been maintained? What
+was it else but the same thing, on a
+small scale, which the Peloponnesian
+war exhibited on a large scale? Division
+is the weak point of Greece, and
+always was; and as for other vices
+which stank so strongly in the nostrils
+of some of our sentimental Philhellenes—cunning,
+falsehood, selfishness,
+rapacity, and blushless impudence of
+all kinds—such rank weeds grow from
+a neglected moral soil, not only in
+Greece, but in the streets of London
+and Edinburgh, and elsewhere; the
+only difference being that in our case
+a wicked or neglectful parent brings
+up corrupt individuals, while in the
+case of the modern Greeks, a wicked
+and neglectful government had brought
+up a corrupt people. There is, no
+doubt, some truth in the doctrine of
+races and hereditary propensities; and
+the Greek may probably be more subtle
+in speculation, and more cunning in
+practice, than the other families of
+the Indo-European stock. Nevertheless,
+we are inclined to believe that
+the proverbial falsehood of the Greeks,
+which is the worst vice now continually
+thrown in their teeth, is as much
+the result of circumstances as of blood,
+and that, under the same influences,
+any Teutonic race whose honesty is
+now most loudly bepraised, would exhibit
+a large development of the same
+vice. When a people is not allowed
+to play the lion, it must either learn
+to play the fox or perish.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>We shall now make a few remarks
+on the fourth point stated—viz., the
+circumstances attending the conclusion
+of the war, as illustrative of the
+policy of Russia. Here a very interesting
+contrast immediately presents
+itself. Alexander, as we have
+seen, occupied with various benevolent
+projects and perambulations, fearing
+also not a little everything in the
+shape of rebellion and revolution,
+refused to have anything to do with
+the Greek insurrection. In this he
+behaved like a man, a gentleman, and
+a king, but not like a Russian. As
+a Russian he would have followed
+the footsteps of Catherine, who twice,
+in the latter half of the last century,
+raised a rebellion in the Morea,
+and assisted Greece not from any
+classical enthusiasm, we may be sure,
+(such as helped not a little to fan the
+Greek fire of ourselves and the Germans),
+but that she might cripple
+Turkey by inflicting such a deep
+wound on her left leg as would
+render amputation necessary. All
+this became plain in a few years.
+Alexander died. In the year 1826
+Nicholas succeeded; and matters were
+at that period, by the fall of Missolonghi,
+and Ibrahim Pasha’s occupation
+of the Morea, brought to such a
+pass that the bloody five years’
+struggle, with all its heroism, must
+have gone for nothing, had not the
+tide of popular sympathy begun to
+move so strongly in favour of intervention
+among the great European
+nations, that the governments were
+forced to take the matter up. England,
+as the most classical, and, may
+we not say also, the most generous,
+country in matters of international
+feeling, was the first to make overtures
+for a European demonstration in
+favour of Greek independence; and
+of the consulted Powers none came
+forward with greater alacrity than the
+new Emperor of the North. On the
+invitation of the Duke of Wellington,
+Nicholas was invited to send ships
+into the Mediterranean to co-operate
+with the fleets of France and England
+in coercing the Porte. Here was
+an opportunity thrown in his way, by
+pure accident, to achieve in a few days
+results more favourable to the most
+cherished projects of Russian aggrandisement
+than might have been
+brought about by the tortuous diplomacy
+and bloody encounters of long
+years; and this not only without exciting
+suspicion of ambitious views,
+but amid acclamations, and cheers,
+and philanthropic hurrahs innumerable.
+By joining England and France
+in establishing the independence of
+Greece, the Czar felt that not only
+would Turkey be reft of one of her
+limbs, but a new field would be
+opened for diplomatic intrigue in regions
+hitherto preserved, by the blessings
+of barbarism, from such refinements.
+A little tinselled court at
+Athens, with some German princeling
+on the throne, was no doubt even then
+seen in near vista, as the best possible
+theatre for the display of those arts
+of political falsehood and finesse in
+which the Russian Nesselrodes and
+Pozzo di Borgos excel. But more.
+Might not the Turk, who is by no
+means a milksop, and who can deal
+heavy blows, as we have just seen,
+even from his sick-bed—might not
+the Turk oppose the armed intervention
+of the Powers, and might not
+some untoward collision be the result,
+and might not the Turkish navy be
+annihilated; and then—O! then,
+might not the way to Constantinople
+be more open, and the Balkan more
+easily crossed? Such were the cogitations
+that might naturally begin to
+move in the brain of a thoroughly
+Russian energetic and enterprising
+young Czar, when the proposal was
+made to coerce the Sultan into the
+recognition of the total or partial independence
+of one of his revolted provinces.
+And the result, as we all
+know, was exactly such as the most
+brilliant imagination of a brisk young
+emperor could have conceived. In
+the course of a few months the Turkish
+fleet was destroyed at Navarino;
+in two years Kustendji and Varna,
+and the whole sea-road to Stamboul,
+were in the hands of the Russian fleet;
+and in three years General Diebitch
+had made himself immortal by surmounting
+the unsurmountable Balkan,
+and was resting with twenty thousand
+men (supposed, however, to be sixty
+thousand!) on the banks of the Hebrus
+at Adrianople. Never was game
+better played. The Turko-Russian
+campaign of 1828–9, which we can
+now study to such advantage, was, we
+may say, impossible, but for the battle
+of Navarino, which was only the natural
+result of the armed intervention
+of the three Powers in favour of
+Greece. Add to this the disorganisation
+of the Turkish army, caused by
+the massacre of the Janizaries in
+1826, and the consequent disaffection
+among the old Turkish conservatives;
+and we shall see at once how the
+campaign of 1828–9 ended so gloriously
+for Russia, while that of 1854
+has proved so shameful. The cause
+of the difference lies obviously in the
+command of the Black Sea, which
+Russia, by the disaster of Navarino,
+then had, and which, by the Anglo-French
+alliance, she now has not.
+This, and this only, has on the present
+occasion made the gallant defence
+of a single fortress by the Turks equivalent
+to the loss of a whole campaign
+by the Russians.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The last of our five points only remains—How
+has the establishment
+of Greek independence, by the treaty
+of 1827, answered the expectations of
+its founders?—What is the actual
+state of Greece, material, moral, and
+intellectual?—Are the Greeks under
+German Otho substantially more prosperous
+than they were under the
+Turkish Mahmouds? We cannot, of
+course, hope to answer these questions
+satisfactorily within the limits at present
+prescribed to us; but one or two
+observations we are compelled to
+make, for the sake of taming down
+to somewhat of a more sober temper
+the glowing observations with which
+Sir Archibald Alison concludes his
+fourteenth chapter. There is a class
+of wise men in the world who show
+their wisdom only in the negative way
+of seeing difficulties and making objections.
+Sir Archibald Alison certainly
+does not belong to this class. Once
+possessed by a grand idea, he marches
+on fearlessly to its realisation, and
+lets difficulties shift for themselves.
+He gives you a project for a marble
+palace and a granite bridge; but
+seems to forget sometimes that there
+are only bricks to build with. We
+like this error, which leans to virtue’s
+side, and has a savour of something
+positive and productive; nevertheless
+the truth must be spoken—for in politics
+the best intentions are often the
+mother of the greatest blunders. The
+remarks of Sir Archibald Alison, which
+we think require a little chastening,
+are as follows:—</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“In truth, so far from the treaty of
+6th July 1827 having been an unjustifiable
+interference with the rights of the
+Ottoman Government as an independent
+power, it was just the reverse; and the
+only thing to be regretted is that the
+Christian powers did not interfere earlier
+in the contest, and with far more extensive
+views for the restoration of the Greek
+empire. After the massacre of Chios, the
+Turks had thrown themselves out of the
+pale of civilisation: they had proved
+themselves to be pirates, enemies of the
+human race, and no longer entitled to
+toleration from the European family. Expulsion
+from Europe was the natural and
+legitimate consequence of their flagrant
+violation of its usages in war. Had this
+been done in 1822—had the Congress of
+Verona acceded to the prayers of the
+Greeks, and restored the Christian empire
+of the East under the guarantee of the
+Allied Powers—what an ocean of blood
+would have been dried up, what boundless
+misery prevented, what prospects of
+felicity to the human race opened! A
+Christian monarchy often millions of souls,
+with Constantinople for its capital, would,
+ere this, have added a half to its population,
+wealth, and all the elements of national
+strength. The rapid growth, since
+the Crescent was expelled from their territories,
+of Servia, Greece, the Isles of the
+Archipelago, Wallachia, and Moldavia,
+and of the Christian inhabitants in all
+parts of the country, proves what might
+have been expected had all Turkey in
+Europe been blessed by a similar liberation.
+The fairest portion of Europe would
+have been restored to the rule of religion,
+liberty, and civilisation, and a barrier
+erected by European freedom against
+Asiatic despotism in the regions where it
+was first successfully combated.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“What is the grand difficulty that now
+surrounds the Eastern question, which
+has rendered it all but insoluble even to
+the most far-seeing statesman, and has
+compelled the Western Powers, for their
+own sake, to ally themselves with a state
+which they would all gladly, were it
+practicable without general danger, see
+expelled from Europe? Is it not that
+the Ottoman empire is the only barrier
+which exists against the encroachments
+of Russia, and that if it is destroyed the
+independence of every European state is
+endangered by the extension of the Muscovite
+power from the Baltic to the
+Mediterranean? All see the necessity of
+this barrier, yet all are sensible of its
+weakness, and feel that it is one which is
+daily becoming more feeble, and must in
+the progress of time be swept away. This
+difficulty is entirely of our own creation;
+it might have been obviated, and a firm
+bulwark erected in the East, against
+which all the surges of Muscovite ambition
+would have beat in vain. Had the dictates
+of humanity, justice, and policy been
+listened to in 1822, and a <em>Christian</em> monarchy
+been erected in European Turkey,
+under the guarantee of Austria, France,
+and England, the whole difficulties of the
+Eastern Question would have been obviated,
+and European independence would
+have found an additional security in the
+very quarter where it is now most seriously
+menaced. Instead of the living
+being allied to the dead, they would
+have been linked to the living; and a
+barrier against Eastern conquest erected
+on the shores of the Hellespont, not with
+the worn-out materials of Mahommedan
+despotism, but with the rising energy of
+Christian civilisation.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“But modern Turkey, it is said, is divided
+by race, religion, and situation;
+three-fourths of it are Christian, one-fourth
+Mahommedan: there are six millions
+of Slavonians, four millions of Bulgarians,
+two millions and a half of Turks,
+and only one million of Greeks;—how
+can a united and powerful empire be
+formed of such materials? Most true;
+and in what state was Greece anterior to
+the Persian invasion; Italy before the
+Punic wars; England during the Heptarchy;
+Spain in the time of the Moors;
+France during its civil wars? Has the
+existence of such apparently fatal elements
+of division prevented these countries
+from becoming the most renowned,
+the most powerful, the most prosperous
+communities upon earth? In truth, diversity
+of race, so far from being an element
+of weakness, is, when duly coerced,
+the most prolific source of strength; it
+is to the body politic what the intermixture
+of soils is to the richness of the
+earth. It is the meagreness of unmingled
+race which is the real source of weakness;
+for it leaves hereditary maladies unchanged,
+hereditary defects unsupplied.
+Witness the unchanging ferocity in every
+age of the Ishmaelite, the irremediable
+indolence of the Irish, the incurable arrogance
+of the Turk; while the mingled
+blood of the Briton, the Roman, the Saxon,
+the Dane, and the Norman, has produced
+the race to which is destined the
+sceptre of half the globe.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“Such was the resurrection of Greece;
+thus did old Hellas rise from the grave
+of nations. Scorched by fire, riddled by
+shot, baptised in blood, she emerged victorious
+from the contest; she achieved
+her independence because she proved herself
+worthy of it; she was trained to
+manhood in the only school of real improvement,
+the school of suffering.
+Twenty-five years have elapsed since
+her independence was sealed by the
+battle of Navarino, and already the
+warmest hopes of her friends have been
+realised. Her capital, Athens, now contains
+thirty thousand inhabitants, quadruple
+what it did when the contest terminated;
+its commerce has doubled, and
+all the signs of rapidly advancing prosperity
+are to be seen on the land. The
+inhabitants have increased fifty per cent;
+they are now above seven hundred thousand,
+but the fatal chasms produced by
+the war, especially in the male population,
+are still in a great measure unsupplied,
+and vast tracts of fertile land,
+spread with the bones of its defenders,
+await in every part of the country the
+robust arm of industry for their cultivation.
+The Greeks, indeed, have not all
+the virtues of freemen; perhaps they are
+never destined to exhibit them. Like
+the Muscovites, and from the same cause,
+they are often cunning, fraudulent, deceitful;
+slaves always are such; and a
+nation is not crushed by a thousand years
+of Byzantine despotism, and four hundred
+of Mahommedan oppression, without
+having some of the features of the servile
+character impressed upon it. But they exhibit
+also the cheering symptoms of social
+improvement; they have proved they still
+possess the qualities to which their ancestors’
+greatness was owing. They are
+lively, ardent, and persevering, passionately
+desirous of knowledge, and indefatigable
+in the pursuit of it. The whole
+life which yet animates the Ottoman Empire
+is owing to their intelligence and
+activity. The stagnation of despotism is
+unknown among them; if the union of civilisation
+is unhappily equally unknown, that
+is a virtue of the manhood, and not to be
+looked for in the infancy of nations. The
+consciousness of deficiencies is the first
+step to their removal; the pride of barbarism,
+the self-sufficiency of ignorance,
+is the real bar to improvement; and a
+nation which is capable of making the
+efforts for improvement which the
+Greeks are doing, if not in possession of
+political greatness, is on the road to it.”</p>
+
+<p class='c008'>Now, to the first proposition contained
+in the above remarks, that the
+Great Powers were perfectly justified
+in their intervention to save the Greeks
+from the lawless ferocity of the Turks,
+we have no objections to offer. It is
+a gladdening thing to believe and to
+see that the strong cry of human sympathy
+will sometimes be listened to
+even by politicians, and that heartless
+diplomacy in the public intercourse
+between people and people is
+not all in all. But the summary expulsion
+of the Turks from European
+Turkey, even supposing it were
+not too great a punishment for
+the offence, would, when achieved,
+leave the most difficult part of the
+Greek problem unsolved. Sir Archibald
+assumes that the discordant and
+crude elements of which European
+Turkey, less the Turks, is composed,
+would, in 1827, have readily coalesced,
+or is ready now, in 1854, to coalesce,
+into a great Greek empire, of which
+Constantinople shall be the capital.
+That the Greeks themselves should
+believe this is natural; that Sir Archibald
+Alison should believe it, carried
+away by a noble sympathy with a
+heroic theme, is but the radiation of
+that fire with which the noblest minds
+burn most intensely; but we have
+never conversed with an individual
+practically conversant with the elements
+of which Christian Turkey is
+composed, who looked upon such a
+consummation, in the present age at
+least, as possible. A very intelligent
+and patriotic Greek gentleman once remarked
+in our hearing, that the Greek
+kingdom could never prosper in its
+present tiny dimensions; that the
+Greek Islands—except Corcyra, which
+the English must keep as a naval station—with
+Thessaly, and part of Thrace
+and Macedonia, must be added to it
+before it could be free from that spirit
+of petty intrigue which is the great
+vice of small governments. This is
+intelligible; because the population
+included under such an extended Greek
+kingdom would, by a great predominance
+both of numbers and moral forces,
+be essentially Greek. But when it is
+proposed seriously to revive a Byzantine
+empire, Greek merely in name,
+and comprising such large sections of
+a non-Hellenic population as Servia,
+for instance, and Bulgaria, then, we
+confess, we feel staggered; and all the
+historic analogies which Sir Archibald
+Alison so skilfully presses into his service
+will not give wings to our drooping
+faith. The best-instructed man
+with whom we ever conversed on the
+subject—Dr George Finlay, who has
+lived among the Greeks all his life—declares
+that such a combination is
+impossible: the principle of cohesion
+is too weak, that of repulsion too
+strong: the splendid aggregate would
+fall to pieces in a few years; and out
+of the confused elements a new compulsory
+crystallisation take place under
+the influence—very likely—of
+Russian polarity. Sir Archibald Alison
+himself, in one of the phrases which
+he accidentally drops, seems to admit
+the truth of this view. “Diversity of
+race,” he says, “so far from being an
+element of weakness, is, <em>when duly
+coerced</em>, the most prolific source of
+strength.” Very true, when <em>duly
+coerced</em>; but it is this very principle
+of coercion that would not exist in
+the supposed Byzantine empire; and
+could exist only, according to one of
+Sir A. Alison’s own analogies, through
+the violent subjection of all the other
+races by the one that happened to
+be strongest; for so it was, as Livy
+shows in bloody detail, that the different
+races of Italy were coerced into a
+grand national unity by the Roman
+Latins. But even after all that bloody
+cementing, the aggregate of the Italian
+States, as no one knows better than
+Sir Archibald Alison, was kept together
+by the loosest possible cohesion;
+as the terrible outburst of the Marsic
+or Social war testifies, which well-nigh
+split Italy into two, at a time
+when Julius Cæsar, its future master,
+had not yet begun to trim his beard.
+He certainly, the lion, and his nephew
+Augustus, the fox after him, did use
+the bloody cement successfully, and
+exercised a strong coercion, the effect
+of which is visible even now among
+the again-divided possessors of the
+Italian soil; such a coercion as the
+present Czar of Russia might perhaps
+at the present moment be in the fair
+way of exercising for the sake of the
+Orthodox Church, had Sir Archibald
+Alison’s Byzantine empire been patched
+together with a few purple rags in
+the year 1828. Or again, to take another
+of his analogies, has Sir Archibald
+Alison forgotten what was the
+state of Greece, not anterior to, but
+immediately after the Persian invasion?—did
+it not plunge at once into
+all the pettiness of provincial rivalry?
+and was not the great Peloponnesian
+war a speaking proof, that there
+were no elements of cohesion even
+among pure Greeks, and in the best
+days of Greece, strong enough to keep
+that unfortunate country from consuming
+its own vitals in civil war, and
+becoming, by voluntary self-betrayal,
+first the scoff of the Persian, and
+then the prey of the Macedonian?—With
+these examples before us, we
+cannot but consider ourselves more
+near the truth in following the practical
+statesmen who declared that the
+new Greek kingdom should be confined
+within the limits where the insurrection
+had chiefly raged, and where
+the battle had been fought. Sober
+politicians could not but look upon the
+whole affair as experimental; and
+whatever arguments may in the course
+of events be advanced for an expansion
+of the limits of the existing monarchy,
+no person practically acquainted
+with the events of Greek government,
+or rather <em>mis</em>government, since
+the creation of Otho’s kingdom in
+1832, can imagine that the evils under
+which the country has groaned would
+have been less, had Thessaly and Macedonia
+been at that time included
+within the Hellenic border. We
+should still have had German bureaucracy,
+French constitutionalism, Fanariete
+intrigue, Ætolian brigandage,
+and modern diplomacy, thrown together
+to brew a devil’s soup of jobbery,
+and falsehood, and feebleness,
+over which the wisest man can only
+hold up his hands, and with a hopeless
+wonderment exclaim—</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>“Double, double, toil and trouble;</div>
+      <div class='line'>Fire burn, and cauldron bubble!”</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>In conclusion, we need hardly say
+that we cannot agree with Sir A. Alison
+when he states, so strongly as he does
+in the last paragraph, that “<em>already
+the warmest hopes of the friends of
+Greece have been realised; and all the
+signs of advancing prosperity are to be
+seen in the land</em>.” It is a great mistake
+to imagine that the country is
+really in a prosperous state because
+Athens has trebled its population in
+thirty years. Athens has a well-furnished
+and rather a flourishing appearance,
+for the same reason that
+Nauplia looks out upon the beautiful
+Bay of Argos in such a state of woeful
+dismantlement and dilapidation:
+the court has left the Argive city, and
+travelled to the Attic; and all the
+gilded gingerbread, which you call
+prosperity, has gone with it. Let no
+man be hasty to draw sanguine promises
+of Greek prosperity from anything
+good or glittering that may delight
+his eyes in the streets of Athens.
+That splendid palace of the little German
+prince, now called King of Greece,
+with its fine well-watered gardens
+without, and its fine pictures within,
+and its large dancing-saloon, the wonder
+even of London beauties—this
+palace was a mere toy of the boy’s
+poetical papa, and has no more to do
+with the progress of real prosperity in
+Greece than a wax-doll has to do with
+life and organisation. Nay, it may
+be most certainly affirmed, that not a
+small part of that sudden growth of
+the capital of Greece is, with reference
+to the country at large, a positive evil,
+a brilliant excrescence, which owes
+its existence altogether to the artificial
+attraction of the nutritive fluids of the
+body politic to one prominent point,
+while the largest and most useful
+limbs are left without their natural
+supply. If there are shining white
+palaces, and green Venetian blinds,
+in one Greek city, there is desolation
+and dreariness, stagnation and every
+sort of barbarism, in the fields. But
+“commerce flourishes;” it has doubled,
+says Sir A. Alison, since the battle
+of Navarino. Be it so. Patras is a
+goodly city, preferable, in some points,
+to Athens, we think; but were there
+not rich merchants at Hydra before
+the Revolution? and are the Greeks
+at Patras more prosperous than at
+Salonica, at Odessa, at Trieste, at
+Leghorn, at Manchester? There were
+always clever merchants among the
+Greeks, just as generally as there are
+sharp bankers and money-changers
+among Jews and Armenians.  We
+would by no means despair of Young
+Greece; there is much to admire in
+her, especially her schools, university,
+and the wonderful culture of her
+deathless language in its most recent
+shape; and only in a fit of foolish pettishness
+would any Englishman entertain
+the thought of blotting her
+again out of the map of nations, for
+any of the many sins she has committed,
+whether by her own fault, or—what
+we suspect to be the real truth—by
+the ignorant and officious agency
+of German bureaucratists, Anglo-French
+constitutionalists, and Muscovite
+diplomatists. Nevertheless, in
+so slippery a science as politics, and
+with creatures so difficult to manage
+as human beings, it is always better to
+avoid the temptation of drawing panoramic
+pictures in rose colour; and
+with regard to Greece, a country to
+which humanity owes so much, our
+first duty, in the present very critical
+state of Europe, is to look soberly at
+a reality full of perilous problems,
+and to possess our souls in patience.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_135'>135</span>
+  <h2 class='c002'>STUDENT LIFE IN SCOTLAND.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c008'>If the latest lingering summer tourist
+in Scotland should perchance delay
+his departure until he is driven southward
+by the chill evenings of November,
+he may chance to see arising
+around him, in some considerable
+town, a race of young men, whose
+loose robes, varying from the brightest
+of fresh scarlet to the sombrest hue
+which years of bad usage can bestow
+on that gay colour, attract him as
+peculiar and funny, and as, on the
+whole, a phenomenon provocative of
+inquiry. He is told that the session
+has begun, and these are the students
+of the university. The information
+will perhaps be surprising to him,
+whoever he be: if he be an Oxonian
+or Cantab, a sneer of derision will
+perhaps curve his lips when he remembers
+the gentleman commoners, and
+tufted noblemen, who crowd the
+streets of his Alma Mater in haughty
+exclusiveness and unmeasured contempt
+of the citizen class, who evidently
+have no respect whatever for
+the scarlet gown men of poor Scotland.
+Indeed, the luxurious academic ease,
+the placid repose of dignified scholarship,
+are strangers to these wearers
+of the flowing toga. It is evident that
+many of them have felt the pinch of
+poverty. No pliant gyp attends the
+toilet, or lays forth the table for the
+jovial “night-cap.” Hard work and
+hard fare are their portion, and their
+raiment shows that they have been
+rubbed roughly against the world, instead
+of being set apart from its toils
+and cares and vulgar turmoil in aristocratic
+isolation. Some of the gowns
+are bright and new, indeed, and the
+faces in which they culminate are
+ruddy, fresh, and warm. Yet the
+youths endowed in these blushing
+honours seem not to exult therein,
+but rather to give place to the hard-featured
+brethren, whose threadbare
+togas bear the grim marks of mud
+and soot, or hang in tatters like a
+beggar’s cloak. The truth is, that
+the wear and tear of the gown is held
+indicative of advancement in the academic
+curriculum, and is rather encouraged
+than avoided. And of those
+who wear it, many, though they may
+have been sufficiently tutored in the
+economy of their more serviceable
+clothing, have not made acquisitions
+in the school of finery, or acquired a
+weakness for decorative vanity. We
+remember an instance of a hard-featured
+mountaineer, who afterwards
+rose to distinction in an abstruse department
+of science, being charged by
+his fellow-students with having so far
+desecrated the gown as to have perambulated
+the streets with a barrow
+hawking potatoes, by the cry of “Taties—taties!”
+He admitted the commercial
+part of the charge, but denied
+the admixture of potato-vender and
+student by the desecration of the
+robes. He was careful to put off his
+gown while he cried “taties.”</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>With all these and other indications
+of poverty, there is something to our
+eyes extremely interesting in the Scottish
+universities, as relics preserved
+through all changes in dynasties, constitutions,
+and ecclesiastical polities,
+through poverty, neglect, and enmity,
+of the original characteristics of the
+university system, as it existed in
+all its grandeur of design in the middle
+ages.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>A collection of remarkable papers,
+now before us, opens up and presents,
+in valuable and full light, the progress
+of a portion of our Scottish universities.
+They consist of two works of
+that class commonly called “Club
+Books.” The one is a collection of
+records and other documents connected
+with the University of Glasgow,
+printed under the auspices of the Maitland
+Club; the other a “Fasti Aberdonenses,”
+appropriately collected by
+that northern association which, in
+honour of the Cavalier annalist of
+“The Troubles,” is called the “Spalding
+Club.” Both works are edited
+with that peculiar archæological strictness
+which has been applied to this
+class of documents, through the special
+skill of Mr Cosmo Innes. They
+are both edited by him, with some
+partial aid, in the case of the Glasgow
+documents, from his ablest coadjutor
+in Scottish archæology, Mr Joseph Robertson.
+These volumes form a very
+apt supplement to that collection of
+ecclesiastical records which, arranged
+and printed under the same able
+management, are an honour to our
+country. With the exception of their
+curious and agreeable prefaces, neither
+the chartularies nor the volumes before
+us profess to be readable books.
+They are collections of records, and
+must have all the substantial dryness
+of records. But then they contain in
+themselves the materials of the social
+and incidental history of the classes
+of persons to which they refer, and
+contain imbedded within them the
+materials of instruction, both valuable
+and curious. With some labour we
+have driven shafts through their strata,
+and we may have occasion to lay before
+our readers a few of the specimens
+we have excavated—confining ourselves,
+in the mean time, to the characteristics
+developed by the collection
+of documents.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The direction of these is chiefly to
+show how thoroughly these remote
+institutions partook in the great
+system of the European universities,
+and how many of its vestiges they
+still retain. The forms, the nomenclature,
+and the usages of the middle
+ages are still preserved, though some
+of them have naturally changed their
+character with the shifting of the
+times. Each university has still its
+chancellor, and sometimes a high
+State dignitary accepts of the office. It
+was of old a very peculiar one, for it
+was the link which allied the semi-republican
+institutions of the universities
+to the hierarchy of St Peter.
+The bishop was almost invariably the
+chancellor, unless the university were
+subordinated to some great monastic
+institution, when its head was the
+chancellor—as in Paris the Prior of St
+Genevieve exercised the high office.
+In the Scottish universities the usual
+Continental arrangement seems to
+have been adopted prior to the Reformation—as
+a matter of course, the
+bishop was the chancellor.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>But while the institution was thus
+connected through a high dignitary
+with the Romish hierarchy, it possessed,
+as a great literary community
+with peculiar privileges, its own great
+officer electively chosen for the preservation
+of those privileges. It had
+its rector, who, like the chief magistrate
+of a municipal corporation, but
+infinitely above him in the more illustrious
+character of the functions for
+which his constituents were incorporated,
+stood forth as the head of his
+republic, and its protector from the
+invasions either of the subtle churchmen
+or the grasping barons. The
+rector, indeed, was the concentration
+of that peculiar commonwealth which
+the constitution of the ancient university
+prescribed. Sir William Hamilton
+has shown pretty clearly that,
+in its original acceptation, the word
+Universitas was applied, not to the
+comprehensiveness of the studies, but
+to that of the local and personal
+expansion of the institution. The
+university despised the bounds of provinces,
+and even nations, and was a
+place where ardent minds from all
+parts of the world met to study together,
+and impart to each other the
+influence of collective intellect working
+in combination and competition.
+The constitution of the rectorship was
+calculated to provide for the protection
+of this universality, for the election
+was managed by the procurators
+or proctors of the nations or local
+bodies into which the students were
+divided, generally for the purpose of
+neutralising the naturally superior
+influence of the home students, and
+keeping up the cosmopolitan character
+imparted to the system by its enlightened
+founders. Hence in Paris the
+nations were France, Picardy, and
+England, afterwards changed to Germany,
+in which Scotland was included.
+Glasgow is still divided into
+four nations: the Natio Glottiana, or
+Clydesdale, taken from the name
+given to the river by Tacitus. In
+the Natio Laudoniana were originally
+included the rest of Scotland, but it
+was found expedient to place the
+English and the colonists within it;
+while Albania, intended to include
+Britain south of the Forth, has been
+made rather inaptly the nation of the
+foreigners. Rothesay, the fourth nation,
+includes the extreme west of
+Scotland and Ireland. In Aberdeen
+there is a like division into Marenses,
+or inhabitants of Mar, Angusiani or
+men of Angus, which we believe includes
+the whole world south of the
+Grampians as the Angusiani, while
+the northern districts are partitioned
+into Buchanenses and Moravienses.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The procurators of the nations were,
+in the University of Paris, those high
+authorities to whom, as far separated
+from all sublunary influences, King
+Henry of England proposed, in the
+twelfth century, to refer his disputes
+with the Papal power. In England they
+are represented at the present day by
+the formidable proctor, who is a
+terror to evil-doers without being any
+praise or protection to them that do
+well. But it may safely be said that
+the chubby youths who in Glasgow
+and Aberdeen go through the annual
+ceremony, as <i><span lang="la">procuratores nationum</span></i>,
+of representing the votes of the nations
+in the election of a rector, more
+legitimately represent those procurators
+of the thirteenth and fourteenth
+century, who maintained the rights
+of their respective nations in the great
+intellectual republic called a Universitas.
+The discovery, indeed, of this
+latent power, long hidden, like some
+palæontological fossil, under the pedagogical
+innovations of modern days—which
+tended to make the self-governing
+institution a school ruled by
+masters—created astonishment in all
+quarters, even in those who found
+themselves in possession of the privilege.
+In Aberdeen especially, when
+some mischievous antiquary maintained
+that by the charter the election
+of a lord rector lay with the students
+themselves, the announcement
+was received with derision by a discerning
+public, and with a severe
+frown, as a sort of seditious libel, enticing
+the youth to rebellion, by the
+indignant professors. But it turned
+out to be absolutely true, however
+astounding it might be to those who
+are unacquainted with the early
+history of universities, and think that
+everything ancient must have been
+tyrannical and hierarchical. The
+young ones made a sort of saturnalia
+of their fugitive power, while the professors
+looked on as one may see a
+solemn mastiff contemplate the gambols
+of a litter of privileged spaniel
+pups. The privilege was, however,
+used effectively, we may say nobly.
+There has been no fogyism, or adherence
+to any settled routine of humdrum
+respectability, in the selection
+of the rectors. From Burke to Bulwer
+Lytton and Macaulay, they have,
+with a few exceptions, been men of
+the first intellectual rank. What is a
+still more remarkable result than that
+they should often have been men of
+genius, there is scarcely an instance
+of a lord rector having been a clamorous
+quack or a canting fanatic.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>In Edinburgh there is no such relic
+of the ancient university commonwealth,
+and the students have instinctively
+supplied the want by
+affiliating their voluntary societies,
+and choosing a distinguished man to
+be the president of the aggregate
+group. The constitution of the College
+of Edinburgh, indeed, was not
+matured until after the old constitution
+of the universities had suffered a
+reaction, and, far from any new ones
+being constructed on the old model,
+the earlier universities with difficulty
+preserved their constitution. Some
+person called a College Bailie is the
+dignitary who presides over the interests
+of the University of Edinburgh
+as one of the appendages of the Town
+Council. By that body the greater
+part of the patronage of the institution
+is administered, and now it is
+decided that they have the sole and
+absolute right of making bye-laws for
+the regulation of this, the leading
+educational institution of Scotland.
+There is something transcendently
+ludicrous in a civic corporation—a
+conclave of demure tradesmen, intensely
+respectable—extending those
+functions of administration which are
+appropriately applicable to marketing
+and street-cleaning to the direction
+and adjustment of the highest ranges
+of human instruction. Yet somehow
+it has worked well, on account of the
+very anomaly involved in it. The
+town-councillors, in selecting a professor,
+like the students in choosing a
+rector, are afraid of their own powers,
+and never venture to use their own
+discretion. Absolutely ignorant of
+the branches of knowledge to which
+the rules they frame apply, they become
+a medium through which these
+rules are moulded by others, and a
+certain commercial sagacity enables
+them to divine who are the most
+sagacious advisers. So also in the
+exercise of their patronage, being
+utterly unable to test the capacity of a
+candidate, they dare not give way to
+any partiality founded at least on this
+ground, and they are generally acute
+enough to find out who is most highly
+estimated by those who are competent
+to judge.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>That principle of internal self-action
+and independence of the contemporary
+constituted powers, of which
+the rectorship and some other relics
+remain to us at this day, is one of
+the most remarkable, and in many
+respects admirable, features in the
+history of the middle ages. It is
+involved in mysteries and contradictions
+which one would be glad to see
+unravelled by skilful and full inquirers.
+Adapted to the service of
+pure knowledge, and investing her
+with absolute prerogatives, the system
+was yet one of the creatures of
+that Romish hierarchy, which at the
+same time thought by other efforts
+to circumscribe human inquiry, and
+make it the servant of her own ambitious
+efforts.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>It may help us in some measure to
+the solution of the phenomenon to
+remember that, however dim the light
+of the Church may have shone, it
+was yet the representative of the
+intellectual system, and was in that
+capacity carrying on a war with brute
+force. Catholicism was the great
+rival and controller of the feudal
+strength and tyranny of the age—<i><span lang="la">informe
+ingens cui lumen ademptum</span></i>.
+As intellect and knowledge were the
+weapons with which they encountered
+the sightless colossus, it was believed
+that the intellectual arsenals could not
+be too extensive or complete—that
+intellect could not be too richly cultivated.
+Like many combatants, they
+perhaps forgot future results in the
+desire of immediate victory, and were
+for the moment blind to the effect so
+nervously apprehended by their successors,
+that the light thus brought in
+by them would illuminate the dark
+corners of their own ecclesiastical
+system, and lead the way to its fall.
+Perhaps such hardy intellects as Abelard
+or Aquinas may have anticipated
+such a result from the stimulus
+given by them to intellectual inquiry,
+and may not have deeply lamented
+the process.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>But however it came about—whether
+in the blindness of all, or the
+far-sightedness of some—the Church,
+from the thirteenth to pretty far on
+in the fifteenth century, encouraged
+learning with a noble reliance and a
+zealous energy which it would ill become
+the present age to despise or
+forget. And even if it should all
+have proceeded from a blind confidence
+that the Church placed on a
+rock was unassailable, and that mere
+human wisdom, even trained to the
+utmost of its powers, was, after all,
+to be nothing but her handmaiden,
+let us respect this unconscious simplicity
+which enabled the educational
+institutions to be placed in so high
+and trusted a position. The Church
+supplied something then, indeed, which
+we search after in vain in the present
+day, and which we shall only achieve
+by some great strides in academic
+organisation, capable of supplying
+from within what was then supplied
+from without: and the quality thus
+supplied was no less than that cosmopolitan
+nature, which made the
+university not merely parochial, or
+merely national, but universal, as its
+name denoted. The temporal prince
+might endow the academy with lands
+and riches, and might confer upon its
+members honourable and lucrative
+privileges, but it was to the head of
+the one indivisible Church that the
+power belonged of franking it all
+over Christendom, and establishing
+throughout the civilised world a free-masonry
+of intellect, which made all
+the universities, as it were, one great
+corporation of the learned men of
+the world.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>It must be admitted that we have
+here one of those practical difficulties
+which form the necessary price of the
+freedom of Protestantism. When a
+great portion of Europe was no longer
+attached to Rome, the peculiar centralisation
+of the educational systems
+was broken up. The old universities,
+indeed, retained their ancient
+privileges in a traditional, if not a
+practically legal shape, through Lutheranism
+and Calvinism carrying the
+characteristics of the abjured Romanism,
+yet carrying them unscathed,
+since they were protected from injury
+and insult by the enlightened object
+for which they were established and
+endowed. When, however, in Protestant
+countries, the old universities
+became poor, or when a change of
+condition demanded the foundation of
+a new university, it was difficult to
+restore anything so simple and grand
+as that old community of privileges
+which made the member of one university
+a citizen of all others, according
+to his rank, whether he were
+laureated in Paris or distant Upsala—in
+the gorgeous academies close to
+the fostering influence of the Pope, or
+in that humble edifice endowed after
+the model of the University of Bologna,
+in an obscure Scottish town
+named Glasgow.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The English universities, by their
+great wealth and political influence,
+were able to stand alone, neither giving
+nor taking. Their Scottish contemporaries,
+unable to fight a like
+battle, have had reason to complain
+of their ungenerous isolation; and as
+children of the same parentage, and
+differing only with their southern
+neighbours in not having so much
+worldly prosperity, it is natural that
+they should look back with a sigh,
+which even orthodox Presbyterianism
+cannot suppress, to the time when the
+universal mental sway of Rome, however
+offensive it might be in its own
+insolent supremacy, yet exercised that
+high privilege of supereminent greatness
+to level secondary inequalities,
+and place those whom it favoured beyond
+the reach of conventional humiliations.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>To keep up that characteristic
+which the Popedom only offered,
+the monarchs of the larger Protestant
+states have endeavoured to apply the
+incorporation principle to universities.
+In small states and republics
+the difficulty of obtaining a general
+sanction to frank their honours to any
+distance from the place where they
+are given is still greater; yet it is in
+such places that, through fortunate
+coincidents, an academy sometimes
+acquires a widespread reputation and
+influence. To what eminence the
+universities in the United States are
+destined who shall predict? yet, in the
+estimate of many, they have no right
+to be called universities at all; and
+of the doctors’ degrees which they
+freely distribute in this country, much
+doubt is entertained of the genuineness.
+Yet if it would be difficult to
+lay down how it is that these American
+institutions have acquired any
+power to grant degrees—that is to
+say, the power not only to confer
+prizes and rewards among their own
+alumni, but to invest them with insignia
+of literary rank current for
+their value over the world—it would
+be equally difficult for any of the
+ancient universities in Protestant
+states to claim an exclusive right to
+such a power, since this could only be
+done through Papal authority. It will
+be said that there is just the same practical
+difficulty in this as in all other
+departments of human institutions, and
+especially those which, like rank, are
+transferable from country to country,
+so as to require and obtain an estimate
+of their value in each. It will
+be said that the exclusiveness which
+denies the Heidelberg Doctor of Philosophy
+a parallel with the LL.D. of
+Oxford is just the same as that which
+will by no means admit the count or
+baron who is deputy-assistant highways
+controller, as on a par with an
+earl or baron in the peerage of England.
+The Kammer Junker of Denmark
+is not looked on as a privy-councillor.
+The Sheriff of Mecca, the
+Sheriff of London, and the Sheriff of
+Edinburgh, are three totally different
+personages, and would feel very much
+puzzled how to act if they were to
+change places for a while. Some
+Eastern dignitaries—Baboo, Fudky,
+and the like, must occasionally puzzle
+even the adepts of Leadenhall. Nor
+are we without our instances near at
+hand. What is the Knight of Kerry,
+what the Captain of Clanranald,
+what The Chisholm—and how do the
+authorities at the Herald’s Office
+deal with them? Has not an Archbishop
+of York been suspected of
+imposture in a Scottish bank when he
+signed with the surname of Eborac;
+and have not our Scottish judges, with
+their strange-sounding peerage-titles,
+made mighty confusion in respectable
+English hotels, when my Lord Kames
+is so intimate with Mrs Home, and
+my Lord Auchinleck retires with Mrs
+Boswell? But admitting the confusion
+to be irremediable in the department
+of political and decorative rank,
+the absence of a uniform intellectual
+hierarchy is not the less to be regretted,
+while the great effort made to
+secure it in an early and imperfect
+condition of society should be contemplated
+with a respectful awe.
+There is just one man who professes
+to be able effectually to restore it—the
+sage of positivism, M. Comte; and
+he is to do it when he has established
+absolute science in everything, and
+put down freedom of opinion by the
+application of sure scientific deduction
+in every department of the world’s
+intellectual pursuits; when it shall
+be as impossible to question the most
+abstruse propositions in chemistry,
+geology, or social organisation, as to
+question the multiplication table or
+the succession of the tides—then, indeed,
+may absolute laws be laid down
+to govern the world in its appreciation
+of intellectual rank. But it is long yet
+ere that day of certain knowledge—if it
+is ever destined to dawn on that poor,
+blundering, unfortunate fellow, man.
+We have got but a very, very little
+way yet, and we know not how much
+farther it is permitted us to penetrate.
+Terrible are the chaotic heaps that
+have to be cleared away or set in
+order by the pioneers of intellect, and
+it is still a question whether our race
+can provide those who are strong-headed
+enough for the task.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>There is much truth, however, at
+the foundation of the French sage’s
+audacious speculations, that intellect
+must achieve for herself her own conquests
+and take her own position. In
+the greatness of the acquirements of
+which they are the nursery, must we
+look hereafter to the greatness of our
+seminaries of learning. If the university
+is but a grammar school or a
+collection of popular lecture-rooms,
+no royal decrees or republican ordinances
+will give it rank—if it be a
+great centre of literary and scientific
+illumination, the pride or enmity of its
+rivals will not tarnish its lustre. But
+apart from, the question between
+catholicity and positivity, it is, we
+think, very interesting to notice in
+our universities—humble as we admit
+them to be—the relics of the nomenclature
+and customs which, in the
+fifteenth century, marked their rank
+in the great European cluster of universities.
+The most eminent of their
+characteristics is that high officer, the
+Rector, already spoken of. There is
+a Censor too—but for all the grandeur
+of his etymological ancestry in Roman
+history, he is but a small officer—in
+stature sometimes, as well as dignity.
+He calls over the catalogue or roll of
+names, marking those absent—a duty
+quite in keeping with that enumerating
+function of the Roman officer
+which has left to us the word census
+as a numbering of the people.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>So lately as the eighteenth century,
+when the monastic or collegiate
+system which has now so totally disappeared
+from the Scottish universities
+yet lingered about them, the
+censor was a more important, or at
+least more laborious officer, and, oddly
+enough, he corresponded in some measure
+with the character into which,
+in England, the Proctor had been so
+strangely diverted. In a regulation
+adopted in Glasgow, in 1725, it is provided
+“that all students be obliged,
+after the bells ring, immediately to
+repair to their classes, and to keep
+within them, and a censor be appointed
+to every class, to attend from the
+ringing of the bells till the several
+masters come to their classes, and
+observe any, either of his own class
+or of any other, who shall be found
+walking in the courts during the above
+time, or standing on the stairs, or
+looking out at the windows, or making
+noise.”—<cite><span lang="la">Munimenta Univ. Glasguensis</span></cite>,
+ii. 429. This has something of the
+mere schoolroom characteristic of
+our modern university discipline,
+but this other paragraph, from the
+same set of regulations, is indicative
+both of more mature vices among the
+precocious youth of Glasgow, and a
+more inquisitorial corrective organisation:—</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>“That for keeping order without
+the College, a censor be appointed to
+observe any who shall be in the streets
+before the bells ring, and to go now
+and then to the billiard-tables, and
+to the other gaming-places, to observe
+if any be playing at the times when
+they ought to be in their chambers;
+and that this censor be taken from
+the poor scholars of the several classes
+alternately, as they shall be thought
+most fit for that office, and that some
+reward be thought of for their pains.”
+(<em>Ibid.</em>, 425). In the fierce street-conflicts,
+to which we may have occasion
+to refer, the poor censors had a more
+perilous service.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>In the universities of Central
+Europe, and that of Paris, their
+parent, the censor was a very important
+person; yet he was the subordinate
+of one far greater in power
+and influence. In the words of the
+writers of the <cite>Trevaux</cite>, so full of
+knowledge about such matters, “<span lang="fr">Un
+Régent est dans sa classe comme un
+Souverain; il crée des charges de
+<em>Censeurs</em> comme il lui plait, il les
+donne à qui il veut, et il les abolit
+quand il le judge à propos.</span>” The
+regents still exist in more than their
+original potency; for they are that
+essential invigorating element of the
+university of the present day, without
+which it would not exist. Of old,
+when every magister was entitled to
+teach in the university, the regents
+were persons selected from among
+them, with the powers of government
+as separate from the capacity and
+function of instructing; at present, in
+so far as the university is a school, the
+regent is a schoolmaster—and therefore,
+as we have just said, he is an
+essential element of the establishment.
+The term regent, like most of the other
+university distinctions, was originally
+of Parisian nomenclature, and there
+might be adduced a good deal of learning
+bearing on its signification as distinct
+from that of the word professor—now
+so desecrated in its use that we
+are most familiar with it in connection
+with dancing-schools, jugglers’ booths,
+and veterinary surgeries. The regency,
+as a university distinction conferred
+as a reward of capacities shown within
+the arena of the university, and
+judged of according to its republican
+principles, seems to have lingered in a
+rather confused shape in our Scottish
+universities, and to have gradually
+ingrafted itself on the patronage of
+the professorships. So in reference to
+Glasgow, immediately after the Revolution,
+when there was a vacancy or
+two from Episcopalians declining to
+take the obligation to acknowledge
+the new Church Establishment, there
+appears the following notice:—</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>“<em>January 2, 1691.</em>—There had
+never been so solemn and numerous
+an appearance of disputants for a
+regent’s place as was for fourteen
+days before this, nine candidates
+disputing; and in all their disputes
+and other exercises they all behaved
+themselves so well, as that the Faculty
+judged there was not one of them but
+gave such specimens of their learning
+as might deserve the place, which
+occasioned so great difficulty in the
+choice that the Faculty, choosing a
+leet of some of them who seemed
+most to excel and be fittest, did determine
+the same by lot, which the
+Faculty did solemnly go about, and
+the lot fell upon Mr John Law, who
+thereupon was this day established
+regent.”—<em>Ibid.</em>, vol. iii. p. 596.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Sir William Hamilton explains the
+position of the regents with a lucid
+precision which makes his statement
+correspond precisely with the documentary
+stores before us. “In the
+original constitution of Oxford,” he
+says, “as in that of all the older
+universities of the Parisian model,
+the business of instruction was not
+confided to a special body of privileged
+professors. The University was
+governed, the University was taught,
+by the graduates at large. Professor,
+master, doctor, were originally
+synonymous. Every graduate
+had an equal right of teaching publicly
+in the University the subjects competent
+to his faculty and to the rank of
+his degree; nay, every graduate incurred
+the obligation of teaching
+publicly, for a certain period, the
+subjects of his faculty—for such was
+the condition involved in the grant of
+the degree itself. The bachelor, or
+imperfect graduate, partly as an exercise
+towards the higher honour, and
+useful to himself, partly as a performance
+due for the degree obtained,
+and of advantage to others, was
+bound to read under a master or
+doctor in his faculty a course of
+lectures; and the master, doctor, or
+perfect graduate, was in like manner,
+after his promotion, obliged immediately
+to commence (<i><span lang="la">incipere</span></i>), and to
+continue for a certain period publicly
+to teach (<i><span lang="la">regere</span></i>), some at least of the
+subjects appertaining to his faculty.
+As, however, it was only necessary
+for the University to enforce this
+obligation of public teaching, compulsory
+on all graduates during the term
+of their <em>necessary regency</em>, if there did
+not come forward a competent number
+of <em>voluntary regents</em> to execute this
+function; and as the schools belonging
+to the several faculties, and in
+which alone all public or ordinary
+instruction could be delivered, were
+frequently inadequate to accommodate
+the multitude of the inceptors, it came
+to pass that in these universities the
+original period of necessary regency
+was once and again abbreviated, and
+even a dispensation from actual teaching
+during its continuance commonly
+allowed. At the same time, as the
+University only accomplished the end
+of its existence through its regents,
+they alone were allowed to enjoy full
+privileges in its legislature and government;
+they alone partook of its <i><span lang="la">beneficia</span></i>
+and <i><span lang="la">sportulæ</span></i>. In Paris the non-regent
+graduates were only assembled
+on rare and extraordinary occasions:
+in Oxford the regents constituted the
+house of congregation, which, among
+other exclusive prerogatives, was anciently
+the initiatory assembly through
+which it behoved that every measure
+should pass before it could be admitted
+to the house of convocation, composed
+indifferently of all regents and
+non-regents resident in the University.”—<cite>Dissertations</cite>,
+p. 391–2.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>But the term Regent became afterwards
+obsolete in the southern universities,
+while it continued by usage
+to be applied to a certain class of
+professors in our own. Along with
+other purely academic titles and functions,
+it fell in England before the
+rising ascendancy of the heads and
+other functionaries of the collegiate
+institutions—colleges, halls, inns, and
+entries. So, in the same way, evaporated
+the faculties and their deans,
+still conspicuous in Scottish academic
+nomenclature. In both quarters they
+were derived from the all-fruitful nursery
+of the Parisian University. But
+Scotland kept and cherished what she
+obtained from a friend and ally; England
+despised and forgot the example
+of an alien and hostile people. The
+Decanus seems to have been a captain
+or leader of ten—a sort of tything-man;
+and Ducange speaks of him as a superintendent
+of ten monks. He afterwards
+came into general employment as a
+sort of chairman and leader. The
+<em>Doyens</em> of all sorts, lay and ecclesiastical,
+were a marked feature of ancient
+France, as they still are of Scotland,
+where there is a large body of lay
+deans, from the eminent lawyer who
+presides over the Faculty of Advocates
+down to “my feyther the deacon,”
+who gathers behind a half-door
+the gear that is to make his son a
+capitalist and a magistrate. Among
+the Scottish universities the deans of
+faculty are still nearly as familiar a
+title as they were at Paris or Bologna.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The employment in the universities
+of a dead language as the means of
+communication was not only a natural
+arrangement for teaching the familiar
+use of that language, but it was also
+evidently courted as one of the tokens
+of learned isolation from the common
+illiterate world. In Scotland, as perhaps
+in some other small countries,
+such as Holland, the Latin remained
+as the language of literature after the
+great nations England, France, Germany,
+Italy, and Spain, were making
+a vernacular literature for themselves.
+In the seventeenth century the Scot
+had not been reconciled to the acceptance
+of the English tongue as his own;
+nor, indeed, could he employ it either
+gracefully or accurately. On the other
+hand, he felt the provincialism of the
+Lowland Scottish tongue, the ridicule
+attached to its use in books which
+happened to cross the Border, and the
+narrowness of the field it afforded to
+literary ambition.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Hence every man who looked to be
+a worker in literature or science, threw
+himself into the academic practice of
+cultivating the familiar use of the Latin
+language. To the Scottish scholars
+it was almost a revived language, and
+they possessed as great a command
+over it as can ever be obtained of a
+language confined to a class, and not
+universally used by the lowest as well
+as the highest of the people. Hence,
+when he had the pen in hand, the
+educated Scotsman felt the Latin
+come more naturally to his call than
+the vernacular; and people accustomed
+to rummage among old letters
+by Scotsmen will have sometimes
+noticed that the writer, beginning
+with his native tongue, slips gradually
+into the employment of Latin as a
+relief, just as we may find a foreigner
+abandon the arduous labour of breaking
+English, to repose himself in the
+easy fluency of his natural speech.
+We believe that no language, employed
+only by a class, is capable of
+the same copiousness and flexibility
+as that which is necessarily applicable
+to all purposes, from the meanest
+to the highest. But such as a
+class-language could become, the Latin
+was among the Scots; and it is to
+their peculiar position and academic
+practices that, among a host of distinguished
+humanists, we possess in
+George Buchanan the most illustrious
+writer in the Roman tongue, both in
+poetry and prose, since the best days
+of Rome.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The records before us afford some
+amusing instances of the anxious zeal
+with which any lapse into the vernacular
+tongue was prevented, and conversation
+among the students was
+rendered as uneasy and unpleasant as
+possible. In the visitorial regulations
+of King’s College, Aberdeen, in 1546,
+it is provided that the attendant boys—the
+gyps, if we may so call them—shall
+be expert in the use of Latin, lest
+they should give occasion to the masters
+or students to have recourse to
+the vernacular speech: “<i><span lang="la">Ne dent occasionem
+magistris et Studentibus lingua
+vernacula uti.</span></i>” If Aberdeen supplied
+a considerable number of waiting-boys
+thus accomplished, the stranger wandering
+to that far northern region, in
+the seventeenth century, might have
+been as much astonished as the man
+in <cite>Ignoramus</cite>, who tested the state of
+education in Paris by finding that
+even the dirty boys in the streets
+were taught French. It would, after
+all, have perhaps been more difficult
+to find waiting-boys who could speak
+English. The term by which they
+are described is a curious indication
+of the French habits and traditions
+of the northern universities: they are
+spoken of as <i><span lang="fr">garciones</span></i>—a word of
+obvious origin to any one who has
+been in a French hotel.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>In Glasgow, in a law passed in
+1667, it is provided that “all who
+are delated by the public censor for
+speaking of English shall be fined in
+an halfpenny <i><span lang="la">toties quoties</span></i>.” The sum
+is not large, but the imposition of the
+penalty at that particular juncture
+looks rather unreasonable, since the
+Senate and the Faculty of Arts had
+just abandoned the use of Latin in
+their public documents, and had
+adopted what, if not strictly English,
+was the vernacular tongue—a change
+which was doubtless as much to their
+own ease as it is to the satisfaction of
+the reader, who becomes painfully
+alive to the continued and progressive
+barbarisation of the academic
+Latin.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>In a great measure, however, it
+seems to have been less the object
+in view to inculcate Latin than to
+discountenance the vernacular language
+of the country. In some instances
+the language of France is
+admitted; and, from the number of
+Scotsmen who carved out their fortunes
+in that hospitable and affluent
+country, this acquisition must have
+been one of peculiar value. In a set
+of statutes and laws of the Grammar
+School of Aberdeen, adopted
+in 1553, there is a very singular
+liberty of choice—the pupils might
+speak in Greek, Hebrew, or even in
+Gaelic, rather than in Lowland Scots:
+“Loquantur omnes Latinè, Græcè,
+Hebraicè, Gallicè, Hybernicè—nunquam
+vernaculè, saltem cum his qui
+Latinè noscunt.” This is by no means
+to be held as an indication of the
+familiar acquaintance of the Aberdonian
+students with the language of
+the Gael; on the contrary, it shows
+how entirely this was placed within
+the category of foreign tongues. We
+know no other instances in which the
+tongue of the Highlander is spoken of
+in connection with the earlier educational
+institutions of the country; but
+we think it not improbable that any
+encouragement it received was for
+much the same reason that Hindostanee
+and the African dialects are now
+sometimes taught to young divines—that
+they may work as missionaries
+among the heathen. A few students
+from this wild region, to which Christianity
+had scarcely penetrated, were
+indeed a peculiar feature of the educational
+institutions of Aberdeen, and
+in a modified shape so remain to this
+day, since some wild men from the
+hills, spending a brief period at school
+or college to acquire a fragment of
+education, are yet known by the term
+<i><span lang="it">extranni</span></i>, of old applied to them.
+There is a prevailing, but utterly false
+impression, that Aberdeen is in the
+Highlands. It lingers chiefly, in the
+present century, with Cockneys beginning
+their first northern tour; but
+in the seventeenth century it may,
+perhaps, have been entertained even
+in the metropolis of Scotland. Hence
+the educational institutions there,
+though at the extremity of a long
+tract of agricultural lowland, inhabited
+by a Teutonic people, and farther
+separated from the actual Celtic line
+than Edinburgh itself, are generally
+talked of in old documents as those
+which are peculiarly available for the
+civilisation of the Highlanders. Glasgow
+was nearer and more accessible
+to the great body of the western
+Celts; but in this town the prejudices
+against them were greater, and
+the alienation, especially in religion,
+was more emphatic. It was to Aberdeen
+then, generally, that the son of
+a predatory chief would be sent, to fit
+him in some measure for converse
+with the civilised world, such as it
+then was; and the fierce owner of a
+despotic power over his clansmen
+would appear among the sober burgesses
+of the northern metropolis
+much as an American chief may
+among the inhabitants of some distant
+city in the Union. Lovat studied
+at King’s College, in Aberdeen, and
+there acquired a portion of those accomplishments
+which made him act
+the subtle courtier in Paris or London,
+and reserve his sanguinary ruffianism
+for Castle Dunie. Not unmindful
+of the benefits of the institution,
+some of the Celtic princes bestowed
+endowments on it. Thus, the
+Laird of Macintosh, who begins in
+the true regal style, “We, Lachlan
+Macintosh of that ilk,” and who calls
+himself the Chief and <em>Principall</em> of the
+Clan Chattan—probably using the
+term which he thought would be the
+most likely to make his supremacy
+intelligible to university dignitaries—dispenses
+to the King’s College two
+thousand marks, “for maintaining
+hopeful students thereat.” He reserves,
+however, a dynastic control
+over the endowment, making it conducive
+to the clan discipline and the
+support of the hierarchy surrounding
+the chief. It was a condition that
+the beneficiary should be presented
+“by the lairds of Macintosh successively
+in all time coming; that a
+youth of the name of Macintosh or of
+Clan Chattan shall be preferred to
+those of any other name,” &#38;c.—<cite>Fasti</cite>,
+206. This document is titled in the
+records, “Macintosh’s Mortification,”
+according to a peculiar technical application
+of that expression in Scotland,
+to the perpetuity of possession
+which in England is termed mortmain.
+Later in the eighteenth century,
+M‘Lean of Coll causes another
+mortification to be “applied towards
+the maintenance and education of such
+young man or boy of the name of
+M‘Lean as shall be recommended
+by me, or my heirs or successors
+on the estate of Coll.” This is
+probably the same Highland potentate
+who frowned so savagely on
+young Colman, when he, seeing an
+old gentleman familiarly called Coll
+by his contemporaries, addressed him
+as Mr Coll. Such a solecism would
+never be permitted to pass as an accidental
+mistake, since it would be
+utterly impossible to convince the
+mighty chief of Coll that there existed
+in this world a person ignorant
+enough to be unacquainted with his
+style and title. At a still later date,
+a bequest is more gracefully made by
+Sir John M‘Pherson: “In testimony
+of my gratitude to the University of
+Old Aberdeen, I bequeath to ditto, so
+as to afford an annual bursary to any
+Highland student who may be selected
+to receive the said bursary,
+two thousand five hundred pounds of
+my Carnatic stock.”</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Here there is a wider range of application,
+but still the endowment is to a
+Highland student. Nor, after all, when
+the social state of the Highlanders is
+considered, can we wonder that their
+gentry should seek to preserve the
+wealth which they are constrained to
+deposit in the hands of the stranger for
+their own people. Occasionally, at the
+present day, some wild wiry M‘Lean or
+M‘Dougal makes his appearance, by
+command of the chief, at the proper
+time and place, to claim investment
+in the clan bursary. Other of these
+endowments are of restricted application,
+being exclusively appropriated
+to students of a special name, such as
+Smith or Thomson, or born in a special
+parish, or descended from members
+of some corporation. In general,
+however, these endowments—some of
+them of very ancient date—are open
+to free universal competition, and
+are in this shape one of the most interesting
+and remarkable specimens
+of the ancient literary republics, in
+which each man fought with his
+brains, and held what his brains could
+achieve for him. Annually, at the
+competition for bursaries in Aberdeen,
+there assembles a varied group of intellectual
+gladiators—long red-haired
+Highlanders, who feel trousers and
+shoes an infringement of the liberty
+of the subject—square-built Lowland
+farmers—flaxen-haired Orcadians,
+and pale citizens’ sons, vibrating between
+scholarship and the tailor’s
+board or the shoemaker’s last. Grim
+and silent they sit for a day, rendering
+into Latin an English essay, and
+drop away one by one, depositing
+with the judges the evidence of success
+or failure as the case may be.
+The thing is very fairly and impartially
+managed, and honourable to all
+the parties concerned.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>It is indeed, as we have hinted, a
+relic of the old competitive spirit
+which distinguished the universities
+as literal republics of letters, where
+each man fought his own battle, and
+gained and wore his own laurels.
+Nor was his arena confined to his
+own college. The free-masonry we
+have already alluded to opened every
+honour and emolument to all, and the
+Scotsman might suddenly enter the
+lists at Paris, Bologna, or Upsala, or
+the Spaniard might compete in Glasgow
+or Aberdeen. The records before
+us contain many forms in which
+the ancient spirit has now ceased
+to breathe. Already has been mentioned
+the competition for the regentship.
+The old form of the Impugnment
+of Theses, so renowned in literary
+histories, has died away as a portion
+of the ordinary laureation. The
+comprehensive challenges and corresponding
+victories attributed to the
+Admirable Crichton give this practice
+a peculiar interest in the eyes of
+Scotsmen; and it has a great place in
+the annals of the Reformation, since
+one of its main stages was the posting
+the twenty-five theses on the door of
+the church of Würtemberg by Luther.
+But in reading these remarkable events
+people are apt to forget the commonness
+of the practice; and Crichton has
+the aspect of a preposterous intellectual
+bully going out of his proper way
+to attract notice, instead of doing what
+was in its time and circumstances as
+ordinary and common sense an act as
+running a tilt, joining a crusade, or
+burning a witch. Goldsmith, in that
+account of the intellectual vagabond
+which so evidently describes himself,
+has noticed some relics of the practice
+as he found it on the Continent.
+“In all the universities and convents
+there are, upon certain days, philosophical
+theses maintained against
+every adventitious disputant; for
+which, if the champion opposes with
+any dexterity, he can claim a gratuity
+in money, a dinner, and a bed for one
+night. In this manner, then, I fought
+my way towards England.” A collection
+of German pamphlets, amounting,
+it is said, to upwards of a hundred
+thousand, and called the Dietrich Collection,
+was some years ago purchased
+by the Faculty of Advocates, and was
+found to consist chiefly of the academic
+theses in which the scholars of Germany—illustrious
+and obscure—had
+been disputing for centuries. In the
+same place, by the way, where this
+vast collection reposes, may be found
+the most complete living illustration
+of the old form of impugnment. The
+anxious litigant or busy agent entering
+the main door of the Parliament
+House at 9 o’clock of a morning, may
+find, by an <em>affiche</em> to the door-post,
+that there is to be a <i><span lang="la">disputatio juridica</span></i>
+under the auspices of the <i><span lang="la">inclytus Diaconus
+facultatis</span></i>. Since the year 1693
+it has been the practice of each intrant
+to undergo public impugnment, or, as
+the act of Faculty says, “the publict
+tryall of candidates, by printing and
+publishing theses on the subject assigned
+with corollaries, as it is observed
+amongst other nations.” A
+title of the Pandects is assigned on
+each occasion. Thus the Faculty
+possesses more than one running commentary
+upon that celebrated collection;
+and it has always been deemed
+remarkable that, considering the number
+and varied talent of the authors of
+these theses, they should be so uniform
+in their Latinity and structure.
+A great innovation has lately taken
+place in sparing the cost of printing
+the theses, and applying the amount
+so saved to the Faculty’s magnificent
+library.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Many of the old university theses are
+very interesting as the youthful efforts
+of men who have subsequently become
+eminent. Those connected with Aberdeen
+are apparently the most numerous.
+It is very noticeable, indeed,
+that in the remote rival institutions
+there established, the spirit and practice
+of the Continental universities, in
+almost every department, had their
+most tenacious existence. As in England,
+the Church of Rome was succeeded
+there, not by Presbyterianism but
+Episcopacy, and there were fewer
+changes in all old habits and institutions.
+The celebrated “Aberdeen
+doctors,” who carried on a controversy
+with the Covenanters, met their
+zealous religionists with something
+like the old pedantic formality of the
+academic system of disputation. They
+resolved the Covenant into a thesis,
+and impugned it. Of this remarkable
+group of scholars we have the following
+notice in Professor Innes’s Preface:—</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Their names are now little known,
+except to the local antiquary; but no
+one who has even slightly studied the
+history of that disturbed time is unacquainted
+with the collective designation
+of ‘the Aberdeen Doctors’ bestowed
+upon the learned ‘querists’ of the ultra-Presbyterian
+Assembly of 1638, and the
+most formidable opponents of the Solemn
+League and Covenant.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“Of these learned divines, Dr Robert
+Barron had succeeded Bishop Forbes in
+his parish of Keith, and from thence was
+brought on the first opportunity to be
+made Minister of Aberdeen, and afterwards
+Professor of Divinity in Marischal
+College. He is best judged by the estimation
+of his own time, which placed
+him foremost in philosophy and theology.
+Bishop Sydserf characterises him as ‘<span lang="la">vir
+in omni scholastica theologia et omni
+literatura versatissimus:</span>’ ‘A person
+of incomparable worth and learning,’
+says Middleton, ‘he had a clear apprehension
+of things, and a rare facultie of
+making the hardest things to be easily
+understood.’<a id='r10'></a><a href='#f10' class='c007'><sup>[10]</sup></a> Gordon of Rothiemay says,
+‘He was one of those who maintained the
+unanswerable dispute (in 1638) against
+the Covenante, which drew upon him both
+ther envye, hate, and calumneyes; yet so
+innocently lived and dyed hee, that such
+as then hated him doo now reverence his
+memorye, and admire his works.’ Principal
+Baillie, of the opposite party, speaks
+of him as ‘a meek and learned person,’
+and always with great respect: and
+Bishop Jeremy Taylor, when writing
+in 1659 to a fellow of Trinity College,
+Dublin, recommending the choice of
+books for ‘the beginning of a theological
+library,’ named two treatises of
+Barron’s especially, and recommended
+generally ‘everything of his.’<a id='r11'></a><a href='#f11' class='c007'><sup>[11]</sup></a> That
+a man so honoured for his learning and
+his life should receive the indignities
+inflicted on Barron after his death, is
+rather to be held as a mark of the general
+coarseness of the time, than attributed
+to the persecuting spirit of any one sect.<a id='r12'></a><a href='#f12' class='c007'><sup>[12]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“Another of the Aberdeen doctors,
+William Leslie, was successively Sub-principal
+and Principal of King’s College.
+The visitors of 1638 found him worthie
+of censure, as defective and negligent in
+his office, but recorded their knowledge
+that he was ‘ane man of gude literature,
+lyff, and conversatioun.’<a id='r13'></a><a href='#f13' class='c007'><sup>[13]</sup></a> ‘He was a
+man,’ says James Gordon, ‘grave, and
+austere, and exemplar. The University
+was happy in having such a light as he,
+who was eminent in all the sciences
+above the most of his age.’<a id='r14'></a><a href='#f14' class='c007'><sup>[14]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“Dr James Sibbald, Minister of St
+Nicholas, and a Regent in the University,
+is recorded by the same contemporary:
+‘It will not be affirmed by his very enemyes,
+but that Dr James Sibbald was
+ane eloquent and painefull preacher, a
+man godly, and grave, and modest, not
+tainted with any vice unbeseeming a
+minister, to whom nothing could in reason
+be objected, if you call not his ante-covenanting
+a cryme.’<a id='r15'></a><a href='#f15' class='c007'><sup>[15]</sup></a> Principal Baillie,
+while condemning his Arminian doctrines,
+says—‘The man was, there, of great
+fame.’</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“Dr Alexander Scroggy, minister in
+the Cathedral Church, first known to the
+world as thought worthy to contribute to
+the ‘Funerals’ of his patron and friend,
+Bishop Forbes,<a id='r16'></a><a href='#f16' class='c007'><sup>[16]</sup></a> is described in 1640 by
+Gordon as ‘a man sober, grave, and
+painefull in his calling;’<a id='r17'></a><a href='#f17' class='c007'><sup>[17]</sup></a> and by Baillie
+as ‘ane old man, not verie corrupt, yet
+perverse in the Covenant and Service-book.’
+His obstinacy yielded under
+the weight of old age and the need of
+rest, but he is not the more respected for
+the questionable recantation of all his
+early opinions.<a id='r18'></a><a href='#f18' class='c007'><sup>[18]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“Foremost, by common consent, among
+that body of divines and scholars, was
+John Forbes, the good bishop’s son. He
+had studied at King’s College, and, after
+completing his education in the approved
+manner by a round of foreign universities,
+returned to Scotland to take his
+doctor’s degree, and to be the first professor
+in the chair of theology, founded
+and endowed in our University by his
+father and the clergy of the diocese. Dr
+John Forbes’s theological works have
+been appreciated by all critics and students,
+and have gone some way to remove
+the reproach of want of learning from
+the divines of Scotland. His greatest
+undertaking, the <cite><span lang="la">Instructiones historico-theologicæ</span></cite>,
+which he left unfinished,
+Bishop Burnett pronounces to be ‘a work
+which, if he had finished it, and had been
+suffered to enjoy the privacies of his retirement
+and study to give us the second
+volume, had been the greatest treasure
+of theological learning that perhaps the
+world has yet received.<a id='r19'></a><a href='#f19' class='c007'><sup>[19]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“These were the men whom the bishop
+drew into the centre and heart of the
+sphere which he had set himself to illuminate;
+and in a short space of time, by
+their united endeavours, there grew up
+around their Cathedral and University a
+society more learned and accomplished
+than Scotland had hitherto known, which
+spread a taste for literature and art beyond
+the academic circle, and gave a
+tone of refinement to the great commercial
+city and its neighbourhood.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“It must be confessed cultivation was
+not without bias. It would seem that,
+in proportion as the Presbyterian and
+Puritan party receded from the learning
+of some of their first teachers, literature
+became here, as afterwards in England,
+the peculiar badge of Episcopacy.
+With Episcopacy went, hand in hand, the
+high assertion of royal authority; and
+influenced as it had been by Bishop
+Patrick Forbes and his followers, Aberdeen
+became, and continued for a century
+to be, not only a centre of northern academic
+learning, but a little stronghold of
+loyalty and Episcopacy—the marked seat
+of high Cavalier politics and anti-Puritan
+sentiments of religion and church government.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“That there was a dash of pedantry
+in the learning of that Augustan age of
+our University, was the misfortune of the
+age, rather than peculiar to Aberdeen.
+The literature of Britain and all Europe,
+except Italy, was still for the most part
+scholastic, and still to a great degree
+shrouded in the scholastic dress of a dead
+language; and we must not wonder that
+the northern University exacted from
+her divines and philosophers, even from
+her historians and poets, that they should
+use the language of the learned. After
+all, we owe too much to classical learning
+to grudge that it should for a time have
+overshadowed and kept down its legitimate
+offspring of native literature. ‘We
+never ought to forget,’ writes one worthy
+to record the life and learning of Andrew
+Melville, ‘that the refinement and the
+science, secular and sacred, with which
+modern Europe is enriched, must be
+traced to the revival of ancient literature,
+and that the hid treasures could not have
+been laid open and rendered available
+but for that enthusiasm with which the
+languages of Greece and Rome were
+cultivated in the fifteenth and sixteenth
+centuries.’<a id='r20'></a><a href='#f20' class='c007'><sup>[20]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“It is not to be questioned that in the
+literature of that age, and in all departments
+of it, Aberdeen stood pre-eminent.
+Clarendon commemorates the ‘many excellent
+scholars and very learned men
+under whom the Scotch universities,
+and especially Aberdeen, flourished.’<a id='r21'></a><a href='#f21' class='c007'><sup>[21]</sup></a>
+‘Bishop Patrick Forbes,’ says Burnet,
+‘took such care of the two colleges in
+his diocese, that they became quickly
+distinguished from all the rest of Scotland....
+They were an honour to
+the Church, both by their lives and by
+their learning; and with that excellent
+temper they seasoned that whole diocese,
+both clergy and laity, that it continues
+to this very day very much distinguished
+from all the rest of Scotland, both for
+learning, loyalty, and peaceableness.’<a id='r22'></a><a href='#f22' class='c007'><sup>[22]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“That this was no unfounded boast,
+as regards one department of learning,
+has been already shown, in enumerating
+the learned divines who drew upon Aberdeen
+the general attention soon after the
+death of their bishop and master. In
+secular learning it was no less distinguished.
+No one excelled Robert Gordon
+of Straloch in all the accomplishments
+that honour the country gentleman.
+Without the common desire of fame or
+any more sordid motive, he devoted his
+life and talents to illustrate the history
+and literature of his country. He was
+the prime assistant to Scotstarvet in his
+two great undertakings, the Atlas and
+the collections of Scotch poetry.<a id='r23'></a><a href='#f23' class='c007'><sup>[23]</sup></a> The
+maps of Scotland in the Great Atlas
+(many of them drawn by himself, and
+the whole ‘revised’ by him at the earnest
+entreaty of Charles I.), with the topographical
+descriptions that accompany
+them, are among the most valuable contributions
+ever made by an individual to
+the physical history of his country. His
+son, James Gordon, parson of Rothiemay,
+followed out his father’s great objects
+with admirable skill, and in two particulars
+he merits our gratitude even more.
+He was one of the earliest of our countrymen
+to study drawing, and to apply it
+to plans and views of places; and, while
+he could wield Latin easily, he condescended
+to write the history of his time
+in excellent Scotch.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“While these writers were illustrating
+the history of their country in prose, a
+crowd of scholars were writing poetry,
+or, at least, pouring forth innumerable
+copies of elegant Latin verses. While
+the two Johnstons were the most distinguished
+of those poets of Aberdeen, John
+Leech, once Rector of our University,<a id='r24'></a><a href='#f24' class='c007'><sup>[24]</sup></a>
+David Wedderburn, rector of the Grammar
+School, and many others, wrote and
+published pleasing Latin verse, which
+stands the test of criticism. While it
+cannot be said that such compositions
+produce on the reader the higher effects
+of real poetry, they are not without
+value, if we view them as tests of the
+cultivation of the society among which
+they were produced. Arthur Johnston
+not only addresses elegiacs to the bishop
+and his doctors, throwing a charming
+classical air over their abstruser learning,
+but puts up a petition to the magistrates
+of the city, or celebrates the charms of
+Mistress Abernethy, or the embroideries
+of the Lady Lauderdale—all in choice
+Latin verse, quite as if the persons whom
+he addressed appreciated the language of
+the poet.<a id='r25'></a><a href='#f25' class='c007'><sup>[25]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“Intelligent and educated strangers,
+both foreigners and the gentry of the
+north, were attracted to Aberdeen; and
+its colleges became the place of education
+for a higher class of students than had
+hitherto been accustomed to draw their
+philosophy from a native source.<a id='r26'></a><a href='#f26' class='c007'><sup>[26]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“If it was altogether chance, it was a
+very fortunate accident, which placed in
+the midst of a society so worthy of commemoration
+a painter like George Jamiesone,
+the pupil of Rubens, the first, and,
+till Raeburn, the only great painter whom
+Scotland had produced. Though he was
+a native of Aberdeen, it is not likely that
+anything but the little court of the bishop
+could have induced such an artist to prosecute
+his art in a provincial town. An
+academic orator in 1630, while boasting
+of the crowd of distinguished men, natives
+and strangers, either produced by the
+University, or brought to Aberdeen by
+the bishop, was able to point to their
+pictures ornamenting the hall where his
+audience were assembled. Knowing by
+whom these portraits were painted, we
+cannot but regret that so few are preserved.”<a id='r27'></a><a href='#f27' class='c007'><sup>[27]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p class='c008'>Keeping, however, to the matter of
+academic impugnment, we shall now
+turn to an instance of its incidental
+occurrence in that University, which,
+from its late origin, was least imbued
+with the spirit of the Continental
+system.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The visit of King James to his
+ancient kingdom in 1617, afforded the
+half-formed collegiate institution in
+Edinburgh an opportunity for a rhetorical
+display, which ended in substantial
+advantages. Tired with business
+at Holyrood, and in the enjoyment
+of full eating and drinking, and “driving
+our” at his quieter palace of Stirling,
+he bethought himself of a rhetorical
+pastime with the professors of
+the new University, wherein he could
+not fail to luxuriate in the scholastic
+quibbling with which his mind was
+so well crammed, and he was pretty
+certain of enjoying an ample banquet
+of success and applause. Hence, as
+Thomas Crawford the annalist of the
+institution informs us, “It pleased his
+majesty to appoint the maisters of the
+college to attend him at Sterling the
+29th day of July, where, in the royal
+chapel, his majesty, with the flower of
+the nobility, and many of the most
+learned men of both nations, were
+present, a little before five of the
+clock, and continued with much chearfulness
+above three hours.”</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The display was calculated to be
+rather appalling to any man who had
+much diffidence or reserve in his disposition,
+and hence Charteris, the principal,
+“being naturally averse from
+public show, and professor of divinity,”
+transferred the duty of leading
+the discussion to Professor Adamson.
+The form adopted was the good
+old method of the impugnment of
+theses, so many being appointed to
+defend, and so many to impugn; “but
+they insisted only upon such purposes
+as were conceived would be most
+acceptable to the king’s majesty and
+the auditory.”</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The first thesis was better suited
+for the legislature than an academic
+body, and there must have been some
+peculiar reason for bringing it on. It
+was, “that sheriffs and other inferior
+magistrates should not be hereditary,”
+which was oppugned by Professor
+Lands “with many pretty arguments.”
+The king was so pleased
+with the oppugnation, that he turned to
+the Marquis of Hamilton, hereditary
+sheriff of Clydesdale, and said,
+“James, you see your cause lost—and
+all that can be said for it clearly
+satisfied and answered.” <em>N.—B.</em> It is
+just worth noticing that the College
+and the Marquis were then at feud.
+There was a question about the possession
+of the old lodging of the Hamilton
+family, then constituting a considerable
+portion of the University
+edifices. The “gud old nobleman,”
+his father, had been easily satisfied,
+but the young man was determined to
+stand upon his rights, and, though he
+could not recover possession, get something
+in the shape of rent or damages;
+nor would he take the judicious hint
+that “so honourable a personage
+would never admit into his thoughts
+to impoverish the patrimony of the
+young University, which had been so
+great an ornament, and so fruitful an
+instrument of so much good to the
+whole nation, but rather accept of
+some honourable acknowledgment of
+his munificence in bestowing upon the
+College an honest residence for the
+muses.” But to return to the impugnment.
+The next thesis was on local
+motion, “pressing many things by
+clear testimonies of Aristotle’s text;”
+and this passage of literary arms called
+out one of James’s sallies of pawky persiflage.
+“These men,” he said, “know
+Aristotle’s mind as well as himself
+did while he lived.” The next thesis
+was on the “Original of Fountains;”
+and the discussion, much to the purpose,
+no doubt, was so interesting that
+it was allowed to go on far beyond
+the prescribed period, “his majesty
+himself sometimes speaking for the
+impugner, and sometimes for the defender,
+in good Latin, and with much
+knowledge of the secrets of philosophy.”</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Talking is, however, at the best, dry
+work. His majesty went at last to
+supper, and no doubt would have
+what is termed “a wet night.” When
+up to the proper mark, he sent for the
+professors, and delivered himself of
+the following brilliant address:—</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>“Methinks these gentlemen, by
+their very names, have been destined
+for the acts which they have had in
+hand to-day. Adam was father of
+all; and, very fitly, Adamson had the
+first part of this act. The defender is
+justly called Fairly—his thesis had
+some fair lies, and he defended them
+very fairly, and with many fair lies
+given to the oppugners. And why
+should not Mr Lands be the first to
+enter the lands? but now I clearly
+see that all lands are not barren, for
+certainly he hath shown a fertile wit.
+Mr Young is very old in Aristotle.
+Mr Reed needs not be red with blushing
+for his acting to-day. Mr King
+disputed very kingly, and of a kingly
+purpose, anent the royal supremacy of
+reason over anger and all passions.”
+And here his majesty was going to
+close the encomiums, when some one
+nudged his elbow, and hinted that he
+had omitted to notice the modest
+Charteris; but the royal wit was not
+abashed, and his concluding impromptu
+was by no means the least
+successful of his puns. “Well, his
+name agreeth very well to his nature;
+for charters contain much matter, yet
+say nothing, but put great purposes in
+men’s mouths.”</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Few natures would be churlish
+enough to resist a genial glow of satisfaction
+on receiving such pearls of
+rhetoric scattered among them by a
+royal hand, and we may believe that
+the professors were greatly gratified.
+But, pleased more probably by his own
+success, the king gave a more substantial
+mark of his satisfaction, and said,
+“I am so well satisfied with this
+day’s exercise, that I will be godfather
+to the College of Edinburgh,
+and have it called the College of
+King James; for after the founding
+of it had been stopped for sundry
+years in my minority, so soon as I
+came to any knowledge, I zealously
+held hand to it, and caused it to be
+established; and although I see many
+look upon it with an evil eye, yet I
+will have them to know that, having
+given it this name, I have espoused its
+quarrel.” And further on in the
+night, he promised, “that as he had
+given the College a name, he would
+also, in time convenient, give it a
+royal godbairn gift for enlarging the
+patrimony thereof.”</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>In the course of the multifarious
+talk of the evening, a curious and
+delicate matter was opened up—the
+difference between the English pronunciation
+of Latin and the Scottish,
+which corresponds with that of Europe
+in general. An English doctor, who
+must have enjoyed exceptional opinions,
+or been a master of hypocrisy,
+praised the readiness and elegancy of
+his majesty’s Latinity; on which he
+said, “All the world knows that my
+maister, Mr George Buchanan, was
+a great maister in that faculty. I follow
+his pronunciation both of Latin
+and Greek, and am sorry that my
+people of England do not the like, for
+certainly their pronunciation utterly
+spoils the grace of these two learned
+languages; but you see all the university
+and learned men of Scotland
+express the true and native pronunciation
+of both.”<a id='r28'></a><a href='#f28' class='c007'><sup>[28]</sup></a></p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_151'>151</span>
+  <h2 class='c002'>THE INSURRECTION IN SPAIN.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-r c013'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'><em>Madrid, July 1854.</em></div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>Dear Ebony.—Had I known that
+you would treacherously publish my
+private communications, and that
+Maga comes to Madrid, I certainly
+would have waited until I had quitted
+this capital, before imparting to you
+my impressions of it, its inhabitants,
+and its institutions. I admit that I
+have but myself to blame for my ignorance
+of the fact that Maga, whose
+fame extends to the uttermost parts of
+the earth, has her regular readers even
+in Madrid. But you, who must be
+aware of that fact, are not the less
+culpable for risking the valuable life
+of your old ally and contributor. You
+might have had a little more consideration
+for your outpost than to expose
+him to the thrust of an Albacete
+dagger or Catalan knife, whether dealt
+under the fifth rib, or treacherously in
+the back. You should have reflected
+that my olive-green uniform, with a
+golden thistle on the black-facings,
+would naturally betray my quality of
+Maga’s vedette. Since the 10th of
+June, date of the Magazine’s arrival
+in Madrid, my existence has not been
+worth an hour’s purchase. I have
+been obliged to strike my tent, pitched
+in the Puerta del Sol, as the best place
+for observation, and to picket my
+charger in the recesses of the Retiro,
+whose cool shades, I confess, are not
+altogether to be despised now that the
+thermometer ranges from 90 to 100 in
+the shade, and that the streets of this
+capital resemble nothing so much as
+limekilns, thanks to dust from demolitions,
+and to the rays of a sun compared
+to which the Phœbus of the
+British Isles is a very feeble impostor.
+You are, of course, aware of the pleasant
+peculiarities of the Madrid climate—Siberia
+in winter and in the
+wind; the Sahara in summer and in
+the sun. We are just now in all the
+delights of the dogdays; a wet brick
+is sunburned red in half an hour;
+eggs, placed for ten minutes on the
+tiles, open for the exit of lively
+chickens; and Madrid, to avoid calcination,
+flies to the woods and waves.
+As I hope soon to follow its example,
+and shall consequently not be here
+when your August number arrives,
+I will venture to send you another
+epistle, notwithstanding that I have
+received sundry mysterious warnings
+that a repetition of my first offence
+would lead to prompt blood-letting.
+This time, however, I shall have less
+to say of the follies and failings of the
+natives, and more of what has occurred
+since last I troubled you with
+my prose. Then I did but glance at
+politics <em>en passant</em>; now, I propose
+devoting my whole letter to them.
+Just one fortnight ago there occurred
+at Madrid an event so important that
+I think it best to confine myself to an
+account of it, and to reserve lighter
+matters for a future communication.
+I need hardly say that the event in
+question is the military insurrection
+of the 28th of June.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Things had been in rather a queer
+state here for some time past. As
+you may possibly, amidst the excitement
+of the Eastern question, have
+neglected to follow up the minute
+intricacies of Spanish politics, I must
+step back a pace or two, in order to
+put you <em>au fait</em>. Autumn of last
+year witnessed the arrival at power
+of the present ministry, which speedily
+became far more unpopular than,
+for some time past, any administration
+had been. Headed by an unprincipled
+and unscrupulous adventurer, it
+recoiled from no illegality or tyranny
+that might conduce to its own advantage.
+Defeated in the senate by a
+large majority, on the memorable
+railway question, it suspended the
+session, and began to indulge its
+hatred of those who assisted in its
+rebuff. In January of the present
+year, about a month after the closing
+of the legislative chambers, some of
+the most formidable of its opponents,
+on that occasion and on most others,
+were ordered into exile. It is customary
+and legal in Spain for the
+minister to assign a residence to
+unemployed officers, whither they are
+bound to proceed. In those dispositions,
+the convenience of the officers
+is usually to a certain extent consulted,
+but sometimes, especially for
+political reasons, the contrary is the
+case, and such assignment of quarters
+becomes little less than a sentence of
+banishment. A military man may be
+authorised to reside in Madrid (the
+Spaniard’s paradise), or transported
+to the Philippines, which he would
+consider purgatory. As most military
+men of high rank in this country are
+more or less political characters,
+either having held office, or hoping
+some day to find a place in one of
+the ephemeral Spanish governments
+(whose existence rarely exceeds a
+year, and is sometimes limited to a
+day), and constantly manœuvring to
+obtain it, they hold it a cruel destiny
+that consigns them to a colonial abode,
+or to vegetation in a remote town, far
+from the capital, that centre of every
+kind of intrigue. It may be imagined,
+therefore, with what extreme disgust
+some of the military chiefs of the
+Moderado opposition suddenly found
+themselves ordered to places where
+they would be at full liberty to study
+strategy, or play the Cincinnatus in
+their cabbage gardens, but where they
+would be forgotten by the world, and
+powerless to annoy the ministers or
+to forward their own ambitious views.
+Generals Leopold O’Donnell, Manuel
+Concha, José Concha, and Infante
+(a deserter from the Progresista or
+liberal party), were the men whose
+influence and intrigues the Sartorius
+ministry thus attempted to annul.
+The two former were ordered to the
+Canary Islands, the two latter to the
+Balearics. Manuel Concha and Infante
+obeyed orders and departed for
+their destinations; José Concha, by
+far the cleverer of the brothers, went
+into France; O’Donnell disappeared,
+and it was not until some time afterwards
+that it became known where
+he was concealed. From the time of
+these banishments (the latter part of
+January) may be dated the commencement
+of the conspiracy which
+has just broken out in the shape of a
+military insurrection.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>On the 20th of February, the regiment
+of Cordova, quartered at Saragossa,
+rose in revolt, headed by its
+colonel, Brigadier Hore, an officer of
+merit, who had served in the royal
+guards during the civil war. Nearly
+the whole of the garrison, and several
+officers of high rank, were pledged to
+support the movement; but some of
+the latter played the traitor, others
+hesitated at the very moment when
+promptness and decision were most
+necessary; José Concha, who was
+then concealed in Spain, and expected
+to start up at Saragossa to head the
+revolt, did not appear, but soon afterwards
+presented himself to the authorities
+of Bordeaux. In short, the
+whole thing failed. The Cordova regiment
+was broken up; changes were
+made in one or two garrisons; a number
+of arrests, especially of military
+men and newspaper editors, were
+made in Madrid; promotions and decorations
+were lavished upon certain
+officers, amongst whom were some
+who had betrayed to death the friends
+and confederates they had promised
+to support; the last of the insurgents
+were driven across the frontier; the
+government emerged from the brief
+struggle with renewed strength, and
+became daily more unconstitutional,
+arbitrary, and tyrannical.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Within a short time after the incidents
+I have thus briefly sketched, it
+was generally reported that the place
+where the Moderado opposition (noway
+discouraged by the disaster in
+Arragon) intended to make their next
+attempt, was Madrid itself. The conduct
+of the government in the mean
+time had certainly been such as to
+irritate its enemies, and rouse public
+indignation. No one was safe from
+the despotic system introduced. Illegal
+arrests were of frequent occurrence,
+made without a shadow of a
+pretext, and whose victims, conscious
+of no crime, were left to languish
+in prison, transported to the
+colonies, or escorted out of Spain.
+The opposition journals were daily
+seized, not only for the articles they
+published, but for the mere news they
+gave, as there were many things
+which ministers did not choose to have
+communicated to the nation except in
+the falsified version given by their own
+journals. The <cite><span lang="es">Clamor Publico</span></cite>, ably
+conducted by a staunch and well-known
+liberal, Don Fernando Corradi;
+the <cite><span lang="es">Nacion</span></cite>, also a Progresista paper,
+whose editor, Rua Figueroa, still contrived
+to write in it from the concealment
+to which an order for his arrest
+had compelled him; the <cite><span lang="es">Diario Español</span></cite>
+and the <cite><span lang="es">Epoca</span></cite>, representing the
+Moderado opposition, were the chief
+objects of ministerial oppression and
+vindictiveness, and day after day their
+columns were headed with the announcement,
+that their first edition
+had been seized by order of the censor.
+In spite of this persecution, they
+steadily persevered, opposing the government
+as well as they might, but
+prevented from exposing, otherwise
+than by inference and in a most guarded
+manner, the scandalous corruption
+and jobbing of the ministers and the
+court. Discontent was general, and
+daily increased. It was asked when
+the Cortes were to assemble, for only
+in their discussions did there seem a
+chance of such expression of public
+opinion as might alarm and check the
+men in power. These, however, had
+no intention of calling together the
+legislative chambers. They continued
+to make laws by decree, and to
+sanction, for the benefit of their friends
+and adherents, railways and other
+national works, for which the approval
+of the Cortes was to be asked at some
+future day. But that day has not yet
+come, nor will it come, so long as the
+present ministry is in office and the
+Queen-mother supports them, for she
+dreads, as much as they do, the exposure
+of the countless iniquitous speculations
+at the country’s expense, in
+which she and her husband have been
+concerned, with the connivance and
+aid of the government, who thus repaid
+her for the countenance that often
+stood them in good stead against the
+intrigues of the camarilla headed by
+the Queen’s favourite. Then there
+were frequent rumours of an approaching
+<em>coup d’état</em>, on the plan of that of
+December 1851 in France, or of that,
+nearly resembling it, which the bravo-Murillo
+ministry had actually published,
+but had been unable to carry
+out. All this time (ever since the
+outbreak at Saragossa) the whole
+country was under martial law; no
+<em>coup d’état</em> could confer upon the government
+more arbitrary powers than
+those it already exercised—it could
+but legalise illegality. The case was
+vastly different in France and in Spain.
+In France, after a period of anarchy,
+succeeded by a conflict of political
+factions which rendered all government
+impossible, a man long depreciated,
+but now generally admitted to
+be of commanding talent, and, we are
+justified in believing, of far more
+patriotic mind than he ever had credit
+for, cut the knot of the difficulty, at
+the cost, certainly, of constitutional
+forms, but, as many now think, for
+the real benefit of the nation. In
+Spain, the situation of affairs was
+quite otherwise. Where was here the
+vigorous intellect whose judgment, and
+firmness and foresight were to guide,
+without assistance and through many
+perils, the ship of the state. Was it
+that of the unfortunate, uneducated
+Queen, who detests business, and passes
+her life sunk in sloth and sensuality?
+Was it to be the upstart unscrupulous
+minister who, by sheer audacity (the
+most valuable quality for a Spanish
+politician who seeks but his own aggrandisement),
+had first crawled and
+afterwards pushed his way to the head
+of the royal council-board? Or would
+the arch-intriguer, Maria Christina,
+sketch the course her daughter should
+adopt when converted into an absolute
+sovereign? No, for her time was too
+much taken up in adding, at the expense
+of Spain, to her already incalculable
+wealth, and in planning marriages
+for her numerous daughters.
+In short, to carry into the higher
+sphere of politics the general and servile
+imitation of France now observable
+in Spain, was an idea repugnant to the
+Spanish nation, and which increased,
+if possible, the universal discontent
+that already prevailed—excited by the
+closing of the chambers, the violence
+used towards the independent press
+(which it was evidently intended to
+crush), the notorious corruption of the
+administration; the unsatisfactory
+state of the finances, tending inevitably
+to some extraordinary exactions from
+the already over-taxed people; and
+last, but not least, by the scandalous
+concessions daily made to the friends
+and adherents of the ministry, and to
+those influential persons, the Rianzares,
+Señor Arana, Mr Salamanca,
+and others, whose enmity the Sartorius
+cabinet dared not encounter, and
+whose support they were compelled to
+purchase.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>It was understood that a military
+insurrection was contemplated, with
+O’Donnell at its head. The government
+affected to make light of the
+affair, but in reality they were not
+without uneasiness, for they could not
+but feel—although they daily had it
+proclaimed by the hireling <cite><span lang="es">Heraldo</span></cite>
+that they were the saviours of the
+nation, and the most popular and
+prosperous of ministries—that they
+were execrated, and that all classes
+would rejoice in their downfall. It
+is difficult to convey to Englishmen—except
+to those who may be personally
+acquainted with this singular
+country and people—a clear idea of
+the state of political affairs in Madrid
+during the second quarter of the present
+year. I must content myself
+with supplying a few detached facts
+and details, from which you may,
+perhaps, form a notion of the whole.
+For three months conspiracy may be
+said to have walked the streets of
+Madrid openly and in broad daylight.
+Almost every one knew that something
+was plotting, and a considerable
+number of persons could have told the
+names of the chief conspirators, and
+given some sort of general outline of
+their plans. O’Donnell, disobeying
+the orders of the Queen’s government,
+remained hidden in Madrid,
+seeing numerous friends, but undiscoverable
+by the police. He had frequent
+meetings with his fellow-conspirators;
+his wife often saw him;
+for some time, during which he was
+seriously ill, he was daily visited by
+one of the first physicians in Madrid;
+still the government, although most
+anxious to apprehend him, failed in
+every attempt to discover his hiding-place,
+which was known to many. It
+is rare that the secrets of a conspiracy,
+when they have been confided
+to so large a number of persons, have
+been kept so well and for so long a time
+as in the present case; but this caution
+and discretion are easily explicable
+by the universal hatred felt for
+the present government and by the
+strong desire for its fall. The superior
+police authorities were bitterly
+blamed by the minister; large sums
+were placed at their disposal, numerous
+agents had assigned to them the
+sole duty of seeking O’Donnell. All
+was in vain. The government paid
+these agents well, but O’Donnell, as
+it afterwards appeared, paid them
+better. A portion, at least, of the
+men employed to detect him, watched
+over his safety. The government,
+ashamed of its impotence to capture,
+spread reports that he they sought
+had left Madrid; and, afterwards,
+that they knew where he was, but
+preferred leaving him there and
+watching his movements to seizing
+him and sending him out of the country,
+to prepare, on a foreign soil,
+revolutionary movements in the provinces
+of Spain. These ridiculous
+pretences imposed upon very few.
+Could the government have apprehended
+O’Donnell, they might not
+have dared to shoot him, and might
+have hesitated permanently to imprison
+him; but they would not have
+scrupled to ship him to the Philippines,
+where he would have done
+little mischief. The truth was, that
+they employed every means to discover
+his hiding-place, and every
+means proved ineffectual. O’Donnell,
+I am informed, was concealed in a
+house that communicated with the
+one next to it, which had back and
+front entrances. His friends and the
+friendly police kept strict watch. Of
+a night, when he sometimes went out
+to walk, his safety was cared for by
+the very men whom the authorities
+had commissioned to look for him,
+and who went away with him when
+he left Madrid to assume the command
+of the insurgents. A gentleman
+who, during a certain period,
+was in the habit of frequently seeing
+him, was one morning on his way to
+his place of concealment, and had
+entered the street in which it was
+situated, when a police agent, making
+him a sign, slipped a scrap of paper
+into his hand. On it were the words
+“Beware, you are watched.” Taking
+the hint, the person warned
+passed the house to which he was
+going, and entered another, in the
+same street, where he had friends.
+From the window he observed a
+policeman, who had been loitering
+about as if in the ordinary discharge
+of his duty, hastily depart. When
+he had made sure that the coast was
+clear, he left the house, entered that in
+which O’Donnell was, saw him, passed
+into the next house, and departed by
+the back door. There was soon a
+cordon of police agents round the
+house into which he first had gone,
+but their vigilance was fruitless. I
+had this anecdote from one of the
+most intimate friends of the person
+who visited O’Donnell, and who was
+named to me at the same time.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>During the period of suspense that
+preceded the insurrection, attempts
+were made to bring about a union between
+the Liberal party and the Moderado
+opposition. The former, although
+divided into sections which differ on
+certain points, is unanimous in its
+desire to see Spain governed constitutionally.
+Overtures were made to
+some of its chiefs. It was proposed
+that it should co-operate in the overthrow
+of the set of men who had
+detached themselves from all parties,
+and were marching on the high road
+to absolutism. These men, known
+as the Polacos or Poles—a word
+which seems to have had its origin
+in an electioneering joke—were odious
+alike to Progresistas and Moderados.
+But there were great difficulties in the
+way of a sincere and cordial junction
+between the two principal parties into
+which Spaniards are divided. The
+Moderados would gladly have availed
+themselves of the aid of the Liberals to
+upset their common enemy; but they
+would give them no guarantees that
+they should be, in any way, gainers by
+the revolution. The Liberals, on the
+other hand, mistrusted the Moderados,
+and would not assist men whose aims
+they believed to be purely personal.
+When the Moderados asked what guarantees
+they required, they were quickly
+ready with an answer. “Arm the
+national guard of Madrid,” they said;
+or, “March your troops, as soon as
+you have induced them to revolt, at
+once into Arragon, with one of our
+most influential and determined
+chiefs.” The Moderados could not
+be induced to listen to such terms.
+They found themselves exactly in
+the position in which the Progresistas
+were in 1843.  Divided amongst
+themselves, the probabilities were
+that the insurrection they proposed
+would turn to the advantage of the
+Liberals; and the risk of this was
+doubled if they accepted even the
+most favourable of the conditions offered
+to them. They knew that the
+feeling of a large majority of the nation
+was in favour of the Progresistas;
+that Espartero, although for seven
+years he had led the life of a country
+gentleman at Logroño, and had
+steadily resisted all temptations to
+mingle again in political affairs, was
+in reality the most popular man in
+Spain, and that he was idolised by
+the people of Madrid. Some amongst
+them (O’Donnell himself, it has been
+said), whose views were more patriotic
+and less selfish than those of the
+majority, were not unwilling to blend
+with the Progresistas, to whom a few,
+including Rios Rosas, a distinguished
+lawyer and senator, frankly proclaimed
+their adherence, declaring that
+the parties which for so many years
+had divided Spain were virtually
+defunct, and that there were but two
+parties in the country,—the national
+one, which desired the welfare of
+Spain, and to see it governed according
+to the constitution, and the retrograde
+or absolutist, which trampled
+on the rights of the people. But
+although a few men were found ready
+to waive personal considerations and
+to forget old animosities, the great
+majority of the Moderados were less
+disinterested, and the decision finally
+come to was to do without the aid of
+the Liberals, and to accomplish an
+insurrection which, although its success
+was likely to be of some advantage
+to the country, at least for a
+time, had for its object a change of
+men rather than of measures.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>One of the most important persons
+concerned in the conspiracy was the
+Director of Cavalry, Major-General
+Domingo Dulce, reputed one of
+the best and bravest officers in the
+Spanish army, and who had won his
+high rank and many honours, not by
+political intrigue, as is so frequently
+the case in this country, but at the
+point of his good sword. He passed
+for a Progresista, and most of his
+friends were of that party; but in fact
+he had never mixed much in politics,
+and, as a military man, had served
+under governments of various principles.
+It is evident, however, that
+whilst confining himself to the duties
+of his profession—which is rarely the
+case with Spanish general officers—he
+cherished in his heart the love of
+liberty, and a strong detestation of
+the tyranny under which Spain has
+for some time groaned. An intimate
+friend of his, a well-known and distinguished
+Liberal, was the immediate
+means of his joining the conspiracy.
+It was an immense acquisition to the
+cause he agreed to assist. Chief of
+the whole of the Spanish cavalry, respected
+and beloved by the men and
+officers under his command, he could
+bring a large force to the insurgent
+banner, and his own presence beneath
+it was of itself of great value, for he
+is a daring and decided officer. He
+it was who, by his obstinate resistance
+in the palace, at the head of a handful
+of halberdiers, defeated the designs of
+the conspirators in the year 1841.
+Dulce is a slightly-made, active, wiry
+man, rather below the middle height,
+of bilious temperament, and taciturn
+mood, extremely reserved, even with
+his friends, not calculated to cut a
+great figure in the council, but a man
+of action, precious in the field. The
+other principal conspirators were
+General Messina, a man of education
+and talent, who had been under-secretary
+of the war department,
+and is an intimate friend of Narvaez;
+Ros de Olano, a general officer of
+some repute; and Brigadier Echague,
+colonel of the Principe regiment, a
+Basque officer who served with high
+distinction throughout the whole of
+the civil War.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Several false starts were made before
+the insurrection really broke out.
+On the 13th of June, especially, it
+had been fixed to take place. The
+garrison of Madrid had been ordered
+to parade before daybreak for a military
+promenade and review outside
+the town. Such parades had been
+unusually frequent for a short time
+past; and it was thought the government
+ordered them, owing to information
+it received, not sufficiently definite
+to compromise the conspirators
+personally, but which yet enabled it
+to defeat their designs. On that
+morning, however, all was ready.
+The Principe regiment, instead of
+marching directly to the parade
+ground, lingered, and finally halted
+at a place where it could easily join
+the cavalry. O’Donnell left the town,
+disguised, and stationed himself in a
+house whence he could observe all
+that passed. Persons were placed in
+the vicinity to watch over his safety.
+The proclamations that had been prepared
+were got ready for distribution.
+Late on the eve of the intended outbreak,
+about four or five hours before
+it was to occur, its approach was
+known to several persons who, without
+being implicated in the plot,
+sincerely wished it success. There
+seemed no doubt of the event. But,
+at the very moment, a portion of the
+artillery of the garrison, which had
+pledged itself to take part in the
+movement, failed to make its appearance
+at the place of rendezvous.
+General Dulce considered their absence
+so important that he abandoned,
+for that day, his intention of marching
+off his cavalry, and declaring against
+the government. The combat of the
+30th of June, in the fields of Vicálvaro,
+showed that he did not overrate
+the importance of including all
+arms in the composition of the insurrectionary
+force. At the time, however,
+a storm of censure burst over
+his head. He was taxed with treachery,
+with a deficiency in moral
+courage; his best friends looked mistrustfully
+and coldly upon him; more
+than one general officer, presuming
+on seniority of rank and age, took
+him severely to task. General O’Donnell
+was not backward in reproaching
+him. “Never was a white man”
+(these were the very words of the ex-governor
+of Cuba) “sold as you have
+sold me.” Dulce, although deeply
+sensitive to all this blame, took it
+meekly, acknowledged that appearances
+were against him, but declared
+that he had acted for the best, and
+steadily affirmed that his future conduct
+would prove his fidelity to the
+cause he had espoused. Not all believed
+him.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Some days passed over, and there
+was no word of an insurrection. The
+conspirators were discouraged. Rumour
+spoke of dissensions among
+them. It was thought that nothing
+would occur. It was known to many
+that Dulce was of the conspiracy, and
+that, by his fault or will, a good
+opportunity had been lost; and they
+said that if he were not playing a
+double game, the government would
+certainly have heard of his complicity
+with O’Donnell, and would at least
+have removed him from his command.
+It was fact that, for some time past,
+anonymous letters had been received
+by the ministers, warning them that
+he was plotting against them. But
+they disbelieved this information, and
+some of the letters were even shown
+to Dulce. The Duke of Rianzares,
+calling one day on a minister, found
+Dulce there. “What is this that I
+hear, general?” said Queen Christina’s
+husband; “is it true that you intend
+to shoot us all?” The question was
+awkward, but easily parried. A few
+days before the insurrection occurred,
+Dulce went over to Alcala, five leagues
+from Madrid, under pretence of inspecting
+the recruits stationed there.
+Seven squadrons of cavalry were in
+that town. Doubtless his object was
+to see if he could still reckon upon
+their following him whithersoever he
+chose to lead. I met him in the street
+after his return; I think it was on the
+26th of June. He looked anxious and
+careworn. His position was certainly
+critical, and it is not presuming too
+much to suppose that a severe struggle
+was going on within him between a
+long habit of military discipline and
+duty, and what we must in justice
+believe to have been, in his opinion,
+a paramount duty to his oppressed
+country. For he was at the top of
+the tree. His position was splendid;
+his emoluments were large; he had
+but to persevere in his adherence to
+the government of the day to attain
+to the very highest rank in his profession—although
+that did not afford
+a more desirable place than the one
+he already occupied. Under these
+circumstances, even his enemies must
+admit—however guilty they may deem
+him—that he was not actuated by the
+selfish desire of personal advantage or
+aggrandisement.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Madrid, incredulous of an insurrection,
+was taken completely by surprise
+by the news that greeted its uprising
+on the morning of the 28th
+June. Some hours previously, it was
+informed, the director-general of cavalry,
+after mustering for review, in a
+field just outside the walls, the eleven
+squadrons that formed part of the garrison
+of the capital, had been joined by a
+battalion of the regiment of Principe, by
+a few companies from other regiments,
+and by General O’Donnell himself, and
+had marched to Alcala to incorporate
+in his insurrectionary force the troops
+there stationed. Other generals, it
+was stated, were with him, but for
+many hours—indeed for the whole of
+that day—truth was hard to be got
+at, and Rumour had it all her own
+way. The aspect of Madrid was
+curious. The Queen and Court had left
+two days previously for the Escurial;
+all but two of the ministers were absent;
+those two were paralysed by the
+sudden event, and seemingly helpless.
+No measures were taken, no troops
+brought out; for a time it might have
+been thought that, as was reported,
+all but some fifteen hundred of these
+had left with the insurgent generals;
+for several hours the town was at the
+mercy of the people, and had they
+then risen it would probably have
+been their own, for many of the troops
+remaining in Madrid were disaffected
+and would have joined them. There
+was great excitement; the general
+expression was one of joy at the prospect
+of getting rid of a ministry than
+which none could be more odious;
+the Puerta del Sol and the principal
+streets were full of groups eagerly discussing
+the events of the hour; friends
+met each other with joyous countenances,
+and shook hands as if in congratulation—Liberals
+and Moderados
+alike well pleased at the event that
+threatened to prove fatal to the common
+enemy. I need not repeat the
+countless reports current on that day.
+The most important fact that became
+known was that the cavalry at Alcala
+had joined the insurgents, and that
+two thousand horsemen, some of the
+best dragoons in the Spanish army,
+were in hostile attitude close to Madrid,
+accompanied by a small but most
+efficient body of infantry. Towards
+evening the authorities began to
+awake from their lethargy of alarm.
+Ignorant of the fact that a line of
+telegraphic wires had been concluded
+on the previous day between Madrid
+and the Escurial, the insurgents had
+neglected to cut off this means of rapid
+communication; news of the insurrection
+had been transmitted to the
+Queen, and her return to the capital
+was announced. The streets were
+quickly filled with troops, illuminations
+were ordered (there was no
+hope of their being volunteered), and at
+about ten o’clock her Majesty made her
+entrance, passing completely through
+the town, having previously been to
+perform her devotions in the church
+of Atocha, whose presiding virgin is
+the special patroness of the royal
+family of Spain—the gracious protectress
+for whom princes embroider petticoats,
+and whose shrine queens enrich
+with jewels, whose cost would
+found an hospital or comfort many
+poor. A young Queen, entering her
+capital in haste and anxiety, a few
+hours after a revolt against her authority,
+ought, one might suppose, to
+command, by her mere presence, some
+demonstration of loyalty and affection
+from her subjects. But the present
+Queen of Spain has so completely
+weaned from her the affections of her
+people, has so well earned their contempt,
+and even their hatred, that
+neither on that night nor on any
+other occasion that I have witnessed
+was a voice uplifted or a <em>viva</em> heard.
+A body of gendarmes, drawn up opposite
+to the ministry of the interior,
+cheered as she passed, and possibly
+the same may have been the case on
+the part of civil and military functionaries
+at other points of the line of her
+progress, but the attitude of the
+people and soldiers was one of perfect
+indifference. The same was the case
+on the following day, when she reviewed
+the garrison in the Prado,
+and conferred decorations and promotion
+on sergeants and privates who
+had distinguished themselves by their
+fidelity in refusing to be led away by
+the insurgents. Surrounded by a numerous
+staff of officers, and having
+the troops formed in such wise that as
+many as possible of them might hear
+her, she addressed to them a short
+speech, was profuse of smiles, and
+held up to them her infant daughter
+as if confiding it to their defence. Now
+was the time, if ever, for the old
+Castilian loyalty to burst forth in acclamation.
+But its spirit is dead,
+crushed by royal misconduct and misrule.
+Not a cheer was uttered,
+either by officer or soldier. The ominous
+silence was remarked by all present.
+It was equally profound as the
+Queen returned to her palace through
+the most populous streets of her
+capital, crowded on the warm summer
+night. It is said and believed here
+that, on reaching the palace, she was
+so affected and disheartened by the
+chilling reception she had on all sides
+met, that she burst into a passion of
+tears. Pity it is for the poor woman,
+who is not without some natural good
+qualities, but whom evil influences and
+a neglected education have brought
+to sorrow and contempt.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>I cannot pretend to relate all the
+incidents of the last fortnight, which
+has been crowded with them to an
+extent that baffles memory. The
+most important you will find in this
+letter—many of the minor ones have
+doubtless escaped me. I must devote
+a few more lines to the first day. An
+unsigned proclamation was circulated,
+of a tenor by no means unacceptable
+to the Liberals, whose chiefs consulted
+as to the propriety of rising in arms,
+or at least of making some demonstration
+of hostility to the government.
+Another proclamation, of greater
+length, signed by three generals,
+O’Donnell, Dulce, and Messina, disappointed
+them, for it contained not
+a word that guaranteed benefit to the
+nation, and spoke merely of the
+knavery of the ministers and of the
+necessity of getting rid of them.
+Moreover, a request was sent in by the
+insurgents that Madrid would remain
+quiet, and leave them to settle matters
+militarily. Between deliberation and
+delays the day passed away, and towards
+night the altered attitude of
+the authorities, who had received
+telegraphic orders from Mr Sartorius
+to act with the utmost vigour, the
+large bodies of troops in the streets
+convincing those who had previously
+doubted that there was still a sufficient
+force in the town to repress any
+popular attempt, caused half-formed
+plans to fall to the ground, and even
+the most ardent and bellicose resolved
+to wait the events of the morrow before
+shouldering musket and throwing
+up barricades.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The morrow was the festival of St
+Peter, a great holiday, kept quiet as
+a Sunday, with much mass and bull-fights.
+I presume the churches were
+attended, but the bull-fights did not
+take place. Some arrests were made,
+but not many, for some of the persons
+sought after had concealed themselves.
+Madrid was still excited, but quite
+tranquil. On that and the following
+day every sort of rumour was current.
+The insurgents were near the town,
+and there were frequent reports that
+they were coming to attack it. Circulation
+was prohibited in the lower
+part of the street of Alcala, leading to
+the gate near to which the enemy
+were supposed to be. The residence
+of the Captain-general and the officers
+of the staff is in the lower part of
+that street, and the constant passage
+to and fro of orderlies and aides-de-camp
+interested the people: so that
+on the line of demarcation, beyond
+which there was no passage, there
+was a throng from morning till night,
+watching—they knew not exactly for
+what. From time to time there was
+a rush and panic—when the mob encroached
+on the limit, and the military
+were ordered to make them recede.
+The Café Suizo, at the summit of
+the street—which rises and again sinks
+over a small eminence—was a great
+point of rendezvous, and was crowded
+with eager politicians. Towards evening,
+on the 30th, the garrison (almost
+the whole) being out of the town, it
+became known that a fight was imminent,
+or already begun. This was
+in the neighbourhood; but as none
+were allowed to pass, or even to approach
+the gates, news were scanty,
+and little to be relied upon. Cannon
+and musketry were heard, and wounded
+men were seen straggling in. The
+fever of expectation was at its height.
+Public opinion was decidedly in favour
+of the insurgents. They would beat
+the government troops, it was said,
+and enter the town pell-mell with
+them. All the male population of
+Madrid was in the streets, a few
+troops were stationed here and there;
+there was no disorder, but it was easy
+to see that a trifle would produce it.
+I was in the Café Suizo, which was
+crowded in every part, a short time
+after nightfall, when one of the
+alarms I have referred to was given.
+There was a violent rush in the street
+outside, cries and shouts; those without
+crowded into the café, most of
+those within made for the open doors.
+The effect was really startling; it was
+exactly that produced by a charge of
+troops upon a mob; and I saw more
+than one cheek blanch amongst the
+consumers of ices and lemonade (the
+evening was extremely hot) who
+filled the café. But it was a groundless
+alarm, produced, as before, merely
+by the troops compelling the crowd to
+recede. Armed police circulated in
+the throng, dispersing groups, and
+urging them to go home. Soon the
+streets were comparatively clear, but
+the clubs and coffee-houses were filled
+until past midnight with persons discussing
+what had occurred, and giving
+fifty different versions. There
+had been a fight, it was certain, at
+about a league from Madrid, but who
+had won and who had lost was a matter
+of doubt until the next day.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The <cite>Madrid Gazette</cite>, the order of
+the day, published by General O’Donnell,
+and conversation with officers
+present in the short but sharp action,
+enable me to give you a sketch, which
+you may rely upon as correct, of its
+principal incidents. The garrison of
+Madrid, consisting of about eight battalions
+of infantry, four batteries of
+artillery, and some three hundred cavalry,
+took position on a ridge of
+ground at about a league from Madrid.
+The enemy, strong in cavalry, but
+weak in infantry, sought to draw them
+farther from the town, and into a
+more favourable position for horse to
+act against them. As the result
+proved, the wisest plan would have
+been to persevere in these tactics, and,
+if the garrison refused to advance
+further, to let the day pass without an
+action. But General O’Donnell had
+assurances that a large portion of the
+troops opposed to him only waited an
+opportunity to pass over to his banner.
+A part of the artillery, especially,
+was pledged to do so. After
+some preliminary skirmishing, he ordered
+a charge, which was made in
+gallant style by two squadrons of the
+Principe regiment. In spite of a severe
+fire of shot and shell, reserved,
+until they were within a very short
+distance of the battery they attacked,
+they got amongst the guns, and sabred
+many of the artillerymen, but were prevented
+from carrying off the pieces,
+and compelled to retire, by the heavy
+fire of the squares of infantry formed
+in rear of the artillery. Having thus
+ascertained, beyond a doubt, that
+there was no chance of the artillery
+coming over to them, or allowing
+themselves to be taken, the insurgents
+would have perhaps acted wisely in
+making no farther attempts upon the
+hostile line, or, if they were resolved
+upon a contrary course, in assailing
+the flanks, instead of again charging
+up to the mouths of the cannon. But
+it appears from O’Donnell’s own bulletin
+that the troops were not well in
+hand, and that, enraged at finding
+themselves fired upon by those from
+whom they expected a very different
+reception, they made several charges
+under the direction of their regimental
+chiefs, but without the sanction of
+their generals. I can hardly give a
+better account of the latter part of the
+combat than is contained in two short
+paragraphs of the insurgent general’s
+order of the day, which has been
+copied in the government papers, and
+admitted by these to be a fair and
+true statement of what occurred. The
+bulletin is before me, and I translate
+the passages in question:—</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“The retreat of the two squadrons of the
+Principe cavalry (those which had charged
+the battery) was opportunely taken advantage
+of by the hostile squadrons of the
+Villaviciosa lancers, and of the <i><span lang="es">Guardia
+Civil</span></i>, who charged after them. This cavalry,
+however, was driven back, when
+in full career, by the 3d and 4th squadrons
+of the Principe, who routed them,
+cutting down a great part of them, and
+receiving into their ranks a large number
+of the soldiers of Villaviciosa, with their
+standard, and four officers, who reversed
+their lances, proclaiming themselves
+friends. In a second charge made by
+these same squadrons, the standard-bearer
+of Villaviciosa, and some soldiers of the
+same corps, who had joined us only because
+they considered themselves prisoners,
+went over again to the enemy.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“The bloody effect of the fire of the
+artillery, who, well assured that they would
+not be encountered by the same arm (of
+which we had none), had deliberately
+studied their range, and taken the breasts
+of our soldiers for their mark, caused the
+action to become hot, and the regiment of
+Farnesio again charged upon the guns,
+with great valour and determination. At
+the very mouth of the cannon its colonel
+was wounded and taken prisoner, and several
+officers and soldiers were struck
+down, our cries of <i><span lang="es">Viva la Reina y la
+Constitucion</span></i> being drowned in the roar of
+the enemy’s pieces. Repeated charges
+of the same regiment, and of those of Bourbon,
+Santiago, and the School of Cavalry,
+must have convinced our opponents in the
+action of Vicálvaro, that the feelings
+which prompted those cries are to be
+extinguished in the hearts of our brave
+soldiers by death alone.”</p>
+
+<p class='c008'>The upshot of the action was this:
+The insurgents accepted battle when
+there was little to be gained by them
+in so doing, unless, indeed, the contest
+had been conducted very differently,
+and a more judicious plan had
+been adopted than that of charging
+headlong up to the muzzles of artillery
+supported by squares of infantry.
+But this mistake had its origin, as I
+have already observed, in the expectation
+that the artillery would not fire.
+The insurgents were repulsed, not,
+however, without inflicting considerable
+loss upon their enemies. The
+garrison returned into Madrid in some
+haste and confusion, and near the
+gate a singular incident occurred. It
+was dark, and some lancers appeared
+on their flank—insurgents, according
+to some accounts—a part of their own
+cavalry, as it is reported by others.
+The exact truth will probably never
+be known. But a panic seized the
+infantry; some of the battalions were
+composed in great part of recruits;
+young soldiers, retiring hastily and
+in the dark after their first fight, are
+easily alarmed; the confusion that ensued
+was as great as that of a rout;
+the men fired at random killing and
+wounding their own friends, and a
+great number, especially of the battalion
+of engineers, were thus injured.
+The government papers passed this
+unlucky mistake almost <i><span lang="la">sub silentio</span></i>;
+but the fact is certain, the troops returned
+into the town in disorder, and
+it was not until the next day that all
+the wounded were brought in.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Some prisoners had been taken
+from the insurgents, including three
+or four wounded officers, the chief of
+whom, Colonel Garrigó, was captured
+amongst the guns, where his horse
+fell, killed by grape-shot. The gallant
+manner in which Garrigó had led
+his men again and again to the charge,
+encountering each time a storm of
+bullets, had excited a strong interest
+in his fate, and measures were taken
+to move the queen’s clemency on his
+behalf. Before the result of these
+were known, and when it was thought
+probable that at any hour he might
+be judged, condemned, and shot, I
+went to the ward of the military hospital
+where he lay under arrest, to see
+another officer of cavalry who had
+been wounded when with the insurgents.
+This officer had gone out of
+Madrid to see some friends who were
+with O’Donnell; he was in plain
+clothes and without arms, but, venturing
+too far forward during the
+action, he got struck from his horse,
+and received, as he lay on the ground,
+a lance-thrust in the neck, of which,
+however, he complained less than of
+blows received from the lance-poles,
+when the men struck at him as they
+rode rapidly past. He had afterwards
+been taken prisoner by an officer, and
+brought into Madrid. In the next
+bed to him was Garrigó, a swarthy,
+soldierly-looking man of about fifty-five;
+he had been hit in the leg, but
+not severely, by a grape-shot, and
+was sitting up in bed, fanning away
+the flies which entered in unpleasant
+numbers through the open windows.
+He looked gloomy, but firm. There
+were some other wounded officers in
+the ward, one of whom subsequently
+died after undergoing amputation of
+a leg, and a number of soldiers in an
+adjoining one. Amongst the insurgents,
+I heard there were as many
+killed as wounded; and many horses
+dead, the artillery having pointed
+their guns low. Grape and round
+shot, at fifty paces, the distance to
+which the cavalry were allowed to
+come before the gunners got the word,
+were quite as likely, perhaps, to kill
+as only to wound. An officer received
+two grape-shot in his face—one at
+each angle of the nostrils; another,
+Captain Letamendi, the English son
+of a Spanish father, who served during
+the civil war in the British Legion,
+was met by a round shot, which
+carried away the greater part of his
+head. But you will find nothing attractive
+in such details.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The combat of Vicálvaro, insignificant
+in its material results, had little
+effect upon the <em>morale</em> of either party.
+The government troops were assured
+by the gazette that they had achieved
+a glorious victory, of which they themselves
+were not very sure, especially
+when they saw the numerous carts of
+wounded that came into the town, and
+remembered their own disorderly return
+from the field and final panic.
+The insurgents, conscious that they
+had fought gallantly, and lost no
+ground, although they had failed in
+their chief object, which was to capture
+the artillery, were well satisfied
+with themselves, and in no way disheartened
+by the event. It was clear
+that the insurgent generals must not
+reckon on the support of the garrison
+of Madrid, and they consequently
+changed their plans, retiring to Aranjuez,
+a pleasant spot, eight leagues
+from Madrid, with abundant shade,
+water, and forage, where for two or
+three days they gave their men and
+horses rest, organised their staff and
+commissariat, and took other measures
+necessary for the welfare of the division.
+There they received several
+reinforcements, both of infantry and
+cavalry, and were joined by a number
+of civilians from Madrid, many
+of them belonging to the better
+classes. These received caps, muskets,
+and belts, and were formed
+into a battalion called the <i><span lang="es">Cazadores
+di Madrid</span></i>.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Meanwhile, the capital anxiously
+awaited news from the provinces,
+where insurrections were expected to
+occur. Madrid itself continued perfectly
+tranquil, although occasional
+rumours of an intended popular rising
+alarmed the government. The excitement
+of the first three days subsided
+into a strong interest. There
+was great eagerness for news from the
+insurgents, and much difficulty in
+learning anything authentic, especially
+when once they had left Aranjuez. Save
+the government and its hangers-on and
+personal adherents, all Madrid was
+for the insurrection, and heartily
+wished it well. The recent compulsory
+advance of half a year’s taxes,
+extorted from the people by a notoriously
+corrupt and grasping government,
+had greatly incensed the Madrileños,
+who did not scruple openly to
+express their good wishes for Generals
+O’Donnell and Dulce, the most
+prominent personages of the day and
+of the movement. Although the insurrection
+deprived Madrid of two
+things which it can ill do without,
+bull-fights and strawberries, not a
+murmur was heard on this account.
+Aranjuez is the strawberry garden of
+Madrid, and from it daily comes an
+abundant supply of that fruit, particularly
+grateful in this hot climate.
+I suppose that the insurgents, who
+had been for three days roasting in
+the shadeless desert that surrounds this
+capital, needed refreshment, and eat
+up all the strawberries, or else that
+the want of a railway—that to Aranjuez
+being partly in the hands of the
+government, and partly in those of
+O’Donnell, and cut in the middle—precluded
+their being sent. As for
+bull-fights, it was no time for them
+when man-fights were going on; and
+moreover, the gates of Madrid were
+for several days shut—besides which,
+some of the bull-fighters are said to
+have joined the insurgents. The dramatic
+season being at an end, and all
+the theatres closed, Madrid has now
+for sole amusement the insurrection,
+which every day seems taking farther
+from its walls, but which not impossibly
+may break out again within
+them. If a decided advantage were
+gained by O’Donnell’s division, or if
+news came that Saragossa or some
+other large town had pronounced
+against the government, there would
+very likely be a rising in this capital.
+I am assured that attempts are now
+making to work upon the troops
+of the garrison, and if only a few
+companies could be won over and
+relied upon, the government might
+speedily be upset. There are in
+Madrid plenty of ex-national guards,
+and of men who have served in
+the army, who would quickly produce
+their hidden arms and rush out into
+the streets, with cries of “Down with
+the ministry.” It is matter of considerable
+doubt whether these would
+be coupled with <em>vivas</em> for the Queen.
+As for the Queen-mother, I am convinced
+that her life would be in danger
+in the event of such an outbreak. She
+is deeply detested here; the more so
+as she is known to support the present
+government with all the influence she
+possesses over her daughter. A Madrid
+revolutionary mob is dangerous,
+vindictive, and bloody-minded. In
+proof of this many incidents recur to
+my memory, and doubtless will to
+yours—amongst others, the fate of
+Quesada, whose son is now military
+governor here, and who was almost
+torn to pieces at the country house in
+the environs, whither he had fled for
+shelter. His murderers returned to
+Madrid, singing the dreaded <cite><span lang="es">Tragala!</span></cite>
+and drank in the public cafés bowls of
+coffee stirred with his severed fingers.
+The revolutionary spirit is calmer
+now, but it may again revive upon
+occasion. No person in Spain, not
+even Sartorius himself, who certainly
+is sufficiently hated, is so much under
+public ban as Maria Christina. She
+doubtless knows it: her conscience
+can hardly be easy, and her fears are
+probably roused; for her approaching
+departure for France is much spoken
+of, and likely to take place.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Since O’Donnell’s division left the
+neighbourhood of Madrid, we have
+heard comparatively little concerning
+him. We know his route; also that
+his strength has somewhat increased,
+that his troops are well-disciplined
+and confident of success, and that he
+is at this date in Andalusia. Where
+he may be, and what may have
+occurred by the time you receive this
+letter, it is of course impossible to
+foretell; but, although ministerial bulletins
+daily scatter his men to the
+winds, representing them as deserting,
+weary, exterminated, and, if possible,
+even in worse plight, the truth is that
+they are in as good order, and as ready
+for service, as if they held themselves
+subject to the government of the
+Queen. Every possible means have
+been taken by the authorities to throw
+discredit upon the insurgents and upon
+their leaders, by representing them as
+robbers and oppressors, paying for
+nothing, ill-treating the people, and
+exacting forced contributions at the
+bayonet’s point. “To lie like a bulletin,”
+is an old saying, but it would
+be at least as apt to say—“like the
+<em>Madrid Gazette</em> or the <em>Heraldo</em> newspaper.”
+I can well imagine how
+difficult it must be in other countries
+to get at the truth about Spanish
+affairs, when I see the systematic
+efforts made to suppress it here. Letters
+are seized by wholesale in their
+passage through the post-office, some
+newspapers are suppressed, and others
+are permitted to publish no news but
+those they copy from the government
+journals, which are for the most part
+ingeniously embellished to suit the
+purpose of the ministers; whilst sometimes
+they are pure fabrications. One
+of the great occupations of the official
+papers, for the first few days after the
+insurrection broke out, was to blacken
+the character of its leaders. Dulce,
+especially—who, in common with the
+other generals engaged in the outbreak,
+had been stripped by royal
+decree of all rank, titles, and honours—was
+the object of abuse
+which bordered upon billingsgate.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The virtuous <em>Heraldo</em> daily came
+out with fierce philippics upon the
+“rebel and traitor,” who had deserted
+his Queen because he deemed that
+she had deserted the country and
+broken her oath, and who, by so doing,
+had exchanged large emoluments, high
+rank, and one of the best positions his
+profession affords in Spain, for the uncertain
+fate of an insurgent leader—perhaps,
+in the end, for a short shrift
+and a firing party. The men of the
+<em>Heraldo</em> could not understand this;
+they felt that <em>they</em> were incapable of
+such conduct; in their heart of hearts
+they must have thought Dulce more
+remarkable as a fool than as a rebel,
+but in their paper they contented
+themselves with abusing him as the
+latter. Inexpert with the pen, Dulce
+nevertheless took it up to reply. On
+the 1st of July, the day after the
+drawn fight of Vicálvaro, and in a
+village close to the scene of action,
+he wrote a letter, whose faulty style
+and soldierly abruptness are the best
+evidence of its being his own unassisted
+production. As a characteristic
+production, and in justice to its writer,
+who will doubtless be blamed by many
+in foreign countries, where the facts of
+the case and the extent of the sacrifices
+he has made are imperfectly
+known and appreciated, I give you a
+translation of the letter. It is addressed
+to the editors of the <em>Heraldo</em>,
+and runs as follows:—</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>“Since you have allowed the publication
+in your periodical of an article
+referring to me personally, and to my
+conduct, and as I consider that an insult
+is not a reason, I trust you will
+be pleased to publish my protest
+against the whole of your accusation,
+by doing which you will fulfil your
+duty as public writers.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>“I do not wish to prejudge the
+issue of our enterprise; whatever
+that may be it will not surprise me,
+or make me repent what I have done.
+That I may not be disappointed, the
+worst that I expect is to die in the
+field of battle or in the <i><span lang="es">Campo de
+Guardias</span></i> (the place of military executions
+at Madrid). Whatever occurs,
+I shall have acted according to my
+conscience.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>“I seek neither places nor honours,
+for I have them in abundance. No
+desire of revenge of any kind has
+moved me, for I cherish neither dislike
+nor resentment against the persons
+composing the present government,
+and much less against the
+Queen. The cause of my insurrection
+is entirely the memory that I have of
+the oath taken by the King of Castile
+when he ascends the throne. He
+swears upon the Holy Scriptures to
+observe and enforce the law of the
+State—‘<em>and if I should not do so, I
+desire not to be obeyed</em>.’</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>“My conviction is, that the Queen
+has violated her oath, and, in this
+case, I prefer being guilty of <em>leze-majesty</em>
+to being guilty of <em>leze-nation</em>.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>“I well know that the sentiments I
+have expressed will not convince you,
+because they must be felt and not explained.
+For my justification I appeal
+to the inexorable tribunal of posterity,
+and to the secret police of the consciences
+of yourselves in the first place,
+of the Queen herself, and of this unhappy
+country.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>“A copy of this document is already
+on the road, and will be published,
+as you will see, in foreign
+countries. I also send it to other
+Madrid newspapers, although I believe
+that a miserable fear will prevent
+their publishing it.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>“That you may never be able to
+deny that I have sent you this letter,
+I have had formal registry made of
+it, and it perhaps will one day be
+published. I trust then that you will
+be sufficiently generous and gentlemanly<a id='r29'></a><a href='#f29' class='c007'><sup>[29]</sup></a>
+to insert it in your periodical,
+by doing which you will highly oblige
+me. (Signed) <span class='sc'>El General Dulce</span>.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>“Vallecas, 1st July 1854.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>“The original is to be found duly
+stamped in the register of this corporation,
+where it has been inserted
+against the will of the individuals
+composing it, who are exempt from
+all blame.”</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>I need hardly say that the <em>Heraldo</em>
+has not published this letter, of which
+numerous copies have been distributed
+in Madrid by friends of its writer,
+and by persons who believe that, as
+he himself says, he has “acted according
+to his conscience (<i><span lang="es">dado una satisfaccion
+à mi conciencia</span></i>), and who admire
+his disinterestedness—the rarest
+quality amongst public men in Spain.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>It is not easy to foretell the result of
+this insurrection, which has now lasted
+for fifteen days without any decisive
+or even important event. The
+country, taken by surprise, and ignorant
+of the objects of the outbreak—which
+it suspected to have been
+made merely to bring about a change
+of men, but not of system—looked on
+at first with apathy. O’Donnell’s
+greatest error was the first proclamation
+he issued, which, in many words,
+said nothing and held out no prospect
+of advantage to the people. Another
+has just appeared, short, pithy, explicit,
+and calculated to satisfy the liberal
+party. It promises the Spanish nation
+the benefits of the representative
+system, for which it has shed so much
+of its blood and made so many sacrifices,
+as yet without result.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>“It is time,” it continues, “to say
+what we propose doing on the day of
+victory. We desire the preservation
+of the throne, but without the camarilla
+that dishonours it; the rigorous
+enforcement of the fundamental laws,
+improving them, especially those of
+elections and of the press; a diminution
+of taxation, founded on strict
+economy; respect to seniority and
+merit in the civil and military services.
+We desire to relieve the towns from
+the centralising system that consumes
+them, giving them the local independence
+necessary to preserve and increase
+their own interests; and, as a
+guarantee of all these things, we desire
+the <span class='sc'>National Militia</span>, and will
+plant it on a solid basis. Such are our
+intentions, which we frankly express,
+but without imposing them upon the
+nation. The juntas of government
+that are to be constituted in the free
+provinces, the general Cortes that are
+soon to be assembled, the nation itself,
+in short, shall fix the definitive
+bases of the liberal regeneration to
+which we aspire. We devote our
+swords to the national will, and sheathe
+them only when it is fulfilled.”</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>This proclamation is dated from
+Manzanaris, the 7th July, and is signed
+by O’Donnell. You will observe that
+no mention is made in it of the Queen.
+It is monarchical, because it desires
+to “preserve the throne;” but it by no
+means pledges those who publish it
+to retain Isabella II. The promise to
+arm the national guard is the most
+important that it contains, since that
+is the only guarantee the Liberals can
+have for the fulfilment of the other
+pledges. It may possibly induce the
+Progresistas, who hitherto have scarcely
+stirred in the business, to take active
+measures. Meanwhile we hear of
+risings and armed bands in various
+parts of the country, and persons familiar
+with Spanish revolutions, and
+who have witnessed many of them,
+notice signs of fermentation, which
+prove the insurrectionary spirit to be
+spreading—a bubble here and there
+on water, indicating that it will presently
+boil. When O’Donnell’s proclamation
+gets spread abroad, and its
+purport known, it is quite possible
+that large towns or districts may declare
+for the insurgents. In Spain,
+however, it is most difficult to speculate
+on coming events, for it is the
+land of the unforeseen—<i><span lang="fr">le pays de l’imprévu</span></i>—and
+I shall not attempt to
+play the prophet, for, if I did, perhaps,
+before my letter reached you,
+the electric telegraph would have
+proved me a false one. Moreover,
+I have no time to add much more,
+for I well know that you, Ebony,
+will grumble, if this letter does not
+reach you somewhere about the twentieth
+of the month. Moreover, the
+horses of Maga’s foreign-service messenger
+neigh with impatience, and the
+escort which is to accompany him on
+the first stage of his journey is
+already formed up. For the roads
+are far from safe just now, thanks to
+the concentration of the gendarmes,
+(who usually keep excellent order
+upon them), to do duty in the capital,
+or pursue the insurgents. We hear
+of various bands appearing—north,
+south, and east—some calling themselves
+Carlists, others Republicans,
+but in either case probably not pleasant
+to meet on the road; and besides
+those there are smaller parties who
+do not aspire to a political character,
+and are abroad simply for their own
+behoof and advantage, and, I need
+not say, for the disadvantage of the
+travellers they may chance to encounter.
+As for sending letters of
+the nature and importance of this one
+by the ordinary channel of Her Catholic
+Majesty’s mails, one would do
+better to abstain from writing them,
+as the chances would be fifty to one
+against their ever reaching their destination.
+One might almost as well
+throw them into the fire as into the
+marble lion’s mouth that yawns at
+the <i><span lang="es">casa de correos</span></i>,—as if to warn
+people of the dangers their correspondence
+runs. Were I to consign this
+epistle to leo’s jaws, I should not expect
+it ever to go farther than to the
+Graham-department of the Madrid
+post-office.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Although you will have gathered
+from the newspapers the principal
+events, and some of the minor particulars
+of the insurrection of 1854—as
+far as it has as yet gone—this sketch
+of it, however imperfect, from an eyewitness,
+will, I trust, interest you.
+Spanish revolutions and insurrections
+rarely resemble each other; every
+successive outbreak has a character
+of its own, distinct from that of its
+predecessors. And that of the 28th
+of last month has peculiar features,
+which I have endeavoured to portray.
+If my letter has no other merit, it
+will, I think, bring its readers, concisely,
+without much detail, but with
+perfect truth, up to the present point
+of Spanish politics. Should aught
+worth relating occur whilst I am
+within the boundaries of Queen Isabel’s
+dominions, rely upon my keeping
+you duly informed. Meanwhile,
+may Providence preserve you, in your
+happy Land of Cakes, alike from military
+revolts, and from popular <em>pronunciamientos</em>.
+So prays, from his
+exile <i><span lang="la">in partibus</span></i>, your faithful</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-r'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'><span class='sc'>Vedette.</span></div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_165'>165</span>
+  <h2 class='c002'>THE ETHNOLOGY OF EUROPE.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c008'>“There were brave men before
+Agamemnon,”—heroes before there
+was a Homer to sing them, says that
+prince of sensible poets, Horace. It
+is not less true that there were nations
+before history—communities, races,
+of which the eye of civilisation never
+caught a glimpse. In some cases,
+before the light of history broke in
+upon their seclusion, these old types
+of mankind, losing their individuality,
+had become merged in a succeeding
+and mightier wave of population; in
+others they had wholly disappeared,—they
+had lived and fought and died
+in perfect isolation from every focus
+of civilisation, and left not even a
+floating legend behind them in the
+world. Man’s mortality—the destiny
+of the individual to pass away from
+earth like a vapour, making room for
+others, heirs of his wisdom and unimbued
+with his prejudices—is the
+most familiar of truths; but the mortality
+of nations, the death of races,
+is a conception which at first staggers
+us. That a family should grow into
+a nation,—that from the loins of one
+man should descend a seed like unto
+the sands on the sea-shore for multitude,
+appears to our everyday senses
+as a natural consequence; but that
+nations should dwindle down to families,
+and families into solitary individuals,
+until death gets all, and
+earth has swallowed up a whole phase
+of humanity, is a thought the grandeur
+of which is felt to be solemn, if not
+appalling. The conception, however,
+need not be a strange one. Facts,
+which reconcile us to everything, are
+testifying to its truth even at the present
+day. It is not long since the
+Guanches in the Canary Islands, that
+last specimen of what may once have
+been a race, and the Guarras in Brazil,
+dwindled out of existence in their
+last asylum,—expiring at the feet of
+the more lordly race which the fulness
+of time brought to their dwellings.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Not to mention the Miaou-tse in
+China, and other relics of Asiatic
+races, the same phenomenon is more
+impressively presented to us among
+the Red Men of America, where the
+old race is seen dying out beneath our
+very eyes. Year by year they are
+melting away. Of the millions which
+once peopled the vast regions on this
+side of the Mississippi River, all have
+vanished, but a few scattered families;
+and it is as clear as the sun at noonday,
+that in a few generations more,
+the last of the Red Men will be numbered
+with the dead. Why, is it
+asked, are they thus doomed? In
+the suburbs of Mobile, or wandering
+through its streets, you will see the
+remnant of the Choctaw tribe, covered
+with nothing but blankets, and living
+in bark tents, scarcely a degree advanced
+above the beasts of the field.
+No philanthropy can civilise them,—no
+ingenuity can induce them to do
+an honest day’s work. The life of the
+woods is struck from them,—the white
+man has taken their hunting-grounds;
+and they live on helpless as in a
+dream, quietly abiding their time.
+They are stationary, they will not advance;
+and, like everything stationary,
+the world is sweeping away.
+They sufficed for the first phase of
+humanity in the New World. As
+long as there was only need for man
+to be lord of the woods and of the
+animal creation, the Red Man did
+well; but no sooner did the call come
+for him to perfect himself, and change
+the primeval forest into gardens, than
+the Red Man knew, by mysterious
+instinct, that his mission was over,—and
+either allowed himself, in sheer
+apathy, to sink out of existence among
+the pitiless feet of the new-comers, or
+died fighting fiercely with the apostle
+of a civilisation which he hated but
+could not comprehend.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Far back in the history of Europe
+and of our own country—or rather,
+we should say, in periods entirely pre-historic—it
+is now known that a similar
+disappearance of a human race has
+taken place. Celt and Teuton, we
+fancy, were the first occupiers of Europe,—but
+the case is not so. A
+wave or waves of population had preceded
+even them; and as we dig down
+into the soil beneath us, ever and anon
+we come upon strange and startling
+traces of those primeval occupants of
+the land. In those natural museums
+of the past, the caves and peat-bogs of
+Europe, the keen-witted archæologists
+of present times are finding abundant
+relics of a race dissimilar from all the
+human varieties of which written history
+takes cognisance. The researches
+of Wilson among the peat-bogs of the
+British Isles have brought to light
+traces of no less than two distinct pre-Celtic
+races inhabiting the land,—one
+of which had the skull of a singularly
+broad and short, square and compact
+form, while the head of the other
+race was long and very narrow, or
+“boat-shaped.” The exhumations
+of Retzius show that precisely similar
+races once inhabited Scandinavia.
+The caves and ossuaries of
+Franconia and Upper Saxony prove
+that in Central Europe, also, there
+were races before the advent of the
+Celts; and the researches of Boucher
+de Perthes, amid the alluvial stratifications
+of the river Somme, indicate a
+not less ancient epoch for the cinerary
+urns, bones, and instruments of a primordial
+people in France.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Here,” says M. de Perthes, “we
+naturally inquire, who were these mysterious
+primitive inhabitants of Gaul? We
+are told that this part of Europe is of
+modern origin, or at least of recent population.
+Its annals scarcely reach to
+twenty centuries, and even its traditions
+do not exceed two thousand five hundred
+years. The various people who are
+known to history as having occupied it—the
+Gauls, the Celts, the Veneti, Ligurians,
+Iberians, Cimbrians, and Scythians
+have left no vestiges to which we can
+assign that date. The traces of those
+[originally] nomadic tribes who ravaged
+Gaul scarcely precede the Christian era
+by a few centuries. Was Gaul, then, a
+desert, a solitude, before this period?
+Was its sun less genial, or its soil less
+fertile? Were not its hills as pleasant,
+and its plains and valleys as ready for the
+harvest? Or, if men had not yet learned to
+plough and sow, were not its rivers filled
+with fish, and its forests with game?
+And, if the land abounded with everything
+calculated to attract and support a
+population, why should it not have been
+inhabited? The absence of great ruins,
+indeed, indicates that Gaul at this period,
+and even much later, had not attained a
+great degree of civilisation, nor been the
+seat of powerful kingdoms; but why
+should it not have had its towns and villages?—or
+rather, why should it not, like
+the steppes of Russia, the prairies and
+virgin forests of America, and the fertile
+plains of Africa, have been overrun from
+time immemorial by tribes of men—savages,
+perhaps, but nevertheless united in
+families if not in nations?”</p>
+
+<p class='c008'>We shall not dwell at present upon
+the relics of these races who have thus
+preceded all history, and vanished into
+their graves before a civilised age could
+behold them. We shall not accompany
+M. de Perthes in his various excavations,
+nor, after passing through
+the first stratum of soil, and coming
+to the relics of the middle ages, see
+him meet subsequently, in regular
+order, with traces of the Roman and
+Celtic periods, until at last he comes
+upon weapons, utensils, figures, signs
+and symbols, which must have been
+the work of a surpassingly ancient
+people. We need not describe his
+discovery of successive beds of bones
+and ashes, separated from each other
+by strata of turf and tufa, with no less
+than five different stages of cinerary
+urns, belonging to distinct generations,
+of which the oldest were deposited
+below the woody or diluvian turf,—nor
+the coarse structure of these vases
+(made by hand and dried in the sun),
+nor the rude utensils of bone, or
+roughly-carved stone, by which they
+were surrounded.<a id='r30'></a><a href='#f30' class='c007'><sup>[30]</sup></a> Neither need we
+do more than allude to the remains
+of a fossil whale recently exhumed
+in Blair Drummond moss, (twenty
+miles from the nearest point of the
+river Forth where, by any possibility,
+a whale could nowadays be
+stranded), having beside it a rude
+harpoon of deer’s horn—speaking
+plainly of the coexistence, in these
+remote pre-Celtic times, of human inhabitants.
+Even above ground there
+are striking relics scattered over Europe
+which it would be hazardous to
+assign to any race known to history.
+Those circles of upright stones, of
+which Stonehenge is the most familiar
+example, date back to an unknown
+antiquity. They are found throughout
+Europe, from Norway to the
+Mediterranean; and manifestly they
+must have been erected by a numerous
+people, and faithful exponents of
+a general sentiment, since we find
+them in so many countries. They are
+commonly called Celtic or Druidic;
+not because they were raised originally
+by Druids, but because they had been
+used in the Druidical worship, though
+erected, it may be, for other uses, or
+dedicated to other divinities,—even
+as the temples of Paganism afterwards
+served for the solemnities of Christianity.
+All that we know is, that,
+having neither date nor inscription,
+they must be older than written language,—for
+a people who can write
+never leave their own names or exploits
+unchronicled. The ancients
+were as ignorant on this matter as
+ourselves; even tradition is silent;
+and, at the period of the Roman invasion,
+the origin of those monuments
+was already shrouded in obscurity.
+A revolution, therefore, must have intervened
+between the time of their
+erection and the advent of the Legions;
+and what revolution could it be in
+those days save a revolution of race?
+“The Celtæ,” says Dr Wilson, “are
+by no means to be regarded as the
+primal heirs of the land, but are, on
+the contrary, comparatively recent intruders.
+Ages before their migration
+into Europe, an unknown Allophylian
+race had wandered to this remote
+island of the sea, and in its turn gave
+place to later Allophylian nomades,
+also destined to occupy it only for a
+time. Of these ante-historical nations,
+archæology alone reveals any traces.”</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Passing from this strange and solemn
+spectacle of the death and utter
+extinction of human races, once living
+and enjoying themselves amidst those
+very scenes where we ourselves now
+pant and revel in the drama of existence,—let
+us look upon the face of
+Europe as it appears when first the
+light of history broke upon it. Since
+then, there have been remarkable declines,
+but no extinction of races. As
+if war and rivalry were a permanent
+attribute of the species, when the
+curtain first rises upon Europe, it is
+a struggle of races that is discernible
+through the gloom. A dark-skinned
+race, long settled in the land, are
+fighting doggedly with a fair-skinned
+race of invaders from the East.
+The dark-skins were worsted, but
+still survive—definitely in detached
+groups, and indefinitely as a leaven
+to entire populations. That dark-skinned
+race have been called Iberians,—the
+fair-skinned new-comers
+were the Indo-Germans, headed by
+the Gaels or Celts. When the two
+races first met in Europe—the <em>blond</em>
+from the south-east, meeting the <em>dark</em>
+in the west—they encountered each
+other as natural enemies, and a severe
+struggle ensued. The Celts finally
+forced their way into Spain, and
+established themselves there,—became
+more or less amalgamated with
+the darker occupants, and were called
+<em>Celt-Iberians</em>. Ever since, these two
+opposite types have been commingling
+throughout Western Europe; but a
+complete fusion has not even yet
+taken place, and the types of each
+are still traceable in certain localities.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>There was thus an Iberian world
+before there was a Celtic world. One
+of the pre-Celtic populations of the
+British Isles was probably Iberian;
+and their type, besides leavening indefinitely
+a portion of the present
+population, is still distinctly traceable
+in many of the dark-haired, dark-eyed,
+and dark-skinned Irish, as well
+as occasionally in Great Britain itself.
+The Basques, protected by their Pyrenean
+fastnesses, are a still existent
+group of nearly pure Iberians; and of
+their tongue, termed Euskaldune by
+its speakers, Duponceau long ago
+said:—“This language, preserved in
+a corner of Europe, by a few thousand
+mountaineers, is the sole remaining
+fragment of perhaps a hundred
+dialects, constructed on the same
+plan, which probably existed and
+were universally spoken, at a remote
+period, in that quarter of the world.
+Like the bones of the mammoth, and
+the relics of unknown races which have
+perished, it remains a monument of
+the destruction brought by a succession
+of ages. It stands single and
+alone of its kind, surrounded by idioms
+whose modern construction bears no
+analogy to it.”</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The Bretons form another isolated
+but less distinct group of still existent
+Iberians. To this day they present a
+striking contrast to the population
+around them, who are of tall stature,
+with blue eyes, white skins, and blond
+hair—communicative, impetuous, versatile—passing
+rapidly from courage
+to timidity, and from audacity to despair;—in
+other words, presenting the
+distinctive character of the Celtic race,
+now, as in the ancient Gauls. The
+Bretons are entirely different. They are
+taciturn—hold strongly to their ideas
+and usages—are persevering and of
+melancholic temperament;—in a word,
+both in <em>morale</em> and <em>physique</em>, they
+present the type of a southern race.
+And this brings us to the question—whence
+came these Iberians? M.
+Bodichon, a surgeon distinguished for
+fifteen years in the French army of
+Algeria, observes that persons who
+have lived in Brittany, and then go to
+Algeria, are struck with the resemblance
+which they discover between
+the ancient Armoricans (the Bretons)
+and the Cabyles of northern Africa.
+“In fact, the moral and physical character
+of the two races is identical.
+The Breton of pure blood has a bony
+head, light-yellow complexion of
+bistre tinge, eyes black or brown, stature
+short, and the black hair of the
+Cabyle. Like him, he instinctively
+hates strangers. In both, the same
+perverseness and obstinacy, the same
+endurance of fatigue, same love of
+independence, same inflexion of voice,
+same expression of feelings. Listen to
+a Cabyle speaking his native tongue,
+and you will think you hear a Breton
+talking Celtic.” Impressed with this
+resemblance, M. Bodichon was induced
+to reflect on the subject, and
+at last came to the conclusion that
+the Berbers who primally peopled
+Northern Africa, and the dark-skinned
+Iberians of Western Europe, belonged
+to the same race. He thinks that, as
+Europe and Africa were once united at
+their western extremities, previous to
+the convulsion which produced the
+Straits of Gibraltar, this Iberian population
+passed into Spain by this primeval
+isthmus, and thence diffused themselves
+over Western Europe and its
+isles. Whether this were actually the
+case, it is hard to say; but it is important
+to note that Sallust, quoting
+“the Punic books which were ascribed
+to King Hiempsal,” exactly reverses
+the course of migration, and states
+that the progenitors of the African
+Moors were Medians and Persians
+who had marched through Europe
+into Spain, and thence into Mauritania—though
+whether overland by
+the isthmus, or by boats across the
+strait, is still left to conjecture. Prichard
+thinks the Libyans and Iberians
+were distinct races, but owns that
+they were found intermingling in the
+islands and along the western shores
+of the Mediterranean. Of course it
+may be taken for granted that
+among these Iberians thus spread
+over Africa, Spain, France, and the
+British Isles, local differences would
+exist—just as there is a perceptible
+difference between the Anglo-Saxons
+of the Old World and those of the
+New; but there is little doubt that
+the <i><span lang="la">Scoti</span></i> of Ireland, the Iberians of
+Spain, and the Berbers of Africa, belonged
+to a fundamentally identical
+race.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>How any race first came into a
+country, is a matter of little moment,
+especially when the epoch of their
+arrival so far transcends the dawn of
+history as does that of the Iberians.
+Even the first wave of the Celtic
+migration had reached the West before
+any scrutiny of their progress was
+possible; for when tradition first dimly
+opens upon Gaul, about 1500 <span class='fss'>B. C.</span>,
+its territory was occupied by these
+two primitive and distinctly-marked
+Caucasian races—the Celts and Iberians:
+the one fair-skinned and light-haired,
+the other a dark race; and
+each speaking a language bearing no
+affinity to that of the other—precisely
+as the Euskaldune of the present
+Basques is unintelligible to Gaelic
+tribes of Lower Brittany. Some of
+the subsequent waves of Celtic or
+Scythic migration come within the
+ken of history; and it is remarkable
+that the line of march which these
+followed, after passing the shores of
+the Black Sea, seems to have been
+along the “Riphæan Valley,” which
+lay to the north of the Carpathian
+mountains, and stretched to the Baltic.
+Now, if we look at the contour
+map of Europe in <cite>Johnston’s
+Physical Atlas</cite>, we see a narrow strip
+of the lowest elevation extending
+from the Black Sea to the Baltic—nowhere
+rising to the second line of
+elevation, <em>i.e.</em> more than 150 and less
+than 300 feet above the level of the
+sea,—and turning to the geological
+map, we find that this same tract is
+overlaid with recent diluvial deposits.
+We know that the Scandinavian region
+is rising, and it is probable
+that all the plain of Sarmatia has
+partaken of the elevation,—and before
+the barriers of the Thracian
+Bosphorus burst, it is quite certain
+that the waters of the Caspian, the
+Euxine, and the Baltic were united
+by that “ocean-river” of which
+Homer, Hesiod, and all the old bards
+sing, and by sailing along which, both
+the Argonauts and Ulysses are reported
+to have passed northwards
+into the western ocean. The existence
+of this vast belt of water, stretching
+from the southmost point of the
+Baltic to the Caucasus, is probably
+one reason why the Slavonians were
+late of appearing in southern Europe,
+and why no sprinkling of them or of the
+Mongols is to be found among the early
+settlers of South-western Europe.
+All the early migrations into Europe
+proceeded from Caucasian or sub-Caucasian
+regions—a circumstance
+which, considering the known simultaneous
+existence of roving hordes
+and a great population on the Mongolian
+plains, can hardly be accounted
+for on the supposition that the face of
+Eastern Europe has since then undergone
+no change. But on the supposition
+we make, the chain of the Ural
+Mountains and this large Mediterranean
+basin would for long act as restraints
+upon any tendency of the
+Mongolian population to move westward,
+or of the Slavonians to move
+southwards.<a id='r31'></a><a href='#f31' class='c007'><sup>[31]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The next wave of population which
+flowed westwards was the Cimbri or
+Cimmerians,—a people cognate to
+the Celts or Gaels, yet by no
+means closely related. About the
+seventh century <span class='fss'>B.C.</span>, as may be inferred
+from Herodotus, a clan of this
+race abandoned the Tauric Chersonese,
+and marched westwards,—this
+Cimbrian migration, however,
+like most others, not being conducted
+in one mass, but by successive
+and sometimes widely-severed
+movements. Three centuries afterwards
+we find the Cimbri on the
+shores of the Northern Ocean in Jutland;
+and between the years 113 and
+101 <span class='fss'>B.C.</span>, we find the race all on the
+move, and setting out on that southward
+career of devastation which
+eventually brought them into Gaul,
+Spain, and Italy. The Belgians seem
+to have been a Cimbrian tribe which
+had preceded the main body; for
+when, in this invasion, the Cimbri
+reached Northern Gaul, the Belgæ
+immediately joined them as allies
+against the Celts,—and it seems also
+proven that the Cimbri and Belgæ
+spoke dialects of the same language.
+The Celts, routed by the invaders,
+were impelled to the south and east,
+doubtless trespassing in turn upon
+the dark-skinned Iberians. It was immediately
+after this inroad that Cæsar
+and his Romans entered Gaul, and
+commenced his Commentaries with
+the well-known statement:—“All
+Gaul is divided into three parts, of
+which one is inhabited by the Belgians,
+[or Cimbri, in the north]—another
+by the Aquitanians [or Iberians,
+in the south-west],—and the
+third [or eastern], by those who in
+their own language, call themselves
+Celts, and who in our tongue are
+called Gael (<em>Galli</em>). These races
+differ among themselves by their
+language, their manners, and their
+laws.” Previous to this time the
+Teutons had settled in central Europe,
+and in alliance with Celtic tribes
+made incursions into Italy.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>We have now reached a period at
+which the population of Europe becomes
+greatly mixed, in consequence
+of the constant rovings and incursions
+of the various races and tribes of
+which it was composed. It is interesting
+to note the effect of such a state
+of things upon the physical characteristics
+of the people. And first it is
+to be observed, that, with extremely
+rare exceptions, conquest is not attended
+by extermination. When one
+people, even in semi-barbarous times,
+conquers another, it does not annihilate
+and rarely displaces, but for the
+most part only overlays it. The annihilating
+process, of which a sample
+may be seen in America, only takes
+place in the rare case of the meeting
+of two nations, in such widely different
+states of civilisation as to render
+amalgamation impossible,—and even
+in this case only when the inferior
+race is so intractable as to resist all
+obedience to the superior. <em>Displacement</em>—which
+is obsolete now, since
+advancing civilisation has rendered
+conquest political only—was pretty
+common two thousand years ago,
+when Europe was thinly and nomadically
+peopled, and tribes migrated <em>en
+masse</em>. In this way, for example, the
+Cimbri wedged themselves in among
+the Celts in Northern Gaul, and took
+possession of a large tract in Northern
+Italy. But soon after the Christian era—chiefly
+in consequence of the increasing
+density and settled habits of the
+population—conquest ceased to produce
+either extermination or displacement,
+and consisted merely in the
+overlaying of one population by another
+much less numerous but more
+powerful. Thus the Normans in England
+and the Franks in Gaul were
+but a handful compared to the conquered
+population; and consequently,
+though they might give their laws
+and even their name to the country,
+they could not materially alter the
+physical character of the people.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The chief influence which, in the
+case of two races mingling, determines
+the preservation or extinction
+of types or national features, is simply
+the numerical proportion existing between
+the two races thus amalgamating.
+When races meet and mix on
+equal terms, and with no natural repugnance
+to each other (in other words,
+<i><span lang="la">cæteris paribus</span></i>), the relative number
+of the two races decides the question—the
+type of the smaller number, in
+this hypothetical case, inevitably disappearing
+in the long run. Take, for
+example, a thousand white families
+and fifty black ones—place them on
+an island, and let them regularly intermarry;
+and the result would be,
+that in the course of time the black
+type would disappear, although there
+is reason to believe that traces of it
+would “crop out” during a very long
+period. And if two fair-skinned races
+were brought into contact in a similar
+manner, and in similar proportions,
+the extermination of the less numerous
+one would be even sooner effected.
+The operation of this law is well illustrated
+in the lower animals. Cross
+two domestic animals of different
+breeds—take the offspring and cross
+it with one of the parent stocks, and
+continue this process for a few generations,
+and the result is that the one
+becomes swallowed up in the other.
+This is the theory; but in the actual
+world races never intermarry with
+such theoretical regularity and indifference.
+Each community of mankind
+has, as its conservative element, a
+tendency to form unions within its
+own limits; and if a foreign element
+is once introduced into a population,
+the operation of this predilection tends
+to preserve the type of the lesser
+number for a much longer period than
+mere theory would assign to it. The
+stranger-hating and obstinate-tempered
+Bretons and Basques, for instance,
+by intermarrying among themselves,
+have thus preserved the type
+of the old Iberians through three
+thousand years, although surrounded
+on all sides by the fair-haired Celts.
+In the case of a conquering race like
+the Franks and Normans, there is
+generally less isolation than this; but
+then, the way in which the amalgamation
+between the conquerors and the
+conquered takes place, is such as to
+give a great advantage to the former.
+The sons of the conquerors may wed
+the daughters of the conquered, for
+the sake of their lands; but it is comparatively
+seldom that the daughters
+of the invaders will condescend to
+tarnish their scutcheon by becoming
+wedded to and merged in the class of
+the vanquished. The principle of
+caste is all-pervading, even when
+nominally repudiated; and thus, as
+the male ever influences most directly
+the type of the offspring, a small
+number of conquerors may for long
+perpetuate their line in comparative
+purity, even though surrounded by
+myriads of a different race.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>From all this it results, that when
+a small body of foreigners is shot into
+the middle of a large population, as it
+were in virtue of a mere casual impetus,
+and not owing to higher qualities
+and organisation on the part of the
+aliens, the new-comers are quickly absorbed
+into the general mass of the
+population, and their type, in course
+of time, wholly disappears. The history
+of Italy throws important light
+upon this subject. Successive hordes
+of barbarians broke into and overran
+that country, powerful from their rude
+energy, but numerically weak, and
+inferior in mental condition to the
+conquered race. Again and again did
+human waves of Visigoths, Vandals,
+Huns, Herules, Ostrogoths, Lombards,
+and Normans roll in succession
+over the Italian plains; and even the
+Saracens for a time held possession of
+some of its fairest provinces; yet what
+vestiges remain in Italy of these barbarian
+surges? The first three passed
+over it like tornados; the two next,
+after contending with the Goths, were
+expelled from the land; and of the
+whole conglomerate mass but small
+fragments were left, too insignificant
+to materially influence the native Italic
+types. The Lombards, indeed, remained,
+and implanted their name on
+a portion of the peninsula; but, with
+this fragmentary exception, the aboriginal
+population of Italy has remained
+unaltered in blood and features since
+the early times when the Celts and
+Cimbri made settlements in its northern
+provinces. And thus the normal
+law is fulfilled, in the invaders being
+swallowed up in the mass of the native
+population,—leavening it, of course,
+more or less, but ever tending towards
+ultimate extinction.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>When a really conquering race,
+however—one superior alike in physical
+and mental power to the subjugated
+population—invades a country,
+and, instead of being expelled,
+or passing onwards like a transient
+whirlwind, continues to hold the
+realm in virtue of superior power,
+such a race, as we have said, may long
+and almost indelibly perpetuate their
+features in the land. In such a case
+they in reality, if not in name, form
+a caste; each one of the invaders becomes
+a noble; and when they make
+exceptions to the practice of intermarrying
+among themselves, it is only
+that they may more widely diffuse
+their lineaments, by forming matrimonial
+or other unions with the female
+portion of the native race.<a id='r32'></a><a href='#f32' class='c007'><sup>[32]</sup></a> Thus the
+feudalism of the all-conquering Normans
+was a system of caste, by means
+of which they long maintained the
+purity and pre-eminence of their race
+in the countries which they conquered;
+as may best be seen in French
+history, where the <i><span lang="fr">vieux noblesse</span></i>, even
+in 1789, were the lineal descendants
+of the soldiers of Clovis; and where
+the distinction between <em>noble</em> and <em>roturier</em>
+was kept up with such rigid and
+antiquated pertinacity, that at length
+the Celtic population, becoming more
+and more developed alike in intellect
+and resources, threw off the whole
+foreign system like an incubus, and
+returned to those principles of equality
+and volatility in government which
+distinguished their ancestors of old
+Gaul.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>We may remark in conclusion, on
+this topic, that the ascendancy of certain
+families of mankind is due not
+only to their superior physical, but
+even more to their superior mental
+organisation, which ever keeps them
+uppermost, and enables them to mate
+themselves with whom they please.
+It is a remarkable fact, as illustrative
+of the native vigour of some races,
+that there is not a head in Christendom
+which <em>legitimately</em> wears a crown—not
+a single family in Europe whose
+blood is acknowledged to be royal,
+but traces its genealogy to that Norman
+colossus, <span class='sc'>William</span> the <span class='sc'>Conqueror</span>.
+This has been well shown
+by M. Paulmier;<a id='r33'></a><a href='#f33' class='c007'><sup>[33]</sup></a> but we may add, as
+a curiosity which lately attracted our
+own notice, when looking at the portrait
+of the Conqueror—namely, that
+a strong resemblance exists between
+his fine and massive features and those
+of the present Czar of Russia. Both are
+distinguished by the same broad brow
+and arched eyebrows (not each forming
+a semicircle, as seems to be the
+meaning of the term “arched” when
+applied to eyebrows nowadays, but
+both combining to form an oval curve,
+vaulting over the under part of the
+face, as was the meaning among the
+Greeks), the same thick straight nose,
+and the same massive and beautiful
+conformation in the bones of the jaw
+and chin. The face of the Czar, however,
+we must add, is not equal in
+solid strength and intellect to that of
+his great progenitor.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The operation of these physiological
+laws upon the population of Europe
+has been interestingly illustrated by
+the recent researches of a French
+naturalist of high reputation, M. Edwards.
+This gentleman, after perusing
+Thierry’s <cite>History of the Gauls</cite>,
+made a tour through France, Belgium,
+Switzerland, and Italy, engaged in
+careful study of the present population
+in relation to the ancient settlers;
+and he asserts that now, after the
+lapse of two thousand years, the types
+of the Cimbri, the Celts, and Iberians
+are still distinctly traceable among
+their living descendants, in the very
+localities where history first descries
+these early families. Of the inland
+eastern parts of France, tenanted of
+old by the Gauls proper, and which
+were never penetrated into by the
+Cimbri, who took quiet possession of
+their outskirts, M. Edwards thus
+speaks:—“In traversing, from north
+to south, the part of France which
+corresponds to Oriental Gaul—viz.,
+Burgundy, Lyons, Dauphiny, and
+Savoy—I have distinguished that
+type, so well marked, which ethnographers
+have assigned to the Gauls.”
+That is to say, “the head is so round
+as to approach the spherical form;
+the forehead is moderate, slightly
+protuberant, and receding towards
+the temples; eyes large and open;
+the nose, from its depression at its
+commencement to its termination, almost
+straight—that is to say, without
+any marked curve; its extremity is
+rounded, as well as the chin; the
+stature medium;—the features thus
+being quite in harmony with the form
+of the head.” Of the northern part of
+ancient Gaul, the principal seat of the
+Belgæ or Cimbri, he says:—“I traversed
+a great part of the <i><span lang="la">Gallia Belgica</span></i>
+of Cæsar, from the mouth of the
+Somme to that of the Seine; and here
+I distinguished for the first time the
+assemblage of features which constitutes
+the other type, and often to such
+an exaggerated degree that I was
+very forcibly struck,—the long head,
+the broad high forehead, the curved
+nose, with the point below, and the
+wings tucked up; the chin boldly
+developed; and the stature tall.” In
+the other parts of France (exclusive
+of the south and west, anciently occupied
+by the Iberians), M. Edwards
+found that the Cimbrian type had
+been overcome by the round heads
+and straight noses of the Gauls, who
+were the more numerous because the
+more ancient race in those parts, and
+had covered the whole country before
+the arrival of the Cimbrians.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Passing into Italy, he continues his
+examinations. “Whatever may have
+been the anterior state of matters,” he
+says, “it is certain, from Thierry’s
+researches and the unanimous accord
+of all historians, that the <i><span lang="fr">Peuples
+Gaulois</span></i> have predominated in the
+north of Italy, between the Alps and
+the Apennines. We find them established
+there at the first dawn of
+history; and the most authentic testimony
+represents them with all the
+character of a great nation, from this
+remote period down to a very advanced
+point of Roman history. This
+is all I need to trouble myself about.
+I know the features of their compatriots
+in Transalpine Gaul—I find
+them again in Cisalpine Gaul.” The
+old “Gallic” settlers in northern
+Italy appear to have been Cimbrian.
+After describing the well-known head
+of Dante—which is long and narrow,
+with a high and developed forehead,
+nose long and curved, with sharp
+point and elevated wings—M. Edwards
+says that he was struck by the
+great frequency of this type in Tuscany
+(although a mixed Roman type is there
+the prevailing one) among the peasantry;
+in the statues and busts of the Medici
+family; and also amongst the effigies
+and bas-reliefs of the illustrious
+men of the republic of Florence. This
+type is well marked since the time of
+Dante, as doubtless long before. It
+extends to Venice; and in the ducal
+palace, M. Edwards had occasion to
+observe that it is common among the
+doges. The type became more predominant
+as he approached Milan, and
+thence he traced it as to its fountain
+into Transalpine Gaul. The physical
+characteristics of the present population,
+therefore, correspond with the
+statements of history, and show that
+the ancient type of this widespread
+people, the Cimbri, has survived the
+lapse and vicissitudes of two thousand
+years.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>In passing through Florence, M.
+Edwards took occasion to visit the Ducal
+Gallery, to study the ancient Roman
+type,—selecting, by preference,
+the busts of the early Roman emperors,
+because they were descendants of ancient
+families. Augustus, Tiberius,
+Germanicus, Claudius, Nero, Titus,
+&#38;c., exemplify this type in the Florentine
+collections; and the family resemblance
+is so close, and the style of
+features so remarkable, that they cannot
+be mistaken. The following is his
+description:—“The vertical diameter
+of the head is short, and, consequently,
+the face broad. As the summit of the
+cranium is flattened, and the lower
+margin of the jaw-bone almost horizontal,
+the contour of the head, when
+viewed in front, approaches a square.
+The lateral parts, above the ears, are
+protuberant; the forehead low; the
+nose truly aquiline—that is to say, the
+curve commences near the top and
+ends before it reaches the point, so
+that the base is horizontal; the chin
+is round; and the stature short.” This
+is the characteristic type of a Roman;
+but we cannot expect now to meet with
+absolute uniformity in any race, however
+seemingly pure. Such a type M.
+Edwards subsequently found to predominate
+in Rome, and certain parts of
+Italy, at the present day. It is the original
+type of the central portions of
+the peninsula, and, however overlayed
+at times, has swallowed up all intruders.
+As a singular corroboration of
+the French ethnographer’s observations,
+Mr J. C. Nott, an American
+surgeon and naturalist, says:—“A
+sailor came to my office, a few months
+ago, to have a dislocated arm set.
+When stripped and standing before
+me, he presented the type described
+by M. Edwards so perfectly, and
+moreover combined with such extraordinary
+development of bone and
+muscle, that there occurred to my
+mind at once the beau-ideal of a Roman
+soldier. Though the man had
+been an American sailor for twenty
+years, and spoke English without
+foreign accent, I could not help asking
+where he was born. He replied in a
+deep strong voice, ‘In <em>Rome</em>, sir!’”<a id='r34'></a><a href='#f34' class='c007'><sup>[34]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p class='c009'>In Greece the Hellenes and Pelasgi
+are two races identified with the earliest
+traditions of the country; but
+when we appeal to history for their
+origin, or seek for the part that each
+has played in the majestic drama of
+antiquity, there is little more than conjecture
+to guide us. Greece did not
+come fairly within the scope of M.
+Edwards’ researches, yet he has ventured
+a few note-worthy observations
+in connection with this point. He
+thinks the same principles that governed
+his examination of Gaul may
+be applied to Greece; and that the
+Hellenes and Pelasgi might be followed
+ethnologically like the Celts and
+Cimbri. Perhaps the most important
+remark which he makes is that which
+refers to the differences between what
+he calls the <em>heroic</em> and <em>historic</em>—or
+what is generally termed the ideal and
+real types of the Greek countenance.
+The ancient monuments of art in
+Greece exhibit a wide diversity of
+types, and this at every period of their
+history. Of the two great classes into
+which these may be divided, M. Edwards
+says:—</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Most of the divinities and personages
+of the <em>heroic</em> times are formed on that
+well-known model which constitutes what
+we term the beau-ideal. The forms and
+proportions of the head and countenance
+are so regular that we may describe them
+with mathematical precision. A perfectly
+oval contour, forehead and nose straight,
+without depression between them, would
+suffice to distinguish this type. The harmony
+is such that the presence of these
+traits implies the others. But such is not
+the character of the personages of truly <em>historic</em>
+times. The philosophers, orators,
+warriors, and poets almost all differ from
+it, and form a group apart. It cannot be
+confounded with the rest: it is sufficient
+to point it out, for one to recognise at
+once how far it is separated. It greatly
+resembles, on the contrary, the type which
+is seen in other countries of Europe,
+while the former is scarcely met with
+there.”</p>
+
+<p class='c008'>This observation is just. The head
+of Alexander the Great is nearly allied
+to the pure classical or heroic
+type; but this case is an exception—and
+the lineaments of Lycurgus, Eratosthenes,
+and most other specimens
+of old Greek portrait-sculpture, are,
+with the exception of the beard (if indeed
+such an exception is now requisite),
+very much like those which
+one meets with daily in our streets.
+“Were we to judge solely by the
+monuments of Greece,” continues M.
+Edwards, “on account of this contrast,
+we should be tempted to regard
+the type of the fabulous or heroic personages
+as ideal. But imagination
+more readily creates monsters than
+models of beauty; and this principle
+alone will suffice to convince us that
+such a type has existed in Greece,
+and the countries where its population
+has spread, if it does not still exist
+there.”</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>In corroboration of this conjecture,
+it may be stated that the learned
+travellers, M.M. de Stackelberg and de
+Bronsted, who have journeyed through
+the Morea and closely examined the
+population, assert that the <em>heroic</em> type
+is still extant in certain localities. M.
+Poqueville likewise assures us that
+the models which inspired Phidias and
+Apelles are still to be found among
+the inhabitants of the Morea. “They
+are generally tall, and finely formed;
+their eyes are full of fire, and they
+have a beautiful mouth, ornamented
+with the finest teeth. There are,
+however, degrees in their beauty,
+though all may be generally termed
+handsome. The Spartan woman is
+fair, of a slender make, but with a
+noble air. The women of Taÿgetus
+have the carriage of a Pallas when
+she wielded her formidable ægis in
+the midst of a battle. The Messenian
+woman is low of stature, and distinguished
+for her <em>embonpoint</em>,” (this
+may be owing to a mixture with the
+primitive race of the Morea, who, as
+Helots, long existed as a distinct caste
+in Messenia); “she has regular features,
+large blue eyes, and long black
+hair. The Arcadian, in her coarse
+woollen garments, scarcely suffers the
+symmetry of her form to appear; but
+her countenance is expressive of innocence
+and purity of mind.” In the
+time of Poqueville the Greek women
+were extremely ignorant and uneducated;
+but, he says, “music and
+dancing seem to have been taught
+them by nature.” He speaks of the
+long flaxen hair of the women of
+Sparta, their majestic air and carriage,
+their elegant forms, the symmetry of
+their features, lighted up by large
+blue eyes, fringed and shaded with
+long eye-lashes. “The men,” he says,
+“among whom some are ‘blonds,’ or
+fair, have noble countenances; are of
+tall stature, with masculine and regular
+features.” They have preserved
+something of the Dorians of ancient
+Sparta.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>It would be erroneous, however,
+to conclude from this that Greek art
+owed everything to the actual. The
+type existed more or less imperfectly
+in the population, but Phidias and
+the Greek artists took and developed
+it, by the aid of the imagination, into
+that perfect phase of physical beauty
+which we justly term the <em>beau-ideal</em>.
+A nation’s beau-ideal is always the
+perfectionment of its own type. It is
+easy to see how this happens. In
+nations, as in individuals, the soul
+moulds the body, so far as extrinsic
+circumstances permit, into a form
+in accordance with its own ideas
+and desire; and accordingly, whenever
+a marked difference exists in the
+physical aspect of two nations, there,
+also, we may expect to find a variance
+in their beau-ideals. Not, as is
+generally supposed, from the eye of
+each race becoming accustomed to the
+national features, but because these
+features, are themselves an incarnation
+and embodiment of the national mind.
+It is the soul which shapes the national
+features, not the national features that
+mould the æsthetic judgment of the
+soul. It is not <em>association</em>, therefore,
+that is the cause of the different beau-ideals
+we behold in the world, but a
+psychical difference in the nations
+which produce them,—a circumstance
+no more remarkable than those moral
+and intellectual diversities in virtue
+of which we see one race excelling in
+the exact sciences, another in the fine
+arts, a third in military renown, and
+a fourth in pacific industry. We may
+adduce, in curious illustration of this
+point, the well-known fact that Raphael
+and many other eminent artists
+have repeatedly given their own likeness
+to the imaginary offspring of their
+art,—not real, but idealised likenesses.
+How was this? From vanity? No,
+certainly; but because the ideal most
+congenial to them, which they could
+most easily hold in their mind, and
+which it gave them most pleasure to
+linger over and beautify, was the
+ideal constituted by the perfectionment
+of their own features. There is something
+more than mere vanity in the
+pleasure usually derived from looking
+into a mirror; for when the features
+are in exact or nearly exact accordance
+with the desires of the framing
+Spirit within, there must always
+be a pleasure in the soul looking upon
+its own likeness: even as it experiences
+a similar delight when meeting
+with a being of perfectly congenial nature—in
+other words, its spiritual (as
+the other is its physical) likeness.
+It is to be expected, <i><span lang="la">cæteris paribus</span></i>,
+that this pleasure will be most felt by
+those who are gifted with much personal
+beauty, and whose features are
+most perfect of their kind; for in their
+case there is more than ordinary harmony
+between the soul and its fleshly
+envelope. Accordingly, no artist ever
+painted himself more than the beautiful
+Raphael. And we could name an
+eminent individual, now no more, as
+rarely gifted with physical beauty as
+with mental powers, to whom the
+contemplation of his portrait was almost
+a passion. Some of our readers
+may recognise the distinguished man
+of whom we speak. No one less
+vain or more noble-hearted than
+he, yet his painted likeness had
+always a fascination for him. “It
+is a curious thing,” he used to say,
+“how I like to look at my own portrait.”
+Was it not because, in that
+beautifully developed form and countenance,
+the spirit within had most
+successfully embodied its ideal, with
+little or no hindrance from extrinsic
+circumstances, and accordingly rejoiced,
+though it knew not why, in the
+presence of its own likeness?</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>But to return to ethnography, and
+trace out the successive changes which
+have taken place in the population of
+Europe. As we have already observed,
+the great ebb and flow of nations
+was over by the Christian era. The
+population had become comparatively
+dense, so that room could no more be
+made for tribes of new-comers—and
+settled in their habits and occupations,
+so as no longer to admit of their shifting
+or being driven to and fro like
+waves over the land, as was the case
+while they were in the nomadic state.
+And as the nations became consolidated,
+they began, however feebly at
+first, to live a national existence, and
+to put forth national efforts of self-defence
+against those who assailed
+them. On these various accounts,
+the system of conquest by displacement,
+which marked the pre-historic
+and in a faint degree the early historic
+times, was brought to an end,—the
+conquests of the Northmen being the
+last examples of the kind; and these
+being hardly worthy of the name, as
+they were marked rather by the political
+predominance of the new-comers, and
+by an overlaying rather than by any
+displacement of the native population.
+For all useful purposes, therefore, we
+may conceive that at the Christian
+era the various nations of Europe were
+arranged on the map very much as
+they are now,—the only exceptions
+worth mentioning being the influx of
+the Magyars and Turks, and the
+southward progress of several of the
+Slavonian tribes through the old Byzantine
+provinces into Greece.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Had a Roman geographer of the days
+of the Empire,” it has been well observed,
+“advanced in a straight line from the Atlantic
+to the Pacific, he would have traversed
+the exact succession of races that
+is to be met in the same route now. First,
+he would have found the Celts occupying
+as far as the Rhine; thence, eastward to
+the Vistula and Carpathian mountains,
+he would have found Germans; beyond
+them, and stretching away into Central
+Asia, he would have found the so-called
+Scythians,—a race which, had he possessed
+our information, he would have divided
+into the two great branches of the
+Slavonians or European Scythians, and
+the Tartars and Turks, or Asiatic Scythians;
+and finally, beyond these, he
+would have found Mongolian hordes overspreading
+Eastern Asia to the shores of
+the Pacific. These successive races or
+populations he would have found shading
+off into each other at their points of
+junction. He would have remarked,
+also, a general westward pressure of the
+whole mass, tending toward mutual rupture
+and invasion,—the Mongolian pressing
+against the Tartars, the Tartars against
+the Slavonians, the Slavonians against the
+Germans, and the Germans against the
+Celts.”</p>
+
+<p class='c008'>Although the early history and migrations
+of the Slavonians are involved
+in greater obscurity than that of either
+of the other two great branches of the
+European population, it is erroneous
+to suppose that they are a recent accession
+out of the depths of Asia. It
+was evidently a branch of them that
+Herodotus describes as peaceful, pastoral,
+and agricultural tribes located
+near the shores of the Black Sea. Instead
+of entering Europe <em>via</em> Asia
+Minor and the southern borders of the
+Euxine, as many of the Celtic and Teutonic
+tribes did, they appear to have
+taken the route by the north of the Caspian
+and Black Seas, and probably advanced
+southwards into Europe on the
+gradual and ultimately sudden subsidence
+of the waters of the inland sea
+which primevally stretched from the
+Baltic eastwards to the Sea of Aral.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>This race, which now constitutes the
+largest ethnographical unit of population
+in Europe, numbering nearly eighty
+millions, has never yet been examined
+in rigorous detail. The earliest and
+best developed of its tribes is the Polish,
+which, though it has in recent
+times been subjected by the Russo-Slavons
+aided by the German powers,
+has not yet lost its nationality; and
+it is probable that, in the course of
+the future, the mighty Slavonic race
+will yet give rise to several distinct
+states. Both in features and complexion
+there is much diversity to be found
+in the various tribes which it comprises;
+but, if we consider the immense
+numbers of the race, and the
+different climes and temperatures under
+which they are located, it must
+be allowed that they are more homogeneous
+in character than any other
+people in Europe. The general type
+of the Slavonians is thus described by
+M. Edwards:—</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“The contour of the head, viewed in
+front, approaches nearly to a square; the
+height surpasses a little the breadth; the
+summit is sensibly flattened; and the direction
+of the jaw is horizontal. The
+length of the nose is less than the distance
+from its base to the chin; it is almost
+straight from the depression at its root—that
+is to say, without any decided curvature;
+but, if appreciable, it is slightly
+concave, so that the end has a tendency
+to turn up; the lower part is rather large,
+and the extremity rounded. The eyes,
+which are rather deep-set, are [unlike
+those of the Tartars] perfectly on the same
+line; and when they have any particular
+character, they are smaller than the proportion
+of the head ought to indicate.
+The eyebrows are thin, and very near the
+eyes, particularly at the internal angle;
+and from this point are often [like those
+of the Tartars] directed obliquely outwards.
+The mouth, which is not salient,
+has thin lips, and is much nearer to the
+nose than to the tip of the chin. Another
+singular characteristic may be added, and
+which is very general, viz., their small
+beard, except on the upper lip [a trait
+connecting them with the peoples of Upper
+Asia]. Such is the common type
+among the Poles, Alesians, Moravians,
+Bohemians, Slavonic Hungarians, and is
+very common among the Russians.”</p>
+
+<p class='c008'>Having thus briefly and imperfectly
+glanced at the ethnographical features
+of Europe prior to the Christian era,
+we come now to note, equally briefly,
+the accession of foreign elements which
+the Continent has received subsequently
+to that period. The first of these is
+the memorable one of the Jews. Unlike
+the other incomers, they came not
+as conquerors, nor in a mass—but as
+isolated exiles, seeking new homes
+where they might be suffered to preserve
+their religion and gain a livelihood.
+A military race when in the
+land of their fathers, in Europe they
+developed only that other feature of
+their nation, the passion for moneymaking.
+In pursuit of this object they
+have settled in every country of Europe;
+and, in spite of persecutions innumerable,
+continue to preserve to
+this day their religion and their national
+features. Despite the warm
+passions of the Hebrews, which, even
+when in their own land, repeatedly
+led both the people and their princes
+into the contraction of sexual alliances
+with other nations, the Jewish blood on
+the whole is still much purer than that
+of any other race—the foreign elements
+from time to time mingled with it being
+gradually thrown off by innumerable
+crossings and re-crossings with the
+native stock. At present there are
+about two millions of Jews in Europe,
+and in the rest of the world about a
+million and a half. The modern Jews,
+while preserving the national features,
+present every variety of complexion
+save black—for the <em>black</em> Jews of Malabar
+are not Jews at all, but the descendants
+of apostate Hindoos. In
+regard to the matter of complexion,
+which varies so much with the climate
+and condition of the people, we shall
+say something by-and-by; but we
+shall here give some remarks of
+Mr Leeser, a learned Jew of Philadelphia,
+on the curious diversities of
+complexion so remarkably observable
+among the Hebrew race:—</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“In respect to the true Jewish complexion,
+it is <em>fair</em>; which is proved by the
+variety of the people I have seen, from
+Persia, Russia, Palestine, and Africa,
+not to mention those of Europe and America,
+the latter of whom are identical with
+the Europeans, like all other white inhabitants
+of this continent. All Jews that ever
+I have beheld are <em>identical in features</em>;
+though the colour of their skin and eyes
+differs materially, inasmuch as the Southern
+are nearly all black-eyed, and somewhat
+sallow, while the Northern are
+blue-eyed, in a great measure, and of a
+fair and clear complexion. In this they
+assimilate to all Caucasians, when transported
+for a number of generations into
+various climates. Though I am free to
+admit that the dark and hazel eye and
+tawny skin are oftener met with among
+the Germanic Jews than among the German
+natives proper. There are also red-haired
+and white-haired Jews, as well as
+other people, and perhaps of as great a
+proportion. I speak now of the Jews
+north—I am myself a native of Germany,
+and among my own family I know of none
+without blue eyes, brown hair (though
+mine is black), and very fair skin—still I
+recollect, when a boy, seeing many who
+had not these characteristics, and had, on
+the contrary, eyes, hair, and skin of a
+more southern complexion. In America,
+you will see all varieties of complexion,
+from the very fair Canadian down to the
+almost yellow of the West Indian—the
+latter, however, is solely the effect of exposure
+to a <em>deleterious</em> climate for several
+generations, which changes, I should
+judge, the texture of the hair and skin,
+and thus leaves its mark on the constitution—otherwise
+the Caucasian type is
+strongly developed; but this is the case
+more emphatically among those sprung
+from a German than a Portuguese stock.
+The latter was an original inhabitant of
+the Iberian Peninsula, and whether it
+was preserved pure, or became mixed
+with Moorish blood in the process of centuries,
+or whether the Germans contracted
+an intimacy with Teutonic nations,
+and thus acquired a part of their national
+characteristics, it is impossible to be told
+now. But one thing is certain, that, both
+in Spain and Germany, conversions to
+Judaism during the early ages, say from
+the eighth to the thirteenth century, were
+by no means rare, or else the governments
+would not have so energetically prohibited
+Jews from making proselytes of their
+servants and others. I know not, indeed,
+whether there is any greater physical discrepancy
+between northern and southern
+Jews than between English families who
+continue in England or emigrate to Alabama—I
+rather judge there is not.”—<cite>Types
+of Mankind</cite>, p. 121.</p>
+
+<p class='c008'>The Huns and Magyars were the
+next tribes who made their way into
+Europe; and their advent, fierce, rapid,
+and exterminating, was conducted
+like a charge of cavalry. They
+hewed their way with the sword
+through the Slavonian and other
+tribes who impeded their march; and
+after being for a brief season the
+terror of Europe, they settled <i><span lang="fr">en permanence</span></i>
+on the plains of Hungary,
+where for upwards of a thousand
+years they dominated, like a ruling
+caste, over the surrounding Slavonic
+tribes. The influx of this warlike
+race took place by two migrations,—firstly,
+of the Huns, under Attila,
+in the fifth century; and, secondly, of
+the Magyars, under Arpad, in the
+ninth. The type of the two races was
+identical; it is peculiarly exotic, and
+unlike any other in Europe. It belongs
+to the great Uralian-Tatar
+stem of Asia; but, strangely enough,
+though they differ in type from
+the Fins, the Magyars speak a dialect
+of the Finnish language,—which shows
+that the two races must have been
+associated in some way at a remote
+epoch, and before either of them
+emerged from the depths of Asia. M.
+Edwards thus describes the Magyar
+type:—“Head nearly round; forehead
+little developed, low, and bending;
+the eyes placed obliquely, so that
+the external angle is elevated; the
+nose short and flat; mouth prominent,
+and lips thick; neck very strong, so
+that the back of the head appears flat,
+forming almost a straight line with
+the nape; beard weak and scattering;
+stature short.” The Magyars did not
+belong to the Caucasian stock; and
+their long-continued supremacy over
+tribes decidedly Caucasian, is a nut
+to crack for those ethnographers who
+deduce everything from race, irrespective
+of the habits and state of development
+of particular nations.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The next alien race which entered
+Europe was the Gypseys, the history
+and peculiarities of which strange
+people present many curious analogies
+with those of the Israelites. “Both
+have had an exodus; both are exiles,
+and dispersed among the Gentiles, by
+whom they are hated and despised,
+and whom they hate and despise under
+the names of Busnees and Goyim;
+both, though speaking the language
+of the Gentiles, possess a peculiar
+language which the latter do not understand;
+and both possess a peculiar
+cast of countenance by which they
+may without difficulty be distinguished
+from all other nations. But with
+these points the similarity terminates.
+The Israelites have a peculiar religion,
+to which they are fanatically attached;
+the Romas (gypseys) have none.
+The Israelites have an authentic history;
+the Gypseys have no history,—they
+do not even know the name of
+their original country.” Everything
+connected with the Gypsey race is involved
+in mystery; though, from their
+physical type, language, &#38;c., it is conjectured
+that they came from some
+part of India. It has been supposed
+that they fled from the exterminating
+sword of the great Tartar conqueror,
+Tamerlane, who ravaged India in
+1408–9 <span class='fss'>A.D.</span>; but Borrow’s work furnishes
+good ground for believing that
+they may have migrated at a much
+earlier period northwards, amongst
+the Slavonians, before they entered
+Germany and the other countries
+where we first catch sight of them.
+All that we know with certainty is,
+that in the beginning of the fifteenth
+century they appeared in Germany,
+and were soon scattered over Europe,
+as far as Spain. The precise day upon
+which these strange beings first entered
+France has been recorded,—namely,
+the 17th of August 1427. The entire
+number of the race at present is
+estimated at about 700,000,—thus
+constituting them the smallest as well
+as the most singular and distinctly
+marked of races. But if their numbers
+be small, their range of habitat
+is one of the widest. They are scattered
+over most countries of the habitable
+globe—Europe, Asia, Africa, and
+both the Americas, containing specimens
+of these roving tribes. “Their
+tents,” says Borrow, “are pitched on
+the heaths of Brazil and the ridges of
+the Himalaya hills; and their language
+is heard in Moscow and Madrid, in
+London and Stamboul. Their power
+of resisting cold is truly wonderful, as
+it is not uncommon to find them encamped
+in the midst of the snow, in
+slight canvass tents, where the temperature
+is 25° or 30° below the freezing-point
+according to Reaumur;”
+while, on the other hand, they withstand
+without difficulty the sultry
+climes of Africa and India.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The last accession which the population
+of Europe received was accomplished
+by an irruption similar to that
+of the Huns, but on a grander scale.
+In the beginning of the fifteenth century
+the Osmanli Turks swept across
+the Hellespont and Bosphorus, and in
+1453 established their empire in Europe
+by the capture of Byzantium. In
+proportion to its numbers, no race
+ever gave such a shock to the Western
+world as this; and, by its very
+antagonism, it helped to quicken into
+life the population and kingdoms of
+central and eastern Europe. It is
+semi-Caucasian by extraction, but,
+coming from the northern side of the
+Caucasus, and pretty far to the east,
+the original features of the race had a
+strong dash of the Tartar in them.
+The portrait of Mahomed II., the conqueror
+of Byzantium, may be taken as
+a fair sample of the primitive Turkish
+type,—indeed a more than average
+specimen, for among all nations the
+nobles and princes, as a class, are
+ever found to possess the most perfect
+forms and features. The Turkish
+tribes who still follow their ancient
+nomadic life, and wander in the cold
+and dry deserts of Turkistan, still exhibit
+the Tartar physiognomy—even
+the Nogays of the Crimea, and some
+of the roving tribes of Asia Minor,
+present much of this character. The
+European Turks, and the upper classes
+of the race generally, exhibit a greatly
+superior style of countenance, in
+consequence of the elevating influences
+of civilisation, and of their
+harems having been replenished for
+four centuries by fair ones from
+Georgia and Circassia,—a region
+which, as Chardin long ago remarked,
+“is assuredly the one where nature
+produces the most beautiful persons,
+and a people brave and valiant, as
+well as lively, <em>galant</em>, and loving.”
+There is hardly a man of quality
+in Turkey who is not born of a
+Georgian or Circassian mother,—counting
+downwards from the Sultan,
+who is generally Georgian or Circassian
+by the female side. As this
+crossing of the two races has been
+carried on for several centuries, the
+modern Ottomans in Europe are in
+truth a <em>new nation</em>—and, on the whole,
+a very handsome one. The general
+proportion of the face is symmetrical,
+and the facial angle nearly vertical,—the
+features thus approaching to the
+Circassian mould; while the head is
+remarkable for its excellent globular
+form, with the forehead broad and the
+glabella prominent.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The natural destiny of the Turks in
+Europe, like that of ruling castes everywhere
+when holding in subjection a
+population greatly more numerous
+than themselves, is either to gradually
+relax their sway and share the government
+with the subject races, as the
+Normans in England did,—or, if obstinately
+maintaining their class-despotism,
+to be violently deposed from the
+supremacy. The increasing development
+of the Greek and other sections
+of the population of European Turkey
+has of late years made one or other
+of these alternatives imminent; but
+the extensive reforms and liberalisation
+of the government simultaneously
+undertaken by the Ottoman rulers,
+and the remarkable abeyance in which
+they have begun to place the <em>distinctive</em>
+tenets of the Mahommedan
+faith, promised, if unthwarted by
+foreign influences, to keep the various
+races in amity, and admit Christians
+to offices in the state. The history
+of the last fifteen years has shown this
+system of governmental relaxation
+growing gradually stronger—so that
+Lord Palmerston was justified in saying
+that no country in the world could
+show so many reforms accomplished
+in so short a time as Turkey. And
+after the recent exploits of the Ottomans
+in defeating simultaneously the
+attacks of Russia and of the Greek
+and Montenegrin insurgents, and the
+Turkish predilections even of those
+provinces which were entered by the
+Christian forces of the Czar, it cannot
+be doubted that the Turkish rule was
+on the whole giving satisfaction, and
+that, if unaided by foreign Powers,
+no insurrection against the supremacy
+of the bold-hearted Osmanlis had the
+slightest chance of success. It was
+this state of matters which alarmed the
+ambitious Czar into his present aggression;
+for he felt that now or never
+was the time to interfere, if he did not
+wish to see a Turko-Greek state establish
+itself in such strength as to bid
+defiance to his power. We may add,
+that, whatever be the issue of the present
+contest, it must tend to a further
+and higher development of the Turkish
+character. The contagion of
+Western ideas, disseminated in the
+most imposing of ways by the presence
+of the armies of England and France,
+cannot fail to impress itself on the
+slumbrous but awakening Ottomans,
+and not only expand their stereotyped
+civilisation into a wider and freer
+form, but possibly to strike also from
+their religion the more faulty and
+obstructive of its tenets.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Such are the elements of the present
+population of Europe,—a population
+which, in its western and southern
+portions, no longer presents distinct
+masses of diverse tribes, and
+whose various sections every century
+is drawing into closer contact. The
+progress of commerce and civilisation
+produces not only an interchange of
+products of various climes, and of
+ideas between the various races of
+mankind, but also a commingling of
+blood; and as the most nobly developed
+races are always the great
+wanderers and conquerors, it will be
+seen that the progress of the world
+ever tends to improve the types of
+mankind by infusing the blood of the
+superior races into the veins of the
+inferior. The settlements of the Normans
+are an instance of this. And a
+still more remarkable, though exceptional,
+exemplification of the same
+thing may at present be witnessed in
+America—where the Negroes, transported
+from their native clime, have
+already become a mixed race, owing
+to the relation in which all female
+slaves stand to their masters, and the
+consequent frequent crossing of the
+European blood with the blood of
+Africa. In point of fact, there are
+slaves to be found in the Southern
+States, who, like “George” in <cite>Uncle
+Tom’s Cabin</cite>, are as Caucasian in
+their features and intellect as their
+masters,—a circumstance fraught with
+considerable danger to the White caste
+in these States, because producing the
+extremest irritation in these nearly
+full-blood “white slaves,” and at the
+same time providing able and fiery
+leaders for the oppressed Negro race
+in the event of an insurrection and
+servile war.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>But the great variety of countenance
+and temperament in Western
+and Southern Europe is not due merely
+to actual crossings of the commingling
+races. Civilisation itself is the
+parent of variety. The progress of
+humanity produces physical effects
+upon the race, which may be classed
+under two heads, one of these being
+a general physical improvement, and
+the other increasing variety. Take
+an undeveloped race like the Tartars
+or Negroes, and you will find the
+aspect and mental character of the
+nation nearly homogeneous,—the differences
+existing amongst its individual
+members being comparatively
+trivial. Pass to the Slavonians, and
+you will perceive this uniformity lessened;
+and when you reach the nations
+of Western Europe, you will
+find the transition accomplished, and
+homogeneity exchanged for variety.
+The explanation of this is obvious.
+Just as all plants of the same species,
+when in embryo, are nearly alike, undeveloped
+races of mankind present
+but few signs of spiritual life; and
+therefore their individual members
+greatly resemble one another,—because
+the fewer the characteristics,
+the less room is there for variety, and
+the more radical and therefore more
+universal must be the characteristics
+themselves. Pebbles, as they lie
+rough upon the sea-shore, may present
+a great uniformity of appearance;
+but take and polish them, and a hundred
+diversities of colour and marking
+forthwith show themselves;—even so
+does civilisation and growth develop
+the rich varieties of human nature.
+As these mental varieties spring up
+within, they ever seek to develop themselves
+by corresponding varieties in
+the outer life,—placing men now in
+riches, now in poverty, now under the
+sway of the intellect, now of the passions,
+now of good principles, now of
+bad, and moreover leading to an infinite
+diversity of external occupation.
+The joint influence of the feelings
+within, and of the corresponding circumstances
+without, in course of time
+comes to affect the physical frame,
+often in a very marked manner; and,
+indeed, it is well known that even so
+subtle a thing as the predominant
+thoughts and sentiments of an individual
+are almost always reflected in
+the aspect of his countenance. Nations,
+when in a primitive uncultured
+state, differ as widely from those at the
+apex of civilisation, as the monotonous
+countenance and one-phased mind of
+a peasant contrasts with the rich variety
+of expression in the face of
+genius, whose nature is quickly responsive
+to every influence, though
+often steadied into a masculine calm.
+Let any one inspect the various classes
+of our metropolitan population, and
+he will perceive an amount of physical,
+mental, and occupational variety
+such as he will meet with nowhere
+else in the world—presenting
+countenances deformed now by this
+form of brutal passion, now by that,
+ranging upwards to the noblest types
+of the human face, the joint product
+of easy circumstances and high mental
+and spiritual culture. It is all the
+result of civilisation, which ever tends
+to break up the uniformity of a population,
+and allows of its members rising
+to the highest heights or sinking
+to the lowest depths,—thus breaking
+the primitive monotony of life into its
+manifold prismatic hues.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Not the least remarkable of the
+physical changes thus produced by
+civilisation, is the diversity of complexion
+which it gradually affects. It
+appears certain, for example, that the
+races who peopled the northern and
+western parts of Europe, subsequent
+to the dark-skinned Iberians, were
+all of the fair or xanthous style of
+complexion; but this is by no means
+the case with the great mass of people
+who are supposed to have descended
+from them. “It seems unquestionable,”
+says Prichard, “that the complexion
+prevalent through the British
+Isles has greatly varied from that of
+all [?] the original tribes who are
+known to have jointly constituted the
+population. We have seen that the
+ancient Celtic tribes were a xanthous
+race; such, likewise, were the Saxons,
+Danes, and Normans; the Caledonians
+also, and the Gael, were fair
+and yellow-haired. Not so the mixed
+descendants of all these blue-eyed
+tribes. The Britons had already deviated
+from the colour of the Celts in
+the time of Strabo, who declares that
+the Britons are taller than the Gauls,
+and less yellow-haired, and more infirm
+and relaxed in their bodies.” The
+Germans have also varied in their
+complexion. The ancient Germans
+are said to have had universally yellow
+or red hair and blue eyes,—in
+short, a strongly marked xanthous
+constitution. This, says Niebuhr,
+“has now, in most parts of Germany,
+become uncommon. I can assert,
+from my own observation, that the
+Germans are now, in many parts of
+their country, far from a light-haired
+race. I have seen a considerable
+number of persons assembled in a large
+room at Frankfort-on-the-Maine, and
+observed that, except one or two
+Englishmen, there was not an individual
+among them who had not dark
+hair. The Chevalier Bunsen has assured
+me that he has often looked in
+vain for the auburn or golden locks
+and the light cerulean eyes of the old
+Germans, and never verified the picture
+given by the ancients of his
+countrymen till he visited Scandinavia,—there
+he found himself surrounded
+by the Germans of Tacitus.”
+In the towns of Germany, especially,
+the people are far from being a red-haired,
+or even a xanthous race; and,
+from the fact that this change has been
+developed chiefly in towns, we may
+infer that it depends in part on habits,
+and the way of living, and on food.
+Towns are much warmer and drier
+than the country; but even the open
+country is much warmer and drier
+than the forests and morasses with
+which Germany was formerly covered.
+The climate of Germany has, in fact,
+changed since the country was cleared
+of its vast forests; and we must attribute
+the altered physical character
+of the Germans to the altered condition
+under which the present inhabitants
+live.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>It was the conquests of Rome that
+first scattered the seeds of civilisation
+in Western Europe. There it has
+grown up into a stately and nearly
+perfect fabric on the shores of the
+Atlantic, gradually losing its perfection
+as it proceeds eastwards, until it
+reaches the semi-barbarism of Russia,
+and the still deeper barbarism of Upper
+Asia. Our limits hardly allow of
+our inquiring what influence this civilisation
+is calculated to exert in future
+upon the ethnological condition of the
+Continent, although it is a question of
+great importance, as foreshadowing
+the chief changes which may be expected
+to result from the state of
+chronic strife upon which Europe has
+now entered. We can only remark
+that the grand action of progress and
+civilisation is to develop <em>the mind</em>, and
+so convert the units of society from a
+mass of automatons into thinking and
+self-directing agents,—conscious of,
+and able to attain, alike their own
+rights and those of their nation. Hence
+follows the growth of liberty within;
+and, without, the gradual establishment
+of union between scattered sections
+of the same race. Supposing,
+then, that the progress of civilisation
+in Europe be unobstructed, we may
+calculate that wherever we now see
+internal despotism, there will be
+liberty,—wherever we see foreign domination,
+there will be national freedom,—and
+that, after a little more
+training in the stern school of suffering,
+the Continental nations, grown
+wiser, will make an end of the present
+arbitrary and unnatural territorial system
+of Europe, and arrange themselves
+in the more natural, grander,
+and permanent communities of race.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>It was doubtless a perception of
+this truth that caused the French
+Emperor recently to declare that
+“the age of conquests is past.” We
+regret to think, however, that the
+statement is somewhat premature,—for
+Europe is still far from that happy
+climax of civilisation which in the
+preceding sentences we have indicated.
+Moreover, there are two very
+opposite periods in the life of nations
+when the race-principle reigns supreme,
+their first and their last;—just
+as, in the case of individuals, men
+often adopt in old age, from the dictates
+of experience, principles which
+in youth they had acted upon from
+instinct. Now, Europe at this day
+presents both of these phases of national
+life existing simultaneously,
+at its eastern and western extremities;
+and it seems probable that the development
+of the race-principle in its
+early form among the Slavonians,
+will take precedence of its development
+in maturity among the civilised
+races of the Continent. There is
+every indication that the Panslavism
+of Russia will precede the coalescing
+of the Teutonic tribes into a united
+Germany—or of the Romano-Gallic
+races of France, Spain, and Italy,
+into that trinity of confederate states
+which Lamartine so stoutly predicts.
+Nay, may not this Panslavism of
+Russia, by a short-lived political domination,
+be destined to prove the
+very means of exciting the ethnological
+affinities of the rest of Europe, and
+of thereby raising up an insuperable
+barrier to its own progress, as well as
+involuntarily launching the other nations
+on their true line of progress?</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The fag-end of an article is little
+suitable for the discussion of such
+really momentous topics, and we especially
+regret that we cannot proceed
+to consider the effects which the progress
+of civilisation is likely to exert
+upon Russia itself. Any one, however,
+who is disposed to supply for
+himself the deductions from the above
+principles, will feel that his labour in
+so doing is not without its recompense,
+by establishing the consolatory truth
+that, so far as human eye can discern,
+“a good time coming” is yet
+in store for Europe,—though, alas,
+what turmoil must there be between
+this and then!</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_183'>183</span>
+  <h2 class='c002'>THE GANGETIC PROVINCES OF BRITISH INDIA.<a id='r35'></a><a href='#f35' class='c007'><sup>[35]</sup></a></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c008'>Disguise it as we may, conquest
+to the conquered must ever be a bitter
+draught.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>It is impossible for nations to be
+entirely disinterested. The rewards
+of the victors cannot be reaped without
+trenching upon the rights of the
+vanquished.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Three centuries have gone by since
+Machiavelli wrote, yet still does the
+Italian mutter his words, “<span lang="it">Ad ognuno
+puzza questo barbaro dominio;</span>” and
+all the material benefits which the
+peasantry of Lombardy often admit
+that they enjoy under their present
+masters, cannot abate the aversion of
+the people of that province to the
+Austrian rule.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>There are more points of resemblance
+than we may like to confess
+between the position of Austria towards
+Italy, and that of England towards
+India. In both cases, the
+bulk of the conquered, especially the
+agricultural classes, have little to
+complain of, and are on the whole
+passively contented and reconciled to
+a yoke which, as far as they are concerned,
+presses, perhaps, but does not
+gall; in both cases, all of a higher
+order, all upon whom ambition can
+have any influence, must feel more or
+less discontented with a condition
+necessarily attended with a diminished
+chance of advancement, and a mortifying
+stagnation of hope. Both of
+the dominant powers ought to regard
+this frame of mind not as a fault, but
+as a moral malady, and to direct
+their best efforts to the cure of an
+affection naturally resulting from the
+depressed position of those brought
+by conquest under their sway.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>What the sanative measures of
+Austria may have been, and into the
+causes of their failure, we need not
+stop to inquire, but may proceed at
+once to consider in how far we have,
+in this respect, acquitted ourselves of
+our obligations to those over whom
+we also rule mainly by the right of
+conquest and superior strength.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Not being gifted, like many of our
+contemporaries, with power to take in
+the totality of the gorgeous East at
+one comprehensive glance, we must
+examine our Indian empire in detail,
+and for the present confine our remarks
+to the Presidency of Bengal,
+with its appendage the Lieutenant-Governorship
+of Agra.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The guides whom we propose to
+follow in the prosecution of our inquiries
+into the state of these Gangetic
+provinces, their past and present
+condition, and their future prospects,
+are the authors enumerated at the
+foot of the page, each of whom
+may be regarded as a representative
+of one or other of the schools into
+which those interested in the work of
+Indian administration may now be
+said to be divided.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The history of our civil administration
+of the Gangetic portion of our
+Eastern territory divides itself into
+three distinct periods. The first, extending
+from the victories of Clive in
+1757, to the commencement of Lord
+Cornwallis’s system in 1793, may be
+called the heroic and irregular; the
+second, dating from the year last mentioned,
+and continuing till the accession
+of Lord William Bentinck in
+1829, may be designated the judicial
+and regular; and the third, stretching
+from that time to the present day, the
+anti-judicial and progressive period.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>During the first of these periods, it
+is in vain to deny that gross abuses
+prevailed, and that many acts of oppression
+were committed by those
+very individuals among our own
+countrymen, whose heroism in the field
+and sagacity in council were the subjects
+of admiration to such natives as
+were brought into communication and
+contact with them.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>A degree of intimacy thus subsisted
+between the European rulers and
+natives of higher rank, such as, in
+these days, is only to be found where
+the native has been by education assimilated
+in some degree to the Englishman.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>It is stated by Mr F. H. Robinson,
+that men who had left India at that
+early period, could not believe those
+who, in after years, told them of the
+social estrangement prevailing in that
+country, and of the reluctance evinced,
+even by Mahommedans, to share a
+repast with a Christian.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Engaged, as the English of those
+early days were, in a struggle for political
+existence, their deportment towards
+natives of rank was influenced by the
+often-felt necessity of winning them
+over to their interests; and thus our
+national disposition to be contemptuously
+churlish towards those who
+differ from ourselves in language,
+complexion, and manner, was kept for
+a while in abeyance. At that period,
+therefore, we find traces of friendly
+personal feeling subsisting between
+Englishmen and natives, and expressed
+by the latter, even in the same
+breath with the most earnest protestations
+against the mal-administration
+of the country then in our hands.
+Striking instances of these conflicting
+feelings are exhibited in that most
+curious work entitled <cite>Syar-ul Mootekherin</cite>,
+which may be translated
+into a “Review of Modern Times,”
+or more literally, “Manners of the
+Moderns.” This history of the events
+attending the downfall of the Moghul
+and the rise of our own power in
+India, was written by a Mahommedan
+gentleman, of the name of Mir
+Gholan Hussein, whose descendants,
+if we are not misinformed, continued
+under our rule to hold possession of
+certain lands in the province of Behar,
+since lost to them in a manner likely
+to be chronicled among the events of
+the third of the three historic periods
+to which we have alluded.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>If even at this distance of time it
+is painful to read the reproaches bestowed
+by the author on our internal
+administration, it is still consolatory
+to find one, to whom neither partiality
+nor flattery can be imputed, recording
+his unfeigned admiration of the personal
+conduct of many of our countrymen
+in those early days.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Of Warren Hastings the author
+writes with enthusiasm. He records
+all of that great man’s troubles with
+his council; and gives, if we remember
+right—for we have not been able to
+find a complete translation of the
+work in London—a circumstantial
+account of the duel with Francis,
+fought, according to English custom,
+with <em>tummunchas</em> (pistols), in a
+<em>bugishea</em> (garden); and then after
+narrating the complete dispersion of
+the factious opposition by which he
+had been thwarted, he breaks out in a
+triumphant tone, with an exclamation
+like the following: “Now did the
+genius of Mr Hastings, like the sun
+bursting through a cloud, beam forth
+in all its splendour.” In describing
+an action fought in the vicinity of the
+city of Patna, in the year 1760, the
+native author dwells with delight upon
+the conduct of his friend Dr William
+Fullerton, who, in the midst of a retreat
+in the face of a victorious enemy,
+on an ammunition-cart breaking down,
+stopped unconcernedly, put it in order,
+and then bravely pursued his route,
+and “it must be acknowledged,” he
+adds, “that this nation’s presence of
+mind, firmness of temper, and undaunted
+bravery, are past all question.”</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>In abatement of these praises, he
+adds the following reflections: “If, to
+so many military qualifications, they
+knew how to join the art of government,
+no nation would be preferable
+to them, or prove worthier of command;
+but such is their little regard
+to the people of these kingdoms, and
+such their apathy and indifference for
+their welfare, that the people under
+their dominion groan everywhere, and
+are reduced to poverty and distress.”</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Though this censure is in so far
+unfair, that all is, in Oriental fashion,
+imputed to the ruling power, without
+allowance for the circumstances of a
+period of troublous transition, it is
+evidently penned in an honest and
+friendly spirit; and evinces no repugnance
+whatever to the domination of
+the English, provided they would
+acquire some better knowledge of
+“the art of government.” In another
+passage he recounts how gallantly a
+Hindoo of high rank, Rajah Shitab
+Roy, co-operated with Captain Knox
+in attacking an immensely superior
+force, and how heartily, on returning
+to Patna, the English captain expressed
+his admiration of his Hindoo ally,
+exclaiming repeatedly, “This is a real
+Nawab; I never saw such a Nawab in
+my life.”</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Soon afterwards the French officer
+with the force opposed to the English,
+the Chevalier Law, having been deserted
+by his men, remained by himself
+on the field of battle, when, bestriding
+one of his guns, “he awaited
+the moment of his death.” His surrender
+and courteous reception are
+dwelt on with evident delight; and,
+after stating how a rude question addressed
+to the Chevalier by a native
+chief was checked and rebuked by the
+English officer, he makes the following
+observation:—“This reprimand
+did much honour to the English; and
+it must be acknowledged, to the honour
+of these strangers, that as their
+conduct in war and in battle is worthy
+of admiration, so, on the other hand,
+nothing is more modest and more becoming
+than their behaviour to an
+enemy, whether in the heat of action
+or in the pride of success and victory.”</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>These extracts, borrowed from the
+notes to the third volume of Mill’s
+History, might be supported by many
+other passages of a similar tendency
+in the native work itself; and all tend
+to prove that the social estrangement
+since prevailing between our countrymen
+and the native gentry has not
+had its origin in the religious scruples
+of the latter, or in any decided aversion
+on their part to a closer intercourse
+with the strangers to whom
+Providence has assigned the mastery
+over their land.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>This view is confirmed, in as far as
+the Mahommedans are concerned, by
+what Mrs Colin Mackenzie tells us of
+the comments of the Afghan chiefs on
+the reluctance of their co-religionists
+in Hindostan to share a repast with
+their Christian rulers, and the absence
+of any fellowship between the two
+classes is traced by that lady to the
+very cause to which it is in our opinion
+also mainly to be ascribed;
+namely, to our peculiar and somewhat
+repulsive bearing towards all
+who differ from ourselves in tone of
+thought, in taste, or in manners.—With
+a scrupulous respect for the
+persons and property of those among
+whom we are thrown by the accidents
+of war, or trade, or travel, we too
+often manifest a great disregard for
+the feelings; and as insults rankle in
+the memory long after injuries are
+forgotten, we find that liberal expenditure
+and strict justice in our dealings
+cannot make us as popular as our
+rivals the French, even in countries
+where we paid for all, and they for
+nothing, that was supplied or taken.
+Now, it is well remarked by Mr
+Marshman, at p. 63 of his Reply to
+Mr Cobden, that “everything in and
+about our Eastern Empire is English,
+even to our imperfections;” and
+among them we need not be surprised
+to find an undue scorn of all
+that is foreign, heightened by the
+arrogance of conquest and the Anglo-Saxon
+antipathy to a dark complexion.
+This last is a more potent
+principle than in our present humour
+of theoretical philanthropy we may
+be disposed to admit; but it seems to
+be born with us, for it may be seen
+sometimes in English children at an
+age too young for prejudice, or even a
+perception of social distinctions.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>It was said by “the Duke,” that
+there is no aristocracy like the aristocracy
+of colour; and all experience in
+lands where the races are brought into
+contact, proves the correctness of the
+aphorism.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>During the first thirty years of our
+ascendancy in India, this most forbidding
+of our national characteristics
+was kept in check by the exigencies of
+our position; and the consequence was,
+that, notwithstanding all the corruption
+of the time, we were then individually
+more popular than we have
+ever been since. There was so little
+of what could be called European
+society then to be met with throughout
+the country, that Englishmen were
+drawn into some degree of intimacy
+with natives, in order to escape from
+the painful sense of total isolation and
+solitude. That this intercourse was
+favourable to morality in the highest
+sense of the term, is more than we
+can venture to affirm; each party too
+often acquired more of the faults than
+of the virtues of the other. But still,
+bad as the public and private life of
+Anglo-Indians was at that period,
+and however great the corruption that
+prevailed, these defects in those who
+ruled were perhaps more tolerable to
+the governed than the ill-mannered
+integrity of a succeeding generation.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The abuses had probably gone on
+increasing, and the palliating courtesy
+most likely diminishing, when a
+new era was ushered in by the arrival
+of the first Governor-General of superior
+rank, in the person of the Marquis
+Cornwallis.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>We must refer our readers to Mr
+Kaye’s pages for a clear description
+of the state of the Bengal Presidency
+at the commencement of this
+the second of the three periods into
+which we have assumed that its history
+may be distributed. Our space
+will not allow of our entering into the
+controversy about the merits of the
+system then introduced by Lord Cornwallis
+and his coadjutors, but we
+gladly make room for the following
+picture of the state of the peasantry
+in Bengal, sketched as we are assured
+by an eyewitness, in the course of
+the year 1853.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“What strikes the eye most in any
+village, or set of villages, in a Bengal
+district, is the exuberant fertility of the
+soil, the sluttish plenty surrounding the
+Grihasta’s (cultivator’s) abode, the rich
+foliage, the fruit and timber trees, and the
+palpable evidence against anything like
+penury. Did any man ever go through a
+Bengalee village and find himself assailed
+by the cry of want or famine? Was he
+ever told that the Ryot and his family
+did not know where to turn for a meal,
+that they had no shade to shelter them,
+no tank to bathe in, no employment for
+their active limbs? That villages are
+not neatly laid out like a model village
+in an English county; that things seem to
+go on, year by year, in the same slovenly
+fashion; that there are no local improvements,
+and no advances in civilisation, is
+all very true. But considering the wretched
+condition of some of the Irish peasantry,
+or even the Scotch, and the
+misery experienced by hundreds in the
+purlieus of our great cities at home, compared
+with the condition of the Ryots
+who know neither cold nor hunger, it is
+high time that the outcry about the extreme
+unhappiness of the Bengal Ryot
+should cease.”—(P. 194.)</p>
+
+<p class='c008'>It is cheering to read in the chapter
+of Mr Kaye’s work, from which the
+above extract is taken, the proofs that
+the labours of Cornwallis and his able
+coadjutors have not been fruitless, and
+that the peasantry of the part of India
+more immediately under their care,
+are not, as some have asserted, to
+this hour suffering from their blundering
+humanity.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>It would indeed be most mortifying
+to think that regulations, pronounced
+at the time of their promulgation by
+Sir Wm. Jones and the best English
+lawyers in India (though, in the true
+spirit of professional pedantry, they
+would not allow them to be called
+laws), to be such as would do credit
+to any legislator of ancient or modern
+times, should really in operation have
+proved productive of little or no good.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The preambles to some of the first
+of these regulations are worthy of
+notice, even on the score of literary
+merit; and it is impossible to peruse
+them without feeling that they must
+have proceeded from highly cultivated
+minds, deeply impressed with the importance
+of the duty on which they
+were engaged.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>It was the recorded opinion of the
+late Mr Courtenay Smith, of the Bengal
+Civil Service (a brother of the
+celebrated Sidney Smith, and, like
+him, a man of great wit and general
+talent, though unfortunately his good
+things were mostly expressed in Persian
+or Hindostanee, and are thus
+lost to the European world), that
+succeeding governments have always
+erred as they have departed from the
+principles of the Cornwallis code; and
+that it would have been well if they
+had confined their legislation to such
+few modifications of the regulations
+of 1793 as the slowly progressive
+changes of Oriental life might have
+really rendered necessary.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>For very nearly thirty years the
+government of Bengal resisted the
+tempting facility of legislation incident
+to its position of entire and absolute
+power, and was content to rule
+upon the principles, and in general
+adherence to the forms, prescribed by
+those early enactments.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The benefits resulting from this
+system were to be seen in a yearly
+extending cultivation, a growing respect
+for rights of property, and the
+gradual rise in the minds of the people
+of an habitual reference to certain
+known laws, instead of to the caprice
+of a ruler, for their guidance in the
+more serious affairs of life.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The counterbalancing evils alleged
+against it were, the monopoly of all
+high offices by the covenanted servants
+of the East India Company;
+the accumulation of suits in the courts
+of civil justice—a result partly of that
+monopoly, and partly of the check
+imposed by our police on all simpler
+and ruder modes of arbitrement;
+and its tendency, by humouring the
+Asiatic aversion to change, to keep
+things stationary, and discountenance
+that progress without which there
+ought, in the opinion of many of our
+countrymen, to be no content on earth.
+Indeed, the very fact of the natives of
+Bengal being satisfied with such a
+system, would, we apprehend, be advanced
+as a reason for its abolition—a
+contented frame of mind, under their
+circumstances, being held to indicate
+a moral abasement, only to be corrected
+by the excitement of a little
+discontent. But, in truth, there was
+nothing in the Cornwallis system to
+preclude the introduction of necessary
+amendments.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The great reproach attaching to it
+was the insufficient employment of
+natives, and the exclusive occupation
+by the Civil Service of the higher judicial
+posts. Now, we hope to make it
+clear, by a brief explanation, that the
+correction of both of these evils might
+more easily have been effected under
+the Cornwallis system, than under
+that by which it has been superseded.
+There are, as we have remarked at
+the outset of this article, questions of
+difficult solution inseparable from
+conquest; among which, that of the
+degree of trust to be reposed in the
+conquered is perhaps the greatest.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Where attachment can hardly be
+presumed to exist, some reserve in
+the allotment of power appears to be
+dictated by prudence; and to fix the
+amount of influence annexed to an
+office to be filled by one of the subjugated,
+so as to render its importance
+and respectability compatible with
+the supremacy of the ruling race, is
+far from being so easy as those imagine
+who, in their reliance on certain
+general principles of supposed
+universal application, leave national
+feelings and prejudices out of account
+in making up their own little nostrums
+for the improvement of mankind.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Under the Cornwallis system, there
+was an office which, though then always
+filled by a member of the Civil Service,
+seemed, in the limitation as well as the
+importance of its duties, to be exactly
+suited for natives to hold. When the
+civil file of a district became overloaded
+with arrears, the government used
+to appoint an officer to be assistant or
+deputy judge. To him the regular
+judge of the district was empowered
+to refer any cases that he thought fit,
+though there his power ceased, as the
+appeal lay direct to the provincial
+court from the award of the deputy.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The deputy being made merely a
+referee without original jurisdiction,
+was a wise provision for keeping the
+primary judicial power in the hands
+of the officer charged with the preservation
+of the peace of the district,
+while importance and weight were
+given to the office of the deputy, by
+making the appeals from his decisions
+lie to the Provincial Court, and not
+to his local superior. A single little
+law of three lines, declaring natives of
+India to be eligible to the office of
+Deputy Judge, would, by throwing a
+number of respectable situations open
+to their aspirations, have provided
+for their advancement, without any
+disturbance of institutions to which
+the people of the country had become
+accustomed and reconciled. Again,
+as to the monopoly of higher judicial
+office by members of the Civil Service,
+the Cornwallis system, perhaps, provided
+a readier means of abating even
+this grievance than will be found in
+that by which it has been supplanted.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Nothing can be more extravagant
+than the scheme of sending out barristers
+from Westminster Hall, to
+undertake, without any intermediate
+training, the management of districts
+in Bengal and Hindostan. Sir William
+Jones himself, unintelligible as
+he was, on his first arrival, to the
+natives of India, would have failed
+if he had undertaken such a task.
+This visionary proposal has happily
+received its <em>coup de grace</em> from Sir
+Edward Ryan, the late Chief Justice
+in Bengal, in his evidence before the
+Commons’ Committee; but it does not,
+in our opinion, follow that the aid of
+lawyers trained in England is therefore
+to be altogether discarded in providing
+for the administration of justice
+in India. Although the man fresh from
+England would be sadly bewildered if
+left by himself in a separate district,
+it does not follow that he should not,
+after some preparatory training, be
+able to co-operate vigorously with
+others. The horse will go well in
+double-harness, or in a team, who
+would upset a gig, and kick it to
+pieces.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>If barristers chose to repair to
+Bengal, and, while there practising at
+the bar of the Supreme Court, would
+study the native languages, it appears
+to us that, on their proficiency being
+proved by an examination, they might
+have been advantageously admitted,
+under certain limitations as to number,
+into the now abolished Provincial
+Courts.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Had these experimental provisions
+in favour of natives of India, and
+barristers from England, been found
+to succeed, their eligibility to every
+grade in the judicial branch of the
+service might have been proclaimed,
+and the most plausible of all the complaints
+against our system of Indian
+government would thus have been
+removed. But improvement without
+change was not to the taste of those
+by whom the last of our three administrative
+periods was ushered in; and
+in further confirmation of Mr Marshman’s
+remark, already cited, on the
+parallelism of movement in England
+and in India, it was in the changeful
+years 1830 and 1831 that a revolution
+was effected in our system of internal
+administration, which has since given
+a colour and a bent to our whole
+policy in the East. In the course of
+those two years the magisterial power
+was detached from the office of the
+judge, and annexed to that of the
+collector; the Provincial Courts were
+abolished, their judicial duties being
+transferred to the district judges, and
+their ministerial functions of superintendence
+and control to commissioners,
+each with the police and revenue
+of about half a dozen districts under
+his charge.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Two Sudder, or courts of ultimate
+resort, were established, one at Calcutta,
+the other at Allahabad in upper
+India; but all real executive power
+centred in the magisterial revenue
+department, presided over by two
+Boards, located, like the Sudder
+Courts, at Calcutta and Allahabad.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>One of the new provisions then introduced
+abolished the office of Register,
+or subordinate Judge, held by
+young civilians conjointly with that
+of Assistant to the Magistrate. This
+was a most serious change, for it
+abolished the very situation in which
+young civilians received their judicial
+training, and fitted themselves for the
+better eventual discharge of the higher
+duties of the judicature.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The Registers used to have the
+trial of civil suits for property, if not
+more than five hundred rupees (£50)
+in value. The abolitionists urged the
+injustice of letting raw youths experimentalise
+upon small suits, to the supposed
+detriment of poor suitors. There
+was a show of reason in this mode of
+arguing; but those who used it did not
+give due weight to the consideration
+that these youths were to become the
+dispensers of justice to all classes, and
+that it was better for the country to
+suffer a little from their blunders at
+the outset, than to have them at last
+advanced to the highest posts on the
+judgment-seat without any judicial
+training whatsoever. But, in fact, the
+whole argument was based upon a
+mere assumption. The young Registers
+certainly committed occasional
+blunders, as old Justices and Aldermen,
+if we are to believe the daily
+papers, constantly commit them in
+England; but, on the whole, their
+courts were generally popular and in
+good repute among the natives. The
+young civilian had often a pride in his
+own little court of record, liked to
+know that it was well thought of, and
+was sometimes pleased to find parties
+shaping their plaints so as to bring
+them within the limits of his cognisance.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>They thus often acquired a personal
+regard for the people, whom it
+was their pride, as well as their duty,
+to protect—a feeling which has since,
+we fear, been too much weakened.
+The young civilians of the present day,
+though excellent men of business, and
+accomplished linguists, have seldom
+any individual feeling for the natives,
+whom they regard in a light for which
+no word occurs to us so happily expressive
+as the French term, “les
+administrés.” Thus it happened that
+the abolition of Registerships proved
+almost the death-blow to the Cornwallis
+system, and shook, not merely
+the framework, but the very principles
+of judicial administration throughout
+the country. It was followed up
+by a series of measures, all calculated
+to lower the judicial department of the
+service, and to prove to the natives
+that the protection of the law, promised
+in the still unrepealed regulations,
+was thenceforward to prove
+illusory, wherever it was required to
+shield them from the encroachments
+of any new scheme or theory finding
+favour for the moment with an executive
+government ruling avowedly
+upon principles of expediency, and
+seeking every occasion to shake off
+the trammels imposed upon its freedom
+of action by the cautious provisions
+of the Cornwallis code.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The people soon found in their
+rulers under the new system a scrupulous
+discharge of all positive duties,
+combined with a diminished consideration
+for native prejudices, a neglect of
+many punctilios of etiquette, and a
+stern hostility to every exceptional
+privilege exempting an individual in
+any degree from the operation of the
+rules of general administration. This
+last-mentioned tendency showed itself
+particularly in the case of the
+rent-free tenures, which had for some
+ten years previously been undergoing
+revision.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>These landed tenures were held
+under grants from former rulers, exempting
+the grantee and his heirs
+from all payment on the score of revenue,
+though sometimes, as in our
+own feudal tenures, imposing upon
+him obligations of suit and service in
+some form or other.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>When the framers of the Cornwallis
+code, in 1793, determined on
+recognising the validity of every such
+tenure as was held under an authentic
+and sufficient grant, a provision was
+at the same time made for their
+being carefully recorded and registered.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>This duty of registration was, however,
+either totally neglected or very
+imperfectly performed, and the consequence
+was, that by collusive extensions
+of their limits, and other
+means, such as it would be tedious to
+explain, the rent-free tenures were
+gradually eating into the rent-paying
+lands forming the main source of the
+revenues of the state. Careful revision,
+therefore, became necessary, and
+was in fact commenced so far back as
+the year 1819. The inquiry was intrusted
+to the officers of the revenue
+department; but for some time permission
+was left to those discontented
+with their award, to bring the question
+at issue between them and the
+Government before the regular courts
+of justice for final decision. This process
+proving too tardy, in about ten
+years afterwards a sort of exchequer
+court, called a Special Commission,
+was erected for the trial of appeals
+from the decisions of the revenue
+authorities on the validity of rent-free
+grants. This commission was filled
+by officers of the judicial branch of the
+service, and their proceedings, carried
+on in strict conformity with the practice
+of the courts of civil justice, gave
+no offence, and created no alarm, notwithstanding
+that extensive tracts
+were brought by their decisions under
+the liability of paying revenue to the
+state. But not long after the country
+had entered into the third period of
+its administration, the revenue authorities
+got impatient of all restraint,
+and sought to break through the impediments
+of judicial procedure and
+rules. The primary proceedings, being
+intrusted to young deputy-collectors,
+were carried on with a rapidity
+which rendered due investigation
+utterly impossible, and all real inquiry
+must have been deemed superfluous
+by juniors, who saw their
+superiors gravely pronounce, even in
+official documents, that the very existence
+of a rent-free tenure was an
+abuse, and ought to be abated.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>We have said that the forgeries
+practised by some, and the extension
+of their privileges by others of the
+holders, rendered strict investigation of
+rent-free tenures an immediate necessity
+and a duty. Still, it was to be
+borne in mind, that our faith was
+pledged to the recognition of all <em>genuine</em>
+grants, and that, in the larger of
+these tenures, the fallen nobility and
+gentry of the land found their solace
+for the loss of power, place, station,
+hope of advancement, and all that
+gives a zest to the life of the upper
+classes in every part of the globe;
+while the smaller tenures of the kind
+constituted, in many instances, the
+sole support of well-descended but
+indigent families. There was something
+to move the compassion even
+of a universal philanthropist, in the
+thought of the humble individuals of
+both sexes to whom a sweeping resumption
+of all such tenures was in
+fact the extinction of almost every
+earthly hope. The Indian government
+itself, though at that period
+described by Mr F. H. Robinson
+(p. 12) as “a despotism administered
+upon radical principles,” became
+startled at the havoc which the zeal
+of its subordinates was committing
+among this class of sufferers, and interfered
+to mitigate the severity of
+their proceedings. Many of the “soft-hearted”
+seniors of the Civil Service
+rejoiced at a resolution which relieved
+them from an odious and painful duty.
+But thus reasons a strong-minded
+junior on what he regards as a feeble
+concession:—</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Unfortunately the long delay in making
+the investigations had established in
+their seats the fraudulent appropriators
+of the revenue; and when it came to be
+taken from them, the measure caused
+great change and apparent hardship to
+individuals in comfortable circumstances;
+hence arose a great cry of hardship and
+injustice. We were still most apt to view
+with sympathy the misfortunes of the
+higher classes; many soft-hearted officers
+of Government exclaimed against the
+sudden deprivation; and some of the
+seditious Europeans, who find their profit
+in professional attacks on Government,
+raised the cry much louder. But the
+worst of the storm had expended itself;
+a little firmness, a little voluntary beneficence
+to individual cases, and it would
+have ceased; and the temporary inconvenience
+to fraudulent individuals would
+have resulted in great permanent addition
+to the means of the state; but the
+Bengal Government is pusillanimous.
+Since Warren Hastings was persecuted
+in doing his duty, and Lord Cornwallis
+praised for sacrificing the interests of
+Government, and of the body of the people,
+it has always erred on the side of
+abandoning its rights to any sufficiently
+strong interested cry. It wavered about
+these resumptions. It let off first one
+kind of holding, then another, then all
+holdings under one hundred beegas (about
+seventy acres), whether one man possessed
+several such or not: life-tenures were
+granted where no right existed. Finally,
+<em>all</em> resumed lands were settled at <em>half</em>
+rates in perpetuity, and the Board of
+Revenue intimated that they ‘would be
+happy to see all operations discontinued.’
+The result therefore is, that the Government
+have incurred all the odium and
+abuse of the measure, have given the cry
+more colour by so much yielding, and in
+the end have got not half so much revenue
+as they ought to have had. There
+has been an addition of about £300,000
+to the annual revenue, at an expense of
+£800,000.”<a id='r36'></a><a href='#f36' class='c007'><sup>[36]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p class='c008'>According to Mr Campbell’s calculation,
+a stricter enforcement of the
+resumption laws might have doubled
+the above sum; but as only the
+smaller tenures were let off, it is
+scarcely possible that more than half
+as much again as was actually realised
+could have been wrung out of the
+remnants to which the Government
+so timidly, as he asserts, abandoned
+its rights. An addition, therefore,
+of about £450,000 to our annual
+income would have been all
+that we should have gained by a
+measure violating the most solemn
+pledge given to the people that every
+<span class='fss'>VALID</span> grant should be respected, reducing
+many families to ruin, and
+shaking the general confidence in our
+honesty and good faith. Though the
+passage cited is open to many objections
+on the score of arbitrary assumption
+and false reasoning, it is to its
+hardness of tone that we would chiefly
+draw our readers’ attention, as strongly
+confirmatory of the following remark,
+taken from Mr F. H. Robinson’s
+pamphlet:—</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I have said enough, I think, to demonstrate
+that the disaffection which exists
+is traceable to the despotic character
+our administration has of late years
+assumed, simultaneously with its sedulous
+diffusion of liberal doctrines; to the
+unhappy dislike of natives, as natives,
+which has crept in among the servants of
+Government; to the many acts of abuse,
+oppression, and arbitrary misgovernment,
+arising as much from misguided zeal as
+from evil intention, which, on the part of
+the administrative officers, harass and
+vex the people.”—(P. 31).</p>
+
+<p class='c008'>We have already recorded our assent
+to Mr Marshman’s remark on the thoroughly
+English character of our Indian
+empire and its administration;
+but we have, moreover, to observe,
+that, in the application of new principles
+even of European growth, India
+often outstrips the mother country.
+That which in England is still theory
+has in India become practice. There
+are not wanting in England people to
+maintain that all grants of olden times
+ought to be forfeited, and their proceeds
+applied to the purposes of general
+government. If these people had
+their way, they would certainly resume
+the lands of the deans and chapters,
+probably those of the schools and
+colleges, and possibly such also as
+are devoted to the support of almshouses,
+and other charitable institutions
+scattered over the face of the
+country. These speculations in England
+evaporate in pamphlets, and cannot
+for a long time assume any more
+positive form than that of a speech in
+the House of Commons. But the
+following passage in Mr F. H. Robinson’s
+pamphlet shows us how differently
+such matters are ordered in India:—</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“The Government have systematically
+resumed, of late years, all religious endowments;
+an extensive inquiry has been
+going on into all endowments, grants,
+and pensions; and in almost every one
+in which the continuance of religious endowments
+has been recommended by subordinate
+revenue authorities, backed by
+the Board of Revenue, the fiat of confiscation
+has been issued by the Government.”—(P. 17).</p>
+
+<p class='c008'>Again, there are many in England
+who would gladly reduce the landed
+possessions of great proprietors, like
+the Duke of Buccleuch and others, to
+more moderate dimensions; but they
+hardly venture to put forth speculations
+upon a measure which, in India,
+has been carried into positive and extensive
+execution.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The fourth chapter of Mr Kaye’s
+work contains a clear and admirable
+account of the recent settlement of the
+provinces of the Upper Ganges, in the
+course of which the reader will meet
+with the following passage:—</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“There was a class of large landed
+proprietors, known as Talookdars, the
+territorial aristocracy of the country.
+The settlement officers seem to have
+treated these men as usurpers and monopolists,
+and to have sought every opportunity
+of reducing their tenures. It was
+not denied that such reduction was, on
+the whole, desirable, inasmuch as these
+large tenures interfered with the rights
+of the village proprietors. But the reduction
+was undertaken in too precipitate
+and arbitrary a manner; and the Court
+of Directors acknowledged that it had
+caused great practical embarrassment to
+Government, against whom numerous
+suits were instituted in the civil courts
+by the ousted talookdars, and many decided
+in their favour.”—(P. 265).</p>
+
+<p class='c008'>The redress afforded by these decisions
+of the civil courts has not, we
+fear, been sufficient to avert the ruin
+of such members of the “territorial
+aristocracy” as had the hardihood to
+withhold their adhesion to a scheme
+for their own extinction. The principle
+of that scheme was to grant, in
+the form of a per-centage on the revenue
+realised from the village communities
+of what had been his domain, a
+pension to the talookdar who was
+willing, for such a consideration, to
+give up all the other advantages of
+his hereditary position. Many of
+these men, or their immediate predecessors,
+had rendered us great service
+in the war by which we acquired the
+country; but they stood in the way
+of a favourite scheme, and before its
+irresistible advance they were compelled
+to retire. The provision made
+for their future wants may have been
+a liberal one; but how would the
+Duke of Buccleuch or the Marquess of
+Westminster like to be thus pensioned
+off?</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The truth had better be frankly
+avowed; the object aimed at is, to get
+rid of the old territorial aristocracy
+altogether,—indeed, it is so stated by
+Mr Campbell in the following sentences:—</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“It is, I think, a remarkable distinction
+between the manners of the natives
+and ours, and one which much affects our
+dealings with them, that there does not
+exist that difference of tone between the
+higher and lower classes—the distinction,
+in fact, of a gentleman. The lower classes
+are to the full as good and intelligent as
+with us; indeed, they are much more
+versed in the affairs of life, plead their
+causes better, make more intelligent witnesses,
+and have many virtues.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“But these good qualities are not in
+the same proportion in the higher classes;
+they cannot bear prosperity; it causes
+them to degenerate, especially if they
+are born to greatness. The only efficient
+men of rank (with, of course, a few exceptions)
+are those who have risen to
+greatness. The lowest of the people, if
+fate raise him to be an emperor, makes
+himself quite at home in his new situation,
+and shows an aptitude of manner and
+conduct unknown to Europeans similarly
+situated; but his son is altogether degenerate.
+Hence the impossibility of adapting
+to anything useful most of the higher
+classes found by us, and for all fresh requirements
+it is necessary to <em>create</em> a fresh
+class. From the acuteness and aptness
+to learn of the inferior classes, this can
+be done as is done in other countries.”—(Pp.
+63, 64).</p>
+
+<p class='c008'>We fully subscribe to all that is
+here said in commendation of the
+lower classes of our Indian subjects,
+but we demur to the author’s very
+disparaging estimate of the capacity
+of the higher orders. Doubtless there
+are, or rather were, many dull men of
+rank on the banks of the Ganges; but
+are there none on those of the Thames?—no
+squires of cramped and confused
+notions, no fortunate inheritors of
+wealth content to wallow through
+life in utter disregard of the duties
+attaching to property, while fiercely
+jealous of its rights? It would be a
+sad day for our own landed aristocracy
+if Mr Campbell were to obtain sway in
+England, and try to rule that country
+upon the principles of which he approves
+in the East. But if he could,
+would our peasantry be <em>permanently</em>
+bettered by a change tending towards
+a destruction of all the gradations of
+society? If the reply to this query
+should be in the affirmative, we may
+contemplate with unalloyed satisfaction
+the progress of a system the description
+and defence of which is the
+main object of Mr Campbell’s work;
+but if we feel any hesitation as to the
+future effects of such a change in
+England, then, human nature being
+much the same in every clime, we
+ought to have some misgivings as to
+its eventual results in the East. We
+say <em>eventual</em>, because the <em>immediate</em>
+fruits of the measures described by
+Mr Campbell have, we are assured
+by him, and have heard from other
+quarters, been satisfactory and cheering.
+But is it probable that a whole
+nation should rest satisfied for ever in
+this state of flat and tame sufficiency?
+and can we wonder to find alongside
+of Mr Campbell’s picture of what
+ought to be the feelings towards the
+English of the present day on the
+banks of the Ganges, Mr F. H.
+Robinson’s gloomy account of what,
+in his opinion, those feelings really
+are? Having been compelled, as a
+member of the Board of Revenue, to
+make a communication to an old
+retired officer of Gardiner’s Irregular
+Horse, and to a Mussulman of rank,
+calculated to hurt the feelings of both,
+Mr Robinson thus describes what
+followed:—</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I shall never forget the looks of mortification,
+anger, and at first of incredulity,
+with which this announcement was
+received by both, nor the bitter irony
+with which the old Russuldar remarked,
+that no doubt the wisdom of the <em>new-gentlemen</em>
+(Sahiblogue, so they designate
+the English) had shown them the folly
+and ignorance of the gentlemen of the
+old time, on whom it had pleased God,
+nevertheless, to bestow the government
+of India.”—(P. 17).</p>
+
+<p class='c008'>Mr Robinson goes too far when
+he taxes the rulers of the present
+day with dislike to the natives generally;
+but it is evident, from Mr
+Campbell’s own admission, that there
+is a strong prepossession in the minds
+of the young men of his school against
+all natives with any pretensions to
+rank. This feeling extending to those
+beyond the limits of our own dominions,
+has stamped on our foreign policy
+the character of our internal administration,
+and found its full development
+in the late Afghan war. Thirty or
+forty years ago, when natives, if excluded
+from office, were more often
+admitted to familiar intercourse with
+their European rulers, a mere regard
+for our own character in the eyes of
+our subjects would have withheld us
+from making an unprovoked attack
+upon an unoffending neighbour, and
+thus incurring a certain loss of reputation
+for a very uncertain amount of
+gain. This view of the case does not
+of course even occur to Mr Campbell
+as one likely to be taken by any
+reasonable being, and he sums up his
+account of the Afghan war with the
+following remarks, suggestive to our
+minds of little beyond a most earnest
+hope that the future advancement,
+doubtless in store for one of his abilities,
+may lead him far away from
+meddling with matters either political
+or military:—</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Such it was—a grievous military
+catastrophe and misfortune to us, both
+then and in our subsequent relations with
+the country; but in no way attributable
+to our policy, from which no such result
+necessarily or probably flowed. To the
+policy is due the expense, but not the
+disaster.”—(P. 136).</p>
+
+<p class='c008'>Mr Campbell has evidently not
+made very minute inquiry into the
+facts of the war, or he would never
+have hazarded the assertion contained
+in the following passage, that Sir
+George Pollock literally paid his way
+through the Khyber Pass:—</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Through the Western mountains only
+has India been invaded; for beyond them
+are all the great nations of Central India,
+and they are penetrable to enemies
+through one or two difficult passes. But
+these passes are so narrow, difficult, and
+easily defended, that <em>it is believed</em> that
+no army, from Alexander’s down to
+General Pollock’s, has ever passed without
+bribing the mountain tribes. In the
+face of regular troops and an organised
+defence, all the armies in the world could
+not force an entrance; but in the absence
+of such a defence, experience proves that
+the local tribes are always accessible to
+moderate bribes.”—(P. 27).</p>
+
+<p class='c008'>The absolute impracticability of any
+mountain barrier is, we believe, disputed;
+but, without offering any
+opinion on that point, we are happy
+to have it in our power to correct the
+mistake into which the author has
+fallen, in supposing that it was by
+bribing that Sir George Pollock
+carried his army through the Khyber
+Pass. It is true that, in the anxious
+time preceding our army’s movement
+from Peshawar, negotiations had
+been entered into with the local
+tribes; but we have the most unquestionable
+authority for asserting
+that, before the march towards Cabool
+began, the sum advanced to their
+chiefs, being 20,000 rupees or £2000,
+was demanded back from them by
+the political agent on the frontier, and
+actually repaid; so that the mountaineers
+had not only the clearest
+warning of the British general’s intention,
+but the strongest possible
+inducement to oppose him, as they
+did to the utmost of their power.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>But our chief motive for alluding to
+the Afghan war is, that we may show
+how the spirit of the two schools, under
+which, according to our theory, those
+engaged in the work of Indian government
+may now be classed, showed itself
+even in the direction of our armies
+in the field. Sir George Pollock was
+there the representative of what would
+be called by us the considerate and
+moderate, by Mr Campbell the soft-hearted
+and over-cautious school;
+while Sir William Nott was at the
+head of that which, going straight to
+its object, tramples under foot, without
+compunction, every consideration that
+might hamper its freedom of movement.
+We select but a few instances
+in proof of our position, choosing
+such as, from their notoriety, can be
+cited without injury or offence.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>As the two avenging armies, the
+one from Candahar on the south, the
+other from Peshawar on the east,
+drew nigh to Cabool, a powerful
+party, consisting chiefly of the Kuzzilbashes
+or Persians, who had never
+taken part against us, prayed earnestly
+that the citadel, the Bala
+Hissar, might be spared to serve as a
+place of refuge to themselves amid
+the troubles likely to ensue on our
+again evacuating the country.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>This prayer General Nott would
+have rejected, and in so doing would
+have gained the applause of every
+member of that school by which concession
+to the feelings of natives in
+opposition to the requirements of
+expediency, or the sternest justice, is
+regarded as a proof of weakness.
+With this prayer General Pollock
+complied; and to his doing so may the
+safety of the ladies and other prisoners,
+in whose fate the whole civilised world
+took so deep an interest, be ascribed;
+for it was through the co-operation of
+those thus conciliated that the Afghan
+chief, charged with the custody of the
+captives, was won over to assist in
+their escape. General Nott was fortunately
+the inferior in rank; for had
+he commanded in chief, we have his
+own words for the fact, that he would
+have destroyed the Bala Hissar and
+the City of Cabool, and marched on
+with the least possible delay to Jellabad,
+of course leaving the poor captives
+to their fate; or, in words which,
+from the manner of their insertion in
+the pages of the historian, it is to be
+feared he must have used, “throwing
+them overboard.”—(<span class='sc'>Kaye’s</span> <cite>History of
+the Afghan War</cite>, vol. i. pp. 617, 631).</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Incomplete indeed, to use Mr
+Kaye’s words, would any victory
+have been, if these brave men and
+tender women, who had so well endured
+a long and fearful captivity,
+had been left behind; and it is well
+to reflect that we were saved from
+this reproach by the ascendancy of
+the milder principles of rule in the
+mind of the officer upon whom the
+chief command at this moment, we
+may almost say providentially, devolved.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Many more instances are recorded,
+in the chapter just quoted, of the influence
+of a contrary spirit on the
+closing events of the Afghan war;
+but we must pass on to what happened
+in Scinde, where the anti-judicial
+principle may be said to have
+reached its climax.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The following is Mr Campbell’s short
+and flippant account of that transaction,
+reminding us in one passage
+of a letter from the Empress Catherine
+to one of her French correspondents,
+wherein she congratulated herself
+“<span lang="fr">qu’il n’y a pas d’honneur à
+garder avec les Turcs</span>”:—</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“But though we withdrew from Cabool,
+our military experiences were not yet
+over. On invading Afghanistan by the
+Bolan Pass, Scinde became a base of our
+operations, and troops were there cantoned.
+When our misfortunes occurred,
+it was supposed that the Beloch chiefs
+would have liked to have turned against
+us, but dared not—did not.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“Major-General Sir C. Napier then
+commanded a division in Bombay; he
+was a good soldier, of a keen, energetic
+temperament, but somewhat quarrelsome
+disposition; had at one proud period of
+his life been in temporary charge of a
+petty island in the Mediterranean, but
+was, I believe, deposed by his superior—most
+unwisely, as he considered; and he
+had ever since added to his military
+ardour a still greater thirst for civil
+power—as it often happens that we prefer
+to the talents which nature has given
+us those which she has denied us. He
+was appointed to the command in Scinde;
+and Lord Ellenborough, an admirer of
+heroes, subsequently invested him with
+political powers. He soon quarrelled
+with the chiefs, and came to blows with
+them. Their followers were brave, but
+undisciplined, and they had no efficient
+artillery. An active soldier was opposed
+to them; he easily overcame them, declared
+the territory annexed, and was
+made Governor of Scinde.”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Now, the Beloch chiefs had no other
+right to the territory than the sword;
+<em>and we, having the better sword, were perfectly
+justified in taking it from them if
+we chose</em>, without reference to the particular
+quarrel between Sir Charles and
+the chiefs, the merits of which have been
+so keenly disputed, and on which I need
+not enter. But the question <em>was one of
+expediency</em>; and this premature occupation
+of Scinde was not so much a crime
+as a blunder,—for this very simple reason,
+that Scinde did not pay, but, on the contrary,
+was a very heavy burden, by which
+the Indian Government has been several
+millions sterling out of pocket.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“The Ameers had amassed, in their
+own way, considerable property and
+treasure, which the general obtained for
+the army. He was thus rewarded by
+an unprecedented prize-money, and with
+the government of Scinde, while Bengal
+paid the costs of the government he had
+gained. Scinde was so great a loss, for
+this reason—that it was not, like other
+acquisitions, in the midst of, or contiguous
+to, our territories, but was at that time
+altogether detached and separated by the
+sea, the desert, and the independent
+Punjab; while on the fourth side it was
+exposed to the predatory Beloches of the
+neighbouring hills. Consequently, every
+soldier employed there was cut off from
+India, and was an expense solely due to
+Scinde; and while a great many soldiers
+were required to keep it, it produced a
+very small revenue to pay them. It is,
+in truth, very like Egypt—that is, it is
+the fertile valley of a river running
+through a barren country, where no rain
+falls. But there is this difference—first,
+that while no broader, it is not so long,
+nor has the fine delta which constitutes
+the most valuable portion of Egypt;
+second, that while Egypt is free from
+external predatory invasion, Scinde is
+exceedingly exposed to it; and, thirdly,
+that while Egypt has a European market
+for its grain, Scinde has not. Altogether,
+the conquest was, at the time, as
+concerns India, much as if we had taken
+the valley of the Euphrates.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“Half a dozen years later, when we
+advanced over the plain of the Indus,
+and annexed the Punjab, we must have
+arranged to control Scinde too, directly
+or indirectly, as might be done cheapest;
+but during those intermediate years it
+was a gratuitous loss, and the chief cause
+of the late derangement of our Indian
+finances.”—(Pp. 137–139).</p>
+
+<p class='c008'>The better sword gives the better
+title! When such is the doctrine
+maintained, even by a man of the
+pen, we cannot wonder at its finding
+a ready expositor in the man of the
+sword.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>But, in truth, Mr Campbell’s sword
+plea, having the merit of honesty and
+openness, is by far the best that has
+been advanced; and yet, as he shows,
+it is only available in support of the
+right, and not of the policy, of the
+measure. After-events, he observes,
+alluding to the conquest of the Punjab,
+have given a value to Scinde,
+which in itself it did not possess; but
+he has omitted to remark that the one
+event very probably grew out of the
+other. The Sikhs, who not only had
+refrained, like the Ameers, from molesting,
+but had even assisted us in
+our recent difficulties, had some reason
+for apprehending that, in due time,
+the policy pursued in Scinde would be
+extended to their own more inviting
+country; while, as if to remove an
+obstacle to an apparently desired misunderstanding,
+Sir George Clerk was
+promoted to the nominally higher
+post of lieutenant-governor of Agra,
+and an officer, his very opposite in
+every quality excepting earnest zeal
+and undaunted courage, was appointed
+to be his political successor at Lahore.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Though he is little disposed to state
+any case too favourably for the party
+opposed to us, this peculiarity in our
+relations with the Sikhs, immediately
+before their invasion of our territory,
+is frankly admitted by Mr Campbell.
+After mentioning various military
+movements calculated to give them
+alarm, he describes a political difficulty
+as to certain lands belonging to
+the Sikh state, lying on our side of
+the Sutledge, which he says had been
+so managed by two successive political
+agents, Sir Claude Wade and
+Sir George Clerk, that through their
+personal influence “it had so happened
+that our wishes were generally
+attended to.” He thus concludes:—</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Sir George Clerk having been promoted,
+new men were put in charge of
+our frontier relations, and seem to have
+assumed as a right what had heretofore
+been yielded to a good understanding.
+In 1845 Major Broadfoot was political
+agent. He was a man of great talent
+and immense energy, but of a rather
+overbearing habit. In difficult and delicate
+times he certainly did not conciliate
+the Sikhs.... Altogether, I believe the
+fact to be, that had Sir George Clerk remained
+in charge of our political relations,
+the Sikhs would not have attacked
+us at the time they did; it might have
+been delayed: but still it was well that
+they came when they did.”—(Pp. 142,
+143.)</p>
+
+<p class='c008'>The annexation of the Punjab followed
+hard on the conquest of Scinde,
+and both events may be regarded as
+sequels to the Afghan expedition, and
+this again as but a fuller development
+of the anti-judicial school, which, since
+the downfall of the Cornwallis system,
+has held almost undisputed sway on
+the banks of the Ganges.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>When a government essentially despotic,
+like that of British India, spontaneously
+engages to adhere to the
+rules of judicial procedure in dealing
+with its own subjects, a pledge is
+thereby given to neighbouring states
+that towards them also its conduct
+will be regulated on principles of justice
+and moderation.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>We admit that the ruling power
+may thus sometimes create obstructions
+to its own progress along the
+path of improvement; but it seems
+probable that such self-imposed restraints
+should more frequently operate
+(to borrow a term from the railway)
+as “breaks” to save it from
+precipitately rushing into acts of rashness
+or injustice.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>History confirms these conclusions,
+and shows the practical result to have
+been precisely what <em>a priori</em> reasoning
+would have led us to expect.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Five great wars were waged in
+India during the second or judicial
+period of its administration—that is,
+from 1793 to 1830. These were—the
+Mysore war in 1799, the Mahratta
+war in 1803, the Nepaul war in 1814,
+the Pindaree war in 1817, and the
+Burmese war in 1825. There is not
+one of these against which even a
+plausible charge of injustice can be
+maintained by our bitterest foreign
+foes, or most quick-sighted censorious
+countrymen.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The acuteness of Mr Cobden himself
+would be at fault if he were to
+try to make out a case against the
+authors of any one of these wars, to
+satisfy a single sensible man beyond
+the circle of the “Peace Society.”</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>But how is it with the wars which
+have occurred since, wandering from
+judicial ways, the rulers of Gangetic
+India have pursued whatever course
+for the moment found favour in their
+own eyes, with little or no reference
+to the feelings of their subjects, and
+with hardly a show of deference to
+the laws enacted by their predecessors?</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The Afghan war of 1838, the Scinde
+affair of 1843, the Gwalior campaign
+of 1844, have each in their turn, especially
+the two first-named, been made
+the subject of comments neither captious
+nor fastidious, but resting on
+indisputable evidence, and supported
+by reasoning such as pre-formed prejudice
+alone can resist. The two wars
+in the Punjab come under the category
+of the just and necessary; and
+Lord Hardinge’s generous use of the
+privileges of victory, at the close of
+the first of these hard-fought conflicts,
+did much to re-establish our character
+for justice and moderation. But still
+these wars are, we fear, coupled in the
+minds of the people of India with
+those out of which they sprang, and
+share in the reproach attaching, in
+their estimation, to the invasion of
+Afghanistan and the conquest of
+Scinde.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>We have now reached a point
+where we may stop to consider the
+several merits of the works on our
+list at the head of this article. Mr
+F. H. Robinson’s pamphlet is written
+in a frank conversational style, indicative
+of his earnest sincerity and his
+real sympathy with the people of the
+Upper Ganges, among whom his official
+life has been spent. We could
+wish occasionally that his language
+was a little more measured, for there
+are passages to startle some of his
+readers, and so to impair the general
+effect of his otherwise interesting
+pamphlet.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Of the style, as well as the matter,
+of Mr Campbell’s more elaborate
+work, hardness is the chief characteristic.
+Indeed, he seems to discard
+all ornament from the one, and all
+sentiment from the other, and to aim
+at nothing beyond correctness as to
+his facts, and positiveness as to his
+deductions. In this he fully succeeds.
+His volume is a repertory of useful
+facts, and his conclusions can never
+be misapprehended. Some of Mr
+Campbell’s descriptions also are
+amusing; and we insert, as a specimen
+of his lighter style, the following
+sketch of the day of a magistrate and
+collector in Upper India, that functionary
+whose labours are so little
+known to any but those of his own
+service, or the people among whom
+he lives. After enumerating many
+out-of-door duties despatched in the
+course of an early morning’s ride, the
+description thus proceeds:—</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“At breakfast comes the post and the
+packet of official letters. The commissioner
+demands explanation on this matter,
+and transmits a paper of instructions
+on that; the judge calls for cases which
+have been appealed; the secretary to
+Government wants some statistical information;
+the inspector of prisons fears
+that the prisoners are growing too fat;
+the commander of the 105th regiment
+begs to state that his regiment will halt
+at certain places on certain days, and
+that he requires a certain quantity of
+flour, grain, hay, and eggs; Mr Snooks,
+the indigo-planter, who is in a state of
+chronic warfare with his next neighbour,
+has submitted his grievances in six folio
+sheets, indifferent English, and a bold
+hand, and demands instant redress, failing
+which he threatens the magistrate
+with Government, the supreme court, an
+aspersion of his character as a gentleman,
+a Parliamentary impeachment, a letter to
+the newspapers, and several other things
+besides. After breakfast he despatches
+his public letters, writes reports, examines
+returns, &#38;c.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“During this time he has probably a
+succession of demi-officials from the neighbouring
+cantonments. There is a great
+complaint that the villagers have utterly,
+without provocation, broken the heads of
+the cavalry grass-cutters, and the grass-cutters
+are sent to be looked at. He goes
+out to look at them, but no sooner appears
+than a shout announces that the villagers
+are waiting in a body, with a slightly different
+version of the story, to demand justice
+against the grass-cutters, who have
+invaded their grass-preserves, despoiled
+their villages, and were with difficulty
+prevented from murdering the inhabitants.
+So the case is sent to the joint
+magistrate. But there are more notes;
+some want camels, some carts, and all
+apply to the magistrate; then there may
+be natives of rank and condition, who
+come to pay a serious formal kind of
+visit, and generally want something; or a
+chatty native official who has plenty to
+say for himself.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“All this despatched, he orders his
+carriage or umbrella, and goes to cutcherry—his
+regular court. Here he finds
+a sufficiency of business; there are police,
+and revenue, and miscellaneous cases
+of all sorts, appeals from the orders of his
+subordinates, charges of corruption or
+misconduct against native officials. All
+petitions from all persons are received
+daily in a box, read, and orders duly
+passed. Those setting forth good grounds
+of complaint are filed under proper headings;
+others are rejected, for written reason
+assigned. After sunset, comes his
+evening, which is probably like his morning
+ride, mixed up with official and demi-official
+affairs, and only at dark does the
+wearied magistrate retire to dinner and
+to private life.”—(Pp. 248–249).</p>
+
+<p class='c008'>Mr Kaye’s essay recommends itself
+by the same easy flow of language as
+made his <cite>History of the Afghan War</cite>
+such agreeable reading. His plan
+does not admit of his giving more
+than a series of sketches; but his outlines
+are so clear, and his selection of
+topics to fill up with is so happy, that
+we can safely recommend his volume
+to any one who, without leisure or
+inclination for more minute study of
+the subject, may still wish to obtain
+some general idea of the administration
+of our vast Eastern empire. In
+a note at page 661, Mr Kaye informs
+us, that in the summer of 1852 the
+Duke of Newcastle told the Haileybury
+students that, during a recent
+tour in the Tyrol, he had met an intelligent
+Austrian general who, in the
+course of conversation on our national
+resources, said that he could understand
+all the elements of our greatness
+except our Anglo-Indian empire, and
+<em>that</em> he could not understand. The
+vast amount of administrative wisdom
+which the good government of such
+an empire demanded, baffled his comprehension.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The Austrian general, perhaps,
+would not have readily assented to
+the explanation of the marvel given
+by the young French naturalist, Victor
+Jaquemont, who, in a letter dated
+from the confines of Tartary, in
+August 1830, thus writes to a relative
+in Paris: “The ideas entertained
+in France about this country are
+absurd; the governing talents of the
+English are immense; ours, on the
+contrary, are very mediocre; and we
+believe the former to be embarrassed
+when we see them in circumstances
+in which our awkwardness would be
+completely at a stand-still.”—(<cite>English
+translation of Victor Jaquemont’s Letters</cite>,
+vol. i. p. 169).</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The lady whose three volumes come
+next under our notice is certainly
+one of the most intelligent travellers
+of her sex who has visited India since
+the days when Maria Graham, afterwards
+Lady Callcott, amused her
+readers in England, and enraged
+many of her female acquaintances in
+India, by describing the latter as
+generally “under-bred and overdressed.”</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>It is curious to observe how little
+change the lapse of forty years seems
+to have made in the outward peculiarities
+of Anglo-Indian drawing-room
+life, and how much in unison
+the two fair authors are in their remarks
+on their own countrymen.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Mrs Colin Mackenzie, however, has
+enjoyed opportunities which her predecessor
+could not command, of observing
+the private and domestic side
+of Oriental life, and has evinced a
+wonderful aptitude in turning these
+opportunities to the best account. The
+great charm of her work is that it
+admits us within the Purdah, and lets
+us see what is hidden from all European
+masculine eyes,—the interior,
+namely, of an Asiatic household.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>It is pleasing to read an English
+lady’s lively account of her own
+friendly intercourse with families of
+another faith, upon whom her industrious
+energy, quickened and regulated
+by a zeal for her own religion, openly
+avowed and studiously exhibited as
+her main motive of action, cannot,
+we imagine, have failed to produce a
+deep and lasting impression. We
+trust that Mrs Mackenzie’s example
+may be followed by many of our
+countrywomen; for the information
+in which, of all others, the English
+functionaries in the East are most
+deficient—that regarding natives in
+their private and domestic sphere—is
+precisely what our ladies alone have
+the power to acquire and impart.
+Mrs Mackenzie, it is true, mingled
+chiefly with the Afghans, who are a
+more attractive race than the people
+of India.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The Afghans, also, must have felt
+inclined to open their hearts to the
+wife of one who, both as a soldier in
+the field, and afterwards as a captive
+in their hands, had commanded the
+sincere respect of those among whom
+he was thrown. But though all cannot
+have her advantages, there is no
+lady whose husband holds office in
+India, who, if she makes herself acquainted
+with the languages of the
+country, will not find native women
+of rank and respectability ready to
+cultivate her acquaintance, and thus
+afford her the means of solving some
+of those problems of the native character
+which elude all the researches
+of our best-informed public functionaries.
+Having said thus much in
+praise of Mrs Mackenzie’s book, we
+cannot but censure most strongly the
+attempt at spicing her work with
+gossipping tales calculated to wound
+the feelings of private individuals
+among her own countrymen, and even
+of the officers of her husband’s own
+service, with whose characters she
+deals with a most unsparing degree
+of reproachful raillery, designating
+individuals as Colonel A., Major B.,
+or Captain C. of the — Regiment,
+stationed at such a place, so that
+there cannot be a doubt as to whom
+the anecdotes, which are always to
+the discredit of the parties, refer.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The difficulty of commenting on a
+posthumous work is much enhanced
+when the author happens to have
+been, like the late Sir Charles Napier,
+one whose errors of the pen are more
+than redeemed by a career of long
+and glorious services. Still, though
+this consideration may soften, it ought
+not to silence criticism, for errors
+never more require correction than
+when heralded by an illustrious name.
+An additional reason for not passing
+over the last work of so distinguished
+a man is, that it contains many admirable
+remarks on the Native army,
+well deserving to be detached from
+the mass of other matter in which
+they are imbedded. The contents of
+the book may be classed under three
+heads: Censure of individuals; censure
+of public bodies; suggestive remarks
+on the civil and military
+administration of India.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>On whatever comes under the first
+of these heads, our strictures shall be
+brief.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>We find in the list of those censured,
+the names of so many of the
+best and ablest men who have taken
+part in Indian affairs, either at home
+or in the East, that we feel loth to
+give any additional publicity to what
+we have read with pain, and would
+gladly forget. Public bodies being
+fair targets to shoot at, the censures
+coming under the second head are
+open to no objection excepting such
+as may arise from their not standing
+the test of close examination. The
+Court of Directors, the Supreme
+Council of India, the whole body of
+the Civil Service (with one or two
+exceptions), the Political Agents, the
+Military Board in Calcutta, and the
+Board of Administration in the Punjab,
+follow each other like arraigned
+criminals in the black scroll of the
+author’s antipathies. To notice all
+that is advanced against those included
+in this catalogue would be
+impossible, for a few lines may contain
+assertions which it would fill a
+folio to discuss. Of the East India
+Company, the instrument through
+which India has been providentially
+preserved from the corruptions of an
+aristocratic and the precipitancy of
+a more popular rule, Sir Charles
+Napier’s view is not more enlarged
+than what we might have got from
+his own Sir Fiddle Faddle, of whom
+he has left us (at page 253) so amusing
+a description. Though capable, as
+we shall soon see, of rising above the
+prejudices of his profession on other
+points, he looks at this singular Company
+and its governing Court with
+the eyes of a Dugald Dalgetty, who,
+while pocketing the commercial body’s
+extra pay, accounts it foul scorn to
+be obliged to submit to such base and
+mechanical control.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>But none are all bad, and we rejoice
+to see it admitted at page 210 of the
+unfriendly book before us, that “the
+Directors, generally speaking, treat
+their army well;” and at pages 49, 261,
+that the Company’s artillery, formed
+under the rule of these very Directors,
+is “<em>superb</em>, second to none in the
+world—perfect.” Yet it never seems
+to have occurred to the author, that
+those under whose rule one department
+has reached perfection, are not
+likely to blunder in every other, as in
+his moments of spleen he made himself
+believe. So able a man as Sir C.
+Napier could not always be blind to
+his own inconsistencies; and accordingly,
+in the midst of some declamation
+on what India might be under
+royal government, he seems to have
+been suddenly brought up by a thought
+about what the Crown Colonies
+really are.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>From this dilemma he escapes by
+saddling one distinguished personage
+with the blame of all that is wrong in
+the colonies, and thus punishes Earl
+Grey for the speech about Scinde,
+made by Lord Howick, some ten
+years ago, in the House of Commons.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>To the Supreme Council of India,
+though he was one of their number,
+the author never makes any but disparaging
+allusions. Discontented with
+being a commander-in-chief under a
+ruling body, of which he was himself
+a member, he sought to be recognised
+as the head of a separate military
+government. He wished, in short, to
+be, not what the Duke of York was
+in England, but what, under peculiar
+circumstances, the Duke of Wellington
+was in Spain during the war in the
+Peninsula. In this he was not singular;
+for we suspect that the real cause
+of that uneasiness in their position,
+stated at page 355, to have been manifested
+by many of Sir C. Napier’s
+predecessors, is to be found in a desire
+on their part for such an independency
+of military administrative power, as
+is totally incompatible with the necessary
+unity and indivisibility of a
+government. Yet it is admitted that,
+in England, “when war comes, the
+war-minister is the real commander,”—(p. 220.)
+The author evidently felt
+how much this admission must tell
+against his own complaints of undue
+interference with his authority; for he
+endeavours, by some feeble special
+pleading, to abate its effect, and to
+prove the “poor Indian general,” with
+his £15,000 a year, to be more unfavourably
+placed than his <em>confrère</em> in
+England.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>One circumstance, however, is such,
+that while the latter is excluded from
+the Cabinet, the former can take his
+seat at the Council-Board, and his
+part in the guidance of the counsels of
+the State.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>It is, we think, greatly to be regretted
+that Sir C. Napier did not
+more frequently avail himself of this
+privilege, for by keeping apart from
+the Supreme Council he lost the
+benefit of free personal communication
+with equals, and incurred the evil of
+having none near him but subordinates,
+whom he could silence by a
+word or a look.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The Civil Service is represented
+simply as a nuisance requiring immediate
+abatement.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>We are told that “a Civil form of
+government is uncongenial to <em>barbarous</em>
+Eastern nations.” There is some
+truth in this, if a proper stress is laid
+on the word <em>barbarous</em>. In the first
+chapter of the fourth part of his work,
+Mr Kaye has shown how, in reaching
+the outskirts of civilisation, we are
+brought into contact with rude tribes
+like the Beloches in Scinde, “to whose
+feelings and habits the rough ways of
+Sir C. Napier were better adapted
+than the refined tenderness or the
+judicial niceties of the gentlest and
+wisest statesman that ever loved and
+toiled for a people.” But the error of
+such reasoners as Sir C. Napier is,
+that they would treat all India as barbarous,
+and rule it accordingly. Now,
+with all our respect for Sir C. Napier’s
+talents, we doubt much whether he
+would have governed the more civilised
+provinces of Upper India better
+than the late Mr Thomason, whom he
+condescends to praise—(p. 37); or
+managed the subtle and well-mannered
+Sikhs with more tact and skill
+than Sir George Clerk during the perilous
+period of our disasters in 1841–42.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>It is true that the utter failure of
+the system in operation in the Punjab
+is confidently predicted at p. 366; but
+it is consolatory to find, from the very
+last Indian newspapers, that no progress
+is making towards a fulfilment
+of this prophecy; but that, on the
+contrary, a reduction of taxation has
+been effected by the Board, such as
+would be felt as a boon by the tenant-farmers
+of England, its influence
+having been counteracted by nothing
+but by the effects of an excessive
+plenty.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>It is creditable to the candour of
+the Bengal Civil Service, that its
+members themselves furnish the information
+to be turned against their
+own body, and it is from a work published
+by the Hon. F. J. Shore, in
+1837, that Sir C. Napier has borrowed
+his most plausible charges.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>On this we can only observe, that
+Mr Shore, in his zeal for the improvement
+of his own service, forgot that
+what he wrote would be read by the
+ignorant and the unfriendly; by those
+who could not, and by those who would
+not, comprehend the real scope and
+meaning of his words.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The faults imputed by him to his
+brother civilians are mainly those of
+manner, already noticed by ourselves
+as being common to the English, generally,
+in their deportment towards
+strangers in every clime.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>If we were writing only for those
+who know what British India is, our
+ungrateful task of correcting errors
+might here conclude; but it is upon
+those to whom that country is unknown
+that the work before us is calculated
+to produce an impression, and
+therefore we must try, in as few words
+as possible, to point out one of its
+most striking inaccuracies. On referring
+to the pages noted below,<a id='r37'></a><a href='#f37' class='c007'><sup>[37]</sup></a> the
+reader will find a series of assertions,
+to the effect that in Bengal the army
+is scattered over the country for the
+protection of the Civil servants. From
+the <cite>Indian Register</cite> of this very year,
+it appears that, in the country below
+Benares, which, in extent and population,
+is about equal to France, there
+are only about ten battalions;<a id='r38'></a><a href='#f38' class='c007'><sup>[38]</sup></a> the
+half of these being stationed at Barrackpore,
+in the immediate vicinity of
+Calcutta. In the provinces above
+Benares, under the rule of the Lieutenant-governor
+at Agra, with a
+somewhat smaller but more hardy
+population, it appears that there are
+thirteen stations occupied by regular
+troops; of which eight are close to
+large towns, such as in every country
+require to be watched—or else purely
+military posts. There are only five
+other places where regular troops
+seem to be stationed, and of these,
+one is on the frontier of Nepaul.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Admitting that the Civil power
+derives its support from the knowledge
+of a military force being at hand, still
+the exhibition of the latter is as rare
+on the Ganges as on the Thames;
+and a magistrate would sink in the
+opinion of his superiors, and of his
+own service, if he were to apply for
+the aid of troops in any but the extreme
+cases in which such an application
+would be warranted in England.
+It would be just as rational to argue
+that our provincial mayors and magistrates
+in England are hated, because
+troops are stationed at Manchester,
+Preston, or Newcastle, as to adduce
+the distribution of the regular Sepoys
+in Bengal and Upper India as a proof
+of the hatred borne to the Civil servants,
+through whose administration
+that vast region is made to furnish
+forth the funds to support the armies
+with which heroes win victories and
+gather laurels.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>What is meant by “guards for
+civilians” it is hard to guess. The
+Lieutenant-governor at Agra is, we
+believe, the only civilian, not in political
+employ, who has a guard of
+regulars at his house. In some places
+in Upper India, regulars may be posted
+at the Treasury, for the same reason
+that a corresponding force is posted
+at the Bank of England in the heart
+of London; but even to the Treasuries
+in the lower provinces no such
+protection is given.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Sir C. Napier, we suspect, has confused
+the collector with the collections,
+and fancied the force occasionally
+posted to protect the latter to be,
+in fact, employed to swell the state or
+guard the person of the former. That
+regular Sepoys should be employed to
+escort treasure is much to be regretted;
+but treasure is tempting, and the
+mode of conveyance on carts very
+tedious, the ways long, the country
+to be traversed often very wild,
+and the robbers in some quarters
+very bold. It is not often that in
+England bullion belonging to the
+State has to be conveyed in waggons;
+but when this happens, it is, we
+think, usually accompanied by a party
+of soldiers.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>It would be tedious to follow out
+all the mistakes made about Chuprassees
+and Burkundazes—the former
+being a sort of orderly, of whom two
+or three are attached to every office-holder,
+military or civil, to carry
+orders and messages, in a climate
+where Europeans cannot at all hours
+of the day walk about with safety;
+and the latter being the constabulary,
+employed in parties of about
+fifteen or twenty at the various subdivisions
+into which, for purposes of
+police, each district is laid out. To
+form them into battalions would be
+to strip the interior of all the hands
+wanted for the common offices of preventive
+and detective police.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>We now gladly turn to the more
+pleasing duty of pointing out the
+brighter passages, and rejoice to draw
+our reader’s attention to the strain of
+kindly feeling towards the men and
+officers of the Company’s army, both
+European and Native, pervading the
+whole work.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>It is pleasing to observe the anxiety
+expressed by so thorough a soldier,
+to see the armies of the Crown
+and Company assimilated to each
+other, and all “the ridiculous jealousies
+entertained by the vulgar-minded
+in both armies”<a id='r39'></a><a href='#f39' class='c007'><sup>[39]</sup></a> removed.
+It is delightful to read the assurance
+given by such a man that, “under
+his command, at various times, for
+ten years, in action, and out of action,
+the Bengal Sepoys never failed in
+real courage or activity.”<a id='r40'></a><a href='#f40' class='c007'><sup>[40]</sup></a> It is instructive
+to learn from so great a
+master in the art of war, that “Martinets
+are of all military pests the
+worst;”<a id='r41'></a><a href='#f41' class='c007'><sup>[41]</sup></a> and still more so to read
+his earnest and heart-stirring exhortations
+to the younger of his own
+countrymen not to keep aloof from
+Native officers;<a id='r42'></a><a href='#f42' class='c007'><sup>[42]</sup></a> and his declaration
+that, even at his advanced age, he
+would have studied the language of
+the Sepoys, if his public duties had
+not filled up all his time. Our space
+will not allow us to give any specimens
+of the author’s style. It is ever
+animated and original. There was
+no need of a signature to attest a
+letter of his writing, for no one could
+mistake from whom it came. Though
+deformed by occasional outbursts of
+spleen, our readers may find much to
+admire in the narrative of the expedition
+to Kohat.<a id='r43'></a><a href='#f43' class='c007'><sup>[43]</sup></a> It will be well,
+however, after reading it through, to
+take up the <cite>Bombay Times</cite> of the 14th
+of December last, to see what progress
+is being made by the very
+Board of Administration so contemptuously
+spoken of in the narrative,<a id='r44'></a><a href='#f44' class='c007'><sup>[44]</sup></a>
+towards reducing the turbulent Afridee
+tribes to a state of enduring submission
+and good order.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Long practice had given great fluency
+to the author’s pen when employed
+in what we may call anti-laudatory
+writing, but this sometimes
+led him into that most pardonable of
+plagiarisms, the borrowing from himself,
+as in the following sentence, at
+page 118: “He,” meaning the Governor-General,
+“and his politicals,
+like many other men, mistook <em>rigour</em>,
+with cruelty, for <em>vigour</em>.” If our
+memory is to be relied on, this very
+antithetical jingle may be found in a
+pamphlet, published some twenty-five
+years ago, about the alleged “misgovernment
+of the Ionian Islands.”
+The author’s political speculations,
+when unwarped by prejudice, were
+generally correct, and we fully concur
+with him, and, we may add, with
+his predecessor, the late Sir Henry
+Fane, in the opinion expressed at
+page 66, that the Sutledge “ought to
+bound our Indian possessions;” and
+we now fear that, having crossed
+that river, we must also throw the
+Indus behind us, and fulfil the prediction
+hazarded at page 374, that,
+“with all our moderation, we shall
+conquer Afghanistan, and occupy
+Candahar.” Sometimes, however,
+his disposition to paint everything <i><span lang="fr">en
+noir</span></i> has misled our author even upon
+a military point, as in the following
+instance: “The close frontier of Burmah
+enables that power to press suddenly
+and dangerously upon the capital
+of our Indian Empire; and such
+events are no castles in the air, but
+threatening real perils. The Eastern
+frontier, therefore, is not safe,”—(p. 364).</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>In former days, when the Burmese
+territories were dovetailed into our
+district of Chittagong, there might
+have been some ground for this opinion,
+supposing the Burmese to have
+been, what they are not, as energetic
+a people as the Sikhs. But a glance at
+the map might satisfy any one that with
+our occupation of Arracan, a country
+so intersected by arms of the sea as to
+be impassable for any power not having
+that absolute superiority on the
+water which a single steamer would
+give us, all danger of invasion from
+that side has for the last twenty-five
+years been at an end.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The mention of Burmah naturally
+leads to the next work in our list,
+that of Mr J. C. Marshman, the well-known
+editor of the ablest of the Calcutta
+journals, the <cite>Friend of India</cite>.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>His pamphlet is a reply to another,
+by Mr Cobden, entitled “The origin
+of the Burmese war.” Mr Cobden
+could not, of course, write about a
+war excepting to blame it, consequently
+Mr Marshman appears in defence
+of what the other assails.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>We cannot devote much time to
+the consideration of this controversy,
+but at one passage we must indulge
+in a momentary glance.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Towards the end of the fifth page
+of Mr Marshman’s pamphlet our readers
+will find a sentence throwing
+some light on the origin of the war
+which he undertakes to defend. He
+there dwells, with great emphasis, on
+the “unexampled and extraordinary
+unanimity which was exhibited by
+the Indian journals on the Burmese
+question,” and describes, with much
+unction, the happy spectacle of rival
+editors laying aside their animosities,
+to combine in applauding the course
+pursued on that occasion by the Government.
+Editors, like players, must
+please, to live; and as the whole
+Anglo-Saxon community in the East,
+most especially those of the shipping
+and shopping interest at Calcutta,
+have, for the last twenty-five years,
+had a craving for a renewal of war
+with Ava, the newspaper must have
+been conducted upon most disinterested
+principles, which had opposed
+itself to any measure conducive to so
+desiderated a result.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>We have now skimmed over the
+annals of a hundred years, endeavouring,
+as we moved along, to detect the
+ruling principle of each successive
+period, and to trace its influence upon
+the leading events of the time.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>In looking forward to what is to
+come, we shall not speculate on the
+spontaneous limitation of conquest,
+because we feel that this will never be;
+for this simple reason, that we shall
+never sincerely wish it to be. Wars,
+then, will go on, until, on the north-west,
+we shall have accomplished all
+that Sir C. Napier either predicted or
+recommended, and until, on the south-east,
+we shall have added Siam to
+Pegu, and Cambodia to Siam. Within
+the geographical boundaries of India
+Proper, also, there are several tempting
+patches of independent territory
+to be absorbed, such as the Deccan
+and Oude, both of which, along with
+the Rajpoot and Bondela states, are
+all marked like trees in a forest given
+up to the woodman. The inexhaustible
+plea for interminable conquest,
+internal mal-administration, will ever
+furnish grounds for the occupation of
+the larger states; and though many
+of the smaller Hindoo principalities
+are admirably governed, according to
+their own simple notions, still, as
+they certainly will not square with
+our ideas of right, some reason will
+always be found to satisfy the English-minded
+public that their annexation
+is both just and expedient.
+Then we shall, indeed, be the sole
+Lords of Ind; but after destroying
+every independent court where natives
+may hope to rise to offices of
+some little dignity, we shall be doubly
+bound to meet, by arrangements of
+our own, the cravings of natural and
+reasonable ambition.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>In searching for a guide at this point
+of our inquiry, we have hit upon the
+work standing last upon our list, the
+production of a gentleman who has
+extraordinary claims upon the attention
+of English as well as Indian
+readers. Mr Cameron carried out
+with him to India a mind stored with
+the best learning of the West; and
+during twelve years spent out there
+in the high posts of Law Commissioner,
+Member of the Supreme Council,
+and President of the Committee
+of Education, his best powers were
+exerted, not merely to impart instruction,
+but to inspire with a true love of
+knowledge, the native youth attached
+to the various institutions within the
+sphere of his influence.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>His work is truly one of which his
+country may be proud, for a more
+disinterested zeal in the cause of a
+conquered people was never exhibited
+by one of the dominant race, than is
+evinced in this noble address to the
+Parliament of England on behalf of
+the subject millions of India.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Many, however, as Mr Cameron’s
+qualifications are for the task which
+he undertakes, there is one of much
+importance not to be found among
+them. He never served in the interior;
+never was burdened with the charge
+of a district; never spent six hours
+a day, at the least, in the crowded
+Babel of a Cutcherry,<a id='r45'></a><a href='#f45' class='c007'><sup>[45]</sup></a> with the thermometer
+at 98° in the shade. His
+Indian day was very different from
+that of the magistrate collector of
+which we have inserted Mr Campbell’s
+lively description. It was passed
+in the stillness of his library, or in
+the well-aired and well-ordered halls
+of a college, among educated young
+natives, mostly Bengalees, who were
+about as true specimens of Indian
+men as the exotics in a London conservatory
+are of British plants.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Such a life is compatible with the
+acquirement of great Oriental lore,
+but not with the attainment of that
+ready knowledge of native character
+which is picked up by far inferior intellects
+in the rough daily school of
+Cutcherry drudgery.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>This reflection has somewhat damped
+our pleasure in perusing Mr Cameron’s
+eloquent and high-toned address.
+We devoutly hope to see our
+misgivings proved to be groundless;
+but in the mean time we must give
+one or two of our reasons for doubting
+whether the day is at hand when
+the natives of England and India may
+meet on terms of perfect parity in
+every walk of life. In the first place,
+to judge by precedent, we doubt the
+strict applicability to the present question
+of that drawn from the practice
+of ancient Rome. Of the people subjugated
+by Rome, a vast proportion
+were of the same race as their victors,
+with no peculiarities, personal or complexional,
+to check the amalgamation
+resulting from popular intermarriage.
+It is in Egypt that the closest similarity
+to our situation in India is
+likely to be found, and, judging by
+the contemptuous tone of Juvenal’s
+allusion to the people of that country
+in his 15th Satire, we can hardly imagine
+that, when employed in any public
+capacity, the “<span lang="la">imbelle et inutile
+vulgus</span>” were placed exactly on the
+same footing as the Roman knights
+who constituted the “covenanted
+service” of those days in that particular
+province.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The geographical circumstances
+were also different. Rome grew like
+a tree—its root in the eternal city, its
+branches stretching forth in continuous
+lines to the furthest extremities of
+its vast domain.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Our Indian empire springs from a
+transplanted offshoot of the parent
+State. No one part of it has a firmer
+hold on the soil than another. It is
+all equally loose. Our dominion is,
+in fact, based upon our ships, and it is
+to our ships that both Englishmen and
+natives, in touching on the possibility
+of our eventual downfall, always speak
+of our retreating or being driven.
+From our ships we sprung, and to our
+ships we shall some day perhaps return.
+It is in vain, therefore, to draw,
+from the practice of a purely continental
+empire like that of Rome, rules
+for the government of an essentially
+maritime dominion such as we have
+established on the Ganges. Ours is a
+power without a precedent, and perhaps,
+therefore, without a prognostic.
+There is nothing like it in the past,
+and its future will probably be stamped
+with the same singularity as has
+characterised its whole existence.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>We must try, therefore, to better
+the condition of our subjects by means
+such as our own experience teaches
+us to be best adapted to their nature.
+To open to them at once the civil and
+military services; to give to any number
+of them that absolute right to preferment
+implied in their enrolment in
+the ranks of a peculiar body, would
+not, we imagine, be to follow the
+guidance of experience. Presumption
+on the one side, and the pride of race
+on the other, might lead to serious
+jarrings between the English and the
+Indian members, who, though standing
+in the ranks of the same service,
+would still differ from each other like
+the keys of a piano-forte. It would,
+we think, be safer to commence, as we
+have already suggested, by selecting
+for preferment individuals from the
+mass of our native subjects. Situations
+in the judicial and revenue department
+may be found or created
+which natives can fill with great credit;
+but their general fitness for the
+office of magistrate remains to be
+proved. It is easy to imagine a case
+wherein to leave the powers wielded
+by a magistrate in the hands of any
+one open to the influences from which
+a fellow-countryman alone can be secure,
+would be, to say the least, most
+imprudent. Besides, there is a duty,
+perhaps but imperfectly performed at
+present, and to which, at least in the
+lower provinces, a native functionary
+would be quite incompetent, and that
+is, affording protection to the people
+against the violence of Englishmen
+settled in the interior as merchants,
+landholders, or Indigo-planters. We
+have now before us a letter written in
+excellent English by a native of Bengal,
+in which the following passage
+occurs:—“The fact is, that European
+traders have obtained, in many
+places in the interior of the Bengal
+Presidency, almost uncontrolled power—a
+power which they are seldom sufficiently
+scrupulous not to exert to the
+injury of those with whom they come
+in contact. It is not exaggeration to
+say, each Indigo-factory, together
+with its surrounding estate, is a little
+kingdom within itself, wherein avarice
+and tyranny hold unlimited sway.
+The police is too feeble to render
+effectual aid in suppressing the lawless
+oppression of the factor.”</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Now, let us figure to ourselves one
+of Mr Cameron’s slender dusky <i><span lang="fr">élèves</span></i>
+on the bench as magistrate, and (to
+take what ought to be the mildest
+specimen of a gentle Englishman) the
+leading member of the Peace party at
+the House of Commons at the bar in
+an Indigo-planter, taxed with oppressing
+the Hindoo, and we shall easily
+see that the law must have an almost
+supernatural inherent majesty, if, under
+such circumstances, it can be
+effectually enforced and impartially
+administered.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The regulation of the intercourse
+between our own countrymen not in
+the service of Government, and our
+native subjects, will rise in importance
+with the progress of those works
+in which European agency is essential
+to insure success. Railways,
+electric telegraphs, improved cotton-cultivation,
+steam, and all other complicated
+machinery, must, if overspreading
+the country as many anticipate,
+bring with them a vast increase
+to the European section of the community,
+whose influence will still be
+out of all proportion to its commercial
+strength.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>To give to this little section full
+scope for the development of its industrial
+energies, and yet to restrain
+it from abusing its strength to the
+injury of the native population, is in
+fact the only real service ever likely
+to be rendered by the Law Commissions
+and Legislative Councils called
+into existence by the enactment of
+last session.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>In as far as the natives of Bengal
+and Upper India are alone concerned,
+we are convinced that all of this cumbrous
+law-making apparatus is quite
+superfluous. The existing regulations,
+with occasional pruning and trimming,
+would, if fairly enforced and adhered
+to, amply suffice to meet all of their
+simple wants. But the natives can
+no longer be left to themselves. Europeans
+will intrude, and legislation
+must therefore be shaped and stretched
+so as to fit it to the characters of the
+intruders.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>As at present constituted, the magistracy
+and the police are hardly
+equal to the control of British-born
+settlers, half a dozen of whom are
+more difficult to rule than half a million
+of natives. There prevails among
+Englishmen of every grade a notion
+of the East India Company being a
+body of a somewhat foreign stamp, to
+whose servants it is almost degrading
+for a free-born Britain to be obliged
+to submit.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The amalgamation of the Queen’s
+and the Company’s superior tribunals,
+known at Calcutta as the Supreme,
+and the Sudder, Courts, would, by
+coupling the home-bred judges appointed
+by the Crown with the country-trained
+nominees of the local government,
+give a weight to the magistracy
+acting under this combined authority,
+and thus fit it for the better discharge
+of the difficult duty of controlling and
+correcting the excesses of Englishmen
+settled in the interior. These settlers
+often find in the menace of an action
+or prosecution before a remote and
+somewhat prejudiced tribunal, a weapon
+wherewith to combat the immediate
+power of a functionary, amenable
+individually to the Queen’s Court
+in Calcutta, for every act which legal
+ingenuity can represent to be personal,
+and so beyond the pale of official protection.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The fusion of the two superior
+courts will not, in fact, lessen the personal
+responsibility of the English
+magistrate; but it will remove an apparent
+antagonism, calculated to keep
+alive a spirit of defiance towards the
+<em>local</em> authority in the breast of many
+an English settler, the effects of which,
+as described in the extract above
+given, from the letter of a Bengal
+gentleman, are felt by every native
+with whom he may have any dealings.
+Much has been written and
+spoken about the duty of protecting
+the people of India from being oppressed
+by the Government and its
+agents, but few seem to have thought
+of that more searching tyranny which
+a few strong-nerved and coarse-minded
+Englishmen in the interior, invested
+with power by the possession of land,
+may exercise over the people among
+whom they are located, and from whom
+they are eager to extract the wealth
+which they long to enjoy in a more
+congenial climate.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>This species of tyranny will of
+course be most felt among the feeblest,
+and is, consequently, likely to be more
+grievous in Bengal than among the
+hardier population of Upper India.
+But wherever the Anglo-Saxon goes,
+he will carry with him his instinctive
+contempt for tribes of a dusky complexion;
+and where this is not counteracted
+by the imposed courtesies of
+official life, or checked by the presence
+of a sufficient controlling authority, it
+will ever be ready to break out in a
+manner injurious to the interests and
+feelings of those subject to his power.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Our future rule will, it is evident,
+become daily more and more European
+in its tone, and there will consequently
+be an increasing call upon those engaged
+in its direction to watch over
+the conduct of the dominant race, to
+restrain its arrogance, and to see that
+the equality announced in the laws
+does not evaporate in print, but is
+something real and substantial, to be
+felt and enjoyed in the ordinary everyday
+intercourse of life.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>If this can be accomplished by
+legislation, the new Commissions and
+Councils will not have been created in
+vain; but if their labours end in
+merely adding to the existing tomes
+of benevolent enactments, without
+effectual provision for their enforcement,
+then we cannot but fear that
+our projected measures of improvement,
+being all of a European character,
+will add little to the happiness
+of our subjects on the banks of the
+Ganges, and be regarded by them
+merely as ingenious contrivances for
+extending our own power, and completing
+their subjugation.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_206'>206</span>
+  <h2 class='c002'>THE SECRET OF STOKE MANOR: A FAMILY HISTORY.<br> PART III.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<h3 class='c014'>CHAPTER IV.—AU CENTRE DU MONDE.</h3>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>“<span lang="fr">Oh, Paris! ville pleine de brouillard,</span></div>
+      <div class='line'><span lang="fr">Et couverte de boue,</span></div>
+      <div class='line'><span lang="fr">Où les hommes connoissent pas l’honneur,</span></div>
+      <div class='line'><span lang="fr">Ni les femmes la vertu.</span>”</div>
+      <div class='line in28'><span class='sc'>Rousseau.</span></div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>The Willoughby family, as has
+been already said, left England for
+the Continent; and the spring which
+succeeded Sir John’s death found
+them temporarily residing in Paris.
+It was very far from the Colonel’s
+intention, however, to remain there
+long; the household was only incomplete,
+as yet, without Francis, who
+in a few weeks would join it on leaving
+Oxford; and there had to be
+some consideration before finally settling,
+from among no slight variety of
+advertisements in the public journals,
+what district of the provinces might
+be best suited for a retreat, probably
+during some years. One or two
+points of business, also, requiring
+attention to his English letters, continued
+to make their early arrival a
+convenience; not so much from the
+Devonshire lawyer, whose methodical
+regularity left nothing to desire, as
+with regard to the sale of Sir Godfrey’s
+commission, and some arrangements
+left unfinished in town, of that
+tedious nature which characterises
+stockbroking. Meanwhile their establishment
+was certainly simple compared
+with that lately given up in
+Golden Square, where society, at no
+time deficient to the Willoughbies,
+had, since the Colonel’s last return
+home, been doubling itself every year,
+and had begun, since his brother’s
+death, absolutely to send visiting-cards
+by footmen, to call in carriages,
+to bespeak the earliest possible share
+of their company at dinner: contrasted
+with the extent which must
+have been necessary for Stoke, it was
+diminutive. Yet it was by no means
+one of a restricted kind, although
+the income from Lady Willoughby’s
+own small fortune would alone have
+sufficed to keep it up, leaving some
+surplus; so that, living as yet without
+new acquaintances, and, so far as
+their countrymen were concerned, in
+perfect obscurity, they had not a wish
+which it did not suffice for; as long,
+at least, as the vast, strange city
+held its first influences over them.
+To these, probably, it was owing that
+Colonel Willoughby appeared for
+some time to have had no other object
+in coming to Paris; if distinctly
+aware of any, beyond the facilities
+there for choosing a place of residence
+in the provinces, for awaiting his son
+Francis, and finishing the more important
+part of his correspondence,
+with the convenience of respectable
+banking-houses—besides the possibility
+of avoiding English acquaintances,
+which at Dieppe or Boulogne would
+not have been so easy—then he would
+without doubt have mentioned it to
+his wife. A reserved man, and in
+the strictest sense a proud one, he
+was amongst the last to have secrets;
+they would have sat on his brow,
+and troubled his manner; nor had he
+at any time had such a thing apart
+from <em>her</em>. During the whole course
+of their wedded life, whether together
+or separated, by word or letter, their
+mutual confidence had increased: for
+her part, she was of that easy, placid,
+seemingly almost torpid nature,
+which, save in a receipt of housekeeping,
+or a triumph of domestic
+management, appears merely to produce
+in it nothing worth the hiding,
+nor to receive, either, anything of
+that serious kind; while the course
+of time, that had begun to turn the
+fair features of Mrs Willoughby rather
+large, giving her form a somewhat
+more than matronly fulness, had so
+increased this peculiarity in her disposition
+as to make strangers think
+her insipid. Older friends thought
+very far otherwise, and it was, in
+some way, chiefly old friends Mrs
+Willoughby had had at all; but neither
+they, the oldest of them, nor even
+her children, perhaps, could so much
+as imagine the truth of heart, the perfect
+trust, the intimate, unhesitating
+appreciation, which, since they were
+first gained by him, her husband had
+been ever knowing better. Indolently
+placid as she might seem even to
+ordinary troubles, tumults, and embarrassments,
+as if the world’s care
+entered no imagination of hers—quietly
+busied, with attention fixed
+on household matters, knitting or
+sewing in her endless, noiseless manner—yet
+if his eye had shown anxiety,
+if he had ceased to read, if he paced
+the room, or had been very silent, a
+kind of divination there was, that,
+without any watching or any questioning,
+would have roused her up—the
+work suspended on her lap, her
+cheek losing the old dimple-mark
+which maturity had deepened there,
+and her glance widened with concern;
+till, if he had still not spoken, Lady
+Willoughby would have risen up
+gradually, looking round as if startled
+from a sort of mild dream, and have
+moved towards him, beginning of her
+own accord—which was a rare thing—to
+speak. Not necessarily, indeed,
+though they had been alone in the
+room, to invite confidence by any inquiry;
+but rather in the way of performing
+some slight office that might
+have been neglected, or with endeavours
+at such interesting news and
+small-talk as, to speak truth, she
+scarcely shone in, unsupported—nor
+any the better for the confused sense
+she evidently had at these times of
+having been by some means in fault,
+and having failed to be a very lively
+companion. She was of a plain
+country squire’s family, in fact; and
+in her day, if sent at all to boarding-schools,
+they had not lingered long
+over music, still less at flower-painting
+or the sciences; while with successive
+sisters waiting at home for
+their turn, as she had had, it was but
+to finish off baking and mending, with
+dancing and embroidery, then to come
+back, and bake and mend again. So
+when the dancing ended with marriage,
+the embroidery at the first
+birth, it might have been thought the
+officer had gained no very valuable
+society, sometimes in barrack-lodgings,
+sometimes abroad, sometimes
+for distant communication by letter;
+she might, at least, have been expected
+to form no great ornament in
+London circles, or among country
+people at Stoke Manor-house. Still
+there had been nothing in all their
+previous intercourse so precious to
+him as his wife’s letters, when almost
+for the first time, in her own natural
+way, she had to attempt expressing
+fond thoughts, soothing motives, and
+yet confessions of impatience—mixed
+up with accounts of children’s complaints,
+their faults, and their schooling—country
+gossip, and fashionable
+arrivals, with some stray suggestions
+and admissions, never before confided
+to him, of a pious kind: and when
+long afterwards came the events at
+Stoke, instead of any undue flutter or
+sense of importance being caused in
+her, she had fallen in as naturally to
+title or prospects, as she had sat before
+that at the head of their dinner-table
+in Golden Square. It was no
+doll’s disposition, as had been at the
+time hinted round some ill-natured
+card-tables in that region; if one
+thing more than another troubled Sir
+Godfrey in their present plans, it was
+that he believed devoutly in his wife’s
+aptitude for a high station, where
+expectations would be formed and
+occasions raised; his feeling was—and
+the partiality was excusable—that
+her chief value lay obscured in
+ordinary circumstances. Whereas at
+the new abode in Paris, with ample
+scope and convenience, all the earlier
+habits of domestic superintendence
+seemed returning, the making, baking,
+mending—almost even to washing;
+in reference to which alone Lady
+Willoughby seemed really active, and
+the more so that everything might go
+on as in England, had the mere economy
+of the thing not been a vital
+point. Her pleased air would alone
+have hindered him from reasoning it
+with her, had Sir Godfrey so much
+as dreamt, in the latter respect, how
+their case really stood: and when,
+indeed, there did lie any care on his
+mind, which he might be unwilling
+she should share, yet so gently did
+the conversation win it from him, and
+so quietly did something like the old
+manner woo him to bear no burden
+alone, that, ere he knew, it was no
+longer his, but they were talking of
+it plainly. What tranquil reassurance
+<em>then</em>, and grave, prompt advertence
+to the point—and pure
+sympathy, and that repose of soul
+from which a woman’s instinct can
+express so much by a tone, a look,
+silence itself! Sir Godfrey had sometimes
+been ashamed to find how much
+more he could be disturbed by trifles,
+or how cautiously he had been underrating
+his wife’s affection. So that
+she knew as well as he did, and almost
+as soon, how affairs stood at
+Stoke, with the tenor of his brother’s
+intended will, and any the slightest
+incident which could concern them.
+He had even casually mentioned, as
+among the more trivial, Sir John’s
+wishes for the benefit of the person
+entitled Suzanne Deroux, for Lady
+Willoughby had long known, of
+course, what of Sir John’s early history
+his brother knew. The matter
+had well-nigh escaped his memory,
+he said; till on happening to want a
+banker in Paris, it struck him that
+the house formerly employed by his
+brother, in the payment of the annuity
+referred to, might suit himself.
+To these gentlemen, accordingly, he
+had sent a memorandum of the address
+left by Sir John, with a request
+that they would have the money paid
+to her. It was a small sum, but
+might be important to the people,
+whoever they were, living in one of
+the poorest and most wretchedly-crowded
+quarters of Paris. Still, as
+Sir Godfrey smiled on that occasion
+cheerfully, and resumed his English
+newspaper, he did not, he could not
+tell all the painful and pertinacious
+impressions, of circumstances unknown
+or acts untraced, which any
+allusion to his late brother’s former
+stay in Paris still called up.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Everything did not exactly go on
+in the household as in England, indeed,
+but all was as nearly so as a
+quiet assiduity could make it. The
+house, a somewhat dull and dilapidated
+mansion, very barely furnished,
+and taken by the month from an adjoining
+notary, stood far to the western
+or court-end of the city, though
+rather involved in the dinginess of a
+sort of minor fauxbourg, where, in
+those days, between the sudden curve
+of the river and the lesser alleys of
+the Champs Elysées, a motley population
+still clustered about the tan-pits
+or dye-houses, and towards the
+bridge and quays: it occupied one
+corner of a short, deserted-looking
+street, the other end of which was reduced
+to a narrow lane by the high
+enclosure of a convent; in front was
+a small paved court, very shady and
+damp, by the help of two or three
+stunted poplars it contained, yet not
+by any means private, being overlooked
+by dusty or broken staircase windows,
+one over the other, from at
+hand; while it, nevertheless, could
+boast of a wall surmounted by a railing,
+with a heavily-pillared gate of
+open ironwork, a little lodge on one
+side within, where the porter lived—at
+one end of the house a diminutive
+stable and coach-shed, at the other an
+entrance to a high-walled garden, laid
+out in intricate confusion, without
+sign of flowers, and overgrown with a
+luxury of weeds. Some rising bourgeois
+had probably at first designed
+it, with a moderate eye to fashion;
+although its prime recommendation
+from the notary was, that successive
+families of the English nobility had
+chosen it for their temporary residence;
+nor did the old concierge fail
+to point out, with some emphasis,
+when showing the garden, that it was
+in the English style. The place was,
+at all events, at a convenient distance
+from the central parts of Paris, and
+within an easy drive to the Protestant
+Episcopal chapel. At a sharp angle
+with the street ran a main thoroughfare
+from the city barrier, one way
+confused in the dense suburb, the
+other way breaking towards a leafy
+promenade of the public park; sending
+all day a busy throng of passengers
+into that brighter current, where
+it glimpsed broad past the gap of
+light, with the glitter of equipages,
+the shifting glow of dresses, and the
+constant hum and babble of its gaiety;
+while nearer by was an opening in
+the contiguous street, through which
+the first-floor windows of their house
+looked at the motion along the quay,
+and saw the stately piles of building
+on the opposite bank, in brighter perspective,
+curve away from the eastern
+avenue of the Champ de Mars, with
+the bending of the river. They had
+still a carriage, too, though it was
+merely hired by the month, like the
+house, from the nearest livery-stables—a
+light, English-shaped barouche,
+with its pair of soot-black, long-legged
+Flemish horses, long-tailed and square-nosed,
+barrel-bodied and hollow-backed,
+and formally-stepping, which the
+owner called English also, for everything
+English seemed the rage: they
+were objects of no slight scorn, in that
+light, to Sir Godfrey’s groom, a stiff
+old trooper, who, with his duties towards
+his master’s horse, Black Rupert
+(the only possession they had
+brought from Stoke, save the title), had
+soon to unite that of coachman. Since
+besides Jackson himself, there was
+not merely an English housemaid, but
+there was young Mr Charles’s tutor, a
+grave, rather middle-aged bachelor of
+arts from Cambridge, and in clerical
+orders, who was to make up for the lost
+advantages of Eton, while he looked
+forward to the first opening in the
+curacy at Stoke: there was Miss Willoughby’s
+governess, a lady apparently
+also of middle age, whose perfect
+breeding and great accomplishments
+had made her acceptance of the position
+a favour, when the sudden necessity
+arose for the young lady’s leaving
+school; she had been in the highest
+families, and her conversational powers
+were of a superior order, so that
+there was a continual silent gratitude
+towards her on the part of Lady Willoughby.
+To the latter, indeed, whose
+whole heart lay in her family, these
+unavoidable changes had been a source
+of pure satisfaction, so far as she was
+concerned; compared with the privilege
+of having their children about
+them, educated under their own eye,
+expecting Frank so soon, too, nothing
+else was a deprivation; she merely
+missed England and English habits
+when some one else did, and had
+seen Stoke but once; only through the
+occasional abstracted looks of Sir Godfrey
+did she regret its postponement.
+As for the old French concierge at the
+gate, indeed, with his wife, family,
+and friends, she could have gladly
+spared them; but the concierge was
+indispensable—he <em>lived</em> there—he
+went with the house, in fact; and at
+the very hint of his being superfluous,
+the old cracked-voiced porter had
+drawn himself up indignantly in his
+chair, while his bare-armed, black-browed
+wife had turned her leatherlike
+face up from her tub, looking
+daggers. True, the English family
+had, in the mean time, no visitors,
+but the concierge had;—<em>he</em> was well
+known to his respectable neighbours;
+and, besides, it was possible that
+the misanthropy of the Chevalier
+Vilby and of Madame might be to
+some extent diminished; they would
+probably yet enter into society—all
+the previous tenants of the mansion
+had done so; Paris was, in reality, so
+attractive a capital. Such had been
+the response to the diplomacy of Jackson,
+who, having once been a French
+prisoner, far abroad, knew the language
+after a fashion of his own; and he received
+it in grim silence. The truth
+was, the gossipping receptions at the
+little lodge were somewhat troublesome,
+and seemed to concern themselves
+greatly with the affairs of the
+household within, had there been nothing
+else than the general interest
+taken in it by the adjacent windows,
+or the popularity of the whole family,
+collectively or individually, which had
+sometimes accompanied their exit or
+entrance with applause from crowds
+of street children—a prestige which
+had as evidently deserted them afterwards,
+to be replaced by tenfold scrutiny
+of a less partial kind, not unmingled
+with sundry trivial annoyances.
+Nor, although it resulted, with
+Lady Willoughby’s usual easy disposition,
+in her employing the services
+of the porter’s daughter within the
+house, did the one parent open the
+gate with less sullen dignity, and the
+other seem less jealously watchful
+against some abstraction of the furniture,
+or nocturnal evasion of the rent.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Nevertheless, Paris itself was not
+more restless or more lively than the
+spirits of the young people in their
+first enjoyment of its scenes. The
+earliest summer had begun to lighten
+up what was already bright with heat
+that came before the leaves, quickly as
+these were bursting into verdure along
+every avenue; and when the dust is
+hovering in the sun, when the level
+light streams along causeway and
+pavement, crossed by cooler vistas,
+when the morning water-carts go
+slowly hissing past, the shopmen
+sprinkling their door-steps, putting
+out their canopies, setting their windows
+right—with the moist smell of
+market-carts still in the air, the stray
+fragrance of fruit-stalls near—steeples
+shining high beyond the steel-blue
+roofs, the dazzling skylight panes,—chambermaids
+looking far out from
+upper windows, long perspectives of
+architecture blending, and a vast hollow
+azure over all, ere the smoke is
+gathered, and before the street-cries
+are confused, or the growing rush of
+sounds has become oppressive in the
+heat—then who remembers not the
+fairy feeling of a city to youth! It is
+when they still look to life from under
+protection, with no experience, nothing
+like the need of directing for themselves;
+but most of all from a simple
+household, used to temperate pleasures,
+and to the sort of kindness that
+rests more in purpose than upon indulgence;
+the city need only be Paris,
+with sights as foreign as the language,
+to crown that morning cup of enchantment
+to its brim.  For the two
+younger members of the family it
+wore all its charm: Rose Willoughby
+had seen little more of the world in
+her boarding-school, at sixteen, than
+if it had been a nunnery; while
+Charles, who was younger, had been
+fancying his knowledge of life at
+Westminster school and Eton rather
+uncommon;—so that every morning
+set them astir early, watching at the
+windows, impatient to get breakfast-time
+past, to have those studies severally
+over, in which, so far as the lad’s
+tutor was concerned, Mr Thorpe bore
+the chief difficulties of the task. Each
+day, in fact, found the party rolling
+farther from the shady environs,
+through into the hot heart of the city,
+towards scenes or structures that
+were multiplied by each previous discovery:
+for if the long stately façades
+of the Tuileries, from its formal gardens
+swarming with people and statues,
+ran already half-linked to the gorgeous
+old Louvre, steeped pale in the
+southern flood of light above the river,
+till all its deep-set, embossed windows
+seemed diamonds in the rich Corinthian
+filagree that framed them, though
+the workmen were still busy at its unfinished
+roof, like emmets from the
+crowd along the quays; so these also
+pointed to the Palais Royal court,
+with its new arcades and glittering
+shops—or, again, far through the
+labyrinth of exhaustless streets, where
+moted and dusty shadows plunged
+into the gloom of deep lanes, to the
+grim grey towers of the Bastille rising
+embattled out of the squalid fauxbourg,
+which blackened in manufactory
+smoke beyond—miles back, too,
+it led across some bridge, to the
+Gobelins, to the close and dingy
+quarter of the university, with its old
+legends of learning, or magic in dark
+ages; its careless students swaggering
+past, or smoking from their high-perched
+casements; its grisettes, that
+sat at work opposite with an air of
+coquettish grace amidst their poverty,
+their hair neither frizzed nor powdered,
+with a bright cotton handkerchief
+twined half about it, watering their
+little mignonette-boxes, or chirping
+to their bird-cages that hung outside
+to a gleam of sunshine;—or to where
+the golden dome of the great hospital
+hung in the air, faintly bright; to
+the bronze form of Henry of Navarre
+riding regardless above the throng of
+the market-place, and where the two
+huge cathedral-towers of Notre Dame
+stood over their mountain of roof,
+above the gaunt old houses of the
+island Cité; with the sharp-peaked
+prison-turrets and grated loopholes of
+the Conciergerie lifted from the river’s
+edge, whose muddy eddies swam each
+way by, among the barges. The
+Colonel had been in Paris many years
+before, ere he had had any interest in
+it save that of a young man, in lively
+company; when all sons of gentlemen
+made the grand tour, and the old
+glories of Versailles were still reflected
+even at the court of Louis Quinze, in
+the elegant dissipation of his latter
+days: he had come since then, indeed,
+into sterner contact with Frenchmen
+abroad; but it served him now, in
+making shift to act as guide among
+the principal wonders of the capital—when
+he rode near the carriage, sometimes
+accompanied by Mr Thorpe, the
+tutor, on a quiet white mare from the
+hackney stables. And Lady Willoughby
+mildly eyed the Bastille, or
+gently noticed the sumptuousness of
+the Louvre, at her husband’s remark;
+suffering herself to be handed out to
+some sentinel-guarded vestibule, and
+led along some chill historical corridor,
+although it might cost a
+shudder at what was told of it; if
+some positive domestic duty did
+not rather keep her all day at home.
+While Mrs Mason, the governess,
+following with the party, would
+sedulously express assent, at due intervals,
+by word or sign, to the statements
+of the baronet; not seldom addressing
+to the young lady beside her
+some comment of her own, or improving
+inference, such as Mrs Trimmer
+had recently brought into educational
+vogue. It might have been that Rose
+on these occasions sometimes caught
+her brother’s eye, so that her absorbed
+face and lighted look would grow all
+at once intensely demure, or she had
+to turn away to hide a smile at his air
+of exaggerated attention; while Mr
+Thorpe was usually so deep in abstraction,
+or had wandered so far, as to be
+in danger of their leaving him altogether
+behind. It was all one storm
+of spectacle and excitement, in fact,
+to the two; antique memories mingling
+in it with the record of fearful deeds,
+and quaint traces of rude manners
+with the grandeur of the church, the
+magnificence of the days of great
+kings—it only added zest to the living
+rush of the streets, the foreign faces
+and unaccustomed accents, the endless
+variety of movement that shone, flickered,
+or darkened every way about them.
+Then, slowly extricated from fetid
+lanes and old overhanging houses,
+patched, and stained, and ruinous,
+where the low-stretched cord of the
+street lantern showed that carriages
+seldom passed, they would wheel out
+suddenly from the rough causeway
+and its filthy middle-gutter, into the
+broad light and sunny air of the verdurous
+boulevards, where the ramparts
+of old Paris ran. So as the sounds
+of wheels grew soft, and they rolled
+leisurely along, the girl and her
+brother would look to each other, with
+something of the same feeling; her eyes
+would sparkle, while Charles’s were
+everywhere: when on either side of
+the curving vista, either way lost to
+sight, and heaped with the motion of
+equipages and riders, the showering
+elm-leaves and blossoming lime-twigs
+rose green ’gainst the tall, bright,
+ornate houses, tinted variously, and
+dappled fitfully by the shade—where
+the scattered passengers lounged, the
+loitering groups mingled, and all was
+open-air existence—while the gay
+shop-windows and café signs shone
+beneath the boughs, the open upper-casements
+seemed to drink coolness
+beneath their striped canopies through
+green-barred jalousies, the double shutter-frames
+were thrown out either way
+against the wall, and no care, no business
+appeared to hang on Paris far
+as eye could reach, as it thickened
+there through the swimming light of
+afternoon. To Rose and Charles it
+left no dissatisfactions about Stoke,
+nor regret for the smoke of London;
+and instead of wishing the place of
+their residence settled soon, although
+neither had confided it to the other,
+they would fain, no doubt, have had
+their father decide on staying where
+they were, so as to fulfil the suggestion
+of the worthy concierge, by making
+acquaintances and going into society.
+The truth was, that they were unconsciously
+somewhat conspicuous; whether
+it was that the full, fair, lady-like
+features of Lady Willoughby, with her
+hair aristocratically enough drawn up,
+heaped high, and powdered, had yet
+an air of half-sleepy ease and comfort
+that offered the strongest contrast to
+French looks, or that the hood-like
+bonnet of black crape which surmounted
+them, drawn in folds together and
+hung with its short curtain-like veil of
+black lace, however according to matronly
+usage then in London, had already
+been left behind in Paris by a
+barer and more classical taste; or the
+girlish grace and bloom of Rose in her
+mourning-dress and hat; the half clerical
+air of Mr Thorpe, with his mingled
+awkwardness and endeavours at attention
+to the ladies; or the military air,
+tall figure, and splendid English hunter
+of the baronet: all which, perhaps,
+taken together, might even in passing
+have suggested food for the proverbial
+Parisian curiosity. Especially if,
+as at times might have been done,
+they had noticed the grave silence of
+the elderly English gentleman on
+horseback, when his companion addressed
+him in vain, or when with a
+start he looked up to answer, sometimes
+running his eye keenly about
+the passing people, over the seated
+and trifling groups, up to the windows
+of the houses, or along the shop-signs,
+like one all at once awake to them.
+Indeed, out of the charmingly private
+<i><span lang="fr">allée des veuves</span></i> in the Elysian fields,
+where alone the equipages of the rich
+widows of the whole capital were in
+propriety seen to drive, and the doubtful
+widowers and needy bachelors to
+seek opportunities of consoling them,
+with a similar gravity of dress and demeanour—it
+was questionable whether
+the people of Paris were accustomed
+to observe so puzzlingly attractive a
+sight. It had altogether, no doubt,
+a sincere insular air in their eyes.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>It happened that on the day they had
+visited Notre Dame cathedral, Colonel
+Willoughby took advantage of their
+return through the Rue St Honoré to
+call at his banker’s in that leading
+street. He had transacted his principal
+business there, and only found
+some difficulty in detaching himself
+from the subsequent animated conversation
+of the courteous financier,
+whose spirits seemed to be excellent
+on account of some continued increase
+in the price of corn; a motive but
+dimly understood by Sir Godfrey,
+while at each step or two of his
+egress from the antechamber he was
+still detained by some fresh ground of
+satisfaction. As regarded places of
+abode to be had, in any part of France
+whatever, the perplexity did not certainly
+result from want of choice; since
+his last inquiry, the notices and advertisements
+had increased, particularly
+in the rural provinces; to be let or
+sold, they seemed surprisingly plentiful;
+nor were their advantages in every
+point omitted, after the usual style of
+such description, which sometimes dilated
+on the very nature of the landscape,
+or dwelt with gusto on the particular
+character of architecture. “It
+is doubtless owing, Monsieur le Baron,”
+suggested the banker, complacently,
+“to the immense resort, at the present,
+of the nobility to Paris. The attraction
+is excessive! It will indeed be
+impossible to reside but in the vicinity—and
+M. le Baron sympathises,
+I imagine, with the party of
+our ——, probably to a certain extent
+in the ——?”</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>“I really know very little of political
+matters, Monsieur,” said the
+baronet, smiling, “even at home,—and
+as for those in this country, I can
+scarcely say that I have attended to
+them much.”</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>“It is exactly the position which I
+have myself assumed, M. le Baron,”
+responded the banker, with a subdued
+air of confidential understanding. “In
+finance it is indispensable. But affairs
+are solid here;” and he gaily struck
+his hand on his pocket. “Things will
+move—they will go—now that M.
+Neckar is at the head! M. le Baron
+is doubtless aware that the meetings
+of the States-General have commenced,
+and are open to attendance, like
+the English parliament itself? Bah
+we are aware that in affairs nowadays,
+the minister is everything; to
+speak properly—the king, nothing!
+The discussions grow interesting—it
+was a happy stroke—to render the
+nation—yes, conceive, Monsieur,—responsible
+for its own expenses!
+And, after all, the world is governed
+by this money here!” Sir Godfrey
+sighed involuntarily, while the banker,
+slightly rubbing his hands together,
+bowing and smiling, still conducted
+him with <em>empressement</em> towards the
+court in which his horse was held.
+“It would be easy to secure a distinguished
+place of audience for M. le
+Baron in the minister’s gallery at Versailles,”
+persisted Monsieur Blaise,
+with interest, “and for the family of
+M. le Baron, whom we have not
+yet, indeed, had the honour to see?”
+M. Blaise had, in fact, made sundry
+half-subdued advances, at various
+times, towards a mutual introduction
+of the families; which seemed latterly
+to become more obvious. “Thank
+you, Monsieur,” was the rather dry
+answer—“no. The fact is, we intend
+immediately leaving town, as
+soon as my eldest son arrives. And,
+of course, this matter as to a place of
+residence must be settled. I should
+prefer some remote, quiet, country
+place.”</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>“Ah, you should then purchase, M.
+de Vilby,” said the banker, oracularly.
+“It is, on the whole, I assure you,
+cheaper—more satisfactory.” To this,
+however, he received a decided negative;
+Colonel Willoughby had as
+little interest in the idea presented to
+him by Monsieur Blaise, of a profitable
+re-sale at a future period, as of
+possessing property or forming permanent
+ties in France, or of leaving
+his son a landowner there. He was
+about to mount his horse amidst the
+attentions of the banker and his Swiss
+porter, when a depressed-looking
+clerk from the banking-office hastened
+out, with an air of some timidity, to
+offer a paper to his master. The latter
+frowned, while he received a hurried
+statement from the official. “What
+is this? not to be found!” he inquired.
+“It is a trifle, Monsieur,” added he,
+turning round; “the woman, it seems,
+to whom your communication referred,
+has for some time removed her residence.
+Inquiries shall be made, however.
+These poor people are of the
+most changeable habit—the notary of
+the proprietor is naturally ignorant of
+their new destination—the neighbours,
+they affect an unconsciousness which is
+probably feigned, on account of some
+sympathy with a fault, a defalcation
+in rent,—a crime, perhaps. But
+in this case, there is the police, under
+whom the emigrant necessarily falls,
+though unconsciously—and our police
+are now more efficient than ever. Yes,
+M. le Baron, this person shall be
+promptly discovered, believe me—if,
+indeed, this payment is still considered
+proper to be made?” The indifferent,
+languidly commercial tone of
+Monsieur Blaise, at that moment,
+jarred disagreeably on Sir Godfrey’s
+ear, in the full sunlight of the street,
+while its gay throng poured on either
+way like a twofold procession.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>“Yet there is a slight mistake,
+pardon me, Monsieur,” added the
+former, “in the understanding that
+Monsieur your brother had continued
+this pension, which is alluded to,
+during the late years. It was indeed
+paid with regularity, when transmitted;
+but although the promise remained
+subsequently, yet, after a certain
+point, by some omission, doubtless, the
+effects—the sums—ceased to arrive.
+I believe the inadvertency was, however,
+more than once reported from
+this office to the notary of M. de Vilby
+at Ezzeterre, in England—eh, Maître
+Robert?” And the clerk, to whom
+he again turned sharply, gave a reverential
+affirmative. It was not
+merely the revival of this trivial
+matter in this way that troubled Sir
+Godfrey; there was some slight concern
+stirred at his heart by the discovery
+of the slight sum having failed
+so long to reach its object, mixed
+with a little compunction at his remembrance
+of the crowded Cité, near
+the religious shadows of Notre Dame,
+which he had passed by that very
+day; there was a vivid feeling once
+more, too, of his brother’s characteristic
+carelessness, which was by no
+means lessened on recollecting his
+wife’s mild remark, when he had mentioned
+the circumstance, that possibly,
+if the person were very poor,
+it might have been better to see into
+it personally. The gross mingling of
+M. Blaise’s inquiries in it, besides,
+with his hint at crimes which might
+render the benefit undeserved, annoyed
+him. Sir Godfrey took the paper
+from the banker’s hands, expressed
+his intention of managing the matter
+at his own leisure, and with a hasty
+bow rode homewards.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Willoughby was, as before said, a
+man with little imagination in his
+temperament, at least of no very lively
+fancy; but there was a kind of vague
+impatience at times in his mind,
+scarcely to be any better accounted for
+than the fits of gloom he felt creeping,
+as it were, over him, and which he
+checked only by a strong effort to
+think. Sir Godfrey felt, in fact, rather an
+indescribable satisfaction than otherwise,
+and a somewhat reviving interest,
+at the little matter of business that
+had returned on his hands, none the less
+that it took the aspect of a kind duty.
+Paris itself was certainly a degree
+nearer his attention, so soon as the
+concerns of any one in it, however
+obscure, were thus dependent on his
+own, stirring up an odd anxiety as to
+whether she were alive or dead, and
+really deserving; all which, the more
+unusual it was to his habits, bore with
+the greater novelty of sensation on a
+man whose ordinary habits had been
+somewhat abruptly broken up. Singular,
+indeed, as he rode along, grew
+the thought of how this vast city contrived
+to live from day to day? the
+question, yet more perplexing, how it
+spent its time? still less conceivable,
+to what end was all the constant
+movement, thickening and shifting far
+along the Rue St Honoré, in dust and
+sunlight? Nay, with a smiling sense
+of its absurdity, the baronet caught
+himself involuntarily pondering some
+such incalculable problem, and for a
+moment striving to put its organisation
+together, while the bridle lay
+slack on his horse’s neck, and his
+limbs kept time to the motion, as the
+noble black went stepping elastically
+on. Even in that fashionable street
+they excited notice amid its rattling
+cortège of equestrians and equipages,
+its rainbow quivering of dress, feathered,
+embroidered, gilded and laced
+and rustling, where all the artifice of
+French fashion was in its afternoon
+glory, with bell-hoop and white hair—from
+the queue-tag and three-cornered
+beaver, lace cravat, and ruffles, and
+pocket-flap, to the knee-buckles and
+the false calves, white or flesh-coloured,
+and high-heeled—treading on out-turned
+toes—while the smooth, tinted
+faces, with their mole-specks and
+black beauty-spots, seemed to have
+banished from about them, in the
+sun’s full influence, all effect of hair:
+though it was scarce so much the
+soberly-garbed rider, in dark riding-coat
+and boots, with military stock,
+as the jet gloss of Black Rupert,
+whose full nostril seemed half conscious
+of his master’s pride in him.
+Nor was it merely that the flickering
+blaze of the street disagreed with his
+mood, when Colonel Willoughby
+turned out of it through a quieter line
+of that gay fauxbourg, slightly using
+the spur: he shrank involuntarily
+from those of his countrymen who
+seemed to be in Paris, with their
+gregarious yet unsocial air, their loud
+voices, causeless laughter, and cool
+stare, their ill-affected ease of dress,
+their round morning hats at all hours,
+and their sudden knowing looks of
+interest from his horse to him, not
+seldom unaccompanied by distinct
+English questions of “Who is he?”
+or the drawling answer, with an eyeglass
+raised, of “Don’t know.” Yet
+in public places they were everywhere;
+they were looking out of
+corner cafés, and talking back to
+friends within, watching narrowly
+where some Parisian belle tripped
+carefully athwart a crossing, or leaning
+out of billiard-room second-floors
+and yawning; and it struck him the
+more in contrast, as two gentlemen,
+evidently French, turned before him
+into the same more secluded street,
+the one quietly shrugging his shoulders
+together, the other turning a silent
+look to his friend. They sauntered
+easily along on the sunny side of the
+gutter, as if delaying to cross; though
+side <em>trottoirs</em> were as yet almost unknown,
+while the cry of <i><span lang="fr">gare!</span></i> from a
+rapid vehicle at times hurried the foot-passengers
+together towards the wall,
+or out amidst the causeway; so that a
+snatch of their conversation more than
+once reached the English baronet’s
+ears, or was mingled with other
+voices; as he looked round for the
+names of the streets, with some idea
+of at once beginning inquiries at the
+nearest police-office. “These, then,
+Jules,” said the taller and elder, who
+wore the gallant uniform of the Royal
+Body-Guard, sky-azure and gold-laced,
+with its white-plumed black hat,
+crimson-velvet breeches, stiff cavalry
+boots, and gilt spurs, and ruffles of rich
+lace—“are your allies—your Weegs,
+as you call them! Corbleu!” He
+looked back over one shoulder, as he
+spoke, with a supremely supercilious
+air, swinging the tassel of his sword-knot
+round his hand; the other, whose
+dress and manner were those of an
+elegant young man of fashion, seemed
+gently to draw him onward by the
+arm. “My dear Armand, what a
+fancy!” the latter ejaculated; “the
+generous sympathy of the enlightened
+English—of the descendants of Hampdeun
+and of Seednè, the Wheegs—but
+I forget, we agreed to——” “Yes,
+Comte,” said the other gloomily, “we
+agreed to observe silence on it, since
+it is impossible for us——” and by
+another influx from a cross street they
+were taken out of hearing; although
+the grave air of the young officer,
+enhanced by his long side-visage, and
+cavalier-like uniform, despite all the
+hair-powder and the smooth elaborateness
+of the time, had drawn Sir
+Godfrey’s interest from the matter he
+had in hand. They were walking near
+him again next minute.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>“He is at La Morgue, then?”
+asked the officer, in reference to some
+statement of his friend; “what was
+it—gambling? His mistress, perhaps?”</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>“No, she was beautiful, and attached
+to him,” replied the other,
+carelessly; “she still slept, while he
+had left her, to shave in the adjacent
+dressing-room—the whole hotel was
+roused by her cries. The police can
+make nothing of it. Even his passport
+affords no clue.”</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>“It was probably a plot, about
+to be discovered,” said his friend.
+“Paris, in my opinion, is full of plots—which
+had better soon be dashed to
+pieces.” He made an emphatic motion
+with the sheathed sabre on his
+left arm, and glanced firmly along the
+street, from face to face. “My dear
+Armand!” ejaculated the other, stopping
+for an instant till their eyes met,
+and the cheek of the garde-du-corps
+seemed to redden—“this is”—but the
+remainder was lost to Sir Godfrey, as
+he held round towards the outskirts
+of the Faubourg St Honoré. Crossing
+by a shorter way, however, they still
+preceded him at the next corner.
+“On the contrary,” continued the
+younger, “had there been anything
+to discover”—“—stupidly acute as
+the police are”—“—but believe me,
+my friend,” he added with animation,
+“there was nothing—nothing—it was
+merely <em>ennui</em>. And what police,
+were it the very espionage of old De
+Sartines himself, his apprentice and
+friend Lenoir, or even my fine cousin
+De Breteuil, with your thrice-humble
+servitor here, can guard against ennui?
+’Tis the only spectre I dread, for the
+philosophers, the Encyclopédie, have
+still left it us!” Sir Godfrey had
+passed them, indeed, hardly heeding
+their detached words so much as the
+young soldier’s chivalrous air; a little
+on, he checked his horse at sight of a
+gendarme’s blue and red livery, to
+inquire for the police-bureau of the
+quarter; at which the man turned
+sharply, struck no doubt by the accent
+or the form of the question, and surveyed
+him before attempting to give
+an answer.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>“Ennui!” repeated the officer energetically,
+as they came on; “my faith,
+we shall soon have little enough of
+that luxury, I think! I had imagined
+it the disease of England!”</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>“But without her suspecting it,”
+rejoined his livelier companion; “while
+France alone endeavours to expel, to
+define the malady! What is Versailles,
+Fontainebleau, Marly, Luciennes,
+but a vast sigh, a drowsy
+effort, a yawn (<i><span lang="fr">baillement</span></i>)? Those
+parterres of Lenotre, those fountains,
+those statues, which are like the
+crimes of Paris! But we awake—and
+assure yourself, my friend, it is
+at the root of one half—”</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Colonel Willoughby had repeated
+his question rather impatiently, for
+the speaker, as he passed on, was
+turning a glance of attention that
+way: the gendarme, too, with a sudden
+motion of his hand to his huge
+cocked hat, seemed less careful to
+reply than to leave full room for the
+two gentlemen. The younger of
+them stopped, turned, and addressed
+a word of sharp reproof to the official.
+“Permit me, monsieur,” he added,
+coming forward with a slight bow,
+and speaking tolerably good English;
+“it is probably rather to the commissary
+of your quarter you would address
+yourself, and his residence is not far;
+at —— the number which I forget,
+in the Place Montaigne, Champs
+Elysées.” The Englishman thanked
+him briefly; bowing in return the
+more profoundly, as he felt the usual
+unwillingness of his race to receive a
+favour he had no claim to.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>“It is denoted, besides,” continued
+his informant with increased courtesy,
+“by the red lantern over the portico,
+which since two years has been fixed
+over the doorway of every commissary’s
+residence in Paris. Day or
+night this will serve to distinguish
+them by a glance.”</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>“Indeed?” was the sole answer, in
+a tone of some indifference. There
+was nothing officious in the younger
+gentleman’s unasked interference;
+while his singularly handsome face,
+his vivacious eyes, the air of life in
+his expression, along with an undeniable
+elegance of manner, were contrasted
+for the first time with his
+elder companion, who stood apart,
+and almost haughtily silent, a dark
+shade seeming to gather on his thin
+and dusky cheek, as he gazed into the
+street, having even withdrawn his
+momentary notice of the spirited
+horse. Yet the baronet felt less
+annoyed thus than by the prolonged
+politeness of his friend; he involuntarily
+bit his lip; there was something
+disagreeable even in being so
+promptly addressed in his own language.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>“Might it be possible for one to
+assist monsieur in any yet further
+manner?” inquired the stranger, with
+the same easy grace; though a
+peculiar smile, at the time unintelligible
+to Sir Godfrey, had hovered
+about his lips.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>“My best thanks, monsieur,” was
+the stiff response. “I think not—it
+is a mere ordinary piece of business;”
+and, bowing deeply towards his horse’s
+shoulder, the English baronet turned
+in the direction indicated. He could
+see them from the distance, however,
+overtaken by a light cabriolet, which
+seemed to have been slowly following
+them all the while; the young <i><span lang="fr">élégant</span></i>
+stepped leisurely in, and with a gesture
+of adieu to his friend, was driven
+swiftly off towards the city again; the
+white plume of the garde-du-corps
+disappeared among the passengers.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>When Sir Godfrey had found the
+commissary’s office, shown the indispensable
+passport, and received, as he
+had expected, but little prospect of
+speedy information, he yet rode homewards
+in considerable ease of mind;
+the thing had in fact passed from his
+thoughts as he took the nearer way
+from the grand avenues of the Champs
+Elysées, thronging with gaiety, by
+the overhanging shade of garden walls
+and backs of stables, across the open
+spaces flushed green with the afternoon
+light, alive with strolling girls
+in their teens, beside their prim <em>gouvernantes</em>,
+or children scattered about
+the groups of their sitting, gossipping,
+sewing <em>bonnes</em>; while here and there,
+into a line of secluded street, full of
+tall, stately, old-fashioned houses in
+massy blocks, or separate in their
+high-walled court-yards, sloped lazily
+the white, gushing glory from far
+above; till the way towards a bridge,
+or some glimpse of the bustle about
+the airy quays, renewed again the
+sense of being in Paris. But it seemed
+as if some of its occurrences, otherwise
+as apparently fragmentary as the
+street-cries or confused accents, bore
+every now and then a more connected
+purport to the baronet as he came in
+contact with them.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>He had already thrown a coin or
+two mechanically to some squalid
+cripple, or some one-eyed beggar in
+his route, thinking no more of it; as
+he turned into the thoroughfare near
+home, however, out of one of these
+sun-bright and silent streets, where a
+few figures crossed here and there, a
+singular little incident presented itself,
+which was but part of many such
+scenes throughout the quieter quarters
+of the French capital. It was one of
+the strangest symptoms of that strange
+time, that while the king had been
+suppressing dungeons and projecting
+the good of the people, while the
+nobles desired reform of abuses, and
+the whole nation seemed to breathe
+peace, philanthropy, and enthusiasm—the
+very fashion of the salons had
+conceived a sudden sensibility to the
+miseries and wants of the lowest class.
+The late winters had been severe, and
+the last desperate, amidst dear provisions:
+there had been fêtes, lotteries,
+and performances of classic dramas
+in the theatre, although for these last
+the curés had refused to distribute their
+unhallowed proceeds: yet greatest of
+all had been the activity of the ladies in
+the genteel faubourgs, who, in graceful
+<i><span lang="fr">toilettes de quête</span></i>, the most becoming
+of dresses, and with purses bearing
+embroideries of flowers, cupids, and
+touching mottoes, turned their morning
+calls into a quest for alms. In
+the less aristocratic quarters, where
+morning calls were scarcely made, it
+had taken hold chiefly on the little
+girls, from mere childhood up to their
+teens; lasting longer, doubtless, because
+exercised only in the open air
+on the street-passengers, with all the
+amusement of a play mingled in its
+touch of reality. How interesting
+was it, too, to the subjects of the
+performance, as they were chosen from
+the passing current with all that
+faculty of prompt organisation so peculiar
+to the race of France; for the
+<em>rendezvous</em> was made in the neighbouring
+archway of some porte-cochère,
+apart from the bustle of the
+crowd, to hold the table with its
+white fringed cloth, and the silver
+salver, where the savings of their own
+pocket-money had been first put for
+a handsel, as they gathered from the
+various houses near. The old gentleman,
+as he approached, had his skirts
+pulled by some lisping little one, with
+chubby cheeks, and curls that had
+vainly been flattened, while her face
+peered from under the grey stuff of
+the mimic beggar’s cloak: the most
+simply dressed would hold the salver
+to the lady of quality; the most polite
+to the bourgeois; the plainest-featured
+to the widow, the spinster, or faded
+beauty; the tallest to the middle-aged
+gentleman, the prettiest to the gallant:
+and no rivalry, but how to get most,
+disturbed the co-operation of those
+young quêteuses. The English baronet,
+indeed, knew nothing of it as he
+trotted forward, before the archway
+could be seen, with its lurking, listening,
+peeping group, holding their
+breath in expectation: he only saw a
+slender young form, too tall for the
+grey cloak to smother the whole of her
+white summer dress, trip from beside
+the wall, and hold up her rosy palm
+before him, like a beggar; they had
+chosen the eldest, for her eyes and complexion,
+to try the rich Englishman.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>“Pour nos pauvres, s’il vous plait,
+Monsieur,” said a clear sweet voice,
+plaintively. Sir Godfrey had checked
+his horse with a start; she was a girl
+little younger than his own Rose, with
+the very blue eyes and that palest yellow
+hair, which are so rare in France,
+though with that warmly-bright complexion
+which is never seen out of it,
+suffused as it seems through a strange
+shadow of brown. The folds and hood
+of the cloak could not disguise the
+girlish grace of her figure, just shooting
+towards womanhood; the studiously
+plain arrangement of the hair
+<i><span lang="fr">à la quête</span></i>, virgin-like, added to her
+pure beauty, and did not take away
+from the slightly coquettish glance
+from her drooped head as she thus
+made her appeal. “My dear little
+one!” ejaculated Sir Godfrey hastily—“how—what—<em>you</em>
+are not a—in
+poverty?”</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Her cheek reddened as she drew up
+her head proudly. “Me? Yes, we
+are poor, but noble—Armand and I.
+It is for the poor of the city, Monsieur—of
+Paris.”</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Sir Godfrey reddened too, and listened
+calmly to her eager explanation.
+“Ah, <em>you</em> are rich—you are
+English!” she added anxiously, as if
+afraid he hesitated. His glance of
+surprised inquiry did not escape her.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>“I know you, Monsieur,” she said,
+“for you live close to our convent in
+the Rue Debilly, near the Quai de
+Change, where I am a pensionnaire,
+and where my aunt is the superior.
+I come often with one of the sisters
+to arrange the quête here. There are
+so many poor!”</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>“And to whom do you give this
+money, <i><span lang="fr">belle petite</span></i>?” asked the baronet,
+smiling at her delighted thanks
+for the gold he placed in her hand.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>“To the curés and their vicars,
+Monsieur,” she said gravely, “who
+will distribute it—they know every
+one so well!” Sir Godfrey mused.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>“And you live near us!” he said,
+thinking of his own daughter, as he
+asked her name.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>“It is Aimée—and my brother
+is Armand de l’Orme, an officer at
+Versailles. We are orphans, Armand
+and I, and we do not belong
+to Paris. We were both born in the
+south, in Provence—Were you ever
+in Provence, Monsieur—ah, how much
+more beautiful it is!” With an air of
+empressement she clasped her hands,
+and standing there in the quietly
+sunny street, while the stream of the
+populous chaussée passed athwart its
+end, the girl seemed to forget her impatient
+company beyond, whose whispers
+and exclamations at last betrayed
+them to the surprised glance of Sir
+Godfrey. “Was she allowed,” he
+asked, however, “to make visits from
+her convent—for <em>he</em> had a daughter,
+little older than herself, who had no
+companions of her own age in Paris.”
+And the young quêteuse responded
+eagerly to the hint. “Oh, yes—she
+was allowed—on certain days—and
+she would positively come. Indeed—perhaps—mademoiselle
+herself would
+assist at their quête.”</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The baronet shook his head, almost
+starting in his saddle at the thought.
+But it struck him suddenly that
+his oddly-made new acquaintance,
+through her friends the curés, might
+aid him in discovery of the missing
+Suzanne Deroux; and she was all
+readiness and sanguine expectation
+when he explained the matter.
+There was one young vicar in particular,
+so mild, so missionnaire, so apostolique,
+whose acquaintance with all
+the poorer quarters was miraculous:
+she would be able to bring the news,
+she was sure, very soon indeed. So
+giving her, at her request, the same
+paper he had recalled from his banker,
+Sir Godfrey saw her rejoin her archway
+amidst the impatient welcome of
+her companions, and took his way
+into the Rue Debilly, with a feeling
+half-amused, half-meditative.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>At home, there were fresh letters
+and newspapers awaiting him, with
+the dinner-time, unwontedly late.
+There had been already the expected
+tidings from Francis to his mother,
+though brief, that he was finally free
+of term-times, having reached London,
+which he was ready to leave next
+week; his father’s remaining business
+there seemed fully settled, but he was
+to dine, before starting, at their friend
+the solicitor’s, and bring over with
+him everything wanted. He enclosed
+his sister’s letter, however, from her
+dearest school-fellow, crossed and recrossed,
+with all its precious gossip
+for common use, its inexpressible sentiments
+that were not to be seen by
+another creature, and its postscript
+with the sole piece of real, intelligible
+information. Mrs Mason’s correspondence
+also, whose contents had at
+no time been breathed to any one, had
+been forwarded: while Sir Godfrey
+himself had a packet from Mr Hesketh’s
+office in Exeter, giving on the
+whole satisfactory prospects, and containing
+a few papers from among the
+late Sir John’s dreary mass of lumber;
+hitherto overlooked, but which he
+might care to examine. They were
+for the most part unimportant, but he
+saw, from the first glance at one of
+them, that had it arrived that morning,
+it might have simply saved him a
+little trouble and uncertainty; as it
+was a French letter of date not long
+before his brother’s death, evidently
+written by some humble notary’s
+clerk, to state the case of the Suzanne
+in question, who had received a pension
+for an injury received while
+in his service, probably interrupted
+through the change of abode by her
+children, whose work supported them;
+but her son had been ill, and the winter
+severe; the application had been
+rather made at the penman’s instance,
+as he lived <i><span lang="fr">au quatrième</span></i> in the house
+where their attic was, and had himself
+discovered the address by going
+to the banker’s, where he had obtained
+no other prospect. It stated the place
+and number distinctly, and had in all
+likelihood led to the memorandum of
+Sir John,—though no doubt thrown
+aside at the moment, and with his
+confused mind in those latter days, so
+busy amidst out-door matters or convivial
+meetings, its chief point had
+been forgotten.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Joining in the eager table-talk it
+had all excited, with a mind at rest,
+the baronet could fully share the pleasure
+of home-thoughts: the very atmosphere
+of the room seemed English,
+for all its bare waxed floor and patch
+of carpet, its airy paper-hangings of
+pastoral scenes, its light curtains and
+tall glaring windows with flimsy
+frames, its stove-filled chimney-place,
+and the white folding-doors of its
+antechamber, about all which there
+lurked no corner of substantial comfort,
+as round the wainscot and panelling,
+the recesses and embayments,
+corner-cupboards, and hearth-places,
+and presses of home, with its high-backed
+arm-chair, noiseless floors, and
+family pictures: the sound of the convent-bell,
+and Sir Godfrey’s account
+of his pretty little <i><span lang="fr">quêteuse</span></i>, alone
+brought back their recollection. It
+had been long since Lady Willoughby
+saw her husband so cheerful, even
+when he turned to his newspaper, and
+sat absorbed in its varied matter,
+leaning back on that hard diminutive
+sofa;—Mrs Mason, as her custom was,
+has withdrawn to the mysterious privacy
+of her own apartment; Mr
+Thorpe, to a book, apart in the wide
+naked antechamber; while at its further
+windows, looking out, sit the two
+young people in their unwearied charge
+of the street;—till, as that after-dinner
+repose steals through the sitting-room,
+with cool shade from the early May
+twilight, she feels instinctively that
+his old easy habit of middle age has
+returned on him, the first time since
+reaching France—nay, on second
+thought, since the day of that melancholy
+message from Devonshire—of
+sinking at that hour into a doze. It
+scarce needs her turning her head, to
+see how the affairs and concerns of the
+world at large have fallen from his
+mind; while gently netting on, without
+word or other motion, perhaps
+with no particular thought besides,
+she sits quiet that it may last the
+longer. It had seemed vague, in its
+connection with a trifle; but neither
+she nor he could have told the indescribable
+relief it had given him to find
+the only singularity in Sir John’s memoranda
+cleared up; in this commonplace
+way, too, when even casual circumstances
+had seemed joining to
+give it a feverish importance. That
+intended but ineffectual will of his, by
+which he had evidently contemplated
+a formal bequest, with those slight
+exceptions, of everything to the colonel,
+already his legal heir, could
+after all have had no rational motive;
+it was probably but one of those
+strangely groundless suspicions, those
+longings to exercise influence from
+the very tomb, which cross an unsound
+mind. The colonel had not
+been unconscious of the superior abilities
+of his eldest brother, nor of the
+still brighter parts which were attributed
+to his brother John in early
+life; he only felt reassured by the
+conviction, again confirmed, that the
+unhappy results of his foolish match
+had been such as to touch his brain
+with insanity. There was a vulgar
+old story about their family, in fact—a
+sort of absurd country superstition—that
+owing to some ancient ancestral
+impiety, even when the ghost
+ceased to be heard of in the long portrait-gallery
+at Stoke, over the great
+staircase—which had been invisible to
+the family alone—then somewhere or
+other a Willoughby was mad. Often
+had the colonel smiled at it, when
+merely a younger brother in the army;
+a wound once received in his head in
+America, which had cost him delirious
+days and nights, seemed formerly
+to entitle him doubly to his smile at
+the corroboration, when restored to
+full health: nay, from some cause, he
+had found himself thinking of it once
+or twice in the full blaze of the streets
+of Paris, with their vivid reminiscences—though
+his smile had been but
+faint, now he was the younger brother
+no longer. For <em>why</em>, really, after all,
+had he come to Paris in particular,
+or lingered there, persuading himself
+under so many different forms about
+its convenience, the novelty to his
+children, the advantage of his brother’s
+banker, the little legacy, the
+comparative privacy, the rapid post,
+or the many notices of places to let?
+Why, in that indirect way, had he
+sought to make inquiries of the police,
+and caught himself listening to words
+in the street, of unknown suicides,
+baffled investigations, and French
+ennui? Why had he mechanically
+shrunk from the Boulevards and rushing
+St Honoré, yet glanced askance
+at windows full of faces, or looked
+again with an irresistible suspicion, to
+see if he recognised or was recognised
+by any one—not merely on that day,
+but on previous ones also? Actually,
+in the hot, beating sun, it had for a
+moment or two resembled the preface
+to his fever in the colonies, after that
+affair with their rabble of militia,
+among whom he had fancied he saw a
+known visage disguised; and the strong
+effort of his understanding which recovered
+him had only brought more
+keenly the sudden question—whether
+his brother indeed, or he himself, had
+been touched with the germs of a growing
+madness. There had been strange
+horror in the thought. For, had
+there really been a deliberate, sober
+meaning in his brother’s stray purposes,
+through the confusion of all his
+neglect, and though cut off by death?
+While the quick, clear self-suspicion
+had seemed to pierce his own mind
+with shame, how, amidst an uneasiness
+to associate with his countrymen, he
+was still traversing Paris everywhere,
+under cover of guidance to his family,
+mingling private anxieties with the
+grandeur of royal edifices, and continuing
+to expect some chance vestige
+of things which his brother might have
+chosen wisely to leave in silence. Since
+his succession to Stoke he must have
+been altering insensibly. Even selfish
+feelings, impatient wishes, hidden
+thoughts, or half-fretful expressions
+towards her who had been so long his
+solace, had then recurred to mind with
+a painful surprise; compared with
+which, his brother’s eccentricity appeared
+innocent indeed, sadly as his
+earlier follies had brought it on. And
+had he heard before from Mr Hesketh
+what he learned from the letter on his
+return, that the manor-house and park
+were unlikely to be soon let, or to
+bring any profitable addition to the
+rents at present, from a fresh and
+growing rumour that they were haunted,
+it would have startled him with a
+superstitious feeling far more oppressive
+than any at Stoke. But, as it
+was, with a sober return to accustomed
+thoughts, calmed by his unwonted
+self-scrutiny, for him so deep—and
+soothed by gentle presence—Sir Godfrey
+slipped from his practical, matter-of-fact
+English newspaper to repose;
+though with the melancholy conviction
+that his brother’s understanding had
+indeed partially given way. They had
+not latterly seen very much of each
+other: John was now at peace; his
+fruitless life had come to an end. The
+baronet was awoke only by the rustling
+entrance of Mrs Mason to pour
+out the chocolate—Mr Thorpe’s awkward
+haste to set her chair—the bringing
+in of wax-lights—the pause before
+grace was said, with the tutor’s devout
+formality. The evening talk was
+as duly closed by Mr Thorpe’s reading
+of the appointed prayers—another
+advantage never gained by Lady Willoughby
+till their departure abroad
+required a tutor.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>As if there were not strange noises
+dying far and wide through the city,
+till across the river could be heard the
+great clock of the Invalides. As if
+the atmosphere of the world were not
+at that hour infected with inscrutable
+sympathies and mysterious desires;
+which gathered in Paris, as after long
+heat that malady of the air, felt keenly
+by the lower creatures: so that it
+might have been working vaguely
+even with Sir Godfrey. And as if,
+though clouded and stagnant, even
+well-nigh lost, the judgment of the
+departed might not have exercised
+some acute thought—deeper even
+than the sharpest lawyer could track
+it.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>So quiet, after prayers, was the outer
+night over the bare roofs, and lights,
+and distant pinnacles of the city—the
+glimpse of the river, the lamps on the
+bridge, the trees of the Champ de
+Mars—and so wide with its floating
+films of fair May-cloud, softening the
+few stars—that Rose Willoughby
+shaded her candle to peep out at it,
+lifting the blind, and putting her face
+close to the window-glass, after she had
+said her prayers, and was half ready
+to go to bed. Listening to Mrs
+Mason’s steps in the next room, extinguisher
+in hand, lest her door should
+suddenly be opened to that lady’s
+most indignant surprise—Rose thought
+still of to-morrow’s drive toward
+Versailles.</p>
+
+<h3 class='c015'>CHAPTER V.—FALLING FLEUR-DE-LYS.</h3>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>“<span lang="fr">Quel triste abaissement!</span></div>
+      <div class='line in4'><span lang="fr">Quelle immortelle gloire!</span></div>
+      <div class='line'><span lang="fr">Que de cris de douleur!</span></div>
+      <div class='line in4'><span lang="fr">Que de chants de victoire!</span></div>
+      <div class='line'><span lang="fr">Cessons de nous troubler; notre Dieu, quelque jour,</span></div>
+      <div class='line'><span lang="fr">Devoilera ce grand mystère.</span></div>
+      <div class='line'><span lang="fr">Révérons sa colère;</span></div>
+      <div class='line'><span lang="fr">Espérons en son amour.</span>”</div>
+      <div class='line in36'><em>Athalie.</em></div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>Pleasant was it, on that bright hot
+morning, to escape at last from Paris
+altogether. Sir Godfrey, indeed, remained
+at home to write his letters,
+with the purpose of riding out to meet
+them on their return: and Mr Thorpe,
+on horseback, with charge of the magic
+passports, was the sole cavalier;
+shrewdly overseen, doubtless, by the
+hard-eyed, rough-visaged, experienced
+Jackson, to whose sturdy driving there
+lay no perplexity about those great,
+straight, formal French roads, with
+staring guide-posts and swarms of
+Parisian people.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Soon, in fact, does the grand road
+towards Versailles sweep away from
+sight of Paris in its wide basin, among
+avenues and closing woods. With no
+lanes, nor secluded cross-ways, save
+to towns, it was harder to leave behind
+the Parisian people; and they
+soon heard that Versailles was stripped
+of its glory, so far as they were
+concerned, since nothing was doing
+there that day; the king had gone to
+Marly, or Fontainebleau, instead of
+passing in state to the Assembly, as
+had been expected from the journals.
+Much to the relief, it must have been,
+of Lady Willoughby, who disliked
+crowds and pressures of people, with
+the bustle and the dust; and to whom
+foreign kings and queens had but a
+dim, half-chimerical reality, after
+all, compared with the accustomed
+Georges, whose power and royalty
+were interwoven with any thoughts
+she had of public life; yet she appeared
+as much vexed as it was possible
+for her to be, proposing still to go on
+and see the outside of the palace, the
+fountains, or the remaining courtiers,
+the “houses of parliament,” which
+perhaps might be worth the pains. But
+these Charles disdained till another
+day, when the king should have returned—being
+even set against the
+remotest view of the town, its very
+smoke or spires; and, out of his
+father’s presence, Charles was always,
+by some peculiar force of his, indirectly
+master. His sister Rose, though the
+expedition had been fondly planned,
+nor did his arguments seem worth answering,
+too well knew the issue not
+to be resigned; while her governess,
+referred to as a matter of course, expressed
+as duly an entire acquiescence
+in any arrangement most satisfactory
+to Lady Willoughby, preserving an
+intense calm, and seeming to observe
+the various objects as their course was
+changed, the leaves of the trees, the
+tops of palisades, the very hats of
+market-people, with strange elevation
+of countenance, and with an air of
+suffering which required her vinaigrette.
+Even Jackson, who had a
+great share of the selfishness of privileged
+old servants, and greatly consulted
+his own personal ease, ventured to
+console his mistress, turning round
+and touching his hat, to remark that
+it was a long drive after all, and they
+would have had to put up at the town
+to bait these Flanders beasts—he carefully
+abstained from calling them horses—<em>which</em>
+it might cost a deal of trouble,
+as these French inns very likely had
+no stables; the inward satisfaction of
+Jackson, indeed, somewhat belied his
+rueful effort to look grieved. All appeared
+disappointed, save the tutor,
+ever fain to be serviceable, if seldom
+very successful where the office was
+of the present kind. Yet that day Mr
+Thorpe was excelling himself, now
+riding on, or now remaining behind,
+always for some object; nor was it
+long ere he came posting back, his
+plain, ineffectual features animated,
+and his mild short-sighted blue eyes
+shining moist through the thin-framed
+spectacles which enlarged them, to
+mention that they were close to Sèvres,
+where the royal porcelain was made.
+And at Sèvres, with its quaint old village
+houses, and its bridge across the
+Seine to another village, seeing what
+could be seen of its manufactory, its
+water-mill where the clay was ground,
+or its woody island amidst the river,
+the earlier part of the day was spent.
+Then turning to make a wide circuit
+into the Versailles road again, where
+the afternoon was to bring Sir Godfrey,
+the carriage passed at leisure
+through the quieter country that slopes
+and rolls westward from the Seine.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>It was scarce country, indeed, where
+no hedgerows seemed to break up the
+wide spaces, no field-gates or clustered
+farms, nor half-sequestered hamlets,
+with the sprinkling on of solitary cottage
+and quiet house toward the next,
+where the church spire should rise, or
+tower; but sometimes with no division
+from the wide crops, save the lines of
+bushy pollards, they rolled over the
+paved roadway; again between continual
+park walls or wooden palisade,
+from which suddenly it would burst
+on the space about a large square village,
+with its cabaret and sign-board
+of the <i><span lang="fr">Lion d’or</span></i> or <i><span lang="fr">d’argent</span></i>, its old
+fountain-well, and double row of trees,
+noisy, and alive with children, while
+another road brought through it the
+market-life from Paris. Though over
+the nearest wood would peep the white
+turrets of chateaus, peaked with purple
+slate, or tin, or gilding, like chandeliers
+extinguished in the light of day; and
+near to them were the little stunted
+churches, with their rounded ends, the
+squat towers that had lids to them like
+pots and vases, or the mean belfries
+perched on the roofs; where the church-yard
+was blooming with flowers that
+made its cypresses and yews look
+gloomier, and the small lonely curacy
+near it, snowing the cross on some wide
+gable, had an air of pious seclusion from
+the world. And still the parks spread
+round; the woods, with formal alleys
+striking through them, widened and
+surged outward, downward, into vale
+and over height; sometimes opening
+to let the high road pass on with its
+vehicles and pedestrians, or the traffic
+that seemed greater for its confinement,—oftener
+to show the terraces
+and bowers of still nobler mansions
+than before, till the country appeared
+fading away.  They had forgotten
+their forenoon disappointment: the
+girl’s eyes sparkled as the sweet sense
+of being out of Paris grew, in spite of
+all it held in it; placid, tranquil, her
+mother leant opposite, while she
+breathed the freshness, enjoying the
+mere motion, and the vague variety as
+she heard it noticed, on pure trust,
+pleased at what pleased the others—it
+was not like England, indeed, but
+how pure and exhilarating seemed the
+French air—its sun gave a still sleepier
+stillness to her mild eyes, yet with so
+healthy a tint and soft fulness of person,
+that the holding of her parasol,
+in Lady Willoughby, the trouble she
+took to observe an object, were pleasant
+to see; as Mr Thorpe, riding by,
+devoted his conversation to the governess
+and her; the while Charles, still
+in a discontented mood, vented it on
+the whole country, and leaning across
+to his sister, one elbow on his knee,
+kept up his side-current of livelier
+talk.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>For one thing, their constant popularity
+displeased him, however acceptable
+to Rose. That national sharpness
+and curiosity had all at once
+become particularly disagreeable to
+the youth, in his grumbling humour;
+and it mingled through the whole
+thread of his discourse, not without
+some acute notions of the people’s character,
+on which he appeared to have
+been oddly brooding. Nor the less was
+his zest in showing that France and
+England were natural foes, because his
+tutor on the other side rode discoursing
+benevolently to the reverse effect;
+while Mrs Mason responded, in all
+that propriety of sentiment, which was
+blended, in her dialogue to gentlemen,
+with a slight shade of delicate reserve.
+But really there was a domineering
+style of argument in Charles, if one
+ventured to express a different view,
+that provoked his sister in the end—especially
+as he was a year younger;
+she turned her shoulder to him, and
+sat resolutely looking the other way,
+as if absorbed in the mild commonplaces
+of Mr Thorpe, and Mrs Mason’s
+weary platitudes, which diffused
+such additional complacency over
+her mother. After all, they <em>were</em>
+tiresome things, such as all good
+books and worthy people said over
+and over; though Charles had no
+right to look down on his tutor with
+such secret contempt, because he knew
+nothing of what Charles called “life”—or
+to hint, because he looked serious,
+that his mind had got bewildered
+among triangles ever since
+he studied so terribly for a degree,
+leaving out nothing but his memory:
+perhaps, indeed, it <em>might</em> be true that
+Mrs Mason, in spite of her early loss
+of some inestimable kind, had a sort
+of soft regard for him, and paid him
+little attentions, especially at table,
+with the sugar,—though moderately,
+till the curacy at Stoke should be
+sure; but what she would not for a
+moment be so disrespectful to Mr
+Thorpe as to credit, was that a hopeless
+love, never to be revealed, consumed
+him, amidst all his learning,
+for—for herself. Her indignation
+mounted at the thought,—for a moment
+even at the excellent tutor, so
+highly respected by Sir Godfrey, with
+his thin hair already leaving his forehead
+bald, through long delay of any
+preferment—whose sister was his only
+relative alive, and was to keep his
+house when he had one,—but most to
+Charles, with his rough boy’s jokes;
+even although the girl’s thoughts
+wandered the more irresistibly to
+foreign counts and picturesque barons
+that had hovered in vision before the
+whole boarding-school, being now
+eagerly inquired after by her dearest
+friend, who was still there.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>There were none of these, certainly,
+about the highway which the carriage
+struck into, alive though it was with
+people of every kind. Charles had
+ceased, at his mother’s unusually
+earnest request, to whistle indistinctly
+between his teeth, as it was of all
+sounds the one that most annoyed
+her; he had even left off, of his own
+accord, the substitution of a drumming
+motion with a small cane against
+his boot, as he superciliously noticed
+the passengers. He got quite silent,
+in fact, to watch the passing faces
+that seemed bent towards Paris;
+though the faint smoke of another
+large village appeared in the hollow,
+prettier than any they had passed,
+among inclining vineyards and whole
+knolls of roses. It might have been
+St Genevieve’s own, with that holy
+well resorted to by kings, where
+she had kept her sheep long ago; and
+where, at the May fête of <i><span lang="fr">la rosière</span></i>,
+they still crowned the most virtuous
+girl in the place with roses; as the
+last work of Madame de Genlis had
+informed Mrs Mason. The summer
+afternoon sloped wide above it, full
+of light and the swarming hum of
+insects, through the outspread walnut
+leaves, flickering amber in the
+sun, from over the white wall that
+was dappled by the shadows; while
+the hedgeless corn-fields on the other
+side were rippling under the long air
+from the woods, one sea of tenderest
+green, full of blue-cockle flowers and
+scarlet poppies; the cottage casements
+flashed from amidst a pink-white
+glow of orchard-blossom, of
+milky cherry-boughs, of old rugged
+propped-up pear-trees that foamed
+over to the moss-green thatch, with
+the wooden chimney shot high, as it
+breathed blue among the leaves; with
+here and there a hooded dovecot window
+on the roof, where the pigeons
+sat sunning and swelling themselves,
+and cooing, white, blue, and purple
+together, in a gush of warm light—all
+the place beneath them bespattered
+and splashed with whiteness,
+through the shadow, to the very
+foliage of the nearest branch. The
+hum of the place burst round them as
+they crossed its little bridge, rattling
+over the rough causeway; and there
+were no carriage-ways save through
+the villages and towns.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>It was odd that for some time along
+the road, as if to meet the lad’s inclinations,
+the notice of them had been
+unaccompanied with signs of interest;
+every one had seemed occupied with
+his neighbour, talking, or hastening
+on somewhere; the voices had even
+grown suppressed as they passed.
+Here they were busier still, and talking
+louder, in a perfect babble of
+sounds. It was wonderful, at least
+to Charles Willoughby in his private
+mind, how the cobblers lived—the
+weavers, blacksmiths, or carpenters,
+found time to work; how the mill-wheel
+had a hand to feed it, or the
+women to mind their matters; they
+were letting their pitchers run over,
+in fact, at the old carved fountain-spout,
+till there was a little brook
+across the street, down into some
+one’s door-steps, and a duck that
+seemed comparatively quiet began to
+lead her troop of ducklings that way.
+The French infants even, held plainly
+enough here and there, in full sunlight,
+to their slatternly feeding-places,
+looked dissatisfied as the throng
+pressed about the doorway of a cabaret,
+with the sign of the Golden
+Crown: a horse stood by it with
+foam-flecked sides, and his head
+stooped in its corn-bag; while a man
+in a green jacket, with a leather case
+slung across him by a belt, apparently
+a courier, gesticulated in vain from
+the open window; the door being
+blocked up by a drunk dragoon, who
+stood swaying slightly to and fro, yet
+balancing himself carefully, as he surveyed
+the various groups from his
+half-closed eyelids with extreme sternness
+and grave suspicion; till at length
+drawing himself up, to extend his
+hand with a summons for attention,
+he essayed to speak; but all at once
+rushed forward with furious gesture
+amongst the crowd, where he fell flat
+from the steps. The blood gushed
+from his features, women shrieking,
+men running, without a glance behind,
+as the landlord hurried to his
+aid from the tavern, followed by more
+dragoons, who stamped their spurred
+feet upon the steps, and half drew
+their sabres, with fierce gestures and
+execrations. Yet as the carriage
+passed on through the narrow and
+awkward street, however slowly, it
+did not attract attention from any of
+the party except Charles, who preserved
+a seemingly sullen silence; not
+distracted by so much as a look to his
+sister, when her governess said there
+must be something improper going on,
+and sloped her parasol that way,
+using a scented handkerchief, with
+evident desire that the young lady
+should do the same; while his mother
+had no more suspicion of its not being
+common to villages all over the world,
+possibly on a market-day, than a
+duchess. The tutor was, as usual, on
+before, with his little note-book, to
+put down the name of the place, the
+probable population, and apparent
+area of the church, according to some
+dim theory that had been growing on
+him since he crossed the Channel. As
+for Jackson, he merely whipped his
+horses, and made a slash at some
+dogs, with obvious inclination to curse
+whatever came in his way. So they
+rolled through by degrees in sight of
+the church; but there was a greater
+throng at that end, in and about the
+low-walled enclosure before a smart
+new building, the use of which was
+not plain at first sight; for considering
+the size of the place, with the
+general squalidness of the long cottages
+or bald white houses, really the
+number of people of all ages was extraordinary,
+till one observed that single
+roofs seemed shared among ever so
+many families,—a thing the odder to
+the lad, as at school he used to know
+plenty of Eton folks, from bargemen
+to bat-maker. He even thought,
+somehow, of that one visit to Stoke.
+Oh! that was the school—the first he
+happened to have seen in France;
+and that youngish man, in an old
+figured dressing-gown, with a sharp
+dry face, standing up on something,
+without a hat—the schoolmaster;
+while they pushed and jumped to hear
+him, though quietly enough except
+for the hushing of each other, since
+the schoolmaster had evidently a weak
+voice; it only reached the carriage in
+an occasional screech, when he lifted
+his hand impressively in the air.
+“<i><span lang="fr">Ecoutez—ecoutez, au Père Pierre!</span></i>”
+This Père Pierre must be rather an
+odd fellow; why, his school was in a
+perfect riot within, to judge by the
+dust, the flying books, and the noise
+sometimes louder than his voice outside.
+But he was not making a
+speech—the white article he held up
+to the blaze of the sun was not a
+pocket-handkerchief, but—yes—a
+newspaper. He must have a good
+deal of influence there, this teacher—at
+least over the grown-up men, with
+leather aprons and bare arms—one
+could not help marking him—with
+that scanty head of hair done up in
+bobs from his temples, and such a
+short queue behind, not to think
+of his short nose and high cheekbones,
+or a chin as bare as one’s
+palm. Perhaps something had happened—something
+important—a
+battle somewhere? There was peace,
+though. Some murder, it was likely—or
+a shipwreck—well, at any rate
+these boys didn’t mind, so crop-headed
+and stunted-looking, who were playing
+pitch-and-toss with such an old-mannish
+look in their eager faces, at
+the end of the school. There were
+more beneath the big bulging church-gable,
+with its black ugly windows
+and its zigzag crack in the plaster—in
+such long old livery coats, with
+plated saucer-buttons. Actually it
+was with the buttons they were playing—as
+if it had been money—cutting
+them off their coats, too, and their
+breeches, to rush back for another
+chance! The silent speculations of
+Charles reached their climax in profound
+wonder. It was beneath his
+notice to regard Mrs Mason’s words,
+as they cleared the place, and began
+to rise from the hollow—that it was
+an interesting village, so lively, so
+full of a holiday air, not without a
+degree of quick intelligence. “After
+labour,” his mother said, lifting up
+her eyelids, “it must be pleasant.”</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Beyond the church and an old
+crooked, high-arched bridge, was Mr
+Thorpe in the turning of a very narrow
+by-road, stony and grass-grown, that
+took a winding as if to avoid the village,
+by ditch-side and over rubbish,
+till it caught the highway behind
+again: the worthy tutor had drawn
+up his horse, he was settling his spectacles,
+putting in his note-book, and
+feeling in his pocket for some coin,
+apparently to bestow on a man he had
+been talking to. A very singular
+group revealed itself as they reached
+him. A dark-faced jet-eyed man
+with a beard, black and bushy, his
+rough cap in hand, and a little organ
+slung from his back, stood replying to
+Mr Thorpe in strange broken French,
+mingled with English; while he seemed
+carefully to keep the trees between
+himself and the village: somewhat
+further down the by-way sat a disconsolate-looking
+boy with a guitar, beside
+a crouching monkey; while another
+man held the chain of a huge
+muzzled beast, shaggy and brown,
+which reared on its hind-legs, now
+growling, now dancing, now shrinking
+from the threatened whip, like a creature
+enraged by the distant voices.
+Their trade had been ruined, the man
+said; for it was the first time they
+had been turned out into the <i><span lang="fr">chemin
+des affronteux</span></i>, belonging to thieves
+and villains. It would be known for
+miles round Paris in a day, for it was
+wonderful how the news travelled
+there. They had often been at Charlemont
+before, and were received well.
+The bear felt it worst, he thought.
+He was as good a bear as you would
+see, owing to his love of society. Perhaps
+it might have been owing to
+some news in the place—but one
+could not know what tunes would
+offend people nowadays, to dance to.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>At Mr Thorpe’s condolence, however,
+backed by his gift of a six-sous
+piece, the Italian retreated thankfully.
+They watched him as he was joined
+by his singular company, slowly and
+with a crestfallen air disappearing
+round the by-way. All the tutor
+could find out was that they had been
+chased out from that end of the place
+just before, with sticks, stones, and
+pitchforks, by the very young people
+who had been dancing sociably enough
+along with the bear and monkey—because
+an air they commenced was
+<i><span lang="fr">contre la liberté</span></i>. How any tune
+could be against liberty, Mr Thorpe
+could not conceive: nay, if they did
+not like dancing to it, they might
+have stood still; they might have requested
+it to be stopped; indeed, it
+was probable that some of these very
+people might have wished the liberty
+of dancing it! Still less could he perceive
+how <em>liberty</em> could be connected
+with that particular tune—“<cite><span lang="fr">Richard
+o mon roi</span></cite>”? And he looked interrogatively
+to Mrs Mason. Certainly
+not, the governess responded: Gretry’s
+new music! In fact, he rejoined,
+the musician could not, either:
+but that day mysteries seemed to
+grow, he added,—for, before himself
+emerging from the place, at sight of
+the church, he had very civilly inquired,
+from a group of inhabitants,
+what was the name of the village.
+What had been his astonishment to
+perceive, that passing from uncivil
+silence, from stares of wonder, and
+extraordinary, sudden indignation,
+they looked very much disposed to
+treat him as it now seemed they had
+before treated these inoffensive strangers.
+Until, adding insult, they had
+significantly touched their foreheads,
+looking to each other, or whispering,
+until one, perhaps still more ingenious
+in giving offence, had suddenly
+called out, “Bah! c’est un Anglais!”
+There had been then no farther notice
+of him—indeed absolute indifference;
+nor did he discover, till he encountered
+the injured foreigner, what the
+name of the place actually was. And
+was there, then, really any peculiar
+crime in asking the name of <em>Charlemont</em>—any
+strange privacy—any unutterable
+horror connected with <em>it</em>—that
+no one should put the mere question?
+But, at all events, was a spirit
+of inquiry to be thought madness!
+Nay more, was it lower than madness
+to be—an Englishman!</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Mr Thorpe looked a little discomposed
+and changed, in fact, even
+since they last had seen him. Usually,
+though not pedantic, he was
+tedious; but he began for a moment
+to appear almost respectable in the
+very eyes of his pupil, who had often
+thought before that the present curate
+at Stoke could not be more monotonous,
+nor the old rector duller: a spark
+of spirit seemed for the time to have
+given emphasis to his words, and
+meaning to his face—some faint dignity
+to his lengthy awkward person, sitting
+ordinarily like a sack on his horse,
+with the gaiters dangling in the stirrups.
+Yet how amazingly simple
+was Mr Thorpe; it was chiefly the
+Italian with his battered instruments
+and beaten animals that seemed to
+have roused him from his wont: while
+as for his chief puzzle, a light broke on
+it to the boy at once, from all he had
+seen and heard of these French. Why,—of
+course they thought the whole
+world should know Charlemont already!</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>But, to the ladies, softly plashed
+and clattered below, from among
+alders in the deeper hollow, the mill-wheel
+of the village, dusty light
+flying from the upper door: the
+cracked striking of a clock was heard
+from farther off, till they saw the
+grey turrets of another yellow chateau
+among trees, though but a thread of
+smoke rose from it, and its discoloured
+plaster, where the sunlight struck,
+gave it a dilapidated aspect, helped
+by the pigeons from the dovecote
+tower close by, that were sitting on
+the window-sills and eaves. Full to
+the light on the brow of the eminence
+rose the carriage, widening the landscape
+on every side, save where the
+woods before it extended: there was
+a smooth, broad road in front, sweeping
+round where the labourers were
+still at work on it: they were on a
+hill, and all was exquisitely solitary
+otherwise for the first time, except
+close by, where the highway ran
+between the two porter’s-lodges of
+two great gates that faced each other.
+These great gates were, indeed, gorgeously
+beautiful, being each double,
+with side-wickets, all of open ironwork,
+elaborately complex; gilt
+crowns surmounted the globes upon
+their massy pillars of stone, their
+upper rims were formed of fleur-delis,
+as if of lance-heads, richly gilded;
+while the blade-shaped leaves, damasked
+and lettered with mottoes,
+stretched throughout the whole,
+hither and thither, like guardian
+swords, from the uncouth grasp of
+grotesque naked monsters at the
+lower corners; everywhere were small
+puzzling circles of cipher, and in the
+midst the joined halves composed a
+grand shield-shaped device, burnished
+and resplendent on either hand,
+of the royal arms of France. The
+very radiance of the afternoon sun
+came dazzling towards it, and threw
+the other way on the cross road, into
+one park, a mottled shadow of fleur-de-lis;
+shapes of crowns, ciphers,
+and monsters, even vanished among
+the dust of the horses’ feet on the
+highway as they trotted past—strange
+traces from the days of Louis
+Quatorze. Still was all that nothing
+to the broad glimpses of park scenery
+both ways through them. Mrs Mason
+herself saw one way, with unusual
+commendation, where a stately distance
+was made by Lenotre’s taste,
+in straight avenue, level turf, and
+high-clipped side-alleys, where a few
+well-dressed people were walking;
+her frequent headache did not, perhaps,
+at any time wholly leave her,
+but the vinaigrette paused in her
+hand, as she directed the attention
+of Lady and Miss Willoughby to each
+fine effect. Yet it was difficult to
+draw the latter from her absorbed
+delight the other way; for there the
+wilder chase seemed left to nature, the
+sun levelled more and more all his
+yellowing splendour through its deep-green,
+sinking glades, flinging out
+fantastic shadows, shooting gushes of
+verdurous light, in which the delicate
+young fern peeped from about the
+trunk of some far-off oak, while the
+broad umbrage of its gnarled boughs
+retreated crisply into cooler shade;
+the knolls were hung with the foxglove
+buds, like crimson bells that
+had not found a tongue; and all there
+was moist, secluded, solitary, sweet,
+save when some single bird seemed to
+wake up and make it musical, till
+again it trilled and rang with their
+innumerable notes. But gradually
+the road had lifted the carriage higher
+yet; it seemed to drive slow by instinct;
+and ere they well knew, the
+whole party made exclamations together,
+as, with Rose, they did not
+know which way to look first. Mr
+Thorpe came to a stand-still, and
+Jackson was shading his eyes, whip
+in hand, to look under the sun. Even
+Lady Willougbby said, fanning herself
+gently, “Dear me—what a fine
+country! what crops!” “Yes—the
+harvest will be excellent, I should
+think,” Mrs Mason replied, using her
+fan also, it was so hot. The young
+lady stood up, and her brother jumped
+out to get from the top of the bank
+upon the wall.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>They were nearer Paris than they
+thought; it bristled and shone
+through its haze, some miles away on
+the plain: westward, the high woods
+of Marly showed faint through the
+edges of two broad sunbeams, as
+through a veil, with bluer distinctness
+between, here a spire, there smoke;
+the waves of forest verdure undulating
+round, began to burn and blaze
+towards sunset; all was spotted with
+towns, sprinkled rich-red and white
+with villages, flushed with orchards,
+and in the barer spaces embroidered
+like a carpet that blended with the
+dark suburbs of the city on the horizon.
+Here and there appeared a soft misty
+glitter of the circuitous Seine in the
+level, with some faint white sails;
+the distant azure of some hills could
+be seen; it was all like one mighty
+map made real. Yet greatest of all
+to their eyes, even greater than the
+dusky grimness of Paris in the sun,
+showing its domes so helmet-like, and
+its pinnacles so like weapons—was
+where, with one accord looking back,
+they could perceive the silvered slates
+of one large town among the avenues
+they had turned from that forenoon,
+its steeples shining, its windows
+sparkling—and through that transparent
+French air, some lustrous
+snowy glimpses between embosoming
+bowers, of long level palace-roofs,
+embossed, and fringed, and tipped
+with undistinguishable ornament.
+Palaces, indeed, seemed to be visible
+in every direction; but they thickened
+towards <em>it</em>; all that way the landscape
+was but one mass of park-woods, and
+with those alleys, gardens, terraces,
+that long road at intervals perceived,
+it could be nothing but Versailles!
+Charles himself could not but look.
+The rainbow flashing of the fountains,
+and gleam of statues—the grand stairs
+of the terrace—they could almost
+fancy they distinguished.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>It was he who first broke the thread
+of their interest. Well, he shouldn’t
+care to have seen King Louis XVI.;
+he had once seen George III. It was
+easy enough to see him, in fact; if you
+only but knew it was he. He had seen
+a boy at Eton, fag to a friend of his,
+who was once spoken to a good while
+at a turnstile in Windsor Park by an
+elderly gentleman in drab gaiters, a
+nankeen waistcoat, and a blue coat
+with bright buttons; and when a
+ranger came up afterwards from
+behind, and told him it was the king,
+he nearly fainted. He could never
+learn anything after that, and always
+turned pale at the sight of a gold
+sovereign, so he had to be sent to
+sea.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>“My dear young gentleman,” said
+Mr Thorpe seriously, “the King of
+France is a much more powerful
+monarch than even His Majesty King
+George! I must beg to correct you
+on a point of history. He is absolute
+ruler, not only of all the land we see,
+but over the property, nay, the very
+persons of his subjects—he is the State
+himself—as the great Louis XIV.
+so emphatically told his nobles. Think
+of those <i><span lang="fr">lettres du cachet</span></i>, given away
+even blank in thousands upon thousands—a
+kind of money, as it were—exchanged
+by the courtiers for all
+kinds of objects—with which, for all
+one knows, were he worth notice from
+some enemy, he may be sent to a
+Bastille on no account whatever, to
+remain there unknown the rest of his
+life!”</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Charles Willoughby still endeavoured
+to look indifferent, though the
+slight whistle died between his teeth,
+while he pushed his cap down on his
+head, deeply resolved never to lift it
+to a French king. Mr Thorpe, drawn
+into unwonted earnestness, by the
+expression of the ladies’ faces, sought
+to reassure them.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>“The character of the present king
+is such as to make this power a benefit,”
+he said. “There seems a rapid
+decrease of superstition in the church.
+Really, Lady Willoughby, there was
+something idolatrous in this excessive
+honour to a human being! To conceive
+that at his Majesty’s death, while
+the body lay for forty days embalmed
+in lead, a waxen effigy was placed in
+the grand hall of entertainment, and
+served by gentlemen-waiters at the
+usual times, while the meal was
+blessed by the almoner, the meat
+carved, and the wine presented to the
+figure; its hands were washed and
+thanks returned. The queen, in
+white mourning—”</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>“In white mourning?” inquired the
+governess, with interest.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>“In white, I think, Mrs Mason—sat
+for six weeks in a chamber lighted
+by lamps alone. For a whole year
+she could not stir out of her own apartments,
+if she had received the intelligence
+there. Although similar ceremonies
+were observed after her own
+decease.”</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The feminine impression of former
+evils in France grew deep. The tutor
+could not say whether his present
+majesty would require such honours.
+There was only one person of inferior
+rank who had ever been distinguished
+by a shade of the same respect, though
+for a shorter time her effigy had sat.
+It was the far Gabrielle d’Estrées.
+“Who was she?” Rose asked,—“and
+why”—</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>“Miss Willoughby,” interrupted
+Mrs Mason with a sudden air of severity,
+rustling and extending and drawing
+herself erect, “there are some
+questions too shocking and improper
+for us to ask?” Mr Thorpe, with a
+frightened look, sat dumb in his saddle;
+yet Mrs Mason professed to know
+history, and her charge must surely
+learn it: nay, unknown to them all,
+among the distant chateaus, palaces,
+and mansions they were gazing at,
+were St Germain’s in the blue eminence,
+which the great Louis had given
+to La Vallière when he wearied of her
+for Madame de Montespan; and Luciennes,
+where Madame du Barry
+was then living in fashionable retirement.
+But the one had been gallant,
+stately even in his vices; the royal
+patron of the other, in his dissipations,
+had at least been elegant. Probably
+Mr Thorpe’s confusion led him to a
+graver topic.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>“The chronicler I have lately perused,”
+he said, hastily, “is really
+worth study. Nothing can be so
+mournfully salutary. As the coffin
+was borne at night to yonder Notre
+Dame, and thence thereafter to the
+ancient town of St Denis, the streets
+were hung with black, and before
+every house was planted a tall lighted
+torch of white wax. First went the
+Capuchins, in their coarse sackcloth
+girt with ropes, bearing their huge
+cross, crowned with thorns—then five
+hundred poor men, under their bailiff,
+all in mourning as for a father—the
+magistrates and courts of justice, the
+parliament of Paris in rich sable furs,
+the high clergy in purple and gold—followed
+by the funeral car drawn by
+white horses, covered with black velvet
+crossed with white satin, and the
+long train of officers of the household.”</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The great knowledge of the tutor
+as to textile fabrics interested Mrs
+Mason. “Think of the expense!”
+Lady Willoughby said.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>“This vast procession,” pursued
+Mr Thorpe with solemnity, “went on
+in silence, while, as the chronicler
+quaintly expresses it, ‘ever and aye
+the royal musicians made a sound of
+lamentation, with instruments clothed
+in crape, very fierce and marvellously
+dolorous to hear or to behold, until
+they arrived at the church of St Denis,—blessed
+be his name! And the bier
+was borne into the choir, it being
+a-blaze with lamps and tapers beyond
+number, and the service lasted for the
+King’s soul several days—whereupon
+was the body let down into the vault,
+but not admitted within the inner
+chamber until the end of the next
+reign—and Normandy, the most ancient
+king of arms, summoned with a
+loud voice, that the high dignitaries
+should therein deposit their ensigns
+and truncheons of command—which
+done, the sacred oriflamme of France
+was let fall down upon the coffin,
+until the <em>fleur-de-lis</em> began with the
+noble Bourbons—and the king of arms
+cried three times so that the
+vaults heard and replied—Ho! the
+king is dead! The king is dead! The
+king is dead! And when silence had
+been renewed, the same voice proclaimed—Long
+live the king!—and all
+the other heralds repeated it. Then
+was all finished, and they departed
+joyously.’ Really, in those older
+writers, compared with those of the
+present day,—however superstitious,
+there is considerable profit to be
+found.”</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>And the worthy graduate settled
+his glasses complacently, used his
+pocket-handkerchief in the loud manner
+he was addicted to, and looked
+round with increased attention on the
+mighty view; for devouter wishes had
+long been breeding dimly in his mind,
+such as the chill Protestantism even
+of his revered mother-church did not
+at that period satisfy. He did not
+notice the shrinking, under that full
+sunlight and wide azure, with the
+swarm of summer flies in the ears,
+and the warble of birds at hand, with
+which the youngest of his hearers, at
+least, felt the thought of death—above
+all, that universal one, of sovereign
+power. As for Lady Willoughby,
+her anxious look was chiefly from a
+reference to her watch; and it had
+been growing. She had not even
+heard Mr Thorpe. It was time for
+them to turn into the road from Versailles,
+as Colonel Willoughby—Sir
+Godfrey—would soon be leaving Paris,
+and he was punctual to a moment.
+There was no other way, Jackson said
+in reply, but by turning right again
+through the last village; at his mistress’s
+request, accordingly, he suited
+the action to the word, by backing
+and wheeling round. But where was
+Charles? He had vanished over the
+wall, apparently, during his tutor’s
+irrelevant remarks. To the calls of Mr
+Thorpe, echoed from among the woods,
+he returned no sign. It was annoying.
+They must wait; and, at any
+rate, according to the views of Jackson,
+generally unfavourable if required—with
+these beasts, it would be impossible
+to get on in good time, besides
+having to walk through that village,
+which was like nothing English
+whatever—with perhaps a bucket
+of water needed at that there tavern,
+if such a thing was to be had. The
+sudden intelligence of Mr Thorpe suggested
+a way: he could ride off at
+once to meet Sir Godfrey, and set him
+at ease; in fact, for himself, at least,
+it would be easy to avoid the village
+of Charlemont altogether—by—yes—by
+taking that <i><span lang="fr">chemin des affronteux</span></i>,
+as they called it. Lady Willoughby’s
+face brightened. Her thanks to Mr
+Thorpe were something energetic for
+<em>her</em>: and spurring, rising in his stirrups,
+bumping up and down on his white
+mare, that worthy man disappeared.
+Rose pressed her parasol against her
+mouth to repress a smile, at the
+thought how Charles would have
+enjoyed his following the bear and
+monkey: but, through <em>her</em> means,
+she was resolved he should know
+nothing of it.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>When least expected, Charles reappeared,
+jumping with a flushed face
+over the wall, and carrying a load of
+wild-flowers for his mother, for Rose,
+even for Miss Mason. He had heard
+distant sounds over the woods of the
+chase, which he thought were those of
+hunting-horns. But all was again
+still, bright, sleepy and solitary, under
+the glory of the sloping sun. He got
+in; Jackson whipped his horses at last
+to a trot, for again and again they had
+been passed each way by humbler
+vehicles; and they rolled on their
+way back towards Charlemont. Mr
+Thorpe’s mission excited no extraordinary
+satisfaction in Charles, though
+he was sure they would get on better
+without him. Mr Thorpe ran a strong
+chance of being taken up as a spy. All
+at once it occurred to him that Mr
+Thorpe had all their passports. But
+a scene of far more exciting interest
+next moment eclipsed everything like
+that. Again, from the distance of those
+secluded glades, did a sound draw his
+ear—and it was really the sound of a
+bugle-horn—a faint, far-off, musical
+sound, sometimes smothered by the
+woods, then breaking out clearer. It
+sank into a long-drawn, almost wailing
+note, that rose up into a livelier
+quaver, joined by a burst from others.
+It must be a hunt. They were blowing
+the <em>Mort</em>—as they did only for a
+stag, and a stag that was dead. Such
+luck!—for it came ever nearer. But
+what a crowd at the turning, near
+those splendid gates—twenty times
+even Charlemont must be there, by the
+swarming noise! And the gates themselves,
+thrown each way open with
+their double leaves, closed up the
+road.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The lad rose half up, with breath
+suspended, and without a look to
+spare for his party, kept mute as the
+carriage rolled into the crowd on that
+side. He did not so much as think
+what it could be.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Though had there been a chance of
+the <i><span lang="fr">chemin des affronteux</span></i>, and the carriage
+could have gone through it—indeed
+through one long enough and
+circuitous enough to avoid all France—it
+might have been better for the
+Willoughbies. Yet who knows? The
+master-history that shapes our ends
+is wiser than we.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_230'>230</span>
+  <h2 class='c002'>CONSERVATIVE REASCENDANCY CONSIDERED.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c008'>Ours is an age of peculiar importance.
+Events seem to be crowded
+into a small space of time which, if,
+spread over half a century, would yet
+mark the time as one of peril, action,
+and renown. In the political world
+we view a rapid succession of exciting
+scenes. The calm of peace yields
+to the turmoil of war, and Europe,
+but lately placid, is now rocked to
+its very base, and every nation on
+the Continent seems torn with present
+evils or convulsed in the contemplation
+of those to come. The strife of
+nations has doubtless called forth all
+the energies of mankind; and though
+England is removed from the sphere
+of action, and the immediate influence
+of the war, yet it cannot be said but
+that she, too, lies in peril, and partakes
+the general restlessness of the
+times. It becomes her, then, to consider
+in what lies her safety, and into
+whose hands she should commit the
+guidance of her affairs at this moment
+of danger.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Is not England, too, a sharer in
+this general convulsion? Let us look
+to her senate, the heart of this great
+nation, where all the movements by
+which she is agitated can be seen and
+analysed. First, we see the Whigs
+quarrelling amongst themselves, and
+their consequent fall from power.
+Next, we see the Conservative party,
+with the general acquiescence of the
+country, installed in power. Ten
+short months have elapsed, and we
+see that Government, after having
+conferred, in its short tenure of office,
+lasting benefits upon the country,
+now falling, though by a slight majority,
+before a combination of all those
+various sects, panting for office, which
+range between conservatism and turbulent
+democracy—between Popery
+on the one hand, and practical atheism
+on the other; at war amongst themselves,
+yet combined together against
+a Government which seemed determined
+to legislate for the country, and not
+for the exclusive interests of any one
+party. Well might the Minister exclaim,
+as he fell before the machinations
+of his enemies, prescient of the
+future, while contemplating the events
+of the present—“England has not
+loved coalitions.” Well might he
+“appeal from that coalition to that
+public opinion which governs this
+country,” and before whose searching
+tribunal that unprincipled combination
+must soon be brought. If he
+desired revenge, he has it now. A
+government of “all the talents,” containing,
+as we are told, within its
+ranks all the men of official experience,
+administrative ability, of parliamentary
+renown, and so forth,
+calling down upon them the contempt
+of Parliament and the scorn of the
+country, succeeds the Derby administration.
+Forced to abandon measure
+after measure, fairly vanquished
+in those with which they proceed,
+obliged to fall back upon their own
+imagined talent and ability, which
+must at any sacrifice of character be
+preserved at the service of the country,
+they are evidently, to all men but
+themselves, and a few of their own
+devoted adherents, eliciting the pity
+of their friends and the derision of
+their enemies. But, then, we are told
+that it is the war which prevents them
+from carrying their measures; that
+last session they carried their budget,
+India bill, &#38;c., with large majorities,
+which they regard as a sign that they
+possess the confidence of Parliament,
+and that now Parliament and the
+country, with their attention distracted
+by the war, simply refuse to legislate.
+We protest against such arguments
+as these. It is introducing a dangerous
+principle, though it may serve as
+an excuse for clinging to office with a
+disgraceful pertinacity. But does it
+not occur to them, that probably the
+reason they carried their measures
+last year with such a semblance of
+triumph, was in consequence of that
+forbearance—nay, even favour—with
+which every government, new to
+office, is regarded; that it was, to a
+great extent, the result of that disorganisation
+of their opponents which
+ever follows defeat; and that the
+people, dazzled with appearances,
+were willing to admit that we had a
+government which was worthy of the
+confidence of the country. But how
+have these feelings been dispelled?
+Credulity or connivance, disgraceful
+in such keen-sighted and patriotic
+statesmen, has done it all—Parliament
+has lost confidence in them, and the
+country contemns them. Moreover,
+blinded by their confidence in their
+own talents, which has now become
+a byword among sensible men, they
+still declare they carry with them the
+confidence of the country, because in
+all matters connected with the war
+they still possess majorities. Such
+reasoning as this does not hold. The
+reason that they carry their financial
+measures so decisively through the
+House is, that many, who do not feel
+so strongly as others on the injustice
+of the measures proposed, are willing
+to support those measures rather
+than have it appear on the Continent
+that the House of Commons has refused
+the sinews of war at the very
+commencement of the struggle. It is
+not the war which prevents their
+carrying other measures, it is the war
+which enables them to carry what
+they do.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>But how has this been brought
+about?—how is it that this Government
+has so rapidly lost the favour of
+the people, and been reduced to the
+position of being a Government on sufferance?
+The reason is to be found in
+that general discontent and excitement
+which from Europe have infected
+England. Men are excited at what
+is passing abroad, and distrustful of
+affairs within. The want of union and
+mutual distrust which exist in headquarters,
+is spread throughout the
+kingdom. Those feelings of distrust
+and disagreement existing in the
+Government become every day more
+apparent, and add to the anxiety with
+which its motions are regarded. This
+distrust and anxiety must be prevalent
+whilst this state of things continues.
+It is only by the reascendancy of the
+Conservative party that they can
+be surmounted, and by the advent
+to power of men who have confidence
+in each other, who have unity
+of sentiment amongst themselves,
+and who are backed by united
+followers; who have, each and all,
+the same objects in view—viz., a
+firm resistance to Russian aggression
+and the establishment of a durable
+peace, the maintenance of our Protestant
+religion, and justice to all
+parties in the State. Unity of sentiment
+amongst the members of a government
+is of the greatest importance
+to the happiness and welfare of the
+people. There never, probably, was
+a Cabinet in which there were so
+many “open questions” as the present.
+Since so many of them are
+Peelites, we may as well have the
+opinion of Sir Robert Peel himself on
+those self-same open questions. We
+subjoin an extract of a speech delivered
+in 1840 by that eminent statesman,
+on a motion of want of confidence
+in Ministers, in which he refers,
+without any ambiguity of expression,
+to the fatality of open questions:—</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“But there is a new resource for an
+incompetent Administration—there is the
+ingenious device of open questions, the
+cunning scheme of adding to the strength
+of a weak government by proclaiming
+its disunion. It will be a fatal policy,
+indeed, if that which has hitherto been
+an exception, and always an unfortunate
+exception in recent times, is hereafter to
+constitute the rule of Government. If
+every government may say, ‘We feel
+pressed by those behind us—we find ourselves
+unable, by steadily maintaining
+our own opinions, to command the majority
+and retain the confidence of our
+followers, our remedy is an easy one—let
+us make each question an open question,
+and thereby destroy every obstacle
+to every possible combination;’—what
+will be the consequence? The exclusion
+of honourable and able men from the
+conduct of affairs, and the unprincipled
+coalition of the refuse of every party.
+The right honourable gentleman has said
+that there have been instances of ‘open
+questions’ in the recent history of this
+country. There have been; but there
+has scarcely been one that has not been
+pregnant with evil, and which has not
+been branded by an impartial posterity
+with censure and disgrace. He said,
+that in 1782 Mr Fox made Parliamentary
+Reform an open question; that Mr
+Pitt did so on the Slave-trade; and that the
+Catholic Question was an open one. Why,
+if ever lessons were written for your instruction,
+to guard you against the recurrence
+to open questions, you will find
+them in these melancholy examples. The
+first instance was the coalition of Mr Fox
+and Lord North, which could not have
+taken place without open questions.
+Does the right honourable gentleman
+know that that very fact—the union in
+office of men who had differed, and continued
+to differ on great constitutional
+and vital questions—produced such a
+degree of discontent and disgust, as to
+lead to the disgraceful expulsion of that
+Government? The second instance was
+that of the Slave-trade; but has not
+that act of Mr Pitt (the permitting of
+the Slave-trade to be an open question)
+been more condemned than any other
+act of his public life? The next instance
+cited was that of the Catholic Question.
+I have had some experience of the evils
+which arose from making Catholic emancipation
+an open question. All parties in
+this House were equally responsible for
+them. Fox made it an open question;
+Pitt made it an open question; Lord
+Liverpool made it an open question;
+Canning made it an open question. Each
+had to plead an urgent necessity for
+tolerating disunion in the Cabinet on this
+great question; but there cannot be a
+doubt that the practical result of that disunion
+was to introduce discord amongst
+public men, and to paralyse the vigour of
+the executive government. Every act of
+administration was tainted by disunion
+in the Cabinet. Every party was jealous
+of the predominance of the other. Each
+party must be represented in the government
+of that very country which required,
+above all things, a united and resolute
+Government. There must be a lord-lieutenant
+of one class of opinions, a secretary
+of the opposite, beginning their administration
+in harmony, but in spite of themselves
+becoming each the nucleus of a
+party, gradually converting reciprocal
+confidence into jealousy and distrust. It
+was my conviction of the evils of such a
+state of things—of the long experience
+of distracted councils, of the curse of an
+open question, as it affected the practical
+government of Ireland—it was this conviction,
+and not the fear of physical force,
+that convinced me that the policy must
+be abandoned. I do not believe that the
+making the Catholic question an open
+question facilitated the ultimate settlement
+of it. If the decided friends of
+emancipation had refused to unite in government
+with its opponents, the question
+would have been settled at an earlier
+period, and (as it ought to have been)
+under better auspices. So much for the
+encouraging examples of the right honourable
+gentleman. They were fatal exceptions
+from the general policy of Government.
+If, as I before observed, such exceptions
+are to constitute the future rule
+of Government, there is an end to public
+confidence in the honour and integrity
+of great political parties, a severance of
+all ties which constitute party connections,
+a premium upon the shabby and
+shuffling conduct of unprincipled politicians.”</p>
+
+<p class='c008'>Such were the sentiments of Sir
+Robert Peel with regard to open questions
+in the Melbourne Cabinet: how
+much more completely those remarks
+apply to the present Government it
+is needless to point out. Again are
+the open questions in the Melbourne
+Cabinet vigorously attacked; but
+this time in the House of Lords,
+and by a more energetic and fiery
+orator:—</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“My Lords,—‘<i><span lang="la">Idem sentire de republicâ</span></i>’
+has been in all times, and amongst the
+best of statesmen, a bond of union at once
+intelligible, honourable, conducive to the
+common weal. But there is another kind
+of union formed of baser materials—a tie
+that knits together far different natures,
+the ‘<i><span lang="la">eadem velle atque nolle</span></i>,’ and of this
+it has been known and been said, ‘<i><span lang="la">ea demum,
+inter malos, est prime amicitia</span></i>.’
+The abandonment of all opinions, the sacrifice
+of every sentiment, the preference
+of sordid interest to honest principle, the
+utter abdication of the power to act as
+conscience dictates and sense of duty recommends—such
+is the vile dross of which
+the links are made which bind profligate
+men together in a ‘covenant of shame;’
+a confederacy to seek their own advancement
+at the expense of every duty;—and
+this, my Lords, is the literal meaning of
+‘open questions.’ It is that each has his
+known recorded opinions, but that each is
+willing to sacrifice them rather than break
+up the government to which he belongs:
+the ‘<i><span lang="la">velle</span></i>’ is to keep in office, the ‘<i><span lang="la">nolle</span></i>’
+to keep out all antagonists; and none
+dare speak his mind in his official capacity
+without losing the ‘<i><span lang="la">firmitas amicitiæ</span></i>,’ by
+shaking the foundations of the Government.”</p>
+
+<p class='c008'>Here is a splendid outburst of vehement
+denunciation. If that could be
+applied with justice to the Government
+of Lord Melbourne, if such an invective
+as that is an index of the state of
+opinion in the country at that time,
+with reference to the dissensions in
+the Whig Cabinet, how much more
+applicable is it to the Coalition of the
+present day, with regard to whose
+members, putting out of sight the
+question of Free Trade, which is now
+the law of the land, there is hardly
+a question of public importance to
+which we can point as an example
+that ‘<i><span lang="la">idem sentire de republicâ</span></i>’ is
+their bond of union.  Discontent
+and anxiety may well prevail when
+we have, in times so important as
+these, a Ministry in power so disunited,
+and composed of such discordant elements,
+such base materials as the present,
+and backed by followers who,
+true to their nature, are constantly
+quarrelling amongst themselves. Look
+at the diversity of sentiment displayed
+in their recorded speeches on that subject
+which, more than any other, is
+uppermost in the minds of the people.
+There is Lord John Russell in the
+House of Commons inveighing against
+the criminal ambition of the Czar of
+Russia, declaring that “this enormous
+power has got to such a pitch, that
+even in its moderation it resembles the
+ambition of other states;” arguing
+that that power must be checked; telling
+the people of England that they
+must be prepared to enter the contest
+with a stout heart and a willing mind,
+and then solemnly invoking the God of
+justice to prosper her Majesty’s arms,
+to defend the right! We have the
+Home Secretary and the Earl of Clarendon
+completely subscribing to these
+sentiments; but we have the Prime
+Minister, who more than any other
+man ought, now that war is declared,
+to be imbued with hostile feelings
+against Russian aggression, and determined
+to carry on the war with vigour,
+eternally whining after peace, and
+throwing cold water on the ardour of
+the people by constantly enlarging on
+the horrors of war and the blessings of
+peace. They say that old age is
+second childhood. England seems
+likely soon to become aware of this fact,
+through dire experience. Her Premier,
+on the Continent, is described,
+and rightly so, as “the apologist of
+Russia;” the Minister who is supposed
+to be, more than any other, in the
+confidence of his Sovereign. Talk of
+explanation! The very fact of his entertaining
+sentiments with regard to
+Russia so ambiguous, so equivocal,
+and so lenient towards the enemy of
+his country, that actually in giving
+expression to them he is mistaken for
+offering an apology for the Czar, and
+exposed to the scorn of the country
+and the distrust of Europe, seems to
+us to be amply sufficient to disqualify
+him henceforth for ever being “the
+first Minister of the first Sovereign in
+the world” during the eventful period
+of war; and the only charitable construction
+which we can give to the passage
+is, that he—our helmsman in the
+storm—has entered upon his dotage,
+and returned to the proverbial folly of
+childhood. If his sentiments are the
+result of mere folly, then he may
+properly be charged with credulity;
+if his friendship for the Czar regulates
+his conduct, then it is connivance
+for which he is answerable.
+In either sense he is unfit for his office.
+There may be, for aught we know—indeed
+there probably are—others
+in the Cabinet of the same frame of
+mind. The man who could denounce
+Turkey as a country full of anomalies
+and inconsistencies, and endeavour
+with all the force of his “sanctimonious
+rhetoric” to excite an antipathy to that
+State, and despair at her fate, just at
+the moment when it was necessary to
+rouse the people against Russian aggression,
+was merely supporting the
+Emperor’s theory of the “sick man,”
+and cannot be said to have any definite
+ideas with reference to the aggressive
+policy of Russia, to check which we are
+at war; or any very great sympathy
+with that country to defend which we
+are also at war. Here is discordancy
+in the Cabinet on the most vital question;
+and there is probably as much on
+every other question that is brought
+before the notice of the British Parliament.
+Here is food for discontent and
+anxiety to the people of England. Thus
+may their ardour be damped and their
+spirits quenched long ere the struggle
+has concluded. And if we look at the
+supporters of the Government—the
+Ministerial party, as they are termed—there,
+too, we behold the same intestine
+strife. What has been the attitude
+of the Manchester party with regard
+to the Government?—what the
+attitude of the Whig statesmen who
+have been “banished to invisible corners
+of the senate?”—what of the Whig
+peers—such men, for example, as
+Lords Grey, Clanricarde, and others?
+Mr Bright and the Whig peers are
+openly, though on different grounds,
+hostile to the Ministerial policy, the
+others scarcely less so. The Manchester
+party rank amongst the regular
+supporters of the Government, yet
+they appeal to the Opposition to know
+“whether they don’t occupy a very
+absurd position” in following men who
+will not lead them, and are derisively
+answered in the affirmative. If they
+criticise the course of the Government,
+their opinion is regarded with the
+“greatest indifference and contempt.”
+Thus do matters stand, and yet Ministers
+have the audacity to affirm that
+they possess the confidence of Parliament,
+and that it is the war which
+prevents the success of their measures.
+But is this the front which we are to
+present to our foes? Are we to exhibit
+to Russia, as our leaders in the
+strife, a Government on sufferance notoriously
+incompetent, whether at home
+legislation or foreign negotiation? Is
+not Conservative reascendancy the
+only salvation of the country? Does
+not the nation at large pant for something
+like a Government—one which is
+followed by a united party—one which
+is at unison in itself—one of principle
+and not of expediency? When we see
+a Government openly hostile amongst
+themselves, scorned and contemned
+by the country, beaten on every point
+by their opponents, obliged to withdraw
+measure after measure, and retaining
+one only after it, as has been
+observed before, has undergone as
+many metamorphoses as ever Ovid described—when
+we see all this, which
+we can hardly do without being roused
+to feelings of indignation, it appears to
+us necessary to consider how may
+this be remedied, how may Russia
+be firmly opposed, how may England
+be rescued from the pernicious effects
+of an incapable Government, and how
+may unanimity be restored to the
+councils of her Majesty?</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>It is very evident, that only by the
+reascendancy of the Conservative
+party can these blessings be secured
+to the country. The tradition of that
+party is, as its name implies, the preservation
+of our institutions in Church
+and State. This is a definite object.
+That it is a desirable one, is a conclusion
+which is arrived at by one course
+of reasoning, the same premises, the
+same logical inferences. Hence the
+Conservative party is a united band.
+A Conservative Minister cannot be a
+Minister on sufferance; a Whig Minister
+must. The Whigs are ever desirous
+of change, and the so-called
+amelioration of our institutions; but
+few of them agree together in the paramount
+importance which attaches
+to the reform of any particular abuse,
+or in the amount of innovation which it
+is desirable to introduce. Hence they
+are always at variance with each other
+when the time for action arrives; and
+this incapacitates them for carrying on
+the Queen’s government. If popular
+enthusiasm comes to their aid, and
+force them on in spite of themselves,
+then the case is different. The Reform
+Bill of 1832 was carried triumphantly,
+but by the people. Popular
+enthusiasm supplied vigour to the executive.
+Contrast this with another
+Reform Bill, of no very distant date,
+as regards its introduction at least,
+though few of the present generation
+are likely to see that bill become the
+law of the land. The time was unfortunate
+for Whig administrators,
+though backed by those who claim to
+themselves the name of Conservatives.
+A Russian war carried that enthusiasm,
+so necessary to the Whigs, through another
+channel, and exposed in a ludicrous
+manner the true value of a Liberal
+Administration, and their dependence
+upon the popular will.
+True, there was a large party in the
+Senate clamorous for reform—perhaps
+a majority. There was no hesitation
+amongst members to conclude that
+reform was necessary, for these are
+liberal times. How, then, do we account
+for their ill-success? By
+adopting a happy description of their
+worth as statesmen, given long ago:
+“Their head is at fever heat, but their
+hand is paralysed.” They are not
+slow to adopt as their own any principle,
+though calculated to throw the
+country in a flame, so long as it is
+traditionally the property of their
+party. But when the time for action
+arrives, when that principle is to be
+embodied in a bill, and that theory is
+to be reduced to a practical test, then
+comes division and discontent. One
+portion objects to this part as too
+sweeping, while another declares it to
+be too confined. This wants one remedy,
+the other declares the wished-for
+remedy will only prove an aggravation
+of the malady. There is no
+hesitation in adopting any principle,
+however dangerous. Give them the
+opportunity—the advantageous opportunity,
+in the eyes of politicians—of
+putting their plans into execution,
+and immediately we behold irresolution,
+consequent upon dissension, and
+inactivity, the offspring of indecision.
+Only divert the populace from them,
+who, when roused, carry all before
+them, as it were, and force their
+leaders to bury their dissensions—only
+deprive them of that support, and then
+you see the intrinsic worth of your
+Whig statesman. He may carry,
+perhaps, one bold measure; but his
+title to succeeding years of administration
+rests upon the gratitude of his
+supporters. He is unable to carry
+those minor measures—those measures
+of equal public importance, though of
+a less conspicuous character—more
+solid though less showy—which contribute
+so much to the moral happiness
+and physical enjoyment of a
+great nation, and which are the pillars
+of a statesman’s fame. There is
+no firmness in a Whig ruler—there
+cannot be, if he would reconcile and
+command the confidence of all the
+various sects of his followers. Who
+was it that held with a firm and steady
+hand the helm of England, when all
+other Continental nations were submerged
+in ruin? A Conservative
+statesman. No Whig Minister could
+have succeeded then. The utmost
+firmness and steadiness in conducting
+the public business of this country
+were then required. No Whig Cabinet
+could have guided the fortunes of
+England then. Obliged to truckle
+first to this man’s fancies, then to another’s
+follies, they are but a faithful
+index of the dissension amongst their
+followers, and uncertainty and irresolution
+are sure to follow. Yet to such
+as these are our fortunes, in times so
+perilous as our own, committed; and
+already are the baneful effects visible.
+If the Conservative party were to
+pursue the course which the Opposition
+of former days is known to have
+taken, what would be the position of
+the Government? If their opponents
+were not to support them in the war,
+the conduct of it would be in the same
+position as all the other measures
+which they have brought forward this
+session, and for the success of which
+they are dependent upon their followers.
+Such a state of affairs may continue
+for a time, but it must eventually
+call down the indignation of the
+country. No wonder that the conduct
+of our Government constantly gives
+rise to the suspicion that they are too
+desirous for the cessation of hostilities.
+It is manifestly their interest so to
+appear, if it be not also so to act. A
+peace, even though it were merely an
+armed truce, would satisfy the cravings
+of many of their followers; and
+probably the belief that such may be
+obtained, renders them less disagreeable
+to the Government than they
+would otherwise have proved themselves.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Never, perhaps, was the inability
+of the Whig party to govern exhibited
+in such a marked manner as at the
+period immediately succeeding the
+passing of the Reform Bill. With a
+majority of three hundred, they yet
+disagreed amongst themselves concerning
+the desirability of introducing
+innovations into the Irish Church, and
+they fell. Some have declared that
+an excess of power—a majority too
+large to manage—was fatal to the endurance
+of their power. We rather
+think that it was but a conclusive
+proof that a Whig Minister <em>must</em> be a
+Minister on sufferance—in other words,
+is unable to govern. Unhappily for
+themselves, at the period to which we
+are alluding, a rather more important
+question than usual occasioned the
+schism. Those who disagreed did not
+merely, as generally happens in these
+cases, hold aloof for a time, embarrass
+the Government, and then return to
+their allegiance, but they went at
+once into open hostility. They retired
+to swell the Conservative ranks. This
+is a specimen, on an exaggerated
+scale perhaps, of what is constantly
+occurring when a Whig Ministry is in
+power. For what do we see now?
+We behold the Conservative party
+united in their opinions with regard
+to Russian aggression upon Turkey.
+In the Ministerial host there is nothing,
+as usual, but dissension and
+endless disagreement. The Manchester
+party condemns the war and everything
+belonging to it. The Peelites
+evidently look with a cold eye upon
+it; they believe not in the vitality of
+Turkey, or in the danger of Russian
+aggrandisement. So far there is
+agreement between these sects. They
+cannot, however, form one party, for
+there is disagreement between them
+on vital points connected with Home
+administration. Then, again, there
+are the philosophical Radicals demanding
+the Ballot, while the aristocratic
+Whigs most properly declare that secret
+voting shall never become one of the
+institutions of the country. In short,
+the Ministerial camp is split up into
+various and opposing sects, which are
+continually warring with each other,
+while the Cabinet itself is but another
+scene of this general medley and confusion,
+this discontent and convulsion;
+and its executive power is paralysed
+by internal discord. The introduction
+of the Peelites amongst the Whigs has
+but increased the differences in the
+camp. Never was there a time when
+the internal dissensions of a Ministerial
+host were so marked, so wide-spreading,
+or so notorious. And this,
+too, at this critical time, when England
+ought especially to be calm and
+tranquil within, in order to be able to
+consider well what are her interests
+without. Is this to continue? Are
+the interests of England and Europe
+to be jeopardied by the continuance in
+power of a Ministry so divided and so
+weak? It is, we think, a truly logical
+inference that the fall of the Coalition,
+and the reascendancy of the Conservative
+party, is the only method by
+which an end can be put to that constant
+strife, and unanimity restored to
+the councils of our Sovereign. In a time
+of war, it is of the last importance
+that a Ministry should be united and
+firm, and possessed of the confidence
+of the country. Every one will probably
+admit this; but, then, does the
+Coalition answer to this description?</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>It is idle to pursue this subject
+further. No one who really wishes
+well to his country in this emergency,
+can say that it is to the present Government
+that we ought to confide the
+direction of our affairs, unless he be
+dazzled by the undoubted splendour
+of their names. There are, doubtless,
+great talents amongst them; but there
+is such a thing as the utmost danger
+in a superfluity of talent, particularly
+when applied to pursuits to which
+they are not especially adapted. Too
+much collective talent begets an overweening
+self-confidence, and lessens
+the sense of responsibility; moreover,
+if this too great self-confidence be
+brought to bear its influence in the
+direction of affairs of which one is
+ignorant, no beneficial result is to be
+expected. Again, if all these misdirected
+and misapplied talents be
+controlled by an incapable chief, can
+it be said that their administrative
+abilities are placed at service of the
+country? No! personal pique and
+private considerations prevent it. We
+need not dwell upon the incapability
+of the First Lord of the Treasury,
+which is now generally admitted. We
+now look to the other prominent members
+of the Government. The office
+assigned to Lord Palmerston is the
+most notoriously incongruous. With
+a world-wide reputation for his administration
+of our foreign affairs,
+gained in an experience of them for
+sixteen years, his lordship is placed
+in an office where he may exercise
+his negotiative powers with county
+magistrates, town constables, and the
+like. There he is—the most popular
+Foreign Secretary of the day, the man
+in whom the country has perhaps as
+great a confidence as in any one,
+engaged in squabbles over town police,
+graveyards, sewers, and the rest.
+Lord Palmerston cannot be said to
+be at home in his office. The country
+is disposed to look with favour upon
+him on account of his great name and
+services; but does he really make a
+better Home Secretary than Mr Walpole?
+Why was he not transferred
+to the War Office on its creation, with
+his extensive knowledge of European
+affairs? If the interests of the country
+had been consulted, undoubtedly he
+would; but again private considerations
+were opposed to the national
+will and the public weal; and the
+Duke of Newcastle, who has as yet
+no claims to public confidence, is
+placed in an office to which, on the
+formation of the Government, it cannot
+be said that he was assigned.
+Again, there is Sir George Grey, who
+is adapted more especially to the
+Home Office, if to any; but, “being
+more remarkable for his private virtues
+than his administrative abilities,”
+is certainly not the man to be unceremoniously
+pitchforked into an office
+with which he has no acquaintance,
+other than the little he is supposed
+to have learnt during the “disastrous
+administration of Lord Glenelg.” If
+there are talents here—if there is
+experience here—as in Lord Palmerston’s
+case, so in this; the experience
+is rendered nothing worth, and the
+talents misapplied. It is unnecessary
+to dilate further upon this subject;
+let us look at the blessings derived to
+the country from the administrative
+abilities of those whose talents have
+not been misdirected. There is our
+gifted Chancellor of the Exchequer,
+who has made more mistakes within
+a given time than any of his predecessors
+in the past century; and when
+we remember that financial blunders
+are national misfortunes, it is no matter
+of wonder that people refuse to
+regard him with an eye of favour,
+even though we overlook the probable
+pernicious effects of his Tractarian
+tendencies over the Church of England,
+felt through his influence over
+the disposal of the Church patronage.
+How long will England, dazzled by
+names, overlook facts and their consequences?
+Divest the members of
+the Government of their previous reputation,
+of their great names—give
+them names unknown to the country,
+and what language sufficiently strong
+would be found to apply to such an
+incapable Administration, with all
+their blunders, their dissensions, and
+their disastrous speculations? Had
+Lord Derby and his colleagues committed
+half the blunders of this
+Cabinet—had they attempted to tamper
+recklessly with our finances—had
+they involved us in a war
+which might have been avoided by
+sufficient plain-speaking in negotiation,
+what would their opponents
+have said? Would we have witnessed
+the patriotic course which we have
+seen the Opposition of the present day
+adopt? Few would suppose it, when
+they recall to mind the undignified
+hurry which the Opposition manifested
+for office during the brief period
+which elapsed between the assembling
+of Parliament in November 1852 and
+the Christmas vacation—a restlessness
+which induced them all to combine
+together, Whig, Radical, and Peelite,
+High Church and Dissent, in order to
+overthrow the Administration of the
+day; while their unredeemed compact
+with the Roman Catholics will not
+easily be forgotten. Few would suppose
+it, when they recall to mind the
+course adopted by the Whig Opposition
+during the last war, when, for
+factious purposes, victories were represented
+as defeats, the movements of
+the British general rendered the battlefield
+of party strife at home, and the
+motions of the Government clogged by
+the hands of unprincipled and factious
+opponents. Few would suppose it,
+when they recollect that Whig alacrity
+to accept office is only equalled by
+Conservative disdain to hold it on sufferance.
+But what was the conduct
+of the Government of Lord Derby?
+Is not that Government now admitted
+to have been the instrument of more
+good to the country, in its short tenure
+of office, than was ever effected by
+any of its predecessors within so short
+a time? And if we remember the
+immense amount of opposition which
+was brought to bear against it; that,
+in the first few months of its existence,
+the completion of the business of Parliament,
+previous to its dissolution,
+was all that was expected or required
+at its hands; that, after the dissolution,
+a majority of nineteen effected,
+though with the greatest difficulty,
+the overthrow of the Administration,
+without allowing the smallest time for
+the trial of their legislative powers,
+it must be admitted that the members
+of that Conservative Government, in
+the face of the greatest difficulties,
+exhibited administrative abilities of a
+high order. They were unable, from
+circumstances, to take advantage, like
+their successors, of the tide of popular
+favour which in these days is sure to
+run in the direction of a new Administration,
+because they were only
+expected to wind up, as quickly as
+they could, the Parliamentary business
+of the session. Yet to them may
+be traced the advantages we possessed
+in preparation for the present war.
+They were the first Government who
+dared to come down to the British
+House of Commons, and tell it the
+national defences were insecure, and
+demand the means of placing England
+in a position to resist any threatened
+invasion. Do we not owe to them
+the establishment of our militia? Was
+not that a bill than which none has
+been more perfect in its details, or
+more universally satisfactory to the
+country? Do we not owe to them the
+establishment of our Channel Fleet on
+such a footing that it secured England
+from all aggression? Then was laid
+the basis of that splendid fleet which
+a few months back left our shores for
+the Baltic Sea. Again, it is to their
+prescience that we can trace the advantages
+which are derived to ourselves,
+and to the cause of civilisation
+and independence, from our present
+amicable relations with France. Did
+they not, in opposition to the popular
+will, unequivocally expressed, and in
+the face of the utmost censure of the
+press, persist in cultivating the friendship
+of France? To that firmness and
+political sagacity we trace the advantages
+we derive from having so powerful
+a friend by whose side to fight in
+the cause of Europe. Contrast this
+with the conduct of that brilliant Administration
+which was to rescue England
+from the evil position into which
+it was brought by the reckless Derby
+Government, and what do we find?
+Two members of that Government, immediately
+on taking office, commence
+their abuse of the French Emperor in
+no measured terms. Nor is this all:
+Their brilliant opponent, who was naturally
+desirous to bring such a glaring
+indiscretion before the notice of the
+Commons of England, was charged
+by the triumphant Coalition with
+having a mind deeply imbued with
+faction. The like absence of political
+sagacity is observable throughout the
+whole course of the Government. With
+a war staring us in the face, which
+ought to have appeared almost inevitable
+to the Government, with their superior
+information and knowledge of
+facts, the Chancellor of the Exchequer
+brings forward a Peace Budget, parting
+with an important item in our revenue.
+This was another blow levelled against
+the agricultural interest through the
+indiscretion of the Government, for it
+resulted in soap being relieved at the
+expense of malt. Our discreet Chancellor
+parts with a quantity of revenue
+derived from indirect taxation one
+year, and redeems his blunder the
+next by levying an increased tax on
+malt. But what are we to expect
+from a Chancellor of the Exchequer
+whose administration of the finances
+has been one continued system of
+blunders? The secret lies in this:
+All his various failings arise from his
+having entered upon schemes in which,
+as he proceeded, he soon found himself
+out of his depth. Another minister
+would have been deterred from
+entering upon them, from a sense of the
+responsibility he would incur. But
+when a Ministry fancies it contains
+within itself all the available administrative
+talent in the Empire, the sense
+of responsibility is lightened, because
+opponents are undervalued, and self-confidence
+augmented. Here, again,
+do all the other misdemeanours of the
+Cabinet take their origin. Confident
+in themselves, and in their fancied
+influence over Parliament, they bring
+forward, in the face of war, a larger
+number of important measures than
+ever before were introduced to Parliament
+in the same session. They
+only exhibited their own weakness.
+They proved that their plans of legislation
+differ materially from those of
+the House of Commons. They discovered
+that even all the talents cannot
+blunder with impunity, and they
+have rapidly sunk in public estimation.
+Their conduct has disgusted their followers,
+and provoked a powerful opposition.
+Their numerous indiscretions
+would certainly not have been tolerated
+in any men but our talented
+rulers in the Coalition; and even they
+are suffering from the effects of their
+rashness, but nevertheless seem determined
+to “survive in office the honour
+of their administration.” Referring,
+again, to the Derby Government
+of 1852, we ask if the Earl of
+Malmesbury, or any two important
+members of that Administration, had
+been afflicted with a like absence of
+political sagacity to that displayed by
+Sir James Graham and Sir Charles
+Wood, where would have been our relations
+with France? If that Government
+had, for the sake of the popularity
+which Sir James Graham values
+so much, but which no Minister has
+been so unfortunate in his attempt to
+gain, joined in the temporary popular
+resentment against the French Emperor,
+when would the breach have been
+healed? But <em>they</em> showed that they
+understood the interests of the country,
+and contrast in a favourable light
+with the members of the Coalition and
+their misdeeds. They evidently were
+aware of the deep responsibility under
+which they lay, and thus their actions
+were marked with a caution which is
+not observed by their successors. If
+Mr Disraeli had not handed over a
+large balance to his rival, what would
+have been the effect of the failure of
+his schemes? It comes to this, then:
+The forethought and prudence of the
+Derby Government have only had the
+effect of shielding the Coalition from
+the worst consequences of their indiscretions
+and total failures, and enabling
+the country to withstand the
+mal-administration of its present
+rulers, instead of being improved and
+brought to be of permanent advantage
+to the nation. It may, however, be
+thought to be a great drawback to
+Conservative reascendancy, that the
+leaders of that great party are, for
+the most part, comparatively inexperienced
+in office. However that
+may be, the administration of ten
+months’ duration stands out in broad
+relief between its predecessor and the
+Coalition; at all events, it would be
+difficult for them to commit more
+blunders than the present talented
+and <em>experienced</em> Administration. But
+can a charge of inability be fairly
+urged against a party which contains
+within its ranks men of such talent,
+parliamentary experience, and sagacity
+as the Earl of Derby, Lord St
+Leonards, Lord Eglinton, Disraeli,
+Walpole, Thesiger, Kelly, Pakington,
+Malmesbury, Bulwer Lytton, Stanley,
+Manners, and the other Conservative
+statesmen? The year 1852 must, in
+the eyes of thinking men, for ever dispel
+such an imputation. The same
+party which, shorn of its leaders in
+1846, yet sent forward to maintain its
+cause in that “sad fierce session” its
+champions in debate, so many and so
+powerful as to astonish its foes and
+restore spirit amongst its ranks, produced
+also, in time of need, statesmen
+whose official career, short though it
+was, does no discredit to their followers—the
+gentlemen of England.
+The chiefs in either House, in particular,
+are men of brilliant talent and
+tried sagacity. Trained in the Liberal
+ranks, it may be presumed that they
+are deeply convinced of the danger of
+continually seeking after that phantom,
+which, the nearer we approach,
+the farther it recedes—viz., a system
+of representation which shall do justice
+to all parties in the State; while,
+at the same time, that very training
+has divested them of that spirit of exclusion,
+and that horror of anything
+approaching to innovation, which were
+the chief imputations against the Toryism
+of bygone times, but which do
+not accord with the intelligence of the
+present age. The Earl of Derby, as
+every one knows, was a member of
+that Cabinet which secured the reform
+of Parliament. He has since been
+engaged in endeavouring, and not unsuccessfully,
+to stem the tide of democracy
+which then set in. For that
+end he joined Sir Robert Peel—for
+that end he left him. Mr Disraeli,
+too, awakening to a full sense of the
+danger which “the youthful energies
+of Radicalism” are too well calculated
+to produce, became a decided Conservative,
+though not a bigoted exclusionist.
+To these principles he has
+steadily adhered in the whole course
+of his parliamentary career, which has
+now spread over a term of seventeen
+years. No man needs to stand higher
+in the estimation of his party than
+does the member for Buckinghamshire.
+Gifted with talents which
+fall to the lot of but few, possessed of
+keen sagacity, indomitable resolution,
+and extensive knowledge, he has never
+shrunk from placing at the service of
+his country, and of the great party of
+which he is the recognised chieftain,
+the utmost efforts of his admired and
+envied genius. Where is the man
+who has more unflinchingly stood by
+his party at all seasons, both of adversity
+and prosperity? His rapid
+elevation has, no doubt, been viewed
+by many with feelings of dissatisfaction;
+for</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c012'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>“Envy does merit, as its shade, pursue.”</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c016'>It is evident that he has also many
+personal enemies. The man who overthrew
+a Government which many supposed
+would have continued during
+the lifetime of its leader, and even
+have survived him, is not likely to be
+regarded with any especial favour by
+the members of that Cabinet. The
+uncompromising hostility which he
+bore to them has roused their utmost indignation,
+and his character has been
+unsparingly attacked. Some have had
+the sagacity to detect the cloven hoof
+in every step which he has made in
+public life; nor has he been allowed
+by them to possess the smallest particle
+of political virtue, and “one of
+the humblest individuals of this vast
+empire” has thought fit to embody his
+views of the political career of Mr
+Disraeli in a somewhat bulky volume,
+where he has given vent to his holy
+indignation. Such a production would
+have been a disgrace to the age, even
+if the author had had the courage to
+place his name at the head of it, for it
+is introducing into party warfare a
+weapon which is most unfair, unjust,
+and dishonourable. No statesman
+can condescend to notice such an
+attack; and when the author withholds
+his name and sends forth his
+anonymous slander into the world, then
+it must be confessed that the cowardly
+spirit in which it has been undertaken
+has only aggravated its revolting
+character.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Mr Disraeli is an original genius.
+His great fault in early life was, that
+he formed his conclusions without deep
+study, and trusting chiefly to the
+power of his own intellect. With all
+the conceit and precipitancy of youth,
+he immediately gave forth to the
+world the conclusions at which he had
+arrived. Many of these were wild
+and improbable, and his maturer
+years discovered their true nature.
+His father was, as is well known, a
+Jew, while his ancestors were, down
+to a recent period, the natives of a
+foreign soil. The son, then, inherited
+no hereditary political principles, which
+are in England, generally, handed
+down from one generation to another,
+unchanging and unchanged. Mr Disraeli
+had therefore to choose for himself,
+from the wide field of English
+politics, those principles which appeared
+to his unbiassed mind most in
+accordance with the true spirit of the
+British constitution. The choice which
+he adopted, and the subsequent changes
+through which he passed, appear to us
+to be nothing but the natural workings
+of an unfettered mind, and which
+any man may, and probably often
+does, undergo, as he ponders over the
+English constitution and the science
+of government in the recesses of his
+own study. It is natural that, as an
+Englishman contemplates our form of
+government, as he becomes acquainted
+with its operations, and as he compares
+its results with reference to the mind,
+the habits, and the temper of the people
+with the influence of Continental
+governments over their subjects, he
+should be filled with admiration at the
+wonderful manner in which the united
+harmonious action of the Three Estates
+of the realm is secured; and his first
+thought is, that it must be preserved
+unimpaired and inviolate. As he proceeds,
+he finds blemishes, anomalies,
+and imperfections; these he concludes
+should be eradicated, and with all the
+ardour of youth he thinks that, once
+these disappear, a form of government
+remains complete in its splendour, and
+splendid in its completeness. A wider
+intercourse with the world, a more
+extensive knowledge of mankind,
+must dissipate in many minds this
+perhaps fondly-cherished sentiment.
+Perfection cannot be attained—contentment
+is never the lot of humanity;
+and perhaps it is better that each
+should endeavour to forget his particular
+object of antipathy, and unite in
+consolidating and preserving those
+institutions, with their many imperfections,
+than hazard their extinction by
+endless struggles after their purification.
+Are not these legitimate changes
+of opinion? A man who has thus
+formed his political opinions, remains
+a staunch Conservative, but eschews
+all those more repulsive features of
+Toryism, which do but defeat their own
+end, and raise up against itself, in
+power too strong to be resisted, the
+very influences it wishes to control
+and counteract. But what shall we
+say of a young man who thinks
+fit, in the impetuous ardour of his
+ambition, to publish to the world
+his opinions as they are forming?
+We may smile at the vanity displayed,
+and at the folly of such a
+course; but we may shrink from casting
+imputations and urging motives,
+from which a virtuous mind recoils,
+for the mere purpose of blackening
+and traducing the character of a political
+opponent. Such, however, is
+the course pursued by Mr Disraeli’s
+enemies; but we should think that
+the strong malevolence displayed in
+those satires and slanders must insure
+their being discarded by “all in whom
+political partisanship has not extinguished
+the common feelings of humanity.”
+It is said that Mr Disraeli’s
+changes of opinion were with a view
+to self-aggrandisement. The charge,
+we presume, rests upon the pretence
+that he was the better for each change.
+This may be; but we think an ardent,
+clever, and ambitious man like Mr
+Disraeli, would have risen to eminence
+whatever line of politics he adopted.
+It was not more difficult for him to
+get into Parliament as a Radical than
+as a Tory; indeed, this seems to be
+unwittingly allowed by his biographer
+when he states that his election for
+High Wycombe was lost because Mr
+Hume withdrew his support in consequence
+of Mr Disraeli’s refusing to
+compromise his opinions with regard
+to the Whigs. It is, however, a decidedly
+unfair course to rake together
+all that has fallen from an aspiring
+and even giddy youth, no matter
+whether in the heat of political contest
+or in the turmoil of an election strife,
+and then call him in his maturity to a
+severe account. No charitable construction
+is ever allowed to Mr Disraeli’s
+public acts. It is always easy
+to get up a colourable case against an
+English statesman, all whose acts lay
+bare before the eager gaze of the public.
+It requires the exercising of very
+little ingenuity to hang together a
+consistent string of facts with which
+to stigmatise with baseness the career
+of any politician, however brilliant in
+talent or in character. Mr Disraeli
+has risen from the people; he has excited
+the envy of some and the hatred
+of others, who indulge their vengeful
+feelings in spreading their malicious
+slanders; nor is the most stainless
+character proof against such assaults,
+since they can quickly acquire a consistency
+of character, and gain a hold
+on men’s minds when they are dinned
+into one’s ears on all sides. How
+easy it might be to make up a case of
+political profligacy against Sir James
+Graham, who has been through more
+political changes, and that, too, since
+he was a representative of the people,
+than any other statesman of the day!
+How easy it might be to discern in
+this the workings of a restless ambition!
+A colourable case is soon made, and
+then let a certain number of newspapers
+indulge in comments upon it,
+and spread the calumnies, each in his
+own strain, and all spiced with a little
+outpouring of virtuous indignation,
+and the best character is sure to be
+injured by it. There are some in
+these charitable times who can defend
+a Cromwell; we apprehend that with
+far less exercise of ingenuity can the
+character of the Conservative leader
+be maintained. But if it be true that
+Cromwell is not the remorseless villain
+which his history had depicted him,
+then it only shows how easily characters
+can be fatally blackened by constantly
+harping on the evil points, and quietly
+omitting all mention of the good.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Throughout the whole parliamentary
+career of Mr Disraeli, a consistent
+course of conduct with reference
+to State policy has been pursued;
+though it is observable that, in the first
+few years, he had not yet thrown
+away some of his extraordinary theories.
+We see that, as he advances
+in manhood, and becomes practically
+acquainted with legislation, the vain
+conceptions and egotistic vanity of his
+youth pass away, and he settles down
+into a steady, through-going, parliamentary
+chief. The different opinions
+which he has at times expressed
+of various statesmen are easily to be
+accounted for, though some who, as
+the poet says, judge of others by themselves,
+may discern in this discreditable
+motives. Public opinion is always
+varying with regard to public
+men, and a young man is likely to be
+influenced by it. But, at all events,
+he ought, through motives of modesty,
+to keep his opinion to himself; and it
+is of the greatest importance that one
+who aspires to be a statesman in this
+country, where parties are always
+changing, should not be constantly
+giving expression to the feelings of the
+moment. It is not safe for a politician;
+for while he is giving vent to
+what is generally a mere fancied animosity
+to the mere party-feeling of
+the moment, he may perhaps be throwing
+down the gauntlet at the feet of a
+future colleague; and all for no purpose,
+for oftentimes there is no foundation
+for aversion to a public man.
+Nor is it right that the House of
+Commons, our country, and Continental
+nations, should be constantly hearing
+statesmen mutually complimenting
+and abusing each other. It is a
+maxim in State policy that you should
+deal with your enemy as though one
+day he may be your friend, and <em>vice
+versâ</em>. In private life, it happens that
+one who is a friend may first be viewed
+with coolness, and then treated as an
+enemy; and this change in conduct
+may be legitimate, though not creditable.
+Still more frequently may this
+happen in public life. Mr Disraeli
+has, we should think, learnt from
+bitter experience the folly of giving
+expression to mere transient feelings
+either of anger or respect. He is a
+man of extremes; he knows no mediocrity
+of feeling; witness the inflated
+style of the soliloquies in his novels,
+which have drawn down upon him the
+unmitigated ire of his zealous biographer.
+With him a statesman’s career
+is either “a system of petty larceny
+on a great scale,” or it is “a precious
+possession of the House of Commons.”
+This is a pity; but Mr Disraeli, unlike
+other statesmen, had not in early
+life the friendship of those who had
+trodden the thorny paths of English
+politics before him, to inculcate upon
+him the necessity of being habitually
+reserved and moderate in his expressions;
+and neither reserve nor moderation
+forms a part of his natural
+character. Too warm a nature,
+or too ardent a temperament are
+not discreditable, though they often
+bring pain and trouble along with
+them.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>We now come to the most hackneyed,
+and, we admit, the most painful
+portion of Mr Disraeli’s life—his
+treatment of Sir Robert Peel.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>But these things belong to the past.
+Great blame, in the eyes of an impartial
+observer, may be attached to Peel
+for the course he then took, and great
+blame may also attach to Disraeli;
+much, on the other hand, may be said
+in palliation of the conduct of both.
+The one has long ago been forgiven
+by the great party which he irreparably
+injured; the other will, we firmly
+believe, prove himself, at no distant
+period, as firm and enlightened a Minister
+as he is now one of the most
+talented and accomplished statesmen
+that ever adorned with his eloquence,
+or controlled by his wisdom,
+the legislation of the British Parliament.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>We now conclude by urging the
+necessity there is for the reascendancy
+of the Conservative party. We are
+evidently on the verge of a momentous
+period. Are we to commit the guidance
+of our affairs to a Government
+whose conduct, as yet, has been one
+course of bungling—the result of dissension,
+of abortive speculations—the
+result of a misplaced self-confidence,
+and of unsuccessful negotiation—the
+result of an infatuated love of peace?
+We make, then, our appeal to the
+Protestants of England; are we any
+longer to truckle to the Pope of Rome—are
+we still to devote the public
+money to the support of Roman Catholic
+priests, and then call it “religious
+bigotry?” We make our appeal
+to the friends of Turkey amongst
+us: are we to have a Ministry in
+power who are divided in their opinions
+concerning the vitality of the
+country which we are desirous of protecting,
+and amongst whose supporters
+are men who deny our right to go
+to war at all? We make our appeal
+to the foes of Russia; shall we have
+a Premier who declares that “what
+is called the security of Europe” has
+nothing to fear from Russian aggression,
+and then says that he has nothing
+to retract or explain? Let us
+have a Ministry of able men, united
+amongst themselves, prepared to uphold
+our Protestant religion, agreed
+upon the vitality of Turkey, resolved
+to resist Russia, determined to secure
+a durable peace; and, above all, one
+that is strong in the confidence of the
+country, and supported by a united
+majority. Let us tear down the emblems
+of the most incapable and mischief-making
+Coalition that ever any
+country was cursed with, and proclaim
+over its fall the reascendancy of Conservative
+principles.</p>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c013'>
+    <div><span class='small'><em>Printed by William Blackwood &#38; Sons, Edinburgh.</em></span></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class='c017'>
+<div class='footnote' id='f1'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r1'>1</a>. Σπυριδῶνος Τρικουπη ἱστορία τῆς Ἕλληνικῆς ἐπαναστάσεως. Τόμος Α.
+London, 1853. (History of the Greek Revolution. By Spiridion Tricoupi,
+Greek Minister, London. Vol. i.)</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f2'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r2'>2</a>. <cite>History of Europe from the Fall of Napoleon in 1815, to the Accession of
+Louis Napoleon in 1852.</cite> By Sir <span class='sc'>Archibald Alison</span>, Bart. Vol. iii.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f3'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r3'>3</a>. The work, when completed, will, we understand, consist of four volumes octavo;
+the second volume is expected to appear in a few weeks.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f4'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r4'>4</a>. Sir A. Alison, perhaps, as we shall see afterwards, confines his sympathy to the
+assertion that, <em>after the infamous butchery of the Greeks at Chios</em>, the intervention of
+the Christian States in behalf of the oppressed Christian people became a duty.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f5'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r5'>5</a>. That this “<em>bloody</em> and <em>brutal</em>” policy is still exercised by the Turks, when they
+have their free swing, is evident from the letter of Mr Saunders, the British Consul
+at Prevesa, which appeared about two months ago in the <cite>Times</cite>, and of which a Greek
+translation now lies before us in the Αθηνᾶ—an Athenian newspaper—of the 9th
+June.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f6'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r6'>6</a>. It may be interesting to observe here, as a proof of the permanency of the Greek
+language, that the phrase used by our modern Greek ambassador in this place,
+ατενίσας είς τον ουρανον, is exactly the same as that used by St Luke in the account
+of the martyrdom of St Stephen, Acts, vii. 55. Indeed, the vocabulary of the living
+Greeks, as well as their syntax, is strongly tinged by the language of the Septuagint
+and the New Testament; a fact, of which our students of theology, if they have any
+sense, will take note.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f7'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r7'>7</a>. Δεν συστελλομαι νὰ ὁμολογήσω ὅτι ἤμῆν εναντιος τοῦ τοιούτου κινήματυς κατὰ
+του Σουλτανου· ὄχι διότι θὲν επεθύμουν τῆν ελευθερίαν τοῦ ἔθνους μου ἀλλὰ διότι
+μ’ εφαινετο ἄωρον το κίνημα, μὲ το νὰ ἦσαν ἀπειροπολεμοι οἱ Ἕλληνες καὶ οἱ
+πλεῖστοι ἄοπλοι, ὁ δὲ κίνδυνος μεγας.—<span class='sc'>Perrhaebus</span>, <cite>Military Memoirs</cite>. Athens,
+1836.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f8'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r8'>8</a>. τοῦ Κερατιου κὁλπου—that is, we have no doubt, the large expansion of the
+Golden Horn west of Galata, and north of the Fanar.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f9'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r9'>9</a>. The modern Greek has lost not a whit of the fine rich flexibility which has made
+the ancient dialect such a convenient organ for our scientific terminology. The
+word for Lazaretto used here is λοιμοκαθαρτήριον; and scores of such words are
+seen on the signboards of the streets of Athens at the present hour.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f10'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r10'>10</a>. <cite>Appendix to Spottiswood</cite>, p. 29.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f11'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r11'>11</a>. Dr J. H. Todd, who first published this letter, (<cite>English Churchman</cite>, Jan. 11,
+1849), supposed Bishop Taylor to be speaking of Dr Peter Barron of Cambridge,
+but afterwards, on the evidence being communicated to him, was entirely satisfied,
+and corrected his mistake. “The author referred to (writes Dr Todd) is certainly
+Dr Robert Barron of Aberdeen, a divine of whom the Church of Scotland may be
+justly proud.”—<cite>Irish Ecclesiastical Journal</cite>, March 1849.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f12'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r12'>12</a>. Upon an allegation of unsoundness of doctrine in some of his works, the General
+Assembly of 1640 dragged his widow, in custody of a “rote of musketiers,” from her
+retreat in Strathislay, to enable them to search his house for his manuscripts and
+letters, a year after his death. The proceedings add some circumstances of inhumanity
+to the old revolting cases not unknown in Scotland, where a dead man was dug out
+of his grave to be placed at the bar, tried and sentenced.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f13'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r13'>13</a>. P. 288.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f14'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r14'>14</a>. Vol. iii. p. 331.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f15'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r15'>15</a>. <cite>History of Scots Affairs</cite>, vol. iii. p. 231.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f16'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r16'>16</a>. Aberdeen, 1635.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f17'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r17'>17</a>. Vol. iii. p. 227.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f18'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r18'>18</a>. In the Presbytery of Aberdeen, 26th May 1642. He died in 1659, in the
+ninety-fifth year of his age.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f19'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r19'>19</a>. <cite>Life of Bishop Bedell</cite>—Preface. Of most of these theological authors I am
+obliged to speak in the language of others. I have not even, in all cases, read the
+works which have formed their character.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f20'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r20'>20</a>. <cite>Dr M‘Crie’s Life of Melville</cite>, vol. ii. p. 445. It is with hesitation that any one
+who has benefited by this work will express a difference of opinion from its author.
+But it seems to me that Dr M‘Crie has been led by his admiration for Andrew
+Melville to rate too highly an exercise in which he excelled. The writing of
+modern Latin poetry, however valuable as a part of grammatical education, has,
+in truth, never been an effort of imagination or fancy; and its products, when
+most successful, have never produced the effect of genuine poetry on the mind of the
+reader.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f21'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r21'>21</a>. <cite>History of the Rebellion</cite>. Oxford, 1826. Vol. i. p. 145.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f22'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r22'>22</a>. <cite>Life of Bishop Bedell</cite>—Preface.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f23'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r23'>23</a>. <cite><span lang="la">Delitiæ poetarum Scotorum hujus ævi illustrium</span></cite>, and fifth volume of the Great
+Atlas—both published by John Blaeu at Amsterdam, the former in 1637, the latter
+in 1654.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f24'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r24'>24</a>. <cite><span lang="la">Joannis Leochaei Scoti musæ.</span></cite> <em>Londini</em>, 1620. Leech was Rector of the University
+in 1619.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f25'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r25'>25</a>. <span lang="la">“Ad Senatum Aberdonensem;” “Tumulus Joannis Colissonii;” “De Abrenethæa;”
+“De aulæis acu-pictis D. Isabellæ Setonæ Comitissæ Laderdeliæ.” <cite>Epigrammata
+Arturi Jonstoni, Scoti, Medici Regii, Abredoniæ: excudebat Edvardus
+Rabanus</cite>, 1632.</span></p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f26'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r26'>26</a>. <span class='sc'>Strachan’s</span> <cite><span lang="la">Panegyricus</span></cite>. Among the strangers he distinguishes Parkins, an
+Englishman who had, the year before (1630), obtained a degree of M.D. in our University.
+The earliest diploma of M.D. I have seen is that which I have noted
+(somewhat out of place) among the academic prints, and which was granted in
+1697.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f27'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r27'>27</a>. “<span lang="la">Patricius&#160;... supremas dignitates scholasticas in viros onini laude majores
+(<em>quorum vos hic vultus videtis</em>) qui vel ipsas dignitates honorarunt, conferri curavit.
+Quid memorem Sandilandios, Rhætos, Baronios, Scrogios, Sibbaldos, Leslæos, maxima
+illa nomina.... Deus mi! quanta dici celebritas, quo tot pileati patres, theologiæ,
+juris et medicinæ doctores et baccalaurei de gymnasio nostro velut agmine
+facto prodierunt!</span>” He alludes to the strangers attracted by the fame of the society—to
+the divines, Forbes, Barron, &#38;c.—to the physicians. “<span lang="la">Quantus medicorum grex!
+quanta claritas!... Quantum uterque Jonstonus, ejusdem uteri, ejusdem artis
+fratres.... Mathesi profunda, quantum poesi et impangendis carminibus valeant,
+novistis. Arthurus medicus Regis et divinus poeta elegiæ et epigrammatis, quibus
+non solum suæ ætatis homines superat verum antiquissimos quosque æquat. Gulielmus
+rei herbariæ et mathematum, quorum professor meritissimus est, gloria cluit.
+De Gulielmo certe idem usurpare possumus.... ‘Deliciæ est humani generis,’
+tanta est ejus comitas, tanta urbanitas.</span>”</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f28'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r28'>28</a>. These notices are taken from the <cite>History of the University of Edinburgh, from 1580
+to 1646</cite>, by Thomas Crawford, printed in 1808 from a MS. of the seventeenth century.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f29'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r29'>29</a>. <em>Caballeros</em> is the word used. It is hardly to be translated in an English word.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f30'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r30'>30</a>. As a single sample of these excavations, we may mention one made at Portelette,
+on the Somme. At a depth of nine feet, a large quantity of bones was met with; and
+one foot lower, a piece of deer’s horn, bearing marks of human workmanship. At
+twenty feet from the surface, and <em>five feet below the level of the present bed of the river</em>,
+three axes, highly finished, and in perfect preservation, were turned up in a bed of turf.
+Some axe-cases of stag’s horn were also discovered in the same bed. Near these was
+a coarse vase of black pottery, very much broken, and surrounded with a black mass
+of decomposed pottery; and also large quantities of wrought bones, both human and
+animal.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f31'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r31'>31</a>. Some very curious speculations and researches on this subject will be found in a
+pamphlet entitled <cite>A Vindication of the Bardic Accounts of the Early Invasions of
+Ireland; with a Verification of the River-Ocean of the Greeks</cite>. M‘Glashan, Dublin,
+1851.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f32'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r32'>32</a>. It is not improbable that the old feudal law, which placed the person of a female
+vassal at the disposal of the seigneur on her wedding-night, originated in political
+motives as well as in a tyrannous sensuality.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f33'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r33'>33</a>. <cite><span lang="fr">Aperçus Genealogiques sur les Descendants de Guillaume.</span></cite> <cite>Rev. Archéol.</cite> 1845,
+p. 794.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f34'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r34'>34</a>. <cite>Types of Mankind.</cite> By <span class='sc'>T. C. Watt</span> and <span class='sc'>G. R. Gliddon</span>. London: 1854.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f35'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r35'>35</a>. <cite>What Good may come of the India Bill; or Notes of what has been, is, and may be,
+the Government of India.</cite> By <span class='sc'>Francis Horsley Robinson</span>.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'><cite>Modern India. A Sketch of the System of Civil Government; to which is prefixed
+some Account of the Natives and Native Institutions.</cite> By <span class='sc'>George Campbell</span>, Esq.,
+Bengal Civil Service.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'><cite>The Administration of the East India Company. A History of Indian Progress.</cite>
+By <span class='sc'>John William Kaye</span>, Author of the “History of the War in Afghanistan.”</p>
+
+<p class='c009'><cite>Life in the Mission, the Camp, and the Zenana; or Six Years in India.</cite> By Mrs <span class='sc'>H.
+Colin Mackenzie</span>.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'><cite>Defects Civil and Military of the Indian Government.</cite> By Lieutenant-General Sir
+<span class='sc'>Charles James Napier</span>, G.C.B. Edited by Lieutenant-General Sir <span class='sc'>W. F. P.
+Napier</span>, K.C.B.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'><cite>How Wars arise in India. Observations on Mr Cobden’s Pamphlet entitled “The
+Origin of the Burmese War.</cite>” By <span class='sc'>John Clark Marshman</span>.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'><cite>An Address to Parliament on the Duties of Great Britain to India in respect of
+the Education of the Natives and their Official Employment.</cite> By <span class='sc'>Charles Hay
+Cameron</span>, late Fourth Member of the Council of India, President of the Indian Law
+Commission, and President of the Council of Education for Bengal.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f36'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r36'>36</a>. <cite>Modern India and its Government</cite>, by <span class='sc'>G. Campbell</span>, Esq.; pp. 316, 317.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f37'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r37'>37</a>. Pages 229, 230, 388.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f38'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r38'>38</a>. We do not pretend to precise numerical accuracy; it is enough for our argument
+that what we have gathered from the <cite>Indian Register</cite> be nearly correct.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f39'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r39'>39</a>. Page 241.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f40'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r40'>40</a>. Page 238.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f41'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r41'>41</a>. Page 248.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f42'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r42'>42</a>. Page 254.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f43'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r43'>43</a>. Page 89.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f44'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r44'>44</a>. Compare the fifth paragraph of the memorandum inserted at page 107 with the
+first nine lines of 114.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f45'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r45'>45</a>. Court-house or Office.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='pbb'>
+ <hr class='pb c005'>
+</div>
+<div class='tnotes x-ebookmaker'>
+
+<div class='chapter ph2'>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c006'>
+    <div>TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+ <ul class='ul_1 c013'>
+    <li>Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.
+
+    </li>
+    <li>Used numbers for footnotes, placing them all at the end of the last chapter.
+    </li>
+  </ul>
+
+</div>
+
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75016 ***</div>
+  </body>
+  <!-- created with ppgen.py 3.57e (with regex) on 2024-12-11 00:41:21 GMT -->
+</html>
+
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committer	nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org>	2025-01-14 00:09:35 -0800
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